Avenger Assembled

For his part, Comrade Frost had been out walking as well. His time in Freedom City was coming to an end as the League prepared to rotate in another foreign observer, and he'd found himself with an odd desire to see more of the place before he left for another few decades. And so it was, as the bank descended into chaos, the former Soviet hero was simply drifting through the alleys nearby as a bank of icy fog. When he realized what was happening, he decided to get the attention of the beings inside and drifted around the bank to settle by the front door. The fellow out front in the strange costume looked trustworthy enough, so Frost formed back into his body - a short, white-and-blue clad man in a parka, and gave him a nod. A faint breath of icy cold spread around the thermovore, and magic cold and dead to Seth's second sight, as he spoke to the time-displaced magus. "Welcome to city, friend. I am Comrade Frost. Come, let us save those in need," his Russian accent thick as he spoke before he turned from Gloaming and headed straight for the building's front door.

Hmm - figuring that out should be something that is its own thread, CC. Go ahead and have her start solo here! =D I'll put in Comrade Frost as my PC for this thread, since he's the type to offer advice to inexperienced heroes. (Which is what will help a new player!)

APPROVED

http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4142097/ An injured, which I will take.

Put me down for one too, Elegy.

EDITED to add - other Refs, I'm going to be pretty preoccupied most of this week, so if you feel led to poke around here, feel free.

Yeah, let's give this one a go. APPROVED!

I would just go ahead and make it Enhanced Charisma in the Array, Elegy. Not only is Boost problematic in an array, it's problematic in general. Much easier to just have a set number you can use. The limited area on your Mind Reading works fine for me, as it allows for more drama when you _need_ to go in a larger area, and so do some stuntin'.

Ugh, what pitiful counts. Good thing some of these bad boys are getting retired! June 2013 Edge: > - Black Rainbow Citizen: > - Walking on Water Comrade Frost: > - Bricks of Babylon > - Here There Be Dragons > - Leaves in the Wind Harrier: > - The Sun Never Sets ------------------------ Fleur: > - Tea and Biscuits Wander: > - Grand Prix > - Black Rainbow Papercut: None! Miss Americana: > - The Man Who Fell to Earth

APPROVED

BType, before I banish this to the realm of wind and ghosts, did you decide to keep or drop this guy? I can't remember.

No serious issues with the backstory - the Blue (Man) Grue seem like a fine addition to canon. And it does fit the seeming tendency for even liberated Grue to have some issues with personal freedom. As far as the mechanics - What's the Descriptor on your Subtle 2 - only visible to people with the right mental sense? Slow Fade 5 is excessive. The idea behind the power itself is fine, but that kind of Will save is going to destroy most NPCs. Even with UP's adjustments to Drain, 1 or 2 hits shouldn't essentially take someone out of the fight. On the other hand, I think Staging may be weaker than you think. It seems inclined to make combat longer; which generally works out to being boring. Stun 16 (Extras: Sleep, Flaws: Action [Full], Feats: Extended Reach [10ft], Reversible, Subtle 2, Descriptors: Mind Control ["Sleep"], Psychic, Telepathy) [20PP] This appears to cost 36PP.

I like this concept a lot - I can tell you've put a lot of work into it! Kudos! I like the angle with the brother a lot. One thing to fix is that the Sustained Duration on Protection is just the power Force Field - is that what you wanted? If so, just make that Force Field 8.

I'm not going to lie, someone who actually has bothered to do their research on 17th century American colonial history is all right with me. (The fact that they moved north to what was then the New Netherlands as soon as it was conquered by the British is also all right with me, aw yeah) One thing you should do for the backstory is specify that the house is occupied by someone from its ancestral line for the first time in centuries, not that it's sat abandoned for that long - a house built in the scattered communities that became Freedom City a century later would be prime real estate - someone would have come by and knocked it down in the meantime and put a minimall there. Or a slaughterhouse, depending on what the neighborhood looks like these days. Or MAYBE the house went with him into the other dimension - and that's why it's weird! A 17th century house just popping into, say, a vacant lot would be a cool image, and a fun source of complications. Mechanics are mostly fine. You do not actually need Comprehend Languages to go with Mind Reading (which is one of the two base powers of Telepathy), as by default you can read the mind of anyone with a language. His Telepathy is powerful - do you need him able to talk to people anywhere in the world?

