Ember Point (brainstorming city details)

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Re: Ember Point (Latest Update - The Troubadour)

Post by Commander Titan »

And that, with Bob Dylan Batman, concludes the founding members of the Battalion. Next up, is a bridge between this whole project and the actual city of Ember Point: Bolt, the Electric Swordsman, hero of Ember Point turned Battalion member.
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Re: Ember Point (Latest Update - The Troubadour)

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Commander Titan wrote: Mon Mar 20, 2023 6:00 am
But in a small corner of Chicago, for the last twenty or so years an older man named “Tom Kurz” has run a small butcher’s shop and deli, sometimes playing the guitar at local bars on weekends…
I'm honestly crying. Happy tears, don't worry about me, please.
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Re: Ember Point (Latest Update - Bolt, the Electric Swordsman)

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Bolt, the Electric Swordsman [Joseph "Joe" Zhi]

A Brief Intro to Vondrák Electromatics (VE)

In the late 1800s, the eccentric Czech scientist Aurelia Vondrák made her way to the United States from her homelands in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Her numerous adventures need no elaboration here. What is important is to note that her lifelong interest in novel energy systems and solutions brought her to study the strange properties of Mount Alexandra near Ember Point.

It proved unusually well-suited to being a source of geothermal energy, and Vondrák developed a series of taps and facilities to harness this, turning Ember Point into a pioneer in electrical and arguably eco-friendly energy generations ahead of the rest of the world. Vondrák’s financial patrons and family organized her scattered holdings and technologies under the aegis of a single company - Vondrák Electromatics, now officially known as VE.

One of these critical technologies are the proprietary powerlines that transfer the strange energies of Mount Alexandra through to the city and transform it into standard electricity. These were nicknamed “ley lines” and are widely referred to as such by everyone except VE, who consider them a highly classified trade secret.


Early Days

Joseph “Joe” Zhi was born in 1960 in Ember Point, to a Chinese-American family in BGH. They were very young when they had Joe, and to ends meet both parents worked - his mother got a job as a bank teller, while his father worked as a stevedore in Port Roy. With both parents working long hours, Joe was mostly raised by his grandmother, June.

June worked at a library, and Joe spent hours there after school, looked over by her and her fellow librarians, fondly remembered as his various “Aunts.” They would read to him, sometimes from books far above his age level (as Joe proved to be a very bright child indeed). Joe’s favorite books, in part because they were his grandmother’s favorites, were tales of swashbuckling heroes - Zorro, Captain Blood, The Scarlet Pimpernel, and, above all else, Dumas’s The Three Musketeers.

He loved the swordfights, the dashing and daring musketeers crossing steel with dastardly villains. He dreamed of being a hero like them. It was a dream, in part, born out of a feeling of abandonment by his parents. June became a maternal substitute, and for all his life, Joe would feel closer to her than his own mother and father.

These feelings were exacerbated as Joe got older. By the time he was a teenager, his mother and father had worked their way up to more steady and lucrative positions as managers at their job sites. Joe’s father moved the family to Crown Airlines corporate housing in Cookchester, Here, Joe’s parents finally had the time to become more involved in his life, but the distance was already vast, and only grew larger.

This increased when Joe’s younger brother Will was born, and received all the attention and doting as a child that Joe had missed out on. Desperate to get out of his parents’ home, Joe took the first college offer he received - the electrical engineering program at Carson Lake University. Over the years, Joe had developed into a talented science student and amateur engineer, adding tinkering with electronics to the ways he spent his time alone.

After CLU, he was headhunted to work for Ember Point’s local power conglomerate, VE, and he was eventually promoted to one of maintenance teams for the so-called “ley lines.” He was excited at the chance to work on such groundbreaking, still poorly-understood technologies.

One evening, in the midst of preventative work on one of the lines ahead of a major storm, a strange glitch seemed to affect the system. Joe was on the scene, trying to prevent an overload that could cause a blackout, when there was a sudden surge. He pushed his fellow workers out of the way, when the line “burst” and he was struck by the full charge.

He was knocked out instantly, his body glowing and pulsing with what the media would one day facetiously call “a hundred million million volts!” While that number was an exaggeration, the electricity and the strange energies of Mount Alexandra now coursed through his body…


Shocking, Positively Shocking

As he recovered, Joe discovered that rather than any lasting damage from what should have been an electrocution, he had developed superpowers!

He’d been, for lack of a better word, “supercharged.” He was faster and stronger than a normal human, and healed faster as well. Importantly, his reflexes and reaction times were truly exceptional (such that he would later be able to deflect bullets). With a bit of focus he could move short distances in the blink of an eye, though this was exhausting and he was not a “marathon” speedster able to maintain velocity for any length of time.

Joe had a powerful electric charge in his body, enough that he had to be careful not to shock himself or others by accident. He would eventually develop a number of technological grounding devices to protect those around him, but in a pinch could slap or shock someone like a joy buzzer. This same charge could disrupt electronics, and it could power all manner of little gadgets, which Joe would develop over time, including a handy grappling hook.

The only person Joe confided these new abilities to was grandma June, always his confidante (she was the only member of his family he had come out to as gay at this point as well). He admitted to her that with these powers, he had the foolish notion that he could finally be the hero he’d always dreamed of. June simply responded, “we better get to work then!” With her library expertise, she helped Joe research his new powers and their implications, and limits. This included developing a “grounding rod,” a walking stick-like device to help him safely discharge buildups of the current within him.

One afternoon, as they further worked on equipment, June became ill. A desperate trip to the hospital ensued, and it became clear that Joe’s grandmother had an advanced form of cancer, with only months to live. Joe wanted to stop, but June insisted that she would live to see her grandson achieve his dream.

Unfortunately, it was not to be. June passed away before they were ready. But as a last gift, she had finished a design for his costume – a blue outfit inspired by the Musketeers Joe had so admired in his youth, ably concealing body armor and other gadgets. And his grounding rod cane concealed a “lightning rod” – a sword-like device to harness and cast about his electrical energies.

In 1987, a week after June Zhi was buried, Bolt, the Electric Swordsman, made his public debut, thwarting an attempt to steal restricted technologies from a VE research facility. One of the first of a new generation of heroes, not tarnished by the legacy of Glorioso, the city of Ember Point embraced this smiling new hero, unaware of how bittersweet the moment was inside of him…


The Enemies

Tragic beginning aside, Bolt threw himself into superheroing with gusto. It was dangerous, it was thrilling. The adrenaline rush was worth it. So were the words of gratitude (and, if he was honest, the feeling of being the center of attention for once) from people he saved.

Whatever you think about his own motives, you can always judge a man by the quality of his enemies. And Bolt quickly developed a rogues gallery for himself:

Dr. Holden Scott, professor at CLU, was inspired by the work of life and career of Miss Terrific, and not in the right way. He attempted to replicate her dust cloud powers, and was astonishingly (partially) successful. He could turn his body into sand, but it stayed in a humanoid shape – nonetheless he could pass through barriers and was all but immune to bullets and other attacks (including Bolt’s lightning rod). As Dr. Quicksand, he was obsessed with further enhancing his powers and pursuing all manner of super-technology schemes, he would repeatedly clash with Bolt. Constantly frustrated by the hero’s ability to improvise technical solutions to many of his schemes, Dr. Quicksand would form several iterations of the Triple Threat, three-person team-ups of Bolt’s various enemies, including a final “greatest hits” attempt to finally slay the hero when Dr. Quicksand learned his form was decaying.

Fender Bender was an odd one - Garrett Wembley dressed like a crash test dummy and with an elastic body that could stretch and absorb all manner of bouncing trauma without issue. He tended to have modest ambitions - looking to steal fancy luxury goods for himself, but was entirely apathetic to the excessive property damage and chaos he caused in the process. His crimes slowly evolved to stop having obvious targets, and Bolt would eventually discover, reluctantly with the help of his brother Will (by then a lawyer), that Fender Bender had started to hire himself out to other criminals and even wealthy corporate backers to create distractions while far subtler crimes and wrongdoing happened elsewhere.

Tim Roque survived an industrial accident and became able to manipulate and shape a variety of metals, including granting himself a second skin of steel as powerful armor. For many years he was the Steeler, a brute force villain with simple smash and grab ambitions, taking a direct route to whatever he wanted – through bank vault doors, if necessary. Fortunately he was remarkably unimaginative with his powers, until an off-hand comment by Bolt during a battle inspired a drastic shift in his life and modus operandi…

Nick Neutron, sometimes also known as the Atom-Snatcher, was born Nicholas Newton. A burglar, he managed to steal an experimental compression matrix, granting him the ability to shrink and shift in size, which let him take his larcenous ambitions farther than he’d ever imagine. He prided himself being on a gentleman thief, especially after he’d stolen more money than he’d ever need, and instead began to commit various daring crimes for the thrill of it. He would give the police and Bolt early notice of his intentions, seeing if he could still commit his thefts under their notice. He developed a flirtatious dynamic with the similarly adrenaline-fueled Electric Swordsman over the course of their rooftop escapades, but this would sadly not have a happy ending.

Finally, for many years, perhaps Bolt’s greatest foe, despite Dr. Quicksand’s ambitions, was Zero, the Masked Destroyer. An anti-technology terrorist in a white mask with a black zero upon it (“to return human society to zero” and thus gain a fresh start), he was a pinnacle of human achievement. A skilled martial artist, a fearless acrobat and free runner, and a technical genius, he targeted industry and research sites in and near Ember Point. It took all Bolt’s skill to survive battling Zero, who outclassed him physically, and all his wits to thwart his dangerous schemes. Over time, Bolt began to gather clues that not all was as it seemed with Zero, and after a final confrontation, the villain renounced his violent philosophy and seemingly disappeared, and Bolt never publicly revealed the former villain’s identity, no matter how much he was pressed upon to…


The Allies (or “Tous pour un, un pour tous”)

Of course, even the brilliant Bolt couldn’t take on all these foes alone!

In 1990, three years into his career, Joe made the acquaintance of one Veronika Vondrák, the teenage heir to the family that founded VE. More specifically, he saved her from a kidnapping and ransom attempt. Even more specifically, he broke into the kidnapper’s HQ, only to find that the resourceful Veronika had already freed herself… with the aid of her newly awakened superhuman abilities.

