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Querysphinx

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  4. Avengers: The Next Generation on Hero Central

    in Champions

    Posted

    Re: Avengers: The Next Generation on Hero Central

     

    Never mind the Tigra claim. I found an Idea that flows better for me.

     

    RIO

     

    Morris Bench was no stranger to the ugly side of life. He’d prowled the underbelly of every filthy warf district from New York to Singapore, and that was before the accident that gave him super powers and turned him into Hydroman. After that, it just got dirtier. There ought to be money to be had in awesome powers of water. Unfortunately, something always got in his way. That something was usually Spiderman, though occasion squabbles between his teammates did the job. Whatever the reason, victory eluded him.

     

    During one of his downtimes between grabs for riches, glory, and revenge, in the U.S. Morris drifted down to Brazil, where he worked, as he was wont to do, as hired muscle for a crime lord named Fausto de Jesús. Fausto, like so many of Morrie’s employers, was an arrogant, prideful man who looked down on superhumans as troglodytes fit only to serve as foot soldiers in the wars of men. After all, he, Fausto de Jesús could buy and sell superhumans by the handful.

     

    Morrie resented Fausto’s attitude, but Fausto paid his bills on time, with bonuses, so Morrie kept his tongue and temper in check.

     

    What neither man counted on was Fausto’s wife, Olivia

     

    A former Miss Universe contender, Olivia was trying desperately to fend off younger rivals for her husband’s fickle affections. The only thing that could cement her position was to give Fausto an heir.

     

    Unfortunately, Fausto was no giant in the fertility department, and she had begun to despair. In desperation she started looking for surrogates, men who could be counted on not to rat her out to her husband. Taciturn Morrie was one such man.

     

    Morrie hadn’t any idea that Olivia was pumped up on fertility drugs. He wouldn’t have care, either way, but bedding Fausto’s wife was a good way to spit a gob in the scum-lord’s beer. Beside’s she was still a gorgeous woman.

    As soon as she knew she was pregnant, Olivia convinced Fausto he was the father. It was wasn’t hard. He was incapable of believing he could be cuckolded.

     

    Nine months later, Antónia was born.

     

    Wealth and privilege were her lot in life. Her father doted on her, and kept her complete sheltered from his criminal activities. She went to the best schools and had the best teachers, everything her heart desired.

     

    What Antónia's heart desired though, her father could not provide. She wanted something more than extravagant indolence. She wanted more than the safe challenges her father permitted. She wanted to do some good in the world so she enrolled in medical school.

     

    It was during her residency that the vortex of her father's world sucked her in. Antónia was working in the children's ward and the central hospital in Rio De Janeiro when the masked gunmen burst in. "That's her!"

     

    Antónia saw the guns and threw up her hands, thinking of the children. "Don't shoot!" The lead gunman laughed. "Shoot a pretty prize like you. I don't think so." They seized Antónia, stuffed her head in a sack, and dragged her to a waiting van. "Your father's going to pay a mint for you."

     

    Terror raced through Antónia's veins. She began to sweat. All of her clothing soaked through. Her whole body felt squishy, like a plastic sack full of water.

     

    "Hey boss. The bitch is leaking. She's soaking the seat."

     

    What's happening to me? She couldn't breathe. She gulped air and made a noise like a water cooler's bubbles.

     

    "Stop that, bitch." The man next to her prodded her with the nozzle of his gun. Her skin broke. It was like popping a soap bubble. She splashed

     

    She didn't have bones anymore, or muscles, or organs. The duct tape around her wrists and ankles floated free. He head flowed through the weave of the burlap sack. She was vaguely aware of loosing her shape and flowing onto the floor of the van.

     

    The van screeched to a halt and the doors flew open. She poured out into a dirty alley in to poorest part oftown. Light assailed her from all directions, an omni-directional blur, but if she concentrated she could bring pieced of it into focus. She was on the ground. Spread out all over the ground, in fact, looking up at the startled men with guns.

     

    Instinctively she recoiled, pulled in. Her scattered bits flowed together, congealing into her familiar shape, huddled on the ground next to the van.

     

    "There she is." One huge thug rushed toward her.

     

    "Get away!" She threw up her hand in self defense, and her arm erupted into a jet of water like a fire hose. The thug flew through the air and slammed into a brick wall, then slumped to the ground, unconscious.

     

    There was a long moment when everyone in the alley, including her just stared at her arm, which held its shape despite being made of water. Then the thugs opened fire. The bullets splashed through her, ripping through her watery flesh without harm.

     

    Slowly, Antónia's mind began to assimilate, adapt, accept.

     

    She raised her hand, summoned the power boiling within her and grinned. "It looks like you gentlemen are in need of a bath."

     

    Antónia delivered the sodden thugs to the police and returned home in triumph, but when she demonstrated her abilities to her father, he was noticeably less-than-thrilled. Her mother looked positively terrified.

     

    Fausto realized he was not the father of this strange godless creature. This was the worst crime, the worst in the world. He had been tricked, duped by a woman, and for twenty-five years he had raised and doted on a cuckolded bastard. Mother and child had conspired against him!

     

    He flew into a murderous rage and pulled a gun.

     

    Antónia disarmed him, but could not calm him.

     

    "Kill him," Olivia said. "If you don't he'll kill us both!"

     

    But Antónia could not kill her father, the man who had raised her. She took her mother and fled the mansion and fled.

