Avenger Assembled

APPROVED

APPROVED

APPROVED

Caradoc took off into the air, his dragon-faced jetpack roaring with 'magical' heat that luckily no one around seemed to be able to analyze, as he narrowly evaded the robot's clutching grip. He preferred to engage his enemies in melee, but the giant robot's glowing electrical body bespoke dire consequences if he tried to engage it in combat: power like that could come scorching right up his pike if he wasn't careful! So instead, he aimed his glowing blade at the robot, its tip glowing brighter and brighter as it whined with suppressed power, until he opened fire in a series of carefully focused, devastating blasts. Left knee, right knee, and it collapsed, midsection and the coruscating power failed, head, and the robot fell in pieces.

OK, we're officially out of combat (for now!), since this is just a hologram being projected in from who knows where. Since the EMP was all Miss A did that round (and we're out of combat), I'm fine with her specifying that it had the Selective extra and Action [Full] flaw: the last thing we want is for her to tag the two tech-wielding heroes alongside.

Caradoc kept a tight grip on his glowing sword, being experienced in the ways of mad geniuses. Sure enough, a secondary system sprang to life from the depths of the broken robots, projecting the holographic image of a blotchy-faced man in elaborate clown makeup: he seemed to favor the Emmet Kelly look. "C'mon," the image said, seeming to peer in the window. "Where's my little boy? You've been a very bad mommy Arleen..." "Don't...don't you come any closer!" yelled Arleen, pointing at the hologram and seeming to draw strength from all the nearby heroes. "You're not ever going to get your hands on him, you clown-faced freak!" "Cmon, baby," said the former Clown Constructor, winking at her and sticking his tongue out at the heroes at once; his Tim Curry impression was not very good. "Don't be like that. You know I can find you eventually, but you can't find me! Just let me have my boy and I won't need anything from you anymore."

"I'll be free," said Sharl with a little shrug. "It's not my holiday, and it's not like I can eat candy anyway." He had a feeling it wasn't really a holiday Gina would like, given that she certainly wasn't going to have any of those costumed children at her door, so he wasn't worried about losing out on getting together with her. "The weekend sounds good to me. Why don't we get together on Saturday, make sure all is in readiness, and then...have an adventure?" He smiled, his confidence back now that all was going well ."It'll be great!"

Did you want a description of the underground cave system, Fox?

Let's have a DC 25 Notice check. 11 Mark does not make it.

Aryan Angel went through an all-Nazi set, going from the Horst Wessel Song through Deutschland Uber Alles, and then finally she did close with a rousing Tomorrow Belongs to Me while holographic swastikas fluttered on the side of the trailer behind her that made up her stage wall. The audience seemed to like what she was selling; odious though she was, Greta Ratner had a lot of stage presence and seemed to know how to artfully dance along the line between "teen sexpot" and "wholesome girl next door". Her ever-changing outfits were a melange of neo-Nazi themes, all of them managing to incorporate "cheerleader" and "Nazi girl scout" in a belly-baring, pigtailed vision of blonde teen sexuality that she could easily have sold in larger and better venues. If she wasn't a Nazi, she could easily have had a career as the next Britney Spears. She seemed, however, very happy where she was. Near the end of her first set, a new group of people arrived, pulling up in red pickup trucks and one nice Ford luxury car, three muscular young men with shaved heads and one older man with a handlebar mustache and potbelly inside his suit. For their own reasons, the four heroes all recognized Delmar Higgins, one of the leading white nationalists in the area; he was the sort of guy every Claremont kid was warned about, and spent some time wishing they could beat up. Midnight and Cannonade knew in particular that it was a little odd to see Higgins here; he was more sympathetic to the Klan than the neo-Nazis, and thus not really part of Aryan Angel's faction. That didn't seem to bother the Angel, though. "And in honor of the distinguished Delmar Higgins," she exclaimed with a wink and heavy Southern accent all of a sudden. "Ah have a little Song of the South for y'all!" As the Confederate flag appeared on the wall behind her, she began warbling a cheerful rendition of Dixie that earned an unpleasantly avaricious smile from the elderly Higgins. After that, with great applause from all, she retreated to her trailer.

