Welcome to TiddlyWiki created by Jeremy Ruston, Copyright © 2007 UnaMesa Association
This is your source for information about the 5th City Campaign for Champions.
Little is known about the "time cops" except that they appear to be well funded and composed primarily of well-trained but non superpowered agents.
They claim to be about preserving the current timeline. No one knows under whose authority they claim this, if anyone's.
People on the organization's watch list include [[Rift]] and [[Eldritch]].
Teenage daughter of [[Paragon]], who had been a decorated pilot before his donning of the powered armor suit. Her mother died just a few years after birth. As sole support of the child, Paragon left the service to fight crime domestically. Eventually he had to stop wearing the armor as it was slowly killing him with each use.
[img[Aces High|images/aceshigh.jpg]][img[Aces High|images/aces_scanned.jpg]]
He settled in and back into piloting and airplane repair at the airport in [[Lazarus]] where he maintains a number of vintage WWII aircraft.
During this time, while walking his teenaged daughter to school, he witnessed Anna Bellamy being hit by a car and getting right up without a scratch. He recognized her instantly as someone with special powers and encouraged his daughter to befriend her.
Nicknamed 'Aces' by her dad, she became a friend and confidant of Anna Bellamy who would later adopt the name [[Anthem]] and become a young crimefighter.
Aces was subsequently killed by the confessed killer [[Coffin Nail Joe]] Bellamy, who during one of his drug induced lucid moments told the tale of her murder at the behest of the [[Black Pope]].
Aces was born with usable wings, her death thus adding to the [[Preponderance of Angels]] theory put forth by some regarding the City of Lazarus. By all accounts 'Aces' beauty was identical to that of her deceased mother.
Said of her by her father, "She was given a gift of wings. But I was given the greatest gift... that of a little girl with wings."
A magical conflict between forces of dark and light that claimed not only the life, but the very existence of thousands of souls. It was halted by mutual implementation of The [[Pact]].
Called "The Ageless War" because no one is quite certain when it happened or how long it lasted. Most of the survivors are extradimensional, and there's little evidence of it still exsiting today in our dimension.
The scientis [[Dr. Terwelleker]] used DNA from [[The Doctor]] and most of the team members from the [[Sentinels]] to create a super-being. As is prone to happen with such illicit experiments, the being broke loose and mayhem ensued. His powerful psychic mind began to pick up bits and pieces of things people were thinking both in the room and all over the city. He began to scrawl these things on the walls as he wandered around the [[House of Rain]]. Eventually, after assaulting [[Audra Blue]], he picked up the faint trace of psychic residue from The Doctor and made his way to him. During their brief contact, the being who had been possessing [[The Doctor]] transferred to the new cloned body of Alpha and proceeded to engage the team in combat.
While the team took him down by brute force, it is believed that while Alpha has the powers of many heroes, he also has some of their weaknesses, though the team failed to exploit these.
a.k.a. [[Eldritch]], selfish anti-hero (which see).
Anna Bellamy's parents were both military people. While Joe Bellamy was by all accounts a guy who had to work hard to get ahead, her mother Madelyne Bellamy, was a Lieutenant who was smart as a whip. She would never know her mother, as the woman died due to complications of child birth.
Anna was instead raised by her father, himself an abused child, who slowly began to regard her as the cause of his misery. He blamed her for losing his wife, having to quit the military, and virtually any other woe he happened across. Eventually he began to beat her. The interesting thing was, by that age, the bruises began to show less and less. In fact, sometimes her lack of reaction from a strike would cause Joe Bellamy to go into a greater lather.
[img[Anthem - Original Costume|images/anthem_toon.jpg]][img[Anthem - Latest Costume|images/anthem1b-sm.jpg]]
It seems that both Joe Bellamy and his father had some sort of chemica imbalance that only worsened over time. It is unknown whether this is a likley result for Anthem in he rlater years.
Joe Bellamy, aka [[Coffin Nail Joe]], would become homeless after his daughter eventually had enough and left. He would subsequently become a raging alcoholic and a murderer, responsible for a number of deaths, including Anthem's best friend, [[Aces High]].
Anna's own superpowers were undiagnosed by her. Her resilience was so gradual that she never gave it a thought until Aces' father, [[Paragon]] witnessed her being hit by a car and her ability to get right up without a broken bone. He gave her subsequent training along with a few other mentors in martial arts.
An exceptional gymnast and softball player, Anthem gave up both sports feeling that these were unfair advantages over opponents. She instead focused on training as a superhero.
Anna has high resistance to damage and pain. She is trained in a mishmosh of martial arts, though her training is admittedly incomplete, her trainer having left town unexpectedly during her training. She has special 5-point "throwing stars" that resemble the stars on the flag, and throws them with exceptional aim, much like her father throws spikes.
Anna has had an exceedingly high number of jobs and generally lives in abject poverty, losing the jobs due to interference by superpowered activites and the inability to show up every day or stay through whole shifts due to being needed elsehwere. Her application to be selected for the [[Sentinels]] was rejected primarily due to the potential chemical imbalanc, but she's used that as a sign that she needs to remain at "street level" and take on the criminals that superheroes tend to overlook; the local criminals.
She lives in a dilapidated tenement where her neighbors prize her for her ability to help them with local criminal problems.
She has never public declared her identity, and in fact held a secret identity for the time she lived at home. Now that she is a solo act, she neither publicizes her powers nor lies about them. The neighbors have found out who she is through her selfless acts of protection.
[img[Teen Anthem CoH|images/anthem1coh.jpg]][img[Teen Anthem CoH|images/anthem2coh.jpg]][img[Teen Anthem CoH|images/anthem3coh.jpg]][img[Teen Anthem CoH|images/anthem4coh.jpg]][img[Teen Anthem CoH|images/anthem5coh.jpg]][img[Anthem Clix|images/clix_anthem2.jpg]]
A corporation whose exploration into sea life and the environment shifted under the wrong management and a poor business decision to go into partnership with a group of time traveling nazis and a dangerous scientist at [[Project Sealife]].
Armitage Pharmaceuticals, among being one of the country's largest developers of new drugs, are better known in the superpowered world as the owners of the largest quantity of [[HXL]], the superpower-inducing drug, on the planet.
For years they have been trying to control the results, and at the same time find a way to increase the odds from "one in one million" which is the current estimate of the likelihood of an individual developing powers through HXL contact.
They're also famed as targets of superpowered thieves, looking to resell that valuable commodity on the terrorist market.
The ancient sunken city of legend, it was sunk ages ago by warring gods. It has remained hidden beneath the waves and virtually unknown to the surface world, which dismisses it as a myth.
Queen Mara currently rules, with her son prepared to take power in the eventuality that she step down.
Atlantis played a part in the defeat of the Axis powers in WWII, working alongside [[Uncle Slam]], [[Paragon]] and the other allies, on the condition that they forever remain secret.
It is believed that Queen Mara's son bears a striking resemblance to a young, beardless [[Uncle Slam]].
The [[Sentinels]] visited there once and played a part in preventing a seizing of power by the Queen's brother in law. Atlantis is home to the only other known Illithid aside from [[Thok]], a being called The [[Oracle]].
Born in Honduras, Audra's real name is unknown. It is generally believed that her mother was a local and her father was an American soldier or U.S. Government agent stationed in the region during the CIA activities in neighboring El Salvador.
[img[Audra Blue|images/audra_blue.jpg]][img[Audra Blue|images/audra_scan.jpg]]
Audra Blue was left to an orphanage, too young to know what happened to her parents. Her blue eyes marked her as part foreigner and caused the other children to mock her and make her an outcast among them.
During that same era, one of the area locals was a scientist working under the name of Henry Salcido, who actually turned out to be [[Dr. Heinrich]], an infamous nazi doctor who had been hiding out in South America since the end of World War II. Heinrich was taking local children from an orphanage and performing experiments. His most successful experiment turned out to be Audra Blue. A progenitor of cybernetics, he experimented with grafting machines onto people and with allowing the mind to travel the information byways which were only in their infancy at the time.
[img[Audra Blue|images/AudraBlue1c.jpg]]
In an attempt to escape the abusive and insane Heinrich, Audra Blue fled into the jungle. The only problem was that by then she needed anti-rejection drugs to keep her body from rejecting the cybernetics. It was during this escape attempt that she stumbled into the camp of [[Nolan Brisbain]] who was traveling the world performing acts of Philanthropy. Assessing the situation, he paid great expense to have the girl flown out and to one of his many labs in a successful attempt to save her. As she would likley need the drugs the rest of her life, Brisbain adopted Audra Blue.
Audra's cybernetics run up one arm beneath the skin and muscle and are grafted into her spinal column. Nerves there transmit information to her brain. When she connects the electrode at her wrist to a computer system, her brain interprets the information and converts it to images in the visual cortex of the brain.
[img[AB CoH #1|images/audra1coh.jpg]][img[AB CoH #2|images/audra2coh.jpg]][img[AB CoH #3|images/audra3coh.jpg]][img[AB CoH #4|images/audra4coh.jpg]][img[AB CoH #5|images/audra5coh.jpg]]
Discovered on a site excavation in [[Lazarus]], B4 is an android of unknown design, reportedly sent back from the future. His memory was damaged and so this is the nearest the team can come to piecing together his original mission.
*B4 is sent back in time to the period of the [[Black Pope]] to keep tabs on him.
*The trip causes him to be damaged. His power cells develop leak that he is unable to fix using the period's equipment. He also has memory gaps.
*He records the activities that get the pope exiled and buried in an unmarked catacomb.
*One piece of information he has retained in his memory is a set of coordinates at which to rendezvous, presumably for the trip back to his time.
*He travels there, far across the world, using whatever means at his disposal, and sets down at the scene. He shuts down in order to save his power for when he's contacted.
*He awakens in our era as the diggers are making a hole for the basement of a new building. He activates briefly using the power stored up from his long "off period".
B4 joins the [[Sentinels]] and currently resides in the [[House of Rain]].
Villainous mercenary who converts kinetic engery into strength. Last encountered in [[Vol.1 Issue 3]].
(Created by Paul V.)
Billy Ray is an experienced martial artist with fast feet and a high resistance to harm. He spent many of his formative years working as a bodyguard before joining the [[Sentinels]] as a hero.
He currently is classified as Inactive, as he has gotten his own bodyguarding business off the ground and has many high profile clients.
[img[Billy Ray - Concept art by GM|images/billy_ray.jpg]]
Member of [[Checkmate]], he has acted as a liason and teacher with regard to [[Orland]]. So far everything he says has checked out, but the team retains a healthy amount of skepticism regarding his motives and Checkmate's.
On all official vatican records, the period from 304 to 308 AD did not see a sitting pope. After pope Marcellinus died, seemingly there was no immediate successor.
That is, unless you ask the followers of the Black Pope. It seems that he was installed in 304 AD whereupon he performed his business more like dictator than a pope. He planted agents all over the world as spies to gather information on the world's leaders. He petitioned countries to pay him for his blessings. He had detractors broken. And for his ruthless acts the College of Caridnals had him erased from all Vatican records. That 4-year period historically had no pope, during the reign of Diocletian in Rome.
In truth, he was hunted by foreign assassins and slain for his heavy-handed ways. The church intended to burn his body and scatter the ashes far from Vatican city, but before they could, he appeared to his followers in dreams and instructed them to spirit away his body, for he was still the one true ordained pope, despite the Vatican's attempt to replace him. They put him in unmarked mausoleums around the world, moving him whenever the Vatican gathered some clue as to the body's location.
At last he arose just a few years ago in a quaint but abandoned tomb in France. He has since made his way to America, to the place that he understands to be the focal point for the end of days, the city of [[Lazarus]].
It seems however that many of the signs left for him were false. The data his followers have been collecting throughout the centuries was doctored and influenced by [[Eldritch]] for the purpose of causing the events that would take place at the [[Keep]], wherein the Black Pope and his men would try to sacrifice an "innocent" soul in front of a wide audience so that they might usher in the end times. It was all a ploy to create a diversion. He managed to see to the destruction of the Black Pope and get the Sentinels to divert most of the Keep's security while he wiped out some ancient enemies from the [[Infinitum]].
The Black Pope's end was actually met earlier on, before that event at the Keep. The team of heroes pursued [[Crucifier]] and a number of others into the city's Underneath, where they confronted the Black Pope and defeated him in combat. This time he crumpled into dust. It was his minion, [[Warden Kenner]] who carried out the attempt to bring on the apocalypse.
And so it seems the Black Pope is gone, and all but a few minions vanished or turned from their evil ways.
Supervillain with the ability to affect the nerve centers of the brain, causing blindness, paralysis, and a number of other problems.
At the height of the Cold War, the Blackstar Brigade were the highly trained troops of the Soviet Militia, trained in subduing the few powered threats that surfaced in the Eastern Block.
As the decades went on, the KGB who had always been at odds with the Militia, feared the potential of the Militia to turn this power against them, and so they developed their own force. [[Checkmate]] was a program to develop superpowered beings from those with a dormant potential. Quickly this group supplanted the Blackstars, creating a true feud and a few direct confrontations.
After the iron curtain fell and the USSR crumbled, the Blackstars took their equipment and went freelance, working for any person or country who could afford their price. Their most recent bits of work have included raiding a drug developer of [[HXL]] (the superpower drug) and protecting the [[Keep]] from heroes during the execution of [[The Doctor]].
[img[Blackstar Soldier in Powered Armor|images/blackstars.jpg]]
(Created by Paul V.)
Brian has been nicknamed "Mr. Bubble" though he has no real superhero name. His powers developed as a result of his experimentation with various chemicals. The resulting accident caused him to become slippery and to exude a strange chemical. He harnessed this power and found himself able to create bubbles. With some experimentation he discovered he could use these bubbles to encase a target and then set him adrift. Additionally he could create a slick area that was difficult to move in.
Brian is currently an Inactive member of the [[Sentinels]], working on fixes for environmental disasters like Oil slicks.
Jenna Mason was an abused wife of an advertising executive. Long in denial, as abused women are prone to do, she kept forgiving her husband. During one such altercation, he managed to cause an enormous cut in a circle around her left orbital socket and two subsequent jagged cuts managed to make something resembling the "Double Null Set", a symbol that both marks the members of the Materna and forecasts the coming of the Infinitum. During an attempt to finally leave him, he caught her at a subway station. In self-defense she stabbed him and fled into the tunnels.
[img[Bridge|images/bridge05b-sm.jpg]][img[Bridge CoH|images/clix_bridge03.jpg]]
Unbeknownst to her at that moment, one of The [[Materna]], a secretive order of women, who had come above to forage in the subway, witnessed the events. She helped Jenna down into their lair to hide out.
Aside from the unnamed Materna member, there were no witnesses to the crime and it is classified as unsolved, though Jenna Mason is sought for questioning.
Living below the city of [[Lazarus]] with her newly adopted sisters, the group's leader recognized in her the same photographic memory skills as the group's teleporter, who was aging. Most saw the marking around her eye that resembled hte Double Null Set as an omen and thus reason enough. For two years Jenna learned the ancient secret of Teleportation and used it to ferry the group members too and from various locations.
During an encounter with the [[Infinitum]], the Materna's former masters, Bridge helped the [[Sentinels]], and has since taken up with them; the Materna having vanished without any notification to her as to where they were going.
Bridge currently resides in the [[House of Rain]] where she helps get the team to and from their missions. The rest of the time she lurks around the base, often appearing at unnerving moments. She has no close confidants, but seems to have a mutual unspoken respect for [[Audra Blue]].
A member of [[Henri Le Coeur]]'s superpowered monkey gang, he's the team brick (or at least was until Henri himself was transformed into [[Killgore]]). Now they're co-bricks.
Suffering from pyromania, Lowell Dixon was lost to the system at an early age and would have been gone forever if he hadn't been freed by the actions of [[Nolan Brisbain]], who saw in him true potential for good. He mended his ways and was kept on the right path by the occasional manipulation of Muse. He did in fact serve well for the [[Sentinels]] until his death.
His body was found following the [[Seige at 43rd Street]], crushed beneath an elevator which by all accounts seems to have struck with more than terminal velocity. He is buried at Gabriel's Field Cemetery in Lazarus.
[img[Burn|images/burn1a.jpg]]
<html>
<head>
<title>Hood - Hero Designer</title>
</head>
<body>
<font size=+2><b>Hood</b></font><br>
Player:
<p>
<table cellpadding="0" border="0">
<tr><td align="right"><b>Val  </b></td><td><b>Char   </b></td><td><b>Cost</b></td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">70  </td><td><b>STR</b></td><td>60</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">18  </td><td><b>DEX</b></td><td>24</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">35  </td><td><b>CON</b></td><td>50</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">25  </td><td><b>BODY</b></td><td>30</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">8  </td><td><b>INT</b></td><td>-2</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">10  </td><td><b>EGO</b></td><td>0</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">28  </td><td><b>PRE</b></td><td>18</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">2  </td><td><b>COM</b></td><td>-4</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td> </td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">20/40  </td><td><b>PD</b></td><td>6</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">20/40  </td><td><b>ED</b></td><td>13</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">5  </td><td><b>SPD</b></td><td>22</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">25  </td><td><b>REC</b></td><td>8</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">70  </td><td><b>END</b></td><td>0</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">80  </td><td><b>STUN</b></td><td>2</td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td> </td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">6"  </td><td><b>RUN</b></td><td>0</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">2"  </td><td><b>SWIM</b></td><td>0</td></tr>
<tr><td align="right">24"  </td><td><b>LEAP</b></td><td>0</td></tr>
</table>
<b>Characteristics Cost:</b> 227
<p>
<table border="0" cellpadding="0">
<tr>
<td align="right"><b>Cost  </b></td>
<td><b>Power</b></td>
<td align="right"><b>END</b></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="right" valign="top">15  </td>
<td><b><i>Omicron Chemistry: </i></b>+30 STR; No Figured Characteristics (-1/2), 4 Continuing Charges lasting 1 Turn each (stopped by any Drain of any Characteristic; -1/2) </td>
<td valign="top" align="right"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="right" valign="top">35  </td>
<td><b><i>Puncture: </i></b>HKA 2d6+1 (4 1/2d6 w/STR), Penetrating (+1/2); Must Follow A Grab Made With Both Hands (-1/2) </td>
<td valign="top" align="right">5</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="right" valign="top">14  </td>
<td><b><i>Omicron Healing: </i></b>Healing 2 BODY, Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2), Persistent (+1/2); Extra Time 1 Turn (Post-Segment 12) (-1 1/4), Self Only (-1/2) </td>
<td valign="top" align="right">0</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="right" valign="top">50  </td>
<td><b><i>Scaley Form: </i></b>Armor (20 PD/20 ED), Hardened (+1/4); Activation Roll 14- (-1/2) </td>
<td valign="top" align="right">0</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="right" valign="top">30  </td>
<td><b><i>Tough Body: </i></b>Physical Damage Reduction, Resistant, 50% </td>
<td valign="top" align="right">0</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="right" valign="top">30  </td>
<td><b><i>Tough Body: </i></b>Energy Damage Reduction, Resistant, 50% </td>
<td valign="top" align="right">0</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="right" valign="top">6  </td>
<td><b><i>Serpent Physiology: </i></b>LS (Extended Breathing: 1 END per Turn; Immunity: Zootoxins) </td>
<td valign="top" align="right">0</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="right" valign="top">5  </td>
<td><b><i>Mutated Form: </i></b>LS (Safe in High Pressure; Safe in High Radiation; Safe in Low Pressure/Vacuum) </td>
<td valign="top" align="right">0</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="right" valign="top">10  </td>
<td><b><i>Super-Strong Legs: </i></b>Leaping +10" (24" forward, 12" upward) </td>
<td valign="top" align="right">1</td>
</tr>
</table>
<b>Powers Cost:</b> 195
<p>
<table cellpadding="0" border="0">
<tr>
<td align="right"><b>Cost  </b></td>
<td><b>Skill</b></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" align="right">25  </td>
<td>+5 with HTH Combat </td>
</tr>
</table>
<b>Skills Cost: </b>25
<p>
<table cellpadding="0" border="0">
<tr>
<td align="right"><b>Cost  </b></td>
<td><b>Perk</b></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" align="right">5  </td>
<td>Fringe Benefit: Membership (Dragon Branch) </td>
</tr>
</table>
<b>Perks Cost:</b> 5
<p>
<b>Total Character Cost:</b> 452
<p>
<table cellpadding="0" border="0">
<tr>
<td align="right"><b>Val  </b></td>
<td><b>Disadvantages</b></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" align="right">25  </td>
<td>Distinctive Features: Big snake-hooded freak (Not Concealable; Extreme Reaction (horror); Detectable By Commonly-Used Senses) </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" align="right">35  </td>
<td>Enraged: Berserk in combat or when using Omicron Chemistry power (Very Common), go 11-, recover 11- </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" align="right">25  </td>
<td>Hunted: UNTIL 8- (Mo Pow, NCI, PC has a Public ID or is otherwise very easy to find, Capture) </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" align="right">25  </td>
<td>Hunted: Champions 8- (Mo Pow, NCI, PC has a Public ID or is otherwise very easy to find, Capture) </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" align="right">15  </td>
<td>Watched: VIPER 8- (Mo Pow, NCI, PC has a Public ID or is otherwise very easy to find, Watching) </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" align="right">5  </td>
<td>Physical Limitation: 2.98 meters tall, weighs 1,600 kg (Infrequently, Slightly Impairing) </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" align="right">20  </td>
<td>Psychological Limitation: Loves To Fight (Very Common, Strong) </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" align="right">20  </td>
<td>Social Limitation: Subject To Orders (Very Frequently, Major) </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" align="right">15  </td>
<td>Social Limitation: Slobbering Monster (Frequently, Major) </td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>
Superpowered woman with the ability to manipulate the animal side of people.
When not in jail, she controls [[Hood]] for her employers, [[Viper]].
The KGB's superpower development program. Each subject as categorized as to what powers he might develop and named after a chess piece. This program as created by the KGB in order to counterbalance the Russian Militia's [[Blackstar Brigade]]. They quickly supplanted the Blackstars, leading to some direct confrontation.
After the USSR fell, the program was privatized and adapted in order to assist citizens who might develop superpowers.
Known products of the program are [[Orland]] of the [[Sentinels]] who is categorized as a "Rook", and a man going by the name of [[Bishop]].
A Russian man with the ability to decode nearly anything at a glance, from foreign languages to complex codes.
He was slain by [[Zero]] in an attempt to keep him from potentially deciphering certain manuscripts.
Joe Bellamy by all public accounts grew up well. He was a young man with seeming potential, a star pitcher on the high school baseball team, and good grades when he could focus himself. Few paid any attention to the fist-shaped bruises he always sported. Originally nicknamed Coffin Nail Joe by his friends in high School, he told others it was because he was a relief pitcher, called in to put a nail in the coffin of the opposing team, but it was just as much because of the quantity of cigarettes he smoked, even at that young age.
When the Gulf War came, he joined the army as quickly as he could. While he could have been an ROTC candidate, he instead signed on to simply get away from home as soon as he could. As a common soldier working the motor pool, he was lucky enough to marry Lieutenant Madelyne James, a beautiful and up-and-coming officer. In the midst of their marital bliss, she became pregnant. While the pregnancy was without incident, the birth was not. Complications from the pregnancy caused her to only live a few minutes past the birth of her child.
Now a single father, Joe Bellamy left the service and took a job in a machine shop to make ends meet while he raised a child alone. He frequently dated, but less as a means of having sex or having a meaningful relationship than as a means of having someone around to care for his daughter, Anna.
His relationships didn't last long, as a chemical imbalance in Joe's brain became worse, causing fits of uncontrolled rage. By the time Anna was a teenager, she was being beaten frequently by her father, who'd come to think of the girl as the cause of all his misery.
Anna Bellamy went on to be [[Anthem]], a heroine with an incredible resiliency, which she thinks may in some part be owed to the need to resist all this harm he heaped upon her.
Finally unable to control his temper at work, and his daughter having left the house, Joe found himself unemployed. He began to sleep on sidewalks, in subways, and under overpasses. It was the [[Black Pope]] who saw in him a rage that could be harnassed. His pitching arm was put to use throwing horribly sharp spikes. Redubbed [[Crucifier]], he was responsible for some of the most horrific crimes of the City of [[Lazarus]].
Captured by the [[Sentinels]] and imprisoned in the [[Keep]], he has been given a cocktail of medications which have made him lucid enough to not only make him able to recount his crimes in detail, but to actually express meaningful remorse. Among crimes he has admitted to are the killing of [[Aces High]] (a friend of his daughter), and "another winged girl", who some surmise may have been [[Gossamyr]].
Coral whose genetics were altered by [[Dr. Bond]] at [[Project Sealife]], creating a mindless but ever regerating creature.
(Created by Joe U.)
Retaining his powers from the inherent radiation of television, Couch Potato fights crime through use of force blasts. He's a current, active member of the [[Sentinels]].
Fictional Comic Book Covers, by me, created during the first run of the campaign (Volume 1).
[img[Sentinels #1 featuring Thok|images/cover_sentinels1-sm.jpg]]
[img[Sentinels #2 featuring Orland|images/cover_sentinels2-sm.jpg]]
[img[Sentinels #3 featuring Rift|images/cover_sentinels3-sm.jpg]]
[img[Sentinels #4 featuring Duplicity|images/cover_sentinels4-sm.jpg]]
[img[Sentinels #5 featuring Hunter as Delilah|images/cover_sentinels5-sm.jpg]]
[img[Sentinels #6 featuring Geoff Gardner|images/cover_sentinels6-sm.jpg]]
[img[Sentinels #7 featuring Judge LAW|images/cover_sentinels7-sm.jpg]]
[img[Sentinels Annual #1 featuring Audra Blue|images/cover_sentinels_annual1-sm.jpg]]
[img[Tales of the New Sentinels #1 featuring Billy Ray|images/cover_talesof01sm.jpg]]
[img[Tales of the New Sentinels #2 featuring B4|images/cover_talesof02-sm.jpg]]
[img[Anthem #1|images/cover_anthem1-sm.jpg]]
[img[Sentinels Presents Lucretia #1|images/cover_presents1-sm.jpg]]
Further corrupted by the [[Black Pope]], [[Coffin Nail Joe]] was given the new name Crucifier to reflect the Black Pope's inclination toward relgious/blasphemous names.
