Saturday, March 5, 2016

Making MHR Characters: Ereshkigal (ANOHotMU #4)

No, wait, wrong picture. Well, wrong Ereshkigal, really. In addition to being an actual Sumerian goddess, Ereshkigal is a character in the Marvel Universe. She is, specifically, a Deviant, one of the offshoots of humanity created by the Celestials back before giant islands started sinking and when Conan was out there doing his thing. (Will I get to stat up Conan for this project? Man, I hope so. I don't remember seeing him in any of the reference comics I'm using, though.)

Deviants are basically defined by their differences - no two Deviants have the same powers or even look terribly similar, and they're typically bad guys. Ereshkigal is no exception. At some point in her very, very long life, she decided that the problem with the universe was that there wasn't enough chaos in it and decided to do something about that. And I really, really should see her as a villain, I should, but look at that face. Seriously, that is a woman who just doesn't care how special and super you are, that's her magic marble and, no, you can't have it, you jerk. I kinda love her.

Anyhow, my first encounter with the character was in the pages of the '90s Quasar series where a man with hockey hair and a cosmic powered baby tried not to blow up the world too much. This series included Kayla Ballantine, who was so painfully 90s, and who had a friend who was really Ereshkigal in disguise. Ereshkigal snagged the Starbran, a semi-mystical doodad that gave her phenomenal cosmic power. She was eventually defeated, but she sassed the heroes, beat up Quasar and generally ruled while doing so.

The version of the character here is sans Starbrand - the Annihilation PDF has that, and I don't want to tread on too many toes here - but based on the other appearances she's had, various technology-related power sets would make sense as well. She's not exceptionally powerful, really, but this build makes her really manipulative and sneaky, as befits her.

Ereshkigal
Solo      1d10
Buddy   1d6
Team    1d8

Distinctions
Deceitful at Heart
Devotee of Chaos
Lust for Power

Deviant
Enhanced Stamina    1d8
Enhanced Strength    1d8
Flight                           1d8
Shapeshifting             1d8
SFX: Tricksome - When inflicting mental stress, step up or double a Deviant die against a single target. Remove the highest rolling die and use 3 dice for your roll.
Limit: Exhausted - Shut down a Deviant power and add a die to the doom pool. Activate an opportunity to activate a power

Specialties
Covert Master        1d10
Psych Master        1d10
Tech Expert           1d8

No comments:

Post a Comment