Packing Peter off for transport proved to be easy enough despite the many hassles, some small and some very big indeed, that the day had thrown Miss Americana. The hospital staff, looking suitably chastened at the sudden outbreak of madness in their chief doctor, efficiently assisted with the procedure, working side by side with their Freedom City colleagues. Within mere minutes of Miss A's return to the hospital, her brother was packed up, still unconscious, aboard a rented ambulance and headed back towards the Archetech plane that would take them all back to Freedom City. Steve wanted to be there for Miss A, offering the kind of comfort he'd have given Gina in a real emotional crisis, but at the same time he knew how she was on those crises. She preferred to handle those disasters alone. Lacking the communications programming, or powers, that had allowed for a secret conversation between Miss Americana and Cavalier, he simply stood as still as a statue until Miss Americana returned from the hospital. When she returned to the parking lot, he spoke, doing his best to sound like an armored knight. "I suggest we begin at either ye warehouse of goods where thy lost item may be, or yon crash site. I landed there first," he admitted, "a quiet enough scene. The technicians are surely still there." He'd gotten the same message broadcast by Cavalier too, even if he lacked the ability to respond - luckily his first assumption when it came to unknown cosmic threats had seemingly not come true. There was only one creature of the Terminus here.

Miss Americana notices that the handwriting on the note is uniform - both signatures were clearly done by the same hand, even using the same pen. What's really surprising is that it's clearly (for his sister, anyway) - Peter's handwriting.

I need Notice checks from Miss Americana and Cavalier - what's the DC? Oh, you'll find out, oh my yes.

Caradoc stared at Miss Americana, his head cocked like a puzzled cocker spaniel's. "....what?" he asked, genuinely baffled by her words. Speaking in his own low voice, he murmured, "I told you, I came here to bring the alien artifacts back to HAX, and I..." About to press her on exactly what she meant by 'family,' Steve abruptly trailed off and said no more. He knew how important privacy was to Gina. He was beginning to suspect that whatever he'd stumbled onto here had nothing to do with the Grue wreck at all, or at least very little indeed. Whatever secret from his lover's past he'd stumbled onto, this was obviously no time to pry into it. "Iwill go, but there is something very strange in this town, it is...wrong." Meanwhile, Cavalier's armor beeped with an internal message for him - another Grue message had been dispatched on the frequency he'd been monitoring, one that only he'd evidently been able to pick up. This was an automated message - a warning _not_ to respond to the previous distress signal, a sign of a threat so great that it would endanger any Unity vessel that came across it! This was the sort of signal sent when a Unity vessel was attacked by one of those one-off cosmic threats in deep space like the Light of Truth or the Communion, not the sort that usually accompanied battles with the Star Knights or more terrestrial heroes. (At the same time, Miss A's communication equipment beeped with a signal from the engineering team - they were definitely tracking a Grue signal from somewhere beneath the river, albeit one they hadn't been able to track down on their own.) Deputy Erlanger returned with a faxed release for transport and treatment signed by Linda Evans and countersigned by her regular family doctor - authorizing that Peter Evans be taken to Freedom City and his care be handed over to Miss Americana and her team of physicians as soon as possible. "Welp, glad we could get that taken care of for you, Miss A," the deputy offered. "We'll make sure ol' Pete gets the help he needs, and handle the family for you too. We know how important they are to him."

Steve had long since learned to weather Gina's bad moods, but this seemed like something different. Something bizarre, just like everything else about this strange town. He didn't press the issue with her, instead walking a few steps away and studying the situation in which they were embedded. "We could get somebody to help us get rid of that dang Grue stuff," said one of the deputies with a shrug in Cavalier's direction. "It's been nothing but trouble since it got here," another deputy agreed. They all were giving Caradoc decidedly hostile looks, evidently motivated by the anger Miss A was projecting in his direction. For his part, Caradoc seemed to be watching Miss A, though it was hard to tell with his nearly featureless armored head. "Sure thing, Miss A," said Erlanger affably, having trotted down out of the building to join the flying heroine. He raised his radio to his lips and had a conversation with another deputy about getting that material faxed over pronto. He headed into the hospital to pick it up from their fax machine, and at this juncture Caradoc hazarded something he and Gina had worked out months earlier. Dropping all pretense of the medieval character, he said, "I heard it might rain tomorrow."

