Halt Evil Doer! thread 2.0 (Steel Commando Rogues!)

[MightyDavidson]

Or lieutentants who know the plan but don't agree with it, could try and take control of the House of Serpents away from him. Lots of story ideas there and of course, that's a good thing!

[Crinos]

Heh, that's funny, that's sort of the final motivation I had envisioned for Fiacho of Eurostar; creating a threat so great that The European nations would have no choice but to band together to deal with him. And if countless people are butchered and a few economies are ruined along the way, oh well.

Granted, Fiacho is a bit of a misanthrope, but I digress.

[Crinos]

Alright Charles: question time.

We already know the significant heroes of Canada thanks to your great entries on the board and HED!, but what unique villains menace the great white North of heroic earth (And I don't just mean organizations like PHANTOM and the House of Serpents, I mean unique, not seen anywhere else villains who operate primarily in the land of back bacon and Hockey).

[Charles Phipps]

Or lieutentants who know the plan but don't agree with it, could try and take control of the House of Serpents away from him. Lots of story ideas there and of course, that's a good thing!

Yeah, to say the least.

To stick with the Magneto comparison, there's a reason that General Venom is in the archvillain section of the book as opposed to being listed in the Neutral section. Even if he were an omniscient Leto II precognitive rather than just one of the smartest fallible mortals on the planet, his master plan is something that requires a profound amount of arrogance for someone to go about undertaking. There have been many failures in the past and places where his plans have gone entirely off the rails.

General Venom considers this to be a war he's fighting and he's not afraid of people being killed who are simply unlucky enough to be on the wrong side. While he attempts to minimize civilian casualties and avoid killing the common United States fighting man, General Venom still runs an organization willing to blow up the Eiffel Tower if he thought it would lead France to partaking in a security treaty that would save lives in the long run. He considers the guilt he feels for innocents killed in his activities to be sufficient punishment for doing what has to be done.

The company the general keeps doesn't really help matters either. Marcus Spectre's record speaks for itself. Simultaneously, Supreme is about as moral as Deathstroke the Terminator. He's only interested in revenge against the United States of America and personal power. It tells you just about how much the General trusts his subordinates that the two most powerful members of his council have no real idea of his true goal (nor would care about it if they did). This isn't even bringing in his General Venom robots who he continues to use despite some being just plain psychotic.

General Venom has some good qualities, willing to participate in fights against fellow evil organizations and major archvillains. He's also withdrawn from situations where the potential escalation could claim more lives than it saves. A number of his plans have even involved bringing in the authorities to 'drive them off' after they've achieved their objective. However, as a human being, he's also prone to letting his emotions get the better of him. He doesn't handle the guilt and his role as "doing what's necessary" nearly as well as he thinks.

One particularly noteworthy case was where Senator Robertson, an otherwise unassuming Republican politician, ended up avoiding an assassination attempt by Cassius Mass only to be kidnapped by General Venom who proceeded to rail at him like he was the American Hitler. All because of his role in the Superhuman Safety Act. When you're as intelligent as he is, sometimes you forget to bother with details of "what someone HAS done" versus what "someone WILL do."

In the meantime, the General's motivations are meant to be nebulous enough that they can justify pretty much any type of plot the Game Master desires. House of Serpent soldiers on the ground can rob laboratories, take hostages, and engage in criminal activities like arms smuggling. Mid-Level Operatives can run crooked campaigns to win the Mayoreal election of Falconcrest City or test mind-control devices on small towns to make everyone "nice." High Level operations might include releasing a nano-plague that can make people super intelligent as well as strong but could have severe consequences for a minority or holding the world hostage with a device that freezes pockets of time around cities. He could even do the whole nuclear extortion thing, preparing for failure like Destro did in the GI Joe movie, or simply being the work of a General Venom robot.

I hope that helps.

