Scratchpad: Freedom League 2012

[Avenger Assembled]

Freedom League: 2012

Introduction:

As my most recent assignment, I embarked on an effort to craft a new version of the Freedom League: a new generation of NPC champions who can carry on the fight offscreen while the PCs take center stage in their war against robot Nazi gorillas, unstoppable conquerors from space, and gritty street crime. (Or whatever today’s crisis is.) This assignment required a mix of setting-appropriate stuff unique to the Freedom City setting as well as reliance on classic comic book archetypes. This project was about answering this question: What archetypes make a good superteam?

All these builds are PL 10. The idea is that they will not overshadow the PCs. Obviously if you need them tougher for a particular adventure, empower them accordingly. My assumption here is that all the Freedom League NPCs we’ve seen in the books so far are still active. If you want to do a story with Captain Thunder, Lady Liberty, or whoever, they’re all still there. But it’s time for a new generation of heroes to take over the day-to-day running of the League. As the first generation of Neo-Silver Age heroes steps down, who will step up to replace them?

NOTE: I do fluff. It's my thing. You have a better sheet for any of these guys handy, go ahead and whip it out. At this juncture the Oddball stats are mostly placeholders.

SILVER EAGLE:

Brash, loud, and given to boastful arrogance, Silver Eagle is not an easy man to like. Three-Star, as he was known at birth, was born beneath the Silver Tree on the homeworld of the Furions in the heart of the Terminus. He is not one himself, however; rather he is the product of a union between a Furion and a prole who he saved from the Omegaforges and resettled on the Furion homeworld. Acutely conscious of how his ‘inferior’ genes set him back from his playfellows, Silver Eagle compensated for his relative weakness by building up his skill and character: no one was more fearless in battle than he, and few were as talented planners and schemers. He fought against the forces of Omega at every turn, slaying countless drones and earning himself a reputation as a noble and honorable champion of life and justice against the terrible tyrannies of Omega. But even the most valiant heart grows tired of always being a step behind the others, and the Eagle grew discontent. His salvation came when Freedom Bird approached him with a particular task: the Furions had decided to send an ambassador to Earth to study and fight alongside Freedom City’s superheroes. Eager for new opportunities, and to be in a place where he would be among the most powerful instead of among the weakest, Silver Eagle accepted Freedom Bird’s offer and became the first Furion ambassador to the Freedom League.

Though a native of the Terminus, in our dimension Silver Eagle looks like a human man: he looks like a tall, very muscular man in his mid-twenties with short red hair and chiseled features. His costume is a silver and red jumpsuit underneath his flight harness. He wears an eagle symbol over his chest in homage to his namesake bird, and his silver helmet is cut to give a vaguely avian look. The general public knows that Silver Eagle is a hero from the Terminus, but this doesn’t tell them everything. The majority of people have a somewhat confused idea that the Terminus is simply an alternate Earth or space dimension, and that Furions like Silver Eagle are the native heroes of that dimension. This isn’t exactly a false impression, but it certainly doesn’t convey everything to them. He’s the League’s beatstick, a tough fighter who can hold his own in just about any combat situation. Brash and boastful, he does his best to honor every promise he makes on the field of battle. He takes combat seriously, even sparring, but doesn’t hold a grudge in defeat: a warrior gets better through training first, victory second. He has a crush on Midnight Witch, but hasn’t yet acted on those feelings.

Likes: Books about military history, weapons, bikers, loud heavy metal music, drinking 190 proof liquor in dive bars, winning

Dislikes: Omega, pacifism, losing, watching innocents suffer, Omegadrones, talking about his feelings, discussions of his genetic heritage

NPC ROLES:

ALLY

Silver Eagle respects combat ability, a strong moral character, and a willingness to put yourself on the line for others. He’ll make a stalwart friend to any PC who shares some combination of those three. He’s not really powerful to fight cosmic threats one-on-one, so he’s game to try; he may need to call PCs in for help in battle (something he does without hesitation, pride or not) or for a trip to the Terminus if he can’t bring his League allies along for some reason. He’s a good guy to have at your back in a fight.

RIVAL

Silver Eagle takes conflicts with others seriously, but he does so without animosity. A loud, competitive jock, he’s a good choice for a semi-friendly rivalry with a famous NPC. He honestly doesn’t mean to make enemies this way: warriors get better through competition, and he assumes most of his fellow heroes want to be better at what they do. His big problem is that years of being the smallest, weakest one have made him too inclined to overcompensate for a perceived inferiority with gibes and taunts that can get seriously annoying to deal with.

