Isn't it funny how that happens? The more relatable the characters, the lower power they tend to be. Not always the case, but it's really hard not to empathize with the nerdy data analyst who loves fantasy shows or the med school resident struggling with student loan debt. Especially compared to galactic conqueror and interstellar spies.
Welcome to Decimation December, the final month of the Villain of the Day series! This month, we've got our eyes on world-ending, genocidal threats with the power to shake the Multiverse to its very core. 31 days to go!
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Villain of the Day: December 1 (Pathogene)
Upon his first appearance, Pathogene nearly annihilated every living soul in Chicago. And, if not for a case of the hives, Pathogene might be behind bars already.
in the months following the OblivAeon event, emergency cleanup and recovery efforts were in full swing. However, the destruction to the infrastructure of nearly every major metropolitan area worldside had been particularly severe. Roads were sundered, rent sewers openly spewed waste into clean waterways, and even the best supplied areas suffered for basic supplies: food, water, electrical hookups, and shelters. Disease ran rampant, and the hospitals overflowed with the wounded and sick.
As rescue workers moved rubble and recovered bodies, none really expected yet another supervillainous attack. Of course, that's when plague strikes, doesn't it? Victims carrying a number of rapid-moving symptoms--boils, vomiting, intense fevers and delerium--started flooding the Chicago local hospitals in droves, with the young and the elderly dying within 36 hours. Doctors and hospital workers suffered next, as the disease seemed to be resistant to all manner of anti-microbial and anti-viral loadouts. After the first two days and the first 500 fatalities, the truth made itself known. A message dropped to a Chicago-area radio station was immediately forwarded to police, the message reading as such:
Circle of life, peasants. The cow eats the grass, you eat the cow, and now its your turn to be eaten.
Long live the true inheritors of the earth: the viral, the microscopic. We are legion, and I am the hand that will deliver you mammals from existance.
I am Pathogene.
Police investigators, accompanied by a number of Dark Watch-affiliated heroes, immediately started a manhunt spanning the whole of the Chicago area. Analysis of security camera footage revealed a strange interloper at the radio station: a short visit by Dr. Melvin Partes, a noted virologist and epidemiologist. Dark Watch raided his apartment by night, only to find the good doctor already packing to leave. A fight erupted and the team seemed on the verge of triumph when Pathogene tossed out a small grenade-like sphere. While all the heroes were caught in the blast, Red Lynx caught the worst of it, her skin erupting in hives as she descended into anaphylactic shock. The heroes were forced to beat a hasty retreat, allowing Pathogene to escape.
While an international manhunt continues for Dr. Partes, the last known data actually shows him in the Kyoto area of Japan. One can only imagine what might happen if Pathogene managed to take control of some vestige of the titanic Invirodan. The whole world may face an unimaginable plague...
Villain of the Day: December 2 (The Man in the Moon)
Some people called Steven Galbrecht a lunatic when he said that the moon smiled at him. Turns out, it was more of a predatory grimace.
In days long past, when Thule, Atlantis and Lemuria fought their epic wars for dominion of the primordial Earth, Lemuria fielded a warcaster known as Ordinale. Called "the Breaker" by those who faced him in battle, Ordinale wielded eldritch magicks with aplomb, alternating gouts of sorcerous fire with titanic blows from his two-handed hammer, Shatterstone. Ordinale the Breaker faced down two full legion of Atlantean sky cavalry by himself, felling all but four of the dragon-riders before they could manage a desperate retreat. All the while, Ordinale called for more: more bloodshed, more death, and more challengers.
While alliances were the orders of the day for the three-way Arcanists' War, Ordinale rose to the top of the list of concerns for both Thule and Atlantis. Negotiators from Atlantis were brought before the Thulian Elder Mind, who offered a suggestion. If Ordinale could not be slain, perhaps he could be imprisoned. Thulian and Atlantean spellcasters began devising a plan...
Lemurian spies quickly learned of a ritual being planned by the Thulian Elder Mind; one that would align a powerful eldritch force with their own cunning and intellect. Supposedly, a retinue of Thule's greatest spellcasters were dispatched to an island (now known as Easter Island), where the ritual was to take place. The warcasters of Lemuria were convinced utterly: they dispatched Ordinale to the island to dispose of these upstarts.
As Ordinale arrived, cthonic sorceries swirled about the island as the Thulian warlocks were midway through their ritual. As he shouted a war cry and drew forth Shatterstone, Ordinale leapt to the battle...only for invisible Atlantean arcanists to catch the warcaster in mid-air with a holding incantation. Ordinale struggled to counter the spell, but even as he did so, the Thulian warlocks completed their incantation. The seas surrounding the island parted, as chunks of stone and rock tore themselves free of the moorings of the Earth's crust. Shouting one last curse, Ordinale was imprisoned within tons upon tons of rock and stone, which sped off in a blast of crimson and azul energy, embedding the stone prison deep within the Earth's moon, in what is now known as the Aitken Basin.
