Avenger Assembled

You know, Rav, you can just have him go down. You don't need (yet another) round of them ganging up on a helpless enemy.

Citizen kept a wary eye out as they went, trying to absorb all he could of this alien civilization. Without a cultural connection to Earth, the romance of the feudal era meant little to him. Instead he saw privation and want, a social pyramid with gorillas at the top and chimpanzees at a very distant bottom. The stone hut where the knights and nobles lived was not much different from the thatch huts of their subjects, when you got right down to it. For Corbin and Koshiro, things were a little easier to understand: this castle was not an ornamental countryhouse; this was a fortress of war, and from the look of the knights and their battered, if polished armor, they were veterans of genuine conflict. As they entered the castle courtyard, its walls rising high on either side of them, they were met by the people they were there to rescue: a three man team in the battered, mud-stained uniform of League civilian employees. "It was a dimensional storm, probably a leftover from the recent crisis." reported the team leader Stuart, a short, balding man with a crisp British accent. "The Pegasus was being pulled out of our time stream before we could abort our descent." "We made it out in time," reported the second officer, Church. "But the Pegasus is in a bad way. We crashed up into the hills and had to walk out. The ship's in pieces, and we can't leave it here." Peering over Church's shoulder as he talked, Sharl made out a small, hunched figure in the stocks, obviously a chimpanzee, near the edge of the courtyard by what were evidently the servant's quarters. "I have heard that the ores in those hills interferes with outlander technology," said Connor thoughtfully. "I am sure my lord would be happy to give you an escort there, and help carry away any pieces of your skybird. If you will follow me?" he asked with courtesy, turning to his squire and barking, "Bonda, take the horses to the stables! Don't just gawk like a gibbon!"

"I can shut off pretty much any alarm," said Sharl with a teenager's confidence, "but like you said, we don't actually want to get into trouble. I don't have any physical cameras," he added, "but as long as I'm connected to my server, I can send files back to it." He took what looked for all the world like a digital camera out of his pocket and held it up to the screen. "Why don't we spend a couple of days getting supplies?" he suggested. "We're all allowed off campus these days, so we'll be able to go shopping if we have to. We can get together again later in the month. From what I've heard, we don't want to be stuck out during the holiday. Strange things happen and it might draw attention to us."

The duo from Archetech arrived over Star Island about the same time Gaian Knight did, as usual Citizen tagging along with his transmitter in Miss Americana's pocket to allow for her much faster speed in the air. The trio of heroes found what looked at first like a very grim scene; a massive crater in the middle of the base parking lot and a giant divot torn out of the site of the lab where Dr. Rao worked. The marines posted at the base were on scene, for all that there wasn't much they'd been able to do to stop the monster. "A giant beetle thing!" said one of the men with stripes on his sleeve, his face red with impotent anger. "It just tunneled out through the asphalt, stuck its jaws in the window, and grabbed the civilian!" Upstairs, an examination of the lab was oddly reassuring, despite the tremendous damage done by some car-sized insect jaws shoving their way through fragile glass and steel like a knife through butter. : there was no blood, suggesting Rao hadn't been seriously hurt in her capture, and her research was still there, even the high-tech laser tunneler she'd been in the middle of building. Whoever had been riding that bug, or commanding it, had evidently only had an interest in Dr. Rao, and they'd wanted her alive. But for how long?

Sharl pushed up his sunglasses and cocked his head, accessing the school's computer network. "One of the most deeply embedded dimensional axes connected to Prime is one where the primary hominid civilization is populated by a collection of simian phenotypes rather than the human norm...it's a dimension of apes," he translated. "It's a dimension where apes are the dominant species, and humans are restricted to some small parts of Africa, and are mostly not even verbal." He couldn't help but laugh; what kind of ridiculous dimension was this? "This is some kind of primitive variant, with feudal serfdom or something. What the hell." He pulled his sunglasses down and joined Papercut for the walk down the hill. Down below, they were greeted by a barrel-chested gorilla knight in green-trimmed armor. "Greetings, outlanders!" he boomed. "Welcome to the domain of my lord Baron Zardon. I am Sir Connor, your escort. I shall show you to your people and your skybird." Behind him, what was evidently a chimp squire rode a small burro. He led the way towards the castle, through what looked like a decidedly unromantic medieval-style village: the peasants were poor and barely clothed, their small huts quite a contrast to the magnificent castle they were approaching.

