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GestaltBennie

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Everything posted by GestaltBennie

  1. Re: Fan-made Mechanon trailer Another friend's video.
  2. Re: Champions Villains 3: Solo Villains Kickstarter is LIVE I've been involved with HERO on the Internet for over twenty years. We have no right to be pointing fingers at *anyone*. In any case, if we can keep the momentum and have a good surge in the last couple of days, the kickstarter should be fine. Keeping my fingers crossed.
  3. Re: D&D 4E Style Minions Take a look at the one-hit agents on p. 168 of VIPER: Coils of the Serpent.
  4. Re: Champions Villains 3: Solo Villains Kickstarter is LIVE One person having that interpretation I can probably push aside on that basis. It's a little less easy when three people report it.
  5. Re: Champions Villains 3: Solo Villains Kickstarter is LIVE Hi Jason. There were a number of folks on the CO forums who felt that the kickstarter wasn't clear enough about being a print version of a product that's already available in PDF. Just thought you might like to know and make sure that info's properly conveyed in an uodate. Good luck! Hope to see this on store shelves soon!
  6. Re: [LoH] Run Info Thursday May 3, 7 pm, Alerts Night Thursday May 10, 7 pm, NemCon Thurdsay May 17, 7 pm, UNITY NIght Thursday May 24, 7 pm, Andrith Thursday May 31, 7 pm, Alerts Night
  7. Re: CC's Guide to Tomorrow's Megapatch Changes Patch notes: http://www.champions-online.com/On_Alert/Release_Notes
  8. Reprinted from a friend from CORP. Super stat changes: You have 1 primary super stat and 2 secondary ones. The primary super stat gives +80, the secondaries give +40 at level 40. You get half the bonus from secondaries then you do from the primary (Some exceptions exist). Super stats do not just modify damage strength, they very depending on role. See roles below for more information. Your primary super stat determines your first spec tree, see spec trees below for more information on them. Attribute Changes: Strength now gives additional melee damage beyond 70, this is on a scale of diminishing returns. I find chars into their 200's at roughly +30% damage. Dexterity no longer boosts crit severity. Boosts crit chance on the original metric it did prior to boosting severity. Constitution is still constitution, it no longer grants bonus energy when blocking in protector (see roles for more info). Recovery is now the attribute used energy recovered via blocking. Intellegence has recieved no sigificant changes. It should be noted it's now easy to get some cost and recharge reductions via gear, and this sort of thing has diminishing returns, so going int heavy isn't as attractive as it once was. Ego no longer grants crit severity. Base severity is 50%, it's quite easy to push it over 100% via other means. Ego now grants bonus to all ranged damage. This follows the same metric as strength. Presence now grants a healing bonus on the same metric as strength and ego for their respective damage types. This means you'll get a 20% bonus easily with 70 pre, if you push pre real high you can get a 30% bonus. Pre also grants a bonus to control powers. (Supporty types can pick up on missing healing intensity via the support role, see below). Endurance is still pretty much endurance. Roles (all SS figures are the bonus they give before diminishing returns they may be exceeded): Guardian is now known as hybrid. Primary super stat gives about +30% damage strength and +15% healing strength. Secondary super stats give something like 20% damage strength and 7.5% healing strength. Protector is now known as Tank. Primary super stat gives 30% threat and 15% damage strength. Secondary super stats give half that. Tank still has higher HP. Tank has an inherent threat bonus that is factored int multiplicatively after all other modifiers are applied to threat. Tank no longer gains absurd energy on block, they gain +50% energy on block. As noted earlier all energy returns on block are factored off of recovery. Avenger is now known as Ranged DPS. Ranged DPS gains 30% damage strength from their super stat and -15% threat from it. Secondary super stats grant half that. They have an inherent bonus to ranged damage that factors in multiplicatively. Ranged DPS no longer has an HP penalty. While its super stats give less damage then hybrid. The inherent bonus causes all ranged damage to be consistently higher in ranged DPS then in hybrid. Brawler is now known as Melee DPS. It has the same super stat modifiers as ranged DPS but has the inherent bonus applying to melee damage only. Melee DPS no longer has a penalty to ranged damage. Melee DPS no longer snares automatically. Sentinel is now known as Support. Support gains +30% healing from its primary super stat and +15% damage strength, and -15% threat. They gain about half that from their secondary super stats. Support has lower hp as usual and an inherent bonus to all healing. Spec Trees: At level 10 you gain your first spec tree point. Every level after that you gain an additional one. Each spec has two tiers, you need to spend 5 points in the first tier before you can spend points in the second tier. Your first spec tree is determined by your primary super stat. At level 20 you choose a spec tree and work on that. At level 30 you choose a third spec tree to work on. At level 40 you spend a point in a mastery in one of the 3 trees you have. You may only spend 10 points in each tree. Full tree list is here (PTS forum access required). ATs have set trees, you may spend points freely in them however. The super stat trees tend to have things that reassign how attributes work, for example the strength constitution and recovery ones all have a skill that lets you convert your recovery into a weak regeneration. The non Super stat trees are Avenger (Ranged DPS), Brawler (melee dps), Protector (Tanking), Sentinel (Support), Commander (pets), Warden (Melee DPS/tank), Guardian (Ranged DPS/tank), Sentry (Support/tank), Vindicator (Melee DPS/Ranged DPS), Arbiter (Melee DPS/Support), and Overseer (Ranged DPS/Support) Crowd Control: Sustained paralyzes are now known as incapacitates. Charged holds are still known as paralyzes. All incapacitates deal damage. All incapacitates start holding 1 second in. Yes, this applies to ego storm. This actually speeds up how quickly heat wave starts to hold something. If a target breaks free from an incapacitate this will interrupt your incapacitate. This is particularly bothersome with ego storm and its multiple targets. Paralyzes are MUCH stronger in PVE, the rate of buff scales with minion type. Up to 5X more potent vs henchmen. A lot of support-based spec trees apply debuffs, largely resistance debuffs, to targets you use crowd control on. These penalties apply to your target regardless of if they actually get hit by the crowd control or not. I have a character who can use Ego Hold on a boss, have the boss completely ignore the paralyze yet still take a -30% reduction to all damage resistance. This can make control powers very worthwhile to use against bosses with the right spec tree builds. When someone breaks out of crowd control, they gain 2 seconds of immunity against further control. This is on top of the usual 3 stacks of resistance which is still in place. Gear: You only have 6 equipment slots. 1 Primary offense defense and utility. 1 secondary of each. New equipment gives better attribute bonuses. New equipment can give bonuses on slots it normally could not, like strenght on utility. THere are no slot limitations on attributes. Gear now gives additional bonuses on top of attributes based on slot. Offense can give +off, or +crit severit, or +crit, or +healing, or +defense penetration, but always gives some +off. Defense can give +additional def, +hp, +dodge, +resilience (additional defense to counter defense penetration useful mainly in PVP), +evasion, but always gives some additional defense. Utility may give better recharge, +cost reduction, +CC, +perception +stealth, but always improves recharge and cost. Sometimes gear has slots you may put cores into. THis functions much like gems in diablo. Cores range from rank 1 to 9. You will generally only find up to rank 5 without using the fusion system. Fusion replaces crafting. All your ranks in crafting convert to fusion. You may fuse 5 cores of the same time to produce a higher rank core. 5 Strength 1 cores become 1 strangth 2 core. Success rate is dependant on skill. Catalysts improve success rate, they drop randomly from critters. Crafting nodes now drop cores instead, your skill sets how nice of a core you see. 4 or 5 is about the best you'll see this method. Green is now the base level gear. There is no yellow and white gear. My PTS characters are generally equipped in green unslotted items from the debugger. They manage quite well. The few that have so much as a rank 4 core in their equipment get a significant boost. THe difference on ranking up gives a slight bonus but it isn't nearly as spectacular as getting a core in the slot to begin with. Cores may be removed from the slot via resources or questionite. Cores over rank 5 may only be removed via questionite, though it is a small sum. You can make a rather solid character using rank 4 or 5 cores. The benefits of a rank 9 core in my opinion do not justify the work required to get there. Control right clicking your old crafting resources converts them all to rank 1 cores. Alerts: There's a list of alerts next to your minimap. Clicking an alert opens the description window for it, you may queue for it. It works like a PVP queue. When enough players are ready the alert launches. Check the PVP queue system dialog window to see how many people are queued for your instance. It launches when there's 5. You may queue your team, any empty slots will be filled with random people. In an alert the team-up system is used. Unlike previously teamup now shares auras. Loot is round robin. Alerts vary in length, they tend to be on the shortish, side, especially smash alerts. A grab alert is a villain pulling a heist. You have no timer, you need to bust through all the minions and the map and eventually bust the villain. A grab boosts all resources you recieve for a while and grant resources as a bonus. A smash is interrupting a villain on a rampage. These are timed and you can fail them. The shortest is the two-minute drill, which is two minutes long at max. This is where DPS builds can shine. A smash grants bonus exp and boosts all your exp for a while after completion. A burst alert is where some sort of enviromental effect puts the boss and the players in overcharge mode. Huge swarms of un-boosted minions will attack as well, they won't do much damage and you an knock them down easily. A burst rewards you with cores and increases how many cores you get from a node. There is currently 2. Pyramid of power is more in depth, you need to nail things outside the brownstone with spires randomly tossing buffs at random things friend or foe, and then entering the brownstone, defeating the initial baddies, and triggering the turbo-charged-power fight sequence. The radiation burst is pretty much, "There be bad guys and an amped up villain go beat them up, oh yeah you're super strong too right now" Each day has a different mission to do 3 different alerts for 2000 questionite ore. A seperate mission to do a special alert will grant you a token. These missions have a 5 hour cooldown. Questionite And Tokens Refined questionite (not to be confused with the old crafting material) is a currency for buying special costume unlocks and travel powers like vine swinging. You may refine 8000 daily. The travel power costs 250K incidentally, it unlocks on all characters. Costume pieces cost various amounts. A special auction house allows you to trade questionite for c-store currency and vice versa with other players. You are limited to 50 questionite per CP to 500 per CP to prevent the market from swaying too erratically. If you've played STO