SKJAM!

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! Yep, along those lines.

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! Volcanus is from Madagascar and is a demolitions expert. He's aided by being immune to fire and impact damage, meaning he can stay nearer the explosions than would be safe for normal people. New Team.... The Motifs Membership: 4 (Two tenors, a baritone and a bass) Hook: Four "theme" criminals who are also a barbershop quartet. Background: The Motifs are four "theme" criminals who met in prison and discovered a shared passion for singing (none of them have music-related powers, though.) They settled on the barbershop quartet format as their group performance style. The Motifs are only mediocre as a singing group, but the novelty gets them gigs, and their "best of" CD has decent sales. As criminals, the Motifs are big on "the rules". They don't kill people outright (but deathtraps are okay), take good care of hostages, and never rob the audience at their musical gigs. They don't like "heroes" who break the rules and will display surprisingly competent teamwork in humiliating them.

Re: Create a Hero Theme Team! During her hero career, Carmina Ilgato was known as Big Red. Already a formidable woman with superstrength and tae kwon do training at her normal size (note: she was just trained in tae kwon do, Carmina never mastered any of the fancy moves); Big Red could grow to fifty feet tall with a proportional increase in strength and durability. Carmina's most noted contribution to Team Justice was its formation--When she realized she couldn't fight a new VIPER Nest in Justice City solo, Big Red sought out the others and convinced them to form a team. She was never the leader, just the facilitator. After meeting and marrying Captain Don K. Anard, a brave but normal human in the Navy, Carmina Anard carried on for a while as Big Red, but had to take maternity leave. When she had triplets, who inherited her powers, Carmina was forced to become a full-time mother to cope with the situation, and Team Justice was down a member.

Re: What Fiction Book (other than Science Fiction or Fantasy) have you recently finis Frank Merriwell Down South: Part of the long-running and once-famous Frank Merriwell series, it's four loosely-connected stories of our intrepid hero exploring locales south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Exciting stuff, but the first story is ruined by antiquated and racist stereotypes of Mexicans and a particularly weak ending. More at my LJ here: http://skjam.livejournal.com/

Re: Wrath of God Oh, and summoning bears to eat louts who insult bald people.

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! Top Kick, former US Army sergeant Beatriz Toross, was dishonorably discharged after one too many recruits she was the drill sergeant for died in mysterious training accidents. She has no actual superpowers, but does have access to an extradimensional space where time passes much faster than it does on Earth. She can get three months of minion training done in under a week in this fashion. ACME has developed a serum that slows her aging while she's in "Dimension Boot"; she's realized it's addictive, but the pay is good and the training regimen is fun--for her. Pity a couple of recruits fail to survive her methods every "year."

It's a particularly slow day for crime and disasters in Campaign City. The most urgent call in right now is from a little girl whose cat has gotten stuck up a tree. Your character is for whatever reason the only hero/mercenary/villain with scruples on call. It's an ordinary house cat at the top of a twenty-foot tall oak tree (unless your campaign needs adjustments to fit, then make those) and is terrified--it will probably freak out and attack anyone who tries to grab it. As far as can be determined by your character's senses, the little girl is genuinely a normal little girl who loves her pet cat. WWYCD? (Remember, details as appropriate.)

Re: Golden Age Champions To even things up a bit between the powered and "non-powered' heroes, I'd make everyone take roughly the same SPD (except of course, really fast person.) If they're all SPD 3 or 4, and the enemy mooks SPD 2, but lots of mooks, this gives the non-powered guys a chance to take actions and kick enemy butt. I'd also tend to lower-power/single-concept characters so as to make teamwork necessary.

Re: What Fiction Book (other than Science Fiction or Fantasy) have you recently finis "The Complete Alex Raymond Rip Kirby", volumes 1-3 (volume 4 not yet out.) Reprints of Alex "Flash Gordon" Raymond's other great comic strip, featuring a hip, modern (for 1946) private eye. It's good stuff. Likable main characters, sharp art, lovely ladies, action-packed storylines. It does verge into technothriller territory with a story about a new biological weapon, but otherwise stays planted firmly in the realistic but unlikely category. While the strip ran for 53 years, only the first ten were by Mr. Raymond before his death. Oh, I should mention I have a Goodreads page for those who want to see my book reviews.

Re: What Have You Watched Recently? The latest Takashi Miike movie, "13 Assassins." It's actually a pretty standard samurai revenge story, and a touch less goretastic than his most famous works. It seems there's this guy named Lord Naritsugu who's been raping, mutilating dishonoring and killing people left and right (plus he raised taxes.) Lord Doi, who's the senior adviser to the Shogun and in charge of the justice system, would like to do something about this, but Naritsugu is the shogun's half-brother and in fact is about to be promoted to Lord Doi's job. So Doi goes out and finds a retired samurai who's willing to get together a posse and give Lord Naritsugu what's coming to him. It's a fun movie provided you know something about samurai revenge drama (they generally do not have happy endings with the majority of the cast living.)

