At the risk of derailment, when is the Plutonium Age? 
Talk about an ungoogleable phrase…
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The other books have different teams on them and are unconnected.
Sorry for derailing things myself; just felt a little bad seeing the History book catch flak when I knew it was a labor of love from a friend of C&A that was never meant to have RPG mechanics to begin with.
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History of Sentinel Comics is definitely a book that I want to see reach print, and the cascade of tragedies that have accompanied it are heartbreaking. But who knows, maybe I can add enough side projects to this to keep it running until History comes out.
I have my own thoughts about the mistakes that were made in the Sentinel RPG Kickstarter, but those thoughts are mainly “this is not the first project by a games company that fell into a major scope creep trap” with a side of “I don’t think making an RPG that is meant to exist for more than 1-2 books is reconcilable with the way that C&A approach their IP control, which is a shame.”
I’ll discuss it more in-depth, but in short: the Plutonium Age is not a fully agreed-upon term in comics, although I’ve seen it in a few places. It refers to the era of company-wide crossovers and annual or bi-annual stunt events which I think the Iron Age dissolved into in the early 2000s. I’ve seen it called the Crisis Age, some people just call it the Modern Age, and it lines up with the start times for those folks who feel we’re in the Digital Age. It’s also a period in which very few new heroes or villains actually take root. Despite putting out 50-60 titles a month, I can count the number of successful Marvel heroes taking root between 2006 and 2020 on one hand, and Venture has a lot fewer titles than that, so I felt like I could either only do reboots or I could just skip it.
I do have a plan for how to write out the Plutonium Age, which I’ll reveal in a couple weeks as I end the Iron Age’s villains.
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I think this with a side of “GTG keep having difficulties with who they work with” is more the real issue, yeah. I’d support Rich sending a letter asking why the teams working on the other books took this long to actually start working on them, as I think that’s more the sticky wicket.
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I look forward to this! :3
If you scroll way up to the first post the Plutonium Age is defined (for this thread) there as well, which is where I pulled it from. I’m obviously in agreement about it being a dreadful period for new supers books, and it marked a period for me where I largely stopped buying new books and turned to webcomics and collected reprints of older material.
Christopher is involved in final approval for every book, and he’s also having to finish the History book owing to Darren Watt’s unfortunate and very unexpected demise, and that’s all while dealing with his health issues. Even if the teams finished all their work tomorrow the books would just end up in queue for review and approval. Everything is connected through Christopher, and Adam presumably vets some of it as well.
I’m wouldn’t get any more of a response than the KS backers have. And it doesn’t really matter - to reiterate my point, they could all be done right now and still have to wait for approval and that takes time. The teams may very well have been given a go-slow order pending the completion of the History book to avoid precisely that kind of log jam.
That should be interesting. The Big Two were the ones who really went down the “crisis wars crossover” rabbit hole while the few small indy publishers and Dark Horse chugged along doing their own thing, so maybe Venture avoids the trap - but they have shown a fondness for crossovers and had a pseudo-crisis even already, so maybe not. 
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And they’re nowhere close to finished, so the History book is not the holdup.
What is the holdup? I don’t know. Could be an issue with the teams, could be an issue at GTG. But it’s not the specific thing you’re concerned about.
Or it’s unrelated, as none of the teams in question were also working on it and Christopher himself wasn’t even working on the History book until extremely recently due to something nobody expected, so there was no reason for any slow down plans.
You can still try. Five minutes out of your day. I would be genuinely curious to find out for sure what the actual holdup is.
But for now, it seems you’re just disappointed that the History book didn’t contain what you wanted it to contain. And I can get that, but it was never meant to and never was going to contain it.
Nor are any of the overall RPG issues the fault of C&A’s friend wanting to do a personal project on behalf of his friends.
But in any case, I’ll leave off with this here specifically, and we can discuss this in PM or another spin-off thread if anyone wants to continue.
So it is! Imagine being able to remember the start of this thread. XD
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I’ll have to imagine it, since the actual process consisted of “I know FrivYeti said there was a time period he was going to skim over because it was kind of awful but what was the name of it again?” and then dragging the slider back to post #1 in the assumption that it had been defined near the start of all this.
As we get more and more references to earlier ages and retro-continuity I find myself scrolling back more frequently to look at how characters have evolved.
