TEXT: Icons • The RetConQuest
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  Written by Steve Kenson with Art by Dan Houser
  
  Time and time again... In The RetConQuest the villainous Tempus Khan (from 
  The Villainomicon), chronal conqueror, has already defeated the heroes! 
  Following a stinging defeat at the heroes’ hands, Khan traveled back into their 
  past and conquered the world before the heroes could gain their powers or 
  band together to oppose him! Now the world—and the unknowing heroes—are 
  ground under the heel of Tempus Khan’s unyielding rule, but there is a spark of 
  hope that the heroes can reclaim what they have lost and reverse their foe’s 
  changes to history before it is too late!
  A somewhat offbeat adventure, heroes start out The RetConQuest not knowing 
  what has happened or, really, who they were in the original timeline Tempus 
  Khan conquered and changed. Through the intervention of a mysterious 
  incorporeal entity known as “Master Tulku” the heroes regain their true 
  memories and abilities, allowing them to challenge Tempus Khan’s rule. Master 
  Tulku tells them of the weakness in the conquest and how they can undo what 
  has been done, if they act quickly. If not, then history will remain forever altered, 
  and the world forever under Tempus Khan’s rule!
  HEY, PLAYERS...
  If you are not planning to act as Game Master for this adventure, read no 
  further! You may spoil some of the surprises in the story for yourself and your 
  fellow players by doing so. Game Masters should familiarize themselves with the 
  entire adventure and its contents, particularly the capabilities of the main villain, 
  before running it.
  YOUR FIRST ADVENTURE?
  The RetConQuest makes for an offbeat, but surprisingly effective, ﬁrst adventure 
  for Icons. Given that history has been altered even before the adventure begins, 
  it provides the opportunity for you and your players to jump right into the action, 
  without any awkward set-up or introductory time. The fact that the heroes are 
  working to change history back to its prior state allows you and your players to 
  play around and get the hang of the game and how it is played in this ﬁrst 
  adventure without any “real” consequences, so long as the heroes win and 
  erase everything that happened from history!
  If this is the ﬁrst adventure in your series, it offers a unique opportunity for hero 
  creation. See the suggestions under the Flashback header in Chapter 2 for 
  some ways you can handle the players building their heroes in-play, allowing 
  you to get the game going even before the players roll dice to determine the 
  types of characters they’ll play!
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  ICONS • The RetConQuest
  
  The heroes discover something profoundly 
  wrong with the world they know.
  The world changed nearly twenty years ago, when Tempus Khan and his 
  Chronal Horde invaded from the future. The conventional military could not 
  withstand AI-driven mech-walkers and 27th century smart-clouds, much less 
  memetic self-replicating computer viruses and soldier augments. In days, the 
  conquest was over, and the nations of the world surrendered. They swore 
  unending loyalty to Tempus Khan and his Eternal Empire, and failure to obey his 
  eidicts means death.
  Now, you run... you have been running for what seems like forever, trying to 
