DC UNIVERSE RPG (revised 11/24/01)

HERO NAME: Speedstar (AKA "The Silver Streak of Empire City")
REAL NAME: Edward C. Johnson
OCCUPATION: Novelist / Adventurer
BASE OF OPERATIONS: Empire City, MD
GENDER: Male
MARITAL STATUS: Single
HEIGHT: 5’ 7"
WEIGHT: 220 lbs.
EYE COLOR: Dark Brown
HAIR COLOR: Dark Brown
RACE: Human
TECH LEVEL: Modern (1)
INCOME: $700 per week
STARTING FUNDS: $6,300 (total funds at the start of gaming, including current savings & checking accounts)
SPEED: 30
PDV: 2 (8 while moving using Speed Manipulation)
UNARMED BDV: 4d
P/L BONUS: +2
HERO POINTS: 15
CURRENT VILLAIN POINTS: 0
CURRENT CHARACTER POINTS: 0 (272 CPs used thus far in creating Speedstar)
BODY POINTS: 40
POWER LEVEL: Power Level 3 (75d Dice Pool; 220 bonus Character Points for established "track record" & 388 CPs)

DC Universe | 

BACKGROUND:
Ed Johnson was hit by freak, purplish lightning while attending Imperial University in Empire City, MD in 1989. He was in a coma for 2 months and for a few weeks after regaining consciousness he began manifesting speed powers sporadically and without warning, usually being able to keep them a secret. Finally, his powers stabilized and allowed him to use them with a good deal of control. He fashioned the heroic persona of "Speedstar" for himself and took steps to conceal his secret identity. He has since been adopted by Empire City as a resident protector. Over the years, his powers have gradually increased & he has developed a faster healing rate in addition to have unknowingly developed an increased life span as a result of his evolving speed powers.

Ed became a science-fiction and fantasy author who has enjoyed moderate success with his QUANTA ARCANUM and BARDSMEN OF JORDE trilogies (the first trilogy is one that featured an android who searched for existential meaning in a universe that combined hardcore science- fiction with traditional fantasy elements & his second trilogy featured two antiheroes and their misadventures on a magically alternate Earth). He currently lives alone in a four-level condominium in downtown Empire City.

In an unplayed series of events set in early 2001, he endured a change in his powers following an uncontrollable urge to join the mysterious Speed Force (the source of all his powers). As a result, his speed powers have become highly unpredictable. It remains to be seen whether his powers will continue to evolve.

Later, during an adventure that took him through time, he had seemed to be lost within the Time Trapper’s domain within Hypertime as it collapsed in on itself. In actuality, Ed was stranded in an "Elseworld" 31st Century where he was a member of the Legion of Super-Heroes for an extended period of time. Meanwhile, he had been replaced by a quantum duplicate of himself back in his native time and continuity. This other Ed/Speedstar had spent years trying to find a way back home, traversing Hypertime until he emerged on the gaming Earth and unknowing of his carrying the surviving essence of the evil Time Trapper. During his time with the LSH, Ed learned the nature of his powers through a special relationship he shared with the twin descendants of the Barry Allen Flash known in the 31st Century as "the Tornado Twins". Alongside them, he helps the LSH against a Time Trapper who had gained control over the Speed Force. This confrontation also included the 31st Century of the Gaming Universe, wherein Supergirl reverted back to the Woman of Energy and sacrificed herself as she realigned the shredded Hypertime strands that ultimately defeated the Time Trapper by allowing Hypertime, itself, to absorb the villain into itself. By so doing, the formerly alternate 31st Century will have become the definitive future for the Gaming Universe. Ed, meanwhile, was returned home along with the Gaming Universe’s Superboy, and was left to pick up the pieces of his shattered life – a life that will have changed dramatically during his absence.

Among the major changes in his life was the fact that his longtime contact, the heroine Cutlass, was pregnant with his future self’s unborn child. She cut ties with him when he tried to tell her the truth about what happened to him and that the Ed she knew and loved no longer existed. Their shattered friendship has yet to be salvaged. Other changes included his close association with the speedsters collectively known as the Flash Family, especially his friendship with the enigmatic Max Mercury and his romantic involvement with Lady Flash. Max has become a valued part of his life, his wisdom guiding him to learn just what was possible through the Speed Force. He has high hopes that his learning all that Max has to teach him can help motivate him to sort out the life he has reclaimed in the wake of the HYPERTIME SAGA and to reevaluate longstanding philosophies he has had. He is particularly close with Lady Flash and the two have started a romantic involvement. Ed finds their relationship pivotal in his coping with the lingering shadow of his quantum duplicate and in salvaging the mess his life has become at the hands of his duplicate.

Ed has written a novel based on his experiences in the HYPERTIME SAGA that he titled THE MAN WHO DWELLED IN THREE TIME ZONES. It was his hope that it would make people forget the heavy-handed, tepid, pulpy novella his quantum counterpart wrote of his own experiences titled VIOLENT DREAMS THROUGH THE VOID. Ed was so embarrassed by his counterpart’s work that he finished the first draft of his novel in less than a week. The story, itself, featured a protagonist through three separate eras their life, a life whose loose threads came together in the future during the novel’s climactic scene.

All of the main character’s experiences in the story mirrored his own. Like much of his science fiction, it maintained a Zen-like tone in approaching the scientific theories he tackles in his work and is considered by his publisher to be his best work. Time will tell if his latest effort will redeem himself for his quantum duplicate’s psychotic work.

Later in 2001, while Ed was confronting a war between the Blood Clan and the heavily armed agents of an unknown faction, he suddenly was engulfed by a blinding, purplish flash of light. With him were Lady Flash and Max Mercury, who were spending Thanksgiving with him. As his speed powers increased in the aftermath of the strange event, Labrynthe arrived to investigate the blinding flash of light he had seen from across the Chesapeake Bay and helped the speedsters against the warring factions. In the aftermath, Ed introduced Labrynthe to Max Mercury and his new girlfriend. The heroes soon realize, however, that the unknown faction that was fighting the Blood Clan were actually soldiers employed by a mysterious new syndicate that had muscled into both Sister Cities of the Chesapeake to take over the criminal underworld.

This is where gaming has left off.

FURTHER NOTES:

DC Universe |