Full Name: Harlynn Grace Taro
Nickname/Alias: Harly(Harley) or Taro
Pet Name: Her mother and sister call her Harls.

Gender: Female
Orientation: Straight
Real Age: 23
Birthday: April 1st
Birthplace: New Orleans, LA

Species: Human
Ethnicity: Caucasian
Blood Type: O-
Preferred Hand: Right
Eye Color: Green
Hair Color Dark, dark brown
Hairstyle: Shoulder length, naturally curly
Skin Tone: Lightly tanned
Complexion: Good, but freckled
Makeup: Generally natural, unless she’s working and it’s considered “extra.”
Height: 5’6”
Weight: 145lbs
Cup Size: D
Shoe Size: 8
Birthmarks/scars: She has a port scar from having undergone chemo when she was six years old. She has a birthmark shaped like Florida right under her right butt cheek.

Current Residence: A rundown apartment complex, in an apartment she shares with an ex-boyfriend.
Family:
+Mother, Lynn Taro
+Sister(younger), Ashlynn Taro
+Father, unknown
+Brother(twin), Aleck Taro(Deceased)
Pets/Familiars: She owns a Ball Python named Snuggles

Wardrobe: Mostly casual, with a few high-end pieces that she generally wears to work
Accessories:
+Tattoos
-Right thigh: Mandala
-Left thigh: Watercolor dragonfly over the Keywork
-Right arm: A raven sitting on an anatomically correct heart
-Right shoulder: A blood red rose
-Left arm: A magnolia with a dagger through it
-Feet: Egyptian hieroglyphics
-Back of neck: A keyhole
-Middle of back: An eye with a rose as the pupil, with a crown on top
-Sternum: Lotus mandala
+Piercings
-Left ear: Three standard piercings, industrial, and double helix.
-Right ear: Three standard piercings, double cartilage, and tragus.
-Belly button
-Nose

Occupation: Bottle service and bartender at Club Oro
Work Ethnic: Harlynn is a hard worker, but she hates where she works because of the people.

IQ: Slightly above average.
Education: She had to dropout after her mother was forced into court ordered rehab, but did go back to obtain her GED at 19. She’s currently saving up for college, but it seems unlikely that she’ll be able to attend.

Religion: Raised Catholic, but firmly agnostic.
Morals: There is no black or white, only gray morality.
Crime Record: She was arrested for shoplifting several times as a minor, but that record has since been sealed.
Motivation: Money and higher education.
Philosophy: “The glass is as full as you allow it to be.”
Political Party: Libertarian
Etiquette: Southern manners.

Hobbies/Interests: Ballet, reading, and watercolors.
Skills/Talents: She’s a very good dancer, but doesn’t have the time or money to keep up with it.
Likes: The smell of old books, hammocks, hiking, laying on the beach, eating ice cream, dancing, smoking pot, tending to her flowers and herb garden, walks at dusk, the smell of clean laundry, cats, warm summer days, and lots of other things.
Dislikes: Dogs, being alone, her mother’s alcoholism and that she puts it before her children, sexist men, her ex, and her own powers.
Musical taste: She likes a little bit of everything, but her favorite band is Coheed and Cambria
Sense of Humor: Dry and sarcastic
Pet Peeves: When people touch her when they’re talking, being snapped at by customers, people chewing too loudly, and small dogs that bark at everything.
Superstitions/Beliefs: She won’t walk under ladders or open an umbrella inside.

Strengths: She’s a great listener, and a fiercely loyal.
Flaws: She’s too trusting and tries to see the good in everyone she meets.

Powers/Abilities: Limited telekinesis
Origin: Unknown
Ability: She’s not very good at controlling her powers, because she’s repressed them for so long.
Weaknesses: Her emotions. The more emotional she is, the less stable her abilities become.

Languages: English, fluently. Louisiana Creole, only uses occasionally.
Accent: Lightly southern, with hints of Cajun.

Bio: Harlynn Grace Taro was born in New Orleans, Louisiana to Lynn Taro, a miserable alcoholic. She was born a twin, but her brother drowned when they were only six. Harlynn has blocked out most of her childhood, and actually moved to California to get away from her mother and her many, many abusive boyfriends. She currently works bottle service and bartends at Club Oro.

Name: Tom Marin
Age: 68
Gender: Male
Occupation: Semi-retired owner of Gold City Records
Powers: Electricity
Hobbies: Music, music production, cooking, helping young people with powers, spending time with his family
Musical Tastes: Folk rock, alternative/indie rock
Appearance: Longer curly gray/white hair and a large beard, wears blue jeans and earth tones, stands at 6'1, tanned face and a scarred body.
Strengths and Weaknesses: His strengths are his passion and his willingness to help others. His weaknesses are a somewhat cynical view of the world and his aging body and mind.
Bio: Tom was born in the Irish Hills district of Esperanza to an Italian working class family. His grandfather being a classical mandolinist, and his mother playing piano, music was very important in his house growing up, and starting playing music from a young age. In his teens he became involved with the mostly middle class Esperanza hippie scene, and formed the band 'The Jipsees', which became dominant in the Esperanza folk rock scene and popular throughout California. During this time, he also married his first wife, Daisy. In 1971 they released a song called 'Mr. Nixon', and almost immediately Frank was drafted and sent to the front lines in Vietnam.

He was captured by the North Vietnamese and sent to a special POW camp run by a Chinese doctor, Dr. Wang Niao, who performed CRT tests on him for the next two years, giving him powers over electricity, until the end of the war in 1973. For the next two years, he was reclusive and didn't do much, becoming distant from his wife who divorced him in '74, but in 1975 he released his first and only solo album, Lightning, which, while at the time was met with low sales and mixed reviews, later being extremely critically acclaimed and influential. He decided to retire from making music after his album's released, and opened up a record store below his apartment, Gold City Records. In 1981, he got remarried to his current wife, a talent scout, Alison Cohen.

