Member
Mixtape Ghost N<Snipped quote by Oddsbod>
I don't imagine "closing" the game any time soon.
Coolio. This is a rough version of the sheet, finished it at like 5am so it definitely needs a lot of polishing, but I think this captures the general vibe I was going for. I'll try and do a drawing thing too sometime, whenever I get the chance.
Does the concept work? Is there anything that just egregiously needs improvement? Are the powers balanced?
Name:
Peace Borowski
Age:
22
Alias:
Mania
Description:
Peace Borowski is a small figure. And it’s not that he’s especially short, or especially thin—though, compared to the average adult, yes, you could call him both those things. But more than height or build, there’s something you can’t quite name that floats around Peace’s body, something soft and pliable, like you could scoop him up and hold him in the palm of your hand. His voice is like feather dusters. His short mess of hair is dark brown like melted chocolate. He has a teenager’s young and undamaged jaw, and an adult’s tired and not-so-trusting gaze.
But on the street, Peace Borowski doesn’t have to be Peace Borowski. On the street, Peace can don the mantle of Mania. Mania is not so small and soft, and he’s certainly not tired. Mania laughs loudly, Mania cracks jokes, and Mania walks wherever he pleases. Mania doesn’t take things so seriously.
As Mania, Peace wears the clothes of someone who might've just stumbled out of a punk-rock concert. Ripped sleeves and leather jackets and flowers in the lapel, and a big, tie-dye bandanna around his neck, very much '80s. The Mania costume also covers his head with a tall, cartoonish helmet, a thing that calls to mind butterflies and hippies, and it’s a little silly looking, to be honest, but that’s the way Mania prefers it.
If you catch Mania by surprise, or if you look closely during the gaps between his sentences, it’s not hard to catch bits and pieces of the soft and small Peace Borowski behind the costume.
Background:
Peace did not have the luck to grow up in a happy household, or to experience anything more than a few dollars above the poverty line. It was a very ordinary kind of story, maybe not the kind with lots of beatings and alcohol, but the kind with cold shoulders and blame, the kind where Peace would glimpse whispered conversations in the kitchen at night, when he was supposed to be in bed, conversations where his parents looked so serious and hurt and his name would come up multiple times. It wasn't the kind of thing that mixed well with Peace in particular, who from an early age would prove to be a little lazy, a little passive, and a little less smart than everyone else. Maybe a stronger person could’ve worn those years better than him, but Peace was never all that strong, and the sheer effort it took to finally reach adulthood seemed to injure something deep inside Peace well past the point of repair.
To his credit, he did manage the draining process of applying to and entering college. He spent three years at the local state school, a solid university, but maybe it was too solid, too much of a real school for real students, because by the time year three came around Peace was struggling just to stay above water. Struggling to keep up, struggling to sleep on time, struggling to not spend every day cooped up in his dorm room, staring at the wall and worrying, always worrying. Before the spring semester was over, with senior year just within reach, Peace dropped out. He returned to his home in Gotham City during an uncharacteristically cold April, and began a check-to-check lifestyle working at the local grocery store, the kind of life that he knew could never be sustained, not for long.
Then, as it had happened to hundreds of others all over the world, it happened to Peace. One of those random accidents that left him a bit different from all the rest, a bit stronger, a bit more special. In this case, it was a dream. It started normal, as many dreams do, but soon it turned into something strange, a dream where Peace walked the empty halls of a weird and twisting palace full of fat red jewels and ghosts, and outside he saw an alien sky, a sky that was every single color all at the same time.
His dream that night took him, by chance, to an old and powerful place, and when he woke up something followed him from out of the dream-palace and into the waking world. Over the next year, Peace slowly discovered he could walk without being noticed, he could shrug off injuries, he could stay awake and active for hours and hours without sleep—he had powers, real, honest-to-god superpowers. Maybe nothing flashy, nothing that said Green Lantern or Superman or Hawkgirl material, but for someone who had grown up powerless in more ways than one, it was like being handed the keys to Heaven itself.
