VELVETEEN

A Marvel Superheroes Character

Played by Tony Jones in the late 1980s in a game run by David McNally

Statistics | Powers | Talents | Contacts | Equipment | Appearance | Background

Statistics

Powers

Armour Skin - Pl - RM(26) - Velveteen appears to wear a close-fitting suit of ornate glossy black metal armour. This is actually her skin, but it is made of organic non-ferrous metal. On her head she has a beaked 'helmet'. but the lower part of her face is exposed and appears totally normal (i.e. un-armoured). but in reality it is still armoured with tough skin. She weighs about 96 kg due to her armour.

Hyper-Running - T10 - GD(8) (60 mph/4 areas per round)

Alter-Ego - S2 - RM(26) - when Velveteen claps her hands and wills it there is a flash of light and a clap of thunder and her body changes to that of her normal self, a fourteen year old girl with these stats:

Rank Value Fighting TY 6 Agility TY 6 Strength PR 4 Endurance GD 8 Reason GD 8 Intuition EX 16 Psyche EX 16

Health  :  24 Karma  :  As Above   Resources  :  As Above   Popularity  :  0

Her super-powered form looks like a taller, more muscular, physically mature version of her normal form (although her normal body is about as big as it will get). She actually has two totally separate bodies, linked by interconnected blood vessels, nerves etc, one being stored inaccessibly between moments in time (including clothes etc) when it is not being used. The armoured body grew up with her normal body over the years. The body in normal space supplies the other body with food and oxygen, and because of this both bodies need about twice the food and oxygen of a normal person (although normal air supplies enough oxygen for this without extra breathing), although holding her breath is the same. However, only her normal body can excrete waste.

There is no time limit in either form, and she doesn't revert to her normal form if knocked unconscious etc. Both bodies have the same scent but differing voices. Endurance losses and karma transfer between bodies, but health losses do not. Both bodies heal at their normal rates regardless of which is being used at present. Both bodies suffer from the effects of the bends, but only the body being used at present is affected by actual pressure extremes. She is aware of the physical status of both bodies at all times, and so has some idea that she has two separate bodies. Physical talents (i.e. reflexes) do not transfer between forms.

Her Alter-Ego power is in the body transfer not the actual two bodies, which are just due to the 4-D nature of her body.

Changing between forms with a clap is purely a subconscious association on her part, and the clap is actually completely unnecessary.

Power Stunts to Develop

• Changing forms without a clap.
• Suppressing flash and bang when changing.
• Using flash and bang offensively without changing.

Talents

• Martial Arts A, C, E (only with Alter-ego)
• Languages (German, Spanish)
• Resist Domination

Contacts

• Crime

Equipment

• MN strength flawed adamantium sword with glossy black scabbard.
• Two 2 inch wide black leather belts worn crossed with hip pouches.
• Flashlight.
• Communicator.

Appearance

Velveteen's human form is about 5'4" tall and pretty with fairly long wavy brown hair. Her superhuman form is about 5'11" tall. Her armour is chased in ornate whorls etc.

Both forms have brown eyes of a very dark, almost black shade, but each body has a different retina pattern (as this is purely an environmental feature).

Recently she has taken to leaving a styalised 'V' symbol on the walls of places which she has raided:

Velveteen's Background

Velveteen was born Eleanor Joyce Catledge (Ellie to her friends) on the 13th October 1974. Her parents are Charles Dexter Catledge (present age 46) and Mary Katherine Catledge (present age 42).

Her mother comes from a very rich old family in the Boston area. Both her parents are still alive, but they and their daughter rarely speak as they severely disapproved of her marrying Charles Catledge. She is an only child, like Eleanor.

Her father comes from Westchester County in New York State, the oldest and most intelligent of the three sons of a local union leader who worked his way up from the shop floor in a fairly ruthless fashion. Both his parents still live in Westchester County. All three sons are like their father in their ruthlessness and general attitude to life. Charles father wanted his so

to get ahead in life in the way he never could, so after a few years working in the same factory as his father, Charles was financed through college by him, doing very well in all his courses. While there Charles met Mary Lawrence, his bride-to-be and after a fairly long courtship he married her, in part at least for the wealth and prestige that being associated with her family could bring. As soon as he finished college Charles set up a small real-estate business, which has continued to grow ever since, and now has offices over quite a large area of New York State. He totally dominated his wife from the moment they were married, so that now she always does exactly what he says and never acts in any way that could embarrass him. She runs a small jewellery business in Manhattan financed by Charles for her own pleasure.

Charles was, and remains, completely career-oriented, giving his family only what time is left after he is done with work. He put off having children until his business was on a firm financial footing. about six years after it started (this was done using quite a lot of skullduggery and nasty deals). Even then he only considered a child mainly as an enhancement to his family and therefore his business, so that after her birth he almost entirely ignored Eleanor, leaving her care entirely to her mother. However, Mary resented Eleanor for the way she cut into her social life, so that she knew little love and care as a child, and occasional vicious beatings when she unwittingly interfered with some aspect of her fathers work or her mothers social life. She grew up a nervous, withdrawn child hemmed in by petty, harsh and restrictive rules. She thought all families were like hers until she was sent away to prep school where she met other children whose parents didn't act like hers. From this time onwards she had a growing resentment of her parents for not showing her the love and affection other children had.

