After their mother’s death, Harper and Cullen Row were forced to live with their father, Marcus. He was a drunk, with him often leaving them home alone for days at a time. He had a tendency to beat his kids, with Harper constantly defending her young brother, forcing Marcus to hit her instead of him. Due to his constant drunk nature, Marcus often ended up breaking things around the house, such as the TV, microwave, or the lights. Because of this, Harper soon developed a knack for fixing things due to her constantly attempting to keep the family electronics functional.
In secret, Cullen told Harper that he was homosexual. The two agreed that due to their father’s homophobic nature that it was best to never tell him. This unfortunately didn’t go well, with Marcus discovering Cullen’s stash of pornographic images of men underneath the kid’s bed while searching for money to spend on booze.
He severely beat Cullen when he returned home from school, despite Harper’s multiple attempts to stop him. The next day, Harper filed for emancipation.
After receiving emancipation, Harper took Cullen and began to rent out a small apartment in the Narrows. She got a part time job at a local garage while she wasn’t at school in order to pay the rent. While the job was hard work, it helped to get them by, as well as helping her to hone her electrical engineering talents.
Returning home from work one evening, Harper found Cullen on the floor of their apartment, having been assaulted. His hair had been cut ragged, with the word "FAG" shaved into the back of his head. Instantly Harper attempted to console her brother, taking a pair of clippers and giving herself a matching haircut.
This caused a stir the next day at school, with the two later getting attacked on their way home from school. Luckily the two were rescued by none other than the Dark Knight himself. The man made an impression on the two Row children, who both came to idolise the man. Cullen showed his affection by getting a tattoo of the bat symbol. As for Harper, she decided to find out who he was.
Her research began at once, with Harper investigation anything that seemed remotely connected to the hero. One such lead she came upon was the Gotham security cameras. While looking online, Harper discovered that the Gotham City CCTV system had failed to retrieve a single picture of him, with the cameras apparently deactivating whenever he was in the area. Knowing that the Batman would not be able to access the cameras via remote, Harper grew interested in how he achieved this. After investigation the Gotham Security Grid, she came upon what appeared to be the Dark Knight’s improvements. Using the same technology, Harper found that she could use the CCTV system in order to track the Batman, with Harper getting his general location every time one of the camera’s the superhero approached deactivated. Realizing that the hero’s enemies could probably do the same, she set out to find Batman and warn him. The confrontation did not go well, with Batman commanding her to stop, outright rejecting Harper’s request to assist him. This didn’t stop Harper though, who was now extremely smug due to the fact that after the meeting she found that the CCTV system had been sorted.
Deciding that she didn’t need the Dark Knight’s permission to be a hero, Harper pulled together a costume using a variety of technology of her own design, as well as implementing some modified Wayne Enterprise equipment she had gotten her hands on. Bluebird was born and the Narrows had another hero looking over it.
Harper had watched the League battle against Doomsday on television with Cullen. While she hadn’t always looked up to the big man in blue, his death still saddened her, as well as helping her realize that the superhero business wasn’t one to be taken likely. Despite realizing that, his death also made Harper think that she could be doing more than just apprehending petty thugs.
| Attributes |
Electrical Engineering - While having no actual powers, Harper is very skilled at electrical engineering, something which has evolved into her creating a range of crime fighting gadgetry, including:
Electrical Disruptor Rifle - This can fire shots of electrical pulses that can have a variety of effects; such as stunning people, as well as potentially disabling weaponry and other pieces of electrical powered technology. This can only be fired a few times before running out of charge.
Gapling Gun - While not as complex as that of the likes of Batman, this homemade grapling gun does the job well.
Line Launcher - Similar to the Grapling Gun, this piece of kit is a small box which fires two grapling hooks in opposite directions, creating some sort of grapling rope tightrope which Harper can use to travel like a zip wire or simple hand from.
Explosive Pellets - Essentially small explosives which can be thrown and used like grenades, despite packing a significantly smaller punch.
Flashbang Pellets - Similar to the explosive pellets, these emit bright light and loud sound to completely blind and deafen enemies. The effect wears off in a few minutes.
Martial Arts – Harper certainly isn’t an expert combatant due to her never having any real training. She has learnt how to fight though from her time living in the Narrows. However, she has spent a large amount of time studying old martial arts videos online and practising these techniques on old mannequins in their apartment. Due to this Harper can out-fight just about your average group of thugs or criminals with her fighting skills alone, although Harper is much more capable of these feats when wielding her gadgetry.
Espionage – While maybe not as great as the Dark Knight himself, Harper is fairly adept at keeping herself to the shadows and remaining hidden.
| Character Notes |
Cullen Row – Harper’s young brother. The two have an extremely strong bond, with him being the only person who Harper has told about her late night activities. Due to his homosexuality, Cullen is often the victim of bullying at school, resulting in Harper regularly getting herself into fights with Cullen’s bullying classmates. Batman - The Dark Knight himself, Harper has only met the grizzled vigilante a small number of times although none were very civil. Despite her goal of wanting to work alongside him, Harper has decided that it's probably best to keep out of his way.
Marcus Row – Harper and Cullen’s criminal father. The man regularly finds himself in and out of Blackgate. Not the greatest father, nor is he the greatest criminal either. Professor Pyg - After hearing word of a mysterious man wearing a pig mask kidnapping young children around the Narrows,Harper decides that he's probably someone worth investigating.
| Character Goals |
Harper Row is one of my absolute favourite things to come out of the New52 and I really want to display that love by showing how much potential she really has. I also want to see her create her own rogue gallery, with her facing a number of Batman's lesser known adversaries. More importantly, I would like to see her interact with Batman, as well as the rest of the Bat-family, as obviously the Dark Knight isn't a fan of vigilantes in his city.
If I understand this correctly, we're allowed to play as heroes, villains and anything in between? The line "You may choose any character appearing in DC Comics." does seem to make it clear, but I'd figure I'd ask anyway considering I've never been part of one of these RP's and all the applications so far, unless I've missed something, have been for heroes.
Given that I'm asking, I guess it's evident that I'm thinking about writing an app for something other than a straight up hero.
Yeah I'm pretty sure that villains are allowed etc! Guess that everyone just wanted to be a hero :P If I ever make a secondary character after I get Harper up it'll probs do a villain too. Maybe Killer Moth, but have him not tied down to Gotham!
Apologies about taking so long with getting up my America post @Facepunch. I have a busy day tomorrow but i'll try and get up a post if i can. If not, it'll have to wait until sunday!
I guess having an abundance of speedsters makes a change from having half of the RP being the Batfam like it usually is from my experience in DC Universe RPs
Has anyone said that they're going for Batman yet? I know ideas were thrown about in the iCheck but i don't know if anyone had settled on him? Only asking as I'm now debating over Red Robin or Bluebird, both of which i was planning to be Gotham based but not working directly under Batman as his sidekick.
That's fine, I'm not actually familiar with his power set. Though if it works it works :P
He's basically completely invulnerable, but his powers activated when he was a somewhat large and out of shape teenager so he's "frozen" at that physical state making his body incapable of losing or gaining weight or muscle mass (taken from the wikia :P)
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