The History of Venture Comics!

Games Sentinel Comics RPG
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The Randomizers:
Background 3, 6, 2 [Options: Criminal, Performer, Academic, Upper Class, Struggling, Tragic]
Power Source 3, 7, 6 [Options: Genetic, Nature, Relic, Radiation, Tech Upgrades, Genius]
Archetype 2, 1, 8 [Options: Speedster, Shadow, Physical Powerhouse, Flyer, Elemental Manipulator, Robot/Cyborg] {Not R/C, Gadgeteer, Shadow, or Blaster}
Personality 3, 6, 3 [Options: Impulsive, Distant, Inquisitive, Analytical]

Wingman

Wingman
Wingman400×575 296 KB

Real Name: Nalan Nuresh, First Appearance: Celestial Travels #961, March 2019
Background: Tragic, Power Source: Genius, Archetype: Flyer
Personality: Impulsive, Principles: Order, Compassion

Status Dice: Green d6, Yellow d8, Red d8. Health: 30 [Green 30-23, Yellow 22-12, Red 11-1]
Qualities: Alertness d10, Technology d10, Banter d8, Deep Space Lore d6, By The Book d8
Powers: Inventions d12, Intuition d10, The Aurora Borealis d10, Flight d8, Presence d6

Green Abilities:

  • Interdiction Ray [A]: Hinder multiple targets using Inventions. Apply your Min die to each of them.
  • Scan The Area [A]: Boost using Aurora Borealis. Apply that bonus to all hero Attack and Overcome actions until the start of your next turn.
  • Principle of Order [A]: Overcome a challenge where you can organize other people. Use your Max die. You and each of your allies gain a hero point.
  • Principle of Compassion [A]: Overcome to connect with an individual on a personal level and use your Max die. You and each of your allies gain a hero point.

Yellow Abilities:

  • Remote Targeting [A]: Attack up to three targets using Aurora Borealis. Apply your Min die to each of them.
  • More Of An Art Than A Science [A]: Boost yourself using Intuition. Use your Max die. That bonus is persistent and exclusive. Then Attack using your Min die.
  • Refraction Field [R]: When you are attacked, first roll your single Inventions die. Defend yourself with that roll. Then, Boost yourself using that roll.

Red Abilities

  • Flash of Insight [A]: Overcome using Alertness. Use your Max+Min dice. Hinder all nearby opponents with your Mid die.
  • Extraction [A]: Attack using Aurora Borealis. Use your Max die. Hinder each nearby opponent with your Mid die. After using this ability, you and up to 2 allies may end up anywhere in the scene, even outside of the action.
  • Dangerous Prototype [A]: Attack multiple targets using Invention, using your Max+Min dice. If you roll doubles, take a minor twist or damage equal to your Mid die.

Out

  • The hero who goes immediately after you may take 1 damage to reroll their dice pool.

While most of the post-timeskip comics were either new, or full reboots, two titles chose not to restart their numbering scheme. In the case of Champions of Truth, this was done to emphasize that the series would be a direct continuation of the team as it existed before the timeskip, whereas Celestial Travels simply didn’t want to break their streak as the only comic in the Venture canon to have run continuously since 1939. Because of this, even though the situation of the new Celestial Travels was different enough to warrant a Volume 2, the decision was made to continue it with Issue #961, “The Next Generation.”

The Grand Galactic Union, founded twenty-two years earlier, had survived its initial growing pains and several threats from the fringes, and was settling into a period of peace and tranquillity. However, dark forces were stirring once again on the fringes, on worlds that had never joined the Union, worlds that had been prevented from joining, and worlds where criminality and chaos still reigned. Finally able to devote resources to non-member worlds, the Union voted to approve the creation of a new organization, named in honour of the heroes who had helped to ensure its creation - the Celestial Travellers. The new Travellers would be made up of one hundred starships, crewed by powerful heroes trained and approved by their central authority and sent out to the fringes to help outlying worlds and stop would-be conquerers from developing power bases that would threaten the world. Each starship would be largely autonomous, ultimately answering to the Travellers’ central authority but given considerable leeway to solve problems in the moment.

