Let’s be fair, though: there are some things that not even the Last Son of Krypton can accomplish.
1 Like
FPD Central Precinct
Type: Standard Location
Key Appearance: Flatfoot Adventures #196, October 1958
Traits:
- Suspicious Police d10
- Arrested Criminals d8
- Gawking Bystanders d8
GREEN
Minor Twists
- In The Way: A well-meaning officer accidentally gets in the way. Roll the environment dice and Hinder one hero with the Mid die.
- Squad Backup: A young beat cop recognizes the heroes and quickly moves to support them. Roll the environment dice and Boost one hero with the Mid die.
Major Twist
- Breakout: In the confusion, some cells are broken open and a group of small-time thugs makes a run for it. Roll the environment dice and create a number of d8 “Escaping Thugs” equal to the Mid die.
YELLOW
Minor Twists
- Lockdown: Someone drops a barred door between the heroes and the villains. Roll the environment die and Defend the next target Attacked in the area with the Max die as the door takes the brunt of the hit.
- Everybody On The Ground!: A group of police officers arm up and storm in, targeting anyone who looks like trouble. Roll the environment dice and create a number of d8 “Riot Squad” equal to the Min die. Riot Squad members get +1 to all actions if the squad takes at least two basic actions, and +2 to all actions if every member of the squad takes a different basic action.
Major Twist
- Fire! One of the would-be escapees sets a fire, and it starts to spread fast. Roll the environment dice and Hinder all targets present with the Min die as the sprinklers make everything wet and slick, then create the following challenge: Put Out The Fire
Until the challenge is resolved, at the start of each environment turn, add one challenge box to the total and then roll the environment dice. Attack all targets equal to the Min die. If there are three or more unchecked boxes, instead Attack all targets equal to the Mid die.
RED
Minor Twists
- Stray Gunfire: Who’s firing their gun in such close quarters?! Roll the environment dice; Attack one target with the Mid die, and Hinder a different target with the Mid die.
- Cellblock Tango: A wave of criminals waiting to be processed are breaking out, and the cops are wading in. Roll the environment dice; create one group of Escaping Thug minions and one group of Riot Squad minions, each equal to the Min die.
Major Twist
- Second Wind: There’s a momentary break in the chaos, and some of the dazed combatants get back on their feet. Add one minion to every minion group that has lost at least one minion in this scene, and step up the status dice of all minions once (to a maximum of their original level.)
Over the course of the 1950s, Flatfoot settled into his role as a ‘special deputy’ of the Ferrisville Police Department. Despite being a problem initially, the feud between Company Town and Flatfoot Adventures had proven to be the character’s salvation; by the time the Comics Code came into effect in 1954, Flatfoot had already almost completely abandoned any stories about corrupt officers or politicians, letting those writers work on the Revenant while Flatfoot dealt with more colourful opposition. As a result, the Silver Age version of the character was a member of a thriving and honest police force. The officers were sometimes too zealous, and there were stories where some beat cop or detective clashed with Flatfoot over their belief that he was no more than a mobile tool that shouldn’t be operating unsupervised, but they always ended with Flatfoot bringing them around to his point of view.
Operating out of the FPD’s Central Precinct building, Flatfoot reported directly to Police Commissioner Whitby, and largely had complete autonomy for patrols and investigations, focusing on the field of super-crime and organized criminal activity. Whitby would give Flatfoot tips when reports of super-powered criminals came in, and he would request Flatfoot’s support for major crime busts and make sure that the superhero’s investigations didn’t run afoul of active police investigations, but for most of the 1950s the only part of the Central Precinct that writers bothered to show was Whitby’s office. Various individual police officers came and went, none of them making much of an impact; Flatfoot’s civilian allies such as Colin Harper were more interesting to writers, and there wasn’t much time for socializing when there was crime afoot!
Flatfoot #196 was the first time the precinct served as the focus for a story, rather than just a backdrop. In the previous issue, Flatfoot had rounded up Wise Guy’s gang of mooks. The smart-dressed supervillain knew he couldn’t tangle with Flatfoot directly, but he had a line on just the tough to help him out: he hired the Retriever to break into Ferrisville’s Central Precinct while Wise Guy’s mooks were being processed, in order to free them and bring them back to Wise Guy. While the Retriever burst in the front, the villain slipped in the back, trusting that either Flatfoot would be busy stopping the giant robot, or it would meet with him at the cells and they could leave together.
The resulting chaos led to nearly a full issue of Flatfoot dealing with one problem after another. First he wrestled with the Retriever in the front offices of the building, mistakenly thinking the Retriever was here to kidnap Chief Whitby after it deliberately feinted towards him. He was able to drive the robot off, but the chaos allowed criminals to escape into the streets, forcing Flatfoot to go after them as the police tried to restore order in their own offices. Flatfoot was able to track down and re-arrest each group of villains, ending with Wise Guy himself – the gangster and his mooks were in the middle of celebrating their escape when Flatfoot burst through the door and challenged them once again. With the Retriever having completed its mission successfully and departed, Wise Guy was no match for Flatfoot, and he ended up cooling his heels in a patched-up jail cell alongside his gang.
