Today's present left by the mighty Gift Bearer is a new anti-hero that you can drop into your superhero games. 

Stygian is a great character and one that has frustrated and delighted PCs in UO headquarters for years, so I know you fine GMs out there will put her to good use. 

Enjoy and happy gaming!

~ Jess
Bluesky | Mastodon | Discord

Day Twelve - Creature (NPC)

Setting: -
Genre(s): Superheroes

Stygian 5 (15)

Cursed Anti-Hero Bound To Shalhain

“Everyone loves reading about history, but the lucky ones get to hold it in their hand. If you’ve got the cash, I can make you that lucky too.”

Aria Scavallo was always drawn to relics and artifacts of the past. As a child, she would beg her father to take her to the Celestia Ancient History Museum every week so that she could pour over the exhibits and dream of holding artifacts like the ones that she saw in her hands. To his credit, her father—Dante Scavallo—enthusiastically nurtured his daughter’s interest. An art dealer who catered to a variety of specialty and underworld clients, Dante had more than enough money to ensure that his daughter attended the best private schools and enough pull to make sure that she passed even when she spent more time on extracurricular activities than her studies.

Due to her father’s generous endowments and despite her severe lack of interest in sitting behind a desk, Aria attended Celestia University to pursue her dream of becoming an archeologist. But even though her passion for the subject matter was obvious to her father, she struggled with the many degree requirements that came with her chosen field. Frustrated and angry, she spent most of her time partying and enjoying college life as much as possible, and when her father was arrested her sophomore year for art theft, that was all the push she needed to give up on the academic side of her dream. Using her father’s old contacts and calling in a few of his favors, Aria sloughed off the chains of legitimacy holding her back from the life she envisioned for herself and became a mercenary relic hunter.

Aria spent the next decade traveling the world and hunting down hard-to-find items for people who would rather keep their names and businesses from the prying eyes of customs agents. Using her gut instincts, love for adventure, and devilishly charming personality, Aria thrived in the life she created and became the go-to name for many in the illegal antiquities trade. However, the trajectory of her life took a sudden turn while exploring a hidden temple deep within a frozen mountain. While searching for an item for a mystery client, Aria spotted a twisted sword stuck in the hand of a long desiccated corpse. Not one to pass up an excellent find when it presented itself, Aria reached out to grasp the blade, only to be immediately bound to a stygian spirit from Shalhain, a dimension filled with dark energy and nefarious beings.

After struggling alone with the dark urges and waves of energy that the Shalhain entity had set in her for months, Aria finally regained control. Unable to find a way to destroy the sword or get rid of the being that had invaded her, Aria returned home to Celestia to gather herself before another expedition. But unlike her prior visits home, she was unable to ignore the violence that plagued the streets. As far as she was concerned, she and her father committed victimless crimes, but the ones she saw playing out in her city left a lot of victims in their wake—and made the entity inside of her go wild. To release the pressure that the dark being filled her with, Aria took to the streets and used her newfound powers to end the burgeoning criminal reigns of several very bad people. Finding that her actions sated Shal—as she had started referring to her new “friend”— and helped out the less fortunate of Celestia, Aria decided to take on the name Stygian and continue her new vigilante lifestyle. In between relic jobs, of course.

Motive: Focus the dark urges inspired by "Shal", the Shalhain entity on those who deserve it, relic hunting for hire

Environment: Anywhere where valuable artifacts can be found or at her safehouse in Celestia

Health: 25

Damage inflicted: 7

Armor: 2 (Shal)

Movement: Short

Modifications: Might and Speed defense as level 7; all athletic, perception, and Shalhain-powered tasks as level 7; history, geography, and social tasks as level 6

Combat: Stygian gets all of her parahuman abilities from Shal, the entity that she is bound to. She uses her own martial and athletic talents (enhanced by Shal) to make attacks with her sword and can attack two targets within range as a part of the same action. Stygian can also blast a ray of dark energy from the cursed blade into a foe within long range (ignores Armor).

When feeling overwhelmed or trapped, Stygian can use her action to fill the area in short range around her with gloom. Creatures other than her within the gloom perceive their movements as slow and hear all speech as garbled and slurred. Attacks made against Stygian while in the gloom are hindered. Creatures that begin their turns in the gloom must succeed on an Intellect defense roll or be overcome with a feeling of dread and stunned for one round.

As a last resort, Stygian can allow Shal to fully consume her and lash out at all foes within long range, damaging them with dark energy (ignores Armor) and pushing them back ten feet. After using this power she is hindered in resisting any dark or violent urges that she may have by two steps.

The presence of Shal within her also provides Stygian with various lesser abilities, like obscuring her in darkness to assist in stealth tasks or spotting foes that are attempting to sneak up on her.

Interaction: Stygian is brash, sarcastic, and devilishly charming when she’s interacting with friends or foes. She has no qualms with anything that she sees as a victimless crime but will intervene and (brutally) stop any violent or evil crime, especially if it affects the weak or disenfranchised. She also has no problem helping a hero dispatch a villain one day and facing off against the same hero the next when they try to deter her from retrieving an item for one of her clients. She sees these interactions as a game more than anything else. When she allows Shal to have too much influence on her body (by overusing her parahuman abilities within 24 hours), she becomes angrier, edgier, and more violent and must retreat for a few days to center herself and gain back control.

Use: The characters are tasked with protecting a rare artifact in transport that Stygian has been hired to steal.

GM Intrusion: The character is noticed by the entity within Stygian and is wrapped in dark energy.

You can find Stygian in the short "A Darkening Light" in Cypher Shorts: Dark Supers Shorts Vol. 1

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