…well, he’s quite different from my villain named Incursion at least! 
D:
1 Like
Randomizers:
Approach: 5, 7, 4 [Options: Underpowered, Bully, Specialized, Generalist, Creator]
Archetype: 6, 2, 3 [Options: Inventor, Bruiser, Indomitable, Overlord, Inhibitor, Loner]
Upgrade: 10, 4, 11 [Options: Villainous Vehicle, Calming Aura, Power Dampening Field]
Mastery: 9, 10, 12 [Options: Superiority, Total Chaos, Malice]
ScaVenger
Real Name: Sally Tyson, First Appearance: Fish out of Water #24, June 1994
Approach: Bully, Archetype: Inventor
Upgrade: Villainous Vehicle, Mastery: Malice
Status Dice: Based on Inventions and bonuses/penalties created by them. 4+: d12. 2-3: d10. 1: d8. None: d6. Health: 35+5H (Upgraded 50+5H)
Qualities: Banter d8, Technology d8, Disproportionate Retribution d8
Powers: Inventions d10, Presence d8, Awareness d8
Abilities:
- Build It Better (I): Whenever you create a bonus, increase that bonus by 1.
- Feel the Burn (I): Whenever you or your nearby allies Hinder, increase the penalty created by 1.
- Gadgets and Gizmos [A]: Boost using Inventions. Hinder with your Max die. Attack with your Min die.
- Wrap It Up [A]: Attack using Inventions and use your Max die. Also Hinder that target: if the target has a d6 or less status die, use your Max+Min dice; if the target has a d8 status die, use your Max die; and if the target has larger than a d8, use your Mid die.
-
(U) Scrapper (I): ScaVenger’s Scrapper is a d12 lieutenant with the following abilities:
- Harvest Tech (I): When this vehicle uses a Hinder action on its turn, it also Attacks the same target equal to the penalty created.
- Massive (I): When rolling a damage save, add 2 to the result.
- (U) Master of Malice (I): When you take an action to demonstrate or indulge in cruelty, automatically succeed at an Overcome to inflict pain or fear.
Common Scene Elements:
- An environment with frightened civilians and stealable technology
- Hired goons: d6 minions. Each group gets +1 to a different basic action.
- Grapple-Bots: d8 lieutenants. When Hindering, they may make the result persistent and exclusive; if so, it applies to both the bot and their target.
As a wandering superhero, Shockeye didn’t have very many consistent foes; mostly, he encountered villains who were part of the broader Venture Comics line, having encounters with freewheeling enemies like Doctor Strife, Mary Molotov or Dr. Roach, or helping a hero out against one of their own nemeses. However, he did have a few recurring enemies; AEGIS forces continuing to track him were one of those groups, but his most consistent recurring enemy ended up being the would-be master of all he surveyed, ScaVenger.
Sally Tyson had always been picked on. In high school, the jocks picked on her by dating cheerleaders instead of someone of her obvious intellect and grace, the goths picked on her by ignoring her attempts to correct their fashion, and the teachers picked on her by naming her salutatorian instead of valedictorian. Her parents oppressed her by refusing to continue funding her private chemistry lab just because she blew half of it up and injured a few staff members (they were barely even hospitalized), and to top it all off, her academic advisor said that she was ‘arrogant’ and ‘self-centred’ and wouldn’t write her a proper letter of recommendation to MIT. So she blew up his car to make a point, and then suddenly she was the bad guy? He wasn’t even in it! Besides which, there was no proof that Sally was responsible, the authorities just singled her out because they were jealous of her immense intellect!
With her funds tied up in legal battles, Sally was forced to scavenge parts for her technological contraptions from the sites of various superhuman battles. The truth was, she wasn’t a very good scientist, but she was an excellent retrofitter, with a gift for taking broken supervillain scrap and tuning it up, combining parts into hybrid devices and reprogramming robot soldiers. She used these devices in wildly overdramatic attempts to seek revenge on everyone who had ever wronged her, and then used her next wave of devices to seek revenge against everyone who had stopped her from getting revenge on the first group of people.
In their first encounter, Shockeye stopped ScaVenger from blowing up the influential college which she had been declined admission to due to her criminal record, and in the process made the mistake of mentioning that none of the villain’s tech had actually been created by her while the two of them were on national television. Humiliated and furious, ScaVenger made defeating her new nemesis her life’s goal, tracking him down repeatedly to try and blast him into fragments. Occasionally, she would arrive with her customized scrapping device, a massive tank that could churn up materials to make parts for ScaVenger, and which could also churn up heroes if needed.
ScaVenger’s efforts to obliterate Shockeye occasionally brought her into direct conflict with AEGIS, since she didn’t want Shockeye to be arrested and taken to a location where it would be harder for ScaVenger to break in and kill him. She remained a thorn in the hero’s side throughout both his solo run and into the pages of Earthwatch, where she immediately declared her other ultimate nemesis to be Wicker after he innocently asked her why her technology wasn’t more music-themed to match her name; wasn’t she the ska-venger?
Behind the Scenes
Nerd bully!