Ordinale slumbered for centuries, unable to gather his conscious mind long enough to manage any modicum of freedom. That is, until a strange beam struck the moon, pulling a chunk of the celestial body and slamming it into the Earth. Brought closer to the natural ley lines of the Earth, Ordinale's eyes opened, and he looked upon the Earth once more. There was one thing that could bring him his freedom: shattering the Moon against the Earth itself. Even now, he worms his sorceries into the minds of weak-willed individuals, intending to reactivate the beam that nearly freed him in the first place...and eradicating all those simpletons on the surface of the Earth. Even here, with the Arcanists' War a forgotten memory, Lemuria may yet be ascendant.
Villain of the Day: December 3 (De'jah Vu)
De'jah Michonne Thorpe knew that this wasn't the future she was promised as a child. As an Earth resident in the collapsing human mess of the 23rd century, Thorpe couldn't help but think that something had truly gone wrong along the way.
Now, Thorpe was hardly a schlub, trudging her way through the crumbling remains of what could have been a utopia. She was a noted theoretical physicist, having worked for a number of the largest research labs across both this world and on Mars. And, while she'd never resorted to implementing some of her more outlandish ideas, Thorpe had finally decided that her time had come.
Using her high-level credentials to steal a prototype micronized quark director, Thorpe outfitted herself with a massive amount of technology and armaments and set out to work backwards through the timestream, fully intending to change the past. However, one more than one occasion, De'jah Vu's interference has changed the present in subtle, destructive, and chaotic ways. Believing to take down the ancestors of a noted dictator, she has destroyed the lives of numerous future scientists and political leaders. In her efforts to restore the future's climate, she has crippled the economies of nations.
When confronted, De'Jah Vu's 'futuretech' devices are easily a match for any current armaments, and her particle shielding provides her nigh-invulnerability, albeit on a temporary basis. However, the greatest danger surrounding De'jah Thorpe are not her immediate attempts to 'repair' the timestream, but rather the continued use of chronal reversal on the whole. Each time she leaps backwards into time, she weakens the chronal integrity of the timeline, making it easier to fracture and less likely to result in causal links. As such, reality becomes more and more chaotic as the fundamental laws of the universe are unraveled to their core. De'jah is aware of this, but in her hubris, believes that if she could just find the correct temporal anomaly to correct, the whole of the universe would fall into place like the final piece of a jigsaw puzzle.
However, one too many jumps, and there may not be a world for De'jah Vu to 'save'.
Villain of the Day: December 4 (That Which Consumes)
The denizens of Magmaria have always had a strange relationship with the Crystalline Behemoths that lurk in the deepest tunnels of the Earth. Even as the Magmarians can use the behemoths as a food source, the hulking creatures are also feared and revered by the tribes lurking beneath the earth's surface. Those that can communicate with Magmarians may well learn the truth of this reverance: the Magmarian shamen know what lurks at the heart of the world.
It has no name. They call it That Which Consumes.
According to these shamen, the creature sleeps encased in the molten iron in the Earth's core. In time immemorial, when the Magmarians ruled more openly, the creature slid its way across the spaceways, feeding upon world after world, swallowing them up not unlike eggs swallowed by a snake. As such, the creature would have fed upon the whole of the earth.
The ancient Magmarians, though, knew of such creatures that roamed the primordial spaceways. Were they able to consult some cosmic scribe or historian, they might have even compared the creature to that strange beast known as Ta-Lor-En-Da-To. They scried upon the draconic beings in bowls of purest molten nickel. They sought wisdom from their greatest minds, and they trained their greatest warriors harder than ever before. As That Which Consumes arrived within the solar system, the ancient Magmarians were ready.
Calling forth a powerful arcanoscience ritual, the Magmarian shamen called upon the creature's natural bioelectric current and the Earth's own magnetic field, pulling it bodily into the earth itself . The meteoric strike which slew the dinosaurs, so many million years ago? That was none other than this creature, slamming into the earth and being pulled towards the Earth's core. As the being thrashed its way through the Earth's crust, Magmaria's warriors leapt to the attack, stabbing and slashing by the legion.
Weakened tremendously by its impact with the world's surface and the continual bleeding from Magmaria's finest, the creature was in no shape to eat or even to defend itself. There, in the deepest bowels of the planet, it coocooned itself within the natural minerals, preventing any further damage to itself from the Magmarians who interrupted its meal.
And there it sat, driftlessly dreaming within the core of the earth, occasionally arising only to peck at the infernal shell which contains it. The great Magmarian civilization rose and fell, and That Which Consumes became nothing more than a legend.
