Avenger Assembled

At Midnight's words, the mass of cockroaches suddenly rose up some twelve feet high in an impossible cohesion of writhing insect bodies. The Claremont students were all familiar with Freedom City's Collective, but that irradiated colony had never formed into a humanoid body with six limbs and writhing antennae, but a too-human face, all made of writhing, wriggling insects. In a hissing, inhuman voice, the cockroach creature snarled, "WE KNOW YOUR FAZEZ. FROM THE OLD HIZTORY. YOU WILL NOT KEEP UZ FROM OUR DEZTINY! THE COLONY WILL BE REBORN!" "What colony?" demanded Mark, dodging a swipe of a massive limb: evidently the creature didn't take well to him squashing one of its members. "What are you?" "CHILDREN OF A WORLD NOW GONE! IT WAS YOUR DEAZ THAT GAVE UZ OUR LIVEZ! BUT IF WE CANNOT HAVE OUR HIZTORY, WE WILL HAVE YOURZ!" Mark didn't like the sound of that one bit, so he concentrated on leading his team and not on worrying about the hideous monster to his front. "Sorry, Colony, but I'm afraid Freedom City already has a radioactive cockroach swarm," he taunted, dodging another swipe. "Thank you for your time, and we will keep your resume on file!" He looked back at the others. "C'mon, people, it's a giant cockroach swarm trying to nuke our history and take over! Help me out here!"

T'Challa wasn't the first hero to wear the Black Panther's symbol...

"Just the popcorn, then. I should be an equal partner in...our date." There was something exotic and novel about the words, for all that he was speaking of a concept with which he had only a very limited familiarity. With the work done and a date made, Harrier headed for the door, feeling a strange, slightly giddy sensation at the idea that he had a date: he had one of those things normal people had that he'd coveted for so long. I have never been on a date, I have only seen them on television...I should speak to people about this. It had been a while since he'd been in touch with Jack of all Blades, perhaps he could offer some advice, or maybe Gabriel. Not that he'd reveal anything about Gina or their relationship, of course, but the two men did seem to be successful with women. "I will see you then, Miss Americana," he said seriously at the door, back in his fleshly disguise with his armor safely tucked away. And for a moment, the words seemed to blot out the voices in his head. It was nice to have the moment.

She hadn't had a chance to see much of the people yet, but Gal Vanic certainly got a feel for the city as she flew past the massive super-structures that made up architecture in Tronik: the electronic faces of the militia officers cast some fifty stories high or more as she flew by, flickering slightly as they announced the security lockdown that had evidently gotten rid of all those black-clad people on the streets. Even so, when she passed close by windows set to transparent she could see the sheer volume of simulated humanity inside: this number of people couldn't all be on top of each other without something going wrong in a hurry! When she reached Cobalt Templar on the roof of the vast militia building, the great tower still swarming with troops and big guns, he'd just reached the roof himself, still escorted by several black-suited officers and carrying the black sphere that seemed to glimmer with such terrible power. They'd been grimly silent on the way up, answering questions in monosyllables and watching Corbin impassively through their faceplates. Gal Vanic certainly got their attention, but in the crisis they faced they simply raised their guns without actually aiming them at her. It was a good day. "" Leroj's voice sounded genuinely concerned. "" He spoke as if he'd never left, and only in Corbin's ears.

Suitably chastened by the near miss they'd all just had, Citizen concentrated not on the villain Wraith was suitably intimidating but instead on scouting ahead. He still had his technopathic abilities even here, and so within seconds he'd scanned the plankton processing center that was his and Wraith's planned destination. By the time the shapeshifter was done cowering from Kinigosian wrath, indeed slinking towards the hole they'd made in the side of the massive sector tower as if to jump off and away, he had enough to tell Wraith. "All right, the plankton center's deserted; it looks like they chased out the workers and somebody overturned a militia carrier in the main entryway..." As he picked up Wraith for the flight, he described the ten story building to her, its bulk making it a veritable piker in this city of sky-concealing towers. "But there's a blank spot in one of the ships at the dock I can't penetrate. That's got to be where Rogue and the others are; they're the only people here who'd be able to block me. They're big ships by Earth standards, as big as one of their supertankers, with a magnetic scoop down below and processing tanks and autofacs above. Suggestions?" he asked of Wraith as they got close to the comparatively low-slung, squat factory; the sharply acid scent of Tronik's nearly dead seas in their nostrils as they left the city behind for the flat, green-grey oceanshore, even the sea darkened by the massive buildings above.