Celestial Travels would occasionally take storylines to focus on several of these ships, but the comic primarily followed Traveller Team One, chosen as the best and brightest recruits and officially given command of the Aurora Borealis by Neutrino, who was at this point quite retired. The four members of the crew were made up of a cross-section of galactic society, and their pilot was Wingman.

Nalan Nuresh was not a complicated figure. The young Argellian had lost his family twelve years earlier, during pirate raids on his isolated outpost; he had been saved by the Celestial Travellers, and had become a huge fan, devoted to living up to their legend. Nalan was largely a by-the-book figure, quick to act but always in accordance with the regulations of the Travellers; he only ever bent his rigid adherence to the rules when it came to helping out in direct and meaningful ways. His primary narrative purpose on the Traveller was to act as a straight man to its more colourful crew members, providing support, tactical oversight, and a variety of personally-developed and carefully tested inventions to keep his team and civilians safe.

Behind the Scenes

I wasn’t about to dump Celestial Travels, which means that even though this should probably be a Volume 2, for marketing reasons it’s not. This is probably for the best, since there’s a lot of direct referencing to things that came before, compared to the more newbie-friendly comics I’ve developed so far.

Wingman really isn’t that complicated, which I did on purpose so that I could explain his comic’s concept in more depth. He has a tragic past that leaves him relying on order and rules, he cares deeply about other people, and he’s a fan of the organization that he’s become the leading symbol of. He likes his team, but he also gets frustrated by them sometimes. And mechanically, he’s pretty powerful and versatile, but his status dice aren’t amazing.

Wingman does have one character trait that I really like; he’s pulled in two directions by his not-quite-aligned ideals. There is something interesting to me about a character who’s very rules-oriented, but also very intuitive, empathic, and impulsive; usually, the rule-followers are the ones who are also distant, harsh, and cautious, and I wanted something very different on that front. When Order and Compassion clash, Wingman will generally choose Compassion, but he’ll still want to do things right.

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542

That’s Impulsive for you. What’d you bump with it, Inventions?

Still going to be really nasty once he gets a P+E bonus up and running and turns all those Min die effects into something closer to Mid+, or Max+ if he’s got an extra regular bonus from that amazing reaction Genius gives you.

Three Signature Vehicle abilities too. You can tell he’s the pilot, probably carries a remote flight interface everywhere he goes. :slight_smile:

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Yep, Inventions got the bump to become a d12, primarily to take advantage of the raw power of Genius’s single-die reaction. Boosting the ship might have been more powerful for more abilities, but Wingman really makes a lot of very good inventions.

And yeah, I figure that most action scenes, he’ll live up to his name in Green by leaning on that all-allies Boost rather than going for an area Hinder that will usually be pretty tiny; he’d only Interdict if he has an ally Boost to draw on for reliable oppression. Then Yellow rolls around, he powers up, and starts really wrecking shop in whatever way is needed, and when he hits Red he’s got a good variety of powerful options; part of the reason that I let him have the dangerous prototypes even though they’re not super-thematic is that they represent him being pushed to the limit, and having to deploy something he doesn’t want to use because it might not be safe.

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Believe me, I know that feeling. That reaction is incredible with a d12, as the Leaping Lizard will attest to.

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The Randomizers:
Background 2, 2, 9 [Options: Criminal, Military, Tragic, Dynasty, Adventurer]
Power Source 10, 1, 5 [Options: Accident, Mystical, Nature, Tech Upgrades, Supernatural, Genius]
Archetype 2, 7, 1 [Options: Speedster, Shadow, Powerhouse, Armored, Flyer, Elemental]
Personality 4, 7, 4 [Options: Mischievous, Stalwart, Fast Talking, Stoic, Decisive]

Sunwarden

Sunwarden
Sunwarden400×575 321 KB

Real Name: Dal Vennac, First Appearance: Celestial Travels #961, March 2019
Background: Military, Power Source: Genius, Archetype: Shadow
Personality: Stoic, Principles: Honor, Powerless

Status Dice: Green d6, Yellow d8, Red d10. Health: 30 [Green 30-23, Yellow 22-12, Red 11-1]
Qualities: Ranged Combat d10, Deep Space Lore d10, Stealth d10, Investigation d8, Self-Discipline d8, Fitness d6, Raised A Soldier d8
Powers: Lightning Calculator d10, Starhammer Ray d8, Presence d8, Agility d8

Green Abilities:

  • Precise Shot [A]: Attack using Ranged Combat. Remove one physical bonus or penalty, Hinder a target using your Min die, or maneuver to a new location in your environment.
  • Hit and Run [A]: Attack using Stealth. Defend using your Min die against all Attacks until your next turn.
  • Principle of the Powerless [A]: Use your knowledge of the limitations of super powers in an Overcome action and use your Max die. You and each of your allies gain a hero point.
  • Principle of Honor [A]: Overcome a situation to maintain your code of honor and use your Max die. You and each of your allies gain a hero point.

