Agent 13

Re: Character: The Accelerated Man For those who haven't read the story in question, it can be found several places on-line, including here.

Re: Your Retired Champions Character Needed Springheel Jack Real Name: John “Jack†Dunstan Concept: Detective/Martial Artist Nationality: British Hair/Eye Color: None/Blue Place of Birth: Nottingham, England Height/Mass: 1.86 meters/103 kilograms Date of Birth: February 14, 1960 Background Information: Jack Dunstan always seemed to land on his feet. Even when his plans of being a world-class footballer were ended by the revelation that his metagene was likely the cause of his outstanding sports performance in public school, Dunstan still came out on top. His powers, a combination of pyrokinesis and heightened physical abilities, manifested shortly thereafter, and with his good looks and charisma, he became a media darling almost overnight. He was bright, bold, brash, a hit with the ladies, and always good for a quote; he was Jumping Jack Flash, baby, and life was a gas. While nominally a crimefighter, Jack gained a reputation for causing more trouble than he solved. He could be found in clubs more often than he could be found on patrol, and grabbed the front pages of many tabloids by sending a series of rude gestures and the sight of his bare behind towards Buckingham Palace one brisk October morning in 1979. (No one, including Jack, seems to remember what prompted the display. The Royal Family was spending the weekend at Windsor Castle.) Over time, Jack found himself surrounded by a group of hangers-on who professed to be his friends, who were willing to provide him with, drinks, drugs, places to stay, all in exchange for his company and the chance to be close to a ‘superhero’. And shortly after his escapades in front of the Royal Palace, Jack found out just how few friends he had. To this day, no one knows who attacked Jack, where, or even how. Police called to investigate a fire burning in an East End alleyway the eve of Guy Fawkes Day found the smoldering body of Jumping Jack Flash; apparently the hero, drunk or high (or both), had been waylaid at some other location, severely beaten, and then dumped in the alley. His assailants then doused him with a flammable liquid and set him alight; unconscious, his powers did nothing to help him, and he suffered third degree burns over almost a third of his body, including his shoulders, neck, and most of his head and face. His injuries would have killed a normal man; the damage, however, was impossible to reconstruct – Jack would remain horribly scarred for the rest of his life. In addition, his pyrokinetic powers had vanished (testing would later reveal that he still possessed the potential to use those abilities, and that the trauma of the fire had instilled a psychosomatic block that Jack has yet to overcome). Some men might have become bitter, or suicidal, or turned to a life of villainy. For Jack, however, the experience seemed to affect a sea change upon him. The young man immersed himself in studies neglected even before leaving public school, and, upon his release from hospital, journeyed to France to study savate, a martial art he thought would work well with his remaining enhanced abilities. After three years in Paris, Jack had gathered a storehouse of knowledge and crafted a persona and some basic equipment to begin crime fighting in earnest. He returned to London, quickly disappearing into the city and operating from a series of abandoned buildings. In the early years, Jack supported himself both through confiscating a portion of money and equipment from the criminals he helped defeat, and through the continued goodwill of immigrant shopkeepers, a class of people he found to be unprotected in the early years of the Thatcher government. The driven, determined young hero conducted a crusade against the London underworld as Springheel Jack (based around the legendary Victorian-era London phantom of the same name), first battling gangsters of all stripes, and later coming into conflict with odder foes, like the vampiric Ravens of the Tower, Albert the Clockwork Man, the Monster Maker and his Werewolves of London, and the maniacal “Saucy Jack†MacHeath. He’s served as something of a mentor to more than one English crimefighter, and has been through two sidekicks/partners in his two decades of crimefighting. (Both have since retired – The Churchwarden to study for Anglican priesthood, and the burly, bearded, sword-wielding Lamorak to, of all things, become a florist.) The quiet, constantly masked, mysterious vigilante with the piercing blue eyes quickly became a constant focus for rumors, both in the underworld and the tabloid press. The rumors ranged from such topics as to who actually caused Jack’s disfigurement, whether Springheel Jack was actually the same hero that had been Jumping Jack Flash, whether the hero was