When the nineties came, a new wave of rock in Esperanza came with it, a combination of lo-fi, alternative rock, punk, and indie. While they were touring and people knew about them, none of the local labels wanted to sign them or record any of them, and the only recordings of them were on homemade cassettes. Tom heard some of these cassettes, and after hearing they were all unsigned, decided to expand Gold City Records to also be a record label and recording studio, which he co-owned with his wife. The label become somewhat legendary, and an icon of music in Esperanza, but indie and alternative rock became less popular further into the 2000's, and while Alison and Tom still own GCR, most of the responsibility is in the hands of his son and other employees.

Name: Henry Izquierdo
Age: 16
Gender: Male
Occupation: High School Student
Power(s): Dust
Hobbies: Gaming (borderline competitively), Comics, Tabletop Gaming, Math, Programming (poorly)
>Gaming Tastes: Overwatch, Sm4sh
>Comic Taste: X-Men, Scott Pilgrim, probably some shitty mangas
>Tabletop Taste: D&D5e, but slowly branching out into other systems (PbtA)
>Musical Taste: Good ole beeps and boops of chiptune and electronica.
Strengths/Weaknesses:
Henry's strength lies in his dedication. When he sets his mind to something, he doesn't see anything else. It allows him to become very skilled, but often to the detriment of anything he isn't focusing on. Friends and family can fall by the wayside in his singular pursuit of goals. But his heart is in the right place--and hey, sometimes you just have to break a few eggs, as the phrase goes.


(I'LL FIND A PIC LATER OOPS)
Slender, with dark skin and curly black hair that usually hangs around his ears. Slightly above average height, brown eyes, and a little bit of ill-kept teenage scruff on his round jaw. Henry wears big, circular glasses, and usually dresses with a flair to his interests rather than fashion--gaming t-shirts underneath unbuttoned, short-sleeve dress shirts, cargo shorts, etc.


The Izquierdos grew up in colorful Lompoc--Marta was a native to the area, while Juan Izquierdo was a bright-eyed immigrant from Mexico. Henry was born not long after his parents married, and the family relocated to Casmalia nearly a decade later just in time to welcome Henry's sister Julia into the family.

While his parents were happy to leave the noise, crime, and tales of ambient radiation pollution behind, Henry didn't take well to the move. He lost touch with a lot of the friends he had grown up with, as a lot of them simply had no interest in associating with a transplant to the northern suburbs. Always interested in gaming, Henry sunk his loneliness into learning the ins and outs of his family P.C.

Casmalia wasn't all bad; the public schools were much nicer, and his parents were making a comfortable living on their new suburbanite salaries. In high school, Henry took like a duck to water in the programming classes that were typically only offered to upper-year students. He became enamored with rigs, and graphics cards, and had all the makings of a future as a pro gamer. Though his parents thought it was sort of a waste of time, they encouraged Henry to follow his interests so long as it involved college. Thinking it was too early to worry about stuff like college applications, Henry spent all his free time doing odd jobs to save up enough money to buy a classmate's lightly-used gaming computer.

However, everything was upended about a week after his sixteenth birthday; upon the family coming home from a late night visiting relatives on the other side of town, they saw the garage pried open and the front door ajar. Running inside, the Izquierdos found the place cleaned out--pictures, placemats, Guadalupe candles, appliances, the whole shebang. Most missed of all was Henry's computer; a square of dust was all that remained in the corner of his room.

Furious, saddened, and at a total loss...Henry lashed out. He felt something roiling in his body, causing his hair to stand on end as a charge of energy overtook him. The particles in his room shifted. Dust swarmed in whorls in the air, batting against the walls. The quiet storm of particulate flowed through the hall, dribbled down the stairs, and in fact filled the entire house. A subtle storm of dust.

In that moment, Henry could feel it all. The gentle flow and air in and out of the vents. The sediment stuck to walls, caught in the carpets. His mother moved some lint on his father's shoulder as she patted him in reassurance. Dust was displaced by furious footsteps in his father's dash to the landline in the kitchen--one of the few things that hadn't been stolen.

The next few months were a storm of frustrations. The police tracked down the ring that had struck several homes in the area, but most of the valuables had already been sent across the border or pawned off. Under the guise of a cleaning service, the crooks had parked in plain sight at the end of neighborhood blocks and lifted all they could in as little time as they had. Henry's computer, the tvs and ipad, a box of jewelry stowed in his parents' room, and countless other things--all gone forever. The injustice of it all.

Dreams dashed, Henry sulked. He found refuge in comic books and tabletop gatherings at the local hobby store. Not as flashy as Overwatch, that was for damn sure; but cheaper, and with better people. Eventually, Henry caught wind of an underground organization in Esperanza that was thwarting crime at its roots. He finally had something to really focus on. That familiar tunnel-vision returned. In secret, he'd develop and test his powers, see the full depth of his ability to manipulate and sense using particulate matter. Sure, on paper, it was kind of crappy as far as superpowers went--but it was his, and he'd make it work.

Name: Preston Levi Arroyo
Age: 22
Gender: Male (He/Him)
Height: 5'10''
Weight: 146 lbs
Blood Type: A+
Appearance: Preston Arroyo is a biracial hispanic male that often passes as white hispanic rather than biracial. He has strikingly handsome features with no visible damage to his skin given his ability to rapidly repair himself. He has a messy dark brown head full of loose curls, and he has light brown eyes. Despite the lack of bags underneath his eyes he still carries an often apathetic and tired look about his face. Fairly large sized lips and a defined jawline are two striking features. Preston Arroyo is well defined, but not particularly muscular. His body's ability to rapidly repair itself means that he could potentially put on muscle quite easily, but has little to no interest in doing so. His lithe frame is easier to morph, and brings less discomfort during the process.

On a typical day it isn't unusual to see Preston decked out in jean jackets, loose fitting tank tops, and skinny jeans. He also often wears beanies, and is a sycophant when it comes to jewelry especially pertaining to his Native American heritage.



Musical Tastes: Preston typically enjoys anything indie. While his knowledge is limited he does possess a sort of esoteric understanding of music history which often validates his narcissistic proclivities in comparison to fans of more streamlined music. He also joins alternative music which stems from the angst of his teenage years. Preston also enjoys hip-hop music, but much like his other tastes feels prideful in his more obscure collection within the genre.

