Quackhell

Skydancer
 
Laurie Perrin was a late blooming mutant with the power of flight. She's very fast, very manouverable and has reaction speeds in the nanosecond range.
Laurie was part of the "young and beautiful" crowd, pretty much still is. She has a tendency not to take things as seriously as her team mates, though she isn't as shallow as many think her to be. She doesn't have time for long-winded lectures from her "elders" on the team, she got enough of that from her parents - and didn't listen to them either. But if someone wants to sit down and discuss an issue with her, she's all ears.
 
Skydancer is strong and fit, but her only actual power is her flight. That doesn't stop her doing multiple move-by attacks on agents or grabbing a supervillain and propelling him into the side of a building.

Bacca-Rat
 
A small, ratlike humanoid with a deck of cards. Besides being able to climb and slip into small spaces, he can toss pairs of cards at targets, either to damage the target or to have various special effects. The effects, however, are quire random, and based on the card values, and can do such things as entangle, encase in a circular force wall, or his most powerful ability, mind control. Likewise, the amount of damage inflicted varies wildly, and apparently out of Bacca-Rat's control.
 
A recent rumour is that Bacca-Rat was a gambler who offended the gods of chance by cheating. 'Rat isn't saying - partially because he apparently can't talk.

Just completed writing up documents pulling the villain teams together. 586 so far. Missing the last two.
 
Onto the Hero thread.

Makeup
 
Yvonne Fairchild has worked at many tasks in her 80 or so years. Barmaid, dancer-for-hire, waitress, numbers runner, thief, streetwalker when she was down and out...which was more often then she'd like to remember. Her latest one has been as a cosmetics specialist and beautician in a mid-scale beauty salon. She's still working because she has never managed to put together any sort of savings, and Social Security ran out years ago. 
But of late she's been using her makeup skills a lot on herself...because without them she doesn't look like an eighty year old anymore. In fact, she looks like she did when she was 30...well, actually, better, since Yvonne was never much of a looker. And the beautician job isn't being done for the meagre pay, but to find victims.
When she finds someone willing to chat, who has some money, who is single or otherwise living alone, that's when she strikes. She uses her ability to teleport through mirrors to go straight from her rooms to the victim's place, her knowledge of makeup to make herself unrecognizable, her newfound strength and vitality to capture the woman (or man - men don't come as often to the salon, but she isn't picky). She makes them tell her where all the money is, all the valuables, and then she paints their face - with acidic, poisonous makeup of her own devising. They come out of it beautiful to look at, but underneath, their faces are melting...
None of her victims have survived so far, and the Police have instituted a task force to find the "Makeup Killer". But who would suspect a little old lady?
 
On the team side, she acts as a scout and infiltrator. She's actually quite capable of combat, but she dislikes it. The others know she's someone in the building, but not that it is little granny Yvonne from the fourth floor.
 

Faceless
 
Frances Lecter was a minor YouTube celebrity with a channel all about horror movie reviews. The chemical have brought the horror film character he has started writing a screenplay about called "Faceless" to life. When he transforms into Faceless, he is a super humanly strong and durable being without a face nor need to breathe and a violent streak which makes Jason Voorhees look like a quire boy.
 
Even when not transformed, Frances has become more antisocial, rairly posting his reviews on YouTube anymore, and quick to anger and resort to violence. Faceless' trademark is to rip off the faces of the people he has killed.

New Team: Denizens Dark
 
Ever wonder why so many villain origins involve odd energies, strange chemicals, or other transformative catalysts that not only empower but corrupt? Be it full blown psychosis, or merely loosening the restraints on the personal Id, it seems quite often ordinary people exposed to extraordinary stimuli are prone to villainhood. One evil scientist decided to research this. Using his illgotten gains to purchase an apartment building (And charging lower rates than was fashionable), he began to pump corruptive mutagens and other agents into the units of a single floor. He also pumped sublimianl messages to encourage  they surrender to  vices and ambition (with a fail safe so they do not attack him if they ever discover they're his guinea pigs) . Over the last few months, more and more of the residents have begun to exhibit selfish and immoral behavior. A percentage of those succumbing have also begun to develop superpowers. At least five of them have taken up costumes and become true supervillains! They don't know how or why they've changed, but they rather enjoy it, and they realize they are not alone so they've formed a team.
 