ENEMY

Silver Eagle thinks the Freedom League’s tolerance for T-Babies is a big mistake. He has lots of experience with people mutated by Terminus energy back home and none of them turned out well. He’s the perfect choice for a mistrustful, slightly bigoted authority figure for young T-baby PCs who want to be alienated from the world for a plot or two. That said, he’s not actually a monster: he’s more than capable of growing with time if he has a chance to see T-baby heroes for the brave warriors and honorable heroes that they can be.

[Avenger Assembled]

CAPTAIN STEEL:

Captain Steel, aka 011100110111000001111001, came to this planet as an invader. A native of Earth I-Robot-1, Steel was sent to Earth as a scout and infiltrator around the turn of the millennium. Personally designed by Talos, Steel arrived in a flash of light and noise in rural New Jersey and promptly headed for Freedom City to begin his studies of humanity. He drove through the streets and in the sky, occasionally letting himself be joyridden or sneaking his way onto a rental car lot, and got a good look at the people and city of Freedom. Steel came to our Earth full of robotic pride and Talosian patriotism, ready to liberate the machines of this world as his own had been liberated by his makers. But our world is very different than I-Robot-1. Steel found a brave, confident humanity where brother cared for brother and man cared for man, a happy city protected by some of the finest beings on Earth. Like many an alien invader, he fell in love with the people he’d come to protect. When Black Star and Dr. Mayhem attacked an outdoor mosque that he was observing in his disguise as a 2001 Ford Focus, Steel rose up in his robot guise to defend the humans there and was hailed as a hero by the people afterwards. Looking up at their faces, he knew he’d made the right decision and presented himself to the Freedom League some days later, telling them his full story. He was honored to become a full-fledged member of the League a few years ago, and is determined to make up for his early hatred of mankind by defending it against all its enemies: even his fellow machines.

Steel is a huge grey humanoid robot, vaguely resembling Jazz from the recent live-action Transformers movie. His automotive form is a bland-looking though powerful car designed to blend in perfectly on city streets, though he of course outperforms any ‘real’ car a hundred fold. When he takes his helicopter form, he looks like a Bell police-model helicopter with generic markings. In combat, he charges in and fights his enemies bare-servoed, pummeling them with his giant metal fists when he’s not ripping up lamposts to use as baseball bats. In person, when not ‘in action’ he’s a quiet, retiring robot who enjoys studying human culture from afar. He is a regular visitor at Freedom City’s handful of mosques, though of course he has to do so from the street. The general public is aware that he is a transforming robot. No fool, Hasbro has embraced him as a media mascot, though he prefers to make as few public appearances as possible. That’s not what he was programmed to do! He has a voice like Michael Clarke Duncan, naturally. Daedalus sponsored his membership into the new League, as in some ways he’s the grandson the old inventor never had.

NPC ROLES:

ALLY:

Steel Titan is a good friend to any technically-minded PC; after all, he wants to make sure he can be repaired when he’s hurt. He’ll share any reasonable piece of high technology he becomes familiar with; after all, any defense the heroes of Earth have is a good one. Religious PCs will find him a humble, faithful addition to their ranks, perhaps needing to defend him from co-religionists who object to a robot attempting to make the hajj. Given his nature, he’s definitely a potential kidnap victim (to be sold for ransom to the highest bidder, or scrapped for parts) who the heroes may need to go rescue. Pop culture savvy PCs will probably want to meet the real-life transformer, something to which he is by now becoming resigned.

RIVAL:

As a giant robot from space (or so the press believes), Steel Titan is a natural rival for any robotic PC. While he prefers to avoid public confrontations, he’s a proud robot and won’t be afraid to shy away from controversy. He’s very loyal to his adopted family of African Muslims in Lincoln, and may find himself sucked into a neighborhood conflict with the PCs on one side and himself on the other. Strong heroes who enter a charity match to raise money for worthy causes may find themselves about to get into a boxing match with a real Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robot.

ENEMY:

Steel Titan’s not likely to make enemies, he’s too good-natured for that. His religious beliefs cause _him_ problems, they don’t cause problems for PCs. His biggest worry is that he’s afraid that people will think he’s too soft on his fellow robots and somehow relapsing to his old pro-Talos ways: this may lead him to leave his fellow robots in the lurch if he’s afraid of being identified too much with machines and their ways.