Superskrull

Re: Thoughts on the Secret Service questions

Hmm. So, is Kelsey going to have a cover position or just try to blend in with the carnies?

This reminds me, you totally have to have the Circus of Crime show up. Maybe work in a reference to the Quentin Carnival that Johnny (Ghost Rider) Blaze worked at.

Re: Thoughts on Solara

True' date=' however, Solara could be considered a mage who also knows how to fight. Also, in Japan in the Middle Ages, female samurai fought while wearing kimokos, as, probably, did female ninjas.[/quote']

 

Sure but those aren't geisha. Admittedly, being one would make a good cover for a kunoichi, but it's not their primary focus. Geisha weren't renowned for their occult skills either.

 

 

Slightly off the current topic, I was wondering if you'd come up with a recurring enemy for Solara. Does he/she fight generic badness or is there some darkly-empowered figure or family to oppose?

Re: Thoughts on the Secret Service questions

 

"Any idea when Holly Ryan Vasquez gets here?"

 

"Nope," Cowgirl replied. "She'll get here when she gets here."

OK, since you tend to post a lot of expository dialogue & scene setting, I'd like to interject something here. First, drop in some descriptions of background actions, sounds and general sensations. Let's face it, a circus doens't smell much like the parking lot at a Wal-mart. Mention the pounding tools, whine of engines and background chatter or it seems like your characters are wandering around onstage in front of a canvas backdrop. If you like, just have them be the observations of the main character, IE

'A stray breeze carried the smells of the food carts to Kelsey as she walked across the lot. Around her, the circus folk chattered and laughed as they went about preparing for opening night.'

Second, I NEVER hear anyone in real life trot out the full name of people when speaking about them. It's almost always going to be Mr/Miss/Ms _____ or their first name. So, a stranger like Kelsey is going to call Holly Miss Vasquez, not the overly stiff-sounding Holly Ryan Vasquez.

Re: Thoughts on Solara

Now, all I have to decide is one thing, is Solara going to be a sailor scout or geisha?

I vote Sailor Scout. Solara is supposed to be a fighter. A geisha seems more support personnel than superhero. 'Sides, he's a teenage boy. All drama club jokes to the side, teenage males tend to be aggressive.

Re: Life Support: Longevity?

I use it, since it's dripping with story potential.

Lemme see, how many of mine have it?

Gallant

He's originally from a 4th Ed game and wound up defined as an Advanced Generation Mutant, complete with LS vs Aging & Disease. When I kicked him over to 5th, I gave him both at full, since he'd already found out ingame that there wasn't any disease on Earth that could hurt him and that when he wound up in a post-collapse Minuteman-controlled future, that he'd been one of the last SPBs killed off in the late 21 Century. The footage showed him looking about 18 at over a century old.

He wound up acting fairly standoffish and avoided non-costumed people a lot after that. He was starting to get kind of obsessed with doing "it" right and changing that future at all costs. Made him decide to join up with PRIMUS and start trying to shove things into a new shape. He figured he could take the long view. Would have been fun to see how badly he could screw it up.

Thunderbolt

I bought LS Aging & Disease as a whim and found myself hanging a lot onto that little power. I had him set up as an early Silver-age character who's occult studies bonded him to the Cosmic Storm that empowered Thunder & Lightning. The LS stuff was bleedover from his Hero ID to his normal one along with some limited Regeneration. I had him empowered in 52' and fairly active from then on, with a physical age of 25. The fun part was realizing this lack of aging could really hose a relationship as his wife stressed out over her unaging husband and divorced him. So he remarried and it happened again, and again. Frankly, it's funny to me to picture him not having a good grip on anything but being a superhero. This leaves him in 2006 with grandchildren who look as old as he does if he doesn't mask his appearance with disguise magic. Family gatherings are really getting awkward, y'know?

