Villains

[Beazulbob]

I thought I'd post a few of my villains (5th edition, 250 heroes) for fun. Let me know what you think - and if I forgot something on my write-ups.

 

First up, Stigma

 

Background/History: Some things are too awful to be, locked away from our world. Inimical to life, Stigma is all of these things and more. He is a member of an eldritch race that was banished 3000 years ago by a cabal of mages, and has only just returned via a crack in reality. He isn't capable of traveling between realities yet, but he searches for a way so he can lead his fellows to the ripe hunting that earth provides. Incapable to sustaining himself long term without a host, he burrows into the base of a targets skull and alters the creature's nervous system, like a wasp controlling an ant or beetle. While in the host he is completely hidden, but limited to looking through the hosts senses and sending suggestions to it. To observers, the host seems normal except for its enhanced

suggestibility and occasional tremors.

 

Personality/Motivation: Feeding, opening the gate to allow his race access to earth, and the destruction of Shadow Man and his race. Other then these priorities, he doesn't just feed on the life force of his victim, he tortures and kills them. He collects parts of his victims as trophies. He wants and needs the victim to feel pain and fear. Beyond being a serial killer, he has a final interest. Eclipse shows powers of darkness and light. How and why are important - he may be usable as a living gate for his fellows - or he could represent humanity gaining powers over darkness. Stigma slew Eclipse's family and stalks him, waiting until he can decide what to do with Eclipse.

 

Quote: Scream for me.

 

Tactics: Not shown in the write-up is the weapon of opportunity he uses to carve up his targets. It changes with every attack and can be as simple as a fork in the neck to as deadly as a machete. The real damage is done with the body transfer - the marks on the body and the associated pain are simply for his pleasure.

Against heroes, he instills a target with fear or creates the illusion that an ally is actually the enemy. The flash is used if the foes group close enough together to make it a viable attack. The touch of horror is only against foes who obviously lack the defense.

 

Campaign Use: A powerful creature of darkness, he represents humanities end - if he can open the gate. At first he seems a simple serial killer, then a month after capture another killer starts duplicating his MO. Eventually the group will drop the killer, only to see darkness escape from his body. Hard to kill, stop, and not willing to bargain, he represents a seemingly unstoppable force with designs for humanities destruction. Only after research can the heroes find his weaknesses.

 

Appearance: While in a host, he seems normal, with slight tremors and increased suggestibility. Despite the reference to 'he', Stigma's race are hermaphrodites - but they need another member of their race to reproduce, otherwise the world would already have more then one Stigma.

Outside of the host, he is a roiling cloud of darkness, oily light, optical illusions that scar the brain, and peeks into the shame and horror that lie in the viewer's mind.

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Re: Villains

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]40628[/ATTACH]Next up is Eclipse

 

History: Luthor worked at a grocery store and went to jr college as a chemistry major. He had friends, a girlfriend, and a normal life. When he turned 21, though, something changed. He stopped going to work and school, stopped answering his phone and the door, and brooded. He felt better at night. Something important happens at night - he just didn't know what. Then shadows moved to his will, light bent to his command, and it felt better then anything else ever had. He abandoned the home and began as the supervillain Eclipse. Things were different, and so he began to explore the darkness. Back at the house were the bodies of his parents and sister - something in the dark had eaten them.

 

Personality: Luther's personality is being submerged beneath a new, emerging one. He feels excited, acts on urges without question, and it gets harder and harder to reach him. What he will finally be is of great interest to Stigma and the Shadow Man, who interfere with his life and each other.

 

Quote: Hello Darkness.

 

Tactics: Eclipse works in darkness, blasting his foes with bursts of the light. If he isn't able to fight from darkness, he beats a hasty retreat. Too new to his powers, he isn't ready to risk a fair battle.

 

Campaign: What he metamorphosis into is open, though surely a creature of darkness. His unusual cravings and urges make him the perfect source for weirdness. He is firmly in Stigma's area of interest, which the attention of the Shadow Man. He may become important in the fighting either of these villains, and if he is reached, perhaps his personality could resurface, making him a hero.

 

Appearance: When 'active', he is clothed in darkness. Only his eyes show up, as pools of light. When not 'active', he appears as a simple young man with a dull phase and a dazed expression.

