The Fatalist and Pinnacle

I see that dark versions of the existing heroes were a popular motif in the contest, so here is my version of the Visionary's nemesis, a horrible being called "The Fatalist" who believes that the Visionarys horrible future is inevitible and unavoidable. I'm very proud of her Flip mechanic, but I didn't get very far on her deck or her flip side:

 

 

The Fatalist

Aliases: Vanessa Long

Height: 5’1”

Weight: 97 lbs

Hair Color: None

Eye Color: Violet

Birthplace: Unknown

Power Source: Science

Group Affiliation: None

Occupation: Time Traveler, Psychic Puppeteer, Prophet of Doom

Quotes:

“You dream of a better future, and I exist to show you that no possibility for such a place exists.”

"You "heroes" think that you are going to turn the tide and fight the inevitable. I'm here to show you that all of your struggling means nothing in the end. You are actively creating the very thing that you are trying to avoid."

Backstory:

When The Visionary traveled back in time, she did so to save the world from a future too horrible to contemplate. Unfortunately the alternate version of herself that came along for the ride has chosen to become the herald of that very future. Calling herself The Fatalist, this version of Vanessa Long latched onto all of the doubts and fears in the Visionary’s mind and now seeks to bring about the future that she feels is inevitable.

The Fatalist has full memory of the future that she came from, and the many futures in which the Visionary fails. She has decided she needs to bring about that future as soon as possible in order to reduce the suffering of the multiverse and prevent these “so-called heroes” from making things even worse. She is willing to go to any measure in her quest and is not above using her psychic gifts to manipulate events to their inevitable conclusion. If her behind-the-scenes scheming will not achieve her desired ends than she isn’t at all hesitant to come out of the shadows and confront any roadblocks head- on.

 

Card List:

The Fatalist Portrait card: Side 1 – Psychic Puppeteer/Side 2 – Prophet of Doom

HP: 90

The Fatalist Information card: Side 1 – Psychic Puppeteer/Side 2 – Prophet of Doom

 

Side 1

The Fatalist

Psychic Puppeteer

 

Set Up

At the start of the game, put The Fatalist's villain character cards into play "Psychic Puppeteer" side up.

Search the Villain deck for the "Possessed" card and all "Non-Possessed" cards. Take the "Possessed" card and H - 1 "Non-Possessed" cards and shuffle them together to make the "Possession deck". Discard any additional "Non-Possessed" cards from the game.

Game Play

At the start of the villain turn, shuffle the "Possession Deck" and deal one face-down card to each hero. “Possession” cards are considered to be villain targets but are indestructible and cannot be discarded. Heroes may not target The Fatalist directly. They must instead target one of the "Possession" cards. If they target the "Possessed card", then The Fatalist takes damage from the attack. If they target a "Non-Possessed" card, the hero that it is in front of takes the damage.

All Heroes gain the following power:

POWER: Reveal one of the "Possession" cards to all players

At the start of the villain turn, remove one "Non-Possessed" card for every 10HP below maximum the Fatalist's HP has been reduced, deal damage to the hero with the highest HP equal to the number "Non-possessed" cards that are still in play, and then deal them to the Heroes as normal. If the "Possessed" card is the only "Possession card" remaining, flip The Fatalist's villain character cards.

Advanced:

The Heroes do not gain the above reveal power.

 

Side 2

The Fatalist card

Prophet of Doom

 

 

Card ideas:

Psychic Bulwark

Ongoing

The first time each turn that any hero deals damage to the Fatalist, redirect that damage to the hero with the highest HP

 

Telekinetic Exoskeleton

Ongoing

Reduce damage dealt to the Fatalist by H-2

 

Loss of Focus

One-Shot

Destroy H-1 hero ongoing cards, deal psychic damage to all heroes equal to the number of cards destroyed by this card

 

Mental Fortress

One-Shot

Shuffle the villain trash into the villain deck. The Fatalist heals 1hp for each card shuffled back into the deck by this card