Kid Dynamo

I didn't give him any LS: Aging despite him being an android as he was originally designed to emulate human development. Doc Armitage didn't think some of the experiment parameters out too well. However, since he's like 9 physically, he's got a few decades to figure out what to do. He's far more preoccupied with the magic "curse" he recently acquired. Turning into a real boy is an annoyance to a kid who's biggest role-model seems to be Bender from Futurama.

Re: "Monkey Ninjas...ATTACK !!!"

so what was it like,

 

it was the wizard of OZ,

 

you mean like gold roads. . .

 

no the wizard of Oz really

Geez, now I have to sit here in the outer dark wailing and gnashing my teeth in envy of such a cool game concept.

Re: An Avengers Campaign

never read it

Well, you should. You could also simply watch the show on DVD or some such as well.

However, incorporating Chinese Amazons into a campaign means one important thing. You would have Chinese Amazons there. The good news is that they live in a remote area of the Bayankala moutains and tend not to wander overmuch. The bad news is they are chock full of kick-butt martial arts secrets. This means they are tailor-made for PCs to get along with like a serial arsonist and a poorly insured trailer park. After all, consider their laws about combat with outsiders. Female outsiders who win a fight with an Amazon are to be given the Kiss of Death and killed. Males become the husband of the Amazon in question. People who oppose these two goals are considered obstacles and obstackles are for killing.

Here, 'cause Wikipedia is cool.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Amazons

Re: Thoughts on the Secret Service questions

Just a thought here, but, have you considered using other characters from your fusion scenario such as the esteemed Senator Robert Kelly, who despite being a liberal advocated mutant and by extension superhuman registration?

How about Amanda Waller? Sure she's DC-centered but the Wall is so useful for a combo of government heavy & espianage stringpuller. She's also worth mentioning as Batman or some iteration therof tends tend to be mentioned by you. For that matter, Henry Peter Gyrich is an awesome foil for story-telling purposes. He's definitely a Marvelverse character that is worth mentioning.

How about the Committee on Superhuman Affairs? Valerie Cooper and all the rest are certain to be sticking their noses into anything remotely interesting.

What about ol' Thunderbolt Ross? You remember him, right? General Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross, military head of the Gamma Bomb project? Hulk's father-in-law?

Nick Fury needs some screentime too. C'mon, he's an immortal ex-special forces guy from WWII turned CIA operative who then took the helm of SHIELD.

These guys gotta be making some ripples in governmental waters. They're big fish, after all.

Re: An Avengers Campaign

Thanks for the information.

 

I'm kicking around an idea for a game set in a version of the Marvel Universe that split from the mainstream one in 330 (or so) BC, but parallels the main one fairly closely. This lets me whoever I want into it.

All right. This still leaves you dealing with Celestial intervention & the creation of the Eternals and Deviants during our Cro-Magnon/Neanderthal era. This is also when the DNA sequences were implanted in humanity to allow mutants and survivor mutations to occur. Then there's the Kree, who, having discovered the Eternals when a group of the later encounter and destroy a Kree Sentry robot investigate Earth. End result, another hidden race known as the Inhumans as well as an observation outpost, later abandoned, on the Moon known as the Blue Area.

Are you going to keep Robert E. Howard's Hyborian Age stuff in continuity? It does give you the Serpent People, Conan, Red Sonja, Kulan Gath & King Kull to name but a few possibilities.

Don't forget when the alien race known as the Beyonders engineer the Savage Land.

Here, check this out.

http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/index.htm

Specifically, scope out some of the stuff around back then.

http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/appera.htm

So many subplots, so little time, y'know?

Re: An Avengers Campaign

As I was reading some of my old posts, I just realized that there could be two King Arthurs, a historic one, in the fifth century, and the literary one, in the eleventh century.

 

How did this happen? Simple. The Pendragon spirits. Although the spirits of Ambrosius Aurelianus (the original Arthur) and the rest of his men had hosts in eleventh century England, Gwenhwyvar (Guinevere) and the other ladies didn't. The Green Knight needed them elsewhere.

