The concept wouldn't leave my head.
Dirk Johnson - PL 5
Conspiracy Nut
Strength 1, Stamina 1, Agility 1, Dexterity 3, Fighting 2, Intellect 1, Awareness 3, Presence 1
Advantages
Benefit: Cipher, Close Attack, Contacts, Defensive Roll 2, Equipment 7, Fascinate (Expertise: Conspiracy Theories), Improvised Tools, Second Chance: Skill checks involving being deceived, Well-informed
Skills
Athletics 2 (+3), Deception 4 (+5), Expertise: Computers 5 (+6), Expertise: Conspiracy Theories 8 (+9), Insight 3 (+6), Investigation 6 (+7), Perception 3 (+6), Persuade 3 (+4), Ranged Combat: Guns 3 (+6), Sleight of Hand 1 (+4), Stealth 2 (+3), Technology 2 (+3), Treatment 2 (+3), Vehicles 2 (+5)
Equipment
Arsenal (Dynamite, Flash-bang, Heavy Pistol, Pepper Spray, Shotgun, Smoke Grenade, Stun Gun, Tear Gas Grenade), Brass Knuckles, Camo Clothing (Urban), Cell Phone, Home-made body armor (+3 Toughness, based on Chainmail), Flashlight, Gas Mask, Lock Release Gun, Multi-tool, Restraints, Stun Ammo
Offense
Initiative +1
Dynamite (DC Dog 15)
Flash Grenade, +3 (DC Dog/Fort 14)
Flash-bang, +3 (DC Dog/Fort 14)
Grab, +3 (DC Spec 11)
Heavy Pistol, +6 (DC 19)
Pepper Spray, +3 (DC Dog/Fort 14)
Shotgun, +6 (DC 18/20)
Smoke Grenade, +3 (Visual obscure)
Stun Gun, +3 (DC 15)
Tear Gas Grenade, +3 (DC 14)
Throw, +3 (DC 16)
Unarmed, +3 (DC 16)
Languages
English
Defense
Dodge 4, Parry 3, Fortitude 4, Toughness 6/1, Will 6
Power Points
Abilities 26 + Powers 0 + Advantages 16 + Skills 23 (46 ranks) + Defenses 10 = 75
Complications
- Enemy - Dirk's original civilian identity is on a few watch-lists, and the company he embezzled from is still looking for him. Perhaps because he knew the truth about what they were doing.
- Identity - Moreso than most, Dirk is very careful to try to keep his identity secret. It wouldn't do for anyone to find that the real Dirk Johnson died in a flophouse and that his ID was sold on a shadow BBS.
- Obsession - Dirk is convinced that the Truth is out there and that he's privy to some of its mysteries.
- Weakness - Dirk has medication that was prescribed for minor schizophrenia in his original identity. He supplements it with pills he buys on the black market. As a result, he's often only lightly medicated and sometimes suffers side effects that make him hallucinate or ideate on particular trains of thought.
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Background
Dirk Johnson began life as Benjamin Paulson, a nebbish programmer for Comansys, a data processing company. One day, while doing his regular work, he came upon a file about Project Palantir, a collaboration effort with the government. The file was obviously not supposed to be for public consumption, and so Benjamin flagged it for security and went on his way. They fired him for "illegal access of company data". And thereby, Comansys created a mortal enemy. Benjamin found, among his personal effects, some floppy disks that included memory dumps from a debugging project. After much laborious effort, he reconstructed what he believed to be the original document and it was sinister indeed. Project Palantir was apparently part of a plan to monitor the US citizenry from shadow government organizations, with the end goal being the implantation of a chip in each left hand in order to be able to do business. It took a lot of unscrambling bits found throughout the dump, but Dirk was certain that he was right, even more so when he noticed strange disturbances around his house as if someone were searching, and far too many white panels of the streets where he lived. And so, he took the obvious reasonable route, embezzled a fair amount of money from Comansys's coffers with old login credentials they forgot to cancel, and faked his own death in a house fire.
Now, he's Dirk Johnson, and the government should be quaking in their boots because he's coming for them. While he considers his brain to be his greatest asset, he's not afraid to supplement it with firearms, and he's taken self-defense classes to be able to defend himself should he get caught at close range. Paladin Press is one of his favorite publishers, although he always buys secondhand to avoid being tracked, and he always pays in cash. Windenburgh suits his his purposes just fine. He spends his days cruising through BBSs, switching whose company's access he's scamming on a regular basis. He has a regular presence on Usenet groups in the
alt.conspiracies grouping, although he's well aware that Usenet is a CIA honeypot. More trusted are the BBS systems. Although the government is actively trying to squash them by backing the huge telecom companies to push their modified version of Darpanet, he knows that the real truth is still being transmitted via modem lines.
Description
He's Caucasian, pale due to a combination of not being someone who tans easily, and spending so much time inside. Slightly skinny, but not gaunt. Light-brown hair, slightly shaggy, that has some silvering highlights, close-trimmed goatee of the same color, watery-blue eyes that are usually at a somewhat sleepy squint, the result of him not having gone to the optometrist in some time, and impending myopia. Currently dressed in a faded brown leather jacket over a logoless black T-shirt (currently not visible), jeans, and brown sneakers. No glasses or jewelry. Probably looks somewhere in his thirties.
Notes
The shotgun breaks PL by 1, but you said that equipment breaking PL doesn't count. I started out with references to the Dark Web before I remembered the setting, and switched it to BBS systems. I debated whether to aim for defensive PLs, but it seemed like the right thing to do. The two ranks in Technology account for him having a general idea of a lot of little things, but his main expertise is in computers. Well, really, conspiracy theories... the Second Chance is basically that he has a knack for picking at the loose thread of a falsehood. He often comes to the wrong conclusion, but he realizes that he's being lied to. He doesn't carry his heavier guns, grenades, armor, or explosives with him most of the time, but he does have them cached around his house. His cover is that he did well in tech stocks early on, and is now an amateur writer in the area of technological thrillers. It gives him a cover to ask some more pointed questions, and no one really expects him to every finish his book.
When he encounters the supernatural, odds are he'll assume them to be aliens or government secret projects.