Veronika possessed potent, but unrefined, powers over electromagnetism, including turning herself into a sort of living lightning bolt. Needing a mentor, and desperate to escape her stifling and sheltered life, she convinced Joe to take her on as Sparky, his sidekick (“partner!” - Veronika).

Joe was able to have the sibling-like relationship with Veronika he never had with his younger brother Will. While they came from very different backgrounds, they both had a desire to be heroes. Sparky lent much needed power to back up Bolt, and used her fortune to help build them a proper base of operations, as well as several “Boltmobiles” (not an official name!) to widen their area of operations.

This was critical because in 1991, the pair joined the Battalion. Well, officially Bolt joined, while Sparky was restricted to reserve status for the first year due to the Battalion’s policy disallowing minors as members. Bolt had previously earned the team’s admiration as one of the heroes called in during the Clash of ‘89, where he’d acquitted himself well. A few more years of membership changes, and Bolt’s own star rising, led to the invitation being extended. Ember Point had other heroes at this point, so Bolt and Spark packed up, and moved to Chicago.

The pair were popular in their new home, and with their teammates. Bolt and the Bronze Rider had a number of team-ups outside the full Battalion lineup. “The Cowboy and the Cavalier” took on a number of strange menaces, all too-often starting with street-level threats or mysteries that expanded to bizarre mystic or scientific menaces.

Yet, while Bolt was pleased to see the world with the Battalion, he eventually became homesick. After several years with the team, he resigned and returned to Ember Point. This would also be the end of his partnership with Sparky, for the time being, who chose to stay with the Battalion instead. Joe and Veronika parted amicably, and remained in contact.

For the rest of the 90s and early 2000s, Bolt was perhaps THE greatest hero of Ember Point. His veteran status and time with the Battalion meant that he was widely admired, and emulated. However, he also began to find, as he entered his forties, that the rooftop-hopping lifestyle was taking a toll on him. His powers weren’t the sort to prevent aging, nor the constant wear and tear on his body that came with a life of vigorous activity.

He had lived as Bolt so long, that Joe was worried about what he might be missing in his own personal life – the AIDS crisis and his own shyness out of costume had prevented him from doing much dating, and quitting his job to go to Chicago with the Battalion, a reason he couldn’t fully explain to any prospective employers, meant his career was behind where it could have been. Yet people were still in danger, and the Electric Swordsman still had derring-do to do.

Then in 2005, when Nick Neutron was released from a lengthy prison sentence, and made plans for “a job to end all jobs” to return to his former glory…


Retirement and Present

Over the decades, Ember Point and other major American cities had less and less tolerance for costumed super-antics, villainy especially. Politicians needed to appear “tough on super-crime” to win elections, and thus use of superhuman skills, powers, or technologies became a modifier that could add years to a sentence, even for wholly non-violent offenders such as Nick Neutron.

The Atom-Snatcher came out of prison in 2005, drained by years behind bars, but eager to recapture his reputation as a fantastic super-thief, and perhaps to also recapture the attentions of the dashing Bolt. The police had never discovered his back-up compression matrix, and thus he re-appeared and pulled off a series of heists.

Bolt pursued, and for a moment it was just like it had been a decade ago. Nick Neutron began to shrank, Bolt swung his lightning rod to disrupt the matrix’s activation – and then Nick grasped his chest, and collapsed. Bolt administered CPR until the EMTs arrived, but Nicholas Newton was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital.

Perhaps Joe could have fled, refusing to cooperate. But his guilt and his sense of responsibility demanded that he turned himself in. And so the Electric Swordsman unmasked, surrendering himself to police custody in advance of a possible trial for the killing of Nick Neutron.

Ultimately, the coroner’s investigation revealed that Nick had long suffered from heart issues, worsened by the lack of proper medical care in prison, and that he’d begun to suffer a heart attack before Bolt even struck him. The DA declined to press charges, and Joe was largely exonerated in the press and the court of public opinion.

But in his own eyes, it didn’t matter. The thing that mattered was that Joe and Nick were too old to be playing cops-and-robbers out there any more. And given his own feelings for Nick, Joe just couldn’t bring himself to put on the costume anymore. So, Bolt officially announced his retirement.

He would later give a wide-ranging, extremely thorough interview in the Hour about his life and career, only leaving out details that would have violated the privacy of his friends, family, teammates, and enemies. This included officially coming out. His sexuality had been an open secret amongst his Battalion teammates, but this made Joe a queer icon, something he’s embraced in recent years, as the battle for equality is one he can fight without a mask and a sword.

Joe declined an invitation to join the new Battalion when they reformed, and every time they’ve asked since, adamant that he is retired and he doesn’t have the stomach for the work any more. That said he’s acted to defend civilians around him during certain major crisis events. He also gave Veronika Vondrák his blessing to take up the mantle of Bolt as Bloodbolt, especially because the Infamous Owl’s attack and vampirization of her was the closest he’s come to picking up the lightning rod once again.

Joe has also declined a number of offers to work for a variety of high tech corporate firms, including VE, keeping his gadget designs to himself both to prevent potential abuse and because quite frankly most of his tech is wildly impractical for anyone not able to power it as a living generator.

Instead, Joe earned a degree in library science, and began working in the Ember Point library system, where he specializes in running programs for at-risk, underprivileged, and LGBTQIA+ youth. At present, he has agreed to take up the position of head librarian at the Lowgrove branch, as few were willing after the neighborhood’s transition to “Lowgrave” and a center of the vampire integration movement. This was partly a favor to Veronika to support her and her team’s efforts, but also because Joe is well aware that the right book, in the right time, given to a lonely person in need, can make all the difference.

-

Possible Plot Seeds & Campaign Uses
  • While he well and truly never wants to be the Electric Swordsman again, Joe could find himself picking up the lightning rod again, Dark Knight Returns-style, to help protect neighborhood kids at the library - human or vampire. He’s older, out of shape, and out of practice, so he’d be willing to work with and recruit others to his cause, a good mentor for a street-level game in that way.
  • Alternatively, since Joe couldn’t bring himself to destroy his Bolt gear, it could be found (or stolen) by a new hero or even a villain. It might require an intrepid gadgeteer develop a new power source, if they don’t have inherent energy abilities like Bolt did, however. Joe, and Veronika/Bloodbolt, would be quite interested in figuring out who this new hero was. A good PC concept could be a vampire inspired by Bolt’s legacy working to protect Lowgrave’s human and undead populations. Joe would be a very reluctant mentor in this case - he’d try to convince the PC that being Bolt ultimately leads to heartbreak, but he’s still a hero and he won’t try to stop someone clearly doing good.
  • Exposure to accidents (or intentional experiments!) along the VE “ley lines” could cause all sorts of energy and electrical powers as an origin for other heroes and villains. These could be more conventional, Electro-like powers, or something odder. Maybe something more along the lines of volcanic-related powers, if they come from closer to the core of Mount Alexandra. They also make a good target for supervillains - either to plunge the city into a blackout (perhaps to enable some further scheme while everyone is distracted), or to be hijacked as a power source for some grand evil device. Alternatively, an energy villain might try to enter the ley lines and seize control of the city (or the mountain) itself!
  • During the height of Bolt's career, he's a great crossover hero. He's skilled, but not too powerful, so less likely to overshadow PCs, and his own bold and brash nature means he might get himself in over his head and need bailing out. And of course, any chance to have a duel with a sword-using PC is a must! Whether it's the typical superhero-misunderstanding-fight, or because someone is mind-controlled, or a public show for charity, Bolt will give it all he's got! His technical knowledge also makes him a good resource if the PCs need an engineer or scientist, especially to help dismantle any strange electronics they may come across.
Last edited by Commander Titan on Wed Jun 21, 2023 11:48 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Ember Point (Latest Update - Bolt, the Electric Swordsman)

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I'm still reading! I don't have anything specific to say, but I'm still here!
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Re: Ember Point (Latest Update - Bolt, the Electric Swordsman)

Post by Commander Titan »

Radio silence comes from those long stretches of creative thinking, editing, and of course the depressive attacks where I realize how much mental energy I spend on this stuff and feel like it's nothing but a waste...

State of my mind aside, I'm nailing down the final three members of the original Battalion and then we'll be doing a three or four part outline of their membership over the years.
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Re: Ember Point (Latest Update - Bolt, the Electric Swordsman)

Post by Davies »

Looking forward!
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Re: Ember Point (Latest Update - Battalion Members Part 1: The Expansion Years)

Post by Commander Titan »

(hey look, content! several of these characters will likely be expanded on later. But for now, the focus is on their Battalion context)

Battalion Members Part 1 - The Expansion Years

Overview

Despite the Troubadour's resignation, the Battalion proved an effective force, establishing a reputation first in Chicago, and then across American and eventually the whole globe. While four a time it was just a foursome, they gradually opened their books and recruited members. Their headquarters, the Sanctuary Spire, was a high-tech addition built atop the Sears Tower, and it expanded to include dormitory facilities for present and future members of the team. They developed an official charter - still highly informal, but with regular meetings (run, eventually, by Robert's Rules of Order at the Volunteer's insistence) and outlining their policies on membership and leadership, such as they were.

While always willing to venture outside the city, in this era they frequently faced threats within Chicago - either homegrown menaces or those attracted to the idea of taking on the world's greatest heroes. The Battalion always rose to the occasion, and it was a golden age of sorts, until the team suffered two of its most devastating losses...


The Volunteer [Dean Wilkerson]

When Dean Wilkerson was an impressionable ten-year-old, he watched the inauguration of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy with wide eyes. As JFK said “my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country,” Dean was deeply moved. He made a promise to himself that day, that he would strive to always serve his family, his community, and his country.

From then on, Dean moved through life with an earnestness and optimism that at times both endeared and alienated him from many people around him (there’s a good chance that Dean was what we today might call neurodivergent). He pursued a rigorous regime of physical and mental fitness, and not even the tragic assassination of JFK two years later would dissuade Dean from his mission. Instead, it fueled him further – he would keep Kennedy’s dream alive. He never shied away from extra credit assignments, or when his coaches asked for one lap. He spent his weekends volunteering in the community – food pantries, voter registration, community cleanups.

