Character you have created: The Aquilifer
Alias: Dennis Connolly
Speech Color (Actually say what you're using, don't go "Like this", or what not): Yellow, Georgia
Character Alignment: Hero
Identity: Secret. Not yet public knowledge
Character Personality (Give information on how your character acts, what he/she believes in, how they handle situations): 24 years of age. Lazy, born-loser. Has a massive inferiority complex to his dead brother and sizeable self-confidence issues. Cares too much about what other people think, compared with doing the right thing. Unemployed, drinks, has partaken in what his mother calls “the pot” and is just completely ill-equipped to inherit the legacy of a super hero...
But other than that he’s a nice enough, personable type. Just not someone you’d trust to loan money too, let alone significant power or responsibility.
Uniform/costume:
Dresses fairly casually usually, although will tend to wear a leather flight suit jacket lined with down to protect from wind-shear with only an emblem of wings over the breast-pocket as evidence of his “eagle-bearer” legacy. An old flight helmet with a decal of eagles wings and jeans when he intends to go into action.
Origin Info/Details:
In the 1920s and 30s the United States had their own golden era of heroic figures. People who would prevent bank robberies, retrieve cats from trees (if asked politely, as all would do in the salad days of yore), put out fires, save people who fell whilst cleaning high rise windows (hey! It happened more than you may think) and otherwise making the world a better place. Whilst never looking to get involved in global politics. (Because, gosh darn it, hard working types had earned those positions and had more experience and were doing the work they were best suited for in those roles).
Then came the ‘30s. And Nazis. The Attack on Pearl Harbor awoke a sleeping giant. And suddenly the U.S. was unable to stay out of the war.
And the earliest heroes suddenly realised where their efforts would best be suited.
Amongst these heroes, was one man. The Aquilifer. Who named himself after the ancient Roman standard bearers who carried the symbol of the eagle. Armed with the Golden Rod, a powerful technological device years beyond anything mankind could surely have devised – possessing a power that surely could have come from God himself, the Aquilifer quickly forged a name for himself as a symbol for justice, righteousness and freedom from tyranny.
Eventually, the good guys won the day. Soldiers, both powered and otherwise came home and returned from making America and the free world safe from rat-zi jackboots, and set to work once more in their role of making the country the best place possible to live. The Aquilifer returned to his home town of Lost Haven and looked to use the Golden Rod to do just that and more. While the Aquilifer set to work in that regard, a gentleman by the name of Alan Coghlan looked to achieve the same goal himself... by providing a new technological renaissance, CoghlanGears grew into a large company coming up with many patents and tremendous innovations that were years ahead of their time.
In the late ‘40s during a battle with one of the Liberty Legion’s great foes, Tempus Flare the Time Pirate several members of the Liberty Legion, including the Aquilifer, disappeared. It was a dark day for the nation and the lost members were honoured in the Hall of Heroes at the Museum of Supers in Lost Haven, which had quite a large representation of members of the group, and in numerous other memorials in cities ranging from New York to Washington D.C.
Strangely it was around this time that the founder of CoghlanGears, Alan Coghlan, also disappeared. Apparently seeking a life of solitude and meditation.
It was with great jubilation that the world saw these missing heroes return in the sixties. It appeared that instead of dying or being lost for eternity in the terrible time tunnel of the Time Pirate, they had merely all “been misplaced” and jumped forward over 20 years until they had successfully taken down the dastardly Tempus Flare.
Many of the heroes struggled to adjust to the changes they had seen in the American culture after their lost twenty years, and many settled down presumably to families or perhaps a well earned retirement. The Aquilifer continued to strive for justice, albeit in an increasingly limited capacity for the following ten years.
Around the same time the elusive Alan Coghlan had been discovered. Due to his unreliable absence over the years his company had moved in other directions from the conscientious board of directors who had assumed control in his stead. A nice suburban house in the Little Ulster quadrant, with a white picket fence and a second chance with the wife he had unthinkably left behind all these years were suitable enough payment for his years work in constructing the company he had abandoned. It was around this time that his wife Margaret fell pregnant to Alan and gave birth to a daughter; Helen.
The ‘70s saw the retirement of the Aquilifer, who had undoubtedly deserved a peaceful retirement after decades of service.
The mid-to-late 1980s saw Helen (now Connolly) Coghlan have her own two children, both sons, named Sean and Dennis Connolly (nee Coghlan).
The early nineties saw a tumultuous period in the U.S. and the world as a whole. Desert Storm, the L.A. riots, Waco and the bombing of the World Trade Center saw a re-emergence of the Aquilifer of sorts. Despite clearly being a different man than the last Aquilifer, this man was a little harder nosed than the last. A different hero for a different age, his methods were at times swifter and more shocking than the previous Aquilifer. However in an age when several heroes were taking more drastic measures in response to darker threats, the Aquilifer was a steadying force and generally not in favour of needless wanton acts of violence.
The Golden Rod saw many changes itself over the years in the hands of this new Aquilifer, and also developed new tricks and uses for the Rod as well as different ways of utilizing its new features.
