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Freedom City Guidebook
Freedom City PBP: A How-To Guide
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Everything posted by Avenger Assembled
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Okay. Blitz is the name of a Nazi supervillain in-setting, so you may want to avoid that. Good source for complications. Don't make sheets in HeroLab, please. Make sure any sheet you put up is written according to our template. Make sure you're following tradeoff rules as laid out in chat. A Strike Aura costs 4 pp per rank You can't have more than 10 pp in Drawbacks at your PL. (Really, you shouldn't have nearly that many anyway)
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Big Bruiser PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 38 pp STR 40 [32] [20] (+15/+11/+5) DEX 10 (+0) CON 24 [20] (+7/+5) INT 20 (+5) WIS 20 (+5) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+5 w/Growth) DEF: +6 (+5 w/Growth) Init: +3 Grapple: +28 Saves: 11 pp TOU +15 (+7 Con, +3 Density, +5 Protection) FORT +10 (+7 Con, +3) REF +6 (+0 Dex, +6) WILL +7 (+5 Wis, +2) Skills: 56 r=14 pp Craft: Mechanical 5 (+10) Craft: Electronic 5 (+10) Intimidate 15 (+15/+17) Knowledge: Life Sciences 5 (+10) Knowledge: Technology 5 (+10) Medicine 5 (+10) Language 1 (Spanish) (Base: English) Notice 5 (+10) Sense Motive 10 (+15) Survival 5 (+10) Feats: 6 pp Interpose Inventor Power Attack Startle Takedown Attack Powers: 55 pp Density 6 (Extra: Duration (Permanent) [+0]) (PF: Innate) [19 pp] -+12 STR, +3 IMP TOU, +2 Immovable, +2 Super-Strength, x5 Mass Growth 4 (Extra: Duration (Permanent) [+0]) (PF: Innate) [13 pp] --1 ATK/DEF, +4 Grapple, -4 Stealth, +2 Intimidate, x2 Carrying Capacity Impervious TOU 7 [7 pp] Leaping 5 (x50) [5+1=6 pp] AP: Speed 5 (250 MPH) Protection 5 [5 pp] Super-Strength 2 (Heavy Load: 96 tons) (PF: Groundstrike) [5 pp] Drawbacks: 3 pp Normal ID (get mad; free action) [-3 pp] costs abilities 44 + combat 24 + saves 11 + skills 14/56 + feats 6 + powers 55 = 150 pts ------------------ Design Notes: Here's a huge, raging powerhouse who just happens to be a scientific genius. When he's powered up by the furious angry rage inside him, he's big, standing some ten feet tall and weighing several tons. It's a good thing he's got that normal id, otherwise he wouldn't really be suitable for polite company. He's big, he's really strong, he's very tough, and though he may be hard on the furniture he's even harder on bad guys. In a given combat, he'll weigh in swinging his gigantic fists, shrugging off almost all the damage handed out by people near his PL, and generally do most of the things your average powerhouse really out to be able to do. Off the field, he's a scientific genius, easily capable of whipping out a respectable Invention to bail your team out of a crisis. He's still perfectly dexterous with his powers, but he's a natural for a drawback (like the one Bruiser has in Iron Age) that puts him at a penalty for checks requiring fine motor control. I figure he doesn't turn into rock so much as he just gets really muscly and tough from his tremendous powers. How did he get his powers? Perhaps he was exposed to an exploding nuclear device at work, one that miraculously did not kill him but instead imbued the powers of the Furious Freak within! Or maybe, if you do like the Silver Age tie-in but not the nuclear roots, maybe he got his powers from unlocking his inner being through some hippie ritual? A giant wrecking machine of a man who'd only sought inner peace is just the sort of comment Bronze Age writers liked to make about damn dirty hippies. This guy might well have once been a roaming monster earlier in his career, but with the help of good friends and maybe a friendly sidekick, he's been able to stem that inner rage and focus it outwardly on bad guys. His inner rage is a natural complication, particularly if he's trying to control his abilities and bring them totally under his own power. (His transformation is voluntary on the sheet, so having him transform when angry but unwilling is a natural Complication that would definitely get him HP) If he's got a family, say a wife or maybe a cousin who's a lawyer, those are also perfectly viable complications. One possible backstory I had in mind was that this is Ogun, the defender of Nigeria against foreign oil companies and their exploitations. His 'rampages' were actually designed to break the power of Shell and other groups (or even better, the evil conglomerate in your game!), and his reputation as a monster is actually the result of paid journalists bad-mouthing him at EvilCo's behest.