  escape the constantly watchful spy-ﬂies and smart clouds linked to the drone 
  networks, the panoptic panes of glass in every building, and the scanners at 
  every street corner. You don’t know why they are after you, but it hardly matters 
  now. You’ve been lucky to get this far, but there is no escape. No hope. Nowere 
  to run beyond the reach of the power of Tempus Khan. Still, fortunate smiles 
  upon you once again. The opening into the bombed out subway station should 
  be sealed off. The dark, yawning passage seems to beckon to you, offering just 
  a moment’s repsite. 
  It was like a dream—or a fatigue-induced hallucination—when the train pulled 
  up to the station, a train that should not have, could not have, been there. 
  Perhaps fate is merely toying with you but, with the sounds of pursuit not far 
  behind, what choice do you have but to step on-board?
  In the ﬂickering light as it strobes past the moving train, you notice the others, 
  huddled in the car with you, and a green glow eminating from the engine ahead, 
  ﬂoating into your car, resolving itself into a humanoid form clad in ﬂowing robes. 
  A hood obscures most of his features, apart from the ﬂowing beard and glowing 
  eyes in its depths, hands folded in the long sleeves of his robe.
  “Do no fear,” he says in a low, echoing voice. “I am Master Tulku, and you are 
  this world’s last hope.”
  FLASHBACK
  Master Tulku approaches one of the heroes (start with the player to your left or 
  just choose one at random), stretches forth his hands to place them just over the 
  hero’s head and says “Remember...” The green glow brightens around the hero 
  and the scene shifts...
  ICONS • The RetConQuest 
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  New Heroes
  If The RetConQuest is the ﬁrst adventure of your series, then this scene is an 
  opportunity for the players to create heroes within the context of the game. As 
  Master Tulku urges each of them to remember, have each player go through the 
  hero creation process described on pp. 10–15 of Icons, rolling to dice to 
  determine who the hero was in the unaltered timeline, and coming up with the 
  hero’s background and different aspects. The other players may be able to offer 
  suggestions and ideas, making the process cooperative.
  If you have enough copies of the Icons rulebook or hero creation tables to 
  reference, have all the players roll up their heroes at once, and then go through 
  one by one and relate their origin scenes (see Existing Heroes, following) 
  working with the players to establish some or all of the heroes’ aspects as well. 
  You can let players leave some aspects “blank” for the time being, saying their 
  recollections are incomplete, and allow them to ﬁll these in over the course of 
  the game. See Choosing Aspects During Play on p. 78 of Icons for details.
  Existing Heroes
  If the players already have established heroes, then Master Tulku’s inﬂuence 
  causes each hero to relive his or her origins, the pivotal moments that made the 
  character into a hero. You can run this in a couple of different ways.
  First, you can have each player relate the story of the hero’s origin, particularly if 
  that story is not well known to the other players. Alternately, you can play out 
  the story of the hero’s origin, giving the other players roles in it, from supporting 
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  ICONS • The RetConQuest
  
