Remember last month when I described the history of the Wild Cards version of Rio de Janeiro and told you I would need a second installment to describe wild carders and adventure seeds? Yeah, well, I was wrong - I'll need three installments.

So, this month, I'm going to talk about some carioca aces. The May column will have a few jokers, a deuce and seeds.

But first, a little bit of errata: in my last column, I stated that the first wave of the Swarm invasion happened in the late 70s. This is incorrect (that's what you get for relying on your failing memory); it started in 1986. So, you can correct that by forgetting about the Swarm and just assuming the junta couldn't hold power anymore by the mid 80s, or push the election of Tancredo Neves to 1987.

Aces

These are some of the aces active in Rio (and Brazil). They are listed chronologically, according to when they drew their ace. Like in the history section, the present here is the early 90s.

Engenheiro [Engineer]

Name: Antônio Souza Peregrino
Born: 1931; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Draw: February 17th, 1947
Ability: Engenheiro can mentally manipulate earth and rock.

Antônio saw his entire family die on Black Queen Monday, thanks to the wild card. Still in shock, he was taken in by friends of his parents. That night, after crying into sleep, he had a nightmare and woke up to find the wall of his bedroom misshapen. Terrified someone would find it, he wished it was back to normal and to his surprise saw it fluidly regain its normal shape. Angry not only at surviving, but at having powers as well, Antônio hiked up to the Christ statue the next night and transformed it into a joker. He would only use his powers again many years later, during Juscelino Kubitschek's administration. Inspired by the president's vision, Antônio came forward as an ace and helped build Brasília before the project was sacked. When the military coup happened, Antônio kept working for the government. However, the violent crackdown on the coup protestors changed his mind. He was arrested, but no ordinary jail could hold him. He joined the resistance and fought against the military until the New Republic. Then, Antônio helped against the Swarm and retired from combat, dedicating himself to construction. Today he works as a consultant for especially difficult engineering projects.

Inquilino [Tenant]

Name: Pedro Augusto Passos
Born: 1910; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Draw: February 17th, 1947
Ability: Inquilino can 'borrow' the body of others.

Pedro was one of thousands of revelers on the streets when the wild card outbreak happened. He felt progressively weak when the virus attacked, until he lost consciousness and had an out-of-body experience. Suddenly, he was inside another person and his own body lay dead. Pedro later realized he had become a sort of ghostly parasite: if he didn't possess a body, he would disperse into nothingness. At first, his relatives and friends, although creeped out by the experience, allowed themselves to be controlled, but soon changed their minds. Angry at his situation, he started possessing people against their will. Remorse made him stop and, in penance, he decided to be a force for good, controlling criminals and corrupt politicians and making them turn themselves in. He would also give away much of the money they had robbed to charity. However, he kept some for himself in different bank accounts. After several years, he grew tired of this vigilantism and wanted a normal life, as much as it was possible. He already had a large fortune, so he began possessing homeless men. He would inhabit the body for a few months, treating it well, and then leave the man with a sizeable amount of cash. The system worked so well, Pedro does it to this day. Sometimes, he returns to his vigilante days, but only to help friends and family.

Prodígio [Prodigy]

Name: Rogério Cruz
Born: December 9th, 1929/Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Draw: February 17th, 1947
Ability: Super-strength and toughness.

Rogério drew an ace during the original outbreak of the virus in Rio. His father, realizing the potential for profit, immediately promoted Rogério as some kind of super-hero, like the Four Aces. Rogério's good looks didn't hurt either. He became the quintessential Brazilian ace do-gooder. Among other things, he was the government poster boy for the wild card situation. Rogério also promoted charity events and endorsed several products, like Biotônico Fontoura. For the next few years, Rogério and his father basked in the fortune made by the young ace, who was nicknamed Prodígio. Things were looking good, especially because Rogério's strength and stamina seemed to be increasing with time. However, some other changes were going on in Rogério's body. His skin became increasingly scaly and he started losing hair. Eventually, other reptilian characteristics, as well as size changes, became more apparent. Rogério lost several endorsements and even the government decided not to use him as spokesperson anymore. Worse, he started having difficulty maintaining concentration and remembering things. By the mid 60s, people considered Rogério a joker and gave him a new nickname - Caiman --, because he resembled a humanoid alligator, complete with snout and tail. The military junta and the resistance tried to recruit him for their side during the late 60s/early 70s, but he proved too unstable for either. The last people saw of Rogério was in 1986, when he joined a government-backed group of aces and joker/aces sent to fight the Swarm close to the border with Peru. He went MIA there. Since that day, there have been sightings of Caiman in Pantanal and Amazonia.

Açougueiro [Butcher]

Name: Orlando Matias
Born: 1910/Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Draw: February 22nd, 1947
Ability: Açougueiro can detonate parts of a target's body.