Then, more than a legend. Massive crystalline eggs began to appear within the Earth's mantle; from these eggs hatched the beings now referred to as crystalline behemoths, devouring all within their path.
The Magmarian shamen of today know the truth. That Which Devours is awakening from its self-imposed slumber. Its progeny already feast upon the world below, and the fallen Magmarians have nowhere near the might of their long-lost aeons. When That Which Devours finally emerges from its shell, it will surely be hungry...
Suck it, dinosaurs! >:V
Villain of the Day: December 5 (The Automaton)
He calls himself a machine, yet he walks like a man. Nonetheless, he wishes that he wouldn't.
The being calling himself The Automaton has been positively identified as Tom Rutherford, once an employee at IMAtrix, a global producer of medical implant devices and biomechanical creations. One of their lead programmers, Rutherford was hospitalized for an arachnoid cyst in the center of his cerebellum and volunteered to be one of the first to attempt a radical new surgery to eliminate the cyst and restore his normal brain activity.
That's where Rutherford's story goes off the rails. In the days following the lengthy and messy procedure to install a grain-sized implant in his cranial cavity, Rutherford's emotional capacity swiftly drained to nothing. He began referring to himself as a machine, not as a man, and showed no care for his wife, their children, or any of his former friends. And, the longer they were around him, the more they became like him. Within a few weeks, everyone within Rutherford's social circle had become emotional sponges, leeching away any ability for a mind near them to feel or experience an emotion. Those he has already 'excised'--The Servitors, he calls them--have enough of a hive-mind prescence that they act as a single unit, making them particularly deadly battlefield combatants.
Rutherford as The Automaton believes has come to believe that emotion and empathy are vestigial parts of the human experience and the sooner they are removed, the sooner mankind can move apace in the grand evolution of the cosmos. As such, Rutherford has begun to examine ways to systematically broaden the capacity of his pseudo-psychic, pseudo-mechanical powers to encompass the whole of the world. Recent attacks on major satellite stations, cable news networks, and other mass media outlets have all been attributed to The Automaton and his Servitors, insinuating that Rutherford has found some way of manipulating his powers through sound or video.
In any case, The Automaton's goal is clear and he is frightningly close to reaching it: a world bereft of joy, sorrow, or any other emotional response save cold, unfeeling logic.
Villain of the Day: December 6 (Project BASK)
A warm light for all mankind. That was the initial hope when Nautilus Industries CEO Eliot Marklund started buying up real estate in droves in equatorial desert areas. Employing a literal army of subcontractors, Nautilus began setting up a legion of solar panels, capable of delivering terawatts of power to areas all across Africa, Australia, and Asia.
But that wasn't quite enough to sate Marklund's ambitions, of course. And it just so happens that the right people are in place to take advantage of Marklund's good intentions.
It's a matter of public record that Nautilus Industries maintains a number of private communications satellites in low Earth orbit outside the upper atmosphere. Nautilus has long been at the head of private space exploration, and many look at Eliot Marklund as one of the fathers of "space tourism", catering to the rich and influential and providing those individuals an experience that few others could imagine. However, Nautilus' interests in space extends to a number of other venues, particularly linking to Nautilus' clean energy arm. And, under Project BASK, that vision may be realized.
Were it to be implemented successfully, Project BASK will utilize a number of satellite mounted lenses and solar arrays to focus solar radiation into an intensified, mile-wide beam capable of delivering over 100 times the normal energy provided through solar power. Linked into geosynchronous orbit at strategically placed locations around the globe, Nautilus plans to provide free, limitless electricity to all points throughout the world, effectively eliminating the need for carbon-based fuels in one fell swoop. Even as the earth rotates, the satellites continue to reflect and focus the solar energy, beaming it down to Earth in a cascade of free power.
That is, if Project BASK were used to specifications. With a significant number of strategically placed agents within Nautilus' upper eschelons, The Annihilationists will ensure that this never comes to be.
The satellite arrays currently in orbit have been aligned such that the beams are effectively weaponized. Within mere minutes of the array's activation, the solar energy will scorch through the energy collection apparatus and burning miles-wide holes into the earth's crust. Within an hour of activation, the focused beams would impale the whole of the earth, disrupting the natural shape of the planet and effectively cutting the globe in half roughly along the Equator. By the end of that day, not a living soul would remain on the planet.
Eliot Marklund intends the announcement of Project BASK to be a landmark moment in mankind. He doesn't know how right he's going to be.
Villain of the Day: December 7 (Hollow)
When she started, she simply wanted the freedom to use her powers as she saw fit. By the time Hollow left Earth, she knew that would never be enough. And in her greed, she may well bring doom to the whole universe.
