Are You Ready for----STORMFRONT!!

[PhantomGM2602]

ATTENTION ALL HEROES!

Recently I've dug up an issue of White Wolf Magazine taht happens to be a super hero issue[for superhero RPGs].

While reading it I came accross a villian team that can be used for a 5th ed Champions campaign. They are called STORMFRONT and they gained their powers from a crystalized computer call the Font.

here's their History:

In the days of the Late Mesizoic,there arose an intelligent race decended from the florishing reptile life: the K'Saaa.

These creatures were gifted with latent physhic powers that,over the five million years of the Empire, developed into true sorcery. They delved into the fabric of nature,explored the heavens,shaped the continents to their liking and extended thier influence over the ecosystem. Finally, though,they sought to tear asunder the natural order of things,for thier seers saw that they would be replaced by scurrying mammals. The rituals they attempted were so powerful that they destroyed what the K'Saaa were trying to perserve. Their works were thrown down and their Empire vanished like a soap bubble overnight. The K'Saaa were not,due to their mastery of scorcery, an artifact producing culture,and what little physical evidence they left behind was easily overlooked by humans millennia later.

 

The K'Saaa did,in their 400th millennium,create one very important artifact: the Font. The font was a great crystal taht served as a combination library/power source/guardian for the race as a whole. When the Vanishing came, the Font was shattered. In thier last hours,many of the K'Saaa tried to use the Font to stem the destruction,but to no avail. Much of the crystal was rendered into inert dust,but a few pieces with magical potency yet intact survived. Called Shards by human and pre human wizards over the eons,they are highly treasured as power sources and weapons. Most weilders of the Art have been able to ignore the half heard whispers that seem to sometimes come from them late at night.

[Hey bear with me will ya? this explains where Stromfront's powers came from]

 

In the spring of 1971,Jeffery Masters,a Professor of Metaphysics at River City University,stepped down from his post due to 'exhaustion'. The truth was that in trying to prove a theory of his involving Merlin's Sword,he caused the deaths of four students and the destruction of a priceless artifact. Only the intervention of the sorcerous 'superheroine' Lady Mystery kept more people from being killed by the Thing that was summoned.

 

University officals,ever mindful of scandal and because police reports concluded that whatever had killed the kids was not human in the least,opted to disassociate Dr. Masters from the University.

 

Unknown to the officials and even to most mages in the area,Jeffery was from a long line of thaumaturges taht stretched back to the days of Rome. The 'accident' was a deliberate sacrifice in exchange for knowledge. that bit of information was the key taht peiced together the final scraps of a puzzle that had driven both his father and grandfather to an early grave--a legend of a source of incredible power.

A scholar of no small worth, it took Jeffery ten months to tie up his business in America and start on a journey that was to take him from the Rare Book room of a certain New England collage to a cabal of corrupt Grecian monks and finally to a spur of rock fifty miles off the coast of Greenland.

 

On that Spur of Rock Jeffery Masters found one of the last undiscovered shards and the largest one found to date. Most Shards sre hand sized;the largest found previously was the size of a sword,for their power is directly propostional to thier size. Jefery's crystal was twice as tall as a man and gave it's master complete control over the weather.

For more than ten years,Jefery Masters vanished as he strove to master the powers within the Storm Shard. A lesser man would have consumed by the awareness that dwelled within,

a more moral man would have tried to destroy the Shard.

Jeffery was neither petty nor moral,and after years of physchic struggle, he bent the powers contained within the

Storm Shard to his will. For a few more years,Jeffery explored the powers within himself and seldom found limits to them. His most important discovery was that he can grant part of this power to others.

After years of isolation,with only the inhuman prescence of the Strom Shard for company,Jefery decided to reenter the world of men. But not as a scholar,nor as a teacher. No, Jefery Masters re-emerged from the frozen wastes as a conqueror.

 

 

POWERS

After he gained his incredible weather control powers, Lord Tempest found that he can transfer parts of his esscence to others. Thus he decided to seek out four people who would personify his powers and his needs.

Erica Winters was gifted with Air because of her cold personality and her knowledge of flight.

BusinessmanKurai Shuro was deemed the best vessel for the powers of Thunder and Lightning.

Occultist Preston Winnie IV was the perfect choice for the powers of Cloud, and Angela Blackwater

becameDeluge, the Rain elemental.

Deluge,Sirrocco and Cloud must concentrate on transforming themselves into their elemental forms. This is perhaps their greatest weakness--if they could be surprised in their human form,they would be a lot easier to capture.

 

Lord Tempest can manefest all these abilities in some measure due to his intimate connection to the Storm Shard.

After gifting these four with power,Lord Tempest found that they could ,in turn gift these powers in daeth to another when Kurai Shiro died in a construction accident and his powers were transferred to a young architect. not listed on the character sheets is the fact that If Lord tempest or the Storm Shard is destroyed,all the members of Stormfront [and Thunder] becomes normals forevermore.

 

Here's the Phantom's Challenge: recreate Stormfront for the New Champions Universe from their original[4th ed stats that I will post on this board. Copy it and then use Hero designer to convert it to 5th ed stats with a revised story for the NCU.

[TheEmerged]

Probably have to change the name, since Stormfront is already a 5th Edition character (CKC).

[Oruncrest]

What issue number was that?

[Superskrull]

Originally posted by Oruncrest

What issue number was that?

