Midnight Hour

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.

As to this specific character – I’m playing in a PBEM right now, and I thought I would share the character I’m using. He’s a little hastily assembled, but I think he’s fun.

Background

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Powers and Abilities

Daniel’s intellect and mechanical skills have allowed him to build the Blackout Box, Miracle Pack and Goggles. All of these gadgets he has incorporated into his costume, allowing him to activate any of them when needed.

History

Daniel used to be a technician in the St. Louis S.T.A.R. Labs facility. One of the best and the brightest, he helped develop a number of procedures and devices for the biotechnology industry. All of that changed when he was caught in a lab explosion that took away his sight.

Morose, he holed himself up in his apartment. He had lost any direction in his life. One day, a friend from the lab dropped by and revealed some shocking news. The explosion had been engineered by a higher-up at the lab.

The project that Daniel had been working on was a vitality stimulator, an artificial means to keep the body strong and healthy. A consortium of mob-run insurance companies and a competing lab hired the plant to destroy the research. The friend had happened to overhear details when he was working late.

Against the conspiracy

Daniel felt that he had to do something to help uncover the conspiracy. Inspired by stories of superheroes that existed almost 80 years ago, he saw that his research could be turned into crime-fighting equipment. Working feverishly with the friend, they amplified the vitality stimulator into a short-term super-strength booster.

To power it, they developed a machine capable of sucking energy off the photons in the area, causing impenetrable darkness. Finally, they built a crude seeing device for Daniel, one that operated on sonar, that allowed him to see the world, albeit without color and details.

He named himself after the two inspirations, Hourman and Dr. Mid-nite, and proceeded to bring down the people responsible for his “accident.” In the process, though, the friend was killed when the mob found out he had leaked information.

S.T.A.R. Labs was grateful enough to Daniel to hire him again as a advisor and designer. Although he could no longer work on building inventions he could help in their development. Bolstered by the excitement and the knowledge that there was more human evil in the world, he kept his superhero identity.

Description

In his superhero persona, the Midnight Hour, Daniel wears a black hooded cape over his bodysuit.

The suit is primarily brown, but on the torso front, there is a vertical semi-ellipse that extends up from the belt. Inside the ellipse is a marking that looks like the hour and minute hand of a clock pointing up to 12. The “face” of the clock is black and the “hands” are a dark red.

His gloves are two-toned, black and red, black on top and red on the underarm, and his calf-high boots are just black. The belt which contains the Blackout Box and Miraclo Pack is red.

Personality

Except for the period right after his blinding, Daniel is a very excitable, young man. He is known to get an idea and work to bring it to fruition for several weeks, stopping only to eat and (barely) sleep.

He brings that enthusiasm to his superheroing. Although his friend from the lab was killed and he was permanently blinded, he does not patrol the night in a quest for revenge. Actually he just feels that there must be a strong presence of good to offset the bad.

With people, he is personable and makes friends fairly easily. His work takes priority over socializing, though.

By Henry Chen.