Halloween with the House Bushido Playgroup (Youth Edition)
Oct 25, 2020 18:03:56 GMT
Chris Goodwin likes this
Post by Duke on Oct 25, 2020 18:03:56 GMT
Okay, there's so much more I wanted to do here today, but-- well, I won't bore you with the details of my too-damned-busy-for-my-age weekend; I'll just run you through the highlights:
We haven't had electricity here in several days; the cable company screwed something up and shorted the lines to the house. It took the power company until Friday to come see about it because apparently the cable company had done this in a few dozen places around the county, and they are working around the clock to get this fixed.
The end results (Like I said, no time for details): we have a limited bit of power right now, but they are reluctant to hook us back up officially because our house was built without a main breaker. This met code here in '69, but doesn't any more. They didn't want to leave us _any_ power, but at some point during the process, there was damage to our wiring. Don't tell me to sue one or the other because it doesn't work: you have to _prove_ culpability, and the way it went down, it's impossible to prove the problem was the cable company shorting the power lines or the power company making a cock-up. Yes, I know "Sue them!" is the battle cry of the modern age, but damned few self-proclaimed experts know anything about how that actually works. Fortunately, my brother-in-law is an attorney and he informed us straight-up that we are just boned, period, because we can't prove one was responsible over the other. So shut up; I'm tired of hearing "you should sue!" from people who actually should "shut the hell up" when they don't know what they're talking about.
The upshot is that I had to leave work early Friday (like just before noon!), run to the supply house, buy a new breaker panel (forty-space panels ain't cheap, people) and a thousand-foot spool of romex and begin rewiring a three-story house.
It's a hundred-and-hundred in the attic, this time of year, and there are no crawlspaces, and I'm sixty years old and partially crippled with permanent spine damage. This has been a nightmare weekend. Add in the punctuation of having to run a couple hours from here to pick up job-related material Friday night and take them to the plant Saturday morning, the break Saturday night for the youthgroup game, and the fact that I haven't slept since I woke up Friday morning, and I am completely torn down.
Anyway, new box is in, pending inspection, and damage sections of wiring are replaced, and I've got enough left over to start on the much-needed complete re-wiring of the house (built in '69: 14g wiring when modern standards are 12g, and nowhere near the number of convenience outlets a modern house demands, so it's needed doing for a while).
Top that off, while cleaning up the mess, I notice the T&P valve is leaking on the water heater. Water is off and I'm waiting for the water too cool enough that I can pop the T&P valve (there's more than one kind) so that I can run to the hardware and replace that, too.
There. That's the brief synopsis.
Now then:
ideally, I was to have the halloween adventure written up and post it today, but that's just not going to happen.
However, something occurred during last night's session that required going off script (and now I have to work that in), but the write-up will make even less sense without information relevant to the NPC around which last night's encounter revolved.
So, since I don't have time to do a formal complete write-up, here's everything you need to know about Armstrong to do your own:
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Armstrong
Dreams. Bad; always bad, dreams. Start nice. So nice. Soft voice. Softness on skin. Blue. Blue soft on skin; some on face. Warm. So nice; blue-soft nice.
Sometimes Kitty was in the dream. He liked Kitty. When he was awake, he would try to touch Kitty, but Kitty would run and hide. When he was asleep, though, sometimes Kitty would come to his cushions. Kitty liked blue soft, and if he was very, very still, Kitty would climb onto the cushions with him and make his little rumble noise, and then he could touch Kitty-- very careful touch only, very careful touch was for Kitty. It was for other things, too, but it was always for Kitty. Soft Voice had taught him that Kitty hated other touches. It was hard for him to use very careful touch on Kitty, because then he couldn’t feel Kitty. Still, it made Kitty happy, and happy Kitty made the rumble noise that made him feel good and soon he was asleep.
Kitty wasn’t always in the dreams. Soft Voice was, though. Soft Voice was in all the dreams. -- soft voice-- soft voice was nice. Soft voice make hisinside warm, too. Make eyes warm. Soft voice always best part of dream….
“...and them little arms! What’s Boy gonna do with them little arms?”
“Arms strong!”
“Oooh, that’s right! Them little arms is _so strong_! What ‘bout dem legs? What’s Little Boy gonna do with them legs?”
“Legs strong!”
“Oooh, that’s right! Them little legs is _so strong_!” Then that feel. That laughy feel in his feet and behind his knees: that laughy feel that brought the giggles and made his face good-warm-smile while his legs kicked excitedly. “And so fast! Look at them little legs go! Little Boy gonna be a football star! Little Boy gonna run track!
“And that little face! What’s Little Boy gonna do with that face?”
“Face strong!” and the peal of delicious laughter from Soft Voice. Laughter full of warm, full of soft.
“No, Baby. Faces ain’t strong…. Faces is special. Faces is for knowin’ one another. Faces is for holdin’ eyes, and eyes is for lookin’ and learnin’ and for showin’ love, Baby. Faces is for holding smiles and for catchin’ kisses on them little baby cheeks. Faces is for bein’ you, Little Baby Boy……
“Now, what’s Boy gonna do with that face?”
“Catch kiss!”
“Yes you is!” and the laughter and the sounds and and soft warms all over his face and that strange tickle feeling in his limbs as he thrashed gleefully about…..
That’s when he’d try to wake up. Every time he wished he could wake up in the middle of that feeling, to capture and hold that sensation. He didn’t know what to call it; he knew only that it was wonderful, this sense of…. It was awful when the dream came while he was awake. He could feel that same sensation, that warmth inside him, inside his chest, and there was such agony that ripped at him when he couldn’t understand the source, such pain when he knew it was going to end… So much worse that there was never a face.
Sometimes there were hands-- slender, beautiful brown hands that weren’t like his own big, square clumsy hands. They were colored so perfectly-- soft, warm brown that darkened a bit at the knuckles and changed to a wonderful light yellow-brown-pink around the palms. They were like his own, mottled brown-and-pink-and-white, scaly in places, pitted and dappled in ugly blotches.
The brown hands-- sometimes there were arms for the hands-- always two, and two hands. They would disappear behind him in the dreams-- stroke his face and disappear, lifting him Heavenward as the arms wrapped around him, filling him inside with that soft-warm while Soft Voice said wonderful things: calming, soothing things, and as delicious as the dream was, as much as he loved it, he hated it because it would end and when it did it would tear him to pieces, knowing that there was no more; knowing that there was no Soft Voice when the dream was over… knowing that there was no face for him to find.
There was never a face. There were the arms, the hands, the voice-- but only a glow-- a beautiful glow like the sun!-- where a face should be. The dream was cruel like that.
“...look at you! You a big boy! Look at you, walkin’ like that! Steady now, Big Boy! Don’t you fall over!”
“Hold table!”
“That’s right, Big Boy! You hold on ‘ that table! Hold on strong now--”
“Arms _strong_!” such a tiny voice for such a confident boast.
“That’s right, Big Boy; them arms _strong_! Too strong to let you fall! Now you hol’ on that table and you come on over here. Come over here and let me kiss that face!”
And again the light, delighted feeling burst through his insides. “Arms strong! Arms _strong_!”
As painful as it was for the dreams to end, it was so much worse when there were other voices. When there were other voices, they were always hurtful. Even Soft Voice held pain. Not like the other voices did, but when Soft Voice wasn’t soft…. This was why he had to wake up. He always wanted to end the dream before this, and he never could. He was too greedy. He wanted Soft Voice far too much to tear himself out of the dream, even knowing what was to come….
“...and you get yo’ ass over here and get busy, Woman! I ain’t payin’ for you to play wit’ no damned freak baby!”
“You don’t never get to say that! You get what you want and you get the Hell out my house, but you ain’t gonna talk ‘bout my son like that!”
“Bitch, I paid you forty dollars; I say whatever the Hell I want!”
“Here! _Here_! Take your damn money! Take it! Take it and get the Hell out my house! Don’t you never come back! Never! You want a girl? Go four doors down! Go down to her and see what forty dollars get you!”
There were noises, yelling, more ugly noises. Soft Voice would sometimes come for him; sometimes the hands would pick him up and lift him up, but it wasn’t toward Heaven like it was other times. It was…. Bad feels. Soft Voice would mumble and there were sobs and when her cheeks pressed against his they were wet and the arms around him squeezed too much and the talking wasn’t about him, ever. “Don’t you worry, Baby. Momma gonna find a job. Momma gonna get us some food and some lights on in here…”
There were lots of hard voices in the dreams. They were hateful. They yelled and screamed and ordered and demanded and insulted. And usually Soft Voice would wrap him up in a soft place, with blue soft, and he could feel her smile at him “No you be good, Big Boy! You be a strong little man--”
“Arms _strong_!” he would state proudly, curling up his arms into the shape he had learned meant ‘strong.’
“That’s right, Boy. You be strong like them arms, you be strong in your heart, and you rest quiet. I won’t be gone too long.” Then Soft Voice would leave, and he could hear the door to another room open, then close.
