Friv Makes Eighteen Supervillains!

Hello, everyone! I’m FrivYeti, and I’ve been trying to work my way through the mechanics of characters in the Sentinels Comics roleplaying game. I’ve built twenty heroes and formed them into five superhero teams. Now, I’m going to create eighteen villains to oppose them!

This construction process is going to be a lot different than how I put together the heroes, for a number of reasons. First, villains are more interlocking tactically, which means that I don’t want to build them in isolation and then figure out teams. Instead, I will be building a solo villain and a group of either two or three villains for each of my five teams.

Villains only have two stages of development – Approach and Archetype – which means substantially fewer random chances. There are 160,000 possible combinations of template for heroes (and that’s if you count Modular and Divided as one option each instead of making them each their own layer of combinations, which would boost the number to 576,000) whereas there are only 252 possible villain combinations. There are also more Approaches than there are Archetypes, which means a bit of doubling up will happen.

Finally, villains have much broader Quality and Power options; each one has a few suggestions, but there are no actual restrictions the way that there are for heroes. Taking only suggested Qualities and Powers will drastically restrict options, while not doing drastically opens options up.

So here is my newly-designed Villain Creation Guide:

Step 1: Decide on Approach and Archetype

Approaches and Archetypes will be rolled for each villain or team of villains in order, before deciding on specific qualities, powers, and Abilities.

For each villain, roll d12+d6 for Approach, counting alphabetically. Choose either of the two dice rolled, or the combination of them. If there is only one unchosen Approach left, choose between it and the one after the sum of the two dice. If none are left, count up and down from the sum of the two dice and choose between them. I can roll for all villains in a team and pick the Approaches that match up well.

Next, for each villain, roll d8+d6 for Archetype, also counting alphabetically. Choose either of the two dice rolled, or the combination of them. If there is only one unchosen Approach left, choose between it and the one after the sum of the two dice. If none are left, count up and down from the sum of the two dice and choose between them. Once all fourteen Archetypes have been chosen, reset the list. As before, I can roll for all villains in a team and pick a group of Archetypes that will mesh well. I do have to roll per villain; I can’t use the results from one villain for a different one.

Step 2: Decide on Qualities and Powers

For each villain, roll a random Quality category on a d6. On a 1, pick an Info Quality. On a 2, pick a Mental Quality. On a 3, pick a Physical Quality. On a 4, pick a Social Quality. On a 5, pick from whichever list has the most unclaimed Qualities, and on a 6 pick from the list of “Suggested Qualities.” If a Quality list is entirely taken, go to the next number down. If all Qualities are taken, reset the list.

The highest Quality die will be chosen from the randomized list. The second-highest die will be off the list of Suggested Qualities for that Approach, even if all of those have been taken.

For Powers, roll a d10. On a 1, take an Athletic Power. On a 2, take an Energy Power. On 3, take an Intellectual power. On 4, take a Material Power. On 5, take a Hallmark or Technological Power. On 6, take a Mobility Power. On 7, take a Psychic Power. On 8, take a Self-Control Power. On 9, take a power from whichever list has the most options. On 10, take a power from the Suggested list, even if they are all taken.

As with Qualities, the highest die will be from the above randomization, while the second-highest die will be from the Suggested list.

All dice after the highest two can be anything that I want. Taking them won’t cross them off the availability list.

Step 3: Abilities, Status Dice, and Health

Choose Abilities for each villain, referencing any other villains on the team for a stronger total group. Note down each Villain’s Health (based on the team that they are being constructed to oppose.)

Step 4: Upgrades and Masteries

For each villain, choose an Upgrade and a Mastery. Because there are fewer of these than there are options, I can take each one twice over the course of the run, and I must take each one at least once over the course of the run.

Step 5: Background

I will write up a quick background for this villain or team of villains, why they do what they do, and what their evil alias is. This is also where I’ll add the RP Quality for them. I’m going to have a much clearer idea about villain backgrounds earlier on, so in a lot of cases this is just me pulling back the curtain.

Step 6: Tactics

Here, I write how the villain fights, and what challenges might be good to pair them with.

Then wait no longer!

Step 1: Approach and Archetype

Our first villain is a solo villain, who will be opposing the Champions of Tomorrow. Rolling d12+d6 gives us 10, 4, and 14 gives us a Creator, a Mastermind, or a Relentless enemy. Let’s start off with the classic; a Mastermind.

For Archetype, we have a 7, a 3, and a 10, which means that our Mastermind could be an Inhibitor, Formidable, or a Loner. A Mastermind Inhibitor sounds interesting, so let’s go with that! Devin likes to be in control, and loves to make it impossible for others to handle him. What a tool.

Step 2: Qualities and Powers

Our cunning friend rolls a 4, which means one of their Qualities is Social. Let’s take Insight d10. Their second-highest die is drawn from their list, and we’re not looking too science-y, so I’m going to take Investigation d8.

The highest Quality die will be chosen from the randomized list. The second-highest die will be off the list of Suggested Qualities for that Approach, even if all of those have been taken.

For Powers, a roll of 8 gives us a Self-Control Power. Let’s hand off a d12 Intangible and then take d10 Deductions. This villain is literally untouchable, while figuring out the best place to apply leverage.

I have three d8 Qualities plus a roleplaying Quality, and a d8 Power. For Qualities, Devin is going to add Finesse, Technology, and Stealth; he knows how to use tech to his advantage and is extremely sneaky. For our final Power, I’m going to give him Cosmic power. He can throw energies around from his intangible state.

Step 3: Abilities, Status Dice, and Health

Devin has four Abilities, two from Mastermind and two from Inhibitor. From Mastermind, he’s going to take a nasty trick that uses his Insight to attack a vulnerable member and throw everyone else off-balance, Hindering the whole team and pushing his status die to d10. He can also use his Investigation to Boost himself at the start of each turn, giving him better power to throw his Hinders around.

Devin draws his intangibility from the people he passes through; his Tethered Life lets him Hinder someone long-term and protect himself as long as that link exists. Only by disentangling him can this be fixed. He can also draw all the penalties he’s created out of his foes, re-establishing himself and injuring every foe.

For Status Dice, Devin starts the scene at d6, and jumps to d8 if he can get a penalty onto one or two people, and d10 if he can get penalties onto three or more people.

Finally, Devin’s base health is (20 + 20 +10) 50.

Step 4: Upgrade and Mastery

When acting as a difficult threat, Devin has taken time to prepare the battlefield to keep the heroes off-balance and uncertain. This has the effect of a Calming Aura, locking them in the Green Zone until they can identify and disable the tricks that he’s placed around the environment through three successful Overcomes. If someone takes a minor twist, Devin can use his Reaction to give them a free Hinder.

None of the Masteries quite fit my vision of him, but I’m going to go with Total Chaos. For all that he likes to stack the deck, when everything is out of control he’s great at pulling a rabbit out of his hat.

Step 5: Background

Hmm… he can phase partially out of existence, he’s a cunning manipulator who loves to break people down, and he uses trickery to accomplish his goals…

Devin is a con artist and former stage magician who stole tricks from other magicians while sabotaging their acts. Ilamar the Inscrutable was just the next mark on the list, and Devin managed to get into his good graces and learn a lot about him, just in time to discover that magic is real and Ilamar’s team had recovered some dangerous relics of some kind. Devin wanted them. So he threw caution to the wind, organized a minor emergency to draw the Champions away, and grabbed the first thing he could – a tiny Oblivaeon shard that the team had yet to figure out how to get rid of.

Don’t take Oblivaeon shards, people.

The impact of the shard touching his flesh pushed Devin out of phase, and he almost died. When he recovered, he learned how to manipulate his phasing. Between his ability to understand the world, his ability to understand people, and his ability to flicker in and out of existence, he decided that his dreams were coming true. It was time to get really rich.

Under the namesake of Sleight, Devin has made some serious cash. He manipulates people to gain access to valuables, and then sells them to interested parties. He loves his wealth, and loves getting one over people – he doesn’t care about the thrill of the game, only the thrill of the win.

Devin’s background also determines his roleplaying quality: “Failed Magician”. It doesn’t come up that often, I guess, but it’s good to know.

Step 6: Tactics

In normal combat, Sleight’s goal is probably to get his target and get out, rather than sticking around to hurt people. He’ll start off by tagging someone vulnerable to tie their life to his, then use his understanding of the flaws in team tactics to separate people, Hinder them, and beat on whoever he can get alone, and once he has an opening he’ll make a break for it. If things get rough, he’ll play his Hail Mary and burn all the penalties he’s assembled to hurt his enemies and heal himself.

If he’s going all-out, Sleight’s mastery means that he wants to keep the heroes off-balance and the situation out of control until he can take them down. He’ll make use of minions that he’s tricked into thinking that he’s on their side, sacrificing them to slow the heroes down, and have a solid grasp of what’s up with the environment. If he gets dragged out into the open he’ll try to evade as long as he can, but if his opponents can pull his tricks apart he doesn’t have a lot left.

Villain: Sleight

Approach: Mastermind, Archetype: Inhibitor

Status Dice: No Penalized Heroes d6, 1-2 Penalized Heroes d8, 3+ Penalized Heroes d10.

Health: 50 (adjusted for 4-player team)

Qualities:

• Insight d10
• Investigation d8
• Finesse d8
• Stealth d8
• Technology d8
• Failed Magician d8

Powers:

• Intangible d12
• Deduction d10
• Cosmic d8

Abilities:

• The Sucker Effect (A): Attack one hero using your Insight. Hinder all heroes with your Max die.
• Confederate (A): Hinder using Intangible. The penalty is persistent and exclusive. As long as that penalty is in play, reduce damage against you by 1 and whenever you take damage, the target with this penalty takes 1 irreducible damage.
• The Reveal (A): Each hero loses Health equal to the number of penalties on them. Recover the same amount of Health. Remove those penalties.
• Nothing Up My Sleeve (I): At the start of your turn, if you have no bonuses, create a bonus by rolling your single Investigation die.
• (U) Rig The Field: The heroes act as being in the Green zone for status die, access to abilities, and for the purposes of all abilities. Heroes may remove this ability with three Overcome successes. If a hero takes a minor twist, you may use a reaction to Hinder them by rolling your single Deductions die.
• (M) Principle of Total Chaos: 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.

Aftermath:

Hah, I like this guy. He reminds me a bit of Glamour, but coming from the opposite direction; he just strolls through the chaos to get what he came for, and he’ll use any trick in the book to do what he wants. I wonder if there’s a whole organization of evil stage magicians in this version of the Sentinels universe?

This is going to be interesting once you start crossing most of the list off, since it’s been said villains really shouldn’t be made randomly. I wanna know what corners you paint yourself into with this method and how you’ll get out of them.

