The World In The Aftermath (Formerly A World Less Magical)

[Davies]

Nice conversion of a character from one of your other threads.

Thanks!

[Davies]

Malkin


When contemplating the vile and the villainous, it is not uncommon to note how many cases are tragic, in the old sense -- how many examples of them could have become positive forces but for circumstances that were likely beyond their control. Even when considering those who, deliberately and with malice aforethought, chose their path of destruction, there is often a sense of regrettable waste. This can easily shade into pity, which can be dangerous in more than one way.

Twenty-odd years ago, Louis Robbins, a resident of Tampa, set out to become one of the first major supervillains of the second age of heroes. He knew exactly what he was doing, and was inspired solely by greed and a touch of arrogance. He also had -- or more accurately imagined that he had -- a deep empathic connection with animals, and so sought to use them as minions in his crimes, under the alias Beast Master. (He had, for the record, never read the Andre Norton novel of that title, nor any of its sequels.*) Thwarted by Fuego, he went to jail for robbery and animal endangerment, and the latter charge was what really stung.

Never imprisoned for long thanks to the assistance of a certain patron who found him amusing and somewhat useful, Beast Master continued to engage in his attempts at infamy for several years before reaching the conclusion that he was outmatched by his opposition. Rather than admit defeat, however, Robbins decided to up his game and sought out the notorious Dr. Charles MacCorkindale, the Manimalist, and offered himself to serve as an experimental subject and have animal characteristics imprinted on himself. MacCorkindale believed that this would free Robbins of what little "false and hypocritical morality" he still possessed; Robbins believed that his "deep empathic connection with animals" would allow him to retain his original personality.

It is still not clear which of them was more mistaken in their beliefs. Regardless, the ape-tiger-human hybrid that emerged from the experiment, who dubbed himself Malkin, was a much more dangerous criminal than Beast Master had ever been, vicious and homicidal rather than greedy and selfish. (He also promptly betrayed MacCorkindale and destroyed the laboratory where this all took place, setting the scientist back years.) Further, his claim to have personal influence over the animals that he used in his crimes had become the truth, as he was able to exert psychic control over their actions, which he (delusionally) believed to be them responding to his "supremely Alpha" status.

Regardless of his false beliefs, he was active as a criminal throughout the American southeast for the next decade, often captured but never held for long. However, he has not been sighted in the wild (pun intended) since 2018. Most observers, including Argus sources, believe that he has fallen victim to another, equally dangerous villain (such as the Reaper), or attempted to mutate himself further and suffered lethal consequences, or possibly suffered some misadventure while attempting to control an animal that resisted his psychic influence.

They are mistaken, but not by much. The Reaper did nearly kill him when their paths crossed in 2018, but Malkin escaped death. In need of assistance, however, he sought out his estranged sister Lauren Robbins, a self-proclaimed conservationist who operated an animal rescue facility in their home state. Lauren agreed to help him, but only in exchange for his own assistance in maintaining her facility. Malkin agreed to her terms, and she supplied him with Paramorphan, an opioid substance to help him with the lingering pain of his injuries, while he used his animal control powers to ensure that the animals under her care were docile.

And that is where he has been ever since. While his injuries have long since healed, Malkin is now thoroughly addicted to the drugs supplied by his sister, and spends most of his time in a stupor where he does little except use his animal control powers to essentially domesticate the animals in the facility, allowing people to visit and interact with them, often posing for pictures with even dangerous creatures unable to resist. This is clearly a mistreatment of these animals, and it is not good for Malkin either; his health is beginning to fail. On the other hand, if the truth of the facility is exposed and he is freed, he will return to crime and be even more psychopathic than he was at the start of all this. Furthermore, in order to pay the costs of his incarceration, both the drugs and his high food expenses, Lauren Robbins is engaged in a number of other criminal activities, which cause even more harm to their community.

Sometimes, there are no right answers.