"Wait, what people?" Papercut's words struck home for the electronic pirate; Freebooter sounded genuinely concerned. "...they are sentient." Freebooter swore, angry enough to curse both in pirate talk and what sounded to Sage and Papercut like hacker-speak. "I was assured by my now former employer that this was just a sophisticated mockup of a Lor city, one where the Freedom League could do training runs without hurting any real people." The kids could see him flex his muscles inside the box, as if testing his restraints. "But if there are real AIs here...that's why they were going to blow it. I guess the Foundry's serious about race traitors after all. And the stupid fleshbag working with them." He took a breath. "Listen, I'll level with you. I'm here working for the Foundry. Not my usual customers, but I'd wanted to get in with them for a while now, get in the door and see what they were doing, mix it up a little from the inside once they trust me, you know? I guess I won't get to brag to CK about getting in with them after all." He sighed. "Those programs manifesting as black spheres are annihilation devices. They'll crack the system mainframe wide open. I can tell you where the big one is. Rogue and the rest of the Foundry crew, that's Foxtrot, Xavon, and Haxor, are in Sector Three-Alpha-A-Boot-3," he rattled off another list of numbers, then translated it for the students as easily as one of their science teachers would. "which for you guys would be...the plankton factory. If you let me go, I'll make sure the backdoors in the system are all locked behind me, so the sentient programs in here can't get away. You kids go show those metal bastards how flesh and blood hacks a system."

"Yes, thank you," agreed Harrier. His own welfare had never been a high priority for him, but he was no less grateful for the ministrations. Negotiating with Miss Americana when the woman he wanted was on the other end would be tricky, but for all that he found it strangely comforting. His life in Freedom City required a mask even when he wasn't armored, hiding his true nature so he could survive day to day in a world that would otherwise have been impossible to manage. It was no strange thing, then, to know that Gina was doing the same thing. He gave her that flat, level look and said, "I would see you again," he went on, speaking through the gynoid to its operator. "The League will debrief me about today's events. On the weekend? I will bring a movie."

It is Red Hour! Festival! Festival! We hope to be around very late tomorrow or the day after.

Play with dualities: Changeling is pure magic, Citizen is pure science. Crow and Papercut are both gruff sneaky types with magic powers, though for very different reasons. Sage is a WWII legacy who has fought Overshadow, Myrmidon is a Wilhelm Kantor clone. Etc.

Edge (A Responsible Man) March 8 "It's okay, Mom," said Mark Lucas, his short blonde hair still immaculate even after the early-morning emergency that had pulled him out of West Africa and dispatched him to Freedom City along with other UNISON experts. He'd hated to use his influence as one of the most powerful metahumans working for the United Nations to get a slot on the highly limited Skype lines in and out of Freedom City, but a few hours of watching powers erupt across the city, and people suffering and dying, with the savage images of his friends and family superimposed over those same pictures, was enough to break his resolve. At least about this. He sat on his folded plastic seat and peered at the laptop screen that displayed his mother's pale face. "Raising the dead as a superpower isn't that weird, really, and at least you didn't, you know, with the hedge clippers again..." He coughed. "Anyway, we're working on a cure, and so are the smartest people in Freedom City..." March 9 Mark listened, hands white on the table along with the other UNISON agents, as a serious-faced Captain Thunder recounted Daedalus' transformation over their livefeed to the still-smoking Freedom Hall. "And we're sure it can't have been Hades? I mean, it's got to mean something he turned into a fire vampire..." From the looks everyone shot him, evidently it didn't, and Mark shut up nervously as the others went back to talking, not for the first time feeling his age among all these veteran agents. He had endless bounds of optimism, sure; Freedom City and its people would come through this crisis intact, but this wasn't like fighting the Grue. This was more like the Terminus Invasion, an insidious threat that had suddenly become murderous and terrifying all at once... March 10 "No, Mom, I don't think Dad's coming back," said Mark, putting his hands on the picture now. "He's not even in this dimensional axis, and you probably shouldn't push those powers anymore than you already have." Indeed, it was probably for the best there were bigger crises in Freedom City than what was going on in suburban Ashton. "This is a really bad situation, but we all have to buckle down and get through. Trust me, I was right about the League not all burning up in the fire, wasn't I?" He smiled, and it was a perfect, confident smile, the sort even his mother would believe. "We're going to get through this. We're going to save the day, and we're going to save everybody." March 11 Mark put his head down on the desk as soon as he was done with the call to Midnight Manor, having learned the fates of the others in the Liberty League as best as they could tell him. He told himself it didn't matter that they'd been changed, that they were just sick the way everyone else was, but alone in the dark he had to remind himself to keep faith. And he did have faith, damn it. They'd already come through so much in so short a time, surely some little bug released by some no-name skell wasn't going to bring them down. They were going to get through this. March 12 "All right," said Mark, snapping off orders to the young crop of local volunteers they'd recruited: locals who'd been outside Freedom City when the big walls had gone up and who had the same interest they all did, no, more, in making sure their families on the inside stayed safe. "We'll be passing our supplies through at the weak spot in Lonely Point." He'd worked all night making the food and medicine going into the city, and his goggles hid eyes gone bloodshot from lack of sleep. "Make sure your hazmat suits stay on at all times. We will not be the vectors for this hurting more people." The disaster on the Wading River when that tour boat had rammed the quarantine wall had more than convinced him of that. At least the local heroes had stepped in to save lives, even with their own transformation. March 13 "I can't go in, Mom," said Mark, rubbing his eyes as they shared another phone call. "You know as well as I do that I can't. Even with the fields up, if I get sick in there, sick in the head like happened to Chase Atom," he'd watched that particular battle with horror, and his mom had had a front row seat when she'd gone into town to help distribute supplies along with people from their church, "with my powers I could rip right through the nullifying walls and go anywhere I wanted. And that could kill the world. I can't...I can't do it, not even for you or my friends in there. I'm sorry, Mom..." March 15 Mark cornered Agent Y as the UNISON office was packing to leave. The Alphabet officer wasn't in his direct chain of command, but he was the nearest superior officer still on scene. Despite going 72 hours without sleep, particularly after frantically helping produce the cure the heroes of Freedom had found, Mark Mason Lucas was neatly pressed and looked impeccable as he handed over his papers. "Agent Y, I'd like to request permanent assignment to the UNISON office in Freedom City..."

