To warm up things a bit for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, I present a pair of Heat-powered siblings for Mutants & Masterminds 3e, Gary and Jaime Hill, AKA Meteor and Tac-Nuke. Can the brothers keep the sibling rivalry under control?
Backstories: Gary and Jaime Hill are mutant brothers with similar (heat control) powers. Gary is a classic flaming hero, although the flames that wreath his body and entangle evildoers are, as he puts it, “Just special FX, folks” unlike his Meteorite Strike and Fiery Blast. Jaime’s powers, while they produce heat, focus more on control of the microwave and radio bands of the EM spectrum, allowing him to overhear—or scramble—communications, as well as deal damage.
Jaime’s powers manifested about 8 months ago, while he was following Meteor around, unaware his idol was his older brother. The boy got caught up in a fight between Meteor’s team and a supervillain, who got away while Meteor desperately tried to protect his kid brother, who was seriously injured in the fight. This event led to Meteor having to reveal himself to their parents, so they would accept his and the team’s help.
Nothing stopped Jaime from experimenting with his new powers or trying to tag along with Meteor. Not the long hospital stay. Not his parents’ obvious upset over the whole thing. Not lectures from AEGIS agents, Meteor, and Meteor’s teammates. Realizing the kid wasn’t going to listen to them and WAS going to get himself seriously hurt—again!—or worse, the team decided Tac-Nuke needed be trained properly.
Trained somewhere hopefully far enough away to throw any interested supervillains or organizations off Jaime/Tac-Nuke’s trail. It took a lot of pleading and even a few angry words, but Gary got their parents on board finally and Jaime has been enrolled at a school with faculty who have experience with young people like him.
Jaime is a typical early teen, both immature and with an attitude. Those plus strong superpowers make for a scary combo. His self-chosen codename Tac-Nuke comes from the slang verb for microwaving food plus tactical nuclear weapons. Yes, his elders’ misgivings about the codename’s “message” make him smirk.
Twenty-year-old Gary has been leading a double life as a student (first high school and now college) and superhero since he was about 15, so he has much more maturity and experience – as well as much more control of a potentially very dangerous power suite – than Jaime. Gary tries to advise his brother, to help him, but Jaime just gets mad, accusing Gary of trying to “boss” or “disrespect” him. Their parents aren’t much help here, either. They haven’t yet gotten over the shock of having super-powered sons, and their relationship with Gary is still strained over his role in Jaime’s breakout.
Design & Play Notes: The brothers have their meta origins in my art hobby and my group’s newest M&M campaign. Last year, I entered an art contest with a piece depicting a worried super watching as doctors treated a badly-injured teammate. When our M&M GM asked us to submit NPC concepts for his new campaign earlier this year, the art became the core of Tac-Nuke’s backstory. Mind, these stats aren’t used by my GM: they were created just for Astral Projections.
Both superheroes could be used in the same campaign. Superteams Handbook offers tips on games where the PCs (like characters in some comic book teams) are of varying PLs. For a Hero High game, you could alternately lower Meteor’s PL and make him closer to Tac-Nuke’s age. It’s also possible to re-write both statblocks to make Tac-Nuke his big brother’s NPC sidekick, using the Sidekick Advantage mechanic from the Deluxe Heroes Handbook. Although Meteor and Tac-Nuke have points accounted for as PCs, one or both can be used as heroic or villainous NPCs.
PDFs were created with Hero Lab Classic. (FYI: PDFs are 2 pages; hover cursor at the bottom of PDF for options.)
MeteorTac_Nuke (1)
Linda Whitson
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