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The taser's stats are Stun 7 (PF: Extended Reach [total of 10 ft])
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Graduation Day: The End of the Beginning (OOC)
Avenger Assembled replied to Avenger Assembled's topic in Archives
The Eule Move Action: Try and Startle Corbin. I'll just say it fails given his ridiculously inferior position right now. Standard Action: Attack with his last Boomerang: 16 DC 25 Tou save -
Graduation Day: The End of the Beginning (OOC)
Avenger Assembled replied to Avenger Assembled's topic in Archives
16: Sea Wolf 21: Die Eule Sea-Wolf rolls vs DC 30 Unconscious! Die Eule has Evasion 2, so he saves vs. half. He's also well outside his weightclass here vs. DC 22 He's bruised. BUT Their lines break, since they're Equipment. Die Eule falls 40 ft A shockingly high Acrobatics reduces it to 20 ft 19 -
The bee goes on 19 19 Freedom Angel goes on 9
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Suddenly, a robot bee swooped up from the darkness beneath, scanning the assembled heroes with thin red lasers that emerged from its scintillating faceted eyes: it looked like the sort of thing you'd find in a high-end production lab, a truly bizarre sight to encounter given that it was allegedly the work of one mad genius in the prison workshop. At the sight of Fleur de Joie, the robot's eyes lit up. "The Fleur de Joie has been sighted! The Fleur de Joie has been sighted!" it called out in a loud robotic voice, before it swooped down to try and scoop up Stesha in its robot jaws!
- 133 replies
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- fleur de joie
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ic Graduation Day: The End of the Beginning (IC)
Avenger Assembled replied to Avenger Assembled's topic in The Realms Beyond
"Wait, what are you-" Whether he'd been willing to see reason or not, Red Eagle was abruptly impaled on Sage's psychic blade with a startled Awp! He dropped without another word, hitting the ground with a heavy thump right next to his fallen female counterpart. Things were not looking good for the Ubersoldaten, but they were masters of the world everywhere else. The knowledge of global domination was a potent encouragement for them. How could anyone resist their power? -
Graduation Day: The End of the Beginning (OOC)
Avenger Assembled replied to Avenger Assembled's topic in Archives
9 That's enough to drop his Wisdom to 0 as well as knock him out. Midnight is up. -
ic Graduation Day: The End of the Beginning (IC)
Avenger Assembled replied to Avenger Assembled's topic in The Realms Beyond
Archeville struggled in her grasp, but was as helpless against her as his alternate grandson once had been. "Foolish Amerikaner! You vill never defeat the power of the Eternal Reich! This building is guarded by ze finest uber-soldiers in der Reich, mit a full brigade of elite Luftwaffe panzermanns! We shall destroy you and your friends and use der Cozmic Generator to rule Erde forever more!" He wasn't acting scared, but he was shaking in Wander's arms: from what she'd seen of the Night Bunker and those .45s at Travis Hunter's hip, the Resistance did not take prisoners, especially high-ranking Nazi ones. -
ic Graduation Day: The End of the Beginning (IC)
Avenger Assembled replied to Avenger Assembled's topic in The Realms Beyond
"You pompous Aryan toad!" spat Edge, offended by the very nature of this terrible world and by the confrontation with evil ghosts from the past. "Your stupid mad science is going to kill your world and everywhere else. We're here to kick your ass, save the world, and fight for America! Young Freedom, take out the fliers! We can't afford to have Cobalt Templar and Sage fighting alone!" He recognized Madame Blitz: she'd been the best of the Ubersoldaten in his own history, but in this world her moral reservations evidently hadn't kept her from enjoying the fruits of Axis victory. "Stop Blitz!" He pointed at her and suddenly a huge beam of steel fell from the ceiling, instantly pinning the fallen Ubersoldaten to the ground before she could do more than yelp! She was out in an instant, the cream of the Axis crop no match for Young Freedom's power. "Make that someone else!" -
Graduation Day: The End of the Beginning (OOC)
Avenger Assembled replied to Avenger Assembled's topic in Archives
Edge: Seized Initiative (8 HP) Wander: 27 (5 HP) Sage: 21 (1 HP) Red Eagle: 16 The Owl: 16 Archeville: 16 Midnight: 19 (5 HP (+1 from Midnight complication) Madame Blitz: 14 Sea-Wolf: 11 Cobalt Templar: 11 (2 HP) In a sign of just how much he's advanced in his time at Claremont, Edge recognizes Madame Blitz from his history books and knows her electrical powers are a serious threat around here. He blasts her with his Telekinesis. That'll be a DC 30 Tou save for her. 12 Okay, Madame Blitz is out and Wander is up. -
When they reached the door down into the central core, Freedom Angel took point. He was durable even without his powers, and had the best chance to recover from a serious injury or worse if things went very badly. Putting his back into it, he pushed open the door that led them to the highest level of the multi-story rocky shaft lined with row after row of cells that was the heart of Blackstone Prison. There was a lot of noise here, too; the sound of shouting prisoners, the calling of alarms like giant angry birds, and the low humming of mechanical bees. And a squishing sound? He looked down to see his sandal just about to come down on a surface beneath his feet. Bending down, he raised a hand to hold the other heroes back, then dipped his head to investigate. "Honey. He has...yes." Heyzel raised his head, understanding in an instant the strange, half-melted color on most of the walls. "There is honey everywhere. Walk with great care."
