MOVIE-DERIVED CHARACTER ADAPTATIONS
JOHN PRESTON
Val CHA Cost Roll Notes 20 STR 10 13- Lift 400 kg; 4d6 HTH Damage 18 DEX 24 13- OCV: 6/DCV: 6 15 CON 10 12- 13 BODY 6 12- 20 INT 10 13- PER Roll 13- 15 EGO 10 12- ECV: 5 20 PRE 10 13- PRE Attack: 4d6 18 COM 4 13- 4 PD 0 Total: 7 PD (3 rPD) 3 ED 0 Total: 6 ED (3 rED) 6 SPD 32 Phases: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 10 REC 6 30 END 0 31 STUN 0 Total Characteristics Cost: 122 Movement: Running: 8"/16" Swimming: 2"/4" Cost Powers & Skills Martial Arts: Gun-Kata Maneuver OCV DCV Damage 3 Basic Strike +1 +0 6d6 Strike 5 Joint Break -1 -2 Grab One Limb; HKA 1/2d6 (2 DC), Disable 4 Martial Block +2 +2 Block, Abort 4 Martial Disarm -1 +1 Disarm; 30 STR To Disarm 5 Takeaway +0 +0 Grab Weapon, 30 STR To Take Weapon Away 4 Weapon Bind +1 +0 Bind, 30 STR 2 Use Art With Barehanded, Blades, Default Element: Handguns (Used As Clubs) 4 Running: +2" (8" total), END 1 22 Spatial Awareness (Unusual Group) Perks 3 Ambidexterity (-2 Off Hand Penalty) 6 Combat Luck (3 PD/3 ED) 9 Lightning Reflexes: +6 DEX To Act First With All Actions Talents 3 Fringe Benefit: Low Justice: Character Has The Right To Mete Out Justice. 4 Reputation: Top Grammaton Cleric (A Medium-Sized Group (Tetra Grammaton)) 14-, +2/+2d6 Skills 32 Combat Skill Levels: +4 With All Combat 12 Combat Skill Levels: +5 With DCV (25 Active Points); Only To Offset DCV Penalties From Sweep And Two Weapon Fighting (-1) 25 Combat Skill Levels: +5 With DCV 24 Penalty Skill Levels: +8 Vs. Hit Location Modifiers With All Attacks 5 Accurate Sprayfire 3 Concealment 13- 5 Concentrated Sprayfire 3 Criminology 13- 9 Deduction 16- 10 Defense Maneuver I-IV 3 Fast Draw 13- 3 Interrogation 13- 2 KS: Banned Items 11- 2 KS: Gun Kata 11- 2 KS: Law 11- 2 PS: Grammaton Cleric 11- 5 Rapid Attack (HTH) 5 Rapid Attack (Ranged) 5 Rapid Autofire 5 Skipover Sprayfire 3 Sleight Of Hand 13- 3 Tactics 13- 1 TF: Small Motorized Ground Vehicles 10 Two-Weapon Fighting (HTH) 10 Two-Weapon Fighting (Ranged) 3 WF: Small Arms, Blades, Clubs, Unarmed Combat 270 Total Powers & Skills Cost 392 Total Character Cost 125+ Disadvantages 5 Distinctive Features: Grammaton Cleric's Uniform Coat (Easily Concealed; Noticed And Recognizable; Detectable By Commonly-Used Senses) 10 Distinctive Features: Style: Gun Kata (Concealable; Noticed And Recognizable; Detectable By Commonly-Used Senses) 0 Hunted: Robbie Preston 8- (Less Pow, PC Has A Public ID Or Is Otherwise Very Easy To Find, Watching) 30 Hunted: Cleric Brandt 14- (As Pow, NCI, PC Has A Public ID Or Is Otherwise Very Easy To Find, Harshly Punish) 10 Psychological Limitation: Confused By His New-Found Emotions (Common, Moderate) 20 Psychological Limitation: Conditioned To Believe In Father (Very Common, Strong) 25 Social Limitation: Subject To Orders Very Frequently (14-), Severe 167 Experience 392 Total Disadvantage Points
Background/History: John Preston is a Cleric of the Tetra Grammaton of the city-state of Libria (a play on the words "equilibrium" meaning balance and "libre" meaning free). His duties as a Grammaton Cleric are to enforce the law: to hunt down those items that cause human emotions of all sorts and destroy them; to arrest sense offenders and remand them for processing—a euphemism for interrogation and execution—or to terminate offenders who resist arrest.
