Lunatic Fringer

Just so you know, I plan on stealing this for my campaign setting. LF

Well, I just purchased the one for third edition from a used book store. I have to admit, it is full of crunchy goodness for just about anybody's campaign. I'm hoping that while you do serve the current crop of gamers with an update, that you also find a way to offer the original gangster on pdf - say as a bonus for an online order? LF

Thank you kindly! LF

The Story of The Gestalt I like it here. The city founders really turned this place into something nice. I can feel the breeze on my face and hear the birds singing above the rustling of the leaves. People chatter fades in and out with the sounds of footsteps on the concrete tiles of the plaza. I can feel the sun on me, so pleasantly warm. I can hear the wavelets of the pond breaking gently upon the shoreline of gravel nearby. The sounds of the city are muted, but I can still hear the cars and trucks on the streets that surround me. I can hear the whirring blades of helicopters and the whine of jets heading to and from the international airport. Even more distantly, I can hear the rumble of a spacecraft’s thrusters as it leaves the spaceport far to the east. I catch a whiff of the hot dogs a vendor is dealing from his cart, mingling with the smell of wildflowers on the glen beside the pond. For a moment, I forget where I am, lost in the sounds, sensations and smells of this place. It is a happy feeling for me, forgetting. But it fades so quickly these days – and then, again, I remember where I am. And then I hate it here. It was here fifty years ago that The Entity was destroyed, along with the old city – the old city that I called home in my youth. Gone now, like my sight and my sense of self; gone in a blaze of light and a blast wave that laid waste to everything within twenty kilometerss, except… except The Spire. I was seventeen that day, getting ready to see Gabriela, a classmate who hadn’t rejected my advances and seemed to enjoy my company. It would have been our first real date. I’m blind, but I can still see her face, still smell the scent of her hair, and still feel the warmth of her hand clasping mine. The news had been full of oddities that week – strange bursts of energy at the edge of the solar system at first, and then the appearance of a strange light in the sky with a number of objects converging upon earth. Scientists were raising the alarm that earth’s magnetosphere was weakening and that earthquakes had multiplied around the globe. But all that paled in comparison to spending an unsupervised summer afternoon with Gabriela in her swimsuit on the beach. I dreamed of seeing her like that, the sun playing in her ebon tresses and along her pleasing curves. It was supposed to be perfect. It was going to be the day I told her how I felt about her and how I wanted her to be mine as we headed into our senior year. You could see that strange light in the sky at night, pulsing and quivering like a star and yet too large and too close to be a star. That morning, I was already awake in anticipation of the day ahead when I happened to look up. The light in the sky was moving. It was descending, getting brighter and larger. Streaks of light flared out from its core, arcing toward unseen objects around it. Every so often, there would be a flash and another small light would blossom, flaring and then fading against the growing light of dawn. The object was falling, gathering speed as it headed for the southwestern horizon and then disappeared behind the screen of trees and buildings. Several other objects were falling as well, looking like meteors plunging straight down. I took a few breaths and then headed inside. The local television and radio stations weren’t on the air yet, but the Voice of America was on the air all night. I hustled upstairs to my room to turn on my shortwave radio. The reports were just starting to come in as I adjusted the fine tune knob. It started with reports of large meteors falling on the western parts of the island. A large luminous object had crashed to earth near Sabana Grande, a city in the southwest. At that point, the city’s warning sirens began sounding, waking the rest of my family. I had the radio warming up as they came downstairs. The announcer was sounding nervous as information from law enforcers and city officials began to come in – the large meteors were actually wrecked alien spacecraft, the survivors weren’t human and the luminous object was moving northeast from its impact point. The first hints of panic began tinging the announcer’s voice when another spacecraft landed near Ponce. This craft was nearly the size of a city block and a group of strangely adorned creatures emerged from it. Most of them were humanoid, at least, though there were some exceptions. They came to stop The Entity, they said, but it was clear they had their doubts. They explained that the monster was part energy and part matter, existing between the two states simultaneously. The Entity was feeding on the energies of earth’s magnetosphere, and it was growing stronger. Soon, earth’s shield from cosmic radiation would erode until no life could survive on the surface. They also explained that the forces of the Interstellar Federation’s sizable space fleet had converged upon the solar system in a failed attempt to keep The Entity from reaching earth. They called themselves The Foremost – a team of alien super-beings who helped defend the worlds of the Federation from threats such as this. But they also asked the defenders and heroes of earth to assist them in