Well, that works out all right then. After all, you can then have Dane Whitman, the Black Knight, possess ties to multiple iterations of the Arthurian cycle. It also lets you keep Otherworld and all that fun Captain Britain Corps stuff going without ditching the Knights of Pendragon.

Now, where does the Maha Yogi fit into all this?

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now?

Chicken and Pizza Song -Micah's Hat

Re: History of the Super-Soldier Serum (need suggestions!)

This is true,but remember that the version of Hugo Danner that appeared in the series was almost identical to Phillip Wylie's original version,save for the fact that he was still alive in the '40s-as a supervillian!

Creator of the Sons of the Dawn (Indians with his powers) he apparently committed suicide when it was revealed that they had little or no resistance to the germs outside Maple White Land.

Sure, and then there was that not-explored-at-all subplot with Ubermensch, who claimed to have a connection to Danner and Munro. 'Course, that whole Children of the Dawn story was the last in the series before the cancellation blues claimed another comic. Now that I think of it, they'd also established a connection between Flying Fox and Arak. The next time we saw Arn was in Damage's comic, just before Zero Hour. Amusingly, he'd apparently gone to work for the OSI using the codename Gladiator.

Oh, and does anyone else think Danner's later suicide attempt was any more convincing than his first one? Ooh, I'm even tougher than Iron Munro and diving down this chimney and having the factory it's attached to explode is gonna finish me off. Right...

Made as much sense as when Spidey dumped his clone's body into that chimney in Marvel only to have him turn up alive and well and heralding the Maximum Clonage storyline.

Re: History of the Super-Soldier Serum (need suggestions!)

Of course' date=' some Paranormal Researchers argue that Hugo Danner was Clark Kent.

 

Even if Susano wants to drop the idea of Krypton, the idea of Hugo going to Kent Allard and Clark Savage to learn how to fit into society and use his powers in a positive way appeals to me; it provides a nice link between all sorts of characters with similar abilities.

Sure, but it all depends on whether you want to use both simultaneously or not ala Young All-Stars & Iron Munro, post-Crisis.

Re: History of the Super-Soldier Serum (need suggestions!)

Here are some ideas that I found and that may be of some use to you:

 

 

 

Source

 

And don't forget about the Universal Soldier program, that turned dead soldiers into Super-Soldiers

Amusingly enough, while I don't like Rob Leifield's stuff, he did introduce a government program entitled Project:Rebirth. Said project reanimated dead soldiers into supersoldiers. Obviously you tie this in by using Dr West's reanimation research applied to otherwise unsuitable subjects. An early subject of this was Supreme, who would have been brought back to life due to the introduction of both the reanimation treatment and a further application of either Hugo Danner's or Clark Kent's blood. Considering the results, is it any wonder the US gov would be hesitant to fire up the chem-vats and bring any more uncontrollable super-psychos into the world. Especially considering later subjects such as Battlestone & Bloodstrike.

Re: Namedropping

What about good ol' Uri Geller, spoon-bending 70's psychic star?

As to Wild Cards, I thought they'd mentioned in the Aces abroad book that Churchill had a deuce letting him live past 114. I also thought Mick Jagger was mentioned as a the lycanthropic lead singer of Ferric Jagger. Wasn't that a riff on the book Iron Dreams by Norman Spinrad?

Re: An Avengers Campaign

I came up with this idea in September of 2005' date='and I haven't done much with it since Christmass of 2005.[/quote']

 

Ah. I see. Maybe you should set it up as a PBEM game.

Re: An Avengers Campaign

This campaign is set in an alternate Marvel Universe that split from the mainstream universe (assuming there is one) just before the Avengers Timeslide series. There are several crossover universes in this campaign. Two' date=' the [i']CSI[/i] and Tremors: The Series universes are of little importance. Another, the Xenaverse may be considered minor. The Amazon tribes have survived to this day. (Amazons are women who are skilled in armed and unarmed combat, know the Greek language, both Amazon and Greek culture and customs, and worship Artemis.)

