World of Freedom 3.2 - Whatever Comes To Mind

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Davies
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Re: World of Freedom 3.2 - Enemies: Panda & Raccoon, Thunder & Lighting, Leech, Lazer

Post by Davies »

Ken wrote: Sat Jul 08, 2017 8:03 pm That super-mutant guy who's name I'm blanking on?
Borealis? Nope, he came in a later Enemies, though I'm incorporating him into Ladybug's story since she was added to his group in Champions Universe. Ladybug and her hostility towards a US-friendly Canadian government fits the middle of the decade better than the start of it.
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Re: World of Freedom 3.2 - Enemies: Panda & Raccoon, Thunder & Lighting, Leech, Lazer

Post by catsi563 »

YES!! Ladybugs awesome, and one of my favorites, have to love the simple concept, a Power armored brick, no repulsors or fancy tech, just a suit that lets her go toe to toe with Grond on relatively equal footing. :mrgreen:
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Re: World of Freedom 3.2 - Enemies: Panda & Raccoon, Thunder & Lighting, Leech, Lazer

Post by Ken »

Davies wrote: Sat Jul 08, 2017 8:41 pm
Ken wrote: Sat Jul 08, 2017 8:03 pm That super-mutant guy who's name I'm blanking on?
Borealis? Nope, he came in a later Enemies
Enemies Unbound, IIRC. Can't check. Most of my Champions books are in storage.
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Re: World of Freedom 3.2 - Enemies: Panda & Raccoon, Thunder & Lighting, Leech, Lazer

Post by catsi563 »

Ken wrote: Sun Jul 09, 2017 12:20 am
Davies wrote: Sat Jul 08, 2017 8:41 pm
Ken wrote: Sat Jul 08, 2017 8:03 pm That super-mutant guy who's name I'm blanking on?
Borealis? Nope, he came in a later Enemies
Enemies Unbound, IIRC. Can't check. Most of my Champions books are in storage.
Yeah it was Enemies Villainy Unbound where Borealis appeared
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Re: Lazer

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Davies wrote: Fri Jul 07, 2017 4:19 pm Lazer
I just love the Shocker vibe I get from this guy. It's almost a shame that his epic jobber status never really got a chance to get going.
Almost. :lol:
I do regret that this isn't 2nd ed, because I'd love to see how low his wisdom score would have been ;~)
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Ladybug

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Ladybug

Image

Born in British Columbia on the first of July, Sandra Anderson grew up to be a fervent Canadian patriot who viewed the government of her country with abject disdain. With all the resources of the true north, strong and free, surely they should have been able to do a better job of looking after the people -- all the people -- than they managed. Instead of all the money they spent on a conventional military, wouldn't it be better to have a much smaller armed force equipped with super-technology, who would be able to work smarter, not harder, leaving more money for social programs?

She set out to make that happen, working to develop a suit of powered armor that could enable such a super army. While studying for her second Master's degree at the University of Toronto, she discovered a process to polarize metal fibers embedded in plastic in such a way as to create an extremely light and resilient armored shell. Thrilled by the discovery, she took it to her thesis adviser ... and was shocked to be told that it would never work. "Perhaps you should try working on something else. Cold fusion, perhaps. I hear there's some great things being done in that field."

The way she'd been dismissed like that bewildered Sandra, so she decided to take a sabbatical to figure things out. (Unbeknownst to her, her thesis adviser was an acquaintance of Daedelus, who recognized that Sandra had 'discovered' one of the techniques used in the Immortal Inventor's armor, rather than a genuinely new process.) Her sabbatical lasted through the summer of 1984, and she watched the resignation of Pierre Trudeau, the terribly brief government of John Turner, and the election of Brian Mulroney as the first prime minister of Canada to come from the Progressive Conservative party. ("Progressive Conservative? Who do they think they're kidding?" she was heard to remark.)

With that last development, everything suddenly fell into place. The reason that her armor project was being poopooed had nothing to do with its merits. It was because of this whole situation. Just like with the Avro Arrow, no one -- for which read the Americans -- wanted Canada to have an army of power armored soldiers. Well, she was not going to let 'no one' stop her from giving her country what it needed!

She built her first prototype in her parents' garage. It didn't have rockets, but she managed to pull together a set of servomotors that would multiply her strength two thousand fold -- once she understood how the structure came together, little things like that were simple enough. The only part that really worried her were the cybernetic control systems. Sandra knew that she was far from being a trained cyberneticist, and the possibility that she could cook her own brain this way frightened her quite a bit. Finally, the armor was ready ... and she marched into a bank and yanked its automated teller right out of the front wall.

Improving the design was going to cost money, after all. Her test run showed her what she could accomplish, she hadn't had to hurt anybody, her brain was not fried. Really, everything was going great! In fact, it occurred to her that it was the most fun she'd ever had, and that she should keep right on robbing banks. Actually, now that she thought about it a little more ... there was an even better thing that she could do.

Heading down to the States, once she installed the turbines on her armor, meant that she could rob a better class of bank, and the niggling feeling of guilt she felt about taking money that theoretically belonged to her fellow Canadians was gone. She also started to run into superheroic opposition, and what she learned from these encounters allowed her to continue to improve the armor's design so that it could handle whatever the world threw at it. Sandra never even considered installing weapons in her "Ladybug's" chassis. Her suit was all the weapon she'd ever need.

