PRIMUS superhero teams

[Mark Rand]

PRIMUS bases now can have superhero teams.

Each team consists of up to eight superheroes, up to ten intelligence and assault agents as backup, and civilian medical/nursing and technical personal. Leading the team is an intelligence agent that has served as a superhero team liaison.

The teams can be based at the PRIMUS base, a separate building supplied by PRIMUS or the residence of a superhero.

PRIMUS agents that have technical or medical/nursing skills may handle such things for the team.

If the team works out of a separate building, it may hire a company to keep the place clean. If the team uses someone's house as a base, the team member must provide any domestic staff the team needs.

[Mark Rand]

Re: PRIMUS superhero teams

 

Let's look at a typical base. This one is the Mid-Avengers base from the Hero System FTP Archives. To find it, go to http://www.dmoz.org. Click on RPGs, then systems, then Hero System. The archive consists of self-extracting zipped text files.

This base has nine, bedrooms, including one for a maid and one for a guest, six cells, a danger room with a control booth, a vault and medical, criminology, programming, general information and security systems labs.

Where would we put it? Possible above the danger room on the first floor of the PRIMUS base discussed, by Shelley, in Digital Hero issue six. The base's cells could be removed to make room for an electronics lab.

Aside from the maid, the staff consists of a physician and nurse, both with trauma experience, an electronics engineer and a computer expert.

Aside from the team leader, there are two other inrelligence agents. One is a ninja. The other did black-bag jobs for the CIA. Either could also be the electronics engineer or computer expert.

[Mark Rand]

Re: PRIMUS superhero teams

 

The base should also be in, or near, the city's Central Business District.

For PRIMUS Pittsburgh, I've chosen the Station Square area because both Downtown Pittsburgh is a mess and the North Shore is having its own building boom.

The Station Square area runs from Gateway View Plaza, on West Carson Street, to The Terminal Buildings, at Ternimal Way and East Carson Street.

I've chosen to locate PRIMUS Pittsburgh on McKean Street, between the Liberty Bridge and the Panhandle / LRT Bridge. There's even a nearby trail, The Station Square River Front Trail, for walking and riding bicycles.

Ease of transportation is one prime reason for choosing this area. East Carson Street is the main thoroughfare, The 51A Arlington Helights bus goes along here and the LRT has a station at Station Square, right across from the East Warehouse, where Hooters is, a short walk from the base.

There's also plenty of parking in the area.

Comment is invited. Come on, folks. Let's hear from you.

[Mark Rand]

Re: PRIMUS superhero teams

 

Terry Kestler is Pittsburgh's silver avenger. Her agent team includes Intelligence Agent Bill Wadner, Assault Agent Martina Rosenblum, Assault Agent Paul Carter and Assault Agent Annie Woods.

The base's superhero team is headed by Intelligence Agent Elizabeth "Beth" Davies. Guardian, an armored male superhero and Warder, heiress Lisa Ward, a mage, are two members of the hero team. Warder's accompanied by her familiar, Amber, a female western screech owl, and a group of pixies.

Backing up the supers are Intelligence Agents April Curtis, M.S. and Christine Hunter, B.A. and civilian staffers Denise Clark, R.N., Donna West, Mariko Yamashiro, M.S. and Rhonda Nelson, M.D.

April, the redheaded daughter of a wealthy family, has her masters in electronics engineering, drives a Lamborghini Diablo in races sanctioned by the Sports Car Club of America, drives the pace car at nearby tracks, is a former Olympic gymnast and is a ninja with mystical abilities.

Christine, a former CIA black-bag expert, wears gloves all the time. She started doing so while preparing to portray a fashionable-dressed woman in a play set in 1904 Boston.

Denise, a PRIMUS staff nurse is a former USAF trauma nurse with experience in medevac situations and wears a sage-green flightsuit, with PRIMUS patches, over her scrubs.

Donna serves as the team's maid.

Mariko, is a PRIMUS computer expert. She received her degree from USC, where she was also a cheerleader. Additionally, she rides horses and worked at her father's photo studio during supper vacations.

Rhonda, a trauma surgeon, is an Aferican American woman with braided black hair that falls to her shoulders.

[Chuckg]

Re: PRIMUS superhero teams

 

My own opinion is that PRIMUS would most likely do the 'sanctioning' thing from the default Champions Universe, rather than actually go the route of forming the teams themselves.

 

The reason for this opinion of mine is summed up in one word -- budget.

 

With sanctioning, you still have the superteams on tap ("We need help! You're sworn deputies! You've got to come!") as well as a fair measure of influence ("Screw with me on this and I'll have your sanction yanked! Do you *want* to go back to hiding in back alleys and being shot at by the SWAT team?")...

 

.. but you don't have to spend one single dime on the bases, training, or anything else.

 

You also aren't liable for the property damage they cause, as you would be if they were govt. employees.

 

"The answer to 'Why don't they?' is always 'money'.

 

-- Maureen Johnson Long, in Robert A. Heinlein's _To Sail Beyond the Sunset_

[Mark Rand]

Re: PRIMUS superhero teams

 

Good points, Chuckg. Let's see.

Since Warder's identy is publicly known, they're using her fastness, her family's mansion as its headquarters.

Guardian, is his civilian ID, is wealthy. Under his control is a foundation that partially funds the team. Warder funds the rest of it.

Donna is one of her closest friends and the team housekeeper. (Think of them as being like Abby and Marie in the Judge Parker comic strip.)

Denise's is the team's nurse.

Rhonda's either a physician on retainer or a physician at UMPM Presbyterian's emergency department.

Mariko and April could be staff members with April being a reserve member of the team.

Now, who's the liaison, Beth or Christine?

 

Oh, I have the book you took the quote from. It's great.

[Mark Rand]

Re: PRIMUS superhero teams

 

My own opinion is that PRIMUS would most likely do the 'sanctioning' thing from the default Champions Universe, rather than actually go the route of forming the teams themselves.

 

The reason for this opinion of mine is summed up in one word -- budget.

 

With sanctioning, you still have the superteams on tap ("We need help! You're sworn deputies! You've got to come!") as well as a fair measure of influence ("Screw with me on this and I'll have your sanction yanked! Do you *want* to go back to hiding in back alleys and being shot at by the SWAT team?")...

 

.. but you don't have to spend one single dime on the bases, training, or anything else.

 

You also aren't liable for the property damage they cause, as you would be if they were govt. employees.

I was thinking about this again and came up with an interesting idea. The heroes, who are based at PRIMUS Pittsburgh, in Alleghny Center, were PRIMUS agents before becoming superheroes.

Guardian is an Iron Guard agent testing a prototype armor, possibly for a new class of PRIMUS agent.

Warder is a Wizard agent with mystical powers. (The Wizard agents are Intelligence agents with mystical skills and/or powers.)

Spirit Cat is an Intelligence agent with training in ninjitsu and some mystical abilities.

Backing them up is a team of ten assault and Intelligence agents and a few civilian staffers.

Intelligence agent Beth Davies leads the team and reports to Silver Avenger Terry Kestler.