IHA Book Review

[Lord Liaden]

We've had the discussion of the "sense" of anti-mutant sentiment on these forums before, but I admit I'm unable to find it.   To summarize what I thought were the most salient arguments in support of the concept: the prospect of humans being born superhuman mutants strikes at something we all have a very strong emotional attachment to, our children. This is different from someone being accidentally mutated, or an experiment to give someone superpowers. This is our own family, our bloodline and legacy, potentially being "other." Every birth runs the risk of producing a child who could kill us by accident or in a fit of childish pique.

 

Science can also be distorted to draw a parallel between mutants and other species of humanity which have gone extinct, such as Neanderthals. By  pseudo-Darwinian rationalization, if mutants are superior to "normal" humans due to their powers, their numbers will inevitably grow through reproduction until they dominate and supersede normals. We surely have enough examples in recent years of how ideas which have tenuous basis in fact, can take root and spread.

[DShomshak]

3 hours ago, Lawnmower Boy said:

Whereas I am deeply attached to the analogy and burn to explain it again and again until everyone who disagrees with me surrenders and . . What's that, little inside voice? That's not how the Internet works? Or how people work? Dang. 

 

So here's a question: Can we salvage the trope so that everyone can enjoy it and buy multiple copies of the IHA sourcebook and get it on the Amazon bestseller lists? I think we can! Okay, maybe not the bestseller lists. 

 

Oh, I think mutants can be used effectively as a symbol for other anxieties. I just think they don't work very well as an allegory for racism, and only marginally better as an allegory for homophobia.

 

In part this is because allegory is by its nature heavy-handed. Symbols are shiftier. They ask questions but are not so much insist on the answers.

 

For me, the most effectivde symbolic use for mutants is: Our children are not like us. And they have powers we do not comprehend, such as navigating social media on smartphones. (Back in my day it was programming VCRs.) And they will supplant us and take over the world. So how do you feel about that? Some people hind this hopeful. Many people find it terrifying.

 

Dean Shomshak

[tiger]

6 hours ago, steriaca said:

I'm going to continue adapting @tiger's Tiger Paw Press Villain Compendium series with the IHA agenda and blah, blag, talkity, talkity. As always, Tiger is the true Word of God on this, since he created most of the villains here and adapted others.

 

Purity Knights

 

The Purity Knights don't know about the true nature of the IHA, and believes them to be weak, more willing to talk the talk without walking the walk. IHA usually refers to the Purity Knights as "Genocide Light", and believes that it is only time before they bite off more than they crew and get destroyed (and proving their methods correct).

 

 

Glad you like the books and the Villains. Your free to do with them as you like make any changes you like as well.

 

I'm using the Knights as a replacement for Genocide. 

[steriaca]

1 minute ago, tiger said:

Glad you like the books and the Villains. Your free to do with them as you like make any changes you like as well.

 

I'm using the Knights as a replacement for Genocide. 

Which means that either IHA doesn't exist in your world (cause they basically picked the corpse of Genocide clean), or exists alongside the Purity Knights. Anyways, the list was all about coexisting your VC stuff with the Champions Universe 6ed. But then again every game is an alternative universe.

[tiger]

1 hour ago, steriaca said:

 But then again every game is an alternative universe.

True. I have the Knights existing along side 

 

 

[steriaca]

8 minutes ago, tiger said:

True. I have the Knights existing along side 

 

 

Yep. Compared to the point value of the IHA, the Knights ARE Genocide Light. Except for the leaders, which are mostly normal humans businessmen. 

[steriaca]

Thinking about the Huntmistress. 

 

Writeup: use the Sergeant writeup (page 68-70), but replace the Multi-Assault Blaster-Mark IV and Recoilless Rifle with more capture related weapons. And also the Shock/Explosive Collar activation device. 

 

Hound 1: Rather low level telekinetic powers (30 points max Multipower).

 

Hound 13: Mutant with luck powers.

 

Hound 27: Can cling to walls (clinging).

 

Hound 28: Superstrenth but not exactly resistant to damage. 

 

And...4 more Hounds. 