Over the next four years, she became one of Canada's most notorious supervillains, and something of a folk hero in Canada as well. The fact that she avoided fights with Canada's handful of superheroes, and did her best to show up American superheroes when they came north of the border looking for her, did a great deal to ensure that she was well regarded. She'd also done her part to oppose much worse criminals, and helped during disasters.

And then Borealis made himself known, and his attempt to overthrow the Mulroney government shortly before the 1988 elections fascinated Sandra. She'd always imagined that someday she'd be part of something that would end the Conservative government's hold on Canada's people, and here was someone who had made a genuine attempt to do just that. He'd been thwarted, of course, and now those obnoxious Pacific Sentinels who'd fought him were being lauded as heroes of the state. Sandra rolled her eyes and decided to make contact with the real hero of the hour.

So it came to pass that Ladybug became one of the first members of Borealis' answer to the Crime League, Destiny. The next two years were a wild ride for Sandra, as she slowly realized that Borealis' determination to overthrow the Canadian government had nothing to do with specific policies and everything to do with his general megalomania -- the Canada he wanted to create would have nothing to do with the country that existed in the real world. The breaking point came when he murdered two members of La Ligue des Héros du Québec because they annoyed him with their talk of sovereignty association. Sandra had no use for Quebecoise nationalism, but that went too far.

She contacted the Canadian Sentinels and betrayed Borealis' headquarters to them. In the battle that followed, Borealis drew too deeply on the mystical source of his powers and destroyed himself, nearly taking the other members of Destiny with him. Ladybug was seriously injured, but managed to remain standing and smilingly ask for a five minute head start. She's still not sure which one of them knocked her out.

The armor was seized and Sandra went to jail for what looked to be a very long time, thanks to her role as an accessory to many of Borealis' worst acts before she'd grown scruples. As it happened, she spent nearly fourteen years in prison before she was offered a conditional pardon for assisting the Canadian government during the Grue Invasion in 2004. She wasn't surprised to find out that she had been almost completely forgotten by the time she got out, and has since lived quietly, looking after her now quite elderly parents in BC.

She finds the fact that a mass production version of her armor is in use by the Canadian Forces to be terribly, terribly ironic.

Ladybug -- PL 11

STR 14/0 | STA 0 | AGL 8/0 | DEX 0 | FGT 8/0 | INT 6 | AWE 2 | PRE 0
Powers: All Removable. Armored Core (Impervious Protection 14), Cybernetic Controls (Enhanced Agility 8; Enhanced Fighting 8; Enhanced Fortitude 8; Enhanced Will 5), Intimidating Appearance (Enhanced Skill 14 [Intimidation 14]), Sealed Systems (Immunity 10 [life support]), Sensors (Senses 5 [accurate radio, low-light vision, ultrasonic hearing]), Rockets (Flight 10), Strength Augmentation (Enhanced Strength 14).
Advantages: Improved Grab, Improvised Tools, Inventor, Language (English, French), Power Attack, Ultimate Effort (Technology), Well-informed
Skills: Expertise: Science 12 (+18), Intimidation 14 (+14), Perception 4 (+6), Persuasion 4 (+4), Technology 12 (+18).
Offense: Initiative +8, Unarmed +8 (Close Damage 14).
Defense: Dodge 8/0, Parry 8/0, Fortitude 8/0, Toughness 14/0, Will 10/5.
Totals: Ablities 16 + Powers 114 + Advantages 7 + Skills 16 + Defenses 5 = 158 points.
Complications: Thrills--Motivation. Patriotism (Canada).

The "mass production version" of her armor. dubbed the Ladybird, is normally worn by Veteran or Elite Soldiers; there are sixteen suits in usage across Canada and another sixteen in storage. They are often equipped with heavy weapons.

Ladybird - 54 points
Communication 2 (radio); Enhanced Strength 7 (AP: Flight 7); Immunity 10 (Life support); Protection 9, Impervious 7; Senses 5 [accurate radio, low-light vision, ultrasonic hearing)
Last edited by Davies on Sun Jul 09, 2017 8:33 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: World of Freedom 3.2 - Enemies: Panda & Raccoon, Thunder & Lighting, Leech, Lazer

Post by Davies »

catsi563 wrote: Sun Jul 09, 2017 12:24 am
Ken wrote: Sun Jul 09, 2017 12:20 am Enemies Unbound, IIRC. Can't check. Most of my Champions books are in storage.
Yeah it was Enemies Villainy Unbound where Borealis appeared
Great artwork with some decidedly less than great characters in that one. Still, I'm definitely going to include the 5E/6E version of Invictus when I get the chance, and tie him into Centurion's legacy.
Arkrite wrote: Sun Jul 09, 2017 6:24 am I just love the Shocker vibe I get from this guy. It's almost a shame that his epic jobber status never really got a chance to get going.
Almost. :lol:
I do regret that this isn't 2nd ed, because I'd love to see how low his wisdom score would have been ;~)
Probably not less than an 8, since you don't survive in his original line of work without some savvy.
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Shamr--COUGH COUGH COUGH

Post by Davies »

Okay. I know I said that I was going to convert every character in Enemies. And I am. But I never said I was going to use their artwork if I thought it looked utterly ridiculous ...