Hobbies: Preston has always been a talented artist. He enjoys sketching, painting, and less commonly sculpting. It's likely that should one visit his apartment they'd find his art scattered throughout. Preston also enjoys writing poetry, but has little confidence in neither his oratory skills or his writing abilities. Preston has a distinct interest in politics. He'd probably never venture willingly into that arena himself, but has rather strong positions and a desire for investigation. He's empathetic to less insidious conspiracy theories. Lastly, Preston fancies himself as quite the movie buff.

Personality: Preston, like many in Esperanza, is a man of varying complexities. He has an apathetically pessimistic view of the world and those with power. This often manifests itself in a deep depression stemming from unresolved childhood trauma. Preston has a sense of justice, of right and wrong, but his pessimism has perverted this vague concept in ways that prevent him from desiring to take action and even permit him to break his aforementioned ideals within reason. Preston has come to understand that Esperanza, and the world in general, is filled with selfish and broken people. Instead of channeling his justified outrage with political machinations and corruption into something positive he instead retreats to a macabre "c'est la vie" approach to human interaction. Rather than use his abilities for an actual cause he uses them as a means of "survival" by working for the highest bidders. While this often leaves him working for people that are, to say the least, morally ambiguous he does at least maintain a desire to keep from harming people he deems innocent or good. He's carried with him from childhood a materialism that tends to come with living in a society that measures worth and success via possessions. Instead of chasing his passions he attempts to use objects as a means of personal fulfillment.

Preston does invoke a self-destructive sort of narcissism that typically pushes people away. Quite contrarily, Preston actually craves human interaction and is incredibly protective of those people that he does become close with. His desire for interactions tend to lead to naive tendencies and dependency on those he manages to get close to. He's self-aware to notice many of the contradictions in how he processes these thoughts and interprets the world. It frustrates him, but as with most everything else he pretends instead to be apathetic to it.



Powers: Preston has the ability to restructure his phenotypic characteristics at an accelerated rate in such a way that he can mimic the appearance of nearly anyone. This process requires at least a day, and at most three days to complete. It also requires a good deal of preparation. In an idealistic scenario Preston rests in a tub of ice to reduce inflammation whilst his body is wrapped in protective bandages. An IV drip provides him nourishment, and after having studied his target's features he begins the process of copying them. Preston's abilities also allow him to heal at an incredibly fast pace, and allow him to take considerable amounts of damage to his body. His artistic capabilities give him greater assistance in studying features thoroughly when mimicking.

Weaknesses: Preston cannot mimic markings such as tattoos. He also cannot gain access to abilities or knowledge of the person he mimics. While, he is capable in combat he is has about the strength and speed of a normal human. He isn't impervious to damage, but is resistant. Enough sustained damage could still certainly kill him especially if done by another super-powered human. Critical damage can also cause rapid fluctuations in his appearance which can be incredibly harmful if not fatal for him.


Preston Levi Arroyo was born to Claudia Martinez and Victor Arroyo. Alongside two older brothers, Alfonso and Martin, Preston was raised in the Irish Hills. Claudia was a nurse that often made long commutes to work in Templeton at the hospital. Claudia herself had interned at the hospital as a university student. Victor worked a factory job in the Hills for a motor vehicle and parts manufacturer. For a time the family did well enough maintaining a modest living situation throughout Preston and his brothers' early years. However when the gentrification of the Irish Hills began forcing local populations to move or get creative the Arroyo/Martinez family felt the burden. Stifled financially both by an increase in rent payments and an increase in the price of local goods Victor and Claudia felt themselves with little other option but to work more hours.

Unfortunately Victor would soon lose his job as the factory laid off a number of workers. For most locals this meant finding new work in the menial commercial businesses opening up throughout the district. Victor, however, had a history of gang associations from his youth having grown up in San Luis. Having been convicted in his youth of a felony Victor found it nigh impossible to find employers that would hire him. Couple that with his anxiety, and there were little options that Victor had to provide for his family alongside his wife. Putting so much pressure on her to provide solely for the family, and months without work put Victor into a deep spiral. He took up drinking and became detached from his family in ways that at the time only Alfonso, being the eldest, could really understand. Constant arguments between Victor, Alfonso, and Claudia left Preston feeling unsure about the future of his family. Unable to process the unhealthy lifestyle he became more rebellious himself, and turned to his friends as a means of coping.

Claudia could see her family falling apart, and insisted that Victor seek counseling at a clinic attached to the Templeton Hospital. Here Victor learned about behavioral activation seeking to empower himself and battle his mental illness through forcing himself to be active. Still unable to find a job, but motivated by a new will to be the provider he'd once been Victor resorted to finding old contacts with ties to the gangs he'd worked for in San Luis. The jobs seemed simple enough at first. Victor was often a driver or courier for local gangs looking to communicate without police traffic. While he was paid rather well given the work he was also home far less, and struggled to kick his drinking habits. He'd often miss Martin's football games and Preston's baseball practice. He'd miss dinner, and the movie nights reserved for the last Friday of every month.

Victor found himself entrenched in a life that offered a thrill he hadn't found in a long time, but his neglect at home still ate at him. He missed his partner and his sons more than anything. After all this had all been for them, hadn't it. Victor resolved to end his ties with the local gangs once and for all. He'd take up one final big payout that would buffer the family income for a while.

However, the same gangs that Victor had once worked for turned on each other resulting in a massive shootout that left many of Victor's associates dead. Captured and interrogated for the knowledge of the gang that he had Victor willingly surrendered just wanting to return to his family. This mistake would prove fatal.

Preston had awoken one night to the sounds of his panicked mother as she tried her best to rush the boys out of the house. The smell was awful, and the smoke, smothering. Preston hadn't seen his father, and screamed for him amidst the smoke and ashes. There was nothing but the cries of a frantic Claudia. As Claudia ushered her children outside a car opposite of the house opened fire gunning all of them down. It was a cruel fate that Preston had survived that day practically unharmed while the bodies of the family he had to identify were burned char.