Mockingjay PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 32 pp STR 16 (+3) DEX 24 (+7) CON 16 (+3) INT 12 (+1) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 30 pp ATK: +8 (+9 Ranged, +15 Bows) DEF: +11 (+3 flat-footed) Initiative: +15 Grapple: +12 Saves: 13 pp TOU +9 (+3 Con, +4 Costume, +2 Defensive Roll) FORT +7 (+3 Con, +4) REF +11 (+7 Dex, +4) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 88 r=22 pp Acrobatics 7 (+14, Skill Mastery) Climb 12 (+15, Skill Mastery) Craft (structural) 4 (+5) Knowledge (Life Sciences) 4 (+5) Medicine 8 (+10) Notice 13 (+15, Skill Mastery) Sense Motive 13 (+15) Stealth 13 (+20, Skill Mastery) Survival 13 (+15) Feats: 30 pp Accurate Attack Acrobatic Bluff Attak Focus (Ranged) 1 Attack Specialization (Bows) 3 Challenge 2 (Accelerated Climb, Acrobatic Bluff) Defensive Roll Dodge Focus 4 Evasion Hide in Plain Sight Improved Crit 2 (bows) Improved Initiative 2 Luck Move-By Action Power Attack Second Chance 2 (Sense Motive checks, Survival checks) Skill Mastery (Acrobatics, Climb, Notice, Stealth) Takedown Attack Track 3 [full speed/visual] Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 23 pp Device 1 (Mockingjay Costume, Hard to Lose) [4 pp] Enhanced Feat 1 [second Chance (TOU saves vs. fire)] [1dp] Protection 4 [4dp] Device 1 (Targeting Reticule, Hard to Lose) [4 pp] Super-Senses 5 (Darkvision, Extended Vision 3 [x1000]) [5dp] Device 5 (Custom Bow and Arrow, Easy to Lose) [15 pp] Bow Array 7.1 (15 pp, PFs: Alternate Powers 5, Improved Range 3 [5000 ft], Variable Descriptor 2 [technological]) [25dp] BE: Blast 5 (Extra: Autofire) AP: Blast 5 (Extra: Secondary Effect) AP: Blast 5 (Extra: Targeted Area [shapeable]) AP: Blast 2 (PFs: Mighty 3, Precise, Ranged Pin, Ricochet, Split Attack [2 targets]) AP: Disintegrate 5 (Flaw: Vs. Machines Only [-2]) AP: Speed 1 (10 MPH) and Super-Movement 4 (Slow Fall, Swinging, Wall-Crawling 2) costs abilities 32 + combat 30 + saves 13 + skills 22/88 + feats 30 + powers 23 = 150 pts --------------------------- Design Notes: Here's my build for Katniss Everdeen, the heroine of Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games trilogy. This build represents Katniss around the time of the third book, when she's been equipped with high-tech weapons and armor and deployed on a futuristic battlefield. She doesn't have the versatility of most comic book archers, but she can pull off most of the tricks she pulls off the novels, including the fire arrows that are something of her signature weapon. She's also got her force field killer, her explosion arrows, and just really really sharp ones in there too. (To build Katniss near her starting weight, drop the armored costume and give her an equipment bow). In the post-apocalyptic world of Panem, the successor state of the modern era in what was once North America, Katniss is a native of Appalachia: the proverbial coal miner's daughter who feeds what's left of her family by illegal hunting with bow and arrow: a skill that comes in handy when she's conscripted into the yearly Hunger Games, where children of the districts of Panem are forced to fight to the death as part of a tournament broadcast to the rest of the nation as a way of showing the power of the state. (If that seems unrealistically brutal, well, Panem's inability to bend to pressure is a running theme in the novels; they're great at brutality, but they don't have a lot else in their toolkit) Katniss is more focused on rural adventures than your typical archer, as befits her background. She's a world-class hunter and tracker, easily capable of chasing her targets down at full speed, or climbing a tree and making a sniper's nest of it. Her big weakness is melee; if she is deprived of her bow for some reason, she drops to PL 5.5 offensively and will have to use stealth and clever tactics to take down bigger prey. (She does have Takedown Attack, though, so she's not helpless if forced into melee). she lacks interaction skills and has rock-botton Charisma, but that's a running theme of the novels. (Her inability to speak spontaneously without significant circumstance bonuses recurs again and again). She's got just enough Medicine to do the first aid we see her doing in the novel, and is familiar with the plants of her native terrain to get by. This could work fine as a rural heroine, perhaps the native hero of West Virginia or some similar setting, forced to do her work in Freedom City to track down some enemy. But she could also be someone from a post-apocalyptic setting like Katniss herself, using the cobbled-together remains of the technology of the old world to survive in the new one. If you want to make a world like Panem for her to be from, I've often thought it would work fine as one of the Hundred Worlds of the Terminus...

