Mark Rand

Re: PRIMUS Supers I know I'd planned to set the agent team's adventures in Los Vegas, but I finally realized that my home town of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania would be better. Washington County Speedway is the area's newest mororsports track. This track, based on the now defunct Ontario Motor Speedway, has a 2.5-mile Indy-style oval with a 3.19-mile road course that has two short cuts. With only shortcut one in use, the track is 2.94-miles long. With only shortcut two in use, the track is 2.98-miles long. With both shortcuts in place, the track is 2.7-miles long. Additionally, the front straight also servesa as a dragstrip. Several organizations have been trying to get a vintage car grand prix underway in Schenley Park. It looks like its finally going to happen. Pittsburgh is part of the Steel Cities Region of the Sports Car Club of America. The region's official pace car is a Chevy Corvette. The official pace car of Washington County Speedway is a Ford Mustang Cobra.

Re: PRIMUS Supers While April and Christine are readying themselves for their mission, let's look around the area. Nye County, the county just west of Clark County, where Las Vegas is, has recently become home to several motion picture studios. The demand for special effects has caused several California special effects houses to move here. One is M5 Industries. The people here are also responsible for the Discovery Channel program Mythbusters. Speaking of the Discovery Channel, their documentary American Casino is a behind the scenes look at Green Vally Ranch, a hotel/casino/resort in the Las Vegas suburb of Henderson. The Las Vegas area is also home to the Southern Nevada Raceway, a motorsports complex consisting of a dragstrip, a 1/2-mile oval and a 2.88-mile road course. The oval and road course use part of the dragstrip as their fromt straight and the oval's back straight is part of the road course. If the ladies are ready by the time I submit the next post, we'll join them. Otherwise, we'll look at the crossovers that'll be added to the campaign.

Re: PRIMUS Supers I forgot a few things in the nuilding discription. The roof has a secure area, like the one on the main building, and a helipad Two elevatora and a stairwell connect the floors. A key card is needed to access the third floor and roof. "With my permission, Warder has created a gate linking our break room with a pocket reality that'll give us additional living quarters," Avenger Kestler said to April, Beth, Christine and Mariko, the PRIMUS intelligence agents assigned to the base superhero team. "According to her, there are no people living there, but it will sustain life." "Are we going to investigate it before we actually use it?" Beth asked. "Yes," Terry replied. "April, Christine, you two are the investigation team." "We'll go tonight, in black," Christine replied. "Like cat burglars?" April asked. "Yep. We'll be gloved and masked, too." "Cool. What kind of sidearms will we be carrying?" "We'll each carry a silencer-equipped Beretta 92F. The load will be quarter-load blanks propelling knockout darts. That's what I always used when I was doing black-bag jobs for the CIA."

Re: PRIMUS Supers In my version, the PRIMUS base map from Digital Hero #6 is used for the campaign city base. You will note the danger room annex that's connected, through a tunnel, to the first floor. The danger room, its control room and locker rooms are on the first floor. The base labs, lab offices, and a break room are on the second floor. The third floor is te team's base. It has an electronics lab, a medical area, a break room, four bedrooms, a conference room, and offices. We'll continue with some adventures of the agent team as they get ready for the superheroes. Just for the heck of it, it will be dialog-heavy and set in Las Vegas.

Re: Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the CU A Slayer team in a city could should consist of a Watcher, up to three Slayers, the Slayers parents, siblings and friends, and, possibly, people they've rescued that want to contribute. Some associates will be fighters, while others won't. I'm assuming that most Watchers will be researchers with some fighting skills. A linguist would be a great asset, as would people, like physical education teachers, who train others for a living. A priest would also be a good contact, as would a mage or a trauma surgeon.

Re: PRIMUS Supers Completing the team are the supers, Guardian and Warder. Guardian is an armored superhero who hasn't revealed his secret identity to the other team members. Warder, heiress Lisa Ward, is the team's mage. She's accompanied by her familiar, Midnight, a black cat. So far, we have three campaign ineas under development, mine, a team formed around a metahuman Silver Avenger, and the one with three PRIMUS teams. All will work. Anyone have any other ideas to share?