/***
|''Name:''|CryptoFunctionsPlugin|
|''Description:''|Support for cryptographic functions|
***/
//{{{
if(!version.extensions.CryptoFunctionsPlugin) {
version.extensions.CryptoFunctionsPlugin = {installed:true};
//--
//-- Crypto functions and associated conversion routines
//--
// Crypto "namespace"
function Crypto() {}
// Convert a string to an array of big-endian 32-bit words
Crypto.strToBe32s = function(str)
{
var be = Array();
var len = Math.floor(str.length/4);
var i, j;
for(i=0, j=0; i<len; i++, j+=4) {
be[i] = ((str.charCodeAt(j)&0xff) << 24)|((str.charCodeAt(j+1)&0xff) << 16)|((str.charCodeAt(j+2)&0xff) << 8)|(str.charCodeAt(j+3)&0xff);
}
while (j<str.length) {
be[j>>2] |= (str.charCodeAt(j)&0xff)<<(24-(j*8)%32);
j++;
}
return be;
};
// Convert an array of big-endian 32-bit words to a string
Crypto.be32sToStr = function(be)
{
var str = "";
for(var i=0;i<be.length*32;i+=8)
str += String.fromCharCode((be[i>>5]>>>(24-i%32)) & 0xff);
return str;
};
// Convert an array of big-endian 32-bit words to a hex string
Crypto.be32sToHex = function(be)
{
var hex = "0123456789ABCDEF";
var str = "";
for(var i=0;i<be.length*4;i++)
str += hex.charAt((be[i>>2]>>((3-i%4)*8+4))&0xF) + hex.charAt((be[i>>2]>>((3-i%4)*8))&0xF);
return str;
};
// Return, in hex, the SHA-1 hash of a string
Crypto.hexSha1Str = function(str)
{
return Crypto.be32sToHex(Crypto.sha1Str(str));
};
// Return the SHA-1 hash of a string
Crypto.sha1Str = function(str)
{
return Crypto.sha1(Crypto.strToBe32s(str),str.length);
};
// Calculate the SHA-1 hash of an array of blen bytes of big-endian 32-bit words
Crypto.sha1 = function(x,blen)
{
// Add 32-bit integers, wrapping at 32 bits
add32 = function(a,b)
{
var lsw = (a&0xFFFF)+(b&0xFFFF);
var msw = (a>>16)+(b>>16)+(lsw>>16);
return (msw<<16)|(lsw&0xFFFF);
};
// Add five 32-bit integers, wrapping at 32 bits
add32x5 = function(a,b,c,d,e)
{
var lsw = (a&0xFFFF)+(b&0xFFFF)+(c&0xFFFF)+(d&0xFFFF)+(e&0xFFFF);
var msw = (a>>16)+(b>>16)+(c>>16)+(d>>16)+(e>>16)+(lsw>>16);
return (msw<<16)|(lsw&0xFFFF);
};
// Bitwise rotate left a 32-bit integer by 1 bit
rol32 = function(n)
{
return (n>>>31)|(n<<1);
};
var len = blen*8;
// Append padding so length in bits is 448 mod 512
x[len>>5] |= 0x80 << (24-len%32);
// Append length
x[((len+64>>9)<<4)+15] = len;
var w = Array(80);
var k1 = 0x5A827999;
var k2 = 0x6ED9EBA1;
var k3 = 0x8F1BBCDC;
var k4 = 0xCA62C1D6;
var h0 = 0x67452301;
var h1 = 0xEFCDAB89;
var h2 = 0x98BADCFE;
var h3 = 0x10325476;
var h4 = 0xC3D2E1F0;
for(var i=0;i<x.length;i+=16) {
var j,t;
var a = h0;
var b = h1;
var c = h2;
var d = h3;
var e = h4;
for(j = 0;j<16;j++) {
w[j] = x[i+j];
t = add32x5(e,(a>>>27)|(a<<5),d^(b&(c^d)),w[j],k1);
e=d; d=c; c=(b>>>2)|(b<<30); b=a; a = t;
}
for(j=16;j<20;j++) {
w[j] = rol32(w[j-3]^w[j-8]^w[j-14]^w[j-16]);
t = add32x5(e,(a>>>27)|(a<<5),d^(b&(c^d)),w[j],k1);
e=d; d=c; c=(b>>>2)|(b<<30); b=a; a = t;
}
for(j=20;j<40;j++) {
w[j] = rol32(w[j-3]^w[j-8]^w[j-14]^w[j-16]);
t = add32x5(e,(a>>>27)|(a<<5),b^c^d,w[j],k2);
e=d; d=c; c=(b>>>2)|(b<<30); b=a; a = t;
}
for(j=40;j<60;j++) {
w[j] = rol32(w[j-3]^w[j-8]^w[j-14]^w[j-16]);
t = add32x5(e,(a>>>27)|(a<<5),(b&c)|(d&(b|c)),w[j],k3);
e=d; d=c; c=(b>>>2)|(b<<30); b=a; a = t;
}
for(j=60;j<80;j++) {
w[j] = rol32(w[j-3]^w[j-8]^w[j-14]^w[j-16]);
t = add32x5(e,(a>>>27)|(a<<5),b^c^d,w[j],k4);
e=d; d=c; c=(b>>>2)|(b<<30); b=a; a = t;
}
h0 = add32(h0,a);
h1 = add32(h1,b);
h2 = add32(h2,c);
h3 = add32(h3,d);
h4 = add32(h4,e);
}
return Array(h0,h1,h2,h3,h4);
};
}
//}}}
[[Welcome]]
[[UnderConstruction]]
/***
|''Name:''|DeprecatedFunctionsPlugin|
|''Description:''|Support for deprecated functions removed from core|
***/
//{{{
if(!version.extensions.DeprecatedFunctionsPlugin) {
version.extensions.DeprecatedFunctionsPlugin = {installed:true};
//--
//-- Deprecated code
//--
// @Deprecated: Use createElementAndWikify and this.termRegExp instead
config.formatterHelpers.charFormatHelper = function(w)
{
w.subWikify(createTiddlyElement(w.output,this.element),this.terminator);
};
// @Deprecated: Use enclosedTextHelper and this.lookaheadRegExp instead
config.formatterHelpers.monospacedByLineHelper = function(w)
{
var lookaheadRegExp = new RegExp(this.lookahead,"mg");
lookaheadRegExp.lastIndex = w.matchStart;
var lookaheadMatch = lookaheadRegExp.exec(w.source);
if(lookaheadMatch && lookaheadMatch.index == w.matchStart) {
var text = lookaheadMatch[1];
if(config.browser.isIE)
text = text.replace(/\n/g,"\r");
createTiddlyElement(w.output,"pre",null,null,text);
w.nextMatch = lookaheadRegExp.lastIndex;
}
};
// @Deprecated: Use <br> or <br /> instead of <<br>>
config.macros.br = {};
config.macros.br.handler = function(place)
{
createTiddlyElement(place,"br");
};
// Find an entry in an array. Returns the array index or null
// @Deprecated: Use indexOf instead
Array.prototype.find = function(item)
{
var i = this.indexOf(item);
return i == -1 ? null : i;
};
// Load a tiddler from an HTML DIV. The caller should make sure to later call Tiddler.changed()
// @Deprecated: Use store.getLoader().internalizeTiddler instead
Tiddler.prototype.loadFromDiv = function(divRef,title)
{
return store.getLoader().internalizeTiddler(store,this,title,divRef);
};
// Format the text for storage in an HTML DIV
// @Deprecated Use store.getSaver().externalizeTiddler instead.
Tiddler.prototype.saveToDiv = function()
{
return store.getSaver().externalizeTiddler(store,this);
};
// @Deprecated: Use store.allTiddlersAsHtml() instead
function allTiddlersAsHtml()
{
return store.allTiddlersAsHtml();
}
// @Deprecated: Use refreshPageTemplate instead
function applyPageTemplate(title)
{
refreshPageTemplate(title);
}
// @Deprecated: Use story.displayTiddlers instead
function displayTiddlers(srcElement,titles,template,unused1,unused2,animate,unused3)
{
story.displayTiddlers(srcElement,titles,template,animate);
}
// @Deprecated: Use story.displayTiddler instead
function displayTiddler(srcElement,title,template,unused1,unused2,animate,unused3)
{
story.displayTiddler(srcElement,title,template,animate);
}
// @Deprecated: Use functions on right hand side directly instead
var createTiddlerPopup = Popup.create;
var scrollToTiddlerPopup = Popup.show;
var hideTiddlerPopup = Popup.remove;
// @Deprecated: Use right hand side directly instead
var regexpBackSlashEn = new RegExp("\\\\n","mg");
var regexpBackSlash = new RegExp("\\\\","mg");
var regexpBackSlashEss = new RegExp("\\\\s","mg");
var regexpNewLine = new RegExp("\n","mg");
var regexpCarriageReturn = new RegExp("\r","mg");
}
//}}}
The largest and most deadly submarine (U-boat) ever developed, it was retrofitted with time travel equipment by [[Evil Geoff Gardner]] and sent to our time to collect information about the way the world developed. It was destroyed back in 1944 by the [[Sentinels]], who stowed away and destroyed it there.
Determined and unprincipled scientist who, while as a member of the crew on [[Project Sealife]], conducted experiments to mutate sea life.
German World War II scientist and Nazi who performed experiments for Hitler in which he grafted objects onto human bodies. With the end of the war he fled to South America. Moving anytime the locals became wary of his activities, he would relocate near orphanages where he could abduct young people who would not be missed.
In Honduras, working under the name of Henry Salcido, he managed to abduct the woman who would later be named [[Audra Blue]]. She may be his only successful grafting experiment involving electronics and the human spinal cord.
Heinrich managed to escape the law again when [[Nolan Brisbain]] rescued Audra Blue and pointed [[UNTIL]] authorities in his direction. His current wereabouts are unknown, though by now he would likely be around 90 years old.
Lead researcher on [[Project Sealife]] who was helpful in apprehending [[Dr. Bond]], the rogue scientist who experimented on sea life to create mutant beasts.
Dr. T is a scientist specializing in the study of mutant genetics and powers. His analytical abilities (and his armored Humvee) have assisted the [[Sentinels]] many times.
He has however recently had a few missteps. His access to the readily available DNA of superheroes (left around the base) as well as that of the infamous villain called [[The Doctor]], mixed with his uncontrollable scientific curiosity caused him to clone a copy of the Doctor, imbued with every possible mutant genetic marker he could find among the sampled DNA available. The result was a being with many, many superpowers.
The being (called [[Alpha]]) broke loose and went after the Doctor, eventually coming into contact with him long enough to transfer the "possessing" soul from the The Doctor to this, far more powerful body. The team managed to defeat him anyway.
Dr. T was also able to alert the team to the violent activities at [[Aquan Industries]], at which point he turned himself in to await any necessary punishment.
He feels that what he did wasn't evil, it was just scientific curiosity run amok!
He is banned forever from the [[House of Rain]] by [[Audra Blue]], who has a few broken ribs from the Alpha incident.
aka Inmate #1274119H, before discovering his superpowers, Duplicity spent a great deal of time in the penal system where he was often beaten and abused by the guards.
His discovery of a small token imbued with an alien symbol gave him energy blasting powers, but also created a side effect whereupon when he's struck particularly hard he splits into two beings, both of whom act independantly. At that point it's difficult to get them to rejoin as the two halves of Duplicity do not like one another.
Duplicity is currently an inactive member of the [[Sentinels]]. With all that's happened to him in his life he's managed to perform 'good' rather than 'evil' anyway, but his involvement in the incident at the [[Keep]] has brought up all sorts of bad feelings about authority figures (particularly guards). Rather than be a danger, he's entered therapy and turned over the token which grants him his powers to the team for safe keeping.
A mention was made when the team was in [[Atlantis]] that the [[Oracle]] was expecting someone else, the one with the "duality symbol". It's unclear as to whether the Oracle was mistaken in his foresight or why Duplicity was not present with the team, and whether there are repercussions.
Andrew Mock was born in the middle ages. Magic having long ago been buried as part of the [[Pact]], only bits of it remained. He traveled the world gathering those pieces and trying to reconstruct magic to the prominence it once held in the world.
Due to the necessary constraints of the Pact, This meant that his exploration of this forbidden subject would draw the attention and perhaps the ire of a great many who had an interest in keeping magics gone. These beings sought to the demise of Andrew's wife by feeding her to the malevolent cabal known as The [[Infinitum]].
This only made him bolder. Andrew traveled the world now brazenly stealing magics when they were not handed over and managed to reconstruct the secrets of manpulating time and space. His teleportation powers became legendary. It was one such jaunt that brought him to the City of Lazarus in the early 21st century, where he set about manipulating events to create his grand revenge on The Infinitum.
Many surmise that Andrew, now called "Eldritch", has gone insane, the multiverse of possibilities of his time-manipulating schemes having driven him out of his mind.
During his stay in the modern period, he has briefly joined then departed the [[Sentinels]], reportedly being a no-show at the infamous [[Seige at 43rd Street]] which ended the original group, and has used the [[Materna]] as bait in a plot to lure and kill members of the Infinitum.
This is a __partial__ list of forces both elemental and supernatural that are in play in the world of 5th City.
*[[Mutancy]]
*[[Lay Lines]]/[[Geomancy]]
*[[Time Travel]]
As a result of [[Geoff Gardner]]'s one-way trip through time, there was an accident that split off. This other Geoff Gardner in fact believed that the experiment was a failure, because from his viewpoint there was an explosion and then he was left standing there, injured.
After that his scientific purity was tainted. He began to do whatever it took to get his inventions working. He abandoned efforts to travel through time, not realizing his earlier experiment had actually worked (sort of).
This Geoff Gardner worked with whoever would back him, even the evil Nazis of WWII. By then Gardner himself was a shriveled parody of himself, kept alive by the machines that carried him, driven to survive only by scientific intellect.
"Evil" Geoff Gardner temporarily had control of an enormous time traveling U-boat. That object has since been destroyed by the [[Sentinels]].
(Created by John S.)
The man who would be known as Falcon developed his powers as a result of coming into contact with certain Egyptian relics. He was granted flight and the light manipulation powers of the gods themselves.
He's taken up residence in [[Lazarus]] as a member of the [[Sentinels]]. He's currently classified as inactive, as he's constantly off at archealogical digs around the world
Radioactive villain whose powers weaken opponents and penetrate all but the most specific containments. Able to make himself blow apart, he can reconstitute later once he's heald up enough, but takes months to heal back to full and can't use his powers during that time.
Having obtained samples of [[Uncle Slam]]'s DNA, the Nazis vat-grew their own duplicate of Colonel Samuels. As the hero of the reich, he was dubbed Fatherland.
In his final encounter with Uncle Slam, the two fought to a standstill. Fatherland might have won due to his unscrupulous endangerment of bystanders and innocents to gain an edge, but [[Paragon]] interfered, and the duplicate was destroyed.
In one of the few things Uncle Slam has ever spoken about the incident he said, "It's the one killing in my long life that I do not regret... that abomination."
[img[Fatherland|images/fatherland.jpg]][img[Custom Miniature|images/clix_fatherland1.jpg]]
Fire Zombies have been encountered twice now. The first time they were encountered at a mall in [[Vol.1 Issue 2]], and the other time they were being made by [[Void]] as he hurled balls of fire from his fist immolating bystanders.
They're flaming, raging zombies that howl with the pain of the fire that won't stop burning them and they'll attack nearly anything near them that moves.
A Prophecy in certain ancient scriptures that proposes that there are 5 great cities throughout history, and that when the fifth one falls, so too does the universe.
Identified by the [[Sentinels]] so far are two cities...
*[[Atlantis]]... City of Water
*[[Lazarus]]... City of Air
Presuppositions are that the other two obvious elements may be involved (Fire and Earth), with a fifth unknown themed city.
The definitive Champions comedy villain, loosely modled on a certain superhero, and employing tiny gadgets and a pingpong ball gun.
>"I am winged DOOM!"
>-Foxbat
Named after the greek punishment force of the gods, the Furies are a detachment of agents equipped with wings and special subdual weaponry. They're highly versed in their quarry and are charged with both picking up villains defeated by the [[STaRT]] team and the [[Sentinels]], and with how to deal with known superpowered threats.
[img[The Furies|images/furies01c-sm.jpg]]
(Created by Alan V.)
A victorian era inventor and purveyor of "Steampunk" technology, Geoff Gardner ended up in our time as a result of a semi-successful time travel experiment. The equipment was destroyed in the effort, and a side effect was that Gardner was duplicated. The version of him left behind, referred to as [[Evil Geoff Gardner]], did not retain the same moral standards as Geoff himself.
Gardner and his steampunk robots are currently active members of the [[Sentinels]].
The study of [[Lay Lines]] and the significance of geography and architecture on natural energies. While reminiscent of Feng Sui, this is less a belief that arranging the furniture can influence attitudes than it is the practice of arranging entire structures, engineering, and architecturally shaping locations so as to conduct a palpable amount of energy that can actually be tapped.
It is believed that had the City of Lazrus been completed according to the plans of [[Nolan Brisbain]] that it would have been a perfect Utopia with a self-sustaining energy supply created by these lines and the physical location of the city along the coastline. It is just as widely believed that the alterations made by the city council have caused this energy to be diverted to random places, including the office building that was the sight of the [[Seige at 43rd Street]].
Anita Craig was a popular and beautiful fashion model who turned on her vain profession in favor of doing right for the world. She'd been born with extraneous bone protrusions on her back and as a child she'd envisioned them as the nubs of vestigial wings. This belief may have played a part in the formation of her powers which manifested themselves as whispy wing-like formations at her back. Though resembling more of a butterfly design than the wings of angels, they did serve to allow her to fly.
Her commanding presence and good looks pushed her to the forefront where she served as defacto team leader of the [[Sentinels]]. She died in the [[Seige at 43rd Street]], reportedly mauled by forces that breached the basement and abducted [[Muse]].
[img[Gossamyr|images/gossamyr_toon.jpg]][img[Gossamyr|images/gossamyr1d.jpg]]
HyperiaXenocolineLiaxathin (or HXL) is a chemical compound which can induce superpowers in one of every 10,000 people. It's extremely expensive to synthesize and no one knows the exact chemical process in the body that triggers the superpowers so they cannot predict until exposure with HXL whether the person will develop powers.
HXL is currently classified as a Hazardous substance and thus requires various permits to possess or transport.
Unscrupulous and dangerous scientist reserching Primates, who was obssessed with the innate strengths of apes and monkeys as compared to humans.
During a confrontation with the [[Sentinels]], Le Coeur was knocked into a vial of [[HXL]] and in conjunction with the many DNA related experiments already in his system, he was transformed into [[Killgore]] an enormous, very dangerous apeman.
Alien warrior from a far off galaxy, come to earth to prove he is the most powerful. Thus far, not too successful. Works on a per-gig basis.
Superpowered brick of a humanoid cobra, unlike actual cobras he poison and performs superspeed "sliter-throughs" on targets.
Currently employed by [[Viper]], who developed him. He's under the care and control of [[Charmer]], when they aren't in jail.
The House of Rain was the first completed structure in the newly founded city of [[Lazarus]]. Built in the flood district it appears from the outside to be an enormous hemisphere rising from a civic pond. There are a few floors which recede below ground (and pond) level which are primarily vehicle storage.
Like much of the Flood District, the House of Rain is considered an architectural marvel. But even that is only an appraisal from the outside, as few have been inside and none have been allowed to take photos. The base's current caretaker, [[Audra Blue]] inherited control of the base from [[Nolan Brisbain]] upon his demise, and as this is her home 24 hours a day, she's built up the surveillance systems to near paranoid levels.
The current denizens of the House of Rain additionally include the [[Sentinels]].
A young woman with amnesia is discovered by a clan of people living in the tunnels beneath [[Lazarus]]. She seems to have a number of exceptional skills, including fighting and scavenging skills and thus is employed as the clan's protector.
Hunter was involved in a brief power struggle with the member of the clan who used to be employed in this role, but upon her victory, her rival left the clan and joined another underground clan rather than play "second fiddle" to Hunter.
The only clue to Hunter's past was a strange and ornate "knife" of unnatural sharpness. A twin to this knife was discovered among the Materna, weilded by their leader.
Hunter was "drafted" into the [[Sentinels]] as a means of performing community service time resulting from theft she'd performed for her clan.
During an encounter with the [[Black Pope]], he acted as if he knew her and called her "Delilah".
Hunter is highly skilled in hand-to-hand combat and employs the knife to potentially lethal effect, even on superpowered foes. She seems able to find her way around the Underneath and even understands the [[Tapping Code]] employed there.
A book by [[Nolan Brisbain]] which explains that we may be in some sort of waking dream, the true reality exsiting when we fall asleep or inside a body elsewhere.
This coupled with Brisbain's popularity caused a strange cult to crop up. Dismissively referred to as "Dreamers" by the media, the group subsequently adopted the name themselves. Dreamers believe that Nolan Brisbain isn't dead, he's merely returned to his normal stat of consciousness.
A cabal of five extradimensional beings likened to demons or devils by those who have had the opportunity to encounter them.
Mostly naming themselves after variations on nothingness, the members are [[Null]], [[Zed]], [[Zero]], [[Void]] and the least known brother, Infinity, they come to a new dimension by typical means (summoning by the unwary, a breech in the dimensional fabric, magical means from their own dimensions). They then infest that dimension and warp it into their own twisted vision of reality. In particularly powerful or troublesome dimensions they've been known to team up. In the case of Earth, it's believed that all five will need to cross over, as they've had as many as four in Earth space and still been thwarted by various beings of this dimension.
Once here, they find strong women who can survive labor with such an alien force being born inside them and father one of the other members, bringing him forward as an ally in destruction. In our world, one of the brothers managed to summon three siblings over several centuries. It required use of many women, as most could not survive to carry the child to term. The group of women here, called the [[Materna]], rebelled and fled with the aid of [[Eldritch]]. His axe to grind with them was over their killing of his wife, and thus he gave the women the secret of [[Time Travel]].
The four members who reached Earth were in turn snuffed out by the efforts of the Sentinels, and in a fiendish ploy that involved using the Sentinels as a diversion, Eldritch.
They exist in a home dimension somewhere unknown to mortal men, and plot to return. Eldritch continues to scheme for the opportunity to slay them permanently, no matter what the cost to others.
A symbol that often precedes them or marks their having been present is that of the "Double Null Set". It's a circle with two lines drawn through it. One such marking covers the eye of [[Bridge]].
The fifth of the [[Infinitum]], he is the only one not believed to have ever set foot in our dimension.
Sharks that are totally invisible when in water, but become visible anytime part of them exits the water. Created by [[Dr. Bond]] and [[Project Sealife]].
An actual sitting court judge, Judge LAW (L.A.W. being his initials) has a seemingly minor but very painful mental attack which actually causes potentially deadly damage to the target. He often uses his presence to control crowds and cow enemes. His ability to detect lies is an invaluable crimefighting tool.
Judge LAW is an active member of the [[Sentinels]].
A Super Prison intended to house only criminals with superpowers. The original Keep was created in [[Lazarus]] which was suffering a superpowered crimewave and for each dollar the state spent, the federal government matched it, so long as they can ship the occasional bad guy there from out of state.
The keep was said to be state of the art, rigged with a great many monitoring systems, including one developed by [[Audra Blue]] which would monitor for signs of violence without intruding on the individual's privacy. In fact, she designed much of the electronic surveillance and the the defensive systems that protect the place from cyber-hacking.
For half a decade, no escape attempt got more than a few minutes into the attempt before being foiled. The combination of neutralizatoin and entanglement devices manage to subdue prisoners at the first sign of trouble.
Warden Jacob Kenner had control of the facility for the last couple of years. During that time, he took the villainous equipment that was confiscated and put them up in his office like trophies. The warden, who was particularly relgious, fell under the sway of the [[Black Pope]] who convinced him that a great sacrifice should be made in order to usher in a change in the world. The Black Pope had himself been deceived by [[Eldritch]], who used his time traveling abilities to alter scriptures and leave relevant portents. When the Black Pope arose, he felt that on a specific date and time, an innocent would be sacrificed for the greater good ("martyred"). The individual selected was [[The Doctor]], a man convicted of various crimes but who it seems was either innocent or under the influence of some demonic force.
The upshot of all of this intrigue was that in order to save the world, the [[Sentinels]] were compelled to break into the prison with the aid of Audra Blue to save The Doctor. All of this acted as a diversion to security so that Eldritch could go about killing members of the [[Infinitum]] who had been detained there beyond his reach.
The result of this insurrection was that the Keep had to be redesigned. The feds having footed half the bill for the facility seized control of it and put [[Uncle Slam]] in charge of the restructuring. All of Audra Blue's systems were removed and replaced with other systems. For her effort in this, all contactors who feared that Audra Blue could later compromise their systems at her whim managed to drop their contracts with her.
The Keep is now re-opened and their new security measures are unknown to the public.
[[Warden Kenner]] is at large, with a number of items he took from his office. The Doctor has been cured of his condition.
Alias of [[Henri Le Coeur]], his mutant apeman form, created during an encounter with the [[Sentinels]] in which Le Coeur came in contact with the superpower drug [[HXL]].
Monkey minion of [[Henri Le Coeur]], in charge of leading the other semi-intelligent gun weilding monkeys.
Lightning-weilding villain for hire. The name "Blitzkrieg" was in use by a European villain, and so he named himself "Krieger", which would be the wrong half of the name ("Warrior" as compared to "Lightning")
In [[Geomancy]], the belief that there are natural lines in the earth created by geography, the rotation of the Earth, and other factors, which conduct energy.
A city designed by [[Nolan Brisbain]] to be a self-sufficient Utopia, but which ultimately did not live up to its potential.
The Municipal District, Greebriar, Compasspoint, Downtown, Upper Reach, Newhope, Amherst, Footfall, Bowery, Flood District, Nighthawk, Sunrise, Serentiy, and the Badlands comprise the city. Additionally, there is a subculture which lives under the city in subway tunnels, sewer tunnels, and old natural caves. The area is often referred to as the Underneath (or the 'Neath).
The major league franchise for the city of [[Lazarus]]. In only their second year in existence they won the World Series. Since then, they've been dead last in the division each year.