it is just like dilithium. Questionite is used to unslot higher ranked cores. The cost for this is rather small compared to other stuff. You may either do the special mission to do 3 alerts for questionite for 2000 questionite every 5 hours. Or you may do adventure packs or comic books. Tokens are broken into various tiers. MCPD recognition (10-20). PRIMUS recognition (21-30), UNTIL recognition (31-40). Enemies randomly drop these tokens within their tier. Certain missions may reward tokens. Tokens may be used to buy random gear or cores within their level range. You may also unlock costumes or travel powers such as bat flight or slime tunneling. Such travel powers run about 30 tokens. Recovery is a lot more attractive for tanks now. There's various ways to convert your recovery into regeneration, which means more hp for your tank. You need it high to get nice endurance from blocking now since they nerfed tank endurance from block. And as usual it lets you fire first and fire hard getting that all important initial agro. Making a ridiculous crit build is easier. All you need is dexterity in gratuitous amounts and the right spec trees. Fish around for spec skills that boost your crit rate. I know there's a particularly juicy one in the avenger tree. Hybrid has no threat reduction, this means if you are a hybrid running an offensive passive you will out-agro all the ranged DPS and melee DPS. With the Bulwarkskill it will gains significant threat. Holding agro in Tank role is much easier, you take a hit on damage. With the right spec skills you can swing a nice solid +30% damage from +off by boosting your defense a lot and then getting a bonus to offense equal to your defense. The magic ingredient is "the best defense..." its found in both DPS/Tank trees. This helps recoup some of that lost damage from tank role. Crowd control is a whole new ballgame. You can make a viable controller by working the trees for solid debuffs on your controls and throwing them at enemies in teams to greatly increase the damage the foe takes. Even works on big-bad-control-immune bosses. My mentalist got it to enemies taking 30% extra damage. If you spend half your time re-applying a debuff that boosts all damage vs a boss by 30% as a support.... well you aren't even accounting for 1/5th of the team damage (20%) so you are doing FAR more damage then what you could by attacking by merely making everyone else's damage more efficient. Ego storm isn't nearly as win, it does have suppression potential still. Even if it's interrupted the built up control on all the other victims remains. You can no longer stack up pre for uber heals, just a modest bonus. It no longer has threat reduction but it does have crowd control, so you may wish to replace it in your builds. Somethingnot mentioned above, IDF can no longer be toggled on top of damage toggles. Don't fret too much it didn't give that much mitigation. It takes an absurd ungodly "you seriously don't have a life do you?" amount of work to produce a totally maxed out character in terms of gear. This is not entirely bad since you can do quite fine with less the epic super level infinity+ gear such as rank 4 cores and stuff. It's like in other mmos where you have people with the +9 sword of be envious of me. I mean sure it's shiny and all, it took 1 month to get and really the +5 sword does qiute fine. What I'm trying to say is don't try to get trapped in trying to max out all your chars immediately with crazy grinding. Just casually go at it you'll have plenty of room for your level 40 chars to grow as you play them on again and off again. I do no PVP heavily but from what I've heard control is far less useful in PVP now, especially since you can get control resist gear. Only certain costume pieces are avaliable via questionite. HOWEVER, you can sell your questionite for C-store credit to other players via the questionite exchange. So, you can get all your c-store stuff now without spending a penny if you are willing to farm questionite like a chinese farmer and cash it in for c-store credit. Or, if you like to stand around and watch the market you could work the market to produce a profit one way or the other. So, this system gives all those guys who can't afford to use the c-store an avenue to get at some of that stuff be it however slow. Slow's better then never right?
  9. Re: In Progress From Blackwyrm Games: Mythic America Yes, you will. And work continues, slowly but surely, on the 6e conversions for the follow up book. Hope to get that out in the reasonably near future.
  10. Re: In Progress From Blackwyrm Games: Mythic America
  11. Re: In Progress From Blackwyrm Games: Mythic America
  12. Re: [LoH] Run Info Tentative schedule for April. Sunday April 1, 5 pm, April Fool's Nemcon. Thursday, April 5, 7 pm, Zombie Apocalypse Thursday, April 12, 7 pm, Serpent Lantern Thursday, April 19, 7 pm, Alerts Night Thursday, April 26, 7 pm, Millennium City Crisis and early levelling.
  13. Re: [LoH] Run Info Tenative schedule for future runs. All times are server/Pacific. Thursday March 8, 7 pm, Therakiel III Thursday March 15, 7 pm, Therakiel IV (if needed) Saturday March 17, 5 pm, Nemcon Thursday, March 22, 7 pm, Teleios's Tower Thursday, March 29, 7 pm, UNITY dailies. Sunday April 1, 5 pm, April Fool's Nemcon. Thursday, April 5, 7 pm, Alerts Night (tentative).
  14. Re: List Your CO Heroes! Current ones: Thundrax (brick/electrical) L40 Cord (electrical/brick) L40 Kann Karoth (Star*Guard recruit, TK blades/Gadgeteering, L40) Gravitas (Force, L40) Zorasto (Villain, Fire/Darkness, L40) Chaplain America (Speedster, L21) Kumiko Rimi (Martial Artist, L17) Billy Deighton (Martial Arts/Munitions, L11) Sandpiper (Munitions L6) Grim Resolve (Munitions/Gadgeteering L6) Sandpiper (Munitions, L6)
  15. Re: Happy Death Day, Luther Black! I'll be doing a Demonflame run tomorrow on CO at 3 PM server/Pacific, to commemorate the occasion.
  16. Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread. Given the suspenders and bowtie -- Dr. Ood??