That doesn't hit, so Harrier is fine. Move Action: Caradoc takes off into the air as far as he can. Standard Action: He blasts Robot 1 with an all-out power attack with his Blast. 27. Nice! I'll spend an HP to acquire Improved Crit. That'll make for a Tou save of 37. I'll post IC (with the result of the struggle with the robot) as soon as the Tou save is in.

I'm done.

I'll say they weigh about fifty tons, equal to the weight of a railroad locomotive. And yes, he does know that.

Agent Tom Thumb Abilities: 34 pp STR 18 (+4) DEX 16 (+3) CON 18 (+4) INT 14 (+2) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+14 vs. Medium-sized) DEF: +6 (+14 vs. Medium-sized) Init: +3 Grapple: -4 vs Medium Saves: 15 pp TOU +6 (+4 Con, +2 Defensive Roll) FORT +8 (+4 Con, +4) REF +8 (+3 Dex, +5) WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6) Skills: 64 r=16 pp Bluff 13 (+15) Climb 1 (+5) Disable Device 8 (+10) Gather Info 3 (+5) Investigate 8 (+10) Knowledge (Streetwise) 3 (+5) Languages 3 (Japanese, German, Russian) (Base: English) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Stealth 10 (+13/+30) Survival 3 (+5) Feats: 12 pp Defensive Roll Evasion Fearless Hide In Plain Sight Move-By-Action Power Attack Second Chance 2 (Disable Device checks, Reflex save vs. being stepped on) Takedown Attack Taunt Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Well-Informed Powers: 48 pp Device 1 (Sword) (Hard to Lose) (PF: Restricted [shrinking 12 or smaller]) [5 pp] Strike 2 (PFs: Improved Crit, Mighty, Precise) [5dp] Flight 1 (10 MPH) (PF: Subtle) [3 pp] Immunity 1 (Taunts about his Height) [1 pp] Shrinking 16 (Extras: Duration [Permanent] (+0), Normal Strength; PFs: Normal Movement, Normal Toughness) [34 pp] Super-Movement 1 (Slow Fall) [2 pp] Super-Senses 3 (Microscopic Vision [dust-sized], Vision [Radius]) [3 pp] costs abilities 34 + combat 24 + saves 15 + skills 17/68 + feats 12+ powers 48 = 150 pts --------- Design Notes: Here’s Agent Tom Burkhalter, aka Tom Thumb, one of the characters from the excellent Algernon Files: Fires of War by Aaron Sullivan. Tom Burkhalter was an FBI agent back in the early 1940s, a hard-working, two-fisted crimefighter who was the guy the agency brought in to solve problems that other agents couldn’t handle: in his case, the mad Dr. Diablo, a cruel and bloody mad scientist. Tom pursued Diablo again and again, until finally Diablo turned the tables and captured Burkhalter, blasting him with his powerful dollmaker ray and transforming Burkhalter into a man permanently three inches tall. Much to Diablo’s surprise, Burkhalter survived the transformation, ralled his strength, and subdued him! Now Agent Tom Thumb is the agency’s go-to guy for supercrime (particularly mad scientists), and a member of the Sentinels, the local super-team. He used to be just another buttondown FBI agent in a grey suit, but he’s taken the opportunity of becoming a superhero as a reason to open up and have a much more outgoing personality, complete with snappy new duds and look. Or maybe, as he’ll admit privately, he’s just adopted the swashbuckler persona as a way of overcompensating: he may have to live small, but that’s no reason he can’t live large! Unfortunately there’s no good way in M&M to model Agent Thumb’s status as a tiny powerhouse. You can’t hit hard and be tiny without having basically no Attack or Defense, something that’s hard to fit into our house rules and that doesn’t really make sense for a character with an agent background anyway. So instead I’ve used the picture (and his characterization) as inspiration and gone with the idea of him as a tiny swashbuckler, it’s up to you whether or not his sword actually is a repurposed scissors blade. His Subtle Flight covers big leaps where his man-sized strength propels his doll-sized body to tremendous heights, or maybe gliding on currents of air if that’s more your thing for tiny characters. If you’re sold on small and dense, his high Strength and Con (at least, relative to a normal man) can be explained by a compaction Or maybe he was just always this buff; without his Shrinking and with his current physical abilities, he’s PL 5 offensively and defensively, just about right for a competent guy in an agent-level campaign. I made his Shrinking Permanent, but not Innate, so maybe he can get a high-end nullifier and have normal times now and again. He's great at sneaking and feinting, like most tiny people. I figure his Radius Sight and Microscope Vision come from being so small, so the 'normal' world is easier for him to take in all at once, and it's easier for him to make out small stuff. I think he works fine as-is, either as a transformed AEGIS agent (one who is on “medical leave” and so has the free time to be a superhero) or as your garden-variety tiny swordsman. (He’s certainly not the first one in this thread!) While his unique powers fit in well in a Golden Age game (where he was something of a “Doll Man with Green Arrow’s personality” kind of guy), this kind of illogical stuff happens in Neo-Silver Age games too. For a slightly darker take on the character, maybe he’s more like the modern-day Doll Man, a tiny agent who has escaped his black ops agency to embark on a one-man crusade to bring said agency down!