This was the first time that the FPD was attacked, but it wouldn’t be the last. Over the course of the Silver Age the precinct would be targeted a half-dozen times, and most major Flatfoot adaptations would include a scene of a villain striking at the precinct with the goal of catching Flatfoot off guard or denying him his support. The string of attacks would be one of the reasons Flatfoot would give after his supposed death for why he needed to stay undercover.
Behind The Scenes:
This is sort of halfway between a heroic location and a standard one, but I decided to lean standard because even though Flatfoot kind of operates out of here it’s got a lot of elements that are hostile - escaping criminals, chaotic crowds, that sort of thing.
I wanted to touch on Silver Age Flatfoot’s supporters, and since this is the period in which the Ferrisville police are trustworthy it made sense to create a police commissioner for him. From there I pulled together a quick story, tossed in another villain name that I don’t have a lot of details about but I love the name, and there we go! Wise Guy will eventually get a writeup but I’m pretty sure he’s just a lieutenant who’s an example of the “guy with gang” level of villains that are a lot of Flatfoot’s second-tier opponents.
4 Likes
That’s a really good way to craft an escalating challenge that has immediate consequences if you ignore it for long.
Yeah, no stopping the Big Blue Nudist from letting it all hang out. Just not fair, there are supervillains out there in desperate need of trousers.
2 Likes
Grovedale Museum of Culture
Type: Hero Location
Key Appearance: Skybreaker Stories #12, May 1959
Traits:
- Ancient Displays d8
- Haphazard Security System d8
- Dim Lighting d8
GREEN
Minor Twists
- Whoops: A smaller display piece gets knocked over, and someone has to dive to save it. Roll the environment dice and Hinder whoever agrees to go for the piece with the Mid die. If no one does, Attack the nearest target with the Mid die as shards of broken pottery rain on them.
- Night Tour: One of the museum staff has let friends in for a party, and they’re going to get in the way. Roll the environment dice and create a number of d6 “Drunken Partiers” equal to the Min die.
Major Twist
- Security Alert: An alarm goes off, warning the villains that they’re on the clock. Advance the scene tracker.
YELLOW
Minor Twists
- A Relic With Power: The battle has unleashed an artifact with real magical power! It attaches itself to a villainous target. Create a new challenge: Recover the artifact. Until it is recovered, each time the environment dice are rolled, Boost that target with the Min die.
- Lights Out: The lights flicker and go out. Roll the environment die and Hinder all targets in a single zone with the Mid die.
Major Twist
- Wilbur: The old security guard finally wakes up and wanders in to help as best he can, which is usually not very well. Create a d10 “Old Wilbur” lieutenant; he acts now and at the start of each environment turn. Whenever Wilbur takes an action, he rolls twice and takes the lower result; if the lower result is a ‘1’ Wilbur also Hinders one hero with the higher die.
RED
Minor Twists
- Flare of Insight: As the fight passes into an exhibit, a hero learns exactly what they need to succeed. Roll the environment dice and Boost one hero with the Max+Min dice.
- Major Exhibit: One of the major exhibits is in danger of breaking! Create the following challenge: Fix the display before it’s too late!
Any attempt to fix the display has a -1 persistent/exclusive penalty to it; warn the players about this beforehand. If the display is not fixed before the scene ends, the museum will be in big trouble.
Major Twist
- Disastrous Move: Someone is thrown through a series of display cases, sending glass and fragments everywhere and setting off a piercing alarm. Roll the environment dice and Attack and Hinder all targets in one zone with the Mid die.
The Grovedale Museum of Culture had the unique distinction of being the first location present in a Skybreaker adventure, serving as the opening for Venture into the Unknown #2 and the first appearance of the Celtic hero. While it had very little focus time in that issue, the fact that Rhonda Randall worked at the museum, and got Cooper his first job there as a fellow historian, meant that for much of the Silver Age it served as a location for social scenes, a source of secondary characters, and an after-hours base of operations for Skybreaker. In the early issues, Skybreaker slept in the back of the museum, often avoiding the well-meaning but ancient security guard that patrolled the place, and used its resources in the rare cases when he needed to examine clues to track down a super-criminal. Once Rhonda finally convinced him to get an apartment, the museum remained a common meeting ground.
Starting in Skybreaker Stories #12, the Museum also became an occasional battleground. In his third appearance, the Locksmith decided that while he couldn’t track down Skybreaker, he could trace his steps back to where he had first appeared. The devious villain followed the trail of the shipments that had brought the spear his mysterious employer demanded to the museum, and determined that more such artifacts might be hidden in the collection. Deciding to leave the Spear of Assal for the time being, he raided the museum while no one should be around, determined to get his hands on other mystical artifacts.
Of course, someone was around. Cooper and Rhonda were in the museum lab, Rhonda having stayed late to discuss Cooper’s latest escapades as Skybreaker and remind him that he needed to be careful not to have his secret identity found out. As the criminals overran the museum, the two of them were promptly captured, leaving Cooper with a dilemma – reveal his power and threaten his secret, or leave Rhonda in danger and the artifacts under threat?