[Charles Phipps]

Canada doesn't have much in the way of superhuman street crime for the most part. In general, most average street villains learn that the north is not nearly the pushover that it seems. With Hero Force One, the Foundation for World Harmony, and its relative low population; Canada is actually one of the most well defended nations in the world against superhumans on a per-capita basis. Amplitude learned this when he robbed a bank only to be promptly beaten with an inch of its life by its premiere superhero team with plenty of backup from the police and Foundation agents. However, Canada does have a number of villains that are purely focused on its borders or at least primarily.

I welcome any of our Canadian posters to comment on these.

1. Tundra the Living Elemental: Basically, a Native American totem spirit that went insane with the slaughter of its worshipers. Tundra believes the greater Canadian area is his personal domain and that all humans should be driven from it. It can assume a Godzilla-sized form composed of trees, rocks, and other natural material but mostly exists in a much smaller form. Contrary to what you'd expect, Tundra is quite articulate and has been known to work with individual humans in the past. As a lesser Cosmic Eternal, Tundra can also bestow magical gifts upon those he deems to be worthy. Considering all humans but his deceased tribe to be equally flawed, some of the individuals he's gifted with incredible magical power were complete scum. This, of course, is the point. Tundra hoped they'd use their abilities to help force the people of Canada away from his territories.

2. Randolf Curwen: The owner of Hyperion Power, is a lower key multi-billionaire than either Kenneth Kane or Cassius Mass. However, he's still an individual with a black heart of oily evil. A human being that made a compact with an imprisoned Entropic Master long ago, he is very likely immortal and sustains himself by offering human sacrifices up to his various diabolical or entropic "investors." As a result, he's an exceptionally talented ritualist and has minor occult powers in addition to the fact that he can recover from literally any wound (including decapitation).

Compared to Death Mask III, his aims are relatively modest. He simply wants to be the richest man in the world and live forever. However, he goes about this by ruthless business practices that involve everything from human experimentation to releasing super criminals to handle his dirty work. His most vile action was probably offering up a small Canadian town to a horde of cannibal zombies he unleashed with a vampire-blood derived virus.

All you need to know about Randolf can be learned by saying this; He's worked with Count Reich II in the past and his only real problem he had was with the man's lack of professionalism.

3. Eric the Dead: Also known as "Death Ax" and "The Corpse Viking." Eric Odinson was literally one of the most evil Norsemen that ever lived. Given the kind of mass rape and pillage that they engaged in during the height of their brutality, that is saying something. Part of this had to do with the fact that Eric's parentage was partially divide. He was the child of Wotan the Celestial Eternal and a young peasant woman that he laid with during one of his journeys. Favored by his father with golden apples and a magical ax, Eric continued destroying long after the heyday of his fellow raiders passed. The exact circumstances of his banishment are unclear but one day, he did something so horrible that Odin rejected him from Valhalla and Hel rejected him from the land of the dead. He was left to rot from his many wounds that should have killed him.

Journeying across the ocean in hopes of finding some way to lift his curse, he eventually killed his own crew and butchered them for food in a new continent that he claimed as his own kingdom. Frozen by a snowstorm sent by Frost Giants, he was imprisoned for centuries before a group of archaeologists dug him up. Since that time, Eric the Dead has attempted to take over Canada and turn it into his personal fiefdom. It's a testament to how talented that Ymir the Atomic Viking and Hero Force is that Canadian casualties have been kept so low given Eric's absolute disregard for life.

4. The Fright Knights: Possessed of the dubious moniker of being Canada's only full-time super villain team, the Fright Knights are a group of costumes criminals who commit crimes for the pure thrill of it. They would be a joke were not for their total disregard of innocent life and incredible superhuman powers. Built around Brain Drain, a Metaman New Age spiritualist who can drain the intelligence of individuals around him to create illusions real enough to kill, the other Fright Knights all gained their powers from selling heir souls to Tundra.

