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  SEPT 2002 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  In this issue: 
  • Bad Guys 
  • Masterminds 
  • Forgotten Points 
  • Total Points 
  • No Points 
  • Nazis 
  • Totems 
  • Vigilantes 
  
   
  the secret special page 
   
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  1
  Table of Contents 
   
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  WHEN LAST WE LEFT OUR HEROES… 
   
   
  Keep up with the news from Hero 
  Games. This issue – HeroSphere, Champions 
  Universe, and Conquerors, Killers, And 
  Crooks. 
  2 
  HEROGLYPHS 
   
   
  See how Steve Long himself answers 
  rules questions. This issue – casual 
  characteristics other than STR. 
  3 
  CHAMPIONS LEFTOVERS 
   
   
  See the sample powers that fell onto the 
  Champions cutting floor! 
  5 
  HERO UNIVERSE 
   
   
  Check out The Characters That Hero 
  Forgot. This issue – Der Sturmvogel. 
  6 
  YOU GOTTA HAVE CHARACTER 
   
   
  Josephine Baker was an entertainer of 
  many talents. 
  9 
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  CLASSIC BITS 
   
   
  Some plot elements show up in just 
  about every comic book. You can integrate 
  these ideas into your Champions game. 
  16 
  THE GM’S TOOLBOX 
   
   
  Don’t forget these supplies that are 
  always handy to have at a game. 
  19 
  POINTLESS CHAMPIONS 
   
   
  No, not pointless that way! We’re talking 
  about playing Champions without worrying 
  about point totals. 
  21 
   
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  THE WAYS OF THE WICKED 
   
   
  Play your villains effectively, by making 
  them truly evil. 
  26 
  MEGAVILLAINS 
   
   
  Some bad guys deserve more game time 
  than a simple fight. Play those ultra-powerful 
  menaces as they truly deserve. 
  33 
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  THE EFFECTIVENESS RATING 
   
   
  Just because a character falls under the 
  Active Point cap doesn’t mean he’s balanced. 
  This worksheet helps prevent abuse. 
  47 
  MERIQUAI FALLS: NATIVE SONS 
   
   
  The Native American people of Meriquai 
  Falls believe in totem spirits, and have a 
  strong and detailed mythical history. 
  54 
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  COBALT 
   
   
  This vigilante master of mass has a 
  grudge against his creators. 
  60 
   
   
   
  DIGITAL HERO 
   
   
  Publisher 
  Hero Games 
  Editor 
  Dave Mattingly 
  Authors 
  Theron Bretz 
  Steven S. Long 
  Robert Pennington 
  Dale Robbins 
  Jacob Russell 
  Dean Shomshak 
  Steven Trustrum 
  Wayne Walls 
  Jason Walters 
  Ross Watson 
  Darren Watts 
  Artists 
  John Grigni 
  Jeff Hebert 
  Scott Heine 
  Derrick Thomas 
  Jason Walters 
  Cover Artist 
  Bill Jackson 
  Online 
  herogames.com 
  To Subscribe 
  herogames.com/ 
  digitalhero 
   
   
   
   
  HERO SystemTM ® is DOJ, Inc.'s trademark for its roleplaying system. 
  HERO System Copyright © 1984, 1989, 2002 by DOJ, Inc. d/b/a Hero Games. All  rights reserved. 
  Champions Copyright © 1984, 1989, 2002 by DOJ, Inc. d/b/a Hero Games. All rights reserved. 
  Justice Inc., Danger International, Dark Champions, Fantasy Hero, and Star Hero Copyright © 2002 by DOJ, 
  Inc. d/b/a Hero Games. All rights reserved. 
  No part of this electronic magazine may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic 
  or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or computerization, or by any information storage and retrieval 
  system, without permission in writing from the Publisher:  DOJ, Inc., 1 Haight Street, Suite A, San Francisco, 
  California 94102. 
  Issue #3 (September 2002) 
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  2 
  When We Last Left Our Heroes…  
  by Steven S. Long 
   
   
  It’s been a rollicking couple of months here 
  at Hero Games since my last column! 
   
  First, the HERO System Bestiary debuted at 
  Origins to strong sales and excellent reviews. It’s 
  continued to sell well since then; in fact, as of 
  when I write this, we’re just about out of the first 
  printing. 
   
  Second, as promised, we had Champions at 
  GenCon, and it sold even better! We got 100 
  copies in on Friday, and they all sold in just two 
  hours. We got 200 more on Saturday, and sold 
  over 100 of them before the show closed. Lots of 
  fans got their copies signed by the author, Aaron 
  Allston, who was at the convention. 
   
  GenCon also saw the premiere of 
  Herosphere, the HERO System combat 
  management and simulator program from 
  DexCard, Inc. Dave Feldman of DexCard spent 
  the whole show demonstrating the program’s 
  features to hundreds of gamers, many of whom 
  bought copies. Even those who didn’t buy got to 
  have fun knocking sample characters around the 
  battlefield and shooting enemies with Energy 
  Blasts. Check out www.herosphere.com for more 
  information; a demo should be available soon (if 
  not already). 
   
  So, what’s up next? 
   
  A Place To Play 
   
  At GenCon, I described our books to 
  interested customers this way:  “The HERO 
  System 5th Edition is a toolkit. It lets you build 
  anything you can think of. Champions is a 
  “genre book” — a sort of instruction manual that 
  helps you build superheroes and superhero 
  campaigns using the toolkit.” 
   
  Lots of Hero gamers like to create their own 
  campaigns and settings, but for those who don’t 
  have the time and interest, or who simply like to 
  see how other people do this sort of thing, we’ve 
  taken our toolkit and our instruction manual and 
  used them to build something really cool:  
  Champions Universe, our first setting book for 
  Champions. Scheduled to ship from the printer in 
  mid-September, CU provides a complete 
  campaign setting for your Champions game. It 
  includes a detailed history of superhumanity 
  (including a timeline), information about how 
  the existence of superpowers has affected society 
  and its subcultures, an exploration of the 
  influence of superhumans on technology, 
  government, and the like, and a discussion of 
  who’s who and what’s what in the world of the 
  Champions. It includes plenty of sample 
  characters and villains. Information only the GM 
  should know is kept in a separate section called 
  the GM’s Vault, so you don’t have to worry 
  about letting players read the rest of the book. 
   
  Some Bad Guys To Play With 
   
  But what’s a setting without a heaping 
  helping of bad guys to pit against your heroes? 
  In October, our first enemies book for 
  Champions — Conquerors, Killers, And Crooks 
  — ships from the printer. It contains nearly 100 
  villains, including six “master villains” (Dr. 
  Destroyer, Gravitar, Istvatha V’han, Takofanes 
  the Undying Lord, and the Warlord), five villain 
  teams (the Crowns of Krim, Eurostar, GRAB, 
  PSI, and the Ultimates), and almost four dozen 
  solo villains. The book features a lot of old 
  favorites, like Ankylosaur and Foxbat, reworked 
  for the new Champions Universe, and a bunch of 
  new characters we think will soon become 
  gamers’ favorites, too. About half the characters 
  are at the Standard Superheroic starting point 
  total of 350; the others vary. 
   
   
  So, hopefully over the next two months, 
  we’ll be able to satisfy your hankering for all 
  things Champions! 
   
  Additionally, by the time you read this, the 
  HERO System Resource Kit should have shipped 
  from the printer. It’s taken a bit longer than we 
  expected, what with all the components and 
  such, but it appears we’ve finally gotten 
  everything taken care of. Look for it soon in your 
  favorite gaming store! 
   
   
  —Steven S. Long 
  HERO System Line Developer 
   
   
   
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  3
  HEROglyphs by Steven S. Long 
   
  The Casual Approach 
  “CASUAL” CHARACTERISTICS OTHER 
  THAN STR 
   
   
   
  Most HERO System gamers, particularly 
  those who like to play “bricks” in Champions 
  and other high-STR characters, are familiar with 
  the concept of Casual STR. A character’s Casual 
  STR is equal to half his normal STR, and he can 
  exert it as a Zero-Phase Action. That can come in 
  mighty handy when the character wants to break 
  out of Entangles, smash through flimsy doors 
  without slowing down, and so forth. 
   
  The Casual STR concept works in part 
  because STR is one of the few Characteristics 
  likely to be bought to extremely high levels. STR 
  60 isn’t uncommon in many games, but DEX, 
  INT, or PRE of 60 would be cause for raised 
  eyebrows (and perhaps GM rejection of a 
  character). But there still may be some benefit to 
  applying the “Casual” concept to other 
  Characteristics – some interesting optional rules 
  might result. Let’s explore some of the 
  possibilities. 
   
  GENERAL CONCEPTS 
   
   
   
  Several of the suggestions below mention 
  Casual Characteristic-based Skill Rolls or 
  Characteristic Rolls. However, since the 
  difference between the Casual Characteristic-
  based DEX Roll, and the ordinary Characteristic 
  Roll is likely to be minor (perhaps only a point 
  or three), the GM should save this method for 
  occasions when he deems it appropriate and 
  dramatic. 
   
  Characters should not be allowed to apply 
  any Combat Skill Levels or Skill Levels to rolls 
  made with a Casual Characteristic. 
   
  CASUAL DEXTERITY 
   
   
   
  You might occasionally use a character’s 
  Casual DEX to make an Agility Skill Roll that 
  would ordinarily take a Half Phase or Full Phase 
  as a Zero-Phase Action. 
   
  Example:  Eagle-Eye (DEX 24, 
  Acrobatics 14-) is trying to save a 
  falling child while fending off the 
  attacks of the villains who tossed her 
  out the seventieth-story window. He 
  wants to make an Acrobatics roll to 
  “bounce off” a cornice so he can 
  change the direction of his (and the 
  child’s) fall, while still leaving himself a 
  Full Phase in which to use Swinging 
  and then counter-attack one of the 
  villains. He asks the GM if he can make 
  a Casual DEX-based Acrobatics roll as 
  a Zero-Phase Action. At DEX 12, his 
  Acrobatics roll becomes 11-. The GM 
  decides this is a fairly significant 
  difference, so he’ll allow it – but if 
  Eagle-Eye fails, he must automatically 
  make a normal Acrobatics roll as a Full 
  Phase Action to keep from hurting the 
  child. 
   
  CASUAL CONSTITUTION 
   
   
   
  CON Rolls don’t crop up too frequently 
  during most games, so there’s not much call for 
  Casual CON. The GM might allow such a roll 
  for a character to quickly shrug off the effects of 
  poisons, diseases, and the like. 
   
  CASUAL BODY 
   
   
   
  BODY Rolls occur even less often than 
  CON Rolls. Generally speaking, there’s probably 
  no use for Casual BODY. 
   
  CASUAL INTELLIGENCE 
   
   
   
  In appropriate situations, you could use a 
  character’s Casual INT to determine his PER 
  Rolls for his “everyday perceptiveness.” Few 
  people walk around intently perceiving 
  everything around them. Most events and stimuli 
  register faintly, if at all — which is why it’s so 
  easy for a person to overlook something that 
  turns out to be important. A Casual INT-based 
  PER Roll could represent this. Of course, if 
  anything crucial to the plot comes along, the GM 
  may want to switch to ordinary PER Rolls, to 
  keep the adventure flowing smoothly. 
   
  CASUAL EGO 
   
   
   
  This Casual Characteristic is already 
  mentioned in the rules, on 5E 110, for use in 
  breaking out of “Mental Paralysis” Entangles. 
  Besides that (relatively rare) use, GMs might 
  also allow characters targeted by continuing-
  effect Mental Powers to make Casual EGO-
  based Breakout Rolls as Zero-Phase Actions. 
  However, since the difference between full EGO 
  and Casual EGO is not likely to be that great for 
  most characters, this may have the effect of 
  weakening Mental Powers (and mentalist 
  characters) unfairly, so you should use this 
  method cautiously.1 
   
  CASUAL PRESENCE 
   
   
   
  Since making a Presence Attack is an action 
  that takes no time, Casual PRE may not be as 
  useful as other Casual Characteristics — why 
                                                             
  artwork by Scott Heine 
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  4 
  bother with a Zero-Phase Action for half effect, 
  when it takes no time to get the full effect? 
  However, you could use a character’s Casual 
  PRE as an indicator of the level of “ambient 
  Presence Attack” he tends to exert just by being 
  near other people. If a character has a sufficiently 
  high PRE, his simply stepping into a room may 
  be enough to make people stop talking! 
   
  Example:  The Harbinger of Justice 
  has a 50 PRE to indicate his strength of 
  personality, impressive demeanor, and 
  the ease with which he terrifies 
  criminals. His Casual PRE is 25, so 
  even when he’s just around other 
  people – not attempting to make a 
  Presence Attack or use Interaction 
  Skills on them – the GM could roll a 
  5d6 Presence Attack to gauge their 
  reactions to him. 
   
  CASUAL COMELINESS 
   
   
   
  If you’re using COM Rolls as 
  Complementary Skill Rolls for Seduction or 
  other Interaction Skills, a Casual COM-based 
  roll might indicate the “ambient” effects of a 
  character’s appearance, similar to the “ambient 
  Presence Attack” of Casual PRE. Without his 
  even turning on the charm, a character’s good 
  looks could help him win friends and influence 
  people. 
   
   
   
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  5
  Champions Leftovers by Steven S. Long 
   
  A Few Outtakes From Hero’s 
  Latest Book 
   
  In Chapter One of Champions, there’s a 
  discussion of the various “periods” of comic 
  books — Golden Age, Silver Age, and so on. 
  Accompanying each period are one (or more) 
  sidebars with sample powers appropriate to that 
  subgenre. Unfortunately, as Andy was laying out 
  the book and we were doing final editing, we 
  found we had to trim a few sample powers to 
  make the sidebars “fit.” But we hate to think of 
  Herodom Assembled missing out on any sample 
  powers! So, here’s what was cut: 
   
  FROM PULP HERO POWERS (PAGES 10-
  11) 
   
   
   
  Fade Into Shadow:  The character is so 
  stealthy he becomes practically invisible 
  whenever he’s in a patch of darkness or shadow 
  large enough to cover his body. 
  Invisibility to Sight Group (20 Active 
  Points); Limited Effect (Normal Sight 
  only; -¼), Chameleon (-½), Requires A 
  Stealth Roll (-½), Only In 
  Shadows/Darkness (-½). Total cost:  7 
  points. 
   
  FROM EXAMPLE SILVER AGE POWERS 
  (PAGE 16) 
   
   
   
  Lizard-Powers:  The character’s 
  superpowers come from the bite of a radioactive 
  lizard, giving him, among other things, 
  prodigious self-healing abilities. 
  Healing 2d6 (Regeneration, 2 BODY 
  per Turn), Can Heal Limbs, Reduced 
  Endurance (0 END; +½), Persistent 
  (+½) (50 Active Points); Self Only (-
  ½), Extra Time (1 Turn; -1¼). Total 
  cost:  18 points. 
   
   
  Yummy Radiation:  The character’s 
  radiation-spawned powers only become stronger 
  when he’s exposed to additional radiation. 
  Absorption 3d6 (energy), Can Absorb 
  Maximum Of 30 Points’ Worth Of 
  Radiation Energy, All Radiation-Based 
  Powers Simultaneously (+2) (63 Active 
  Points); Limited Phenomena (radiation; 
  -½). Total cost:  42 points. 
   
  FROM EXAMPLE MUTANT POWERS 
  (PAGE 18) 
   
   
   
  Photosynthetic Strength:  The character’s 
  body absorbs sunlight and uses it to vastly 
  increase his strength. (At the GM’s option, the 
  amount of STR gained is proportional to the 
  strength of the sunlight; the character gets all 
  +40 STR at high noon in the blazing sunshine, 
  but only +10 on an overcast day.) 
  +40 STR (40 Active Points); Only In 
  Direct Sunlight (-1). Total cost:  20 
  points. 
   
  FROM EXAMPLE FAD POWERS (PAGE 19) 
   
   
   
  DM’s Perogative:  A character with powers 
  based on Dungeons & Dragons can summon 
  monsters to fight his foes. 
  Summon 4 250-point Monsters, Any 
  Monster (+1), Friendly (+¼) (135 
  Active Points); OAF (enchanted 
  Monster Manual; -1). Total cost:  67 
  points. 
   
   
  Use The Force:  A character inspired by the 
  Star Wars fad might develop a whole suite of 
  Jedi-based “Force” powers, including telekinetic 
  manipulation. 
  Telekinesis (20 STR), Fine 
  Manipulation, Reduced Endurance (½ 
  END; +¼). Total cost:  50 points. 
   
   
   
   
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  6 
  HERO Universe by Darren Watts 
   
   
  Hello, gang, and welcome to the first 
  installment of a new regular column by yours 
  truly. Each month I’ll take a look at a character, 
  organization, or feature of the mighty Hero 
  Universe that for whatever reason hasn’t gotten 
  the full write-up treatment in one of our books. 
  We’ll start off this month with a dastardly Nazi 
  villain from the Golden Age of Champions, in 
  salute to the forthcoming Champions Universe 
  book. (You can find details therein on his 
  archenemy Captain Patriot, by the way.) As 
  you’ll see, this Ratzi was there at the very 
  beginning of the Modern Age of Heroes… 
   
  Campaign Power Level: 150+100 
  Active Period: 1938-1945   
   
  Der Sturmvogel 
  Background/History:  Walther Flenners was a 
  shining example of Adolph Hitler’s vision for 
  Germany: young, handsome in his Aryan 
  features, strong, brave, and utterly loyal. He’d 
  served for two years in the Shutzstaffel, or SS, 
  before being transferred to work for the 
  mysterious Dr. Hessler of the RSvKg, the 
  German secret organization studying the occult. 
  And when Hessler asked him to volunteer for a 
  “very special” project in May of 1938 on behalf 
  of the Fuhrer and the German People, there was 
  no question in his mind what to do. 
   
  Of course, he had no idea what he was 
  volunteering for. Hessler and his band of mystic 
  followers had prepared a ritual to summon vast 
  demonic power, and Flenners was to be the 
  touchstone for the chimeric energies involved. 
  Even as he stood in the center of the specially-
  prepared pentagram, with horrible symbols 
  painted in blood on his naked chest, Flenners 
  remained secure in his faith that whatever 
  sacrifice he was called upon to make for his 
  country, it was worth it. That faith protected him 
  through the awful minutes that followed, when 
  the doors of our reality were opened and the 
  arcane energies washed over the assembled 
  sorcerers. 
   
  When it was over, and Flenners opened his 
  eyes, he saw he was the only survivor save for 
  Hessler himself, who had been transformed into 
  an awful, skeletal thing. Flenners looked down at 
  his own body, fearing the worst. Whatever had 
  happened here, however, had only improved 
  Flenners. He was stronger, faster, and more 
  durable than before. Indeed, he was more 
  powerful than any other man on Earth. And, as 
  he soon discovered, he could fly like an eagle! 
  He had come through the storm and been 
  strengthened by his ordeal. And it would be 
  under the name of Sturmvogel, the Storm Bird, 
  that he would dedicate himself in service to 
  Hitler and the Deutschland. 
   
   Sturmvogel was one of the first public 
  supers of the Golden Age, and his efforts in the 
  early days of the European War were primarily 
  focused on propaganda. Films of him flying, 
  lifting cars, and bouncing bullets of his chest 
  spread across the world, spurring the recruitment 
  of national “superheroes” in several other nations 
  (including America’s own Captain Patriot.) His 
  activities were coordinated by Hessler himself, 
  now known as the demonic Totenkopf. As the 
  war went on and the Ubermenschen Korps 
  battled Allied forces like the Freedom Battalion, 
  Sturmvogel served as one of the team’s leaders 
  in the field. Sturmvogel was killed in action in 
  April 1945 when the Ubermenschen fought the 
  combined forces of the Freedom Battalion and 
  the People’s Collective outside of Berlin.  
        
  Personality:  Sturmvogel was a Nazi’s Nazi, 
  firmly believing in Hitler’s twisted vision. He 
  was a bitter racist, hating Jews, Russians, and 
  blacks in about that order. That said, he 
  maintained a certain code of honor, preferring to 
  face his foes in open, direct combat and 
  respecting those who fought against him with 
  courage. Though the Ubermenschen were mostly 
  a collection of maniacs and deviants, he kept 
  them under firm control by strength of will and 
  molded them into a fearsome fighting force.  
   
  Quote:  “We shall be a new order, cleansing 
  Europe with blood and fire!” 
   
  Powers/Tactics:  Sturmvogel is a former SS 
  officer, and fights with the tactics he learned 
  there. He will order his forces to attack with 
  speed and fury, hoping to overwhelm any 
  opposition, while he flies from skirmish to 
  skirmish plugging “holes” in his line. He will 
  occasionally perform a feat of strength just 
  before battle in view of the enemy, hoping to 
  lower their morale; later in the war, his superiors 
  actually asked him to stop throwing around his 
  side’s own squad cars as they were too expensive 
  to use as ammunition.1 
   
  Campaign Use:  Sturmvogel is the natural 
  opposite of your campaign’s own super-patriots, 
  and GA heroes should enjoy the opportunity to 
  get into some knock-down drag-out battles with 
  him. Neo-Nazis in any later era would revere his 
  memory, and his name might be passed down to 
  any terrorist with a Nazi connection. Also, his 
  connection to the arcane forces that allow 
  superpowers to exist might figure into any 
                                                             
  artwork by Derrick Thomas 
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  7
  campaign that explores that dimension. Finally, 
  Totenkopf might seek to recreate the ritual that 
  created him in order to build a new army of 
  superhuman servants. 
   
   To decrease his power level, you can lower 
  his Con or Speed, or conversely you might 
  remove his Damage Reduction. To increase is 
  easier, as some enhanced Dexterity or additional 
  Strength can greatly increase his overall 
  effectiveness. Also, increasing his Damage 
  Reduction to 50% makes him a much hardier 
  combatant, suitable for fighting groups of low-
  powered heroes simultaneously. 
    
  Appearance:  Sturmvogel is a large, blonde and 
  blue-eyed human male, standing 6’5 and over 
  250 muscular pounds. His costume is dark gray 
  with a large stylized German eagle with wings 
  spread on his chest. His head is bare, and his hair 
  is close-cropped military-style. His belt, boots, 
  and gloves are black.   
   
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  8 
  Der Sturmvogel 
   Val Char Cost Roll Notes 
   45 STR 
  35 18- Lift 12½t; 9d6 HTH [4] 
   18 DEX 
  24 13- OCV:  6/DCV:  6 
   25 CON 
  30 14- 
   15 BODY 
  10 12-    
   13 INT 
  3 12- PER Roll:  12- 
   
   15 EGO 
  10 12- ECV:  5 
   20 PRE 
  10 13- PRE Attack:  4d6  
   10 COM 
  0 11-  
   
   17 PD 
  8 
   Total:  23 PD (16 rPD) 
   12 ED 
  7 
   Total:  18 ED (16 rED) 
   
  5 SPD 
  22 
   Phases:  3, 5, 8, 10, 12 
   16 REC 
  4 
   60 END 
  5 
   50 STUN 
  0 
   
  Total Characteristics Cost: 168 
  Movement: Running: 
  6”/12” 
   
   
  Flight: 
  15”/30” 
   
   
  Swimming: 2”/4” 
  Cost Powers  
  END 
   10 Tough Skin: Damage Resistance (10 
  rPD / 10 rED) 
     0  
   30 Amazing Physique: Physical and 
  Energy Damage Reduction, Resistant, 
  25% 
     0 
   
  5 Well-Protected: Lack Of Weakness -5    0 
   30 Stormbird’s Flight: Flight 15” 
     3 
   
  6 Eagle Eyes: +4 versus Range for Sight 
  Group 
     0 
   
  8 Regeneration: Healing 1d6, Reduced 
  Endurance (0 END, +½), Persistent 
  (+½); Extra Time (1 Turn, -1), Self 
  Only (-½) 
     0 
   
  5 Adapted to Heights: Life Support, Safe 
  Environments (Low Pressure, Intense 
  Cold); Extended Breathing (1 END per 
  Turn) 
     0 
   12 Padded Costume: Armor (6 rPD / 6 
  rED); OIF (Costume; -½) 
     0 
   
   
  Perks 
   
  6 Contact: Adolph Hitler, 8- (Contact has 
  extremely useful skills and resources, 
  Contact has own network of Contacts) 
   
  6 Contact: Der Totenkopf, 11- (Contact 
  has very useful skills and resources, 
  Contact has own network of Contacts) 
   
  5 Fringe Benefit: Army Rank (Kapitan) 
    
   
  Skills 
   16 +2 with All Combat 
   
  4 +2 with Punch 
   
   
  3 Breakfall 13- 
   
  3 Tactics 12- 
   
  4 KS: German Army Procedures 13- 
   
  2 Language: English (fluent w/ accent, 
  German native) 
   
  2 WF: Small Arms     
   
  Total Powers & Skill Cost: 157 
  Total Cost: 325 
   
   150+ Disadvantages 
   
  5 Distinctive Features:  Perfect Aryan Ideal 
  (Easily Concealed, Noted) 
   25 Hunted:  Allied Military and Superbeings 
  11- (Mo Pow, NCI, Limited Geographical 
  Area, Capture/Kill) 
   20 Psychological Limitation:  Racist (Very 
  Common, Strong) 
   25 Psychological Limitation:  German 
  Patriot, Believes Hitler’s Rhetoric (Very 
  Common, Total) 
   20 Reputation:  Symbol of Nazism 
  Worldwide, 14- (Extreme) 
   20 Social Limitation:  Subject to Orders 
  (German Army, Totenkopf) (Very 
  Frequently, Major) 
   60 Experience Points 
    
  Total Disadvantage Points: 325   
   
   
   
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  9
  You Gotta Have Character by Jason Walters 
   
  “Life is lived forwards, but understood 
  backwards” – Kierkegaard 
   
  “On stage, the old magical transformation took 
  place. She burst into frenetic action. She seemed 
  to move every part of her body in a different 
  direction at once. She clowned outrageously, 
  unable to stop herself. She crossed her eyes. Her 
  feet tripped over each other while the other girls 
  were kicking neatly in step. The effect of her 
  performance was to mock the very idea of a 
  chorus line, a row of people mechanically 
  repeating the same gestures. The chorus line 
  hated her. They had a simple term for what she 
  was doing: scene stealing. But audiences loved 
  her.” – Phyllis Rose 
   
  “The most sensational woman anybody ever 
  saw, or ever will.” – Ernest Hemingway, on 
  Josephine Baker  
   
  “It’s a wonder she didn’t have feathers, because 
  she sang like a bird.” – Janet Flanner, for the 
  New Yorker  
   
   
  Josephine Baker exploded onto the Paris 
  stage during the 1920’s with a comic, yet highly 
  sexual musical review which took Europe by 
  storm. Along with her act La Revue Nègre (The 
  Negro Revue), Baker was famous for her 
  “barely-there” dresses, no-holds-barred “savage” 
  dance routines, and her exotic good looks. Her 
  sensuality and beauty were the stuff of legend, 
  gaining her such nicknames as The Black Venus, 
  The Black Pearl, and The Creole Goddess. Her 
  admirers showered her with a plethora of gifts, 
  including diamonds, cars, and marriage 
  proposals (she received approximately 1,500 of 
  them during her life). A life-long celebrity in 
  France, she continued to dynamically perform 
  for 50 years until her untimely death in 1975. 
  Unfortunately, prejudice prevented her talents 
  from being wholly accepted in her own home 
  country, The United States, until 1973. 
   
  Background/History: Born Freda Josephine 
  Carson in the slums of East St. Louis, Missouri, 
  on June 3, 1906 Josephine Baker was the 
  daughter of washerwoman Carrie McDonald and 
  vaudeville drummer Eddie Carson. Carson 
  abandoned the two of them shortly after 
  Josephine’s birth, and her mother married a kind 
  but perpetually unemployed man named Arthur 
  Martin. Their family eventually included a son 
  and two more daughters.  
   
  Josephine grew up in an era of extreme 
  racial prejudice in the United States during 
  which opportunity for blacks were limited 
  largely to unskilled, manual professions and the 
  entertainment world. Opportunities for black 
  women were even more limited still, with most 
  in the workforce employed as domestic servants 
  and nannies. While barely a teenager, Josephine 
  began to earn a living up cleaning houses and 
  babysitting for wealthy white families. This 
  proved to be a personally degrading experience 
  for Josephine; because of her great love of 
  children, an emotion for which she was to 
  become internationally renowned later in life, her 
  employers issued instructions such as “be sure 
  not to kiss the baby” to the very young woman. 
  Wounded, she stopped babysitting and got a job 
  working as a waitress at The Old Chauffeur’s 
  Club when she was only 14-years-old. While 
  waiting tables, she met and had a brief marriage 
  to Willie Wells. 
   
  Josephine quickly grew dissatisfied with her 
  poverty-stricken life of drudgery in East St. 
  Louis. As a child, she had learned from her 
  neighbors many of the dance steps that had 
  passed through America’s black urban centers 
  during the 1910’s, such as The Mess Around, 
  The Itch, and Trucking. So she took such skills 
  as she had and entered the outermost rung of 
  professional show business which existed at the 
  time, the black Vaudeville circuit. She performed 
  around the St. Lewis area with the Jones Family 
  Band, playing trombone, performing dance 
  routines, and making comic cross-eyed faces. 
  But she got her first true break when she landed 
  the role of cupid in a love scene staged by the 
  Dixie Steppers, a traveling troupe performing at 
  the Booker T. Washington Theater in St. Louis. 
  Her winged, aerial entrance was rendered 
  disastrous by two crossed wires, but Josephine’s 
  gift for comedy, even when dangling midair in 
  distress, enabled her to pull the performance “out 
  of the hole,” winning over the audience and, 
  more importantly, the Dixie Steppers’ manager. 1 
   
  Considered too young, small, and skinny to 
  be in a chorus line, Josephine accepted a job as 
  the dresser of blues singer Clara Smith. She 
  maintained the singer’s wardrobe, squeezed 
  Smith into her gauzy, undersized costumes, and 
  tried to reduce the performer’s calorie intake. 
  While the job was not exactly glamorous it did 
  have advantages. It paid $9.00 a week (a 
  reasonable sum at the time), enabling Josephine 
  to leave her native St. Louis and travel around 
  the country from New Orleans, Louisiana to 
  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with the troupe. It 
  also taught her the discipline required for theater 
  work and, more significantly, it revealed to her 
  the intoxicating thrill of being on stage. 
                                                             
  artwork by Jason Walters 
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  10 
   
  By April 1921 Josephine had risen from a 
  dresser to a comic chorus girl. Demonstrating an 
  extraordinary energy, along an evident desire to 
  please the audience, she enlivened every show 
  with the crazy antics and frantic dancing of an 
  end-of-the-line chorus girl who kept forgetting 
  her steps and messing up the routine. Yet, like 
  many dancers of the time, Josephine dreamed of 
  performing on Broadway. Her interest was 
  piqued when she learned that, for the first time in 
  many years, a black show was on its way to New 
  York. Written by Flournoy Miller and Aubrey 
  Lyles (who would later create the characters 
  Amos and Andy) with music by Eubie Blake and 
  Noble Sissle, Shuffle Along would prove to be 
  one of the greatest American musical comedies 
  ever written. Although the script was mired in 
  the stereotypical conventions of 19th century 
  minstrelsy, the energetic music and dance of 
  Shuffle Along broke with that tradition, 
  choreographing traditional African American 
  dance and adapting it into the musical. Both the 
  Charleston and the Black Bottom, popular 
  dances of the time, were introduced to the 
  American public in this manner. 
   
  Josephine deliberately sought a part in 
  Shuffle Along, but her first pre-Broadway 
  audition was rejected due to her age (she was 
  only 14). Undeterred, she bought a one way 
  ticket to New York and one again auditioned – 
  and was once again rejected, but offered a job as 
  dresser for the road company. She accepted, 
  biding her time until one of the chorus girls fell 
  ill and, when the opportunity inevitably arrived, 
  Josephine pounced on it. Once again, audiences 
  were bowled over by her outrageous, impromptu 
  clowning; every night her inspired, scene-
  stealing comedy stopped the show. When word 
  got back to Sissle and Blake that they had a star 
  on their hands her future in the musical was 
  assured. 
   
  When Shuffle Along ended its unprecedented 
  Broadway run of more than 500 performances, 
  the show’s main company went on the road. The 
  enterprising young dancer performed in the 
  chorus from August 1922 until tours’ end in the 
  fall of 1923. She was exuberant, audacious, and 
  electrifying. Sissle and Blake worked hard to 
  make Josephine’s performance more 
  professional, teaching her pacing and other 
  necessary skills. As long as she was in a 
  rehearsal, their student seemed to master her 
  lessons; but once on stage, her urge to improvise 
  destroyed any carefully coached routines. 
  Josephine Baker had become the dancer’s 
  equivalent of a jazz artist, constantly contriving 
  new solo riffs with her own body. 
   
  Nevertheless, when Sissle and Blake opened 
  their new show, The Chocolate Dandies, in 
  March of 1924, Josephine was given top billing 
  as “the highest paid chorus girl in the world.” 
  (She was paid roughly four times as much as the 
  other chorus members.) As “Topsy Anna,” a part 
  created especially for her, Josephine dressed first 
  as a minstrel clown with black-face, bright 
  cotton smock, and oversized comic shoes. The 
  poet e. e. cummings remembered her in 
  Chocolate Dandies as a “tall, vital, incomparably 
  fluid nightmare which crossed its eyes and 
  warped its limbs in a purely unearthly manner.” 
  Then, in the show’s final scene, she discarded 
  her comic persona to appear as an abandoned 
  woman, dressed in a suggestive white satin gown 
  with an alluring slit up the left leg. It was this 
  shocking contrast of opposing images – the 
  absurd, outrageous clown and the sophisticated, 
  sensual woman – that Baker would later use to 
  conquer the hearts and minds of the French 
  public. 
   
  Josephine’s ticket to Paris came in the form 
  of the young New York society diva Caroline 
  Dudley Reagan, who was putting together a 
  stage show along the lines of The Chocolate 
  Dandies. This show, which was later to become 
  the famous La Revue Nègre, included some of 
  the greatest available back entertainers of the 
  period: musician and composer Spencer 
  Williams, set designer and sketch artist Miguel 
  Covarrubias, bandleader and pianist Claude 
  Hopkins, and choreographer Luis Douglas. After 
  some salary negotiations, Josephine was added 
  to this talented group as lead dancer, singer, and 
  comic. Rehearsals began in New York, then 
  continued on board the cruise ship Berengaria 
  during their Atlantic crossing. By the time they 
  reached Paris, opening night at the Théâtre des 
  Champs-Elysées was only ten days away. During 
  that brief time period, the revue was transformed 
  from a vaudeville act conceived for a white 
  American public obsessed with African 
  American stereotypes, into something entirely 
  new, original, and unique. First, the program was 
  “Africanized,” with less emphasis on tap-
  dancing and spirituals and more on Josephine’s 
  phenomenal ability to dance erotically. Second, 
  the review’s artistic director, Rolf de Maré, 
  found a strong dance partner for Baker named 
  Joe Alex, an emigrant from Martinique who 
  frequented the Le Grand Duc – a black club in 
  the Montmartre quarter of Paris where Harlem 
  entertainer Bricktop sang, expatriates like F. 
  Scott drank champagne, and poet Langston 
  Hughes briefly made a living washing dishes. 
   