Sometimes he missed her too much; she was gone too long. He would get up and look for her. The last time he looked for her, his doorknob didn’t turn. He had pushed the little chair up it, like he had learned, and turned the knob, but it didn’t turn. It confused him, because he knew how to turn it. Warms Hands had taught him how to open the knobs. This time, it didn’t turn. That made no sense; his arms were strong-- Soft Voice Warm Hands had told him they were strong-- sometimes she sounded… different… when she saw how strong they were.
“Arms _strong_!” he told himself as he tried to turn the knob. “Arms STRONG!” he demanded, frustrated when the knob still resisted. “Arms _STRONG_!” he yelled, furious that the knob didn’t turn-- then there was a twisting, tearing sound and the knob tore free from the door.
He looked at it briefly. He knew she would be disappointed; it wasn’t the first thing he had broken, and he felt bad for doing it, but she shouldn’t leave him for so long.
“What the Hell was that?” a hard voice demanded.
“It ain’t nothin,” Soft Voice snapped back.
“Whatchoo got, a dog in here? You got some kids in here? I ain’t down wit’ no man kids, now-!”
“You got what you come for; you can get up outta here anytime you want-”
“I _know_ you ain’t talkin’ to _me_ like that-!”
“Just get up outta here!”
There was an ugly noise then, and a scream, and stopped wondering about the doorknob. He tossed it aside and hammered at the door, one fist, then the other, then four together, and the door burst open, slamming into the wall behind it even as he ran through, toward the sound of the scream. He raised his arms and bashed open the door to the other room and Soft Voice was on her knees, her hands clutching at the muscular forearm holding a hand to her throat while another hand was raised above her.
“What the Hell is _that_?! You got freak-ass monster babies in here? Do ya, Bitch? You got a damn freak baby? You lettin’ men lay withchoo and you got damn freak blood?!” The first shot downward and there was a strangled scream.
Wordless anger tore from the child's throat and he leapt forward and up at the hard voice, powerful legs propelling him forward, his four arms spread wide. He landed, two arms wrapped around the one holding Soft Voice, the other pumping up and down, over and over, raining hammer blows onto the arm, the shoulder. The arm let go immediately.
“What the Hell?! Your freak hit like a damned grown-ass man!” He shook his arm, trying to dislodged four-armed, wide-faced toddler that was still shrieking through a too-wide mouth; he stared in increasing horror at the silvery needle-like teeth in the mouth, and fought to block the small-fist blows that struck him with all the power of another man. Finally, he drew his fist back and stuck directly into the monster’s face, knocking it free of his arm. “Get that damned thing offa me ‘fore I straight-up stomp it!” the hard voice roared, while its owner backpedalled toward the door.
The child leaped forward, low and flat, and seized an ankle with two hands while propping against the floor with two others, and snatched with all his might. The man tumbled backwards, his head crashing into the door jamb behind him while the child climbed quickly up his leg, up his chest, racing toward his face with two fists raised--
“Baby!” Soft Voiced shrieked “Baby Boy, No! Don’t hit him! Don’t hurt him!”
The boy was already flailing, unskilled but remarkably strong blows raining down on the man’s face, head, and chest. Unskilled, child-like wide hammer-drop smashes strong enough to break a nose, cheek bones, teeth-- strong enough to leave bruises all over the target of his rage.
He heard her-- he hadn’t heard her words, but he heard her desperation and turned to her, and in his simple one-track focus he instantly forgot about the man, who scampered backwards into the hall, grabbing his pants from the dresser by the door. “I’ll be back, Bitch! I’ll kill that damn freak, Bitch! I’ll kill it!” the door to the small apartment slammed shut.
“Oh, Baby Boy…. what you done…..?”
“Arms _strong_!” he announced proudly, curling them into the pose. He was completely oblivious to the blood dripping from his hands.
“Yes they is, Baby…. They so _strong_….” She collapsed back against the bed, holding him, and crying. He enjoyed the warm feeling of the beautiful brown arms, of his head pressed against her. He listened to the bump that came from inside her; he could hear it when he was pressed against her like this. He lay there for a few moments, then gently, insistently, fought loose of her embrace. He padded back to the other room and pulled blue soft from the cushions upon which he slept and went back to her, where he gently spread it across her and climbed back onto her lap.
“What we gonna do, Baby? What we gonna do now?”
It didn’t matter to him what they did now. He was comfortable, and the bad was gone.
She woke him up. He saw that she had dressed. “Come on, Big Boy. We gotta go. We gotta get from here. Come on, now. Wake up; wake up and get you some clothes on.” He was on his cushion, and he wished Kitty was still around. Kitty had been gone for a long time. Soft Voice didn’t know why when he asked why Kitty was gone. He missed Kitty. He struggled into a pair of pants and then pulled on his shirts the way she had taught him. He hated wearing the shirts, but Soft Voice said they kept him warm. She helped him put on his jackets and pulled the socks into his feet. It must have been cold; she pulled four pair of socks onto his feet. “Oh, Baby, I sure wish they made some warm shoes to fit these big strong feet of yours--”
“Feet _strong_!” he beamed as he posed his arms and balanced carefully with one foot raised.
“I know, Baby; them feets is strong! So strong!” she smiled at him. He wished he could see it now, in the dream. He remembered the smile, but he simply couldn’t see her face anymore; the dream always gave her that sunshine glow that made it impossible to see her face. The dream was bad for doing that. The dream would let him have the Soft Voice and the beautiful hands and the warm arms but it would never let him have her face, and he so desperately wanted to see the face, to see if he could recognize it, to remember who she was.
Mercifully, he woke up. Finally, he had dreamt of her without….
Without the rest of it. Maybe this would be it. Maybe all the dreams would be better. Maybe this would be a good day. He sat up groggily, brushing aside the ratty blanket he had found and the old papers he shoved under it to make it warmer. The kitties were awake, too. One was gnawing on his fingers and he giggled. “Kitty stop that!” he chided. You tickle!” He shook the slight trickle of blood from his fingertip and sat up. “Okay, Kitty. I ‘wake. We find some food now, right?” His eyes played over the kitties, who were unusually agitated this morning. They pushed and pulled at a small leather packet and he reached over to pick it up out of curiosity. It was a wallet, now well-chewed. He didn’t really understand wallets, except that sometimes they --
“Dolla Money! Kitty find Dolla Money!” he said excitedly as pulled the green papers from inside and tossed the wallet further into the alley. “Good Kitty! Armstrong love Kitty! Come on, Kitties! Dolla Money buy food! Come we eat! We get maybe sandwiches for me and peanut butter for Kitties! Kitties like peanut butter, right Kitties?”
Armstrong is a wild card in the Campaign City setting. He is one of the most powerful bricks in this setting, and under the right circumstances, easily becomes the most powerful, not just exceeding Rook’s own power levels, but absolutely dwarfing them on occasion.
History:
Armstrong’s actual name is unknown, even to him. His memory is poor, and his intellectual sophistication moreso. What follows is a condensation of his actual history, purely for the benefit of the GM who may wish to work him into an existing campaign. Most of this history is unknown even to Armstrong, and a complete mystery to the world at large.
Armstrong’s mother was a cashier at a store in a strip mall outside The Crest area (a well-to-do, thriving area of luxury apartment buildings with private grounds nested amongst trendy shopping areas and excellent schools) of Campaign City. She was born in The Bottoms (a poor district of once-tidy apartment buildings built by Hubert Bottoms eighty years ago. As things are wont to do, trends changed and the upscale popular areas moved away (toward The Crest), while the H. Bottoms Garden Estates became surrounded by seedier business, outlets stores, auto garages, and other “less desirable” businesses. Eventually the city bought the nearly-empty sections of the neighborhood using federal grant money and renovated them for use as subsidized housing to alleviate the homeless problem and to offer low-rent living to the working poor. Initially a success, like many such projects across the nation, politics and bureaucracy eventually began to work at counterpoints, leaving the Bottoms to become a large slum of blight upon the city) and never managed to leave.
When Armstrong’s mother was a high school senior, succeeded in getting a small scholarship sponsored by the African American Businessmen’s Association to Campaign University (a two-year “junior” college, but a start), but the scholarship wasn’t enough to provide her with the funds she needed to stay in school. An attractive young girl, on the advice of another student, she took to stripping in a club near the ports to earn “stacks of cash” in a hurry.
The fourth month she had danced at the club saw her leaving in the early hours of the morning, where she was attacked and raped. The assailant was never identified or captured. When she found out that she was pregnant, she opted to keep the baby, but never explained her decision to anyone beyond “it ain’t his fault.” The fact is that she knew that she herself was the product of rape, though she never let her mother know that she was aware of it, letting her continue to use the story that her father had been killed in an accident working on a ship.
Pregnancy ended her stripping career, and the loss of the cash flow ended her education. She found a job as a cashier, and then a second job at another outlet, and her mother helped her find an apartment not too far from her own.