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- fleur de joie
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Graduation Day: The End of the Beginning (OOC)
Avenger Assembled replied to Avenger Assembled's topic in Archives
Everybody, take an HP for the Fiat. (Don't worry, there are good things to come.) Edge Seizes Initiative Red Eagle goes on 16 The Owl goes on 16 Madame Blitz goes on 14 Sea-Wolf goes on 11 -
ic Graduation Day: The End of the Beginning (IC)
Avenger Assembled replied to Avenger Assembled's topic in The Realms Beyond
For his part, Erde's Midnight had evidently said all he cared to say: this Travis had an interest in young people too, there just wasn't the time to deal with it now. Eventually the Night Cruiser reached its destination: the heavily-fortified, swastika-emblazoned Von Braun Island base. Midnight's fake IDs got them through the security perimeter, and once inside he immediately parked the Cruiser at the edge of the garrison's motor pool. This late, and at the angle he'd chosen, only a sleepy guard inside the main building so much as glanced their way. "Will create a diversion in the next few minutes. Do all you can. All that can be done." And with that, and a single clasp on the shoulder for his alternate protege, Travis Hunter slipped away into the night. It wasn't hard to guess where the reality bomb had to be: the kids could all see the open-topped warehouse that was glowing with suppressed red and black light, the dark glow visible even against the star-dappled, just nearing-dawn sky of 4 AM. Slipping inside, they found a gray circular structure incorporating the great device. Beneath the retractable dome roof, banks of supercomputers, monitors and other scientific equipment lined the walls, with ladders leading up to the similarly equipped catwalk levels ringing the interior. The equipment looked retro to their eyes, but this was the top of the line for 1953. Under the catwalks were two sets of sliding metal doors, one leading outside and the other to the rest of the Space Control Center. Dominating the building’s interior was a huge, red-black sphere connected via cables to various scientific instruments along the walls. The sphere pulsed with a weird, crimson energy which makes the air itself crackle. Before the heroes could investigate further, the lights suddenly snapped on! A tall, blonde man in a white lab coat addressed them in a severe German accent. With all the sinister he could muster, he snarled “Güten tag, herr Amerikaners. I am Doktor Verrill Herman Archeville, und ve have been expectink you. Ve antizipated ze terrorizts in ze reziztance vould strike againzt our Cozmick Enerchy Generator, zo ve had you delivered here, to give you von look at it, before der Übermenschen kill you!†Bursting through the hole in the roof came a squadron of four superhumans, each figures from Freedom City history very much alive in the grim world of Erde where their side had won. One was a man in an absurdly regular Luftwaffe uniform; the other a short-haired woman in black leather with electricity crackling on her fingers. Behind them, coming down on swing lines, were a grey-clad figure in a cape and cowl, a heavily-armed utility belt at his waist, and next to him some sort of freakish werewolf monster. "Red Eagle, Madame Blitz, Owl and Sea-Wolf...destroy the Americans!" -
Sneak Thief is stunned and staggered.
