Avenger Assembled

Murdock winced, just a little, at the cheer in John's eyes that he himself would never be able to match. "I will not be very helpful for parties," said the former drone apologetically. "Or socialization." He hesitated, considering his words very carefully. "I have impediments that make it difficult for me to participate in things like that. But I will do what I can to show you the area." His hand on the door as Fleur made up her mind, he added, "You are not from an era of industrial civilization, but rather from an agrarian period. I know very little of the era from which you originate. I understand you come from a period of profound magical influence on this plane's history?"

"Bless you!" exclaimed the panhandler, a big smile on his face. He was missing some teeth and smelled like he hadn't had a bath in quite some time, but he was obviously happy for what he'd gotten from the pretty girl. His black beard was streaked with white and yellow, the first from age (given his weather-beaten, wrinkled face) and the second from who knew what. He winked at her, his eyes yellow in the half-shadow of the alley. "Detroit welcomes you, pretty lady. Go back to your friends now, yassuh." Out in the taxi stand, with a little sigh Sharl headed over to the ATM. "I don't actually have pockets...I'll get some money from Miss A, and that'll pay for the taxi ride for all of us." He could just have wired himself there, of course, but he was trying to fit in with his friends these days. "I'd suggest myself, Eve, and Indira in the first car, and Corbin and Kimber in the second? That way the trip is, uh, balanced and such..."

Detroit was an eerie city for Sharl, a strangely quiet version of Freedom City that lacked that city's crowded airwaves and wireless networks. Still, after Thunder Bay and the alien forest, the streets were practically bustling. He kept a tight grip on his laptop case as he left the plane at Detroit Metro, mindful of how much he needed his projector hereabouts. In darkness, lit only by flickering streetlights overhead, the city wasn't a pleasant place to look at: he could hear distant sirens and see panhandlers in an alley near the airport's gate, taking advantage of the wealthier people who flew into the city to try and make a little money. His stomach churned at the sight: how could even this impoverished society allow its members to live so poorly? "We should give that man some money..." he murmured to no one in particular, looking down the sidewalk at the bearded man with the cardboard sign. Looking around, he added, "I don't see any vehicles large enough for all of us. Shall we split up and take two taxis?"

I'll say Trevor has the Sense Motive to get that automatically, Giz, unless you object?

In which a paper crane flies from the window, a free bird!

Once Becky was safely in the hands of True North and Kimber had done all she needed to do at her old homestead, Young Freedom's members young and old crowded aboard the regional jet flight from Thunder Bay to Detroit. Though Sharl could easily have emailed himself straight to the DPD mainframe and searched as he would, he made a point to stay on the plane with his colleagues. He was acutely aware of how alone he was out here, so far from the few people in Freedom City he did know, and the last thing he wanted to do was alienate the people who were supposed to be on his team. He was here to be part of the real world, to make connections and alliances that would give him the tools he needed to protect Tronik; hell, he was here to have adventures in this wide-open alien world! This wasn't the time to get into stupid arguments with his friends. So while the others socialized, he took the opportunity to crack open his laptop to connect to the local satellite network (carefully using a tightly-focused IR signal that wouldn't interfere with the plane's own navigation) to research their target: Koshiro McMillan of Detroit, Michigan, and the city itself in the process. Detroit had once been a center of petroleum-based industry that had fallen on hard times, and looking at his laptop screen, it looked like things hadn't gotten any better. Freedom City was sparse enough, but a city like Freedom that had lost so many of its people was a strange thought to contemplate. There must be so much to explore! When his search came up with something, or rather, something that was nothing, Sharl said "Hmm...it says Koshiro McMillan's record has been sealed by the order of a judge. So I don't know. What kind of things would cause someone to be held in a juvenile detention facility?" he asked, pointing to the address on his computer that matched where they'd been told to go.

Glad somebody got it, quote. I've often thought about doing one of those Discovery Channel-style videos for FcPbP, but unfortunately I lack the video know-how to even start that!

