Ghost Owl
But he wasn't alone. A kid in a hoodie that couldn't have been any older than sixteen was huddled up against a nearby wall, shivering not from the cold - he didn't even feel the cold, not now - but from the shock and horror of what he'd just seen. From the anger of allowing it to happen. His name was Jacob Stele and this was a Christmas he'd never forget. Chances are, you know how it goes: a good man dies, a bad man lives, a newborn vigilante, angry, screaming, is baptised in blood. Old tale, played out a thousand times over. But it has punch. It resonates. And you have to make allowances for the classics.
Nevertheless, this time around it seems somebody got bored with the same old script, demanded a last-minute twist thrown in. So a sharp-eyed observer - not that there any other witnesses that night, sharp-eyed or otherwise - would have noticed Jacob was clutching something, staring down at it with the sort of wide eyed disbelief typically reserved for first-time alien encounters. It was a .45 revolver, and it had five bullets chambered. A spent shell casing, still warm, lay in the snow not three feet away. No prizes for guessing where the rest would be found.
"It begins with a different man, a different time. I'm not the first. Maybe I won't be the last, either. But here, now, I'm the only Ghost Owl that matters."
Tobias Sterling was the young heir of Sterling Industries, a leading multinational corporation based in Hudson City. The son of wealthy philanphropists, he was born to a life of privelege - but it was privelege paid for in blood. Their philanphropic veneer was just that - a veneer. A sham. Smoke and mirrors. Make no mistake, Sterling Industries had risen to the top the old-fashioned Hudson way - by stomping down on the masses below. Every dollar in their accounts was as dirty as the choking smog belched by their factories. And everyone knew it - from the lowliest gutter rat to the mayor himself. But decades of bribes, political favours and crippling mismanagement had left the police department impoverished and weak, powerless to act. They could do nothing as the socialites laughed in their faces and danced away from murder. Not without evidence. But there are always some who don't need evidence in order to act - merely an excuse and a full magazine.
Any other kid would have reacted with horror, shock, maybe even moral indignation upon recieving the news that his parents were gunned down in the street. Not Tobias. He knew, all too well, the depths of his family's corruption. He knew that, whatever people said, this wasn't a random mob hit, payback for slighting some crimelord or other. He knew with a cold certainty that this was divine retribution. That this was, in some perverse way, a kind of justice.
It wasn't just the company that Tobias inherited. His was the family legacy, the crushing weight of several generations' corruption, black stains that would never wash out. He was tainted, he knew. And would spend the rest of his life atoning for the sins of his forebears. So he liquidated the company assets and left the country, vowing to one day make amends for his family's transgressions. He claimed to be moving to live with distant relatives in Europe, but in actuality he was going on a journey - a harsh, gruelling journey - to become the man he needed to be. To train, mind, body and spirit, for a colossal undertaking.
He returned years later to make good on this promise, to give back in full what had had taken. He donated his considerable wealth to charity and joined the clergy, fading into the background. The gesture was genuine - - unlike his parents who only paid lip service to god, he was a staunch catholic - but that didn't change the fact that it was a stunt, a necessary smokescreen; by reducing himself to poverty he was effectively removed from the picture, away from the public eye. Away from suspicion. Tobias Sterling was a mere mortal. And, frankly, that just wasn't going to cut it. Most of the Sterling money still remained in various offshore accounts. That too would be used to make amends to the people of Hudson - but in a very different way. By day he would live the quiet, unassuming life of a pious ascetic. But by night? Well, his nights would be anything but quiet. And the only thing coming close to piety would be the assorted criminals of Hudson City saying their prayers.
Tobias chose the summer of 1962 to make his debut - anonymously. The police who later raided the dockside warehouse found a metric tonne of cocaine, a small army of thugs exhibiting an entire medical encyclopedia's worth of injuries and one Marco Narcelli, notorious underboss of the Danovicci crime family, tarred, feathered and hanging from the rafters. During an interview, he described his assailant as 'some psycho in an owl costume'. For the next few months the papers, local news and street gossip were all abuzz with speculation, rumours and alleged sightings of the mysterious new crimefighter. He didn't stay anonymous for long.