Or, they would have if Tundra had any interest in their petty and vile souls. They are composed of Torch the sultry sex-addicted pyromaniac, Tidal the idiot hydromancer, Granite the nerd turned violent 8ft tall stone bully, and Tornado the drooling insane blond bombshell. They occasionally add new members but usually these get abandoned or killed when they don't measure up to one of the tightly knit family's standards. What's Brain Drain's goal? To stave off boredom and never have to work again. When they're not robbing banks to pay for drugs and sex (often with partners they kidnap just for catching their fancy), they're usually performing crime just for the Hell of it. They might attack an art gallery just to destroy the paintings or a military base just so they can hold the country hostage with nukes (never-mind this is Canada and they don't have any WMDs. The FK would have to think a plan through for that).

Usually, the Fright Knights get out of prison primarily due to the efforts of Tundra or Randolf Curwen. It would be a benefit, perhaps, if someone less committed to taking their opponents alive would eventually face them.

5. Chessmaster: Arthur Pennyworth of Toronto, Canada (please no Batman jokes) is a former Chess World Champion. Unfortunately, he was drilled out of the competitive circuit due to accusations of cheating due to the discovery that he was a Metaman. A technopath, Arthur possesses the ability to re-arrange technology into any device he desires so long as he can imagine it. An incredibly smart individual, he tends to use this to outfit bases for his new profession within hours. What does Arthur Pennyworth do now? He's a professional killer. Specifically, one who relies on elaborate fun-houses to stalk his prey. Lacking the mental stimulation of chess against the greatest opponents in the world, none of the artificial intelligences he's designed give him the thrill he desires, he prefers to play against "live" opponents.

Usually, Arthur's fun-houses have a chess motif with the goal of any victim to be eliminating the "King" in order to win the game. Each of his fun-houses is scaled to the abilities of his opponents, otherwise it wouldn't be sporting. Quite deranged, they've long since expanded to include references from Alice to Wonderland to 1960s LSD culture. His robots are first rate and include some truly impressive androids that have fooled even seasoned super heroes. Oddly, Arthur rarely takes contracts to genuinely KILL superheroes. More often, he takes them from groups like PHANTOM or the House of Serpents to occupy them so they can do an operation somewhere else. This is because they're his favorite opponents.

Of course, if they DIED, that wouldn't be a problem. That's the nature of the game. It's just his contract is fulfilled if they're elsewhere.

There's plenty more primarily Canadian super villains, but these are a good sample of some of the worst.

[Charles Phipps]

A short note, btw, about Special Agents or the Specials.

The Foundation for World Harmony gets some flack for the fact that people tend to assume that only the Patriots are capable of handling the kind of world-beating super villains that the planet is full of. As impressive as the average PL 6 Foundation for World Harmony agent is, most of them are considered to be cannon fodder when faced up against the kind of power that someone like the Red King or the Iron Khan can bring to bear.

The Special Agents are the Foundation's solution to this particular problem. They're an attempt to put the Super in Super Agent. The Foundation believes that once they're capable of fielding agents who can handle the kind of tremendous mental, physical, and ethical stress that superheroes have to handle then the world will no longer really require the charity of supremely talented but uncontrolled do-gooders.

In order to qualify for membership in the Special Agents, you have to be at least PL 10. In cases of individuals who don't possess superpowers, they're often staggeringly talented individuals who have been put through the most punishing and diverse training that the Foundation for World Harmony can offer. The personnel in the Foundation for World Harmony tend to believe that Special Agents are One Man (or Woman) Armies.

This isn't honestly far from the truth as they seem to possess physical and mental reserves that regular opponents simply can't match. While largely unknown outside of spy circles, Special Agents are actually quite famous within them. You pretty much send them in, knowing that the enemy is likely to panic or be drawn out by their presence. Special Agents rarely work undercover. Instead, they exist to kick over the ant hill and see what pops out. Shockingly, this tends to work well.

Special Agents are frightening in their ability work more or less completely outside of the law. They are given more or less total freedom to kill or destroy property in the pursuit of their mission goals. Dame Michelle Holmes handpicks every one of the Special Agents and entrusts them with the knowlege they will be protected from all bureaucratic oversight if they get the job done. The price for this is that Specials have no protection either. They are terminated if they ever cross the line irrevocably, usually with no forewarning. Ironically, failure to "justify" their missions is a greater sin than anything else. Dame Michelle Holmes can fix wrecking half of downtown Paris if you stopped the city being destroyed.