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Do we know who Shockeye is? They’re namedropped in Gale Force’s and Wicker’s writeups but I can’t find any reference to them before that.
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Uh…
Wow.
Welcome to the thread, AstralSparrow, and that is a hell of a good catch.
Shockeye should have been posted between Wildstyle and Flatfoot, and I appear to have just… not… posted anything that day. I made him a portrait and everything. So I guess we get two posts today!
The Randomizers:
Background 5, 9, 4 [Options: Military, Academic, Tragic, Medical, Interstellar]
Power Source 4, 1, 1 [Options: Accident, Training, Experimentation, Mystical, Supernatural]
Archetype 2, 2, 7 [Options: Shadow, Marksman, Armored, Elemental Manipulator, Psychic]
Personality 7, 10, 8 [Options: Stalwart, Fast Talking, Alluring, Jovial, Naive, Apathetic]
Shockeye
Real Name: Hugh Amity, First Appearance: Fish Out Of Water #1, July 1992
Background: Interstellar, Power Source: Experimentation, Archetype: Marksman
Personality: Stalwart, Principles: Sea, Nomad
Status Dice: Green d8, Yellow d8, Red d10. Health: 34 [Green 34-26, Yellow 25-13, Red 12-1]
Qualities: Alertness d12, Fitness d8, Deep Space Knowledge d6, Fugitive d8
Powers: Awareness d10, Eyepiece (Signature Weapon) d8, Swimming d8, Electricity d6
Green Abilities:
- Attune (I): When you are Boosted, increase that bonus by +1. Then, if that bonus is +5 or higher, take damage equal to that bonus and remove it.
- Lock Eyes [A]: Attack using Eyepiece. Ignore all penalties on this Attack, ignore any Defend actions, and it cannot be affected by Reactions.
- Battlefield Awareness [A]: Boost using Awareness to create one bonus using your Max die and another using your Mid die.
- Principle of the Sea [A]: Overcome a situation while underwater and use your Max die. You and each of your allies gain a hero point.
- Principle of the Nomad [A]: Overcome a situation where you can apply lessons from the road and use you Max die. You and each of your allies gain a hero point.
Yellow Abilities:
- Precise Solutions [A]: Attack or Overcome using Finesse on an environmental target, using your Max+Min dice. If you roll doubles, take a minor twist.
- Sensory Overload [A]: Boost yourself using Awareness. Use your Max die. That bonus is persistent and exclusive.
- Chain Reaction [A]: Attack a minion using Electricity. The result of the minion’s save Attacks another target of your choice.
- Quick Response [R]: When a new target enters close range, Attack that target by rolling your single Alertness die.
Red Abilities
- Eye Spy (I): As long as you have at least one bonus created from Alertness, treat Eyepiece as one size higher (max d12).
- Make A Splash [A]: Hinder any number of close targets using Fitness. Use your Max die. End your turn elsewhere in the scene.
Out
- Remove a bonus or penalty of your choice.
Business was booming in 1992, but the editors of Venture Comics had noticed that through a series of cancellations and reboots, their line was definitively tilting towards magical affairs, less occupied with the super-science and conspiracy comics that were increasingly popular with their readers. To help balance the scales, and to provide a vehicle for new and especially younger readers to enter the once-again busy world of Venture Comics, a new comic was designed starring an alien experiencing the Venture world for the first time: Fish Out Of Water.
Hugh Amity (not his original name) was a Damyrian, an amphibious alien species whose planet had been ravaged during the time of the World-Maggots. He came to Earth in search of a better life, and was promptly captured by AEGIS, who experimented on him to try to understand his alien capabilities better. Fortunately for Hugh, he was saved by Covert Tactics in the first issue of Fish Out Of Water, and Big Brain designed a holographic projector for him that would let him disguise himself as a human.
Having seen the best and worst that humanity had to offer in his first weeks on Earth, Hugh decided that he wanted to know more. Politely declining the chance to either join Covert Tactics or be given help escaping off-world, he decided to roam the Earth, leaning about its ways, seeing the dangers that beset it, and discovering the heroes who helped to keep it safe.