Yellow Abilities:

  • Double Tap [A]: Attack using Starhammer Ray. Then, if the target of the Attack survived, also Attack that target with your Max die. Otherwise, Recover an amount of Health equal to your Min die.
  • Everything Bleeds [A]: Attack or Overcome using Deep Space Lore. Boost yourself using your Min die.
  • Tactical Genius [R]: When you are attacked, first roll your single Lightning Calculator die. Defend yourself with that roll. Then, Boost yourself using that roll.

Red Abilities

  • Perfect Angle [A]: Attack using Lightning Calculator. Use your Max+Min dice. Ignore all penalties on this attack, ignore any Defend actions, and it cannot be affected by Reactions.
  • Vulnerable Spots (I): Whenever you Attack a target with an action, you may also Hinder that target with your Min die.

Out

  • Defend an ally by rolling your single Stealth die.

Traveller Team One’s tactician and military expert was the Xur’Tani cadet Dal Vennec. Vennec had been born on the day that his homeworld was destroyed twenty-four years earlier, and had signed up to be a Traveller on the day that he was finally considered old enough to be responsible. A boy genius and tactical mastermind, Dal had spent his childhood obsessing over the past, determined to both prevent another Xur’Tan disaster and restore the good name of the Xur’Tani scouting forces, blemished by the Peacekeepers disaster. His teachers allowed him to train with the Starhammer Ray, a prototype rifle that had been discontinued due to the impossibility of tracking all of the many dimensional alignments that could modify its angle, rate of fire, and power. By obsessively training and studying the Ray, Dal learned to make use of its impossible physics, becoming a crack commando and sniper. When the time came to launch the Travellers, he was recommended for Traveller Team One immediately.

Dal was a grim and serious young man, but he worked well in military situations, able to quickly size up a situation and use his enemies’ advantages against them. He was much more ill at ease in diplomatic and casual situations; his training had left him ill-equipped to socialize, with few friends and no hobbies. He was also painfully aware that as a Xur’Tani, he would live for centuries longer than the rest of his team, and they would be gone, to him, in a blink of an eye. While he integrated well with them professionally, he was reserved, masking his shyness and uncertainty behind a wall of polite disinterest.

Behind the Scenes

Just for the hell of it, I thought I would try to build two geniuses that work in very different ways. And here we are!

Dal is definitely different from Nalan, but the two are quite complimentary. They both generally believe in the chain of command, in protecting people, and in behaving professionally on duty, but Nalan is gregarious and quick to connect to others, while Dal is reserved and sort of encased in a shell. He’s never going to be the one to reach out. Mechanically, he’s much more Attack-focused; pretty much all of his abilities interact with attacks in one way or another, even if he does it from a variety of angles and approaches. He’s a lot more versatile in Green, but relies on other people’s bonuses to take advantage of his secondary riders, and he trades a big P/E for some real hammer-hitting in Yellow. Double Tap is great for winnowing lieutenants or recovering off minion kills, and once he hits Red his Perfect Shot is truly nasty.

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546

Minor typo there (should be “or”) and the second one is [I] rather than an action ability.

Very versatile build there, with extremely varied dice pools that should make P/Q loss or degradation from twists less of an issue.

Are Xur’Tani unusually long-lived by galactic standards? I know they live much longer than humans as a baseline, but there’s a lot of species out there and presumably their natural lifespans vary a lot.

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My assumption is that most galactic species only live a century or two; humans are on the shorter end of the standard range, but are in the general zone. At an average lifespan of about a millenium, Xur’Tani are one of the longest-lived species at the far end of the bell curve, which is part of how they ended up acting as galactic peacekeepers.

