Dr Archeville

Re: Justice Squadron: TNG Here's my latest version of Scion, though he's still a little incomplete. I've got his background & personality down, and his disadvantages picked, but still have about 25 points left to spend. Suggestions are welcome!

From Feb 23rd, 2001: Superpowers Some interesting stuff there.

Re: Justice Squadron: TNG Ah, the one I took more than half a second to come up with. Groovy

Re: Justice Squadron: TNG Which "that"? The first or second? (It's been a long & stressful week for me.)

Re: Justice Squadron: TNG That's why I said "very rough". He wanted an heir, but wanted to make sure his son was powerful and so sought out powerful female metahumans/mutants? Would that work? OR, Namor was wanting an heir, and sought out an Atlantean mate, but they still needed some help since his hybrid genome was making the pairing somewhat difficult (the fact his parents had no problems was a one-in-a-billion fluke). One of Namor's enemies -- Attuma, Llyra, Warlord Krang, someone -- had scientists loyal to them infiltrate the project and replace Namor's mate's genetic material with that of a surface worlder. Why? So the son would have even less Atlantean blood, and so less claim to the throne and be generally physically weaker (and easy to kill, which would affect Namor). But, unknown to the conspirators, the human DNA was that of the superpowered Sue Storm, due to [some as-yet determined plot contrivance].

Re: Justice Squadron: TNG Here's what I've got so far for Scion, the son of Namor & Susan Storm. It's very rough, and still needs a good bit of work, but suggestions are encouraged and welcome.

Re: Heroes Heroes season three will premiere on September 15, 2008 with a three-hour premiere event. The first hour will be a recap of the first two seasons, and the final two hours will be the premiere episode.

Re: Justice Squadron: TNG Deadline's still May 17th, yes? Since there's no Apocalypse, I take it there was no "Age of Apocalypse" story, and so no Nate Grey/X-Man. Correct? (If so, my idea for Dead Head -- the son of X-Man and Threnody, who's in constant telepathic contact with the dead and has several other pseudo-necromantic mutant abilities -- would be out.) Doctor Doom's listed as having one son (around 8 years old at the time the campaign starts), but could he have other kids? Recent comics have shown he's been going back in time and visiting Morgan le Fay (though maybe one time he really visited DC's Morgaine le Fey... unless, in this combined universe, they're both the same person). How about a cyberkinetic, the son of Forge and Teknique (the cyberpath from Millennium City)? Or a ferrokinetic/magnetokinetic, the son of Havok and Polaris? Was Namor ever attracted to Sue in this timeline? If so, could/would he have taken a genetic sample from her and had his scientists make a 'son' for him, having his strength/durability and her force fields?

What happens when Grond is touched by Eclipse (the power mimic/thief from Ultimate Metamorph)? Does Grond revert back to Sidney Potter? Does karma slap the heroes and they both retain the powers of Grond? If so, does the same backlash prevent Eclipse's power (which normally makes her change whenever she makes skin-to-skin contact with another) from working again, allowing her to finally touch things... with her new and not-fully-under-her-control strength?

Re: "Absorbative" Growth

Re: Your character's pet peeve(s) Herr Doktor Viktor Archeville, like any good Mad Scientist, really doesn't like torch- and pitchfork-wielding peasants. Not that that ever happens to him. He does get irked when people keep asking him to stop & and explain what he's doing (since they can't possibly comprehend it all), and is put off when folks turn down his offers to improve them. He's also not fond of magic or anything supernatural, since Science & Magic classically don't go along well, and because it's possible that magic (if real and not just some poorly understood Alien or Mutant power) is the reason his family is insane. Deadhead is fairly easygoing, and doesn't really have any pet peeves. He has a true hatred of people who harm children, or who disturb the dead, but that's about it.

Re: Dr Hank Pym (Marvel)

Re: Did the CCA create the Silver Age?

Re: Pulling Authority & Other Genres Same goes for Speedball, and all of the other New Warriors (though I believe the team in Stamford was an all-new, all-different team which'd explain their all-n00b-ness).

