Create a Villain Theme Team!

[Haven Walkur]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

Presenting: Pinecone

 

"Pangolin: An African mammal that has a body covered with horny overlapping scales, a small head with elongated snout, a long sticky tongue for catching ants and termites, and a thick, tapering tail. Also called scaly anteater."

 

"That's what a pangolin is," thought Desperate Divas star Jackie Ambruster, outraged. "It looks like a walking pinecone!"

 

Up until five minutes ago, she'd known nothing at all about spiny African anteaters, and couldn't have cared less...as with so much else in her life. Ignore it, forget it, shrug it off; that had been her M.O. in dealing with, well, everything. All her life. But now she had to care....

 

All because of that little idiot Debbie and that son-of-a-b*tch Dr. Phillip Wilde.

 

Face it, Jacqueline "Jackie" Ambruster was a smart enough and pretty enough to have it made in T.V.-town; pretty enough to end up a core cast member on popular reality show Desperate Divas, and smart enough to keep the audience interested. Smart enough to backstab, cheat and lie with a smiling face, and let what the others did in return just roll off her back. Smart enough not to get close to anyone on the show, not -- despite the name of the genre -- for real.

 

Smart enough not to care.

 

But then last season the show's powers-that-be wanted to stage a big blowup/betrayal in the main cast...well yeah, okay, Debbie Wills wasn't that old, but she was supposed to be an actress, for crying out loud! These were characters in a show! And so when Jackie revealed to Angela -- right on cue for the season finale -- that pretty golden-haired little Debbie was in love with her, no-one was more surprised than Jackie by the kid's reaction to her betrayal. The kid's very final reaction.

 

The note read simply: Jackie, you were my best friend. I miss you.

 

And abruptly the viewing public decided that Jackie Ambruster was the devil.

 

Jackie was ostracised by the professional world, criticised by the public and eventually sued by Debbie's family. The producers of Desperate Divas insisted in court that the so-called "Judas kiss betrayal" was conceived of and staged entirely by Jackie...and then in-court revelation that "Debbie Wills" was the assumed name of 17-year-old "Debbie Ann Vickers" just slapped the final rotting cherry on the whole rancid sundae. Oh, Jackie was eventually exonerated of any wrongdoing in the death of Debbie Wills/Debbie Ann Vickers, but by then most of her savings and investments were gone and her prospects for further work in television or film, at least in the US, were non-existent.

 

She couldn't afford to leave the U.S., but Jackie had to find some way, any way to start over. For the first time, she began to consider doing something criminal -- theft, robbery, blackmail, fraud -- for the money. And as if her life was a script he'd been supervising, Dr. Phillip Wilde -- zoo-ologist, virologist and organic chemist -- chose that moment to step forward and offer the 45-year-old Jackie the sort of new start she'd never even contemplated.

 

Jackie's genetic material, as she was dismayed to learn, has been blended with that of a pangolin. Once the metabolic and physiological changes were complete, Jackie's body had settled into a stable and permanent, albeit bizarre hybrid form. She now calls herself Pinecone.

 

Jackie is still 5'8", her pre-transformation height, but she has developed a deep stoop; her absurdly large and powerful hands and forearms hang low in front of her, her enormous bristling claws almost brushing the ground. Like the pangolin, she's an excellent climber and digger, but overall she moves very slowly; Jackie actually walks bipedally, but her style of locomotion is that of a quadruped walking with its front legs raised slightly off the ground.

 

Pinecone is covered in interlocking, razor-edged plated of keratin. Like "natural" pangolins, she can roll herself into a tight armoured ball that's proof against all natural attacks...and a bit more. Blades, low-calibre bullets, spears and arrows will not penetrate the natural armour, which also acts as a Damage Shield, thanks to its bladed edges. Pinecone has very poor eyesight, but keen hearing and a discriminatory sense of smell; her nostrils, ears and eyelids have muscular "valves" that protect them from damage or attack, making her immune to most irritant gas attacks. And yes, she's an insectivore, though high-protein pastes will substitute for ants or mealworms when she hasn't had a chance to order from any of her on-line pet supply stores. Pinecone has no teeth or jaws, and her long, flexible and extremely sticky tongue is not adapted for speech, though she has begun using it as a substitute hand/arm; it's flexible, strong, well-anchored and very long, with its insertion point in Pinecone's pelvic girdle. Currently she can manipulate a crayon with it in order to write legible words.