/***
|''Name:''|LegacyStrikeThroughPlugin|
|''Description:''|Support for legacy (pre 2.1) strike through formatting|
|''Version:''|1.0.2|
|''Date:''|Jul 21, 2006|
|''Source:''|http://www.tiddlywiki.com/#LegacyStrikeThroughPlugin|
|''Author:''|MartinBudden (mjbudden (at) gmail (dot) com)|
|''License:''|[[BSD open source license]]|
|''CoreVersion:''|2.1.0|
***/
//{{{
// Ensure that the LegacyStrikeThrough Plugin is only installed once.
if(!version.extensions.LegacyStrikeThroughPlugin) {
version.extensions.LegacyStrikeThroughPlugin = {installed:true};
config.formatters.push(
{
name: "legacyStrikeByChar",
match: "==",
termRegExp: /(==)/mg,
element: "strike",
handler: config.formatterHelpers.createElementAndWikify
});
} //# end of "install only once"
//}}}
Devon Cross was a paranormal investigator who developed gadgets for capturing data related to the dead. Driven by a childhood event that he believed to be a haunting and the much derision he suffered at the hands of non-believers, he has dedicated his life to creating better and newer gadgets for documenting life after death.
One such gadget, a machine that acted as a sort of 'tuning fork' that could be attuned to the frequencies which the dead can feel, caused a great many spirits to congregate around him. Bad luck began to follow, primarily caused by these angered spirits who now wished him ill for being disturbed by his creations. One such accident happened while working with a device that was intended to open a window into the realm of the spirit. He was the only one present and so only he knows the tale of the accident, but the ultimate result was his possession by hundreds of spirits.
Locus went on a crime spree, using suddenly developed telekinetic abilities and an unerring ability to instill terror to take whatever he wanted and harm anyone in his path. He was a ceaseless font of hatred. Ultimately, he lured the [[Sentinels]] super team to a point where the [[Lay Lines]] were strong and began to harm the team. He killed [[Burn]], squishing him beneath an elevator that dropped with unearthly speed, and is believed to have killed [[Gossamyr]] during his abduction of [[Muse]], though there is new evidence which brings this last fact into doubt.
With Muse in his custody, he hoped to use her to sooth his tortured soul(s). However, the [[Black Pope]] had better ideas. Muse was taken away by the Black Pope, but no one is certain exactly what happened to Locus.
[[Crucifier]] aka [[Coffin Nail Joe]] Bellamy, currently in custody at The [[Keep]] super prison believes that the Black Pope exercised the demons from him, saying "I saw him raise his withered hand to the man who was speaking in multiple voices, and touch him on the forehead. His expression completely changed to that of bliss, and then he passed out. He was carried of by the Black Pope's minions and that was the last I saw of him."
A Former Australian drug enforcement agent, Lucretia came to this country following a supply line. She spent two years deep undercover, during which time she participated in a number of "questionable" activities. When the group was busted, Lucretia tendered her resignation and fell out of sight for another year.
[img[Lucretia|images/lucretia_toon.jpg]][img[Lucretia|images/lucretia_scan.jpg]]
When she ultimately resurfaced, she'd begun work as a self-styled detective. She has no official license to perform as a private detective, and only a temporary visa to stay in this country which she obtained with the help of [[Audra Blue]], for whome she occasionally performs "odd jobs".
Lucretia has the ability to employ guns to greater effect than their capabilities would seem to be able to warrant, likely as a result of some special insight into their use. She also has the ability to study someone's body language for a prolonged period and as a restul understand what they are thinking. She's rarely seen without her trademark green trenchcoat, which actually serves as limited armor.
She never carries a gun, instead relying on "weapons of opportunity" which she easily removes from her opponents in hand-to-hand combat and then uses against them.
Supervillainess with the ability to call on the power of her tattooes to summon things, transform herself, and enable superpowers. First encountered in [[Vol.1 Issue 3]].
[img[Lumina|images/lumina.jpg]]
The name given the hero [[Muse]] when she was converted to evil by the [[Black Pope]]'s corruptive influence.
[[Sentinels]]
[[House of Rain]]
[[Recaps]]
[[Cover Gallery]]
[[Villaindex]]
[[NPCs]]
[[Modern Fables|http://www.modernfables.net]]
A sorority of women who were victims of The [[Infinitum]], a malicious band of demons who used them as breeding stock in an attempt to bring their bretheren into this world.
Simply a group of the strongest women the Intinfitum could collect in our world, they were disenfrancised slaves kept in independant souls and occasionally impregnated by one of the few Infinitum Members who existed in our world. Most often, the woman would die long before birthing the child, the strain of such an unnatural birth often claiming them in the second trimester and vanquishing the child with it before it could house an Infinitum soul.
During his time-traveling endeavors, [[Andrew Mock]] came across these slave women, who'd begun to survive by craftily communicating with one another in silence but using a [[Tapping Code]]. The Infinitum had claimed Mock's bride and with revenge in mind he decided to deprive them of their servants by teaching one of them the secret of teleportation. That gift has been passed down through the ages through a series of skilled women and at this point is held by the young woman known as [[Bridge]], a member of the [[Sentinels]].
These days the Materna exist in secrecy, hiding themselves away in whatever secret lair they can accquire and occasionally taking on new members from among the victimized women of the modern world.
(Created by Mark A.)
A superpowered being and member of the [[Sentinels]], Mercury has incredible strength and speed. His powers seem to focus around his malleability, often taking the form of enlarging his fists to enormous proportions to strike foes.
[img[Mercury - Liquid Metal Guy|images/mercury.jpg]]
The city built on the ruins of old Detroit, which had been levled by a massive battle between heroes and the forces of Dr. Destroyer.
It's considered the most modern city in America, and in the past few years has passed Lazarus in that regard, as most of that city's innovations were the creations of the deceased [[Nolan Brisbain]]. Among its innovations are a system that controls vehicular traffic by driving the cars for citizens automatically.
(Created by Alan V.)
Momentum and Typhoon were a married pair of heroes working the city of Detroit until the horrible day in which Dr. Destroyer lay seige to the city. During the titanic battle which included [[Uncle Slam]] and many other heroes, Typhoon was killed by collateral damage. Before he died, he willed his powers to his spouse, much the way his mentor had willed them to him.
While [[Millenium City]] sprung up in Detroit's wake, Momentum could not function there, the memories too harsh and so she moved to [[Lazarus]] where she is a member of the [[Sentinels]].
Present when Gossamyr died, the [[Black Pope]] baptised the body in his unholy baptismal and raised her again as a corrupted version of the original. Giving her the name [[Monarch]], she worked alongside the living-but-corrupted [[Muse]] who had been changed to [[Magdalene]]. Monarch died at St. Marcellinus church, a victim of the destructive effects holy ground and water on her undead form.
Another member of [[Henri Le Coeur]]'s superpowered band of monkeys, he's able to stretch and grapple, wrapping up opponents soundly.
She was a tall, willowy blond of indeterminate age (though physically appearing to be in her mid-twenties). She had empathic abilities which she often used to bolster the team in combat. Before that, she had spent many years living among artists, inspiring in them new heights of artistic mastery. It's said that she helped Brisbain create the Flood district, but all records show that she did not arrive until after the district was nearly completed. As a member of the [[Sentinels]] Muse was captured by [[Locus]], during the [[Seige at 43rd Street]].
For months after her disappearance rumors persisted of sightings, though none were substantiated.
It wasn't until the new team of Sentinels dealt with the [[Black Pope]] that they discovered that Muse had been co-opted by the villain, his corruptive powers used to turn her from Muse into [[Magdalene]]. She was liberated by the team upon their defeat of the Black Pope.
In either form, her powers are primarily the ability to bolster other people's powers to new heights, seduction, and to inspire creativity.
By her own subsequent accounts, Muse's real name is Calliope, and claims to be one of the original daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne. She has gone back to Greece where she currently has no interaction with the superpowered world.
Many human beings are born with a set of dormant genes. Most will forever remain human, but a select few may have their genes activated. The result of having all of your mutant genes activated is that you develop superpowers. Typical causes of activation of mutant powers are a highly stressful situation, accident (chemical, biochemical, radioactive, etc.), or pubesence. Though the genes are only native to humans, Henri Le Coeur, a specialist in lesser primates, who implanted ape fetuses with genes taken from superpowered humans and then ignited the powers using [[HXL]] to successfully increase the odds of creating mutants. His odds increased from one in 10 Million to on in 270.
The most available expert in mutancy is [[Dr. Terwelleker]].
This is a list of all of the non-villainus NPCs and the nature of their association with the [[Sentinels]].
*[[Anthem]] - Allied to the Sentinels. Local street-level hero who generally concerns herself with neighborhood crime below the notice of the team.
*[[Audra Blue]] - Not an official member of the team as she is housebound, Audra Blue acts in an information gathering capacity as well has housing the team in her base, the [[House of Rain]]
*[[Bishop]] - While the team is not entirely certain of the motives of this member of [[Checkmate]], member [[Orland]] is certain enough to go to him for training in his hard-to-control abilities.
*[[Cipher]] - Deceased cryptographer.
*[[Dr. O'Conner]] - Director of [[Project Sealife]], she's loaned her minisubs to the team when needed as thanks for liberating her lab from mutant sea creatures created by [[Dr. Bond]].
*[[Furies]] - Primarily their interraction has been as the Furies arrive to haul away those defeated by the Sentinels. They're "by the book" to the point of coming across a bit stand-offish.
*[[Lucretia]] - Friendly terms, although she comes across as slightly more mercenary than the team (trying to support herself by her good deeds).
*[[Muse]] - While she's in Greece trying to forget the worst period of her life, she will ocassionally answer a call or email.
*[[Nolan Brisbain]] - Deceased genius.
*[[Pathfinder]] - Only [[Thok]] has seen Pathfinder in person, as she was present at his "First Contact" meeting with [[Uncle Slam]]. She maintained a healthy distance, behind a barrier.
*[[Perdition Cauldwell]] - Audra Blue's pipeline into what's happening in Hudson city. No team member has met her yet.
*[[PRIMUS]] - On generally friendly terms, the team has had little contact with PRIMUS (except the [[Furies]]) since Uncle Slam stepped down from his position with them.
*[[STaRT]] - The STaRT team resent the heroes, as they were trained to deal with superpowered threats and now are on the "bench" while the Sentinels are the starting team.
*[[TACHyoN]] - Holographic being who contacts [[Rift]] with occasional suggestions and warnings about temporal events.
*[[Uncle Slam]] - Former liason between the Sentinels and the City Council, former head of the [[Keep]] during its rebuilding, Uncle Slam doesn't have too much time as he's running for President, but is generally willing to answer questions if possible for the team.
A cross between a ~gun-toting redneck and ~semi-delusional homeless man, Newton specializes in reckless use of firearms and explosives. Last employed in hunting down [[Lucretia]] in [[Vol.1 Issue 3]]
[img[Newton|images/newton.jpg]]
Founder of the city of [[Lazarus]], Nolan Brisbain’s odyssey began with many scholarships and a quick progression through college at a very young age. In his second post-graduate year he hit upon a number of patents and founded a corporation that was responsible for a number of major scientific advances in the construction and electronics industries. Somewhere along the climb to the top, Brisbain became disenchanted with the corporate world. Deciding on a move into politics, he sold the Infinity Corporation to Wyatt Holdings, thus creating the corporation which would later be Lazarus’ largest investor, Wyatt Infinity corp.
Publicly known already, Brisbain became governor on his first run and followed that with two terms in the senate. Just as he seemed primed to become President in an overwhelming wave of support, he halted his political aspirations to the shock of millions. Some talk has been made that he must have had skeletons in his closet, though nothing has ever been uncovered, even by the authors of seven different biographies currently on the market. His sudden midstream change this time saw him become a sort of unofficial ambassador, traveling the world and spending his wealth in ways that benefited the masses across the globe, garnering not one but two Nobel peace prizes for peace to match the one he already had for Scientific Achievement. The next years spent traveling the world changed him somehow.
When he returned to the states, he seemed less poised, somehow rattled, perhaps by the state of the world. He authored a book during the next year, but before he released it he began to garner support for another effort. He had a vision of Utopia, a city where everything could be controlled to bring peace and freedom. He at last found the site and set about gathering funding. Because of his massive popularity and the fact that nothing he ever attempted went unfulfilled, politicians, captains of industry, and corporations with deep pockets came to his aid, and Lazarus set to construction under his personal supervision.
His book, [[In Dreams We Die Too]], was released and it became an international bestseller. A strange cult formed around a belief they garnered from his book that the world we live in is a dream and that we pass through it to get to the true world. Scholars say that this belief may not be what Brisbain was implying in his book. Nonetheless, this new religion caused a sort of pilgrimage, with new converts coming across the desert. They solved a worker deficit as they joined in the construction. And the city seemed to already be blessed.
The [[House of Rain]] became the first completed structure and from there Brisbain commanded the construction of the flood district. Then he lay the groundwork for the rest of the city. Corporations that were competitors with him once rushed to lend money. But as he accepted money he gained less and less control over the city. Subsequently construction began in earnest without his permission on many fronts and the city began to take on its own shape. According to the few who worked closely with him, Brisbain began to slowly lose contact with reality.
At the same time, the new capital and the burgeoning city began to see its first signs a crime-wave. Brisbain contacted a number of sources and gathered a group of heroes to secure the city, and they came willingly to his aid.
The team, called the [[Sentinels]], met their end during a bizarre incident that is not completely documented, referred to as the [[Seige at 43rd Street]]. The team ultimately dismantled, it was a few months later that Brisbain died in his sleep at the age of 47. Official cause of death was natural causes, many claiming that the heartache of losing hold of his vision is what took him. He left behind one fully completed segment of the city (The Flood District), a super base (The House of Rain), and a mass of plans that were pushed aside by the newly founded City Council who were eager to rubber stamp any corporate plans before those businesses became scared off by Brisbain’s death. The city continued to grow, though Brisbain’s vision of it was nothing like what was resulting, nor was the once again cresting crime-wave.
Brisbain’s will left the House of Rain to his young charge, [[Audra Blue]]. The city filed for receivership, claiming that she was too young to control such an important piece of property. Their true hope was to use the base as the operational center for a new team of Sentinels. Audra and a team of attorneys headed by friends of Nolan Brisbain managed to defeat both legal charges. As they mounted up for their third try, the City Council at last came to a legal agreement with Audra. She would forever retain control of the base and in return she would agree to house a new team of heroes selected by the city.
Aka "The Dark Storm", "The Bogeyman", and "Keeper of Locks", Null is a member of the [[Infinitum]] that has not yet been encountered. His physical form is unknown, though it has been said that he appears as your darkest fear.
Null is a child stealer, known to abduct them for their "pure imagination" and abject terror, both of which feed him.
Japanese corporation run by two brothers who are far older than they appear.
[[Arashi]] is a storm controling wu-jen, while [[Koushi]] is a samurai and/or shogun.
The Rainbow Agents are teams of 5 agents, each with a special superpower speciality (Known specialties are Fire, Air, Electricity, Impurity, Sound, Ice, and Radiation). They pose and posture like character the power rangers.
The Ninja agents are your standard flood of kung-fu movie ninjas typically in large quantities (5 to 10 per hero anticipated by their bosses).
The Silver League are superior martial artists, all dressed in seamless silver outfits. Working as a group their advantage over single foes (particularly martial combatants) is amazing. They ebb and flow like a silver tide.
The Classic "brick" villain, around so long as to be a legend.
>"Wow! Is that Ogre? I don't think I want to arrest him... I want to shake his hand."
>-Mark A.
The Oracle of Atlantis is the first known Illthid on the planet Earth. His arrival here predates the believed first arrival, [[Thok]] of the [[Sentinels]]. Rather than being entranced by the people and their culture though, The Oracle was enamored of Atlantean "Magic", a science with which his race was not familiar. When the previous Oracle died, he filled the role and continued his study of magic.
His most recent appearance was during contact by the Sentinels who came to Atlantis.
(Created by Robert W.)
A young Russian chess prodigy with emotional/psychological problems, but who at his sharpest has shown an uncanny ability with guns and the ability to simply "feel" the presence of others even beyond walls.
His father tried to keep him safe for many years, keeping from him the secret of his abilities. But when his father turned up missin, Orland sought out the only man that he had been told to trust... [[Uncle Slam]]. Colonel Samuels encouraged him to take up with the local Superteam, the [[Sentinels]] while they attempted to untangle his past.
[img[Orland - Concept art|images/orland.jpg]]
Subsequently, during a mission with the Sentinels, the team came across the [[Blackstar Brigade]], a group of power-armored mercenaries from the now defunct Soviet Union. Upon seeing him, the Blackstars' leader, Shockwave, called him "Rook" and the group instantly focused fire on Orland as primary target. They kidnapped him temporarily as they escaped the scene, but he was freed by the Sentinels before his interrogation could be begun.
Shockwave has not been seen since. Another man made himself known to Orland, saying to refer to him as "Bishop". He explained he's a member of a former Soviet organization that translates as "Checkmate". The Blackstars were the militia of the old USSR turned freelance now that they had no masters, while Checkmate were the pride of the KGB. The two factions had always been at odds, even when the cold war was at its height.
He has offered to help Orland with the powers that he can not fully control. Fearing for the safety of those around him, Orland has subsequently decided to trust him and currently is on leave from the Sentinels, training with Bishop.
Occasionally he will check in with [[Anthem]] or [[Lucretia]] to let them now his status.
Evil flying monkey minion of [[Henri Le Coeur]]. He does a lot of straffing attacks.
Unite States governmental organization that deals primarily with superpowered terrorist threats and the impact of global events and activities domestically.
Like the FBI, their charter is domestic and they are not authorized to function beyond our borders, with such activity being left to the United Nations and [[UNTIL]].
Their most prominent member until recently was Colonel Samuels, aka [[Uncle Slam]], who has resigned his commission in order to run for President of the United States.
In a period difficult to place in the space-time continuum, Earth was home to a war between magical forces. As Darkness and Light conflicted, they sought foot-soldiers in the populace. Both sides tried to enlist the aid of humans, teaching them use of magic. When the body count of humans and magical beings became outrageous and when both sides had taken an unfathomable beating, they decalred a truce.
The accord would simply be referred to as The [[Pact]]. It said that humans would be forbidden to slay one another by use of magic. While this didn't stop such infamous later events as the Crusades and the Salem Witch Trials which may have bene encouraged by religious zealots or beings with actual magical power, the deaths involved were not by direct application of magic, and thus the pact has stayed enforced.
No one alive is entirely certain what the result would be to the side that dares to break the pact. Would it simply restart the [[Ageless War]], or would it somehow cosmically decalre a victor and enforce a result?
There are those beings who seek to find out and entice humans to such acts of magical murder, though none have happened yet.
In the ensuing time since the Pact was enacted, magic has been purposely forgetten by those few who knew it. It has not been taught to their heirs and thus only traces of it still exist. Some surmise that this has created a vast untapped reservoir of magic that may prove as hazardous as the war itself. What magics do exist among normal people generally take the form of parlor magics, their origins as spells of war long forgotten.
A fighter pilot with exceptional skill and daring, he was asked to pilot an experiment suit of powered armor. The armor was gradually altered over the test period and fitted with armaments, and thus was born Paragon.
The one thing that could never be fixed by the scientists however was the way that it degraded the wearer's physiology. The more combat missions he flew and the more he used the outfit, the more pains he began to feel. It was aging him.
Not a matter of public record, but his visit to Atlantis along with [[Uncle Slam]] earned him a measure of immortality. He would not age naturally. The suit and the Atlantean gift were always at odds, and that's how he lived this long. But eventually he gave up the suit. Especially when his wife died and he was the only one around to care for his daughter, 'Aces'.
He was responsible for discovering [[Anthem]] and a number of other heroes during his every day life and assisting in their training. He has remained life long friends with Colonel Samuels (Uncle Slam).
A few years ago, his daughter went missing, as did a number of her contemporaries. A long and exhaustive search netted him little. Eventually, the [[Sentinels]] discovered that she'd been murdered by [[Coffin Nail Joe]] Bellamy. It was only through careful handling of the situation that there was not an 'incident' involving Paragon and the [[Keep]], the super prison that houses Bellamy.
He remains an airfield employee in [[Lazarus]], tuning up other people's planes as well as his own vintage bombers.
Nina Forsch was born to fame. Both of her parents were astronauts in the shuttle program when Nina's mother became pregnant. It would have interfered with her chance to go into space with her husband, except that NASA had been studying the affects of birth in space using animals, and felt the space program could use the shot in the arm by having an actual child born in space. Nina was that child and as a result has a sort of involuntary worldwide recognition. Her birth was the most witnessed in history, viewed by as many people as watch the superbowl. Because for the first 15 years of her life she was pursued by paparazi there was no place she could go where she wasn't followed by reporters turning in pics to the tabloids, she is second only to [[Uncle Slam]] in face recognition among ~non-politicians according to a poll.
[img[Pathfinder - original costume|images/pathfinder3_sm.jpg]][img[Pathfinder - current costume|images/pathfinder5a-sm.jpg]]
At the age of 15 she found a way to get away from most of that. It's unknown as to whether the birth in space was part of the cause or whether it was incidental, but Nina developed an innate ability to fly and to survive in the vacuum of space. She used this not only to perform critical 'spacewalk' missions for NASA but also to get away from the invasive cameras and media by soaring through space.
Once outside of our gravity well she discovered she had the ability to fly at faster than light speeds. NASA is studying her in order to try and mimic the effect for future use on space craft.
Nina is now 20 years old and spends most of her time on the international space station or in space, away from people.
Perdition is a ~self-styled detective. Officially unlicensed, she is a contemporary and colleague of [[Lucretia]], performing street-level clean up in Hudson City.
She's trained with all manner of weapons and has contacts in seemingly every corner of the known world, including the criminal underworld and in the world of politics.
[img[Perdition Cauldwell|images/perdition01b-sm.jpg]][img[Perdition Cauldwell Custom figure|images/fig_perdition1.jpg]]
Crabmen created by [[Dr. Bond]] in his lab at [[Project Sealife]].
Part of the legend called the [[Five Cities of Legend]], which purports that when all 5 of the great cities fall, so too will all of creation.
Generally written off as all prophecies are, the Preponderance of Angels refers to the city of [[Lazarus]], "The City of Air". It's a theory put forth that when one of each of the 9 orders of angels from catholic doctrine are sacrificed, the city will fall. And as it will be the last of the 5 cities to fall, creation will go with it.
The 9 orders of angels refers to Seraphim, Cherubim, Angels, Archangels, Thrones, Dominions, Virtues, Powers, and Principalities.
It has been pointed out that among those killed in Lazarus are [[Aces High]] (A young girl with angelic wings) and [[Gossamyr]] (A woman with ethereal butterfly wings).
An ocean platform several miles off the coast of [[Lazarus]] used for research into the uses of the ocean resources as well as its conservation.
The project at one point was home to the unscrupulous [[Dr. Bond]], who mutated sea life using notes he'd compared with mutancy researcher [[Dr. Terwelleker]] and primate researcher [[Henri Le Coeur]]. Most of the mutated sea creatures were captured, with only two exceptions (Nereid and one Invisoshark escaping).
The project is still in operation, though back to its original intent, and run much tighter by the lead researcher, [[Dr. O'Conner]].
[[Vol.1 Issue 1]] (06/14/2003) The League of Extraordinary Freaks
[[Vol.1 Issue 2]] (06/28/2003) The ~Ex-Communist Conspiracy
[[Vol.1 Issue 3]] (07/12/2003) Blink's Cybercafe and Gun Emporium
[[Vol.1 Issue 4]] (08/09/2003) Two Balls, Yer Out!
[[Vol.1 Issue 5]] (09/13/2003) Journey Into Darkness
[[Vol.1 Issue 6]] (10/04/2003) Dazed and Confused
[[Vol.1 Issue 7]] (10/25/2003) The Lost Writeup (reconstructed)
[[Vol.2 Issue 1]] (01/14/2007) I am Winged DOOM!
[[Vol.2 Issue 2]] (01/27/2007) Based on Disney's Original Park Plans
[[Vol.2 Issue 3]] (02/24/2007) More Evil Doctors and Pirate Ninjas
[[Vol.2 Issue 4]] (03/24/2007) Short Stories and Backfill
[[Vol.2 Issue 5]] (04/14/2007) God Damn Dirty Apes!
A time traveler from the future, Rift returned to our time in order to prevent a catastrophic event that would remove him from the timeline.
He has since joined the [[Sentinels]], where he is an active member.
His powers consist primarily of the ability to freeze a target in time, leaving him vulnerable to attack. He also employs a "phaser" style laser weapon.
Since coming to this time, Rift has encountered [[TACHyoN]], a holographic figure who claims to have been created by Rift (in the future) and his partner. He explains Rift's lack of memory of a partner as being the result of the partner's having to perform a mission to save himself (much like Rift did) only with less successful results.
Well known on the rodeo circuit before his transformation, Rodeo Clown came in contact with a liquid that made him more durable and stronger, but made him dependant.
A heavy drinker, Rodeo Clown is a "reserve member" of the [[Sentinels]] while he fights with his alcoholism.
[img[Rodeo Clown - sans Barrel|images/rodeoclown1.jpg]]
Strategic Threat Response Team. This is the department of the [[Lazarus]] Police force that was charged with handling superpowered threats. These days they take a back seat to the [[Sentinels]], and they're not happy about it.
A catastrophic event for the original [[Sentinels]] superteam. In response to activity inside an office building on 43rd street, the majority of the team investigated. [[Eldritch]] was inexplicably absent, some supposing that as he had the ability to foresee the future he might have foreseen his own death and thus avoided it by not attending.
[[Burn]] was killed beneath an elevator that despite safety features managed to fall at a rate estimated to be beyond "terminal velocity" (The maximum rate at which an object can fall inside Earth's atmosphere).
[[Gossamyr]] was killed while investigating the basement along with [[Muse]]. Muse herself was abducted by something that entered through a gap created between the building's basement and the sewer system.
[[Stonesphere]] could not recover from the loss of his friends or his inabilty to locate Muse, despite coming every cavern he could find underground. He described the physiology of the ground beneath Lazarus as "ever changing", claiming that new passages appeared periodically and others vanished.
Eldritch has never explained his absence and was not seen again for years.
Repercussions of this event included a minor supervillain crimewave as without a team in town many saw the city as up for grabs. Additionally, it's believed that this signaled the beginning of the end to team founder and benefactor [[Nolan Brisbain]], who died a week later. It was immediately after the funeral of Burn and her best friend Gossamyr that [[Audra Blue]] first developed her agoraphobic symptoms and became base-bound.
A new team of Sentinales has since been implemented and their investigation has led them to believe that the 43rd street building was a nexus for a strange energy created by [[Geomancy]] or "lay lines". In short, the specific geography of the city, which was deviating from Nolan Brisbain's plans due to actions of the City Council, caused the geomantic energies to build up in unexpected places. Forces seemed to be tapping these energies to toy with the residents.