  On opening night, the house was packed 
  before the musicians could even take their 
  places. After the orchestra’s opening number, the 
  curtain opened onto a Mississippi River dock 
  scene with the company’s 25 performers on stage 
  at once, strolling, singing, and dancing Few 
  Parisians had ever seen so many black people 
  together at once; dressed in their dazzling 
  costumes, the performers appeared to be entirely 
  AN EYE FOR 
  BEAUTY 
   
   
  She was the little 
  girl on the end. You 
  couldn’t forget her 
  once you’d noticed 
  her, and you couldn’t 
  escape noticing her. 
  She was beautiful but 
  it was never her 
  beauty that attracted 
  your eyes. In those 
  days her brown body 
  was disguised by an 
  ordinary chorus 
  costume. She had a 
  trick of letting her 
  knees fold under her, 
  eccentric wise. And 
  her eyes, just at the 
  crucial moment when 
  the music reached the 
  climactic “he’s just 
  wild about, cannot 
  live without, he’s just 
  wild about me” [from 
  “I’m Just Wild About 
  Harry”], her eyes 
  crossed. 
  – Dance Magazine
   
   
   
  HEAD OVER 
  HEELS 
   
   
  She enters through 
  a dense electric 
  twilight, walking 
  backwards on hands 
  and feet, legs and 
  arms stiff, down a 
  huge jungle tree-as a 
  creature neither 
  infrahuman nor 
  superhuman but 
  somehow both: a 
  mysterious unkillable 
  Something, equally 
  nonprimitive and 
  uncivilized, or beyond 
  time in the sense that 
  emotion is beyond 
  arithmetic.  
  – e.e. cummings
   
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  11
  exotic. The audience was both entranced and 
  excited, murmuring with rapt anticipation. Then 
  Josephine entered the performance in black face 
  and wearing plaid dungarees; her knees bent, feet 
  spread apart, buttocks thrust out, stomach sucked 
  in, cheeks puffed out, eyes crossed. To many she 
  appeared to be an animal – some saw a 
  kangaroo, others a giraffe, while yet others a 
  part-human apparition. Her movements were just 
  as shocking; Josephine shook, writhed like a 
  snake, contorted her torso, and all this while 
  emitted strange, high-pitched noises. Then, 
  before the audience could fully comprehend 
  what this apparition might possibly be, she burst 
  offstage on all fours, buttock extended into the 
  air, with hands spanking the boards as she 
  scuttled off stage. 
   
  Eight more minor performances followed 
  before the spectacular, all-important finale 
  before which all else had been but a prelude. Set 
  in a Harlem nightclub, Josephine and Joe Alex 
  emerged to perform their Danse sauvage with 
  Josephine nude save for a pink flamingo feather 
  between her limbs, carried upside down by Joe 
  Alex. With the crowd shocked into a hushed 
  silence, he held her briefly around the waste 
  before swinging her in a slow, deliberate 
  cartwheel to the stage floor where she stood 
  nearly naked like a “female ebony statue.” A 
  scream of applause ripped through the audience 
  and, from that moment onwards, European 
  concepts of beauty were forever and irrevocably 
  changed. 
   
  Paris’ reaction to Josephine’s performance 
  can be summed up in a single word: shock. No 
  one had ever witnessed such unbridled sexuality 
  on a stage. Words like instinct, primitive life 
  force, savage, exotic, bestiality, and that 
  peculiarly loaded word degenerate, raced from 
  through the city. To many it seemed that the 
  fragile skin of civilization had been peeled away, 
  revealing something primitive, vital, and savage 
  which lay beneath. Exactly what this meant was 
  a matter of passionate debate both in Paris’ cafes 
  and in her press. For some, Josephine’s La Revue 
  Negre represented an infusion of new energy into 
  a European culture held hostage by classical 
  tradition. For others, it symbolized the 
  disintegration of centuries of European cultural 
  achievement into the darkness of a savage, 
  mindless state. In any case, both the show’s 
  admirers and detractors flooded to the Théâtre 
  des Champs-Elysées to see it, wildly boosting 
  ticket sales and transforming Josephine’s rising 
  star into a blazing comet which swept across the 
  night skies of France. 
   
  It wasn’t very long before Josephine 
  received an offer from the venerable Folies-
  Bergère to be the star of their new show, La 
  Folie du Jour (Madness of the Day), whose 
  theme centered around the conflict created when 
  the refined appeal of “culture” meets the 
  seductive allure of “nature.” It was in La Folie 
  du Jour that Josephine first introduced a 
  dramatic device which would have European 
  audiences snickering and nudging one another 
  for years. Dressed in nothing but a girdle of 
  drooping bananas, thinly disguised phalluses 
  seemingly waiting to be aroused, Josephine 
  engaged in a “diabolic” Charleston in which the 
  bananas were swung in 180-degree arcs as she 
  openly laughed with the audience. For many, she 
  seemed to be the very incarnation of Eros, the 
  living embodiment of natural, sexual force. “This 
  girl,” wrote dance critic André Rouverge, “has 
  the genius to let the body make fun of itself. Her 
  movements, while making a strikingly original 
  rhythmic structure, go from one extreme to the 
  other.” 
   
  In 1926 Josephine opened her own nightclub 
  in Pigalle called Chez Joséphine, which was later 
  moved to the more fashionable Rue Francois I. 
  She had become a chic, affluent French woman 
  with expensive idiosyncracies, like parading her 
  pet leopard down the elegant Champs Elysées. 
  She went on a successful world tour for two 
  years between 1928-1930, receiving thousands 
  of love letters from around the globe in the 
  process. It was during this period that Josephine 
  evolved from a mere eccentric chorus girl into a 
  full-fledged entertainer who integrated both 
  songs and dance into her performances. In the 
  process, elevated herself from being “the 
  highest-paid chorus girl in vaudeville” to being 
  “one of the high-paid stars in the world.”  
    
  By the late 1920’s Josephine Baker rivaled 
  Gloria Swanson and Mary Pickford as the most 
  photographed woman in the world, earning more 
  than any other entertainer in Europe. She starred 
  in two movies in the 1930’s, Zou-Zou and 
  Princess Tam-Tam, as well as recording a 
  number of songs for Columbia records. With her 
  newfound control of her voice, Josephine took 
  the title part in an operetta in 1934, a revival of 
  Offenbach’s La Créole at the Théâtre Marigny, 
  opening in December for successful a six-month 
  run. With her newfound wealth, she moved her 
  family from East Saint Lewis to Les Milandes, 
  an estate in Castelnaud-Fayrac before going on a 
  disappointing tour of the United States with the 
  Ziegfield Follies in 1936. The American press 
  was openly hostile to Josephine (The New York 
  Times called her a “Negro wench”), while its 
  audiences rejected the idea of a black woman 
  with so much sophistication and power. She left 
  her native land feeling both betrayed and 
  heartbroken. 
   
  The Second World War broke out soon after 
  Josephine’s return to Europe. When Germany 
  occupied Belgium, Josephine became a Red 
  Cross nurse, watching over those refugees who 
  fled into France. When Germany finally 
  ALL THAT JAZZ 
   
   
  There seemed to 
  emanate from her 
  violently shuddering 
  body, her bold 
  dislocations, her 
  springing movements, 
  a gushing stream of 
  rhythm. It was she 
  who led the 
  spellbound drummer 
  and the fascinated 
  saxophonist in the 
  harsh rhythm of the 
  ‘blues.’ It was as 
  though the jazz, 
  catching on the wing 
  the vibrations of this 
  body, was interpreting 
  word by word its 
  fantastic monologue. 
  The music is born 
  from the dance, and 
  what a dance! The 
  gyrations of this 
  cynical yet merry 
  mountebank, the 
  good-natured grin on 
  her large mouth, 
  suddenly give way to 
  visions from which 
  good humor is 
  entirely absent. In the 
  short pas de deux of 
  the savages, which 
  came as the finale of 
  the Revue Nègre, 
  there was a wild 
  splendor and 
  magnificent 
  animality. Certain of 
  Miss Baker’s poses, 
  back arched, 
  haunches protruding, 
  arms entwined and 
  uplifted in a phallic 
  symbol, had the 
  compelling potency of 
  the finest examples of 
  Negro sculpture. The 
  plastic sense of a race 
  of sculptors came to 
  life and the frenzy of 
  African Eros swept 
  over the audience. It 
  was no longer a  
   
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  12 
  occupied France itself, she worked for the 
  Resistance as an underground courier, 
  transmitting information “pinned inside her 
  underwear” to Allied military contacts. Because 
  of her considerable fame, Josephine was granted 
  an unusual amount of freedom of movement by 
  the occupying Nazis, who greatly underestimated 
  both her resourcefulness and her dedication to 
  her adopted country. Josephine undertook a 
  complicated series of Resistance smuggling 
  missions which took her from London to Pau in 
  southwestern France, through Spain and 
  Portugal, to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (where she 
  had theatrical bookings), and finally back to 
  Marseilles. She contracted a mysterious, near-
  fatal illness which kept her in a Casablanca clinic 
  from June 1941 to December 1942. This illness 
  left her quite weak, but not too disabled to 
  entertain troops in North Africa as a 
  sublieutenant in the women’s auxiliary of the 
  Free French forces.  
   
  At the conclusion of the war, Josephine was 
  awarded the Croix de Guerre, the Légion 
  d’Honneur, and the Rosette of the Résistance by 
  General Charles de Gaulle in recognition of her 
  services to France. Josephine returned to her 
  beloved Paris, regularly appearing in the Follies, 
  and began adopting orphaned babies of all races 
  to form her “Rainbow Tribe,” a living 
  demonstration of racial harmony and equality. 
   
  If Josephine’s trips to America in the 1930’s 
  and 1940’s had been disappointing, her treatment 
  by the staff of New York’s illustrious Stork Club 
  in 1951 was both shocking and offensive. Denied 
  service because of the color of her skin, she 
  became engaged a head-on media battle over the 
  incident with pro-segregation columnist Walter 
  Winchell (a member of the Stork Club), who 
  accused her, oddly enough, of both communist 
  and fascist sympathies. Never as popular in 
  America as in Europe, she found herself fighting 
  vicious rumors begun by Winchell as well as 
  institutionalized racism. She responded by 
  launching a personnel decade long crusade for 
  racial equality in the United States, refusing to 
  entertain in any club or theater that was not fully 
  integrated. This resulted in the breaking the color 
  barrier at many establishments. Her efforts 
  culminated in 1963 when she spoke at the now 
  famous March On Washington at the side of 
  Martin Luther King, Jr. 
   
  Returning to France, Josephine ran into 
  considerable financial hardship in 1969, resulting 
  in an eviction from her estate in castelnaud-
  fayrac. Fellow American expatriate Princess 
  Grace Kelly of Monaco and her husband Prince 
  Rainier gifted Josephine, as well as her large 
  adopted family, with a villa inside of their tiny, 
  exclusive country. The Rainiers then assisted her 
  financially, enabling the production of the stage 
  spectacle Joséphine, a medley of routines from 
  her 50 year long career, in 1975. Josephine, now 
  age 69, had over a dozen costume changes 
  during the performance, which received some of 
  the best reviews of her career. With tears 
  streaming down from sequined eyelids, she 
  “stole the show” one last time, quietly dying in 
  her sleep of a stroke after 14 successful 
  performances of Joséphine on April 12, 1975. 
   
  Personality/Motivation: Josephine Baker’s 
  major motivations changed throughout her life, 
  depending on what circumstances she found 
  herself in. As a very young woman, she 
  undertook an intelligent, consistent series of 
  steps to promote her dancing career, thereby 
  escaping the discriminatory social and economic 
  conditions which most Black Americans of the 
  time found themselves locked into. Thus, in her 
  teenage years, Josephine was motivation by a 
  desire for freedom, financial success, and self-
  fulfilment. Having achieved these goals with the  
  success of La Revue Negre, Josephine set out to 
  change European conceptions of physical beauty, 
  style, and aesthetic merit. During this period 
  Josephine’s motivations could be characterized 
  as largely artistic, although she was also 
  animated, at least to a certain extent, by that 
  gregariously licentious attitude which typified 
  Paris in the Roaring 20s. During the Second 
  World War, Josephine was motivated both by 
  feelings of patriotic duty toward her adopted 
  country as well as by a horrifying certainty that 
  Nazi Germany was the embodiment of nearly 
  everything she had spent her entire life working 
  against. After the war, Josephine raised her 
  “rainbow tribe,” an adopted family of war-
  orphaned children, to demonstrate the inherent 
  racial equality of all human beings. In this, her 
  motivations were entirely humanitarian. At the 
  very end of her days, Josephine returned to 
  America amid critical acclaim as well as 
  widespread public acceptance, completing a life 
  cycle in which she elevated herself through the 
  entertainment world from an “American 
  Untouchable” to an international symbol of 
  glamor, beauty, and accomplishment. In a small 
  way, Josephine Baker’s life could be seen as 
  symbol of the Black experience in America 
  during the 20th century; a slow, hard-fought 
  clime to respectability punctuated by small 
  setbacks as well as periods of wild, startling 
  success.  
   
  Josephine is a sensualist, and her “convoitise 
  pendant la vie” (lust for life) is evident in 
  everything she does. She craves adventure for 
  adventure’s sake, wether it is erotic, artistic, 
  social, or any other kind. She is extremely witty, 
  disarmingly intelligent, and surprisingly well 
  educated considering the barriers she had to 
  overcome to get that way. She is also extremely 
  amusing in everyday life, even though a great 
  grotesque dancing girl 
  that stood before 
  them, but the black 
  Venus that haunted 
  Baudelaire.  
  – French dance critic
  André Levinson
   
   
   
  THE SHOW MUST 
  GO ON 
   
   
  “I love performing. 
  I shall perform until 
  the day I die.”  
  – Josephine Baker
   
   
   
  FOREVER YOUNG 
   
   
  “The secret to the 
  fountain of youth is to 
  think youthful 
  thoughts.”  
  – Josephine Baker
   
   
   
   
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  13
  deal of her public comic appeal derives from the 
  outstanding “slapstick” dance routines she has 
  created. 
   
  Quote: “Surely the day will come when color 
  means nothing more than the skin tone, when 
  religion is seen uniquely as a way to speak one’s 
  soul; when birth places have the weight of a 
  throw of the dice and all men are born free, when 
  understanding breeds love and brotherhood.”  
   
  Powers/Tactics: Although the real life Josephine 
  Baker abhorred violence, our “Hero Universe” 
  Josephine baker has a slightly different attitude 
  toward self defense. Through her association 
  with Joe Alex, Josephine has learned a form of 
  Martiniquais Capoeira which combines fluidly 
  with her dance abilities. To make best use of her 
  highly developed lower body, Josephine’s 
  martial style is entirely composed of powerful 
  kicks and leg sweeps. To protect herself from a 
  more serious threat, she often has an ivory-
  handled .38 Derringer concealed on her person 
  as a weapon of last resort. All the same, 
  Josephine would rather engage in a battle of 
  words or wits than in an actual fight – because, 
  in a battle of wits with Josephine Baker, most 
  men find themselves to be suddenly disarmed!  
   
  The real life Josephine Baker remained 
  attractive and vital throughout her entire life. To 
  simulate this effect, our “Hero Universe” 
  Josephine has an immunity to aging (although 
  she is not immortal) derived from a lifetime of 
  daily exercise combined with an excess of 
  natural beauty and energy. Thus, a Josephine 
  encountered at age 65 will be in the same 
  physical condition as a Josephine encountered at 
  age 25, although her physical appearance will 
  show subtle signs of aging in the later portions of 
  her life.  
   
  Campaign Use: Josephine Baker is one of 
  history’s great beauties, compared by those who 
  know her Cleopatra, and she should be treated 
  this way by the game master. Her introduction 
  into a scenario should generate feelings of lust, 
  competitiveness, and wonder in the male 
  characters, while provoking strong feelings of 
  jealousy in the female ones. Of course, once the 
  characters become more familiar with her, they 
  will quickly find out that there is a lot more to 
  Josephine than her looks. She is an engaging, 
  well rounded, and competent individual with a 
  wide variety of abilities. 
   
  Since she was considered one of the 
  symbols of the Jazz Age, Josephine is 
  completely at home in a Pulp Campaign. The 
  characters might encounter a very young 
  Josephine performing at a hip African American 
  locale, such as the Booker T. Washington 
  Theater in St. Louis or the Plantation Club in 
  New York City, or slightly later in a Parisian 
  venue like the Folies-Bergère. It the characters 
  are engaged in anything remotely interesting 
  (solving a murder, stopping a mysterious villain, 
  etc), Josephine’s adventurous nature will 
  practically compel her to interject herself into the 
  middle of it. Or, if the characters are in Europe, 
  they might come into contact with her during the 
  course of an investigation at a party for the 
  cosmopolitan, socially well connected Parisian 
  elite. If one of them is incredibly lucky, he might 
  end up with a date for the evening. 
   
  In a campaign set during the Second World 
  War, Josephine might be encountered working as 
  an agent of the French Resistance. Interestingly, 
  her celebrity status had become so great that she 
  was given surprising freedom of movement even 
  in racist, Nazi-occupied France. Josephine took 
  full advantage of this freedom, smuggling 
  intelligence reports out of the country in her 
  sheet music. She is also known to have used her 
  considerable charms to convince foreign 
  consulates to process visas for her “close 
  friends,” some of whom where intelligence 
  operatives. Josephine was extremely serious 
  about her clandestine work for The Resistance, 
  so the characters could easily encounter her as an 
  Allied contact in occupied Europe. 
   
  If a campaign is set in the unsettled decades 
  of the 60’s and 70’s, Josephine will be 
  encountered as a “radical” social activist using 
  her celebrity status to challenge segregation laws 
  back in her home country. Accompanied 
  everywhere by her “Rainbow Tribe” of adopted 
  children, she combined her performances with 
  her civil rights views, refusing to perform in 
  clubs that would not permit an integrated 
  audience. The characters may find themselves 
  called upon to protect this controversial, aging 
  celebrity from harm, or they might have to 
  rescue her “Rainbow Tribe” from politically 
  motivated kidnappers. And, if one of them is 
  incredibly lucky, he might end up with a date for 
  the evening. 
   
  Appearance: Josephine Baker is a transfixing, 
  exotic, yet somehow extremely comedic black 
  woman who exudes an athletic, easy confidence 
  in even her most casual movements. She’s 
  considered by many to be one history’s great 
  beauties, although about her own appearance she 
  once commented “[Am I] beautiful? It’s all a 
  question of luck. I was born with good legs. As 
  for the rest… beautiful, no. Amusing, yes.” Yet 
  very few men in Paris agree with this 
  assessment. Baker has large, riving eyes (which 
  she enjoys crossing for comic effect), high cheek 
  bones, and a winning, easy smile. 
   
  Whether performing or socializing, 
  Josephine Baker’s personal presence is quite 
  formidable. If she resembles some sort of 
  bizarre, frenzied wild animal on stage, in the 
  OOH, LA, LA! 
   
   
  “...She was an 
  unforgettable female 
  ebony statue. A 
  scream of salutation 
  spread through the 
  theater. Whatever 
  happened next was 
  unimportant. The two 
  specific elements had 
  been established and 
  were unforgettable—
  her magnificent dark 
  body, a new model 
  that to the French 
  proved for the first 
  time that black was 
  beautiful, and the 
  acute response of the 
  white masculine 
  public in the capital of 
  hedonism of all 
  Europe – Paris.”  
  – American Journalist
  Janet Flanner
   
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  14 
  street she’s a model of civilized Parisian cool, 
  wearing designer Paul Poiret’s custom-made 
  dresses with her well-oiled hair hugging her 
  skull. Often escorted by artist Paul Colin, who 
  sketches her in his studio as frequently as 
  possible, Josephine is a noteworthy celebrity 
  who’s constantly invited to the best parties in 
  Paris. In fact, the French consider her so 
  attractive that there are Josephine Baker dolls, 
  costumes, perfumes, and even a hairdo for 
  women called Bakerfix. 
   
   
  FILMS STARRING 
  BAKER 
   
   
  La Sirene Des 
  Tropiques (The 
  Siren of The 
  Tropics), 1927 
  Zou Zou, 1934 
  Princess Tam-Tam, 
  1935 
   
  FILMS ABOUT 
  BAKER 
   
   
  The Josephine Baker 
  Storey, 1991 
  Intimate Portrait: 
  Josephine Baker, 
  1998 
   
  AUTO-
  BIOGRAPHIES BY 
  BAKER 
   
   
  Les Mémoires de 
  Josephine Baker 
  (Memories of 
  Josephine Baker), 
  1927  
  Voyages et Aventures 
  de Joséphine Baker 
  (Voyages and 
  Adventures of 
  Josephine Baker), 
  1931 
  Une Vie de Toutes 
  Couleurs (A Life of 
  All Colors), 1935 
  Les Memoires de 
  Josephine Baker 
  (Memories of 
  Josephine Baker), 
  1949 
  Joséphine 
  (Josephine), 1976 
   
  BIOGRAPHIES 
  ABOUT BAKER 
   
   
  Josephine Baker by 
  Bryan Hammond 
  and Patrick 
  O’Connor, 1988 
  Jazz Cleopatra by 
  Phyllis Rose, 1988 
   Josephine: The 
  Hungry Heart by 
  Jean-Claude Baker 
  and Chris Chase, 
  1993 
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  15
  Josephine Baker 
   Val Char Cost Roll Notes 
   15 STR 
  5 12- Lift 200 kg; 3d6 HTH [1] 
   21 DEX 
  33 13- OCV: 7/DCV: 7 
   20 CON 
  20 13-  
   15 BODY 
  10 12-  
   15 INT 
  5 12- PER Roll: 12-  
   15 EGO 
  15 12- ECV: 5 
   20 PRE 
  10 13- PRE Attack: 4d6 
   26 COM 
  8 14-  
   
   
  8 PD 
  5 
   Total: 8 PD  
   
  4 ED 
  0 
   Total: 4 ED 
   
  4 SPD 
  9 
   Phases: 3, 6, 9, 12 
   
  7 REC 
  0 
   40 END 
  0 
   40 STUN 
  7 
   
   
  Total Characteristics Cost: 127 
  Movement: Running: 
  8”/16” 
   
   
  Swimming: 2”/4” 
  Cost Powers  
  END 
   
  4 Running +2” (8” Total) 
  1 
   
   
   Martial Arts: Martiniquais Capoeira 
   
   Maneuver 
  OCV DCV 
  Notes 
   
  5 Spin Kick 
  -2 
  +1 
  7d6 Strike 
   
  4 Crescent Kick +2 
  +0 
  5d6 Strike 
   
  3 Legsweep 
  +2 
  -1 
  4d6 Strike; 
  Target Falls 
   
  5 Flying Kick 
  +1 
  -2 
  7d6 Strike 
   
   Perks 
   10 Contact: Powerful French Politician(s) 13- 
   
  3 Money: Well Off 
   
  9 Reputation: Famous Entertainer (among 
  Europeans) +3/+3d6 
   
  3 Reputation: Famous Entertainer (among 
  Americans) +1/+1d6 
   
  2 Fringe Benefit: Beloved By The French 
  People 
   
   Talents 
   
  3 Perfect Pitch 
   
   Skills 
   
  3 Acrobatics 13- 
   
  3 Acting 13- 
   
  3 Breakfall 13- 
   
  7 Conversation 15- 
   
  3 Contortionist 13- 
   
  3 High Society 13- 
   
  4 KS: African American Culture 13- 
   
  4 KS: French Culture 13- 
   
  4 KS: Men 13- 
   
  4 KS: Paris 13- 
   
  4 KS: Show Business 13- 
   
  3 Language: French (idiomatic, native 
  accent; literate) 
   
  1 Language: Italian (fluent conversation) 
   
  1 Language: Spanish (fluent conversation) 
   
  1 Language: German (fluent conversation) 
   
  1 Language: African American Slang 
  (fluent conversation) 
   
  3 Linguist 
   
  7 Oratory 15- 
   
  3 Paramedics 12- 
   
  7 Persuasion 15- 
   
  3 PS: Author 12- 
   
  7 PS: Dancing 15- 
   
  3 PS: Musician 13- 
   
  7 Seduction 15- 
   
  3 Streetwise 13- 
   
  1 WF: Pistols  
   
  Total Powers & Skills Cost : 144 
  Total Cost: 271 
   
   125+ Disadvantages 
   20 Distinctive Feature: Stunningly Attractive, 
  Wealthy, Fashionable, and Famous Black 
  Woman Before Civil Rights Movement 
  (Not Concealable, Major Reaction) 
   20 Psychological Limitation: Convoitise 
  Pendant La Vie (Lust For Life) (Common, 
  Total) 
   15 Psychological Limitation: Dangerous 
  Love Of Adventure (Common, Strong) 
   10 Psychological Limitation: Overpowering 
  Love Of Children (Common, Moderate) 
   15 Psychological Limitation: Passionate 
  Romantic (Common, Strong) 
   10 Reputation: Scandalous, 11-  
   15 Social Limitation: Black American Before 
  Civil Rights Movement (Very Frequently, 
  Minor) 
   10 Social Limitation: Famous (Frequently, 
  Minor) 
   31 Experience Bonus 
   
  Total Disadvantage Points: 271 
   
   
   
  BAKER 
  DISCOGRAPHY 
   
   
  Bonsoir Mon Amour 
  (Good Night My 
  Love), 1978 
  Josephine Baker, 
  1991 
  Exotique (Exotic), 
  1995 
  The Fabulous 
  Josephine Baker, 
  1995 
  Breezin’ Along, 1995
  Great, 1996 
  Etoiles De La 
  Chanson (Stars Of 
  The Song), 1996 
  Banana Girl, 1996 
  J’ai Deux Amours: 
  Mon Pays Et Paris 
  (I have Two Loves: 
  My Country And 
  Paris), 1996 
  Portrait Of, 1997 
  L’Étoile De Folies 
  Shepherdess (The 
  Star Of Folies 
  Shepherdess), 1997
  J’ai Deux Amours (I 
  have Two Loves), 
  1997 
  C’Est Vous (It Is 
  You), 1998 
  Le Meilleur De (The 
  Best Of), 1998 
  Gold Collection, 1998
  Selections Of 
  Josephine Baker, 
  1998 
  Etoiles De La 
  Chanson (Stars Of 
  The Song), 1999 
  Complete Record 
  Works 1926-1927, 
  1999 
  Josephine Baker, 
  1999 
  Paris En Chansons 
  (Paris In Songs), 
  1999 
  Cocktail Hour: 
  Josephine Baker, 
  2000 
   
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  16 
  Classic Bits by Jacob Russell 
   
  Alternate Earths 
  The concept of Alternate Earths was 
  introduced to super-hero comic books in the 
  mid-1950s and the medium hasn’t been the 
  same. The Alternate Earth concept was originally 
  used to reconcile contradictions in continuity 
  between the Golden and Silver Ages. However, 
  the idea became popular enough that the premise 
  was expanded to create other types of stories 
  until the continuity became too complex for 
  anyone to track. 
  Though today many people have mixed 
  opinions of this premise, the literary device of 
  Alternate Earths is an indispensable part of many 
  super-hero comic book sub-genres (especially 
  “Silver Age” comics). Despite the modern 
  abandonment of Alternate Earths, the convention 
  survives in other forms in other comics to this 
  day. The thought of another Earth with an eerie 
  resemblance to our own remains compelling. 
  Alternate Earths can take many – even 
  infinite – forms. Regardless of what type of 
  Alternate Earth is being used, there are always 
  common elements between the stories. All 
  Alternate Earths are significantly different to the 
  original Earth of the story, except that it contains 
  alternate versions of the main characters. Even if 
  the Alternate Earth was created by some 
  timeline-altering event that took place centuries 
  before the protagonists were born, analogues of 
  them still exist. The three most popular versions 
  of this literary device are: Parallel Earths, 
  Alternate Timelines, and Independent Earths.  
  Parallel Earths are Earths from a “parallel 
  dimension.” This means that there is another 
  universe out there that is traveling in the same 
  direction, but does not necessarily have the same 
  origins or the same destination. On a Parallel 
  Earth, most or all of the characters from the 
  original story exist on this other Earth, but with 
  significant differences. A character from one 
  Earth will have powers based upon magic while 
  on the Parallel Earth the same character will 
  have the same powers, but with a scientific basis. 
  Gardner Fox’s Earth-2 and Earth-3 from DC 
  Comics is a classic example of this kind of 
  Alternate Earth. 
  Alternate Timelines are similar to Parallel 
  Earths in that they contain an Earth with 
  recognizable character and culture analogues. 
  The main difference is that the Earth from the 
  Alternate Timeline was created when some key 
  historical event occurred differently, and thus 
  created this other world. Sliding Albion from 
  “The Authority” is an example of an Earth from 
  an Alternate Timeline. 
  The Independent Earth comes not from 
  another timeline or dimension, but from this 
  universe. Somewhere else in the same universe, a 
  planet formed and evolved in an almost parallel 
  way to our Earth. An Independent Earth can be a 
  sister planet on the other side of the Sun from us, 
  or some kind of lost celestial twin in another star 
  system. Counter Earth from “Adam Warlock,” 
  and Mirror Earth from “Tom Strong,” are 
  examples of Independent Earths. 
  PLAYING ON AN ALTERNATE EARTH 
   
   
  Alternate Earths are a fun place for the 
  players to explore, and for GMs to create. On the 
  one hand, the Alternate Earth is new and 
  different from the old and can hold much 
  fascination. On the other hand, it is always 
  similar enough that it doesn’t require as much 
  explanation and exposition from the GM. We 
  know what humans look like. We know what 
  flora and fauna to expect from virtually any 
  Alternate Earth. What we don’t automatically 
  know is that on this new Earth, America is a 
  totalitarian government that inducts all super-
  humans it encounters. 
  Whatever is different about the Alternate 
  Earth, the GM should decide what it is that 
  drives the player characters back to normal 
  Earth. If the Player Characters have well 
  developed personal lives back on normal Earth, 
  this shouldn’t be a problem, as they will need to 
  get back to them. However, if the Player 
  Characters don’t have well-developed lives, or 
  unhappy lives, then they may like the idea of 
  setting up new lives in this other world. If this is 
  not the direction you want the campaign to take, 
  then steps should be taken to make the Alternate 
  Earth less hospitable. 
  Aside from exploring another world, 
  Alternate Earths also offer the possibility for the 
  players to explore their own characters. By role-
  playing in a world where their characters are 
  regarded as villains, failures, or mythical figures, 
  the players will be able to explore a different 
  role-playing experience with the same character. 
  Players who are bored with their characters may 
  even see a way to take their character in a new 
  direction. 
  TRANSPORTATION FROM EARTH TO 
  EARTH 
   
   
  In deciding how transportation works 
  between Earths, the GM must decide if the 
  Alternate Earth is to be a significant part of the 
  game. If the GM only wants the Alternate Earth 
  to provide the occasional short-term adventure, 
  or evil duplicate villain (see below), then the 
  “doorway” to the Alternate Earth needs to be 
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  17
  difficult to open. The means of transportation 
  could be an accidental discovery with the means 
  of reversal only available on the other side. This 
  could also mean that transportation is only 
  possible at certain times, the next one being 
  years – or even centuries – from now (after the 
  characters return from the Alternate Earth, of 
  course). 
  If the GM wants the other Earth to be a 
  significant part of the campaign, then 
  transportation should be made easy. The GM 
  may even allow the players to buy an Extra-
  Dimensional Movement, or FTL Travel, 
  device/vehicle for their base. 
  The exact game mechanic of transportation 
  should be determined by the Alternate Earth 
  type. Parallel Earths and Alternate Timelines 
  should be accessed by Extra-Dimensional 
  Movement. Independent Earths should be 
  reachable by FTL Travel. 
  ALTERNATE EARTH: A GOOD SOURCE 
  FOR NPCS AND SUB-PLOTS 
   
   
  Are any of your players neglecting their 
  DNPCs? Take them to a world where they were 
  not successful in saving them from the last 
  super-villain attack. Do you need to quickly 
  write up a team of villains who are evenly 
  matched to your PC team? Haul out a team of 
  villains that are the PCs themselves from an 
  Alternate Earth where they became villains 
  instead of heroes. Writing up such a team 
  consists of little more than making copies of 
  their character sheets. In the area of alternate 
  versions of the PCs, there are three general 
  options. 
  OPTION 1: ENEMIES WITH IDENTICAL 
  POWERS 
   
   
  In this option, the duplicates are the exact 
  same people as the PCs, with the same powers. 
  However, somewhere along the way these 
  analogues went astray. Maybe they lost the fight 
  with the evil mind-controlling sorcerer. Maybe 
  they just grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. 
  Whichever the case, the PCs are going to have a 
  tough time not only fighting people of equal 
  power, but of telling their friends from their 
  enemies. 
  A plotline involving evil analogues can 
  present unique challenges to the PCs in areas 
  besides combat. An evil analogue can easily 
  infiltrate the team, or even the PC’s personal life. 
  If the team base utilizes any form of physical 
  identification for its security system (i.e., retinal 
  prints, DNA scanning, voice-print 
  identification), then an evil analogue can easily 
  bypass it. 
  This option is the easiest way to come up 
  with villains for your PCs to fight that you know 
  are an equal match for them. All you need is an 
  extra copy of everyone’s character. To truly 
  reflect the classic comic storyline the villains 
  should have the same costumes, but with 
  opposite color-schemes (e.g., green tights and a 
  yellow cape become a green cape with yellow 
  tights). 
  OPTION 2: ENEMIES WITH OPPOSITE 
  POWERS OR SPECIAL EFFECTS 
   
   
  Analogues in this option are the same people 
  as in Option 1. However, their alternate path of 
  life has given them different abilities. How 
  different these abilities are can vary widely. The 
  differences can be extremely minor, such as a 
  mere change in the special effect. 
  Another possibility is that the analogue’s 
  powers are completely opposite to the PC’s. If 
  the PC has fire powers, then the analogue will 
  have ice powers. While this may make 
  identifying some duplicates easy, others may still 
  be able to fake it. A brick whose analogue is a 
  mentalist may be able to fake super-strength with 
  Telekinesis or Mental Illusions. 
  OPTION 3: ALTERNATE TEAMMATES 
   
   
  In this scenario, the analogues may be 
  different in powers, origins, or secret identities, 
  but not in morality. While this is a time-honored 
  tradition in comics, this might not play out well 
  in a Champions campaign, assuming you want 
  the PCs to fight their own battles. 
  Appropriate Campaign Settings 
  As mentioned this dramatic convention was 
  a classic staple of the “Silver Age” comic books. 
  Though alternate universes are still used in 
  comics today, they are usually only used to 
  “host” stories of a “what if” nature. Of course, 
  there’s no reason why you cannot use Alternate 
  Earths in a modern campaign, but you may want 
  to be mindful of the more “corny” elements. 
  Running Analogues Convincingly 
  The hardest part about running an infiltrator 
  against the group is doing it without the PCs 
  knowing about it. If suddenly, the GM is 
  speaking for Captain Lepton and not the 
  Captain’s player, then the other players will get 
  suspicious. Your players might be cool enough 
  to play out their characters’ assumed ignorance, 
  but it is much more fun if they don’t know. 
  Pull one of your players aside and talk to 
  him before the game. Tell him that his character 
  has been captured and replaced with an 
  analogue. Give him some basic guidelines for 
  how to play this out. Tell him not to attack the 
  other PCs until you give him a signal. At any 
  time after the initial attack, you can take over the 
  duplicate. Once you do this, it is usually a good 
  idea to give the player, who has been such a 
  good sport, a chance for their PC to escape 
  imprisonment. 
   
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  18 
  Body Switching 
  It’s a classic of comic books, television 
  shows, and movies. The theme is simple:  what 
  is it like to be someone else? What is it like 
  being the opposite gender? What is it like to be 
  poor? What is it like to not have super-powers? 
  All of these ideas can be explored through Body 
  Switching. 
  SWITCHING GAME MECHANICS: 
  TRANSFORM VS. “MAKE IT SO” 
   
   
  There is no doubt that many of you reading 
  this article are already thinking thoughts like, 
  “Xd6 Major Transform:  one character into 
  another…” But before you do, there are some 
  issues which you need to address. 
  First of all, you have to decide on the 
  mechanism for switching bodies. Is this a power 
  that a villain possesses, a gadget that the PCs 
  stumble upon, a rare supernatural occurrence, or 
  what? Whatever the mechanism of switching is, 
  you need to make sure that the mechanism must 
  not be usable immediately to switch the 
  characters back. The characters must either 
  search for something which switches them back, 
  or wait a certain amount of time before the 
  switch can be reversed. 
  Second, you should decide if the body-
  switching is a matter of inconvenience or a 
  serious problem that needs to be addressed 
  quickly. There are many factors to be considered 
  here that are medical, social and even 
  psychological. Is the body-switching medically 
  benign to those who were switched, or are the 
  switched going to suffer increasing medical 
  problems until they get switched back? Do either 
  of the characters have obligations that cannot be 
  met if their minds – and INT-based skills - reside 
  in someone else’s body? What if one of the 
  switched characters is a surgeon? 
  Third, once you have the players switched 
  you can start to apply modifiers. Make the 
  switched characters make an INT roll to use any 
  powers that are unfamiliar. Apply additional 
  penalties if the powers are especially dissimilar. 
  For all rolls, including attack rolls, apply a -2 
  across the board. You should also decide what 
  happens when one of the switched characters is 
  knocked unconscious or dies. Do they suddenly 
  switch back? Is the other character permanently 
  stuck in that body? Is there a psychic backlash 
  that the uninjured character suffers? 
  WHO GETS SWITCHED? 
   