Peace tried the role of a superhero. He really did. But as the mantle of Mania slowly settled in, Peace began to stray further and further from the law, until he finally realized a vigilante's life would never be the life for him. Helping people was nice an all, but it couldn’t compare to the freedom of tossing aside law and order to do whatever he pleased. The ability to take up a silly costume and run around robbing banks, taking whatever he wanted from life—it was like turning reality into a fairy tale. As the supervillain Mania, Peace could set aside the pain of a world with unhappy newspaper headlines and overdue rent, that unfriendly place of failed romance and estranged family and long long nights unable to fall asleep. Mania was a creature of capes and spandex and crusaders. Mania was escape, and freedom. Mania was the refusal to take life seriously the way it so often demanded to be, the ability to turn all of Peace’s suffering and loneliness into a great big joke.
Mania does, however, know how to toe the line. His name aside, Mania is perfectly sane and generally a very gentle person, and to be perfectly honest is unsettled by the Batman’s absence. Though never on the same side as the Caped Crusader, his presence in the city did make Mania feel a little safer, and the supervillain would largely prefer Batman’s return as soon as possible.
Abilities:
Peace Borowski
Age:
22
Alias:
Mania
Description:
Peace Borowski is a small figure. And it’s not that he’s especially short, or especially thin—though, compared to the average adult, yes, you could call him both those things. But more than height or build, there’s something you can’t quite name that floats around Peace’s body, something soft and pliable, like you could scoop him up and hold him in the palm of your hand. His voice is like feather dusters. His short mess of hair is dark brown like melted chocolate. He has a teenager’s young and undamaged jaw, and an adult’s tired and not-so-trusting gaze.
But on the street, Peace Borowski doesn’t have to be Peace Borowski. On the street, Peace can don the mantle of Mania. Mania is not so small and soft, and he’s certainly not tired. Mania laughs loudly, Mania cracks jokes, and Mania walks wherever he pleases. Mania doesn’t take things so seriously.
As Mania, Peace wears the clothes of someone who might've just stumbled out of a punk-rock concert. Ripped sleeves and leather jackets and flowers in the lapel, and a big, tie-dye bandanna around his neck, very much '80s. The Mania costume also covers his head with a tall, cartoonish helmet, a thing that calls to mind butterflies and hippies, and it’s a little silly looking, to be honest, but that’s the way Mania prefers it.
If you catch Mania by surprise, or if you look closely during the gaps between his sentences, it’s not hard to catch bits and pieces of the soft and small Peace Borowski behind the costume.
Background:
Peace did not have the luck to grow up in a happy household, or to experience anything more than a few dollars above the poverty line. It was a very ordinary kind of story, maybe not the kind with lots of beatings and alcohol, but the kind with cold shoulders and blame, the kind where Peace would glimpse whispered conversations in the kitchen at night, when he was supposed to be in bed, conversations where his parents looked so serious and hurt and his name would come up multiple times. It wasn't the kind of thing that mixed well with Peace in particular, who from an early age would prove to be a little lazy, a little passive, and a little less smart than everyone else. Maybe a stronger person could’ve worn those years better than him, but Peace was never all that strong, and the sheer effort it took to finally reach adulthood seemed to injure something deep inside Peace well past the point of repair.
To his credit, he did manage the draining process of applying to and entering college. He spent three years at the local state school, a solid university, but maybe it was too solid, too much of a real school for real students, because by the time year three came around Peace was struggling just to stay above water. Struggling to keep up, struggling to sleep on time, struggling to not spend every day cooped up in his dorm room, staring at the wall and worrying, always worrying. Before the spring semester was over, with senior year just within reach, Peace dropped out. He returned to his home in Gotham City during an uncharacteristically cold April, and began a check-to-check lifestyle working at the local grocery store, the kind of life that he knew could never be sustained, not for long.
Then, as it had happened to hundreds of others all over the world, it happened to Peace. One of those random accidents that left him a bit different from all the rest, a bit stronger, a bit more special. In this case, it was a dream. It started normal, as many dreams do, but soon it turned into something strange, a dream where Peace walked the empty halls of a weird and twisting palace full of fat red jewels and ghosts, and outside he saw an alien sky, a sky that was every single color all at the same time.
His dream that night took him, by chance, to an old and powerful place, and when he woke up something followed him from out of the dream-palace and into the waking world. Over the next year, Peace slowly discovered he could walk without being noticed, he could shrug off injuries, he could stay awake and active for hours and hours without sleep—he had powers, real, honest-to-god superpowers. Maybe nothing flashy, nothing that said Green Lantern or Superman or Hawkgirl material, but for someone who had grown up powerless in more ways than one, it was like being handed the keys to Heaven itself.
