Merksykhaan

Capes of Samekh - A Post-Worm RP

Lantern Jack

___
_|__|_
)(A...A)(

While all this was going down, Lantern Jack was sitting on a bench, sipping coffee from a Thermos flask and reading a newspaper. Lots of boring local news, generally alarmist nonsense complaining about the various ways different Parahuman groups made everything worse. If the newspaper wouldn't have been rather left-leaning, it would've probably also complained about the influx of interdimensional immigrants.

Lantern Jack paused his reading after finishing the local part, quickly letting his eyes dart all over the street. A teenager was running away from him, but other than that, none of the random citizens seemed to care.

Jack skipped the international news, going straight for interdimensional ones. Gimels currency was rising in value. The newspaper credited their myriad of Thinkers, drawing attention to 'The monstrous mass murderer Harbinger', 'The dangerous Warlord Tattletale' and 'The Serial Kidnapper known as the Bogeyman'. Jack was rather certain that Harbinger had died decades ago.
A Bet-based Monster cape was taking credit for snuffing out some gang who had gone by 'the Roadcrashes' and gotten flak due to impacting supply lines and endangering traveling refugees. The paper painted this as vigilante justice.
A few pieces about corner worlds, most of them being stuff he had picked up on months before by looking over his sister's shoulder. Dalet was reporting troubles with broken troubles. Shin was being Shin. Zayin was still lost.

"Interessant," he muttered. More to the benefit of a potentially unseen audience than anything.

He folded the paper and took another sip of coffee.

Still one and a half hours until that job...

Jack tucked the paper beneath his arm, turned into an orb and groggily drifted away. An impressive speed of 5 meters per second. He was headed towards the Memorial, where his client would be waiting.

Capes of Samekh - A Post-Worm RP

Lantern Jack

Earlier today...

It was a quiet morning on the outskirts of Serstol. Birds were singing, flowers were blooming, kids were playing. The scent of baked goods exuded from a local bakery. Everything around these corners was peaceful, downright idyllic. The various overseers and capes were busy elsewhere - for the most part.

"Excuse me, Sir?"

One cape was around. He was currently busy brandishing his cane like a scepter, making a show of slowly turning towards the person who had addressed him. His name was Lantern Jack, a (currently) smalltime mercenary. His costume was basic, but clearly a costume - Suit and tie under a trenchcoat and Domino mask, with a top hat to round out his appearance.

"Hello, my child. Are you lost?"

The child shook his head.

"Please go die." The kid turned around and ran away on short wobbly legs, leaving Lantern Jack behind.

Lantern Jack watched the child and saw it duck behind an adult. An overweight woman of the same hair color, quite likely his mother. She was clutching her handbag and eyeing him the same way someone might eye the aged turd of a dog.

"Freak! Stay away from my child!"

Lantern Jack swapped into his Breaker state, causing the pair to recoil. The kid tried to hide, while the mother hurled her bag at Jack. A handbag, made from snakeskin. It flew right through, impacting the ground behind him. Jack shifted back a few seconds after. Meanwhile, the woman caught herself, getting busy cursing him out.

"Butthole," he muttered in German whilst moving towards the impromptu projectile. He grabbed the handbag and looked at the woman. After a few seconds of consideration (and insults of him being a thief and a villain), he hurled it further away. "You look like you could use some exercise! Both in body and mind," he shouted. The woman was still hauling insults at him.

___
_|__|_
)(A...A)(

Now...

"And then she sent her kid to get the bag," Manfred finished his recollection."Fucking Paraphobes."

Liz had nodded along to her brother's rant, only paying slight attention to it. She had more important things to do, being on the clock, working her office job as a middling importance interdimensional diplomat. She was currently busy contacting some corner world under the thumb of a random wannabe mastermind Supervillain to negotiate about opening up the other dimension for Samekh-based tourism. Apparently, some obscure mammal going by the name 'Palaeoloxodon namadicus' wasn't extinct on that world, which led to a ludicrous amount of scientists trying to enter it illegally. If everything went well on Liz' end, they would soon use official channels alongside their less reckless colleagues.

"That sucks. Hey, I got another client for you."

Manfred rolled his eyes, annoyed at being ignored. "Neat. Who's it, what's it, where's it?"

"Another one of my colleagues. Needs a bodyguard. The usual building."

"How's the money?"

Liz took a deep breath. "Ridiculous. Twice as much as the last job."

"That's not a lot. I made ten times this much as Irrlicht on a bad day," Manfred complained. He planted himself on a chair next to his sister. The chairs scraping noise briefly startled her, making her shoot him a short indignant glare.

"You should take more risky jobs, in other dimensions. Cathy called-"

Bringing Cathy up had been a mistake. "Fuck Cathy," Manfred cursed, interrupting his sister, "that backstabbing bitch-"

"Yes, I know," Liz interrupted him, "but she..."

