Sundog

Proud American
 
Gottfried Willis Oberthson was a second-generation American from Boston. He fought in WWII as a Marine, earning a Silver Star Medal on Guadalcanal and a second on Iwo Jima, and finishing the war as a Master Sergeant. He went on to serve in Korea, winning an eventual promotion to First Sergeant.
Some of the backers of the initial Pentagon viewed what they were doing as requiring a solid and dependable non-com to instill an appropriate level of discipline and adherence to orders to the group. Oberthson was outfitted with the latest tech and arms the USA of 1960 could provide - gyrojet rocket guns, a strength boosting exo-frame, back-mounted concussion grenade launchers. Given the code name Proud American he was viewed as a serious asset.
In the field, things didn't work out that way. Oberthson was used to working with Marine infantry as part of or leading a well-oiled team, and the Pentagon wasn't that, nor were the members willing to be put through his gruelling version of basic training. And his gear was, well, cutting edge - which meant it didn't work as advertised. The gyrojets were useless inside of ten feet, the exo-frame shorted out any time it got wet, and the grenade launchers were so inaccurate he ended up concussing himself more than once.
Worse, however, was Oberthson's attitude to anyone who wasn't white. He was an out-and-out racist and white supremacist, basically unable to work with anyone he saw as "inferior" unless he was in a position of power over them. And then he made their lives hell. If he hadn't had a lot of backing from the hardline military faction supporting the Pentagon project he wold have been the first member expelled.
Even so, after an ugly incident with a Civil Rights protest in '66, Proud American was sidelined. His gear (which had undergone considerable improvement) was copied, and Sergeant Oberthson was basically told to train a new, younger man recently returned from Vietnam - clearly, his replacement. Instead, Oberthson stole the gear, went AWOL, and wasn't heard from again until '72, when he emerged as the "Superhero" White Dragon, "champion" of the KKK. Two years later, A US Army Special Forces team tracked him down in Louisiana and Oberthson was killed in the attempt to arrest him.

Railman
 
A middle aged guy in a classic train engineer's getup, Victor Mengsk uses the power of engineering to solve his difficulties. His only actual power is the ability to grow or shrink objects - thus, his pockets are stuffed with pulleys, frames and winches, and on occasion an actual railway engine. He doesn't tend to be overly useful in a fight (although being able to shrink Grond to 1:100 scale has proved handy) but he always hangs around for the cleanup work.
In his school presentations, he shows kids the power of basic physics and technology, how levers, pulleys and other simple technology can make things so much easier for everyone.

Jack Silver
 
Half-Japanese, half-Korean, half machine. Jack Silver started out as a dying boy, abandoned by his family for his half-caste status, ravaged by congenital conditions, waiting for death in a charity hostel. When the two corporate guys came by and offered him something else...well, he might have been 8, but he wasn't stupid.
They replaced most of his musculature with bioengineered artificial muscle, bones with metal, eyes with advanced cameras. They taught him how to use a sword, a bow, a spear - and then gave him high-tech, advanced versions of those weapons. 
To this day he's not sure who he actually works for. He really doesn't care. His job is to protect the interests of the corporations, and he is glad to do so. He is Jack Silver, and only goes by that name.

BLOCK Chain
 
The PR experts charged with assembling The Informers, where desperate to complete the team before their planned first appearance, so when they received an application from a "Block-Chain" defending an impoverished neighborhood, sent her an acceptance email without a second thought.
 
She turned out to be a chain-weilding street-level martial artist, defending her block from gangs - with no STEM connection at all.  Undeterred, they called their principle who provided her with new nanotech chain of self-replicating links keyed to her so that it moved like an extension of her will, and, if broken or snatched away would repair itself and return to her.  
 
In the meantime, they gave her a crash course in cryptocurrency buzzwords, but it turns out, the discipline and determination to train yourself up to superheroic levels of martial skill works on book learning, too, and she was quickly giving expert-sounding lectures on the subject... and in just a few months had even mastered it, to the further surprise of all involved.
 
"When Bulldozer grabbed hold of my chain, he thought he could use his greater size and strength to drag me around, but each link of the chain builds itself with its own authentication, so it moves only how I want it to."
 
 
So, I was responsible for that debacle, so I'm just throw'n it out there.
 
Whoever wants to post the next team idea, go for it.  

"It is I, Collateral Damage Man!!" as we break into a mansion to liberate a captive there.

Factotum
 
The Council employed Fritz Walsh as he was a brick and could carry a lot of things around. He was the do anything guy so they gave him the name Factotum. He really relished the jobs not when they were robbing banks or museums but were doing dangerous stuff like robbing the military or members of the Underworld. Even stealing from a Mega Villain was a thrill for him as it showed they were not afraid of anyone and the 'rules' did not apply to them. Of course they were careful as mindless slaughter would bring the police down on them like a ton of bricks even if they iced criminals. Fritz never bothered to think what the people they robbed would do, after all contracts on their lives had fallen down flatly and the others were not concerned either.
Fritz could be easily distracted by anything Oriental so seeing a Chinese woman and a Japanese woman at the same time made him lose focus. Long enough for Henry Cranham to sabotage Nic Shaw's tools and the explosives. See Fritz looked after the materials before and after the job and who would tangle with him ? Right ?
Fritz was looking forward to the Frobisher job. Not all the details were clear (that would have been a trap, clearly) but the prize would be worth it and they could easily improvise their way out. When Yeggman's tools would not work and the explosives went off prematurely, Fritz was sent to clear the way and ran right into police and heroes. They had not triggered any alarms so what they hey ? Fritz went tried breaking out through a window only to find it was toughened plastic. It should have been glass. He studied the specs and confirmed things. Evidently the heroes did not know it was not glass either but they made up for things by repeatedly knocking him into it until he passed out as he would not give up peacefully.
Now in prison Fritz is wondering whether is was all Jenny Faceless's fault. He has doubts. What did he miss ? Did the 'Romeo' on the team give details away to their girlfriend ? Did their motormouth friend brag too much about what the group was going to do next ? Or did one of the other's sell the rest out, steal the stuff, sell it and is even now enjoying banana daquiris in the Bahamas ?
 
