Lord Liaden

Re: [storytime] Birth of RAVEN Meta, you've raised some very pertinent points, thank you for your contribution. I agree with the weaknesses in RAVEN that you've defined. As a GM I quite like them. I've never cared for perfect villains or perfect conspiracies. PCs should have some chink in their opponent's armor that they can exploit. That would include leaving Zorran among the leadership of RAVEN. For various reasons conflict between Lemuria and RAVEN would be inevitable in that case, and it could be handy if heroes confronting one of these menaces had secret assistance from the other. Arvad the Betrayer may consider Zorran to be his pawn, but the Artificer is certainly no fool, and he would have very formidable backing including perhaps the only mentalist in the world mightier than Arvad. I would still expect Stingray to be welcomed as a member of RAVEN, probably a high-ranking one. I always intended the leaders of the group (or the "Seventh Mystery," to borrow the ranking system from An Eye For An Eye) to be supplemented by other paranormals in various positions of authority; as many of them as they can persuade to join, in fact. And Atlantis would certainly remain one of the group's objectives if they have a legitimate claimant to the throne that they could install. As far as potential enemies for RAVEN, absolutely. Once it's discovered it would be treated like any other major criminal organization in the Champions Universe by its rivals and by law enforcement. That might take a while, though. Unlike VIPER or Dr. D, and even moreso than DEMON, RAVEN attempts to hide its very existence. It might be useful to recap the structural innovations that Steve Long instituted for his revision of RAVEN in AEFAE. The group is organized into seven ascending "Mysteries" to evoke the sense of an antique secret society. "Initiates of the First Mystery" are those drawn into the various innocuous-seeming front organizations that RAVEN uses to recruit members. Those "Initiates" aren't even aware of that name - it's only used by full members of RAVEN. Suitable candidates may be initiated into the Second Mystery in which they are told of the "true motives" of the group they've joined, but those are lies too. They think they're joining a radical political or religious movement, organized crime gang, racial extremist group, etc. This provides RAVEN with a cadre of willing dupes to use as grunts in their projects, with no apparent connection to the parent organization, and as patsies to take the fall if those projects are discovered. Only those who earn a place in the Third Mystery and above are privy to knowledge of RAVEN's existence and true purpose. Certainly patterns are discernable, but in most cases you have to be looking for a pattern in order to find it, so you have to know it's there. Who would have reason to believe that Holocaust and Zorran are working together, or that either of them are helping prop up Joseph Otanga, or that a black magic cult and a high-tech group trying to custom create superhumans are part of the same organization as the masterminds of Russian organized crime? Of course as GM you should make sure that the pattern is noticeable to the PCs when the time is right for them to notice it.

Re: Build Me A Villain Team Huh, I hadn't really thought of Interface as a field commander - he seems to prefer to work more behind the scenes these days. I forgot that he does have an appropriate background, though, so goodonya. As long as you're taking villains out of other teams/groups, how about using Ripper as team brick? Either Interface or the Engineer would be able to maintain his cybernetics, and Mentalla could reign in his Berserk rages to make him more tactically useful. No disrespect intended, but Samhain took me by surprise. I like the character myself, but the others in this team want wealth and/or power; Samhain desires nothing but terror, suffering and chaos. I find it hard to believe the others would be willing to put up with him, or that he'd take the orders of Interface or almost anyone else. If you're willing to consider Samhain, why not take the "League of Evil" concept literally? Go for a group that's motivated purely by the desire to cause evil, and put Samhain at the head of it. He's certainly cunning and charismatic enough. Samhain (leader) Black Paladin Talisman The Monster Morningstar Shadowdragon Reserves Masquerade Hornet

Re: [storytime] Birth of RAVEN Personally, I've always held that a villainous agency with long-term recurring foe potential should be scalable, so that it can be used over much of the life of a campaign. Beginning PC heroes should run afoul of some of the agency's minor schemes and draw fire from its lower ranks, but as the heroes delve deeper into the organization's affairs - and grow in experience - their opponents should have the resources to comparably raise the challenge. In the case of RAVEN, which is replete with supervillains, scaling combat encounters would be mostly a matter of matching the numbers and/or power levels of the villains to the heroes. The climax of a campaign featuring RAVEN would likely involve confronting whichever mastermind they've most run afoul of. If they defeat him or her RAVEN would probably suffer a severe shakeup, particularly since much of the group's secrecy would have been compromised in the process. OTOH I think only taking out the ultimate leader, Menton, would have a chance of causing the whole structure to collapse. I don't believe anyone else could hold such a group together. So, how many points would PC heroes have to be built on to face off against Menton, possibly with one or two more of his chief cohorts beside him, backed up by a half-dozen or more other supervillains and a few score agents?

Re: Build Me A Villain Team Well, I for one would like to hear from Mr. Bennie as to who he decided to go with, and why. It's his challenge, after all. So whatsay, Scott? Did any of our suggestions impact your choices?

Re: Which Villain Do You Want to Play? Which one?

Re: [storytime] Birth of RAVEN

Re: The Seven Deadly Villains Sounds like you're already under his influence.