Utopian Paragon PL: 10 (150) Ailities: 56 pp STR 30 (+10) DEX 14 (+2) CON 30 (+10) INT 12 (+1) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 16 (+3) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Melee) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Grapple: +25 Init: +2 Saves: 11 pp TOU +10 (+10 Con) FORT +10 (+10 Con) REF +7 (+2 Dex, +5) WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6) Skills: 60 r=15 pp Bluff 7 (+10) Diplomacy 12 (+15) Intimidate 7 (+10) Knowledge (Civics) 4 (+5) Knowledge: (History) 4 (+5) Notice 13 (+15) Sense Motive 13 (+15) Feats: 15 pp Attack Focus: Melee 4 Dodge Focus 4 Evasion Move-By Action Interpose Power Attack Takedown Attack Ultimate Save (Will) Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 29 pp Comprehend 3 (speak, read, and understand any one language at a time) [6 pp] Device 2 (Golden Bracelets and Lasso) (Hard to Lose) (PFs: Indestructible, Restricted) [10 pp] Snare 10 (Flaws: Limited [One Target At a Time], Range [Touch]) (PFs: Chokehold, Extended Reach 2 Tether) [9+1=10] AP: Impervious Toughness 9 (Extra: Duration [sustained] (+0) ) Flight 5 (250 MPH) [Dynamic] [10+1+2=13 pp] DAP: Super-Strength 5 (Heavy Load: 24 tons) Immunity 3 (aging, disease, poison) [3 pp] costs abilities 56 + combat 24 + saves 11 + skills 15/60 + feats 15 + powers 29 = 150 pts ------------------------- Design Notes: Here’s a build for a Utopian Paragon, a champion of the island of Utopia in the Bermuda Triangle who has come to our world as a champion of peace and justice. Utopia is an offshoot of ancient Atlantis, an island of long-lived, beautiful, healthy people who have established a hidden utopian society. Utopia is a hidden place, having retreated from the world in the ancient days after Atlantis fell, their secret observations of our society having done little to convince them over the years that they should change that policy. They use their powerful technology to conceal themselves from the larger world, taking advantage of the weakened dimensional fabric in the Bermuda Triangle. (While anti-Utopians might point to the many disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle as a sign of sinister intent, I’ve always understood that the weak dimensional fabric in the Triangle lets monsters through: more physically-inclined Utopians probably spend time keeping giant plesiosaurs from attacking Bermudan shipping. As for those missing ships, perhaps a a few of those misplaced sailors were able to stay on Utopia!) I figure her Comprehend is a psychic ability that makes her a better ambassador rather than a product of training, which is why it doesn’t have the Innate PF. Her signature weapon is her golden lasso, a powerful weapon that lets her grab targets and bind them up, either using them as improvised weapons in the aftermath or just carrying them bound up for the cops. Put more points in if you want the lasso to have a linked Damage effect (like, say, being hit by lightning while bound) or having a Mind Control effect built into the lasso to compel those she has tied up to tell the truth. (Given the flaws that I think are a reasonable part of a lasso, you could fit those in without too many problems.) Her predecessor in the 1940s, Envoy, was a martial artist and warrior rather than the paragon she is; you’ll have to work out an explanation for why she has the abilities he doesn’t: perhaps it’s a product of a particularly empowered parentage, or maybe it’s part of all that fancy Utopian bling she’s wearing. (If she’s just the Utopian ambassador to the United States, that might explain why she’s got all that American-themed flair on: it helps you relate to these Americans if they think someone from a utopian civilization would just run around in a star-spangled outfit for kicks) She’s got good skills; she’s a great ambassador and she’s very people-friendly. Rather than give her Fearless, I went with Ultimate Will to represent her inner strength of character. Another low-level device could give you some good deflecting bracelets: not with the Deflect power per se, but rather with Impervious (to represent bouncing bullets off) or some Enhanced Dodge Focus to represent bouncing larger hits off the indestructible bracelets. I went ahead and made her bracelets an AP of her lasso, treated mechanically as one device: I think it makes a lot of sense that she can't deflect bullets when she's using her lasso to grapple people: that puppy takes both hands! She can deflect anything short of a tank shell with them, which I think fits with traditional depictions of Wondy. She’s a Utopian, which is more of a science-so-advanced-its-magic sort of place, so she doesn’t have Arcane Lore: if you’re playing this as a heroic Amazon, she probably should have some Arcane Lore or Theology/Philosophy. Throw in some more skills if you want to represent someone who's grown up in a more rustic society.