Dean was the epitome of physical and mental fitness, and he added martial arts, emergency responder, and de-escalation training to the mix as well. All in time for the American Bicentennial in 1976, when he debuted as the star-spangled Volunteer, in red, white, and blue with a grand “V” on his chest. In an increasingly cynical America, the eager and honest Volunteer was something of an anachronism. But nobody could doubt his effectiveness, and he began to win people over.

That included the Battalion. After a joint adventure, Dean volunteered to join forces with the team permanently. They were hesitant, at first - despite how well he’d acquitted himself in their team-up, they were concerned the dangers the Volunteer would face as the only unpowered hero amongst superhumans. Dean wasn’t dissuaded, and soon he became the first non-founding member of the legendary team, a worthy replacement for the Troubadour.

Having such a colorful costume and personality (and, let’s be honest, being a white man) meant the Volunteer could serve as a valuable frontman for the heroic but eccentric Battalion. He would rally civilians or allies in battle, and being often overlooked by super-powered villains meant he could become a spanner in the works. Yet he never hesitated to throw himself into the fray as well.

The Volunteer served with distinction, welcoming other additions to the team, through to 1984. That year, sadly, the Volunteer would make the ultimate sacrifice. The Battalion responded to a widespread blaze, which threatened to become a second Great Chicago Fire. The team’s superpowered members were scattered across the city, while the Volunteer coordinated evacuation and firefighting efforts. He was approached by transit workers who explained that a freight train with highly volatile materials had been halted within range of the fires.

Knowing that his teammates were needed elsewhere, Dean volunteered one last time. He commandeered the train, evacuating the train crew, and putting it into motion to get it out of the city and beyond the suburbs to a remote enough area where it couldn’t hurt anyone. Unfortunately, the train had already caught fire. Ignoring the pleas of his harried and overwhelmed teammates over the Battalion radio frequency, Dean refused to abandon the train and risk it coming to a halt near civilians.

He was still shouting encouragement to his fellow Battalion members over the team radio when the train exploded - well away from any people. The Volunteer was the only casualty. Dean’s remains were recovered from the rubble and he was buried with honors, and a statue of him was erected in Battalion HQ, with a simple plaque:

“Dean Wilkerson: He Volunteered”

The Volunteer was the first member of the Battalion to die in the line of duty. Sadly, he would not be the last.

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Possible Plot Seeds & Campaign Uses
  • The Volunteer, like Captain America, is a symbol. One that someone else could pick up (in fact, there was a short-tenured "Volunteer II" in the 1990s who will eventually be discussed). But the Volunteer mantle is one that is highly regarded, so anyone picking it up will face immense scrutiny, including from heroes like Gatorman and Bronze Rider who served alongside Dean. A PC inclined to public service and American iconography (ideally with minimal powers) could pick up the title, but they'll sure have to work hard to prove themselves worthy of it! Alternatively, the Volunteer helped out at so many charity and similar events that he could have been a profound influence on a PC as a child who saw him talk, or whose work helped get them out of poverty. Whether or not they pick up his mantle, they've been inspired by him. If someone else shows up as a new Volunteer, how does the PC feel about seeing their hero's costume and title out there again?
  • Time travel is limited in the "canon" Ember Point universe, but the Volunteer is a great character for a time travel story. Either the heroes of the present are thrown back and work alongside the Volunteer in his original era, or he's tossed into the future. How do the PCs interact with this truly genuine hero, knowing how and when he will die? Do they try and his fate? Can they convince him to let them intervene, especially when there's a chance of wider temporal consequences?

Grendel ["John Smith"]

See here for Grendel's full bio

John Smith’s time on the Battalion was short-lived. He was brought in during the team’s first official recruitment effort, alongside Stingray and Fireball. Prone to extreme moods, he clashed with his team, almost to the point that it harmed their performance in the field. His hard partying ways further made him an outlier amongst his colleagues.

While some on the team were willing to offer olive branches, Grendel quit, and both sides had little positive to say about one another.

However, despite the failure of his own time on the team, Grendel would be the catalyst for a later, more successful member of the team…


Stingray [Tomo Hirota] & Fireball [Alison Larkins]

The pair of Stingray & Fireball joined as part of the Battalion’s first official recruitment drive in 1980 (versus the ad hoc addition of the Volunteer). They were the first non-Americans to join the team, having already traveled quite a way…

Tomo Hirota (Stingray) and Alison Larkins (Fireball) were victims of Dr. Zeus (Hiddeaki Miura) and his infamous Thunderground fortress-laboratory. Both had been aboard ships sailing the Pacific that were hijacked and taken by Dr. Zeus’s men and monsters. Tomo had been on a scientific vessel, performing oceanological research with fellow graduate students, while wealthy Alison was on a pleasure cruise with friends aboard their small sailing ship.

The two women were subjected to all manner of experiments, and unlike many of their friends and colleagues, not only survived but gained superhuman abilities. Tomo was able to generate spike-like “spines,” which could be used as blades, fired as projectiles and pin objects until they dissipated, or even form cage-like energy constructs. These constructs required increasing levels of exertion on Tomo’s part depending on their complexity and how long she kept them active. Alison could generate a “sheath” around herself that provided protection and enhanced strength, and even interacted with friction in such a way as to allow her to move at superhuman speed. However, the sheath would increase in temperature the longer it was active, potentially putting off dangerous amounts of heat and light.

The two bonded over their horrible experience, having been kept in neighboring cells, and were halfway through their own escape plan when the Dolphins launched their own raid on the Thunderground. The pair converged with the attackers, and together they freed the survivors and put a permanent end to Dr. Zeus and his operations.

Tomo and Alison found they couldn’t resume their old lives - Tomo had rage issues and became frustrated with the slow pace of academia, while Alison was paid off by her family (who’d had her declared legally dead) to avoid contesting her inheritance and to keep her from embarrassing them and their business interests. And both were traumatized from losing most of those closest to them on Dr. Zeus’s isle.

Knowing they’d been lucky to have their lives and powers (and Alison’s payout), they reinvented themselves as superheroes - Stingray and Fireball! They went to America, looking for a fresh start, and served admirably in San Francisco, San Diego, and Los Angeles before they heard about the Battalion’s call for new members. Stingray and Fireball headed inland to Chicago and were accepted alongside Grendel.

Unlike John Smith, Tomo and Alison proved to be team players and a natural fit for the Battalion. They would serve with the team in the “glory days” when it had its highest active roster (7 members) in the early 80s. Still, while not nearly as brutal as Grendel, the pair brought a certain rough edge, given their experiences, and tended to leap into the fray first, and focus on rescue second.

Ultimately the deaths of the Volunteer and Captain Scorpion, within two years of each other, proved to be too much. The pair dropped to reserve status, and while they would answer the Battalion’s call whenever needed (including for the Clash of ‘89), they would not remain in Chicago. The two went on a global walkabout, observing social issues throughout America, Australia, Japan, and elsewhere. This included finally admitting their feelings for one another, and becoming a public couple despite the era’s homophobia.

Their powers do not include immunity to aging, so as they have entered their golden years they have reduced their superheroing, but Tomo and Alison are still active as grand dames of the superhero scene. In addition to continuing to fundraise for the Dolphins, the pair have advised the reformed Battalion in the present day and served as mentors to heroes in their native countries as well as America.

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Possible Plot Seeds & Campaign Uses
  • Stingray, Fireball, the Thunderground, and the Dolphins will be detailed more later. But while Stingray and Fireball were the main "successful" results of the Thunderground, they need not be the only ones. A PC, or a villain, could be another survivor, and knowing Stingray and Fireball from that time gives them contacts on the Battalion and the rest of the superhero scene (whether in a contemporary game or otherwise). The exact styling of Thunderground powers will be outlined in the future, but generally think powers centered on a person not their environment, which have some sort of side effect, cost, or limitation. Dr. Zeus was a mad genius, but even his immoral methods never proved 100% reliable (thankfully!).
  • Canonically, Tomo and Alison are childless, but someone they adopted (formally or merely serving as "aunties" for) would be a good PC origin. Two old school heroes to guide them, and easy connections to the Battalion, Dolphins, and others, as mentioned above. Ideally, this PC would be someone who was similarly a victim of experimentation or has perhaps problematic powers, explaining why Tomo and Alison took an interest in them. Alternatively, the pair could be mentors to heroes anywhere around the globe. Perhaps there's a new Stingray and Fireball, with different origins and powers, operating in Australia, or Japan, or the West Coast.


Jeannie Appleseed [Jeanette Thomas]

As soon as Jeanette Thomas turned 18 in the early 70s, she left her hometown in Ohio without looking back. Let’s just say she had good reasons.

Not long after hitting the road, Jeanette discovered she had a green thumb. More than a green thumb - she was able to “communicate” with and control all manner of plantlife, including causing explosive growth that let her utilize plants as tendrils to trap, attack, and entangle. She would adopt the identity of Jeannie Appleseed in light of the fervor of 1970s environmental activism, becoming a hero with a major cause. She took on polluters and more conventional foes, and it was her clashes with Corps Zeta that brought her to Gatorman’s attention, and thus the Battalion’s.

Jeannie used her platform with the Battalion to argue for sustainability, and she operated a number of community gardens in Chicago. She often debated Miss Terrific over the environmental costs of scientific advancement, and despite her rough upbringing she found a kindred spirit in the Volunteer as a fellow believer in a cause. She took his death particularly hard, which fed rumors, never proven or disproven, about a relationship between the two.

It was Captain Scorpion’s death that caused her, Stingray and Fireball, to leave the team, however. Beyond looking up to Luna Church as a hero, the global storm event had caused significant environmental damage and Jeannie Appleseed went to several hot spots around the globe to try to assess and counteract the damage.

In doing so she would come to understand her powers were not a random mutation, but rather the result of a connection to a mystical plane known as the Garden of Life and Death, of which she was the good lifegiver, and the monstrous Rotwood was the evil undead. Her newfound responsibilities kept her on reserve status (though she joined the Clash of ‘89) until 1992.

