Princess
(Mutants & Masterminds RPGs)
Context
Princess is a character in the Mutants & Masterminds 3rd edition and DC Adventures games. She’s featured in character creation examples. Her team, the Sentinels, are the “official characters” of M&M3rd. Meaning that they are used in the decorative illustrations and the like.
She’s a straightforward character with a simple charm.
Princess (and her home, Emerald City) exists in the same world as Freedom City, the previous official setting for Mutants & Masterminds material.
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Background
- Real Name: Jessica Prentiss.
- Marital Status: Single.
- Known Relatives: None.
- Group Affiliation: Sentinels.
- Base of Operations: Emerald City.
- Height: 5’8″ Weight: 130 lbs.
- Eyes: Blue Hair: Blonde
Powers & Abilities
Princess has enhanced strength, speed and durability. She’s also bright and charismatic.
Using her available M&M stats, she has “Class 25” strength, can cross about 900 feet in a single bound, and has a small healing factor .
A curious “side power” is that people simply do not recognise Jessica Prentiss as Princess. Unlike Clark Kent, she doesn’t even have to wear glasses. This may be a psionic ability, and it works even on non-living subjects (such as computers doing data analysis).
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Krypto-Saiyan
Her physical might progresses whenever she’s challenged enough. Though there’s theoretically no limit to this, she has hit plateaux on several occasions in the past. One also suspects that diminishing returns are going to become a thing… if that’s not already the case.
On the other hand, if her confidence falters and she feels she cannot take on a given challenge, her superhuman brawn is going to deflate. She might collapse all the way down to the levels of strength, endurance, speed, etc. plain Jessica would otherwise have.
These mechanics are reminiscent of Byrne’s version of Superman right after the Crisis on Infinite Earths, explaining his Kryptonian-class powers as psionics. The notion that “strength” was actually a form of telekinesis was later explored with Superboy (Kon-El), and the Strontian warrior Gladiator, a Superman expy , has a similar thing with confidence-based might.
History
Jessica Prentiss grew up in the suburbs of Emerald City. She was bright and precocious, but had trouble adapting to her body after puberty hit. Despite being gawky and not really trying, she proved amazingly good at school sports, with multiple coaches interested in recruiting her.
Realising that it didn’t add up, the teenager started reading about physiology, mutant biology and medicine. Reaching the conclusion that she was a mutant or mutate , she carefully and discreetly experimented to determine the limits of her strength and durability.
By the time she started pre-med, she could lift at least a ton, leap across more than 20 metres, run at horse-level speeds, and ignore ordinary sources of wounds. However, she seemed to plateau at this level.
All things pink and spangly
A bit later, her college campus was attacked by Junkpile. To her own amazement, Jessica could lift a car Junkpile had thrown into the café she was in, making it possible to rescue wounded and trapped patrons. She then attacked the villain.
Though she was manifestly outmuscled, her strength, speed and resilience kept increasing during the fight. They rose until she could trap her opponent under car wrecks in a nearby junkyard. The press called her “Princess”, since that was what was written on the T-shirt she was wearing that day.
To her further amazement, nobody recognized Jessica as Princess once the fight was over. Even though she was wearing the exact same clothes and her face had been exposed all along. So she just got her bag and walked home.
Silver Storm
For a year, Princess occasionally operated as a solo heroine. Then an explosion downtown released a strange cloud of gas and energy. It transformed many of the people it touched, empowering and/or mutating them.
The “Silver Storm” marked a new era in Emerald City, with a dramatic increase in superhuman threats. An early consequences was that Princess worked with an ad hoc coalition of heroes – Dragoneye, Kid Robot, Mongrel, Rocky, the Rook, Ultramarine, Victor, Vortex and Xeno. Their response and subsequent investigation into the causes of the Silver Storm led them to formally band as the Sentinels.
The Sentinels are the most recognized and accepted super-heroes in Emerald City. Princess is one of the more popular persons on the roster. The team quickly arranged for a high-tech headquarters, and various advanced vehicles.
Description
A tall-ish lass with long blonde hair reaching the small of her back. Though she’s described as relatively ordinary, the art consistently gives her heroic curves and (less consistently) a ripped physique.
Princess usually wears blue jeans and white sneakers. Her trademark “costume” is some form of girly girl T-shirt with the word “Princess” across the chest. Typically it will be a baby pink cotton belly shirt, with “PRINCESS” in sequined letters.
Personality
Smart, confident and ambitious. As Princess she is bombastic, helpful and supportive, with a certain Silver Age four-colour sheen to her dialogue. As Jessica she is nerdy, mousy and primarily interested in books, her studies, and video games.
She cultivates the differences between the two so she doesn’t accidentally weaken the odd “spell” that protects her secret identity. She’s glad to have retained her privacy, which she greatly values.
Prentiss is in a serious, long-term relationship with one Mitchell Allen. They are quite close.
Quotes
“You guys want to just give up now and save yourselves a beating ? Please feel free to say no.”
“Hey, watch the couture, boys !”
Marvel Universe History
A blonde, super-strong lass named Prentiss would presumably have ties to Namorita. Was she another clone daughter whose origins were hidden as she was left for adoption on the surface world ?
She and Namorita might even have been raised together, with Jessica keeping her identity secret even from her older sister Namorita to avoid being entangled into New Warriors business.
Game Stats — DC Heroes RPG
Tell me more about the game stats
Princess
| Dex: 05 | Str: 11 | Bod: 10 | Motivation: Uphold good |
| Int: 05 | Wil: 05 | Min: 06 | Occupation: Pre-med student |
| Inf: 06 | Aur: 05 | Spi: 06 | Wealth: 002 |
| Init: 018 | HP: 045 |
Powers:
Invulnerability: 09, Jumping: 08, Regeneration: 02, Running: 05, Sealed systems: 05
Skills:
Acrobatics (Athletics): 07, Charisma (Intimidation): 07, Medicine: 02
Advantages:
Leadership, Lightning Reflexes.
Connections:
Power Loss (when Princess’ confidence falters, she starts losing APs in her Physical Attributes and Skills. At worst, she will go down to 02s).
Drawbacks:
MIA toward Upholding the Good.
Design Notes
Her land speed was increased from her M&M stats, since the values given were oddly pedestrian. So to speak.
Look ma, no glasses !
The “spell” that prevents Jessica from being recognised as Princess (and vice-versa) is modelled as her simply having neither the Public ID Drawback nor the Secret ID Drawback. Protecting her identity isn’t an issue, and neither is protecting her privacy.
If you want something more explicit, it is possible to model it as Obscure: 10, limited to increasing the OV/RV of attempts at detecting a link between Jessica and Princess.
Source of Character: Mutants & Masterminds 3rd RPGs.
Writeup completed on the 26th of January, 2017.