And since he's a minion, Robot D is down! Robot C fires another blast at Caradoc through the window. and misses Miss A is up.

Caradoc worked his sword and fired a blast of glowing cosmic energy out the already broken window, striking one of the advancing clown robots in the chest. Sparking and hissing, the robot dropped like a stone, a massive crater in its brightly-colored chest. But there were so many of them, and the rest were still advancing. "There are a great many clown robots. This is an unexpected situation," said the armored 'knight' , surprise in his voice. "If you have relocated the boy, I agree that relocating his mother is a fine idea as well." Another rubber nose came flying through the window, but this time he was ready and batted the electrical bomb away before it could explode, sending it sparking away into the corner.

There are a couple of ways to keep the organ thing, though: Maybe it's an organic construct implanted in him for sinister (or good purposes) by magical entities. What jumps to my mind is the Grue Arcane; perhaps as the result of some terrible experiment! He could be an alien himself, all unknowin. Maybe he just thinks the organ is an issue and it's a matter of his psychological limitations on the power. Or maybe he just thinks he's a magician; he's manipulating cosmic energy or psychic powers or something, and that's where the node comes in.

Radioactive Gadgeteer Zombie PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 10 pp STR 34 [14] (+12/+2) DEX 10 (+0) CON n/a (-) INT 20 (+5) WIS 16 (+3) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 16 pp ATK: +4 (+8 Radioactive Powers) DEF: +8 (+2 flat-footed) Grapple: +6/+18 Initiative +0 Saves: 10 pp TOU +12 (+12 Protection, +6 Imp) FORT n/a REF +5 (+0 Dex, +5) WILL +8 (+3 Wis, +5) Skills: 14 pp=56 r Craft (Electronic) 10 (+15) Craft (Mechanical) 10 (+15) Intimidate 10 (+10) Knowledge (Physical Sciences) 10 (+15) Knowledge (Technology) 10 (+15) Notice 2 (+5) Sense Motive 2 (+5) Feats: 10 pp Dodge Focus 4, Eidetic Memory, Fearless, Inventor, Power Attack, Takedown Attack, Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 91 pp Radioactive Zombie Array [26+2=28 pp] BE: Blast 12 (PFs: Accurate 2) AP: Enhanced Feats 2 (Attack Specialization: Unarmed 2) and Enhanced STR 20 and Super Strength 2 (Heavy Load: ~5 tons) AP: Nauseate 12 (PFs: Accurate 2) Immunity 40 (Fortitude Saves, Radiation Effects (Flaw: Limited [Half-Effect])) [35 pp] Leaping 1 (x2) [1 pp] Protection 12 (Extra: Impervious 6) [18 pp] Regeneration 6 (Recovery Bonus +0, Resurrection 1/week) [6 pp] Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] Super-Senses 2 (Darkvision) [2 pp] costs abilities 10 + combat 16 + saves 10+ skills 14/56 + feats 10 + powers 91 = 150 pts ------------ Design Notes: When you realized the Greenpeace protester had gotten past the test fence and was about to get torn to pieces by the backwash from the nuclear rocket you designed, you did the only logical thing: you jumped in your jeep and rushed out there, dragged the hippie into your car, and drove him to safety as fast as you could! You shoved him into the shelter first, but before you could join him, the steel door slammed in your face! When the rocket went up, you took millions of rads and collapsed to the ground and were rushed to the hospital. Where you died. Well, duh! A few days later you woke up in your coffin and tore your way out, where you wandered the desert for days until you learned to stop irradiating everything around you. Unfortunately, now you're a wanted man: your old boss the colonel thinks you're a Grue imposter who stole his friend's body and you're scared to get anywhere near your girlfriend the nurse lest you irradiate her! So you've roamed the country since then, looking for a way to de-radiate yourself so you can go home and get your old life back! Here's a radioactive gadgeteer zombie, a dead man animated by inner nuclear fires, or maybe what the Hulk would have been like if he'd been created by Marv Wolfman instead of Stan Lee. He can blast people with radiation, make them sick from a temporary dose of radiation poisoning, and punch people through the wall with radioactively empowered strength. He's not immune to radiation as such, but he can take some massive hits from it, and has the descriptors to pull off "absorbing radiation" if he has to. He can never be truly killed; radioactivity has a long, long half-life. He can also jump high and run fast enough to catch a car, and shrug off anything short of a vehicle-mounted machine gun. He can see in the dark thanks to his inner radioactive fires, fight fine in melee and at range, and he's a scientific genius who can pull off some fine inventions if you get him to a laboratory. He makes a fine roaming monster if you want him as a villain; maybe his sympathetic girlfriend's dad brings in the heroes to capture his radioactively-warped would-be son-in-law before he hurts anyone else, or maybe he's come to the campaign city to burn things! As far as playing him as a Freedom City character, that'd work okay: a backstory as having once been a roaming monster (maybe the government has cleared him but the mass media isn't so sure) is a fine way to have Reputation complications. Or maybe he proves his good intentions by turning up in his first adventure to help with some big superhero crisis, like a mass supervillain prison breakout!