Specials tend to have resources that surprise their oponents. In addition to the equipment they are outfitted with by the Foundation for World Harmony, they are encouraged to create their own network of contacts and supply lines. It's not uncommon for Spectres to recruit Metamen, mercenaries, spies, scientists, and so on who work directly for them. Special authority usually means that if you want to walk into Super Alcatraz, take a prisoner out, and release him then you really just have to make sure that your I.D. card is up to date. Many people would be, justifiably, frightened by this sort of power.

Among the benefits of Special authority is access to special equipment and training unavailable to the average agent. While it may be difficult to justify PL expenditure for raising certain characters' traits, they can undergo a battery of drug testing and enhancements with very little difficulty. They also are the first to recieve things like Intergalactic Space Armor or Thran Superlaser Assault Cannon if they need it to take down an opponent. Just try and return it intact at the end of the mission, 009. Perhaps most disturbingly, they also undergo mnenonic training that allows them to cope with the staggering body count they often leave behind.

Specials answer only to Dame Michelle Holmes and it is unknown how many exactly exist. They have no jurisdictional limitations, however, and can operate anywhere from China to Outer Space. Such is the level of success that even normally hostile governments like Russia will accept a Special into their FFWH branch without much difficulty. Other government agencies tend to be more hostile and suspicious but who can blame them? There's still that incident in Saint Petersberg with the tank that the lawyers are trying to work out a settlement for.

The two most "public" Specials are Steel Commando III and the latest Jacob Hunter. Steel Commando III is a bit overclocked, having to work with the Patriots and the United States of America's DOD in addition to the Foundation for World Harmony. However, he still does at least three "Special-class" operations a year. The latest Jacob Hunter may be the most efficient and deadly yet, having assembled his own team of hyper-competant individuals and being as comfortable hunting down a Thran Praetor on their homeworld as he is dealing with Al-Qaeda nationals.

Rumors of him getting a Genki Wrench-Wench sidekick are probably just that; rumors.

[dirkgentry2000]

Started a Wargames-verse threadthat will have quite a bit of cross-over with HED.

[Charles Phipps]

A clarification about the Canadian supervillain entries.

1. The Fright Knights are actually not stupid enough to believe that Canada has nuclear weapons. That was more a joke about their drugged up/perpetually stoned nature. They stay in Canada primarily because they're correctly afraid that their notoriety will fade in supervillain ridden America. Brain Drain also personally intends to murder Avro Arrow for the many defeats she's dealt him.

The team has gone to Los Dios on occasion to attempt to get revenge on Canadian-born Ymir. Really, to GET the Fright Knights, understand they're not nearly as hardcore as they believe themselves to be. They're poseurs with the power of gods. Even the Dark Undermaster turns his nose up at them. Rant and Rave would fit right in if they took a few classes in sociopathy.

2. Randolf Curwen is a bit of a misnomer to modern day Canada, existing in the country partially because he's lived there for nearly 200 years and sees no reason to really immigrate. Canada also has an extensive collection of ley lines, Entropic Masters, and imprisoned demons spread throughout it that he spends much of his "oil prospecting" in the country looking for. This, more than anything, is why he's in Canada specifically.Most of his businesses, however, are in the United States with the oil coming along from Alaska.

He mostly exists to justify why there's any homegrown super villains.

The "White Hills" incident with the zombies was more about offering the community up to his demonic masters than anything genuinely scientific or economically sound.

3. Chessmaster is not specifically Canadian in his operations. He merely is a Canadian born supervillain who frequently comes into conflict with Hero Force One and works for Randolf Curwen. He is known to travel for his operations.

4. The Native Americans killed to justify Tundra's existence actually died in the French and Indian War. They were participants within the conflict on a purely voluntary basis. It makes Tundra's disproportionate retribution all the more bizarre (and Native Americans aren't immune to it either). Then again, applying rationale motives to a living snowball is probably an exercise in futility.

