Echo3Niner

Be Valorous & Courageous in your pursuit of Righteousness at all times.
Show Benevolence & Selflessness in thy actions.
Conduct thyself Politely & Respectfully, to those deserving.
Thy word will speak nothing but truth.
Uphold thy Honor by being true to these edicts, at all times, even in secret.
Oppose Evil, in all its forms-Defend the innocent-Avenge victims of Evil.
 
"Reveal to us the metal of thy character; suffer the courage of thy convictions.”
Sir Robert The True

The Praetor is... impressive. Good luck to your heroes.

In our exciting 13th episode -->
 
The team discussed whether they should regroup and how they should deal with the Mars base - eventually deciding they needed to deal with them now, to reduce the possible deaths in the mission the bad guys were about to intercept.
 
Solar and Capt. Force waited until the D-Soldiers left to attack; then, Solar desolidified and inviso'd them both, and then snuck into the base.
 
When they were ready, Capt. Force attacked the console with his band, turning it into Styrofoam.  Then Solar dropped a massive STUN only blast into the mentalist alien, knocking him out.
 
Capt. Force then stepped up and challenged Outrider; throwing a big punch.  Outriders armor reacted by putting a helmet on him (making him look like a massive Juggernaut {slitch}!), and he was able to withstand Capt. Force's first shot.
 
As the fight started, a speedster zoomed into the room and started running around the parameter, creating an area of effect entangle (whirlwind).
 
Solar, trapped in the entangle, used her bands to turn the air in the path of the speedster into Aerogel, slowing him to a stop...  She then pulled all the oxygen out of him, knocking him unconscious (NND attack).
 
Also entering the room, was a desolidified mentalist (one of my favorite bad guys types).  But, Solar created a desolidified affecting STUN only blast from her VPP, and knocked him out too.
 
Meanwhile, Outrider had thrown a couple punches at Capt. Force, but missed; while Capt. Force had landed a couple more, continuing to whittle him down...
 
Solar used telepathy to warn the Men in Black team on earth, so they could defend themselves against the D-Soldiers.
 
Finally, Solar turned visible just in front of Outrider as she flew at him, saying "Heeeeeere's Johnny!" and landed a super heavy punch, which didn't knock him out by itself, but when Outrider flew into the wall, the knockback rendered him unconscious.
 
And with that, the crew was finally defeated!
 
In our upcoming final episode, the team will take the final battle to the Empress' massive space-shipyard, the Star Forge - where they will finally face, THE PRAETOR!!!
 

I can't wait to see them fight the final fight against The Praetor!
 
To say Gladiator (Praetor in my game) is Marvel’s superman, is underrated…  From Wiki:
 
Gladiator's name, Kallark, is a combination of Superman's Kryptonian and human names: Kal-El and Clark Kent.
 
Powers and abilities
Gladiator possesses a number of superhuman capabilities as a result of his unique alien physiology including superhuman strength (capable of shattering a planet, ripping apart a black hole, and holding off the Destroyer armor), superhuman speed, stamina and durability (capable of withstanding the heat emitted from the Phoenix Force, a blast comparable to the full power of Odin, direct attacks from Thor and Mjolnir, point blank planetary explosions, and an explosion equivalent to a supernova), reflexes, microscopic and telescopic vision, X-ray vision, heat vision (stated as "hotter than a star"); super-breath, "frost breath", super-hearing (capable of hearing sounds from light years away in space), a regenerative healing factor, psionic resistance (capable of withstanding mental attacks from telepaths to a certain degree), and warp speed flight (measured as "a hundred times the speed of light", and shown moving across galaxies before Heimdall could blink). Gladiator's abilities increase and decrease in accordance with his level of confidence and he is vulnerable to a certain form of rare radiation. Gladiator also has advanced longevity, having survived for centuries with very little aging.
 
His character sheet is attached...
 

Praetor.pdf

In our amazing 12th episode -->
 
THE WAR HAS BEGUN!
 
The marshal called Solar and told her, though she "didn't hear it from him", that an Empress Strike Group is racing to Sol Sector, to decimate the sector's fleet, before the hero's can intervene.
 
The team rushes to Empress space, so that Solar can experience the drive signatures of one of their Strike Groups.  With that, the team use the bands to augment her Detect power, so she can determine where the Strike Group on it's way so Sol is.
 
Once they determine where it is in hyperspace, they race to get in front of it - then, using all the bands, they create a gravity well to force them out of hyperspace.
 
