Dr. Sigmund Marlow

Dr. Sigmund Marlow is the in-house psychologist and therapist in Destruction Bench Agreement, because the place really needs one. He tries to be very professional in a distinctly unprofessional environment, which often causes him lots of grief. As such he mostly stays in his office reading and doing his job when asked, being paid a handsome salary in the process. He's developed an extreme dislike of the actual tournament contestants due to them often giving very little shits about the people around them and walking all over them.
Dr. Sigmund Marlow used to be a powerful plane-travelling epithet adventurer in his prime, and has such collected and created tons of powerful relics from across the multiverse. But that was in the past. Nowadays Dr. Marlow spends his retirement working at DBA trying to help people, in a place where his previous qualifications may come of extra use.
== Powers ==
=== Epithet Powers ===
Dr. Marlow has been out of practice, so his powers are weaker than that of his prime. However, he is still one of the strongest people within DBA and likely the hardest enemy they've faced yet. He has incredible psychic potential that manifests in a wide swath of PSI powers, including being able to explode objects, creating psychic constructed objects, firing pure psychic energy, mass levitation on a large number of objects, crushing people's minds to give them migraines, changing the size of things, changing the physical makeup of things, creating elemental effects, and likely many other powers that were not shown. He also has a psychic barrier that lets him counter roll on all incoming projectile attacks, and can fly and teleport at will.
He can presumably read minds as well, but refuses to use this except under dire circumstances out of respect for other people's privacy.
=== [OUTCLASS] Awakened Mind ===
Dr. Marlow's Outclass causes his third eye to open, greatly boosting all of his abilities to absurd levels. Each ability got some kind of powerful augment, too many to list here. His three most notable ones shown however leave an impression. His psychic barrier becomes a "future field" where he can predict the future to have a contested roll against ALL attacks, and cause any enemy anytimes made in the field to roll with disadvantage. His psychic orbs become much stronger and he can fire multiple at once. His PSI - Tornado is augmented to much much stronger as well as gaining elemental effects of Sigmund's choice.
His Outclass also gives him access to a special ability, the Psychoportal. This ability rips a hole in space and time, letting him either channel his own powers through it to morph it into any shape or horrific form he desires, or to summon things from other planes. He can do this even with things that don't actually exist, like the Dark Principal.
=== [OVERCLASS] Mass Psychosis ===
This powerful technique allows Dr. Marlow to choose up to twelve targets within a 60 foot radius of himself. Each target has their mind fall completely under Marlow's control. This means Marlow can make the targets individually experience anything he desires, trapping them in an infinite mental prison where the doctor can do anything. Meanwhile, Marlow also disconnects their mind's control over the body, allowing him to separately command those under this effect to do his bidding. This effect lasts a maximum of 72 hours, and once ended it may cause serious permanent brain damage or seizures to those who were afflicted. Its power effectively allows an immediate victory in virtually any fight, but due to its incredibly morbid nature, dangerous potential, and extreme repercussions Dr. Marlow reserves this ability for only the most dire of circumstances against the most unscrupulous of foes.
== Destruction Bench Agreement ==
=== Episode 44 ===
The party entered Dr. Marlow's office to get their friend(?) James Invisible checked out for his seemingly supernatural disorder he was suffering. However, the party also immediately started rummaging through his stuff, and said they wanted to steal his "psychic powers", which they managed to guess correctly about. They tracked mud into his office and generally ticked him off, but he was professional and called up Morpheus to help out with his patient.
At the end of the episode, the players decided to enter what was obviously Dr. Marlow's mind instead of leaving the Dreamscape, trying to steal his psychic powers. This complete breach of privacy drove Marlow to his breaking point, where he immediately psychically banished everyone out of his mind back to the real world, and proceeded to destroy the party. He was angry that the DBA fuckers (at least this group of them) would be so disruptive and uncaring about other people or consequences, and wanted to put them in their place. Weylan's newly obtained Outclass was perfect for dealing with Sigmund's office, but the doctor's mastery over telekinesis proved dangerous as he threw around lockers and players alike. He also stole Davin's psychic pin collection immediately, which Davin got back half of in the middle of the battle through a lucky crit. The players were barely able to hold on thanks to Melograno and Dream Taco Bell, but even after performing the biggest locker coffin fuckscape attack yet (one that previously defeated universe level criminals Nagito Komaeda), Marlow was still hanging on, and decided to use his Outclass (his Overclass, he deemed, would be too extreme). He opened a psychic portal to summon the Dark Principal, but Hella Money immediately entered the battlefield, saying that the episode was going on for too long and that Marlow had to stop or he'd be fired. He obliged begrudgingly, and teleported far away to take a stress nap.
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=== Episode 50 ===
Dr. Marlow appeared by technicality as a Time Construct created by a chain reaction of temporal anomalies at the heart of DBA. Specifically he was one of the fights in the boss rush, who could be one-shot killed if their previous defeat method were recreated. He was immediately obliterated by one of the characters summoning Hella Money, who threatened to fire him again.
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=== Episode 61 ===
Dr. Marlow appeared in the Dream Taco Bell alongside Rosé and Morpheus, revealing himself as a part of their miniature conspiracy to keep tabs on DBA and its president Neo Bagel. This doesn't come as a surprise, due to Dr. Marlow's general disdain and distrust towards DBA's antics and impact on the outside world. He reveals that he's been Rosé's "inside guy" while she was unable to return to the facility, investigating through use of psychic powers and mind reading. The two had conscripted Morpheus into arranging a meeting supposedly secure from outsider viewing, through use of the Dreamscape. The party was informed on the secrets of DBA and The Government, before saddling up on a secret mission into the underground depths of DBA. Marlow did not join, however, in an attempt to keep a low profile on his own operations should they get spotted.
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=== Episode 64 ===
During the picnic section Marlow was seen seemingly studying the surrounding area. Some party members were trying to coax him into joining, but the doctor was already incredibly irritated and knew he'd despise his time there. Of course, secretly Marlow was there in order to observe the events of the currently broadcasted episode, watching from a far while keeping tabs on events with his phone.
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=== Episode 85 ===
In the alternate oil universe, where Oliver O. Oilington used his Overclass to destroy the world, that timeline's Dr. Marlow's immediate goal was to save as many people as possible. Using his psychic powers he was able to telekinetically lift up a part of the DBA arena above the ground out of harm's way, and was picking up various people from the audience. However, he was eventually surprised by Oilington, who appeared behind the doctor and injected him with Oil directly into his bloodstream. This allowed Oilington to puppet him around and force Marlow to use his Overclass on the very people he was trying to save, making them walk to their deaths before doing so himself.
== Trivia ==
* Dr. Sigmund Marlow is heavily based off Katana ZERO and Mob Psycho 100.
* Zanza was originally expecting the party to mop the floor with Marlow, especially after they completely dumpstered the previous fight against Teagan Bedlam. However, action economy as well as the more grounded GMing style of Zanza made it much more difficult than expected, and Zanza frequently had to highball the player's damage output to help them keep up.
* Marlow's moral conflict with the party of episode 44 was not a preplanned thing, instead it came about when Zanza saw how much of a dick the party was being to this random guy, and thought it would be good to incorporate into something meaningful.
Category:Characters
Category:Destruction Bench Agreement Characters