Demiher0's said it pretty perfectly, so I'll just add to what he said.
So yeah, if you find life becomes too much to handle, then I won't be offended if you don't continue. I really apprecoate it though, and would be thrilled if you do more.
All right, then. We forge on! February will focus on Foreign Threats: threats not originating in the United States.
Villain of the Day: February 1 (Jimmy Fish-Eyes)
Jiichirou "Jimmy" Nobuto had a case of the wandering eyes. No matter how good he had it, he always wanted something different, something new, something more. If he just got a new car? He'd find himself back on the car lots, eyeing up the newer models. In a restaurant? He'd scope out what someone else had ordered, wondering when he should change his own order. In a relationship with a gorgeous girlfriend? He'd scope the dating sites on the down-low, looking for someone cuter. Within his circle of friends, his tendency to gape and stare earned him the nickname Jimmy Fish-Eyes, as he scoped out what might be out there.
However, Jimmy's eye for the finer things did have its perks. As a low-level extortionist with the Kokuru-kai yakuza group, he could always tell when someone was holding out on him, able to sniff out hidden cash, weapons, or other valuables with ease. After a particularly lucrative score, in which Jimmy located a cache of conflict diamonds, his oyabun decided to reward him with something most unique.
Jimmy's surgery lasted for nearly 16 hours. With Jimmy on the table, the Afrikaans surgeon was nothing short of a maestro, removing his eyes and attaching new ones directly into his optic nerves.
He emerged from his recovery with powers true to his name. Mechanical cybernetic eyes bulged from his sockets: he could now see into alternate spectrums of light, see through thin objects, and see at incredible distances or with power magnification. Further, Jimmy's enhanced vision granted him phenomenal skill at marksmanship, turning what was an average shot into a shootist that could out-duel even the best of Olympic marksmen and archers. To keep a lower profile, Jimmy's become ubiquitous for his large, jet black sunglasses which cover all but the barest trace of his cybernetics.
Fish-Eyes continues to work for the Kokuru-kai, but as per usual, he has his eyes on bigger scores. Perhaps those individuals who gave him his new eyes might be hiring...
Villain of the Day: February 2 (Vabanque)
Gregoire D'Alembert loved the thrill of the dice. The flip of a card enthralled him. That tension between dealer and player, the shifty eyes, the decision to stay or hit, the bluff and patter at the gambling table. Gregoire himself was a good enough player--typically favoring baccarat, blackjack, and craps--but the atmosphere of a casino was intoxicating to him. Growing up in Luxembourg, he quickly moved to Monte Carlo, taking a position as a croupier at a small casino.
Over time, Gregoire rose through the ranks, eventually becoming a baccarat ladderman in a notable coastline casino. Unfortunately for Gregoire, that casino did not take kindly to thieves--while Gregoire himself took nothing, a nefarious co-worker shunted the blame onto him--and worse, that casino happened to be mob-affiliated. Rather than turn Gregoire in to the authorities, a few burly men took him into the kitchen walk-in after hours and proceeded to teach him a proper lesson.
The explosion of energy in the kitchen nearly demolished the east wing of the casino. Bleeding from his pummelling, Gregoire flared with power in all directions, slaying his assailants and decimating the kitchen. Not understanding what had happened to him, Gregoire fled the casino, packed a swift bag, and ran for his life.
Since that day, Gregoire has started to gain a handle on his energy-expulsion abilities. Styling himself as the rakish Vabanque, he can project energy missiles after the four card suits, while his costume resembles nothing so much as the Jack of Diamonds, replete with pale-faced mask.
In his civilian guise, Gregoire travels from casino to casino, bilking casinos--particularly mob-affiliated ones--out of thousands of dollars. However, while dressed as Vabanque, he revels in theft and derring-do, his actions leaving gambling houses smoking and penniless in his wake.
Villain of the Day: February 3 (The Polong)
The villagers in Tanha Rata, Malaysia always managed to keep the beast at bay. For centuries upon end, a villager would leave their village, venturing deep into the jungle and entering the forbidden cave. Torch in hand, the altar lay before them, the same two objects always in place: a small stone knife and a black-quartz bottle. Each day, at noon, a villager would prick their index finger with the stone blade and ooze a single drop of blood into the bottle. Each time, the creature in the bottle rose to feed, but each time it simply fed on the blood and returned to the bottle. Few knew why this ritual was performed; fewer still knew what actually lurked within the bottle. But all knew: each day, one drop of blood kept the bottle satisfied.
