BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER
ANGEL
Val CHA Cost Roll Notes 25 STR 15 14- Lift 1600 kg; 5d6 HTH Damage 21 DEX 33 13- OCV: 7/DCV: 7 18 CON 16 13- 18 BODY 16 13- 13 INT 3 12- PER Roll: 16- 18 EGO 16 13- ECV: 6 18 PRE 8 13- PRE Attack: 3 1/2d6 18 COM 4 13- 8 PD 3 Total: 11 PD (6 rPD) 8 ED 4 Total: 11 ED (4 rED) 4 SPD 9 Phases: 3, 6, 9, 12 10 REC 2 36 END 0 40 STUN 0 Total Characteristics Cost: 129 Movement: Running: 7"/14" Leaping: 8"/16" Swimming: 2"/4" Cost Powers & Skills Martial Arts: Maneuver OCV DCV Damage 4 Martial Block +2 +2 Block, Abort 4 Martial Disarm -1 +1 Disarm, 35 STR 4 Martial Strike +0 +2 7d6 Strike 5 Offensive Strike -2 +1 9d6 Strike 3 Martial Throw +0 +1 5d6+v/5, Target Falls 2 Use Art With Clubs and Blades 6 "Game Face": +10 PRE, Offensive Only (-1/2), Only to cause Fear (-1/4) 7 Fangs: HKA 1 point (1/2 d6 w/STR), Penetrating (+1/2) 33 Drink Blood: HKA 1d6 (15) NND (defense is not having blood;+1), Does BODY (+1)Continuous (+1), Reduced Endurance (0 END, +1/2); No Range (-1/2), Fangs must do BODY first (-1/2) 64 Spread of Vampirism: Major Transform 10d6, Reduced END (0 END, +1/2); No Range (-1/2), All or Nothing (-1/2), Limited Target/humans (-1/2), Must Drain All But 1 BODY With Drink Blood, Then Feed Target 1/2 BODY of Own Blood (-1) 2 Undead Body: Damage Resistance 3 PD/ 1 ED 20 Undead Resilience: Damage Reduction 50% Resistant Physical; Not vs. staking or decapitation (-1/2) 17 Vampiric Regeneration: Healing 1d6/ Regeneration 1 BODY per Hour, Resurrection (not versus vampire banes including fire, sunlight, staking, decapitation, and damage from holy items), Reduced END (0 END, +1/2), Persistent (+1/2); Self Only (-1/2), Extra Time/ per Hour (-2) 47 Undead Vitality: Life Support vs. all conditions (minus Diminished Eating) 2 Swift: Running +1” (7”) 3 Athletic Prowess: Leaping +3” (8”) 12 Vampiric Senses: +4 PER (16-) 15 Vampiric Senses: Discriminatory and Tracking Smell 5 Vampiric Senses: Nightvision Talents 3 Absolute Time Sense 6 Combat Luck (Armor +3 PD/ED) Skills 10 +2 with HTH Combat 2 AK: Local Sewers (11-) 3 Acrobatics (13-) 7 Breakfall (15-) 3 Concealment (12-) 3 Conversation (13-) 3 Deduction (12-) 3 Interrogation (13-) 3 KS: Vampires (12-) 3 KS: Occult Lore (12-) 5 Magic Skill (used in rituals) (13-) 3 Persuasion (13-) 2 PS: Sketch Artist (11-) 5 Shadowing (13-) 7 Stealth (15-) 3 Streetwise (13-) 5 WF: Common Melee/Common Missile/staffs 3 Linguist 2 1) French (complete w/accent) 2 2) Latin (complete w/accent) 2 3) Mandarin Chinese (complete w/accent) 2 4) Romanian (complete w/accent) 2 5) Russian (complete w/accent) (other languages possible) 347 Total Powers & Skills Cost 476 Total Character Cost 200+ Disadvantages 5 Distinctive Features: ‘Billowy coat, King of Pain look’ (easily concealed) 10 Distinctive Features: Dead (concealed with effort, Major reaction) 15 Distinctive Features: No Reflection (NC, Major Reaction) 15 Enraged: at the sight or smell of Blood (common) go 8-, recover 11- 20 Psychological Limitation: Cannot enter a building without invitation (common, total) 10 Psychological Limitation: In Love with Buffy (common, moderate) 15 Psychological Limitation: Trying to atone for Evil Past (common, strong) 10 Reputation: notorious vampire, 11- (Extreme, in occult circles) 25 Susceptibility: to holy objects (common) 2d6/Phase 25 Susceptibility: to direct sunlight (very common) 2d6/Turn 10 Vulnerability: x2 STUN from wood 10 Vulnerability: x2 BODY from wood 106 Experience 476 Total Disadvantage Points
Background/History: As Angel himself would admit, he wasn't much of a man when he was alive.