Rhonda solved the problem for him, deliberately creating a distraction so that Cooper could ‘run for help’. The hero slipped into the darkness of the museum, drawing his spear and transforming into Skybreaker, as Rhonda was captured by the Locksmith’s men. The Locksmith told Rhond that he admired her smarts, but she had just gone from captive to hostage. He kept her close at hand as he grabbed artifacts, uncovering an ancient bracelet that could summon rains and using it to flood out the street outside and slow the police from arriving!
With Rhonda and the museum both in danger, Skybreaker was forced to use subtlety for the first time since his awakening. He carefully took down each goon in turn, using the museum’s security systems and Wilbur’s assistance, before finally allowing the Locksmith to leave the building with Rhonda and his acquired goods before confronting him outside. Rhonda grabbed the bracelet off the Locksmith’s hands, and Skybreaker took him down, sending him to jail for the first time (but far from the last).
The Grovedale Museum of Culture remained a constant in Skybreaker’s stories from his first appearance all the way through to the Diamond Age. Over the course of their tenure, Cooper Cullen and Rhonda Randall were both employees at the museum, with Rhonda working her way up the ranks from historian to assistant curator to curator by the Iron Age, before having to step back during her early years as Solace. Both heroes continued to work for the museum part-time, but their increasingly complicated schedules forced them to pull back from what had been their effective headquarters; by the Diamond Age, the museum was mostly used as a backdrop for adventures instead of a common meeting ground.
Behind The Scenes:
Our first heroic base of operations. The Grovedale Museum of Culture is generally on the side of the heroes; the only real danger is that all of the stuff in there is going to get broken. I also get to write up Wilbur, who was probably the source of a lot of Silver Age goofs, then returned in the Bronze Age as a semi-retired museum attendee. I think that he’s too popular to lose, so he gets rewound back to his initial age as part of Cooper’s wishcrafted world in the Iron Age. There is almost certainly a 90+ year old Wilbur occasionally showing up in Starshadow.
This is also our first formal Locksmith story. I have a feel for Locksmith’s character, which is ironic because I do not have the faintest clue what his powers are. He definitely has powers, he’s not just a guy with gadgets, and they’re probably in some way related to doing crimes, but no idea what. I don’t think he literally just opens locks, he’s not Skeleton Key. Something more vaguely connected to the theme of “being the guy you hire to break something open for you”.
And finally, while writing up the background for this one, I have discovered that in Volume 1 and Volume 4 of Venture Comics, Rhonda is “Rhonda Randall”. In Volume 2, she is “Rhonda Rhodes”. In Volume 3, she is both “Rhonda Randall” and “Rhonda Rhodes”. So I’m going to have to edit all of that. She is meant to be Rhonda Randall.
5 Likes
Hmmm…changes in marital status, or at least the surname name she chose to go by? For really hackneyed drama, might be one of those “I thought my spouse was dead, but he’s suddenly returned - but wait, he’s actually just a duplicate who’s part of a villainous scheme” deals. That would complicate things.
That would work if it was just a switch in Volume 2, but her mentions in Volume 3 aren’t in chronological order, and Volume 2 has her as “Rhonda Rhodes” while she’s married to Cooper Cullen so she wouldn’t be going by a marital name there. I think I’m just going to admit to it being a goof and fix it up this weekend.
1 Like
Or, perhaps some Skybreaker issues just had an absent-minded writer like Stan Lee; we all remember the classic heroes Peter Palmer and Bob Banner, right? Sometimes those alliterative names can backfire.
6 Likes
Toil and Trouble
Type: Dangerous Event
Key Appearance: Champions of Truth (Vol. 2) #4, August 1961
Traits:
- Dark Magic d10
- Fifth Columns d8
- Fear and Confusion d8
GREEN
Minor Twists
- Tempest-Tossed: Wind spirits erupt from the sky, battering the heroes. Roll the environment dice and Attack all heroes with the Min die.
- Foul is Fair: A blessing settles upon one of the usurpers. Roll the environment dice and Defend a villain target with the Mid die.
Major Twist
- Thunder, Lightning, Or Rain: The storm batters down on the heroes, subtly cursing them. Roll the environment dice. Each hero must choose one of the following: they are Attacked with the Mid die, they are Hindered with the Mid die, or they are separated from the rest of the group.
YELLOW
Minor Twists
- Something Wicked This Way Comes: The Dread Dynasty grows in strength! Create a new d8 Dread Dynasty lieutenant. They either have +1 to damage saves or +2 to one basic action.
- Blood Will Have Blood: Strength leeches from the heroes to their foes. Roll the environment dice. Attack one hero with the Mid die, and one villain Recovers with the Min die.
Major Twist
- Give Thee A Wind: The power Coven has unleashed fills a member of the Dread Dynasty with the might of the storm. Roll the environment dice and Boost one villain target with the Max die. This bonus is persistent and exclusive.
