AMERICAN CRUSADER
Jada Grant

Hero Points: 125
Power Level: High Level
Team: The Dark Society
Occupation: Fashion Designer
Motivation: Justice
Power Sources: Superpowered

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CHARACTER PROFILE

Once upon a time, there was a man named Archie Masters. Archie was a shy, timid astronomy professor whose life changed because of two extraordinary mistakes. The first occurred when he mistakenly concluded that he had discovered a previously unknown planet located near Uranus. The second occurred when, excited to share his discovery with a colleague, he wandered into the middle of an atom-smasher experiment.

Archie’s proximity to the experiment should have killed him. Instead, the energies released by the atom smasher awakened something hidden inside him, transforming his body and granting him powers beyond anything possessed by the other heroes of his generation. Archie could fly, smash tanks with his bare hands, and bounce bullets from his chest. The nervous professor became one of the most powerful beings on Earth.

Taking the name the American Crusader, Archie fought criminals, saboteurs, enemy agents, and Axis forces during the Second World War. From 1941 through 1943, he became a household name, defending the American home front before carrying the battle into Europe. His brightly colored costume, extraordinary strength, and unshakable patriotism made him one of the defining heroes of his era.

Then, as suddenly as he had entered the public consciousness, Archie Masters disappeared. There were no remains, no explanation, and no final message. The American Crusader simply vanished in 1943, becoming one of the great mysteries of the wartime heroic age.

He reappeared seventy-eight years later on Jada Grant’s couch. Jada was a twenty-three-year-old college student when she emerged from her bathroom wrapped in a towel and discovered a wizened old white man sitting in her home. His body had become shrunken and fragile, and he wore what Jada immediately judged to be one of the ugliest costumes she had ever seen.

She responded in a manner she still considers entirely reasonable. Jada screamed, punched the stranger twice in the face, and then screamed again when she realized she had broken her hand.

Archie took no offense at the attack. He reached toward her with one trembling hand, gave her a toothless grin, and spoke the words that would permanently divide Jada’s life into everything that happened before that moment and everything that followed it: “Jada Grant…you have been chosen. Eat of my flesh and gain my powers.”

His statement did not improve the situation. Archie eventually managed to explain that he knew Jada was intended to become his successor. He could not—or would not—tell her exactly how he had been transported from 1943 into her apartment in 2021, but he understood that the powers he carried had to be passed to her. He further assured her that she did not need to consume all of him. A very small portion would be sufficient. That qualification did not make the proposal appreciably less horrifying.

After a great deal of argument, disbelief, and increasingly bizarre explanation, Jada agreed. Archie used his remaining strength to remove a small piece of his own flesh and instructed her in its preparation. When Jada finally consumed it, the transformation began immediately.

Her muscles became capable of exerting tremendous force. Her skin and bones acquired extraordinary density. Gravity loosened its hold upon her, allowing her to rise into the air and fly. She had inherited the same fundamental abilities Archie once used as the American Crusader.

Archie became her mentor, although their relationship was rarely peaceful—he was a displaced man from the 1940s attempting to understand a century that no longer resembled the world he remembered. Jada was a confident young Black woman with little patience for his outdated assumptions, evasive answers, or conviction that a costume designed during the Second World War represented the pinnacle of superheroic fashion. They argued constantly. They also came to love one another.

Archie trained Jada to use her powers, told her stories about the heroic age, and taught her that strength carried obligations extending beyond whatever battles she could win. Jada challenged his prejudices, questioned the mythology surrounding his career, and forced him to confront the difference between loving one’s country and blindly accepting everything done in its name.

The title of American Crusader initially made Jada uncomfortable. She understood its history, but she also understood that the America Archie had represented did not always include people who looked like her. Wearing his costume meant inheriting both the ideals he fought to defend and the contradictions he had not always recognized.

Jada refused to become a museum exhibit preserving someone else’s vision of heroism. She became the American Crusader on her own terms. Her costume retained elements of Archie’s original design, including choices she continued to describe as “weird as hell,” but Jada filled the identity with her own voice, values, and confidence. She protected her hometown, confronted superhuman threats, and eventually joined the Dark Society.

