Avenger Assembled

Siberian Shadow PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 30 pp STR 12 (+1) DEX 18 (+4) CON 20 (+5) INT 14 (+2) WIS 16 (+3) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Ranged) DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +4 Grapple: +7 Saves: 12 pp TOU +8 (+5 Con, +3 Protection) FORT +8 (+5 Con, +3) REF +8 (+4 Ref, +4) WILL +8 (+3 Wis, +5) Skills: 13 pp=52 r Intimidate 12 (+12) Knowledge (Arcane Lore) 12 (+14) Languages 3 (English, German, Russian) (Base: Siberian) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Stealth 6 (+10) Survival 3 (+5) Feats: 17 pp All-Out Attack Attack Focus: Ranged (4) Dodge Focus (6) Evasion Hide in Plain Sight Power Attack Precise Shot Ritualist Uncanny Dodge (mental) Powers: 56 pp Darkness Array [20+2=22 pp] Blast 10 ‘shadow blast’ AP: Concealment 10 (all senses) AP: Teleport 6 (600 ft/20 miles) (Extra: Accurate) (PFs: Change Velocity, Easy) Flight 1 (10 MPH) [2 pp] Immunity 9 (Life Support) [9 pp] Insubstantial 3 (shadows) [15 pp] Obscure 3 (visual) (25 ft) (Flaw: Range [Touch]) [3 pp] ‘shadows’ Protection 3 [3 pp] Super-Senses 2 (Darkvision) [2 pp] costs abilities 30 + combat 24 + saves 12 + skills 13/52 + feats 17 + powers 56 = 150 pts ------------- Design Notes: Here's Siberian Shadow, one of the more sympathetic members of the Soviet superteam in Wargames and one that would be the easiest to convert to functioning as a Neo-Silver Age-style superhero. (Wargames is an Iron Age setting both chronologically and in tone, and the Soviets more so than their NATO counterparts.) Her name is no random selection, she's the daughter of a Russian soldier and a Siberian tribeswoman from Yakutia. She's sensitive to her upbringing: she's younger than most of her teammates and very much a country girl, she's also much more the girl from the middle of nowhere than she is the sophisticated superhero. Her comrades think that her youth and her ethnicity (racism in the USSR is nothing like its American counterpart, but it's a very real problem, especially for 'primitive' Siberians) are why she's such a firebrand: even Iron Ghost is frankly annoyed at how obnoxiously patriotic and Communist the Shadow is. They assume she's overcompensating for her upbringing. That's almost right. The truth is, Siberian Shadow's not the mutant she makes herself out to be: her powers come from magical training. As a little girl, the wise woman in her village took her aside and told her that Russia would one day soon need a champion in its darkest hour, and that the young Shadow herself was that champion! When she presented herself to the government some years later, though, she was smart enough to present herself as mutant rather than sorcerer: the Soviet government officially denies the existence of sorcery and those claiming to practice magic are taken away for further study. What only a tiny handful of individuals know is that this isn't just rationalist bigotry: the Iron Crone Baba Yaga has suborned the head of the Red Directorate, the Soviet agency charged with regulating supers, and is using his power to eliminate any potential magical rivals before staging her own coup d'etat. It's inevitable that one day the two will collide...but when they do, Siberian Shadow will have the most powerful heroes in the Soviet Union on her side. As written up in the books, Shadow is a pretty bland Darkness Controller using the corebook Energy Controller archetype, I think I've made her a lot cooler here. She's basically a living shadow who can fire blasts of darkness at her enemies, shrug off physical attacks, and hide in her own darkness. (I arrayed Concealment with her Blast so she can't just blast while fully concealed, the better to keep her from being too powerful.) She probably spends most of her time fighting inside bubbles of darkness, where she can see easily and her targets stand at least a decent chance of being flat-footed. If you put her in the World of Freedom, Shadow may well be related to the infamous German soldier Nacht-Krieger: perhaps someone in her family tree is one of that monster's children conceived before his full transformation into a creature of eternal darkness. If she ever meets with that worthy, their shadow war will be a lethal fight.