For a few years after this Preston lived with his aunt Maria in Avila Beach. She and her daughter Clarissa cared for Preston's sickly grandfather who suffered from dementia. The family house was a haunting memento of all that Preston had lost. Feeling even more dejected Preston often skipped school, and took to partying in a vein attempt to numb his sorrows. He found solace in his best friends Kate Jensen and Scotty "Scoob" Burns. Kate and he had a short fling, but even after that ended the two remained the closest of friends. Scotty worked at a record shop on the Avila Piers.

These two would continue to serve as Preston's main source of liberation from the harsh realities he was subjected to early on in his life. Unfortunately, even they couldn't stop the nightmares that plagued Preston. Preston carried with him a hideous secret that both disgusted and scarred him emotionally. In addition the nightmares that plagued Preston, he was also burdened with a strange condition that caused his skin and bones to move in uncomfortable ways. Even worse, his face and body would morph in ways that felt insidiously familiar. This progressed for a few months before the distortions worsened as Preston uncontrollable morphed into the likeness of his family. Some days it was his brothers, or his mom, and on the worst of days it was his father. Feeling his sanity slowly slipping from him Preston took out a loan, and moved into his own semi-cheap apartment in the same district. Preston was forced to pick up a second job, and dropped out of school in order to do so.

Life wasn't simple for Preston even after this. His body would still morph uncontrollably, and sometimes it wasn't even his family. Co-workers, his friends, etc. Preston felt invaded, and perverted all at once. On top of that the jobs he'd been working barely kept him above ground. When the pressures came creeping in from his lenders was when Preston was in far greater trouble. He was stalked, harassed via phone-calls, and threatened on a number of occasions. Feeling himself running out of options Preston turned to the strange abilities he seemed to possess. He'd done some digging into the history of Esperanza. Cases of humans with unprecedented abilities were scattered through the city, and the history of such individuals was well documented. Even still fringe conspiracy theories pointed to all sorts of strange occurrences with humans possessing inhuman abilities. There were a number of given explanations.

Alien abductions, government spies, Russian sleeper agents, God's messengers- you name it.

None of that was relevant. What mattered is that this wasn't complete bullshit. Preston devised a plan to keep the lenders off of his back for a while. The next time he saw the investigator monitoring the usual places he'd frequent he confronted him. Preston made an offer to work for his lenders to payoff his debts, and revealed his strange morphing abilities. Wary, but intrigued the investigator contacted his employers. Said employers were more than happy to forgive Preston's debts if he agreed to work for them.

Fast-forward to present day, and Preston has had two years of experience in working as a freelance agent for various organizations. It was haunting to know that some conspiracies weren't too far from reality, and to know that in some cases the seedier parts of government and elite circles were far worse than what one could imagine. Preston has been trained in the art of assassination, espionage, and combat but of course still has much to learn. He's grown distant from Kate and Scott, but still keeps contact with them despite his re-location to a modest condo in Morro Bay.

name: Chenoa "Charlie" Bearfoot
age: 19
gender: female
height: 5"6
weight: 115lbs

Occupation: Her aunt owns a successful little cafe with fresh baked goods and 'the best coffee around.' She works there whenever she can. The cafe, called "Josie's Place," only added cinnamon rolls to the menu after Charlie started working there, the recipe is her secret.

Appearance: Charlie has her mother's pale skin, big light blue eyes and blonde hair which she wears long to her elbows and colored violet. Her eyebrows are thick and dark. She has her father's native features and his build, being stocky and well framed for her size. She has a small chest and thin arms, with wide hips and thighs. Her shoulders are nicely covered in freckles, and she has a brown birthmark on the outside of her right knee about the size of a big strawberry. She has a patch of small scars on the small of her back where she fell back on the stump of a ripped tree as a child, and another jagged line on her left wrist about an inch long from something she can't remember but kept picking at the scab and it never healed properly. She has her earlobes pierced three times on both ears and a dermal anchor on her sternum. She has two little dragonfly tattoos, one on the inside of both wrists.

Abilities: Chen can quickly morph into different animals. Though she can choose the form of any animal she likes, she prefers to take the form of felines and birds. Chenoa can change her whole body or just parts. When she shifts, it is not painful though it can be quite uncomfortable sometimes, depending on the animal (most sea animals are worse, mammals are most comfortable). She cannot control the state of her clothes, so she does not often take the full form of any animal unless she doesn't mind ripping, stretching, or losing her clothes. She cannot speak any human language while in the shape of any animal that also cannot speak English, though she can understand anything conversed with her. She can communicate with any animal of any form in any form, though only minimally until she shifts into the creature that she is 'speaking' with.

Personality: She is lighthearted and optimistic for the most part, and always tries to see the best in people and situations. She knows right from wrong and often knows when she should do the right thing, but often strays because she often chooses to do whatever is more fun or helps herself in the long run. She likes people and would do anything for the people she cares about, but is selfish and will put herself before a stranger, acquaintance, or not-so-close friend. She hates to be alone, especially at night, when she can get depressed easily. She makes assumptions quickly and usually knows off the bat if she will like someone. She will not always hate someone immediately, but even if she does, she can be warmed up slowly depending on the circumstance. She can be clingy when she is infatuated with someone, wanting to help them and be there for them as much as possible. To some people, she can come off as clingy and annoying, to others, she is kind and caring and supportive. She will make sure this person is always fed and healthy, and will always try to make sure they are happy, even at the cost of her own wants. She loves exploring and finding new things, especially when they are pleasing to the senses. She loves to thrift and to go to conservation parks. Her mood can easily be affected by what goes on around her, mainly by music or the attitudes of others. Though, if she is surrounded by sad people, she will not be upset but instead moody and insensitive.

