Quinn's Insta-Mooks

[Quinn]

Alright, looking at Ecal, AA, Raveled, and various other players who have idea threads, I've decided to follow suit with a thread of my own dedicated to something close to my heart.

We know them, we love them, we hate them, we forget them, they're the ever-present, ubiquitous Mooks! Yes, the palace guard the hero fights through to reach the tyrant, the pack of thugs the hero beats up in the back alley as he fights to the gang boss, they're the small guys who are always in the way of the main character. This thread is going to attempt to make some...unique permutations of these ubiquitous enemies, and provide thread-makers with some variations on the standard "minions" or lieutenants, or just monsters you have to throw at your players. Granted, you can go to the sourcebook and pick up a group of regular ninjas or secret agents or thugs or whatever, but where's the fun in that? Why not a pack of mutant thugs with crab-claws for hands? Why not a group of zombie ninja assassins, under an ancient curse? Make your minions memorable!

Granted, they'll only be around for a few minutes until your heroes turn them into paste, but still!

[Quinn]

Concept - The Bone Dragon Clan, zombie ninja assassins.

Alright, courtesy of Darksider (Ninja golems!) and a group of minions with Interpose in one of my earliest threads, here's an idea for a gang of mooks you can use in a sorcery or magic-related thread. A clan of evil ninjas who, through an ancient curse and mystical sorcery, were thrown into a horrible unlife between dimensions; and beholden to whatever sorcerer or magic-user summoned them through ritual magic. Yes, zombie ninja assassins.

The idea here is to take that fun concept, and also apply the Rule Of Conservation Of Ninjitsu; each ninja that is called up takes part of the clan's "power", thereby making a single ninja zombie assassin a dangerous foe, but a pack of them mid-range mooks. Excellent for a quickie group of bad guy mooks for whatever evil magic-user villain you might think of!

Story-wise, the villain would likely send a small army of the mooks to deal with the enemy, amping up their strength and lowering the number of them as time goes on (following the Sorting Algorithm of Evil). Or, what could make this even scarier, is that as the heroes break into the enemy's base, and start ploughing through these undead ninjas...every time one goes down, the PL of the ones surrounding them go up further. This could rapidly get all kinds of ugly though, and should be used carefully.

As for how to play them, these undead ninja assassins should be equal parts professional, and vengeful. They were cursed and sentenced to unlife in limbo, after all. Asian-style heroes would likely be first on their lists (being from their original homeland), or perhaps someone with abilities similar to the mage who cursed them all. You could have them aim for the Badass Normals of the group (i.e Arrowhawk, Raven, or , trying to match their skills and prove that even in death, they are the best) They should be chock-full of fun "dirty-trick" style powers to match ther PL levels, Trip or Stun, Dazzle and the like. If you want to play them more "conventional" ninja, give them tools and the like to wreak havoc with, or if you want to play up the mysticism aspect of their undead curse, have them use ghostly powers at the higher PLs, or magic abilities to replace the tools at the lower PLs.

Stat-wise, they should reflect the fact that they are undead; fortitude immunities and the like, combined with some minor gadget or magic powers depending on your playstyle. It's the numbers that are the important ones, dictating how strong or weak they are based on numbers. Ideally, however, if only one ninja is around, he should be in the PL 10-11 area, with some serious magic and gadget mojo.