  characters to antagonists (if there are any in the story). So, for example, if a 
  hero’s origin consists of inventing a device, then arguing with a colleague over it 
  leading up to a betrayal by said colleague, have another player take the 
  colleague’s role and play out those scenes.
  The idea is to bring the heroes’ origins to life, enriching them in ways that don’t 
  necessarily show up in a summary on a character sheet. Even if the heroes’ 
  origins were part of a previous adventure in your series, take the opportunity to 
  look at them from different angles, perhaps exploring some of what it was like 
  for the heroes before or after the known story.
  Lastly, if you and your players truly do not want to play out this backstory, you 
  can gloss over it, simply saying Master Tulku reawakens the heroes’ true 
  identities, and move on to the next chapter and the ﬁght with Tempus Khan’s 
  robots.
  If your players do effectively relate their heroes’ origins and backgrounds in 
  some fashion, award them each an additional point of Determination and allow 
  them to establish a Team Determination pool, if they have not done so already 
  (see Team Determination, p. 19 of Icons).
  THE HEROES RETURN
  Whether new or pre-existing heroes, once the process of recouting their origins 
  is complete, the heroes on board the subway train with Master Tulku undergo a 
  transformation, going from the poor, hunted inhabitants of the timeline ruled by 
  Tempus Khan to their old selves. For the time being, they remember everything 
  from both worlds: their original timeline and the current one they inhabit.
  As the train approaches a station and slows, Master Tulku speaks to the heroes 
  one last time. Read or paraphrase the following for the players:
  “Through the power of your memories, I have restored you to your 
  rightful forms. Time is not as it should be, for Tempus Khan—he who 
  imagines himself Master of Time—has altered the course of your 
  history. This conquest should not be, but if it is allowed to continue, 
  Khan’s quantum stabilizers will harden time’s ﬂow into a ﬁxed point, and 
  nothing will be able to undo what he has done.
  “You must reach Tempus Khan’s fortress and disable the quantum 
  stabilizers, for they are the dam holding back the natural ﬂow of time. 
  Once that is done, history will reassert itself and sweep away this 
  altered timeline. It will never have occurred. The world as you knew it 
  will be restored, and Tempus Khan will meet him fate... in due time. Act 
  quickly: once this timeline stabilizes, even the respite I have given you 
  will be undone and you will have no memory of your former selves, as 
  they will never have existed. Would that I could do more, but it is up to 
  you. Go with my blessings and the hopes of the future...”
  ICONS • The RetConQuest 
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  The robed and hooded ﬁgure fades from view as the train rolls to a halt and the 
  doors hiss open to the sound of a heavy, clanking tread from the platform 
  outside and an electronically ﬁltered voice proclaiming “Targets relocated.”
  MASTER TULKU
  Who is the mysterious Master Tulku? The heroes don’t get to ﬁnd out in this 
  Chapter. He is a ghostly presence with no game system traits, operating solely 
  as a plot device to enable to heroes to recover their true identities and abilities. 
  The hooded ﬁgure brushes off inquiries about his identity with (truthful) 
  declarations about how there is no time for explanations and that the heroes 
  have to trust him if the world is to be saved from Tempus Khan. Nothing the 
  heroes do in this initial encounter can affect Master Tulku, as he exists “outside” 
  of reality as they know it and is not “really” present. They will have the 
  opportunity to learn more about him in the Epilogue of this adventure.
  EXTENDING THE CHAPTER
  The introductory framing of this chapter is intended to put the heroes right into 
  the action as quickly as possible. If you prefer a slower build-up, you could have 
  Master Tulku appear to just one or two of the heroes, restoring their memories 
  and abilities, and then tasking them with locating and restoring their teammates, 
  currently living very different lives in the world under Tempus Khan’s rule. The 
  heroes have to evade Khan’s patrols and threats like the robots from Chapter 3 
  and Chapter 4 until they have gathered everyone together. Only then does 
  Master Tulku give them the guidance from Heroes Return, directing them to 
  Tempus Khan’s fortress. This extended approach gives you more of an 
  opportunity to show the players the reality of life under Tempus Khan’s 
  totalitarian rule and the vital importance of undoing his changes to the timeline.
  To truly extend this chapter, rather than simply restoring their true identities and 
  abilities and sending them off the Tempus Khan’s fortress, Mastery Tulku can 
  restore the heroes and set them on the task of saving their past selves from 
  Khan’s temporal manipulations. The team actually goes to each hero’s origin (or 
  some other pivotal point in history) to prevent or correct historical tampering. 
  This adds a whole series of scenes, one for each hero, to the adventure, and 
  can easily be a full game session (or more) in and of itself!
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  The heroes to announce their return with a bang!
  Once the heroes began to reemerge from the bubble of spacetime created by 