That was the year of the Erupting Earth. Jeannie Appleseed returned to the Battalion fulltime to investigate why the planet had seemingly turned on its human inhabitants, and then after the cause was discovered, to take the fight to the real villain. She stayed on as an active member until the mid-90s, when her final confrontation with Rotwood led to a series of revelations about the true nature of the Garden of Life and Death. Her friends and allies believed her dead, but recent information has led to the discovery that Jeanette is in fact alive – in a way.

For the last quarter century, Jeanette’s consciousness has resided in the Garden of Life and Death, helping to regulate the processes of the natural world, undo a century’s worth of damage, and observe and aid her successors - both literal and spiritual, who carry the Appleseed legacy into the 21st century.

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Possible Plot Seeds & Campaign Uses
  • Jeannie Appleseed has a story that needs to be delved into later, but the Garden of Life and Death can be invoked for all sorts of nature / flora / natural world powers. Jeanette can be a mentor or aide to a superteam from within the Garden, pointing heroes towards supernatural threats or man-made risks to the natural environment, especially if the team wants to beat up some good ol' Captain Planet-style evildoers!
  • In the present day, another "Erupting Earth" incident seems to be occurring! Like The Happening or Day of the Triffids, nature, especially plant life, starts attacking humanity! Or maybe flora and fauna turn on one another! Something must be happening inside the Garden of Life and Death, but Jeanette has gone silent and can't be reached by means mundane or mystic. The PCs must help contain some of the worst chaos (like Redwood Ents marching on California cities, seaweed clumps playing kraken with port cities, and Venus fly traps chasing after terrified civilians) before finding a way into the Garden with the help of a mystical specialist (if the team doesn't have one). Inside, they find a surreal mix of plantlife from across time and space. Has Jeanette turned on humanity after all the damage they do to Earth? Has someone else broken in and hijacked the Garden? Is something stranger happening? And what if saving the day requires one PC to stay behind and become the new tender of the Garden themselves?
Last edited by Commander Titan on Wed Jun 21, 2023 11:22 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Ember Point (Latest Update - Battalion Members Part 1 - The Expansion Years)

Post by TigerMoth »

Fantastic work. I love all the detail you go into as well as your campaign and plot hooks at the end
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Re: Ember Point (Latest Update - Battalion Members Part 1 - The Expansion Years)

Post by Commander Titan »

TigerMoth wrote: Wed Jun 14, 2023 6:13 am Fantastic work. I love all the detail you go into as well as your campaign and plot hooks at the end
Thank you! I'm still considering to try and sit down and maybe figure out how to give some of them builds as well, if only to help outline their powers and capabilities (and thus shorten these write ups / leave more space for other things)!
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Re: Ember Point (Latest Update - Original Battalion Members Part 2 - The "New Battalion" Era)

Post by Commander Titan »

Other Battalion Members Part 2 - The “New Battalion” Years

Overview

The deaths of Dean Wilkerson and Luna Church, the global storm that precipitated the latter, and Miss Terrific’s fading powers signaled the end of the innocent “glory years” of the team that had come together at a music concert. The survivors were dealing with trauma and the consequences around the world.

Still, the Bronze Rider was determined to keep the team going, assisted by Gatorman and Miss Terrific. They began to find new members, and rebuild. This new team was uneasy and untested, but forged their own bonds in battle. Ultimately, they proved themselves as worthy successors to the founding members when they defeated their sinister opposites in the Ruthless Regiment, which had been organized by Colonel Quasar after his ego-driven attempts to take over the Battalion in the wake of Captain Scorpion’s death were denied.


Passkey [Erika Edwards]

Erika Edwards bounced between foster families until she wound up with one that stuck - Bill, an elderly locksmith who’d always intended to have children with his wife before her early death denied them that option.

Erika learned everything about locks and picks from Bill, and learned the importance of real love and care from him as well. Sadly, he was already elderly when he took her in, and soon worsening illness made him unable to work. Erika tried to keep up with the mounting medical bills, but the business suffered from a drop in customers, many of whom thought she couldn’t succeed her foster father simply because she was a woman.

Seeing no other option, Erika crossed the line Bill had warned her no locksmith ever should, and turned her skills to crime. She became a skilled burglar, stealing just enough to survive and pay for Bill’s treatment, without letting him onto what she had done.

Then she broke into a wealthy Chicagoan’s house, and inside found things she wished she hadn’t. Calling the police was fruitless - besides not being able to admit why she was there and how she knew what she knew, the man was wealthy and well-connected and an anonymous call would be easily brushed aside.

It would have been simpler to let it go, to not risk things for herself and her ailing father. But Erika knew she never would have been in a position to do something about this if Bill hadn’t decided to give a damn and take her into his home, and give her the best life he could.

So, a desperate Erika put together a costume, becoming the key-themed costumed supervillain Passkey - “Who No Lock Can Stop!” She intentionally committed a series of high profile thefts to attract the attention of the Battalion, seeding evidence to lure them towards the depraved crimes she’d discovered, on several different jobs. Even with the Battalion reduced in size after the death of Captain Scorpion, they still commanded the public’s respect, and the crimes Erika had uncovered were soon brought to justice.

This would prove critical when Passkey herself finally ran out of luck and was caught by the Bronze Rider and Gatorman - the pair had realized the truth of Erika's situation, and deduced her identity. She surrendered to the superpowered pair, resigned to prison time for her supervillainy, only to find the two looking at one another with grins (or the closest thing the Bronze Rider could manage).

“You’re basically already a superhero,” Gatorman explained. “How would you like to run with us instead of from us?”

And thus, Passkey joined the team. The Battalion covered for her, explaining that she’d already been a member earlier on and her apparent crimes were actually akin to undercover operations. While not everyone bought it, enough did that Erika would escape messy legal repercussions. The Battalion made provisions for Bill’s healthcare - while sadly simple age meant he would still pass away, he got many years than he or Erika ever expected, and went comfortable and peacefully, his last words being to tell Erika how proud he was of her (having long ago keyed into her double identities).

Passkey utilized a variety of “key” themed gadget, especially her signature “key-rings,” throwing devices with all manner of features and effects (especially once Miss Terrific began building them for her). She was a skilled acrobat and martial artist, with a keen mind for penetrating systems. Once she turned this from mansions and museums to supervillain bases and underworld hangouts, the Battalion became even effective. She gave their HQ, the Sanctuary Spire, a much-needed security overhaul.

In the early 90s, Passkey would leave the team, for a variety of reasons, including needing to take a break from the rigorous physicality of superheroing that had dominated her twenties. She’d remain in contact with the team until the end of its original era. She has not rejoined the reformed Battalion, but rumors say she has taken up with a new, covert group…

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Possible Plot Seeds & Campaign Uses
  • A PC or villain may know Passkey from her supervillain days. They could have chased after her (if a superhero) or worked with her as a fence or fellow burglar, if a villain. Maybe she reaches out for help, after becoming a member of the Battalion. Do the characters trust her? Why can't she take whatever her problem is to the rest of her superhero teammates?
  • In the present day, rumors begin to circulate about some great vault of superhero or supervillain goods - technology, supersoldier drugs, magic artifacts, whatever. This starts a veritable gold rush of treasure hunters seeking it out. Anyone from supervillains to criminal and espionage organizations to companies looking for research material to individual people desperate for unusual medical treatments. Think the game Base Raiders, if you know it. Maybe it's alleged to be Passkey's secret vault, where she stashed the most valuable things she stole over the years (even after joining the Battalion). Or maybe people begin to seek her out, wherever she may be, hoping to use her expertise, or at least her gear, to crack the vault.


Urania [Regan Raffles]

What do you even say about Urania, the greatest hero of the Great White North (May she rest in peace…)?

Regan Raffles was a geologist, doing independent research while on a solo hike deep in the Laurentian Mountains. A sudden storm drove her to seek shelter in a local cave. Marching through, she discovered it went deep into the mountain. Deeper than it perhaps should have, by geologic logic. Soon she emerged into a vast chamber, where strange energy flashed above her. Years later, her best determination was that she had discovered some sort of naturally occurring nuclear reactor, like Perrin had encountered in Gabon in ‘72, a few years before. And somehow, it was almost alive… the energy flashed and made its way to her, and then Regan passed out.

When she awoke, Regan was in a cave that seemed far smaller than it had appeared before. Part of this, she would soon realize, was that she had somehow become taller! And as she would learn when she checked her reflection, her previously dark hair had turned a softly glowing blonde, and she’d added considerable muscle mass. She was even stronger than that, though, easily able to crush stone and metal in her fists. And she could fly!

Regan experimented with her new abilities in the mountain valleys. She could also project potent blasts of atomic energy, and seemed to see and sense multiple wavelengths of energy. Perhaps most importantly, she would later realize she could revert to her old human form with an act of willpower. In turn she could take her superpowered form again, causing a small blast and mushroom cloud. Utilizing meditation techniques, Regan would train her transformations to occur when she mentally processed and solved certain nuclear formulae, as a mental trigger. She would also later learn to teleport herself and others in an act she would call her “atomic displacement.”

Over the next decade, Urania (who developed a costume that changed from her normal clothing when she morphed into her powered form) would serve as a hero across Canada, though mostly in the east. This was still early in the heroic era, so by and large she faced mundane human foes, and rather than entering into superhuman brawls. Her abilities made travel and crossing borders easy, so Urania developed a reputation in the US (and elsewhere). She was seen as “the Canadian Captain Scorpion” (but in fairness, in Canada, Captain Scorpion was “the American Urania”!)

This in turn led to her being invited to join the Battalion. Unlike several of the other new members, her long career made her something of a veteran on equal status with the founders, and she took something of a leader and mentor role for the team. She also proved critical for widening the Battalion’s reach, as her atomic displacement power let them act around the globe.

Then came the Clash of ‘89. While Urania came out unscathed, as one of the more powerful combatants, the scale of the battle and the presence of several new Canadian supervillains concerned her. Regan dropped to reserve status and left Chicago to return to protecting her home nation.

