Tigereye
by S.D. Anderson
Art by andi jones
6'1" 191 pounds Red Hair, Blue eyes; Tiger-colored gi with orange neck protector collar, black pants, boots, and gloves, white motorcycle helmet.
ST16 [80] DX:17 [100] IQ 12 [20] HT 13 [30]
Stats Total: 230 pts.Advantages: Combat Reflexes [15]; DR 20 [60]; Flight [40]; Harmony with the Tao [20]; High Pain Threshold [10]; Immunity to Poison/Drugs {-10% 14-} [13.5]; Increased Speed +1 [25]; Language Talent +1 [2]; Strong Will +5 [15]; SuperFlight x 3 [60]; Trained by a Master [40]; Visualization [10].
Advantages Total: 250.5 pts.Martial Arts Styles: Jujutsu Style (cinematic) [12]; Kempo Style (cinematic) [26]; Kobojutsu Style (cinematic) [13].
Style Total: 51 pts.Primary Martial Arts Styles: Flail: Nunchucks 17 [4], Judo 16 [2], Karate 18 [8], Philosophy: Zen Buddhism 16 [12], Staff 16 [2], Tonfa 16 [2].
Primary Martial Arts Total: 30 pts.Secondary Martial Arts Styles: Savior-Faire: Dojo 15 [6], Karate Art 15 [0], Karate Sport 15 [0], Meditation 15 [20], Axe/Mace 15 [1], Jitte/Sai 15 [1], Spear 16 [default boosted] [1.5].
Secondary Martial Arts Total: 29.5 pts.Maneuvers: Arm Lock 18 [1], Back Kick 17 [1], Disarming 18 [2], Kicking 17 [2], Off Hand Weapon Training {4 levels} [8], Spin Kick 17 [1].
Maneuvers Total: 15 pts.Cinematic Skills: Body Control 9 [1], Breaking Blow (Karate) 11 [2], Mental Strength 12 [4], Power Blow (Karate) 11 [2], Power Blow (Nunchuka) 11 [2], Pressure Points 18 [10], Pressure Secrets 10 [4].
Cinematic Skills Total: 25 pts.Cinematic Maneuvers: Binding 17 [1], Dual Weapon Attack [Tonfa] 13 [1], Enhanced Dodge [15], Enhanced Parry (all weapons) [10], Roll with a Blow 15 [2].
Cinematic Maneuvers Total: 29 pts.Skills: Acrobatics 15 [1], Area Knowledge: So. California 12 [1], Area Knowledge: Japan 12 [1], Area Knowledge: local neighborhood 12 [1], Area Knowledge: Okinawa 12 [1], Breath Control 9 [1], Drive Car 15 [.5], Japanese {+1} 14 [4], Occultism (Martial Arts/Buddhism) 12 [2], Stealth 16 [1], Style Analysis 11 [2], Tactics 9 [.5], Teaching 13 [4], Tournament Law 12 [1].
Skills Total: 21 pts.Disadvantages: Code of Honor (Heroes) [-15], Enemy: Organized Crime 9- [-30], Enemy: Supervillain 6- [-10], Overconfidence [-10],l Parallel Life [Tiger Fist] 6- [-5], Poverty (x1/2) [-10], Secret Identity [-10], Sense of Duty (to Innocents) [-10].
Disadvantages Total: -100 pts.Quirks: Color blind regarding clothes [-1], Exercises three hours a day [-1], Fan of Power Rangers [-1], Professes Vegetarianism, eats meat in secret [-1], Rep: -1 used to be known as "The Plaid Ranger" [-1].
Quirks Total: -5 pts.Total: 576 points.
Ian Saunders barely remembers his parents and twin sister. There was a car crash, and he remembers standing very still at the funeral. He and his sister Sossity were separated, he went to be raised by one set of relatives, she with another.
There were promises made to let them get back together. But his uncle was assigned to duty in the far east. And for years no one would talk about his sister when he brought up the subject.
Ian studied martial arts intensely in Okinawa. At first to get respect from older kids, later because he was good at it.
He learned the ways of combat and was tutored to use them honorably.
He eventually learned about his sister. His aunt Monique was a drug addict. She'd disappeared a couple of years after getting custody of Sossity. Monique turned up half dead in a hospital after a while. No sign of Sossity.