  Master Tulku, Tempus Khan’s horde relocated them and moved to intercept. A 
  group of combat robots equal in number to the heroes is arrayed on the subway 
  platform, intending to deal with the fugitives on the spot. The Scimitar hunter-
  bots are in for quite a surprise!
  HEAVY METAL
  The robots tracking the heroes are under orders to eliminate them as soon as 
  possible. Tempus Khan has targetted the heroes’ in his new timeline to ensure 
  there are no challenges to his absolute rule. Of course, he assumes the heroes 
  are currently powerless and unaware of what is happening, which turns out not 
  to be the case. The robots coldly inform the heroes they will be eliminated by 
  order of the eternal Tempus Khan, and move to execute the order. Unless the 
  heroes launch an attack the moment they emerge from the subway car, the 
  robots will go ﬁrst. This gives the heroes their defensive reactions ﬁrst before 
  they take action.
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  Heroes can use various tactics to take on the robots: in addition to simply hitting 
  them with whatever damaging attacks they’ve got, the good guys can use loose 
  objects in the subway station as weapons, from a heavy metal bench (Strength 
  5+) or the entire subway car (for heroes with Strength 7 or more)!
  The subway’s third rail still has power running through it, so a hero or robot 
  touching it takes 6 electricity damage each page. A hero can lure a robot into 
  hitting the rail (see Luring, p. 68 of Icons) or throw one onto it (requiring Strength 
  8+ and a major success on a difﬁculty 6 Strength test), while an electricity 
  controlling hero can tap into its energy. The electrical damage bypasses a 
  Scimitar’s armor, so hitting the third rail takes one to 0 Stamina and out of the 
  ﬁght.
  Agile heroes (or those with powers such as Phasing) can use luring to trick the 
  Scimitars into shooting at or hitting each other by moving between them; the 
  hero takes an action to lure and makes a defensive test against difﬁculty 7 (for 
  close attacks) or 6 (for distance attacks), success means the robots miss the 
  hero but hit each other! Use the outcome of the hero’s defensive action as the 
  outcome of the attacks; so a hero scoring a massive success means the robots 
  effectively hit each other with potential killing results!
  TIME IS ON OUR SIDE
  In this chapter and throughout the rest of the adventure, the heroes can tag the 
  aspect “Time Is On Our Side”—encapsulated in Master Tulku’s statement of 
  support—for various time-related retcons, stunts, and bonuses. You can tell the 
  players this outright or let them ﬁgure it out on their own, perhaps with a gentle 
  reminder or suggestion should they not be getting the idea, or if a hero mentions 
  Tulku’s statement without taking advantage of it. Essentially, it becomes a 
  Catchphrase (Icons, p. 74) for the heroes during the adventure.
  Scimitar Robots
  PRO 3, STR 6, CRD 2, INT 1, AWE 2, WIL 0 • 
  Stamina 6
  Specialties: Blaster Expert, Military Expert
  Armor: Scimitar robots have protective 
  plating, giving them Invulnerability 4.
  Immunities: As robots, the Scimitars have Life Support 10 and are 
  immune to mental powers and effects that work solely on living beings, 
  such as toxins or diseases. They do not feel pain, fatigue, or have any 
  ability to do other than they are programmed to do.
  Weapons: The Scimitars are equipped with shoulder-mounted rapid-ﬁre 
  blaster cannons (Blast 6 damage) in addition to their considerable 
  Strength.
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  Like all uses of Determination, this one is limited only by the players’ imagination 
  and the heroes’ capabilities, but also take into account the fact that time is in 
  ﬂux during the adventure, and the heroes have access to some time-travel 
  capabilities (or have, or will... tenses get problematic when it comes to time 
  travel). So feel free to let players run with ideas like more signiﬁcant retcons 
  based on things their past or future selves might do. For example, if the heroes 
  need to get past a guard post or a sealed door, they might spend Determination 
  and retcon a distraction or even a hidden key, left in a pre-determined place by 
  their future selves to help them out. You don’t have to worry overly much about 
  continuity; the heroes will have some temporal access during Chapter 4 of this 
  adventure and who knows what capabilities their future selves might have...?
  “BRING THEM TO ME...”
  If, for some reason, the heroes lose to Tempus Khan’s mechanized horde, 
  describe the robots coldly moving in to execute their targets, as ordered. Then, 
  at the last moment, a commanding voice speaks over the ‘bot’s communication 
  systems, audible from their external speakers, saying “Stop. Do not eliminate 
  them. Contain and bring them to me.” Having noted the unusual level of 
  resistance, Tempus Khan learned the heroes have somehow regained their true 
  identities and abilities! Curious as to how, he wants to interrogate them before 
  they are destroyed.
  In this case, Chapter 4 begins with the heroes as prisoners, having to ﬁnd a way 
  to escape from Tempus Khan’s robots so they can carry out their mission.
  ICONS • The RetConQuest 
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  “BRING THEM TO ME, MY 
  UNLIVING AUTOMATONS, 
  BRING THEM BEFORE... 
  TEMPUS KHAN!”
  
