The Arizona Initiative

A Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Playset

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Endurance Roleplay Notes

Endurance has a lot on her shoulders as both the face and the heart of the team. It's her marriage to a borderline villain - someone who strongly believes the world will end and insists on not doing anything about it - that makes her a two-dimensional character. Endurance really loves him, and that love gives her strength even as it opens her to criticism, makes her a political target, and invites problems from others.

Nevertheless she is the leader of the team (though Colorado would grumble about this) and among its most powerful members (though Mystic would grumble about this).  She feels strongly that they must represent all of the state - even those who might oppose them or hate and fear them (though Resonance would grumble about this.)  This can put her in dangerous situations.

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Madame Mystic Roleplay Notes

Deirdre lost a lot of her childhood because if she hadn't, she might have opened up a demonic portal under the school bleachers the first time a boyfriend dumped her.  So she has focused almost entirely on her own power, strength and perception until she has honed herself into mystic expert of tremendous effectiveness at a very young age.  What she is missing is human experience - she didn't get to a normal college, so she takes classes here and there where she can. She hasn't ever held down a regular job - her attempts at that are hilarious failures.  Her romantic life is hilariously immature and overblown, like she's still having 16-year-old relationships ten years after most people give that up.

In the end, Deirdre has to learn not just to be an amazing witch, which she is, but also a full fledged woman. The Initiative, in the end, is just another place for her to hide from her life.  She admires Endurance most of all because of her strong love and loyalty to a man everyone knows is flawed, and wishes someday that she might have that kind of relationship.

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Stellar Kart - Innocent

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Calexico - Two Silver Trees

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How To Use This Playset - Read First

The only thing you need to know about the Fifty State Initiative is that America decided it needed a superhero team for every state, and heroes came forward to join.  This is the story of Arizona's Intiative team.

For Players:

Pick a character! Clicking on the name will take you to all posts regarding that character, including music to help you get in the mood, roleplaying notes to give you some ideas of where to go, and even some Milestones for some of the character.

Colorado Hunt, two-fisted aviator from days past.

Resonance, a mutant who fights for acceptance.

Missing Girl, a shapeshifting woman imbued with the power of the desert.

Endurance, an idealistic, popular, power-armor wearing woman

Madame Mystic, an heir to witchcraft and occult expert

For Watchers, here are some useful links:

Watcher Characters

Datafiles

Initiative Members (including both PCs and Watcher Characters)

And of course a fun link for everyone: Music!  All of the music on the tumblr is from artists from Arizona, or bands with a significant number of members from Arizona.

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Agent Carswell

A lot of Initiative members would love to have an assigned agent as freewheeling and easygoing as Agent Carswell even if he is a little weird.  There's no question that rumors that he was appointed as a result of political pressure have some basis in fact. What fewer know about the roving man is that he has a genius-level IQ and as a renegade DEA agent with a muscle car and a kung fu spin kick robbed the drug cartels of more money in two years than the entirety of the Border Patrol did in the entire decade previous.  He's totally inappropriate for a program that's supposed to keep superhumans under control.  He has no idea that his idol, Colorado Hunt, does not associate "cowboy" with a positive feeling and despises him. He does know that Endurance thinks he's hilarious, Madame Mystic is a bitch, Resonance is cooler than he thinks, and he would love to get with the Missing Girl, if she'd put her claws away and put on a nice-looking body.

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Calexico - The Crystal Frontier

Song for the Missing Girl

That smile on her face is starting to crack.  While welding back the pieces of a shattered heart that's scattered out here with the ghosts of her fears...searches for her lost child along the river of tears.

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"Colorado" Hunt Roleplay Notes

C.O. has blinders on. He doesn't quite see he's a guy flying a solar power vehicle made by a Native American and living forever due to a Big Government program.  He figures he lifted himself up by his bootstraps and made it on his own.

He doesn't "struggle" with racist or misogynist beliefs; they haven't really handicapped him since the tabloid news, until recently, was entirely slanted in the direction of people like him.  But sometimes his experiences run up against the prejudices of his time and his normal excuse, "Well, they're the good ones." starts to seem hollow even to him.

C.O. has personally seen native peoples incredibly marginalized - his good friend Biggs' kids were taken to a boarding school, and it destroyed him.  C.O. looks with disdain on the waves of illegal immigrants, but he also knows that the law has to protect everyone.

To C.O., the alternative to bold action to preserve important laws is anarchy, the ultimate injustice.  He works hard with the police and always obeys directives from authority, even though his two-fisted vigilantism doesn't rely on police support.

C.O. is a conservative good guy - and the expectations of that are going to be a big conflict for him.

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Missing Girl Roleplay Notes

The Missing Girl is trying very much to hang onto an identity that is being washed away from numerous angles.  At her fingertips is the power of all life on earth - the vision of cats, the sonar of bats, a gila monster's scales, whenever she needs it.  She can be the most beautiful or terrible creature in the world, she can be more attractive than any supermodel, she can be stronger than the strongest bodybuilder; remembering just to be Luz is hard.  Sometimes she wants to start over as someone else; her history is littered with halfhearted, abandoned alternate identities.  

