Theron

Re: Theron's Bay City Mash-Up New game yesterday. All players present and it went pretty well. Episode 7: Heroes In Hell (Or A Reasonable Facsimile Thereof) At Mason's Curiosities, The Magician related the events of the last few hours to Aleister Thoth. After venting his displeasure at our hero, who the Circle (rightly) considers to be nothing more than a talented dabbler whose in over his head, the following information emerges: Eurydon (aka the Hell-Queen) is clearly challenging for the Chalcedony Throne. She's opened a way from the mortal plane to the netherworld and is mounting a challenge to the sitting Hell-Queen. When the challenge is delivered, the two will emerge from the pit and fight it out in the mortal realm. Devastation and loss of life on a grand scale are inevitable. However, it appears the Crusader hurt her, perhaps quite badly. If Eurydon goes to ground, a group of heroic souls might just be able to stop her before the challenge comes to fruition... Meanwhile, back and the pit, Bard was making eyes at Summer Cloud when he heard a familiar voice in the back of his head. "Grandson, we would have words with thee..." Time stood still, apart from Bard and his grandmother, the Lorelei. "Look at you. Have you lost weight? Are you eating? I just don't know about all this running around protecting mortals. It's...it's so uncouth. They should be worshiping you, not expecting you to help them." "I like helping them. I have friends here." "Mortal friends." "BLOOD friends." "Tsk. Fine, don't listen to me. But do you know what this is?" she asked, gesturing towards the Hellpit. "A big magical hole in the ground." "It's a gateway. To the realm of Hel. And if you take that road, my magics cannot protect you. And I could not bear your loss. Please, dear boy, leave. Go find someplace safe. I've seen these things happen before, and honestly, the lives of a few thousand humans are worth the safety of a god." "I'm not leaving my friends, grandmother." Lorelei sighed. "No, I suppose you wouldn't. It's a family failing," she muttered vanishing in the sound of a waterfall. Time reasserted itself. Rex Radium found himself talking with the Cateran. "So," she said, "Ye think to call yerselves the Guardians, do ye?" "That's the plan." "Y'know, I fought the originals more than once." "You're far too young to have done that." "Show's what you know, Laddie. Some of us are just better at hiding our age, whether we want to or not." Back at Mason's, Thoth asked about Crusader's sword, Hasufring. Did it vanish with him? Of course, since radios don't seem to work in and out of the Hellscape, there was no way of checking in with Rex or Bard. Or was there. "Leave this to me," said Galsworthy the Great. "REX! REX! REX! ARE YOU THERE REX? The words resonated in the Golden Gumshoe's brain with a volume that rattled his fillings. "What? Who?" IT'S ME, GALSWORTHY! I'M TALKING TO YOU MIND TO MIND. MY CONTROL'S NOT TOO GOOD, CAN YOU HEAR ME OKAY? "Yes. Loud and clear. With an emphasis on the loud." GREAT! HEY, DID ANYONE HAPPEN TO FIND CRUSADER'S SWORD? WE THINK IT MIGHT BE IMPORTANT! "Yeah, I found it. The GUARD's holding onto it for safekeeping." GREAT! WE'LL BE HEADING BACK SOON! DON’T LET THE CATERAN ANYWHERE NEAR IT, ALRIGHT? Rex went off to find some aspirin or bourbon for his sudden headache. The crew from Mason's returned with a basic plan. Follow Eurydon into the Netherworld and take her out before the challenge begins. No problem, right? Oracle retrieved the Crusader’s sword. Cateran and Morgaine volunteered to accompany the Guardians. Technocrat began to offer, but Graniteman upbraided her, so she informed them their mandate would not allow her to join them. “However, I believe I can provide some assistance, in the interest of international good will. ByteTorrent, it occurs to me that you will need to maintain your power levels on this expedition. This is a portable cold fusion generator. It should be quite sufficient to your needs.” ByteTorrent accepted the device with gratitude and The Magician summoned his Chariot for the trip through the Hellpit. The gathered heroes (and not-so-heroes) boarded the magical vehicle and plunged into the pit. The trip was a nightmare. Many nightmares. Ego rolls were required, with failure costing PRE for several hours. They arrived amidst a classical vision of hell. A dark sky lit by lakes of fire, with looming mountains in the distance, while horrid wails and strange noises echo through the gloom. Hasufring glowed like a beacon in the dim light, providing probably too much illumination. It also revealed a very clear trail of demonic ichor glowing in the sword’s holy light, providing an easy way of tracking Eurydon. Of course, it also provided an easy way for roving bands of demons to locate them. Three flying creatures and a large being of shadowy evil (three demonlings and a shadow demon from the Bestiary) attacked, but proved relatively ineffective against so much superpowered opposition (especially the Withering Glare of Aphrodite – by the book Bestiary demons have a serious deficit in ECV and Mental Defense). Their quick and decisive victory gained them a reprieve from further attacks, but they knew the eyes of the Netherworld were upon them. Eventually, the trail took them to a vast lake of blood. Flocks of enormous vampire bats swarmed the shore drinking their fill. In the distance upon a lonely island, a single profane spire jutted towards the sky. The island was joined to the shore by a long bridge, crafted of human bones. Blocking their path, a demon of ice and two immense white-grey hounds. This was the demon Glacievex and his hoarhounds. The fight was intense, but brief, and Bard struck the demon most mightily, knocking it senseless, while the others took down the demonic hounds. Crossing the bridge was merely unsettling. Setting foot on the island was entirely disgusting, as it was revealed to be an enormous blood clot. As the heroes squelched their way toward the tower, they heard the screams of a man in agony coming from within. Entering the tower (the door was standing open), they found themselves in a great hall, dominated by an enormous table and lit by strange purple torches. In the back of the room, strapped to a grill and roasting over the same purple fire was the writhing form of the Crusader! Seated at the table was an immense, horrific, bloated…thing. Sort of a cross between the Blob, Mojo, Baron Harkonnen, and Hedonism-Bot. Before the heroes could act, the vile monstrosity spoke. “Ah. The interlopers. Eurydon said you’d be along. I see Glacievex was a bigger disappointment than I’d thought.” Gesturing towards Crusader, “Have you met my dinner?” “Oh, where are my manners. You may call me the Gourmand. And I believe I shall call you desert. And you, brunch.” Oracle immediately went on the defensive, brandishing Hasufring. The Demon recoiled, revealing his cowardice. He quickly agreed to let them pass freely, with Crusader, in exchange for his continued existence. “Just keep that thing away from me.” Gourmand spilled the beans on Eurydon’s plans and location. She’s made for Pandemonium, the great city, mustering her followers on the plain of Baal-Sagoth. For all the good it will do her. “What do you mean by that?” “She has no chance. Her pride is her undoing. That…thing…cut her deeply. I did what I could to heal her, but she will not survive another such strike. In truth, that would be for the best. Lakshvir may a tyrannical bitch, but she’s a dependable tyrannical bitch, and Eurydon is capricious on a good day. This entire thing is probably over some fallen angel they sparred over a millennia ago.” Crusader lived, but was far from healthy. The Magician stabilized him, but he could not restore him to consciousness. The Cateran offered to carry him and keep him safe. With the Gourmand’s directions, they found the Plains of Baal-Sagoth, where sits a rude camp of lesser demons, demonlings, and imps opposite a massed array of an army of the damned. In its center stood a pavilion of flame, where Eurydon presumably awaits Lakhsvi’s arrival so they can burst forth and battle on the mortal plain. So, next time, all the heroes have to do is infiltrate a camp full of demons and take her down. While an army from hell watches. How hard can that be?