"I don't care. When is this job?"

A deep breath left Liz's mouth. "Very short term. You have two hours."

"Alright. I'll be home once it's done." Manfred didn't bother standing up, shifting into his Breaker state. The dim ball of black light clipped into the chair. Liz groaned in frustration. How many times had she asked her idiot brother to stop being so blasé about his cape identity?

"Ask for a 'Jeremy King'. Don't come into my room after you're done, get takeout on your way back if you don't want to starve," she ground out. She knew Manfred, he wouldn't respond while being a ball. She wasn't sure if he could even talk right now.

The ball floated up and down, as if to convey a nod. When Liz didn't say anything else, Lantern Jack turned around and flew right through the floor, onwards to the governor building. Once he was out of earshot, Liz slammed her head into the keyboard.

Capes of Samekh - A Post-Worm RP

Coil

"I'll have a chance to talk to each of the new squad members today, even in a one-to-one setting if you prefer."

Was that everything?

Coil wasn't quite sure what the takeaway was, or why this meeting had been so immensely important. All of the officers would've been around for long enough to piece the presented information together on their own, right? This couldn't all have been for the benefit of a few newcomers, right?

Coil turned towards the people around her. Gruff members of First Guard and softer and younger looking non-powered members of Junior Guard. A few of them had increasingly weird scars. The most extreme example within her periphery being a woman that had a mass of translucent crystals in the shape of a hand lodged right into her face, leaving flesh and part of her inner mouth exposed. Flesh had partially started to grow over the crystal, similar to a tree that grew through an iron fence. An old wound, whoever may have caused it was probably either in prison, reformed or dead.

Coil began to regret her choice to stand in the back instead of moving to the front with the other capes.

"So! What's your opinion about the director?" She asked.
Might as well try to lessen the tension, Coil thought.

"He sounds okay thus far," one of the women replied. She sounded young. She must have been in her early twenties at the latest.

"He sounds like he's playing politics," the crystal-woman responded.

"He should," one of the First Guard with scars replied. This one a man, with a prominent jagged scar on his forehead. He didn't elaborate, opting to sneak a few glances at some of his coworkers.

Their conversation ended after that, while the quiet chatter of the other attendees started to fill the air. People who knew each other, people who had seen and celebrated success and victory in the past. People who weren't strangers or teenage girls completely out of their depth. It had all the same broad strokes and features Coil knew from her time as a Ward, but the atmosphere felt off. As if there was some kind of tension affecting the various Guards.

Coil needed to stop playing the loner and integrate herself. "I'm gonna go grab some grubs. Anybody want some?" A few people came along with her, Coil guided them towards the various pastries. She picked a cinnamon roll for herself and walked away from the food without pausing, weaving into yet another mostly empty corner.

After a bit of consideration, she decided to move towards the other Capes and one of the men who had spoken, still chewing her pastry. Somebody would surely tell her what she was meant to do here sooner or later.

Capes of Samekh - A Post-Worm RP

Coil

"Let it grow, let it grow, let it grow!" ~ ♪

Hider

_{[ ♦ ] Bio}

---

♦ Name: Valerie 'Val' Timothy Armstrong
♦ Age: 16
♦ Loyalty: Junior Guard
♦ Appearance: Valerie is a ginger with green eyes. She has her hair at about shoulder length, frequently wearing a bow in her civilian identity. She is rather athletic, with muscles primarily geared towards running.

Her costume hides most of her features. Her main costume is a black short skirt length robe over brown pants (replacing the green pants she wore during her days as a Ward). Wears a witch's hat: Green brim, plushy black cone. Both her hat and robe carry her Wards-era symbol on the brim, and her chest and back respectively. Her logo is one of her vines coiled around a small tree, reminiscent of the rod of Asclepius. She has two main costumes (read: robes and hats) and one stage costume, two of which contain spider silk, while the stage version has richer colors and fewer signs of wear. All three of her robes are a bit small for her, which is most notable when looking at her arms.

She also wears a bonsai while caping, see items.

Picture currently not available.

♦ History:

[+]

Daughter of Justin Timothy Armstrong and Louise Appleton Armstrong. Valerie had a pleasant early childhood, initially living in Bristol. She was introduced to her best friend for the following years at her third birthday, a mixed-breed puppy going by Maxwell. When Valerie was 9, her family moved to Springfield, Illinois. She still sometimes peppers her language with Britishisms.