Prenatal care suggested that she was carrying twins until a late-term ultrasound revealed that instead there was only one child, with bizarre skeletal development. She stopped seeking prenatal care after that, but again: she never explained herself. The last few weeks of pregnancy were extremely difficult; when the baby kicked, it was with the strength of a five-year-old child. Birth was, of necessity, cesarean.
There were, aside from the obvious physical deformities, problems with the baby. His feet were square, nearly as wide as they were long. His face was overly-broad and his brow low. When his teeth came in, they were pointed more like those of a carnivorous animal. He was extremely strong, though no more coordinated than any other infant. His skin had poor coloring, and even at this early point, it was clear that he was developmentally challenged. Eventually, testing would reveal that the child had been born with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE, or “Lupus”) that was already well-advanced. Conjecture at the time was that the Lupus was likely responsible for his mental deficiencies as well, though it was never conclusively proven.
For a time, Armstrong and his mother lived quietly in their apartment, with his grandmother providing cautious care for the baby while her daughter worked two jobs. She lost one of the jobs eventually, for excessive tardiness (finding sleep while working two full-time jobs and caring for a child is difficult for anyone). Out of desperation, she, like many of the girls at the club where she used to dance, turned to the world’s oldest profession to supplement her income.
Over the next couple of years, Armstrong would have a variety of experiences, none of them good. He would listen as men would abuse his mother, and watch her repeat the cycle over and over again. He would be taunted, threatened, and often tormented by these same strange men. Then came the night that he attacked one of them. Fearful for both of their lives, his mother packed a bag for her and her son and in the middle of the night fled to her mother’s house. Unwilling to return to her day job for fear the man her son attacked would find her there, she turned to prostitution as her sole source of income. She wouldn’t sully her mother’s home with this business, and so she stayed more and more on the streets, leaving her child in the care of a woman already slightly fearful of the growing boy with the terrifying face and four arms. She ensured that he was fed and that he lay down for naps, but had as little contact as possible with the boy.
It wasn’t long before he noticed that his mother wasn’t with him as often as she had been. Then came that awful period where she had been gone for several days. The small lady brought him food, but she didn’t hold him like Soft Voice did. She didn’t talk to him like Soft Voice did. He begged the other lady to let him see Soft Voice, but she didn’t help. Finally, he walked to the window and grabbed the bars, pulling with all his might.
He felt them yield, but they would not give. “No!” he shouted, mad at them for refusing to come loose. “Arms stronger than you! Arms strong! Arms _STRONG_!” and with a frustrated cry, he gave a final jerk and they tore loose, ripping chunks of concrete and mortar from the casement. He flung the bars-- larger than he himself was-- casually behind and crawled out the window. The strength of his hands and his hand-like feet made crawling the side of the building trivial, and he descended the two floors to the street. As soon as he touched the pavement, he was off and running.
He ran all afternoon, aimlessly. He ran into the night. Finally, he ran into the right alley, and he found her. He could not wake her, though he tried and tried to clean her face, to kiss her cheeks as she had kissed his, but the blood was bitter and did not clean away. He stayed with her, curled up next to her, trying to wrap himself in her beautiful brown arms, but always they fell away. He felt a new feeling then-- a new, terrible feeling, and nothing he could do would make it go away. Then the lights and the noise came-- terrible, awful noise, and he ran and hid. So many men. He had never seen so many men. They came and they talked and they studied and then they took her away, and he never saw her again. And the feeling got worse….
Armstrong’s mother had been shot point blank in the face with a .45. It is not known if it was during a trick gone bad, violent robbery, or simply the random chance of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. No suspects were ever determined, and the case remains one of hundreds of unsolved murders in the Bottoms.
The boy was found, just as the investigators were leaving, and attempts to lure him from his hiding place resulted in a violent attack, during which Armstrong was tazed repeatedly. He was taken to Child Protective Services and his picture advertised locally, but no one ever showed up to claim the orphan monster child. Two weeks later, he disappeared.
Armstrong will not be caged. Many attempts were made in the first few months after his mother’s death (though none have realized that the woman in the alley was his mother), all of them resulting in him ending up in a psychiatric center, or a group facility, or some other alien place meant to keep him safe, but he will not stand for it. Generally, if handled kindly, he would tolerate it, but he would always escape at the first opportunity, even if that mean simply beating a hole through a wall. By his tenth year, CPS and other social services had developed a quiet agreement to stop looking for him.
Personality and Motivation:
Armstrong is severely developmentally disabled. He has, in the words of one of his caregivers, the mind of a toddler, save for his general lack of selfishness. Complicating interactions with him is the fact that his memory is extremely poor, and only the most patient of people have ever managed to fully imprint themselves into his memory. Only extensive repetition has allowed him to understand the little he does about the world around him. Early speculation suggested that this was some sort of neurological damage directly to his brain due to the advanced Lupus with which he was born, but no one has ever been able to test this, and really-- it doesn’t matter. He has no understanding of his own problems, and would be totally unable to adhere to any sort of treatment regiment owing to his reduced faculties.
Armstrong is generally suspicious of anyone approaching him, particularly men and those who act with authority or forcefulness. He is openly resentful of those whom he judges to “bully” him or others near him, and has been known to take violent action to make the bully stop. This has more than once brought him into conflict with the Campaign City Police and even a few local gangs. Generally he is quite shy, easy to spook, and easily intimidated. The intimidation wears off, though, the longer someone continues to use it. Perhaps it calls to some unpleasant memory, or some frustrating situation. If it persists for too long, it will begin to eat at him, and his frustration will begin to build. He is more pleasantly inclined to tolerate people who fuss over his kitties or bring him or his kitties something to eat.
Armstrong is incapable of formulating any sort of long-term goals, and equally-unable to remember them long enough to complete them should he manage to come up with one. The closest thing he has to a goal is to sleep without dreams. He likes the first part of the dreams, but they soon descend into horrors that he does not understand are from his own childhood.
Armstrong is generally quite shy, and almost impossible to see unless he decides it is safe to reveal himself. His life on the streets has given him an uncanny stealthiness for someone his size, though it’s possible that his “kitties” help him to know who is about and where, making it possible for him to more easily avoid detection.
He is not adverse to walking in public, though he does not like the stares or comments, or especially the horror-filled gasps that follow him when he moves among the people. His days are spent in alleys, searching trashcans for anything edible or the occasional bits of “Shiny Money.” From time to time, he will stumble across “Dolla Money,” which excites him considerably. He has learned that money can be traded for things like food or hats or blankets, though he has no concept of the value of money, as he is unable to to math or develop a firm grasp of the concept that not all “Moneys” have the same value. Unscrupulous vendors with brave (or stupid) hearts will quite routinely con him of his money, a fact of which he is blissfully unaware.
Armstrong roams all over the Bottoms, preferring to move at night when he travels more than a few blocks. He will shelter himself as best he is able until he is ready to move again. When he changes locations for an extended period, he will usually bring his “kitties” with him. Armstrong travels with several large rats, which he refers to as “mah kitties” or “mah cat.” Armstrong has been introduced to actual cats, of course, but he seems completely unable to tell the difference. If he hears a cat purring, he will note that this is a “sleeptime kitty touch careful!” but remains unable to differentiate it from any other cat or rat by any other means.
Habitually, regardless of how far he roams (he has been known to camp in the harbor district and has periodically been reported on the southside, though this is quite rare) or how long he stays gone, he will invariably make his way back to the alley behind Virgillio’s Convenience and Laundry. He will almost always spend cold winters here. The Virgillio brothers suspect it is the heat of the gas-powered dryers from the laundromat that draw him here. In reality, even though he does not remember it anymore, it is because this is where he found his mother’s body. That memory exists, twisted, as a dream now, but it has no sense of time or place for him. This particular alley is his home because it is his home, so far as Armstrong himself understands it.
The Virgillio brothers have worked long and hard-- at the behest of Bottoms-local supervillain Freight Train-- to train Armstrong to spend money at the Convenience and Laundry before trying anywhere else. The brothers and their four employees are more-than-honest with the simple-minded monster, often simply taking his payment of a one-dollar bill and returning change of four quarters. For the most part, the Virgillios, who have found that having Armstrong close at hand is a considerable deterrent for violent crime, do what they can to ensure that the giant and his “kitties” have food when they are hungry and blankets when they are cold. They pretend not to notice that the door to access the ducting for the dryers in the laundromat has had the lock torn off of it for access on rainy nights. No one knows what the connection is between Freight Train and Armstrong. If asked, Freight Train replies cryptically and simply "He part of the Bottoms. He one of my people."
He rarely looks directly at a stranger when they are talking to him or when he is talking to them, often not even acknowledging them. He often gives away the fact that he is paying attention when someone calls his name ("Armstrong") because of his reflex habit of half-heartedly starting (but rarely completing) his "arms strong!" pose (curling his upper arms up and back into a "rear double bicep" and his lower arms down into a "most muscular" ). Even though it's done now purely as a reflex (he doesn't not hear his name as "Armstrong," but as "arms strong," which was part of a bonding and encouragement game his mother played with him as a toddler), it's rarely completed, simply because initiating the pose makes him remember Soft Voice and how she ignored him and left with so many strangers.
