Characters / My Superhero World Families Two

My Superhero World - Characters

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The parents, relations, and other loved ones of the Iridium Wonders.

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Relations of Mahvash Matten Mattiuza.

The House Mattiuza In General

The Mattiuzas are not pure hearts who converted a fiend by any stretch. Self-indulgent, heretical, and much preferring to bend the world to their whims, the House Mattiuza has been a source of maelstroms and malady and charity and blessings from its very beginning. It took a significant amount of evil to summon a daeva and inventiveness to strive as they had after all.

That said, the House Mattiuza has no world shattering ambition nor are they even are particularly interested in enriching themselves. They're wild cards, out to take from the world what they wished and give back in their own way.

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Tropes in Common

• Anti-Magic: Shirin and Vaumisa have ^note (anti)-divine protection after all.
• Biological Immortality: Both Shirin and Vaumisa have ageless, supernaturally healthy bodies, but are still quite capable of bleeding out from a fatal wound—or starving.
• The Dark Arts: Helped uncover and record encyclopedias for much of modern magery and magitek (along with mundane science).
• Evil Hero: They defend their home and beautify it and keep the roads clear for free travel, and if they can reduce casualties by poisoning every nation downstream of them, well...
• The Family That Slays Together: As soon as they 'adopted' Mahvash, she took part in the family business.
• Lovecraftian Superpower: By way of Mahvash
• Morality Chain: The normally self-absorbed bunch are all this to each other. They'd never participate in a scheme that could endanger one of them (more than usual anyway). They're usually vipers to anyone else though... The main exception being people who took care of Mahvash.
• Noble Demon: The House Mattiuza has a going thing with Mahvash and other daeva, not out of malice toward humanity or the world, but because it satisfies them. When not on the clock, they're happy to engage in steady acts of charity and kindness. They consider themselves on a permanent mission, converting for the cause and studying scripts and doctrine with more zeal than Mahvash herself has and for the same reasons as any other missionary.
• Our Phlebotinum Child: Sort of adopted. Sort of invited to cover their house. Its complex.
• The Sacred Darkness: Have this attitude.
• Sense Freak: Love experiences of all kinds, and want others to have them too.
• The Missionary: Their much and sincerely pursued loved profession.
• These Are Things Man Was Not Meant to Know: Shirin and Vaumisa have been shamelessly transcribing and presenting these bits of knowledge for public consumption for years. After the 'brief' outbreak of madness, decay, and disaster, these things often just become knowledge. This is vindication enough for them.
• Villainous Underdog: The Mattiuza are Walking the Earth with a house patron amidst hostile, higher divinities. Shirin can boast a small if disciplined and well-organized following. Not a single government embraces her cult (openly) and Usij are just out of enemies of mankind status. Saint has skewed the hero 'job' and she has trouble finding people in the right mold, and her own top gods seem distant at times. Then again, she's being campaigning like this for millennia.
• Villainous Valour: Get through thick and thin by The Power of Love, and the determination to see each through.
• Unholy Matrimony: Shirin and Vaumisa are in it together. They never even consider betraying each other.

Shirin Bet Mattiuza

The matriarch of the House Mattiuza ^note It was sometimes much bigger than the three of them, Shirin shows herself vivacious and curious, to the point that people wonder if she's ill if they catch her willingly sitting down. Even her falling asleep tends involve her passing out mid-activity after several days awake.

Despite her mania though, Shirin is no De Terminator. She'd rather fold them and move on to something else that's fun. Many, MANY people not named Vaumisa or Mahvash have found themselves left to face the swords and spears when she vanishes on them.

All the same, Shirin usually charms the people she meets, having genuine interest in everyone's lives—even those she's just about to use as bait. In her own home, she's rather a softie, going out of her way to indulge her housemates and keep the house warm and pleasantly chaotic. (Orderly is impossible).