  17. Re: CotN Outtakes A history of SUNDER, the Vancouver-based superteam of the 1980s. This team was our major campaign in the 1980s: the following history combines events from the campaign and massages them a little to fit the current Champions Universe world. SUNDER In the early 1980s, with the rise of VIPER in the port city of Vancouver, UNTIL targeted the area for special attention. However, the local VIPER Nest, led by the mysterious Serpent-X, proved intractable, and they waged a counter offensive featuring a number of supervillains. More insidious were efforts by a group called the Brotherhood of Terror led by a psychotic mutant named Black Spectre to terrorize Vancouver while placing an operative named Masquerade into a position of political power. To battle these menaces, UNTIL teamed with the RCMP to assemble the Superhuman United Nations Defense Emergency Reserve (SUNDER). The initial team was a collection of oddballs: the leader was a psionic gumshoe from San Francisco named Shamus, who never really explained why he took the job. Even more controversial was his lieutenant Avenger, a decades old mutant (he was active as a pulp adventurer in the 1930s) who had only a few years earlier been the vigilante Night Stalker. Rounding out the team was the temperamental and egotistical cold-powered mutant Cryo, a studious mining engineer in a magnetic battlesuit named Flux, the brash Solar Sentinel (formerly Canadian astronaut Greg Jenkins), a boisterous earth elemental named Elemmus, and George, a physicist with gadgets who resisted any attempt to give him a codename (the press settled on "Vulcan"). They were soon joined by Thundrax, a teenager who could shift his mind into a superhuman body worthy of a god. The team's initial campaign defeated VIPER and unmasked Serpent-X as Richard Xavier, a local entrepreneur who was using VIPER as a way to get an edge on the competition. The snakes were beaten, though other incarnations of VIPER rose up in Vancouver over the years, including one led by Avenger's enemy She-Devil, and another run by the evil demonic spirit Black Dragon, an agent of the Death Dragon. The Brotherhood was a far more serious matter, especially when it was joined by Avenger's sadistic father Master-Mind, who became co-leader with Black Spectre. Masquerade, in the guise of William Donaldson, became mayor of Vancouver, and engaged in a war to smear SUNDER in the press and ban them from the city. However, with help from the veteran hero Acrobat, and (more dubiously) from the super thief Dark Prowler, SUNDER exposed Donaldson, and the Brotherhood fell apart, the huge villain team dividing into four relatively impotent factions that spent as much time warring against each other as terrorizing society and eventually dissipated or were captured. These two were far from the only villains SUNDER faced. PLUNDER, a team of superthieves (led by the shape-changer Sleeper) also plagued the team, though they were more interested in loot than power. The international mastermind known as "the Colonel" often embroiled SUNDER in his crimes, though SUNDER always foiled his plots, time and again he managed to elude capture. A group of anti-mutant terrorists, the Human League, were also fierce enemies; as Shamus, Avenger, and Cryo were all prominent mutants. Led by Cull and his remote controlled Genobots[1], the Human League plagued SUNDER throughout their incarnation as they attempted to control "undesirable human evolution." SUNDER also faced a band of western Canadian separatists, foiled their schemes, confiscated their technology, and turned to other matters. Little did they suspect that this "negligible" underground group would become the nucleus for the Hunter-Patriots, one of the most significant terrorist threats of the modern era. These menaces were not trivial, but they paled in comparison with the Brotherhood and SUNDER's two other archenemies. The first was Borealis, the self-appointed messiah of the True North. Empowered by the great Land spirit, Borealis saw his duty as the conquest of Canada, which would then become the core of a New World Order. They crossed swords several times. starting in 1986, when Borealis tried to use Vancouver's World's Fair as a platform for his plans. Borealis envisioned a Canada that would run the world in accordance with principles of compassion and justice, and saw the ends as justifying his means. Despite being enemies. Borealis did more than just fight SUNDER, he challenged them to use their powers to benefit society in ways that went beyond throwing punches. Eventually Flux teamed up with Elemmus to form a mining and oil company, using earth elementals (Elemmus's family) to scout for deep deposits, which were then surgically extracted by Flux's technology. The profits were then channelled into the Carson Foundation, which Thundrax set up in 1987. Recent expansion into the areas of green technology and space development has made Flux-Carson Enterprises a leading Canadian energy company and a significant player in the mining and petroleum industry. The other major enemy was the demon-god Asmiak, who hungered after Shamus's soul for reasons that are not understood to this day. Because of Shamus's efforts, Asmiak was defeated, then was betrayed by his lieutenant, the demon-sorcerer Zorasto, who devoured his essence and usurped his place in Hell. Following Asmiak's defeat, Shamus vanished into a fog and hasn't been seen since. Zorasto had his own plans for SUNDER; he wanted to absorb the "Living Thunder" of Thundrax. This led to a cataclysmic battle in 1990, which saw Zorasto attempt to drag Earth into Hell through a Hellgate. SUNDER managed to seal Zorasto inside the gate and close it on him, trapping the demon lord on the border between hell and earth. The years took their toll on the team. SUNDER's last hurrah came in 1992, in a battle with Borealis, where the terrorist was finally brought to justice. By this time, team meetings felt like reunions of a rock band long ast its prime. The team had more or less broken up. Shamus had disappeared in 1988, vanishing into the fog after the defeat of Asmiak, and his departure was a crippling blow. Avenger spent much of his time raising a family in Japan (though he would return to Canada in the mid-90s and take a position in the RCMP). Cryo was raising his own family (including a mutant daughter, Aurora) in Vancouver. Flux had retreated into his business and engineering projects The Solar Sentinel had taken a position with the Canadian Space Agency, which he would eventually lead (and captured Gadroon and Roin'esh spacecraft certainly made them a significant force in this area). Thundrax was still a part-time superhero; he spent much of his time mentoring a new Vancouver superhero, the Haida spirit elder Ravenspeaker, who would later be his teammate on the Northern Guard. But Ravenspeaker refused the invitation to join the team, citing conflicts with several members. In truth, he was not needed: with Borealis captured, SUNDER's task was done, and Vancouver conly needed one or two superheroes to protect it. SUNDER ended with a whimper, outlasting the threats to the city they had formed to fight, with the possible exception of Master-Mind, who has remained at large but has remained dormant. Ultimately, SUNDER was a minor group in a small city that made a moderate impact on superhuman activity in Canada, despite one or two bits of world-saving. They were, however, a model for a number of small locally-based UNTIL teams and at least two members, Thundrax and Avenger/Mark Derringer, went on to more storied careers. [1]Because of the name and their purpose, supers nicknamed the organization "Genocide", and some of the crazier elements of the organization accepted it as a badge of honor. These would be the same extremists who later captured Trumpeter of the Northern Guard and tried to turn her into a weapon.
  18. Re: Champions Universe character art The thread has recently been updated.
  19. Re: CotN Outtakes I'll likely do SUNDER at some point, as I actually have the 25 year old campaign writeups for some of the sessions, and that will be the love letter to Vancouver.