Orlando was a hard-boiled police detective when the wild card changed him. He found out about his new power during one of his interrogations. Angry at the low-life's unwillingness to reveal any useful information, even though he had used some 'penetrating arguments', Orlando wished he could break the man apart. To his surprise, the man's right shoulder exploded in a gory spectacle of flesh and blood. Realizing he had been changed by the weird disease afflicting the city, Orlando decided to profit from his new abilities. He started a racketeering scheme that went well, but didn't satisfy him. A couple of years later, Orlando found out Gregório Fortunato was trying to locate the so-called 'aces' and recruit them. Sensing an opportunity, Orlando presented himself and soon became part of the Dark Angel's choir. He performed all sorts of dirty work for Gregório, including assassinating Carlos Lacerda. After betraying his former employers to the military junta, Orlando hunted and tortured resistance members, becoming a feared enemy among the rebels. By the end of the 70s, Orlando dropped out of sight. Several human rights groups think he is still alive and are pressuring the government to reveal his location so he can be put under trial for his crimes.

Bispo da Luz [Bishop of the Light]

Name: Adalberto de Assis
Born: June 17th, 1941/Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Draw: April 4th, 1947
Ability: Bispo da Luz can heal wounds and diseases, and glows warmly when doing so.

Adalberto was only five when the wild card hit and his ace turned a couple months later. Sad about seeing his father in pain in his deathbed. Adalberto touched him and began to glow. After several moments, his father stood up completely healed. Adalberto became known as the Santinho (Holy boy) and started performing cures at his church; always under the watchful - some would say tyrannical - eye of his mother. When Adalberto was 11, his mother had a fight with the pastor. She accused him of using Adalberto to rob the parishioners of their money. She had also seen, on several occasions, the pastor look at Adalberto with more than sacred love in his eyes. Adalberto's mother took him away and founded their own church, the Igreja da Luz (Church of the Light). The new faith became the most prominent church of the second Pentecostal wave. In the late 70s, the Igreja da Luz began its transition into Neo-pentecostalism, creating a 'turf war' with the Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus (IURD, the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God), as the lure of an ace healer from the former siphoned off parishioners from the latter. The IURD initiated a campaign against aces, denouncing them as false prophets. Adalberto and his mother seized the opportunity and declared the Igreja da Luz a safe haven for nat and ace alike who wanted to serve God, attracting religious non-joker wild carders. Today, Igreja da Luz is the most powerful Neo-pentecostal church in Brazil, with millions of adepts. Despite the many scandals - accusations of money laundering, rumors that Adalberto sells his cures to millionaires and politicians etc. - Adalberto's parishioners firmly believe he is a truly sacred agent of the Lord.

Confessora [Confessor]

Name: Glória Campos Assad
Born: 1951/Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Draw: 1951
Ability: Confessora automatically knows a person's greatest secret.

Glória knew from an early age that her father was a bad man who dealt in blood and money, her mother cheated on him and her older brother slept with the maid. She never saw any of this - she just knew. The world was a dirty, corrupt place and if you wanted to survive, you had to learn how to navigate it. Thanks to her ace, Glória perfected the art of blackmail, using it to acquire whatever she deemed necessary. Not wanting to depend on others for her financial needs, Glória forced her father to transfer a construction company he used as a front for his criminal activities to her. She also took his ace enforcers, revealing to them what he really thought about his soldiers. Thanks to business acumen and judicious use of her ace, Glória turned the company into an economic giant, expanding its activities into other areas. Eventually, she had her fingers in all the right pies. Now, she has set her sights on what she considers the biggest prize of all: Glória wants to be the first female president of Brazil. She already has a lot of politicians in her pocket, but she imagines herself meeting the leaders of the world's most powerful nations and learning their deepest, dark secrets.

Guará

Name: Roberto Andrada Villela
Born: January 30th,1960/Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Draw: January 30th,1960
Ability: Enhanced senses, movement and stamina. Guará also has an empathic rapport with animals.

Roberto's ace was on the table since his birth. As a consequence of his heightened senses, life in the city was unbearable to him. His father's family had a small property in the Pantanal, so his parents moved there. Roberto grew up in a place where nature was unbound. He spent several hours playing in the marshes and watching the animals. He came to deeply love the region. But his mother, as much as she appreciated his happiness, wasn't going to let her son become a savage. Being an elementary school teacher, she made sure Roberto had proper education. Although, at first, he felt miserable during the classes, he developed a taste for it. Before Roberto knew it, he was hooked on books and read everything he could get his hands on, especially if they were about nature or animals. After the death of his father, they lost the little land they had and were forced to move to Corumbá. Roberto couldn't stand the city and often went back to the marshlands, where he befriended the overworked and underpaid rangers. They taught him many things and he helped them in several other occasions, but he never wanted to join the organization. When Roberto was seventeen, he befriended a lone lobo guará [maned wolf] cub. From that moment on, until the wolf's death, eight years later, they were inseparable. This association earned Roberto his nickname. Shortly after Roberto's twenty-fourth birthday, his mother died. Having nothing else that tied him to the city, he moved once and for all to the marshlands. Months later, he met an orphaned joker girl, Quati, living by herself in the marshlands. They became fast friends and he decided to raise her as his daughter. Roberto has become a legend in Pantanal, where he maintains an ongoing struggle against those that would destroy the paradise he lives in.