Qedeshot PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 40 pp STR 12 (+1) DEX 14 (+2) CON 20 (+5) INT 14 (+2) WIS 16 (+3) CHA 24 (+7) Combat: 18 pp ATK: +3 DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +2 Grapple: +3 Saves: 13 pp TOU +8 (+5 Con, +3 Protection) FORT +6 (+5 Con, +1) REF +7 (+2 Dex, +5) WILL +10 (+3 Wis, +7) Skills: 16 pp=64 r Acrobatics 3 (+5) Bluff 13 (+20)* Diplomacy 13 (+20)* Gather Information 8 (+15)* Intimidate 3 (+10) Knowledge (Arcane Lore) 3 (+5) Knowledge (Theology and Philosophy) 3 (+5) Languages 2 (English, Hebrew) (Base: Canaanite) Medicine 7 (+10) Notice 2 (+5) Perform (dance) 3 (+10)* Sense Motive 2 (+5) Feats: 24 pp Distract (Bluff, Diplomacy) 2 Challenge 4 (Improved Distract, Improved Feint, Improved Taunt) Dodge Focus 6 Fascinate (Bluff) Inspire 5 Leadership Set-Up Skill Mastery (Bluff, Diplomacy, Gather Information, Perform [Dance]) Taunt Ultimate Skill (Perform [Dance]) Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Well-Informed Powers: 40 pp Protection 3 [3 pp] Qedeshot Array [32+5=37 pp] Damage 10 (Extra: Range [Perception]; PFs: Incurable, Reversible) ‘dance of pain’ AP: Damage 10 (Extra: Range [Perception]; PFs: Precise, Variable Descriptor 1 [bludgeoning/piercing/slashing) ‘dance of damnation’ AP: Damage 10 (Extras: Alternate Save [Will], Range [Perception]; Flaw: Action [Full]) (PFs: Incurable, Reversible) ‘dance of death’ AP: Drain All Ability Scores 10 (Extra: Range [Perception]) (PFs: Slow Fade 2 [1 minute]) ‘bestow major curse’ AP: Emotion Control 10 (Extras: Area [Perception], Selective Attack; Flaw: Action [Full]; PFs: Longer-Lasting 2 [10 rounds]) ‘token of romance’ AP: Healing 10 (Extra: Range [Perception]; PFs: Persistent, Regrowth) ‘touch of the goddess’ costs abilities 40 + combat 18 + saves 13 + skills 16/64 + feats 24 + powers 40= 150 pts ---------- Design Notes: In another Testament-themed build, here’s a qedeshot, one of the sacred priestesses of Astaroth or Ishtar from the Canaanite tradition. (Yes, let me get it out of the way now: you cannot play a temple prostitute. But there’s no reason why we can’t play with the archetype while discarding some of its larer implications) The authors of Testament take the position that the Canaanites were no more evil than any other Near Eastern civilization (i.e., they did a lot of bad things and a lot of good things), that their great ‘sin’ was being the enemies of the ancient Hebrews: i.e., the people who gave us the dominant cultural/historical record of the Bronze Age Near East. (That’s actually open for debate, given the very strong archeological and contemporary accounts of the Canaanite ‘daughter’ civilization, the Carthaginians, enthusiastically practicing infant sacrifice, but the evidence about the people back in Canaan doing so is much much less prevalent). What you have is a skilled dancer and master of social manipulation, one whose dances can summon up a variety of powerful effects: she can heal with a gesture, summon creatures to attack her enemies, cloud men’s minds, or simply punish them with powerful magics summoned up by her dancing. She’s really good as part of a team, excellent at empowering her team-mates and healing their injuries, but with her summoning abilities and mental attacks she can fight just fine on her own. With her very high social skills, she’s excellent at leaving people flat-footed or distracted. (Since all of her attacks are perception-range, she can’t actually take advantage of flat-footed targets very well, just taunt them and lower their mental and physical resistance, that’s why she’s got Set-Up so her very tough to resist feints and tricks can assist her allies in laying out bad guys.) She’s competent enough at dealing with magic and the gods, but with her high social skills and medical training she’s more focused on dealing with the community rather than her divine patrons. Though dancing is based on Charisma rather than physical attributes, I gave her OK physical stats to explain someone who can dance for hours on end in public. While she’s not particularly observant, she’s very good at seeing through lies and persuading people to come over to her side. Downplay the aspects of the character that may be offensive to modern readers if you want her to be a successful PC hereabouts. (No, it’s not that we’re grossed out by the idea of a woman in control of her sexuality, it’s that we’re pretty sure you’ll play her really badly). There’s no reason you can’t say the ‘temple prostitute’ stuff was a serious exaggeration based on the accounts of the Canaanite enemies. She makes a fine Warriors and Warlocks PC, perhaps as the on-again off-again lover of my Barbarian Champion build upthread. While you could play her as a member of a secret Ishtar cult that has survived to the present day (or one that’s recently been revived), I think she works best as a time traveler actually from the ancient (or at least the mythic) Near East who has had to relocate to the United States; a dancing priestess of Ishtar in a pagan costume is not going to be welcomed by any side in the current political situation in Israel!