  20. Re: CotN Outtakes Starforce The disbanding of the third Canadian Guard was a serious blow to the nation's fight against superhuman crime, and almost immediately people called for the Canadian government to recruit replacements. In the meantime, Toronto's growth and wealth made it an increasing target for supervillains and agencies like VIPER, and the city council began to look at recruiting veteran heroes to defend it. In June 2000, the floodgates opened when Dr. Destroyer launched an invasion of the city. "Dr. Destroyer" turned out to be Magnus Aignur, a technician who had worked for Albert Zerstoiten and who cobbled together a new Destroyer armor from the original's discarded suits; the invasion itself was a cover by Argent to soften up Toronto area high tech firms (most notably Burrell Industries and Doerksen Tech) for hostile takeovers. This naturally brought down the wrath of Lyle Doerksen, the third and most successful Forceknight. He was especially angered that Justiciar's company was being targeted while David Burrell languished in suspended animation. Joined by Trumpeter (the last member to join the Northern Guard) and a local hero named Lakehead, the impromptu team opposed Aignur's invasion, soon aided by the cosmic might of Celestar. Quickly, the four heroes subdued Aignur and exposed Argent's involvement. After the dust settled, Forceknight proposed the formation of a new team with a more local mandate than the Guard, in part to focus on Toronto's situation, but also to avoid triggering the Land's prophecy of doom that had led to the earlier team's dismantling. In March 2000, Starforce, itself a blend of Celestar and Forceknight's names, was born. Celestar brought a huge monolith down from the asteroid belt, landed it in Toronto harbour and shaped it into the Ironberg, the team's HQ. For years after, many villains would see the daunting, ugly structure as a challenge and attempt to blow the Ironberg off the map, but none succeeded. Justiciar's ward Circ and Forceknight developed the team AI, Kivioq, which became an unofficial member, the one constant in every incarnation of "the Force". The remainder of 2000 was spent in an epic battle against VIPER whose Toronto nest, led by a mutant named Ms. Snake, was one of the world's most ruthless. It was a bitter and bloody conflict: VIPER struck at everything from politicians to banks to large crowds of innocents. They even to took the battle to the member's families -- Forceknight came within a hair of losing his wife and young son to a team of VIPER assassins. The vendetta climaxed in an epic battle between Celestar and Viperia over Lake Ontario where Celestar managed to drive Viperia away, but was badly wounded. Lakehead prevented Ms. Snake from detonating a series of bombs planted across the city, but sacrificed his powers to do so. With VIPER beaten, it seemed like the major threats to the city were under control. Celestar withdrew for some badly needed healing, while Forceknight retired to be with his family. However, Trumpeter lobbied on the need for a strong Toronto-based team, and a nervous city council backed her opinion. Potenstorm With the help of a "superhuman consultant", Celestar and Forceknight began to put together a new team. By March 2001, Trumpeter was joined by the heroes Hyperknight, Canadian Anthem, and the CN Tower. Forceknight strongly wanted Trumpeter to lead, however she had never gotten along with Celestar, and the veteran hero vetoed the appointment. Trumpeter responded by quitting the team. Celestar, at UNTIL's recommendation, recruited a very powerful but untested Swedish superhero named Potenstorm. His first mission with the team, an attack against the creations of Teleios, put the team into conflict with the Justice Squadron. This misunderstanding was, perhaps, a sign of things to come. Potenstorm was a nice guy, however he seemed tentative, often putting the safety of the team ahead of the mission. Two situations where the team premptively pulled out of a dangerous situation were caught on film, first during a movie shoot invaded by a new villain team called the Forces of Nature, second during a fight with Firewing at the CN Tower, where Firewing left his mark, literally, on the city, after Potenstorm ran from the fight. To make matters worse, the new Toronto VIPER commander, Darien Defoe, was a master at manipulating the media. Soon the local press was painting the new Starforce as a failed team; in particular Potenstorm was the subject of intense criticism, lacking the "toughness" and "resolve" of native Canadian heroes. This coincided in a major VIPER PR offensive against superhuman failires in the wake of the World Trade Center tragedy, but was far more effective than most, especially after Canadian Anthem was killed by Baron Nihil and revealed to be the estranged teenage son of a local Member of Parliament. Potenstorm was widely blamed. A number of Canadian supers came to the Swede's defense, but it was not enough. At the end of 2001, Potenstorm quit the team, angrily returning to Sweden.[1] Days of Thunder The Toronto city council insisted on continuing with the Guard. Celestar, who had become close to Potenstorm, walked away from the team. Forceknight recruited Craig Carson, his old friend Thundrax from the Northern Guard, to head the team, rebuild it, and improve its relations with the city. Almost immediately he ran into problems. The media that had attacked Potenstorm went after Thundrax with equal vigor, dragging up some disparaging remarks that he had made about the city when he was a teenager, and the media pegged him as a hostile guy from the west coast who didn't care about Toronto. In addition to the PR problems. was Thundrax's lack of command experience: Craig had been part of four teams but had never been a team leader and his transition into a command role was very difficult. Thundrax asked Potenstorm to remain on the team and assist with the transition, but his suggestion was rejected with scorn. Hyperknight accepted a lucrative offer to join ACI and left the team and Canada behind.