stopping a monster that had already attacked two worlds, leaving millions dead in its wake. Even as that was happening, my country’s superheroes – Montaña, Colibrí Azul, Lanza Roja, El Rayo and El Valiente – were joined by the units of the Puerto Rico National Guard near the city of Utuado. They watched as the pulsing mass of glowing energy that resembled a great, long-legged spider nearly fifty meters tall advanced toward them. And then they attacked. To their credit, not a single one of the soldiers ran away, even when it became obvious that their weapons simply had no effect on that monster from beyond the stars. None of the superheroes ran either. El Rayo hurled thunderbolts one after another at the creature filling the air with a constant crackling roar that mingled with the reports of rifles, machineguns, mortars and cannons. Montaña hurled huge boulders and brought down the sides of mountains upon the monster in repeatedly futile attempts to block or slow its progress. Colibri Azul darted through the action, rescuing as many people caught up in the fray as she could. Lanza Roja lashed the creature with all the mystic energies he could muster from his magic weapon. And El Valiente tore a tree from the ground and hurled himself at the creature with a howl of defiance, using it like a club. It was so noble and brave that even the most stoic man is moved to tears by it, fifty years later. And with all their combined might, all they could do was slow it down. All of the heroes and nearly all of the soldiers laid down their lives to buy the rest of the world a little more time to respond. In later years, they would call it The Battle of Utuado, but it was a massacre with barely one soldier in twenty surviving it. And The Entity was still moving east. The announcer on the radio was now urging everyone in the San Juan area to evacuate to the west. People in Caguas were being told to head south. Father told us all to get dressed and get into the car. My little sister was crying, but I helped her get dressed and then we left. I looked back at our house as we went, but my gaze was quickly drawn away by the sight I beheld in the sky. Rippling, arcing lines of light were twisting down, converging on a point southwest of the city. Earth’s magnetic field was being warped and distorted by The Entity as it drew more of that energy into itself. The car radio crackled with static as Father drove, the announcer’s voice being drowned out at times. He was saying something about the dangers of cosmic radiation when Father swore and turned the car sharply. Traffic was already clogging the streets and the two major highways that could carry the flood of people were nearly at a standstill. Mother was calling out directions with a road map, sister buried her head against my shoulder to smother her sobs of fear and father continued to drive, his expression hard and cold. Mother suggested heading northeast toward Dorado. People on foot begged for a ride as we passed them while men armed with clubs and knives tried to force father to stop. Most of them managed to get out of the way, but a few weren’t fast enough and were thrown to the street after impacting a fender or the hood. I closed my eyes and hugged my sister tight as the car lurched and twisted along. And that’s when it touched my mind for the first time. I feel your fear, young one, and it is justified. But now is not the time for fear. I need your assistance. “What do you want of me?” I whispered. I need you to bring the rest of this planet’s heroes here. “And how do I do that?” I asked. “I’m just a boy.” No longer. My mind filled with thoughts that were not my own. I struggled to hold onto that part that was me and failed. I merged with all the others – I was them and they were me at the same time. You are now the gestalt of The Foremost and all the other members of your race. I give this power to you because I am dying now. The Entity has claimed nearly all of us, and there is another problem as well, but that can wait. You are now the only hope your race has for survival. “What do I do?” I tried to sound brave but it came out as a whimper. The voice was faded and tired now. I realized its owner was shielding my mind from its body’s anguish, and the horror of knowing that one’s time has come at last. I could feel hot tears on my cheeks. You know the names of the heroes of this world. They are part of you as you are now part of them. Call to them. Call only the strongest and most powerful. Bring them here. Make them understand that they die today to save all that they love and protect. Quantum String of The Foremost remains. Once you know her mind, you can tell the others what to do… The presence was gone and knew it was dead. I gently merged with the mind of Quantum String. She was wracked with remorse. The Foremost had been closer to her than her own family. And now they were gone. Through her eyes I could see The Entity as it surmounted a mountain ridge. It was larger now, the streamers of tortured magnetic energies flaring as they fed the creature. She looked back the way it had come and I saw conflagration of strange energies swirling over a specific spot. But I recognized the place – I had traveled through the area with father once. “What has happened?” I asked her. The Acolyte tried to displace The Entity into another dimension. He has failed, but the rift between the dimensions remains open and stable. I explained to her what the voice had told me. “Now tell me your plan,” I said, “so I can tell the others.” The Entity has already destroyed two other inhabited worlds. The