Black Claw
(Dannielle Hargaty)
Context
This character is an original creation. We often call these “homemades” or “homebrewed” – think home cooking or craft beer.
Many of these characters were created to take part in tabletop role-playing game sessions. Others were invented as a creative writing exercise, often as part of a community event.
This specific character was created for writeups.org Pufnstuff’s son first game, and follow a Naruto theme.
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Background
- Real Name: Unrevealed.
- Other Aliases: Dannielle Hargaty.
- Marital Status: Single.
- Known Relatives: Colin Hawksmoor (father).
- Group Affiliation: (former) the Hand.
- Base Of Operations: Greater Manhattan.
- Height: 5’ 6” Weight: 130 lbs Age: Early 20s.
- Eyes: Green Hair: Black
Powers and Abilities
Black Claw, originally a jonin of the Hand, has many of the typical abilities of traditional ninja. She is skilled in the arts of espionage and infiltration.
Furthermore, she has mastered several semi-mystical ninja arts (or jutsu), granting her the abilities to avoid detection or distract and/or confuse his opponents.
Black Claw has mastered a specific jutsu that allows her to duplicate nearly any physical feat or special power that she sees. This powerful jutsu is considered forbidden among the Hidden Village clans. But is embraced by the Hand, where it is considered a potent weapon for those who are able to master it.
Oddly, it echoes the special power of her alleged father, Colin Hawksmoor, who has a learned power to read the kinesthetic movements of others.
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History
Black Claw, a former jonin of the Hand, runs a small but up-and-coming criminal enterprise. It specializes in high-risk and difficult assignments. Claw herself wants to assert an increasing level of control on the New York Crime World. She is looking forward to challenging Colin Hawksmoor’s Irish Wolfhounds for control of the local criminal mercenaries’ enterprise.
What is known of the Black Claw is only what she herself has revealed. So far nothing can be confirmed. She claims that her father was Colin Hawksmoor, current leader of the Irish Wolfhounds gang. Hawksmoor abandoned her mother before she was born. The Claw seeks revenge on her father by taking away everything he had built over the years.
To this end, she has recruited an elite team of supers and specialists. Then she launched a campaign directed to take down the Irish Wolfhounds with surgical, almost military strikes. These interfere with his operations, cut his lines of supply and information, and demoralize his troops.
Description
Black Claw is a striking Irish-Japanese woman with black hair (with reddish highlights in the right light) and a possibly dyed white stripe. She has improbably green eyes which may be contacts. While not tall, she has presence that dominates a room. She usually gives the impression that she could kill for little or no reason (which she has).
Claw wears a simple black jumpsuit that leaves her right arm and shoulder bare. She will normally have a black claw-symbol painted over her right eye. She usually will wear her hair in a single braid down her back.
Personality
Black Claw is, as most villains seem to be, a bit monomaniacal. She doesn’t seem to care for anything except taking over Colin Hawksmoor’s criminal empire.
Pretty much all her efforts go toward this. Don’t be fooled, though. She’s just putting other things on hold. She has long-range plans to deal with her former Hand allies. She will be glad to add any heroes who get in her way to the list.
Quotes
“I appreciate your loyalty. With a hundred like you I could rule the world. With what we have, we will rule Hawksmoor”
Cadre: “He won’t know what hit him.”
Black Claw: “Certainly he will. Me.”
DC Universe History
The Black Claw syndicate can be used anywhere in the standard DC Universe there is an established crime lord who could use taking down a peg or two. Black Claw and her small cadre of superhumans would make a fitting group of opponents for any fledgling group of supers (it’s what they were designed for), or for a single well-established hero.
Game Stats — DC Heroes RPG
Tell me more about the game stats
Black Claw
A 1235 Point Character
| Dex: 06 | Str: 03 | Bod: 05 | Motivation: Revenge/Power Lust |
| Int: 07 | Wil: 06 | Min: 05 | Occupation: Former Hand Jonin, Aspiring Crime Lord |
| Inf: 05 | Aur: 05 | Spi: 09 | Resources {or Wealth}: 008 |
| Init: 022 | HP: 050 |
Powers:
Jumping: 03, Gliding: 05
Bonuses and Limitations:
- Jumping has the Catfall Bonus (+1).