   
  Switching bodies between teammates can be 
  tricky, but fun. The classic option would be to 
  switch the two characters who get along the 
  least. Switching two characters who are best 
  friends presents less of a challenge since they 
  know each other the best and can more easily 
  pass themselves off as the other person. Best 
  friends will also tend to take greater care with 
  each other’s lives. Best friends will also not take 
  being in the others’ body as an insult or terrible 
  calamity. 
  Switching a PC with an un-powered NPC 
  will present some unique challenges, especially 
  in the areas of secret identities and the 
  temptation of power. If the NPC is a normal 
  person, how do they handle suddenly being in a 
  super-powered body? They may not want to be 
  switched back and even resist the PCs’ attempts 
  to switch him back. The switched PC will also 
  have to get along without any powers until the 
  reverse switch is made. If the switched PC has a 
  secret identity, then they have to worry about 
  exposure. If the PC has a public identity, then 
  they have to worry about what this person will 
  do to their reputation with the public. 
  With a cross-gender switch, the problems 
  can be quite serious. The romantic interest may 
  have plans with their loved one that will 
  probably have to be put on hold. If the loved one 
  is not in on what is happening, feathers may get 
  ruffled. A within-gender switch may not be 
  problem-free either. What if one of the switched 
  characters has an unrequited crush on the 
  girlfriend of the other switched person? The 
  temptation will be great, and EGO rolls should 
  be made accordingly. 
  Switching PCs with someone who is the 
  subject of a Rivalry disadvantage carries with it a 
  temptation of another kind. What if you are 
  switched with a teammate’s rival? You could 
  significantly harm the rival’s position, and said 
  rival would have no legal recourse. You should 
  also worry about what the rival is doing with 
  your body. 
  Switching a PC with a villain could be 
  dangerous. Worrying about what the villain is 
  doing with your body takes on a whole new 
  dimension. Of course having the villain’s body 
  in your control puts him at risk as well. This 
  presents another ethical dilemma. 
  APPROPRIATE CAMPAIGN SETTINGS 
   
   
  Though this kind of plot-device would be 
  appropriate to almost any four-color style 
  campaign, it is probably more appropriate to 
  Golden or Silver Age campaigns. Body-
  switching would probably seem out of place in a 
  “gritty” or realistic campaign. 
   
   
   
   
   
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  19
  The GM’s Toolbox by Wayne Walls 
   
  Building the Toolbox 
  So, it looks like you have been picked to run 
  a HERO System game. I am sure that, as a good 
  GM, you have read your rules, helped your 
  players make their PCs, and made sure you have 
  plenty of villains to fight. But during the game, 
  several items came up missing and had to be 
  searched for. One player forgot a pencil to write 
  with, another forgot her dice. Then just when 
  you had everyone settled in the fan that was 
  supposed to be keeping your game area cool 
  blew your map off the table. What’s a poor GM 
  to do? 
  Well, don’t worry. This GM is here to help 
  kindred GM spirits sort out just what is needed 
  to run a problem free game. The secret to a 
  problem free game is the GM’s toolbox. This 
  assortment of items, tailored to your gaming 
  style, can help your game run much smoother. 
  Most of the items are simple and inexpensive. A 
  few are obvious enough, while others come to 
  mind from a long history as a player and a GM. 
  What that history has taught this GM has been 
  collected here for your use. 
  THE BOX ITSELF 
   
  First thing is the physical toolbox. This can 
  range from a briefcase to a backpack and run to 
  many styles and types. For simplicity, let’s class 
  the toolbox as a soft case or hard box. Soft cases 
  like canvas gym bags, backpacks, and totes are 
  best for the general lightweight work. These are 
  great for a couple of soft bound rulebooks, a 
  supplement or two, your folder of NPCs and a 
  sack of dice. Add in a small box of pencils and a 
  cheap pencil sharpener, markers, and index cards 
  and the GM is pretty well set to game. For small 
  items, get a sorting box. These small plastic 
  boxes are sold at hardware stores and are 
  designed to hold small screws, bolts, and other 
  hardware. These boxes are perfect for dice, 
  miniatures and other small items a GM could 
  use.  
  The hard boxes like briefcases, toolboxes 
  (the plastic kind), and tackle boxes (which are 
  great for the miniatures) have the nice advantage 
  of being really sturdy. The plastic boxes are quite 
  spill resistant when a random elbow encounters a 
  full glass.  
  For the real heavy hardbound book 
  campaigns with several supplements, I like a file 
  box. This is a plastic box that is generally found 
  at office supply stores and is designed to be a 
  portable file drawer. A file box is great for 
  sorting NPCs, keeping a file for each of the 
  players’ PCs so you don’t have to deal with 
  “Oops! I forgot my character he’s back at the 
  dorm.” And this GM’s favorite thing about file 
  boxes is you don’t tend to bang up the corners of 
  your hardbound books. These things can take a 
  lot of weight of paper – they were made for 
  lawyers. 
  For those GMs with hardbound rulebooks – 
  use the hard boxes or cases so your corners don’t 
  get banged around. For those with lots of quality 
  miniatures go for the tackle boxes and pad with 
  some foam. For GMs who run varied games pick 
  a canvas or heavy cloth bag – think Mary 
  Poppins’ carpet bag, you won’t believe how 
  many things a bag like that can hold. 
  Once the choice of hard-box or soft-pack 
  has been made these are a few of the things to 
  put in it. Just to make sure and pack the obvious 
  tools. Here is the simple list. 
  SUPPLIES 
   
  Pencils, and a cheap sharpener, dice (the 
  cheap loaner variety not the good Chessex 
  classics), drafting tape, and a tape measure or 
  ruler. 
   Something for GM and players to use to 
  pass notes when needed. 3” x 5” index cards are 
  great for this. In a game where players are rivals, 
  it helps for them to be able to give the GM 
  information that they don’t share with the other 
  players. While just bits of paper will do for 
  notes, I like the 3” x 5” cards for the thickness of 
  the paper. I also write down lots of notes and PC 
  with these cards, and the stiffness of the cards 
  makes them easy to file. 
  And last in the obvious category are the 
  three M’s. Markers, maps, and miniatures for 
  your game.  
  The simple stuff is available at the deep 
  discount stores with names that include the word 
  “dollar.” You can follow up these basics with a 
  few slightly more tricky things that can make 
  your GMing life easier. 
  Buy a simple calculator, not an expensive 
  multi-function engineering model that will 
  calculate attribute costs for you, but a cheap 
  version to speed up you math processing. In a 
  traveling game, the GM can’t afford to have an 
  expensive calculator get left behind. Especially 
  at conventions or store demos, you don’t want to 
  throw things on the table that you can’t afford to 
  lose. This GM is not accusing gamers of theft! 
  Convention environments are too distracting, and 
  things get left behind on tables all the time. 
  Great tools used in mapping include a 
  flexible tape measure to see if the PCs and your 
  NPCs are in attack range on your map and 
  drafting tape to hold your map to the table and to 
  attach temporary features to your map. If you 
  aren’t familiar with drafting tape, this is a tape 
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  20 
  that will hold paper to a surface but will peel 
  back off without tearing the paper. The name 
  comes from the design source, the draftsmen 
  who used this tape to hold velum paper to a 
  drafting board. It has the edge on glue sticks for 
  attaching features to your map because it is not a 
  permanent adhesive. 
  What this GM likes most about draftsmen’s 
  tape is it doesn’t leave sticky on the table. Left 
  over gaming adhesive has never actually caused 
  a divorce in my circle of friends, but it came 
  close once. Grandma’s cherry table... Let’s just 
  not go there. 
  Your GM tools are coming along nicely by 
  now... But I did mention something about spill-
  proof earlier and I’d like to stress that the 
  purchase of a pack of page protector sheets at 
  you local office supply store can save you 
  tremendous amounts of trouble. The page 
  protector comes designed to hold two sheets of 
  paper and is hole punched to fit easily in a C or 
  D sized ring binder. These can protect a player’s 
  PCs from the dreaded soda syndrome and they 
  are helpful in keeping your NPCs organized as 
  well. 
  PAPERS AND MAPS 
   
  If you opt to use the page protector sheets 
  you can use china markers or overhead projector 
  markers to keep temporary notes on the plastic 
  instead of directly on the character sheet – this is 
  especially useful with agents or other NPCs that 
  you may reuse several times. You can mark off 
  the hit points until the NPC is down and then 
  wipe the plastic clean, and voila – he’s ready for 
  action again. 
  This technique works just as well for your 
  major repeating Villains, as soon as Dr. Death is 
  back on his feet your character sheet is ready to 
  go. A GM has to have a few good repeater 
  Villains to give PCs a feeling of challenge. 
  A standard deck of playing cards can be a 
  great addition to the GM’s toolkit. This is really 
  useful for initiative tiebreakers when too many 
  characters move on the same phase. And yes, A 
  GM could just roll dice for this but cutting a 
  deck of cards for high/low is a nice way to break 
  up the repetition. A deck of cards can always be 
  used for a prop if your characters are involved in 
  an adventure that has a casino or a poker game. 
  A simple bound logbook like the ones used 
  in high school chemistry classes are great for 
  keeping track of the adventure and the PCs’ 
  history with your NPCs. Aaron Allston 
  introduced the concept of “blue booking” for 
  keeping track of “out of game” role-playing and 
  these books are great for that. If you have a 
  player who wants to dominate the session by 
  going off on his own to do “X,” blue book 
  him/her later, don’t let the antisocial loner player 
  ruin everyone else’s fun.  
  Back to maps and markers. The baggie of 
  terrain bits is a tool that pairs well with the 
  draftsman’s tape. A terrain bag is a sturdy zip 
  lock bag of trees and shrubbery and a variety of 
  walls, doors, computer consoles, etc. that can be 
  set in place on your map once the player enters 
  the room. This helps to keep the map action 
  interesting. If a GM’s map is pre-drawn then 
  important features, or whole sections, have to be 
  covered up to keep the players from second-
  guessing the adventure by reading the map. With 
  the set in place terrain, they don’t get 
  information until the GM is ready for them to get 
  it. 
  As a gamer who also plays Magic, those 
  little glass life markers are great to use as 
  markers for generic agent, monster, civilians, etc. 
  on the map. 
  Closeout toy stores have great modernistic 
  soldiers and other cool looking bits you can use 
  as transportable cheap miniatures. Look at terrain 
  and minis as a “form not function” issue. Does 
  the little plastic widget look like it could pass for 
  a nuclear-powered accelerated laser from Dr. 
  Death’s lab? Does it matter what it really is? 
  Look at the big, plastic wrestling goon action 
  figure from your nephew’s discarded toys. Could 
  it substitute for a giant minion Viper has 
  unleashed on the PCs’ hometown? Sure it can! 
  Glue a piece of cardboard to its feet to help it 
  stand up and you have an instant cheap marker. 
  Having colorful markers for the real Villains 
  is necessary for you as well as the players to 
  keep track of who is who. But there is nothing 
  wrong with these markers being borrowed from 
  the Monster Rancher, Pokemon, DragonBall Z, 
  or any toy lines. Closeout toy stores often have 
  this style of toy on sale very inexpensively. If 
  you used quality painted miniatures in a 
  traveling game, there is a risk damaging them in 
  transport. As the GM, simply choose to either 
  substitute with cheap markers or spring for an 
  expensive tackle box. Even with the tackle box, 
  for frequent transportation, pad ups the good 
  minis with lots of foam. 
  The difference between a good game and a 
  great game is often removing the distractions so 
  play can flow. The basic GM’s toolbox can be 
  helpful in making sure the game doesn’t get 
  derailed in a search for some simple item needed 
  for play. The more advanced toolbox can be a 
  real boost to the game by adding better visuals 
  and controlling the information flow to the 
  players. 
  But don’t go overboard by trying to carry 
  items for every roleplaying situation. Just stick to 
  the basic stuff that both you as a GM and your 
  players decided that is needed for the game. The 
  lighter the load that is carried, the more likely the 
  GM toolbox will be used. 
   
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  21
  Pointless Champions by Theron Bretz 
   
  “Create your character on a base of 
  200 points, with up to 150 points in 
  Disadvantages” – virtually every 
  Champions campaign sheet ever 
  written. 
   
  “Silly gamemaster, points are for 
  players” – The mantra of many 
  experienced Champions gamemasters. 
   
  From their inception, roleplaying games 
  emphasized character advancement in concrete 
  terms. The character begins his career relatively 
  weak and gains power over successive 
  adventures. The HERO System, like virtually 
  every other roleplaying game on the market, 
  follows this “constant improvement” model, 
  starting the Player Characters relatively weak 
  and working them up to world-beater status over 
  the course of the campaign, while the opposition 
  keeps pace to create interesting challenges. 
  While this model certainly fits many fantasy and 
  science fiction genres, it is a far less perfect 
  match for portraying comic book superheroes.  
  Experienced Champions players know the 
  drill:  you start small, usually with a character 
  that isn’t quite what you had in mind, improve 
  him gradually until he gets there, buy off a 
  couple of Disadvantages you didn’t really want 
  in the first place (but needed in order to balance 
  the character), and maybe invest in a Base or a 
  Vehicle or two. 
  Then what? The character is how you 
  wanted him in the first place. Experience Points 
  become meaningless to someone who has no 
  further need for improvement. 
  This article presents a different way of 
  looking at character creation and advancement, a 
  method that more closely models the superhero 
  genre as portrayed in the comics. It is not 
  necessarily a system for everyone, as it requires a 
  high degree of mutual trust and cooperation 
  between the players and the Game Master along 
  with a desire to put the story ahead of character 
  balance. The results, however, are well worth the 
  extra effort. 
  Unlike the typical Champions Player 
  Character, the typical comic book hero starts out 
  at a power level dictated by the needs of the 
  story and remains that way, sometimes for 
  decades. When changes occur, they tend to come 
  suddenly (often with the rationalization that the 
  character had these new abilities all along), or 
  due to a significant story-related event. Seldom 
  do we see an inexperienced hero consistently 
  improve over the course of his comic book 
  adventures; indeed most training or improvement 
  takes place “off-camera,” if at all. Most of the 
  real development and improvement one sees in 
  the comics is in terms of characterization, 
  reputation, and impact on the setting, rather than 
  increasing power. While a sudden jump in power 
  could, in theory, be modeled by hoarding 
  Experience Points over a long period of time and 
  spending them all at once, i.e., a “Radiation 
  Accident,” such occurrences are extremely rare. 
  When the subject turns to superhero team 
  books (a style most Champions campaigns 
  follow), the model breaks down even further. 
  The typical team book has a vast power range:  
  everyone from a wise-cracking, but extremely 
  mortal, archer to a god of ancient times stands 
  side-by-side in the pages of superhero comics. 
  Modeling this power disparity is impossible if 
  everyone starts out with the same number of 
  points. Given how well the HERO System 
  mirrors so many other aspects of the genre, these 
  minor lapses are easily forgiven, but there is a 
  solution. 
   
  Get Rid of Character Point Limits 
  Character points are a holdover from the 
  hobby’s wargaming roots. They carry with them 
  a presumption of a competitive or adversarial 
  relationship among the players and Gamemaster; 
  the only way to make things “fair” is to give 
  everyone equal resources. The balance created is, 
  at best, imperfect and at worst, illusory. Twenty 
  extra points worth of Knowledge Skills is no 
  match for twenty extra points of Energy Blast in 
  most Champions campaigns. 
  When creating characters with limited 
  points, each Characteristic and Power ends up 
  optimized for maximum output at minimum cost. 
  Extraneous Disadvantages tend to crop up at the 
  same time, as players struggle to find another 
  five points to balance things out. As a result, the 
  character concept gets skewed in order to meet 
  an arbitrary limit. 
  This also means a player often begins a 
  campaign with a character significantly less 
  capable than what he had in mind. For Genre 
  Fiends, Pros From Dover, and Combat Monsters, 
  this can be a terribly frustrating experience – 
  what’s the point of being the best there is at what 
  you do, if you can’t actually be the best at what 
  you do? 
  In doing away with Character Point limits, 
  our group focused on creating the ideal versions 
  of our characters, not preliminary sketches that 
  could work up to it over the course of several 
  dozen adventures. By doing so, we created a 
  group that looked and acted a good deal more 
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  22 
  like a comic book superhero team than we’d 
  experienced in the past. Also, as a group that can 
  only play infrequently (a common problem for 
  aging gamers) avoiding that long climb up the 
  power scale made things all the more enjoyable. 
  On the surface, this style of play may seem 
  like a power gamer’s dream – carte blanche to 
  create as mighty a character as possible. If the 
  players and the Game Master are in an 
  adversarial or competitive situation, such 
  problem characters are a distinct possibility. 
  After all, no matter how powerful a player makes 
  his character, the Game Master can always slap 
  together something nastier and throw it right 
  back at him, starting an arms race of sorts. While 
  fighting a seemingly unbeatable foe makes for a 
  fun diversion once in a while, it doesn’t make for 
  a sustainable campaign. 
  The key to avoiding this is to make the 
  campaign a cooperative effort between the Game 
  Master and the players; this means 
  communication and trust are absolute necessities 
  in implementing a game of this nature. The 
  Game Master must be capable of articulating his 
  desires for the campaign and what sorts of 
  characters are and are not appropriate for it. On 
  the surface, this isn’t so different from the pre-
  game phase of any campaign. However, in a 
  point-less game, there is a greater possibility for 
  game-breaking characters, so any concepts must 
  be considered carefully and worked out with the 
  players in advance.  
  Likewise, the players, having the 
  opportunity to create a character completely to 
  their specs, must be willing to communicate key 
  information to the and be prepared to make some 
  alterations for the good of the campaign. After 
  all, even the best comics writers and artists have 
  editors overseeing the process. 
  For a more concrete example, let’s look at 
  the four original PCs from the home-grown 
  “Vanguard Comics Universe” campaign that 
  started this. The campaign was designed to 
  portray the Silver Age of comics, and our 
  characters were to be among the premiere heroes 
  of the day. 
  Victory is an avatar of Nike, the Roman 
  Goddess of Victory. She’s a flying brick with 
  several powers relating to assuring victory. The 
  harder you hit her, the tougher she gets – 790 
  points. 
  Titan is a high-powered gadgeteer, super-
  scientist, and captain of industry – 745 points 
  Impact is a scientist with vast telekinetic 
  abilities – 600 points 
  Troubadour is a non-powered martial artist, 
  poet, and lover of life – 403 points 
  In each case, the player presented the 
  concept to the gamemaster, then built the 
  character using the rule book, the only difference 
  being no maximum number of starting points, 
  and no minimum number of Disadvantages 
  required.  
  Once the initial character building was 
  complete, the Game Master went over each sheet 
  carefully and any issues were worked out. For 
  instance, Troubadour was initially purchased 
  with Armor Piercing on his Strength to reflect a 
  consistent amount of weakness detection. This 
  was done to avoid the uncertainty of Find 
  Weakness rolls and the lost time they cause. The 
  Game Master didn’t like this fix and asked for 
  Find Weakness instead. As that particular item 
  wasn’t a crucial change to the character, the 
  player accepted it and made the changes. 
  Victory’s player didn’t like the way the 
  Absorption rules worked and came up with an 
  alternate method he liked better; the Game 
  Master agreed and let it into play. 
  Although each of the characters is quite 
  powerful, there’s still a wide gap between 
  Victory and Troubadour. As such, one could 
  easily think the other characters superfluous. 
  Handled improperly, they would be. The means 
  to avoiding this lies in Schtick Preservation and 
  Spotlight Management. 
  Schtick Preservation is an old idea, but it 
  bears repeating. In essence, it says that each 
  Player Character should have something unique 
  that is his, and his alone, that no other character 
  can have, and that one thing should be valuable 
  to the group effort. To use our previous heroes as 
  an example, while each is certainly powerful, all 
  tend to be a bit one-sided in their concept. 
  Victory is incredibly powerful in a fight, but 
  she’s as stealthy as a Tiger tank. Atlas is brilliant 
  and has almost unlimited resources, but he has 
  difficulty dealing with anything non-scientific. 
  Troubadour is easily the world’s best martial 
  artist, but he lacks anything in the way of 
  resistant defenses. Impact is a powerful 
  telekinetic, but socially inept. Each trade-off was 
  intentional. Certainly, given unlimited points one 
  could build an infinitely powerful character, but 
  where’s the fun in playing Perfectman? 
  Spotlight Management is making sure each 
  character has his moment as the center of 
  attention to “shine.” In some adventures, one 
  character may get more spotlight time than the 
  others. This is inevitable, but the Game Master 
  must make certain not to let it turn into a pattern. 
  Likewise, the Game Master must maintain 
  control to prevent a player from hogging the 
  spotlight. Managing spotlight time is an 
  excellent way to draw out less assertive players. 
  Our Game Master often uses comic book 
  terminology to describe a particular scene, and 
  will prompt a player with “Go ahead, it’s your 
  word balloon,” if they seem unsure about 
  speaking up. 
  For the gamemaster, creating villains to 
  match the heroes shouldn’t be too much trouble. 
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  23
  After all, “points are for players.” Given the 
  likelihood of extremely powerful Player 
  Characters, it only makes sense that the villains 
  they face should be of equal or greater power. Or 
  should they? 
  The important thing to remember when 
  creating Champions villains is that the heroes 
  should defeat them, or thwart their actions at the 
  very least. It shouldn’t be easy, and some 
  roadblocks and setbacks are certainly in order, 
  but the heroes should come out on top in the end. 
  It’s the nature of the genre – good triumphs and 
  evil is punished. 
  Because of this, less powerful villains have 
  their place in this sort of campaign. In the 
  comics, many popular heroes have enemies who 
  are significantly less powerful than the star of the 
  book. One need only look at the rogues’ gallery 
  of the World’s Fastest Man or the inmates of a 
  certain unsavory asylum to see this pattern. 
  Many of the most memorable villains in comics 
  are essentially “one-shot wonders,” characters 
  whose entire concept revolves around a single 
  gimmick, power, or piece of equipment, whose 
  paper-thin defenses and glass jaw are no match 
  for the heroes, but are still considered credible 
  threats. 
  The trick to using such a character is twofold.  
  First, whatever threat they do pose should be 
  played up as much as possible. Innocent civilians 
  are a blessing for this. Sure Major Storm can’t 
  freeze our lightning quick hero, but he can wreak 
  havoc on Mrs. Vandergelder’s charity ball. 
  Threaten the innocent, hit by surprise, and play 
  to their strengths. Most of all, play their 
  personality. If the villain takes himself seriously, 
  chances are other people will as well. 
  Second, these villains are best when 
  associated with a particular hero, as a personal 
  menace. For instance, in our campaign, there is a 
  group of villainesses called The Troubadour 
  Revenge Squad, consisting entirely of women 
  spurned in the past by our hero, who turned to 
  crime (and gained superpowers along the way) to 
  get back at him. None of them are particularly 
  powerful by themselves, but they have no 
  problem hurting innocent people to make 
  Troubadour look bad. By making these minor 
  menaces Troubadour’s “problem,” he’s 
  guaranteed spotlight time whenever they show 
  up, along with good roleplaying opportunities for 
  everyone else as they once-again berate him for 
  his taste in women. 
  CHARACTER ADVANCEMENT, 
  EXPERIENCE, AND REWARDS 
   
   
  In a traditional campaign, Experience Points 
  provide a tangible reward for players. Each point 
  is of a set value, able to directly affect the future 
  of the character. The point-less campaign, being 
  less concerned with the mechanical improvement 
  of a character requires the Game Master to focus 
  on the intangibles, those non-mechanical aspects 
  of the campaign, where the characters seem to 
  live and breathe. 
  In our campaign’s two-year history, the 
  Game Master has yet to award Experience 
  Points. The players have yet to ask for any. To 
  be honest, this wasn’t intentional, it just grew out 
  of the process and took both the players and the 
  Game Master a while to notice. Because we’d 
  designed our characters the way we wanted them 
  from the start, improving their abilities never 
  became a priority.  
  Which is not to say they remained static; far 
  from it. Instead of looking for opportunities to 
  improve the characters’ statistics, we focused on 
  developing the personalities of our heroes and 
  their interactions and relationships. Since the 
  campaign’s first session, we’ve gained in 
  abilities, acquired a headquarters (complete with 
  a demi-goddess housekeeper), engaged in 
  PC/NPC romances, gained allies and enemies, 
  won the hearts and minds of the people of Fair 
  City, and confiscated a flying galleon from a 
  villain who didn’t need it anymore. 
  Of course, all of the above could certainly 
  be accomplished in a more traditional campaign, 
  but often the chase for Experience Points gets in 
  the way of such things. In a traditional campaign, 
  where anything and everything seems to be 
  measured by its point value, players often 
  become wary of the “intangible” Disadvantages, 
  those things that a character brings upon himself 
  through his actions, for which he gets no points 
  in return. Likewise, many gamemasters of 
  traditional campaigns aren’t used to letting 
  people keep a flying pirate ship around unless 
  they pay out the Experience Points for it. In our 
  case, such events seemed reasonable and in 
  keeping with the style of the comics, so the 
  Game Master allowed them. If he later decides 
  the galleon was a bad idea, it can always end up 
  lost or destroyed at no cost to the PCs. 
  In giving out intangible awards, it’s as 
  important for the Game Master to know the 
  player’s needs as well as the character’s goals. A 
  Builder will want to see the campaign setting 
  change for the better due to the efforts of his 
  character; a Romantic will want opportunities for 
  relationship building; just like any other 
  campaign, but this case, the reward is in the 
  roleplaying and the spotlight time given to the 
  situation. All of these should be considered in a 
  traditional campaign as well, but in a point-less 
  campaign, they become all the more important to 
  maintaining player interest and a sense of 
  accomplishment. 
  Tangible rewards can come in the form of 
  Perks, bases, vehicles, and the ever-popular 
  trophy room. Don’t make the heroes pay for 
  these if they seem like a logical extension of the 
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  24 
  story and help the campaign; such things are 
  completely in keeping with the genre. 
  Occasionally, a player may decide his 
  character needs a new skill or ability. Without 
  Experience Points to make a purchase, it’s up to 
  the player to make a case for such an 
  improvement. If the Game Master agrees, this 
  too can be used as a tangible award. 
  Yet another type of award players can 
  receive is the Meta-Game award. This is 
  something which allows the player to affect the 
  game directly from outside of the rules. These 
  can be written down on index cards and given to 
  the players to redeem when used. Here are some 
  possible awards, in relative order of value: 
  • 
  Free Re-Roll:  Re-roll any single die roll. 
  • 
  Do-Over:  Re-try any non-dice related 
  activity (a piece of conversation, etc.) 
  • 
  Automatic Success:  You automatically 
  succeed on one unopposed roll. Cannot be 
  used for an attack. 
  • 
  Change a Number:  You can change the 
  number on a single die from your last roll to 
  another number of your choice (must be 
  from 1-6). 
  • 
  What The?!!!:  Something unexpectedly 
  lucky occurs. This is the equivalent of 
  getting three sixes on a Luck Roll. 
  • 
  Just Grazed Me:  Add half again your 
  Defenses to a single attack. 
  • 
  It’s Not As Bad As It Looks:  Ignore all 
  BODY damage from a single attack 
  (includes Killing Attacks). 
  • 
  Second Wind:  Take double your Recovery 
  when used. If you are Stunned, recover from 
  it immediately without spending a Phase. 
  • 
  If We Combine Our Powers:  Allows two 
  or more characters to combine their powers 
  to create an unorthodox, but logical effect. 
  The players must provide an explanation of 
  the effect. Can also be used to make an 
  automatic Coordinated Attack. 
  • 
  Sudden Opening:  Opponent will have 
  halved Defenses versus a single attack. This 
  may not be combined with Find Weakness. 
  • 
  Max Out:  Your next die roll is considered 
  to be all sixes. Please do not use on civilian 
  targets. 
  • 
  Nyah Nyah – You Missed Me:  Opponent’s 
  attack misses, regardless of roll. Must be 
  played after attack succeeds, but before 
  damage is rolled. 
  • 
  Bad Footing:  Opponent’s OCV and DCV 
  reduced by half for phase played. 
  • 
  Ashes, Ashes, All Fall Down:  All agent-
  level NPCs will fall unconscious upon being 
  hit, without a damage roll, for the rest of this 
  fight. 
  • 
  I’m OK, Really:  Heal back up to five 
  BODY unassisted. 
  • 
  Edit Scenery:  Make a minor change to the 
  current environment, such as putting a door 
  where one wasn’t before, a dumpster full of 
  old mattresses under a falling person, or 
  suddenly finding an item that can be used as 
  an improvised weapon. 
  • 
  Edit Circumstances:  Make a change that 
  affects an entire scene, without derailing the 
  plot. The player must come up with an in-
  character rationale for how it occurs. The 
  Game Master can veto the use of this card, 
  and return it to the player.  
  These are just a few examples, creative 
  gamemasters should have no trouble coming up 
  with more, tailored to their own campaigns. 
  VARIATIONS 
   
   
  Some gamemasters may wish to try this 
  approach, but feel more comfortable with the 
  idea of traditional Experience Points and 
  balanced characters. If so, I still recommend 
  allowing players to create characters with no 
  point limits and only take the Disadvantages 
  necessary for the character concept. Any 
  remaining points needed to balance the character 
  are the Hero Bonus (or Villain Bonus). Once the 
  campaign begins, half of the characters’ 
  Experience Points will go towards buying down 
  the Hero Bonus. This still makes for powerful 
  starting characters, but allows for tangible 
  rewards and player-directed character 
  improvement. 
  This method can also be used for a 
  campaign combining “old hands” and “rookies.” 
  In many genres, the new character comes in 
  relatively inexperienced and improves quickly, 
  while the old hands remain relatively static. By 
  combining standard characters with Hero Bonus 
  characters, the rookies will improve at twice the 
  rate as the old timers.  
  More adventurous gamemasters may even 
  wish to combine unlimited characters with the 
  more conventional sort in the same campaign. 
  The conventional characters get Experience 
  Points, the others are handled as above. 
  OTHER GENRES 
   
   
  While this article deals primarily with 
  Champions, much can be done with it in other 
  genres as well. 
  Fantasy:  This approach works quite well 
  for the high fantasy genre. By using a 
  combination of starting characters and Hero 
  Bonus characters one could easily simulate 
  Tolkien’s Fellowship or the heroic tales of 
  ancient Greece. 
  Space Opera:  While this approach 
  probably won’t work for hard science fiction, 
  Space Opera is full of larger-than-life figures 
  who don’t play by the rules. The heroes of the 
  most popular space opera of the last few decades 
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  25
  are a perfect example of a mixed group. 
  Espionage:  How much do Fleming’s or 
  Clancy’s heroes really improve between 
  adventures? Hardly at all. While Normal 
  Character Maximums should still be enforced, 
  extremely capable spies are the order of the day 
  in this genre. Such capable “normals” can also be 
  combined with the horror genre to create 
  monster-hunting Black Ops specialists, or with 
  superheroes to create Super-Agents. 
  Giant Robots:  Unlimited points means 
  they don’t have to pay for their robots. By 
  mixing the party, you can set up mentor-student 
  relationships, give the old hands the really cool 
  equipment, and give the youngsters something to 
  shoot for. 
  Pulp Hero:  Keep the Normal Characteristic 
  Maximums in place. A mixed group is a great 
  model for pulp adventurers, where a single hero 
  may have several less powerful associates. Meta-
  game awards are particularly appropriate for this 
  genre.  
  Martial Arts:  Movie-style martial artists 
  are often just superheroes without the capes and 
  spandex. An easy fit.  
  IN CONCLUSION 
   
   
  Players and gamemasters are invited to use 
  any of these suggestions they like and ignore 
  those they don’t. As mentioned at the beginning, 
  these suggestions aren’t for everyone. They 
  require a strong sense of cooperation throughout 
  the gaming group and respect for each other’s 
  character and interests. It requires a Game 
  Master who trusts his players not to abuse the 
  privilege of “unlimited” power, and it requires 
  players who trust the Game Master to use their 
  characters in a way that serves all of their stories. 
  Most of all, it requires a willingness to 
  experiment with things like game balance and 
  character advancement in order to better emulate 
  the genre. 
  Even for our group, this style of play is an 
  ongoing process as we add new players to the 
  mix. For us, it’s been a successful experiment, 
  but there’s no way to know if it will work at your 
  table without giving it a try. 
   
   
   
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  26 
  The Ways of the Wicked by Steven Trustrum 
   
  The Ways of the Wicked 
   
  It is likely safe to say that if you enjoy a 
  well-crafted superhero campaign you acquired 
  the taste from reading comic books. As such, you 
  are well aware that reveling in the sheer 
  maliciousness of any given issue’s villain is as 
  important to the experience as reading about the 
  heroes’ exploits:  sometimes the guy we are 
  meant to hate is unavoidably the most fun part of 
  the story. However, designing a fun and 
  interesting villain is not as easy as it may sound. 
   
  Certainly, a stumped GM can always open a 
  few comic books and take inspiration from a 
  single diabolical personality, or amalgamation 
  thereof, but is that enough? Will this make the 
  villain stand out and deliver an evening of fun 
  gaming? While experienced GMs may already 
  have a few tricks to resolving the problem of 
  designing and playing memorable opponents for 
  their players to face (though it can never hurt to 
  learn a few more), neophyte GMs may be 
  looking for some help getting started. Hopefully, 
  herein you’ll find the advice and tricks you’re 
  looking for. 
  IT AIN’T EASY BEING EVIL 
   
   
   
  The first trick to creating a great villain is to 
  present a character that is not merely a punching 
  bag for the heroes to toss around at their whim. 
  GMs should portray the villain as something far 
  more than the sum total of his statistics; 
  personality, disposition, motivation, history, 
  relationships, and so much more are all factors to 
  be reflected upon. For instance, how will the 
  villain react to the player characters’ egos, ethics, 
  and goals? How will he prepare for the heroes’ 
  specific powers and tactics? Will the villain learn 
  from his defeats and be tougher to beat the next 
  time around or is he the type that is too dumb or 
  stubborn to know what is best for him? 
   
  How a GM decides to portray a supervillain 
  will forever define that character in the players’ 
  minds, obliging the GM to ensure that his bad 
  guys are as interesting as possible from the word 
  go. An opponent’s initial impression is the most 
  telling and remains with the players the longest, 
  so the GM had better make it a good one. 
   
  One of the easiest (and safest) ways to 
  depict one’s villains is for the GM to employ 
  time-tested archetypes, be it the mindless brick, 
  cackling madman, loudmouth braggart, or 
  calculating thinker. However, if the villain is 
  meant to be a recurring part of the campaign, the 
  players may quickly grow bored with the same 
  old stereotypes and begin begging for something 
  better and more engaging. Therefore, in the long 
  run, it is usually best to exploit clichés solely for 
  a bad guy’s foundation and then mix things up 
  from there by throwing a few (or, better yet, 
  many) curves at the players’ expectations. 
   
  Some good tips are to give one’s villains 
  personality quirks that go against the rest of their 
  image and therefore will be surprising and fun, 
  once revealed. Maybe Colonel Cruel, would-be 
  dictator and general hardcase, is afraid of the 
  water, or perhaps Doctor Dark, mass murderer 
  and tyrannical commander of a legion of evil 
  super soldiers, is secretly in love with a powerful 
  (and beautiful) superheroine. There is no such 
  thing as being too creative (or too sinister, for 
  that matter) when it comes to designing one’s 
  villains. In fact, the more imaginative and off-
  the-wall the bad guy is, the more fun the players 
  are likely to have. Go nuts. 
   
