[Supers] Enter the Shadowguard - a Marvel Reboot Story

[Phantasm]

So yeah, at least in Cardinal's and Fyrebat's case, I'm deliberately poking fun at Rob Leifeld's artwork, and to be honest the '90s trend towards giving everyone lots of pouches they don't need.

BTW, I based each Terror on one of DC's Teen Titans/New Teen Titans/New Titans/Titans team. I encourage people to guess who. :)

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

Meatshield: "Hey! I will have you know our Avril graduated with top honors from the Decepticon Military Academy and once pantsed Starscream! Show some respect!" He said this with his gas mask's voice modulator sounding just like Soundwave.

Wyldling: "Okay, screw this talk. You're mine, Meathead!"

Clearly someone's a GoBots fan. ;)

Is Anthony (Meatshield's player) the Anthony from the boards, or do I need you to pass on my "Thank you!" for making an in character Transformers reference (the Soundwave voice was just a bonus). No clue if I'd get along with him at the table, but I'm enjoying his lines as you present them here. :)

Originally Posted by Phantasm

So yeah, at least in Cardinal's and Fyrebat's case, I'm deliberately poking fun at Rob Leifeld's artwork, and to be honest the '90s trend towards giving everyone lots of pouches they don't need.

BTW, I based each Terror on one of DC's Teen Titans/New Teen Titans/New Titans/Titans team. I encourage people to guess who. :)

Heh, do they have Youngblood's disease, foot problems, and/or Double-Jointed (Limitation: Posing Only)?

...

That last one was me trying to make a joke, but not I'm wondering if that is a "thing" is a supplement somewhere. XD

Liefeld and Teen Titans, huh? ;)

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by Otaku

Clearly someone's a GoBots fan. ;)

Is Anthony (Meatshield's player) the Anthony from the boards, or do I need you to pass on my "Thank you!" for making an in character Transformers reference (the Soundwave voice was just a bonus). No clue if I'd get along with him at the table, but I'm enjoying his lines as you present them here. :)

No, "Anthony" is actually Meatshield-the-character's secret identity. The player goes by the handle TFB71 on the IRC server we play on; I think he has an account here, but hasn't posted in a while.

Originally Posted by Otaku

Heh, do they have Youngblood's disease, foot problems, and/or Double-Jointed (Limitation: Posing Only)?

...

That last one was me trying to make a joke, but not I'm wondering if that is a "thing" is a supplement somewhere. XD

Liefeld and Teen Titans, huh? ;)

Yeah. The game is currently in 1987, which is when Leifeld was first breaking into the scene (with Hawk & Dove for DC and then New Mutants for Marvel). As I'm going with a bit of Dark/Dork Age flavor in this, a lot of pouches, squinting, and scowls seemed appropriate.

They might have those other traits, but we'll see how the Terrors Team Pic ends up. Our resident artist is complaining that he can't stop reaching for his eraser.... ;)

And turning the Titans into villains follows the age-old tradition of using the Competition's characters with name and minor artistic changes to create adversaries. Cases in point: The Justice League being used as the basis of the Squadron Sinister/Squadron Supreme, and the Legion of Super-Heroes being used as the basis for the Shi'ar Imperial Guard. (Pretty sure DC's had a team or three based on the Avengers and X-Men, but I can't remember which.) And there was the time in the mid-'80s when DC and Eclipse used the New Teen Titans and DNAgents with name changes in each others' titles. :)

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

No, "Anthony" is actually Meatshield-the-character's secret identity. The player goes by the handle TFB71 on the IRC server we play on; I think he has an account here, but hasn't posted in a while.

My bad!

Originally Posted by Phantasm

Yeah. The game is currently in 1987, which is when Leifeld was first breaking into the scene (with Hawk & Dove for DC and then New Mutants for Marvel). As I'm going with a bit of Dark/Dork Age flavor in this, a lot of pouches, squinting, and scowls seemed appropriate.