But, as with all things during the OblivAeon event, the routine mundane rituals of life were flung aside in favor of pure survival.
The islands of Malaysia were struck by a massive typhoon as OblivAeon arrived, with massive storms and crashing waves slamming against the shore. Tanha Rata was submerged, the villagers clinging to debris and clambering to their roofs to simply survive. As rescue boats and helicopters scoured the village, Tanha Rata's wise woman could only consider one dire fate: "The bottle. It is gone."
Along the northern coast of Australia, little Genevieve Wallace loved picking up shells along the beach. When she found a black quartz bottle, she was quick to rush home to show her auntie. Auntie Gertrude smiled and told her niece, "It's beautiful; why don't we clean it up before we put it in your collection?"
Their mutilated bodies were found in Gertrude's backyard, their entrails streaming down the sidewalk and their livers outright missing.
Since then, The Polong has roamed free across Australia, New Zealand, and the islands of southeast Asia. In most cases, it appears just as little Genevieve did in life, her having been its first true victim in centuries. However, as it engages foes, The Polong morphs into a swirling oval of teeth, claws, suckers, and amorphous flesh. It exists only to feed, to sow carnage, and to create more of its own kind. It greatly prefers the liver tissue of humans, as the increased iron content in the liver more easily feeds it, bringing it closer towards replication. And, after just a few more victims, there may be more than one Polong menacing Malaysia.
Villain of the Day: February 4 (Erudite)
Professor Jonathon Lew-Hansfield was the very definition of an ivory tower academic. Born to an Ivy League household, he attended Oxford and Cambridge, before taking a full professorship at the Universitat Heidelberg in Germany. A professor of philosophy, Lew-Hansfield was well-read, better-spoken, and always eager to find ways to expand his sizable intellect.
What he couldn't stand, though? His students.
Even as a full professor, Lew-Hansfield found himself forced into providing classes for (*scoff*) undergraduates, as they shambled from class to class, wearing their t-shirts and yoga pants, worried only about their next night at the bar or their next late-night conquest. He loathed them. He loathed everything they stood for: their commercialism, their lack of insight, their pedantic acceptance of mediocrity. He couldn't stand it. Not one more minute.
Now, Lew-Hansfield was no scientist, but he surely knew enough of them from his countless years in academica. He just didn't bank on his contact in the Manchester University physics department being affiliated with some organization called TALOS.
The villain now known as Erudite made his first appearance at a Hamburg football match against Manchester United. Manchester was up 2-0 when a figure in silver armor descended from the rafters of the Volksparkstadion, his voice booming over the loudspeakers. "Simpletons!" he bellowed, "This paltry display of primitive amusement is at an end. Feel now, the raw might of the human mind, unfurled!"
Waves of psionic energy washed over the crowd. Pylons and support structures tore themselves free of their moorings slamming into the field. Erudite's first appearance brought a death toll in the hundreds as fans fled the stadium in horror. A massive manhunt ensued, with clever investigators quickly realizing that the demure, arrogant philosophy professor had turned into a full-fledged villain.
Erudite is still at large, with his crimes neatly balanced between thefts of high-end art and historical objects (for his private collection) and attacks on what he believes to be "vulgar" activities that dumb down the masses. Recent targets have included the red-carpet release of a major blockbuster film, a large video game convention, and the Black Friday sales at the Mall of America. Erudite has traveled the world, deludedly attempting to eradicate all those things he believes to be unnecessary, as he prepares a grander plan for a more selective, enlightened world...
Villain of the Day: February 5 (Baba Yaga)
Katja Lukyarenko was living the high life. The dilettante daughter of old money in Kiev, Ukraine, she cavorted across Europe throughout her early 20s, nominally 'studying' at university, but often spending more time in the nightclubs of The Netherlands or along the sun-drenched beaches of Cyprus. Katja was a beautiful person doing beautiful-person-things, living an idyllic life.
That is, until one fateful night in St. Petersburg.
Katja and several of her girlfriends were out late one evening, on their way home from some drunken revelry in a Russian nightclub. Roaming through the streets that icy winter's day, Katja and her crew cut down an alley, eager to find an all-night restaurant where they could cap off their evening. As Katja stepped gingerly through the alley--her stiletto heels clacking along the cobblestones--a cry rang out. Katja stumbled into a heap of snow and trash as a figure pushed her aside, crying out in pain: Katja had stepped on a decrepit old homeless woman, who had taken up refuge in the alley.