Hmm, since you’re rolling 2 dice to select your Approach and Archetype, there will be a bell curve making you select the alphabetically middle options most often, which was probably not intended by the designers. For example, ever notice how you seem to roll a 7 a lot when rolling 2d6?

Yeah, that crossed my mind but I couldn’t think of a better way to do random generation for villains since, as noted, it’s not actually recommended. My general hope was that this would be mainly balanced out by getting every option anyway.

Unlike the hero generation, I’m fighting the system a bit to do this. Part of the reason I did it was to see how well it would work, since I do quite like getting prompts.

Well, it’s not like rolling physical dice, but you could always use a digital random number generator, like Google’s here.

Magicians’ Association for Nefarious Activities (M.A.N.A.)

Yeah, if I do this again, I’ll probably go with the random number generator, or design a much more complex villain generation matrix that is wildly overcomplicated for the goal that I want to achieve. Speaking of which…

Step 1: Decide on Approach and Archetype

For Approaches, our first villain could be Focused, a Bully, or a Ninja, and our second villain could be a Creator, Adaptive, or Dampening. Let’s go with a Bully and a Dampening villain; one person sets them up, and the other knocks them down.

Our Bully rolled double 3s and is choosing between Formidable or Indomitable, whereas our Dampener rolled 1 and 3 and gets to picked between Bruiser, Formidable, and Fragile. I can’t resist a villain pair of Formidable and Fragile, I think. So we’re going for a Formidable Bully and a Fragile Dampener.

This is a minor quibble, but I’m grumpy that some Approaches and Archetypes are adjectives, and others are nouns. I’d have loved the Approach set to all be adjectives and the Archetype set to all be nouns for descriptive purposes.

I need to give these two quick names or the next several steps will be confusing, so our bruiser is Delilah and our sneak is Jonas.

Step 2: Decide on Qualities and Powers

Okay, let’s get going! Delilah rolls 6 for Quality, and Jonas rolls 4. So Delilah’s top two dice are both from her Suggested Qualities, whereas Jonas gets something Social and something else. For Delilah, I’m going to pick Close Combat d8 and Imposing d8, which is also all of her Qualities. Jonas gets Medicine d10 and Leadership d8 – he uses medical science to mess with people, and is a skilled leader.

For Powers, Delilah and Jonas both got a 9. Right now, that means two types of energy powers. Delilah will take Electricity d10 and Vitality d8, while Jonas gets Nuclear d10 and Transmutation d8.

Delilah doesn’t have any other Qualities, but does have Power Suit d8; her charged suit lets her go toe-to-toe with super-powered people. Jonas has an extra d8 Quality in Ranged Combat and an extra d8 Power for Presence; he’s innately powered, having upgraded himself to be a nuclear-powered being able to reshape matter, and a natural leader.

Step 3: Abilities, Status Dice, and Health

Delilah is pretty straightforward. She can hit multiple people hard, but let them defend against her. She can use her power suit to give herself a powerful charge and also attack. She can soak damage, and she can use a boost to burn off her penalties and get back to full power.

Jonas can attack with Nuclear, bombarding his enemies and weakening their stats, or Hinder someone with his Transmutation to mess with their internal powers long-term. He can also fire off attacks that strip enemies of their bonuses with Ranged Combat, and use his status die to try to evade attacks and get to safety.

Choose Abilities for each villain, referencing any other villains on the team for a stronger total group. Note down each Villain’s Health (based on the team that they are being constructed to oppose.)

Step 4: Upgrades and Masteries

When the team is upgraded, Delilah gets better at directing squads of troops, calling in reserves from all sides with the Mook Squad upgrade. She also becomes a Master of Conquest, using these troops to take control of the area.

Jonas uses his Power Dampening Field to weaken everyone’s powers, worse and worse as time goes on. A Master of Mad Science, he can use materials to build medical and scientific devices to solve problems on the fly.

Step 5: Background

Okay, so we have a pair of people whose actual gimmick is that they go out and weaken superhumans in order to take them out. They’re enemies of the Champions of Tomorrow. So:

Meet the Leveller and Vaccine. They are the most powerful agents of a small but growing organization, CRUCIBLE. Formed of FILTER remnants, Rook City survivors, and ex-military operatives, CRUCIBLE (which doesn’t actually stand for anything) is an organization of human supremacists who believe that all of the problems that have befallen Earth are the result of action by aliens and extradimensional beings. They’re looking to find ways to give humans the power to control their destiny, while removing any ‘dangerous’ forces from the Earth, including alien refugees, magical beings, and the humans who work for them.

CRUCIBLE doesn’t oppose superhumans, as long as their powers are tech-based or innate. Humans using magic or alien technology, or humans from other universes, might be safe, but need to be heavily supervised. Actual aliens, humans whose magic depends on spiritual entities, or those whose powers aren’t fully under their own control? These are a fifth column that needs to be wiped out, and Leveller and Vaccine are the agents to do it.

As a rule, CRUCIBLE dislikes both heroes and villains who don’t meet their supremacist ideals. With their own power still restricted, they tend to leave villains to other heroes to deal with, or try to manipulate heroes that need to be taken out into fighting villains who need to be taken out before sweeping in to attack the winners. In the long run, they’re looking for new tech to give every human safe, controllable powers, but in the short term they want to destroy everyone who doesn’t meet their view of a pure world.

It goes without saying that the Champions of Tomorrow represent everything that CRUCIBLE hates – an alien, a cultist, and two people channeling extradimensional forces that are directing them towards an unknown purpose. Destroying the Champions is gradually becoming an increasing priority for the organization…

Step 6: Tactics

Vaccine and the Leveller have a fairly simple tactical setup. Vaccine targets the most dangerous enemy, giving them a wasting disease that weakens their powers and then goes after their Qualities, while working to avoid direct conflict. If the heroes build up too many bonuses, Vaccine uses ranged attacks to strip them.

The Leveller wades in with any CRUCIBLE soldiers they’ve brought along, developing a strong boost by charging her suit and then attacking whoever Vaccine has weakened. When she starts to get bogged down too far, she retreats and shakes off her penalties, before charging back into the fray.

The duo’s primary weakness is that the Leveller targets weak enemies, and doesn’t have any real way to cover for Vaccine. Canny heroes can evade her long enough to take him down, at which point she’s a brick that can be pulled to pieces.

Villain: The Leveller [Delilah]

Approach: Bully, Archetype: Formidable

Status Dice: No penalties d12, penalties and bonuses d8, penalties and no bonuses d4

Health: 70 (adjusted for four heroes)

Qualities:

• Close Combat d8
• Imposing d8

Powers:

• Electricity d10
• Vitality d8
• Power Suit d8

Abilities:

• Shocking Blast (A): Attack two nearby targets with Electricity, using your Max die against one and your Mid + Min dice against the other. If either target Defends against an attack, apply it to both attacks.
• Power Up (A): Boost using Power Suit, using your Max die. This bonus is persistent and exclusive. Attack with your Mid die.
• Shake It Off (A): Boost using Vitality and use your Max + Mid dice. Remove all penalties from yourself.
• Hardened Armour (I): Reduce damage against you by 2.

Upgrade:

• (U) Mook Squad: Take an action to replenish the number of CRUCIBLE agents present up to the number of heroes in the scene.
• (M) Master of Control: While commanding CRUCIBLE soldiers, automatically succeed at overcomes to take control of an area or capture civilians.

Villain: Vaccine (Jonas)

Approach: Dampener, Archetype: Fragile

Status Dice: Green d10, Yellow d8, Red d6

Health: 40 [adjusted for 4 Heroes] [Green 40-30, Yellow 29-15, Red 14-1]

Qualities:

• Medicine d10
• Leadership d8
• Ranged Combat d8

Powers:

• Nuclear d10
• Transmutation d8
• Presence d8

Abilities:

• Radiation Burns (A): Attack using Nuclear. Reduce all the target’s Quality dice by one size until the start of your next turn.
• Internal Scrambling (A): Hinder a target with Transmutation. Use your Max die; the penalty is persistent and exclusive. As long as that penalty is on a target, reduce their highest power die of your choice by one size. Attack using your Mid die.
• Dismantling Toxins (A): Attack a target with Ranged Combat. Then remove all bonuses from the target.
• Duck and Roll ®: When attacked, defend yourself with your Status Die. If this reduces the damage you would take to 0, you may move to anywhere in the scene.

Upgrades:

• (U) Viral Dampeners (I): While the scene is in the Green zone, all heroes’ power dice at d8 or above are reduced one size. In the Yellow zone, all heroes’ power dice at d10 or above are reduced two die sizes. In the Red zone, all heroes’ dice are treated as d4s. Heroes may remove this ability with three Overcome successes. If a hero takes a minor twist, the hero must lose access to a power entirely until this ability is removed. [When using this Upgrade, Vaccine has +10 Health]
• (M) Master of Mad Science (I): When you have access to medical supplies and materials, you can automatically succeed when Overcoming a situation with inventions and medical principles.

Aftermath:

There is definitely a trend in the villains I’m making for the Champions, and that trend is “hit you with penalties to make you less effective.” Not entirely my fault; I think that Dampener and Inhibitor are the two heaviest hitters for that particular trick, and I got them really early. Maybe I should have started with a Bully and an Adaptive.

Oh, well, they work well together. And boy, Formidable Bullies have a heck of a lot of health. Part of the reason I went with a minion upgrade even though these two aren’t heavily into minion-boosting was just to avoid giving Leveller even more Health and making her more of a pain to fight.

Alright, it is time to move on to the enemies of Best Practices. We begin with our solo villain…

Step 1: Approach and Archetype

Our opening rolls of 10 and 2 give us Approaches of Ancient, Mastermind or Overpowered, while our Archetype results of 3 and 5 unlock Formidable, Guerrilla, and Inventor. Gee, our fourth villain and already two lock-outs. Well, I’ve been building hinder-heavy villains, so let’s see what an unstoppable devastator will do with an Overpowered Guerrilla!

Step 2: Qualities and Powers

Our buddy gets a 6 for Qualities and a 7 for Powers. It looks like both their Quality dice will be suggested, while they’re adding a Psychic power to their suggested list.

For Qualities, Conviction d8 and Self-Discipline d6 gives us someone intensely focused on their goals. Ludicrously powerful Telekinesis d12 and intense personal Presence (d10) hones the idea of someone who has really overclocked their brain, and Overpowered gives him an extra d10 Power that I’m going to use for Precognition for defense and general frustrating ability to avoid trouble.

Step 3: Abilities, Status Dice, and Health

This villain has one goal: get stuck in. He loves a good fight, which he mostly wins by flinging tables at people’s faces. He’s got a Reaction to defend himself against attacks with Precognition and deal that damage to someone else, and a straightforward Attack that hits a bunch of people with Telekinesis and Hinders them. The more people that attack him, the harder his own attacks land, and if things get messy he can grab a person and use them as a shield against everyone else.