Cleric Preston is the top Cleric of the quasi-religious order. He has been a Cleric for at least four years, and it may be inferred that he began training in Monastery to be a Cleric when he was a child.
Preston has two children, a son who has recently entered Monastery, and a daughter. His wife was arrested and processed four years ago for sense crime. This incident is Cleric Preston's only failure as a Cleric—he never realized that his wife was a criminal until the time of her arrest.
Personality/Motivation: As with all Librians, he has no personality. It is kept suppressed by the drug Prozium, which all Librians are required to take at scheduled intervals. Prozium suppresses all emotions equally. The loss of such feelings as love and joy is considered a fair price to pay for the elimination of hatred and anger, the negative emotions that lead to war.
That is, until he misses a dose and circumstances conspire to prevent him from reporting the loss and having it replaced as required by law. So begins his fall from perfection into the chaos of uncontrolled emotion.
Quote: "I didn't feel anything."
Powers/Tactics: According to the announcer at a Gun Kata presentation: "Through analysis of thousands of recorded gun fights, the Cleric has determined that the geometric distribution of antagonists in any gun battle is a statistically predictable element. The Gun Kata treats the gun as a total weapon. Each new position representing a maximum kill zone, inflicting maximum damage on the maximum number of opponents, while keeping the defendant clear of the statistically traditional trajectories of return fire." The Gun Kata blends aspects of Kenjutsu and Yoga with compact automatic weapons to create a massive kill zone around the Cleric. Gun Kata includes close quarters combat training with boken and swords as well as using the Clerics' standard handguns as melee weapons. Cleric Preston is a master of the Gun Kata, able to engage and terminate large numbers of armed adversaries without ever being in danger. In fact, his only rivals are other Clerics. As a Cleric, he leads the Tetra Grammaton "police" on sweep and clear raids against sense offenders hiding within the Librian city-state walls and outside in the "Nethers". The police soldiers herd offenders into confined areas where the Gun Kata can be used to maximum effect.
Cleric Preston has an ability that sets him apart from most other Clerics. He can tell when someone near him is feeling, often before that person knows it. It also gives him an uncanny knack for finding hidden caches of illegal art, music and books. It has made him the Tetra Grammaton's best Cleric.
Standard weapons for Clerics is one or two large frame handguns capable of fully automatic fire, along with plenty of spare magazines. The butt plates of Cleric handguns have retractable teeth for use in close quarters melee, the pistols held by their barrels when used this way. Cleric Preston is a dual wielding fighter. He Spreads multiple Autofire attacks (Two-Weapon Fighting) with called hit locations to quickly eliminate large numbers of enemies. In melee, he Sweeps his strikes, similarly aimed at vulnerable locations. He will switch his All Combat levels to damage as necessary to finish off individual adversaries.
Appearance: John Preston is tall and muscular, with short, dark hair and dark eyes, approximately 30 years old. He usually wears his uniform coat with its distinctive collar over a shirt and slacks with black (or dark) shoes.
Designer's Notes: This is John Preston roughly 2/3 through the movie Equilibrium. He has been off Prozium for several days and is having difficulty dealing with and concealing his emotions. A part of him still wants to believe in the Librian system, but that drug-induced faith is faltering, and he refuses to put himself back on Prozium.
I wanted to do this write-up as an heroic level character. I wanted this version of John Preston to be human, not superhuman. So, I kept the Powers to a minimum, giving him just full Spatial Awareness, no Normal Characteristic Maxima, Speed 6, and an incredibly high DCV from combat skill levels. This includes a number of DCV skill levels only to offset DCV penalties for Sweep and Two-Weapon fighting. I also kept the number of martial maneuvers to a minimum, and I included no ranged maneuvers. While Gun Kata is elaborate and sometimes absurd to watch, it is spartan in its philosophy. A superhuman, superheroic version could remove the Autofire Skills, the hit location Penalty Skills, possibly the Two Weapon Fighting Skills, and turn that into a Multipower with the Zen Riflery schticks in UMA. He would also need to pay for his equipment.
Preston's special ability is simply a high Deduction Skill.
As noted above, he has been an active Cleric for at least four years, and has accumulated a significant pile of experience. He has bought off some of his Disadvantages, and others have changed with his new situation.
Cleric John Preston created by Kurt Wimmer.
Equilibrium Copyright 2002 Miramax
Character write-up by Rich Pieri [ratinox@peorth.gweep.net]
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