Oh, that’s right! I had one, and then it didn’t really work for both of them so I set it aside and never finished it.
Hm…
It’s the Golden Age, I’m just going to go with “Protector of the Weak”. Millie uses it to help people, Eve uses it to avenge them.
Randomizers:
Approach: 2, 8, 7 [Options: Skilled, Focused, Mastermind, Specialized, Overpowered, Adaptive]
Archetype: 4, 4, 8 [Options: Guerrilla, Inhibitor, Thief, Domain]
Upgrade: 10, 9, 1 [Options: Defense Shield, Calming Aura, Mook Squad]
Mastery: 10, 1, 4 [Options: Total Chaos, Annihilation, Enforced Order]
Bootlegger Bill
Real Name: Bill Barstock, First Appearance: Company Town #43, Nov 1942
Approach: Adaptive, Archetype: Thief
Upgrade: Mook Squad, Mastery: Total Chaos
Status Dice: Based on the number of bonuses on you. None: d6. 1-2: d8. 3+: d10. Health: 25+5H
Qualities: Ranged Combat d10, Alertness d8, Leadership d8, Smuggler d8
Powers: Awareness d10, Agility d8, Presence d8, Gadgets d6
Abilities:
Common Scene Elements:
Flatfoot had many opponents in his early career, but none ended up quite so maligned as Bootlegger Bill.
Bill Barstock was one of the criminal leaders of Ferristown, a rum-runner and crack shot who supplied the city’s underground bars with illegal liquor. When one of his smuggling operations was broken up by Flatfoot in Company Town #43, he and his boys tried to pay off the metal officer; when that failed, they set an ambush to bring Flatfoot down. This also failed, of course, and Bootlegger Bill was off to jail. He would return a year later in Flatfoot Adventures #16, a forgettable story in which he bribed a judge to win his freedom, went after Flatfoot for revenge, and promptly ended up in jail again, and then again in 1946 as part of a crowd of villains in Flatfoot Adventures #50, a story in which Mr. Ferris assembled all of Flatfoot’s greatest opponents to bring the metal man down; Bootlegger Bill was one of the first villains to face him, and to be defeated.
After that, Bootlegger Bill vanished for a few decades. His smuggling and drinking was at odds with the child-friendly nature of Flatfoot’s comics, and any attempt to revive him was very quickly quashed by the Comics Code. He wouldn’t be seen again until Venture took part in a two-part anti-drinking PSA comic in 1986, featuring Bootlegger Bill as the primary antagonist. This comic brought the Golden Age villain back to the public eye - as an absolute joke. He became mildly memetic for the next decade, appearing to slur out a few lines and get taken down by some hero or other in a single page, before gradually fading away again.
Behind the Scenes
Well, I rolled one of my four new Archetypes on my first villain, so I figured it was a sign. Welcome the Thief!
Villainous Archetype: Thief
Suggested Approach Pairings: Mastermind, Ninja, Underpowered
Thieves move through the scene taking what they want, whether it’s riches from the environment or the heroes’ own tools. They’ll even steal the plans that you’ve put together and turn them against you.
Status: Count the number of bonuses on you.
No bonuses: d6
1-2 bonuses: d8
3+ bonuses: d10
Health: +10
Abilities: Choose two of these abilities:
I think the Thief is pretty stylistic. They might take a bit more GM work to play, because they’re greedy: their status die encourages them to take bonuses but not to spend them. It’s not a hard status die to get, which is why I gave them lower health.
As for Bill himself… he’s absurd. He’s wandering around drinking from a jug and firing a tommy gun at a robot, he’s designed to look like a pirate mobster, and he’s not appearing in a time period where being ironic is going to help you. Plus his entire thing fails once the Comics Code launches, so it’s a while before anyone tries to bring him back, and when they did he immediately became the subject of ridicule and a punchline for authors for the next twenty years.
Mechanically, Bill has a custom Inherent that’s technically part of his Adaptive layout, giving him a free bonus and penalty each turn, combined with primary actions that use multiple dice so that he can stick them on different things, and he just gets drunker as the scene goes on.
Yep, that’s a D-Lister concept all right. Seriously tried to bribe a robot, eh? 
Really like the dirty cop lieutenants, stealing those for sure. I like the conundrum of whether you yell for backup ASAP while you’re still relatively intact, or maybe spend a turn or two Boosting and/or getting Boosts so you can throw the bonuses at getting more dirty cop minions.
Bill’s custom “A Little Tipple” is cute, and his reaction might keep him in the fight long enough to see that +3/-3 stage.
Doing thoughts about Thief in a separate post so it’s easier to process.
