Stealthgamer

The "Stacked Deck" suddenly came to mind. Some criminals IRL use codenames while committing crimes, so they could name each other after card games - "Canasta" for a bully, "Texas Hold 'Em" for a Southwestern lecher, "Gin Rummy" for a guy who can hold his liquor, "Buck Euchre" for a Midwestern guy, etc. A woman in the group will no doubt get some sort of sexist name - "Strip Poker", for example. (These are villains, after all.) The supervillain running the organization might very well change his or her own name to match them, but still align with their power or ability set. " 'Contract Bridge' doesn't sound like much of a supervillain name, Defender." "Yeah, you've never had him land on you. He's five hundred feet long when fully grown, and weighs in excess of 10,000 tons."

Shinobot for the Ninja-droid, a bright chrome-plated android and pronounced "Shine-o-bot", so people will think of him as a domestic robot and not as a master of stealth and assassination. Stuffy "Jeeves" accent, snarky criticisms of slovenly PCs while he cleans up pizza boxes, "dust bunnies" and dirty socks - play it up for a couple of adventures. If used as a villainous NPC, "he" has been built by a contractor to clean the PC's base, so having him in various places around it are completely innocuous. Until his secret programming emerges and his suite of cleaning tools are now suddenly used for nefarious purposes... 1) The person who built the Shinobot (and the other androids) wants revenge on the PCs for defeating (villain or mook), and this is their way doing it at arm's length, a la Wayland Talos. 2) The person who built the Shinobot is under (Archvillain name here)'s payroll or control! More robots will be let in by Shinobot if he is not stopped soon! 3) A real twist - the PC the Shinobot has targeted is suspected by (Japanese law enforcement or superhero group) of being an infiltrator or impostor. Unbeknownst to the player themselves, they actually are, having been carefully brainwashed and given powers that simulate the PC's character suite, if only for a limited time! (The best PC to use for this is one known for their propensity for collateral or property damage). Can Shinobot convince the other PCs this character isn't who they claim to be? Can the other PCs convince them to turn themselves in, which might trigger their hidden programming?

Kestrel will laugh her tush off... she was born in 1924 (though she sure doesn't look it). She's never been a fan of the current culture, with its "influencers" and "personalities", trolls and misinformation purveyors. It's not just pervasive, but she believes in many cases it's actually insidious to cultural stability. She believes people are entitled to an informed opinion, not just any opinion, no matter how ignorant. People shouldn't turn whiny celebrities into heroes, no matter what their stripe, and not all points of view are created equal. She's also not a fan of "instant celebrity". Even superheroes are not immune. She thinks some supers are publicity hounds, which to a WWII Brit like her is unseemly. Mere bravery in the face of evil is not sufficient reason to lionize someone. To Kestrel, character and the test of time still mean something. She will attempt to guide her students at Ravenswood (and even a few of her fellow adult heroes) how to live life without it. Nimisha (Ms. Shadowgamer's PC) will be less affected as a Post-Mill/ Gen Z than most, because her parents were both supers and still public figures (Dad: Secretary of DOSPA; Mom: former supermodel and now a consulting geologist and the wife of a Cabinet secretary), and she's listened to her parents and their warnings of the pitfalls of social media. She doesn't post selfies or blather on about particularly banal topics, or even exciting ones - in or out of her secret ID. She won't be thrilled, especially if it takes out a big chunk of the Internet with it, but she'll adapt quicker than the majority of her peers. Her younger brother Hammer will be less adaptable - he's not as smart, nor as wise. (Which is why his 'rents monitor his posts far more than his older sister.) Casey will be the most affected, as he uses social media as a communication tool, and no one on the Internet knows he's a car...he's unfortunately also the most suggestible, but his "owner" has set up guidelines to prevent or at least create a check against the worst of the misinformation and trolls.

Sounds like the sort of thing that would attract four teenagers and a Great Dane in a beat-up panel van...

