The Bursar
Real Name: Dr. Tilda Zhou, First Appearance: Protean #140, September 2009
Lieutenant Type: Enemy
Die Size: d12
Motive: Power, Approach: Mental
Traits:
- Power Siphon: When a nearby hero uses a Yellow or Red ability, the Bursar may roll her status die as a reaction and Boost herself with the result.
- Limited Energy: When the scene tracker advances to Yellow, and each time it advances after that, step down the Bursar’s status die (to a minimum of d4.)
The mid-2000s were a tumultuous time for Protean. After graduating high school in Protean #100 in 2006, Wendy found herself trying to juggle a scientific scholarship to Neulyon University with her superhero career, a new relationship with fellow scholarship student Tim Toretti, the strain put on her friendship with Carlie (who was also at Neulyon working on a business degree) by her increasingly busy life, and her ongoing personal research into dimensional science, which involved frequent crossovers with the Vanguards. None of this was made easier when her second-year physics professor decided to turn into a supervillain.
It started harmlessly enough. Dr. Tilda Zhou was a titan in the field of dimensional research, holding highly sought-after seminars, and Wendy’s papers caught her eye. Unfortunately for Wendy, it took Dr. Zhou roughly two classes to suspect that her brilliant but distracted student was involved in some kind of covert activity, and one more class to build a dimensional photon absorber that siphoned excess energy from Wendy and proved to Dr. Zhou that she was Protean. Zhou was delighted – Wendy was a renewable source of dimensional photons, able to advance her work by leaps and bounds. She began following her student into the field, interfering in Protean’s activities with the goal of forcing her to expend more effort, thereby allowing Dr. Zhou to gather even more dimensional photons and work harder. When Wendy confronted her, she set the young hero with a dilemma – let her continue to harvest the photons, or else Dr. Zhou would reveal Wendy’s secret to the world. She even joked that Wendy could consider it part of her student admission fees, with Dr. Zhou acting as her bursar. Protean was stymied. Dr. Zhou was putting people in danger, but technically she wasn’t committing crimes just following Protean around, and with her secret at risk, she didn’t know what to do. If she tried to destroy Dr. Zhou’s work, she would be the criminal, and if Zhou revealed the truth her own family would be at risk.
But Dr. Zhou hadn’t counted on Carlie. Upon discovering what had happened, she went to her father and laid out a plan. Almost overnight, Randco bought up Dr. Zhou’s research from the university and made an ultimatum – if she continued to interfere with Protean’s work or revealed her secrets, everything that Zhou had ever worked on would be taken from her.
The result was that Wendy and Zhou ended up in a delicate standoff. As the Bursar, Zhou continued to try to steal dimensional photons, but only when lives weren’t at risk. Protean continued to punch the Bursar in the face when she caught her. Neither could push further, leaving the two in a careful state of détente that would persist for some time…
Behind the Scenes:
This one just sort of spiralled out of control.
I started with “I want someone to showcase what Protean’s college adventures look like.” I was going back and forth between ‘fellow student’ and ‘evil professor’, and I really didn’t want ‘evil professor’ to look much like another evil professor in Sentinels fiction, Antimox. Then I got “truly massive die lieutenant” and “unique Boost” and I thought, wait, what about someone who wants Protean’s dimensional energy and just gets in the way a lot, and here we are.
Dr. Zhou is just a pain in the ass. She shows up with a truly massive die, empowered by dimensional science and natural genius, and she does whatever using her d12 to make the situation more of a pain while boosting if the players push themselves into the Yellow. Then her die starts degrading rapidly, and she has to go.
