Avenger Assembled

Listen to me, man, and listen well, for his ears are everywhere even in the gulf between minds. Medea's "voice" was calmer now, but the repressed tension there was obvious even as she smiled and cocked her head at the conversation, the very image of the loyal, attentive spouse. They will take your world as they took this one in the name of their master. They will buy the loyalty of some of your champions and slay the others. And then the world, and everyone on it, will be theirs. I tell you this because even now I am Medea of Colchis, and I know the hearts of men. "It is true," Odysseus replied carefully, "that Ranaga and Samedi have both done terrible things in their time. But I think you will find, too, that there are few great kings who have not committed some sin or another on their rise to power. We have moved beyond superhero and supervillian here, and come to deal with everyone willing to work for world peace on an equal, honest footing. The sins of the past here are as dead as Poseidon." To Dark Star, he added, "As for other worlds, our primary conflicts have been with the Grue and the Farsiders. The Grue first invaded, oh, back in the 1940s, not long after I began acting as a superhero alongside the Patriot and the Sea-King. Their story on our world has been...too similar to your own, I think. As for the Farsiders, 'King' Mentac has been a thorn in the side of our civilization since the first Lunar colonies were built in the 1970s. I understand he was something of a hero on your world...but, then, many things were different there." In the air, Dark Star could hear things. Most of the traffic seemed to be in English, though there was also significant coded traffic, probably military. There was an announcement from Egypt that the annual celebration of the death of Heru-Ra attracted crowds large enough to fill the streets of Thebes three times over, and that the celebration about the purging of Tan-Aktor at the end of the year will surely double that number. There were patriotic broadcasts in the air proclaiming the recent third anniversary of the unification of the Earth; another reminding everyone about the penalty for harming a spider. Civilian traffic was amazingly low, with virtually none of the free transmissions he'd come to associate with Earth-Prime. "So, gentlemen, shall we go? The whole world is waiting for us out there."

Dark Star is From the Depths of Space, so he knows a little about the Farsiders automatically. They've had occasional moments of villainy when the wicked Lady Lunar seized power and ruled them as an absolute monarch, but for the most part they're basically a nice if isolationist people. They're the sort of people who would say hello if Dark Star passed by, but wouldn't invite him in for dinner.

"Grimalkin is trustworthy. Have dealt with her before," replied Avenger evenly. "But not you," he added, giving Phantom a level look. He was supremely glad he was dealing with superheroes, where such conflicts could be resolved equitably and reasonably, not with violence. When new vampires met, as a given rule, often they had a fight to determine dominance. Thank goodness superheroes didn't fall victim to such a silly trope. "How detailed is your knowledge?" he asked Phantom. "Can you name the dimension that homes the enemy? Describe it? Send us there?"

"Hello, ladies." When Jack appeared next to Grimalkin and Thunderstanding at the bar, it was with a cheerful grin on his face and an old-fashioned black domino mask on his face. He was playing the cheerful Lothario at this moment, one of the many party personalities he'd adopted over the years. He'd timed things well, appearing just as Ace went over to talk to the evident interloper, meaning that the room's security staff was paying attention to their boss and not to any handsome young men in black suits who simply came into being at the bar. "Bartender, lemme have a mint julep. Drop it in that frosted glass, would you?" Because that way, no one would notice the level of what he was drinking. And he already had mint on what passed for his breath thanks to the mints he'd chewed that night. No smell of blood on him!

Fortunately, some of us took the liberty of entering undetectably.

Electra and I are leaving tonight. We'll be on sporadically (for us) between now and the 21st.

It is improper for this conversation to be taking place in this thread, which is ostensibly devoted to out-of-character chatter for the thread oriented around 'durf's character that I am Refing for him. If you would like to discuss the rules systems/house rules, Fell, by all means, bop into Campaign Discussion or PM a Mod. Right now, it's 'durf's turn to decide what his character does. How will you deal with this villainous interloper to your gathering of heroes? I have a few suggestions myself.

Aight, guess we want to do our rolls in public. Sandman, the only thing you missed was Erin's short temper. Is Quark going to try and talk her back down, or let her go?

Yes, as Doc A says, he's just a Bad Dude, not a Bad Dude with a rap sheet. (Nyrath can probably clarify for me; the character is from before my time.) But yes, Well-Informed is a reactive. The roll is you thinking, "Hmm, now where have I seen that face/heard that name before..." And now I'll hie the thread off to Wading Way.