Re: Normal/non-super/average people Sidekick is more than enough to get you started. It's all the important bits of the Hero System, minus additional complicating factors.

Re: Biggest Shock! I'm going to post this one, even though I never actually got to use it. The premise of the campaign was that all of the PCs were "Nu-Men," artificially-grown superhumans, created by PROJECT NU-MANITY. The Awful Truth of course was something different. They'd been kidnapped by the project, mutated in horrid experiments to give them superpowers, then had their memories wiped. Over time, the old memories would begin to assert themselves, a stranger on the street would mistake them for someone ("But you can't be John! He died six years ago!"). How they handled this news would determine the direction of the campaign.

Re: You were supposed to turn left! That doesn't happen to me. Most of the time, when I'm plotting an adventure, I have absolutely no idea how I'm going to resolve it. I gave up worrying about such things ages ago and just put my trust in the players to either come up with something far more interesting than I had in mind, or suggest the way they would most like to solve it. This saves consternation on my part and keeps me involved in the game as much as them.

Re: Have you ever built a powered armor character... In a game where mutants were persecuted, I had a superstrong (but not super tough or super anything else) character who wore an armored getup that gave the impression (through sound effects and useless servos) that his enormous might was due to the armor. I also had a villain who augmented his already superhuman strength with power armor. Quite a surprise for the heroes when he punched through the wall of his cell after he'd been disarmed.

