SKJAM!

Re: Help Me Populate A Creepy Island The Major: Lives on a fairly large island out towards the fringe of the area, uninhabited except for himself and his mute manservant. The Major loves having visitors. He'll lay on an excellent dinner, show off his prize tracking dogs, display his enormous collection of the taxidermist's art (all hunted by himself)--quite the host. Just don't stay overnight, because the Major has a thing about going hunting first thing in the morning....

Re: Distinctive features One character in Allies was a cat-man who specifically did not have Distinctive Features because he was so good at "blending into a crowd" that you wouldn't notice the cat part unless you were staring directly at him.

Re: Create a Hero Theme Team! Well, we can tell why this one was encouraged to visit a foreign country...

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! Superconductive: Ma Tsi is a mutant whose body naturally produces excess bioelectricity. So he can touch someone and give them a mild shock. Except when he's exposed to severe cold (such as is produced by his teammates in Arctic Circle). Then his electrical powers become far more potent, able to create lightning bolts; he gains some control over magnetism, and he gets smarter. Extreme heat weakens his abilities to uselessness. He avoids going into combat without at least one of his teammates at his side, for obvious reasons.

Re: Everryone's Favorite Incompetent Criminal... Morty the Mugger is also the star of the examples for "Playing With: Mugging The Monster" over on TV Tropes. (I made the page.)

Re: Create a Hero Theme Team! Anodyne is sponsored by the health insurance industry. She's got the latest experimental healing devices, able to treat almost any injury or illness that's just been suffered. They do not, however, work on pre-existing conditions (i.e. Physical Complications.) Also, all her powers take Extra Time, stepping down the time chart one step for each die of Healing or Dispel Disease needed, and two steps for each adder (such as "can reattach limbs/head.") And you'd better have your "co-pay" handy, or the billing is murder. But other than that, Ann O. Dyne is a perfectly sweet young woman. Okay, Teen Champions time: A youthful team of enthusiastic Japanese heroes--maybe a little too enthusiastic, with the result that their seniors have sent them on a tour of America just to get them out of their seniors' hair. Nekketsu Yuusha-tachi ("Hot-blooded Heroes") are a group of six who should be based on manga and anime genre conventions and tropes. And they're all really really enthusiastic.

Re: Create a Hero Theme Team! And you get to pick the new theme here too!

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! And that's four, what's the next theme, csyphrett?

Re: Create a Hero Theme Team! Lince: Javier Amarillo's grandparents fled Chiquador for the United States a few dictators ago--Chiquador has never had much luck with its leaders. They came legally, as Abuelo Amarillo was a doctor, an educated man who already spoke English well. They moved to Michigan to be as far away from the dictator as possible. Wanting to fit in, they raised Javier's father to be as American as possible, and pretty much the same happened to Javier. He can speak Spanish about as well as anyone who took a year of the language in high school. This did not, however, prevent Javier from inheriting some sort of family curse; apparently it strikes the youngest living adult male in the Amarillo family when the previous holder dies. This was his great-uncle, who'd disappeared over thirty years before back in Chiquador. As of yet, nothing has been learned about how or where he died. But the death was made clear when Javier spontaneously turned into a lynx. Javier has gained a fair amount of control over the transformation now, but still sometimes turns against his will when angry or horny. When it came to pick a hero name, Javier was surprised to learn that The Lynx, Lynx-Man, Man-Lynx, Lynx Boy and Lady Lynx were already taken. Not that he would have gone for that last one anyway. So the Spanish for "Lynx" was his best choice. After a couple of solo adventures, Lince was asked to join the Seekers. He likes it fine so far, despite Alternate sometimes slipping and calling him "Jaguar" instead. Lince can transform from human form to a lynx of the same mass almost instantly, though normal clothing is damaged by this. He has not yet been able to achieve a halfway form. He has a nearly magical regenerative capability which does not work vs. wounds inflicted by copper or electricity.

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! Soviet scientists officially named the project "Chernobog", an attempt to create a gigantic demonic-looking monster that would terrify the superstitious capitalists. But the thing apparently died of a heart attack shortly after being brought to life. The project's funds were cut, the titanic corpse abandoned in the underground hangar and the entire site covered in concrete. But the creature was not entirely dead. A smaller version of itself--much smaller--slowly ate its way out of the greater mass, and then dug out of the concrete covering. Two decades later, the remnant of the Chernobog project stood in the open air. It sought to fulfill its original purpose, attacking the Western nations, but its now diminuitive size gave the creature the derisive name of Gremlin From the Kremlin. Too weak to gain its revenge alone, the Gremlin joined Warsaw Pact. Standing about two feet tall, the Gremlin is a demonic looking figure with leathery wings, sharp horns, wicked teeth and deadly claws. It has the ability to make machines malfunction (or work better) simply by sitting near them. Little know is the Gremlin's ability to suddenly expand to nine feet tall and proportionally massive. Since this takes most of its energy, the Gremlin saves this trick for sucker punches. Edit: Next team--Gaia's Vengeance: Four powerful beings bent on destroying a significant portion of humanity in the name of ecoterrorism.

