TheTemplar

Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!! NEXT ISSUE: "The Midgar Serpent, pt.1"

Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!! Something Wicked This Way Comes The Defenders Season IV, Issue 5 Cast Fantastic-Man: Team leader/ Flight Brick w/ Density Alteration powers Nighthawk: Martial Artists/ Gadgeteer/ Detective/ Mega-Bajillionaire The Mac Bashtee: Avatar of a divine Celtic being with Nature Mystic powers Tomorrow Boy: Teenage Gadgeteer/ Telekenetic from the future La Espijisma: Metamorph w/ Power Mimicry pool Warforge: Big mystic-style construct brick. "He's just a metal man." The Tornado! (NPC): Speedster Chiron the Centaur (NPC): Cousin of The Mac Bashtee who has come to Earth to train The Defenders for their foretold battle with The Dragon - an ancient mystical being of pure malevolence. ________________________________ Act 1: It began like any other Saturday. Frank Miller (Fantastic-Man) entered the rec room at the Headless Cross, adorned in bathrobe and fuzzy slippers, box of Cap'n Crunch in hand, ready for a morning of couch-potatoing accompanied by a steady stream of animated entertainment. His grandpa, Frank Sr., who had been staying at The Defenders' base with the team for several months, chuckled and shook his head as he passed the World's Greatest Hero on his way to the base's weight room. The morning's peace was soon interrupted, however, by the blaring of the Trouble Alert. Fantastic-Man rushed into the monitoring room as the other Defenders scrambled from their respective locations to get to the base. He entered the monitor room to see Chiron the Centaur standing beside the trouble alert console until all other six Defenders arrived. He shut off the alarm and grinned, rather self-satisfiedly. "Good. Now that I've got your attention..." he started toward the door, and down the hall toward the elevator. "It is time for your second lesson!" He led the team to their Danger Room, which had been configured into a long, slender white hallway, the floor, walls and ceiling of which were lined with the holographic projector tiles, used to create the simulated scenarios in the Defenders combat training center. Chiron walked to the middle of the room, pulled out his spear, twirled it over his head and thrust it into the ground, and then proceeded to the back wall of the room. "Your task is simple, he explained to them. Bring my spear to me, here, unharmed." An hourglass appeared in mid air above the centaur. "You have until the sands of time have stopped falling. BEGIN!" With that, he vanished. "That's it?!" The Tornado! asked incredulously. Here I thought this would be a challenge!" He ran forward toward the spear and was struck by a blast of light as one of the wall tiles slid open to reveal a blaster cannon. The blast sent the young speedster sprawling across the floor. He slid up against the opposite side wall, and disappeared. "One down, six to go!" Chiron's voice boomed throughout the chamber. Several more attempts to reach the spear followed, which resulted in The Mac Bashtee and Warforge joining The Tornado! in the control room, where Chiron was monitoring the exercise. "That's it," muttered Fantastic-Man after Warforge vanished. He completely shut down the density of his molecules, allowing him to pass effortlessly through the Danger Room wall into the control room. He shut off the simulation, and Nighthawk sprang toward the spear. As soon as Nighthawk had the spear in hand, Chiron teleported himself and the other Defenders into the Danger Room, and accepted his spear from the Dark Defender. "Good... good," he said. "Sometimes you must bend the rules of engagement to your favor, even when they are not. Other times... you must break them altogether. Remember this lesson when you face the Dragon." The slow applause from the entrance to the Danger Room was the Defender's cue that someone else had been watching their progress. "Nice to see you all making such good use of the taxpayers' money," barked Cromwell, their PRIMUS liason. "I need to see all seven of you in the War Room, ASAP." With that he turned, and went back up to the Defenders' tactical planning room. ____________________ Act 2 "We have a serious problem," Cromwell began once The Defenders had assembled in the War Room. "Your holding facilities here at the Headless Cross are completely full - and you all don't seem to have any shortage of lunatics looking for lodging. Luckily, PRIMUS has the answer." He indicated the viewing monitor which