Fritz would be gutted if he knew his moment of weakness led to Yeggman's injuries
 
(Dark Damsel and Crimson Raven of the ill named 'Harem', Cranham's bodyguards, just had to smile at Walsh. Simple yet effective. And poor Fritz even if he saw them again he would not put two and two together)
If anyone wants a link to the Harem and Cranham's first appearance I'll post it but ask first.

Vector Rainbow
 
VR (yes, she is well aware of the initials) is an astrophysicist by trade. She was involved in an experiment, an attempt to model the inside of a star. She was at the ground zero of a "superpower event" that empowered at least four other people as well.
Her real name is Raquel Washington, and she makes no effort to hide it. She has the power to create light constructs in the form of skeletonized structures, vector lines and beams, both solid and laser in nature. Her riff is to start with a line of white light, and then slowly break it down by colour until she has a complete rainbow hanging in the air.
Raquel is African-American, and she loves going to inner-city schools and less privileged areas like the one she came from. Her family is very proud of her, though she's gotten a certain pushback from extended family, who aren't sure about the whole "rainbow" thing.

Platyputz
 
Arnold K. Vossman was one of the founding members of the Battalion, though they have since done pretty much everything possible since to forget that. He was supposed to be "The Platypus", but the newspapers were somewhat more than unkind. 
His abilities weren't terrible. Arnold's suit gave him sonar, underwater propulsion, enhanced strength and speed and, in a slightly dark aspect for the 1960s, poison injectors (though why exactly he decided to follow the actual Platypus and put them on the backs of his ankles is an ongoing mystery).
The problem was, Arnold was not built for crime. He weighed almost 250Kg, and little of it was muscle. He was capable of waddling slowly towards his targets, and he never once managed to bring his "spurs" to bear on an enemy. Twice he was caught because he literally couldn't fit through the escape route. He was only tolerated because he really was pretty smart - he planned well. But in the end, Ren the Space Weasel and She-Wolf stripped him of his suit and left his overweight, naked ass on a street corner and called the FBI - and this time they wouldn't be breaking him out.
Arnold's story does not have a happy ending. He was released from prison early in 1978 for medical reasons, and within six months his heart had given out. He was buried in a pauper's grave; nobody came to the burial.

Vulgore
 
A demonic entity summoned to this plane by the dark sorcerer A'tep Amon who served his new master as a tool of destruction and death. He was vanquished, along with Amon by the Convocation in Light.  Morgan Ravenscraft removed the runes of control from Vulgore's flesh and made an attempt to reason with the beast. Shockingly this worked and he became reformed. He has joined Pentacle to try and make up for his evil deeds and perhaps earn some form of redemption. He has curbed his more savage instincts, but still makes an extremely formidable foe with his vast strength and nearly indestructible nature. Naturally the public has yet to embrace what amounts to a red scaly skinned horned demon playing hero. Therefore he stays out of view as much as possible and operates against evil in the shadows.

It is a bit difficult for me to do a hero for a group called the Pentacle as they were the big bad guys in the original campaign. Anyway
 
The whole point of Darkrazor was a shadowy figure with a full face mask that came out of the shadows and tore people to ribbons with sharp claws. Mark Crane was selected to wear the suit as he was the most evil of the twins although his twin Charles actually did not do anything wrong. Mark drank, took drugs and beat people up. People had plans for Mark and he was trained to fight in the suit and to overcome locks and security systems. He would be a great spy and assassin. His debut was planned with precision to attack a local politician who was stirring up trouble and that is when things went wrong.
A demonstration blocked the way to the target so the organisation sent in some boys to break up the crowd and crack some skulls. And that is when Darkrazor appeared and attacked the thugs instead.
He would shred their clothing and weapons with the claws and in front of the crowd he took them down without killing anyone but it did terrify the thugs. After they fled Darkrazor disappeared into the city and began a campaign of terror against drug dealers and other criminals.
Other members of the Pentacle heard about the mysterious figure waging war on street crime and confronted him after watching what he was doing. They offered him a berth and he joined.
The organisation believes that Charles took the suit and as he was a Batman fan has just done what his hero would have done. The Pentacle also believe that it is Charles and that Mark is either looking for revenge or is in rehab. They are both wrong. Darkrazor is Mark and what has happened to Charles is unknown. Mark has had something done to his mind to blur telepathy and mind control. He is fighting crime but having gone to the dark side knows exactly what it is like. so he can save others.
Darkrazor is the detective and martial artist of the group

This is from an old COH conversions I did a while back.  
 
This is in Hero format!
 
Background/History: Penelope Ogilvie is your quintessential English young lady. She went to public school, got good grades and looked ready to head into the family business. Which was not very legal. Problem was she hated the life. Her family had become wealthy enough that they could go legitimate. But they were enamoured of the life-style. Then came the Event, when (insert villain) tried to bring an eternal night to the nearby city as a stepping stone to more power. Unfortunately he over extended himself and when the device stopped working he was defeated. But it had an effect on Penelope. Latent powers of darkness and the mind awakened in her. Now she had the power to step away from her family and use her powers to help people that take from them. Only her brother, now a member of (insert evil villain agency) disagreed, and hunts her to try and bring her back into the fold. He doesn’t realize it is a lost cause. Obsidian likes he new life.

Personality/Motivation: Penelope is a curious young lady who wants to make up for all her family’s crimes. That her powers allow her to sneak around effectively, and she has a skill set for getting into places and areas, and she makes for an effective starting investigator. She realizes she needs more skills and is working on trying to find someone to train her!

Quote: If I’m careful, they’ll never notice me.

Powers/Tactics: Obsidian’s powers are a combination of mental powers and darkness. She has a dark shield that gives her protection and allows her to levitate. It also can be extended to darken an area with extra shadows to make it harder to see her (think a dark fog effect). Her other abilities are mental attack that have a visible dark manifestation. Her favourite is the Presence of the Night as it can scare opponents away if she does it right. But she’s not afraid of lashing out with what she thinks will work best.

Campaign Use: A young hero with ties to a criminal life she is trying to leave behind. I am sure you can think of something.

Appearance: Pale peaches and cream complexion and blonde hair, she is 165 cm and 68 KG. Her costume consists of a pair of leggings (dark grey) and a loose top (same) with a dark hood under which she hides her hair.

