[M&M] Need help designing a wizard's sanctum

[Neowolf]

Alright, my players have taken the bait, and next session they're gonna fight the game's current BBEG on his own turf. Question is, what exactly would be in his sanctum? Here's a run-down of the guy:

-He's based on the villain Kalak from the book, but I restatted him and changed his origin somewhat.

-He's Atlantean, and originally wore his mask to hide his horribly scarred face (yay comic book cliches!)

-After he was defeated by his brother, a fellow Atlantean mage and prince, his soul was trapped in the mask, and the mask was hidden in a secret vault on the isle of Crete. (Atlantis in my world was a floating city-state in the Mediterranean)

-The mask lay dormant for thousands of years, until an archaeologist found it, and was compelled to put it on.

-His sanctum is the vault the mask was in for so long.

-His plan is to steal a sample of a mineral called Chronium (current campaign McGuffin), and use its time-manipulating properties to go back in time and destroy Atlantis (I keep a tight rein on time travel stuff in my game).

-In my world, science and magic are two totally different things, and as such cannot interract with each other in any way, shape or form. Scientific analysis of magical portals only leads to frustration, and purely magical effects (such as blasts of pure magic) have little effect on computers.

Any ideas?

 

[Robbert Raets]

Can't you use the Headquarters rules for this? With the descriptions changed to match ancient/arcane building reqs, of course.

 

[s/LaSH]

Where is this vault? If it's distant from civilisation, our villain might not have deigned to defend it properly. If, on the other hand, it's fairly easy to find, some cursory defensive emplacements are a good plan. I'd guess a mix of mystic and scientific, with laser turrets in one place and golems in another - just to cover all his bases. (Wizards are supposed to be smart, after all.) Or maybe flamers and fire elementals if he likes pyro.

Assuming it's a vault and he was excavated without the archaeologist being blasted by them, any remaining ancient guardians either haven't activated or were destroyed by the ravages of time. He may have reactivated them, however. Atlantean tech tends to involve crystals and lots of water for some reason, don't ask me why. Rooms that suddenly flood are good.

If it's ancient, there will be pillars. You can hide behind pillars.

Other than that, yeah, build an HQ as usual. Don't pay any attention to the limits of your villain's power even if he did have to build it single-handed - it's status quo to have millions of tons of ridiculously complex tech supporting one madman and his couple of hired goons.

And I'm very honoured, Mr. Raets.

 

[Neowolf]

No technology, that's for sure. This guy comes from a civilization thousands of years ago, and has slept ever since. I'm thinking there'll probably be some golems, a flooding room or two, and probably a room full of falling pillars.

I guess the other thing I'll need is a few puzzles.

 

[Insight]

If you don't want to use the HQ rules, or even if you do, I would set up traps throughout the place. Consider nasty stuff like area Nullify effects. That ought to get their attention. Perhaps stick one right in front of where the wizard pops up. If the heroes' powers get shut off right before the wizard appears, it should give the villain quite an advantage in the beginning of the battle.

You can also have him prepare illusionary doubles of himself in the room. That should keep the heroes without True Sight guessing. Obscures are nice too, and the caster (in this case, the wizard) can automatically see through the effect. Concealment is nice.

Anyway, as you can see, there are a lot of things a nasty clever wizard can do to thwart the heroes if they're coming to him.