Thoughts about the Thief archetype:
That’s a neat variant. Encourages you to care less about the size of your bonuses and more about their raw number, so a quantity over quality approach. Having even small-die minions throw Boost actions at you ought to solidify a d10 status pretty easily.
As written, that wouldn’t be useable against environment effects, right? They aren’t coming from a “someone” in that case. Same for oddball challenge effects, and maybe for “powerful entity” twists that emulate Attack or Hinder actions. Is a Celestial a someone?
Assume that if you’re both Attacked and Hindered by the same action you have to choose which effect to penalize, right?
That is going to be very strong with the aforementioned small-die minions on Booster duty. At least it’s just on you, which is a lot tamer than a Bully’s Hinder-modifying ability combined with a minion swarm pouring out -2 penalties like no tomorrow.
I wonder if restricting it to only work on non-persistent bonuses might be a good idea, though. P+E bonuses are already plenty efficient and this would just make them more so. Something like:
Little situational but that’s sort of the same as two Mid die Hinders (one dedicated to stripping a bonus) and a Mid die Boost in one lump. Thought it was a little weak at first glance but when the riders go off right it’s pretty strong - even more so with Eye For Value, or with that Bully ability in play for your Hinder. Or both.
Just to confirm, the bonus being “stolen” would retain P&E if it had them, right? If so, the wording might be clearer this way:
Think that the “move” clause could still trigger Eye For Value, since you’re still gaining a new mod that way.
More uses for multiple exclusive mods is nice, and this won’t even shaft your status die since the worst case is going from d10 to d8.
Handy all around, and rewards moving around the scene and heroes having mobility powers. Like it.
This is an odd one. It feels slightly underpowered for a villain reaction at first, especially since you pretty much have to use it on your turn. But if you have Eye For Value it’s a lot better, more or less letting you keep your strongest non-persistent bonus for as long as you can spend the reaction for Spend Money… while still being able to pair it with a P+E bonus. Conceivably a total +8 that won’t go away on use is pretty alarming.
It would be very different, but I wonder if this might be less swingy based on combos?
That would prevent stacking a P+E bonus with the benefit, still keep you from using a persistent bonus to farm more regular bonuses, leave your reaction free for other uses, and still work with Eye For Value without needing that combo quite so much to be really good.
Yeah, it wouldn’t protect you from indirect action, although I could see a GM ruling that an environment twist represented as a person would still count (i.e. if the environment says “someone leans out the window and takes a potshot, Attack the target with the most HP” they might allow it.) The intent is that it only works if you’re being targeted by a person.
And yeah, it’s only meant to affect one die.
I went back and forth on that, and you are probably right. I’ll make the adjustment.
Yeah, that is the intent, and I like your wording edit.
We are once again on the same wavelength. I had originally designed it as an Inherent, but it seemed too easy a way to keep big bonuses around. Reactive Boosts usually create bonuses that are around +2, so I figured this would be a reasonable value - with the additional note, as mentioned, that if you’re willing to stack it with Eye For Value it’s a very strong half of your build. My thought was that it gets balanced out by not letting you reactively defend while you’re doing it, which makes you pretty vulnerable.
Your revision is interesting, but I did want it to be useful when you dump a bunch of bonuses and then choose one to keep. Oh wait, here’s a thought:
Spend Money To Make Money (I): Whenever you use a bonus, you may destroy all of your bonuses. If you do, gain a bonus with a value equal to the number of bonuses destroyed.
This lets Spend Money To Make Money turn the small bonuses you’ve been gathering into one big one, or mitigating the status die loss from tossing a couple. It does let you cycle a lone +1 indefinitely, but if you’ve only got one +1 your status die is probably hurting anyway.
edit It also makes it so that the Thief who uses that ability doesn’t necessarily want a P/E bonus, which may actually be a benefit for the character style.
That looks good if the intent is to encourage spending everything at once. How would it combo with Show Off though? Are you actually “using” the bonuses there (which would interact with Spend Money) or just adding their value and then destroying them? If Show Off is a “use” would the combo leave you gaining two bonuses each with a value equal to the the number of bonuses destroyed (or even # destroyed +1 if you managed to take Eye For Value as well through Power Upgrade and an approach with a d12 power die)?
That combo seems a little tricky wording-wise.
Hrm.
You’re right, those interact weirdly. I would say that since Show Off destroys bonuses and then gives you a bonus, you can’t re-destroy them for Spend Money To Make Money - but that means that the two are in opposition to each other, and I don’t like that either. The original system meant that if you had both, you could end up with one more bonus than you started with, which was kind of neat.
Going to have to think about that one for a bit.
Okay, I have a new thought for that last ability, with the idea of going broader rather than wider.