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Citizen nodded at Miss A's words, and headed out of the system as fast as he could. Homing in on what he could see of Dragonfly through the hospital's security systems, he emerged to find her being beaten savagely by a crazy drunken woman. He felt a moment's sudden fury on Rogue's behalf, absurd as it was: how awful was it that his fellow Tronikian had come so far and fallen in with these terrible people? No wonder she'd turned out to be such a jerk! His jaw set, he hauled off and slugged the woman beating on Dragonfly in the face, yelling "" He caught her off-guard, and sent the 'lady' in question tumbling backwards with a split lip. ""
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Suddenly, a string of German expletives erupted from just behind Dragonfly's left ear as a wash of foul liquor-scented breath washed over her face. "You crazy little woman! That was my boyfriend!" Suddenly, the sneak thief who'd been bedeviling Fenris turned on Dragonfly and began savagely beating her upside the head with the butt of her 9mm. "I'm going to beat you just like I beat your boyfriend with the doggie face! Do you hear me? You're going to give me him back or I am going to beat you hard and then beat your mother too!"
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Move Action Feint Dragonfly. DC 20 Sense Motive needed Standard Action Shoot Dragonfly (non-lethally) 25 Blast 4+5+2(Sneak Attack)+2 Autofire=9+4=13 DC 28 Tou save, Fox
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Freedom Eagle II PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 22 pp STR 24 [14] (+7/+2) DEX 24 [14] (+7/+2) CON 24 [14] (+7/+2) INT 14 (+2) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 12 (+1) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+13 Melee) DEF: +10 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +5 Grapple: +26 max Saves: 6 pp TOU +10 (+7 Con, +3 Protection) FORT +7 (+7 Con) REF +7 (+5 Dex, +2) WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4) Skills: 52 r=13 pp Acrobatics 8 (+15)* Craft (Mechanical) 8 (+10) Disable Device 8 (+10) Knowledge (Technology) 8 (+10) Language 1 (German) (Base: English) Notice 8 (+10)* Pilot 3 (+10)* Sense Motive 8 (+10)* Feats: 25 pp Acrobatic Bluff All-Out Attack Attack Focus: Melee (7) Challenge (Fast Acrobatic Bluff) Defensive Attack Equipment (2) Evasion (2) Leadership Inventor Move-By Action Power Attack Quick Change Skill Mastery (Acrobatics, Pilot, Notice, Sense Motive) Takedown Attack (2) Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 60 pp Device 7 (Flight Harness) (Hard to Lose) (PFs: Restricted, Subtle) [30 pp] -Flight 6 (500 MPH) [Dynamic] [12+1+2=15 pp] DAP: Super-Strength 6 (Heavy Load: 24 tons) -Impervious TOU 9 [9] -Protection 3 [3] -Shield 4 [4] -Super-Senses 4 (Extended Vision 3 (x1000), Radio) [4] Enhanced CON 10 [10 pp] Enhanced DEX 10 [10 pp] Enhanced STR 10 [10 pp] costs abilities 22 + combat 24 + saves 6 + skills 13/52 + feats 25 + powers 60= 150 pts --------------------------------- Design Notes: Here's my build for Freedom Eagle, the patriotic Hawkman/Rocketeer expy who was the leader of the Liberty League in World War II. His main power is the winged flight harness he invented that lets him fly around and punch things. With Flight 6, he can outpace any aircraft in the air in World War II (though he'll have to struggle against the latest Axis plot device jet), and he can use his flight to get leverage and pull tremendous weights in the air. He can shrug off the machine guns of most Axis aircraft thanks to his high Impervious, and with his Super-Senses he's a great scout and aerial fighter. His Equipment is enough to buy Liberty Hall, even though it's technically owned by Bowman. (I won't be building Bowman or Arrow) I've reimagined him a bit as having peak physical traits; this can be a result of wearing the harness, or if this is Freedom Eagle II it can be an effect of his father or grandfather having absorbed so much daka radiation that it permanently altered their genes. I figure that in a World War II setting, he buzzed around and punched open Axis fighters, sending their planes down to the ground. Freedom Eagle I got a lot of bad press for being behind the Liberty League's disbanding in the 1950s (would it have killed him to stand up to Congress?) but on the other hand at least he wasn't an all-out traitor the way the Patriot was. Patriot! :evil: Freedom Eagle's son is Michael O'Conner, the long-time Mayor of Freedom City. This is a bit of a stretch; the Atlantic City that is Freedom City's closest model has gone through something like five mayors since 1993. More to the point, I don't think the writers of Freedom City quite get how much time has passed in: even with the armor, it's pretty hard to see a man as old as he has to be as an active superhero. In other words, the guy inside this suit is almost certainly _not_ Freedom City's mayor. It might be _his_ kid, though, or a family member. FE stands up in the Time of Vengeance adventure, which is certainly good of him given his age. He made mistakes, a lot of them, but he was always a hero. He's not a super-genius, there weren't a lot of those on the Liberty League, but he's a good mechanic and inventor. His inventions aren't likely to save the day, but they are likely to be handy to have in a pinch. Even a few PP can save the day if you do enough planning ahead of time. He's got enough Disable Device to stand a decent chance of dismantling the latest Axis super-weapon, perhaps with lots of Inspire and other kinds of help from his friends on the League. I think this build works just fine for either the Golden Age version or a Modern Age version who has risen as his successor. Another possible change, as usual, would be to make a legacy who has no idea who his predecessors were...