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548

This has me wondering - what kind of quarantine measures would be necessary for interactions between humans and non-powered Xur’Tani? This hasn’t really come up before - I assume that Reckoner didn’t have to worry about this when travelling with the original Celestial Travelers due to the whole “becoming a cosmic being” thing, and all other Xur’Tani characters we’ve seen before were empowered by exposure to Earth atmosphere. Do we get a specific explanation, such as Synthesis managing to develop a permanent vaccine that prevents both the infection and the powers during the timeskip? Or is it that this comic from 2019 simply assumed that everyone will be perfectly reasonable about following quarantine and vaccination protocols and thus did not devote panel space to it?

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So, this is one of those things that someone probably devoted a lot of pagecount to, but the short answer boils down to “artificial Earth atmosphere doesn’t have the same effect as real Earth atmosphere, don’t worry about it.”

The more detailed answer is that whatever the toxic atmospheric effects of Earth’s atmosphere on the Xur’Tani are, they are at least partially based on the mixture of radiation from Earth’s sun passing through the specific nature of Earth’s upper atmosphere into the swirling mass of our air. Without precisely replicating all three effects, it’s just air and you’re fine, and it’s not a bacteria or virus so it’s not contagious.

My guess would be that a human spaceship would be dangerous to Xur’Tani for a little while, but it wouldn’t take long for the air filtration process to make the atmosphere no longer toxically active.

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That sounds like suitably comic book science to me. :slight_smile:

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The Randomizers:
Background 1, 6, 7 [Options: Blank Slate, Upper Class, Law Enforcement, Struggling, Medical]
Power Source 6, 1, 4 [Options: Accident, Experimentation, Mystical, Nature, Relic, Tech Upgrades]
Archetype 6, 5, 8 [Options: Blaster, Close Quarters Combatant, Flyer, Sorcerer, Transporter, Minion-Maker]
Personality 1, 8, 10 [Options: Lone Wolf, Fast Talking, Inquisitive, Alluring, Stoic, Apathetic]

Doctor Glitch
Doctor Glitch

Real Name: Paula St. Cloud, First Appearance: Celestial Travels #961, March 2019
Background: Medical, Power Source: Tech Upgrades, Archetype: Minion-Maker
Personality: Lone Wolf, Principles: Mastery, Detachment

Status Dice: Green d8, Yellow d8, Red d10. Health: 30 [Green 30-23, Yellow 22-12, Red 11-1]
Qualities: Medical d10, Science d10, Persuasion d8, Self-Discipline d8, Alertness d6, Integrated Cybernetics d8
Powers: Robotics d10, Presence d8, Electricity d8, Strength d6

Green Abilities:

  • Draw Attention [A]: Boost using Presence, assigning your Min, Mid, and Max dice to 3 different bonuses, one of which must be given to an enemy.
  • Deploy Nanodrone [A]: Create a minion using Robotics. Reference the minion chart to see what size of minion it is. Choose whether it can Attack, Defend, Boost, Hinder, or Overcome. It acts on the start of your turn. You can only use this ability in a situation conducive to how you create minions.
  • Surge of Power [A]: Boost another hero or one of your minions using Electricity. Either use your Max die, or use your Mid die and make that bonus persistent.
  • Principle of Mastery [A]: Overcome in a situation that uses your powers in a new way and use your Max die. You and each of your allies gain a hero point
  • Principle of Detachment [A]: Overcome a challenge related to duress or fear and use your Max die. You and each of your allies gain a hero point.

Yellow Abilities:

  • Self-Patching Nanobots [A]: Boost yourself using Robotics. Then, either remove a penalty on yourself or Recover using your Min die.
  • Upgrade [A]: Boost one of your minions using Robotics. You may also upgrade that minion to your Max die size, replacing its minion form.
  • In The Thick Of It [R]: When Attacked, treat the amount of damage you take as a Boost action for yourself.

Red Abilities

  • Machine Empathy (I): As long as you have a bonus created with Self-Discipline, increase your Robotics to d12.
  • Do No Harm [A]: Overcome using Medicine. Use your Max+Min dice.

Out

  • Boost an ally by rolling your single Medicine die.

