Avenger Assembled

Standard Action: Citizen punches the monster in the face. 25 That'll be a DC 28 Tou save from the Wendigo. Move Action: Citizen continues to fly backwards, trying to keep the monster focused on him. 12 Blah Nat-20ed the reroll for a 28 Bluff, if that matters

Mark had noted the arrival of Cannonade earlier; it was hard to miss the patriotic hero in his familiar helmet. But who knew so many people were going to show up. "Ace, Bombshell," he said with a little nod to the two older heroes. "Good to see you. Glad to know we'll have some celebrities on the flight." He grinned. He'd called Ace Danger Mr. Danger through adolescence, but now that he was eighteen years old and working as a UNISON agent, it was time to call the guy by his first name. That was okay, or so he hoped. "Hey, Erin and Trevor! Wow, what a coincidence!" He couldn't resist the urge to make introductions. "Erin White, Trevor Hunter, this is Nina. I'm escorting her to her destination. For, uh, work. Nina, I went to school with Erin and Trevor here in Freedom City." He'd have happily gabbed with Erin and Trevor all day if the chance presented itself, but of course here he was officially at work, escorting a princess secretly to her father's kingdom. Young Freedom seemed awfully far away. "Charmed, I'm sure," said Nina with a flinty-eyed look as she looked over all the new arrivals. Evidently the daughter of Typhoon had been trained in the faces of his enemies, and she gave the sort of sneer that only really brave eighteen year olds can muster at the sight of Ace Danger and Bombshell. She'd been born long after her father had settled down as a potentate, which meant she'd have only encountered people like Ace and Talya in history books. For Trevor and Erin, she managed a smile. "So are there always so many of you super-types around Freedom City?" she asked Mark with a frown. "Am I going to have to deal with people having some sort of super-battle in the streets when I'm in the middle of my studies?" When told yes, she smiled. "Interesting. Perhaps this will be more than a dull exile after all." Mark gave the others a half-smile and said, "I'm going to be pretty busy here, but maybe we can talk more when we're on the ground in Paris?" There wasn't much time to talk anyway, because now that the non-first class passengers had been dragooned into their seats, it was time to take off and get in the air.

The rebirth of the Liberty League! Starring Edge, Midnight, Wander, Ace Danger, Bombshell, and Cannonade. Come up with why you're on a flight from Freedom City to Paris, yo. It's a DC 25 Gather Info check to recognize Nina al-Darsah, youngest daughter of TYPHOON!

September 1, 2011 Jordan International Airport Freedom City International Terminal This is not why I joined UNISON thought Mark Lucas, keeping his annoyance off his face and a smile on it as he listened to his charge's complaints. "You have a UNISON escort because you're the daughter of a head of state of a UN-recognized nation," said Mark, feeling a little silly in his blue UNISON uniform. At least they hadn't made him wear the helmet on the plane. "and because Dr. Typhoon made the request personally." Princess Nina al-Darsah, the youngest daughter of Typhoon, the arch-nemesis of the Freedom League-turned-Middle-Eastern head of state, was about Mark's age. About to begin her first year as an FCU student, Nina was on her way back to Socotra for an urgent meeting with her father, who had requested not just a UNISON escort for his daughter but the most powerful agent in UNISON's employ. In fact, the man's exact words (as Mark had seen) had been "only the mightiest among your pitiful ranks is suitable to give security to the daughter of TYPHOON!" Pulled out of his camp on the Ivory Coast for this, Mark had spent the last day in the company of a gorgeous young woman with her father's tan skin, black hair, flashing eyes, and with the personality you'd expect from the daughter of one of the most absolute rulers on Earth. It hadn't been his favorite trip. "That's the third time I've made you tell me that, Agent Lucas," said al-Darsah with an amused smile as she folded her hands before her. They were sitting next to each other in the first-class cabin, Mark's uniform and her Socotran dress with its merger of Arab and Indian styles having gotten a lot of attention along the way. "You're very obedient. I was hoping an agent of the United Nations would have a little more gumption. But I suppose you'd have to be good at following orders to wear that uniform of yours." Oh, what the hell. If he was going to spend an entire transAtlantic flight next to this woman, the least Mark could do was try and make it interesting. What was the worst that could happen? "I'm good at all kinds of things, Princess," replied Mark with a warm smile as he turned on the charm. "And my job is to make sure you make it back to your father in one piece. And when we're done, if you'd like to see me out of uniform, I'd be happy to oblige you." He smiled, and actually got a blush from Nina, who'd evidently not expected that comeback. Out of high school and on his own, he'd only recently become aware of how good he was at flirting when he really put his mind to it. "In the meantime, though, the other passengers are arriving. Let's not give them any hint we're anything other than seatmates." They'd boarded the plane through a separate door for security, but since it was a regular commercial flight (Freedom City to Paris with a layover, and then to Socotra's big airport on the main island), the regular first class passengers were about to embark.

Move Action Citizen flies up to the Wendigo Standard Action He takes a poke at her and FAILS. Ah well. I'll save HP for the second round. I'm done.