More than a little inebriated and now angry at having been shoved into the muck, Katja berated the old woman, kicking at her and cursing profusely. The old woman cowered in fear and shame before extending one long-nailed finger, "You! You have everything! I have nothing, but you still curse at me! By Koschkei's deathless egg, you will know the sorrow I have felt!"
Katja's friends pulled her along, but the woman continued to stare at her, the transient's eyes glinting in the St. Petersburg snow. That next day, the woman was found in the alley, having died of hypothermia.
That next night, the first transformation occured. As she primped for another night out in front of her hotel room mirror, Katja's face withered. Her hands gnarled and her back curled into a hunch. There in her four-star room, Katja had transformed into a hideous hag! In horror, she fled into the night, utterly terrifying anyone she passed as she went.
Over the months and years since then, Katja's curse has provided her a significant degree of power. Able to channel discordian magics, she refers to herself with the name of the ancient Russian witch, Baba Yaga, even flying through the air in a conjured mortar and pestle. Katja can, in fact, use her magics to resume her prior, youthful form, though doing so takes such concentration and focus that she cannot perform any other magics and, if distracted, will return to her crone form.
Baba Yaga will stop at nothing to break her curse and, as such, has taken to all manner of foul sorceries, hoping that some long forgotten branch of discordian magic might free her from this fate. Most notably, Katja completed a daring raid upon the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, stealing one of the few known full translations of De Vermiis Mysteriis, a powerful spellbook once held by the noted sorcerer Ludwig Prinn. What Baba Yaga may unleash from this tome, though, may not be worth the price of her reclaimed youth...
Villain of the Day: February 6 (The Half Man)
Yusuf Ishan was a child of war. Growing up along the Uzbekistan/Afghanistan border, his parents farm was the site of marauding warlords, Soviet tanks, British paramilitary forces, and invading Americans throughout his entire life. His father, a wheat farmer, was crippled by a land mine when Yusuf was merely 8, leaving his mother to care for the whole household and maintain th efarm itself.
Yusuf could never understand, for the life of him, what drove all these people to such violence. Surely, there must be a way for them to see reason. Despite his family's trials and travails, Yusuf was still able to attend a local school, eventually even making it to university in India. However, while there, tragedy struck. Yusuf's family were caught in the crossfire during a firefight in a nearby marketplace--his mother and three of his siblings were gunned down by acciental fire.
Both Yusuf and his father took this loss heavily, mourning for weeks on end. That is, until Yusuf found something of note. While out on a contemplative walk, he literally fell into a bunker he had never seen before. Inside were technological wonders beyond his own imagining: weapons, armor, computers, and more. Yusuf could read English well enough--after some brief investigation, he came to realize the truth of this bunker: it belonged to an organization known as TALOS.
But, within the bunker was a prize beyond measure: a series of vials quite clearly labeled as a drug regimen, capable of altering the imbiber's genetics and providing them with a degree of metahuman abilitiy. Full of loss and still raging at the senseless violence that decimated his family, Yusuf injected himself with the serum and, sealing the bunker behind him, headed back home. He never made it that far.
Over the next four days, Yusuf wandered through the wilderness, in abject pain and horrific hallucination. Wandering across a sun-scorched mountaintop, he collapsed, ready to die. But die he did not. His skin facing the sun darkened to the point of becoming jet black, appearing to divide him almost exactly in half vertically. But, as he rose onn that fifth day, he found himself invigorated. He was stronger, faster, and resistant to harm of all sorts. His reflexes and senses were heightened. He was reborn.
Since that day, a mysterious divided figure has waged an outright war upon any forces who might interlope in the Afghan states. The Half Man and an ever-expanding cadre of followers waged a guerilla war against the Taliban, the American forces, and the Afghan government itself, using strange, scientifically advanced weaponry pulled from that TALOS bunker. Yusuf has no more patience to give. His people will no longer bleed; only his enemies will.
Villain of the Day: February 7 (Squall)
Alvin Sigurlinni's parents lived in the most remote parts of Greenland; once a month, his father took their boat out for supplies. Beyond that, Alvin had little contact with the outside world, beyond that of his parents and his siblings. Alvin was home schooled, primarily by his eldest sister Ingva, though he always craved more. He yearned to go with his father into Maniitsoq to see new people and to see the sights beyond his family's homestead. His parents were adamant, though: he must stay home.
But, of course, after you tell a child 'no' for so long, eventually they'll start to look for a way for that 'no' to become a 'yes'. For Alvin, this meant sneaking aboard his father's boat and, when father went shopping for food and other supplies, Alvin could explore the town.
