Supercape

Snakebite in Canterbury Cabbage. Cassandra Crow pulled up outside the Crow mansion. This was Canterbury, England, in allegedly the sunniest county in the united Kingdom. But today the skies were grey, the temperature cool, and tepid rain fell from the skies. A grey day to suit her grey mood. Yesterday, she would have called this mansion her own. But then she her cousin had a baby boy. In the middle of the Canterbury harvest festival. Normally, that would be irrelevant in the matter of ownership of the estate (although of course the normal celebrations and congratulations would be due). But the Crow family wealth, considerable as it was, was tied up in arcane and obscure legislation stretching back centuries, or, in some particularly dusty tomes, more. Precisely who owned what percentage of what land under what circumstances with what contingencies and loopholes was a gordian knot. It was an irritation that consumed Cassandra. When she stormed into “Her” mansion, she was not in the best of mood. An assorted gaggle of Crow family members had gathered in the study of the mansion. Cassandra burst in, fists clenched, and eyeballed each in turn. Arthur Crow, her cousin. Handsome, elegant, intelligent. And seemingly immune to the Crow family’s bad luck and curses. His twisted body sat in a wheelchair. It was a common belief that he had had his share of curses in vitro, giving him a painful and disabled body. His wife, Tonya Crow, a rather fat dark skinned woman who was known for her big heart that could become overbearing. In her arms, their new born son, who, Cassandra noted, looked like Winston Churchill, like all babies did (to her eyes). And finally Penelope Crow, an aged distant aunt, who had a sharp mind and sharper razor. Here, judged Cassie, was the real threat, the real mastermind pulling the levers. Penelope Crow was a lawyer, and her bony hands were dedicated to consolidating as much of the Crow fortunes as much as possible under her less than benign oversight. It was not even greed, thought Cassandra; Penelope Crow did what she did for amusement. A hobby, of sorts. A very vexatious hobby. “Pleased to see you,” came the chorus of acknowledgements from one family member to another. Nobody looked particularly pleased. The baby gurgled. Penelope crow moved to the study table and gestured to a sheaf of dusty documents. The paper had turned brown, the ink had faded but the text was still legible. Cassandra processed the text style and the language. It was probably three hundred years old; at minimum. Penelope took great delight in showing Cassandra the intricate laws and agreements contained within the bundle. Cassandra was no lawyer; it would have been hard to follow even for a professional, given the archaic quality. She couldn’t follow a quarter of what Penelope said. But in summary – it was a trap of ink. If this person begat that person, and lady whatever gave birth two three sons, one of whom was his own uncle, then the Canterbury Mansion (Crow Hall) would pass ownership from this bloodline to that. At least, it was vaguely like that. The net effect was that Arthur Crow was now the owner of Crow Mansion. With various subclauses and so on and so forth. It was quite the headache. Cassandra rated Arthur Crow as the most benign member of the Crow family, even herself, and by some considerable margin. Perhaps his birth defect had given him a heightened sensitivity for the misfortunate, or perhaps he was just that kind of guy, more interested in building than breaking. Penelope Crow, however, was the kind of bottomless pit of bitterness that took active glee in the legal swipe. She stood to gain very little; other than the satisfaction of tearing the mansion from Cassandra Crow, the woman she had always envied. From whence the envy? For starters, Penelope Crow was a sour on the whole universe. But a particular sourness was reserved for Cassandra Crow, who had somehow become a legend, a hero. A superhero. Penelope Crow was born a couple of decades too early, when female adventurers were tolerated rather than encouraged. Perhaps this was the root cause of seething resentment. Perhaps this was why she was so gleeful at her legal masterstroke. Of course, Cassandra would not simply take this lying down. Or even standing up. Her fingers brushed the parchment, her eyes closed, and her mind spun backwards, traversing the centuries… …to a Canterbury village fete. The streets cobbled and dirty, the houses thatched and wonky. Rowdy drunks on the street throwing rotten fruit at the stalls where a poor thief lay clapped, lamenting his luck. The sound of fiddles and pipes, of feet shuffling and dancing, of voices singing badly. It was a very fair fair. And the sound of nobles arguing. Surely some Crow ancestors, with that classic black raven hair, that nose, that chin. The bloodline was unmistakable. With them, a gaggle of lawyers, hangers on, and beggars, and the mayor of Canterbury – grey haired, fat, an the nose of an alcoholic. The debate raged; which descendent of which line would get what percentage of the manor under which circumstance. It all looked rather gordian, as one would expect. Until the oldest Crow, a crone with bony hands and snakelike eyes, turned and pointed at Cassandra Crow. That had never happened before. But then, the Crow family line was not only cursed with curses, but blessed with blessings; wealth and eldritch third eyes. “And you, Cassandra, can tell your family that if you win the cabbage throwing competition of the fete then you get to keep the mansion! Page seventeen, paragraph eleven!” And with that, the vision faded, and Cassandra was back in the present. “May I direct your attention to page seventeen, paragraph eleven, dear Penelope?” Shock, rage and attempts to wriggle ensued, but after much wrangling, Cassandra had marched the gang down to Canterbury high street, where the famous drunken cabbage throwing competition had started. Old Bob Griggins, the regional champ, put in a great performance. Daisy Flowerbeater too, as well as her two young children (who tied the junior championship). But, at the end of the day, the snakelike power of Cassandra Crow won the day – true, one might say it was cheating – ending up with a cabbage bullseye on the golden patch. Perhaps resentment might have festered, but Cassandra swiftly gave the prize money to Old Bob Griggins (and doubled it), and declared that she would fully fund next years fair. For a fair must be fair. Irrespective of prize money or good (and bad) deeds), the task had been achieved. Cassandra Crow was the winner of the 2024 Canterbury Cabbage throwing contest, and thus, according to page seventeen, paragraph eleven of the 1459 deeds to the Crow Mansion, retained the ownership of Crow Manor. Much to the vexation of Penelope Crow. Being of good cheer, and rather liking Arthur Crow and his wife, Cassandra arranged for their family to have permenant living quarters in the east wing. Arthur was an architect and the manor could do with some renovations. Arthur found this perfectly reasonable. Which only vexed Penelope Crow more. One day, she swore, she would have her revenge!

