Worst Fear!

[rjcurrie]

Re: Worst Fear!

 

Hmmm. Well, this is a theme that I as a GM have played upon in a few ways for the SuperSquad America convention team over the years.

 

Challenger: Not living up to the legacy of his father, the original Challenger, who is generally acknowledged as having been the world's greatest hero.

 

Silver Bow: Having her darker side take over completely and becoming nothing but an instrument of vengeance and punishment.

 

Forethought: Losing Crimson Fist yet again; also, being raped again.

 

Crimson Fist: Losing Forethought; also, not being up to the task when the team needs him.

 

Nightingale: Her main fear used to be that, as a baby left on a doorstep, she would end up completely alone with no family. However, now that she has discoverded her father, aunt, and half-brother, her biggest fear might be not being able to save a teammate in time with her healing powers.

 

Fast Track: Becoming the villainous Time Twister as he did in at least one future time line. So far, enough has changed that it looks like that time line won't occur, but Bernie is not naive enough to believe that there is only one path to that particular destination.

 

Diva: Becoming ugly and/or fat and out of shape. There might be deeper fears, but they have to show themselves.

 

Rick Davies, the Resilient Rubber-Man: Losing or letting down his team and/or his family.

 

Swift Kick: Losing her husband and love of her life, Rick Davies or their child. There is also the fear of somehow once again becoming the brainwashed supervillain she once was.

 

Rod Currie

www.supersquadamerica.com

[SKJAM!]

Re: Worst Fear!

 

I remember that scene from Emperor Doom, and how eye-rolling it was for me. I finally decided that Doom had "cheated" somehow, such as immunizing himself to the pheremones beforehand, and that allowed me to at least get to the end of the story.

 

It might be amusing if the attack sought out the "worst fear you haven't already overcome", so that for folks like the Baron, it would have to go down to oh say, peanut butter sticking to the roof of his mouth, because everything more traumatic he's already dealt with.

 

And I suppose you want my characters...

 

Mask of Justice: The Nazis win.

 

Kira Midori: Losing her moral compass and becoming utterly apathetic about what people do, because "it's all relative anyways."

 

Talion: Being the last living thing on Earth after the sun goes out, having been deliberately left behind when humanity fled. And knowing that he will live until the heat death of the universe.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Worst Fear!

 

Talion: Being the last living thing on Earth after the sun goes out' date=' having been deliberately left behind when humanity fled. And knowing that he will live until the heat death of the universe.[/quote']Yes, I can provide some comfort there: The Sun, being a main sequence G-type star, will not "go out." It will first expand into a red giant, which will put Earth within its surface and vaporize Earth completely. A few thousand years later, it will collapse into a brown dwarf. If Talion can survive all that, he won't have to worry about standing alone on a cold Earth. He may be in orbit around a dead star at the end of time, but at least he won't have to worry about Earth. So cheer up; things aren't as bad as you feared.

[Chuckg]

Re: Worst Fear!

 

It might be amusing if the attack sought out the "worst fear you haven't already overcome"' date=' so that for folks like the Baron, it would have to go down to oh say, peanut butter sticking to the roof of his mouth, because everything more traumatic he's already dealt with.[/quote']

 

Vampires don't eat peanut butter sandwiches.

[SKJAM!]

Re: Worst Fear!

 

Vampires don't eat peanut butter sandwiches.

 

Thus his never overcoming that fear--or even realizing he had it.

[BcAugust]

Re: Worst Fear!

 

Um... how graphic do you want us to get? Crown Princess Cyrande does have a worst fear... but let's just say it's completely Iron Age.(She comes from Malva. And there's a reason she's a kill instead of capture type person at the start of the game...)

 

Nox- um... well, Shadowstrike taking over. But Nox has already had to see her worst fears come to pass... and she won't break.

 

Scatach? Hmm... Finding out that the elixer didn't make her capable of having kids... it just made her a portal for "other" entites....(Her family is one of the big cornerstones of her life. And she owes a life boon to Dr. Yue for letting her have kids after her fae extended life turned her sterile.)

[Karmakaze]

Re: Worst Fear!

 

Delusion - Losing the hard-won 'filter' between herself and every other mind within range. She already has trouble shutting out the 'pressure' of other people's personalities - that filter is the only thing keeping her from losing any sense of self she has left.

 

Dragonfly - Watching the people she cares about die because she wasn't willing to make the hard choices to protect them (we ran into some CvK issues with rather nasty villains) - or - Having to finally let go of her morals and giving in to the megalomania that entails, and destroying her friends with her own hands when they try to stop her.

 

Grandmother - The final death of Gaia. (Game is a post-apocalptic game where the Earth is terribly scarred. Grandmother is a genius locii who already lost her home mountain to an air burst nuke. If the Earth's biosphere-as-entity cannot be revived, then she has nothing left to fight for.)

 

Roxy - Her hunted, Ky'Ree, finally catching up with her. (Ok, it's a simple one...)

[Guest daeudi_454]

Re: Worst Fear!

 

Firedrake: He turns into a mortal human.

Ion: positive and negative: goes on a murderous rampage across the city.

Quantum Cat: His living self dies, the body stays dead, and he is stuck as a ghost, forever arguing with his other ghosts.