[2] Craig recruited several replacements, so by April 2002 the team's roster was Thundrax, Surfacer, Fire Maiden, Trumpeter (who had returned at her friend's behest), and the CN Tower (the only member of Potenstorm's team to survive the transition). It was hardly the most powerful incarnation of the Guard, and the press never let them forget it. Nonetheless Thundrax and Starforce eventually found their footing. In May 2002, after losing a brutal battle with the Forces of Nature, they regrouped and defeated them soundly, garnering positive press for the team for the first time in nearly eighteen months. They exposed several members of VIPER in the press and the mayor's office, and fought the terrorist group CanadaFirst!, who were targeting judges that supported Canada's liberal immigration policy. Unfortunately in October, tragedy once again struck the team. The CN Tower became embroiled in a family feud against his mutant brother, the empathic parasite Dr. Babylon. Dr. Babylon had retreated to an American asylum and was using it to host his Insanity Engine, which he hoped would drive the entire planet insane. The team pursued the AWOL Tower, but it was too late -- the Tower was dead. Brother had already slain brother. Worse, the team was driven berserk by the Engine, and for the first time in his career, Thundrax took a human life, ripping apart rioting inmates with his bare hands. Fortunately, Trumpeter managed to retain her sanity long enough to destroy the Engine. and with that, Babylon's threat was over. It was the greatest victory that Starforce had ever achieved, but with a dead team member and innocent blood on its hands, they felt anything but victorious. At Forceknight's recommendation, the somewhat clueless Edmonton hero Polar Bear joined the Force. He didn't get much of a chance to acclamatize himself: at the Tower's funeral, the eccentric time travelling villain Captain Chronos, whose temporal technology had been stolen by Baron Nihil, appeared out of nowhere and kidnapped the team. Chronos claimed that Nihil planned to undo six key events in Canadian history in the Battle for the Soul of Canada. If any of them became undone, it could devastate the True North. Thus began Starforce's great time travelling adventure. After a series of escapades which included an encounter with Louis Riel in 1870, the founding of the original Hunter-Patriots in 1838, and the most important hockey game in history in 1972, the team found themselves in a Dartmouth Nova Scotia hospital in 1960, where they protected Alice Burrell as she gave birth to her son David, the future Justiciar. On the final adventure, they were joined by Justiciar himself, who had just woken from hibernation and had been taken back in time by Chronos to aid them. In the end, Nihil's Time Destroyer was no more, Chronos had recovered his technology, and Starforce was back in Toronto after only a two month absence. The press heralded the return of Justiciar as the return of legitimacy to Staforce, and pushed for him to take over the leadership role. David refused to oblige them, however the issue was soon forced for him. Firewing returned to attack Toronto again, but this time the team did not back down. In the end, while the rest of Starforce lay unconscious, Thundrax bore the brunt of the alien titan's onslaught, a brutal assault that was captured on camera where he refused to quit despite gruesome injuries. Impressed, Firewing did not finish the huge Vancouverite as he lay on the ground in a charred, bloody heap; instead, as a gesture of respect, he seared Starforce's emblem into the side of the CN Tower before departing. The team's bravery was universally hailed, and Starforce's reputation was restored. Thundrax went on medical leave to nurse his injuries, but in actual fact that was just an excuse to transfer the leadership reins to Justiciar, his friend and formal pupil, whom Craig had always believed would lead his generation of Canadian heroes. As for Thundrax, Torontonians embraced him for the first time in his career, and he would remain one of the nation's most popular heroes even as he withdrew from the superhuman stage. And Justiciar For All It didn't take long for Justiciar to settle into the role of leader. His first adventure involved a visit from Gravitar to Toronto, as she attempted to hold "HenchCon" to draft elite level henchmen into her service. Gravitar was to be the first of several high level villains to test the resolve of the new Starforce. In addition, they also defeated Darien Defoe and took apart Toronto's VIPER's Nest, again. It would be years before the snakes would attain a strong presence in Toronto again. Thundrax retired for a career in politics, while Surfacer and Fire Maiden got married and returned to Halifax, and Trumpeter accepted an appointment with JTF-X. To fill the vacuum, Justiciar began looking for replacements. A tip from the Toronto PD put him in touch with Prism Girl, a superhuman created by Dr. Nafar, a VIPER mad scientist who had been Darien Defoe's chief lieutenant. A failed Hunter-Patriot assassination attempt netted the team Dust Devil, a huge (and obnoxious) genetically engineered brickhouse. Justiciar found a reference buried in an RCMP report that led the team to Argosy, a very odd Newfoundland telepath. Together these four heroes faced down many threats, including an outbreak of Teleios-engineered mutant monsters; an IHA plan to outlaw superheroes from Toronto that was spearheaded by the Canadian Anthem's embittered father; the Babble, a creature from the higher planes that ate people's capacity for language, an apocalyptic Dr. Destroyer worshipping cult cultivated by Rakshasa, an attempt by Paris Vandeleur to infiltrate Canada's first nations community and anger the spirits into a war against humanity (which ended with Adrian Vandeleur stripping him of his mystical abilities and banishing him from the family). On this last adventure, another odd hero joined the 'Force: the Constable, who had been assigned the Vandeleur case by the Toronto PD. By the time the Constable joined in 2007, the team's reputation and stature were at its apex. Justiciar was easily the most popular and respected hero in the nation, and one of the most highly regarded in the world. Torontonians looked to their defenders with unabashed admiration and pride. A New Arrangement In 2009, things changed. A violent storm near Force Station Steelhead in Nunavut was the precursor to the liberation of Kigatilik. Recognizing Kigatilik's return as the greatest threat in the nation's history, the team got together with Ravenspeaker, Celestar, Le Fort and the newest incarnation of Forceknight; together they crafted a plan for the defense of Canada. Starforce was split into two divisions: Starforce North and Starforce South. Justiciar and the Constable (along with Celestar and Ravenspeaker) were stationed in the north, while Dust Devil led Prism Girl and Argosy in defending the south, joined unofficially by Forceknight V. The arrangement began to unravel in late 2011, when a Roin'esh incursion set the stage for the unlikeliest of comebacks: the villain who gave Justiciar his cybersystems, the long-dead Cyberlord. His return has shaken David Burrell and Circ to their cores, and Starforce's leader has expressed doubt about his leadership abilities for the first time in his career. Furthermore, the never especially stable Argosy has become increasingly more unstable over the last yeae; he'll probably be forced to leave the team in the very near future -- one way or another. At this point, it looks extremely likely that Forceknight V will officially join the team and be groomed to eventually replace Dust Devil as the southern leader (there's talk of establishing a Starforce West team in Calgary with Dust Devil as leader) while finding one or two new members to replace Argosy. The next few years should be very interesting for "the 'Force" Footnotes [1]Potenstorm is still a superhero in Sweden, however his career has never recovered from the humiliation he suffered in Starforce. [2]Hyperknight served as an ACI spokesman for years, and was for a time Franklin Stone's bodyguard, until he succumbed to cancer in 2010.