Valerie had trouble making new friends following her move. After a few years, she picked up sports. One of her peers invited her to a team of Baseball-players. This team initially provided Valerie with the support and social structure she desired, so she leaned further into the sport than she would've during more normal circumstances. Being a quick learner, she eventually surpassed her team. As a result of her quick growth and cocky behavior, resentment on the team grew against her, culminating in pushback and occasional sabotage from teammates. After the negatives started to occur so often that she could no longer chalk them up to anything but malicious behavior, Valerie decided to try leaving her toxic environment for a different team. On the day before an important tryout, Valerie found herself locked out of the training grounds. The straw that broke the camels back was in place, she triggered at age 13 due to the stress caused by systematic sabotage, angry at the once nurturing environment and how it held her back.
One of Valerie's teammates was injured during the aftermath of her trigger event, law enforcement in the form of the Parahuman response team got involved. Due to her high cooperativeness, the PRT assisted Valerie with legal matters. 'Coil' was her codename during this time, she decided to keep it.
Valerie was tentatively banned from the baseball try-out on account of her new-found powers.

Following her trigger, Coil became the designated Ward of her town, making up the local PRT branch with about 90 non-powered personnel (excluding janitorial staff) and an Alexandria Package Master going by the name Pern (with Maxwell sometimes acting as an honorary part-time volunteer). Coil picked her name without knowledge of the deceased Brockton Bay based villain, which led to a few enthusiastic lessons of Supervillain trivia from Pern. Valerie became somewhat of a cape geek thanks to Perns influence, soon putting immense amounts of research into local (and semi-local) capes. She became somewhat of a fangirl for a few.

Coil participated in three Endbringer battles. Two of them against the twins, one (briefly) against Khonsu on his second outing, mostly using her powers to knock Blasters and fellow Shakers out of dangerous areas. She chickened out during the first battle, didn't follow Khonsu after he teleported away for the second and got injured in the third. After her battle, Coil decided never to attend any Endbringer fight again.

During the end of the world, Coil was almost entirely useless, going almost catatonic and hunkering beneath a heavy oaken table during the worst of Scion's rampage. By the time she built up enough courage to act, the fact that nothing could be done was evident. The Armstrongs decided to go on an impromptu road trip. This adventure was cut short when Khepri enrolled Valerie. Coil only really helped by feeding biomass into random Capes with power synergy. She was among the Parahumans who required medical attention during the battle, but luckily one of the healing capes had her handled.

After the end of Gold morning, Coil took the shortest route back home and met up with her family. Once they were done raiding her old Wards base for costumes and bidding Pern farewell, the Armstrongs decided to migrate to a new world. Initially shooting for Gimel, they ended up on Samekh instead. The Armstrongs bought a property around the outskirts of the silver city. Valerie initially took the by now very old Maxwell on daily walks (sometimes using her powers to settle disputes around the local area), but the daily walks slowly turned into weekly walks. Most of her local area is protective of her, meaning that while being technically unmasked, Coil's civilian ID is mostly a well-kept secret (with new people being introduced to the secret on a biweekly basis).

Recently, Coil found out that according to the first guard, she had acted as an independent vigilante for the past few years. While trying to finish the mountains of paperwork necessary for becoming an official independent hero, she learned about the Junior Guard and decided to sign up, citing her status as long-acting Wards captain of the PRT in a state capital.
(Her technical truth was caught, leading to many people learning that Chicago was in fact not the capital of Illinois.)
She is one of the newest Junior Guards and unsure about how to interact with fellow Parahumans. Coil is not used to having to work with capes that have poor power synergy with her.

As of now, Valerie and her family members are not citizens. They fulfill most of the requirements for application.

(Director Armstrong of the Boston PRT is her third cousin twice removed, but the two have only ever seen each other on family trees.)

_{[ ♦ ] Personality}

---

♦ Motivation: In the short term, Valerie mostly wants to make friends with her fellow heroes and protect the civilian population from villains and evildoers.
In the long term, Valerie is a passive idealist. She wants improvement in Samekh's government but doesn't actively support politicians or social movements. She wants fairer treatment for Samekh's non-citizens but doesn't know enough about the system to be aware of the legal situation at all. All of this amounts to a person without any true long term goals besides a nebulous "make the world a better place".

♦ Derangement: Valerie was more sheltered than most Parahumans, which results in her being almost unreasonably optimistic by the standards of most, but also comparatively impressionable. However, while she is squeamish, she got used to excessive violence and/or gore during her four occasions of meeting the Endbringers.
Her power subtly pushes her to improve herself utilizing Endorphin as positive encouragement, making her act giddier when she uses her power.

_{[ ♦ ]Parahumanism}

---

♦ Skills: Valerie is physically fit, good at sports and has high endurance. Due to her Ward-era training, she's good in hand-to-hand combat and parkour. Furthermore, she's really good at writing sappy romantic poetry but is too embarrassed to share her work.