When Shockeye was first released, there were comparisons made in the reading public between him and Tempest - both were aquatic aliens with some kind of lightning powers, captured by human authorities and turned into allies of local superheroes, and both had initial runs whose titles emphasized their differences to the world around them (although Stranger in a Strange Land was long since over at this point.) The response from Venture was simply that there were no new ideas, and they trusted that Shockeye would demonstrate his differences in the text.
Most of Shockeye’s stories were crossovers with various other Venture Comics heroes, both those with their own comics and those without. However, none of them were crossovers that were tied to the storylines currently happening in those comics, instead serving as interesting short storylines that introduced readers to the characters or provided entertaining events for readers who already knew them. Shockeye himself had incredible senses, heightened even further by AEGIS experimentation, and his body’s natural ability to create electrical was enhanced by a cybernetic eye surgically installed in him that could send out bolts of power to stun his foes. Despite the terrible things that had happened to him, Shockeye was a friendly and good-hearted person, who often mused about the tragedies that could break a person, or forge them into something better. While his stories were still often characterized by the violence of the Iron Age, there was a hope underlying them that held promise for the future.
Behind the Scenes
I have done my best to build a character that mostly Attacks using their d12 Alertness quality, which I personally find entertaining. I was originally planning to have that Alertness build into a lot of psychic stuff, but Accident didn’t feel right and then Experimentation/Psychic and Experimentation/Shadow were both taken, and despite the name, Elemental Manipulator is really a blaster archetype with riders.
Instead, we have a sort of electric eel alien guy, with incredible powers that were dialed up by evil government experimentation, setting up the “yes, the government is the bad guy” part of Venture Comics activities, while still being kind of a good-natured person whose comics are a bit more targeted at a younger audience. It’s one of those weird things that would only happen in the 90s but probably had a surprisingly solid run before eventually winding down.
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Oh, that’s why we had that no-post day. I figured this guy was just still in the pipeline somewhere. Pretty funny, and a good catch indeed.
Nice to see an alien who doesn’t have Science/Technology and Gadgets or other xenotech gear. Just a refugee and whatever offworld toys he might have had presumably got confiscated by AEGIS while they were shoving cyrberware in his eye socket. Pretty legit, most 21st century humans couldn’t replace our own personal electronics or firearms or transport if we had them taken away from us, so why would your “average Joe” alien?
Amusing that he needs to be careful using Alertness with Awareness when using Sensory Overload or he may fry himself good with Attunement. He can play it safe using a different quality but it’ll reduce the chance winding up with a +4 P+E bonus.
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Randomizers:
Approach: 5, 5, 1 [Options: Relentless, Bully, Disruptive, Overpowered, Adaptive]
Archetype: 5, 1, 2 [Options: Predator, Inventor, Bruiser, Indomitable, Overlord, Formidable]
Upgrade: 4, 7, 6 [Options: Villainous Vehicle, Power Upgrade II, Quality Upgrade I]
Mastery: 10, 8, 7 [Options: Mysticism, Profitability, Total Chaos]
Bloodmoon
Real Name: Sir Francis Varney, First Appearance: Remnants #5, July 1991
Approach: Disruptive, Archetype: Predator
Upgrade: Power Upgrade II, Mastery: Mysticism
Status Dice: 0-1 engaged opponents d10, 2-3 engaged opponents d8, 4+ engaged opponents d6. Health: 35+5H [Upgraded 55+5H]
Qualities: Magical Lore d10, Persuasion d8, Investigation d8, Vampire d8
Powers: Suggestion d10, Speed d10, Shapeshifting d8, Awareness d8
Abilities:
- Drain Vitae [A]: Hinder using Speed. Use your Max die. Recover using your Min+Mid dice.
- Hypnotic Gaze [A]: Attack using Suggestion. Use your Max die. A target dealt damage this way Attacks an ally by rolling their single largest power die.
- Transformation [A]: Boost yourself using Magical Lore. Use your Max die. That bonus is persistent and exclusive. Defend using your Mid die against all Attacks until the start of your next turn.
- Vicious Reprisal [R]: When Attacked, roll your single status die. Hinder the Attack using that result, and deal damage to the attacker equal to that penalty.
- Vampire Lord (I): Increase Shapeshifting and Speed to d12, and Presence and Awareness to d10.