Cerberbull is exactly what his name implies - a three headed Minotaur. Myth Master wasn't entirely happy with it - he doesn't especially like mixing his myths, and it was Theseus who fought the Minotaur of Crete. But, it counts as both the Cretan Bull and Cerberus, and Myth Master was running out of options.
Cerberbull's teammates aren't over happy either. The beast is stupid, brutish and likes to eat people. But it's undeniably powerful, and very little tends to remain after one of the creature's "triple charges".

The Hippie
 
Where did the Hippie come from? The '60s, man! If he ever had an identity beyond his supranym, he lost it long ago in his haze of acid and other drugs. By rights he should be well and truly dead - at any one time he has far more then a lethal dose of multiple drugs in his system. But he just keeps on going, year after year - what year is it, anyway?
The Hippie's only real power is his regeneration, which may be the most powerful on record. He's literally been flattened by a falling wall, and when the wall was pulled back up, out he popped, good as new. Burning, acid, radiation, cold - they all affect him normally, for about a second. Then he shrugs them off and keeps doing whatever it was he was doing.
He's not usually all that much use in a fight, but he can't stand seeing his "little animal comrades, man" threatened or hurt. He'll even get uncool about it and pull out his .44 Magnum revolver. And sometimes he even remembered to load it.

Kid Pureheart has been a regular on the team for almost four years now. He's actually the third person to have taken up the name and power set - the ability to manipulate "pure light" to flash, blast or even laser villains. Kim Allen Douglas is actually the son of the Kid Pureheart of the 1980s, and nephew of the Kid Pureheart of the 1990s, but this is not widely known, and many outside the team speculate that Kid Pureheart is some kind of immortal, clone or robot. Others note that some of these are ridiculous, since all of the Kids Pureheart have visibly aged while with the team.
The source of al of their powers is a piece of alien technology. It bonds to the back of the wearer, and cannot be removed without their permission - but once removed, it cannot be reattached. More importantly, it only works when the wearer is completely and unquestionably sure they are doing the right thing - making Kid Pureheart useless in situations of moral or ethical ambiguity. There does seem to be an override for this - the second Kid Pureheart was able to command operations by sheer willpower, an act the current holder has never been able to replicate. It was only during this period that Kid Pureheart, despite often being called the heart of the team, was allowed to lead it.
This has caused more than a small amount of family friction. Kim's father has become an evangelistic preacher, and Kim follows that path, while his uncle Mike is a notably progressive head of a charity group. Of late, Kim has been wondering if the strictures of his belief are what have prevented him from making the breakthrough Mike did.
Kim is also almost 18, the age when both his father and uncle bowed out of the role, and his maturing mentality and conscience are making it increasingly difficult to use his powers at all. Plus, in a recent encounter with Ren the Space Weasel Kim found himself swayed by the villain's positions and arguments.. The obvious replacement is Mike's 12 year old daughter, but both Kim and his father question the suitability of a girl Kid Pureheart. Mike is insistant, though, and Laura wants the position. The decision is Kim's to make, and he has not yet decided.

I'd go with "The Price of Dreams". Just sounds like a lot of fun.

Warrior 
 
Carl Thomas grew up in the streets of Auckland, where he saw the worst of the interactions between Maori and pakeha culture. Drunkenness, drugs and violence were a part of his life, and he grew up with a continuing lack of respect for his own Maori people. He was fortunate enough to have a pair of sensible and sober parents, but so many around him did not.
But when he was 16, after a minor scuffle with a gang of local toughs, his parents sent Carl to live with his Aunt and Uncle in a small town on North Island. And there he saw a very different scene. Maori and pakeha lived together, in a shared culture. There were differences, but not terrible ones, and they could be worked out. There were problems, but those problems didn't look as insurmountable as they had back in the city.
And something else happened. A car accident occurred, and a woman was trapped in the vehicle. Carl literally ripped the car apart with his bare hands to get her out.
Since then, Carl has devoted himself to being a modern man, a modern hero, and a modern Maori. He wears comfortable, stylish clothes, but has had a full set of facial tattoos applied (which was difficult, with his steel-hard skin). He champions the traditions of his people, and also the requirements of the the modern era, and tries to stand as a symbol of what can be - a synthesis of all that is good in tradition and today.

Warrior 
 
Carl Thomas grew up in the streets of Auckland, where he saw the worst of the interactions between Maori and pakeha culture. Drunkenness, drugs and violence were a part of his life, and he grew up with a continuing lack of respect for his own Maori people. He was fortunate enough to have a pair of sensible and sober parents, but so many around him did not.
But when he was 16, after a minor scuffle with a gang of local toughs, his parents sent Carl to live with his Aunt and Uncle in a small town on North Island. And there he saw a very different scene. Maori and pakeha lived together, in a shared culture. There were differences, but not terrible ones, and they could be worked out. There were problems, but those problems didn't look as insurmountable as they had back in the city.
And something else happened. A car accident occurred, and a woman was trapped in the vehicle. Carl literally ripped the car apart with his bare hands to get her out.
Since then, Carl has devoted himself to being a modern man, a modern hero, and a modern Maori. He wears comfortable, stylish clothes, but has had a full set of facial tattoos applied (which was difficult, with his steel-hard skin). He champions the traditions of his people, and also the requirements of the the modern era, and tries to stand as a symbol of what can be - a synthesis of all that is good in tradition and today.