Appearance:
Armstrong stands exactly eight feet in height, and even for his size, is unusually broad. Likely this is because of his four arms: he needs the over-sized torso to accommodate four distinct shoulder joints. His skin was once-- and still is, in places-- that of a “medium-skinned” African American, though he is covered more in the white and pink blotches and mottling of a lifetime of uncontrolled Lupus. What little hair still grows on his head grows in small grey patches, scattered amongst the unscarred portions of his scalp. It’s interesting to note that he does not seem to be plagued with the discomfort and joint pain commonly associated with this disease, but it’s quite possible that he does experience these problems and lacks the sophistry to express them or simply views them as just a part of how life is.
His eyes are small and set into an overly-wide, flattish face with a wider, thin-lipped mouth filled with long, metallic-looking needle-like teeth. Either his teeth are immune to the problems of decay and lack of hygiene, or they simple don’t stop growing back in as they are lost, for he still has a full set of clean-looking, if unsettlingly-designed, teeth.
Armstrong is powerfully-built, displaying a muscle mass that is clearly beyond the possibility of attainment by a “normal” human. All four arms end in large hands, and his feet end in oversized, square-shaped feet. While the placement and length of the great toes on his feet allow him considerable prehensile use of his feet, they are shaped nothing like hands.
Armstrong wears a watch cap at all times, and keeps it pulled down to his brow. His pants are whatever he can scrounge, usually held up with a rope or wire (he prefers the wire, as he can twist it; he is no more adept at knot-tying than a particularly clever toddler). He rarely wears any sort of shirt, though he may periodically have a button-down shirt (open) or a robe over his upper arms and will tear the sides to allow it to drape over his lower arms. When the weather is cold, he will wear two jackets-- one around his lower arms and abdomen, zipped as best as he is able, and one around his upper arms and torso, zipped but either torn up the sides or with holes torn through the sides to accommodate his lower arms (He prefers them ripped up the sides, as simply poking his lower arms through holes in the jacket is still confining for his lower shoulders, and makes the upper jacket very tight).
He has yet to find shoes that come close to fitting, and instead has been seen with multiple layers of socks, bedroom slippers, and an assortment of thong sandals and slides. If the weather is warm enough, he prefers to be barefoot.
Armstrong, as noted, is a background character. He will never be a hero, as he lacks the ability to trust a large number of people (or most strangers), and his motivations and mental map are too simplified to understand anything beyond “stop the bad thing that is happening.” He will never be a villain because he lacks the motivation and the ability to remember the motivation should he have one.
He is best used as a rare force of nature-- once in a great while, something might send him into a frenzy which might lead to an encounter. He sees everything that happens on the streets, though anyone wishing to question him will have to earn his trust and learn to interpret his understanding of what he saw: remember that his intellect is akin to that of a toddler; this skews his world view considerably.
Most locals happily ignore his existence for fear that acknowledging the monster will result in some kind of calamity. The speedster Freight Train has, for reasons unknown, taken an active interest in the welfare of Armstrong, and will check on him periodically to ensure that he is reasonably well and that he has no unfulfilled urgent needs.
Armstrong’s rats are puzzling. He does what he can to take care of them as though they were his pets, but cautious and prolonged observation has shown that they, in turn, do the same for him. No one can explain how or why this is happening: does Armstrong exert some mental influence over them? Do they influence him? Have they been trained by someone? If so, why? For the most part, it is simply overlooked as “one of those things.” Woe be to the one who harms one of Armstrong’s kitties, though.
Powers and abilities:
Armstrong is a powerful brick (STR 50 at 1/4 END), and extremely durable (Damage Reduction PD 50%, ED 25% combined with enough PD and ED to ignore blows from even a 25 STR character). However, he seems to be a bit “out of touch” with the physical world, in as much as he often appears almost unable to register any but the strongest of physical contact (Phys Lim: if it doesn’t do STUN, he doesn’t feel it). His life on the streets have taught him how to fend for himself (Survival: Urban Environments 14- [NOTE: no build of Armstrong should include "streetwise," as he lacks the mental faculties to understand or develop most of the subterfuge, chicanery, and cleverness associated with this skill] ), and combined with his general shyness and distrust of people he has learned how to avoid contact with people when he doesn't wish it, and how to remain completely unseen, even when he should be in plain sight (Stealth: 16-). He is also surprisingly quick on his feet (+6"[12 meters]) Running), and has learned a unique "launching" technique using his Extra Limbs (two extra arms: his original build is 2e, and he uses them just that way, so add whatever you need to for later edition builds to get a +2 HTH Bonus) that allows him to "rush in" and startle even opponents looking directly at him (quick draw / lightning reflexes; once per combat per opponent: he is not a skilled combatant, and has an obvious tell for this tactic, once you see him do it).
As noted, Armstrong is not a skilled combatant, but is extremely practiced in the use of his extra arms, allowing him to routinely gain an advantage in hand-to-hand combat, even though he is not particularly good at it. Unlike many large-built bricks, Armstrong routinely uses the Leaping he derives from his STR, and in a tight area, this is often his preferred movement as his size, STR, and reach (+1" / 2 meters Stretching: arms only) give him an incredible advantage in tight quarters. His STR and Extra Limbs give him a spider-like climbing ability (Climbing:rough surfaces / handholds only; 15"/ 30 meters total) and allow him to move vertically faster than he can actually run.
Armstrong's confused mental processes and general stubbornness provide him with 10pts of EGO Defense (adjust as you see fit for your use of him in your games).
Armstrong's most unique and most powerful ability doesn't show itself until he becomes extremely frustrated: he can increase his Strength, End, and Defenses seemingly at will. His problem-solving skills are nigh nonexistent. When he runs into something he cannot achieve through brute strength, he will whip himself into a trance-like frenzy, using a rhythmic reinforcement technique not unlike chant. (“Arms strong! Arms strong! Arms strong!” is his usual choice, with emphasis increasing as his frustration builds), repeating this over and over as his power level increases. He will continue until he has overcome whatever obstacle he is facing.
(build this as an AID: Must Fail EGO Roll versus Frustration (His EGO is 15, but a Psych Lim results in him suffering a -1 to EGO every phase that he is frustrated by the same problem). Self only. 16d6, Variable SFX, divided between Aid (½)STR (1/5), END (balance of points). Once the Aid begins, it will continue until either Armstrong has overcome the obstacle making him frustrated or he is otherwise stopped (talking down, taking down, what-have-you).
Yes; this is a problematic build in the wrong hands, but Armstrong is an NPC; the GM should be able to prevent himself from wrecking his own game.
While he does feel discomfort from them, Armstrong is immune to the effects of extreme heat and cold. However, (psych Lim), he absolutely hates to get wet, and has been known to flee several blocks to avoid being sprayed with a garden hose (obviously not when Enraged or Frustrated: Psych Lim: tunnel vision on object of Frustration).
To make Armstrong more powerful, make his Defenses Resistant (they are not Resistant in the original character) or add a small amount of Resistant Defenses and second Aid of 4d6 that is divided amongst these resistant Defenses.
To make him less powerful, reduce his base STR to 30 and /or drop his Aid to 12d6 and do not use it to add to his Aid.
To alter him slightly, use the 16d6 Aid, but rather than adding ½ the points directly to Aid, add them instead to the maximum that can be added via Aid. Technically, this lets him become more powerful, but it will be slower than his default build. To really have some fun, add only ¼ the points to Aid, and ¼ to buy the recovery rate further and further down the timeline. Be aware, however, that this results in making fundamental changes to Armstrong, as it implies that he will be able to maintain his focus far longer than he actually can per his conception. His power level will grow much more slowly, but he will remain a mega-threat much, much longer than he would using any of the other builds.
To make Armstrong a bit less frightening, give him a “normal” face, and consider removing the burn-like Lupus scars. Give him normal feet. (Yeah; I don’t know why, but the youth group was really freaked out by the feet. My wife was helping out that night (she enjoys the character, and decided she wanted to play him when I mentioned he was coming up), and she didn’t get their problem with his feet either. Just one of those things, I guess.....
If the rats are too much for you or your group, replace them with actual cats. However, the cats won't be as inclined to "take care of Armstrong" the way the rats do.
There’s more I could go into with Armstrong, but honestly, it’s all campaign-related and history-related. This is more than anyone needs to know about Armstrong if they plan to use the Halloween adventure I’ve been running the youth group through, so I’ll just stop here.
Tactics:
Armstrong is incapable of formulating any tactics. He will do his best to target whoever he sees as the cause of his greatest frustration, but he distracts easily and will have no problems turning his attention to a closer target. While it's dangerous, getting him more and more frustrated will Trigger his Enraged (8- when frustrated, increase by 1 with every 10 STR gained from Aid). For the most part, any fighting in which he is engaged is the result of someone else starting it or his under-developed intellect finding the source of his frustration to be a particular person. Despite his abilities and his appearance, Armstrong is relatively docile, and prefers to left alone, though he does enjoy watching people interact when he is certain they are unaware of him.