Traveller Team One’s third member was their doctor and scientific expert, a stranger from a far-off world that was becoming increasingly well-known to the galactic community - Earth. Paula St. Cloud had been born in Sioux lands in North Dakota, and had grown up with a fascination with the stars and the peoples who inhabited them. She became a NASA scientist, working on integrating Earth’s space program with alien technology and hopefully jumpstarting a new generation of space exploration.

Unfortunately, the program would be attacked by alien mercenaries, hired to keep the dangerous and unpredictable Earthlings where they were out of the way. During the attack, Paula ran into the alien ship, sabotaging it to disable its weapons and save her friends and colleagues; however, she was still onboard when the damaged ship retreated into space! The ship began to rupture, killing much of its crew, and Paula was among the few saved by Galactic forces, who were able to install cybernetics into her spine and limbs to keep her alive.

The integrated cybernetics were effective, but required occasional upkeep that Earth wasn’t up to the task of maintaining. As a result, Paula was granted residency on Remmeth, and qualified to become a member of the Travellers when the program was started up. It was everything that she had dreamed of, and she accepted with delight.

Paula was a cipher to her teammates much of the time. She was excited to learn new things, but always carefully placed walls between her emotions and the situations at hand, able to be blandly friendly in even the worst situations and prone to locking down her own opinions and going along with whatever the others said. At the same time, she was also prone to going off on her own as soon as she saw a problem that needed solving, often without bothering to do more than shoot a quick message that she had ‘something to take care of’, leading to frequent arguments with Sunwarden about his inability to keep her safe if she wouldn’t tell him what she was doing! Instead of relying on her team, she relied on the nanodrones she could deploy and shape remotely, using them to heal, protect herself, and stand against the threats to innocent lives that the Travellers faced.

Behind the Scenes

Doctor Glitch is only our third Minion-Maker in Venture Comics, and she goes a different route from most of them - rather than swarming the field with units, she’ll usually try to build minions that work on environmental Overcomes or Boosts, and which are very large but not very numerous, using her powers to boost and heal them. She doesn’t have any Attacks, but she has so many Boosts. Too many Boosts, probably. She leaves literally everything else to her drones and just boosts all day. In Green she can make a bunch of smaller boosts or one persistent one (but she’s usually just building a couple of minions.) In Yellow she can Boost herself to recover, make her minions bigger, and use Attacks against herself to get Boosts to spend on making her minions bigger. And in Red, she has a powerful Overcome and a passive way to make her minions even stronger if she wants.

Thematically, she’s another unusual blend of tropes. Usually, the lone wolf of the team is the grim, gritty one, but she’s a lone wolf because she doesn’t want people to get hurt. So she’s friendly, outgoing, and a total wall to get to know personally.

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552

Should be Health: 30 [Green 30-23, Yellow 22-12, Red 11-1] if I’m reading it right.

I think she’s fine. She should almost always have a bonus to spend on the most suitable minion trait for any new minion she creates (I bet Autonomous is popular since she’s going for quality over quantity and the versatility will help a lot), which is a big deal. She doesn’t need minions to be as big as possible at start with Upgrade around, and can repeatedly restore one that’s lucky with saves back to d12 to keep a key trait in play. Plus enough of her Boost game is non-minion locked to let her be useful to the team even if something goes horribly wrong like losing Deploy Nanondrones or Robotics to a twist. Having your minion creation shut off can really cripple a lot of Minion-Maker builds if they’re too focused.

Doesn’t hurt that Draw Attention is always going be pretty solid almost any time. Handing the baddie of your choice a 1-2 point bonus is worth it when you also get to hand out Max and Mid die bonuses - which might be further enhanced by existing bonuses. One of the best Green Boost actions in teh game, and better than many Yellows and even some Reds.

Nice Hippocratic Oath ref. I note that she doesn’t have any actual pacifist tendencies, she just prefers to let her nano do the nasty work. Bet there’s a dramatic scene where she has to get her own hands dirty every now and then - at which point piling bonuses into a basic or risky Attack will pay off.

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554

Health fixed!

Yeah, she’s not precisely a pacifist, but she is a doctor and is uncomfortable with violence, even violence that she objectively knows is necessarily; she can detach in the moment, but it gets to her later. There’s definitely an early issue in which she has an up-close and personal fight and has a minor meltdown once things are fully resolved.