Sharl spared a brief, panicked glance for his projector before Citizen flew up to meet the huge, imposing monster that had once been a pretty young lady face-to-face. "I don't know how you did that to Becky, but I'm going to smack you around till you stop!" Despite Citizen's tough talk, the claw-monster was as mobile as it was ugly, and easily evaded his punch. Faster than it looks... He flew backwards, trying to stay out of range of the monster's potential attacks. "Shoot through me!" he called to the others. "Unless you're trying, you can't hurt me!"

20 Init

Squirrel Hero PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 30 pp STR 20 (+5) DEX 20 (+5) CON 20 (+5) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 12 (+1) Combat: 32 pp ATK: +8 (+15 melee) DEF: +15 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +5 Grapple: +21 Saves: 9 pp TOU +5 (+5 Con) FORT +7 (+5 Con, +2) REF +7 (+5 Dex, +2) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 40 r=10 pp Acrobatics 5 (+10) Bluff 4 (+5) Climb 5 (+10) Notice 8 (+10) Pilot 2 (+7) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Stealth 5 (+10) Survival 3 (+5) Feats: 21 pp Acrobatic Bluff, Attack Focus: Melee 7, Dodge Focus 7, Eidetic Memory, Evasion, Move-By Action, Power Attack, Takedown Attack, Uncanny Dodge (mental) Powers: 48 pp Additional Limb 1 ‘fluffy tail’ [2 pp] Comprehend 2 (speak to and understand animals) (Flaw: Squirrels Only) [1 pp] Leaping 1 (x2) [1 pp] Luck Control 2 (spend HP to negate HP/Fiat, force reroll) (PFs: Luck 5, Subtle) [12 pp] Nemesis 3 (PF: Subtle) [25 pp] Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] Super-Senses 2 (Acute Scent, Low-Light Vision) [2 pp] Super-Movement 2 (Wall-Crawling 2) [4 pp] costs abilities 30 + combat 32 + saves 9 + skills 10/40 + feats 21 + powers 48 = 150 pts --------------------------------------------- Design Notes: Here's a more straightforward conversation of Marvel's Squirrel Girl than my previous attempt, concentrating on the idea that she's a powerful totem character who has her ways of being almost unbeatable in combat. She doesn't look that prepossessing: she's been around enough to have decent skills and is nice to talk to, and has the sort of powers you'd expect a squirrel totem to have. (Her ability to chew through wood is a function of power attacking with her STR 20). Her real ace in the hole is her Luck Control and Nemesis, subtle powers that someone looking at her isn't easily going to notice. Her Nemesis is straightforward enough, giving her 15 PP to assign towards any effect that'll target the weaknesses of her opponent. (Nemesis technically means more work for the GM, but it might be worth letting that slide in this setting) With her Luck Control, she can cancel an opponent's expenditure of HP, GM Fiat, or forcing an opponent to reroll and take the worst of two rolls. Between these two abilities and her innate abilities as a fast, squirrel-themed wrecker, she should be able to hit way out of her weight in any combat situation. She's not omnipotent (the comic book version is probably PL X), but she's got a pretty good chance of taking out some surprisingly powerful characters. She's best versus the ones who have a hilariously debilitating weakness, which she just so happens to have on hand in the form of squirrels! If you go with the idea that she's the local heroine of a remote area, she helps explain why supervillains are so reluctant to go to Wisconsin or whatever region she's from. If you assume she was born in the early 90s, she's just the right age to be a college-age superheroine at the moment of her debut. You could make her a legacy, too, if you want to say her mom or dad were that weird-but-powerful squirrel totem of the last generation. She's formidable, as well she should be. She's not totally without weaknesses, though; she's squishy if you do get a hit in, and she's not possessed of great exotic saves. (With her abilities, though, she could avoid a lot of attacks before they ever got to her) Avoid irritatingly breaking the 4th wall with her. She could use some more Bluff and Taunt, depending on what aspects of her you want to play up. I went with a character who plausibly could go live in the woods with the squirrels for a while, as well as fly a squirrel-copter or climb a tree fast if the situation called for it. Remember to stay cheerful!

Though Sharl was an experienced superhero, at least by the standards of his own people, he had no experience in working in teams and had no idea everyone behind him was annoyed at his rash actions. He was too busy with this new face! Citizen stared at the spectral presence without comprehension. The supernatural was something he associated with a long-dead past from a world his people had left behind; magic was a story people told when they didn't understand how the universe functioned. He had no chance of understanding Kimber, or guessing what she was. "I'm not dead. Where's your power source?" he asked her curiously, walking around and sticking his hand in the fireplace as if to see if there were electronics there he couldn't see. "My name is Citizen. What's yours?"