Iron Ghost PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 28 pp STR 30 [14] (+10/+2) DEX 14 (+2) CON 16 (+3) INT 14 (+2) WIS 14 (+2) CHA: 14 (+2) Combat: 32 pp ATK: +8 (+10 Melee/+12 Armaments) DEF: +10 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +6 Grapple: +12/+25 Saves: 14 pp TOU +10 (+3 Con, +7 Protection) FORT +7 (+3 Con, +4) REF +7 (+2 Dex, +4) WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6) Skills: 72 r=18 pp Bluff 4 (+6) Craft: Electronic 3 (+5) Disable Device 8 (+10) Intimidate 13 (+15) Investigate 3 (+5) Knowledge: Civics 4 (+6) Knowledge: Technology 4 (+6) Language 2 (English, German) (Base: Russian) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Stealth 15 (+17) Feats: 14 pp All-Out Attack Attack Focus: Melee (2) Challenge (Fast Startle) Dodge Focus (2) Improved Initiative Hide In Plain Sight Luck Move-By Action Power Attack Startle Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 48 pp Device 12 (Iron Ghost Suit) (Hard to Lose) [48 pp] -Blast 8 (Extra: Autofire) (PFs: Accurate 2) [26+1=27 pp] -AP: Enhanced STR 16 and Super-Strength 5 (Heavy Load: 24 tons) -Concealment 8 (all visual, all auditory, all radio) [16 pp] -Flight 3 (50 MPH) (PF: Subtle) [7 pp] -Immunity 4 (disease, poison, suffocation) [4 pp] -Impervious TOU 6 [6 pp] -Protection 7 [7 pp] Drawbacks: -4 pp Normal ID (Full Round to don suit) [-4] costs abilities 28 + combat 32 + saves 10 + skills 18/72 + feats 14 + powers 48 - drawbacks 4 = 150 pts ---- Design Notes: Nobody really likes the Iron Ghost, not even on her own team. The only actual KGB agent on a team of civilian 'volunteers' (a polite euphemism for the meta-draft in the Soviet Union) and military personnel, her record as sneak and spy doesn't really endear her to many of her colleagues, all of whom are as concerned as anyone else about disloyalty being reported to the higher-ups. (Though the Soviets give their metas a long leash, when they pull back they pull back _hard_). Her KGB work is known to the Americans, too, so she has few friends on the other side of the fence. It doesn't help that she's only in Berlin because of a terrible failure on her part: her backers in the KGB, enthusiastic Stalinists who don't like the reformer Gorbachev one bit, put her up against Red Hammer, the most beloved hero of the Soviet Union and something of an ally of the Gorbachev government...but the canny old WWII veteran ran rings around her politically, assigned her to the career dead end that is East Berlin, and used his own influence to break the power of many of her backers. She kept her armor and her job, but she's under tremendous stress. One more slipup and it's curtains for her... Though she's ever the ruthless, sneaky professional on the job, Iron Ghost has begun drinking in her spare time, raising the threat of becoming an alcoholic even by Russian standards. Much worse, she's begun a clandestine affair with the New American, her battlesuit-wearing counterpart from across the line who is also under a tremendous amount of job-related stress and is also seeking out self-destructive forms of behavior. (Career soldiers who embrace ideologies not popular back home, the two have more in common than you'd think.) The truth is, the Iron Ghost is a young woman who rose high and fast in her career through hard work and skills, and she doesn't really know how to deal with the consequences of failure. She knows she's a good Leninist, why hasn't she succeeded? Is it because she's a failure herself? Or is it because Lenin was wrong? Or maybe, if she's really honest with herself, could it be both? Unbeknownst to her, she has a serious problem: her colleague the Crimson Tarantula, also isolated and mistrusted by her peers, has started tailing her at night out of curiosity, thinking she's found a kindred spirit. If she catches the Ghost with her American lover, there will be hell to pay. Here's a build for a stealth-themed battlesuit, based on Wargames' Iron Ghost. She's potentially a very powerful character, able to fight at both range and in melee while fully concealed against most opponents, particularly mundane ones. She's a good fighter and good sneak even without her suit, and a very good spy. She doesn't have full environmental immunity, but her suit does let her get around in a sealed environment. Her Impervious is a bit low, but with her Concealment and Stealth she probably shouldn't be getting hit anyway. She doesn't really have the technical skills to be the author of her suit, but she could have stolen it or been assigned it as a government perk if you go with the super-agent route. Indeed, while she'd be an interesting armored sneak and thief in a supers game, in an agents game she makes a terrifying, bulletproof invisible monster that American agents tell stories about in the dark.

Star Knight shook her head, her face grave. "The Saha crater area is rarely visited by Farsiders; it's too far from home, and there are few resources there that they use. However...when word of our discovery on there reached the Farside Council, a faction in their militia learned the news and decided to take matters into their own hands. Of the dozen soldiers that went into the crater in the last few days, none have been seen since. We've warned them against any further attempts, but now some in their leadership want to go rescue the ones captured. They have no experience with situations like this. As for weapons...we're planning to dispatch Dark Star, one of our more powerful space-going members, as our big gun on this mission. But he's not a roboticist or an expert on the Terminus: he won't be able to help anyone who's been partially assimilated, disable any world-threatening devices, or figure out exactly what they were doing there."

"A few days ago, one of our lunar tracking devices detected a metallic object in the Saha crater," said Star Knight shortly. "When further probes were sent in that direction," she went on, "they found..." She pressed a few buttons and the screen swiveled around to the far side of the Moon, an alien landscape for most humans who after all spent their lives looking at the other side of the Moon. Magnifying again and again, the crater swam into view, its small side crater and central second crater making it instantly recognizable. "evidence of metallic debris, even movement. We landed a robot probe, which is standard protocol in these, ah, situations..." Star Knight pressed another few buttons and the image shifted to a recorded feed: a starfield overhead and glossy lunar dust beneath, the dark sky overhead a sign of just how alien a world it was there with the Earth hidden from view by the bulk of the Moon. The feed was slow, perhaps because of all the League receptors it had had to bounce off. The heroes watched as the rolling probe stopped and looked up at a suited, no, armored figure that approached it, walking along the lunar surface as if out for a stroll. The camera was able to tilt up, and so it as the figure came into focus the heroes all had a great view of the unmistakable Omegadrone as it drove its power pike into the camera, severing the feed. "That was the last signal we got from that area," said Star Knight simply. "Because of your respective areas of expertise, the League has turned to you for suggestions here." Across the room, Murdock had paled beneath his brown skin at the sight of the drone, his scars flushing red simultaneously as the drone destroyed the probe. "That is a frontline unit," he finally said, his voice flat and dry as an old-style answering machine, but his hands were gripping the table tight enough to make the wood creak. "Go back." Rewinding the image feed gave them a still shot of the drone's face. "There is significant micrometeor scarring that has not been repaired. It has been active beyond an atmosphere for some time. It..." He ran his hands over his face. "Its behavior is surprising. The probes of other civilizations are investigated, not destroyed."