RED
Minor Twists
- Damned Be They Who Cry “Hold, Enough”: The storm redoubles within someone’s heart, turning caution to terror. Roll the environment dice and target a hero protected by a Defend action. First turn the Defend into a Hinder of the same size, and then Attack them with the Mid die.
- The Charm is Firm And Good: Spirits are possessing innocent people! Create the following challenge: Break the ritual circle. Until the challenge is completed, create a d6 “Possessed Innocent” minion at the start of each environment turn.
Major Twist
- The Dogs of War: The Dynasty makes a final desperate push. Roll the environment dice and create a number of d8 “Devoted Footmen” minions equal to the Mid die. They get +1 to all actions when near a member of the Dread Dynasty. Attack one target equal to the Max die.
Launched in 1961, the bi-monthly Champions of Truth had two major objectives. The first of these was to draw the attention of readers of Venture’s established heroes, Flatfoot and Madame Liberty, to the newly-established or returned stalwarts of the Venture line. The second was to give space for big action scenes and plots that were too complex for one hero to solve. This meant that early Champions of Truth stories especially didn’t spend a lot of time on delving deep into the characterization and supporting casts of the heroes; they had their own titles for that. Instead, that space was given to setting up broad villainous plots before the Champions arrived to stop them.
Because of this, many early Champions of Truth stories featured either a traditional opponent of one of the team’s five members coming up with a particularly devastating plot, as with Doctor Freak in Champions of Truth #1, or two or more villains joining forces to unleash a combined scheme that threatened a city, nation, or the planet. “Toil and Trouble”, the fourth issue of Champions of Truth, was one of the latter sort of story. The Greenheart villain Coven had made a few appearances by this point, but while she had some support she wasn’t taken particularly seriously by readers. To buff up her reputation, and to have some fun, writer Alan Victor decided to combine her with the much more popular Madame Liberty foes the Dread Dynasty, taking on a goofy rendition of Macbeth in which the Dauphin de Sabre sought to overthrow the Royal Family of England and take the throne of the United Kingdom.
The story opened with Coven approaching de Sabre as he and his retainers plotted their next scheme to claim the throne of France. She pointed out the historical ties between the two nations, and prophesized that she saw Dauphin in the Tower of London, wearing the Crown Jewels of England. Her honeyed words tempted the Dauphin and his followers, and they agreed to lauch their assault, holding all of London hostage to claim the crown! Coven called up a massive storm, filled with dark spirits of wind and thunder, and used her magic to reinforce the Dynasty and curse their foes as they rampaged through the streets with the support of the Dauphin’s supporters, the Footmen.
Through Wonderer’s magic, the Champions of Truth responded immediately, taking to the streets to slow the Dynasty down. Madame Liberty and Skybreaker fought against the Dauphin as Flatfoot and Wonderer saved civilians and battled minor members of the Dynasty; Greenheart used her connection to the Green to track down Coven and confront her, breaking her spells and shattering the storm over London. Coven’s prophecy came true; the Dauphin entered the Tower and placed the Crown on his head. But immediately afterwards, he discovered that Madame Liberty had already switched out the jewels, and he was wearing a fake! With no cultural artifacts to use as a shield and no magic coming to save him, he was quickly defeated. Coven escaped into the night, cursing the Champions as the Dread Dynasty was rounded up.
“Toil and Trouble” was a huge success, and Greenheart’s prominence in it began to set the stage for her finally getting her own comic in 1963. The storyline also paved the way for the formation of the Congress of Deceit at the end of the year; while the Dread Dynasty was considered to be too high-profile to take part as Madame Liberty’s nemesis, Coven’s successful showing in this story allowed Victor to slip her in, saving the character from obscurity.
Behind The Scenes:
This started as an excuse to do something fun with the Dread Dynasty and it turned into an excuse to make a lot of Macbeth quotes.
I like this story as an example of the sort of thing that Champions of Truth is up to in the early sixties - just giving big stompy action scenes for a rotating array of Champions villains, growing into the launch of the Congress of Deceit in December. There aren’t a lot of stories for this title early on, since it’s only every other month, but I can imagine a handful of other options for what they’re up to. I expect there are at least three of these double team-ups out of the four issues from #2 through #5. Not sure who, precisely. One of them is probably a Mary Molotov/Steeldriver team-up that gets really out of hand.
4 Likes
Minion needs a die size, even if you’re unlikely to ever generate more than one or two of them.
I know it’s just a typo, but now I really want a Ducktales character named MacBeak in canon. Scrooge and company are already dripping raw Scottsman, how did they not do The Play?
3 Likes
Whoops!
Behind the scenes: I’m writing these up in the word document that will become the final PDF, and that document has a special font for die sizes. When I copy it back into Google Drive, those die symbols vanish and I need to physically replace them with writing. Missed that one.
2 Likes
To The Fairest
Type: Quirky Event
Key Appearance: Wondrous Adventures #7, February 1962
Traits:
- High Society d10
- High Spirits d10
- High Strung d6
GREEN
Minor Twists
- Golden Aura: The gathered crowd considers themselves, and are filled with unearned confidence. Roll the environment dice and Boost all targets with the Min die.