Okay, finally able to look at threads for a little bit! That does hit. I'll say it staggers the ship (since it's Equipment, technically it would pretty heavily skidoosh, but things should stay interesting...) Go ahead and post IC, JP

Dok Brown'd As he is unique in the multiverse, Harrier needs: Feature 1 (Temporal Inertia) [1 pp] Dok Brown'd

We found a new place, but this is moving crunch time.

Microkinetic PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 14 pp STR 10 (+0) DEX 12 (+1) CON 16 (+3) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 12 (+1) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Microkinesis) DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +1 Grapple: +6 Saves: 16 pp TOU +8 (+3 Con, +5 Force Field) FORT +6 (+3 Con, +3) REF +6 (+1 Dex, +5) WILL +10 (+2 Wis, +8) Skills: 80 r=20 pp Concentration 11 (+13) Disable Device 15 (+15, Skill Mastery) Knowledge (Life Sciences) 6 (+6) Medicine 13 (+15, Skill Mastery) Notice 13 (+15, Skill Mastery) Sense Motive 13 (+15, Skill Mastery) Stealth 9 (+10, Skill Mastery) Feats: 6 pp Luck Move-By Action Power Attack Second Chance (Concentration checks) Skill Mastery (Disable Device, Medicine, Notice, Sense Motive) Ultimate Save (Will) Powers: 70 pp Microkinesis Array 15 (PFs: Accurate 2, Alternate Powers 5, Precise, Subtle) [39 pp] Blast 10 (Extra: Alternate Save [Fortitude]) 'pinching something vital' AP: Blast 10 (Extra: Autofire) 'bombardment of many small projectiles' AP: Blast 10 (Extra: Penetrating) 'single very sharp projectile' AP: Paralyze 10 (Extras: Alternate Save [Fortitude], Ranged) 'pinching a nerve' AP: Stun 10 (Extra: Ranged) 'blocking a vein' Force Field 5 [5 pp] Leaping 1 (x2) [1 pp] Move Object 2 (Heavy Load: 100 lbs) (Extras: Damaging, Range [Perception], PFs: Precise, Subtle) [10 pp] Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] Shield 6 [6 pp] Super-Senses 6 (Tactile [Ranged Penetrates Concealment], Uncanny Dodge [tactile]) 'TK sense' [6 pp] costs abilities 14 + combat 24 + saves 16 + skills 20/80 + feats 6 + powers 70 = 150 pts ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Design Notes: Most telekinetic builds in comics are macrokinetics; paragons like Superboy, powerful psions like Jean Grey, or otherwise characters who can move huge things in a hurry. This lady's powers work differently; try as she might, she's never moved beyond the stage of moving small objects around. Her Move Object is about as strong as a normal human's strength, which means she's got enough power to carry a decent-sized person around with effort, or drag a bulky one out of a burning building. She can break windows with it if she has to, and she can't miss with it. She can't even fly; she's stuck with boosting her running and jumping with telekinetic pushes. While she can stop bullets and dodge them, she's not the heavy hitter most of her counterparts are. But that's okay, because if other telekinetics are hammers, she's a knife. She can pick up small objects and hurl them as fast as bullets, or she can hurl one particular projectile at super-sonic speed. (I'd give her a pocket full of ball bearings as part of her costume, and throw in a debris required complication elsewhere) More ominously, she can reach inside the human body and do things there: crushing muscle and compressing nerves, pinching blood vessels to produce fainting spells or knocking them out entirely. She doesn't have Perception on her Microkinetic Array because it requires precision; she can't hit a moving target automatically when she's reaching out to grab veins and nerves. She's actually quite dangerous versus most other psychics, whose use of Fortitude as a dump stat will work against them versus her. I've built her as a reasonably competent community doctor; perhaps she's a mutant who turned her ability to reach inside the body towards professional ends as a surgeon, or maybe she unlocked these abilities in herself after testing a psychic serum on her own body when no other scientific test subjects presented themselves. Or maybe she took a blow to the head during a super-battle in the ER! She also makes a fine villain if you want, a serious surprise for other psychics who may not expect to be attacked not in their minds, but in their very brains...