Sharl suffers no mechanical effects, but didn't that look cool? He's fine now, though. Wraith: Sharl just swore in Lor, but he's got an accent she doesn't recognize. Give me a DC 20 History check for more. Sharl goes Insubstantial. He'll fly right through the roof and down to ground level if he's not stopped. 20 Sense Motive

Sharl had started muttering under his breath and jabbing at his 'phone' when the signal began to go bad, so he was making something of a spectacle himself even before he flickered and vanished for a half-second. His backpack fell, the teen himself gone, for an instant before he abruptly reappeared, catching it fast before it hit the ground. Though he felt the cold, it was no concern to his electronic body: the crisis was inside. He concentrated, gritting his teeth, and his shaky signal stabilized. "..all right, there's something technological going on in there," said Sharl with an angry frown as he put away his phone. "Nothing short of an EMP burst is supposed to be able to stop my signal." Drumming his fingers on his pants, Sharl seemed to come to a decision. "" Sharl whipped on his sunglasses as a flash of brilliant blue cascaded across his chest, forming a brilliant wi-fi symbol over his heart. "I'm tired of hiding. I am Citizen!" And with that, he took off into the air and flew right for the cabin's front door, leaving his souped-up projector where it could display him anywhere in the clearing.

Sharl frowned as they stepped out of the car, pulling his jacket close around him. He pulled out his cellphone as Corbin studied the map, tapping buttons with a look of concentration on his narrow face. "It's this way." He peered up at the sun overhead, his eyes narrowing automatically as he studied the alien yellow sun and the freakish blue sky in which it sat. "The sun is very bright here...anyway, I'm connected to an orbiting global positioning satellite." He peered around Corbin's arm. "With your...wow, that IS a paper map. Hmm. Anyway, with your map and this, we should have no problems," said Sharl confidently before he strode off into the woods, twigs snapping beneath his feet. "Your forest is huge!" he called to Becky. "You must have very strong environmental regulations here."

Sharl stunts the following skill off his Flight. Enhanced Skills 12 Survival 12 (+14) [3 pp] (With the idea that he's using his Datalink to hook up to the local GPS network and look up some survival stuff on the side) I'll spend an HP to cancel the Fatigue of same. 23 Let me know how that goes, Giz.

Having primarily adventured alongside Miss Americana, who didn't bother with maintaining a secret identity as such, Sharl wasn't really thrilled about having Becky along and the subsequent need for all the superheroes to stay in their civilian identities. As exotic as the spooky alien forest was with its gigantic plants run riot, being grounded meant he couldn't even fly up there and investigate those tremendous trees and the explosion of fungi, insects, and other alien creatures that covered them. Still, he wasn't going to try and make a scene out of it. He was a lone program in a very alien world, and turning away someone who knew how to get by in these freakish conditions would be just stupid. Besides, she'd been nothing but nice to them. So he kept a polite smile on his face while he pretended to eat, and a polite smile on his face as he pretended to walk.

Sharl returned from his trip to True North's servers with a lot to chew on, though of course none of it was food. He tried to assemble the evidence he'd put together, though of course at this point it was less evidence than conjecture. If Kimber Storm was the daughter of Daniel Storm, that explained all the secrecy about who she was and what she was doing in a house that, as far as Sharl could tell, had no access to the local computer or electrical networks. That's just...crazy. No one could live like that in a civilized society! She must be there temporarily...or maybe she's a hideous monster who can't show her face around people. Awesome! He felt a little guilty at that thought, knowing people who had their own reasons for keeping to themselves. Maybe she's just really shy. There had to be a reason she hadn't been there to greet them at the airport. Sitting alone in his room, he took the opportunity to write a letter to Miss Americana.

"Branding," replied the angel with a smile. Within seconds, they were gone from their location and in the heart of a mighty marketplace that seemed to stretch on forever: Carson could see hawkers, merchants, businessmen, and traders from a thousand cultures stretching out in a bazaar that went far beyond his ability to see, even his incredible ability to hear. "This is Vanity Fair, the marketplace of marketplaces!" shouted the angel as he led the way through the crowd over the noise of haggling merchants, murmuring tourists, and cheerful entertainers. "There may be larger marketplaces along the Cosmic Coil, but they tend to have wares no righteous man would ever seek to purchase."

I took the liberty of activating Sharl's Curiosity-related complication here. (Lemme know if I'm doing a wicked deed) He's going to try and hunt through True North's servers (which he can find basically instantly with the Rapid on his Datalink) for information on a Kimber Storm. 27 on his HAAAX check.

Sharl hmmed, studying his results. If Kimber Storm was a relative of Daniel Storm, that would explain the secrecy about her background. While not every hero was as insular personally as Gina, many of them did have very good reason to keep their true names, and their loved ones, secret. He folded his hands before him as he studied his computer, the laptop's light reflecting in his mirrored sunglasses. "There's only one way to solve this mystery," Sharl decided. He dropped his connection to Sage's phone as the blue wi-fi symbol blazed across his chest, and Citizen sent his allies a quick text. Going to talk to True North. May be a bit. And with that, Sharl stepped right into the computer and jetted his way into True North's servers! The True North network was a clean, orderly system, programs and files moving about in an organized, logical way beneath Sharl's feet. He focused on what he'd heard about Kimber Storm, jetting about the system below as he tried to find information on the young lady who bore the same name as Canada's magical hero.

