Steve

Civilla’s player: I grabbed a wand of Decompose Corpse.
Rajira’s player: Why? You already have instant disposal methods
Ayva’s player: cheaper than the potions
Rajira’s player : But more expensive than frogs.
Civilla’s player: The frogs cost me several pool points. It also works on Huge corpses, which I can then use the frogs to finish up.
 
The Victocora estate is indeed for sale - with the exception of the gardens which have been set aside for construction of a public park, by order of Thrune. And he’s willing to exert influence to ensure that the pool with the soul anchor inside it doesn't end up controlled by any of the local families. 
 
There’s still no news about the whereabouts of the half-elf opera star Shensen, who vanished after her shop got burnt to the ground on the Night of Ashes. The only rumour Terzo can find is that she was taken into the Opera House, now Thrune’s domicile, and murdered, but the same rumour gets said about everybody. 
 
Terzo: I wouldn’t blame her if she’d fled town, but NOBODY has heard a peep from her since, and given the opera connection and the fact that she’s a vocal critic of Chellish diabolism…Let’s just say I’m concerned that Thrune took a personal interest. 
 
Rajira has been investing heavily in a public meeting place.
 
Civilla’s player: You are going to have so much Influence…
Terzo’s player: There’s a reason so many European monarchs regarded coffeehouses with suspicion.
Civilla’s player: Well yes. They’re where the Enlightenment happened. And glaring at people who come too close to your private conversation, until they f*** off,  is normal coffeehouse etiquette.
 
Civilla’s player: And Terzo could invest in a beer garden. It’s not banned. Yet. 
 
Civilla has also initiated another arm of the rebellion, that closely fits her position as a daughter of the nobility. The Candlemark Parlour - a tea circle that are actually highly influential rumour mongers.
 
Civilla OoC: Oh, and I can Summon Planar Ally now. Which I don’t do while Terzo is around, even though they’re not REALLY demons. 
Terzo OoC: I imagine half the conversations you lot have, you don’t have when I’m nearby. My sad and hurt expression might make you feel bad.
Rajira OoC: Just like my slitting throats isn't necessarily evil.
Ayva OoC: There’s a lot of contextual variation.
 
Civilla does a bit of magical meditation, in order to ask her goddess for advice. The response she gets is one word - ‘Blosodriette’. Slightly baffling. She also seeks an answer to the question ‘Does Shensen still live?’. The answer to that is ‘Neither’.
 
Civilla: oh F***. Ah, I thank you, Redeemer Queen. Mr GM, I think I’ve done the brainchip thing again, because bits of info are coming together and we need to research how to kill vampires then resurrect them.
Ayva: *sigh* I’ll fast-track the cauldron. At least we already have the Philosopher’s Stone Elixir. 
Civilla: Also I think I know the password to read the Secret Page now. 
 
Ayva also wants to brew a potion that will make our blood unpalatable to vampires. 
 
GM: The downside is you stink of garlic. 
 
The GM is quite glad we’re finally doing something with the Secret Page that Rajira has been keeping between two slabs of lead and far away from our rebellious activities. Apparently keeping it secured has derailed a few major plot developments. Civilla does take a few precautions first, which include making a contract with that Scrivenite entity we met a while back.
 
Civilla: Yilliv the Scrivenite, I call you to aid me with the secrets of this page! Yilliv the Scrivenie, I call you to aid me with the secrets of this page!
Yilliv the Scrivenite: You only had to say that once.
 
The Secret Page is the Contract for one Blosodriette the Imp, who appears in a puff of sulfurous smoke.
 
Blosodriette: F***!
Civilla OoC: How many problems did we avoid by not having an imp hanging around our lair?
GM: At least the death of an entire rebellion team.
 
It’s quite fortunate that we kept the page nowhere near our lair. The contract also binds the Imp to the Sarini family, or in the event of the death of all the Sarinis, whoever has the contract, and she has to stay within 100 feet of the contract. At least hanging around Civilla’s apartment got more interesting when she brought that evil sentient kukri home.
 
Civilla: I could be a real prick here… by gifting the contract to Yilliv. How have you been amusing yourself before we found your contract, Imp? I don’t suppose it was YOU who opened that portal to Hell?
Blosodriette: What? No!
Civilla: You telling the truth?
Blosodriette: I have to, you hold the contract. It was Merindius Sarini who opened the portal, and he got eaten.
Civilla: Of course he did, he opened a portal to hell. 
 
Yilliv: I’d keep the contract secure in my Library.
Civilla: How would you like that, Imp?
Blosodriette: I would much rather you torched the thing.
 
Instead, Civilla offers the creature a job, that will let her thumb her nose at more powerful devils.
 
Blosodriette: Do I really have a choice?
Civilla: You’d have to pledge yourself to my Queen.
Shimza: *shows the Imp her symbol of the Redeemer Queen, the former Demon Lord*
Blosodriette: Oh S*** yeah, this changes things! OK, I’m in!
Civilla: You’ll truly pledge yourself to the Path of Redemption?
Ayva: If she DOES join us, the fairy dragon and the imp are going to get on like a house on fire.
Civilla: Probably literally.
 
