Avenger Assembled

Wouldn't a mundane sword made of pure silver be really crummy and not able to cut anything?

"No." he said tersely. "I was not." When the gigantic woman made no further issue of his past, Murdock relaxed momentarily, his head swiveling as he studied the others. It was a little unsettling to be around so many powerful people, but that was only because they were strangers. He'd been around plenty who outweighed him among the Furions, and when speaking to the Freedom League. "I do not wish to impose."

I need Search checks, gentlemen!

"Your problem, Blankie, is that you have no sense of class," replied Hex before he burst into a fit of maniacal giggles. "If having a sense of style and decorum makes me sound like an imbecile, well, I guess I'll have to sound like an imbecile. Blank knew Hex well enough to know that he wasn't actually as maniacal as he acted...but he still wasn't the sharpest tool in the box. "All right, boys, here's what we'll do." He stroked his goatee, looking at the others. "We'll split faster than Heavenqueen's...you know. Yellowface, you take the north side, Blankster, you take the south side, and I'll hit the center of campus. We'll find our little murder machine faster than you can say murder most foul! Now, a little costume change..." He snapped his fingers and a wash of white hit his allies, changing their clothes back to what they wore at home: aka, a MAN's costume. "Just don't let the pansies who run this place catch sight of you."

"Hrm. This is a magic totem?" said Fusion, sounding a little skeptical. Despite her reluctance, she wasn't too proud to take the help, and slipped it into her costume between her shoulder blades. "It'll take me a half-hour or so to get out there, and another few hours to search the area. After all this time, with the predators around, there may not be that much to find of the pilot," she admitted. Joan was a very good reporter, and had picked up on the contradiction in Robin's words. Woof, one of those "Did he give you any specifics?"

From out of the darkness swung a black and white tentacled figure, making a smooth landing beside the craft services table. "Hey, everyone!" said Fusion, waving her arms cordially as she scooped up a donut and ate it underneath her mask. Eating through molecular fiber was a little weird, but she was well-used to that by now. "I hope I'm not late," she said, giving a friendly nod to the distinguished competition across the street with their fancy TV vans. "I know you needed an extra arm or two for this little expedition, and I'm ready!" She waved her arms, and laughed. Joan didn't believe in the supernatural, and was not particularly stressed by being out late at night.

Eventually Eddie collected the packet from Ms. Tessmacher that he'd come to get, a thick file folder bulging with information about something called the "Fairbanks School for Super Students." She gave him a friendly wave and smile as she focused on the other two kids, and Eddie departed with the files under his arm. "All right, Mr. Hughes, I think you're done and you are first on the list. Why don't you go in to speak to Mr. Summers? Ms. Etain, I actually have a meeting for you with Ms Vervain, she's one of our TAs. She'll go over some of our policies regarding powers like yours."

"A little bird told me that our little, ah, bird, aheheheh, was taken to the local butcher shop," said Hex as he guided the others slowly down the corridor, the lights clicking off behind them as they went. "We can't leave Singularity here, gentlemen, we've invested too much ourselves, and the school's invested too much, to waste her. For all that I'd love to see her...brighten up the place!" He grinned evilly, rubbing his hands with glee. "I'm sure they've got her strapped down and doped up, the way we would without a psychic handy."

"When others from your world have visited this place, they have promised to help one day against the Syndicate. But never do they come." The robot began to pace, his joints squealing as he went. "So many friends and allies gone; so many champions of right defeated. And those who wear the face of my greatest enemies leave me to fight alone, forever. But still, you are...very young. I have a duty to help you."

"Books? Books? Here, let me show you..." Red Bolt handed Gabriel a copy of the King James Bible, one heavily marked and annotated in prison-issue ink. On closer inspection, Gabriel discovered that the word shepard had been underlined in red everywhere it appeared. "You see? In this, as in all the great works of old, his coming is foretold. I met him many years ago through friends of friends, studying the ancient wisdom of the East through yoga. It was he who showed me the corruption of the world, and how only a purge on the scale of Noah's Ark could bring forth peace and justice in the world again. Oh yes, even now his Ark waits for us! Soon he will send his Horsemen for me." Fusion gave the man a skeptical look. "You've been in here a long time, Nelson. Why'd the Shepard abandon you if he's so righteous?" "The armies of the Beast defeated the Shepard once, forcing him to push back the day of his return from the sky! But soon, soon he will come, once he sends his Horsemen to..." Suddenly, there was a loud EXPLOSION from the prison courtyard, and suddenly Red Bolt gave a truly evil smile. "HE COMES! THE HORSEMAN COMES!"

