BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER

Val	CHA	Cost	Roll	Notes
23	STR	16	14-	Lift 600 kg; 4 1/2d6 HTH Damage
23	DEX	48	14-	OCV:  8/DCV:  8
23	CON	32	14-
18	BODY	16	13-
13	INT	3	12-	PER Roll 11-
15	EGO	10	12-	ECV:  5
18	PRE	8	13-	PRE Attack:  3 1/2d6
18	COM	4	13-

8	PD	3		Total:  11 PD (3 rPD)
8	ED	3		Total:  11 ED (3 rED)
4	SPD	7		Phases:  3, 6, 9, 12
10	REC	0
46	END	0
42	STUN	0
Total Characteristics Cost:  150

Movement:	Leaping:  7.5"/15"
		Running:  9"/18"
		Swimming:  2"/4"

Cost	Powers & Skills
	Martial Arts:  Slayer Fighting Skill
	Maneuver	OCV	DCV	Damage
4	Block		+2	+2	Block, Abort
4	Disarm		-1	+1	33 STR Disarm
5	Offensive Strike	-2	+1	8 1/2d6 Strike
4	Strike		+0	+2	6 1/2d6 Strike
3	Takedown	+1	+1	4 1/2d6 Strike, Target Falls
2	Use Art With Blades and Clubs

15	Resilience:  Physical Damage Reduction, 1/2, Resistant; Activates 12- (-3/4), Character Must Be 
	Aware Of Attack (-1/4)
10	Missile Deflection:  (arrows/projectiles)
2	Athletic Prowess:  +3" Leaping (7 1/2" total); Requires Acrobatics Roll (-1/2)
6	Athletic Prowess:  +3" Running (9" Total), END 2
14	Dreamvisions:  Clairsentience (Sight and Hearing Groups), Precognition, Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2); 
	No Conscious Control (-2), Only In Dreams (-1), Vague And Unclear (-1/2), Precognition Only (-1)
3	Perceptive:  Enhanced Perception +1 With All PER Rolls (13-)
6	Rapid Healing:  Healing 1d6 (Regeneration; 1 BODY per Hour), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2), 
	Persistent (+1/2); Extra Time + Increased Time Increment (1 Hour; -2), Self Only (-1/2)

	Perks
2	Reputation:  The Slayer (among the Occult World, medium group) 11- (+2/+2d6)

	Talents
6	Combat Luck (Armor 3 PD/3 ED)
15	Combat Sense (12-)

	Skills
10	Combat Skill Levels:  +2 with Hand-To-Hand Combat 
7 	Evasion:  +2 DCV; Requires An Acrobatics Roll (-1/2)

3	Acrobatics 14-
3	Analyze Fighting Technique 12-
3	Breakfall 14-
3	Climbing 14-
3	Concealment 12-
5	Defense Maneuver II
1	KS:  Fashion 8- 
1	KS:  The Occult World 8-
2	KS:  Vampires 11-
3	Paramedics 12-
3	Shadowing 12-
3	Stealth 14-
3	Conversation 13-
3	Persuasion 13-
3	Streetwise 13-
7	WF:  Common Melee Weapons, Common Martial Arts Melee Weapons, Common Missile Weapons, Staves

167	Total Powers & Skills Cost
317	Total Character Cost

150+	Disadvantages
15	DNPC:  Joyce—her Mom (normal). 11-
20	Hunted:  The Big Bad (More Powerful, Kill), 11-
5	Hunted:  Council of Watchers (As Powerful, NCI, Watching), 8- 
20	Normal Characteristic Maxima
15	Psychological Limitation:  Overconfident (VC, M)
10	Psychological Limitation:  Sense of Responsibility (C, M)
5	Reputation:  violent troublemaker, 8-
77	Experience

317	Total Disadvantage Points

Equipment:
Sharpened stake (2d6 N or 1/2d6 K, STR Min 8)
Purse or overcoat to conceal said stake
Practical clothes

Background/History: As the legend goes, in every generation, one girl is chosen to fight the vampires, the demons, and the other forces of darkness. In 1995, a Los Angeles high school cheerleader named Buffy Summers was turned into the Slayer.