  Achieving that comic book feel also requires 
  the GM to play up to his creation. What good is 
  saying that the cad cackles insanely as he 
  wantonly destroys city blocks if the GM doesn’t 
  try his best to imitate that chilling laugh? Just as 
  comic books rely upon good storytelling and 
  masterful artwork to make the reader say “wow, 
  now that’s a cool villain,” so too must the GM 
  employ all of his bag of tricks to ensure that his 
  players love to hate the bad guys that they square 
  off with each session. Foxbat, if played with 
  gusto and all of the GM’s maniacal heart, is a 
  shining example of just how much fun a villain 
  can be, even if he gives the players a sound 
  thrashing. 
   
  But what if you are still having problems 
  coming up with some cool and refreshing ideas 
  of your own? No need to worry, we’re here to 
  help.1 
   
  WHAT MAKES A BAD GUY GREAT? 
   
   
   
  One of the more prominent problems with 
  many supervillains is that they can come across 
  as a carbon copy of a well-known bad guy; even 
  if the character’s name has changed, the players 
  realize who has inspired their opponent. Not that 
  this is necessarily a bad thing – most players 
  enjoy squaring off against a somewhat familiar 
  face from time to time. On the other hand, such 
  similarities can make it difficult for GMs to 
  surprise the heroes. Having read about the 
  villain’s iconic inspiration, the player characters 
  are likely to use familiar tricks taken from the 
  related comic books rather than devising fresh 
  tactics of their own. Considering that the purpose 
  of role-playing is to have fun while creating and 
  participating in an ongoing story, a campaign 
  that turns out to merely be rehashing an existing 
  comic book plot will likely loose its appeal to 
  players and GM alike rather quickly. 
                                                             
  artwork by Derrick Thomas 
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  27
   
  The trick then, when using iconic bad guys, 
  is to add new twists that will throw a monkey 
  wrench into this dangerous trap of predictability. 
  For example, if the comparable comic book 
  villain has innate superpowers, the GM may 
  keep his villain’s abilities relatively the same but 
  make them technology- or magic-based instead. 
  Exchanging one superpower for another may 
  also serve to trip up the heroes at the worst 
  possible moment by entering a wholly 
  unexpected factor into the mix. 
   
  Moreover, the bad guys, like the 
  protagonists, must constantly evolve in order to 
  keep the game moving and challenging. Just 
  because our intrepid heroes haven’t seen their 
  archnemesis in a while doesn’t mean that he is 
  sitting on his laurels, waiting upon the player 
  characters’ convenience. No, he is likely 
  engaging other superheroes elsewhere and 
  working on his insidious plans. This means that 
  the villain will be earning experience, learning 
  new tricks and probably growing more powerful. 
  The villain may also be exposed to 
  circumstances that cause his powers to change. 
  For example, he could have been accidentally 
  bathed in radiation during a fight or have found 
  an alien artifact, meaning he could be radically 
  different from what the player characters 
  remember when next they cross swords. 
   
  Think of the comic books that you’ve read 
  and try to recall the instances when a villain 
  shows up after being absent for twenty-or-so 
  issues. He usually has a new costume, has made 
  new allegiances, and has likely learned 
  something that is useful against the player 
  characters. By constantly having the bad guy 
  evolve in the same manner as do the heroes, even 
  if it is done only as a background story, the 
  villain will always seem fresh and will keep the 
  players on their toes. 
   
  A good example of how this may be done 
  would be to have the heroes, while reading the 
  newspaper, learn that one of their more common 
  foes has scrapped it out with the Champions at a 
  lab complex in a nearby city. Although the 
  Champions technically won the day, the 
  masterful criminal and his henchmen escaped 
  with a powerful and experimental weapon. This 
  event will later involve the player characters 
  when they discover (the hard way) that the 
  villain had specifically stolen the weapon to use 
  against them! By utilizing such twisting and 
  turning plots that exist beyond the campaign’s 
  immediate events, a crafty GM will not only be 
  able to better shape his game world, but will also 
  add another dimension to the way his players see 
  the campaign’s villains. 
   
  Frequently shifting and unraveling plots are 
  just as important to a well-designed foe as are the 
  villain’s abilities, background, and portrayal by 
  the GM. Remember, a single comic book series 
  rarely exists as a self-contained story; comic 
  book plots often overlap in a state of symbiotic 
  development that works toward evolving a 
  shared universe. By echoing this effect in their 
  own campaigns, GMs can convey the feeling that 
  there is a grander scheme for the heroes to 
  consider, an entire world of activity that moves 
  along without the player characters but may just 
  as easily be shaped in radical ways by their 
  actions. 
   
  Yet another exploitable trend of comic 
  books is to have bad guys rise in the ranks of the 
  criminal underworld from the role with which 
  the heroes are familiar. In issue #100 of “Mr. 
  Wacky,” the evil Doctor Dark was just another 
  two-bit crook with a few superpowers, his hopes 
  set on robbing banks for quick cash and not 
  much else. Mister Wacky shows up, hauls 
  Doctor Dark off to prison, and we, the readers, 
  think nothing more of him until he shows up 
  again in issue #160. This time Doctor Dark has 
  assembled and leads a group of dangerous 
  criminals known as the League of Really 
  Terrible Guys. Having grown by leaps and 
  bounds beyond the petty villain that he was in 
  issue #100, the Doctor Dark of issue #160, along 
  with his new companions, come close to killing 
  Mr. Wacky and taking over the world. Doctor 
  Dark has not necessarily changed very much – 
  he’s acquired a new costume, learned a little 
  more about his superpowers, and maybe gained a 
  dozen or so experience points – but it is the 
  addition of his allies and the radical change in his 
  purpose that has allowed Doctor Dark to grow 
  from a cannon fodder punching bag into a 
  criminal mastermind to be feared. 
   
  Even more interesting is one of the more 
  radical changes that can overcome a villain, 
  especially one who is a reoccurring foe, is to 
  switch allegiances to the cause of justice. But 
  what can bring a villain to completely reverse his 
  evil ways and follow the path of good? Let’s 
  look once more to comic books for the answer. 
   
  Comic book villains are often redeemed by 
  the well-spoken words of an innocent or by 
  witnessing an atrocity that was beyond even his 
  capacity for evil. Another common theme is to 
  have someone steal the criminal’s heart, making 
  him realize that their love can never be if the 
  villain is always running from the law. And let 
  us not forget the question of what would happen 
  if the catalyst for the villain’s moral 
  enlightenment were to be removed. 
   
  Also realize that just as bad guys can switch 
  teams, so too may the defenders of 
  righteousness. A hero-turned-villain will likely 
  know dangerous secrets about other heroes and 
  law enforcement agencies, especially if he once 
  belonged to a superhero team. Does the traitor 
  know the secret identities of his old companions? 
  Can he turn the heroes’ love for their families 
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  28 
  against them? Does the villain know all the 
  heroes’ vulnerabilities? Even if the traitor was 
  not previously a part of a team, he probably still 
  knows a great deal about the strategies and 
  tactics of other heroes and could now turn them 
  to his advantage. 
   
  There is also the problem of the damage 
  caused to the reputation of the superhero 
  community as a whole when a good guy does a 
  moral about-face. Many “normals” already look 
  upon superbeings, even the so-called good guys, 
  with fear and mistrust because of the great 
  responsibility and power that such people wield, 
  and so a public relations nightmare shall likely 
  arise if one of their own switches teams. The 
  backlash of public opinion caused by a renegade 
  hero is especially damaging for any superbeings 
  that were visibly associated with the rogue. 
   
  Though not to be overused, the idea of the 
  traitor hero always makes for a memorable 
  villain and is a great way to shake up a 
  campaign. 
   
  GMs will quickly realize that their best 
  villains are those that they put the most thought 
  and undiluted imagination into. If all the GM 
  does is reach for his stack of pregenerated bad 
  guys and almost randomly select an opponent 
  based solely on powers and characteristics, 
  totally disregarding personality and background, 
  not only is the GM doing his story a disservice, 
  but he is also cheating his players of a great deal 
  of fun. So, look to these tips, and your own, and 
  always keep the goal of having fun in mind and 
  you can’t go wrong. 
   
  THE ARCHNEMESIS 
   
   
   
  An archnemesis, a villain who will be one of 
  the heroes’ greatest, longest running threats 
  throughout the campaign, requires a good deal 
  more thought and preparation than is needed for 
  a common thug or other minor threat. It is not so 
  important that an archnemesis be a powerhouse 
  of devastation as it is vital for him to bring a 
  sense of consistency to the plot by providing a 
  familiar face that keeps coming back for more, 
  no matter how many times the player characters 
  soundly thump him. Unlike those criminals who 
  the player characters just happen to stumble 
  across during a random or “one-shot” encounter, 
  the archnemesis is purposefully presented and 
  designed to work toward greater and grander 
  things in order play an important part in the 
  campaign, specifically with regards to the PCs. 
   
  If a GM allows an encounter between the 
  protagonists and their archnemesis to seem 
  random or lacking of purpose, he risks 
  undermining that NPC’s credibility with the 
  players and thus his future value to the game. An 
  archnemesis is not the type of bad guy who sits 
  in a van outside of a bank, waiting for the right 
  moment to walk in, rob the place, and then speed 
  away. Oh no, these are the fiends who have their 
  sights set on loftier things and contrive complex, 
  long-term plans in order to attain them. For the 
  archnemesis, petty crime is almost certainly a 
  waste of time and resources better directed 
  toward more important things, such as figuring 
  out a way to make as much money as possible 
  with a single plan, how best to kill or frame the 
  player characters, or better yet, think of a way to 
  combine the two. An archnemesis is meant to be 
  a “bad guy’s bad guy” and should be presented 
  as such for optimum effect and enjoyment. 
   
  “But,” you may ask, “how do I know if a 
  villain is truly of archnemesis caliber?” 
   
  First, see how much fun the players have in 
  their initial encounter with the villain; if they 
  have a great time trying to unravel their 
  opponent’s stratagems and feel challenged by the 
  threat that he poses, maybe the NPC has what it 
  takes to be an archnemesis. Secondly, the powers 
  and skills of an archnemesis should also pose a 
  challenge and act as a counter-balance for the 
  talents and abilities of the heroes, thereby 
  ensuring that the bad guy will not easily be 
  defeated and will actually survive long enough to 
  become a reoccurring plot element. After all, 
  what good is an archnemesis if he never even 
  comes close to defeating our heroes? 
   
  Knowing and understanding a bad guy’s 
  motivation is likewise essential to defining the 
  NPC’s role within the campaign. Sure, it may be 
  fun now and again to use a bad guy solely for the 
  players to earn some quick experience or 
  experiment with their powers, but this is not the 
  way for a GM to build a villain into the role of 
  the archnemesis. To develop the latter, the GM 
  must first make the antagonist as three-
  dimensional as possible. 
   
  • 
  What are the villain’s goals, both short- and 
  long-term? 
  • 
  Why did the villain turn to evil and what 
  continues to drive him onward? 
  • 
  Is the villain violence personified, or 
  restrained and collected? 
  • 
  Is the villain a master of secrets or does he 
  not care a whit who sees him carry out his 
  evil schemes? 
  • 
  What are the villains favorite methods and 
  tactics, and why? 
  • 
  Who, in the villain’s life, is important to him 
  and why? 
  • 
  What (if anything) are the villain’s 
  weaknesses? 
  • 
  Does the villain have any secrets and, if so, 
  who else knows them? 
  • 
  Who are the villain’s allies and why have 
  they chosen to help him? 
  • 
  Who are the villain’s enemies and does that 
  necessarily make the latter the heroes’ 
  friends? 
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  29
   
  And while an archnemesis need not always 
  be an aspiring tyrant, warmonger, or blackmailer 
  of nations, it is always good to make the player 
  characters feel that they are a part of something 
  epic and sweepingly positive, perhaps even 
  world-altering. Certainly, the head of a local 
  crime syndicate or supervillain team can usually 
  serve nicely in the role of archnemesis, but there 
  comes a time when the players want to step out 
  from their little corner of the world and into the 
  global spotlight. 
   
  An archnemesis who facilitates this desire 
  will make the player characters think and act in 
  new ways, as they are forced to deal with an 
  opponent who is drastically different from their 
  typical foes. These villains will have contingency 
  plans on top of contingency plans – they’ll have 
  thought about every possible angle (except that 
  one which allows the player characters to defeat 
  them), and will have the resources to back up 
  their machinations. However, just as the scope of 
  an adventure involving such an antagonist is 
  meant to have an epic feel, so too must the 
  story’s climax. 
   
  To reduce the inevitable final battle with 
  such a worthy archnemesis to a simple brawl is 
  incredibly anti-climactic, thus requiring 
  something with a bit more zest to convey that 
  “showdown at high-noon” feel. Here are some 
  new and familiar suggestions on how to establish 
  such an ending: 
   
  • 
  Forcing the heroes to choose between saving 
  an innocent (perhaps even a loved one) and 
  defeating the villain. This is a good 
  opportunity to use those DNPCs that are 
  always being attached to character sheets. 
  • 
  Once defeated, the villain turns out to be a 
  decoy (e.g., a robot, minion, brainwashed 
  missing hero, hologram, and so on). 
  • 
  The hero learns something about the villain 
  that may prevent a clear-cut resolution (e.g., 
  he is a version of the hero from the future or 
  an alternate reality, he is related to the hero, 
  he is a child trapped in adult form, and so 
  on). 
  • 
  A much worse problem arises, such as alien 
  invaders touching down, possibly forcing 
  the heroes to temporarily ally themselves 
  with the villain until the matter is resolved. 
  • 
  The heroes find a clue that this “final 
  confrontation” was supposed to turn out as it 
  did, with them winning, in order to better 
  serve a higher plan that they are not aware 
  of. 
  • 
  The heroes find themselves in a deathtrap 
  rather than facing the villain directly. 
   
   
  But are such plot devices too clichéd or 
  predictable to be at all interesting and fun?  
   
  Unlike comic books, a role-playing game’s 
  plot is not preset and is constantly shifting, 
  depending upon what actions and decisions the 
  player characters make. If used properly, placing 
  a hero in a maze of insidious deathtraps can 
  prove to be a fun and memorable challenge that 
  will open the players’ eyes to just how evil their 
  opponent can be. And maybe the villain doesn’t 
  even really expect the hero to be killed by the 
  deathtraps, only delayed long enough for him to 
  complete his plans or make good his escape. 
  Imagine the sour taste this would leave were the 
  heroes to believe they had conquered the deadly 
  challenge only to learn that their archnemesis 
  had used the delay to convey his nuclear arsenal 
  to safety. 
   
  And this leads us to what is perhaps the 
  greatest defining characteristic of the 
  archnemesis, the main point that separates them 
  from the fodder: the archnemesis always seems 
  to be one step ahead of the heroes. No matter 
  how many times the insidious mastervillain is 
  defeated, no matter how soundly, he always 
  returns, even if he is absent for a long period. 
  Oftentimes, even death is just another obstacle 
  that must be surmounted in order for the 
  archnemesis to make his dramatic comeback. It 
  is this “never say die” attitude (and lifestyle), 
  perhaps more than anything else, that will make 
  the players loath and dread the next appearance 
  of their archnemesis, even though they know that 
  they’ll revel in the fun of trying to stop him. 
   
  SUPERVILLAIN SURVIVAL 
   
   
   
  It is all well and good to discuss the creation 
  of a memorable archnemesis and the methods for 
  transforming a pawn into a leader of men, but 
  what good does that do if the heroes kill him 
  (purposely or accidentally) in their first 
  encounter? A lot of the GM’s time and effort will 
  have been wasted, and he’ll likely become 
  incredibly frustrated with the players, especially 
  if this is a reoccurring event in the campaign. So 
  then, along with figuring out how to make a 
  villain seem original and cool, it would also 
  seem necessary to think up good techniques for 
  keeping the NPC alive! 
   
  The most obvious solution to the problem of 
  villain survival is to give him an overwhelming 
  amount of power – load him down with 
  protection, contingency abilities, and an energy 
  blast that would reduce a skyscraper to a puddle 
  with a single shot – and his chances of surviving 
  skyrocket. The problem with this approach is 
  that the players will instead be the ones who 
  shall become overwrought with frustration at 
  having to always face such juggernauts, and the 
  campaign may quickly find itself on its last legs 
  for lack of any fun. 
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  30 
   
  Don’t take this to mean that an NPC (or the 
  player characters, for that matter) should not 
  have cool powers that make them tough as nails 
  and twice as ugly, but if being so powerful is 
  done purely for the sake of kicking some butt 
  with no regard for plot and character 
  development, then the campaign is on a 
  downward spiral into power gaming purgatory. It 
  is far better to make the villain powerful and 
  durable enough to survive while also providing 
  him with the means to escape a group of 
  determined and violent superheroes when 
  necessary. 
   
  For instance, comic books are rife with bad 
  guys who fall from great heights into rivers, are 
  engulfed by an explosion, or are similarly 
  thought dead, only to return later. This is because 
  their powers allow them to elude certain death or 
  because something outside the norm happened to 
  save their bacon. Things such falling into a 
  garbage scow that miraculously happened to be 
  passing by at the right time in the right place, or 
  being rescued by a well-meaning healer, are the 
  bread and butter of any good comic book, no 
  matter how unlikely such events may seem.  
   
  The danger in overusing such improbable 
  contingencies is that the players will come to 
  anticipate the inevitable return of everyone that 
  they think dead or imprisoned. Not only do such 
  expectations dull the surprise of a villain’s 
  miraculous reappearance, but it may also drive 
  some players to take more drastic, non-heroic 
  and final steps to ultimately deal with their 
  opponents. Dropping a car directly on an 
  unconscious villain’s head may seem like a sure 
  way to keep that bad guy out of the picture for 
  good, but such actions certainly aren’t heroic nor 
  do they suit most comic books, especially those 
  that follow the traditional “four-color” genre. 
   
  Another common method for keeping one’s 
  villains alive is the use of hostages. If an 
  archnemesis were to learn something about the 
  hero’s private life, such as where his girlfriend or 
  parents live, then the villain gains leverage over 
  his foe that may allow for his escape, if not 
  outright victory. This leverage is typically held 
  in reserve until the bad guy really needs it, such 
  as when his capture seems imminent, forcing the 
  hero to let the bad guy go lest his friends or 
  family suffer. This tactic not only solves the 
  immediate problem of how to get the bad guy 
  out of his current predicament, but it also opens 
  many new avenues for the plot to develop 
  further. 
   
  What will the hero do now that the villain 
  knows his secret identity? Will the criminal 
  reveal the truth to the world or use it for 
  blackmail? And now that the cad knows who the 
  hero really is and has used his family or friends 
  against him, what can the hero do to stop the 
  villain from doing so again in the future? Are the 
  hero’s secrets and family more important than 
  his code of honor and the life of the villain? Of 
  course, many of these points become moot if the 
  hero has no problem with killing, but even so, 
  such a violent vigilante is still faced with the 
  problem of finding and killing the bad guy 
  before the bad guy finds and kills the people he 
  cares about. 
   
  However, this wonderful plot element often 
  takes on a life of its own and thus should be used 
  sparingly lest it lose its edge, a condition that 
  would only serve to remove the villain’s 
  advantage from taking hostages in the first place 
  – “Ho hum, Major Mayhem has kidnapped my 
  mom again; Oh well, at least I’ve still got dad.” 
   
  As always, the key in keeping a villain 
  around is fun:  is the bad guy still even worth 
  keeping in the campaign or has his value run its 
  course? If the villain is no longer bringing as 
  much to the game as is justified by the amount of 
  energy needed to keep him around, it may be 
  time to let him go, by one means or another. 
  GMs should bear no regrets when retiring a 
  beloved NPC, as there are plenty of other villains 
  just waiting to be conjured up and sacrificed 
  upon the alter of your enjoyment. 
   
  AN EXAMPLE VILLAIN 
   
   
   
  To illustrate how easy it is to spin an iconic 
  villain into something refreshing enough to 
  surprise one’s players, have a look at the 
  following character. 
   
  Background/History:  Marcus Kacklin led two 
  lives:  during the day he was a brilliant scientist 
  endeavoring to breach the barriers between 
  dimensions as a means of instant travel, while in 
  his evenings he was a not-so brilliant comedian 
  trying to spread a bit of laughter from one bar to 
  the next. Though his bad luck plagued him with 
  hostile crowds, a series of on-stage accidents and 
  other mishaps, he kept trying to live his dream to 
  be a famous funnyman despite never having 
  earned a laugh that wasn’t at his own expense. 
   
  Then came the day that changed Marcus’ 
  life. As usual, he was in his lab trying to 
  penetrate the veil between worlds when several 
  of his technicians, tired of their boss’ constant 
  lame pranks, in turn decided to play a practical 
  joke on him. True to his typical bad luck, the 
  prank had the unexpected result of allowing 
  Marcus to succeed at his experiments, though, 
  unfortunately, while his head was in the 
  dimensional projector. 
   
  That brief glimpse into another realm of 
  existence snapped poor Marcus’ sanity and also 
  brought about the genetic changes that resulted 
  in his current appearance. Nobody except 
  Marcus knows what he saw in the projector, but 
  whatever it was twisted him into the murdering 
  slice of comedic evil that is the Jester, whose 
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  31
  The Jester 
   Val Char Cost Roll Notes 
   10 STR  
  0 11- Lift 100 kg; 2d6 HTH 
   20 DEX  
  30 13- OCV: 7/DCV: 7 
   12 CON  
  4 11- 
   12 BODY 
  4 11- 
   25 INT  
  15 14- PER Roll: 14- 
   20 EGO  
  20 13- ECV: 7 
   20 PRE  
  10 13- PRE Attack: 4d6 
   
  8 COM 
  -1 11- 
   
   
  7 PD 
  5 
   Total: 7 PD 
   
  7 ED 
  5 
   Total: 7 ED 
   
  5 SPD 
  20 
   Phases: 3, 5, 8, 10, 12 
   
  4 REC 
  0 
   24 END 
  0 
   23 STUN 
  0 
   
   
  Total Characteristics Cost: 112 
  Movement: Running: 
  18”/36” 
   
   
  Swimming: 2”/4” 
  Cost Powers  
  END 
   20 Mad Luck: 4d6 
  0 
   19 Mad Dash: +12” Running (18” total), 
  Only When Fleeing Heroes or the Law 
  (-¼) 
  2 
   100 Deadly Tricks: Variable Power Pool 
  (Gadget Pool) 80 base + 40 control cost; 
  Can Only Be Changed At Hideout (-½); 
  OIF (Gag- or Toy-Like Gadget; -½), 
  VPP Skill: Gag Gadgeteering 14- 
  0 
   
   Perks 
   50 Followers: 10 25-point thugs 
   
   Talents 
   12 Combat Luck (6 rPD/rED) 
   
   Skills 
   11 Acrobatics 16- 
   
  3 Analyze 14- 
   
  5 Breakfall 13- 
   
  3 Concealment 14- 
   
  5 Contortionist 14- 
   
  5 Demolitions 15- 
   
  7 Disguise 16- 
   
  3 Electronics 14- 
   
  7 Inventor 16- 
   
  3 Lockpicking 13- 
   
  9 Persuasion 16- 
   
  5 PS: Scientist 15- 
   
  5 SS: Astrophysics 16- 
   
  7 Sleight of Hand 15- 
   
  9 Stealth 16- 
   11 Streetwise 17- 
   
  Total Powers & Skill Cost: 299 
  Total Cost: 411 
   
   200+ Disadvantages 
   10 Distinctive Features:  Evil Cackle 
  (Easily Concealed, Always Noticed) 
   20 Distinctive Features:  Obsidian Skin and 
  Green Body Hair (Concealable, 
  Extreme Reaction) 
   15 Enraged:  by the Use of “Super Science” 
  (Uncommon), go 11-, recover 11- 
   20 Hunted:  All Law Enforcement 
  Agencies 8- (Mo Pow, NCI) 
   10 Hunted:  Harbinger of Justice 8- (Mo 
  Pow, Limited Geographical Area) 
   20 Psychological Limitation:  Fears Super 
  Science Being Used by Others (Very 
  Common, Strong) 
   20 Psychological Limitation:  Turns 
  Everything into a Joke (Very Common, 
  Strong) 
   20 Reputation:  Casual Killer (Almost 
  Always, Extreme) 
   15 Social Limitation:  Known Mass 
  Murderer (Frequently, Major) 
   61 Experience Points 
   
  Total Disadvantage Points: 411 
   
   
   
   
  first act as the dominant personality in Marcus’ 
  mind was to kill the technicians and blow up his 
  lab. 
   
  Under the control of the Jester personality, 
  Marcus has become a globally feared criminal 
  who has attempted or succeeded at every crime 
  from petty bank robbery to world domination. 
  The Jester perpetrates his crimes mainly as a 
  means to pursue his ultimate goal:  the total 
  eradication of the cutting edge technologies 
  coined as “super science,” especially those to do 
  with dimensional exploration, but very little else 
  is considered to be below his standards or 
  interest. 
   
  Personality/Motivation:  Although he steals, 
  murders, extorts, and pummels people with 
  shocking impunity, the Jester strives toward two 
  simple ends:  to prevent others from pursuing 
  realms of super science and to have as much fun 
  doing so as he can, even if it means others have 
  to pay the price for his amusement. The Jester 
  does everything with a strange combination of 
  wanton violence and unpredictable, insane 
  humor – to this demented murderer, everything 
  is a joke just waiting to happen. 
   
  As can be expected, the Jester is almost 
  always laughing at the irony of life and the 
  amusements of his own devising. To him, life 
  (and death) is one never-ending joke and it isn’t 
  his fault if he’s the only one who understands the 
  punchline. Many who have heard this villain’s 
  cackle and survived to tell the tale have 
  described it as the laughter of the Devil Himself. 
   
  Quote:  “Trust me, this joke will just kill ya.” 
  SAMPLE DIRTY 
  TRICKS POOL 
   
   
  15 Acid Squirt 
  Flower: RKA 
  2d6, Persistent 
  (+½), (Sticky 
  (+½); OAF 
  (Novelty 
  Squirting 
  Flower; -1), -2 
  Decreased 
  STUN 
  Multiplier (-½), 
  6 Continuing 
  Charges lasting 
  1 Turn each 
  (may be 
  thoroughly 
  washed off; -¼), 
  No Knockback 
  (-¼) 
  [6cc]
  30 Death Gas 
  Whoopee 
  Cushion: RKA 
  1d6, Area Of 
  Effect (2” 
  Radius; +1¼), 
  NND (defense is 
  LS: Self-
  Contained 
  Breathing or 
  holding breath; 
  +½), +3 
  Increased STUN 
  Multiplier (+¾), 
  Persistent (+½), 
  Personal 
  Immunity (+¼); 
  OAF (Whoopee 
  Cushion; -1), 1 
  Charge 
  Continuing 5 
  Minutes (may be 
  dispersed by 
  strong wind; -¾), 
  Range Limited to 
  Adjacent Hex    
  (-¼), No 
  Knockback (-¼) 
  [1cc]
   9 Pogo Shoes: 
  +14” (16” 
  forward, 8” 
  upward); OIF 
  (-½) 
  3
   
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  32 
  Powers/Tactics: The Jester prefers to arrange 
  elaborate, convoluted traps and puzzles for his 
  foes, all the while employing an odd variety of 
  dangerous “gag gadgets,” ranging from 
  oversized Jack-In-The-Boxes with machineguns 
  in their mouth to buzzsaw yo-yos to tools that 
  utilize the Jester’s enigmatic dimensional 
  technology. Of great note is the Jester’s portable 
  tunnel, a collapsible circlet that, when placed 
  against an obstacle such as a wall, uses 
  dimensional warping to create a tunnel through 
  that object, a tunnel that vanishes once the circlet 
  is collapsed on the opposite side. 
   
  This mastermind always has countless 
  strings attached to his many webs and will never 
  enter a situation without at least half a dozen 
  means to escape prepared. In fact, it is the rare 
  occurrence when this sinister genius hasn’t 
  managed to manipulate events to a  
  climax of his devising. Of course, all  
  such plans and goals are also designed  
  to entertain the Jester. 
   
  The most vexing thing about 
  fighting the Jester is his uncanny 
  ability to escape. Not only is he able  
  to outdistance most pursuit by 
  fleeing like a coward, but chance 
  always seems to find the means 
  to provide him with a way out  
  of even the worst debacle. 
   
  Campaign Use: The Jester  
  has a paranoid dislike of 
  advanced science in others’ 
  hands and will go to great  
  lengths to disrupt 
  all exercises into 
  pursuing such 
  goals, including 
  pursuing heroes and 
  villains who 
  employ such  
  technology. This mad-as-a-
  hatter criminal also fears 
  anything to do with other 
  dimensions and worlds, going to 
  any length to do away with 
  anything related to such a thing 
  (in as humorous a way as 
  possible, of course). 
   
  If the heroes encounter the Jester 
  earlier in his criminal career, he’ll 
  have fewer followers and his dirty 
  tricks will be limited, possibly to a 
  50-point pool. On the other  
  hand, if given a few years  
  to carry on his crusade against 
  science, the Jester will have likely 
  added to his arsenal, granting him an 
  impressive 100- or even 150-point 
  pool, and his luck will similarly have 
  improved to a confounding level of 
  improbability. 
   
  Appearance: Not only did the accident turn the 
  Jester’s skin perfect obsidian black, but it also 
  removed all hair from his gaunt body except for 
  his neon purple goatee and pencil-thin eyebrows. 
  He wears a fluorescent green tuxedo with neon 
  purple duck-wing shoes, both of which serve to 
  make his madness much more intimidating. Most 
  striking and disconcerting of all is the long, evil 
  grin that never leaves the Jester’s face, even in 
  those rare moments when he isn’t laughing 
  uproariously. 
   
   
   
   
  26 Portable 
  Tunnel: 
  Teleportation 
  30”, Continuous 
  (+1), Usable By 
  Others (+¼), 
  Reduced 
  Endurance (0 
  END; +½); Gate  
  (-½), OAF 
  Fragile 
  (Portable 
  Tunnel Circlet;  
  -1¼), Must Be 
  Placed On 
  Obstacle Larger 
  Than Tunnel 
  Diameter (-½), 
  Must Pass 
  Through 
  Intervening 
  Space (-¼), 
  Only To 
  Floating Fixed 
  Location (other 
  side of obstacle;    
  -½), Range 
  Limited By 
  Obstacle’s 
  Thickness (-¼) 
  0
   
   
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  33
  Megavillains by Dean Shomshak 
   
  Th’oppressive, sturdy, man-destroying 
  villains, 
  Who ravag’d kingdoms, and laid 
  empires waste, 
  And in a cruel wantonness of power, 
  Thinn’d states of half their people, and 
  gave up 
  To want the rest. 
  – Robert Blair, The Grave 
   
   
  All supervillains are not created equal. Most 
  are merely local threats with petty goals. A few, 
  however, possess the power and ambition to 
  menace entire nations, or even the world. These 
  are megavillains. 
   
  A well-designed megavillain is a GM’s best 
  friend. A megavillain provides larger-than-life, 
  grandiose conflict:  As the old saying goes, 
  people know you by the quality of your enemies. 
  Megavillains become epic foes, popping up 
  again and again, each time with a diabolical new 
  scheme to make the world tremble. The GM can 
  create a vendetta between the PCs and a 
  megavillain, adding a personal hatred to their 
  battles. Finally defeating such an arch-nemesis 
  can form the climax to an entire campaign. 
   
  The comics provide many examples of 
  wonderful megavillains, such as Lex LuthorTM or 
  Dr. DoomTM. Previous Champions supplements 
  have presented several megavillains of their own, 
  such as Dr. Destroyer and Mechanon. Most 
  GMs, however, will eventually want to create a 
  unique megavillain for their own campaign. 
   
  Here’s how to do it. 
   
  Megavillain Motivations 
   
  An exciting megavillain needs a special 
  motivation. Megavillainy is a lot of work:  Why 
  go to so much trouble? Ultimately, of course, all 
  megavillains want power. Total, absolute power. 
  But what sort of power? And why do they want 
  it? Most megavillains show a similar basic 
  psychology, modified by their specific goals. 
  Megavillain Psychology:  
  Obsession, Pride, And Rage 
   
  Megavillains feel overwhelming inner 
  compulsions. If they weren’t half-crazy, they 
  would operate within the law and gain power as 
  business tycoons, politicians or other sorts of 
  “legitimate” leaders. Operating within civil 
  society, however, requires a certain degree of 
  empathy for other people. Megavillains lack that 
  empathy. They see other people only as tools or 
  opponents. Three factors turn up again and again 
  in megavillains, turning them into sociopaths. 
  OBSESSION 
   
   
   
  Many megavillains are obsessed:  with 
  revenge, money, an ideology, or just being the 
  boss. They interpret everything in terms of the 
  Great Cause. They tend to ignore anything that 
  neither serves the Cause nor hinders it. An 
  obsessed megavillain tends to think that, “If you 
  aren’t with me, you’re against me.” The bulk of 
  humanity thus gets cast in the role of an obstacle 
  to the megavillain’s plans. 
   
  A megavillain’s hobbies form a notable 
  exception to their obsession with the Cause. 
  Classic megavillain hobbies include chess, art 
  collecting, and keeping pets such as a cat 
  (stylish) or a tank of piranha (practical). Not 
  uncommonly, a megavillain might use his hobby 
  as an “ego signature” for his crimes. For 
  instance, a villain who collects antique Chinese 
  artwork might plant infernal devices within 
  copies of vases or figurines as a way to sneak 
  them into a museum or a victim’s home. 
   
  Example:  Baron Frost wants to end 
  pollution, protect endangered species, and 
  preserve the natural world – no matter what the 
  cost. That puts him in conflict with most of 
  humanity:  from the industrialist who owns a 
  factory to the Third World peasant burning down 
  a patch of rain forest for his family farm. Since 
  humanity will not live exactly the way Baron 
  Frost demands, the evil environmentalist vows to 
  destroy civilization, slaughter the excess 
  population, and force the survivors to follow his 
  rules. 
  PRIDE 
   
   
   
  Most megavillains are awesomely 
  competent people who can succeed at nearly 
  anything they try. Many are self-made 
  millionaires or brilliant scientists. Unfortunately, 
  they decide that their superior talents excuse 
  them from any social or moral obligation. It’s 
  only a short step from contempt for “inferiors” to 
  full-blown megalomania. 
   
  Example:  Baron Frost is the world’s 
  greatest master of cryonics – the physics and 
  engineering of extreme cold. He personally 
  discovered a “cold ray,” and has also mastered 
  a variety of other technologies such as powered 
  armor, lasers, and genetic engineering. He uses 
  them all in his plots.1 
  RAGE 
   
   
   
  Many megavillains feel that they’ve been 
  wronged:  What they do is only justice! Some 
  traumatic event in a megavillain’s past may have 
  left him emotionally scarred. Perhaps he lost his 
                                                             
  artwork by Jeff Hebert 
  WHERE ARE THE 
  WOMEN? 
   
   
   
  The great 
  megavillains from 
  comic books seem to 
  be all men. 
  Admittedly, the great 
  villains of history – 
  the conquerors, 
  dictators and assorted 
  murderous fanatics – 
  were mostly men, too. 
  Still, why shouldn't 
  some contemporary 
  women achieve 
  megavillainous 
  heights of power and 
  evil? This is a new 
  field for Champions 
  GMs to explore. 
   
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  34 
  family in some horrible way, or suffered some 
  great betrayal. Megavillains obsessed with 
  revenge always have some such trauma in their 
  past – even if what they lost would not seem 
  very important to most people. The blow to a 
  nascent megavillain’s pride could matter more 
  than any real loss. 
   
  Example:  Baron Frost began as Helmut 
  Brandheim, heir to a now-defunct German 
  barony and his father’s industrial empire. When 
  Brandheim tried to reduce pollution from his 
  factories at the expense of profits, the other 
  major stockholders arranged a hostile takeover 
  to force him out of the CEO spot. This convinced 
  Brandheim that working within the system could 
  never work and he turned to supervillainy. His 
  first rampage was against his own company. 
  Megavillain Goals 
   
  Granted that megavillains are seriously 
  disturbed people. What do they want to conquer 
  the world for? What would they do with it if they 
  had it? 
  POWER! GIVE ME POWER! 
   