The building at 43rd street has been leveled, forever altering the geography, and thus the location of the deposits of energy.
Founded a decade ago by genius, philanthropist, and humanitarian [[Nolan Brisbain]], the Sentinels were brought together to act as a stabilizing force in the newly burgeoning City of [[Lazarus]]. They were there to assist Brisbain in keeping things secure during a time when the city was growing quicker than a standard police force could accomodate.
The original team consisted of [[Gossamyr]] (team leader), [[Muse]], [[Stonesphere]], [[Burn]]], and [[Eldritch]], with an assist in the technical department from young Brisbain protege [[Audra Blue]].
The team successfully defended the city against incursions by various villainous forces until the infamous [[Seige at 43rd Street]], during which Burn and Gossamyr were killed. Muse disappeared, presumed captured. Eldritch was inexplicably absent. Stonesphere was the lone survivor at the scene.
The funeral was the largest in the city to date, at least until Brisbain's. Stonesphere left for another dimension, unable to either successfully locate Muse or deal with the team's collapse. Nolan Brisbain died a week later. Audra Blue became the lone vestage of the team, and she had no combat superpowers and had become a shut-in following the whole sordid deal, unable to deal with leaving the base due to severe panic attacks.
The New Sentinels were created by the City Council. After a prolonged legal battle with Audra Blue (who was supported by friends of the deceased Brisbain), a settlement was reached in which she would retain control of the House of Rain if the facilities were opened to a number of newly chosen heroes.
With the assistance of [[PRIMUS]] Consultant [[Uncle Slam]], they arrived at their intial team:
#[[Billy Ray]], a martial artist with exceptional strength and speed. (Played by Paul V.)
#[[Brian Briazz]], aka "Mr. Bubble". Though never dubbed with a heroic name, the nickname of Mr. Bubble was hung on him. He was able to create bubbles that encased opponents. (Played by Paul V.)
#[[Dr. Terwelleker]], scientist and expert in mutant genetics. (Played by Robert W.)
#[[Duplicity]], a former prison inmate with superpowers derived from a strange alien symbol. (Played by Joe U.)
#[[Falcon]], a man with the ancient light and flight powers of Egyptian gods. (Played by John S.)
#[[Geoff Gardner]], a victorian Steampunk scientist and robotics expert. (Played by Alan V.)
#[[Hunter]], a female amnesiac with great speed and a deadly weapon, performing "work release" for a theft sentence. (Played by Michele A.)
#[[Judge LAW]], aka Judge Mental, an actual sitting Judge with minor but potentially deadly mental powers and an ability to detect a lie. (Played by Jeff M.)
#[[Mercury]], superstrong and outrageously fast mechanical man. (Played by Mark A.)
#[[Orland]], a young man, presumably orphaned, with a somewhat unpredictable grip on his reality and uncanny gun skills. (Played by Robert W.)
#[[Rift]], Time traveler come from the future with time manipulation powers in order to save the world and his own existence. (Played by Jim D.)
#[[Rodeo Clown]], alcoholic former circus performer with high physical resistance and hand-to-hand combat skills. (Played by Joe U.)
#[[Thok]], an alien Illithid mentalist, outcast from his people because of his unwillingness to sacrifice humans for the good of his people. (Played by Mark A.)
Subsequently added were additional members...
#[[B4]], an Android discovered on a city worksite, he has enormous strength and memory issues. (Played by Jeff M.)
#[[Bridge]], mass teleporter, primarily acting as team transporter. (NPC)
#[[Couch Potato]], television-powered force energy blaster. (Played by Joe U.)
#[[Typhoon]]/[[Momentum]], a woman with martial arts abilities as well as some wind manipulation abilties. (Played by Alan V.)
#[[Vector]], speedster specializing in high-impact maneuvers. (Played by Terry M.)
Though most members are still considered "active", the most recent roster was primarily Thok, Rift, Geoff gardner, Vector, Couch Potato, B4, and Bridge.
A Hollywood 'zen cowboy', he's an actor who had one or two great films and lots of flops. The largest of said flops was his epic directorial debut "Ice World" about an apocalyptic world frozen over, where thawed water is the currency.
He views something [[Rodeo Clown]] once said about "real cowboys" as being a personal insult to him. As a result they are enemies.
Villain with matter disruption powers. He's able to create shockwaves that ripple through the ground, tossing targets aside, and his very touch causes the molecules of opponents to break apart for a period of time (Subsequently rejoining later).
Home of the City of Lazarus Champions Campaign
Experiment of [[Henri Le Coeur]] that resulted in sonic powers. He was taught voice modulation by listening to records. As Elvis was his preference among them, he has adopted an "Elvistic" personnae.
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Alik' k'dar Ata was an extra-dimensional traveler who explored our world, among many others. Having encountered the denizens of Earth he brought himself to enjoy their company. Once here he became fascinated by this realms strange practice of "science". Fascinated by the shape of the Earth and planets, he had dozens of globes. Much of his time when not fighting crime was spent continually studying the concepts of gravity, centrifugal force, and the other things which hold this universe together, since the laws are so different from his own. He named himself after the planet earth.
[img[Stonesphere|images/stonesphere2.jpg]]
His primary powers were the ability to deconstruct matter and rearrange it.
He was the lone member of the [[Sentinels]] to walk out of the [[Seige at 43rd Street]], the others having died or been captured. For six months after the incident he tried to track down Muse, the lone abductee, unsuccessfully. He made a brief attempt to find [[Eldritch]] who failed to show for the event, but that trail ran cold primarily because of Eldritch's ability to manipulate time.
He has since left this universe with the destruction of the team, stating that "This world holds little for me now. It is a beautiful dream turned nightmare." His only regret in moving on was leaving [[Audra Blue]] alone.
A holographic form who has appeared to [[Rift]] on multiple occasions to warn him about actions he is about to undertake. Her purports to be from the future and says that he follows the warnings of a temporal alert system that Rift himself designed in the future. It can only give him limited information, as anachronisms (like Rift himself, and B4) tend to play havoc on the sensors.
It's worth noting that this is the same reason [[Eldritch]] has given for the occasional failing in his foresight.
TACHyoN stands for Temporal Alert Crisis Help Network. When asks where he's broadcasting from, he claims to be "in a pocket outside time". He explains this as a fixed point for which time does not change, but from which the flow of time can be witnessed. Rift has yet to be able to formulate the theories behind the existence of such a place, and so they only have his word. He also claims that when Rift traveled through time to prevent his own extinction, he had been accompanied by his parter in science, a man who no longer exists because he failed in his task... and thus Rift can no longer remember him.
So far, he has only appeared to Rift, though to a limited degree [[B4]] can sense his presence.
Developed by the [[Materna]] as a means of communicating in the slave pens of the [[Infinitum]], it has survived long enough to be adopted by certain factions of the "Underneath" of the city of [[Lazarus]]. There it's used to communicate through anything that can conduct sound (pipes, beams, etc), most often to warn of danger or request safe passage through a territory.
Phil Swanson was a researcher in extradimensional travel who happened to great a gap just big enough for a horrible extraplanar being to slip through. The being immediately seized him in an attempt to gain all of his knowledge of its new environment.
(to be continued)
Like others of the Illithid race, Thok was an explorer, sent out across the galaxy to find new races to conquer, and if they were worthy... to enslave and eat. As brain-eaters, the Illithids were pleased when they managed to receive ancient radio signals emanating from Earth, idicating that something with a brain must reside there.
[img[Thok - Illithid explorer and humanitarian|images/thok.jpg]]
Dispatched to explore Earth, Thok arrived and in secrecy began to study Humans. After a time, he began respect and even like them. All that was left was to warn them, and thus he had to go public.
His first contact with earthlings was a tense situation, as he understood how fearful they were of aliens from the many references in their culture, but things went well. His initial contact with [[Uncle Slam]] allowed him to convey the grave danger that Earthlings were in from the Illithid threat.
Thok has since joined the [[Sentinels]] as an active member. Most recently, during an exploration of [[Atlantis]] he discovered a far older Illithid, a being called the [[Oracle]] who would seem far older than any Illithid he had ever encountered before.
Time Travel theories vary widely. While for many years the belief was that at each crucial juncture in time a new reality was made, thus making for an infinite number of realities that are variations on the first, the current one most adhered to is that there is only one dimension fostering such other dimensions. These newly made dimensions cannot make their own variations. This theoretically makes for a more finite number of alternate realities.
That said, Time Travelers in the world do not appear to be jumping back and forth between realities, because it seems that each time one alters the time line there is a real and lasting change. This makes the practice of time travel very dangerous.
A policing organization exists called [[ANACH]] who have charged themselves with preventing shifts in the timeline. They don't seem to have any more authority than themselves, as there does not seem to be some cosmic governing body to authorize them.
Below are three lists. "Anachronism" refers to someone or something that has been displaced in time, but that does not appear to have the ability to time travel. These are generally your one way travelers and accidental transport victims. "Time Traveler" connotes someone in our own current time who seems to have the power to keep moving through time. "Time Manipulator" is someone with powers that may have some basis in the manipulation of the time stream, even if they don't appear to pass through time.
ANACHRONISMS
*[[Geoff Gardner]], Victorian Era
*[[B4]], The future
*[[Rift]], The future
TIME TRAVELERS
*[[TACHyoN]], Hologram who claims to be communicating from the future.
*[[ANACH]], from parts unknown.
*[[Eldritch]], the Middle Ages
*[[Evil Geoff Gardner]], the byproduct of Geoff Gardner's transportation to this time, a seperate being with a more twisted focus.TIME MANIPULATORS
*[[Eldritch]], mostly teleportation and the ability to "foresee" the ripples in time from his current activities.
*[[Bridge]], teleportation and the ability to pull objects out of another time stream and into ours as weapons.
*[[Rift]], the ability to freeze targets in place.
United Nations Tribunal on International Law. An organization founded with the intent of hunting down superpowered criminals in UN Chartered locations.
[img[UNTIL Logo|images/until_logo.gif]]
There is no official information available to the public about the age or origin of Colonel Bennet Samuels. There are a number of unofficial biographies made without his permission which vary greatly in their speculation.
"American Steel: The Making of A Patriot" states that Samuels was born in 1900, and that his parents were newly arrive immigrants just arrived by boat. The book also states that he was born with his great strength and resilience.
[img[Uncle Slam|images/uncleslam_sm.jpg]][img[Uncle Slam Custom Figure|images/fig_uncleslam1.jpg]]
However, "I Am That Yankee Doodle: The Unauthorized Biography of Uncle Slam" says that it was his father, a french immigrant named Reynard Pugeot who was the original Uncle Slam and that he assumed the mantle from his father just before World War 2. (This account was widely mocked by the media.)
Further more, the fictional novel "Son of the Gun" by former PRIMUS agent Hollis Auburn has a fictional hero named "Minuteman" who is a thinly veiled reference to Uncle Slam. In his origin, in 1876, on the anniversary of the country's founding, a young Sam Specter is encountered by an aging and dying Civl War colonel in a graveyard, who then imbues the child with his powers before expiring. Due to being a former colleague of Samuels, this theory has gained more prominence. In the sequal, "Patriot's Promise", the aging Minuteman finds a young girl weeping over the casket of her fallen mother and grants her his power before he walks off into obscurity and she becomes "Liberty". Plainly, Uncle Slam is still around today in real life.
Colonel Samuels has never public commented on any of these things. The facts known about Samuels life and times follow:
Sightings in WWI have him overseeing supply runs to American Allies.
During WWII, he fought alongside [[Paragon]] in many battles, including many missions involving hunting down specific superpowered axis foes. At one point, his DNA was stolen by enemy scientists, who created the Uncle Slam duplicate called [[Fatherland]]. The two fought a titanic battle that might have never ended but for Fatherland's decision to endanger innocents (some of which were his own troops) in order to force Uncle Slam to "multi-task". At this point Paragon interfered and the duo defeated Fatherland. During the Nuremberg trials, the Nazi defendants twice pointed out that Uncle Slam and Fatherland were dead even until the interferance.
Samuels spent an extended period of time in Japan trying to help rebuild following the great bombs. There he picked up additional fighting techniques that he still uses today.
Colonel Sameuls served with distinction through Korea, but officially left the service in the middle of the conflict in Vietnam. Some point to this as being an unpatriotic abandonment of his own men. Samuels was not attached to any regiment and performed his duties solo. But it turns out that there were further repercussions as word made rounds between the few other superpowered troops and a number of them walked off the line. Samuels was not on active duty when he performed his actions, but those who walked out were. Many were court-martialed.
The Privacy act of 1974 expanded and clarified the Freedom of Information Act so that records could be requested on certain people. One of the few declassified records on Samuels showed that at the height of Vietnam, while not serving officially, a contact with the Department of the Army noted in Samuels file that should he be reactivated for duty it's likely he would file for "Conscientious Objector" status. Samuels has never commented on this statement.
Samuels took a job with PRIMUS as a superpowered liason. He would go to various facilities around the country and help them with continuity of operations in the event they are taken out temporarily by terrorist, and helped them refine their operations in general.
When the city of [[Lazarus]] needed a new superteam, he was contacted to assist in selection, as team's superbase owner, [[Audra Blue]] declined to participate in the selection process. He is in some part responsible for some of the stranger choices on the team, reportedly making selections based more on his gut feeling. When asked about the choices, a member of the city council who was also on the selection committee stated, "I had reservations, but his gut knows more than any of our records ever will."
Some of the Information not made privy to the public follows:
During WWII, Samuels was the first to make contact with Atlanteans. It was his suggestion that the government secretly open relations with the Atlantean government and notify them of the dire threat posed to "sea life" by the Nazis and their U-boats. At this point he met and had a dalliance with Queen Mara, which may have resulted in a son. That son is the next in line to the throne, and so his lineage does not seem to have been released to other Atlanteans for fear of putting an "outsider" on the throne.
In Vietnam, Samuels hit his limit on performing "necessary evils". He had studied in Japan decades earlier with eastern philosophers who spoke of the gradual corruption of his soul by the things he had to do. It wasn't until the last act in Vietnam that he developed a newfound reverence for life.
Samuels has subsequently resigned his PRIMUS commission and is running for President of the United States. He has overwhelming public support as the first "Independant Candidate" to overpower both parties. But his detractors claim first that he can't help this country until he's truthful about his origins (as there are pre-requisites to being President, such as age and nationality). Some point to the phrase "conscientious objector" that was scrawled in his file by a third party and say that he couldn't possibly be expected to keep this country safe and do the nasty things that must be done.
In the end it may not matter, as his overwhelming popularity with prime voters (middle aged and older americans) who feel a certain nostalgia by his presence should carry the day, barring unforseen revelations.
This site is still being constructed.
Anytime you see a blue link with solid letters such as this one: [[Sentinels]], then this is a valid link to an existing webpage.
Anytime you see a blue link in italics like this one: [[Sample Link]], then that page has yet to be constructed.
Gadget using villain obsessed with embarassing heroes. He's often a villain for hire, but he's a normal man using gadgets and gear who loves to pit himself against heroes with the advantage of actual superpowers.
The speedster of the [[Sentinels]], Vector specializes in high speed impact with opponents.
The Villaindex is a list of villains that thus far were __actually encountered__ in the 5th city campaign.
By Scenario:
|!Volume & issue|!Scenario|!Villains|
|[[Vol.1 Issue 1]]|A Walk in the Park|[[Ogre]], [[Utility]], [[Lodestone]], [[Mirage]], [[Herculan]]|
|[[Vol.1 Issue 2]]|~Ex-Communist Conspiracy|[[Shockwave]], [[Blackstar Brigade]]|
|[[Vol.1 Issue 3]]|Blink's Cybercafe|[[Lumina]], [[Newton]], [[Battery]], [[Krieger]], [[Fallout]]|
| |Burning Down the House|[[Fire Zombies]]|
|[[Vol.1 Issue 4]]|~Two-Balls Yer Out|[[Wildchild]], [[Sharpshooter]], [[Blackout]], [[Zero]]|
| |Whacking Day|[[Viper]]|
|[[Vol.1 Issue 5]]|Streets Afire|[[Void]], [[Fire Zombies]]|
| |Journey Into Darkness |[[Black Pope]], [[Monarch]], [[Crucifier]], [[Magdalene]]|
|[[Vol.1 Issue 6]]|Go Go Rainbow Rangers|[[ONI]] Rainbow Agents|
| |Meet the Materna|[[Materna]], [[Zed]]|
|[[Vol.1 Issue 7]]|Finders Keepers|[[Blackstar Brigade]], [[Warden Kenner]], [[Eldritch]], [[Keep]] Security Officers|
|!Volume & issue|!Scenario|!Villains|
|[[Vol.2 Issue 1]]|Operation St. Patrick|[[Viper]], [[Hood]], [[Charmer]]|
| |Let's All Go To The Maul|[[Foxbat]], [[Foxbatboy]], [[Foxbatgirl]], [[Cheshire Cat]], [[Black Diamond]], [[Hummingbird]], [[Bluejay]]|
|[[Vol.2 Issue 2]]|Fatal Attractions|[[Black Harlequin]], Wind-up Kitty, Slinky Dog, Smiling Jack, Huggles the Bear, Noise Monkey, Ducky, My Litlte Horsey|
| |Tokyo Drift|[[Zorgatha]]|
|[[Vol.2 Issue 3]]|Pirate Ninjas|[[ONI]] Ninja Agents, [[Arashi]], [[Koushi]]|
| |Scourge of the Deep|[[Dr. Bond]], [[Pincers]], [[Invisosharks]], [[Coralmen]], [[Nereid]]|
|[[Vol.2 Issue 4]]|Enemy Within|[[Alpha]]|
|[[Vol.2 Issue 5]]|God Damn Dirty Apes|[[Henri Le Coeur]], [[KoKo]], [[Sonic Death Monkey]], [[Brutus]], [[Mr. Wiggle]], [[Oz]]|
| |Riding Der Valkyrie|[[Jaegrin]], [[Grendel]], [[Schreckmacher]]|
|[[Vol.2 Issue 6]]|How To Be Your Own Grandpa| |
Sinister snake-themed organization. More information to come.
[img[Viper Logo|images/viper_logo_plain.gif]]
One of the five members of the [[Infinitum]], Void appears as a skeletal boatman and may have been the analog for Charon of he greek myths. However, Void's boat floats on air and from his hands he casts flames which consume the bodies of mortals, burning them for all eternity, turning them into raging "fire zombies".
Void is currently dispatched from this plane of existence.
@@THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY FREAKS@@
>From Audra Blue's Personal Journal:
>"I don't know what to think. Their files were certainly loaded with... peculiarities. But nothing can compare to meeting the real thing. The alien was the strangest part. A mute alien telepath, a rodeo clown, an H.G. Wells reject... I could go on and on. What was Slam thinking? They may beat the original sentinels time on the sprint from here to oblivion."
PART 1: A WALK IN THE PARK
I could do the whole thing in narrative but it would take me forever. So here it is in bulletpoint format. Just the facts, ma'am.
The characters gather at the base and are barely introduced when in comes an emergency call. There is a bomb reported in Memorial Park. Word is that the heroes can get there faster, and that's good because the size of it is enough to take out the whole of the park.
Upon arrivale the heroes find congestion at the gate, which has been locked (sealed with some kind of hardening foam agent). Billy Ray and the Judge break off the foam, then the judge scares everyone into being orderly with his manly presence attack.
Meanwhile inside the park, Rift finds out the situation from a police officer, then has to keep him from shooting Thok, the hideous alien beast who materializes out of nowhere.
Spying the sealed box: "How do you know it's a bomb?". Answer: "Because there's a sign on the side that says 'This is a Bomb'."
Geoff Gardiner sends in his robots to lift the box, tripping the mercury switches and setting it off. Nothing appears to be harmed, despite a brief cloud of red smoke.
Out of nowhere, a robot lifts into the air and is hurled some 70 feet where it crashes but takes no injury.
OGRE and HERCULAN appear from their hiding places (Amazing how good a concealment roll you can get when you have a day's time to add to your roll). The characters engage them.
MIRAGE and LODESTONE show up next. Lodestone spends his time lifting and throwing robots, fooling with Dr. Tellwilliker's vehicle, and bending a basketball post around Rodeo Clown. Mirage is stymied early by damage and winds up using her invisibility to most senses to bail out.
Someone is triggering bombs on the battlefield. Some are drains, some are flashes, some are damaging explosions, all are in a very small radius.
Ogre drops in on Rift on a leap, but Thok is there to take mental control and direct him toward Herculan. Ogre's leaping move-through on Herculan results in a ton of STUN to Ogre as he misses and takes half the damage of the move through. Typically Ogre is saved by his bereserker rage, but so far it's been a non-factor thanks to the high levels of mind-control.
Lodestone is finally brought down in the hedge maze by the Judge's ranged mental blasts. He has to have his bleeding stopped because he is bleeding to death following the last attack.
UTILITY, the ring leader, has been hiding nearby out of sight and has been responsible for the bombs. He's been triggering them from his anchor point under the lake.
Funniest part to me was actually a reasonable enough reaction: Being all paranoid about the lake. You were just supposed to find out that this is where the villain was set up, but not knowing that you all got ready for some other ambush.
>Personal Journal Day 1 Addendum
>"They just ran the tape that Dr. Terwelleker took. Some of it actually looked... impressive. Of course some of it was pretty brutal. Slam didn't seem to appreciate some of the more potentially lethal tactics, such as whatever it was that caused blood to squirt out of Lodestone's nose. Apparently the Bomb wasn't all it was cracked up to be. The base sensors have detected an inert virus. Looks like it doesn't do anything other than just lay there in your system, but in this case only the robots had it, and the bottoms of people's shoes. They've all cleaned up and many are off bonding."
>Personal Journal Day 2
>"They've gone off to THE KEEP. If I live to be a thousand I'll never go back there on purpose. I visited it once and the place was eerily repressive. I'm used to a certain amount of... white noise, for lack of a better term, going on in my head and in that place there was none of it."
Characters make a trip to the KEEP. They see one of it's "legendary" captives, a man called "The Doctor" because they have no real name for him. He seems singularly unimpressive. Everyone shrugs. They meet the warden, who has many villainous devices deactivated and in his office in cases as trophies.
On the way back, the heroes get another call. Geoff Gardiner summons his robots from base and everyone meets at the scene. Some armed thugs have seized control of two floors of a building.
*There are plenty of news copters circling, but during the flight up, one of the heroes notes the presence of a helicopter that is incongruous. KPLS is a small station certainly without money for a helicopter. The judge notifies the police, who say they will keep an eye on it.
*Thok has trouble with the thugs. While he can get one to attack another one, he is unable to avoid a good shot by the third, which KO's him. Now comes MY FAVORITE PART.
*Duplicity leaps out the window and grabs the falling Thok. He then is short by the same thug, triggering his duplication. One of him flies Thok safely to the ground while the other flies back up and takes out the thug. Very cool and fortuitous little sequence.
*Dr. T is out for much of the fight as Robert leaves. We assume he's on crowd control upstairs.
*Billy Ray takes out the first thug in a stairwell and steals his communications. It seems that the thug was in communication with someone with a Russian accent. He says, "We're halfway there."
*Ben the robotic spider, protégé of Geoff Gardiner, does searches on the offices finding mostly cowering normals. His Steambots do a job of capturing and disabling opponents. Except one, who simply vanishes from the room when left unsearched, via some kind of device in her pocket.
*Dr. T spots someone via ~N-Ray vision, who is in the restroom. Billy Ray goes after him and the guy pretends to be mute and deaf, but Billy Ray's paranoia pays off! The man is indeed faking. Had you just assumed he was what he says he was, you'd have had quite a nasty surprise. On his person, beneath the image that hid his armor, the characters can find an electrical device that can build up to a massive electrical pulse. The longer you went without touching him, the higher it would charge, then when he cut it loose he'd take out much of the floor, endangering the floors above and all of the people on the roof. *Billy Ray only took the low level charge since you forced him to activate it to get free. As soon as you set him down he would have initiated it and you'd get a perception roll to notice the device powering up, but the longer you went without noticing... the bigger the BOOM. So good job of circumventing that problem by being paranoid.
*At the end of the seige, Billy Ray hears over the headset "Package has been picked up".
The cops report back to the Judge on his cellphone that the KPLS helicopter has set down on another building downtown and picked up a number of armored individuals.
Continued in [[Vol.1 Issue 2]]
@@THE ~EX-COMMUNIST CONSPIRACY@@
>>From Audra Blue's Personal Journal:
>>...They nearly lost one today. New team, same old near-death experiences. I hope they aren't insulted when they find out I'm not attending any funerals. Not again.
>>
>>At least they got him back. Poor kid. Oland doesn't always seem to 'be there', even when he's sitting in the same room. Then there's that staring thing he does. I went down to the cafeteria because the team was out and Juan was at his restaurant. I no sooner tucked a box of ~Mega-Bars under my arm and pulled two cold sodas from the machine than I look up and he's staring at me. At first I thought he'd been watching me bend over at the machine, and I was going to say something about how rude that is. But from the blank look on his face I may as well have been a cat or a house plant...
|!Playa|>|!Played|
|>|Robert|Orland, boy genius/punchin' bag|
|>|Robert|Dr. T., your chauffeur|
|>|Alan|Team Gardner|
|>|Paul|Action Billy Ray, w/kung-fu grip|
|>|Paul|Brian "Mr. Bubbles" Briazz|
|>|Mark|Mon Calamari|
|>|Jeff|"Judge-mental", Judge, Jury, Executioner, and Defendant|
|>|Isaac|Your Bartender|
|>|Me|Your ~Cruise-Director|
Having defeated the well-armed agenty types near town, the team got word last issue that the helicopter they had spotted with the bogus KPLS call letters was crosstown trying to load up some suspiciously well-armored individuals on the top of Armitage Pharmaceuticals. They raced to the scene, leaving the Police's super-powered detainment team to search the rest of the building for any stragglers.
Orland spent his day at the base and then is informed of the happenings at Armitage, and speeds off on his cycle, arriving at about the same time as our other heroes. He runs in and goes up the stairs while the heroes approach from the back of the building. Two developments have happened: The police on the scene have managed to sufficiently damage the helicopter with gunplay enough to get it to crash into the rooftop. It is a smoking husk when players arrive. The other thing is that the police are being held back by suppressive fire of the armored gents on the roof.