OK, First things first, I suppose. When and if I ever detail a campaign world here on the wacky world-wide web, I'm only gonna mention the big and important contributions from any sources I'm drawing on. I'm not trying to bash on your interests here, I'm just saying, if you wanna assume the casts of the various CSI shows exist in this world, more power to you. From where I sit here on my side of the web, they don't make a ripple in the average story I may tell even if I drop them into my own games. It's just interesting background flavor, y'know?

As to the Xena stuff, well, it kinda clashes with established Hercules continuity in Marvel, but whacking at it with a hammer may make it fit. We can just assume that he was vastly increased in power by his being made a full god and his fond memories of wandering the earth fighting for justice and such as a mortal cause him to wish to join the Avengers in the present day.

OTOH, this might be an excellent start point to showcase the origins of Femizonia as the continued Amazon culture eventually allows feminist scientists to engineer a super-amazon called Thundra and project her back to the 20th Century to ensure their own dominance in their timeline.

The other two, the Buffyverse, after season five of Angel, and the Jack Ryan universe, after he became President, are quite important. (The Buffyverse tells us what the world knows about the undead and the Jack Ryan universe tells us who the President is and how he became President.)

How do you intend to blend this version of vampires & Dracula with the Marvel-version? For reference on Marvel vampires, try here.

http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/appvampi.htm

http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/draculav.htm

The Dracula entry, BTW is wonderfully complete.

As a sidenote and to help with integration of varying vampire strains, also look at the comments in this entry,

http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix3/topherrunaways.htm

As to Jack Ryan, not being any kind of fan of Tom Clancy, I got nothin'.

Well, on consideration, what's his stance on mutants and vampires? Those are gonna be hi-impact problems from a publicity standpoint.

Now, to the Avengers themselves. They are Earth's best-known and most-respected team. By vote of the United Nations, they are also a world power.

 

The Avengers have decided to set up various branch teams to monitor trouble spots.around the world.

Now we're where I can get my geek on. It would be best if they weren't given 'world power' status. Rather, give them offical operating sanction like UNITY in HERO. This reminds me, how are you handling the membership of the leaders of two sovereign nations in the Avengers? There are T'challa, King of Wakanda & Namor, King of Atlantis to consider. Are you keeping Atlantis as having only observer status in the UN? When you get down to it, it's not unlikely that the Atlanteans are considered a terrorist state owing to their repeated assaults on the "Surface World" such as their attempted invasions of New York City and various points on the East Coast. Wakanda is, however a major source of technological imports and in fact is one of the chief suppliers of equipment to the Avengers themselves over the years.

Now, are you interested in using the other national teams that hold official status in their countries? Russia has the People's Protectorate, Canada has Alpha Flight, England has Excalibur. There's a handful of others but those are the bigger guns and as such really should be included in a global superhuman agency.

As to these teams, it might be best if most of them aren't more than 3-4 members at first. That gives you the opportunity to set up two to three larger teams that can pitch in if something goes pear-shaped and three superhumans can't cope with it. Also much easier to fill in a three member team than some half dozen people per location.

Oh, and is SHIELD national or international in scope/authority in your campaign?

The Northwestern team, based in Seattle, will cover Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and parts of Canada.

Hmm, apart from drafting an Alphan or two to fill in the roster, I can't really think of any superheroes published that come from there. You'll have to wing it. Didn't Machine Man hang out around there at some point?

The California team, based in Santa Barbara, covers California and the Western section of Mexico.

Well, if you're going to reactivate the Avengers franchise out in California, the West Coast Avengers hung their hats in Avengers Compound, LA. It's already built, no need to build a different one. As to members, Nothing wrong with the classics such as Wonder Man, Hawkeye, Iron Man (or maybe War Machine if you want Tony on the East Coast), Tigra & Mockingbird (if she isn't currently dead and Living Lightning for some extra oomph. Add others to taste. Naturally, I'd make this one of the main team postings.

The Southwest team, based in Los Vegas, covers Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado.

