Member
LeeRoy
Izurich
PERSONAL INFORMATIONCharacter you have created
Jamar Chambers
ALIAS: Runner V
SPEECH COLOR: Plum
CHARACTER ALIGNMENT: WTL
IDENTITY: Secret to all who are not part of the network of runners.
CHARACTER PERSONALITY
Jamar is an optimist and an idealist. He believes in the good of all people but holds no reservations about the inconsistencies of that goodness. Unafraid to speak his mind and defiant of authority, Jamar finds himself at odds with villains and law-abiding heroes alike. Loyal to his causes and the immediate people around him, he prioritizes them above everyone and everything else.
When he was younger he was quite temperamental: prone to fighting, quick to anger, believing he was always right and distancing himself from those who disagreed. With age--though not much--and experiences few in similar positions possess, Jamar has what his callousness gets him. He’s seen how it hurts people and how what he once believed was brave: being the first to act, treating all tact and necessary caution with abandon, not listening to those wiser than himself, he now knows all these things make him not only a terrible hero but a terrible man.
He has not lost all his fire, but it has been tempered by the world and he is beginning to understand how to use his temper and his powers as tools instead of allowing them to devour him.
UNIFORM A collection of hoodies, makeshift masks--usually homemade half coverings that leave only the eyes exposed--bandanas, jeans, and whatever the newest shoes are. He mixes and matches according to the task at hand. Or--what is more likely--how well he feels his outfit coordinates.
ORIGIN
Santana and Shanice Chambers fled Apartheid in the early 80s and made their way to the United States in the mid 90s after staying with their grandparents in Cuba for much of the preceding decade. Relocating to St. Louis’ eastside not long after giving birth to Jamar and his sister Camille, the two became activists in the local community.
It is through their ground work they learn of their other history: they are both the children of former Runners: A worldwide syndicate of African, African-American, Native, and Indigenous couriers who, since some time in the 16th century, delivered food, weapons, money, and provided general protection to and for disenfranchised and disinvested marginal communities.
Their children, like so many others in their city and the nation at large, spend their childhoods in various parts of the world: Kaliningrad, Osaka, Benin, Beirut, Jaipur, Lampang. They are taught the intricacies of what their superiors term “the network”: when Jamar and Camille are of age--no later than their 21st birthday--they are inducted as official members and given a callsign, then stationed in a specific part of the U.S. Camille found herself in Chicago and Jamar, given recent events within the city, is tasked with building a new branch of runners in Lost Haven, Maine.
SEASON 1 & 2 SUMMARY None.
HERO TYPE Acrobat
POWER LEVEL Street/Cosmic
POWERS
AN OVERVIEW It is speculated all Runners are powered in some form. The specific origins of Jamal’s powers are unknown, but he tells the story in the mode of dream: while kids in Benin, Jamar and Camille were playing in the forests and wandered too deep. Bark turned black, etchings of a great spider embedded the face of every tree. The sky above pitched from day to dark, a brood swarm and a creature 80 feet tall with eyes white as clouds towered above them. He said his name was Anansi. He wanted to tell them a story about mischievous children and evil adults. A deep sleep came over them and when they woke, they were paralyzed, bitten, and the Great Spider said only this before he vanished: Ai ghi mi’eve kevb’obalọ. No one evil will prevail.
- PLANEWALKING: Jamar can transverse any surface--no matter its state--as though it is solid. Air, water, magic surfaces, low density surfaces, etc. This does not mean he is immune to the effects of said surface; lava would still eat his flesh, a primarily electric surface would still shock him, so on and so forth.
- DIMENSIONAL TRAVEL: Jamar can transition between interplanar spaces and return himself to this dimension. He usually only uses this ability only when he has to deliver something to interdimensional beings. He needs a physical tether for this ability and if something happened to this tether he would be trapped in whatever plane he was in forever unless he could establish another.
- FLOW: Anansi’s blessings give him supernatural dexterity. He can bend, twist, leap, flip, roll, dodge, slide, and contort his body in ways most humans and many superhumans cannot. This ability to chain his body’s mechanisms together so effortlessly makes him incredibly hard to hit, but does not give him supernatural speed.
- MARTIAL ARTS: He is a skilled combatant, though no master of any styles. Kickboxing, Muay Thai, Aikido, and freestyle wrestling comprise his martial ability and he is most practiced in kickboxing and aikido.
ATTRIBUTESHEIGHT: 6’3
WEIGHT: 210
STRENGTH He has above average strength for a human thanks to his profession but it does not allow him to perform abnormal feats of might. Most of his physical vigor is used to keep himself hanging onto or leaping across discordant surfaces without injuring himself.
MOBILITY Superhuman. His body’s muscular chain sequence is never rigid and he progresses through and connects movements well above the world’s greatest gymnasts or athletes.