"...man reportedly dressed as an owl foiled a bank robbery..."
"...no hostages were harmed..."
"...the would-be victim Fred Highfield, 46, described his rescuer as 'a ghost'..."
"...We don't care what 'good' he thinks he's doing. This Owlman, he gets caught breaking the law and he goes down..."
"...don't he realise Halloween ain't for another four months..."
"...HCPD commissioner issued a warrant for the masked vigilante's arrest..."
"...just another crook with an entitlement complex..."
"...a real hero..."
"...another sighting of Hudson's very own ghost owl..."
"...Ghost Owl..."
Ghost Owl. Maybe it wasn't what Tobias would have chosen for himself, but he never raised any objections. Not to the name and not to anything else - the see-sawing opinions of the press, the arrest warrants, the public denouncements and whispered praise; none of it mattered. He just continued his private war in silence and left everyone else to draw their own conclusions.
Maybe he sought a worthy successor, maybe he had a soft spot for strays or maybe he simply wanted someone to make the tea after a long day cracking skulls. But for whatever reason, the mid-eighties saw Ghost Owl break a lifelong habit and take a sidekick under his wing: a teenager who dubbed himself Kid Strigid. A bright boy, exceptionally gifted - smart, brave, loyal, tough; everything a veteran crimefighter could possibly seek in a protege. But the Kid was ultimately cast from a very different mold than his dour mentor - his outspoken views and optimistic (if naive) worldview made him the darling of the media, a veritable poster child for Hudson's cadre of vigilantes. To no-one's great surprise, he grew into a fine young man, a formidable street warrior in his own right - everyone knew it was only a matter of time before the aging Ghost Owl (he must've been, what, in his fifties by now?) would hand over his cape and utility belt to brighter, newer generation.
And then, entirely without warning, the Kid went stark raving mad and tried to murder his mentor. And very nearly succeeded.
But Kid Strigid wasn't what he seemed. For one thing, he was never orphaned by the explosion. He was a street urchin picked abducted by one of Ghost Owl's long-time foes, the underworld strategist-for-hire Checkmate. Just another grubby face in the crowd; no-one would recall him, no-one would miss him. Nobody would ever know that drugs and hypnotherapy had burned away his mind and imprinted a new psyche and memories, that he had been tailor-made into the perfect sidekick. Save one crucial detail: deep-rooted psychological programming that triggered on his twenty-first birthday, an irresistable, irrational urge to kill and usurp Ghost Owl. It was the ultimate irony - Ghost Owl would inadvertantly tutor his own assassin. At the time, it was believed by all parties that Ghost Owl had perished in the ambush - he'd been riddled with bullets and left for dead and to add insult to the injury, his hideout was exposed and ransacked by every two-bit goon with a grudge. No shortage of those. Kid Strigid, figuring his former mentor for dead, stole the mantle of Ghost Owl and set about cutting a bloody swathe through the criminal underworld.
But Ghost Owl, miraculously rejuvenated, put an abrupt end to his former protege's deranged ambitions. After a bloody set of skirmishes, the imposter found himself beaten to a pulp and unceremoniously locked away in a psychiatric ward. That was where he met his end at the hands of a grief-stricken nurse, hell-bent on revenge for the death of a lover caught in the crossfire. The fatal overdose was ruled 'suicide' and forgotten; nobody was fooled, but nobody gave a damn. Except for one man, of course - but they didn't bother to ask his opinion.
Ghost Owl's upgraded costume c. 1990.
Being shot multiple times changes one's
perspective on the need for armour.
