Steve Jackson Games Forums - View Single Post - Advice sought for fleshing out a major villian

hal · 10-09-2017, 09:16 AM

Since I'm reasonably certain that the other individual doesn't come online and view things here...

An explanation might be in order...

The villain here is a character named Omar Khadabhi (Cyberpunk 2020's NIGHT CITY character for those who might be familiar), using the pseudonym of "Peter Knowleton" when handling anything over the 'net. He uses a Voice distorter with a preprogrammed voice to maintain continuity, along with a video feed distorter that subtly changes his appearance enough that although he bears a resemblance to the image in question to anyone who has seen "Peter" via video communication, will not be seen as BEING Peter should the person meet up with Omar in person.

That having been said, the first "adventure" involving the player character and Omar involved the sudden need to protect his "investment" from an extraction attempt by certain of his "enemies". The biochemist was working on weaponizing a disease that had certain unpleasant characteristics. The Biochemist was unfortunately caught in his own trap, where he himself through carelessness, became infected. The disease was similar to Ebola in that it was a blood disease, but had an airborne aspect to it with a VERY short lifespan. The pathogen could not survive prolonged exposure to sunlight and oxygen - and was originally discovered as surviving as an underground organism usually found within crude oil. A little genetic tweaking, and the pathogen would be idea for becoming a weapon.

Eventually, the Player Character found out about the fact that this biochemist was involved in unlawful and unethical testing on humans, and arranged for the biochemist to die of his own disease. The "tricky" part was that his contract required that his "principle" survived 24 hours and was not extracted by a hostile team. The Biochemist died outside of the 24 hour limit, but became unconscious and unresponsive within the 24 hour period. In addition? The Biochemist had a working prototype serum that he was CLOSE to perfecting, and if he could get one does crafted within 9 hours, he'd use it for his own needs first, then manufacture the subsequent doses afterwards - but at the expense of his innocent test subjects lives. The player character simply helped the biochemist make the right decision - used the prototype developed by the biochemist as something to be analyzed, and copied. See, the biochemist had 9 hours to live, his test subject batch had about 48.

10-09-2017, 09:16 AM	#8
hal Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Buffalo, New York	Re: Advice sought for fleshing out a major villian Since I'm reasonably certain that the other individual doesn't come online and view things here... An explanation might be in order... The villain here is a character named Omar Khadabhi (Cyberpunk 2020's NIGHT CITY character for those who might be familiar), using the pseudonym of "Peter Knowleton" when handling anything over the 'net. He uses a Voice distorter with a preprogrammed voice to maintain continuity, along with a video feed distorter that subtly changes his appearance enough that although he bears a resemblance to the image in question to anyone who has seen "Peter" via video communication, will not be seen as BEING Peter should the person meet up with Omar in person. That having been said, the first "adventure" involving the player character and Omar involved the sudden need to protect his "investment" from an extraction attempt by certain of his "enemies". The biochemist was working on weaponizing a disease that had certain unpleasant characteristics. The Biochemist was unfortunately caught in his own trap, where he himself through carelessness, became infected. The disease was similar to Ebola in that it was a blood disease, but had an airborne aspect to it with a VERY short lifespan. The pathogen could not survive prolonged exposure to sunlight and oxygen - and was originally discovered as surviving as an underground organism usually found within crude oil. A little genetic tweaking, and the pathogen would be idea for becoming a weapon. Eventually, the Player Character found out about the fact that this biochemist was involved in unlawful and unethical testing on humans, and arranged for the biochemist to die of his own disease. The "tricky" part was that his contract required that his "principle" survived 24 hours and was not extracted by a hostile team. The Biochemist died outside of the 24 hour limit, but became unconscious and unresponsive within the 24 hour period. In addition? The Biochemist had a working prototype serum that he was CLOSE to perfecting, and if he could get one does crafted within 9 hours, he'd use it for his own needs first, then manufacture the subsequent doses afterwards - but at the expense of his innocent test subjects lives. The player character simply helped the biochemist make the right decision - used the prototype developed by the biochemist as something to be analyzed, and copied. See, the biochemist had 9 hours to live, his test subject batch had about 48.