brought up the image of a massive facility built into the side of a large mountain. "Stronghold." Cromwell went on to explain how Stronghold was the next advance in criminal detention, layed out many of its defensive capabilities, and managed to abate most of the doubts of the unusually skeptical team, aside from Nighthawk's overdeveloped sense of paranoia and the usual lack of trust that The Mac Bashtee displays for any government organization. He then outlined the plan to move the prisoners from Headless Cross to Stronghold via heavily armored and escorted convoys. The Mac Bashtee and Warforge were able to escort several of the criminals through the pathways between dimensions that the Mac Bashtee knows. Nighthawk and La Espijisma transported more aboard the D-Jet, and Fantastic-Man, Tomorrow Boy and Tornado! escorted the convoy carrying the rest of the captured villains - including the most dangerous villain in the Defenders' holding area - Grond. All three groups arrived at Stronghold without incident, the prisoners were moved into their new holding cells, and the Defenders were allowed to tour all areas of Stronghold and examine the security protocols first hand. The reports from the other convoys carrying metahuman villains from other holding facilities like Paragon State Penetentiary and the Lovecraft Asylum for the Criminally Insane weren't as successful. One was hit by a tactical VIPER strike, which resulted in the escape of Despite and Ripper - both with known ties to the VIPER organization. The other convoy was struck much more subtley. At first it was unclear how Black Diamond mysteriously disappeared while the convoy was en route, but a digitally enhanced review of the surveillance video revealed two things: At first glance, it looked as though a fly was buzzing around the officer onboard Black Diamond's transport. The officer looked away from the monitor for a few seconds, and then seemed to shake his head as if coming out of a trance. While he was distracted, a bluish-black flash in the seat next to Black Diamond preceeded the arrival of Cheshire Cat, who then grabbed Black Diamond and teleported her out of the transport. This made it clear that the fly that had been pestering the security officer had to have been, in fact, Hummingbird. However, plans to pursue the escaped villains would have to wait. Breaking News from Paragon City indicated that a mysterious cult, dressed in reddish-brown robes, had gathered around The Pit - the mysterious chasm left behind by the devastation of Wichita in the White Event. The cult seemed to be performing some sort of ritual. More disturbingly, it seemd that hundreds of onlookers and gawkers had begun to gather near the scene - trying to get a glimpse of what these strange robed cultists were up to. ____________________ Act 3 The Defenders returned to Paragon City and made straight for The Pit. One of the cultists, wearing a horned mask and wielding a large mace turned to the other cultists and ordered them to attack the innocent bystanders that had come to watch the events while a smaller group of six cultist, wearing black frocks over their reddish-brown robes continued some sort of ritual around the pit. The other leader of the cultists - a woman in a long, red robe - began speaking names that carried some sort of power... "Nahema," "Astaroth," "Baal Chanan," "Lilith.." As she spoke, some of the cultists that were approaching the crowds of onlookers were transformed into hideous, demonic-looking beings. The Defenders leaped into action. Fantastic-Man, The Tornado! and The Mac Bashtee went after the cultists that were heading toward the crowds. La Espijisma morphed into a replica of The Tornado!, mimicking his superspeed and sped off to help them. Meanwhile, Tomorrow Boy, Nighthawk and Warforge closed in to try to disrupt the ritual being conducted at the pit. Nearly all the cultists attacking the civilians had been taken care of when a flash of magical blue energy announced the arrival of The Defenders mystical ally, Dr. Arcane. He explained that the group they were fighting was a cult called DEMON, and explained that those attacking the civilians were referred to as The Brothers. He instructed The Mac Bashtee to come with him and the others to keep the innocents safe from the five Demonbound creatures that some of the Brothers had transformed into while he and The Mac Bashtee tried to stop those called The Initiates from completing the ritual they were performing. Meanwhile, Nighthawk, Tomorrow