Barney O'Tumey

Image

Barney O'Tumey was always the sort of kid who was always in trouble, and in Belfast during the early eighties there was a lot of trouble to get into. He was always a scrapper, fighting with his family, his so-called friends, people he'd just met and took to less than kindly, or the Ulster Scots paramilitaries. Somehow, he managed to escape serious injury in these 'scraps', though most of his friends weren't so lucky. Every injury that one of his mates suffered at the hands of his enemies -- whoever they were that day -- made him hate them all that much more.

And then his luck seemed to run out, as a lorry carrying a load of toxic waste happened to suffer an accident while he was walking past, spilling a load of mutagenic materials all over him. The doctors who examined him were grim, but Barney somehow recovered from the chemical burns within just a few days, and had a new story about his supposed invincibility to tell everyone. Which he did. Perhaps that's why, a month later, when he started yet another fight in a pub, someone pulled a gun on him and pulled the trigger.

The bullets bounced off Barney's chest. For a second all was quiet in the tavern, until the silence was broken by the sound of Barney's faintly maniacal laughter, shortly followed by the sound of him punching the man who'd tried to shoot him through the pub's wall and across the street into the next row of buildings. Everyone else also left the building as quickly as they could, or more quickly if Barney got hold of them before they reached the door.

The very next day, Barney contacted someone he knew who had an in with one of the Provisional IRA's brigades and volunteered his services to them. He had such ambitions, now. Driving the Brits and the Scots into the sea wasn't an unattainable dream. In fact, almost as soon as he was closeted with the leadership of the militia, he proposed that they steal into the UK and steal one of their nukes, using it for some good old fashioned extortion! That'd show 'em.

"But what if they think we're bluffing?" asked one of the officers, just a little tremorously.

"Then we nuke Derry, of course. Place is a s--thole anyway."

Showing unusual discernment, the terrorists decided that it might not be such a great idea to have someone like this working for them. The likelihood that he'd escalate the situation and get the British to send their paranormal assets into Northern Ireland was too great, to say nothing of the fairly strong possibility that Barney might decide that the leadership of the Army wasn't going far enough and try to take over, something that nobody who was already in charge wanted. Instead, they offered to give him a special mission that only someone as clever and ruthless as he was would be able to accomplish.

When they told him what they wanted, Barney got really excited, and agreed at once ... with one provision. If they were sending him off to America, he insisted on taking his dear sweet ma with him, since she needed to be constantly looked after. (The rest of the family were a bunch of layabouts, and they could all go hang as far as he was concerned.) Two tickets to Boston later, they were on their way to the new world, where Barney found himself installed as an enforcer for one of Boston's crime families, with a particular focus on making sure that none of the local IRA supporters would welsh on their commitments.

Inevitably, these missions took him to Freedom City, where he often ran up against the FORCE Ops, and sometimes did freelance work for the Circus Maximus. It was on one such job that, in 1991, he suffered a fall that his normally infallible luck failed to protect him from. (It's possible that Kismet, who was on the scene, used her luck powers to interfere with his.) Laid up with a broken back, the last thing he saw before he lost consciousness in the hospital was the sight of his dear sweet ma counting the money she'd just got paid by operatives of the Labyrinth in exchange for letting them take her son for some experimentation to examine the nature of his luck.

Despite what you might be expecting, he's not dead. The Labyrinth had already progressed beyond the need to dissect paranormal corpses in order to figure them out by that point. Barney is, however, in cryogentic cold storage, and has probably been subjected to some psychological meddling. But he could certainly escape at any time, and who knows what he'd want then?

Barney O'Tumey -- PL 10

STR 15 | STA 12 | AGL 4 | DEX 3 | FGT 5 | INT 0 | AWE 0 | PRE 2
Powers: Rapid Recovery (Regeneration 4), Ridiculous Luck (Enhanced Advantage 1 [Uncanny Dodge]; Enhanced Defenses 8 [Dodge 4, Parry 4]; Reaction Nullify 10 [Effects Countered by Coincidence], Broad, Simultaneous, Close Range), Sheer Damn Toughness (Impervious Toughness 12).
Advantages: Accurate Attack, Charmed Life, Diehard, Improved Defense, Improved Grab, Improved Hold, Luck 5, Power Attack, Takedown, Uncanny Dodge.
Skills: Expertise: Streetwise 8 (+8), Intimidation 12 (+14), Perception 4 (+4).
Offense: Initiative +4, Unarmed +5 (Close Damage 15).
Defense: Dodge 8/4, Parry 8/4, Fortitude 14, Toughness 12, Will 5.
Totals: Abilities 82 + Powers 76 + Advantages 13 + Skills 12 + Defenses 14 = 197 points
Complications: Enjoyment of Being A Vicious Bastard--Motivation. Family (dear sweet ma).
Last edited by Davies on Mon Jul 10, 2017 10:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: World of Freedom 3.2 - Enemies: Panda & Raccoon, Thunder & Lighting, Leech, Lazer, Ladybug

Post by Ken »

And here, Shamrock, or Seamróg, as I called him, was one that I actually used in my universe.
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Re: World of Freedom 3.2 - Enemies: Panda & Raccoon, Thunder & Lighting, Leech, Lazer, Ladybug

Post by Davies »

I just couldn't see a "hard man" like Barney was made out to be taking on such a costume or code name. The fact that there's a Z-list Marvel comics character with the same name didn't help.