Blosodriette is quite a powerful Imp, further up the Descending Hierarchy than Civilla initially thought. 
 
Civilla: I owe you an apology.
 
Civilla gets an unexpected visitor - it’s someone in the uniform of the Chellish Navy.
 
Lieutenant Elia Nones: Good afternoon! I represent the captain of the Scourge of Belial! I seek those responsible for freeing a certain group of Hellknights!
Civilla: I have no idea what you’re talking about.
GM: …. You better have a good Bluff.
Civilla’s player: I do. I’m also thinking ‘Why don’t you say that a bit louder, B****, and I’ll show the OTHER 4th Level Spell I just learned’.
 
Although she didn’t use the phrase Her Infernal Majestrix’ Warship Scourge of Belial, which is the proper pronoun for a warship of the Chellsh Navy. And rumour has it that Capt. Cassius Sargaeta is no fan of Barzillai Thrune. 
Lieutenant Elia Nones: My Captain requests your assistance in a sensitive matter. I advise you to accompany me - not many people get to see my master’s restraint. 
Civilla: As long as he doesn’t hold my family name against me. 
Lieutenant Elia Nones: My captain prefers to consider the actions of the individual.
 
Civilla agrees to get the others together, and meet this very unsubtle woman at the wharf where the Scourge is docked. She sends out a coded message in the formal invite to the other party members. Precautions include having some of our minions and relatives lurk nearby, just in case, and using various disguise options we now have. Terzo, for example, uses his new Hat of Disguise to appear as an ancient sailor with a beard down to his knees.
 
Terzo: Psst! It’s me!
Civilla: PLEASE, show up as somebody we’d actually like to be seen with!
Ayva: Use the Hat of Disguise to disguise yourself as yourself - that way if anybody is looking for illusions they’ll think somebody is pretending to be Terzo.
Civilla: Oh, that’s clever.
 
The ship is currently having the rudder replaced. Apparently that kind of damage is an ‘amusing’ signature of Civilla’s distant cousin the pirate admiral. Elia warns us that the Captain has been in a less than stellar mood lately. 
 
Capt. Sargaeta: I admit my disappointment. I expected something more - towering giants of myth. But this is what the waves bring to my shore. Something more… grandiose. Have some fruit. Still, I require your services, and your discretion. Lord-Mayor Thrune’s proclamations have, shall I say, impacted my interests in the city. I cannot venture onto land to take care of... well, let’s call it a ‘personal matter.’ I could send my crew to attend this, but I would much prefer sending someone with whom I have plausible deniability, should they fail in their task. Can you help me send a message?
Civilla: Would this message be metaphorical, or a threat?
Capt. Sargaeta: No, an actual message. Would you be interested in providing me with aid? I daresay that people in your position could stand to benefit from having a captain in the Chelish navy owe you a few favors, hmmm?
 
Captain Sargaeta’s task for the party is a covert one—he wants the PCs to deliver a message to a friend of his who lives in the Greens. This friend is one Marquel Aulorian, scion of one of Kintargo’s older noble families, and a family increasingly supportive of Thrune. Captain Sargaeta bluntly describes Marquel’s father as “a grasping little prig currying favor with the new leadership in a most unseemly manner.” He’s grown worried that his friend might be in danger, due to complicated “political views,” and the letter he needs delivered to Marquel must be delivered to his hands alone, preferably without his father’s knowledge of the delivery. Once the message is delivered, Captain Sargaeta asks the PCs to return to him and deliver the recipient’s reply—verbatim. In return, he promises his friendship and support, as best as he can give it.
 
Marquel is currently confined to his room in the Aulorian mansion. Any one of us could probably get the letter to him - Rajira and Blosodriette especially - as long as there is no actual trouble at the other end. But there’s no point assuming everything will go smoothly. Combining Rajira’s existing and new skills with Terzo’s Hat of Disguise will give her MASSIVE bonuses, even if she is playing someone of a different gender, species, or size.
 
Ayva: ‘I’m a gnome’ ‘You’re two meters tall!’ ‘I’m a grower’
 
It all devolves to a very basic plan - "dress up as a servant and walk right in". We just have to pick the best target to impersonate first, and pickpocket her keys when she goes out to the market.
 
Civilla OoC: We’re Shadowrun players, of course we’re going to case the joint first.
 
The Aulorians have a guard dog.  A skinless three-headed 300-pound hound.
 
Civilla: it’s so cute!
 
Unfortunately Cerberii are extremely good at locating and immobilizing even the magically sneaky. Unless you have some alchemical Scent Blocker. Which we can make. Pickpocketing the keys and impersonating the servant are equally simple.
 
Civilla: One last thing - here’s a thunderstone. If there’s trouble, THROW IT.
 
Staff: Miss Maudlin, did you forget something?
Rajira: Yes, yes I did -  just need to pop upstairs for a moment.
 
Marquel Aulorian: Are you here to clean my room, Miss Maudlin?
Rajira: No, I’m here to give you this message and await your reply.
 
Marquel Aulorian: Yes, yes, but how are you going to get me out?
Rajira: Ah, I wasn’t contracted to do that, but I strongly suspect I’m going to be. Just bear in mind I wasn’t given the contents of the letter.
Marquel Aulorian: It says I can trust you to escort me to safety.
Rajira: I SEE.
Civilla: I guess we’re going off script.
 