Boy and Warforge engaged the leaders... the two Morbanes. After teaching the Mac Bashtee a simple Dispelling spell, Dr. Arcane and Mac Bashtee focused their energies on undoing the magical summoning spell the Initiates were casting. They were weakening the spell successfully when an unfortunate telekenetic blast fired by Tomorrow Boy sent one of the Initiates casting the spell into one of his fellow cultists. The impact knocked the Initiate over the edge into the pit. His body hit the magical summoning field and burst into flames. The earth shook as a harrowing voice echoed through the air. "Blood has been spilled... a Sacrifice made. The summoning.. is complete." First a great, red claw emerged over the top of the pit, crushing the Initiate standing there... then another. A hideous demonic creature pulled itself up half way out of the pit. The remaining cultists scattered, the two Morbanes, one who had called himself "Bloodknight" and the mysterious woman, teleported away, and The Defenders found themselves face to face with what The Mac Bashtee and Warforge recognized immediately as a Nahemite Behemoth. Warforge had travelled through Nahemoth - the Evil Kingdom - on his way from Vulcan's Forge across the planes to Earth - when he crawled up out of the pit. His passage had weakened the interdimensional barrier enough for DEMON to pull a horrible evil through after him to wreak havoc, destruction and death in the names of the Archdemons they serve. After a harrowing fight, Fantastic-Man managed to get a good enough grip on the Behemoth to pull him all the way up out of the pit and hurl him into the air. He then flew up past the beast as it soared upward, and then drove it back down with all his might... down back into the pit and back to Nahemoth. However, unnoticed by all but Fantastic-Man himself, something unusual happened in this fight. First, when he attempted to increase his molecular density to become stronger to fight The Behemoth, it was more difficult than usual. Then, when he attempted to completely reverse his density and escape the Behemoth's clawed grasp, he also had some difficulty. This did not sit well with the Defenders' leader, but in the end, no harm came of it and it seemed he dismissed it to fatigue. The Defenders tended their wounded as the Paragon City Police arrived to round up the remaining cultists. Dr. Arcane explained that they had defeated an astonishingly powerful opponent and had saved Paragon City from a horrifying threat. He advised that he had been fighting DEMON for some time, and while they had scored a solid victory against the cult, they were still a great threat, and that he needed to go report to The Council what had happened. He advised that with time, he would be able to repair the weakened dimensional barrier between our world and Nahemoth. With a final nod to The Defenders, he said that he was sure that their destinies would intertwine again in the future, and vanished in a puff of blue smoke. END OF SESSION GM Notes This was a fun session, if a bit long. The DEMON fight got a bit drawn out, particularly in the opening phases. Once it was The Defenders vs. The Behemoth, it went pretty well. Some creative thinking by the group sidestepped quite a few obstacles, particularly in the opening Danger Room scenario, and also against The Behemoth - I had figured they would try to beat it down a while before trying to just get it back down the hole it was crawling out of. In the end, it was just as well they didn't, as the session had already gone about an hour or so past our "scheduled" stop time. Not that that ever seems to mean that's when we stop... freakin' addicts. The look on the face of Fantastic-Man's player when he suddenly had to make an Activation Roll on his DI and Desolid powers was pretty priceless. A few rules questions came up, but they didn't slow us down any. Some REALLY good RP from the group regarding the PCs very varying views on things like cooperation with PRIMUS, the Government and the importance of protecting innocents before stopping bad guys. MOST importantly , this was the first session that I feel was actually "My Own" as the first two were the continuation and conclusion of what our prior GM had started, and the last one was a published adventure. It also got a LOT of the groundwork laid for many events that will unfold for the rest of the season, introduced the group to DEMON, and tied up a lot of the dangling loose ends that were out there regarding some of the captured prisoners.

