Dramatis Personae: Monica Harmann, Street Speedster

If you're in downtown Manhattan at the right time of night, and you look in the right direction at the right time, you might see it. The hobos have seen it, but they also say they've seen lizard people and UFOs. But everyone who's seen it describes it the same way. A blur of blue, black and gold, streaking across the sides of the high skyscrapers. If you're really lucky, they say, you might see it take to the air, where it slows down as it reaches the apex of its long arc, crossing two city blocks in one leap. If you look closely, it looks like a young woman, her long blonde hair flying free in the breeze as she soars twenty stories in the air.

But that's impossible, right?

Monica Harmann

ST: 10        HP: 10        Speed: 7.00
DX: 13       Will: 11      Move: 10/40
IQ: 11        Per: 11
HT: 10       FP: 10         SM: +0

Dodge: 11   Parry: 11      DR: 0

Colt Government, .45 ACP (13): 2d pi+, Acc 2, Range 150/1,600, Shots 7+1.
Normal Kick (12): 1d-2 cr, Reach C, 1.
Normal Punch (14): 1d-3 cr Reach C.
Super Kick (12): 1d+1 cr, Reach C, 1.
Super Punch (14): 1d cr Reach C.

Traits: Appearance (Attractive); Broad-Minded; Classic Features (Blue-Eyed Blonde); Equipment Bond (Custom Baseball Boots); Fashion Sense; Fit; Honesty (12); Impulsiveness (15); Pacifism (Cannot Harm Innocents); Proud; Responsive; Sense of Duty (Friends and Companions); Signature Gear (Custom Baseball Boots); Wealth (Struggling).
Languages: English (Native); French (Broken).
Skills: Acrobatics-12; Area Knowledge (New York City)-11; Area Knowledge (Neighbourhood)-11; Brawling-14; Carousing-10; Climbing-12; Computer Operation-11; Current Affairs (Popular Culture)-11; Current Affairs (Supers)-11; Driving (Automobile)-12; Fast-Draw (Pistol)-13; First Aid-11; Forced Entry-13; Guns (Pistol)-13; Hiking-9; Holdout-11; Housekeeping-11; Jumping-14; Law (Police)-10; Research-10; Running-11; Stealth-12; Streetwise-10; Throwing-12; Writing -11.
Superpowers: Basic Move +3 (Super, -10%); Basic Speed +1.25 (Super, -10%); Clinging (Only while moving, Move 10 or higher, -30%; Super, -10%); Enhanced Dodge (Super, -10%); DX+2 (Super, -10%); Enhanced Move 2 (All-out, -20%; Super, -10%); Enhanced Parry 1 (Brawling; Super, -10%); Extra Attack 1 (Multi-Strike, +20%; Super, -10%); Eye For Distance; Immune to Acceleration (Super, -10%); Speed Talent 1; Striking ST+5 (Super, -10%); Super Jump 6 (Super, -10%). Human Missile-14.
Notes: Monica's custom baseball boots give +1 to control rolls while running at speed and are never damaged by her manoeuvres.

"Mona" to her friends (and "Monnie" to her grandparents) is an average college senior studying at NYU... except she can run at 80mph, cling to buildings and leap a mile or more in a single jump. She discovered her powers about six months ago, finding out when trying to train for a marathon. Cautious, and aware of how much of a target it might paint on her back, she found the boundaries of her abilities gradually, pushing further and further each time until she could run vertically up buildings and jump three city blocks in one leap.

Despite this, she's carrying on with her normal life. In her world, there isn't a well-defined place for people with powers yet, so she can't give up her college degree to join the Super Academy. But her world does have superhero comicbooks, so she can't help but feel like she might be able to make a difference with her powers. What use is power if you can't do anything with it? To that end, she's learning to fight, gradually understanding how to leverage her superspeed for punching, blocking, diving and even acting as a human missile. What she's going to do with those skills, she hasn't decided yet...

Place and Time
Monica is designed with a TL8 "emergent supers" setting in mind – where super-powered people are new, only beginning to emerge, and none of the accompanying organisations, power structures or regulations have appeared. Either superpowers are still secret or the world's governments simply haven't caught up yet. Monica may also fit well into a more mature supers setting as a street-level or newly-empowered superheroine. Tone-wise, Monica is closest to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. She may be a superheroine but she's a human being with emotions and weaknesses.

Build Constraints
The main constraint with building Monica was to make an ordinary person, then add superpowers on top. Monica was first built as a mundane TL8 character with a budget of 50 points. After this was done, an extra 250 points were used to purchase superpowers. 300 points was chosen as the target since this is given as the lowest rung for "gritty" supers (Basic Set, p. 487) and Monica is meant to be a super just coming into her powers.

Monica as a Non-Player Character
Monica works well as a "sidekick" to a more powerful super – at 300 points she fits into the 50% bracket of Ally for typical superheroes. She might be a true sidekick, learning from a PC about how to handle crime-fighting and so on. Or the relationship may be more personal, with the PC as her mentor and friend, helping her to adjust to her powers and new-found responsibility. For "mundane" PCs playing in a world with superheroes, she makes a great Contact, since she has one foot in the mundane world and one in the superhero community.

Monica as a Player Character
Monica is an old project I found while checking through my archives, and she was actually designed to be a PC. If you're playing a street-level supers campaign, as mentioned above, you don't really need much alteration – she's good to go. For more advanced or powerful campaigns, the main sensible additions are increased skill levels for combat- and movement-focused abilities (such as Acrobatics, Jumping, Brawling, etc.). After that, extra points should be spent on superpowers. You could add new abilities but her powerset is relatively complete for a super speedster, so increasing the levels of her existing powers is enough.