"Bah. Typhoon is the storm made flesh and bone! He accepts no invitations, he goes where he likes, when he likes!" He eyed Ace through his mask, only his staring eyes visible. "You are a master of the sly, subtle manipulations, Ace Danger. You and your woman can enter in your own fashion. These others can do the same. I will not give direction to such...mighty young champions. The Chateau Relais in Geneva, in two weeks." He scowled. "Be warned that if you fail, Typhoon will seek a final solution to the question of the Reich." He chuckled, as did Nina a moment later, the sort of courtly hand-over-the-mouth laugh that a princess learned to use when her father was being funny. "You may go. Typhoon shall depart for fair Socotra." "And I, father?" asked Nina with a trace of hope in her dark eyes. "We shall stand together to organize the defenses of Socotra so that we can defend our-" "No. You will be Typhoon's subtle left hand in Freedom City," replied the dictator. "I shall send for you when you are needed. Go, my daughter. Enjoy Paris. Your return flight to Freedom City shall arrive in some days." At her father's words, Nina drew herself up, her eyes bright and a little shiny, and bowed wordlessly. "We'll be there, Lord Typhoon," promised Mark, unable to keep a little bite out of his voice at the look on Nina's face. "You have our word on that. And you know that whether it's Freedom City's heroes or UNISON, when the good guys make their promises, they carry them out. Whoever they have to fight." "Yes." It wasn't until Mark had turned to follow Nina out that Typhoon said simply, "You remind me of your father." Mark squared his shoulders at that, but kept walking out of the ship and after his charge.

Still in-costume, Citizen flew away from the group to establish a satellite linkup without the interference of the other heroes and their powers. A quick email exchange with Miss Americana got him connected with several magical specialists in Freedom City, though of course they didn't have the time to answer him back. He supposed magic types didn't answer their emails that much. This place, thought Sharl, looking down at the alien woods below that had almost claimed the life of a pretty young woman. Somehow the bland anonymity of Tronik's streets and the comforting embrace of urbanity didn't seem so awful. He still didn't believe in alien magic anymore than he believed in alien gods, but the dimensional weakpoint or whatever lay beneath this place was decidedly disturbing to contemplate. Perhaps it's because there are so few people here, there's more space for things to crawl into from elsewhere. He didn't know what to make of Kimber, but the more he thought about it, the more she made sense. If I was from a place like this, I'd have to be cheerful too just to stay sane looking at these trees day after day. She's a strong girl.

Fixed it up! Thanks, good buddy.

I love the community we've built here, an anti-racist, anti-sexist, and anti-homophobic community in a fandom that often has some pretty serious problems with all three. I love Steve Kenson for giving us a game world where you can be the character you want to be, a place that's a reflection of our world where all the problems can be solved by punching bad guys in the face. (i.e., the perfect comic book setting.) I love the years of real-world time and real-world money invested in this place (not to mention all the free time invested by so many people!), giving us a community second to none in the online gaming world. I love that we have people incredibly talented at building characters, and I love that we have great storytellers, thus making sure that we generally have the best possible characters adventuring in the best possible stories. I love that we have characters ranging from the powerless son of a forgotten goddess to almighty scions of the gods, from grim survivors of zombie apocalypses to the latest in a long heroic legacy. I love that we have adventures that take us from the darkest places in a human heart warped by fell sorcery and genetic mutation to the depths of interstellar space and the spaces between universes. I love the veterans who are masters of storytelling and character creation; I love the new people still full of fire with a million stories to tell and adventures to have. I even love the people who've been here forever and don't get how the game works! I'm so happy we have this great place. Keep up the good work, everybody.

that'll at least get you Sin, Typhoon himself, and suspicions of the Meta-Grue.