This smasher has 75 Health. Wow. When fighting one enemy, his status die is a d6, going up to a d8 against 2-3 people and a d10 against four or more.

Step 4: Upgrades and Masteries

Group Fighter is the obvious upgrade for someone who fights groups. He also seems to be a Master of Annihilation, doing whatever damage needs to be done to accomplish his goals.

Step 5: Background

So… what are his goals? He’s got a lot of Conviction, so this is about a cause, and he’s intensely destructive and very psychic. We’re dealing with Best Practices, so this is probably someone who’s either a scientist or a science experiment, or both…

Okay! Let’s meet Aaron Mauser, aka The Ultramind. Aaron was the result of an experimental process that was meant to unlock phenomenal mental energies, turning ordinary people into superhuman processors with the ability to predict the future and understand the world. Aaron took part because he wanted to be powerful, to matter. He wanted to be able to do anything, and he got it.

The process had mixed results. It supercharged Aaron’s mind, but it supercharged all of it; his anxieties blossomed into paranoia, his pride mutated into vicious hubris, his uncertainties became dangerous phobias, and he became convinced that the only way for him to be safe was to assert his dominance over the world. He broke free from the experiment, may or may not have killed everyone involved, and has set about turning himself into the perfect weapon. Sometimes he works for others, and sometimes he sets up his own gangs, but ultimately, he abandons them out of fear.

This gives the Ultramind the roleplaying quality “On the Run” d8; he knows places to lay low and how to hide, especially when he’s uncertain.

Step 6: Tactics

Fighting the Ultramind directly can be done, but it is not a good plan. In combat, he generally just goes all-out, charging into the middle of his enemies and unleashing powerful telekinetic attacks while evading most of what comes back his way. Attacking him just makes him mad, and he can predict most tactical plans that heroes might put in place. If he does get cornered he tends to grab innocents to use as human shields, making his escape.

On the other hand, Aaron is really dependent on his own certainty. Anything that attacks that leaves him without any useful Quality dice, he doesn’t have a good way to evade Hinders, and if you can target his phobias you can drive him off.

Villain: The Ultramind

Approach: Overpowered, Archetype: Guerrilla

Status Dice: 0-1 Engaged Enemies d6, 2-3 Engaged Enemies d8, 4+ Engaged Enemies d10.

Health: 75 (adjusted for 4-player team)

Qualities:

• Conviction d8
• On the Run d8
• Self-Discipline d6

Powers:

• Telekinesis [Psychic] d12
• Presence [Intellectual] d10
• Precognition [Psychic] d10

Abilities:

• Take This! (A): Attack multiple targets using Telekinesis and use your Max die. Hinder each target using your Mid die.
• Human Shield (A): Attack a target using Telekinesis. Use your Max + Min die. Defend against all Attacks made by targets other than that target using your Mid die until the start of your next turn. All damage Defended against is dealt to that target.
• Saw That Coming ®: Defend against an attack with your Precognition die. Deal that much damage to a different nearby target.
• Even Odds (I): At the start of your turn, gain a bonus equal to the number of targets who Attacked you since your last turn.

Upgrade:

• Group Fighter (I): When you use an Ability that lets you make one or more Attacks, make an extra Attack with your Mid die. When using this Upgrade, you have +20 Health.
• Master of Annihilation (I): If you can cause massive collateral damage without regard for casualties, automatically succeed at an Overcome in which a show of overwhelming force could solve the problem.

Aftermath:

Well, this bruiser can pop up a lot of places, probably in the middle of making a situation worse for uncertain reasons. I have mixed feelings about villains whose motivations are “powers made them unstable”, to be honest; it’s easy to slip off that ledge into “this is a mental illness metaphor”, which is a real problem in comics history a lot of the time. Hopefully the Ultramind comes across as more of the superheroic exaggeration of that mediocre guy you know who is desperate to feel important instead.

you wrote Formidable instead of Guerilla

Very cool. I like the exaggerated mental flaws making him bounce between boss and for hire

Something doesn’t add up . . .

Great job on the Villains so far, though!

Well, that is a larger number of editing errors than usual! I did change from Awareness to Precognition as I worked on the character, so I’ve fixed that, and the Archetype has been fixed as well. More villains coming up!

Our second team of villains is a group of three, which is going to test my capabilities to mix and match effectively I bet! Let’s see how we do…

Step 1: Approach and Archetype

For Approach, our villains have rolled 8 and 3, 6 and 4, and 3 and 3 respectively. After crossing off the various Bullies, this leaves us with choices of Generalist or Ninja, Creator or Disruptive, and Disruptive or Focused. My three villains are going to be a Ninja, a Creator, and a Focused villain.

Our ninja rolls 4 and 4, our creator rolls 2 and 2, and our Focused rolls 6 and 6. Huh. That is… that is a weird coincidence. Formidable and Inhibitor are taken, so our Ninja can be an Inventor or an Indomitable. Fragile is gone, so the Creator can be Domain or Indomitable, and finally our Focused can be Indomitable or a Predator. I feel like someone wants me to be Indomitable.

Okay! Let’s settle for an Indomitable Ninja, a Domain Creator, and a Focused Predator. This team’s primary goal is to use their army of minions to distract the heroes while the two champions pull the team apart to force them to fight individually.

Step 2: Qualities and Powers

Our Quality rolls are 6, 2, and 1, so our Ninja has two Suggested Qualities, our Creator has a Mental Quality, and our Focused has an Information Quality. That’ll be Stealth d10 and Alertness d10 for our Ninja, Creativity d10 and Magical Lore d8 for our Creator, and our Focused will have Otherworldly Mythos d10 and Ranged Combat d8. We’re a magical team!

For powers, the Ninja got a 2, Creator got a 7, and Focused got another 2. So for our stealthy ninja, we’ll take Infernal d10 and Agility d10, our Creator can take Illusions d10 and Robotics d8, and our Focused will grab Weather d12 and Plants d8.

Ninja also has two d8s for Qualities, and two d8s and a d6 for Powers. Let’s give them Imposing d8 and Close Combat d8, and then Teleportation d8, Awareness d8, and Vitality d6. The Creator has two d8s for Qualities, and a d8 and a d6 for Powers, which I’m going to translate into Leadership d8 and Science d8, and then Metal d8 and Presence d6. The Focused has no extra Qualities or Powers.

Step 3: Abilities, Status Dice, and Health

So, I have a tactical and thematic image in my head. I think I know what I want to do here.

Our Ninja is a duelist. They can use their Alertness to make precise attacks and defend until the next turn, or fight several people with their and Stealth and get away from being piled on. They can lash an enemy with infernal power and either Hinder them or drag them off for a duel, and they can defend against attacks and grow stronger if they can fully defend themselves.

Our Creator overwhelms the heroes with dangers. They can use their Creativity to construct either illusions that can attack people’s minds or robotic minions who are built from the ground up, and then use it to swarm the heroes so that they can’t ignore them. Or they can activate the environment’s twists and redirect attacks against them to environment minions. As long as there are distractions in plan, they’re a pain to fight.

Finally, our Predator can use the weather to launch a massive attack against one enemy that splashes around, while being able to heal and recover from weather-based attacks. They can also call upon the stone to pull someone down and hold them, hindering and hurting them. Once they have someone down they can attack them all-out with ranged attacks or use their otherworldly knowledge to set themselves up for battle.

Step 4: Upgrades and Masteries

Our Ninja gets a Power Upgrade, improving all of their power dice and adding +20 Health, and becomes a Master of Superiority when using them, automatically succeeding at Overcomes for Infernal and Agility-based actions.

Our Creator gets a Defense Shield, to protect them while they rally the universe against the heroes. As a Master of Mysticism, they become much better at harnessing and controlling magical forces.

Finally, our Predator uses their otherworldly winds to mess with our heroes’ minds, gaining a Brainwashing Field to weaken them that can be overcome by banishing its extradimensional power. They also become a Master of Behind The Curtain, keeping their power as long as they’re moving the winds from a distance.

Step 5: Background

So, who the heck are these people? Three powerful folk, magical and/or Infernal in nature, with access to cool technology. And we know they’re common enemies for Best Practices, which means we are dealing with villainous technology-stealing fae.

So, I’m going to grab a great word that has been used in another RPG once, and introduce you to the Court of Vicissitude. This was once a court of fae from Eastern Europe, who weakened and dwindled as time went on. They came to be fascinated by human innovation and technology, and their leader decided to harness it for magical ends. Now, they move quietly, stealing the newest devices and integrating them with magic to create a Realm of machines that feed on breath and souls, giving the Court luxuries at the cost of human lives. But then, are humans not a renewable resource?

The Court has three leaders, who are usually the ones who take the field. Above all is their Heart, a spirit of the earth named Země. She works metal and bone, shaping skeletons and animating them with whispered illusions, and speaks to the spirits of the world. At her right hand stands Nemoc, a deadly creature who moves unseen and inflicts terrible curses and plagues on his enemies with magic and , and on her left stands Bouře, who turns the sky into a weapon and roots in the stone. The three of them are powerful, and terrible. They seek luxury and power, rather than having any particularly grand designs, but they burn through their energy quickly and are always in search of more…

Země picks up the roleplaying quality “Bones of Metal”, which gives her impressive strength and durability. Nemoc adds “Master of Plague”, with a knowledge of how to use one particular aspect of medicine terribly well. And Bouře gets “Human Trivia Expert”; they track targets and love the human world.

Step 6: Tactics

This team’s tactics are mean.

At the start of the fight, Země triggers the environment to produce distracting minions, then begins crafting her own minions to deploy. Once she has minions swarming around, she uses them to cloak her own attacks, occasionally pausing to make new minions or trigger the environment as needed to keep things active and chaotic. (If Země is active in a fight, there should always be an environment as well.)

Nemoc’s job is to take advantage of the confusion to pull away someone who might be able to stop Země and deal with them. He opens fights by grabbing the most dangerous target and pulling them to another location for Bouře to go after, then smoke bombs back into the fray.

Meanwhile, Bouře starts off by lurking in the background and bringing fae energies into the wind, charging the battlefield itself. If Nemoc can pick someone off, or anyone is a bit afield, Bouře will try to swallow a vulnerable enemy in stone before unleashing their full weather-might against their hapless target. If people start to close in, the strongest one gets blasted, and the after-effects hit other heroes and heal Bouře up.

Dealing with these three as a Difficult challenge is even nastier; Země is protected, giving yet another distraction for the heroes, Nemoc is more powerful and better able to break stuff, and Bouře weakens the heroes and makes it easier for them to be picked off.