Born Sarah Langley-Sizemore to a middle class household, Sarah started to manifest strange powers as a pre-teen, and was identified successfully by a GLOBAL metahuman watchgroup, whereupon her parents consented to her relocation for intensive training and control protocols. At age 11, Sarah was separated from her parents, moved to a training facility in the Falkland Islands, and spent approximately 10 hours a day training in the use of her powers.
The key, there, is the training. GLOBAL never did find a method to categorize Sarah. Generally viewed as a telekinetic, Sarah actually is capable of manipulating the weak vacuum state governing the flow of radiation across the universe. In practice, this creates 'bubbles' of kinetic force capable of moving massive objects, pulling or pushing things within her line of sight, and manipulating the four fundamental physical forces of the universe. As codename Hollow, Sarah was set to become a peacekeeper to rival any of the worlds' heroes.
Mind you, it wasn't until she started learning physics that Sarah actually put together the pieces. As she entered advanced military training--including a number of science courses--she managed to answer the questions that no one else could solved: she realized the truth behind her powers.
And that? That utterly frightened her handlers at GLOBAL. Naturally, they overreacted, to which Sarah immediately fled. An international manhunt ensued, with Sarah eventually fleeing to space.
Surviving in the vacuum was as much of a surprise to Sarah as it was the astronauts she passed by, but Hollow immediately felt a boost in power once freed from the bonds of an atmosphere. And, as she found, the longer she stayed out in space, the more powerful she grew. With an ever-increasing degree of cosmic power, Sarah's delusions of grandeur only grown exponentially; the more power she has, the more power she wants, the more power seeks.
However, Hollow has yet to realize the truest ramifications of her powerset. Her abilities, in actuality, do not so much 'manipulate' the weak vacuum state, so much as remove it. The longer that Hollow stays in space, the more she absorbs the ambient energies of the cosmos, the weaker the integrity of the universe becomes. Eventually, her absorption will reach what physicists call a 'vacuum metastability event'; the fundamental energies keeping the universe in stasis will simply fracture, spinning out into the nothingness in a universe-wide shockwave obliterating everything in its path. Hollow will becoming nothing short of a walking Big Bang; all the power she possibly could have wanted, and more.
Villain of the Day: December 8 (Lepton)
Love is a many splendid thing. That is, unless you're as petty and self-centered as Lepton.
Once an aspiring recruit with Dark Watch, Toby Wheeler is an identified Omega capable of emitting powerful radioactive blasts from his hands. While in training, he began dating Courtney Erazo, another Dark Watch recruit known as Kestrel. While the pair seemed to make a perfect pair on patrols--Kestrel was an accomplished martial artist and acrobat, while Lepton laid down cover fire with nuclear blasts--their romance was certainly one with no shortage of drama. Nine months into their training and partnership, it was evident to both Kestrel and Lepton, all of their fellow apprentices, and every instructor in the Dark Watch program that the pair were on the rocks. Despite a glorious weekend in the lakes around Lake Overbrook, it was increasingly evident that their romance was not to last. Over those months, Lepton had proven to be not only a poor boyfriend, but also a possessive, petty individual eager all too eager to see his girlfriend fail, so that he could be right there, waiting to be on the upswing.
Kestrel, however, was no dummy. She was more than aware of the cycles of abuse and control and grew wise to this. When she broke up with Lepton that April, however, he went (pardon the pun)...nuclear. His outburst in the Dark Watch training facility earned him the ire of every trainer affiliated with the program. Lepton was discharged from Dark Watch that very day.
Even as he applied (and was denied) for the Sentinels of Freedom program, Lepton utterly refused to leave Kestrel alone. He called her incessantly, sent letters and packages to her apartment, even attempted to break in on no less than four separate occasions. Needless to say, though, breaking into the home of a superhuman-trained, martial-arts expert vigilante was not exactly the best idea for Lepton's personal health. As he spent the next month recovering in a Megalopolis area hospital, Lepton started planning an elaborate revenge. He would go to Lake Overbrook and microwave the whole thing, turning into so much steam and gas. No more memories of Courtney.
Under normal circumstances, all this may seem rather ordinary, at least in the lives of superhumans. However, one extant issue changes all that. Among the tests run on Lepton during his application process included practical tests on how his powers interact with various elements and compounds. And, of course, a rare type of runoff into Lake Overbrook has an adverse reaction with the nuclear energy that Lepton emits. If Lepton goes through with his plan, petty though it may be, the ensuring radioactive cloud would taint approximateily 45% of the world's water with radioactivity. Further, the weather across the entire western hemisphere would become nothing short of a burning, irradiated cloud spewing noxious water and foulness. Within days, the irradiated water could destroy all organic life on the planet.