Ghost Owl's last pre-millennial appearance occured in the winter of 1998, putting a prompt end to the nefarious activities of Joybuzzer, a harlequin-themed assassin with a penchant for electrocution. And then he simply vanished. Granted, he'd never been one for public appearances, but the Owl still found ways - dramatic, profound ways - to make his presence known, his ever-watchful gaze felt. And, to make matters worse, he'd disappeared at a time when he couldn't have been needed more - every major representative of his rogue's gallery was out in full force. Some said he'd retired (and who could blame him? Crazy guy must've been on the wrong side of sixty by now) but Ghost Owl didn't seem the retiring type; he was just too stubborn to quit, not without a replacement lined up to pick up the slack. And after the fiasco with Kid Strigid, there likely wasn't anyone else he could bring himself to trust. So general consensus was he'd snuffed it, bitten the bullet, tumbled from the nest. All the big newspapers agreed with this assessment.
2002. HCPD were baffled by a wave of new vigilantism. Always the same scene - they'd happen upon some scumbug beaten to a pulp with photographs stapeled to their forehead. Sometimes just the one, sometimes a dozen; didn't take a genius detective to work out the connection between the size of the makeshift photo album and the number of unnecessary broken bones. The pictures, whether newspaper cuttings and website printouts, were all of murder victims, the kind relegated to the back of the big book of unsolved cases to collect dust, thanks to lack of evidence, interest or clout. But here all the juicy details - all the sordid secrets and unsettling facts - were printed on the back. Big letters, too. Easy to read.
And the perps recited the same words over and over, like the chorus of a catchy new song: "It was the Ghost Owl. Ghost Owl's back." But was it the same Ghost Owl? Unlikely - at least according to the reports that came trickling through. It wasn't merely a change in M.O, either. He lacked, at least in the early days, his predecessor's finely-honed edge of experience and made up for it with brutality, improvisation and sheer bloody-minded determination. But in the end, it didn't matter if he wasn't the Ghost Owl. Whether successor of imitation, he was a Ghost Owl. And that was enough.
"Every dirty secret, every little wrong you thought you'd buried for good. No matter how hard you try, how far you run - karma catches up in the end. And me? I'm the delivery man."
The new Ghost Owl doesn't confine himself to Hudson City. Most of his predecessor's rogues gallery have since migrated, so he opted to expand his sphere of influence. It's known that he maintains permanent safehouses in Millennium City, Hudson City and Vibora Bay, but evidence suggests he's made brief sojourns to locales as diverse and distant as Central America, Europe and East Asia. He comes and goes - typically without warning or explanation, though rumours suggest he's lately been attempting to establish a more permanent foothold in Millennium City through the formation of a network of likeminded, hard-hitting vigilantes - much in the vein of the now-defunct Moonlighters, of which he was a founding member.
"You've heard the old saying, 'dead men tell no tales'? Not true. Your last victim, for example. He had plenty of tales to tell - about you."
The original Ghost Owl had no metahuman powers to speak of, but the same cannot be said of his successor. Jacob Stele is a natural medium, harbouring an instinctive form of ESP. He is clairvoyant, clairaudient and to a lesser degree claircognizant, able to see, hear, speak with and sometimes instinctively know the lingering spirits of the dead. By the same token, spirits are, in turn, generally aware of this connection and are thusly drawn to him.
Spirits commonly have important unfinished business and/or strong, tormented emotions that stem from the circumstances of their death. And as they can no longer finish that business or avenge their death, they're trapped, anchored to this world until someone comes along to remove that anchor; a troubleshooter. Someone like Ghost Owl, although all-too-frequently his method of problem solving entails venting the ghost's accumulated anger and sorrow by delivering a brutal beating unto their murderer. Cleansed of their rage, satisfied that justice has been dealt, the vengeful ghost usually (but not always) moves on.
Ghost Owl's ESP lends itself to more than mere communication. In addition, it confers:
- Haunting: Ghost Owl can invite spirits to tether themselves his body, depending on how tightly anchored they are to their haunting ground. Often, he is required to carry about his person an item they were particularly attached to in life - perhaps a piece of jewelry, an old photograph of a loved one, a keepsake, although in a pinch a tooth or fingerbone taken directly from the remains will suffice. Carrying places the spirit in a better position to offer guidance and information, and on occasion their minds may overlap, allowing Ghost Owl brief access to their thoughts and memories. But it's not without danger: if the spirit's thoughts and feelings are particularly vehement, they'll almost invariably influence Owl's emotional state - and that rarely ends well. Some spectres, those that retain a strong sense of self, are capable of hopping aboard regardless of consent, and particularly malevolent entities may try to assume control of his mind and body.