This still won’t interact well with Show Off, because Show Off destroys the bonus entirely, but it lets the Thief use their bonuses without losing the benefit of having them around, and it doesn’t create a weird synergy with Eye For Value because the bonus isn’t being replaced, it’s just shrinking.
If that is the final effect, then I suggest a rename of the ability to something like “Always take your cut”
“Always Take Your Cut” it is! Thank you for the suggestion, it’s perfect.
The Randomizers:
Background 1, 10, 2 [Options: Blank Slate, Criminal, Performer, Unremarkable, Dynasty, Adventurer]
Power Source 8, 4, 10 [Options: Experimentation, Powered Suit, Tech Upgrades, Artificial Being, Alien, Unknown]
Archetype 2, 1, 9 [Options: Speedster, Shadow, Powerhouse, Elemental, Robot/Cyborg, Sorcerer]
Personality 6, 3, 8 [Options: Impulsive, Distant, Fast Talking, Inquisitive, Stoic, Decisive]
The Tellurian
Real Name: Tom Taylor, First Appearance: Celestial Travels #49, Mar 1943
Background: Blank Slate, Power Source: Alien, Archetype: Physical Powerhouse
Personality: Decisive, Principles: Levity, Expertise
Status Dice: Green d8, Yellow d8, Red d10. Health: 32 [Green 32-25, Yellow 24-12, Red 11-1]
Qualities: Close Combat d10, Conviction d8, Leadership d8, Fitness d8, Outside Perspective d8
Powers: Strength d10, Presence d8, Gadgets d8, Leaping d8, Vitality d6
Green Abilities:
Yellow Abilities:
Red Abilities
Out
As World War II progressed and the number of superheroes in Venture Comics grew, there was a concerted push to put at least one hero in the pages of every comic. By early 1943, the only holdout was Celestial Travels; aside from a few backup stories, their lead editor had stubbornly resisted including even alien heroes such as the Steward from their ranks. Finally, Venture’s owners put their foot down, compromising with a planetary romance hero who was mandated to appear in at least six issues over the course of the year, bringing superheroic antics to a faraway world.
The result was the Tellurian. Tom Taylor was a human who was pulled through an interdimensional fissure to the far-flung world of Teulos, where he found himself fighting against an alien empire that was patterned after both Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. The gravity of the world gave him incredible strength - the lead writer, Kit Grenville, drew heavily on the stories of John Carter for his inspirations - and his natural charisma soon had him leading a rag-tag group of rebels as he searched for a portal that would return him home.
The Tellurian was not a particularly novel hero, echoing several previous planetary romance leads, and his creator was supremely uninterested in his life prior to arriving on Teulos. Instead, the draw of each story was in the world that Grenville drafted for the Tellurian to explore, applying superhero tropes to the planetary romance to foil super-villains, alien fascists, and strange robots. Ultimately, however, the hero’s downfall came from his own staff. Celestial Travels’ editor chafed at the mandate from above, and deliberately moved resources away from the Tellurian to the other stories he was writing, seeing the cheap pulp hero as a way to save art resources for more cerebral galactic tales. As a result, and despite a strong start, sales for the Tellurian’s issues dwindled over the course of 1943, leading to fewer appearances in 1944 and a single final issue in 1945.
The Tellurian would make a brief return in the pages of Vanguards! In 1961, as part of their adventures, the Vanguards would travel to a new world on the forefront of the Jotari’s invasion plans, where they discovered the Tellurian and the people of Teulos. Over the course of a two-parter, the Tellurian bravely sacrificed himself, saving Teulos from the Jotari and leaving the Vanguards to tell his story. It was hard to say if this was a writer delivering the final nail in the coffin of a character they saw as disposable, or a final attempt to give him an ending with dignity, but either way, the character did not return to life.
Behind the Scenes
I knew from the start that I wanted to have one of my Golden Age heroes be a Celestial Travels character who was sabotaged and never had a chance, and combining a “Blank Slate” background, alien powers, and punching pretty much gave us someone halfway between John Carter and Flash Gordon - a charismatic leader of rebels on an alien world, empowered by his human nature. With the right team, he might have been a solid draw, if not a hit, but with his budget kneecapped from minute one it was never going to happen.
It did set the stage for Venture’s heavy use of interdimensional travel alongside interstellar travel, so in that sense, the Tellurian made his mark. Good for him.
Confound it, Italy getting a free pass on being part of the Axis again? Isn’t tarted-up Roman imagery distinctive enough for comics?
Sigh. At least the Freedom Force sequel gave us the Fabulous Fortissimo as a villain, along with some Roman legion themed lackeys.