 

Astral Battleground

Ongoing

Change all damage to psychic damage. The Fatalist gains a +1 to attacks that do psychic damage and takes  1 less damage from psychic attacks

 

Pierce the Mind

One-Shot

Each hero reveals the top 3 cards of their deck and discards any one-shots revealed

 

Prophecy of Demise

Ongoing

After any environment card damages The Fatalist, destroy it

Pinnacle is the less thought out of my ideas. I like the idea of a villain with an objective, and his search for the "Artifacts" is meant to model that. He is also unique in that he actually has 2 sets of villain cards and flips 3 times over the course of the fight, unless you stop him.

 

 

Pinnacle

Aliases: Xiaofeng Chen

Height: 5’3”

Weight: 140 lbs

Hair Color: Black

Eye Color: Brown

Birthplace: San Francisco, CA

Power Source: Technology

Group Affiliation: None

Occupation: Scientist, Alien Enthusiast, Explorer

 

Backstory:

As a child, Xiaofeng Chen became obsessed with Area 51 and the Roswell crash site. He quickly devoured every piece of myth, legend, lore, and conspiracy that he could find. When that was no longer enough, he went into the sciences and quickly devoured everything he could regarding astronomy, space flight, and the technologies necessary for a race to take to the stars. The more he learned the more certain he was that not only was interstellar space travel possible, but that aliens had been to Earth in the past. Even after he established himself as a brilliant research scientist he continued pursuing evidence of these incursions in his spare time.

The day that Grand Admiral Voss’ army invaded the Earth, Xiaofeng’s life totally shifted. His colleagues who laughed at him behind his back were suddenly interested in his theories and ideas. Even the government came to him looking for answers. Unfortunately for the world, Xiaofeng had already grown into a bitter and angry man. While he was more than willing to accept their money and a prestigious job working at Area 51 itself, Xiaofeng had decided that he was in it all for himself at this point. This became doubly true when his research led him to discover “The Artifacts”. Several ancient cultures had myths and legends of God-like beings, but through his research, Xiaofeng had learned that they were not mere legend, but that they had been endowed their powers by ancient pieces of alien technology.

When he uncovered the first “Artifact”, a set of boots that allows for teleportation, Xiaofeng promptly took possession of it for himself. Now, he scours the globe for other pieces of alien technology and each piece he finds adds to his power bringing him even closer to his desired “apotheosis”. The U.S. government has marked him as an enemy of the state and the U.S. Army in particular is after him for his theft of what they feel is their property.

 

Mechanics:

At the start of the game, divide the chosen Environment Deck into 3 equal parts (5 cards each) and take the “Artifact” cards and place them face up on the bottom of each stack then combine the stacks to form your new Environment Deck. You start with the Pinnacle, Title 1 in play and once you hit the first “Artifact” card, discard it from the game, and flip Pinnacle to his Pinnacle, Title 2 side. When you hit the second “Artifact” card, discard it from the game, and swap out Pinnacle, Title 2 for the second character card and put it into play Pinnacle, Title 3 side up. Once you hit Location 3, discard it from the game and flip Pinnacle to his Pinnacle, Title 4 side. The “Artifact” cards do not count as part of the Environment deck, and are immediately removed from the game once they reach the top of the environment deck.

 

I like fatalists idea but confused as to why the power of the possessed is reveal a possession. Is Fatalist immune on side 1? If so, the possession power becomes trivial as soon as heroes start attacking each other because of damage calculations.

They aren't allowed to target The Fatalist directly on her first side, so they always run the risk of hitting each other. All of the "Possession" cards are face down and shuffled each turn, so the heroes are firing blindly. If they hit a Non-possesed target, then they are damaging their friends, if they hit the Possessed target, they are getting closer to flipping The Fatalist. I'm not sure that the numbers are 100% as she was never playtested, but I figured that the flip mechanic itself was interesting and would be balanced with playtesting anyway.

