Name: Dorothy Gale Val Char Cost 5 STR -5 14 DEX 12 8 CON -4 10 BODY 13 INT 3 14 EGO 8 18 PRE 8 16 COM 3 3 PD 2 2 ED 3 SPD 6 4 REC 2 16 END 17 STUN Characteristic Rolls: STR: 10-, DEX: 12-, CON: 11-, INT: 12-, EGO: 12-, PER: 12- Run: 6", Swim: 2", Jump: 1", Lift: 50 kg Cost Powers END/Roll 10 Mental Defense 13 15 25% Resistant Damage Reduction, Physical and Energy, -1 Only vs. Magic Cost Skills, Talents, Perks Roll 3 Bureaucratics 3 Climbing 3 Conversation 3 Persuasion 2 PS: Farm Girl 11- 3 Riding 3 Seduction 3 Stealth 3 Traveler 1 CK: Emerald City 11- 1 AK: Oz 11- 1 AK: Ev 11- 1 AK: Mangaboo Caverns 11- 20 Talent: Luck 4D6 5 Talent: Resistance, +5 to EGO Roll 5 Perk: Princess of Oz 25+ Disadvantages 20 Normal Characteristics Maximums 20 Hunted 11-: Nome King, more powerful 10 Watched 11-: Princess Ozma 20 Never Gives Up, common, total 20 Extreme Reputation 14-: Awesomely Powerful Witch 5 Farm Girl, easily concealable OCV: 5; DCV: 5; ECV: 5; Mental Def.: 13; Phases: 4, 8, 12 PD/rPD: 3/0; ED/rED: 2/0 Costs: Char.: 35 Disad.: 95 Powers: + 85 Base: + 25 Exp.: + Total: = 120 Total: = 120 Height: cm ( ' "), Weight: kg ( lbs), Sex: Female, Race: Caucasian Appearance: Dorothy Gale is an attractive girl with large, appealing eyes, a beguiling smile, and brown hair that bleaches blonde in the summer sunshine. She's a little thin -- harvests haven't been too good on her Uncle Henry's farm -- but wiry. Her hands are toughened by her farm chores, and she wears faded calico or gingham dresses made by her Aunt Em. At the beginning of her adventures in Oz she is around six years old. When Princess Ozma invites her and her family to live at the palace in Oz she is approaching 12. She speaks in vernacular American English and maintains her plain folks manner even while wearing fancy gowns in Ozma's palace. Background: Kansas farm girl Dorothy Gale first arrived in Oz by accident when a cyclone swept up her aunt and uncle's one-room house and dumped it in the eastern territory of the Munchkins. The falling house crushed the Wicked Witch of the East, who had oppressed the little people for years. The Munchkins hailed Dorothy as a hero and powerful sorceress despite her protestations that she was an ordinary little girl. Desiring to return to Kansas, she travelled to the Emerald City hoping to get assistance from the Wizard of Oz. On the way she befriended the Scarecrow, Tin Woodman and Cowardly Lion. At the capital, the four companions were told they would have to slay the Wicked Witch of the West before the Wizard would grant their requests. Dorothy and her friends headed west only to be captured by the Witch's Winged Monkeys. The Witch coveted the Silver Slippers Dorothy had taken from the Wicked Witch of the East but was afraid to harm the girl because she was under the protection of the Good Witch of the North. Dorothy was made a kitchen slave, and the Witch managed to trip the girl and seize one of her shoes. Infuriated, Dorothy threw a bucket of dishwater at the Witch, who promptly melted. Dorothy rescued her friends and returned to the Emerald City only to have the Wizard delay in granting her an audience. She and her friends barged into the Throne Room and found Oscar Zoroaster Diggs hiding behind a screen. Diggs admitted his wizardry was fake but offered to take Dorothy back to the United States in a balloon he had constructed. She missed the launch by chasing her dog, Toto, who had jumped out of the balloon's basket after a cat. Grieved but undeterred, Dorothy sought help from Glinda the Good, Witch of the South. Glinda told her that the Silver Slippers would enable her to return home, and they did. Several years later, Dorothy was washed overboard while accompanying her Uncle Henry on a voyage to Australia. She and a yellow hen named Billina managed to float ashore on a wooden chicken coop that had been torn loose from the ship. While hiding from unfriendly natives, Dorothy and Billina stumbled upon the inert form of Tiktok, a mechanical man who had been abandoned by his former owner. After she wound him up, Tiktok infomed Dorothy that she was in the kingdom of Ev, a land adjacent to Oz whose royal family had been imprisoned by the Nome King. At the palace in Evna, Dorothy, Billina, and Tiktok ran into her old friends and Oz's new ruler, Princess Ozma, who had come to free the Queen of Ev and her ten children. The group journeyed to the Nome King's underground dominions to ask him to free his captives. Roquat, the Nome King, informed Ozma and Dorothy that his prisoners had been transformed into ornaments to decorate his palace. He offered to free them if his visitors could correctly guess which ornaments they were. Each of Dorothy's friends guessed incorrectly and were themselves transformed into knickknacks. However, Dorothy and Billina figured out that the Evians had been transformed into imperial purple objects and the Ozites into green objects. Enraged, Roquat attempted to back out on his bargain, but the