Comrade Frost took a root in his pale white hand and began to pull, relaxing the constraints inside his body that prevented him from draining everything around him. He felt the heat drain from the Green God's body into his own, ice beginning to puddle and spread at his feet as the temperature in the cave around him dropped perceptibly. With no need to breathe and without a body to get tired, the Russian cold controller could stay down there sucking the life from the monster's body forever. Better not do that, though. he thought with a smile as his eyes glowed red in the darkness. As the breath of his allies began to fog up, Frost didn't speak, instead thrusting his hand deeper into the hole left behind by the collapsing root, feeling the very stuff of the Green God writhe and wriggle as he drained it away. Sometimes it was very good to be him.

"...I came because of the rumors of Grue activity in this area," said Caradoc, blatantly lying and nearly falling out of character before adding, "ye fair maid." Steve knew perfectly well when Gina was mad through the robot - this was none of the carefully feigned dudgeon that she sometimes projected through the robot; this was anger, and fear at the sight of him! What was going on in this bizarre place? Despite the glare that nearly had the same force as her lasers, he bore up underneath it. "Yon area is most unlike fair Freedom!" He'd have gone on, but not with the police still staring at him. "How is Peter Evans? Do we need to take him to Freedom City?" For that serious matter, he didn't bother with the 'character' of Caradoc at all. With the news that these were actual superheroes, the police stepped back and left their weapons holstered. Thanks to their active radio signals, said heroes could hear Deputy Sanders check in with her commanding officer back at the county barracks, asking him to send out an APB to the Barnstormers about potential Grue activity right there in the heart of Cooper County! "Do you want me to call in Dr. Irons?" Deputy Erlanger was asking Miss A, having missed the full force of her reaction to the sight of Caradoc. "I think Suri sent him off to treat the family to get him out of the way. They were pretty shook up by all this."

Comrade Frost goes ahead and starts draining this guy's heat, like a BAWSS. http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4132334/ 19 DC 27 Tou save (non-lethal) if that does hit.

Miss Americana's sensors weren't the kind of finely-tuned detectors she could easily have whipped up in her own laboratory, but Dr. Suri certainly didn't look like a Grue. If he was a shapeshifter, he was a perfect imitation of a human being. This could have had multiple meanings, even as he continued muttering about how the Grue would one day rule the universe and that humans were just cattle for them, but he didn't seem to be trying to shapeshift his way out of her grip. Dr. Nicholai gave her a look and seemed to shake her head, glancing down suspiciously at the alleged infiltrator. Across the way, her medical staff were looking over her brother's readings with bafflement. "This EEG has been tampered with to read out another patient's information...it looks like the last patient in this room's recorded data," Dr. Winston, one of her staff, was saying. "...I can't get a clear readout," he finally said, shaking his head. "His vitals are fine, and he has standard responses for someone in his condition...but there's an interference pattern around his brain that looks almost..._electrical_!" "We've got two supers inbound," said Deputy Erlanger, the mustachioed guy Gina remembered, having pressed his radio to his ear and briefly stepped out of the room. "Two guys who look like they're in armor; neither of them's Sidewinder. Nobody we know. Deputy Sanders said they tried to stop an arrest, then tapped into our radio signals and started flying over here. Get out there and form a perimeter," he yelled at the deputies with him, "you expecting anybody, Miz Americana," he said, looking like he'd briefly lost his train of thought when he met her eyes. ----------- Caradoc took off after the Star Knight, not recognizing the armor but recognizing the look of it well enough. Grue could feign the look of the armor well enough, he supposed, but not the flight that he had to struggle to keep up with. "Yon town makes me uneasy!" he admitted, raising his oddly metallic voice over the sound of his shrieking jets. "There are too few people and they are too...quiet in their work. It is not as towns here should be...ye Knight of the Stars." The encounter with the deputy, who had looked so cooly and so oddly at his transformation had rattled him more than he wanted to admit. As they headed for the hospital, the distant siren of the deputy's police car, he did his best to fall back into character, his armor thunking heavily as they landed on the blacktop outside. The deputy who'd been following them screeched to a halt not far away, her lights still flashing, and several more armed officers left the complex and headed straight for the two heroes, looking like they meant business.

