SKJAM!

Re: Does your character blog? Rock Bottom: 1. Not individually, yet. 2. Technically, yes, but he never actually does anything with it. 3 & 4. Science and Johns Hopkins social event information. His ML subscriptions are under an alias. Kira Midori: 1. Yes, dozens of them. 1a. Not usually. She finds her fans scary, especially the drooling obsessives. She has a hacker friend go on every so often to "deal with" the porno sites. 2. Not as such, though she does contribute to her team's website. 3 &4. Time travel, ESP and police matters, under an alias. Talion: 1. Not really, though he often gets mentioned in lists of the negative sort. 1a. Yes, he obsessively searches for mentions of himself, and really appreciates the rare positive statements. 2. Yes. It crashes constantly. 2a. Yes, and his novel in (glacial) progress. Too bad the site crashes so often. 3. Dating sites, webcomics. 4. Numerous comic book, SF and fantasy lists. Most people don't believe he's the real Talion.

Re: Gods and Champions In the campaign background for Venture Institute itself, and Mr White (the VI librarian) and Redbird (just showing up to talk to Zach) are former members. The Jesus Freaks group formed for the first time in 1968 when three deformed metahumans happened to meet at a Christian commune in northern Minnesota. They decided to put their talents to good use to raise funds for the commune by going around the countryside performing. Every once in a while they'd be able to use their powers to save lives or solve crimes too. The group has grown (up to eight full-time members) and shrunk (down to one) several times over the decades. The membership requirements are being obviously physically deformed (angel wings don't count, devil wings do) and having accepted Jesus Christ as your lord and savior. Almost all of the members have had some sort of metahuman power, but usually at a low level. (50/50 up to 100/150 for the really impressive ones.) The group encourages all its members to learn some sort of performance skill, as their primary function is still fundraising for Christian charities. While their official home is in Minnesota, the Jesus Freaks are usually on the road somewhere. For those who haven't read the VI campaign materials, Mr. White is an eyeless albino who can read any form of print by touch. (He's also a skilled pianist.) Redbird has red-feathered wings instead of arms, and the lower body of a bird. He can fly, and is pretty good at aerobatics.

Re: Gods and Champions By the by, I've mentioned the Jesus Freaks team/performance troupe in a couple of backgrounds. Would you like more information on them?

Re: WWYCD? #108 (I think)- Clash of the Titans The Mask of Justice: Will be able to take the minions on, because they'll be built to Golden Age standards if they're in his campaign. (And Dr. Destroyer will be a straight-up Nazi villain.) But he's definitely going to need the help of every other American hero to put an end to the two big baddies. Rock Bottom: Protect the city of Baltimore, along with his teammates. Calculus: Try to figure out some sort of weakness-exploiting attack that will take out the minions in one or two shots to clear Chicago up quickly. Make sure his wife and kid are protected. Kira Midori: Her mental powers are pretty much useless against robots and the undead. She'll be on rescue detail while the heavy hitters clean up the minions. Talion: His powers work against the undead, but aren't worth spit against robots. Worse, he and Doctor Destroyer have met. Neither enjoyed the experience, and the Destroid robots have orders not to let Talion within a mile of the bad doctor. Takofanes might be doable, though.

Re: WWYCD? #105: SuperWeapons & Tactics the Movie Then of course there's games like Venture Institute, where the player characters are waay down in the power levels for the world (there are *police officers* who are tougher than they are), and the main impact they have is whether or not their school stays open. Anyone who freaks out about being overshadowed probably didn't even finish reading the campaign description.....

Re: Aurora Shouldn't that be the "Aviary", if they're all winged characters?

Re: Master List of Distinctive Features One I referenced a couple of times on the other Master Lists (for "Ashamed of His Poor Education" and "Proud of His Ignorance"): Uneducated Accent SKJAM!

Re: DMH: PHYs Lim: Hormonal After your helpful suggestions, and some thought, here's a draft: Hormonal (Physical) Infrequently, Slightly or Infrequently, Greatly The character suffers from a slight hormonal imbalance, or from rapidly shifting hormones, with the result that he suffers uncontrolled mood swings. Stereotypically, this disadvantage is seen in early adolescence, particularly with girls. The character becomes irritable, depressed, horny or even blissful with little or no correlation to outside events. The GM picks the mood swing the character will have and when it hits him, choosing either deliberately or by random roll. At the slightly limiting level, the new mood is equivalent to a Moderate-level Psychological Limitation. At the greatly limiting level, it's equivalent to a Strong-level Psych Lim. Characters with this disadvantage may also have a Social Limitation related to their most frequent mood, especially at the Greatly limiting level. (I'll leave Physical Limitation: Really Bad PMS for someone else to write, thanks.)