- The Trophy Is Mine: A particularly handsome man emerges to claim the Trophy for himself. Create a new d10 “Covetous Fellow” minion and give them the trophy. Until he is defeated, no challenges related to the Trophy can be resolved.
Major Twist
- It’s Him Or Me: Two people are targeted by the Minx and square off. Roll the environment dice and Boost two targets with the Max die. If either of them do anything but Attack or Hinder the other, the bonus becomes a penalty.
YELLOW
Minor Twists
- Can’t Get It Out Of My Head: The Trophy sparkles in your mind. Roll the environment dice and Hinder one target who isn’t pursuing the Trophy with the Max die.
- A Brawl Breaks Out: More and more people want the trophy! Create the following challenge: Break up the brawl. Until it is resolved, each time the environment dice are rolled, Hinder all targets with the Min die.
Major Twist
- Piano Interlude: One person has ignored the trophy completely and is playing piano. The music momentarily distracts everyone from the Trophy. Roll the environment dice and Hinder anyone pursuing the Trophy with the Max die.
RED
Minor Twists
- It’s Mine!: Someone new claims the Trophy. Roll the environment dice and Boost them with the Max die. Hinder all other targets with the Mid die. A target who Attacks or Hinders the Trophy’s current owner may ignore this penalty.
- Not For Long! Suzanne Hightower enters the fray, supernaturally empowered by her desire for the trophy. Create a d8 “Suzanne Hightower” lieutenant. If she holds the Trophy she gets +2 to all rolls; if not, she gets +2 to any action targeting the Trophy’s holder.
Major Twist
- Overwhelming Need: The need for the trophy grows painful. Roll the environment dice and Hinder anyone not holding the Trophy with the Mid die. The penalty is persistent and exclusive. Attack them with the Min die.
The Trophy: Create a one-step Challenge: “Seize the Trophy”. A target who Overcomes this Challenge claims the Trophy from its previous owner and may keep it or give it to another target. The target who holds the Trophy may Overcome against a three-step Challenge to “Destroy the Trophy”, ending the scene. Any successes remain if the Trophy changes hands.
The Wonderer’s early stories tended to be lower-stakes, especially compared to many of his contemporaries. His stories largely alternated between two styles – manifesting to ordinary people to offer them a wish, leading to comic upsets and a lesson learned, or traveling with his young ward Khalil and running into a petty or whimsical supervillain who needed to be stopped.
Wondrous Adventures #7 was one of the latter stories. When Khalil wished to be invited to a ‘real, high society party’, the Wonderer used his magic to transform the pair of them into visiting Arab nobility, securing an invitation to a grand party being thrown by the richest people in Ferrisville (including Hank Ferris Jr., included as a fake-out to suggest he would be the villain of the issue before almost immediately declaring the event a ‘bore’ and departing.) Khalil was having a wonderful time chatting with the children of the wealthy aristocrats as Barquan easily chatted with the adults and considered which one he might offer a wish to.
Before the Wonderer could make his choice, however, one of the partygoers discovered a golden trophy sitting on the central table, labeled “To The Fairest”. Everyone agreed that it was a roaring joke, a take on the old Greek myth. Then they started jokingly arguing over who would qualify, just as if the myth was taking place.
Then the jokes turned sour. Factions formed. The most successful members of Ferristown society began eyeing each other suspiciously, and when socialite Richard Mills suddenly pushed his fiancée out of the way to grab the Trophy, all hell broke loose. The more someone wanted the Trophy, the stronger they became, even able to shrug off the Wonderer’s magic.
The Wonderer had sensed the flow of magic in the area, and he set to work trying to keep all of the socialites from hurting each other while he simultaneously tried to unweave the powerful magic causing everyone to believe themselves the rightful owner of the Trophy, and to find the villain responsible. Over the course of the issue, he managed to keep the various fights and arguments at a comical level, narrowly avoiding a few fatalities. He was aided by Gus Fairbanks, an easy-going man who seemed completely untouched by the situation, cheerfully playing piano while everyone around him raged.
It was Gus’s detachment that made Wonderer realize that the Trophy wasn’t drawing on greed or vanity, but on insecurity. He was the only partygoer who wasn’t worried about his social standing, and thus didn’t care one whit about the trophy. With that key, the Wonderer and Khalil were able to play keep-away with the Trophy, letting Wonderer undo its magic while Khalil rallied the children to the ‘game’ of frustrating their parents, and calm the situation down.
Once the situation was resolved, the Wonderer unmasked Giselle, one of the women who’d been egging on the situation, as the supervillain the Minx. The Minx had the mystical power to bring objects and beings from fables to life, creating chaos and mischief. She pouted about being caught, but admitted that the Wonderer had won – this time! She vanished before he could magically bring her to justice, but he consoled himself with the knowledge that her plot had been ruined – and Khalil had had a wonderful afternoon.