Re: Thanks from a GM Thanks to all who've given me any advice or assistance - whether it was something I requested or something I just happened across that sparked an idea. I think I've gleaned something of value from just about everyone here at this point, and hope that I've been able to contribute something for others as well. Best e-community anywhere!

Steve, Working on a VPP Mimic Pool for one of my PCs & had 2 questions come up that I'm probably overlooking the answers to in the Power Frameworks chapter of 5ER. 1) Doesn't it say somewhere that any Characteristic bought through a Power Framework must also take the No Figured Characteristics lim, or am I confusing old house rules with core rules? ...and... 2) Is it 5ER-legal (w/out GM handwave) to purchase Martial Arts in a VPP? I couldn't find anything specifically saying it's not, BUT I seem to remember reading something somewhere that MA's shouldn't be put in PF's. Muchas Gracias.

Re: Champions miniatures Very nice, Proditor! That is some incredible putty work. I've finally gotten around to doing a few mods for some of the characters used in The Defenders campaign. If I can ever find the right light to take a good, clear photo in, I'll post some pics. So far, no luck. FWIW, I don't have near the experience of the others who've posted their advice here, but I can offer one pearl for any other budding mini modders out there: Fatigue and X-acto knives do NOT mix. Mind what you have learned. Save your thumbs it can!

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Nighthawk (to Tomorrow-Boy): It's all fun and games until you inadvertantly build Mechanon. Fantastic-Man (mockingly): But it was a science project!

Re: The thing's I've learned playing a Brick... Definitely with you on point 2, but I'm not sure I see how this duplicates the effect of TK - particularly with the "grab required" conditional on it. Buying Ranged for your STR, now THAT duplicates TK. Leap UAA wouldn't be ranged. And, there are plenty of published examples of characters who use movement powers UAA to represent their ability to move heavier characters w/out being bothered by the STR/ Throwing chart (Gravitar, for example - Flight, UAA.) That said, It's definitely potentially exploitable and would need a big STOP sign on it. Never played a true brick myself (at least not as a player) but from what I've observed from the bricks on my team... Resist Knockback - The Anti-Speedster.

Re: The things I've learned playing a Speedster... No matter how fast you are, you cannot outrun an Instant Power.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Once in a great while, a player almost unwittingly utters a line that suspends all gaming activity for a noticeable amount of time. Thus do I present unto this forum.... ....Tomorrow Boy: The Defenders' uber-genius teenage gadgeteer from the future with a penchant for accidentally dropping references to future events. The group was investigating a crime scene when Foxbat (who is convinced that The Defenders have shown him the error of his ways and is striving to prove he's now a hero and worthy of joining the team) interrupted them in an attempt to "help." Having already determine which direction the criminals had fled by using his high-tech gadgetry, Tomorrow Boy points the overeager Foxbat in the wrong direction. Tomorrow Boy - You might be able to help us after all, Bats. Looks like whoever did this went THAT way! *points* We still have some wrap-up work to do, but if YOU hurry, you might catch 'em! Foxbat - Ah ha! Evil doers beware! *he ascends to his Foxbatcopter and heads off.* Nighthawk - Nice work dealing with that lunatic, TB. Tomorrow Boy - Eh, no problem. Still.... hard to believe that guy actually becomes President.

Re: The things I've learned playing a Speedster... Inevitably, you will be called upon to run halfway across the globe to get your teammates their favorite foreign food of choice. Make sure you have either Bump of Direction or a few widespread languages. Oceans are very very big and look more or less the same.