  The heroes target the quantum stabilizer at 
  the heart of Tempus Khan’s fortress.
  Having escaped from (or been captured by) Tempus Khan’s Scimitar robots, the 
  heroes must go to the Chronal Conqueror’s fortress and attempt to disable the 
  quantum stabilizers maintaining the changes to the timeline. Along the way, they 
  face Tempus Khan’s defensive measures and, eventually, the Master of All Time 
  himself!
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  ICONS • The RetConQuest
  MEANWHILE, AT THE FORTRESS 
  OF TEMPUS KHAN...
  
  RUNNING THE GAUNTLET
  Exactly what defensive countermeasures the heroes encounter depends on the 
  approach they take to Khan’s fortress.
  Storm the Gates
  A frontal assault means dealing with a horde of Scimitar robots (see Chapter 3), 
  possibly even some able to combine into a single massive robot with greater 
  Strength, suitable for challenging high-Strength heroes in one-one-one (well, 
  many-on-one) combat.
  As they approach the fortress itself, the heroes also have to contend with blast-
  cannon batteries on its ramparts: difﬁculty 4 defensive reaction to avoid their 
  Blast 6 attack. Each cannon is Strength 6 in terms of damaging or diverting it.
  Getting Sneaky
  The heroes may decide stealth is a better approach than outright assault, 
  particularly given that Tempus Khan has an entire army at his command. Let the 
  players offer their own plans for how to pull it off, but some ways they might 
  approach the problem of getting inside Khan’s fortress include:
  •
  Capturing some human guards or servants and using their uniforms. This is 
  relatively simple, but getting past the Fortress’ sensor systems is not. Ask 
  the players to suggest a plan for doing so, calling for an appropriate 
  difﬁculty 5 ability or power test, such as Coordination (Stealth) or Intellect 
  (Computers or Science).
  •
  Arranging to get captured (as in “Bring Them to Me...” at the end of 
  Chapter 3) or having some of the heroes disguised and bringing the others 
  in as their “prisoners”. A Coordination (Stealth) test may be called for or 
  Willpower (Performance) to fool guards.
  •
  Reprogram a Scimitar robot to guide or carry the heroes into the fortress 
  (difﬁculty 5 Intellect test using Computers specialty) or disguise one or more 
  heroes as a Scimitar, using powers or actually riding inside of one.
  •
  Slip in through unused subway and sewer tunnels beneath the fortress, 
  perhaps burrowing or blasting their way up into its lower levels, where the 
  quantum stabilizer is housed.
  •
  Plus, of course, using various powers to get into the fortress via phasing, 
  teleportation, or the like.
  If the heroes’ plan to sneak in doesn’t work out, go to Storm the Gates for the 
  kind of resistance they encounter.
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  Not the Foes We Know
  Want to extend or liven-up the battle to reach the quantum stabilizer with some 
  more distinct foes? Have Tempus Khan recruit some of the heroes’ enemies 
  (versions of them from this timeline) or even versions of their friends, 
  indoctrinated to serve as soldiers of the Absolute Master of Time. Khan can also 
  pluck infamous villains from different points in the past or future, if you want to 
  team up, say, Frakenstein’s Monster, Goliath, the Minotaur, and a few other 
  historical or mythic baddies to take on the heroes.
  You may ﬁnd The Villainomicon and other ICONS adventures from Adamant 
  Entertainment useful resources to ﬁnd villains to recruit to work for Tempus 
  Khan. If all else fails, you can always use “evil” duplicates of the heroes plucked 
  from some parallel Earth or timeline.
  KHAAAAN!
  The heroes ﬁght or sneak their way into the stabilizer chamber, a large silo some 
  four stories tall with walls of reinforced concrete and metallic catwalks ringing 
  each level. Running down the middle of the open shaft from ﬂoor to ceiling is a 
  transparent crystaline tube ﬁlled with an almost blinding white, pulsating light: 
  the quantum stabilizer. Complex control panels surround the bottom of the tube 
  as well as a console sitting on the third level catwalk.
  Whether the heroes managed to sneak in or had to ﬁght their way in, Tempus 
  Khan is prepared for them. The chronal conqueror stands on a catwalk 
  overlooking where the heroes enter the chamber, with a number of his robots 
  equal to the number of heroes arrayed about the room. This is your opportunity 
  to have Khan boast that, although he does not know how the heroes have 
  managed to regain their former identities, it hardly matters, since they cannot 
  possibly defeat the man who now rules the entire world! He offers them the 
  opportunity to surrender: He will restore them to blissful ignorance of the past 
  but ensure them a place of comfort in his new regime, as beﬁts noble foes. 
  When the heroes refuse, he orders his robot minions to destroy them!
  The Once and Future Defeat
  At some point during the confrontation, Tempus Khan should mention during his 
  endless gloating how he is prepared for every eventuality “this time” and the 
  heroes won’t defeat him “like they did before.” This is an important point that 
  comes up in the “next” chapter of the adventure (Chapter 1).
  Exactly what Khan says is up to you, depending on the capabilities of the 
  heroes. It should be something they are capable of accomplishing, since you’re 
  strongly hinting that it’s their “get out of world conquest free” card for the ﬁnale 