Armored Sorcerer PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 22 pp STR 10 (+0) DEX 10 (+0) CON 14 (+2) INT 24 (+7) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 16 pp ATK: +4 (+10 Ranged in Suit) DEF: +4 (+10 in suit/+2 flat-footed) Grapple: +4/+14 Move Object [+20 Move Object in suit] Init: +0 Saves: 16 pp TOU +10 (+2 Con, +8 Force Field) FORT +5 (+2 Con, +3) REF +5 (+0 Dex, +5) WILL +10 (+2 Wis, +8) Skills: 64 r=16 pp Craft [artistic] 8 (+15, Skill Mastery) Craft [electronic] 8 (+15, Skill Mastery) Craft [mechanical] 8 (+15, Skill Mastery) Concentration 5 (+7) Intimidate 10 (+10, Skill Mastery) Language 1 (Latin; Base: English) Knowledge [arcane lore] 8 (+15, Skill Mastery) Knowledge [technology] 8 (+15, Skill Mastery) Notice 4 (+6, Skill Mastery) Sense Motive 4 (+6, Skill Mastery) Feats: 8 pp Artificer Beginner's Luck Eidetic Memory Jack of all Trades Inventor Ritualist Skill Mastery 2 (Craft [artistic], Craft [electronic], Craft [mechanical], Intimidate, Knowledge [arcane lore], Knowledge [technology], Notice, Sense Motive) Powers: 57 pp Device 11 (Power Armor, Hard to Lose) (PF: Restricted [voiceprint]) [45 pp] Enhanced Feats 6 (Attack Focus [Ranged] 6) [6dp] Enhanced Flight 2 (to Flight 3 [50 MPH]) [4dp] Feature 12 (Buys Off Action Flaw and Distracting Drawback on Magic) [12dp] Feature 12 (Adds Impervious Extra to Force Field, Buys Off Dodge Bonus Flaw) [12dp] Immunity 9 (Life Support) [9dp] Shield 6 [6dp] Super-Senses 6 (Accurate Extended Radio Sense, Danger Sense [radio], Uncanny Dodge [radio]) [6dp] Mystic Array 11 (PFs: Alternate Power 5, Flaws: Action [Full], Drawback: Distracting to Change Configuration [-2]) [15 pp] BE: Blast 10 (PFs: Indirect 2) 'lightning' AP: Dazzle 10 (visual) (PFs: Indirect, Longer-Lasting [5 rounds]) 'fire-flash' AP: ESP 10 (Earth to Moon) (visual) (PFs: Rapid [x10], Subtle) 'scrying' AP: Move Object 10 (Heavy Load: 12 tons) (PFs: Indirect, Precise) 'mighty winds' AP: Snare 10 (PFs: Indirect, Reversible) 'ice bonds' AP: Teleport 10 (1000 ft/Earth to Moon) (PFs: Easy, Turnabout) 'mystic travel' Flight 1 (10 MPH) [2 pp] Force Field 8 (Flaw: Not When Flat-Footed) [4 pp] Quickness 6 (x100) (Flaw: Limited [Mental Tasks]) [3 pp] Super-Senses 3 (Detect Magic 3 [visual]) [3 pp] costs abilities 22 + combat 16 + saves 16 + skills 16/64 + feats 8 + powers 57 = 150 pts -------------------------------------------------------------- Design Notes: Prompted by a conversation in chat the other night, here's my build for an armored sorcerer, a master of both science and magic! My concept is that this was a wealthy inventor and industrialist whose plane was shot down while flying over the Himalayas; his rescuers were mystics from Shambala Vale who recognized the heroic soul in the man they saved: they tended his injuries, helped him escape the demons of his past (like alcoholism and womanizing, well, not so much the womanizing) and taught him the mystic arts! He proved a slow study despite his genius, though he proved to have the innate nature required to work magic, his technological and scientific training made it tough for him to reconcile the mystic arts and his scientific training. Rather than abandon one for the other, working alone with the scraps of his plane, he built a powerful suit of armor that let him do both: now wrapped in science and magic, he has returned home to America to fight for what's right in both worlds! He's a decent PL 7 mystic with an elemental theme without his armor, but the armor makes him much better at his work: its quick processing time makes it easier for him to make the arcane calculations for his spells, while its built-in mechanical and electronic protection makes him much tougher in a fight: the combat computer built in also makes him a much better shot! If his mystic powers are nullified, he has a lot of circuits in the armor to stunt a Force Field or Blast off of, or he can just fly away on his boot jets while his armor shields him from some enemy attacks. (He's PL 5 defensively without his magic powers and in the armor) He's also very very smart, much more so than most mystics, and his Eidetic Memory, Beginner's Luck, and Jack of all Trades means he can just about try his hand at anything as needed. You could rework the sheet to make him PL 10 with magic and science both, but I think that's a little cheesy, plus way expensive! Season to taste; this guy has a fairly generic set of abilities that could easily be swapped out for one of the mystic styles in Doc's or Trollthumper's threads. He's not terribly socially savvy, but he can do the "scary mystic" thing easily enough. He also doesn't have any money; perhaps he was declared legally dead and he's currently in the courts to get it back, or maybe his executor wasn't thrilled at her employer's new lifestyle and is holding money back to make sure he's not making a fool of himself. Or maybe he's abandoned such material pursuits for a higher, more spiritual calling now that he's in tune with the mystic fabric of the universe. Still, he should at least invest in a nice brownstone to hang his hat, maybe one with a workshop in the basement...