What the heck, I'll nominate Fusion for this one.

"But we can't just go home ourselves," said Mark, giving Daisy a worried look before he spoke fearlessly to the great corroded bronze robot, Talos' skin a lovely green. "This is Daisy, and we're going to save her." Save her from me. Save her from the man I am here. Our world is different than yours, and we're taking her back. Our other big worry is what our doubles are up to in the other reality." "You are right to be worried. I know your faces," Talos added. "All of you. That you spoke to each other without bickering, that you planned to help those you found...I knew you could not be them. Especially you," it said, pointing a bronze figure first at Erin, then at Trevor. "I have the technology to return you to your own world, as well as send your ally with you. It will be the work of some hours. But..." It fixed a clanking eye on all of them. "What will you do there? Will you send help?"

Edge put his hand on Cannonade's arm, thinking how he'd feel about the situation were their places reversed. "Go fight with him," he encouraged the patriotic hero. "I'll handle things down here. Show the Ratzis how American heroes fight." To the German tanks scattered around the robot's feet like toys, Mark gave a truly evil laugh as he prepared for another wave of destruction. "Hey, you Nazi so-and-sos!" he called triumphantly. "I've got a present here from Uncle Sam for you. I think you'll like it: it's a real DOOZY! Ha-ha!"

Totem PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 10 pp STR 24 [10] (+7/+0) DEX 24 [10] (+7/+0) CON 24 [10] (+7/+0) INT 14 (+2) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 12 (+1) Combat: 32 pp ATK: +8 (+13 Melee) DEF: +13 (+4 flatfooted) Init: +15 Grapple: +20/+23 Saves: 9 pp TOU +7 (+7 Con) FORT +8 (+7 Con, +1) REF +10 (+7 Dex, +3) WILL +8 (+2 Wis, +5) Skills: 10 pp=40 r Acrobatics 3 (+10, Skill Mastery) Climb 3 (+10) Craft (Chemical) 3 (+5) Craft (Cooking) 8 (+10) Language 1 (French; Base: English) Notice 8 (+10, Skill Mastery) Sense Motive 3 (+5) Survival 8 (+10, Skill Mastery) Swim 3 (+10, Skill Mastery) Feats: 19 pp Acrobatic Bluff Attack Focus: Melee 5 Dodge Focus 5 Improved Initiative 2 Luck Move-By Action Power Attack Takedown Attack Skill Mastery (Acrobatics, Notice, Survival, Swim) Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 70 pp Additional Limb 1 (tongue) [1 pp] Confuse 7 (Extra: Poison, Flaw: Touch Range) [7 pp] Elongation 2 (10 feet) (Flaw: Limited [Tongue]) [1 pp] Enhanced CON 14 [14 pp] Enhanced DEX 14 [14 pp] Enhanced STR 14 [14 pp] Immunity 2 (Own Powers, Suffocation [Drowning]) [2 pp] Super-Movement 4 (Slow Fall, Swinging, Wall-Crawling 2) [8+1 pp=9 pp] AP: Leaping 8 (x2500) Super-Senses 3 (Low-Light Vision, Tremorsense) [3 pp] Swimming 5 (50 MPH) [5 pp] costs abilities 10 + combat 32 + saves 9 + skills 10/40 + feats 19 + powers 70 = 150 pts ----------------- Design Notes: What can I say, I always was a Toad fan! This lady has the powers of several different kinds of frogs and toads, all souped-up together into one incredibly powerful totem character. She can jump ridiculously far, cling to walls and wriggle her way up them, and she's a really good hand-to-hand fighter with a great grip! (It helps that she's coated in that sticky slime, naturally; you can use that as an explanation for any successful grapples she makes!) Her Confuse bears some description: I figure it's a toxin her body makes naturally that sticks to her skin, so she can use it in hand-to-hand or even by whacking people with her giant tongue. Confuse is best used as a way of distracting goons: one possibility is to jump into the middle of a crowd with Leaping, Confuse a couple of baddies, and then leap out again with Move-By Action. Then while they're busy fighting each other, sweep in and hit the rest, or just move on if you're trying to get past them. What exactly happens to them because they're tripping out on your toxic secretions is up to you; the consequences will probably vary depending on what era game you're in. Punching people in the face works really well too. Don't forget to use your tongue in grapples, the better to grapple them with, my dear! Magic? Mutant? Some combination of both? Totem-style characters have all kinds of backstories and origins. Bitten by a radioactive frog? Well, maybe that one's a _little_ less likely. She looks like she'd be fun to play; she's really fast, really agile, and has some decent skills to go with her superpowers. She can handle herself in the swamp or the urban jungle, no prob! Go with a costume that matches the animal theme, so maybe a cute frog outfit, or just go nuts and wear whatever looks pretty! Add a drawback requiring immersion (you are an amphibian and do need water!) for more points.

