Mad Jack Wheelie
Ofanite Master of Valor
Corporeal Forces: 4 Strength:
6 Agility: 10
Ethereal Forces: 6 Intelligence:
12 Precision: 12
Celestial Forces: 6 Will:
12 Perception:
12
Vessel: Human Male/6, Charisma +2
Skills: Area Knowledge (Everywhere Interesting/6),
Chemistry/6, Dodge/6, Driving/6*, Fighting/6, Knowledge (How To Walk a Thin
Line/6, Strategy/6), Large Weapon (Hutriel/6**, Sword/6, Truck/6), Move
Silently/6, Musical Instrument/-10 (Bagpipes)***, Ranged Weapon (Bagpipes/6,
Machine gun/6, Pistol/6, Rifle/6, Shotgun/6), Singing/-10****, Small Weapon
(Ducks/6, Knife/6) Tactics/6
*Including such unusual vehicles as horses,
unicycles, V-2 rockets, beer barrels and Halley's Comet.
**It's a long story, and not a particularly relevant
one.
***Yup.
That's a target number of 2.
****Ditto.
Songs: Battle (All/6), Blades (All/6), Light
(Celestial/6), Motion (All/6), NC (All/6), Shields (All/6)
Attunements: Seraph of War, Ofanite of War, Malakite
of War, Ofanite of Destiny, Ofanite of Divine Fire, Ofanite of the Wind, Howl*,
One on One, Proficiency (Machine Guns), Proficiency (Sword), Proficiency
(Unarmed), Proficiency (Truck)**, Proficiency (Duck)***, Proficiency (Tactical
Nuke)****, Scabbard*****, Sure-Footed, Incarnate Law, Master of Valor, 'Mad
Jack Wheelie'
*This is a literal Howl: actually, it's more like a
bark.
**Yes, this means that he adds the CD of a
successful Precision roll to Power whenever he runs over somebody with a truck.
***Ditto with attacks utilizing a duck.
****Guess.
*****Rumors that Laurence was cajoled into gifting
him with a Scabbard Attunement with a rather increased upper weight limit have
not been confirmed beyond a reasonable doubt.
After all, he could just have been given a Los Angeles - class
nuclear submarine with the Summonable Feature.
This is not an Attunement: it's more of an explicit
enumeration of just how obnoxious his tactical skills are. As it stands, Mad Jack Wheelie has a target
number of 24 in Tactics and Strategy, before his... unique... artifact
is taken into account. That works out
to an auto-success with a minimum CD of 13, just in case it needs to be spelled
out.
Relics: The Bathtub of Blessed Winston
Look, if anybody ever figures out just why Mad Jack
Wheelie is allowed to get away with one-tenth - heck, one-millionth - of
the stuff he gets away with, it's reasonably certain that he, she or it will
reveal it. Too many people are too
interested to let anybody who isn't a Superior publicly keep it a secret. Heck, given sufficient preparation time,
enough entities might decide that finding out would be worth dog-piling one of
the smaller Archangels.
Fortunately for certain Superior's wardrobes, it's
commonly accepted that only Michael, Laurence, Dominic and Yves are aware of
the reasons that permit Mad Jack Wheelie to do pretty much whatever Mad Jack
Wheelie thinks is a good idea at the time.
The above list does not include Mad Jack Wheelie himself: he'll
cheerfully admit that by any rational standard (and quite a few irrational
ones) he should be a pile of loose Forces by now. Unlike everybody else in the dark, he simply chooses to neither
worry nor complain about it.
Calling Mad Jack Wheelie a loose cannon would be a
deadly insult to out-of-control artillery pieces. He has his Bathtub, his group of mad, mad, mad followers
(although they look quite sane, compared to him) and an apparent blank check
when it comes to resources and permission slips. That's apparently all he really wants out of life, so in exchange
for such favor he is more than happy to fight on the side of Truth and
Justice. This does not reassure the
Host, for some odd reason.
Not much of Mad Jack Wheelie is reassuring, come to
think about it. He'd be a nice guy even
if he weren't a barking madman - but people duck for cover whenever he shows
up, as he has much the same effect on local power structures, informal
understandings, solemn agreements and modus operandi as a vigorous shake has on
an Etch-a-Sketch. It wouldn't be so bad
if he were a Windy - that way you'd be sure that he'd be leaving soon -
but, no, he serves War, which means he never retreats from a conflict. If there's one in your bailiwick, he'll
settle down with his friends and help you with it, for as long as it takes -
and whether you like it or not. After
one of Mad Jack Wheelie's visits, hardened Servitors of Divine Fire have been
known to break down and weep at the sight of a Triad - because they know that
such an appearance means that the Ofanite has gone away. For the record, Mad Jack Wheelie doesn't run
from Triads, nor do they don't hide when he's around: let's just say that some
creative scheduling is made to keep contact between the parties involved to a
bare minimum (defining 'bare minimum' as 'never if either can help it'). Oddly, Dominic never comments on this.
Now, this would normally be the place where the
Sleazy Rationalization That Torturously Justifies This Particular Bad Idea
would go - but, hey, guess what? There
isn't one. There is no excuse for the
Ofanite. At all. He is a living, breathing refutation of the
idea that celestials are supposed to keep the War secret and hidden - Mad Jack
Wheelie goes to his battles in a jet-powered and winged armored bathtub
packing twin machine guns, for the love of God - and nobody knows why he exists
in anything except the past tense.
Maybe he's a mask for an Archangel who needs to hide in plain
sight. Maybe he's a personification of
the chaotic nature of the Symphony itself.
Maybe he's God's Favorite Old Character From The Last Campaign - no,
wait, that's Michael: OK, so then maybe he's God's Girlfriend's Favorite
Old Character From The Last Campaign.
Maybe he's just a garden-variety munchkin (admittedly, by now he'd be
the Platonic Ideal of same) who found the exact metaphorical blind spot to
operate in, and hasn't budged from there since. I certainly don't know, and neither do you.
But that's good, because if you don't know, then
your players won't either, and watching them try to figure it out should be
interesting as all get out...
Mad Jack Wheelie is a balanced starting character.