Explorer David Sands always felt a close kinship with the land. Put him in the centre of an untamed wilderness where there’s no other soul for hundreds of miles, and he would tell you he is home. It was on such an expedition in the jungles of South America that he discovered the ruins on an ancient pyramid. He entered and made it into the central chamber where a flawless sapphire talisman rested on an altar. When he removed it the ground shook and he feared the pyramid would collapse around him. Closing his hands around the talisman he prayed that the shaking would stop – and it did! The talisman is tied to the earth itself and the wielder can manipulate not just the earth, but cause plants and rivers to form by his will, and could possibly create whole mountain ranges with but a thought. David is drawn to the talisman yet also fearful of its awful power. Who is to say what it could do in the wrong hands?
Dirty Little Secret: More to the point – what’s going to happen in South America now that the Talisman has been removed? Things tend to be secured in ancient pyramids for a reason. Maybe it was holding back a major ecological disaster, operating as the lynchpin for a powerful binding spell, or…… worse! Uho.
Notes: This is one seriously powerful guy! With his Earth Control power he can move around 200 tons of earth each round without breaking sweat. He can bump that up as high as 200 thousand tons (roughly twice the weight of Mount Everest), but that’s tiring and will doubtless have a permanent environmental impact. Heck, he could Push up to one million tons of earth. That’s more then plenty to create whole mountain ranges. Phew.
If that’s not enough (!!!), he can alter terrain on a more tactical scale, creating terrain which hampers movement and is distracting in some way (tremors, shards of earth, plants, uneven surfaces, mud, quicksand – whatever works) – in a 5,000’ radius. That’s battlefield control on a superheroic scale for you.
Oh, and he can also Burrow up to 100mph, Fly up to 500mph (using a platform of Earth) and cause shards of earth to blast a shapeable area, selectively targeting enemies and ignoring allies.
He also makes a mean chocolate cake.
Risus:
David Sands, The Groundsman
Sapphire Talisman-wearing Terraformer (4), Professional Explorer (3), Hands-on Scientist (2), Keen amateur chef (1)
Mutants & Masterminds:
David Sands, The Groundsman, PL10 150pp
Str 14, Dex 14, Con 18, Int 14, Wis 12, Cha 14
Tough +10, Fort +15, Ref +8, Will +6
Attack +10, Defense +10, Init +2
Handle Animal +4, KS:Earth sciences +5, KS: Life sciences +5, Search +5, Stealth +8, Survival +8
Earth Control (Element Control 14, Continuous)
– AP: Blast 10 (250’, DC 25, Shapeable Area, Selective, Improved Range, Indirect)
– AP: Burrowing 7 (100mph)
– AP: Flight 6 (500mph, Earth Platform)
– AP: Environmental Control 10 (Distraction DC 10, Hamper Move 25%, 100’, 5000’ radius)
Immunity 3 (High Pressure, Extreme Heat, Suffocation)
Protection 6
Super-Strength 9 (+45 STR, Tiring, Side-Effect 2, applies to Earth Control)
Drawback: Power Loss, all powers (when separated from Talisman)
Very good render, Greywulf.
.-= EltonJ´s last blog ..Nomad Hunter =-.
i’m pretty certain that mount everest weighs on the order of billions of tons, not hundreds of thousands.
@drow Several google searches (including this one) and a few hunts in good ol’ reference books puts it around 100 million kg – that’s around 110-120 thousand tons. Surprisingly low, but some even put it even lower at a “mere” 100 thousand kg. Others put it much higher – up to 3 billion tons – but that one assumes it’s entirely composed of a superdense rock such as pure marble, which it ain’t.
We Superhero game geeks are fascinated by such facts and figures :D
marble has a specific gravity of ~2.56, which is actually lower than those of the major rock types within mt. everest, gneiss (2.87), slate (2.69), and limestone (2.61).
by far, the largest variable in determining the mass of a mountain is defining what, exactly, comprises the mountain, as they don’t often exist as isolated cones upon a perfectly flat plain at sea level.
given a cone of rock massing 100 million metric tons, 1.0e11 grams, we can determine its size. first, we assume that its average specific gravity is 2.5, which yields a volume of 4.0e10 cubic cm.
next, we can guess at the slope of mount everest by comparing its base camp (5400 mASL) to its summit (8850 mASL). the horizontal displacement between these two sites is approximately 5km, yielding a slope of 35 degrees. from this slope, we derive that the relationship between that the height and radius of our cone is r = 1.428 * h
the forumla for the volume of a cone is V = 1/3 * pi * r^2 * h
substituting our radius relationship into this formula, and then solving for h, we obtain h = (3 * V / pi * 1.428^2) ^ 1/3
substituting our actual volume for the cone, this yields h = 2656 cm
a fair hill, but not much of a mountain. :)
working this the other direction, using the proposed numbers as actual for the mountain (radius = 5km, height = 3.45 km, specific gravity = 2.5), yields a mass of 225 billion metric tons.
the actual mass is almost certainly less than this, since mt. everest is not, in fact, a perfect cone, but it’s going to be within one order of magnitude lesser, not six.
i rest my geek case.
argh. “given a cone of rock massing 100 million KILOGRAMS”, per your figure.
@drow Lol! I bow before your geek credentials, even though your math is out :D
don’t make me drop a mountain on you. :)