Next up: Ankylosaur and the oddly named Wyvern.
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Ankylosaur and Wyvern

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Ankylosaur and Wyvern

The year was 1978, the place San Francisco. Paul Bressler and John MacDougal were a pair of small-time hoods hired by representatives of a local mobster (who was actually a Nest Leader of VIPER, not that they knew or would have cared) to act as a distraction while a group of burglars infiltrated a Duchess Industries laboratory in search of something that was none of Bressler or MacDougal's business. Simple enough job, right? But then Bressler, always a little too ambitious for his own good, decided to do a little infiltrating of his own, and MacDougal, always one to follow Bressler's lead even when he had a hunch that he shouldn't, came along.

Meanwhile, the VIPER team's infiltration went pear-shaped, and ended up in a gunfight with Duchess' suspiciously well-equipped security guards. In the ensuing confusion, Bressler and MacDougal got separated. Bressler ended up hiding out in the shipping department, listening to the sounds of battle in the distance. When that got boring, he amused himself by peeling the shipping stickers off of a few crates and replacing them with new ones that had his address on them. Eventually, things settled down enough that Bressler decided it was time to leave, which he did, without even a cursory attempt to find out what had happened to MacDougal.

He arrived home to discover the phone ringing and answered it, learning that his girlfriend thought she might be pregnant. "Well, do something about it, then," he said, and hung up.

Over the next few weeks, a series of packages were delivered to his apartment -- the various crates he'd fiddled with during the raid. Most of them contained the pieces of a set of powered armor (which were, though he wasn't to know this, Duchess Industries' attempts to improve on the infamous Klankenhausen iron suit developed during World War II.) And one of them contained a bunch of blaster rifles that he sold on the black market in order to get the tools that he needed to put the suit together. When he was done, he had a heavily armed walking tank that resembled pictures of a dinosaur that he half remembered from elementary school -- an ankylosaur or something like that.

After he taught himself how to use the thing, with the help of the manual that had been in one of the crates, he immediately embarked on a career of robbery, raking in enough money to put himself in an excellent mood when his girlfriend told him that she was keeping the baby -- a sufficiently excellent mood that he promised to help pay for everything. He frequently had cause to regret that promise, over the years to come, but he kept up the child support anyway, mostly to prevent his girlfriend from getting curious about where his money came from. Besides, there was always more where that came from.

On one of his jobs in 1981, he ran into a crazy monster type with wings and claws that nonetheless seemed strangely familiar. And then he recognized the weirdo as MacDougal, who'd had some sort of radiation accident during the night of the raid that had turned him into this and done a real number on the guy's brain. There was just enough of MacDougal's mind left to recognize Bressler when he lured him out of town and got out of the suit to confront him, but that was enough to remind him of his old loyalty to the brains of their outfit. And just like that, Ankylosaur had a partner who could act as air support for his armor. He dubbed MacDougal "Wyvern", since he had no real knowledge of what such a creature was supposed to look like.

Things seemed to be looking up even more in 1982, when the pair of them were recruited for an outfit dubbed the Conquerors, run by a mutant called Neutron. The guy's plans were completely over the top, but the way he described them made it seem like they were practically inevitable, so Bressler counted himself lucky to be getting on the ground floor of this operation. He soon found himself thoroughly disillusioned on that score, but the money that came in from the jobs that they pulled was good enough to keep him (and thus Wyvern) on the team until 1989, when they attempted to attack the Bush inauguration and got pasted by AEGIS' super team. Bressler still managed to make a personal escape from that fiasco, along with Wyvern.

Like a number of other supervillains, Ankylosaur saw the Terminus Invasion as a great opportunity to get revenge on some old foes, and so he and Wyvern flew into the melee. Just what happened then is known only to Wyvern, who isn't talking. What is known that Wyvern flew out of the melee carrying the armor, made his way back to the West Coast, and then landed in the back yard of the house Bressler had bought for his ex-girlfriend and kid. The armor wasn't carrying anyone inside it, but the presence of some lucky charms that Bressler's ex recognized as his was enough to tell them what was going on.

In 1999, Jimmy Bressler began using the Ankylosaur armor -- upgraded by several criminal armorers -- to commit a new generation of crimes, still with the apparently unaging Wyvern as his partner. He's been a little more open with his own family about his activities than his father was, and his daughter Amy-Jo is keen on the idea of becoming the third person to use the suit, or possibly an even further upgraded version. Jimmy is just enough of a decent human being that he's not crazy about that notion -- but mostly because that would mean he'd be out of the way when it happens.