The Strike Group is made up of the following (all with their OCV and DCV at +10):
 
1x - IVV (Imperial V’hanian Vessel) Heavy War Ship; The Vae Victus 1x - IVV War Cruiser; The Fidelis 1x - IVV Carrier Cruiser; The Dies Irae 30x - Fighters 3x - IVV Escorts; The Fata The battle begins by the team splitting up; Solar and Wuxing focus on the Vae Victus, while Capt. Force and The Aqua Man tie up the rest.
 
Solar is first - using her band she turns the air in the top two floors of the command tower into chlorine, effectively knocking out C&C (Command and Control).  On her second round, she turns the air into Nitrous Oxide, so the enemy crew wont die, but will remain unconscious.  We discussed that some of the aliens may not be susceptible to either or both gases, but the chaos would be enough to cause the same effect.
 
Wuxing turns himself into an energy being (desolidified) and flies into the ship - there he finds the largest power source, and turns the energy off; in his next round he shuts down the second power source - effectively shutting down the ship.
 
Meanwhile, the Fata all got missile shots off on the other two heroes, but it did little damage to them (some stun).   And The Aqua Man used his bands to turn all the liquid in one of the Fata into Nitro Glycerin - so when the ship attempted to fire, it actually blew itself up!
 
Capt. Force used his band to expand the bay doors of the Fidelis, so they could not open, so the fighters could not launch.
 
Eventually Solar joined the team and turned all gases used in all the super lasers into oxygen, disabling all the lasers.  While Capt. Force, flying along the surface of the Fidelis to prevent other ships from targeting him, moved around to the back of the ship - then using his band, grew to 640 feet tall, and simply crushed the engines in the back of the ship!
 
The Aqua Man did his Nitro trick on the last of the Fata, which blew itself up, and the fleet was defeated!
 
The heroes allowed the crews to abandon ship, then the destroyed all the ships.  They then transported the shortrange lifeboats to Somewhere, where the crews would have to buy their way back to the Empress' territory.
 
As the team was enjoying their victory, Col. Rage contacted them and asked that they come home immediately - there was an issue.
 
The team teleported home, where Col. Rage explained that they had a problem; either their communication had been cracked (which Silvercloud insisted was impossible), or they had a mole!  Every major operation had been countered by an elite squad of D-Soldiers, and they always seemed to know where to strike to do the most damage.
 
The team reviewed various possibilities, but couldn't determine definitively if it was compromised communication or a mole.  Eventually, their investigation led them to Mars.
 
There, Capt. Force and Solar did a recon, and found a base the D-Soldiers were operating out of, and to their surprise, they found out how the Empress' team was planning their attacks so effectively.  They had a super-powerful alien mentalist, who was reading the minds of Col. Rage and his teams, allowing the D-Soldiers to always have the tactical advantage - but, that wasn't all; as they watched, the villain Outrider was leading the team, but he had been augmented since they last saw him, with huge, tech gauntlets, boots and a belt.  Additionally, they brought up on a huge screen, their commander, who they referred to as, the Praetor!  (Gladiator from Marvel.)
 
In our next episode, we will pick up with the heroes having to deal with the Martian base and Empress' team.  Then, the final battle will ensue, with the Praetor himself!
 
AND THAT is where our exciting episode ended!
 
 

In our exciting 13th episode -->
 
The team discussed whether they should regroup and how they should deal with the Mars base - eventually deciding they needed to deal with them now, to reduce the possible deaths in the mission the bad guys were about to intercept.
 
Solar and Capt. Force waited until the D-Soldiers left to attack; then, Solar desolidified and inviso'd them both, and then snuck into the base.
 
When they were ready, Capt. Force attacked the console with his band, turning it into Styrofoam.  Then Solar dropped a massive STUN only blast into the mentalist alien, knocking him out.
 
Capt. Force then stepped up and challenged Outrider; throwing a big punch.  Outriders armor reacted by putting a helmet on him (making him look like a massive Juggernaut {slitch}!), and he was able to withstand Capt. Force's first shot.
 
As the fight started, a speedster zoomed into the room and started running around the parameter, creating an area of effect entangle (whirlwind).
 
Solar, trapped in the entangle, used her bands to turn the air in the path of the speedster into Aerogel, slowing him to a stop...  She then pulled all the oxygen out of him, knocking him unconscious (NND attack).
 