Vaumisa Bet Mattiuza

The patriarch of the House Mattiuza ^note It was sometimes much bigger than the three of them, Vaumisa shows himself equally as manic as Shirin, although he usually remembers social customs. He usually comes up with The Plan of the week ^note (albeit from the back, Shirin is the master of the Indy Ploy on the field) when the house isn't all off causing individual ruckuses.

Even more than Shirin, he will be no where near the action if at all possible, and while clearly caring for Mahvash's well-being, he is remarkably cavalier about sending her into extreme danger.

At home, he's solid and reliable, keeping up the House Mattiuza's connections in society and usually following through on his promises. ^note (If Shirin screwed someone he made a deal with though, he's rarely upset...)

In any case, Vaumisa is rather stuffy and always dressed up, no matter what. (Mahvash will swear she's seen him climb out of bed in a crisp three-piece suit. Shirin would say that he's entered bed the same way). He can be distant with his love of the family (and even moreso for friends), but he is also the most likely to empathize with people he inevitably harms and to try to justify his actions.

The Lords and Ladies in General

Five beings both near and up high. Time is just another direction to them, so asking their age is maddening. Not one hasn't gone backwards or left or Z in time as much as forward. They're not necessarily the mightiest though at present, that's who gets the votes from the daeva and the voting anušiya and usij. They're ancient and modern, the semi-democracy is a sign of that. There's only one of each of them, no matter what dimension one encounters them, for they span the universe.

They are named in human legends, for they do visit and visit things upon humanity and the other peoples of creation. And for the most part, they're quite approachable. They speak Avestan among themselves not Black Speech ^note Before encountering humans, they had no need to talk simply directing their will on others and being understood and do not consider it a trouble to simply adopt the language of the person speaking to them.

They tend to look humanoid by default because, the human Iranians were the first sapient beings they encountered. None of the daeva have a 'natural' form. That they are the collective top rank of a group of eldritch abominations actually doesn't make them dangerous in the way one would expect. They're usually happy to do favors for free. What could they want from the people asking after all? They're just as happy to do what they want though, and while they may consider you in the equation, they've also encountered uncountable permutations of 'you' and you may not even be their favorite.