Common Scene Elements:
- Vampire Servitors: d8 lieutenants. When a vampire servitor Attacks and deals damage, they increase their die by one step, to a maximum of d10.
- Human Thralls: d6 minions. A thrall can sacrifice themselves to increase the die of a vampire servitor by one step or to allow Bloodmoon to roll their die as a reaction and Recover that much health.
- A Ritual: Bloodmoon’s latest attempt to spread his curse will have terrible surroundings for the region if not stopped.
Many of the early Remnant stories were two-parters intended to showcase the Remnants by putting them in pairs against a dark reflection of their inner struggles - Remnants #3 and #4 focused on Hardline and Razorline, in the aptly-named “Hold the Line” story, and the second such story was a two-parter that debuted in Remnants #5, which focused on Nightguard and Moon Angel by presenting their ultimate foe, Bloodmoon.
Sir Francis Varney was born in the late 1500s in England. A student of the occult, he was obsessed with the promise of immortality, studying under the elderly John Dee and stealing many of his books upon his death. Varney ultimately enacted a ritual by mixing ancient blood magic with forbidden divine curses in the hopes of granting himself their power, and instead succeeded only in turning himself into a vampire. At first, he found this delightful; the moon’s light could heal him of all harm, blood granted him immense power and the ability to transform into various nocturnal beasts, and he possessed superhuman speed and hypnotic powers. But soon he found that he was barely in control of his terrible hungers, and one night he killed his own son in a frenzy and ended his family line.
Over the centuries, Bloodmoon shifted between depression at his fate and fury at the world that had allowed him to seek it out. In his depressive moods, he sought to end his curse and his unlife, only to find that every attempt only spread further ruin and misery. In his fury, he created new vampires, spitefully turning those who were living better lives than his own. At the tail end of one of these jaunts, he had met Nightguard’s platoon and slaughtered them, turning Nightguard into a vampire before letting himself be killed. Of course, he rose from the ashes a few months later, and was back to his old tricks, embarking on a plan to blot out the Moon’s light forever so that he could not be raised in the event of his death. The Remnants were able to stop him, but although Nightguard brutally decapitated him and sealed his corpse deep in the Remnants’ compound, it wasn’t long before his body decayed to ash, vanished from its cell, and revived back out in the world, and the hunt was on again.
Bloodmoon was not, in the context of Venture Comics, the first vampire. Rather, after his appearance, it was explained that various people throughout history had created their own lines of vampires through different forms of magic, and he was merely one of a handful of vampiric Sires, progenitors of a vampiric bloodline. Bloodmoon was also retconned to have been the creator of the Rougarou curse, and through it most modern werewolves. He had done so as part of a botched attempt to remove his own curse and place it into someone else, but after he was done his curse returned to him the next time he stepped under the moonlight.
Behind the Scenes
Other comic lines get the cool vampires. This comic gets the ridiculous one. If you haven’t looked up Varney the Vampire, I heartily recommend it. It’s (probably) by the creator of Sweeney Todd, and is just as much a nonsensical romp about a monster who doesn’t want to be a monster unless maybe he does. Our Varney is similar, a brooding depressed creature that really just wants to die, except that he can’t figure out how to do it. Maybe if he kills the moon? The main thing is that he does a ton of damage and is horrible to everyone around him, which is very extreme and 90s.
There was a Bloodmoon in Image Comics, but he was gone after eight issues so I’m comfortable reusing the title for this nonsense boy.
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A Varney the Vampire homage, hilarious. A very goofy bit of mid-1800s fiction indeed.
I can hear the Sentinels lawyers writing the C&D letter now. Especially after the Venture bullpen works in the bit about Baron Blade looking for investment capital.
“Mister Varney? There’s a letter here from a Mister Ramonat about you investing in his “terralunar impulsion beam” project?”
The game historian in me wants him to have a modern day relative named Allen Varney who turns out to be a secret part-time necromancer - that being one of the board games he wrote for Steve Jackson IRL. Or perhaps an alien babysitter/exterminator. Or both, because anyone related to Varney the Vampire should be a kind of goofy. And no matter what you do, don’t let him anywhere near any radioactive kaiju.
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Yeah, considering he shows up in July '91 and it was just October '90 with Disparation vol. 1 #15. Creation of Vampire World by exploding the moon and blocking out sunlight leading the vampires to thrive. Okay, maybe cross purposes but the means are basically the same.