All that over a broken heart...
Villain of the Day: December 9 (Cataplex)
After 24 hours of sleep deprivation, the average human experiences impairment to coordination, memory, and the ability to form judgements in the brain, comparable to holding a blood alcohol content of 0.10 percent. After 36 hours, inflammatory markers begin showing up in a person's bloodstream, even as their endocrine system begins growing erratic, with hormone levels in the body willdly fluctuating. After 72 hours, the body begins experiencing significant issues in concentration and other higher mental processes, experiences hallucinations and other perception-based cognition errors, and can even develop false memories. After 96 hours, an individual might begin having violent seizures and the body starts breaking down neural tissue, resulting in psychosis and other short-term mental illness.
The psion known as Cataplex, however? They intend to push the world much beyond that 96 hour mark, and simply document the carnage that ensues.
Originally Brian Jouvet, Cataplex was born with a rare abnormality known as an Arnold-Chiari malformation, in which some of his brain tissue protrudes into the spinal canal. While this abnormality provides him a number of psionic abilities--a degree of telekinesis and telepathic communication--it also provides him the unique ability to manipulate the delta brain wave required for individuals (himself included) to enter a sleep cycle. Cataplex himself can stay awake for nearly one month with "no ill effects", though his burning curiousity (and madness) has resulted in a number of strange experiments involving sleep deprivation and manipulation. Most often, his victims die of an onset version of fatal-familial insomnia, in which his victims' neural network decays to the point where they can no longer enter any degree of nREM sleep, eventually suffering paranoia, dementia, then death.
However, Cataplex's experiements are about to take on a whole new scope. After years of experimentation, Cataplex has managed to locate a single wavelength capable of transmitting his psychic manipulations. After infiltrating a major satellite relay station, Cataplex can broadcast that psychic wavelenth across the whole of the world. And from his fortress/relay-station, Cataplex will observe his grand experiment in action...
Villain of the Day: December 10 (Mass Driver)
The years of FILTER's timeline-hopping infiltrations may well be over, but the remnants of their dominion in the Null Space Observatory still remain. The metahuman known as Mass Driver is among the most dire of FILTER's mistakes, and he seems more than ready to wreak his vengeance upon whatever Earth lies below.
No current prison records seem to have any actual record of Mass Driver's true identity; both DNA tests and facial recognition technology have failed to match Mass Driver with any known criminal or metahuman. Further, no one seems to know exactly how long or why FILTER was holding Mass Driver. Based on limited interactions with the metahuman, it appears that Mass Driver had been held under FILTER's most secure cells within The Block, with access to him restricted to personnel with the absolute highest security clearance. Mass Driver must have been held there for something upwards of four years, as there was no evidence of him in The Block during the Vengeance-era riots, but did appear prior to the destruction of The Block at the hands of Becky Blast and the Steel Squadron.
While physically strong and fit on his own, Mass Driver's true strength lies in his manipulation of ambient magnetic fields. Mass Driver has shown himself capable of propelling metallic objects as projectiles, with an acceleration ratio sitting at approximately .5% of Caianiello's maximal acceleration, a number previously viewed as incalculable. While his usage of this power has typically been restricted to the typical cars, girders, construction equipment, and other items, Mass Driver has proved only more and more deadly in confrontation, wielding larger and more potent items with aplomb, and has shown no signs of reaching any upper limit.
In actuality, Mass Driver has no cap to his powers. As long as he is within a magnetic field of any significance, his body absorbs that field, making him stronger. However, this has its own side effect: the eventual demagnetization of the extant magnetic field. On Earth, this will eventually--within the next year--result in the complete demagnetization of the Earth's core. So demagnetized, the Earth's atmosphere would be ripped away by the naturally-occuring solar winds that stream through our solar system. Much like Mars, the Earth's atmosphereic pressure would drop far enough that all water would evaporate before being whisked out into the ether by the solar winds.
On the plus side, though, Mass Driver is no longer on Earth. Rather, he has taken up on an abandoned FILTER base on Mars...where he has begun extracting the iron oxide from the surrounding fifty-odd miles, preparing one last huzzah: a mile-long lance of metal, set to spear GLOBAL Headquarters--the inheritors of FILTER, in his eyes--all the way from space.
Villain of the Day: December 11 (Attricia)
Where she walks, only dust remains.
The first known appearance of the woman known as Attricia reduced the Fort Stevenson Bridge into crumbled mortar. As rush hour descended and the citizens of Megalopolis dreamed of a relaxing weekend, a dark haired woman began to stride down the middle of the eastbound lanes heading into the city. While Attricia's prescence drew stares--reports of a 'naked' woman walking down the freeway were erroneous; as keen-eyed observers realized, Attricia was wearing a reddish form-fitting bodysuit--attention swiftly turned from the woman herself to what was occuring in her wake.