They might have those other traits, but we'll see how the Terrors Team Pic ends up. Our resident artist is complaining that he can't stop reaching for his eraser.... ;)

And turning the Titans into villains follows the age-old tradition of using the Competition's characters with name and minor artistic changes to create adversaries. Cases in point: The Justice League being used as the basis of the Squadron Sinister/Squadron Supreme, and the Legion of Super-Heroes being used as the basis for the Shi'ar Imperial Guard. (Pretty sure DC's had a team or three based on the Avengers and X-Men, but I can't remember which.) And there was the time in the mid-'80s when DC and Eclipse used the New Teen Titans and DNAgents with name changes in each others' titles. :)

Actually, I was getting at how Liefeld kind of indirectly worked on the Titans. I mean, besides using his own illustrations of them in his early portfolio, if Hawk and Dove didn't join under his tenure, didn't the New 52 version (which Liefeld worked on) have them as part of the Titans?

Anyway, even if I got all of that history wrong, there's the whole Slade Wilson (Deathstroke)/Wade Wilson (Deadpool) thing. ;) Anyway, does that mean it was accidental, or were you just commenting on the larger trend? Which is a fun trend, to be honest. I mean, it even carries over into animation sometimes, with the Young Justice (TV Series) use of the villain Black Spider being voiced by Josh Keaton... who voiced Spider-Man in the Sensational Spider-Man TV series. :)

Do you want us to post our guesses for which villain corresponds to which Titan here, or save them for PM? I mean, Wyldling is nice and blatant... to the point I'm actually shocked Liefeld didn't use that one. I mean, he even does that annoying thing where the Liefeldian "Off-Brand" version of the character might have a better name, even with the whole Y-in-place-of-I thing. @_@

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by Otaku

Do you want us to post our guesses for which villain corresponds to which Titan here, or save them for PM? I mean, Wyldling is nice and blatant... to the point I'm actually shocked Liefeld didn't use that one. I mean, he even does that annoying thing where the Liefeldian "Off-Brand" version of the character might have a better name, even with the whole Y-in-place-of-I thing. @_@

Here or in PM is fine. I'll hand out cookies either way. :)

[Phantasm]

Session 4.1: Fish Telepathy OP, pls nerf

(For this scene, the part of Piranha was played by Kalzazz, and the octopus played by Anna's player.)

Doc, Spellbinder, and one of Starbot's bodies were in Breakstone Lake (which borders the Xavier estate), and upon discovering a door leading into something under the lake's central island were confronted by a pair of Lemurians: Prince Nagino/Piranha, and Princess Nagina/Barracuda.

Things started off with the typical pre-fight trash talk, with Nagino demanding the others grovel before him. Spellbinder and Doc did not take that well. In order to converse with them, Starbot converted his omnitool into a translator device resembling a three-mic karaoke machine.

Starbot,in an attempt to be diplomatic and avoiding a fight, traded out his language files for Lemurian (obtained from Namora in one of their off-camera meetings). "Your Highness," he said, "I confess to a great deal of confusion as to your presence here. We are investigating a crime in progress. The perpetrators seemed to think of you as... muscle. Surely this is not an appropriate means of pursuing your nations' goals on American soil. Nor a fit role for royalty."

However, this had the opposite effect, only angering Piranha more. "And you dare tell us what is, or is not our role, you presume much, silence yourself and muzzle your yapping human she-dog before my sister and I teach you the meaning of humility and respect!"

Barracuda followed up with a request to start the fight, which Piranha agreed to. And the fight was on.

Doc had been toying with a sonic grenade, which he tossed at the pair. Barracuda threw up a hard water shield while Spellbinder shielded the heroes. (Honestly, the only stats I could find for "sonic" grenades were a kind of UT pulse/force grenade with double knockback, so we went with that but with the damage reduced a few dice.) Barracuda then decided to call for some support from local sea life, enlarging an octopus to giant size.

(This of course cued a bunch of out-of-character comments about hentai and tentacle monsters, the tastes of which varied from tame to gross-out.)

Spellbinder then decided to part the lake, Red Sea style, which landed the combatants - softly - on the lake bed. During this, Piranha shoulder-blocked Spellbinder, but she pulled a Power Block on her Energy realm skill to throw up a quick energy shield.

Starbot then moved to intercept Piranha, clashing swords with the Lemurian prince. The Lemurian failed to parry it, though, although his innate toughness (DR 25 and IT:DR /10) resulted in Starbot only giving him a minor 2-point cut. "You ... hurt me?" the Lemurian asked in wonder. "A lucky stroke!"

"...and then there's the octopus," Spellbinder told her teammates. "Not sure what to make of that. ...no wait. Casserole."