Ankylosaur -- PL 12
Image
STR 8/0 | STA 1 | AGL 7/2 | DEX 7/2 | FGT 8/3 | INT 0 | AWE 0 | PRE 0
Powers: All Removable. Armor (Impervious Protection 10), Cybernetic Controls (Enhanced Agility 5; Enhanced Dexterity 5; Enhanced Dodge 3; Enhanced Fighting 5; Enhanced Fortitude 6; Enhanced Parry 3), Radar (Senses 3 [accurate radio]), Sealed Systems (Immunity 10 [life support]), Strength Augmentation (Enhanced Strength 8; Speed 5), Suit Weapons (Array: Ranged Burst Area Damage 12, AP: Linked Ranged Damage 9 and Ranged Affliction 9 [Resisted by Fortitude; Hindered and Vulnerable, Defenseless and Immobile], Extra Condition, Limited Degree, AP: Enhanced Strength 8, Limited to Tail AND Ranged Damage 14, AP: Ranged Burst Area Affliction 12 [Resisted by Dodge, Fortitude to remove; Visually Impaired, Visually Disabled, Visually Unaware], Limited to One Sense, AP: Ranged Cloud Area 5 Visual Concealment 4 Attack), Tail (Extra Limb 1)
Advantages: All-Out Attack, Move-By Action, Power Attack, Sidekick 27, Takedown
Skills: Expertise: Streetwise 8 (+8), Intimidation 12 (+12), Perception 4 (+4), Ranged Combat: Suit Weapons 3 (+10), Stealth 4 (+11), Technology 4 (+4), Vehicles 7 (+14)
Offense: Initiative +10, Unarmed +8 (Close Damage 8), Tail +8 (Close Damage 16), Fire Burst -- (Ranged Burst Area Damage 12), Ice Shot +10 (Ranged Damage 9 and Ranged Fortitude 9), Cannon Shot +10 (Ranged Damage 14), Flare Shot -- (Ranged Burst Area Affliction 12, Resisted by Dodge).
Defense: Dodge 12/4, Parry 12/4, Fortitude 12/6, Toughness 11/1, Will 5
Totals: Abilities 16 + Powers 110 + Advantages 31 + Skills 21 + Defense 13 = 191 points
Complications: Greed--Motivation. Vulnerable (sonics).

Wyvern -- PL 8
Image
STR 8 | STA 8 | AGL 3 | DEX 3 | FGT 6 | INT -2 | AWE 0 | PRE 2
Powers: Claws (Strength-based Damage 2), Eyes (Senses 1 [infravision]), Poison Breath (Ranged Damage 8, Secondary Effect), Tail (Extra Limb 1), Toughness (Immunity 2 [critical hits], Impervious Toughness 4), Wings (Flight 5, Wings)
Advantages: Agile Feint, Evasion, Great Endurance, Power Attack, Ranged Attack 5.
Skills: Acrobatics 8 (+11), Athletics 6 (+14), Intimidation 12 (+14), Perception 6 (+6)
Offense: Initiative +3, Unarmed +6 (Close Damage 8), Claws +6 (Close Damage 10), Poison Breath +8 (Ranged Damage 8, Secondary Effect).
Defense: Dodge 8, Parry 8, Fortitude 11, Toughness 8, Will 5.
Totals: Abilities 56 + Powers 39 + Advantages 9 + Skills 16 + Defenses 15 = 135 points
Complications: Revenge--Motivation. Animal Instincts.
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King Cobra

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King Cobra

Image

Dr. Timothy Blank was one of several researchers employed by a secret, multi-government initiative dubbed the Book of Life, an attempt to completely map the human genetic code that began more than twenty years before the better known Human Genome Project. Of course, the reason that the latter project is better known is that the Book of Life was an abject failure that dissolved in 1972, before it had mapped even 25% of the genetic code, amid bitter acrimony between the scientists involved over methodology. It is very possible that the conflicts that tore the project apart were induced by the Labyrinth, which wished for no competition in their advanced understanding of human genetics.

Dr. Blank barely noticed any of the conflict, though. He had his own peculiar obsession with a certain sequence of DNA in the introns, the "junk" DNA, which he was convinced were not junk. He found the same code in many mammals as well as humans, and became increasingly convinced that it was a lock that was just waiting for the right protein-based key to open and reveal wonders. The fact that this sequence was present in his own DNA convinced him that it was best to skip animal testing altogether and see what could be done with human experimentation. To his dubious credit, his first subject was himself.

The key, he ultimately decided, had to be in the genes of those animals that did not have the code in their DNA, such as reptiles. In particular, such as snakes, for which Dr. Blank had always had something of a fascination. Driven by obsession rather than reason, he proceeded to inject himself with genetic material from a king cobra, simply to see what would happen. What happened was nearly an hour of excruciating pain that shredded what little sanity he had left ... and then enlightenment and majesty.

What Blank had discovered was the legacy of the Serpent People, their experimentation on humans (and other mammals) to create slave soldiers. These creatures, created millennia earlier, were by now the ancestors of roughly half of all human beings now living. By activating what Dr. Blank -- or KIng Cobra, as he now styled himself -- dubbed the Coil gene, he could transform a human being into a snake-human hybrid, just as he himself had been transformed. The nation of serpents awaited their king, and he could not in conscience deny them the same majesty he now enjoyed. Well, maybe he could deny them that -- it would probably be better if they didn't go through the full procedure and enjoy the enhanced intelligence he'd been granted. After all, they were just to be soldiers in his war.

