Polterheist (Naibu Tashin) [Villain]

THE BASICS

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE

Naibu is a ghost. When he’s tired, or not actively maintaining human shape, he’s a basketball-sized ball of see-through visible, colourless... intangible stuff. Feels kinda chilly to touch, like a shadow in the spring, with maybe a little bit of resistance if you pay close attention. Sometimes he’s got a cowlick where his forehead would be, sometimes he’s got his uniform hat. He usually has vaguely defined arms, with which to gesticulate powerlessly, and if he’s moving a faint hazy trail may be visible behind him. He does have visible eyes and a mouth (sometimes).

When maintaining his human form, Naibu generally appears to be wearing a short-sleeved school uniform with cap, although the clothing is continuous with his ‘flesh.’ He cannot imply colour, but the original uniform was black and he will say so if anyone asks. He can change his clothes, but it takes concentration and energy and ideally is copying a set of clothing he can study. His human form is, by default, life-sized... although not especially tall. He has not yet figured out if he stopped growing when he became a ghost, or if he has to, you know, change that manually now. His straight hair is cropped to about ear length, and was black back Before.

PERSONALITY

Once upon a time, before his life was forever changed in a fiery fatal crash (he’s gotta come up with a better word than crash, something with an F sound...), Naibu was a very simple kid. Donuts. Skipping class to acquire said donuts. Video games, especially platformers and anything vaguely mazelike. Ooooh, roguelike dungeon crawlers! Those were great. Always different, and the times when you could see the end where you started but not how to get to it!

These days, Naibu can’t eat donuts, doesn’t go to school, and can’t play video games. He also goes right through walls, so all those obstacles just don’t mean anything anymore, you know? But there are other things to do instead, like prank people by popping in and out of walls, pretending to be their conscious, and he’s got so much time to watch TV and playthroughs. If he can’t play it himself, he can at least watch someone else do it!

He works pretty hard to keep his spirits up (eh, eh? ) but he does miss out on a lot. Like food. He might never get hungry, but he can’t taste anything even if he floats through it. And he can’t touch anyone or anything, not really. He can kind of push things around now, but really all he can feel is people’s heartbeats. Don’t get him wrong, that’s amazing! He wouldn’t give it up for the world. But it’s just one thing, you know? Heck, he can’t even pat a dog or feel how buttery smooth expensive leather is (not that he knows what expensive leather feels like, but people talk!).

His life isn’t so bad, though, as long as he has people around to talk to, and heartbeats to keep him going. He’ll volunteer for a lot if it keeps people in his life, and really he does know where his priorities are. Laws don’t mean much; what is anyone going to do even if they did catch him doing something illegal? Toss him in jail? They can’t even touch him! And if he gets on someone’s bad side, it isn’t like they can kill him again. Besides, from the very beginning of his time as a ghost, heroes and random townspeople have been the ones who have consistently feared, hated, and outright attacked him, usually without ever even trying to talk to him! So no, he doesn’t give a flying flip about that stuff. He’ll do whatever he has to. He’s tough, and a heartbeat is a heartbeat. The important part is that it doesn’t run away from him.

Did you know he can’t ride elevators or trains by himself? He can get on for free with no problem at all, just goes right through even if the doors are closed, but if he isn’t leaning against someone the train’s going to right through him. Whoosh. Leave him floating over the tracks or in the... whatever the hollow space it is that elevators go up and down in. Oh! Unless he’s feeling real lively and, like, surfs the train’s front lights. And when their horn goes off? Well, if he doesn’t line it up right he’ll go shooting off in who knows what direction, but it’s not like it’s going to hurt or something.

BACKGROUND HISTORY

Naibu used to be a regular living kid. Flesh and blood and hair that needed to get cut and everything. But that’s how everyone’s story starts, doesn’t it? It’s whatever changed that’s important.

Naibu and his family were in a car accident when he was thirteen. Nothing out of the ordinary, just some fresh rain and a slippery road, and some tires that were maybe getting a little too worn. They weren’t a rich family, the Tashins, but they did well enough for their younger child to be happy... although in a few years he’d probably be as emotionally labeled and sulky as any teenager. At any rate, the entire family was declared dead when the overturned and scorched remains of their car were found at the bottom of an embankment. The report wasn’t entirely incorrect.