I liked the idea of a villain who really has very straightforward goals, and those goals are to MAKE THEM PAY. In a sense, it’s a bit like the old Sauron joke about “I don’t want to cure cancer, I want to turn people into dinosaurs”, but a bit more focused. It’s not that ScaVenger doesn’t understand what she’s capable of, it’s that her only real goal is to establish her reputation by hurting anyone who ever told her ‘no’ for any reason whatsoever.
ScaVenger’s two inherents combine well with her multi-purpose action, increasing the power of both her Boost and Hinder components and then getting a bit of damage in, too. That’s probably the action she takes most often, using her previous Boosts to enhance whichever part of it she wants to be stronger this time around. It also lets her buff up her minions or vehicle pretty effectively, weakening people so she can wail on them more safely. On the other hand, she has no active defenses. So if her Hinders don’t take, she’s going to get punched into paste.
3 Likes
What a delightfully sociopathic young woman. Probably very popular with the readers.
Interesting variant ability, that. Seems pretty restrained even with the extra point on each from Feel the Burn.
That’s terrible and you should feel bad about inflicting it upon the world. 
Yeah, that combo is nigh-irresistible with the Bully/Inventor pairing, isn’t it? Great for use with lackeys and allied villains, although she doesn’t seem like the type to work well with peers. Used it on the sole Bully/Inventor in my roster as well, although its concept is much less clever than this gal.
Well, she is an Inventor. Throwing together a salvaged bodyguard-bot as a lieutenant or full villain should be doable if she can find suitable scrap to work with. With even her weakest minions practically guaranteed to generate -2 penalties she shouldn’t have too much trouble debuffing threats, though.
1 Like
What an absolute piece of shit human being. I love her.
1 Like
I wish I could claim credit, but that joke actually came from my spouse, who suggested it as soon as they heard the name.
Yeah, she definitely wins the “gloriously petty” award. I bet the 2000s-era comic readers were absolutely over the moon for her.
Randomizers:
Approach: 10, 4, 4 [Options: Underpowered, Mastermind, Overpowered, Ninja]
Archetype: 5, 1, 2 [Options: Predator, Inventor, Bruiser, Indomitable, Overlord, Formidable]
Upgrade: 6, 8, 7 [Options: Power Upgrade II, Quality Upgrade I, Quality Upgrade II]
Mastery: 10, 2, 9 [Options: Behind the Curtain, Superiority, Total Chaos]
Overseer
Real Name: The Overseer, First Appearance: Rogue Agents #75, Jan 1997.
Approach: Ninja, Archetype: Overlord
Upgrade: Quality Upgrade II, Mastery: Behind the Curtain
Status Dice: 9+ minions: d12. 5-8 minions: d10. 3-4 minions: d8. 1-2 minions: d6. 0 minions: d4. Health: 35+5H (Upgraded 55+5H)
Qualities: Technology d10, Investigation d10, Imposing d8, Stealth d8, Coldly Calculating d8
Powers: Lightning Calculator d10, Robotics d10, Remote Viewing d8, Agility d8, Part Detachment d6
Abilities:
- Fall Back (I): If you take an action on your turn that does not involve an Attack or Hinder, also use your Min die to Defend against all Attacks against you until your next turn.
- Destruct and Recompile [A]: Attack multiple nearby targets using Technology. Then, end up wherever you want in the scene.
- Rapid Assembly [A]: Use Technology 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.
- Assume Control [A]: Boost using Remote Viewing for all your minions until the start of your next turn.
- Identical Frame [R]: Redirect an attack to one of your minions.
- (U) Integrated Systems (I): Increase Technology and Investigation to d12, and Imposing and Stealth to d10.
- (U) Master Behind the Curtain (I): As long as you are not directly involved in the fray and are using your influence indirectly, automatically succeed at an Overcome to manipulate a situation.
Common Scene Elements:
- The Man. The Overseer initially keeps Ferris close, although as time goes on he turns from ally to hostage.
- Ferris Industries. A highly hostile technological environment which the Overseer has full control over.
- Robotic Sentries. Use Blade Drones entries from Chapter 7 of the core rules to represent the Overseer’s starting defensive forces.
By 1997, Venture Comics was in the tail end of the collapse of the speculator bubble, with most of its comics settling into equilibrium. However, Company Town and Rogue Agents remained in dangerous straits. To solve the situation, Venture embarked on an eight-part crossover, “The Past Is Prologue” that would fold the events of Rogue Agents and Company Town together, drawing on elements from elsewhere in the Venture line.
Events kicked off in Rogue Agents #75 in January, as Guardian Industries completed construction of its hyper-intelligent defensive AI, the Overseer. Readers of Company Town were aware of the Overseer, as it had been referenced (but not shown) in several flash-forwards to Paradox’ dark future as a key tool of Ferris. As they investigated, the Rogue Agents became aware that Guardian was intricately connected to both the rogue government agency AEGIS and to Ferristown and its criminal master.