Hulking Powerhouse PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 6 pp STR 38/10 (14/+0) DEX 10 (+0) CON 24/10 (+7/+0) INT 20/10 (+5/+0) WIS 16 (+3) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 16 pp ATK: +4 (+6 melee) DEF: +12 (+2 flat-footed) [+6 (+2 flat-footed) when Hulked-Out] Init: +0 Grapple: +6/+25 Saves: 13 pp TOU +2 (+0 Con, +2 Defensive Roll) [+14 (+7 Con, +7 Protection) when Hulked-Out) FORT +4 (+0 Con, +4) [+11 (+7 Con, +4) when Hulked-Out)] REF +4 (+0 Dex, +4) WILL +8 (+3 Wis, +5) Skills: 12 r=3 pp Concentration 7 (+10) Notice 2 (+5) Sense Motive 2 (+5) Survival 1 (+4) Feats: 8 pp Attack Focus: Melee (2) Dodge Focus (2) Fearless Startle Takedown Attack Ultimate Check (Concentration) Powers: 104 pp Container 6 (Puny Human) (PF: Innate) (Drawback: Power Loss: When Hulked Out [-2]) [29 pp] Enhanced Feats 12 (Beginner's Luck, Defensive Roll, Dodge Focus 6, Eidetic Memory, Inventor, Jack of all Trades, Skill Mastery (Computers, Craft [Electronic], Craft [Mechanical], Knowledge [Technology]) [12] Enhanced INT 10(to INT 20/+5) [10] Enhanced Skills 32 (Craft (Electronic) 5 [+10], Craft (Mechanical) 5 [+10], Knowledge (Physical Sciences) 10 [+15], Knowledge (Technology) 5 [+10], Medicine 7 [+10]) [8] Alternate Form 15 (Sustained) (Hulkamania) [75 pp] Enhanced CON 14 (to CON 24/+7) [14] Enhanced Skills 3 (Intimidate 12 [+12]) [3] Enhanced STR 28 (to STR 38/+14) [28] Leaping 2 (x10) [2+1=3] AP: Speed 2 (25 MPH) Protection 7 (Extra: Impervious 10) [17] Super-Strength 5 (Heavy Load: ~90 tons) [10] costs abilities 6 + combat 16 + saves 13 + skills 3/12 + feats 8 + powers 104 = 150 pts -------------------------- Design Notes: All right, here's my take on the Incredible Hulk, mechanically based on Doc's Powerhouse with a Power Ring over in his own thread. Most of the time, this character runs around in his puny human state, where he's one of the smartest men on the planet, but when suitably pressed he can transform himself into a unstoppable raging powerhouse easily capable of ripping things apart with tremendous fury! I wanted to make it equally fun to play 'Banner', so in his regular state he's a fully-Defense shifted PL 7 who can at least hide behind his tougher teammates while working on some scientific project to save the day. He can't fight worth a damn that way, but he can at least pull out an invention that'll come in handy in a crisis. He's also not a bad doctor and physicist in addition to his engineering talents! (Banner should primarily be a physicist turned engineer, after all, since his area of expertise in the comics is generally bombs!) When Hulked-out, he's a solidly-threatening PL 10 powerhouse: note that his defensive caps are very different when he's hulked out, since he doesn't feel the need to dodge anymore! He's not really the strongest one there is, true, but he's certainly very strong and tough indeed, and mobile in combat to boot. As written there's nothing mechanical that keeps him from being hulked out all the time, except that he may not like the loss of his intellect while succumbing to the raging brute inside him! (He doesn't have the Hulk's immunity to radiation, true, but that could easily be acquired in play with PP; his +11 Fortitude save will cover a multiple of sins). Origins for this fellow are up to you; perhaps he was a doctor experimenting with a new drug whose side-effects were completely unexpected. His choice to use himself as a test subject spared others, but left him with a mighty raging beast inside that craves combat! I put Fearless outside his alternate form, to reflect that he does have enough experience to hold back the monster for a while: he may have gone on the occasional rampage in the past, but all that is pretty far behind him now that he's become a superhero. Unless he's angry. You wouldn't like him when he's angry.

