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[Let's Read] Freedom City: Every Edition!
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<blockquote data-quote="Libertad" data-source="post: 8541419" data-attributes="member: 6750502"><p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/Kh7DgDO.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p> <p style="text-align: center"><strong>Villains of Freedom City, Part 2</strong></p><p></p><p>Solo villains are characters who can easily operate on their own, and when they do have “help” it is often in the form of low-PL minions. While this is a picture-intensive chapter, I won’t include images of every supervillain because that task will take too long.</p><p></p><p><strong>Argo the Ultimate Android</strong> is the first entry, and also the most powerful non-omnipotent villain in the book at PL 20 (2e) or 19 (right alongside Omega). He is an android built by Talos with the ability to mimic virtually any superpower, although he became “fixed” with what powers he has after fighting the Freedom League. He is of average intelligence and lacks skills, often relying upon others to repair him, although he seeks to become ruler over a society of robots.</p><p></p><p>In terms of game stats he’s ridiculous; his Powers section is very bloated given he has every superpower of the 2nd Edition Freedom League, which in one case gives him a ridiculously powerful Supersonic Punch that makes use of his already-impressive Strength. He can easily one-shot just about any character of 10-13 Power Level with this barring certain Immunities, and seriously hurt even the more powerful characters in this book. His main weakness is that he suffers additional degrees of failure from power drains and loses the Lady Liberty powers if bound or imprisoned.</p><p></p><p><strong>Baron Samedi (1e/2e)</strong> is the archfoe of Siren, the Voodoo Loa of Death who is riding a mortal host that is a drug kingpin. He makes use of his criminal contacts to distribute zombie powder in the eventual hopes of turning the world into an undead apocalypse. He has various magical-themed powers, often of a “dark” nature such as mind and shadow control and undead summoning.</p><p></p><p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/p8re0US.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p><strong>Captain Kraken</strong> is an alien soldier whose people serve the Grue Unity, but after deserting he became a space pirate. When crash-landing on Earth his ship’s computer absorbed a lot of detail on Age of Sail pirates, and he liked their style enough to reshape his technology into surprisingly-advanced “flintlocks” and “muskets” which are more powerful than modern-day firearms. He’s versatile enough in concept to work for nautical, space, and even heist-themed plot hooks.</p><p></p><p><strong>The Collective</strong> is a swarm of cockroaches whose power and intelligence grow exponentially the more they gather and the more energy they absorb. They are immune to all forms of energy-related damage and grow in power from exposure to such energies. At their largest form they are incredibly powerful and can “summon” smaller swarms by decreasing in size, although attacks and effects which can forcefully disperse them is their major weakness.</p><p></p><p><strong>The Conqueror Worm (3e)</strong> was once a foe of the Silver Age Raven, being a frail and sickly man by the name of Michael Reeves with a twisted moral code. It was ill-defined, being a vague hodgepodge of Old Testament fury and the desire to punish sinners as the self-appointed agent of God’s wrath. Michael of course exempted himself from his own moral code, which changed to suit his own circumstances. He fell to his death when fighting the original Raven, but his soul was sent back to earth by Malador the Mystic. Now imbued with necromantic powers, the Conqueror Worm has a consistent moral code: to show people the inevitability of death and divine judgment by raising an undead army.</p><p></p><p><strong>Conundrum</strong> is Earth-Prime’s Riddler: a super-smart guy obsessed with puzzles and mental challenges. He fell into a life of crime after discovering that he enjoyed taking revenge on those for petty grievances, resorting to overly-complicated schemes to prove his own intellectual superiority. He’s a low PL 9 that’s mostly due to his skill bonuses, and in actual combat he will lose against all but the lowest-powered PCs. However, his strength is in a large Equipment pool and Inventor advantage to which he can use to build all manner of death traps…that is, if there were a few such devices provided as examples. While such things can be found in other products, Conundrum on his own is an underpowered guy with high evasive defenses and skill bonuses.