Over the course of the next seven issues, the Overseer would take control of Ferris Industries on behalf of AEGIS. It had two simple objectives: protect Hank Ferris, and ensure that Ferris Industries continued to supply AEGIS with equipment. To that end, the Overseer quickly began sidelining Ferris from actual decisions, turning him into a well-protected hostage in his own building, and constructed new generations of robot defenders. Paradox, seeing the last stages of the future she was trying to avert coming into being, called in all of her allies. Flatfoot and Fly Boy joined her, Shockeye and Covert Tactics lent a hand in the pages of their own books, and the Champions of Truth made a cameo to draw away the Vanguards and keep AEGIS’s other forces busy.
In the end, however, everything seemed to be about to lead to the future that Paradox had tried to avoid, until Wildstyle intervened. Wildstyle worked with Paradox to shift the flows of time and rapidly deploy a series of ever-shifting computer viruses directly into the Overseer, moving faster than it could calculate a response to and filling it with all of the artistic observations that Wildstyle had developed over their time with the Remnants and the Rogue Agents. Unable to filter out the calculations, the Overseer began to attempt to fully break down and catalogue the artistic potential of every molecule it could observe, shutting down completely.
The aftermath of “The Past Is Prologue” saw Paradox joining the Rogue Agents to try and start the process of fixing Ferristown, with Guardian Industries shut down and a critical line of support to AEGIS broken. Hank Ferris escaped, secretly bringing the Overseer with him with the goal of reprogramming it into a more obedient servant; he had been impressed by its capabilities, if not its decisions. The system would make more appearances as he tried to fine-tune it into a loyal servant, but its hold over the future had been irrevocably shaken.
Behind the Scenes
Venture Comics has shockingly few evil robots, and with the Retriever gone we’re technically currently at zero major ones, so here’s one more. The Overseer is a classic 90s evil robot, because rather than wanting to kill all humans it’s been programmed to do certain things and it is going to do them by sidelining its human operators and keeping them safe against their wills.
Mechanically, this thing is a beast. As an Overlord, it can flood the area with robot servants and use them as defensive cover, and as a Ninja flooding the area with robot servants gives it temporary defense and it can easily escape if it gets cornered. Behind the Curtain letsit accomplish its goals after escaping, and a simple quality upgrade gives it that extra bit of heft. It’s a dangerous ultimate foe, and you probably want some Overcomes in place to help shut it down!
3 Likes
It did manage to compose the deeply moving “Ode To Hydrocyanic Acid” before final shutdown, though.
1 Like
reminds me of a villain I have-
The Dank Gawds are god-like beings reborn as superficial tropes and memes instead of deep archetypes. The chained god / sleeping eye of entropy and kaos is remade as a girl staring at her cell phone. She (formerly it) wants to watch destruction. But on a quantum level there are millions of things becoming and ending every second, so the other bad guys have to work hard to get her attention to make her cause a car wreck.
Mechanically she is an environment with all D12s. she will react as a twist if a hero draws her baleful gaze, but otherwise another villain has to make an overcome with their own stats to get her to roll her all D12s pool. A villain twist would be AOE damage as she makes a psychic shout to be left alone.
2 Likes
Randomizers:
Approach: 6, 4, 1 [Options: Relentless, Underpowered, Bully, Disruptive, Focused, Overpowered]
Archetype: 8, 4, 4 [Options: Guerilla, Inhibitor, Legion, Titan]
Upgrade: 6, 7, 9 [Options: Power Upgrade II, Quality Upgrade I, Defense Shield]
Mastery: 3, 1, 12 [Options: Annihilation, Conquest, Malice]
Singularity
Real Name: Roxy Hall, First Appearance: (as Roxy Hall) Protean #5, Protean #14, March 1999
Approach: Underpowered, Archetype: Titan
Upgrade: Defense Shield, Mastery: Annihilation
Status Dice: d12, unless reduced by challenge. Health: 40+5H
Qualities: Otherworldly Lore d10, Persuasion d8, Alertness d6, Nascent Godhead d8
Powers: Cosmic d8, Intuition d6, Vitality d6, Size-Changing d6
Abilities:
- Warp Reality [A]: Attack multiple targets using Otherworldly Lore. Defend against all Attacks against you until your next turn using your Min die.
- Cosmic Flare [A]: Attack using Cosmic. Use your Max+Mid dice. Take irreducible damage equal to your Min die. If you roll doubles, you cannot use this ability again for the rest of the scene.
- Worldquake [A]: Activate one of the environment’s twists in its current zone.
- Dimensional Snare [A]: Attack using Cosmic and use your Max die. The target can either be Hindered equal to your Max+Mid+Min dice, or be unable to take any other actions other than using an Overcome to attempt to escape.
- Flesh of the Divine [R]: When Attacked, Defend yourself by rolling your single Cosmic die. If your roll reduces the damage to exactly 0, Recover Health equal to the damage reduced, Boost using that amount, and Hinder the source of the Attack using that amount.
- Impossible Geometries (I): Reduce all damage taken by 6 (if you have a d12 status die), 4 (if you have a d10 status die) or 2 (if you have a d8 or lower status die.)
- (U) Dimensional Shield (I): You cannot be damaged by anyone except yourself until the defense shield is destroyed. The defense shield has 40 Health, or can be deactivated with three Overcome successes. If a hero takes a minor twist working on the shield, you can make an Attack as a reaction by rolling your single Cosmic die.
