Hellbound

Sorry, dude, but I just don't buy it. Last month I acted as the sole support for my own mother's breast cancer surgery -- which included more time at hospitals than I've ever spent in my life. On top of that, I'm the sole support at work for our online image archive and I'm the only one in my group that's capable of coding in every language we touch (particularly the C++ code). Yet I still get my workload accomplished and then some. And I managed 165 posts last month on top of that. Why? Because I was forced to write a friggen novel for Hellbound since his official threads were being ignored. The only thing that such distractions caused for me was the lack of accuracy on character sheets. A large number of the errors were due to my mind being elsewhere, but I was still on the board working to expand the universe and develop my character. Why? Because I care about this site as a creative outlet. But my reward for that was to watch GMs wander away from threads they'd comitted themselves to so that they could go play in new ones. Plus I watched numerous people sign on EVERY DAY only to spend hours of their time on resources that had nothing to do with the campaign world. Face it, Doc, the admins just aren't dedicated to seeing this site develop and grow as it's capable of doing. They leave it up to the players to generate new aspects of the campaigns and then display nothing but resistance when those aspects are introduced to the campaign beyond their own personal storylines. You can deny that if you wish, but it's true regardless. It's also true that favoritism is shown on a regular basis. It took weeks to get Roman Michaels approved even though multiple refs were all over Shane's submissions which came shortly after -- which resulted in approval after a matter of two days rather than a month. That had nothing at all to do with outside obligations. So, no, I won't be returning. Hellbound is a blast to write for, but eventually I'm going to get tired of him living inside of his own little bubble.

I'm with you eye. 'Bailing here as well.

Please fill Helbound's spot with another player. I will be retiring from the site.

But I'm not the one with all the books, nor am I the one who decided which parts of those books should be included and which parts should be rejected from this current universe. I haven't been involved in every thread on the board. I'm not part of the planning sessions that are supposed to be going on behind the scenes that set the direction the universe is to take. And I'm certainly not part of this 'major adventure' that everyone's been talking about since before I got here, but which has yet to materialize. So I make my suggestions, and perhaps they need tweaking -- but instead of being told the proper directions those tweaks should take, I simply get told "You can't do it like that." So fine. Clearly attempting to add anything worthwhile to this universe is ultimately a frustrating and fruitless idea. Go ahead and retire both Singing for His Supper and Testing the Waters. I'll restrict Hellbound's solo threads to him sitting at home jacking off since that's about all that he'll ultimately be able to accomplish without perpetrating a major upheaval of the current status quo. In the meantime, I'll go back to watching the GMs log in every day to vote for Battlesuit vs. Energy projector, discuss their favorite movies and hang out in the chat room for hours at a time. Then, perhaps once a week, I'll be lucky enough to get an actual game turn passed in a thread that's being ran by someone. Assuming it hasn't simply been forgotten about over time like what wat happened to eyeonthemountian Tanks for clearing that up for me, doc.

Except that criminal groups are generally pretty fluid. Leadership comes and goes as heroes take out various levels of commands, hordes of cannon-fodder soldiers are left dead in the sand and as each layer of the organization is peeled back, a new one can be discovered beneath it. Organized crime is far more variable than a single NPC. The fact that we're not actually allowed to submit writeups for them is just one indication of this. I'm fine with whatever the refs decide their role and scope should be. The problem, however, is that I'm being told what they can't be without given definitive guidelines of what they can be. So at this point -- fine. We have a few in-character encounters that can be built into more. That 'more' can be as much or as little as the refs decide. What we need to get away from, however, is the dichotomy of encouraging players to formulate elements of their own universe while at the same time strictly enforcing a loosely defined set of regulations. This thread can be cut MUCH shorter if the refs would actually take some initiative and make a few suggestions as to how the Mutant Mafia might be made into an interesting and useful part of the Freedom City background. It's either that or let Captain Knievel kill them all off now so we won't have to worry about them. I just need a decision to be made, is all. My post prior to yours takes into account some of the suggestions that MarkK made. if what's in there is still not acceptable, then let me know what is otherwise this is more trouble than it's worth.

"Well of course he's there waiting by himself." Hellbound replied, a little confused by the question. "He's waiting for his crew to show up. If his crew was already there, then he wouldn't be waiting. "How's he supposed to know that we just took out the last of his available manpower? Between the ones in jail, the one in hiding and the ones we just took down tonight, who else is there?" For a Superhero, this Captain Knievel didn't seem to know a whole lot about how villains operated. Someone has to be the first to show up for a meeting, otherwise how was the meeting ever supposed to start? They were making their way over from West End to just by the Boardwalk. That was a bit farther than Hellbound wanted to hoof it, so he raised his hand to hail a taxi.

That works fine by me. The term 'Mutant Mafia' does not have to refer to natural mutants -- it can also be used for those with artificially induced powers as well, if that fits into the campaign universe more seamlessly. As for being a power factor? Fine, the regular mafia is being muscled out by super powered criminal organizations, so they're working on their own branch of meta-crims on their own. Tony B.'s boss is the Sotto Capo put in charge of the project. Tony B. is his Caporegime and G.D. Badman is his Soldato. It can be that, or it can be whatever the refs decide fits best for their visions of Freedom City. All I know is that Hellbound has fought these guys and I'd like them to be available for anyone else to use as well. This does not need to turn into a weeks-long debate as to how far reaching their scope extends.

I think you mean... When you grow up.