Villain Team: The Court of Vicissitude

Villain: Země

Approach: Creator, Archetype: Domain

Status Dice: Based on environment minions, lieutenants, and challenges. None: d6, 1-2: d8, 3 or more: d10

Health: 65 (adjusted for 4-player team)

Qualities:

• Creativity d10
• Magical Lore d8
• Leadership d8
• Science d8
• Bones of Metal d8

Powers:

• Illusion d10
• Robotics d8
• Metal d8
• Presence d6

Abilities:

• The World Wakes (A): Activate one of the environment’s twists in its current zone or one zone closer to red.
• Cloaked In The Land (A): Roll any number of environment minions and Recover that much Health. Remove those minions.
• Raise the Horde (A): Use Creativity to create a number of minions equal to your Max die value. The starting die size for these minions is equal to the size of your Min die.
• Swarm Attack (A): Attack using Illusion and use your Max die, with a bonus equal to the number of minions in play.
• Hide In Plain Sight ®: When Attacked, redirect the attack to an environment minion.

Upgrade:

• Defense Shield (I): Cannot be harmed by heroes as long as her magical shield is in place. The shield has 40 Health, or can be broken by three Overcomes. If a hero takes a Minor twist overcoming the Shield, she can Attack as a reaction by rolling Metal.
• Restablish Shield (I): Overcome using Illusions. Use your Max die. Either remove one success from the deactivating challenge, or Recover the Shield with your Max die. This cannot be used if the shield is gone.
• Master of Mysticism (I): If you have materials, automatically succeed on Overcomes to harness magical energies.

Villain: Nemoc

Approach: Ninja, Archetype: Indomitable

Status Dice: Always d8

Health: 60 (adjusted for 4-player team)

Qualities:

• Stealth d10
• Alertness d10
• Imposing d8
• Close Combat d8
• Master of Plague d8

Powers:

• Infernal d10
• Agility d10
• Teleportation d8
• Awareness d8
• Vitality d6

Abilities:

• Smoke Bomb (A): Attack multiple nearby targets using Stealth. Then, end up wherever you want in the scene.
• Soul Vision (A): Attack using Alertness and use your Max die. Defend against all Attacks against you with your Mid die until the start of your turn.
• Drag You To Hell (A): Attack using Infernal. Either Hinder that target with your Max die, or Defend yourself using your Min die and you and that target end up elsewhere in the scene.
• Duelist ®: Defend by rolling your single status die. If that defense reduces the damage to 0, Boost using the amount of damage prevented.

Upgrade:

• Power Upgrade (I): Increase the size of all of your Power dice by one step. Using this upgrade grants Nemoc +20 Health.
• Master of Superiority (I): When you manifest effects related to your Infernal or Agility powers, automatically succeed at any related Overcomes.

Villain: Bouře

Approach: Focused, Archetype: Predator

Status Dice: 0-1 Engaged Opponents d10, 2-3 Engaged Opponents d8, 4+ Engaged Opponents d6

Health: 50 (adjusted for 4-player team)

Qualities:

• Otherworldly Mythos d10
• Ranged Combat d8
• Human Trivia Master d8

Powers:

• Weather d12
• Stone d8

Abilities:

• The Wind Rises (A): Boost yourself using Otherworldly Mythos. Use your Max die. That bonus is persistent and exclusive. Defend against all Attacks using your Mid die until the start of your turn.
• Unleash The Storm (A): Attack an enemy with Weather. Use your Max die, and that target cannot Defend or use Reactions against this attack. Attack multiple nearby targets with your Min die.
• Ride The Cyclone ®: When you would take damage from a Weather attack, Recover that much instead. When Hindered with Weather, Boost instead.
• Draw Down (A): Hinder an enemy with Stone. Use your Max die. Attack that target with your Mid die.
• The Tornado’s Bite (A): Attack an enemy with Ranged Combat. Use your Max die. If the target has a penalty you created or is in the Red Zone, use your Max + Mid dice instead.

Upgrade:

• The Living Storm (I): The air drains the capabilities of your foes. While in the Green Zone, all heroes’ Quality Dice rated at d8 above are reduced by one step. In the Yellow zone, all heroes’ Quality Dice rated at d10 or above are reduce by two steps. In the Red Zone, all heroes’ quality dice are d4s. Heroes can destroy this effect with three Overcome actions to break the mystical storm and winds. If one takes a minor twist, they lose access to one Quality until this effect is removed. When using this Upgrade, Bouře has +10 Health.
• Master of 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 the situation.

Aftermath:

Techno-fae!

I was pretty sure I wanted techno-fae from the moment that I knew I had Deep Freeze on a team, and I really like how this crew turned out. They are an absolute nightmare of a crew, who could pop up individually or arrive as a team to ruin everything for everyone.

There are also a lot of plots they could be involved in – stealing people’s life force, grabbing experimental tech, trying to take a part of the world and add it to their Court. Probably getting in trouble with other fae who are much more isolationist, and possibly joining forces with whomever modified Deep Freeze to gain extra powers and advantages.

I will make one mechanical note – it is weird as heck to me that the Predator is better at things the fewer opponents they fight, but none of their Abilities make it easier for them to disengage or isolate opponents. The closest they get is the ability to double bonuses and penalties if they’re unnoticed or their enemies are distracted.

Holy hand grenade of Antioch, that is a scary team! If I was your players, I would be sure you were trying to cancel our series via TPK.

Yeah, if I were going to deploy them, I would want to make sure that the players had a chance to run into one or more of the Court individually, to get an idea of how to handle them, and then have to deal with them as a set. Just throwing everyone at them face-first is a great way to have things go bad in a hurry.

The best case scenario for a hero team wanting to take these three out, as opposed to accomplishing a secondary task, would be to deploy a strong area-attack friend to hold off Země by whittling down minions, and for someone with good mobility to keep Nemoc off-balance and in retreat, while a couple of people whale on Bouře and keep them from being able to pick people off solo.

For the crew the Court was built to oppose, that probably means Regulator fighting Země, Atomizer tanking Nemoc, and Deep Freeze and Determinator ganging up on Bouře. Best Practices is particularly able to survive this kind of nonsense, since most of the team is mobile enough to recover from Nemoc’s nonsense, and they have enough area effects to really whittle Země down. A team that wasn’t built for mobility and environment control would be in real trouble.

Okay, that’s way awesome. And I get the feeling these villains wouldn’t have been nearly as cool if you’d been plugging away at them one by one instead of as teams.

I mean, maybe they’d still be cool, you’re doing well at this. :B

I definitely advise building villain teams as a group, as much as it is a bit of a mechanical nightmare to sort out. Seeing how their abilities interact gives you a good idea of whether you have a great set, a terrible set, or someone overwhelming in the right field but vulnerable to your players’ cool tricks (my preference!)

And now, it’s time for Rapid Force Alpha’s solo villain.

Step 1: Approach and Archetype

Our Approach gets us 3 and 5, which means I could create a Generalist or a Leech. What the heck, let’s build a Leech and steal power.

Results of 7 and 5 for Approach leave me able to build an Overlord or a Squad villain. Squad definitely needs to be on a team, so we’ve got a Leech Overlord!

Step 2: Qualities and Powers

We end up with a 2 for Qualities. This would be a Mental, but we’re out, so we slide down to Physical plus suggested. For Powers, a roll of 5 means Hallmark or Technological Power plus suggested.

For our Qualities, I’m going to go with the classic Finesse d8 and Close Combat d8. For Powers, Inventions d10 and Toxic d8 give us an interesting spread. (It’s not Professor Pollution, don’t worry.)

We have an extra d8 Quality and d6 Power; Leeches aren’t that versatile. I’m going to go for Science d8 and Transmutation d6.

Step 3: Abilities, Status Dice, and Health

Our Leech likes to drain things from people. They can attack with Toxic, Hinder their target, and Recover at the same time, and when people try to use bonuses against them they can pull those bonuses apart to heal. From the Overlord side, they can use Inventions to create new villains, and then boost all of them with Toxic.

As an Overlord, their status die is based on how many minions are around; they’ll usually enter the scene with a few already active, and then dial the number up.

Given the size of Rapid Force Alpha, this friend has 55 Health.

Step 4: Upgrades and Masteries

Hardier Minions is right there; instead of adding more minions to the scene, our upgraded villain can just make them nastier and offset damage they’ve taken. They’re also a Master of Profitability; they use the resources they claim to accomplish any task they want.

Step 5: Background

So, who is our Leech? Well, we’re dealing with a team that responds to natural disasters, so here is someone who creates them.

The Terra Firma Institute was designing pollution-cleaning robots to help deal with oil spills, plastic floats, and similar ecological disasters. Mindful of the Omnitron incident, they decided to have these robots be mentally controlled by a human target.

Doctor Lana Wentworth had a very different idea. The robots could be sent to consume derelict ships, recovering sunken treasures and depositing them somewhere recoverable. Dr. Wentworth attempted to use the robots subtly, activating them around their assigned tasks, but in the process she overclocked the systems and something went wrong. She suffered a stroke, and the robots responded by attempting to recover her. They saved her life, but now she is permanently bonded to the swarm. She does not mind this; it gives her more ability to use it to her advantage.

The Recycler now has a fairly standard modus operandi. She triggers ecological disasters in order to sweep in and take things, wrecking ships to get at their cargos, breaking oil rigs to steal the oil inside, or attacking factories to gather toxic waste to use to construct new robots. She uses the resources she gathers to construct new devices or to sell on the black market for the luxuries that fund her extravagant lifestyle. And if anyone gets in her way – well, more grist for the mill…

Based on this backstory, I’m giving the Recycler the RP quality “Black Market Operator”; she has a natural eye for spotting wealth and valuable things, and for knowing how to sell them.

Step 6: Tactics

Generally, the Recycler will open up by sending out the minions that she arrives with to fight the heroes, while she constructs more; the more minions she has, the more materials can be brought to her to build new minions. Once she has a number of minions that she’s comfortable with (usually two groups) she starts hanging back and boosting them (either as a one-turn effect or permanently with her Upgrade), letting them be her front line and fight for her. When a hero gets close, she eats their bonuses and then starts to chew them up.

The Recycler will also usually work to create more environmental problems that the heroes have to deal with, sending minions out to cause trouble and distractions to let her claim her prizes and escape. Actually killing the heroes is unlikely to be her goal, unless someone pays her a lot to take that kind of risk; she’s in it for the rewards. She doesn’t deliberately kill or endanger bystanders either, but she also doesn’t care about collateral damage so there’s a good chance that without heroes around there will be a body count.

Villain: The Recycler

Status Dice: Based on the number of minions and lieutenants active. None: d4, 1-2: d6, 3-4: d8, 5-8: d10, 9+: d12

Health: 55 (adjusted for 5-player team)

Qualities:

• Finesse d8
• Close Combat d8
• Science d8
• Black Market Operator d8

Powers:

• Inventions d10
• Toxic d8
• Transmutation d6

Abilities:

• Rapid Construction (A): Use Science to create a number of minions equal to your Max die. Their die size is the size of your Min die.
• Coordinate Swarm (A): Boost using Close Combat for all of your minions until the start of your next turn.
• Grey Goo (A): Attack using Toxic. Use your Max die. Hinder that target with your Mid die. Recover with your Min die.
• Reactive Restructuring ®: When a bonus is used against you in an Attack or Hinder, you may first destroy that Bonus. If you do, roll your single Inventions die and Recover equal to the result plus the bonus.

