Important NPCs of

City of Heroes

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Important NPCs for Sins of the Past

There are several NPCs who are important to the City of Heroes campaign. These characters have a unique relationship with the PCs; some are allies, some are antagonists. Each NPC has a clear motivation which impacts motivations in the campaign. While all NPCs allow for the flavor of any campaign, only the NPCs listed below have had a clear impact upon the characters as reoccurring opportunities to move the plot along or distinct personalities which left an impression upon the players.

Blood Knight

Human (undead) male magic weird [105 points]

The son of a bowyer, Garnett is tutored at the court of King Arthur, but as a commoner he can't hope to win the hand of Lady Sofia, daughter of the Earl of Carlisle. However, as Garnett grows in his martial prowess, he becomes more attracted to Lady Sofia, later seducing her even after foreswearing his feelings to her father. Learning of his daughter's shame and desire to run away with Sir Garnett, recently made a hedge knight in the Arthurian court, the Earl confines his daughter to solitary confinement, later telling her (falsely) that Sir Garnett has left her for another knight. Distraught by the misinformation, Lady Sofia hangs herself with her bedsheets, leaving the Earl even more bereft. Upon hearing the news of his beloved demise (that her death was ordered by the Earl), Sir Garnett conspires with practitioners of the dark arts to return Lady Sofia to life, traveling into Morocco to discover the black Book of the Dead from an ancient sect of Egyptian zealots sworn to keep the book safe from the outside world. Aligning himself with a coven of witches, Sir Garnett and his associates steal Lady Sofia's corpse and travel to Brocéliande Forest where the coven can use their abilities with the Book of the Dead to return Lady Sofia to life. The resurrection ritual is stopped by a furious Earl and his retinue. The witches are drowned, while Sir Garnett himself is tortured, cursed, and buried alive below a funeral pyre made for the dead witches and the Book of the Dead. The Earl returns with his daughter's body, and the site is abandoned, forgotten through history. Fast forward to the late 20th century, English university students on holiday, Alex Theobold and his fiancé, Emma Masterson, set out to produce a documentary about the mythical Brocéliande Forest looking to obtain video evidence of any supernatural happenings while camping for several days. During the night, voices direct Masterson to the site of the funeral pyre where Theobold finds her sleeping naked in the morning, confused to how she arrived there. With the same event happening twice more, Theobold wonders if this site is focal point for the supernatural and commits to dig up the spot where Masterson continues to return to. Finding the remains of Sir Garnett clutching a pristine Book of the Dead, the couple is moved to read the tome aloud as a joke, before bedding down for the evening. That night, the voices return to Masterson directing her to spill her own blood over the tome, kill her boyfriend, then kill herself. With the blood pact sealed, the spirit of Sir Garnett and his new armor reform in the corpse of Theobold, looking to use his supernatural power to regain his renown and to find the body of his lost love.

Dyce

Human male technology imbued commoner [81 points]

Mason Pederson and his twin sister, Madison, were born in 25th-century Chicago, to their parents Alexander and Emily Pederson, who were both involved in the luxury travel industry. At a young age, the wealthy family moved to an affluent neighborhood outside of New Boston, where Mason attained notoriety as one of the area’s top athletes. Even at a young age, Mason and his sister had several run-ins with law enforcement as Madison acted as a lookout for Mason as he burglarized local homes. They connection continued even as Madison began to display more sociopathic tendencies as they grew older together. The most glaring instance was when Madison seduced her uncle, Damian Pederson, to blackmail him with Mason’s help. As fate would have it, as Mason was casing out a potential residence to invade, he saw a distressed man in odd clothing appear out of a burst of light. Taking advantage of the situation, Mason unintentionally delivered a killing blow to his head. The last words the man gurgled was to beg Mason to care for the Hexum. Bring the body to his sister, the two analyzed an odd hand-held device so recognizing it could allow time travel. Using the device, the two began to make excursions to the past and the future, stealing resources from different points in history, and making themselves extremely wealthy in the process. However, boredom set in as wealth acquisition became too simple, and how Madison realized that the flow of time self-corrected, with their main timeline uncorrupted. With that in mind, the duo began making trips into the past to kill people they rationalized were already dead. Fascinated by the Era of Heroes and looking for a challenge, both twins were able to outfit themselves with powered exoskeletons laced with energized molecular wire along their arms and legs. Armed with their suits, the twins took on the names of Slyce and Dyce to travel through time for thrill-kill opportunities.