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Re: Villains

 

And here's Yellow Jacket

 

History: Travis was a sports obsessed boy who suddenly started having health problems at 13. Tumors started to grow on him. Terrified it was cancer, he was taken to the hospital. Though it flummoxed the doctor, he removed the external tumors only to discover that it hadn't required surgery, it was growing on his skin's surface. A month later Travis was back, again, for the same reason. His doctor experimented until he found a drug treatment that held the tumors in check. Travis, now without these hard, surface nodules, or tumors, returned to playing sports. Years later, Travis applied to the police department, and he visited his doctor, applied a bit of cash, and had mention of his tumors removed from his health records.

A crooked cop, Travis was enjoying a boating vacation when a storm hit, ruining his sail and stranding him out on the ocean for three days. His medication was ruined by the water. He was horrified to see the tumors begin to reappear on him, faster then ever. By the time he made it to the peninsula, the tumors had started connecting, but with flexible joints. Curious, he hid in his hotel room for the doctor to mail him replacement medicine. By the time it arrived, he was wearing a complete exoskeleton, incredibly tough, with an opening just at his face. Wings had started to grow. He ignored the medicine and began to experiment. Travis had become the Yellow Jacket.

 

Personality: Travis always looks for his angle. He does it with sports betting, trying to get an edge over his opponent. He does it as a police officer, confiscating drugs for resale, blackmailing threats to his promotions, and now, as a villain, by taking what he wants.

 

Powers: He's discovered he can control swarms of wasps, bees, and yellow jackets (and hornets and other similar insects). He brings a temporary hive with him, attached to his armor if he has no place to put it ahead of time. Upon his command, they will swarm 1 hex, repeatedly stinging whoever happens to be there. Easily killed, he usually reserves their use for martial artists and civilians.

His likes to use his stinger spray against lightly armored enemies, an the poison aerosol against foes resistant to the stinger spray.

 

Quote: You think that hurt, wait till I sting you! Buzzz.[ATTACH=CONFIG]40629[/ATTACH]

 

Campaign Use: A crooked cop, he'll eventually cross paths with the heroes, who he'll try to frame, then blackmail them to avoid turning them in. So he should be an enemy to the PCs as both a normal and as villain.

If captured, unless he is forced to take the appropriate medicine, he'll simply regrow his exoskeleton.

His exoskeleton is removable - and remains viable so long as he puts it back on within 3 days for at least 3 hours. If he should loose his armor, he can completely regrow it in 5 days

If he spends too much continuous time in the exoskeleton, he'll discover he can't take it off anymore without serious surgery. From there he'll find himself getting tired, then in a coma - and the exoskeleton will become a cocoon. What comes out won't be human at all.

 

Appearance: The exoskeleton is yellow and black - with an opening where his face is. Typically he drills holes in the face section and screws a bulletproof visor with a lock over the opening, making his face appear to be a plain black plate.

[Beazulbob]

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Now Shadow Man

 

History: The Shadow Man does not remember its origins, but knows it was on earth as far back as when the dinosaurs roamed the world. It typically feeds on small animals, with larger creatures (including humans) every now and then. It doesn't feed on flesh, just the life force released upon death. It is a hermaphrodite who buds offspring. It kills its offspring, preferring to be the only one of its kind on earth. Just as it ensures its the only one of its kind on earth, it has a natural reaction to hate Stigma and its race. Shadow Man isn't sure who would win the battle any more then Stigma is, so they continue maneuvering around each other, biding their time. Eclipse, the human villain, draws Stigma's attention - Shadow Man doesn't know why, but intends to find out.

 

Motivation: Hunger and curiosity rule the Shadow Man. It has learned not to kill too many humans, as it triggers a hunt for it. The killings of Stigma are drawing police attention to the Shadow Man as well - and so Shadow Man has had to become more circumspect in its activities.

 

Quote: ......

 

Powers/Tactics: Shadow Man likes to stalk people, even if it doesn't plan on attacking them. It enjoys the hunt and discovering about that given human's life. Shadow Man has learned a great many secrets - but it doesn't think in terms of blackmail. It rarely talks unless hidden in darkness, usually to scare people. It will reveal itself to give people night terrors as well. It prefers to terrify children.

 

Campaign: A foil for Stigma, it is possible the Shadow Man will even align itself temporarily with the PCs to kill Stigma. It stalks Eclipse indirectly using its clairsentience ability. It can be involved with the PCs by terrorizing one of their children, giving them night terrors, or by following a PC home to their secret identity.