Snow in Greenland is omnipresent. However, as Alvin slipped out of the ship's hold, the wind began to swirl much more strongly. The snowflakes, slowly drifting down along the whole trip, began to fall in earnest, thick and whipping through the icy wind. As Alvin stepped onto the sidewalk, he felt a strange power surge through him. His eyes flared brilliant blue and, falliing to his knees, he cried out in alarm and pain.
Alvin was, of course, an Omega. His powers of atmokinetic control could manifest intensely powerful winter storms, disrupting temperatures and causing massive precipitation in a several-mile radius around him. And worse, his powers were entirely beyond his control.
By the time that the Sentinels of Freedom managed to reach Alvin, the entire village of Maniitsoq was under 5 feet of snow. Eventually, Alvin's role in the sudden storm was discovered; the boy was sedated and taken into custody, though his family has vehemently protested. The Greenland government has taken up the issue of Alvin's undue incarceration in international court, though the Sentinels of Freedom claim that his continued sedation is necessary for the safety of all those around him.
To this day, the public believs that the metahuman referred to as Squall remains unconscious in a stasis chamber in Freedom Plaza. However, with a new session of the International Court of Justice set to begin, it may only be a matter of time until the truth is exposed: the still-sedated body of Alvin Sigurlinni has been stolen by parties unknown. The living snowstorm may yet walk the earth again.
Villain of the Day: February 8 (Jericho)
During the Ennead's takeover of Egypt, the remaining states in the Middle East were thrown into a panic. With nine ultra-powerful would-be gods having walled off Egypt, many of the Levant states began to actively recruit identified metahumans into their own military special ops corps, setting off a chain reaction of metahuman arms proliferation. Syria, Libya, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and several other countries offered multi-million dollar contracts to assorted metahumans to act as "military consultants" within their own military forces.
Israel, however, had a different idea.
Recruited by Lieutenant Colonel Uri Felsenthal of the Israeli Special Forces, fourteen volunteers were folded into Project: Jericho. Deep within the bowels of a skunkworks beneath Tel Aviv, Project Jericho represented the summation of global arms technology meant to replicate and surpass that of the United States' "Bunker" suit. Jericho-assigned scientists brought in power sources and capacitors from Mordengrad, armor plating based on the original Omnitron designs, state of the art weapons and targeting systems from Blackstock-McCalley, and a from-scratch, in-house built user interface, built for ease of piloting.
The fourteen Jericho suits were first deployed as crowd-control units during the OblivAeon crisis, but quickly found themselves pressed into rescue and reconnaisance roles, in addition to facing down seeming legions of Aeon men. Unsurprisingly, the suits proved to be formidable military tools, with near impenetrable armor and a bevy of modular armament options. Felsenthal's project was hailed as a rousing success and were folded into the Israeli military structure with great fanfare.
...which, of course, led to greater destablilization. The Jericho suits were deployed to patrols along the Gaza Strip, leading directly to a firefight with PLO affiliated insurgents. No less than 64 individuals were killed during this mission, with the Jericho suits standing as monoliths of destruction in the midst of the battlefield flames. Palestinian officials immediately filed a grievance with the United Natiosn war crimes tribunal, citing the use of "weapons of mass destruction" in the field, intending to have the international community put the kibosh on the use of armored suits on the battlefield. In a stunning reversal of fortune, the tribunal found that, since the armament of the Jericho suit was no different than that of a modern tank or other armored cavalry units, no such sanctions would be made.
To this day, the 14 members of Project Jericho have done much to benefit the Israeli state, which has only earned them the ire of their neighbors. Rumors swirl of an alliance of Arab states, set to invade Israel with the singular intent of dismantling the threat posed by the Israeli military and Project Jericho. And, should this happen, the Jericho suits will undoubtedly be on the front lines, facing off against metahuman mercenaries. But where, then, will the Sentinels of Freedom stand when the superhumans of the world go to war?
Villain of the Day: February 9 (Iyo)
In the midst of the Middle Eastern arms proliferation in the wake of Israel's Project: Jericho, the various countries along the Arabian peninsula have begun active recruitment efforts into their own militaries. One of the cornerstones of those recruitment efforts has come from Iyo, the Crystalline Man.
Born Amanuel Mebrahtu in Eritrea, Iyo's abilities first manifested during the Somali conflicts during the early 2000s, while he worked with a minor mercenary group. Believed to be a latent Omega, Amanuel is able to crystallize his own body, turning himself into something akin to a walking salt crystal. His abilities, naturally, provided him significant resistance to damage, a degree of enhanced strength, and an ability to blast out a blinding spray of salt crystals, which deals little damage, but can easily blind or disorient unsuspecting foes.