Magus of the Starry Host PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 34 pp STR 10 (+0) DEX 14 (+2) CON 20 (+5) INT 20 (+5) WIS 20 (+5) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 32 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Starry Magic) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +5 Grapple: +6/+20 w/Move Object Saves: 12 pp TOU +12 (+5 Con, +7 Force Field) FORT +8 (+5 Con, +3) REF +8 (+2 Dex, +6) WILL +8 (+5 Wis, +3) Skills: 56 r=14 pp Concentration 5 (+10) Knowledge (Arcane Lore) 15 (+20)* Knowledge (History) 5 (+10) Knowledge (Physical Sciences) 5 (+10) Knowledge (Theology and Philosophy) 5 (+10) Language 6 (Akkadian, Ancient Egyptian, Aramaic, English, Greek, Hebrew) (Base: Persian) Notice 5 (+10)* Sense Motive 5 (+10)* Survival 5 (+10)* Feats: 6 pp Master Plan Ritualist Skill Mastery (Knowledge (Arcane Lore), Notice, Sense Motive, Survival) Speed of Thought Ultimate Skill (Arcane Lore) Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 61 pp Flight 1 (10 MPH) (Flaw: Platform) ‘stars beneath your feet’ [1 pp] Force Field 7 [7 pp] Immunity 1 (own powers) [1 pp] Shield 4 [4 pp] Starry Magic Array [32+5=37 pp] Blast 10 (Extra: Autofire; PFs: Accurate 2) ‘capture starlight’ AP: Create Object 8 (Extras: Impervious 5, Movable; PFs: Stationary, Selective, Subtle) ‘circle of stars’ AP: Damage 10 (Extras: Area [shapeable], Duration [Concentration]; PFs: Progression 2 (10 25 ft cubes)) ‘wall of stars’ AP: Dazzle 10 (visual) (Extra: Autofire; PFs: Accurate 2) ‘sunbeam’ AP: Healing 10 (Extras: Area [shapeable], Selective; Flaw: Others Only; PFs: Persistent, Regrowth) ‘heaven’s light’ AP: Move Object 10 (Extras: Area [shapeable], Selective; Flaw: Up or Down Only; PFs: Precise, Subtle) ‘reverse gravity’ Super-Senses 13 (Darkvision, Detect Magic 3 [visual], Postcognition, Precognition [Flaw: Uncontrolled]) ‘celestial vision’ [11 pp] costs abilities 34 + combat 24 + saves 11 + skills 14/56 + feats 6 + powers 61 = 150 pts ---------------- Design Notes: Here’s my build for a magi of the starry host, my favorite character type from my favorite 3.0 D&D supplement: Green Ronin’s Testament: Roleplaying in the Biblical Era. Yes, it was a D&D supplement set in Old Testament times! So yeah, you can probably understand why it didn’t have a huge appeal, the cross-set of people who are interested in the Old Testament and who want to play a fantasy RPG set there is not real big. But that’s okay. The general idea of the magi is that they’re the wizards of the Fertile Crescent, a magical tradition stretching down from the Sumerian era through the rise of Cyrus the Great and the establishment of the Persian Empire. Since they’re from a culture that writes on clay tablets, they don’t carry spellbooks: instead they get their spells by studying the stars overhead every night! Their special thing is that they learn new spells by going on spell pilgrimages to auspicious celestial occasions. It’s mentioned that particularly auspicious occasions, allowing as they do access to high-level spells, will often have multiple magi converging on the same spot simultaneously. As befits someone who walks around all the time, he’s a little buffer and more robust than most mystics without his powers: he can survive in the wilderness and navigate there just fine. When he flies, it’s by walking along a starry path that travels through the air, hence the Platform flaw on his flight. He has pretty broad descriptors based on a general “starry magic”, and I’ve tried to give him stuff from the Heaven domain that magi have access to: he can dazzle with starlight, blast with a beam of burning stars, control gravity all around him, and heal and burn an area with magic starlight. He can also see in the dark (thus making it easier to be out at night all the time) and can summon the wisdom of the stars to learn more about the world on which their light shines. I’ve given him enough of a command of the languages of the Ancient Near East so that he could turn up just about anywhere. With his Ritualist and extremely high Arcane Lore, he can whip out just about any kind of magic you like. He’d work fine as a character in a Warriors and Warlocks game with a Near Eastern theme (where he’s probably one of the more powerful mystics in the world), or he could work as a Freedom City character in a couple of ways: maybe he’s a time traveler sealed away from the world for milennia, only recently freed to practice his mystic arts. Or maybe he’s a mystic from the contemporary Near East; perhaps the Islamic government in Iran today looks poorly on Zoroastrian sorcerers and he and his order have had to relocate to the United States, or perhaps he’s simply here on yet another mystic quest. Something that would put him beneath the light pollution of the American East Coast has to be pretty important indeed. Perhaps a birth?

