BoloOfEarth

Dice. Lots and lots of dice. And if you're lucky, they're all 6-sided and not those... other kind of dice.

Oh, you meant within the adventure! In that case, Argaiv's little purple pills of Enhanced Virility. (Yes, I have that type of gaming group.)

"And while we wait for MegaMan to succumb to that fiendishly clever death trap, let's go to my minion Tina for today's weather..."

"Hey, you kids! Get offa my lawn!"

Richard Rathbone shook his cane as the elementary school kids ran away laughing, then the old man trudged back inside to watch more TV. He was feeling every one of his seventy-three years, from his aching feet to his long-bald head. Gosh-darn those brats, he thought as the TV news blared out the latest doom-and-gloom. Let them try living on a fixed pension and social security. Bet they wouldn't be laughing.

Movement outside his window caught Rathbone's eye, and he saw a kid, about 15 years old, approaching Rathbone's front porch with something in his hand. Rathbone got up from his arm chair and moved as quietly as possible to his front door. Throwing it open, he almost knocked the kid from the porch. As it is, the kid dropped the lighter before he could put a flame to the paper bag he had placed in the center of Rathbone's "not-so-welcome" mat.

"Flaming dog poo!" Rathbone glared at the kid. "I'll show you flaming dog poo!" He swung his cane, and the kid was caught off guard and unable to dodge it. As the silvery handle touched the kid's chest, there was a sudden chill in the air and a loud moan, seemingly out of nowhere. Both Rathbone and the kid were shocked to see the cane pass through the now-desolidified teen. The kid screamed and began to run.

"And take your bag o' poo with you!" With a swing that would have done Arnold Palmer proud, Rathbone's cane sent the paper bag and its disgusting contents (also now desolid) flying through the air and passing harmlessly through the front fence.

Rathbone looked at his cane, and the bag-o-poo, and the fleeing teen in shock. "What the Sam blazes is going on here?!"

A little experimentation revealed that the cane (found at and taken from a nursing home Rathbone had spent a hellish three months at while recovering from hip surgery) could turn anything and anyone it touched desolid for a long period of time. (Exactly how long depended upon the mass of the object or person. The bag-o-poo is probably still desolidified, and that was over six months ago.) He could also desolidify himself, though he becomes instantly solid if somehow separated from his cane.

Deciding that the world "owed" him for all the indignities heaped upon him in his life, Rathbone took to a life of crime and became Old Man Wrath, a crotchety, near-sighted, hard-of-hearing old grump. His specialty is bank robbery, often walking through bank vault doors after hours to make some big "withdrawls." He's no relation at all to either Wrath or Kid Wrath, and resents being associated in any way with either one. Well, to be honest, he resents pretty much the whole world. Except maybe prunes.

In a past Champions campaign, I used the Oregon Hero Sanction (by Bob Greenwade), which seems similar to what Armitage was talking about. You can find the gist of it at http://www.angelfire.com/super2/bobgreenwade/sanction.htm.

To quote Bob:

Essentially, this is somewhat similar to the Oregon Builders' Board in the real world. Building contractors and those who work for them (carpenters, electricians, masons, plumbers, etc.) have to be licensed through the Board; their license fees pay for the administration. In return, the Board makes sure that anyone working as a builder has the proper training. This setup was actually requested by the builders themselves early in Oregon's history, and set up to be self-supporting (in fact, this part of OPAB's design was based on the OBB).

 

It's also similar to licensing to become an attorney, bounty hunter, physician, private investigator, or other type of professional. Certain boundaries must be set, or disasters can easily happen. (The similarilty holds up particularly well with bounty hunters and private investigators, since these two occupations share functions with superheroes.)

When I used it, I think it worked quite well. The players went along with it because it was effectively supers regulating themselves, with some state oversight, in exchange for certain benefits to the registered supers.

Get everybody in the city to play a MASSIVE game of Mother May I.

Bobby Newcombe always wanted to be a superhero, or at least a sidekick. After his mother's death (when Bobby was only five), the young boy was raised by his father. Dr. Richard Newcombe may be a brilliant scientist-inventor and a shrewd (and wealthy) businessman, but as a parent he was rather inattentive. He let Bobby have whatever he wanted and do whatever he wished. He was rather happy that Bobby seemed to have inherited his sharp analytical abilities, and Bobby’s home lab is comparable to some high-end research labs.

At age 12, Bobby set out to become a sidekick for his personal hero, Sunburn. Okay, so Sunburn was already working as a journalist for SNN instead of fighting crime, but Bobby was sure that once he saw Bobby’s SunSuit (patent pending), the former hero would end his retirement and return to the hero biz. Unfortunately, Bobby caught Sunburn at a bad time and the former superhero not only turned Bobby down flat – he was also very rude about it. Bobby went home, tore down all his posters of Sunburn, and angrily vowed to aid his former idol’s enemies.