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The Randomizers:
Background 4, 10, 9 [Options: Military, Tragic, Unremarkable, Medical, Interstellar, Otherworldly]
Power Source 6, 4, 3 [Options: Genetic, Experimentation, Nature, Relic, Radiation, Tech Upgrades]
Archetype 4, 3, 5 [Options: Powerhouse, Marksman, Blaster, Armored, Flyer, Elemental Manipulator]
Personality 8, 1, 9 [Options: Lone Wolf, Fast Talking, Inquisitive, Alluring, Naive]

Flaresong

Flaresong
Flaresong400×575 316 KB

Real Name: Songstress Lia, First Appearance: Celestial Travels #961, March 2019
Background: Otherworldly, Power Source: Experimentation, Archetype: Elemental Manipulator
Personality: Naive, Principles: Levity, Space

Status Dice: Green d6, Yellow d6, Red d12. Health: 32 [Green 32-25, Yellow 24-12, Red 11-1]
Qualities: Otherworldly Mythos d10, Investigation d8, Finesse d8, Light in the Darkness d8
Powers: Radiant d12, Absorption d8, Transmutation d8, Awareness d6, Teleportation d6

Green Abilities:

  • Fickle Form (I): At the start of your turn, remove a penalty on yourself.
  • High Note [A]: Attack using Radiant. Use your Max die. Take damage equal to your Min die.
  • Duet [A]: Defend using Absorption. Use your Max die. Boost using your Min die.
  • Principle of Levity [A]: Overcome a dire situation where your jokes prevent demoralization and use your Max die. You and each of your allies gain a hero point.
  • Principle of Space [A]: Overcome while in space (or conditions similar to space) and use your Max die. You and each of your allies gain a hero point.

Yellow Abilities:

  • Music of the Underhill (I): If you would take Radiant damage, reduce that damage to 0 and Recover that amount of Health instead.
  • Font of Power [A]: Boost yourself using Radiant. Use your Max die. That bonus is persistent and exclusive.
  • Unstable Portal [R]: When a nearby hero in the Yellow or Red zone would take damage, Defend against that damage by rolling your single Teleportation die, then redirect any remaining damage to a nearby minion of your choice.

Red Abilities

  • Night’s Terrors Made Light [A]: Attack up to three targets, one of which must be you, using Radiant. Assign your Min, Mid, and Max dice as you choose among those targets.
  • The Stage Is Set [A]: Hinder any number of targets in the scene using Transmutation. Use your Max+Min dice. If you roll doubles, also Attack each target using your Mid die.
  • Dimensional Detachment [A]: Remove a bonus on a target. Hinder that target using Otherworldly Mythos. Use your Max die, and that penalty is persistent and exclusive.

Out

  • Hinder an opponent by rolling your single Radiant die.

Having developed a new alien species, brought back a classic one, and included a human, the writers of Celestial Travels wanted the fourth new Traveller to be something different and unusual. After a lot of conversation, Flaresong was introduced as Traveller Team One’s magic expert. Due to the dimensional nature of interstellar travel, Venture Comics had always had a bit of bleed-through between their magical, dimensional, and cosmic settings, and the writers wanted to lean into that; while Earth was particularly magical because of its dimensional placement, other worlds had their own connections to otherworldly realms and beings.

Songstress Lia was a fae whose realm connected most closely with the Akkaros Nebula, flitting through space with her brethren and watching the galaxy swirl. Like most fae, Lia was fascinated with the lives of mortals, but unlike most fae, she was not content to stay in her safe world and observe them from afar. Experimenting with the nature of dimensional existence, she crafted a second skin of Faerie to carry out into the cosmos with her, signing up with the Travellers to explore and exist among the mortal folk of the galaxy. By mortal standards, her life would be short - a few decades before she flared and vanished. She intended to make her mark wherever she went, and to bring song and joy with her.

Lia was a cheerful, gregarious, and occasionally annoying member of the team, always interested in new experiences and new ideas, willing to reach out to anyone but quick to turn angry and vindictive against liars and cheats. Bargains were meant to be upheld, and while she would offer a loophole to those who were in need, it was another thing to break your word. She found the other Travellers fascinating, especially the ways in which each of them presented one face to the world while holding their inner selves secret, and she resolved that one day, each of them would trust her with their true natures.