 

Pinecone's oversized claws hang down from her short, wide "fingers" like a bunch of gray/brown bananas. Her claws prevent her from using her front feet/hands for locomotion, but she can use her claws to dig and burrow rapidly and tear through reinforced concrete and steel. In combat, Pinecone is very slow but also very hard to hurt, even when not rolled up, and getting within arm's reach of those machete-like claws is likely to be a deadly mistake.

 

Jackie is not pleased with her current situation. Oh, admittedly she got the change she was seeking, but rather more drastic than she'd intended or anticipated. On the plus side, no-one will ever recognise her now; on the minus side, she's a freak! A monstrous FREAK! She definitely feels she has a score to settle with Dr. Wilde, and suspects he has been manipulating her all along, perhaps even as far back as her days with Desperate Divas.

 

But oddly enough, Jackie has found herself putting her quest for vengeance on the back-burner. For some reason, Jackie can't just brush off her fellow beast-people. It's not just that they're like her, or she's like them, but they seem to have something more than shape in common. Beast Blood isn't much of a criminal enterprise at this point, but they're -- somehow, they're good people to be around, and Jackie reluctantly admits she likes spending time with them. She's definitely having trouble keeping her distance these days, especially with people like Tristan, the Mad Cow, and the poor sweet little Tapir, Suleika.

[Legatus]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

Great story, Haven!

 

[Haven Walkur]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

ThaaaaanQ!

[Cygnia]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

Danny Meredith had dreams -- no, he had ambitions! No more would he be treated like the small-time hood everyone thought he was. Soon, the Mob, the Yakuza and any of the other gangs and cartels out there would fear him...would treat him with RESPECT!

 

That's what he still thinks anyway, even after he subjected himself to the genetic experiments. Even after when the only abilities he came out with were to survive and swim in really cold water (but not to actually breathe underwater) and a super-hardened brightly colored schnozz. And whether they like it or not, Danny is doing everything he can to shape and mold Beasts' Blood to one day be a legitimate threat -- under his leadership, aka THE PUFFIN!

 

****

New Team: THE TERRORS FROM OUTER SPACE!!!

Number: 5

Theme/Motive: They see themselves as intergalactic conquerors and merciless cosmic destroyers. They're not even close to being an actual threat on their own. Mere annoyances, petty thugs &/or juvenile delinquents exiled to what's considered a backwater planet here on Earth.

[BobGreenwade]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

In his native language, his name means "Conquering Warrior," and that's how Yugaat T'b'kydng-mi wants to be known. (He frequently corrects others on the pronunciation, too -- he's very picky about that.) To be fair, he's one of the larger, stronger, and more impressive-looking specimens among his own people. Among humans, he's... strong.

 

A human would describe a member of his species like this: He's about four feet tall and rail-thin, rather like an insect with a firm exoskeleton (with overlapping plates around the chest to allow for lung-based breathing) and large multifaceted eyes. His legs are double-kneed, with the upper knee bending forward and the lower one backward. In the place of each arm there are four highly dexterous tentacles.

 

At least, they're dexterous in theory. In practice, at least once during any fight Yugaat drops his weapon and has to bend down and pick it up.

 

His weapon, which another member of the team made for him, shoots electricity in various combinations of voltage and amperage, with the ability to stun, destroy, or do nearly anything in between to a target. He also wears what he considers a warrior's armor, cobbled together from various traditions of Earth's history. At least, he thinks he looks impressive in a Chinese breastplate and a high-combed Roman helmet.

[SKJAM!]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

Gigantus X-40 actually was a menace on its home planet, when the brooding teen genius Squa Tront built it as a humongous humanoid mecha for his plan of world conquest. Only a brilliant scientist's teleport trap that exiled Squa Tront in his machine to Earth saved their world. And that's when Squa's nightmare began. You see, he's only three inches tall by human standards, and Gigantus X-40 is roughly the size of an average adult human male.

 

Gigantus is somewhat stronger than a normal human, and considerably tougher. It also has a wide variety of offensive weapons...scaled to be devastating to three-inch-tall people. It can also fly, though not very fast.