However, with the establishment of a coalition government in Somalia in 2009, Iyo decided to embark on a different opportunity. Contacted by a military minister in Yemen, Iyo was offered a princely sum--all held in offshore accounts--to aid the Yemeni government in both special operations and spec-ops recruitment efforts, as they sought to supplement their own military with metahumans. In this role, Iyo became a core member of Yemen's "Rubama" initiative, whereupon he recruited no less than 20 powered individuals into the Yemeni military.
Since that time, Iyo has embraced his role as a freelancer, moving from country to country within the various Arab states in the Middle East. The United Nations has declared Mebrahtu to be a 'person of interest' in a number of terrorism-associated cases throughout the African and Asian continents, while the European Union has outright declared Mebrahtu to be a persona-non-grata. Mind you, this has not stopped Iyo from making this way through the European continent--rather, he utilizes various diplomatic liasons and proxies to negotiate on his behalf.
Most recently, Iyo has been sighted in Lebanon, whereupon he met with one Dr. Emershan Laurent, a South African geneticist believed to be linked to the development of biological and chemical armaments in Iran. The results of their meeting are currently unknown, though both have been 'off the grid' for months since their meeting...
Wow, we're getting into some pretty deep stuff now.
Also, Blackstock-McCalley is just a thing you made up, right? It's not some obscure part of sentinel comics I don't know about.
Yes, Blackstock-McCalley is my own creation. To my knowledge, it does not exist in the official SC canon.
And yes, deep stuff impending. I've kind of taken up the idea of having each "Month" from here on out be not only a different Theme, but also a different Campaign Style. The previous one sets up TALOS as a HYDRA/HIVE/AIM-style organization built into the world's military and political infrastructure. This one, obviously, will deal with the concept of an international armed conflict which directly involves superhumans as government-sponsored combatants. Not every Villain-of-the-Day will fit directly into that Campaign Style directly, though enough of them will have at least tangential relation for a GM to easily craft an ongoing plot arc.
Villain of the Day: February 10 (La Segador)
Francisca Veronica Mendiza knew she wanted to be a superhero from the first time she saw one. Watching Legacy fly across the sky during the Voss invasion from her home in the Jalisco province of Mexico, she dreamt of doing the same. Her parents often dismissed her towel-across-the-shoulders antics as the play of a girl who just wouldn't grow up.
That is, until she took off.
Even as a child, Mendiza's powers were potent--she could fly, project waves of kinetic energy, and had heightened reflexes and agility. Her parents, unsure of what to do, sought advice from the Mexican government. Not long before the OblivAeon event, Mendiza began her training as part of a special division for superhero training within the Mexican military. At the top of Veronica's to-do list? Taking the fight to human traffickers throughout western Mexico. Her early successes in this venue earned her the nickname La Segador, "The Reaper".
Veronica has always been nothing if not outspoken, which has made her a number of enemies throughout both Mexico and the United States. Most notable among these has been the United States government itself--Veronica has strong views regarding the administration's ongoing actions regarding immigration and deportation. Veronica has gone so far as to actively pursue and menace American border patrol agents, leading to an increase in international tensions. While Mendiza was disciplined by her government handlers for these actions, she has made her intentions quite clear: she intends to help the Mexican people, even if that help means leaving Mexico.
Veronica has been sighted numerous times across the US/MExico border, sighted in El Paso, San Antonio, southern New Mexico and Arizona, and in the San Jose area of California. Currently, she has an outstanding warrant in the United States and is wanted for questioning in regards to the mysterious deaths of four ICE agents along the Arizona/Mexico border. The Mexican government has refused to extradite Mendiza, however, claiming that he comprises too valuable a portion of their domestic law enforcement capability. As it stands, however, La Segador continues her crusade for the rights of all Mexicans.
Villain of the Day: February 11 (The Dead Men of Tonga)
Island nations have not fared well in recent years. Between the cataclysmic changes brought about during Deadline's attack on Earth and the massive energies unleashed by OblivAeon and his Scions, ask reaches of the globe have been struck by immeasurable climatic shifts and unparalleled devastation. Those on the tiny island nation of Tonga knew this best.
Today, everyone on that island is dead.