Ismael, o Doido [The Mad]

Name: Ismael dos Santos
Born: 1952/Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Draw: 1970
Ability: Ismael has super-human stamina, can take a lot of punishment and regenerates physical damage.

Ismael grew up in one of Rio's many slums. Despite his parents' efforts to direct him to an honest life, Ismael got involved with crime as a teenager. His willingness and competence made him rise quickly through the ranks. One day, during a commercial transaction, Ismael and his men got ambushed. To his surprise, he managed to fight back even after being shot several times. He single-handedly defeated his ambushers. With this ace up his sleeve, Ismael rise was meteoric. Unfortunately, his operation was disbanded during the Military Dictatorship and he was arrested. At the Ilha Grande Penitentiary, Ismael met political prisoners who introduced him to the concepts of organization. After escaping prison, Ismael put his new knowledge to good use and helped form what would become the first and most powerful of Rio's organized crime gangs, the Red Command. During the last twenty years, Ismael has transformed the Red Command into an institution. His business interests cover everything from weapons to drugs. However, staying twenty years in a position where life expectancy was two or three years, has taken its toll on Ismael. He has suffered several attempts on his life and, as a result, is extremely paranoid. He especially distrusts aces, whom he thinks are the only ones who can seriously cause him any inconvenience.

Folclore [Folklore]

Name: Ana Maria Mendonça
Born: 1968/Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Draw: 1982
Ability: Takes shape of creatures of folklore.

Ana Maria's parents died when she was still a toddler in Rio. She was raised by her grandmother in Benjamin Constant, a town on the border of Brazil and Peru. During her childhood, Ana Maria became fascinated with the tales of the many mythological creatures that supposedly inhabited the Amazonian wilderness. When she was 14, Ana Maria went on a solitary expedition of the jungle that turned bad as the girl got lost and could not get home. The fear of expending the night in the wilderness and maybe dying turned Ana Maria's ace: she changed into a furry, pointy-eared creature with backwards feet. Instantly, she knew how to get home. At first, Ana Maria thought she was a werewolf, but the backwards feet was a trait of the curupira, a supernatural creature of the jungle. By experimenting, Ana Maria found out she could change into other folkloric entities, each with unique abilities. When the Swarmlings attacked, Benjamin Constant was in the path of a particularly nasty first-generation wave and became a rallying point for the military and aces fighting the alien threat. Ana Maria was discovered when she turned into a boitatá, a flaming 100-feet long snake to battle an ophidian millipede. She was recruited into the effort and became a celebrity. Her grandmother died shortly thereafter and although Ana Maria thought having superpowers was cool, she wasn't fond of being a target of alien monstrosities. She sold her grandmother's property, moved to Rio and used her fame and money to attract investors and start a cosmetics company: Sobrenatural (supernatural). Today, Ana Maria is one of the better-known aces in Brazil. Plus, she's rich.

Cruzeiro do Sul [Southern Cross]

Name: Paulo Alves Parise
Born: September 7th, 1959/São Paulo, Brazil
Draw: 1985
Ability: Cruzeiro do Sul can fly, generate a force field and shoot energy blasts.

Paulo knew from an early age that he had the wild card virus, but that never prevented him from doing all he wanted. As a teenager, he became infatuated with fighter jets and decided to join the Air Force. During Paulo's Academy years, the instructors found that Paulo could withstand more than double the G-forces that a normal human could. In any other job, that ability would have been considered a deuce, but in Paulo's line of work it was a huge advantage. He became one of the top pilots in the Brazilian Air Force. In 1985, Paulo found out that his ace was much more useful than he thought. A major malfunction in the F-5 jet he was flying forced Paulo to eject. However, the seat's parachute failed to activate. While plummeting to his death, the only thing Paulo could think of was that he wanted to live. At that moment, a silvery aura appeared around him and his fall stopped. It didn't take him long to realize he could fly. The government was very interested in Paulo from then on. He was immediately recruited to the government team of aces and put to good use helping the Brazilian armed forces fight back first-generation Swarmlings near the border with Peru. Today, Paulo - one of the most powerful aces in Brazil - commands the team and splits his time between field and public relations missions.