[Libra]

Charles, as ever your work remains excellent - I'll try and type up more detailed thoughts when I can.

Oh, by the by, where's that nice Mom-and-Pop team of supervillains, The Armoured Megalomaniacs, in that list of Canadian Supervillains? Be careful - if you leave them out you'll lose the supply of Vitamen pies that keep you posting at such a prolific a rate!

[Charles Phipps]

The Armored Megalomaniacs weren't really my creation but I had some ideas I was privately developing on them. Suffice to say there's just something amusing about a nuclear armor-powered loving family with a horde of robots underneath them.

[MightyDavidson]

The Armored Megalomaniacs weren't really my creation but I had some ideas I was privately developing on them. Suffice to say there's just something amusing about a nuclear armor-powered loving family with a horde of robots underneath them.

I quite agree Charles. Especially if they aren't accepted into the Brotherhood of Villains because the Brotherhood fears that letting them in will prevent them from getting anymore of the delicious baked goods Mrs Armoured Megalomaniac was trying to bribe them with.

[ultra8]

Nice...FWH's answer to we love the 80's and Arcade's chess-themed Canadian counterpart.
Nice innerworkings for Gen.Venom like a mix of Lelough(I will become the monster that unites the world), Apocalypse(Even when I lose I win in the end), with some Magneto for respect and Cobra Com. for style- very complex.

Back when you wrote about the Prismatic Warriors you mentioned that the original team was a gathering of masked adventures and supers rather than the armored-set that it is now. Was their specific info on the 1st members or did you leave that intentionally vague so we could have fun making our own founding members?

Also Blackwing I :
1) What did his magic amulet do exactly?
2) And did he have a Jason Todd of his own?

Feel free to be as vague as you like.

Edit:
Also your article on how the Laws/People relate to Metamen is probably the closest I've gotten to a believable explanation on how in a world that has such teams as the Avengers & FF only the X-men have to deal with crap like mutant haters and Sentinels.

[Charles Phipps]

Nice innerworkings for Gen.Venom like a mix of Lelough(I will become the monster that unites the world), Apocalypse(Even when I lose I win in the end), with some Magneto for respect and Cobra Com. for style- very complex.

Nice list of mixes.

Something that I talked a lot about with John Polojac, one of my designers, is the difficulty of doing complex plans within the context of an RPG. With the Labyrinth, the player characters really will probably never know they're actually facing Taurus if they play him realistically but where's the fun in that?

But I'm a huge fan of Gargoyles, which allows for grandiose manipulations on a personal level. TV tropes had a good way of describing the various types of plots our heroes and villains engage in.

Black Wing I and Black Wing II engages in Batman Gambits, appropriately enough. They come up with elaborate plots that usually give criminals just enough rope to hang themselves the swoop in to pick up the pieces.

Dame Michelle Holmes and Death Mask III are Manipulative B------- who are capable of forming complex and terrible plots of point, counterpoint, and counter point-point. Usually, you don't see the final stroke until it's coming down right on your head.

General Venom and Cassius Mass are both capable of being Magnificent B------- in that their plans have audacity to them that separates them from your average manipulative type. Death Mask III can take over a small European nation. General Venom may have Michael Spectre replaced with a hot, young, and daring Director who is totally against the House of Serpents. One that Dame Michelle Holmes will place as her successor.

That would be manipulative. It would be Magnicent, if it's actually General Venom.

Writing a good Xanatos Gambit is difficult but very rewarding. You're blessed when you're possessed of players who want to carry them out.

Back when you wrote about the Prismatic Warriors you mentioned that the original team was a gathering of masked adventures and supers rather than the armored-set that it is now. Was their specific info on the 1st members or did you leave that intentionally vague so we could have fun making our own founding members?