A few months later, the wreckage was gone and the grass was regrowing. The path carved down the hillside in order to remove the car had been turned into a pedestrian access by the locals, and the sunny bit of hill below the road grew into a picnic spot, complete with table and garbage bin.

And rumours that it was haaauuuunnnttteeeed.

Technically, it was, although Naibu eventually figured out that he was a ghost at least mostly because of his Quirk, not because he had some grand unfinished business or something. Sure, he wanted to be around people more, to bask in their warmth and the sound of their heartbeats, but there wasn’t any pressing need for him to do anything especially ghostly. Also, he had a parent who could turn incorporeal, and a parent who didn’t age (he wasn’t old enough himself to realize just how awkward that would get for his mom as she aged and her husband... still looked like his early-twenties prime, just old enough to expect his quirk to be much like his father’s).

He sorted this out after he gradually regained awareness, in little steps and shuffles, as people spent time in the area. Over time, he gained the strength to sort of lean toward the voices as he heard them, and then toward the dim shapes he could see. Whenever he finally reached those happy strangers, those pockets desperately needed warmth, though, they left. They never seemed to notice him, at least at first, but grew uncomfortable and nervous and then... left.

By late summer, Naibu had grown strong enough to force out sound in bits and pieces, and to be seen. People stopped coming to picnic, so he grit his ghost-teeth (or at least imagined that he did) and set off down the road.

Three car accidents later, a local pro hero arrived at the scene of what had to be the work of a villain. Horrified at the fiery carnage (in Naibu’s defence, only one person died and he would have been fine if not for what came next, and also it wasn’t his fault that the drivers panicked when they drove through him), the hero immediately unleashed their laser eyes on the mysterious pale blob stubbornly bobbing up the road.

The blinding light not only blinded poor Naibu, but also managed to knock him clear off the road! The hero raced after him, emboldened by the evident effectiveness, and blasted the little ghost a few more times for good measure, until finally the small shape sank into the ground and vanished.

The incredibly diligent, single-tracked-mind hero waited there for ages, just in case the callous villain re-emerged, but Naibu didn’t have the strength to flee, and stayed hidden beneath a rock. Eventually the hero was satisfied and left, probably to wail in horror and anger at the innocent soul lost to the flaming wreckage, as opposed to the traumatized soul who had (or perhaps had not) survived a much worse scene along this very stretch of road.

That night, after the hero and the emergency crews and the civilians looking in on it all had finally left, and the moon rose softly through the clearing sky, Naibu picked himself up and resolutely continued his quest. He moved slowly, both rationing his limited strength and still learning to navigate his intangible form.

It took him all of the next day to reach the city proper, and to find people who weren’t driving. He went into a house first, meaning to ask for help with his still-recovering voice. Their screams pushed him away, though not before he had come close enough to feel a brush of warmth.

Since he became a ghost, his sense of touch had completely vanished. It wasn’t even that he was numb. It didn’t even register that the sensation was missing unless he looked down and realized that he was half in the ground, or when he drifted face-first into a tree. He felt pressure from the sun, and the laser eye beams had hurt, but even that had been a different sort of hurt than what he remembered. But he could see, and he could hear, and he could speak, and he had felt warmth. He just had to find someone who wasn’t afraid of him. There had to be someone who wasn’t scared of a little ghost, right?

Such a person proved hard to find. Despite generations of quirks widespread in society, somehow that didn’t translate to accepting ghosts. Even if it was his quirk! But he never seemed to get the chance with his raspy voice.

Then he met Amane. While likely in his mid twenties at most, he seemed enough of an adult to Naibu, and this stranger loitering outside a convenience store looked at Naibu... and just tilted his head. Within a few minutes, Naibu was perched on Amane’s shoulder as the older man strolled around the block, chatting about all sorts of things, from what had happened to Naibu to all the cool things he could do now. And though Naibu had to be careful to stay on Amane’s shoulder, almost hovering in front of it so that the living tissue pushed him along as they walked, he was completely engulfed in that deeply satisfying, utterly cozy warmth. Warmer than his mother’s embrace, and not nearly as heavily perfumed.