They all fail, and so all take full damage A and C are drained by 8 and 6, B is not The robots, all being minions, go down Go ahead and post, Miss A.

Burnt-Out Hero PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 26 pp STR 14 (+2) DEX 14 (+2) CON 14 (+2) INT 16 (+3) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Cosmic Array) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +2 Grapple: +8/+20 w/TK Saves: 15 pp TOU +10 (+2 Con, +8 Protection) FORT +7 (+2 Con, +5) REF +7 (+2 Dex, +5) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 14 pp=56 r Concentration 8 (+10) Craft (Electronic) 7 (+10)* Craft (Mechanical) 7 (+10)* Knowledge (Technology) 7 (+10)* Languages 3 (Arabic, English, Russian) (Base: Pashto) Notice 8 (+10) Pilot 8 (+10)* Sense Motive 8 (+10)* Feats: 13 pp Dodge Focus (4) Inventor Luck Move-By Action Precise Shot Quick Change Power Attack Second Chance (Pilot checks) Skill Mastery (Craft [Electronic], Craft [Mechanical], Knowledge [Technology], Sense Motive) Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 58 pp Cosmic Array [12+2=14 pp] Blast 10 (Flaw: Unreliable [50%]; PFs: Accurate 2) AP: Damage 10 (Extras: Selective, Targeted Area [burst]; Flaws: Action [Full], Unreliable [50%]; PFs: Accurate 2) AP: Move Object 10 (Heavy Load: 12 tons) (Flaw: Unreliable [50%]; PFs: Accurate 2) Device 6 (Battlesuit) (Hard to Lose) (PF: Restricted [Cosmic Energy Controllers]) [25 pp] Feature 10 (Buys off Unreliable Flaw on Cosmic Array) [10dp] Feature 5 (Buys off Unreliable Flaw on Flight) [5dp] Feature 5 (Buys off Unreliable Flaw on Immunity) [5dp] Feature 5 (Buys off Unreliable Flaw on Impervious TOU [5dp] Feature 4 (Buys off Unreliable Flaw on Protection) [4dp] Space Travel 1 (1c) [1dp] Flight 5 (250 MPH) (Flaw: Unreliable [50%]) [5 pp] Immunity 10 (Aging, Life Support) (Flaw: Unreliable [50%]) [5 pp] Impervious TOU 10 (Flaw: Unreliable [50%] [5 pp] Protection 8 (Flaw: Unreliable [50%]) [4 pp] cost abilities 26 + combat 24 + saves 14 + skills 14/56 + feats 13 + powers 58 = 150 pts --------- Design Notes: If he'd been born in the United States, or Europe, or Russia, or maybe even China, the future Cometfire could have been one of the most famous astronauts and explorers in the world. But Mohammed el-Fadil was born in Kabul in 1955, and despite all his dreams the stars seemed very far away indeed for a boy from what was already one of the poorest countries in the world. Denied space travel, he went for the next best thing: an education abroad, and then returning home to join his country's small air force. When the Soviets invaded in 1978, he thought it was a godsend: no more peasant madmen holding back his nation's future, a chance to turn Afghanistan into a modern nation that would be the envy of the world! Something in his drive and determination caught the attention of the 'allied' government in Kabul, and they approached the young lieutenant with an offer he could never have refused: the stars! After years of training, the young Afghani pilot became a cosmonaut, part