Unless any of the teens is particularly suceptible to hypnotism (we can work that out as a complication...) the last IC post was simply a bit of flavour and foreshadowing. The excrement will shortly hit the rotating air circulation device, but for now feel free to make a few more social posts....

GM As the teens chatted, commenting on this, and commenting on that (and getting to know each other a little better by doing so), the Nintendo 64 hissed. Very slightly. Maybe a trick of the wind, maybe a fizz of an old circuit, or maybe... just maybe... something spooky was going on, like the first breath of a summoned ghost. The screen jiggered slightly, the pixels distorting for an instant. If one was really paranoid, one could almost say the sound and the image was becoming slightly hypnotic. Every so slightly. Just enough to start engrossing the teens in the screen just a bit more than was normal for a teenager...

GM The tall pale man seemed to barely register Archers presence. A slightly dazed turn of the eyes, a slight flicker of acknowledgement in the face, and a soft grunt that might, for all its volume, simply been an unusually heavy sigh. It did at least indicated the albino was still breathing. The Thug was breathing, for sure, but bound tight. His face squirmed, fighting a battle between defiance and prudence. Faced with the Archer next to him, prudence won. "Super drug? It ain't super..." he said. "Sure, it gives you a massive boost of energy for a few seconds, maybe minutes. Then you self-combust. I mean, you really self combust. At least with drugs like Zoom you stand a chance, right? Just a little heart attack. With this synthetic drug; that's what the call it, by the way, the synthetic... with the synthetic you literally burn up. I heard a few people got clever and dived in an bath of ice or the ocean. But only a few. Usually, you go out with a real good bang, you dig?"

Not needed now, but I will need some untrained Knowledge (Pop Culture) rolls DC 15 at some point so feel free to roll em

Gamma Buzz "I can heat up the ground with my incredible non-lethal radiation!" said Baz, puffing up his chest and giving two thumbs up signs. "Wait.. shoot... no powers!" he moped. "I guess we, what... light a fire? or something? Sounds easy enough. We just need wood and a something to light it with. Like my amazing laser beam eyes... no wait, those are powers too. Double shoot." Baz scratched his antennae. "And this is a desert. Not much wood around. Although I guess it would be dry, at least. Arent you meant to rub two sticks together or something, sounds pretty easy, right?"

23 for TOughness save Just made it

OOC for this.

March 13th, 2024 Claremont Academy, students residence Golden Star had booted up his Nintendo 64. It was supposedly cursed. But Blackstaff had sorted that out. Probably. And probably was surely good enough. The psychic twins Cerebral and Cerebrum had stuck their head in through the door to see what was going on. The Nintendo fizzed when plugged in, and flickered half the lights of the students residence. Booting up? What was booting up? It was taking its damn time that was for sure. As it loaded (at a relatively glacial pace), the machine displayed pixellated art: Of machine guns, of evil villains in evil costumes, of lightning bolts, of dark towers with screaming damsels in distress at the top, of a city ruined by warfare, awash with tanks and mines. It all looked very archiac, and very violent. In a quaint way. The images had a certain... hypnotic... quality to them. It was hard to drag your eyes away from the screen, despite (or maybe because) of the antique pixel graphics...

