Characteristic
Cost
END
[Notes: Charges built into Multipower, Ignore Individual Slots' END]
[Notes: Can Be Used As an Abort Action]
[Notes: Triggers DEX Roll]
Cost
3
3
3
3
3
10
[Notes: Custom Mod is Everyman Skill]
2
5
5
4
3
15
10
15
20
15
20
25
5
The left side tires on the 1936 Pierce-Arrow squeeled as Cliffhanger made the sharp turn. Looking over his shoulder, he could see that the crooks were getting closer and the sharp ting of the bullets ricocheting off his car’s heavy surface made him none too happy. Sending his passenger, Lana Lilac, news reporter, a reassuring smile, he said, “I meant to do that.” A minute later, the car bucked sideways as a tire blew out. “I meant to do that, too”, he said, but both of his hands remained firmly on the steering wheel and his smile wasn’t quite so wide. A second later, the Pierce-Arrow began to roll. Not for the first time, he cursed Reekee even as his hand unconsciously drifted up to rub the monkey god’s face on his necklace for good luck.
It had all started simply enough a few months ago. Cliff Buchanan had been an archaeology professor at Brown University living a fairly forgettable life, full of research papers, peer reviews, and presentations on the mythology of the Southeastern Pacific. It had all changed when a paper had landed on his desk from an unknown author - a paper, he remembered, which had shocked him as he read it. It detailed the location of the fabled lost temple of Anakee. Anakee, according to myth, was said to hold untold riches of one of the most mystical and powerful lost civilizations in the area.
According to legend, they had wiped themselves out after discovering a power source of unimaginable scale - possibly even, he thought, atomic power itself. This was the holy grail of his life’s work and it didn’t take him long to get packed and go in search of this temple. It was a good thing it didn’t, for he soon learned that he wasn’t the only person hot on the trail of the temple.
As the car came to a stop, Cliffhanger shook his head and tried to gain his bearings. Looking over to his passenger, he was happy to see that Ms. Lilac seemed to be okay, though dazed, but the crooks were closing in behind them fast and he had to get her to safety before he could turn his attention on them. Grabbing her in one hand, he looked to the sky, the cloth top of the convertible having been torn away in the roll. Thrusting his fist into the air, a swing line snaked out of it and rocketed up into the air launching him and his passenger up and along with it. His stomach froze at the top of the flight, stuck between the competing forces of gravity and what remained of their acceleration. Then, as they began to return to earth, another of his swing lines attached itself to a gargoyle peering out on the road below from the roof of the First National Bank and Trust. Ms. Lilac, beside him, panicked, trying to push herself away from him. His strong arm wrapped around her tighter, squeezing her to him, “You might want to hold on,” he told her, gesturing to the ground far below. Looking down, her face turned white, then her actions reversed as she wrapped herself around him instead of pulling away. He gasped a little as she squeezed off his air.
Landing lightly on the rooftop above, he peeled her off of him, smiling as he did so. Then, he jumped off the roof and towards the ground below, but not without saying, “I’ll be back.” Free falling towards the ground below, feeling bullets whizzing past him going the other way, he was enjoying the rush of the new body Reekee had given him. Who could have expected his life would have taken such a turn after finding the temple?
It was deep in the Indonesian jungle and had taken a couple of weeks to get too even after he’d arrived in that country. He’d expected to be able to hire a crew to take him into the jungle. He had not expected the locals to be so wary of the area where he wanted to go. To them, the entire valley was taboo land. Maybe that should have been his first clue. Amazingly enough, though, he did find a crew willing to take him. As he thought back on it, they seemed as eager to get to the temple as he was. He had brought his sister along with him. She was a skilled linguist and, he thought, she’d prove useful to him on his adventure. If there was one thing he wished he could take back of the whole incident, he wished he’d kept her at home.
An instant before he smashed into the pavement below, Cliffhanger grabbed the bank’s flagpole and, using it, redirected his momentum into a band of thugs. Hurtling, feet first towards them, he bowled them over like ten pins and, in one fluid moment, was back on his feet, crouched and taking stock of the situation he was in. He felt rather than heard a bullet move past him on his right and knew that, if not for ReeKee, he’d be dead now. But the thugs didn’t have a chance. For good or bad, he was protected by a god. With a flick of his wrist, a swing line snapped out towards the gun and the
coward who was firing it. Like a serpeant, it swung through the air, rearing and gathering its energy before it struck. God, he hated guns!