- (U) Add Dimensional Layer [A]: Overcome using Cosmic. Use your Max die. On a success, remove one success from the deactivating challenge. Alternatively, instead of an Overcome, use the Max die to Recover that much of the defense shield’s Health. This ability cannot be used if the defense shield has been completely removed.
- (U) Master of Annihilation (I): If you can cause massive collateral damage without regard for casualties, automatically succeed at an Overcome where a show of overwhelming force can solve the problem.
Unique Challenge:
[][]: Align Singularity’s form with local physics, reducing her status by one die size.
[__]: Cut Singularity off from her pocket dimension, reducing her status by one die size.
Common Scene Elements:
- An environment slowly feeding Singularity power.
- Randco Scientists: d8 minions. They add +1 to any bonus created scientifically.
- Figments: d10 minions. They halve their damage saves, rounding up.
While Protean’s early superhero battles were usually low-key, facing off against minor villains and local criminals, a running thread in her early adventures was the growing number of criminals in the area who appeared to have unstable powers of limited duration. It became clear to Wendy early on that someone was experimenting in dimensional science, and she needed to deal with it. Wendy was quickly able to track the problem to Randco, which of course happened to be the tech company where Wendy was an intern. Robert Rand, Carlie’s father, was the company CEO and lead researcher, and in several early issues, Wendy suspected him of secretly experimenting on underground ‘volunteers’ in cooperation with the local mob.
In truth, however, Robert was a patsy. While he was a gifted scientist, he was hopeless at business, and the true culprit was his CFO, Roxy Hall. In Protean #12, with Protean rapidly closing in on her, Roxy framed Rand for her own crimes, and Carlie approached Protean, not knowing who she really was, desperate to clear her father’s name. Wendy had fallen for Roxy’s trickery and had been prepared to wash her hands of the situation, but feeling guilty after Carlie’s pleas, she dug deeper and realized what was actually going on. Protean confronted Roxy as she was overseeing another experiment, and in the confusion, Randco’s latest illegal dimensional experiment overloaded, sending waves of dimensional energy into Roxy and transforming her into a nascent living dimension.
The result was Singularity. In their first confrontation, Protean was able to cut her off from her power sources, and she ended up folding herself into a pocket dimension and vanishing, but while Robert Rand returned to his position, doing his best to guide Randco through the disastrous aftermath of the reveal of Roxy’s treachery, Singularity reached out to many of the scientists that had been fired or arrested, using them to try and build a new bridge for her to use to ascend to godhood. She would go on to become a recurring thorn in Protean’s side, with her ultimate goal being to gather enough power to become a dimensional force on par with devastating elder beings such as the Prince of Rot or the Empress of Ash.
Behind the Scenes
So yes, Protean ends up getting a plot involving Randco, and I continue my “mirror Spiderman” stuff here by having the best friend’s dad be the innocent one being manipulated, and Carlie ending up thankful for Protean for saving her father instead of angry at her for killing him.
Underpowered Titan as a concept just absolutely tickles me, and it works really well conceptually. Singularity has a lot of Max die-empowered effects, which works great until she gets cut off from her nascent dimension and her status die drops to a d8, at which point she is incredibly vulnerable. Her Defense Shield just gives her more health or defenses. Chances are, a lot of Singularity fights are the opposite of what I normally do with Titans - can you weaken her and beat her down before she gathers enough power to devastate the region?
Power-wise, I’m also continuing the elemental theme I started with the four Deadly Powers. Balor was water-affiliated, Urak is earth-affiliated, the Empress is fire-affiliated, the Sovereign was air-affiliated, and now Singularity is aether-affiliated. One thing that happens in comics is that you have a lot of dread ancient evils, and not a lot of modern people in the early stages of becoming one of those. So that’s what we have here. If not stopped, Singularity would consume the Earth and become a peer to the ancient powers, but so far Protean has kept that from happening.
3 Likes
I’m not the only person who read that as “rando scientists” at first, right? Because honestly, out-of-nowhere mad scientist types are almost as common as generic gangsters and thugs when it come to opposition forces for comic heroes.
Or maybe I’ve just been reading too many Dial H For Hero retro-reviews lately.
So she’s effectively pre-school Cthulhu?
My own stab at an underpowered titan was a somewhat awkward port of the first villain I designed for Villains & Vigilantes back in the early 80s, so a nostalgic piece of teen silliness for me.
2 Likes
Hah, now I want there to be a “RANDO” organization. Probably not for Venture, though, the niche is taken.
Yep, pretty much!
1 Like
Randomizers:
Approach: 9, 7, 2 [Options: Skilled, Focused, Specialized, Generalist, Dampening]
Archetype: 10, 2, 3 [Options: Inventor, Bruiser, Indomitable, Squad, Legion, Fragile]
Upgrade: 9, 1, 5 [Options: Mook Squad, Power Upgrade I, Quality Upgrade II]
Mastery: 9, 11, 6 [Options: Mercenary, Superiority, Unfathomable]
Blightmaker
Real Name: Kent Markham, First Appearance: Earthwatch (Vol. 3) #6, April 2001
Approach: Dampening, Archetype: Bruiser
Upgrade: Mook Squad, Mastery: Unfathomable
Status Dice: Green d6, Yellow d8, Red d10. Health: 45+5H
Qualities: Close Combat d10, Medicine d8, Otherworldly Lore d8, Military Cultist d8
Powers: Toxic d10, Presence d8, Awareness d8
Abilities:
- Rotting Touch [A]: Hinder using Toxic and use your Max die; that penalty is persistent and exclusive. As long as that penalty is on the target, reduce their highest power die of your choice by one die size. Attack using your Mid die.
