The 20 Hideouts of the Sinister Skull

[Nothere]

The Sinister Skull has plans to rule the city, and to that end has placed 20 hideouts around and outside the city. What are they and where? That's mostly up to you to add, but first. I'm gonna take an easy one.

 

 

1. The Frendly Storage Company

 

A large warehouse in the center of the city where several shipping companys store goods, and rents out space to other companies. It is also The main area for the Skull's thieft, and smuggling rings. By day the four worker, manager, and two gaurds deal with legitamate buisness. By night an addition six men help take care of the illict traffic. The warehouse has none of of the Skull's more specialized equipment, but is an effective place to find new member's of the Skull's gang. There is however a carefully conceald room where if nessacar they can store specilized equipment and hide people, untill they can be transfed to a better base.

 

So what is the second hideout?

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: The 20 Hideouts of the Sinister Skull

 

The Abandoned Mansion!

 

Never mind why it was a abandoned. Okay, the owners were a married brother-and-sister who locked their children in the attic, the heir did go insane and become a serial killer, his younger brother did consort with Elder Things, and the daughter was a reincarnation of a Sarmatian witch-priestess, but that's not what's important right now. What's important is that there is this spooky mansion on a cliff overlooking the city, with caves underneath, a private smuggling beach on the shore below, a garden with a remarkably well-maintained hedge maze, and plenty of room for criminals to hide and plot nefarious doings.

[Shadow Hawk]

Re: The 20 Hideouts of the Sinister Skull

 

The Penthouse Apartment!

 

High above the city, in the 3rd tallest building, a neo-Gothic penthouse sits. While the topmost floor is dedicated to the personal bedroom and balcony (good for ominous looming while musing), the next floor contains the Secret Labrotories, the following floor the living quarters for your trusted lieutenant and your Dragon*, while the floor below that contains the barracks for the evil minions. The lowermost floor of the complex (still 40 floors above the city streets) contains the offices of a shell corporation, intended to conceal the activities above.

[RexMundi]

Re: The 20 Hideouts of the Sinister Skull

 

The Stock Yards!

 

Nestled in within the Freight Lines of the cities railways, this series of pens, chutes, and buildings provides the perfect cover, for disposing of those pesky left over remains, and those that opposed the reign of the Sinister Skull...The three squat single story buildings, provide a maze of hanging beef and pork, while deep underneath, the offal pit, hides something more. A defensable posistion, coupled with the potential for a quick escape. Numerous minions, complete with leather approns, saws, axes, and meat hooks await their orders.........

 

~Rex

[Ian Mackinder]

Re: The 20 Hideouts of the Sinister Skull

 

The Utility Tunnels

 

Deep in the bowels of the city (of MOST cities, comes to that), is a labyrinth of interconnecting sewers, tunnels, accessways and hidden chambers. Some date back perhaps as far as the city's beginnings. Many have been sealed off, or altered so much that their origins are forgotten. To those who know of them, they provide refuges, hidden access to many parts of the city, or can even offer surprising resources to diligent searchers. The extent of these tunnels is such that no one person can possibly know them all. Except, perhaps, the Sinister Skull.

[kahuna's bro]

Re: The 20 Hideouts of the Sinister Skull

 

The Penthouse Apartment!

 

High above the city, in the 3rd tallest building, a neo-Gothic penthouse sits. While the topmost floor is dedicated to the personal bedroom and balcony (good for ominous looming while musing), the next floor contains the Secret Labrotories, the following floor the living quarters for your trusted lieutenant and your Dragon*, while the floor below that contains the barracks for the evil minions. The lowermost floor of the complex (still 40 floors above the city streets) contains the offices of a shell corporation, intended to conceal the activities above.

dragon?are we talking fire breathers or a euphanisim for "enforcer"?

[IndianaJoe3]

Re: The 20 Hideouts of the Sinister Skull

 

dragon?are we talking fire breathers or a euphemism for "enforcer"?

 

The Sinister Skull's chief enforcer. It's a trope.

[kahuna's bro]

Re: The 20 Hideouts of the Sinister Skull

 

i was unfamiliar withthat one thanks

[Shadow Hawk]

Re: The 20 Hideouts of the Sinister Skull

 

dragon?are we talking fire breathers or a euphanisim for "enforcer"?

 

Yes, I meant the enforcer. Who could be a fire breathing dragon, but it isn't required. The asterisk was for the footnote which I forgot to enter before posting.

[mattingly]

Re: The 20 Hideouts of the Sinister Skull

 

The Derelict Candy Factory!