Re: [Campaign] DEFENDERS CONGREGATE!! No, he might take a serious offense to that moniker. That would be ill-advised. Day Of The Destroyer Season IV - Issue 4 (04/22/06) Present: Fantastic-Man Nighthawk Tomorrow Boy Warforge The Tornado! (NPC) Spectro (NPC) ________ (Some plot details will be omitted, as this is a published adventure.) Jack Kirby's Monday morning began with yet another meeting with Ivan Lazarus, CEO of Lazarus Telecomm. The weekend's launch of the 4 ultra-high tech telecommunications relay satellites their companies had jointly developed was a complete success and went off without a hitch. This morning's meeting was doubtlessly going to be a lot of recapping results and bureaucratic self-backpatting. But, when Lazarus arrived, he definitely seemed troubled. He explained that he had not been completely honest with Jack about the nature of their business arrangement, and that the satellites were, in fact, NOT strictly for communications purposes. He introduced Jack to the man who had initially approached Lazarus about developing the satellites - Mr. Cromwell. Cromwell and Lazarus explained the dual-role of the satellites to Jack - that in addition to serving their known purposes as telecom relays, they also put America squarely at the forefront of the intelligence community with their unprecedented espionage capabilities. Their meeting was cut short, however, when all three men were simultaneously notified of a crime on the outskirts of Paragon City. At that same time, halfway across town, the Trouble Alert sounded, immediately alerting Fantastic-Man, The Tornado!, and Warforge that evil was afoot. They contacted Tomorrow Boy who was struggling to stay awake through the hopelessly outdated (by his 26th century standards) lectures of his AP calculous course at Paragon High, and the four met up with Jack Kirby atop the Omnitech Tower, after Cromwell and Lazarus had left hurriedly, giving Kirby time to slip into the hidden room in his office and change into Nighthawk. Their investigation of the crime scene was producing strange results, but then Tomorrow Boy had an idea. "Open Portal Alpha 6, Grid H." The usual swirling time/space vortex appeared in front of him. He reached in and produced a strange device. "It's an energy tracker," he explained. "I can use this to track any nearby energy signatures which will hopefully lead us to whoever was responsible." But before he could even begin, his voice was drowned out by the sound of a chopper overhead. They looked up to see an unwieldy looking brown and yellow copter. A rapelling line dropped over the side, and down slid... FOXBAT! But not like they had seen him before. This time, he was covered from head to toe in strangely blinking lights, circuits, and various gadgets, including a miniature satellite dish rotating on his shoulder. "A Ha! Fear not, Defenders! Tomorrow Bat is here to help!" he proclaimed. "Pretty sure we don't need his help..." muttered Nighthawk. Undaunted, Foxbat continued. "Open Pocket, Pants Leg! Left side!" And reached into his pocket, producing what looked like an 80s or 90s model Texas Instruments calculator. He aimed it at the crime scene, and then announced, "Yes! A crime was committed here!" Some quick thinking by Tomorrow Boy got Foxbat away from the scene so they could complete their investigation. With the clues gathered there, they made their way to another scene, where a second crime was underway. The Defenders found themselves dealing with a hostage situation and many, many robots. But these mechanical menaces were no match for Fantastic-Man and the Defenders. Heroically throwing himself between the robots and the hostages, Fantastic-Man made sure that the robots wouldn't be able to harm the civilians. The Defenders were also aided by the powersuited superhero Spectro, whom Nighthawk, Warforge and The Tornado! had previously met while trying to foil a VIPER operation. The fight was short, however, and thankfully none of the hostages were hurt. However, the property damage caused by the fight was severe. Following the fight, Nighthawk was able to discover that Spectro was, in fact, Dr. Ivan Lazarus, CEO of Lazarus Telecomm. Between the two of them, they figured out the threat behind the days events and how to proceed. Using Tomorrow Boy's energy detector, The Tornado! ran all throughout the city at full speed, tracing the energy signature to its source. The Defenders proceeded to the location where they found more robots awaiting them. Their fight, however, was interrupted by a message from none other than Dr. Destroyer. After unfurling his latest sinister plot, a hidden door in the wall of the room slid open, revealing a large high-back swivel chair which spun to face them.. and Dr. Destroyer himself emerged to finish the fight! Or so it seemed. A well placed strike from Warforge's blade hand removed part of the good Dr.'s faceplate, revealing that this was, in fact, yet another of his Destroyer-Bots. The damage inflicted by Warforge triggered the self destruct mechanism in the base and The Defenders barely managed to escape as everything around them exploded in flames. _______ GM notes: Another pretty successful adventure. Apologies for the vagueness, but this one was from a sourcebook, and I don't want to give too much out. Seemed like everything went pretty smoothly. Next Issue: Something Wicked This Way Comes...

