Val CHA Cost Roll Notes 10 STR 0 11- Lift 100 kg; 2d6 HTH Damage 11 DEX 3 11- OCV: 4/DCV: 4 10 CON 0 11- 10 BODY 0 11- 13 INT 3 12- PER Roll 12- 13 EGO 6 12- ECV: 4 10 PRE 0 11- PRE Attack: 2d6 10 COM 0 11- 3 PD 1 Total: 3 PD 2 ED 0 Total: 3 ED 3 SPD 9 Phases: 4, 8, 12 4 REC 0 20 END 0 20 STUN 0 Total Characteristics Cost: 22 Movement: Running: 6"/12" Teleport: 5"/2,316,500" Swimming: 2"/4" Cost Powers & Skills 80 Teleport: 5", Increased Mass 1600 kg, Area of Effect (One Hex; +1/2), Continuous (+1), Megascale (1" = 1000 km; +1), Usable Simultaneously (+1/2); Gate (-1/2), Only Through Doors He's Already Passed Through (Only Fixed/Floating Fixed Locations, -1/2) plus 10 Fixed Locations plus 2 Floating Fixed Locations Skills 15 Combat Skill Levels: +3 with Ranged Combat 5 Combat Skill Levels: +1 DCV 0 AK: Pribram 8- 5 Combat Driving (car) 12- 2 KS: Czech Politics 11- 2 KS: European History 11- 0 Language: Czech (Native) 2 Language: English (Fluent) 2 Language: Russian (Fluent) 1 Language: German (Basic) 3 Paramedic 12- 0 PS: Soldier 8- 7 Stealth 13- 3 Tactics 12- 3 WF: Small Arms/ machine-guns 130 Total Powers & Skills Cost 152 Total Character Cost 75+ Disadvantages 20 Hunted: Axis Governments, (MowPo, NCI, Lim Geo) 11- 10 Psychological Limitation: Czech Patriot (C, M) 15 Psychological Limitation: Hatred Of Nazis (C, S) 32 Experience 152 Total Disadvantage Points
Background/History: Briety Krizova was born in 1920 to farmers in the small village of Pribram, Czechoslovakia. He left for schooling at Prague in 1925, living with a favorite uncle in the city, and later spent a short stint at the University of Linz in Austria (vacationing in both Spain and England in the summers). Krizova became embroiled in politics at Linz, and returned to Prague during the final days of Czechoslovakia's autonomy. Unfortunately, he was quite vocal about his anti-German sentiments.
On October 1, 1938, Nazi Germany exploited its pact with Czechoslovakia and fully occupied the country. On October 10, Krizova discovered his parahuman abilities while fleeing Gestapo agents who were rounding up dissidents. Instead of his den on the other side of the door, he found himself in Trafalgar Square, London, (644 miles away) a place he'd been a year before. Krizova rapidly discovered his jaunt was more than a one-time thing, as he was repeatedly ejected from the British Ministry of Defense, only to repeatedly return from doors on the inside. Briety claimed he was "blessed of god" and gained a passageway to escape the Nazis. After the authorities realized they couldn't remove him, they confirmed his story and realized that the young Czech somehow had the power to link doorways with the power of his mind.
Any doorway Briety had used could through this power be linked to any other doorway he had previously passed through. He could bring anyone he liked on these trips and could carry large amounts of equipment through as long as the link between points lasted, which could sometimes be as long as ten minutes. With this ability, Krizova became the backbone of a huge British-backed resistance in Czechoslovakia. He was codenamed Pevnost ('fortress' in his native tongue) and created a complex series of safehouses linked only by his power, where men and equipment could be stored for the resistance. Pevnost was actually the second known parahuman in his world's history, after the Nazi "super-man" Der Flieger, and Hitler himself inadvertently helped the young Czech's cause, by obstinately refusing to admit that any other parahuman existed besides Der Flieger.
When World War II broke out, the British took every opportunity to exploit Pevnost for propaganda purposes, countering the free world's fear of the Nazi Der Flieger and using Pevnost's power to help support Czech partisans with money, equipment, and personnel. His most noteworthy exploit was the "August Uprising" of Aug. 4, 1941. Using his access to local facilities in Prague, Pevnost linked a passage to London funneling partisans and British Commandos to take the city by surprise. The commandos and partisans held the city for four days, conducting impromptu trials on ten captured Nazi, Czech, and Slovak officials, including Slovakian President Josef Tiso and SS security commissioner Reinhard Heydrich. The prisoners were sentenced to death and on August 6 were shot in front of roaring crowds. BBC radio broadcast hourly on the status of the Free Czech forces. When news reached the Allies that an SS Panzer division was being moved to retake Prague, Pevnost retreated his forces the same way they came in. Of the 2500 men who participated in the uprising, only 209 were killed in the retreat, thanks to the tireless efforts of Pevnost. However, between August 21 and 30, 200 Czechs were rounded up from the towns of Lidice and Levzacky and shot, with all structures of the towns being blasted down and bulldozed off the face of the earth. Pevnost took notice and reluctantly decided to avoid widespread attacks on the Nazi military structure in Czechoslovakia until near the end of the war. In January 1945, Pevnost ferried over thirty tons of weapons and equipment into Czechoslovakia in support of nearly 150,000 partisans, disrupting German operations at exactly the point that the Soviet Red Army was advancing on the country.