Basically her first side is a sick version of 3 card monte where the heroes are forced to attack each other in an attempt to expose her so they can fight her directly. Sorry that wasn't clearer. The Reveal power is something that the heroes can do to try to expose her before they've done enough damage to weed out the "non-possesed" cards.

Cool ideas!

 

I quite like the setup you have for the first side of The Fatalist - interesting set up. I presume that when a hero attacks a face down possession card, that the card gets turned face up? Could work out to be pretty interesting. Did you have any thoughts for what she'd do on side 2? Or would it just be a damage race from there on?

 

I like your backstory for Pinnacle. Having 4 different hero sides coming up after a fixed number of turns is interesting as a flip mechanic. The meat of this villain would be in his deck cards though, and how those 4 different sides differed from each other.

The 3 card monte mechanic does make for some tension, I'm sure it can be refined in a way that is random but does not slow things down.

As for Pinnacle, I really like him. He is kind of the loser with something to prove villain, who gets very dangerous with enough power. I would love to see "what he looksl like" during that final battle when he has put together all the pieces he is looking for.

 

To answer the question first, yes, when a "Possession card" is attacked, it gets turned face up until the beginning of the next villain turn at which point all of the Possession cards would be shuffled and dealt around again. I don't think it would add that much time, as it would at most be 5 cards which would be given a quick shuffle and then dealt in front of each hero. (originally the mechanic was dreamt up for a shapechanger villain with the cards being "real" and "fake" cards representing the distrust that an infiltration based villain like Mystique could sew)

 

As for her second side, I kind of agonized over that idea, but I saw her as being much more of an offensive juggernaut on her second side. She's been exposed, so now that she's out in the open, the kid gloves are off. I see it as being much like the infiltration style villains in comics where the first act is uncovering the infiltrator and the second act is that now you have to fight them directly. (except nothing about the way a psychic fights is direct)

 

Long hours at work really kept me from working on Pinnacle as much as I would have liked. I envisioned him as a villain that is "on a quest" to become a supervillain, but isn't quite there yet. In comics books, you regularly have a villain character questing after some magic/technological McGuffin that will make them all powerful (whether Skeletor and the sword of Greyskull or the Mandarin and his rings). Pinnacle is meant to embody that drive to cease power from someone who has felt powerless for most of their life. 

 

I envisioned his deck having cards that have multiple powers on them which only trigger based on how many artifacts he has recovered. The first Artifact is the Boots of Teleportation which would allow for dodging damage and milling cards from the location deck to speed up his access to the other artifacts. The second would be a breastplate that adds defensive properties like damage immunity, damage reduction, and even some healing. The third would be a Mind-Enhancing Helmet that would allow for him to force discards from the heroes hand and deck. The final artifact would be a set of Powered Gauntlets that would allow for direct damage via charged blasts from his hands and super enhanced punches. So as he finds each Artifact, his power grows and each of the cards in his deck has more effects. Defeating him BEFORE he gets all of the artifacts would be the key to beating him.

 

I'll admit that I didn't quite understand the Possessed mechanic from the first post but now that you have elaborated I really like the Fatalist concept. 

 

Pinnacle is good too - I would suggest that the Atifacts actually come in to play rather that get discarded just so that there is a little variability to how he powers up. 

Glad you like the Fatalist's concept, sorry that I didn't do a good job explaining it. I just kept trying to think of things that we haven't seen in Sentinels yet, and immediately a paranoia-based "don't trust your friends type of scenario doesn't exist yet. They are really prevalent in comics with shapeshifting and mind control being almost everyday plotlines, so I wanted to inject some of that.

 

As for Pinnacle. I originally had him putting the Artifacts into play, but then he just seemed like a slightly tweaked Spite to me. That being said, it would be a valid way to make him, and would get rid of the need for 4 sides of Villain card as you could just have him in Questing Scientist Mode and World Dominator Mode without the inbetween steps.