Champions: : Daedalus Wept

PC Origins and Character Background Story

The one common thing about almost every superhero (with the exception of Pilot and the rest of the late Team Eagle) is that they have all volunteered or were in some other way coerced or induced to participate in a dangerous procedure that granted them their superpowers.

But you are different.

You don't know how you got your powers, but you do know that your life grew stranger after the Willis Tower Incident on October 12, 2021. You were there when a strange villain calling herself Lunotar took the Skydeck and held its two dozen or so visitors hostage. While you were not one of the hostages (althought some of those among those trapped with you had family and loved ones being held hostage), you were trapped on the 98th floor as the police, then government agents, locked down the building. You waited long minutes, which stretched into an hour, before you finally heard the unmistakable sounds of battle taking place. Then, suddenly, the ceiling crashed in and a figure of a woman, you can only assume was the villain, was thrown into a heavy display, impaled by a large quartz model of the Willis Tower. You and a few others of your trapped cohorts watched as she died, glistening blood flowing from her wounds. You were ushered out of there quickly by government operatives and with only a minimal debriefing.

Only after you were released did you learn that all but a handful of the hostages were freed and rescued before the superbattle. Further, you learned that Agent Exemplar had defeated Lunotar, his last blow throwing her through several stories of the building and into the glass model where she was impaled. In the days that followed, there was no discussion of who she was working for or any organization that claimed credit for the attack. Also, strangely, they surmised that Lunotar had to be an Ace, as there were no other Quasars within range of her at the time of her attack -- but she definitively displayed powers, such as the ability to throw silver blasts of light, fly, and super strength.

You went home and as the weeks went on, you began to put the experience behind you. However, you began to notice that something didn't feel quite right. You suffered a mysterious bout of flu, a flu that the doctors could not seem to identify -- an strange variant of the flu that raised and lowered your body temperature to extremes that should have killed you. You were unable to eat or drink, and unable to get out of bed for several days. And then there were the small flashes of what you would learn were your growing powers ... small at first, but they were there.

After a short time following a specific incident that involved a major display (what Dr. Anson would later referred to as a paroxysm, or hyperexpression) of your powers, you were approached by a Dr. Stephen Anson of the Daedalus Foundation. He explained that you were a spontaneously expressing Ace, a phenomenon never encountered before. He theorized how the strange illness seemed to be a symptomatic factor, and that perhaps it was a delayed quantum attunement affecting your nervous system, or an expression of transferred power triggered by Lunotar's death. Dr. Anson explained that the government agents that detained you during the incident were not AEGIS operatives and in fact, your groups were not reported as exposed to AEGIS operatives at the time. Only after one of you had shown a remarkably public paroxysm did AEGIS become aware of your presence at the Willis Tower that day.

Dr. Anson offered to teach you how to live with your powers, to use them for the greater good, and he offered you a position on Team Daedalus, if you agreed with move to GILEAD Base in Chicago and to work with him in studying your powers. You agreed, naturally, finding that you could really not live a normal life hiding your powers. What else was there for you to do? Either become a criminal and go on the run or submit to preemptive Quasar remediation (incarceration) and perhaps even be sent into space -- to the Tower.

What You Need For Your Character Background

• What brought you to top of the Willis Tower on that particular day?
• Did you have any family or friends with you when you visited the Willis Tower that day? Perhaps you have DNPC's as part of your character who were a part of Willis Tower Incident.
• What are some details of the story of how you came to discover (and learn to initially express or controL) your powers?
• When your powers finally expressed, did you start to use them voluntarily? Did you act as a superhero on your own before being approached by Daedalus? Did you get into conflicts with existing villains or superheroes? (This is a good opportunity for Hunted or Rivalry Disdvantages)
• Why did you choose to accept Dr. Anson's invitation to join Team Daedalus? Was is simply to avoid jail? Did you always have a desire to help others or see justice done? Was it just for the chance to belong to something and be a celebrity?