Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
Character Builds & Optimization
[Mutants & Masterminds] A World Less Magical But No Less Fantastic
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Davies" data-source="post: 8179844" data-attributes="member: 30538"><p><span style="font-size: 26px"><span style="color: red">Dr. Ranivorous</span></span></p><p><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/My-First-Gallery/i-wPRcxXT/0/260b28a8/S/Rastapopulous_fuse-S.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p>In 1957, the year he coincidentally began his war on the world, he also happened to spend a few peaceful hours reading a recently released novel. Most of it was arrant nonsense in his view, but there was a rather fascinating passage that stuck with him throughout all the years afterward. "I like to think of fire held in a man's hand. Fire, a dangerous force, tamed at his fingertips. I often wonder about the hours when a man sits alone, watching the smoke of a cigarette, thinking. I wonder what great things have come from such hours. When a man thinks, there is a spot of fire alive in his mind--and it is proper that he should have the burning point of a cigarette as his one expression." And, much like the author of these words, he would ultimately die of lung cancer.</p><p></p><p>The man who named himself Silas Ranivorous -- it is believed that he was aiming for an anagram of "Carnivorous" -- was born around 1910 on the island of Malta. Very little is known about his life prior to 1935, when he left Malta and traveled to Italy using that name. His intention was to offer his talents as a scientist, indeed the Greatest Scientific Mind of Any Time, to a government untrammeled by petty considerations of bourgeois morality. His attempts to interest the Fascists in his ideas met with failure, variously because he was Maltese and they were a bunch of nationalist snobs, because he was absolutely unable to work <em>with</em> anyone much less <em>for</em> them, and because his ideas were so far beyond the imagination of even 'typical' mad scientists that they thought him delusional.</p><p></p><p>He did not take rejection well. He reacted by becoming a menace to society, engaging in petty crimes and acts of destruction, always staying at least one step ahead of the Milizia and costing the Kingdom dearly to clean up the messes, human and material, that he left in his wake. The continuing failure of the Fascists to deal with the problem that Ranivorous presented, on top of the military disasters of World War II, were a key factor in the downfall of regime in 1943. Oddly, Ranivorous seemed to disappear when the Italian Civil War broke out. Some accounts suggest that he accepted a large bribe from the to cease his activities; others claim that the Salo Republic was finally desperate enough to hire him. There is also the theory that he suffered some sort of reversal around the same time that left him unable to continue his activities for some time.</p><p></p><p>He resurfaced after V-E day, pursuing a variety of schemes throughout Western Europe -- mostly petty affairs aimed at hording resources under his own control. Not much changed, really, save that now he was focused on staying at least one step ahead of the Allied Forces in Europe, who mostly viewed him as an annoyance when compared to the Soviets. But the profits of all these petty crimes added up over the decade that followed, and his schemes began to grow more elaborate, involving increasingly complicated inventions and ranging into Asia and Africa.</p><p></p><p>His schemes finally went big in response to the International Geophysical Year, ostensibly out of outrage that such an international scientific project was being conducted without any attempt to involve him. (Of course, had anyone attempted to involve him, his outrage would have been based on their temerity in doing so. He enjoyed outrage.) He conducted a set of serious crimes that culminated in shooting down the Sputnik satellite -- admittedly in November of that year, after it had ceased transmitting. The fact that he was apparently unable to do this to subsequent satellites, regardless of their national origin, suggested that he had basically used up the lion's share of his accumulated resources on this stunt.</p><p></p><p>It would in fact be another two years before he managed to pull off something similar, when he somehow gained control of a Dread Island arachnid, transported it to Egypt, and used it in an attempt to destroy the Aswan dam. This attempt was foiled first by conventional military forces, and then by the being whom Ranivorous would come to despise more than any other: Captain Mystic. Time and again, that big blue carrot would thwart his every clever scheme, regardless of what sort of brilliant advances in science and technology he employed -- and the idiot didn't even understand or appreciate what he was smashing his way through!