INTELLIGENCE -1 INT modifier. He is far better at improvisation than he is at formal thinking skills like mathematics or physics.
FIGHTING SKILL Practiced. He has knowledge of many schools but is a steady practitioner of four and has profound skill in just two.
RESOURCES The Wreck: A collection of safehouses across the world where Runners can meet, exchange packages, rest, or resupply.
Twin katanas: Standard Japanese cutting swords.
Twin mambele: Curved blades from Central and Southern Africa designed to catch, pull, and parry opposing shields, swords, and chained weapons. Excellent at not only cutting but also controlling and disabling limbs with the curve of the sword.
WEAKNESSES Despite his gifts, he is still human. He can be injured or killed in any way a regular human can. He still has to eat, sleep, breathe, etc. The dangerous nature of his job means he is always in peril and a few broken bones in the right places could mean the end of his career.
SUPPORTING CHARACTERS
Len “Uncle” Woo: An elderly Chinese man and one of the first American Runners; beloved in the local north Asian community in New York and Baltimore. He and several other elders form the unofficial leadership structure of the Runners’ American network. Stubborn, prone to much drunken storytelling, still believes he is 21 in body and mind.
Camille Chambers: Jamar’s older sister and closest confidant. Calm, confident, and always sure of herself, she and Jamar are opposites in this respect. She has garnered a reputation for herself as a Runner on Chicago’s west side and amassed a level of folklore around herself as her Parklawn neighborhood’s protector. It is a fame she accepts proudly and mentions whenever she can. With the recent passing of the Chambers’ parents, the two have grown much closer.
Quentin “Major” Simms: A middle aged Black American man who is Jamar’s op partner and field mentor. He was the first Runner to train Jamar and Camille in the conduct, tenets, and laws of the network and the first person to teach the siblings how to free run, proper stealth technique, and an untold number of other things. The closest thing to a father figure the two have had in the wake of their biological father’s death.
Mama St. Clair: A Hatian woman and successor to the fabled Voodoo Queen of New Orleans, Marie Leveau, she is the oldest Runner alive though few know her age. It is speculated she is just under three hundred years old. Secretive but no shadow, she presides over the supernatural affairs of the Runner network from her base of operations in New Orleans’ French Quarter and her connections span all 50 states. A supremely powerful mystic, she is feared by many, respected by all who know her, and revered with godlike reverence among Black communities nationwide.
Do you know how to post pictures on RPG boards?: yea
SAMPLE POST
Steps silent, still pulsing violent against rooftop concrete. White and red shozoku leapt and rolled like water. Only feet ahead was a breathless kid, heart and head gongs against their cages, a butter baritone leaking from his left side,
“I told you this wasn’t what you thought it was, youngin!” the Major’s confidence buoyed his own settled fear,
”I damn sure didn’t think it was this!” one hand pressed down and his body horizontal when Jamar vaulted over a railing,
“Nobody does! Jump on three!”
”I know we not making it to three!”
“You’re right!” one gathering step, two, and both men pushed off the edge and soared across a crevice whose abyss below was concrete and likely worse than an actual void. Voids didn’t break bones, at least.
”They still ain’t stopping!” Jamar decried the obvious; Major craned his head around at their pursuers who moved as one. Like lilies and lilacs.
“Well, tired of running?” Major spoke through haunched breaths
”As hell!” he grabbed hold of Jamal’s shoulders,
“Time to make that thing you do, do what it does!” Major’s superior strength forced them both off the next ledge and then down--down so far in a fall so long Jamar wasn’t sure they would hit the ground. They bounced and rolled on pockets of solidified air; Major broke the landing without any recognizable injury. He pushed Jamal off and stood,
“Get up, rookie. We just got started!”
”Fuck you mean ‘just got started’? We been running for hours.”
“Uh huh.”
”Uh huh? UH HUH? Where is this thing supposed to go again?”
“Alaska.” he deadpanned,
”ALASKA? Nah, nah. Call Uncle Woo right now!”
“Relax, youngin, just to Chicago.”
”We in Baltimore!”
“Better get that ass to running then, huh?” Major smiled and snatched the package from Jamar’s hands. He took off into the night,
”Aye, hold up! You just gone leave me?”
“We’re going to the same place, so leaving is subjective. I like to think of it as you losing to an old man. Double time, young fella!” and Major bounded across a set of monkey bars in a park before his silhouette was awash in distant street lights.
Jamar followed suit, pulling the black bandana and black hood over his face and head respectively. Welcome to the show, Mr. Chambers. Your death certificate is on the left.
organization cs coming soon
Approved
She kind of looks young in this picture, but I assure you that she is 24 (born in 1991). Funny how the story arc that gave Sammy her "powers" was inspired by Criminal Minds, too. :D