♦ Classification: Shaker
♦ Mechanics: Coil's power allows her to spawn one vine (2-10 meters long, 10-centimeter diameter) from every plant in her range, which amounts to about a city block of range. The vines are wood-like in texture, think aerial root, not animated porn Tentacruel. Each plant gets one vine, the length of which is entirely based on Coil's current requirements. She has to raise each vine separately but can control all of them at once, provided they are within her range. Coil can move these vines and use them to grab, ensnare, pummel and/or throw people. The vines are incapable of locomotion. Each vine is about as strong as an adult man.

Coil's power doesn't provide her with multitasking, so if she actively controls too many plants at once, they'll mirror each other. Coil does not gain any secondary Thinker powers beyond a sense of where plants are, where her vines are, how her vines are bent and how much resistance a given vine meets while moving. Coil's consciousness about collateral damage effectively limits her control area to 'field of vision, unless it is further away than 60 meters'. Her power only acknowledges plants above ground (though vines can bury themselves after spawning).
Coil's vines stick around for exactly 28 hours after their spawning, after this time they crumble into sawdust. Coil can actively control vines she created earlier, but this does not renew them. A plant that formerly spawned a vine can spawn one again after the old vine turned into dust. The vines will remain in the same state and position they were controlled into when Coil last held the wheel.
The type of plant changes nothing, each plant gets one vine. Offshoots are treated as separate plants. Mushrooms and most algae are not considered plants. The vine disregards gravity, the surrounding environment ignores the weight of the vines. Vines grow with a consistent speed, 2-meter vines are finished 5 times faster than 10-meter vines. Vines can grow out further later on, but can't be shrunken down. 2 meters are both the minimum length and the length of most vines.

As for the power from Entity POV...

Coil's passenger is actually mostly geared for Striker type powers. The passenger works in processing, collecting and sorting resources from shards geared towards resource gathering so shards further up the chain can turn parts of them into something with more 'nutritional value'. A suitable name for it would be something along the lines of 'Selector' or 'Grader'.
For Coil's power, it scans the DNA of local lifeforms. If a lifeform within range is sufficiently plant-y, the shard will grab a strand of DNA, chop off the bits that are different from other plants or identical to non-plants and then adds its own information. The resulting 'sapling' is strategically force-fed with compounds to the point where any normal plant would burst. The passenger moves the plants around by redistributing parts of the internal structure, which means that every single position the vines take is rigid, despite their seemingly fluid motion.

The passenger uses interdimensional shenaniganzery to hold the vines upright. Not 'hold', hold. The passenger has a large number of grabby bits and isn't afraid to use them.
You are welcome.

♦ Equipment:

ITEM: Bonsai backpack: A glorified plant pot with straps. Contains a tiny maple tree, trimmed to remain very, very small. Serves as emergency ammo.

ITEM: Lighter: A lighter styled after a Master cape and his draconic minions. Acts as a lucky charm, Coil doesn't smoke.

Capes of Samekh - A Post-Worm RP

My second (and for now last) character, here we go.

Coil

"Let it grow, let it grow, let it grow!"~♪

Hider

_{[ ♦ ] Bio}

---

♦ Name: Valerie 'Val' Timothy Armstrong
♦ Age: 16
♦ Loyalty: Junior Guard
♦ Appearance: Valerie is a ginger with green eyes. She has her hair at about shoulder length, frequently wearing a bow in her civilian identity. She is rather athletic, with muscles primarily geared towards running.

Her costume hides most of her features. Her main costume is a black short skirt length robe over brown pants (replacing the green pants she wore during her days as a Ward). Wears a witch's hat: Green brim, plushy black cone. Both her hat and robe carry her Wards-era symbol on the brim, and her chest and back respectively. Her logo is one of her vines coiled around a small tree, reminiscent of the rod of Asclepius. She has two main costumes (read: robes and hats) and one stage costume, two of which contain spider silk, while the stage version has richer colors and fewer signs of wear. All three of her robes are a bit small for her, which is most notable when looking at her arms.

She also wears a bonsai while caping, see items.

Picture currently not available.

♦ History:

[+]

Daughter of Justin Timothy Armstrong and Louise Appleton Armstrong. Valerie had a pleasant early childhood, initially living in Bristol. She was introduced to her best friend for the following years at her third birthday, a mixed-breed puppy going by Maxwell. When Valerie was 9, her family moved to Springfield, Illinois. She still sometimes peppers her language with Britishisms.