Within the team, Jada became its most direct physical combatant. When a problem needed to be punched, lifted, carried, smashed, or thrown through a wall, the American Crusader was usually the first person called. She could tear through armored vehicles, survive automatic weapons fire, carry civilians from collapsing buildings, and fight superhuman enemies in midair.

She was nowhere near Jupiter’s class. Jupiter could confront cosmic entities, endure catastrophic punishment, and unleash stellar fire from his hands and eyes. Jada possessed none of his energy projection or cosmic versatility. Her strength, while extraordinary, had definite limits, and sufficiently powerful attacks could injure her. That distinction did little to comfort the people she punched.

Jada’s confidence and humor made her an immediately recognizable presence within the Dark Society. She was bold, outspoken, sassy, and unwilling to be intimidated by monsters, sorcerers, gods, or teammates who possessed more raw power than she did. She understood that some opponents could defeat her, but she rarely allowed them to believe she understood it. Her bravado was not the absence of fear. It was a refusal to let fear control the terms of the encounter.

The truth concerning Archie’s powers eventually proved far darker than either of them had expected. The atom-smasher experiment had not created Archie’s abilities by rewriting his DNA through radiation alone. It had connected him to the Cacodemon, a powerful extradimensional entity whose essence had become bound to his flesh. Archie’s strength, durability, and flight had originated with that being, and when Jada consumed part of Archie’s body, she inherited a portion of the same connection.

The Cacodemon eventually returned. Archie died as a consequence of that confrontation, leaving Jada without the difficult, infuriating, beloved old man who had transformed her life. His death forced her to face the true source of their shared powers and the possibility that accepting Archie’s legacy had made her part of the demon’s design.

Jada refused to let the Cacodemon define what Archie had been or what she had become. She confronted the entity, defeated it, and avenged Archie’s death. In doing so, she proved that the power’s origin did not determine the purpose for which it would be used. The Cacodemon may have supplied the force within Archie’s transformed body, but it had not created his courage. It had not chosen the people he saved, the evils he opposed, or the sacrifices he made.

The same was true of Jada. Her strength may have begun with an extradimensional monster, passed through Archie’s flesh, and entered her life through the most grotesque succession ritual imaginable. What she did with that strength belonged entirely to her.

Archie’s death changed Jada’s relationship with the identity of the American Crusader. While he lived, she could still think of the name as something she had borrowed under his supervision. After his death, she became its sole guardian. She no longer wears the costume merely because Archie told her she had been chosen. She wears it because she has chosen to continue.

Jada is currently involved with Samuel Hain, the human spirit who shares the Straw-Man’s body with the ancient magician Gwydion fab Dôn.

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CHARACTERISTICS

Characteristic	Rating
Edge	12
Health	9
Resolve	2
Trait Cap	14d
Primary Attack	11d Crusader’s Might
Primary Defense	10d Dense Skin
Movement	8d Flight

Her 9 Health reflects the extraordinary density of her transformed body. Even without the protection supplied by her Dense Skin Power, Jada is considerably more difficult to injure than an ordinary person. She can continue fighting after suffering impacts that would incapacitate most heroes.

The American Crusader begins with 2 Resolve. Her grief over Archie, responsibility for his legacy, relationship with Samuel, and uncertainty concerning the remaining influence of the Cacodemon provide numerous opportunities for complications and dramatic action.

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ABILITIES

Ability	Rank
Agility	6d
Intellect	4d
Might	9d
Perception	6d
Toughness	9d
Willpower	5d

Her 9d Might makes her one of the physically strongest members of the Dark Society. She can lift tremendous weight, tear through reinforced barriers, damage armored vehicles, and overpower most conventional opponents with ease.

Her 9d Toughness represents the fundamental density of her transformed body. Jada’s muscles, bones, organs, and connective tissues are vastly more resilient than those of a normal human. Her Toughness allows her to withstand physical strain generated by her own strength and survive impacts that would destroy an ordinary body.