Behind Attricia, matter simply began to unwind.
Steel cables of the suspension bridge corroded and unraveled. The concrete and asphalt in her footsteps sizzled and disintegrated into so much dust. Cars in her wake rusted, the chassis wafting away in the breeze even as their owners fled in horror. By the time that heroes managed to arrive on the scene, the bridge was beyond salvaging: their efforts were pushed by necessity towards rescue/recovery and preventing Attricia from entering Megalopolis proper. However, as quickly as Attricia arrived and crossed the bridge, she disappeared. A swirling, rust-colored portal opened before the woman, disappearing immediately after she entered it. As Attricia vanished from sight, the last bits of the Fort Stevenson Bridge collapsed into the river, sending half-ruined cars and crumbling cement blocks splashing into the water.
Each time Attricia has appeared in a given place, the story goes the same. Matter simply disintegrates as Attricia passes by; she does little to actively engage heroes or law enforcement, simply letting her very presence unravel everything around her. Attempts to determine from whence Attricia comes have been inconclusive; residual extra-dimensional energy would seem to indicate some degree of sorcery or arcane power, though her abilities seem to disassemble matter at the molecular level, implying some form of heretofor unknown science.
However, astute investigators have begun to realize: each time Attricia appears, she stays approximately 25 seconds longer. One can only wonder what will happen to the world should she decide to stay...
What a strong image. And why 25 seconds, I wonder...
Villain of the Day: December 12 (Xagan, Master of the Oubliette)
There is a great unrest in the Realm of Discord. And, for a dimension of roiling chaos and ever-changing landscapes, that's certainly saying something.
For time untold, the undisputed master of the the Realm of Discord has been the being known as Gloomweaver, the Voodoo god of despair and nightmares. However, in this recent era, mighty Gloomweaver has found his centuries-long plots thwarted time and again by bumbling mortals from the Material plane. No amount of cultists nor relics managed to result in a victory for the Lord of Nightmares. And, after Gloomweaver's eternal essence became trapped within a mortal energy being, the dormant and cowed powers in the Realm of Discord began to question their fealty to their long-tenured lord and master.
Now, beings have turned against Gloomweaver numerous times across the aeons. Within mortal reckoning, Ruin's betrayal of Gloomweaver stood as a finite example that Gloomweaver, despite its near-immediate defeat at the hands of The Argent Adept. But with Gloomwaver away from its seat of power, numerous other beings have taken the opportunity to grasp for power in the fields of madness.
Not the least of these is a being known as Xagan, titled the Master of the Oubliette.
Ruler of a plane of torment and imprisonment, Xagan has gone by numerous names across the centuries, never truly forming a cult unto itself. Rather, its worshippers have lurked on the fringest of society, with Xagan influencing a set number of individuals to create massive dungeon labyrinths, filled with all manner of deathtraps and torture devices. Xagan cultists--known in occult circles as 'jailors'--are noted kidnappers, who use their powers to capture unwitting and unwary individuals, thrust them into their labyrinth lairs, and watch the carnage unfold.
Demented as that may be, Xagan has larger plans. Never one to try a failed concept, Xagan has long given up on the idea of breaking 'into' the material world. Rather, it plans to imprison as much of the material plane in the Realm of Discord itself, allowing the naturally occuring arcane energies break down the barriers between the planes, effectively dissolving whole sections of the material plane into the chaos that permeates the Realm of Discord. With each completed labyrinth, with each blood smeared rune traced through winding passages, whole chunks of the material world are merged wholesale into Xagan's Oubliette. And, with just a few more sacrifices, whole cities and nations will find themselves under the steel skies of a discordian dungeon.
Villain of the Day: December 13 (Tsunamus)
In the beginning, there was life. Then, came the flood, with life drowned beneath crashing waves. And, as the waters receded, mankind arose.
The concept of the flood has lurked within the collective subconscious of mankind's myth and legend since time immemorial. With nearly every culture having some sort of "flood myth", the question arises, from whence to those myths arise. The answer, of course, is Tsnamus.
Not a native to our dimension, Tsnamus was one of the prime elementals--a being so massive and powerful that it, unto itself, could be considered a dimensional plane on its own. Tsnuamus, as one might figure, is a being comprised entirely of the universal solvent. It has something akin to a consciousness, but only one primary need: to spread. If not contained in some manner, Tsnaumus (or any prime elemental) would simply continue to expand until it encompassed everything in existence.
The ancient cultists of lost Lemuria did not know this much, as it turns out. While they knew Tsunamus as a powerful force capable of gifting them arcane might, they had no idea of exactly 'how' powerful Tsnamus truly was. And, when that power by itself turned out to not be enough, those same cultists only learned the truth as their lungs filled with water and they gasped out their final screams.
