The Heroes

Salomone Delluci
Born in Italy sometime during the Renaissance, Delluci made his way through the philosophical times as an alchemist. His quest mixed science with the esoteric as he searched, as all alchemists did to find an elixir to secure immortality. He and his apprentice Darius slaved over salts, metals, solvents, herbs, alembics, retorts, and calcinators. They felt they came close as they began to transmute meats and flesh into raw elements. However, then a quarrel broke between the two and both began working severally. Darius believing the element of Metal to be truly immortal began experimenting with metallic transmutation, while Salomone believed Wind to be solely amaranthine and experimented with such.

Salomone began advancing quickly and found that lead was an ideal catalyst for his study of the raw Element of Wind. Salomone even made discoveries in the realm of the human soul. Darius, however, became frustrated with his work as he would not accept lead as a catalyst and instead would only use iron.

One fateful day in the lab, Darius’s mixture of salts and metals combusted transmuting half of his face to metal. Feeling this was sabotage on Salomone’s part, he in turn packed gunpowder in the center of a lead cylinder that Salomone would heat in experimentation. The resulting explosion sent a lead stake through Salomone’s arm, crippling it severely, and leaving a strange symbol as a scar. Delluci’s rage was great, and after securing a pistol from the Medici family on a promise to become a sort of hit man for them, shot Darius’s son in the arm for a suiting revenge. However, when he did so he felt a burning sensation in his arm and realized no longer was he the gunman but he was the victim. He watched as his body hit the floor, soulless, and testing what had just happened he shot his old body in the foot and transferred back into his original body. He realized he had found immortality, just not how he expected it.

Powers: Cursed to possess any person caused harm by him by means of a lead weapon (usually bullets). Additionally, he has great standing with the Medici mob family, not to mention contacts within the police. Having lived for hundreds of years he blends easily into any culture and any social situation. He can also consult a sort of intuition that usually takes the form of the person he’s possessing. The only way to determine his identity is to examine a strange alchemical marking that Salomone’s bullet wound always leaves.

Weapons: Salomone can use any sort of gun and hundreds of years training has made him a lethal shot. He seems to prefer revolvers however.

Recent Affairs: Salomone is in the body of Chesir and has full access to his chain weapons though the spikes were recently broken off both arms. He also may be getting into trouble with the mob since Slim's escape.

Eli Manoah
Founder of the Cloud’s Gate Knights, Eli discovered his power when he was hit by a car (Eli though claims that he was stepped on by a horse) and was sent into a month long coma. During the coma he wandered Alcheringa, the Dream Lands. Through multiple tasks, fighting fears, questing for grails, and singing the songs that echo through time, his dream journeys brought him to the Dream Sands, a deep and endless desert of mirages where the sky is always night. Eli wandered too far on the sands and was swallowed by the hungry dunes. He snapped awake from his coma, and could still feel sand covering his body, desperately he tried to wipe away but to no avail. Eli then focused on the sand and it disappeared as a mirage. Through practice Eli mastered the art of illusion, that combined with a deep study of psychology at Northwestern gave Eli an ability to make illusions potent enough to trick a body into killing itself. Eli discovered that if he made a mind believe its body was freezing the body may as well freeze even if it were just a tactile illusion.

Eli also discovered the ability to manipulate sands enough to create frictionless fields on which to “skate” and travel exceedingly quick. This same sands could cause static to keep his body adhered to vertical walls.

After the mastery of his powers he had a stream of endless nightmares that coerced him to form a super hero group. He saw each night, each member of the group so vividly he felt they were real. He would conjure their collective image and stop petty crimes and mild disasters, the biggest being the team stopping a train on a crash course. However, as the team was not real and trains have no minds, Eli was forced to stop the trains by pushing an exceedingly overweight man onto the tracks, but made it seem to all as if the team had stopped it. The decision always haunted him, but forced him to find the true heroes and form the group.

Powers: Eli can create illusion that if believed can harm the target or help them depending (such as negate pain). Eli can jump between the real world and the dream world at will allowing him to attack the psyche’s of asleep targets as well as learn information from the archetypal realm. He has shown potential in the manipulation of sand particles and uses them to slide at high speeds as well to create static fields of clinging to easily scale buildings and the like. He also can transmit the “sleep” command to opponents’ minds using sand as a catalyst.

Weapons: Eli does not use guns but instead carries a sword with him. His enhanced speed makes a level playing field for guns and swords. The sword he has now was one that belonged to the Mafia that he “swapped” for his old blade.

Recent Affairs: Eli was shot in the chest with a shotgun by Richard by mistake. He currently is being held in the Sacred Heart Hospital of Chicago. He speaks as if he’s going to die though the doctor says he’s fine. He handed the leadership of the Knights over to Guy and gave the team instructions to make their team formidable.

Guy Reinoso
A sniper who fought in the extremely controversial Lesotho Conflict, Guy took on more and more dangerous missions to shorten his time in the service. The extremity of the operations he took one soon took a toll on his mind and eventually broke a mental barrier that restrains the human mind to only 10% its potential. Suddenly he could process information at half the time of an average human and could move fast enough to even dodge bullets after they were fired.
During these missions his power became known to a group of super soldiers that were originally formed during the Cold War as stealth units capable of destroying large portions of armies known as the Ghosts. Each of the Ghosts too had exceeded the limitation of the human mind and had developed telepathic and psychokinetic powers. The Ghost began contacting Guy and put him through missions of their own to train him to become one in a new generation of Ghosts.

However a quarrel broke out between the Ghosts as a result of the extreme controversy of the war, no longer did they all fight on the same side. The dissolution of the Ghosts caused Guy’s training to be dropped and Guy, once offered honorable leave, opted to return home. Guy’s brother Hamilton also fought during the Lesotho Conflict and was also offered Ghost training but he was soon caught stealing and dishonorably discharged from the Special Forces. The two have not been on good terms since, and had not talked with him until Chance reunited them.

Powers: Guy can think and move at twice the rate of a normal human. Due to this his body processes toxins faster as well as regenerates wounds. However he also requires twice the amount of food as an average human and is often found munching down protein bars. His skill as a sniper is almost unmatched, and when all is assembled his shot can hardly miss.

Weapons: Guy uses a .50 Sniper Rifle with a biped as well as a Desert Eagle for close combat. He also wears a Frag Jacket.

Recent Affairs: Guy has proven his tactical ability and prowess in keeping the team together. He has recently exhibited great mathematical abilities, able to determine probabilities, trajectories, and ballistics in matters of seconds.

Hamilton “Hammy” Reinoso
The brother of Guy Reinoso, Hammy was discharged from the army after stealing military C4 for an unauthorized but effective mission. The special forces could not let him go unpunished but could not find other suitable punishments for a man who had ultimately helped the US. Before his discharge he was inducted into entry level training for the Ghosts, but also lost his position when the Ghosts dissolved.

Hammy’s power manifested subtly, first on the battlefield where it seemed each bullet had an extreme aversion to him. He began to exploit this power, this sort of luck, and while in Africa talked to a sage about it. The sage told him a story about the “Man that Fortune Smiled Over” and marked his back with a large and intricate tattoo. After receiving the tattoo Hammy could throw knives with his eyes closed and hit the target dead on. These blind shots were so accurate that he eventually preferred them to shots made with skill and not luck.

After moving back to America, Hammy lived out on the streets as a thief until he met Chance, the avatar of the pure force of luck. Chance took him under his wing and became a powerful ally, and though Chance seems to be violently opposed to Hammy’s induction into the Knight’s he has not done anything aside from his first attempt to sever Hammy from the group.

Powers: Hammy can throw knives, that if luck alone is the only factor, will always hit. Also he can alter reality to change the event that would have injured or killed him. When he alters reality, all the possible realities shuffle like a deck of cards until his preferred reality comes out on top.

Weapons: Hammy uses knives for throwing and melee combat, but also carries a Mark 22 “Hush Puppy” tranquilizer pistol. He recently acquired a Thopson as well as a deck of cards known as "52 card pick-up."

Recent Affairs: Hammy is now out to find "the Executioner" as Chance commanded.

Graham Abbot
A British native that moved to Chicago to start a career as a magician. He discovered his ability to—at first—“make things float” which he later discovered to be the ability to manipulate gravity’s effects by touch. He succeeded as a magician as he could perform his tricks anywhere, anytime, as they were not illusions and truly a sort of “magic.”

Graham is entirely idealistic, and near classic “superhero” material, though recently his nature has become more and more worldly. The visits to the Don’s Mansion and the Winchester stand as examples. Possibly the most lively of the bunch, Graham often leaves calling cards on the ceiling and plays pranks on the other members.

He comes to the table with a much cleaner history than the rest of the knights and seems to pay the price for his initial idealism. A blank slate is bound to gather dust.

Powers: Graham can manipulate gravitational fields at touch. He can “charge” an object with weight or weightlessness making any object potentially lethal and allowing him to crush opponents by touch. This manipulation of gravity also allows him several mobility options. Graham can make himself as if on the moon to make great bounds, or reduce his gravitational signature altogether to float about rooms, he can also shift his gravity to “fall” towards a ceiling or wall. He need not worry about the injury involved in falling as he can always feather fall to the ground.
Graham has not as of yet shown the potential of his power as it could essentially be used to make stationary objects such as safes or tables “fall” towards enemies and maybe even create gravity wells within a room.

Weapons: Graham uses a Colt “Anaconda” but mostly improvises weaponry.

Recent Affairs: Graham has taken the lead in designing the new base and arsenal for the team.

Luke Romanov
Luke awoke in a strange lab and managed to escape naked from the though-to-be-abandoned anti-biotics lab about the same time the Knights arrived. As Luke was escaping Eli recognized him as one of the heroes he had seen in his dreams and through his illusions tricked Luke into running back into the lab and ultimately fighting alongside the Knights.

Luke silently joined the group and has realized his ability to manipulate temperatures and even though the power seems unfamiliar to him he has mastered it to the extent of generating ice spheres, ice spears, and cones of fire. Like Graham, Luke’s power is limited to touch, so to facilitate the range of his power Luke uses a whip to convey either heat or cold to his opponents.

In many ways Luke also is a “blank slate,” able to remember only flashes of his past and the experimentation he was put through.

Powers: Luke holds the ability to manipulate temperatures at touch. Also a mastery of condensation and combustion allows him to instantly create ice spheres, ice spears, and conical extensions of flames. His body has also shown resistance to extreme temperatures.

Weapons: Due to the immediate efficiency of his ice and fire weapons, Luke does not carry firearms though he is proficient with whips which he uses to convey heat and cold to targets.

Recent Affairs: Luke has been exploring who he is and has found out he is a “Missing Child” along with the Reinosos and Richard. Luke has shown new abilities such as the ability to sheath himself in ice as well as create smokescreens.

Richard Cory
A middle-aged vet who fought in the Lesotho Conflict with Russia’s Special Forces, he woo was given elementary training in the Ghosts and lost such when the Ghosts dissolved. He was soon kicked from the Russian army for excessive drinking. Cory lost an eye in the conflict and uses the space to carry a miniscule flask of ever clear.

His powers manifested much like Guy’s, only slowed as his stress was eased by the alcohol. Mastering the density of his body, Cory can become dense enough to stop any thing by a straight shot bullet and dissipated enough to pass through a wall.

As a Knight, Cory continues to drink and is violently opposed to paying things such as airline tickets. He seems to enjoy fighting and developed a signature move where he places his arm through the head of an opponent and then shoots another with his shotgun as the arm that wield the gun is left in the first fighter’s head.
Powers: Control over his body’s density. Using this he can deflect bullets and phase through walls. His body has also shown potential in minor shape shifting. He also attacks by placing his arm through an opponents vitals and then becoming solid.

Weapons: Cory prefers shotguns and is currently using the Benelli M9 Super, also he took a Colt “Python” from Salomone.

Recent Affairs: Richard has sobered up to a point and is realizing his quest more and more.