 

The Tasty Taffy Company has been out of business for decades, and its old factory lies unused. Ownership papers traded hands numerous times, and eventually fell into possession of the Sinister Skull through one of his subsidiaries. Vats of stagnant chemicals can be tipped by remote control, dousing intruders in sticky substances, corrosive compounds, or slippery slimes. Forgotten barrels and crates might contain gruesome gases, pressurized putrid powders, or bouncing bubblegum balls. The pieces and parts processing and packing plant includes slicers, dicers, wrappers, and the dreaded chompers. And that was before the Skull even started decorating!

[assault]

Re: The 20 Hideouts of the Sinister Skull

 

The Abandoned Amusement Park

 

Once a magnet for holiday makers, now an eyesore, full of abandoned, eerie and often dangerous attractions. But it's conveniently near the rundown casinos just across the State Line, and it's on the waterfront....

[Nothere]

Re: The 20 Hideouts of the Sinister Skull

 

#8 The Cave Complex

 

Having bought various mines and shafts through different holding companies THe Sinister Skull set a great many workmen to digging. Once he moved in the generators he was ready. Far from prying eyes he began testing the deadly weapons of technology hhe either built or stole. He hasn'e constructed one that can bring the city to it's kness yet. But with fantastic eletronic devices most people haven't even considered yet, it's only a matter of time.

[GoldenAge]

Re: The 20 Hideouts of the Sinister Skull

 

A complex underground... um, complex hidden deep beneath the local Piggly Wiggly grocery store.

 

Needing the perfect place to load and unload his complex... um, complex components and ever growing staff needs The Sinister Skull usurped control of the local Piggly Wiggly from Kevin Bumkinknotter. Now The Sinister Skull can manage a continuous flow of truck deliveries and influx of new agents all while providing quality grocery service to the local population. GET YOUR PIG ON!

[hooligan x]

Re: The 20 Hideouts of the Sinister Skull

 

The City Zoo

 

Animal cages with false bottoms for contraband? Check. Primate minions? Check. Venomous snakes? Check. Carnivorous victim disposal? Check. Caramel corn & balloons? CHECK!

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: The 20 Hideouts of the Sinister Skull

 

11. The Foreign Freighter!

 

Anchored at a particularly decrepit dock, wreathed with perpetual fog (seriously, guys, get a meteorologist to check that out. it ain't natural), is a rusting freighter from ....somewhere. It's hard to tell. There's too many layers of paint peeling away on the bow under the ship's name.

The city's nogoodniks scurry up and down the gangplanks late at night, wreathed in scarves, with stocking caps pulled down over their ears, carrying mysterious packages. Have the police been aboard? Of course. Did they find anything? Of course not. Were they bribed? Is everything secreted behind false bulkheads in secret holds? Probably.

 

Besides corrupt, illegal cargoes, there are, of course, people aboard who shouldn't be. Fanatical Oriental assassins, for one. (The young folks today would call them "Ninjies.") And at least one beautiful, red-haired, green-eyed girl reporter, kidnapped for daring to get too close to the Big Story about the Sinister Skull. Soon it will be anchors aweigh, and she'll be off to a fate worse than death!

 

Oh, golly, I'm breathing heavily, now.

[Klabautermann]

Re: The 20 Hideouts of the Sinister Skull

 

12. The night club

 

At the top downtown address this club sees the rich and the migthy. In the back rooms there is gambling and - during prohibition - alcohol. And in the back back rooms sits the Skull and register whitch member of the town council gets in debt, drowns in alcohol or gets interested in one of Sinisters hand picked escorts.

 

Klabautermann

[Cancer]

Re: The 20 Hideouts of the Sinister Skull

 

13. Left Hand Cannery

 

On the waterfront, served by a railroad spur line, is a poorly-maintained factory where a few fishing boats bring in their catch. It's a smelly, noisy place, where a couple dozen workers sort the catches, operate the steam kettles and cooker-canner, write out checks to the fishermen, and change the labels on the cans when the product changes. The fish is brought in and processed and canned, with the canned products going out by rail. Product varies seasonally as the fish schools migrate through nearby waters, but includes sardines in tomato sauce, kippered herring, steamed mackerel, and -- the bottom-grade stuff -- mixed fish cat food.

 

Skull brings stuff into town, and ships it back out, in the occasional odd boxcar. You can hide a lot of stuff in cases labeled "sardines". And you can make a body disappear forever by dumping it into the kettle with a batch of cat food. Not to mention the ability to do some small-volume high-value smuggling with some of the boats.

 

There's also the general utility of a place where there's always a thick smell of cooking fish and general din provided by a steam-powered canning machine stamping away. A lot of mayhem can happen under cover of that reek and noise.

[jms1973]

Re: The 20 Hideouts of the Sinister Skull

 

14. The Phantom Train. How does the Sinister Skull move his men and equipment around the city so fast? The Phantom Train is how. It looks like a common freight train on the outside. But on the inside, he's got sleeper cars to house his minions, cars full of weapons ranging for handguns to heavy artillery pieces to arm them, and a command center from which to keep running things if any of his other bases get discovered. A little bribery,blackmail, and intimidation to the right parties in the railyards keeps the information about the Phantom Train one of the Sinister Skull's best kept secrets.