Re: Gods and Champions Mainstream comic books have generally handled religion poorly, for various reasons. The "pagan god" types in early Marvel had no real problems since a) the comics avoided dealing with the real-world religious aspects of the characters, and the general public didn't actually believe that Thor, etc. were really "gods", just people with special powers who had names similar to (or stolen from) the mythology books. Various stabs have been made at dealing with the Norse religion and its interaction with other faiths over the years in Thor's book, some more successful than others. Hercules' various solo series have largely avoided the topic. I'd say the best try at a Christian superhero at Marvel was Espirita, formerly known as Firebird. West Coast Avengers, I forget the issue numbers. (A later writer deliberately de-religionified her, though that story has been pretty much ignored ever since.) My own superhero characters have been nominally Christian for the most part, some more fervent than others.

Re: WWYCD? #105: SuperWeapons & Tactics the Movie

Re: WWYCD? #105: SuperWeapons & Tactics the Movie Eurostar is a European terrorist group in the Champions Universe, in the top five of supervillain teams. Fiacho ("very bad") is their leader, a charismatic master tactician type.

DMH stands for "Do My Homework". As several of you know, I'm helping Worldmaker out with the Master List of Limitations. Usually, I can come up with a paragraph or three within minutes. But "Physical Limitation: Hormonal" has me baffled. Dictionary.com only lists "hormonal" as "having to do with hormones" which is succint, but not helpful for my purposes. After all, pretty much all humans, higher animals and organic-biology aliens have hormones of one sort or another. So I'm guessing that a slang definition of the word is going to be the one I need. Therefore, the question is, "what precisely do we mean by 'hormonal' in the context of a Physical Limitation?" Thanks in advance, SKJAM!

Re: WWYCD? #105: SuperWeapons & Tactics the Movie

Re: WWYCD? #105: SuperWeapons & Tactics the Movie They will *after* Microman II pulls that stunt (Can he shrink Fiacho too?), as that's how Stronghold gets stronger.... Actually, I am willing to believe that they've had heroes do "penetration drills" to plug any holes in the security.

Re: WWYCD? #105: SuperWeapons & Tactics the Movie

Re: WWYCD? #105: SuperWeapons & Tactics the Movie No, it's a permanent fixture of the prison.

Lifted from another thread...feel free to change names to fit your campaign. Your character and allies have finally succeeded in capturing Fiacho (and as many other members of Eurostar as you find plausible.) It was a tough fight, but at last you've got this notorious terrorist in hand. The local PRIMUS Commander greets the group personally as Fiacho is being turned over, and the media is out in full force. Fiacho makes sure he's got his good side to the cameras, and sneers. "I shall enjoy my short vacation. And then I think I will raze this city to the ground. Perhaps if I am feeling particularly energetic, I will torture a few of your loved ones to death first." The commander's fists ball up, but he controls himself. "I think you'll find that Stronghold is a bit more escape-proof than the last time you visited, Fiacho. Besides, after that incident in Turkey last month, they've upgraded your sentence. You're not just going to Stronghold. They're putting you in the Forever Box." The smile vanishes from Fiacho's face. The Forever Box is exactly what it sounds like, and even he couldn't be sure of getting out. You can almost see the calculations going on behind his eyes. The terrorist jerks to fully face the cameras. "You know that I have money! One hundred million dollars to the one who frees me before I reach Stronghold! One hundred mill--" He swears in Esperanto as the PRIMUS troopers carry him away. Unsurprisingly, PRIMUS asks your character(s) to help transport Fiacho (and the other Eurostar members, if any) to Stronghold. What does your character do? A few presumptions: 1. Fiacho will have to be held several hours to a full day at the PRIMUS base, while they run tests to prove that this is indeed the real Fiacho, and do the necessary paperwork for the transfer to Stronghold. This will allow the player characters to make preparations and rest up--but the same goes for anyone planning to take the offer. 2. PRIMUS will allocate any resources the PCs think they need, up to and including a Silver Avenger. 3. The same security precautions that prevent prisoners with teleportation, time travel, dimension-shifting, etc. from getting out of Stronghold also prevent your characters from using those powers to simply put Fiacho in a Stronghold cell without crossing the intervening space. You can get within about a mile of Stronghold, but the rest of the way will have to be in "realspace." This is fairly well-known by the superhuman community, and you can expect an ambush party to be waiting there. 4. Any remaining Eurostar members will be in on rescue attempts, as they'd rather keep the money "in the family." Villain option: Your less-heroic character has just seen the offer on TV. One hundred million dollars is a *lot* of money, and Fiacho has a reputation for delivering on his promises. Do you go for it, knowing that you'll have to take on the local heroes *and* PRIMUS?