Rapunzel PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 32 pp STR 18 (+4) DEX 20 (+5) CON 18 (+4) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 12 (+1) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 melee/prehensile hair) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +13 Grapple: +14/+20 Saves: 13 pp TOU +10 (+4 Con, +6 Force Field) FORT +8 (+4 Con, +4) REF +8 (+5 Dex, +3) WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6) Skills: 52 r=13 pp Acrobatics 5 (+10)* Bluff 10 (+11/+15)* Climb 1 (+5) Concentration 8 (+10) Knowledge (Arcane Lore) 5 (+5) Language 1 (French) (Base: English) Notice 8 (+10)* Ride 1 (+6) Sense Motive 8 (+10)* Stealth 5 (+10) Feats: 21 pp Acrobatic Bluff, Attack Focus: Melee 4, Attractive, Dodge Focus 4 Evasion, Improved Initiative 2, Move-By Action, Power Attack, Precise Shot 2, Skill Mastery (Acrobatics, Bluff, Notice, Sense Motive) Stunning Attack, Takedown Attack, Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 46 pp Flight 1 (10 MPH) (PF: Subtle) [3 pp] Force Field 6 [6 pp] Prehensile Hair Array [32+1=33 pp] Move Object 10 (Heavy Load: 12 tons) (Extra: Damaging; PFs: Accurate 2) AP: Damage 10 (Extras: Selective, Targeted Area [Cone]; PFs: Accurate 2) Shield 4 [4 pp] costs abilities 32 + combat 24 + saves 13 + skills 13/52 + feats 21 +powers 46= 105 pts ------------------- Design Notes: Here's Rapunzel, Amalgam and heroine of fairy tales (as well as the recent movie Tangled) as a PL 10 superheroine. I've gone with the idea that all that time locked up in the tower gave her time to work out, perhaps in endless swordfights against imaginary opponents, making her a serious threat in hand to hand combat (and a little stunted in interpersonal relationships despite being a great beauty). Rather than Prehensile Hair, a clunky power that leads to grossly inflated Grapple checks, I've given her Damaging Move Object as a descriptor for her hair, along with an area effect that represents whipping braids at great speed and accuracy. This way a guy climbing her hair is more about her grabbing him and pulling him up. (Why isn't there an action/reaction effect since her hair is a solid object? Well, maybe she doesn't want to get her hair ripped out by the roots! We're through the logic looking glass here, people) She could use more combat feats; maybe Improved Ranged Disarm on her hair to represent ripping the guns out of bad guys' hands, or just improved crit for especially hard slashes with pointy hair. (Split Attack is a pretty poor feat, so I left it off there; you're much better off just using a Selective Area effect as she as. I figure she can block melee and ranged attacks both with her hair (giving her both Force Field and Shield). I let Subtle Flight stand in for making some kind of hair sail, or maybe just swinging around on her hair like Spiderman. (Well, he doesn't swing on his hair...you know what I mean!) If you do want to give her a more mystic focus, perhaps have her be an actual refugee from fae, perhaps some Super-Senses would make sense. I think this build would work just fine in Freedom City; maybe she's a heroine with powers she's opted to tie into a particular storybook theme, or maybe she's the mythic character brought to life, or one who's become an avatar of that particular fable. With her Attractive, she makes a lovely damsel, if one who could plausibly fight a fantasy army and win. She could work fine as a PC in a Warriors and Warlocks game, perhaps one with a fairy tale theme, sweeping goons like they're going out of style and smashing evil queens through stone walls until they give her the key to the tower already!