EDITED: 10/26/20
We haven't had electricity here in several days; the cable company screwed something up and shorted the lines to the house. It took the power company until Friday to come see about it because apparently the cable company had done this in a few dozen places around the county, and they are working around the clock to get this fixed.
The end results (Like I said, no time for details): we have a limited bit of power right now, but they are reluctant to hook us back up officially because our house was built without a main breaker. This met code here in '69, but doesn't any more. They didn't want to leave us _any_ power, but at some point during the process, there was damage to our wiring. Don't tell me to sue one or the other because it doesn't work: you have to _prove_ culpability, and the way it went down, it's impossible to prove the problem was the cable company shorting the power lines or the power company making a cock-up. Yes, I know "Sue them!" is the battle cry of the modern age, but damned few self-proclaimed experts know anything about how that actually works. Fortunately, my brother-in-law is an attorney and he informed us straight-up that we are just boned, period, because we can't prove one was responsible over the other. So shut up; I'm tired of hearing "you should sue!" from people who actually should "shut the hell up" when they don't know what they're talking about.
The upshot is that I had to leave work early Friday (like just before noon!), run to the supply house, buy a new breaker panel (forty-space panels ain't cheap, people) and a thousand-foot spool of romex and begin rewiring a three-story house.
It's a hundred-and-hundred in the attic, this time of year, and there are no crawlspaces, and I'm sixty years old and partially crippled with permanent spine damage. This has been a nightmare weekend. Add in the punctuation of having to run a couple hours from here to pick up job-related material Friday night and take them to the plant Saturday morning, the break Saturday night for the youthgroup game, and the fact that I haven't slept since I woke up Friday morning, and I am completely torn down.
Anyway, new box is in, pending inspection, and damage sections of wiring are replaced, and I've got enough left over to start on the much-needed complete re-wiring of the house (built in '69: 14g wiring when modern standards are 12g, and nowhere near the number of convenience outlets a modern house demands, so it's needed doing for a while).
Top that off, while cleaning up the mess, I notice the T&P valve is leaking on the water heater. Water is off and I'm waiting for the water too cool enough that I can pop the T&P valve (there's more than one kind) so that I can run to the hardware and replace that, too.
There. That's the brief synopsis.
Now then:
ideally, I was to have the halloween adventure written up and post it today, but that's just not going to happen.
However, something occurred during last night's session that required going off script (and now I have to work that in), but the write-up will make even less sense without information relevant to the NPC around which last night's encounter revolved.
So, since I don't have time to do a formal complete write-up, here's everything you need to know about Armstrong to do your own:
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Armstrong
Dreams. Bad; always bad, dreams. Start nice. So nice. Soft voice. Softness on skin. Blue. Blue soft on skin; some on face. Warm. So nice; blue-soft nice.
Sometimes Kitty was in the dream. He liked Kitty. When he was awake, he would try to touch Kitty, but Kitty would run and hide. When he was asleep, though, sometimes Kitty would come to his cushions. Kitty liked blue soft, and if he was very, very still, Kitty would climb onto the cushions with him and make his little rumble noise, and then he could touch Kitty-- very careful touch only, very careful touch was for Kitty. It was for other things, too, but it was always for Kitty. Soft Voice had taught him that Kitty hated other touches. It was hard for him to use very careful touch on Kitty, because then he couldn’t feel Kitty. Still, it made Kitty happy, and happy Kitty made the rumble noise that made him feel good and soon he was asleep.
Kitty wasn’t always in the dreams. Soft Voice was, though. Soft Voice was in all the dreams. -- soft voice-- soft voice was nice. Soft voice make hisinside warm, too. Make eyes warm. Soft voice always best part of dream….
“...and them little arms! What’s Boy gonna do with them little arms?”
“Arms strong!”
“Oooh, that’s right! Them little arms is _so strong_! What ‘bout dem legs? What’s Little Boy gonna do with them legs?”
“Legs strong!”
“Oooh, that’s right! Them little legs is _so strong_!” Then that feel. That laughy feel in his feet and behind his knees: that laughy feel that brought the giggles and made his face good-warm-smile while his legs kicked excitedly. “And so fast! Look at them little legs go! Little Boy gonna be a football star! Little Boy gonna run track!
“And that little face! What’s Little Boy gonna do with that face?”
“Face strong!” and the peal of delicious laughter from Soft Voice. Laughter full of warm, full of soft.
“No, Baby. Faces ain’t strong…. Faces is special. Faces is for knowin’ one another. Faces is for holdin’ eyes, and eyes is for lookin’ and learnin’ and for showin’ love, Baby. Faces is for holding smiles and for catchin’ kisses on them little baby cheeks. Faces is for bein’ you, Little Baby Boy……
“Now, what’s Boy gonna do with that face?”
“Catch kiss!”
“Yes you is!” and the laughter and the sounds and and soft warms all over his face and that strange tickle feeling in his limbs as he thrashed gleefully about…..
That’s when he’d try to wake up. Every time he wished he could wake up in the middle of that feeling, to capture and hold that sensation. He didn’t know what to call it; he knew only that it was wonderful, this sense of…. It was awful when the dream came while he was awake. He could feel that same sensation, that warmth inside him, inside his chest, and there was such agony that ripped at him when he couldn’t understand the source, such pain when he knew it was going to end… So much worse that there was never a face.
Sometimes there were hands-- slender, beautiful brown hands that weren’t like his own big, square clumsy hands. They were colored so perfectly-- soft, warm brown that darkened a bit at the knuckles and changed to a wonderful light yellow-brown-pink around the palms. They were like his own, mottled brown-and-pink-and-white, scaly in places, pitted and dappled in ugly blotches.
The brown hands-- sometimes there were arms for the hands-- always two, and two hands. They would disappear behind him in the dreams-- stroke his face and disappear, lifting him Heavenward as the arms wrapped around him, filling him inside with that soft-warm while Soft Voice said wonderful things: calming, soothing things, and as delicious as the dream was, as much as he loved it, he hated it because it would end and when it did it would tear him to pieces, knowing that there was no more; knowing that there was no Soft Voice when the dream was over… knowing that there was no face for him to find.
There was never a face. There were the arms, the hands, the voice-- but only a glow-- a beautiful glow like the sun!-- where a face should be. The dream was cruel like that.
“...look at you! You a big boy! Look at you, walkin’ like that! Steady now, Big Boy! Don’t you fall over!”
“Hold table!”
“That’s right, Big Boy! You hold on ‘ that table! Hold on strong now--”
“Arms _strong_!” such a tiny voice for such a confident boast.
“That’s right, Big Boy; them arms _strong_! Too strong to let you fall! Now you hol’ on that table and you come on over here. Come over here and let me kiss that face!”
And again the light, delighted feeling burst through his insides. “Arms strong! Arms _strong_!”
As painful as it was for the dreams to end, it was so much worse when there were other voices. When there were other voices, they were always hurtful. Even Soft Voice held pain. Not like the other voices did, but when Soft Voice wasn’t soft…. This was why he had to wake up. He always wanted to end the dream before this, and he never could. He was too greedy. He wanted Soft Voice far too much to tear himself out of the dream, even knowing what was to come….
“...and you get yo’ ass over here and get busy, Woman! I ain’t payin’ for you to play wit’ no damned freak baby!”
“You don’t never get to say that! You get what you want and you get the Hell out my house, but you ain’t gonna talk ‘bout my son like that!”
“Bitch, I paid you forty dollars; I say whatever the Hell I want!”
“Here! _Here_! Take your damn money! Take it! Take it and get the Hell out my house! Don’t you never come back! Never! You want a girl? Go four doors down! Go down to her and see what forty dollars get you!”
There were noises, yelling, more ugly noises. Soft Voice would sometimes come for him; sometimes the hands would pick him up and lift him up, but it wasn’t toward Heaven like it was other times. It was…. Bad feels. Soft Voice would mumble and there were sobs and when her cheeks pressed against his they were wet and the arms around him squeezed too much and the talking wasn’t about him, ever. “Don’t you worry, Baby. Momma gonna find a job. Momma gonna get us some food and some lights on in here…”
There were lots of hard voices in the dreams. They were hateful. They yelled and screamed and ordered and demanded and insulted. And usually Soft Voice would wrap him up in a soft place, with blue soft, and he could feel her smile at him “No you be good, Big Boy! You be a strong little man--”
“Arms _strong_!” he would state proudly, curling up his arms into the shape he had learned meant ‘strong.’
“That’s right, Boy. You be strong like them arms, you be strong in your heart, and you rest quiet. I won’t be gone too long.” Then Soft Voice would leave, and he could hear the door to another room open, then close.