</p><p></p><p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/vuHKUo6.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p><strong>The Cosmic Mind</strong> used to be a human scientist in the Soviet Union by the name of Dr. Mina Kosmova. Her research into psychic powers was about to be scrapped by her government handlers, driving her to desperation in using a prototype neural device on herself. The end result was her becoming close to Dr. Manhattan: a glowing incorporeal floating brain possessed of a vast posthuman intellect. Dubbing herself the Cosmic Mind, she sought to join all of humanity into an enslaved telepathic network. She is a regular foe of the Atom Family, and as of <strong>3e</strong> took advantage of the collapse of the Lor Republic to take mental control of agents within the Stellar Imperium. Whether she tries to overthrow the Star Khan as leader or enters into an alliance with him remains to be seen.</p><p></p><p><strong>The Crimson Katana</strong> is Kimiyo Ranaga, the fourth in line to assume that title. Her predecessors were all scoundrels of the worst order, from Yakuza to Japanese war criminals, all sharing a background in coming into possession of the cursed Three-Flames Katana and Wakizashi swords. As for Kimiyo, she grew up in a terrorist cult known as the Katanarchists, sent to the US after many of her relatives were slaughtered in a war with the Russian Mafia. When she inherited the sword she was possessed by its last wielder, who struggles with her soul to take control of her body and thus rebuild the Katanarchists.</p><p></p><p>The Crimson Katana is an anti-hero and villain sharing one body, the former seeking to fight against the evils of her predecessors’ legacy and the latter a power-hungry cult leader.</p><p></p><p><strong>The Curator</strong> is Earth-Prime’s Brainiac: an alien supercomputer part of a gigantic ringed space station complete with artificial habitats. Built by the Preservers to collect and compile research on every known life form, the Curator pursues this goal with single-minded intensity. The AI has found Earth a most curious study given its high number of superhumans and evidence of Preserver influence, leading his drones to steal and kidnap all kinds of unique creatures and objects from that planet. The Curator himself is a giant immobile computer with no offensive abilities, but huge bonuses to skills and communication and regeneration-based powers. He relies on his Drone minions to defend himself and act as his agents.</p><p></p><p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/CZQFBJ1.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p><strong>Doc Holiday (3e)</strong> is another legacy supervillain. Actually an other-dimensional entity, Doc Holiday made a habit of possessing certain chosen mortals in order to counteract the joy and good spirit generated by holidays. Its original host was in the 1960s, but as of the 21st Century it inhabits body of college student Mark Holiday (the entity found his name deeply ironic). Now Mark’s life is a living hell; he’s resorted to all forms of treatments to exorcise himself, putting a strain on his finances. Locking himself away doesn’t work for long given the entity always finds a way out. As virtually every day of the year has a holiday somewhere, the spirit of Doc Holiday can spring to life at almost any time.</p><p></p><p>In terms of game stats the supervillain is PL 10, and whose powers vary wildly depending on the holiday. A sidebar of holiday transformations is provided along with what form he takes: for example, during Valentine’s Day he’s a demonic Cupid whose arrows inspire violent jealousy in those struck, while during Thanksgiving he takes the form of a zombie pilgrim and turkey with a blunderbuss that covers a huge area of effect.</p><p></p><p><strong>Doc Otaku (1e/2e)</strong> is your amoral mad scientist themed around Japanese technology. Solo Takashi was once a protege of Daedalus, bored with a world that felt too simple for him. He eventually had a falling out in chafing at the senior scientist’s restrictions and moral code. Takashi quickly entered the criminal underworld, relying upon a MechOtaku battlesuit and three Angel Androids who look and act like stereotypical Japanese schoolgirls. As of <strong>3e</strong> he has long since exited the supervillain game (for now at least), becoming the owner of a robotics company.