Mark spends an HP to help with that check, Giz!

That'll get you Taurus, Dr. Sin (where DID he get his degree, anyway?), the knowledge that Typhoon was referring to himself as storm, and the very likely speculation that the alien probably was the Meta-Grue.

Rogue Background: Glafe Hocter wasn't so different from the teenage boy who is now her greatest rival and the only other citizen of Tronik loose in the outside world. She was just six years old when the supernova threatened to destroy Tronik's first homeworld, old enough to remember the terror and grief on the faces of her parents as their world was faced with ultimate annihilation. When the citizens of Tronik saved themselves from destruction via their power and technological genius, it was all the proof the young girl needed of the superiority of Tronik's civilization. While some citizens of the misplaced city took an interest in restoring contact with the Lor Republic that had fostered the city's original civilization, Glafe was more than content with the planet that the Tronikians had won for themselves via cleverness and hard work. When she finished her education, she took a job working in the plankton fleet, gathering protein supplies from the oceans of Neo to help feed and clothe her fellow citizens. The sea drove some Tronikians mad with its isolation and lonliness, but she found herself strangely content with a world where she shared a space with only about a thousand people. She was happier among machines, really. And then the disaster came. Her boat played host to one of Tronik's great scientists, a maverick who believed he could open a dimensional gateway and reconnect Tronik to the rest of galactic civilization. She lacked an interest in his work, and so was working down in the hold amid the great machines that gathered the uncounted trillions of Neo's familiar symmetrical plankton when the scientist's gateway opened...and the programming error it created promptly fragmented every subroutine in the local directory. For Grafe, as she plunged into the depths of the worldsea, it was as if the world had shattered into a thousand screaming fragments. Fragments of machines. Of plankton. Of people, of friends looking at her with segmented eyes but still horribly alive until finally they mercifully drowned beneath the cleansing waves. Another ship in the fleet found her a day later, clinging to a fragment of matter that still floated, the victim of a 'reactor breach'. The scientist's project was written off as unstable, and Leroj (then the only guardian of Tronik) believed that all had died thanks to the device he had failed to note until it was far too late. She had survived the disaster, but not unchanged. Returning home to an empty room in a sector she hardly remembered, she was beset by...visions. This was something in her very soul, something her machines and computers could not save her from. When she dreamed, she seemed to walk through walls and hear voices from impossibly far away, when she was alone she seemed to see the walls warp and shift around her. Sometimes, when she was perfectly still and quiet for hours at a time, she seemed to be able to look past the walls of reality itself. Keeping her visions a secret rather than be branded a mutant, she began following cults like the Azure Curtain and other end-times sects, determined to find out the secrets of the world her accident had uncovered. In her obsessive drive to uncover the truth, she left behind her career, her friends, and her family, until finally after years of searching she found herself before a winking portal in reality on a sector's roof. Ignoring the screams of those who saw her as nothing but a suicide, she hurled herself forward into the segfault and fell into madness. Glafe drifted on the Internet for more years than she can count. She spent a long time