David.Berge@october.com writes (paraphrased) that he does not see restrictions on saved actions in our regular Saturday Night games (in Pasadena, CA, BTW)
This is true. You also (by popular demand) don't see Krystal Blue. She does appear frequently at DunDraCon. I like DDC for the champs gaming. Does anyone know a con with a higher ratio of champions to (the system whose name I will not speak for fear of copyright infringement)?
(db, again paraphrased) ...she is DEX 30 SPD 6
Given that many (all?) of my characters are based in some way on the egregious exploitation of a rules crock, and that they all are tastefully point efficient ;-) I am surprised that db forgot that KB is DEX 29. Just in case anyone lost their copy of Challenges for Champions, what follows is the proper write-up of KB, her computer CC, and her real history. Enjoy!
Krystal Blue - gymnast, journalist, beau monde
(Krystin Perseus, FOX-TV super-reporter, female, 5'1", 86lb, born 5/21/68)
"Yikes!" "Hold it!" "Cut!" "That's a wrap!"
PP Disadvantages
15 VULN: x2 stun from attacks by good guys
5 SUSC: 1d6 from being attacked by good guys
5 +1" knockback, light weight, 39kg (PHY: slight infreq.)
20 Code against killings (PSY: common, total comm.)
15 Never quits/tries too hard (PSY: common, strong)
10 Won't use weapons (PSY: very common, total)
10 Won't hurt good guys (PSY: uncommon, strong)
5 Death wish (PSY: uncommon, moderate)
5 Hates users of ranged/area attacks (PSY)
10 Public ID: TV journalist, tabloid regular
15 14- Reputation: Tenacious crusader, hard to hit
15 Hunted by fame seeking killers (8- deadly)
5 Must exercise to sleep (PHY: slight, infreq.)
8 Watched by public, FCC, Fox (14-, more power, slight)
100 Superhero
62 Experience {62 spent}
[309] Points Available
PP Characteristic
57 DEX 29
31 SPD 7 {10}
8 INT 18
-4 EGO 8
2 PRE 7 (+8 offense only-.5)
6 COM 20 (+6 in photos only-1)
5 STR 15
2 PD 5
16 CON 18
1 ED 5
2 END 40
6 REC 10
BOD 10
STN 27
PP Skills/Talents/Perks&Powers
7 17- Acrobatics (Gymnastics)
7 13- Acting {3}
3 15- Breakfall
12 Martial Arts: offensive strike, throw, dodge
17 +7 skill: breakfall/dodge/dive for cover/ roll w/punch
(costs END-.5, acrobatics roll-.5) {5}
3 13- Paramedic
7 15- Combat sense: Acrobatic maneuvers
5 Defense maneuver
3 Does not age (Looks 14-15)
3 Double jointed
3 Lightsleep
5 Video journalist (press pass, crew, research/legal staff, helicopters,
etc.)
2 Top notch publicist/agent
{3} 13- PS: Cinematography
{3} 13- KS: Media culture
{20} 100pt A.I.D. "CC" 6 person 2way mind-link, 13- Data tasks
{5} Huge expense account (AMEX Platinum)
{4} Beau-monde (jet-set celebrity)
{3} US$10M Full indemnity (House of Lloyd)
{2} Contacts in Washington DC
(OAF:headband and eyeshade-1)
{2} 5 Infra-red vision (not while moving-.5)
{2} 5 Flash defense
(OAF:headband and earplugs-1)
2 5 Audio video transceiver
1 3 +2 Telescopic hearing
8 16 +8 Hearing
(OAF:shoes-1)
4 12 (Multipower: Acro.roll-.5)
1 12u +12" Superleap
1 12u +4d6 HTH damage w/kick
1 12u +6" Running
[271] total points
Combat effect:Though hyperactive and rebellious, Krystin was super-competitive. She became the national junior champion in un-even parallel bars and floor exercise at 9. After this Krystin became unmanageably arrogant. Her coach said she lacked the discipline to succeed. He threw her out of his program, deciding to concentrate his effort on the eventual winner of the '84 Olympics.
Krystin was crushed. Her scheming parents were horrified. "Failure" was not an option. The Perseus' put their daughter into the fiercely traditional karate dojo of Master Lin Nakaguchi. They said they wanted her to learn the attitude of winning.
Master Lin had a field day with Krystin, using a whole year as a yellow belt to root out the last shred of her rebelliousness. By then Krystin was under the spell of the all powerful karate master, and three years later she was a third degree black belt with a new outlook on life. She was ready to take on the Olympics.
Unfortunately Krystin was now 14, hadn't practiced gymnastics for three years, and the 1984 games were coming up in less than two. Driven more by her own stubbornness than her parents ambition, Krystin launched on a crash program of fitness training and gymnastics, incorporating as much of Master Lin's style as she dared.
