Mixtli is the National Hero of Mexico, and was created by guest designer and TRDL R3 Member Tulio! We liked it so much, we absorbed Mixtli like an unfortunate Blob victim… the original film, not the remake.

Concept and design: German Arbe
Art: Thom Chiaramonte and Joao Marques
Origin: Thom Chiaramonte

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Mixtli

Name: Maria Ruiz
Affiliation: National Hero, Mexico

Attributes:

Melee: 30
Reflex: 35
Muscle: 20
Vigor: 30
Acumen: 30
Observation: 40
Will: 45

Life: 115
Influence: 115

Abilities:

Enhanced Physiology: Mixtli’s posthuman latent abilities first involved a slowly evolving physiological overhaul of her body, from hardened skeletal members to increased muscle density and elasticity, to regenerative nerve and brain tissue. Though she initially appeared to experience no overt physical changes from her treatments, a multi-functional barrage of nanocellular organisms were introduced into her blood and spinal fluid, tasked with multiple physiological adaptations that would take months to complete before the nanocells would die and be expunged from her system. The process ultimately left her with impressive strength, agility and rapid recovery from fatigue, the results of which are reflected in her Attributes above. In addition, her heightened reaction times provide her with +2 to Initiative rolls.

Levitation: Mixtli’s primary latent ability is levitiation, with an Intensity of 50. She can levitate to 40 Range, and sustain levitation for several hours. Her acceleration is moderate, approximately 10% of her ability’s Speed. This ability is often misrepresented as flight, given the altitudes she may ascend to without physical harm.

Molecular Control, Moisture: As a secondary latent ability, Mixtli can influence the behavior of water molecules in the atmosphere with 20 IV, enough to create rain, rapid condensation, and artificial wind currents of excited water molecules at power level Range and Damage. She is most known publicly for these abilities, though they are modest in intensity.

Origin:

As part of the Posthuman Planning Directorate’s [PPD] campaign to spread the National Hero system to friendly nations within the trade and regional defense orbit of the United States, Maria Ruiz and thirteen other potential candidates were sent to the PDI facility in Canso, Newfoundland on an unmarked, private charter aircraft, to be tested for viability as potentials for Mexico’s first national hero. Somewhere over the Chuska Mountain range in northwestern New Mexico, the aircraft was shot down in the early morning hours, despite flying black with no aircraft lights or beacons illuminated. The wreckage of the plane was distributed largely over the New Mexican side of the range, though some fragments were found as far norteastern Arizona. The distribution of wreckage over such a large area, combined with the unusual damage found on the recovered material suggested an undefined, possibly posthuman form of offensive weapon had been employed, though radar never indicated other aircraft or unidentified bogeys in the area at the time of the incident.

Immediately, the Mexican government filed a protest with the American Government privately, convinced that the strike was part of an American scheme to destabilize Mexico and remove their most talented and skilled military personnel under the guise of a so-called unidentified terrorist strike. The Mexican government had sent their best men and women from both military and intelligence fields for posthuman candidacy, and the fact that there was no record of the flight, the aircraft was effectively flying blind and dark, and only the Mexican and American governments had knowledge of the operation made the downed flight extremely suspicious, and enraged the Mexican President. While closed-door discussions remained ongoing in an attempt to placate the Mexicans, the PPD was scrambling to explain to the White House how a potentially posthuman attack had taken out Mexican nationals on a black ops mission over United States territory, not only without their knowledge, but also in an operation arranged by the PPD itself. Three field investigation teams were sent to the Chuska Mountains to survey the crash sites, along with an FBI taskforce leading the disaster recovery effort, in order to provide a plausible explanation to the press about a plane crash occurring without the FAA’s knowledge. It was described as a private plane flown off course due to navigational instrument malfunction, out of Palm Desert, California, and the requisite flight records were pre-dated and filed with the FAA database, with the claim that the flight took off from a private airfield. It was a fairly flimsy cover, but it was the best that could be generated on short notice. As long as the black ops equipment and night-flight stealth modifications could be recovered from the crash, there would be no direct evidence that it had been anything other than a private jet. Within three hours of the crash, over fourty-three government personnel were in the Chuska Range, searching for signs of the downed fuselage.

Unfortunately, the fuselage was found by early sunrise, and not by the FBI. Representatives from the Navajo Nation made contact with the BIA, declaring that they had found a crashed military jet within their territory and had taken covert ops agents of the American and Mexican government captive as prisoners of war, viewing them as an American funded hit squad sent in to destabilize the Navajo leadership, thanks to the rise in radical isolationist political influence among the tribes that advocated a more aggressive attitude about Native American borders. Despite the government’s insistence that the plane was not part of a destabilizing mission, and that none of the supposed survivors were the CIA and SEDENA operatives the Navajo nation apparently believed them to be. Three liaisons from the Secretariat of National Defense boarded a military convoy to join American representatives of the CIA and the PPD under cover of BIA label, to appease the Navajo leadership and negotiate the release of any survivors of the crash, in an attempt to prevent the threatened televised news conference announcing the crash and detainment of survivors, an international crisis that would put the United States and Mexico in a difficult position in dealing with the indigenous nation-state.