Eventually, Amane sighed and declared that he ought to be on his way. Suddenly desperate not to lose that welcoming energy, and more energized than he remembered ever feeling in this form, Naibu blurted out a request to stay with Amane. He had nowhere to go, no one waiting for him, nothing to do, and he would do whatever Amane asked.

He missed the gleam in Amane’s eye, but he accepted the offer. Over the next few days, they explored the city, and talked, and Naibu gained more strength than ever before. Eventually that levelled out, and Amane got him to try out all sorts of things. What could he go through, how fast could he go, what stereotypical ‘ghost’ pranks could he pull?

Naibu could do a lot more than he thought, and with Amane’s encouragement didn’t bat an eye when his friend casually asked if he wanted to rob a bank. Now, Naibu could defend himself by saying something like he was young, he didn’t know what he was agreeing to, he was just desperate to stay with this one living person in his life.

That’s a load of steaming ghost-garbage. He knew what the offer was, and he only would have considered raising an eyebrow before a pro hero showed up out of nowhere and attacked him, as if he had tried to hurt people, as if he weren’t the victim! So that whole idea of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ could take a flying leap off a space station. It might be cool to float up to space sometime; it’s not like he needs air or anything. He would have to do it at night, though, and it might be hard to find the space station. And what about coming back down? He could end up anywhere.

Anyway. Crime, schmime. A bank robbery sounded fun. A real heist!

Wait, he was a ghost, and if he pulled heists...

Gheist? No, that sounded like he he was choking, not that he could choke. But it sounded like some other ghost word.... Poltergeist! So that would make him... a polterheist.

Amane was very entertained by this name, and Naibu wore it proudly as they practiced a few skills and worked out some plans. Naibu was great at scoping out places. None of their security systems could do anything to him! As long as they didn’t have really loud sirens or light barriers or something, but most banks didn’t have stuff like that. They had cameras and thick walls and security guards, and none of those could do a thing to him!

For the first heist, Naibu cruised right into the vault late in the summer evening, after all the staff had left, and went ahead and possessed the lock. Not only did he get the code when they arrived in the morning, but he also figured out a way to keep it from completely latching when they left again. When Amane showed up, the older man’s face disguised as one of the bank worker’s, Naibu cheerfully nudged the vault door open, hopped onto Amane to recharge, and rode him out of the bank with a subtle haul of valuables... along with a case full of cash that they ‘accidentally’ dropped when they inevitably drew attention.

And just like that, they were living the heist lifestyle! They moved around a fair bit, but that just let Naibu learn more of the city. Amane used some of the cash from one of or some of the jobs to get ‘in’ with some bigger groups, to do some jobs on request rather than going just for easy cash directly, and also showed up unexpectedly with a puppy while Naibu was chilling on a stakeout.

Naibu had always wanted a puppy when he was alive, and this one was a chunky sausage covered in tiger stripes, so of course he named this one Tora! Amane had to do all the actual care, since Naibu struggled to so much as nudge something aside, but it wasn’t long before Naibu figured out how to not just ride on, but in Tora. It wasn’t quite like possessing something that wasn’t alive, but it did let him move freely. You know, as freely as could be considered free when he wasn’t the one picking the direction or anything. He went where the puppy went, and that puppy loved to get into trouble. Sometimes he’d trot right up to the sketchiest people imaginable, so Naibu would pop on out and screech bloody murder in their faces! Sometimes they even dropped their stuff when they ran away. So much fun.

A year later, Tora disappeared while Naibu and Amane were out on a job. They’d hired a local kid to take care of the dog, by then almost as big as a (small) tiger. Apparently something happened, and Tora got out. Amane and Naibu eventually found the poor dog locked in the basement of the building they had been living in. The kid must have been poking around the storage room with the dog, and not realized that he was alone when he left. The kid who apparently wanted to go to school to be a hero one day. The kid who was more concerned with sating his curiosity about his (objectively sketchy) employer than caring for an innocent animal in his charge.

While Amane took care of poor Tora, Naibu took his salt and sulk and dedicated the next few weeks of his unlife to haunting the wanna-be-hero. Fragile things broke. Important papers and homework fell behind desks. His hot food was never hot for long. He never seemed to be warm. His clock changed time overnight. Doors locked when he had just gone through them. Sometimes he caught sight of something out of the corner of his eye.