Foremost decided that whatever it takes, it will not destroy a third. I will get as close as I can to it and change part of my mass into antimatter. The explosion will disrupt the energy matrix that makes up the monster’s brain. With no consciousness to hold the creature together, it will disassociate – violently. Everything nearby will be destroyed, but your world’s magnetosphere will return to normal and your planet will be safe once again. “But you will die,” I replied. Yes, I will die. And so will it – if I can weaken it first. “I will bring help,” I said, “and they will know what to do.” I could feel the sadness and guilt in her welling up. Where do I go? “Find me,” I said, “I will be bringing the others to me.” In the end, nearly all of the heroes of the Western Hemisphere were there. The ones who could not hope to challenge The Entity worked to get the area evacuated. The ones who could offer some resistance threw themselves in waves at the creature to wear it down. The most brilliant among them worked on a way to cut the creature off from the power it was taking from earth’s magnetic field. And finally, the handful of paragons who could survive in the creature’s presence for a short time planned out their final play so that Quantum String could take her one and only shot. Even while my body was still in the back seat of my family’s car, I arranged all this with the fantastic power given to me. And yet, I had no time to revel in my newfound powers. Even as I could hear the thoughts of everyone around me, I could feel the brave ones dying – sacrificing their lives in pain and rage. The car reached Dorado as the battle raged in the southern suburbs of San Juan. The United States military hit the creature with every fighter and bomber it could bring in. I could sense from their leaders that other aircraft armed with nuclear weapons were waiting if Quantum String failed. The Entity was wounded, if such a being could feel pain. It was moving more slowly. Perhaps the scientists’ efforts were having some effect. Maybe the other heroes hadn’t died in vain, after all. There was a glimmer of hope in those few final moments that perhaps it could be defeated without sacrificing this last handful of lives. I was fifteen miles from the fight, but I stood and watched with my mind’s eye as the final battle unfolded. The heroes coordinated their attacks perfectly. Their minds linked through me, they acted as one. They were magnificent as the monster seemed to be losing. But I had forgotten that this monster was intelligent to some degree. In retrospect, I know now that it was playing possum. The Entity was waiting for the one hero it knew could truly kill it – Quantum String. And when she finally moved up to attack, its body flared with energy that was beyond anything it had produced before. Earth’s mightiest withered and fell in the storm of plasma, their bodies being torn apart at the subatomic level. But as they died, Quantum String moved in, flaring like a second sun against the glare of The Entity. And then they merged, the world turned white. My body’s eyes beheld that light, the last thing they ever saw. And my home city ceased to exist. The blast tore out a crater nearly two kilometers across and laid waste to everything within twenty kilometers. Falling debris rained down on the eastern half of the island for nearly two hours. But The Entity had died. The earth was saved. And I was called a superhero for the role I played in it. The world needed someone to thank after it was all over. In the fifty years since, I have watched a new city replace San Juan, driven by desires and dreams of other people. The United Nations sees to the needs of this country now, funded by the corporations and governments of earth that want a piece of a much bigger universe. That’s because earth is now under the protection of the Interstellar Federation. There is an embassy in Metronova that has no humans within its walls. And that has helped all of earth’s inhabitants realign their priorities. I should be happy. But the memories of that painful day still fester, even if so many good things came out of the horrors. Everyone else can read about the brave men and women (and other entities), see the few films that survived, but they cannot know as I do what it was really like for them and all the others who lost their lives. After the dust settled, US Navy divers probed the depths of the crater that was blasted out by The Entity’s death throes. They found a large spire of some kind of crystalline substance, softly pulsing with type of energy that made up The Entity. With the help of several superheroes, The Spire was recovered from the depths to be placed in a pond at the center of what is now called Memorial Park. People who still have working eyes say that on some nights they can actually see the faces of the heroes who helped destroy The Entity on that fateful day. I can still feel them, the psychic echoes of those heroes permanently imprinted within The Spire. They knew the price they were going to pay that day for answering the call, my call, to action. And they answered it anyway, for that is the nature of heroes – and a legacy that every other hero in the world must live up to, every single day. And fifty years after the fact, here I sit on a bench, enjoying the first day of my formal retirement from being one of Metronova’s first superheroes – The Gestalt. It is time for a new crop of protectors to take up the mantle, and time for this hero to find the right sort of mind to take on my powers so I can be myself again. Feel free to comment. LF