Sometimes he missed her too much; she was gone too long. He would get up and look for her. The last time he looked for her, his doorknob didn’t turn. He had pushed the little chair up it, like he had learned, and turned the knob, but it didn’t turn. It confused him, because he knew how to turn it. Warms Hands had taught him how to open the knobs. This time, it didn’t turn. That made no sense; his arms were strong-- Soft Voice Warm Hands had told him they were strong-- sometimes she sounded… different… when she saw how strong they were.
“Arms _strong_!” he told himself as he tried to turn the knob. “Arms STRONG!” he demanded, frustrated when the knob still resisted. “Arms _STRONG_!” he yelled, furious that the knob didn’t turn-- then there was a twisting, tearing sound and the knob tore free from the door.
He looked at it briefly. He knew she would be disappointed; it wasn’t the first thing he had broken, and he felt bad for doing it, but she shouldn’t leave him for so long.
“What the Hell was that?” a hard voice demanded.
“It ain’t nothin,” Soft Voice snapped back.
“Whatchoo got, a dog in here? You got some kids in here? I ain’t down wit’ no man kids, now-!”
“You got what you come for; you can get up outta here anytime you want-”
“I _know_ you ain’t talkin’ to _me_ like that-!”
“Just get up outta here!”
There was an ugly noise then, and a scream, and stopped wondering about the doorknob. He tossed it aside and hammered at the door, one fist, then the other, then four together, and the door burst open, slamming into the wall behind it even as he ran through, toward the sound of the scream. He raised his arms and bashed open the door to the other room and Soft Voice was on her knees, her hands clutching at the muscular forearm holding a hand to her throat while another hand was raised above her.
“What the Hell is _that_?! You got freak-ass monster babies in here? Do ya, Bitch? You got a damn freak baby? You lettin’ men lay withchoo and you got damn freak blood?!” The first shot downward and there was a strangled scream.
Wordless anger tore from the child's throat and he leapt forward and up at the hard voice, powerful legs propelling him forward, his four arms spread wide. He landed, two arms wrapped around the one holding Soft Voice, the other pumping up and down, over and over, raining hammer blows onto the arm, the shoulder. The arm let go immediately.
“What the Hell?! Your freak hit like a damned grown-ass man!” He shook his arm, trying to dislodged four-armed, wide-faced toddler that was still shrieking through a too-wide mouth; he stared in increasing horror at the silvery needle-like teeth in the mouth, and fought to block the small-fist blows that struck him with all the power of another man. Finally, he drew his fist back and stuck directly into the monster’s face, knocking it free of his arm. “Get that damned thing offa me ‘fore I straight-up stomp it!” the hard voice roared, while its owner backpedalled toward the door.
The child leaped forward, low and flat, and seized an ankle with two hands while propping against the floor with two others, and snatched with all his might. The man tumbled backwards, his head crashing into the door jamb behind him while the child climbed quickly up his leg, up his chest, racing toward his face with two fists raised--
“Baby!” Soft Voiced shrieked “Baby Boy, No! Don’t hit him! Don’t hurt him!”
The boy was already flailing, unskilled but remarkably strong blows raining down on the man’s face, head, and chest. Unskilled, child-like wide hammer-drop smashes strong enough to break a nose, cheek bones, teeth-- strong enough to leave bruises all over the target of his rage.
He heard her-- he hadn’t heard her words, but he heard her desperation and turned to her, and in his simple one-track focus he instantly forgot about the man, who scampered backwards into the hall, grabbing his pants from the dresser by the door. “I’ll be back, Bitch! I’ll kill that damn freak, Bitch! I’ll kill it!” the door to the small apartment slammed shut.
“Oh, Baby Boy…. what you done…..?”
“Arms _strong_!” he announced proudly, curling them into the pose. He was completely oblivious to the blood dripping from his hands.
“Yes they is, Baby…. They so _strong_….” She collapsed back against the bed, holding him, and crying. He enjoyed the warm feeling of the beautiful brown arms, of his head pressed against her. He listened to the bump that came from inside her; he could hear it when he was pressed against her like this. He lay there for a few moments, then gently, insistently, fought loose of her embrace. He padded back to the other room and pulled blue soft from the cushions upon which he slept and went back to her, where he gently spread it across her and climbed back onto her lap.
“What we gonna do, Baby? What we gonna do now?”
It didn’t matter to him what they did now. He was comfortable, and the bad was gone.
She woke him up. He saw that she had dressed. “Come on, Big Boy. We gotta go. We gotta get from here. Come on, now. Wake up; wake up and get you some clothes on.” He was on his cushion, and he wished Kitty was still around. Kitty had been gone for a long time. Soft Voice didn’t know why when he asked why Kitty was gone. He missed Kitty. He struggled into a pair of pants and then pulled on his shirts the way she had taught him. He hated wearing the shirts, but Soft Voice said they kept him warm. She helped him put on his jackets and pulled the socks into his feet. It must have been cold; she pulled four pair of socks onto his feet. “Oh, Baby, I sure wish they made some warm shoes to fit these big strong feet of yours--”
“Feet _strong_!” he beamed as he posed his arms and balanced carefully with one foot raised.
“I know, Baby; them feets is strong! So strong!” she smiled at him. He wished he could see it now, in the dream. He remembered the smile, but he simply couldn’t see her face anymore; the dream always gave her that sunshine glow that made it impossible to see her face. The dream was bad for doing that. The dream would let him have the Soft Voice and the beautiful hands and the warm arms but it would never let him have her face, and he so desperately wanted to see the face, to see if he could recognize it, to remember who she was.
Mercifully, he woke up. Finally, he had dreamt of her without….
Without the rest of it. Maybe this would be it. Maybe all the dreams would be better. Maybe this would be a good day. He sat up groggily, brushing aside the ratty blanket he had found and the old papers he shoved under it to make it warmer. The kitties were awake, too. One was gnawing on his fingers and he giggled. “Kitty stop that!” he chided. You tickle!” He shook the slight trickle of blood from his fingertip and sat up. “Okay, Kitty. I ‘wake. We find some food now, right?” His eyes played over the kitties, who were unusually agitated this morning. They pushed and pulled at a small leather packet and he reached over to pick it up out of curiosity. It was a wallet, now well-chewed. He didn’t really understand wallets, except that sometimes they --
“Dolla Money! Kitty find Dolla Money!” he said excitedly as pulled the green papers from inside and tossed the wallet further into the alley. “Good Kitty! Armstrong love Kitty! Come on, Kitties! Dolla Money buy food! Come we eat! We get maybe sandwiches for me and peanut butter for Kitties! Kitties like peanut butter, right Kitties?”
Armstrong is a wild card in the Campaign City setting. He is one of the most powerful bricks in this setting, and under the right circumstances, easily becomes the most powerful, not just exceeding Rook’s own power levels, but absolutely dwarfing them on occasion.
History:
Armstrong’s actual name is unknown, even to him. His memory is poor, and his intellectual sophistication moreso. What follows is a condensation of his actual history, purely for the benefit of the GM who may wish to work him into an existing campaign. Most of this history is unknown even to Armstrong, and a complete mystery to the world at large.
Armstrong’s mother was a cashier at a store in a strip mall outside The Crest area (a well-to-do, thriving area of luxury apartment buildings with private grounds nested amongst trendy shopping areas and excellent schools) of Campaign City. She was born in The Bottoms (a poor district of once-tidy apartment buildings built by Hubert Bottoms eighty years ago. As things are wont to do, trends changed and the upscale popular areas moved away (toward The Crest), while the H. Bottoms Garden Estates became surrounded by seedier business, outlets stores, auto garages, and other “less desirable” businesses. Eventually the city bought the nearly-empty sections of the neighborhood using federal grant money and renovated them for use as subsidized housing to alleviate the homeless problem and to offer low-rent living to the working poor. Initially a success, like many such projects across the nation, politics and bureaucracy eventually began to work at counterpoints, leaving the Bottoms to become a large slum of blight upon the city) and never managed to leave.
When Armstrong’s mother was a high school senior, succeeded in getting a small scholarship sponsored by the African American Businessmen’s Association to Campaign University (a two-year “junior” college, but a start), but the scholarship wasn’t enough to provide her with the funds she needed to stay in school. An attractive young girl, on the advice of another student, she took to stripping in a club near the ports to earn “stacks of cash” in a hurry.
The fourth month she had danced at the club saw her leaving in the early hours of the morning, where she was attacked and raped. The assailant was never identified or captured. When she found out that she was pregnant, she opted to keep the baby, but never explained her decision to anyone beyond “it ain’t his fault.” The fact is that she knew that she herself was the product of rape, though she never let her mother know that she was aware of it, letting her continue to use the story that her father had been killed in an accident working on a ship.
Pregnancy ended her stripping career, and the loss of the cash flow ended her education. She found a job as a cashier, and then a second job at another outlet, and her mother helped her find an apartment not too far from her own.
Prenatal care suggested that she was carrying twins until a late-term ultrasound revealed that instead there was only one child, with bizarre skeletal development. She stopped seeking prenatal care after that, but again: she never explained herself. The last few weeks of pregnancy were extremely difficult; when the baby kicked, it was with the strength of a five-year-old child. Birth was, of necessity, cesarean.