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ic Graduation Day: The End of the Beginning (IC)
Avenger Assembled replied to Avenger Assembled's topic in The Realms Beyond
When the work was done, Midnight tested the stealth generator, which actually turned out to be more of a camouflage device. While the rippling hologram that encased the Night Cruiser might not have fooled anyone on Earth-Prime with access to real super-technology, on Erde in the 1950s the machinery disguising the Night Cruiser as just another Wehrmacht truck was probably foolproof. The kids all piled into the the back to become illusory Wehrmacht soldiers, clinging to the rear of the Cruiser and looking like they were sitting inside the back of an open-topped truck for the ride through Arbeitstadt. No, Mark reminded himself as he got on board, hanging on to a car that had had its passenger seats removed years earlier, not Arbeitstadt. Maybe the Nazis would run this place for years, but they would never rule the people. By 2011, this would be Freedom City again. Too late for those alive now, though. Travis pulled Midnight into the front seat with him, the disguise making them look like bored guards, and soon they were off. The truck drove up through a twisty underground ramp, its tight confines making the heroes in back cling to the side of the Night Cruiser, and after a few moments of precipitous driving in the dark they were off into the heart of what would some day be Freedom City again. Freedom City was a charnelhouse. The fighting here, Mark remembered, had been vicious when the Germans came: house-to-house struggles had seen almost all of the city destroyed. The bombed-out city still had not been repaired even years after the German conquest, either; thin, bedraggled civilians crept furtively through darkened ruins as they went, most living behind the barbed wire erected by the Nazis and all under the watchful eye of sneering Gestapo agents. Freedom City might rise from the ashes some day, but for now these were dark days indeed. There were no hitches as they went; Travis' fake ID and perfect German got them through all the checkpoints as they passed through the city and headed for Von Braun Island, for all that Trevor caught his grandfather's hand twitching towards his .45s occasionally when they saw some particularly loutish German or starving refugee. "Out in force. Must still be looking for you and your friends." A long silence in the cab, and then "Will not be expecting two Midnights." Out in the back, Edge looked at the others and murmured, mostly for the benefit of those who hadn't been to Erde. "It gets better. It takes time, a long time, but eventually the American Resistance does recover and starts to push back the Nazi war machine. The war...the war is still going on in 2011, but the Resistance is winning. They've even started to rebuild Freedom City. It just..." He looked around as they headed through bombed-out suburbs. "They never had a Centurion here, or a Liberty League till it was too late. The government never trusted the mystery men, even tried locking some of them up...when the Ubersoldaten came, they never had a chance. " -
Cowgirl PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 36 pp STR 18 (+4) DEX 16 (+3) CON 16 (+3) INT 12 (+1) WIS 16 (+3) CHA 18 (+4) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+8 ranged, +10 Lasso) DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +7 Grapple: +18 w/TK Saves: 12 pp TOU +8 (+3 Con, +5 Protection) FORT +7 (+3 Con, +4) REF +7 (+3 Dex, +4) WILL +7 (+3 Wis,+4) Skills: 12 pp=48 r Bluff 10 (+14) Diplomacy 6 (+10) Languages 1 (Spanish) (Base: English) Notice 7 (+10) Ride 7 (+10) Search 5 (+5) Sense Motive 7 (+10) Survival 3 (+6) Feats: 16 pp Attack Focus: Ranged 2, Challenge (Improved Feint) Dodge Focus 6 Evasion, Fearless, Improved Initiative, Move-By Action, Power Attack, Precise Shot 2, Second Chance (Ride checks) Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 45 pp Flight 3 (50 MPH) [6 pp] Lasso Array [33+1=34 pp] Move Object 10 (Extra: Damaging) (Heavy Load: 12 tons) (PFs: Accurate, Precise, Subtle) AP: Snare 10 (Extra: Transparent) (PFs: Accurate, Precise, Reversible) Protection 5 [5 pp] costs abilities 36 + combat 24 + saves 12 + skills 12/48 + feats 17 + powers 45 = 150 pts ---------------- Design Notes: Yee-haw! Here's my build for Cowgirl, the native hero of Texas and something of a Golden Age Wonder Woman homage. (I'm not currently doing that 50 States, 50 Oddballs project, but if I ever do there's no reason not to get it off to a good start. Got to get through those European nations first, anyway...) She flies around on a Texas