TheTemplar

Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!! Not quite. She spent all her power keeping the combined wreckage of Dr. D's and Warlord's flying bases afloat until they had cleared LA and then blacked out. Basically pushed her powers every phase until she'd burned through END and STUN both - with a little GM-handwave action to adhere to the only rule that matters - the Rule of Cool. The in-game sequence of the Defenders attacking Destruga with all their allies came off pretty damn epic. That was a whole lot of fun to run. Fantastic-Man, Warforge, Viperia & Gargantua all pounding on the force shield surrounding Destruga simulaneously to break through it was pretty sweet. And seriously, the team beat the ever-living crap out of Dr. Destroyer. For all the ramp up beforehand, the fight itself was almost too short but it sure was impressive!

Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!!

Re: Best/Worst Characters? Hmm... Best Character in terms of favoritism would have to be my speedster, The Tornado!. Though he's not by any means the most original. My best in terms of originality would be Frostbite, an ice-based EP who I spent a lot of time developing a compelling story around and has never seen the top of a table. I created him and Tornado! at the same time & the team was, at that point, a brick, a MA & 3 EPs. Worst... toss up. My least effective (though extremely fun!) was Titan, a growth brick in a teen supers game who gained his powers for a limited amt of time by using a special serum he created, but that had adverse effects on him if exposed for prolonged periods of time (in other words, if he had to use it on Monday & Tuesday, he better home Wednesday was crime free.) In our one adventure where he had to "fake it" with his foam-stuffed suit he got punked pretty hard by the opposing team brick. Still a very very fun character with upsides far exceeding his glaring downfall. I'd also loop The Templar, my namesake, into the "worst" category. Horribly unoriginal character & he was the first Champions character I ever made (this was back in 4th ed.) I had NO idea what I was doing, struggled with everything from genre to concept to build & in the end I got a pretty 2-dimensional character who just ended up being not a lot of fun to play. Learned a helluva lot though.

Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!! You know this campaign started in 2003? I'd love it if anyone still has their original character sheets from when we rolled at 350 so we could see a then and now comparison. I know all of mine are long gone though.

Re: Swords of Lemuria Unnamed Barbarian did finally get named. His name is Karne, known in the Arenas of Shembis as The Black Beast, and known in Punjar Marketplaces as "that guy who you can usually get to pay triple for everything." This is a really fun campaign!

Re: A Limited Area of Effect Advantage That HTH Range-Cone idea does sound perfect, would just have to remove the damage added by Strength. I could still probably create that in HD3 using a Custom Power. I mean ultimately it doesn't matter too much as it is equipment which isn't bought with character points (doing a 150pt heroic campaign - although any personal modifications or upgrades they make to their equipment will be bought by XP w/ the Independent lim.) I thought about using Explosion but it doesn't quite simulate the effect of the attack as well - it's actually really rather nasty. The weapons project a burning gaseous plasma into the affected area & that gas seeps in through any cracks or gaps in the victims armor or carapace & literally roasts them inside their own shell from the inside out. So being slightly further away doesn't necessarily reduce the effect as there's no concussive component to the damage done (edit - though maybe it's more concentrated the closer you are? Hmm...that's worth considering.) Normally weapons will have full range, off-set of course by the range penalties so that Marines aren't bagging Zerglings from 1800 feet away with a fully automatic Gauss rifle. Given average CV's for the characters, I'd say anything beyond about the 12-16" range has a decent chance of not being hit in a firefight that doesn't involve Vehicles. I'll toy around w/ making a custom hth no str aoe cone attack tonight. Any other ideas though, keep em comin. Great stuff so far, thanks guys.

Re: Answers & Questions Q: Who does he think he is, with all his Campbell's Soup and that constant Tagalog? A: He only takes tips.

5th EDITION: Hi guys. Trying to design a small cone-shaped AOE attack that packs a decent punch. The problem with the normal AOE advantage is, of course, for a simple 2d6 RKA (also w/ the Penetrating adv. as it's a fire attack,) that makes a 10" Cone, which is WAY bigger than intended (think short-range flamethrower attack - specifically, a Firebat weapon in my upcoming Starcraft Hero game.) Ideally, it shouldn't be any greater than 3". Obviously I can easily make a "custom" advantage Limited AoE for +1/2 instead of the full +1 version, I just want to make sure there's not an already-existing way to create that. I could use the Limited Power disad, but I'm looking for a way to reflect the shorter range in the Active Point cost of the attack for more accurate balance comparisons. Currently built as: CMC-660 "Firebat" - 2d6 RKA (Penetrating +1; +1/2, Limited Area of Effect (3" Cone); +1/2, 60 Active Points)(No Range; -1/2, OAF; -1)

Re: If you Had to Pick, ONE (already) Setting, to Run in, What is it? While wrapping up our Champions campaign, I'm currently doing the preliminary work on a new campaign using the RTS Starcraft as the setting. It's REALLY ecclectic & allows a GM to mix in elements of rebellious colonists vs oppressive regimes (a super common sci-fi theme, & given that in Starcraft, humanity has a kind of "hicks in space" motif, that all carries a strong Firefly vibe) all the way up to crazy advanced alien tech & psionics like you'd find in a B5 or simliar setting, all while still allowing survival/horror elements as in the Aliens series when they were good (huge fan of the 1st 3 movies - some of the best sci-fi ever made, imho.) If you're not familiar w/ Starcraft but familiar w/ the works of Robert Heinlein (Starship Troopers) then you're pretty much familiar with Starcraft, except all the marines are rednecks instead of high school students.

Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!! You know, I don't. That was back when Frydaddy was still running the campaign & I was but a humble speedster trying to make his way in a brick-eat-brick world. I didn't start running until just into Season IV. Long story short, we'd been skirmishing pretty frequently with this dude claiming to be none other than M'Bomba, the Zulu God of Death - turns out he was right! In order to stop him from destroying the world with a fleet of massive subterranean terraformers our resident mystical guy The Mac Bashtee travelled to Avalon to ask somebody (His mom maybe? I don't remember all that hocus pocus stuff... speedster, remember?) how to defeat M'Bomba & was given this ancient crystal with the power to restrain a god's essence. Of course we got a 2 for 1 as we also trapped the spirit of our Fire EP Crucible inside along with M'Bomba since it turns out Crucible had been working with M'Bomba for quite sometime and had stabbed the team in the back. This little twist was cooked up by FryDaddy & the player of Crucible, Jo-El (currently Warforge.) To this day no matter what genre we're playing, Jo-El's characters are always held in rather suspcious regard by the rest of the team. Ahh some good reminiscing here. Our final fight against M'Bomba? Took place in his secret lair which was in fact located in Sub-Basement 3 of our OWN BASE. You'd think Nighthawk's raging paranoia would've kicked in as to why we were never allowed to access anything below Sub-level 1. Yeah, I blame him. Thanks for the memories though!

Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!! Season VI: Armageddon So we're near the end of Season VI currently but I'll get you up to speed on the highlights. Season VI began (in-game) in early fall 2008, Election campaigning in full swing. There have been a lot less one-off sessions in this season as the majority have focused on pushing the two rather MAJOR story arcs along. The first major story arc of Season VI has centered around the idea of Ascendancy. While the nation looks toward the polls in November to see who our new elected leader will be (the leading candidates being billionaire industrialist Judas Geddon and a senator who had The Defender's back throughout Season V) a mysterious new villain calling himself Apocalypse was busy with his own scheme. The Defenders foiled an apparent assassination at the Republican National Convention in Paragon City perpetrated by what they discovered to be Teleios clones disguised as VIPER agents. Meanwhile, Apocalypse assembled a team of The Defenders most hated adversaries - Black Harlequin, Black Paladin, Talisman, The Warlord & Cybermind. The 5 seemed focused on gathering powerful, ancient relics for some unknown purpose. They stole Mjolnir itself from its hiding place using magical gauntlets enchanted to fool the mighty Hammer into thinking that Black Paladin was in fact Thor (also during that session, Warforge gained a little Troll buddy. It was pretty funny.) They attempted to steal a powerful scepter believed to be given by Isis herself to a long-hidden city in Egypt, and even uncovered the remains of a massive Lemurian weapon in Antarctica - The Godslayer. Finally, the villains captured Warforge and using Talisman's dark arts, stole from him the Thunderbolt of Zeus which gave Warforge power. With these items, Apocalypse planned on forcing open the gates of Avalon to steal the captured essence of a defeated god imprisoned within (Season III finale) and use it to attain godhood himself. The Defenders took Warforge to his father, Hephaestus, to revive him (& he got a pretty sweet new body out of the deal) & then rushed to Avalon to stop Apocalypse. They got through his minions and stopped him as he was drawing the power from the crystal where M'Bomba's spirit was trapped. Tomorrow Boy warped the Crystal away into a secured pocket dimension and Apocalypse was defeated. Upon his capture, he was revealed to be none other than Republican presidential candidate Judas Geddon, but a strange device discovered in his helmet revealed that he had in fact been under the influence of a powerful form of Mind Control. The device was determined to be the work of Dr. Simian, an evil super-intelligent mad scientist who also happens to be a gorilla and a known associate of Teleios. Still not entirely sure of Geddon's innocence, the team continued to keep a close eye on him (including a Nighthawk in his house, going through files & computer info.)

Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!! /cast Raise Thread.... again! So it's been a WHILE but The Defenders are STILL fighting the good fight. Unfortunately I don't have the time to do the full-detail writeups that I've done in the past (nor do I have the memory to recall events from these sessions that were completed nearly 2 years ago now - hard to believe its been that long!) But, I'm more than happy to share some of the adventures the team has had since we last left them in Dr. Destroyer's clutches. As The Defenders battled with Dr. D in his control room, the JDL fought hard against the incoming agents to buy Tomorrow Boy time to jury-rig some complicated-looking gadget. TB had engineered a force field generator designed to syphon the energy out of the station's core, rendering the massive energy cannon inoperable. The field would contain the energy long enough for a quick evacuation, and then dissipate. The subsequent explosion would be enough to seriously cripple if not completely destroy the station. The boy genius succeeded in drawing the energy out of the cannon core, only to discover his estimate on the strength the force field would need to contain the energy was a little low. The force field began straining and cracking against the overwhelming rush of energy within. Meanwhile, The Defenders were locked in combat with the Doctor, who had dealt a nearly fatal blow to Rampant Lion. As Fantastic-Man, Warforge & Cromwell fought to keep Destroyer occupied, Nighthawk worked his way into the station controls to order other stations to power down and disable the cloaking field. Warpdrive had already teleported to the station hovering over South America to rescue the Atom Family & when the cloaking field over the Antarctic station went offline, she teleported in to evacuate The Defenders, Atom Family in tow. She got the JDL off as TB struggled to hold his force field together with his telekenetic powers. He had to buy enough time to get everyone, including the rest of The Defenders, off the station, though that would leave no time for him to escape. Before she said goodbye, TB finally told Vicki Atom who he was, and how he had been in love with her forever. He stole a kiss before her oldest brother forced her through Warpdrive's escape portal. Warpdrive then herded the remaining Defenders off, leaving Dr. Destroyer on board, shouting curses & vowing revenge. It wasn't until The Defenders were safely back at The Citadel that they realized TB was still on the station. As TB's strength faded and cracks proceeded to spread out all around his force field, a bright light erupted behind him and a gruff, older voice said "You don't die yet, boy..." a red-gauntleted hand reached through the light and grabbed TB by the scruff of his neck, & yanked him back into the light as the field collapsed and the station exploded. Tomorrow Boy reappeared in the Citadel's Danger Room as The Defenders rushed to his side, though he had no idea what had happened to him... or where he was...or who they were. His memory had been completely erased. So that wraps up that story arc. Some others that The Defenders dealt with in Season V included: - TB's attempts to piece his shattered memories back together & solve the mystery of his escape from Dr D's orbital base - Teaming up with NextForce to shut down a massive IHA operation involving mass production of Minutemen robots - Discovering that NextForce's aims weren't so heroic after all and that the evil group was actually working under the direction of Holocaust & Gravitar the entire time! In the Season V finale, it was revealed that the goal of NextForce's anti-Viper attacks had been to steal the Tennyson device for themselves, as it wasn't just a weather control device as they had believed, it was actually a power amplification device & had affected weather because Stormfront had been used to test the device. Gravitar's plan was to steal the device to amplify her own powers, making her unquestionably the most powerful metahuman on the planet, but as The Defenders closed in on them, she was betrayed by Holocaust, who with Gargantua & Brainchild, stole the device for themselves and kidnapped Icicle in order to cover the earth in another Ice Age that would ensure the deaths of billions of normals, leaving only the strongest and most deserving alive. The Defenders fought a 500 foot tall Gargantua in the frozen streets of Paragon City as the massive blizzard spread while Fantastic-Man made his way through the NextTower, confronting and defeating Holocaust and destroying the Tennyson device. After being betrayed by Holocaust, Gravitar agreed to help bring him down and was using her powers to hold back the beam of frozen energy extending from the top of the NextTower into the upper atmosphere causing the blizzard, but was lost in a surge of energy when the device was destroyed. Only the tattered remains of her mask were found afterward. The anti-metahuman legislation failed when it was revealed that its chief proponent was not only heavily involved in the IHA, but also the father of Holocaust himself & the general public gave The Defenders a pretty big "we're sorry!" after being so distrustful of them for most of this season. All in all from the time that FryDaddy started this game (which was in 2003, btw) & throughout my tenure as GM, the campaign has had more of a "DC" feel to it. The heroes are more or less beloved worldwide. One of the things I wanted to do this season was get a little more "Marvel" with it.. borrowing heavily from elements of Spider-Man, X-Men, etc. where the heroes are always the good guys but the public doesn't always see it that way. Overall, I think we had some really nice moments with it but at the end of the day I think we just generally prefer people throwing parades for our heroes rather than throwing produce at them. So, the feel for Season VI definitely reverted back to our old style of play. I'll cover some Season VI highlights in my next post. We are currently about 3-4 sessions away from the end of Season VI at which point we'll be changing gears and running a Star Hero campaign that I've been building ideas for for years now. Tomorrow Boy has expressed interest in GM'ing The Defenders for us as well, so while my time as GM'ing The Defenders may be drawing to a close, our group is certainly not suffering from a shortage of things to throw dice at anytime soon!

Re: "The Inquision Is Come" Given their MO of targeting supers with public ID's first, I think the obvious course of events would be to have them come after a PC with a public ID. If none of your PC's have a public ID, would the inquistion have the means to discover a secret ID? If so, that gives them another avenue to cross paths with your heroes. Or, perhaps a less idealistic member of The Inquisition learns a PC's Secret ID and rather than bringing the Inquisition to bear on the hero, decides to try to blackmail him or her instead? If you have a PC who is known to not have any metahuman powers, perhaps they could be approached by an Inquisition recruiter to bring them "into the fold" as it were. Could turn out to be an effective way to disseminate information to the players, having an "inside man" to uncover nuggets of info here and there... ...until of course that PC gets in too deep and get themself brainwashed by the Inquisition's propoganda machine and become a true believer.

Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!! The Defenders Season V: Evolution Issue 9 "Return of the Destroyer, Pt. 2" CAST Fantastic-Man Tomorrow Boy Nighthawk La Espijisma Rampant Lion III Warforge ...and... The Junior Defenders League Tomorrow Boy Mentalad Invincigirl Kid Thunder Steel Fist Turbo Lass _____________________ ACT I: Tomorrow Boy nervously paced the floor of the Citadel's medical bay as La Espijisma monitored Warpdrive's vitals. He had moved her into the tissue regeneration tank as quickly as possible, but she had lost a lot of blood. Rakshasa, disguised as Cromwell, had been the last to enter the portal that took The Defenders to Dr. Destroyer's secret orbital station. Security camera footage confirmed that once the 5 Defenders had gone through, the disguised supervillain shot Warpdrive and then jumped through the portal himself before it closed. "She's stable, but she's going to be out for a while," La Espijisma informed TB. "What about the oth..." She was interrupted as 5 costumed teenagers burst into the room. "We got here as soon as we could," Mentalad, a.k.a Chase Atom gasped. The JDL's mentalist wasn't quite as physically prepared for the sprint through The Defender's sprawling new superbase as the other members of the team - Kid Thunder, Invincigirl, Turbo Lass and Steel Fist. "What's the plan?" "Follow me." Tomorrow Boy led the JDL to the Defenders' War Room where he presented the layout of the station and explained what they were up against. "So lemme get this straight..." Kid Thunder quipped. "We storm a heavily guarded orbital installation, owned by none other than Dr. Freakin' Destroyer himself, get through a few dozen squadrons of heavily armed, highly trained agents, and possibly not one but two extremely powerful metahumans - and that's all assuming we avoid the Dr. himself, by the way - break into the detention facility, and RESCUE the Defenders." "We have to succeed," Steel Fist replied. "If we lose The Defenders, there's no one left to stop Destroyer." "What about NextForce?" Turbo Lass asked. "How come they aren't up there?" This bothered Tomorrow Boy greatly. "We tried to contact them already before we went up there. They weren't reachable. My guess is that they're busy sacking a VIPER nest somewhere. Luckily we were able to get Max, Tess and Vicki Atom to help out. I guess Destroyer's a big enough threat to get Max to reunite the team." Something about NextForce's absense just didn't sit right with TB, though. "Left you out, eh, Brain Boy?" Kid Thunder teased. "C'mon Mike, leave him alone." Steel Fist chided, smacking Kid Thunder upside the back of his head, drawing a chuckle from Chase. "We'll have to move around stealthily," Tomorrow Boy continued the briefing. "We can't afford to get captured." "So find the Defenders, break them out, and don't get caught. Great plan," Invincigirl cut in, summarizing the lengthy mission plan. "One small problem though... how are we supposed to get up there?" "I can...help with that.." an exhausted looking Warpdrive answered from the doorway. -------------------- A short time later, the JDL stood nervously fidgeting in the Citadel's Control Room, a pinkish-purple vortex swirling in the air before them. "Based on the schematic data Tomorrow Boy lifted from Dr. Destroyer's computer system, I've located locker room here." Warpdrive explained. "Chances are Destroyer will have all hands on deck at their various battle stations while he tries to undo the virus TB released into his network." "Pfft..that'll take him hours. We've got time," TB assured them confidently. "Right... regardless, the locker room should be deserted," Warpdrive continued. "You'll want to move quickly from the locker room down the hall to the elevator bay. There's a stairwell next to the elevators here. Take that to level B. It's a secure floor so you'll have to crack your way in. This is the detention area. You should be able to find The Defenders pretty quickly. Good luck." The JDL stepped through the portal. A fraction of a second later, they were in a dimly-lit locker room over a hundred miles above the surface of the Earth. "Great..." Turbo Lass lamented. "My first trip into space and I'm stuck in the mens room." "Not an unfamiliar postion for you, is it?" Kid Thunder asked with a sly smile. "SHUT UP!" "Guys!" hissed Steel Fist's stern whisper. "Stealth...remember?" Once they were sure the locker room was clear, the teenage supers snuck out into the corridor. A computerize voice rang through the halls, some sort of annoucement. "Stage one of redeployment completed. All stations will be firing-ready in fifteen minutes." "Plenty of time eh?" Mentalad asked TB sarcastically. "I have GOT to stop underestimating these twentieth century mad scientists!" TB scolded himself. "You sure that thing's gonna work?" Invincigirl asked, pointing to the digital scrambler unit Tomorrow Boy had thrown together to keep the six of them hidden from any scanning devices Destroyer had on board. Tomorrow Boy looked nervously hopeful. The six headed down the corridor. The sound of the patrol coming toward them didn't give them very much warning, and there was nowhere for them to hide in the wide open hallway. Tomorrow Boy quickly threw up a deflector wall in front of them to keep them safe from the ensuing firefight. "Blast them!" The Destroyer agent shouted when the patrol came around the corner into view. "Double back! We'll have to find another way around!" TB ordered as the JDL sprinted back the way they came. It seemed like the entire station's worth of Destroyer agents was after them. At every turn, they ran into another squad of them. Finally satisfied that they had ditched their pursuers, they came around to the elevator bay from the opposite side. A pair of guards had been posted. Mentalad took control of one and made him punch the other. Invincigirl promptly KO'ed the other guard, and with his keycard in hand, the group headed into the stairwell. -------------------- Nighthawk sat in near total silence, meditating, trying to figure out a way to escape the holding cell. He heard the cries of alarm and the subsequent brawl from the other end of the detention area and it snapped him out of his trance. He strained as far forward as his powered shackles would allow, trying to see what was going on down the hall. The clear cell door hissed as it slid open, and his manacles released. Nighthawk stumbled forward slightly before heading out into the hallway where he saw the JDL. Tomorrow Boy handed the Dark Defender his utility belt. He put it on as one by one Warforge, Rampant Lion, Fantastic-Man and Cromwell emerged from their cells. "How do we know he's the real one?" Warforge asked Nighthawk. "You don't..." Cromwell replied as he straped his confiscated holster over his shoulder, drawing his .50 cal Desert Eagle Action Express. He checked that the clip was full, nodded satisfactorily and holstered the firearm again. As he was putting it away, Rampant Lion noticed that the name "Joanna" was inscribed on the slide. "You wanna test me?" Cromwell growled, levelling a piercing stare at the metal man. "Nope. That's him." Warforge quickly replied. Fantastic-Man looked around at the JDL, feeling a swell of pride when he saw Tomorrow Boy and what his young protege and his friends had accomplished. "Good work, guys. But we aren't done yet. We need the six of you to get to the power core of this station and figure out a way to shut it down." "Can do Fantastic-Man," Tomorrow Boy replied. "But where are you guys going?" "We've got a Dr. appointment." ____________________ ACT II: Tomorrow Boy and the JDL located the massive power core bay as another warning from Destroyer blared over the station's intercoms. "Surrender, Defenders, or I'll fire the cannon from THIS station! What do you suppose melting a large portion of Antarctica would do to the planet's sea level?" "We gotta hurry," said Steel Fist who set about jamming the mechanical door behind them to prevent a passing patrol of Destroyer Agents from interrupting them. Invincigirl dashed to one of the large computer terminals and began pulling up data. "Looks like a couple of the other groups are giving Destroyer's men a hard time. The Europe and South America satellites are both reporting serious collateral damage," Mentalad confirmed, reading over her shoulder. "South America..that's the Atom Family!" Tomorrow Boy exclaimed as he examined the massive, pulsating energy source that powered both the orbital cannon and the rest of the space station. "Uh oh..." Invincigirl muttered as she scanned the commands available to the cannon control system. "TB we've got a bigger problem than just this station." "Of COURSE we do!" lamented Turbo Lass. "What is it NOW?" "There's an emergency protocol embedded in the system that will allow Destroyer to fire all of them at once, and any attempt to disable it will trigger the protocol." Invincigirl continued. "Ok...Ok." Tomorrow Boy's forehead wrinkled. "I can think of something...I just need a little time." "Time is the one thing you no longer have....brats!" Gigaton sneered as he teleported into the control room. Turbo Lass struck first, soaring at hypersonic speed around the room and smashing her fist into the side of Gigaton's head. She was so satisfied that she had hit him, that she never saw Rakshasa, perfectly camouflaged to blend into the wall, step out and extend his hand as a clothesline. The high speed heroine hit it and fell to the ground, the wind knocked out of her. Gigaton struck next, his nuclear powered blast putting Invincigirl through the large computer terminal where she had been working. "Chase! Steel Fist! Take care of the Rakshasa," Tomorrow Boy ordered, turning toward Gigaton. "KT, you're with me." "Already ahead of you boss," Kid Thunder quipped as a massive burst of electricity left his hands, slamming Gigaton into the wall behind him. "Lights out, Radioactive Man!" Gigaton struggled to his feet. "Impudent whelp," he spat. "When I'm finished with you, there'll be..." The massive frame of the server rack abruptly crashing into him cut Gigaton off. Once again, the supervillain was flattened into the wall, held on his feet by the crushing weight of the steel projectile. A very irritated looking Invincigirl stood across the room where the server rack had been moments before. Steel Fist, meanwhile, had been laid out by a combination mental blast and flying kick courtesy of Rakshasa. Now the evil mentalist and Mentalad circled eachother, their stares boring through eachother's heads locked in a battle of wills. Their standoff was cut short as a crackling burst of electrical energy blasted Rakshasa to the ground, out cold. "When nerds collide, eh?" laughed Kid Thunder, much to Mentalad's displeasure. While Invincigirl and Mentalad helped Steel Fist and Turbo Lass back onto their feet, Tomorrow Boy turned his attention back to the Core. During the firefight, a solution had come to him. Opening sub-space rift after sub-space rift, he nearly emptied his personal pocket dimension of the useful gadgets he kept stored there. As he reached for his trusty Blitz device, explosions sounded in the hall outside and the door to the Core Control room dented inward. "I think they found us..." Steel Fist warned groggily. "Buy me as much time as you can," Tomorrow Boy instructed them as he began dissassembling devices. "I'm going to need to concentrate." _____________________________ Act III: Tomorrow I hope!

Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!! Yeah, that or I'm getting predictable in my old age. Seriously, this came up during one of the adventures of Seas. VI too. I think The Defenders are getting to know my style too well and have developed a sort of functional danger sense about secret plot devices. I need to throw someting unexpected at them...someone get me M. Night Shaymalan!

Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!! Ok, finished updating Return of the Destroyer Pt 1. Will do Pt 2 next week. Enjoy!

Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!! updated

Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!! The Defenders Season V: Evolution Issue 9 "Return of the Destroyer" CAST Fantastic-Man Warforge Tomorrow Boy Rampant Lion Nighthawk ____________________ Act I: Ever since Dr. Destroyer destroyed VIPER's Jormungandr orbital rail gun (along with the majority the US and UN's Intelligence and Military satellites - see Season IV!) with his own cloaked and obviously well-armed orbital station, Nighthawk had been a busy fella. A dish at a remote Omnitech scanning post barely south of the arctic circle had been recommissioned to systematically "ping" orbital coordinates, ostensibly to locate and catalog orbiting space junk, however with the true purpose of, eventually, locating Destroyer's hidden space base. Shortly after breaking up The Director's illegal underground meta-fighting ring, the signal returned something unexpected. Jack Kirby sat at his office desk atop Omnitech's global headquarters overlooking Paragon City, his customary morning hot tea in hand, brow furrowed deep in thought as he tried to sort out the news that the baffled chief scientist was presenting to him via teleconference. "Again, sir, I'm sorry that I don't know how to physically explain it, but I've just sent you the data you requested. One second, the signal was there, headed out into space. Then it disappears. Completely and totally disappears. It doesn't bounce off anything, it's just gone. Nearly a full second later, it REAPPEARS here. Same trajectory. It makes no sense. I've got a team brainstorming scenarios now, but so far they're coming up empty. How do you want us to proceed?" "Keep scanning that area every few minutes. If there are any changes, notify me immediately," Jack replied, already forming his own hypotheses about what would happen to an electronic signal that passed through an advanced cloaking field... the kind of cloaking field that Dr. Destroyer would be capable of creating. "Sounds like we should at least check into it, knowing that he's up there," Fantastic-Man replied to Nighthawk after Nights had relayed the developments to him while speeding across downtown from Omnitech to The Citadel. "I'll call the team in and we'll figure out the best way to mobilize." Fantastic-Man sent out the alert to the team's communicators, summoning the Defenders to base. Nighthawk's drive was interrupted briefly by an inbound telephone call from the Arctic Circle station. The last 3 signal attempts had passed safely through the previously blacked-out area uninterrupted. He knows we found him...and he's on the move. Nighthawk's eyes narrowed as he floored the accelerator. Rampant Lion, Warforge and Tomorrow Boy arrived at The Citadel to find Fantastic-Man and Nighthawk already waiting for them in the War Room. Using the base computer's 3d holographic modeler, he showed them the last known location of the cloaking field. By now, it could be anywhere over North America, and based on their scans, the size was approximately that of a 10-12 story building, and about half a mile wide at its widest point. "Alright, so lets say you're right... suppose it is Destroyer," Tomorrow Boy stated skeptically. "How do you propose we..." He was interrupted by the blaring global media monitoring system alarm. "On screen." Fantastic-Man ordered the base computer. The monitor in the War Room changed to display the segmented visual display normally used in the monitor room for watching multiple news and media outlets simultaneously. All had gone static. Seconds later the image resolved into that of a familiar silver-plated helm with a golden crown adorning it. "You were saying..." Nighthawk shot a glare at Tomorrow Boy, who had visibly sunken into his chair a few inches. "Citizens of all nations of the Earth," Dr. Destroyer's voice broadcast, carried by the appropriate networks in every language, "I have returned, and now the world shall at last be mine! Cast your gaze into the heavens, from whence I shall claim dominion over all the Earth!" A second alarm sounded inside The Citadel, this one from the short-range orbital monitoring system. 6 enormous space stations had appeared, hovering over Africa, Asia, Austrailia, Europe, and North and South America. The world was, quite literally, surrounded. "...whoa..." Tomorrow Boy exhaled. "To America, the United Nations, and all other world governments. I give you twenty-four hours to turn control of your country over to me, or I shall rain death and fire down upon your major cities, one for every hour that you hesitate or... more foolishly... defy me! And... to alleviate any questions of my sincerity...." The station over North America deployed a massive energy cannon aimed toward the planet. "What's he targeting?!" yelled Rampant Lion as Tomorrow Boy rapidly measured the angles. "It's not us.. further north.." he frantically calculated. Before the boy genius could finish, however, the weapon completed its charge and fired a blinding blast... ...and in that flash, the city of Detroit, Michigan, was wiped away. ____________________ Act II: The Defenders, along with the rest of the world, stood in stunned silence staring at the screen as millions of people were suddenly gone in a flash. Most were too shocked to even hear Destroyer's final warning, "One hour. You have one hour to surrender unconditionally or I destroy something that matters." Seconds passed like hours, no one able to find the words to break the silence. In the end, it was the blaring alert of an incoming communique. It was Cromwell. He informed the team that he was enroute to the Citadel to help coordinate the counterattack, and informing the team that they would need to lower the Citadel's anti-teleportation defenses temporarily so that his associate and he could port in. Seconds later, The Defenders, Cromwell, and a new superheroine with teleportation powers known as Warpdrive (who seemed oddly familiar to the 5 heroes) were in the war room, talking with representatives from UNTIL, the US military, PRIMUS and various other organizations. World Leaders were already in session with eachother, scrambling to come to some consensus as to whether or not they stood any chance against Destroyer, and it fell to the Defenders and several of their allies to try to get to Dr. Destroyer in time. "He has six stations, one over each populated continent on the Earth." Cromwell began. "We have assembled an elite strike force of our best agents, but given the need to be able to infiltrate and move through each base quickly, PRIMUS agents will only be able to hit 2 of the stations in the alloted time." Nighthawk stared silently at the orbital positions of the 6 stations. "UNTIL can handle another 2" confirmed Secretary-Marshal Eckhardt, leader of the UN's special ops team. "We can take one satellite," confirmed Max Atom, leader of the Paragon City-based foursome of superheroes known as The Atom Family. "That leaves one for us." said Fantastic-Man. "No. Two." Nighthawk interrupted. "You're not counting the seventh one." "But there are only six," said Warforge. "It's Destroyer. Do you really think he decloaked the station that he's in?" "Nighthawk is probably right..." Cromwell replied. "But we need confirmation." Moments later, the same signal ping that located Destroyer's cloaked North America station confirmed that there was a seventh station, cloaked, hovering over Antarctica. "How are you planning on getting these teams on board the satellites?" Asked Rampant Lion. "I'll take care of that," replied Warpdrive. "I'll be beaming each team on board into an area that Cromwell believes to be a storage hold located near the main artillery cannon. Hopefully from there, the teams will be able to find some way to access and disable the cannons on each station." "Can you get us onto the cloaked one without seeing it?" Tomorrow Boy asked. "I can...guess. It's not precise but it'll have to do, I suppose," she replied. "Then we're going after Dr. D," declared Fantastic-Man. "The best way to shut them all down will be to get to him." "What about the sixth station then?" asked Cromwell. "If you're going after Destroyer, that leaves us one short." Fantastic-Man raised an eyebrow. "Does the manner in which they come down matter? I mean...surgical tactical strike... a slightly less...refined method? All the same right?" "I suppose so," Cromwell's brow wrinkled. "What do you have in mind?" "We've got something that just might do the trick..." - - - - - 20 minutes after the firing of the North America satellite, Warpdrive was teleporting between the staging areas at UNTIL headquarters, DC, and in Paragon City. The UNTIL team 1 was sent to the station over Europe while team 2 was teleported up to the station orbiting over Asia. Then the Atom Family was sent to the station over South America while PRIMUS team Alpha was sent to the North America station, and Bravo team was ported up to the station orbiting over Austrailia. Minutes later she reappeared in The Citadel, visibly fatigued. "Alright... your Africa station.."team" is away. I hope you know what you're doing." She said skeptically. "So do I," replied Fantastic-Man solemnly. "Once you're up over Antarctica, I'll run point from here and coordinate as much between the 7 groups as I can, and will extract any of them that run into serious enough resistance to scrub the mission. We don't have long. You'll have about half an hour to try to take out the cannons before he fires again, so move fast." She explained with an impressively authoritative tone. Expecting Cromwell to have coordinated the attack, Nighthawk turned to him, "If she's doing all that, what will you be doing?" Cromwell opened his coat, revealing the body armor and holstered .50 cal handgun concealed underneath. "I'm with you." Warpdrive opened the portal that would (hopefully) lead them onto Dr. Destroyer's hidden station over Antarctica. "Good luck," she whispered as one by one they entered. Cromwell was the last to emerge from the portal on the other side. The Defenders already stood in defensive stances in the middle of the stations command center, completely surrounded by Destroyer's heavily armed agents and a pair of Black Talon battle-mechas. Calmly, Cromwell drew his sidearm and stepped forward. "It's a trap!" Yelled Warforge, levelling his gatling-arm at an approaching Black Talon. "He knew we were coming!" "Warpdrive betrayed us?" a bewildered Rampant Lion stammered as he knocked an arrow. Cromwell continued to stride toward the Destroyer agents, weapon in hand. Upon reaching them, he spoke. "Yes, Doctor. Everything has proceeded according to plan." He slowly turned toward the heroes as his face melted away to a featureless