Just as well Rajira brought an invisibility potion with her. Although the scent blocker has worn off.
 
Marquel Aulorian: There’s the west gate, but I believe it’s locked.
Rajira: Just as well I still have Miss Maudlin’s keys too then.
Civilla’s player: Have we just done it again?
GM: Yes, you’re free and clear. *sigh*
Ayva’s player: The campaign gave us six invisibility potions, what did they expect us to do?
Rajira’s player: Use them ourselves?
Civilla player: Why? Potions only last a few minutes, Disguise lasts for hours.
 
Ayva: Now we get him into an alleyway and disguise him.
Rajira: Hat.
Civilla: Hat. 
 
Then we just have to get the keys back to the real Miss Maudlin before she comes back.
 
Civilla: Excuse me miss! I believe you dropped these!
 
Sargaeta sits at his desk, sipping tea and reading poetry by lamplight. He looks up as the party enters, clearly puzzled by the extra member he doesn’t recognise, but a dramatic removal of the Hat of Disguise reveals the truth. Marquel speaks first, rushing into Sargaeta’s arms. 
 
Marquel: Here’s your answer, Cassius!
 
The two embrace and exchange a tender kiss, Sargaeta actually weeping. Terzo finds it all very sweet.
 
Capt. Sargaeta: Ah, my darling! Marquel, my sweet impulsive boy!
 
Capt. Sargaeta: Well, I’m a man of my word! Drop this teacup.
Ayva: *does. It bounces, intact* 
Capt. Sargaeta: Ah. Well, I’d meant to owe you as many favours as there were pieces. Well, try again, perhaps with a little more force this time.

The teacup shatters into a much more amenable 8 fragments, this time.

Capt. Sargaeta: I will assist in any way I can, short of open treason against the queen - just write your request on a scrap of paper and wrap it around a shard of the cup. You have my gratitude and friendship!
Civilla: We value nothing more.
 
It’s interesting to note that the Poisoned Pen of Kintargo, an anonymous and prolific critic of Thrune, is suddenly producing a lot of screeds again, after we got Marquel out - we can probably make an educated guess exactly what the young man’s political views were. 

Huxley, Alex and Flo arrive at Venice’s Stazione di Venezia Santa Lucia, and do their best to get off the platform and onto a motor launch before Maximillian von Wurtheim can find them again. 
 
Unfortunately, they run up the back of another party who has somebody waiting for them - the bereaved young woman and her maid, that they saw boarding in Milan. There are six Blackshirts and a pudgy and unpleasant man in a suit waiting for her. The man, one Rossini, offers insincere and sweaty condolences for the woman’s loss, and is apparently trying to steer her onto a government launch. That’s when a younger, handsome man in a worker’s shirt and pants gets involved, loudly, and is promptly menaced by the Blackshirt thugs while the woman begs for this Georgio not to get involved. Huxley gets involved, and Flo gets her camera out - photographic evidence of Blackshirts roughing up an unarmed man and throwing him in the canal would probably be welcome in some paper or other.
 
Huxley OoC: I still have some left-over bravado from that Dreamlands business. Excuse me gentlemen, is there a problem?
 
Rossini and his goons are amazed that anybody would dare intervene in what is clearly Fascist business, and Flo further derails them by pointing them in the direction of von Wurtheim, who is waving at them from the other end of the crowd and trying to get their attention. She describes him as a stalker, although the Blackshirts don’t seem to care beyond a muttered comment that is probably far from complimentary. Rossini certainly takes an interest in the investigators, wanting their names and their hotels, although the party have not yet actually arranged any accommodation in Venice. Just as well it’s the off-season. Georgio slips away. 
 
The young woman - Maria Stagliani as they’ll learn soon enough - clings to Florence’s excellent Italian as though she’s a life-vest, hurried introducing her and the other PCs as friends of her late mother, so of course Signor Rossini would understand why she rather travel with them back to her home? Florence and Huxley decide to play along, and as they leave on a gondola (leaving a baffled von Wurtheim on the dock) Maria explains that the repellent Rossini has been trying to get her hand in marriage for years, but she wants nothing to do with him. Her maid, Bice, explains that the other man, Georgio Gasparetti, has also been seeking Maria’s love, but he’s a worker, and, worse, a unionist. The recently late Prof. Stagliani had denied him, as well, but since he fell in the canal and caught a fatal chill, there’s nobody to protect Maria from either man.
 
Bice gives the party directions to a rental agent who can arrange a pensione flat for them at no notice (especially if they mention the Staglianis) so at least they’ll have somewhere to stay the night before they go find their friend Capt. Antonio Masiero, the Italian airman they sent ahead to commence the Italian legwork.
 