All valid points and genuinely appreciated. In order to remedy that, what if the Interstellar Federation opens a embassy/mission to earth in Metronova? Earth is considered an enclave world, meaning that the federation has friendly relations with the people of earth including providing technical assistance to deal with the aftermath of The Entity's destruction (i.e. the rift and the spire). However, they are not providing technology for interplanetary or interstellar space travel. The international territory status was given so that the aliens could have a place to operate on earth without showing direct favor to any particular earth government. One day, maybe I can invent a bulletproof trial balloon that actually floats... LF

1965 (fifty years ago) was the middle of the Cold War - nuclear holocaust hanging over the heads of humanity with two superpowers who had just avoided starting World War III two years before. Now imagine that a monster from beyond the stars threatened the complete annihilation of all life on earth and was only, BARELY, unmade by the united efforts of an alien space armada, a team of incredibly powerful alien superheroes and practically every terrestrial superhero (and many supervillains, too) who could get to the scene, killing tens of thousands of people. AND 40% of those who went into battle against it either died or disappeared, including the dozen or so most powerful beings on the planet who united and made the ultimate sacrifice to give the remaining alien superhero its shot at destroying The Entity. It took World War II to get the governments of the world to agree to make the United Nations in the war's aftermath. Just imagine what something like the battle against The Entity could get them to do. I not only think it's plausible, I think it would be quite logical too. LF

Meta and micro. A city is a big place with lots of empty if it doesn't have both. Thanks for contributing! LF

Technically, the United Nations Headquarters in New York City is international territory, but I do see where you're coming from. However, what if the benefits of being under international protection outweighed the sovereignty issue? All the international business coming in, an improved standard of living, better security than before - a few places in the world we live in might welcome such an arrangement right now. And, perhaps it is a temporary arrangement but on a long term schedule, say... fifty years? > LF

Well, my original idea was that Metronova would replace a city in the central portion of the USA, such as San Antonio, Kansas City, Oklahoma City, Omaha or Little Rock. I'm liking the international aspect enough to think that Metronova its surrounds might actually be considered an international territory with a number of nations maintaining missions there and the members with veto powers providing troops and law enforcement under the UN banner. That would allow the city to become a simmering pot of intrigue with corporate and government operatives (along with various supervillains) to exist unofficially... LF

I honestly will have to think about this aspect. It will depend on the power level of the heroes (which will depend on the number of players) as to whether they deal with normal crime, or whether organized crime gets elevated to super-power levels...