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I expect that Venture avoids too much trouble because “what if I kill the Moon” isn’t Bloodmoon’s first plot, although when he eventually does it there are definitely comparisons.
He also probably manages to try it via a magical ritual to turn the Moon dark rather than a literal attempt to blow it up.
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If there’s one thing Dr. McNinja taught us, it’s that you don’t mess with the moon. Dracula’s lunar castle is up there, complete with a giant moon laser that makes Blade’s best efforts seem tame.
Sigh. I miss my daily dose of absurdity from that comic.
Or he tries dabbling in science instead. All he needs is an army of zombies with paintbrushes, enough ultrablack to cover half the moon’s surface, and a successful startup rocket company (SpaceV, no doubt) to get everything up there. The heroes catch on that’s something is amiss when an early launch accident results in a ten-mile area downfield of the takeoff site suddenly being turned carbon black while living dead in coveralls rain from the sky. If they wind up needing help ending the scheme they’ll get some unexpected assistance from werewolf guerillas sniping SpaceV launches with rocket launchers.
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Randomizers:
Approach: 10, 3, 1 [Options: Relentless, Prideful, Underpowered, Overpowered, Generalist, Creator]
Archetype: 10, 1, 3 [Options: Predator, Bruiser, Guerilla, Squad, Domain, Fragile]
Upgrade: 6, 12, 8 [Options: Power Upgrade II, Quality Upgrade II, Brainwashing Zone*]*
Mastery: 7, 4, 1 [Options: Annihilation, Enforced Order, Mysticism]
Captain Bolt
Real Name: Captain Ian Blake, First Appearance: (as antagonist) Covert Tactics (Vol. 3) #95, Oct. 1992
Approach: Generalist, Archetype: Squad
Upgrade: Brainwashing Zone, Mastery: Enforced Order
Status Dice: 3+ other villains d10, 1-2 other villains d8, 0 other villains d6. Health: 30+5H (Upgraded 40+5H)
Qualities: Ranged Combat d10, Leadership d8, Alertness d6, Military Veteran d8
Powers: Power Suit d10, Electricity d8, Presence d8, Vitality d6
Abilities:
- Power Suit (I): Reduce physical and energy damage dealt to you by 1 if the scene is in the Green zone, 2 in the Yellow zone, or 3 in the Red zone.
- Restraint Drones [A]: Hinder multiple nearby targets using Power Suit. Boost yourself using your Max die.
- Electro-Pulse [A]: Attack using Ranged Combat. Use your Max die. Recover Health equal to your Min die.
- Bolt from the Blue [A]: Attack using Ranged Combat. Use your Max die. Defend all nearby allies with your Mid+Min dice until the start of your next turn.
- Command Tactics [A]: Boost using Leadership. Boost another target using your Max die, and use your Min die to Defend against all Attacks against you until your next turn.
- (U) Neuro-Electrical Suppression Field (I): While the scene is in the Green zone, all heroes’ quality dice at d8 or above are reduced one size. In the Yellow zone, all heroes’ quality dice at d10 or above are reduced by two die sizes. In the Red zone, all heroes’ quality dice are treated as if they are d4. Heroes may remove this ability with three Overcome successes. If a hero takes a minor twist, the hero must lose access to a quality entirely until this ability is removed. If a hero is knocked out while this ability is active, you may create a new minion using the hero’s highest power die to represent the controlled version of that hero.
- (U) Master of Enforced Order (I): If you have complete control over your immediate surroundings, automatically succeed in an Overcome to organize rabble to accomplish a task.
Common Scene Elements:
- Mr. Infinity, a Skilled/Indomitable villain who uses his super-speed and intangibility to shrug off penalties and hinder multiple foes with his rapid strikes.
- Pulsejet, a Relentless/Bruiser villain who is immune to fire and who uses her flame and speed to get in the path of attacks aimed at her allies.
- Nucleon, a Dampening/Inventor villain who uses her cosmic and psychic powers to lock down her enemies’ minds and bodies while using her scientific inventions to help her allies.