  21. Re: [LoH] Run Info Apologies for missing Thursday: I was pretty damn sick and would have been even worse than usual for a lair run. I'll let you know what's happening this thursday. Our tentative schedule is: Necrull, Thursday February 9. Destroyer's Factory, Thursday Feb. 16 Nem Con, Saturday Feb. 18, 6 pm Server/Pacific Therakiel I, Thursday Feb. 23 Therakiel II, Thursday March 1. All times 7 Server/Pacific unless otherwise noted. Also, I've scheduled a Demonflame run at 4 pm Server/Pacific on February 29 to commemorate the date when Luther Black is pulling off his master plan. The time is meant to make the run East Coast friendly (and let me teach my Bible Study at 730). Also, if anyone feels like taking over the reins for a run, let me know. It would be most welcome.
  22. Tonight's run is scheduled to be Necrull and the Burial caves (Canada, L29+), 7 PM Server/Pacific, 10 EST. I'm feeling under the weather, so I may not make it. We'll see how I feel at gametime. Beyond this, I know Archie wants to do Therakiel's Temple. I'd like to do another NemCon at some point and maybe a Nemesis Mission night where we collect missions like Bunker Buster, All That Glitters, and Violent Majority and run them as a group.
  23. Re: CotN Outtakes I appreciate the vote of confidence, howvever I'm looking forward to MYTHIC HERO an awful lot.
  24. Re: CotN Outtakes I've toyed with the idea of pitching a Champions of the North 6e kickstarter, in PDF only. I'm pretty sure I won't do it, as the conversions for the Gestalt book (which I'm finally making some headway with) and my novel will probably most of my writing time for the immediate future. However, I've done some work on expanded backgrounds for Canada's major historical superteams as part of running Thundrax as a PC in Champions Online, so I figure I may as well post some very unofficial expanded histories, in part to thank some friends who supported the Book of the Empress kickstarter. Go Hero! This is unofficial lore: additions are not approved of by Hero Games or Cryptic Studios. -------------- The Northern Guard III Part One: Origins Lyle Doerksen became the third Forceknight after the death of Jim Bridges, the second Forceknight, at the hands of Borealis in 1991. In early 1994, Doerksen became aware that a company called StarTech labs in Toronto was really a front for a Gadroon invasion. Contacting Canada's greatest heroes, he gathered Thundrax, Ravenspeaker, Augury, and Voyageur to fight at his side. The team discovered that the Gadroon were collaborating with the head of StarTech, a scientist named Markus Lord, who was really the supervillain Cyberlord, a man who, in the 1980s, had run afoul of the first Canadian Guard and the Red Ensign. Cyberlord was using cybertechnology to create a human-Gadroon hybrid, using his captive David Burrell as the first test subject. Cyberlord planned to deliver Burrell as a "Gadroon Justiciar" to the aliens in exchange for power and technology, however when the Northern Guard attacked the lab, all hell broke loose. Burrell's body rejected the Gadroon DNA and broke free; in the ensuing firefight, Cyberlord was caught in the crossfire between Burrell and one of Cyberlord's mercenary villains, Megavolt and (apparently) killed. Dubbing himself Justiciar[1], David offered to help the team stop the Gadroon; hurrying to the site of the invasion, the team handily did enough damage to the Gadroon forces that they retreated back into deep space. Forceknight suggested a permanent alliance and the Northern Guard III[2] was born. Enemies Amok The team brought numerous enemies with them. Justiciar adopted Cyberlord's son, Circ Lord, as his ward, however the young man was troubled, and also brought the attention of VIPER, especially a young technopath named Mechaniste. Argent under Canadian head Augustus Martin, attempted a hostile takeover of Burrell Industries that led to Forceknight making a secret deal with Martin to protect his company. Ravenspeaker brought a number of personal enemies with him, especially Tax'et, the Haida god of violent death. Thundrax, a former member of SUNDER, was the target of VIPER and the followers of the imprisoned archvillain Borealis, who had been a SUNDER nemesis. Voyageur had a number of colorful enemies: Punition, the Quebecois femme fatale crimeboss Magnifique, the psionic Provocateur and his highly domesticated robot assistant, Allons-Yvette, and most dangerous of all, Le Seigneur d'Histories, a power from the Briah that sought to be the only creature humanity celebrated in stories. Augury's precognitive powers made her a target for the Entity, an extremely powerful and malevolent creature who was only defeated with the help of the mysterious Witness. Perhaps the most dangerous enemy belonged to Snowblind (Ann Peterson) whose unearthly beauty came from a very unlikely source -- her father, the demon-god Kigatilik! Kigatilik, trapped in the Frost Tomb by the Mighty Canadians twenty years earlier, attempted to use Ann as a catspaw several times in an effort to break free into this reality. In addition to the enemies that the team brought with them, the Northern Guard made plenty of new ones. The Dragon Syndicate, a now defunct team of VIPER villains, was a constant threat. Brigantine, the Lyle Doerksen from the alternate world of Cabotia, attempted to conquer the world several times for his beloved Prime-Minister-General. The Ultimates clashed with the Northern Guard on several occasions, and although they didn't cross swords directly, the team often found themselves embroiled in various schemes of Teleios. The team also found itself with a rival south of the border. Thanks to the machinations of assorted villains and VIPER, the Guard clashed several times with Chicago's Peacekeepers team. Changes The Guard evolved several times during its tenure. When Thundrax temporarily left the team for a part time stint in UNITY, the team recruited a replacement. Bonadventure, a happy go lucky Quebec strongman, turned out to be the robotic creation of WW2 super-scientist Dr. Cerebro, and he left the team to come to terms with his identity. His replacement was far less likable: Seger was a Swedish superhero who