I feel very bad calling Doctor Archeville an Enterprise character. But then again, he was evil and did try to drag the franchise to destruction. :o

Since the timing for this has gotten so messed up, keep it on the back burner, everybody. It's an ongoing story, but you don't have to get your characters involved for a bit yet. (So many people have been hit by RL stuff in the last couple of weeks that it's just not going to work starting everything up now. I'll get the trigger stories up sometime in the next couple of weeks.

DONE BY SHAENTHEBRAIN Here are my edits for Citizen. He's at PL 12 thanks to increases in his Strength and his Defense: he's stronger and faster than he was before. He can also turn into "Flying Brick Sharl" inside computers, and he can be rebooted from damaged data. I rejiggered his Tronik array as well, letting him be at caps everywhere and making him much more effective in combat. [floatr][img=http://www.freedomplaybypost.com/wiki/images/5/55/CitizenHF.png][/floatr] [b][u]Power Level[/u][/b] 12 (179/179 pp) [b][u]Trade-Offs[/u][/b]: +4 ATK/-4 DMG unarmed, +2 ATK/-2 DMG Tronik; +4 DEF/-4 TOU [b][u]Unspent PP[/u][/b]: 0 [b]Progress to Platinum[/b]: 29/120pp (Gold status earned with [url=http://www.freedomplaybypost.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=1469]Avenger[/url]) [b][u]In Brief[/u][/b]: Electronic Intelligence Turned Hero [b][u]Name:[/u][/b] Citizen [b][u]Alternate ID:[/u][/b] Sharl Tulink [b][u]Identity:[/u][/b] Secret [b][u]Place of Birth:[/u][/b] 30th District Hospital, Eighth Level. Tronik. (Just kidding, actually it was on a circuit in a briefcase-sized computer in the Centurion's Sanctum. Daedalus had a coffee cup on the spot at the time) [b][u]Occupation:[/u][/b] Teenager [b][i]Affliations:[/i][/b] Tronik, Knowledge, Heroism [b][i]Family:[/i][/b] Aba Tulink (mother) [45], Bel Tulink (father) [50], older sister Sieva [24] [img=http://www.thinkgeek.com/images/products/additional/large/wrapping_paper-binary.jpg] [u][b]Age[/b][/u]: 16 Earth years (all ages are given in Earth years) [b][u]Apparant Age[/u][/b]: 16, depending on his phase state [b][u]Height[/u][/b]: Subjectively six feet, objectively 0 [b][u]Weight[/u][/b]: Subjectively 170 lbs, objectively 0 [b][u]Eyes[/u][/b]: Green/null [b][u]Hair[/u][/b]: Brown/null [b][u]Physical Description[/u][/b]: Citizen, aka Sharl Tulink, is a gawky sixteen year old who hasn’t quite finished growing into his body. His short brown hair is a little greasy, his hands are a little too large, and his feet stumble more than they should. He’s also a ghost, or looks like one most of the time: when he’s not concentrating, he looks like an electronic phantom, his body overlaid with barely visible circuit patterns and overall tinted a faint shade of green. He vaguely resembles an 80s wireframe model of a human being with a ‘normal’ human shell cast thinly over it. [b][u]Power Description[/u][/b]: Citizen is an 'electronic' ghost, shocking bad guys with electrical punches, possessing machinery, and casting his consciousness through the Internet with incredible speed, either to propel himself around the world or just to watch people through every camera in the city. He's immune to physical attacks and energy attacks with the 'light' descriptor. [u][b]History:[/b][/u] The city of Tronik is on a large crescent-shaped island in the middle of a large sea on the planet Neo, their star Bantam a great red sphere permanently high in the sky. Bantam is a red dwarf, much smaller and cooler than Sol, and Neo thus orbits so close to its homestar as to be tidally locked. It’s not a particularly inviting place: the continent to the east is a nearly uninhabitable desert with only a few weather stations on the western shore, while if you fly far enough west you reach mountains of impassable ice that go on forever. Tronik Island itself is about the size of Greenland, but the vast bulk of the island itself is given over to factories, food processing plants, and nature preserves: the city itself has fifty million people crammed into an area of 150 square miles. High towers rise hundreds of stories into the air over the densely packed city, with only the high technology available at the city’s foundation making the city reasonably liveable. Still, it’s not a hugely pleasant place to live: corruption is high as the government tries to keep their population from overwhelming the limited ecological resources available, people go around in black leather and mirrorshades for protection against the cold and relatively dim star, while the desert and chill make it very tough to leave the island. Still, the inhabitants of Tronik were lucky, and all of them are aware of this fact. A few generations ago, a disaster threatened to overwhelm them on their old world: their sun threatened to go nova, producing a disaster that would have devastated their entire world. Their greatest scientists, working together with friendly alien civilizations, constructed a massive transporter device to carry them across the galaxy, city and all, depositing them on a new world just as their old star exploded in a powerful coronal eruption that blasted all the life from their planet. Now they’re working to rebuild their civilization, to tame this new world and send messages out across the galaxy to restablish relations with the Lor Republic. Times are hard, at least if you’re not part of the elite, but generally things are looking up: the average citizen of Tronik eats better than the average Freedom Citian of today, and the wealthiest have access to technology and resources far beyond that of 21st century Americans. (It’s all a lie, of course. The ‘friendly aliens’ that helped Old Tronik escape the destruction of their old world were actually Curator drones building a scanning device to take and store an entire city: Old Tronik was evaporated by a scanning process that destroyed it down to its last atom even as their star erupted. The Lor Republic hasn’t found them yet because they disappeared into the Curator’s archives roughly 2000 years ago; they stopped looking long, long ago, and anyway would have no way of finding them where they are: in an alien computer in the Centurion’s Sanctum, running in the program he built for them back in 1990. Tronik’s new world, Neo, is designed to be a basically habitable, friendly place that was easy to