Re: Create a Hero Theme Team! Melting Pot is a young woman blessed by the Spirit of America (or so she claims) with a unique gift. She can merge any two Americans into one person for a few minutes. The combined person has the combined strength, intelligence, speed, skills, etc. of the two Americans, but oddly enough, neither of their Psychological Complications (apparently the melding cancels out any mental abnormalities.) Afterwards, the two people have an increased understanding of each other, though this is not always as helpful as Melting Pot would like. Melting Pot normally uses herself as one of the ingredients, and hates doing it non-consensually (but is sometimes required to by mission objectives.) And for our next team... "Who speaks for the dead? We do." "Who protects the dead? We do." "Who avenges the dead? We do." "We are The Graveyard Shift. Because 'rest in peace' should mean just that." Five heroes who specialize in helping the dead, from as small a thing as cemetary vandals to as large as fighting Takofanes' latest mass necromancy. Sometimes they'll stretch a point and help relatively innocent undead, or even the living if the problem falls into their area of expertise.

Re: Create a Hero Theme Team! I too was stuck at work; perhaps we can try the X-Y's another time. (You know I'm all over this theme.) In the meantime: Fulgurite Fulton Smith sometimes wondered why he was so different from the other kids in his neighborhood. They didn't seem to get stronger in sunlight and weaker in the dark, or bleed green blood. Then when he started throwing off sparks at school whenever he looked at pretty girls, his parents decided he was old enough for the truth. It turned out that Fulton's father had been one of the officers of an alien invasion a while back. He'd been assigned to discover the identity of one of Earth's greatest heroes and assassinate her. Due to some contrived coincidences resulting in mistaken identity, Mr. Smith (not his real name) had wound up falling in love with the hero's best friend instead. He faked his own death, hid out for a few years until the invasion faded from memory, then wooed and won his love. Fulton was enrolled in a "young metahumans" school under the code name Fulgurite, graduated about the middle of his class, and signed up with the Stellars. Fulgurite can levitate, teleport (though it takes extra time to do) and throw electrical bolts. He's also somewhat stronger than normal humans. However, his energy stores can only be restored by exposure to direct sunlight. (his costume is designed to strip to trunks and boots easily for maximum skin exposure when viable.) Interestingly, Fulgurite also seems to have an aura of command; but it only works on minion-level aliens, who are unduly impressed by him.

Re: Create a Hero Theme Team! Opposite Day is an androgynous person of uncertain age who is always concealed under gray robes. His or her true motives and background are a mystery, though it usually acts on behalf of its teammates when together with them. Opposite Day can turn any dualistic concept into its opposite: Black/white, male/female, good/evil, parent/child, rich/poor, strong/weak, etc. Once a person or object is changed, it's stuck that way for exactly twenty-four hours. While body, mind and spirit are separate targets for transformation, Opposite Day is powerful enough to burden a target with multiple swaps one right after another. OD can also apparently teleport when no one is looking at it. When not superheroing, Opposite Day uses its powers to teach seemingly random people valuable lessons about life. Thanks to this, it's hands down the least popular member of Agents of Change.

Re: "Normals" gaining superpowers: how would they change in terms of mentality? That was mentioned in a manga, I think the title was Horobi--"Yeah, seeing what's inside a girl's panties might be cool, but what if you had to see what was inside what's inside a girl's panties because it just kept on going?"

Re: Create a Hero Theme Team! Cauteloso is a Cuban national who goes by several different names, depending on whether he's in Cuba or outside its borders. Most of his friends call him Pepe. He is able to become completely silent, and to extend this silence field just enough so that whatever he does to other things cannot be heard. Combined with lockpicking skills and the (trained) ability to hide very, very well, Cauteloso is an infiltration expert. He goes in, gets the information and gets out before most people even know he's there. He may or may not be an agent of the Cuban government--certainly they seem to turn a blind eye to his activities. And the next group? The Agents of Change, five people whose schtick revolves around transformation, either of themselves or others. They specialize in fighting those who use transformation abilities for evil.