Malkin - PL 11

Abilities:
STR 7 | STA 6 | AGL 5 | DEX 2 | FGT 8 | INT 0 | AWE 3 | PRE 1

Powers:
Animal Control: Burst Area 2 Progressive Affliction 8 (Resisted by Will; Dazed, Compelled, Controlled), Concentration, Limited to animals, Subtle 2 - 42 points
Claws and Teeth: Strength-based Damage 2 - 2 points
Fur: Immunity 1 (cold) - 1 point
Predatory Senses: Senses 6 (acute tracking scent, danger sense, darkvision, ultra-hearing) - 6 points
Predatory Speed: Enhanced Defenses 8 (Dodge 4, Parry 4); Leaping 2 (30 feet); Speed 4 (30 MPH) - 14 points

Advantages:
Agile Feint, All-out Attack, Chokehold, Close Attack, Defensive Roll, Evasion, Fearless 2, Hide in Plain Sight, Improved Critical (claws), Improved Grab, Improved Hold, Improved Initiative, Move-by Action, Power Attack, Startle, Takedown, Uncanny Dodge

Skills:
Acrobatics 7 (+12), Athletics 4 (+11), Close Attack: Claws 4 (+12), Expertise: Survival 9 (+9), Insight 6 (+9), Intimidation 9 (+10), Perception 7 (+10), Stealth 8 (+13).

Offense:
Initiative +9
Unarmed +9 (Close Damage 7)
Claws +13 (Close Damage 9, Crit 19-20)
Animal Control -- (Burst Area Will 8)

Defense:
Dodge 10, Parry 12, Fortitude 10, Toughness 8/6, Will 5

Totals:
Abilities 64 + Powers 62 + Advantages 18 + Skills 27 + Defenses 7 = 178 points

Offensive PL: 11
Defensive PL: 10
Resistance PL: 8
Skill PL: 9

Complications:
Psychopathy--Motivation. Addiction. Big Eater. Obviously Inhuman.

* Movies? What movies?

[Davies]

186 heroes.
153 villains.
164 ambiguous types.
And a few dozen characters from elsewhere in the multiverse.

I think it might be time to take another extended break from this project.

[EternalPhoenix]

If that's what you want to do, brother, then you do it. Also I would like to very politely request some kind of order to the table of contents that isn't just alphabetical. Maybe put the various groups together? I dunno, I'm not you. I just know that it's currently rather challenging to find specific people. Maybe I should CTRL+F (I think that's it), but eh.

[Davies]

If that's what you want to do, brother, then you do it. Also I would like to very politely request some kind of order to the table of contents that isn't just alphabetical. Maybe put the various groups together? I dunno, I'm not you. I just know that it's currently rather challenging to find specific people. Maybe I should CTRL+F (I think that's it), but eh.

Made several stabs at doing this, decided that it was too much effort for too little gain. You might want to refer to the Google Drive version, which has a few sub-indexes of this nature (listing all the members of the Powerhouse, for example.)

[RainOnTheSun]

I like Jacky Frost. A game can always use a good fixer/information broker.

[Davies]

I like Jacky Frost. A game can always use a good fixer/information broker.

Thanks! She came out of my viewing of The Batman, with its great take on Cobblepot.

[Tattooedman]

Malkin is a great character with some nice twists in his story. Well done!

[EternalPhoenix]

If that's what you want to do, brother, then you do it. Also I would like to very politely request some kind of order to the table of contents that isn't just alphabetical. Maybe put the various groups together? I dunno, I'm not you. I just know that it's currently rather challenging to find specific people. Maybe I should CTRL+F (I think that's it), but eh.

Made several stabs at doing this, decided that it was too much effort for too little gain. You might want to refer to the Google Drive version, which has a few sub-indexes of this nature (listing all the members of the Powerhouse, for example.)

Keep forgetting about that thing, even after i bookmarked it. Heh. Anyway, I'll say again that you do good work and I'm always pleased to see another member of your multiverse.

[Davies]

Malkin is a great character with some nice twists in his story. Well done!

Thank you very much!

[Davies]

And we're back, with one big change going forward -- I am no longer using the Language advantage or Comprehend Languages as powers. Characters unlikely to suffer a Language Barrier complication have the Multilingual advantage.

