A new villain from my campaign on the blog, a twist on the surprisingly common “evil toymaker” trope. This is one supranym that I can safely say will never crop in comics or published games, mostly owing to the existence of the Hasbro legal department. Think I can get away with it in my home game’s setting. Hopefully. If the black helicopters full of black ops lawyers show up I may have to rethink that. I suppose I could always change its name to “Plaything” instead, which was my original concept.
Comes with a few sample themed lieutenants and a signature minion.
Also had a reader request to list what approach and archetype each villain uses in the tags for each blog post, and after some editing that’s now done. You should be able to click on the appropriate tag (eg Disruptive) at the bottom of the post and see all the villains that share that approach/archetype. Not sure how useful that is, but I’m willing to oblige.
It’s an in-joke about Hasbro’s omnipresence. I was amused but not surprised when I discovered they’d acquired the Tinker Toy IP a while back to add to minor things like D&D and Magic and most of Avalon Hill.
Besides, they started it. And it gives me an excuse to have the heroes fight off a villainous raid on the local game store.
Yes, I’ve heard that one - but GTG’s legal department is even less threatening than Hasbro’s.
It’s one of those relatively rare potential supranyms neither of the Big Two have hogged already, hence the third-party popularity. When I was searching around I discovered DC even thinks it own “The Toy” thanks to an appearance in the 90s Doom Patrol book that even I think is a little obscure. That was the same story where they also laid claim to Yankee Doodle, whose last name in his secret ID was (of course) Dandy.
Got off my butt and posted another villain to the blog. This one’s a non-unique baddie, more of an archetype than a specific individual, and includes a lieutenant version if you want to use them in multiples. And really, who wouldn’t want to use a whole pack of synthetic werewolf soldiers?
Couple of new hero writeups on the blog, forming the start of a small dynasty of heroes. One’s been my PC in several shorter games, while the other was inspired by the way his big story arc ended (so many major twists in that last scene…) and has been both an NPC and played by several guest players, each of whom have contributed to her rather more involved story to date.
And today’s new baddie on the blog, a psychic whose big schtick is making “evil twin” psychic construct versions of his foes - and any innocent bystanders that happen to be nearby, because if there’s one thing he hates it’s innocence.
As you might expect, post also includes some minions and lieutenants that could be useful in any situation you might run into doppelgangers, sinister duplicates, villainous copycats or Mirror Universe alt-reality doubles.
Apparently I’m motivated lately. Yet another villain, this one a mashup of Braniac, the Celestials, and those old “giant monster” books Marvel used to do before the supers books took off.
EDIT: Correction, make that really motivated. Another baddie, this one a street gang leader with a knack for tinkering. She’s (I think) unusually easy to reskin into other things that follow the “leader and expendable mooks” theme.
Great big post this week with a five-person hero group of oddballs inspired by the Challengers of the Unknown with a touch of Fantastic four, Doc Savage, Atomic Robo and a bit of X-Files. Been using these folks as either pregen PCs for one-offs or more often as NPCs for ongoing games. Includes both the lengthy PC hero writeups and NPC lieutenant writeups for them.
Another superhero writeup today - or two of them, since I’m showcasing how one of the characters in my game has changed in response to story events using retcons. Also has a link to the villain form of the same character that I posted a while back. Reformed Villain is such a great background for justifying “bad guy” versions of a PC hero.
Yes, it includes a writeup for the Yule Cat, which I am inordinately proud of. Also her layabout husband Leppaludi, her brood of children and a bonus environment that’s going be very seasonally appropriate pretty soon now.
Happy Thanksgiving, if you’re one of the people who celebrate it.
New on the blog, the very first pair of heroes from my earliest SCRPG campaign - although “loosely connected series of short story arcs and one-shots” might be a better term for it. Both players are still making occasional appearances in my slightly more stable current game, albeit with newer characters.
And another superhero finished up today, one that’s been waiting for completion quite a while now. He started out as an experiment in healing without using one of the “you and all heroes in Y/R zone heal Min” abilities and turned out a little too good for my tastes. I’ve used him twice as a player and once as a loaner PC to someone who wanted to try “playing a cleric” in the game, but I think I’m kind of done with him unless I decide to do a cosmic storyline. Even then he may get tweaked, he’s efficient but kind of mechanically dull to me despite being reasonably versatile.
Chunky meandering post on the blog today discussing how tapping in to real-world urban history can add to your supers games, particularly if you’re using a non-fictional city as your main setting. Hopefully it inspires some of you to do some digging. Every town or city has something interesting hiding in its past, and even folks playing in wholly fictional places like Rook City can probably find some elements to steal and transplant.
Much like last year I’m participating in a character creation challenge to open the new year. For rest of January there should be about one new character a day going up on my blog, although some of the team posts may throw that schedule off a bit. Kicking things off with a real D-list villain, the absurdly overconfident teleporter Flashbang in all his dubious glory. Defeating him one-on-one has become something of an in-game achievement for many heroes in my current campaign, and the couple of PCs who haven’t accomplished it yet are anxiously awaiting his next jailbreak for their chance to prove themselves as well.
If I ever get in a dark mood I might have the poor guy get murdered by some vigilante antihero and make him the star victim in a murder mystery arc, but for now I have too much fun roleplaying this goofball.
I, too, had the idea of making an Underpowered Fragile, but it looks like ye beat me to it. : )
Thomas Thompson gained his powers after being struck by a lightning bolt while stocking outdoor shelves at a big box garden center, most likely due to some fluke reaction with the lawn care chemicals caught in the strike with him.
He remains confident that his awesome powers make him nearly unbeatable despite considerable evidence to the contrary.
a hooded black full-body suit covered in an elaborate mesh of copper wire and electronic modules, none of which actually do anything to boost or focus his powers but do add a good thirty pounds to his weight and make swimming inadvisable.
Thanks. Feel pretty confident, I managed it last year without much trouble.
Today’s baddie is Life-Ender, an assassin and kidnapper with a psionic stealth/memory erasure schtick going on.
Also got off my duff and alphabetized all the sub-categories on the Blog Content Index, although honestly I’m not sure how helpful that is for folks browsing at random.
Tuesday’s villain is Headache, a cruel telepathic powerhouse who toys with his victims.