of the Soviet Union's effort to include members of all Communist nations in their space program. He went into space in 1986, the first Afghani in space, and read Pashto in orbit. Unfortunately, Soviet space science wasn't all it was cracked up to be: a close pass from Halley's Comet breached his suit during a space walk and exposed him to bizarre cosmic radiation. He passed out...and when he awoke, he was drifting in the depths of space, alive and well! He'd gone into space to be one kind of hero, but came home another: Cometfire, the first superhero of Afghanistan! Trained alongside the People's Heroes, he went home to inspire his people and end the war...only to discover how badly he'd been misinformed. Whatever scanty good intentions had come with the Soviet invasion had sunk into a decade of bitter strife and civil war; the conflict in Afghanistan was now between thugs in suits backed by the Soviet Union, and thugs in turbans backed by the hill tribesmen (and sometimes the United States!) He did his best to fight, but when the Soviets pulled out, he was left alone with an uncertain nation. The Taliban nearly killed him in 1996 when they used hired super-mercenaries to storm Kabul, but he survived and retreated to the mountains. He recovered there for years; realizing that he wasn't the man he'd used to be: his powers had nearly been burned out, leaving him barely able to fly and fight, much less survive life in Afghanistan. But he wasn't done reaching for the stars. There, in a cave with a box of scraps left over from the Soviets, and his considerable technical knowledge, he built a powersuit that let him control his powers again, and with it took to the air again. He's going to give Afghanistan back the stars. Whatever he has to do. Inspired by the Burnt-Out Hero build from Street-Level Archetypes, my desire to build a native superhero for every country with problems, and the remarkable life of Abdul Ahad Mohammed, here's Cometfire, the native hero of Afghanistan. The basic idea is that he's a powerful blaster who's lost some control of his powers; without his suit, he rolls a d20 to use any of his abilities, something he has to do round to round in the air (if I remember right). Luckily the suit solved that problem for him, letting him be a low-level techhead as well as a fast, mobile blaster. He fits any niche you want in your game, particularly if you're visiting Afghanistan: a heroic, misunderstood champion of a much put-upon people, a grim antihero waging a private war no one else can understand, or a cold, heartless Communist bent on reimposing his own notion of order on a people who've already suffered enough. He'd make a fine Freedom City PC too; maybe he's come here pursuing a drug lord who's taken shelter in the states, or maybe he's permanently relocated here at the request of the new government as a "superheroic liason". This build works fine for his son or daughter, a Claremont student with a suit to control her powers, training to one day go home and guard their people.