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! Earthworms continue growing all their lives; this one has been modified to be effectively immortal and highly carnivorous--and if it's cut apart, each segment is able to grow into a copy of the original. Truly it is... The Great Wyrm

Re: Create a Hero Theme Team! Home Run Queen is a bit on the old side for a magical girl, looking at least twenty. Mind you, the missing eye may add a year or two. When in her civilian identity as "Hannah Killebrew", she wears a pink floral eyepatch, but in her magical identity, HRQ just lets her bangs fall over the dull red glow of her eyesocket. She uses her magical bat and glove to fight evil, and attempts to give sisterly advice to the younger members of her team. Hannah tends to be standoffish towards people who aren't on her team, especially men, and does not get along well with animals.

Re: Create a Hero Theme Team! Rio Mabell Sanchez is a Mexican-American (third-generation, thank you *very* much) mutant with the ability to summon and control water. She's proud of her Texas heritage, but tends to get up in people's faces when they deride immigrants. Rio is also eco-conscious, and spends a lot of her downtime helping fix damaged land.

Re: How to convince a hero group that they should be registered and work for governme One important factor is to show that the government people your team work with directly are trustworthy. This may take a while to establish in game, but even if the characters distrust "the government" in general, if they know Agent Jones will never screw them over, they might tolerate the connection.

Re: Create a Hero Theme Team! Siriusis secretly Randolph Fineman, known in his profession as the "Plea-Bargain Wizard". His expert negotiation skills and silver tongue get his clients the best possible deal in exchange for guilty pleas. And if his clients happen to be honestly innocent, (not too often the case), he gets them off in court with rock-solid procedural work and eloquence. He's lost a few cases where clients refused to take a plea despite their guilt, but that's par for the course and doesn't hurt his reputation. Except once. A particularly heinous murder case where the suspect swore up and down that he was innocent, despite all the evidence against him. Eyewitnesses, material evidence, security camera footage, motive, means, opportunity, everything was against the client. Randolph begged his client to take a plea, but the suspect wouldn't have it. He was determined to plead innocence, despite, so he claimed, having no memory of exactly where he was during the hours the murder supposedly took place. Randolph did the best he could with the case, but of course it was no use. Even his reputation for only going to court when he truly believed there was no other way swayed the jury. The client was found guilty and sentenced to death. But Randolph Fineman knew all along his client was not the true murderer. The man had been mind-controlled into the murder by someone else--who, neither the suspect nor Randolph knew. But the only evidence he had of this was his own secret ability to read minds undetectably. And he couldn't reveal that without destroying his reputation, causing the dozens of cases he'd worked to be reviewed and possibly overturned...and possibly being disbarred altogether. He felt ashamed at his moral cowardice, even if he was acting "for the greater good." So when he learned of the Star Chamber, Randolph Fineman joined them as Sirius. His special focus is on "proxy" crimes, where the real criminal forces or tricks others into the dirty work while keeping their own hands clean; and he also works to make sure the Star Chamber doesn't rush to judgement before the true facts are known.

Re: The Morality of Sending In The Clones! Hmm... now that I've had time to think about it, one reason to force-grow clones to early maturity and then let them season normally for a few years in my theoretical world...the mad scientist is a gray-area (dark gray) who wants to study treatments for degenerative diseases and needs guinea pigs. Balabanto's world: Imagine the plight of poor Mrs. Clone when she discovers that her husband of fifteen years, deacon at his church, vice-president of the Rotary Club, beloved by all in their small town and father of her three children, is in fact a clone. His many years of service to the community matter not a whit. He's a clone and has no human rights, and can be put down like a dog. Obviously, her marriage is invalidated (can't legally marry a non-human), any contracts with his signature on them are null and void (there goes the house and car), and her kids...well, they're the offspring of a clone and therefore are not human themselves as far as the government is concerned.

Re: "Normals" gaining superpowers: how would they change in terms of mentality? Ahahaha..."You must come to work for (the government/the HMOs/a selfish billionaire) to fix the injuries and disease *we* want you to fix, and no others!" Teleport to fictional worlds would be my big choice...by careful navigation, I should be able to get hold of any other powers or gadgets I need. Psychologically, it might be the ultimate form of escapism; you never have to spend more time in the dreary real world than it takes to set up your next exciting adventure.

Re: The Morality of Sending In The Clones!

Re: The Morality of Sending In The Clones! Note that in my theoretical campaign world, it's not so much the cloning that can be detected, as the effects of forced maturation.