Behind The Scenes:
I had originally planned for these environments to almost exclusively include issues about either one-shot villains or villains we already know about. I’ve mostly succeeded, but I liked the idea of a quirky Wondrous Adventures event and Avarice just did not fit, so we get a new second-tier Wonderer villain. I suspect the Minx is a dedicated C-Lister, who never has a really big defining storyline but has an entertaining enough gimmick as a low-tier reality shaper that people just kind of toss her in when they want to goof around with a classic myth or fable without creating new Venture Comics deep lore. I might give her a full write-up some day, we’ll see.
For the story itself, it’s just goofy. It’s a hot potato that takes time to unspool, and people are constantly trying to grab it from you. The best bet is for one hero to grab it and pass it to a second hero before they get obsessed, and then that hero works on the main challenge, and then a bad guy grabs it and you have to repeat the process.
5 Likes
Well, if no one else is going to say it, Hail Eris!
Eris showed up as a kinda-villain in one of the games I played in, disguised as a little old granny at a county fair’s bake show. Her apple pie caused a few issues, but ultimately we convinced her to go bother a stockholders’ meeting for one of the campaign’s Evil Mega-Corporations instead. They’d been flaunting their legal untouchability in our faces a bit too often.
Weird that I can’t remember Clark ever tricking Mxyzptlk into pestering Lex that way. Surely it’s been done by now?
2 Likes
I could see Minx as only being an instigator of an event never needing a character sheet except when the story she made has her playing an LT in the environment and that would be case by case
3 Likes
Regardless of what form she appears in, if she has a character writeup at all she clearly needs to have an ability that refers to how nimble she is.
“Nimble little minx, isn’t she?” - Peter Venkman, Ghostbusters 1984
4 Likes
Love a good “everybody scrambling for a macguffin” scene. I always thought that a sort of “capture the flag” type scene could be fun to run.
Shades of Aladdin. Speaking of which, now that Wonderer has a villain who can create objects from folklore and fables, has the Minx ever used a magic lamp to try and capture Wonderer and force him to grant her wishes?
5 Likes
That definitely seems like something that she would attempt to do, yeah. She might run into the problem that the Wonderer technically has a lamp, although his doesn’t compel action, it just allows for contact. But I’d be shocked if there wasn’t a storyline in which she changed the rules on him, especially since we know that it’s possible to bind djinni in that way in this setting.
The Zlytaren Nexus
Type: Strange Location
Key Appearance: Celestial Travels #298, November 1963
Traits:
- Time Fractures d10
- Crystal Miners d8
- Cosmic Rays d8
GREEN
Minor Twists
- Entropic Flare: A set of unstable time crystals explode, briefly aging a character. Roll the environment dice and Attack one target with the Mid die
- Oxygen Leak: A damaged wall ruptures, venting oxygen into the nexus! Create a new challenge: Seal the leak. If the scene enters the Yellow Zone before this challenge is resolved, the zone where the leak was is sealed off; anyone still present is sucked into space.
Major Twist
- Ghosts of the Future: Flickering memories of miners from the future attack what they see as invaders. Roll the environment dice and create a number of d12 “Time Shadow” minions equal to the Min die. Step down their status die at the end of each of their turns.
YELLOW
Minor Twists
- Rewind: Temporal energies settle around a target, reverting them the next time they’re struck. Roll the environment dice and Defend one target with the Max die.
- Internal Disputes: The miners aren’t sure who to support, and interfere with opposing goals. Roll the environment dice. Boost one target and Hinder one of their allies with the Mid die.
Major Twist
- Cosmic Burst: Deadly radiation bombards the area. Roll the environment dice and Attack all targets in a particular zone with the Max die.
RED
Minor Twists
- Unmade: A flicker of space-time winks out of existence, with devastating effect. Destroy a minion or remove any bonus or penalty from the field.
- Perfect Harvest: The shifting eddies bring up a perfect time crystal. Create the following challenge: Harvest the Time Crystal. If the villains succeed at this challenge, they will attempt to flee with the crystal to use in future plots.
Major Twist
- Orbital Bombardment: The Nexus drifts through a star that burned out long ago, flaring it to life. Roll the environment dice and Attack and Hinder every target in the Nexus with the Mid die.
The early 1960s were largely an excuse for Neutrino to fly to whatever strange and mysterious space things his writers could imagine, do some super-heroing there, and then fly away. No one particularly cared about making them scientifically accurate and most of them never appeared again, but occasionally something would pop up that was strange enough that it would leave a mark on the pages of Venture Comics.
The Zlytaran Nexus was such a place. It first appeared in a simple story in 1961, in which it was not particularly interrogated or discussed. It was simply a mine where ‘Time was mined’, with a vague implication that this was a fuel used by interstellar travel. Neutrino saved the miners from a space beast that devoured Time to grow incredibly quickly, and moved on.
In Celestial Travels #298 and #299, though, the Nexus would become a much bigger part of Neutrino’s story. The Interstellar Trading Guild had just made overtures to the Nexus and its workers, but as they sought to bring it into the fold, the region was attacked by Subjugator. She was in search of the powerful time crystals that formed in the nebula’s unusual radiations, and which had the power to speed up or slow down the flow of time. Rumours said that particularly pure crystals could allow for actual time travel, and Subjugator intended to travel back in time and steal rare artifacts before they became rare, so that she wouldn’t have to deal with any of the security that now surrounded them.