APPROVED

Okay, just go ahead and specialize that she has fire awareness. In the meantime, APPROVED

Does he have an AP in his Personal Gravity Array?

Healing doesn't work as an AP for your Force Field; it'll hurt you too badly. Please make your Magic Awareness match the house rules. (I know the Archetype you used didn't have that, but this is where we make sure you check the House Rules first!) The drawback doesn't really work mechanically, that should be a Complication. (I did suggest alternate techniques for that to you.)

Taking advantage of Koshiro's arrival, Sharl turned to his room-mate. Conversations about how Earth was a nice place full of nice people that just happened to be a few centuries behind (at their shockingly fast rate of development) where the Lor had been two thousand years ago tended to go wrong pretty badly, and the last thing he wanted was an argument with Corbin when they were about to go adventuring together. "All I got was that it was something about an ethics test, and that we'd only be in combat if we wanted to be." Now that they were all there, they were actually able to call up the scenario's short instructions as they stepped into the gridded-off walls of the Doom Room. As Cobalt Templar was the senior student there, he got the file: they were playing themselves as Freedom League members, visiting a primitive variant of Earth-Ape to recover a Pegasus plane that had fallen through a dimensional crack during yet another inter-reality crisis. The crew was alive, and they and the plane both needed recovered intact. The locals were aware of who they were, so they wouldn't even need to disguise their true nature. As the walls of the Doom Room rippled around them, Sharl was still asking, "Wait, what's this Earth called again?" Sure enough, from their position on top of a low 'hill', they could see a distant castle on the horizon, pennants flying overhead. In the green fields between them, they could see peasants working in what looked like corn fields, the smell of animal ordure strong in the air as peasants worked the crops under the watchful eye of armored knights on horseback. Except the horses were massive draft horses like a Clydesdale, big enough to carry their riders: massive armored figures with simian faces, watching smaller apes in the field: every knight was a gorilla, and every peasant a chimpanzee. This was a world of medieval apes!

With a nod, Sharl led the way back towards Freedom Hall, Miss Americana in tow. They'd helped the injured and stopped the Gorgon's herald, as he'd find out later after Miss Americana told him what had happened to Willow and what Jack and the other Interceptors had risked to bring her down. Now they just had to make sure they hadn't saved the world once only to see it fall into danger yet again. The idea seemed unfair. Unless, he mused grimly, this particular threat hadn't been to the world at all. Maybe the Curator just wanted back the thing he'd lost.