After getting turned down by Master Blaster, Dark Sun, and Thermal over the next three years (mostly for being too short and scrawny), Bobby approached the Milk Mustache. The anti-dairy villain was amused with the teen’s persistence (and frankly, was pleased that anybody was willing to idolize him) and proposed to advise Bobby as he showed his mettle as a solo villain (Half-n-Half). Bobby created an arsenal of dairy-themed attacks and devices (such as a Cottage Cheese Bomb that entangles opponents, a Sour Milk spray that blinds and sickens the enemy, and a String Cheese swingline). But his two most feared weapons are his Homogenizer Beam (which robs mutants and many genetically-altered individuals of their powers) and his namesake Half-n-Half Ray which shrinks people and objects to half their current size. (He can fire the Half-n-Half Ray repeatedly at the same target, causing it to shrink further and further, down to 1/32 its original size.)

NT: Subtle signs you really shouldn't go swimming at the local pool today.

The group that swam before you is the Incontinence Support Group.

It seems to me that his Flash attacks and his AVLD would also be blocked, or at least have reduced effectiveness, in smoke or steam.

It seems to me that his Flash attacks and his AVLD would also be blocked, or at least have reduced effectiveness, in smoke or steam.

“Okay, kid, here’s the suit. It’s configured for your height and body type, so don’t go adding a lot of weight or going through a growth spurt or anything.”

Max Turner gritted his teeth. I’m 20 years old, he thought, not some dumb teenager. But he didn’t say anything, fearing that dexniJ would take the battlesuit back and give it to somebody else. Max was really looking forward to being a supervillain. Power! Money! Prestige! Man, the chicks’ll be banging down the door to throw themselves at me!

The elder supervillain handed over a Kindle. “I’ve loaded the instructions for operating the battlesuit onto this e-reader. It can generate radiant heat, light, microwaves, radiation – all up and down the spectrum. With a little time, you can even create three-dimensional models for generating complex holographic images. And, of course, the suit can alter the visible light around it to become invisible.”

Max took the proffered e-reader and tossed it onto his bed. It bounced off and landed in his basket of dirty clothes. “Wow, some of that sounds like Master Blaster’s gig… hey, wait, is this one of his old suits?” Max ran his fingers across a part of the batttlesuit’s chestplate. “Yeah, it is! I can feel where you painted over his old ‘MB’ logo, right here!”

dexniJ looked uncomfortable and mumbled something about ‘using a prior version as a template but greatly enhancing its capabilities’ but Max didn’t care. “Hey, that’s cool, man, no prob. I’ll show him who’s boss. When I hit the streets, people won’t be talking about Master Blaster, they’ll be running in fear from Master Disaster!” He paused, then shook his head. “Naw, forget that. I’ll be the Demolisher! Yeah! I’ll demolish anybody that gets in my way, even if Sunny-boy starts a new MetaGuard group!”

- - - - - - - -

As you might have picked up, Demolisher isn’t exactly master supervillain material. He’s a brash, self-centered, kinda jerky guy with way more power at his disposal than is really wise or safe. Max never did read the instructions (e-readers don’t do so well in the rinse cycle), so he doesn’t use the battlesuit to its full capabilities, and he’s often discovering something ‘new’ that it can do.

Okay, Hermit... are you sure you're not channeling Lovecraft or something? That was incredible!

FYI, I plan to write up The Mythos and have them be foes of the heroes in my next Champions campaign. And with Hermit's permission I'd like to use the old man's intel and pleading verbatim, though to the PCs in addition to some PRIMUS agents. (I'm interested to see my players' expressions when he pleads with them to be consumed.)

So, Old Man, is Kloshotha supposed to be the entity leading the Mythos, or one of the monsters being led by that yet-to-be-named entity?

(with a nod to dbsousa as I steal adapt his idea)

The oldest member of the RATS is Collective, the team’s leader and mentalist. Born in 1908, Yuri Andreivich Kochenko was a child prodigy, sailing through school with high marks in every subject. It seemed there was nothing he couldn’t master – science, mathematics, languages, medicine – often in an amazingly short amount of time. The only things he had trouble with were physical skills, which he seemed to acquire at a normal pace.

What nobody knew until much later was that Yuri was telepathically absorbing the memories, knowledge, and skills of everybody around him. This acquired information and the associated skills would fade over time, though repeated telepathic absorption from the same individuals eventually led to Yuri retaining those skills permanently.

In addition to his skill absorption, Yuri has some standard mentalist abilities, though he rarely uses his Mental Blast. (He much prefers subtlety to brute force.)