 

Squa himself is a genius inventor, and helped develop Conquering Warrior's electric weapon as a prototype to upgrading Gigantus' weapons. He's off his medications for his bi-polar personality disorder, though, so is often too depressed to work on the mecha.

[Lucius]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

Disaster (sometimes calling himself Catastrophe) chose his English name because it has the same root meaning, "evil star," as the name silleegekko that his own people gave him when he was cast out. At first glance he would seem to have a lot in common with Squa Font; he is the same small size and is hoping Squa can make him a replacement for his own humanoid robot vehicle that was taken away from him when he was outcast. Disaster is a Bayangi, lizardlike but with super flexible, tentacle like limbs.

 

Disaster has the normal Bayangi traits: a hypersensitive sense of small and taste, immunity to terrestrial diseases and poisons, ability to recover from wounds in a healing trance, and a chameleonlike ability to blend in if totally still, along with tiny size and a very very fragile physique. Bayangi are also experts with technology, especially robototics - except for Disaster, who was trusted with few technological or other secrets, and never mastered anything they did try to teach him.

 

Disaster wants to revenge himself against his own people by living up to his name - "I will show them the real meaning of silleegekko!" - and has tried to be a disaster to them by, for example, warning the people of Earth that the Bayangi are already among them, secretly replacing key people with their clever Human seeming robots piloted by Bayangi hidden inside. So far no one seems to take his warnings seriously, leaving him just as miffed at the people of Earth as at his own kind. He doesn't care if he helps the Terrors from Outer Space conquer Earth, or helps save it from his own people, or even ends up helping someone else conquer Earth, as long as it's not the Bayangi!

 

The one thing Disaster has going for him is his normal human ("normal human" in the Bayangi tongue means "killer robot") a flying disk bristling with weapons meant for hunter-killer missions. Disaster actually rides on top of it, which is neither the approved method of operation (it's either remote controlled or programmed and dispatched on its mission) nor especially safe. It can be deadly when it functions as intended but often malfunctions due to poor programming or maintenance. Disaster is terrified to do any major repairs or to give the passcodes to Squa Font and let him try either, for fear of setting off the self destruct sequence. If his former comrades ever figure out how to override his override of their remote control (the one tricky bit of robotics he ever got right) they'll probably blow it up while he's riding it and eliminate his pesky annoying antics once and for all.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary suspects it's really just a lizard with weird mutations and weird delusions. The flying disk? Probably stole it somewhere....

[csyphrett]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

Meet WORgfRORWF. Most people just call him him Worog. He is jell-o that landed on earth in the core of a meteor. Like all gelantinous masses, he is a shapechanging, sqaumous, omnivorous glob of evil.

 

He is the least likely to go out and do something to somebody, but many mistake his laidback attitude for a lack of a killer instinct. That can be a serious mistake to make when dealing with the alien abomination.

CES

[csyphrett]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

Bars Su is called Snowflake. He thinks he is a dangerous mass of ice that can smash through anything. Instead he is a tiny piece of crystal that may give someone frostbite on a tiny piece of flesh if they were unlucky enough to touch him in flight.

CES

[csyphrett]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

New Team: The Mascots

Number: 6

theme/motive: Some evil kid genius/mad wizard needed some minions for a one shot scheme. The problem was his attention went to cereal boxes for inspiration. He turned the usual batch of minions into superhumans based on those drawings.

CES

[Cygnia]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

"Fear and tremble, meet your maker!

By your demise enter THE QUAKER!"

 

Bill Ward was just a run-of-the-mill thug before he got transformed. He's not too bright (the miner's helmet he now has at least cuts down on the concussions), but he's now got one heck of a haymaker you do NOT want to be on the receiving end of. He's tough, can punch through solid steel and concrete, and pretty good at tunneling if needed. Think standard brick tricks.

[BobGreenwade]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

Charlie Freeman has generally just laid low since his conversion over to unlife, back in 1928. He almost decided to go out when that stupid movie, "Blackula," made such a hash of the image of African-American vampires. He never dreamed that he'd actually do something even cheesier, joining this team as The Chocolate Count -- though in his defense he's the team's darkest, most frightening member.