Hobbies: If she is not at home reading fiction or palmistry books or making various items like dreamcatchers, moccasins, or sewing dresses; she can be found out on adventures and causing trouble, or exploring the city or nature for pretty things. She has a weakness for pretty things, you know. She loves to wear shiny rings and delicate jewelry or collect knick-knacks or various items that appeal to the senses. She collects different flowers and presses them, so if you are ever to open one of the many books in her room, you will most definitely find a few pressings.

music taste: Though she listens to and enjoys many genres of music, her heart will always belong Queen, Metallica, Dream Theatre, and Pink Floyd. She loves to sing and things that she is half decent, but doesn't really sing in front of others and never got much of an opinion on her voice from anyone outside her reserve. She learned guitar when she was young from an uncle and used to play a lot, but hasn't for a while for lack of any instrument. She often noodled around with her own tunes when she wasn't playing other songs, but never put any lyrics to her tunes. Because she is so familiar with guitar, though she knows no other instruments, she understands them and their concepts quite easily.

History: Charlie's parents were born and raised and met in Canada. Marielle was born in Quebec on her mother's adopted reserve, even though she was not indigenous. In her young adult years, she moved to Ontario and met one of Six Nations' up-and-coming healers, Oscar Bearfoot. After they married, they moved to the sunny hills of Esperanza to live with Oscar's Aunt and cousins. They settled in and decided to start a family together, naming their daughter Chenoa, meaning 'Dove.'
When her parents heard rumors of radiation in the area, that was possibly affecting humans, they moved back to Canada to raise their daughter away from danger. The two brought her up in a home full of color and tradition.
Oscar taught his daughter all that he could about healing herbs, and as she got older, he encouraged her interest in other forms of healing and other odd investments in things like palmistry and aura reading and music. He taught her to be empathetic and kind whenever possible and to respect all things under Creator's sky.
Marielle never stopped taking care of those she loved and those who asked for help. She was a high school French teacher and helped the local indigenous community center host multiples of events in the summer. Chenoa learned from her mother how to show compassion and to keep her patience, and that continuing to stay busy can be very therapeutic. Marielle taught her daughter practical things like housework, French, crafts, and cooking. She was the perfect housewife and was proud to be able to provide.
Chenoa, or 'Charlie' by her friends, grew up happy, and full of life and trouble. When around the age of 13, she and her parents discovered that Chenoa was able to take the likeness of animals. She had always had a close connection with and got along quite well with nature and other animals, but her parents never expected this. They thought it a gift from Creator, and never once thought of the time that they lived in Esperanza for almost two years.
Chen understood that though everyone in her small reserve knew of her abilities, anyone outside of the territory should never know. While in high school, she learned to keep the animal instincts under her skin; and of the time that baby Chenoa and her parents lived in a toxic city for a while after her birth. When high school graduation came around, the graduate planned to spend a year in this American city and stay with the aunt and cousins that shared their roof before. She finally moved in with them when she turned 19.
It wasn't long before she heard of the underground knowledge of other people in the city with strange abilities.

fun facts: She loves the sound of pretty acoustic licks, but she prefers to play on an electric because she can control the volume when she doesn't want others to hear her.
She also picked up sign language at a young age along with a few of her other childhood friends so that when Lua, now a close friend, didn't feel alone when she first moved to the reserve and couldn't talk to anyone without an interpreter. They still occasionally contact each other through facetime or skype.
Her father is Anishinaabe and taught her to speak the tongue, and she sometimes teaches her cousins some words.

Name: Erik Hoffman

Age: 23

Gender: Male

Occupation: GA at UCE

Powers: Special glands allow Erik to proudce mist from his pores and then manipulate its direction and temperature as well as filter out harmful substances in his body and push them out of his pores along with the mist. He also has augmented eyes that allow him to see through the mist he produces, but they are also much more sensitive because of this.

Hobbies: Reading (mostly comics, manga, fantasy and sci fi books), experimenting with his powers, playing games occasionally.

Musical Tastes: Shoegaze, Classical, Smyphonic Metal, mostly genres involving good isntrumentals.

Appearance: Erik stands at 6’2” with a wiry frame, looking as though his body is mostly arms and legs. His skin is pale, almsot a pure white. His eyes are an ice blue, almost transluscent white color. He allows his white blonde hair to grow past his shoulders and lay in a straggly manner across his shoulders and back. He generally looks unhealthy and a bit wispy.

Strengths: Erik has been experimenting with his powers ever since he discovered them when he was in high school, so he grown adept at controlling them and finding new ways to utilize them. He studies Chemistry at UCE, so he’s skilled at knowing what sorts of things he can ingest and what outcome it will have. He’s an intelligent person in general, especially when it comes to nerd culture and the things he’s interested in. Despite looking unhealthy, he can move rather quickly if pushed.

Weaknesses: Erik is anti social and closes himself off from people, other than the occasional interractions required of him in his GA position and speaking with his mother. He is not very strong at all, mostly focusing on speed when he thought he’d try his hand as being a vigilante. He depends on his powers too much when it comes to his nightly routines; they have become an extension of him at this point. While he can control and manipulate the wisps he creates, he does not control the air flow, so he is powerless against strong gusts of wind. Pushing himself, he can maintain the mist closest to him against a gust, but the mist furhter from him will blow away.

Bio: Erik was raised by a single mother, who taught Senior English and a Junior AP English class at his high school in Casmalia. His father had died when he was five. He secluded himself throughout school, becoming the target of bullies every so often. When he was a Junior in high school, Erik discovered his powers one day when he was confronted in an alley by a group of Senior who made it a sport to find Erik and give him a hard time. They had his backpack and were looking through it, tossing his posessions and school things on the ground. Erik had become numb to this treatment by this point and just sat and watched them, until they dropped his laptop on the ground. It slipped out of the bag and broke on impact. The bullies were just as shocked as Erik. They had never intended to break his things, just give him a hard time. That didn’t quell Erik’s anger though.