Masiero has had very little luck in that regard - Professor Smith had told them the Leg of the Sedefkar Simulacrum had been brought to Venice by Napoleon’s soldiers at the end of the 18th Century, and that it may have ended up in the possession of the reputed sorcerer Alvise Gremanci, but all he’s found out since arriving in Venice is that Alvise was once brought in front of the Council of Ten and accused of using puppets to attack his rivals (he was acquitted) and that during the Napoleonic occupation of Venice he, some very high-ranking Catholic priests, and even a pair of rabbis, were arrested by the authorities after a day of riots. He doesn’t know what happened next. Certainly, none of the living Gremancis that he’s talked to know anything about any magical legs left to them in his will, for example. It’s all been very frustrating, which may be why he’s been relaxing with the help of some of the beautiful women of Venice. There’s two of them in his bed when Florence and Huxley come knocking at his door. 
 
Capt. Masiero: I hope it isn’t another husband
 
Masiero: Lt. Huxley! 
Huxley: Nice to see you haven’t flown into a mountainside.
Masiero: What are you doing in Venice this soon, my friend?
Huxley: Ah, we had to leave Milan in some haste. 
 
Florence: For God's sake, get some pants on. 
GM: Yes, you’re making Huxley feel inadequate.
 
Florence and Huxley don’t comment - much - about the two women in his suite. 
 
Florence: I see you’ve been enjoying the local produce.
Masiero: The local vintage is very good.
Huxley OoC: I was about to say ‘I scored too’, then I remembered it was in Dreamlands
GM: Your Canadian girlfriend.
 
Women One: He is a man of …. enormous heroism.
Florence: And great endurance too I’m guessing?
Woman Two: *purrs* Inexhaustible. 
 
GM: It’s not exactly surprising that women are interested in a dashing airman and hero of the Italian military. Also, they’re sisters
Masiero: Good! That way I only have one place to drop them off.
 
Once he’s got rid of them, Florence and Huxley can bring him up to speed on everything that’s happened since he saw them last, in London. 
 
Masiero: … Why do you bring me all these terrible stories?
 
Florence: Oh, and I forgot to mention we met the Diva Cavollaro.
Huxley: Did you read about her disappearance?
Florence:  Yes, we were involved with that. But we didn’t kidnap her. When you read about the uproar at la Scala, that was us. We may have have caused a man to get lynched, but he was a very bad man and had it coming. 
 
Among the other things they have to do today is get a doctor to make a house call for Alex and Huxley - their injuries from Milan are now keeping Alex in bed, and Huxley’s chest wound is clearly infected. And then, of course, check for messages and mail at the post office, and hit the libraries and civic records to find out everything they can about the missing Leg, and look up the Devil’s Simulare manuscript which apparently describes the Simulacrum, and Sedefkar, and the Fourth Crusade, at some length. 
 
Remi Vangeim’s promised letter is waiting for them. Apparently some ‘Turkish Scholars’ came to the Bibliotheque Nationale, seeking everything they had on the Sedefkar Simulacrum, and Remi was introduced to them as somebody who had helped with that exact request not a month previously. But these Turks didn’t have letters of introduction from another library or institute of higher education, and were politely shown the door. Less politely, they were waiting to assassinate Remi when he finished work, and he was very lucky to escape with his life. 
 
That’s a good opportunity for Huxley and Flo to list everybody that is apparently hunting the party and the Simulacrum down. Although it’s possible that the various groups involved are also targeting each other, now. On the other hand, the list now includes the authorities in at least three countries, and includes that police detective in Milan who told them to report to the authorities in Venice when they arrived.
 
Florence: He didn’t specify which authorities.
Masiero: I have been told.
Huxley: Technically we talked to the blackshirts.
Florence: And I’m sure those two young ladies consider Antonio an authority.
 
The first day at the Biblioteca Marciana is not particularly helpful - there’s a lot of stuff about the French occupation, and documents in French as well as Italian, but the only thing that might be relevant is a serious outbreak of disease in the city between May and December of 1797. The occupying troops were highly concerned by the effect it was having on the garrison. The main symptom was crippling leg pain, and the epidemic only retreated, according to at least one letter, after a special mass ordered by the Pope. 
 
Huxley enquires after the Devil’s Simulare as well, which was apparently in the collection of the church of San Maria Celeste, but the librarian at the Marciana tells them that the church burnt down - in 1569. Perhaps some of the books were rescued, and are still regarded as part of that church’s library even after they were dispersed to other collections. He’ll make some enquiries.

Perhaps the OP’s Shadow Queen is an avatar (fetch?) of the far more powerful one from 6th Edition. Their powers might link them somehow. This would offer a larger potential plotline, making the mortal Shadow Queen a sort of decoy enemy, like a Doombot.
 
Just a thought.

Speaking of contagious plagues... I ran one in my second Keystone Konjurors campaign (playtest for the Ultimate Mystic trilogy). Only in mine, the plague was Barbie.
 
The player of one of the PCs, Artifex, said the Master of Cosmic Craft had made a 0-point Follower for his stylish loft apartment in Babylon: a human-size, living Barbie doll. Live-in housekeeper. I think: Okay. And, well, bed partner. I think: Ew. Then think: MUAH HA HA HA! Because Barbie is a powerful archetype, one of the best known toys in the world, and a focus of bizarre obsessions. Plus there's that manically/creepily cheerful song by Aqua. "I'm a Barbie girl, In a Barbie World. Life in plastic -- it's fantastic!"
 