Scarecrow hurled one of Billina's eggs at him. While Roquat was temporarily disabled, Dorothy seized the Magic Belt he used to work his enchantments and donned it herself. She used the belt to return the party to Evna and then herself and her friends to Oz. There, Ozma used the belt to send her home. Dorothy made two more journeys to Oz, once with the Wizard and once with the Shaggy Man, but returned to stay when her aunt and uncle lost their farm. While she was helping her relatives adjust to their strange new home, Roquat's army tunnelled beneath the Deadly Desert in an effort to seize the Magic Belt and take revenge. Ozma discovered the plot by magic but, realizing that her people could not defeat the Nome King in open battle, refused to assemble an army. Dorothy and her companions gathered in the palace courtyard where the nomes were expected to emerge. When Roquat's forces broke through, however, they were maddened with thirst from the tunnel dust and drank immediately from the Forbidden Fountain nearby. The fountain's waters made them forget what they came for, and the befuddled nomes marched home again. Dorothy settled into palace life as a princess of Oz. Powers and Abilities: On her initial visit to Oz, Dorothy was given a protective kiss on the forehead by the Good Witch of the North. In addition to warning off evil beings, it provided her with basic resistance to mental and magical attack. This and her natural Kansas stubborness enables her to keep going when her companions have succumbed. For example, the girl recovered from the effects of the Wicked Witch's poison poppies more quickly than the Cowardly Lion. Her true power lies in her ability to get the diverse inhabitants of Oz and its neighbors to cooperate with one another. Dorothy's friendly, open manner quickly earns the trust of those she meets. Her travels have forged an international alliance that has thwarted the efforts of evil creatures to plunge the fairy realms into a new dark age. Of course, it doesn't hurt her reputation that Dorothy has temporarily gained possession of several potent artifacts during her career. The Silver Slippers, taken from the dead feet of the Wicked Witch of the East, enabled her to instantly travel anywhere on the planet (Faster-Than-Light Travel that does work in an atmosphere?). They were lost during her return to Kansas. The Golden Cap, taken from the Wicked Witch of the West, enabled her to summon a limitless number of Winged Monkeys to do her bidding. She had the monkeys carry her and her companions to Glinda the Good's castle in southern Oz, then gave the cap to Glinda. She confiscated the Nome King's Magic Belt (a huge Cosmic Power Pool) after he lost a bet with her and used it to teleport herself and her friends from the mountains of Ev to the Emerald City. Knowing the belt would be useless in Kansas, she gave it to Princess Ozma. Disadvantages: Because she slew two wicked witches and thwarted the Nome King in his own tunnels, Dorothy is known as a powerful magic-user even though she's a normal little girl. Good people come to her expecting her to be able to solve their problems. Evil people are immediately on the defensive and frequently try to capture her before she can upset their plans, even when her appearance in their vicinity is coincidental. The Nome King hasn't forgotten his defeat and is scheming to avenge himself and retrieve his Magic Belt. ==================== The Defenders of Oz Why write up the Oz crew for the Hero System? There are several good reasons. According to author L. Frank Baum, Oz is a difficult to reach but real place located on early twentieth-century Earth, much like other lost worlds such as Maple White Land, King Solomon's Mines or Pellucidar. And like them, it preserves something from the planet's past, in this case, functioning magic. It is conceivable that a hardy band of cowboys or pulp adventurers or a superhero team could stumble upon Oz during their travels. Also, the heroes of the Oz books are arguably the earliest example of a modern superhero team, predating the Justice Society of America by more than forty years. While they may not be as "super" as later protagonists, they demonstrably have abilities beyond those of mortal men. The Cowardly Lion's powerful muscles enable him to leap wide ravines and reach palace balconies with a single bound. The Tin Woodman and Tiktok are at least men of metal, if not of steel, impervious to blades and to the primitive firearms native to Oz. The Shaggy Man, while not strictly a master of men's minds, frequently gains the loving cooperation of total strangers. Dorothy Gale may not be able to bend steel in her bare hands, but she is an all-American heroine raised by foster parents on a small Kansas farm. Like Captain America of the Avengers, she's able to get her motley collection of powerful friends to work together to protect the people of Oz against evil. ==================== Hero System write-up by Kevin Scrivner