smooth surface and his body transformed into the all too familiar form of Dr. Destroyer's most trusted lieutenant. "Rakshasa..." hissed Nighthawk. The shapeshifting supervillain would've leered if he'd had eyes or a mouth at that time. He cocked his head slightly to the side as he took aim at Nighthawk. "Nothing to worry about, Doctor. The Defenders will be dead shortly." ____________________ ACT III: The battle erupted! Tomorrow Boy and Rampant Lion began picking off the heavily-armed Destroyer agents while Warforge and Fantastic-Man squared off against the hulking Black Talons and Nighthawk closed in on Rakshasa while the wily shapeshifter riddled the air with rounds from his Desert Eagle. The Dark Defender dodged the hail of bullets however, and Rakshasa was forced to backpedal onto a narrow bridge connecting the central pillar of the command center to the outer ring along the forward hull. Nighthawk dove to avoid the final two shots in the clip and rose to his feet expecting to find Rakshasa cornered, only to discover that the crafty supervillain was nowhere to be seen. However, Nighthawk's keen senses detected a Destroyer agent creeping up behind him. The Dark Defender deftly spun around, launching a powerful roundhouse kick that caught the unexpecting agent on the side of the helmet, sending him reeling over the railing falling end over end to the floor four-stories below. Nighthawk heard the sickening crack of bone as the man hit the floor and looked over the rail to see the horrific sight of the agent's misshapen body, his head twisted nearly 180 degrees resulting from the impact that broke his neck. This man was dead by Nighthawk's hands. Back on the central pillar, Warforge and Fantastic-Man were holding the massive battle mechas at bay, but they were wearing down. "TB! Get to a computer terminal and see if you can shut these things down! We'll buy you as much time as we can!" Using his Blitz Device, Tomorrow Boy teleported to one of the command station terminals on the outer ring and, after quickly dispatching the agent working there, set about hacking his way into Destroyer's computer network, hoping to find someway to shut down all the satellites' firing capabilities simultaneously. He was interrupted, however, when the familiar face of Dr. Destroyer appeared on all the viewscreens once more as the Dr. sent another message to Earth. "You fools!" Destroyer chided. "You dare to launch a feeble counterassault against me? Had you simply surrendered, I would have been merciful, but now you have incurred my wrath! Your insolence will not be tolerated! Detroit was clearly not a large enough example to get your attention... Say good-bye to Johannesburg!" The Africa station shifted slightly in its orbit and the massive particle-beam cannon began to deploy. "TB! HURRY!" Shouted Fantastic-Man as he tore one of the mechanical arms off of the Black Talon and used it like a baseball bat to knock the machine from the central pillar across the expanse to the outer ring. The cannon under the Africa station began to glow as it prepared to fire. Suddenly, the station rocked with violent explosions as great fireballs erupted from the central core. The cannon abruptly stopped its pre-fire routines and the station sat perfectly still in space for a few moments that lingered like hours... and then it began to sink, gaining speed as it fell further and further out of orbit, the hull glowing firey-orange as it began its uncontrolled re-entry. "...what did you do..?" a very stunned Rampant Lion asked Tomorrow Boy, as both sides of the fight had been so completely astonished by the sudden turn of events that they couldn't even move to fight. "..And can you do it to the others?" Warforge added hopefully. "Guys...that wasn't me," Tomorrow Boy replied as he watched the station turn into a firey orb streaking through the atmosphere below. Meanwhile, Nighthawk had slumped to his knees, staring over the railing at the lifeless form of the agent far below. His actions had directly resulted in someone's death... a violation of the Dark Defender's most sacred personal code. Suddenly, instinct took over. He dodge-rolled to the left and sprung immediately back up as Rakshasa fired a point-blank shot into the air where he had been kneeling. Nighthawk immediately followed through on his defensive maneuver with a counterstrike chop that caused Rakshasa to stagger back a few steps, dazed. Nighthawk's head suddenly felt fuzzy for a brief moment and then everything cleared. Suspecting something, he looked back over the side of the railing, confirming that there was in fact no dead agent lying on the ground, nor had there ever been. He turned his gaze back to Rakshasa and narrowed his eyes. Elsewhere, the Defenders were turning the tide. About half of Destroyers agents had been taken out by Rampant Lion's arrows and Fantastic-Man and Warforge made quick work of the second Black Talon. Tomorrow Boy, meanwhile, had cracked into Destroyer's network and was furiously typing away to write a quick and dirty virus that would take down all the 6 remaining stations' firing capabilities at once. Suddenly, the air in front of Fantastic-Man sparkled a light blue as another being teleported into the fray, wearing a familiar blue-black and gold uniform. "Gigaton!" a startled Fantastic-Man yelled as he prepared to face this new assailant. "Impressive trick on the Africa station.. The Dr. didn't think you'd actually be willing to go that far.. How ever do you expect your authorities to capture him again?" Gigaton asked. "We'll take care of that," The Earth's Greatest Hero replied as he took off, soaring through the air toward Gigaton with both fists extended. "No...you'll be too busy being dead!" Gigaton replied as he fired a powerful blast of radioactive energy at Fantastic-Man, knowing full well the superhero's vulnerability to radioactivity. Fantastic-Man immediately lost all his superpowers. His momentum carried him through the air until he crashed into the far wall of the command center and fell unconcious to the cold floor. Gigaton then turned toward Tomorrow Boy. Warforge came crashing down upon the back of the unsuspecting Gigaton, driving his Hammerhand into the supervillains back, bringing both of them to the ground in a tangled heap. "Fool!" Gigaton yelled as he unleashed another hellacious blast that sent the Metal Man end over end through the air, crashing into a nearby terminal. A second blast ensured that Warforge was out of the fight. Gigaton had turned the tide of the battle by taking out two of the five Defenders, but it was the remaining dozen or so agents who finally got the upper hand on Rampant Lion as a barrage of laserfire cut the English superhero down, leaving only Nighthawk and Tomorrow Boy. Nighthawk, enraged at having one of his greatest fears preyed upon by the shapeshifting mentalist, had unleashed a flurry of attacks upon Rakshasa, and the metamorph could no longer hope to keep up. Nearly unconcious, Rakshasa barely managed to avoid a coup de grace that surely would've put him under, and regained his footing just in time to see Nighthawk be levelled by a blast from Gigaton. The Dark Defender's energy-resistant cape absorbed much of the blow, but the impact force was still enough to take him off his feet. Siezing the opportunity, the enraged Rakshasa leaped onto Nighthawk and began strangling the life out of him. All around, Nighthawk's world faded into blackness and he knew no more. "Enough..release him," Gigaton ordered. "NO!" Rakshasa replied angrily. Gigaton forcefully pulled Rakshasa off of Nighthawk, throwing the supervillain to the side. "The Dr. wants them alive... he wants to make an example of them." Rakshasa seethed in anger, but did not attack Nighthawk again. "Just one left..." Gigaton lifted off and soared around the central pillar to where Tomorrow Boy was hard at work. "Come on.. .come on... SEND! YES!" A triumphant Tomorrow Boy jumped to his feet, his fists victoriously high in the air. "I've got your satellites by the balls now, freakshow!" he taunted Gigaton. As if in response, one by one, the six remaining orbital energy weapons entered into their power-down cycles, and all firing commanders were completely locked out of the protocols to re-initiate them. Tomorrow Boy couldn't resist, "Me: 1... Your Doc: 0." "We'll see about that, whelp..." Gigaton replied as he charged up a powerful nuclear blast. Suddenly, a pinkish-purple portal opened up directly underneath Tomorrow Boy. The teenage ubergenius fell in as Gigaton's blast devastated the terminal behind where TB had just been." -------------------- When Tomorrow Boy rematerialized, he was back in the War Room of The Citadel. Taking a moment to regain his bearings, movement in his peripheral vision caught his eye. He turned just in time to see Warpdrive fall to the ground, lying in a pool of blood - her own. ____________________ EPILOGUE:: The smoking, burning wreckage of Dr. Destroyer's Africa Orbital satellite lay in ruin, crashed into a remote part of African jungle. The few survivors fled in terror from the crash site. An enormous metal panel twisted and groaned as it slowly began to rise, being lifted by a force of unmeasurable power underneath it, and then it was just as suddenly cast aside, crashing into more smoldering, twisted metal remains nearby. The hulking, berserking, four-armed menace underneath it breathed heavily as the last remnants of the dosage of Omnicron serum dissappated into his system. Completely unscathed by the satellites violent crash landing, Grond turned, and wandered off through the jungle to the North... ...into the Mbang Mountains. ____________________ GM Notes: Fun huh? I really enjoyed this session. The RP was top notch. The player reactions to all the drama was more than I could've hoped for. I have to confess. The destruction of Detroit had very little to do with any sort of desire to incorporate the CU into the Defender's Universe. It really came from the fact that, with all apologies to Michiganders, I just really really hate Detroit. Again, my apologies. Sending the recently captured Omnicroned-out SuperGrond up onto a station all by himself was just entirely too crazy NOT to work. The players really went outside the box on that one. I assumed they'd go to one of the 6 themselves (Gigaton would've been waiting for them on North America) and not find out about the hidden 7th station just yet. Leave it to Nighthawk to screw that up. Apparently, just like all of his (and Batman's) villains, I have the common/total psych lim "Must always underestimate the Dark Knight." Anyway, this was a fun one... and we're just getting started. The Defenders will return in "Return of the Destroyer, Pt. II!"

Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!! /cast Raise Thread Hello there! It's been a LOOOOONG time hasn't it? Well, I thought I'd hop on and give you all a quick Defenders update. They're all dead. Yep! Dead. Turns out their collective Hunteds: Eurostar, Mechanon, Gravitar, Dr. Destroyer & Armadillo all rolled snake-eyes (if your snakes are tri-cloptic) and showed up at the same place at the same time. Our heroes were promptly turned into a fine red mist, aside from Warforge, who immediately tried to absorb and/or betray the mist before himself being broken down into spare parts and shipped to Motorola to be used in the manufacturing of the new Droid smart phone. No? Ok, fine. They aren't dead. We wrapped up Season V: Evolution a while ago and are now 4 issues into Season VI: Armageddon. Exciting stuff! I'll keep working on updates as time allows. I don't plan on leaving out any of season V, unless I just have forgotten something, which is entirely possible. My notes aren't the best to go off of (if they were, I'd be making one of the PC's do this in exchange for their DNPC retaining all limbs for the week) but I shall muddle through as best I can. I'm sure they'll remind me of any major developments I might inadvertantly omit. We also took some time off in between seasons V and VI to have Tomorrow Boy (aka Dr. Hercules on the forums here) run a teen champions campaign which was a real blast, and now we're back in the land of grown-ups. Grown-ups who go out in the daytime in their pajamas and/or underpants.

Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!! Last Man Standing finished. The Defenders Will Return in... Return of the Destroyer

The Defenders Season V: Evolution Issue 8 "Last Man Standing" CAST Fantastic-Man Warforge Tomorrow Boy Rampant Lion Nighthawk ....and introducing... The Junior Defenders League (JDL) Tomorrow Boy - Yep.. same guy. Just turned 17, btw. Going to be a Senior at Paragon Hills High School. Mentalad - Chase Atom, formerly of the now defunct Atom Family. Mentalist. Team Co-leader w/ TB. Also going to be a senior at Paragon Hills High School. Kid Thunder - Cocky Lightning EP'er with attitude. Senior at Paragon City West High. Steel Fist - Army Brat & Highly trained martial artist. Junior at Paragon Hills High School. Invincigirl - Streetwise Brick with a knack for sleuthing. Senior at Paragon City Central High School. Turbo Lass - Clumsy, ditzy, (yep.. you guessed it) EXTREMELY Blonde flying speedster. Sophomore at Paragon Hills High School. ____________________ Act 1: It had been two weeks since the death of Time Master and things had been relatively quiet in Paragon City. August was wearing on and summer was drawing to a close for high school students all across the country as Back To School Season was in full swing. Warforge had set out on a personal mission - to seek out the tools of his father, Vulcan the Titan, and had left for Greece shortly after Mechanon's appearance. Rampant Lion was busy preparing for the upcoming semester as Dr. Edward Colbert, his secret alter-ego. La Espijisma decided to take advantage of the lull in criminal activity to return to her home in El Salvador to visit her family. And Fantastic-Man found himself in Las Vegas, Nevada. His highly successful enterprise, the Fantasti-Burger fast food chain, had been skyrocketing ever since being bought by Omnitech International, and he himself was on hand for the highly anticipated ribbon-cutting ceremony for the franchise's first Las Vegas restaurant. To the cheers of all the celebrities, tourists, locals and fans that had gathered for the event, Fantastic-Man cut the ribbon with the large, novelty scissors, smiled and waved to his adoring public... ...before being blasted in the chest by a laser bolt! He looked up and saw a pair of silver robots hovering in mid-air, weapons aimed at him. "Take shelter folks! This could get ugly!" he warned the onlookers as he shot up into the air and grabbed one of the robots by the arm. He was about to swing it around into the other like a baseball bat when he was blasted from behind as two more of the same hovering, legless silver robots drifted into view. "Four on one.." he thought. "They should've sent more.. but I don't want to risk any of those people down there getting hurt." He took off like a rocket, the four robots chasing after him, blasting away into the sky. One of them fired an electrical net at Fantastic-Man, trapping him within it. He chuckled as he shifted his mass to a desolidified state only to discover to his dismay that the electrified energy web didn't let him pass! The other three robots fired their energy nets as well as four MORE robots floated in from nearby rooftops. Once Fantastic-Man was trapped under all their combined capturewebs, the robots grabbed him and teleported away, to the gasps and cries of the shocked onlookers below. Meanwhile, halfway across the world, Warforge emerged from a cave on the Isle of Crete, smeared, dented and crumpled following his battle with the giants living near the center of the Earth. He carried a large, black, sooty anvil over one shoulder, and the larger pieces of his father's forge on the other, with a large bag of heavy tools slung over his shoulder. He smiled (or.. ya know.. whatever) as the first bits of warm sunlight glinted off his dingy frame. "Warforge to Citadel.." he called over his communicator. "Go ahead, mate.." Rampant Lion replied. "Got some heavy equipment to beam back at my coordinates," he said as he stacked the forge pieces, anvil, and tools in a large clearing outside the cave. Moments later, they shimmered and were gone. "Great.." Rampant Lion protested. "Now can I beam your metal arse back over here to clean up this mess?" "Nah.. I'm gonna take the scenic route. Haven't seen Greece in late summer in... well.. ever." "Copy that," Rampant Lion chuckled. "Enjoy your trip." Warforge made his way down the mountainside, trying to decide which route to take next, and in no particular hurry to get anywhere that resembled home when he heard something moving in the trees. Something mechanical. He wheeled around, Arm-Blaster readied, as two legless, silver robots hovered up out of the trees and opened fire on him. He caught one of them square in the chest, sending it spiraling away, damaged but functional. Two more of the mechanical assailants attacked from behind then, each blasting him with energy bolts. Warforge absorbed some of their attack, restoring his strength, but then the first two attacked again, pelting him with blast after concussive blast. As he slumped over onto the soft, green grass, Warforge went offline. ____________________ Act II Meanwhile back in Paragon City, Tomorrow Boy and Chase Atom had had a busy couple of weeks. Chase had approached him after the first day of school. Chase had been missing the rush of Superhero work ever since his older brother dissolved his old superteam in light of the growing public resentment of metahumans, and wanted to get back into it. Tomorrow Boy, inspired by the return of his future memories, and the group of which he had been a member, decided that he and Chase would form a group of superpowered teenagers committed to fighting crime on their own level - the birth of the Junior Defenders League. Selecting superpowered teenagers for a team of crimefighters, they would soon discover, was no easy process. First, there were concerns that Chase's family, his older brother in particular, might not approve of Chase's return to superheroism. Chase dubbed himself "Mentalad" to protect his identity. Tomorrow Boy decided that Fantastic-Man might not be all that happy with him splitting time between the two groups either, and decided it best to NOT tell is mentor and team leader. Mentalad had met a kid from Paragon City West High with the power to create powerful bursts of electricity and, despite his hot-headedness, Kid Thunder became the first new recruit of the JDL. But, at that point, they were stumped. There were no other known superpowered high schoolers that they knew of. But, deciding that there HAD to be some somewhere, they pressed on. They started at Paragon Hills High, holding private auditions for anyone who thought they could handle the life of a teenage superhero. Out of the dozens of unusually-powered kids who showed up, two showed some potential. Brittney Todd, with the ability to fly at super-sonic speeds and Tyrell Jenkins, a recent transfer with super-humanly accute senses, bordering on pre-cognition, who also was a 3rd degree black-belt in karate. In the end, Tyrell's military knowledge and fighting skills won out over Brittney's speed (and clumsiness... and irritating "valley girl" persona... and overuse of the word "like"... and.. well.. you get the idea.) He became Steel Fist, and signed on as the 4th member of the group. It was a Friday night, the end of the first week of classes, when the four young men of the JDL had hopped into Kid Thunder's convertible and headed down to the Sonic Drive-In, a popular hang out near downtown Paragon City, when shouting and rumbling echoed down the street. Cybermind was running for his life from the massive, green, 4-armed hulk of muscles chasing after him. "Little man owe Grond money!" Grond bellowed as he ripped a street light down and hurled it at the technologically gifted supervillain. "Little man pay up or Grond smash!!" "Look.. Grond.. can't we talk this out?!" Cybermind pleaded as he ran as fast as his legs could carry him. He looked over his shoulder and didn't turn back in time to stop himself from running right into Steel Fist, as the JDL had quickly donned their costumes and stepped into the street to intervene. "Our first fight... and it's Grond? Seriously?" Mentalad lamented, knowing too well Grond's general disdain for mentalists. "Aww.. Brainboy can't hack it?" Kid Thunder taunted as he flew up into the air. "Hey! Grond! Catch this!" He hurled a massive burst of electricity at Grond. The air crackled all around the 4-armed behemoth. After generally shrugging the hit off, Grond appeared unamused. "This could be going better..." Tomorrow Boy muttered. "GRAAAAAHHH!!" Grond growled in rage as he grabbed a nearby parked car and hurled it at Kid Thunder. Tomorrow Boy tried to catch it with his psychokinesis, but missed. The car stopped its forward momentum, and fell toward the ground. "Nice save, TB," said Steel Fist. "That wasn't me..." Tomorrow Boy replied as the car began to raise up off the ground. As it continued to rise, a shapely pair of legs in tight blue leather boots could be seen standing underneath it. Holding the car above her, stood a beautiful young woman with dark hair and a blue body-suit and mask. "You dropped this." she said softly before hurling the car back at Grond. He blocked the missile with two of his massive green arms but also didn't see the blue-clad girl charging in behind the car. She smashed her fist into Grond's reptilian face, causing him to howl in pain. "...you guys... " Kid Thunder drooled. "...tell me this is really happening. Seriously." Grond roared and swung at her, but she blocked his punch with one hand. He growled even more and swung again, which she blocked with her other hand. "Problem.." Chase realized. "She's out of arms and he's not." "Right.." TB said. "Let's Go JDL!" As Tomorrow Boy blasted Grond with Psychokinetic Energy and Steel Fist danced in and out of Grond's reach, landing passing kicks and punches, Kid Thunder blasted away with a barrage of electrical energy. But finally, Mentalad landed the stunning blow with a powerful blast of psionic energy. Grond swayed a bit, not out, but clearly dazed. By this point a large crowd had gathered to watch the brawl. "Gotta get him out of here.." said Steel Fist as he saw all the onlookers potentially wandering into harm's way. "Got him.." said the mysterious girl. She hoisted Grond up by his legs and began to spin, as if using him in a hammer-throw. She released just as Grond came back to his senses and hurled the green meanie over city block after city block, where he crashed in a heap. "Thanks kids.." Cybermind sneered as he, too, sprinted away. "Don't worry about him.." said Tomorrow Boy as he anonymously contacted PRIMUS to come retrieve Grond. "Grond's the real threat." The girl turned to leave. "Wait.." Chase protested. "No.. I don't really wanted to be here when the authorities arrive." She replied softly, a hint of a hispanic accent in her voice. "I don't.. play by their rules." She turned and ran into the dark alley nearby. "But we don't even know your name!" Kid Thunder cried out after her. "Call me ... Invincigirl," her reply drifted out of the darkness, and she was gone. While the rest of the JDL changed back into their civilian clothes, Tomorrow Boy stayed hidden by his personal cloaking field to watch the PRIMUS agents who arrived to take Grond back into Stronghold. He watched until they were on their way with Grond safely sedated, and then returned to join his friends. They never noticed when the real PRIMUS retrieval unit showed up minutes later, wondering what had happened to Grond. ____________________ Act III (Back in the present day...) "What do you mean 'they took him?'" a rather irritated Nighthawk growled into his communicator as he sped across town toward The Citadel. "I'm staring at it on the tele right now, mate. Fantastic-Man cuts the ribbon, then gets shot, takes off, gets gang-tackled by about 8 robots, they capture him in some energy netting, and then GONE!" a flustered Rampant Lion replied. "I'll patch the video through to you." Nighthawk grimaced as he watched the brief but chaotic scene. "Talosbots." "You recognize them?" "I've had run-ins with their creator once or twice before. They were developed by a genius mercenary weapons designer named Wayland Talos. He just sells them though.. not like him to use them to go after somebody. His services don't come cheap either," the Dark Defender replied. "I'll be there in five minutes." By the time Nighthawk arrived, Rampant Lion had called in Tomorrow Boy, but had been unable to contact Warforge. Rampant Lion and Tomorrow Boy took a D-Jet to Las Vegas to try to pick up any trace of the energy signatures while Nighthawk hit the streets to try to track down Wayland Talos. After a long day of searching that yielded none of the results they were looking for, the three returned to the Citadel, disappointed. The following morning, Tomorrow-Boy received a phone call. "Hey, Riv.. it's Chase. Listen, after we met up with Invincigirl the other night, I went back to the alley that she disappeared into and left my contact number. Apparently she got it because the hospital staff found it on her and called me thinking I was her ICE number. Somebody beat her half to death... real bad. She's at PCMH, if you wanna come see her." Tomorrow Boy took off down the stairs, checked to make sure no one saw him slinking off, and dashed out the front door and took off on his hoverdisc toward Paragon City Mercy Hospital... He failed to see Nighthawk spot him on his way out of the monitor room. The Dark Defender set his coffee down on the counter and tailed TB. Tomorrow Boy arrived at the hospital to find Steel Fist, Mentalad, and Kid Thunder waiting for him. They led him back to Invinicigirl's room. She was in stable condition, but looked like she had been hit by several trucks, and still unconscious. Nighthawk watched from the ventilation duct above the room, with great interest. "Where'd they find her?" Tomorrow Boy asked, still shocked by the sight of their mysterious, but seemingly indestructible ally. "Downtown... lying on the corner near a parking garage on Main," Steel Fist replied, his voice edged with anger. "Well she's still alive right? Can't you just take a look inside her head and.." Kid Thunder began. "No way." Chase replied sternly. "I don't do that. Not without her permission." "Chase..." Tomorrow Boy put a hand on his friend's shoulder. "It may be the only way. Someone out there did this to her.. and if they're powerful enough to put this kind of a beating on Invincigirl, we need to find them and stop them.. fast." Chase nodded, clearly unhappy with what he was being asked to do, but he too understood that there was little choice in the matter. He placed a hand on Invincigirl's forehead, closed his eyes, and focused. When he opened his eyes, the light nearly blinded him, and the roar was deafening. As his senses slowly came into focus inside Invincigirl's memory, he realized that the blinding light was actually several lights.. spotlights. Dozens