Upgrade:

• Hardier Minions (A): Use your action to upgrade a group of minions by one die size, to a maximum of d12. While using this Upgrade you get +5 Health.
• Master of Profitability (I): If you have great wealth and resources, automatically succeed at an Overcome to use those resources to become even richer, no matter who pays the price.

Aftermath:

I made a Captain Planet villain.

It’s a pretty different Captain Planet villain than Professor Pollution, which was my concern when I was a bit of the way into this, and I like how she turned out. Swarms of harvesting robots, creating disasters for profit and stealing resources, seems like an appropriately deadly challenge for Rapid Force Alpha.

The Recycler is such an ironic name for an environmental villain. XD I love this.

Plugging along, it’s time for our team of three Rapid Force Alpha villains! Let’s move ahead and see what we get.

Step 1: Approach and Archetype

Our villains get 12 and 1, 5 and 1, and 10 and 5 for their numbers, which after modifiers means that I can choose Adaptive or Prideful, Adaptive or Disruptive, and Skilled or Specialized. I’m going to go with Adaptive, Disruptive, and Specialized.

Our Adaptive villain gets 4 and 2, our Disruptive has 1 and 4, and our Specialized has 7 and 4. This means Adaptive can be an Inventor or a Legion, Disruptive can be a Bruiser or an Inventor, and Specialized can be a Squad or a Titan.

Okay, we’re going with a Titan and his buddies. Let’s take an Adaptive Legion, a Disruptive Inventor, and a Specialized Titan. This is going to be a mess and a half, and I cannot wait.

Step 2: Qualities and Powers

For Qualities, Legion rolls a 3, Inventor rolls a 5, and Titan rolls a 5. So that’s one Physical and two from the Most Left, which is Info right now. So our Legion gets Acrobatics d10 and Science d8, our Inventor takes Deep Space d10 and Persuasion d8, and our Titan has Technology d12 and Fitness d8.

For Powers, Legion rolls a 9, Inventor rolls a 4, and Titan rolls a 2. So Legion picks from the most self (Self-Control, appropriately), Inventor gets a Material (also appropriate), and Titan gets an Energy (very appropriate.)

For our Adaptive, that means Part Detachment d10 and Shapeshifting d8; they break off pieces of themselves which then turn into whatever they want. Our only Material left is Metal so our Inventor gets that, and I’ll add Sonic energy to their list, both at d10. Finally, our big old Titan gets Cosmic d10 and Inventions d8.

Our Legion still has a d8 Quality, and a d8 and d6 Powers, our Inventor has a d8 Quality and two d8 Powers, and our Titan has nothing else. Very specialized. But I’ll give our Legion Close Combat d8, Agility d8, and Size-Changing d6, and our Inventor should really have Science d8, Flight d8, and Lightning Calculator d8.

Step 3: Abilities, Status Dice, and Health

Our Legion is a shifting mass of mimicry. They can take one of their allies’ actions, they can shift their power dice around and take basic actions, and they just… keep… splitting. Physical damage causes them to spawn minions, and their minions getting hurt causes them to spawn minions.

Our Inventor can Hinder groups of enemies while protecting allies, or attack groups of enemies and Hinder them, possibly causing self-destructive damage. They can also create useful Boosts and use those Boosts to defend themselves.

Finally, our Titan steps on people. It can attack groups of people, or make individual, overwhelming attacks, and when it fights someone it has already hit it gets a bonus. As a Titan, it can unleash environmental disasters, and react to twists by re-arranging its defenses.

Step 4: Upgrades and Masteries

Our Legion’s Upgrade is minion-based, giving them a way to keep things rolling with Hardier Minions, and makes them a Master of Conquest, adept at using their self-made horde to take things over.

Our Inventor has a very cool one-person spaceship, which acts as a starting invention and has its own abilities to be generally reliable, resistant to damage, and to get away as needed. As a Master Mercenary, they’re in this for the money.

Finally, our Titan is another Group Fighter, being even better at punching groups of people than before, and is a Master of Enforced Order, with total control of their interior surroundings.

Step 5: Background

So who are these people?

Aliens!

Specifically, let’s meet Doctor Tarralok, a mercenary alien and creator of many deadly devices and terrible threats. Doctor Tarralok loves building terrible weapons of war, and has been run out of a lot of sectors of space. However, the people of Rellicos 9, which was devastated by a scion of Oblivaeon, have promised just a very large amount of space-dollars if Tarralok can go and terraform them a home on this insignificant mudball. He has no idea why they’re fixated on Earth, and he really does not care. He wants to see how his Mark III Cosmo-Converter does on a water planet!

Tarralok is accompanied by his faithful aide and army, Blib. Blib is a genetically-engineered monstrosity with a piece of Tarralok’s mind grown inside them, giving them insight into their master’s designs. Their unstable genetics allow them to imitate other technology, and they can divide and grow into a legion of purplish goo beings.

Tarralok is also accompanied by the mobile terraforming engine around the Mark III, which is simply known as The Factory. The Factory is sentient. It is powerful. It really likes turning planets into other kinds of planets, and now that its programming has selected Earth it’s questionable whether Tarralok could turn it off even if he wanted to.

Step 6: Tactics

If these three are on a terraforming kick, they have a pretty solid system. Blib will run into the middle of a group of enemies, borrowing Tarralock’s sonic and metal-shaping abilities to Hinder everyone and slow them down. The Factory will then follow up by smashing everyone who’s been snared, and also hit Blib in the process to start them dividing. Tarralock will hang back and create some nice Boosts for the Factory, and then start Hindering his foes.

Once things get going, Blib will just keep dividing and dividing, making more and more enemies doing more and more things to more and more people. If targeted by energy attacks, they’ll pull on some defenses to hide and let the Factory smash them for more people. The Factory will shift between attacking groups and triggering the environment as it gets more dangerous.

Villain Team: Doctor Tarralok’s Terraforming Terrors

Villain: Blib

Approach: Adaptive, Archetype: Legion

Status Dice: Based on number of your minions. None: d12, 1-2: d10, 3-4: d8. 5-8: d6. 9+: d4

Health: 35 (adjusted for 5-player team)

Qualities:

• Acrobatics d10
• Science d8
• Close Combat d8

Powers:

• Part Detachment d10
• Shapeshifting d8
• Agility d8
• Size-Changing d6

Abilities:

• Power Mimic (A): Use an action Ability of one of your allies.
• Change of Plans (A): Lower two of your powers by one die size. Raise another Power to d12. Take a basic action.
• Breakdown ®: When you would take physical damage, prevent that damage and create a minion with a die size equal to your new status die. You may use this Reaction more than once per round, but each time after the first you take 1 irreducible damage.
• Full Of Tinier Men (I): Whenever a Legion minion larger than d4 saves, it splits into two minions one die size smaller. If it fails its save, it only loses a die size instead of being destroyed.
• Uncoordinated (I): Whenever multiple Legion minions use the same action against the same target, roll for all of them at once and use the smallest result.

Upgrade:

• Revitalize (A): Choose a group of minions in the scene. Upgrade them all by one die type, to a maximum of d12. While using this Upgrade, Blib has +5 Health.
• Master of Conquest (I): As long as you are in command of your own forces, automatically succeed at an Overcome involving seizing an area or capturing civilians.

Villain: Doctor Tarralok

Approach: Disruptive, Archetype: Inventor

Status Dice: Based on Science/Invention bonuses and penalties in play. None: d6, 1: d8, 2-3: d10, 4+: d12

Health: 55 (adjusted for X-player team)

Qualities:

• Deep Space Lore d10
• Persuasion d8
• Science d8

Powers:

• Metal d10
• Sonic d10
• Flight d8
• Lightning Calculator d8

Abilities:

• Cover Fire (A): Hinder multiple targets using Technology. You and any nearby allies Defend with your Max die.
• Ensnaring Cannons (A): Attack multiple targets using Technology. Use your Min die. Hinder each target with your Max die. If one of those targets rolls doubles on their next action, they take damage equal to the penalty.
• Reshape Metal (A): Boost using Metal, use your Max die, and also make a Boost with your Mid Die. Either make one of those Boosts persistent and exclusive, or Attack with your Min die.
• Defensive Tech ®: Discard one of your bonuses to Defend against all attacks against you until the start of your next turn, using the value of the bonus as your Defend.

Upgrade:

• The Overseer (I): This d10 Lieutenant spaceship has three special abilities. While flying the Overseer, Tarralok has +15 Health.
  • To attack The Overseer, heroes must succeed at an Overcome to reach it.
  • When The Overseer uses a basic action on its turn, roll twice and take the better result.
  • Fly Away ®: When Doctor Tarralok is attacked, roll The Overseer’s status die. If the roll is higher than Tarralok’s Health, both Tarralok and The Overseer escape this scene.
• Master Mercenary (I): If you have been given a contract to perform a specific task, automatically succeed at an Overcome in a situation where the difference is getting paid and not getting paid.

Villain: The Factory

Approach: Specialized, Archetype: Titan

Status Dice: No Overcomes d12, Two Overcomes d10, Three Overcomes d8

Titan’s Overcome: Find technological vulnerabilities or weak spots.

Health: 75 (adjusted for 5-player team)

Qualities:

• Technology d12
• Fitness d8

Powers:

• Cosmic d10
• Inventions d8

Abilities:

• Unleash Drones (A): Attack using Technology, using your Max die against one target, your Mid die against a second target, and your Min die against a third target.
• Cosmic Burst (A): Attack one target using Technology and use your Max + Min dice. The target cannot Defend or use reactions against this attack.
• Terraforming (A): Activate one of the Environment’s twists in its current zone.
• Reconfigure Structure ®: When Attacked by a roll that includes doubles, remove one success from the Titan’s Overcome.
• Targeting Data (I): When you Attack a target you have already damaged this scene, gain a +1 persistent and exclusive bonus for this scene.
• Massive Structure (I): Reduce damage by 6 when status is d12, by 4 when status is d10, or by 2 when status is d8.

Upgrade:

• Group Fighter (I): When you Attack one or more targets, you may Attack an additional target with your Mid die. When using this Upgrade, The Factory has +20 Health.
• Master of Enforced Order (I): If you have complete control over your immediate surroundings,
• automatically succeed in an Overcome to organize drones to accomplish a task.

Aftermath:

Well, this is an interesting bunch.