- Field of Weakness [A]: Hinder multiple targets using Toxic. While a hero has this
- penalty, reduce all their power dice by one size.
- Cycle of Rebirth [A]: Defend using Close Combat and use your Mid+Min dice. Recover Health equal to your Max die.
- No Pain, No Gain [R]: When Attacked, use the amount of damage taken by the Attack to Boost yourself.
- (U) Mook Squad [A]: Replenish the number of Blight Troopers up to the number of heroes.
- (U) Master of the Unfathomable (I): If you are in a situation involving eldritch and disturbing forces, automatically succeed at an Overcome to do the bidding of the Prince of Rot.
Common Scene Elements:
- Blight Troopers: d8 minions. Blight Troopers always roll two dice and take the better result, but whenever either die is a maximum result, step them down afterwards.
- Withertanks: d10 minions. At the start of their turn, any non-Blight character in close proximity to a wintertank takes 1 damage.
- A Poisoned Environment. Damaged and ruined by SCOURGE.
While Earthwatch spent a number of stories going toe to toe with traditional alien invaders and super-science criminals, they also had to deal with the fact that the world was suspicious of alien outsiders, and one of their core team members was the woman partially responsible for the events that had kicked off this age of anti-alien suspicion. In particular, human supremacists who distrusted any team with an alien leader were a common threat, but the biggest threat was the one that had already been suborned by the very alien forces they purported to hate - SCOURGE.
The Society for the Cleansing of Unclean Realities and Geostatic Extradition was founded on the premise that the Earth was at risk of being overwhelmed by dangerous dimensions, and the only way to solve the problem was to find a way to dimensionally lock the planet so that interdimensional travel would not be able to reach it. SCOURGE had learned that most interstellar travel ran on interdimensional engines, and believed that locking the planet down was the only way to ensure humanity’s survival.
The problem, aside from the fact that SCOURGE’s approach was a brute force solution to a complex problem, was that the devices that they had designed to protect the Earth functioned by creating dimensional interference that would blight anything trying to pass through it, and that blight was not neutral - it was, in fact, a manifestation of the Plane of Rot. It wasn’t clear if this had been a deliberate sabotage or a disastrous miscalculation, but by the time they appeared as enemies of Earthwatch, SCOURGE’s leadership was already fully corrupted by Urak and envisioning a world in which every other reality was scoured of life, with Earth as the only dimension not fully subsumed under the Prince. How, exactly, they would hold him off when his energies were the ones controlling their defenses was not clear.
Blightmaker was SCOURGE’s most powerful agent, a rot-infused champion of human supremacy seeking to wipe out every alien refugee on Earth and create a barrier of rot around the world to ‘guard’ it from outside forces. His agents attacked Earth’s ley lines, working to damage its dimensional resonance, and Earthwatch was forced to intervene. They stopped him the first time, but he escaped, ready to continue to lay waste to the world in the name of saving it…
Behind the Scenes
This one took a turn. I was planning to write up a human supremacist for Earthwatch, using his dampening powers to charge into the middle and mess them up, and then I got Unfathomable and thought, hey, it’s been a while since we had a good Prince of Rot villain. So here we go! SCOURGE is the sort of wildly over-the-top villain that you usually get further in the past, but we’re far enough that they’re a little bit ironic, while also being a heavy-handed metaphor for bigotry and cruelty that somehow manages to work.
Mechanically, Blightmaker is probably pretty annoying. Rotting Touch can really wreck a party, especially with a good Boost attached to it thanks to someone taking a swing at him, and Field of Weakness is a double-dip Hinder effect. As long as Blightmaker has troopers around to back him up, he can really wreck shop. Against heroes who are good at removing penalties, though, he’s much less dangerous.
3 Likes
Also, he comes with a fantastic organizational acronym! XD
1 Like
It is entirely possible that I spent longer working out what SCOURGE stands for than I did on the rest of the descriptive writeup combined.
2 Likes
Yeah, that’ll happen. Good acronyms are hard.
2 Likes
Randomizers:
Approach: 5, 4, 8 [Options: Underpowered, Bully, Mastermind, Specialized, Tactician, Creator]
Archetype: 10, 4, 3 [Options: Bruiser, Guerilla, Formidable, Squad, Fragile, Titan]
Upgrade: 9, 1, 8 [Options: Mook Squad, Quality Upgrade II, Defense Shield]
Mastery: 5, 7, 10 [Options: Mad Science, Mysticism, Total Chaos]
Headmaster
Real Name: , First Appearance: (As Headmaster) Company Town #160, May 2002
Approach: Mastermind, Archetype: Formidable (Vulnerable to Emotion)
Upgrade: Mook Squad, Mastery: Total Chaos
Status Dice: No emotional penalties: d12. Emotional penalties and prophecy or planning bonuses: d8. Emotional penalties and no bonuses: d4. Health: 45+5H
Qualities: Insight d10, Stealth d8, Persuasion d8, Investigation d8, Criminal Underworld Info d8, Unleash Chaos d8
Powers: Precognition d12, Suggestion d10, Agility d8
Abilities:
- Always Capable [A]: Take any basic action and use your Max die.