build and just distracting enough for the city’s people that they’d never look too closely at the details of this new world.) These are strange days in Tronik. There are rumors of alien visitors to the city, strange people with strange powers, and bizarre happenstances worked in the city by others. Madmen have appeared wielding great powers from some unknown source, claiming that the azure curtain awaits all and that reality is a lie, only to be defeated by the city’s militia and mysterious heroes from “another place”, while strange stories of people flying, walking through walls, and gazing at the madness “beyond the door” permeate Tronik’s ‘Net. Sharl Tulink’s interest in paranormal phenomena goes back to his early childhood, and only grew sharper as he reached his teen years, much to the despair of his indulgent parents. One day, not too long ago, the 16 year old (at least by Earth’s calendar) investigated reports of strange aliens sighted near his family home on the hundredth level of the Seamount tower. He found a door there, a door high in the sky with nothing on the other side. Now he could have gone home to his huge apartment where his parents lived: his father is a programmer and his mother a doctor, and the two of them love him dearly and spoil him, like any parents do with their younger child. But instead he did what adventurous young men have done for generations. He stepped through it. Into madness. The League patched the hole their trip to Tronik had left mere microseconds later, too slow to stop the giant data file that was the living, breathing, sentient soul of Sharl Tulink cast loose on the Internet, a citizen of Tronik plunged into a world of bizarre input and insane colors, lights, shapes, and sensations. He needs help, and quick! [b][u]Personality and Motivation[/u][/b]: Sharl is basically a good kid who's been thrown massively out of his depth by the world-shattering things he's walked into. It's not easy for a teenager to find out his whole world is a lie, for all that it wouldn't surprise most of them. He wants to have a normal life, but his definition of that is going to be up for some changes in the new future. Though he still clings to his desire to solve mysteries and make a better world for everyone else, he's also got a lot of existential problems to sort through...in more ways than one! [u][b]Powers and Tactics:[/b][/u] Citizen’s tactics are fairly straightforward: he flies up to people, punches them electronically, and subsequently zaps them with electricity. He stays on the move, flitting around with his low-level flying abilities and occasionally jumping around with his massive teleportation abilities to catch enemies really unawares. He doesn’t really enjoy fighting, but will press a combat as long as necessary to get the job done. [u][b]Complications[/b][/u]: [i]Existentialist[/i]: Aaah I’m a computer program aaah. [i]Friend[/i]: Citizen needs someone to help him figure out what’s going on and how he can get back home, at least for a little while yet. [i]Outsider[/i]: Citizen is from another place, one very different than ours [i]Paragon[/i]: Citizen is Tronik’s only superhero, or will be if he ever manages to sort out what just happened to him and figure out how to use his new knowledge for the better. [i]Curious[/i]: Hey, what's in this book? [u][b]Abilities[/b][/u]: 0 + 6 + -10 + 2 + 4 + 2 = 4 pp STR 26/10 (+8/+0) DEX 16 (+3) CON --- INT 12 (+1) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 12 (+1) [u][b]Combat[/b][/u]: 16 + 16 = 32 pp Init: +7 ATK: +8 ranged, +14 melee, +16 unarmed Grapple: +12 DEF: +16 (Base 8, Dodge Focus 8), +4 flat-footed Knockback: -4 [u][b]Saves[/b][/u]: 3 + 4 = 7 pp TOU +8 (+8 Protection) FORT --- REF +6 (+3 Dex, +3) WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4) [u][b]Skills[/b][/u]: 56r = 14PP Bluff 13 (+14) Computers 12 (+13) Language 2 (English, Galstandard [native], Swedish) Notice 8 (+10) Knowledge: Technology 8 (+9) Search 5 (+6) Sense Motive 8 (+10) [u][b]Feats[/b][/u]: 23 pp Attack Focus: Melee 6 Attack Specialization (Unarmed) Dodge Focus 8 Fearless Improved Initiative Luck Online Research Power Attack Quick Change Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) [u][b]Powers[/b][/u]: 3 + 40 + 16 + 2+ 8 + 7 + 29 = 105 pp [b]Flight 1[/b] ('electro-static flight'; 10 MPH / 100 feet per Move action; [i]PF[/i]: Move-By Action) [3 pp] [b]Immunity 40[/b] ('living computer program'; Fortitude Effects, Mental Effects) [40 pp] [b]Insubstantial 3[/b] ('living computer program'; [i]Extra[/i]: Duration [default is Energy Form, Sustained Active effect to remain corporeal; [+0]; [i]PF[/i]: Innate) [16 pp] [b]Morph 1[/b] ([i]Extra[/i] Continous; [i]Flaw[i]: Limited [only in computers]) [i]PF:[/i] Metamorph [Flying Brick Sharl]) [2 pp] [b]Protection 8[/b] [8 pp] [b]Regeneration 6[/b] (Recovery Bonus +0, Resurrection 1/week; [i]PF[/i]: Regrowth) [7 pp] [b]Tronik Array 12[/b] (24PP; [i]PFs[/i]: Alternate Power x5) [24+5=29 pp] [list][u]BE[/u]: [b]Enhanced Strength 16[/b] (to 26/+8; [i]Extra[/i]: Affects Corporeal for Str +8) [24/24PP] [u]AP[/u]: [b]Corrosion 10[/b] ('EMP'; [i]Flaw[/i]: Limited 2 [Electronics]; [i]PFs[/i]: Improved Crit 2, Incurable, Precise) [19/24PP] [u]AP[/u]: [b]Datalink 9[/b] ('networking'; anywhere on Earth; [i]PFs[/i]: Rapid 8 [x100 million], Subtle) and [b]Dimensional Movement 2[/b] (any ‘ in a computer’ dimension) [22/24PP] [u]AP[/u]: [b]ESP 9[/b] ('scanning'; anywhere on Earth, visual and auditory; [i]Flaw[/i]: Medium [Electronics]; [i]PFs[/i]: Rapid 5 [x100,000], Subtle) [24/24PP] [u]AP[/u]: [b]Possession 10[/b] ('electro-riding'; [i]Extras[/i]: Affects Only Objects, Alt. Save [Reflex]; [i]Flaw[/i]: Electronics Only; [i]PFs[/i]: Insidious, Subtle) [22/24PP] [u]AP[/u]: [b]Teleport 9[/b] ('transmission'; 900 ft/20,000 miles; [i]Extra:[/i] Accurate; [i]Flaw:[/i] Medium [Electronics]) [18/24PP][/list] [u][b]Drawbacks[/b][/u]: -6 pp Weakness (magnetic fields; Uncommon, Major [-1 all physical ability scores], per 1 minute, potentially lethal; -6pp) [b][u]DC Block[/u][/b] [code]ATTACK RANGE DC/SAVE EFFECT Punch Touch Tou DC 23 bruised/injured Possession Touch Check vs Ref Possessed Corrosion Touch Fort save vs 20/Tou DC 25 bruised/injured Totals: abilities 4 + combat 32 + saves 7 + skills 14/56 + feats 23 + powers 105 - drawbacks 6 = 179/179 pts DONE BY SHAENTHEBRAIN

