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| Lifting STR 3 400 lbs. Running SPD 2 8 MPH Sliding SPD 4 30 mph | |
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Complications: Super-Conductor - Kent's extreme cold makes him an excellent conductor. Electrical attacks get +2 to the Attack Check and +2 to the effect. Motivation: Screwed-up - Kent is a super-hero because of an honest desire to help people. After being suicidal or at least harboring a death wish since he gained his powers, a recent near death experience has had a profound change on him. |
| Known Background: Kent Smythe was born to be of the ice. He grew up in Nimrod, Minnesota where the sport of choice is ice hockey. He had learned to skate before he could speak in complete sentences. He spent his teen years as a high school hockey star, except when he was impressing the girls with his graceful, gentle figure skating. | |
| A hockey scholarship sent him to college. He tried out for the U.S. Olympic Ice Hockey team and just missed the cut. After college he went pro, and began playing for the Huron City Warriors. Right before his fourth season was to begin, he went home to Nimrod. There was a celebration going on in his honor; the hometown hero from this tiny town had made good. During the party, Kent looked outside at the frozen pond where he had learned to skate. He noticed a little boy out on the ice. He realised the boy had been at the party, but was young enough that he had to have been born while Kent was in college. He wasn't sure who the boy's parents were; undoubtedly, the child had gotten bored at the adults' party. Then he noticed that while practicing hockey moves, the boy had gone beyond the Tree: the marker between the shallow and deep "halves" of the pond. One side always froze thick, the other didn't. And the boy was now on the wrong half. |
| Kent raced outside without his coat, cursing himself for not saying anything when he first noticed a little boy unsupervised on the ice. He got the boy to safety, but as he got the boy to shore, he fell backwards. The thin ice gave; Kent went in and slipped beneath the ice. Fortunately, a professional rescue crew arrived in time and got him out. But he had to recover, as he became ill. And the illness cost him his lead spot on the Hawks. The illness gave way to Kent discovering his body had changed. His skin turned pale, and his hair turned blue. And he became cold. Not that it bothered him, but anyone else in any room he was in would become bothered by the cold. Kent's body absorbed the heat, lowering the ambient temperature. |
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| Kent Smythe had become a freak; a man whose body brought the temperature down to zero degrees. But he had also found that he had enjoyed saving the boy. He liked being a hero. So he practiced controlling his 'cold projection'. He learned to create pockets of cold so that water vapor in the air would condense into ice, and he learned to shape those pockets as to make crude ice structures. He had special boots made with collapsable ice skates in them; he could switch from walking to skating without changing his footwear. Then he received a letter from Bernard Mason, inviting him to come to San Francisco.As Zero Man, Kent was a charter member of the Frisco Freax. But rather than making him feel like less of a freak, everything at the the Freax compound was so upside-down topsy turvy, that Kent felt even more of a freak because of the normalcy in his life he had clung to. For example, before, Kent used to be invited to pose for underwear ads, but then was largly ignored by the female population of the Freax, but his four-armed, eyeless teammate with a face that stops clocks, Quadtron, was treated like a sex symbol.After several months, when Zero Man had had enough and decided to leave, Luke/Quadtron went with him. However, another Freak, Paul (Lumpy) Clarence, did make arrangements for Kent to visit Dr. Doyle Conan, one of the leading physicians in the field of parahuman medicine. Kent soon enough control of his powers that he rarely uses the insulated suit that Luke had made for him, save at night when he slept. He also received treatment for his depression. He and Luke returned to Kent's home state, and have joined Crusader Force.After several months in the eternal summer (!?) of Minnesoata, Zero Man rose to the position of leader of Crusader Force. However, he was nearly killed by a discoteque thief with power to rival Taran or Morning Star. He was only saved by the intervention of Dr. D'stani, another former Frisco Freak; the alien's nanotech not only saved Kent, it also corrected his remaining control issue. He is presently on a leave of absence, helping Luke recover from the psychological trauma of seemingly killed some kind of quartz creature. |
| Personality: Kent Smythe was a successful professional athlete. He had money, fame, and no shortage of women. His accident took all of that away. He mostly enjoys trying to be a super hero, but among his Frisco Freax teammates, he was an outsider. He was a jock in a house full of scientists and pixies. He felt no real acceptance from most his teammates, just an expectation that he should drink their proverbial 'Kool-Aid'. As such he was increasingly resentful and depressed, to the point of being suicidal. Getting away from that hell has helped, as has his psychological and medical treatment. He is slowly returning to the smiling, friendly person he once was. D'stani curing the last of his power control problems, and his near-death experience has sped up the process. |
| Powers/Tactics: Kent Smythe is a strong and agile athlete who's also a gifted skater. His time as a hockey player has taught him much about group dynamics and group combat. His body is also a heat sink. He lowers his immediate vicinity by approximately fourty degrees fahrenheit just by being. He can concentrate this effect and he uses it offensively. He can also create crude ice structures if there is enough humidity; he favours making hockey-stick-like structures, as well as pucks to use against people. Due to his deathwish, he tends to pick the most dangerous opponents. |
| Appearance: Zero Man is 5'9" and weighs around 170 lbs. His skin is blueish-white and his hair is blue. He has a strong, athletic build, and is handsome despite his altered pigmentation. |
Zero Man was created, designed, and is played by Ken Hallaron.
© Copyright 1999, 2024 - Kenneth G. Hallaron
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Last updated on 4 July 2023