 

What do you think? Should the Collars be one of Huntmistress' powers or a limitation on the character sheet?

 

[steriaca]

Piecemeal writeup.

 

Standard power armor defense, flight boots, and mutant detector all total technology. Other powers are all mutant body parts preserved and "grafted" upon the armor for certain effects.

 

Standard MBPs

Energy Blast via a plastic-ish tube filled with preserving fluids and a mutant's eye and optic nerve. The tube itself is rather fragile, is an OAF, but he has like six of them.

Resistant Protection boost special effects of skin from a mutant and is Ablative.

A mutant brain allowing him Mental Defense, Ablative.

Extra limbs and stretching, no noncombat stretch.

 

Various other body parts: VVP, about enough to support four 60 point maximum powers, all based on body parts from mutants he has kept preserved inside his armor.

 

There are some powers he can't actually have by grafting on to his armor. He can't just fly by grafting wings on his armor (hench the boot jets).

 

 

[steriaca]

Writeup proxy time.

 

David Artistan, Nathaniel Corkofsky: I don't recognize the proxies in these two. Just two general normal leader type. (Not even of ex-Avengers government liaison and Project Wideawake agent Henry Peter Gireck)

 

Archer Samuels: The CEO of the IHA. The fact that he is an inobvious cyborg screams a little remembered group of mutant hating cyborgs whose names I forgotten from the x-books in the 90's, but those were obviously cyborgs. 

 

Minuteman Robot MARK 7 and Minuteman Tracker MARK 3: Obviously Sentales, more so for the MARK 7's humanoid form.

 

Hunter: Kinda a "super soldier" type, but more evil Nick Fury than Captain America. 

 

Shi No Te: Seems to me to scream Marvel's The Hand than anything else. 

 

MTU846 Mutant Termination Unit: Screams Terminatrix from the third Terminator movie, maybe with a bit of Nimrod sprinkled in.

 

Vengeance: Murdock seemed to me like a low powered "evil" Professor X who can walk. Vengeance is slightly more powerful than his father, but also falls into that nitch.

 

Eterno: Spanish Wolverine without the claws or unbreakable bones.

 

Clement Moreau (Spector): Seems like Marvel's Ghost without the tech.

 

La Bete (The Beast): There is no writeup for him, but "mutant werewolf".

 

Jason "Father" Todd: Another "evil" Professor X type, except he is also a biker from Sons of Anarchy. The rest of his crew written up seems to be bikers with a few powers.

 

Cat's Eye: Seems to be original to me. Maybe a bit Luke Cage without invulnerability.

 

Popper: Take a mutant student from the Xavier School, make him not ab X-Man nor New Mutant and basically you got Popper.

 

Shadow Fire: The superhero turned teacher gives me a Black Lighting vibe.

 

Death: Reminds me of the Slapstick villain The Atomic Bum, but is not a joke and him being a villain is questionable. 

 

Elaina Debone and Black Rose: Both reminds me of Jean Grey if the focus was more Telekinesis instead of Telepathy. 

 

Spoiler

And I now realize they are both the same person. One during her hostage taking to return her son to her, the other after she spends some time in Stronghold. 

 

[steriaca]

What is a mutant's classification by scientists as the next evolution of man kind? Many mutants and scientists like homo superior. Many also say that is one of the reasons why mutants are feared (IHA loves this term, and uses it in their propaganda, especially in their "science" papers). Others perfer homo supreme. Others like homo sapien mutanous.

 

Once they can agree on what to call human mutants collectively, they'll work on a single scientific classification for mutant plants and animals. 

[steriaca]

The IMAGE Manifesto

 

Supposedly found after Murdock's death, the manifesto contains many demands for humanity so that humans and mutants can live in peace. They include:

 

The immediate release of mutants from all prisons, police, and military. 

 

The formation of a mutant government to span worldwide and only focuses on mutant affairs.

 

The ability for mutants to demand tributes from anyone not a mutant (legalized stealing).

 

The removal of any murder, attempted murder, and manslaughter charges from human laws for mutants against humans "because humans should know better then upset their betters. Nobody charges a lion for killing a human. Nobody should charge a mutant for killing a human."