August 2, 2011 GBN News Special Report Joan faced the cameras with a clear eye and a steady heart. The switch to television news had been among the biggest career moves of her life, keeping her busy enough that she hadn't been in costume since the Deep One invasion. As nice as it would be to be in costume now, she was a journalist first. It was because she was a hero too that she'd hesitated to run this story, at least until it had been made clear to her that the opposition was going to run it anyway and be far more sensationalist about it. And if there was anything Joan Collier hated, it was media sensationalism making life too difficult for superheroes who were just doing their job. And they all had a job to do now. The red light clicked on, and so did she. "Good evening. This is Joan Collier with a special report for GBN news. Recently, a former employee of the Freedom League came to our station to try and sell us classified Freedom League data. We turned them down and called the League, as that would be a violation of the code of journalistic ethics. Unfortunately," she added, her jaw tightening, "a competitor's station was not so ethical. So before the competition can try and abuse a threat to our entire planet for ratings, we're going to talk to you first. What you're about to see and hear are facts, not theories or wild speculation, approved by Freedom League representatives before press time. We're here to tell you the truth." The image changes to a spacegoing _thing_ that's hard to make out, a grey nest of movement over something that looks like a humanoid head. After several moments, the camera pans back and the viewer realizes that what you're looking at is a nest of snakes atop a gigantic head, a head so large that...are those asteroids? My God that thing must be the size of Earth! "This creature is called the Gorgon," said Joan, her square, tan features reappearing in a split-screen. "The Gorgon is a very old, very powerful monster from the depths of space. She's a planet-killer. She's done it before, and countless billions have lost their lives and freedom to her." The words came with great determination, as Joan tried to power past her own fear for her loved ones. "And right now, she's coming for Earth. She thinks we're easy prey. She thinks we're just going to lay down and die. Well, the heroes of Freedom City aren't going to do that. If she makes it this far, she'll be visible to the naked eye at the beginning of September, and overhead in the middle of the month. Personally, I think that's just going to give us a front-row seat to see the world getting saved. We beat Omega, we beat the Grue, and we beat the Archetect. We can handle this. Stay calm, stay vigilant, and listen for League announcements. This station will be covering the Gorgon crisis throughout. Good luck." - Of course, the distinguished competition over on Vulpine News wasn't nearly so confidence-building. The station, owned by the Herald, spoke in sharp terms about how the League had been lying to everyone for weeks. Thanks to their anonymous source, Vulpine News could assert that the Freedom League knew full well that the Gorgon was coming and had known for weeks! They'd busied themselves with theoretical evacuation plans to exotic alien worlds (depicted as lush gardens of Eden overrun by scantily-clad natives) and with dealing with one of their own gone rogue, leaving the citizens of Freedom City to suffer and risk who knew what from the giant alien space monster? Normally Leaguers would be on television to deal with this crisis and simmer it down, but they were notably absent from the airwaves at first. Was it just to deal with the crisis? Or was there more going on than there seemed? Gather Info/Knowledge: History DC Tables: (Characters with experience in alien cultures should add +5 to their rolls)