- Memory Bleeding: Particular strong, prominent memories of spirits carried for an extended length of time may trickle through and lodge themselves in Owl's brain on a more permanent basis. This has proved beneficial on occasion, but all too often the memories are merely confounding abstractions devoid of any real background context. Having his head stuffed full of other people's baggage has also been more than a little detrimental to Ghost Owl's ailing mental health.
- Psychometry: Owl can sometimes sense psychic echoes of traumatic past events stemming from locations and physical objects. This power is something of a wildcard, imprecise and random. Exactly what he percieves tends to vary: phantoms that play out the same scene endlessly, a whispering voice that recites the same words over and over, a nauseatingly intense vision or, rarely, simple, instinctive knowledge. Through this ability, he might learn how a patch of blood came to stain the wall of a dingy alleyway, or that a knife he just picked up was once used as a murder weapon.
- Astral Trance: By underdoing the necessary preparation - including intensive meditation and imbibing a fatal dose of poison - Ghost Owl can skirt the border between life and death and, in doing so, open wide his second sight to behold the spirit world in its entirety. This trance state can potentially confer new and profound insights, but it is extremely dangerous to attempt. First and foremost, he is literally on the verge of death - if he doesn't snap out of it in time and administer the antidote, he will die. Secondly, although what he sees and hears is indeed the lower astral plane and he is capable of projecting his spirit on an extremely tight leash, he must physically navigate through world of the living; while there is considerable overlap, the geography doesn't always match up, nor is he in any condition to fight any threats that may arise from either realm.
- Summoning: Sometimes, in the absence of a lingering spirit, Ghost Owl can will the dead back beyond the pale for a brief Q'n'A session - providing he has an appropriate tether. Of all the applications of his power, this one is the least understood for there are a multitude vagaries involved and even if Ghost Owl can coax someone into answering the summons, there's no guarantee that they'll be remotely helpful. Often, they're maddeningly cryptic, able (or perhaps willing) to impart but a tiny fraction of the knowledge they once possessed, speak in gibberish, riddles or about completely unrelated topics, or fail to even acknowledge the questions. The best that can generally be hoped for are terse, one-word responses and playing twenty questions with a spirit quickly wears down one's patience. Owl suspects this power doesn't call back the dead per se, merely an imperfect fascimilie cobbled together from residual psychic echoes.
"It's brutal out there. Either you're good, or you're good as dead. No middle ground, no mediocrity. Excel or die."
- Peak Human Physical Conditioning: Through strict, rigorous excerise, a specialised diet and sheer, gritty determination, Ghost Owl has trained his body to the apex of human physical potential. He routinely displays strength, agility and endurance in line with - or perhaps even exceeding - world-class olympic athletes.
- Martial Arts Mastery: Intensive practice in conjunction with memory bleeding from the spirit of his predecessor have enabled Ghost Owl to become a very dangerous combatant in a very short space of time. In essence, the accumulated knowledge, experience and technique of a seventy year old grandmaster have been stuffed into the body of a man, less than half that age, at the peak of human physiology.
- Enhanced Eyesight: Due to special meditative techniques devised by the original Ghost Owl, his eyesight is borderline metahuman. Much like his namesake he can see in darkness without technological aid, pick out details from a distance, track (albeit with some difficulty) superfast movement and discern the minutiae of body language.
- Seasoned traceur and Acrobat: Freerunning is Ghost Owl's preferred means of transport while out on patrol.
- Skilled Detective: Ghost Owl is familiar with crime scene investigation, forensics and interrogation techniques both common and unorthodox along with a decent level of innate problem solving ability. He is not, however, a master detective in the truest sense - he has a tendency to rely on his ESP to hunt for answers.