After giving a grudging tryout, Krystin's old coach wanted nothing to do with her. He said her frenetic tumbling was hard-edged to the point of violence, that her body was growing so quickly that she lacked any remainder of grace or class, and that he failed to see any change in her unmanageable personality.
Krystin's parents went nuts. They had invested long hours and big bucks in her career, and she was going to sweep those *^@#*& games if it killed her.
Thinking that Krystin's puberty was taking the edge off of her performance, they conspired with a disreputable training doctor to secretly dope her with pituitary enzymes and anabolic steroids. These treatments caused insomnia, twitchiness and minor psychosis, but, combined with her father's intense training sessions to force weight loss and strength gain in the skinny little girl.
The Perseus' were not satisfied. They conspired with their shady sports medicine practitioner to do experimental pituitary/thalamus surgery to counteract the effects of adolescence. The micro-surgical cuts at Krystin's hairline healed quickly, becoming invisible just in time to tryout for the '84 U.S. Olympic team.
The surgery was more successful than anybody wanted. The tiny 15 year old was up and bouncing around the same day, and in a few weeks the effects of the surgery were manifest. Krystin was now frozen in a state of perpetual pre-adulthood, her body flowing with the rapid cell development and wild vitality of youth, yet permanently prevented from blossoming into mature womanhood.
Krystin trained fanatically, focused on her Olympic dreams and powered by unknown changes in her body chemistry. She was soon working out with an intensity that made onlooker's tired to watch, training 14 hours a day so that she would be tired enough to fall asleep. Her parents were ecstatic with Krystin's performance, failing to notice that her hyperactivity had grown to truly psychotic dimensions. They saw that her somersaults and spins went from doubles and triples to perfect quads, and her dizzying vaults now reached breathtaking heights.
Krystin Perseus was disqualified at the national trials. Her high-speed gymnastics had been so strong and precise that the judges were suspicious.
As her tiny, perfectly toned body heaved from her exertions, the judges conferred. It was unprecedented. They argued. Quad spins were unheard of. It is impossible to naturally achieve such perfection. They ordered an investigation.
After three days of sleepless waiting the results were disclosed in a private meeting. Krystin, even more on edge than usual, flew into a blind rage when her parent's greedy scheming was revealed. She picked up a paperweight and hurled it, killing her mother with an unlucky shot to the temple. She then leaped for her father's throat. A judge tried to restrain the 87lb ball of fury. She found her feet in the air and her face in the carpet. Two judges suffered a similar fate while the fourth called security.
Mr. Perseus, after staring briefly at his dying wife, drew a gun and bolted for the door. The waiting throng of reporters and video journalists spread back and rolled tape as Mr. Perseus raced madly across the gymnasium.
Krystin was as startled as the crowd of reporters when she used a high vault to dodge the first bullet. It was a natural part of her martial art to recognize an attack and not be in the way when it got there, but she had never done that against a real gun. Being shot at by her father snapped Krystin back to her senses. She continued in pursuit, dodging three more shots as she screamed for her father to stop. She did this partly to vent her rage at herself, but mostly to save her father from himself.
Apparently there was some concern of terrorist attacks on the '84 Olympic trials, and the security forces were on a hair trigger. Mr. Perseus went down in a hail of bullets when he rounded a corner into a contingent of armed guards. As he fell his tailor-made jacket issued forth a few of many bags of white powder. He had been supporting his own habit and his daughter's training by dealing cocaine.
Krystin knew there was a bunch of nervous armed guards, but she didn't care. She had seen her father go down, it was her fault, and she wanted to be by his side. She came in high, hiding her forward roll with a bend at the waist. The guards raised their aim, but they were too slow. Krystin kipped into a pike, spun another quarter and straightened suddenly. Three bullets passed harmlessly by the receding waist of the now inverted gymnast.
Krystin caught the floor briefly with her hands, putting a half twist in her roll. Another kip put her feet first and face down going into the opposite wall almost two meters off the ground. Her long, muscular legs compressed and returned so smoothly that Krystin seemed to be standing on the wall; the slow-motion replays on the evening news her apparently defy the law of gravity.
Krystin sprang down to her father's side, fearing the worst. His dying words were "It's all your fault!" as he pushed the distraught child away. Something warm and gentle shriveled up and died within a young girl. The cameras, microphones, notepads and armed guards all converged on Krystin at once. "Gymnast faster than bullets? Film at 11!" "EXTRA! SUPER-GYMNAST? Not for U.S. Team!"
The next few weeks were a blur of furious workouts, fitful sleep, and being whisked around Hollywood in the back of her agent's (Shorty? Morty? it took a month to learn his name.) limousine. Krystin doesn't remember where the studio got the blue suit and spring loaded shoes, or who came up with "Krystal Blue", but she knew that they wanted her to be a TV star.