Valerie had trouble making new friends following her move. After a few years, she picked up sports. One of her peers invited her to a team of Baseball-players. This team initially provided Valerie with the support and social structure she desired, so she leaned further into the sport than she would've during more normal circumstances. Being a quick learner, she eventually surpassed her team. As a result of her quick growth and cocky behavior, resentment on the team grew against her, culminating in pushback and occasional sabotage from teammates. After the negatives started to occur so often that she could no longer chalk them up to anything but malicious behavior, Valerie decided to try leaving her toxic environment for a different team. On the day before an important tryout, Valerie found herself locked out of the training grounds. The straw that broke the camels back was in place, she triggered at age 13 due to the stress caused by systematic sabotage, angry at the once nurturing environment and how it held her back.
One of Valerie's teammates was injured during the aftermath of her trigger event, law enforcement in the form of the Parahuman response team got involved. Due to her high cooperativeness, the PRT assisted Valerie with legal matters. 'Coil' was her codename during this time, she decided to keep it.
Valerie was tentatively banned from the baseball try-out on account of her new-found powers.

Following her trigger, Coil became the designated Ward of her town, making up the local PRT branch with about 90 non-powered personnel (excluding janitorial staff) and an Alexandria Package Master going by the name Pern (with Maxwell sometimes acting as an honorary part-time volunteer). Coil picked her name without knowledge of the deceased Brockton Bay based villain, which led to a few enthusiastic lessons of Supervillain trivia from Pern. Valerie became somewhat of a cape geek thanks to Perns influence, soon putting immense amounts of research into local (and semi-local) capes. She became somewhat of a fangirl for a few.

Coil participated in three Endbringer battles. Two of them against the twins, one (briefly) against Khonsu on his second outing, mostly using her powers to knock Blasters and fellow Shakers out of dangerous areas. She chickened out during the first battle, didn't follow Khonsu after he teleported away for the second and got injured in the third. After her battle, Coil decided never to attend any Endbringer fight again.

During the end of the world, Coil was almost entirely useless, going almost catatonic and hunkering beneath a heavy oaken table during the worst of Scion's rampage. By the time she built up enough courage to act, the fact that nothing could be done was evident. The Armstrongs decided to go on an impromptu road trip. This adventure was cut short when Khepri enrolled Valerie. Coil only really helped by feeding biomass into random Capes with power synergy. She was among the Parahumans who required medical attention during the battle, but luckily one of the healing capes had her handled.

After the end of Gold morning, Coil took the shortest route back home and met up with her family. Once they were done raiding her old Wards base for costumes and bidding Pern farewell, the Armstrongs decided to migrate to a new world. Initially shooting for Gimel, they ended up on Samekh instead. The Armstrongs bought a property around the outskirts of the silver city. Valerie initially took the by now very old Maxwell on daily walks (sometimes using her powers to settle disputes around the local area), but the daily walks slowly turned into weekly walks. Most of her local area is protective of her, meaning that while being technically unmasked, Coil's civilian ID is mostly a well-kept secret (with new people being introduced to the secret on a biweekly basis).

Recently, Coil found out that according to the first guard, she had acted as an independent vigilante for the past few years. While trying to finish the mountains of paperwork necessary for becoming an official independent hero, she learned about the Junior Guard and decided to sign up, citing her status as long-acting Wards captain of the PRT in a state capital.
(Her technical truth was caught, leading to many people learning that Chicago was in fact not the capital of Illinois.)
She is one of the newest Junior Guards and unsure about how to interact with fellow Parahumans. Coil is not used to having to work with capes that have poor power synergy with her.

As of now, Valerie and her family members are not citizens. They fulfill most of the requirements for application.

(Director Armstrong of the Boston PRT is her third cousin twice removed, but the two have only ever seen each other on family trees.)

_{[ ♦ ] Personality}

---

♦ Motivation: In the short term, Valerie mostly wants to make friends with her fellow heroes and protect the civilian population from villains and evildoers.
In the long term, Valerie is a passive idealist. She wants improvement in Samekh's government but doesn't actively support politicians or social movements. She wants fairer treatment for Samekh's non-citizens but doesn't know enough about the system to be aware of the legal situation at all. All of this amounts to a person without any true long term goals besides a nebulous "make the world a better place".

♦ Derangement: Valerie was more sheltered than most Parahumans, which results in her being almost unreasonably optimistic by the standards of most, but also comparatively impressionable. However, while she is squeamish, she got used to excessive violence and/or gore during her four occasions of meeting the Endbringers.
Her power subtly pushes her to improve herself utilizing Endorphin as positive encouragement, making her act giddier when she uses her power.

_{[ ♦ ]Parahumanism}

---

♦ Skills: Valerie is physically fit, good at sports and has high endurance. Due to her Ward-era training, she's good in hand-to-hand combat and parkour. Furthermore, she's really good at writing sappy romantic poetry but is too embarrassed to share her work.