Re: The Morality of Sending In The Clones! In the DC Universe, there are indeed expert witnesses who can testify as to the residual energies left by mind control, such as Dr. Mid-Nite. eta: Yes, if Mind Control isn't a defense, then Dr. Mindcontroller can simply destroy anyone he wants to by mindcontrolling them to commit crimes in public, so they can't provide an alibi.

Re: The Morality of Sending In The Clones! A recent Captain America story (in the big anniversary issue) dealt with an Adolf Hitler clone who'd managed to escape Arnim Zola's lab before being imprinted with his original's memories. He'd made a life for himself as an art gallery manager, but showed some worrying personality traits. In the end, Cap decides that the clone isn't actually doing anything villainous, and orders surveillance kept up just in case. (And the man himself was worried about his compulsion to paint swastikas.) As for myself, as with the last time this came up, this is what would be happening if I run Champions. Thanks to the slightly higher overall tech level of the world, "realistic" human cloning is available. Normal clones start as embryos and age normally; most of them gestate in a human womb. Legally, they're human and in countries that are signatory to the United Nations Protocol on Cloning and Genetic Engineering, theoretically possess all the civil rights of normal humans. (None of the normal clones have yet reached the age of majority.) It is illegal to clone someone without their prior informed consent, and illegal clones become wards of the state if found. Most celebrities have clone/don't clone clauses in their contracts. Realistic cloning is expensive, and most medical insurance won't cover it, so mass cloning is not believed to be a major problem in the civilized world. (Rogue states are always the exception, but they aren't going to follow your rules regardless.) Also, the necessary genetic information for cloning starts breaking down by the time the corpse enters rigor mortis, so the realistic cloning of long-dead people is out the window. If the cloned person has the metagene, so does their clone, but that does not mean they'll ever express it, or in the same way. Rumors persist of secret Joshua experiments (think "Boys From Brazil"), but there's no hard evidence. However, there's also mad science cloning. That uses various methods to force the clone to maturity in a few months (or days for the more dangerous formulas.) Mad genetic engineering and psychoeducation can fill in the gaps to ensure that the clone has the same powers and personality of the original, or alter it in any way desired. (Opposite sex clones are popular with many mad scientists, as they tended not to get laid when they were young.) Force-grown clones have oddities in their physiology that can be detected by a simple medical examination or blood test, and are at high risk for degenerative diseases. Mad science cloning is of course highly illegal, but the resultant clones are treated as human beings. Depending on how heavily programmed they are, they may be treated as human beings with severe mental impairments. There have been attempts at creating clone armies, but these have been stopped by alert heroes, and so far all implementations have proved deeply flawed. Dr. Destroyer, Teleios, and perhaps one or two other supergeniuses are able to create "perfect" clones that are functionally identical to the original, absent a full genetic scan or deep mind probe. Apparently this is quite difficult even for them, and they can produce only one or two a year, reserved for only the most important master plans. All detected "perfect" clones have been destroyed by their creators, presumably to keep the secret of how they're made out of anyone else's hands.

Re: The Last Daredevil asks for your help The character with the most individual reaction would be Talion. He'd presume this communication was meant for someone else, as his presence in the area would only make things worse. Talion might pass on the message to someone he considers more competent to deal with it, or investigate to see if the poor Daredevil was under mind control or something if it's made clear they're actually asking for him.

Re: Create a Hero Theme Team! Aristide LeTrois, concert violinist, is also the French hero known as Tricolor. It's unclear if he gets his powers from the concept of the French flag, or just named himself after it due to the nature of them. When he changes color, his powers change; red is Liberte (cannot be held, restrained, entangled or encased), white is Equalite (duplicates the ability of whoever he's looking at when the color change happens) and blue is Fraternite (projects courage, friendliness and goodwill to all around him.) His versatility makes him valuable to the Countdown team, but he tends to put his musical career first, and is notorious for protecting his hands at any cost.

Re: Pimp My Villain. Emerald Empress The GL connection was in the L.E.G.I.O.N./R.E.B.E.L.S. series, along with the Second Eye of Ekron. Validus: Yep, he's a brick/energy projector with the special effect "mental lightning". That is, his brain has so much extra bio-electricity that he can shoot it off as destructive blasts. The bad news is that all that extra energy seems to interfere with Validus' actual thinking, so he's never been able to progress beyond a childlike mentality prone to fits of temper (Enraged/Berserk in Hero Games terms.)

Re: Pimp My Villain. Emerald Empress Eye has the same DCV as the Empress herself (controlled by thought, after all), enough Hardened Defense that only someone like Karate Kid with multiple levels of Armor-Piercing can actually get through; it's much more vulnerable to Flash or Darkness than anything else. Oh, obvious when you think about it power, though EE in the comics didn't use it much--she can see through the Eye, so 360 degree vision when it's near her, Clairsentience (normal sight) when it's further away. After the original Empress learned about the effect Kryptonite has on Superboy, she taught the Eye how to simulate that kind of radiation.