In 1992, the ongoing fight between Covert Tactics and AEGIS finally boiled over into open war after the team took out an AEGIS research facility that had been conducting illegal human experiments. In response, AEGIS arranged for the U.S. government to declare the team terrorists, and in Covert Tactics #95 the Vanguards were sent to arrest and detain them by any means necessary. The Vanguards, who had last been seen in the 1991 limited run “Vanguards of Order”, were convinced that while Madame Liberty’s goals were just, she was threatening American national security and causing more harm than good, and they were determined to bring her down. Over the course of three issues, they tracked down the team’s current base and struck, unleashing the full power of the American military against Covert Tactics and forcing them to flee.
Over the next two years, the Vanguards would make multiple attempts to bring Covert Tactics in, forcing them to stay on the move. In Covert Tactics #100, Madame Liberty’s double role in AEGIS was uncovered and she had to abandon her civilian life, and on more than one occasion, the Vanguards managed to capture at least one member of the team. Events came to a head in 1995, when Madame Liberty managed to deliver proof of AEGIS’s crimes to Captain Bolt, only for AEGIS to deploy its final weapon - a hidden neuro-electrical controller that they had spent the last several months installing in his power suit, derived from the electrical control fields first developed by AEGIS’s latest recruit, Dr. Roach! The field had been quietly manipulating the Vanguards since AEGIS had taken over support for the team, and now all remaining compassion and restraint was removed. The Vanguards became an even more deadly threat not just to Covert Tactics, but to any of Venture’s undercover or semi-legal teams, threatening the Rogue Agents, the Twilight Carnival, and Shockeye.
Captain Bolt and the Vanguards would remain under AEGIS control until 1998, when Covert Tactics finally managed to free them as part of a major crossover with the Champions of Truth. In the aftermath, the Vanguards began to work to build a counter-force in the U.S. government against AEGIS, realizing how badly they had been used, but their reputation with the other heroes of the Venture universe was badly damaged.
Behind the Scenes
I knew that I wanted the Vanguards to turn, with all of the “government is trouble” stories that were cropping up, but I wasn’t sure if Captain Bolt would stay, or if he’d be replaced by a different government goon. The randomizers I got both gave me (a) a good way to build him and (b) a really interesting ultimate version, where he’s unwittingly the centre of a brainwashing field being deployed to control civilians. Everything else spiralled from there.
Figuring out the rough villain builds for people I’ve already built as heroes is pretty neat, and I like how this team more or less shook out. One interesting fact - of all the villain approaches and archetypes, Focused is the only one that allows for elemental immunity, and there’s no villain approach or archetype with elemental healing (probably for the best, that could get out of control in a hurry.) Struck me as odd. Pulsejet gets it anyway, because shut up, that’s why.
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Yeah, that. Damage inversion tricks are potent enough on heroes. Combine one with a villain’s (generally) much larger Health total and the fact that healing doesn’t usually cost them anything (whereas a hero inverting a big hit can easily find themselves in a higher GYRO zone with weaker abilities available, at least early on in a scene) and it’s a recipe for disaster.
Even just e/e immunity is pretty rough if it applies to a hero’s key Y/R Attack abilities. PCs should theoretically be able to work around having a dead power or quality, but immunities are such a strong counter they’ll leave anyone trumped by them with very sub-par perfoprmance.
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Randomizers:
Approach: 7, 6, 2 [Options: Skilled, Disruptive, Focused, Mastermind, Specialized, Creator]
Archetype: 1, 3, 1 [Options: Predator, Inventor, Bruiser, Guerilla, Domain]
Upgrade: 5, 12, 11 [Options: Power Upgrade I, Power Dampening, Brainwashing]
Mastery: 10, 7, 3 [Options: Conquest, Mysticism, Total Chaos]
Incursion
Real Name: D’Krell Shogoath, First Appearance: Celestial Travels #690, August 1996
Approach: Creator, Archetype: Guerilla
Upgrade: Power Dampening, Mastery: Total Chaos
Status Dice: 4+ Engaged Opponents: d10. 2-3 engaged opponents: d8. 0-1 engaged opponents: d6. Health: 35+5H (Upgraded 45+5H)
Qualities: Close Combat d10, Leadership d8, Deep Space Knowledge d8, Finesse d8, Ultra-Commando d8
Powers: Teleportation d10, Presence d8, Cosmic d8, Gadgets d6
Abilities:
- Mission-Focused (I): If you are outnumbered by nearby opponents, reduce all damage dealt to you by 2.