</p><p></p><p>One question that puzzles some students of this era is why Stardust never took any action against Dr. Ranivorous, despite him being the cause of exactly the sort of disasters and loss of life that the Super Wizard would normally seek to avenge, and despite the fact that Stardust never hesitated to annihilate the nemeses of his putative allies in the Institute. Reports that Stardust actually had exacted retribution on Ranivorous were discounted in light of the fact that the Wickedest Man in the World was clearly still alive in their aftermath. But in more recent times, it has been theorized that Ranivorous actually succeeded in tricking Stardust; the scientist had mastered the technology of cloning, and was able to create temporary, short-lived duplicates of himself, which he used not only to escape capture but also to convince Stardust that he had succeeded in destroying the 'real' Ranivorous. Of course, this remains a contentious theory.</p><p></p><p>The ultimate fate of Ranivorous has already been discussed. He died in the care of medical robots in 1984, aboard the greatest monument to both his genius and his hatred for humanity, the space station constructed from the asteroid dubbed Pallas, having set into motion events that would bring about the downfall of the objectivist colony which called it home. Back on Earth, hidden laboratories constructed by him have continued to be discovered right down to the present day, with whatever scientific wonders or horrors they might have contained usually long-since escaped or perished, but still holding tools that could be put to the use of potential heroes or villains. He would be distressed at the notion of his works being used for good. Happily, he'll never know.</p><p></p><p><strong>Dr. Ranivorous -- PL 11</strong></p><p><strong></strong></p><p><strong>Abilities:</strong></p><p><strong>STR</strong> 0 | <strong>STA</strong> 1 | <strong>AGL</strong> 0 | <strong>DEX</strong> 2 | <strong>FGT</strong> 3 | <strong>INT</strong> 10 | <strong>AWE</strong> 4 | <strong>PRE</strong> 3</p><p></p><p><strong>Advantages:</strong></p><p>Defensive Roll 2, Eidetic Memory, Equipment 20, Evasion 2, Inventor, Jack-of-all-Trades, Language 4 (English, others, [either Maltese or Italian is thought to be native]), Ranged Attack 4, Speed of Thought, Well-Informed.</p><p></p><p><em>Equipment:</em></p><p>100 points for any bases or vehicles required for any given plot.</p><p></p><p><strong>Skills:</strong></p><p>Deception 10 (+13), Expertise: Criminal 5 (+15), Expertise: Science 6 (+16), Expertise: Streetwise 3 (+13), Insight 8 (+12), Intimidation 8 (+12), Investigation 4 (+14), Perception 8 (+12), Persuasion 8 (+11), Technology 6 (+16).</p><p></p><p><strong>Offense:</strong></p><p>Initiative +10</p><p>Unarmed +3 (Close Damage 0)</p><p></p><p><strong>Defense:</strong></p><p>Dodge 6, Parry 5, Fortitude 3, Toughness 6/1, Will 13</p><p></p><p><strong>Totals:</strong></p><p>Abilities 46 + Advantages 37 + Skills 33 + Defenses 19 = 135 points</p><p></p><p><strong>Complications:</strong></p><p><strong><em>Revenge--Motivation. Paranoid Misanthrope With Delusions of Grandeur. Smokes, Too.</em></strong></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Davies, post: 8179844, member: 30538"] [size=150][color=red]Dr. Ranivorous[/color][/size] [img]https://photos.smugmug.com/My-First-Gallery/i-wPRcxXT/0/260b28a8/S/Rastapopulous_fuse-S.png[/img] In 1957, the year he coincidentally began his war on the world, he also happened to spend a few peaceful hours reading a recently released novel. Most of it was arrant nonsense in his view, but there was a rather fascinating passage that stuck with him throughout all the years afterward. "I like to think of fire held in a man's hand. Fire, a dangerous force, tamed at his fingertips. I often wonder about the hours when a man sits alone, watching the smoke of a cigarette, thinking. I wonder what great things have come from such hours. When a man thinks, there is a spot of fire alive in his mind--and it is proper that he should have the burning point of a cigarette as his one expression." And, much like the author of these words, he would ultimately die of lung cancer. The man who named himself Silas Ranivorous -- it is believed that he was aiming for an anagram of "Carnivorous" -- was born around 1910 on the island of Malta. Very little is known about his life prior to 1935, when he left Malta and traveled to Italy using that name. His intention was to offer his talents as a scientist, indeed the Greatest Scientific Mind of Any Time, to a government untrammeled by petty considerations of bourgeois morality. His attempts to interest the Fascists in his ideas met with failure, variously because he was Maltese and they were a bunch of nationalist snobs, because he was absolutely unable to work [i]with[/i] anyone much less [i]for[/i] them, and because his ideas were so far beyond the imagination of even 'typical' mad scientists that they thought him delusional. He did not take rejection well. He reacted by becoming a menace to society, engaging in petty crimes and acts of destruction, always staying at least one step ahead of the Milizia and costing the Kingdom dearly to clean up the messes, human and material, that he left in his