Meanwhile, Helen Connolly raised her boys through high school in Lost Haven, before moving across the country to Seattle to join her husband who had until this point been putting off starting his own business. Sean was doing well, was Valedictorian and also starting quarterback for his final two years. Sean received several offers from fairly big football schools but chose to stay in Lost Haven, the home he’d always known, because he couldn’t see the NFL being in his future. Dennis... was also still around. Dennis decided to go the junior college route before attending the Rockefeller Community College before eventually getting his degree in English literature. The two boys would remain in Lost Haven watched over by family in the absence of their mother and father.
The modern Aquilifer had a strong determined streak and would push himself to his very limits. But the years started to get to him by the late ‘00s, his fateful inevitable demise came in 2012, where Tempus Flare got his revenge. Traversing through time and appearing out of thin air, attaching a device to the wielder of the Golden Rod whilst the Aquilifer aged to dust on national television.
A private will-reading saw the Golden Rod bequeathed to science, however through what must have been a terrible accident on behalf of the man who was the Aquilifer, he bestowed it on the former owner of CoghlanGears, Alan Coghlan rather than the company itself.
A new, considerably younger Aquilifer appeared almost immediately after the funeral. Presumably after the elderly and disorderly Coghlan misplaced the Rod.
The new Aquilifer was a breath of fresh air, bringing back a sense of joy and whimsy to the role whilst also possessing strength, stature and intelligence. It was his inexperience however that was his downfall after the beloved hero was lured into a trap and slaughtered by Miz Demeanour and the Fel-honeys after Demeanour misrepresented herself as a rape victim. The Aquilifer eventually recognised his attackers but by then it was too late, they had him trapped, outnumbered and were armed and prepared for the specific defences of the Golden Rod.
Sean Connolly was found deceased on the scene and it appears that he had discovered the Golden Rod after his grandfather had misplaced it and had the foolhardy thought that perhaps he could use it himself.
The funeral temporarily brought the entire family together, but the parents have since left back for their Seattle home. The sole surviving son Dennis still resides in Lost Haven with his grandfather.
Few fear Dennis might have similar benevolent thoughts of flying out and changing the world should he ever stumble upon the Rod...
Hero Type (Select one):
Regular human wielder of the Golden Rod. A tech-based “energy weapon” of so-far unknown origin, which is far more than just a weapon.
Power Level (Select one below):
City level/World level
Powers (Be Specific):
The Golden Rod is a tech based energy weapon which has a myriad of uses:
Energy absorption
Anti-gravity fields that allow flight or for objects to be moved/lifted
Defensive force fields
Energy blasts to a range of roughly 75 metres
Heat emission
Light emission
Solid constructs of energy
Attributes (Select one at each category):
Strength Level: Normal Human, but the Golden Rod allows him to lift 10 tons.
Speed/Reaction Timing Level: Normal Human reaction time, able to fly at 400 mph (straight line at a high altitude with no fear of hitting birds) but with a cruising speed of 75 MPH (remember, while the Golden Rod allows him to fly at subsonic speeds, he's still a guy holding onto it with regular human reaction times, so he seldom gets the opportunity to "open up" and push it to it's limits).
Endurance at MAXIMUM Effort: Normal Human, but the Golden Rod never requires any form of recharging. The upper lengths of it’s endurance falls upon that of the wielder. At this stage Dennis is in somewhat less than peak condition.
Agility: Normal Human
Intelligence: Average
Fighting Skill: At this stage untrained
Resources: His own resources are minimal, but he has a supporting benefactor in his grandfather, whose own resources (assets) are average, but his resourceFULNESS is large.
Weaknesses: Psychological – Dennis has large self-confidence and inferiority issues to his late brother,
Has numerous self-destructive bad habits.
Still just a regular guy, who has access to a remarkable tool.
Supporting Characters (Does your character have a significant other? A mother? Friend? Who are they, what do they have to do with your character?):
Alan Coghlan, grandfather – Alan was the original Aquilifer, from a different time. Having lost 20 years of his life had a traumatic effect on the old Golden Age hero, and the heavy adjustment to just how much the world had changed in those years have taken their toll. Now more than ever Alan believes the role is necessary... and he’ll mould Dennis into someone suitable even if it kills the both of them.
I’ll list more as the character develops.
Do you know how to post pictures on RPG boards?: Yup.
Sample Post (Minimum Four paragraphs containing dialogue. As this is an Advanced Level game, Sample must also meet the RPG forum's minimum requirement of 12 lines):
“Mmmm-eah?” he grunts into the phone.
“Oh thank God you’re OK! It’s all over the news!”
“Geez, ma. Calm down, what’s all over the news?”
“Wait, where are you? Are you home? You can’t be home if you don’t know what I’m talking about... Where’s Grampa Alan?”
“Ma, calm down. It’s too early for this. Now slow down. I am home, what’s all over the news?”
“Go check on Grampa Alan...”
“Alright, I’ll check on Grampa Alan. I’m going now, I’ll call you right back.”
“No! Don’t hang u--! Clik”
Dennis threw on some pants and a tee, to make the small trek from the accessory apartment he lived in to the main house which was his grandfather’s. Strange that his mother would call on his cell. It’s an expensive call from Seattle, she’d normally call the house number. But for all he knew, maybe she had and he slept through it. He was a pretty heavy sleeper after a night on the town, so it’s not unheard of that he could have slept through... oh...
I don't mean this to come across as being mean or anything. Just wondering. *waves white flag of peace*