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Tiamat Player: @JessieSpark Dr. Helen Brandt Class Focus: Hybrid Power Level: Variable (see notes) Research & Development: Science Personal Data Real Name: Dr. Helen Brandt Known Aliases: Kali, Eris, the Second Law of Thermodynamics, Wärmetod Species: Avatar (formerly human) Ethnicity: German Age: 13.8 trillion/38 years Height: 5'4" Weight: 110 lbs. Eye Color: Brown Hair Color: Brown Biographical Data Nationality: German Occupation: Researcher at CERN (former) Place of Birth: Munich, Germany Base of Operations: Not applicable Marital Status: Married Known Relatives: Husband (Dr. Wilhelm Brandt), two children (Marcus and Elli) Known Powers Time Control (Immortality, Invulnerability, Teleportation, Matter and Energy Control) Known Abilities Variable and inconsistent Equipment None

Dr. Helen Brant

Dr. Brandt was a researcher studying the underlying physics of metahuman abilities.

History

In the beginning - the very beginning - something, somewhere, gained sentience. It became aware of itself and its surroundings and, eventually, of the other universes of possibility. It reproduced itself, and its children manipulated one of the nearby universes to create life - which itself eventually gained sentience, awareness, the ability to control its environment. With guidance from the original beings (one might call them gods, but that would be mistaking the face for the person behind it), they too learned of other universes, transcended the limits of their reality, and created extradimensional children.

This has been going on literally forever.

The beings eventually found one universe with a seemingly hospitable set of laws, and, roughly 13.8 trillion years after its creation, they had finally managed to create themselves in miniature. But this universe had a law, that states that within its boundaries, entropy always, on average, increases.

Life was not an exceptional burden on this law, since it was an exceptional incidence in an unclosed system. But when the gods gave a little of their power to the new life within it, it violated this law. The stress was sufficient for the universe to choose one of the forms of life and imbue it with power, in an attempt to evict the gods and erase their influence. This being the Sumerians called Tiamat, mistaking her for the mother of the gods themselves.

The gods fought a war against Tiamat, and ultimately destroyed its physical manifestation. The war was terrible enough, though, that they elected to retreat back to their original universe and only influence humanity indirectly, in the hopes that the universe would not spawn another avatar.

The Sumerians recorded a garbled version of the story of the war in the Enûma Elish. Several times in history the universe has created a new manifestation of entropy, trying to correct the balance. Each time it was defeated, but each iteration grew stronger, as sentient life multiplied and learned new ways of controlling the world around them.

The recent explosion of the metahuman population made another manifestation inevitable.

Goals

The current manifestation of Tiamat seeks to retroactively remove the possibility of superpowers which contradict the law it embodies. Failing that, it seeks the retroactive extinction of life, her current incarnation included. (Since from the point of view of the universe time is just another dimension, simply destroying all life is insufficient for her needs.)

Dr. Brandt's consciousness understands Tiamat's goals, and desperately seeks to warn anyone she comes across. Through force of will, she has managed to persuade Tiamat that destruction of all life is technically unnecessary. However, it is likely that universal extinction is an easier goal to meet, and her efforts may prove in vain.

Powers

Tiamat's powers are, at the core, an ability to manipulate time. She exists nonlinearly in time; when the players encounter her, she may be moving backwards, forwards or sideways through time at any rate.

Tiamat can only cause effects which increase entropy. She cannot do anything that makes the world more ordered. She cannot create new information out of nothing; she cannot reverse gravity, though she can increase it; she cannot create anything complex, or cause heat to flow from a colder body to a warmer one. Furthermore, her powers are much reduced in the absence of superhumans, and she cannot change the other fundamental laws of the universe.

Within these bounds, though, she has few limits. She can move a person's body heat to the ground, causing instant hypothermic shock. She can fuse elements lighter than iron, releasing tremendous amounts of energy. She can move fast enough to evade any attack which does not move at the speed of light. She can increase gravity to immobilize enemies; if too many superhumans attack her at once, she may have the power to create a singularity, destroying the Earth in the process. (This is one of the possibilities Dr. Brandt is struggling most to avoid.)

Roleplay

Tiamat's powers scale both to the prevalence of metahumans in the population, and with their proximity to her manifestation. Normal human beings stand as much chance against her as the most powerful superhuman. Using a team of superhumans to fight against her is worse than useless - it actually makes her disproportionately more powerful.

Dr. Brandt will seek to communicate with anyone she can, but, seeing as Tiamat moves through time and space erratically, it is likely her message will be garbled or misunderstood as a threat. Killing Dr. Brandt (but not destroying the body) would cut off the heroes' most important ally; Tiamat is now powerful enough to animate her body.

Destroying this manifestation of Tiamat is only a temporary solution. With the current metahuman population, it is likely she will find a new opportunity to incarnate herself again within a few months, and the new host may be more pliable than Dr. Brant.

Truly stopping Tiamat is possible. The players could allow her to fulfill her goal of eradication of metahuman powers, though it is unlikely they'd accede to this. They could psychically strengthen Dr. Brandt to the point where she can control Tiamat, or alter the universe itself to permit metahuman powers to coexist with the Second Law.