Doctor Tarralok probably has one really big first appearance, after which he may appear as a mercenary for other forces while rebuilding the Factory. It’s even possible that he could ultimately be paid off to not terraform the Earth, and there is a dangling question of why he’s being paid to do this in the first place. Blib and the Factory are pretty much just adjuncts to the Doctor, but either one could become an interesting solo villain eventually.

Blib is a nasty little puzzle villain, too – the ability of the Factory to slice them up to make more minions helps offset what happens when the players stop trying to punch them.

It’s nice seeing a Villain “team” where there’s really just one real Villain and the others are essentially über-Lieutenants. I’d wager that folks might forget that that’s a possibility from time to time.

Yes, and I’m very glad the biggest guy isn’t the leader.

Life got rather away from me, and you might think that killed the project, but I am back! Only four sets of villains to go, and I will get them all up. As we run down the list, here comes our solo villain for History’s Mysteries.

Step 1: Decide on Approach and Archetype

We’re opening our Approach with a bunt, with a 1 and 2 giving us access to Ancient and Generalist. Let’s take an Ancient, they’re always interesting.
For our Archetype, 4 and 1 gives us Bruiser or Loner, and… well, I have some feelings about using Loner for a villain who literally appears alone, which I’ll discuss when I get to that villain (next time, actually, I’m almost out of choices.)

Step 2: Decide on Qualities and Powers

So, what does our Ancient Bruiser like to do with their time?

A Quality result of 2 and a Power result of 10 mean that, after cascades, we’re looking at a Social Quality and a Mobility Power. Our only remaining Social is Banter, and there’s one choice on the Suggested list that we don’t have yet, so we’re looking at Banter d12, History d12. For Powers, I’m going to take Teleportation d12 and Presence d10 (every Suggested option is taken, so I’m free to do whatever.)

We still have a d10 and d8 Quality, and a d10 and d8 Power, because Ancient is wild. I’m going to go with Close Combat d10 and Investigation d8, along with Postcognition d10 and Vitality d8. This is a villain with an array of tricks; strong social skills, the ability to delve into dark areas, and some solid punching to fall back on.

Step 3: Abilities, Status Dice, and Health

The Ancient can use teleportation to attack and hinder someone in a bad way, or take basic actions with their History and use their Max Die. They can move to the defensive, putting together a big Defend action that also Recovers to buy time, and use attacks against them to Boost.

Our buddy has 65 Health, and that’s adjusted for a three-person team so they’re actually decently beefy.

Step 4: Upgrades and Masteries

In their upgraded form, our Ancient gets a Quality Upgrade, pushing even more dice to d12 and giving another Ability. In this form, the Ancient has a massive area-effect Hinder and Attack move. They also become a Master of Total Chaos, remaining unflappable as everything collapses around them.

Step 5: Background

So hey, meet Curator Varras. Curator Varras is an ancient member of an alien species known as the Cal’Tarn, who have watched civilizations rise and fall. Varras is an admirer of the art and culture of a thousand worlds, and believes that rare and inspiring works belong in a museum. A private museum, in a different star system. And Earth has so many rare and inspiring works.

Sometimes Varras works on commission, and sometimes he works for himself, but his goal is always the same – acquire Earth’s unique treasures to prevent them from being damaged or misused by the primitive humans who don’t know what they’ve got. He’s had several run-ins with different groups of heroes who feel differently, and he would like them all to go away and leave him to his work.

Varras gets the RP Quality of “Alien Archaeologist”, which works a bit like his History but over a much broader scope of civilizations and technologies, giving him a bit of deep space knowledge and technology when it’s in his field.

Step 6: Tactics

Curator Varras is a hell of an enemy to try to face directly; he starts off effective and only gets more dangerous the more he’s attacked. Fortunately, facing him directly isn’t usually the goal. He generally appears in situations that also involve complicated environmental challenges and goals that need to be dealt with, and fighting him is a race against time to recover whatever he’s try to steal before he can, or before the situation gets so bad that everyone loses.

In combat, Varras uses his teleportation to evade obstacles and deal with environmental problems, and does his best to knock heroes out of the running, but tends not to focus on taking them out entirely. His Ideal Actions are often used for Overcomes, while if someone gets in his way he’ll teleport them into danger and hurt them in the process. When he gets punched, he gets stronger, and if he gets too badly hurt he’ll take a moment to defend himself and heal up, giving his enemies a chance to get ahead.

Villain: Curator Varras

Approach: Ancient, Archetype: Bruiser

Status Dice: Green d6, Yellow d8, Red d10

Health: 65 (adjusted for 3-player team) [Green 65-45, Yellow 44-18, Red 17-1]

Qualities:
• Banter d12
• History d12
• Close Combat d10
• Investigation d8
• Alien Archaeologist d8

Powers:
• Teleportation d12
• Presence d10
• Postcognition d10
• Vitality d8

Abilities:
• The Classic Methodology (A): Take a Basic Action using History and use your Max die.
• Out Of My Way (A): Attack using Teleportation and use your Max die. Hinder a target dealt damage in this way using your Max + Min dice.
• Fall Back (A): Defend using Banter and use your Mid + Min dice. Recover using your Max die.
• You Made Me Bleed ®: When Attacked, use the damage taken by the attack to Boost yourself.

Upgrade:
• Quality Upgrade: Increase Close Combat to d12 and Investigation to d10. Add +20 Health when using this upgrade.
• Devastating Monologue (A): Hinder using Presence against multiple targets and use your Max die. Attack each using your Mid + Min dice.
• Master of Total Chaos (I): If you are in a situation in which everything is spiraling out of control, automatically succeed at an Overcome to accomplish a task by throwing out the rules.

Aftermath:

My only regret is not actually getting an Ability called “It Belongs In A Museum!”

In all seriousness, Evil Alien Indiana Jones seemed like an obvious choice for History’s Mysteries to face off against. He embodies some of their ideals, but in all the wrong ways, and he might be persuaded to help out against bigger threats in order to keep cultural artifacts from being destroyed, even if he will definitely try to steal them afterwards.

Ancient remains wildly powerful compared to most other Villain Approaches, and because of that Varras is routinely rolling two d12s as part of his die sets. It’s encouragement to put him into situations where he’s not just pummeling heroes, because that would be a bit unfair.
One thing that I’ve been noticing while building villains is that I don’t think it would be hard for an inexperienced GM to grab a set of powers that look really powerful, and to accidentally end up with a villain who is not fun to fight. For example, if the Devastating Monologue was Varras’s primary trick without upgrades, and he had damage reduction instead of that “fall back and heal” trick, you could easily build a loop where he gives everyone a nasty penalty, hurts the whole party, and then uses that penalty to impede attacks and hinders against himself while also reducing any damage they can deal, making it so that he is hurting the players faster than they are hurting him while also having more health. If the goal of a scene was to actually knock him out, that could get frustrating in a real hurry.

This is great. : D

Too true.

When I first read this sentence, before reading the rest of the paragraph, I imagined a wizened old (Earth) museum curator.

Time for a duo. I have a very rough angle that I’d like to do for this one, complicated by the fact that I already know several traits that will be appearing – someone is going to be connected to the criminal underworld, and we’re going to have a Loner and a Squad working together. So here we go…

Step 1: Decide on Approach and Archetype

We’re not rolling for Archetype this time, because there are only two left, but we will roll for Approach. Our first villain gets 8 and 4, and our second gets 6 and 6, so we’re looking at Generalist or Prideful for one, and Prideful or Relentless for the other.

So let’s do this thing. Our first villain is a Prideful Loner, and our second villain is a Relentless Squad.

Step 2: Decide on Qualities and Powers

We get a 6 and a 3 for our Qualities. Our Loner is taking two off their Relentless list, and our Squaddie is taking Criminal Underworld because it’s the only thing left. For Powers, results of 4 and 2 mean that the Loner has a Material ability, and the Squaddie has an Energy Power.

For our Loner, we’ll take d10 Imposing, and d10 Close Combat, along with d10 Stone and d10 Awareness. Our Squad gets d10 Criminal Underworld and d8 Ranged Combat, along with d10 Fire and d8 Speed.

Our Loner also has two d8 Qualities and a d10 and d8 Power, and our Squaddie has a d6 Quality and a d6 Power. I’m going to give the Loner d8 Magical Lore and d8 Self-Discipline, along with a d10 Signature Weapon and d8 Remote Viewing. Squaddie just gets a d6 Otherworldly Mythos and a d6 Vitality.

Step 3: Abilities, Status Dice, and Health

Our Loner focuses on slowing enemies down and taking their strength. He can use powerful blows against one target and Boost if he hurts them enough, Hinder groups and heal a little, or Hinder them and attack them. When people end up too close to him, he drains their power.

Our Squaddie is a helper. She can use her knowledge of criminal tactics to give herself and her allies Boosts while defending, or her keen eye to shoot people and force them to fight her or take a Hinder. When she’s attacked, she can use her buffs as penalties or force the attacker to spend two penalties, and when her allies are attacked she can defend them and Boost herself.

Choose Abilities for each villain, referencing any other villains on the team for a stronger total group. Note down each Villain’s Health (based on the team that they are being constructed to oppose.)

Our Loner has 50 Health, and our Squaddie has 40.

Step 4: Upgrades and Masteries

Our Loner is just stronger, with his Power Upgrade giving his d12s and d10s to play with. He also becomes a Master of Annihilation, using his ability to shake the earth to devastate the area.

Our Squaddie develops a mystical shield that protects her through entropic resonance, which can be disabled through raw force or by draining its energies safely. She also becomes a Master of the Unfathomable (I have a plan!)

Step 5: Background

So, let’s meet a couple of people.

First, some background. Centuries ago, four sacred knights held the line against demonic forces, dangerous monsters, and evil wizards. Each knight held a magical rune-inscribed weapon, allowing them to control the energies and matter of the world. All of these weapons have been lost to time, either buried with their owners, lost in ruins, or passed into myth.

Leo Hollybrook is a descendent of one of these knights, Sir Rolant the Bold. He was raised on stories of his family’s heritage, and how his noble upbringing made him superior to the rabble. He spent vast amounts of money and time, made connections with criminal organizations, and searched for his ancestor’s ancient Runeaxe. Leo was pushed and encouraged by his assistant and family valet, Juliet Tramer, who helped him uncover details about the Runeaxe and also drew him in with stories about the powers he can harness with it.

With Juliet’s help, Leo discovered the axe, and as promised has developed awesome powers. Calling himself Landgrave, he’s now on a hunt for the other three weapons. One made him powerful. Four will make him invincible…

But there’s a little wrinkle in Leo’s plans, and that wrinkle is Juliet. Centuries ago, the runic weapons were used to seal away a terrible demonic force, and they are still the key that could unlock it again, either through proper use or by being destroyed. Juliet worships this dark god, and believes that Leo is fated to become Its vessel. She would die for her god, and keeping Leo safe is critical to this.