even disfigured at all, whether he and a mysterious villainess were an “itemâ€, etc. The most persistent rumor by far has concerned Jack’s record as a crime fighter – there were those who said he had left a trail of dead and broken men during his battles through the London underworld; that he was an assassin for the police, a rival crime family - perhaps the Royal Family; even that he was an organization of masked viglantes, rather than just one man. Of course, a small amount of research on the matter would have shown the absurdity of such notions, but the rumors continued. The legend of the mysterious and ruthless Springheel Jack, either as joke or in deadly earnest, went with criminals and the tabloids to prison and throughout Europe, where Jack became something of a Boogeyman amongst the criminal set. Jack, for his part, did nothing to quash the rumors, simply viewing them as another tool in his fight against the underworld. It’s been two decades since Jack was reborn in fire. His continuing work against the evil that men do has made him one of the world’s greatest detectives, and his mutant physiology means that he won’t be stopping any time soon. Friends, foes, colleagues, and lovers have passed through his life and gone, sometimes with the normal passage of life, sometimes with violence and pain. Still, he has few regrets, and most of them go back to the man he was, and why it took the death of that man to become the man he is. And as ever, the day slips into night, the shadows call, and his battle continues… Quote: "Good evening, gentlemen. Shall we do this the easy way, or the usual?" Personality/Motivation: As far as Jack Dunstan is concerned, he became a new man on the night he was attacked and disfigured. Where the old Jack was always looking to be the center of attention, the new Jack prefers to retreat to the shadows until his help is needed. The old Jack was just this side of amoral – mad, bad, and dangerous to know; the new Jack is takes care to be polite to everyone, even his opponents (at first, anyway), and has a highly-developed sense of morality, and an appreciation of the attendant complications of a moral philosophy. The old was charismatic, but shallow; the new quiet, but possessed of an inner strength that one can’t help but notice it. The old was self-centered, using the trappings of super-hero only for what they could get him; the new considers the majority of his life a waste, and has worked as hard as he can to make up for those wasted years. (Contrary to popular rumor, Jack is no longer bothered by the sight of his own face. He remains masked simply because he knows that his appearance disturbs others.) Unlike other avengers of the night, Jack does not actively discourage younger crimefighters, or treat London as “his†town. He understands both the urgent need to fight evil, and the limitations of a lone man facing down an entire city’s worth of crime. However, he also understands the risks of the vigilante life, and will spell them out to would-be dark knights even as he helps them try to survive their time in the business. Appearance: Jack Dunstan is a very fit man in his early 40s with piercing ice blue eyes. His burns have left most of his upper body, including his scalp and face, a mass of scar tissue, with the exception of his right shoulder and some of the lower right side of his face. Because of this, he wears a mask that drapes over his entire head and shoulders, fastening inside his other clothing, leaving only his eyes showing. Jack is rarely “out-of-costumeâ€; the only time you’ll catch him out of his usual neo-Victorian ensemble (tailcoat, waistcoat, trousers, cravat, dress boots, gloves, top hat, cloak and cane) is either during purely athletic workouts or when more formal wear, such as a tuxedo, is called for. Powers: While Jack once had a number of pyrokinetic powers at his disposal, he now relies on his heightened physical abilities and over two decades of intense martial arts and investigative training in his role as scourge of London's underworld. He also makes use of a few gadgets developed over the years – his armor, originally bulkier, was first replaced by material taken from criminals during his career, then his equipment was overhauled by a rich benefactor in the early 90s; the jeweled knob that provides his Flash power was also added to his savateur’s cane by a friendly camera shop owner who served as something as an assistant to Jack several years ago. While Jack has been blocked from the use of his pyrokinetic abilities (save for his immunity from extreme heat), the potential for their use is still locked within his genes, which means he suffers the attendant penalties for them, taking extra damage from cold-based attacks. As well, the same psychosomatic block that keeps Jack from using his flame powers also causes Jack to take extra damage from fire-based attacks.