While BUFFY creator Joss Whedon has pretty much disavowed the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie starring Kristy Swanson, the character played by Sarah Michelle Gellar is still the same one played by Swanson. The B:tVS TV series starts in the aftermath of the movie, after Buffy has to leave LA after destroying her high school to take out a nest of vampires. Buffy and her newly-divorced Mom (Joyce) relocate in the small California town of Sunnydale, with Joyce hoping to start a new career at the local art gallery and Buffy hoping to put the whole "Slayer" business behind her and have a normal teenage life. But then she finds out that the school librarian, "Giles," was sent to her by the Watchers, the town is built on a mystical nexus called the "Hellmouth," and an ancient vampire called The Master is imprisoned underneath them, plotting to get free. In the middle of all this, Buffy tries to rebuild her social life, but has to choose between the popular but cruel Cordelia Chase and the main targets of Cordelia's ire, Willow Rosenberg and Xander Harris. Siding with the underdogs, Buffy finds that Xander and Willow have skills that can help her fight the vampires who are threatening the town, forming the nucleus of the jokingly named "Scooby Gang". And Buffy also attracts a mysterious adviser named "Angel..."

Thus began the ongoing storyline of the BUFFY TV series. For most of its first season (which only lasted 12 episodes) the theme of Buffy's life was trying to reconcile her Slayer "duty" with her natural desire to be a normal teenage girl. Once she accepted her destiny, she seemed to gain new power, and was finally able to destroy The Master. The next two seasons showed Buffy developing very close relationships with the people she met (even Cordelia, to some extent) but her deepest, and most tragic, relationship was with the reformed vampire Angel. He had fallen in love with Buffy almost at first sight, but tried to remain detached. She was initially suspicious of him, but the two grew steadily closer. They slept together on Buffy's 17 th birthday, but Buffy didn't realize that this "moment of perfect happiness" broke the curse that gave Angel a conscience. Losing his soul, Angel reverted to form as one of the more evil vampires to exist. After his change, he resolved to make Buffy's life a living hell by torturing her friends, and eventually decided to destroy the world. Buffy confronted Angel at the same time that Willow recast the spell to restore Angel's soul. The spell worked, but only after Angel had already cast his final ritual- thus Buffy was forced to kill him to end his spell and save the world.

After this shattering event, Buffy tried to retreat from her responsibilities by running away, only to find that mystical forces still threatened people wherever she went. Returning home to Sunnydale, she reunited with her friends and tried to resume her "normal" life. This was complicated by two factors: The appearance of a delinquent Slayer named Faith, who threatened to steal Buffy's thunder as the only superhero in town, and the reappearance of Angel, who had been sent back from Hell for unknown reasons (most likely to corrupt or kill Buffy). Buffy chained Angel in his room until he regained his sanity and health, but when the Scooby Gang found out he was back, this caused some real tension in the group—especially with Faith, who attempted to kill Angel. While Buffy and Angel both managed to get the rest of the gang to trust them again, Buffy's relationship with Faith (who had emotional problems of her own) was permanently damaged. At the same time, Angel realized that even if he didn't risk his soul by sleeping with Buffy, their relationship could never last (if only because he was immortal and she wasn't). These two crises collided when Faith turned to evil and joined up with the demonic Mayor of Sunnydale as his right-hand girl. Seeking to eliminate two threats at once, Faith poisoned Angel and provoked Buffy into attacking her when Buffy found out that the only antidote to the vampire poison was for Angel to drink the blood of a Slayer. Faith lost her battle with Buffy and almost died escaping from her. Without Faith's body, Buffy almost died when she had to offer herself to Angel to save his life. Angel brought her to the hospital for a blood transfusion, but this incident only confirmed that he had to leave Buffy for her own good. Once the Mayor was defeated, Angel left for Los Angeles permanently. And while Buffy soon realized that Angel was right, her wild, tragic affair with him set the pattern for all her romantic expectations thereafter—not necessarily for the better.