Use Firebird and maybe add in some of the other former Rangers like Shooting Star & Texas Twister (oddly, he didn't seem to hang out in Texas much). Maybe American Eagle for some muscle and Red Wolf for the mystic angle.

Oh wait, Spider Woman II lived in Boulder. Add her.

The Texas team, based in Fort Worth, covers Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and the major part of Mexico.

Call me nutty, but this seems like a much better place to station the X-Factor team than Washington or NYC. After all, they have Forge as an associate/member/leader/whatnot and he does own a hi-tech skyscraper in Fort Worth.

The Souther team, based in Miami, covers Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, the Carolinas, and the West Indies.

Uh, maybe Razorback? Other than him, I can only think of one superhuman in those areas and that's Poison. You probably don't want a superpowered vigilante who slaughters drug dealers in the Avengers, though. Two if you move Lousiana over so we can include Captain Marvel II/Photon.

The Great Plains team, based in Minneapolis, covers the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Minnesota, and parts of Canada.

There aren't too many depicted superhumans living here except the occasional mutant and such. I recommend at least one speedster just for distances involved.

The Great Lakes team, based in Chicago, covers Illinois, Wisconson, Michigan, Indiana, and parts of Canada.

Well, for better or worse, there's the current GLA. For a more serious team, Thor used to hang his helmet in Chicago. Build one around him. Oh, and all indications are that there is a Savage Dragon in almost every world. Use him if you want. http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/savdragi.htm

The Mid-Atlantic team, based in Pittsburgh, covers Pennsylvania, Ohio (including the Cleveland Hellmouth), Kentucky, Delaware, Virginia, and West Virginia.

Is the Cleveland Hellmouth why Howard the Duck lives there? As an extradimensional was he drawn to this place subconsciously. I mean, heck, it'd explain Bessie the Hellcow all too well.

The New England Avengers, based in New York City, cover Maine, Vermont, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and parts of Canada.

I'm going out a a limb here and expecting this to be the one Captain America leads, right?

There are also to be teams in the District of Columbia, Alaska, Hawaii, England, Tokyo, and three other places.

Well, for the DC team, I think the redoubtable USAgent would make a decent leader. Is there anyone in Freedom Force you want to keep? Blob, Pyro, Crimson Commando, Avalanche even? I already suggested Excalibur so just handwave them in and to give them an Avengers presence, move the Black Knight over there. He and Captain Britain are old friends anyway and he plays well with others.

There's always Big Hero 6 for Japan.

As to Hawaii or Alaska, they look wide open. Maybe Pele or Taifu, formerly of the Pacific Overlords could be added to the Hawaii team.

Not all teams are completely in place yet. However, the Washington, D.C., New England, and Mid-Atlantic teams are.

The Mid-Atlantic team will be the one the PCs are in.

So, who do you have on the team?

Re: "Neat" Pictures

Look, the guy's improvised a way to gulp down multiple cups of beer at the bar, right? Obviously, you do this rather than drink them one at a time to impress the ladies.

Now whether it'll work or not is a whole different thing.

Re: A Public Domain World

I could swear I read somewhere that Bill Black of Americomics bought the copyright to the Lev Gleason stuff years ago. I do know that rooting around on the Library of Congress website doens't tell me anything. Sure, the searches for Nedor & Lev Gleason and such come up empty but it also looks like it's a fairly costly (for my meager income) procedure to have formal research done there to produce anything official on this stuff.

Re: What Would Your Character See?

Hrmm.

Gallant: He stands in front of a mirror, on the other side is what looks like his evil twin brother, Lance. Yeah, his brother is nuts, a borderline sociopath, with a hair trigger temper & growing increasingly megalomaniacal & paranoid. In it he sees his friends, family and teammates, past & present, all lying broken and bloodsplattered. It looks like most of them died with looks of suprise and confusion on their faces. Like some lost sorcerer's crystal ball, the mirror shows him as each of them fell, his enhanced hearing allowing him no choice but to hear every blow and fading heartbeat.