It started as apparently a different adventure, I think there was a fire demon. Anyway, some bystanders get hit in the fighting, and one of them partly melts instead of getting burned. He's a living plastic mannikin. He also has no soul. The PCs find other soulless plastic people... and they're turning humans into more plastic people. The PCs eventually traced it back to Artifex's Barbie simulacrum, who is absorbing all the reality from the transformed people and growing into a nascent cosmic entity; also turning Artifex's apartment into a colorful molded plastic Barbie World. Called on this, Barbie tells Artifex to defend her, which he finds he must do: He was Barbie's first victim and working for her all along. Artifex tries to convince the others that this is a good thing. There is no old age, sickness or death in Barbie World. The Dragon would be destroyed. The others did manage to get through to him and convince him to turn against Barbie and destroy her. So, um, yay?
 
Good times.
 
Dean Shomshak

I ran that. Enjoyed it so much I used it for a Braintrust plot seed
 
This is what happens when you don't spay your catgirls: So King Cobra made the Ophidian plague. Big Whoop, thinks the Overbrain. To prove he can do one better, he creates his own version of the gene altering plague, and uses Lynx as a carrier. Lynx begins to claw other women, making them into catgirls who are more animalistic than she, yet subject to her orders (which will include going out and making more cat girls (and maybe one lucky guy who has struck Lynx's fancy)). Can the PCs stop the growing Catgirl army or is the city doomed
 
 
Only problem was several posters at the time asked what the down side was *Sigh*

When you calculate the cost of the contact keep in mind you are paying for what the contact will do for you, not what it can do.  So, while a church may have access to useful skills and resources and contacts of their own are they going to put those at the disposal of the character?   If not, you don’t have to pay for them.   To a starting character would only have basic access, they are not going to be able to talk to the higher-ranking member or get access to secrets guarded by the church.  The chance of them able to get in touch with someone who can actually help them is going to probably be fairly low.  Sure, you can talk to the local priest all the time, but if he is rarely of any use you don’t need to pay more.  That would probably work out to an 8 or less roll with no other modifiers.  So, it would cost 3 points.   
 
The fringe benefit Priest also cost 3 points so either way would probably work.  The fringe benefit comes with some assumed responsibility and would probably give you a little more in the way of benefits like free shelter, some extra rights, but would require the character do things for them.  
 

Part of the challenge is that we think in Supers terms for disadvantages.  Fantasy characters require different thinking.
 
As Christopher notes, backstory and personality are key, and that applies to all genres.  For Fantasy, I'd look to a number of lower-point drawbacks.  An infrequent DNPC, perhaps. Mild Distinctive Features (especially for non-human races, but even a burly human warrior with scars is distinctive).  Hunteds would be pretty uncommon, but various Watched complications may be relevant (the organization who trained him; a rival organization; the city watch; a guild). Rivals fall into similar territory.  A character might have a negative reputation, but few would be that well-known.  Any physical complications are likely to be minor, but old war injuries aren't out of the question.  Maybe an injury is what drove this character out of physical labour and into the study of spellcraft, for example.
 
Social complications like being a minority (race; religion) that suffers some prejudices; being subject to orders; keeping a dark secret.
 
Susceptibilities and vulnerabilities are unlikely - although I recall a character who took 1.5x effect from a pretty female's PRE attacks.  I'd avoid Unluck.
 
Psychological is always the workhorse - what makes this character tick?  Whether honest to a fault, greedy, hates goblins, never hits a lady, an overconfident young gun with something to prove, a naive farm kid - there needs to be some character to your Character! Perhaps a minor Enraged, if the character suits it.
 
6e reduced required Complications considerably, and left the need to ensure the ones remaining are actually meaningful.  Heroic characters only need 50 points of Complications.
 
Leverage IndianaJoe3's list of organizations and backgrounds that provide some disadvantages up front, and that will cover some points. 
 
Perhaps Dwarves have a Reputation of being greedy gold-grubbers, and have Distinctive Features.  Now tack on a Watched by the old Dwarvish clan and a strong sense of Honour, and you should be a long way to those 50 points.
 
Maybe our Wizard is missing one hand from an injury that sent him to learning, is beholden to (subject to orders from and watched by) the old wizard who trained him, and of course that one-handed wizard is pretty distinctive.
 
A human warrior might be scarred (Distinctive Features), have a reputation for drunken misconduct causing him to be Watched by the city guard, and is still Subject to Orders from his military service.
 
Or maybe he has a Reputation for being greedy, a Secret family curse and a Susceptibility (that same curse) that doing something helpful without getting paid applies a 1d6 Transform which, if it accumulates sufficiently, will change him into a ravening beast.  Much though he would like to be altruistic, his help would quickly turn to harm.
 
Our charming Casanova might be a sucker for a pretty face, and have a DNPC "girl of the week" and/or be Hunted by a rotating cast of angry husbands/brothers.
 
My general bias is to start with the background and personality sketch, and start grabbing Complications from there.

