Characteristic
Cost
END
Cost
25
24
Cost
| Flying Grab | 1/2 | -2 | -1 | Grab Two Limbs, 45 STR for holding on; FMove |
| Passing Strike | 1/2 | +1 | +0 | 7d6 +v/5; FMove |
| Passing Disarm | 1/2 | -1 | -1 | Disarm, 45 STR to Disarm; FMove |
Cost
15
3
3
3
3
2
0
3
3
2
1
3
3
4
3
2
20
15
5
10
10
20
1
1
1
1
1
5
20
15
A talented auto mechanic, Silas Tucker had long dreamed of flying an airplane, and had even developed a model of a "personal air machine," a rocket-like backpack that could allow a single person to fly through the air with as little effort as steering a car. In fact, he envisioned a world where everyone had such devices, where traveling across the country would take only a few hours and problems like death from falling would be a thing of the past.
His problems, though, were money and fuel. Although he ran an auto shop, he didn’t own it. Black men didn’t own many businesses in Burke Falls, New York, in 1938. He ran the shop for the town’s richest man, Cornwall Burke, making only a small stipend despite the shop’s profits, profits that were a direct result of Silas’s skill and ingenuity. He even had to pay Burke rent for the small home he made for himself in a converted attic space over the auto shop. And despite his best efforts, Silas’s "personal air machine" required so much fuel that it couldn’t reliably keep a man in the air for more than a few seconds before sputtering out.
Then one day, a shooting star lit up the night in Burke Falls, startling Silas from his sleep. He woke first to a blinding light, then a tremendous crashing sound as the meteorite struck the auto garage’s small yard, filled with car parts. Not even really thinking about it, Silas fished the white-hot stone out of the ground with a pair of tongs, hiding it away in a pile of scrap parts in the back of the garage, barely noticing the heat that it radiated and the strange tingling that spread through his body.
Strangely, no one else seemed to have been drawn by the meteorite’s fall. Silas filled in the small crater it had created, then waited three days for it to cool enough for him to examine it fully, working only a few feet from it day after day while repairing other people’s automobiles. When he finally did begin to tinker with it, he was amazed at how the stone still glowed. His various experiments gave him few answers as to what the stone was made up of, but yielded an amazing result: Just a few tiny grains of the stone, mixed with standard gasoline, made for an incredibly potent fuel. With excited anticipation, Silas took his prototype rocket pack out in some woods far west of Darien, strapped it on, and pulled the ignition.
He flew. Like a man-sized missile, like a speeding bullet, Silas Tucker flew through the Illinois skies, a trail of fire and smoke behind him. It was the most amazing experience of his life.
It was probably fate that Silas wasn’t the only one in the woods that night. Preparing to return home, he spotted some other men trekking through the trees. But these men weren’t there for any experiment. They were there to commit murder and dispose of a body, a kidnapped detergent heiress whose father has paid the ransom, but whose kidnappers were too spooked to let her go free because she’d seen their faces.
Hearing her screams, he clicked the rocket pack back on again, storming to her rescue, buzzing past the thugs so quickly that they couldn’t draw a bead on them, slamming his fists into them at such high speeds that they lost teeth. His face covered with black soot and grease from tinkering with the pack, he was unrecognizable. She would later describe her rescuer as a "barnstormer, a brave flying man." And with those words and the thrill of the battle, the Barnstormer was born.
Since that time, Silas has used his Barnstormer pack sparingly, developing a costume to keep his identity hidden from others when he flies into action. He briefly weighed the possibility of covering himself enough to keep even his race a secret, but ultimately decided that, even if it endangered his own secret, he would prefer to show people a good black role model. He’s thought about revealing his invention or the meteorite’s power, but has thus far decided against it. He knows that the greedy Cornwall Burke would claim all rights to both, citing that the invention was created by his employee and that the meteorite landed on his property.
The only person to know of Barnstormer’s real identity is, ironically, Burke’s 13-year-old son Archie (short for Archibald). Mostly good-natured, Archie liked to hang around the garage, and stumbled across the rocket pack while Silas was helping a customer. In a fit of selfishness, Archie blackmailed Silas into making a second rocket pack just for him, threatening otherwise to reveal all to his father. Silas did so reluctantly, but it proved to be a life-saving decision when he was captured by a mad scientist calling himself Doctor X-Ray. Donning his rocket pack and a mask of his own, Archie swooped in to rescue him. Calling himself "Tailgunner," he became, more or less against Silas’s will, the new sidekick to Barnstormer.
Although they haven’t fully realized it yet, both Silas and Archie have begun to change due to their exposure to the meteorite. They’re both stronger, faster, and more durable than they used to be. How far this progression will go remains to be seen.
The rocket pack allows Silas to fly at great speeds for considerable lengths of time before needing to be refueled. It’s relatively maneuverable, often allowing him to circle around his opponents. He’s trained himself for aerial combat, and frequently acts by dive-bombing opponents, punching, grabbing, or disarming them as he gets close. His leather costume is reinforced to give him some protection, and he carries a flare gun that he uses to blind or startle opponents. Though he hasn’t fully realized it yet, his physical abilities are rising above the typical human range as a result of his exposure to the meteorite.
Silas is quite a large man, with very dark skin, short-cropped hair, expressive eyes, and a thick, wide mouth. His body is very muscular and his hands are heavily calloused. As Barnstormer, he wears a brown leather costume resembling a World War I flyer. His goggles are darkened to protect his vision and his identity, and he often wears a long red scarf. His rocket pack looks like an art deco creation of brass and steel, a metal pack with twin cylinders that provide propulsion. He emits fire and smoke as he flies through the air; the rocket pack itself is quite loud.