Finally, Lance walks to the mirror and rests an immaculately clean hand upon the surface. Snarling, Gallant lifts his bloodstained hand and smashes the mirror, shattering it and the wall behind it. Turning, he looks at the corpses behind him.

"It's better this way. Fewer weaknesses."

How would he get loose? I'm not sure he would. Gallant's pretty well grounded in what his senses show. Only thing that might help is his Mental Awareness. Unless he sees a seam in the illusion, he'll buy into it and woe betide those who approach him now that he thinks he's fallen. He's been worried about turning into his brother for years now.

Kid Dynamo: Young Robinson Armitage stands on the rooftop, his heart pounding and stomach churning with anger and fear. "Yahh!!" he screams at the clouds above him, raindrops beginning to soak him. Once again he fails to shed this horrible filthy human body. "Give it back!' he shouts. Dropping to his knees, he slams his fist into the roof as hard as possible. Fresh pain from his previously bruised knuckles only causes him to punch harder. "**** you, you stupid magical freak! Give me back myself!" Tears mix with the raindrops as the heavens choose not to answer his demands to be restored to his robotic form. " I know you're watching me! You know I didn't want to be this stupid sack of meat!"

Climbing up to the edge of the rood, Rob balanced in the rain and stared down at the street so many stories below. " I don't want your gift, woman! Take it back or I'll throw it at your feet!" With a final scream, Rob leapt from the rooftop.

Deep down, he may be a robot but his mind is patterned after human thought processes. He knows he's indestructible or at least rebuildable. He's gonna force this dream to let go.

Thunderbolt: Tom looked at the empty vodka bottle and snarled. His third in as many hours and he was still sober. Dragging on his cigarette, he threw the bottle at the far wall to join it's fellows in a shattered heap.

Despite himself, he found his mind swinging back to the previous day's funeral, his great great grandson's. He'd stood there watching from the fringes as his descendants gathered to mourn their beloved grandfather, who he could still recall bouncing on his knee when his great grandson had brought the kids over to visit the "old man."

He could recall the whispers and stares as the family looked at him like some intruder. "Like I was some stranger! Me! Hell, young Thomas was named after me!" He shook his head. "Young Thomas? He was seventy four when he died."

Rising to his feet, he strode to the window and watched the storms gather in response to his dark mood. His reflection seemed to mock him with it's youthfulness, his age still frozen at twenty five. No wrinkles, no crow's feet, no grey hair, just a man trapped in immortality with a string of failed marriages and children long dead in their graves.

Turning, he went back to his chair. Reaching down beside him he raised up another bottle from the case. "Happy birthday, Tommy. May you live another two hundred and fifty years." Thomas saluted the wall covered in photos, image screens and holographs of his now rather extended family and chugged down another bottle in the hopes that this one could ease some of the years weighing him down.

"Feh. Like drinking tap water."

T-bolt's tired at times. He was born in 1930 and some of his kids look twice his physical age. Given some time to reflect, though, he'll push himself up out of his chair and gird his loins for battle (and dating) again. He's got plenty of willpower but a suckerpunch to the emotions is hard to shake off.

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

The last sentence in the first post, before "WWYCD?"

huh. Somehow, I seem to have missed that. Cool, definitely gives time for the alien survivor fleet to blow past while pulling a smash-n-grab for supplies. Y'know, just to add insult to injury.

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

What the heck, I'll post on this too. It seems to me that the big problem is that there really isn't much box to think outside of here. Your post showing the WWYCD scenario already said that no matter where OR when, our character and 90+% of the universe is dead meat. You said that EDM wouldn't work. You even mentioned that computers will shortcircuit due to this wave. Now I have no clue as to what tech even works after this. After all, how smart do you think a personal comupter is, anyway?

Oddly, this whole menace didn't show up on the precog radar till just now. Up till now, time-travel worked.

The speed the wave propagates at is unknown. Later posts by you mention it could even be months or years until the effect hits. What happens when we get over-run by the fleeing aliens who jumped planet when Quadrant Aleph went all flatline?