Nope. I've warned them off from it - if they read it, and use it for inside info for spoiling the campaign ... bad things, man. Bad things.🤬

Kestrel: Call for other characters for backup. One of the magic users, probably her protege, the technomancer Nimisha, will want to do a more detailed magical examination of the door. She has "rose-colored glasses" that can see if it leads to a harmful dimension like the Qliphotic or the Netherworld or someplace like that, and if it's a one-way or two-way portal. If Nimisha's otherwise engaged, Kestrel might call on her NPC friend Alicia Blackmun. Her curiosity is strong, but not as strong as prudence, at least in this case. She wants to open that door, but it's best not to go alone, nor without scrying the door first. She will try to determine the nature of the food with Discriminatory Smell, but she'll wait for reinforcements to arrive before proceeding. She'll loosely guard the door to warn anybody else from unknowingly using it, if it's in an area that's remotely public. If it's a dimensional door, she's extra cautious, as she's still not back to normal from the last time she got sucked into another dimension. What was supposed to be a 12-hour gender reassignment (male to female, part of a magical undercover operation against DEMON) is now in its third month. She has gotten a much more respectful appreciation of what it's like to be a woman, but the traumatic sexual assault that happened in the other dimension still haunts her, and the pregnancy (with twins) that had to happen to avoid being stuck as a DEMON broodmare forever... well, it wasn't what she wanted. She might be a woman for just another month, or until the pregnancy runs its course six months from now.

This is part of a plot (actually a sideplot) of my current Champions campaign, which I've titled "All That Glisters Is Not Gold Body Paint." Nick Mancuso is an ally of Franklin Stone of ACI fame, but a rival to the Cresse family. He fancies himself as a replacement to Joseph Sorrelli since the old Don's death a few years ago. The Piston's one of his main money laundering establishments - he's very scrupulous about paying his licenses and so forth so everything appears above board. The Piston is a popular spot for the hard-chargers in the Lennie business community. However, despite its popularity, the Piston is hemorrhaging money, because Mancuso has recently lost other less savory "businesses" and has to increasingly lean on the Piston to pay his lieutenants and soldiers. His connection to the IHA is a natural one - nearly every Lennie organized crime group has to ally with somebody who hates superheroes and can manage some means of defending themselves against them, or else the "capes" will wipe the floor with them. (They also need better-than-average protection against VIPER. If they aren't getting help from the IHA, it's ARGENT or Wayland Talos or somebody like that.) Mancuso also is aware he has to act fast for his play at leadership, before the far-more-sophisticated-technologically New Purple Gang steals a march on him. That they'll also steal a march on every other Mob group in New Motown is not a solace to Nick Mancuso. (Rumor has it that the kid who runs it is some sort of fexxin' genius.) His connection to Eric Marburg is originally through his ne'er-do-well son Tyler, who attempted to get hired at, then buy out or bankrupt a recently renovated rival adult nightclub in Dearborn, the "Pantheon". (The Pantheon's co-owner is a contact and friend of the heroes - a strip club makes a handy neutral site for discussing and negotiating matters with criminals of all stripes. She hired Tyler because she's also a bit naive, being that she's actually an avatar of a Celtic fertility goddess who more or less bought the club to keep a constant supply of fertility energy). The Pantheon is new, roomy, shiny, with a rising avant-garde clientele, generally prettier and friendlier girls, and things that might even attract someone that normally wouldn't go to a strip club, like a mid-range cocktail lounge, gaming tables run by the local Native bands, and even a small cigar bar. (Some of the players were a big help in its design.) Tyler was using Dad's money, to help his buddy Nick; Nick would repay him through his increased revenues with the Pantheon's closure. It didn't go well; he's not a bright lad and got himself into such deep kimchi (involving hiring underage strippers, just for starters, that the owner knew about and notified the authorities) that Dad Marburg had to scramble just to keep him out of prison. What's worse is that he put his dad on the authorities' radars for the first time, and for once Eric's vaunted sixth sense let him down, because the threat wasn't really about him. Nick found out about Marburg pere's business and political clout, and he's been trying to get into his hip pocket ever since. The hero group in my campaign knows Eric Marburg has a high rank in the CSM (but not the full extent of it) because one of them is a fairly strong telepath with IPE. She managed to read his mind briefly twice, once while he was out and about pulling strings to get his spawn released on bail, and then when he was in a cocktail party with other high-society figures in MC (which including the father of one of the PCs, who happens to be the new DOSPA Secretary, ironically after making a name for himself in anti-psionic technology for the Federal government...). Marburg has Mental Defense, but not enough - and he doesn't cover his tracks very well in his own head, especially when he's had a few Old Fashioneds in him. They don't confront Marburg directly because they don't have hard evidence, and well, they know people who get on Eric Marburg's bad side tend to have all sorts of nasty things just happen to them, which the players have appropriately dubbed "Ebola Marburg". He'd also be a distraction from their major enemy - DEMON. He's also fairly ruthless as a businessman, which combined with his seeming ability to stay ahead or above trends, has raised suspicions in an already ahead-of-the-curve town like Millennium City, so they can count on other non-blackmailed people in Millennium City to keep Marburg's head down. He's still got rivals who think he's got insider info - too much insider info. (Interesting point - what if the group that runs him to ground was the FTC?) He's also not really smart about his relationships with business and political figures - he tends to wield his influence with them like a club, which makes them afraid of him - but also angry. So the heroes are starting from the far outside of his network and working their way in, as they should. A kind of Jim Rockfording of the case, not a Frank Columboing. The heroes are unaware of his Lodge leadership because they don't know that the CSM has organization above the local level. Not even the telepath has put the puzzle together that he's the "Archdruid Airetach" yet (because the player forgot to ask if he had any aliases)- just that he's got a metric butt-ton of secretive clout in the Detroit area from his association with the Scarlet Moon coven there, he's extraordinarily well-connected, and he has an icky array of artifacts and spells. (One of my players said - "Oh, so it's as if PAGAN from the Ackroyd/Hanks "Dragnet" movie really did have magical powers!") They heroes, however, been so busy with DEMON (as well they should, as they're a much greater immediate threat and the primary focus of the campaign; eventually they're going to be the ones to bring DEMON down) that they've put any investigations into the Scarlet Moon on the back burner. They're looking for some way closer to him, if not inside his house, then at least those near him inside the coven, but for later. Eric Marburg, meanwhile, has problems of his own... his pet talking mummified head has been giving him portents of his own inescapable doom. Dooomm! Like any aging Boomer narcissist, he's frantically trying to figure out ways to avoid his fate, while the head keeps playing "warmer, warmer...naw, now you're getting colder" with him.