Peace tried the role of a superhero. He really did. But as the mantle of Mania slowly settled in, Peace began to stray further and further from the law, until he finally realized a vigilante's life would never be the life for him. Helping people was nice an all, but it couldn’t compare to the freedom of tossing aside law and order to do whatever he pleased. The ability to take up a silly costume and run around robbing banks, taking whatever he wanted from life—it was like turning reality into a fairy tale. As the supervillain Mania, Peace could set aside the pain of a world with unhappy newspaper headlines and overdue rent, that unfriendly place of failed romance and estranged family and long long nights unable to fall asleep. Mania was a creature of capes and spandex and crusaders. Mania was escape, and freedom. Mania was the refusal to take life seriously the way it so often demanded to be, the ability to turn all of Peace’s suffering and loneliness into a great big joke.
Mania does, however, know how to toe the line. His name aside, Mania is perfectly sane and generally a very gentle person, and to be perfectly honest is unsettled by the Batman’s absence. Though never on the same side as the Caped Crusader, his presence in the city did make Mania feel a little safer, and the supervillain would largely prefer Batman’s return as soon as possible.
Abilities:
Pure Mania:
The power of Mania is the power of a dream-like body that can ignore outside interference and injury. If shot at, Mania can count on the bullets passing straight through, as though he were a ghost. If punched, he'll be pushed back, but bruises won’t form and bones won’t break until maybe the twelfth hit. If he wishes to avoid being noticed, Mania can fade into the background until unnoticeable, and can last much longer than he should with full stamina and very little sleep. Cages, locked doors, and restraints of any kind can be mysteriously loosened and pushed away at his mere touch. However, with enough bullets and enough punches, some will eventually start to land, and the direct damage of something like a sword or a laser isn’t something Mania can brush off. Mania can also only disappear from notice if he isn’t already the center of attention, and even if he vanishes successfully, can still be detected by cameras and other electronic sensors.
Tools of the Trade:
For the variety of fights even a D-list supervillain should expect to engage in, Mania wields a pair of powerful joy-buzzers in either hand, capable of paralyzing an opponent with surging electricity, as well as brightly colored smoke bombs to cover a quick escape. And, if things get bad, he carries with him a simple handgun. Mania is an average shot, but he feels it's better for someone in his line of work to keep a firearm on hand. It's almost never loaded, however. Though guns aren't very useful against him, the idea of firing one himself is privately a very scary thing.
Mania would love to incorporate hallucinogenic drugs into his toolkit, but has had trouble tracking down affordable substances. It remains a high item on his wish list, and hopefully sometime in the near future he'll figure something out.
The power of Mania is the power of a dream-like body that can ignore outside interference and injury. If shot at, Mania can count on the bullets passing straight through, as though he were a ghost. If punched, he'll be pushed back, but bruises won’t form and bones won’t break until maybe the twelfth hit. If he wishes to avoid being noticed, Mania can fade into the background until unnoticeable, and can last much longer than he should with full stamina and very little sleep. Cages, locked doors, and restraints of any kind can be mysteriously loosened and pushed away at his mere touch. However, with enough bullets and enough punches, some will eventually start to land, and the direct damage of something like a sword or a laser isn’t something Mania can brush off. Mania can also only disappear from notice if he isn’t already the center of attention, and even if he vanishes successfully, can still be detected by cameras and other electronic sensors.
Tools of the Trade:
For the variety of fights even a D-list supervillain should expect to engage in, Mania wields a pair of powerful joy-buzzers in either hand, capable of paralyzing an opponent with surging electricity, as well as brightly colored smoke bombs to cover a quick escape. And, if things get bad, he carries with him a simple handgun. Mania is an average shot, but he feels it's better for someone in his line of work to keep a firearm on hand. It's almost never loaded, however. Though guns aren't very useful against him, the idea of firing one himself is privately a very scary thing.
Mania would love to incorporate hallucinogenic drugs into his toolkit, but has had trouble tracking down affordable substances. It remains a high item on his wish list, and hopefully sometime in the near future he'll figure something out.