Heroes can be funded by a patron, who might be a wealthy individual, a corporation, or some government organization (possibly covert).  While initially the interests of the hero and the patron align, at some point there is going to be conflict, either over the direction things are going or the methods used.  Or the patron might just be corrupt and it takes a while for the hero to realize that.  Lots of role-playing potential.

This. Brushing up on her background, the key element is that the Shadow Queen is a fairy tale creature and her Shadow Realm is part of the wider Land of Legends. So she's not going to do something sensible and rationally planned out such as steal money to endow a nicer orphanage. She'll abduct the children into the Shadow Realm and try fitting them into a fairy tale -- or she didn't think that far ahead and lets the narrative nature of the Land of Legends shape what happens.
 
One option: the Shadow Queen shapes an island as the orphans' playset new home, imagining it'll be Neverland, with the orphans as the Lost Boys. Perhaps she even deputizes one of her minions to act as their version of Peter Pan. Except, 1) this is the Shadow Realm, so this "Neverland" might be gloomier, creepier, and more dangerous than the original; and 2), real children are not as sweet and innocent as J. M. Barrie's Edwardian versions. The result might be less Peter Pan, more Lord of the Flies.
 
Another option: The Shadow Queen is not a woman who can summon or turn into a dragon, she's a dragon who can take human form. As we all know, fairy-tale dragons are hoarders. In this version, the Shadow Queen takes the children to live with her in her castle. She provides all the material things they could want. However, she doesn't really "get" human emotions and social needs. After the novelty of toys and cake wears off, the kids might get really bored. Or frightened, especially once they realize their hyper-protective/possessive new "mother" won't let them go outside.
 
You can combine these elements. Maybe the Shadow Queen releases the children into her "Neverland" and apparently forgets about them. But when the heroes from Earth come to rescue them, she reacts with the possessive fury of a dragon whose hoard is being robbed.
 
Another factor: Faerie is timeless. The abducted children will never grow up. Whatever situation they are in, they will be in forever if the heroes do not rescue them. And no, the heroes probably cannot convince the Shadow Queen to ordain a region in which time can pass normally and the children can grow up normally. She isn't that patient, or that human.
 
Dean Shomshak
This too. One more reason the heroes need to rescue the children.
 
Dean Shomshak

I was thinking more like a Neverland out of classic fairy tales and not the Disney version.
 
Wonderland in the books can be pretty scary too.
 
The Shadow Realm could be a very fairy tale-like world, filled with moral lessons and rewards for good children and horrific, perhaps fatal, endings for those that are bad.

I recently ran the rules-light superhero RPG ICONS at a local game convention and it worked out beautifully, especially since out of the two groups of players that participated in the sessions I ran, only one had actually played role-playing games before. For the others, it was their first time ever and it was easy to explain the game mechanics and character sheet layout to them as well. Looking ahead to the next game event, though, I was thinking about running Champions and Fantasy Hero, which both have a special place in my gaming heart since I have been playing them since high school and college, respectively. I've owned and played other games (e.g. Robotech, Pendragon, DC Heroes, Villains & Vigilantes) before them, but in the end, my preference is still Hero System.
 
Why, beyond sentimental memories of rolling lots of d6s over pizza in the college dorm? It finally hit me when I purchased Fantasy AGE and its Bestiary over the weekend, a worthy fantasy game system in its own right. The products are first rate and the rules are to easy to pick up, but then it hit me: how do I establish game balance between the players and their opponents? How do I design my own monsters? That's when I realized the "beautiful madness" of Hero System. The beauty of Hero's point system has always been, and remains, a great way to determine the relative power level of a character, whatever the genre, as outlined in their respective game and source books. The madness, of course, is all of the nuances and related rules that can affect point totals, and the rules heavy nature of the Hero System that often turned new players away or frustrated them. The source books themselves remain amazing academic references that as educators, my wife and I loved...but was that really the writers' intent? 🤔
 
So, I challenged myself with this question: how can I make Hero System "Easy to Follow" for brand new players? Here's what I've done to create what I call, "Easy to Follow Fifth Edition" for the character sheet layout:
1) All of the statistics are written out; virtually no acronyms are used. (The Hero Designer file exists, but players aren't interested in that raw data.)
2) After the statistics are listed, the next two major entries are "Offense" and "Defense" that list combat values, main attacks, and defenses.
3) Everything else is listed under Skills and Abilities, followed by Disadvantages.
4) Perks & Talents are minimized. The skills and powers are only the main ones that people readily know and pick up. Not every minute detail is listed, especially when it can get tedious.
 
My friend, who's only played ICONS so far and head was spinning when I first introduced Hero System to her a while back, is coming over to look at what I created with a fresh set of eyes. Here is what I've created so far for Champions and Fantasy Hero as samples. Constructive feedback is welcome to see if it answers the question, "Does this make Hero System easier to understand?"
 
Thanks!

 
 

Given the Shadow Queen's astonishingly high PRE vs. men, I am sure she could convince the guy running the orphanage of her choice let her take the kids with only preliminary paperwork and the promise that they will sort it all out later.  She could easily deal with anyone who might try to stop her; it isn't like an orphanage is going to have security that could stop a supervillain.  The kids are likely to go with her just to get out of the orphanage, or possibly because they get scared if she does have to 'deal' with someone that stood up to her.
 