  of the adventure. So, for example, if one or more heroes have the technical skills 
  to potentially hack into the control systems of Tempus Khan’s robot horde, he 
  can mention how he has closed-off the backdoor into his control system so they 
  cannot exploit it “again”. If a hero with exotic powers could potentially overcome 
  Tempus Khan’s impervious shield, he has a defense against those powers now; 
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  award the player a point of Determination for the challenge and have Khan gloat 
  about how that power “will not defeat me this time like it did before!”
  Schrödinger’s Revenge
  The heoes’ goal must be to shut down the quantum stablizier, otherwise all their 
  efforts will be for naught.
  Game Masters can run this effort like a pyramid test (from ICONS Team-Up): 
  essentially, the heroes must achieve a massive success on the effort to shut 
  down the device, but can accumulate it through lesser successes. Two major 
  successes add up to a massive one, and two moderate successes add up to a 
  major one.
  The difﬁculty of the tests is 7, fairly substantial, given the advanced technology 
  and Tempus Khan’s lock-outs and security measures. Heroes can use whatever 
  abilities you feel are appropriate to work towards success, although the ﬁnal test 
  should probably be Intellect-based (using a specialty like Computers or Science) 
  or involve a technological power, although you should encourage players to use 
  their imaginations. If none of the heroes have those kind of capabilities, then let 
  them use Strength and damaging powers to solve the problem by smashing the 
  stabilizer! Same mechanics, different abilities used. Keep in mind the guidelines 
  for things like Determined and Focused Effort (ICONS, p. 79), in particular the 
  need for a failure to precede declaring a Determined Effort.
  Tempus Khan and his robots ﬁght to stop the heroes from accomplishing their 
  goal. Some heroes may need to run interference for those working on the 
  stabilizer.
  If the heroes succeed, the quantum stabilizer’s light ﬂares as Tempus Khan 
  shouts “NO!” The light seems to ﬁll the entire world. Go on to Chapter 1.
  If the heroes lose, Tempus Khan does not destroy them outright. He’s curious as 
  to how they regained their normal identities and so has them imprisoned and 
  interrogated. This gives the heroes a chance to escape and take another shot at 
  the quantum stabilizer, perhaps with a bit of help from Master Tulku, if 
  necessary.
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  The heroes confront the invading Tempus Khan and 
  defeat him again... for the first time.
  The heroes have restored their timeline back to its proper state, but their work is 
  not yet done. They still have to deal with an invading Tempus Khan who acts like 
  he has never confronted them before because, from his perspective, he hasn’t!
  This chapter is the “initial” confrontation with Khan that inspired him to travel 
  back in time and conquer the heroes’ era before they could arise to oppose him. 
  In a classic time-loop/paradox, the heroes have already dealt with that challenge 
  from their perspective, and have the tools they need to hand Tempus Khan a 
  fairly easy defeat in his ﬁrst encounter with them, causing him to travel back to 
  attempt to retroactively eliminate them, which they have already dealt with, 
  looping back to the initial encounter, ad inﬁnitum. In essence, Tempus Khan has 
  helped to engineer his own defeat!
  Dealing with Tempus Khan and his horde here ensures the heroes won’t have to 
  worry about the Chronal Conqueror for some... well, time to come.
  DEJA VU, ALL OVER AGAIN
  The blinding white light of the disabled quantum stabilizer fades and the heroes, 
  having defeated Tempus Khan, ﬁnd themselves... elsewhere. It could be in their 
  headquarters, standing in the middle of downtown in their home city, anywhere 
  that says “home” to the players and shows the world is back to normal. Give the 
  players a moment to enjoy their triumph and to breathe a sigh of relief, and 
  then...
  An explosion rocks the area! A horde of Tempus Khan’s robots are invading the 
  city! Heroes who check satellite and news feeds discover, in fact, Khan’s 
  Chronal Horde is invading the world. As the invaders mercilessly pummel any 
  obstacles in their path, their master’s ampliﬁed voice speaks over the airwaves 
  and booms out over the city near the heroes:
  “Primitive peoples of Earth! I, Tempus Khan, am your conqueror! I have 
  come from your distant future. Your weapons and armies cannot 
  oppose me. Your costumed champions cannot overcome me. Those 
  who resist my inevitable rule will be punished, for this era will be added 
  to my Eternal Empire. So says your new Khan!”
  The bulk of the invasion force is made up of Scimitar robots (see Chapter 3: 
  Robot Rumble), including air-capable models (Flight 5) but feel free to introduce 
  whatever other futuristic war-machines you like, all under Tempus Khan’s 
  control. True to the Chronal Conqueror’s claims, the conventional authorities 
  seem virtually helpless against him. They look to the heroes for help.
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  CRISIS AT HAND
  Give the heroes an immediate problem to solve: a phalanx of Scimitars, 
  swooping and marching through the streets, endangering innocent lives. The 
  heroes have to:
  