Re: WWYCD: A spooky ghost ZOINKS! The Tornado - would totally high-tail it to the kitchen w/ Shag & Scoobs & help them tie the string around that 7 foot-tall sandwich that will blow Scooby up like an accordion once he eats it.

Re: Anywhere but your own country I think Canada would be a great setting for a game. I'd probably start there if starting up a non-US campaign.

Re: How good can your game be without supermonkeys? No worries... Must... buy... them.. ALL!!! (Clearly Braniape or Psi-mian or Medula Oblongorilla or whatever you want to call him has exceeded my paltry EGO by 20+)

Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread. How could I NOT rep this?

Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread. .....that's IT! An Amputee Martial Artist! THAT'S what my new villain team has been missing! Thank you! *It is The Templar's sincerest wish that no amputees, relatives or friends of amputees are offended by the light tone of this post. This also includes owners of three-legged dogs messed up enough to name them "Tripod" or "Lucky."*

Re: WWYCD: More Than Meets The Eye... The Tornado! - Blame Nighthawk, whose corporation nearly inadvertantly created Mechanon. (OK... so there's a FAIR amount of OOC knowledge mixed in there... but, in all honesty, it'd be the first reaction.) The Templar - Force the wicked golems to relenquish their hold upon the innocent civilians of the city and fly like the cowardly dogs they are with all haste back to whatever foul villainous wretch spawndedeth thee..m. Doc Elastic - Clearly this is Mechanon's doing. Whatever device he is using to increase the bandwidth of his Mechanical Animation powers must be disabled at once.

Re: Brainstorm: The Black Paladin Recruits!

Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread.

Re: Brainstorm: The Black Paladin Recruits!

Re: WWYCD: Any last words? The Tornado! - would turn to Nighthawk and say, "See, I TOLD you my last words wouldn't be 'What's the worst that could happen?'!" At which point, his hyperactive metabolism would increase the spread of VENOM's effects throughout his body, causing him to be the first of the Defenders to keel over - making "What's the worst that could happen?" his last words after all in one final ironic twist of fate. I think even Nighthawk would have to crack a smile at that. The Templar - would've spent his last hours in prayer for his friends and in making his own soul's final preparations for the sweet hereafter. Dr. Elastic - would head for the Nest Lab, swab a cellular sample from his own cheek and spend every last second trying to genetically engineer a counteragent to the VENOM.

Re: WWYCD: A Bomb for Two Cities The Tornado! - Having already disarmed and/or disassembled a VIPER bomb in The Defenders first ever adventure, followed by disarming a small nuclear device, and then an entire field of timed C4 charges, and finally a bomb strapped to a moving roller coaster at Defenderland, this SHOULD be a piece of cake. He'd disarm the Paragon City bomb first (hopefully) and then hightail it to NYC. He can circle the Earth in a little under 30 seconds, so to get from East/Central Kansas to NYC should take him about 3-4 seconds, give or take. Hopefully that'd leave enough time to get to the 2nd bomb site, and clip the right wire as the timer hit 00:01... because otherwise it's just not as interesting. The Templar - Good-bye 20 pt. Normal Characteristics Maxima disadvantage, Hello Mutant Templar! Dr. Elastic - Order the immediate blast radius cleared at both sites, then get a sample of the mutagen following the explosion & get it back to the lab as quickly as possible to formulate an antidote.

Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread. Wow. Awesome as usual, Storn. I presume the man behind the powersuit is the character's secret ID? Cool concept, drawing them together like that.

Re: Hey Heroclix Modders... Ah ha! Nevermind. Got him. Wasn't getting my blade QUITE far enough up under the hood to twist and pop that tab out. That and whosoever at Wizkids put the glue dab between his shoulderblades to keep the cape in place apparently got a tad overzealous. Then again, I suppose the manufacturer didn't intend for their products to be cannibalized like this.

Re: Hey Heroclix Modders... One of my player's characters. The Mac Bashtee.