What happens next is the more interesting question.  If you play her with good intentions but shallow, then she will have effectively kidnapped the orphans, moving them from a formal orphanage to an orphanage that she runs.  It might be nicer, but the kids circumstances won't really be much different except that they may have a harder time getting away.
 
Maybe she wants to be a good mother, but has little patience with the kids, especially ones who may very well already have emotional problems.  She might have a few violent outbursts, and the kids are terrified of her.  This is the easy scenario for the heroes, since the kids clearly need to be rescued.  The real question is whether the Shadow Queen would use the children as hostages when the heroes arrive.  That seems a bit dark for her, but who knows what she might do if cornered.
 
Or perhaps she is a natural mother, and does take good care of the children and they love her.  Sure she is a wanted criminal and kidnapped the children, but their circumstances are much better and they don't want to leave.  How do the heroes handle that situation?
 
Another wrinkle is her long-term plans for the kids.  Is she planning to pay for private schooling and send them all to college so they can be productive members of society, or is she grooming them to work for her in the criminal underworld?

Maybe Lady Blue could team up with Shadow Queen to help with robberies that fund caring for the children.
 
Even if they are stopped, the publicity could get interesting.

Well the challenge for designing Damage Negation is that its a new mechanic for the game.  Without extremely extensive playtesting, its always going to have some problems, which we see here.
 
But I mean Damage Reduction has the same "is it PD or ED" question with AVAD.  OK does this AVAD get reduced 50% or not?  Or does AVAD ignore Damage Reduction?  You can guesstimate based on special effect, but its kind of an unexamined area in the rules.

A castle where, if you hit it with an arrow in a difficult-to-access drainage port, the entire castle explodes?
 
I'd watch that.

Depends on his profession, assuming he is not a professional student. 
 
He should have a hobby or two (an excuse for him to have either/and a KS and a PS of the same thing).
 
Since he doesn't sleep, he probably has a "day" job for 8 hours, and a "night" job for 8 hours. An excuse for two more PS right there. 
 
Since he doesn't sleep, that gives him lots of time to explore the city, and an excuse for a CK (City Knowledge) of "campaign city".
 
Since he is exploring the city at night, he should have Streetwise, along with KS: Gangs Of The City.
 
That is 8 right there.

V'han has conquered, at minimum, thousands of alternate Earths, with their attendant universes. Her scientists catalogue Champions Earth as Earth 1643. (Personally, I find the notion of one humanoid being conquering and ruling an entire universe the size of Earth's, let alone thousands, to be ludicrous. But officialdom is what it is.)
 
There is one member of Istvatha's Imperial Battalion -- her superhuman soldier cadre -- called Ars Diavola, a demonologist originally from Champs Earth, who joined the Empress's service after her first invasion for the opportunity to study the Netherworlds of other races. As of the writing of Book of the Empress she's learned to summon and control thousands of types of demons unknown to Earth, and is probably the most knowledgeable demonologist in the Multiverse. (Good justification to buy Steve Long's Legions of Hell.) 
 
Ars Diavola gets a full write-up in Book Of The Empress.

Given the number of worlds and peoples Istvatha V;han rules, it is virtually certain that some of those worlds generated Umaginal Reals. I haven't read Book of the Empress, so I can't say if anything like this is described there. Regardless, this field seems wide open for GMs to invent their own. My little e-book, Spells of the Devachan: Thaumaturgy from the Sorcerer's Galaxy (available from the HERO Store) includes brief descriptions of some alien Imaginal Worlds you could easily drop into the CU.
 
IIRC, though, Istvatha V'han has conquered several alternate Earths. This brings up a question I never considered in The Mystic World:  Do those alternate Earths also have alternate Parterres? (I didn't consider it because it's just a whole big can of worms, for a book that was already running long.) My first thought, though, is that the alternate Earths each have their own alternate Parterres... including some Earths where one Parterre or another became so dominant it merged with that Earth. But the Multiverse imposes very strong barriers between alternate Imaginal Realms -- even stronger than between material worlds -- so there's not much possibility of, say, multiple Netherworlds teaming up for a cross-dimensional attempt at conquest.
 
I'd be interested to know if Book of the Empress says anything about how Istvatha V'han deals with the Parterres of the Earths she's conquered. If she leaves them alone, the various godly entities might not object to her conquest. After all, she doesn't generally try to impose or suppress native religions. They also might be reluctant to intervene because it's a setting rule that Earth's spirits are very weak against creatures from the Outer Planes. (A rule created so humanity must rely on its own heroes to stop dimensional conquerors, rather than relying on gods.) So it seems quite possible that on some alternate Earths, V'hanian forces conquered the Parterres as well. Heh, imagine a world where the Mythic Resistance Front is led by Tezcatlipoca, Marduk, Mephistopheles and the Archangel Michael. Yeah, these guys are not going to have an easy time working together.
 
Dean Shomshak

I imagine they could be conscripted too by more tyrannical types, but it isn’t a good idea. Such experts could secretly build in flaws intended to make it easier to take the structure down, kind of like what happened with the Death Star according to the plotline of Rogue One.