 

And other such statements. 

 

It is questionable if there were ever a true IMAGE manifesto. It is up to the GM if any of it was true, but at least 75% of it was probably doctored by IHA's media staff to upset humans about living in piece with mutants. 

 

 

[Gauntlet]

On 1/7/2023 at 8:37 PM, steriaca said:

While the book definitely focuses on Mutant Hunting, I agree with doc. They shouldn't "wait till the mutants are no longer with us" before going after other superpowered people. Everyone with superpowers are equally dangerous to "true humans" after all.

 

Just pondering why they employ Shi No Te (Death of Hand) considering he is an possessed human with magic sword and martial arts. 

IHA uses Shi No Te because he is good at killing powerful individuals like mutants. Of course once the need for him is done, it will be time to put a Last Word Sniper Rifle round through his head. IHA has used other villains as well, Blowtorch being the most used. In fact IHA will even use a mutant to kill another mutant as they have utilized Wildeye to kill other mutants multiple times.

 

The reason why IHA has one target, mutants, is because it allows for better focusing to get troops. Very similar to the Nazis who put Jews as the main enemy and if they didn't like you they stated that you were either a Jew or worked for them.

Edited April 1, 2023 by Gauntlet
Forgot to add something.

[steriaca]

Yes, I can see that. Motivate the troupes stuff. It's easier to get them together on the same page when your target is one group of people as opposed to "the world and anyone who is not directly us".

[steriaca]

Been talking to Gauntlet (writer of the IHA book) and I got a few more brain storms.

 

Red King: Another castaway from Kinematik's world, he was one of the three leaders of GENOCIDE from his world (which of course are more successful then the GENOCIDE of this world). He is basically a power armor guy, except his armor is actually made up of nanomachines. The machines provide him with all sorts of weapons he would need.

 

His ace in the hole is his Mutant Devistation Virus. Actually more nanomachines injected into a mutant's body, it allows him to control a mutant's powers from out front under him (basically Mind Control Based In CON, NND (having altered DNA), Limited Control (power activation and control only). Basically once hit with this virus, the Red King decides if the power activates or not, and at what power and the target. 

 

Note: He also has a Mind Scan only usable to find victims of the virus and to use the mind control power (which us also based in CON).

[Gauntlet]

13 hours ago, steriaca said:

Been talking to Gauntlet (writer of the IHA book) and I got a few more brain storms.

 

Red King: Another castaway from Kinematik's world, he was one of the three leaders of GENOCIDE from his world (which of course are more successful then the GENOCIDE of this world). He is basically a power armor guy, except his armor is actually made up of nanomachines. The machines provide him with all sorts of weapons he would need.

 

His ace in the hole is his Mutant Devistation Virus. Actually more nanomachines injected into a mutant's body, it allows him to control a mutant's powers from out front under him (basically Mind Control Based In CON, NND (having altered DNA), Limited Control (power activation and control only). Basically once hit with this virus, the Red King decides if the power activates or not, and at what power and the target. 

 

Note: He also has a Mind Scan only usable to find victims of the virus and to use the mind control power (which us also based in CON).

 

This wouldn't be bad for an adventure writeup.

[steriaca]

10 hours ago, Gauntlet said:

 

This wouldn't be bad for an adventure writeup.

Well yes. But I'm more an idea guy then the actual write up guy.

 

I can see Red King causing havoc all by his lonesome. He finds and fights powerful mutants till first blood, trying to infect as many of them that he can (including player character mutants of course). Then cause a basic overload of a mutant's powers at a critical time. Like when he can least risk hurting someone. If the mutant doesn't have powers which can be overloaded, he will turn off powers at critical times (like flight when he is flying, or force field when being attacked). If the hero dies...ok. if he doesn't, he injected doubt into the heroes lives.

 

Eventually he will try to get close to Kinematik's crew and infect them.

[Gauntlet]

Wasn't there a Red King in the Mutant File book for 4th edition. Would you be referring to the same individual?