Actually, I'm thinking that the police force is fairly conventional. Super crime is handled by super heroes, is the mindset. However, if things get out of hand, the military forces stationed around the rift can be called in... LF

An intriguing idea, I admit. Any other candidates for a location besides Haiti/Dominican Republic? LF

Um... no. My thought on the rift is that whatever or whoever gets too close disappears. That fact doesn't stop scientists (and villainous masterminds) from continuing to investigate it and do research upon its energies. Plus, something occasionally comes through... LF

The way I'm envisioning it, during the final fight with the monster, a matter-manipulating hero got close to the wounded creature and converted part of his mass into antimatter to destroy it. That blast along with the energies of the creature unleashed, caused everything within a quarter mile of the creature to simply cease to exist while the blast wave that followed leveled everything for miles in every direction. The rift you're talking about could have resulted from a failed attempt earlier in the fight to remove the creature from this plane of existence by a mystic master. That place is now a military/government facility where studies into extra-dimensional travel are now being conducted. Of course, the rift works both ways, requiring the defenses of which you mentioned previously. LF

Going on with your original topic... I offered the explanation that superheroes actually drive "standard" crime rates down, even if supercrime activity goes up when they're around. The overall cost of property and personal claims to insurance go down, reducing costs for cities and their residents. Also, tourist revenue goes up in cities with superheroes. Plus, corporations love associating with cities that have superheroes, since the city gets many more mentions nationally and internationally. So, costumed and instantly recognizable superheroes (particularly if they're effective) have become part of the landscape. Superheroes don't have many problems with the law because several legal cases in the past have favored heroes. There are laws that require insurance companies to cover damages from superhero and supervillain activities (except in those cases where criminal negligence and/or excessive force is blatantly evident). Heroes are allowed to fight crime, but only to thwart a criminal act in progress or prevent acts that could potentially cause loss of life, great amounts of damage or seriously disrupt everyday life. Heroes who do investigations or obtain evidence on criminal cases are required to bring their finding to agencies of law enforcement. Heroes may not preemptively punish suspected criminals based on any powers they possess, though they can apprehend fugitives. Superheroes (and supervillains) wear very distinctive costumes, often copyrighting and trade-marking them to prevent unauthorized use by private parties. (There are several private legal firms who do this to protect the identities of their clients.) The legal system in general isn't the shark tank of opportunists we see in our own world. Lawyers are more highly regarded as supporters of legal and moral standards exemplified by the costumed heroes. With such paragons as role models, the entire world emulates the higher moral standards. (This last is how the heroes change their world - by changing attitudes and setting examples that others truly wish to follow.) In the real world, people laugh at the misfortunes of others and whip out their celphone cameras so they can post the other person's woes on the internet. In a Silver-Age setting, people would drop what they were doing and try to help the others out of their predicament while offering sympathy or a heart-felt admonishment to be more careful. So that's the heart of it. In the Silver Age, the world is a better place because of the heroes. In the Iron Age, nobody cares. LF