Urania continued to aid the team frequently, until she gave her life saving the newly amalgamated Toronto in 1998. Her legacy of heroism lives on, both in the so-called “atomic blondes” empowered by her explosive final act, and in Canada’s current team of heroes, the Night Reserve, organized in Urania’s memory by her friend Winter Jack

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Possible Plot Seeds & Campaign Uses
  • Probably a familiar refrain - Canada's Night Reserve will be detailed later. But "atomic blondes" are people who were living in Toronto when Urania sacrificed herself above the city in 1998, or were born in the area (or further afield where winds could reach) afterwards. This is a potential origin for heroes and villains alike. Atomic blondes, as the name suggests, have hair that turns a glowing yellow-blonde when they use their powers. These powers tend to be exceptionally enhanced human traits (strength, speed, intelligence, etc.) but they may also include energy blasts, super movement, or even some sort of alteration of self (like how Urania's body would transform).
  • Urania is a good NPC for a historical game set in Canada. PCs could be a team that forms to protect Canada as the presence of supervillains increases after she left for Chicago. The event that such a campaign turns on is Urania's return after the Clash of '89. How do the PCs about her getting much of the attention and credit after they spent years working under the radar to keep people safe?

Greystone [Duror]

The Battalion had a Unicorn as a member.

A brief explanation - “Unicorns” are real, but not quite just horses with horns. Rather, they once resembled the prehistoric rhinoceros species Elasmotherium. They have magic horns, each with unique traits as well as some constant among the species. They were hunted in the past by wizards and others for their utility and potency. Then a species-wide miracle occurred, turning them into bipedal entities with sentience equal to humans, and they found their way to a mystically shrouded place - Shadowhorn Isle.

Within the safe confines of Shadowhorn Isle, the Unicorns developed a thriving civilization, utilizing their unique mystic talents, and revering their horns as literal embodiments of their souls.

This meant when their chieftain’s heir apparent, Prince Duror, had his horn shattered under shady circumstances, he was considered to have literally lost his soul. He was exiled to the outside world, mystically and socially unable to speak of his homeland, and fully expected (by both himself and his people) to die out there.

Gatorman would follow up on tales of a “rhino man” and came across Duror, surviving by working as a sideshow attraction and taking part in an underground superpower fight club. The pair wrestled before becoming friends, and when Gatorman decided to leave the Battalion, he nominated Duror as his replacement, hoping the group would give the exile a place.

The rhino-like Duror was dubbed “Greystone” after the Chicago building style. He was immensely strong, with a warrior culture mentality not unlike the late Grendel, but he was boisterously social and fit in better. Duror had a strong sense of noblesse oblige, even after being stripped of his title, and was a fast friend to children and innocents of all kinds - the Unicorns have long had a keen preternatural sense for innate goodness (NOT “virginity” as prudish medieval scholars recorded).

Greystone would have one of the longest tenures on the Battalion, serving for nearly a decade. He had truly come to accept his place in the human world, a new life away from his people. And then on a mystical adventure, his horn regenerated itself. Such a thing had never happened, as far as he or his people had ever learned. But Greystone took it as a sign, and in the late 90s the Battalion helped him make his return home to Shadowhorn Isle. His people took his restored horn as a sign and re-appointed him Chief, after a clash with a would-be tyrant successor.

Duror’s first act was to abolish hereditary rule among the Unicorns, and he has spent the last few decades overseeing a shift to democracy (the population is small enough that they can engage in a contentious but functional direct assembly system) on the Isle, and slowly shepherding diplomatic relations with the outside human world. For all of the villainy he saw and his people’s long fears of being hunted by humans, Duror has also seen the best that the planet has to offer, and aims to forge a future of coexistence and mutual benefit for all. To that end, he has proposed sending a young Unicorn on a walkabout/diplomatic tour, perhaps as a member of a superhero team…

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Possible Plot Seeds & Campaign Uses
  • Obviously, Duror's Unicorn ambassador is a potential PC background. Unicorns are larger than a human, and as mentioned look far more like rhinos than horses. However, their strength runs from the truly prodigious and superhuman (as in Duror's case) to basically the equal of a decently athletic human (most of the population). They each have a unique horn, which they still associate with the state of their soul. Unicorn powers can truly run the gamut - think the full run of powers and possibilities you see from mutants in X-Men comics. They find their role in Unicorn society based on what their horn helps them do (civil guards have combat-associated powers, agriculture is done by those who can control plants or affect temperatures or move Earth, artists and builders may be psychic or able to transmute matter, etc.). Duror is well aware that he was not exactly the best initial example, so he may choose his ambassador more carefully. Or he may choose a non-obvious choice, an underdog, to give them a chance to grow as well. Maybe he'll hold a tournament of some kind!
  • Shadowhorn Isle is still closed to most of the outside world. Unicorn horn is still incredibly sought after, and nowadays not just by mystics and alchemists. A variety of government, corporate, and scientific organizations want to study or exploit them as well. And wealthy individuals have designs on them too. Villains are constantly trying to locate the island and break in. And perhaps there are populations of Unicorns still hiding in the outside world (or who left Shadowhorn Isle for their own reasons) who PCs could come across and protect, perhaps helping them back to the Isle.
  • What if a PC with a mystic origin or artifact learns that a Unicorn was killed and their horn used to empower them / make their artifact? How do they reckon with this legacy? They may feel the need to go to Shadowhorn Isle to learn about the person they have a connection to. After all, by the beliefs of the Unicorns, the PC now quite literally wields the deceased Unicorn's soul. How do they come to live in harmony with it? Or perhaps if they volunteer to leave their artifact behind, what might the Unicorns do to help them in turn?


Agent Tin Man [Harlan Brock]

Harlan Brock was a US Army veteran, a national Track and Field medalist, a Harvard Law graduate, and an up-and-coming FBI agent with what looked to be a long and distinguished career in law enforcement ahead of him when a random car accident nearly cost him his life.

His body broken and his once promising future cut short, Brock was approached by a top secret project who offered him a second chance. He agreed without hesitation.

Doctors and engineers working for the shadowy military-industrial corporation Workman-ABC set to work. The exact cost was classified, pulled from a dozen black budget line items that Congress approved in closed sessions. Brock was rebuilt with prototype prosthetics that more resembled retro brass clockwork that modern industrial designs. He was stronger, faster, more powerful than before, with incredible senses and durability.

He debuted to the public as Agent Tin Man, one of the first official government superheroes (the US government, like most other nations, has of course employed and continued to employ superhumans of various kinds in more covert roles).

Brock worked a number of cases, going across the US as necessary, before ultimately being sent to the Battalion. The US government entered negotiations with the team, trying to bring them under federal control, but they resisted. The team did succumb to some of the pressure and allow Agent Tin Man to join as a government representative and they entered an era of cooperation with the government, which came with both benefits and drawbacks.

Unfortunately, the government’s pushing left Brock unpopular on the team. He saw himself as a professional and constantly tried to take command and push the rest of the team to behave more like police and FBI agents than chaotic superheroes. While he had a point about the team’s tendency towards reckless and disorganized behavior, his presumptions prevented him from ever really leading the team. There was also suspicion that he was spying on them for the government. Meanwhile, commentators in the public noted that the US government never attempted to make official contact with the Battalion while Captain Scorpion had been alive.

Tragically, much of this would have been avoidable - Brock did want to work with the Battalion, but favored a slower, more collaborative approach to joining the team, but he acceded to his superiors when they pushed for a faster and more awkward integration. Likewise, while he did make regular reports to his superiors about his teammates’ superpower capabilities, he actually outright refused to investigate or share their private identities (an objection the Battalion sadly never learned about, and several of the team never unmasked around him as a result).

Sadly, trying to satisfy everyone satisfied nobody. The government-Battalion partnership eventually fell apart due to politicking and bureaucratic interference, and Agent Tin Man was ordered to leave the team by his superiors. His teammates were not necessarily sorry to see him go, despite admitting his extreme competence in the field.

Agent Tin Man continued to work as a government-sponsored hero, but Brock soon turned his attention to climbing the ranks of the US law enforcement community. He spent less and less time operating as a superhero or super-agent, and more as an analyst, manager, and planner. He faded from public view, and even many of his old teammates never knew exactly what happened to him. Despite the marked success of his enhancements, the fact that they cost as much as a battleship and required immensely specialized knowledge prevented them from ever becoming widespread.

What did happen to Harlan Brock? Well, he burrowed his way into the federal apparatus, and became one of the power brokers and decision makers. The same enhancements that made him a skilled tactician made him a genius strategist in the office world. He holds a technically minor appointed position in the Justice Department, but in truth he is the power-behind-the-throne for US superhero and supervillain monitoring and plays a key role in setting policies.

Many agents in that world refer to him as “Top Brass,” unaware of how literal that description is. Sadly, his one-of-a-kind enhancements are beginning to fail, and with several of their designers having passed away, the knowledge to repair them may no longer exist. Today, Brock sits in his office, knowing he may not have long left, and devotes his shadowy resources to one goal:

Protecting, enabling, and assisting the reformed Battalion from those who would subvert them and prevent them from engaging in genuine heroics. Preventing them being the tools of the political establishment, or being hassled by those who are.

Because after his long life, he came to realize that the world does need its heroes, he’s not one. He was too focused on fame and glory and working within the system. But now he can help real heroes get the job done unimpeded. And that’s enough for him…

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Possible Plot Seeds & Campaign Uses
  • A modern team of super-agents or US-government backed superheroes would answer, one way or another, to Top Brass. He knows how to play the game, but he tries to help the team do real good from within the system. Maybe he slips them, or a non-government PC team, off the books information to take down a real threat that the US can't officially be seen to go up against (or that the powers that be benefit from, like a megacorporation or political figure, and won't officially sanction).
  • Attempts by Workman-ABC, the Feds, or someone else to replicate Agent Tin Man's enhancements prove subpar, but that doesn't mean some poor sap isn't still stuck with them. Perhaps a whole team is given one Tin Man-level enhancement each (an arm, an eye, a leg, etc.) and they must work together with these capabilities. This could be a group of PCs, or a group of villains for heroes to take down.