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• Ahriman: The Chief / the King of Kings. Not being a human monarch, with power dependent on a delicate balance of pomp and ceremony, he or she tends to be fine with either one. Or his guards do. Given the modernizations, he's also a politician, balancing among the daeva practicing godhood, those interested in revenge against this species for one thing or another, and the infinite ways they want to 'have fun'. His personal project is of course, replacing the old creation with his own. Making a universe compatible with his people is a very popular initiative. Progress, depends. Snapping creation out of existence and replacing it with stuff not allergic to his followers would not amuse the ones being gods or the ones who want revenge or playtoys. Politics saves creation... Aside from the mood swings, the man personally is quite suave and patient, able to speak to each of his own very personally and bluster the group into action. There are several reasons, like that one, that the daeva have had just one king since the outset.
• Nasu: Sweet in her own way, and either utter, unholy ruin or the instant rejuvenation of worlds. The daeva often talk of what people would do with that kind of power. Nasu, she finds all lacking overall. She can pass through and turn world's inside out without notice... and can be distracted at times with a leaning tower of pizza boxes. An incarnation of pollution and a very creative one, given her time and lack of any barriers. Unique among the daeva, she regularly creates things under her own power, entire sapient races and the amoebas that eat them alive within hours, only to do it with slightly different hairstyles or sun positions to see different playthroughs. Tends to favor manifesting as a redheaded middle adult with three concentric, rune-scribed halos. Or an opaque dust bowl.
• Aeshma: Big Fun. No really. He was Ahriman's 'ambassador' to Odin for ages and one of the few to drink Thor under the table. (Which Thor repaid in the rematch). And he loves people. He loves their passions and dreams and will encourage everyone to follow them. Everyone. And remind them to let nothing stand in their way. Compromise and verbal altercations are... okay, but nothing compares to the decision of a fight. Everything eventually comes down to the last argument, and Aeshma rewards those who use it and prepare for it. Even against him. His bitterest enemies are free to become drinking buddies in his slice of heaven. He loves all sides in conflict and moves pieces here and there, like in any RTS. His own anušiya certainly don't sit around. They're fighting a good fight somewhere. That last bit is important: a good fight. Aeshma is not fond of fighting just because. That's Nasu's territory. He tends to appear as a giant of a man in shiny armor, a middle aged bureaucrat in uniform, a sans-culotte, or even a man in street clothes and dusty from rioting.
• Jahi: The First Lady to the daeva and their own. Whore Queen to the Yazata and other enemies. Is not one to show off her power, at least actively. In fact, she's usually working to tilt things in the most effective and efficient way possible, and for that is the most bureaucratic, favoring anušiya both number savvy and that she can pull out of their shell or a funk. That's just first though. She gets to alot more. Jahi loves everyone and everything and works to show it. She also has alot of the infinite multiverse to cover and alot of time and space to put effort into. She's seen where infinite timelines go and creates infinitely many more to help everyone and everything to their 'most beautiful' outcomes. Yes, this means she'll intervene to keep canyons carved by ancient rivers from developing lopsided unless say, a group 25000 years in the future will use the location for a beautiful ceremony or it awes couples for centuries or becomes the mating grounds for particularly pretty archaea, etc. Even more than Ahriman, she's always at work, trying to uplift and delight the unending peoples and even objects that exist, could exist, and have never existed. Is the least likely to tell, or for her followers to tell about her, that she works In Mysterious Ways. Though the explanation might not help. Is certainly not distant and usually answers or reaches out to her people directly. Unless this'll produce a less lovely result. Yes, there's a myth she and the chief had sex. Neither one of them will confirm or deny for reasons from bemusement to amusement. She certainly proudly takes credit for daeva doing that with humans. Naturally, Jahi appears as the most beautiful thing you've ever seen. Its for your sake but if you let yourself go...
• Areshko: The least visible of the group, and one of the few openly and purely elected on the basis of power alone. He's a very simple daeva. He wants to be good enough? To whom? Hmhm. And its never good enough. And he'll empower anušiya to gather good things for him but the deal tends to end there. He's loath to show himself to any followers or other daeva and can spend centuries adjusting a picture on the wall. But he still wants to seek out perfection. Tends to not appear at all. And will usually look like the being addressing him if excessively polished.

Team Dynamo!

With Leitmotif!

Alexander Selby, aka ION

Knows exactly what he's doing

The AMP Suit

• Identity: Alex Selby, Hero, no secret identity.
• Powers:
  • Electrokinesis: Alex has the ability to generate and control electricity from his own body's electrical potential. He can control the intensity to a certain degree, being able to lower the shocks to a taser level, or increase it enough to melt skin. Not that he's done that. Alex's electricity can also conduct with Kaylee's metal gears and clockwork constructs.
  • Electromagnetism: A sort of split-off from his primary power, Alex's electromagnetism is made manifest in short range yet powerful bursts of magnetic force, allowing him to repel metal devices and temporarily scramble electronics. Theoretically, he could use this power to Electric Slide, however his lack of experience with it means he has to stick with smaller uses.
• Weakness: Water, obviously. That being said, Alex can survive a shower or light rain, but anything deeper than a shallow river can electrocute him. He also has an unexplained allergy to rubber on contact, causing him to have to use gloves when he has to handle it. Also note that prolonged usage of electricity generation will cause him to "burn out".
• Equipment:
  • AMP Suit (Modified): A nine foot tall exosuit of Alex's design, with hydraulic based movement and reinforced armour of titanium plating. The suit can increase Alex's powers to the point of summoning a lightning bolt. However, overuse of the suit can drain and tire him. After Alex's modifications, the suit has an increased storage and passenger space, and can now fit up to four people with a squeeze.
  • Custom Cellphone: Alex's cellphone is both shock-proof and waterproof, taking the appearance of a heavy duty flip phone with a touchscreen. The phone has Kaylee on speed-dial.
• Appearance: You Gotta Have Blue Hair. Appears significantly younger than his actual age of 22.
• Personality: Outwardly nervous and shy, Alex is a rather sweet individual, genuinely caring and gentle towards others despite his low self-esteem and occasional anxiety attacks. However, his kindness can sometimes make him easy to manipulate, especially if one of his close friends are in danger. He is noticeably more confident in his suit, not hesitating to act like when he's out of it. He can easily get over-invested in his work, forgetting to eat or sleep while working on a project. Despite his anxiety, Alex has one person he can truly open up to and rely on, and that is his best friend Kaylee. To him, she is his rock, and he is even starting to develop romantic feelings for her. After his ACP project was finally realised, Alex has become a lot more confident and daresay even cheeky and witty, however despite his occasional acting like a smart Alec he has still kept his kindness and concern to people.
• Background: Alex was born to a family with little money, his powers manifesting shortly after he was born, turning his previously brown hair and green eyes a bright blue. It was very quickly apparent he possessed a fantastic mind, somehow managing to construct a circuit board when he was only 9 years old. Constant verbal bullying at school, usually mocking his strange hair colour, caused him to retreat into a quiet shell. After he was of age, he went to college, where he met another like-minded individual named Kaylee. The two quickly became inseparable, her calming demeanour balancing out his nervous attitude. They eventually rented out a run-down shop in the streets of Easton after their graduation, which now serves as their workshop and home. However, their friendship has recently been slightly stunted by Alex's obsession over his ACP project, to which he has yet to realise.