Hmmm. Nitpicker alert (you have been warned). The 1972 attack on Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Games wasn't really a disaster. It was an act of terrorism. Acts of terrorism would be thwarted by superheroes and super agents of the governments involved. There are contingency plans in place, when a situation that matches the skills and assets arise. A Silver Age scenario of this sort would be fundamentally different because whoever is engaging in the act of taking hostages is not actually interested in hurting or killing the victims, but rather, wants a crack at our heroes or wants them to look ineffectual or foolish or both. A Bronze Age take would have the victims actually be in danger (and one or more of them would always be somebody both the hero and the audience care about), but not to the point where the villain(s) are actually inflicting harm or threatening something gruesome like carving out somebody's eyeballs, etc. And any harm inflicted on the victims would not be of a permanent nature. Examples of said scenario: Silver Age - Superfriends [1973] - The hostages are held to keep them from running to the authorities or our heroes with details of the villain's plans. In many cases, the villains actually reveal much about what their motives to the hostages while waiting for the hero to fall into their clever trap or play some wild goose chase game before the heroes thwart their plans. Bronze Age - Batman: TAS - The hostages are menaced to some degree in such a way that the hero is forced to watch (usually via television or other means). The villain gloats, taunts and otherwise goads the hero into doing things he or she would not ordinarily do. The hero plays along while figuring out the location of the hostages and how to free them. The villain then either springs his/her trap on the hero or fights him directly (hoping that the distractions and the heroes emotions will lead to him making a critical mistake). Iron Age - Marvel: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - The terrorists have no compunction about harming the hostages, hurtiing/maiming/killing a few to show that they mean business. They have demands and a timeline that must be met or they will harm more hostages. The heroes generally know where the villain are and must use tactics, gadgets and surprise to get the jump on the terrorists. Real World - The terrorists know they are either on a suicide mission (to provoke fear since people who are willing to die for the cause are always very scary) or are prepared to be captured and make a big scene at their trial (to maximize media exposure of the group and its causes). There are no heroes, no super powers and no genre conventions to follow. The terrorists kill their hostages unless they can be convinced that the powers they are trying oppose have truly conceded to their demands. Special agents of law enforcement or the military make a tactical strike to attempt a rescue - sometimes it works, but more often it isn't entirely successful with casualties all the way around. We play superhero games because we want to be heroes with powers beyond human-ken, because we want to believe that good really does triumph over evil every time, and we want to escape the mundane existence we are forced to endure everyday (if only for a little while). To that end, we suspend our disbelief in how this wonderful comic book world came to be and enjoy the fact that there is a place (if only in our imaginations) where it can all be true and share that love of a higher, more exciting ideal with those people who share our enthusiasm for the genre. Explanations of the clockwork that makes a superhero universe tick are fun explorations of meta-genre, but not truly necessary for those of us who love the tropes, cliches and paradoxes of such places. So yeah, if your players need these sorts of justifications to make the universe "real" for them, maybe they aren't into the genre like you are. I run into that a lot when I'm behind the screen, since most of my players are somewhat younger than me and grew up with Iron Age comics. There are some people that are all about the mission and not about the genre, and there are others who wallow in the genre and forget about the mission. As a GM, you have to play to your audience somewhat. But, you can always just talk with the players as say "Here's the way this universe works and here are some of the ground rules you'll have to abide by." If they don't want to play in that world, it will become obvious in a hurry. And nothing you can do will make them want to keep playing. In which case, a lot of effort gets wasted and leaves you frustrated. I know. I've been there many times, unfortunately. LF

I'm digging this idea a lot! By the way, in the city of a million residents, 4% still comes out to 40,000, you know. Maybe not that many, but the "ghetto" and St. Celestial is definitely on my list. Thanks! LF

Okay, that's intriguing enough to include in the wider universe, but I don't think it is something I want in Metronova itself. However, I do like the idea of a relic of the final battle remaining within the new city. I think I would like a crystalline spire that still glows and pulses from the residual energy of the monster, say a hundred feet tall? It forms a memorial to the heroes and innocent people who lost their lives when the monster was destroyed. Perhaps it rises from a reflecting pool or small lake in a memorial park in the center of the city. Roughly conical with a somewhat disturbingly organic appearance, people who look upon it for a while swear they can still see the faces of the heroes and victims in the play of light and shadow within the spire. This is why I need muses. I just thrash in a vacuum. LF

Hmmm. Okay, one of my favorites is Orb Corporation. Orb originally was a ball bearing works before World War II and diversified into advanced technology after recruiting a number of scientists from the ranks of former Nazis, Soviet defectors and "reformed" criminal technicians to develop new products for government contracts. Orb has since become a major pioneer of advanced technologies used by military forces around the world. They're in Metronova now working on unlocking the secrets of the bits and pieces of alien technologies that have surfaced during the building of the city. Mundo Verde is a Argentinian corporation that has come to prominence in the biotechnology field. Their genetically modified crops and plants turned the desolate wastelands that remained around the former city into productive farmland and ground cover to stop erosion when no other terrestrial plants would grow. Rumors are that they have gained access to alien spores and DNA samples of the heroic aliens who battled there and are working on bizarre biological experiments in secret labs nearby, but hey, there's crackpots saying we didn't land on the moon, either... Na'i Urja is based in Mumbai, but has been producing advanced energy production systems around the world for a few decades now. It's "next generation" of fission reactors are significantly reducing the amount of radioactive waste produced while increasing the amount of energy that can be extracted from uranium fuel rods. They are also developing fusion power that promises clean and safe energy to power the entire world. Vektor is a Russian corporation that is the primary contractor for NASA's first generation of interplanetary spacecraft as well as military and civilian aircraft. With advanced ion propulsion systems and the promise of reactionless thrust systems to follow, the future is looking very bright for mankind to be joining the interstellar federation that's out there. Of course, there are rumors they are hurrying along on FTL research thanks to some alien technology they "found" after the disaster... Any other suggestions will be welcome! LF