Avro Arrow PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 30 pp STR 30 [14] (+10/+2) DEX 16 (+3) CON 18 (+4) INT 18 (+4) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 in suit) DEF: +8 (+6 w/out suit) (+3 flatfooted) Init: +3 Grapple: +8/+27 max Saves: 13 pp TOU +12 (+3 Con, +8 Protection) FORT +8 (+4 Con, +4) REF +7 (+3 Dex, +4) WILL +7 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 64 r=16 pp Acrobatics 13 (+16) Computers 6 (+10) Craft (Electronic) 6 (+10) Craft (Mechanical) 6 (+10) Knowledge (Technology) 6 (+10) Languages 4 (Chinese, French, German, Russian) (Base: English) Pilot 7 (+10) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 9 pp Acrobatic Bluff All-Out Attack Inventor Move-By Action Power Attack Precise Shot 2 Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (radio) Powers: 62 pp Device 15 (Avro Arrow Suit) (Hard to Lose) (PFs: Restricted 2) [62 pp] -Enhanced ATK 4 [8 pp] -Flight 7 (1000 MPH) [Dynamic] [14+1+2=17 pp] -DAP: Super-Strength 7 (Heavy Load: 12 tons (max 96 tons) ) -Immunity 9 (Life Support) [9 pp] -Impervious TOU 8 [8 pp] -Protection 8 [8 pp] -Shield 2 [2 pp] -Super-Senses 1 (Radio) [1 pp] -Weaponry Array [20+2=22 pp] -Damage 10 (Extras: Selective, Targeted Area [shapeable) (Flaw: Unreliable [5 uses a day]) ‘missiles’ -AP: Damage 10 (Extras:Ranged, Penetrating) (Flaw: Unreliable [5 uses a day]) ‘lasers’ -AP: Enhanced STR 16 and Enhanced Feats 4 (Improved Crit 2, Incurable, Stunning Attack) Drawbacks: -4 pp Normal ID (full round action to don suit) [-4 pp] costs abilities 30 + combat 24 + saves 13 + skills 16/64 + feats 9 + powers 62 -drawbacks 4= 150 pts ---- Design Notes: Here's Avro Arrow, the younger of Canada's two superheroes on the NATO superteam in the Wargames universe. She has something of a reputation as a loudmouth firebrand among the heroes on her team; she's the one most likely to spout off about the Commies, the superiority of the West and its many freedoms there, and the one most likely to be suspicious of their counterparts across the Berlin Wall. This is largely because of overcompensation: Arrow is young, she's a woman, she's a legacy hero worried about how much influence that's given her, and she's a scientist on a team where most of the guys in battlesuits are just that (and fighter jocks to boot). So she's louder, tougher, and more patriotic than all of them! She gets along well with Ymir, who is something of a friendly uncle figure to her, though she does get annoyed when her buddy flirts with the more attractive members of the Soviet team, but not at all well with the New American, the other battlesuit wearer on the NATO team. It doesn't help that the New American's armor was manufactured by a competitor, and she's worried that if he's more successful than she is that NATO will buy American rather than Canadian armor to equip its elite super-soldiers. That's why she's in Berlin at all: she needs a place to show her armor can strut its stuff and outcompete American rivals and Soviet enemies alike, and what better place for that than right here on the front lines of the Cold War of the 1980s? (At least, that's her hope: Berlin is actually one of the quieter places conflict-wise given what a matchpoint it is politically; NATO supers in Berlin are much more likely to fight vampire death cults or Nazi resurgences than scrap with the Commies over the line). Arrow is, of course, named for the Avro Arrow, a prototypical Canadian fighter jet scrapped and destroyed by the Diefenbaker government and their successors well before its time. In the Wargames universe, the Avro people started making battlesuits instead, and their famous designs are sleek and reliably known the world around. She's not as smart as your super-duper comic geniuses, but OTOH that's why she's trying to get a government contract instead of just flying around like a sober Tony Stark: she's still wicked smart, though, and a talented inventor in her own right. She has a relatively low Computers since she lives in the 1980s, and they're not as important even for scientists as they're going to be for the modern era. The theory I had here was that the Arrow suit is basically a jet fighter: she can easily outfly anything in the air with her that's not another super (she's much faster than even the military jets of the 1980s), she's equipped with a full suite of armaments like a jet fighter (though rather like a GI Joe jet with her laser blasters) and she's got some built-in targeting computers and defense systems in there. With just a built-in suit radio, she doesn't have the elaborate super-senses of some battlesuits: her biggest weakness as a military craft may be her need to invest in radar. But hey, they're still in beta...