He felt sweat beading all over him at once and then begin to lift off his exposed skin in wisps, slowly forming a cloud around him. The cloud grew as steam shut up form the manhole Erikwas standing next to. It spun around Erik and the bullies for a moment before converging on the gorup of teenagers. The steam washed over them all, burning their exposed skin. The bullies got the brunt of it though, the steam seeming to cling to them more than Erik. When the steam cleared, Erik was sitting on his knees in the alley trying to gather his things, while the other three boys ran, their skin red and burning from the steam cloud. Everyone who heard about the incident, other than Erik’s mother, chalked it up to a pipe bursting under the alley. No one questioned why Erik was with the boys or why his laptop was broken. Erik’s mother confronted him about the incident when they were alone. He told her the truth about it; she knew already anyway. She had undergone CRT, so she knew there would always be a chance Erik would develop some sort of powers.

After that, Erik secluded himself more, which became easier since the other students seemed to avoid him even more than usual after hearing about what happened. Without any social life, Erik was free to experiment with his powers in earnest and learn everything he could about them. He had plans to become a vigilante and use his powers to help people, but those fizzled and died on the first night he snuck out of his home. He walked the streets in plain clothing with the hood of his black hoodie pulled up, a bandanna over the bottom half of his face. Eventually he came across a disturbance; a man with a knife was waving at an older man and demanding his money. Erik stepped up to the mouth of the alley and pulled his sleeves up to reveal his scrawny arms. The man with the knife turned around and laughed at him before turning back to the older man.

Frustrated, Erik reached inward and felt the strange feeling of sweat forming all over his body at once before rising in wisps from his skin. He nudged the wisps together and then toward the mugger. They swirled together and flew at him in a cylinder of heated steam. The mugger turned in shock and was hit by the blast of steam, yelping at the heat and then coughing and spluttering. He yelled something about pepperspray as he collapsed, gasping for fresh air. Erik dissapated the vortex, concerned he’d kill the man. He was confused; he had just made steam. He didn’t have time to think though, as the older man started yelling for help and throwing insult at Erik. He ran then.

He was lucky to get away before anyone came running. When he snuck back into his house and was in his bedroom, Erik turned his mind to the mugger’s reaction. It took him a solid week to finally figure it out, after researching the components of pepperspray and teargas and experimenting with his powers further. He found that eating extremely spicy foods, he could nudge some of the spice into his clouds. From there, he experimented further and took a leap of faith, figuring out he could filter out any harmful substancs he ingested and then use them in his clouds.

Erik continued experimenting with his powers through high school and his Under Grad years in college, but he never went back out to try his hand at being a vigilante. On the contrary, Erik began trying his hand at petty crime, nothing major, just stealing from ATM machines. When pulling a robbery, he would enshroud himself in mist but still took the precaution of wearing a mask under his camoflauge and obscuring any cameras in the area of small cloud of condensation. He recently moved out of his mother’s and slid into a GA position at UCE, using his savings to move into a single bedroom apartment of his own.
Other:

Powers

Other than his reptilian physiology and the conditions this requires for him to live comfortably, Virgil Starling possesses no "super" powers. He is unable to regulate his body temperature, and depends on warm environments to be functional and hot environments to be productive. His scales are about as resistant to impact or stabbing as human skin, his vision is comparatively worse than a human's if measured by way of distance or light requirements, and any hope for him to climb walls like a gecko are dashed after witnessing him trying to summon up the strength to perform a chin-up. The things that make Virgil powerful were either given to him, such as his company and estate, or are the result of his own hard work -- namely, his intellect and cadre of robotic guards and companions.

Hobbies

Virgil is an obsessive genius, who got to be such through a lifetime of study. Aside from the upkeep of the island and its many robotic inhabitants, his biggest hobbies are the study and research of superhuman politics, history, and anthropology. Before his self-imposed exile, he was known for a taste for poetry and performing equations, though this only paints a portrait of a slightly less obsessive, equally intelligent Virgil. He enjoys the music of The Beach Boys, Kraftwerk, Bjork, and Pentangle.

Appearance

Of the world's superhumans, though there are many classifications and subclassifications, it is widely agreed there are two distinct groups; Those who carry abilities with them to be used and shown at their discretion, and those who announce their extraordinary genetic makeup to the world with every waking moment. Of the two, Virgil is firmly in the latter category. Most obviously, he resembles a lizard, or perhaps some sort of bipedal dinosaur. He has reptilian scales, reptilian eyes, and if he were to be cut open, pseudo-reptilian biology. Virgil is covered head to toe in tealish grey scales, growing bluer at the tips of his extremeties, such as his fingertips, dorsal ridge, and lips. His face, neck, torso, and the inner sides of his arms and legs are significantly lighter than his darker, tougher back scales, giving him an anatomical "underbelly" that humans lack. His eyes notably lack a sclera, making it difficult to discern the direction he is looking in or his emotions. As a child, he was known for wearing a Starling Blue t-shirt and black shorts on his father's show, though his wardrobe is now made of clothes indistinguishable due to the wear and tear of his twenty year period of isolation. His clothes have lost their color from being countlessly worn through the elements, washed, and then worn again. Accordingly, they are all now in roughly the same muted shades of grey, green, and tan.

Strengths/Weaknesses

Virgil's father was arguably one of history's smartest minds -- Virgil does not have half of the genius of his father, though Virgil is still very, very, very smart. Virgil's intellect extends from performing physics equations in real time to figure out an object's exact trajectory to the most intricate inner-workings of extinct cultures from around the world. Aside from being raised and tutored by Seymour Starling, Virgil has simply been doing nothing but reading and studying for the past twenty years, for little reason other than to keep his mind occupied. He is an engineer capable of building and designing robots that border on science fiction, speaks thirteen languages, and during his short tenure in college, lead a study that began creating some of the first nanomachines.

With an intellect that is universally unquestionable, this presents Virgil unexpected drawbacks. Virgil's awkward social skills and proclivity for fainting accrued a patina of hermetic dysfunction over the past twenty years, magnifying his former faults. Where he was once shy, he is now reclusive. Where he was once overthinking, he is now paranoid and obsessive. Where he was once well-adjusted, he is now nearing incoherence. He struggles to identify with people on personal levels, and has a deep focus on extrapersonal, societal relations, their historical patterns, and other similarly large-scale concepts. He's a weird fellow with very little relatable about him, but hearing him talk about anything leaves you with the impression that he definitely knows what he's talking about.