 

White Wolf # 25 (1991) I found that a few years ago, myself. I'm still looking for another copy of the Space Gamer with Aaron Allston's first review of Champions. Had a green cover with Lightrune, Swashbuckler & the Overlord on the cover. He mentioned how he blended all the old pulp & comic characters together in one world and had them age normally.

I'd love to reread that as it's been years and my memories slowy blur with time.

 

You might also hunt down Space Gamer #70 (1984), Shadis # 18 (1995) & the Dragon Magazine Archive that came out back in the late 90's. that one has PDFs of Dragon 1-250 & a search function that can turn up such tasty stuff as an old article on other agencies such as the Japanese criminal agency ONI or the awesomely powerful 3rd Ed Champs character, the original Quantum.

[death tribble]

I have this issue.

Liked the picture of Deluge.

[Oruncrest]

Thanks Superskrull. I had their writeups, but I didn't know which issue they were in, or who wrote them up.

 

By the way, should we be putting writeups on characters who've already been written up in a magazine, even if it's been over a decade since the magazine was published? I don't want to step on anyone's IP, after all.

[PhantomGM2602]

Originally posted by Oruncrest

Thanks Superskrull. I had their writeups, but I didn't know which issue they were in, or who wrote them up.

 

By the way, should we be putting writeups on characters who've already been written up in a magazine, even if it's been over a decade since the magazine was published? I don't want to step on anyone's IP, after all.

Actually I'm thinking more of an 5th ed upgrade for Stormfront or rather THE STORMLORDS ! Catchy name huh? We should keep the names as they were. As for the writeups the only exception is Deathbolt. I'll leave him up to your imagination.

[Guest zarglif69]

Leave it to White Wolf to do something like this... F$%#ing around with other company's games, like their mages F*** with reality... they think they could get away with this? sue their a** off!!!!

[Castaigne]

I used Cloud, Deluge and Sirocco in several adventures and have 5th ed. work-ups for them with some slight alterations. I’m hesitant to post them (assuming anyone’s interested) without making sure it’s not going to cause any trouble though.

 

The original author is Wayne Ligon, but the fine print in the magazine says “All material printed in these pages is the exclusive property of White Wolf unless prior arrangements have been made with the author/artist.â€

 

In addition to Stormfront there’s an easily converted DC Heroes adventure featuring some Mystery Men (the movie) style characters I also did 5th ed. write-ups for.

[Stray Cat]

Shucks SS, I got my hopes up. I went to look for the only copy of Space Gamer I have left because I remembered there was some Champs stuff there, but it's issue 65. Darn the luck!

 

BTW it has a one-page review of Champions (2nd ed.?) by Russell Grant Collins, the first printed mention of the "Mizia Tactic" for Star Fleet Battles (at least that I know of) in an article written by (who else?) Walt Mizia, and Ronald Pehr's article "Superheroes in The Fantasy Trip: Outline for a Superhero Campaign in TFT," and a nifty full-color ad for Autoduel Champions.

 

Ah, memories...

Cat

 

Originally posted by Superskrull

White Wolf # 25 (1991) I found that a few years ago, myself. I'm still looking for another copy of the Space Gamer with Aaron Allston's first review of Champions. Had a green cover with Lightrune, Swashbuckler & the Overlord on the cover. He mentioned how he blended all the old pulp & comic characters together in one world and had them age normally.

I'd love to reread that as it's been years and my memories slowy blur with time.

 

You might also hunt down Space Gamer #70 (1984), Shadis # 18 (1995) & the Dragon Magazine Archive that came out back in the late 90's. that one has PDFs of Dragon 1-250 & a search function that can turn up such tasty stuff as an old article on other agencies such as the Japanese criminal agency ONI or the awesomely powerful 3rd Ed Champs character, the original Quantum.

[Starcorp Man]

I have the School of Hard Knocks Champions Sapce Gamer and the White Wolf w/ Storm Front. There is another Space Gamer with Gremlin and Black Claw but never saw it.

 

Quantum and ONI were also in Dragon Ares sections, I've got serious milage out of both supplements.

[PhantomGM2602]

What are you waiting for?

 

If you want to post the characters,then make some changes.

Nobody says that the team has to be the same characters.

Besides there's still Death bolt to create so who wants to create him?

[Scott Destroyer]

Hello,

 

Originally Posted by TheEmerged:

Probably have to change the name, since Stormfront is already a 5th Edition character (CKC).

 

Another potential reason to want to change the name is that Stormfront is also the name of one of the more famous real-world white-supremacist Web sites. When I first saw Stormfront's name in CKC, I wondered if he'd be a Red Skull-type. One hates to lose the use of cool names and symbols just because they've been co-opted by wrong-headed people, but letting such a name distract or confuse during game play isn't a great alternative, either.

 

A brilliant GM might be able to exploit such coincidences for memorable gaming, without offending anyone, but I'd be leery of trying it with my own less-than-mad GMing skillz...

 

Originally Posted by Stray Cat:

BTW it has a one-page review of Champions (2nd ed.?) by Russell Grant Collins, the first printed mention of the "Mizia Tactic" for Star Fleet Battles (at least that I know of) in an article written by (who else?) Walt Mizia, and Ronald Pehr's article "Superheroes in The Fantasy Trip: Outline for a Superhero Campaign in TFT," and a nifty full-color ad for Autoduel Champions.

 

The original Mizia article? A treasure indeed. You know a gaming mag's a vintage item when there's a TFT article in it... And the Autoduel Champions reference makes me wonder: does Mr. Allston still wear the "I am not the Champions Guru" T-shirt now that he's the actual credited author of Champions?