The PC: Wakes up in a looney bin, being told that he has been suffering from delusions for years. There are no supers, there is no RPG> He is me, and I have lost my mind.

 

(Yeah, yeah- save the wisecracks on that last one )

[Guest daeudi_454]

Re: Worst Fear!

 

I remember that scene from Emperor Doom' date=' and how eye-rolling it was for me. I finally decided that Doom had "cheated" somehow, such as immunizing himself to the pheremones beforehand, and that allowed me to at least get to the end of the story.[/quote']

Doom does not "cheat". He conquers. His singular focus and sense of Self, sense of Purpose, sense of Divne Ordained Destiny is how he resisted.

 

SO SAYS DOOM!!!

 

Sorry- had to... it's in my Psych lims...

[starblaze]

Re: Worst Fear!

 

> Batman is usually thought to be the hero equivalent of Victor, at least

> in that way - or close enough -

 

Actually, no. High-end supervillain telepaths can send Batman sprawling, unless he uses tech-based Mental Defense.

 

Victor can take a mind-control attack sufficiently powerful to control the entire planet Earth, including people such as Captain America and Thor, with his every technological defense deliberately deactivated -- and not blink. ("Emperor Doom" graphic novel)

 

The Baron von Darien is closer to the second than the first.

 

> and he's still vulnerable to the fear inducement.

 

> No one, in the comics, tends to be outright immune to mentalism.

 

> Assume it was powerful enough. What skeletons DO still lurk?

 

Well, you see, here's the problem. What sort of fears are you projecting?

 

* Having your wife and children brutally murdered by vicious raping thugs and arriving just in time to fail to protect them, but in time to sift through the burnt wreckage of your home to find their stiff and cooling bodies?

 

* Making a devil's bargain for the power to exact your revenge, cursing yourself to immortal damnation?

 

* Having every second of your day be a struggle against an unholy thirst?

 

* Living with the memories of having eaten people?

 

* Spending centuries as an honor-bound knight, indentured by your word to an utterly honorless, selfish, untrustworthy fool?

 

* Falling in love /again/, and being so unutterably stupid as to think you're doing her a favor by sharing your vampirism with her?

 

* Having your second true love devolve into a psychopathic monster that you have to deliberately hunt down and kill, in a grand stalk and chase that spanned half a continent and several decades?

 

* Stare Qlippothian horrors in the snout?

 

* Spend eleven centuries watching every single torture, depravity, horror, and damnation that men, vampires, and demons can all combine?

 

* Live a lie for centuries, every waking minute a deep-undercover role in a society of vampires where the slightest slip means your death, while you secretly plot all of theirs?

 

* And doing all of this /all alone/? And for /no thanks/?

 

... this is the Baron's /origin story/.

 

I really can't imagine what could scare a mind capable of living through all this and still being 100%, coldly, intelligently sane -- and I think any mentalist that could imagine these things would drive /himself/ crazy before he had the chance to share his experience with anyone else.

 

We're talking about somebody who rolls 1d2 for SAN loss staring at Cthulhu.

 

Three words: Pink Fuzzy Bunnies

[OddHat]

Re: Worst Fear!

 

Looks like the WWYCD threads have made a comeback! (No, that's not my worst fear. I like them!)

 

But in that vein, your charcter comes across a demented Scarecrow-like villain; One with the ability to project your character's worst fears.

 

What would said fears be?

 

Style -

 

The Crowns of Krim have fallen.

 

I feel no triumph.

 

Redirection of forces was nearly useless. My glamours could not bring down the Dark Seraph. World dancing was the answer.

 

I feel no relief.

 

I needed a counter for the Seraph and his soiled magi. It was not enough to hold them at bay. Not enough to escape. I had to overwhelm all of them, together.

 

I feel no pride.

 

I reached for a power source. I danced across worlds and followed red rivers. I searched through my blood. I found the Emerald Crown.

 

I feel no horror.

 

My father’s Crown. The Crown that made him a Hero. The Crown that made him mad. I had to defeat the Dark Seraph. There was no other way. I called the Emerald Crown to me, placed it upon my brow, took from it, gave to it.

 

I feel nothing.

 

The first Green Knight had no training in magic when he found the Emerald Crown. I have studied magic all my life. The first Green Knight took years to unlock the Crown’s true power, years more to fall to its corruption. I unlocked the power in an instant, shaped it with my own. Destroying the Dark Seraph and his minions took a single thought, a simple transference of power. The Emerald Crown drank in their power as its own.

 

I fell within moments.

 

I hear my master calling.

 

I obey.

 

I have become my father.

[Trained Chicken]

Re: Worst Fear!

 

Clowns. Impotence. Taxes. Mother-in-laws.

[Guest HeroPink!]

Re: Worst Fear!

 

Glarg:

Getting killed.

 

Panweesio:

Losing the power to control other's perceptions. Even more, being subject to illusions and Images that are out of control.

 

Thena:

Being trapped in a painful dimension, no ability to leave it.

 

Lana van Hoom: The 'other' doesn't change twice a day, forgets she/he is an 'other', and stays in that form forever. That is, Lana "disappears" and some super-goodie takes over.