Huitzilopochtli, taking his name from the Aztec god of war, led the Savage Seven in their brutal attack. He was perhaps the sole member of the team to come by his name and image honestly - Julio Amacaebie actually was of Mexica descent, though whether he was actually Aztec is questionable.
Julio was a man consumed by hate. Hate for the entire human race, all their doing and all that they held dear. He saw himself as a cleansing fire that would eradicate the stain of mankind rom the face of the earth, and he would do it with their own perverted "science". A gifted engineer, he snuck onto a Mexican Army base and stole an experimental power suit, being careful to snatch the blueprints and data pack as well. The basic suit was fine, but he then upgraded it with a high-powered flame-thrower, anti-personnel rockets and machine guns, while altering it's bland appearance to be that of the traditional depictions of the Aztec god of war and the sun.
Huitzilopochtli opened the attack by confronting Quick-Draw. The pistolero's various types of shot bounced off, but Huitzilopochtli's MGs carved the young man into hamburger. Next he managed to find Sand Rat, and the shrinker's diminutive size gave him no protection against area-effect flamethrowers. He expended the last of his anti-personnel rockets on the weakened Combine before finding the badly injured Lady Sunshine being helped to safety by the also injured Batwing and Silver Spur. Batwing, having one wing crippled by Christi Corpse, could not escape his flamethrowers, and Silver Spur overstrained his ability to deflect bullets trying to protect them from Huitzilopochtli's bursts of MG fire. Out of ammo, Huitzilopochtli broke his neck.
Then Huitzilopochtli pulled out an obsidian knife and carved out Lady Sunshine's heart.
Still covered in blood from this brutal act, Julio was distracted by the sound of a crowd. He got to the scene just in time to see Wentworth Prescott torn apart by the mob, and Prescott's building go up in flames. Out of ammo, almost out of fuel, Huitzilopochtli realised it was only a matter of time before they would pry him out of his suit. So he enacted his emergency escape system and the suit rocketed into the sky.
The g-forces rendered Julio unconscious, but he woke to discover the system had worked, dropping him hundreds of miles away. His suit was out of power, but he had a survival pack on the outside and he was sure he could find his way out of this desert. Yes, his team was dead, but he could make another. It wasn't like he'd ever intended them to survive.
But the rear hatch was warped by the escape rockets. It wouldn't open.
Julio was locked in a steel coffin in the middle of Death Valley, and the sun was coming up. It took him many hours to die.

The Comanche's real name was never determined, though his membership in any native American tribe has been denied repeatedly by their various authorities. The difficulty lies in his death, which was one of the most brutal of the Savages.
The Comanche wore what can only be called a parody of traditional plains tribe garb, and fought with a repeating carbine and a steel hatchet. His sole victim was the Crusader Lamplady, and it was this that roused the ire of his own killers - Lamplady's powers were purely healing and succour based, and she had a reputation for aiding and supporting others. Comanche caught her healing a group of innocent bystanders from the fight, and sadistically beat the young woman to death with his enhanced strength (which was his sole actual super-power).
His end came when a couple of road workers, alerted to the situation, arrived on the scene with shotguns. They blew out the man's knees with buckshot, disarmed him, and then used their road repair tools to coat him in boiling pitch - which they then used a blowtorch to ignite. By the time the fires died down, nothing but scorched bone remained.
Sean Lerrier and Peter MacGuire were charged with manslaughter for the act, but the Jury refused to convict them.

La Araña
 
La Araña (the spider) hails from El Salvador. She was raised as Esmeralda Anna Mariana Perez, an orphan following the brutalities of the civil war there, managing to attain a good education despite her bereft status by winning a variety of scholarships and prizes, and wound up with doctorates in physics and chemistry, but was careful not to let people know how easy that was for her - her mutant capability is intellect. She could have gotten ten doctorates in the time she took to get two.
 
She settled into a comfortable position with the current government, and was soon running her own research establishment. She kept climbing the ranks...until one day she found that her newly acquired clearances had revealed something about herself.
 
Her parents had not been killed in a guerrilla ambush, as she had been told. Her father had not been a country doctor. He and her mother had been peace activists, seeking to find a peaceful solution to the country's woes. So the government of the time, in colludance with the CIA, had them murdered. She even found her real name.
 
Over the next six months, the men who killed her family died horrible, lingering deaths from untraceable and exotic toxins. Then she did the same to the CIA agents involved - but a couple of top flight FBI investigators managed to trace the chemicals back to her, and she was forced to flee.
 
La Araña (She now uses no other name) took most of the budget for her research establishment with her when she left. A stay in Cuba got her access to old Soviet supertech, which she repurposed into her iconic battlesuit - four arms (the lower two run by AI servitors), capacities to spray a wide variety of entangles and swing lines, and several varieties of sprayable, injectable and contact poisons. Then she went looking for people who hated the USA as much as she did.

La Araña
 
La Araña (the spider) hails from El Salvador. She was raised as Esmeralda Anna Mariana Perez, an orphan following the brutalities of the civil war there, managing to attain a good education despite her bereft status by winning a variety of scholarships and prizes, and wound up with doctorates in physics and chemistry, but was careful not to let people know how easy that was for her - her mutant capability is intellect. She could have gotten ten doctorates in the time she took to get two.
 
She settled into a comfortable position with the current government, and was soon running her own research establishment. She kept climbing the ranks...until one day she found that her newly acquired clearances had revealed something about herself.
 
Her parents had not been killed in a guerrilla ambush, as she had been told. Her father had not been a country doctor. He and her mother had been peace activists, seeking to find a peaceful solution to the country's woes. So the government of the time, in colludance with the CIA, had them murdered. She even found her real name.
 
Over the next six months, the men who killed her family died horrible, lingering deaths from untraceable and exotic toxins. Then she did the same to the CIA agents involved - but a couple of top flight FBI investigators managed to trace the chemicals back to her, and she was forced to flee.
 
La Araña (She now uses no other name) took most of the budget for her research establishment with her when she left. A stay in Cuba got her access to old Soviet supertech, which she repurposed into her iconic battlesuit - four arms (the lower two run by AI servitors), capacities to spray a wide variety of entangles and swing lines, and several varieties of sprayable, injectable and contact poisons. Then she went looking for people who hated the USA as much as she did.

Miki James  is a small woman, with a happy, smiling demeanour. Most of the time she works in a small tax firm as an agent, a job she enjoys, helping people travel the labyrinthine paths of the tax code. She lives a quiet life, looking after her elderly Japanese grandmother alongside her wife of five years.
 
She doesn't like trouble. Avoids it when she can. But if she decides you're the problem, you get removed. Most of the time, Miki has no superpowers. But when she decides to act, she's unstoppable - and that's fairly literal. If all she's up against is guys with guns, her skin gets as hard as steel, and she gets the strength to break those guns. When superbeings are involved, she simply becomes powerful enough to defeat them. ALL OF THEM. Not that she hurts anyone - she just rounds them up and puts them in jail. They say that the humiliation of being a powerful brick and still getting picked up and carried to a cell by a tiny Asian woman is as much of a counter to recidivism as any program in Stronghold.
 
