Octopus Men
Base Cost: 19 points,
with up to five more optional points
| Melee RV 6 |
Coordination RV 10 |
Brawn RV 6 |
Fortitude RV 10 |
Intellect RV 10 |
Awareness RV 6 |
Willpower RV 10 |
Lifestyle RV 6 |
Repute RV -5 |
| Health: Fortune: |
32 26 |
Origin:
The Octopus Men are beings who dwell beneath the ocean, in unfathomably deep trenches lining the ocean floor. Possessed of advanced technology and a loathing for humanity, these aquatic beings would be more dangerous if not for their relatively small numbers.
Known Powers:
Additional Limbs: instead of the normal four limbs that humanoid beings possess, Octopus Men have eight. These beings gain a +1 RS towards locomotion when using four for that purpose, though may boost this to +2 RS if they wield all eight to swim through the depths.
Similarly, they can make one additional assault per turn if using four tentacles to attack, or two if wielding all eight in melee. When doing this, however, an Octopus Man cannot move during the turn in which they make such an attempt, unless drifting from previous motion. (4 points)
Blending: depending on their origins, the Octopus Men may or may not have the color-changing abilities of common octopi. If one considers this a possibility, they may choose this power for characters of this species at a probable rank value of 10 (add 4 points).
Clinging: thanks to the suction cups on their eight tentacles, Octopus Men can cling to things, whether they be animate or otherwise. They may cling to matter with their Brawn +1 RS ability, which works well with their inherent grappling bonus (5 points).
Color Control: assuming they share an origin with conventional octopi, Octopus Men may be able to generate an ink cloud at will, essentially turning water in their current sector black. This extremely limited, rank value 20 power is an option for Octopus Men characters (1 point).
Fangs: the Octopus Men have large fangs as their upper teeth, but don't seem to have especially sharp teeth on their jaws. This allows them to inflict their Brawn value in Slashing damage to foes, whether or not those foes are currently grappled (4 points).
Tentacles: as sapient, malevolent octopoids, the Octopus Men possess tentacles instead of arms, legs, or other manipulators. Thanks to this, they have an overall reach of about six foot, and benefit from a +2 RS on attempts to grapple their opponents. (2 points)
Limitations / Enhancements:
(none)
Equipment:
(none)
Quirks:
(none)
Skills:
Underwater Combat: while an individual Octopus Man may have any number of other skills, the one that the species as a whole seems to bear is the training to fight effectively underwater. When doing so, Octopus Men may attempt offensive ACTs without penalty.
Contacts:
Considering themselves the enemies of surface dwellers, whom they feel have wronged them over the years, Octopus Men generally band together. As such, an individual Octopus Man likely has the support of his or her entire species in whatever endeavors they pursue.
Characteristics:
The Octopus Men are overtly belligerent in nature, ready to dispense violence at the drop of a hat. They seemed more than happy to wreak great harm against humanity in response to perceived slights against them, even though mankind was completely unaware of their existence.
Appearance:
As one may guess from their name, Octopus Men are an abberant mishmash of humanoid and octopoid features. Their bodies resemble a human head and torso blessed with eight tentacles, two where humans would normally have arms and six jutting out where legs would normally reside.
Their heads include pointy ears, large, yellow octopoid eyes, fanged upper teeth to counter either dull or missing lower teeth, and strangely enough, they seem to possess something resembling short, sparse hair on top of their heads. Octopus Men are purple in hue.
Ecological Niche:
Since the Octopus Men were unknown to Atlantis until the Sub-Mariner stumbled into their undersea home, it is possible that they stick to their homes within undersea trenches. But then again, they are deep sea dwellers, and not at all amphibious from the look of things.
Despite their relatively small numbers and impact on the world around them, Octopus Men benefit from advanced technological prowess, having developed to the point that they were capable of tunneling beneath the surface world, and building atomic weaponry!
History:
Who knows?!
The Octopus Men, presumably not the actual name of their species, are an improbable combination of humanoid and cephalopod anatomies. Very little of their origins and history is known, whether to mankind or even their closer neighbors, the Atlanteans.
It is difficult to discern where the Octopus Men came from. Are they aliens colonizing the ocean trenches of our world? Did some mad scientist cobble them together from assorted bits of DNA? Could they be mad scientists who found their current configuration more pleasing?
Any of the above are possible answers, and definitely more likely than the Octopus Men being the result of ordinary evolution. Being potential residents of the Marvel Universe, what with the highly suspect science propping it up, you never can tell.
Ostensibly having advanced technological development and culture, the Octopus Men were unknown to the other societies of earth until they lashed out against them, waging atomic warfare against the nations of Europe for what they perceived as assaults on their kind.
Whether they survived the fallout from the belligerent destruction they wrought upon the surface world has yet to be revealed, but the Octopus Men have not been seen since their brazen assault on humankind. Or they were simply excluded from modern Marvel continuity. Either way.
First appearance: Human Torch # 38, published August 1954.
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