[steriaca]

On 8/29/2023 at 11:18 AM, Gauntlet said:

Wasn't there a Red King in the Mutant File book for 4th edition. Would you be referring to the same individual?

I believe they limited themselves to White and Black, but I do remember sometimes they replace one color with red in some sets.

 

But while I did plan on using the chest authentic with this alter GENOCIDE, I decided to only let the Red King come through. 

 

Of course this is my idea. Your mileage may vary. 

Edited August 31, 2023 by steriaca

[Lord Liaden]

12 hours ago, Gauntlet said:

Wasn't there a Red King in the Mutant File book for 4th edition. Would you be referring to the same individual?

 

38 minutes ago, steriaca said:

I believe they limited themselves to White and Black, but I do remember sometimes they replace one color with red in some sets.

 

But while I did plan on using the chest authentic with this alter GENOCIDE, I decided to only let the Red King come through. 

 

That version of Genocide used a chess motif for its leadership -- strongly reminiscent of Marvel's Hellfire Club -- so you had a White and Black King/Queen, with each one having a Bishop as their second in command. No Red in that group.

 

There have been many fictional characters using the name, "Red King," mostly villainous.

[Gauntlet]

I knew there were four group with Genocide, but I was thinking that each was with both a king and queen. But I got the book out again and realized that it was one group led by Black King, one group led by Black Queen, one group led by White King, and one group led by White Queen.

[BoloOfEarth]

BTW, who is the author of the IHA book?  

[Gauntlet]

I am.

[BoloOfEarth]

Good enough for me.  I picked up a copy.  (Well, the paper copy will come in time, but I could go into the PDF copy immediately.)

 

Haven't had time yet to go through it in detail, just flipped through it and read a few bits and pieces, so most of what I can give at this point are impressions and generalities.

 

I like the overall look of it.  Nice and clean, with good headings / subheadings.  For instance, I really like how the Mutant Classifications are laid out. At times, the text seems to go a bit close to the header / footer bars, but that's not a deal-breaker and may be different in the printed version.  (I'll have to wait and see for that.) 

 

I also like the distinctive look of the character writeups, though I think there's a bit too much white space there (particularly between the various skills, though other things could be tightened up as well).  Also on the down side, I really wish all of the individual characters had character art depicting them (even if it was just a group pic, like "Father" Todd with the Sons of the Father gathered around him).  I'll admit it, I'm a sucker for superhero / supervillain character art, and not seeing it for all characters was disappointing to me.

 

Power-level wise, some of them (the Minuteman Mk. 7 and the MTU - I'm kinda surprised you actually used Terminator without worrying about copyright issues) are meant to take on whole teams, or at least multiple foes at once.  Most of them, though, look good for going one-on-one (or one-on-two) with your PC heroes.  (This is with the caveat that I didn't dive deep enough to see how balanced the various characters are.)

 

Missing character art withstanding, I really liked the related or semi-related art throughout (good quality stuff, too).  I kinda wish there was some scattered through the Equipment Manifold, even if they were just some standard real-world pistols / rifles / grenade launchers, but you can't have everything.  (Where would you put it?)

 

Anyway, on the whole I'm happy with my purchase.

 

Edit to add:  Yes, I know this review is light on actual content about the IHA.  I'd like to do some reading of it before making substantive comments there.

Edited August 30, 2023 by BoloOfEarth

[Gauntlet]

Thank you very much for giving me your first look at the book. It was my first one, so I am definitely still learning.

[BoloOfEarth]

5 minutes ago, Gauntlet said:

Thank you very much for giving me your first look at the book. It was my first one, so I am definitely still learning.

 

From the parts I did read, it didn't seem like a first effort.  (For instance, it doesn't seem riddled with poor grammar and misspellings galore.)  There were a few things I laughed out loud at.  (Referring to Genocide:  "Plus the branding sucked.")  I'm pretty sure there will be more.  Keep up the good work.

 

(One tip, though - "it's" is short for "it is", not the possessive of "it".  Sorry, it's a pet peeve of mine, and each time I saw it used incorrectly I cringed.)