Re: Theron's Bay City Mash-Up Episode 6: Comes the Hell-Queen! When last we left our heroes, they were trying to engage in some downtime. Oracle was dining with her boyfriend Trevor Stephens, who told her about an expedition he was trying to organize to unlock the secrets of "Lemurian" artifacts. Bard had taken ByteTorrent with him to a local hotspot and was partying it up with a bevy of beauties while the AI looked on with increasing puzzlement. Rex Radium was staking out the home of a wealthy woman, who's husband feared was about to be bilked out of a fortune by none other than The Magician, in his secret ID as a tarot card reader to the wealthy. Things were going fine until the reading ended, his hostess turned into a demonic hellbeast, and the house exploded... Rex rushed into the house and found the Hell-Queen standing over the limp form of The Magician. Attempting some banter to disarm her, Rex managed to attract her attention in the form of unholy chains of force enwrapping him. Still, the Glowing Gumshoe managed to get an emergency call off to his fellow New Guardians. Meanwhile, the Hell-Queen's emergence manifested in what felt like an earthquake to the rest of Bay City. Alexandria Booker ducked out of her date and switched to Oracle form in the alley. Noticing the bright glow of what appeared to be a fire nearby, and getting Rex's call on her radio, she flew towards it. In Club Sonic, the entire place started shaking, and then the lights and music went out. Bard used his incredible presence (along with ByteTorrent's ever-glowing form) to calm the crowd and lead them to safety. Once clear, ByteTorrent gave directions to Bard and teleported to the house. While this was going on, the Hell-Queen continued to heap abuse and pain upon The Magician and Rex, knocking the mage out, but doing little harm to the Atomic Detective. ByteTorrent arrived and attempted to zap her to no avail. Oracle landed, shifted to the aspect of Artemis and shot the she-demon, but her silver arrow had no effect. Clearly, the Hell-Queen was made of sterner stuff than anything the New Guardians had faced to date. Bard finally made it to the scene, leaping in from a distance and interposing himself between the Hell-Queen and The Magician. Given his...erm...godly abilities to persuade women, he decided to try charming her. "What vision of loveliness is this? Come fair maid, let me embrace you!" The ensuing roll on his PRE Attack was actually sufficient to garner a moment's hesitation. This was all he needed, as he launched into a Grab, which succeeded. Caught in Bard's mighty thews, The Hell-Queen decided the time was right to manifest her power more fully and grew to her full 50' height, shaking off the Glamorous Godling and further wrecking the house. Still, it proved a much-needed distraction, and the smell of immortal on Bard caught her attention. "What an interesting little morsel we have here," she said, licking her lips. "I think you'll do nicely roasted in hellfire," as she unleashed a blast on him. Bard weathered said blast fairly easily. His grandmother was very serious about making him unkillable. "I tire of these gnats!" the Hell-Queen shouted, "My ascension awaits!" With that, flaming wings emerged from her back and she took swiftly to the skies. Before he came around, The Magician had a bit of a vision. He was floating in a formless Ditko-verse, and three gigantic shadowy figures looked down on him. A female voice said, "Are you sure this is the one?" A voice, clearly that of The Great Galsworthy replied, "I believe he may be. Certainly he has power. But this...incident shows how little control, how little understanding he truly has." A deep male voice interjected, "Understanding YOU must provide. It is your --" "GREAT. DESTINY. Yes, I know." The New Guardians took a moment to lick their wounds and recover. They considered their options. The Hell-Queen shrugged off their individual attacks without a thought. If she concentrated her ire on anyone but Bard, she'd likely take them out. Clearly, they would have to work together to take her down, but even that might not be enough. Rex put out an all points call on the Guardians Emergency Channel. Rica Jankowski of the GUARD replied almost immediately. Informed that this was a supernatural assault rather than a natural disaster, she put her forces on immediate alert and said she'd have them try to intercept the demon. The Magician drew The Hierophant from his deck and had a vision of The Hell-Queen emerging from an enormous fiery pit in McLaren Park, amidst a hellish mockery of Bay City. Clearly, this would come to pass if they could not stop her. ByteTorrent summoned the G-Wing from Treasure Island and they prepared to chase the demon down. As they flew toward her location, they noticed an a path about 8 km across that had been transformed into, for lack of a better term, a Hellscape. Buildings glowed with evil luminescence. The sky was a hideous reddish black. What looked like lava oozed between cobblestones on some of the older streets. And hideous shadows chased down normal people in the streets and alleys. Wisely, they decided to land the plane and use The Magician's Chariot card to fly the rest of the way. (Had they spent much more time in the Hellscape, the plane would have been rather horribly changed.) Landing the Chariot near the Hell-Queen, they attempted to launch a simultaneous attack at the gigantic demoness. Unfortunately, only two of the team made their Coordinate rolls, so things didn't come off so well. They stung her, but not enough to do much harm. Pushing on, they tried with all their might. ByteTorrent discovered his electrical discharges did some damage. Bard found he could hurt her a little, though at great expense to himself. Meanwhile, the Hell-Queen continued to bombard them. The Magician blinded her with The Sun, and Bard finally hit her hard enough to knock her down. Having enough, and knowing her goal was nearby, the demoness took to the air, letting forth one final strike on Bard, her whip-like "Wracking Death." It struck the godling hard enough to actually do Body. And 92 Stun as well. It may not have been a Wracking Death for him, but it was a one-way ticket to Slumberland. Enwrapping herself in a globe of hellfire, she rose to clear her senses, then flew towards the park. Before the heroes could pursue, a voice called out of the hellish night, "Did somebody call for help?" Yes, the cavalry had arrived, in the form of Technocrat, GraniteMan, Winter Dragon, and Summer Cloud, for members of China's Tiger Squad, who "just happened" to be visiting the Chinese consulate. (Which prompted Rex Radium to mutter, "If it ain't swamis, it's commies...") Also, The Crimelords (Dreadnaught, Tiger Lily, Starflare, Morgaine the Mystic, and Warhammer), who called out, "We may work the other side of the law, but it's our town too!" Also. also, The Crusader, a modern knight wielding a very ancient sword, with the immortal Cateran in tow. The Crusader (in my best bad Patrick Warburton voice) was worked into a holy froth wanting to get at the demon before she got away. Oracle offered to fly him up and drop him on her, which he gladly accepted. He leaped onto the Hell-Queen, striking her with his ancient sword Hasufring, and all exploded in a bright light and unhallowed noise. When the assembled superhumans could see again, there was no sign of Crusader or the Hell-Queen. However, there was an enormous pit in the center of the park, nearly 100 meters across, with a sickly glow shining from somewhere in its depths. Clearly, The Magician's vision was coming true, and sooner rather than later. The New Guardians began comparing notes with the other supers. Technocrat took readings on the pit and could not detect a bottom to it. Morgaine the Mystic shared her knowledge of demons to shed some light on the situation. "Hell-Queen" is not only a title, but it is a position that is heavily contested by the denizens of the lower planes. The ascension of a Hell-Queen involves a challenge, which is fought out on the material plane. The last ascension was fought in AD 79, near the Roman city of Herculaneum. If such devastation were unleashed in Bay City, millions would perish. Beyond that, she didn't have a lot of information (Morgaine's magic is natural and while she has some occult knowledge, she's hardly an expert). But she knew someone who would know, someone The Magician knew well. The proprietor of Mason's Curiosities, the very shop where Gavin Crowley bought the tarot deck that changed his life. The Magician, Oracle and ByteTorrent, with Morgaine in tow set off for the shop. Rex and Bard stayed behind with a newly-arrived contingent of GUARD troops, in order to coordinate a perimeter, keep an eye on the supervillains and the commies, and rescue any stragglers from the shadow demons. While scouting the area, Rex found Crusader's sword, though there was no sign of the hero. He called aside Agent Jankowski and left the sword in GUARD's care, rather than let it fall into potentially wrong hands. He also asked her if she'd noticed an upswing in magic-related incidents. "I guess. I really hadn't thought about it. Back when Dragon Knight was here, we were fighting giant robots every other week." Although it was well past the closing time of Mason's Curiosities, the others found it lit by candlelight. Old Mr. Mason was sitting at the sales counter reading from a musty old tome. He welcomed the heroes and extracted an oath from Morgaine that she wouldn't steal anything, then offered them some tea. "What have you done, lad?" he asked. "I'm not sure. But a demon's been unleashed and she's trying to complete a ritual of ascension. Do you know anything about that?" "A bit. But we're waiting for those who know a bit more." Oracle busied herself looking at all the strange and wonderful goods inhabiting the shop's shelves and ByteTorrent speed-read his way through half a dozen grimoires before three figures silently apported into the room: two men and a woman, hooded as in The Magician's earlier vision. The shorter man immediately revealed himself as Galsworthy the Great. "Why didn't you answer when I called you?" "We've been in...difficult terrain. Thing's aren't working properly there." "Do you know what you've done?" "I think so. How do I stop it?" The taller man spoke, "Indeed, lad. That is the question. How do you stop it? Removing his hood, he revealed well-groomed patrician features. "Allow me to introduce myself. I am Aleister Thoth, Magister of The Circle."

Re: Theron's Bay City Mash-Up True. Of course, Foxbat already plays a significant part in one chapter of "Battlegrounds." However, at this point, I think the campaign is heading in a slightly different direction, so it's not that important for me to stick to that plotline.