Re: Real-world artifact suitable for gaming Speaking of mysterious real-world artifacts... Ancient Astronomy Artifact Bears Hidden Text

Re: CyberComedy: Is it possible? http://www.tvparty.com/recholmes.html

Re: Early Pulp Classics Which, some 50 years later, inspired scientist and inventor Jack Cover to give his new stun gun the acronym TASER - "Thomas A. Swift’s Electric Rifle."

Re: [Online Game]New 'Marvel: Next Generation' game Storm. Silver Sable. Callisto. The Enchantress. Madame Masque. Moonstone. Viper. Jessica Drew. Colleen Wing. Vic likes those strong-willed dames. Doom's tried to pass off a clone of himself as his son before, so it could be a gender-switched vatbaby.

Re: [Online Game]New 'Marvel: Next Generation' game You say that now. His support team will be the kids of Team America.

Re: [Online Game]New 'Marvel: Next Generation' game When do you want completed characters for inspection, Snake?

Re: [Online Game]New 'Marvel: Next Generation' game Next up, the Son of U.S. 1.

Re: [Online Game]New 'Marvel: Next Generation' game

Re: [Online Game]New 'Marvel: Next Generation' game

Re: [Online Game]New 'Marvel: Next Generation' game Matthew Day sighed, exasperated. "I swear, you people are just as bad as my father. Here he is, an unqualified genius - takes what amounts to a glorified piledriver, and turns it into a bona fide suit of battle armor that..." He began to tick off his points on the fingers of one hand. "...gave him the strength of fifteen men. Let him shrug off anything short of bazooka fire. Release sleep gas. Have unearthly balance. Concentrate tons of force onto an area the size of a dinner plate. "But, no. He invents a masterwork of hydraulics and no one, including him, sees past "Hey, I bet I can look in peoples' windows," or "Hey, look at how big steps I can take," or "I just made the world's first twenty-five million dollar pair of stilts." He sighed again, with resignation this time. "Yes, I'll help you wash the windows. Let me go get my legs on."

Re: [Online Game]New 'Marvel: Next Generation' game Time to bust out those Son of Stilt-Man notes I was working on a while back...

Re: [Online Game]New 'Marvel: Next Generation' game

Re: Chaiku Theatre! Never would have guessed You could boost laser pointers That much - Gadgeteer.

Re: (Plot Seeds) Bride of Title Tag "Project Pandora" It began with the noblest of intentions - removing evil from the world, reversing what Pandora had done. But a mad scientist's mind control device turns out not to remove evil impulses, but simply makes its victims believe nothing they do is evil. As the effect of the device slowly spreads block by block throughout the city, can the heroes stop a growing mob acting on their basest impulses? And can they withstand the power of the Pandora Device long enough to shut it down? Next options "Pilgrim Hymnal" "Strangers in a NORMAL land" "And Thus I Refute Telios"

Re: Pulp Era Journalists

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Attention, Central Control. There appears to be a political discussion on the tracks. Thread derailment imminent. I repeat, thread derailment imminent.

Re: Pulp Era Journalists The first journalism school (the Missouri School of Journalism) didn't open its doors until 1908, with Columbia starting classes in 1912 and Medill in 1921. J-school trained reporters, would be, while not a rarity, still few and far between in the pulp era. A good role for a degreed reporter would be as wide-eyed naif, someone for the crusty older ink slinger to take under his wing and show how things work in the real world. (Care must be taken, however, to present at least a couple of problems that can be solved with the newbie's book learning, so as teach an old newsdog new tricks, and not make the PC seem completely incompetent and out of his depth.)

Re: WWYCD if a supers-eating wave swept reality?

Re: from little plot seeds, mighty games do grow: Share you ideas! Who put these pages from the "Complete Guide to Martial Arts Flicks" on my desk?

Re: Working on New Constantinople

Re: Call Captain Planet! Given that you're using the Advocates, I'd say the fifth should be a Spell Dump - some blasted, blighted place that local mages have used down through the years to test out new spells, pour out failed potions, burn cursed books, and dump the remains of sacrifices.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Maybe he just really hates Kay Kyser...

Re: How many points for the Earth? (and everything on it) And here I was thinking back to that old issue of Dragon wrote in to find out what amount of XP he'd get since his character had killed Bigby, taken over Greyhawk and the like...