   •
   Protect a small group of people as the robots level their blasters and open 
  ﬁre. Describe faint targetting lasers weaving across the scene, zeroing-in on 
  their victims.
  
   •
   Stop a skidding eighteen-wheeler when a Scimitar blasts it, toppling it on its 
  side and sending it sliding across the road.
  
   •
   Deal with falling debris from a building hit by a straﬁng run, plunging 
  towards the street and the people below.
  
   •
   Plus overcome the Scimitars in combat; there should be robots equal in 
  number to the heroes immediately on-hand, although there are many, many 
  times that number invading the city.
  Let the players supply the appropriate abilities to handle the situations. 
  Invulnerable heroes might jump in the path of the robots’ blaster-ﬁre, for 
  example, while those with super-speed might try and move civilians out of 
  harm’s way and energy controllers whip up barriers to block attacks or hazards, 
  and so forth. Game Masters with access to the pyramid tests system (found in 
  ICONS Team-Up and Villainomicon, where it’s called “the success pyramid”) may 
  want to treat the ﬁrst three situations as pyramid tests. The heroes accumulate 
  successes towards achieving their goal, often combining their abilities in 
  different ways.
  SUCCESS IN RETROSPECT
  Once the heroes have dealt with the immediate problems, they can take a 
  breather and tackle the larger issue. Fortunately, Tempus Khan has handed them 
  the key to victory in Once and Future Defeat in Chapter 4. Award the ﬁrst 
  player to realize (and articulate) this an extra point of Determination: this Tempus 
  Khan is meeting the heroes for the ﬁrst time; from his timeline, the invasion is 
  occurring “before” the previous chapters of this adventure!
  Thus the heroes should be able to exploit the vulnerability they learned in order 
  to win. Don’t make it a total cake-walk, but let the players build a plan around 
  Tempus Khan’s weakness and give them a chance to succeed. In particular, 
  allow for Determined Effort, since not only will they only get one shot at this 
  plan, it is in some ways predestined!
  So, for example, if Tempus Khan told the heroes they hacked into his systems in 
  Chapter 4, then they can do so here, perhaps with other heroes running 
  interference against Scimitar robots and other elements of Khan’s forces while 
  the technie’s do the work. The same is essentially true of other plans. Give all 
  the heroes things to do, and let them do what it takes to save the day. Tempus 
  Khan is caught off-guard by whatever plan the heroes adopt; remember, this is 
  ICONS • The RetConQuest 
  Page 14 
  
  all new to him! Indeed, he may be bafﬂed as to how the heroes ﬁgured out how 
  to beat him!
  If the players don’t catch-on to the idea that this situation is a time-loop, you 
  can have Tempus Khan confront them directly. Self-styled warlord that he is, he 
  cannot resist an opportunity to publicly crush this era’s costumed defenders, 
  thus breaking his enemy’s spirits. He makes it clear he has never met the heroes 
  before (from his point of view) giving them a big clue this is the earlier incident 
  referred to by his alternate-world self.
  If all else fails, you can have Master Tulku send the heroes a vision or other clue 
  pointing towards Khan’s defeat. Try not to get too heavy-handed with it. 
  Chances are the players will ﬁgure it out, or come up with a plan of their own. If 
  so, run with it!
  Page 15 
  ICONS • The RetConQuest
  
  Once Tempus Khan is defeated (again... or for the ﬁrst time, depending on how 
  you look at it) there is a moment of stillness, and the heroes see a point of green, 
  glowing light appear in mid-air. Give them a second to brace for another assault, 
  then tell them the light grows to resolve into the robed and hooded form of... 
  Master Tulku!
  THE SECRET OF MASTER TULKU
  The translucent image of the elderly man nods gravely to the heroes, then gives 
  them a slight smile. Read or paraphrase the following to the players:
  “You have done well, heroes, acting directly where I could not and 
  righting a terrible wrong. Time is now restored to its proper course and 
  ﬂows unrestricted and undisrupted. I have done a small part of the work 
  of absolving myself of my misdeeds for, you see, I was once feared 
  throughout history as the dread Tempus Khan, but time changes us all 
  and has showed me the error of my ways. In time, perhaps, the cosmos  
  will be permitted to forget my crimes, even if I may never do so. You 
  have an old man’s thanks. Know that we may meet again... in time.”
  The image wavers and vanishes, leaving the heroes back where they began, in 
  their proper place and time in their own world. If you want, you can use Master 
  Tulku’s trans-temporal knowledge to foreshadow hints of future events or 
  adventures, or point towards hidden secrets in the heroes’ pasts, ones that 
  could come up at some future date.
  The Mysterious Master of Time can also appear again in your series, serving as 
  a means of getting important information about cosmic events to the heroes or 
  assiting them in time- and dimension-related adventures. Apart from what he 
  has already revealed, Master Tulku is cryptic about his past and his plans, 
  simply saying it is dangerous for the heroes to know too much about their own 
  futures.
  REBOOT!
  If The RetConQuest is not the ﬁrst adventure in your Icons series, then it offers 
  you an opportunity to restore the heroes’ reality to almost its original state, with 
  a few minor modiﬁcations. The temporal realignment is a good excuse for 
  whatever small retcons you want to make to the series, perhaps replacing a 
  supporting character that’s not working out or eliminating a problematic 
  storyline, or as major as changing how a particular type of power or effect works 
  in the game. If you’re looking to experiment with some of the rules options from 
  ICONS Team-Up, then a reboot allows you to “change the rules” of the series in 
  such a fashion that things “always” worked that way (at least, so far as the 
  heroes and their universe is concerned).
  ICONS • The RetConQuest 
  Page 16 
  