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! Matique Florentine grew up in a family of (other than her) all men. Her mother had died in childbirth, with Mattie a good ten years younger than her youngest brother. The Florentine family genes produced strong, strapping men, athletically gifted and naturally graceful. All Matique's older brothers went on to become professional athletes. But Matique was the baby of the family, weak and scrawny. Although her father, brothers and uncles loved her, they saw her as something to be protected and coddled. Even when she finally started filling out a bit, Matique was clumsy and had lousy aim. Sure, she could have accepted her fate and found something of her own to be good at, but she wanted to be a top athlete and show up her brothers. Then she found a "manager" who offered her a contract that would make her tops in any field she chose, at a price that seemed trivial. Matique explained that she wanted to be "equal to any man who opposes me." And so it was done. Except, of course, that there was a small catch in the wording. Matique is indeed the equal of any man who opposes her. "Man" being defined as "adult male human", and only so long as they oppose her. While she's opposed by a man, Matique has the exact same characteristics, skills and powers. As soon as he stops opposing her, Matique returns to her scrawny, clumsy self. Nevertheless, Matique now calls herself Sister Superior, in the hopes that it will fool men into thinking she has more power than them. She's scored several victories from men who just refuse to treat her as an equal.

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! From Antarctica, then: Abominor the Unfathomable Abominor is the product of scientific experiments carried out on Antarctic wildlife by a vanished race of alien visitors aeons ago. He was sealed away as "too uncontrollable", but relatively recently defrosted by an expedition that couldn't read the "Hazardous Waste" warning signs. Abominor tried to take over Antartica, but the limits of his powers, combined with the sparse population, doomed him to only partial success. He hopes to be better served by accessing the technologies possessed by his fellow Conquerors; he plans to betray all but one of them as soon as they've conquered the world as he has no interest in non ice-covered areas. Abominor looks like a three-meter tall albino penguin with a razor-sharp serrated beak and electric tentacles. He is able to control any animals in his line of sight without any visible effort, but *only* as long as they're in his line of sight. Abominor regenerates when exposed to heat or direct sunlight, even from "death", but finds temperatures above 0 Centigrade uncomfortable. He is a fast learner, and is studying modern supertechnology.

Re: Create a Hero Theme Team! Laughing Mask Tai'ichi Monomoto is the latest bearer of the mask of Warai Kamen, or as he's better known to the American Press, the Laughing Mask. Interestingly, each Laughing Mask has had a markedly different power set, the connection being that each, in a time of great need has found a laughing oni (demon) mask and a pair of Nambu pistols and donned them to fight injustice. The first Warai Kamen operated in post-war Japan, and was a ninjitsu-trained spy whose speech centers had been injured by an exploding shell. He could no longer speak, only make an eerie laugh that each subsequent Warai Kamen has imitated. The second Warai Kamen was a low-powered mutant who used his ability to turn into mist to claim to be "the ghost of Warai Kamen." The third was a gadgeteer, the fourth was a straight-up martial artist, and the fifth had the ability to cloud men's minds, making himself invisible at will. Tai'ichi was this last man's sidekick, using his limited darkness powers as Kagemusha, ("Shadow Warrior"). they did well together, until the day Tai'ichi and his extended family decided to visit distant cousins in America. The man who was Warai Kamen also had business in America, so came on the same plane (unknown to any but Tai'ichi of course.) But this particular flight had been targeted by the Little Folk, to demonstrate their power. The plane went down with only one known survivor. Tai'ichi wandered the streets of San Francisco's Chinatown in shock and mourning, searching for a reason to live. And then in a little pawnshop, he saw a laughing oni mask exactly like the one his mentor had worn. It had been hanging in the window for five years, claimed the neighbors Tai'ichi asked. When he saw a pair of Nambu pistols in the same store, Tai'ichi knew it was fate. He was to become the Laughing Mask and avenge his family, and all victims of injustice. Laughing Mask is a personable fellow until he puts on his mask; then he becomes a creature of darkness, whose eerie laughter chills friend and foe alike. The other Crusaders worry that one day Tai'ichi will be consumed by his other identity and go too far.

Re: Create a Hero Theme Team! Texas Hold'Em, "Tex" to his friends, is a stretcher with limited shapeshifting abilities (he can change his physical shape, but not mass or coloration), who was a Olympic-level wrestler before being dosed with yet another attempt at undetectable performance enhancers. "Thanks, Coach. Costing me the title was totally worth it." Tex plays up the cowboy image all he can, but the six-guns are just for show as they're made out of a stretchable substance like the rest of his costume. His real tactic is submission holds and bone-breaking if he has to. Next team: The Guardians of History! Six heroic individuals plucked from different parts of the timestream to protect the flow of history from those who'd abuse time travel. Edit: Presume they all have some sort of standardized Time Police equipment.