Krizova became a national hero for his struggle against the Nazis, but after the war, the Soviet occupation force began to subvert the restored Czech democracy, and in 1948 the Communists seized full control. Krizova fled the country with his wife and small child, but not before ushering out more than 200 families and friends whose politics were suspect by Communist standards. He lived the rest of his life in London, an honored member of the Order of the British Empire. He wrote four books about his life during the war, and was hailed as a talented author. He traveled the world, a guest of dozens of governments and enjoyed the company of four American Presidents and three British Prime Ministers. On July 12, 1987, at the age of 67, Briety Krizova died peacefully in London.
Personality/Motivation: Briety Krizova was obviously not afraid to stand up for his beliefs, and when those beliefs got him in trouble, they helped to trigger his powers. (As a Socialist, he was hunted by the Nazis for being left-wing; later he had to flee the Communists because he wasn't left-wing enough.) Krizova was essentially an honorable man, a good example of the kind of freedom fighter Europe produced during World War II. Some Czechs felt betrayed when he left the country after the Soviet takeover, but Krizova said: "My life has always been war. It is now time for peace. All men deserve a little peace."
Powers/Tactics: Krizova could link any two doorways he had previously passed through, creating an instant gateway between two points in space using the power of his mind. Others could travel through the gate as well, as long as Krizova passed through the portal with them, one at a time. The connected doorways had to be of similar design and size. For some reason, Krizova's powers did not work on doorways bigger than 2.7m x 1.1m. Krizova's power seemed to grow with age; his maximum range was estimated to be 2.5 thousand nautical miles near the time of his death. His power level seemed to fluctuate for unknown reasons. Linking doorways across space was a fatiguing process for Krizova, and if pushed to its limits, could cause brain damage or even kill him. Given the limits of this ability, it worked only in non-combat circumstances. Krizova had no other powers or physical training, although during the war, he became quite skilled at infiltration work. This was necessary in order to make use of his power, as he could only teleport through doors he'd already used (and couldn't 'blind teleport'). During the Prague Uprising, for instance, Krizova traveled to Prague to gain access to several doors in buildings that the Gestapo were using as headquarters. During World War II, the British used Pevnost on other missions, sending him behind enemy lines to find an appropriate door and establish a gateway to send supplies to anti-Nazi resistance forces. (Pevnost is bought with 10 pre-memorized locations to reflect his knowledge of the Czech underground cells and Western Europe, while his Floating locations reflect his potential to connect any other doorways he hasn't already paid for on a permanent basis.)
Appearance: Briety Krizova was a slight man, only 5'2" and 129 lbs. His appearance was not noteworthy otherwise, and in his anti-Nazi activities it made sense to be as nondescript as possible while the mission was underway. Most of the time, he dressed like everyone else on the street.
Designer's Notes:
Pevnost is my second conversion of a character from the GODLIKE role-playing game, and the second superhuman mentioned in that game world's alternate history. The conversion is given from character stats as of 1943, by which time Pevnost had already received military training and some experience with his power. The book implies that Pevnost actually reached the full extent of his ability after World War II; most of the time he shuttled between London and Prague (again, a distance of 644 miles). One more stressful use of his power was recorded in 1941, when FDR and Winston Churchill held their first North Atlantic conference in Newfoundland. To protect Prime Minister Churchill from German U-Boat attacks, the British sent the HMS Prince of Wales across the ocean and had Pevnost teleport Churchill through a doorway in the British battleship only after it had arrived safely.
In any case, Pevnost's limitations clearly indicate non-combat Teleport with the Gate effect, and his ability to traverse continents and oceans with it indicates that we actually have a character with a Movement Power that makes sense to build with the new MegaScale rules!
Yay!
The GODLIKE book lists Pevnost's maximum range as "2.5 thousand nautical miles"; with a nautical mile equaling 1853.2 meters, this calculated to 4633000 meters, or 2316500" in game terms. The +1 level of MegaScale is 1 inch = 1000 km, or a million meters per hex of move. Thus 4,633,000 m fits nicely within 5" of Teleport at that MegaScale. The source material did say that Pevnost's ability could cause great strain, which would certainly occur if Pevnost Pushed his Teleport. I'm also being generous in assuming that Advantages piled onto a Movement Power don't increase its base END Cost of 1 per 5", because Pevnost's full Teleport is 120 Active Points! Since he has only normal human REC and END (and I'm being generous in giving him a 3 SPD, which he may reduce to save END) Pevnost could very easily start burning Long Term END if he had to keep a gate open for five minutes. Again, because of the way the power was originally designed, it works perfectly in 5th Edition HERO as a non-combat Movement/MegaScale Power. Pevnost can't use it for combat moves, although if he had Floating Locations within the same city, he could certainly teleport within that scale. By the same token, Pevnost has miscellaneous locations bought separately, as 5th Edition confirms that a teleporter's locations cannot be bought within a Framework, which I assume also means they cannot be bought with Limitations. In this respect, they're sort of like Perks.
Speaking of which, in addition to omitting GODLIKE-specific mechanics (like the Contest of Wills), I didn't figure out what Perk Pevnost should have for being a leading Allied 'Talent' and Czech resistance leader. I'm sure it's worth something, but the book never gave him any official status within the British military/intelligence forces, nor did it confirm what rank he had in any Czech organizations.
[GODLIKE RPG by Dennis Detweiler and Greg Stolze, 2002 Pagan Publishing, HERO System conversion by James Gillen]
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