Given that John Carter’s own background is one of the most objectionable aspects of the character, that’s might be for the best. Grenville made the right choice, methinks. It’s not like knowing Flash Gordon was a Yale graduate and skilled polo player really added anything to the character either.
Tarted-up Roman imagery in the Golden Age is already being heavily used for Greenheart, so I’m assuming that Venture didn’t want to confuse the issue. 
It’s just a sore point for me how often the Axis gets treated as though it only had two members in postwar media. There are at least two people in my family tree that I never got to meet because they died in their teens on that bloody Mediterranean boot, and they weren’t killed by Germans.
John Carter reference 
My grandfather gave me his old set when I was six or seven years old. First adult books I ever owned, prior to that it was mostly the first run of Tom Swift Junior and some Tom Corbett, Space Cadet. Gave me a lifelong fondness for Burroughs that all the political incorrectness, bombastic writing and terrible Disney adaptions can’t quite erase even today. You like what you like.
Now that Piers Anthony period in my teens, that I’d like to forget. Eeesh.
I think we’ve all had a Piers Anthony period that we’d like to forget. And speaking of problematic writers…
Randomizers:
Approach: 5, 5, 6 [Options: Bully, Disruptive, Overpowered, Generalist, Adaptive]
Archetype: 5, 7, 8 [Options: Indomitable, Formidable, Inhibitor, Thief, Invader, Warden]
Upgrade: 5, 8, 10 [Options: Power Upgrade I, Quality Upgrade II, Calming Aura]
Mastery: 8, 10, 12 [Options: Profitability, Total Chaos, Malice]
The Fifth Columnist
Real Name: Leonard Harvey, First Appearance: Madame Liberty #28, April 1944
Approach: Bully, Archetype: Inhibitor
Upgrade: Quality Upgrade, Mastery: Malice
Status Dice: 3+ heroes with at least one penalty: d10. 1-2 heroes with at least one penalty: d8. No heroes with at least one penalty: d6. Health: 35+5H (Upgraded 55+5H)
Qualities: Stealth d8, Ranged Combat d8, Nosy Reporter d8
Powers: Deduction d10, Invisibility d8, Gadgets d8
Abilities:
Common Scene Elements:
Madame Liberty fought many fascists at home and abroad, but her foes were usually in enemy territory, as she fought across Europe to undermine Nazi rule. In 1944, as the Allies began to gain ground, more of her stories involved defending Allied territory in England and Africa, and it was in London that she came across a pernicious but short-lived foe, the Fifth Columnist!
Leonard Harvey was a British news reporter from aristocratic stock, who secretly supported the Fascist cause. As the war dragged on, his subtle efforts at sabotage grew more pronounced, using carefully-crafted news stories to spread doubt, funnelling information to the Nazis from his investigations, and even taking to the field with a collection of Germany super-science toys to create the bad news that he would report on. Madame Liberty caught him attempting to sabotage Allied war efforts and then report on them, and the two battled as he tried to activate his final trick - a bomb hidden in the basement of the London Times!
Harvey was seemingly blown up with the bomb, but he returned under a false identity six months later to bedevil Madame Liberty again. He made a third appearance in 1945, trying to undermine efforts in newly-liberated France, but the end of the war also spelled the end of his fascist efforts. The writers made a brief attempt to revive the Fifth Columnist in 1949, shifting his loyalties to the Communist cause, but the rising Red Scare made writers uncomfortable having an actual secret Communist in the newsroom, and he was quietly discontinued from there.
Some aspects of the Fifth Columnist’s mixture of spreading lies and physical sabotage were adapted years later, creating the character of Poison Pen, and her success was the final nail in the coffin of his chances of returning.
Behind the Scenes
I wanted at least one villain to exist who could have been a compelling success, but just came out at the wrong time, and that gives us the Fifth Columnist! If he’d been one of Madame Liberty’s first foes, five years of activity could have been the push needed to revive him in the 60s in a new light, but he didn’t have time to really take hold before he was pushed aside.
Mechanically, combining Bully and Inhibitor makes him a nasty penalty-creator with a shocking amount of health, and most of his penalties are flavored as stories he’s already created or lies that he’s revealed, plus a bit of Nazi super-science in the mix.
Heh. That is some Grade A wordplay there.
oh, so that one’s not just me then? c_c;; Good to know
I think it’s a fairly common ailment among sf/f fans in a certain age range. It seemed like the guy used to take up multiple shelves in every book store you walked into for decades and there was inevitable curiosity about why - especially after you read a few of his books.
My case was made worse by relatives thinking I still wanted to read an author I’d given up on by 8th grade and kept giving his books for years and years thereafter.