  Abilities
  PROWESS	
  6
  COORDINATION	
  4
  STRENGTH	
  3
  INTELLECT	
  8
  AWARENESS	
  4
  WILLPOWER	
  6
  STAMINA	
  9
  Specialties
  Military
  Science
  Qualities
  Chronal Conqueror
  From the Future
  Master of All Time
  Challenges
  Honorable Warlord
  “None may know me 
  as I was”
  Powers
  Armor: Tempus Khan 
  wears advanced 
  future-tech armor, which renders him immune to most mortal concerns (Life 
  Support 10) and protects him from virtually all harm with an impenetrable force 
  ﬁeld (Invulnerability 10).
  Arsenal: Tempus Khan commands a vast arsenal of future-tech weapons he is 
  capable of withdrawing from storage tesseracts using devices in his gauntlets. 
  He can effectively produce a level 8 device for any offensive power he wishes. 
  Common arsenal devices include Blast and Strike weapons.
  Chronal Engines: The title “Master of All Time” comes from command of 
  chronal technologies for time travel and control (Time Control 9), cybernetically 
  linked to Tempus Khan’s armor, but powered by the singularity drives and 
  quantum stabilizer units built into installations under his control.
  Page 17 
  ICONS • The RetConQuest
  
  Background
  The mysterious ﬁgure who calls himself Tempus Khan claims to be from a far 
  future epoch, where science has unlocked secrets present-day “primitives” can 
  scarcely begin to imagine. Unfortunately, in his view, it has also extinguished the 
  ﬁre of the human spirit. His time is a place of perfect peace ... and utter 
  boredom. No place for a man with the heart of a warrior and the spirit of a 
  conqueror!
  So the brilliant Tempus Khan sought out the one frontier remaining to him: time 
  itself. He unlocked the secrets of time-travel and ventured back to eras better 
  suited to his temperment, worlds that had not yet lost their war-like ways, worlds 
  where he could conquer!
  Khan, playing the role of gentlemanly warlord, offers his conquests the 
  opportunity for honorable surrender to join his vast empire, spanning different 
  cultures and times. Still, he much prefers when they choose deﬁance over meek 
  capitulation. His legions are recruited from amongst the ﬁnest soldiers in history, 
  and his war-machines will not yet be seen on this world for centuries to come. 
  Tempus Khan prefers to role of general, but is still willing to step out onto the 
  front lines, protected by an invisible—and invincible—force shield.
  He always wears a futuristic suit of advanced armor which covers him 
  completely. Tempus Khan says his helm is his true face now. None may know 
  him as he was, for it is dangerous for a time-traveler to reveal too much of his 
  personal history.
  ICONS • The RetConQuest 
  Page 18 
  
  The following text is the property of Wizards of the Coast, Inc. and is Copyright 2000 
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  ICONS • The RetConQuest
  
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  15. COPYRIGHT NOTICE
  Open Game License v 1.0 Copyright 2000, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
  Fudge System Reference Document Copyright 2005, Grey Ghost Press, Inc.; Authors 
  Steffan O’Sullivan and Ann Dupuis, with additional material by Peter Bonney, Deird’Re 
  Brooks, Reimer Behrends, Shawn Garbett, Steven Hammond, Ed Heil, Bernard Hsiung, 
  Sedge Lewis, Gordon McCormick, Kent Matthewson, Peter Mikelsons, Anthony Roberson, 
  Andy Skinner, Stephan Szabo, John Ughrin, Dmitri Zagidulin
  FATE (Fantastic Adventures in Tabletop Entertainment), Copyright 2003 by Evil Hat 
  Productions LLC; Authors Robert Donoghue and Fred Hicks.
  Spirit of the Century, Copyright 2006, Evil Hat Productions LLC. Authors Robert 
  Donoghue, Fred Hicks, and Leonard Balsera.
  Icons, Copyright 2010, Adamant Entertainment, Author Steve Kenson.
  The RetConQuest, Copyright 2011, Ad Inﬁnitium Games, Author Steve Kenson.
  ICONS • The RetConQuest 
  Page 20 
  
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