Also entering the room, was a desolidified mentalist (one of my favorite bad guys types).  But, Solar created a desolidified affecting STUN only blast from her VPP, and knocked him out too.
 
Meanwhile, Outrider had thrown a couple punches at Capt. Force, but missed; while Capt. Force had landed a couple more, continuing to whittle him down...
 
Solar used telepathy to warn the Men in Black team on earth, so they could defend themselves against the D-Soldiers.
 
Finally, Solar turned visible just in front of Outrider as she flew at him, saying "Heeeeeere's Johnny!" and landed a super heavy punch, which didn't knock him out by itself, but when Outrider flew into the wall, the knockback rendered him unconscious.
 
And with that, the crew was finally defeated!
 
In our upcoming final episode, the team will take the final battle to the Empress' massive space-shipyard, the Star Forge - where they will finally face, THE PRAETOR!!!
 

From the journal of Master Gunz – American Hero
 
The year is 2030 and Earth has changed, everything has changed.
 
On December 21st, 2012 – when the Mesoamerican’s long count calendar ended, the solar system that Earth is in, passed through an area of the Milkyway galaxy which the Mesoamericans called “The Void”; an area of the Milkyway galaxy which looks like a rift, as it is devoid of many stars.  A place very important in their mythology and a place located in the plane of the galaxy.  The Mesoamerican’s put much mythological/religious significance to this event.  We now know, that there was real, scientific significance as well.
 
It had personal significance for me too, cause that’s the day I joined the US Marine Corps; I had just graduated from Boot Camp.
 
There was a bunch of crazies back just prior to 2012 that made a bunch of money talking about how the world was going to end, cause the Long Count calendar ended on that day.  Bunch of idiots.  It didn’t of course; the calendar is based on a 25,695 year processional cycle of the equinoxes through the galaxy.  This procession is broken into segments of the processional cycle, lasting just over 5100 years.  We are now in the 1st segment after a full cycle of the 25,695 years.  This is why the long count ended, because we started over on 12/22/2012.
 
But, at the end of the day, none of that really matters; what matters is what it was tracking, which is where we sit in the Milkyway.  Why?  Well, because it turns out, our little corner (solar system) of the galaxy oscillates across the galactic plane.  So, why’s that so important, I hear you asking.  Well I’m here to tell ‘ya, it’s about the most important thing we’ve ever discovered.
 
So, turns out there is a radiation that exists on one side of the galactic plane, that isn’t present on the other side.  A simple fluke of galactic geography and some event which took place in our galactic past?  Could be.  It’s been around 17 years since we crossed over and were exposed, so our scientist are still trying to figure it all out; in between figuring out what the Hell happened to those of us susceptible to this radiation, and dealing with the arrival of the aliens…  So cut ‘em a little slack, I suppose.
 
So, this radiation has many uses.  Most people are not affected by it directly.  Only like .0001% of the earth’s population is susceptible to the effects of this radiation on their genes.  So, in 2012, when we crossed the galactic plane, that was about 700,000 people on the planet earth.
 
Today we call it Sudden Unexplained Radioactive Genetic Expression, or SURGE.  .0001% of the human population of Earth have a gene, which when exposed to this radiation, expresses some sort of random mutation.  Many people have small effects, some don’t ever even notice; lucky bastards.
 
Some of us, well, some of our “random mutations” can cause Hell on Earth.
 
So think about that.  700,000 random people; in every clime and place, every culture, every socio-economic level, suddenly had powers that our ancestors called Gods.
 
Oh, did I forget to mention that?  Yeah, this happened before.  As I said, we oscillate across this plane, so using our current calendar, between 8239 and 3114 BCE we were on this side of the plane, and they had .0001% (of a much lower) population express these SURGE powers.  Turns out that’s where much of our mythology, folklore, stories and many of our religious beliefs came from…  But today, we don’t have those same quaint ideas; instead, we have Superheroes.  Of course, if you have Superheroes, it stands to reason that you also have Supervillains…
 
So, think about it again, back in 2012; .0001% of the two-bit punks, street thugs, gangbangers, organized criminals, serial killers, white-collar criminals, corporate criminals, and international criminals got juiced.  But that wasn’t the worst of it.  That was reserved for the crazy extremist of all stripes.  From Jihadist Terrorists to White-power Aryan Nation wackos, to the anti-governmental nutbirds.
 