He did grant that benefit to a handful of scientists he carefully selected, making sure that he could control them through one means or another, but most of those he transformed were reduced to mindless, confused serpent-men who needed to be trained as soldiers. King Cobra's serpentine charisma ensured that he was obeyed by the rank and file of his army. The crimes of this army of new men soon attracted hostile attention from superheroes, but King Cobra was never personally captured, and if he suffered losses, they were easily replaced.

In 1982, an opportunity came his way. The second supreme leader of VIPER, the engineered superman known as Viperion, abandoned his followers and departed the planet Earth entirely. VIPER dissolved once again into confused infighting, which King Cobra and his followers were able to exploit in order to seize control over the entire organization. VIPER's sole remaining corporate backer was less than enthused about a crazy serpent man running their covert action wing, but decided to give King Cobra enough rope to hang himself.

He proceeded to do so, using VIPER to run showy, grandstanding campaigns that covered for his own efforts to build his serpentine army even larger. All this drew far too much law enforcement and superheroic attention, and VIPER suffered serious losses in the five years he was in charge. King Cobra was finally killed in battle with the superhero called Mercenary, who blew up VIPER's headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, killing much of the COIL army, as well as himself. This was the last straw for the corporate sponsorship, who withdrew their support for VIPER the next year, forcing it into the arms of SHADOW.

Samples of the Coil Gene, both in its mind-enhancing and mind-neutralizing form, are still in the possession of VIPER, who have used them to create a handful of snake-themed supervillains in the last thirty years. As yet, none of them have had the ambition or fortune to rise as high as King Cobra did.

As yet.

King Cobra -- PL 11

STR 4 | STA 7 | AGL 7 | DEX 8 | FGT 15 | INT 8 | AWE 4 | PRE 6
Powers: Coil Gene Transformation (Perception Range Progressive Affliction 9 [Resisted by Fortitude; Hindered, Stunned, Transformed], Olfactory Dependent, Unreliable, Quirk [if the unreliable roll fails, the effect will NEVER work on that target], Removable), Snakelike Senses (Senses 3 [accurate hearing, infravision]), Striking Strength (Strength-based Damage 2), Venoms (Array: Ranged Damage 10, AP: Progressive Affliction 6 [Resisted by Fortitude; Dazed, Stunned, Incapacitated]).
Advantages: Agile Feint, Assessment, Chokehold, Close Attack, Defensive Attack, Evasion, Fast Grab, Grabbing Finesse, Improved Disarm, Improved Grab, Improved Hold, Power Attack, Prone Fighting, Takedown, Trance, Uncanny Dodge, Weapon Bind.
Skills: Acrobatics 8 (+15), Athletics 8 (+12), Deception 8 (+14), Expertise: Science 8 (+16), Insight 8 (+12), Intimidation 12 (+18), Investigation 6 (+14), Perception 8 (+12), Ranged Attack: Venom 4 (+12), Stealth 8 (+15), Technology 4 (+12).
Offense: Initiative +7, Unarmed + 16 (Close Damage 6), Venom Bite +16 (Close Fortitude 6), Venom Spit +12 (Ranged Damage 10).
Defense: Dodge 13, Parry 15, Fortitude 9, Toughness 7, Will 9.
Totals: Abilities 118 + Powers 40 + Advantages 17 + Skills 36 + Defenses 13 = 225 points
Complications: Power--Motivation. Vulnerability (fire and cold).

Victims of the Coil Gene Transformation as described above can eventually have the statistics of Civilized Serpent People (Atlas of Earth-Prime: Sub-Terra) and the equipment of Soldiers of varying quality. The more complicated Coil Gene Transformation is a slower, more painful process.
"I'm sorry. I love you. I'm not sorry I love you."
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Davies
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Black Mamba

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Black Mamba

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When Dr. Jefferson Durant was awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1978 for his work on restriction enzymes and their applications to the problem of molecular genetics, it was the happiest day of his life. Yes, he had to admit it, he was happier than the day he'd married a beautiful woman, happier than the days either of their children were born. His contributions to the advancement of human knowledge were being acknowledged and the whole world knew who he was. Not bad for a poor black kid from Watts.

Unfortunately for the neither poor nor a kid, the whole world that knew who he was included some very dangerous people. King Cobra was already familiar with his work from when Jefferson had almost been recruited for the Book of Life program, and the acknowledgement of Durant's talents by the Nobel Prize committee -- which, oddly, had never even considered awarding Dr. Timothy Black anything -- proved that he was indeed in a class of his own. So he decided to recruit this talented scientist for his own organization. Of course, he didn't bother with any of the niceties like asking if Durant wanted to be part of a criminal conspiracy -- he kidnapped the man's family and threatened them with a horrible death if Durant didn't cooperate.

So cooperate Durant did, submitting to the agonizing Coil Gene process that granted him a serpentine set of powers and a lesser version of the enhanced mentality possessed by King Cobra. He conducted research to improve on both the basic and the advanced process, and led Coil Agents on missions against superheroes that made him a wanted man under the insulting name Black Mamba. All the while, he kept searching for his family, desperate to rescue them so that they could all escape from this nightmare.