Wealthy Giant PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 30 pp STR 40 [16] (+15/+3) DEX 10 (+0) CON 32 [20] (+11/+5) INT 12 (+1) WIS 12 (+1) CHA 20 (+5) Combat: 28 pp ATK: +7 (+9 Melee) (+3 w/size/+5 Melee) DEF: +7 (+3 w/size/+5) Init: +0 Grapple: +11/+34 w/full size Saves: 12 pp TOU +15 (+5 Con, +6 Growth, +4 Protection) FORT +12 (+5 Con, +6 Growth, +1) REF +5 (+0 Ref, +5) WILL +7 (+1 Wis, +6) Skills: 15pp=60 r Bluff 10 (+15) Concentration 9 (+10) Craft (Mechanical) 4 (+5) Diplomacy 5 (+10) Gather Info 5 (+10) Intimidate 13 (+18/+24) Knowledge (Technology) 4 (+5) Notice 4 (+5) Sense Motive 4 (+5) Feats: 15 pp Attack Focus: Melee 2 Benefit (Wealth) 3 Connected Contacts Dodge Focus 2 Power Attack Second Chance (Concentration checks to maintain powers) Set-Up Startle Takedown Attack Ultimate Save (Toughness) Well-Informed Powers: 50 pp Device 12 (Giant Suit, Hard to Lose) (PFs: Restricted 2 [only you]) [50 pp] Growth 12 [36] -4 ATK/DEF, +12 Grapple, -12 Stealth, +6 Intimidate, 32 ft tall, 32K lbs, 20 ft Space, 15 ft Reach, x3 Carrying Capacity Impervious TOU 10 [10] Protection 4 [4] Super-Senses 1 (Radio) [1] Super-Strength 4 (Heavy Load: 768 tons) (PF: Groundstrike) [9] costs abilities 30 + combat 28 + saves 12 + skills 15/60 + feats 15 + powers 50 = 150 pts --------------------------- Design Notes: Here's a rich, beautiful young woman in a costume that lets her grow to thirty-two feet tall, based on the excellent Janet van Dyne (aka Giant Girl) from the sadly canceled Marvel Adventures line. The MA writers were smart enough to totally reinvent Janet van Dyne, presenting her as a brave young woman determined to do good in the world, a philanthropist who one day hired the services of nebbishy scientist Hank Pym (who immediately developed a massive crush on her) to build her a costume to let her become a superhero! Thus was born Giant Girl, a heroic champion and member of her native universe's Avengers. I've tried to capture the feel of that character here, without being shackled to the continuity stuff that would have given her Comprehend Insects and the like. Her primary strength when she's not thirty feet tall and easily buff enough to be your team's powerhouse is her social abilities, as befits the heir to a vast business empire: she's a master at relating to people and figuring out how to handle them; whether building them up or tearing them down. She's great at feinting and startling in combat as well as doing some information-gathering out there among her vast network of contacts. She's also rich enough to be the team's primary financier, as well as its primary face to the general public. She's PL 6 without her armor, perhaps reflecting some time at the gym learning the basics of martial arts. If you do want a more straightforward conversion; Comprehend (Insects) would cost you 2 pp, or you could redirect more points and get insect-related ESP or other such powers. As written, she's not smart enough to have built her costume, but she's easily well-trained enough to do field repairs if it takes damage. She could be the heir to a size-changing hero of a previous generation and an inheritor of her costume and legacy if you want to connect her a bit more to history. If you want to make her more tech-minded, it would be easy enough to switch out her INT and CHA, adjust her skills some, and make her a gadgeteer who gets her confidence by smashing all those who stand in her way!

Night Witch PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 24 pp STR 14 (+2) DEX 14 (+2) CON 14 (+2) INT 14 (+2) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +2 Grapple: +8/+20 w/TK Saves: 14 pp TOU +10 (+2 Con, +8 Protection) FORT +7 (+2 Con, +5) REF +7 (+2 Dex, +4) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 13 pp=52 r Intimidate 8 (+10) Knowledge (Arcane Lore) 3 (+5) Languages 2 (English, German, Base: Russian) Notice 8 (+10) Pilot 8 (+10) Search 3 (+5) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Stealth 8 (+10) Feats: 8 pp Dodge Focus 4 Fearless Move-By Action Ritualist Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 63 pp Flight 3 (50 MPH) [6 pp] Magic Array [38+6=44 pp] Damage 10 (Extras: Area [shapeable], Selective, PFs: Indirect 2, Progression 5 [10 500 ft cubes], Variable Descriptor 1 [any elemental) AP: Damage 10 (Extras: Penetrating 5, Range [Perception], PFs: Indirect 2, Variable Descriptor 1 [any elemental]) AP: ESP 6 (20 miles, all senses) (PFs: Fast Task 4 [full action to search 1 mile], Subtle [DC 24 Notice]) AP: Move Object 10 (Heavy Load: 12 tons) (Extra: Range [Perception], PFs: Indirect 2, Precise, Subtle, Variable Descriptor 1 [any elemental) AP: Obscure 10 (visual, 1 mile) (Extra: Selective, PFs: Indirect 2, Variable Descriptor 1 [any elemental) AP: Teleport 6 (20 miles/600 ft) (Extras: Accurate, Portal, PFs: Easy, Progression 2 [25 by 25 ft]) Protection 8 [8 pp] Super-Senses 5 (Darkvision, Magic Awareness 3 [visual]) [5 pp] cost abilities 24 + combat 24 + saves 14 + skills 13/52 + feats 8 + powers 63 = 150 pts ------------------------------------------------ Design Notes: Inspired by Trollthumper's many military builds, as well my own interest in history and love of Soviet kitsch, here's a Night Witch: a Soviet mystic soldier of the Second World War. She's a creature of raw arcane power, trained hastily in the natural magic of defending the Russian land (based on the Tzimisce koldunic sorcery of White Wolf), and sent out to battle Nazis with nothing more than power, guts, and an iron nerve: the historical Night Witches were pilots (and did not call themselves that; the world is a translation of the German Nachthexen, named in terrified honor of the impossibly brave young women who flew in over Luftwaffe bases in cropdusters and training planes to bomb and strafe their enemies), so she's a good flier, observant and reasonably smart (if not well-trained; Soviet mystics probably were purged heavily before the war), and a decent enough fighter for someone who's primarily about the Perception-range attacks. She's very versatile, and probably damn near invincible when part of a coven: she can blanket the sky with storms or pure darkness big enough to block the movements of an entire Soviet tank column, she can destroy single targets with lightning bolts, tornados, or even volcanic eruptions: she can sweep away a Nazi base with tremendous winds and kill a square mile full of Krauts in fire, flame, and death with just a thought: she can also fly as fast as her old prop plane, scry on her enemies, and open up gateways in the soil of Mother Russia for herself, her allies, and the brave defender of the motherland to pass through. She knows magic when she sees it, but she's just not as good as a real specialist. She makes a fine addition to a Golden Age game, a defender of an embattled nation fighting to the last to defeat a terrible enemy. Note that a Great Patriotic War veteran will have had a very different military experience (and thus a different experience) than one who fought on the Western Front; there was nothing gentlemanly about the terrible conflict in the East, it was a war for survival, pure and simple. She doesn't have Immunity to aging, but you could easily add one if you want her to be a still-hearty veteran of World War II. Presumably the Night Witches didn't do that well in the purges after 1945, but perhaps they did keep a military presence in the Soviet Union. She makes a fine all-American (if badly trained) witch too!