Re: PRIMUS Supers Getting back to my previous post, PRIMUS chose for of its best and brightest Silver Avengers for the cities the hero teams would be assigned to. Terry Kestler is the campaign city's silver avenger. Intelligence Agent Bill Wadner and Assault Agent Martina Rosenblum are part of Avenger Kestler's agent team. Intelligence Agent Elizabeth "Beth" Davies is lead agent for the base's superhero team. Under her are Intelligence Agents April Curtis, Christine Hunter and Mariko Yamamoto. April, the redheaded daughter of a wealthy campaign city family, has a masters in electronics engineering from a campaign city univrersity and is a ninja with mystical abilities and a former college and Olympic gymnast. For fun, she races a Lamborghini Diablo is GTU events sanctioned by the Sports Car Club of America and drives the pace car at some area tracks. (GTU, or Grand Touring Unlimited, is a motorsports class created for the campaign.) Christine, a blue-eyed blonde who always wears gloves, was an actress in college plays and a CIA black-bag job expert before joining PRIMUS. Quoting her on her glove habit, "I began wearing gloves all the time while preparing to portray a fashionably-dressed woman in a play set in 1902 Boston. Soince women of that time did everything with gloves on, I had to learn to do it, too. When it was over, I discovered that I liked wearing gloves." Mariko has a masters in computer science from UCLA, where she was on the women's swim team. April and Christine are experts on burglaries in general and high-tech ones in particular. Mariko is an expert with computers and computer crimes. Rounding out the team is the civilian medical staff, Denise Clark, R.N., and Rhonda West, M.D. Both were in the Air Force. Denise, a dark-haired former flight nurse, likes to wear a sage-green nomex flight suit, with PRIMUS patches, over her navy-blue scrubs. Rhonda, an African-American trauma surgeon, whose braided, black hair caresses her shoulders, wears white scrubs.

Re: PRIMUS Supers A few quick thoughts. Currently, only four PRIMUS bases have superhero teams, Las Vegas, Denver, Millennium City, and Pittsburgh, which recently got a PRIMUS base. Each team can be called on to assist anywhere in that time zone. Alaska and Hawaii are aided by the Las Vegas team and the Virgin Islands are under the Pittsburgh team's jurisdiction. The Silver Avenger is the team leader. The intelligence agent with superhero liaison training is in charge of the PRIMUS assault and intelligence agents assigned to the team and serves as deptuy leader.

Re: PRIMUS Supers The Path of the Shadow's Companion is a 13-point EC that, with all powers, costs 123-points. However, since stress activated Mariko's latent powers recently, she doesn't have all of them and the ones she has don't always activate. This will, of course, improve as time goes on. The nine ways of cutting, on the other hand, is a 30-point multipower and costs a total of 22-points.

Re: PRIMUS Supers

Re: Special Operations Bureau

Re: PRIMUS Supers Good idea. PRIMUS GOLD sounds a lot like the PRIME team. PRIMUS SILVER sounds like the three-issue OMEGA series from Worldwide Library. I can see Major Dave Tower, from the books, as a Silver Avenger. He'd probably choose Captain Amanda Stewart as the team's lead pilot. The rest of the team could be from Omega Force, too. PRIMUS BLACK is an interesting team. As some of you know, I'm adding the post season-seven Buffyverse to the campaign. A Silver Avenger turned into a vampire could have a Slayer for a sibling, A mage friend of hers would've re-souled the now vampirac Silver Avenger and he'd want the mage on his team. A reformed cat burglar could also be a member, as could a heroic ninja. They might also spend some time assisting Slayers.

Re: PRIMUS Supers The limit of 10 supers per team was suggested by the Golden Avenger. So far, there are, at most, six supers per team. The idea of "flying teams" is a good idea, too. The country could be divoided into sections, with one team per section. Heroes could be drawn from PRIMUS ranks, too. An armored hero could be an Iron Guard agent using an experimental suit of armor while a heroic ninja could be a highly-skilled intelligence agent.

Re: PRIMUS Supers The Silver Avenger leads the team when he or she can. The intelligence agent/liaison serves as deputy leader and takes the team out whenthe Silver Avenger is too busy.

I know we've kicked this around before, but this time, I hope we can get some real discussion going. In her PRIMUS Sourcebook for the fourth edition, Shelley mentions the possibility of PRIMUS-employed superhero teams, either in addition to or instead of the PRIME Team. This would be suitable in campaigns where PRIMUS has a very positive relationship with superheroes and there are a large number of paranormal threats. The concept, as proposed by the Golden Avenger, would have a team composed of no more than 10 heroes at each base. An intelligence agent with training as a superhero liaison officer would serve as team leader. They would be based at the PRIMUS base and would be assisted by a team of no more than 6 intelligence agents, a squad of assault agents, a computer expert, an electronics expert, a physician and a nurse. If either the computer expert or electronics expert were intelligence agents, they would simply serve in both posts. When this was first proposed, pre 9/11, Congress was opposed to the idea. After 9/11, however, their opinion changed.