     

    Her mother told her of her birth father, and the full story of de Jesús's criminal empire. Sickened and shamed by her blindness to her father's dark side, Antónia took on the identity of Rio and began to fight back against her father’s criminal empire.

     

    Unfortunately, her father wore the national chief of police like a pocket watch, and had knives to the throats of most of the country’s politicians. She was soon declared an outlaw in Brazil and a huge bounty was placed on her head.

     

    Seeing that her lonesome struggle was ineffectual, she took her mother and fled to the U.S. to seek allies, and the logical place to start is with the Avengers.

     

    She is also interested in finding Morris Bench, though she’s not quite sure what she would say to the man. He is her sire, and the source of her power, but he is also a thug.

     

    Personality/Motivation:

     

    Antónia is a passionate person. If it’s worth doing at all its worth doing with all your heart. Why would you do less? She’s not good at half measure in her personal life. Thanks to her upbringing, she can be aloof and snooty , particularly to people who insist on presenting themselves as peasants. Around children, however, she is an entirely bright and sunny person.

     

    She is a proud person and hated being a fool, and so her utter failure to recognize her father as a heinous criminal grates on her, and drives her to never bee fooled like that again. For being a passionate person, she distrusts love.

     

    She is also bound and determined to make up for the fact that the silver spoon in her mouth was purchased with the blood of innocents and the pain of the meek. She dedicates herself always to helping the poorest of the poor, and seeking justice for the most oppressed.

     

    Her relationship with her mother is loving but strained. Her mother lied to her, continuously, for twenty-five years. She understands why she did it, but cannot entirely reconcile herself to her mother’s point of view that it was necessary.

  10. Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

    in Champions

    Posted

    Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

     

    A Solo 7th Sea Game I run for my wife.

     

    A PC and and NPC trying to prick (so to speak) an NPC's pride are staging a shouting match just in earshot of him.

     

    Sir Ryan: (referring to the NPC) The town whores say he's the only man in town who can thread a needle!

  13. YOUR RL Skills

    in Champions

    Posted

    Re: YOUR RL Skills

     

    Some skills depend on how good other people think you are. My skills are in art and writing. So how do I determine my roll? Lots of artists who are now thought to be geniuses weren't appreciated in their own time.

  15. I had a descussion with Steve about buying some Hero's books...

    in HERO System Discussion

    Posted

    Re: I had a descussion with Steve about buying some Hero's books...

     

    Even though DnD costs more to have than Hero does, it manages to make it feel less, at least by some lights. Once you've got one book you might want to buy the rest, and even if you don't, at least you've shelled out for that one book.

     

    Whilst I don't want to see us go the PHB/DMG/MM route, if that makes economic sense for the company, it has to be considered.

     

     

    Feh. One thing I have always loved about Champions, now Hero, is you only need one book (and a little common sense) to play it. Splitting the book into the gaming artifact called the Game-Of-Many-Parts would totally kill that appeal.

  18. Challengers game: The Ferriman Institute

    in Champions

    Posted

    Re: Challengers game: The Ferriman Institute

     

    Have to refer Spitfire to this week's Full Frontal Nerdity.. if only I could remember the link.. I'm sure it's somewhere near at hand.. I should get a henchman to help me with these things.

     

    Spitfire would be very upset if she was robbed of her secondary sexual characteristics. It's one thing to be identifiably draconian, it's another thing entirely to loose her femininity. Even combat mechanics have their gender pride.

  19. Information for HERO/Champions Fans About The Champions Online MMO

    in Other Genres

    Posted

    Re: Information for HERO/Champions Fans About The Champions Online MMO

     

    Okay. This looks nifty, but what happens to the paper and dice version of Champions when (not if, when) Cryptic ultimately decides to yank the IP from hero. Right now no one seems to think it will happen, but no one ever get married thinking they're going to get divorced, either. Will Hero be allowed to develop a new IP for their superhero product, or will they have to stop putting out superheroic games altogether?

     

    It will be an amazingly sad day when the game that started out as Champions and became Hero will no longer be able to use the name it was born with.

  23. What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it...

    in Non-Gaming Discussion

    Posted

    Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it...

     

    Er. Not so much reading as writing, actually.

     

    I recently finished Cockatrice: Carpe Demon, my quirky YA, superhero, urban fantasy.

     

    Violin Prodigy Jacqueline MacLean has always adored metahumans and wished for superpowers, but a wish is just a wish…unless you happen to be holding a demon’s contract when you make it. So now she’s got red skin, hooves, and a tail—that’s what you get for not reading the fine print—and she’s lost the contract, but she’s gained an astonishing array of superpowers, which would really come in handy when a delusional madman kidnaps her beloved sister, except Legion, a super-powered federal marshal, arrests Jacqueline instead. She looks like a demon, so she must be a villain, right?

     

    In custody, Jacqueline stumbles across a mysterious connection between her loathsome mother and the mighty Legion. Might they be lovers, and what does that say about Jacqueline’s parentage? Jacqueline proves her innocence to Legion, but that only saddles her with more restrictions. Only seventeen, she is deemed too young to join the hunt for her missing sister and is placed in overprotective custody, but Jacqueline does not let such a minor inconvenience stand in her way. She eludes her protectors and sets out to locate the missing contract, rescue her sister, and unravel the secrets of her family tree, before one wicked relative sets the demon loose on an unsuspecting world.

     

    Currently looking for an agent and/or publisher.

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