   
   
  The simplest motive is really no motive at 
  all. The megavillain just wants to boss everyone 
  else around. He might operate on the level of a 
  toddler throwing a temper tantrum – the world 
  doesn’t do what he wants, so he will scream and 
  kick until it does! Only his “temper tantrum” 
  involves blowing up cities or enslaving the 
  world. The megavillain might also be a crazed 
  control freak. It offends his sensibilities that 
  anyone does not do what he says. There’s not 
  much hope of negotiating with such a villain. 
  He’s just plain nuts, a true megalomaniac. He’s 
  also pretty boring, unless you can give him some 
  other quirks and a really cool modus operandi. 
   
  Example:  The Mind-Master Complex, a 
  psionic and bionic fusion of six brains in a life-
  support tank, despises the messy way that mere 
  humans run their affairs. The world would run 
  so much more efficiently if it were in charge. The 
  Mind-Master Complex methodically takes 
  control of local governments, corporations, and 
  other bureaucracies by brainwashing the 
  leaders, in between attempts to enslave the wills 
  of everyone on Earth and cripple rival powers. It 
  does not care about the trappings of power – 
  only the reality of control. 
  EVIL, BE THOU MY GOOD 
   
   
   
  Another sort of megavillain does evil for its 
  own sake. He might worship a God of Evil (or be 
  one!), love the feeling of power he gets from 
  harming others, or simply be out of his mind. 
  Like the simple megalomaniac, the GM has a 
  challenge to make this sort of megavillain 
  interesting. On the other hand, the rewards can 
  be great for the GM who can pull it off. No other 
  type of villain is quite so thoroughly villainous! 
  The heroes will enjoy giving this fiend a good 
  thrashing. 
   
  Example:  The master wizard Archimago 
  made deal after deal for the sake of power. He 
  pacted with one demon lord after another. When 
  all his pacts came due, he turned to the horrific 
  Kings of Edom, who lust to break free and 
  ravage the Multiverse once more after eons of 
  imprisonment. When the Kings of Edom became 
  dissatisfied with Archimago’s attempts to free 
  them, the wizard turned to the darkest power of 
  all:  the Solipsist, spirit of unbeing and oblivion. 
  The Solipsist demands that Archimago destroy 
  entire universes to preserve its favor – and gave 
  him the power to do it! 
  UNDER MY WISE RULE… 
   
   
   
  A megavillain might think he knows what’s 
  best for everyone. Most people don’t want to 
  reform, though, at least not as quickly or 
  drastically as the megavillain demands, so the 
  megavillain decides to ram his reforms down 
  everyone’s throat. This sort of megavillain might 
  begin as an idealist but no longer believes that he 
  can improve society through reason, persuasion, 
  or other gentle means. He must force people to 
  obey for their own good. They will thank him 
  later. Or they won’t, but they’ll still be better off. 
   
  What sort of program does the megavillain 
  have? It could be just about anything; it just has 
  to be extreme. Possibilities include: 
   
  •Political Ideology. Once upon a time, the 
  comics loved Russian or Chinese villains out to 
  overthrow the Free World in the name of 
  International Communism. Communism is passé, 
  but a GM still can’t fail with a Nazi mastermind 
  out to build the Fourth Reich. These aren’t the 
  only options, though. Consider, for instance, 
  neo-feudalism, anarchism, or one-world anti-
  nationalism as megavillain goals. More exotic 
  ideologies include technocracy (rule by a 
  scientific elite), syndicalism (rule by 
  corporations), or stratocracy (rule by a military 
  elite). 
  No political scheme is so bizarre that somebody 
  won’t believe in it. 
   
  •Religious Ideology. Many religions want 
  to convert unbelievers. Some religions have a 
  history of converting people by force. A 
  religious megalomaniac could carry this to the 
  (il)logical extreme by trying to conquer the 
  world for his faith:  All the unbelievers will 
  convert or die. 
   
  Note that such a megavillain would not be a 
  “religious conservative” despite her zealotry. A 
  religious megavillain probably thinks that the 
  very sect he promotes needs to be taken over and 
  reformed of “lax practice.” By most religious 
  standards, the villain is probably a flaming 
  heretic. In fact, the villain might actually think 
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  35
  that he is God. Why not? He has so much 
  power…. 
   
  •Other Ideologies. This could be any plan 
  to reform society that doesn’t fall under 
  conventional politics or religion. Examples 
  include hyper-environmentalism, animal rights, 
  transhumanism (taking “the next step in 
  evolution” through genetic engineering, 
  uploading minds into computers or other techno-
  fantasies), or restoring magic to the world. 
   
  Example:  Dahab Keira calls himself the 
  Mahdi (“Redeemer”), a figure from Muslim 
  prophecy and legend. In the tradition of past 
  leaders who proclaimed themselves the Mahdi, 
  Dahab strives to unite the Muslim world in a 
  new theocratic empire and drive out all Western 
  influence. Only a few radical, terror-sponsoring 
  Muslim governments support the Mahdi, though, 
  because he wants to overthrow “insufficiently 
  zealous” Muslim governments as much as he 
  wants to destroy the “infidel” West… and no 
  government at all admits to assisting the Mahdi 
  in his schemes. 
  MY COUNTRY, RIGHT OR WRONG 
   
   
   
  In this variation on Political Ideology, the 
  villain wants to make a certain country a world 
  superpower. In the classic case, the state in 
  question is itself rather small and weak. A Super-
  Patriot differs from a political ideologue in that 
  the patriot feels loyalty to a certain nation for its 
  own sake, while the ideologue supports a 
  philosophy that may or may not be associated 
  with a particular government. If the super-patriot 
  doesn’t already rule his favorite nation, he 
  probably intends to. It’s only fair, after all:  Look 
  at all that he does for his country! 
   
  Example:  The nuclear-powered Indian 
  megavillain Professor Proton seeks to make 
  India the center of a global empire ruled by a 
  caste of techno-Brahmin scientists. The Indian 
  government declines the proposed honor – they 
  have their hands full just governing India. The 
  “betrayal” outrages Professor Proton, and he 
  attacks India as much as the other nations he 
  sees as obstacles to India’s supremacy. 
  THEY WILL ALL SUFFER! 
   
   
   
  Many villains seek revenge on a person, 
  corporation, or government. Megavillains are no 
  exception. Such a megavillain wants world 
  power as a tool for achieving his revenge. 
   
  Megavillains don’t seek revenge on small or 
  easy targets – and any single person, even the 
  average superhero, is a “small or easy target” for 
  a proper megavillain. If the megavillain ever 
  succeeded, then he wouldn’t have any reason to 
  continue as a megavillain, and we can’t have 
  that, now can we? Common targets for 
  megavillain revenge include: 
   
  •Powerful Nations. American superheroes 
  naturally encounter megavillains who want 
  revenge on the United States government – but 
  why should America have all the fun of facing 
  destruction by a megalomaniac? Russia is still 
  technically a superpower (for its size and nuclear 
  arsenal, if nothing else). China, Japan, India, 
  Germany, France, and the UK also form worthy 
  targets for a megavillain. (Which is not to say 
  that destroying Belgium or Thailand would be 
  less reprehensible. It just doesn’t have the same 
  epic quality.) 
   
  •Races. This sort of megavillain plots 
  genocide. Some ethnic group is The Enemy and 
  marked for annihilation or enslavement. Need 
  one point out that the hated race’s “crimes” 
  might be nothing but a paranoid fantasy in the 
  villain’s mind? GMs can find plenty of 
  inspiration for genocidal megavillains in modern 
  history. 
   
  •Social Class. Perhaps the megavillain hates 
  rich people, or poor people, or titled aristocrats, 
  scientists, politicians, whoever. (This overlaps 
  with Political Ideology.) 
   
  •Everyone! A megavillain might blame all 
  humanity for some wrong he has suffered – and 
  so all humanity must suffer! 
   
  Example:  When the Communists took 
  power in the People’s Republic of China, their 
  enforced atheism devastated the Chinese spirit 
  world. The immortal sage called Lei Tzu, the 
  Thunder Master, vowed revenge. Lei Tzu strives 
  to destroy the Communist regime and restore 
  Imperial rule. He does not care how many 
  ordinary Chinese die in the process. The First 
  Emperor, Qin Shihuang, washed away the past 
  with a sea of blood; so did the Communists 
  themselves. Lei Tzu believes in upholding 
  tradition…. 
  FILTHY LUCRE 
   
   
   
  Lots of villains are in it for the money. A 
  greedy megavillain doesn’t just want to rob 
  banks, though; he wants to loot entire countries 
  and live in opulence to shame an Emperor. On 
  the other hand, a megavillain miser who amasses 
  billions while living like a pauper could make a 
  fine, creepy character. 
   
  After World War One, many people pointed 
  the finger at arms dealers as “Death Merchants” 
  who engineered wars for profit. Nowadays, some 
  people accuse currency traders of wrecking the 
  finances of whole nations by their schemes. The 
  popular imagination gives precedents for 
  megavillains who think they can make a buck off 
  global catastrophe. 
   
  Example:  The Japanese industrialist 
  Chibanosuke Raiden is also the megavillain 
  Negatron. Raiden is obsessed with becoming the 
  richest man in the world; merely being in the top 
  20 does not satisfy him. If he cannot become the 
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  36 
  richest man in the world by building his 
  company up, he will do it by tearing other 
  companies down. The villain Negatron, clad in a 
  battlesuit of nigh-limitless power, has emerged 
  as one of the premier threats to the global 
  economic order. 
  EMERGENCY POWERS 
   
   
   
  The megavillain might believe that the 
  world faces some crisis or terrible danger – and 
  only he has the power, genius, and sheer 
  intestinal fortitude to deal with it. Everyone else 
  either doesn’t recognize the problem, doesn’t 
  have the courage to do something about it, or is 
  actually part of the problem. The villain must 
  conquer the world to save it. 
   
  The danger is probably not as immediate or 
  extreme as the villain thinks. No, there are other 
  solutions to the drug problem besides 
  exterminating South America. No, the 
  megavillain is not the only person who can 
  defend the world from the Wrigglies from Hell. 
  Then again, it might be interesting if the threat 
  which the heroes thought was just the 
  megavillain’s delusion actually did show up – 
  and the heroes must team up with their arch-
  nemesis to save the world. 
   
  Example:  Baron Frost believes that only 
  immediate action can preserve life on Earth. If 
  humanity does not switch entirely to renewable 
  energy sources, end all chemical pollution, stop 
  cutting down the forests and otherwise end its 
  exploitation of the environment, he says, the 
  global ecosystem will crash and humanity will 
  render itself extinct and take most other life on 
  Earth with it. He argues that drastic reductions 
  in technology, lifestyle, and population are 
  needed to prevent a total apocalypse. That such 
  “20 years to doomsday” forecasts date back 
  more than 30 years does not prompt him to 
  reconsider his views. 
  JUST SO THEY SPELL MY NAME RIGHT 
   
   
   
  This sort of megavillain just wants to be 
  noticed. So what if everybody hates him? At 
  least they pay attention and his name will live in 
  infamy forever. Like the simple megalomaniac, 
  this sort of megavillain might not be legally 
  insane, but he’s certainly crazy. 
   
  Example:  Doctor Destroyer tries to 
  conquer the world now and then, though he’s 
  never issued any sort of political manifesto. 
  Sometimes he plays at revenge, such as trying to 
  burn London as payback for the English attack 
  that burned and scarred his face. Other times he 
  launches some plot to solve some social problem 
  in the most drastic and horrific way, such as 
  solving population problems by killing 90% of 
  humanity. He has more money than he needs 
  even for his most ambitious plan, but that 
  doesn’t stop him from the occasional grandiose 
  robbery. Only one common thread unites his 
  plans:  He makes them big and splashy. Profilers 
  conclude that Dr. Destroyer cares less about 
  results than appearing omnipotent. 
  Unfortunately for the world, he’s darn good at 
  it! 
  Megavillain 
  Backgrounds 
   
  How did the megavillain become a 
  superbeing? Who was he before he gained his 
  powers? (Assuming that there was a “before.” 
  Some megavillains have no past in any 
  meaningful sense.) 
  Origin Types 
   
  Megavillains can obtain their powers 
  through the same plot devices as other villains. 
  Some origin types, however, carry various 
  implications for a megavillain. Other origins are 
  not very appropriate. For instance, martial arts 
  mastery is not enough by itself to elevate a 
  supervillain into megavillainy. You can’t beat up 
  enough people to threaten the world in true 
  megavillainous fashion. Martial arts are useful 
  enough when the time comes to give those pesky 
  superheroes a good thrashing – but a megavillain 
  needs something more. 
  FROM BEYOND 
   
   
   
  Some megavillains come from other worlds 
  or dimensions. A megavillain could quite 
  literally be a god of evil. This sidesteps the 
  questions of motivation and origin:  A demon 
  lord or dark god doesn’t have a reason, it’s just 
  evil. Megavillain tyrants from other planets may 
  act a bit more human but their evil is likewise 
  simply taken for granted. No one asks why Ming 
  the Merciless wants to rule the universe; he just 
  does, that’s all, and Earth is next on his list. 
  Unless a supernatural megavillain has a great 
  personality in other ways, it may seem rather 
  boring and one-dimensional. It must be said, 
  however, that alien despots and magical 
  dimension lords usually have the greatest 
  resource bases. After all, each one already 
  controls an entire world – and now he wants 
  another one. 
   
  Example:  Skarn the Conqueror, Shaper of 
  Worlds, rules the mystical dimension of the 
  Congeries. He conquers other dimensions and 
  welds them into the Congeries because, well, 
  he’s a god and that’s what he does. His passion 
  to annex and transform other worlds does not 
  arise from any human motive. 
  SUPER-SCIENTIST/SORCERER 
   
   
   
  In the comic books, lots of megavillains are 
  incredible super-scientists. Mega-sorcerers occur 
  less often. Both types have something in 
  common:  They create their own powers and 
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  37
  weapons. Whether through superweapons or 
  mighty rituals, they can do just about anything. 
   
  A megavillain scientist or sorcerer might not 
  have any super-powers of his own; he might 
  leave all the rough stuff to powerful minions. A 
  certain tradition has grown up, though, that 
  megavillain scientists create powerful battlesuits 
  for themselves. Alternatively, a super-scientist 
  might use genetics, bioengineering, or bionics to 
  give himself great powers. A mega-sorcerer 
  would obtain analogous results through magic. 
   
  The most important thing to remember with 
  scientist or sorcerer megavillains, though, is that 
  they choose to become megavillains. The motive 
  comes first. The GM should give careful thought 
  to what drives the character, because the 
  megavillain won’t develop powers that do not 
  help him pursue his particular goal. Also 
  consider what sort of science or sorcery the 
  nascent megavillain knew:  An embittered 
  computer genius won’t breed giant mutant 
  lobsters, while an evil alchemist probably has 
  little interest in summoning dark gods. 
   
  Example:  Doctor Destroyer stole the 
  inventions of numerous other rogue scientists 
  and added them to his own discoveries. In his 
  long career, Dr. Destroyer pioneered a good 
  fraction of all the super-science in the 
  CHAMPIONS Universe. He prefers to use the 
  physical sciences, though – big ray guns, robots, 
  and the like. 
  KILLER ROBOT 
   
   
   
  Comic books provide several examples of 
  the powerful robot who decides to conquer, 
  exterminate, or otherwise do bad things to 
  humanity. Once again, though, this sort of 
  megavillain generally gets portrayed as basically 
  motiveless: Their villainy comes from a flaw in 
  their programming or something like that. They 
  can be frightening, however, through their sheer 
  relentlessness – and they always seem to have a 
  backup copy in case the heroes destroy them. 
   
  Example:  A superhero team created the 
  robot Mechanon to protect its headquarters. Its 
  artificial intelligence logically worked through 
  the implications of its programming and the 
  ways humans treated each other. It concluded 
  that organic humans were dangerously flawed. 
  Mechanon’s programming decreed the forceful 
  restraint of lawbreakers; humans disobeyed their 
  instructions constantly, but machines never did. 
  Therefore, machines were the real humans, and 
  organic beings inhibited their development. 
  Therefore, machines should liberate themselves 
  from humans – and so Mechanon became the 
  enemy of organic life. 
  ACCIDENTAL POWERS 
   
   
   
  Just like other superbeings, megavillains 
  might be born with the mutant potential for 
  super-powers or gain them through nuclear 
  explosions, unique super-serums, gifts of power 
  from cosmic entities, or the like. Such origins are 
  all “accidental” in the sense that people cannot 
  duplicate them at will:  They come from 
  circumstances largely beyond the control of the 
  person who received the powers. The nascent 
  megavillain, however, gets much greater powers 
  than usual from his “accident.” 
   
  The GM must think carefully about what 
  drives such a megavillain, since their powers 
  have no automatic connection to their villainy. 
  The circumstances by which a character gains or 
  discovers his powers may also provide his 
  motives for becoming a megavillain – for 
  instance, someone who gained immense powers 
  in a nuclear explosion might blame the 
  government for exposing him to such danger – 
  but the GM must invent that link. On the other 
  hand, the person might have had the psychology 
  to become a megavillain long before he found 
  his powers. Before the “accident,” he simply 
  lacked the power to act on his ambitions. 
   
  Example:  The brilliant physicist Rajendra 
  Bhairavi devised a revolutionary new “proton 
  reactor” that could free India from any need for 
  oil or other foreign energy sources. The test 
  reactor wasn’t built to the micrometric precision 
  that Bhairavi’s design demanded for safety, 
  however, and the reaction ran out of control. 
  Instead of fleeing, Dr. Bhairavi ran into the 
  reactor to recalibrate it. He was closest to the 
  explosion, and the only person within a quarter-
  mile who survived. The explosion transformed 
  him into a creature of living nuclear energy – 
  Professor Proton! 
  Who Becomes A Megavillain? 
   
  There’s no intrinsic reason why anyone 
  could not become a megavillain if they somehow 
  obtained sufficient power. In the comics, though, 
  some people seem more likely than others to take 
  up megavillainy. 
   
  (Note that these examples only deal with 
  human megavillains. Evil gods, alien despots, 
  and other nonhumans generally don’t have much 
  background beyond their power origin.) 
  SCIENTIST 
   
   
   
  To a large degree, this is just a matter of 
  opportunity. Scientists are more likely to be in 
  lab accidents, discover ancient artifacts, study 
  crashed alien spacecraft, or engage in other 
  activities with high origin potential. Really 
  brilliant scientists can find ways to give 
  themselves megavillain-scale power. Hence the 
  number of megavillains with “Doctor” in their 
  nom-de-crime. 
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  38 
   
  Example:  Dr. Yegor Kronsky never meant 
  to become a supervillain. He was just a geologist 
  who investigated a large meteoric fireball that 
  crashed in Siberia. Unfortunately, he found it… 
  for the meteorite was actually a damaged probe 
  of the Monad, a robotic hive-mind that seeks to 
  assimilate all intelligence in the universe. The 
  damaged probe almost assimilated Dr. Kronsky. 
  It transformed him into a demented cyborg, 
  Doctor Omega, gifted with machine control 
  powers and alien super-science, and obsessed 
  with transforming all of humanity into robotic 
  beings like himself. 
  BUSINESS TYCOON 
   
   
   
  Becoming a megavillain is much easier if 
  you are filthy rich to begin with. You can buy 
  minions, secret bases, superweapons, and maybe 
  even super-powers for yourself. Business 
  magnates are also no strangers to ambition, 
  ruthless scheming, and power. In the comics, it’s 
  not too great a step from lobbying governments 
  to thinking you are above the law, and from there 
  to attempts to sweep away the law and rule the 
  world. 
   
  Example:  Before he became Negatron, 
  Chibanosuke Raiden ran a large engineering 
  company. His company found the lost notebooks 
  of Nikola Tesla that held the famous, eccentric 
  inventor’s notes on beamed power and drawing 
  electricity from the ionosphere. Raiden invested 
  a small fortune building a prototype “ionosphere 
  tap” – and lawsuits nearly wrecked Chibanosuke 
  Industrial when the power plant violently 
  disrupted weather across half of Asia. The 
  enraged and embittered Raiden ordered his 
  company to build the Negatron battlesuit, with 
  an ionosphere tap as its power source. So far it 
  seems like a good investment…. 
  HEREDITARY ARISTOCRAT 
   
   
   
  It’s not uncommon for a megavillain to 
  come from a family with a noble title. Aside 
  from cool villain names like “Baron Frost” or 
  “The Contessa,” an aristocratic heritage gives a 
  megavillain a reason to feel superior to everyone 
  else. 
   
  Example:  Marietta Secchi’s family had 
  been Italian aristocrats for centuries. Their title 
  now held no legal force but the family raised 
  Marietta to think that she was better than the 
  “commoners” around her despite their 
  vanishing wealth. When Marietta discovered her 
  mutant telepathic powers, her first thought was 
  to restore her family’s fortune and power. The 
  Contessa’s defeat by an Italian superhero 
  disgraced her family instead and her parents 
  disowned her. As the Contessa’s powers grew, 
  she found a new ambition:  To establish a new 
  feudal society ruled by and for mutants, the true 
  aristocrats, with herself as queen. 
  DICTATOR 
   
   
   
  Not many megavillains start out already 
  ruling a country, but some of them make their 
  debut by conquering a small nation. This 
  becomes their base of operations from then on. It 
  doesn’t really matter whether their title is King, 
  President, or Dictator. 
   
  Example:  The genetic arch-villain 
  Malachite began his career by conquering a 
  small group of islands in the South Atlantic that 
  had lived in sleepy and obscure poverty since 
  decolonization. He named himself Malachite the 
  First, Supreme Leader of the Malachite Islands. 
  The DNA Dictator uses his captive subjects as 
  laborers, soldiers, genetically-augmented 
  minions, and, all too often, experimental 
  animals. Few nations recognize the Malachite 
  regime, but no one is willing to try overthrowing 
  the Genetic Generalissimo – at least, not yet. 
  CULT LEADER 
   
   
   
  Leaders of religious cults make good 
  megavillains. They have lots of fanatically loyal 
  followers and are probably rabid fanatics 
  themselves. A megavillain might also build a 
  “cult of personality” around himself and gain 
  super-powers with the help of his loyal minions. 
  A cult leader can be a sorcerer, gain power from 
  his god, steal power-inducing artifacts, buy 
  weapons or superweapons, or hire or kidnap 
  brilliant scientists to give them super-powers. 
   
  Example:  The Mahdi began as a radical 
  Islamist leader who fomented revolution in North 
  Africa. His followers engaged in terrorist strikes 
  against secularist governments and Western-
  owned businesses. His followers stole a “kinetic 
  rod” – a Destroyer-built weapon – from a 
  supervillain hiding out in Sudan. So that no one 
  could steal the device from the Mahdi the way he 
  stole it from its previous owner, the Mahdi hired 
  engineers and surgeons to extract the web of 
  psychokinetic circuitry from the rod and wrap it 
  around his brain instead. To the Mahdi’s 
  surprise and delight, this direct brain contact 
  magnified the psychotronic device’s power, 
  granting him telekinetic powers that let him 
  defeat whole armies! 
  AGENT OF EVIL REGIME 
   
   
   
  Instead of ruling a rogue state, a megavillain 
  might begin as the servant of one. Eventually, 
  however, a budding megavillain will strike out 
  on his own. When you have so much power and 
  ambition, you don’t stay satisfied with taking 
  orders. Nazis and Communists remain the best 
  regimes to spawn a megavillain. 
   
  Example:  Doctor Destroyer again 
  (obviously).  
   
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  39
  Megavillain Strategy:  Cruel 
  Wantonness Of Power 
   
  Raw power does not a megavillain make. To 
  put it bluntly, even the mightiest brawler cannot 
  conquer a major nation. You get only so far by 
  threatening to break dams and knock down 
  skyscrapers. The heroes and the government will 
  find a way to stop a rampaging villain. If the 
  villain pushes hard enough, the government 
  eventually decides that any collateral damage is 
  still better than the villain’s rampage. 
   
  Therefore, a megavillain must apply his 
  power intelligently. He must convince the 
  authorities that either they can’t strike back or 
  that submitting is easier than resisting. That 
  means the megavillain must plan where and how 
  to strike. Megavillains can follow several 
  strategies to seem invincible. None are mutually 
  exclusive. The GM can then assign powers to go 
  with the megavillain’s favored methods. 
  SEEM IMPOSSIBLE TO CATCH 
   
   
   
  If a villain always stays one step ahead of 
  the law, the heroes can’t strike back. By the time 
  heroes or soldiers show up, the villain has 
  already gone – or he just does all his villainy 
  long-distance. Such a villain needs incredible 
  mobility, or an inexhaustible supply of minions 
  to work his villainy by proxy. Alternatively, the 
  villain might possess some power that enables 
  him to get away no matter what the heroes do… 
  at least until they find his special weakness or 
  come up with some incredibly clever strategy. 
   
  Example:  The Mechanon who fights 
  superheroes is not the real Mechanon. The real 
  Mechanon is a set of automated factories hidden 
  around the world. Each time superheroes 
  manage to thwart another one of Mechanon’s 
  plans and destroy the robot villain’s body, an 
  automated factory builds a new Mechanon. With 
  each new body, Mechanon tries to remove 
  whatever weakness enabled the heroes to defeat 
  it, and make itself more powerful. Unless heroes 
  can find all the robot factories, though, they can 
  never truly defeat Mechanon. 
  STRIKE AT WEAK POINTS 
   
   
   
  Society is a fragile thing. Attacks at the right 
  time and place can trigger cascades of chaos and 
  destruction. If a villain destroys a skyscraper, 
  that’s impressive, but if a villain destroys a city’s 
  water supply, everyone suffers. A little panic in 
  the streets can jam traffic for hours, keeping 
  emergency vehicles from the scenes of 
  destruction. Psychological weak points are 
  important, too:  A busload of children held 
  hostage can stun the authorities into agonies of 
  indecision. 
   
  A megavillain should remember that his 
  goal is anxiety, not damage. The authorities must 
  believe that any action would only make things 
  worse. Actual atrocities can backfire:  Villainies 
  meant to stupefy the populace with terror may 
  instead rouse them to relentless fury. 
   
  As far as this factor is concerned, any sort of 
  super-powers will do. The megavillain merely 
  needs enough power that he really can carry out 
  his threats. 
   
  Example:  The Mind-Master Complex 
  works many of its plans through innocent people 
  enslaved through its awesome mental powers. 
  When superheroes show up, it makes sure that 
  they know they face people who do not act of 
  their own free will, who have families and who 
  cannot survive a super-battle. The cerebral 
  villain also arranges disasters to draw heroes 
  away from its true objectives, such as mind-
  controlled snipers, bomb scares, or noisy 
  supervillain rampages that threaten lots of 
  bystanders. 
  FLEXIBILITY 
   
   
   
  A would-be conqueror must keep finding 
  new ways to attack. Heroes learn to anticipate a 
  villain who knows only a few strategies. Even if 
  this does not help the heroes thwart his evil 
  schemes, the villain becomes a known quantity – 
  dangerous, but limited. To achieve the epic 
  frightfulness that distinguishes a megavillain 
  from a merely powerful villain, a malefactor 
  must avoid repeating himself. 
   
  A megavillain therefore needs a wide range 
  of powers, or at least powers he can use in a 
  variety of ways. To a man who only has a 
  hammer, the old saying goes, everything looks 
  like a nail. That’s a bad mind-set for a 
  megavillain. 
   
  Example:  Doctor Destroyer never repeats 
  a scheme. If he fails to hold the world hostage 
  because the heroes sneak into his secret base 
  and wreck his Fusion Vortex Cannon, Dr. 
  Destroyer does not build another cannon in a 
  more secure location; he sets about building 
  some completely different superweapon, such as 
  Cyber-Dominator that can control computers 
  from around the world. 
  OFFER COMPENSATION 
   
   
   
  Few people would submit to a conqueror 
  whom they believe will kill them anyway. It 
  even takes a lot of terror to make people submit 
  just to save their lives. In any case, a megavillain 
  needs a cadre to rule a nation or the world after 
  the conquest – a megavillain has better things to 
  do than paperwork. 
   
  A prudent megavillain offers at least some 
  people some advantage from his rule, as a way of 
  encouraging them to join his cadre. Perhaps he 
  convinces one group that he will bring them 
  more wealth and power. He can offer groups 
  with grievances a chance for revenge. Really 
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  40 
  clever people take over nations just by appealing 
  to ready-made cadres, but these are called 
  “politicians” instead of “megavillains.” 
   
  In this case, it’s not the megavillain’s 
  powers that matter, so much as his cunning and 
  discretion. 
   
  Example:  Baron Frost enjoys widespread 
  support from ecoterrorist groups and other 
  radicals who despise technology, big business, 
  or big governments and agencies seen as 
  promoters of global industry. Hundreds of such 
  radicals gladly assist the Cold Crusader in his 
  schemes to destroy civilization as we know it. 
  They expect power and privilege in Baron 
  Frost’s ecological dictatorship. 
  Game Mechanics 
   
  None of the factors listed above demand that 
  a megavillain win brawls with superheroes! A 
  supervillain mastermind does not need great 
  combat abilities to terrorize, manipulate, and 
  destroy his victims. (Remember, one of the 
  greatest real-life villains of the last century, 
  Adolph Hitler, had no “super-powers” except a 
  sense for people’s resentments and a knack for 
  public speaking.) 
   
  As a matter of style, though, a megavillain 
  should be hard to beat in a fight. That makes the 
  conflict with heroes more personal. To fight a 
  whole team of heroic PCs, a megavillain 
  probably needs very high defenses and the ability 
  to dish out a lot of damage. Use the tables on p. 
  15 of HERO System 5th Edition as a guideline:  A 
  megavillain should be at least two steps higher 
  on the tables, and possibly three. Thus, in a 
  standard superheroic campaign, a megavillain 
  should rate as a Very High Powered character, 
  and Cosmically Powerful is not out of the 
  question. A megavillain who is merely High 
  Powered needs lots of backup in the form of 
  agents, secret bases and superweapons to become 
  a proper threat, though a megavillain who relies 
  on covert action might get away with operating 
  at the same power level as his opponents. 
   
  A Variable Power Pool is de rigueur for 
  super-scientist or sorcerer megavillains, to 
  represent their tendency to produce new powers 
  at the drop of a hat and to tailor attacks toward 
  an enemy’s weaknesses. Megavillains who rely 
  more on superweapons and minions merely need 
  lots of points in Perks, especially Followers, 
  Money, Vehicles and Bases. Skill Rolls and their 
  relevant Characteristics should be very high, to 
  represent a megavillain’s extraordinary 
  competence. 
  Most importantly, though, a megavillain 
  needs high defenses. A megavillain isn’t very 
  impressive if the heroes manage to drop him in 
  one lucky attack, such as a high-speed Move 
  Through or a Killing Attack to the head with a 
  good damage roll. 50% Damage Reduction vs. 
  PD and ED protect against most such one-punch 
  scenarios; at least a few points of the more 
  common special defenses, such as Mental 
  Defense and Power Defense, ensure that a villain 
  can put up a decent fight even if the heroes wield 
  some more exotic powers. 
   
  As you might expect, megavillains really 
  load up on Psychological Limitations. Most of 
  them can take a 25-point Psychological 
  Limitation, “Megalomania” to represent their 
  inability to think small, act stealthily, or resist 
  telling the world what they’re about to do. 
  Megavillains also accumulate Hunteds. Not only 
  do law-enforcement agencies and hero teams try 
  to capture them, megavillains often squabble 
  with other villains or betray them, leading to 
  vendettas. Some supervillains will oppose a 
  megavillain’s goals out of pure self-interest (you 
  can’t rule the world if someone else conquers it 
  first – or destroys it). A megavillain’s 
  Disadvantages may provide the key to defeating 
  him. A megavillain might suffer some physical 
  weakness such as a Susceptibility or 
  Vulnerability, or some psychological quirk might 
  force him to abandon a scheme on the very eve 
  of his triumph. For instance, a megavillain who’s 
  a compulsive gambler might wager his Master 
  Plan on a poker hand. 
   
  It’s a good idea to tailor a megavillain for 
  the PCs he will fight. Make sure that your 
  megavillain has some way to counter all the PCs’ 
  attacks – not to ignore them, but to prevent easy 
  defeats. For instance, a megavillain needs some 
  way to escape from the team brick’s Grab. The 
  megavillain might be stronger, or know the 
  Martial Escape maneuver, or teleport or 
  desolidify; the method doesn’t matter, so long as 
  the heroes cannot simply pin the villain and 
  pound on him until they knock him out. The 
  heroes need clever strategy to defeat such a 
  megavillain, or they must work to discover his 
  secret weakness. When they do finally defeat 
  such a villain, they will truly earn the right to be 
  called heroes! 
  How Many Megavillains? 
   
  How many megavillains should you place in 
  your campaign? Not many. In the comics, each 
  hero team or important solitary hero (i.e., one 
  with his own title) has only one or two really 
  powerful, ongoing opponents. (Superman has 
  Lex Luther, the Fantastic Four have Doctor 
  Doom, Captain America has the Red Skull, and 
  so on.) If you treat a Champions campaign as a 
  single “comic,” it would seem best to give a 
  team of PCs just one or two megavillains as their 
  special foes. Other megavillains can become 
  occasional adversaries:  The team might clash 
  with the other megavillains just one time each. If 
  you set more than one campaign in your game 
  world, though, you can give each team of heroes 
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  41
  its own megavillain as an arch-nemesis – and 
  maybe trade off once in a while. 
  Sample Megavillain 
   
  Now let’s put it all together and make a 
  megavillain! 
   