The Omegadrone fixed its dead, sparkless eyes on Fulcrum, looking up, then down, as he took in her gigantic frame. She is extremely large, he thought. I wonder if that is an advantage. Out loud, he said, "Hello," extending his hand in the exact same way he'd shaken Jack's hand earlier, speaking in a slow, deliberate monotone words that sounded practiced. "I am Murdock. I prefer to be called Harrier when I am a su-per-hero."

Jack Faretti knew one thing more than anything else. Superhero or not, his family came first. If that meant he wasn't a very good superhero, well, maybe it was time to do some thinking about his career. "Wander!" he barked. "He's gone crazy and into the magic! Get the things he summoned; they flew out the window! I'll get the baby, smash the library if you have to, but stall Archeville!" And with that, he was gone, disappearing right round Wander!

"It'd be a moot point, since Charlie had a vasectomy about ten years ago," said Joan, smiling thinly. "We both decided that too large a family would stand in the way of our careers. And even if that hadn't happened...well, I love my girl more than life, Doctor, but I'm balancing two careers and a busy family already." She made a little gesture with her hands and arms, obviously a practiced joke but one she told well. "Even I can only hold up so much. I've always said I had the perfect kid anyway, so why make more?" The truth of the matter was considerably darker than that, on multiple occasions. Joan hadn't wanted kids at all: she'd gotten pregnant with Lois when she wasn't even twenty-one. Her then-boyfriend Charlie had been trying to cheer her up after washing out at the 2000 Olympics. She'd seriously considered an abortion before she decided she wasn't going to just throw away this opportunity, even if meant giving things up. Like Athens. Or Beijing. And after that, well...she'd dreamed of egg sacs in her belly after her transformation, of Lois with tentacles and a beak, looking up at her with an animal's eyes. And Charlie had said the same, commenting more than once how _nice_ it was that he'd gotten fixed, that it meant they didn't have anything to _worry_ about... "With our lives so busy, the thought just hasn't crossed our minds."

Simultaneously with the moment Young Freedom met Talos... Earth-Prime Detention It all happened shockingly fast. One minute they were all in their cells in this bizarre , soft little freakshow of a world, cooling their heels or raging over their imprisonment, bound by unbreakable snare, nullifying fields, or simply encapsulated in unfamiliar bodies that didn't do exactly what they wanted. A moment later, with a crack of light and noise, the electronic doors on every cell shorted out, and automatically rolled up. Outside the doors, in the corridor that connected them all, stood their fierce, fearless leader of the Young Imperial, a cocky smile on his goateed face, the unconscious body of a young woman face down at his feet, blood leaking from her covered nose and mouth. "GENTLEMEN!" Hex gave a terrible, evil laugh. "It seems that I have...gotten lucky with this one. Bwahahahaha! Come, let us make our escape and return to the land of civilization. Once, that is, we retrieve our other friend. The one who the poor, poor little Lor girl here was keeping sedated."

"I am Talos. Long I have fought a war of machine against flesh against my maker and master Daedalus, and long has he forced me underground. As for the rest...you mean...you don't know?" Talos sounded uneasy at that. "I had assumed you were prisoners of the Syndicate who had escaped, clones or doubles from a parallel reality. Your words confirm the second, but who are you?" said the great robot in a voice like a rusting speaker system. "How did you come to be in this dimension?You, monster," he said, pointing to Erin. "How do you come to speak at all?"

Down below, the team made contact with their most unlikely group of allies. It took a moment to pick out the warbots as they lurked along the flank of the sewer: the Foundry's best here were not the sleek, menacing monuments to destruction that were the front line on their own world; rather the warbots were closer to trashcans with missiles attached than anything else. Far, far down below, as the team closed ranks together to ward off any hostile threat, the robot squadron led them to meet the lord of the Foundry, the Bronze Behemoth, Talos! The armored giant looked...shabby down in the sewer, for all that he'd built a headquarters behind him that looked busy, filled to the brim with bustling if rusty robots, and less imposing than his Earth-Prime self as he rose to greet his sewer-arriving guests, the ten foot robot towering over all of them. "Good afternoon. Welcome to the Robot League. I am Talos. I understand you have become...misplaced."