Meanwhile, in stately Millennium City... our intrepid group of adventurers (Intrepid because they certainly don't have the luck of the Enterprise) confront Nick Mancuso, organized crime leader manque, at his "Piston Club" adult entertainment club in Rivertown, about his connections to the IHA and to Eric Marburg, now secretly known to the heroes as the leader of the local Circle of the Scarlet Moon coven. Other heroes in the party also want to take Mancuso to task for running such a sleazy strip club, when there are so many better ones in Motown now. He's giving the others a bad name... how does he make a profit, when the Piston is like a school snow day? (No class.) Sorry, the tall building to the left reminds me of the Pharos Building, and there's a nearby bridge. the bright lighting and reflections are so MC it hurts...

Champions Campaign, set in Millennium City. A DEMON worldwide plot in early 2021 (with lots of sideplots) is being opposed by our heroes, a motley crew from Ravenswood Academy of students and teachers, combined with a few independent heroes and some of the few from DOSPA and the FBI: Even before the current nastiness in Ukraine, one of the super-students has the background of being half-Ukrainian, her mother coming from Zaporizhzhia. Her grandfather is a former Soviet superhero himself, now quite elderly, and having expended most of his powers fighting a fire at a certain nuclear reactor in the north of the country. He asks the FBI superhero, Keystone (no jokes about cops) to help him as he thinks a Russian "hero" is going to offer him something he intends to refuse: Kamin': I didn't come all this way to the United States, to rejoin my youngest daughter and her family, after thirty years, just to get zapped by Molnya. Keystone: What makes you think he's going to zap you? Maybe he just wants to talk about the good old days, when the two of you were a team. Kamin': I don't need to talk about those days any more. They aged like a fine milk. Kamin' offers Keystone some ice cream (a favorite dish of those from the former Soviet Union regardless of the season). Kamin': I've got French vanilla, chocolate chip cookie dough, butter pecan, and - LAINO! Keystone: What's that? Laino? Kamin': Apparently, "Napoleon-itan", but without the chocolate. My grandson got into my freezer last weekend.