Katherine 'Kaylee' Thomas aka Klokwerk

Calm and Cool. Yup.

• Identity: Katherine "Kaylee" Thomas, Hero, no secret identity.
• Powers:
  • Clockwork Constructs/Gear Generation: Kaylee's power is... unique, to say the least. By accessing what Alex theorizes to be a personal pocket dimension, Kaylee can materialize toothed clockwork constructs, taking the form of gears or miscellaneous shapes. The larger constructs, such as mechanical hands or just miscellaneous shapes, usually sprout out of or through walls and floors, and the heavy mass plus the sharp teeth can cause major damage to those not quick to avoid it. The smaller clockwork gears can be quickly materialized and flung at high speeds in a manner similar to shuriken. These constructs can dissipate either by Kaylee's will, her being knocked out, or simply high amounts of force. As mentioned before, Alex's electrokinesis is compatible with this power, allowing them to attack in combination and create electrified gears and clockwork constructs.
• Equipment:
  • Custom Cellphone: Kaylee owns one of Alex's custom cellphones, which has his number on speed dial. It too is both shock-proof and waterproof, but unfortunately not shatter-proof. By the amount of replacements he has had to make for her, it is surprising that he hasn't grown sick of the whole process.
• Appearance: Like Alex, is 22 years of age. Honest.
• Personality: Level-headed, intelligent and caring, Kaylee is everything Alex wants to be. She has a tendency to be a bit stubborn and overprotective of her friend, however, and is prone to rash actions if she feels he is in danger. She has a sarcastic streak, and has worked out the correct balance in how to tease Alex without directly insulting his self-esteem, much to his annoyance. She is also in charge of making sure Alex doesn't kill himself due to overworking, which seems to be going exceptionally well so far. After Ophelia's creation, Kaylee is starting to feel more distant to Alex due to his newfound obsession and passion for his ACP project, and is struggling to get him back to how he was.
• Background: Kaylee was born in Easton to a single mechanic, her powers manifesting when she was about 8 years old. Like Alex, her father quickly noticed her high intelligence, and allowed her to work in his shop. After going to college when she was 17, she quickly formed a close friendship with the shy, blue-haired teen due to his aligning interests, and helped him with raising money to rent out a workshop. She now lives there with him, supporting him with his creations and teaming up with him in the field. Kaylee also had heavy involvement in Ophelia's creation, designing schematics and helping Alex with the subtle details, such as the idea of including protective ear-defenders.

Ophelia Thomas-Selby

She gets it from her mother. No not the appearance.