John Bull PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 42 pp STR 26 (+8) DEX 10 (+0) CON 26 (+8) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 16 (+3) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+7 Melee/+10 Blast) DEF: +6 (+3 flat-footed) Grapple: +15/+25 Init: +3 Saves: 12 pp TOU +14 (+8 Con, +6 Protection) FORT +10 (+8 Con, +2) REF +6 (+0 Dex, +6) WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4) Skills: 60 r=15 pp Craft (Artistic) 4 (+4) Knowledge (History) 10 (+10) Knowledge (Tactics) 10 (+10) Intimidate 12 (+15) Languages 4 (French, German, Russian, Spanish) (Base: English) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Survival 3 (+5) Feats: 11 pp All-Out Attack Attack Focus (Melee) Challenge (Fast Startle) Fearless Interpose Master Plan 2 Power Attack Startle Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 46 pp Device 5 (Electro-Mace) (Easy to Lose) [15 pp] -Blast 10 (PFs: Accurate 2, Improved Crit 2) -AP: Strike 5 (PFs: Extended Reach, Improved Crit 2, Incurable, Mighty) (Extras: Penetrating [5]. Secondary Effect [10]) Immunity 1 (aging) [1 pp] Impervious TOU 10 [10 pp] Leaping 1 (x2) [1 pp] Protection 6 [6 pp] Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] Super-Senses 2 (Acute Scent, Low-Light Vision) [2 pp] Super-Strength 5 (Heavy Load: 12 tons) [10 pp] costs abilities 42 + combat 24 + saves 12 + skills 15/60 + feats 11 + powers 46 = 150 pts ----- Design Notes: Here's John Bull, the most respected British superhero in the Wargames universe. John Bull was the only survivor of Britain's supersoldier program in the early 1940s, and even he just barely made it. With all the Allied powers trying to copy the tremendously successful German program, the British unfortunately had neither the tremendous resources of their American counterparts or the sheer number of German prisoners of their Soviet counterparts. They had less captured material to work with, and less of a base with which to develop that work. This meant that while the man who had been John Bull survived his transformation, even gaining tremendous physical strength, bulletproof flesh, and significant toughness, he also turned into a bull-headed man! Needing any kind of help they could get, the British made John one of their leading agents, giving him a costume like a Beefeater and equipping him with an electrified mace that can even throw lightning bolts. Bull served as a defender of the homeland through the war, and was one of the few British heroes to survive the last terrible days of the conflict when the Germans came looking for retribution. He wishes he hadn't. Showing no signs of aging even decades after the Second World War, Bull is growing increasingly unhappy with spending however many decades he has remaining in the body of a bull-monster. He's still active as one of Britain's most famous supers and the last living link to much of Britain's superpowered World War II history. He lives in seclusion in an isolated country estate, working on his artwork, feeling the weight of years as his world passes him by and more and more people forget about him as anything other than that old funny-looking superhero. He's too proud and too loyal to quit, but it's getting harder and harder to work with the younger heroes: the Yanks especially honestly believe they're bonding with him when they call him Hornhead and make jokes, and his stiff-upper-lip persona convinces most of them he's secretly in on the joke. But he really isn't. It doesn't help that Old Glory and Red Star, his American and Soviet counterparts, came through their own empowerments just fine. When he sits down with a pint in his favorite pub, the one where most patrons are old enough that they remember his wartime goals, sometimes he thinks about just taking his mace and...well, that's probably the bitters talking. John Bull is something of a tragic hero, a man kept isolated from society by his own shyness and hideous appearance. (I've actually downplayed how bizarre he looks here, dropping the Growth 6 on his Wargames build...) In the World of Freedom, he'd still have plenty of opportunity to feel bad after the demise of the Allies of Freedom; you could say that JB was the only survivor of that team, perhaps back in Britain recovering from injuries when all his friends died on the battlefield. He's a natural to have connections to the Labyrinth: perhaps his transformation activated some latent genes left in his family line by a distant ancestor like Taurus, or maybe the famous Man-Bull tampered with his DNA to create an offspring of his own in the heroic community. Perhaps one of these days, the lord of the Labyrinth will step down and offer great power and respect to his son (perhaps one of the first survivors of the nascent DNAscendant process) in return for helping him betray his fellow heroes. He'll say no, of course, and do all he can to defeat the monster with his own face. Perhaps that, even if he finally falls, will let him put aside the demon that stares at him every morning in the mirror.

July 15, 2011 Freedom Hall While this was Dragonfly's first visit to Freedom Hall, Miss Americana had some familiarity here thanks to her work with the League's computers, particularly early in her career with Sharl. This particular visit, in response to an urgent summons by Star Knight, was more efficient than Miss A's earliest visits: once she and Dragonfly arrived from the Lab at the front doors of the centerpiece of Freedom City's heroic legacy, they were quickly whisked away by League staff to the elevators that took them up to one of the secure briefing rooms. In there, Star Knight II, the battlesuit-wearing heroine widely believed to be the daughter of the first Star Knight back in the 1960s, was waiting for them, along with a figure familiar to Miss A if not to her young associate. "Miss Americana. Dragonfly." Harrier was looking more relaxed than the last time Miss A had seen him, though with Harrier you never quite got completely relaxed. His grip was firm in hers and Dragonfly's as he shook his hands, his eyes steady even as his voice stayed in its usual low, nearly mechanical monotone. For Dragonfly, who hadn't seen the man before, Harrier was something of a mystery: his skin bearing a pattern of nearly organic lines over every inch of his exposed flesh, even on his bald head and one through his eyes, his grip solid and flesh a little clammy when he shook her hand. "We have not met before. I am Murdock." "I'm glad you all could make it," said Star Knight, sounding a little fatigued. "Forgive me," she said as she began tapping at the controls of the big plasma-v screen on the wall, pulling up an image of Earth's Moon. "I've been in space most of the last 72 hours and I'm close to crashing. But the needs of the planet come first, and that's where all of you come in. Do any of you have experience operating on Earth's Moon?" "...Yes," replied Murdock, not quite looking at any of the humans there.

"That's actually really reassuring," said Mark, who did indeed look like he'd relaxed under Supercape's tutelage. "I don't have a lot of chances to talk about this with my friends at school, because they wouldn't really understand. Some of them have a lot worse problems, some of them a lot less, but none are quite as personal as mine. They don't worry about becoming bad guys. At least, not in the same way. What's chaos theory?" Mark asked, who'd always done well at math, though nowadays he was smart enough to know that was a result of him getting lucky at test time.

"I'm going to have some kind of civilian job and be a professional superhero," said Sharl. "Where I'm from really needs heroes, and there aren't a lot of other alternatives if we don't let a lot of hackers in. The 'Net has to have some standards," he lied, getting used to telling this kind of story about himself. "I'll probably find work as a writer," he said, "blogging or being a journalist, maybe. I dunno. Before I started working for Miss A, I used to spend a lot of time hunting through message boards, usually looking for aliens and things. Who knew there was all this to see?" he asked, making a nervous little gesture to take in the whole lab.

Upstairs in the Lab, Sharl was pensive. His farewell to his parents had been a stressful occasion, for all that they'd accepted his plans for the future without any serious reservations beyond worrying about his safety. That his parents believed in him was reassuring, that they acknowledged without much argument the need for him to go almost impossibly far away raised his fears in his secret heart. This wasn't youthful hijinks or alien-chasing like he'd done when he was younger; this wasn't even just adventuring and heroing alongside Miss Americana and Gina when they were fighting bad guys. He was here to help save his people, his family, and his city from failing systems and declining hardware, not to mention a world that mostly saw them as nothing but computerized phantoms. And that duty came whatever the personal cost, all because he'd dared go further and faster than his friends. He was in a copy of the t-shirt and slacks that most kids in Freedom City wore, his costume and Tronik gear stowed in his pack for when he'd need them; its weight real enough to him but just another projected hologram to anyone else. As for this, leaving Gina (and Miss Americana) and going out into the world was a stressful thought: he'd always been with her when he'd gone any further than Freedom City, and even then they'd usually stuck together. Living on a new system, even one mostly built with Miss A's guidance, was almost like leaving home all over again. "I'll stay in touch on IR as much as I can," he was promising her, "and I can pop into your system whenever you need me. Once we're done with this, uh, school trip," he said, "I'll be back in the city." It was pretty obvious, even to Sharl he was reassuring himself much more than he was Gina, who after all was much smarter than he was and who had already planned all this out well in advance. He shifted his emitter from hand to hand, his advanced program keeping him from rolling around.

