Save Science City - The Iron Heroes

What is an Iron Hero?

    Iron Heroes, or heroes from what I like to call the Iron Age of comics, are a different breed.  Forget Superman, Spider-Man, and to some extent even Batman.  Think rather of the older age of heroes - Flash Gordon, Dick Tracy, the Phantom, the Shadow.  What Watchmen would have been without the presence of Doctor Manhattan.  They are faster, fitter, and tougher than mere mortals - but they aren't bulletproof.  They live by their wits, their fists, and their skills.  Rather than flying into battle, immune to all but the strongest weapons, they sneak, taking out a gang in sets of two and three rather than twenty at a time.

    Because they are NOT bulletproof.

Samuel Stein, AKA the Raven

    For real-life reasons, this player had to step out of the game before it began.  It's a pity, because [name redacted] is driven, organized, and is excellent at uniting the disparate characters that appear at most gaming tables.  He will be missed, and is welcome back whenever real life sorts itself out.

    Samuel Stein is the ward of the Crow, a hero who was the unifying brain behind what would later become the Superhero Leagues.  While he does not have super-gizmos, he makes the most out of mundane technology.  Perhaps his most dangerous aspect is that he is Samuel Stein, perceptive and dangerous, both detective and brawler, able to both dress and behave like a normal person.  Anywhere that normal people go, Samuel Stein will have access.

    And at night, where normal people don't go, that is where you will find the Raven.

Genevar Laird, FBI

    In a world where psychic powers exist, but literally drive the user crazy, Genevar Laird has lucked out.  Although not a major empath or mind-reader, her personality defect is that she is CDO (it's like OCD, but she has to put the letters into the proper order).  

    Unlike most sensitives in the world, Genevar does not need to make eye contact, although she must be able to see her target.  Her range is also limited, forcing her within pistol range for - data gathering.  She doesn't regard this as a limitation; she may not be a combat monster, but she's able to rough and tumble with the best of them (so far).

John Smith, PI

    John Smith is a detective supreme; although he regards Sherlock Holmes as a myth, he tends to be highly perceptive, and is more than able to hold his own in back alley brawls and short range gunfights.  His true (hidden) strength is that he knows the shadows - and they know him.  He has the ability to see and hear through nearby shadows, an ability that he keeps hidden.  

    Although he has a number of strengths, he so far prefers to use those as trump cards, and instead support other characters.  Although not to the extent of Samuel Stein, he is acutely aware of how much a single individual can do with nothing more than will and courage.

Mave Green, Ace Reporter

    Mave likes being seen as powerless.  In a world where nobody has heard of pheremones, she is uncannily liked and admired, able to perform feats of persuasion akin to legend.  Able to hold her own in battle when supported by her more target-worthy peers, Mave's true abilities lie in the social and political arena, as all but the most dire of villains end up wrapped around her fingers - at least for an hour or so.

Reece, US Marshall

    Reece is a recent addition to the group, having not been there for the events in Detroit.  He plays dominance games with the FBI agents, but never to the point where it causes an actual schizm in the group.  

    Reece served his country in the Pacific theater, where he was captured by Japanese troops.  He doesn't remember his captivity, only that at the end of the war he was released, and that he was now strangely able to heal from wounds, and to see in the infrared spectrum.  He knows that something was done to him, but not what or why.  He hides his abilities, rightly worried that his own government would carve him open in an attempt to find out how to make more of him.

Richard Morgan, Immortal

    Every group has one - that player who reads the character generation rules AFTER making their character, and then justifies their character choices because the rules don't EXPLICITLY forbid them to make their character (even when the rules do).  Fool that I was, I trusted that person to make the mods to HeroForge so that computers would verify characters.

        So - Professor Morgan comes back from the dead, a history professor with a profound sense of history, in that he tries to stay away from where it's happening.  Unfortunately, he is now known by several folks who just won't let him do that.  He is one of several characters who claim to be weak in a fight and yet is somehow still on their feet when the dust settles.

Anduin Wessex, FBI

    Olympians are one of three alien species in near-Sol space.  Stronger, tougher, faster - just not the brightest bulbs in the brains department.  Like the Valhallans, they were strongly active in the second World War (although they tried to be covert, and were on the side of the Allies).  

    Anduin Wessex is an Olympian, specifically their version of a detective.  He plays at being a dumb jock who just flips cars, bursts down doors, and tears alien robots apart with his bare hands, but the truth is he has skills that he just never uses.

Trinket, Russian Expatriate, Medic

    Trinket is an inventor with a medical degree.  She just - happens - purely coincidentally - to be just on the edge of what is technically not possible.  Another of the characters unproven in Detroit, she was initially recruited by the Raven and adopted by the kindly Professor Morgan.

    Trinket is trying to find her place among these detectives, sleuths, and diplomats while trying to hide exactly what her devices can do.  She thinks of herself purely in terms of invention and medicine, which causes her to overlook other things that she is good at, just because someone else in the party claims to be better at it.