There was an immediate fear response triggered in the animal. While the scent of blood would normally trigger a feeding frenzy in the fish, this particular mix of chemicals caused it to react in a panic to flee, to protect itself by running away from what it now considered to be an overwhelming threat. That was why Hellbound's people had originally evolved the trait. Where they came from, predators were plentiful and aggressive. Biting into someone who's blood not only burst into flames but also scare the unholy hell out of someone of relatively weak minded willpower was a fairly effective way to deter even the hungriest of monsters. With that, the shark literally turned tail and ran... or rather swam... away. Hellbound wasn't about to lose sight of it that easily, however. As the shark spat him out, the hero twisted himself around, this time, and latched onto the shark's dorsal fin to go along for the ride. Wherever this creature was heading, Hellbound was sure to follow. Hopefully it would lead him to whoever was responsible for its creation in the first place.

Hellbound didn't like that idea. Not only was it needlessly cruel, seeing as how Afterburner had already been beaten, but it also meant he'd be unable to testify properly against the mob in court later on. Should he turn state's evidence later on, then he'd probably be more effective with the ability to speak intact. He looked up at the darkened sky and considered the timing. It'd been mid-afternoon by the time he'd gotten up and gone to adopt Tigho. The fight with the zombiquins had taken him to late afternoon before he returned home. That meant early evening for the meeting with Blackavar and it getting on towards genuine night before he actually made it out to the burnt warehouse. Since the arson job had already been completed, then the scheduled gathering prior to hitting Hellbound's hotel apartment must be coming up soon. A little more knocking around managed to confirm this and even grant them a location. It might be outside of their normal territory, but they did have a safehouse not far from where Hellbound lived. Really, more of an abandoned basement that they kept clear of homeless squatters, but it was a place where they could go and not be noticed prior to running a job. Apparently they were actually due to be there right about now. When word had come of someone trying to muscle in on their territory, this part of the crew had decided to delay their arrival long enough to deal with the threat. There was a professional assumption that it was better to protect their home turf than continue a vendetta against one guy. Since the four associates who'd been arrested at Morley's were still in jail, and Tony B. had gone to the mattresses in order to wait until the heat was off of him, that meant it was a good bet G.D. Badman was waiting there by himself.

Fortunately, 'being watched' was one of the things that Hellbound did best. There was a natural exhibitionist within him, part of what had lead him to start appearing on stage, and he didn't mind in the least that this shower might be on camera. If nothing else, it gave him a little newfound respect for the Doc having a bit of a perverted side and a part of him hoped the whole thing might end up on YouTube. After all, word of a superhero showering online might just bump his fanbase up a bit. That wouldn't hurt Blackavar's reputation one bit. Underneath all the rough grime and lack of personal grooming was actually a fairly attractive guy. His body had good proportion to it, with both long legs and arms with a chiseled appearance to his entire form. The long hair gave him a bit of a European quality and even his face was almost perfectly symmetrical in that way that modern social scientists claimed physical beauty was based upon. It didn't hurt one bit that he also has a pretty cute butt. The workout that Archeville had put him through was fairly rough, even by Hellbound's standards, and he was happy to just sit for a while. The fact that he was being given the opportunity to talk about himself was only icing on the cake to what'd been a nicely interesting day. "Why? Well... why not?" Hellbound wasn't exactly sure how to answer the question about his superhero status. After all, given his disposition and powers, he could have just as easily gone the other way and become a bad guy. It really seemed to fit more in line with his personal habits of hurting people and breaking things. "I mean, 'gotta fight someone, right? I'm bullet proof and superhumanly strong. What am I going to do, be a longshoreman? Haul freight around? Get a job as a forklift operator and then forget to bring the forklift? "Nah. There's just something inside of me that won't let me be that... passive? I guess that's what you'd call it. It's like I was built to beat on people, and I want to beat on the ones who'd be the best challenge." He leaned forward in his seat, as if he were somehow confiding in the Doc with his next statement. "No offense, but the good guys? They all seem like they hold themselves back too much. Avenger aside, how many of you dudes really fight dirty? How many of you would do what it took to win, even if it meant letting your minions die or innocents fall into the line of fire? Good guys have limits, things they won't do in order to grab victory." Hellbound let himself settle back into the chair, assuming a more relaxed position once again. "But bad guys? What won't they do? Name me one tactic or technique they're unwilling to pull out of their bags of nastiness in order to beat us. I figure, if I want to face the toughest, the roughest and the dirtiest fighters out there, then I need to be a good guy. "Otherwise I'm just kicking around a bunch of Boy Scouts in spandex. Now how would that look?" There was more to his philosophy than just that, however. Burning even further inside was the need to protect people. It was like a set of instructions had been layered into his mental makeup not just to fight, but also to follow order and protect. Just what he was supposed to protect? He had no idea, but fortunately he'd managed to throw off the desire to follow orders. These last few pieces of information weren't something he had adequate words to describe, but he did his best to communicate them to Archeville, anyway.

Wisdom roll to see if Hellbound can contribute to the plan at hand.

"Okay, I have a question." The Hellbroad speaks up. "So this guy came up with a way to do all of this with just a blast of radiation, right? Now I might not be a..." She tried to come up with the proper branch of science to cover all that'd been done to them, but really this was just too far beyond her limited education and eventually gave up. "... smart guy. Broad. Whatever, but if he's that smart, is he really going to be dumb enough to get fooled by just altering our own voices? If seeing is believing, won't he really need to actually need to see us back to normal before he believes it? "Not that I could expect you to clone male bodies of us and send them out as cannon fodder or anything, but at the very least shouldn't we do something to show that his crap didn't work? Robots? Hologramataic' projections? Disguise suits like they used in those Mission Unwatchable movies? Something?"

It doesn't really matter. We can scale this back as far as you need it to be reduced -- I'm just trying to provide player based challenges in light of the lack of officially driven ones, is all. Just tell me what level, if any, you wish the Mutant Mafia to be operating within and I'll be fine with your decision.