"The cosmic bomb must be destroyed," said the injured Furion carefully as he watched and guided the teens in their work. "That much is certain. To save this dimension, it will be necessary to destroy most of what remains of Freedom City," said Red Falcon frankly. "If the towers are made to fall and the gateways inside them destroyed, the forces of the Terminus will be forced into retreat. By the time they return, this world will have drifted and no longer be the keystone of this axis. I had planned to use Redbird's city-busting weapons to do so, but with her damage..." "Redbird capable of destruction," said the bike a little defensively. "But not at full maximum without antimatter infusion." "I can destroy a city," said Edge, not quite looking at the others. "I know how tough Terminus metal is," he added, twisting a smartsteel wretch in his hands back and forth nervily, "But...yeah, yeah, I can destroy something the size of Freedom City." It was a bald statement from the reality warper, but it certainly fit what the others had seen of Mark's tremendous capabilities. "Like I did back on Anti-Earth, but on a bigger scale. If we can stop the bomb first, and destroy the Omegadrones and whatever else is guarding it, I can take the city itself out."

Here's a build for Fusion with her new powerset PL: 12 (176) Abilities: 28 pp STR 14 (+2) DEX 14 (+2) CON 18 (+4) INT 14 (+2) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Ranged) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +3 Grapple: +8/+28 w/TK Saves: 14 pp TOU +14 (+4 Con, +10 Protection) FORT +7 (+3 Con, +4) REF +7 (+2 Dex, +4) WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6) Skills: 16 pp=64 r Bluff 8 (+10) Concentration 8 (+10) Diplomacy 3 (+5) Gather Info 8 (+10) Intimidate 17 (+19) Knowledge: Pop Culture 3 (+5) Language 1 (Japanese) (Base: English) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 20 pp Attack Focus: Ranged (4) Challenge 1 (Fast Startle) Dodge Focus (4) Environmental Adaptation (Underwater) Fearless Move-By Action Luck Precise Shot Skill Mastery (Gather Info, Intimidate, Notice, Sense Motive) Startle Power Attack Ultimate Save (Will) Uncanny Dodge (tactile) Well-Informed Powers: 76 pp Psionic Fire Array [28+4=74 pp] Move Object 14 (Heavy Load: 200 tons) (Extra: Damaging) (Flaw: Feedback) ‘flaming tentacles’ AP: Damage 14 (Extra: Ranged) ‘fires of rage’ AP: Damage 12 (Extra: Area [shapeable]) (PFs: Reverse Progression on Area [4]) ‘tentacle strike’ AP: Dazzle 14 (visual) ‘ink’d!’ AP: Fire Control 14 Enhanced Feat 2 (Quick Change 2) [2 pp] Flight 3 (50 MPH) [6 pp] Immunity 9 (Life Support) [9 pp] Impervious TOU 12 [12 pp] Protection 10 [10 pp] Space Travel 1 (1c) [1 pp] Super-Senses 2 (Tremorsense) [2 pp] cost abilities 28 + combat 24 + saves 14 + skills 16/64 + feats 20 + powers 76 = 176 pts

Mad Scientist PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 32 pp STR 14 (+2) DEX 16 (+3) CON 16 (+3) INT 16 (+3) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 16 (+3) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 Ranged) DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +3 Grapple: +8 Saves: 14 pp TOU +8 (+3 Con, +5 Protection) FORT +8 (+3 Dex, +5) REF +6 (+3 Dex, +3) WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6) Skills: 64 r=16 pp Bluff 12 (+15) Craft: Electronic 7 (+10) Craft: Mechanical 7 (+10) Knowledge: Behavioral Sciences 7 (+10) Knowledge: Technology 7 (+10) Medicine 3 (+5) Languages 5 (English, French, Greek, Hebrew, Russian) (Base: German) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Feats: 20 pp Attack Focus: Ranged (4) Distract (Bluff) Dodge Focus (6) Fascinate (Bluff) Inventor Luck (2) Power Attack Precise Shot (2) Taunt Uncanny Dodge (mental) Powers: 44 pp Immunity 1 (aging) [1 pp] Orgone Array 16 (32 pp; PFs: Alternate Power 4) [32+4=36 pp] BE: Damage 10 (Extras: Autofire, Range [Ranged]; PFs: Improved Crit, Reversible) AP: Emotion Control 10 (Extra: Autofire; Flaw: Range [Ranged]; PFs: Improved Crit 2) AP: Healing 10 (Extra: Range [Ranged]; PFs: Regrowth, Stabilize) AP: Nauseate 10 (Extra: Ranged) (PFs: Improved Crit, Reversible) AP: Nullify 10 (all technological effects; PFs: Improved Crit 2) AP: Weather Control 16 (100 mile radius, 32pp mix and match environments: Cold, Hamper Movement [icy or Wet Surfaces], Heat, Reduced Visibility [Rain]; Extra: Independent [+0]; PF: Slow Fade) Protection 5 [5 pp] costs abilities 32 + combat 24 + saves 14+ skills 16/64 + feats 20 + powers 44 = 150 pts ---------------------- Design Notes: Here's the greatest mad scientist of the 20th century, Dr. Wilhelm Reich, as a PL 10 starting PC. Reich led a colorful and exciting life; going from a colleague of Sigmund Freud to an eccentric refugee from the Nazis (that he was a Jewish Communist psychoanalyst and advocate of free love made him very high on their enemies list) to finally a quack doctor imprisoned for fraud with his books burned by a vengeful FDA who died in prison. Reich has been a superhero before, Alan Moore made a teenage Reich a member of the League of Infinity (the local Legion of Super-Heroes expies) in the pages of Supreme, but reading about Reich's remarkable life inspired me to recreate him here. Reich is a decent scientist and analyst, but his greatest strength is the gift of gab, letting him persuade all kinds of people about his ridiculous theories and how wonderful they were even against tremendous physical and scientific evidence to the contrary. Reich's work is still the subject of Internet fanboyism today, so here's a short summary. If you assume that Reich survived his 'death' in 1957, having absorbed enough orgone that it now powered his body, and went on to become a superhero, I think this build is a decent representation for him. Reich's theories were pretty nutty, but a universe with superheroes can accommodate them. He was no weirder than his contemporary William Marston, at least. If you don't like Reich, I could see this as any other mad scientist who managed to internalize the results of their work. Another way to take this is say that this man was once a deliberate con artist, taking the money of the gullible and too-rich through phony science. Realizing his mistake the first time his powers appeared, he decided to make a change in life and became a hero to make amends for all the people he'd wronged. Being a crazy scientist who got lucky is fun too, though!