Re: [storytime] Birth of RAVEN Cool, dialogue. I think the coexistence of DEMON and the Scarlet Moon in the CU is due in no small measure to the differing objectives of the leadership of both organizations. The Edomite is very focussed on his final goal, to which all other concerns are secondary. As is mentioned in the DEMON sourcebook, if the Edomite turned the organization's resources to acquiring temporal power DEMON would be even mightier in that arena than it is. OTOH the Circle uses magic primarily as a means to acquire temporal power. I would guess that their interests don't clash enough for the Scarlet Moon to be a priority for the Edomite. Also keep in mind that DEMON has been cut off from the grapevine of the Mystic World for some time, since its true allegiance became known. Given that the leaders of the CotSM are experts at masking their activities, the Edomite may have no idea of who they are or where to find them. (However, IMHO the real reason they coexist is to give the GM in a modern-day Hero Universe campaign both a heroic-level and superheroic mystic foe for either class of PCs.) Now if one were to use my suggestion for the mystically-aligned Dark Brotherhood (need to find another name for that ) as a component of RAVEN, I'd expect direct conflict between them and the Scarlet Moon for world power in the magic arena. RAVEN would try to absorb the most magically-gifted of the Circle's members into the Brotherhood and co-opt their wealth and influence, while destroying those who would not join or who aren't "super" class. This conflict could be a good way to introduce RAVEN into a mystically-focussed campaign. If PC heroes are capable of bringing down the likes of VIPER, it would be RAVEN's style to covertly help them along, with information and maybe a little surgicaly applied force. Trying afterward to find out who was backing them up would be one route to bring the PCs into direct conflict with RAVEN.

Re: The Seven Deadly Villains Lust: Adrian Vandaleur. That immortal jerk hits on every good-looking woman he comes across, including his own great-great-great etc. granddaughters.

Re: [storytime] Birth of RAVEN

Re: 4e Champions Question

Re: Build Me A Villain Team Oooh... OzMike, this is a very interesting lineup! The idea of Black Paladin fronting Invictus on this team due to shared anti-Christian sentiment is extremely clever. There may be something in that which could lead to a focussing motivation for this team. I'll have look through my books and give it more thought.

Re: [storytime] Birth of RAVEN You're not alone. I realized shortly after I decided to incarnate this group in the 5E CU that it would become Enemy Number One to the IHA the moment they discovered its existence. This RAVEN is the Institute's worst paranoid nightmare made real: a worldwide conspiracy of paranormals dedicated to subjugating all "normal" humans. I personally would not want to have RAVEN provide limited support to the IHA - I dislike major superuniverse conspiracies manipulating other superuniverse conspiracies - but you could certainly go that way if you chose. You're right that there was another agency in The Mutant File, called IMAGE, that was the opposite number to Genocide - a pro-mutant force whose leader had the same vision as Magneto. That example highlights another reason why I would dislike trying to make the IHA a pawn of RAVEN: IMAGE tried to do that with Genocide, to scare mutants into joining them, but they helped make Genocide so powerful that it became a major threat to IMAGE. Not that there aren't plenty of real-world examples of pawns of the powerful coming back to bite them. Of course if you wanted that to happen, it is a great excuse to "upgrade" the IHA.

Re: Build Me A Villain Team

Re: Build Me A Villain Team I can see that you've put thought into your lineup. Your dual-leadership approach seems to be practical, but I have to question the inclusion of Ifrit and Obelisque in what's intended to be an effective team. No question that they have power, but Ifrit has Holocaust's problems with discipline, overweening arrogance, and rage over being offended; probaby to an even greater degree based on his textual description. Obelisque is an ill-tempered animal, with limited intellect and ready to fly into a rampage at almost any provocation. Even his creator Teleios had trouble controlling him.

Re: Build Me A Villain Team Hey, read further downthread - I included Black Paladin. It isn't a matter of worthiness IMO, but of the parameters that Scott set for this exercise. To be fair, though, most of the characters well suited to membership in a permanent team, pre- or post-5E, already are in permanent teams. Speaking of pre-5E, since in the current CU the name "The Conquerors" isn't taken, I nominate that as the moniker for this team. It's exactly what they're about, and there's something to be said for tradition.

Re: Build Me A Villain Team BTW for that last spot on my suggested field team, I think I'll second the earlier recommendation of the Black Paladin. He's treacherous and would have to be watched, but he's powerful, almost as versatile as Tesseract, and actually delights in bloodshed.

Re: Build Me A Villain Team

Re: Build Me A Villain Team Hmm... intriguing idea, but that tension leaves a lot of potential for the team to break up in the near future. Scott seems to want a team with Eurostar-level staying power. I don't think we're quite there yet. Still a darn cool suggestion, though.

Re: Monsters Unfortunately I'm not very creative at coming up with new character concepts , so I really appreciate being able to work with designs from people who are.

Re: Build Me A Villain Team

Re: Build Me A Villain Team Wait a minute, I think I had a flash! Scott's request was for a six-member core combat team, with allowance for two more "reserve members" for "major operations." There's been quite a bit of concensus that Mechassassin would make an excellent team field commander, but the sticking point has been finding an appropriate overall leader for the group. Several of us favor Molnya for his competence and stability, except that he prefers to work from behind the scenes. Well, who says the leader always has to be on the front lines? That's not the way most generals run their armies. What about leaving Mechassassin in charge of team field operations, but putting Molnya into one of those "reserve" slots? Molnya can decide overall objectives and tactics for the team, but assign Mechassassin to carry them out while he remains at headquarters. Rather like the relationship between Professor X and Cyclops. That would just leave us to fill out the rest of the combat team, and the additional reservist. Would that be acceptable, Scott?

Re: Build Me A Villain Team Scott, how long does this group have to have a stable membership for it to count? We've all come up with solid candidates, but not any combination that won't eventually crumble from personality conflicts.

Re: Monsters

Re: Monsters Haven't been able to afford the Asian Bestiaries yet. So many other HERO books still waiting in the queue. OTOH I have long availed myself of Susano's numerous and diverse quality creature writeups on his website: http://surbrook.devermore.net/adaptionscreatures/creatures.html Of course my RPG conversion list (link in my sig ) leads to a host of races and beasties from many sources.