</p><p></p><p><strong>Dr. Sin</strong> is an immortal Chinese crime lord by the name of Tzin Sing. He was a common foil for the Silver Age Raven, who in a twist of fate fell in love with the villain’s daughter and both produced a child of their own, Callie Summers. Dr. Sin kidnapped Callie, prompting the Raven and his wife to embark on a daring rescue, which left her dead, the Raven crippled, and Dr. Sin seemingly dead. He would go on to cheat death and spent many schemes in trying to recruit Callie to his order once she became the new Raven.</p><p></p><p>As of 3rd Edition he was detailed in the Threat Report sourcebook, and has managed to take better control of his personal vendetta with an eye towards the longer view of things. There is no mention of what he thinks of this Edition’s new Raven. In terms of game stats he’s like Conundrum in being a “noncombatant genius,” having no real superpowers or highly damaging attacks, but very high skill bonuses, accurate attacks, and evasive defenses along with large Equipment and Minion pools left to the GM to customize.</p><p></p><p><strong>Downtime</strong> is a “speedster” villain and professional thief who manipulates the flow of time to make himself move normally when almost everything else is frozen. He can do this via a Time Belt device he stole from a wealthy scientist to sell to the Foundry, although as that device imprinted onto his genetics and won’t work for anyone else he kept instead to the great anger of the robotic arms dealers. Downtime is a regular in Johnny Rocket’s rogue’s gallery, as the superhero’s high speeds are enough to counteract Downtime’s temporal control.</p><p></p><p>In terms of stats Downtime is PL12 with very high evasive defenses but below average defenses in other fields, making him a bit of a glass cannon. His Time Belt grants him a host of movement-based powers and advantages along with the ability to become invisible to visual senses. His attacks include an array of temporal stunts such as rapidly assembling objects and hazards in an AoE and deflecting foes’ attacks onto other targets.</p><p></p><p><img src="https://i.imgur.com/I7Pd6cN.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p><strong>Fear-Master</strong> is either Earth-Prime’s Scarecrow or Marilyn Manson equivalent. Melvine Blume grew up as a nerdy Goth with a huge chip on his shoulder, studying music in college and wanting to make pieces that would shock, offend, and disgust listeners. He stook up scientific pursuits to learn more about the interactions between sound and the human brain, eventually creating sonic “fear weapons” that can inspire emotional terror and horrifying hallucinations in others.</p><p></p><p>No tragic backstory or personal vendetta here, Fear-Master is just a dick.</p><p></p><p>Blume was one of the new Raven’s rogues gallery, and in addition to superheroes he developed an enmity with the Maestro due to their differing tastes in music. And also Maestro accusing Fear-Master of plagiarizing his devices, which has no truth to the accusations. As of <strong>3e</strong> he developed an interest in magic but after personal setbacks has declared the subject to be full of charlatans and deluded fools. Additionally the Foundry broke him out of prison in exchange for samples of his technology, and is now working on new gadgets and plans in Freedom City to get revenge on everyone who wronged him.</p><p></p><p>Statwise Fear-Master is PL 12 but with weak defenses. His primary strength is in his versatile Fear Weapons which can impose all manner of negative status effects on others and create illusions. We get a few sample status effects from his Afflictions and associated fear-based attacks.</p><p></p><p><strong>Thoughts So Far:</strong> There’s a large number of super-smart masterminds and gadgeteers among our early entries, but there’s enough variety between them to not fall into the “five different flavors of mad scientists” trap. Some of my favorites include the Collective due to being a “puzzle villain” who can be more easily destroyed via the PCs exploiting its weak points in several ways; Captain Kraken because he’s cheesy in the good way; the Crimson Katana for being a “not technically a villain but is controlled by an even worse villain” hook; and Doc Holiday for a rather dark twist on an otherwise whimsical-sounding concept.