- Tip The Domino [A]: Attack one hero using Precognition. Hinder all heroes using your Max die.
- Like Clockwork [A]: Boost yourself using Precognition and use your Max die. Boost a nearby ally with your Mid die and Boost another nearby ally using your Min die.
- Exploit Opportunity (I): At the start of your turn, if you have no bonuses in play, roll your single Insight die as a Boost for yourself.
- (U) Teachable Moments [A]: Replenish your trainee henchmen up to the number of heroes.
- (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:
- Jimmy Hix, or another member of the Table.
- An Environment in Chaos from Headmaster’s plans, needing only a few last touches to accomplish his secretive goals.
- Trainee Henchmen: d6 minions. When Boosted by Headmaster, they increase the final bonus by 1.
In the aftermath of the fall of Ferris Industries, the situation in Ferristown became increasingly complicated. Paradox found that, having successfully altered the timeline, her memories of the future were gradually changing; while she could remember her original timeline, she also remembered a new future, one in which Ferristown had been peaceful until the early 2000s, after which a series of growing gang wars tore the city apart, devastating its infrastructure and leaving it prey to supervillains and corruption. Alongside the other Rogue Agents, she worked to prevent those powers from rising, adjusting her tactics as her memories shifted, each time pushing back the city’s fall into darkness by a few months. By 2002, she could remember a happy childhood, with the city’s fall still ten years in the future. Then, all at once, her visions changed with the return of an old enemy.
After years of setbacks and defeats, the Head Master had decided that his vision of how the future operated was wrong. He had changed his methods, adopting an attitude of deliberately encouraging chaos and confusion in order to use his prophetic calculations to seize opportunities, and he had joined forces with the new leader of the much-weakened Table, Jimmy Hix. With Jimmy’s luck powers augmenting his own prophecies, the Headmaster adjuted his title, training skilled minions to take over key operations as he struck at Ferristown’s gangs one by one, absorbing them into a new Outfit. Soon, Headmaster and Ferris were the only criminal powers left in the city, struggling for dominance with each other while working to wipe out Ferristown’s heroes.
The new Headmaster was, if anything, more dangerous than ever. Now that he relied on luck and chance to augment his predictions he couldn’t be tripped up by them; instead, the only way for Paradox and her allies to fight him was to stay one step ahead, figuring out his motives and prodding him to make missteps. He was content to focus on local efforts, and the Rogue Agents had their hands full keeping him weak without handing his criminal enterprises over to Ferris and the Overseer.
Behind the Scenes
When I had the option for Mastermind and Formidable again, I thought it might be interesting to create a reboot of a classic Silver Age villain, but flip the script. This is the Iron Age Headmaster, someone who is casting off a bunch of the goofy trappings and becoming a dangerous agent of chaos. He’s kind of getting a slightly belated Lex Luthor transformation, going from “mad scientist cult leader” to “criminal business guy with just enough of his old backstory and style to be the same character basically”.
One of my favourite bits from the old 90s X-Men cartoon was Bishop repeatedly stopping his dark future, returning to his own time, and discovering an entirely new dark future that he had to deal with. Paradox gets that here via her shifting memories; her powers keep her from just getting rewritten (with the implication that if another time traveller did manage to rewrite history they would wink out of existence) but she can use that knowledge to try and save the day. And against a Headmaster/Jimmy Hix team-up, she’s going to have to! Hix’s Hinders and Headmaster’s Boosts are a nasty combination, especially if they have a third ally to do the heavy hitting.
3 Likes
Head Master is back and now he’s vulnerable to, say, being enraged or embarrassed. And the CCA is dead and buried at this point. Warm up the Banter dice and let’s see how many dirty jokes about his supranym we can slip past editorial, folks.
“Your real name’s Orel, isn’t it?” “No!!! Shut up! I’m not living through high school again!”
Well, he’s certainly kept the green-and-purple color scheme I always associate with Lex no matter how much time he spends in a business suit. Kept his signature jacket with a color swap I see. That’s good, it’s a spiffy jacket.
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I do like the jacket! I was originally planning to give him a more restrained one, but it was just too iconic.
Randomizers:
Approach: 6, 1, 1 [Options: Relentless, Skilled, Disruptive, Focused, Generalist]
Archetype: 5, 3, 1 [Options: Predator, Bruiser, Guerilla, Indomitable, Overlord, Inhibitor]
Upgrade: 2, 11, 8 [Options: Hardier Minions, Quality Upgrade II, Power Dampening]
Mastery: 1, 4, 9 [Options: Annihilation, Enforced Order, Superiority]
Adjudicator Zhaa
Real Name: Zhaa Rellanis, First Appearance: Champions of Truth #366, April 2003
Approach: Focused, Archetype: Indomitable
Upgrade: Quality Upgrade, Mastery: Superiority
Status Dice: Always d8. Health: 35+5H (Upgraded 55+5H)
Qualities: Investigation d10, Technology d8, Adjudicator d8
Powers: Awareness d12, Signature Vehicle d8
- Cosmic Entity (I): Ignore all Cosmic damage.