X-Nihilo [Boris Berezin]

In the early 1960s, the famous Russian dancer and choreographer Gennady Berezin and his wife Alena Berezina defected from the Soviet Union, first to the British and then traveling to the United States. Alena was pregnant at the time, and Boris Gennadyevich Berezin was born an American citizen. Unlike his charismatic father, Boris was a bookish child disinclined towards the arts or sports.

Instead, Boris became enamored with the world of science, inspired by the space race-era magazines his family kept around the home to show their proud support of their new nation. He proved an astonishingly good student, particularly in the area of physics. Rather than become an astrophysicist, he was increasingly interested in small scale physics problems, digging into the fundamental nature of reality.

As a graduate student, Boris became involved in the bleeding edge theoretical science of quantonics, and how it interacted with reality and unreality. He developed a helmet-like device, intended to help him perceive quantonic fields (a sort of neural microscope), but while working on it late at night, a power surge caused a mishap. For reasons he never could fully suss out, his helm and brain interacted and he found himself literally able to imagine and create all sorts of matter and constructs while wearing the device.

He dubbed the device his X-Strapolator or “X-Strap”, and a series of mishaps on campus led to him becoming the hero X-Nihilo, summoning something from nothing. He dealt with a number of weird science cases, and came to the attention of Dr. Teresa Curie, the former Miss Terrific, and joined the Battalion as their newest scientific expert. This proved key during their battles with the frighteningly powerful entity known as Uber, the Quantonic Android.

Boris loved the team and his fellow heroes, but in 1995 his mother was on her deathbed. Alena would reveal to Boris that Gennady was in fact NOT his biological father. Gennady Berezin was a gay man, and Alena had served as his beard both before and after the defection. Boris’s actual father was the British intelligence agent who had been their handler for their defection. She left Boris with all she had on his biological father - a photo and the alias the agent had used.

X-Nihilo dropped to reserve status and ventured to the United Kingdom to track down his biological father. This led to a whole sequence of adventures, encountering Soviet and British supervillains, and ultimately he met his father (long retired and living in a small cottage), who revealed that the Berezin’s defection was not truly for Gennady the dancer, but to bring over Alena, a high-level Soviet cryptographer. Boris had inherited his genius from her, and he realized she had long encouraged his interest in math and physics.

Having come to appreciate the UK in his time searching for his father, Boris relocated there permanently. X-Nihilo served as a hero there, though as Boris aged he eventually retired from heroic fieldwork, keeping the X-Strap safely secured in case he ever found someone else both able to and worthy of using it. He got a research position and his PhD at Oxford, where he remains to his day, teaching and serving as a recruiter and UK contact for CAIRN.

Secretly, he is also a scientific advisor and part of the brain trust for the current figure holding the title of Commander Crab, the United Kingdom's greatest hero…

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Possible Plot Seeds & Campaign Uses
  • X-Nihilo never officially unmasked himself as Boris Berezin, but most of the modern physics research world can put two and two together, and realized that the superhero who used quantonics and the foremost modern expert in the field are probably the same guy. Particularly ambitious villains or evil organizations may try and kidnap Boris and steal the X-Strap, in the hopes of getting him to work for them, thinking he's less capable in his own age. Whether he is or not, PCs will have to help rescue him and thwart the villains' plans! PCs might be his students at Oxford, connected to CAIRN, or otherwise personally involved too.
  • As mentioned, Boris may be willing to trust a particularly bright and ethical successor to using the X-Strap, and the X-Nihilo name if they want it (he would later admit it came off a bit strong...). Alternatively, a fun origin might be a not at all academically inclined person accidentally getting their hands on it (perhaps when someone tries to kidnap Berezin, as above) and finding they are nonetheless capable of using it. "The Quantonic Jock" might be a fun character concept!
  • Quantonics is a sort of "do-anything" science in the comic book tradition, but it has connections to "deepest lore" and powerful implications. Hero or villain alike may have ties to it independent of X-Nihilo. But it should always be treated as mysterious, complex, and dangerous. After all, its capable of creating matter seemingly from nowhere. And more worryingly are the theorized incidents of retroactive quantonic events. "Ret-quans," if you will...
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Re: Ember Point (Latest Update - Original Battalion Members Part 2 - The "New Battalion" Era)

Post by EternalPhoenix »

I like all of these, but Passkey & Tin Man/Top Brass=chef's kiss.
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Re: Ember Point (Latest Update - Original Battalion Members Part 2 - The "New Battalion" Era)

Post by Davies »

Quantonics is fascinating in general, but X-Nihilo in particular? The child (he thinks) of Baryshnikov who turns himself into a self-made version of Alan Scott and then discovers that his dad was -- well, let's not offend the Broccolis by invoking the name. That's AMAZING!
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Re: Ember Point (Latest Update - Original Battalion Members Part 2 - The "New Battalion" Era)

Post by Commander Titan »

EternalPhoenix wrote: Thu Jun 22, 2023 3:50 am I like all of these, but Passkey & Tin Man/Top Brass=chef's kiss.
Davies wrote: Thu Jun 22, 2023 11:45 pm Quantonics is fascinating in general, but X-Nihilo in particular? The child (he thinks) of Baryshnikov who turns himself into a self-made version of Alan Scott and then discovers that his dad was -- well, let's not offend the Broccolis by invoking the name. That's AMAZING!
Thank you both! Passkey is meant to be one of those "heroes everyone forgets started as a supervillain" like Hawkeye or Black Widow, mixed with the "gimmick device / really great with one tool/weapon" (ala Green Arrow or Katana), and keys felt like a way to meld the pair together.

Agent Tin Man comes from my reading in my childhood some of the few Avengers comics where Henry Peter Gyrich appears, but while I know he has a reputation as THE WORST, he only had a few dickish lines in what I saw. I liked the idea of a USAgent-like character, who is too much a Company Man to be comfortably part of a superhero team for long but at heart had the right idea.

X-Nihilo, like Urania, and Stingray & Fireball, is meant to fill the "We've Gone Global!" era of superhero comics (even though Boris was of course born and raised in America). His power set came first (since I didn't have a general construct-maker), and quantonics became the Comic Book Science justification. The timeline worked well for Boris to be related to a certain figure, yes. I know not everyone liked the "Tony Stark is Adopted!" storyline, but I thought it was a fun thing to have a hero dig into their background like that.
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Re: Ember Point (Latest Update - Original Battalion Members Part 3 - The "Last Battalion" Era)

Post by Commander Titan »

Original Battalion Members Part 3 - The “Last Battalion” (for a time)

Overview

By the early 90s, the Battalion lineup once again underwent significant shifts. Older members dropped off and the organization took what would wind up being its final form. The group continued to operate out of Chicago, and despite its rocky reputation was kept afloat by Veronika Vondrák’s financial aid. They team often traveled around the globe, responding to high level crises, even as things seemed to quiet down in America, for a time.

Ultimately, the original Battalion would go out with a whimper, not quite a bang, but their legacy was respected, and when the group reformed in the 2000s, those heroes present knew the name “Battalion” carried significant weight to it….


Bolt [Joseph “Joe” Zhi]

See here for Bolt’s full bio

Joe Zhi’s time with the Battalion was a thrill, for the most part. While he would eventually return to Ember Point, Chicago was good to him. As mentioned previously, he wound up having a surprising number of team-ups with the Bronze Rider.

“The Curious Cases of the Cowboy and the Cavalier” always seemed to start small, before getting more and more complicated, roping in mystic or high-science threats. It was something of a team joke that “you can’t take them anywhere!” without trouble brewing.

Bolt was also a frequent lab partner of X-Nihilo, the two alternating exposition on the latest super-science gadgets villain tossed at the team.

Ironically, Bolt’s time on the team is sometimes overlooked now by historians, given it was Sparky who stayed on much longer than he did, but his joie de vivre attitude in the field did much to keep spirits up during some of their darkest moments. He might not want to return to the reformed Battalion in the present, but all of them still hold the Electric Swordsman in high regard.


Sparky [Veronika Vondrák]

Veronika Vondrák was heir to the Vondrák family fortune. She grew up in Ember Point in immense luxury, the likes of which only the Le Roi family could possibly match. Still, her childhood was not necessarily a happy one. Her father spent his time managing the family fortune and company holdings, dueling with the other heirs and the board. Her mother was an international supermodel, and while the couple had once been happily married, they divorced in Veronika’s middle school years.

As one might expect, she became something of a wild child in high school, running with a crowd of similarly wealthy hellions. Veronika got into a lot of trouble, but nothing compared to when, in 1990, she was kidnapped in a ransom attempt. The stress of the abduction, which included the shooting of her loyal, harried bodyguard, broke through Veronika’s blasé attitude. It also caused her superhuman abilities to break out as well.

Veronika was keyed into the telluric currents of the planet, granting her vast electromagnetic powers, including turning into a living lightning bolt. She would later learn, however, that this connection to Earth, while rendering her exceptionally powerful, meant that her powers rapidly faded as she got more distant from the surface - in the upper atmosphere and beyond, she is a mortal human.

Veronika’s powers were unrefined, but were enough for her to begin her escape – and come face-to-face with the hero Bolt, the Electric Swordsman (Joe Zhi), who had come to rescue her! The pair made short work of the rest of the crooks and Veronika convinced Bolt to take her on as his sidekick (“partner!”), and she made her debut as Sparky soon after. She was motivated both by a desire for new experiences outside her jaded wealthy social circle, and more importantly, a newfound conscience and guilt, from seeing her loyal bodyguard shot, leaving his family without a father and husband.

In addition to her superpowers, Veronika employed the Vondrák family fortune to outfit her and Bolt. They came to the Battalion’s attention after fighting alongside them in the Clash of ‘89, and Bolt and Sparky joined the team (initially as a reserve member, due to being seventeen, and the Battalion’s policies on minors).

Veronika would stay with the team, and in Chicago, even after Bolt returned to Ember Point. She would become the team’s primary financial backer. These were golden years to her, where she felt filled with purpose. And then the team began to wind down, members left or died, until she and the other two remaining members agreed to formally dissolve the group.