alone in the howling madness, learning cell by painstaking cell to rebuild herself, then to shape her perceptions of the world to see and understand the data all around her. It was child's play to realize where she was, on a primitive, savage alien world that wallowed in unharvested forests and uncontrolled weather, its population mired in backwater technology, beset by nigh-omnipotent monsters in flashy costumes. She began manipulating the systems around her, trying to figure out how she'd gotten there and how to get home, but someone else found her first. It was Talos who taught her how to assemble her own body out of projected light and magnetism, it was Talos who taught her how to punish the organics around her, and it was Talos who told her about the real history of Tronik: about how aliens had betrayed them to death and into a computer, how another alien had stolen away their program and kept them running on his desk as a joke, and how the Freedom League had hid the real world from her people for years for so very long. As she studied this primitive world that had held her own in bondage for so long, the rage coiled in her simulated heart. How dare they take the mighty civilization of Tronik and turn it into a joke? How dare these savages call themselves kings and queens of creation when they were but one step from rolling in the mud that had spawned their primitive ancestors? How dare these so-called heroes leave them on a desk and do nothing to tell them about the world all around them? How dare the Lor forget their people for 2000 years? She would be a rogue in their system, a program beholden to no one, one who would change everything. With some suggestions from Talos, she came up with a plan. She would free her people, all her people, and use them to take this planet from the primitive fools who had forgotten Tronik and who had wasted their own planet, their own lives. When all was said and done, the organics would be broken and the world would belong to its machines, the only things she knew she could truly trust. Only then could Tronik truly be safe from its enemies. Only then would they bow to her as their savior. Role: When she's not doing her best to show Citizen the fragility of organic life and how stupid it is for him to trust them, Rogue is Talos' way of dealing with troublesome hackers into the Foundry. Mundane hackers are usually only able to watch helplessly as she powers her way onto their system, shattering their defenses with her fists, before she steals their data, frames them for computer crimes, and watches them, laughing, when the vice squad comes for them. Even super-hackers may not expect a program who looks like a beautiful woman to step out of their screens and gently tease them into doing whatever she wants (hackers tend to be vulnerable to that sort of persuasion), whether it's shutting down an investigation or simply giving part of their harddrive over to the Foundry's research. Those she can't seduce or destroy, she simply beats to a pulp with her fists until they're in no position to hack anyone. She doesn't care. They had it coming the moment they dared lay hands on her systems, on her people. She and Scylla have a fine professional relationship. She will very rarely fight superheroes openly. In a super-battle, she will not hesitate to ruthlessly exploit the sentimentality of her heroic antagonists to make an escape, often deliberately ramming vehicles into each other or shutting down vital power networks as a distraction. If caught inside a system, she will graphically demonstrate to almost anyone that this is her world and she will do so via beating her opponents as close to death as she can manage. After all, if they die, how will they learn about her true power as a lesson to others? Stats: Like any good archnemesis, Rogue has Citizen's stats.

