Aaand two months later, we’re back. Things have (evidently) been busy with me lately, with autumn term ending and winter term beginning, so I’m not making any promises about how frequently I’ll be putting things up here, but I do enjoy it, so, yeah.
Anywho, after making a supervillain team themed around chess, I thought to myself, what other motifs can I turn into silly Silver Age-style supervillain gangs? The answer: the English alphabet.
A
“Not even heroes as powerful as yourselves can hope to stand up to the combined might of all twenty-six letters of the alphabet!”
Alias: Varies
Approach: Underpowered
Archetype: Overlord
Health: 25 + (
× 5)
Powers
Intuition 
Presence 
Strength
Vitality
Qualities
Criminal Underworld Info 
Leadership
Mediocre Fighter
Persuasion
Status: Minions & Lieutenants
9+ Minions 
5-8 Minions
3-4 Minions
1-2 Minions
0 Minions 
Abilities
Bark Orders (A): Boost using Leadership. Use your Max die. Hinder using your Mid die. Attack using your Min die.- Chutzpah (I): Whenever you would be reduced to 0 or fewer Health, prevent that damage and reduce all your power dice by one size. If this reduces any dice to below a , you are knocked out.
- Extensive Outfit (A): Use Criminal Underworld Info to create a number of minions equal to the value of your Max die. The starting die size for those minions is the same as the size of your Min die.
-
Lead from the Back (A): Attack using Presence and use your Max die. Defend against all Attacks against you until the start of your next turn using the number of your minions. - Sacrificial Dodge (R): Redirect an Attack to one of your minions.
- Unwise Offensive (A): Attack using Strength. Use your Max+Mid dice. Take irreducible damage equal to your Min die. If you roll doubles, you cannot use this ability again for the rest of the scene.
- (U) Power Upgrade (I): Increase all of A’s power dice by one size. (When using this upgrade, A has 20 additional Health.)
- (M)
Master of Enforced Order (I): If you have complete control over your immediate surroundings, automatically succeed in an Overcome to organize rabble to accomplish a task.
A
Alias: Varies
Gender: Varies
Age: Varies
Height: Varies
Eyes: Varies
Hair: Varies
Skin: Varies
Build: Varies
Costume/Equipment: Varies. The garb of the individuals who have held this mantle over the years has ranged from traditional gangster suits to formfitting supersuits.
Approach: Underpowered
Archetype: Overlord
Biography
The mantle of “A” does not refer to just one person. Rather, it is always the name of the leader of the low-level street organisation known as the Alphabet Gang.
The first person to hold this position was Abe Andrews, a small-time crook who had nonetheless acquired an extensive familiarity with the criminal underworld. He used those connexions to gather twenty-five other professional criminals and form the first iteration of the Alphabet Gang. Under A’s leadership, the gang managed to pull of some fairly respectable heists — though they were still far from the level of supervillainy that most dedicated to the occupation achieve.
After a while, though, the law — and its superheroic allies — finally caught up with them, and A and the rest of the Alphabet Gang were caught and jailed. Abe Andrews did eventually escape and form a second iteration of the outfit with some of the same members and some new blood, but was again defeated.
Years later, the Alphabet Gang resurfaced, this time with all new members, including a new A: a man named Alexander Adams. After some capers under Adams’ guidance — some successful, some not so — the gang faded away again.
This pattern would continue over the years — a new A would gather a new Alphabet Gang, who would perform some criminal activities, before eventually either being captured or simply disappearing into obscurity to be replaced by a new holder of the mantle. Over the years, those who have called themselves A in addition to the first two have included Alison Armstrong, Ali Aziz, and Alejandra Alvarez.
Capabilities and Motivations
All of those who have held the mantle of A have shared some similar characteristics — namely, they’ve been charismatic and well-connected in the criminal underworld, and have had middling physical prowess and tactical skills.
Their real strength, though, comes from their Alphabet Gang, which always consists of 26 competent malcontents of varying skillsets, each one assigned a codename consisting of one letter of the English alphabet. Whenever they are confronted by costumed do-gooders or mundane law enforcement, A relies on the sheer numbers of their underlings to overcome the opposition. A usually hangs back in such altercations, placing their allies betwixt themselves and their foes. Granted, that usually leads to a number of their members being taken into custody, but as long as A gets away, they can refill the ranks.
Upgrades
A does occasionally get access to some superscience tech or other valuable loot that boosts their capabilities and resilience.
Alphabet Gang Threats
B
Description
The individual called B is always A’s second in command, and is invariably a crook with considerable physical might to supplement A’s charisma and the gang’s numbers. The first B was “Brawny” Bob Braunstein, who was succeeded in the position by Benny Brockenheimer, Bogdan Babushkin, and Beth Bradley.Abilities
Consummate Number Two: When B is Boosted by A, the resulting bonus is persistent and exclusive.
Tough Brute: When B makes a damage save, they roll twice and take the higher result.Tactics
B does whatever A directs them to do, which is usually either guarding A with Defends or dealing with any meddling heroes with Attacks and Hinders.
Alphabet Gangsters
Description
Assorted crooks who’ve been rounded up by A to form the newest iteration of the Alphabet Gang. Their skill levels tend to vary — sometimes they’re professional heisters, othertimes they’re little more than your average street thugs.Ability
Strength in Numbers: An Alphabet Gangster has +1 to an action if at least two nearby allies are taking the same action.Tactics
Their solution to any obstacle is always elegantly simple: overwhelm it with sheer numbers.
Editor’s Notes
Frankly, it’s not a real appearance of the Alphabet Gang if all twenty-six members don’t appear over the course of the story arc. I believe that all of them could feasibly appear in one scene, but a scene that’s only opponents (or even just mostly opponents), can be dull, tedious, and / or overwhelming for the heroes, so one could certainly split all twenty-six of them across two or more scenes.
The variable die sizes for B and the gangsters are there to show that the competency of the gang’s members have varied over the incarnations.
Also, I imagine that there has been at least one iteration of the group that wore monogrammed shirts which prominently displayed each member’s letter in big type right there on the chest, like all those henchmen from the 1966 Batman show.