Intentionally vague. At heart, the team was meant to be a homage to Gatchaman and highlight that the technology wasn't quite up to snuff like it was in the modern era. There were battlesuits in World War 2 but they were pretty much like Iron Man's original Korean-era costume. Totally unsuitable for fighting the monsters the Prismatic Warriors tended to face.

I did know they were founded by the MYSTERIOUS DOCTOR ISHIKAWA! Pretty much an homage to all those Doctors who would sound off about Godzilla like he'd been studying him for years despite him only recently appearing.

Also Blackwing I :
1) What did his magic amulet do exactly?
2) And did he have a Jason Todd of his own?

Feel free to be as vague as you like.

1] The Raven's Gem, also known as the Raven's Eye blessed Black Wing I with a cape that vaguely resembled wings. The cape was bullet proof (allowing George to simply move it in front of machine guns to absorb the fire aimed at him), bestowed upon him to glide along the sky even with no wind, and could slow his fall or allow him to "push" himself up in the air so that it was possible for him to make all of the stereotypical Batman dramatic entrances and exits. In addition to these useful but not overwhelming abilities, the Raven's Gem allowed Black Wing I to detect supernatural threats as well as "evil." So Black Wing I was always able to sense genuinely villainous people simply by being in their presence.

"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?"
"BLACK WING."

The Raven's Gem, as typical with mystical artifacts of the Halt Evil Doer! universe, fluctuated in power over the years. Black Wing I was, later in his career, able to generate Ravenwings and balls of blackish shadow force. He also gained the ability to see in complete darkness and with stunning visual acuity, easily equal to a bird in flight.

The Raven's Gem had other rumored powers like the ability to control flocks of birds, turn people into ravens, and bestow the ability to talk to them but George never unlocked these abilities.

2] George doesn't like to talk about it, but there actually was a sidekick after he 'fired' Alexander Timons known as Twilight (no vampire jokes please). Robert Timons was George Timons' nephew. The son of his estranged brother. Robert's father was murdered by Montressor, the deformed gangster, on while the young boy looked on. George adopted Robert and began training him as a successor who could bring order to Falconcrest City without the kind of violence that was becoming commonplace during the Iron Age.

Robert Timons was from the very beginning a great deal more antagonistic than Alexander ever was. He was brash, overconfident, and had no real desire to hold back when dealing with his enemies. Twilight was actively hostile to Alexander and did his best to make the split between adoptive father and son permanent (a cynical person might believe it was to protect his inheritance). Maggie Lee, daughter of the Mayor and part-time superheroine Crimson Wing, was driven away as part of Robert's attempts to dismantle the Wing family.

Twilight, despite all of his faults, wasn't a bad person. He merely was eager to be the foremost heir to George Timons. In the end, Robert died during a botched attempt by several amateur superheroes to kill a group of International Crime League engaged in a drug smugglers. He managed to get them to safety but was tortured for several days. George Timons came close to murdering Gang Lord Gorilla in retaliation and took three months hiatus as a result. The fact all of the amateurs were lionized in the papers for taking a tough stance against crime was especially hard for him to take. A few later became members of the Elite.

Twilight briefly returned as Blood Wing II, a twisted mockery of his previous self resurrected by Death Mask III as a nanotechnological zombie. Alexander Timons never told this to his father, for obvious reasons. There's rumors a new Twilight is wandering the streets of Falconcrest City now.

Also your article on how the Laws/People relate to Metamen is probably the closest I've gotten to a believable explanation on how in a world that has such teams as the Avengers & FF only the X-men have to deal with crap like mutant haters and Sentinels.

Gracias.

In general, in Heroic Earth, people aren't afraid of Spiderman because everyone generally knows what Spiderman's abilities are. Even if he's constantly libeled by the Daily Bugle, no one expects Spiderman to be suddenly manifest the power to knock Earth out of its orbit. Talk show hosts and people like Paragon argue that's a constant threat from Metamen.

(In fact, Meta-powers don't work that way)

[ultra8]

Thanks for the info, my plans have greatly improved with this.

[Charles Phipps]

Thanks for the info, my plans have greatly improved with this.

Feel free to share.