Name: Jacob "Jack" Lockwood
Age: 25
Sex: Male
Race: Human
Appearance:
Jack is tall, thin and just a bit too pale. Scruffy, with a perpetual stubble and a mess of dark brown hair that desperately requires time with a stylist, as well as unsightly bags underneath his brown eyes, Jack's features are hardened and twisted by his harsh, immoral life, making him rather offputting. Jack dresses in simple, practical clothes: a tight-fitting pair of pants, a single belt around his waist, a shirt, a jacket and boots, all of it in dark colors (black, dark greys and blues) and entirely forgettable, if expensive and well made. Should the need arise, he can also produce a matching beanie and bandana to hide his features with.
Personality:
Jack is an impulsive, immoral, overconfident and yet rather cowardly kleptomaniac and with a taste for breaking the law in general and violence in particular. Finding someone more heroic than him shouldn't be a problem. Having said this, he's not a complete psychopath and can actually work quite well with people from less savory environments or who otherwise tolerate his flaws. His distaste for people with messiah complexes ensures that he remains a team player, as long as any team would have him anyway, and his code of "always finish the job" means he'll see a task through to the end one way or another.
Background:
Surely you must have noticed all those oft-shirtless teenagers with crazy hair, decked out in more belts than a belt shop and wielding hilariously impractical swords going about the world, all of them seeking to destroy the one resposible for the tragic death of their parents while attacking more or less any creature that gets in their way. They're not all related, but they might as well be. You see when a young male child is orphaned in such a way as to create "heroic potential", they're shipped off to the Institute for Future Heroes, usually just called Infher or the IFH, where they're taught the proper looks and skillset a legendary hero must have in order to accomplish his goals.
Jacob Lockwood wound up in there because of a paperwork error. Whereas most every other child in Infher lost their righteous and loving parents to some villanous deed which often wiped out a small village, Jacob was born in a fairly large population center and was abandoned by his parents, whoever they were, because they just couldn't be bothered to take care of him. He never really managed to fit in and was kept only because the faculty could not be bothered to deal with the paperwork required to send him elsewhere. While everyone else was encouraged towards flashiness and fighting head on with massive, eye-catching swords while soaking damage, Jacob's talents elsewhere. Speed, agility and going around unnoticed were his strengths, and he soon became known as The Black Sheep of Infher.
It was a pretty tough life. Jacob's strengths were seen as the province of decidedly unheroic sneak thieves and assassins, and he was treated quite harshly for it, often denied food until he completed grueling excercises ill-suited for him. Harass and look down on someone enough, however, and they're bound to act up no matter how well armed and destined for glory you are. That's how Jacob, who started calling himself Jack purely to correct others when they called him by his name, sharpened his skills from a young age, learning to exploit the weaknesses of the faculty and fellow students in order to procure food for himself as well as avoid the wrath of those who took exception to it. His affinity with knives came from realizing they were the only things approaching weapons within the IFH that he could wield properly.
Time went by, Jack more or less made life in the Institute as hellish for everyone else as it was for him and he hit 20 years of age in the meantime, while many of his "colleagues" who he'd known for the majority of their life "graduated" and went out to the world to seek glory and justice in their mid-teens. Well, Jack wanted out too. There was a whole world to see out there and, though he wouldn't admit it to himself, some of the faculty's attitude rubbed off on him and he was rather proud of his abilities. Him killing a faculty member in self defense was also a good reason to leave, before the rest decided that he was a villain to be exterminated on sight. And so, he simply did it, one day he slipped by security and left.
The following five years were truly a rush. So many new sights, so many opportunities to excercise his skills and with greater rewards to boot. Too bad a lot of people from Infher took exception to his escape and were dead set in teaching him a harsh lesson with their weapons. But that was something Jack could live with. For the moment, he was free.
Gear:
-Throwing knives (ranged+5, multiple targets+10): A set of small leaf blade knives, made out of a single piece of metal and especially designed and weighted to be thrown effectively. Jack keeps these hidden all throughout his clothes.
-Kukri (extra knockback+10, Intimidating+5): A large knife with an inwardly curved edge, its heavy blade is well suited to delivering powerful chopping blows and has an intimidating air to it. (adds a +1 bonus to intimidation rolls as long as Jack wields the kukri)
-Trench knife (armor piercing x3 +15): A knife with a long, slender blade akin to that of a stiletto, designed specifically to deal deep stab wounds, and an integrated knuckle duster guard which Jack doesn't really use but which makes the whole thing look gnarly as hell.
-Knife: A long knife, though not as large as the kukri, single edged and with a small crossguard. Very sturdy and practical as both a multipurpose tool and a fighting knife.
-Butterfly knife (Inconspicuous+15): A folding knife with rotating handles that can completely conceal the blade. 3-inch long handle, slightly smaller blade, it's disguised as a religious talisman in order to be as low-profile as possible. (I dunno, some effect that makes it so people don't notice it's actually a weapon and let him keep it wherever he goes. +whatever to concealment rolls?)
Misc:
Aside from his multiple knives, Jack carries a set of thieving tools hidden in his clothes. Just for appropiateness, I suppose.
Abilities:
Acrobatics 2
Agile 2
Art of invisibility 3
Defense 2
Filthy rich 1
Hobby (knives) 4, costs 2
Hobby (thievery) 2, costs 1
Human Arsenal (knives) 3
Perceptive 2
Power move 2
Quick 3
Sixth Sense 2
Vitality 2
Weapon (knives) 3
Weaknesses:
Code of conduct 1 (Always finish the job, whether it was started out of his own volition or by some form of contract)
Compulsion (Stealing) 1
Coward 1
Impulsive 1
Overconfident 1
Wanted 2 (Infher graduates and faculty alike don't take kindly to one of their number sullying their good name. At all.)
Health: 40
Endurance: 60
Power moves:
-Knifestorm, cost 10 (Extra accuracy, ranged, rapid strikes, activation, empty hands, requirement: have throwing knives): A little trick Jack learned while trying to modify Infher techniques to better suit his fighting style. With both hands completely free, he draws two handfuls of throwings knives and throws them up into the air. When he picks a target (or a target makes the choice for him), he can have all the knives fly towards the person at once from multiple angles.
-Hexblade, cost 20 (Continued damage x2, extra damage x2, cancel: undead, requirement: knives): By focusing on all of his horrible experiences and harmful thoughts and putting all those feelings into a blade, Jack can apply a curse to any of his knives. Good for a single strike, it makes the blade rend through enemies with greater ease and infects whoever's hit with a vile curse that poisons their bodies. Unfortunately for Jack, this ability is completely powerless against the undead.
-Weaponized sparkle, cost 10 (Area of effect, blinding x2, extra accuracy, cancel: blind creatures, decreased damage x5, no knockback): You know that thing some heroes and other people like them do? You know, that thing where they produce some sparkling or glinting that's supposed to enhance their heroic appeal? Well, Jack found a more practical use for that, namely, producing a bright flash of light to blind nearby people.