After high school, Buffy and Willow roomed together in college, and in the show's fourth season, Buffy and her friends had to adjust to the changing circumstances of their lives as both Xander and Willow found new loves and Buffy had to learn to live without Angel. She eventually got interested in a "regular guy" named Riley Finn, only to find out that he was a unit leader of the sinister military force called the Initiative, which had been causing havoc around the college. Riley wanted to ally his force with the Slayer, but he wasn't aware that the Initiative labs were being used to develop a secret project—a half-demon Frankenstein's Monster called "Adam." Adam broke out of the labs and killed his creators, trashing the Initiative's leadership in the process. Neither Buffy nor Riley were tough enough to stop him, and Buffy's friends all seemed to be moving on to other parts of their lives and arguing with each other over the future of the Scooby Gang. But eventually Xander got the idea that if they combined Buffy's body, Willow's magical talent, and Giles' mystic knowledge, Buffy could cast the spell to neutralize Adam's power source long enough to survive combat with him. Buffy's friends ended up casting an epic spell to merge their minds with hers in order to accomplish this goal, not only destroying Adam, but repairing their friendship and working relationship.

As fourth season ended, Buffy, Xander, and Willow all had stable relationships and bright futures ahead of them. But the combination spell they cast with Giles had unforeseen side effects, as the source of the First Slayer's power stalked them in their dreams. Willow, Xander, and Giles all succumbed to its power, but Buffy managed to resist the dream visions and save her friends. However, she was still haunted by one thing she heard in the dream: "You think you know what's to come. You haven't even begun."

Personality/Motivation: The Buffy Summers character started with the inherent joke of the series title, Buffy the Vampire Slayer—a "Valley Girl" with monster slaying powers who still worried about boys and curfews. She had an unserious attitude to the whole "duty" concept that got on the nerves of her Watcher, Giles, even as he had to concede that her unorthodox approach yielded results. For instance, rather than use a mystic Slayer sense to detect vampires, Buffy just had to notice how out of date their fashion sense was. At the same time, this attitude shielded her from pessimism that could have undermined her spirit. Even as Buffy realized how serious her situation was, her conscience and sense of responsibility—learned from her Mom, and from Giles—helped keep her strong, and have continued to do so after emotional trials that would have crushed Willow or even Giles.

In some ways, Buffy comes off as a typical American action hero: Where Giles ponders, Willow worries, and Xander makes cheesy comments, Buffy takes action to solve the problem. She is often overconfident, but this attitude is justified by the knowledge that she really is tougher than most of her enemies. Her intuition has proven correct often enough that Buffy has developed a strong aura of command—not only is she the unquestioned leader of the Scooby Gang, she is often able to give orders to people who are technically her superiors (like Giles or her Mom Joyce).

Not that Buffy is perfect. She is NOT an idiot, but often feels like one next to Giles and Willow, and this self-consciousness about her intellect is one of the few things that can undermine her natural confidence. Buffy's stubbornness often gives her blind spots (especially where her boyfriends are concerned) and her emotional toughness sometimes causes her to retreat inward, thinking that no one else is strong enough to help her shoulder her burdens.

Quote: "Well, there's something you don't see everyday—unless you're me."

Powers/Tactics:
As is, Buffy would fit in to a high powered Heroic Level Martial Arts game or the low end of a Wild Martial Arts campaign. She has superpowers, in the respect that she has the strength and speed to fight vampires on even terms, but she actually isn't "Spider-Man strong." She still operates on a Heroic level- strong enough to bend a rifle barrel in two hands, but not enough to throw cars. Accordingly, despite having some stats above 20, Buffy, like other Heroic level characters, still operates under Normal Characteristic Maxima; if she buys stats as a superhero, the write-up costs 18 points less. (Also, Buffy continues to increase in strength over time—in one episode of Season 6, she applied for work at a construction site, and lifted a steel girder on one shoulder like it was a cheap plaster prop...)

Being the Slayer also increases Buffy's healing rate, allowing her to heal from wounds by a factor of hours rather than days. She is fast enough to catch crossbow bolts in flight, and her powers also increase her natural athletic ability (she was a cheerleader) to prodigal levels, allowing her to learn weapons use and combat techniques with astounding ease. This includes a natural skill in martial arts which is developed by intense training (the maneuvers listed above are based on Tae Kwon Do, the style actually used by Sarah Michelle Gellar).

One power Buffy has that isn't mentioned often is her ability to see visions in her dreams. Sometimes these dreams allude to events in the present, but sometimes they seem to foreshadow a situation that has yet to occur, allowing Buffy a limited ability to predict the future. An example was when Buffy dreamed that she was dancing with Angel at her 17th birthday party, when she saw Drusilla (whom she thought had died) slay Angel in front of her. This predicted not only Drusilla's return, but the fact that Buffy would soon "lose" Angel in a totally different way. It is unknown whether these visions are part of the "Slayer package," since Kendra and Faith don't mention them. But it also isn't confirmed whether Buffy had this talent before becoming a Slayer.

Buffy fights as a martial artist. While she is very tough on the Heroic scale, she isn't bulletproof or even stake proof. She uses maneuvers to enhance her DCV (especially when fighting multiple opponents) and against a vampire will seek to batter the undead just long enough to set him up for a staking (in game terms, Called Shot to the Chest). Against other opponents, Buffy adapts her tactics to the situation- she has often fought monsters far more physically powerful than she is, and if she can't trick the foe into putting itself at a disadvantage, Buffy has no qualms about retreating in order to consult with Giles or Willow for research in finding her enemy's weakness.

Notes: This write-up only reflects Buffy after Season 4 of the series. I'm not detailing Season 5 or thereafter in these series write-ups for several reasons: one, I want to do a write-up of Faith that's still on par with Buffy (Faith last appeared in Season 4), two, the last few seasons of the show have been rather dismal in tone (at least compared to the first four), and three, with all the radical changes that have happened since then, detailing all that's happened would make the write-ups twice as long. (These events may be alluded to, especially in the case of Willow.) In the next two years, Buffy could get even more powerful, with STR up to 25, DEX up to 26 (possibly with 5 SPD) and more Combat Levels. Her positive Reputation would go up to 14- with at least 3 levels of effect.

The DNPC Disadvantage would be +5 points in the first two years of the B:tVS series, as Joyce didn't know her daughter was a vampire slayer, or that monsters existed at all. At the same time, Buffy never had anything like a Secret or Public Identity (Slayers and vampires seem to have an unspoken agreement not to reveal each other to the world at large). Insofar as the world knows anything about Buffy's activities, it is only due to the negative effects, like property damage (thus the Reputation Disad). The TV series Buffy is a classic case of what HERO calls "the floating Hunted," with each season introducing a new master villain who is so threatening that Buffy inevitably has to slay him at the end of the season, meaning that a new "Big Bad" has to be introduced sometime in the next season. The Master was Buffy's first major Hunter. In Season 2, the major villains were the vampires Spike and Drusilla, later supplanted by Angelus (the evil Angel). The Mayor (eventually supported by Faith) was the Big Bad of Season 3, Adam was the major Hunter of Season 4. The "hell-goddess" Glory appeared in Season 5, searching out the "Key," which turned out to be Buffy's mysterious sister Dawn. Season 6 really didn't have a Big Bad, unless you count Warren Meeks (and not many would). In any case, the last season did at least try to shake up the routine, for better or worse.

Appearance: Buffy Summers is short (maybe 5' 3") and thin. She is a quintessential California blonde, with long hair, well-toned body, tan skin and a winning smile. While in high school, she doesn't try to compete with Cordelia Chase, but still dresses fashionably while stressing practicality. Most of the time, for instance, she will find some way to conceal a stake on her person, although she is not likely to need weapons in the daytime.

Character Sheet by James Gillen [jfats@lv.rmci.net]

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