Indeed, the octopus, which had its IQ raised to 10 as well by 'Cuda's spell, spoke in an annoying faux-British accent. 'Cuda ordered it to attack Spellbinder, sensing that Spell was the greater threat, which it did by slamming into her, then wrapping its tentacles around her. It also lashed out against Doc, which he managed to dodge.

Drawing his knife (his guns were left on shore, to avoid getting waterlogged), Doc charged at Barracuda, while she attempted to stab him with her trident. Both end up dodging their opponent's blow.

Spellbinder, pinned as she was by the octopus, was still able to get a spell off; the octopus sacrificed a tentacle to avoid the full blow of the spell.

"See the works of a real swords-Lemurian, knave!" Piranha called out, bringing his cutlass around for a hit. Starbot, however, interposed his force shield in the way just in time. At the same time, he shifted his omnitool from a sword to a laser dazzler pistol.

The octopus continued its attack on Spellbinder, lashing out with three of its remaining tentacles in an attempt to hurt her - by apparently removing her protective midriff. Spell used a Power Dodge with her Space realm to teleport a few feet up in the air.

Piranha took a quick look around the battlefield. "What?!" he commented. "Friend Octopi, occupy the dirty human knave trying to sully my sister; she can sort out the soaring sorcerous she-human."

"She really can't," Spellbinder scoffed.

"Did I ask your opinion?" Piranha called back.

"I can fight my own battles, brother!" Barracuda growled.

"Sorry sister dear"

Doc dramatically grabbed at his pants and they parted at the seams with a pull! This revealed what suspiciously looked like a cattle prod strapped to his leg (well, that and his GI issue boxers...had to keep it decent after all), but unfortunately his wet fingers slipped on what was supposed to be quick release bindings.

Barracuda smiled appreciatively at the old man's pecs, but still charged her trident (Energy realm). He tried to evade, but her electrically-charged trident caught him in the chest (fortunately his ribs protected him from getting hit in anything vital. 'Cuda cackled as she kept it against him.

Spellbinder, seeing Doc in trouble, cast a large area effect (cone) spell which caught Barracuda and the octopus in its blast, turning up the heat in that area. Cuda just growled as the blast failed to fully penetrate her super-Lemurian defenses. "THAT! HURT!" she yelled. "NOW! I'M! UPSET!" The octopus was not so lucky, falling to an unconscious heap on the ground.

Piranha continues to attack Starbot, specifically targeting the laser dazzler gun, but Starbot brought his shield up to deflect the blow. Starbot followed through with bringing the gun up to flash it in the prince's eyes, but the Lemurian used his off-hand to knock Starbot's gun arm out of the way.

Doc, still impaled by Barracuda's trident, brought his cattle prod into play, stabbing her in the chest with it. Cuda screamed, but reciprocated by giving Doc another shock through the trident. (This knocked Doc to 1 HP.)

Spellbinder then decided it was time to end the fight, and caused Doc to vanish from sight, essentially teleporting him away from the fight. Then she engulfed Barracuda in a minor version of a Dragon Slave. (Cuda passed her death check roll, but failed her consciousness roll.)

Piranha then twisted Starbot into an arm lock, bargaining his opponent's life for the Lemurians' escape. Although Jim transformed his omnitool into a handcuff to chain Piranha to himself, Piranha busted the handcuffs and dove into the wall of water, leaving the party with a captured Barracuda.

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

Here or in PM is fine. I'll hand out cookies either way. :)

I got busy this week and it's running busy through the weekend, so I'm just going to concede. Wylding is only not obvious if he isn't Garfield Logan/Changeling/Beast Boy, but the others... just enough to the others I'm not sure. I'm cheating by posting this then reading the newest post. XD

Edit: Read the post now; a most entertaining fight! Be great if the group could get someone to illustrate a comic based on all of this. Yes, yes I do promote unreasonable expectations. XP

[Phantasm]

Session 4.2: Fight of the Bumblebee

This was the fight between Anna and Black Hornet. The first attempt at this went ... poorly, resulting in Anna's player claiming I set her up to get killed by my Titans/Young Justice-Bumblebee expy (who herself was apparently an expy of the Wasp from Marvel's Avengers; funny how things come full circle), with a opponent he couldn't shoot or talk down. However, when Meatshield's player saw Anna's sheet, he wanted to take a crack at redoing the fight with him playing Anna. Intrigued, I let him. This turned out well, so we made it canon.