Miki wears a purple scarf over her face when she acts, but everyone knows who she is.

The American Soldier!
 
You've all heard of the guy who was desperate to serve, who volunteered for a super-soldier program, who became a paragon of the virtues of his nation and of moral and ethical probity?
Yeah, that's not this guy.
Peter Briggs was drafted in '67. He intended to run away to Canada, but he was too stoned to make the trip. He was stoned all through boot camp too. At least until his sergeant found out he was financing his own habits by selling drugs to his fellow recruits. 
So, they gave him an offer, participate in a new super-soldier program or get locked up in a military prison forever. Peter probably should have read the fine print...but he was stoned.
The (cut-price) super drugs mixed with Peter's already severely altered neural biochemistry in weird ways. Sometimes he was a speedster, minutes later he'd be a brick, a little while later everybody in a one-kilometer radius was experiencing whatever sort of high Peter was enjoying at the time. After about a year, they managed to get something of a handle on what powers he'd have at a given time, by giving him more drugs. Peter was having the time of his stoned-out life.
They worked up a stupid looking but very nationalistic costume, and set up a few (staged) battles with NVA "supers". Problem was, they really had made Peter into a quite powerful superbeing, but one that was continuously out of his gourd and darn near uncontrollable. Several of the actors in the filmed propaganda pieces were seriously injured, and the one attempt to use "The American Soldier!" in the field resulted in massive casualties on BOTH sides. Peter apparently had hallucinated an attack by "Cadillac Men", and had used a spontaneously manifesting Napalm Cannon to drive them away. 
By now the Vietnam war was coming to an end, and the super-soldier program was an embarrassment and a liability. It's sole success being even worse. Peter now lives at an isolated base in Nevada, still out of his alleged mind and apparently no older then he was in '67. His minders just keep him doped to the gills and watching continuous daytime TV. He's broken out a few times, causing major property damage each time, but he can usually be tempted back by promises of more drugs. And the American Soldier! has been well and truly cancelled.

Pathfinder - The Mummy's Mask - Boss Fight
We've reached the culmination of the entire campaign - one last level of the Sky Pharaoh's pyramid, and a confrontation with the cruel undead ruler himself. It's probably a good point to take stock of our abilities and resources. Over the last three years of play we've gone from 1st level to 16th Lvl Mixed Combat Archeologists, and would probably be even more experienced (and scarred) if we didn't keep avoiding side quests and obstacles, and using diplomacy instead of weapons.

Nemat Merituzat, AKA Nemat of Valat: Now very much an Inquisitor of Wadjet, and more than enough power to back up his support of the Old Pantheon. Popular combat tactics include growing to enormous size and enchanting his weapon of choice with whatever Aspects are going to make his target most unhappy.

Onka the Half-orc Spell Sage: His mastery of magical theory and animated constructs has probably saved our lives more than once, given we went into the campaign armed to face undead and keep running into assorted golems, living statues, and automata. Still wearing the eponymous Mummy’s Mask, which contains Hakotep’s ka and hopefully won’t lead to any issues later.

Asrian al-Adjir: Has had a bunch of mental adjustments over the past couple of years. She's fallen in love, gained a new level of determination to protect her loved ones, and her body image issues have, through the encouragement of her friends and lover, been significantly reduced. She has also taken her art of combat to levels she has never conceived of before, and reached the pinnacle of her mystic abilities. She isn't quite sure what she's going to do now, aside from marrying Zenobia.

Zenobia the Gnoll: Still firmly faithful to the Cleansing Light, Sarenrae, although under increasing stress every time she sees her fiance and found family put themselves in harm’s way. Does have some plans for after the wedding, assuming she can keep everybody alive until then.

We’ve amassed a large number of useful magical items, some acquired, some created to order by Onka in his hyperbolic time chamber, and some purchased on quick teleportation trips back to town. And we can use Portable Holes, Create Constructs, Summon Planar Ally, and Summon Monsters, to get all our allies and Hakotep’s disgruntled former employees together and accrue more. And if the Sky Pharaoh is one of those undead that regenerate, we have some 100 needles designed to stop assassination victims coming back to complain. With any luck we now outnumber anybody left in the Pyramid, and Hakotep will roll over to avoid a much-deserved beatdown.

Zenobia: Lets find him, talk him down, and resolve all this peacefully.
Onka OoC: Spoken like a true Sarenite who will be going last in the initiative order.

It seems unlikely that anybody else in the party will GIVE Zenobia a chance to parley with the Final Boss. Even assuming we survive that long - the gynosphinx that Nemat summons with a request for assistance has a LONG list of Hakotep’s most favoured minions and monsters that we haven’t encountered yet. Zenobia’s face becomes increasingly aghast at the recitation of horrors.

We descend into the horrible depths, with superhero landings. This might have been unwise given Onka is back in his Ancient Osiriani Mecha Suit.

Zenobia: This big crack in the floor wasn’t from you landing, was it?

We’ve landed in what appears to be some kind of engine room, possibly, although one of the engines is broken and spewing pink smoke. There’s also some kind of spirit engineer, who appears to be a tad cranky with Hakotep, and a bit cranky with the state of the pyramid.

Ghost: I take it you’re here to take the Pharaoh ‘out’.
Onka: Absolutely.
Asrian: That’s the plan.
Zenobia: I keep suggesting we talk to him first but they don’t agree.
Nemat: Not This Time!

Nemat: We need to put him down and send him on to his reward.
Onka: I think you mean his Just Desserts.

She’s a Shory Engineer.

Nemat: But the Shory are long dead.
Asrian & Zenobia: So’s she.

She’s also Jeshura’s sister, and had been murdered by her, so it’s just as well we didn’t bring Jeshura into the pyramid for the final fight. Zenobia nearly blabs that we know her, until Asrian shuts her up.

Zenobia: Would you like us to help you on to your final rest?
Shory Engineer: I wouldn’t mind seeing my husbands again. Assuming they weren’t too stupid to find the door to the afterlife.
Onka: Part of me wants to bottle her and take her home with me.

