New PDF From Steve: Tatterdemalion Terrors!

[Steve Long]

 

 

In his reply, Steve essentially gave the plot seed of one of the adventures in my second Supermage playtest campaign

 

Great minds think alike, soft minds run together.

[Lord Liaden]

The person who asked that question about Tatterdemalion on the Champions Online forums, who goes by the handle, "bluegrassbeast," also posted a concept for a character originating from that dimension, and gave me permission to transcribe that here:

 

Born in a tiny, besieged enclave called 'Sanctuary' in the Qliphothic realm known as "The Tatterdemalion", 'Kyrie Blitzer' (as she has come to call herself) was trained to survive the hellish dimensional graveyard of her birth and marked by mystic sigils to allow her to venture beyond the fading wardstones that allowed for her peoples' survival on the corpse of their world. When the Shadow Destroyer tore open a gate to the Qliphoth to steal power from it he inadvertently caught the warrior in the convergence, destroying Sanctuary and pulled her along, the last survivor of her people.

Freed from the life-devouring energies of her planar home and for the first time bathed in the power of a life-positive universe, 'Blitzkrieger' found that though merely a skilled warrior and huntress in the Tatterdemalion she was now superhumanly strong and durable, and that the power of her Sigils - freed from the task of staving off the energies of the Qliphoth -   were likewise amplified.

Now,  The Blitzkrieger fights to protect her new home, and seeks to avenge her peoples' deaths upon the 'Destroyer' and his forces.

 

The concept and description of Sanctuary gives me visions of something akin to M. Night Shyamalan's movie, The Village: a small community surrounded by nightmares and malignant influences kept at bay by magic wards (possibly failing). Some of the precedents from Dean Shomshak's writings about the Qliphoth suggest that's at least possible.

[Steve Long]

I think that's a pretty darn cool character concept!

 

But now I also think we need to design a villain called the Bluegrass Beast.

[Lord Liaden]

A reply from Bluegrass Beast:

 

 

Heh.

Also, just for fun, some background on "Sanctuary", which you can feel free to share:

Sanctuary was not overly different than Champions Earth, in fact it was mainly a mirror dimension, all-but identical until the point of divergence: May 1st, 1939. While the RsVKg succeeded in their rituals, on the world that would become Sanctuary the spell had unintended side-effects: Namely, a slow poisoning of the world's entire lifeforce even as superbeings were empowered. Der Totenkopf and Iron Father's spells of protection would be all that saved Sanctuary; as the War grew more vicious the Wasting spread, affecting first superhumans and then normal humans, wildlife, and even plants.

Desperation drove the War from one of Axis conquest to defense as hordes of increasingly mutated horrors fell upon them, and more and more often forces both Allied and Axis found themselves forced to fight alongside one another simply to survive against the tide. Mystics on all sides came together to strengthen the wavering Wards, and facing increasing madness on the part of the Fuehrer he was overthrown in 1945, taking his own life - though some said he did not so much die as descend from human into something far more horrific.

The surviving German and Allied forces pulled together inside the boundaries of the spells to form what would be called "Sanctuary", even as in 1969 the dying world shuddered and shattered, Sanctuary alone surviving and being absorbed into the Tatterdemalion. The shock and the perpetual negative energy of the Qliphothic realm damaged the Wards irreparably and as decades passed more and more of Sanctuary was devoured by the Tatterdemalion, its peoples mutating into horrors and its lands ceasing to support life.

By the time Shadow Destroyer inadvertently destroyed it in his carelessness only the divided, besieged city of Berlin remained, defended by mystical champions empowered by the survivors of the RsVKg,the students of the Iron Father, and the remnants of the Trismegistus Council. Some few refugees were cast into Champions Earth, for good or ill, though to date the only one to make any sort of presence known is the heroine calling herself "The Blitzkrieger."

Oh, and re: Bluegrass Beast: A descendant of druids and Celtic Kings and Native shamans, when Takofanes stomped through Kentucky in 1987 the spirits of those lands empowered the young child to be a defender of them against such threats.  Wielding mystical might and command over beasts and the land itself, as the Beast grew older he grew more intolerant of those he saw as 'threats' to 'his people' and the land itself - coal barons exploiting workers, politicians exploiting poverty, hatemongers exploiting religion. He'd almost be a hero - if he weren't so ruthless and increasingly xenophobic and intolerant of what he views as hindrances to "Appalachia's" survival and ascendancy.
 

[Steve Long]

And here I was thinking the Bluegrass Beast has a magic mandolin he uses to pummel his foes into submission.

[DShomshak]

As LL says, Artifex and Jezeray/Zontar were PCs from my Supermage playtest campaigns. LL, I'll pass along to their creators that you and your friends had fun with their characters!

 

Pagan (originally Morningstar, but I changed it after Steve used that name for a villain) was one of my PCs in a friend's Supermage campaign... though his was more inspired by Vertigo and Midnight Suns (from Marvel) than Doctor Strange. Doctor Teneber was my second PC from that campaign. Yeah, it got pretty dark.

 

Chrysaor was my PC from a campaign another friend of mine ran, though it was more in the Justice League mold.

 

Tiger-Man and Sarah Redhawk were created for Ultimate Mystic, though I did write up a lower-powered weretiger character for another (non-mystical) campaign.

 

And here I was thinking the Bluegrass Beast has a magic mandolin he uses to pummel his foes into submission.

Aaand that was my Exalted character, Lojan the Minstrel, wielder of a First Age orichalcum Battle Lute. We let ourselves get a little sillier than usual for that campaign.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Lord Liaden]

And here I was thinking the Bluegrass Beast has a magic mandolin he uses to pummel his foes into submission.

 

[bluegrassbeast] A banjo is far more effective [/bluegrassbeast]