Born in the 18th century to a middle-class family in Ireland (it wasn't until ANGEL Season 4 that his birth name was revealed to be 'Liam'), he grew up hating his father for drinking and womanizing, but as the boy became a man, he indulged in much the same behavior. He could have wasted his entire life on the streets of Galway, but one night, he met a sophisticated young lady named Darla, who claimed to have traveled the world and seen many things. The young Irishman was completely entranced by her, and when he agreed to become her follower, Darla revealed herself as a vampire and drank his blood. When Liam rose from the grave after his funeral, the first thing he did was to return home, where his sister invited him inside, thinking he was sent back by God as an angel. He then proceeded to slaughter his entire family.
After terrorizing Ireland, the new vampire left with Darla to travel Britain and the rest of the world, taking the name Angelus ('he of the angelic face'). Angelus embraced his vampirism, considering evil an art form to be perfected. As Angel later told Buffy, "for a hundred years, I brought ugly death to every person I met... and I did it with a song in my heart." It was he who stalked Drusilla, driving her mad before turning her into a vampire. Drusilla in turn 'sired' William, later known as Spike.
The four vampires roamed as a pack until the end of the 19th century, when they took a side trip to Romania and Angelus hunted and killed the favored daughter of the Kalderash Gypsy clan. The elders of Clan Kalderash decided to punish Angelus in the worst way possible - by giving him a conscience. Using an epic ritual, the Gypsies summoned Angelus and restored his human soul, and he was paralyzed with horror and guilt at the atrocities he'd committed. The Gypsies then told him he would lose his soul if he ever experienced "one moment of perfect happiness." Thus the curse was sealed: Angel no longer desired to be evil, but to remain good, he had to be miserable for the rest of his life.
At first, Angel tried to remain with his pack (and was with them in China during the Boxer Rebellion when Spike killed his first Slayer). But when Darla realized he couldn't commit cold-blooded murder, she rejected him, and Angel wandered alone, eventually reaching the United States, where he spent most of the 20th century, living night to night. By 1996, he'd been reduced to scavenging in the streets and feeding off of rats, but then he was approached by a reformed demon named Whistler, who offered him a chance to redeem himself by making an active commitment to the side of good.
Whistler then took Angel to Los Angeles, where Angel saw the high school cheerleader Buffy Summers make her first kill as a Vampire Slayer. He then followed her home and saw her cry in her bedroom as she heard her parents argue about her in the kitchen. Angel fell in love immediately.
With Whistler's help, Angel got a new wardrobe and living quarters in Sunnydale so that he would be able to help Buffy in her new mission. However, he arrived in town before Buffy and found not only that The Master was attempting to escape his prison but that Darla was one of his followers. Fearing to get directly involved, Angel first appeared to Buffy in order to give vague advice (earning the nickname 'Cryptic Guy') but as Buffy became more attracted to him, Angel couldn't help but become part of her life and the lives of her friends (Xander, Willow and Cordelia) and Watcher (Giles). Buffy accidentally found out that Angel was a vampire at the same time that Darla found out that her former love was in town. Attempting to lure Angel back to darkness, Darla tried to hunt down and shoot Buffy, and Angel was forced to kill his first love in order to save the Slayer.
Angel and Xander were instrumental in helping Buffy destroy The Master, and over the next year, Angel became much closer to Buffy emotionally, although (perhaps fearing the Curse) he was afraid to express his true feelings. Matters were complicated when Spike and Drusilla took over leadership of the Sunnydale vampires and Angel had to tell Buffy about his connection to them. At one point, the two heroes had been surrounded by vampires in Spike and Drusilla's lair, and Buffy and Angel had to escape through the sewers. They were soaking wet by the time they got to Angel's place. With emotions running high, they started kissing on his bed, and Angel looked into Buffy's eyes and said: "I love you." It was at this point that Angel gained his moment of perfect happiness - and damned himself.
Angel and Buffy slept together, but in the middle of the night, Angel awoke with wracking pains. As Buffy continued to sleep, he stumbled outside. When the pain was gone, only Angelus remained.