We’ll probably have to destroy the pyramid’s power source to release her ghost. We press on - using the door in the other direction we intended, on the ghost’s recommendation - she designed the pyramid after all.

Shory Engineer: Have fun storming the castle.

We do the obvious thing, and try to go through the wall instead. It turns out the designers of the traps thought of the obvious thing too, and a Symbol of Insanity goes off.

Shory Engineer: I wouldn’t do that if I w- oh dear.

It also appears that the ghost’s information is out of date - the short corridor beyond is lined with sealed chambers, that Nemat can check for undead without even opening the doors. That doesn’t stop him drilling holes in said doors to check. It would appear that one chamber has a teleportation circle, but there’s no safe way to check where it goes, and while the spell in question prevents teleportation anywhere innately dangerous, there’s still plenty of ways they can kill you.

Zenobia: Such as onto a frictionless floor overlooking a chasm?
Nemat: Or just to a point several miles above the ground.

On the other hand we still have Overland Flight going. Still probably wiser to check the other corridors first.

Zenobia: I wonder how that gynosphinx does her make-up, with paws.
Nemat: Prestidigitation.
Onka: Maybe she’s born with it.
Nemat: Maybe it’s Maybelline.

GM: This next bit was supposed to be a cool reveal, but you WOULD summon somebody with Legend Lore.
Zenobia OoC: We always do our research first. It’s like having a high Library Use skill in Call of Cthulhu.

The next chamber contains that Herald of Hakotep we’re run into before - although it appears her rather attractive appearance in those previous meetings was because she was wearing somebody else’s skin as a costume. She doesn’t look nearly as appealing now, unless you like flayed corpses. We’re not about to kinkshame you.

Ain-Mekh: It was my belief we would meet again. Welcome to the workshop of Anubis - Anubis as he should be. Soldiers of the Sky Pharaoh! Slay these intruders so that we might add their numbers to our strength!

Zenobia OoC: My go now?
Nemat OoC: What? No, it’s Asrian’s turn - you’re merely engaged, you’re not a single organism yet.
Zenobia OoC: We’re only joined at the hips sometimes.*lewd smile*

Asrian casts Wall of Sound across the room - which is especially effective since the herald’s back-up archers keep setting it off again and hurting their boss more. We very probably could have killed her by throwing handfuls of pebbles through the barrier.

GM: At this rate she’s going to be killed by her own henchmen.
Nemat: Par for the course with us.

Zenobia OoC: That herald of Hakotep frightened my fiance. So, hopefully the boundless love and mercy of Sarenrae will render her down to her constituent atoms.*Channel Ray of Positive Energy, with added Sun’s Blessing and Beacon of Faith*

Onka: I wish wizards had some kind of magical sleeve we could pull Rods and Wands out of as needed.
Nemat: We do, it’s the Wizard’s Golfbag. Also known as the Efficient Quiver.

In the end we barely need to do anything to her henchmen - they follow their previous orders and march straight through the Wall of Sound and blow themselves to pieces.

Asrian: That spell was a lot more effective than I thought it would be. Not that I’m complaining.

Among the valuables we sieve out the debris are a couple of interesting spell scrolls. Some of them rendered illegible because of exploded pickled viscera, but Prestidigitation deals with that problem instantly. The next chamber is knee-deep in mummified bodies, more bodies hanging from chains, hieroglyphs apparently drawn in blood, and ominous glowing sigils.

Zenobia: … can we NOT go through this room?

Even if it was merely the site of a major industrial necromancy accident, we can avoid it using Tef-naju’s Stone Shaping abilities, and we don’t even have to go all the way through in one go - letting Nemat use his Tombsight through a now paper-thin wall will help avoid any surprises. In fact, whoever is on the other side of the wall is going to be more surprised when we bypass half the pyramid. In fact, since Tef-Naju has unlimited uses of Stone Shape and the pyramid’s engineers can’t have installed Symbols of Insanity EVERYWHERE, we can install our own secret tunnels inside every wall, like a party of heavily armed termites.

Asrian: More like a worm through an apple.

And with a Silence spell up nobody is going to hear us tunneling away and drilling spyholes. Localised Silence will also be useful if we have to use Wall of Sound again. The power of the undead and constructs Nemat can detect strongly suggests we’re about to burst out of the wall right behind Hakotep’s throne. Alternatively, Asrian can just roll a coin enchanted with Magnifying Chime out into the room and do even more damage. Although we might have to back off in a hurry since after a few rounds of Chime the walls and ceilings are going to be coming down too.

The GM has gone rather quiet.

Nemat’s Player: Well, I’m going to go get a drink while the GM works out how much damage that did.
Asrian’s player: Me too.
Zenobia OoC: So Mr. GM, how many weeks of play have we just bypassed?
GM: No. Comment.

Especially if we use the Limited Wish scroll to ensure Hakotep fails his Spell Resistance check.

Zenobia: I’m glad I thought of that.
Nemat, Asrian, etc:*pleased agreement*
Zenobia’s Player: Hooray! Zoidberg is useful.

Chiming Coin: womWomWOMWOMMWOMM!!WOMMM!!!!!!
Nemat: You might want to come over here, Zenobia.
Onka OoC: ‘Does this sound like thermonuclear detonation to you?’

Nemat: I don’t know how they expected us to deal with this, but I’m glad we did it this way.
Onka: Make of me still wants to have cast Magnifying Chime on the Mech suit and march it into the room. ‘You still want your mask back?’
Nemat: But it would still take damage.
Onka: Nope - the spell radiates out.
Nemat: Good point.
Onka: ‘Ok, everybody budge in here with me.’

Four rounds later stone is starting to crack, but it’s not until the 5th round that Hakotep figures out what’s happening. But the effect is now wide enough that he can’t flee around the edges and get away.

Nemet: See, I told you the throne room was through there - once you’re seen enough Ancient Osirion architecture it gets a bit predictable.