- Consider The Evidence [A]: Boost yourself using Investigation and use your Max die. That bonus is persistent and exclusive.
- Adjudication [A]: Attack one target using Signature Vehicle. Use your Max die. That target cannot Defend or use reactions against this Attack. Attack multiple other nearby targets using your Min die.
- Bring To Judgement [A]: Attack using Signature Vehicle. Either Hinder that target using Max, or Defend yourself using Min and you and that target end up elsewhere in the scene.
- Dimensional Barrier [R]: Defend against an Attack against only you by rolling your single Awareness die. Boost yourself by the damage reduced.
- (U) Ancient Knowledge (I): Increase your Investigation to d12 and your Technology to d10.
- (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:
- A Customized Environment. Created by the Adjudicator for her tests.
- Other Villains. The opposing forces the Adjudicator is deciding between.
- Arbiters: d8 minions**.** The Arbiters have +2 to Overcome when enacting the Adjudicator’s will.
As the galaxy began to settle into a new order, many extraterrestrial groups cast a grim eye on Earth, a planet that had somehow repelled a Xur’Tani invasion, defeated multiple dimensional invaders, but which showed no interested or capability in becoming part of the galactic community. One of these beings was Adjudicator Zhaa, who arrived to gauge the Earth’s potential for herself in 2003.
Zhaa was the last survivor of a planet that had once been much like Earth; a dimensional anchor with a large population, whose superhumans had made war on each other before ultimately wiping out their species. Zhaa did not see this as a problem. Her species had been beautiful, they had sought their individual dreams, and they had died in search of greatness. All sophonts should be so lucky.
And so the Adjudicator travelled the galaxy, seeking out those with grand dreams to offer power to, setting them against others whose dreams were equally grand. She passed judgement on anyone that she believed had failed to seek greatness, and her most common method was to find bitter rivals and set them against each other, promising power to the victor. She was not above putting a finger on the scale to encourage both sides to destroy themselves, but she would offer the power she promised.
When Zhaa came to Earth, she investigated the planet and was upset to see that many of its great heroes acted to protect it, not to reshape it in their image. She gathered a selection of the greatest foes of the Champions of Truth and pitted them against the heroes, dividing them up and forcing them into death games for her amusement. Earthwatch attempted to intervene, and was pulled into her games, its members forced to ally with old foes against shared enemies in five pitched battles. Greenheart and Wicker faced off against Greyheart. Hyperstar and Synthesis fought Peacemonger. Flatfoot, Fly Boy, and the Retriever battled Steeldriver and The Man. Madame Liberty, Gale Force, and Shockeye faced Vortex and ScaVenger working in tandem. Finally, Skybreaker, Wonderer, and Night Guard battled Bloodmoon (which was admittedly less of a “old foes joining forces” and more of a “the magical people get paired off at the end”.)
In the end, the heroes only succeeeded by cheating. Synthesis secretly called on another old foe, the Reckoner, who brought Fission and Ember with him to infiltrate Zhaa’s ship as she watched the battles and disable her defenses. Zhaa was forced to retreat with the battles to the death unfinished, but she swore to return as many times as necessary to create champions of Earth who would destroy and rebuild it according to their vision.
Behind the Scenes
Venture Comics sort of had a “test the heroes” character already in Shadowspear, and it sort of had an ‘ancient worldbreaking force’ in the Maggots, but Zhaa is our take on the Beyonder, trying to prove once and for all who is the strongest and then give them powers.
Her main twist is that she does not give one whit about justice; her judgement is based entirely on who has the stronger drive, which means that she generally sides with villains. Villains are a lot more proactive in most superhero settings, and Zhaa is far more interested in “I WILL MAKE THEM PAY” as a motivation than “I will protect my community.”
Mechnically, Zhaa is not very dangerous. She is, however, nearly unkillable, especially in her ultimate form. An extremely powerful PE Boost coupled with a D12 defense reaction that’s also a Boost, good health, and a solid Hinder/retreat make her a pain, and her goal usually is to sit and watch the heroes try to deal with other things and occasionally step in to mess up their plans.
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“Who the heck are you three? Have we even met? I mean, I guess we can still fight to the death but I usually prefer to at least be formally introduced first. Sir Francis Varney, nice to meet you.”
In the name Kirby, please do not let this lead to Secret Wars II Beyonder. Just the worst. And I say that as someone who’s pretty pro-Shooter overall.
Shame she showed up too late for the Golden Age, where “I WILL MAKE THEM PAY” was a pretty common hero motivation as well. Usually much better justified too. Some mad science type vowing revenge for failing to get a patent or being laughed at in school is weak sauce compared to having your entire family gunned down in front of your eyes by racketeers.