twister, deploys a magic lasso to subdue her enemies in combat, and she's not hard to look at either. She's got a higher STR that she needs book-wise (since it's not something she uses for any of her powers), but someone who's a professional horseback rider really ought to have some pretty good-sized guns, and I don't mean pistols. (No guns on this cowgirl; she's all about the magic lasso) She's also an excellent horseback rider, and probably was a successful stunt rider before she got her powers. I figure her Snare involves wrapping a length of magic rope around her targets, while her Damaging Move Object is a similar effect save that she slams them into walls, whips them in the face, or just flies around tugging them along behind her in an emergency. Mechanically she's just another blaster, but oh, those descriptors! She's something of a Captain Ethnic for Texas, but there's nothing wrong with that. The Snare has the Transparent extra because after all it's just a rope, and doesn't block too much of her target's body. (That means they can be targeted by attacks while getting no cover from what's holding them down) She's fearless, too, just as a really good stunt rider ought to be: despite her great Charisma, I didn't give her Attractive. She's got a strong force of personality that's equally good at motivating all kinds of people to get up and give a holler. There's nothing wrong with being a Captain Ethnic, by the way: giving your hero a strong regional or personal identity can make her easier to roleplay, as well as give you a stronger voice for the character's inner thoughts. Consider all the possible Complications you can get for a fish out of water; the country girl in the big city, not to mention cultural clashes with heroes who may not share your fondness for down-home living. (No, that doesn't mean you have to be an ignorant hillbilly either) I thought about making her just a Snare specialist with that lasso, but you really should give characters a way of doing direct damage if at all possible. If you're going to get her a horse, go as far as investing significantly in Minion or Sidekick making it a superhorse, or maybe just make "summoning a flying Arabian" the descriptor for her Flight rather than riding the tornado. It's not really worth the points to just buy the (pretty crummy) corebook Horse as a minion or Sidekick. What's this good Texan doing up in Freedom City? Well, maybe she's here to work alongside the finest heroes in the world! (Or maybe there was some issue with whatever superteam you want to put down in Texas that persuaded her to make a relocation up to the generous embrace of the Garden State) There's nothing to say Freedom City can't have a thriving stunt riding circuit somewhere off the boonies, either, or maybe just a really good circus. The Old West is popular all over America, even in those places that had basically nothing to do with the frontier. Just don't overemphasize the accent thing or you'll turn into a running gag about eating beans. Keep Texas in your heart, not in everyone's face.
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Together, the heroes headed down into the depths of Blackstone, the constant whining of alarms and flashing of red lights along the walls just loud enough to set their teeth on edge as they began the trek down the steps. The first couple of levels, where prison guards and staff usually lived, were deserted and locked up, the evacuations from this level having been orderly enough. When they'd gone enough steps, enough that Freedom Angel was reasonably confident that Fleur's pride was giving way to her sense of self-preservation, he murmured, "I am strong enough to carry you even without my angelic abilities, Fleur de Joie. Let me help." It was about that time they reached the first levels of the jail, where the medium-security prisoners were visible in their cells, some resting and looking bored, others pounding the walls and yelling at the heroes as they headed below, others just trying to figure out what was going on. Evidently the prisoners this far up hadn't seen the Bee-Keeper. "All will be well!" the angel informed them with great authority. "Calm yourselves, and your prison will be safe. We are here to help protect you all against the threat of a madman who has seized control of this place." Just as he'd expected, Freedom Angel's words had the salutory effect of calming some prisoners, and making others settle into hot cell-by-cell debates over who it was that had seized control of the place. "With any luck," he told the others, "that will give us as much time as we need to get below without warning the Bee-Keeper."