The same typhoon which later devastated Malaysia struck Tonga with a power not before realized. Between the flooding there and the seismic activity caused by Deadline, the entire island sunk beneath the waves of the Pacific. By the time the world could react, every man, woman, and child on Tonga had drowned.
Not long after, though, the dead began to appear. Their bodies, having washed up on the relatively nearby Bikini Atoll, were infused with the ambient radiation of countless nuclear tests... and became animate. Ravenous, radioactive rotting corpses now took to the seas.
The first appearance of the Tongan dead came in an attack on a New Zealand shipping vessel-- the ship's crew were tour apart and, in some cases, covered in acute radiation burns. A Pacific cruise came next, though a team of Japanese heroes managed to fend off the blighted hordes. It was this team that first made the realization that these were, in fact, the corpses from Tonga's destruction.
None know what they want, save revenge.
None know how they travel, save their region of the Pacific.
None will ever forget the price of a hero's failure...
Villain of the Day: February 12 (Mehit)
In the wake of the Ennead's fall, numerous parties were quick to take advantage of the lack of governmental power and authority in Egypt. While the international community did their best to help establish infrastructure and relative law and order, the new Egypt's elections were rife with extremist parties and divisive politicians eager to grab power.
One of the the foremost of these were the various candidates of the new Altaqlid (or, "Traditions") party. A highly conservative, religiously-affiliated group, the Altaqlid party won several district elections and held a significant portion of the new Egyptian parliament. Notable among these was Iskandar Nabhani, an American-educated lawyer who returned to the Middle East after completing his law degree and was elected to Egypt's parliament following the re-establishment of the state. Among Nabhani's platforms were a retreat from international politics--"Egypt for Egyptians"--and a return to traditional values and gender politics.
Unsurprisingly, the women of Egypt in the 21st Century were not necessarily about to go back upon years of progress and equality. Marches were made, demonstrations were held, and speeches were televised.
While not a national protest leader, Taina Zidane worked on the local level to help organize protests and march logistics. Ironically enough, she attended the same American university as Nabhani, knowing him from there, rather than from their home country. On September 4th, Zidane was at the head of a march through Damietta, set to protest a stump speech by Nabhani. Many believed that Nabhani had intended to declare his candidacy for Prime Minister of Egypt that day...his speech was never made.
During the womens' march, a counter-protestor and supporter of Nabhani's began throwing rocks and other items at the marchers. Zidane, holding up a large banner, was struck in the side of the head.
As she slammed into the pavement, her eyes flared. When she rose again, she stood easily 10 feet fall, her body having transformed into black basalt. In a fit of rage, she dashed into the crowd of counter-protestors. By the time that her friends had talked her down, sixteen of Nabhani's supporters lay bleeding and broken across the pavement. Nabhani himself was escorted from the premises under armed guards, while Zidane outright fled.
Taking up the name of Mehit, a Nubian protector-goddess, Zidane has continued to appear at various pro-equality protests, advocating for women's rights throughout the Middle East. Nabhani envisions Zidane as a natural adversary and regularly views her as some political mastermind, serving as his arch-nemesis, while simultaneously spurring his followers on to greater and greater acts of defiance and violence. And, despite her general views on non-violence, Mehit is increasingly likely to oblige them...
Dang, Platinum, a few of these people are starting to sound more like heroes than villains (in particular: La Segador and Mehit), and a few others sound like they belong in the Miststorm timeline (in particular: the Dead Men of Toga and everything relating to TALOS). You're really putting a lot of work into this.
Every good villain is the hero of their own story, and the road to hell is still paved in good intentions…
Yeah, but I'm saying they look more like heroes to me. Less villains, and more just enemies of another country's (or in one case their own) government, and I'm having a hard time understanding why most heroes would want to fight them at all. For non-patriotic reasons, I mean.
I totally agree with you. Both La Segador and Mehit are absolutely sympathetic, and on a personal level I actually align strongly with both in terms of political philosophy.
But yes, when their own or another government labels them as villains… what is a would be hero to do? It’s that conflict that I find interesting and engaging.
Case in point, to what length is Mehit going to go if Nabhani takes up a political position to oppose Project Jericho? Would she assassinate him? What if he became Prime Minister? What should a group of government sponsored heroes do if they run across La Segador in Texas? She’s wanted, after all…
And Human Flesh if the Preacherbot is to be believed, but I will be shamelessly stealing many of these once the core book comes out.
I also really love the ambiguity to a lot of the international rivals this last month. Because they are villains, but a couple of them, or members of some organizations could be allies or sources of intel with the right motivations or concientious pressures, and I love it