Angelus immediately joined forces with Spike and Drusilla, and while they were at first overjoyed to have their old mentor back, Spike started resenting the fact that Angelus was making the moves on Drusilla. He also disagreed about his strategy towards the Slayer. While Spike wanted to kill Buffy immediately, Angelus began a campaign of psychological warfare against Buffy and her friends, ostensibly in order to shake up Buffy and soften her up for the kill. The stakes were raised when Giles' girlfriend Jenny researched the original Gypsy curse to bring back Angel's soul. Angelus got wind of this and killed Jenny, but not before she'd saved her research onto a backup computer disk, which was eventually found by Willow. By the time Willow got the disk and decided to cast the spell, Angelus revealed his ultimate plan to Spike and Drusilla: He would find the petrified body of the demon Acathla and awaken it, which would open a gateway to Hell and effectively End The World As We Know It. Spike, for his own selfish reasons (namely to get back Dru) plotted to betray Angelus. Meantime, Whistler showed up in Sunnydale and told Buffy what Angelus eventually deduced: That Angelus was The Key to the Gate, that the blood he sacrificed for the ritual had to be his own, and that dispatching him would be the only way to stop the Gate from opening once the ritual was done. Not knowing that Willow was going to attempt the Gypsy curse, Buffy came to the vampires' lair and Spike tried to attack Angelus only to be distracted by an enraged Drusilla. While Buffy killed off Angelus' vamp henchmen, Angelus was able to shed his blood. Buffy then fought a masters' duel against him, the advantage swinging in both directions, and with Buffy finally in position to slay him, Willow's spell went off and Angel's soul returned. At first completely unaware of where he was and what he'd done, Angel had a tearful reunion with Buffy until she looked behind him and saw the Gate of Acathla opening. Knowing there was only one thing she could do, Buffy told her boyfriend to close his eyes, she kissed him goodbye, and then she shoved her sword directly into his torso. Angel stared at Buffy in shock as the Gate swallowed him up and closed around him.
Given the way time works in hell dimensions, it is impossible to say exactly how long Angel was tortured in the Netherworld, but only a few months after he was "killed," he was sent back to Sunnydale, naked and delirious from torment. Buffy found him and confined him to his lair until he could regain his strength and sanity. Needless to say, when Buffy's friends found out she was harboring an (ex)serial killer, they were deeply worried, and angry. When Angel ended up saving Willow from a rogue Watcher, the gang accepted him for the most part, but suspicion still lingered. Most notably, it wasn't known why Angel was sent back. It turned out that The First - a primordial force of Evil that claimed to predate not only vampires but the Earth itself - wished to corrupt Angel's restored soul and thought this could be done by making him kill Buffy. The First appeared to Angel in the guise of his many victims (especially Jenny) taunting him with the knowledge of his evil and goading him to give in to his monstrous instincts. Angel tried to head this off by going outside and waiting for the sun to rise. Buffy tried to stop him before dawn, and as Angel and Buffy argued over the value of his life, Angel was saved by what can only be described as a miracle, and he began to consider that he had a purpose in living after all.
During Buffy's senior year in high school, she and Angel tried to pick up where they left off, keeping their relationship strictly platonic, but this was hard on both of them. Moreover, Buffy had to deal with both the apocalyptic goals of The Mayor of Sunnydale and the rivalry of a troubled Slayer named Faith. The two crises converged when Faith decided to deal with her problems by joining The Mayor's side. Buffy wasn't sure exactly what Faith was doing, so she and Giles got Angel to pretend that he'd lost his soul again so that he could spy on Faith and The Mayor. When Angel "captured" Buffy, he encouraged Faith to provoke her by bragging to Buffy about The Mayor's plans. When Faith realized she'd been "played," she escaped and plotted against both Buffy and Angel.