</p><p></p><p>There were some weak points: Conundrum and Dr. Sin suffer in that their stat blocks don’t bring much on their own and require more legwork on the GM’s part to use, and combined with other “evil genius” villains don’t have a unique enough knack to bring something to the table. I’ve discussed my earlier reservations about the use of real-world religious figures in regards to Baron Samedi, although the inclusion of the Conqueror Worm is a bit too close to him in “undead criminal mastermind” territory so both feel a bit interchangeable. Argo is just too powerful and unwieldy if played straight; removing his Supersonic Punch or lowering it to reasonable levels can counteract this, although he still has very high defenses.</p><p></p><p><strong>Join us next time as we cover even more supervillains in Part 3!</strong></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Libertad, post: 8541419, member: 6750502"] [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/Kh7DgDO.png[/img] [b]Villains of Freedom City, Part 2[/b][/center] Solo villains are characters who can easily operate on their own, and when they do have “help” it is often in the form of low-PL minions. While this is a picture-intensive chapter, I won’t include images of every supervillain because that task will take too long. [b]Argo the Ultimate Android[/b] is the first entry, and also the most powerful non-omnipotent villain in the book at PL 20 (2e) or 19 (right alongside Omega). He is an android built by Talos with the ability to mimic virtually any superpower, although he became “fixed” with what powers he has after fighting the Freedom League. He is of average intelligence and lacks skills, often relying upon others to repair him, although he seeks to become ruler over a society of robots. In terms of game stats he’s ridiculous; his Powers section is very bloated given he has every superpower of the 2nd Edition Freedom League, which in one case gives him a ridiculously powerful Supersonic Punch that makes use of his already-impressive Strength. He can easily one-shot just about any character of 10-13 Power Level with this barring certain Immunities, and seriously hurt even the more powerful characters in this book. His main weakness is that he suffers additional degrees of failure from power drains and loses the Lady Liberty powers if bound or imprisoned. [b]Baron Samedi (1e/2e)[/b] is the archfoe of Siren, the Voodoo Loa of Death who is riding a mortal host that is a drug kingpin. He makes use of his criminal contacts to distribute zombie powder in the eventual hopes of turning the world into an undead apocalypse. He has various magical-themed powers, often of a “dark” nature such as mind and shadow control and undead summoning. [img]https://i.imgur.com/p8re0US.png[/img] [b]Captain Kraken[/b] is an alien soldier whose people serve the Grue Unity, but after deserting he became a space pirate. When crash-landing on Earth his ship’s computer absorbed a lot of detail on Age of Sail pirates, and he liked their style enough to reshape his technology into surprisingly-advanced “flintlocks” and “muskets” which are more powerful than modern-day firearms. He’s versatile enough in concept to work for nautical, space, and even heist-themed plot hooks. [b]The Collective[/b] is a swarm of cockroaches whose power and intelligence grow exponentially the more they gather and the more energy they absorb. They are immune to all forms of energy-related damage and grow in power from exposure to such energies. At their largest form they are incredibly powerful and can “summon” smaller swarms by decreasing in size, although attacks and effects which can forcefully disperse them is their major weakness. [b]The Conqueror Worm (3e)[/b] was once a foe of the Silver Age Raven, being a frail and sickly man by the name of Michael Reeves with a twisted moral code. It was ill-defined, being a vague hodgepodge of Old Testament fury and the desire to punish sinners as the self-appointed agent of God’s wrath. Michael of course exempted himself from his own moral code, which changed to suit his own circumstances. He fell to his death when fighting the original Raven, but his soul was sent back to earth by Malador the Mystic. Now imbued with necromantic powers, the Conqueror Worm has a consistent moral code: to show people the inevitability of death and divine judgment by raising an undead army. [b]Conundrum[/b] is Earth-Prime’s Riddler: a super-smart guy obsessed with puzzles and mental challenges. He fell into a life of crime after discovering that he enjoyed taking revenge on those for petty grievances, resorting to overly-complicated schemes to prove his own intellectual superiority. He’s a low PL 9 that’s mostly due to his skill bonuses, and in actual combat he will lose against all but the lowest-powered PCs. However, his strength is in a large Equipment pool and Inventor advantage to which he can use to build all manner of death traps…that is, if there were a few such