Re: How do you design your champions game In the case of my current game, I used a bit of a plot crowbar to get things started. I set things up so that the City's senior superhero was being called away to deal with a greater threat and he needed some of the lesser locals to take up the reins in his absence. After that, I let the players come up with the characters they wanted and from there, I've mostly just let their actions lead me. If I don't have a solid lead from them on where they want things to go, I go searching through my copious archive of Hero material (I own every Champions product for every edition published to date, including Adventurers' Club, so I'm not hurting in the resources material). If nothing jumps out at me as appropriate, I flip through my villain books until someone looks interesting. If I'm still stuck for ideas, I start making Hunted and DNPC rolls and see what looks interesting. Finally, if nothing's coming to mind, I go to the Superhero Oracle, a handy generator of plot elements.

Re: Theron's Bay City Mash-Up I'm not sure if I'm going to go all the way with Battlegrounds, to tell you the truth. I really, REALLY dislike some of the elements in the theme park adventure (they're just way too dark for the campaign I want to run), and Rex Radium rather easily sidestepped the radioactive tracking angle due to his Atomic Vision. Also, Interface is kind of a gimp, really.

Re: Theron's Bay City Mash-Up Thanks for the compliments folks. I'm lucky to have quality players who keep showing up every session. Though today, I nearly didn't. We had two last-minute cancellations (The Magician and Rex Radium, one due to a sick person and one due to a terminally ill cat), so I had to do some quick shuffling to make things work. Due to my own underestimation of the amount of violence the PCs can muster and the shortage of players, it ended up being a really short game session. We picked up with Bard, now disguised as Herculan, making his way into the deserted warehouse. Oracle, in Artemis mode, successfully sneaked in through a back entrance and made her way to a shadowy catwalk. I decided that since Utility didn't own the building and because he does suffer from overconfidence, he didn't have the place under electronic surveillance. Rex Radium and The Magician conveniently watched another back entrance off camera, and ByteTorrent 2.0 (we revised his character), waited near an electrical outlet so he could teleport into the building. Bard found a card table with some chairs sitting under the lone light in the building. A voice spoke out from the darkness, 'Welcome, Herculan. Take a seat. The others should be here shortly.' Utility came into the lighted area, 'You and your colleagues handled yourselves quite professionally today. Considering the unexpected element, everything went according to plan. We’ll have a short debriefing once the others arrive and then I’ll put through the wire transfer to your account for the remainder of your fee.' At that moment, Lodestone entered the room. Seeing the faux Herculan, he immediately shouted, 'Utility! It's a trap! Herculan was captured, I saw it myself!' Utility used a held action (he may be overconfident, but he's no fool) to trigger his spring boots and leap to the catwalk, dropping a tangle bomb on Bard in the process. 'Lodestone, could you be a bigger idiot? I knew it wasn't Herculan from the moment he arrived. His infrared signature was entirely off the mark. I deduced it was our interloper from this afternoon and had hoped to take him down quietly. Oh well. I expect his friends are outside, you may want to defend yourself.' With that, we entered Phase 12. ByteTorrent 'ported into the building, but came out on a wall behind a stack of pallets and had no line of sight on the villains. Utility, entirely focused on Bard (Oracle beat his Per roll by 4) unleashes a sonic attack on the beefy hero, hurting him, but not enough to stun him. Bard breaks the entangle, and Oracle draws a bead and shoots Utility in the back. For enough damage to put him down to 4 Stun. Followed by 7" of knockback. Off the catwalk. In one shot, he went from full Stun to -13. Goodnight, Irene. Lodestone wisely decided that discretion was the better part of valor. He raised a force wall to block his exit and ran for the door. ByteTorrent phased through the wall after him and attempted to blast him with his electrical discharge power. Unfortunately, it bounced off Lodestone's force field. More unfortunately, Lodestone's magnetic wave blasted ByteTorrent into Diagnostic Mode. But hesitating to attack the Digital Hero turned out to be his undoing, as it gave Oracle and Bard time to catch up with him and knock him out. Meanwhile, a slightly singed Magician and Rex Radium came dragging up, having had an off-camera scuffle with some illusionary creatures. Mirage was never spotted and got away cleanly. As per his PsychLim, Utility folded like a paper tent. He told them he'd been hired for this job by someone calling himself Interface. They never met face to face. He was given the mission specs, the radioactive isotope (stolen frin NCSI way back in Episode #1) and free rein in hiring operatives. All business was conducted via the internet and wire transfers. That's all he knows. While waiting for the cops to show, Bard tried to talk both villains into taking up new careers in the entertainment industry ('Utility, you could be one heck of a special effects guy.') Much to the relief of all and sundry, the authorities did turn up shortly thereafter, to haul the criminals off to jail. Returning to Guardians HQ, the heroes found someone waiting for them, the Great Galsworthy, sitting in the control center with his feet up on the monitor board. 'Hey guys. Nice digs. Whose the side of beef?' Despite Oracle's reluctance to welcome Bard to their ranks, the others introduced him as the newest Guardian. Galsworthy continues, 'I wanted to let you know, I've picked up some references to that Wondralore thing. All very old and rather dubious. But if my contact in the Blavatsky Society is to be believed, it's some sort of psionic focus that dates back to the alleged ancient land of Lemuria. So Zorran is, at least, consistent in his schtick, even if he’s out of his tree…" The heroes discussed ways to track down Zorran and the Wondralore. They decided to look into records of his past crimes to see if any sort of pattern emerges. They then adjourned for the night. ***** Meanwhile, aboard a private jet, a mysterious woman watches news footage of Byte Torrent in action. A voice comes over the speaker: ‘Are you getting this, Chang Mei? Unless I miss my guess, NCSI’s progress on the artificial intelligence front is much further along than we’d anticipated. It appears to be an independent entity composed of data. Clearly, such an entity would be of great value to the Chinese people.’ ‘Of course, Minister. Leave this to me. It’s been too long since I’ve visited America.’ ***** Cut to Rex Radium’s office. Channing Meadows hires him to follow the man he suspects of trying to seduce his wife and bilk her out of a fortune. Some phony con-artist fortune teller named… ***** Cut to Alexandria Booker, having dinner at Aqua with her boyfriend, Trevor. This is clearly an apology dinner. Specifically, for being an overbearing glory-hound. How could he have been so self-absorbed? He blames the pressures of bringing the exhibit to the museum, of trying to live up to their ridiculous marketing hype. He never should have said those things, he should have requested, no, DEMANDED she get equal credit. Also, he has exciting news. He’s gotten a lead on the origins of the golem. It’s somehow connected to the stolen sphere, he’s sure of it. He’s working on getting an expedition together to the Indian Ocean and… ***** Cut to Club Sonic and the place is SCREAMING. Loud dance music fills the air. It’s Super Saturday, and that means the place is full of people dressed up as superheroes. And tonight, there’s even a couple of real ones, as Bard gets his dance on with a bevy of lovely lasses (three Flares and a Rose, so far) and ByteTorrent looks on, trying to comprehend this odd ritual behavior. ***** Cut to Rex Radium staking out a mansion on Nob Hill. Far better than the digs The Magician has, but definitely in the neighborhood to which he aspires. He’s doing a reading for a society lovely, the beauteous and oh-so-charming and Olivia Meadows. The lights are dim, there’s champagne on ice, and magic in the air. Just as the reading is wrapping up, something happens. The last card comes up the Nine of Swords – an abrupt about-face. Olivia screams and faints. Her body fades, and an enormous blast of mystical energy explodes from the spot. When the special effects clear, Olivia is gone. Standing in her stead is a vision straight out of Hell. It looks VAGUELY like Olivia, but taller, elongated, clad in nothing but flames, an unearthly beauty that tugs at his very soul, a demonic succubus given flesh. ‘I thank you, mortal. Your trifling ritual was precisely what I needed to complete my transition to this realm. For my gratitude, I grant you – oblivion!’ Next Time: Now Comes The Hell-Queen!