It was in 1983, shortly after King Cobra took over VIPER, that Durant found out the truth: King Cobra had murdered the Durant family not long after Black Mamba's first major failure as an agent leader. The bodies of his wife and children had been ground up and fed to the Coil agents. And King Cobra hadn't even bothered to mention the consequences of Black Mamba's failure to him. Durant made his escape from King Cobra's new headquarters and swore to bring about his former master's death. He would do anything towards this goal, murder anyone who got in his way.

It didn't matter. Black Mamba's new activities made him a thorn in King Cobra's side, but the master of VIPER had other problems to deal with. The viciousness with which Durant pursued his goals drove away many of those who would have been his allies against VIPER and King Cobra. In the end, King Cobra was killed by another, leaving Black Mamba with nothing. He couldn't even turn his vengeful attentions towards the one who'd stolen his prey from him, for Mercenary was dead too.

There was nothing for him to do. After contemplating suicide and rejecting it, he accepted a VIPER amnesty offer and went back to work for them, doing the same research and agent leadership work that he'd been doing for King Cobra. And there he has stayed ever since, slowly growing older but not perceptibly weaker. He was initially able to take some vague pleasure in his vengeance on Mercenary's companions in the Champions, but the Terminus Invasion robbed him of that, too. It doesn't matter. Happiness and hope, he's come to believe, are two great deceivers.

Black Mamba -- PL 8

STR 8 | STA 7 | AGL 6 | DEX 5 | FGT 6 | INT 6 | AWE 1 | PRE 5
Powers: Mamba Bite (Weaken Physical Abilities 8, Broad), Serpent Eyes (Senses 1 [infrared vision]), Swift as a Serpent (Speed 2).
Advantages: Chokehold, Evasion, Improved Grab, Improved Hold.
Skills: Acrobatics 4 (+10), Athletics 4 (+12), Close Combat: Unarmed 2 (+8), Expertise: Science 12 (+18), Investigation 4 (+10), Perception 6 (+7), Stealth 6 (+12), Technology 8 (+14).
Offense: Initiative +6, Unarmed +8 (Close Damage 8), Mamba Bite +8 (Close Weaken Physical Abilities 8).
Defense: Dodge 9, Parry 9, Fortitude 11, Toughness 7, Will 5
Totals: Abilities 88 + Powers 19 + Advantages 4 + Skills 23 + Defense 14 = 148 points.
Complications: Vengeance--Motivation. Vulnerable (heat, cold).
"I'm sorry. I love you. I'm not sorry I love you."
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Davies
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Mongoose

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Mongoose

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In 1979, Alex Taylor was in his early twenties and moderately obsessed with the study of kung fu. He was in fact sufficiently obsessed to have developed some genuinely superhuman talents in the area, which he found interesting but not all that useful in the sort of formal tournaments where he used his fighting arts. The notion of employing his talents to either fight crime or perpetrate it seemed ridiculous to him.

Then, as often happens, everything changed. At one tournament, he encountered a group of loud mouths who called themselves the Cobra Club. Unimpressed with their bravado, he called them out and easily defeated them in a series of short bouts, teaching them the very valuable lesson that there was always someone better. Had he known that these were non-mutated agents of the man who called himself King Cobra, Alex still would have done it, but he might have been better prepared for their response. Immediately after the tournament ended, they cornered him and taught him the very valuable lesson that he really needed to learn how to block bullets.

Fortunately, he didn't die as they expected him to do, but he was laid up in the hospital for quite some time. Faced with an alarming hospital bill and limited resources with which to pay it, Alex decided that the only reasonable thing to do was to embark upon a life of crime -- specifically, a life of crime directed at the assholes who'd shot him. He managed to burglarize their 'clubhouse', in the process discovering the alarming true nature of the Coil, and got away with enough cash to cover his hospital bill and then some. Clearly, this business of being a costumed criminal was more lucrative than he'd realized, and so Alex decided to become a Mongoose, enemy of cobras.

He fought his private war with King Cobra for many years, and occasionally ventured into other forms of supervillainy for the thrill of it. Ultimately, though, King Cobra was brought down, and Alex decided to retire his own costumed identity as well, resuming his career as the head of Johnny Li's Temple of Kung Fu. In the mid nineties, after the statute of limitations on his crimes had elapsed, he revealed himself as the Mongoose in order to drum up more publicity for the school. He continued teaching martial arts at that school until fairly recently, when he retired on his sixtieth birthday.

Mongoose -- PL 10

STR 4 | STA 4 | AGL 6 | DEX 5 | FGT 14 | INT 1 | AWE 3 | PRE 3
Powers: Penetrating Kick (Penetrating 4 on Strength Damage, Quirk [must Power Attack]), Sensitivity (Senses 2 [extended ranged tactile]).
Advantages: Agile Feint, All Out Attack, Defensive Roll, Improved Critical (unarmed), Improved Initiative 2, Improved Trip, Move-by Action, Power Attack, Seize Initiative, Skill Mastery (Acrobatics), Takedown, Taunt.
Skills: Acrobatics 10 (+16), Athletics 6 (+10), Close Combat: Unarmed 2 (+16), Deception 6 (+9), Perception 6 (+9), Sleight of Hand 10 (+15), Stealth 10 (+16).
Offense: Initiative +14, Unarmed +16 (Close Damage 4).
Defense: Dodge 14, Parry 14, Fortitude 11, Toughness 6/4, Will 5.
Totals: Abilities 80 + Powers 5 + Advantages 13 + Skills 25 + Defenses 17 = 140 points
Complications: Thrills--Motivation. Enemy (King Cobra).
"I'm sorry. I love you. I'm not sorry I love you."
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Lady Blue