Some take the stairs while others climb the side of the building. The steambots begin to drag injured police officers off of the battlefield. Thok drags ~Judge-Mental all the way to the top of the building then remembers he's crazy for going into the line of fire and has wasted a few phases. Likewise, Billy Ray has trouble defeating the entrance door for three phases. Orland is average running speed and takes a while to get to the top. So the first engagements come in the form of the mentalists (Judge & Thok) doing line-of-sight attacks, to limited effect. One of the armored individuals is a fellow not dressed like the others; he is in green with a funky "ripple" pattern on his outfit; he is tossing out oddly shaped projectiles that explode. Jeff seems to be doing serious damage until we realize I am instructing him on how to roll a killing attack when instead his attack is actually an Ego Attack that does body. The "reset" of a fallen villain to conscious status changes the impact of the battle. These guys have small amounts of Mental defense, but it's enough to have a serious impact on our "Line of Sight" heroes as they try to chip away.
The villains have a nasty selection of firepower which hurts Thok, and eventually Billy Ray when he gets to the roof, but REALLY hurts Orland when he arrives. He has a good opportunity to punch hole in a bad guy, but bad rolls cause him to miss. They hit him around his cover by using an explosion effect attack, taking him out.
Another helicopter is coming! This one is better made, meant for business than the "camouflaged" one that was intended to go unnoticed as a typical city helicopter. Thok does his best to keep it from landing with a Mind Control on the driver, which works. He hovers instead. Billy Ray is kicking some agent ass, but they kick in their nasty weaponry and begin to do their worst on the heroes.
Billy Ray has run off with two duffel bags that the agents were carrying. Problem is that while he's off hiding it, one of the agents sees Orland, who is awakening, and shouts something in Russian (Which Orland recognizes as the word "Rook") and they are suddenly more concerned with the prone boy than with the items they were stealing. Steambots & Master arrive and begin to attack while Billy Ray is concealing the bags in a bathroom on the second floor.
Now the terrifying ballet sequence: Billy Ray runs over and smacks an agent who is trying to haul Orland over to a helicopter which has finally landed on the pad. He smacks the agent causing knockback. The unconscious Orland is dragged with the agent. Geoff Gardiner runs over and grabs the boy. He wants to haul them both up, but does not have the STR to do so, and so they contest who gets to keep the boy. Geoff Gardiner beats the agent (who continues to fall). Then another "grab by" maneuver occurs on the edge fo the building as Geoff Gardiner is hauling Orland up. The villain in green (Shockwave) reaches out and grabs the boy and yanks him from Geoff Gardiner's grasp. They do contested STR rolls... Shockwave just barely makes his roll, while GG... rolls an 18!!! The botch causes him to have to make a DEX roll to stay on the building, which he does! Whew!
Thok T-ports into the copter and scares the driver. The person in back of the copter (the female who escaped the heroes by teleporting out of the last scene) gets out and is bitten by a spider and then punched for horrendous damage by Billy Ray Wifebeater. Fortunately he only did 7 or 10 BODY, so she's not dying. Of course Billy Ray has taken some serious BODY himself; he's at about half.
Did I mention the "Molecular Disruption" attack? Billy Ray was earlier tapped on the shoulder by Shockwave. He has since that time been slowly dispersing, his atoms coming apart, forcing him into nothingness. Soon he will cease to exist (Cool/mean attack, no?). As it's "uncontrolled" I should have been rolling it more often, but that's my error.
Anyway, back to Shockwave & Orland. Shockwave is flying away while any conscious agents are fleeing via their belts (A teleport trick I call "escape clause"). Two agents are down, the woman is down, two agents and the pilot t-ported out, and shockwave is flying off with Orland. Thok follows for a while, but has difficulty keeping up. He has 20" Teleport versus the other guy's 12" flight, BUT the flight can go directly and upward, whereas the t-port can only get him from building to building. I allow this craziness for a while, but ultimately make them do INT rolls. Shockwave makes his roll by 9! Thok misses his roll. The badguy gets away with the boy genius.
Our heroes throw the Judge's "Healing Robe" onto Billy Ray and he stops deteriorating. Back at the base the new scientist has shown up. We shall call him "Mr. Bubble" pending any other sort of name. He is a molecular biologist who makes a nice science roll and determines that Billy Ray is no longer deteriorating and that he will recover as normal. (Truth is, I need to look at healing rules for Regeneration v. Transformation Attack. I'm not sure it's applicable, since it's for healing 'actual damage'. Either way, he's fine now anyway).
Some characters witness a "suit" from the Pharmaceutical company talking to the police and saying, "No, they didn't get away with anything." Thok corrects them (via mindlnk to a cop) telling him that he is wrong, that they escaped with Orland, to which the suit shrugs, saying he didn't see the whole combat but his inventory shows nothing missing.
The team then figure out that the villains t-port belts are linked to two locations. The villains will likely rondezvous and one of them. Four heroes strap on belts and teleport to the first scene. They find a small base with normal people, operating below ground in the badlands outside of Lazarus. While the other heroes cross town in vehicles and at blazing speeds make it there in a few minutes (they probably should have taken much longer in hindsight; It's a big city and it's loaded with traffic). Anyway, the heroes inside the base were waiting for them to arrive anyway, so that's fine.
Geoff Gardiner & Bots handle the surface (a diner and truckstop along the road) while the others are downstairs subduing agents.
Problem: One agent gets his helmet in place and subsequently becomes a HUGE pain. Mr. Bubble's been doing a great job of mopping up some of the guys in his bubble entangles and messing up their DEX based skills. The guy now helmeted and in his suit becomes a huge pain to everyone present. He is hurting people right and left. Our Judge does several grab manuvers to subdue him and keep him from fighting, but not before he manages to send Thok into a wall with a nasty, nasty, nasty 4D6K attack in which I roll 21 BODY and 105 STUN! Miracle roll, baby. Goooood Night. Eventually they come close to taking this guy down through a combination of blasting and grappling, but he decides on discretion and T-ports out of the grab and is gone.
Meanwhile Geoff Gardner & Bots encounter shockwave, who does some cool attacks that are having no effect at all other than tossing the robots around. After a while he decides he can't defeat them head to head and alone, so he desolidifies and goes out through the walls.
The heroes discover Orland and another prisoner. Orland is unconscious. The other guy is identified by questioning as Russian National Igor Verbansky, aka CIPHER. He's a mutant with the uncanny ability to decipher languages, text, and all sorts of code. He claims to have been abducted for translating something.
Continued in [[Vol.1 Issue 3]]
@@"BLINK'S CYBERCAFE AND GUN EMPORIUM"@@
>From Audra Blue's Personal Journal:
>The Sentinels appear to be making somewhat of a difference. I mean, not that crime rates have suddenly dropped or something in only three days; more that at least the crimes they've had opportunity to stop have indeed been stopped. I may yet be sorry that I doubted Slam's methods of selection. Meanwhile, Councilman Page's office sent me some tickets to the opening day of the Prophet's baseball team. Naturally I'm not going to use them, but I'll offer them to the team. I suppose they can use a day out for relaxation, if they want it. It can't be easy starting a new job.
Mr. Bubbles.... Paul
Rift................. Jim
Mercury.......... Mark
Robert............ Orland
LAW............... Jeff (~Pre-Dinner Break)
Falcon............. John (~Post-Dinner Break
SCENE ONE: The KEEP
You round up the criminals in the under construction super-base from last week and have the police haul these punks away. Cipher, whom you liberated, describes to you why he was present. The Judge detects no falsehood. He was abducted after getting off a plane back from Spain where he had been on vacation. The abductors, including Shockwave and the Blackstars, say they have something for him to translate. He describes the torn and rubbed out, aged pages to the characters and as he does, they are literally able to see the objects in detail. A search of the base, including the special sensory powers of the characters, manages to reveal that the three pages are present, hidden in a false computer panel that is supposed to be hooked to the base's security, thus indicating why base security never scrambled last game... because the cameras are hooked to nothing.
You meet up with Audra Blue at the base, drop off the pages of ancient text, then you go to the keep for interrogation of captured prisoners.
The procedure, as established, was for Liquid Metal Guy, er, I mean Mercury, to go over and drag the guy away from the table by his chair, then in come the Judge and Bubbleboy to interrogate. Mercury does the deadpan robocop shtick while the Judge tries to antagonize the men into They tried to intimidate HERCULAN (From the first game, first fight), and failed somewhat. He just wasn't going to crack. The team then skipped Ogre and Lodestone and went to interrogating the two Blackstar agents. The first one speaks only Russian (and the characters did not bring Orland, who speaks Russian). The second one regales them tales of his days back in the old soviet union. He says that blackstars work in 5-man teams. In his experience anytime there are more than that hired for a job it seems to be trouble, though that's just personal experience. He tells a tale of the day that his entire team was wiped out back in the ghettos of Warsaw, Poland, in '82, when they had captured a group of "pawns" when suddenly a "knight" showed up on the scene and began to attack and he was only saved by the fact that he could not operate the clumsy old style of armor and was trapped like a turtle on it's back, so the knight assumed he was dead.
Apparently the people he speaks of operate in 16-man cells and were operatives of the KGB; a nugget of knowledge which sends the entire group into fits of paranoia about Orland.
Meanwhile, Orland and Rift go to the museum regarding a stolen artifact. No genius crime here; The investigating officers are indifferent to the whole thing and the characters find a museum surveillance tape that has a group of figures in black waltzing in through the service entrance, using a decoder device to open the key-carded door, and walking out with it, stuffing the item into the back of a 'disguised' truck (A Little Debbie Snack Truck), (Thus revealing to the whole world that Little Debbie is the master behind all crime!). They go to the university and speak to a professor regarding a stolen artifact. They are shown pictures of it and it ultimately turns out that a pattern not in the mosaic itself but ultimately caused by the grout, resembles a figure that appears on one of the three pages that the characters rescued from the blackstars.
A SMALL BIT OF INFORMATION THAT NO ONE HAS ASKED but since I said that Cipher "translated the documents" for you, I will throw it in for free: The odd symbol that appears on both the document and the mosaics... "Et does not translate. Et ez representational," Cipher says. "Et ez meant to stand for someone or somethink. Tink of et like a propehr noun." (End of Russian Accent)
The chemical rescued from the last game from Armitage Pharmeceutical, is HXL, a notorious banned substance that has been known to cause mutation in 1-in-1 million individuals. Though it's never directly caused a death, it has been known to cause crippling mutation in a few unlucky individuals.
And a missive from Uncle Slam reports that the picture from THE ORACLE that features our alien friend Thok, was not taken by any known camera in the park and not from Dr. T's vehicle camera.
SCENE TWO: A Call for Help
The characters begin to mercilessly harass their own... the poor lad Orland, accusing him of being some kind of spy. Audra Blue calls the characters together. "There is a problem and I would *like* your help. I will owe you, if you assist." It seems she has a friend named Lucretia who is a local detective. She was out doing some footwork regarding the possible murder of a couple of superheroes and managed to attract the wrong kind of attention. She is leading the bad guys (who are tailing her) through town and plans to stop at Blink's Cybercafe; With luck this will give the characters enough time to arrive and assist. She knows there are several. She fingered one as a wacko mercenary named [[Newton]]. The known associates file shows that he is frequently hired by someone named FALLOUT. So they are both likely involved here.
Characters arrive in time to catch Newton going in the front to catch the patrons attention. He draws a gun and a grenade and chaos ensues. Orland guns him good, pushing him back out into the street where the arriving Rift phasers his ass. Mercury (who is driving) blows his Enraged roll and drives full speed into one of the and the car beyond him. [NOTE: I think I should have made the car faster. It probably should have had more like 40". Sorry. Live and learn, I guess.] The man standing there does NOT dodge. He instead takes the brunt and is crushed between two vehicles. Funny thing... Between his high defenses and his kinetic absorption, he came out of that with more STUN than he went in with. Might have been a diffferent story with more speed.
The matchups:
Rift is doing the most effective damage. He takes out Fallout by use of his Timestop. He does likewise to [[Lumina]], or as Robert called her, "The Slut of Many Things". She has all of her powers keyed to tattoos spread over her body. She touched the winged-horse "Peg" on her back and suddenly one appeared between her legs and she began to fly. Since Jeff was leaving at this point, I had her touch the snake tattoo on her thigh and she suddenly has a snake in her hand which she hurls at the Judge and wraps him up for the combat. Among the tattoos you did not get around to seeing (and that I can remember off the top of my head): A dragon, a bat-winged skull, and a nymph.
Inside the cyber cafe there is a new player, named KRIEGER who comes down the stairs in a silver suit with electricity arching between his hands. He does a few area effect attacks that Orland wisely dodges multiple times. Krieger destroys the bar and nearly hurts two patrons except that Lucretia ("Lucy") manages to shield them from too much harm. Then Falcon shows up from the alley side. He wings in and is promptly blasted by an area effect blast that Lucretia dodges, but he is willing to take. I roll a Mega-roll (a la "Thok is blasted by a blackstar agent") and send him flying through the alley and into the wall across the alley. Lucretia puts a couple of bullets into the guy using a gun improvised from behind the counter, and using it with accuracy and speed you don't see normally from a common pistol, but only harms Krieger a little. But the delay by Falcon allows Orland to do something other than dodge! He targets Krieger and puts the monster shot on him, knocking him out, impressing eye-witnesses.
Outside, BATTERY (the guy who took the car hit and laughed) and Mercury are having a fist fight. Mercury runs at him, Battery knocks him backwards. Mercury runs at him, Battery knocks him backwards. Battery gets knocked into a vehicle (which rolls over the unconscious Newton). Bubble-man slicks up the area and on the next successful hit to Battery, he slides right out of the slide area. Mercury hits him on the head with a car. Battery does a move through, to no noticeable effect, and then Battery is brought down finally, and Mercury barely recovers from his enraged before clubbing him again with the car. (Much to Mark's chagrin.)
And you had your introduction to THE PREDATORS. That's LUMINA (various powers), BATTERY (brick/damage absorber), KRIEGER (lightning boy), NEWTON (crazy commando) and FALLOUT (Weapon of Mass Destruction). Come to think of it, "The Weapons of Mass Destruction" might have been a cooler name.
The characters haul a grateful Lucretia back to base. It seems she has been investigating the seemingly related murders of two superheroes. One is an open case involving a hero whom the police jokingly refer to as a "suicide" because he's a superhero who died in a car crusher ("How else would a superhero kill himself?"). The other is JACKHAMMER, a well-armored hero who died by plunging to his death from a high building without his armor, ruled a suicide by the police.
An inquiry with Audra Blue has her go and do some research and dig for info on these two. It seems that one of the heroes was involved in the capture of the Keep's most notorious inmate, THE DOCTOR. This information is in secret files that Audra managed to dig up. According to records, the three men who performed the capture declined the opportunity to reveal themselves to the public and revel in the glory. Now they seem to be in trouble.
>Audra Blue's Personal Journal (Day Four)
>I let Lucretia in the base, despite my instincts not to. It's not that I don't like her; She's one of my favorite people. It's just that people for hire always worry me. If you'll do things for money then it's possible you'll sell anyone out. And in the past five years only two people have been inside this base that were not team members. I fear letting outsiders know the interior layout and any security measures. But she was well-behaved, made a sort of "information sharing" agreement with the others. Orland certainly liked her well enough.
SCENE THREE: The Burning Down
An interrogation of the woman captured at Armitage Pharmaceuticals yields small information about how Shockwave drafted her into working for him. But the most interesting event is when Rift is seated outside waiting to go in, and has a one-sided conversation with someone that no one else present can see.
Also, a sweep of an area where child abductions have been taking place yields only a strange flash of imagery to Orland, who has not related any of that information to other Player Characters yet.
And there was the report of the missing train car from the subway. It was found nowhere on the line for an entire day. Two people were possibly "missing", but they may be unrelated disappearances, because the next day the car returned, loaded to the gills with dirt, and appeared at the subway station, as if making a stop.
While on patrol, Mercury spies a mall on fire and calls in the troops when he is inside and notices the fire doing unusual things (Burning down the wall rather than up, leaping from place to place). The heroes move in. During the fight certain spots of the fire seem more active than others and actually try to dodge the heroes blows. Physical blows (The big fists of Mercury) seem to do it harm, but bullets go right through, as do most energy attacks. The fire extinguishers do some good damage to it, as does punching holes in the overhead sprinkler system and the most effective was use of the hose.
After putting out the fire, the characters encounter what can only be called a "Fire Zombie". Someone comes running, on fire, out of one of the shops and tries to burn Mr. Bubbles. With teamwork and determination, the thing is extinguished, whereupon it reverts to it's normal form; the charred body of a dead person. Good work identifying all of the ways of harming it (You got all but one way).
Continued in [[Vol.1 Issue 4]]
"TWO BALLS - YER OUT!"
>From Audra Blue's Personal Journal:
>The team is functioning better than I'd hoped. They're still a little quirky, but then so was the original team. At least none of them are primadonnas like Muse, though Rift's tendency to quote comic books and Rodeo Clown's scent of alcohol are a little unsettling. I gave them the tickets to the game. I was hoping they would all go and unwind. I should have known better.
CAST:
Judge LAW........Jeff
Mercury..............Mark
Orland.................Robert
Rift......................Jim
Paul.....................Billy Ray
Rodeo Clown......Joe
Duplicity.............Joe
The characters know of two major events happening just a mile and half apart. 1) A protest rally in favor of "The Doctor" at the keep. The ACLU (among others) have organized a protest for the fact that The Doctor's files have not been made public and that no one knows specifically what he was convicted of, and yet in 24 Days he would be executed. 2) The players were given tickets to the opening day of the [[Lazarus Prophets]] baseball game. Judge & Mercury go to the protest, Orland and Rift go to the Game. Rodeo Clown and Billy Ray wind up at the game by virtue of showing up when the combat has already joined.
Introduced as throwing out the first pitch is Karen Bernhard, the first female pitcher in the history of Major League Baseball. She pitched two games (Total of 6 Innings) two years ago. The problem: She was sent down to the minors thereafter and is angered to where she thinks that the whole thing was a publicity stunt; that the Prophets never gave her a fair chance because she was a woman and that all men suck. She has since developed some kind of superpower involving throwing balls of energy. First she charges the ball and nails the catcher. Then she gives a speech to the home audience about how they've forgotten her and that they used and threw her away. Then she produces her new uniform, which is a mockery of the Lazarus uniforms, instead black with blood-red pinstripes and a flaming skull and crossbones emblem. (Prompting the quip: "So she's joined the pirates?")
The players noticed before hand, at first base side, Cipher, being very much the tourist with all the baseball memorabilia he could carry.
The fight is joined. In a nifty bit of combat engineering, an explosive ball of energy is thrown at the owner's booth (right next door to the character's booth), and Rift (without the casual STR to shrug off the very tough glass) instead teleports outside the glass and into the path of the ball, taking the impact. This breaks the windows and hurts him slightly, but he tumbles to the ground one level down and lands on his feet. Rift does the old time-stop on the pitcher, but then out of the bullpen comes the bullpen car! It's shaped like a giant baseball hat, but has been reconfigured with spikes across the brim for that extra spikey impact. It lurches onto the field through the chain-link fence. Then a mentalist is attacking from somewhere out in the bleachers. That's the fun part of having a pre-organized attack: This guy sat there with binoculars from the stands and got a line-of-sight attack on whoever he wanted... jumping into the dugout was a good move as it forced the sniper, Rodeo Clown's 'hunted' named "Sharpshooter", to spend a few phases repositioning himself near centerfield.
Eventually, a figure in gray emerges from beneath the baseball pitcher's mound, just somehow moving up out of the earth, and he chides the young pitcher for her failure thus far and releases her from her entangle. Rift re-timestops the pitcher, then Rift and Orland do a good job of getting the gray guy's attention with shots that do some damage; Billy Ray does a nice move by reaching out and smacking the driver of the cart (who missed his move through) and manages to send the cart careening out of control and into the center-field fence; However, he has less luck with the gray guy, who ignores all of BR's punches. The judge does some mental damage to the psychic, who eventually blinds the judged (just in time for Jeff to depart). Rodeo Clown ties him up for a while, but the mentalist is having a field day with knocking people down. [Note to self: Looks like psi's are trouble for this group.]
Ultimately, sharpshooter is taken out and the mentalist is captured trying to flee, and the pitcher is time-stopped while the driver of the cart plants it in the center field wall. Orland gets a glimpse of something through his strange psychic power; he gets a glimpse of a box with a timer, a striped sunlight effect, and a red-discolored section of grass. Timer says 51 seconds. Mercury has no luck, as each time he runs after a foe, someone else brings him down before he can get there. The Gray guy emerges from the bleachers and whacks the nearest 'suit', which in this case is cipher, who appears to be trying to be heroic. Cipher is pulped and crumples to the ground in a heap of flesh. That's when Rift gets mad and whips out the killing attack for it's first use in the campaign and does some good solid damage to the gray guy, taking him out before he can flee (which was to be his move next phase).
The Villains:
*Pitcher...[[Wildchild]]
*Gray Guy... [[Zero]]
*Gunman... [[Sharpshooter]]
*Mentalist... [[Blackout]]
*Driver... (Irrelevant) Just a lackey hired to drive the cart.
Characters locate the bomb through deduction and search rolls but are unsure how to handle it. Guess it's not so easy when you don't have robots to do your dirty work ;-)
Audra can offer no guidance, though she tries. "I need more information. A box with a timer isn't enough." Eventually they decide phaser the heck out of it. Rift takes cover and levels his weapon at it and fries it to a crisp. It appeared to be biological in nature rather than explosive; whatever was in there is destroyed, though it leaves a ring of wilting grass around it right up to just before where the characters were standing.
The characters then see the captives to the keep, which is a difficult voyage. It seems that the protest is in full swing and people are pounding on the van as it goes through with the prisoners. A few heroes have to clear the way of people who've thrown themselves on the ground in front of the vehicle.
While there, duplicity calls. It seems that he was doing research on the people who captured the doctor. Through a long involved process he managed to procure a photo of six individuals, three of which are the heroes reported to have captured the Doctor (Sentry, Parasite, and Sundown). The other three are younger, and are later identified as Jackhammer (the hero who plunged to his death last week), and two other women. Duplicity is calling because the base's computer while monitoring the news broadcasts, identified via biometrics, one of the two girls as being in the background shot on the news. She's at the rally where the characters are. She's the young blond of the two.
The characters use Orland as their representative to locate her. However, she is being paranoid and looking around when she notices his gun and attempts to flee. He has to chase her and corners her on a rooftop where she realizes he's faster and just stops to prepare to defend herself. He convinces her to talk, but she won't do it there. He suggests the Museum, so she recommends the wing that is still being worked on, because no one will be in there.
When the characters arrive, she does indeed show as promised. She tells them that there were six heroes who captured the Doctor and that she hasn't been able to find Sundown and that may be fine (he may be in hiding) but that she thinks "Aces" (the other girl) may have come to harm because she's not contacted people she would have contacted.
Suddenly, the player character's hunted, Viper, shows upon the scene and a round of agent bashing commences. Suddenly the characters are fighting off agents. There were twenty in all, and easily disposed of. But the girl, who identified herself as Anthem, tries to flee during the fight after she sees the heroes can handle themselves. Orland is too perceptive for this and tracks her down and gives her his cell phone. She accepts it and leaves.
Continued in [[Vol.1 Issue 5]]
@@JOURNEY INTO DARKNESS@@
>From Audra Blue's Personal Journal:
>They've gone to 43rd street, against my wishes. I hope the lack of disturbing reports coming from that area means that the madness that conducts along that building like lightning rod has ebbed... at least for their sake. I have little leverage in getting them to let that place lie dead; just the base. And for a moment I considered threatening that if they went to 43rd street they would not be allowed back in the base. But that wouldn't have stopped them; they're just as reckless and cocky as the original Sentinels.
CAST OF DOCTORS:
Jeff (Dr. Judge LAW & Dr. B4)
Robert (Dr. Twelleker & Dr. Orland)
Alan (Dr. Geoff Gardiner)
Michele (Dr. Hunter)
Jim (Dr. Rift)
John (Dr. Falcon)
Characters start by getting a call that downtown at the site where they are digging up a hole for the foundation of a new building, they have discovered a being that was uncovered. At first they thought it was a body buried there long ago, but when it opened it's eyes they felt the need to evacuate the area.
The individual turns out to be "B4", Jeff's new Data character. He claims that he is unable to remember many things but that he is there to assist the Sentinels.
Not long after that there is an alert that a cloud of fog is passing through town and that in its wake the streets are iced over. Upon arrival, our heroes get to meet [[Void]]. Think "Charon", the boatman over the river Styx. He's floating on a boat through town and changing people into Fire Zombies. Our heroes engage and Orland is lucky to get out with 1 BODY left; Hunter takes a pretty good shot after she does a jump up onto the boat and gets tagged. Mental attacks are easily repelled by him. Void gets nailed by a blast and takes copious amounts of knockback and is finally subdued. The judge gives him an extra mental blast for good measure. The Fire Zombies are easily held up by the Steambots, who seem to take little to nothing from the flames.
Anthem is allowed into the base for safe keeping. She recognizes the symbol on the book that cipher denoted was "A proper noun or representative of someone". It's that circle with two lines through it. She says she's seen it in the subway, on the ground at the Carmell Exit in the Sunrise district.
A brief investigation of a scene of some child abductions brings about a very strange little encounter. The characters track a strange "sparking" from power lines, neon signs, street lights, etc. They follow it for blocks until it leads them to a dead end alley. They are there looking around when two other figures show up. One is a rather sluttily dressed woman and the other is a pale woman surrounded by a black amorphous cloud and floating of the ground. The floater takes off through the wall. While she's gone, the characters talk to the other woman. She asks for a light, and during questioning lets the characters know that they are tracking the same thing. When offered a chance to be "cooperative" and pool resources, she says that their results will vary; They have a different form of justice in mind. The two spooky ones eventually leave. One said to call her "Maggie".
Subsequently they are identified as looking much like two of the previous sentinels. The slutty one looks somewhat like Muse, and the spooky floating one looks like Gossamyr.
Characters investigate the subway. They find the symbol. The janitor says he can't get it cleaned up. He says there's all kinds of writing down in the subway tunnels, but he doesn't go down there; it's not part of his job and it's dark and the trains come through there.
Characters subsequently go to 43rd street. Audra Blue strenuously objects, but is blown off. The team investigates.