Majikku M-99

Robot technology imbued equipment gadgeteer [100 points]

The battle android known as Majikku M-99 was originally created by Finmark Robotics for military and civilian applications, by a production team, led by Donald Powell and Patricia Bogert. Feeling the M-99 units need something extra to make the androids more appealing for civilian applications, Bogert spends several years of personal time developing a prototype artificial intelligence that mimics a human mind to the point of feeling emotions and having opinions. Contracted by the U.S. military, two un-programmed experimental units, designated Majikku and Nankaina, were slated to be sent to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana for testing. Wanting to impress the military, Bogert urged Powell to load her A.I. onto both constructs, but Powell refused as this might add an unexpected variable to the testing. Undeterred, Bogert secretly installed a hidden partition on the Majikku unit, hoping it will be activated later. As both androids were being transported to Barksdale Air Force Base via military transport helicopter, the chopper suffered from mechanical failure, as one of the turbines flared up before exploding. Both pilots evacuated the doomed craft, and it crashed in a remote forest area, miles away from Barksdale, with both M-99 storage pods thrown from the wreckage. With the impact accidentally activating the androids' power-on-self-test systems, the M-99s automatically began their test-dummy mission, which mimics an actual mission engagement tasked with "assassinating" Powell's granddaughter in Houston. After several unsuccessful military ventures to stop the two androids, the Valiance from Dallas and the Crusaders from Houston are brought in by the local civilian governments to deal with both M-99 units. However, only the Nankaina unit is located and destroyed, with the Majikku unit greatly deviating from its programming.

Oíche

Human female altered human other weird [103 points]

Oíche’s origins and background are undetermined, but it is known she was born into poverty in Western Europe. Her unwarrantable lifestyle introduced in her a fixation on worldly gain, which became a driving force in her youth. With few options for eking out a meager existence, she turned to the life of crime. Early in her youth, she had a son, Daniel, but the identity of the father is not known nor are the conditions surrounding the child's birth. However, as law enforcement was pursuing her for previous crimes, Oíche committed Daniel to the care of unnamed guardians. Years later, she allowed herself to become genetically altered, with the promises of a near-limitless fortune. Although the details of the procedure, who conducted the experiment, or if creating a meta-human was the true goal is unknown. From that point on, Oíche put her talents up for hire, becoming a corporate saboteur and assassin for exceptionally large fees. Her activities before clashing with the Crusaders are unknown, only that she was one of Interpol's most wanted. While she never returned to recover her son, she continually provided his caretakers with money, which she transferred to her trust fund.

Penumbra

Human female ### [95 points]

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Slyce

Human female technology imbued commoner [81 points]

Madison Pederson and her twin brother, Mason, were born in 25th-century Chicago, to their parents Alexander and Emily Pederson, who were both involved in the luxury travel industry. At a young age, the wealthy family moved to an affluent neighborhood outside of New Boston, where Madison excelled in her studies and displayed a genius-level IQ. Even at a young age, Madison and her brother had several run-ins with law enforcement as she often was an accomplice to Mason as he burglarized local homes. Her first display of sociopathic tendencies occurred when she seduced her uncle, Damian Pederson, then blackmailed him from hidden video taken by Mason. It was Mason who brought her the body of the stranger who “appeared out of thin air”, dressed in odd clothing. Mason related how the stranger's dying breath begged him to care for the Hexum, and not allow it to fall into the wrong hands. Fascinated by the hand-held device, Madison soon discovered it allowed users to travel in time. Using the device, the two began to make excursions to the past and the future, stealing resources from different points in history, and making themselves extremely wealthy in the process. However, boredom set in as wealth acquisition became too simple, and how Madison realized that the flow of time self-corrected, with their main timeline uncorrupted. With that in mind, the duo began making trips into the past to kill people they rationalized were already dead. Fascinated by the Era of Heroes and looking for a challenge, both twins were able to outfit themselves with powered exoskeletons laced with energized molecular wire along their arms and legs. Armed with their suits, the twins took on the names of Slyce and Dyce to travel through time for thrill-kill opportunities.