Natuarally, my characters would have both questions and problems with this whole mess.

Biggest problem I think most of us have is that the average hero we might be playing gets to watch and wait. Out of some of the characters mentioned, Z'lf, Meeb, Rock-Bottom, Flesh Gordon, Snow Leopard and all the rest of the not really superscience/magick/cosmic types can watch, holding their metaphorical hats while the big guns try and apparently fail. after all, this is killing all the dimension holding all their collective campaigns.

Swell.

I might enjoy one session of sidelining and roleplaying being useless. Maybe. After that, I expect the Crisis on Infinite Earths/Quest For the McGuffin Crystal style option to open up. Fr'ex, you could do a pretty entertaining multiworld romp via PBEM as the various PCs get drafted to try the endrun around the wavefront (& back for that matter) and maybe get to the cosmic reset button. This offer wasn't made, though.

Most of our games seem set in worlds where facial scarring leads to superhuman hijinks and metal problems can be overcome by getting into fistfights with them on some mental plane. How much fun would you have reading a comic filled with panel after panel of drippy angsty dialogue beyond even our most Claremontian nightmares. I don't wanna see the Thing weeping in his beer or watch Billy Batson huddled in a corner wracked with completely rational fears of the world ending next Tuesday with no reprieve.

Thing is, we got nothing to go on, here. April 15th has passed and now it's death's turn to be inevitable. That kind of scenario sticks in the craw of the common player. It's one thing to shut off the lights and put up the chairs for the world at the end of a campaign. It's another entirely to say,

"Bob, you know how Ben Steel is like your favorite character, right? Well, I'm gonna kill him, his bear Hans and his whole family. Oh, and your villains too, even Mad Mr Monkey."

"Why? Oh, I thought a post-universal apocalypse rebuilding game using fast food clerks and phone sex operators would be real cool to role-play."

"Oh, you still want to play Ben Steel? Fine, but he's gonna have to ditch his powers, skills and any stats above, like, 8."

"Fine, then. Go play WOW & City of Heroes."

Re: WWYCD - a deal with an extradimensional sadistic entity

My characters would run the gamut from "Jesus! What is wrong with you cosmic types?" to "You can't appreciate suffering unless it happens to you. Hold still."

My own response is "Jeez, if you just wanted me to run the games, say so."

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now?

The Dogs Among The Bushes -The Chieftains

Whoops, just switched to

Here It Goes Again -OK Go

Re: Not quite a WWYCD: YWUA your PC...

Hrmm.

Start from my side, I think.

Gallant:

Well, I won't have his martial arts & combat levels, but those are gravy when you're driving a finely-tuned engine of destruction like him. With a Str of 65, Dex of 30 & 33+ PD & ED with 20 rPD& ED gives you a nice head start. His enhanced senses are easy to use as well. I'm going to need to give the team & PRIMUS a heads up on the situation as that's pretty much his only job and I'll be exposed pretty easily. No avoiding combat with this guy, there's several people on the enemy list.

Kid Dynamo:

Actually, the easiest of my characters to drive around as. 'Course, I'm gonna look like a metallic 9 year old boy, but that's OK, since "I" know how to kick on the upgrade mode and refit him into an adult form given a day of internal reconfiguration. I'm gonna need to let Dr Armitage know what happened to son version 1.0, though and then we'll see what happens. I don't plan on really fighting crime here but that's not normally left up to Kid Dynamo. Be interesting to see if the recent enchantment that turns him into a real boy (to his great disgust) went with him or stayed here and if it'll switch me to a kid when not in Hero ID or just the analog to the age my body is resetting to.

Doremo:

On the good side, if this version of the Champions can't get me home, I don't know who can. On the bad side, I know nothing about martial arts or chi techniques. This is a great reason to hide at the HQ. Only problem there is that this dimension's Raditz is going to be more than thrilled to punch my ticket and he's living there too. Anywhere else and my enemies will track me sooner or later. Sure, the meat suits got 25 Str & 30 Dex but that's not gonna stop chi bolts, vacuum blades or freakishly strong alien invaders.

