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Prelude: Delusion
Lucy was born with the rare combination of genes that creates a telepath. Like most telepaths born to nontelepathic parents, she repressed the ability as a baby and did not display much more than a latent empathy throughout childhood.
At the onset of puberty, along with various other changes, she started to be aware that she could sense other people's minds. Being an adolescent, she kept this to herself, not wanting to be "different". Primarily her concerns were with the logistics/ethics of picking up test answers from the teacher and finding out whether Johnny *really* liked her; and not tipping her hand and being labeled a "freak".
At fourteen, Lucy and her parents were caught driving in a sudden rainstorm and were hit by a truck. Lucy's mother was killed instantly. Her father held on for some time while emergency workers tried to cut them out of the car. More or less instinctively, Lucy tried to pull her father's mind back from death. She failed, and the experience traumatized her.
She spent nearly two months in a coma, partially from her injuries, but mostly from the telempathic trauma. When she regained consciousness, she'd lost nearly all control of her telepathy, on top of being injured and grieving. Throughout physical therapy she complained of phantom symptoms, displayed violent mood swings, and had difficult orienting herself. By the time she could walk again, they transferred her to the children's psych unit.
Lucy's parents had a generous life insurance policy and some saving of their own. That money was put into a trust for her, held by her parent's law firm, who were technically Lucy's guardians. Once it was clear that Lucy was not going to recover quickly, they arranged to transfer her to a private clinic, where she spent the next four years.
As a receptive telepath, Lucy tended to develop whatever symptoms her doctors expected her to have, and mirrored the problems of the other patients, which complicated diagnosis. Lucy deliberately hid the fact that she was a telepath from the other patients and especially the doctors.
At first it was just the old fear of being labeled a freak, but eventually she also worked out what would happen if she was outed. Doctors can be bribed or corrupted, and while her guardians were ethical, they had no personal vestment in her well-being. Best case, she would wind up an object of study (and fear from the general public). Worst case, she'd wind up "disappeared" by any number of secret organizations (criminal, government or otherwise) who'd love a captive telepath. As long as she was a legal minor with nobody looking out for her, it was safest to stay hidden.
In any case, the first few attempts to place her in transition homes failed miserably, as she suddenly had to deal with a whole new collection of mental problems bombarding her from the new group of people in the home. Once she realized the problem, she started working on getting her abilities under control. By her seventeenth birthday, she was reasonably confident in her ability to function outside a hospital environment. She chose to wait until she turned eighteen and did not need to be placed with a foster family. She spent the year fine-tuning her skills, completing her GED, and working on the necessary paperwork to get herself released.
When Lucy was sixteen, she started periodically "escaping" from the hospital. With her abilities, it was remarkably easy to conceal short absences. For short periods, the outside world was not too overwhelming, and she was able to deal better and better as time went on. In one instance, she saw a television report of some people trapped in a collapsed building, and went out and offered her assistance as a telepath, carefully concealing her name and identity. She's run into superheroes a few times (exact details to be worked out, as I get the impression that what happened to the other town superheroes is going to be a plot point), who knew her as "Delusion", a teen mentalist (who was a little crazy). She helped out from time to time, but not regularly or as part of any team.
Lucy does have to check in with a psychiatrist on a regular basis as part of the conditions of her release. She has a small apartment paid for with the trust fund. She still keeps her secret id going, because even though she is a legal adult, her history is spotty enough that it would not be hard for someone with enough money/influence to get her committed again if they wanted to get at her that way.
THE FOUR QUESTIONS
1. Why is your character a hero? Or, to put it more precisely: Why would your character go out of his way, risking imprisonment, injury, or death, interfering in matters which don't involve him, to help people he has no direct connection to?
Lucy, being what she is, responds to people in need. She has a very hard time *not* going out over her way to help someone in danger. She's also generally a good, idealistic, kid.
2. Why would your character join a hero team? As opposed to working on his own, working publicly for the government or military, or simply staying home and watching TV?
Lucy's a little bit lonely. Superheroes are just about the only group that won't be put off by the fact that she's a telepath and tend to be pretty tolerant of personality quirks. She understands that her powers can only do so much. She can point out someone pinned under a beam, but could not actually lift it up. She can help more people as part of a team. In the back of her mind. there's also the fact that the more superhero friends she has, the less likely she is to wind up being manipulated by someone unethical.
3. Why would a team want you? Think carefully. You're asking a group of potentially paranoid vigilantes with things to hide to trust you with their lives and secrets. What will your PC do to earn such trust?
Lucy really is a pretty good kid. She's straightforward (if only because she has too much stimuli to wade through to keep lies straight) and helpful. She has actually thought through the ethical implications of her abilities and does her best to keep anything she finds out confidential and not to snoop through other people's private business.
4. What is your PC's stand on killing? Under what conditions would your PC take a life? This question is not meant to state that all PCs must have CVKs, but it is something which needs to be known. Also understand that wanton killing will lead to your being hunted by the authorities.
Lucy absolutely will not tolerate killing. Even beyond the general ethical issues with murder, death inside her sensory range *hurts* her. It would have to take a pretty extreme situation to overcome that (and I can't really think of one off the top of my head) and the aftermath would probably land her back in the hospital.
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glimmermir) wrote,