Naibu only stopped when he realized how much he missed Amane, so he trundled back home. Amane had been busy, and had even had Tora’s skull cleaned off and polished. It wasn’t the same as riding the dog, but it made for a reliable place for Naibu to snooze (not that he had actually slept since the initial car crash), and it made it even easier for Amane to transport his little ghost sidekick. He just strolled around with a suitcase in one hand and a shiny dog skull ‘biting’ the epaulette on his other shoulder. The shoulder
closest to his heart, of course.

Most of the next two years were pretty much the same, although no more pets entered Naibu’s life. They moved around, picked up heist jobs, snuck in and out of places. Amane ate well, and had all sorts of lively company. Naibu never had to worry about any of the jobs going wrong, although Amane occasionally seemed to be concerned when tensions rose. Guns were a problem for the living, he supposed.

In hindsight, Naibu should have seen the incident coming. Amane certainly did. They were in some group’s hideout, trying to turn in the haul from the job, and the other villains weren’t so keen on paying what had been agreed. Naibu wasn’t paying much attention, and then suddenly there were flashing lights and fire and so much noise that he tumbled through the display case he was poking around in, and the wall behind it, and then there was screaming, so much screaming, and someone was running at him, while screaming, so Naibu took off. The hideout was a weird layering of storage rooms and tunnels and conference rooms and probable brothels, and wherever he went, Naibu found more people to yell at him and chase him. Something about being an intruder and a traitor and a sleazy stinking con artist?

Just because he never showered didn’t mean he smelled bad! He was a ghost! Ghosts didn’t have hygiene issues. Not that he’d be able to tell anyway; it wasn’t like he had a sense of smell.

Eventually, Naibu gave up on finding his way out the underground labyrinth and took shelter in a crate. It was the first thing he saw in the first room he entered that wasn’t full of attentive people. Besides, he was tired. There was no sign of Amane, in any of his varied faces, and eventually the ghost hunt settled down. Naibu dozed, less aware but undreaming, until his crate jostled.

Wherever the crate was, it was pitch black, and even a ghost needs some light to see. He could hear muffled noise, not strong enough to push on him, and it didn’t seem to be threatening. He still didn’t have the energy for a renewed chase, so he stayed put, even it was a loooooooooooooooooooooong time before the rumbling stopped, and everything jerked and shuddered and creaked, and light poured into a long room full of crates and stuff.

A couple of people hauled the crates out, and Naibu rode a conveyer belt up to a building with a bunch of airplanes lined up alongside. None of it looked familiar, and Naibu hopped from the crate to a distracted woman carrying a tablet like a clipboard. Her heartbeats revived him enough to cross the airport and stealthily possess another woman’s scarf all quiet-like. She carried him into the city, a city he didn’t recognize in the slightest.

THE ARMORY

None. He’s a ghost. His clothes are technically him too. He’d exhaust himself just trying to wear clothes, probably.

QUIRK & SKILLS

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Ghostheart

TYPE: Mutation
RANK/LEVEL: D
SUMMARY:
Naibu is a ghost. His base form has very little definition, and looks more or less like a barely visible basketball with a faded wiggly tail, nubby arms, and a face. He has no particular colour, or lack of colour, and tends to appear pale against dark surfaces and dark against pale surfaces. He also, as a default, floats and cannot interact with solid objects, although there is a sort of repulsion to spaces occupied by living humans. To that living human, the repelling force feels like a chilly pressure.

As a ghost, Naibu survives on the energy of other people’s heartbeats, since he doesn’t have one himself. If he doesn’t get enough, he doesn’t die, since he’s already dead, but he does become listless, and tend to sort of just drift into a quiet corner and lose most of his awareness of his surroundings until someone comes near enough for him to regain some strength. He uses that strength to move, change his shape, interact with the world, speak, and even become semi-corporeal.

Heartbeat Vitality
Naibu’s energy to do ghost stuff comes from beating hearts! This is a passive absorption of a subtle energy that is released when a living human heart beats, but it doesn’t travel very far, so he has to snuggle up close. Given the physical pushback he gets from trying to overlap with live humans, his ideal heartbeat-harvesting position is plopped on someone’s chest, but perching on their shoulder works too! He has to be within two feet of the heart to feed on the heartbeat, and it has to be beating.