"That wouldn't be a bad hobby to take up," said Sharl thoughtfully, "but I don't think I could make a career out of it. Not where I live, anyway." He hmmed, turning the conversation back to Cole, "What about you, what do you think you're going to do when you get out of school? People as smart as you and Dragonfly probably don't have to spend much time in the classrooms, so I bet you'll get out faster. What are you going to do then, be a scientist?" He didn't compare Cole to Miss A; while he was sure the other teen was smart, certainly smarter than he was, no one he'd ever met was as smart as Miss A!

Quickchange PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 48 pp STR 30 [22] (+10/+6) DEX 16 (+3) CON 24 [20] (+7/+5) INT 20 (+5) WIS 20 (+5) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 [+9 melee/+11 Unarmed] (+5 w/Growth, +8 Melee, +10 Unarmed) DEF: +11 [+6 flat-footed) (+5 w/Growth, +10) Init: +11 Grapple: +15/+20 Saves: 6 pp TOU +10 (+7 Con, +3 Protection [8]) FORT +7 (+7 Con [5]) REF +7 (+3 Dex, +4) WILL +7 (+5 Wis, +2) Skills: 80 r=20 pp Concentration 5 (+10) Craft (Electronic) 10 (+15) Craft (Mechanical) 10 (+15) Intimidate 14 (+14/+15) Knowledge: Technology 15 (+20) Notice 10 (+15) Sense Motive 5 (+10) Stealth 11 (+14/+10) Feats: 17 pp Attack Focus: Melee 3 Attack Specialization: Unarmed Dodge Focus 5 Evasion Inventor Master Plan Move-By Action Startle Power Attack Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (olfactory) Powers: 35 pp Enhanced Feats 5 (Improved Crit, Improved Initiative 2, Incurable, Stunning Attack) [5 pp] Growth 4 (Extra: Duration (Sustained) [+0]) [12 pp] Power Reserve 5 (10 pp reserve; Quickness (to Quickness 11 (x5000) and Speed [to Speed 11 (25,000 MPH)]) [10 pp] Protection 3 [3 pp] Quickness 1 (x2) [1 pp] Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] Super-Movement 3 (Wall-Crawling 2, Water-Walking) (Flaw: Only While Moving) [3 pp] costs abilities 48 + combat 24 + saves 6 + skills 20/80 + feats 17 + powers 35 = 150 pts -------------- Design Notes: Here's Quickchange, an Amalgam mashup of Atlas and Dynamo. He's an interesting character, a speedster who has the power to turn himself into a gigantic rampaging powerhouse! It's not often you see an eight-foot-tall musclebound giant running straight up the side of a building at you, but I imagine the sight would be suitably memorable. He has some limited lightning powers, enough to clothe his fists in sparking electricity when he punches and to augment his already formidable fighting talents. While he needs to be a giant to meet his caps, he's still effective in or out of a fight without it: he's a savvy gadgeteer and scientist (which may be how he wound up with these powers and this monsterism thing in the first place) as well as a decently capable (if lower-PL fighter). He'd make a fine addition to any team, and could probably get by for a while (assuming they don't get into a lot of life-or-death brawls) without them ever-knowing about the beast inside him. He's a lot scarier than most speedsters even without his powers, and so can function in combat roles that his jokier brethren can't really handle. He's in really good shape with no powers at all, either as a result of internalized speed radiation permanently augmenting his body, or just as a result of being in really, really good shape before becoming a scientist. My idea here is that his mutation is the product of exposure to speed energy from the dawn of time and the end of history simultaneously, transforming him into a creature that hearkens back to man's primitive past even as he might open a doorway into the future. It's quite a surprise for people expecting Zippy the Speedhead as their opponent, especially since he can take a hit much better than his typical speedster fellows. He doesn't have the options for stunting that those guys do, but he has least has his lightning fists to play with...and anyway, those speedier guys can't lift a car, or stunt off their Speed and Quickness to pull off all kinds of tremendous feats. With Power Reserve (which works a bit like dynamic arrays) he can put points into Speed and Quickness both, shifting them around as a free action: since he's got some outside his array, he will never be as slow physically or mentally as a normal human being unless you do something to his powers. He's a really good person to have on a team, filling the speedster roles and gadgeteer roles and also having at least a decent contribution towards powerhouse. (If you want to play up his STR, save up and buy Super-Strength as part of his Power Reserve, thus letting him carry great weight at the cost of being slower on his feet. Which makes a lot of sense when you t think about it! Picture and fluff aside, he's actually at full INT and WIS while jacked up on super-speed giantism. He's a really great great goonsweeper with his Takedown Attack, Speed, reach, and his damage, as you'd expect a supersonic giant to be. He has a much lower init than most PL 10 Speedsters, but OTOH his massive TOU means he'll able to take any surprise round hits much better than those shrimpy guys...

