Johnny Riot

The One-Man Mob

by Edwin Wendell Dean III

Name: Giovanni "Johnny" Riotto, Ph.D.

Background: Irish-Italian son of a San Francisco policeman, grandson of a North Beach grocer who immigrated as a boy in the '30s, Johnny was raised with a strong emphasis on Community Responsibility. "Everyone should find out what their strengths are," his grandfather would say, "and then decide how they can use them to best help the people around them."

While he was always an active, athletic youngster, it was obvious early on that little Johnny's greatest strengths were in the sciences. His whole family supported him as he went through school, finally earning a scholarship to U.C. Berkeley, just across the Bay.

Johnny has always had more interests than opportunities to indulge them. His powers are starting to change that, however.

Motivation: Johnny sincerely wants to make the world -- his "community" -- a better place. "Crimefighting" is only a small part of that; there's also research, exploration, community service, helping the poor and the homeless. Maybe one man can't make a difference -- but Johnny isn't just one man anymore.

Qualities:

Expert    [+4] Advanced Physics
Good      [+2] Gadgeteering
Good      [+2] Athletic
Good      [+2] Community Ties
Poor      [-2] Weirdness Magnet

Origin: While Johnny was working as a graduate student in Quantum physics, his advisor lucked into a DARPA grant to attempt to reverse-engineer a Time Machine captured from Count Chronos. They had assembled a second apparatus and were in the process of testing it when the Count attempted to reclaim his property. As far as anyone can figure out, a feedback surge between the two out-of-synch machines sent Johnny into the future, and then brought him back.

All of him.

He'd been to the future, yes -- all the uncountable possible futures branching off from that single point in time. He'd spent a week there, or possibly two, or maybe just a few moments. And all those uncounted Johnnies from all those uncountable futures returned to the same point in spacetime.

Johnny is now the "Node" for a seemingly-infinite probability cloud of Virtual Johnnies, flickering in and out of reality.

Powers:

Master [+6] Quantum Echoes (Meta-Power)

Stunts: See Below.

Hero Point Pool: 5/10

Miscellany: 5'10", 170 lbs, ash-blonde hair, tan skin, startling Irish green eyes. Even in a four-color game, Johnny leans toward the "iconized uniform" school of superhero garb, preferring a duster, cargo pants, work boots and shades when he's "in the field". He's been playing around with different symbols on his t-shirts; the most consistent theme is a line of stick figures arranged in a paper doll chain.

Advanced Physics encompasses Quantum Mechanics, Relativity, Temporal Dynamics, Dimensional Physics, and a wide range of other convenient doubletalk topics.

Johnny uses Gadgeteering in the classic MacGuyver mode; he doesn't carry many Gadgets around, but if need be, he whip up Just The Right Gimmick Out Of Pocket Lint.

Athletic doesn't mean "jock", but your classic Birkenstock Berkeleyite: he hikes, bikes, sailboards, practices Tai Chi, and climbs around on the outside of buildings that, strictly speaking, he shouldn't have access to.

Johnny has strong Community Ties, doing his best to connect with the people around him; this can be church groups, homeless shelters, the scientific and campus communities, the gang at the pub where everybody knows your name, and more. It's not like he has to worry about spreading himself too thin. He keeps up with his old North Beach haunt's too. His father, in his mid-to-late forties, is still an active member of the SFPD, and his mother probably does something just as interesting.

The strange confluences of probability and possibility around Johnny make him a Weirdness Magnet. Not only do odd things happen to and around him, but the chance of him just happening to be around when odd things are ABOUT to happen are fairly high.

Quantum Echoes is basically Duplication, expanded to a Meta-Power. It allows Johnny to create up to 13 Duplicates who last 24 hours apiece. The Duplicates can access any of the Spin-Off or Signature Stunts of the Meta-Power, but cannot create further Duplicates themselves. Johnnies outside of a Good [100 yard] radius have no means of mental communication; if separated or sent off on different tasks for extended periods, they must return to "Johnny Prime" and re-merge to share memories. If a Duplicate's duration expires before he can return to "Johnny Prime", his experiences are lost.

In addition, Johnny and his Duplicates can manifest a crowd of "Echoes" or "Virtual Johnnies", mirror images that may or may not be tangible. They can appear solid or ghostly, but have no independent existence. The actual location of the "Real" Johnny or his duplicates in this cloud is indeterminate. Most of his Stunts stem from this effect: he can make human barricades, human pyramids, send mobs of "himself" to gang up on someone, or vanish into a crowd of "himself".

The Meta-Power also imposes a Vulnerability: Johnny needs to be observed. If he goes more than 24 hours without having contact with another sentient being, he starts to lose coherency and his sense of self begins to blur. He becomes progressively less "real" as his indeterminate state becomes more indeterminate. It's uncertain if this is a quantum effect, a psychological effect, or if the distinction is even meaningful in a case like this...

As a Meta-Power, Quantum Echos permits the use of several other powers as Good [+2] Ranked Spin-Off Stunts:

Daisy Chain (Quantum Echoes Spin-Off; Good [+2]; 0 HP): A cross between Stretching and Teleportation. If something's within Good (100 yard) range of Johnny, it may as well be right next to him -- a line of "Virtual Jonnhies" will strobe out from Where He Is to Where He Wants To Be, and poof, it's in his hand -- or he's standing there.
Dogpile (Quantum Echoes Spin-Off; Good [+2]; 0 HP): A mob of Johnnies dogpiles the target. who must roll vs. TN 9 to escape.
Multi-Tasking (Quantum Echoes Spin-Off; Good [+2]; 0 HP): Essentially the same as the Multiple Actions ability of Super-Speed (T&J p. 51).
Strobe Punch (Quantum Echoes Spin-Off; Good [+2]; 0 HP): Johnny pulls back for a punch, and a whole sequence of blurred after-images pull back with him, all landing the punch at the same time. Can be used at range, as a Bolt. Allows Super-Scale Damage.
Three-Card Monte (Quantum Echoes Spin-Off; Good [+2]; 0 HP): A Super-Armor Power. Any given Johnny (Prime or Duplicate) is surrounded by a cloud of "Virtual Johnnies", phantoms flickering in and out of reality. On the off chance someone manages to hit the "real" one, the effects are dispersed among the shifting probabilities. (Ignore 9 Normal-Scale Damage Ranks and 2 Super- Scale Damage Ranks)
Hello, Joe (Quantum Echoes Signature; Expert [+4], 1 HP): Remember those Tex Avery cartoons where the wolf is trying desperately to get away from Droopy? No matter how far he runs, no matter what lengths he goes to, when he opens the door, there's the dour-faced little mutt, waiting for him. By spreading out the quantum cloud of where he might be, and then collapsing his wave- function to the point where he needs to be, Johnny can do that. It's usually limited to about a square mile (Expert-Level Area, unless he dumps more HP into it), and has a Difficulty based on the time since he last spotted his quarry (i.e., 1 hour = TN 9).