Thunderbolt:

Well, the powers are all gonna be pretty easy to use, he's a flying brick with weather powers. Not having his 50 years of crimefighting experience is gonna get me hurt when his enemies start showing up. And I know they're coming, his Unluck is part & parcel of his mystic empowerment, so I get what he's been living with. At least he's got money. At least I get that massive collection of mystic aetifacts he's picked up. Pity I don't know his ritual magic to go with that stuff. Then I could turn off his enchanted phone number (long story).

Armor:

That's a tricky one. On the one hand, he's a superhumanly smart polymath & I'm not. On the other hand, he's a supergenius owing to his "X-factor" gene, being from a variant Marvel Earth. So that means I'm now running around with a supercomputer for a brain. Cool, I always wanted another 30+ Int points. The eidetic memory, hyper-linguistics skills & Forge-style intuitive inventing abilites make this me the most likely to get back home. Considering how peaceful his life has been lately, I have just one problem. I really don't want to leave.

Now for them.

Gallant:

Well, he's not superstrong, agile or tough now. He's near-sighted & overweight. On the bright side, there's nobody here trying to cave in his skull. He could survive as me, but he would definitely use his Bureacratics, Conversation & related skills to seek better work while he looked for an explanation & a way home.

Kid Dynamo:

Well, whenever (and if ever) I get home, my life is ruined. Sure, the Kid's got great computer skills, but he's got the temper and personality of a kid. I'll be lucky to not wake up in a jail cell or the hospital. Heck, considering how reckless he can be, I'm in danger of coming back dead. After all, he loves that he's a robot and despises that "curse" as he calls it that lets him turn to a human form. He may not be Mechanon as far as the whole "meatbag" thing goes, but he's not too far removed from Futurama's Bender at times.

Doremo:

He's not going to want to come back. This is the first real break he's ever had. No death threats or crazed challengers here. Sure, I'm way out of shape but he's got great skills in teaching martial arts, chinese healing and he's got a huge arsenal of chi techniques including healing. This is the break he's wanted to really refine his skills for a few decades. Whipping my body into decent health and shape isn't too complicated for him. Only thing forcing him to try for home is his need to look after his little sister. Fortunately, anyone who tries to mess with her would incur the wrath of Kid Fist, and he's chock full of wrath. I suppose he'd set about trying to locate his home plane via spiritual refinement and astral techniques. A real pity he's not as practiced at those and this could take years

Thunderbolt:

Well, he's got a fair chance of actually getting home. Like I said, he's got an extensive knowledge of ritual magic. How else would he have bound the spirit of the storm into his body. Actually, wierd as it sounds, he'd be a better spellcaster in my body than his. He's from a cursed branch of the Vandeleur clan. Those in his branch have no ability to directly channel magic, owing to their ancestor's little squabble with Adrian, the patriarch of the whole family. Adrian rewrote that particular son's magic abilites when they were competing for the same woman centuries ago. Said ancestor was rendered immortal and otherwise magicless. The immortality didn't pass on but the blocked magic did. Given a reasonably short time to build up enough mystic energy (Endurance), he should be able to recast his original empowerment spell. That would really help on the whole End requirement for spellcasting. A simulacrum left in my place wouldn't be out of reach either.

After that, if he can't reach his home, well, he'd be happy to fund his life here by simply recreating his novel-writng career and fight disasters and whatever criminal activity he could prevent. It'd take him a long time to even consider really interfering in world affairs but behind the scenes weather control is pretty handy for defusing may conflicts.

Armor:

Well, he IS a supergenius. Dimension travel is one of his pet projects, too. Given a little calculation, he could adapt the Mad Thinker's prediction mathematics to let him score a massive lottery windfall. After that, it's time to go underground and make the tools to make the tools. Dan always loved his work. It may take him a while and he may wind up dragging Earth's tech level up a few centuries in the process, but he loves a good challenge.