Immortal Adventurer PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 48 pp STR 20 (+5) DEX 18 (+4) CON 20 (+5) INT 16 (+3) WIS 20 (+5) CHA 14 (+2) Combat: 32 pp ATK: +8 (+9 Melee/+15 Unarmed) DEF: +15 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +4 Grapple: +14 Saves: 7 pp TOU +5 (+5 Con) FORT +7 (+5 Con, +2) REF +7 (+4 Dex, +3) WILL +7 (+5 Wis, +2) Skills: 80 r=20 pp Climb 1 (+6) Drive 1 (+5) Knowledge (History) 12 (+15) Knowledge (Streetwise) 7 (+10) Knowledge (Tactics) 12 (+15) Intimidate 13 (+15) Notice 10 (+15) Sense Motive 10 (+15) Ride 1 (+5) Swim 1 (+6) Stealth 11 (+15) Survival 1 (+6) Feats: 20 pp Attack Focus: Melee Attack Specialization: Unarmed 3 Beginner’s Luck Dodge Focus 7 Eidetic Memory Jack of all Trades Master Plan 2 Power Attack Startle Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 24 pp Comprehend 3 (speak, read, and understand any language at once) [6 pp] Immunity 3 (aging, disease, poison) [3 pp] Regeneration 13 (Recovery Bonus +9 [4], Disabled 6 [standard action], Resurrection 3 [five hours]) (PFs: Persistent, Regrowth) [15 pp] costs abilities 48 + combat 32 + saves 7 + skills 20/80 + feats 20 + powers 24 = 150 pts ------------- Design Notes: OK, here's a concept I loosely define as "Immortal Batman", modeled on my favorite character from the 90s Gargoyles series, Macbeth. Macbeth the character actually was the historical king of Scotland, and, well...go find a place where you can watch it! It was very good, and he was voiced memorably by John Rhys-Davies. He doesn't have the bells and whistles he demonstrated on the show: his Wealth, Equipment, and Devices (the last two were usually flying bikes to give him competitiveness with the flying Gargoyles and swords, blaster pistols, and body armor to fight them on even terms) should be purchased with PP or be the product of him as an NPC if you choose to make him an antagonist in your game. Obviously you don't have to make this the historical Macbeth if you play him, the build works for any sort of PC that stays loyal to the character's core concept. An NPC build would probably have base Attack and Defense right up to PL maximum, but stuff like that is prohibitively expensive with a PC: he's best with his fists, at home when stripped of all weapons and with only his immortal wits to back him up. He's a man, just a man, who happens to have lived forever: no special powers, no particular special abilities beyond an inability to age and a return even from the grave, along with a command of all the languages he's acquired in the centuries of his lifespan. All he has are his wits, his fists, and centuries of experience to get by in a fight. With Beginner's Luck, Eidetic Memory, and Jack of all Trades ( a must for any immortal PC defined by their centuries of life), and his high base attributes, he can do almost anything with some competence, and with his 2 ranks of Master Plan and tremendous Tactics, he's an unparalleled planner: if Daedalus is an immortal Iron Man, this is an immortal Batman, drawing on his centuries of life experience to hold his own in almost any field. I gave him the fast Disabled recovery because of how Regeneration works in Mutants and Masterminds: since he recovers from the Disabled after the Resurrection, without Disabled Regen he'd just lay there and groan (or otherwise be in a very bad way) after coming back from the dead. I wasn't a fan of that; if you look at how these immortal characters usually work, though death may slow them down, when they recover they tend to spring right back up and be ready to fight. Another way to emulate that would be to give him a Personal Limited Healing that he can use to heal his injuries whenever he's alive, perhaps one distracting enough that he can't effectively use it in combat. He's got a lot of low-level skills to represent having lived through the early modern period; don't forget you can use Beginner's Luck to make him even more of an expert in things like climbing and riding to reflect drawing on his centuries of life.

"Normally I wouldn't be able to interact with the solid world at all, but Miss A programmed me an emulator so I can taste food the same way I see things. They don't make a lot of taste sensors for computers," he admitted. "At least, not here. It's really novel, there are so many different kinds of food here! It's amazing. I guess it's because there are so many kinds of animals and plants, you're not limited to just a few different kinds of, uh, food." He'd almost mentioned protein packs, but that would have given away too much about where he came from. "Did you know they can get four different kinds of meat out of just a pig? And they're all delicious!"

Looking a little more comfortable when they weren't contemplating the ethical complications of his existence, Sharl replied, "Oh, lots of stuff! I fly around and explore, or just hang around surfing the 'Net. You'd be surprised how much you can see when you fly through walls or look through cameras. I can't eat," he admitted, "at least, not unless I'm really careful. The food here just goes right through me if I eat then try and phase through everything. Can you fly?" he asked Cole curiously. "I know most people with powersuits can, at least ones they probably made themselves."

"It's just me," Sharl reassured him quickly. "I mean, if I was doing that, I'd have died the first time I came on the 'Net and..." Well, that didn't bear thinking about. "I have subjective continuity the whole time," he added, borrowing a description he'd heard from Miss A, "so that's the best evidence I have that it's still me, and not just a really smart copy on the other end." He shrugged. "As for copies...well, I don't know, I'm sure Miss A has copies of my memories around here somewhere. But no one's ever talked about replacing me before." It was a disquieting thought!

Edge Earth Died Screaming Chaos Principle Leaves from the Vine Familiar Faces End of the Beginning Worn-Out Places Harrier +Vignette Freedom Angel +Vignette The Great Escape The Angel of Victory Citizen +Vignette Supersonic, Superhuman, Supernatural Are You Ready All Things GMing Summerstime Going Ape Three of a Kind Please put all my GMing points towards Edge.