What about that Head Hunter from Papua New Guinea, or that newly found Amazonian tribe?  Doesn't matter to you much when they stayed where they were; but, what if the Head Hunter can fly over here to hunt now?  What if the Amazonian tribesmen wasn't very well liked, and mistreated by his people, and now can run 4000 mph?
 
But, there were some of us on the other side of those tracks; local cops, Feds, and us in the military; well, .0001% of us changed too.
 
There have been a bunch who just decided not to get involved, I’d say the majority.  Might have been a good idea, if you could do it.  Cause some nations hunt us SURGE’ers down and burn us at the stake.  Other’s, they want to use us, however they can.  And many of them, want us in a lab.
 
So, from early 2013 through 2015, the human race had to recalibrate.  It wasn’t easy.  There were about 20 SURGE’ers in the US Marine Corps with me, we’ve lost almost half.  But midway through 2015, everything changed again.  Cause that’s when the alien residents of HAT-P-11B decided to open a Lorentzian Stable Transversable (LST) or Morris-Thorne Wormhole (MTW) using powerful engines that use this new (to us) radiation as the Exotic Matter to hold the wormhole open and stable.
 
Suddenly, right in the middle of all our chaos about SURGE, we found out we weren’t alone in the galaxy.  And the neighbors had stopped by for coffee and cake.  Since then, we’ve had another neighbor stop by too.  Lucky for us, both neighbors have been fairly friendly.  Cause at that time, we’d have had some major issues dealing with them if they weren’t.
 
So, after 15 years of getting used to the new neighborhood, things were going much better.  We’d all settled down about SURGE, and our visitors.  Our science and technology sectors have been going nuts figuring out what it all means; from the new radiation (known as “Z-rad” by the media), to the MTW’s the aliens use to move about our galaxy, and what the extent of us SURGE’ers abilities might be.
 
Now it’s 2030, and you had to know it; at some point the bad neighbors would show up, and the neighborhood would go to Hell.  This year, we finally noticed that some of the changes we’ve been experiencing for the last several years, on Earth and our friendly neighborhood alien’s planets too, aren’t due to Z-rad or anything random, they were early deployment of resources to help soften us up, cause this year, the Empress showed up…  And all bets are off now.

To base, or not to base, THAT is the question...
 
I'm all 'bout that base, 'bout that base, no trouble...
 
(Couldn't help myself...)

To base, or not to base, THAT is the question...
 
I'm all 'bout that base, 'bout that base, no trouble...
 
(Couldn't help myself...)

And he, along with the other Imperial Guard were based off of the Legion of Super-heroes

I once ended a session by having the PCs find a letter that contained vital information.  They had spent the whole session looking for it, felt good they had found it, and one Player transcribed the letter as they were certain it had more clues than were obvious.

The next session they formed a plan to act on their new information & I had a NPC interject to remind them of an important thing they were overlooking (I didn't want to waste a session with them going down a blind alley).  They insisted that *wasn't* info that they had.  I insisted it was in the letter they had just worked so hard to get.  The players all looked at me in silence & the one who had transcribed that letter held up her notebook page & proved that info *wasn't* among the info they had gotten from the letter last session.
 
Knowing I had screwed up & left out a vital point, I (rather lamely) had the NPC declare there was "a hidden fold" in the letter that contained the information.
 
The Players all laughed for about 10 min at my weak save & from that point on if I ever tacked something on to an ongoing info dump someone would mention that "there must have been a fold".
 
This has been a running joke now for 25 years.  I married one of them.  The woman with the notebook was our Maid of Honor.  In the years since I've gotten christmas cards that say "Merry Christmas! and a >obvious fold in the card< "Happy New Year".  I texted my wife 4 things to pick up at the store a couple weeks ago, then remembered something else 10 min later & got a text back "was there a fold?"
 
I try to take it with good humor......

So is that a complication?  How many points is it worth?  😉

I never wanted a bad guy dead, more than that character in that show...  You are right; David Tennant did an awesome job...  So much more so than any other mentalist type villain from any other fiction I've seen or read - super dark, and (SPOILER ALERT) I actually whooped and hollered when she snapped his neck!
 

Re: Power Question: Purple Man
 

Glad you're enjoying it!  I'm actually using this to chronical our game - because a couple to several weeks pass between games, we actually read these at the beginning of each game, to remind us all where we left off.
 