When she was about eight Eleanor was sent away to the Kingston School for Girls, a fairly exclusive boarding school in Westchester County at which she was educated until she ran away. At the school she made a few friends but was generally very shy and repressed until she caught the eye of a sympathetic female teacher named Barbera Rourke who helped her come out of her shell somewhat as well as helping her to learn Spanish and German to her present level.

At school Eleanor tended to be a loner, and used to go off alone for long walks in the surrounding countryside, away from the school. As her thirteenth birthday approached Eleanor began to suffer from increasingly bad headaches and during one walk soon after her thirteenth birthday she developed a headache so bad she turned round and started to return to the school. On the way back she saw a party of men hunting deer. From a distance she saw the hunters close in on the deer, becoming increasingly angry despite (or perhaps because of) her terrible headache at what the hunters were doing and how they were doing it. Wanting to do something she tried clapping her hands to scare the deer away from the hunters but got more than she expected when she changed into Velveteen for the first time (though she didn't have a name for her superheroic form then), definitely scaring off the deer and distracting the hunters (although they did not actually see her). As she saw the deer running off Eleanor noticed that her headache had entirely vanished. The headaches never recurred.

The hunters came to investigate the flash and bang of her changing and Eleanor ran off to avoid being caught, finding as she did so that she could run very fast in this new form. Returning to the school very quickly she became worried at what her friends might think of her like this and wanting to change back to Eleanor she tried clapping her hands again, and to her relief returned to her normal form.

Over the next few days Eleanor was very quiet, thinking about what had happened to her. She came to the conclusion that she was almost certainly a mutant, and that as her parents didn't like mutants at all she should keep her new powers quiet from everyone. Returning to school after Christmas Eleanor started to experiment with her powers while off on walks, finding the limits of what her new body could do. As she realised just how powerful this new form was she started to become somewhat more confident and assertive. Eleanor found that she especially enjoyed running through bad weather, feeling it but knowing it couldn't affect her.

Eleanor's father (and therefore her mother as well) was always anti-mutant (he also dislikes foreigners etc.), but when she was home during vacations after she discovered her powers (i.e. Christmas 1987-88 and Easter and summer 1988) his bigotry grated a lot and once or twice she tried arguing with him, especially as her confidence increased, getting beaten for her trouble and having to restrain herself from changing to her other form and beating him back

During then Fall 1988 term at school, after listening to a Transvision Vamp album one of her friends brought back from a trip to Britain she finally came up with a name for her superhuman form - Velveteen.

Then, during the Christmas 1988-89 vacation, after her fourteenth birthday, the X-men died, live on worldwide TV. Eleanor watched with her parents. Her Father was livid at what the stinking muties were doing, and exultant when the X-men died, but Eleanor was immensely impressed by their courage (and especially by Wolverine) and she cried when they died. Her father saw this, which provoked an argument and the most severe beating Eleanor ever suffered. Sent to her room, and crying herself to sleep Eleanor resolved never to forget the X-men and their example and began to pattern her personality after Wolverines. Back at school Miss Rourke and some of her friends noticed this change in her, but as yet it wasn't noticeable enough for any real comment.

Soon after Christmas 1988-89 her fathers business began to go through a bad patch, from which it would not recover until about August. He began to drink heavily and had been doing so for about six weeks when Eleanor returned home for the Easter vacation. As the holiday went by Eleanor was beaten several times for no real reason apart from her fathers drunkenness. Then, towards the end of the holiday her father started drunkenly ranting on the good X-factor was doing getting rid of stinking mutie scum. Unwisely Eleanor tried to argue with him and in a drunken rage he started to beat her, apparently with the intent of seriously injuring or killing her. Eleanor managed to pull away for a second and transform into Velveteen. When his vision cleared and he saw Velveteen he realised (along with his wife who was also there) that his daughter was a mutant. He tried to attack and kill Eleanor, but she easily stopped him. In a screaming rage he threw Eleanor out and not wanting to hurt him she left. If Velveteen was physically capable of crying she would have been as she ran off. Later, when she had calmed down, Eleanor realised she would have to run away and would need some clothes etc., so she broke into her bedroom in her parents house and held them off while she packed a bag and then ran away (literally) to New York. Obviously her parents know of her identity as Velveteen.

Her father explained Eleanor's disappearance as her suddenly being offered a place in a prestigious European school and having to leave immediately. This satisfied Eleanor's school and local people but is really a very flimsy story and will not stand up to any serious investigation. Charles Catledge never talks about his daughter if he can avoid it but the shock of her leaving did at least stop his drinking and let him get his business back on its feet.

Arriving in New York at the Port Authority bus terminal she changed back to her human form and tried to find somewhere to live. While there she was offered a place to live by a stranger named Rico Dredd, and went off with him to his home in Hell's Kitchen where he offered her the good life at no specified price. Unfortunately he turned out to be a drug pusher, and once she realised this Velveteen soon escaped from him. She wandered the streets for a while, seeing how bad it was there due to drugs and crime in general, and getting very hungry.

Eventually she came to the conclusion that the only way she was going to be able to live was by crime, but she didn't want to harm innocent people. Therefore she started to rob drug dealers, taking enough of their money to live, and distributing the rest to charity. She has been doing this for the last few months. and needless to say this has made her a few enemies in the underworld.

She now lives in a small room rented (over the telephone) by herself in her Velveteen form. in the depths of Hell's Kitchen.

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