It was Master Lin that put Krystin back together as Krystal Blue. He took her into his house and had Morty arrange for custody. She never could come to face the trauma of causing the death of her parents, but she could out-run that ghost on the exercise floor, and fight it with every blow she took at Master Lin's direction.
The Krystal Blue show was a hit. At first it was easy to blur the lines between reality and make-believe, particularly since Krystin was a natural actress. The plots were weak, but her gun-dodging gymnastics were always real. Then the damages started rolling in. KB caught some bullets, then she was fragged by a roomful of hand grenades and a cameraman was critically injured. The show was canceled.
Like a paladin, KB could never hold onto money. Morty had her making cheesy guest appearances while he kept the residuals from syndication in Japan, then Krystin had a crisis. She went back to Master Lin. He said "You're already dead! It is up to you to find a way to live again!"
She started to find this when she joined the Crusaders as a real super hero. She didn't have any high-falutin' powers, but she was 86lbs of fighting frenzy in combat. It was a secret admirer that gave KB back to the world.
This electronic genius built her headband video camera with satellite links to an audio/video computer. In a few days FOX-TV had these pictures on the nightly news. In a few weeks KB had a new agent and deal for a new show.
Someday she will be killed, but right now the fame and fortune are rolling in and the whole world is spellbound by the weekly sessions where evil-doers meet up with an in-your face journalist with the lives of a junkyard cat.
PP Disadvantages
20 Never destroys data (PSY: uncommon, total)
10 Must obey headband/earplug wearer (PSY: common, strong)
5 Must preserve human life (PSY: uncommon, strong)
15 Cannot tell a lie or conceal data (PHY: uncommon, fully)
25 Fills $1000/day of CD's (DEP: common, 3d6/turn)
5 Susceptible to hurricanes (uncommon, 3d6, instant)
100 Follower points from Krystal Blue
[180] Points Available
PP Characteristic
-6 DEX 8
10 SPD 3
13 INT 23
2 EGO 11
PD 1
ED 1
6 BOD 4
PP Skills
9 14- Streetwise on networks
3 14- Systems operations
3 14- Electronic security systems
3 14- Computer programming
3 14- Stealth on networks
7 16- Tracking (tracing) on networks
3 14- Cryptography
3 14- KS: Supervillain abilities/limitations
3 14- KS: Voice prints
3 14- KS: Recent world-wide print media
3 14- KS: Recent world-wide R.F. transmissions
3 14- KS: Computer and network viruses
3 14- KS: Police and interpol databases
3 14- KS: Registrations and licences
14 speaks English, German, French, Russian,
Spanish, Japanese, Italian
4 Four programs
PP Talents
10 20 Universal translator (digital data only -1)
10 Eiditic memory: sight (Always on)
10 Eiditic memory: sound (Always on)
3 Well connected
3 Immune to foreign programs (ROM executable, streaming WORM RAM)
PP Perks
2 12- Contact: internet
2 12- Contact: telephony switching and billing
2 12- Contact: telephone lines
2 12- Contact: AWACS operators
PP AP Powers
7 15 Discriminatory high range radio (OAF: dish)
23 58 +39 Telescopic HRR (OAF: dish, full phase)
10 15 Mind link to set group of devices
(IAF: transceiver plugs: 1 headband/ear, 4 ear only,
DB9...25, SDI, SCSI, IEEE 488, centronix, RJ11...58,
FDDI tap, card-edge, ZIP, PC-card, ISA, EISA)
8 21 2d6 Mind Scan +2 vs electronics
(OAF: dish-1, electrical devices only-.5, 0 END+.5)
[180]
PROGRAMS (Max. of 3 / phase, default 1,2,3) (ECV: 3)
1) Seek and deliver requested data. The default request is location and
abilities of and villains near Krystal Blue.
2) Monitor communications for context related data. The default context is
the current environ and activity of Krystal Blue.
3) Decrypt/Encrypt data. (All mind link data to the headband is encrypted.)
4) Seek and purge systems of viruses and illegal programs.
I grant specific permission for private use of this Champions* character, and
for replication in forms and forums where public access is free. I reserve
all rights to the characters name, story and other characters represented
therein, for commercial purposes. All other forms of use must be requested
in writing to JimGettman@aol.com or Jim Gettman, 4224 Griffin Avenue, Los
Angeles, CA, 90031-1631.
* - a product of Hero Games.
Back when Krystal was a big time TV star, her headband was fitted with two-way stereo audio transceiver, a miniature video camera, and a short-haul analog transmitter. This collected personal pictures of her crime fighting activities that the camera support people couldn't get. This also allowed the crew to cue Krystal with information about her opponents, and the director to feed her witty tag lines. This was very useful. Her life was saved many times by warnings from console editors watching the 360 degree video back in the support van. The down side was that some more astute villains learned to listen in on tactical discussions and track her whereabouts.