I find you have to be careful about relying on strong villain reactions. They have a real glass jaw against Attack abilities that prevent reactions (and ignore penalties and Defends to boot), which are pretty much pure gold picks for heroes who have access to them - which is almost anyone, since there are a few in Red as well as the Yellow ones.
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History of Venture Comics, Pt. 11: Boom and Bust (1991 - 1997)
During the speculator boom, Venture Comics fell into the same old traps. As sales increased, they got excited, and began to throw out new comics ideas one after the other, trusting in volume to carry the day. Some of these failed quickly, but comics such as Fish Out Of Water and Remnants caught on in a big way, leading to animated series, crossovers, variants covers, and stunt events within various comics. The most enduring of these events was the marriage of Doctor Cosmos and Wavelength in Celestial Travels #650 in 1993. Fans had suggested a relationship between the two for over a decade, and after finally acknowledging it during the Peacekeeper invasion, the writers had them tie the knot. The event didn’t have the same splash in the public eye as Tachyon’s marriage the year before; not only weren’t they first, the Celestial Travelers were not nearly the headliners that the Freedom Five were. But the event was still a major one for Venture, leading to new stories as the newlyweds continued their adventures with a team that was increasingly like a found family.
But all things end, and Venture was not immune. When the speculator bubble burst, the comics it had been holding up collapsed, and they took half the lineup with them. Broken Mirrors ended in 1994, as public interest in Venture’s what-if stories waned. Remnants joined it in 1995, and Venture began to scramble as their sales cratered across the board. In 1996, both Knightgrave and Into the Green suffered the same fate, and only quick action rolling the Rogue Agents into Company Town kept it from following suit. Trading on nostalgia, a new Champions of Tomorrow team was formed that deliberately called back to the classic era, as Reverie and Penitent left the team to join Alchymia in fighting to free her people. The new Champions were Greenheart, Skybreaker, Flatfoot, Wonderer, Hyperstar, and Fly Boy, bringing a mixture of science and magic to the table and saving the title from another cancellation.
By the end of 1997, Venture was back down to eight titles, but their sales had stabilized and they weren’t in danger of bankruptcy. It was time once again to look forward.
History of Venture Comics, Pt. 12: The New Normal (1998 - 2003)
The following years were fairly stable ones for Venture Comics. Protean launched in 1998, and starting in 1999 the company began to cautiously launch various limited-run series focusing on some of their characters who were popular, but were having trouble carrying lines, especially Greenheart and the newly-restored Vanguards. Fish Out Of Water ended in 2000, feeding directly into the new Earthwatch, but otherwise there weren’t many changes in the lineup for a few years. The only major line to end was Covert Tactics, which had a grand finale overthrowing AEGIS, and then spent ten issues failing to establish a new status quo for the team before being wound down in 2002. It would be replaced by a new Madame Liberty-focused title, Liberty’s Dream, in which she and Kid Liberty joined Reverie and Alchymia in working to establish and stabilize the governments of various magical realms on the edges of the world. At the same time, Greenheart became the focus of a fourth attempt at Cryptic Trails - this one featured her travels through the world, replacing Shockeye as the hero meeting the various minor characters of Venture Comics and lending a hand to them in their own short-run problems. In all, Venture was back up to nine monthly titles, with the potential for occasional one-shots and limited runs on top of them.
Two events, however, would herald a new age dawning. The first was the Shattered Mirrors storyline that unfolded over the course of 2002, through a limited-run series, crossovers with Champions of Truth, Protean and Spectacular Skybreaker, and a series of three one-shots focused on Knightgrave, the Drifter, and Penitent. In that story, one of the Broken Mirror worlds succeeded in a mass escape, invading the primary world and trying to reverse their positions to become the dominant reality. The second was the Adjudicator Zhaa storyline, which crossed Champions of Truth, Earthwatch, and Celestial Travels. Sales for both events were extremely high, and Venture’s newest executives began to ponder whether they could boost sales by having more crossovers that touched on more than just two titles…
Behind the Scenes
No behind the scenes about this update, since it seems mainly straightforward to me. Instead, I’m going to give you a bit of an update for what’s next.
The week of April 15th I’m away on my anniversary, so this thread will be lying fallow, and then we’re launching into the final age of the project, the Diamond Age. I thought about taking two weeks off, but the timing was perfect to do a quick rundown of… the Plutonium Age!
I have put together a D100 randomizer with every superhero and every supervillain in Venture Comics on it (a few minor heroes had to share slots, and there is one slot each for ‘new hero’ and ‘new villain.) I am planning to randomize five ‘crisis crossover’ events that take place over the course of Venture’s Plutonium Age. These aren’t the only major crossovers, but they’re the biggest five over a fifteen-year period. Each crisis crossover will have the following:
- Four randomized characters, three of whom get picked to be the ‘leads’ of the event.
- A random number off a d20 table that determines what comic gets cancelled during that three-year period.
- A random number off a d20 table that determines what comic gets added during that three-year period.
The tables are here, if you’re curious. I was going to embed them but they’re kind of big.
Next week: what five crossover events define the Plutonium Age? (And as a bonus: what was going on in Sentinel Comics during that time?)
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ooh, that’s exciting
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