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TALENTS

Talent	Rank	Specialty or Use
Academics	4d	College education, history, and general knowledge
Athletics	6d	Lifting, controlled strength, aerial exertion, and physical conditioning
Charm	5d	Bold personality, humor, and direct persuasion
Command	5d	Rallying allies and taking charge during emergencies
Covert	3d	General proficiency
Investigation	3d	General proficiency
Medicine	3d	General proficiency
Professional	5d	Full-time superhero operations
Science	3d	General proficiency
Streetwise	4d	Urban awareness and reading hostile situations
Survival	3d	General proficiency
Technology	3d	General proficiency
Vehicles	3d	General proficiency

Charm reflects Jada’s confidence, humor, and forceful personality. She does not rely upon polished diplomacy. Her social effectiveness comes from directness, emotional honesty, and the impression that she has already decided she belongs wherever she happens to be. Jada can be inspiring, funny, confrontational, or deliberately outrageous. Even people who dislike her attitude rarely forget her.

POWERS

The American Crusader’s Powers possess the Superpowered Source. Although Archie Masters originally believed his transformation had been caused entirely by an atom-smasher accident, his abilities—and those he passed to Jada—were derived from an extradimensional connection to the Cacodemon.

Crusader’s Might — Strike 11d

The American Crusader possesses tremendous superhuman strength. Her transformed muscles can generate enough force to shatter concrete, bend steel, overturn armored vehicles, tear open reinforced doors, and send superhuman opponents flying across a battlefield. When Jada strikes with her full power, the impact can crack walls, crater the ground, and produce a shock wave of displaced air.

Jada can use her strength to:

• Punch or kick with devastating force
• Tear through reinforced walls
• Bend metal bars or structural supports
• Lift and throw vehicles
• Hold collapsing structures in place
• Break heavy restraints
• Force open sealed doors
• Wrestle large creatures
• Carry several people simultaneously
• Catch falling debris
• Create openings through wreckage
• Anchor herself against powerful winds or moving machinery
• Leap great distances when flight is unavailable
• Perform other feats appropriate to her extraordinary Might

Jada normally limits her strength when fighting human opponents. A full-force strike capable of damaging a tank could kill an ordinary person. Her experience allows her to use controlled blows, grapples, throws, and open-handed strikes when lethal force is unnecessary. Against sufficiently powerful enemies, she stops holding back.

Crusader’s Might does not place Jada in Jupiter’s highest class of strength. She can perform spectacular feats, but the most extreme applications require effort, favorable circumstances, Resolve, or assistance from stronger teammates.

Dense Skin — Armor 10d

Jada’s transformed body possesses extraordinary density and resistance to injury. Bullets flatten or ricochet from her skin. Knives break or fail to penetrate deeply. Ordinary punches, falls, collisions, and environmental hazards cause little or no harm. She can survive explosions, heavy weapons, superhuman impacts, and structural collapse that would kill an ordinary person.

Flight 8d

The American Crusader can fly through the air under her own power. Her flight does not depend upon wings, visible energy, or aerodynamic surfaces. Jada instinctively controls her position relative to gravity, allowing her to hover, accelerate, turn, climb, and descend through concentration.

Leaping 4d

Even when she cannot or chooses not to fly, Jada’s leg strength allows her to leap tremendous distances. She can jump onto rooftops, clear broad obstacles, escape collapsing terrain, or cross a battlefield in a single bound. Powerful Leaping is especially useful in confined spaces where sustained flight would be difficult. Jada sometimes uses a leap instead of flight simply because landing hard in front of an enemy makes a stronger impression.

Groundbreaker — Affliction 3d

By concentrating her strength against the ground or another solid surface, the American Crusader can disrupt an opponent’s balance and mobility.

She may crack the floor beneath an enemy, buckle pavement, overturn a section of terrain, or strike with enough force to leave a target dazed and struggling to remain upright. Groundbreaker is not intended to inflict her maximum damage. It represents her ability to control the battlefield through raw physical force.

Depending upon the circumstances, Groundbreaker may cause targets to become:

• Unbalanced
• Knocked prone
• Momentarily dazed
• Partially trapped in broken terrain
• Unable to move safely
• Separated from allies
• Forced away from a protected position

The Power requires an appropriate physical surface. It is ineffective against targets floating freely, flying beyond Jada’s reach, or standing upon terrain that cannot transmit the impact.