- Adept Tactician: Ghost Owl has extensive theoretical and practical knowledge in the application of covert tactics and small-scale psychological warfare. Imaginative and analytical, he can both plan ahead and improvise with equal ability, swiftly adapting to sudden, unforseen changes in circumstances.
- Scientific Expertise: Ghost Owl gleaned more than his fighting prowess from the memories of predecessor. Over the years he's learned how to manufacture and maintain his own tools and equipment. But he is by no means an inventor - all of his hardware was created through the reverse engineering and kitbashing of existing tech. On occasion, he's been grudgingly forced to seek outside help. He also has a decent understanding of chemistry and human biology.
- Occult Lore: Ghost Owl is no stranger to the supernatural and has more than a passing familiarity with the mystic world. He is acquainted at a basic level with the practices and beliefs of various cults and schools of magic; necromancers in particular. This knowledge is strictly academic - he lacks the aptitude or desire to cast spells.
"The tools, the gadgets - they even the odds. When the Lord handed me my gifts, bulletproof skin wasn't part of the deal."
Costume History:
- Owlsuit mk1, 1962-1989: The original suit was nothing special - brown and grey tights, hardened leather bracers and boots, a buckled utility belt sporting large cloth pouches and a flowing scalloped cape attached to a face-concealing cowl. Said cowl featured a 'headdress' of sculpted feathers and a stylised mask fashioned to evoke the image of a horned owl. The sole protective feature of the costume was a lightweight kevlar flak vest concealed beneath the torso. The minimalist nature of the suit reflected the times - back in the sixties, metahumans were still something of a rarity (especially in Hudson) and supertechnology and military-grade ordanance was out of the hands of all but the most well-connected, wealthiest class of criminals. The gradual escalation of supervillainous threats through the late seventies and eighties rendered the costume something of a relic, and the stubborn refusal to upgrade to something sturdier ultimately almost cost Ghost Owl his life.
- Owlsuit mk2, 1990-2012: The second suit was created by Ghost Owl I in response to his near-death experience at the hands of his former sidekick. The design was dramatically overhauled, utilising cutting-edge (at the time) materials and techniques to accord the wearer maximum possible protection with no compromise to manueverability. The suit was also notable for the introduction of Ghost Owl's signature high-tech helmet, a sturdier utility belt and a removal of the cape. To compensate for Owl's advanced age, the owlsuit's interior was eventually lined with artficial muscle enhancements, boosting the wearer's strength and agility to borderline superhuman levels. His successor stripped these out - not only did they make the costume incredibly uncomfortable on his heavier frame, but letting the suit do all the work would only hamper his effectiveness as a crimefighter in the long run.
- Owlsuit mk3, 2013-????: The third owlsuit was created after the mk2 was ruined in a protacted battle. As the first suit to be designed by the second Ghost Owl, it represents his evolution as a crimefighter - stepping out from the long shadow of his mentor. The bodysuit remains similar to the mk2, although Ghost Owl has seen fit to re-introduce the scalloped cape, overhaul the utility belt and incorporate heavy upper-body armour, gauntlets and boots. As a result the suit is much heavier, but given Jacob's greater physical prowess compared to his wiry, agile predecessor, the trade-off is negligable. The helmet's gone largely untouched save for more stylised circular lenses and a much-needed upgrade of all integral systems.
Owlsuit:
- Tech: The bodysuit is fashioned from kevlar bi-weave, carbon nanotube fibres and strategically placed ceramic plates all fitted over a flame-retardant, electrically insulated underlay, capable of shielding the wearer from the impact of small arms fire, blades, low-yield explosions and miscallaneous blunt trauma. Additionally, the suit is coated in a polymer that both minimises the wearer's heat signature and renders the fabric slippery, difficult to grasp. Save for a few concealed compartments, the chest protector has no special gimmicks or tech.