GM: I can’t believe you cast this at 16th Level.
Onka: Be glad it wasn’t me casting it or it would be Level 20 with my Spell Sage feats.
Zenobia: I wonder if this is going to flood the throne room with lava from the fire level.
Onka’s player: Well we can always do it again - we can use Hero Points to restore the spell slot.
GM: What?? WHAT????
Asrian’s player: And I still have 6th Level slots free anyway.

Alas, his throne room is large enough that if he cowers right in a corner he’ll only be affected by the final round of damage.

Zenobia: Well, at least we made him hide in a corner.
Hakotep The First: I am the Sky Pharoah, master of the worl- what’s that noise?

Hakotep’s throne room is thoroughly trashed. Unfortunately, our tunnel is revealed as well, so sniping the Sky Pharoah in the back of the head with a Greater Arrow of Undead Slaying, through another spyhole, is probably off the table. Alas, his four golems are all the clay variety, and completely undamaged by sonic effects, and are immune to most other magics well. On the other hand, Clay Golems are also notorious for going berserk mid-battle, and half the golems have already gone berserk and started attacking the splinters of Hakotep's throne since there was no other target in sight when Hakotep realised how much trouble he was in. In fact, Hakotep doesn’t even know we’re there until HE staggers past the hole.

Zenobia: I guess this is where we found out what the Ancient Osiriani for WTF???? Is.

Hakotep stares down the tunnel, completely ignoring Tef-Naju, Mohebi the sphinx, and our entire party, with the exception of the Bronze Sentinel mecha suit that Onka has been piloting for months now, and within which Onka is still wearing the Mummy’s Mask that the entire campaign is named after.

Hakotep I:*snarls* My Ka!*casts Meteor Swarm*

Which may have been a mistake on his part since he’s in range of his own fireball, but doesn’t help us in the slightest.

GM: The guy had a super-impressive speech he was going to say from his throne, but NOOO, you had to throw a coin at him.

Onka: I’m surprised he uses clay golems - actually, no I’m not, he has a history of bad decisions. He was blessed by the Bad Decision Fairy when he was born.

One of those bad decisions was choosing to stand between us, and one of the Clay Golems that Onka just assumed control of. Targeting Asrian with a Boneshatter spell was probably a bad decision too, since it will probably ensure Zenobia tears his head off and shoves up his wrinkled, mummified arse.

Zenobia does need to tap Asrian with a Wand of Restoration, first, to remove her Fatigued condition.

Zenobia: I’m sure that wand will be useful on our wedding night, too.

The last golem still under Hakotep’s control chooses this moment to go berserk. Not ideal, but probably more useful than letting Hakotep keep hold of its leash. Hakotep finds himself in a not-very-good position.

Hakotep I: Who let a sphinx in here??
Nemat OoC: He’s currently being attacked by a sphinx, a tomb guardian, an angry archaeologist, one of his own golems, and... A ninja?
Zenobia OoC: Garlic Woman.
Nemat OoC: And there's a gnoll up the back there that’s carrying a symbol of Sarenrae???

Hakotep attempts to retreat, despite all the rubble. We, of course, are still flying.

Zenobia: Flee and die a coward!

And die he does, as Nemat descends on him like the wrath of God. Which as an Inquisitor of Wadjet, he is, since no Pharoah rules without Wadjet's blessing. He ends the Forgotten Pharaoh in his own throne room.

Nemat: In the name of Wadjet, I deny your rule!
Zenobia: May the mercy of Sarenrae guide you to your final rest, whatever rest you deserve.

Presumably, the next few hours will be spent sending the rest of his undead minions after their master, making absolutely sure Hakotep can’t come back, and then getting on with our personal plans.

Zenobia: Four funerals and a wedding.
Onka: I’ll have to make you a house.
Zenobia: We can get one in Wati easily enough.
Nemat: Just give it chicken legs.
Onka: There’s a perfectly good flying pyramid available - one previous owner.

We grab Hakotep’s remains and leave the golems to their crazed devices.

Zenobia’s player: It’s a bit strange that it’s clay golems that go berserk - historically speaking those were the most reliable golems.

GM: The fact that you’re going backwards through the rest of the rooms makes most of the traps redundant.
Zenobia’s player: Good.
Nemat’s Player: Sorry, not sorry.

We do run into one of Hakotep’s generals.Riding a chariot at 100kph along the roof of a large chamber. So it’s more likely she’s going to run into us.

Asrian: Hold, general! There is no need for us to fight!

She doesn’t seem amenable. The Wall of Stone Tef-Naju creates in front of her isn’t very amenable to being hit at 100kph either. Being hit by Sarenrae’s Tactical Nuke (Sunburst) probably even less so. Further, Onka’s mecha suit is mostly immune to her attacks, especially since his poppets keep opening and closing the firing hatches. But at least Asrian gave General Tarawet a chance - maybe Zenobia’s morals are rubbing off on her. In the end it’s some offensive Healing that takes Terawet down, but it’s Nemat not Zenobia that does it.

We still have to find Hakotep’s wife, the cultist.

Nemat: She’s going to be a problem in her own right.
Zenobia: And I don’t want her crashing the wedding.
Onka: That’s why you put a permanent Symbol of Healing on the venue.

One of the other guardians accuses us of being intruders, but we confuse it briefly by pointing out that we’re leaving the throne room. Unfortunately it still attacks and constricts our new gynosphinx ally. And starts dehydrating everybody nearby. And regenerates as fast as we can hurt it. And has horrible spells.

Nemat OoC: I think we’ve found the Secret Boss of this level.

Thankfully, Onka can banish it to an extradimensional Maze it will be too stupid for solve for 10 minutes, given us a chance to heal up and Restore ourselves, and prepare our best attacks for the moment it reappears. But even with the prep time, we’re extremely lucky that Zenobia offensive Heal does 150HP damage and Onka’s Acid Arrow finishes it for good. It’s probably just as well we went after Hakotep first, because some of his underlings are a lot more dangerous than he was.

Of course, Nemat’s extensive knowledge of good burial practice does tell us that the only way to put Hakotep to permanent rest is to restore him to his sarcophagus, along with all his assorted parts, so with any luck will find that somewhere down here too.

Zenobia: It would be amusing if we think we’re leaving the pyramid and we actually stumble across his tomb chamber by mistake.