43rd street is home to a large abandoned building; site of the demise of the previous team of Sentinels. They find the site of Burn's demise (where he was squashed beneath an elevator), and go to the sub-basement level. There is a collapsed corner of the building that appears to lead through to a tunnel beyond. A swarm of rats come flowing out at one point. The search upward yields a room on the 7th floor which appears to be home to a male squatter; it features a wall covered in all manner of pointy objects, from scissors to jagged objects, but primarily nails... lots and lots of nails. And in one office there is a picture of Anthem, a couple of years younger, and a nail has been driven through the photo at her forehead.
There's plenty of unexplained electrical interference inhibiting radio and cellphone usage. A chair comes flying down the elevator shaft at one point; source unknown.
The characters go down the tunnel once the Steambots clear a passage. It goes several miles deep before the characters find a section where it T's. Going deeper into the earth they eventually encounter a large chamber that features a few scaffolds, several brick walls that may have been uncovered, and a few works of art, including the mosaic from the museum. "Maggie" from earlier appears, seemingly stepping out of a pillar. When asked about her past she does not seem to remember being muse and gets upset when forced to recall. Another individual in the darkness address the players. He is cloaked in darkness that blocks the senses from making out the details of his features. He says it is customary to bring a tithe. The players ask what they could offer and he says that there are things from the museum that can be brought. He also says that they could retrieve for him the two who the heroes captured. He calls them "The Infinitum". Eventually any conversation blows up with the characters leaving. But before this happens, another being makes himself seen; a man with a fistful of nails. He looks disheveled, reminiscent of a homeless man. The characters manage to prompt a one-sentence response out of him. The man in the darkness calls him "Joseph".
This is significant in that when the characters come back to the surface and send the information to Audra and ask her to play it back for Anthem, she recognizes the voice and takes off. While they are trying to figure out how to track her down, she shows up at the scene! She's ready to kick some ass and must be talked down. A clever mimicry trick by B4 gets her to come back before she goes down and faces the unknown.
On the way back they check the other direction of the "T", and find a subway tunnel. That's when they spy some tracks... tracks not unlike those of Geoff Gardiner's Robots, only larger. The print they leave is almost signature; he could swear it was something he made, but he's never made one this large. He recalls ATLAS, the robot he designed but could never solve the issue of how to power it because the amount of coal or wood it would take to heat it almost guaranteed it shutting down quickly. Those plans were left behind, long ago, before his jump to this time.
They go to THE KEEP to interrogate the two prisoners, VOID and ZERO, to find out what they can about the man in the dark below. Turns out VOID does nothing but cackle. He seems incapable of saying anything of use. ZERO however, wants to know where "He" is. He offers to make the characters wealthy in return for the knowledge of his location. He cannot be bought with promises of "less time"; he wants out now. It seems that he thinks that everything is ending "very, very soon". When asked why he's here, he says, "Can't you feel it? All around you? This is the place. I've been to the other cities; this is the one."
Knowing that the characters will have opportunity to harm the man below, he tells the characters that "He thinks he is holy, but he is wrong. Holy things will harm him. Relics, blessed things."
The man below is a pope who reigned between 304 and 308 AD; he performed his business more like dictator than a pope and subsequently was erased from all Vatican records. That 4-year period historically had no pope, during the reign of Diocletian in Rome.
Characters go the city's most prominent church, one that has been brought over from Europe and reconstructed brick by brick; St. Marcellinus church. Pope Marcellinus is the pope until 304 AD.
To throw more numbers at you, it should be mentioned that when B4 (Jeff's character) came to consciousness with impaired memory, his internal chronometer was set to 654 AD for some reason.
At the church characters meet with the Bishop. (Not to be confused with the "Bishop" that Orland encountered earlier. Oops... I glossed right over that part. I'll backtrack later.). This bishop has no "relics" to offer, saying the building itself is the only thing of value. He does however bless the couple of things that people ask to be blessed (Phasers?).
By the way.. blessed phasers didn't seem to make a difference in the fight. Hunter's knife however...
Characters go down and confront the Evil Pope, Gossamyr (now called MONARCH), Muse (now called MAGDALENE) and Joe Bellamy, aka "Coffin Nail Joe" (to anyone on the streets where he hangs out drinking and bumming cigarettes) aka CRUCIFIER. In the ensuing fight, Falcon, and the Phaser brothers (B4 and Rift) hurt Monarch pretty easily due to their light-based powers. In the end the group is captured and brought back. Good thing you knocked the Black Pope unconscious, because muse used her AID power to raise one of his powers by 22pts (and that was a low roll); so he was going to whomp some but given the chance. But he couldn't hurt the steambots.
He also, for some unknown reason, called Hunter "Delilah".
By the way, now that she has been shown the symbol in the book you guys recovered with cipher's help, she seems to recognize it but gives out minimal information.
The team captures the bad guys and send the Black Pope to the KEEP. The others are brought to the chuch with some hope of cleansing them.
Now to backtrack a moment...
This is one of those things that nobody was witness to, but Orland. Nonetheless, I'll include it here in the recap. Orland had lunch with Anthem when trying to convince her to come on board. During that lunch an individual introduced himself as "Bishop". He asked Orland to "Come home".
Also, Rift came to Dr. T (also with no witnesses) and asked him to take a mysterious sample and examine it for "Mutant powers". The blood did yield properties of mutancy.
Continued in [[Vol.1 Issue 6]]
@@DAZED AND CONFUSED@@
>From Audra Blue's Personal Journal:
>I always wanted to be in the field. I don't have any flashy ray beams or cosmic strength. I'm just the woman who hides in the base...
CAST:
Billy Ray................................... Paul
Orland and Dr. T...................... Robert
Duplicity and Rodeo Clown..... Joe
Geoff Gardiner and Typhoon.. Alan
Rift............................................ Jim
Mercury.................................... Mark
Judge LAW and B4.................. Jeff
Our overly-complicated story continues with the heroes having shipped Crucifier and the Black Pope off to The Keep, and taken Monarch (aka Gossamyr) and Magdalene (aka Muse) to St. Marcellinus Cathedral in hopes that they might be cured of their evil and returned to being the heroes they once were.
Wish I could say I was proud of this session, but I really let it bog down and in an attempt to just get things moving toward the conclusion I did too much exposition (I just gave you a few answers rather than making you discover them).
Let the evil begin!
Upon arriving at the church, the characters sense a burning smell. It seems that Monarch/Goassamyr is beginning to smoke. She is hauled outside. When Magdalene/Muse awakens she is frightened by her presence in the church and the proximity of the crucifix. It is about a minute of chanting and such before she calms down and seems to become her old self. Monarch, however, when she regains consciousness, goes right through any entangles and grasping robots. She does not flee until she is sprayed with holy water and is burnt for the effort. Then she goes down through the ground and flees, as she has done before. She's the only person to escape from you guys twice.
Back at the base, Audra seems to want to leave the base to go see the Gossamer, her best friend once dead, but seems unable to leave the building. She instead locks herself in her room and is unheard from for about 16 hours.
According to Muse, the Black Pope uses the black pool underground to "Baptize" good people, enhancing whatever darkness lay within them. In the case of Gossamer, who was very good in nature, being compelled to do evil (and being dead) drove her insane. It was Muse's job to control her. The characters identify the pool as a source of evil and go down to neutralize it. Holy water taken with the characters is poured into it and it hisses and bubbles, but a sample returned the the church still appears to be evil, as it shatters the vessel it was contained in. They also again encounter Gossamer, who seems frightened and is not in attack mode. So naturally Mercury charges her and causes a fight. It's not long before the characters contain them. A search of the throne by Billy Ray turns up a dagger, identical to that belonging to HUNTER. He takes it for use later on prone and helpless people ;-)
The characters also check out the scene where Anthem and her five friends captured the Doctor. It is a rundown factory that manufactured plastics. One thing that is deduced is that he may have been looking down at the puddle of water in which he stood at the time that he was struck by the throwing star, because the wound on his head is in such an angle. Also, the star is too deeply embedded in the wall behind him to be from the mere strength of Anthem's throw. It is pulled from the wall to reveal hair, skin, and dried blood. Dr. T uses his mutant detector to discover that it is indeed showing as mutant in nature, even though it is a year old. Strange.
Then... Dum da DUM! A group of japanese villains, a Hunted of Dr. T, drop in. I've named them ONI (after the japanese Demon... because it's cool :-). They are genetically engineered teams of villains, one each with a specialty. They wear anime-style silver body suits and do exaggerated ultra-man/power rangers style hand gestures when they cast their powers. Poor Mercury runs directly to the electricity using one (doh!). Love them ~NNDs.
So Mercury jumps upstairs to face them, Anthem follows him up, Geoff Gardiner follows, then Mercury jumps down, Anthem jumps down, and the team faces them in the factory. Two get caught as they leap in, snagged by Geoff Gardiner's robots. Two are roped by Rodeo Clown as they fall to ground. One takes phaser fire from Rift and a shuriken from Anthem. The last is eventually rounded up from the roof.
While bound by the robots, Mercury proceeds to beat on the captured men to ensure they are captured. While downed, one of the villains is stabbed by Billy Ray. This leads to a big touchy-feelly argument later on regarding the treatment of foes. But for the record (GM to players, not so much character knowledge)... The critical hit from Rift did more BODY than Billy Ray's knife; Because it ignored his two activation rolled defenses. Rift = 5 BODY, Billy Ray = 3 BODY. But then when Rift shot him, he looked like more of a threat.
And again, as a GM: If you want a good reason not to kill people (regardless of Rift's resurrection ability), it's because you'll get less experience. If you recklessly kill someone, you're unlikely to get exp for that encounter. Yer heroes, dammit.
These guys are carted off, you have your big discussion, and then the team finds out some info from Muse. The Black Pope thinks that each great age of man will be ushered in by a martyr, a big public spectacle in which someone dies for the sins of man. He also was told once that someone with the symbol of the "null" would one day foil his plan, so he has been searching the world and is performing his duties here. The characters instantly think of one such pending spectacle involving the Doctor. There's also some sort of unknown resentment between Audra Blue and Muse.
B4 has a chance to examine The Book that was captured in game 2. He recognizes it instantly as his own. He wrote it back in 654 AD during a 2 year period in which he searched for the Black Pope. He was sent back in time to track him down and pre-empt just the type of shenanigans that the BP is doing now. However, his systems were damaged in the trip. As a result, he has been in power conservation mode for nearly 1400 years. Back then he didn't have the tools to fix himself. Now he can track down the proper equipment. The book is indeed code. Here is the theory: He wrote things in the book that would only have meaning to him, not to anyone else. Any other person reading it would simply see a diary; but to him each of the phrases has another meaning. So not only was it encoded, it's sort of double-encoded.
Here's what the book tells you (Some of which you already know): The Black Pope seized power in the Vatican back in 304 AD. After a four year reign in which he performed despicable acts in the name of god, the church excommunicated him. He was poisoned and appeared to be dead. But somehow he survived. His followers stole his body and interred it elsewhere in preparation for the day that he would arise. One of the acts that the BP performed was an attempt to track down some "demons", a brotherhood of extradimensional men called The Infinitum. You know them as Zero (From the Baseball field incident), Null (the child stealer, still free), Void (the evil skeletal boatman from last game), Zed (whom you'd encounter later this game), and Infinity (A great patron who has never set foot in this dimension). Each developed his own weird taste. In the case of Zed, it was for human women. But being beautific, they were easy prey for him, so he began to gather women who held a disdain for him, made them his slaves. These women one day rebelled, led by the woman with the mark that you have seen a number of times already (the Zero with the two lines through it). According to the book, she was killed in freeing her sisters. The sisterhood, now called THE MATERNA, has spent ages living underground and moving across the world to hide from the Infinitum. B4 used his knowledge of geography that did not yet exist in the year 654 AD, and found his way to the new world, to the site that his records told him would one day see the rise of the Black Pope. That city being Lazarus. He then instituted a shutdown. He rolled his chronometer backwards by nearly 1400 years. On the day of the excavation of the building downtown where he was buried, his chronometer reached 654 AD and he awoke, his systems believing that it was the same exact moment as when he went to "sleep".
The characters go "underground" to find this woman. After a time they are asssailed by a train car! A subway car filled with dirt is launched at them from seemingly out of nowhere (as if teleported?) into the area at full speed. It hits only Mercury, who takes some damage but shrugs it off. (It was 20D6, but I rolled subpar and he has good defenses). If Hunter had been there she would have interpreted the tapping on the pipes as a warning that a train was coming. And if the two people with Danger Sense had rolled under half their roll, they would have been able to warn the others. Woulda..shoulda...coulda. Anyway, the three missing people from the subway car disappearance, are still missing.
The characters continue exploring and find what are later referred to as THE CORRUPTED. These are a tribe that have lived underground for many years in a point of the underground that collects "weird energies". As a result, they've become twisted molemen. They seem to do only two things: Dig coal, and feed it to their pet, ATLAS, the steampowered robot once designed by Geoff Gardiner.
The characters circumvent the encounter. They continue until at last they find the lair of the Materna. They are standing around as if expecting the heroes. They are a group of 14 scrawny, pale, dirty, women. They greet the heroes and tell them they should not have come there. The heroes prevail upon them for information. It seems that they are indeed the "Harem" of one of the Infinitum. When suddenly... *poof*, the Infinitum member known as ZED appears. They blame the heroes for leading him there and when the leader shouts "Bridge!", someone appears out of nowhere and teleports each of the women out of the area in the blink of an eye (Teleport, usable on others, Area effect, Selective, Increased mass to 16x; She makes an attack roll on each person and if she hits, they are teleported to her memorized location and reassembled in the same formation as they were when she initiated the teleport... neat power :-)
The heroes engage Zed without being attacked. They do a heck of a job of knocking him out of commission quickly. He didn't even get to do his desperation parlor-trick. Bummer.
The teleporter from earlier comes back out and sees they've bound the women's enemy. The heroes refuse to turn him over to them. But since they captured him (and most of his brothers) she is pleased enough. She is asked for help but doesn't know how she could possibly help. So she agrees to assist the characters whenever they would like, but will do so only after their tribal weapon is returned (the Duplicate of Hunter's knife), which Billy Ray promptly does.
Nolan Brisbain's books (he's written 3 published works) include the following information:
Book One: In Dreams We Die. It's a philosophical discussion of the world we live in, including passages that have been interpreted as meaning that we live in a dream world and that collective unconscious controls the way our powers develop.
Book Two: Master Builders: A study of form and function. This is a hardcore college text book used at most universities. It's no-nonsense "how to" of architecture.
Book Three: A Room of My Own. This is a pseudo-metaphysical discussion of how power collects through the creation of objects, how vertices, angles and lines conduct power and channel it into nodes, where such power is used for good or bad and ultimately can influence the way we live and work. It's a book on Geomancy, a more serious sibling to the pop-culture Feng Shui.
From what you can tell, he built this city (not on Rock and Roll, as some in the group have supposed) but on the concept of a shining city that will gather positive energy. When the construction spiraled out of control and went off of his plans, it began to sicken and become corrupt. An analysis of the city and using his principals, where the energy collects now is in three principal points: One is the area below ground approximately where the corrupted perform their excavation. Two is the building on 43rd street which seems to be haunted and where the original sentinels ran into their problems. Three is THE KEEP, superprison. Positive energy is being dispersed; negative energy is going to these three locations.
Five days until the execution of THE DOCTOR.
The throwing star extracted from the wall of the factory shows signs of mutant power. But it seems that this information is not genuine. It is not a part of the DNA attached. It is a hoax that would not have been discovered if it had not been taken to a lab and analyzed by a competent (though crazy) scientist. Additionally, Judge LAW contacts someone (and rolls a CRITICAL), to find out that the Doctor may have actually had no trial. He may be summarily executed. Additionally the Warden of THE KEEP is a religious fanatic of some kind.
The idea has now come into being that perhaps the characters need to break THE DOCTOR out of the keep for questioning. They would need to shut down his cell's power, teleport him out (using your new teleportational friend).
Briefly, Bridge's background: She was an abused wife of a businessman. One day, when she was finally making a clean break from him, he tracked her down in the subway and accosted her. She pulled a gun she had purchased for self-defense and blew him away. The Materna were in the subway area scavenging materials from one of the storage closets and witnessed this. What's more, they saw her as a sign from god. Not only was she abused, like them, but in a previous incident her face was marred by a terrible scar where she'd been cut by her husband. It's a mark in a circle with two lines through it. They ushered her away as the police arrived and have kept her safe ever since. They taught her the powers of teleportation that have kept them safe for centuries from the Infinitum. She excels at it better than any of them ever have. She says it was taught to the Materna back when they made their break. It was taught to their leader, the legends say, by a man... named Andrew.
(I'll take famous Magical Teleporters named Andrew for $1000, Alex. At the very least, Rift should know this one. He's living in his room!)
What's more... A friend of Rift's named [[TACHyoN]], has told him that all time seems to cease after September 30th, the day of the Doctor's execution.
Unanswered questions:
#Should the characters break in and do something with the doctor (So far only Rift is leaning away from such an act).
#Does the doctor have any powers? It would seem not.
#Is the Warden in league with the Black Pope.
#If you shut down the power, will the villains be able to escape? There would be some irony, wouldn't it? Stock the prison, empty the prison.
#Is the Doctor truly nuts? Does he really talk to someone when he talks to his reflection?
The startling conclusion is in [[Vol.1 Issue 7]]
@@(THE LOST ~WRITE-UP)@@
>From Audra Blue's Personal Journal:
>Records of the events of this October 25th seem to be missing. Coincidence? Yeh probably. So I'll make something up..
CAST:
Porcupine Jones
Nether-region Girl
Algonquin
Shrieking Carrot
The Bambino
Canadian Hoser
@@color(red):Yes, there was a game 7. Unfortunately, I am unable to track down the write-up for that date. So these are the details I can recall, pending sudden appearance of a game 7 write-up discovered by some packrat of a player. As a result, this will be mostly "bullet points" of what happened, mixed with jokes to fill in the gaps.@@
After a discussion, a decision is made that the players must invade The KEEP, the city's super-prison, and stop the execution of "The Doctor". The fear is that his demise will cause a terrible calamitous rupture in space/time and free something that shares the body with its original inhabitant.
Audra Blue was involved in the planning of the prison's security so she knows some things about the way it's run. She tells the players about what the layout is and where the entry point should be. Bridge has volunteered to put the group inside in the clearest spot that Audra Blue can pinpoint.
Shut-in Audra Blue actually volunteers to help on this mission. (Basically, B4 could have done the system monitoring, but as GM I didn't like the idea that one player would be left out of the action; I'd already had that happen once, at the stadium, when Mark's character didn't get there until the end.)
The only way Audra Blue can get into the prison and not freak out due to her agoraphobia is with the help of Muse, so she uncharacteristically asks the woman's help (they don't like each other much) and Muse agrees. Muse's ability to control emotions will keep Audra in the game.
It's likely he will be in his cell and so a plan is created. Uncle Slam will not be told because it's expected he would not side with the heroes, being the law and order type. (This is actually a good decision. Troops would have been readied and U.S. himself would have been there.)
The group ports in and Audra Blue is set down at the control panel while one group manages to control troops in the area. On the censors, the cell where The Doctor should be is empty! Censors show that The Doctor has been moved to the execution room! Seems the warden has decided to move up the schedule and perform the execution now. He was The Black Pope's man on the inside, there to bring about the End Time.
As the players proceed to battle troops on the inside and a team teleports to the execution room using the monitors (Something that I've been reading about lately and turns out is illegal, but hey, it was nice and cinematic), the others spot Eldritch, supposed "Hero" and former member of the original Sentinels. It seems he's using the situation to get at someone he could not previously get to; An ancient enemy and member of The Infinitum (a group of 5 demonic brothers, some of whom the players have already fought). He uses the opportunity to destroy one.
The heroes get to the execution room and stave off attempts to execute The Doctor. Some of the heroes are very injured in these attempts (including Bridge, who is not built for combat; She has "last resort" offense, which she's both too injured to use here and likely to kill all the heroes too due to their area effect).
The heroes manage to get him out of the base and leave the Warden behind.
Fatalities on the mission: Two. One as the entity whom Eldritch came there to dispatch, using the team as a diversion. The second was a guard who took a seriously strong killing attack and was left to bleed to death on the tile.
The heroes get back to the base and put The Doctor in storage in a cell. Questioning reveals the following information:
He doesn't remember much of who he is. He's not from this dimension. An entity has entered him and used his body as a vessel to get to this dimension. During the times that it is here he doesn't remember anything.
The team realizes there are ways to fix this by dispatching him back to his home dimension but it requires certain spells and such from a book in Eldritch's old room. Speaking of which, guess who shows up...
Eldritch has enough access to get into the lobby, but that's all. He is there to ask that the being in their custody be executed. He explains that the man in the prison and the entity inside this guy are extra-dimensional, demons who are brothers. He has spent hundreds of years looking at all the permutations of the timeline and decided this gambit with The KEEP was the best opportunity he had to slay them both. Unfortunately, he only got one. He asks you kill the other. Between the team and he, you've dispatched 3 of the four brothers already, and the fifth one has never gained entrance. They could remain trapped in their own hell if this one is killed in this physical body.
As some of the players rush down to the lobby, hot-headed Duplicity mouths of and threatens Eldritch. Eldritch dares him to come down and face him. But come the time to fight, Eldritch merely leaves.
When asked about it, Uncle Slam says that he might have been more than the team could handle, but also he could easily have been leaving because he saw the result of the fight. He's a prophet of sorts; His main gift being the ability to see the eventual results of current actions, so he can decide accordingly.
At the end, the team is safe, but there are other repercussions, which will be discussed the pre-game notes for the next games.
End of Storyline! Next one begins in [[Vol.2 Issue 1]]
@@I AM WINGED DOOM!@@
>From Audra Blue's Personal Journal:
>How is it possible that the clown leaves and they find someone equally as... unusual to replace him. Sounds like he's fitting in at least when it comes crunch time. With his knowledge of TV trivia and my knowledge of... other useless info... I think we should challenge the villains to trivial pursuit.
>Vector seems okay. Seems to be filling that fists & fast-feet niche that Billy Ray filled. I'm surprised to find I kind of miss a few of the ones that wandered off.
CAST:
Rift, on Trekkian phaser and time-stop (Jim)
Thok, on ego whip and gesticulating chin (Mark)
Couch Potato, on Who Wants to be A Millionaire and Yo Quiero Taco Bell (Joe)
Vector, on martial mayhem and move-throughs (Terry)
!!PROJECT: St. PATRICK
(Named after the man who drove the snakes out of Ireland)
The buzz lately has been that VIPER is looking to make multiple terroristic strikes! However, someone at PRIMUS has taken it upon themselves to go all preemptive. It's a different world out there and no one is willing to wait for terrorism to strike anymore. As a result, PRIMUS has nailed down nearly a dozen targets and in a joint effort to stamp out VIPER (or at least trim its fangs), enlisted local law enforcement who have special super-powered divisions, their own field agents, and a few groups of heroes to perform simultaneous strikes on all of these targets. They're located in Millenium City, Hudson City, Vibora Bay, and Lazarus (our own beloved campaign city).
There is a dearth of PRIMUS agents in Lazarus as most are detailed to THE KEEP. They scrounge up a few Silver Avenger and Gold Avenger level heroes to go after one location. The second will be taken down by the city's own "Super-powered Threat Response Team" (STaRT). The third will be the heroes, as they will be taking on the most likely target to have a VIPER super-base. "Inside information" says that there is a base there and that it is likely beneath a tenement or the nearby plot that has a community center and tiny little park with a playground. The playground thing would definitely be very VIPER; Using innocents to shield themselves from a frontal assault.
The team develops a clever ploy to divert citizens. They arrange for a tanker to spill water on the street. They then will claim it is a dangerous chemical and empty the surrounding area. A successful roll to convince the authorities succeeds well, and they set things up. Within ten minutes of the time this is being done, Shaniqua Takasaki from the local station is at the scene doing a report on the "accident". The team teleports in on time and they spot a normal guy on the street in a GREEN t-shirt, with a backpack, in an area that's already been cleared, while they keep an eye on him, they assume he's not up to anything and tell him to clear the area, which he does. After they go downstairs, they radio Bridge to tell her there's a guy upstairs; She discovers when she comes across him that he is indeed armed with a radio and blaster pistol and resisted but was subdued.
The entrance, they know form a very good streetwise roll, is probably below the dumpster. Moving the dumpster and kicking the brick aside a section of concrete raises, revealing stairs. At the bottom is a steel door. They decide to take on the cinderblock wall instead, punching a hole through. They disable a camera and perform a room-by-room (It's Rift, CP, and Vector at this point). Second room has a shooter, who Vector hoists across the desk and throws into the hall for CP to shoot like skeet, ending him down the hall. Another door is to a hallway. Next room is a secretary hiding under a desk, but they missed her. Finally they find the computer center where they are immediately met by gunfire, to little effect. Vector runs in and uses his move-through martial arts to toss one at another. Tater uses a cone attack to knock a bunch back and damage some computers. Thok shows up about now and helps out as one of the agents uses a secret panel in the wall to run back out into the hallway and try to escape. The agents are subdued through phaser blasts, the very odd, odd TV attacks of the 'tater (I think it's best anyone is present to experience these), a great many move-by attacks, and a dash of ego-whip. However, as they're taking out the last couple and one is surrendering, a figure approaches. He's tall, muscular, and has the hood of a cobra. He moves in quickly; Quickest way to do so if a move-through of his own, attempted on Thok, who was silly enough to mentally attack him AND be in front. Hood (the cobra-man's VIPER designation; He doesn't have enough intelligence to form his own name) engages the players who proceed to do very little damage. The hardest hit was definitely Thok's, but here comes Rift's "Time Stop" power, as he freezes the foe in place with an exceptional entangle roll.
Too bad for him, because his help had arrived by then. Another "Hood" shows up at the door. But it's simply an "Image" of Hood projected at the door so that the mentalist named "Charmer" can slip in the second door. What she didn't anticipate is that Vector would try a move-through on Hood and run right through him, into the hallway and see her standing there. That causes the others to come out the second door and with a few sharp blasts take her down. Her only offense was an attempt to drain the EGO stat of Vector so that she could Mind Control him easily. Would have worked too, if it weren't for those meddling kids.
The rest of the base is cleared. The following information is obtained from the search of the place and the mental probing of Thok:
Agents: They have been instructed to track down the source of these unfounded rumors. VIPER has no terrorist attacks planned any time soon.
Computers: Typical Viper "curriculum" and plans to recruit from the local community of youths (Hence their placement below the area's community center), their manifesto, a list of agents employed in normal jobs in the local area (so PRIMUS can mop them up), plans to capture and dissect Thok because the Supreme Serpent needs sushi! (Well, maybe not for that reason, but they do want Alien-boy, who is hunted by them).