In the TV-movie She Knows Too Much, we're introduced to the Special Operations Bureau, which is mandated to operate in undercover areas out of bounds to the CIA and FBI. In this film, the late Robert Unich plays Agent Harry Scofield, a clumsy, somewhat boring third-generation actuary who plays the picalo and finally gets the field assignment he's always wanted. Meridith Baxter plays Samantha Ann White, a high-class cat burglar parolled to him. I'm considering them as either federal liaison officers to a superhero or superhero team or as part of a team the Specoial Operations Bureau creates. Any advice would be appriciated.

Re: Another Bat-ty Campaign Idea I mentioned Hellmouths in a previous post. For those who don't know, a Hellmouth is a portal between this reality and a hell dimension. A closed Hellmouth still attracts undead and, possibly, criminals to its vicinity. An open one could cause the end of the world. A Hellmouth's energy output isn't constant. In fact, a graph of its output looks like a sine wave. It peaks at the summer solstice, bottoms out at the winter solstice and is at the midpoint of its cycle at the spring and fall equinoxes. Batman is aware of the problem and dusts any vampires he finds feeding. Most undead, however, fall prey to the area's three Slayers and their associates. Elena Valdez, the Vice President's daughter, is a Slayer. Secret Service agents guard her all the time, even when she's on patrol. She does, however, insist that they wear crosses and wooden stakes. Although good with many weapons, Elena's favorite is a non-magical version of Buffy's scythe. Like most Slayers and their associates, she wears a fanny that has a spell on it that Willow created. Said spell turns a fannypack into a bag of holding that's keyed to the person that owns it and their team mates.

Re: Another Bat-ty Campaign Idea As we all know, Gotham City is the county seat of Gotham County, New Jersey. So, where is it? In my campaign, it's the southern part of Ocean County, New Jersey. Gotham Bay is Little Egg Harbor. It's about six miles from Gotham Bay to Beach Haven Inlet. A light station, Beach Haven Inlet Light, marks the inlet. After the Coast Guard called the station unusable and turned it over to the Gotham County government, the Wayne Foundation funded the repair and renovation of the buildings. All buildings weree brought up to code and made accessable. The first and second assistant keepers' duplex was converted into one building and is leased to the Gotham County Historical Society for use as a maritime museum. The principal keeper's house, which its attached tower, and the fog signal building, had modern equipment installed and a mother-daughter team were hired to tend it. For those who are interested in such things, the light is a cluster of 4, 1,000-watt lamps, only one of which is on at a time. They're surrounded by a plastic first-order lens. There's also a diaphonic fog horn, BEEEEooooh, that operates electronically instead of on compressed air and aircraft and marine radionavagation beacon transmitters.

Re: Another Bat-ty Campaign Idea The undead exist. So do Hellmouths. Fortunately, Slayers and Watchers exist, too. Slayers work in a cell system. Each cell is composed of a Watcher, up to three Slayers, and their allies. The cells keep in touch with each other and Slayer Central, which is a castle in the Welsh Highlands. All parks operated by England's National Parks Trust have portals leading to it. A Slayers allies are sometimes fighters and sometimes help the Watcher. A Watcher that has good research skills could have expert linguists, a wizard or witch, a computer hacker and trainers assisting. The trainers would, probably, also patrol with the Slayers. Alex McGregor knows about Slayers and is on good terms with Slayer Central. She's had the Washington, D.C. group examine the White House and other buildings her agency protects and suggest ways to guard against mystical attacks. There's also a Slayer nearby when the President's out of the White House at night. Alex doesn't take chances, and neither do Slayers.

Re: Another Bat-ty Campaign Idea We're in Washington, D.C. for a short visit. Henry Hayes is President of the United States. A usually easygoing man, he played ice hockey in his youth and still likes watching it. Gloria Valdez is the Vice President of the United States. While still a senator, she and her husband, Michael, decided to heve her mother, who lives near Gotham City, raise their 17-year old daughter, Elena, because they didn't want her in the limelight. Evelyn Baker Long is Chief Justice of the United States and Presiding Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Alex McGregor is a Secret Service agent and the head of the agency's Executive Protection division. She has no problem working with superheroes, as long as they're either government sanctioned or employed and willing to do what she wants. Alex also occassionally gets her her husband, Grant Coleman, a former Colorado river guide and currently a corporate adventure specialist, involved in her cases.