Veronika spent a few more years in Chicago, but the supervillain era there had largely ended. She returned to Ember Point. She entered a state of semi-retirement from superheroics, and in her civilian life opened and oversaw the nightclub High Voltage. When Bolt was charged in the death of Nick Neutron, she helped fund his defense, and watched his retirement with chagrin.

And then, after a fateful investigation into a series of strange incidents at High Voltage, Veronika encountered the vampire known as the Infamous Owl, and was converted into a creature of the night herself. But she retained her powers, and rallied, finding new purpose in serving as a defender of those humans and vampires willing to live in harmony, gathering a like-minded group of super-vampires known as the Sanguine Sentinels, and adopting a new moniker, with Joe’s permission - Bloodbolt

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Possible Plot Seeds & Campaign Uses
  • For Battalion-related Veronika campaign uses, she's the team's financier in the 90s. Perhaps the Battalion decides to have an open call for new members - Veronika will run and host the tryouts. Or, maybe she wants to fund a spinoff team in another city, or during the team's hiatus (though after the death of Callista, getting Veronika to sign off on a new group of heroes using the name "Battalion" will be a tall order - getting her respect could be an adventure path in itself!).
  • Terrorists seize a VE power plant somewhere. They have a confusing list of demands, and the PCs are called in. Things get more confusing when surveillance seems to show that heiress Veronika Vondrák is one of the terrorists! Which is especially strange because she was seen on the other side of the country. The Battalion reaches out to the PCs (if they aren't already the Battalion or friends with them) and find out that Veronika is indeed not at the site - this is some sort of doppelganger! It turns out when she gained her powers, she left a "telluric impression" and her "negatively charged" duplicate is malicious, and has created this cell to try and generate more power for herself! Or maybe she's actually not evil, just trying to stabilize her own charged existence -- if the PCs help her, what do they do with a second copy of one of the most wealthy and (literally!) powerful women in the world?

Callista [Callista Delbridge]

Young Carla Delbridge was awkward and gawky, and became the victim of intense bullying by her schoolmates. She wasn’t interested in traditionally feminine things, and instead spent much of her time delving through the shelves of the local video rental store.

After a particularly bad at school, she sat down to watch her latest rental. That was when she discovered that somebody at the shop had accidentally put the wrong tape in the box - instead of the movie she had hoped for, something different began to play:

It was Volume 3 of “The Warrior’s Workout,” the physical fitness series produced by and starring “John Smith,” better known as the modern barbarian Grendel. On the tape, Grendel seemed to be speaking directly to her when he shouted “Do you want to be a sheep? Or, do you want to be a Warrior!”

Carla wanted to be a warrior. She followed the workout routine on the tape, renting it again and again, saving up her money to buy it and the rest of the series. Now, it’s important to note that the tapes weren’t scams, even if they were largely cash-ins on the Grendel name, but they were by all accounts fairly average fitness routines. Yet Carla saw incredible results. Over the next six months, she blossomed into a tall, muscular woman, easily able to keep pace with professional outlets, never wavering from the Warrior’s Workout.

Some people may have used their newfound strength to turn the tables on those who had made their life hell. But Carla had no interest in continuing the cycle of abuse. After high school, she made a career as a model and fitness figure herself, including a tenure in a women’s wrestling league. It was here that she took the stage name “Callisto, the She-Bear,” later shortened to the snappier “Callista.” She would eventually change her legal name to Callista Delbridge, and never had a secret identity in the conventional sense.

Life as a celebrity was good to her, but time and time again she couldn’t leave it at the door. Callista just didn’t like bullies, whether it was cheating wrestlers, dirty promoters, local gangsters, greedy supervillains, or Conquest of Dawn troops. Without ever meaning to, she entered into a life of superheroic adventure much like her idol Grendel had. Thus, it was only appropriate that she would eventually her way to the Battalion. When she joined in 1993, the team reached a peak in membership (and prestige) that it hadn’t hit for nearly a decade.

Her peak human performance was asset enough, but on an adventure with the team, Callista came into possession of a mystical artifact: the cursed sword Nethersong. Wrenched away from a villain’s grasp, the sword was a dangerous artifact that Callista couldn’t bear to part with lest it begin to harm someone else. After enough incidents, she went on a mystical quest in the traditions of old, and was able to purify the blade into a new form – Ethersong, of shimmering steel and capable of causing any mystical attack directed at her to rebound entirely.

Callista was the team’s proud standard-bearer, in many ways, and took on even more of a leadership role after the Bronze Rider disappeared and was presumed dead during a kaiju battle. This made it hurt all the more when after finding a lump, Callista learned she had breast cancer. She underwent a mastectomy, but soon learned the cancer had already spread to the rest of her body.

Her Battalion teammates’ undertook a series of missions to seek out a cure, whether from science or magic, but a cure remained out of reach, or came with a cost too dear to pay. Despite her positive attitude, Callista’s condition worsened rapidly. She used her last months to do interviews the importance of preventative care and raise funds.

Ultimately, Callista passed away in 1999, surrounded by her friends and teammates.

Her death proved the final nail in the coffin for the original Battalion. The three remaining members (Sparky, Giga-Mantis, and the Finalist) announced the team’s dissolution and went their separate ways, retiring the Battalion name until its resurrection in 2007.

Callista’s legacy has not been forgotten. The Delbridge Foundation supports women’s healthcare, whether it is fitness efforts for teenage girls to breast cancer screenings to end-of-life options and planning. One of the first acts of the reformed Battalion was to place a memorial to Callista in its headquarters alongside those of other deceased members like the Volunteer and Captain Scorpion. And, in a secret and guarded location, Ethersong awaits for a new wielder to find it, obeying the last command of Callista that it only ever be held by someone who knows what it feels like to be a sheep, and ready to be a warrior…

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Possible Plot Seeds & Campaign Uses
  • Callista is a legacy hero, of sorts, and inspiration for another. A PC could earn the right to wield Ethersong, or have taken up working out and fitness from her inspiration, or both! Someone looking to wield the blade would have to impress its guardians (nebulously defined so as to fit whoever the GM needs - it could be held by Callista's friends, a group of mystics, or the Battalion itself). Regardless, a legacy hero for Callista should embody challenging those who would step on others, and improving oneself as well.
  • During the period where Callista is alive, she took part in all kinds of contests and competitions. A PC who is a badass normal or low-powered could be challenged to a wrestling match, a footrace, or some other competition. Or perhaps a whole tournament is put on, with Callista and one or more PCs, as well as other heroes and villains, as contestants!

Giga-Mantis [Palmer Young]

Palmer Young, like many children of his generation, had grown up with kaiju toys. He’d even read Nancy Webb’s famous memoir, My Friend Trongo!

However, that was about the extent of his interest in trongology (as an Excercise & Sports Science major, he was more into athletics and the human body) so when Palmer snuck into the biochem lab on the campus of his California university, it wasn’t out of scientific curiosity, but to hook up with Aaron, the cute guy he’d met at a party. But instead of Aaron, he found a group of masked figures trying to make away with the lab’s cutting edge recombinant equipment and kaiju DNA samples.

Palmer tried to flee, but was caught, and the assailants injected him with a syringe, clearly thinking the radical DNA rewriting would kill the only witness. Instead, his skin began to be covered in chitinous plates and Palmer began to grow in size. He frightened off the burglars, and wrecked a couple million dollars of the biochem department’s endowment in the process. He awoke in the rubble, and was fortunately found and sheltered by Aaron, who’d been delayed en route to their rendezvous and saw the whole thing - the attack on Palmer and his transformation.

While the two would come to realize they didn’t work as a couple, they remained friends and allies - Aaron’s biochem expertise helped Palmer discover the range of his powers. He could shift into an insectile-humanoid form, which he dubbed “Giga-Mantis”, possessing great speed, strength, and stamina. And with effort, for a limited time, he could boost to the kaiju-sized form he dubbed “Giganta-Mantis.” Aaron developed a stabilizing belt for Palmer’s transformations, and he constantly exercised to test the limits of his insect form.

Giga-Mantis took on local criminals and threats, including the shadowy science criminals responsible for his transformation, but he also earned fame as a first responder to kaiju incidents up and down the Pacific coast. This led to his eventually meeting the Battalion, and he moved to Chicago after graduation to join the team full-time, responding to threats around the globe. In civilian life, Palmer Young became an assistant trainer for a series of minor Chicago sports teams.

Palmer made sure the team kept in practice and in shape, and had a friendly athletic rivalry with Callista. He had a less friendly rivalry with supervillains known as the Bad Sports (previously “the Sportsmen” and “the Bad Sportsmen”), having read Craig Ruby’s sports journalism as a child and disgusted at the man’s fall.

After the Battalion fell apart, Palmer got a job on the East Coast with a different series of teams, eventually becoming a trainer for the MLB. However, his refusal to engage in the rampant steroid abuse, and willingness to testify about it (as well as his decision to come out about his bisexuality in his personal life) left him blacklisted in the sport. He made some money by engaging as an anti-kaiju measure for hire, being flown around the world to help interrupt giant monster attacks and paid a small fee in thanks.

This moneyed approach to heroism left a bad taste in his mouth, but it helped keep him afloat until finally he got a job in Ember Point, as one of the trainers and coaches for the Ember Point Luck, the city’s women’s soccer team. While the disparity between funding in men and women’s sports means his salary isn’t stellar, this job did leave him in the right place to join the reformed Battalion, and he has taken on the responsibility of keeping the team in peak fitness, devising custom training regiments that fit their powers.

In the interim years, he’s further refined his own abilities, generating a number of new “forms” and he’s considering renaming himself from Giga-Mantis, given the sheer variety his elastic DNA has shown...