The axe has been found. And Juliet has just discovered that the sword has risen again, in the hands of some history channel has-been…

Landgrave gets the RP Quality “Wealthy Scion” and Juliet gets “Devoted Cultist”.

Step 6: Tactics

Landgrave and Juliet are a mostly straightforward team. They might be trying to claim Runesword’s weapon, or digging for another tool that will help them on their quest, but when they fight they tend to fight hard. Landgrave barely pays attention to his allies, and is strongest when he can unleash his full fury, while Juliet works to defend and protect him. Early in the fight, Landgrave attacks and Hinders groups, and Juliet gives Landgrave Boosts, draws fire away from him, and protects him when people attack him anyway. When she’s attacked, she uses the penalties he creates to protect herself. If the situation turns bad for the pair, she will try to encourage Landgrave to leave.

Once Juliet goes down, Landgrave goes all-out, using the Runeaxe to weaken people and healing through the power, and using overwhelming attacks against people he can effectively weaken to gain Boosts. He’s not likely to think big or tactically, just go for what he wants over and over.

Villain: Landgrave

Approach: Prideful, Archetype: Loner

Status Dice: d8 while Juliet is alive, d10 if alone.

Health: 50 (adjusted for 3-player team)

Qualities:

• Imposing d10
• Close Combat d10
• Magical Lore d8
• Self-Discipline d8
• Wealthy Scion d8

Powers:

• Stone d10
• Awareness d10
• The Runeaxe d10
• Remote Viewing d8

Abilities:

• Crushing Blow (A): Attack one target using Close Combat and use your Max + Min dice. If that attack causes them to change zones, Boost using your Mid. That bonus is persistent and exclusive.
• Field of Doom (A): Attack multiple targets using Stone. Hinder each target with your Max die.
• Clash of Souls (A): Hinder multiple targets using Imposing. Recover Health equal to the number of targets Hindered this way.
• Drain Life ®: If an opponent ends their turn near you, you may roll your single Runeaxe die as a Hinder against them.

Upgrade:

• Power Upgrade: Increase Stone, Awareness, and the Runeaxe to d12, and Remote Viewing to d10. Gain +20 Health.
• Master of Annihilation (I): If you can cause massive collateral damage without regard for casualties, automatically succeed at an Overcome in which a show of overwhelming force could solve the problem.

Villain: Juliet

Approach: Relentless, Archetype: Squad

Status Dice: d8 while Landgrave is alive, d6 if alone.

Health: 40 (adjusted for 3-player team)

Qualities:

• Criminal Underworld d10
• Ranged Combat d8
• Otherworldly Mythos d6
• Devoted Cultist d8

Powers:

• Fire d10
• Speed d8
• Vitality d6

Abilities:

• Pinning Fire (A): Attack using Ranged Combat. Use your Max die. If the target does not Attack you on their next turn, Hinder them using your Mid die.
• Shifty Tactics (A): Boost using Criminal Underworld. Boost another target using your Max die, and use your Mid die to Defend against all Attacks against you until your next turn.
• For My Master ®: When another villain is Attacked, Defend against the Attack by rolling your Status die. Boost yourself using the amount of damage reduced.
• Knows Your Stuff (I): Whenever a nearby opponent would Attack you, you may destroy a bonus on yourself or a penalty on that opponent to reduce the Attack by the value of the destroyed mod.

Upgrade:

• Defense Shield (I): Cannot be harmed by heroes as long as her entropic shield is in place. The shield has 40 Health, or can be broken by three Overcomes. If a hero takes a Minor twist overcoming the Shield, she can Attack as a reaction by rolling Fire.
• Restablish Shield (I): Overcome using Otherworldly Mythos. Use your Max die. Either remove one success from the deactivating challenge, or Recover the Shield with your Max die. This cannot be used if the shield is gone.
• 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 a being beyond human concerns.

Aftermath:

So, in general I like the idea that resulted from this; I had a feeling that I was going to end up with something from Sir Teylor’s past, and the stuff that I generated didn’t really account for “ancient lich” as well as it did this. I also had that Unfathomable Mastery sitting around needing to be used, and I wasn’t sure I would get a chance at a good cultist for the last team, so here it goes!

I’m going to take a moment to discuss a minor failure, though – the core nature of Loner and Squad both kind of don’t work for my creation, largely because they only pay attention to full Villains, rather than to non-minion allies.

Theoretically, I could just throw a Loner into a fight alone, but Loners aren’t actually interesting alone. Loners are interesting when they’re getting stronger as their allies go down, using their defensive abilities to be the last one standing and getting better dice and more boosts. I’d actually like the “Boost when a non-minion ally goes down” ability to be Inherent, rather than a Reaction, even. The sad thing is that Loners don’t adjust their status dice for non-minion allies, so you need a lot of villains around for them to be weak.

Squad is the same thing, but the other way around. You need to have a full four supervillains on-scene for them to be at maximum status dice, which is kind of massive. Some of their abilities affect all allies, but others only affect villains. I’d have liked Squad to also be based on non-minion allies, because, for example, you can’t build Sergeant Steel as a good Squad villain since his agents would be lieutenants and he’d be stuck with a d6 Status die. That seems off.

Regardless, the effect of all this is that Juliet isn’t as strong as she could be, but the pair still work together. Calling it a win.

I think this is one of your best ever! Getting a Squad and Loner to work together was fantastic all by itself!

Thanks! They have a surprising amount of synergy, to be honest. Combining the two of them with a third person who doesn’t care either way might be an interesting step, but as a duo they are pretty neat. And speaking of pretty neat…

Our final solo! We’re dealing with Fair Play now, which means that we’re looking for one of the mysterious criminal masterminds who runs the city of Kesonee, someone appropriately different from existing criminal masterminds in-setting. So let’s get started…

Step 1: Decide on Approach and Archetype

Every Archetype is back on the table! Rolling 10 + 6 for Approach gives me a choice between Tactician and Underpowered for our mastermind. You know what, I think I am developing a plan. Our criminal boss is Underpowered. She is out of her depth and knows it!

3 and 7 for Archetype gives us access to Formidable, Indomitable, and… Legion. As hilarious as an Underpowered Legion character would be (25 Health against a team of four!) I’m going to try something different and make her Formidable. She seems powerful, until you trip her up and make her fall.

Step 2: Decide on Qualities and Powers

Qualities have reset, so that’s wide-open. Powers are still limited. 4 for Qualities and 8 for Powers means a Social Quality and a Self-Control Power.

I’m going to give her Size-Changing d8 and Gadgets d6 for Powers, and Imposing d10 and Criminal Underworld d8 for Qualities. This boss talks a big talk, and plays a big game (literally!) but doesn’t have a lot under the tank.

Our boss has two d6s for Powers and a d6 for Qualities. I’m going to go with Presence d6 and Deduction d6, for general minion-wrangling, plus a d6 in Close Combat. She can do a bit of fighting, but it’s not her preference.

Step 3: Abilities, Status Dice, and Health

I feel like as a rule, the Boss isn’t going to be doing a lot of attacking. She has other goals. So…

Generally, the Boss can avoid death-blows by getting weaker, and evade damage and potentially do amazing things if the evasion is exactly the damage taken. She can make a weak attack with a slim chance of being an overwhelming attack, give herself and her allies boosts, and take any basic action with her Max die.

Despite being Underpowered, the Boss has 55 Health thanks to also being Formidable.

Step 4: Upgrades and Masteries

Our boss is a master of distraction. Their upgrade gives them a Calming Aura that forces heroes to stay in the Green zone unless they can make Overcomes to stop the conflicting events going on. With that comes a Mastery of Profitability, letting the Boss use their money to succeed automatically.

Step 5: Background

Let’s meet Helen Tolliver, the Expansionist and head of the Tolliver Syndicate. Helen Tolliver learned the workings of the criminal underworld at her father’s knee, but her gangs were being outmaneuvered by costumed villains wrecking shop.

So Helen spent her family fortune acquiring villainous tech, some purchased from Revocorp, some stolen from alien crash sites, and some gathered from the site of hero-villain conflicts. Most of the tools that she acquired were single-use or poorly understood, but she played it off like she was a new source of regional power, and used that reputation to hire a few superhumans of her own and create enough layers of support that her very limited supply of supertech won’t be a liability.

Most of Helen’s lieutenants are angling for the big chair, and she knows it. She spends half her time turning her minion’s schemes against each other, and the other half solidifying her control over Kesonee by offering uses of tech to locally powerful people, while hinting that there is more where that came from. Her entire operation is a house of cards, but she hopes that if she can keep it going, she’ll end up with enough real power that she’ll be able to fortify, and maybe expand across the area…

Step 6: Tactics

The Expansionist tries to avoid direct fights, in favour of sending her people to handle things for her. When she gets cornered, it’s probably because someone has attacked one of her lairs while she’s on site, or because she’s found a power source too valuable to risk her agents taking first. As such, in a fight her goal is to get something and/or get out, while doing enough fighting to make it look like she’s not a pushover. She’ll rely on Boosts to her minions and lieutenants present and Overcomes to manipulate the environment and solve things, occasionally falling back on her mediocre combat presence. If beaten, she will do her best to flee, knowing that if she’s arrested her syndicate is likely to fall apart before she can get out of jail.

Villain: The Expansionist

Approach: Underpowered, Archetype: Formidable

Status Dice: d12 with no penalties, d8 with penalties and bonuses, d4 with penalties and no bonuses.

Health: 55 (adjusted for 4-player team)

Qualities:

• Imposing d10
• Criminal Underworld d8
• Close Combat d6

Powers:

• Size-Changing d8
• Gadgets d6
• Presence d6
• Deduction d6

Abilities:

• Blow Up (A): Attack using Size-Changing. If you roll doubles, add both dice to your Attack. If you roll triples, add all three dice.
• I’m The Boss (A): Take any basic action and use your Max die.
• Have Some Toys (A): Boost yourself using Gadgets and use your Max die. Boost a nearby ally with your Mid die and another ally with your Min die.
• Last-Ditch Effort ®: When Attacked, Defend yourself by rolling Size-Changing. If the roll reduces damage to exactly 0, Recover equal to the damage reduced, Boost yourself using that amount, and Hinder your attacker using that amount.
• Second Wind (I): When you would be reduced to 0 or fewer Health, ignore the damage and reduce your Powers by one die step. If this reduces a Power below d4, you are Knocked Out.

Upgrade:

• Schemes Aplenty (I): The heroes act as if in the Green Zone for status dice and all Abilities. Heroes must overcome three challenges representing minions creating distractions to stop this effect. If a hero rolls a minor Twist, you may use a Reaction to Hinder them with your “Gadgets” die.
• Master of Profitability (I): If you have access to wealth and resources, automatically succeed at any Overcome to use them to get even richer, no matter who pays the price.