- Psychic Presence: Spirits sometimes leave something of themselves behind when they finally depart this realm for good; a faint, ephemeral psychic echo, a ghost of a ghost. As Ghost Owl can invite spirits to join him, he technically becomes a mobile haunting ground - and for a brief time, some of these echoes wind up imprinted upon the very apparel he wears. These faint traces accumulate, building up into a roiling, cacophanous mass of jumbled emotions. In short, in addition to Owl's ghostly clientele, the owlsuit has a spectral presence all it's own. Over time, this presence seeps out, physically manifesting as a layer of ectoplasm. Suited up, Ghost Owl is very easy for those with appropriate psionic powers to detect, although some may find presence strange and discomforting. Additionally, the echoes act as a buffer against telepathic invasion - psychic static that requires clarity and focus to tune out.
Helmet:
- Armouring: The helmet's 'feathers' conceal a kevlar-lined outer shell.
- Auditory Sensor: The helmet's 'feathers' are more than decoration. They're incredibly sensitive sound sensors, picking up even the most minute vibrations in the air and feeding them through the helmet's smart audio processor, which selectively amplifies or dampens. Repetitive background noise is kept at a neutral volume, excessively loud noises are muffled and changes (disturbances in the air, footsteps, speech etc) are emphasised. The sensor also features a directional mic that syncs up to the lenses' zoom function.
- EARLYBIRD Alarm: An emergency alarm system with a key distinction of delivering minute electrical shocks to the face when Ghost Owl's vitals fall below certain parameters, or after a certain amount of time has elapsed. The intent is quick recovery from unconsiciousness, or to break spirit trances.
- GNOSIS: Ghost Owl's headset computer is entirely hands-free, incorporating technology designed for disabled computer users: lip-reading recognition to respond to silent commands, a 'retinal mouse' that tracks eye movements and blink-operated shortcuts. The minimalist HUD is superimposed over the user's field of view. The computer itself is nothing special, roughly approximating the functionality of a tablet PC.
- Haunted: The helmet is the anchor for the spirit of the previous Ghost Owl, who occasionally sees fit to chip in with advice and (more frequently) criticism as if he were acting as mission control. His presence confers a certain degree of psionic shielding, and the helmet may respond to certain paranormal phenomena. Should anyone but Ghost Owl don the helm, chances are it won't react well. On rare occasions, disjointed otherworldly voices may be heard through the microphone when the dead have something they wish to impart to others.
- Lenses: Owl's signature lenses can toggle between vision spectrums on the fly, zoom into the distance, record visual logs and be programmed (albeit with a fair amount of tinkering back at the base) to detect various energy traces and anomalies. The lenses also possess a protective polarising filter to shield the wearer's eyes from blinding lights. The charactistic glow exists only for intimidation factor and can be immediately dimmed when stealth is called for.
- Mask: The helmet is environmentally sealed and equipped with a gas mask-rebreather hybrid that protects against airborne agents. It can be connected to external oxygen tanks or food cartridges.
- Microphone: The microphone can amplify Ghost Owl's naturally quiet voice and distort it with an ominous crackle. It can also deliver an incapacitating sonic screech at the risk of permanent damage to the speakers. And people's ears.
- Ouija App: Assists in spirit summoning. Not everything that answers the call retains a form - or even a voice. The ouija app works much like its namesake, providing simple on-screen prompts in place of spoken words.
- Third Eye System: Ghost Owl's second sight typically requires intensive meditation to open and maintain, but the trance state can be forcefully induced for a split second by a rapidfire set of obscure autosuggestive images stored on GNOSIS, collectively known as the Third Eye System. While excrutiatingly painful, the Third Eye System allows Ghost Owl to see the afterimage of the spirit world superimposed over the physical for a brief few moments.
Gadgets:
- Bolas: Weighted metal spheres fixed together by thin steel wire that can be extended and shortened for ease of storage.
- Cape: A flowing black cape coated in a curious light-warping polymer that blurs and distorts the wearer's silhouette in low-light conditions, making it difficult to spot when immersed in shadows. When in motion, the cape plays tricks on the average human's perception, making their exact distance hard to gauge, and lending their movements a flowing, otherworldly edge.
