The Randomizers:
Background 1, 5, 8 [Options: Blank Slate, Academic, Upper Class, Struggling, Tragic, Medical]
Power Source 4, 5, 6 [Options: Experimentation, Mystical, Nature, Radiation, Tech Upgrades, Supernatural]
Archetype 2, 7, 2 [Options: Shadow, Marksman, Armored, Elemental Manipulator, Psychic]
Personality 8, 7, 1 [Options: Lone Wolf, Stalwart, Fast Talking, Inquisitive, Jovial]
Half-Life
Real Name: Paul Alonso, First Appearance: Fallout #1, Nov 1970
Background: Struggling, Power Source: Radiation, Archetype: Elemental Manipulator
Personality: Inquisitive, Principles: Fugitive, Nuclear
Status Dice: Green d6, Yellow d8, Red d12. Health: 32 [Green 32-25, Yellow 24-12, Red 11-1]
Qualities: Persuasion d10, Ranged Combat d10, Criminal Underworld d8, Fitness d8, Alertness d6, Easily Overlooked d8
Powers: Nuclear d10, Strength d8, Density Control d6, Flight d6
Green Abilities:
- Flare [A]: Attack multiple targets using Nuclear, applying your Min die to each. If you roll doubles, also attack an ally using your Mid die.
- Focused Blast [A]: Attack up to two targets using Nuclear. Also take an amount of damage equal to your Mid die.
- Contaminate [A]: Hinder using Nuclear. Attack using your Min die. If you are in the Red zone, you may apply the penalty to any number of nearby targets.
- Principle of the Fugitive [A]: Overcome a problem by directing those pursuing you towards it and use your Max die. You and each of your allies gain a hero point.
- Principle of Nuclear Power [A]: Overcome a challenge involving nuclear energies and use your Max die. You and each of your allies gain a hero point.
Yellow Abilities:
- Surge of Strength [A]: Boost yourself using Nuclear. Then, either remove a penalty on yourself or Recover using your Min die.
- Rein It In [R]: After rolling during your turn, you may take 1 irreducible damage to reroll your entire pool.
- Unstable Molecules (I): Whenever you take Nuclear damage, you may also inflict that much damage on another target.
Red Abilities
- Burn Bright (I): When you use an ability action, you may also perform any one basic action using your Mid die on the same roll.
- Burn Out [A]: Attack using Nuclear and at least one bonus. Use your Max+Mid+Min dice. Destroy all of your bonuses, adding each of them to this Attack first, even if they are exclusive.
Out
Choose an ally. Until your next turn, that ally may reroll one of their dice by using a Reaction.
The first hero of the Bronze Age was a sign of things to come; someone less focused on high-end heroics, a little bit grittier and much less connected. Paul Alonso was a young man working out of Santa Juanita who lost his job when the island was rocked by unknown forces that damaged its infrastructure and industry. Falling in with the only people offering a steady paycheque, he ended up working a menial job at a mob-associated facility that was, unknown to him, working on developing new forms of nuclear weapons in a town where no one was watching. Paul happened to be in the lab one night when alarms blared, and he raced to help to discover a meltdown in progress. Working feverish to buy time for the rest of the staff to escape, he was at ground zero of a nuclear blast that should have killed him (and everyone else nearby.) Instead, the full power of the atomic explosion, running through experimental hypertech, entered his body, transforming him into a living nuclear reactor.
Paul woke to discover that he had been blamed for the blast, and was now a wanted fugitive. Going on the run, he sought to find out what had happened, who had been responsible for the lab, and what to do next, while various heroes and villains came after him! His powers were unstable, and he worked hard to rein in the damage from the battles that followed him everywhere he went, but it was not uncommon for him to be blamed for the damage.
Fallout was the first Bronze Age comic, and it immediately created a shift in Venture Comics by presenting a hero at odds with the government and military, and who was probably right to be on the run. Large-scale government conspiracies weren’t allowed, but the Code was under revision and by early in Half-Life’s run, individual corrupt government and military officials were permitted. He also came into conflict with Covert Tactics, an encounter which would lead to larger changes in their own book in the future.
Behind the Scenes
Instead of going with the “burn yourself, turn it into healing” archetype, Half-Life runs much more into the “burn yourself, hurt other people with the burn, get to Red as soon as possible and then become utterly nonsense until a stray shot takes you out” archetype. In Green, he has a couple self-destructive powers and one that’s only okay. In Yellow, he starts being able to turn his self-damaging Green into a massively powerful hit, or Boost and heal if he starts to take too much damage. Once he hits Red, he can alternate between using a large-scale Hinder/Attack that also Boosts as a secondary effect, and then using that Boost for an immensely powerful nuclear blast.
We also have another new Principle, one that I’m a bit surprised not to already have. Here’s the writeup, heavily inspired by all those TV shows in which the people chasing the hero end up showing up just in time to deal with the problem the hero has discovered:
Principle of the Fugitive
During Roleplaying: You are a wanted individual, and your pursuers are always a few steps behind you.
Minor Twist: How did you reveal your location?
Major Twist: Who has shown up to take you in?
Principle of the Fugitive [A]: Overcome a problem by directing those pursuing you towards it and use your Max die. You and each of your allies gain a hero point.