[Davies]

The House of Time Regained


The first thing that most people experience when they stumble upon it -- or believe that they have done so -- is a moment of confusion, for the building almost never fits the architecture of the surrounding area. And if that area is one that is familiar to them, the confusion is doubled, for the building will not have been in this location until recently, despite not looking at all like a new construction. The more literary minded will immediately reach the conclusion that this is a little shop that was not there yesterday, straight out of weird fiction, and fully expect that if they do not enter, they are unlikely to ever find it again. And they are correct ... but their odds of doing so are not zero.

Within, some expectations go unmet, for it is not a shop in the usual sense of the word. At the door, new arrivals will be greeted by the manager of the building, seemingly a human female who introduces herself using the name Clara Saville. She will speak whatever language the guest uses, though with an unfamiliar accent and sometimes making slight mistakes that betray a lack of idiomatic familiarity. Clara will explain the bare facts of the House to the guests, but will politely ignore any questions about its origins or owners. Questions about herself will be answered with repeated statements that she is the manager of the House of Time Regained, nothing more and nothing less. On at least one occasion, however, Clara was heard to remark that she was the janitor of the House, though not in the modern sense of the word. (The handful who have met both individuals have noted that her facial features are somewhat similar to those of Exelion.)

Within the House are many rooms where guests are welcome to stay as long as they wish, and have food provided for them, without charge. The rooms lack most comforts, but it is possible to sleep on the couches provided, and each room has an en suite bathroom. The primary attraction, however, is a television display. Watching it will present what appears to be a recording of the memories of the watcher, from their point of view, but without any distortions or delusions. The display never reveals anything which the viewer did not know, but can provide clarity about certain things that have been forgotten, for whatever reason.

It should be noted that this is the form that the service provided by the House takes in the modern day, with the memories apparently being streamed directly to the display. A decade or so ago, the memories seemed to be recorded on discs that had to be inserted into a player; in eras before that, they appeared through videocassettes or reels of film. The earliest recorded description of this facility, within a letter written in 1870 but describing a visit to the House that took place in 1843, referred to an extraordinarily realistic-seeming magic lantern show.

The House will only ever display the memories of those within it. Clara has occasionally received requests to display the memories of others, especially those with whom the guests are intimate -- or imagine that they are -- but always politely refuses them as impossible. However, the individuals whose memories are displayed need not be fully or even partially conscious. On one noteworthy occasion, Clara facilitated the display of certain memories within the mind of an individual left comatose by a vicious assault, at the request of Blakestone, in order to identify their attacker.

Needless to say, the guests of the House of Time Regained are not always happy to have their memories exposed in this manner, and sometimes become hostile towards the manager. Clara is quite able to defend herself, but rarely counterattacks unless her attacker indicates a desire to damage the House itself. Even then, she will confine herself to incapacitating them and expelling their unconscious form from the building, which nearly always makes it impossible for them to find it again. More rarely, when dealing with those who express grief for what they have seen, she has sometimes expressed some compassion for their suffering. Generally, though, she will only say what she once said to one of her most famous guests: "These are the shadows of things that have been. That they are what they are, do not blame me." (He would later use this phase in a novel.)

Clara Saville -- PL 11


Abilities:
STR 4 | STA 5 | AGL 4 | DEX 3 | FGT 7 | INT 3 | AWE 7 | PRE 5

Powers:
Otherworldly Being: Immunity 31 (aging, life support, mental effects); Protection 8, Impervious 12 - 51 points
Remembrance of Things Past: Linked Illusion 11 (auditory, visual), Independent, Limited to depicting memories; Linked Burst Area Continuous Mind Reading 11, Limited to memories, Subtle 2 - 68 points

Advantages:
Daze (Deception), Defensive Attack, Equipment 2, Fascinate (Deception), Improved Defense, Improved Initiative, Jack-of-all-trades, Multilingual, Startle.

