Tempus

Tempus

Identity: Rafiq Dawson • Affiliation: The Zodiac Society • Base of Operations: Los Angeles

Ethnicity: Zanj (East African) • Nationality: Abbasid Caliphate (869-883), US Citizen (forged documents)

Age: 26 (1,151) • Gender: Male • Height: 5'11 • Weight: 175 lb

Eyes: Brown • Hair: Black • Other Features: Always dresses in Steampunk cosplay

Origin: x • Power Level: 8 (120 Points: Abilities 46, Defenses 7, Skills 7, Advantages 13, Powers 47)

Abilities

Strength	2	Stamina	4
Agility	4	Dexterity	2
Fighting	3	Intellect	2
Awareness	4	Presence	2
Points: 46 (2pts per rank)

Defenses

Defense	Ranks	Ability	Other	Total
Dodge	0	4	4	8/4
Fortitude	2	4	x	6
Parry	1	3	4	8/4
Toughness	-	4	4	8/4
Will	4	4	x	8
Points: 7 (1pt per rank)

Combat

Initiative: 4 + 4 = +{{{InitiativeTotal}}}

Attacks: • ATTACK: ROLL • RANGE • Damage XXX

Skills

Skill	Ranks	Ability	Other	Total
Acrobatics	1	AGL (4)	x	+6
Athletics	0	STR (2)	x	+2
Close Combat: Mystic Blades	3	FGT (3)	x	+6
Deception	0	PRE (2)	x	+2
Expertise:Magic	4	INT (2)	x	+6
Insight	0	AWE (4)	x	+4
Intimidation	0	PRE (2)	x	+2
Investigation	2	INT (2)	x	+4
Perception	2	AWE (4)	x	+6
Persuasion	0	PRE (2)	x	+2
Ranged Combat: Throw	1	DEX (2)	x	+3
Stealth	x	AGL (4)	x	+4
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{{{Skill14}}}	{{{Skill14Ranks}}}	{{{Skill14Ability}}}	{{{Skill14Other}}}	{{{Skill14Total}}}
Points: 7 (1pt per 2 ranks)

Advantages

Combat: Agile Feint, Defensive Roll 2, Improved Initiative 1, Quick Draw, Set-up 1

Fortune: xxx

General: Equipment 1, Evasion 1, Membership: Dvaravat, Membership: The Zodiac Society 2

Skill: Ritualist, Languages 1

Points: 13 (1pt per rank)

Powers

• Abandonment of Aion: Cumulative Affliction Resisted and Overcome by Will, DC 18; Dazed > Stunned > Incapacitated • 8 ranks (4/r) • Standard Action • Perception • Instant • Cumulative • Absence of Aion: Teleport • 8 ranks (2/r) • Move Action • Distance physically reachable in 30 minutes • Instant • Accurate • Limited to places you can physically reach • Absolution of Aion: Healing • 6 ranks (5/r) • Standard Action • Perception Range • Instant • Affects Objects, Increased Range: Perception • Arrow of Aion: Damage • 8 ranks (COST/rank) • Standard Action • Shapeable Area 60 cft• Instant • Shapeable Area: 60 cft, Indirect 4: any point, any direction, Variable Descriptor: objects in my possession • Analysis of Aion: Enhanced Trait (Dodge + Parry) + Senses (Danger Sense 1, Postcognition 4, Precognition 4) • 8 ranks (2/r+ 9 flat) • No Action • Personal • Sustained • Dodge +4, Parry +4 • Mystic Blades: Strength-based Damage • 6 ranks (1/r +8 flat) • Standard Action • Close Range • Instant • Slashing, Affects insubstantial: half ranks, Dangerous 4, Penetrating 2, Indestructible • Removable

Points: 47

Other Traits

Equipment: Night Vision Goggles, Undercover Shirt (+2 Toughness)

Complications: Anachronistic, Enemy (evil djinn), Responsibility: The Zodiac Society, Sorcerer

Powers

The Arcana of Aion (41 PP)