It was only through the intervention of Atlantis (at the time, Lemuria's ally, though not for much longer afterwards), that Tsunamus was locked away once more, sealed behind the labyrinthine Atlantean wards beneath what has become modern Greenland. There, Tsunamus was frozen, his expansion halted by a continually-refreshing incantation that ensured that the prime elemental could not expand as he so chose. There, those lost Atlantean sages left behind a set of natives capable of refreshing those wards, of maintaining the frigid cold capable of keeping Tsunamus from encompassing the globe.
But now, the world faces a two-fold gateway for Tsunamus to complete his deluge of Earth. As the globe continues to warm, thanks to human intervention and global warming, Greenland's wards have begun to fail. And, for some reason, the long-standing line of winter guardians in Greenland who could refresh those wards is simply...gone.
Villain of the Day: December 14 (Dr. Julian Osprey)
After all manner of treachery, Dr. Julian Osprey may be one of the few unpowered individuals on Earth capable of saving the world...if you can keep him alive long enough.
A noted agricultural biochemist, Osprey was never satisfied with his work, drifting between the various Big Six agribusiness firms in various, increasing roles. He lived an opulent life, but he really felt that he could make a true impact doing...something. As he vacationed in the Maldives, sipping a cocktail and contemplating his luxurious and unfulfilled life, Osprey was given an offer to make a real change. A chance to be a part of something greater, something that would forever impact humanity.
That's when Julian Osprey was recruited by The Annihilationists.
Whisked off to a bunker in a location that even he was not fully aware of--Osprey believes that the bunker to be in a major mountain range, likely the Andes--Osprey began work on what became Test Case #4C385. Osprey's test case, in fact, was a microscopic mite, capable of living on grains of pollen and utterly invisible to the naked eye. These mites would be carried by native bee and insect populations through natural pollination cycles, allowing the mites to spread rapidly across all manner of flowering plants, including food production fields. Resembling a tardigrade in many respects--Osprey used a DNA sequence remarkably similar to tardigrades when engineering Test Case #4C385--the mites are immune to extreme temperatures, all manner of poisons, differences in atmospheric pressure, and any number of traditional effects.
Plants pollinated by #4C385 mites experience a particularly rapid death cycle, seeming almost to rot as if by some fungus. However, no amount of fungicide or antimicrobial seems capable of killing the creatures and if Osprey's calculations are correct, the spread of the mites would be on an exponential scale. Over the course of six months, over two-thirds of the world's primary food production facilities would be infected with #4C385 mites beyond any possible recovery. Worldwide food production would plummet, resulting in the starvation of approximately half the extant world population within two years, and a 95% depopulation within 5 years.
Two weeks ago, the reality of what Julian Osprey was doing caught up with him. In a crisis of conscience, he fled the bunker, managing to elude his former compatriots long enough to reach Megalopolis. He gladly aids any heroes with whatever knowledge and resources he can muster, but Osprey knows it may well be too little, too late. While #4C385 has yet to be unleashed, the countdown to the world's end has already begun.
Villain of the Day: December 15 (Cannonade)
Like so many, Scott Jamison entered the 'real world' with the best of intentions, wanting nothing to be a hero. However, the more good he does as Cannonade, the closer the world inches towards utter destruction.
Scott's fiery powerset first emerged just two days shy of his eighteenth birthday. While on an excursion to a local lake with some friends, Scott went to skip a stone across the water, only for a blast of flame to emerge from his fingertips, sizzling into the water with a gout of steam. Astounded, Scott's friends pushed him for more and greater tricks; within hours, Scott was blasting plumes of red-orange flame into the sky and picking off floating logs with aplomb. Naturally, the local forest service soon came to investigate, though Scott and his friends beat a hasty retreat.
Scott wasn't particularly discreet with his powers and, rather than trying to hide them from his parents and relatives, he decided to sit them down and have the awkward conversation as to what he should do next. His parents were concerned, but overall supportive, deciding to refer Scott to the Sentinels of Freedom program after his graduation. They did, however, put Scott through all manner of medical tests and examinations, simply to ensure both Scott's safety and the safety of those around him. After a good deal of genetic testing, it was determined that Scott's powers had occured through a natural metabolic mutation; he was not an Omega, nor was his powers from any sort of outside locus.
After graduation, Scott moved to Megalopolis, where he was assigned to a cohort of new metahumans for additional training and education in regards to power usage. During one of those training sessions, though, something strange happened. Rather than simply emitting flame, Scott's entire body burst into flame. While he himself wasn't damaged, the extreme heat emanating from his body torched his clothes and set his fellow heroes scrambling for cover. After a moment, Scott returned to his natural form, suffering only a touch of embarassment as he struggled to cover his inadvertant nudity.