Well, I'll put an Approved on this one.

Aight, so you're in the door! Now we'll see what Ace does with you. (BTW, folks, every PC who's paying attention can make that DC 30 Gather Info check if you've got Well-Informed.)

All I know is that this is going to end in Jack being painted gold and left in Elena's bed.

If you like. Your DC is 20. Odysseus is crafty.

Ooh, maybe we'll have a big Stealth party and not invite any of these normies! Concealment doesn't add to your Stealth as such. If you have Concealment but no Stealth, you're prone to walking into stuff and knocking it over while invisible, sneezing right in someone's ear, etc. However, when you are concealed, you evade notice unless someone has a reason to be looking for you. So while you might run into trouble if anyone looking for you had Ranged Touch like Tactile Blindsight or one of the weird mental descriptors, you're probably OK for now.

That's true! There is something fishy about Grimalkin, something...other-worldly! Dun dun dun!

Warmonger, would you mind posting an explanation for feats like Dirty Fighting/Cunning Fighter, etc? The Refs all have the core book, but we don't all have Warriors and Warlocks. :D

Good luck on this one, team. Just don't do anything that'll make the heroes look like chumps for letting you live. :D

Oh heck yes there is magic! And dimensional hookery as well; especially down here.

Hey LF, too many cooks spoil the soup. And I have the cook's hat. Looking at Exile's sheet, you've got your generic conspiracy with supercriminals, assorted evil magics, and is that an association with infernalism? Why yes, yes it is. Further investigation will reveal the harder-to-discern material, as well as actual facts to go with the charges made by various organizations.

"Well, lemme show ya kids." With a broadly played conspiritorial air, he led the kids into the back room where a strange machine was set up. They found what looked like a massive gong on a square frame. It was built entirely out of what Mike recognized as impervium, one of the hardest materials known to science. And this was sheet nearly six inches thick, built to last, set in a frame of some more exotic but no doubt equally tough metal. "It's sort of half-weight-lifting, half-fight-training," said Jones jovially. "What we've got here is a frame so tough that even Captain Thunder can punch it without breaking it! What we're gonna do is use this thing to measure your punch strength, so that we know just how hard you can hit! That way, when you go down for your full powers test, they'll know how to set the equipment!" To demonstrate, he drew back his fist and landed a huge, meaty blow dead center of the massive gong. The metal didn't so much as creak against his punch. "You see! They took this thing outta one of Superior's old lairs from back in the day. But don't say I toldja!" he added with an impish grim. "You could nuke this thing and it wouldn't feel it."

Dr. Archeville knows who those people are. He also hears Medea's voice ringing loud and clear in his head, terror in her voice like he'd never thought to hear from the evil sorceress: "KEEP YOUR FACE STILL! DON'T GO WITH HIM!"

Avenger made a noise that might have been a cough, the gritty, monosyllabic vigilante momentarily at a loss for words. For people who'd never met Avenger before, there was something distinctly odd about his voice, a low, undifferentiated choking growl that seemed to go on without pause for breath. "Yes. Was involved in that encounter with 'Donar' other night. Doppleganger of Captain Thunder on the news?" It had been a fairly big story earlier in the week. "And now encounter with 'Andrea Atom' in the Fens; and whatever happened here." Avenger gave that odd little 'cough' again. "Behavior was odd. May have been a situation with invasion from other dimension. Only a theory. Not actually that familiar with other dimensions." He trailed off for a moment. "Rest of you?"

Well, these are the threads for Erin to get that sort of thing out of her system, I suppose. Darian, you're up.

Dr. Marquez looked at Erin, seemingly unruffled by her defiance. "So that's your strategy?" he asked her curiously. "To pit your strength against the other teams? You and Samuel are very strong," he agreed professionally. "If I remember correctly, the two of you working together could probably lift a minimum upwards of fifty or sixty tons. That is quite a lot of strength, so that's potentially a very good strategy for you. Do you think that's going to be enough to overcome the other teams?" Across from Erin, Samuel coughed a little. "Hey, uh, Erin, that's my sister over there," he said with a nod to Samantha. "So I know she can handle herself, and I'm not gonna do anything that's gonna hurt her. And me and Rex are buds, so I know he can handle it. Don't count out the weaker kids just 'cause they can't press a schoolbus. And hey, Quark over there's got like, I dunno, a brain made of light or something, so he can do crazy stuff too."

I lean towards 3 as it is both fastest and most hilarious. Shaen and Heritage, how do you feel?