♦ Classification: Shaker (pending GM-approval)
♦ Mechanics: Coil's power allows her to spawn one vine (2-10 meters long, 10-centimeter diameter) from every plant in her range, which amounts to about a city block of range. The vines are wood-like in texture, think aerial root, not animated porn Tentacruel. Each plant gets one vine, the length of which is entirely based on Coil's current requirements. She has to raise each vine separately but can control all of them at once, provided they are within her range. Coil can move these vines and use them to grab, ensnare, pummel and/or throw people. The vines are incapable of locomotion. Each vine is about as strong as an adult man.

Coil's power doesn't provide her with multitasking, so if she actively controls too many plants at once, they'll mirror each other. Coil does not gain any secondary Thinker powers beyond a sense of where plants are, where her vines are, how her vines are bent and how much resistance a given vine meets while moving. Coil's consciousness about collateral damage effectively limits her control area to 'field of vision, unless it is further away than 60 meters'. Her power only acknowledges plants above ground (though vines can bury themselves after spawning).
Coil's vines stick around for exactly 28 hours after their spawning, after this time they crumble into sawdust. Coil can actively control vines she created earlier, but this does not renew them. A plant that formerly spawned a vine can spawn one again after the old vine turned into dust. The vines will remain in the same state and position they were controlled into when Coil last held the wheel.
The type of plant changes nothing, each plant gets one vine. Offshoots are treated as separate plants. Mushrooms and most algae are not considered plants. The vine disregards gravity, the surrounding environment ignores the weight of the vines. Vines grow with a consistent speed, 2-meter vines are finished 5 times faster than 10-meter vines. Vines can grow out further later on, but can't be shrunken down. 2 meters are both the minimum length and the length of most vines.

As for the power from Entity POV...

Coil's passenger is actually mostly geared for Striker type powers. The passenger works in processing, collecting and sorting resources from shards geared towards resource gathering so shards further up the chain can turn parts of them into something with more 'nutritional value'. A suitable name for it would be something along the lines of 'Selector' or 'Grader'.
For Coil's power, it scans the DNA of local lifeforms. If a lifeform within range is sufficiently plant-y, the shard will grab a strand of DNA, chop off the bits that are different from other plants or identical to non-plants and then adds its own information. The resulting 'sapling' is strategically force-fed with compounds to the point where any normal plant would burst. The passenger moves the plants around by redistributing parts of the internal structure, which means that every single position the vines take is rigid, despite their seemingly fluid motion.

The passenger uses interdimensional shenaniganzery to hold the vines upright. Not 'hold', hold. The passenger has a large number of grabby bits and isn't afraid to use them.
You are welcome.

♦ Equipment:

ITEM: Bonsai backpack: A glorified plant pot with straps. Contains a tiny maple tree, trimmed to remain very, very small. Serves as emergency ammo.

ITEM: Lighter: A lighter styled after a Master cape and his draconic minions. Acts as a lucky charm, Coil doesn't smoke.

Capes of Samekh - A Post-Worm RP

Lantern Jack

"Everyone has a price, and some people are pretty damn cheap."

Hider

_{[ ♦ ] Bio}

---

♦ Name: Manfred Stromer
♦ Age: 23
♦ Loyalty: Currently independent (Mercenary).
♦ Appearance: Painfully average looking Caucasian Male in his early twenties. Not unattractive, but not interesting either. Dark brown hair, goatee with a moustache. Brown eyes. Below average height, a bit lanky. Not very muscular, but stronger than his build suggests. Will probably still lose most arm wrestling matches. Likes to dress way above his current paygrade.
Wears a black suit with a tophat, with a trenchcoat draped over one of his arms. This is his casual wear, if he intends to go costuming, he swaps the tophat for a slightly different tophat, dons the trenchcoat and a domino mask.
I wasn't capable of finding any stock image person who looked "Average dude with a mustache" enough, so here, have a picture of him while using his powers.

[+]

♦ History:

[+]

Son of Gerald Stromer and Annemarie Weilbach Stromer, sibling of three. Lantern Jack alias Manfred grew up in a conservative, but extraordinarily wealthy household in Saxony. Being the only boy among four children, Manfred suffered from the pressure of having to live up to his strict father's high expectations from a young age. When one of his sisters (middle sister, Ingrid Katalin 'Cathy' Stromer) triggered as a Tinker, Manfred's father doubled down in a desperate attempt to regain control over her.
This led Manfred to have an audience with Cauldron at age fourteen.
After gaining powers, Manfred took the opportunity to escape with his Parahuman sister. The two started a Mercenary Operation, with Manfred going by the cape name 'Irrlicht' while his sister went for 'Placoderm'. During this time, they mostly took legal jobs, such as acting as bodyguards for political figures.
Resentment between the siblings was still too high for the Operation to be of any success. Placoderm joined the Meisters, a local Protectorate-equivalent, while Manfred alias Irrlicht remained a mercenary, usually working in moderately shady jobs for high-end clients.
The 'Echidnagate' event of 2010 caused then Irrlicht trouble when a Monster cape going by the alias Engel publically accused him of being one of the vial capes. This led to Irrlicht getting scapegoated and vilified in the German cape scene, leading to his actions being regarded with more scrutiny and his base of customers dwindling until only a vast minority of clients from the legal side of the law remained. Irrlicht blamed Placoderm for this.
On January first of 2012, Manfred decided to never use his powers again. Irrlicht officially died, while Manfred returned home, tail tucked between his legs, to start working for his father in a non-cape job.
On January 20th, Khonsu attacked. Manfred used his powers but decided to abstain before getting anything done.
On June 24th of 2013, Manfred briefly met Scion.