One possible hidden chamber is protected by a riddle. The obvious answer doesn’t work, surprisingly - when you live in a country like Osiria, that’s been having riddle contests for thousands of years, the old classics tend to be pretty well known. Happily, we have a sphinx in the party.

Onka: Hey, Mohebi, do you know this one?

Onka: Let’s do our usual thing and go through the wall.
Nemat: We haven’t got this far by using doors.

Zenobia looks like she’s going to seek parley with the next bunch of undead, but pauses.

Zenobia: Do you think gnolls can be redeemed?
Nemat: Of course.
Asrian: You’re not an undead monster.
Zenobia: Many people would say my kind are monsters. And we’ve given undead a chance before.
Nemat: The Undead we have parleyed with before were undead through no fault of their own - these individuals willingly chose their path.
Zenobia: I see. It’s not that they were born monsters, but chose to become them.
Nemat: Monsters aren’t born
Zenobia: *twitch*
Nemat: Well, goblins. But most ‘monsters’ simply need an opportunity to learn a better path.
Zenobia: As I did. I see. You have relieved many of my concerns, friend Nemat.

There’s another alchemical barrier, which Onka investigates.

Onka OoC: Well, I can tell what it is by taste but I am now dead.

It’s Nemat’s Tombsight that saves us again, because it makes it quite difficult for any kind of undead to sneak up on us. At least the undead in question is intelligent enough to be sneaky, which makes an interesting change. Most of Hakotep’s minions aren’t exactly subtle. Although this one is not exactly as threatening as Imhotep’s sandstorm form from the movie.

Zenobia: He’s an itty-bitty little sandstorm.
GM: He is, he’s Small.
Zenobia OoC: Does anybody have a DustBuster?

Zenobia: Well, it’s intelligent enough to sneak up on us.
Nemat: Which doesn’t necessarily mean much - it’s not intelligent enough to realise that sneaking up on this party is a bad idea.

He’s certainly wildly outmatched by opponents that can walk in and out of the walls at will, or bunker down inside nearly impregnable armour, or blast them with Positive Energy around corners. Being mostly composed of dust would appear to leave him quite flammable, too, at least once Zenobia’s Channel Positive Energy is applied. A few items are acquired that would probably have been quite useful if we’d gone through the pyramid in the order the creators intended.

Zenobia: Well, at least it will be an interesting curio for the museum…they won’t be able to Clone Hakotep from this, will they?
Asrian: I think they require a pound of flesh for that. But it all ends up with pitchforks and torches.

At least we find the right sarcophagus, eventually.

Zenobia: Do we have any way to properly record the moment? We are sending the Forgotten Pharaoh to his final rest. Anybody want to say anything?
Asrian: I have some final words - let me check for traps first.
Onka: Are those your final words?

They might well have been her final words if she hadn’t been that cautious. The Pharaoh spared no expense on this room. Of course we have enough excavating equipment on us, including block and tackle and animated ropes, to set off the traps without danger to us. Time to refill that fancy coffin with a mixed assortment of Pharaoh-bits.

Zenobia: Any last words?
Asrian: Good riddance you stupid loser.
Zenobia: … fair enough.

We do have one problem - Onka seems really, really, REALLY reluctant to take off the Mummy’s Mask. At least until he uses his four-leafed clover.

Nemat: I was going to cast Remove Curse.
Asrian: I was just going to sleight-of-hand it off him.
Zenobia: You okay there, friend?
Onka: Like I wasn’t prepared for that - I made an anti-possession amulet the week we got the mask.

GM: The Mask of the Forgotten Pharaoh now covers the visage of the one for whom it was fashioned 6,000 years ago. For a moment, all is silent in the crypt. Then, light seems to flicker within the mask’s sightless eyes before slowly expanding to cover its entire golden surface.
A ghostly figure rises above the pharaoh’s dead body—Hakotep as he appeared at the height of his reign: strong, determined, and ruthless. His eyes glare at the Covenant of Wati in pure contempt. But then the form begins to dissipate, lose shape, and slowly blow away like rings of smoke in a breeze. Faint whispers of diminishing protest drift about the crypt, until they too disappear, leaving only the silence of a grave.
At long last, the soul of the Sky Pharaoh passes on into the afterlife and the judgment that awaits there. And as the apparition fades away -
Zenobia: We catch a glimpse of a long line of people putting on brass knuckles?
Nemat: No no, a set of scales, and a feather. We know he’s going to fail, but he still gets tested.

There IS an unearthly, blood-curdling scream from somewhere in the pyramid the moment Hakotep disperses for good.

Onka OoC: Right, let’s go find his wife and get a Level Up.

Atom Smith
 
Conceived in the closing days of WWII for use in an anticipated atomic war in Europe, the idea was to combine the armor & firepower of a tank with the mobility and versatility of infantry, the result was one of the earliest powered-armor suits, a very heavy fission-powered affair that proved impractical to mass produce but saw limited success as a military-sponsored super-hero battling giant monsters and other threats.  It was not popular with the press nor the anti-war and anti-nuke crowds and was decommissioned in 70s, declassified in the 90s, and quietly scrapped and sold piecemeal in the midst of the Great Recession.
Today, an obviously re-assembled, refurbished, & upgraded version (minus the missiles & tank gun) operates as a retro-patriotic arch-conservative supervillain.  With a 50's-style 'atom' design on his chest, and a scaled up blacksmith's hammer in hand, he uses the name, Atom Smith, a pun on Wealth of Nations author, Adam Smith.  While the armor is strong enough to handle it's own considerable bulk (2 levels of growth and several of DI), its primary power, obviously not part of its original design, is the seemingly ex-nillo creation of wrought-iron objects - walls, riveted plates, chains, manacles, wrecking balls, or whatever else suits the wearer's fancy, which he can then move about at will, apparently through some sort of magnetic control.
Since getting a lumbering piece of cold war junk working would require incredible resources, the general assumptions is that Atom Smith is some mad billionaire industrialist (though, most heavy industries are offshored and/or run by giant corporations, these days, so there's even a conspiracy theory that the armor is sponsored by China or Russia). 
 
As a bonus, chose the secret ID/origin you prefer:
(OK, yeah, I just couldn't make up my mind)