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PERKS

Legacy: Archie Masters

Jada is the successor to Archie Masters, the original American Crusader.

His reputation provides access to wartime records, heroic archives, surviving contacts, museums, historians, military organizations, and individuals whose families were affected by his actions. Older heroes and supernatural beings may recognize the costume or understand the significance of Jada’s identity.

The legacy brings expectations as well as opportunities. Some people believe the American Crusader should represent Archie’s values exactly as they imagine them. Others object to Jada inheriting the title or attempt to use Archie’s reputation to control her public behavior.

Jada listens to reasonable criticism.

She has significantly less patience for anyone who thinks Archie’s identity should belong to someone more closely resembling Archie.

Membership: The Dark Society

The American Crusader is a full-time member of the Dark Society.

She possesses access to the team’s facilities, communications, transportation, intelligence, and extraordinary allies. Jada can call upon specialists in magic, science, strategy, cosmic phenomena, and supernatural investigation.

She is also expected to respond when threats capable of destroying cities, nations, planets, or reality itself appear.

Reputation: The New American Crusader

Jada has established herself as a hero independent of Archie’s career.

The public recognizes her as a powerful protector, and many younger people identify the name American Crusader with Jada rather than her predecessor. Her bold personality, distinctive costume, and willingness to speak openly have made her a visible member of the modern heroic community.

This reputation may help her reassure civilians, command attention, or gain cooperation from authorities.

It may also make subtlety virtually impossible.

Relationship: Samuel Hain

Jada is romantically involved with Samuel Hain, the human spirit sharing the body of the Straw-Man.

Samuel provides emotional understanding, patience, and a connection to ordinary humanity that Jada values deeply. He knew what it meant to be transformed by forces beyond his control long before she fully understood the supernatural truth behind her own powers.

Their relationship is complicated by Samuel’s death, his shared existence with Gwydion, the Straw-Man’s physical nature, and the territorial restriction confining him to Grove’s Folly.

It is nevertheless genuine.

The Perk represents mutual love, trust, emotional support, and the willingness of each to face the bizarre realities of the other’s existence.

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FLAWS

Responsibility: The American Crusader Legacy

Jada feels responsible for preserving and redefining the legacy Archie entrusted to her.

She takes threats connected to his history personally and refuses to allow his sacrifices to be forgotten. She may pursue surviving enemies, investigate newly discovered wartime secrets, or place herself in danger to protect people and institutions Archie once defended.

Her responsibility does not mean accepting every choice Archie made.

Jada understands that Archie was a product of his era and that the mythology surrounding wartime heroes often conceals uncomfortable truths. She wants to honor the best of him without preserving his blind spots.

This places her in conflict with people who demand that she become a perfect recreation of Archie Masters. It may also create internal conflict when evidence reveals something about Archie she would prefer not to know.

Grief: Archie’s Death

Archie Masters was Jada’s mentor, predecessor, frequent adversary, and unlikely family.

His death left her with grief she often conceals beneath humor and confidence. Jada misses their arguments, his impossible stories, his toothless grin, and even his unsolicited opinions about how she should wear the costume.

Threats connected to Archie can provoke powerful emotional reactions. Jada may become reckless when offered the possibility of restoring him, speaking with him, or learning something new about the circumstances surrounding his death.

She knows enough about the supernatural world to understand that resurrection rarely returns someone unchanged.

That knowledge may not be enough to make her refuse the opportunity.

Relationship: Samuel Hain

Jada loves Samuel, and threats to him can compromise her judgment.

The nature of Samuel’s existence makes those threats unusually complicated. Harm to the Straw-Man’s body may endanger Samuel, Gwydion, or both. Attacks capable of separating spirits, severing magical bonds, or destroying the enchanted rags sustaining them could take Samuel away from her without leaving a conventional body to recover.

The Straw-Man’s confinement to Grove’s Folly also prevents Samuel from accompanying Jada on most missions. Their relationship must endure long absences, interrupted plans, and the knowledge that either may be facing mortal danger far beyond the other’s reach.