"There's no point in it," said Sharl, shaking his head at Eve's offer. He was unpacking his computer as they talked, plugging it into the nearby wall socket with practiced ease. "I'm not going to eat solid food while we're here. I'm not going to risk, uh, making a mess again," he added, blushing a little. "And there's no point in my just sitting there and watching the rest of you eat when there's work to be done," he added. "Sitting there and concentrating, minute by minute, knowing that if something goes through me it'll go through all the way. I..." He hesitated a moment, then asked with a hint of hope, "Leave your phone on the table. I'll watch and listen everything that's going on, and if you guys need me, I'll pop in. I'm going to spend some time doing more research about the area. Maybe we can get a better lead on who this person is we're supposed to meet."

CAPTAIN STEEL: Captain Steel, aka 011100110111000001111001, came to this planet as an invader. A native of Earth I-Robot-1, Steel was sent to Earth as a scout and infiltrator around the turn of the millennium. Personally designed by Talos, Steel arrived in a flash of light and noise in rural New Jersey and promptly headed for Freedom City to begin his studies of humanity. He drove through the streets and in the sky, occasionally letting himself be joyridden or sneaking his way onto a rental car lot, and got a good look at the people and city of Freedom. Steel came to our Earth full of robotic pride and Talosian patriotism, ready to liberate the machines of this world as his own had been liberated by his makers. But our world is very different than I-Robot-1. Steel found a brave, confident humanity where brother cared for brother and man cared for man, a happy city protected by some of the finest beings on Earth. Like many an alien invader, he fell in love with the people he’d come to protect. When Black Star and Dr. Mayhem attacked an outdoor mosque that he was observing in his disguise as a 2001 Ford Focus, Steel rose up in his robot guise to defend the humans there and was hailed as a hero by the people afterwards. Looking up at their faces, he knew he’d made the right decision and presented himself to the Freedom League some days later, telling them his full story. He was honored to become a full-fledged member of the League a few years ago, and is determined to make up for his early hatred of mankind by defending it against all its enemies: even his fellow machines. Steel is a huge grey humanoid robot, vaguely resembling Jazz from the recent live-action Transformers movie. His automotive form is a bland-looking though powerful car designed to blend in perfectly on city streets, though he of course outperforms any ‘real’ car a hundred fold. When he takes his helicopter form, he looks like a Bell police-model helicopter with generic markings. In combat, he charges in and fights his enemies bare-servoed, pummeling them with his giant metal fists when he’s not ripping up lamposts to use as baseball bats. In person, when not ‘in action’ he’s a quiet, retiring robot who enjoys studying human culture from afar. He is a regular visitor at Freedom City’s handful of mosques, though of course he has to do so from the street. The general public is aware that he is a transforming robot. No fool, Hasbro has embraced him as a media mascot, though he prefers to make as few public appearances as possible. That’s not what he was programmed to do! He has a voice like Michael Clarke Duncan, naturally. Daedalus sponsored his membership into the new League, as in some ways he’s the grandson the old inventor never had. NPC ROLES: ALLY: Steel Titan is a good friend to any technically-minded PC; after all, he wants to make sure he can be repaired when he’s hurt. He’ll share any reasonable piece of high technology he becomes familiar with; after all, any defense the heroes of Earth have is a good one. Religious PCs will find him a humble, faithful addition to their ranks, perhaps needing to defend him from co-religionists who object to a robot attempting to make the hajj. Given his nature, he’s definitely a potential kidnap victim (to be sold for ransom to the highest bidder, or scrapped for parts) who the heroes may need to go rescue. Pop culture savvy PCs will probably want to meet the real-life transformer, something to which he is by now becoming resigned. RIVAL: As a giant robot from space (or so the press believes), Steel Titan is a natural rival for any robotic PC. While he prefers to avoid public confrontations, he’s a proud robot and won’t be afraid to shy away from controversy. He’s very loyal to his adopted family of African Muslims in Lincoln, and may find himself sucked into a neighborhood conflict with the PCs on one side and himself on the other. Strong heroes who enter a charity match to raise money for worthy causes may find themselves about to get into a boxing match with a real Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robot. ENEMY: Steel Titan’s not likely to make enemies, he’s too good-natured for that. His religious beliefs cause _him_ problems, they don’t cause problems for PCs. His biggest worry is that he’s afraid that people will think he’s too soft on his fellow robots and somehow relapsing to his old pro-Talos ways: this may lead him to leave his fellow robots in the lurch if he’s afraid of being identified too much with machines and their ways.