Charmer: She came from the South Africa office; She's on tour with her "pet" from the science branch; and she's never met the Supreme Serpent, nor does she know which base he works out of.
Hood: Charmer can hurt him or help him; He's not allowed to eat agents.
The other two simultaneous raids do yield some VIPER locations, but not a lot of information or personnel.
!!LET'S ALL GO TO THE MAUL
Hours after arriving back at the base following this nonsense, CP is watching TV (as is his custom), and is alerted to a terrible situation at the new Galleria. The players scramble and teleport in a Bridge's closest memorized location. From there they can see... no signs of trouble. On the video footage, a reporter was inside and there was this fiery holocaust being perpetrated by a group of men in black with skull ornamentation and symbols, firing blasters. Only one that fits this bill on a search of Rift's database is the organization DEMON, who do all kinds of supernatural crap. But things look fine here. Kids happily skateboard beneath the "no loitering" signs, and the darkness of evening has gathered.
They decide it's a trick, since the same footage and reporter appeared on more than one station. The heroes move on the mall and decide to evacuate the mall with a simple fire alarm (A wise precaution, because this was going to be much more hazardous with bystanders). They make their way from the Movie Theaters in toward the center courtyard where there is a very (very) minor exhibit of "Fabulous Fake Jewelry of the stars!", which is a couple of display cases of fake jewelry from movies, the cheesiest and larges of which is the Annette Nicola Smythe Diamonelle, a steaming hunk of cubic-zirconium.
As they approach the center near the fountain, the drama unfolds! From high above, at the stained glass dome up near the unfinished second level, a figure emerges. And since I have the book right here, I feel compelled to include his soliloquies:
>"Bwah hah hah hah, Heroes! Would-be do-gooders! Your plans to stop me shall come to nothing-- NOTHING! For I am Winged Doom... I am the Foxbat!"
Whereupon the figure, dressed in the trademark brown and gold pseudo-batman attire drifts down on glider wings and launches a shot from his infamous Ping Pong Ball gun. Players all decide wisely to go defensive. This means most dive or run while Rift goes insubstantial (A trick I forgot he could do, when I suggested something similar for Vector). The shot throws some people around but not Rift or Vector. Vector moves on Foxbat and positions himself for a grab as Winged Doom lowers slowly on his path of gliding.
It's not long after this that another group of folks show up literally out of thin air. It's GRAB! The Cheshire Cat, Black Diamond, Hummingbird, and Blue Jay. Blue Jay will go after Rift, but ultimately be harmed by CP and wind up crashing when Thok gets in the final psychic blow. Black Diamond gets one action and that's a leap that causes the "shatterproof" case of fake jewelry to be broken upon landing, then she's promptly time-stopped by Rift. Hummingbird uses mind control to beckon Couch Potato to her. It's working but then Vector does a drive-by on her and busts a fist in her face, stunning her. She's brought down solidly right after that (Having only a few STUN left). Cheshire Cat was up the longest. After challenging the only other martial artist, Vector, he promptly misses all but one time before being brought down by the group.
>"Fools! You have no hope of stopping my MASTER PLAN! Your tiny flickering intellects wither in the bright glaring brilliance which is my MASTER PLAN! And I can FLY! FLY!"
But I get ahead of myself. For you see, not long after Black Diamond is time-stopped, another party arrives. This is a young, thin, girl in a brown and gold form-fitting version of Foxbat's costume, and a pudgy teenage boy dressed in a version of foxbat's costume minus the glider wings. They are traveling in the "Foxbatmobile", a Honda Civic painted brown with gold trim and giant foxbat ears affixed to the sides. They crash the vehicle next to the fake jewelry, and attempt to grab the Diamonelle. They succeed, but don't make it far before the team unpimps ze auto!
Foxbat was brought down on a knockback blast that sent him into a kiosk of banzai trees. Foxbatboy and Foxbatgirl tried to drive to him but that's when their car was derezzed by a phaser on "kill".
>"I did it all.... for.... my fans!" (Odd face, then unconsciousness)"
Things that make Thok's telepathy go "Hmmm....":
*Black Diamond is there because their contact, who is always reliable and never misled them... somehow misled them. There was supposed to be some profit angle in this (Because GRAB is all about Greed), but it seems they were lied to on their bulletin board through which their assignments are posted, encoded. What's more, she has never been to the mall before and was not aware the jewelry in cases here was fake! She was so focused on the assigned task she didn't notice any signs.
*Foxbat is an easy mental read. He's there because his Fanclub demanded it! It seems that he has been alerted to the fact that he has a Fansite on the internet (Foxbattalion.com) which features people with a curious interest in the enigma that is... Winged Doom, and Doom-related subjects. They have voted that his next activity to prove to his fans that he cares about them should be: Stealing the Diamenelle (Note that Audra's Search of the Website yields the information that this was actually NOT the winning choice on the poll; Someone hacked in and changed the result. The winner was "Try to steal the Empire State Building... Again!"
*EXTRA: A detail I left off in my recap of the mind probing: Hummingbird has been carrying on a conversation online with Couch Potato for the past few days. She was doing it anonymously, under a pseudonym... If asked, this is news to him! He never moves away from the TV unless it's to do his job. Apparently, someone pretended to be the spud.
*EXTRA: Cheshire Cat recently had a failed relationship with a lady burglar. His manic-depressive self is feeling down and cared little about the mission but instead sought to bolster his self esteem by taking on any Martial Artist in the group.
*Foxbatboy tries to emulate and seek approval from his idol at every turn.
*Foxbatgirl thinks everything is Foxbatarrific! Including the plants and inanimate objects she talks to.
*NONE of the participants are murderous. In fact, they all go out of their way to avoid harming people.
*In fact, Blue Jay seems to think that she's been hung with this horrible cruel-bitch-villainess reputation when she's typically a victim of circumstance. True or not, that's what she really thinks.
There are strange similarities between this mission and another the team had. The first ever mission together in memorial park yielded an inert bomb which did nothing. (See Vol. 1, Issue 1), while the whole incident was filmed. A search of the area yields a couple of cameras that are not part of the building's security, added in order to cover areas the mall did not cover. The feed was cut the second they were found. And the actress in the video turns out to be an actress currently doing dinner theater in California, hired to stand in front of a green screen and read the script.
Continued in [[Vol.2 Issue 2]]
@@BASED ON DISNEY'S ORIGINAL PARK PLAN@@
>From Audra Blue's Personal Journal:
>The team has been invited to the opening of Omega World. Sounds like a blast.
>
>Guess I'll go do laundry.
CAST:
Thok.................Mark
Rift...................Jim
Vector..............Terry
Geoff Gardner...Alan
Couch Potato....Joe
Harold Loman, the new liaison to the City Council comes by the base and introduces himself. He does a meet and greet with each individual member of the team, asking about their experiences so far and asking what they need, if anything. Some feel he's sincere, others may think that's salesman "charm".
A local reporter sets up shot for the afternoon outside the base, trying to get interviews. She bothers Harold somewhat in her tabloid manner, but ultimately leaves, shouting the threat at the base: "One way or another you'll talk to me!"
!!FATAL ATTRACTIONS
The heroes are invited to the grand opening of OMEGA WORLD, the brand new theme park based on the hit television series To Save The World, about a fictional group of heroes modeled roughly after the Champions of Millennium City (Except, interestingly enough, for an alien character). With such areas as Hero Have and Villain Alley, it's the deadliest place on Earth! It's nice to have real heroes on hand for such an event; especially ones who reside in the campaign city.
All of the assembled team above go to the park. Geoff Gardner is fascinated by the concept of rollercoasters; Couch Potato is a fan of the show and wants to ride the rides (and if possible, Network for purpose of producing TV shows); Rift and Thok are there, probably, because that's where the chaos will undoubtedly be. Vector is there because his Secret ID girlfriend wants to go to the park. So he goes without the rest of the group.
!!!CACTCH A KID, WIN A KEWPIE DOLL!
First note of a problem happens when the rental carts begin to lurch out of control, occasionally bumping a pedestrian then coming to a stop. Not far off, trouble happens! The Grand Carousel begins to spin wildly out of control. Children cling to the horses and try to keep from flying off. It's spinning at 15", which means hitting the ground they'd take 7D6 (Being children, it's likely enough to put them into bleeding).
Thok successfully Teleports on and grabs a child then jumps off, floating away until the momentum slows. Geoff Gardner's robots seize the Merry-go-round forcing everyone to make a roll to stay on board. Surprisingly, only two children come flying off. One is caught by Vector, who has had to try to do his best to conceal himself because he's not in his Hero ID. He took advantage of a moment when his girl was waiting in line for tickets at the American Theater to jump into action. The other was nearly caught by Geoff Gardner but is just out of reach. Thok is on the trajectory and turns around and just catches the child. The robots will hold the Carousel until the motor burns out, which is not until the end of the turn.
!!!HUG ME!
In the meantime, Rift has spotted a shady individual running off with custody of a woman. A quick check of his handy-dandy Villain database yields and individual meeting that description known as the Black Harlequin. They are fleeing toward Adamantine Mountain. The group pursues and due to Thok's teleportational distance, gets there first. He finds the woman is there in the small utility room that serves as the service entrance to the attraction. She's cowering in the corner. As he doesn't see the Black Harlequin, he ports through the opening and into the mountain where he finds the very same woman (or a duplicate?) dangling from a beam. Near as he can tell, the one in the utility area is a holographic image. However the one dangling seems to be in legitimate trouble. She's dangling over the tracks, and there are rollercoaster cars coming through on a regular basis. Worse yet, seated on the beam above her is a teddy bear, armed with a knife, sawing through the rope. Thok opts to appear below her and fire up at it.
Upon arriving, Rift sees the woman inside the entryway but cannot identify her as a hologram. As he's deciding his next action, in rushes Vector, who has had to find a makeshift costume. In this case, it's the costume of THE BULLET (a character from the TV show) except wearing the mask of Nighthawk (The Champions Universe's batman knockoff). As vector rushes through the doorway, it triggers Rift's danger sense! He realizes a wall is coming down over the entrance. With his moment to act he ducks in so that he's on the inside of the closing wall. This leaves Jeff Gardner and his Robots to pound on the outside when they arrive. The other side of this little room is covered by metal bars that drop down. ~Bullet-Nighthawk-head turns deslodified and runs through the bars. Rift doesn't recognize his friend due to the costume and decides that guy just trapped him in the room.
Well, as Vector goes up on the beam to fight with the deadly teddy bear with the knife, more toys emerge! A veritable mini-army of toys emerges:
*My Little Horsey: A firebreathing horse who is destroyed before he can breath fire on the team.
*Ducky: A duck on wheels with a chainsaw bill, who gets smacked against the wall several times before it can Killing-attack anyone..
*Wind-up kitty: A clockwork cat whose job is to grab a foe and do a flash-attack "claw" maneuver on their face.
*Slinky Dog: A dog with slinky body and razor-sharp jaws, who pulls himself along by stretching out his first half and then pulling his second half of his body up to meet him.
*Smiling Jack: A Jack-in-the-box with a large pair of scissors who tries to cut foes down to size.
*Huggles the bear: A horrifying pink teddybear who cries out "HUG ME!" with an intensity that instills fear in those near by.
*Noise Monkey: A cymbal-crashing monkey who performs a sonic attack in an area.
I suppose I could detail every bit of the action but it would take me all day, seeing as there were many events in the game. So I'll hit the high points...
Rift keeps considering shooting the stranger in the Nighthawk mask and Bullet costume, but Thok the Mute Illithid tries to get in the way and keep him from shooting because he's managed to recognize who it is.
While Vector removes the toys that are on top of the beam, he also pulls the woman up there so she can hang on, out of reach of the toys below... well except for the springy-dog, who can stretch out and bite at them. Once he's freed the woman he leaves her up there so that he can drop down and fight the toys on the ground, which is amusing in that it encourages Thok to try to rescue her. It's funny in that the jo-jo the squid-faced man is trying to rescue a woman in terror. Hmm... wonder how that worked out.
Thok manages to get the door open so Geoff Gardner can get in, but the bots are too big for the room, so they stay outside. The team trash the toys and save the girl, who turns out to be an actress! Couch Potato shows up now and recognizes her as the girl who played Azure Flame, a troubled heroine in Season One of the show.
!!!ROLLERCOASTER...OF LOVE (Say What?)
Next problem: The Speeding Bullet (A rollercoaster) is out of control! It's going 125mph and the Black Harlequin blares a warning over the park speakers and the headsets of those present that slowing the train will make it blow. Wisely, the first thing they do is try to re-engineer the system. The engineers show Thok to the computer and he makes an excellent roll (Which is important for two reasons: He stabilized the speed, which at 165mph there's a progressively bigger chance for the rollercoaster to fly off the tracks, and also because that's near the limit of the movement of PC's present; And it was not an easy roll.... a -5 roll to succeed. Each time you miss it gets harder too).
Rift also does a nice move, turning Desolidified and going below the rollercoaster so that as it goes by he can look up. He spies explosives on the underside of one of the first cars. Vector uses his great speed to get Thok and himself on board. Thok is in the front seat, however, he cannot see any explosives under there, so he decides to teleport to the second cart.
Ahem... Mark chooses this moment to roll an 18 on the attempt to target the moving spot in the rollercoaster. ZAP! He teleports INTO the vehicle then is kicked out to the nearest safe place. Fortunately he has retained his continuing-charge force field and will survive the crash but it's not as big a problem as T-porting into an object. Mark rolls to determine the extent of the damage and gets the worst result. He rolls a D6 and determines he will take 5D6K of damage (without defense). He then rolls those dice and... doesn't die! Really a lucky roll, with lots of ones and twos. He takes 11 or 12 BODY and falls to the ground in pain, but at least he's conscious (though unable to act).
They try the other version of this move, with Vector pulling Couch Potato into the vehicle and Tater flying off with the coaster patrons.
However, no one has examined the bomb. You could have found out the following: An electronics roll could have told you that the sensor was hooked to the power of the train. Shutting down the power grid would have disabled the whole thing. Also, Demolitions would tell you it's wired to the third seat and if it goes below 100 lb., kaboom! Which it promptly does when the guy is removed from the seat.
The team is safe. Vector aborts to desolidified and is fine. Patrons will... LIVE. Their harnesses count against the damage, as does some of the vehicle defense. Most are below 0 BODY and must be treated immediately, which Rift does to great effect.
(Another Note: Had the team figured out the thing with the power, there's a very interesting little trap below the park involving a Field that offers 5 STR resistance per 5" you move. So 30" of movement down the hall would mean the character met 30 STR resistance. Adding your STR 25 to that (Vector for example) would yield 55 STR resistance against you. Would take a while to figure out you have to move slower than your STR to get to the generator room.)
No one died in the incident though many are critical until healed by Rift and paramedics. And he does a very good heal on Thok to put him back into action.
No other incidents are going on, but some investigation of the area yields some chaos at Templar's "Knights of the Realm" attraction. People claim that knights are hacking people to bits in there!
!!!GO MEDIEVAL!
Seems that Black Harlequin tinkered with the 3D movie in there so that it showed a lot more blood than usual. Upon going in, Vector encounters five robotic knights, and a warning that to save the girl they must defeat the knights. An investigation yields an executioner; Essentially a normal guy hired to wear the executioner outfit and kill her if they don't beat the knights. The players engage the knights, except Thok, who moves close enough to the executioner to realize that he's a normal person! He uses his mind control to "suggest" the guy run away, which he wanted to do anyway! So nice choice. Thok will catch up with him and telepathically interrogate him, yielding information that he's been hired by the Black Harlequin but doesn't know the plans as a whole; Just that there's guys hired for the Shooting Gallery and the JFO tower.
At this point one should wonder WHY they didn't find a trap in the JFO tower, where the meet and greet with the park backers and the studio heads was held. This hasn't occurred to anyone.
When his mind is searched for information about the location of the Black Harlequin, Thok discovers that he's a big fan of HECATE, the show's villainess (whom he views as a heroine). Thok realizes he would be somewhere having to do with Hecate, and he frantically searches the map and tries to pantomime (in the typical funny and confused fashion) the information. Finally he spots the place!
!!!HECATE'S HOUSE OF (EASILY DEFEATED) HORROR
I blew it here. I needed to call an audible and beef up the Black Harlequin, because the team took him out in the quick fashion. Heck, they did it so fast that Geoff Gardner didn't even get to act. Harlequin simply failed his attack with "Not-so-silly String" at Couch Potato (An Entangle; Which would have really f'd you up there, gesture boy!).
The Harlequin was on the 3rd floor, where he's managed to wire most of the park's events so that he can instigate and view them on numerous monitors. Bound here in chairs are the 5 members of the Sudsy Awards panel (The voting group who determined that to Black Harlequin's chagrin, that Hecate was voted "Best Villainess" rather than "Best Heroine" as he felt she deserved).
You might note that had you not easily disabled him, he would have attempted to kill these folks. Though crazy, he knows that there's not a jury in the world who won't commit him rather than execute him.
From here the party disables the other traps (The Shooting Gallery, and the basement generator trap, which I forgot to mention, since it didn't come into play anyway).
Vector gets back to his girlfriend as quickly as he can. Hope he paid for the costume! Terry at "Terry's Treasures" needs to make a living, you know.
Alexandra Shaw offers her card to the two most presenceful/attractive members present. Turns out you're all average looking (except Thok) so it's quite a horse-race there. Couch Potato and Geoff Gardner are offered her card. She's an agent. She used to be known as "Lioness" back in her superhero days, but in retirement she's agent to heroes. Tater pitches her a reality show.
(TWO notes on ~DNPCs: Vector's girl was only involved in that she was a distraction. Rift's DNPC was in the park, and had the characters gotten to the SHOOTING GALLERY, they would have found she was the target! But you disabled that trap before it happened. Lucky girl.)
!!!TOKYO DRIFT
In the wee hours of the morning the characters are contacted by PRIMUS. Relevant info is sent out to all ~PCs via the base computer system and instant messengers.
Seems that PRIMUS has detected movement of something toward shore. It was too small to show up as anything too important. Too small for weather phenomena, too big to be a standard craft, etc. Coast Guard goes out and discovers it's a Godzilla-like creature, whom we'll refer to as Zorgatha. PRIMUS and the police are evacuating the section of the coastline where he appears to be coming ashore. Uncle Slam was only showing if necessary, which it wasn't, since the team did well against it.
Thok thinks twice about mental attacking it first (wisely). Vector can't hit it for effect until it hits the shore (and I really needed to put movement penalties for sand, but it really wouldn't have mattered in this case, as it turns out). Thok's one phaser blast yielded a point of STUN. The real blast however was from Rift's phaser on KILL. It did sizable damage. He got even with Rift by stomping on him, squishing him flat and pressing him into the sand. But he lives and actually wakes up next turn.
Thok does some ~Ego-Whippage on it, Vector does some run-by, Couch Potato does his largest damage attack, and Geoff Gardner's Robots try to hold the creature, which is enough to keep it from casually brushing them off; He has to actively break free.
It's a pretty good coordinated effort that eventually leads to the idea of targeting the head. In retrospect, I shouldn't have allowed it. (Think of a bunch of mosquitoes flying around you; Biting your head isn't really going to be any worse than the rest of the body; Also, for next time we fight something like this, I need to remember there's a bigger range mod for shooting the head of something so tall). But it was a good choice and yielded better damage from everyone involved. the creature fell over and pinned the two robots, who had to be extricated.
The team goes back and gets some more sleep once the monster is fully secured and hauled off for examination. He is taken to Sea Life Project. It's a government facility well off of the coast where they perform research on all forms of marine biology. This guy is not explicitly marine, but he had no problem walking quite a ways across the ocean.
Footnote: Momentum (Alan's other character) is called by one of her contacts, which is unusual. This girl called to say that she has seen something unusual while out exploring the ocean from the direction the creature approached the area. She discovered something that looks like a Submarine... sorta. Well, not any submarine she's eve seen before. But kinda. She'd like the team to take a look.
Continued in [[Vol.2 Issue 3]]
@@MORE EVIL DOCTORS AND PIRATE NINJAS@@
>From Audra Blue's Personal Journal:
>I expected he'd give me the creeps. I mean, he has that reputation, all that baggage. But our prisoner seems as normal as can be. He even seems like he wants a cure. Funny that he comes across way more normal than some of the others around here.
CAST:
Rift.....................Jim
Vector................Terry
Geoff Gardner...Alan
Couch Potato.....Joe
B4......................Jeff
Following Last game's fight with the Godzillaesque creature, the government puts it in temporary storage. Now that the space has been emptied the government can tell you it was temporarily held in a hangar at the airport under close guard, shrunken to a more manageable size. They tell you a few things about it.
*Gills are either a very new mutation or they are a fading one. Evolution.
*Same with the bayleen, which seems to be only supplemental because it has teeth.
*This creature is omnivorous, but primarily eats meat. It probably can't find that quantity of meat in the ocean very often. So it is likley that it lived on land. So it's odd to find it just off of your coast.
*It's radioactive. The longer it sits around, the more radioactive it gets.
They are waiting on The Herodotus, a cargo ship that has been outfitted by UNTIL to manage the hauling. They are counting on the characters to handle the defense. But that will be in two days. Meanwhile they have an opportunity to handle other things.
One such thing, is a submarine.
!!Graves both Watery and Shallow
Our heroes are contacted by one Janine Halsey, a young woman who has been nicknamed by the local media as the "Bay Mermaid", because she's been mistaken for one by local fishermen and the like. She says she was following the tracks of the monster back to the sea and came to a dead end. There, near where the first feet touch down and made big craters under the sea, is a large glowing spot and something that looks like a submarine. Sorta.
The heroes get together some scuba gear and go out to look. They find that the glowing area is phosphorescent coral. It also doesn't seem native to the area.
Facts about the craft:
*It has a few bars of unknown metal fastened to the underside, almost as if it had been attached to something else. The bars are welded on. A metallurgical analysis of the edges shows that the ends of the bars were "torn" from whatever they were attached to.
*The craft is constructed of brass and various other non-oxidizing metal and is seemingly steam powered. *It resembles a submarine from a Jules Verne story. The boiler has been cleverly insulated. It probably still produced a lot of heat in the water, but it seemed to be sufficiently silent.
*The craft has been "bastardized" with bits of technology; transistors, wiring, and electronic components. It would seem to be dated somewhere in the early-to-mid part of the last century.
*A skeletal arm nearby seemed to belong to a body from on board.
*Inside is a cargo bay that is specially fitted with restraints for holding something that might be...robots... not unlike those of Geoff Gardner.
*Etched into the side appears to be a date that turns out to be from the Greek "Attic" Hellenic calendar, dated in 1944.
*There is a name emblazoned on the side: Der Valkyrie.
*There is a head of a robot, resembling one like Geoff Gardner's robots. This one however also is not a pure 'steampunk' unit, using bits of more modern technology.
*Pieces of leather are the only thing left of a uniform; One is a holster, another is a belt with a buckle with a nazi swastika on it.
The coral that glows nearby is not native to the area. It does encrust one side of the Sub. The other side likely had more, and that is what is lying around the area, making the glow.
It takes quite a while to haul it in from 3 miles out, but it eventually makes it to shore and is put on the flatbed truck from the base and hauled back to the House of Rain. Note that the base sensors only picked up trace radiation. The craft in itself is not radioactive; it just likely picked up a bit from contact with something radioactive, like our big horrible beast from last game.
Research brings up a drawing made by an unidentified airmen in 1944. The National WWII Memorial Project attributtes it to Richard "Ace" Harding, whom the characters recognize as a famed hero named PARAGON, an old friend of Uncle Slam.
Uncle Slam meets two players at the Keep while others examine the submarine. He lets the characters know:
*These were a much despised project in der Fuerer's military; He thought they should be a modern military and didn't like these old U-boats, but they were used as couriers of people and objects because they were smaller and could run deep for long periods of time with more speed than the conventional subs.
*Paragon lives here in the city, at the local municipal airport, where he maintains a few planes. He will call over and let him know the players are coming.
*He can NOT tell the characters where they sank such a boat. He has made a promise not to do so, and this was a move more important to him than anything, including Natioanl Security.
The characters meet with Paragon.
*There is a pretty young woman's picture on the nose-art of the plane. The same woman's picture is on photos in his office. It is quite obviously his daughter. Also, there is a picture of 6 people taken on the grounds of the airport. They are junior superheroes, ANTHEM, JACKHAMMER, and ACES HIGH (Paragon's daughter), and the senior trainers of these heroes, PARASITE, SENTRY, and SUNDOWN. (Characters may recall that Jackhammer died in a suspicious fall from a great height, Anthem was in hiding originally because she thought the team was being hunted by "The Doctor", the villain this team brought in, and Aces High is long missing. Parasite and Sentry are deceased, while Sundown is missing.)
*He tells the characters that he knows the location the sub went down and while he knows Uncle Slam would NEVER tell such information, he is more than willing to do so for a tiny little favor. He knows(!) the characters have "The Doctor" on their premesis and that he is a powerful psychic. He feels that the Black Pope's men are responsible for his daughter's disappearance and/or death and he wants to know about her. He thinks that the psychic may have picked up information. He would like the characters to question him about his long missing daughter.
The characters question The Doctor. He actually seems willing to help and rather normal.
*When presented with a picture he grabs is head as if it's hard to think. Then he tells the character he has seen the scene. He glimpsed it from the man the team come to identify as "Coffin Nail Joe" aka Joe Bellamy, aka Crucifier. She is in a warehouse and on the crates there are dolphin logos. He's certain she's dead. Her wings are off and there's too much blood for it to be anything else.
The characters figure out the warehouse in question, investigate, and do indeed find the scene of her death, and the shallow grave outside, which is also accompanied by boot prints and hoof-prints set in the mud and baked by the sun.
They tell Colonel Samuels (Uncle Slam) and he informs the team that it's best not to tell Paragon that they are certain who did this. If they do, there will be hell to pay. Paragon lost his wife years ago and gave up superheroing because his powered armor was killing him, so that he could raise his daughter; Such specific information could prove to be a problem.
!!Pirate Ninjas
The Herodotus arrives and a short-range teleport puts the beast in the belly of the ship. Basically, you've got a large UNTIL boat with a large cargo hold, and in the middle of the hold is a large force-field bubble. The animal (called Zorgatha) is suspended in it, gassed. There are not one, but 4 force-field generators to keep it imprisoned. It's nice to have redundancy. (NOTE: Jim asked why they didn't just keep shrinking the godzilla smaller; I actually thought about making him jar-sized, which would have been funny, but made for a smaller scale combat as your fishing boat was assailed by a smaller group of ninjas. I think you'll agree this was a more epic fight).