There were, aside from the obvious physical deformities, problems with the baby. His feet were square, nearly as wide as they were long. His face was overly-broad and his brow low. When his teeth came in, they were pointed more like those of a carnivorous animal. He was extremely strong, though no more coordinated than any other infant. His skin had poor coloring, and even at this early point, it was clear that he was developmentally challenged. Eventually, testing would reveal that the child had been born with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE, or “Lupus”) that was already well-advanced. Conjecture at the time was that the Lupus was likely responsible for his mental deficiencies as well, though it was never conclusively proven.
For a time, Armstrong and his mother lived quietly in their apartment, with his grandmother providing cautious care for the baby while her daughter worked two jobs. She lost one of the jobs eventually, for excessive tardiness (finding sleep while working two full-time jobs and caring for a child is difficult for anyone). Out of desperation, she, like many of the girls at the club where she used to dance, turned to the world’s oldest profession to supplement her income.
Over the next couple of years, Armstrong would have a variety of experiences, none of them good. He would listen as men would abuse his mother, and watch her repeat the cycle over and over again. He would be taunted, threatened, and often tormented by these same strange men. Then came the night that he attacked one of them. Fearful for both of their lives, his mother packed a bag for her and her son and in the middle of the night fled to her mother’s house. Unwilling to return to her day job for fear the man her son attacked would find her there, she turned to prostitution as her sole source of income. She wouldn’t sully her mother’s home with this business, and so she stayed more and more on the streets, leaving her child in the care of a woman already slightly fearful of the growing boy with the terrifying face and four arms. She ensured that he was fed and that he lay down for naps, but had as little contact as possible with the boy.
It wasn’t long before he noticed that his mother wasn’t with him as often as she had been. Then came that awful period where she had been gone for several days. The small lady brought him food, but she didn’t hold him like Soft Voice did. She didn’t talk to him like Soft Voice did. He begged the other lady to let him see Soft Voice, but she didn’t help. Finally, he walked to the window and grabbed the bars, pulling with all his might.
He felt them yield, but they would not give. “No!” he shouted, mad at them for refusing to come loose. “Arms stronger than you! Arms strong! Arms _STRONG_!” and with a frustrated cry, he gave a final jerk and they tore loose, ripping chunks of concrete and mortar from the casement. He flung the bars-- larger than he himself was-- casually behind and crawled out the window. The strength of his hands and his hand-like feet made crawling the side of the building trivial, and he descended the two floors to the street. As soon as he touched the pavement, he was off and running.
He ran all afternoon, aimlessly. He ran into the night. Finally, he ran into the right alley, and he found her. He could not wake her, though he tried and tried to clean her face, to kiss her cheeks as she had kissed his, but the blood was bitter and did not clean away. He stayed with her, curled up next to her, trying to wrap himself in her beautiful brown arms, but always they fell away. He felt a new feeling then-- a new, terrible feeling, and nothing he could do would make it go away. Then the lights and the noise came-- terrible, awful noise, and he ran and hid. So many men. He had never seen so many men. They came and they talked and they studied and then they took her away, and he never saw her again. And the feeling got worse….
Armstrong’s mother had been shot point blank in the face with a .45. It is not known if it was during a trick gone bad, violent robbery, or simply the random chance of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. No suspects were ever determined, and the case remains one of hundreds of unsolved murders in the Bottoms.
The boy was found, just as the investigators were leaving, and attempts to lure him from his hiding place resulted in a violent attack, during which Armstrong was tazed repeatedly. He was taken to Child Protective Services and his picture advertised locally, but no one ever showed up to claim the orphan monster child. Two weeks later, he disappeared.
Armstrong will not be caged. Many attempts were made in the first few months after his mother’s death (though none have realized that the woman in the alley was his mother), all of them resulting in him ending up in a psychiatric center, or a group facility, or some other alien place meant to keep him safe, but he will not stand for it. Generally, if handled kindly, he would tolerate it, but he would always escape at the first opportunity, even if that mean simply beating a hole through a wall. By his tenth year, CPS and other social services had developed a quiet agreement to stop looking for him.
Personality and Motivation:
Armstrong is severely developmentally disabled. He has, in the words of one of his caregivers, the mind of a toddler, save for his general lack of selfishness. Complicating interactions with him is the fact that his memory is extremely poor, and only the most patient of people have ever managed to fully imprint themselves into his memory. Only extensive repetition has allowed him to understand the little he does about the world around him. Early speculation suggested that this was some sort of neurological damage directly to his brain due to the advanced Lupus with which he was born, but no one has ever been able to test this, and really-- it doesn’t matter. He has no understanding of his own problems, and would be totally unable to adhere to any sort of treatment regiment owing to his reduced faculties.
Armstrong is generally suspicious of anyone approaching him, particularly men and those who act with authority or forcefulness. He is openly resentful of those whom he judges to “bully” him or others near him, and has been known to take violent action to make the bully stop. This has more than once brought him into conflict with the Campaign City Police and even a few local gangs. Generally he is quite shy, easy to spook, and easily intimidated. The intimidation wears off, though, the longer someone continues to use it. Perhaps it calls to some unpleasant memory, or some frustrating situation. If it persists for too long, it will begin to eat at him, and his frustration will begin to build. He is more pleasantly inclined to tolerate people who fuss over his kitties or bring him or his kitties something to eat.
Armstrong is incapable of formulating any sort of long-term goals, and equally-unable to remember them long enough to complete them should he manage to come up with one. The closest thing he has to a goal is to sleep without dreams. He likes the first part of the dreams, but they soon descend into horrors that he does not understand are from his own childhood.
Armstrong is generally quite shy, and almost impossible to see unless he decides it is safe to reveal himself. His life on the streets has given him an uncanny stealthiness for someone his size, though it’s possible that his “kitties” help him to know who is about and where, making it possible for him to more easily avoid detection.
He is not adverse to walking in public, though he does not like the stares or comments, or especially the horror-filled gasps that follow him when he moves among the people. His days are spent in alleys, searching trashcans for anything edible or the occasional bits of “Shiny Money.” From time to time, he will stumble across “Dolla Money,” which excites him considerably. He has learned that money can be traded for things like food or hats or blankets, though he has no concept of the value of money, as he is unable to to math or develop a firm grasp of the concept that not all “Moneys” have the same value. Unscrupulous vendors with brave (or stupid) hearts will quite routinely con him of his money, a fact of which he is blissfully unaware.
Armstrong roams all over the Bottoms, preferring to move at night when he travels more than a few blocks. He will shelter himself as best he is able until he is ready to move again. When he changes locations for an extended period, he will usually bring his “kitties” with him. Armstrong travels with several large rats, which he refers to as “mah kitties” or “mah cat.” Armstrong has been introduced to actual cats, of course, but he seems completely unable to tell the difference. If he hears a cat purring, he will note that this is a “sleeptime kitty touch careful!” but remains unable to differentiate it from any other cat or rat by any other means.
Habitually, regardless of how far he roams (he has been known to camp in the harbor district and has periodically been reported on the southside, though this is quite rare) or how long he stays gone, he will invariably make his way back to the alley behind Virgillio’s Convenience and Laundry. He will almost always spend cold winters here. The Virgillio brothers suspect it is the heat of the gas-powered dryers from the laundromat that draw him here. In reality, even though he does not remember it anymore, it is because this is where he found his mother’s body. That memory exists, twisted, as a dream now, but it has no sense of time or place for him. This particular alley is his home because it is his home, so far as Armstrong himself understands it.
The Virgillio brothers have worked long and hard-- at the behest of Bottoms-local supervillain Freight Train-- to train Armstrong to spend money at the Convenience and Laundry before trying anywhere else. The brothers and their four employees are more-than-honest with the simple-minded monster, often simply taking his payment of a one-dollar bill and returning change of four quarters. For the most part, the Virgillios, who have found that having Armstrong close at hand is a considerable deterrent for violent crime, do what they can to ensure that the giant and his “kitties” have food when they are hungry and blankets when they are cold. They pretend not to notice that the door to access the ducting for the dryers in the laundromat has had the lock torn off of it for access on rainy nights. No one knows what the connection is between Freight Train and Armstrong. If asked, Freight Train replies cryptically and simply "He part of the Bottoms. He one of my people."
He rarely looks directly at a stranger when they are talking to him or when he is talking to them, often not even acknowledging them. He often gives away the fact that he is paying attention when someone calls his name ("Armstrong") because of his reflex habit of half-heartedly starting (but rarely completing) his "arms strong!" pose (curling his upper arms up and back into a "rear double bicep" and his lower arms down into a "most muscular" ). Even though it's done now purely as a reflex (he doesn't not hear his name as "Armstrong," but as "arms strong," which was part of a bonding and encouragement game his mother played with him as a toddler), it's rarely completed, simply because initiating the pose makes him remember Soft Voice and how she ignored him and left with so many strangers.