They call themselves Denizens Dark... a tip of the hat to their shared residence.
 
Membership number is 5 to 7 (not counting the scientist himself)

Vamanos (Spanish for "Let's Go!")
 
Earlier the name Zephyr was mentioned--that would be a good name for a Golden Age speedster, after one of the fastest trains of its day.

Vamoose! 😀

And the thread's stalled again. OK, I'll fill out the last two and then someone else can begin a new team. If people want to develop DT's suggerstion, go ahead.
 
Plenty of people knew that Necrull was dangerous, as well as utterly icky. People only realized how dangerous when the villain Borealis sought to cleanse the world of him... but wasn't under an aurora when they met... and Necrull won, and "harvested" one of Borealis' arms. Then a hero team caught up with Necrull at his  ellesmere Island hideout, or he let himself be found by them, and there was an aurora in the sky. He slew them all, his own powers -- all of them -- boosted as Borealis' had been.
 
And the war began. Heroes first; but more than a few villains, too, sought to destroy Necrull... in self-defense, if for no other reason, as the madman stalked superbeings of greater power to harvest them. Pretty soon, governments got involved, too.
 
Three months into it, after the People's Republic of China tried to stop Necrull with a nuclear device, he retaliated with bioweapons. His message to the world as he released the plagues was, "Now look what you made me do."
 
As humanity died by the hundreds of millions, Necrull sought the only person who could equal or surpsass his mastery of biology: the supervillain Teleios, self-proclaimed "Perfect Man." He especially wanted Teleios' cloning technology. Teleios fought back, and figured out how to destroy Necrull -- but it was too late, for him and for the world. Necrull killed Teleios before he could deploy his living weapons, and seized the Perfect Man's technology for his own.
 
The world Captain Chronos fpound consisted of Necrull, a few dozen of his surviving Necrullticians, and several concrete bunkers full of cloning tanks where Necrull and his acolytes grew batches of humans who awoke only to be immediately slain for their flesh. And thus would the world remain until the Sun itself died.
 
But Captain Chronos rescued one of Teleios' living weapons: a woman -- a... daughter? -- engineered with incredible powers of regeneration and overflowing life-force that enabled her to heal the wounds of others. She was, of course, as physicially perfect as her "father." As Immortal, she fights villainy with the rest of Avant Guard. She also makes sure that the others survive their vattles, and heals innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire. If she has time, she visits hospitals to heal other people, too. And when she does so, her hands glow green and leave smears of a green liquid on her patients.
 
That last is pure special effects trickery. A final lure to draw Necrull to her. If she and Avant Guard cannot find any other way to destroy him, Immortal will sacrifice part of her own body in hopes that Necrull -- thinking her powers come from the same source as his own, but perfected -- will graft her flesh to his own. And will burn as her true life-force purges his corpus of the ersatz life force that has sustained him for so long.
 
Immortal also hopes to confront her "father" Teleios. She knows he is a menace as great as Necrull; but in worthier hands, his biotechnology could achieve great good instead of great harm. If Immortal gets her way and shares the secrets of Teleios with the world, she will surely change the world beyond recognition. But will humanity use such power wisely, or will she doom the world in turn?
 
Dean Shomshak

Doctor Sebastian Poe, discoverer of the Psi-Serum and founder of the Parapsychological Studies Institute, spent 20 years in Stronghold for his crimes. The U. S. government (and a few others that infiltrated agents) offered to reduce his sentence if he shared the secret of the Ps-Serum. He refused. Then the government tried threats. D. Poe stood firm. Then government telepaths tried to wrest the secret from his mind; but Dr. Poe's mind was stronger. Dr. Poe also spent years becoming a pretty good jailhouse lawyer -- good enough to balk attempts to extend his sentence. Right on schedule, he walked out of Stronghold a free man.
 
A few weeks later, Dr. Poe slipped the agents surveilling him and escaped to a small country that didn't extradite well-heeled criminals. He sold Psi-Serum empowerment to anyone who could pay.
 
A year after that, Poe activated the psychic and genetic conditioning he'd implanted with the new, improved Psi-Serum. More than a dozen loyal, super-powered psychics began hunting Poe's treacherous former disciples in PSI. Not all of PSI's members died, but the organization was effectively destroyed. The New PSI took its place, with Dr. Poe firmly in charge.
 