"My mother was known as Jeanne while she lived in France in the 1400s, with no last name but that of her home village. She is something of a celebrity on Earth for her deeds as a saint and warrior, but ever have I heard her give the fame and respect to others for the victories won under her name. She would prefer you make nothing of her deeds and words, should you meet." He hmmed, studying the wares of the clothworker who he faced, and raised an eyebrow at Gabriel. "If I were human, Carson, I think I might be offended." He smiled faintly. "Angels do possess all the genders of man, woman, and otherwise. And on Earth, many of the same drives."

Animal Shapeshifter PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 44 pp STR 24 (+7) DEX 20 (+5) CON 24 (+7) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 12 (+1) Combat: 32 pp ATK: +8 (+13 melee) DEF: +13 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +7 Grapple: +20 Saves: 7 pp TOU +7 (+7 Con) FORT +7 (+7 Con) REF +7 (+5 Dex, +2) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 40 r=10 pp Climb 3 (+10) Disguise 3 (+4/+9) Handle Animal 9 (+10) Knowledge (Life Sciences) 5 (+5) Languages 1 (French) (Base: English) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 3 (+5) Survival 8 (+10) Feats: 17 pp Animal Empathy Attack Focus: Melee 5 Dodge Focus 5 Evasion Move-By Action Power Attack Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 40 pp Shapeshift 5 (Extras: Action [Free], Duration [Continuous]) (Flaws: Limited 2 [Medium-sized Animals]) [40 pp] Sample Form: 'Bird of Prey': Flight 4 [8 pp], Improved Crit 2 [unarmed] [2 pp]Penetrating Unarmed Damage [7 pp], Super-Senses 6 (Extended Hearing x3, Extended Vision x3) [6 pp] costs abilities 44 + combat 32 + saves 7 + skills 10/40 + feats 17 + powers 40 = 150 pts ------------------------------- Design Notes: Here's my build for an animal-themed shapeshifter like DC Comics' Beast Boy or Marvel's Snowbird. She doesn't have the massive Shapeshift pool that most of your typical comic book shapeshifters possess, but she makes up for that via focus: as a free action she can pull up 25 pp and put them into any animal form she chooses: one round she's a leopard, then an eagle, and she stays in that form as long as she wants. She can be a flier, a tracker, or even a melee fighter (perhaps as a wolverine or ratel), and generally fit the many niches that an animal-shifter should be able to fit on your team. Note that her flaw isn't that she can only turn into animals that are naturally medium-sized, rather, that means she can turn into any animal but the form itself will be Medium-sized. That is a pretty stiff limitation, limiting her to just forms like large dogs and other good-sized animals if she wants to get around without being spotted for what she is. No Growing or Shrinking means you don't have to worry about size penalties in play and can always keep playing the game you started in. Did she get her powers from a hilariously piece of bad vaccination science? Or is she the mystic guardian of the Canadian forests? Lots of ways to play with a character like this; if she can't change color, I'd call that a flaw rather than a drawback (at least assuming she herself is some strange color, perhaps green): after all, that'll pretty much kibosh almost every potential use of the power for infiltration unless your opponents are very dumb. Add more Teamwork and Taunt for an experienced sidekick turned young teenage hero; add more Arcane Lore for a hero in tune with her mystic or magical background. Add some Morph if you want to make her better at disguising herself (as it is, she probably has a 'tell' in one form or another) Note that a problem where she dies if taken out of her home country is definitely a Complication. (I've always assumed that Snowbird was just faking that and just was a big ol' snob about leaving Canada). She lacks a really intimate connection to nature without her powers (no Comprehend and the like), but with the right use of her Shapeshift just about anything's possible. You could tighten up her flaws even further to make her an even more narrowly focused shapeshifter: maybe all she can turn into are different kinds of dogs! If you drop the Continuous extra, make sure to pick up Concentration, or else her secret's going to be out the first time she takes a really solid hit in combat. Or remove the animal theme altogether and just make her a pocket shapeshifter who's very formidable without her powers, letting her be much more effective in situations where they can't be used. Make sure to work up some sample forms before you enter play, a very good choice for a new player and part of our site rules.

"Feh! The past is dead. It is the future that belongs to Typhoon." The king of Socotra stalked to his throne again, his cape swirling behind him. "The pieces are on the board. The players of our side now understand the game. But we play for no small stakes! On the board is the fate of two worlds. This one, and one with which I think your young allies may be all too familiar." He hmmed. "In two weeks, there shall be a great ball in Geneva. The fool Swiss believe it is a fete organized by some piddling bank. Rather, it is an occasion for the dragon of Sin to negotiate with another Nipponese empire to decide who shall rule what." He waved his hand. "He says he plays them for fools. But to pretend to be a dog is to fasten the collar round one's own neck! See them there! Then you shall understand the magnitude of what they dare dream."

This is so much easier when I'm the only hero! thought Sharl a little peevishly. Guiltily, though, he remembered the hard cold fact that if there were no superheroes, he'd have gone mad and died on the Internet. Or, worse, he'd have never been born as his world stayed an immobile collection of data in the Curator's archive. "What Miss Americana taught me was that when you're the leader, you listen to everyone involved in a project." He followed Corbin's glance and admitted, "But you know, it's stupid for me to fight with you about who's responsible for what when Eve needs our help. Listen, uh, you know her better than me...if there's anything else I can do, let me know."

