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VIPER: Who's Your Dragon?


steriaca

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LL yeah I meant Lazer. I never really considered staff versus on call.

 

Which is fair. But if we're talking Dragon Branch, those are villains who work for VIPER full-time. According to their published histories, scads of official villains have been hired by VIPER short-term at some point, or left the organization. That would really open up the discussion.

 

And "laser" is how the coherent-light projector is supposed to be spelled. I always wondered if Lazer (and the original Champions writers) knew that and was trying to be distinctive; or the writers accidentally misspelled it; or if we're supposed to infer that Emil Nelson is just lazy. :winkgrin:

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Any new dragons you want to introduce?

 

I wouldn't mind seeing writeups for a few Dragon Branch members mentioned in other published books, for example, Champions Universe:

 

"...Verity (a precognitive) and Whipsnake (a whip-wielding weaponmaster). The former resided in Stronghold until the 2009 breakout; the latter was incarcerated in a federal penitentiary until VIPER broke him out in 2006." (CU p. 71)

 

"Rafael Medina is a mutant with powers of super-strength, toughness, and speed who’s known to the world as the supervillain Superior. He’s a member of VIPER’s Dragon Branch, a plant placed in that organization by Destroyer years ago." (CU p. 154)

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I respect anyone's personal preference, and don't call you wrong for favoring Viperia. For my part, I feel a disconnect between her power set and her origin that bothers me. Like the 4E version of Viperia she has the classic Supergirl/ Kryptonian array of powers, but for me that doesn't jibe well with her mythic/magical origin as the daughter of Nama. It's a flavor thing, and I recognize it's my issue which others may not share.

I respect that, but also respect that in my campaign...she ties in with the Egyptian god Apep instead of with Nama, which makes her a foil for Solaria, a player character who is an Avatar of the Egyptian god Ra in said campaign. So...her origin is still magical...but still different in many ways from what was presented in 5th Ed VIPER.  :)

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The Duchess uses the Supreme Serpent as her puppet-proxy.

Looking forward to seeing her write-up in CVV4, along with info for Dutchess Industries. But that is off topic.

 

Anyways, would you pay for a 6ed book detailing the Dragon Branch and there supers?

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To a large extent, yes, although oversight is rather tighter and more structured than in the 4E days. 5E VIPER doesn't rely on the "franchise system" to the degree that 4E VIPER did. It does allow purchasing a Nest if VIPER's ruling council deems the applicant capable of being successful; but more often a Nest Leader is promoted from within VIPER, or a Nest underling who makes a play for power in a Nest gets to keep it if the Council deems him worthy. There's also a smaller selection of sample Nests and distinctive example Nest Leaders in the 5E book. Nonetheless, Nests are still largely self-contained, and the ruling council gives the individual Nest Leaders much leeway to run them as they see fit, so long as they continue to be successful. 5E VIPER also carries forward the various Nest Leader archetypes from 4E to use as the basis for customizing them.

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Green Dragon worked for Lirby Koo back in the day? I forgot that. Don't see a natural connection between Koo and VIPER, but whatever you can make work for you is fine with me. :)

 

Personally I see more parallels between Dr. Lirby Koo and Dr. Yin Wu, especially as the former was presented in Day of the Destroyer (or was he "Kirby Loo" in that one? I can never remember which spelling came first.) I couldn't help feeling Koo had some influence on the final shape of Wu, if only subconsciously, although Steve Long categorically denies it.

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Green Dragon worked for Lirby Koo back in the day? I forgot that. Don't see a natural connection between Koo and VIPER, but whatever you can make work for you is fine with me. :)

 

Green Dragon is a green reptile. VIPER agents are green reptiles. And dragons were historically often represented as serpents.

 

Lirby Koo is pretty much a cypher. Science, martial arts... that's about all we know about him.

 

Using him as VIPER's Baron Strucker seems reasonable enough to me. The only problem is that it reduces the number of sinister organizations, but Koo's organization is basically just a placeholder anyway - and could be spun off as a splinter group. Evil organizations aren't particularly stable.

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If you wanted to conflate the two snake motifs in the current CU into one organization, Timothy Blank could have been put forward by Nama as the new Supreme Serpent, in place of Edgar Essec. Dragon Branch would include an increasing number of serpentine mutates created by Blank. A variation of the Coil Gene treatment could be used as part of the mental conditioning applied to new agent recruits at VIPER Academy.

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Well, the 4E VIPER source book notes on p. 16 that Power Crusher is #9 on VIPER's "Ten Most Wanted" list, rising in prominence after forming his own villain team, the Crusher Gang. The Supreme Serpent wants to make an example of him, and has assigned his personal assassin, Sheath (p. 145), to bring in his head.

 

And yes, Power Crusher's entry on Classic Enemies p. 82 notes that the Supreme Serpent had issued an "omega" order for PC to all Nests, i.e. kill.

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