GM The doctor was still convulsing in the chair as Jean wheeled him through the lab and into the shower. The water was ice cold - and colder still. Enough to freeze skin; and it was fortunate none splashed on Jean. But on the Doctor the water merely sizzled and ran down his skin. Sizzled. That was how hot the doctor was! It seemed to do the trick though; cooling the doctor and terminating the seizure. Whatever was going on with the doctor seemed to have slowed, even stalled. His temperature seemed, for the moment, in a reasonably healthy equilibruim; the shower and his metabolism fighting for dominance but without any winner. The Doctor snapped open his eyes, and glared at Jean with mad intensity. "I was meant to fool you! Did I fool you? Tell me! Did I fool you? Did you think I was doctor North?"

Predator - Unharmed - 2 HP

Inventor feat normally takes hours (or days) to build a machine. Would you be willing to spend an HP to have that coolant "on hand"? Otherwise you could try a craft (chemical) roll to whip one up quickly.

GM And so... The town of Tez was rid of curses. The strange swamp receded over the coming months, and the diseases and infections that ran rampant throug the city started to recede with it. Even the biker gangs, deprived of their source of income, still conceded that it was better to live healthy and poor than rich and coughing up your guts in a feverish pool of sweat. The smugglers, however, did not stop. For all the decursing blackstaff did, he and Amritage noted that someone was still trying to flood America with curses. But who? Not the smugglers. Mr Silk, the mastermind smuggler had much bigger problems in Hong Kong. He soon pulled out of the whole deal. But someone else had an agenda... and there were other ways to get cursed items into America. Somewhere, the swamp would return! To be continued!.... ~ Fin ~

Starshot ...psychic... attacks... ...New... Starshot had no experience dealing with this. The uncanny and disturbing tendrils stroking his brain. He had hunted thousands of animals and beasts but none had psychic powers. "...hrgh... get out..." he muttered. He was a determined man by nature, but it took every ounce of determination to eject the intruder and roll to cover...

Great! For move action starship will scrabble (still prone but has prone fighting) to full cover

Enough for a diagnosis as per ic! Maybe some ideas for next pp award / update?

GM "What? Before? Can't... remember... ugh.... hot..." The doctors pulse was approaching 200, his respiratory rate was nearly sixty. His temperature? Warm to the touch... no, hot tother touch. The doctors metabolism had shot off the scale. No human could survive this. He was a candidate for spontaneous combustion... To emphasise the point, hus body started convulsing, in the grip of a full blown tonic clonic seizure. And his strength! The convulsions threatened to break the chair!

GIven he hasnt got much concentration, lets see if he can escape! https://orokos.com/roll/1005045 = 20 result, not bad.

GM "Do you know what he did to me?" screamed Wrack, face livid. "Cut my hair! Over and over again! He FARMED me!" She caught her breath - wheezing, straining. The curvature of her spine did not suit exertion of her lungs. When she recovered, her words were suitably softer in volume, yet still acidic! "My hair is magic. A witch, they called me, thanks to my hair. Its part of me, losing it is... whats the way to describe it. Cutting my hair is like having a tooth pulled. Do you like having a tooth pulled? over and over again?" "Pfah! Young, pretty, powerful.. and immortal! Well, some have all the luck don't they?" She calmed, slightly. "But thankyou for saving me. Both of you. I am in your debt. But... if you don't want to kill this toad..." she glared at Mr. Silk. "Then what are you going to do with him? And how are we getting out of here?"

Predator - Bruised - 3 HP

Up to you ! at this point its whatever is most cool and suits your character and future development.

25 on Dr Norths? Attack roll and DC 23 Toughness Save. Brutal, as not in battlesuit, but fear not - we are not in combat, that was a wild swing. What Predator does know is that Dr North is faster and stronger than any human.

GM "On our way..." came the response of the paramedical team. ETA, 1 minute. Doctor North sat down, and looked quite ill. His skin was almost alabaster white, his eyes blood shot red. "Who am I? Who am I?" he kept mumbling. His wandering eyes eventually found a lock on Predator. He started scrabbling at his chest, tearing away his drab clothes, nails scratching red lines across his sternum. "It's in me... alive! Hot! So Hot!" His pupils were dilated - he paused, one second, then swung out a raregful fists at Predator!

Spooky! Feel free to take that and do with it what you will!

We are at wrap point @Spacefurryand @Poncho Any last posts? In particular, what is Blackstaff doing with the cursed objects and his newfound Gender?