Living heartbeats feel like a warm hug, if Naibu is close enough to absorb it. It’s kind of the only positive physical sensation of which he is currently capable, so he seeks it out... a lot.

Ghostly Locomotion
Naibu floats! Which is good, because he doesn’t really interact with the world otherwise without a lot of effort. He is not affected by wind, walls, or other structures, but is affected by strong light, sound, and other frequency-type energies. These slow him down like a balloon in a proportionately strong breeze, or just push him around if he doesn’t fight them. Additionally, direct contact with living humans will cause him to ooze away; relative speed does not factor in, as he has no mass, so he cannot be sent flying by brute force. Kinda like trying to grab soap with wet hands.

Note: Naibu has no mass with which to experience things like gravity, but he does travel with the planet as it circles the sun and so on. His velocity-matching to the planet’s rotation isn’t quite as perfect, and he has a slight tendency to drift east if nothing or no one stops him. Also, travelling into or away from the ground requires at least minor attention on his part; it isn’t more tiring than travelling through anything else, but if he doesn’t pay attention he will gravitate back to the surface (OOC note: this is just so he doesn’t accidentally drift into the centre of the planet and get lost).

Flexible Ectoplasm
Naibu can change what he looks like! Kinda. He always looks like he’s barely there. The shape, though, that is malleable. It’s easiest to make himself look human, although it gets harder the further from his torso he goes and the more detail he incorporates. His default ‘clothing’ is his school uniform from when he was a kid, resized to fit his still-growing body (he doesn’t have to think too much about that, fortunately!). He doesn’t have to look human, but that is the form that comes naturally to him. He cannot change his form while exhausted.

Possession
Now this is some ghostly stuff! Naibu can possess inanimate objects and ‘ride’ living organisms. To possess an object, he first occupies the same space as it (he doesn’t have to take the same shape, but he does have to fit entirely within it), and then exerts his will upon it (consuming two Heart Points). If the object is moved while he has possessed it, he will move with the object; he also becomes susceptible to all forces enacted upon it, although he doesn’t feel pain. If riding something alive and completely willing, he can pick up on their senses, in exchange for a reduction in his own sight, hearing, and vocal production.

Tangibility
Ghosts wanna be real too! Naibu can concentrate his essence to make either pieces of himself or his entire form tangible and able to interact with the world as if he were a living human. Currently, he can only achieve this state when he is in his human shape. Tangibility restores Naibu’s sense of touch (when intangible, he can only feel the vague repulsive force of living people and the cozy warmth of living heartbeats) in the regions that are currently tangible.


Super Move: Whack-a-Ghost
Neener neener, can’t touch this~
Naibu takes full advantage of his intangibility to not only go through attacks and objects, but to taunt his opponent into trying to hit him... while he dodges in and out of walls and things, popping out and blowing raspberries, catcalling, or simply insulting the other person’s mother.  Of course, most things won’t hit him anyway, but that’s beside the point.  He can’t do anything back, but if he exhausts the person trying to fight him, then he still wins!

Costs 2 Heart Points per turn to maintain his speed and agility.

WEAKNESSES/LIMITATIONS:
Limits
Heartbeat Vitality
One post of a resting heart rate provide one Heart Point, which is enough to sustain Naibu’s basic functions for a thread (outside of threads: one minute of cuddling provides one hour of basic activity). One post of an accelerated heart rate (not calm for any reason) will provide two Heart Points (three if extremely elevated).

Should Naibu be within range of more than one heartbeat at the same time, he can feed on each of them to increase the rate of recharge.

In combat, Naibu must remain within range of the heartbeat for the entire post to gain the Heart Point, not simply pass by.

Naibu can currently store up to ten Heart Points at a time, as he hasn’t really trained to increase his capacity, and consumes one Heart Point per thread for basic functions.

Ghostly Locomotion
He can travel in any direction at up to 15 km/h (one Heart Point provides two posts) or cruise at walking speed (one Heart Point provides six posts); he can drift more passively as long as he isn’t exhausted (zero Heart Points)

Flexible Ectoplasm
Changing into his human form requires one post of time and two Heart Points; maintaining it costs one Heart Point per post. Returning to his basic form is effectively instantaneous if he runs out of Heart Points, chooses to revert, or becomes unable to maintain concentration.