was one of the most powerful in Europe. He was an archaeologist who attained the power of the Norse pantheon via a mystic amulet that gave him the strength of Thor, the beauty of Balder, the insight of Odin, the cunning of Loki, the vigilance of Heimdell, and the ferocity of Fenris Wolf. He antagonized the entire team except for Snowblind, who fell head over heels in love with him. Eventually Seger fell prey to a Necrullitic infection and took down the entire Guard, He might have killed them all except for the timely intervention of Thundrax; their battle caused nearly one hundred million dollars damage to the port of Thunder Bay. Seger was cured of the infection, however he quit the team and (much to the team's dismay) Snowblind went with him. Soon afterward Seger and Snowblind married, but alas this was not to be a long and happy union -- they were killed in battle with Eurostar in 1998. As a final indignity, Kigatilik animated their corpses at their funeral and attempted to make them slaughter the attendees, which included the Guard. The team was forced to destroy their former teammates' bodies while all of Europe and Canada watched in horror. Dimension Dementia The arrival of Brigantine opened Canada up to threat from the alternate worlds of Cabotia and Laurentia. During one adventure, Augury was trapped in the latter world, where a combination of grappling with parallel timelines and the torture of the dimension's nuns drove her insane. Believing Augury lost, the team recruited a replacement: an UNTIL agent named Juanita Sand, codenamed Sandpiper. Sand's military outlook frequently clashed with the team, though they won each other's respect. Unfortunately, there was an incident where Juanita absorbed the Entity's power and, as the cosmic entity Judgment, summarily killed every VIPER agent on Earth. This was almost immediately undone, however the incident was not forgotten, and Sand rose to the top of VIPER's Most Wanted List. With a multi-billion dollar bounty drawing the attention of armies of supervillains to the Northern Guard, Juanita overruled the team's objections and faked her death in order to safeguard them. Her replacement was an equally competent, but somewhat less obsessed woman named Trumpeter, a sonic-powered mutant rescued by Mark Derringer from an insane offshoot of the IHA that called themselves Project: Genocide[3] who were going to use her as a weapon to kill every mutant on earth. Derringer asked the Guard to take her on and train her. Trumpeter exceeded expectations[4]. The return of Augury from Laurentia heralded the demise of the team: plagued by apocalyptic visions, Augury plotted to break up the Guard. A 1998 incident between Quebec military units and Mohawk nationalist radicals led to the departure of Voyageur from the team. Forceknight's deal with Argent was exposed, but he managed to turn the tables on the evil industrialists, exonerated his name. Argent struck back, but the ensuing battle turned against them and Augustus Martin was killed. Also, Lyle Doerksen married Eileen Thompson, daughter of original Forceknight Wally Thompson, and contemplated handing over the reins of the team to Justiciar, who had already eclipsed him in the hearts of Canadians. The time of the Guard seemed to be drawing to a close. After Thundrax was nearly killed in ambush by the Ultimates, Trumpeter uncovered Augury's plot and confronted her. Eventually the team investigated her visions, which led them to the Lynx's Fold and the Land spirit that encompassed most of the North. The Land claimed that unless the Guard disbanded, Canada would eventually be destroyed. When Forceknight and Ravenspeaker confirmed this claim in a visionquest, the team disbanded. However, Mark Derringer founded the RCMP Steelhead division in response to the vacuum created by the disbanding of the Guard. Seeing the area as a source of numerous threats, Force Station Steelhead was constructed in 1999 near the Lynx's Fold and quickly expanded into one of the world's finest high-tech police installations. Canada would remain protected, though new threats would arise to test that protection. Footnotes (1) This origin of Justiciar is slightly different than the one given in Champions of the North 5e, as Cryptic's cutscenes identified the team that freed David Burrell as the Northern Guard, however, no incarnation of the Guard existed at the time given in Champions of the North 5e. Therefore, we've moved the date of Burrell's reawakening up to early 1994, and incorporated it into the Guard's original battle with the Gadroon. The involvement of Cyberlord with alien technology also ties into the events of Champions Online's Whiteout Comic Series. (2) This depends on whether you count the post-Red Ensign Northern Guard as a second incarnation or not. The source material refers to the team as both Northern Guard II and Northern Guard III. Rather than being a typo, I'd prefer this contradiction to be due to a debate by historians on whether the post-Red Ensign Northern Guard I should be considered a second incarnation of the team, considering the Ensign's importance. Therefore, supers experts are divided as to the actual numbering of this team; it's referred to as Northern Guard III in this document. (3) This is, of course, inspired by the original Genocide organization, which were renamed IHA in 5e because no one in their right minds would dare to call themselves Genocide and expect to get any public support. In this case, these wackos from the 90s were NOT in their right minds and the IHA officially disavowed them. This arrangement lets us fans of the original have them as an extremist splinter cell without threatening the more nuanced approach of the current IHA or straining its credulity as a political force. (4) Trumpeter is currently second in command of JTF-X, Canada's premier team of military supers.
  25. Re: [LoH] Mandragalore Run A rough schedule of upcoming runs (subject to change): Thursday, January 26: Teleios's Tower. Saturday, January 28 (special experimental run): Complete Whiteout Thursday, February 3, Burial Butte Upcoming soon after that: Therakiel's Temple.
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