Meanwhile, Angel was coming to realize that Buffy herself still hadn't come to terms with the reality of their relationship. Not even considering his Curse, Angel was an immortal and Buffy was not. She would willingly sacrifice the best years of her life to be with him, and any chance for marriage and family, only to age and die while he remained young. Realizing that he had to make the decision, he told Buffy that their relationship was over and that he would leave town as soon as The Mayor was defeated. Buffy found this almost impossible to accept. Shortly thereafter, they met on the streets and Buffy started bitterly arguing with Angel only to be shocked as he was wounded by a crossbow bolt from Faith. Angel became deathly ill, and in their research, the Scooby Gang found out that the poison Faith used on Angel was a magical variety that only affected vampires - and could only be cured by drinking the blood of a Slayer. An enraged Buffy planned to solve this dilemma by taking Faith to Angel. Anticipating this, Faith prepared for a final showdown, which Buffy won when she stabbed Faith in the gut. However, Faith denied Buffy her goal by pitching off a patio and escaping. Buffy came back to Angel empty-handed, and with only one course left, struck Angel to provoke him into a frenzy. Angel grabbed her and drank deeply, and when he recovered both his health and his senses, he realized what he'd done, rushing Buffy to the hospital. While Buffy recovered quickly, the incident - and the reaction of Buffy's friends - made Angel realize his first decision was right. In the Graduation Day battle against The Mayor, Angel led a corps of townspeople against Mayor Wilkins' vampire reinforcements, and after the chaos died down and Buffy's side won, Buffy looked across the scene, past the fire trucks and police vehicles, and saw Angel. They said nothing. After a few moments, Angel turned away and was gone.
Angel moved to Los Angeles, at first operating as a solo crimefighter in order to pay off his moral debt to the world. He was eventually found by another "good" demon named Doyle, who told Angel that in order to save himself from his own darkness, he couldn't simply live on his own and brood, but had to interact with the humans he intended to save. Doyle offered his psychic powers in order to advise Angel, and the two of them were joined shortly thereafter by Buffy's old rival Cordelia, and it was she who hit on the idea of starting "Angel Investigations" as a private investigator service and a front for their missions. After Doyle's tragic death, Angel and Cordelia were joined by the ex-Watcher Wesley and several other unusual characters, and in the course of time, Angel came to accept his role as a hero. However, his "solo" history is beyond the scope of this write-up.
Personality/Motivation: Angel comes across as The Brooding Loner Full of Secrets and Tragedy because that's exactly what he is. He can be down-to-earth, even friendly, with people he's gotten to know, but normally stands apart from others - partially because he's afraid of triggering the Curse, but mainly because he still isn't used to dealing with humans on a normal level. Influenced by Whistler, Buffy and Doyle, Angel eventually comes to accept himself as a champion of good, not only because he sees it as a duty to help redeem himself, but because, after a century of wallowing in guilt and self-pity, he finally has a purpose to his life.
In his Angelus persona, Angel has no morals and no scruples. He is so in love with being evil that he has to devise new, more inventive ways to torture people. For instance, in the early stage of his psychological warfare campaign against Buffy, Angelus came through her bedroom window as she slept, and sat beside her on the bed, stroking her hair and doing nothing else to touch her. When she woke in the morning, Buffy saw that Angelus had left a sketch of her asleep- just to let her know he was there.
Obviously with this attitude, Angelus makes a great villain for use in role-playing games. His stats are the same as Angel's, except that the Psychological Limitation "Trying to Atone for Evil Past" becomes "Sadist Who Loves to Torment His Prey." Note that the "In Love with Buffy" Disad doesn't necessarily change; as Willow once told her, "you're still the only thing he cares about."
Quote: "I could see your heart... you held it before you for everyone to see. And I was afraid that it would be bruised or torn - and more than anything in my life, I wanted to keep it safe... to warm it with my own."
(Angelus): "I want to torture you. It's been a while... I mean, the last time I tortured somebody, they didn't even have chainsaws."
Powers/Tactics: Angel was already an old and experienced vampire by the time he met Buffy, and this write-up reflects him in BUFFY Season 3, after he'd returned from Hell. He continues to gain experience during his spinoff series. All vampires have the potential for enhanced senses, but Angel's seem to be particularly well-developed- he once told Buffy that he could smell the air and tell when the sun was going to rise. His native abilities put him on par with any Slayer, and he also has a number of background skills from his centuries of existence. Angel usually is very aggressive in combat, not concerning himself much with defense.
Appearance: Angel lives up to his name, being tall and muscular with dark hair and eyes and soulful looks. He is distinguished by an elaborate winged-angel tattoo on his right shoulder blade. Angel usually prefers to wear the best contemporary fashions of his time period, and currently favors a minimalist look with his hair in a modified 'buzz cut', and dark pants and sweaters worn with a black overcoat outdoors. Having lived in America almost a century, Angel has lost whatever Irish accent he once had.
(Angel created by Joss Whedon and David Greenwalt, HERO System write-up by James Gillen)
Return to TV-Derived Character Adaptations.