Following GM, Manfred decided to track down his unpowered sisters, who left his childhood home during his days as a mercenary. While his youngest sister works(/worked) as a lawyer in Earth Zayin, his eldest, one Annalisa 'Liz' Stromer, went to Samekh, where she acts as a politician of low prestige and middling importance. Manfred himself got citizenship mainly thanks to her, tho he still has to do some 'community service'.
About 4 years after the death of Irrlicht, Manfred decided to rebrand himself as Lantern Jack. The reference to the infamous American villain Jack Slash was unintentional, though he sometimes claims otherwise.

_{[ ♦ ] Personality}

---

♦ Motivation: Lantern Jack wants to start a new life, but in a way that doesn't involve too many uncertainties. Chasing the better parts of his Pre-Echidna life, preferably without the worse. Currently, he is in a sort of mid-life crisis (or rather a late-life crisis, given the lifespan of the average Parahuman) and seeking out new opportunities while also trying to stick to the stuff he knows.

♦ Derangement: Lantern Jacks familiarity with and reliance on his power used to translate into cocky, careless, confident behavior during his days as Irrlicht. He is currently trying to replicate that sort of behavior but has secretly grown jaded.
His (alleged) ties to Cauldron are also a source of insecurity, leading to him detesting other vial capes who didn't reveal themselves willingly, hypocritically regarding them as hypocrites. A large part of this is his bored power trying to push him into more conflict.

_{[ ♦ ]
Parahumanism}

---

♦ Skills: Good with money. Acceptable at PR. A surprisingly great actor. Has some detective skill and basic hand to hand combat training. Ridiculously good soccer player despite despising the sport. Middling artistic skill.

♦ Classification: Breaker (Stranger/Mover)
♦ Mechanics: Turns into an intangible ball of light.
This ball can't affect the local surroundings (this includes walls/ceilings) and is capable of slow flight with a maximum speed of about 20 km/h. He can change his color and intensity, allowing him to blind enemies or blend in with ambient light. The default state is a soothing ultraviolet light. Lantern Jack is also affected by their own light. The brighter he is, the less well he can see and vice versa. The ball is treated like a singular eye, meaning he also only has limited depth perception, though half a decade of using his powers made him more or less accurate at gauging distances. He can still hear just fine.
Lantern Jack can't un-Breaker while being inside of an object or organism (ambient microorganisms and gas excepting). His Breaker ball is smaller than a person.

Breaker powers work by safely storing the host body "elsewhere" while the Breaker body does things.

♦ Equipment:

ITEM: Lantern Jack always (even while out of costume) carries a cane around. This cane contains a retractable knife, a small Lasercutter, and a hidden compartment with a USB-stick. The cane is Tinkertech, the 'swiss army knife' features can only be used by Manfred or close relatives. Non-relatives can still use the cane in the same fashion as a normal cane.

ITEM: Lantern Jack usually also carries his wallet. It's currently almost empty, but he'll surely make sure to pretend otherwise. I'm sure.

Capes of Samekh - A Post-Worm RP

Alright, first post. Let's hope that I don't fuck anything up here.

Lantern Jack

"Everyone has a price, and some people are pretty damn cheap."

Hider

_{[ ♦ ] Bio}

---

♦ Name: Manfred Stromer
♦ Age: 23
♦ Loyalty: Currently independent.
♦ Appearance: Painfully average looking Caucasian Male in his early twenties. Not unattractive, but not interesting either. Dark brown hair, goatee with a moustache. Brown eyes. Below average height, a bit lanky. Not very muscular, but stronger than his build suggests. Will probably still lose most arm wrestling matches. Likes to dress way above his current paygrade.
Wears a black suit with a tophat, with a trenchcoat draped over one of his arms. This is his casual wear, if he intends to go costuming, he swaps the tophat for a slightly different tophat, dons the trenchcoat and a domino mask.
I wasn't capable of finding any stock image person who looked "Average dude with a mustache" enough, so here, have a picture of him while using his powers.