Before evening that same day, the PPD station executive directly responsible for organizing the flight profile received a coded squelch from the field radio of one of the PPD operatives that had been aboard the downed flight, requesting covert rendition from the southern tip of the Chuska range. Part of the field investigation team in play was dispatched to investigate, while negotiations remained ongoing with the Navajo leadership. The team found three survivors of the crash traversing a canyon, badly injured. They confirmed that they had been detained by Navajo civilian militia and interrogated, but had initiated their escape shortly before dawn, and had been tracking the mountain range trying to restore signal to the damaged communications kit from one of the deceased operatives from the flight. Realizing that the Navajo leadership did not know that their captives had freed themselves some eleven hours earlier, the US negotiators nonetheless knew that the Navajo militia would still be capable of causing significant public relations damage for both the US and Mexico, even without the hostages, as long as they retained the fuselage and any tape of the survivor interrogations. As a result, the US negotiated a sizable cash and aid package with the Navajo nation, which, somewhat ironically, included the beginning of talks about creating a Navajo-based national hero, to bridge a symbolic alliance between the Native American tribal leadership and the United States as a whole, to the world at large, despite the fact that the militia did not know that the survivors of the downed craft were themselves Mexican posthuman candidates.

Maria Ruiz was one of the three survivors, a military intelligence officer with airborne infantry training, and was personally responsible for the prisoner escape, having strangled her captor, and freeing the two before the remaining militia guard discovered the body. On the basis of this heroic effort, and both her training and field judgment, Ruiz was tapped as the posthuman candidate for Mexico’s national hero program, and entered the PDI facility for thirty-seven weeks of treatments and post-procedure training. She took the process well, and while exhibiting no immediate signs of a latent posthuman ability, she evidenced the increased strength, agility and athleticism expected from the admittedly unrefined posthuman process utilized at that time. Eventually, late in her field training, she began to exhibit abilities influencing localized weather patterns, and in particular air currents and condensation. She returned to Mexico with a field and support staff, and was soon introduced to the Mexican people and the world as Mixtli, an Aztec-influenced figure with strong symbolic connections to the sky and the clouds, reflecting a positive, progressive spirit towards US/Mexican relations as partners in posthuman defense and social freedoms.

Mixtli was immediately embraced by the Mexican people, and over a relatively short amount of time, her disaster relief and public events allowed her persona to reach near-religious fervor in her supporters. People clung to her image like a spiritual ward, and a fervent plea was made to know and understand more about this woman that seemed to have one foot on Mexican soil and the other in the heavens themselves. Realizing that the more the civilian population understood of Ruiz’ military background and the United States’ involvement in her posthuman development, the greater likelihood that this support would collapse, an identity was crafted for her by the PPD’s propaganda team, and she soon revealed her identity and background, as Sunashi Tlactl, the only daughter of a rural farm family and ward of a local missionary who fought for indigenous rights for native Mexican Indians throughout her young life before her incredible journey as Mixtli began. Her televised interview with a popular talk-show host in Mexico City was the most-watched event in Central American history, and her story was crafted specifically to appeal to the Mexican Indian rights groups that had been gathering steam in upcoming election campaigns that year in Mexico, allowing them to identify with her, bridging the progressives and the Mexican government closer together.

There was one unfortunate side-effect to this reveal. Three months later, while engaged in a protracted conflict with the Mexican underworld boss Medousa in an attempt to free several hundred child prostitutes believed to be in hiding, an assassin infiltrated Mixtl’s penthouse flat in Mexico City and murdered her lover, a local physician, before detonating explosives that destroyed the dwelling. SEDENA agents confirmed the assassin’s identity as a radical Navajo militiaman, part of a splinter group advocating terrorism in support of indigenous people’s rights. The group had recognized Ruiz from her short time in captivity, and the use of indigenous imagery in her posthuman persona enraged the group, leading to the assassination attempt. This incident increased tensions not only with the United States, but within Mexico’s own civilian population, as different factions fought over the perceived political motivations for the attack on Sunashi Tlactl’s home, undoing much of the unity she had initially fostered. While she would continue to represent Mexico in the national hero system and her military background as Maria Ruiz would never be revealed, Mixtli would continue to struggle with symbolic attacks on her by radical groups politicizing her identity.

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You can see the illustration herein the TRDL Universe Gallery.

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1. TRDL Character Factory, No. 92: Medousa
2. TRDL Character Factory, No. 98: Gila
3. TRDL Character Factory, No. 04: 21st Sentry