Sorry for the delay, JP. I know how frustrating it can be when people disappear on you. Victory can easily hit the ship, yes: the ceiling has been raised for this operation.

Material components aplenty, SC! Fleur, how we doing with the Murder Girl?

The fear-stricken father took the heroes upstairs to what had been Chloe's room, an eerie monument to the missing girl that looked nearly untouched. There were now-yellowed pictures on the walls, books on the shelf (Chloe evidently liked Sweet Valley High and Animorphs), and a baseball glove nearby an older-style home computer. "That thing will come in here and touch her things, like an animal playing with something shiny, but it won't sleep in her bed," said Rayford, a look of disgust on his face. "It just stands there all night, looking around, and it's always there to greet me in the morning. If I don't act like its father around other people, it says they'll start experimenting on Chloe...can you find anything?" he asked, almost prayerfully.

"I agree." When the work was done, Harrier retracted his armor beneath his skin, leaving behind the all-too-human man beneath. "I tell my story, I speak to therapists, and I see men like Joseph, and imagine how many like him there are here, with no powers but all the rage. I cannot escape my past," he told Miss Americana, his voice returning to its usual measured stillness. "Not for a day, not for an hour. We all must live with the consequences of what has been." Touching Miss Americana wasn't the same as touching Gina, but he did it anyway, reaching over to take the robot's hand for a moment. "But we can have a present, and a future, beyond that." He squeezed her hand lightly, and Gina could feel the metal bones beneath his skin.

Stories of people with great and mysterious powers collected by Professor Xavier, eh? Stories kept hidden from a world that feared and hated them? Hmmmmm.

"Hey, what the-" The pirate persona dropped as soon as the world vanished, Freebooter's voice taking on an entirely different quality of suspicion and anger. "Yeah, I can see you, too!" he said, visibly straining against his fibrous restraints for a moment. "I don't know who you are, but if you kids want to screw around in a Freedom League system, that's your lookout." He hesitated a moment, then said with genuine respect, "Nice job on getting in, by the way, the system was supposed to be locked down. I had to sell my services to get in the door at all. Listen, I've honestly got no beef with you kids, I'm just here for the super-tech the League's been keeping away from the common man." He sounded affable enough, if annoyed at his restraints, not at all a potential mass murderer caught at his work. --- "If the programs holding the city itself together failed, then all the people would be shunted into protected memory," said Sharl, talking aloud as he sussed out what had to be Rogue's plan. "That's a backup Miss Americana and Dragonfly put in last time they were here, a system so that the people would be protected even if the city programs overloaded." He ran his hands through his hair and said, "And if they were in the protected memory, someone like me, or Rogue, or Talos, or anyone else with technopathic abilities, could come in and take them. Could come in and take them anywhere." His eyes hardened "That monster..." At Cobalt Templar's voice in his ear, he thought fast, then turned to the others. "Somebody needs to go help Corbin with that. I don't want any of us dealing with these things alone. Gal Vanic, can you do that?" Citizen asked her. "You were really fast on the way here, and I'm betting you're really strong too." He grinned slightly. "And the lightning thing! You can blast the hell out of these bastards. Wraith and I can hit the last place, the plankton processing center. Till we know where Rogue is, we've got to travel in groups." --- When he finally found it in a militia lab, the black sphere turned out to be an eerie globe of absolute blackness, a sphere of opaque nothing some 2 feet in diameter. It floated in mid-air, resting over a carefully formed loop and handle that glowed with a matching red radiance. "The sphere killed the first man who tried touching it," said the militia officer at Corbin's back. "We've had to carry it around in the alien system it came in. How can you destroy this?" he asked Corbin seriously.