Re: WWYCD? #104: Things get alittle random...(have a six-sider handy) Mask of Justice: As long as he's here at the landfill, takes mental notes for a hard-hitting story on the city's garbage removal system. Takes a long shower when he gets home, and switches to another identical suit early. (Nick has an entire closet full of nearly identical suits, which is cost-effective and allows the artist to avoid having to come up with new outfits.) Rock Bottom: Walks very carefully out of the landfill, hoping he doesn't hit any soft patches that he'd sink in. Takes a really thorough shower when he gets back to base. His rocky hide can take higher temperatures of water than most. Calculus: Calmly swims to the ladder at one end of the pool, apologizes to the householder for the inconvenience, then goes to dry off in privacy. Kira Midori: "Ha! My disguise as that simpering do-gooder Kira Midori fooled them completely. I was easily able to secure one of the heroes' teleportation devices." She points at one of the more fully clad agents. "You! Tell the Nest Leader that I wish to see him at his earliest convenience, by which I mean *now*. I, the Impersonatrix, command it!" Meanwhile, her signal device is sending out the "sos" signal to the rest of her team, who hopefully will find the Viper Base before Kira blows her cover.... Talion: Unfortunately, it is after hours at the taco joint, and Talion freezes solid while waiting for someone to get him out. (Despite OSHA regulations, there is no handle on the inside.) Fortunately, Talion won't actually die from being frozen solid.

Re: How to kill a PC? "There's no way to defuse the Revelations Bomb?" "No. But between us, we have just the right combination of powers to prevent its effects from spreading beyond this room. There's a high likelyhood of us dying in the attempt, of course." "If it's my life, or the entire Earth, you know which one I've gotta pick. I'm saving my own skin." "Just kidding. Of course I'll save the world."

Re: WWYCD popularity poll

Re: WWYCD popularity poll Looks like nobody wants to be the one to close out the nominations.... This would be an...interesting hero team. Mind, the CVK characters might have real problems with Talion's powers. Battle cry: "For the love of God, stop shooting at me! I have enough blood on my hands for one day!"

Re: Help! I created a PC without thinking of good plot ideas for them! Hmm...the big game with archrivals Redwood is coming up, and Sludge hears about the Redwood mascot--perhaps it could be kidnapped before the game?

Re: Help with Japanese villains Don't have my dictionary right this moment, but try a few of these... Flyer: Tengu (crow goblin; long-nosed, expert with swords, magically gifted) or Arashi (storm) Ghost: Doku-Onna (poison woman) Shrinker: Ningyou (Doll; this is the one I'm not sure I've got right, as a very similar word means "fishman") Superman: Choujin ("Overman" or "Beyondman", usually translated to "Superman" in English.)

Re: WWYCD #103 ? Deal with Evil The Mask of Justice: Doesn't make deals with the unjust. He'll tail the unsuspecting intermediary back to the villain's lair, and deal with the slimeball appropriately. (Besides, in the Golden Age, massive powerups either turned you into a monster or only lasted one adventure anyway.) Rock Bottom: "I'm fairly sure my agreeing never to oppose a known criminal would be against my contract with the city." He'll be sure to let his teammates know about the villain's offer. Calculus: Would ask to see the paperwork, examine the theory behind the proposed powerups, and reject the offer. If there's anything good there, he'll refine it for his own use. Kira Midori: Will alert her team to the possible location of Dr. Strangeclone (no, really, that was the name of the appropriate character) so they could maybe this time actually capture him. Talion: "Not only no, but heck no. If it actually worked, it would increase *his* powers as well. Besides, do I *really* need to be able to kill even more effectively? I don't think so."

Re: Help me build the Civic Guard Tradition and Progress Twin brothers, who protect/represent the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul. Ole and Lars Nordstrom actually grew up in rural Minnesota, and constantly quarreled. Ole tended towards the conservative view, and Lars towards liberalism. Ole worshipped the grandeur of history, and became an archivist. Lars saw the future as the place of hope, and became an inventor. Then Ole found an interesting passage in an old book about Saint Paul's...unique street layout. Anyone who followed the streets in a certain pattern at a certain time would gain great power. And the once-every-twenty-years occasion was coming up. He told Lars about this, only to be scoffed at. Lars believed that the map had been mirror-flipped, and the reverse pattern was the correct one. Each determined to prove the other wrong, they marched their chosen routes at the appointed hour. As they passed each other midway, a voice asked whether Tradition or Progress was more important. You can guess how each answered. Now Tradition and Progress work together to protect their twin charges. When they aren't arguing, of course. Tradition can tap into the skills and powers of any Minnesotan of history; he usually picks Paul Bunyan for strength and size, or Hiawatha for stealth and tracking skills. Progress is a gadgeteer, always one step ahead of conventional technology.