Bay 12 Games Forum

Hero Name: Nahullad (na-hull-ad)
Real Name: Amelia Grace Dala

Look:
• ambiguous, man, shifting, transgressing, woman
• Asian or South Asian, Black, Hispanic/Latino, Indigenous, Middle Eastern, White
• strange eyes, upsetting eyes, piercing eyes, human eyes  N/A
• metallic flesh, scaled flesh, alien flesh, plated flesh, untouchable flesh, mottled flesh
• terrifying costume, strange costume, unnerving costume, no costume

Nahullad is a imposing figure - seven feet tall at the shoulders. That's it at the shoulders has to be distinguished, because her neck ends around half-way up, presenting a rather horrible sight for anyone looking down from a height. She appears armoured, like a vaguely insectoid suit of plate; much of her body is covered in a black, chitinous metal, with only thin slits of alabaster flesh showing at the joints. Her hands are clawed gauntlets, her feet segemented sabatons. From her shoulders hangs a pair of white wings that cover her like a cloak, though she can't actually fly with them.

She can place an object on her neck - the closer it resembles an actual head, the better. She prefers mannequin heads, though she did try out a carved pumpkin once. When she does so, she can control and manipulate it like its part of her body, allowing her to speak with an electrolarynx. It also allows her to see, as long as there's at least the representation of eyes on it. However, it's easily detached, with the tendancy to come off with fast movement. Even worse, the 'head' rapidly degrades as it's being worn, until eventually it dissolves and collapses. To solve this, she carries around a bag with a bunch of mannequin heads in it.

Even without a head, her senses (minus sight) are supernaturally sharp, with the ability to sense the environment around her and read the intentions and emotions of people. Without a head, she communicates through a text-to-speech program on her phone. The screen on it is really scratched from her claws...

Moment of Truth [Locked]
It’s so easy to forget that you’re not your body, and you’re not the voice in your head—you’re both.
Be the monster, and save them anyway. Smash down walls, and speak softly. Because when you embrace it, you can do anything. Of course, putting on a display like this is sure to rile up those who see only the monster when they look at you…

Team Moves
When you share a triumphant celebration with someone, clear one condition if they treat you like a perfectly normal person and mark potential if they praise your power or abilities.

When you share a vulnerability or weakness with someone, ask them if they think you’re losing or gaining humanity. If they say losing, mark a condition and mark potential. If they say gaining, clear a condition and shift Mundane up and any other Label down.

POTENTIAL
❑ ❑ ❑ ❑ ❑

Advancement

Other Moves

Abilities:
•  impenetrable armor
• superhuman senses

Labels:
DANGER -2 -1 0 +1 +2 +3
FREAK -2 -1 0 +1 +2 +3
SAVIOR -2 -1 0 +1 +2 +3
SUPERIOR -2 -1 0 +1 +2 +3
MUNDANE -2 -1 0 +1 +2 +3

Conditions:
❑  Afraid (-2 to directly engage a threat)
❑ Angry (-2 to comfort or support or pierce the mask)
❑ Guilty (-2 to provoke someone or assess the situation)
❑ Hopeless (-2 to unleash your powers)
❑ Insecure (-2 to defend someone or reject others’ influence)

Backstory
• Who were you before?
Nahullad was once Amelia Grace Dala, more commonly called Amy by her friends. Her father is a corporate businessman, seemingly always away on business trips in some distant country-or-another, sorting out deals for the manufacturing corporation Helmsworth Industrial. Her mother was... well, Amy had never really been wanted. Her mother was always coolly distant, preferring to leave Amy's raising to the school system, her meals to the local supermarket's microwave meal brands, and her

Aside from that, she was a pretty ordinary girl, to be quite honest. She had a few friends, but not loads. She did acceptable at school, but neither did she excel or fail. She was a bit of a superhero geek; she dreamed of getting powers, making a difference, becoming famous for saving the city... she could once name every single hero (and most of the villains) that had ever operated in Halcyon City.

After she died, got back up, and became a headless monster that kind of changed a bit though.

• When did you change? What caused it?
Six months ago, the city was attacked by the evil cabal of sorcerers and witches called The Cauldron. They unleashed a great horde of monsters in the city, rampaging creatures that attack indiscriminately.
Being just an ordinary schoolgirl, she of course couldn't do much. She found herself hiding in an emergency shelter, with a small crowd of other people as the witch's monsters clawed at the door. They'd get through sooner rather than later. One of the people in the shelter, however, was a scruffy looking man in a stained labcoat, a weird set of goggles on his head and clutching a briefcase to his chest - nahullad doesn't know if he was a villain, or a hero. Seeing their doom (literally) clawing at the door, the haggard scientist spoke up.
He was in possession of a vial of serum - called Apothesis - that could grant superpowers, but not without risk. He wanted a volunteer to take it - to gain powers to fight off the monsters outside.