Code Red

• Identity: ACP-001 "Ophelia", Hero, no secret identity.
• Abilities:
  • Enlargened Storage: Thanks to the designs found by Kaylee, Ophelia has the most amount of storage space physically possible without interfering with the functionality of the machine. Without the storage, the actual amount of space taken up by machinery is tiny.
  • Quick Deployment: By retracting specific skin panels to expose her endoskeleton, Ophelia can gain easy access to all her stored weaponry, gadgets, and tools. Every storage slot is designed to pneumatically pop its contents out with a mere thought from the ACP, allowing Ophelia to shed equipment to lose weight if necessary. Quick Deployment can also be used for limited self-maintenance in the field.
  • Nonlethal Weaponry: Ophelia has access to retractable tasers, ring-airfoil projectiles, and sleeping gases for use against either human foes or particularly rowdy and uncooperative civilians. As of now, Ophelia is forbidden from using lethal force against humans, however a change in circumstance may call for an alteration in programming.
  • Lethal Weaponry: Despite being programmed not to kill humans, Ophelia can most definitely use lethal action against other robots or against mindless beasts if the danger level is high. Her lethal options are considerably less broad, consisting of a pair of twin wrist machine guns and a grenade launcher. However, due to her primary role as a civilian protector, she only fights if absolutely necessary anyway.
  • Civilian Protection Equipment: The primary space taken up by storage, the Civilian Protection Equipment is the catch-all name for equipment used in crowd control, personal escort, mass evacuation, simple bodyguarding, or high level emergencies. Such equipment includes first-aid satchels, emergency food rations, rolls of barricade tape that can be deployed from the arms, fireproof blankets, jaws of life, and collapsible ear defenders for protection against loud gunfire.
  • Code Red Armour: For use only in the worst possible situation where civilian casualties are basically inevitable, it is all Ophelia and any other ACPs can do but activate their final protocols; the Code Red Armour. This retractable bodysuit, stored in the back section of the endoskeleton, is made of the same titanium-reinforced kevlar combination Alex used in his AMP suit. The suit also contains enhanced exo-muscles that can temporarily enhance an ACP's speed and strength to superhuman levels, however this drains their power at a ridiculous rate. Expect Ophelia to only use this in a nigh-apocalyptic scenario, and even then not for very long.
• Appearance: Surprisingly non-creepy. The panel breaks in the skin and the hyper-realistic facial features have been designed especially to reduce uncanny valley effects.
• Personality: While some may perceive robots as following directives like emotionless slaves, Ophelia is anything but that. Everything she does in interaction with civilians is genuine and heartfelt, and truly feels remorse whenever she has to fight or otherwise harm a person, villainous or simply out of control, to protect others. She is especially guarding of children, gaining a white-hot rage and sense of protectiveness whenever they are in potential danger. If the situations call for it, like a particularly distressed or rowdy civilian, she can detach herself emotionally from her target and forcefully ensure their safety in order to proceed with her directive without emotional baggage, which is something that she hates to do. It is unknown how much of it is true intelligence she possesses or simply a large amount of programmed responses, but one thing is absolutely certain: she will go to any lengths necessary to save as many people as physically possible.
• Background: Initially conceptualized by Alex Selby as a personal helper to his bedridden mother, Ophelia eventually evolved into the first in a line of personal civilian assistants and guardians, dubbed the ACP Project. After Alex moved into what is now known as Thomas + Selby Mechanics with his best friend Kaylee, development on the ACP Project ground to a halt, due to Alex constantly hitting brick walls with technology and space limitations. However, with Kaylee's discovery of several designs for Dr. Madd's Mindless Minions, Alex hit a breakthrough, regaining his passion for the project and rocketing through the creation processes at record speed. Kaylee is tight-lipped about the actual process of Ophelia's creation, stating that it was something special to Alex and that the designs were simply too dangerous to be recklessly exposed, especially with the leagues of supervillains lurking in the shadows.

Coven of the Many-Eyed One

Richard Langley