In the end she must remain who she is or lose herself forever.

Her family trickles north and were sent back several times.  They drift in and out of her life, sometimes needing her, more rarely they can give her the recognition, love and acceptance she needs.

In a practical way, she drifts through the seedy underworld of half-legal, under-the-table jobs, connected constantly to the undocumented community that contains her only friends and relations.  Even among the other Initiative heroes she feels she must hide who she is: Resonance is a squarejohn citizen, Colorado is always yelling about "the damn illegals", Madame Mystic would expect her to wait in line a few decades to do things properly, and Endurance is too idealistic to see the problems in the system.  She's a very lonely young woman now, which is going to be very dangerous with the destiny rushing towards her...

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Resonance Roleplay Notes

Resonance struggled in school because his friends suspected he was a mutant and never protected him, his enemies decided he was a mutant and targeted him, and his family had gone into denial and checked out of their responsibilities to the point where a particularly violent incident landed him in the hospital and they told the doctors that it was an accident.  He was despairing, he was suicidal, and the X-Men rescued him, as much from his own anger and helplessness as from the family which had kicked him out and secretly wished for his own death.

In the idealism (and protection) of Westchester, he learned of his own strength (and his considerable sonic powers), vowing to return to his home and try to help those that had been in his situation.  Although he remains somewhat closeted, and nobody knows he's the costumed adventurer Resonance, there are those who suspect that he's a mutant.  (The government keeps the secret quiet, for now.)

His insistence that Centennial High School support a Human-Mutant Alliance club has raised eyebrows in the community and made himself a target of anti-mutant activists and bigots.  Yet when the call went out for Initiative members, there was no doubt that he would be there.  He has always wanted to give back.

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"Colorado" Hunt Datafile

Full name: Carville O'Bannon Hunt (public)

Date of Birth: February 14, 1912

Affiliations:

Solo: d8

Buddy: d10; "Grab the machine gun, let those Krauts have it!"

Team: d6;  "Why is everyone looking at me like I'm the one that's nuts here!"

Distinctions:

Man Out Of Time

Two-Fisted Aviator

Tea Party Hero

Power Sets:

Infinity Minus One Treatment

Hunt volunteered for an early version of the Infinity Formula. They didn't have it quite perfect, but it's done well for him so far...

Enhanced Durability d8, Enhanced Strength d8, Enhanced Reflexes d8

SFX: Immunity: Spend a PP to be immune to any disease or aging effects.

Limit: Early Prototype: Shutdown Infinity Minus One and gain 1 PP. You are suddenly an old man.  Recover in a Transition Scene.

The Tumbleweed Express

A souped up, solar-powered, steampunk biplane, crossing the big skies over Arizona!

Flight d8, Machine Gun d8, Steam Cannon d8

Renewable Resource: Step up Steam Cannon to d10 and step down Flight to d6.  Return to normal in a Transition Scene.

Area Effect: When using Machine Gun, you may add a d6 to the die pool for every additional character, and keep an additional effect die.

Gear: Gain 1 PP when the Tumbleweed Express Shuts Down.  Activate an Opportunity to repair it or do so in a transition scene.

Specialties

Combat Master d10, Politics Expert d8, Business Expert d8

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United States Border Patrol Agent Barnes feels hamstrung by the current administration's focus on deportation and feels the best way to stop and reverse the flow of illegal immigrants is by making life so miserable for them here - primarily through enforcement against employers and those that transport and support illegal immigrants - that they return voluntarily, or never cross in the first place.  Whenever he can, he hassles family members for tips, pushes for raids in neighborhoods and at businesses he suspects of employing illegal immigrants, and covertly supports "Minutemen" militia groups that take vigilante action against immigrants with slush fund spillover and lost weapon shipments.

Agent Barnes suspects that Missing Girl may be an illegal immigrant. She knows he's scum - in many of her forms she's seen how corrupt and vicious he can be. But he's protected by his badge and the system that privileges his word above those of his victims.

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Thirst

The evil spirit known as Thirst has roamed the desert for centuries - millenia, even. Assembling a group of evil monstrous cohorts, Thirst seeks to reduce the Sonoran Desert to a grey, silt-sand wasteland. All life - human, animal, plant - is its enemy.

Madame Mystic has faced Thirst several times...and even imprisoned it once, a feat prior sorcerers have never accomplished. As such, it bears a particular animosity towards the witch.

Datafile

Thirst: Team d8, Buddy d4, Solo d6

Power Set: Nothing To Drink

Dehydration Blast d12, Flight d8, Intangibility d10

SFX: Water Immunity/Vulnerability.  Any water-based attack or Complication does not do Physical stress, but instead does Mental Stress.

SFX: Immortal. If physical trauma is suffered on the mortal plane, Thirst dissipates to the spirit world.  He may not re-form on the mortal plane for one day, and then not until he is summoned or the temperature in the American Southwest rises to approximately 120 degrees Farenheit.

SFX: Got Her Number.  When battling the Missing Girl, he may shut down his Intangibility and replace it with Mind Control 10 over her.