Re: Tell me about your superhero campaigns! I've had two superhero "Campaigns," though one could hardly be called that as it lasted only two sessions (though I had plans for more). Campaign the First: Smallville Meets Night of the Living Dead Based in part on a "Deadworld" setting from the All Flesh Must Be Eaten RPG. Giant planetoid is detected on a collision course with Earth. USA, China and Russia (and a few other countries) throw many nukes at it, making it explode and shower the Earth in a seemingly harmless shower of dust and the odd meteorite. Due to the wide dispersal pattern & prevailing winds, not a corner of the globe escapes, the dust gets into the water tables and soil, everywhere that isn't hermetically sealed. The next day, the dead begin to rise, all over the globe. They're slow and ponderous, like Romero's zombies, but like Bannon's/Russo's zombies the only way to destroy one is to totally incinerate it. Anyone who dies rises in about 20 minutes as a zombie; anyone killed while suffering from the bite or 'claw' of a zombie rises in about 5 minutes. Fortunately, there is hope. The few meteorites that survive re-entry are able to bestow superpowers to others. Each meteorite has enough residual energy to grant 1-10 people powers, after which it crumbles to dust. (The planetoid was a chunk of alien world blown off by its inhabitants, whose experiments in necromancy went out of control. As the planetoid drifted through the cosmos it passed through all manner of weird radiation belts.) PCs were the players: it was one of those "play as yourselves, then at some point in the game you gain powers." Unfortunately, my players turned out to be a good deal more ruthless than I'd anticipated. Alex gained the ability to become an insubstantial shadow, and potent mind control abilities. Atticus gained Molecule Man-like powers. Matter rearrangement & transmutation, regeneration (with resurrection), and teleportation; possibly others but I do not remember. Ben gained the same powers as Atticus. (They're brothers.) Brian gained Density Alteration and Gravity Control powers. He could make himself denser or intangible, and control gravity to pin others down. And I gained Plastic Man-like shapeshifting and immortality, and regeneration. I could also tear off bits of my flesh and use it as a super-bandage to heal others. Ben and Brian only seemed interested in destroying zombies. Atticus, once he realized there were other superbeing out there, seemed interested only in killing them, apparently thinking that doing so would increase his/our own power. Alex, whose powers were useless against the mindless zombies, seemed to have more fun mind controlling gang members into shooting one another, then mind-zapping the "hot chicks" the 'team' later saved into being our 'girlfriends'. By the end of the second session, the 'team' had taken over a local McMansion and built a large secured wall around it, stocked with supplies raided from the local grocery stores and mall. The players then told me they were bored, that there was nothing left for them to do, nothing I could throw at them that wouldn't obviously be some "deus ex machina". My plan had been for the world to eventually become something akin to the world of Judge Dredd, with zombies kept out of the walled Megalopoli and superhumans acting as Judges to maintain peace and order. My second campaign, Aetas Argentum (Latin for "Silver Age"), lasted a good deal longer, though had been on a looong hiatus due to assorted issues in my life. Here, the setting was an odd mish-mash of Champions, DC, Marvel, Freedom City, Heroes Unlimited, and Silver Age Sentinels, though in time it became more and more exclusively Freedom City stuff. PCs worked for The Directive, a sub-branch of AEGIS/SHIELD/UNTIL that helped train supers in the use of their powers (for their own safety and the safety of others), and if desired they're receive additional training to become agents who would go out and recruit others to the Directive, and even oppose violent supercriminals. The PCs were 'handled' by Ms. Green (attractive martial artist with some light-based powers) and Mr. Blue (power negator with a suit of power armor), and occasionally by Handy, the on-site immortal handyman (an 1840's Gold Prospector who gained immortality by exposure to a rare gold/uranium/Something blend, though it did not restore his youth). Players started with one character, though later created secondary characters. Primary Characters are: Atominx, born in the fires of Nagasaki as the bomb literally burned her mother off of her. Powers similar to Radioactive Man (the Marvel one, not the Simpsons one), and she could become an intangible field of radioactive energy (could not pass through lead). Also mute for some reason, and susceptible to radiation-chelating compounds. Japanese government found her soon after the dust settled, but were forced to give her up to the U.S. as part of their surrender, where she was raised by Sentinel (the Superman-esque "Heroes Hero" character). Stopped aging at 16, and often pretended to be just an average Japanese teen who was fascinated/obsessed with American culture. Doppelganger, an amnesiac shapeshifter & power-stealer, though his shapeshifting was imperfect at best. He once tried imitating Rev. Jesse Jackson, all he got was the hair; one tried imitating Ms. Green, he still had a hairy chest. Barely considered a hero, seeming to be more interested in causing chaos by impersonating people; often had his powers shut down by Mr. Blue. (Plan was to eventually reveal he's a Mutant Skrull-like alien, meant to be a spy but some environmental agent in Earth made his powers go wonky, overloading his mind with the memories of the first person he'd imitated. The Player soon left, apparently because I would not let him be as disruptive as he'd wanted.) Golem, an average Joe construction worker caught in a premature implosion of a building, only to rise out as a being of earth and rock! He later learned (after a trip to a Nazi-World) that his condition was not due to some mutant power, but rather possession by Golemeth, a blood relative and WW II-era Jewish hero who'd imbued himself with the strength & resilience of the Golem of Prague. Often got into wacky hijinx with Minimum Force, the Blue Beetle to his Booster Gold. The Mad Badger, a bad, bad Wolverine clone, though without the metal bone lacing. Raised by a rich Texan uncle oil tycoon. Later asked Ms. Green & Mr. Blue for bone lacing, a request to which they said "We'll get back to you on that." Sadly the butt of far too many jokes. Minimum Force, a circus carnie who, on a bet, drank the Barbasol (the blue alcohol solution barbers keep combs in to disinfect them) at a barbershop. Amazingly, it made him shrink! He could never get back to his original size, he was now permanently a foot or so shorter. He found he could also fly, create a protective force field, and generate blasts of kinetic energy. The Booster Gold to Golem's Blue Beetle. I honestly cannot remember any of the secondary characters. The team(s) fought cyborg gangsters, a pyrokinetic mute wolf-man, a super-intelligent psychic gorilla (whom Doppelganger had an unwitting hand in creating), a tree-man (leveling the city garden the fight took place in), two separate trios of villains (one group akin to Champions GRAB, one akin to Champions the Ultimates), and had some adventures to alternate Earths. The Big bad of the campaign, whom they never got close to finding, was a Mad Nazi Cyborg Geneticist (the pyrokinetic mute wolf-man was one of his escaped projects).