• Abandonment of Aion: Cumulative Affliction 8 (1 PP) With an utterance of Aionian power, you curse a target to be abandoned by Aion's forward march, and time stutters and even stops around them, slowing or freezing them in place. 1st degree: Dazed, 2nd degree: Stunned, 3rd degree: Incapacitated, Resisted by: Will, DC 18; Cumulative, Increased Range 2: perception (Standard - Perception - Instant)
• Absence of Aion: Teleport 8 (1 PP) Invoking Aion, you stop the flow of time around yourself and quickly move your bodily location, allowing it start back up once you have done so. To viewers, you simply teleport from one spot to another. The power’s rank isn’t technically the distance you can go, it’s the time you have to move while time is stopped for everyone else. 8 = 30 minutes. 500 feet in a move action, carrying 50 lbs.; Accurate; Limited: places you can reach physically (Move - Rank - Instant)
• Arrow of Aion: Damage 8 (1 PP) This invocation of Aion's power stops time, giving you the chance to set up an attack against a target, placing it where it will drop on them, or hurling a projectile to strike them. When time restarts, the attack seems to appear out of nowhere for the target. DC 23; Shapeable Area: 30cft., DC 18, Increased Range 2: perception, Indirect 4: any point, any direction, Variable Descriptor: close group - objects and hazards of opportunity (Standard - Perception - Instant)
• Absolution of Aion: Healing 6 (37 PP) By Aion's power, you rewind the body of a person or object you can see, removing damage done to them by resetting them to a previous state of existence. Affects Objects, Increased Range 2: perception (Standard - Perception - Instant)
• Analysis of Aion (1 PP) You cast your mind and senses wide, merging them with the flow of Aion. If you cast your sight into the present, you can predict direct attacks coming at you, and improve your ability to avoid them. If you cast your sight to the past, you gain postcognition; if you cast it into the future, you gain precognition.

• • Traits: Dodge +4 (+8), Parry +4 (+8); Permanent (Free - Personal - Permanent)
  • Senses: Danger Sense (Perception), Postcognition, Precognition (Personal - Permanent)

Mystic Blades (11 PP)

Tempus carries two mystically enchanted blades that he uses in close combat. He has had them enchanted to affect insubstantial opponents in hopes that they will one day assist him in killing the djinn that trapped him in a statue for over 1,000 years.

• Removable (indestructible)
• Strength-based Damage 6, Slashing, DC 23; Affects Insubstantial: half ranks, Dangerous 4, Penetrating 2 (Standard - Close - Instant)

Advantages

• Agile Feint:You can use your Acrobatics bonus or movement speed rank in place of Deception to feint and trick in combat as if your skill bonus or speed rank were your Deception bonus. Your opponent opposes the attempt with Acrobatics or Insight (whichever is better).
• Defensive Roll 2: You can avoid damage through agility and “rolling” with an attack. You receive a bonus to your Toughness equal to your advantage rank, but it is considered an active defense similar to Dodge and Parry, so you lose this bonus whenever you are vulnerable or defenseless.
• Equipment 1:
• Evasion 1:You have a +2 circumstance bonus to Dodge resistance checks to avoid area effects.
• Improved Initiative:You have a +4 bonus to your initiative checks.
• Languages 1: Arabic (native) and English
• Quick Draw:You can draw a weapon from a holster or sheath as a free action, rather than a move action.
• Ritualist:You can use the Expertise: Magic skill to create and cast magical rituals. This advantage is often a back-up or secondary magical power for superhuman sorcerers, and may be the only form of magic available to some “dabbler” types.
• Set-up:You can transfer the benefits of a successful combat use of an interaction skill to your teammate(s). For example, you can feint and have your target vulnerable against one or more allies next attack(s), rather than yours. Each rank in the advantage lets you transfer the benefit to one ally. The interaction skill check requires its normal action, and the affected allies must be capable of interacting with you (or at least seeing the set-up) to benefit from it.

Membership: The Zodiac Society

Senior Operative (Rank 2)

Senior Operatives are the tried-and-true of the society's agents.