Quote, Claremont characters only, please. We'll let you know if Breakdown is one of those when the Ref decision comes down.

Energy Controller PL: 10 (150) Abilities: 34 pp STR 20 (+5) DEX 20 (+5) CON 20 (+5) INT 10 (+0) WIS 14 (+2) CHA 10 (+0) Combat: 32 pp ATK: +8 (+12 Bat/Ranged) DEF: +12 (+4 flat-footed) Init: +9 Grapple: +13 Saves: 7 pp TOU +8 (+5 Con, +3 Protection) FORT +7 (+5 Con, +2) REF +7 (+5 Dex, +2) WILL +5 (+2 Wis, +3) Skills: 15 pp=60 r Acrobatics 10 (+15) Bluff 10 (+10) Knowledge: Tactics 10 (+10) Languages 2 (Japanese, Spanish) (Base: English) Notice 8 (+10) Sense Motive 10 (+12) Stealth 10 (+15) Feats: 19 pp Acrobatic Bluff Attack Specialization: Magic Bat 2 Attack Focus: Ranged 4 Dodge Focus 4 Evasion Improved Initiative Master Plan 2 Move-By Action Power Attack Takedown Attack Uncanny Dodge (auditory) Powers: 37 pp Blast 8 [16 pp] ‘magic baseballs’ Device 4 (easy to lose) ‘magic bat’ [12 pp] -Stun 8 (PFs: Improved Crit 2, Precise) {19+1=20} AP: Strike 3 (PFs: Knockback 8, Mighty) (Extra: Autofire) Flight 3 (50 MPH) [6 pp] Protection 3 [3 pp] costs abilities 34 + combat 32 + saves 7 + skills 15/60 + feats 19 + powers 37 = 150 pts Design Notes: This is a baseball controller, a character mystically imbued with the power of baseball itself. She flies, hurls mystic baseballs with the energy of a machine gun, and swings a magic baseball bat that cuts like a sword. She’s a very good coach, but maybe needs a good team captain out on the field to give the inspiring pep talks: she’s more about locker room plans and playbooks than on the field leadership. I gave her Japanese and Spanish because baseball is very big in Japan and Latin America, and thus it has a good claim to being their ‘national pasttime’ too. (Yes, even the soccer countries) This character could also work as an apple-pie American patriotic hero, given our national emotional connections to the game of baseball: steroid dealers and such are obviously her natural enemy! It’s up to you whether or not she’s a mystic spirit that embodies the fair play and basic decency at the core of the game of baseball, or whether or not she’s an aspiring player gifted with a magic bat (perhaps by a past champion of the game?) to fight for justice and integrity. Natural rivals include NFL Superpro (or his equivalent in your game), and that so-and-so Pele! Serious comic book fans don’t like to admit that things like merchandising characters and tie-ins exist, or that writers might tell stories so they can get comped free tickets to their favorite sporting event by writing free giveaway comics for stadiums. But they do exist, and if you’re going to look for a character inspired by comics, why not go for it?

Harrier studied the AI expressionlessly before deciding Vince was not a threat. "I live by the river in Lincoln. Not in Crapworld. They told me the Fens were crap, and that it would not be safe for me to live there." He swiveled his head again toward Ms. Americana, the movement almost a creak of metal. "When I was freed, I fled a squadron of lesser drones. The Furions found me. They taught me to be a free man. Their leader knew the Freedom League, and sent me here. I work at Champions, where I clean the tables when the customers are done eating." The last words, obviously memorized, were said with something like pride. "Quad-kelvin plating will protect you against anything short of a main battery discharge," he added. "A reasonable investment, given your previous encounters."

We got it, Warren. The robot suddenly said in a clicking, mechanical voice. Come to the fourth level of the sewers beneath the electrochemical pile, and we'll talk. With that, the robot went dead, and no power on Earth was enough to awaken it. Mark, standing awkwardly by Daisy, found his head immediately. "We've got to go," he said, hefting his torch. "It's the only way out, and we need to make friends if we're getting out of here. I saw a diagram, the tunnel down is that way." And with that, he was off, a very antsy Daisy following behind. "I don't like thiiiiiiiiis....."

"I have never heard of either of you," said Harrier, frankly relieved to be around people whose parallel version he had never encountered. Meeting doubles had happened often with the Freedom League, and it had been deeply distressing each time. "You have a very spacious bunker," he added, walking along slowly. "I was not aware significant underground facilities existed in this version of Freedom City. Are you armored against quantum entropy discharges in the tri-Kelvin range?" he asked suddenly.