That actually does hit. 16 Well I don't want that! 32 Getting lowww on HP

APPROVED

APPROVED

Demon with a Power Ring PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 48 pp STR 26 (+8) DEX 14 (+2) CON 26 (+8) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 28/18 (+9/+4) Combat: 20 pp ATK: +4 (+6 melee/+8 Hellfire) DEF: +6 (+3 flat-footed) Grapple: +14 Init: +2 Saves: 6 pp TOU +14 (+8 Con, +6 Protection) FORT +8 (+8 Con) REF +5 (+2 Dex, +3) WILL +10 (+2 Wis, +3, +5) Skills: 44 r=11 pp Bluff 11 (+15/+20) Diplomacy 6 (+10/+15) Gather Info 6 (+10/+15) Intimidate 11 (+15/+20) Knowledge: Theology and Philosophy 4 (+4) Notice 3 (+5) Sense Motive 3 (+5) Feats: 7 pp All-Out Attack, Attack Focus: Melee 2, Fearless, Power Attack, Startle, Takedown Attack, Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 60 pp Device 11 (Lucifer’s Ring) (Hard to Lose) (PF: Restricted [demons]) [45 pp] Enhanced Charisma 10 (to Charisma 28 (+9) [10dp] Enhanced Feat 1 (Subtle on Flight) [1dp] Enhanced Will Save 5 (to +10) [5dp] Hellfire Control Array [26+4=30 dp] Blast 12 (PFs: Accurate 2) AP: Create Object 7 (Extra: Duration [Continuous; PFs: Innate, Precise, Progression 2, Selective) AP: Damage 12 (Extra: Targeted Area [Cone]; PFs: Accurate 2) AP: Strike 6 (Extras: Autofire [6], Penetrating [6]; PFs: Extended Reach, Improved Crit 2, Improved Trip, Incurable, Mighty, Precise, Variable Descriptor 1 [bludgeoning/piercing/slashing]) AP: Teleport 8 (800 ft/2000 miles) (Extra: Accurate; PF: Easy, Turnabout) Impervious TOU 4 (Drawback: Not Vs. Holy) [3dp] Protection 6 [6dp] Flight 3 (50 MPH) [6 pp] Immunity 2 (Aging, Environmental Heat) [2 pp] Impervious TOU 6 (Flaw: Not Vs. Magic/Silver/Holy) [3 pp] Super-Senses 4 (Darkvision, Divine Awareness [olfactory], Infernal Awareness [olfactory]) [4 pp] Drawbacks: -3 pp Vulnerable (vs. holy) (uncommon, major) [-3 pp] costs abilities 48 + combat 20 + saves 6 + skills 11/44 + feats 7 + powers 60 -drawbacks 3= 150 pts -------- Design Notes: Hell, as a wise theologian said, is not a party place. Even for the demons, it’s a brutal hiearchy where all are pitted against all for the pleasure of Lucifer and his inner circle. (No wonder they take their frustrations out on the souls so often!) Blackwing was one of the lowest and weakest in Lucifer’s army, an assistant to a minor demon who spent most of his time toadying to those more powerful than he was. Being that close to the hiearchy gave him a pretty good education in the grim realities of Hell, that the grand war against Heaven was just a spoiled child’s war against his father, that the grand purging of the sinners was simply wretched beings punishing those even more wretched than themselves. So when he had the chance, Blackwing made his escape, snatching up a few trinkets from his master’s chest and fleeing through a mystic passage to the world above. He used up most of his stolen power giving himself a humanoid body, with only his black wings in flight a giveaway, and spent some time fleecing mortals for fun and profit, amassing a small fortune from tiny sins: thanks to the ring of infernal power he carried, he could fool mortals, hurl fireballs to escape, or simply step through hellfire and come out across the continent. But he found a life of earthly sin held no pleasures for him, he was still a petty demon on a larger stage, and there were so many more terrible things up here: human beings with souls as black as any demon in the lowest pits of Hell. After an eternity of abuse from those more powerful than he was, ultimately he couldn’t carry out the same horrors on others: given the chance to be the monsters who’d always abused him, he found himself on the side of the victims. So he decided to become a superhero, making use of his formidable demonic powers backed up by the sheer infernal might of the Ring of Lucifer, to become a champion of justice and right. If he does enough for this world, maybe one day he’ll get a chance to see the place all the older demons always talked about with such contempt. Heaven must be pretty nice if the forces of Hell hate it so badly. All right, here’s my build for a demon with a power ring: without the ring he’s a formidable PL 7 who can do significant damage in hand to hand and is good at feinting and scaring; with the ring, he’s a veritable lord of Hell, an incredibly charismatic, silver-tongued devil who can throw massive fireballs around, create anything he wants out of fire and flame, and step right through a hellish portal to go elsewhere. He’s got no Dimensional Movement, the last thing he wants to do is go back to Hell and be a nothing again! He’ll probably be pretty eager to avoid people paying attention to the black iron band around his finger, but luckily with his silver tongue he’s incredibly good at talking people into doing and saying whatever it is he wants. I figure the ring lets him fly without using visible wings. He can also summon a variety of hellish weapons from Hell’s arsenal, the best to take out the forces of evil! Like most demons, holy powers and weapons are a big weak spot, something which the ring only protects him from a little. I figure the ring’s Protection (which is obvious, coming from a device) manifests as red, wrought-iron looking armor.