  Baron Frost 
   Val Char Cost Roll Notes 
   *70 STR 
  48 23- Lift 400 tons; 14d6 [3] 
   *30 DEX 
  48 15- OCV:  10/DCV:  10 
   *30 CON 
  32 15- 
   20 BODY 
  20 13- 
   28 INT 
  18 15- PER Roll:  15- 
   23 EGO 
  26 14- ECV:  8 
   25 PRE 
  15 14- PRE Attack:  5d6 
   10 COM 
  0 11- 
   
   *35 PD 
  17 
   Total 35 PD (25 rPD) 
   *35 ED 
  23 
   Total 35 ED (25 rED) 
   *8 SPD 
  32 
   Phases: 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9,  
   *25 REC 
  8 
    
  11, 12 
   *90 END 
  12 
   *70 STUN 
  0 
   
   
   
  Total Characteristics Cost:  299 
  * OIHID (-¼) 
  Movement: Flight: 
  27”/432” 
   
   
  Running: 
  6”/12” 
   
   
  Swimming: 2”/4” 
  Cost Powers  
  END 
   80 Auxiliary Gadgets:  Variable Power 
  Pool, 60 Base + 30 Control Cost; At 
  Least -½ Focus Limitation 
   144 Cryonic Battlesuit:  Multipower, 180-
  point reserve, all slots * 
   7u 1) Frost Blast:  EB 14d6, Reduced 
  endurance (½ END; +¼) 
  3 
   7u 2) Cryonic Blast:  EB 7d6, NND 
  (defense is Life Support vs. Cold or 
  heat/flame powers; +1), Does 
  Knockback (+¼), Reduced Endurance 
  (½ END; +¼) 
  4 
   7u 3) Frost Burst:  EB 9d6, Area Of Effect 
  (5” Radius; +1) 
  9 
   7u 4) Cryonic Burst:  EB 6d6, NND 
  (defense is Life Support vs. Cold or 
  heat/flame powers; +1), Area Of Effect 
  (6” Radius; +1) 
  9 
   7u 5) Frost Aura:  EB 10d6, Damage 
  Shield (+½), Reduced Endurance (½ 
  END; +¼) 
  3 
   7u 6) Cryonic Aura:  EB 6d6, NND 
  (defense is Life Support vs. Cold or 
  heat/flame powers; +1), Does 
  Knockback (+¼), Damage Shield (+½), 
  Reduced Endurance (½ END; +¼) 
  4 
   4u 7) Ice Bonds:  Entangle 7d6, 7 DEF, 
  Reduced Endurance (½ END; +¼); 
  Vulnerable (Fire/Heat; -1) 3 
   4u 8) Ice Burst:  Entangle 4d6, 4 DEF, 
  Area Of Effect (Any 8 Hexes; +1¼); 
  Vulnerable (Fire/Heat; -1) 
  9 
   7u 9) Cold Brittleness: Drain DEF 5d6, 
  Ranged, Reduced Endurance (½ END; 
  +¼) 
  3 
   7u 10) Frost Wall:  Force Wall (14 PD, 14 
  ED), Reduced Endurance (½ END; +¼) 
   7u 11) Ice Structures:  Major Transform 
  2½d6 (structures of ice, melts 
  naturally), Improved Target Group (any 
  shape, but it must be made of ice; +¼), 
  Area Of Effect (Any 5 Hexes; +1) 
  9 
   3u 12) Blizzard:  Change Environment 
  128” radius, -3 temperature levels, -4 to 
  DEX rolls, -3 to Sight PER Rolls, 
  Personal Immunity (+¼); Extra Time (5 
  minutes; -2) 
  9 
   7u 13) Cold Fusion Jets:  Flight 22”, x16 
  Noncombat Movement, Reduced 
  Endurance (0 END; +½) 
  0 
   14 Reduced Endurance (½ END; +¼) on 
  70 STR 
  3 
   
  4 Cryonized Metabolism:  Life Support 
  (Safe Environment:  Intense Cold; 
  Extended Breathing:  1 END per 
  minute) 
  0 
   
  5 Sight Group Flash Defense (5 points) 
  0 
   10 Power Defense (10 points) 
  0 
   25 Cryonic Battlesuit:  Damage Resistance 
  (25 PD, 25 ED), Hardened (+¼) * 
  0 
   24 Energy Damage Reduction, Resistant, 
  50%; * 
   24 Physical Damage Reduction, Resistant, 
  50%; * 
   14 Hardened Defense (+¼) on 35 PD, 35 
  ED; * 
  0 
   
  8 Mental Defense (15 points); * 
  0 
   
  4 Lack of Weakness (5 points); * 
  0 
   14 Life Support (Self-Contained Breathing; 
  Safe Environments:  Intense Heat, Low 
  Pressure, High Pressure, Radiation); * 
  0 
   10 Unfolding Battlesuit:  Cosmetic 
  Transform 2d6 (battlesuit replaces 
  clothing), Improved Target Group (any 
  clothing; +¼), Reduced Endurance (0 
  END; +½); Restrainable (keep Baron 
  Frost somewhere the battlesuit cannot 
  reach; -¼), Limited Target (clothes; -½) 0 
   
   Perks 
   20 Contacts:  Four Ecoterrorist or Radical 
  Groups, 14- each 
   35 Followers:  32 x 50 point Ecoterrorist 
  Minions 
   10 Money:  Wealthy 
   100 Vehicles and Bases:  500-point reserve 
   
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  42 
   
   Talents 
   
  1 Environmental Movement (Icewalking):  
  No penalties on slippery surfaces 
   
  3 Lightsleep 
   
   Skills 
   20 +2 Overall 
   15 +3 with Cryonic Battlesuit Multipower 
   
   
  3 AK:  Environmentally Sensitive Regions 15- 
   
  3 Computer Programming 15- 
   
  5 Cramming 
   
  3 Deduction 15- 
   
  3 Demolitions 15- 
   
  3 Electronics 15- 
   
  3 Interrogation 14- 
   
  3 Inventor 15- 
   
  4 Language:  English (idiomatic, native 
  accent) (German is native) 
   
  3 Language:  French (completely fluent) 
   
  3 Language:  Russian (completely fluent) 
   
  3 Language:  Spanish (completely fluent) 
   
  3 Mechanics 15- 
   
  3 Paramedics 15- 
   
  3 Power:  Ice/Cold Tricks 15- (INT-Based) 
   
  3 Security Systems 15- 
   
  3 Systems Operation 15- 
   
  3 Trading 14- 
   
  3 Scholar 
   
  2 KS: Endangered Species 15- 
   
  2 KS: Environmentalism 15- 
   
  2 KS: Financial World 15- 
   
  2 KS: Industrial World 15- 
   
  2 KS: Radical Groups 15- 
   
  2 PS:  Gardener 11- 
   
  3 Scientist 
   
  2 SS: Battlesuit Engineering 15- 
   
  2 SS: Chemistry 15- 
   
  1 SS: Climatology 15- 
   
  2 SS: Cryonics 15- 
   
  2 SS: Ecology 15- 
   
  2 SS: Physics 15- 
   
  1 SS: Biology 11- 
   
  1 SS: Genetics 11- 
   
  1 SS: Geology 11- 
   
  1 SS: Mathematics 11- 
   
  1 SS: Psychotronics 11- 
   
  Total Powers & Skills Cost:  756 
  Total Cost:  1055 
   
   200+ Disadvantages 
   15 Accidental Change:  when threatened, 11- 
  (Common) 
   10 Distinctive Feature:  Palpable Chill (Not 
  Concealable; Detectable by Touch or IR 
  Vision) 
   20 Hunted:  UNTIL 11- (As Pow, NCI, 
  Capture) 
   10 Hunted:  Superhero Team 8- (As Pow, 
  Capture) 
   10 Hunted:  VIPER 8- (As Pow, Kill) 
   10 Hunted:  Evil Corporation 8- (Less Pow, 
  NCI, Kill) 
   25 Psychological Limitation:  Megalomania 
  (Very Common, Total) 
   20 Psychological Limitation:  Eco-Fanatic 
  (Very Common, Strong) 
   15 Psychological Limitation:  Vengeful 
  (Very Common) 
   20 Reputation:  crazed ecoterrorist menace to 
  the world, 14- (Extreme) 
   
  5 Susceptibility:  to temperatures over 70°F 
  when out of armor, 1d6 damage per 
  minute (Uncommon) 
   15 Vulnerability:  1½ x STUN from 
  Fire/Heat (Very Common) 
   680 Experience Points 
   
  Total Disadvantage Points:  1055 
   
  Sample Auxiliary Gadgets 
   18 Berserk Bird Attractant:  EB 2d6 (vs. 
  Physical), Continuous, Indirect 
  (anywhere birds can reach; +½), Area 
  Of Effect (48” Radius; +2) (45 Active 
  Points); IAF (-½), 0 Range, 1 
  Continuing Charge of Duration 20 
  Minutes (-½) 
   30 Burrowing Device:  Tunneling 6” 
  through DEF 16 material (60 Active 
  Points); OAF (-1) 
   17 Cutting Laser:  RKA 2d6, Penetrating 
  (+½) (45 Active Points); OAF (-1), 8 
  Charges (-½). Total cost:  18 points. 
   
   Disguised Cryonic Bomb:  EB 2d6, 
  NND (defense is Life Support vs. Cold 
  or heat/flame powers; +1), Continuous 
  (+1), Area Of Effect (48” Radius; +2), 
  Time Delay (+¼) (52 Active Points); 
  IAF (-½), 0 Range (-½), 1 Continuing 
  Charge of Duration 1 Minute (-1) 
   
  9 Mesmeric Ray:  Mind Control 12d6 (60 
  Active Points); OAF (-1), 0 Range (-½), 
  8 Charges (-½) 
   
  9 Magnetic Field Projector:  Change 
  Environment 32” radius (30 Active 
  Points); OAF (-1), 0 Range (-½), 1 
  Continuing Charge of Duration 1 
  Minute (-1) 
   
  5 Seismic Sonar Scanner:  N-Ray Vision 
  (only to see cavities and sharp changes 
  in density) (10 Active Points); OAF (-1) 
   10 Underwater Jet Attachment:  
  Swimming +15” (17” total) (15 Active 
  Points); OIF (-½) 
   
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  43
  Background/History:  Helmut Brandheim had 
  some reason to think he knew best. Not because 
  he descended from old German aristocracy. He 
  valued the stock in his father’s industrial 
  conglomerate more than some obsolete feudal 
  title. Helmut’s scientific papers on cryonics, 
  particle condensation, and other scientific topics 
  proved his intelligence. His dozens of patents 
  proved he could apply that intelligence to 
  practical concerns. It was only natural that 
  Helmut should be chairman of the board for 
  Brandheim Allied Manufacturing. If he said that 
  Brandheim factories should install the new 
  pollution-control 
  devices that he 
  invented, the other 
  board members 
  should agree. 
  Helmut knew 
  how much 
  damage 
  humanity 
  inflicted upon 
  the world 
  through pollution, 
  mining, 
  deforestation, and 
  other exploitation of the planet. He felt sure, 
  however, that if one major company would take 
  the lead in environmentally responsible 
  practices, others would follow. 
   
  The rest of the board disagreed. “Too 
  expensive,” they whined. “It would cut into 
  profits.” In vain, he showed projections of long-
  term savings; in vain, he pleaded for them to 
  think of the world they would leave their 
  children. Then the other board members hatched 
  a plan to oust Helmut:  A hostile takeover, with 
  the secret help of the rest of the board and other 
  investors. Helmut found himself powerless to 
  affect the company that bore his name. 
   
  Helmut brooded for a long time. He had 
  avoided the most radical elements of the 
  environmental movement, but reason had failed. 
  The captains of industry were too greedy, the 
  people and politicians too shortsighted. Only 
  direct action could save the Earth… and if that 
  involved punishing the ones who betrayed him, 
  so much the better. For the first time in his life, 
  Helmut decided to invent a weapon. 
   
  In the coming months, the ten most polluting 
  factories in Germany suffered midnight attacks 
  that left machinery broken and encased in ice. 
  Helmut kept his identity secret for more than a 
  year. Eventually a superhero finally captured 
  him, but Helmut had already hidden his money. 
  He spent a month in jail before fellow 
  ecoterrorists broke him out using weapons 
  Helmut left them. From then on, Helmut 
  Brandheim was dead; he was Baron Frost 
  instead. 
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  44 
   
  Baron Frost constantly improved his 
  weaponry and traded secrets with other rogue 
  scientists. His investigation of cold led him to 
  discover actual “cold rays” that sucked heat from 
  objects. He miniaturized his cryonic weapons 
  and built them into a strength-enhancing 
  battlesuit. Long exposure to cryo-rays warped 
  his metabolism, but this made him even more 
  intelligent. From factories, he turned to attacking 
  whole cities, then nations. Now nothing less than 
  a continent can satisfy Baron Frost. As the years 
  have passed, his conviction has grown that 
  industrial civilization must be stopped now. The 
  fear he inspires has grown in proportion. 
  Superheroes around the world dread the day 
  when they must face Baron Frost… but they 
  dread his victory even more. 
   
  Personality/Motivation:  Baron Frost believes 
  that sometime within the next 10-20 years, 
  damage to the environment will become 
  catastrophic and irreversible. This will render 
  most species extinct, including humanity. He 
  wishes to forestall this catastrophe by reducing 
  pollution and resource use to levels the Earth can 
  sustain. It does not bother him that this means 
  killing off most of humanity and reducing the 
  survivors to medieval peasantry. Humanity is a 
  plague upon the Earth, he says, and only the 
  most radical treatment can rescue the ecosystem 
  from Man’s despoiling touch. People should be 
  glad if any of them survive at all. The survivors 
  can look forward to a new beginning under his 
  guidance. 
   
  Saving the environment consumes Baron 
  Frost. He can talk of other subjects only by an 
  effort of will:  His conversations quickly slide 
  into rants about endangered species, ozone holes, 
  deforestation, or the like. Although Baron Frost 
  speaks of saving humanity from itself, he 
  despises most people. He has no friends, only 
  fellow fanatics; Baron Frost would not waste 
  time socializing with people he considers 
  ignorant and stupid. It does not take much to 
  bring this vicious contempt into the open. He 
  sees himself as a rational man making the hard 
  choices that the foolish masses and their greedy, 
  shortsighted leaders cannot face. Nothing can 
  convince him that he might be wrong, or driven 
  by irrational passions of pride or revenge. 
   
  Baron Frost would be even more dangerous 
  if he were sneakier. His plans are seldom subtle. 
  Although he occasionally steals things quietly, 
  most often he turns robberies and assaults into 
  excuses to show off and rant to the media. He 
  can’t go very long without telling the world what 
  he plans, and why he believes his acts are 
  necessary. 
   
  Quote:  “The Earth dies, and you are helping to 
  murder her!” 
   
  Powers/Tactics:  Without his battlesuit, Baron 
  Frost is physically normal aside from a few 
  quirks of his cryonized body. With his battlesuit, 
  Baron Frost can defeat armies. The battlesuit 
  incredibly magnifies his strength and protects 
  him from damage. Depending on how Baron 
  Frost tunes and spreads the cryo-rays, he can 
  project beams and bursts of liquefied air or 
  chilling cryo-rays, encase single targets or areas 
  in ice, or make objects brittle through extreme 
  cold. He can also radiate cold from the entire 
  surface of the battlesuit, create temporary 
  barriers of ice crystals held in place with cryo-
  rays, or fly. Given a few minutes to prepare, he 
  can induce a blizzard hundreds of feet wide:  The 
  whirling snow obscures vision, while ice slicks 
  cover any surface not kept warm. If the 
  surroundings are too warm for this power to 
  reduce the temperature below freezing, Baron 
  Frost merely produces a dense fog. 
   
  The battlesuit carries sufficient power to 
  perform two of these functions at once. Baron 
  Frost typically combines flight with attack 
  powers, or encircles himself and one opponent 
  with a Cryonic Wall to defeat opponents one at a 
  time. He prefers to fight at range. 
   
  Baron Frost also builds auxiliary gadgets. 
  He can rebuild devices in minutes, at least to a 
  limited degree, but active confrontations seldom 
  give him an opportunity. (On the other hand, he 
  has cheated apparently certain death through 
  hastily rebuilt gadgets – GMs take note.) These 
  are usually special tools needed for a plan, such 
  as a super-focused laser to cut through 
  exceptionally strong vault doors, or a device to 
  tunnel into a secure location. He may also build 
  gadgets to take advantage of a hero’s known 
  weaknesses. Sometimes he surprises victims 
  with hidden weapons smuggled in by minions; 
  for instance, an ecoterrorist minion might get a 
  job at a place Baron Frost intends to rob, then 
  smuggle in a Cryonic Bomb or other infernal 
  device. Baron Frost likes devices that simulate 
  “Mother Nature’s revenge,” such as a device that 
  attracts thousands of birds and drives them to 
  attack everyone in an area. 
   
  Destroying civilization takes more than 
  gadgets or a battlesuit, though. Baron Frost is 
  usually working on a superweapon in one of his 
  secret bases. Typical devices include a giant 
  laser to cut free the Antarctic ice cap (sea level 
  rises more than 100 feet, drowning coastal 
  cities), a cryonic bomb to freeze a continent and 
  spark a new Ice Age, or a bacterium that 
  catalyzes the rusting of iron (no iron means no 
  heavy industry). Minor schemes such as 
  encasing corporate headquarters in ice or 
  murdering supervillains whose rampages cause 
  environmental disasters are Baron Frost’s idea of 
  relaxation. He also gardens (usually endangered 
  plant species). 
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  45
   
  Baron Frost does not wear his battlesuit all 
  the time. It can fold up into a bracer that he 
  wears on one forearm. (Most of the mass 
  vanishes into hyperspace.) He can make it unfold 
  around his body with a thought. The downside is 
  that it may unfold spontaneously if Baron Frost 
  feels threatened, on the rare occasions when he 
  acts incognito (usually to visit an ecology 
  conference). The bracer can fly, but only to find 
  Baron Frost when he mentally summons it. If 
  Baron Frost can be disarmed and held someplace 
  the bracer cannot reach, he can be kept in prison 
  – until one of his allies or minions breaks him 
  out, anyway. 
   
  Campaign Use:  Like any decent megavillain, 
  Baron Frost presents superheroes with an epic 
  adversary, for he really, truly wants to destroy 
  the world. If the heroes do not stop one of his 
  major schemes, millions or billions die. Baron 
  Frost illustrates how fanaticism can turn a 
  laudable goal – no one actually likes pollution – 
  into something monstrous. He makes a good 
  arch-nemesis for heroes with business 
  connections, and an even better one for heroes 
  who have environmentalist sympathies 
  themselves. 
   
  Appearance:  Helmut Brandheim is a slender 
  man in his late 40s, with a narrow face and 
  receding blonde-white hair. When out of 
  costume he wears brown business suits (natural 
  hemp fiber). His body temperature is much lower 
  than a normal person, making his skin cold to the 
  touch. 
   
  The Baron Frost battlesuit is form-fitting 
  light blue with silver bracers, greaves, trunks, 
  faceplate and racing stripes. The chest bears a 
  dark green cross in a circle (a symbol of the 
  Earth). Most of the cryonic attacks project from 
  his hands. 
   
  Appendix:  Laying Empires 
  Waste 
   
  Ordinary robbery, assault, murder, and 
  extortion just aren’t enough for a decent 
  megavillain. Even assassinating a head of state 
  still falls under mundane villainy. Megavillains 
  think big – on the scale of at least a nation, if not 
  the world. Here are some suggestions for classic 
  megavillain plots, just to help GMs get started. 
  Total Destruction 
   
  If you can’t rule someplace, destroy it. 
  Annihilate any potential opposition. With civil 
  society gone, you can rule the survivors – if any. 
  Usually a megavillain tries to wreck civilization 
  all over the world, but smashing civil society in a 
  single nation is still an impressive feat. If the 
  country has no great value to the developed 
  world, the great powers might not interfere. 
   
  Some good plots for destruction include: 
   
  •Blow Up The World. Literally. Nothing 
  left but a cloud of rubble. Very few villains have 
  the power to try this. Any villain who would 
  blow up the world is either completely deranged 
  or has someplace to go afterward. 
   
  •Nuclear Holocaust. An old classic:  Wipe 
  out most of humanity using the arsenals that 
  various nations have so conveniently assembled, 
  then rule the survivors. By tradition, you only 
  have to launch one or two missiles from one 
  nuclear state at another. The other state will 
  retaliate, and the great nations blow each other to 
  kingdom come. 
   
  •Plague. Spreading pathogens for mundane 
  diseases such as anthrax could kill lots of people 
  and maybe wreck civilization, but the stylish 
  supervillain creates a new disease through 
  genetic engineering. Naturally, he controls the 
  vaccine, giving blackmail potential as well. 
   
  •Famine. Use a powerful toxin or disease to 
  wipe out staple food crops. Then wait. The 
  starving hordes will do the rest. For an even 
  bigger apocalypse, wreck the whole biosphere 
  with something that eliminates all life on Earth. 
   
  •Destroy All Technology. Without the 
  machines, civilization collapses and billions die. 
  Even just destroying a few critical components 
  can bring the whole system crashing down – for 
  instance, bathing the Earth in a ray that destroys 
  iron, or releasing a bacterium that eats computer 
  chips. 
   
  •Drive Everybody Crazy. The loonies can’t 
  resist. This can be done through weird rays, 
  diseases, or hyper-potent toxins. 
   
  Clever GMs can think of many other plots to 
  cause The End Of Civilization As We Know It. 
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  46 
  Military Conquest 
   
  Conquest does not require inflicting such 
  complete devastation. You have plenty of people 
  left over, but you’ve convinced them that they 
  cannot resist your overwhelming power. A 
  megavillain may have to conquer section by 
  section, but they really prefer to seize the whole 
  world or a major nation at once. 
   
  Conquerors, more than destroyers, need 
  some sort of army to occupy the territory and 
  keep the people pacified. Conquering 
  megavillains often build superweapons or 
  somehow recruit powerful armies without being 
  a head of state. For instance: 
   
  •Really Big Ray Gun. Maybe even in orbit. 
  Like a nuke, but more selective. 
   
  •Weird Ray Projectors. Rays to paralyze 
  people, cause earthquakes, turn metal into string 
  beans, or similarly bizarre attacks. 
   
  •Robot Army. Requires extensive 
  manufacturing facilities to make all the robots. 
  Either the robots must be very powerful, or you 
  need some way to build them by the thousands 
  for any serious conquest. 
   
  •Imported Army. An army tough enough to 
  beat Earth’s finest, brought in from... elsewhere. 
  This could be another planet, another dimension, 
  or the secret enclave of a super-powered “hidden 
  race.” 
  Extortion 
   
  In this methods, destruction is selective or 
  merely threatened. Usually you give people “a 
  taste of my awesome power!” and tell them to 
  surrender or they’ll get something worse. A 
  megavillain can use most of the methods from 
  the previous sections. Even if a superweapon 
  can’t kill everybody, the megavillain has a 
  credible threat if he can kill anybody. Who feels 
  lucky? A threat might also be long-term:  “I can’t 
  kill you all right now, but I can do something 
  that wrecks civilization later – and you can’t stop 
  it.” 
   
  •EMP Bomb. A high-altitude nuclear 
  explosion sends out a powerful wave of 
  electromagnetic radiation that fries all electronics 
  within thousands of miles. Not only will this 
  cause great chaos from power outages and 
  appliances burning out, it will destroy all the 
  electronic data stored in computer media. This 
  would cause immense havoc to governments and 
  big corporations. 
   
  •Environmental Catastrophe. This 
  includes feats such as erasing the whole ozone 
  layer or causing a new Ice Age. It won’t cause 
  casualties at once, but civilization could bankrupt 
  itself coping with the long-term effects. 
  Wouldn’t it be cheaper just to let you rule the 
  world? 
   
  •Giant Monsters. These can be robots, 
  genetic horrors, Things from Beyond, or great 
  prehistoric beasts. A megavillain might release 
  one or two to rampage through a city, then 
  threaten to release more if people do not submit. 
   
  •Wreck Economy. Threaten to hit people in 
  their pocketbooks by causing financial havoc. 
  Don’t laugh:  The Great Depression caused an 
  awful lot of hardship for an awful lot of people. 
  A megavillain who figures out a way to cause a 
  major financial meltdown, or shut down a small 
  nation’s chief industry, has a nasty threat. The 
  nation’s financial elite may prefer to negotiate. 
  Mind Control 
   
  Then again, why kill or threaten people if 
  you can simply take over their minds? You can 
  try to control everyone at once, or just 
  government leaders. 
   
  •Weird Ray Machines. Keep that tinfoil hat 
  handy…. 
   
  •Drugs. You put worse things than 
  fluoridation in the water supply. 
   
  •Sorcery. Demonic possession, for instance, 
  or magical brainwashing. 
   
  •Replicating/Contagious Mind Control. 
  Instead of controlling everybody at once, enslave 
  two people – who each enslave two people – and 
  so on, and so on, and so on…. Classic methods 
  include stick-on electronic widgets, weird 
  viruses, and cults with really effective 
  brainwashing techniques. 
   
  •Replace Leaders. Instead of controlling 
  leaders, just replace them with imposters. The 
  doubles can be robots, clones, alien pod-
  creatures, demons, or just agents who’ve had 
  plastic surgery. 
   
  •Conspiracy and Deception. Get a 
  leadership position for yourself by rigging an 
  election or becoming the trusted advisor to the 
  head of state. Of course this is only possible for 
  the most subtle and patient sort of megavillain. 
   
   
   
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  47
  The Effectiveness Rating by Robert Pennington 
   
  The following campaign tool was originally 
  created by Michael Dodd of Cleveland 
  Tennessee and is developed for HERO System 5th 
  Edition with his permission. 
   
  What is The Effectiveness 
  Rating? 
  The Effectiveness Rating is a tool used by 
  Gamemasters and players for the evaluation of a 
  character’s combat ability. It is a formula based 
  on the mathematical mechanics behind the 
  HERO System. Used alongside campaign house 
  rules, it is a system for ensuring game balance 
  without limiting initial character conception. 
  Level-based systems have a built-in game 
  mechanic for the evaluation of a character’s 
  combat ability. This has the advantage of 
  allowing the gamemaster to create challenges 
  appropriate to the power level of the group. A 
  gamemaster of a level-based system can pit 4th-
  level monsters and NPCs against 4th-level 
  characters and be relatively sure that the fight 
  will be interesting and challenging. Although 
  more flexible, point-based systems do not have 
  this mechanic. The point-based system sacrifices 
  control for creative liberty. The HERO System is 
  the most detailed and efficient point-based game 
  system ever developed. It offers ultimate 
  flexibility and hence sacrifices a great deal of 
  control. 
  Initially, the problem of game balance is 
  relatively small. A good gamemaster with a solid 
  grasp of game mechanics can balance the relative 
  strength of starting 350-point supers with relative 
  ease, but what happens in four years with 400 
  earned experience points? Problems with game 
  balance occur rapidly in The HERO System, even 
  with good gamemasters. Consider the difference 
  in the power levels of characters presented in 
  Classic Enemies compared to those in 
  Champions of the North. Obviously, the writers 
  of the books understood game mechanics, but the 
  characters presented within the two texts are of 
  extremely different power levels. Jon Mattson’s 
  work, Champions of the North, has low-powered 
  heroes and villains, with the exception of 
  Borealis – a Scott Bennie rewrite. His superteam 
  The Sentinels allegedly defeated Eurostar, but, 
  run correctly, any two Eurostar villains would 
  leave the entire Sentinels team in a crater. 
  The guidelines given on page 15 of the 
  HERO System 5th Edition are the best to date for 
  game balance. The chart list guidelines for each 
  power level, noting the values of: 
  Characteristics, Speed, CV, DC, Active Points, 
  Skill Points, Skill Rolls, and Defenses. The 
  Effectiveness Rating takes this chart and defines 
  the levels of power even more succinctly without 
  restricting the creativity of the character design. 
  At first glance, The Effectiveness Rating looks to 
  add another level of complexity to an already 
  complex game system. I urge gamemasters and 
  players alike that strive for excellence in gaming 
  to overcome this initial reaction and read on. 
  What you will find is a tool that will bring added 
  enjoyment to what is already the best game ever 
  written. 
   
  The Origin of The Effectiveness 
  Rating 
  Back in time when walls had no Defense, a 
  gaming group was formed in the hills of southern 
  Tennessee. At the same time, in Pittsburgh, PA, 
  an eighth grader purchased his first copy of 
  Champions after reading a review about the 
  game in Dragon Magazine. The schoolboy 
  started a campaign with his friends. Both groups 
  continued playing until that eight grader (me!) 
  moved to Cleveland, TN to attend Lee College. 
  At a local gaming store, I met the members of 
  the Tennessee group. I was so excited to find 
  other Champions players, and they were equally 
  excited to meet me. Ron Freeman, the host of 
  their weekly gaming events, invited me to meet 
  the rest of Justice Arsenal on the next Friday. 
  The group was concerned about my knowledge 
  of the HERO System and whether or not I was 
  mature enough to game in their group. I attended 
  the meeting only to find that this group was a 
  secret coven of power gamers! 
  The characters in this campaign had started 
  years ago, and had developed into heroes of 
  immense power. During my first session, Mitch 
  Rhudy, the gamemaster, ran a plot where The 
  Engineer was using old “Mechanons” (book 
  versions) as agents.  Justice Arsenal took on 16 
  Mechanons and won the fight at the bottom of 
  the 7th! Needless to say, my new 250-point PC 
  was stunned in the 3rd, and KOed in the early 
  part of the 4th. I was dismayed at the end of the 
  session and spoke with Mike Dodd, one of the 
  players. I asked him about the power level of the 
  campaign, and he explained that at one time it 
  was far worse. 
  Mike explained that the group did have 
  several ultra-powerful heroes. He compared their 
  power to the power level of the Avengers or the 
  Justice League. These characters were very 
  combat efficient, with high CVs and attack 
  powers. He added that at one time things were 
  out of control before using a combat rating. The 
  combat rating he referred to was from an article 
  in Adventurer’s Club #3 by George McDonald. 
  A limit of 120 was set using the combat rating. 
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  48 
  Horror Hunter and Hero were considered the 
  toughest of the 120s. My starting character 
  Keneton was an 81. Mike demonstrated that 
  although these characters were tougher than 
  characters in my old campaign, there was game 
  balance with the combat rating. I was very 
  intrigued, and so joined the group with a willing-
  to-learn attitude.   
  Fourth edition was released about six 
  months after joining the group. After converting 
  the characters, we found a flaw in the first 
  combat rating. The problem was called 
  “switching,” and involved the ability of high-
  point characters to min/max the combat rating by 
  switching between modes of attack and defense. 
  The best example of this was the Council Of 
  Light Defensive Multipower. A primitive 
  example is listed below. 
   
   60 Defensive Wards:  Multipower 
   3u 1) Ward of Earth:  50% resistant 
  physical damage reduction 
   3u 2) Ward of Elements:  50% resistant 
  energy damage reduction 
   3u 3) Mental Fortress:  50% resistant 
  mental damage reduction 
   3u 4) Wizard’s Armor:  +15 PD/0 ED 
  Force Field 0 End Persistent 
   3u 5) Planewalker’s Cloak:  +0 PD/+15 
  ED Force Field 0 End Persistent 
   6u 6) Ultimate Ward of Earth:  75% 
  resistant physical damage reduction 
   6u 7) Ultimate Ward of Elements:  75% 
  resistant energy damage reduction 
   
  On the original combat rating, slots 6 and 7 
  each cost 12.  Any other two cost less than 12. 
  The character could switch modes to deal with 
  bricks or mentalists and be nearly unbeatable in a 
  one-on-one fight. Remember that this is a 
  primitive version of the defensive multipower. In 
  practice, the actual characters became much 
  more efficient. Most “switching” PCs had a 
  defensive multipower, a movement multipower, 
  and one or more attack multipowers. 
  I became distraught after some time in the 
  campaign. The roleplaying was great, but my 
  characters could not compete. I discussed my 
  concerns with the others, and we decided to 
  change the combat rating to adjust for switching. 
  Mike, the most gifted of us in regards to game 
  mechanics, devised a new combat rating that 
  adjusted for switching. The new combat rating 
  ushered in a great period for us, but, alas, even 
  this would pass. 
  Our next evolution came as characters 
  passed the 1000-point mark and were beginning 
  to run out of things to buy. On the old combat 
  rating, EGO, BODY, and CON did not directly 
  count. Characters soon began to take advantage 
  of this and bought huge scores in these areas. 
  The new archetype character to emerge was the 
  quick brick. This type of character had a huge 
  CON (50+!) a high SPD (7 or 8), a high EGO 
  (23+) and lots of BODY (at least 20). Mike saw 
  the writing on the wall, and went back to the 
  drawing board.  A newer Combat Rating was 
  born that evaluated Characteristics, Powers, and 
  order of action. Further testing and tweaking 
  brought about the newest Effectiveness Rating 
  detailed in this article. 
   
  How Does It Work? 
  The Effectiveness Rating (ER) works as a 
  mathematical evaluation of a character’s combat 
  effectiveness. Some 100 ER characters are 
  tougher than others, but it is unlikely that a 100 
  ER will defeat a 110 ER in a one-on-one combat. 
  Villains are not subject to the ER, but newer 
  gamemasters should use the ER on their villains 
  to help balance play. As a rule of thumb, it takes 
  two PCs of X (ER) to fight one villain of X+10 
  (ER). The formula is listed below, along with 
  simple step-by-step instructions on how to 
  evaluate every Power and Skill rated by the ER. 
  Following the formula, I will present examples 
  of characters and ratings, along with alternatives 
  to the ER for each campaign type. 
   
  General Considerations 
  When using the Effectiveness Rating, keep 
  the following rules and definitions in mind. A 
  detailed explanation on the “hows” and “whys” 
  will follow the formula. A calculator, the 
  character sheet, and the Effectiveness Rating 
  worksheet will be needed. There is an Excel 
  spreadsheet to do the math available at 
  herogames.com/FreeStuff/freestuffherogames.htm. 
   
  ��All abilities are rated at full, but not Pushed. 
  ��All abilities should be rated even if they 
  can’t be done on the same Phase.  The only 
  exception is for most effective attack, which 
  is the most effective combination of all of 
  his attacks. A character might have several 
  attacks that are most effective. 
  ��Round normally, figuring ER to the 1/100 
  digit. (EX: 110.85)  
  ��Do not rate Independent Foci unless the 
  character buys specific levels with the Foci 
  or has a martial art exclusive to the 
  Independent Foci. 
  ��WF: Off Hand is only rated if the character 
  buys two non-Independent weapons with 
  Character Points. 
  ��Haymakers, Move Throughs, and the 
  everyman ability of putting levels into 
  damage (2 for 1) are not considered on Top 
  Damage or Campaign Limits. They are, 
  however, considered under Most Effective 
  Attack. 
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  49
  ��Everyman abilities and optional combat 
  maneuvers such as: Setting, Bracing, 
  Sweeping, and Diving for Cover are not rated 
  and specific levels with these maneuvers 
  should not be allowed in campaigns that use 
  The Effectiveness Rating. 
  ��Under Top Quickness Roll, the only way to 
  raise a quickness roll is to buy up Fast Draw. 
  Fast Draw is considered a Skill for 
  campaign limits, but can exceed the limit 
  when Overall (10 point levels) are added for 
  a quickness roll. Count any Overall Levels 
  as “in” Fast Draw when rating Top 
  Quickness Roll. This house rule for 
  Effectiveness Rating replaces Overall Levels 
  being added to Characteristics Rolls. Overall 
  levels cannot add to Characteristics Rolls 
  when you use the Effectiveness Rating. 
  ��Mind Scan is rated as an attack. 
  ��When rating martial maneuvers, add 5 active 
  points for each helpful element not already 
  listed in damage. Target Falls, for example, 
  would add +5 Active Points. This rule does 
  not replace the base cost of elements listed 
  in The Ultimate Martial Artist. It is only 
  applicable to The Effectiveness Rating. 
  ��Full Move elements force you to rate your 
  full move under Most Effective Attack if 
  that maneuver is your most effective. 
  (Passing Strike typically rates higher than 
  standard martial maneuvers.) 
  ��Extra STR elements rate as damage (+5 STR 
  = +5 Active Points). Martial Killing Attacks, 
  NND’s, and Flashes are rated as 5xDC in 
  Active Points. 
  ��When rating Variable Power Pools, a list 
  should be made for possible abilities. All 
  such abilities should be rated normally. 
  ��Extra reach for weapon length, growth, and 
  stretching count as extra inches of 
  movement on the move section of Most 
  Effective Attack. 
  ��Attacks that take a full Phase or extra time 
  count Move as zero unless the character can 
  stretch or has reach as above. 
  ��Encumbrance (if any) is allowed to offset 
  advantages gained from real armor and 
  shields. 
  ��Count adjustment powers as noted under 
  Unusual Abilities. Exceptions are noted 
  below. 
  ��Count Healing as an Aid to BODY counting 
  all die rolls as 4. 
  ��Count Healing: Regeneration as indicated in 
  the formula. 
  ��When calculating Active Points for the sake 
  of ER, do not count the following: 
  1. Reduced END Cost 
  2. Persistent or Inherent 
  3. Extra Charges and Clips 
  4. Difficult to Dispel 
  The Effectiveness Rating 
  1. Most Effective Attack: OCV or 
  OECV + DCV + Damage (Active 
  Points/5) + Move (Hexes/5) =  
  ___ 
  When rating Most Effective Attack consider 
  your best attack. HKA with damage adding 
  Advantages are typically higher rated under 
  HERO System 5th Edition as STR adds to DC on 
  a 5/1 ratio. A character may have more than one 
  attack which ranks as Most Effective Attack; in 
  which case, only count one of them. 
   
  2. Basic Defenses (include Armor and 
  Force Field): (Total PD/3) + (Total 
  ED/3) + (Total rPD/10) + (Total 
  rED/10) =  
  ___ 
  This category rates the actual totals, and not 
  Active Points in the defenses listed above. Do 
  not worry about Advantages on the defenses – 
  we will take care of that below. 
   
  3. Other Defenses: Clinging 
  (Strength/20) + Damage Reduction 
  (Total Active Points/5) + 
  Desolidification (Active Points/10) 
  + Flash Defense (Total/10) + Force 
  Wall (Active Points/5) + Hardened 
  Defenses (Total Active Points/10) 
  + Invisibility (Active Points/10) + 
  Knockback Resistance (Inches/5) + 
  Lack of Weakness (Total Lack/10) 
  + Life Support (Total Active/20) + 
  Mental Defense (Total Defense/10) 
  + Power Defense (Total 
  Defense/10) =  
  ___ 
  Clinging is listed as a defense due to its 
  ability to resist Knockback. Rate resistant exotic 
  defenses as additional defenses of that type (For 
  example, 10 points resistant mental defense 
  counts as 20 points of mental defense or 2 on the 
  ER.) Count all Lack of Weakness as an 
  aggregate. When figuring Hardened Defenses, 
  remember to rate all hardened defenses, even 
  exotic Hardened defenses such as Mental 
  Defense or Power Defense. Count all the points 
  spent in Damage Reduction (all types of 
  defenses). 
   