devices provided as examples. While such things can be found in other products, Conundrum on his own is an underpowered guy with high evasive defenses and skill bonuses. [img]https://i.imgur.com/vuHKUo6.png[/img] [b]The Cosmic Mind[/b] used to be a human scientist in the Soviet Union by the name of Dr. Mina Kosmova. Her research into psychic powers was about to be scrapped by her government handlers, driving her to desperation in using a prototype neural device on herself. The end result was her becoming close to Dr. Manhattan: a glowing incorporeal floating brain possessed of a vast posthuman intellect. Dubbing herself the Cosmic Mind, she sought to join all of humanity into an enslaved telepathic network. She is a regular foe of the Atom Family, and as of [b]3e[/b] took advantage of the collapse of the Lor Republic to take mental control of agents within the Stellar Imperium. Whether she tries to overthrow the Star Khan as leader or enters into an alliance with him remains to be seen. [b]The Crimson Katana[/b] is Kimiyo Ranaga, the fourth in line to assume that title. Her predecessors were all scoundrels of the worst order, from Yakuza to Japanese war criminals, all sharing a background in coming into possession of the cursed Three-Flames Katana and Wakizashi swords. As for Kimiyo, she grew up in a terrorist cult known as the Katanarchists, sent to the US after many of her relatives were slaughtered in a war with the Russian Mafia. When she inherited the sword she was possessed by its last wielder, who struggles with her soul to take control of her body and thus rebuild the Katanarchists. The Crimson Katana is an anti-hero and villain sharing one body, the former seeking to fight against the evils of her predecessors’ legacy and the latter a power-hungry cult leader. [b]The Curator[/b] is Earth-Prime’s Brainiac: an alien supercomputer part of a gigantic ringed space station complete with artificial habitats. Built by the Preservers to collect and compile research on every known life form, the Curator pursues this goal with single-minded intensity. The AI has found Earth a most curious study given its high number of superhumans and evidence of Preserver influence, leading his drones to steal and kidnap all kinds of unique creatures and objects from that planet. The Curator himself is a giant immobile computer with no offensive abilities, but huge bonuses to skills and communication and regeneration-based powers. He relies on his Drone minions to defend himself and act as his agents. [img]https://i.imgur.com/CZQFBJ1.png[/img] [b]Doc Holiday (3e)[/b] is another legacy supervillain. Actually an other-dimensional entity, Doc Holiday made a habit of possessing certain chosen mortals in order to counteract the joy and good spirit generated by holidays. Its original host was in the 1960s, but as of the 21st Century it inhabits body of college student Mark Holiday (the entity found his name deeply ironic). Now Mark’s life is a living hell; he’s resorted to all forms of treatments to exorcise himself, putting a strain on his finances. Locking himself away doesn’t work for long given the entity always finds a way out. As virtually every day of the year has a holiday somewhere, the spirit of Doc Holiday can spring to life at almost any time. In terms of game stats the supervillain is PL 10, and whose powers vary wildly depending on the holiday. A sidebar of holiday transformations is provided along with what form he takes: for example, during Valentine’s Day he’s a demonic Cupid whose arrows inspire violent jealousy in those struck, while during Thanksgiving he takes the form of a zombie pilgrim and turkey with a blunderbuss that covers a huge area of effect. [b]Doc Otaku (1e/2e)[/b] is your amoral mad scientist themed around Japanese technology. Solo Takashi was once a protege of Daedalus, bored with a world that felt too simple for him. He eventually had a falling out in chafing at the senior scientist’s restrictions and moral code. Takashi quickly entered the criminal underworld, relying upon a MechOtaku battlesuit and three Angel Androids who look and act like stereotypical Japanese schoolgirls. As of [b]3e[/b] he has long since exited the supervillain game (for now at least), becoming the owner of a robotics company. [b]Dr. Sin[/b] is an immortal Chinese crime lord by the name of Tzin Sing. He was a common foil for the Silver Age Raven, who in a twist of fate fell in love with the villain’s daughter and both produced a child of their own, Callie Summers. Dr. Sin kidnapped Callie, prompting the Raven and his wife to embark on a daring rescue, which left her dead, the Raven