Amelia had always wanted to be a hero. She disregarded the risks and volunteered. A brief moment of pain and change - and she was a seven-and-a-half foot tall bioknight, her flesh black metal and ivory white. Only her head was unarmoured. She could sense the monsters outside, their weaknesses, and when she went out to fight she defeated them without too much difficulty - right up until a much larger one showed up.

That... didn't go so well, mostly around the part where it bit her head clean off her shoulders and tossed the rest of her away like yesterday's garbage. Her body lay crumpled for the rest of the battle, still and lifeless.

To everyone's surprise, especially Amy's, it was then she woke up, minus a central nervous system, a good chunk of memories, but still, somehow, alive and herself. She has a theory there was enough of the serum still in her that her body could adapt to its new decranialised situation.

• Who, outside of the team, is helping you understand your new body?
It turns out her parents weren't too understanding of her new condition. Indeed, they didn't even believe she was their daughter - just a monster that claimed it was.

The only person who actually has offered to help her is, ironically, an ex-sorcerer named Siobhán Hall, who had happened to be in the same shelter and witnessed the fight. Having lost most of her magic a long time ago to an accident while spellcasting, and used to the stranger sides of things, she took pity on the now-homeless, headless Amy, and lets her crash on her couch in her apartment. Amy doesn't sleep anymore, but it's nice to lie down, sometimes.

• Why don’t you just try to hide yourself away?
Hide herself away... And do what? Sit in a dark room and listen to Internet podcasts for the rest of her life - if it even has an end?

No, if she's going to find the scientist and get herself returned to normal, she needs to be out and doing things. If the scientist is good, perhaps he'll hear of her and get in contact. If he's bad... Well, a bunch of superpowered friends can only help in that case.

• Why do you care about the team?
All her friends seem to have made themselves scarce after she changed. At least the team isn't so keen to abandon her like everyone else. If she's ever hoping to go back to normal - perhaps it'll be with the weird psychic kids. At least she fits thematically with the person in the knight costume.

When our team first came together...
We drew attention and ire from plenty during the fight. One important person in particular now hates and fears us. Who is it?

Relationships
Vestige comforted you when you were at your lowest.
Sepiatone knew you before you changed.

Influence
You try not to care what other people think, even if you can’t shut everyone out. Give Influence to one teammate.
Vestige has influence over Nahallud.

Transformed moves
❑ I am not my body: When you take a powerful physical blow, you may roll as if you had two fewer conditions marked. If you do, on a 10+ you must choose to lose control of yourself in a terrible way.

❑ Coming for you: When you mark a condition, take +1 forward against the person you most blame for causing it.

❑ Be the monster: When you frighten, intimidate, or cow others with your monstrous form, roll + Freak. On a hit, they are thrown off and make themselves vulnerable to you, or they flee. On a 10+, choose one. On a 7-9, choose two.
- you frighten others you had not intended to scare
- you hurt someone or break something you shouldn’t have
- you feel like more of a monster afterward; mark a condition (GM’s choice)
On a miss, they react with violence, hatred, and paranoia, and you suffer the brunt of it.

Could the two of you please finish your characters? Also, everyone, even those who have finished their characters, remember to have answered these questions:
• What family does your character have?
• Do you go to school?
• Do you have a secret identity?

Having been disowned by her family, Nallahud doesn't really have any. Technically her mother and father are still alive, of course; but they don't have any intentions of bringing her back into the family fold. As she is no longer a person, legally, she no longer goes to school.

She'd find it hard to see the board, anyway.

She doesn't have a secret identity because she's a seven-foot tall headless knight.

How much do you former friends and family fear you now? Do they refuse to believe you were ever Amy? Do they think you are some kind of devil possessing her mutated corpse?

It turned out that her death was filmed. Combined with her new, creepy appearance, she doesn't have people boiling out of the woodwork to restore ties.
Her parents, especially, consider her just some monster claiming to be her - the memories she lost in her death and resurrection don't help in that regard. To that end, she's been declared legally dead, and it's not something she really knows how to undo.