Appearance:
Armstrong stands exactly eight feet in height, and even for his size, is unusually broad. Likely this is because of his four arms: he needs the over-sized torso to accommodate four distinct shoulder joints. His skin was once-- and still is, in places-- that of a “medium-skinned” African American, though he is covered more in the white and pink blotches and mottling of a lifetime of uncontrolled Lupus. What little hair still grows on his head grows in small grey patches, scattered amongst the unscarred portions of his scalp. It’s interesting to note that he does not seem to be plagued with the discomfort and joint pain commonly associated with this disease, but it’s quite possible that he does experience these problems and lacks the sophistry to express them or simply views them as just a part of how life is.
His eyes are small and set into an overly-wide, flattish face with a wider, thin-lipped mouth filled with long, metallic-looking needle-like teeth. Either his teeth are immune to the problems of decay and lack of hygiene, or they simple don’t stop growing back in as they are lost, for he still has a full set of clean-looking, if unsettlingly-designed, teeth.
Armstrong is powerfully-built, displaying a muscle mass that is clearly beyond the possibility of attainment by a “normal” human. All four arms end in large hands, and his feet end in oversized, square-shaped feet. While the placement and length of the great toes on his feet allow him considerable prehensile use of his feet, they are shaped nothing like hands.
Armstrong wears a watch cap at all times, and keeps it pulled down to his brow. His pants are whatever he can scrounge, usually held up with a rope or wire (he prefers the wire, as he can twist it; he is no more adept at knot-tying than a particularly clever toddler). He rarely wears any sort of shirt, though he may periodically have a button-down shirt (open) or a robe over his upper arms and will tear the sides to allow it to drape over his lower arms. When the weather is cold, he will wear two jackets-- one around his lower arms and abdomen, zipped as best as he is able, and one around his upper arms and torso, zipped but either torn up the sides or with holes torn through the sides to accommodate his lower arms (He prefers them ripped up the sides, as simply poking his lower arms through holes in the jacket is still confining for his lower shoulders, and makes the upper jacket very tight).
He has yet to find shoes that come close to fitting, and instead has been seen with multiple layers of socks, bedroom slippers, and an assortment of thong sandals and slides. If the weather is warm enough, he prefers to be barefoot.
Armstrong, as noted, is a background character. He will never be a hero, as he lacks the ability to trust a large number of people (or most strangers), and his motivations and mental map are too simplified to understand anything beyond “stop the bad thing that is happening.” He will never be a villain because he lacks the motivation and the ability to remember the motivation should he have one.
He is best used as a rare force of nature-- once in a great while, something might send him into a frenzy which might lead to an encounter. He sees everything that happens on the streets, though anyone wishing to question him will have to earn his trust and learn to interpret his understanding of what he saw: remember that his intellect is akin to that of a toddler; this skews his world view considerably.
Most locals happily ignore his existence for fear that acknowledging the monster will result in some kind of calamity. The speedster Freight Train has, for reasons unknown, taken an active interest in the welfare of Armstrong, and will check on him periodically to ensure that he is reasonably well and that he has no unfulfilled urgent needs.
Armstrong’s rats are puzzling. He does what he can to take care of them as though they were his pets, but cautious and prolonged observation has shown that they, in turn, do the same for him. No one can explain how or why this is happening: does Armstrong exert some mental influence over them? Do they influence him? Have they been trained by someone? If so, why? For the most part, it is simply overlooked as “one of those things.” Woe be to the one who harms one of Armstrong’s kitties, though.
Powers and abilities:
Armstrong is a powerful brick (STR 50 at 1/4 END), and extremely durable (Damage Reduction PD 50%, ED 25% combined with enough PD and ED to ignore blows from even a 25 STR character). However, he seems to be a bit “out of touch” with the physical world, in as much as he often appears almost unable to register any but the strongest of physical contact (Phys Lim: if it doesn’t do STUN, he doesn’t feel it). His life on the streets have taught him how to fend for himself (Survival: Urban Environments 14- [NOTE: no build of Armstrong should include "streetwise," as he lacks the mental faculties to understand or develop most of the subterfuge, chicanery, and cleverness associated with this skill] ), and combined with his general shyness and distrust of people he has learned how to avoid contact with people when he doesn't wish it, and how to remain completely unseen, even when he should be in plain sight (Stealth: 16-). He is also surprisingly quick on his feet (+6"[12 meters]) Running), and has learned a unique "launching" technique using his Extra Limbs (two extra arms: his original build is 2e, and he uses them just that way, so add whatever you need to for later edition builds to get a +2 HTH Bonus) that allows him to "rush in" and startle even opponents looking directly at him (quick draw / lightning reflexes; once per combat per opponent: he is not a skilled combatant, and has an obvious tell for this tactic, once you see him do it).
As noted, Armstrong is not a skilled combatant, but is extremely practiced in the use of his extra arms, allowing him to routinely gain an advantage in hand-to-hand combat, even though he is not particularly good at it. Unlike many large-built bricks, Armstrong routinely uses the Leaping he derives from his STR, and in a tight area, this is often his preferred movement as his size, STR, and reach (+1" / 2 meters Stretching: arms only) give him an incredible advantage in tight quarters. His STR and Extra Limbs give him a spider-like climbing ability (Climbing:rough surfaces / handholds only; 15"/ 30 meters total) and allow him to move vertically faster than he can actually run.
Armstrong's confused mental processes and general stubbornness provide him with 10pts of EGO Defense (adjust as you see fit for your use of him in your games).
Armstrong's most unique and most powerful ability doesn't show itself until he becomes extremely frustrated: he can increase his Strength, End, and Defenses seemingly at will. His problem-solving skills are nigh nonexistent. When he runs into something he cannot achieve through brute strength, he will whip himself into a trance-like frenzy, using a rhythmic reinforcement technique not unlike chant. (“Arms strong! Arms strong! Arms strong!” is his usual choice, with emphasis increasing as his frustration builds), repeating this over and over as his power level increases. He will continue until he has overcome whatever obstacle he is facing.
(build this as an AID: Must Fail EGO Roll versus Frustration (His EGO is 15, but a Psych Lim results in him suffering a -1 to EGO every phase that he is frustrated by the same problem). Self only. 16d6, Variable SFX, divided between Aid (½)STR (1/5), END (balance of points). Once the Aid begins, it will continue until either Armstrong has overcome the obstacle making him frustrated or he is otherwise stopped (talking down, taking down, what-have-you).
Yes; this is a problematic build in the wrong hands, but Armstrong is an NPC; the GM should be able to prevent himself from wrecking his own game.
While he does feel discomfort from them, Armstrong is immune to the effects of extreme heat and cold. However, (psych Lim), he absolutely hates to get wet, and has been known to flee several blocks to avoid being sprayed with a garden hose (obviously not when Enraged or Frustrated: Psych Lim: tunnel vision on object of Frustration).
To make Armstrong more powerful, make his Defenses Resistant (they are not Resistant in the original character) or add a small amount of Resistant Defenses and second Aid of 4d6 that is divided amongst these resistant Defenses.
To make him less powerful, reduce his base STR to 30 and /or drop his Aid to 12d6 and do not use it to add to his Aid.
To alter him slightly, use the 16d6 Aid, but rather than adding ½ the points directly to Aid, add them instead to the maximum that can be added via Aid. Technically, this lets him become more powerful, but it will be slower than his default build. To really have some fun, add only ¼ the points to Aid, and ¼ to buy the recovery rate further and further down the timeline. Be aware, however, that this results in making fundamental changes to Armstrong, as it implies that he will be able to maintain his focus far longer than he actually can per his conception. His power level will grow much more slowly, but he will remain a mega-threat much, much longer than he would using any of the other builds.
To make Armstrong a bit less frightening, give him a “normal” face, and consider removing the burn-like Lupus scars. Give him normal feet. (Yeah; I don’t know why, but the youth group was really freaked out by the feet. My wife was helping out that night (she enjoys the character, and decided she wanted to play him when I mentioned he was coming up), and she didn’t get their problem with his feet either. Just one of those things, I guess.....
If the rats are too much for you or your group, replace them with actual cats. However, the cats won't be as inclined to "take care of Armstrong" the way the rats do.
There’s more I could go into with Armstrong, but honestly, it’s all campaign-related and history-related. This is more than anyone needs to know about Armstrong if they plan to use the Halloween adventure I’ve been running the youth group through, so I’ll just stop here.
Tactics:
Armstrong is incapable of formulating any tactics. He will do his best to target whoever he sees as the cause of his greatest frustration, but he distracts easily and will have no problems turning his attention to a closer target. While it's dangerous, getting him more and more frustrated will Trigger his Enraged (8- when frustrated, increase by 1 with every 10 STR gained from Aid). For the most part, any fighting in which he is engaged is the result of someone else starting it or his under-developed intellect finding the source of his frustration to be a particular person. Despite his abilities and his appearance, Armstrong is relatively docile, and prefers to left alone, though he does enjoy watching people interact when he is certain they are unaware of him.
EDITED: 10/26/20