Re: Theron's Bay City Mash-Up I started them out at 350 points. They're second-string only in the sense of the plot. If I were to stat out Dragon Knight, he'd probably be 500+ points, but that's not likely to be necessary.

Re: Theron's Bay City Mash-Up Episode 4: "Welcome to the Big Time, Guardians. Now, Die!" (Note: This was our first session back together after Hurricane Ike disrupted lives and routines. We also finally had our fifth and final player join up. THIS WRITE-UP CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR Champions Battlegrounds.) Things started in the middle of the action, with the New Guardians arriving on the scene of a potential disaster (or superheroic origin): a school bus had collided with a truck carrying radioactive material. As their VTOL craft, the G-Wing hovered over the scene, they were confronted with an overturned bus full of screaming children, a van leaking a dangerous-looking greenish fluid, and fire everywhere. As the heroes descended, Rex Radium made an important observation: appearances notwithstanding, the radiation levels were no different from the surrounding area. But before he could reveal his suspicions, all hell broke loose! The bus transformed into a makeshift fortress, the screaming children abruptly vanished, replace by VIPER agents, loaded for bear. The next twelve seconds were filled with occasional blaster fire, and lots of violence directed to the agents. Oracle channeled Athena and carved a swath through them with her enchanted spear. The Magician used the Sun card to blind a number, and Rex Radium blasted left and right. Meanwhile, ByteTorrent attempted to pin down their command frequency to see if he could eavesdrop on their tactics. Just as the tide seemed to turn entirely against the boys in green, ByteTorrent picked something up: "Deploy Stage Two!" Rising from a hatch in the back of the "wrecked" van was Halfjack, flanked by a pair of agents. Artemis shot him, but Halfjack leapt from the van leveling a blast at Rex Radium, knocking him halfway across the street. Just then, a strikingly handsome young man broke through the police lines, shouting, "Hey ugly! Why don't you pick on someone your own size?" and slamming into Halfjack with a full-on Move-Through. (GM's Note: A STR 60 Move-Through on a 12" leap PLUS an already injured Halfjack PLUS a blown activation roll on Halfjack's Armor EQUALS a LOT of potential damage. Or real damage in this case. Plus knockback into the van.) Standing over the crumpled and unconscious form of the cyborg Villain, the young man (who several heroes recognized as the popular movie star who calls himself Bard) shouts, "Who's next?" The VIPER agents, already depleted, surrender to a man. The heroes meet Bard. Yes, that's his name, it's even on his SAG card, so it must be. Bard is, indeed, a movie star, having just completed Rambo V with Sylvester Stallone. But he's also a superhuman. Nay, a child of the gods, being the son of Baldur of Asgard. (Or so he claims. None can doubt he's definitely superhuman. And personable. And oh, so dreamy!) He also had a pack of paparazzi in tow who immediately want to know if he's dating Oracle. Before they could get beyond friendly introductions, an emergency call comes in. Park Police at Memorial Park have found a bomb in the memorial statue garden! (Yes, I'm running "A Walk In The Park" from Champions Battlegrounds. As planned when I first started this campaign, I intend to milk my vast repository of published adventures whenever possible. Even though this was a second ambush on top of the first, I decided to run with it, since it's pretty combat heavy.) The heroes make it to the park in about five minutes, landing the G-Wing within a few hundred feet of the Statuary. Rex attempts to study the security measures on the bomb, succeeding in resetting the timer from five minutes to ten seconds. The bomb goes off with a resounding...poof? The heroes are hit with the allergen spray losing 26 END apiece. Up to this moment, I'd never really considered how limiting a serious END drain could be. It completely colored the ensuing battle, even though the Guardians came out on top. As per the adventure, as soon as the bomb went off, Ogre leaped into the fray. ByteTorrent identified him and tipped the Magician and Oracle off to his vulnerability to mental powers. Two ego attacks later, Ogre was both Berserk and on the ropes. Utility triggered a gas bomb which had no effect on Bard (he's nigh-invulnerable). Lodestone then used his powers to wrap Bard up in the remains of the park gate. While Bard was wrapped up, Rex took a potshot at Ogre, knocking him back and buying a bit of time. Meanwhile, an invisible (and sonically muted) Herculan appeared seemingly out of nowhere, grappling the Aphrodite-form Oracle (and who wouldn't want to?) ByteTorrent began scanning the area for remote electronics and discovered the entire area was crawling with remote devices of uncertain type. He began monitoring radio frequencies to see if he could pin them down and was rewarded when another gas bomb went off at his feet. He reproduced the signal and set off another one, which told Utility that someone was onto him. Oracle shifted to Athena form and broke Herculan's grasp before he could drain her strength. Then the Magician played the Devil card, encasing the alien gladiator in infernal chains. Rex took one of Mirage's Flash attacks in the face while Bard managed to break most of the way out of Lodestone's entangle. But not entirely, which allowed the magnetic villain to lift him about 40 feet in the air. Bard broke the rest of the entangle while Herculan continued to struggle. ByteTorrent began calling up information on the alien, while Rex waited for his eyes to clear. Lodestone tagged the plummeting Bard (among the powers he doesn't have: flight) hitting him just before he landed, slamming him into one of the statues. Seeing the hero off-balance, Ogre took the opportunity to launch into him with a move-through that yielded 17d6 initial damage followed by 12d6 knockback damage from slamming him into the statue. Amazingly enough, Bard managed to take the shot. It HURT (a lot), but he wasn't KO'ed and he barely avoided being Stunned. Ogre was left with 4 Stun after the assault, which allowed Rex a really cheap shot to finish him off. Meanwhile, Lodestone decided to try to free the struggling Herculan. He broke the Entangle, but not without injuring his teammate (the Devil's Chains transmit damage to the target as well). At this point, we were coming up on the end of the planned assault. Utility quietly slipped away, having never been directly confronted or detected. Mirage, similarly undetected, shapeshifted into the form of a jogger and made her getaway. Lodestone had enough range to fly off unmolested, and a combined mental assault from the Magician and Aphrodite brought down Herculan. With the crisis averted and two villains to interrogate, the Guardians questioned Herculan who, thanks to some magical mojo from the Magician, folded like a cheap tent. He told them he'd been hired by Utility and that they were supposed to meet up at an abandoned warehouse in six hours. Rex noticed the heroes and other bystanders caught in the bomb "blast" were emitting an unusual low-level radiation. Clearly, the plan was to track them! But who is behind this? Perhaps Utility knows. Maybe it's time to lay an ambush of their own. To Be Continued...