"They're all right," said Sharl with a little uncommunicative shrug. "I'm surprised a school like Claremont doesn't use more high technology in their education. I mean, don't get me wrong," he said, tapping on the Doom Room door, "stuff like this is great, but they're still using paper books and mechanical writing tools in half the classes. That stuff is great for artists and stuff, but people who are learning should have access to the best. I know not every place can do that, but if they have the money, they should provide it."

Sharl coughed, and had the grace to look embarassed. Human ethnicities didn't make a lot of sense to Sharl, raised as he was in a monoculture that was a descendant of a multi-species civilization, and he had a feeling his attempt to make Koshiro feel included hadn't gone very well. "Uh, sorry. In any event, I have a lot of experience with that stuff back home; most of the tech is different, but I can still fly and go through walls." He took his shades off and rubbed his eyes. "Plus, I can make sure there aren't any hidden cameras in the buildings or anything." He called up an image on the screen next to him. "My idea was that we try the Old Fens Mission," he said, showing a fallen-down Gothic-looking church. "It's been abandoned since the Terminus Invasion, but it was locked up most of that time so it shouldn't have been looted too bad." Koshiro had walked past that building on his tour of the Fens, it was in a darkened neighborhood well away from the few police stations in the area.

DC 23 Tou save for Orion. Sharl will spend an HP to acquire Interpose for the remainder of the scene.

"Papercut!" shouted Sharl, for whom the gunshot and the blood were a new, barbaric thing. Koshiro didn't look that badly hurt, but Sharl knew perfectly well that a gunshot was a gunshot. "You primitive-" Torn between his injured friend, the gloating supervillain, and the smashed building, Citizen was briefly torn before deciding to take all his options. "You'd better run, right now!"He threw a punch at Orion, landing a blow that raked across the hunter's goggled face, and yelled at Koshiro. "Papercut, he can't hurt me! Fall back and help the others take out that monster before it brings the building down! I'll be right behind you."

"Hey, Corbin," said Sharl, folding his arms unconsciously. "I guess they've finally got it set where I won't punch the subjects through the wall." It had certainly been surprising to realize how he functioned when loaded directly into the Doom Room system; i.e., exactly as he functioned any other system, but it hadn't been very helpful. And thinking about that made it easier than dwelling on his colleague. "Koshiro, uh, has that history class, so he'll be a bit." For all that Koshiro got in trouble sometimes, he was fairly sure the other boy was responsible enough not to blow off training: his room-mate (and partner in evening adventures) didn't go into situations unprepared.