"You don't care about what I found online?" Citizen stared at Cobalt Templar. "Listen, do you-" He shot a look around at the nearby adult heroes, decided not to mention hacking into True North's database (unhelpful though that had been) and whispered, "Don't you think it might have been the least bit relevant to know about Kimber and Daniel Storm's relationship? That maybe we could have taken measures to protect ourselves from 'magic' before we got out here? And as for what I'm 'afraid' of, I don't think it's that strange to be concerned about being in the middle of a forest that's already mutated someone into a monster!" Agitated, Sharl took off his shades and pinched the bridge of his nose, blocking his face with his hand for a moment before he put his glasses back on. "All right. All right, I'll admit I could have been more patient before I showed off our true colors. I don't think it did that much damage, but that wasn't my call to make for everyone else," he conceded. "And I shouldn't have just flown into the house. I had no way of knowing what was in there. Okay?"

"Yes." Murdock showed John around the apartment, a tour which turned out to be extremely short. There was the spartan bedroom with its two solitary single beds, the sparse bathroom, the kitchenette with its spare, mismatched assortment of food items, and the small living room with the couch Fleur was occupying with her baby and the television. "Are there things you will require?" he asked of John. As even sharing these rooms would still make these palatial accomodations by Murdock's standards, he didn't mind a roomate, but he wasn't sure what (if anything) the other man might need. He shot a glance over at Fleur as she changed the fussy baby, then back at John. "If you would like a tour of the area, I can do that."

The water behind Typhoon turned blood-red for a moment. "I dislike your words, Cannonade, particularly since your voice should be raised in tribute! Had Typhoon joined in the cause of Erde, then your world would face a threat far greater than you could imagine!" He turned his attention back to the board. "Typhoon has pledged that the affairs of Socotra are our own. I have enforced my pledge with my own blood and the blood of interlopers alike! Typhoon needs no aid to defeat assassins from another world, and if you lack the wit to see conspiracies beneath your own nose, grandson of Legionnaire, that is hardly my doing." For the first time, he spared a glance at Nina before saying, "Or so I believed. Terrible as it would be for the world to lose the mighty brain of Typhoon, there is a threat here larger than myself." He swept his hand over the chessboard. "The pawns are everywhere. In your agencies, your prisons, your nations. But the true threat lies when the greater pieces take the board. As their grip on their world fades, so do they seek to reach out and crush this one. Whatever the cost."

"Typhoon has kept his pledge to the Centurion," replied the armored despot in response to Bombshell's question. "He is ever a man of his word." While technically true, those who'd had dealings with the doctor in his younger days knew that he had a flexible definition of his own promises when they suited him. He fell silent for a moment, then with a harrumph strode to the middle of the room where a chess set sat in the middle of a game. As he had reminded his enemies in the past, it had been Arab and Hindu who had first made the game taken by Europeans, and Typhoon counted himself a master. Sweeping pieces from the board with his hand, he took four black pieces: a rook, the queen, a knight, and the king. "Some months ago, Socotra played host to a gathering of...singular individuals." He touched rook, queen, knight, and king in turn. "Alien, dragon, bull, and storm. We have met before, but never at the invitation of others." He took from the white side a small handful of pawns and placed them in a semi-circle. "Typhoon knew their origin, but never their nature. They came as ambassadors from their own lands; a dimension where the forces of the German Reich hold the planet in an iron grip." He closed his hand into a fist over the board. "They made an offer to the four of us. Assist in their conquest of the Earth, and each rule our sides of the board as our own." He touched north, south, east and west on the chessboard. "They showed how, by certain arts, they had replaced individuals on our world with dopplegangers from their own, letting them infiltrate across the world." He closed his hand into that fist again. "I informed them that Typhoon is dog to neither paperhanger nor Ultiman! If they came for the kingdom of Typhoon, then they could face a monarch's wrath!" He made a noise that might have been a chuckle. "Their assassins came sooner than I expected, but of course Typhoon is ever-ready for treachery. And the atomic device planted in the waters of Socotra, an insult to my power. But this, a bold attack in the middle of the Atlantic on a crowded airplane. This was unexpected."