While in Stronghold, Dr. Poe learned a lot about power and control from other imprisoned villains. The New PSI soon went beyond ordinary crime to subverting governments. When Dr. Poe died, 17 years after leaving Stronghold, he covertly dominated 11 countries, with significant influence in dozens more.
 
The civil war within PSI over who would succeed Dr. Poe split the organization three ways, but each faction had the Psi-Serum and unslaked ambition. Gheir leaders kept conquering. They also became more aggressive in murdering other superbeings who interfered with their plans.
 
In another 50 years, the spin-offs of PSI ruled the world. From then on, wars consisted of turf battles between ruling cabals. The psionic aristocracies warred quite a lot, interspersed with occasional marriage treaties to secure temporary truces. They mostly reserved the Psi-Serum for their own progeny.
 
Selective breeding and research into technological enhancement increased their powers further. By the 25th century, all the major dynasties possessed psionic weapons of mass destruction. Decades passed in a tense stalemate.
 
Maybe someone miscalculated and a bluff was called. Maybe a covert scheme went awry. Maybe one of the living weapons went mad under the strain of their own power. Or maybe one of the people who had illegally obtained Psi-Serum empowerment went too far. (Freedom fighter? Freelancce criminal? Crazed terrorist? These all existed.) However the war started, it escalated beyond Mutually Assured Destruction into complete spasm. Hardly anyone survived. Captain Chronos saw that humanity would go extinct within a few hundred more years.
 
But there had been people who fought their tyrannical psychic overlords. Captain Chronos rescued one of the strongest of them, who was also one of the most principled in wanting freedom for everyone and not just power for himself. The Freethinker readily joined Avant Guard to forestall the rise of Dr. Poe and the New PSI. His telepathic powers are invaluable in locating villains and their minions, and extracting the details of their evil schemes.
 
Next up: Whatever anyone wants.
 
Dean Shomshak

The Beck Theatre had gone all out in their production of MacBeth this year.  And things were going great in rehearsals...
 
...well, except for props disappearing and reappearing...
 
...and costumes getting torn apart...
 
...and strange noises in the theatre...
 
...and now, somebody's knifed the understudy to Lady MacBeth!

This is part of a plot (actually a sideplot) of my current Champions campaign, which I've titled "All That Glisters Is Not Gold Body Paint."
 
Nick Mancuso is an ally of Franklin Stone of ACI fame, but a rival to the Cresse family. He fancies himself as a replacement to Joseph Sorrelli since the old Don's death a few years ago. The Piston's one of his main money laundering establishments - he's very scrupulous about paying his licenses and so forth so everything appears above board. The Piston is a popular spot for the hard-chargers in the Lennie business community. However, despite its popularity, the Piston is hemorrhaging money, because Mancuso has recently lost other less savory "businesses" and has to increasingly lean on the Piston to pay his lieutenants and soldiers. His connection to the IHA is a natural one - nearly every Lennie organized crime group has to ally with somebody who hates superheroes and can manage some means of defending themselves against them, or else the "capes" will wipe the floor with them. (They also need better-than-average protection against VIPER. If they aren't getting help from the IHA, it's ARGENT or Wayland Talos or somebody like that.) Mancuso also is aware he has to act fast for his play at leadership, before the far-more-sophisticated-technologically New Purple Gang steals a march on him. That they'll also steal a march on every other Mob group in New Motown is not a solace to Nick Mancuso. (Rumor has it that the kid who runs it is some sort of fexxin' genius.)
 
His connection to Eric Marburg is originally through his ne'er-do-well son Tyler, who attempted to get hired at, then buy out or bankrupt a recently renovated rival adult nightclub in Dearborn, the "Pantheon". (The Pantheon's co-owner is a contact and friend of the heroes - a strip club makes a handy neutral site for discussing and negotiating matters with criminals of all stripes. She hired Tyler because she's also a bit naive, being that she's actually an avatar of a Celtic fertility goddess who more or less bought the club to keep a constant supply of fertility energy). The Pantheon is new, roomy, shiny, with a rising avant-garde clientele, generally prettier and friendlier girls, and things that might even attract someone that normally wouldn't go to a strip club, like a mid-range cocktail lounge, gaming tables run by the local Native bands, and even a small cigar bar. (Some of the players were a big help in its design.)
 