crippled, and Dr. Sin seemingly dead. He would go on to cheat death and spent many schemes in trying to recruit Callie to his order once she became the new Raven. As of 3rd Edition he was detailed in the Threat Report sourcebook, and has managed to take better control of his personal vendetta with an eye towards the longer view of things. There is no mention of what he thinks of this Edition’s new Raven. In terms of game stats he’s like Conundrum in being a “noncombatant genius,” having no real superpowers or highly damaging attacks, but very high skill bonuses, accurate attacks, and evasive defenses along with large Equipment and Minion pools left to the GM to customize. [b]Downtime[/b] is a “speedster” villain and professional thief who manipulates the flow of time to make himself move normally when almost everything else is frozen. He can do this via a Time Belt device he stole from a wealthy scientist to sell to the Foundry, although as that device imprinted onto his genetics and won’t work for anyone else he kept instead to the great anger of the robotic arms dealers. Downtime is a regular in Johnny Rocket’s rogue’s gallery, as the superhero’s high speeds are enough to counteract Downtime’s temporal control. In terms of stats Downtime is PL12 with very high evasive defenses but below average defenses in other fields, making him a bit of a glass cannon. His Time Belt grants him a host of movement-based powers and advantages along with the ability to become invisible to visual senses. His attacks include an array of temporal stunts such as rapidly assembling objects and hazards in an AoE and deflecting foes’ attacks onto other targets. [img]https://i.imgur.com/I7Pd6cN.png[/img] [b]Fear-Master[/b] is either Earth-Prime’s Scarecrow or Marilyn Manson equivalent. Melvine Blume grew up as a nerdy Goth with a huge chip on his shoulder, studying music in college and wanting to make pieces that would shock, offend, and disgust listeners. He stook up scientific pursuits to learn more about the interactions between sound and the human brain, eventually creating sonic “fear weapons” that can inspire emotional terror and horrifying hallucinations in others. No tragic backstory or personal vendetta here, Fear-Master is just a dick. Blume was one of the new Raven’s rogues gallery, and in addition to superheroes he developed an enmity with the Maestro due to their differing tastes in music. And also Maestro accusing Fear-Master of plagiarizing his devices, which has no truth to the accusations. As of [b]3e[/b] he developed an interest in magic but after personal setbacks has declared the subject to be full of charlatans and deluded fools. Additionally the Foundry broke him out of prison in exchange for samples of his technology, and is now working on new gadgets and plans in Freedom City to get revenge on everyone who wronged him. Statwise Fear-Master is PL 12 but with weak defenses. His primary strength is in his versatile Fear Weapons which can impose all manner of negative status effects on others and create illusions. We get a few sample status effects from his Afflictions and associated fear-based attacks. [b]Thoughts So Far:[/b] There’s a large number of super-smart masterminds and gadgeteers among our early entries, but there’s enough variety between them to not fall into the “five different flavors of mad scientists” trap. Some of my favorites include the Collective due to being a “puzzle villain” who can be more easily destroyed via the PCs exploiting its weak points in several ways; Captain Kraken because he’s cheesy in the good way; the Crimson Katana for being a “not technically a villain but is controlled by an even worse villain” hook; and Doc Holiday for a rather dark twist on an otherwise whimsical-sounding concept. There were some weak points: Conundrum and Dr. Sin suffer in that their stat blocks don’t bring much on their own and require more legwork on the GM’s part to use, and combined with other “evil genius” villains don’t have a unique enough knack to bring something to the table. I’ve discussed my earlier reservations about the use of real-world religious figures in regards to Baron Samedi, although the inclusion of the Conqueror Worm is a bit too close to him in “undead criminal mastermind” territory so both feel a bit interchangeable. Argo is just too powerful and unwieldy if played straight; removing his Supersonic Punch or lowering it to reasonable levels can counteract this, although he still has very high defenses. [b]Join us next time as we cover even more supervillains in Part 3![/b] [/QUOTE]
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