Jada occasionally resents Gwydion’s constant presence within Samuel’s existence, particularly when the magician comments upon their private relationship.

She has threatened to throw him into the sun.

Gwydion remains uncertain whether she understands that doing so would also involve Samuel.

Enemy Legacy: The Cacodemon

Jada defeated the Cacodemon and avenged Archie’s death, but victory over an extradimensional entity does not guarantee that every trace of its influence has disappeared.

The Cacodemon may have surviving servants, fragmented manifestations, descendants, rivals, or other beings interested in the power Jada carries. Some may regard her as a thief who possesses strength belonging to their master. Others may believe she has become the entity’s rightful successor.

Jada rejects both interpretations.

Unfortunately, supernatural forces do not require her consent before constructing prophecies, blood claims, or extradimensional inheritance disputes around her.

Power Origin: Borrowed Flesh

Jada gained her powers by consuming a portion of Archie Masters’ transformed body.

The process permanently altered her, but the precise biological and supernatural consequences remain incompletely understood. Powers capable of manipulating flesh, inherited traits, extradimensional energy, or the bond between donor and recipient may affect her in unexpected ways.

A sufficiently powerful enemy might attempt to suppress her abilities, awaken dormant aspects of the Cacodemon, trace her connection to Archie, or claim that the transfer was incomplete.

Jada dislikes discussing the method by which she received her powers.

She dislikes reenacting it even more.

Quirk: Bold, Sassy, and Unfiltered

Jada speaks her mind.

She mocks pompous villains, challenges authority, refuses to pretend that bad plans are good, and frequently responds to supernatural absurdity with exactly the amount of respect she believes it deserves.

Her confidence can rally allies and unsettle enemies. It can also create unnecessary conflict, damage delicate negotiations, and convince powerful beings that they need to teach her humility.

Many have tried.

Jada remains unimpressed with their success rate.

Temper: Hit the Problem

Jada’s power set encourages direct solutions.

When confronted with a sealed door, armored vehicle, fortified position, or threatening monster, her first instinct is often to determine whether sufficient force will resolve the situation. In many cases, it will.

In some cases, punching the problem creates three additional problems.

Jada is capable of patience and tactical thought, but frustration, grief, or threats to innocent people may cause her to act before teammates have completed their analysis. Geist has repeatedly attempted to explain that gathering information before attacking does not constitute cowardice.

Jada has repeatedly assured him that she heard him the first time.

Vulnerability: Magic and Internal Attacks

Dense Skin provides tremendous protection against conventional physical injury, but it does not defend Jada equally against every form of attack.

Magic, psychic powers, spiritual effects, dimensional manipulation, radiation, biological attacks, and abilities targeting her internal organs may bypass some or all of her Armor. Attacks derived from the Cacodemon or related extradimensional forces may be especially effective.

Jada’s durability sometimes makes her overconfident. An enemy who injures her after she has ignored several previous attacks may gain a dangerous moment of surprise.

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EQUIPMENT

The American Crusader carries very little conventional equipment.

Her strength, durability, and flight provide nearly everything she requires during ordinary field operations. She wears a Dark Society communicator capable of surviving the speeds, impacts, and environmental conditions associated with her powers.

Her costume is constructed from durable modern materials, although its design deliberately preserves several features from Archie Masters’ original uniform. Jada has modified its fit, construction, and functionality while retaining enough of the wartime appearance to make the line of succession unmistakable.

She continues to regard several elements as questionable.

Depending upon the mission, Jada may carry:

• A Dark Society communicator
• Civilian identification
• Emergency medical supplies
• Restraints designed for superhuman prisoners
• A tracking beacon
• Protective equipment for rescued civilians
• Archie’s notes or historical records
• A phone containing photographs she will deny looking at when she misses him

Jada does not normally carry weapons.

As she occasionally points out, bringing a conventional weapon into battle would be redundant when she can punch through a tank.

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POINT ACCOUNTING

Category	Cost
Superhero Package	50
Ability Increases	21
Talent Increases	9
Powers	41
Perks	4
Total	125 Hero Points