Monique eventually admitted she'd traded the 4 year old girl for a few ounces of cocaine.
He saw his aunt once since then. She was a guest on Jerry Springer's show. Big public display full of playacted remorse and a lot of blame being passed on the rest of the family. He almost electrocuted himself kicking the picture tube.
He returned to the U.S. partly because of his missing sister, partly because he was old enough to go out on his own but nowhere near rich enough to live in Japan.
He's not much of a detective and didn't have much luck in finding his sister. Although young as martial arts instructors go, he managed to get a partnership with the owner of a karate school, and about a year and a half ago, bought out his partner, who was more interested in starting a phone sex/psychic partners phone line.
Subsequently, a series of bills came due at once and he barely managed to hang onto the business, giving up his apartment to live out of his office.
A marginally operating business in a rough neighborhood, he adapted and made the best of it he could.
He took a stroll one evening and came to the aid of a man being assaulted by gang toughs in a park.
Seven against one was poor odds, and seven vs. two wasn't significantly better, though he creamed three of the punks before a baseball bat smashed his leg and he was kicked repeatedly in the chest for awhile.
He found the strength to twist the gang banger's foot as it came up after a stomp and with consulate skill, broke it at the ankle.
The gang banger screamed and cursed long enough for him to get to his feet, leap up on his good leg and put a throat punch on the gang banger that dropped him. Seeing him up and ready to fight despite a clearly broken leg, more than half their number down, the remaining gang members backed off both for safety concerns and out of respect for someone that tough.
He tried to heal himself for a couple of days but was convinced to go to a doctor by one of his students. The self treatment he'd given himself and the delay were mistakes. Had he gone to a doctor immediately he'd have had the leg set. Now he had to be hospitalized and have antibiotics pumped into him.
Normally this would be good if expensive thing. But then normally, hospitals don't explode.
Something blew up two floors above him. Several days passed before he regained consciousness.
It took a while for the insurance to get around to paying him, and by that time he'd built up a lot of debt. A good lawyer might have done something about this, but he wasn't that interested in going to court and settled for an amount that barely cleared off his existing debts and rental for a new dojo.
Life was returning to normal when he discovered he could fly. He woke up needing to go to the bathroom one night and started to push off the bed. Nothing happened. He realized he couldn't feel the bed. He woke up enough to look and saw he was inches from the ceiling.
He has no idea how or why this happened. If the hospital had told him that the device that exploded was radioactive and that the person in the floor directly above him was in a bath of experimental liquids which the explosion caused to be spilled onto him, he might have an idea but they kept mum about that for some reason.
He takes it as a sign of good karma and an obligation to use this power to do good.
His original identity was based on the Power Rangers, using a color scheme he figured Saban would never put legal claim on (Plaid Ranger). As it turned out, their lawyers said otherwise.
He had a ring his adopted parents gave him, it's stone was polished Tigereye. As good a name as any. He began using it.
He's learned he has another super power. A thug shot him with a poisoned dart. He shrugged off enough sodium cyanide to kill a platoon of gorillas.
Around the same time, another flying martial artist appeared in town, using the name Tiger Fist. The media has linked them together.
They have in fact worked together on several cases, but they're not a team or anything. He recognizes her style as Praying Mantis kung fu. She's good, but doesn't seem to have been taught any of the more advanced techniques. Of course having the strength of better than a half dozen or so men makes up for a lot of unlearned technique!
He's actually encountered her before he got his powers. She was in the floor above him in the hospital and landed on him after the explosion. She was being illicitly given experimental treatments to make her a super being. He spent several hours trapped under wreckage, both of them bleeding from various wounds, her treatments and treated blood mixing with his wounds.
The treatment worked well with him despite contaminants, improper dosages and the absence of any proper preparations for the treatment for an altogether different reason. The woman being experimented on two floors above him was his missing twin sister Sossity!
Author's note: Part of the background of both Tiger Fist and Tigereye uses an unofficial disadvantage I created called "parallel lives". Tigereye has it as one of his disadvantages, which means in this case that there is a 6- chance that something that occurs to Tiger Fist will result in a similar event occurring to Tigereye. Usually afterwards but sometimes it'll hit him first. See below:
Parallel Lives Cost: Variable
Events in the character's life match those of someone else, perhaps a person of historical importance, perhaps a twin who was separated from the character at birth, a previous incarnation, etc.At quirk level the connection between the character with the disadvantage and the person whose life he "follows" is fairly obvious and similarities easy to find, but they have no real significance. (for example, Lincoln had a secretary named Kennedy while Kennedy had a secretary named Lincoln.) Or at least no real significance that the secret masters want revealed at the present time in an illuminated campaign.