The Valiant

Human male technology imbued commoners [81 points]

The origins of the superhero team named The Valiant are unknown, but local media reports first noted their appearance when combatting a dimensional tear in downtown Dallas created by a meta-human named Dark Feed. As a wave of dark force energy and aggressive manifestation appeared, several meta-human heroes from north Texas appeared to combat the impending disaster: Red Owl (lone inventor self-created gadgeteer), Doctor Dynasty (wildstrike acquired psionics mentalist), Freefall (mutant weird), The Quiver (stolen equipment other martial artist), Dragontooth (inherent magic brick) and Oxman (altered human other brick). Individually, their actions did not account for much progress in handling the situation, but when they combined their powers, this new team of heroes was able to overcome Dark Feed's onslaught and win the day. Recognizing a meta-human team in their midst, local businessmen quickly came together to provide resources for this group and convinced them to stay as the city's premier superhero team. With Red Owl as their leader, the Valiant has proven a consistent line of defense from other meta-human threats and their presence alone has marked a noticeable decline in crime for the greater Dallas-Fort Worth area. So far, even though personalities have clashed, the group appears to be stable enough to protect the city from threats that range from Dallas and beyond.

Dr. Trey Young

Human male technology imbued commoner [81 points]

Trey Young was born in Pontiac, Michigan, in 1968, as the middle child out of five brothers and sisters. His father, Lavernus, was born in Charleston, South Carolina, and his mother, Sadie, was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. His father left South Carolina and made his way to Pontiac in 1952, where he found work at an automobile foundry. His mother fled racial strife in 1955, finding refuge with relatives in Detroit and eventually reuniting with her brother in Pontiac. Lavernus and Sadie met through the African American community in their city, where they married and began their family, with their first child born in 1966. When Young was a child, his parents took him to a Baptist church weekly. He started questioning the existence of a God, as he believed an all-knowing God would have prevented the racial strife on his extended family. He stopped attending church by the time he was 12. Although he was slight in stature and comparatively frail, he was considered very healthy, often making perfect attendance at school, not having any sick days through his education in the Pontiac City School District. As such, he was often alienated by his peers. Young graduated from Pontiac Central High School with honors in 1985, at the age of 17. In 1992, he graduated from the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine in Grand Rapids. As Young completed residency training in anatomical and clinical pathology at Detroit Medical Center-Sinai Grace Hospital, he began to recognize his perfect health coincided without any need for surgery nor wounds that he sustained as a child. Additional, patients under his care received a 99% success rate regarding healing and survivability. Soon, Young began to question when his success could be based on something else aside from his medical knowledge. He began to prescribe unorthodox medicines to patients who received the same recovery rates. When senior doctors accused him of administering digoxin without a medical reason, he chose to leave Sinai Grace Hospital, and move to Houston for a fresh start. His reputation followed him and while he was able to gain a practice at Ben Taub Hospital and continue his 99% success rate, his stay did not last long as he experimented transfusing blood from the recently deceased into live patients. With the advent of meta-humans now dominating the news cycle, Young suspected he might have some sort of mutant gene involving healing, even going so far as to experiment upon himself. Choosing to use his supposed abilities to help others, Young rents out the upstairs of a dentist's office to run an unlicensed clinic where he can help those who are less fortunate. In the area, most of his clients refer to him as “Doctor Trey”.

Supporting NPCs of City Heroes

Nankaina M-99

Justinian runs a stop over near Griffinhollow.

Blood Knight by Mohamed Saadar, Dyce by Yoni Deherve, Majikku M-99 by Yvan Quinet, Oiche by Bryan Valenza, Penumbra by Oki Priyadi Rustana, Slyce by Yoni Deherve, The Valiants by RPG Dynamite, and Dr. Trey Young by Kendra Leigh Speedling.

Artwork for Kendra Leigh Speedling on this page falls under the Paizo Inc. Community Use Policy.

All other artwork on this page falls under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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