Lucky Typhoon PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 34 pp STR 14 (+2) DEX 18 (+4) CON 16 (+3) INT 16 (+3) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 16 (+3) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+12 Ranged) DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +4 Grapple: +8/+20 Saves: 13 pp TOU +8 (+3 Con, +5 Protection) FORT +8 (+3 Con, +5) REF +7 (+4 Dex, +3) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 52 r=13 pp Acrobatics 8 (+12) Bluff 8 (+11/+15) Diplomacy 8 (+11/+15) Knowledge: Civics 7 (+10) Language 2 (Arabic, Soqotri) (Base: English) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Swim 3 (+5) Feats: 14 pp Acrobatic Bluff Attack Focus: Ranged (6) Attractive Environmental Adaptation (Underwater) Evasion Move-By Action Power Attack Precise Shot Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 51 pp Flight 1 (10 MPH) [2 pp] Immunity 3 (drowning, environmental cold, pressure) [3 pp] Luck Control 4 (spend an HP for another character, give HP to others, spend HP to negate HP/Fiat, force reroll) (PFs: Luck 5) [17 pp] Protection 5 [5 pp] Shield 6 [6 pp] Super-Senses 2 (Darkvision) [2 pp] Water Control Array [16+1=17 pp] Blast 8 AP: Move Object 8 (Heavy Load: 6 tons) costs abilities 34 + combat 24 + saves 13 + skills 13/52 + feats 14 + powers 51 = 150 pts ------------------- Design Notes: Because I am part of the problem, not part of the solution, here's my build for Edge and Nina's kid: Typhoon III. She's a powerful character who is both water controller, luck controller, and acrobat. She's very beautiful and very savvy, with the kind of intelligence you'd expect from someone who learned to wrap her father around her little finger from a very early age. She's not the incredibly lethal fighter that her mom is, but with her abilities in other areas she can still more than hold her own, staying mobile in a fight and disappearing underwater when sorely pressed by serious threats, using her own personal firehose to blast enemies or pin them down or toss them around under giant tentacles of water. Her abilities aren't tremendous, but when coupled with her Luck Control she can do damage all out of proportion to what they appear to be on the page. As this plot is something of a spontaneous development, I'm leaving the character's origin open to speculation. Is she the product of a long-term relationship between Mark and Nina as he gradually won her over to the side of heroism, finally culminating in a match between the House of Lucas and the House of Typhoon? Or is she a latter-day Lian Harper (but with awesome superpowers obviously), the product of a fling between a superhero and a troubled young woman who ultimately settled decisively on the side of super-villainy? If the former, her family's dark past is certainly a Complication; if the latter, her mother's attempts to lure her back to Socotra to take her rightful place as ruler is another serious matter for her to deal with. (Either way, she'll have a lot of Complications to hand, perfect for a Luck Controller!) If she's Muslim, as the al-Darsahs are at least culturally, she's got some good complications from her religion as well in the modern world. Water Control is a pretty broad ability; I went with the basics of blasting and moving things around with water. She's also got enough mobility to get by underwater, but she's actually better off flying outside the water given how much faster Flight 1 is than Swimming 1. As more points come into the character, feel free to boost that! One thing she could use is an area attack. Add more social skills if you want to play her up as a potential ruler, and more knowledges too. She works fine as an international hero stripped of all the fluff, perhaps a native heroine of the Arabian Sea or Indian Ocean with the power to bring water to the very desert!