Equipment:
The House of Time Regained: Size Small, Toughness 10, Features Concealed, Dual Size (Medium), Effect (Remote Sensing 1 [mental, visual]), Effect (Affects Others Immunity 1 [need to eat & drink]), Living Space, Moveable, Security System, Self-repairing - 10 points

Skills:
Close Combat: Unarmed 2 (+9), Deception 6 (+11), Expertise: Magic 6 (+11), Insight 7 (+14), Intimidation 7 (+12), Perception 6 (+13), Stealth 6 (+10).

Offense:
Initiative +8
Unarmed +9 (Close Damage 4)

Defense:
Dodge 9, Parry 9, Fortitude 7, Toughness 13, Will 13

Totals:
Abilities 76 + Powers 119 + Advantages 10 + Skills 20 + Defenses 15 = 240 points

Offensive PL: 11
Defensive PL: 11
Resistance PL: 10
Skill PL: 9

Complications:
Duty--Motivation. Bound to the House (suffers damage when physically removed from it.) Flashes of Pity, Fits of Pique.

[RainOnTheSun]

The House of Time Regained is interesting and sort of melancholy. It reminds me of that far future game you did for a little while.

[Davies]

The book it's named after is pretty melancholy, and the manga that directly inspired it* veers from melancholy to utterly horrifying pretty quickly, so that's good. Thanks.

* Revolving Lantern Corporation, by Keita Sugawara.

EDIT: And now that I think about it, there's a similar structure in The Book of the New Sun, which was one of the major influences on that campaign ...

[Davies]

Dyspemous


Vahalatho, a planet in the Unclaimed Regions, was settled by Chiraben explorers some eight hundred years* ago. Far from the larger communities of their diaspora, the planet was left to its own devices following the collapse of the Chiraben League and the rise of the Imperium. The planet was eventually unified under the rule of the Khlarish family, ostensibly because of their commercial and military advantages. The real story was that they had discovered or acquired what they referred to as "the virus of power" -- a biological weapon that bestowed mind control abilities on most of those whom it infected. The Khlarish duly infected every member of their family with this virus, and nearly every member developed the power. But "nearly every" is not all.

Born roughly sixty-five years ago, Dyspemous Khlarish of Vahalatho was one member of the dynasty who had failed to manifest the symptoms of the virus, leaving him an outcast among his family. Due to his other talents -- a keen interpersonal insight and strategic abilities -- he was nevertheless given a position as the governor of one of the more rebellious territories of their empire. But Dyspemous was under no illusions that he was expected to rule successfully. He was intended to serve as a martyr whose death at the hands of revolutionaries would justify still harsher treatment for the people of this province by one of his older half-siblings or cousins.

His family had underestimated him, however, and he was able to overcome many of the schemes against him through skillful and compassionate leadership, and through the cultivation of allies among the people whom he was supposed to be oppressing. Sadly, Dyspemous and his friends had the misfortune to be living at a time when the virus of power had begun to mutate, no longer spreading only through blood transfusions but also infecting those whom the power was used against. And one such victim developed the most potent form of mind control that their world had ever seen, and used it to wreak havoc against all those whom he blamed for his misfortunes -- and Dyspemous was one of those whom he targeted.

To Dyspemous, it was as though a great darkness had descended on his mind, demanding that he do as he had been commanded and destroy those who trusted him. Somehow, he was able to resist that demand -- perhaps due to his own strong will, perhaps due to his earlier exposure to the unmutated form of the virus -- but to do so required all that he had, and he felt certain that eventually he would succumb. He was a proud man, the Prince of Vahalatho, but in that moment, in the silence of his soul, he cried out for someone, anyone, to help him.

His cry was heard. In a cell elsewhere on the planet, a captured alien sensed his struggle, and further sensed that this young being had much still to accomplish in his life. Without apparent hesitation, the alien commanded their power prism to transport itself to Dyspemous and aid his struggle, and then died immediately without the life support field their prism had provided. Bonded to the power prism, Dyspemous used its energies to overcome the virus of power, and then to defeat the one who had tried to use it against him.

