Player Characters from the
University of Hellenback

Heroes with that special "PC Glow™"

These are the Player Characters from the campaign I set at the University of Hellenback. All of them were created as "normals" by the players and then I wrote up powers for them. Mostly, the characters owe their extraordinary abilities to the nefarious experiments performed by T.H.E.M. (see Episodes one and two), although Excalibabe wound up with mystic abilities and poor Gumby was on the wrong end of an alien snafu.

Bug Lady

Bug Lady's official heroic name is really Doctor Dragonfly, but somehow she started being called Bug Lady I swear, one of these days I'm going to have a small blonde child hug her, say "OK, Bug Lady, I love you, Buh-bye" and run off... and it seems to have stuck. Perhaps this is why she feels the need to come up with her own charming little nicknames for everyone else.

Dagmar Snowman is a sophomore Biology major with a distinctive habit of "midnight requisitioning" (that is, walking off with anything not nailed down If she can pry it up, it's not nailed down. She's done enough creative experimentation in her time to have developed a tolerance to most biotoxins. During her freshman year, she attended a lecture on the upsilon factor (the probability index of each individual to develop superpowers) and snatched a few of the free cookies. Unbeknownst to her, T.H.E.M. had sponsored the lecture and had dosed the cookies. It was either this or the eggplant parmesan at the cafeteria that night that caused a strange change in her. In her sleep, she cocooned herself (yes, literally) and woke up...

Bug Lady has a purplish chitinous exoskeleton and dragonfly wings. She also wears a lab coat (with holes cut for the wings) over this because, as any half-insect, half-human will tell you, chitinous exoskeletons don't have pockets. She has to cocoon periodically to regenerate herself and has a vulnerability to deep cold. Even when she is in her "human" form, she will start to develop her exoskeleton when injured.

Dimitri - Dimitri is Dagmar's pet snake. Dagmar fed him some of the same stuff that triggered her powers, and now he's a sentient, talking snake. He reads Danielle Steele novels voraciously (though lately he's started in on Dostoyevsky).

The Lurking Shadow

Affectionately known as "Lurch" to his friends, he's a large, shy guy. Actually, he's been nicknamed "Lurch" in both normal and heroic ID, but for somebody who looms the way he does, he's so soft spoken and meek, nobody notices him enough to make the connection. He thinks Dagmar is his girlfriend (for all we know, she might be).

Roe Barrell We're sure his middle name must be "Lout-the" is another sophomore. He, too, attended that fateful "Upsilon Factor" lecture and wound up forever changed (see listing for Bug Lady).

The Lurking Shadow has light related powers. Aside from the generic laser effect, he can do a psychedelic flashy-light thing that causes a hypnotic state. So far, nobody's quite had the nerve to ask why a guy with light powers and is afraid of the dark has named himself "The Lurking Shadow".

Excalibabe

Cynthia has a magical broadsword symbolizing the powers of good the which summons mystical armor and turns her into ... Excalibabe! (dah DAH!). Just to annoy the player, every time somebody says "Excalibabe", the room will chorus "dah DAH!" What's a hero without a sound effect, right? The name is her own fault - this one can't be blamed on Bug Lady.

Cynthia Fried is a nice, respectable sophomore at the University. She's been appointed the Treasurer of the Student Congress. She's fairly popular and plays a killer game of Trivial Pursuit(tm).

Excalibabe was given a mystic sword by the forces of Order and Goodness because of the nefarious forces at work on campus (the sudden influx of superpowered people meant that there was a need for "spiritual guidance" and the emergence of the chaos gem posed a more direct threat). Her sword, aside from summoning mystical armor (and being sharp), defends against evil magic.

Mgobo, the Human Taffy

Mgobo took too long coming up with a superhero name, so Bug Lady chose for him. That'll teach him to think faster!

Hal O'Graf is a freshman Art major. He used to have a roommate. Now, he only has his ex-roommate's cat, LaPluche In the third installment of the Kyrandia computer games (Malcolm's Revenge) you wind up on the Island of the Cats. The leader of the cats is "Fluffy". However, if you use the subtitle option and set the language to French, his name is rendered as "LaPluche". For some reason, the friend I was playing it with and I found this terribly funny, therefore when the roomie's cat needed a name... He's obsessive with his art and is also addicted to coffee. When not in class, he can usually be found in the coffee shop. He was kidnapped for experimentation by T.H.E.M. and now bears something of a vendetta against them.

Mgobo can create small (less than a foot diameter) portals, through which he can punch, or just reach back into his room for a cup of coffee.

Dink

Harry Furless is a freshman Chemistry major. He comes from a very wealthy background and has become sort of the group's patron. (He pays rent on the house, for example).

Dink is able to shrink to a very small size (and grow back again, natch). A bright flash goes off when he goes from big to tiny (it's an all or nothing thing). When he's tiny, he can cling to things, jump like a flea, and glide a bit though the air. Yeah, Dink fell prey to Bug Lady's naming style too.

Gumby, D*mmit

The only PC who isn't a student, Professor Christian Ernst got dragged along for the ride when aliens attacked the Underwater Basket-weaving class. Judging by his heroic name, he also watched too much SNL in the 80's. He is not, however, green.

Professor Ernst is a full professor in the History Department. He didn't volunteer to teach Underwater Basket-weaving any more than the student PC's registered for it. Professor Ernst has a wife and child. He now functions as a sort of faculty advisor to the student PCs.

Gumby managed to duck several GM attempts to give him powers, but he finally made the mistake of falling asleep on an alien spaceship. The aliens mistakenly recycled his body, but they did install his brain and spleen into a nice new one - it's just a little more ... puttylike ... than his old one.

Kazikame

Kazikame (as in wind spirit) is a nice, serious young man, putting himself through college working in the cafeteria. He controls the air around him, able to cause strong winds and hear (and smell, but we don't dwell on that ...) things at a distance (even from the past).

Johnny Guest grew up in the kitchen of a downtown Hellenback Chinese restaurant, learning the fine arts of martial arts and short order cooking. Now he's gone on to college and got a work-study position in the school cafeteria, although he may soon decide to give that up and become the fraternity chef at Iota Iota Iota (we don't give an iota - we give three!).

Kazikame made the unfortunate mistake of actually attending a second T.H.E.M. job interview onsite at their secret research facility. Little did he suspect that he *was* the research...

Fade

Fade can duck into a parallel universe and chat with the natives, who, so far, seem to be pretty friendly and helpful.

Jason Gold came to the University of Hellenback on a football scholarship. Being actually competent at the sport, he's managed to offend a few upperclassmen who feel threatened by his skill. Which would be okay - except for that nasty smattering of paranormals in the athletics department.

Fade got bushwhacked by one such upperclassman (Billy Ray Lee, aka Green Firefly) and sent to one of T.H.E.M.'s research labs. Some days you just can't win.

Gooj

Adam Ryan is rich, good looking, and has paranormal abilities. You'd think the world would hate him, but it's really just T.H.E.M. In fact, Adam got caught in T.H.E.M.'s latest recruitment drive, but he prevailed.

Gooj can teleport in space and (he will soon find out) dimensions. "Gooj" stands for "Get out of jail (free)".

Sparky

Chester Fields is a character. He likes to smoke a lot, and people aren't always sure exactly what. He recently scared his roommate away and now rooms with Adam.

Sparky transforms into a body of electricity. Sparky isn't his real Heroic name - I just couldn't remember the real one.

Twitchy

Alexander Jameson is a freshman philosophy major. He recently started seeing stuff and wound up hanging with Alan and Chester - poor thing.

Twitchy sees things. He has visions. He sees ghosts. Wouldn't you be twitchy?

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