Re: A DC Animated-style HeroMachine Regardless, it won't do the DCU look when that happens. I wish I had the means to snag a copy of the existing app. When it's gone, it won't be the same.

Re: Some Old time Radio find Wow! I'd never seen OTR.net. I listen to several hours of OTR on XM every week, but it drives me crazy that their station isn't available for streaming audio from the website. Now, I won't need it. Dragnet on demand! Whoo-hoo!

Re: International Talk Like a Pirate Day! Arrrr! Here's A Starfire. Not perfect, but I think she's recognizable.

Re: The Atlantian Age I started reading it and liked what I saw, but then had to put it down to do prep for my Champions game (cross-genre influences really mess up my GMing), and then I had some other distractions (something about a hurricane tearing through the region) so I haven't gotten back to it. What I did read, I generally liked a lot. Big crazy over the top superpowered magical adventure with 1000+ point NPCs. Most of the art is pretty decent, though some of the pieces just didn't do it for me. I know there's mention of a language similarity table that doesn't exist, but that's the only real error I've spotted. I'm looking forward to eventually using it.

Re: Theron's Bay City Mash-Up

Re: A DC Animated-style HeroMachine Villains from today's game: From left to right, Argonaut (Oracle's archnemesis), Zorran the Artificier, a Lemurian Golem, and Talisman.