Neutrino responded to a distress call from his reluctant ally Lieutenant Heerah, using the ITG’s gates to quickly skip back to the Nexus. After a brief dogfight that saw the Aurora Borealis nearly destroyed, he slipped into the mines themselves, tracking down Heerah and saving her from the Starbooters before challenging Subjugator directly. Her reckless operation was threatening to unleash the temporal energies of the nebula, dooming everyone present, and Neutrino tried and failed to convince her that her goal was just too dangerous.
In the ensuing fight, the Aurora Borealis was destroyed – but at the start of Celestial Travels #299 a stray time eddy *un-*destroyed it, allowing Neutrino to pursue Subjugator as she navigated the Nexus towards the pure time crystals that she had discovered. Neutrino defeated Subjugator and freed the Nexus, but in the battle his own radioactive energies merged with the energies of the Nexus, leading him to spend Celestial Travels #300 hopping through his own timeline, attempting to change history to prevent himself from leaving Earth and ultimately only managing to create the conditions that had allowed him to survive his transformation.
The Zlytaran Nexus remained a popular part of Venture’s galactic network, however. Zlytaran crystals could be used as a shorthand to empower various science fiction technologies, allowing for rapid cloning devices, specialized healing chambers, and stasis fields that could be deployed by individual supervillains but whose extremely rare power source kept them from being something that had to be reckoned with as a common part of galactic life. Over the years the Nexus would be attacked by the Uranians, the Kliz’Exth, and various smaller groups, but without the generations of knowledge that the local miners had developed to manage and live in harmony with the local temporal landscape, none of them were able to hold it for long.
Behind The Scenes:
Time Crystals!
It’s just the sort of absolutely silly science fantasy nonsense that you got in Silver Age comics, it has staying power to be useful for decades to come, it gives me both a new material and a new location, everything about this place is perfect.
I wasn’t sure if I was going to give Celestial Travels a weird place or a heroic ITG base, but the randomizers lined up nicely for the former and here we are! Maybe not as weird as the next environment I’m going to build, but plenty weird enough!
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Reminds me a bit of some of the 70s Green Lantern stories where he was just more or less wandering around space running into random one-off situations where he had to figure out what was going on instead of just brute-forcing a solution or getting the Corps involved. Those are really why I like Hal, although honestly they aren’t very typical of what he really is (or even was) overall. That was the same period he had Itty the Space Starfish as a mascot/pet, although that subplot really wound up flopping in the end.
Minor niggle for consistency, this is the only spot (I think) where you spell it that way. It’s “Zlytaran” (with two As and no E) everywhere else I can see. Good place to use find-and-replace just to be sure.
Why yes, I have done some proofreading work in times past. 
2 Likes
Hah, good catch!
Went into the book and it’s spelled correctly there. The nexus, as you may guess from thumbing over the alt text for the picture I just noticed, went through a number of name changes as I tried to hit on the most 60s way to refer to it.
4 Likes
Didn’t even notice the Silvaran thing, honestly.
I should add that I really like that sort of double-edged environment twist, since it increases the amount of choice the GM has when selecting targets for narrative effect or adjusting scene difficulty on the fly.
Boy, if you’re down in Yellow status when that goes off it’s a great case for taking a twist to use your Red Dire Control ability early.
3 Likes
Okay, I have to admit that I’ve been very excited to show this one to you all for a few months now. I hope that you are equally enthralled by…
The Riddlemaster
Type: Unique
Key Appearance: Vanguards! #71, September 1964
Traits:
- Reshaping Reality d12
- Rapidfire Banter d8
- Easily Distracted d6
GREEN
Minor Twists
- Face This Foe! The Riddlemaster creates a ‘fun’ opponent for you. Create a d10 minion. It has +2 to damage saves against all damage except for one type, against which it has -2 instead.
- Solve My Riddle! The Riddlemaster gives you a riddle or creates a physical puzzle that needs to be solved. Create the following challenge: Solve The Riddle.
- Until this challenge is resolved, non-Riddle Overcomes automatically fail.
Major Twist
- Okay, I’ll Give You A Hint: The Riddlemaster can’t contain themselves. Roll the environment dice and Boost the next hero to attempt an Overcome with the Max die.
YELLOW
Minor Twists
- Swapsies! Wouldn’t it be neat? Either switch all bonuses and penalties on two characters, or switch one Power on one hero with one Power on another hero for the rest of the scene. Any Abilities that used the previous power use the new one instead.
- Sidequest! The Riddlemaster sets up a side objective for you. Create the following challenge: Accomplish the sidequest. Roll the environment dice and record the results. If a hero solves the challenge, Boost them with the Min die. If the scene tracker reaches Red before the challenge is solved, Attack all heroes with the Mid die.
Major Twist
- Head Over There! The Riddlemaster ‘helps’ a hero advance. Roll the environment dice. Attack and Boost one Hero with the Mid die, and move them to anywhere in the current scene.