Yuri spent much of his developing years being studied by Dr. Vladimir Kharlamov, an almost rabid Marxist and staunch supporter of Soviet Russia. Because of this continuous exposure to Dr. Kharlamov’s thoughts, Yuri holds similar views. Of all the RATS, he has the strongest desire to return Soviet Russia to its former Communist glory. It should also be noted that Yuri is a bit of a rat bastard, manipulating people like pawns on a chessboard.

Spoiler:

show spoiler

When Yuri was a lad of 23, he toured a Soviet Collective where he met Ivan and Katrina Semyenov, a young married couple. One day while Ivan was working, Yuri used his powers to convince Katrina to have an affair with him. Since Katrina was far from the only woman Yuri used this way, he doesn’t even recall her name. Thus, both Yuri and Kolkhov are unaware that Kolkhov is actually Yuri’s biological son.

- - - - - - - - -

That’s six, so it’s time for a new team:

The Mythos are a collection of Cthulhu-esque creatures wandering the eastern seaboard of the US. They number six killing- and mayhem-machines, along with one powerful, quite intelligent entity leading them in their quest to bring the Old Ones back to power.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n44576[/ATTACH] I don't know if this worked or not, but I'm trying to attach a PDF that I had made of a part of the Maginot Line as a modern supervillain base, with hex maps of one casemate bloc and info on weapons and what-not, with changes noted at the end for making it 1930s-1940s era tech. Note also that this was written up in 5th edition rules, so may need some minor conversion.

If this is helpful, you're welcome to use it.

In case he wants to buy Flight...

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n25583[/ATTACH]

If we're able to include PDF's, here is the writeup I did of the Malachite Islands. Keep in mind this was written over 10 years ago, so it's not the best work I've ever done. But perhaps it might be of use to somebody.

And if we can't post PDFs yet, well, then ignore this post.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n44558[/ATTACH]

The mascot for the RATS is Laika, a Russian husky/terrier mixed-breed dog who was the first animal sent into orbit in Sputnik 2 (in 1957). Contrary to the official Soviet space agency report, however, Laika *didn't* die in orbit. In reality, she was exposed to cosmic radiation and developed powers. When her capsule began to overheat on its fourth orbit, Laika panicked and teleported back to Earth. The Soviet scientists discovered that not only could Laika travel great distances, she could also telepathically communicate with anyone touching her and take one person along with her when she teleported. She was transferred to the RATS as their long-distance travel specialist. Laika had only been with the team for a few weeks before the incident that sent them to the current time.

Laika has bonded to White Archer and often stays near him. He has been training her to be a hunting dog, with limited success thus far.

Go to Boston and get beaten up by every single person in the St. Patrick's Day Parade.

NT: People on these boards who should be elected Pope' date=' and why. Difficulty: can't name yourself.[/quote']

death tribble. Because Pope Death Tribble the First would be a kick-butt name.

 

NT: The actual, secret reason why nobody can post to the Champions forum.

NT: Signs you got the canned soup and the canned pet food confused.

The cat asks for a spoon and a napkin.

NT: Subtle signs you picked a bad day to tick off Betty Crocker.

She give you a very special cookbook that features iocaine powder as a seasoning.

NT: Things that don't quite qualify as an emergency when you're calling 9-1-1.

Zoologist Evan Burke loved traveling to Africa to study the animals there, and his favorites were the gnus. He spent many months tracking their movements across the Serengeti, studying their eating and mating habits, and generally learning all there was to know about them. His obsession is probably why, when his latent genetic mutation manifested, Evan became a were-gnu. Unfortunately, the transformation also twisted his mind, causing him to run wildly about at the slightest provocation when in his animal form. He joined Africana* as Wildebeest, at least until he can get some more control and become a gnu man.

*or whatever other name death tribble wishes. Oh, and sorry about the bad pun at the end. But I'll bet you gnu I couldn't help myself.

NT: Proof that your real estate agent is as sane as the next man.

"... and we'll throw in this free SCUBA gear, since it's likely your mortgage will be underwater within the next few years."

If you're looking for the players to fill out a questionnaire, I would avoid going with 100 questions, because it'll be too intimidating and you'll get players reluctant to fill out the questionnaire at all. (At least, that's been my own experience. YMMV.) Having some related combo-questions is okay. ("Do you have any kids? If so, what are their names and ages? Is there anything unique about each one? e.g. 'Marie is a computer savant, able to do almost anything she wants on the internet')

death tribble: Does this team have a name? Something like Darkest Africa? Africana?

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat

NT: Subtle signs the operator of the Private School you send your child to is only interested in the money.

"And how many Fiscal Units will you be enrolling at our school this year?"