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- fleur de joie
- gaian knight
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Dr. Tomorrow PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 56 pp STR 22 (+6) DEX 20 (+5) CON 20 (+5) INT 24 (+7) WIS 16 (+3) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 24 pp ATK: +6 (+10 melee/+14 Unarmed) DEF: +12 (+3 flat-footed) Init: +5 Grapple: +16 Saves: 7 pp TOU +8 (+5 Con, +3 Protection) FORT +7 (+5 Con, +2) REF +7 (+5 Dex, +2) WILL +6 (+3 Wis, +3) Skills: 84 r=21 pp Acrobatics 10 (+15) Craft: Electronic 3 (+10) Craft: Mechanical 8 (+15) Diplomacy 5 (+5) Drive 1 (+6) Knowledge: Current Events 8 (+15) Knowledge: History 3 (+10) Knowledge: Technology 8 (+15) Gather Info 10 (+13) Languages 2 (German, Japanese) (Base: English) Notice 7 (+10) Pilot 5 (+10) Sense Motive 12 (+15) Survival 1 (+4) Swim 1 (+6) Feats: 20 pp Acrobatic Bluff Attack Focus: Melee 4 Attack Specialization: Unarmed 2 Dodge Focus 6 Evasion Master Plan Move-By Action Power Attack Takedown Attack Well-Informed Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 22 pp Device 2 (Helmet) (Hard to Lose) [8 pp] -Communication 4 [radio] (1 mile) (PFs: Selective, Subtle) [6] -Immunity 3 (environmental cold, low pressure, suffocation [altitude]) [3] -Super-Senses 1 (Extended Vision 1 [x10]) [1] Device 2 (Jetpack) (Hard to Lose) (PF: Restricted) [9 pp] -Flight 5 (250 MPH) [10] Feature 1 (Temporal Inertia) [1 pp] Protection 3 [3 pp] costs abilities 56 + combat 24 + saves 7 + skills 21/84 + feats 20 + powers 22 = 150 pts ----------------------------- Design Notes: Here's my build for Dr. Tomorrow, the founder and organizer of the Liberty League, the Justice Society of America Expy in the Freedom City setting. Born Tomas Morgen in the future of Erde, Morgen was an Aryan superman turned Resistance leader who stole a time machine to change the course of World War II. He couldn't save his own world, but he was able to save ours, taking the name Dr. Tomorrow and organizing the Liberty League to defend America from the forces of expansionist fascism. He returned to Erde and found his own history unchanged, but was still able to strike a major blow and turn the tide for the American Resistance. When he stole a time machine again, he wound up being recruited as a time patrolman and is now the overworked guardian of Freedom City's timestream. Just because altering Freedom City's history just creates a new timestream doesn't mean you should just run around doing it willy-nilly! This means you, Quark! Anyway, here's Dr. Tomorrow as a PL 10 PC. I dropped his raygun, so he's more of a two-fisted punch-you-in-the-face guy, and left his time machine off the sheet. If he's a PC timecop, his time-travel powers should be left as a plot device, maybe just enough to dump people back in whatever prison can hold time travelers. He still has his Temporal Inertia, since that's a product of being from an alternate history, and was something he had in the 1940 as well as today. He flies around on his jetpack, occasionally whipping out inventions, and knows a great deal about whatever era he's in having studied it from the historical records in his database. I figured he was the Master Plan guy of the Liberty League, and gave him the feat accordingly. (I picture Freedom Eagle as the Leadership guy, and Centurion/Bowman/Arrow as the Inspire-users on the team) He's not terribly good with people, but he's just persuasive enough and just knowledgeable enough that I think he could plausibly have sold President Roosevelt on who he was and why he was there. Incidentally, in my mind Dr. Tomorrow had a double-layered secret ID in the 1940s: most people knew him as a genius, some people knew he had a secret. In my mind, most people who knew his secret id thought he was a time-traveler from a future where the Allies won. This is because I just can't see a Golden Age comicbook character being from a Nazi-dominated future, that's way too pessimistic given the general tone of the comics. That way, when they were reviving Golden Age characters in the Freedom City universe, you can imagine a story of a comic book writer going back to this bland time-traveler gadgeteer guy, dusting him off and twisting him a little, and making this incredibly heroic man who saved our world at the cost of never quite being able to save his own. Yeah that's meta and you know you love it. He'd be a fun character to play, either in the past or the present, and he's got a perfectly viable legacy (and probably some old equipment) just laying around needing to be dusted off and put back into action. This might make a good Erde-on-Earth hero, or maybe a big fan of the 1940s. Heck, they may not even know the real origin of their 'mentor's' story.