- Gliding: Contingent to Jumping (-1), Can only be used with Jumping (-1), Extends the horizontal distance of Jumping without increasing the height jumped (0).
Skills:
Acrobatics: 08, Artist (Actor)*: 05, Detective (Clue Analysis, Police Procedures): 05, Evasion (Ranged only): 08, Gadgetry: 05, Martial Artist*: 06, Military Science*: 07, Occultist (Create Artifact, Identify Artifact,): 06, Occultist (Ritual Magic): 08, Scientist: 04, Thief: 08, Vehicles (Air, Land, Water): 04, Weaponry (Ninja Weapons): 07, Weaponry (Firearms): 05
Advantages:
Area Knowledge (New York, Tōkyō), Attractive, Connoisseusse, Lightning Reflexes, Leadership, Expansive HQ, Leadership, Languages (Japanese, English, French), Scholar (Nemesis Jutsu).
Connections:
Black Claw’s Operatives (High), Omni-Connection.
Drawbacks:
MIA (Power and Control), SIH (The Hand), SIA: Deposing Colin Hawksmoor, VERY Secret ID.
Equipment:
- Kunai Blades [BODY 05, EV 03, HP Cost: 13].
- Shuriken [BODY 03, EV 02, Ammo: 06, Dart Bonus, HP Cost: 06].
- Smoke Bombs [BODY 01, Fog: 06, Ammo: 04, R#02, HP Cost: 08].
Rituals:
All Jutsu is Fatiguing (-1), Has 1 phase casting time, and with certain exceptions, require the correct hand signs to cast.
- Clone Jutsu: Illusion: 08, creates a Duplicate Only, 45 HP.
- Substitution/Transformation Jutsu: Illusion: 08, Creates an Illusory Duplicate, over an inanimate Object, Cloaks User w/ Invisibility (35 HP) Misc: For a 15 HP fee, any attack scoring RAP’s on her may be retroactively designated a “substitution”, avoiding potential stuns or other consequences.
- Wall Walking Jutsu: Cling: 03 (2 HP).
- Water Walking Jutsu: Air Walking: 01 (Only toWalk on Water) (1 HP).
- Disguise Jutsu: Invisibility: 02 (10 HP).
- Nemesis Jutsu: Adaptation: 12 (310 HP).
Design Notes
One of the most typical ways I have of producing NPC’s for a game (especially when rushed) is to decide on a character “Type” I want to use, decide a Power Level, choose an already-established iconic character that fits my campaign needs closely, then modify the character’s abilities and background to make the character more unique.
Unless, of course, there’s no established “type” for the character.
In the case of the Black Claw, I wanted a relatively low-level criminal type, close in ability but slightly tougher and more experienced than my son’s PC. I also had in mind a character in the Batman Animated series who was an adversary of Catwoman, a terrorist called the Red Claw.
Looking over a number of WORG writeups, I found that the Black Cat more or less fit my internal “description”. Adding details such as Jutsu Rituals to bring her “flavor” closer to the Naruto Universe (Which inspired my son’s character), I have a decent rival crime lord for my Shared Universe.
New rules – Mysterious Background Aka VERY Secret ID [15 points]
A higher value of Secret Identity, MB is used where the character in question has no real legal identity, or where the person’s background is so shrouded in mystery that they are essentially defined by their hero (or villain) persona.
This seems like an advantage, but there is also a definite disadvantage in that either the character will need to take extraordinary measures to preserve this anonymity, or that they essentially have no legal identity, and cannot procure housing, credit, education, legal documents, etc, except by illegal means.
Source of Character: Pufnstuff’s 2008 tabletop campaign (his son’s first game).
Helper(s): Writeups.org.