Tyler was using Dad's money, to help his buddy Nick; Nick would repay him through his increased revenues with the Pantheon's closure. It didn't go well; he's not a bright lad and got himself into such deep kimchi (involving hiring underage strippers, just for starters, that the owner knew about and notified the authorities) that Dad Marburg had to scramble just to keep him out of prison. What's worse is that he put his dad on the authorities' radars for the first time, and for once Eric's vaunted sixth sense let him down, because the threat wasn't really about him. Nick found out about Marburg pere's business and political clout, and he's been trying to get into his hip pocket ever since.
 
The hero group in my campaign knows Eric Marburg has a high rank in the CSM (but not the full extent of it) because one of them is a fairly strong telepath with IPE. She managed to read his mind briefly twice, once while he was out and about pulling strings to get his spawn released on bail, and then when he was in a cocktail party with other high-society figures in MC (which including the father of one of the PCs, who happens to be the new DOSPA Secretary, ironically after making a name for himself in anti-psionic technology for the Federal government...). Marburg has Mental Defense, but not enough - and he doesn't cover his tracks very well in his own head, especially when he's had a few Old Fashioneds in him.
 
They don't confront Marburg directly because they don't have hard evidence, and well, they know people who get on Eric Marburg's bad side tend to have all sorts of nasty things just happen to them, which the players have appropriately dubbed "Ebola Marburg". He'd also be a distraction from their major enemy - DEMON. He's also fairly ruthless as a businessman, which combined with his seeming ability to stay ahead or above trends, has raised suspicions in an already ahead-of-the-curve town like Millennium City, so they can count on other non-blackmailed people in Millennium City to keep Marburg's head down. He's still got rivals who think he's got insider info - too much insider info. (Interesting point - what if the group that runs him to ground was the FTC?) He's also not really smart about his relationships with business and political figures - he tends to wield his influence with them like a club, which makes them afraid of him - but also angry. So the heroes are starting from the far outside of his network and working their way in, as they should. A kind of Jim Rockfording of the case, not a Frank Columboing.
 
The heroes are unaware of his Lodge leadership because they don't know that the CSM has organization above the local level. Not even the telepath has put the puzzle together that he's the "Archdruid Airetach" yet (because the player forgot to ask if he had any aliases)- just that he's got a metric butt-ton of secretive clout in the Detroit area from his association with the Scarlet Moon coven there, he's extraordinarily well-connected, and he has an icky array of artifacts and spells. (One of my players said - "Oh, so it's as if PAGAN from the Ackroyd/Hanks "Dragnet" movie really did have magical powers!") They heroes, however, been so busy with DEMON (as well they should, as they're a much greater immediate threat and the primary focus of the campaign; eventually they're going to be the ones to bring DEMON down) that they've put any investigations into the Scarlet Moon on the back burner. They're looking for some way closer to him, if not inside his house, then at least those near him inside the coven, but for later.
 
Eric Marburg, meanwhile, has problems of his own... his pet talking mummified head has been giving him portents of his own inescapable doom. Dooomm! Like any aging Boomer narcissist, he's frantically trying to figure out ways to avoid his fate, while the head keeps playing "warmer, warmer...naw, now you're getting colder" with him.

Science City: The product of some of the world's greatest minds that is filled with cutting edge experimental technology and overseen by a prototype AI. Unfortunately the AI has been corrupted by an outside source(Mechanon perhaps?) and has trapped the citizens within the city. The heroes must find a way to rescue them while dealing with weaponized tech of a rampaging and insane intelligence.

Mongoose
 
Captain Chronos pulled the hero formerly known as Iron Tiger from a world devastated by VIPER. The organization had released a virus that caused monstrous serpent mutations in those it infected. The virus was more powerful and unpredictable than even VIPER realized and quickly spread out of control. Arriving in this reality the martial arts master changed his identity to Mongoose to reflect his battle against VIPER. He now tries to dismantle the vile snakes before they can develop the dangerous poison and doom the world. His time is running out however as he has been infected by the virus himself and it only his iron will and training in spiritual techniques that stave off it's affects for now.

For a few days now, I'd thought of posting a new team concept since it had been so long since anyone posted, but was too busy with other things. I won't object if anyone has additional members for Second Chance, but I'd ;like to propose the next team. It's the same concept as the PCs in my current campaign, but I'd like to see what other people could make of it in the Champions Universe.
 