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! Miss Mecha Georgia Masters is something of a mechanical genius, specializing in oversized robots, vehicles and powered armor. The problem is that she's just twelve, and doesn't have access to the materials or funding necessary to make these devices the way she'd really like to. So they're made of whatever she can steal from the neighborhood or junkyard (later upgrading to whatever she can steal, period), and are often not nearly as effective as she'd like. Miss Mecha is the brains of the Kill-Stompy-Samas, for what it's worth, and tries to plan their crimes. Happily for the rest of the world, it's like herding cats, and Miss Mecha isn't very good at cat herding. She also does not react well to lack of respect from her opponents or potential employers, and her lack of maturity is why Georgia hasn't been snapped up by any adult organizations looking for mad scientists. Next group: Inspired by the Leslie Fish song based on the Rudyard Kipling poem, the Little Folk. Five politically-motivated villains, specializing in terrorism and sabotage...all of whom are under three feet tall. Go for it!

Re: 1925-A--Coming Soon! We've had a couple of sessions now, and the usual motley assortment of player characters is present...two-fisted reporter, wealthy doctor, White Russian pilot, biochemist/masked adventurer, "fake" psychic, and professional wrestler/insane asylum escapee. (The last's background was painfully obviously written to maximize combat prowess and avoid having to take a lot of non-combat/background skills.) So far the group is really beginning to regret that no one took wilderness survival skills.

Re: Create a Hero Theme Team! Lucky Streak is a speedster of sorts, and has a touch of the old Irish luck to him. The bad news for him is that he can only run in straight lines, and must stop to turn. Good thing he still has fast reflexes even then! His job is to be first on the scene and scout out what's going on via a radio or communicator link. At actual combat he's a bit underpowered.

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! Pretty Princess Slaughterhouse Rita Roco was a typical fourteen-year-old girl from suburbia except for her love of extremely violent video games. Her slide into crime began with stealing such games when her parents refused to buy them for her. Much to her surprise, a bootleg copy of Chainsaw Deathmatch Gorefest 3000 that she'd gotten off the back of a truck turned out to be the prison for a fairy. By winning the game, Rita was able to release the fairy, who in gratitude turned Rita into a magical girl. Unfortunately for everyone else, Rita's powered-up form was warped by the fairy's time trapped in the game, and her own fantasies of killing everyone who'd ever annoyed her. Pretty Princess Slaughterhouse is sweet, perky and carries a magical meat cleaver that can cut through just about anything. For ranged combat, she has her Pretty Princess minigun, and Pretty Princess grenade launcher. These items remain in "hammerspace" until needed. While Slaughterhouse's Pretty Princess miniskirted costume is not immune to damage (fanservice!) she herself is essentially invulnerable to anything classed as "Killing Damage." She also has a magical obfuscation field which prevents people from noticing her resemblance to Rita. Pretty Princess Slaughterhouse has an annoying habit of falling in love with handsome male opponents, then freaking out when they don't return her affections. But when she's on task, Slaughterhouse is a great boon to the Kill-Stompy-Samas' combat strength.

Re: A super school You can keep staff small by having them "double" jobs--for example, the Medicine teacher doubling as school nurse; possibly the librarian doubling as the chaplain, stuff like that.

Re: Villain Theme Teams Years ago I developed a European team for an alternate Earth scenario--Let's see how much of it I remember--Grand Guignol and the Theatre of Horrors. Grand Guignol: A French scientist who was studying metahumans, and realized that most had their powers triggered by extreme stressful/dangerous circumstances. So he (and later his team) create horrific disasters in hopes of triggering origin stories, and add them to the group's power. GG has the ability to transfer to himself "natural" powers, growing in proportion to how much power he's absorbed, and hypnotic mind control. Zerstorung: German youth with explosive powers. Gift: Swedish depressive whose touch is poisonous. 'Atim: British-Egyptian fellow with darkness-related powers. Incubo: Italian illusion master. Fleurette: Underage French plant manipulator. Their group Psychological Complication is Cruelty. They enjoy hurting people and causing mass suffering--on the other hand, they often don't finish off opponents because that would be merciful. To quote from the group description: "The Theatre of Horrors never makes threats. If one of the members wants to hurt or kill someone, they go ahead and do it."