of them all around. And the deafening roar was a crowd... a crowd of well dressed people, screaming and cheering all around him in some sort of arena. The floor was cold steel, and all around him, between him and the crowd, was a transparent dome. He reached up and touched it. It was some sort of transparent material that felt much harder than glass. He swung at it with all his incredible strength, but it didn't so much as crack, and the blow left his hand numb. "IIIIIIIIIINVINCIGIRL, Ladies and Gentlemen!" A ring-announcer style voice echoed over the roaring crowd. "She's beautiful! She's super-strong! BUT... is she a match for her opponent tonight?!" The crowd exploded. "Making his first appearance in the Thunderdome Arena... in Tonight's MAIN EVENT... I give you the Amazing... the Incredible... The ONE.. The ONLY... THE EARTH'S GREATEST HERO... ...FANTASTIC-MAN!!" The floor opened across the ring from Invincigirl, and an elevator platform raised Fantastic-Man into the battle dome. He stared directly at Invincigirl, his gaze stony and uncaring. The crowd erupted in a renewed berserker frenzy at his appearance. He floated up off of the floor, balled his hands up into fists, and then charged through the air toward Invincigirl in a blur.. Chase snapped back to consciousness in Invincigirl's hospital room. He explained what he had seen to the others, much to their shock. "It's not that unbelieveable.." Nighthawk reasoned as he dropped down into the room... to the much greater shock of the four teenage superheroes in the room. "We've seen mind-controlling villains force people to do these sorts of things.. some worse." "Alright.. but where do we even start looking?" Tomorrow Boy asked. "We?" Nighthawk asked. "That's right." Steel Fist replied resolutely. "We." The corner of Nighthawk's mouth twisted upward slightly in a bit of an impressed smile. "Alright then.. we." __________ Warforge came to in a small, dark cell. The door slid open, but no one came in. He stepped out into a darkened, empty hallway, lined on either side with identical, but empty cells. He cautiously approached the elevator platform at the end of the hall, checking it carefully for any sort of booby trap, but didn't see one. And, failing to find any other way out of the hallway, he pressed the "Up" button. The ceiling above him in the small elevator shaft opened and he was taken up into the Thunderdome Arena. The place was packed, people cheering, booing, stomping, screaming. It was pandemonium. "As Promised, Ladies and Gentlemen..." the announcer's voice echoed throughout the arena... a voice Warforge recognized. "Tonight's main event features not one, but TWO Defenders! Head to head in a Last Man Standing brawl!" "What are you doing, Director?!" Shouted Warforge as the familar, robotic cameras that The Director had used the last time The Defenders fought him circled the dome. "Isn't it obvious?" The Director laughed. "I'm making the greatest fight movie of all time! Super versus super... and I've got an all star cast!!" Fantastic-Man emerged through the floor across from Warforge. "Oh... crap." The titanium titan lamented and Fantastic-Man surged toward him. Warforge dodged out of the way and Fantastic-Man slammed into the indestructible wall of the dome. The crowd erupted as the dome reverberated from the impact. Fantastic-Man wheeled around and rocketed toward Warforge again, this time catching the metal man at the torso and slamming him into the opposite wall. Warforge grunted from the shock as Fantastic-Man flew him up into the ceiling and then slammed him down on the ground. "Come on, Frank.." Warforge grunted as he struggled to his feet. "Snap out of it." Fantastic-Man rushed at Warforge again, but the Titanium Titan was ready this time. He locked arms with Fantastic-Man and the two grappled with eachother in the center of the ring. The crowd cheered as one would start to force the other down, only to have the momentum shift on them. They pushed their strength back and forth when finally Warforge noticed a small, chip-like device implanted on the side of Fantastic-Man's head. "Hope you'll forgive me for this, buddy.." Warforge said as he let go of Fantastic-Man. Fantastic-Man stumbled forward, momentarily set off-balance due to the sudden lack of resistance, and Warforge's hammerhand struck him right in the side of the head, crushing the mind-controlling chip. Momentarily dazed, Fantastic-Man stumbled to the side before regaining his bearings. He looked around disoriented. "Alright, Director! Game's over!" Warforge shouted. "Hardly!" The Director bellowed. "You've only ended round one! Let's see how the two of you fare in ROUND TWO!!" Two more elevator platforms rose up from the floor below the arena - one carrying the Omicron Technology suped-up grotesque monstrosity widely-known as VIPER's strong-man Ripper... the other bearing the grey-clad Russian Bear-wrestler and crushing right hand of Eurostar... Durak. The crowd noise was deafening as The Director shouted over them all, "ACTION!!!" Ripper lunged toward Warforge as Durak turned toward Fantastic-Man. "DURAK VILL BREAK YOU!!" He bellowed as he charged toward Fantastic-Man in a fury. At the last second, Fantastic-Man shifted Desolid and Durak passed right through him, charging head first into the dome wall. The Soviet Strongman fell to the ground, dazed. "...Seriously.." said Fantastic-Man, shaking his head derisively at Durak. Warforge, meanwhile, found himself being lifted above Ripper's head as the massive cybernetic freak was trying to tear him in half. Ripper's muscles flexed and bulged as he strength augmenting fluids of the Omnicron implants surged through him. But with all his strength and attention focused on the Titanium Titan, Ripper never saw Fantastic-Man winding up in front of him. "Hey.. Ripper.." Fantastic-Man said, his fist pulled back. Ripper opened his eyes and let out a surprised grunt. "Hi." Fantastic-Man smiled as he delivered a haymaker to Ripper's jaw. Ripper flew across the ring, slamming hard into the wall and falling forward as Warforge tumbled unceremoniously to the floor. Fantastic-Man smiled, rather self-satisfied, completely unaware of the double-handed axe-handle chop that Durak was about to drop on him. Fantastic-Man fell to the floor with a heavy thud as Durak stood over him. Durak's victory was short lived, however, as Warforge blasted him in the mid-section with a powerful hammerhand. The battle raged on for several minutes as the four super-strong superbeings blasted each other with shots powerful enough to level buildings. Exhausted and out of breath, they pulled themselves to their feet, facing eachother from opposite ends of the ring. The crowd began to clamor for more action. "Bloodthirsty lot, aren't you.." The Director mused over the loud speakers. "But, I am nothing if not a man of the people. I shall give you what you want!" They all cheered a larger elevator platform descended from the middle of the arena and reappeared with a ten-foot tall wall of hulking, green, 4-armed muscle... that someone had recently augmented with Omicron Technology. Grond roared in bestial fury as the four exhausted and stunned combatants looked at one another, hoping someone would have an idea. Grond wouldn't wait for them though. He grabbed Fantastic-Man by the head and tossed him hard into the ceiling. The Earth's Greatest Hero slammed back down hard into the ground as all the air was forced out of his powerful lungs and the room spun around him. "Like my improvements?" The Director laughed. "It cost me an arm and a leg, but for four arms of Omicron powered Hero-beating fury.. I'd say it was well worth it!" The lights gleamed off of Grond's Omicron implants as he grabbed Warforge with two arms, Durak with the other two, and slammed them into eachother over and over again. He tossed them limply aside as Ripper grabbed Grond from behind and attempted to crush the Green Giant's windpipe. Grond's incredible strength, now augmented by Omicron Technology implants equal to Ripper's, proved to be more than the VIPER strongman could handle, as Grond casually slammed himself backwards into the wall of the dome. Ripper's grip slacked and Grond grabbed him with two of his mammoth arms and brought him around in front of him to pummel him with the other two. Fantastic-Man, Warforge and Durak all struggled to their feet as Grond finished with the extremely unconscious Ripper, flinging him away like a ragdoll. Grond turned toward them as another dosage of the Omicron strength enhancer was released into his system, causing his already enlarged muscles to bulge grotesquely. He roared in pain, and looked at the other 3 gladiators with a berserker rage in his eyes. Their attention, as well as the rest of the crowd's, was then immediately ripped away by the charred, sparking remains of the Talosbot that slammed into the exterior of the Thunderdome shell. Atop the stairs of the arena leading down to the battledome stood Nighthawk, Rampant Lion, Tomorrow Boy, Steel Fist, and Kid Thunder, who's hands still crackled with discharged electricity. They had found the secret entrance in the parking garage and had battled past The Director's henchmen and robots and followed the howling crowd noise into the arena. Panic ensued. En masse, the crowd rushed from their seats, clawing and kicking over themselves to try and make it to an exit. "CURSES!" Spat The Director. "At least I'll manage to catch the Death of Fantastic-Man on film!" Nighthawk and Tomorrow Boy raced for the announcer's booth while Rampant Lion, Kid Thunder and Steel Fist tried to break through the thick dome with their most powerful attacks. Meanwhile, Fantastic-Man, Warforge and Durak began working in unison against the Omicron Enraged Grond. Trying to keep his attention on one while the other two delivered punishing blows to the gigantic super-brick. Nighthawk and Tomorrow Boy destroyed the final two Talosbots guarding The Director just as he turned to flee from the control room, but the Dark Defender was ready. He whipped a bolo from his belt, ensnaring the feeble, old villain, dropping him to the floor with a muffled grunt. Tomorrow Boy siezed the controls. "Let's see.. let's see.. This one?" He muttered to himself, pressing a button. Grond roared in fury and charged at Fantastic-Man, who barely turned desolid in time to avoid the attack. Grond slammed all four Omicron Powered fists into the dome wall, creating a six-inch crack in the indestructible barrier. "Ok!" Rampant Lion yelled to Kid Thunder and Steel Fist. "Focus all your fire there, boys!" The three blasted away at the damaged spot, slowly but surely widening the crack. "...That's not helping" Nighthawk growled as he stalked up next to Tomorrow Boy. "Uhh.. Right.. ok.. THIS one!" The Boy Genius proclaimed as he depressed another button. Grond and Durak, both still wearing their mind control chips, stopped fighting.. stared around the room with confused gazes, teetered precariously, and then toppled over to the floor, sound asleep. "Better.." Nighthawk grinned. Sometime later, PRIMUS agents arrived and apprehended Ripper, Durak, and Grond as well as The Director and prepared them all for transport to Stronghold. "You can't do this to me!" The Director protested. "You'd be nothing if not for me, Fantastic-Man! I made you who you are!" Fantastic-Man laughed. "I'm not some starlet you derranged, old hack." "No?" The Director mused as he ripped off the mask he wore, revealing that he was Ferdinand Michelli, the crackpot filmmaker who had left the film cannisters in the studio containing the chemical that had triggered Frank Miller's transformation into Fantastic-Man. He laughed maniacally. "You haven't seen the last of me, Fantastic-Man! I shall have my revenge!!" "Wow.. didn't see that one coming.." Tomorrow Boy mused to Fantastic-Man, who looked less than amused by the turn of events. "How'd you find us anyway?" asked Warforge as they were helping the PRIMUS agents sift through the mess. "I got an invitation.." Nighthawk replied with a smile as he tapped the compartment on his belt containing the tickets he had purchased through his underground connections. "It's all about who you know." "How's she doing?" Tomorrow Boy asked over his communicator. "She's coming around," Chase replied from the side of Invincigirl's hospital bed. "How'd it go?" "Dude.. " TB replied. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you..." Tomorrow Boy was interrupted by the shadow of Fantastic-Man looming in front of him. "So..." Fantastic-Man said. "..What's this about a Junior League?" ____________________ GM NOTES Ok, Yes. I came up with this session immediately after watching "Grudge Match" from season 2 of Justice League Unlimited.. BUT COME ON?! Fantastic-Man, Warforge, Ripper, Durak AND GROND all in the same ring?! Who WOULDN'T want to see that?! It's a fan-boy's dream come true. Anyway, fun session with some nice street level work to find the missing Defenders and some Iconic Superbrawling to go along with it. I think Fantastic-Man and Warforge's players had a LITTLE too much fun beating the snot out of eachother though. I gotta give SERIOUS props to Dr. Hercules (Tomorrow Boy) for the JDL concept. He pulled me aside during a session break a while before this session and presented the idea to me. I, being a huge Teen Titans fan, loved it and went to work on creating some teenage superhero characters. They were all NPC'ed for this outing, but that's soon to change...

Re: Characters you've always liked but who never fulfilled their potential... Definitely Dr. Elastic. Typical Stretch-o-morph with all the silliness rubber-people tend to bring with them. My favorite thing about him was his movement powers. Bouncy-ball form (leaping), Long Legs (Running), Parachute-form (Gliding) and Flippers! (Swimming.) Had the typical Stretchy guy humor too... making bad puns, you name it. Very much a Plastic-Man/ Reed Richards homage. Sadly, his career was cut short when the GM of that campaign moved away about 7-8 sessions after the campaign started.

Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!! The Defenders Will Return in... Last Man Standing

Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!! Yeah... that one's been a LONG running gag in the campaign: Anyone on the team: "Yeah, well at least I didn't make Mechanon!" TB: "But it was a science project!!" As Frydaddy was passing the torch on to me when he moved away, he did mention that it was his plan to somehow have TB accidentally create Mechanon. I figured this worked as well as anything. I had that session post just about wrapped up when the stupid Mac Mini I'm using at work to get familiar w/ Leopard decided to completely freeze up, necessitating a restart, resulting in the loss of about 5-6 paragraphs of writing. I'll finish it up once I summon up the fortitude to type allll that over... again.

Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!! Got a little more done - will finish this one up tomorrow.