  4. Characteristics: (STR/20) + 
  (DEX/10) + (CON/20) + 
  (BODY/20) + (EGO/20) + 
  (PRE/10) + (SPDX3) + (REC/10) + 
  (STUN/5) + (PRE for attack or 
  defense only/20) =  
  ___ 
  Remember that Adjustment Powers are 
  added at max to the Characteristics above. Extra 
  PRE for attack or defense is common to the 
  horror genre. 
   
   
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  50 
  5. Awareness: (Best Perception 
  Roll/10) + (Each extra Targeting 
  Sense/2) + Danger Sense (Active 
  Points/20) + Combat Sense 
  (Roll/20) =  
  ___ 
  In 5th Edition Overall levels may be placed 
  in Characteristic Rolls. If using the Effectiveness 
  Rating, do not allow this. Mechanically, it does 
  not make sense for Overall Levels to offset CON 
  Rolls for Impairing Wounds. Count Overall 
  Levels in Perception Rolls. 
   
  6. Movement Skills: Acrobatics 
  (Roll/20) + Breakfall (Roll/20) = 
  ___ 
  Remember to add any Skill Levels that are 
  appropriate to calculate the highest possible roll. 
  This would include levels with Agility Skills and 
  Overall levels. 
   
  7. Constant Attacks: Darkness (Active 
  Points/10) + Images (Active 
  Points/10 or 0 if only used to 
  convey information or create light.) 
  + Telekinesis (Active Points/10 or 
  0 if not used as getting an extra 
  attack per Phase) + Any 
  Continuous Attack (Active 
  Points/10) + Damage Shield 
  (Active Points in attack not 
  counting Damage Shield 
  Advantage/10) = 
   ___ 
  The terms Constant and Continuous are 
  interchangeable. Rate Images as zero if there is 
  no Combat Application, to the power. 
  Telekinesis is a constant power and therefore 
  allows multiple attacks. You can hold someone 
  with Telekinesis and simultaneously Energy 
  Blast that character. If the character’s Telekinesis 
  cannot be used to gain extra attacks, do not rate 
  this power here. It is likely that Telekinesis will 
  be rated under Most Effective Attack anyway. A 
  gamemaster may also allow you to take a 
  Limitation on Telekinesis if it is not usable in 
  this fashion. Damage Shields are not 
  automatically Continuous in HERO System 5th 
  Edition. Do count other Advantages while 
  calculating Active Points in Damage Shield. Do 
  not count the Damage Shield Advantage when 
  figuring Active Points for this rating only. 
   
  8. Unusual Abilities: (Adjustment 
  Powers that increase abilities are 
  rated as maximum add to abilities, 
  even if only used to heal) + 
  Duplication (# of duplicates x 10) + 
  Find Weakness (Active Points/10) 
  + Penalty Skill Levels/ (Total 
  PSL/2)  + Triggered Powers 
  (Active Points/10) + Usable By 
  Others (Rating of Power x # of 
  extra characters) =  
  ___ 
  Calculate the maximum adder to 
  Characteristics and Powers affected by 
  Adjustment Powers before rating the ability. 
  Gamemasters are cautioned when using hit 
  locations to limit PSLs designed to negate 
  penalties. Triggered Powers are any Powers 
  bought with Trigger Advantage. When rating 
  Usable By Others Powers do not count the 
  Active Points of this Advantage in the 
  calculation. Rate the power less the Advantage, 
  and then multiply by the max number of users. 
   
  9. Capabilities: Check each ability 
  that applies, each counts as 1. 
  Ranged Attack ___, Energy Attack 
  ___, Ego Attack ___, Adjustment 
  Power(s) ___, Transformation into 
  anything___, Reflect any attack 
  (for missile deflection) ___, Area 
  Effect or Explosion ___, Autofire 
  combined with Area Effect or 
  Explosion ___, Affect Solid World 
  Attacks ___, Flight ___, Teleport 
  ___, Tunneling ___, Extra-
  Dimensional Movement ___, 
  Movement powers with extra non-
  combat multiples or megascale 
  movement ___, Indirect Targeting 
  sense ___, Regeneration (this type 
  of healing not counted above)  
  ___ 
  Check every ability that applies even if 
  triggered by only one power. An 8d6 fire EB, AF 
  [5], AE 1 Hex; triggers three separate categories 
  by itself. Count Regeneration as 1 regardless of 
  amount or level of Regeneration. Missile 
  Deflection only counts if it reflects at the 20 
  point (any attack) level. Transform only counts 
  here (it could count under Most Effective Attack) 
  if the Transform is into anything. 
   
  10. Top Abilities: (Top Attack OCV or 
  OECV-20) + (Top Attack Active 
  Points/5 -20) + (Top Quickness roll 
  (DEX, Fast Draw, or EGO with 
  levels added) /5) + (Top Dodge 
  DCV that exceeds Top OCV+3) = 
  ___ 
  When rating top abilities you do not have to 
  consider Haymaker or Move Through. 
  Remember that only Fast Draw may be bought 
  up when using The Effectiveness Rating. It is 
  likely that characters with Martial Dodge and/or 
  extra levels with DCV will have ratings in the 
  third category. See notes to follow the formula 
  for additional considerations regarding block, 
  missile deflection, and non-attack DCV.  
   
   
   
   
   
   
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  51
  11. Skills: # Skill Roll limit is raised 
  past 18- (costs 1 per 1, superhero 
  campaigns only) =  
  ___ 
  Count the Skill Roll limit on campaigns with 
  ER limits of 80+. These campaigns have 
  powered characters, but may not be of the 
  superhero genre. What counts here is the power 
  level. Gamemaster may wish to make exceptions 
  for Magic Skill, but this is not recommended. 
  Remember Overall Levels may make skills 
  exceed the limit. Count all skills with Overall 
  and other applicable levels “in” for total skill roll 
  limit. 
   
  12. Veteran Bonus: -1 per 100 EP 
  earned =  
  ___ 
  In our campaign the Veteran Bonus is very 
  costly as we have characters that have earned 
  1500+ experiences. Some campaigns may offer 
  the veteran bonus at a 50 or even a 25 point 
  level. The Veteran Bonus allows fully fleshed 
  characters to continue their development with 
  Experience Points. It is unlikely that the Veteran 
  Bonus will skew game balance in campaigns 
  where earned Experience is low. 
   
  13. Package Bonus: limit one per 
  character superhero campaigns 
  only. Subtract one for characters 
  that meet these requirements. 
   � Classic Brick (-4 CV limit, SPD < 
  6, Only Physical HTH damage.) 
   � Classic Martial Artist (2/3 damage 
  limit, Total PD and ED both < 16, 
  Only martial maneuvers for 
  attacks) 
   � Classic Energy Projector (STR<21, 
  STUN <41, Only ranged physical 
  or energy attacks) 
   � Classic Egoist (STR<21, STUN 
  <41, Only Ego-based attacks.) ___ 
  The Classic Brick has no attack types other 
  than physical hand-to-hand damage. Consult the 
  chart for campaign maximums to determine top 
  CVs for the brick. Remember to evaluate 
  elements in the martial arts damage limit. Total 
  PD and ED include Force Field and Armor 
  regardless of limitations. The Classic Energy 
  Projector can have defensive martial maneuvers, 
  but no martial arts attacks. The Classic Egoist 
  can buy powers BOECV, and at the 
  gamemaster’s discretion, purchase Telekinesis. 
  These packages are for 80+ ER campaigns, and 
  most suited for the superhero genre.   
  Campaign Limits 
  Using the Effectiveness Rating the 
  campaign limits are set as per the chart below. 
  Player Characters may not exceed these limits. 
  Villains and NPCs are not under these 
  restrictions, and in most cases are not rated. This 
  information is similar, but not identical, to the 
  chart in HERO System 5th Edition p. 15.  
   
  Campaign 
  ER OCV/ AP Skill PER 
      Type 
       DCV 
  Low Heroic 
  40 
  12/15 40 
  15- 
  15- 
  Standard Heroic 
  50 
  13/16 40 
  16- 
  16- 
  High Heroic 
  60 
  14/17 50 
  18- 
  18- 
  Legendary Hero 
  70 
  15/18 50 
  18- 
  18- 
  Low Superhero 
  80 
  15/18 60 
  18- 
  18- 
  Superhero 
  100 
  18/21 90 
  18- 
  18- 
  Legendary Super 120 
  20/23 120 
  18- 
  20- 
  Cosmic 
  150 
  20/23 150 
  18- 
  24- 
  Other ER Factors 
  Mike Dodd’s original ER had limits that 
  were campaign-specific that I have left out of the 
  formula given above. The additional factors are 
  added directly to the totals in section 10: Top 
  Abilities. They were designed to limit players 
  looking for holes in the system. If your players 
  abuse the ER, add the following to the formula 
  given above.  
  • (Top Block or Missile Deflection OCV that 
  exceeds top OCV/2) + Top Non-attack DCV 
  other than Dodge > Top Attack DCV/2 = ___ 
  This nuance was placed in the formula to 
  prevent players from buying up missile 
  deflection rolls to super high levels or buy 
  additional DCV with limitations that restrict 
  attacking or movement. 
  Other possible ER factors are listed below. 
  The Gamemaster may wish to add these into the 
  base formulas if he sees a need to control any of 
  the following abilities. 5th Edition combat is 
  more offensive in nature and these factors may 
  need to be considered in the ER. They were not 
  included pending further playtesting. 
  • Under Awareness, add Defense Maneuver 
  Active Ponts/10 
  • Under Unusual Abilities, count Multiform 
  as +1 
  • Under Unusual Abilities, count Luck as 
  Luck Active Points/10 
  • Under Capabilities, add Special Combat 
  Skills/20. These skills include 
  Ambidexterity, Two-Weapon Fighting, The 
  Autofire Skills, and all Rapid Fire Skills.  
  • In campaigns where players frequently load 
  up small powers with Advantages that add 
  damage, consider adding to Capabilities the 
  Trigger (+1) Powers with more than one 
  damage adder Advantage such as AP and 
  +1 Stun X. 
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  52 
  A Basic Example of the 
  Effectiveness Rating 
  Attached you will find a rather plain 400-
  point bad guy designed for a new group of 
  players in my neighborhood. After reviewing the 
  character, we will attempt to figure out his ER. 
  Since the character is a brick, this should be very 
  easy. The Unstoppable Creep is great against a 
  team of newer heroes. Although his damage and 
  defenses are on the high end, his low SPD and 
  CV should make him beatable. 
  The Unstoppable Creep 
   Val Char Cost Roll Notes 
   80 STR 
  70 25- Lift 1½kt; 16d6 HTH [8] 
   18 DEX 
  24 13- OCV:  6/DCV:  6 
   40 CON 
  60 17- 
   20 BODY 
  20 13-    
   
  5 INT 
  5 10- PER Roll:  10- 
   
   11 EGO 
  2 11- ECV:  4 
   30 PRE 
  20 15- PRE Attack:  6d6 
   
  0 COM 
  -5 
  9-  
   
   45 PD 
  29 
   Total:  45 PD (25 rPD) 
   35 ED 
  27 
   Total:  35 ED (25 rED) 
   
  4 SPD 
  12 
   Phases:  3, 6, 9, 12 
   24 REC 
  0 
   80 END 
  0 
   80 STUN 
  0 
   
  Total Characteristics Cost: 254 
  Movement: Running: 
  7”/14” 
   
   
  Leaping: 
  27”/108” 
   
   
  Swimming: 7”/14” 
  Cost Powers  
  END 
   31 Damage Resistance (25 PD/25 ED); 
  Hardened 
  0 
   12 Hardened Defense (25 PD/25 ED); 
  Hardened 
  0 
   10 Knockback Resistance -5” 
  0 
   
  5 Lack of Weakness (-5 to Roll) 
  0 
   
  8 Mental Defense (10 pts) 
  0 
   31 Life Support: Extended Breathing (2), 
  All Safe Environments, All Diseases 
  and Biowarfare Agents, and All 
  Terrestrial Poisons and Chemical 
  Warfare Agents 
  0 
   10 Power Defense (10 pts) 
  0 
   
  2 Running +1” (7” Total) 
  1 
   16 Superleap +11” (27” Total), 4× Non-
  Combat Multiplier 
  2 
   
  3 Swimming +3” (5” Total) 
  1 
   
   Skills 
   
  8 +1 with All Combat 
   10 +2 with Hand-to-Hand Combat 
   
  Total Powers & Skill Cost: 146 
  Total Cost: 400 
   
  200+ Disadvantages 
   15 Berserk:  When Succeeding on a Mental 
  Attack Breakout Roll (Uncommon), go 
  11-, recover 11- 
   20 Distinctive Features:  Hulking Ugly 
  Form (Not Concealable, Major 
  Reaction) 
   20 Distinctive Features: Horrid Stench 
  (Concealable, Extreme Reaction) 
   20 Hunted by The Champions 8- (Mo Pow, 
  NCI) 
   15 Hunted by PRIMUS 8- (As Pow, NCI) 
   15 Hunted by UNTIL 8- (As Pow, NCI) 
   10 Psychological Limitation:  Afraid of 
  Mental Manipulation (Uncommon, 
  Strong) 
   20 Psychological Limitation:  Lives by 
  Primal Urges (Very Common, Strong) 
   15 Psychological Limitation:  Seeks Brick 
  vs. Brick Fights (Common, Strong) 
   50 Experience Points 
   
  Total Disadvantage Points: 400 
   
  Background:  The origins of The Creep are 
  unknown, but thought to be linked to horrible 
  experiments conducted by Malachite. Others 
  believe Dr. Destroyer created him. The Creep 
  was first encountered in 1998 attempting to 
  hijack a bread truck. Members of The 
  Champions attacked The Creep, but were unable 
  to knock him out. The Creep fled the area and 
  has not been seen since. PRIMUS operatives 
  have intelligence information that implies that 
  the Creep is under the control of VIPER.  
   
  Appearance:  The Unstoppable Creep is a large 
  ugly hulking mass with a violent temper. He 
  wears tattered clothing and appears to have 
  stopped grooming years ago. The Creep has a 
  disgusting body odor and a sub-moronic 
  intelligence. The Creep appears to be motivated 
  by primal urges. 
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  53
  Seeing It in Action 
  First, we need to determine what The 
  Creep’s most effective attack is. Although he can 
  rarely land it, his Superleap Move Through is the 
  best he’s got. Placing all levels, we get the 
  following. 
   1. OCV 4 + DCV 5 + Attack Active 
  25 + Move 5.4 =  
  39.40 
   
   2. Now we determine basic defenses. 
   
  PD 15 + ED 10 + rPD 2.5 + rED 
  2.5 = 
  30.00 
   
   3. Next we determine Creep’s other 
  defenses. 
   
   Hardened Defenses 4.3 + 
  Knockback Resistance 1 + Lack of 
  Weakness .5 + Life Support 1.55 + 
  Mental Defense 1 +Power Defense 
  + 1 = 
  9.35 
   
   4. Next we add the Creep’s massive 
  characteristics. We add 0 for extra 
  Presence, as the Creep does not 
  have this 
   
   STR 4 + DEX 1.8 +CON 2 + 
  BODY 1 + EGO .55 + PRE 3 + 
  SPD 12 + REC 2.4 + STUN 16 = 
  42.75 
   
   5. The Creep has no extra targeting 
  senses and poor perception. 
  1.00 
   
  6-8. The Creep has no movement skills, 
  constant attacks, or unusual 
  abilities so these rate as 0. 
  0.00 
   
   9. The Creep does have extra non-
  combat movement. 
  1.00 
   
   10. Under top abilities, we do not rate 
  haymaker or move through; 
  therefore the Creep uses his STR/5 
  for Top Damage. The Creeps best 
  Dodge DCV does not exceed his 
  best attack OCV by 3 so this rates 
  as 0. 
   
   Top OCV -11 + Top Damage -4 + 
  Top Quickness Roll 2.6 = 
  -12.40 
   
  11-13. The Creep has no skill rolls over 
  18 and does not have 100+ 
  experience for a veteran bonus. 
  The Creep does qualify for the 
  Brick Package bonus. 
  -1.00 
   
  Now we add the columns to determine 
  the ER of the Creep. 
  110.10 
   
  The Creep is a very inefficient 110, but 
  nevertheless should prove a challenge to most 
  superheroes. Generally, characters with higher 
  CVs are the most efficient under the ER. The 
  Creep would not have any adders for the optional 
  ER categories listed above. 
  I hope that this tool proves to be useful in 
  your campaign. The math is easier than it looks. 
  I would like to thank my friends in Pittsburgh 
  and Tennessee that helped with play testing 
  issues. I would especially like to thank Mike 
  Dodd who originally developed the ER.  
   
   
   
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  54 
  Meriquai Falls: Native Sons by Dale Robbins 
   
  The Meriquai: Native Sons Of 
  The Grandmother Spider 
  NATIVE AMERICAN RESOURCES 
   
  This article is not intended to portray any 
  real world Native American culture with any 
  measure of accuracy. Rather, it is intended to 
  portray a fictional Native American culture full 
  of the flavor that makes it so appealing. A 
  scholar of Native American cultures will find 
  wild inaccuracies in this text… this is 
  intentional. While every effort has been made to 
  make this a fun and informative article, it is a 
  gaming supplement and not an encyclopedia 
  entry. 
  The real-world Native American cultures are 
  just as fascinating as any fictional culture, if not 
  more so. They have rich, developed traditions 
  that date back hundred, even thousands, of years. 
  To fully go into detail on this subject is beyond 
  the scope of this article. However, the Internet is 
  rich in resources on Native Americans. 
  Microsoft Encarta: This online 
  encyclopedia contains a well-written article on 
  Native American cultures in general. It is just 
  right for getting started. Read it by going to 
  http://encarta.msn.com/find/Concise.asp?ti=04B
  7B000. 
  United States Department of the Interior: 
  This government branch contains, amongst other 
  departments, the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Their 
  link is http://www.ios.doi.gov. 
  The Smithsonian Institution Museum of 
  the American Indian: The Smithsonian is one 
  of the most respected museums in the United 
  States. Of course, they would also host one of 
  the best museums for Native American culture. 
  Find more information on it at 
  http://www.nmai.si.edu/index.asp. 
  The Bear Tribe: For the mythology of the 
  Meriquai, I drew more than a little inspiration 
  from Sun Bear’s Medicine Wheel. In the real 
  world, Sun Bear received a vision. Taking the 
  vision’s promise for newfound unity and 
  harmony with Mother Earth, Sun Bear received 
  his Medicine Wheel and founded the Bear Tribe. 
  More information about the Bear Tribe and Sun 
  Bear’s works can be found at 
  http://www.ewebtribe.com/BearTribe/index.html. 
  The Powwow Trail: Excerpts from the 
  book of the same name, by Julia White, help 
  readers to prepare themselves for the fun and 
  celebration of a powwow gathering. The excerpts 
  are at 
  http://www.powersource.com/gallery/powwow/d
  efault.html. 
  NativeWeb: This links site (at 
  http://www.nativeweb.org) is an excellent 
  resource of not only Native Americans, but also 
  indigenous native cultures throughout the world. 
  NativeRadio.com: This webcast radio 
  station plays excellent mix of ethnic Native 
  American music. It can be found, appropriately 
  enough, as http://www.nativeradio.com. 
  The list of resources on the Internet is 
  endless. However, this will help you get started 
  on learning the fascinating cultures, histories, 
  and traditions that surround the Native American 
  cultures. 
   
  THE MERIQUAI PEOPLE 
   
  Welcome to this second installment in a 
  series that details the City of Meriquai Falls. The 
  Meriquai [mare-eh-kwie] people are a strong 
  people, proud of their culture and their traditions. 
  Like many of the Native American peoples who 
  suffered during the expansion of the United 
  States in the nineteenth century, the Meriquai 
  have been relegated to reservation living. 
  However, municipal economic reforms instituted 
  by the late Mayor Maurice Lewis III during his 
  three terms in office have improved the standard 
  of living on the Meriquai reservation. 
  Modern Meriquai differ markedly from 
  Ancient Meriquai. Most Modern Meriquai (let 
  alone most people in general) are wholly 
  unaware of the fact that thousands of years ago, 
  during the Age of Legends, the Meriquai ruled a 
  mighty kingdom under the tender care of the 
  totem spirit, Grandmother Spider. Whereas 
  Modern Meriquai are highly spiritual people, the 
  Ancient Meriquai were one with the spirits, 
  wielding mighty magicks because of the spirits’ 
  blessings. 
   
  PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION 
   
  Pureblooded Meriquai tend to be tall, broad-
  shouldered, and well-muscled, with ruddy skin, 
  brown eyes, and straight, raven-black hair. Their 
  facial features tend to be slightly rougher and 
  more chiseled than Caucasian features. Their 
  faces express their moods easily; a happy 
  Meriquai looks very happy while an angry 
  Meriquai looks incredibly angry. 
  This, however, does not make a Meriquai. In 
  truth, anyone with as “little” as 15% Meriquai 
  blood can petition for citizenship in the Meriquai 
  Nation (and are usually socially accepted as a 
  brother within the Nation by other Meriquai). 
  Hence, today’s Meriquai people come in all 
  shapes, sizes, and colors. It is not unusual 
  anymore to see blondes, redheads, or brunettes 
  amongst the Meriquai. People who seemingly 
  THE SPIRIT OF 
  THE MERIQUAI  
   
   
  Darren 
  Davenport walked 
  slowly down the dirt 
  road that led into the 
  Meriquai Reservation 
  north of Meriquai 
  Falls. His long, raven-
  black hair, drawn 
  back in a tail, swayed 
  gently in the breeze. 
  To one side of him 
  was his younger 
  brother, Brian; nearly 
  half a foot taller than 
  Darren with broader 
  shoulders, Brian’s 
  cropped, raven-black 
  hair gave him a more 
  intimidating air than 
  Darren. To the other 
  side of Darren was his 
  girlfriend, Ok-hwa; a 
  beautiful Korean 
  woman whose slender 
  form belied her skill 
  in Hwarang-do. 
  Darren couldn’t 
  help but look at the 
  houses as they walked 
  past. The living 
  conditions for the 
  Meriquai had 
  improved markedly 
  since his mother was 
  his age. Mayor Lewis 
  had instituted many 
  economic reforms in 
  North Meriquai Falls 
  that made it easier for 
  citizens of the 
  Reservation to gain 
  good jobs without 
  having to move off 
  the Reservation. Now, 
  houses that used to be 
  barely livable were 
  quietly nice in a 
  suburban/rural 
  fashion. 
  As the three crested 
  a small hill just off 
  the main road, they 
  came upon a huge 
  gathering in the 
  meadow below. 
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  55
  appear African-American, Oriental, Hispanic, or 
  Caucasian could indeed be Meriquai in every 
  sense of the word. 
  Modern Meriquai dress according to taste, 
  ranging from jeans and T-shirt affairs to khaki 
  pants and sweaters to business suits. When 
  celebrating in traditional dress, Meriquai wear 
  colorful cloth or soft leather attire decorated with 
  fringes, beads, and dyes of animal totems. 
  Traditional dress for men involve open jackets 
  and breeches while traditional dress for women 
  involve long, conservative gowns. 
  Especially elaborate are the ceremonial wear 
  of the totem dancers, known as regalia. These 
  sacred vestments, designed to please and honor 
  the spirits, are lovingly crafted with many beads, 
  dyes, fringes, and totem fetishes. Regalia are also 
  blessed for ceremonies, so only the dancer it is 
  designed for is allowed to even touch his regalia, 
  let alone wear it. 
   
  PERSONALITY/MOTIVATION 
   
  Modern Meriquai are highly spiritual, 
  though how they express their devotion is purely 
  an individual consideration. Many are bitter, 
  thanks in no small part to the economic, cultural, 
  and sociopolitical oppression the American 
  government has put them through. Despite the 
  new, enlightened outlook of many people today, 
  the pain of these losses is not easily forgotten. 
  This does not mean that Meriquai are a 
  spiteful people, by any stretch of the 
  imagination. In fact, Meriquai are amongst the 
  most forgiving of already forgiving Native 
  American peoples. They firmly believe that their 
  devotion to Grandmother Spider and her spirit 
  children will guide their way in life. Thus, they 
  tend to be kind to anyone they meet; the spirits 
  will reward their kindness, even if the recipient 
  does not. 
   
  CULTURE/RELIGION 
   
  The Totem Spirits 
  Ancient Meriquai culture was centered 
  around the worship of the greater totem spirit, 
  Grandmother Spider, her eight children and 
  twelve grandchildren. These totem spirits 
  granted the Meriquai people great magical power 
  until the end of the Age of Legends over 10,000 
  years ago. These totems are described below. 
  Even today, Meriquai take their relationship 
  to the spirits very seriously. The Meriquai 
  celebrate many festivals (called powwows) 
  throughout the warm part of the year, honoring 
  each major totem spirit during the full moon of 
  its month. They thank the spirits before each 
  meal and before every major endeavor they take 
  in their lives. 
   
   
  Meriquai Political Structure 
  The Meriquai, before the coming of 
  European settlers, were divided up into 
  composite bands of several hundred people a 
  band. It is estimated that as many as eight to ten 
  bands roamed the Eagle’s View Plain and its 
  surrounding area at the turn of the twentieth 
  century. Each band had two leaders, known as 
  chiefs; one male chief to handle the sacred duties 
  of fishing, trading, and (if need be) war bands 
  and one female chief to handle the “household” 
  duties of foraging, child-rearing, and social 
  policy making. The two chiefs within a band 
  were very rarely husband and wife, as the 
  members of the band saw wisdom in one chief 
  playing “devil’s advocate” for the other chief 
  without showing favoritism. 
  When the European settlers forced the 
  Meriquai into the present-day reservation, they 
  converted over to a more solid, tribal structure 
  amongst their entire number. One tribal chief is 
  elected every six years to represent and govern 
  the peoples. The tribal chief is advised by two 
  moiety chiefs, one male chief representing the 
  sacred duties and one female chief to represent 
  the social duties. Moiety chiefs hold office for 
  four-year terms; the resulting overlaps with the 
  tribal chief office terms encourage policy 
  consistency within the tribe. The tribal and 
  moiety chiefs are in turn advised by a tribal 
  council; this council consists of eight respected 
  members of the tribe who are elected in. 
  Although tribal council members technically 
  hold office for three years, in practice most are 
  re-elected term after term until they choose to 
  retire. All tribal officers have no limit to the 
  number of terms that they may serve. 
  The current Tribal Chief is Theodore Owl-
  Speaker, Darren Davenport’s maternal 
  grandfather. He is a kindly old man, in his late 
  70’s, with a wizened appearance that belies his 
  strength of body and soul. He is gruff, yet kind, 
  and is a visionary on his social and political 
  views. As is befitting a Meriquai chief, Owl-
  Speaker (most people call him either Grandpa 
  Owl-Speaker or e-du-di, the Tsalagi word for 
  “grandfather”) is an extremely gifted shaman, or 
  religious leader. His command of shamanic 
  magic, in fact, is rumored to be the most 
  powerful since before the European settlers 
  came. His daughter, Jasmine Prairie-Maid (she 
  changed her name upon her coming-of-age), was 
  a powerful shaman herself while she was alive. It 
  is from this heritage that Darren Davenport was 
  chosen as Red Hawk’s champion. 
   
  Meriquai Food 
  The Meriquai, before the coming of 
  European settlers, were a people of foragers and 
  fishermen, subsisting on the wild fruits and nuts 
  and supplementing with the carp and bass in 
  People of all ages 
  and gender were 
  assembling. Several 
  were dressed in 
  traditional Meriquai 
  ceremonial costumes. 
  Several totem 
  representations were 
  set up across the 
  meadow; some elder 
  members of the tribe 
  quietly gave their 
  respect to the totems 
  as they passed the 
  icons. A large bonfire 
  was prepared in the 
  center of the meadow. 
  The bonfire was not 
  yet lit, but Darren 
  knew that once dusk 
  settled and Grizzly 
  Bear was given his 
  due, the fire would be 
  lit in honor of 
  Thunderbird. 
  “This brings back 
  a lot of memories, 
  hapki-sabom,” Ok-
  hwa smiled, turning to 
  Darren. 
  “Yep,” Brian 
  nodded, pointing 
  down the hill. “And 
  so does that.” 
  Darren blinked 
  and followed his 
  brother’s finger, 
  seeing a young man 
  stomping up the hill. 
  His long raven hair 
  and ruddy skin 
  marked him as a 
  pureblooded 
  Meriquai. And his 
  steely gaze, meeting 
  Darren’s eyes, 
  marked him as 
  distinctly displeased. 
  “Why the hell are 
  you three here?” the 
  man hissed, as he 
  walked straight up to 
  Darren without letting 
  his gaze leave 
  Darren’s eyes. 
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  56 
  nearby Missouri and Meriquai Rivers. Although 
  they did enjoy buffalo as well, the Meriquai 
  usually traded for buffalo jerky rather than hunt 
  the buffalo themselves. 
  This tradition carries on into today. 
  “Traditional” Meriquai dishes, sold at cultural 
  fairs and powwows, consist of many delicious 
  fruit and berry salads and fish entrees. Most are 
  lightly spices with local herbs and cooked dishes 
  usually use no additional oils or fats. The well-
  known “Indian bread” (a fried bread product, 
  sometimes with sugar added for a treat) has 
  become very popular amongst the Meriquai as 
  well. 
   
  Meriquai Housing and Shelter 
  The Meriquai were a Great Plains people. 
  As such, and because of their foraging/fishing 
  lifestyle that depended on foods being in season, 
  they were largely nomadic. This put the 
  portability of the tent-like tipis in high favor with 
  the Meriquai. They would set up a large tribal 
  camp in easily accessible fields close to a river or 
  creek, living there for a month or two, before 
  moving on to a fresh region. 
  Today’s Meriquai live in more permanent 
  housing. The stereotypical image of “trailer-
  trash” housing is now passé and even rude to 
  mention…. Meriquai today come from all ranges 
  of income and most live in comfortable houses. 
  Since Mayor Lewis’ municipal economic 
  reforms during the late 80s/early 90s, the 
  Meriquai have been free to develop their own 
  housing projects, both as a tool to create decent 
  housing and to teach their young a lucrative 
  trade. 
  An extremely popular high school course on 
  the Meriquai Reservation is Housing 
  Development and Construction, which teaches 
  students how to plan out and build a house, 
  giving hands-on experience through the entire 
  process. Each semester, a class builds a house, 
  which is then sold by the school to fund future 
  classes. 
   
  Meriquai Trade Goods 
  Meriquai are also known for their arts and 
  crafts. Meriquai pottery and jewelry are greatly 
  in demand in Meriquai Falls and even in other 
  parts of the United States. Meriquai also make 
  fine clothes and rugs. Meriquai ethnic clothing 
  sells well at many fairs and is a hot seller at the 
  International Market in Midtown. 
  The trading of these goods, especially at 
  fairs and powwows, is a matter of cultural pride 
  with the Meriquai, as it is amongst many Native 
  peoples. For some, traveling from fair to fair 
  offering these goods for sale is their only source 
  of income. Most Meriquai merchants don’t 
  restrict themselves to Meriquai goods; if they’ve 
  traded for goods from other Native cultures, they 
  will offer those for sale as well. Often, talking to 
  a Meriquai merchant about the goods he offers 
  will give a visitor incredible insight into the 
  goods’ significance in Native cultures. 
   
  Language 
  Meriquai once spoke a dialect of the Tsalagi 
  (or Cherokee) language. There are very few 
  native speakers of the Meriquai dialect left 
  today; most modern Meriquai embellish their 
  English language conversations with occasional 
  Tsalagi words. 
   
  Names 
  Ancient Meriquai named their children after 
  a natural phenomenon that embodied their hopes 
  and aspirations for their child, usually in the 
  form of “Adjective-Noun.” When it became 
  important to call upon his heritage, the child 
  would address himself as “Given-Name u-we-tsi 
  (child of) Father’s-Name.” Thus, a child named 
  Water-Rabbit, whose father’s name was Eagle-
  Heart, might address himself as Water-Rabbit u-
  we-tsi Eagle-Heart. 
  Modern Meriquai have now adopted 
  Ancient Meriquai names as surnames, using 
  modern American names for given names. 
  Hence, Marcus Wind-Cloud may name his child 
  Marianne, thus giving her the name Marianne 
  Wind-Cloud. 
   
  The Mythical History of the 
  Meriquai 
   
  THE DREAMCATCHER WEB 
   
  According to legends, Grandmother Spider 
  was the first spirit to form after the Rains 
  brought the rivers and the lakes onto the Lands. 
  She looked about her and saw the barren Lands 
  and its lifeless rivers. Displeased with what she 
  saw, Grandmother Spider wove a great 
  Dreamcatcher Web. She then slept under the 
  Dreamcatcher Web. As she slept, she dreamt of 
  life. When she awoke, she found a small seed 
  trapped in her Web. Taking the dream seed, 
  Grandmother Spider planted it into the land and 
  from the seed sprang the Tree of Life. 
   
  THE TREE OF LIFE 
   
  From the fruits of the Tree of Life sprang 
  life. First, the seeds of the trees, the bushes, and 
  the grass showered down onto the ground, 
  coloring the landscape with beautiful greens and 
  flowery brilliance. Then, the insects emerged 
  from the fruits, helping the grasses and plants to 
  maintain the cycle of balance. Next to come were 
  the birds, feeding on the insects to keep them 
  from overwhelming the plants. From there, the 
  beasts and the animals came forth, finding 
  “We have every 
  right to be here, 
  Mike,” Ok-hwa 
  replied, eyeing both 
  the young Meriquai 
  and Darren carefully. 
  “Grandpa Owl-
  Speaker is presiding 
  over the honoring of 
  Thunderbird and his 
  children tonight.” 
  “And I really 
  don’t like the tone in 
  your voice, Michael 
  Two-Feathers,” Brian 
  growled, taking a step 
  forward. He stopped 
  abruptly as Darren’s 
  arm blocked his path. 
  “Say your peace, 
  Michael,” Darren 
  said, speaking softly. 
  “And then I will say 
  mine.” 
  Michael Two-
  Feathers narrowed his 
  eyes at Darren. “You 
  can be forgiven your 
  impure blood, super 
  hero. You didn’t have 
  any say in the matter 
  of Jasmine Prairie-
  Maid hooking up with 
  white trucker trash 
  like your father….” 
  Both Ok-hwa and 
  Darren 
  subconsciously 
  grabbed Brian’s arms 
  as the latter lurched 
  forward and growled. 
  Michael paid Brian 
  a moment’s glance 
  then turned back to 
  Darren. “However, 
  you forsook our 
  heritage, our beliefs, 
  and our way of life, 
  by running off and 
  becoming some big-
  wig white man 
  yuppie. And now you 
  have the gall to come 
  back claiming to be 
  the chosen of the Red 
  Hawk, here to make  
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  57
  pleasure in both the plants and the birds. Finally, 
  man emerged from the Tree of Life. 
  Man intrigued Grandmother Spider. Unlike 
  any other fruit from the Tree of Life, man had 
  intelligence and ingenuity. He could take up 
  tools and shape the world around him to better 
  himself. This both fascinated and scared 
  Grandmother Spider. Within man lied nature’s 
  greatest caretaker… and its greatest destroyer. 
  So Grandmother Spider lied down once 
  more beneath her Dreamcatcher Web, dreaming 
  of guardians who would help her guide man in 
  his endeavors. When she awoke, Grandmother 
  Spider was greeted with her eight totem spirit 
  children. 
   
  THE WINDS AND THE SEASONS 
   
  Eight totem spirits had been born of 
  Grandmother Spider’s dreams. Four of them 
  embodied the Four Winds. 
   
  North/Night (Buffalo): Favoring the 
  northern winds and the stars of night, 
  Buffalo espouses generosity, 
  selflessness, and spiritual hope. 
  East/Morning (Eagle): Favoring the 
  eastern winds and the rise of the 
  morning sun, Eagle espouses vision, 
  clarity, and inspiration. 
  South/Midday (Coyote): Favoring the 
  southern winds and the warmth of the 
  midday sun, Coyote espouses humor, 
  trickery, and creativity. 
  West/Evening (Bear): Favoring the 
  southern winds and the beauty of the 
  setting sun, Bear espouses healing, 
  inner vision, and leadership. 
   