Limit: Growing Dread.  Both 1 and 2 on his dice count as opportunities.

Specialties: Mystic Master d10, Menace Master d10

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Missing Girl Datafile

Real Name: Luz Carillo (private)

Age: Early twenties

Affiliations:

Solo: d10; "No, we've never met before."

Buddy: d6; "It's me, it's really me."

Team: d8

Distinctions:

Desert Scavenger

No One Knows Me

Chosen For A Reason

Power Set: She Cannot Be Known

The mysterious spirit has invested Luz with his shapeshifting power, but it comes at a cost...and for a reason she doesn't yet understand.

Enhanced Reflexes d8, Enhanced Movement (wings, swimming, burrowing, etc.) d10, Enhanced Speed d8, Superhuman Durability d8, Enhanced Senses d12, Enhanced Strength d8

SFX: Rattlesnake Poison.  Shutdown your Enhanced Strength to boost physical stress inflicted in hand-to-hand combat by +1.  Recover when you activate an opportunity or are forced to change shape by your limit.

Limit: When nobody is looking, you must change shape, or Shutdown She Cannot Be Known until you activate an opportunity or reach a Transition Scene.

Power Set: The Land Of The Dead

Because of her near-death experience, Luz can speak and communicate with spirits.  They can sometimes provide her with helpful information or manifestations.

Psychic Information d8

Limit: Loud noises or sudden bright lights shut down The Land of the Dead (though desert sunlight is just fine) and give 1 PP

Specialties: Psych Expert d8, Covert Expert d8, Crime Master d10, Acrobatic Master d10

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Endurance Datafile

Real Name: Ashley Neill (public)

Age: Early twenties.

Affiliations:

Solo: d6; "I guess I've got to do this myself?"

Buddy: d8

Team: d10; "With everyone working together, we can do anything!"

Distinctions:

Loyal Young Small Town Wife

Born Cheerleader

Heart Of Arizona

Power Set: Endurance Power Armor

Designed by her survivalist husband Furlan, the Endurance Power Armor gives Ashley tremendous potential for good, and she intends to use it to its fullest.

Godlike Stamina d12, Superhuman Speed d8, Superhuman Strength d8, Blasters d10, Flight d10

SFX: Focus.  If a pool contains an Endurance Power Armor power and two dice of the same size, you may replace them with one die of a larger size.

SFX: Redirect Power. Shutdown any Endurance Power Armor power trait to boost Blasters or Flight to d12.  Recover with an action against the doom pool.

Limit: Gear.  Gain 1 PP and shut down Endurance Power Armor.

Specialties: Tech Expert d8, Psych Expert d8

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Madame Mystic Datafile

Real Name: Deirdre Rodriguez (public)

Age: Mid-twenties

Affiliations:

Solo: d8

Buddy: d6; "Let me show you how to do that right."

Team: d10; "Don't worry about me, I'll do my part."

Distinctions:

Perfectionist Witch

Romantic Heart

Disciplined Habits

Power Set: Heir To Witchcraft

Her occult power was considerable, and this gave her a lot of problems until she was properly trained. Now that she is, she sees the proper way to do things as the only way.

Sorcery d10, Mystic Blast d10

SFX: The Crimson Bands of Cytorrak. Add a d6 and step up your effect die by 1 when inflicting Paralyzed complications on a target.

Limit: "No, I AM right, I AM!"  If a rival sorcerer or spirit uses a Mystic Specialty to inflict Mental or Emotional Stress, gain 1 PP and step back an Heir to Witchcraft Power.

Limit: Conscious Activation.  If stressed out, asleep or unconscious, shutdown Heir to Witchcraft.

Power Set: Here Comes Hudson

Hudson is her animated broomstick.  "I could explain that I channel the forces of Order through mystic understanding of the universe, and take ten minutes with anyone I meet, or I can put a flight spell in a broomstick and everyone figures it out in five seconds."

Flight d10

Limit: Gear.  Shutdown Here Comes Hudson and gain 1 PP.  Take an action against the doom pool to recover.

Specialties: Mystic Master d10, Psych Expert d8

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Resonance Datafile

Real Name: Gerald Kwiatkowski (private)

Age: Late twenties

Affiliations:

Solo: d6; "Real change never happens because of one person"

Buddy: d10; "I can tell you what's really happening"

Team: d8

Distinctions:

Xavier's Academy Grad

Badly Closeted Mutant

High School Teacher

Power Set: Sonic Resonance

Resonance has the mutant ability to manipulate and generate sound. He spent some time in the Danger Room in Westchester...but knew that the X-Men were just not going to be for him.

Sonic Blast d10, Flight d8, Sonic Mastery d10

SFX: Afflict: Add a d6 and step up Sonic Blast when inflicting deafness on a target.

SFX: Area Effect: Add a d6 and keep an additional effect die for each additional target.

Limit: Medium For Sound. Shut down Sonic Resonance when in vacuum or sound-dampening conditions and gain 1 PP.

Limit: Mutant. Gain a PP if you are affected by anti-mutant technology.

Specialties: Science Expert d8, Combat Expert d8