• Missions: SeniorOps are most likely to function as solo agents, always within their area of expertise. They also round out teams where more experience is needed from the members of the team.
• Training: A SeniorOp always has a specialty of some sort, and their tasks tend to take advantage of those specialties. SeniorOps may also be assigned to assist with tasks outside of their specialty range. Typical specialties include arcane support, combat support, research, investigation, networking, infiltration and espionage, and clean-up.
• Society Cards: SeniorOp society cards function as a GrounOps card does, but they can also use them to get access to restricted areas of the Houses. SeniorOps are also reasonably permitted to use their cards to make personal purchases.
• Resources: SeniorOps share in barracks quarters in one of the Houses as well, although the senior barracks tend to be divided up into pairs of beds for slightly better privacy.
• Accommodations: SeniorOps also receive personal quarters, in the form of an apartment or small house in one of the cities where the Houses are found. They usually also have a personal vehicle.

Complications

• Anachronistic: You have been pulled out of time and were trapped in an artifact for 1,124 years
• Enemy: Evil djinn who trapped you in the artifact
• Responsibility - The Zodiac Society: You have a set of responsibilities to the Zodiac Society, from oaths of secrecy to assignments that are supposed to be foremost in your time to active duties as part of one of the Houses...or even as the Head of one! Anytime your obligation to the Society gets in the way, or you are forced to choose those obligations over other important things going on, gain a Hero Point.
• Sorcerer:In order to use your magics, you must be able to speak and gesture. If you cannot do both of these, you cannot use your Sorcerous Arcana. (You may still have other magical abilities that you can use, however.)

Background

• Rafiq is born in Basra (Southern Iraq) 8/12/869 to parents of free East African (Zanj) descent.
• The Zanj Rebellion, a major revolt against the Abbasid Caliphate by free Zanj as well as many slaves and other socially downtrodden peoples, starts in September 869
• Basra is burned in September 871. Rafiq is 2 years old. His father dies in the fighting. His mother takes him to the city of al-Mukhtarah.
• Fall of al-Mukhtarah and the violent end of the Zanj Rebellion in August 883. Rafiq is 14 years old. His mother dies as they are trying to escape the city.
• Vowing revenge on those who killed his parents, Rafiq begins to make his way towards Baghdad.
• In November of 883 Rafiq is in the city of Wasit and overhears rumors about a powerful djinn trapped in a small statue in the ancient city of Kaskar, across the Tigris from Wasit. Believing he might be able to find the statue and use the djinn's power to exact revenge, he makes his way into the ruined part of Kaskar he had overheard the others talking about.
• Rafiq discovers the entrance to a long buried Sumerian temple. Inside, he finds the statue he was looking for and releases the djinn. Although Rafiq is a sharp and resourceful young man, he is no match for the wits of the djinn. The djinn tricks him and trades places with him, trapping Rafiq inside the statue instead.
• Over 1,000 years pass. Rafiq is trapped in the statue with no way to get out.
• At some point the statues is discovered and becomes part of the historical collection at the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad.
• A few days before April 10, 2003, staff vacate the National Museum ahead of the advance of US forces on Baghdad. Looters break into and ransack the museum over the next 36 hours until the staff returns, taking some 15,000 objects. Among those objects is the staute that Rafiq is still trapped in.
• 5 years later, in May of 2008, the New York City chapter-house of the Zodiac Society locates and acquires the statue. They believe that the djinn is still in the statue, and while dangerous, can be used in a situation they are facing of dire importance. They prepare wards and get ready to do battle with it should anything go wrong and they are not able to contain it. They release the inhabitant from the statue and are shocked that instead of a powerful djinn that inside is a 14 year old boy.
• Feeling a sense of responsibility for Rafiq, the Zodiac Society takes Rafiq under their wing and begins to raise him and train him. A woman named Beverley Dawson becomes his primary guardian. Over time, Rafiq grows to care for Beverley and see her as an adoptive mother, even taking her last name.
• Once Rafiq reaches adulthood he begins deeper training with the Society, first physical training, and then magical training, and eventually joins the Society of his own accord and becomes a Society agent using the agent name Tempus.
• In 2018 Tempus is assigned to the Los Angeles chapter-house where he currently resides and operates out of.

People

Beverley Dawson The Zodiac Society • Guardian Beverley is a sorcerer of some skill. She took Tempus in when he was released from the artifact he had been trapped in and effectively raised him from the age of 14 onwards. She is the head of the New York chapter-house of the Zodiac Society.

Locations

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