Re: Theron's Bay City Mash-Up Episode 3: "Terror in the Treasures!" We open at the Overstreet Museum at evening. A banner over the door reads, "Trevor's Treasures: The Archaeological Legacy of Trevor Stevenson." Inside, the gala opening is well underway, and the rich and powerful of Bay City are sipping champagne, oohing and aahing over the collected artifacts. Standing in front of a beautifully preserved Greek war galley is Dr Trevor Stevenson, Archaeologist, holding court for the starstruck crowd. Next to him, his partner and girlfriend, Dr Alexandria Booker (who is secretly Oracle) bristles as he once again completely overstates his contributions to the world of archaeology and completely fails to treat her as anything other than his "Girl Friday." In another part of the museum the hero known to the viewers only as The Magician is touring the exhibit, with a wealthy socialite on his arm. From their conversation, it's clear she's his client and he's acting as a sort of spiritual advisor or the like. Meanwhile, out in the parking lot, Rex Radium is on a stakeout. He's been working this divorce case for the past few weeks (even a superhero has to pay the bills), and tonight looks like he's finally going to get the evidence he needs. Or he would if, at that moment, he hadn't spotted a group of suspicious figures leaving the parking lot and making for the museum across the grounds. Especially since one of them was far larger than a human being should be. And glowing slightly. Rex calls ByteTorrent who teleports to the parking lot and the two of them shadow the mysterious figures, reaching the edge of the game map just as... A massive armored figure wrenches open one of the fire doors on the back of the museum. A colorful figure phases through the wall. "Depart vermin! Zorran the Artificier stands before you! Allow me my prize and none need be harmed!" Alexandria hides behind the ship and transforms into Oracle. The Magician escorts his date into another room, only to find their path blocked by Talisman. He begins pointing people towards the emergency exit and moves to confront the villainess. Talisman attempts to mind control him and fails miserably. Zorran creates images of serpents and demons to frighten the crowd away, and succeeds mightily. Rex makes it to another fire door as Byte Torrent teleports to the main entrance. As Oracle leaps up to the prow of the galley, another figure enters the picture: a large man, wearing ancient Greek armor, but with a shirt made of an animal pelt rather than a breastplate. She recognizes him instantly as Argonaut, her personal nemesis. "Well, well," he says with a menacing grin, "The Sisters are here. And I thought tonight would be a total loss." With that, the fray is well and truly joined. Rex Radium gets momentarily dropped when Zorran suppresses his strength to less than nothing. Oracle and Argonaut fight to a stalemate (he has the tactical upper hand, but can't hurt her). ByteTorrent and The Magician manage to catch Talisman in a crossfire and she's unable to do either of them lasting harm (she rolled horribly). Caught between The Magician's Tower Card (a powerful lightning attack) and ByteTorrent's energy blasts, she goes down rather quickly. The Lemurian Golem (the large armored construct) crashes its way into the heart of the exhibit, and tears out the case containing the centerpiece artifact, a crystal globe that Stevenson has named "Merlin's Orb." Never mind that it was found in Turkey and has nothing to connect it to Arthurian legend, Stevenson knows good promotion when he makes it up. As it exits the room, The Magician pulls the Devil from his deck, binding the behemoth in magical chains. Rex and Zorran trade blasts of energy and while Rex hurts the Lemurian "swami" (Rex's term - he has a congenital hatred of swamis born from being a pulp hero), Zorran is clearly the more powerful and leaves Rex unconscious in the corner before turning his attention to freeing the bound Golem. And utterly failing to do so. Oracle cleverly shifts into her Aphrodite aspect and moves the battle with Argonaut from the physical to the mental. Her ploy works and at the same moment, Hera shines a bit of her disfavor upon Argonaut (his Unluck kicked in). The railing of the galley breaks, spilling him to the floor. Sensing the turn in the battle's tide, the Olympian warrior chooses discretion over valor and slips out into the night. Giving up on freeing the Golem, Zorran snatches the crystal orb and its base from the display case, shouts "Kill them!" to the Golem, and teleports away. Oracle and The Magician note that he seemed much more interested in the base and referred to it as the "Wondralor" or something like that. Finishing off the Golem takes a bit of time, but not much effort. An intangible ByteTorrent distracts it while Oracle and Rex finish it off at range. The police arrive and take Talisman into custody. Surveying the wreckage, Trevor is initially distraught until his eyes light upon the now inert Golem. Declaring it the new centerpiece of the exhibit, he immediately begins spinning the night's events into a fanciful account of his own personal heroics. Oracle transforms back into Alexandria and attempts to tell him off, but it's water off a duck's back. Revealing her identity to her teammates, Oracle tells them what she knows of the stolen artifact's history. It was found in a cave in Turkey. It was not excavated, as it wasn't buried, but simply found, sitting unmolested. To date, no indication of how it was created or by whom was known, and Stevenson had not allowed her to do the necessary research to determine its origins. She's never heard the term Wondralor, but will begin researching it. With no further leads at the moment, the team turns their attention to keeping their appointment with Donald Henderson. ByteTorrent determines the coordinates are a location on Treasure Island, an artificial island in the bay, largely occupied by Henderson International facilities. The Magician pulls the Chariot card from his deck, providing his teammates with easy transportation in the form of, well, a flying chariot. The location proves to be an abandoned hillside, where brush has recently been cleared, revealing a large metal plate set in the ground. As the heroes arrive, the plate slides open, revealing a well-lit tunnel. Following it, the heroes come to a door marked with a stylized letter G. This door opens as well, onto a 70s-style command center right out of a James Bond movie. Donald Henderson, a tall, vital-looking man in his 60s, invites them to sit down. His proposition is simple: Dragon Knight and the Sentinels are likely to be away far longer than expected. It's clear that superpowered crime is on the rise, so it's safe to assume the bad guys have figured out something's going on. If the new heroes intend to step up and fight, then they need the best resources available. And this base, once home to the world-famous Guardians, represents the best Bay City has to offer. Oracle asks how he came to acquire the base. Henderson smiles wryly, "Sentimental reasons. I'm a wealthy man, with many connections. And I've lived an interesting life." As they tour the base and see a picture of the Guardians, Rex notes that the head of his cane appears to be a high-tech pistol grip. It doesn't take much more than that to connect Henderson with the Marksman, but no one dares ask him. The heroes accept his offer and Oracle declares they'll be known as the New Guardians, to the general acclaim of the others. We end with a news report about Talisman escaping custody with the apparent assistance of the Black Paladin. To be continued in two weeks...

Re: Whoo-Hoo! Atlantean Age Is Mine! Oh absolutely. That wasn't meant to be a criticism. For as long as I've been gaming, I never expect to use anything as-written. I'm far too idiosyncratic.

Re: Whoo-Hoo! Atlantean Age Is Mine! Like a big one-eyed critter with horns and another eye in his belly that my kid might draw. Not one of the better pieces of art in the book, I fear.

Re: Whoo-Hoo! Atlantean Age Is Mine! When I flipped through it and saw a 1200+ pt NPC in Fantasy Hero, I knew I was in the right place. I doubt I'll use it as-is, but it's pretty much exactly what I need as a foundation for the Epic Mythology On Steroids And Crank Game Jones that Exalted couldn't deliver.

