the Fiery Mask (deceased) Strength Agility Intellect Willpower 13d 3x 7d 6c Hand Size: 4 (25) Edge: 2 Origin: Doctor Jack Castle became the Fiery Mask after becoming the recipient of a dying man's powers. These abilities, a strange, elemental legacy of sort, can be passed down from one person to another indefinitely - as long as their current bearer does not die first. Powers: Atomic Sense (w): Jack has the curious ability to visually perceive the atomic structure of things. He can use this intensity 5 power to determine an object's chemical composition, or more often, to track something by the rare compounds he has laced it with. Aura / Heat (a): this ability allows Jack to generate an aversive aura of heat, one which can repel damage per a force field. This intensity 12 (+3) ability can shield him, or anyone he's in contact with, against even the mightiest physical attack with relative ease. Fire Control (i): upon being empowered by circumstance, Jack developed the ability to shape ambient flames in his environment - whether natural or those of his own generation. Jack may bend fire to his will with ease, having this power at intensity 13. Fire Generation (a): in addition to being able to shape flames as he sees fit, Jack can now generate intensity 15 fire and heat. This ability is mostly under his control, but on occasion Jack's fury will cause him to involuntarily give off staggering amounts of thermal energy. Power Transfer (i): the nature of Jack's powers allow him to transfer them to others, which will let them persist should he die. Jack may wield this power with intensity 15 skill, permanently gifting another with all of his super-human powers (including, unusually, this one). Super Breath (s): now possessing unfathomable lung capacity, Jack can inhale an enough air that he can inflict damage upon its exhalation! Functioning at intensity 13, Jack can use this hyper-compressed air to inflict like concussive damage - or to apply force to something. Super Jumping (a): above and beyond his enhanced strength, Jack has demonstrated the power to leap vast distances in a single bound. He may now jump anywhere within artillery distance in a single exchange, thanks to this intensity 20 ability. Hindrances / Augmentations: (none) Equipment: Mace (s): though super strong, Jack often carries a mighty mace with him into battle. He can use this to inflict his Strength +3 damage thanks to his considerable might, which is more lethal that his simply punching someone... though not by much. Sidearms (a): on occasion, Jack will carry two sidearms with him on patrol - even though his powers are considerably more effective. He can fire these weapons to inflict his Agility +4 damage in a single shot, raised to +5 when fired in a semi-auto burst. Skills: Boxing (s): while he's possessed of staggering powers, Jack is also rather handy with more mundane combat. He may attempt any two unarmed melee attacks each exchange, whether punching, kicking, or whatever else, the second of which will occur as a contingent action. Hypnosis (w): a skilled hypnotist, Jack has the ability to drop a willing target into a trance. In this state, a hypnotized individual can be implanted with post-hypnotic suggestions, or even be helped to suppress knowledge of traumatic experiences if desired. Medicine (i): Jack Castle doesn't call himself a doctor to impress the ladies. No, he's a fully accredited physician, skilled enough that the police regularly consult him on medical mysteries. He has all the abilities that this skill normally provides its bearer. Resist Domination (w): well-versed in the art of hypnosis, Jack has proven able to use this knowledge to resist mind control efforts directed at his person. This skill adds one level of difficulty to anyone attempting hypnotism or mesmerism against Jack. Contacts: In the modern era, Jack has few contacts that he can rely upon. All of these currently reside within the Twelve, the group of time-lost, Golden Age heroes he belongs to. Most of them are on good terms with Jack, and would happily help him if he but asked for it. Calling: Repentant, with a secondary calling of Explorer: while Jack is a man of science through and through, the truth is he goes about the fighting of various inexplicable threats because he wishes to prove worthy of his fantastic powers, no matter how dubiously he acquired them. Costume: When fighting the inexplicable forces of evil, Jack wears a dashing, vibrant uniform. It includes an orange, skin tight shirt, baggy red trousers, red bracers, a green leather belt, green leather boots, a green cape, and of course his orange, fiery mask. Personality: An intelligent and upright man, Jack uses his many and various abilities - both mundane and fantastic - in the aid of others. He's constantly putting his neck on the line for his fellow man, whether battling zombie hordes, demonic legions, or mad scientists. Real Name: Jack Castle Occupation: adventurer, former doctor Legal Status: citizen of the United States with no known criminal record, legally deceased Marital Status: single Alias(es), if any: none Group Affiliation: the Twelve Height: 6' 1" Hair: blonde Eyes: hazel Weight: 220 lbs Other Distinguishing Characteristics: when wielding his astonishing powers, or simply when particularly incensed, Jack's eyes tend to give off a crimson glow. Story: Jack Castle was originally a medical doctor who did double duty. A regular practitioner of medicine, he had a standard stable of patients, but he also did consulting work for the police on medical mysteries. Though not a police officer, he was well known to the local constabulary. On one fateful night, Jack came across a bullet-riddled car on the road, one surrounded by dead mobsters. Finding only one survivor of the fracas, Jack took him home to treat his many wounds. Before he could call an ambulance, though, something strange happened. The mysterious man asked what his odds of living until an ambulance could arrive were. He asked this, because he was possessed of incredible powers, powers that would be lost with him if he died. But they were powers he could yet pass on to another - one such as Jack. Conflicted, Jack felt he should call for an ambulance, and yet... he felt he could do great things with the power this man was demonstrating. His very hands were ablaze! Thus, Jack lied about calling for help, and the man passed his incredible powers on to him before breathing his last. Guilty about how he acquired his powers of legend, Jack concocted a bizarre story to explain how he came by them. In this tale, Jack acquired them when an enormous mad scientist, known only as the Zombie Master, tried to transform Jack into one of his seemingly undead servants. His willpower too great for the man's death ray, Jack caused it to overload. The resulting explosion then, according to Jack, granted him his astonishing ascendant abilities - with which he saved a damsel in distress and defeated the Zombie Master once and for all! While all of this was a fabrication, the simple truth is that Jack has faced a wide array of staggeringly bizarre villains over the years, mostly to prove worthy of the powers he'd do dubiously acquired. Thus, he may well have encountered this Zombie Master at some point. Even if the fiend wasn't actually responsible for Jack having super-powers. Jack's next encounter with the bizarre saw him going up against the evil scientist known only as Dork, who had crafted a bizarre, protoplasmic wave of destruction with which to raze the city. Luckily for our hero, Jack's intense heat made him immune to its insatiable hunger. After a scrum with Dork's men, Jack tracked him down to his secret headquarters, where he did battle with another of Dork's creations. This immense, horned man-beast was no match for Jack, however, nor was Dork's steel-lined, water-based death trap! With nothing else protecting him, Dork was easy pickings for Jack. Defending another of his would-be victims from Dork's protoplasm, Jack watched as it consumed the fallen mad scientist, and then destroyed the machine that he'd been using to generate the gloop. When he was next contacted by the police, Jack was informed of a wave of death sweeping over the city, one leaving its victims entirely bloodless! Though initially skeptical that someone specific was behind this, Jack nonetheless felt the need to do something about it. Setting a trap for... whoever might be behind this malady, Jack lured first one, then a legion of blood thieves into his office. Though holding his own against them at first, Jack was shocked when he struck metal inside one, and was smashed in the head with a hammer right afterward. Upon awakening, Jack tracked the blood he'd laced with a fluorescent salt to the offices of Doctor Sendach, who was conducting cybernetic experiments on various poor wretches, and needed the blood of others to continue. Not that Jack was going to let this stand, oh no. When Sendach attempted to experiment on Jack, he fought his way to freedom, and even rescued another of the mad doctor's would-be victims. She, then, helped Jack to deal with Sendach, only to inadvertently cause him to be eaten by his victims. Not that either felt too bad about that. A short time later, Jack found himself in action again when a rash of mysterious deaths caught his attention. He was tipped off to the possible culprit after making a house call for one Ella Waltin, a hillbilly who was supposedly suffering from a kind of mental shock. Upon his arrival, Jack noticed a strange baby in the Waltin's cabin, one which had the deep, rumbling voice of a man. This was odd, and not just because he knew the Waltin's didn't have any children. So when weird deaths began to occur in their area, Jack leapt into action! Spying on their home that night, he saw the baby transform... into a devil! Jack followed it until it attempted to slay another victim, at which point he intervened. Saving its would-be target, Jack nonetheless lost the fiend, only to eventually find it had slain the Waltins! Chasing it anew, Jack inadvertently followed it through a doorway into a hellish plane. There, he battled the murderous demon from the hills, as well as many of its compatriots in crime from the Legion of the Damned, until their master forced him home with its infernal powers. The further nature of Jack's investigations into the bizarre are as of yet unrevealed. He was confirmed to be an active super hero at least through the Battle of Berlin, however, when the Army pulled in every costumed adventurer it could to help finish that fight. During the fighting, Jack was pulled together with eleven random heroes, and assigned to shut down the SS Headquarters. Of course, their basement contained a sophisticated trap with which the Nazis immobilized Jack and company, hoping to eventually dissect them for Science. However, their captors were killed by Russian soldiers soon after, and Jack's unit lay forgotten, in cryogenic storage, for decades. Only recently discovered by a construction crew, Jack and company were revived by the United States Army, and given a job! With the country recovering from a super-hero Civil War, the Army thought these World War II heroes would be the best propaganda machine to help prop up the new status quo, and all of them agreed to continue doing what they would've been doing anyway - albeit in a new era. Jack took his sweet time acclimatizing to his new era, however, and didn't do a whole lot of crime fighting. Not much, save for the dramatic interruption of a drive by shooting in his favorite bar, which had changed in character considerably since the 1940s. Serving as a foil of sorts for the Dynamic Man's caustic antics in the group, Jack was forced to do battle with him overtly when it was revealed that he was not only an android, but using Electro to kill those who had displeased him. He'd even murdered the Blue Blade! In the course of this long, drawn out conflict, Jack was fatally injured by the Dynamic Man, his windpipe crushed by the super-strong artificial man. Before he died, though, Jack was able to pass his powers on to the Phantom Reporter, so he could continue the fight. And, perhaps, to finally redeem himself for the manner in which he'd acquired those abilities in the first place.