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Possible Plot Seeds & Campaign Uses
  • A PC looking for a power-up, perhaps an in-universe excuse for changing their build or spending power points, could go to Palmer Young for training. He's an expert in figuring out how to get the most out of a person's powers. This could just be a fun cameo in a montage, or he could run a series of exercises, with various skill checks and power rolls. He'll stand there in his tracksuit and encouragement and the like. If he's training another hero or two, the PC(s) could deal with them as rivals. This opens the door for Palmer to come to the heroes later for help, especially if he uncovers something related to the sports world in Ember Point.
  • Someone is sending the world's kaiju into a frenzy! The swarming Xurgend, Belak the Gorilla Lord, the atomic Onivine! Trongo! Giga-Mantis coordinates a defense, but the situation is hectic. Giganta-Mantis may take on the bulk of the kaiju battling, while the PCs rescue civilians beneath their feet, or search through the city for the transponders that are summoning and enraging the kaiju! Or, alternatively, Palmer and some science heroes (perhaps a PC) may work out a formula that temporarily lets the PCs turn gigantic like him, and each one gets a one-on-one fight with a kaiju on fair footing!

The Finalist ["Lee"]

The last member to join the original Battalion, the Finalist was one of the most mysterious. “She” (the Finalist would adopt a generally feminine personality and presentation, over time) fell to Earth like a meteorite, the year after the Bronze Rider was lost in action. The Battalion responded, and found her standing in the center of the crater, glowing silver and gray and wielding a weapon resembling a long executioner’s ax.

She declared that she was the Finalist, who the cosmos decreed was to appear and signal “the End of Planet Earth!” and thus the Battalion, with the help of a few reservists, engaged her in a pitched battle. However, in the midst of the fight, Callista slowly realized that the Finalist seemed more confused than malicious. The warrior woman managed to halt the battle and get the Finalist to admit that she wasn’t actually sure who or what she was!

Something, whether her crash landing itself or an encounter in space beforehand, had damaged her, leaving her with jumbled and confused memories, and she’d leaped to the conclusion that she was here to destroy the planet or at least witness its destruction. But there were reasonable doubts to be had, and she didn’t really feel like she wanted to cause the deaths of several billion people, so she agreed to surrender and go with the Battalion, in the hopes of discovering more about herself and her purpose.

Giga-Mantis would dub the being “Lee” (as in “finale” or “finally”), and after rushing out of the team’s headquarters the Sanctuary Spire to protect her newfound friends in a battle, the Finalist would agree to join the Battalion as a full-on superhero!

For the year and a half she was with the team, the Finalist was a powerhouse. She had immense strength and speed, including her flight, and she could manipulate an unknown form of energy that a consulting X-Nihilo tentatively believed to be related to but distinct from quantonics. Her “ax” could be thrown and return to her instantly, with or without passing through the space and matter in between. Lee also possessed would could only be deemed as “cosmic senses,” letting her perceive various wavelengths.

Notably, the Finalist had a keen awareness of what she called “finality,” which manifested in an innate sense of how best to “end” something (the weak points of an opponent, a building, even a group dynamic or belief system), and a sort of precognitive compass that directed her towards incoming “endings.” This mostly resulted in her bringing the Battalion into position to thwart a number of villainous doomsday plots.

These doomsday plots were increasingly common as the year 2000 approached, and some privately suspected that the Finalist had arrived to destroy the Earth or witness some cataclysmic event.

After Callista passed in 1999, Lee agreed with Giga-Mantis and Sparky to dissolve the team and go their separate ways. The Finalist went on a global walkabout, feeling drawn to a destination she couldn’t quite see. As far as the public and her Battalion teammates are aware, this was the last time she was ever seen.

They were unaware of how the Finalist spent the last weeks of the year helping those she came across, before winding up in a remote and isolated valley. There, she sat down and stared at the stars, and her body faded as she underwent the closest thing her kind can experience to our motion of death…

…seconds later, a brilliant being of white-and-gold exploded from the Finalist’s remains, and rocketed off into space.

What happened next to this entity, the Novitiate, and the identity of the human he brought along with him, is a tale for another day…

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Possible Plot Seeds & Campaign Uses
  • Before or after the end of the Battalion, the Finalist's sense of "finality" drags her around like a danger magnet. It doesn't necessarily give her any sense of what is going on, so she could appear in an area and need the PCs help to understand what it is she is sensing. Or she could be spotted floating over a community somewhere, and anxious civilians or local authorities contact the PCs for help. Working with the Finalist gives the group a powerful weapon to aim at the problem, but what if its not something that can be solved with a blast of cosmic energy? What if the PCs discover something, like a harmless monster, that locals WANT the Finalist to just blow up, while the PCs have to find a non-violent solution?
  • What if the Finalist being damaged and thinking she was meant to destroy Earth wasn't an accident? What if she was attacked, and intentionally directed towards Earth, in the hopes she would terminate it? Who out there in the cosmos wants to eliminate humanity? What else might they try? What kind of space journey would be required to solve this mystery?
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Re: Ember Point (Latest Update - Tyrant)

Post by Commander Titan »

Tyrant [Marko Zane]

When he was young, you would never have suspected that Marko Zane would one day be the impetus for the founding of the world’s greatest superteam.

Marko was the only child of a chaotic marriage. Marko’s father routinely abandoned the family, only to return at unpredictable intervals either flush with cash or in desperate need of a roof over his head. Meanwhile, his mother was barely at home - while she often worked stable jobs with long hours, she would frequently abandon them to pursue unlikely careers like acting, high fashion, novel writing, and professional athletics with intense but brief interest.

Being in many ways an afterthought to both parents, Marko turned inward. He read voraciously, the assorted books his eccentric parents kept around the home, and what he could beg, borrow, or steal from the neighborhood. If anyone had been paying attention, they would have realized he was a child prodigy, absorbing information rapidly and constantly making annotations and tweaks to the theories and details he read about.

His intellect did not translate to studiousness or success at school, where teachers ignored Marko or even joined in on his peer’s bullying. Marko dropped out without graduating, and he bounced between odd jobs, primarily custodial work. A complete autodidact, he experimented with technological gadgets of his own devising in his free time. He began to keep elaborate ant hills at home, admiring their disciplined and selfless nature. Marko found parallels in the story of the myrmidons of Greek mythology, of which he was a devoted fan, in addition to certain strains of philosophy.

Perceiving the world around him as chaotic and selfish, Marko began to believe that the world need a “reordering” but nobody would read the socio-political-philosophical tracts he tried to distribute or listen to his sidewalk speeches, taking him for just another eccentric. He retreated further from the world, and established a base of operations in the tunnels beneath the city. He continued to work as a custodian, remaining beneath notice and using his access to steal various materials he needed.

Marko decided that people would never listen to his philosophy, and instead he would need to force people to listen, to force the world into a shape that fit. Like those old Greek absolute rulers, he would be a Tyrant. He developed helmets that would put their wearers into a dream-like slumber, leaving their bodies under his command and with enhanced strength. These were his "Serv-Ants." He kidnapped a number of people, starting with the city’s unhoused, to build his new army.

Zane thought he would have more time, but certain parties began to get suspicious and interfere, so he was forced to move ahead of schedule - in 1975 he and his army burst out from below ground to attack an Eduardo Curtis concert and seize more soldiers.

This event was of course the catalyst for the formation of the Battalion by the heroes present - Curtis himself, the Troubadour; Captain Scorpion II; Miss Terrific; Gatorman; and the Bronze Rider. They freed Tyrant’s Serv-Ants and forced him to retreat.

That was not supposed to happen. That was not part of the plan!

Zane managed to escape and would return a few more times to clash with the Battalion, fine-tuning his gear, but even with his genius, a lack of resources prevented him from posing a huge threat if he was not able to build an army of Serv-Ants first, and Chicago was onto him now. Despite this, he was never caught. His attacks became less frequent, and the Battalion in many ways outgrew him, taking on more and more powerful threats.

It was years after his last attack that the Battalion even thought to wonder what had happened to him, but their investigation proved fruitless. They had no way of knowing that an increasingly obsessive Zane retreated further into his own head. Rather than go out into the city to battle heroes, Tyrant wrote out extensive hypothetical scenarios, and made modifications to his gear that went unused. He departed farther and farther from reality, detailing a world where he was victorious, where the world made sense to him, where everyone got along and did their part and had a place.

Zane, in constant poor health for the latter part of his life, died in his late sixties of unclear causes, ironically only a few weeks before the Battalion disbanded. The team never knew that their first foe had left the world. Nor did they know that he had been a janitor at the University of Chicago at the same time that both Captain Scorpion and Miss Terrific were walking the halls, that they had walked right by the man who would declare himself the Tyrant and do battle with them days later…

But recently, a young woman in Chicago discovered a hidden panel in her apartment complex. Inside were some of Zane’s journals and work, which outlined the location of his underground “Nest.” In that nest, the young woman found Tyrant’s gear, barely worn and gathering dust. Soon, this young woman will try to bring order to her own disorderly world. But will the world come to see her as another villain? Or might she be…a hero?

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Possible Plot Seeds & Campaign Uses
  • Tyrant returns, sometime before Zane's death in '99. His first appearance in possibly decades, he's far more powerful and aggressive than he was in his earlier appearances. He's accompanied by a legion of Serv-Ants. But something is off - when the helmets are removed, the Serv-Ants claim to have been mind-controlled, yes, but why do they all have backgrounds in military or criminal fields? Why is Tyrant so much more focused on property damage and mayhem, when he used to want to spread his control more than anything else? Investigating PCs will discover that this Tyrant is not the original! Instead, Zane's landlord discovered just who his eccentric tenant was while looking into evicting him so as to tear down the building and jack up prices. The landlord has taken the gear and hired an army of henchmen, and now is smashing properties around the city to be able to buy them up cheaply. The heroes must stop him, and also find out what he did with Zane. The original Tyrant is too far into his own head to pose a threat, and needs to be rescued. Can he be convinced to help shut down his old gear?
  • Back in the Tyrant's heyday - he's burrowed into the basements of several banks and other locations with lots of valuables in their vaults. He's designed less-obtrusive Serv-Ant helmets, and his mind-controlled subjects lure others down to the basements / vaults by promising to show them rare goods or store them, and instead take control of them. He's rapidly gaining control of the most influential members of Chicago society, and using their power to push his strange and incomprehensible agenda. The PCs notice that strange reorganizations of traffic patterns, electrical grids, and other city functions are occurring. When they learn about the basements, they have to venture down into highly booby trapped "dungeons" to stop the scheme!
Last edited by Commander Titan on Fri Aug 25, 2023 1:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
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