Bio

Virgil Starling was born to Seymour Starling and Susanne Spraier, a secretary at Starling Enterprises. Due to the abnormalities of his physical shape in relation to a human newborn, his mother died from the complications of childbirth, leaving Virgil's care in the hands of Seymour. Even during infancy, Virgil's childhood was mostly spent on Eden Island, his father's forested compound, working on the set of Seymour Starling's World of Science. Though his role on the show was relatively small -- Virgil played one of the several children Seymour interacted with in his lessons -- Seymour's choice to have his very superhuman-looking son on a children's show created a firestorm of controversy from the show's inception. Some argued casual depictions of superhumans could bridge the gap between the two peoples, while others believed Seymour to be forcing an agenda through his show. Others entirely simply argued Virgil's appearance frightened their children, and that Seymour' inclusion of a physically aberrant superhuman boy was in poor taste. In any case, Virgil remained on World of Science until he was sixteen, at which point he enrolled at the Carrington University of Oregon.

Eager to break out of his life as a child actor, Virgil began studying robotics, eventually taking classes seeking to earn a double major in engineering and robotics technology. Before Virgil was able to finish this degree, his father was found mysteriously dead on Eden, catapulting Virgil into the spotlight once again. Being an anxious teenager known for fainting, this did little to help Virgil's mental state -- Three years after his death, at a press conference held for a team of scientists Virgil had been working with to further the field of nanorobotics, Virgil had a televised breakdown, known colloquially as the "Shut Up Speech". Though there is only one video, which has widely circulated the internet since then, Virgil's mood visibly changes throughout the course of the video when it becomes clear that all of the questions asked are about the recent firing of a Starling Science executive. Near the end of the video, Virgil clears the table of the papers and diagrams covering it before flipping the table entirely, attacking a reporter, destroying the recording camera, and storming out of the room shouting profanities. The video has been modified and remixed on Youtube and similar mediums extensively, essentially making Virgil's final nervous breakdown a footnote in memes of the early 2000's.

Following the incident, Virgil quietly paid a settlement to the reporter and moved to his father's secluded forest estate in California, which had served as the setting of his late father's show and housed his childhood home. It is suspected that Virgil shares the estate with groundskeepers, though other than them, Virgil has only ever made contact with the outside world through phone calls at Starling Science press conferences.

Other

Coming soon!

Name: 山下 堅志 Yamashita ‘Kenji’, Previously known by the name ‘Hogosha’ (保護者)
Age: 104, biological ~30
Gender: Male
Height: 5’4”
Weight: ~120

Powers: ‘Kenji’ has extremely potent regenerative capabilities through a constant and rapid generation of stem cells, in addition to a hyperactive immune system. These stem cells have kept his general cellular deterioration from proceeding by revitalizing themselves in a way not possible for specialized cells.

Personality: A great deal can happen over a century of life, one of the reasons that today Kenji is particularly cautious. He does have a complicated moral system, no drugs are allowed but then he facilitates human trafficking. He views this as morality tempered by pragmatism although his morals have been corrupted to a degree by his long criminal career. Instead of seeking to change the broader society he seeks to control and defend an ideal one of his own, something that feeds into the fief-like view of the Yakuza. He views following dubious practices as a means to an end of protection of his community from those who would harm it, or even as mere funding for the necessary protection. Kenji believes in and acts upon the belief of a ‘Chivalrous Organization’ that this is his fief and he must protect it.

Kenji also cares deeply about his biological and criminal family, although what name they go under may vary given the various wives he has had and they adopted their name from biologically that is. Generally, most of his biological sons and grandsons cannot be found among his organization or associated with it, a few exceptions apply to those who did enter his criminal world to begin with and have continued. Daughters traditionally are not treated well in ‘Chivalrous Organizations’ but generally he has either helped them get established on their own or associated with the organization through jobs in or managing various fronts.

Over the years Kenji has come close to death a number of times, personally and of those he cares for, this has led him to be more accepting of its inevitability as he attempts to both be and establish permanently the protection of his community.

Hobbies: Kenji has found interest in mostly reading about various topics, history, philosophy, various sciences, all things that interest him to a degree, if there is one thing that can be said to be a full hobby, reading is the closest. Generally, Kenji has done a lot of different activities over time and pursued them to varying extents but never really settling on any one hobby or group of hobbies.

He has sketched and painted, but also done some minor model railways. He has played golf and written traditional poetry. Chess and cooking. Composition and crochet. He has tried many things and got back into them over the years, but hasn’t ever consistently stayed and done anything for the entire time excepting reading and perhaps some physical and martial training over the years.

Musical Tastes: Kenji has been around for a long time, and over such time has had his various tastes waver some but for the most part, he has stayed locked on nothing. He has lived most of his life in America so it is not too surprising that he has mostly adopted the culture and mostly has listened to music that was around him being greatly happy with the independent music scene here in Esperanza. Over the years he has had flicking interests in the various music scenes that swept through nothing has really stuck with him through the years.

Appearance: Odd in the time and place he was born but not so much in the current day, Kenji is actually only half-Japanese on his mother’s side, the other half is from his father, an unknown Caucasian man. Resultantly he has black hair, cut short and his eye color is a common very dark brown however his ancestry is noticeable, primarily by those who care for such, in his face and skin tone.

He is rather short to most people today, although he is also fairly muscular, giving him an appearance related to one of an athlete. Noticeably he has no scars or other deformities of experience which can cause a number to mistake him for being younger at first glance. As he appears to be somewhere in his late twenties or early thirties physically. As occasion demands, he puts on makeup or other such disguising means and such to give himself a more or less youthful appearance. Something that is helped by his lack of height in many cases of appearance in age or youth. Generally, he wears what the situation demands although a suit is the most common appearance to find him in today as he goes out little and when he does you may find him adopting the appearance of Hogosha. That is at least today a full-head helmet and body protection decorated as the situation demands.