That was the beginning of a decade*-long struggle between Dyspemous and the rest of his family, as well as others who had acquired the virus of power. He would eventually be contacted by others who wielded the power prism and informed of its nature; in time, after he had helped to establish a more egalitarian world order than had heretofore existed, Dyspemous agreed to travel to the planet Aperion and learn still more. After another decade* spent in the service of the Council which governs both planet and power prisms, he was chosen to serve as one of its members, and has done so for roughly twenty years*.

Dyspemous is someone who has always been driven to fulfill the duties asked of him, and to exceed the expectations of those who ask them of him. How much of this is due to his childhood, where he was viewed as completely inadequate by most of family, and how much of it has developed since then, is impossible to say. He is an extremely competitive person, who finds it hard to resist turning most group activities into contentions between the participants, but he always competes fairly and honestly, and genuinely admires those who are able to surpass him and encourages those who cannot to keep trying. (Deliberately throwing such competitions is one sure way to anger him, however.)

His greatest fear concerns the possibility that he did not overcome the virus of power, all those years ago, and that it is still hidden within his psyche, influencing him in subtle ways. He has subjected himself to repeated psychic examinations by other counsellors and allied psychics, and they have never found anything of the sort. And yet that is exactly what they would find if he was employing the powers of the virus to deceive them ...

Dyspemous -- PL 13

Abilities:
STR 12/1 | STA 2 | AGL 3 | DEX 3 | FGT 2 | INT 4 | AWE 6 | PRE 4

Powers:
Power Prism: Removable (-26 points)
* Force Field: Linked Sustained Protection 16, Impervious 12; Linked Sustained Immunity 10 (life support) - 38 points
* Offensive Applications: Array (30 points)

• Basic Blast: Ranged Damage 13, Accurate 3, Split Attack - 30 points
• Exo-Field: Enhanced Advantage 8 (Close Attack 8); Enhanced Strength 11 - 1 point
• Hallucinator: Illusion 10 (all senses), Limited to One Subject, Resistible by Will - 1 point
• Mind Probe: Cumulative Mind Reading 10 - 1 point
• Stun Blast: Ranged Affliction 13 (Resisted by Will; Dazed, Stunned, Incapacitated), Accurate 3, Reversible - 1 point
• Tractor-Presser Beam: Move Object 15 (800 tons) - 1 point

* Phased Flight: Flight 15 (64000 MPH), Aquatic; Insubstantial 3; Movement 3 (environmental adaptation [zero-g], space flight 2) - 51 points
* Sensory Applications: Senses 10 (hyper-extended 3 accurate analytical radio) - 10 points
Terrifying Resolve: Immunity 10 (interaction effects); Immunity 20 (mental effects), Limited to Half Effect - 20 points

Advantages:
Assessment, Attractive, Benefit (Councilor of Aperion), Close Attack 8, Defensive Attack, Extraordinary Effort, Fascinate (Persuasion), Improved Defense, Improved Initiative, Inspire 2, Move-by Action, Power Attack, Ranged Attack 4, Skill Mastery (Persuasion).

Skills:
Close Combat: Unarmed 4 (+6), Expertise: Galactic 8 (+12), Expertise: Politics 7 (+11), Insight 5 (+11), Intimidation 6 (+10), Investigation 4 (+8), Perception 3 (+9), Persuasion 9 (+13), Ranged Combat: Blaster 2 (+5), Vehicles 4 (+7).

Offense:
Initiative +7
Unarmed +14/6 (Close Damage 12/1)
Basic Blast +13 (Ranged Damage 13)
Stun Blast +13 (Ranged Will 13)

Defense:
Dodge 8, Parry 6, Fortitude 5, Toughness 18/2, Will 13

Totals:
Abilities 50 + Powers 128 + Advantages 17 + Skills 26 + Defenses 19 = 240 points

Offensive PL: 13
Defensive PL: 13
Resistance PL: 9
Skill PL: 8

Complications:
Responsibility--Motivation. Bureaucratic and Ceremonial Duties. Competitive. Temptation of Power.

"Although [he] did not realize it, he was already infected with the virus of power -- to which, by a psychological quirk in his brain, he did not have enough resistance!" Green Lantern [1960] #7, written by John Broome.