Aftermath:

Well, well, well. This is definitely someone different from the Chairman. She plays at being a big fish with a lot of power, but it’s all showmanship and misdirection. She’s a big presence among her minions, knowing that one misstep could bring it all down.

A story that uses Helen heavily is probably going to end with what happens when she goes to jail, and her lieutenants start fighting over the resources that they all think someone else has stolen from her armories. She might even ally with her captors to try and regain control, only to become a threat again.

I think Helen is the only “top” power that Fair Play is up against; everyone else is a lieutenant with aspirations to overthrow her, and the team will have to balance taking them out against setting off a gang war…

Alright, our grand finale is another trio, three criminal up-and-comers to face off against Fair Play. Our last enemy was heavily on the criminal side, but I also established that most of Fair Play’s enemies are part of the same crew. So these three are probably one of the major factions in the Expansionist’s organization. Let’s see what they’re like…

Step 1: Decide on Approach and Archetype

There’s no roll for Approach this time, as we are at the end. Our trio are made up of the Generalist, the Skilled, and the Tactician.

For Archetypes, our Generalist gets 6 and 1 for Bruiser, Guerrilla or Indomitable, our Skilled gets 8 and 4 for Inhibitor or Overlord, and our Tactician gets 2 and 5 for Domain, Fragile, or Indomitable. Let’s take a Generalist Bruiser, a Skilled Inhibitor, and an Indomitable Tactician.

Step 2: Decide on Qualities and Powers

Our Generalist gets a 6 for Qualities and a 6 for Powers**,** the Inhibitor gets a 2 for Qualities and an 8 for Powers, and our Tactician gets 5 for qualities and a 9 for Powers.

So! For the Generalist, we’ve got Close Combat d10 and Conviction d8, with Leaping d10 and Strength d8. Our Skilled has Investigation d10 and Stealth d10, plus Invisibility d10 and Lightning Calculator d8. Finally, our Tactician gets Technology d10 and Insight d8, with Suggestion d8 and Intuition d8.

The Generalist also has a d6 Quality and a d8 and d6 Power, the Skilled has three d8 Qualities and a d6 Power. Our Tactician gets a d6 Quality and two d6 Powers. For our Generalist, I’m going with Imposing d6, Toxic d8, and Presence d6. For our Skilled, Ranged Combat, Criminal Underworld Lore, and Leadership d8, with Speed d6. Finally, our Tactician has Ranged Combat d6, Remote Viewing d6, and Deduction d6.

Step 3: Abilities, Status Dice, and Health

The Generalist is a smasher. It’s what he does. He has general damage reduction and can take hits for his team, he can attack and heal, he can unleash with an attack that gets stronger the more he’s hurt.

The Skilled uses precision and stealth. She can use sneak attacks to create massive, persistent Hinders by hitting pressure points, or Hinder groups of people by putting them in dangerous positions, and take advantage of those Hinders when people come after her. She can also heal a bit while taking basic actions.

Finally, the Tactician is aggressive. They can take a Basic Action and let an ally do the same, they can jump in on an attack when an ally is already attacking, they can give themselves a major boost, and they can slow every enemy down with area attacks that apply mild Hinders.

The Generalist has 65(!) Health. Our Skilled has 45 Health, and the Tactician has 60 Health.

Step 4: Upgrades and Masteries

I’ve only got five Upgrades and seven Masteries left, so this should be both very easy and very hard.

Our Generalist gets a Brainwashing Field, which acts as taking control of people’s bodies through their blood. That’s how they do their Toxic, I think. They are also a Master of Annihilation, unleashing terrifying collateral.

Our Skilled gets Skill Upgrade, which seems obvious. They’re also a Master Mercenary, focusing on the contract.

Finally, our Tactician has their own Mook Squad, with access to mob enforcers in a pinch. They are a Master of Enforced Order, taking advantage of situations in which they’re already out in front.

Step 5: Background

So, we have a very interesting team of three. But what’s their background?

Well, first let’s meet Derrick Vale, formerly known as Citizen Waste. Years ago, Derrick was a Citizen of the Sun in training, a blood-manipulator hating every day of harsh training and cult behaviour. The only bright spot in his life was his prospective partner, Citizen Haste, and he imagined a life with her away from all of this. He was gutted when she and her family were killed in the invasion of Megalopolis, and his anger at the Citizens turned into anger at the world as a whole. He became more violent, and eventually abandoned the Citizens to make his own way in the world. A few months back, a chance job took him to Kesonee to join the Expansionist’s growing superhuman forces as the villain Wasteland, where he met Officer Shirley Young.

Officer Young was a corrupt cop. A few months ago, an arms deal she was working security for went bad, infecting her with alien spores that allow her to fade from sight, and she took up the name Blindspot and began working secretly as a hitman in the evenings, while keeping her day job as a cop. She worked with Derrick on a hit and was impressed by his power and wit, and the two quickly became friends.

Looking for a way to grow their power base, and perhaps even challenge the Expansionist for control of the city, the two formed an alliance with Max Lundsey. Max had recently taken over a local charity, skimming money off the top and using his mastery of hypnotism and collection of minor tech skimmed off the top of the Expansionist’s hauls to set himself up as a local boss. Max needed muscle, and Derrick and Shirley needed connections, and between the three of them, they discovered that they made an amazing team.

What the three don’t know is that the series of unlikely coincidences that brought them together were anything but. Each of the three is connected to one of Kesonee’s superheroes, although none of them know it yet. And Wager Master thinks that an amazing followup to his award-winning heist movie would be a story in which Breakguard’s teenage companion, Fernwick’s patrol partner, and Bedrock’s new boss come face to face with their nemeses…

Step 6: Tactics

When all three of our villains are working together, they’ve settled into a solid pattern.

Wasteland takes point, slamming into enemies and pulling out their own blood to turn into weapons against them, and reshaping his internal organs to heal from the strain of over-pushing his own muscles. He interrupts attacks with his mobility, slamming into anyone who dares attack someone other than him, and generally heals at a slow drip throughout the fight when he’s not launching overwhelming attacks or throwing people into each other.

Max generally opens up by holding back, figuring out the tactical field, and then setting up a big, persistent Boost, followed by shifting between group attacks and Hinders, and making powerful attacks against single targets while inviting Wasteland to take part (or vice versa, jumping in when Wasteland hammers someone to get in an extra blow.)

Finally, Blindspot lives up to her name. She goes invisible and starts dropping persistent Hinders on people, then shifts to moving into groups and attacking from surprise while leaving everyone off-balance. If her targets come after her she counter-attacks, and if she does get hit she can shift to basic Boosts and Attacks while healing up a bit.

Villain: Wasteland

Approach: Generalist, Archetype: Bruiser

Status Dice: Green d6, Yellow d8, Red d10

Health: 65 (adjusted for 4-player team)

Qualities:

• Close Combat d10
• Conviction d8
• Imposing d6

Powers:

• Leaping d10
• Strength d8
• Toxic d8
• Presence d6

Abilities:

• Wasteland (A): Attack using Toxic. If you are Green, use your Max die. If you are Yellow, use your Max + Min dice. If you are in Red, use your Max + Min against one target and your Mid against another.
• Heavy Hitter (A): Attack using Close Combat. Use your Max die. Recover using your Min die.
• Throw Hero (A): Attack using Strength and use your Max die. Either Hinder that target with your Mid die, or Attack another nearby target with your Mid die.
• Jump In ®: When an ally is attacked, Defend them by rolling your single Leaping die. Boost yourself by that amount.
• Roll With It (I): Reduce physical and energy damage by 1 in Green, 2 in Yellow, and 3 in Red.

Upgrade:

• Area Blood Control (I): While the scene is in the Green zone, all heroes’ quality dice at d8 or above are reduced one size. In the Yellow zone, all heroes’ quality dice at d10 or above are reduced two die sizes. In the Red zone, all heroes’ quality dice are treated as if they are d4. While using this Upgrade, Wasteland has +10 Health.
  • Heroes may remove this ability with three Overcome successes against Wasteland’s blood control. If a hero takes a minor twist, they lose access to a quality entirely until this ability is removed. If a hero is knocked out while this ability is active, you may create a new minion using the hero’s highest power die to represent the puppeteered version of that hero.
• 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.

Villain: Blindspot

Approach: Skilled, Archetype: Inhibitor

Status Dice: Based on heroes with penalties. None d6, 1-2 Heroes d8, 3+ Heroes d10

Health: 45 (adjusted for 4-player team)

Qualities:

• Investigation d10
• Stealth d10
• Ranged Combat d8
• Criminal Underworld d8
• Leadership d8

Powers:

• Invisibility d10
• Lightning Calculator d8
• Speed d6

Abilities:

• Pressure Point Strike (A): Hinder using Stealth and use your Max+Min dice. This penalty is persistent and exclusive.
• Exceptional Training (A): Take any basic action and use your Max die. Recover equal to your Min die.
• Wolf Among Sheep (A): Hinder multiple nearby targets using Invisibility and use your Max die. Attack one of those targets with your Mid die.
• Weak Points ®: When you are Attacked by someone with a penalty you created, Defend by rolling your single status die, and the attacker suffers that much damage.

Upgrade:

• Skill Upgrade: Investigation and Stealth are boosted to d12, and Ranged Combat, Criminal Underworld, and Leadership are boosted to d10. While using this Upgrade, Blindspot has +20 Health.
• Master Mercenary (I): If you have been given a contract to perform a specific task, automatically succeed at an Overcome in a situation where the difference is getting paid and not getting paid.

Villain: Max

Approach: Tactician, Archetype: Indomitable

Status Dice: Always d8

Health: 60 (adjusted for 4-player team)

Qualities:

• Technology d10
• Insight d8
• Ranged Combat d6

Powers:

• Suggestion d8
• Intuition d8
• Remote Viewing d6
• Deduction d6

Abilities:

• Got A Tool For That (A): Take a basic action using Technology and use your Max die. One nearby ally also makes the same basic action as a Reaction.
• Figure Out The Field (A): Boost yourself using Insight and use your Max die. This Boost is persistent and exclusive.
• Sow Confusion (A): Attack multiple targets using Suggestion. Hinder those targets using your Min die.
• Flanking Trick ®: When another basic ally makes an Attack, you may attack the same target by rolling your single Technology die.

Finally, the Tactician is aggressive. they can give themselves a major boost, and they can slow every enemy down with area attacks that apply mild Hinders.

Upgrade:

• Hired Goons (A): Replace your Goon Squad minions up to the number of heroes.
• 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.

Aftermath:

Our final villain team!

I think the seams were starting to show here, but it worked out. They’re a hungry gang of up-and-comers and they have some real potential to be a disaster for our heroes. Plus, the idea of Wager Master trying to set up a sequel is pretty hilarious to me.

Ditto. : )

Congrats on making it through! Next, stop, Friv makes thirty-seven environments!

No, I’m gonna go do my thread now. When I have a minute.