Looking for magic-related advice in particular. PL: 12 (180) Abilities: 2 + 6 + 6 + 0 + 4 + 6 = 24PP STR 12 (+1) DEX 16 (+3) CON 16 (+3) INT 10 (+0 WIS 14 (+2) CHA 16 (+3) Combat: 12 + 12 = 24PP ATK: +6 (+8 Magic/+10 Speedster Array) DEF: +17 (+6 Base, +5 Dodge, +4 Enhanced Dodge, +2 Shield) Init: +3/+23 with Speedster Powers Grapple: +7/+36 w/Move Object Saves: 2 + 7 + 5 = 14PP TOU +7 (+3 Con, +2 Defensive Roll, +2 Protection) FORT +5 (+3 Con, +2) REF +10 (+3 Dex, +7) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 40 r = 10 pp Bluff 7 (+10, SM) Disable Device 10 (+10, SM) Knowledge (History) 5 (+5) Notice 3 (+5) Sense Motive 8 (+10, SM) Stealth 7 (+10, SM) Feats: 11 pp Challenge (Fast Taunt) Dodge Focus 5 Evasion Move-By Action Skill Mastery (Bluff, Disable Device, Sense Motive, Stealth) Taunt Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 32 + 14 + 2 + 1 +1 + 42 + 1 + 3 = 97 pp Device 8 (40PP, Mystic Helm, Flaw: Hard to Lose) [32PP] Enhanced Skills 20 (Knowledge [Arcane Lore] 10 (+10), Knowledge [Theology and Philosophy] 10 (+10)) [5PP] Magic Array 27 (54PP, PFs: Accurate, Alternate Powers 5, Flaws: Action [Full], Side-Effect 2 [stun]) [24PP] BE: Blast 18 (mystic fire, Extra: Secondary Effect) {54/54} AP: Move Object 18 [Effective STR 90, Heavy Load 3,200 tons] (mystic winds, Extra: Range [Perception]) {54/54} AP: Nullify All Magic 18 (mystic curse, Extra: Duration [sustained]) {54/54} AP: Snare 18 (mystic binding, Extra: Regenerating) {54/54} AP: Stun 18 (mystic lightning, Extra: Area [Targeted, Shapeable]) {54/54} AP: Trip 18 (mystic earthquake, Extras: Area [90 ft. General Burst], Duration [sustained]) {54/54} Protection 2 [2PP] Shield 2 [2PP] Super-Senses 7 (Detect Magic 3 [mental], Enhancements: Acute, Analytical, Radius, Ranged) [7PP] Enhanced Feats 14 (Defensive Roll, Dodge Focus 4, Evasion, Fast Overrun, Improved Initiative 5, Improved Overrun, Instant Up) [14PP] Immunity 2 (aging, temporal effects) [2PP] Quickness 1 (x2) [1PP] Speed 1 (10 MPH/100 feet per move action) [1PP] Speedster Array 19 (38pp, PFs: Accurate 2, Alternate Power 2) [42PP] BE: Enhanced Speed 9 [to Speed 10 (10,000 MPH/100,000 feet per move action)] (Extra: Affects Others 10) + Enhanced Quickness 9 [To Quickness 10 (x5000)] (Extra: Affects Others 10) {19+19=38} AP: Damage 10 (Extras: Area [Targeted, Shapeable], Selective) {30/38} AP: Damage 10 (Extras: Autofire, Secondary Effect) {30/38} AP: Feature 37 (Buys off Action and Side-Effect Flaw on Magic) {37/38} Super-Movement 1 (Water-Walking, Flaw: Limited [Only While Running]) [1PP] Super-Senses 1 (Communications Link 3 [Hologram, Thoughtspeed, X]) [3PP] costs abilities 24 + combat 24 + saves 14 + skills 10/40 + feats 11 + powers 97 = 180 pts

Dr. Suri's speech came almost entirely from Invasion of the Body Snatchers - both the 1956 version and the lesser-known 1978 version.