Re: Another Bat-ty Campaign Idea Now, as promised, the support staff and federal government liaison. Alfred Pennyworth is Bruce's butler. Since we know about him, let's move on to the ladies. April Curtis, R.N., the team's nurse, was a trauma nurse at Gotham General Hospital. An African-American woman whose braided black hair falls just below her shoulders, she always wears scrubs. "Since becoming a nurse, I've only worn a white uniform and cap once. For Halloween two years ago, my mother, a floor nurse at Gotham Mercy Hospital, lent me one of her uniforms, a long-sleeve white dress. While modeling it for her, I made my braids look elegant and pinned one of her caps to my hair. She then added her old cape and white gloves. I thought it looked cool, as did most people I met. A few even took photographs." Christine Hunter, a former CIA black-bag jobs expert, is the team's DOSPA lisison. A blue-eyed blonde, she always wears gloves. "I studyed acting in college. As you know, we ladies now wear gloves with everything, but usually take them off inside. I was like that until, during my senior year, I was preparing to portray a fashionably-dressed woman in a play set in 1902 Boston. While learning to do everyday tasks gloved, I discovered that I like wearing them." Mariko Yamashiro, M.S., is the team's engineer. An athleticly-built Japanese-American woman she is a former Olympic gymnast and races a Lamborghini Diablo in races sanctioned by the Sports Car Club of America. She's also a ninja with mystical abilities who prefers working on equipment to joining the team in the field. "My parents are wealthy. When I was three, they noticed my high level of energy and got me into a gymnastics school. My teacher also taught me ninjitsu."

Re: Another Bat-ty Campaign Idea Wayne Enterprises is the corporation that has many divisions and owns many companies worldwide. Bruce Wayne is Chairman of the Board and Chief Eexcutive Officer. Lucius Fox is President and Chief Operating Officer. Each division has its own President and Chief Executive Officer. Each company has its Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. The Gotham Hotel and Casino, which is part of Wayne Entertainment, is two blocks from Wayne Enterprises world headquarters. The top floor of the hotel is Bruce's residence. The floor below it has six executive suites and one conference room. The Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Vice President and General Manager, Assistant General Manager, Vice President of Hotel Operations and Hotel Manager each get one. The last is open to whatever executive or director needs one and each can use it for up to three days a month. Next, we'll meet Batman's support team and liaison.

Re: Another Bat-ty Campaign Idea I remember it well. Bruce closed Wayne Manor and moved into the penthouse of the Wayne Foundation building while Dick was in college. The building was open on two sides and an arborial memorial, that concealed the elevator shaft for the spinning restaraunt andBatman's private elevator, which connected the penthouse to Batman's communications center, which the monument also hid, and the Wayne Foundation Batcave, which was in an abondoned subway runnel. By the time he was working with The Outsiders, Bruce was again residing in Wayne Manor. The Outsiders used the Wayne Foundation Batcave as their headquarters and Halo and Katana lived in the penthouse.

I had another Bat-ty campaign idea yesterday. It's a Dark Champions: The Animated Series campaign set in a DC Elseworlds universe that draws some things from the CU and some from my own head. Batman (Bruce Wayne) is easier to get along with in this universe than he is in the mainstream DC Universe. There is no Wayne Manor. Instead, Bruce lives in the penthouse apartment of a Gotham City hotel/casino Wayne Enterprises owns. Alfred is his butler. The Batmobile looks like a Chevy Corvette, but is armored and has an extensive sensor suite and other high-tech gear. Batman keeps in close contact with Warder, heiress Lisa Ward, and she created a gateway linking her fastness and the Batcave. Knowing he can't defend Gotham City alone,Batman is forming a team of superheroes to help him. Warder's house is home to three woman who work with Batman. They are April Curtis, R.N., the team's nurse, Christine Hunter, the team's DOSPA liaison, and Mariko Yamashito, M.S., the team's engineer. Batman maintains good relations with various law enforcement agencies. They understand that he like to remain a mysterious creature of the night.

Re: A Bat-ty Campaign Idea A couple of quick notes. Christine is now allowed in the batcave. April and Mariko will return to their normal jobs. According to NPR, Rhonda Scott, the Chief Nursing Officer of Atlanta's Grady Memorial Hospital now requires its nurses to wear all white uniforms. If you want proof, go to http://www.npr.org, type nurses uniforms in the search box, then click on Old Nurses Uniforms are New Again. You can have the audio downloaded to your computer, or do what I did and buy a transcript for $4.95.