RED
Minor Twists
- Why Aren’t You Done Yet?! The Riddlemaster is getting frustrated. Roll the environment dice and Attack one hero with the Max+Min dice.
- Do You Need More Clues? The Riddlemaster gives you another riddle. Create the following challenge: Solve The Harder Riddle. When this challenge is resolved, roll the environment dice and Boost all Heroes with the Max die.
Major Twist
- I Give Up! The Riddlemaster’s frustrations literally boil over. Roll the environment dice. Hinder all targets with the Mid die and Attack all targets with the Min die.
In Vanguards! #71, Realm of the Riddlemaster, an experiment with Doctor Cosmos’ orb went awry, sending the Vanguards careening into a pocket dimension. In the strangely-patterned world they met a strange cat-like alien that called itself the Riddlemaster. Declaring that it hadn’t seen travellers in over a millenium, the creature immediately asked to play with them, promising to help the Vanguards leave if they could solve its games. Captain Bolt refused, but Mr. Infinity felt sorry for the lonely person, and told them that he’d be happy to play for a bit.
The Riddlemaster immediately perked up and began creating obstacles and puzzles for Mr. Infinity. It quickly became obvious that the entire fabric of the dimension was theirs to command, able to create illusions of life and even rewrite the Vanguards’ powers and abilities on a whim. After a series of nearly fatal challenges, with the Riddlemaster lending a hand when they seemed about to lose but adding more challenges every time the heroes seemed about to win, the Vanguards were able to more or less solve its riddles. True to their word, the Riddlemaster opened a portal for the team to leave, telling the group that they hadn’t had that much fun in eons. They apologized for causing trouble, admitting that knew that when the game was done they would be alone again. Impulsively, seeing the Riddlemaster looking forlorn as the group was leaving, Mr. Infinity turned back and told them that the Vanguards would be their friends, and that they would visit again some day. Captain Bolt dourly predicted that would mean trouble down the line, but he couldn’t fault Reggie for his compassion.
The Riddlemaster wasn’t meant to be more than one of the random strange things that the Vanguards encountered, but fate had other ideas. One month after “Realm of the Riddlemaster”, Sentinel Comics unveiled a multi-issue event featuring their own cosmic imp, Wager Master. Seeing the popularity of the blue chaos god, Joe Manzetta went to Kit Granville and demanded more stories for Venture’s own trickster. Granville shrugged and tossed a goofy Riddlemaster story into the mix early in 1965, in which the imp appeared in the middle of a battle between the Vanguards and the Malefactors to ‘cheer my favourite heroes on’, sowing chaos and confusion.
From then on, the Riddlemaster would appear randomly to play with their friends, with an unclear grasp on the line between ‘goofy fun’ and ‘deadly force’ combined with an ever-shifting series of rules about how they could interact with the universe. Sometimes they would help save the day, other times they would make the situation much worse, but they always meant well. Later stories would codify that the Riddlemaster was bound by the same rules that affected gods such as Urak or the Empress of Ash, and had been allowed into Earth’s dimension by Mr. Infinity’s declaration of friendship. If they stayed for too long, they would begin to break down existence and absorb it into their own lonely realm, which was why their visits were so short.
When Doctor Cosmos left the Vanguards to travel with the Celestial Travellers, the Riddlemaster followed her, becoming a recurring character in Celestial Travels while also popping in to Earth to offer new challenges to the Vanguards. Both teams were fond of but frustrated by the godling, and did their best to guide it to better life choices while surviving the nonsense it threw their way. This helped it to stay relevant while the Vanguards were out of the picture in the 1990s, and they remained a minor fan favorite through to the present.
In the early years of the Riddlemaster’s appearances, it would pop up as a man, woman, both, or neither according to its whim; the 2010s codified them as a being that had been non-binary even before developing infinite cosmic power, and who used that power to maintain whatever gender was most comfortable in the moment.
Behind The Scenes:
Back to Hero Forge for a bit, that’s nice.
The Riddlemaster was of course first mentioned back in Deep Cuts as the originator of the Cosmic Mr. Infinity variant. At the time, I mentioned they’d be getting more information, and here they are! As a cosmic imp who is more careless than malicious, the Riddlemaster doesn’t really make sense as a villain, but they’re a great environment. You can also mix and match some of their twists with another environment if they’re getting involved somewhere else.
I do have more Riddlemaster stuff to write up one day, but this is as much as I could fit in this section of the story. They’re definitely one of those folks that gets a few contradictory backstories and eventually one of them sticks; I like the idea that as the 70s go on and people start more directly codifying the idea of ancient godlike beings who can dissolve worlds through their presence, and thus are prevented from travelling between dimensions unless certain conditions are met, the Riddlemaster gets elevated to joining Urak, Balor, Amorta and the Sovereign - but much less malicious, which means that their ability to absorb worlds is actually a huge problem for them that they try to avoid.
In the real world, the Riddlemaster is a tiny bit personal because they’re based on an in-joke between me and my spouse that kind of got out of hand. Spouse had final say on the look, and gave it two thumbs up.
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