Drawforce

From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe

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Drawforce
Player: @TalenLee
Origin:	Natural
Archetype:	Defender
Security Level:	Full Clearance[1]
Personal Data
Real Name:	Dale Riverson[2]
Known Aliases:	None
Species:	Human
Age:	19
Height:	5'11"
Weight:	170 lbs
Eye Color:	Blue
Hair Color:	Blonde
Biographical Data
Citizenship:	Confidential
Occupation:	Freelance hero
Place of Birth:	Paragon City
Current Residence:	Confidential
Marital Status:	Single
Known Relatives:	Both parents alive, older sister, all living in San Francisco
Known Powers
None
Known Abilities
Skilled archer
Equipment
Sighted hunting bow
Footnotes
No additional information available.

Character

Drawforce is a happy, enthusiastic young man who finds everything in the world around him to be interesting and engaging. He likes people, and espouses people enjoying themselves and appreciating the liberties that citizenship in the United States offers them. Idealistic and optimistic, Drawforce is blessedly free of both guile and naivete.

Basically, Dale does his best to see the best in everyone. But he does so with full knowledge of the people he's dealing with, knowing that he's a good person in a world that often features bad people. He's cautious, but he trusts people. This has proven remarkably useful as a member of Calibre - he's taken to his hazings without any complaint, and while he can't compete on the same level as his physical educator Saxon Valiant, the boy's willingness to try and his determination have impressed upon his superiors his capacity to learn.

Affiliations

Drawforce had a scholarship from Project Corona. He'd completed his primary education in the Project, and was working on his secondary units in Hero Theory before the incident that drew him into Calibre's fold. During his time in the project, he learned a lot about team coordination and collarboration. With a lot of actual field time under his belt, he had time to focus on the schoolwork until the Subradian Incident.

As a member of Calibre, Dale is very much the 'new guy.' While he learns fast and adapts fast, he's still not nearly as jaded or as familiar with the typical tropes and mores of superspy operations, and is prone to surprise. On the other hand, he demonstrates a far stronger sense of character than normal recruits, demonstrating little to no emotional trauma in the face of black operation work.

Innocent Bystander

Dale had freshly gained Warzone Clearance, which he was using to help Junk Giant pursue information about his origin, the mystery that led to his creation. During this time, Dale was captured by Rikti investigators attempting to recreate the Warshades that had been brought to bear against them.

During this time, Dale was mostly unconscious, but he was chosen as a 'pure' human subject who could be made to receive one of the Rikti's attempts at duplicating a Kheldian energy parasite, an experience about which Dale is reluctant to speak. On the other hand, Dale's state as a 'perfect' subject appeared to be sucpicious, almost too perfect.

Dale feels no different through this experience, but his energy signature now betrays a foreign element. At first, Calibre sought to keep him under observation, but extensive time at rest only served to subdue the energy signature - it was almost lost at one point after Dale underwent a full week of forced downtime. With the understanding that activity was important to the prolonged observation of this phenomenon, named Factor-9, and the notion that Kheldian energy was somehow involved, Calibre felt it best to start training Dale in higher-level metahuman activity.

Powers

Skill

Before joining Calibre and the Subradian Incident, Drawforce was a skilled parkour traceur, and an exceptionally skilled archer. Lacking for the gift of other, super-normal heroes, Dale instead focused on maximizing his offence capabilities through position. Using a personally purchased bow, he wasn't able to maintain extremely high drawforces and he used his arrows primarily to provoke shock and therefore unconsciousness.

This gave him a very broad set of skills. Focusing not on his lone target, he instead pays attention to the whole battlefield, fighting a war of tactics. If he was trying to kill people, chances are he'd be very effective at doing so - and yet, his battle-wide focus makes him less efficient as an archer. With this in mind, he doesn't just position himself, but he moves to position his opponents, too - exposing them to other, less obvious lines of fire.

Factor-9

Joining Calibre was a step up in Dale's overall capability. The barely-understood energy of his kheldian-esque passenger, Factor-9, stimulates his heart rate and maximises his reaction speed. He can fire faster, and move faster, and most importantly, perceive more quickly - with his already well-developed athletic ability, he has become a difficult target to hit.

Another, less well understood element of Factor-9 is the effect it has on his mind. Dale is slowly coming to be more psychically aware. While he can't act or react on a psychic plane, his mind has become harder to enter and probe. This psychic armour does not seem to be in response to actual attempts to probe Dale's mind.

Metatext

RP Notes

• Drawforce has a constant psychic presence. Attempts to infiltrate his mind tend to run into static.
• To other Calibre members, Drawforce is the one who's more impressed with you than you are with him.
• To people outside Calibre, Drawforce is... well, just an athletic young man. They might recognise calluses on his fingertips from extensive use of a bow, most likely a low-tech one at first. Since joining Calibre he's started using more advanced hardware.

Themes

Dale is a case of a concept that ran its course. Initially supposed to be a 'normal' human without powers, Dale's empathy powers represented not his ability, but the ability of his allies pushing themselves. This idea ends at level 35, though - when there's actual restrictions on places for the sake of normal people, having Dale running around with people who are flat-out better than him is basically letting the authorities endanger his life.

I therefore had to step the concept up. Since Calibre was coming together, and he felt the need for a new direction in his character, I decided to use the Subradian incident that was responsible for Martel's growing concept, and put it together.

Trivia

• Drawforce's name comes from the Virtue Names thread, thanks to Fox catching it out of a lineup.
• Drawforce originally had a gaelic accent, trying to represent a Bostonian Irish. Since his first picture, I actually saw him very clearly as an American patriot.
• Drawforce's build has him at 45% ranged defence, always using hover, and with about 35% global recharge, coupled to Haste.
• Drawforce also has the full suite of buffs from a good Empathy defender, and at level 50, still hasn't gotten the Medic badge.

References

1. ↑ A download link for the Mids file of Drawforce's build is available here.
2. ↑ A reference to Battlebriar's real name, River Daleson.