Re: Theron's Bay City Mash-Up Session Two: (I intended to call today's episode "Short Handed," to emphasize that the team are a little weak in the firepower department and to set up the addition of new PCs and players in the near future. As things turned out, well, see for yourself.) Continuing from last time, ByteTorrent put together a list of known Bay City supervillains who had the means and motive to pull off the isotope theft at NCSI: Brainchild, The Overbrain/Brain Trust, Technocrat, VIPER, Exo, and Mantisman. Based on Grond's mention of "Brain Guy," the heroes focused on Brainchild and the Overbrain as possible leads. A fair bit of investigation and streetwise later, they had the general location of Brainchild's "shop," where he provides "tech support" to supervillains. ByteTorrent detected a significantly higher than normal level of net traffic coming in and out of a non-descript building in an industrial park. He decided to infiltrate the system and easily gained access (he did really well on his various machine control and telepathy rolls). However, had a choice: go as deeply as he could into Brainchild's computer system and set off alarms, or take a less intrusive approach and avoid detection. Since ByteTorrent has a psychlim about hating secrets, he went in all the way. As a result, while the heroes were idling in their van outside the building, Brainchild got the drop on them, putting a hole in the side of the van with a remote energy weapon and beginning his escape plans. ByteTorrent teleported to the roof and attempted to seize control of the point defense turrets that had sprung up on the corners of the building. Oracle shifted into Artemis mode and tried to shoot the guns, while Rex Radium blew in the front door and entered the building. A fairly inconclusive set of actions followed. ByteTorrent was struggling with the gun system and Artemis had trouble hitting the gun for much damage. Meanwhile, Rex found the building was basically an abandoned light industrial plant. Behind the reception area was a large warehouse space full of stacked crates and junk, which made spotting somewhat difficult. But he could hear something mechanical happening in the middle of the room. Around the time Oracle/Artemis shot out one of the guns, Brainchild emerged from an opening in the floor of the warehouse, heading towards an overhead skylight. Before he made it all the way up, another more ponderous form sprang up and smashed through, landing on the roof with an enormous crash. It was Ankylosaur (who'd had the bad luck of being present for a 'tune up' when the heroes crashed the party). He landed on the roof and dropped a flash-bang grenade right in front of ByteTorrent, blinding and deafening the virtual hero. Rex drew a bead on Brainchild and tagged him. It wasn't enough to hurt him badly or knock him down, but it did shove him around a bit and got his attention. Blinded and deafened, ByteTorrent decided to use his nifty other senses to teleport to BrainChild's command center and seize control of it. It seemed reasonable, and he wasn't going to be any use on the roof, so I allowed it. Meanwhile, Ankylosaur took a shot at Oracle, narrowly missing her (she aborted to a dodge and it was just enough). Brainchild fired his disintegration pistol at Rex, but it bounced off his ED without doing any damage. Rex decided to retaliate with hit hard radiation attack (a 5d6 NND); the resulting damage knocked Brainchild out momentarily, sending him crashing to the floor. ByteTorrent successfully took over the security system and trained the remaining gun turrets on Ankylosaur. I ruled that he only had to make one roll to hit and the extra guns would simply add to his OCV. As it was, he hit easily, and the 4d6 RKA staggered Ankylosaur (only 12 Body, but 48 Stun). When Oracle got back on the offensive, she used Artemis' golden bow to shoot him, doing sufficient stun to just knock him out, but more importantly, sufficient knockback to send him back through the skylight and down into the basement lab. She then shifted into Athena mode, traversed the roof and dove down after him, landing (unfortunately) just within his reach. Assuming Ankylosaur was well handled, ByteTorrent turned a security gun onto Brainchild, not taking into account a) the guns were powerful RKAs, and the newly-recovered Brainchild hadn't reactivated his force field. It hit, for 10 Body and a lot of Stun, dropping him instantly. ByteTorrent has a lot to learn about the fragility of human beings. He's also got a brand-new shiny arch-nemesis. Playing possum, Ankylosaur managed to get a good whack with his tail on Oracle, bouncing her off an electronics console and stunning her, but not knocking her out (even Grond didn't one-shot her). Rex retaliated with another hard radiation blast, which put Ankylosaur down long enough for the heroes to divest him of his armor and tie him up for the GUARD, who were already en route. As it was, their mission was only a partial success. While they'd managed to capture Brainchild, and got Ankylosaur as a bonus, Brainchild was too badly injured for them to interrogate. ByteTorrent found evidence that Brainchild had been hired to steal the isotope, but the identity of his employer was not in his files. They did learn that he was supposed to take the stolen goods to a dead drop at the San Francisco National Cemetery at the Presidio. At the cemetery, they found the dead drop. Rex verified the isotope had been there, but no more. Examining the area revealed some additional information: An area of scorched grass in the area that could have been from Brainchild's jet pack. An area of odd background radiation near the dead drop. It was about the size of a car. Rex recognized it from the parking lot at NCSI and ALSO from the ray Brainchild shot at him. Taking an aerial vantage as Aphrodite, Oracle notice the pavement where Rex saw the radiation seemed somewhat cleaner than the rest of the roadway. Under questioning, one of the groundskeepers revealed that the day before (while he was getting drunk), he thought he saw a man make a car disappear then fly away. At this point, with no further obvious leads, the heroes returned to their base, hoping their associate Galsworthy could put them in touch with someone who might have alternative means of gleaning information. As things turned out, they were right. Galsworthy was already there, accompanied by an oddly dressed fellow, who's ensemble consisted of motley street clothes. Instead of looking ridiculous though, he seemed to carry it with quite a bit of style. He constantly shuffled a tarot deck. Galsworthy introduced him as The Magician, another occasional ally of Dragon Knight, and protector of the Haight-Ashbury district. (NOTE: This was a new player who joined on very late notice. I didn't know what sort of character he was going to play, so the fact he wanted to play a mystic type was really a spectacular coincidence. We needed one, and the tarot schtick is really cool. The best part? This was the actual conversation regarding his name: Me: So what are you going to call him? G: That's what I'm still agonizing over. Me (Joking): You could be Major Arcana. Or Fortunato. G: I think, in the spirit of the character, I'll let the cards tell me his name. (He cuts the tarot deck he brought as a prop). Ah, "The Magician." That works. The heroes give The Magician a rundown of the story to date. He offers to see what his cards have to say on the matter. The resulting prophecy is something like: The one who opposes you alters his plan In the place where dead heroes are remembered You will find danger and answers (I suck at prophecies, by the way.) The Magician then suggests they go back to the cemetery. He has a small bit of postcognition, which may provide some answers. Focusing on the scene, he fills in a few gaps: Brainchild drove to the cemetery, put the isotope in the dead drop, then disintegrated the vehicle and flew off on his own power. A half hour later, a woman wearing a black and green costume appeared out of nowhere, recovered the isotope, and vanished again. The Magician had no idea who the woman was, but ByteTorrent suggested they review the databases of known criminals to see if he could pick her out. When they returned, they found Galsworthy gone, but a white notecard on their conference table, bearing the logo of Henderson International. It read: Latitude: 37.6675 : Longitude: -122.44944 Wednesday 10 PM We should talk. -H And so we ended this session. Experience was awarded for the first two sessions. It went pretty well, considering I hadn't planned on adding a player today. He's a good match for the group though and I'm glad to have him with us. We've still got one more player to add in a few weeks, and then things will be where I want them. I didn't expect the PCs to do quite so well against Brainchild and Ankylosaur, but they earned it.

I finally crossed paths with my buddy who picked up a copy for me at GenCon. I've only had a chance to page through it, but this looks freakin' sweet! (Deeper review to follow. I'm just glad it's finally in my hands.)

Re: how about a Brick built like a SCHOOL BUS ? Thanks. I may have to team them up at some point.