However, this transformation seemed to continue to plague Cannonade, even as he went out on his first patrols. Metahuman experts and doctors at Freedom Plaza have noted that his powers seem stable, and continue to be linked to his consciousness, which allow his degree of control even while asleep or knocked out. However, doctors have yet to piece together that every time Scott utilizes his powers--even in the most innocent of manners--the temperature at which he burns increases. His core temperature, when transformed into his 'elemental' form is currently capable of melting solid titanium. If this trend continues, Scott may well reach a temperature capable of igniting the very atmosphere around him: the whole world would be cast aflame in a conflagration nothing sort of apocalyptic.
Unfortunately, Scott is no longer conscious. Cannonade was incapacitated during a skirmish with a few former members of the Citizens of the Sun, and currently is comatose in a Megalopolis area hospital. Doctors have already noted that Scott's hospital room has been increasing in heat, currently sitting around 140 degrees F. Nurses and doctors have reported gouts of flame scorching the walls and equipment, and Scott has had to be moved a number of times, for the safety of other guests. Scott appears to be fighting some psychic battle while comatose, resulting in the usage of his powers in the conscious world. And, if not stopped, the whole world will soon be consumed in a Cannonade
Villain of the Day: December 16 (Backup)
Nessa Parker-Black never came back from Mars.
A noted data technician on the Wagner Mars Base, Nessa found herself lucky enough to survive not only Ambuscade's attack on the base, but also the infiltration by the Scions of OblivAeon and the legion of alternate-universe KNYFEs preparing a final strike on reality. As battles raged across Earth and the Wagner Mars Base klaxons sounded with all manner of ominous warnings--"Base Self Destruct in T-15 minutes and counting. Warning: Base Life Support is now offline.--Nessa simply did her best to find a way to survive.
And, somehow, beyond all odds, she did.
Sitting alone in the darkened base, wondering when she was going to die, Nessa came upon a project that she'd only worked on in a cursory basis. Several of the scientists and engineers had been working on a scanning device capable of identifying and sequencing DNA from a distance: a doctor could receive a full genetic profile from a patient across the country simply through a downloadable webcam app. There, amid the massive server banks, Nessa came to a realization: Earth needed a Backup.
Since that day, Nessa has worked in the shadows, stealing items from government labs, high security science facilities, and all manner of black markets as she perfects her piece-de-resistance. Nessa has begun work on an amplifier capable of broadcasting the scanning signal of the Wagner genetic profiler device on a massive scale, sequencing the genetic makeup of whole swaths of the world in a single usage. She intends to record every living creatures' DNA digitally, for posterity, launching her servers into deepest space....before using that same carrier wave to erase every mind subjected to it. Every conscious being on Earth would become a drooling, incoherent husk, capable only of the most basic actions.
For whatever reason, Nessa has become an utter nihilist regarding humanity's chances, believing that the only way for the species' survival is to hope that some other sentient species will reconstitute the species from her DNA sequences and piece mankind back together. And, if she completes her work, she will have created nothing sort of a backup for humanity. It can thank her once it's alive once more...
Villain of the Day: December 17 (The Formula)
Its existence is mere rumor, scattered across the myriad worlds of the Multiverse. Mathematicians, philosophers, logicians, and arcanists across the cosmos have but touched upon its presence. Sane men have pursued it, only to be driven mad. Madmen speak it, and whole worlds end.
It is known as The Formula: the collective mathematical representation of the entropic principles governing our universe.
The foremost scientists of worlds occasionally touch upon The Formula. Eliot Marklund knows of it; disseminated through his loyal workers, his understanding of The Formula culminated in the dimensional gate technology found within Nautilus Industries' enigmatic Design Bay L. The geneticists within Black Site Tango touch upon the genetic aspects of The Formula, establishing one unified theory for the breakdown of an individual species, creating something more than it ever was.
However, no portion of science can ever truly grasp The Formula without an understanding of the arcane and occult. The ancient Atlanteans knew this: their wars with Thule and Lemuria led them to blend science and magic in equal measure, breaching the walls of this reality and letting *something* through. However, even the most stalwart minds of the Atlanteans crumbled beneath the knowledge conveyed through The Formula, leaving Atlantis without its best and brightest as it faced its final culling. Am-Dhaegar glimpsed portions of their sorcery, looted from ruins beyond time and space and culling knowledge from beyond this reality. Yet he, too, delved too far and drunk too deeply of the well of knowledge, walking in realms where no man was meant to tread.
Today, only the most foolish try to unify the two-fold realms of science and magic, of the technological and the occult. And as the universe dies, the end of man is to know.