Behind the Scenes

Otherworldly is not a background I roll often, so when I got it I had to take it! I started to work on a character who was a literal manifestation of cosmic energies, got halfway through, and realized that I was just recreating Aeon Girl, so instead we get an alien faerie! There should be more alien faeries, is all I’m saying. Blend your magic and your science fiction!

Flaresong is very powerful, and quite hard to pin down, but fittingly for someone who is built on creating a shell of unstable reality around herself she’s also pretty dependent on her Radiant powers. If she loses access to them for whatever reason she’s going to have a problem. Unstable Portal is immensely powerful attached to a low Power die, giving you a total Defend attached to an attack as long as minions are nearby. Technically, she can even sacrifice Doctor Glitch’s minions to a hit, although the good doctor might not be thrilled.

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Wholly agreed. I’m solidly in the “fey are alien visitors” school of thought anyway, although whether they visit from space, time, or other dimensions is negotiable.

Interesting to have such a short-lived character, but I’m sure if she proved popular the writers would arrange story events extend that. Usually “elf” types have enormous lifespans - the only RPG I can think of where that trope got inverted was AEG’s old d20 Accordlands setting, the one based on the Warlord CCG. Their elves only lived about 30 years and were super jealous of other races lifespans. Many of them pursued any means they could to last longer, which meant that their leaders were frequently intelligent undead of one kind or another.

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new Warlords Saga of the Storm card game on Kickstarter right now 5/10/2024 if you did not know.

-Back to Venture-

I cannot wait to see the long-term villains for the Travelers. There are a good number of SPACE villains that could show up from the randomizers.

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I did not, thanks. Very nostalgic, I played that game quite a bit back in the day. Possibly by second-favorite CCG mechanically, edged out only by Shadowfist and maybe by Garfield’s Battletech CCG.

I note the Accordlands RPG pdfs are on sale at DTRPG as well.

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Yeah, the short lifespan started because I’d already written a character backstory that was “he feels isolated because he knows he’s going to outlive the rest of the team by centuries”, and then immediately adding a teammate who would live for centuries seemed counter-intuitive. So once I wasn’t going long, it made sense to go short!

I had an idea to say that fae live in experiences - they can live forever if they just exist, but whenever they do something it takes away lifespan, so they have to choose between endless doldrums and a flash in the pan life of excitement and interest. But that felt like a rehash of “choosing to be a hero is shortening your lifespan” which is already the root of the Steward, so I just went with “these fae are short-lived” instead. I suspect that different sorts of fae have very different lifespans in Venture Comics.

As far as the limit - given that we’re running at roughly ten to fifteen years of real time for every five years of comics time, it’ll take about eighty years of comics for her to approach the end of her life so it’s probably not something the writers are particularly worried about.

Yeah, and I’ve got two villains per comic this time, since there aren’t as many titles persisting and there are slightly more teams around, so I should be able to play around a bit more.

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The Randomizers:
Background 9, 2, 7 [Options: Criminal, Law Enforcement, Tragic, Dynasty, Created]
Power Source 3, 1, 3 [Options: Accident, Genetic, Experimentation, Nature, Cursed]
Archetype 7, 6, 3 [Options: Physical Powerhouse, Close Quarters Combatant, Armored, Elemental Manipulator, Robot/Cyborg, Wild Card]
Personality 9, 7, 7 [Options: Stalwart, Inquisitive, Decisive, Cheerful, Naive]

Adamant

Adamant
Adamant400×575 300 KB

Real Name: Adam Clay, First Appearance: Veilwalkers #1, March 2019
Background: Created, Power Source: Nature, Archetype: Physical Powerhouse
Personality: Stalwart, Principles: Strength, Exorcism

Status Dice: Green d8, Yellow d8, Red d10. Health: 32 [Green 32-25, Yellow 24-12, Red 11-1]
Qualities: Fitness d12, Close Combat d8, Insight d8, Alertness d6, Spirit Touch d8
Powers: Weather d10, Strength d10, Vitality d8, Animal Control d6

Green Abilities:

  • Body of Clay (I): Reduce any physical or energy damage you take by 1 while you are in the Green zone, 2 while in the Yellow zone, and 3 while in the Red zone.
  • Summon Mist [A]: Hinder using Weather. Use your Max die. You may split that penalty across multiple nearby targets.
  • Body Blow [A]: Attack using Strength and use your Max die.
  • Principle of Strength [A]: Overcome using brute force and use your Max die. You and each of your allies gain a hero point.
  • Principle of Exorcism [A]: Overcome entities or elements from another dimension and use your Max die. You and each of your allies gain a hero point.