[Steve]

Re: The 20 Hideouts of the Sinister Skull

 

The Zeppelin

 

Floating quietly over the city with camoflage coating to render it difficult to see (if not truly invisible), the criminal mastermind surveys the city that will one day be his. His minions use rocket packs to drop down from the skies to rob and plunder.

[jms1973]

Re: The 20 Hideouts of the Sinister Skull

 

#16. The Bar in the Rough Part of Town. This is where the Skull recruits his cheap hoods for quick distraction jobs. The Skull wants to slip a little something into the water at the pumping station on the north side of town? To make sure the heroes don't interfere he places a call to the Bar on the Rough Side of Town to have a bunch of hoods rob a bank, start a riot, shoot up a police station on the south side of town. The trick is that the Bar is not actually the point of contact. The Skull radios one of his top henchmen who's cover is a bartender. The so-called bartender changes his location from bar to bar every few months, usually right after getting the necessary thugs for a distraction job. In addition with each move, he changes his name and appearance. Thus when the heroes track down where those thugs came from, the only link back to the Skull has already moved on.

[Cancer]

Re: The 20 Hideouts of the Sinister Skull

 

#17 City Park Observatory

 

In the biggest park in the city there's a quaint 1880's vintage domed observatory with an old-style refracting telescope in it. (It looks kind of like this.) There's a lecture room attached to the building, as are some smaller rooms with spare parts, tools, old logbooks, and so on. During the summer months there are public lectures twice a week at night (with public viewing with the telescope on clear nights); from March 1 to June 1 and again Sept 1 to Nov 15 they have these every two weeks. The old-style architecture and pleasant surroundings has got the observatory a reputation as a romantic spot, where couples who perhaps shouldn't be couples can go under cover of darkness and have a pleasant and inexpensive evening out while engaging in scenes of flirtation and affection that aren't quite in good taste in broad daylight.

 

However, on the nights where it's closed, the facility is used by other groups, ostensibly clubs and classes, but in reality those are just fronts for the Skull's operations. Delicate-looking complex stuff gets carted into and out of the park during the night around the old observatory, and no one questions what's going on there. Even the reputation as a trysting spot helps: "everyone" understands that a furtive-looking couple around the observatory are probably hoping for "innocent" privacy rather than criminal secrecy.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: The 20 Hideouts of the Sinister Skull

 

#18 The Abandoned Tube Station

 

Only 13 years ago, when Warren Harding promised the nation a return to normalcy and everything seemed possible, the good city fathers thought that a subway system would be the making of the city. You've ridden the few lines that were completed before the New York skies rained stockbrokers and the municipal bonds market crashed into the sidewalk with them --with the gingham and denim dressed Dust Bowlers in from their foreclosed farms and the grim-faced hoboes looking for work. You've wondered how they could afford an Indian Head for the fare.

 

And you've wondered, with a shudder, about the dark and silent abandoned stations the trains sometimes roll through. Perhaps you've heard that sometimes a conductor on the take will stop the train on those dusty platforms, and how big, burly men with strange accents wearing flashy suits and snap-brim hats will come aboard and drag some unfortunate off into the tunnels that never quite got dug all the way to the surface, and how bowed and hushed men come out and sweep away the footprints in the dust.

 

Hopefully, it will never be you that the Sinister Skull's men come for.

[Ninja-Bear]

Re: The 20 Hideouts of the Sinister Skull

 

# 19 How about the old boys orphanage? Where else can you get brainwashed minions for free? And the taxpayers pay for it!

[freakboy6117]

Re: The 20 Hideouts of the Sinister Skull

 

#20 163 Poplar Way

 

The leafy suburban home to Bob and Mildred Johnson and there two boys Bobby and Danny. there in the PTA and the home owners association. bob is a writer for one of those popular science mags (works from home a lot), a great handyman always useful if you have a pluming emergency and Mildred just makes the best gosh darn cakes the bake sale has ever seen.

 

of course all those deliveries of valves and machinery and chemicals well thats just bobs ham radio hobby and things for his workshop.

 

after all it's not like there the Sinister skulls chief Armorer with a 3 level hardened bunker under there place filled with laboratories and machine shops where they make all the Sinister skulls latest weapons. its ludicrous to believe that Mildred would have a noble prize for chemistry if she hadn't poisoned all those people for belittling her work because she was a woman or that Bob faked his own death to escape the army after selling weapons to the skull. and that the boys are some sort of fiendish experiment in eugenic and chemical super soldiery. Thats just crazy!

[hooligan x]

Re: The 20 Hideouts of the Sinister Skull

 

Aaaaand... That's 20!