Re: Pulling Authority & Other Genres That's not entirely true. Also, the other JLA members, who have little to no problem with K-radiation, will likely go after them. And thus the cycle continues.... (Sorry, had to put in my own $0.02 to this thread. And I also like Heroes who are Heroes, who do good deeds because leading an ethical & moral life -- and leading others to do so by example -- is a positive thing for the whole world/galaxy/universe.)

Re: Quecksilber Quecksilber = German for "quicksilver" (bka Mercury). Though the symbol for Mercury, Hg, is from the Latinized Greek hydrargyrum, meaning watery silver or liquid silver. And "living silver" works well, too

Concept: Super-smart heroic (though slightly mad) German engineer/inventor (akin to Reed Richards) suffers severe trauma to his body in a massive super-battle. His teammates rush him to the nearest hospital for treatment. While there his own secret squad of droids break in and, calculating that the medical facilities at the hospital aren't up to the task, 'kidnap' him and take him to a secret laboratory facility he'd set up (secret even from his teammates) and begin work, in part by using advanced medical nanites. Teammates think some nefarious villain has kidnapped their ally while he was vulnerable, go after the droids, a Classic Battle of Misunderstanding ensues; they eventually realize their mistake, but by then it's too late, and he's flatlined. They try to resuscitate him, nothing works. They take the body for a proper heroic burial, but before the body gets tot he autopsy table, the nanites burst out of his body and coalesce into a humanoid form, and rampage about. Teammates eventually stop it, then realize that the nanomorph was made up of the medical nanites which had scanned and absorbed the inventor's brain, but not all of it, and what it had scanned had become corrupted/fragmented. They help it 'defragment,' and he's back to being sane and rational, but is far less intelligent than he had been (INT 15 as opposed to INT 33, and many of his skills are completely gone). He knows he used to be far smarter than he is, remembers being able to do so much more, and this irritates him greatly (sometimes even enrages him), but he tries not to let it get in the way of doing the Good and Heroic thing. (Quecksilber = German for "quicksilver".) For the attributes and powers, I'm basing it heavily on both Morph and the Nanometal Robot (both from Ultimate Metamorph), though with some tech-head type skills. What I'm stuck on, though, are the Disadvantages, particularly the "has large gaps in his personal memory" and "frustrated by what he can no longer do" things.

Re: "Absorbative" Growth Innnteresting.... The actual power I'm looking to build is for a swarm of nanites that can absorb available tech (or maybe just high-grade steel alloys) to grow to a bigger size. If such items/materials aren't available, it cannot grow. (I was sure there was a character from Champions with Growth like that, but cannot find one.)

How could/would you stat out an ability to grow by absorbing matter in the surrounding area (like Sandman in the big semi-final battle of Spider-Man 3)?

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares Horton Hears Doctor Who The Mote in God's Eyes Wide Shut

Re: VPPs for Dummies? (IE. Me!)

Re: Skrull vs. Avengers No, it's an honest question -- unless you're giving Power Skrull the powers of everyone who's ever called themselves an X-Man or -Woman (which is at least 20 people), you'll need to determine which team of X-Men he's mimicking. Same goes for the revolving roster of the Avengers.

Re: Skrull vs. Avengers Which X-Men? Classic? All New, All Different? Blue? Gold? New? X-Treme? Astonishing? Which FF? Classic? New (Ghost Rider, Hulk, Spider-Man, and Wolverine)? New New (Black Panther, Storm, Thing, and Human Torch)? Which Avengers? Classic? West Coast? Mighty? New?

Re: VPPs for Dummies? (IE. Me!) Here's something I've gotten into disagreements about with players: Is the total Active cost of a VPP equal to: A) the cost of the Pool plus the Active cost of the Control (1/2 Pool + Advantages), or equal only to the cost of the Pool? Example: Campaign cap of 90 Active points per power. Under Option A, a character could have at most a VPP with a 60-point Pool (Pool 60 + Control 30). Under Option B, they could have a VPP with a 90-point Pool. I've always thought it was the former, but have talked with more than one player who was adamant that it was the latter.