Danielfa [Danielf]

Name: Daniela de Almeida Cardoso
Born: May 29th, 1971/Petrópolis, Brazil
Draw: May 29th, 1989
Ability: Danielfa has heightened senses, increased levels of dexterity, speed and stealth, and a few other elven-related powers.

Daniela was a truly devoted fan of J.R.R. Tolkien's works, especially the Silmarillion. She joined the Tolkien Society and even learned Quenya. She was particularly fascinated with elves. So it came as no surprise to her when she woke up at her eighteenth birthday and found she had changed into one of the Noldor: tall, slender, fair-skinned, blonde-haired, pointy-eared and drop-dead gorgeous. Daniela soon realized she had gained other abilities as well, all of them connected with Tolkien's elves. She thought of using her new looks in a modeling career, but what she really wanted was to be a female Legolas. Daniela's father owned a security firm and helped her cash in on her superior physical skills. He trained her himself to become a top operative of his firm. Nowadays, Daniela's fame as an elf and an ace is widespread. She takes occasional modeling gigs, but is best known for her work as a bodyguard and security specialist for Rio's celebrities. And she loves her ace nickname.

Irmão Sombra [Brother Shadow]

Name: Jefferson Leite
Born: 1961/Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Draw: 1987
Ability: Brother Shadow can animate his own shadow.

Jefferson became a Catholic priest because he wanted to give back to the poor and spread the love of God to all. His parish was in Catumbi, near Saramandaia, and he would always preach about not being prejudiced against anyone, especially jokers. Being black and having been born in a favela, Jefferson knew firsthand what it meant to be discriminated against. But despite his best efforts, he only saw the situation worsen. His sermons became increasingly accusatory and at one point he called his parishioners cold-hearted. It didn't take long after that for the Archbishop of Rio to suspend Jefferson, who realized he had gone too far. Lost and without a sense of purpose, Jefferson attended the mass held by Father Squid at the Christ statue during the WHO tour stop in Rio. After the service, Jefferson had a chance to talk to the joker pastor and had a revelation. He was ordained into the Church of Jesus Christ, Joker, moved to Saramandaia and renovated a small abandoned church in the neighborhood, calling it Nossa Senhora do Renascimento (Our Lady of Rebirth). At first, nobody attended the new church. The first jokers to ever set foot inside it were thugs commanded by Coisa Ruim (Bad Thing, actually a nickname for the Devil), a lieutenant of then local crimelord, Tigrão (Big Tiger). They vandalized the place and knocked Jefferson down. He hit his head and while bleeding on the floor, felt his anger flow into something dark and cold: his own shadow. It reared up and fought the thugs, who never realized Jeffesron was behind it. The criminals fled while the shadow announced in a loud sepulchral voice that the church was a place of love, not violence. The next day, a few jokers approached the church and asked Jefferson whether the mysterious shadow that had saved him was an ace or a joker. He replied: "Neither. He is just a brother. To you and me." From that day on, Nossa Senhora do Renascimento became the religious center of Saramandaia. And everybody there knows you don't mess with Our Lady, unless you want Brother Shadow to mess with you.

João Bonitão [Handsome John]

Name: Maria da Silva Pereira
Born: 1962; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Draw: 1990
Ability: João has mild telepathic/empathic ability towards women and low-level super-strength. He may also have other undisclosed powers.

Maria had an abusive father and married a man of similar persuasion. One night, during another alcohol-fueled bout of rage, Maria's husband assaulted her. Unlike the other times, he showed no sign of stopping and Maria knew that was the night she would die. It was Carnaval and the radio was blaring a popular marchinha (a Carnaval song) about a lesbian that went like this: "by day she's Maria, by night she's João". The loud repeating lyrics, the massive pain from her husband's blows and her own will to survive combined to turn Maria's ace. Suddenly, she was gone and in her place, wearing her dress, stood a tall, dark and handsome man: João. The ace grabbed Maria's husband and threw him across the living room. The landing broke the man's neck, killing him. João grabbed Maria's stuff and all the money he could find and fled the house. When the Sun rose, Maria found herself in a cheap hotel holding a letter from João. From them on, Maria lived for her nighttime alter ego. João appeared at high society parties, nightclubs and celebrity gatherings, creating a buzz because nobody seemed to know anything about him, only that he had an intense dislike of men in general and had a way with women comparable to Casanova or Don Juan. In 1992, João revealed his ace while protecting a lady friend from an obnoxious admirer. Men usually think that, besides his strength, the wild card gave João mind control powers over women. Women just think that being an ace makes João even more attractive. Thanks to his female companions, João lives comfortably in a three-bedroom apartment in Ipanema. No one thinks it strange that he only seems to be around at night. After all, his maid, Maria, takes care of the place during the day.

I hope you liked it. Don't miss the third part next month and feel free to share any comments, suggestion and criticisms on the forum. If you ever run this, let me know too.