[csyphrett]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

Laurence O'Reilly just wanted to get rich and settle down. Unfortunately for him, he robbed several charms from a pot of gold. They cast various spells for him at the expense of pursuit by the spirits who want their lucky charms back.

 

Worse than that, news people have named him Shamrock for his green coat and hat.

CES

[Enforcer84]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

Charlie Freeman has generally just laid low since his conversion over to unlife' date=' back in 1928. He almost decided to go out when that stupid movie, "Blackula," made such a hash of the image of African-American vampires. He never dreamed that he'd actually do something even cheesier, joining this team as [b']The Chocolate Count[/b] -- though in his defense he's the team's darkest, most frightening member.

 

...

Man I TOTALLY read that wrong. And I apologize to everyone...particularly those who saw Dr Pepper nearly destroy my monitor.

I'm so childish.

[Badger]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

...

Man I TOTALLY read that wrong. And I apologize to everyone...particularly those who saw Dr Pepper nearly destroy my monitor.

I'm so childish.

 

From other side of monitor, wipes Dr. Pepper off face.

 

 

Damn!

[gaberegan]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

New Team: The Mascots

Number: 6

theme/motive: Some evil kid genius/mad wizard needed some minions for a one shot scheme. The problem was his attention went to cereal boxes for inspiration. He turned the usual batch of minions into superhumans based on those drawings.

CES

 

Jared Foster was a normal twenty-five year old living in his mother's basement, until one day when he bought a box of cursed Urkel-Os off of E-bay. For a reason he will never know, he decided to actually eat a bowl of the banana-flavored yellow loops and strawberry-flavored red loops. After eating the strange and artificial tasting cereal he decided to go for a walk.

Some form of luck was with him that day, for not even one step outside and he was almost run over by an out of control car. Startled, he yelled out "Whoa, Mama!" and was struck with a bolt of lighting. When the smoke cleared, he discovered he had been transformed into Steve Urkel! Unable to change back, he turned to a live of crime after discovering he could annoy people to the point of committing suicide. Though he joined The Mascots, they hate him as well and will probably try and kill him first chance they get.

[Bodkins Odds]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

Beatrix Hase was the best process server in Philidelphia, until one day she found a prize in her morning bowl of Trix. It was a Trix Rabbit digital wristwatch. Since she was bored that morning, she decided to try it on. Ever since, she has been absolutely convinced that she is the Trix rabbit. She now works for the maker of the diabolical wristwatch, using the highly honed skills of a process server to sneak in and out of secure locations with ease. Now known only as Trixie Rabbit and paid in bowls of Trix, she is the most cost efficient member of the crime team. Of course, it's only a matter of time before the police become desperate enough to lure her with their own bowl...

[Utech]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

A summer job cleaning out an old Post Cereal warehouse. What could be safer? Duller? Farther from adventure?

 

Apparently many things.

 

Because when Simon Lenz located the very first box of

ever made -- and ate them -- he became a man of tremendous power, influence, and odd speech patterns. Able to whip up fantastic, exciting, sometimes dangerous food, the Swedish Chef is also able to inflate things until they explode into a shower of delicious cinnamonnamony goodness. Police consider this villain armed and baffling.

 

New team:

Name: Hired Guns

Theme: What do you do when you're a megalomaniac and your grand plan is about to come to fruition? When every superhero on the planet (and some off) are looking for you? When every one of your minions is busy with their part of the plan? You buy yourself some insurance -- that's what you do. One popular insurance policy is the group of mercenary villains known as the Hired Guns. These grim, serious professionals don't ask questions beyond those necessary to identify who or what needs to be shot and under what circumstances. After that, they do their job and get out. They are always paid in advance. Always worth it. No few supervillain masterminds have lived to fight another day because the Hired Guns succeeded where all their minions failed.

All of the Hired Guns use guns of some sort or other. This is a serious group of hard-core villains. No joke villains or comic relief, please.