Black Hornet hovered a foot off the ground as Anna drew a pistol out of nowhere (her glamoured armor looking like a French maid's outfit) and kipping up to her feet. Anna moved to place herself between Hornet and Kurt Marko. Hornet shrunk down to an 8" size and attacked Anna, which she dodged, grabbing a chair in the den while doing so. Marko was frozen in fear, crying out, "Who are you people?!" as he cowered on the floor.

"Shut up, stupid American!" Anna commanded him. "Run!" She tossed the chair at Hornet, although she didn't see where it landed; she wasn't throwing to attack the bug-garbed girl, but to distract her. Hornet deftly flew around the chair, commenting that commies have no sense of private property. To protect Marko, Anna grabbed him jetpacked from the den into the library, inadvertently setting fire to the den.

Alfred the butler rushed in and fired Anna, who merely snarked back. "Alfred, you fail as a man. Mr. Marko... RUN!"

While the halon fire extinguisher in the den came to life, Anna raced into the main foyer of the mansion, followed quickly by Marko and Alfred, who gathered up the staff and rushed them down into the panic room. (Why does a rich person have a panic room in their basement? Why not?) Meantime, Anna called Spellbinder via the "brain card", informing her of the situation. Spell, however, was still busy with the Lemurians and couldn't come herself right away. (A side effect of the staff heading for the panic room: the cook left the gas stove on.)

There was a quick exchange as Black Hornet finally escaped the halon-filled library, with Anna shooting Hornet in the chest with her pistol (though failing to penetrate her armored bodysuit), and Hornet failing to kick Anna in the head. Anna rushed into the back of the house, into Mr. Marko's electronics lab, locking the door behind her. "Electronics?! What kind of silly American thing is this?! Laboratories are for chemicals and insane genetics experiments! Electronics are for factories!" Despite that, a plan began to form in her head.

( At this point, Anna's regular player came in to apologize for past behavior, and we all agreed to let the regular player finish Anna's scene. )

Working quickly, Anna set up a trap of butane canisters in front of the door to the lab, and prepares to shoot them with her M-16. As Hornet blasted the doorknob off and flew through the hole, Anna opened fire.

And the X-Mansion exploded. Butane explosion + gas leak = comics explosion.

Anna was teleported out at the last second by Spellbinder, dropping her into the Olympic-sized swimming pool in the back yard.



(Okay, I'll post last night's summary tomorrow. It's getting late.)

[Otaku]

Hmm... still enjoying reading these exploits, and as a pretty-poor GM myself, I am additionally intrigued by "redoing" the scene with another player at the helm of "Anna" the PC. Is this something your group has done before or was this the first time?

As I read about the X-Mansion blowing up, I legitimately wondered "So, how often has it already happened in this timeline?" XP I realize that all these events take place before the X-Men were even formed, but given how often the X-Mansion has been destroyed in continuity, it almost seems tempting to dial it up to 11 by establishing it as an almost historical feature of the site.

"The original was built in 1683 and survived until the Revolutionary War, where it was burned down during the conflict (with each side blaming the other). By 1785, a new mansion was complete and endured until the War of 1812, where it again burned down. Then in..."

and just keep it going so that every couple decades (and with increasing frequency) the mansion is destroyed. I mean, I originally meant it as a joke, but in a weird way, this makes sense even for the pre-superhero MU. It is a heightened reality, so perhaps folks are just more used to rebuilding in the United States than we are in the real world because big, dramatic things have been happening since forever (it is just they now tend to involve capes and spandex and power armor). ^^' Of course, I don't recall if you gave the history of the mansion or not to the players or us already. XD

[Phantasm]

Session 5: The Third Fight, and Aftermath

And finally, there was the fight at the Brown residence, with Cardinal, Fyrebat, and Wyldling vs Starbot #2, Meatshield, and Avril Aero. I have to say, this fight went a little one-sided as well. In this fight, Fyrebat was played by Starslayer, who will bring a new character into the group later, and Wyldling was played by Chelsea's player. I NPCed Cardinal.

The two teams started squared off in front of the one-story ranch house (2 stories if you count the furbished basement). Wyldling had previously shifted to a T. rex.