 

Appearance: A silhouette that ranges in size from miniscule to giant, and without a measurable mass - yet not subject to extra knockback - Shadow Man varies in appearance as much as a person's shadow does. When out in the light, it looks like a three dimensional shadow of a person. It doesn't appear to have eyes.

[Beazulbob]

Re: Villains

 

Another villain - Acid

 

Background: Avery was born in the wrong decade - he should have been born in the 50's so he could be with the other hippies. He didn't miss the drug revolution, though, and started blowing his mind in high school. By his 30's, he was using acid once a day, sometimes more. He couldn't seem to get enough. His mutant power developed late in life, allowing him to share his trips with other people, creating reactions in other people’s bodies as if they had taken drugs too. After a few times his powers failed him, he had a friend make him a gun that fired blue haze, a chemical mix that's absorbed through the skin. While its effects are only temporary, they weaken a person’s ability to resist his powers - and incidentally sickens the person, too.

 

Personality: Acid likes money and drugs. Crime gives him what he wants. If he followed society, he'd be working at a retail store for minimum wage and be limited to cigarettes and beer. Going straight is just wrong, as is anyone in society that doesn't agree with him. He'll push the system until it stops fighting him or he cracks its brains. He likes to slip drugs into office coffee decanters, on the sticky side of envelopes, and any other place he can put them - society will have its awakening.

 

Quote: You know, things look way different to me man - maybe you should try some enlightenment.

The establishment makes you keep your head down. Straights cann't see the stars.

 

Tactics: Acid's trips are constitution based and the first suggestion of what is perceived or to be done is taken as the effect of the drug. He likes to confuse the battlefield by targeting groups of normals so that they interfere with his foes - or even attack them. He knows he's not tough, so he avoids getting into melee or line of fire.

 

Campaign Use: Acid wants to destabilize the world and put it all into a giant drug trip. Then hate, bigotry, fear, all of mankind’s failures, will dissipate. People just need more esoterica in their lives to realize how hum-drum reality is while not stoned. He'll drug any event he can to accomplish this

 

Appearance: Red hair dreadlocks, pink Lenin sun glasses, jeans and a hemp shirt - he looks like a poster child for a counter revolution. He has a wide smile, a thick mustache, and a holster that holds what has got to be a squirt gun.[ATTACH=CONFIG]40657[/ATTACH]

[Beazulbob]

Re: Villains

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]40688[/ATTACH]Next is the Triassic Man

 

Background: Rodney was on a dig of Triassic period fossils when he found a strange organic pool with a fossil resting inside it. During his examination of it, seismic activity triggered a landslide, burying him beneath stone, pinning him in the fluid. While he was pinned, submerged in the mire, he panicked, sure he would die, either by drowning or asphyxiation - he fell unconscious. His wife was told her husband had died in the landslide.

Rodney woke up - the pile of stone atop him no longer seemed too heavy, he pushed himself up, shedding the rocks like water. He was immense and the fossil was wrapped about his body like a second skin.

His wife was visiting the grave site when her husband approached her. Relieved to find him alive, she listened to his story about enemies planting explosives to create the landslide. He told her about the terrible conspiracy he faces - and she believed him. She helped him stay hidden from the authorities, and even now believes the authorities to be double agents, persecuting her husband.

 

Personality: Triassic suffered serious brain damage from his first use of growth - the increased distance the neurons have to travel and changes in his brain's architecture.

While before this change happened, he was a gentle man - now quite violent. Before he was stable, now he's paranoid. The experience of being buried alive has left him claustrophobic, as well.

 

Quote: I know what you're doing here – don’t lie to me!

 

Powers: The faster Triassic grows, the more likely he is to become enraged, the tougher he becomes, and the longer he'll likely be enraged. A very smart man, he tries to limit his growth to 2 steps at a time, but under duress, he'll chance the rapid growth. To gain armor, he has to go to a location with fossils and draw them to him - destroying the fossils in the act of making his armor.

 

Campaign Use: Triassic is an innocent villain - the change that occurred was against his will, drove him insane, and he isn't committing crimes so much as fighting against a non-existent enemy.

 

Appearance: Rodney is a handsome man with intense eyes. He has laugh lines on his face - though he rarely laughs now.

In 'costume', his face is typically in a sneer, and the body is covered in flexible stone and fossil. His clothes do not grow with him, so he typically puts on his armor before changing.