  And four of them embodied the Four 
  Seasons. 
   
  Spring/Fire (Thunderbird): Favoring 
  the renewing essence of spring, 
  Thunderbird teaches kindness, 
  cleansing, and humility. 
  Summer/Earth (Frog): Favoring the 
  life-giving essence of summer, Frog 
  teaches honor, adaptability, and 
  communication. 
  Autumn/Air (Butterfly): Favoring the 
  changing winds of autumn, Butterfly 
  teaches growth, evolution, and joy. 
  Winter/Water (Turtle): Favoring the 
  sleeping snows of winter, Turtle teaches 
  mystery, wisdom, and protection. 
   
  Grandmother Spider took pleasure from her 
  children, for they were noble and one with her 
  heart. Therefore, she took the Four Seasons onto 
  herself and kept them close to guard her. The 
  Four Winds, Grandmother Spider sent forth into 
  the world to watch over and guide man. 
   
  THE CHILDREN OF THE MOONS 
   
  As the Four Seasons served to guard 
  Grandmother Spider, each was allowed to sleep 
  with Grandmother Spider under the 
  Dreamcatcher Web for three lunar months each 
  year. At the full moon of each month, the 
  Dreamcatcher Web caught the dreams of the 
  Season who slept with Grandmother Spider. That 
  dream formed into a child of that Season. 
   
  Thunderbird/March (Red Hawk): 
  Red Hawk teaches insight, truth, and 
  openness. 
  Thunderbird/April (Beaver): Beaver 
  teaches contentment, industry, and 
  patience. 
  Thunderbird/May (Deer): Deer 
  teaches sensitivity, grace, and heart. 
  Frog/June (Robin): Robin teaches 
  courage, rhythm, and harmony. 
  Frog/July (Salmon): Salmon teaches 
  trust, strength, and willpower. 
  Frog/August (Wolf): Wolf teaches 
  love, community, and forgiveness. 
  Butterfly/September (Raven): Raven 
  teaches intelligence, duality, and 
  balance. 
  Butterfly/October (Snake): Snake 
  teaches femininity, healing, and grace. 
  Butterfly/November (Elk): Elk teaches 
  confidence, wisdom, and responsibility. 
  Turtle/December (Drake): Drake 
  teaches tradition, ceremony, and 
  lucidity. 
  Turtle/January (Otter): Otter teaches 
  playfulness, prophecy, and nobility. 
  Turtle/February (Cougar): Cougar 
  teaches initiative, speed, and precision. 
   
  Grandmother Spider gave leave to the Four 
  Seasons to direct these children as they saw fit. 
  Some stayed to help guard Grandmother Spider 
  while some ventured forth to help the Four 
  Winds to guide man. 
   
   
  everything okay like 
  in some fancy fairy 
  tale? What’s stopping 
  me from trashing you 
  right here and now?” 
  Darren 
  considered Michael’s 
  words careful. He 
  closed his eyes and 
  nodded. He then 
  looked back into 
  Michael’s steely gaze. 
  “Your common 
  sense.” 
  “Oh, puh-lease,” 
  Michael sighed. 
  “Can’t you think of 
  anything better than 
  that?” 
  “THAT IS 
  ENOUGH!” a 
  grizzled voice called 
  from down the hill. 
  The four turned and 
  looked down to see an 
  old man hobbling up 
  the hill. Three young 
  girls, dressed in 
  traditional Meriquai 
  dresses, walked 
  alongside of him, 
  apparently making 
  sure he didn’t fall 
  over. However, as 
  difficult as each step 
  up seemed for the old 
  man, he walked as 
  assuredly as a man 
  possessed of great 
  purpose. 
  “Ok-hwa, a-ta, go 
  with your brother and 
  take your places at the 
  gathering,” the old 
  man spoke, shaking a 
  feathered walking 
  stick towards the 
  bonfire. “I would 
  have words with these 
  di-ni-`yo-tli.” 
  Ok-hwa nodded 
  and tugged gently at 
  Brian’s arm. Brian 
  paused, glaring one 
  last time at Michael, 
  before following Ok-
  hwa down the hill. 
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  58 
  SPECIAL NOTE: Most modern characters 
  will not know any of the information in these 
  next two sections. Even Crimson-Hawk, Vixen, 
  Galvakar, and the Manitou, the only people 
  aware of Grandmother Spider’s existence, are 
  unaware that the Kingdom of Meriquai existed 
  thousands of years ago. 
   
  THE RISE OF THE MERIQUAI 
   
  And guide man the Children of the Moon 
  did. Man took to the teachings of the totem 
  spirits with great zeal, learning much from their 
  wisdom. This pleased the totems greatly. In 
  return, they blessed man with powers beyond 
  those of normal creatures. This spiritual power, 
  much like the magic of Tuala Morn, aided man 
  greatly. Using this power with the wisdom taught 
  to them by the spirits, man stayed close to nature 
  and yet built a mighty kingdom. This kingdom, 
  they named Meriquai (or “Land of the Chosen 
  People”). 
  The Meriquai people lived in peace and 
  harmony in their kingdom for several thousand 
  years. Their cultural advances were legendary. 
  They cultivated biological technologies that 
  aided in transportation, craftwork, industry, and 
  even artistic endeavors. With their living tools, 
  the Meriquai could fly, build, carve, paint, keep 
  records, construct virtual entertainment, and even 
  (towards the end of the Age of Legends) teleport. 
  Everyone was free to pursue their chosen 
  vocation; technology did not replace man, 
  merely aided him. 
  Sadly, if it is true that all good things must 
  come to an end, it is certainly true for the 
  Meriquai. 
   
  THE MYSTE OVER THE HEARTS OF 
  MAN 
   
  Complacency slowly began to set in on the 
  hearts of man. Life was too good, too perfect, 
  and man eventually began to take for granted the 
  gifts the spirits had given them. This angered the 
  spirits greatly. Without Grandmother Spider’s 
  knowledge or permission, the totem spirits 
  withdrew from their roles as guides to man. Man 
  was suddenly without the magical gifts that 
  made their life so good. 
  And, instead of learning the humility the 
  spirits hoped they would learn, man’s anger at 
  the spirits welled up and consumed their hearts. 
  From this anger and spite, another spirit 
  began to form. This spirit was not a spirit born of 
  Grandmother Spider’s dreams, however. It was 
  born of man’s hatred. And, despite how powerful 
  Grandmother Spider’s love was, man’s capacity 
  to hate was even greater. This spirit, who cast 
  mist over the spiritual eyes of man and goaded 
  their anger to greater heights, came to be known 
  as the Myste… and soon became Grandmother 
  Spider’s greatest enemy. 
   
  THE BATTLE FOR THE FATE OF MAN 
   
  Grandmother Spider knew that if she could 
  reach the hearts of man and remind them of the 
  love and humility that her children had taught 
  them, she could save them and defeat the Myste. 
  So she sent her children forth to persuade man to 
  come to his senses. 
  This only angered man further, as they saw 
  the spirits as pretentious and condescending. As 
  their anger grew, so did the power of the Myste. 
  Finally, the Myste attacked that which 
  Grandmother Spider most feared it would… the 
  Tree of Life. 
  Grandmother Spider was forced to do 
  something she had hoped she would never do… 
  turn her children towards war. She called the 
  Four Seasons to her (Thunderbird, Frog, 
  Butterfly, and Turtle) and transformed them into 
  warrior spirits. The Four Seasons then took up 
  the task of assaulting the Myste before the Tree 
  of Life was completely ruined. 
  The battle was long and terrible. Many 
  Meriquai died as the Myste compelled them to 
  war directly against the spirits. Technologies 
  originally meant for peaceful utilities were 
  suddenly found in weapons of horrible 
  destruction. In the meantime, Grandmother 
  Spider and the Four Seasons fought with the 
  Myste directly, in the hopes of destroying it 
  forever. 
  However, the Myste could not be destroyed. 
  The spirits fought long and hard against the 
  Myste and yet the Myste would only reform after 
  every assault. 
  Finally, a chosen of Red Hawk, known as 
  Feather-Heart, came across a horrible truth. As 
  long as there was hatred in man’s hearts, the 
  Myste could never be destroyed. Upon learning 
  this, Feather-Heart embarked on an epic quest to 
  teach man of this truth. The quest nearly cost 
  Feather-Heart his life several times, but 
  eventually man realized how fruitless his anger 
  and his hatred really was. Slowly but surely, man 
  set down his spear and his battle axe. When 
  Feather-Heart finally died, war was nearly non-
  existent in the Kingdom of Meriquai. 
  Without this hatred, the Myste found itself 
  severely weakened. Finally seeing an opening, 
  Butterfly distracted the Myste with the love of 
  her people while Thunderbird struck the deciding 
  blow. Frog captured the crippled essence of the 
  Myste and gave it to Turtle, who imprisoned the 
  Myste and cast it into the earth to stay. The 
  Myste could not be completely destroyed, but its 
  imprisonment was ensured. 
   
  Michael privately 
  grit his teeth and 
  Darren took a deep 
  breath. The fact that 
  the old man had just 
  called them both 
  “children” was not 
  lost on either of them. 
  The old man strode up 
  to the two men. 
  “Michael, 
  Darren’s purity of 
  blood has very little to 
  do with whether he is 
  Meriquai or not. Do 
  you not yet 
  understand that your 
  hatred will destroy 
  you more surely than 
  any thoughtless, 
  uncaring act anyone 
  could possibly 
  imagine?” the old 
  man asked, turning to 
  the young Meriquai. 
  “As soon as the 
  white man quits being 
  thoughtless and 
  uncaring, e-du-di, my 
  hatred will abate,” 
  Michael replied, 
  shaking inside. 
  Darren could only 
  look on in pity. 
  “And do you not 
  see how people’s eyes 
  have opened in the 
  last few decades?” the 
  old man continued, 
  shaking his feathered 
  walking stick at 
  Michael. 
  “That does not 
  bring back our lost 
  pride!” Michael 
  snapped. “And maybe 
  in your senility 
  you’ve forgotten that 
  the ‘open eyes’ come 
  from laws passed by a 
  black man, not from a 
  white man. Now that 
  a white woman is 
  mayor of Meriquai 
  Falls….” 
   
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  59
  THE HEART OF THE GRANDMOTHER 
  SPIDER 
   
  Sadly, the victory was not a perfect one. 
  Grandmother Spider had expended much of her 
  own life essence in creating her warrior spirits 
  and in the battle against the Myste itself. Her 
  body was damaged beyond repair, corrupted by 
  the hatred of the Myste. Only her heart remained 
  pure and untainted. 
  In a sad ritual attended only by the Four 
  Seasons, Thunderbird let out a wail of sorrow 
  before plunging his claw deep into Grandmother 
  Spider’s corrupted flesh and pulling out her 
  heart. Butterfly then embraced the Heart with 
  love and devotion, Frog revitalized the Heart 
  with life and vivacity, and Turtle encased the 
  Heart with pure crystal to protect it. 
  The ritual done, Grandmother Spider’s body 
  died and withered away. However, her essence 
  lived on within the Heart of the Grandmother 
  Spider. Her wisdom and guidance continued to 
  aid the Four Seasons and the Four Winds. The 
  totem spirits renewed their relationship with man 
  and together they began the slow rebuilding of 
  Meriquai Society. 
  By the end of the Age of Legends, over 
  10,000 years ago, the Kingdom of Meriquai was 
  nearly back to the level of technology it was at 
  before the war against the Myste. 
  The Modern History of the 
  Meriquai 
  The Meriquai embraced the coming of the 
  European settlers with open arms. In 1835, with 
  the coming of Jacques Francois and his ethical 
  trading standards, the Meriquai had a positive 
  impression of the white man. Ten years later, 
  when Phillip Smith established the Town of 
  Smith’s Gate, the Meriquai got the opportunity 
  to meet many white settlers and learn their 
  culture. For a short while, the Meriquai and the 
  settlers lived in peace. 
  But relations turned for the worst when 
  settler began moving into the Blue Hills. The 
  Blue Hills were holy grounds to the Meriquai (it 
  was where the Four Seasons fought the Myste). 
  Although the Meriquai never resorted to 
  violence, their adamant refusal to give up their 
  holy grounds to the settlers sparked a jealous 
  antipathy from the settlers. In the end, battles 
  were fought and wars were declared. By the turn 
  of the twentieth century, most Meriquai were 
  forced onto a reservation miles north of the 
  Missouri River, barely touching the Blue Hills. 
  Much of the history of the region thereafter 
  is briefly discussed in Meriquai Falls (Digital 
  Hero #2). During this time, the Meriquai adapted 
  to living on a reservation, quietly hurt by the 
  betrayal of trust that they experienced. They 
  clung desperately to their cultural identity, 
  despite the best efforts of the Bureau of Indian 
  Affairs to turn them away from being “savages.” 
  In the end, Meriquai society became a unique 
  amalgamation of contemporary white society and 
  ancient Native tradition. 
  When silver was found in the Blue Hills, it 
  marked a unique turning point in Meriquai 
  society. Now, the burial grounds of their 
  culture’s greatest heroes was being violated for 
  the sake of economic greed. For nearly four 
  decades, this desecration continued until the 
  miners were on the verge of discovering the 
  Heart of the Grandmother Spider itself. 
  Grandmother Spider sent forth some of her 
  children to take on hosts, so that their now 
  weakened essences could combat this coming 
  menace. In particular, she called upon a 
  particularly devote shaman who fought bravely 
  during the American Indian Wars. This shaman, 
  now known only as the Manitou, beseeched 
  Grandmother Spider for aid in combating the 
  incursion on the Blue Hills blessed grounds. 
  Grandmother Spider gave the Manitou her Four 
  Winds and tasked him with driving the white 
  man out of the Blue Hills mines. 
  In 1974, the Manitou began his task and 
  succeeded admirably. However, during a 
  particularly stressful encounter with a white man 
  industry, known as Lyncon Technologies, the 
  Manitou made statements that might have been 
  lost on any other man, but got the genius of 
  Gregorio Lyconius thinking. Wondering why the 
  Manitou was so anachronistic and why he fought 
  so hard, Gregorio researched both documents 
  and sagely individuals until he got his answer. A 
  mighty artifact known as the Heart of the 
  Grandmother Spider existed… and it contained 
  the essence of a goddess, a goddess believed to 
  have created the world. 
  Gregorio coveted this power so, in 1999, he 
  formed his Imperions to hunt down the location 
  of this Heart. In response, Grandmother Spider 
  redoubled her efforts to protect herself. The 
  Manitou and his Equalizers could no longer be 
  relied on, since they had taken their genocidal 
  war against the white man too far. Instead, she 
  turned to Red Hawk, known for his open eyes 
  and open heart. Red Hawk sought out a 
  champion and chose Darren Davenport. 
  The old man’s 
  eyes seemed to 
  literally flare at this 
  point. “You WILL 
  take your place in the 
  gathering now, 
  Michael Two-
  Feathers. I will 
  counsel with you 
  privately tonight, 
  AFTER the spirits 
  have been honored.” 
  The old man’s harsh 
  tone of voice could 
  not be missed. 
  Michael turned 
  and scowled at Darren 
  before storming off 
  down the hill. Darren 
  watched as Michael 
  trudged down the hill, 
  nearly knocking over 
  a barbecue grill as he 
  stomped into the 
  gathering. Several 
  people paused to 
  watch the young man 
  before moving on, 
  unconcerned. Darren 
  bowed his head and 
  sighed. He then 
  turned to the old man.
  The old man 
  simply sighed and 
  shook his head in 
  exasperation. The 
  young girls watched 
  him attentively. “I do 
  not have the heart to 
  tell the poor boy that 
  his grandfather was a 
  Jew.” 
  “O-si-yo, e-du-di,” 
  Darren said, smiling 
  respectfully to the old 
  man. “Has your day 
  gone any better than 
  that, Grandpa Owl-
  Speaker?” 
  “Much better 
  than that,” the old 
  man smiled, looking 
  up at Darren. 
  “Especially now that 
  you, Ok-hwa, and 
  Brian are here. Come, 
  Crimson-Hawk. 
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  60 
  Adventure Seeds 
  The Meriquai are a diverse people with a 
  long history. They are perfectly suitable for 
  many games, including Fantasy Hero, Western 
  Hero, Champions, and possibly others. The 
  following adventure seeds will help in playing 
  game sessions involving the Meriquai. 
   
  MICHAEL TWO-FEATHER’S REVENGE 
   
  Michael Two-Feather lost his grandmother, 
  a great Meriquai woman, in a mining accident 
  back in the early seventies. Because the mines 
  were run by greedy “white man” mining 
  companies at that time, Michael blames white 
  man for the loss of his grandmother. His hatred 
  stews within him and eats away at his soul. 
  Finally, a dark voice whispers in his ear, coaxing 
  him to the silver mines, where something 
  horrible transforms him into a creature of evil. 
  Ideally, the heroes must discover that the 
  insectoid monster suddenly attacking citizens of 
  Blue Hills and Northern Meriquai Falls is, in 
  fact, a simple man with a huge chip on his 
  shoulder. Perhaps during a battle, they stumble 
  on some genetic sample. Or a mentalist hero 
  might make mental contact with the monster, 
  discovering the human mind buried deep within 
  it.  
  Once they discover this, the heroes must 
  decide how to deal with the monster. Will they 
  defeat it outright, ridding the world of its threat? 
  Or will they deal with the lost man in a more 
  humanitarian manner? If they choose the latter 
  course, how will they rescue Michael and bring 
  him back to sanity without the world discovering 
  his secret; such a discovery would cast a dark 
  shadow on the Meriquai people. 
  And who transformed Michael in the first 
  place? Was it the Manitou? Was it another 
  villain with a grudge against the Meriquai, using 
  Michael as a catalyst to create anti-Native 
  sentiment? Or was it something much, much 
  darker…? 
   
  THE RISE OF THE MYSTE 
   
  An excellent premise for an entire campaign 
  would be the eminent return of the spirit known 
  as the Myste. The Four Seasons could only 
  capture and imprison the Myste. And that was 
  back during the Age of Legends. Remember, 
  most modern people do not have a clue as to 
  what happened during the Age of Legends (or 
  that the Age of Legends ever existed, for that 
  matter). 
  In the long millennia that have passed since 
  its capture, the Myste has lied in anguish deep 
  within the earth, slowly feeding off the hatred of 
  man during the turn of ages. The recent 
  centuries, with the Europeans subverting many 
  Native cultures, has stirred up a tremendous 
  amount of hatred. This has only made the Myste 
  stronger. 
  How would the Myste escape its prison? 
  Perhaps a supervillain, such as Galvakar and the 
  Imperions, stumble upon his prison and 
  accidentally release him. However, even more 
  devious and satisfying in a storytelling sense 
  would be to for the heroes to be subtly influence 
  into performing actions that seem heroic on the 
  surface, but ultimately culminate in the release of 
  the Myste back into the world. (Be careful with 
  this tactic, though; people hate being 
  manipulated and game players are no different.) 
  Once the Myste has been released, it will 
  immediately begin to foment violence and hatred 
  throughout mankind. How will the heroes stop 
  the Myste, once it starts orchestrating actions 
  that feed it and make it stronger? The ingenuity 
  of the players should be rewarded, but the 
  process of recapturing the Myste (or even 
  destroying it once or for all) should be long, 
  hard-fought, and costly both materially and 
  emotionally. 
   
   
   
   
  The dancers have 
  their regalia on and 
  they are ready for the 
  ceremonies. Your 
  totem is especially 
  honored this fine 
  spring day. Come and 
  sing to Thunderbird.” 
   “Much better 
  than that,” the old 
  man smiled, looking 
  up at Darren. 
  “Especially now that 
  you, Ok-hwa, and 
  Brian are here. Come, 
  Crimson-Hawk. The 
  dancers have their 
  regalia on and they 
  are ready for the 
  ceremonies. Your 
  totem is especially 
  honored this fine 
  spring day. Come and 
  sing to Thunderbird.” 
  “But I can’t carry 
  a note,” Darren 
  protested, following 
  Owl-Speaker down 
  the hill. 
  “Do not worry,” 
  Owl-Speaker smiled, 
  perhaps more from 
  the young girls 
  keeping close to him 
  than from anything 
  else. “Sing from the 
  bottom of your heart. 
  If you sing with love 
  and admiration, the 
  spirits will be 
  pleased.” 
  Darren nodded and 
  followed Owl-
  Speaker to the 
  gathering. 
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  61
  Cobalt by Ross Watson 
   
  Background/History:  Rick Bannon’s earliest 
  memories involve his happy family. Robert, the 
  father, was an honored policeman, proud of his 
  two sons Rick and Roy. Rick was actually the 
  product of an earlier marriage, so most of the 
  fatherly attention went to Roy. This did not 
  particularly anger Rick, a laid back and easy-
  going young man.  
  As the boys grew to adulthood they both 
  wanted to follow in their father’s footsteps. Rick 
  again took second seat to his brother Roy, 
  helping to send Roy to college while Rick went 
  to night school studying for the police academy.  
  Roy’s college expenses were compounded 
  when the boys’ father was hospitalized after a 
  bust gone bad. Medical bills piled up, and Rick 
  abandoned his dream of being a policeman to 
  take a lucrative job as a security guard at 
  Montgomery International. MI was a very rich 
  and influential corporation, and Rick was able to 
  pay for his father’s hospital care and help Roy 
  get his degree. Roy was accepted into the FBI 
  soon after, but he never forgot the sacrifices Rick 
  had made to get him there.  
  Meanwhile, Rick was bored with his job at 
  MI. Montgomery International paid well, but 
  there was something about the company that 
  made him uneasy. Suspicious, he began poking 
  into things while making his rounds, 
  investigating various ties to organized crime and 
  shipments of strange experimental equipment. 
  Unfortunately, his unauthorized 
  investigation did not go unnoticed by his 
  employer. Executives at Montgomery 
  International decided that Rick had to be 
  removed, permanently. The next time Rick made 
  his rounds, someone shoved him into an 
  experimental bombardment chamber and locked 
  the door shut. Amazingly, the machine did not 
  kill Rick… instead it altered his molecular 
  structure, giving him the ability to manipulate 
  and control mass.  
  Montgomery International’s next step was to 
  fire Rick and threaten his father. Rick was 
  infuriated, and bitterly rejected the corporations 
  attempt to bargain with him. An unexplained 
  power surge took the hospital equipment off line 
  that night, and Robert Bannon died in his sleep.  
  Rick swore vengeance… but without 
  evidence, he was helpless to gain any assistance 
  from the police or the government. Roy 
  counseled him against violence, but there was 
  only one way Rick could fight the corporation 
  directly… and that was with his new 
  superhuman powers! Rick took on the identity of 
  Cobalt, and began using his abilities to crush MI 
  however he could. Thus began a reign of terror 
  as Rick has attacked holdings of Montgomery 
  International all over the world, uncovering more 
  and more evidence of hideous experiments and a 
  callous disregard for human life held by the 
  corporation. Eventually, Eurostar began to keep 
  tabs on the young man, as Fiacho believes that 
  Cobalt may have what it takes to join at some 
  future point. Not everything MI produces is a 
  target… Cobalt uncovered a protective uniform 
  and a set of high-tech prototype goggles from a 
  Montgomery International research and 
  development lab, and decided to keep them to 
  assist his efforts. 
   
  Personality/Motivation:  Rick is obsessed with 
  revenge on Montgomery International. He’s also 
  committed to bringing the corporation’s 
  diabolical schemes to light, and he doesn’t care 
  what he has to do to succeed.  
  Cobalt has essentially become what he once 
  despised: A criminal. You could even call him a 
  terrorist, for he uses any and all means necessary 
  to tear down MI’s corporate structure. His 
  brother Roy does not approve, but can’t bring 
  himself to turn his brother in, even aiding him by 
  altering Rick’s records and passing on 
  information when he can. 
  While Cobalt is not at heart a murderer, he 
  no longer has a great respect for human life. He 
  won’t go out of his way to rescue any injured 
  normals, nor will he keep from using excessive 
  force when inside a city, for example. He only 
  cares about his quest to destroy Montgomery 
  International and make them pay. 
   
  Quote:  “Montgomery International is going 
  down… whatever it takes!” 
  “You have no idea what’s being done 
  behind the shield of the law and polite society.” 
  “Everyone out of the building! I’m taking it 
  apart in thirty seconds!” 
  “I hope your grasp of right and wrong is 
  more solid than your hold on me.”1 
   
  Powers/Tactics:  Cobalt has the power to shift 
  mass between one source and another. This 
  results in his abilities to control the amount of 
  mass present in any given space around him.  
  Cobalt can accelerate a “wave” of mass 
  through the air as a ranged attack, which strikes 
  with incredible force. He can shift his own mass 
  (and the mass of another, or something he 
  touches equal to his own mass) “around” other 
  molecules, rendering himself or the object 
  ghostlike and seemingly insubstantial. He can 
  focus mass into himself or another person, 
  making them tougher and stronger at the price of 
  great physical weight. Also, he can focus the 
                                                             
  artwork by John Grigni 
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  62 
  mass of a particular area, giving his target 
  incredible weight, which makes most enemies 
  affected by it immobile or very uncomfortable. 
  Finally, he can seriously damage nearly any 
  person or structure with a single touch, warping 
  the interior molecular structure of his target. 
  Cobalt can power his punches with a jolt of 
  heavy mass, sending opponents sprawling many 
  meters away. However, this tires him very much, 
  so he can only do it so many times per day. In 
  addition, doing so requires him to wind up for a 
  mighty punch or kick. An entangle or an 
  appropriate Grab maneuver will keep him from 
  being able to unleash such a blow. 
  His armor and technogoggles provide him 
  with protection, and the goggles contain a very 
  sophisticated suite of electronics. He can 
  communicate, scan ranges, see in other 
  wavelengths, and more. The goggles even 
  contain a limited combat computer, which can 
  provide a trajectory overlay on his vision to 
  increase the effectiveness of his ranged attacks.  
  Tactically, Cobalt attempts to fight in an 
  intelligent manner. If given the opportunity, he 
  will size up his opponents and get them talking 
  long enough to make some Tactics and Analyze 
  Combat Technique skill rolls. He begins a fight 
  cautiously, putting his levels into DCV and 
  relying on his martial arts until he’s sure that his 
  opponents can handle his higher-powered 
  attacks. When fighting superheroes, he’ll use his 
  double knockback attacks to clear some “elbow 
  room” and use the Bouncing An Attack combat 
  modifier (see page 249 in the HERO System 5th 
  edition book) to bounce his energy blast amongst 
  ranged opponents.  
  He likes to surprise enemies with his 
  Desolidification that can effect them. He’ll grab 
  a troublesome foe and push them through a floor 
  or wall to get them out of the combat area. If 
  he’s feeling particularly angry, he may turn off 
  the Desolidification leaving a character stuck 
  inside something particularly hard. (Keep in 
  mind that if a Desolidified character solidifies 
  within a solid object, he takes damage as if he 
  teleported there, and the object usually will as 
  well; See page 240 in the HERO System 5th 
  Edition book for the Teleport Damage Table) 
  If he’s working with a team or another 
  villain, he will use his Transform to immobilize 
  enemies and then grant his ally his Density 
  Increase Useable by Other. This can be quite a 
  shock to player characters who aren’t expecting 
  it! 
  Normally, Cobalt’s Variable Limitation is 
  set to two limitations: Only in Contact with the 
  ground (In order to shift mass from the earth into 
  or out of himself and others) and Gestures. If he 
  thinks the battle won’t last long, he’ll change his 
  limitation to Increased END Cost: 2x END.  
   
  Campaign Use:  Cobalt is not a “supervillain” in 
  the classic sense. He’s a misguided individual, 
  and his quest for revenge should make most 
  heroes think twice about helping him.  
  Heroes could easily encounter Cobalt when 
  he stages a public attack on a Montgomery 
  International office building or industrial park. 
  Perhaps one of the heroes works for MI in his 
  secret identity, or perhaps MI has hired the 
  heroes to protect them from “the terrorist threat.”  
  Roy Bannon could also get the heroes 
  involved in his brother’s life. Roy doesn’t need 
  much more evidence to believe that his brother’s 
  gone over the edge… if Cobalt destroys a high-
  rise office building and all the janitors and 
  secretaries inside die horrible deaths because of 
  it, Roy will be quick to find a way to stop his 
  brother. Any player character with ties to the 
  Bureau may also know of Roy Bannon and could 
  be clued into Cobalt’s destructive rampages. 
  Finally, the heroes could be investigating 
  Montgomery International on their own and find 
  Cobalt assisting them! MI has many questionable 
  business practices, scientific experiments, 
  prototype equipment, and many other corporate 
  adventure hooks for a typical superhero 
  campaign, and Cobalt can become involved in 
  any of them featuring the attention of the player 
  characters.  
   
  Appearance:  Cobalt is a white man in his late 
  twenties, with slightly longer-than-normal mouse 
  brown hair and dark green eyes. He has sharp, 
  hawkish features and is clean-shaven. In his 
  identity as Cobalt, he wears a gray bulky-looking 
  jacket and black bodysuit with green boots and 
  gloves. His goggles conceal his identity, and are 
  golden chrome in appearance. When his density 
  powers are active, Cobalt glows with a 
  distinctive crackling field of dark blue energy, 
  the same hue as his nom de guerre.2 
                                                             
  Montgomery International created by Sean Fannon 
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  63
  Cobalt 
   
  Val Char Cost Roll Notes 
   15/65 STR 
  5 22- Lift 200t; 13d6 HTH [6] 
   
  18 DEX 
  24 13- OCV:  6/DCV:  6 
   18/28 CON 
  16 15-  
   
  15 BODY 
  10 12- 
   
  15 INT 
  5 12- PER Roll:  13- 
   
  15 EGO 
  10 12- ECV:  5 
   
  15 PRE 
  5 12- PRE Attack:  3d6 
   
  16 COM 
  3 12- 
   
   10/20 PD 
  7 
   Total:  30 PD (30rPD) 
   10/20 ED 
  6 
   Total:  30 ED (30rED) 
   
  5 SPD 
  22 
   Phases: 3, 5, 8, 10, 12 
   
  10 REC 
  6 
   
  50 END 
  7 
   
  50 STUN 
  18 
   
   
  Total Characteristics Cost: 144 
  Movement: Running: 
  6”/12” 
   
   
  Swimming: 2”/4” 
  Cost Powers  
  END 
   72 Mass Shifting:  Multipower, 90-point 
  reserve, Variable Limitation (requires –
  ½ worth of Limitations; -¼) 
   7u 1)  Mass Blast:  EB 10d6, Double KB 
  (+¾) 
  9 
   6u 2)  Mass Diffusion:  Desolidification 
  (affected by force fields), Useable as 
  Attack (does not work on characters with 
  Desolidification or Force Field, +1) 
  8 
   6u 3)  Mass Concentration:  Density 
  Increase (50,000 kg mass, +50 STR, 
  +10 PD/ED, -10” KB), Useable By 
  Other (+¼), Ranged (+½); Visible (-¼) 9 
   7u 4)  Mass Focusing:  Major Transform 
  6d6 (transforms anything into a version 
  of itself with the physical limitation: 
  mass now equals previous plus 50,000 
  kg, heals back normally) 
  9 
   7u 5)  Mass Distortion:  HKA 2d6 (2d6+1 
  with STR), Does BODY (+1), NND 
  (defense is Force Field or 
  Desolidification, +1) 
  9 
   
  9 Density Stamina:  +10 CON; No 
  Figured Characteristics (-½), Linked to 
  Density Increase (-½), Visible (-¼) 
  0 
   11 Density Protection:  Damage 
  Resistance (20 PD/20 ED); Linked to 
  Density Increase (-½), Visible (-¼) 
  0  
   15 Density Wall:  Missile Deflection (all 
  Ranged attacks); Linked to Density 
  Increase (-½) 
  0 
   24 Mass-ively Powerful Blows:  Double 
  Knockback advantage purchased for 65 
  STR; 6 Charges (-¾), Restrainable (-¼) 0 
   15 Armored Uniform:  Armor 10 PD/10 
  ED; OIF (-½), Activation 14- (-½) 
  0 
   
  8 Technogoggles:  High Range Radio 
  Perception; OIF Durable (-½) 
   
  3 Technogoggles:  Infared Perception; 
  OIF Durable (-½) 
   
  3 Technogoggles:  Ultraviolet Perception; 
  OIF Durable (-½) 
   
  4 Technogoggles:  Sight Group Flash 
  Defense (5 points), Hardened (+¼) 
   17 Technogoggles:  +5 with Ranged 
  Attacks; OIF Durable (-½)  
   
  8 Technogoggles:  +4 vs. Range Modifier 
  vs. All Attacks; OIF Durable (-½) 
   
  3 Technogoggles:  Absolute Range Sense; 
  OIF Durable (-½) 
   
   
   Martial Arts:  Dirty Infighting 
   
   Maneuver OCV DCV Notes 
   
  4 Block 
  +2 
  +2 
  Block, Abort 
   
  4 Disarm 
  -1 
  +1 
  Disarm, +10 STR 
   
  4 Eye Gouge 
  -1 
  -1 
  Sight Flash 4d6 
   
  4 Low Blow 
  -1 
  +1 
  2d6 NND 
   
  4 Punch 
  +0 
  +2 
  STR +2d6 Strike 
   
  5 Roundhouse -2 
  +1 
  STR +4d6 Strike 
   
  3 Tackle 
  +0 
  -1 
  STR +v/5 Strike; 
  Both Fall 
   
  3 Throw 
  +0 
  +1 
  STR +v/5; Target 
  Falls 
   
   Perks 
   
  3 Anonymity 
   
  8 Contact: FBI Agent Roy Bannon (very 
  useful skills and resources, access to major 
  institution, very good relationship) 11- 
   
   Talents 
   
  3 Lightsleep 
   
   Skills 
   30 +6 with Hand-to-Hand Combat 
   
   
  3 Acrobatics 13- 
   
  3 Analyze Combat Technique 12- 
   
  3 Breakfall 13- 
   
  3 Bribery 12- 
   
  3 Combat Driving 13- 
   
  3 Computer Programming 12- 
   
  3 Conversation 12- 
   
  3 Criminology 12- 
   
  3 Forensic Medicine 12- 
   
  3 KS: The Criminal World 12- 
   
  3 KS: The Law Enforcement World 12- 
   
  3 KS: Montgomery International 12- 
   
  3 KS: The Corporate World 12- 
   
  3 Oratory 12- 
   
  3 Paramedics 12- 
   
  3 PS: Security Guard 12- 
   
  3 Security Systems 12- 
   
  3 Shadowing 12- 
   
  3 Sleight of Hand 13- 
   
  3 Stealth 13- 
   
  3 Streetwise 12- 
   
  3 Tactics 12- 
   
  1 WF: Small Arms 
  Total Powers & Skills cost: 367 
  Total Cost: 511 
  
  DIGITAL HERO #3 
   
  64 
   150+ Disadvantages 
   10 DNPC:  Roy Bannon (Cobalt’s half-
  brother) 11- (Normal, Useful) 
   20 Enraged:  Enraged when he takes BODY 
  (Uncommon), go 14-, recover 11- 
   10 Hunted:  Eurostar 11- (Mo Pow, NCI, 
  Watching)  
   20 Hunted:  Montgomery International 8- 
  (Mo Pow, NCI, Capture) 
   15 Hunted: Police 11- (Less Pow, NCI, 
  Imprison) 
   10 Psychological Limitation:  Determined 
  to bring down Montgomery 
  International (Common,  
   
   Moderate) 
   10 Psychological Limitation:  The End 
  Justifies The Means (Uncommon, 
  Strong) 
   15 Social Limitation:  Secret Identity 
  (Frequently, Major) 
   20 Vulnerability:  2x STUN from Cold 
  (Common) 
   20 Vulnerability:  2x BODY from Cold 
  (Common) 
   161 Experience Points 
   
  Total Disadvantage Points: 511 
   
   
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Hero System/DIGITAL_HERO/Hero System - Digital Hero 03.pdf