[+]

♦ History:

[+]

Son of Gerald Stromer and Annemarie Weilbach Stromer, sibling of three. Lantern Jack alias Manfred grew up in a conservative, but extraordinarily wealthy household in Saxony. Being the only boy among four children, Manfred suffered from the pressure of having to live up to his strict father's high expectations from a young age. When one of his sisters (middle sister, Ingrid Katalin 'Cathy' Stromer) triggered as a Tinker, Manfred's father doubled down in a desperate attempt to regain control over her.
This led Manfred to have an audience with Cauldron at age fourteen.
After gaining powers, Manfred took the opportunity to escape with his Parahuman sister. The two started a Mercenary Operation, with Manfred going by the cape name 'Irrlicht' while his sister went for 'Placoderm'. During this time, they mostly took legal jobs, such as acting as bodyguards for political figures.
Resentment between the siblings was still too high for the Operation to be of any success. Placoderm joined the Meisters, a local Protectorate-equivalent, while Manfred alias Irrlicht remained a mercenary, usually working in moderately shady jobs for high-end clients.
The 'Echidnagate' event of 2010 caused then Irrlicht trouble when a Monster cape going by the alias Engel publically accused him of being one of the vial capes. This led to Irrlicht getting scapegoated and vilified in the German cape scene, leading to his actions being regarded with more scrutiny and his base of customers dwindling until only a vast minority of clients from the legal side of the law remained. Irrlicht blamed Placoderm for this.
On January first of 2012, Manfred decided to never use his powers again. Irrlicht officially died, while Manfred returned home, tail tucked between his legs, to start working for his father in a non-cape job.
On January 20th, Khonsu attacked. Manfred used his powers but decided to abstain before getting anything done.
On June 24th of 2013, Manfred briefly met Scion.

Following GM, Manfred decided to track down his unpowered sisters, who left his childhood home during his days as a mercenary. While his youngest sister works(/worked) as a lawyer in Earth Zayin, his eldest, one Annalisa 'Liz' Stromer, went to Samekh, where she acts as a politician of low prestige and middling importance. Manfred himself got citizenship mainly thanks to her, tho he still has to do some 'community service'.
About 4 years after the death of Irrlicht, Manfred decided to rebrand himself as Lantern Jack. The reference to the infamous American villain Jack Slash was unintentional, though he sometimes claims otherwise.

_{[ ♦ ] Personality}

---

♦ Motivation: Lantern Jack wants to start a new life, but in a way that doesn't involve too many uncertainties. Chasing the better parts of his Pre-Echidna life, preferably without the worse. Currently, he is in a sort of mid-life crisis (or rather a late-life crisis, given the lifespan of the average Parahuman) and seeking out new opportunities while also trying to stick to the stuff he knows.

♦ Derangement: Lantern Jacks familiarity with and reliance on his power used to translate into cocky, careless, confident behavior during his days as Irrlicht. He is currently trying to replicate that sort of behavior but has secretly grown jaded.
His (alleged) ties to Cauldron are also a source of insecurity, leading to him detesting other vial capes who didn't reveal themselves willingly, hypocritically regarding them as hypocrites. A large part of this is his bored power trying to push him into more conflict.

_{[ ♦ ]
Parahumanism}

---

♦ Skills: Good with money. Acceptable at PR. A surprisingly great actor. Has some detective skill and basic hand to hand combat training. Ridiculously good soccer player despite despising the sport. Middling artistic skill.

♦ Classification: Breaker (Stranger/Mover)
♦ Mechanics: Turns into an intangible ball of light.
This ball can't affect the local surroundings (this includes walls/ceilings) and is capable of slow flight with a maximum speed of about 20 km/h. He can change his color and intensity, allowing him to blind enemies or blend in with ambient light. The default state is a soothing ultraviolet light. Lantern Jack is also affected by their own light. The brighter he is, the less well he can see and vice versa. The ball is treated like a singular eye, meaning he also only has limited depth perception, though half a decade of using his powers made him more or less accurate at gauging distances. He can still hear just fine.
Lantern Jack can't un-Breaker while being inside of an object or organism (ambient microorganisms and gas excepting). His Breaker ball is smaller than a person.

Breaker powers work by safely storing the host body "elsewhere" while the Breaker body does things.

♦ Equipment:

ITEM: Lantern Jack always (even while out of costume) carries a cane around. This cane contains a retractable knife, a small Lasercutter, and a hidden compartment with a USB-stick. The cane is Tinkertech, the 'swiss army knife' features can only be used by Manfred or close relatives. Non-relatives can still use the cane in the same fashion as a normal cane.

ITEM: Lantern Jack usually also carries his wallet. It's currently almost empty, but he'll surely make sure to pretend otherwise. I'm sure.