Inspired by Edgar Allen Poe’s short story of the same name, the Man of the Crowd is a being that can unknowingly inspire fear but, more often than not, is simply unnoticed and part of the throng.
The Man of the Crowd
High Concept: Manifested Will of the Multitude
Trouble: No Will of its Own
Other Aspects: Unnoticable, Morphing, Powerful
Every major metropolis has at least one. The Man of the Crowd. Just another entity passing along the busy streets, and moving to its rythm and will. These urban spirits manifest from residual pychic energy and move in a pattern dictated by the flow of foot traffic. For the most part, these apparitions are harmless and can exist for years unnoticed. They are simply part of the crowd, their appearance fully human and unremarkable, changing at sunup to reflect a general visage of a person (who may, despite the name, not be male) the masses conjured in their mind.
Even at its worst, the psyche of a society is blasé during its day-to-day commuting. While problems and stress exist, people are more focused on going to or from one place to the next and the Man of the Crowd traverses the city streets with them. In times of great crisis or violence, the Man of the Crowd echoes the sentiment around it and, in the dark of night, when the crowds are thin, drag or find a human in an alleyway and slaughter them. The Man of the Crowd’s hands become like daggers, but their murders are rarely simple stabbings—they are the gruesome evicerations caused by a community no longer on an even keel and the victims are reflections of what the people hate or fear.
Depending on how insenced the people, the slaughter at the hands of the Man of the Crowd may be a single event or a string of killings. This can lead to a cycle of perpetuation as fear and suspicion drive the entity into a nightly frenzy. When a serial killer is on the loose, the Man of the Crowd may emulate the killer’s modus operandi if in the thoughts of people, increasing the body count that may later be attributed to the human. Some of the Whitechapel murders attributed to Jack the Ripper may have been executed by a Man of the Crowd
These entities are not immortal. Though strong and difficult to detect, they can be killed like any mortal human. However, over time on the busy streets of any city, they will be replaced by another Man of the Crowd, summoned by the residual energy in every human’s psyche.
Skills
Superb: Empathy
Great: Fight, Stealth
Good: Athletics, Burglary, Physique
Powers & Stunts
Supernatural Strength: Impossibly strong, can lift or break down almost any barrier
Shape-Shifter: At dawn or any time unnoticed the entity may alter their appearance to another human, including clothing and carried items
Knife Hands: The being can turn their hands into long, sharp knives
Stress Tracks
Physical 0000
Mental 000
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