It was a bullet that had killed his sister. The very same bullet that had given him a new life. He had discovered at the last minute that there was another band of people looking for the lost temple - a group of thugs known as the Thule. They were looking for weapons with which they could hold the world at ransom. The band who had led him into the jungle had been members of the Thule and now that he’d gotten them past the traps leading into the temple, he and his sister were at their mercy. One of the band, a bald man with a scar under his left eye like a raptor’s talon, had pulled out a gun. Cliff watched in horror as that man pointed it as his sister and pulled the trigger. The gunshot was deafening in the stone temple, but he had just an instant to register it before he felt a blinding pain in his own abdomen. Looking down, he realized that the same bullet that had shot and killed his sister had ricocheted and passed through a jade idol of a monkey before entering his own gut.
As he fell to the ground and consciousness began to pass from him, the last image he saw would forever be etched on his mind. The ancient Tagolog inscription on the base of the monkey was clear as day despite the fact that he couldn’t read Tagolog. It read, “May you live in interesting times”. Having read it, he passed out.
The crack of the swing line making contact with the pistol and the corresponding shattering of the pistol in the thug’s hands brought Cliffhanger’s attention back to the moment at hand. Sweeping the swing line in a long arc over his head, he struck one, two, three of the thugs in rapid succession, but as he began to strike the fourth, the line pulled out of his hand and nearly pulled him off balance. It had tangled on the side view mirror of one of the crooks’ cars. Looking around to see what had happened, he realized that several of the crooks had regrouped and were closing in on him. That was the problem with Reekee. He never promised all his luck would be good.
When Cliff Buchanan had died in that forgotten temple, Cliffhanger had been born, though he didn’t know it yet. When he regained consciousness, all the Thule were gone and the body of his sister lay nearby. Floating in mid air, nearby, was a shimmering green monkey. Okay, that was weird. It was talking to him. That was weirder.
Reekee the monkey god told him that it had healed him as payment for the use of his body in removing the defilers from its temple and that, from then on, it would be taking an interest in him.
Cliff thought it was pretty cool when it happened. He learned later that gaining the attention of a deity isn’t all its cracked up to be - especially not when it’s a trickster deity. Taking stock of the four thugs circling around him, Cliffhanger rose to his feet and clenched his fists. Defiantly, he prepared to deal with them with whatever fate Reekee had chosen for him today.
To resolve this conflict, he’s separated the two sides of his personality; the rational vs. the supremely weird. He’s split his life into two halves; Cliff Buchanan and Cliffhanger. Cliff Buchanan is a quiet Archaeology professor who appears to be somewhat absent-minded, though a brilliant archaeologist and passionate teacher. Cliff Buchanan tries to keep the weirdness out of his life through denial and hard work. Cliffhanger is a carefree man whose life is full of adventure and high adrenaline.
Still, it can get tiring. He knows he’ll never have a chance to have a quiet vacation and he knows that anyone he gets close to will probably get trapped in his weirdness - that includes Lana Lilac, a news reporter he met while investigating a series of museum robberies and whom he has fallen in love with. He keeps her at a distance, unable to proclaim his love for fear of putting her at risk.
When ReeKee healed Cliffhanger, he actually gave him the body of an Olympic athlete. He also cursed him to "always live in interesting times". This means that the most wildly improbable events happen to him. It also means that the most wildly improbably events happen -for- him. Cliffhanger has amazing luck, both good and bad, and is a weirdness magnet. He also uses swing lines to increase his movement and as weapons. He is a skilled archaeologist and scholar of the occult.
Cliff Buchanan is a somewhat disheveled man who always seems to be looking for something he might have recently put down. He seems to always have a book in his hands, wears glasses, and seems to only wear clothes which are brown tweed.
As Cliffhanger, he removes his glasses, but doesn’t wear a mask. He knows that whether or not his secret gets out is completely up to Reekee and, even if he were to wear a mask, it wouldn’t make a difference if Reekee wanted his identity known. Cliffhanger wears a jade necklace made of the shattered pieces of the monkey idol, with pieces carved into a monkey face, and two monkey paws. On his belt are several mechanisms designed to release swing lines as he needs them. These are the size of a deck of cards and can be removed from the belt and held in his hands.