Fake God PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 30 pp STR 30 [20] (+10/+5) DEX 16 (+3) CON 30 [20] (+10/+5) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 30 pp ATK: +8 DEF: +8 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +3 Grapple: +21 Saves: 8 pp TOU +10 (+10 Con) FORT +10 (+10 Con) REF +6 (+3 Dex, +3) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +6) Skills: 44 r=11 pp Diplomacy 5 (+5) Knowledge (History) 5 (+5) Knowledge (Theology and Philosophy) 5 (+5) Intimidate 10 (+10) Languages 3 (English, German, Old Slavonic) (Base: Russian) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 9 pp All-Out Attack Challenge (Fast Startle) Fearless Interpose Power Attack Precise Shot Startle Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 62 pp Device 6 (Hard to Lose) (Axe of Perun) (PF: Restricted [sTR 30+]) [19 pp] Blast 12 [24+1=25dp] AP: Strike 2 (Extra: Penetrating 9; PFs: Improved Crit 2, Knockback 10 [DMG 22], Mighty) Flight 1 (10 MPH) (PF: Subtle) [3dp] Shield 2 [2dp] Enhanced CON 10 [10 pp] Enhanced STR 10 [10 pp] Immunity 5 (aging, disease, poison, suffocation) [5 pp] Impervious TOU 10 [10 pp] Leaping 1 (x2) [1 pp] Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] Super-Strength 3 (Heavy Load: 6 tons) [6 pp] costs abilities 30 + combat 30 + saves 8 + skills 11/44 + feats 9 + powers 62 = 150 pts ------------ Design Notes: In the mid-1960s, despite a strong institutional bias against “so-called pagan gods”, the Soviet government tried to summon a deity to Earth: after all, the Americans had Horus, the Avenging Son of Heliopolis a potent propaganda tool, and who was to say what ‘gods’ might be summoned by the capitalist nations? So in January 1965, the Soviet Union conscripted some mystics from confinement, volunteered some political prisoners, and in the Kazakh desert they summoned an avatar of a god to Earth! Perun the Stormbringer! Perun, the thunder god of the Slavic pantheon! Perun, who had been lusting for decades to kill the atheists who had been massacring his followers since 1917. What followed required the deployment of the front line of the People’s Heroes, as well as (after their evacuation) the ‘nuclear test’ that led to the formation of Lake Chagan and has left the homeland of the Slavic gods far too irradiated for all but the hardiest visitors. The new Soviet leadership hmmed: perhaps summoning a god was too dangerous, but they could make their own! Oleg Pavlov, aka Red Fist, was one of the minor members of the People’s Heroes, a brick and powerhouse, a pliable man who would loyally follow orders and glower on command. So they built him an impervium ax that could fire lightning bolts and levitate, they gave him fancy divine armor, and Oleg Pavlov became Perun, god of thunder! He stayed a steadfast member of the Heroes until the Soviet Union fell, when he picked up his axe and hit the road as an independent man. All right, here’s my attempt at a technological ‘god’, a powerhouse with a weapon who is only shamming. He’s a PL 9 powerhouse without the axe (one who’s very good at grabbing and throwing things as weapons), but a solid PL 10 with it. He’s very good at both melee and ranged combat, with or without the ax. Note that unlike most “Thor” types, he’s not shooting real lightning, but rather electricity from his ax: he also can’t throw the ax, he has to actually wield it in combat. (Luckily he’s quite good at that!) Villains who hit him with Nullify Divine Powers will get a very unpleasant surprise, as will those who may assume he’s some sort of cyborg and hit him with some kind of technological effect to take out his ax. (My idea is that he’s probably the beneficiary of a super-soldier program, though he could easily be a mutant). He has a good ability to play with his caps, and is generally more ept than he looks. He’s slow, not very smart, but he’s got lots to stunt off and he’s got the sheer stubborn moxie to pretend to be a god and not care about divine payback. It’s up to you what his relationship is like with the actual Slavic pantheon, they’ve had lots of time to recover from the conflict with the Soviets, and after all he’s sort of their only champion on Earth these days. If you don’t like the Soviet stylings (but whyyyyy), there are lots of countries that might have wanted a divine super-soldier: perhaps he’s an ‘avatar’ of Hachiman from Japan, or a Chinese champion of the ancient gods. Heck, maybe he’s an ‘angel’, though if he’s that one he’ll have some hard questions to answer from our divine PCs! Or you could mix it up altogether if you’re dissatisfied with the religion angle, maybe he’s an all-American Johnny Appleseed or Paul Bunyan, complete with phony magic weapon!