Aero started by launching herself into the air, aiming her laser autocannon at Cardinal. He flubbed his Dodge roll, taking more than a few hits to the chest. There was a bit of a problem initially as "he's wearing armor" turned into "DR 25 vs 8d(2) burn", and Aero had initially fired full auto, which dropped Cardinal to insta-dead (though thankfully not char-broiled hamburger). We dialed it back so only a few hits scored, which still dropped him to death check territory; he passed his death check, but failed his consciousness roll. That basically took him out of the fight before he could do anything. Wyldling couldn't help but snicker at his teammate, causing a brief flash of resentment from Fyrebat.

At this point, our newest player popped in. Mag/Bellona is a street artist/super-scrapper who was basically in a mini-scene (which I failed to post a summary for) was essentially a "stray" "adopted" by Chelsea and told of this caper. Mag leapt up to the roof of the ranch house, attempting to get a read on what was going on.

Fyrebat then used Foresight to have pre-seeded the front lawn with choking smoke bombs, flooding the area with thick smoke. At the same time, she grabbed Cardinal and used a jetpack (Gizmo) to take to the air.

Meatshield meanwhile leapt at Wyldling, basically punching out a T-rex. How many other folks can say that?! :) Said punch also knocked him down to consciousness check territory. Wyldling was going to attack Meatshield, but instead turned himself into a flea and fled the fight.

That left Fyrebat attempting to escape as the sole active Terror left in the field. Starbot fired his sleep gas grenade at Fyrebat, but due to visual interference from the smoke ended up shooting short. Mag leapt from the roof to grapple her leg, though slicing at her other leg proved ineffective.

Aero turned in mid-air and body-checked Fyrebat, right into the newly-built barn, in particular the hay loft, to which Fyrebat quipped, "Not really my idea of a roll in the hay." This essentially ended the combat.

Not long after, the group attempted to sort out and provide first aid to Cardinal - this group is mostly good guys, it seems, not willing to let a bad guy die when he's not fighting. As this happened, there was an Earth-shattering KABOOM! from the nearby Xavier estate. Cardinal regained consciousness to radio his team to stand down. Mag introduced herself to the group as "Bellona", and explained that Chel had brought her along.

Aero flew over to the X-Mansion to provide assistance to anyone over there, discovering Kurt, Sharon, and the staff in the panic room (in the basement, connected to but not part of the main house). At first Kurt Marko was disinclined to believe she was there to help, but cooler heads prevailed. At the same time, Charles contacted the team telepathically from school to make sure the parents were alright; Aero reassured him, while Meatshield told him to get out of his head or start paying rent. Aero began asking what happened, and got the short-short version of the fight between Black Hornet and Princess Bolshevik from Kurt. When the subject of a "gas main" came up, Sharon Xavier-Marko added in a line about the family having "supervillain insurance" for such an occasion since the sixties to assist in reconstruction.

And not long after the EMTs, police, and SHIELD agents Duncan and Gyrich showed up. (Yes, that Gyrich.) Looking over the devastated ruins, Gyrich immediately threatened to arrest Aero, but she countered with statutes and references to Good Samaritan laws. Grumbling, Gyrich told her to "get gone."

Meanwhile, Duncan headed over to the Brown farm, where EMTs and police were loading Cardinal into an ambulance and Fyrebat into a police transport. He asked for details, some of which sounded crazy ("Be on the lookout for a vanishing T-rex.") on the surface.

As Spellbinder and Doc arrived, Jim went about looking around the barn, discovering an underground bunker. The bunker consisted of a large workout room with a weight machine that could be set from 1 ton to 80 tons, a set of free weights that probably wouldn't hit a ton, an elevated track, and a few sparring mats and punching bags; a surveillance computer monitoring station tied to a large covert satellite network that apparently was not American, Canadian, Russian, Chinese, or any other industrialized nation's, nor was it HYDRA's (one of the locations under surveillance appeared to be The Vault); and a series of power-dampening stasis chambers (which may or may not be "native" tech).

Upon seeing this, Duncan devised an idea for the group to obtain the estate, through what could be legal yet questionable means: as it was purchased with criminal intent, the state would foreclose on it. Before it could go to auction, Duncan could arrange for Doc - who was not involved in the fights at the Xavier or Brown estates - to purchase the land below cost (he cited "one dollar".)

The session wound down not long after, with Duncan remarking, "I have to put out an APB on a T-rex." The party couldn't tell if he was serious or sarcastic.