A socially-conscious supervillain unleashes an airborne, easily transmissible, delayed effect virus that rewrites the chromosomes of all humans into a single racial type, effectively homogenizing all of mankind.

In case it helps, the hero player characters in my campaign are:
Angel - female actual angel with wings and martial arts skills, also Streetwise (and a bit of Wealth, for some strange reason) Escudar - male Hispanic martial artist with Code vs. Killing and gets enraged at people harming the weak and innocent; sneaky but no real streetwise or investigative skills yet Flux - female interior designer with vibration powers (blasts, flight, vibration-based radar, has Conversation skill Jack Frost - the "Face" of the group, a male attention hound with cold/ice powers and major musical talents Rainbow Warrior - non-gendered public ID (is on the Board of Supervisors for the city) with light powers (blasts, teleport, invisibility, holograms), has Bureaucratics, Conversaton, Persuasion, and Streetwise skills Techtronic - male technopath with cyberkinesis / electrokinetic powers (taser-style Entangle, machine psionics, camera vision), has Electronics and hacking-type skills Thumper - male brick able to manipulate his own size and density (so, growth and shrinking, density increase, desolid), very wealthy with minor noncombat skills (Conversation, Stealth) but not much in the investigative field They have an "office manager" (Wally Burke) who has the metahuman talent that he can frequently (but not always) hear local police band transmissions - from about 15 minutes in the future.  So the team often gets a heads-up when things are going on, with enough notice to hopefully arrive in time to save the day.

Many thanks, everybody, for lots of great ideas, as well as things to think about overall.
 
FYI, I altered some of the villains' backgrounds and origin stories to fit the whole Paranormal Flux thing, as well as modifying some of their powers somewhat (particularly the 3rd edition characters to bring them up to 6th edition, plus some tweaks to make some of them a bit more useful or rounding them out a bit).  So if I mention something that doesn't match the original character 100%, that's why.
 
Regarding Southern California, I don't want to have too much going on down there that might involve the players' hero team (the Golden Gate Guardians, by the way), since LA has their own NPC hero team (Angel Force), with whom the PC heroes have made an effort to have a pretty good working relationship.  But I can always have goings-on down there appear in the news, with things eventually tying into something going on in the San Francisco area.
 
Since the Guardians have recently gotten official sanctioning from the city of San Francisco, that alone could make them "tools" and targets in the eyes of the Dissidents.  And Rainbow Warrior being on the Board of Supervisors give her extra "stooge" status.
 
I've had the heroes accompany a prisoner transfer from the High Desert State Prison in upstate California down to Alcatraz Prison (it's being turned into a super-prison, and the refurbishment is partially complete).   If the Dissidents attack legal weapon shipments, the government might ask the Guardians to accompany a future weapons shipment, particularly if it's bound for another country and sailing out of San Fran.
 
I didn't think about the Dissidents wanting to recruit any of the heroes but that's a good idea.  (In a past campaign, VIPER tried to recruit one of the PC heroes.  That was a blast to run.)  And with Echo around, the Dissidents can figure out if the hero tries to play along just to set up an ambush.  Could be quite interesting...
 
I like the idea of the Dissidents going after a San Fran-based biotech firm - they have Dragonfly (who was transformed by a lab accident and hates being a 'freak'), Flower (who is convinced she got her powers from a covered-up leak at a nuclear reactor when a different supervillain team stole some fuel rods.  There wasn't a leak, but good luck convincing her of that.  It's all a cover-up!) and Titaness (who lost a lot of friends due to a company dumping toxic waste near their commune).  Maybe target that company, kidnap some scientists and steal equipment / chemicals / other supplies to try and restore Dragonfly and Flower to normal.  (Not sure whether Titaness would want to give up their powers, though.)  If the heroes learn about the toxic waste dumping, that even ties into Sundog's idea of adding some mental conflict for the heroes.
 
For the future, I like DT's idea of mining NCIS for ideas.  It's been a while since I watched the original NCIS, and didn't really follow either NCIS-LA or New Orleans, but I can do some research online.  From what I recall of the original I should be able to find an idea or two to steal borrow with appropriate alterations.
 
As to someone manipulating the Dissidents, I do have some demons who are trying to make life difficult for Angel, and already manipulated another metahuman group (Divine Right, a group of fortunetelling supes, not quite villains but not quite heroes either) into facing off against the Guardians.  Tricking the Dissidents into doing the same sounds like it would be up their alley.
 
Again, thanks, everybody, for some great ideas.

Villains being villains, they tended to be laid-back, laissez-faire parents.  So some of the kids will <gasp> want to be Heroes!!!!  While others will continue the family traditions.
 
Oh, the angst when the hero has to go after his villain girl friend.............

Instead of having the Dissidents target the manufacturers of weapons, why not go after the weapons themselves? Sabotage military bases, armories, ammo and fuel dumps, missile silos. Destroy tanks, planes, ships, artillery, infrastructure and communications. Interdict legal shipments of weapons to nations they disapprove of.
 
Nothing will get the attention of any government faster than successfully degrading their military capabilities. Particularly if the Dissidents' actions go international, threatening relations with their allies. And calling on superheroes to take down supervillains would be an appropriate response.