- Ectoplasmic Formula: The ectoplasm that oozes from the owlsuit when it's hung up after a long night on patrol is actually extremely useful. With the aid of a certain alchemist, Ghost Owl learned how to incorporate it into a volatile mixture that now serves as the backbone of various gadgets. It can affect spectral entities and induce localised, paralysing chills on contact with living flesh. It retains the psychic signature of the owlsuit, which can be exploited during an astral trance (or Third Eye hypnosis) for tracking purposes, or to glean flashes of insight pertaining to its current whereabouts. Being paartly formed of thought itself, it reacts to strong emotion - Ghost Owl may draw upon the ambient anger of resident spirits or the suit's residual echoes to ignite the substance and force it to violently explode.
- Feather Blades: Compact, aerodynamic feather-shaped throwing knives, commonly stored in shoulder compartments for ease of access. They are coated in the ectoplasmic formula for the sake of utility.
- First Aid Kit: A compact set of medical tools for quick and efficient field surgery.
- Forensics Kit: Evidence bags, fingerprint dusters and the like. The bare essentials for crime scene analysis.
- Gas Pellets: Tiny spherical capsules that release a chemical agent when the outer shell is burst. They wreath the surrounding area in a dense, clinging smog. Not only does it obstruct vision, but it's also infused with ectoplasmic vapors that induce hallucinations upon inhalation.
- Gauntlets: Heavy-duty gloves and bracers lined with kendrium. Each bracer conceals a pair of extendable razor-sharp talons likewise forged from kendrium and coated in the same ectoplasmic formula as the feather blades. The cores are hollow and contain the treated bone powder (obtained under express permission) of four deceased crimefighters. Not only do the bones serve as a means to call upon these spectral heroes, but they forever resonate with their keen, vehement rage. Ghost Owl can tap into this fury to superheat the claws for brief periods, dramatically enhancing their already considerable cutting power. Connected to motorised reels of monofilament cable and a gasp-powered propulsion mechanism, they also serve as grapnels.
- Liquid Nitrogen Spray: Among other things, useful for disarming explosives in a hurry - and in the absence of an expert.
- Plastique: Plastic explosive usually needs no explanation, but in this case Ghost Owl has treated it with - yup - his ectoplasmic formula, enabling it to be triggered in much the same manner as his feather blades - but with decidedly more impressive results.
- Skeleton Key: Essentially a 'swiss army lockpick' - a compact handle with a fold-out selection of removable picks on one end. On the other is an electronic cracker that slots into computers and other electronic devices, be it through a USB port or otherwise; more or less a wireless 'plug' to create an entry point for the helmet computer's automated hacking software. Ghost Owl's not much of a hacker himself.
- Zipcuffs: Sturdier than regular zipcuffs.
Transportation:
- Owlwing Glider: The Owlwing is Owl's preferred means of long-distance conveyance and is most easily described as a VTOL hang-glider. The compact frame is composed of lightweight aluminium and fastens directly onto the user's back. It features an impressive pair of black feather-mesh wings equipped with miniature boosters that can fire powerful jets of compressed air in short bursts to increase acceleration and lift and allow for complex aerial manuevers. The frame can be quickly and easily folded into the size and approximate shape of a backpack for ease of storage and concealment.
- Ghostbike: So named for its eerily silent engines and advanced levitational propulsion system that enables it to hover three feet from the ground, this repulsorbike is a recent addition to Ghost Owl's arsenal. 'Confiscated' from the cyborg getaway driver Speed Demon, the ghostbike has been extensively refurbished to suit its new owner's tastes - although, truth be told, he has absolutely no idea how the core repulsor system actually functions. The ghostbike's armanent includes: twin front-mounted retractable light machineguns with interchangeable ammunition feeds (typically armour-piercing and rubber), rear-mounted caltrop hopper, twin lineguns, a netgun and a missile launcher.
Major WIP. Expansion + rewrites incoming!