During the 157 mile voyage to the Sea Life Project, they team is assailed by ninjas! There is a brief flash of light along the lower edge of the ship and then suddenly, ninjas are scaling the sides. The team flies into action. Couch Potato sends a batch overboard to fall behind the ship. Vector goes into a move-through spree, hurling many ninjas into one another, knocking out very many. Rift and B4 try to deal with their obvious leaders, who land at the center of the ship. They are a man in a martial arts gui (sp?) with long gray hair, and a man with an ornate shogun outfit.
The martial artist seems to have a great many hand-to-hand attacks and a few sword attacks (including a nasty autofire-sword attack that nicks up b4 pretty well). Rift is "entangled" by a blow that is basically a nerve-strike that locks his solar-plexus in place. He'll get out when he desolidifies, allowing his molecules to relax (Don't you love improvised comic-book science?).
Geoff Gardner is having trouble with a low-level cable entangle used by a ninja, however it's made worse when Couch Potato hoists him up and drops him into the bay below, near his robots (whose hands are literally full of ninja at the time). It's a pretty good blow that hurts him a bit. (Go evil!) But he survives and breaks out soon after.
Between B4 and Rift's "phasers of different eras", they bring down the shogun-type, whose specialty is to call on the spirits of his ancestors to attack in various forms. He has a brief revival where he tries to teleport his brother off the ship, but he's brought down in that one phase where he's within reach of phaser-fire before they both would be gone!
The team wins with no deaths on their side and a lot of broken bones on the other side (With the chain-link under their ninja garb, they were working about 12PD total, so those 15 to 19 BODY hits would really add up on the normal guys).
At one point in the fight there was a glowing point of light that appeared at the front of the ship, until one of the two brothers were KO'd.
Afterword: The ninjai are the footsoldiers of a Japanese corporation called ONI. They were the same corporation that was a hunted of Dr. Tewelleker once in the previous run of games (Though those were the higher up agents in power-rangeresque garb with elemental powers). They were here to steal wannabe-Godzilla. And if things were going badly, they were to destroy the FF generators and free him.
The leaders are the ONI corporate owners, Arashi ("Storm") and Koushi ("The Heir"). There were 34 Ninjas as well.
!!More Evil Doctors
Welcome to Sea Life Project. Administrator Dr. O'conner meets the group. Apparently she's been in contact with Uncle Slam. It seems that PRIMUS, UNTIL, and the Japanese Gov't are in talks about turning the animal back over to the Japanese. UNTIL figured out and has confronted the Japanese about the existence of a whole island of such Monsters. He would be returned to the Monster Island preserve. It seems that they've never had an escape in all the years they've maintained the facility. This one was at the shoreline, in the water, then vanished for twenty minutes before resurfacing near the team's home city. How this was achieved is uncertain, except that the exchange back would involve a teleportation gate being set up by the government of Japan. No word on what we would get in return.
When Dr. O'Conner conducts the tour, she seems to use it as an excuse to get into the secure lower labs where "Dr. Bond" works. Seems she doesn't get in there very often and is using the heroes' presence as an excuse. That's the 7th and 8th floors.
By the 6th floor however, B4 notices something that looks like a shark fin in the submarine docking bay. However, his scans of the water don't reveal anything (Which is not unreasonable, because Inviso-shark had invisiblity to Sight, Hearing, and Unusual sense groups whenever he was submerged in water). Sensors seem to be working in the bay that alert to the presence of living things.
The team gets into Dr. Bond's lab and looks around but he's done his best to tidy up in the minute before they got in. The screens don't show any experiments, just exterior shots of the base. When asked to bring up shots of the docking bay to look for the fin, the technician tries to hide the feed by futzing withe display, but B4's super-keen senses pick up the move and he confronts the tech, who is not a very good liar. When B4 runs the recording back himself he finds that there is indeed a fin there. The tech is not a good liar. The group proceeds to try to intimidate him until finally he snaps and points at Dr. Bond and says, "He did it! He did it!" Whereupon Dr. Bond hits a button on the panel freeing his pals from their cells. They are:
*A half-man/half-shark creature with a pretty nasty bite which f's up Geoff Gardner (who had to get in close to try and close the doors on the experiments).
*A coral-man, who makes a cool crumbling noise as he walks and hurls chunks of himself at foes.
*Pincers (Crab-men) who can cut through lab doors like tin cans.
*On the next floor are Nereid (A woman who communicates with fishes) and another Pincer, who never quite enter the combat. She is instead warned to flee by the fishies. She'll get away when Inviso shark punches a hole in the docking bay with a ferocious move-through on the door.
The heroes bring down their foes thorugh phaser-fire, move-bys and other attacks. Vector retrieves Janine from the next floor by desolidifying and going down there. After looking at the array of buttons, the force the tech to tell them which button, which narrows it down from 8 to 2 buttons. Finally, Vector chickens out and makes her pick. I forgot that she's claustraphobic and wouldnt' have been able to answer; She shouldn't have answered at all. Alas, she gave the right answer and she is freed. For those "road not taken" fans...
*Red button #1: Toxic fluid is pumped into the chamber
*Red button #2: An electrical current stuns the captive
*Red button #3: The water-pressure in the tube increases vastly
*Green Button #1: Refloods the chamber
*Green Button #2: Empties the water out
*Green Button #3: Opens the chamber whether it's flooded or not.
*Black Button #1: Blades enter the chamber and dice up the captive for easy disposal.
*Black Button #2: Dumps the captive into the chamber below, where all the fishy remains are (And boy is that a horror show).
During the fight, Dr. Bond tried to text message someone. Vector had to seize it, but only caught "Message Sent". After the fight, the team goes and retrieves the message only to find it is coded. Digging up a former marine cryptographer from the base staff, they get him to rip it apart. The message says:
>SAVE YOURSELF. SAVE YOUR EXPERIMENTS. FLEE NOW!
The recipient: One Dr. Tewelleker, Residence: The House of Rain, Lazarus.
The team then tries to raise Audra Blue and gets no response. They get ahold of Bridge, who says she hasn't seen either of them. It will be 1hr of travel time to get back to shore, and Bridge has never been to Sea Life Project so she doesn't have a memorized location there. She has a megascale teleport, but that's something you don't want to do blind, plus if she did it in chunks of, say... 10 Miles, she'd drop like a rock after each teleport, reaching terminal velocity by the time she arrives. (Teleporting in water is also bad: Like t-porting into an object).
So the only flyer, Couch Potato, takes off back to shore to retrieve her. She'll come out, and memorize a location, teleport the team back to shore, then they can tport back for the exchange later.
Continued in [[Vol.2 Issue 4]]
@@SHORT STORIES AND BACKFILL@@
>From Audra Blue's Personal Journal:
>I literally thought I was dreaming. I mean, the lights in the base were flashing but there was no sound, just the beating of my heart and the padding of my feet on the ground. I found him in the hallway trying to write on the wall using the blood from a cut on his finger. I didn't recognize him, but then I didn't get long to look; Once I activated the security bots I remember leaving my feet and hitting something, hard..
CAST:
Rift..............Jim
Geoff Gardner...Alan
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Short on people, I almost didn't run. So instead we ran a half-day.
While they are figuring out how to get 157 miles back to the mainland in quick order, *poof*, Eldritch arrived and unceremoniously dumped bridge out onto the helipad with a warning to her: "For your own sakes you'd best hurry." Then *unpoof* he's gone.
Bridge memorizes a spot to teleport back to while the (small) team decide whether to wait the ten minutes for the transfer of Godzilla or whether to teleport back and then come back as fast as they can. And what's Eldritch's motive? The Japanese contacts are just 15 minutes out from the rig.
[THE ROAD NOT TAKEN: Had the team decided to do their delivery first, they still would have been able to deal with the same guy at the base, but in that ten-minute wait they would have encountered ANACH agents! Because you heeded Eldritch's warning and went back to the base quickly, the agents didn't have the opportunity to materialize and engage the team. Congratulations on your first wise choice, and in "going around my adventure". But I figured there was a 60% chance you'd go back to base and avoid them.]
So the team teleports back to the base and into a safe point. It seems when Bridge ported in there earlier she discovered that all of the teleportation spots were covered with stuff to make them impossible to port into without hurtin yourself, which Bridge did. Fortunately Rift could heal that.
The characters look around the base and discover that Audra's room's door is open, as is Dr. T's, and someone has written scribblings all over the walls. Foreign languages both active and dead, random phrases, astrological signs, hobo signs, unknown script symbols, notations used in the city's underneath, mathematical formulas, and so on. It's written in anything available... pen, chalk, pencil... feces. Characters determine it does not belong to anyone whose writing they have seen.
GG gathers his robots. Dr. T's room is trashed. Audra's room is functioning, she's just not in it. A quick computer roll by Rift allows him to call up each room with cameras. This includes activating some inactive cameras in private rooms. The only area that is blacked out is the hallway on the next floor down. A glimpse from the boardroom cam shows that there is writing on the wall outside the conference room, so something similar is going on down there.
Robots take the elevator while Bridge ports the others down to the cafeteria. In the blacked-out hallway they find Audra Blue unconscious. Seems she was knocked back into the wall pretty hard and took about 9 BODY of damage plus a lot of STUN. Also in the hall is a naked man, drawing on the wall and muttering all sorts of incoherent and/or unexplainable things.
A steambot initiates combat by grabbing him. At that point he uses his wireless version of Audra Blue's cyberkinesis to summon two of the base's security robots (a feature no one had seen yet). The bots really just tie up the two steam bots, because it seems Mr. Naked Guy can phase right through inorganic matter and he chooses to pass through the robots and go down to the cellar.
[Note: The inorganic matter trick is courtesy of Stonesphere, former member of the original Sentinels, whose DNA information was available in the base computers. In addition to his passing-through-matter trick, he lent to the situation a vulnerability to magic-based attacks. There's no 'magic' on his world.]
Naked Guy passed through the floor and headed for the Doctor's holding cell. The team scrambles to intercept.
Rift's find weakness manages to cut his foe's energy defense in half for the benefit of his energy blast attack. This is a good move, as when Naked guy makes it to The Doctor's cell, a strange synergy takes place; The occupying force that the Doctor has been desperately trying to keep buried exits him and moves into Naked Guy. By the way, Naked Guy is named "Alpha" and we'll get into that later. His Ego bounces up another 5pts, and a few powers increase (the mental ones) by a few dice, reaching their full amounts.
Most of the rest of the fighting involves Rift blasting him, robots grappling him, and Geoff Gardner trying to get in his way. His next move is to head back upstairs to the nearest computer (as there is none in that area downstairs) and dredge up some information. At one point he punches Geoff Gardner with the "oversized fist punch" of Mercury. With that power came Mecury's issues with Electricity. But you'd have only known that if you knew he had that problem.
He's picked up along with Audra Blue's cyberkinesis (wireless version) Audra's agoraphobia. He was going to have to go through the underground to escape; Something I gave him about an 80% chance of being able to do in my handicapping.
Note that the strange detachment from reality he experienced at times was courtesy of Orland's DNA. With that he also had his spatial awareness. In this version of this disad/power combo, he could seed things coming but couldn't always interpret their significance until they hurt him. Then he'd snap into reality.
Off of the computers upstairs he manages to pull up information on the sewer plans below.
In the end, when he discovers he needs to get out now and will kick in his best escape powers, he's run into a Catch 22: He's in the grasp of a steambot. If he uses his mental powers to disable Rift, the Robots will crush the last couple STUN from his body. If he targets the robots, that's a physical action and his place moves down the order behind Rift, who can then blast those last couple STUN from him.
The combo of robots and rift manage to knock him out twice but he's brought back by having a free round to recover and a post segment 12 recovery. The third time's the charm as they bludgeon him into unconsciousness and deliver him unto PRIMUS who have shown up outside and are trying to figure out how to enter.
The team head back to the rig and meet with the incoming Japanese. They meet Akitsumikami (Aki—tsu—mi—kami), specifically the 17th incarnation of the Japanese hero called "Manifest Kami" or "Spirit which has appeared in reality", and his sidekick, the very lovely but mute Geisha. He's very hospitable, meets the duo, and accepts the handoff. At the same time, he picks up the Japanese villains captured last game. In return he hands two folders of information which are in Japanese.
They are declassified information about a Japanese sighting of the sub the team recovered underwater two games ago. Apparently it was spotted in 1942 delivering Germans to a meeting of Axis powers and was commanded by a primarily English speaking man.
The second file is about a man named Henri Le Coeur, a Zoologist who is probably the third link in the "genetic information sharing" between Dr. Bond and Dr. Tewelleker. The characters find out that he's a Zoologist and that he was sought by the Japanese government for trying to procure $2 Million dollars in HXL (the power-causing chemical that only works on humans). Since it only works on humans, what could he possibly want if for as a zoologist? In any event, he was in Japan at that time, vacated and fled to South Africa. And while he could be anywhere, it's probable that he's taken up residence in one of three places where he could get HXL in quantity: Japan, China, or the U.S. The general opinion is that he failed in Japan, and China would never allow an outsider to buy such a thing from them.
The team met with Uncle Slam and found that "the Doctor" who recalls his name is Phil Swanson, has no powers any longer. They are in the very, very drugged "Alpha", so named because that was Dr. T's designation for the experiment that birthed him. He was a clone of "The Doctor", given all of the genetic advantages of those in the base whose DNA he could get his hands on. And a few of their disadvantages too.
The team now has the coordinates from Paragon of where the sub was brought down originally. It seems it was sunk in the Atlantic. Some discussion was made about going to look at the scene but nothing was decided. There was also discussion of investigating Aquan Industries (AI) because they fun Project Sea Life, and there are two members of that crew of freaks who are missing, and because there could be information there pertaining to the third geneticist, Le Coeur, but no move made. A brief search of the sewers was done, but that was just to reassure themselves that he was only looking for an escape route to get away underground (which he was) when Alpha called up that map on the display.
Sounds like a lot, and it sorta is, but it was only a half-day session.
Continued in [[Vol.2 Issue 5]]
@@GOD DAMN DIRTY APES!@@
>From Audra Blue's Personal Journal:
>I spent the last twenty four hours hooked in, running every circuit, monitoring every flicker of movement in the base and revising security. Without a huge infusion of cash I don't see a way to improve the interior security. The base seems to be getting back to normal, but that doesn't help with the feeling of being violated.
>
>I monitored a radio transmission into the base. Dr. Tewelleker made contact with the team. He better be under arrest for something. If they bring him back here they'll have to arrest me.
CAST:
Thok (Mark)
Vector (Terry)
Geoff Gardner (Alan)
B4 (Jeff).......... Early shift
Couch Potato (Joe).......... Late shift
On the heels of last game's fight with ALPHA, the creation of Dr. Tewelleker, the team are contacted by Dr. T. Here's a little timeline of events in the backstory...
*Dr. Tewelleker's scientific curiosity overcomes him when he's brought a sample by Rift to examine for markers for "mutation" or "superpowers".
*It appears to have DNA markers relevant to "Temporal Powers". As Rift is a time traveler, Dr. T decides to compare it against samples of Rift's DNA that he can find around the base.
*During his search he finds all kinds of DNA with markers. He knows what some should do and some he has no idea about as yet.
*He makes contact with other "fringe scientists", some of who hang around university bulletin boards and online forums. Two of these are:
**[[Dr. Bond]], the Sea Life Project scientist who is experimenting on fish, somewhat callously.
**[[Henri Le Coeur]], the Zoologist who is trying to "evolve" animals. Le Coeur has experience in cloning (mostly sheep), and has suggestions on how to create a specemin into whom Dr. T can implant the genes.
*Both scientists are of the opinion that Dr. T. is wasting his time with heroism when he should be raising an army of heroes.
*The team brings "The Doctor", the psychic who claims he is possessed by someone or something. Dr. T. now has the DNA of the greatest psychic in the known world at his disposal.
*He grows the individual in his lab. He brings him books when he discovers he's craving information, keeps him totally occupied that way. But his psychic power is growing. He can hear more of people's thoughts every day.
*ALPHA has the wireless version of Audra Blue's Cyberkinesis. He can reach out and intercept all of the messages sent electronically into and out of the base, including the warning from Dr. Bond. He misunderstands this as a message to destroy his projects (Alpha himself). He confronts Dr. T. who flees the base for his safety and to get help. Problem is, he finds the base has gone into lockdown because *Alpha has left the lab; Dr. T. can't get in.
*Dr. T. calls PRIMUS and notifies them, then backs off. He knows he's going to be blamed for this, and quite obviously he knows he's done something wrong, but he has difficulty understanding what to do next.
*Dr. T goes to Aquan Industries, the company who funds Sea Life Project, as they may have further notes on Dr. Bond's experiments AND they may have clues to the location of Henri Le Coeur. When he arrives, he discovers gunshots, and sees blood on a window on the inside. No one is going in or out.
And so he radios the base, lets them know something is happening, and then remains on scene, knowing that he may be arrested and waits.
The team show up and discover that the facility has been infiltrated by... Semi-intelligent monkeys in clothes, carrying weapons (Shotguns, Pistols, Flare guns, Concussion grenades). There are lots of civilians in the way. The team moves to grab them. The Steambots take out the doorways in order to get through. Wanting to do just as much destruction, B4 blasts a hole in the opposing wall and goes through. Vector clubs a few monkeys, Steambots grapple a few, Thok works the mental mojo, and a young woman appears. She's dressed as a pirate, with a wooden leg and a hook. In pirate-speak she instructs her monkeys to defend her.
B4 scans the radio frequencies and discovers that she's in communication with a frenchman.
The team takes down the girl (aka ~KoKo) and most of the monkeys, but when Koko recovers, she turns invisible and tries to escape. B4 manages to track her close enough for general directions, and the team pursues her into the basement where they become reacquainted with Nereid (the woman from Project Sea Life who escaped) and her one lone escapee helper, the ~Inviso-Shark. She is in a sub and B4's tricorder tells you there are two lifeforms on that craft.
Vector leaps across, desolidifies, and lands inside the cockpit next to Nereid. Thok teleports through the window and lands inside. Now 3 people are in a very small space in the cockpit. Vector grabs Nereid and in turn she sucks his END out, leaving him so that he injures himself nearly any time he tries to maintain his grip, due to the STUN damage you take for exerting yourself when you get below 0 END. Thok manages to stop and reverse the ship so if surfaces. ~KoKo can't seem to shoot anyone with her ray, which is too bad... It was a "De Evolution ray", and if it did enough BODY it would evolve people back to a primal version of themselves. Not sure what that would do to B4? Turn him into a toaster?
GG scalds ~Koko with steam power and B4 jumps into the water to rescue her. He's bitten for his troubles (to little damage). He tosses her onto land and is hauled ashore by GG. Thok detects that Nereid is using telepathy. The shark rams the weak spot on the sub and lets in water and with the water available, she can exercise her powers. Wisely, Vector gets out of that cramped space so he can recover some END. Thok gets out to safety. Nereid leaps out of the opening and is scalded by GG, but she manages to swim away with her last 4 STUN and her inviso-shark pet.
Thok investigates Koko's mind and discovers that they are there to procure a sub and take it out to rendezvous with Jormungander, which it seems is an enormous sub, or so she's been told. She's never seen it. She doesn't know the coordinates because they are programmed into the sub. She also knows that Henri Le Coeur is at Armitage Pharmaceuticals ripping off HXL.
FLASHBACK: The heroes were at Armitage in my original run of the campaign. Blackstar Brigade, the former Russian Militia soldiers in powered armor were there trying to rip off HXL, the superhero-producing drug, from Armitage. In that fight, Dr. T drove the team to the building and Orland was kidnapped by the soldiers who recognized him and called him "Rook". The team advised the Armitage folks "Beef up your security".
The team call in the new PRIMUS clean up team, a trio of women with metallic wings called The Furies, and they take custody of the defeated bad guys and secure the scene.
Well, their beefed up security has the HXL in the basement in a vault. By the time the team extracts the coordinates to meet Jormungander out of the wrecked sub and then makes their way to Armitage, the place is under seige. In the basement vault are more monkeys, only these have superpowers! And they are lead by Dr. Henri Le Coeur. They are: Mr. Wiggle (Stretching Monkey), Oz (Flying Monkey), Sonic Death Monkey (Chimp Singer, Elvis Lover), and Brutus (Brick and Professional Wrestling Aficionado).
Couch Potato is in for B4 by now.
A fight ensues. The most noteworthy events are:
*Mr. Wiggle wraps up Couch Potato in his rubbery body entangle, but Tater flies anyway and rams him into Dr. Le Coeur, who is in front a table full of HXL. The chemical spills and the man is transformed! All those monkey gene experiments he'd been experimenting with are finally kicked in! He changes into Kilgore, the apeman!
*A steambot takes a pretty good clawing from Oz, who does a razor clawed move-through. Steambot gets even by grappling him. The other bot mostly controls Brutus.
*Vector puts a solid beating on Kilgore/Le Coeur, but the monkey has a Kinetic Absorption power: The more you smack him the more it adds to his STR. His downfall really: My inability to hit anything! Because he also had a big sword of nastiness that puts quite a dent in the vault floor when it misses.
*Thok drops the same monkey twice. He's the "relief pitcher" of superheroes, showing up for the last out.
Eventually all are subdued through a truly solid whoopin' and lots of high damage rolls.
The team is contacted by Dr. T again. In my best terrible German accent, he tells them that he found a crate of goods to be delivered to Jormungander. It's a crate of... text books. History books, to be exact.
Doesn't make much sense, but the team puzzles over the idea. They look for hidden materials, code, etc. They're just "modern history". Really the last few hundred years. Occasionally one goes back further, but not too far.
The sub at A.I. is the same kind as they use at Project Sea Life. So the team 'ports out to PSL and borrows one. They go to the Rendezvous spot and wait.
Eventually there is sudden thunder and lightning and poof! A sub appears out of nowhere. It's 80" long (Over 500 ft) and bears a crimson swastika! Someone waves to the team from a high deck and Thok takes the opportunity to Mind Control him and have him call to anyone nearby that the crate is being sent up. A line comes over the side and the team rushes the deck.
Up top they find the line is being hauled in by an enormous shiney robot with a decidedly steampunk architecture. He's not a steambot, but he's got similar esthetics to the design. Perhaps and evolution of the design. There is another further down the deck, at attention. There are vintage bombers and fighters on this, the flight deck of the sub.
Soon the pad raises that is used to take planes between the above and below deck sections. On the platform are...
*Grendel, a wiry, over-muscled, speedy individual with enormous claws.
*Jaegrin, a pretty aryan blonde with a sword, rifle, and pistol.
*Schreckmacher, a man in a burnt, decidedly ruined uniform with two tanks on his back and a rifle attached there to.
Vector positions himself for a move through. The nearby robot tries to chuck one of GG's steambots overboard, but the bot can reel itself back up via stretching. And taking a cue from that robot, a steambot lits and tosses one of the shiney robots overboard. This works better. These are "Magnabots", with some pretty serious clinging ability to remain stuck to the hull, and waterproofing.
The team do an excellent job of defeating the Nazis. Couch Potato entangles one guy then knocks him so hard that he flies overboard. When he tries to retrieve the drowning fool, the guy tries to gas him. A gas attempt on Thok is foiled by his Life Support. Other highlights include a leap attempt to take out the levitating Thok, a series of successful abort blocks by Jaegrin of Vector, until she ran out of phases to block with and was walloped by a hit that did 10 BODY (Not everyone can sustain a high speed impact; Even villains.) The last act of the magnabot on board is to self-destruct if captured. He does just this, doing a 5D6K blast that nearly rolls maximum on BODY but only has the 1x STUN multiple. A few segments earlier a red flashing light and a claxon turned on.
As everyone climbs fully aboard the sub, it doesn't dive... instead there's a deafening (literally) clap of thunder and the sky is different. And there they are, under a new sky at dawn.
Continued in [[Vol.2 Issue 6]]
Warden Jacob Kenner was the caretaker for the [[Keep]] super prison. A religious man, he came to believe that the [[Black Pope]] was still the true pope and followed his teachings. At the behest of the Black Pope, he attempted execution of a prisoner they all knew to be at least partially innocent, feeling it would usher in judgement day.
It was all a ploy by [[Eldritch]] so he could get at certain prisoners of the Keep. The warden fled for his own safety and took with him a few pieces of villainous equipment which were kept in his office displayed like trophies.
He is currently at large.
[img[5th City|images/5th_citycoverpage-sm.jpg]]
Welcome to the 5th City Wiki. Your source for information about the 5th City campaign, the city of Lazarus, and various other bits of Champions lore as they relate to my campaign.
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The first woman to ever pitch in the pro's, she only lasted a few games due to folding under pressure and an absurd amount of wild pitches. Cast back to the minors, she was practicing before a game when she channelled all her rage into the pitch and managed to actually charge it with energy. The baseball exploded on impact, blowing up the backstop and nearly hurting the few people who were there that early. It seems her rage the was the catalyst for her powers.
Wildchild still resents the "shoddy treatment" she got from the Lazarus Prophets baseball team, and men in general. She feels she's been thrown out because it's an all boys club. This fixation on hatred of men has worked against her, as when in a confrontation with the [[Sentinels]], [[Billy Ray]] managed to divert her attention by baiting her with insulting comments about women.
Another [[Infinitum]] member, Zed is the slaver of women. His unbelievably good looks lure the women in and then he enslaves them.
He was encountered when the team tried to meet with the [[Materna]]. Zed had been using the [[Sentinels]] to track down the location of these women, who were his former slaves. He was promptly defeated and sent to The [[Keep]], where he existed until he was dispatched to his home dimension by [[Eldritch]] during the Sentinels' seige of the Keep.
A member of the [[Infinitum]], Zero appears as a figure in all gray, with "phase abilities", able to slightly move himself out of synch with our dimension.
During a baseball game, he and a team of hirelings battled the [[Sentinels]] and lost, but managed to achieve their objective, which was to kill the mutant [[Cipher]] who was present in the audience.
He has been banished from this dimension and likely is back on his home plane of existence.
A massive Godzilla-like creature from the hidden Monster Island off the coast of Japan who was transported first to Atlantis (where he caused damage) and then to the shore off of Lazarus, where he was subdued by the Sentinels in [[Vol.2 Issue 2]].
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