- Mass Portals [A]: Use Teleportation to create a number of minions equal to the value of your Max die. The starting die size for those minions is the same as the size of your Min die.
- Open a Path [A]: Attack multiple close targets using Close Combat. Hinder each target using your Min die.
- Sacrificial Opening [R]: When one of your minions is destroyed, roll its die and deal damage equal to that roll to another target.
- (U) Cosmic Radiation (I): While the scene is in the Green zone, all heroes’ power dice at d8 or above are reduced one size. In the Yellow zone, all heroes’ power dice at d10 or above are reduced two die sizes. In the Red zone, all heroes’ power dice are treated as if they are d4. Heroes may remove this ability with three Overcome successes. If a hero takes a minor twist, the hero must lose access to a power entirely until this ability is removed.
- (U) Master of Total Chaos (I): If you are in a situation where everything is spiraling out of control, automatically succeed in an Overcome to accomplish a task by throwing out the rules.
Common Scene Elements:
- Star Fortress: A high-tech military facility which Incursion is in the process of infiltrating
- Comet Commandos: d8 minions. The Commandos get +1 to all actions when they are near Incursion and he is active.
- Meteor Men: d8 lieutenants. They can use a reaction to allow a Comet Commando to reroll a damage save and take the better result.
While the rest of Venture Comics was reckoning with the ongoing effects of the collapse of the speculator market, their most venerable comic continued to tick along. The Celestial Travelers, now a crew of six defending the war-torn galaxy’s most vulnerable people, spent much of the latter half of the 1990s helping to build a new galactic coalition to replace the lost power of the Xur’Tani. They continued to have only a handful of minor crossovers with the rest of Venture Comics, and aside from two major events, avoided the stunt marketing and shock reveals that were increasingly common in the broader comics world. The first of those events was the April 1993 wedding of Doctor Cosmos and Wavelength, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the foundation of the new Celestial Travelers. The second, in Celestial Travels #690, was the Grand Galactic Peace Summit, in which all of the powers of the galaxy gathered to put an end to the strife and chaos that had marked the galaxy over the past fifteen years of comics.
It was thus not a surprise to comics readers when the summit was attacked, although the mechanism may have been a surprise. A lone commando successfully infiltrated the summit building, bypassing its security, and made his way to the sealed chamber of the delegates. Once there, he activated a powerful cosmic radiation field that began to sap the strength of the security forces, and opened portals across the dimensions, gating in his troops to fill the chamber and hold the delegates hostage. The Celestial Travelers intervened, and managed to save the delegates, but the chaos of the attack led to a new wave of recriminations after the mysterious mercenaries escaped, setting back the cause of peace.
That was Incursion’s first appearance, but it wouldn’t be his last. A skilled mercenary and pirate, Incursion had the ability to tear open dimensional fissures either to locations he could fully perceive, or locations that he knew extremely well, regardless of distance. He used this ability to single-handedly infiltrate locations before either bringing his armies to him, or retreating back to them, depending on the needs of the moment, making him extremely hard to stop; he was literally a one-man army who could open a battlefront anywhere he went, and his goal was to keep the galaxy in a state of chaos to ensure a steady supply of jobs for him and his soldiers.
Ultimately, Incursion would fail to stop the formation of the new Galactic Union in Issue #700, but he succeeded in delaying its formation, and in keeping a number of star systems on its edges from joining, and despite a few near misses the Travelers were never able to bring him to justice. Due in large part to his efforts, the shape of Venture Comic’s galaxy by 2003 was one of a relatively peaceful centre surrounded by warlords and rogue factions, which the Celestial Travelers were forced to work hard to preserve.
Behind the Scenes
Creator and Guerilla just seemed like a very weird combination, and I wanted to see what I could do with it. I like the results! Rather than literally creating minions, Incursion has an endless supply of soldiers he can teleport in from his secret base, and the combination makes him a pain to deal with. He can charge into the fray, soaking a couple of minor hits with his damage reduction, then use his ability to create a ton of minions, and then some of them guard him, some of them attack, and when they get punched out he reacts to punish whoever does it.
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