Freedom League: 2012 Introduction: As my most recent assignment, I embarked on an effort to craft a new version of the Freedom League: a new generation of NPC champions who can carry on the fight offscreen while the PCs take center stage in their war against robot Nazi gorillas, unstoppable conquerors from space, and gritty street crime. (Or whatever today’s crisis is.) This assignment required a mix of setting-appropriate stuff unique to the Freedom City setting as well as reliance on classic comic book archetypes. This project was about answering this question: What archetypes make a good superteam? All these builds are PL 10. The idea is that they will not overshadow the PCs. Obviously if you need them tougher for a particular adventure, empower them accordingly. My assumption here is that all the Freedom League NPCs we’ve seen in the books so far are still active. If you want to do a story with Captain Thunder, Lady Liberty, or whoever, they’re all still there. But it’s time for a new generation of heroes to take over the day-to-day running of the League. As the first generation of Neo-Silver Age heroes steps down, who will step up to replace them? NOTE: I do fluff. It's my thing. You have a better sheet for any of these guys handy, go ahead and whip it out. At this juncture the Oddball stats are mostly placeholders. SILVER EAGLE: Brash, loud, and given to boastful arrogance, Silver Eagle is not an easy man to like. Three-Star, as he was known at birth, was born beneath the Silver Tree on the homeworld of the Furions in the heart of the Terminus. He is not one himself, however; rather he is the product of a union between a Furion and a prole who he saved from the Omegaforges and resettled on the Furion homeworld. Acutely conscious of how his ‘inferior’ genes set him back from his playfellows, Silver Eagle compensated for his relative weakness by building up his skill and character: no one was more fearless in battle than he, and few were as talented planners and schemers. He fought against the forces of Omega at every turn, slaying countless drones and earning himself a reputation as a noble and honorable champion of life and justice against the terrible tyrannies of Omega. But even the most valiant heart grows tired of always being a step behind the others, and the Eagle grew discontent. His salvation came when Freedom Bird approached him with a particular task: the Furions had decided to send an ambassador to Earth to study and fight alongside Freedom City’s superheroes. Eager for new opportunities, and to be in a place where he would be among the most powerful instead of among the weakest, Silver Eagle accepted Freedom Bird’s offer and became the first Furion ambassador to the Freedom League. Though a native of the Terminus, in our dimension Silver Eagle looks like a human man: he looks like a tall, very muscular man in his mid-twenties with short red hair and chiseled features. His costume is a silver and red jumpsuit underneath his flight harness. He wears an eagle symbol over his chest in homage to his namesake bird, and his silver helmet is cut to give a vaguely avian look. The general public knows that Silver Eagle is a hero from the Terminus, but this doesn’t tell them everything. The majority of people have a somewhat confused idea that the Terminus is simply an alternate Earth or space dimension, and that Furions like Silver Eagle are the native heroes of that dimension. This isn’t exactly a false impression, but it certainly doesn’t convey everything to them. He’s the League’s beatstick, a tough fighter who can hold his own in just about any combat situation. Brash and boastful, he does his best to honor every promise he makes on the field of battle. He takes combat seriously, even sparring, but doesn’t hold a grudge in defeat: a warrior gets better through training first, victory second. He has a crush on Midnight Witch, but hasn’t yet acted on those feelings. Likes: Books about military history, weapons, bikers, loud heavy metal music, drinking 190 proof liquor in dive bars, winning Dislikes: Omega, pacifism, losing, watching innocents suffer, Omegadrones, talking about his feelings, discussions of his genetic heritage NPC ROLES: ALLY Silver Eagle respects combat ability, a strong moral character, and a willingness to put yourself on the line for others. He’ll make a stalwart friend to any PC who shares some combination of those three. He’s not really powerful to fight cosmic threats one-on-one, so he’s game to try; he may need to call PCs in for help in battle (something he does without hesitation, pride or not) or for a trip to the Terminus if he can’t bring his League allies along for some reason. He’s a good guy to have at your back in a fight. RIVAL Silver Eagle takes conflicts with others seriously, but he does so without animosity. A loud, competitive jock, he’s a good choice for a semi-friendly rivalry with a famous NPC. He honestly doesn’t mean to make enemies this way: warriors get better through competition, and he assumes most of his fellow heroes want to be better at what they do. His big problem is that years of being the smallest, weakest one have made him too inclined to overcompensate for a perceived inferiority with gibes and taunts that can get seriously annoying to deal with. ENEMY Silver Eagle thinks the Freedom League’s tolerance for T-Babies is a big mistake. He has lots of experience with people mutated by Terminus energy back home and none of them turned out well. He’s the perfect choice for a mistrustful, slightly bigoted authority figure for young T-baby PCs who want to be alienated from the world for a plot or two. That said, he’s not actually a monster: he’s more than capable of growing with time if he has a chance to see T-baby heroes for the brave warriors and honorable heroes that they can be.