Your questions:
No, I made that clear to the team - so they have taken Silvercloud to Somewhere, to copy other alien tech, to at least give the sector a fighting chance. My buddy, who is remote most the time and on Zoom uses a dice rolling app.  My wife, who is sitting in the living room with me, in front of our trusty folding gaming table, is seriously rolling huge hands full of dice into a nice wood and felt dice rolling tray-thing and counting them out!  They both get a thrill out of it. It's been great fun.  We have started talking about our next game, since we're likely only a few games from the end now...  Doesn't sound like it's going to be Champions; more likely Shadowrun or something like that.
 
Anywho, glad you're liking it, and I'll post them all here until we're done.
 

Nope, I was just being a sarcastic jerk...  My attempt at humor.

I've committed many over the years.
 
The most recent one was a couple of years ago, running a Pathfinder game, a Paizo AP. It's pretty high level by this point in the game. I modified one of the scenarios from whatever it was to a "hell in the jungle" type situation where the PCs would be hunted through a jungle by a high level, hit and run monster. I was going for a Predator vibe. Being high level Pathfinder it takes a lot of work: going over abilities to make sure I understand them, and then creating scenarios the monster could leverage for greater effect.
 
The PCs take one look at the dense, hot, sweaty jungle and say "We'll fly over that." Because, being high level Pathfinder, everyone had access to flight. Wings, brooms, spells, Baba Yaga's magic mortar. My face must have fallen because the players were all "Oh. Well, we can walk through it, if you like." I said "No, no. This is on me. I'm an idiot."

I appreciate the convenience of the auto dice roller, but I love the idea of rolling buckets full of dice. Glad everyone is having such a blast.
 
Looking forward to the future exciting installments. 👍
 
 

Glad you're enjoying it!  I'm actually using this to chronical our game - because a couple to several weeks pass between games, we actually read these at the beginning of each game, to remind us all where we left off.
 
Your questions:
No, I made that clear to the team - so they have taken Silvercloud to Somewhere, to copy other alien tech, to at least give the sector a fighting chance. My buddy, who is remote most the time and on Zoom uses a dice rolling app.  My wife, who is sitting in the living room with me, in front of our trusty folding gaming table, is seriously rolling huge hands full of dice into a nice wood and felt dice rolling tray-thing and counting them out!  They both get a thrill out of it. It's been great fun.  We have started talking about our next game, since we're likely only a few games from the end now...  Doesn't sound like it's going to be Champions; more likely Shadowrun or something like that.
 
Anywho, glad you're liking it, and I'll post them all here until we're done.
 

I just kinda have Loan-a-Mook as one of the services of VIPER, if the villain in question doesn't have ties to organized crime to get them any other way. 
 
I figure VIPER is always recruiting and always have people on their fringes trying to get hired on. Loan-a-Mook for the mooks is basically "you do this one thing for us and do it well, then we'll think about putting you on the payroll".
 
So VIPER gets a cut of the action from the villain and/or perhaps a favor in return and "tries out" mooks at no particular risk to themselves.

Have you ever wondered how supervillains just starting out get their first minions? What does a minor master villain do when one of their agents gets sick or incapacitated right before a big job?
 
Mook Temps is an underworld temporary help agency that matches mooks and thugs with aspiring supervillains and short handed villain organizations. They also provide technicians for hire.

Bingo!
 
 
Ouch! I've had a few similar "End of Game" scenarios. I think the most infamous one was when I was in high school. Ran a game for a few weeks before dealing with a player who argued with me about our fathers during a session and I ended up kicking him out of my house. Craziness.
 
 
Sometimes a group just needs to end to move on to something cooler. 
 
 
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WomenInRefrigerators

Shoot ‘em in the leg to keep them from getting away then chain ‘em to the table.   That’ll learn ‘em.

My biggest most recent one was an online game over Maptools I think, and skype.  This was years go, before Skype got bought.
 
I had the map all perfectly laid out, with the monsters on it.  But I'd forgotten that they were all marked as hidden, except for a couple because I was working on masking and shadowing, etc.  So the rogue type character sneaks out to spy out the goblin camp and spots five of them.  I didn't pay much attention because I was working on the tools to get stuff set up right so the party goes "five goblins, we can trash them!"  And attacked.

Except there were like fifteen, some of them in igloos, others that should have been in plain sight.  They still talk about that, five goblins.  The PCs won but :/  What's the point of having visual maps if you hide the details?

Well, he was a friend at the time.