"See you soon, Midnight," said Edge with a little nod. Once he had something close to the address in hand, he waved his hands, dropping the usual cheerful theater he used at moments like this, and Trevor disappeared from sight as if he'd ducked around a corner, reappearing within eyeshot of Erin and her house. For his part, Mark rubbed his eyes tiredly, focusing on the others and said, "All right, let's get to fixing this bike!" He had no idea how to do that, of course, but he could follow along, and it seemed like Red Falcon, Sage, and even Cobalt Templar had some idea what they were doing. Redbird was full of chatter as well, eager to help herself get repaired and back into the fight against Omega. Gradually, they began getting the antigravs online again, one after another with little chunka-chunkas.

Mark spends an HP And now she is only Fatigued!

Serpent Hero PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 38 pp STR 26 (+8) DEX 14 (+2) CON 20 (+5) INT 14 (+2) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+12 Melee) DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +2 Grapple: +20 Saves: 15 pp TOU +8 (+5 Con, +3 Protection) FORT +8 (+5 Con, +3) REF +8 (+2 Ref, +6) WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +6) Skills: 17 pp=68 r Climb 2 (+10) Intimidate 15 (+15) Knowledge (Arcane Lore) 13 (+15) Languages 2 (English, German) (Base: Lithuanian) Notice 13 (+15) Sense Motive 8 (+10) Stealth 13 (+15) Survival 2 (+4) Feats: 18 pp Attack Focus: Melee 6, Dodge Focus 6, Power Attack Prone Fighting, Ritualist, Startle, Takedown Attack, Uncanny Dodge (tactile) Powers: 42 pp Concealment 1 (Infravision) (Extra: Duration [Permanent] (+0)) [2 pp] Insubstantial 1 (snaky body) [5 pp] Protection 3 [3 pp] Speed 1 (10 MPH) [1 pp] Super-Movement 4 (Slithering, Slow Fall, Wall-Crawling 2) [8 pp] Super-Senses 3 (Infravision, Tremorsense) [3 pp] Venom Array [18+2=20 pp] Drain All Ability Scores 8 (PFs: Extended Reach, Improved Crit) AP: Paralyze 8 (PFs: Extended Reach, Improved Crit) AP: Stun 8 (PFs: Extended Reach, Improved Crit) Drawbacks: -3 pp Vulnerable (vs. cold) (uncommon, major) [-3 pp] costs abilities 38+ combat 24 + saves 15 + skills 17/68 + feats 18+ powers 42 -drawbacks 3= 150 pts ---------- Design Notes: I've always been fascinated by Baltic mythology. Forget your Victorian Celtic fanboys and your Norse stuff; Baltic paganism survived historically intact in many places up until the early 18th century. There were snake cults within a horseback ride of the first Enlightenment-era universities in Prussia and Lithuania, and that's pretty boss. The idea here is that this character is empowered by those ancient legends and their focus on snakes to summon a snaky body for herself, giving her a reptilian physiology and a powerful poisonous bite with a variety of effects she can change up at will. As the picture shows, she's got legs, I just couldn't wrap my head around the image of a humanoid snake without lower limbs. So she's a humanoid snake with normal limbs, with all the powers and abilities you would expect from that. I figure that since she's the avatar of snakes, or maybe a snake goddess, rather than a snake herself, she can change up the effects of her venom: she also can spit it like a spitting cobra! With her Ritualist feat, she can summon up some useful magical powers for herself. I got to thinking about mythological heroes in a Soviet setting as I was working on Ymir upthread, and potentially (if her backers are willing to acknowledge her) she could easily be a counter to Ymir: if not, or in a modern game, she makes a fine pagan-inspired local hero for Lithuania or elsewhere on the Baltic. If you don't like the tie-in to Baltic legend, this could be someone using Serpent People sorcery. In fact, she could actually _be_ a Serpent Person, a rare heroic variety of a people often corrupted by dark magic. (Heck, put the two together; perhaps the snake-focus of Lithuanian and other legends is a result of beneficent Serpent People being chased out of the underground by their relatives and worshiped as divine for a while by the people of the eastern Baltic.) Serpent People are mistrusted across the cosmos given how many of them tend to be Unspeakable One cultists, so that (plus the fact that she's a snake-woman!) will be a natural source of complications for her. She's cold-blooded! Hence the vulnerability and the Concealment vs. infravision, and she's got a scaly hide. Debate whether or not she's stuck in snake-person form all the time or if she can change back and forth like the Hulk, probably buying some Quick Change to go with it. Snakey urges in general are something best left to Complications; does she want to bask in the sun, brood over some eggs, or maybe hunt down and eat some mice? (With her Survival skills and strong athleticism, she could do both of those things quite easily.) Depending on how serpent she is in general, she may have larger or lesser issues with socializing with mammals in general: there are certainly some physical issues to work out before anything romantic is attempted.

"I'm all digital all the time," said Sharl with a little shrug. "I go in, I send myself places, I pop out the other side, or just onto a screen if there are no projectors around. I really wish I could email my portable projector along with the rest of me," he added with a little smile. "But I can't take anything with me that isn't a digitized program like I am. Miss A makes things specially for me to carry around, and I can do some things like that on my own. Anyway, yeah, it's sort of like I'm flying through the system. It looks like instantaneous on the outside, but I have full perceptions of traveling through the system itself."

"Oh man, you can email yourself places?" Caught up in the excitement, Sharl almost forgot about the consequences of organic downloading he lived with every day. "That's really awesome. And you can do it non-destructively?" he asked curiously. "So it's actually digitizing your bits and reconstituting them, it's not just dissolving you and building a perfect copy that thinks it's you somewhere else?" He was of several minds about the ethics of teleporting, probably because he wasn't sure what implications it had for him personally.