Strengths and Weaknesses: As for strengths Kenji has a broad depth and width of experience due to his unique circumstances. Having both lived for longer than the vast majority of people and having a good physical condition in addition to his powers makes him a fairly terrifying opponent to face, especially if you threaten his community. Additionally given his experience in crime and the city, one would be hard-pressed to find a more competent organizer of criminal, or sub-legal activities.

As for weaknesses, he is focused on protecting his family and community which can lead him to make less than rational decisions, especially when it comes to what he views as general assaults on his community. Additionally, he can be overly cautious, not taking opportunities that many others would take just because of the risk, even if relatively low. As well he does not like to risk others much which can both lead to him putting himself in danger and his reluctance to do the same for others close to him without a great necessity. Could be seen as a virtue but is often a problem for the safety of his organization as a whole.

Bio: Born to parents he never really knew and generally outcasted as burakumin, ‘Kenji’ was effectively raised by various gang members in the early days, in Japan. He grew up under their guidance, mostly as he was part of the outcasted group little else was open to him that was not worse. For the most part, Kenji felt he was lucky, he had a kind of family in the gangs and they helped him move to America when he was seventeen to start a new life.

In some ways, it was better and some ways it was worse. He was no longer discriminated against because he was burakumin, but instead because he was Japanese. He once again joined gangs, however, this time he found his way into the weak mainland Yakuza rather than petty crime. This continued for several years, from when he landed in ‘31 to internment in ‘42 at the Los Padres Relocation Camp during the second world war. It was during this time that he was subjected to a new treatment; Controlled Radiative Therapy or CRT.

He gained powers, extremely rapid regeneration and a hyperactive immune system, one without the other would have left him dead. At times his own immune system can target are attack portions of his own body, however, he has no issue because of rate that he can regenerate the damaged tissues. Without the immune system, he would also quickly die of cancer given the extreme rate regeneration. Particularly his generation of new stem cells in his body prevent the degeneration of it.

He survived the experiments, the camp wasn’t interested in cruelty not necessary for the science, and made contact with others who survived as well. When Los Padres was closed in ‘46 he stayed in contact them and with the times being what they were, formed a team, the name varied greatly over time, to protect the Japanese-American population in Esperanza and others unduly threatened despite their race or creed. Particularly ‘Kenji’ maintained contacts with the local Yakuza and with that assistance he and his team fought against any they viewed as threatening that population, needless to say, this brought some attention.

Although tracked by the FBI for a few years before they came under serious threat in ‘48 when they attracted the attention of the domestic Superhero Agent Gold and ‘sidekick’ the Cadet. Agent Gold was known for his abilities as stronger and faster than the average man, attributed to a significantly higher than average metabolic rate. While the Cadet was long suspected to be an actor and PR piece rather than any actual agent due to his youth and ability to turn invisible often coming in whenever a fight happened.

They ran and were hunted by the FBI and Agent Gold, although he again served the FBI as an investigator and field agent, until the summer of ‘51 when a raid of the team’s base led to an accidental explosion from a gas leak. There was the subsequent deaths of most the team, many FBI officers and the wounding of Agent Gold. Hogosha survived as did a few others of the team, they fled and disbanded.

Although they had adopted ‘superhero’ names, Hogosha meaning ‘Protector’ or ‘Guardian’ for example, they were unable to accomplish many super feats, they lacked funding and often means to accomplish what they tried. Even assistance was uncommon due to the lack of trust is most of the public they had even tried to protect, common during the time to name Hogosha ‘the Salamander’ as a tactic to delegitimize him in public eyes. This was especially prevalent in the newspapers, although in truth it was used in every manner of media, radio, commercials, any sort of news. Even the comic books of the time which took Agent Gold and the Cadet as the heroes against ‘the Salamander’ and ‘his’ team, often resorting to racist stereotypes given the ethnic makeup of the ‘bad guys’.

With their disbandment the team retired, Hogosha however retired to the Yakuza. Determined to get the funding and the means to protect his community he let Hogosha die after a few years of using the reputation build an organization through the ‘50s, he would bring back his family name. Yamashita, with the given name varying, was now who he was, a staged death and a few bribed officials later, the first Hogosha died.

He did grow the Yakuza in the mainland significantly over the ‘50s however in ‘59 a power struggle between his own Yamashita Yamaguchi-Gumi aligned clan and various other clans broke out after Federal Pressure significantly decreased with the ‘death’ of Hogosha. It would spring back and forth until a gradual victory for the Yamashita in the latter half of the ‘60s.

He would control and consolidate power in the ‘70s maintaining control to this day, although he has had minor issues on his confrontations with drugs he generally has made a successful system of crime at least until recently. The Triads have grown from a nuisance with slightly overlapping territory to a full threat to the existence of Clan Yamashita, while his Yakuza has been decreasing their human trafficking the Triads have seemed to exploded it beyond any normal measure. Here Hogosha returned, supposedly as a figure inspired by the first and has disappeared and reappeared in numerous forms, indeed actual copycats helped in this tremendously. Fairly recently power has transferred to the ‘new’ leader of the Yamashita clan, ‘Kenji’ although as with Hogosha, the name conceals the same leader.

This ‘new’ Hogosha was not some radical departure from the Yakuza rather it was a persona used to further aims that either the Yakuza couldn’t accomplish or shouldn’t try because of the reputation they needed to uphold. Indeed in the ‘90s he read the graphic novel that came out about the original Hogosha, it depicted him as a tragic figure and included criticisms of the FBI. He is somewhat happier to know that some things do change, even if they couldn’t get everything right as he say them.

Occupation: Although he has worked under many different names before, indeed faking his death several times, ‘Kenji’ has always been in charge of the Yakuza clan Yamashita. Only having been successful in America having immigrated early in the Thirties. Although what exactly that entails has varied greatly over time, extortion to kidnapping is generally a normal range of operations, although ‘Kenji’ has always kept with the Yamaguchi-Gumi line of no drug dealing.

Other: