Nate Reynolds

From Stormravengaming

This article uses the 4th Edition of the Hero System rules. Content may be incompatible with the latest version of the rules.

Characteristics

Skills & Perks

Powers & Talents

Disadvantages

Description

Nate is an extremely good-looking man apparently in his mid-thirties. He generally wears well-worn western boots and a leather duster over a neat pair of jeans and a solid-color T-shirt. When on the trail, he wears a western hat, bandana, and other appropriate gear.

Background

Early life

By the time the turn of the century rolled around, it was already clear that the enemies Brisco County, Jr. had made during his career as a bounty hunter and government agent would endanger the life of his young son, Brisco County, III.

It was also already obvious by this point as well that Brisco and Lord Bowler were not aging, or were doing so very slowly. In Brisco's final confrontation with John Bly, Bowler was killed. Brisco used the power of the Orb to remake events and prevent Bowler's death. Brisco himself, near death, was healed by an orb earlier that year while on Bly's trail. These events both apparently had the permanent effect of protecting each from the ravages of time.

Although the orbs themselves had passed back to the far future, one orb rod from a damaged orb remained. With the assistance of Professor Wickwire, Brisco discovered how to use the rod to confer his agelessness to his son--deferring the transfer until the point of the boy's "maturity." Brisco understood that Dixie had no such protection, and preferred to grow old with her than live Lord Bowler's deathless life.

The pair dubbed the boy "Nathan Reynolds" and sent him to be fostered by Lord Bowler. Socrates Poole, Bowler's butler (and, eventually, his wife) all looked after the child while Bowler was away. When Nate grew of age, Bowler took the boy with him, training him in the traditional (and dying) arts of a western bounty hunter. Bowler was perhaps one of the greatest trackers of the American West, and this skill he imparted to young Nate, along with marksmanship and brawling.

The Agency

Following his father's notion that an academic education was as valuable as a practical one, Nate was accepted to Harvard (his father's alma mater) in 1915. Excited by the theories of Albert Einstein, just then being publicized, he majored in physics. His education was interrupted by the American entry into World War I, when he volunteered as a pilot. He served with distinction, returning to Harvard to complete his education. His wartime experience had given him a far different perspective on his fellow man, and he found himself far more interested in philosophy, psychology and sociology than in science.

He was also fired with a new zeal for his country. Having long had "unofficial knowledge" of the Agency (and it of him) it was a quick matter to enroll as one of its Agents. Already trained by the famous Lord Bowler, he received comprehensive training in spycraft, exotic technologies, and even magic and the supernatural. His codename within the Agency was "Scout," a reference to his astounding ability to track under any conditions, as well as a reference to his personal motto: "be prepared."

During the interwar years, Nate was most active, proving himself to be capable and able to achieve the balance between ruthlessness and mercy than any organization beyond the law must achieve, lest it become villainous. At around the age of 38, due to some trauma suffered in the Southwest, his "protection" kicked in and he became forever a vigorous, (very) handsome man of middle years.

Rasputin

The beautiful Priscilla Baxter was too good to be believed: a perfectly loyal American, born in Chicago; beautiful, smart and capable, with enough of a hard edge to make tough calls and take care of The Agency's business. In the event she was too good to be believed: her extensive background was fabricated, buoyed up against the Agency's best psychic investigators by an unbelievable psychic talent. Her childhood friends, "family" and the rest all brainwashed with false memories and mind control. She was recruited during the crisis years of 1939-40, and very popular among the Agency staff. Nate fell for her, hard.

The Agency was of course highly aware of the Manhattan Project and its details. As the U.S. neared its first test of a nuclear weapon, Rasputin was activated. She tortured and killed The Official, and escaped with some of the highest secrets of the U.S. government, including details that would put the Soviet Union years ahead of the United States in nuclear development. Rasputin must be apprehended, and there was only one tracker in the world who could possibly follow her trail: Brisco County, III. Nate Reynolds.

As the senior Agent, Reynolds became The Official. He ordered Agency HQ evacuated, everything destroyed. He created separate cells and sent them to different parts of the country. He ensured the ailing President Roosevelt would not tell his successor about The Agency. He made sure he did not know where his Agents were going and submerged the entire structure of The Agency.

Then he armed himself. Lord Bowler's sawed-off shotgun. His father's ivory-handled pistol, which belonged to his father before him, with grips carved into relief by Chinese mystic Li Pao. A burned orb rod from the twenty-seventh century, of unknown abilities.

Three years of following the trail of a woman who could make anyone she met believe anything she wanted. He finally caught up with her during the Berlin Airlift in 1948, on the verge of crossing to the Soviet quarter. Deeming her to be too much of a danger to imprison, he terminated her.

The experience of pursuing Rasputin and neutralizing her had consumed all of Reynolds' resources. He retreated to the wildlands of the American West, remaining a recluse for years. He retired his father's ivory-handled pistol--its association with Rasputin's neutralization was too much to bear.

Notes on powers

Uncanny Tracking

This power represents Nate's amazing ability to track someone in all kinds of environments. It's not dependent on physical evidence which was actually left--that would be a conventional use of the Tracking skill. The assumption is that there is always something that Nate can find--if it's not the scuff, it's the hair, the fingerprint, whatever.

Bowler's shotgun

This is a normal, if high-quality and higly-modified, .410 shotgun that once belonged to Lord Bowler. It chambers a "queue" of four rounds. In order for Nate to reload the gun once these four rounds are used, he must take a half-phase action. The same applies to rearranging the queue in any way (he unloads and reloads it). Thus, at any given time, Nate must choose four rounds, in order, that are loaded in the gun. By default, these are:

1. Constricting micropolymer
2. KEM
3. High-powered
4. Explosive micropolymer

Nate obtains these special rounds from contacts in a secret branch of the FBI. He carries twelve of them total at any one time. These are usually:

High-powered

These are just high-powered versions of normal shot-filled shotgun rounds.

Explosive micropolymer

These contain a small amount of high-explosive and a special compound that produces extremely thin, extremely strong strands. When it hits something, the strands spread out from the point of impact, entangling those caught in them.

Constricting micropolymer

Using a micropolymer similar to the exploding micropolymer rounds, these are slightly different. The concussion of the much smaller explosion serves to surround a single target with strands. These actively constrict the target, resisting its movement in a flexible and reactive manner for a few seconds (12) before the chemical reaction is spent and they fall away.

KEM

Short for "kinetic energy/microwave", these rounds transform the kinetic energy of a slug's impact with a target into a microwave burst that disrupts the coordination of the target. If the target's head is shielded, or their brain is not of the normal animal variety, they are unaffected.

Monofilament grapplehead

Designed to be attached to the end of a monofilament line and reel, this round contains a grapplehead which uses mechanical, chemical and magnetic attachment methods to affix to nearly any surface, pole, corner, limb or other attachment point. Nate can then hoist himself up to 30" in a single move using the reel of monofilament in his duster.

Density increase

The orb rob can confer a super-powered form on Nate in times of need; however, its damaged structure prevents it from doing so reliably. Nate cannot trigger any of the orb rod's powers on purpose (even if he does BODY damage to himself or purposely allows it to be taken).