Yellow Abilities:

  • Grapple [A]: Attack using Strength. Use your Max+Min dice. Then gain a Boost using your Mid die. The target of the Attack gains a bonus of the same size.
  • Nature Spirit [A]: Gain a d8 minion. It takes its turn before yours, but goes away at the end of the scene. You may only have one such minion at a time.
  • Natural Alignment [A]: Boost using Weather. Apply that bonus to all hero Attack and Overcome actions until the start of your next turn.

Red Abilities

  • Rend the Veil [A]: Remove all bonuses and penalties from the scene. You cannot use this ability again this scene.
  • Protect The Weak [R]: When an opponent Attacks, you may become the target of that Attack and Defend by rolling your single Fitness die.

Out

  • Defend an ally by rolling your single Weather die.

As part of their plan to create a broad spread of comics that would interconnect, the creators of Venture Comics wanted a new, accessible team of magical superheroes that new readers could latch onto. The writing team tasked with inventing them went back and forth on whether to continue the Twilight Carnival, but ultimately decided to transition it to a background element, a safe refuge that could be referenced, interacted with, and protected. With that in mind, they needed to develop something new, drawing on older Venture ideas but not beholden to them. The result was Veilwalkers.

The first team member introduced was also the indirect cause of the Veilwalkers gathering. Adam Clay was, quite literally, born to his purpose. Crafted from clay by a mystical genius who called himself Gabirol Secundus, Adam was imbued with the power of the natural world and a sensitivity towards ley lines and dimensional disturbances. Gabirol intended to have his golem open pathways to other realms, where he could learn the secrets of life and death.

The first time that Adam tried, his strength tore a hole in the fabric of reality, creating a howling void teeming with horrors. Shocked and afraid, Adam tried to close the rift, but Gabirol ordered him to continue, certain that they were within arm’s reach of wisdom. When his creation refused, the mystic pressed on alone, vanishing into the rift and leaving Adam to try to stop the unfolding disaster alone. Fortunately, three other magical people appeared, drawn by the disaster, and helped Adam to undo the harm that he had caused; among them was the veteran sorceress known as Veilwalker. Veilwalker agreed to take these three students under her wing, teaching them to protect the boundaries between worlds and offer what help she could on their own journeys to wisdom.

As a member of the team, Adam was a literal rock on which the others could depend. Mute, he communicated through sign language and writing, tending towards shyness and observation rather than forcing his way ahead. He had tremendous strength, and equal power over the natural world, but he hesitated to use it, always worried that he would create another disaster as he tried to understand what it meant to be alive and without a master. He took the name Adamant, to reflect both his physical power and his determination to remain strong, and committed to assisting his teammates as much as possible.

Behind the Scenes

Can you believe I never created a golem? We had a Frakenstein, but Venture deserves a properly Jewish golem as a team member, and here he is. Adam does a lot of physical activity, and he’s really good at non-combat Overcomes with his exceptional Fitness and Strength, but he can also reshape the weather and physically grab non-physical things, which is pretty useful as a trait. I can imagine the player cross-matching Fitness and Weather to physically control the winds and rain, pushing air currents and adjusting temperatures.

Physical Powerhouse joins Transporter as off-limits for our final five heroes, which shouldn’t be a big problem.

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561

The randomizers certainly worked out well on this one, everything really meshes perfectly.

My only quibble is whether Power Unchained is really worthwhile when you’ve already got Principle of Strength, which are going to overlap in the situations where they can be used a lot. You’re probably getting to use the same die pool either way, and while the mass ally Boost is nice by the time you’re in Red some of those allies my be Out already and it kind of conflicts with Rend the Veil. There might be something more interesting to grab for a Red ability. I’m amused by the way that d6 Animal Control opens up the possibility of taking Dire Control to just take minions and make them yours (presumably by possessing them with a bigger, better version of Nature Spirit).

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