Changing into a basic, low-detail shape requires one post of time and three Heart Points; maintaining it costs two Heart Points per post. A complex form, such as an animal, requires three posts of time and six Heart Points; maintenance costs three Heart Points per post. Naibu can expand to about the volume of a Smartcar or contract to the size of a baseball.

Possession
Two Heart Points to possess a thing. Naibu can further impose his will on something he is possessing in order to attempt to make it move or operate. This costs one Heart Point for every ten pounds of weight or step of operation required (i.e. pushing a button, turning a knob, or flipping a switch). When making an object move, he can spend an extra Heart Point per post to move it up to his usual speed (plus the cost of that movement); otherwise, it’s like someone just gave the object a quick shove.

Possessing the living is much more complicated. He has to work much harder to get ‘in’ in the first place, although being so close to a beating heart is refreshing. A welcoming (or at least neutral; OOC player permission) host still costs four Heart Points to ride; a resistant one costs nine (OOC player permission). This cost is consistent between species, though only human hearts will provide Naibu with energy.

At this point, Naibu does not have the Heart Point capacity to force a living host to do anything. Attempting to do so will immediately force him out of a resistant host, and regardless of host support will cause him to drop to zero Heart Points.

Not compatible with Tangibility.

Tangibility
Partial tangibility, such as only his hands, costs three Heart Points. Full body tangibility costs five Heart Points. Maintaining tangibility costs two or three Heart Points respectively. His sense of touch while tangible is dull, about half as sensitive as the standard human sense.

Not compatible with Possession.

Weaknesses and Vulnerabilities
Naibu has effectively no direct combat ability. At all. A human child can do more, no matter how much he learns. Why? Because he has to be tangible in order to do anything other than talk and maybe scare people, and being tangible is exhausting. If he does nothing else, and cannot recharge during a fight, Naibu can maybe be fully tangible for one post; the second would exhaust him, and that assumes he isn’t moving around! He’s better off possessing conveniently placed objects and shoving them around... although he theoretically could possess something as a weapon for up to.... two turns if he wants to move at more than walking speed. Yeah. He could probably possess a gun and get a shot off (if the safety is already off and all he has to do is pull the trigger). Or he can be sneaky! He’s good at that.

While Naibu is effectively immune to most attacks, given his lack of substance, anything involving light or sound (technically, anything moving in that sort of wave) does act upon him as a physical force. Strong light (unfiltered sunlight, high powered flashlights, etc) will actively push him away from its source, as will sound louder than a raised voice. The more intense the light or sound, the greater the force against him. These forces, along with attempted exorcism, are the only things that trigger pain when Naibu is incorporeal, although successful exorcism is probably the only thing that can kill him...... again. Maybe getting eaten by another ghost.

RANK/LEVEL: C
SUMMARY:
Hey, a ghost has to get around, and it’s not like he can just call up a cab or something. Naibu has developed a knack for figuring out where he is, inside or outside, and how to leverage his passive eastward drift into an internal compass. That being said... his routes rarely align with anyone else’s, and may cut through, ah, barriers.

RANK/LEVEL: D-
SUMMARY:
Not having vocal chords doesn’t stop Naibu from making words out loud, so why should it stop him from making sound effects? He can totally make convincing engine noises, especially fighter jet engine noises (he’s only heard heard jets on TV).

RANK/LEVEL: C+
SUMMARY:
Practice makes better, and Naibu has had lots of practice getting up close and personal. with locks. Now, there are plenty of locks that he hasn’t encountered, and electronic locks are a bit beyond his professional education, but padlocks, door locks, and a range of safe security devices might as well have a sheet of for-dummy instructions taped to them. Who needs lock picks when they have a Polterheist?

RANK/LEVEL: (write proposed rank here)
SUMMARY:
A good paragraph explaining the details of this skill, remember that it will coordinate with their skill level.
- Skills are what a NORMAL human can learn with enough time and practice/talent.
- Anything supernatural or breaking force of nature is a QUIRK so bear that in mind!
- Skills and quirks cannot overlap (E.g Strength boost skill + strength quirk)- So pick one please!
- In general, someone with a non combatant quirk will be allowed more higher level skills and vice-versa with combat oriented quirks being regulated to lower end skills..

Vhexxen

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