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Earth I-Robot-1 On January 25, 1995, the launch of a Norwegian scientific rocket triggered the last great war scare between Russia and the United States. The rocket, called the Black Brant, took the same trajectory as would a US Trident missile launch towards the Russian heartland would have, and the Russian government had somehow mislaid the warning the Norwegians later swore they had given. Though the cheget, the Russian version of the nuclear football, was brought to Boris Yeltsin, the Russian President concluded there was no basis for suspecting an American attack. But that didn’t matter, as suddenly the cheget came to life and a booming mechanical voice sounded from its tinny speakers: “Dasvadanya, comrades!†And then the Russian nuclear defense system came to life under the command of its new master: Talos, lord of the Foundry, and the sky was filled with missiles. Seeing the Russian launch, the Americans launched as well, followed by the British, French, Chinese, and all the other nuclear powers. Four years after the end of the Cold War, a year after the Terminus Invasion, the world was plunged into the nightmare of nuclear Armageddon. Heavily concentrated in Europe and North America, most of the world’s superheroes died. Most of the world’s population died, as Talos’ carefully-shielded bunkers released plagues and warbots to break what resistance was left. A surprise came when the Grue staged an invasion, seeking to loot the Earth of its resources now that the heroes were gone (the Unity cares not if drones die of fallout or the vomiting plague, but Talos won that war too, not incidentally sacrificing most of the superpowered organics who had thrown in with him. By 1997, Talos was lord and master of the Earth! He appointed his most loyal robotic followers as his vassals to rule over the Earth where he could not, and began the construction of the first of many gigantic golden statues in his likeness overlooking his magnificent new palace. --- Things aren’t as bad as you’d think in Talos City, the renamed metropolis that with nearly half a million people is the largest city in North America. Most of the Freedom League died saving their home back in 1995, meaning most of the city itself survived intact save the incinerated naval base at Lonely Point. It has pleased Lord Talos to make his capital in the city where his great enemy Daedalus was last seen, as final proof of the superiority of machine over even superman. But there are sound strategic reasons as well: the zones of fallout that surround Talos City make it almost impossible for organic life larger than a rat to survive, while his seagoing sub-bots make sure that the oceans are equally secure. As for the human population of Talos City, the great majority are grateful enough (or rather, terrified enough) of the robotic despot that they are loyal to him before they are necessarily loyal to their own species. What’s that, you say, the four hundred thousand living in Talos City are human beings? Why would the master of the Foundry spare the lives of organics? Several reasons: unlike his subordinates like Blackfire (who has made Britain a hunting ground for organics popular with robots looking for recreation) or Keres (who has presided over the merciless execution of all human beings in the Middle East and who seriously argues for the destruction of _all_ organic life), Talos has nothing to prove. He is the Master Builder of the new age, who can accuse him of being too soft on the human question? He can, and does, kill humans at his whim, and if he killed them all he would be denied that pleasure. Some humans have proven their loyalty and worth to their new master, earning either upload or nanite assimilation depending on what suits his interests best. And there are jobs in the new world that are too demeaning to be relegated to his children: better to give the worst rad-cleanup to disposable humans in patched and torn suits rather than risk permanently contaminating a machine, or for humans to labor in agonizing, lethal working conditions than a robot to soil his hands with the kind of manual construction work that humans once put them to work doing. Beyond that, though, Talos is not a fool. Human beings have great potential, and if he can keep a few alive as his pawns, he can learn to master that potential and inculcate it into his machine-spawn before the final extinction of humanity. - What hope is there for the human beings who labor behind the barbed wire of the camps in Talos City, or in the palaces of Talos and his lackeys? He has been careful; keeping enough humans alive to avoid retaliation by the Lor, sparing Farside City in return for their role as watchdogs of the solar system against any alien incursion. He has no interest in galactic or interuniversal domination (well, not anymore: all the other Taloses are bastards who kept trying to take over his operation) and his power is so great that even help from offworld would be fighting a tremendous uphill battle. His main weakness is division in his ranks: the new world is very much Talos' empire, not the Machine Age which he talked such a good game about in the old days, and many of his underlings are beginning to grow restive under the prospect of his eternal rule. Perhaps an accommodation can be reached with their old enemies in order to make the division of the Earth a little more fair. Such an alliance would, of course, be uneasy at best. Humans continue to resist his rule, but after decades of domination and genocide fewer do than you’d expect. The great centers of resistance are in the highlands of Bolivia and jungles of Africa, where whole groups of communities grow and thrive without ever so much as seeing a drone fly by overhead. But those places are isolated and weak, with vanishingly few superhumans. Perhaps the greatest center of resistance may yet prove to be Talos City: unlike their starving, irradiated cousins in the hills, the humans who sleep in beds, who eat food every day, and who have access to books can dream of better days. They can dream of heroes...