If the connection is broken at the time of character creation, that is, no continuing obligation to follow the parallel's life exists, the disadvantage is a quirk regardless of how identical the two life histories had previously been.
At higher levels, the disadvantage is akin to destiny. The stronger the relationship to the other character, the closer events that occurred to one occur to the other. PCs will have to take skills and advantages and buy off or acquire disadvantages similar to what the parallel did at about the same stage in life. They don't have to be identical, a parallel who was poisoned at a certain age may have a follower who gets a severe illness instead. A PC may find himself living with someone because the parallel got married, etc. Some kind of coincidental tie-in should be found where these divergences occur though. Perhaps they were treated for their afflictions by a doctor named Kerouski or the spouse/significant other of one was a distant relative of the other's.
It's legal to set another PC up as a parallel, but this means the player with the disadvantaged character is obligated to spend experience points along the lines the parallel's player does. Mutually paralleled characters may be allowed on a tentative basis. If the GM decides the character development is proceeding relatively unhindered because the players are too cooperative and arranging events in their lives to make mutually beneficial advances in their character sheets, he may reduce it's value accordingly and/or give the PCs replacement disadvantages valued at the cost difference and any punitive point costs he wishes to place on the abusers.
The cost of the disadvantage is based on the strength of the parallel. -10 pts for a 9- chance of having to spend CP to match the parallel, half that for a 6-, double for a 12- and triple for a 15-.
Campaign Role
PCs may have met Ian in Japan, particularly those who are martial artists. Any PC involved with finding missing children in costume or secret ID may have been contacted by Ian Saunders as part of his search for his missing sister.
Personality
Saunders is an easy going guy. In a lot of ways he's the typical "boy scout" super hero out to better the world he lives in. His worst traits are his taste in clothing ("Plaid Ranger" explains it perfectly) and an occasional break from his vegetarianism when he's sure no one he knows would notice.What his aunt did to his sister horrifies him. Nobody should be treated like that and he'll do what he can to protect other innocents from this sort of abuse.
He's not a "take charge" kind of guy but leads from example and uses his teaching skills well in this regard. He's a bit young to be the typical sensei, but there should be little doubt he's heading that direction.
Abilities
In addition to his considerable repertoire of marital abilities his immunity to drugs/poison is a mixed blessing. While he has a better than 90% chance of tossing off the effects of poison, he has an equal chance of not being treated by any prescribed medicines and so on. While he's relatively bullet proof (he picked up one of the powers that his sister didn't get) he is hardly indestructible. He didn't quite get her flight speed but otherwise the powers seem identical. (Plotline: A blood transfer from his sister probably would act as a healing agent, providing temporary regeneration powers to him. This is within the guidelines of using special effects. (SU p.7) Whether her blood would do this to someone who wasn't as genetically compatible with her as her brother is left to the GM's discretion.)
Battle Tactics
Tigereye is even more dependent on HTH attacks than Tiger Fist, lacking any real ranged attacks beyond kobujutsu ranged weapons, which he normally doesn't carry around with him in either identity.He'll use pressure points or pressure secrets to disable a foe if possible. He's also gained a respect for the wrestling "Sleeper Hold" (treat as a choke hold that targets the victim's cartoid artery instead of the windpipe) as a reasonably safe way to stop someone. (Presently it's known at its Judo -2 default of 14-.) He's not exceptionally effective against a lot of super types such as insubstantials, but good for taking out thug helpers, getting civilians out of combat, flying them to safety and shielding them with his body when necessary.
Article publication date: April 23, 1999
Copyright © 1999 by Steve Jackson Games. All rights reserved. Pyramid subscribers are permitted to read this article online, or download it and print out a single hardcopy for personal use. Copying this text to any other online system or BBS, or making more than one hardcopy, is strictly prohibited. So please don't. And if you encounter copies of this article elsewhere on the web, please report it to webmaster@sjgames.com.