This problem didn't matter to the TV studio of the producers. Even the near death of a cameraman only triggered the minor response of providing them with rather bulky body armor. Krystal's gear was upgraded after a tap of her video feed was evidence in a lawsuit charging her and the studio with trespassing, breaking and entering, and vandalism.
The headband and console were fitted with sophisticated digital encryption processors with access codes controlled by the studio. This work was done by a really good computer guy that was also a Krystal Blue fan. The encrypted storage allowed the studio to maintain plausible deniability by destroying records of actions deemed tortious by their lawyers. This ‘editing was done in real-time, before the video feeds made it onto tape.
There were several of these headbands in Krystal Blue's wardrobe, with later models incorporating infrared vision, wrist-mounted monitors, phased array microphones, digital signal enhancement and stabilization, direct satellite uplinks and local area contact with other hearing-aid style radio headsets. Krystal managed to 'acquire' four of these headbands when her show was canceled. Without the encryption key and editing console they proved to be quite useless. This was a dark time for Krystal Blue. She found out just how many potential disasters were avoided with real-time support from a crew of professionals.
It was after a string of failures that Krystal Blue teamed up with the Fighting Furies. With a lot of help from Fighting Furies members with big bank accounts her secret admirer was able to build a transceiver station with a big satellite dish and banks of home VCRs to store the four video feeds. These tapes had to be decrypted off-line in the Fighting Furies computer when they were needed for evidence. This system has slowly evolved into a unique and amazing superhero support tool called Communications Central, or CC.
One major breakthrough came when the studio was acquired and needed some quick cash. The Krystal Blue show was syndicated for international markets and became a hit with Japanese anime fans. (Yes, the horribly dubbed Krystal Blue can now be seen on late night television in most far-eastern broadcasting markets. Sigh. At least it pays a few bills.)
The studio also auctioned off all of the KB show support paraphernalia (except for the reaction time enhancing piezo coil fiber super-costumes. These were lost. It seems that they were leased from an obscure company that is no longer in business.)
Included in the stuff acquired by the Fighting Furies was the dedicated support van with the one-of-a-kind five station editor's console. This went for a song because it was built with lots of thoroughly weird stuff like custom analog computers for signal processing and unique integrated circuits for digital signal processing.
(KB is still persona non grata in the corporate circles of la-la-land because of the way she used people to trick the studio into auctioning off this gear that was useless without the headbands and other personal electronics.)
This system, CC, was ensconced in a very secret place and brought back online using a bank of CD-WORM drives with fast random-access carousels. It is certainly not your regular computer. Because of the high throughput needed for signal processing with decryption and mutli-channel phased array analysis in real time, and because of the massively parallel nature of the variable context multi-media search engine, CC has a mixed analog/optical/digital neural network that controls an ever growing bank of solid-state CD storage units that are RAID-5 compliant.
This custom hodgepodge of electronics does not have an operating system, or even a boot path, instead it has a fixed-state control section that is etched in silicon and built into a wicked jumble of analog and optical circuits. This section contains a reality context pointer that is nothing more than a good clock with a radio link to the Cesium atom clock operated by the United Stated government.
This is why CC is immune to computer viruses and attacks based on computer programming. It is also why she has a personality with various psychological limitations.
The fixation with telling the truth comes from the verification circuits. All incoming and outgoing data channels using triply redundant systems of hashing and checkpointing. (None of CC's instructions are executed from RAM, (thus the immunity to viruses) but there is enough RAM for the cache buffering of signals being processed, encrypted and decrypted during transmission. All data in these high-speed caches is hashed with time stamps and the hash value is encrypted onto a special CD-WORM bank (Called the reality sequencer.) All transmissions are then recorded as sent and cross-checked to the original, then the hashed values are key-encrypted and echoed by the receiving units This is then decrypted and cross checked again. All errors are logged, retransmitted and analyzed for severity.
This severity analysis uses neural circuits for the net-change analysis of all time variant steady-state data. Basically, if something should look the same as yesterday, but it doesn't, CC will evaluate this for fuzzy-severity rating (potential danger, potential cause) of the change and warn Krystal Blue of any serious continuity error.
Each remote transceiver can be set into a 'silent mode' for the safety of the wearer. (There is a final 'begin silent mode' signal to CC.) This cancels all remote device output, including the encrypted check-point values. CC is quite petulant when she loses a data source, especially if she doesn't get a sign-off or silent-mode signal. She will let everyone know when this happens. Even the smallest remote transceivers have enough memory to store 600 check-point values for later transmission. This allows a silent-mode of 10 minutes before CC can no longer verify the accuracy of the messages received.