Well, I typically run Bronze-Age superheroes, meaning there are shades of gray in the universe, including having the heroes fail occasionally (especially when they first are starting out). Supercrime involves theft of particularly valuable objects, stuff a mastermind or evil genius can use to take over the world, a villain with a vendetta intended to humiliate the object of his/her ire, the occasional kidnapping where the victims are in peril but not overtly threatened with mortal harm, etc. Of course, there's always room for collateral (property) damage and the odd bystander getting in trouble and needing to be rescued. Oddly, I also like running bits where the heroes actually have to be heroes, and save people from man-made and natural disasters, too. Does that help? LF

Well, it has been a long time since I've done something like this, so I'm looking for some input from the community. I have a bare bones concept for a campaign city and I'm looking for some interesting places, events and hooks to drop into it. Here's what I have so far: About 50 years ago, a powerful alien entity came to earth pursued by a team of galactic heroes. The ensuing battle was joined as the superheroes of earth (along with many villains, too) teamed up with the extraterrestrial heroes to defeat the nearly-godlike monster from space. The battle was won, but a major metropolitan city was destroyed in the process, and earth lost a substantial fraction of its heroes as well. The city has since been rebuilt with a new name as virtually nothing of the old city remained. Metronova has become home to over a million people during this time as the people who helped rebuild it became its new residents, joining what remained of the former population (saved by the actions of both heroes and common people who often paid with their own lives). Unlike Millennium City, Metronova didn't become a gleaming technological utopian city of the future. It is modern, yes, but a city that was rebuilt with profit in mind. Several large corporations saw the city as a new place to re-image their reputations. Many other smaller companies sought to exploit the new ground. The government wants to keep investigating the incredible energies released here and the ways to harness them - as do masterminds and academics. In short, it is a city ripe with possibilities for adventure, intrigue and opportunities. Given that, could I get you to be some of my muses to inspire what I hope will be a great campaign city? LF

This needs to be in print again, simply for those of us (guilty as charged) who missed the previous version(s). I have heard nothing but glowing reviews about it and would really love to see it. It would also be a wonderful way of keeping Aaron's legacy to this game alive and well for yet another generation of gamers to enjoy! LF

In an Indiana Jones-esque pulp hero game, this: Peter (aristocrat and amateur historian): We're in a maze and you want to take on the Minotaur?! Wasn't that thing kind of like a demigod? Riley (great white hunter and adventurer): Just imagine how good it's head would look on my trophy wall! Peter: You're missing the point! What happens if you can't kill it with mundane weapons? Pongo (intelligent gorilla and... porter, actually): There are many legends regarding the Minotaur, but there's only one that brings a Greek god into it... (The Minotaur appears and Riley - with some help from the rest of the group - guns it down) Riley: Help me cut off its head, would ya? Peter: *sigh* So I guess THIS one didn't come by way of divine intervention. Pongo: Doesn't mean the next one WON'T, though... Peter: Next one?

The Burgundy Brainchild The Maroon Mastermind Lady Cordovia LF

Any facility that is labeled impenetrable, escape-proof and/or completely secure, isn't. EVER. The last place the authorities would look for the supervillain's lair is the first place you should check. Never make promises to supervillains because they'll ALWAYS come back to collect. Don't Panic! Supervillain deathtraps rarely live up to their advance billing... LF