Number of Members: 7

[SKJAM!]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

Bullet Time is officially known as Nikita Cherenkov, although that is almost certainly not her birth name. She's a mutant, able to enter the Speed Zone for up to a second real time, five seconds her time. Thus she can fire multiple rounds from her pistols without the usual penalties for rapid firing, or dodge attacks that certainly could not miss. The tell-tale is a faint blue glow whenever her powers are about to activate. Bullet Time is rather small and not particularly strong, so she can't use the larger calibers or wear heavy body armor. She's almost always paired with one of the Hired Guns' more tankish members, acting as mobile support to their heavy weapons platform. (In addition to her pistols and plenty of ammo, Nikita carries burglary tools (yep, she can use them) and a couple of holdout knives. If she knows she'll be going up against a specific super, her ammo load will change appropriately.)

 

Personality-wise, Bullet Time is standoffish but not frigid. She'll gladly listen to you talk all day, just don't expect her to respond or suggest a topic of conversation.

[Cygnia]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

Killdeer is of Lakota heritage. A disgruntled Green Beret, Killdeer is the sniper/rifle specialist of the Hired Guns. He can also produce a silence field around himself, making his stealth capabilities that much more deadly. While he can engage in hand to hand combat (and carries a modified M-7 Multifunction Combat Shovel with him just in case), he prefers killing from range. He wears camoflauged body armor and night-vision goggles as needed.

 

He refuses to talk about his time in the Green Berets and tries to hide the fact he's racist against Middle Easterners.

[BobGreenwade]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

Henry Derringer goes by the name OSOK -- One Shot, One Kill. True to both his real name and his nickname, he doesn't carry a machine gun, or a rifle, or a semi-automatic, but about two dozen single-shot firearms tucked away at various places all over his body. He's deadly accurate with them, too -- rarely does he need more than one bullet to eliminate a target.

 

He does have an odd personal code, though: he will not kill anyone other than his assigned target, unless he has absolutely no other options. Against anyone else, he'll gladly shoot out a knee, a finger, an eye, or even the private parts, always taking care that the injury is not immediately life-threatening (notwithstanding things like hemophilia).

[Legatus]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

Howitzer is Horst Steenbuck, a German cyborg whose left arm can transform into a huge gun firing plasma rounds. Howitzer is 7'2" tall and almost as wide. He is incredibly strong and tough. Howitzer prefers to stay in the back and cover the others with his plasma cannon.

Horst has the typical mindset of a mercenary. He will do almost anything for money. And with his ugly appearance he needs a lot of money for his greatest passion, women.

 

The German translation of his name is Haubitze.

[gaberegan]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

When you need to kill large quantities of people with no thrills or fancy gunplay you hired The Jackal. A metahuman, Jackal can heal practically any injury he sustains and laughs at any pain normal humans could inflict on him. The Jackal is not above turning his weapons on civilians if it'll buy him time to escape from stronger supers. His weapons of choice are two Daewoo USAS-12 automatic shotguns for room clearing and a FN P90 as a backup weapon.

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

The killer known as Flechette is a self-professed heartless b**ch who would just as soon kill someone as look them in the eye. She carries a prototype Steyr ACR whose high-speed titanium flechette rounds can penetrate even the best body armor. She also occasionally uses a SCMITR flechette shotgun, which sacrifices longer range and higher rate of fire for a more lethal close-range shot. A former gung-ho US Army soldier who was unable to get into Special Forces training due to her gender, she carries a grudge against most males (though her teammates' acceptance of her and Bullet Time has moderated her misandry toward them). If given a choice, Flechette will shoot all male targets avaialable before she even begins targeting women.

[Cygnia]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

Any weapon is only as good as you take care of it, so it is with any team as well. Once an accomplished hunter and competitive shooter, Deadeye Jane doesn't go out into the field on missions, having lost her sight in her right eye when she had the misfortune to be the wrong target in a drive-by shooting. She is now the Guns' information and communications specialist, getting as much detail as she can on the team's target beforehand, potential escape routes and ambush points, coordinating the team into position, and what sort of hardware and ammo will be needed. She's also a bit of a gadgeteer, inventing specialized ammunition and guns for more "difficult" targets. She's a very bitter woman who is still looking for vengeance on the thugs who shot her. She also has too much pride to replace her eye with a cybernetic replacement.

 

Well, we've had guns. How about blades?

 

Team: The Crossed Swords

Number: 7

Motive: They've come from different walks of life, even from different worlds and times. Some are honorable warriors, others are ruthless assassins without care for innocents. They all agree on one thing: the bullet will fall to the blade.