In the Superheroic Age, the future faces deadly peril. Forget the official CU timeline with the Alien Wars, Terran Empire, and all that. That's only one possibility. Many of the possibilities are dreadful. Several current supervillains have the potential to end the human race and the world... or inflict horrors without end.
 
Even in those doomed futures, there are heroes -- likewise doomed, because it's too late. But what if someone could go back in time to make sure that future never happened? Enter Captain Chronos! He has rescued six doomed heroes and brought them back to the early 21st century to defeat the villains before they can destroy the world. They are the Avant Guard.
 
Pick the villain who dooms the world. The likes of Doctor Destroyer, Takofanes or Mechanon are easy choices, but hey, if you can think of a way to make Bulldozer a Destroyer of Worlds, great! Give a brief description of the dark future, and then that last hero who's going down fighting before Captain Chronos finds him, her, or it.
 
Dean Shpomshak

The Serious Man
 
Captain Chronos actually hesitated in recruiting The Serious Man, because his world's end was very dangerous even to Chronos. His world was literally dissolving into nothingness, his entire universe ceasing to be. But nevertheless, the good Captain felt it was the only way.
The Serious Man's powers are subtle. Everything around him becomes, for lack of a better term, a little more real. Powers that warp the laws of physics stop being able to do so. Chemistry starts working on very hard and strict laws. Energy beams can exist, but if you want to bounce a shot - well, better make sure that mirror is pretty much optically perfect.
Why was this important? Because he was up against a force that was making everything UNreal. making it fake, false, a creation of a diseased mind. The universe cannot hold itself together without effective constants, and now there were no constants. For years earlier, a strange and warped mind had discovered a way to impose his worldview on the entire universe. Now, The Serious Man must find and stop that crazed individual.
He must stop Foxbat.
 

It's a portal to a parallel Earth that fell victim to a nuclear holocaust. Bring your hazmat suit!

Science City: The product of some of the world's greatest minds that is filled with cutting edge experimental technology and overseen by a prototype AI. Unfortunately the AI has been corrupted by an outside source(Mechanon perhaps?) and has trapped the citizens within the city. The heroes must find a way to rescue them while dealing with weaponized tech of a rampaging and insane intelligence.

Science City: The product of some of the world's greatest minds that is filled with cutting edge experimental technology and overseen by a prototype AI. Unfortunately the AI has been corrupted by an outside source(Mechanon perhaps?) and has trapped the citizens within the city. The heroes must find a way to rescue them while dealing with weaponized tech of a rampaging and insane intelligence.

Science City: The product of some of the world's greatest minds that is filled with cutting edge experimental technology and overseen by a prototype AI. Unfortunately the AI has been corrupted by an outside source(Mechanon perhaps?) and has trapped the citizens within the city. The heroes must find a way to rescue them while dealing with weaponized tech of a rampaging and insane intelligence.

Or any CU apocalyptic cult leader, e.g. Tappan Arkwright III, or Cairngorm.

Recently, we did the 40th anniversary episode for the campaign. More recently, the 100th episode for one of our newest supergroups. However, this past Saturday, we did the 600th episode for our earliest, and continually running, supergroup. It featured every hero of that group for the past 40 years, against Dr. Destroyer. Total supers, including cameos of which there were plenty, came out to 18 superheroes. Woo! It was a rousing success, complete with a 3 minute video I created (which came out to be the 250th video created for our Champions campaign), and an actual map of Paris the players used to save the city.

The guy in the foreground? Luther Black.

Pulp adventure, as this is clearly an entrance to inner earth.  Somewhere in there, is a safe route to travel.
 
 

Nice one. "The Furnace of the First Ones," yeah. It's supposed to have a temple around it, but we could say that's behind the photographer.
 
Now, the real crater was formed in 1971 when a gas-drilling rig collapsed an underground cavern. Fearing dangerous gases being released authorities sought to burn the gas off, but the deposit is so vast that it's still burning over fifty years later, and shows no sign of running out.
 
For story purposes, maybe the drill crew found an even larger cavern beneath it, holding something terrible which is kept at bay by the flames. So when the gas finally runs out, or if someone extinguishes it...