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Lady Blue

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Pretty much everybody in America knows the story of Tara Lemick by now. She grew up pretty much right on the edge of being dirt poor in Cleveland, Ohio, and despite her aptitude for science and engineering, no one offered her any scholarships so that she could continue her education past Grade 12. Instead, she went to work to keep her family together. Nonetheless, she had enough spare time to study acrobatics, martial arts, and several sciences. In particular, she made several breakthroughs in force field physics and anti-gravity that would have been worth billions if she patented them. Rather than do anything silly like that, though, she used them to build a suit of skintight power armor and become a latter day Robin Hood, stealing from the very rich (and very bad) and giving to the very poor. With a million dollar smile and the best legal team in the country, whom she can afford to pay despite giving all her money to the poor and to charities, she's become America's most popular supervillain ...

... and by now you have probably guessed that there's more going on here than meets the eyes, right? The story of Tara Lemick is true up until that nonsense about having enough spare time. The one thing you rarely have when working two jobs is a lot of spare time. Instead, it was right around then that her identity was not so much stolen as purchased in exchange for a house in Hawaii to which she was able to move her entire family. They're still there, but are smart enough not to talk to any reporters lest the good times end. In any event, they don't know anything about the woman who bought Tara Lemick's identity.

Her name is Margaret Trevail, and she was one of the few members of the United Nations Science Advisory Council to avoid being controlled by a race of alien parasites. (The fact that she'd done so by discovering their existence and then keeping quiet about it while immunizing herself to their control was not discovered.) She was therefore welcomed into the research division of UNISON when it formed in 1994, and for a time she was quite happy there. But her attitude proved to be a poor fit for the new organization, and her employment was finally terminated in 1996. The extensive contacts she had developed in her time with UNSAC proved to be no help at all in letting her keep her job.

Frustrated, Trevail returned to her family home in upstate New York, and endured, with clenched teeth, some teasing from her cousins about how she'd been too much of a mad scientist for UNISON, and how it was a wonder that they had actually fired her, since she was sure to seek revenge as a supervillain. And reflecting on that, she found herself wondering whether that might not be such a bad idea. Among the many lesser secrets that she'd taken with her to work were her powers of gravitational control. With those, it might just be possible ...

She created the identity of Lady Blue over the next two years, selecting Tara Lemick from a list of science project winners when she determined that they had a fairly close physical resemblance. With the creation of a non-functional suit of "power armor" that disguised the true source of her powers, she was ready to roll. Her first job netted her a cool seven million dollars -- which would have been an enormous sum of money to the real Tara Lemick, but which Margaret Trevail could easily afford to give away to a charity so as to establish a reputation as a do-gooder vigilante on the wrong side of the law.

The truth about Lady Blue is suspected by many crimefighters throughout the United States, but no proof exists. Even those who know that she's not as good as she pretends to be tend to view her as a 'lesser evil', as she's known for keeping to the letter of any deals she makes with superheroes. She does take pride in making sure that no innocents are hurt by her operations, but she doesn't believe that anyone who goes out of their way to get in her way is an innocent.

As to her relationship with Jaguar of the Champions -- even she isn't sure whether she's using him as part of her long term plans to bring down the Champions, or whether she truly loves him. All that she knows is that whenever they're together, she finds herself being so happy that she hasn't killed him yet ...

Lady Blue -- PL 11

STR 0 | STA 2 | AGL 4 | DEX 5 | FGT 8 | INT 7 | AWE 2 | PRE 2
Powers: Gravitonic Control (Array: Ranged Damage 10, AP: Enhanced Strength 10, AP: Ranged Burst Area Damage 6, AP: Damaging Move Object 6, Precise, Subtle), Gravitonic Flight (Flight 8), Gravitonic Force Field (Sustained Impervious Toughness 10), Striking Strength (Strength-based Damage 2).
Advantages: Accurate Attack, Agile Feint, All-out Attack, Attractive, Benefit 4 (Multi-millionaire), Defensive Roll, Equipment 3 (Headquarters), Extraordinary Effort, Improved Initiative, Interpose, Move-by Action, Skill Mastery (Technology), Well-Informed.
Skills: Acrobatics 6 (+10), Deception 7 (+9), Expertise: Science 10 (+17), Perception 4 (+6), Persuasion 4 (+6), Ranged Attack: Gravitonic Control 7 (+12), Technology 10 (+17).
Offense: Initiative +8, Unarmed +8 (Close Damage 12/2), Gravitonic Blast +10 (Ranged Damage 10), Gravitonic Burst -- (Ranged Burst Area Damage 6).
Defense: Dodge 8, Parry 8, Fortitude 8, Toughness 14/4/2, Will 14.
Totals: Abilities 60 + Powers 61 + Advantages 18 + Skills 24 + Defenses 22 = 185 points
Complications: Power--Motivation. Fame. Honor. Secret.
"I'm sorry. I love you. I'm not sorry I love you."
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