Citizen thought for a few moments, sorting out the sort of impossible things that seemed to happen every day on Earth-Prime. "The man with the underground kingdom, with the subhuman descendants of...Atlantis?" His eyebrows furrowed as he tried to figure out the truth from several ridiculous-sounding stories. "Well...can we just go down there and find him, and rescue the doctor?" he asked the adults, a little uncertainly. If he wasn't at home on the surface of Earth, he was hardly at home deep beneath its surface! There would be no comforting steel tunnels below, of that he could fairly be sure. "It stands to reason that if he took this doctor alive, she must be alive now, and there to be rescued. Do we have time to wait for anyone else?" He thought of his Young Freedom allies, but they were scattered to the four winds for the holiday. The soil hereabouts was good for tunneling, Gaian Knight knew, with enough deep caves he'd have no problem with ensuring an air supply for any passengers.

What _doesn't_ Gaian Knight know about giant underground insects? While there are a few mega-arthropod species active in North America, most of them are one-offs like the Gypsy Moth of North Carolina or the Emperor of Worms up in Vermont: beetles are different, though, those tend to come from places where people don't go much, like the vicinity of the Lost World, or closer to home, the underground kingdom of Sub-Terra. There are quite a few different giant subterreanean bugs down there: the Lemurians bred 'em that way for labor and for conquest, and some of them are still trainable if you know how to do it. Some of them aren't even people hostile, since the Sub-Terrans tend to run away from monsters and the bugs don't even see things as small as people as food sources. Terra-King often uses armored bugs and the like for incursions to the surface world; they're big, they're tough, and he can always breed more.

Give us an Earth Sciences check.

So have you made the suggested edits, Ace? You do need to let us know.

APPROVED I'll leave the rest to you, Gizmo!

Put in the Leaping distance, please. "Impervious", not Invulnerable.