wake. The continuing failure of the Fascists to deal with the problem that Ranivorous presented, on top of the military disasters of World War II, were a key factor in the downfall of regime in 1943. Oddly, Ranivorous seemed to disappear when the Italian Civil War broke out. Some accounts suggest that he accepted a large bribe from the to cease his activities; others claim that the Salo Republic was finally desperate enough to hire him. There is also the theory that he suffered some sort of reversal around the same time that left him unable to continue his activities for some time. He resurfaced after V-E day, pursuing a variety of schemes throughout Western Europe -- mostly petty affairs aimed at hording resources under his own control. Not much changed, really, save that now he was focused on staying at least one step ahead of the Allied Forces in Europe, who mostly viewed him as an annoyance when compared to the Soviets. But the profits of all these petty crimes added up over the decade that followed, and his schemes began to grow more elaborate, involving increasingly complicated inventions and ranging into Asia and Africa. His schemes finally went big in response to the International Geophysical Year, ostensibly out of outrage that such an international scientific project was being conducted without any attempt to involve him. (Of course, had anyone attempted to involve him, his outrage would have been based on their temerity in doing so. He enjoyed outrage.) He conducted a set of serious crimes that culminated in shooting down the Sputnik satellite -- admittedly in November of that year, after it had ceased transmitting. The fact that he was apparently unable to do this to subsequent satellites, regardless of their national origin, suggested that he had basically used up the lion's share of his accumulated resources on this stunt. It would in fact be another two years before he managed to pull off something similar, when he somehow gained control of a Dread Island arachnid, transported it to Egypt, and used it in an attempt to destroy the Aswan dam. This attempt was foiled first by conventional military forces, and then by the being whom Ranivorous would come to despise more than any other: Captain Mystic. Time and again, that big blue carrot would thwart his every clever scheme, regardless of what sort of brilliant advances in science and technology he employed -- and the idiot didn't even understand or appreciate what he was smashing his way through! One question that puzzles some students of this era is why Stardust never took any action against Dr. Ranivorous, despite him being the cause of exactly the sort of disasters and loss of life that the Super Wizard would normally seek to avenge, and despite the fact that Stardust never hesitated to annihilate the nemeses of his putative allies in the Institute. Reports that Stardust actually had exacted retribution on Ranivorous were discounted in light of the fact that the Wickedest Man in the World was clearly still alive in their aftermath. But in more recent times, it has been theorized that Ranivorous actually succeeded in tricking Stardust; the scientist had mastered the technology of cloning, and was able to create temporary, short-lived duplicates of himself, which he used not only to escape capture but also to convince Stardust that he had succeeded in destroying the 'real' Ranivorous. Of course, this remains a contentious theory. The ultimate fate of Ranivorous has already been discussed. He died in the care of medical robots in 1984, aboard the greatest monument to both his genius and his hatred for humanity, the space station constructed from the asteroid dubbed Pallas, having set into motion events that would bring about the downfall of the objectivist colony which called it home. Back on Earth, hidden laboratories constructed by him have continued to be discovered right down to the present day, with whatever scientific wonders or horrors they might have contained usually long-since escaped or perished, but still holding tools that could be put to the use of potential heroes or villains. He would be distressed at the notion of his works being used for good. Happily, he'll never know. [b]Dr. Ranivorous -- PL 11 Abilities: STR[/b] 0 | [b]STA[/b] 1 | [b]AGL[/b] 0 | [b]DEX[/b] 2 | [b]FGT[/b] 3 | [b]INT[/b] 10 | [b]AWE[/b] 4 | [b]PRE[/b] 3 [b]Advantages:[/b] Defensive Roll 2, Eidetic Memory, Equipment 20, Evasion 2, Inventor, Jack-of-all-Trades, Language 4 (English, others, [either Maltese or Italian is thought to be native]), Ranged Attack 4, Speed of Thought, Well-Informed. [i]Equipment:[/i] 100 points for any bases or vehicles required for any given plot. [b]Skills:[/b] Deception 10 (+13), Expertise: Criminal 5 (+15), Expertise: Science 6 (+16), Expertise: Streetwise 3 (+13), Insight 8 (+12), Intimidation 8 (+12), Investigation 4 (+14), Perception 8 (+12), Persuasion 8 (+11), Technology 6 (+16). [b]Offense:[/b] Initiative +10 Unarmed +3 (Close Damage 0) [b]Defense:[/b] Dodge 6, Parry 5, Fortitude 3, Toughness 6/1, Will 13 [b]Totals:[/b] Abilities 46 + Advantages 37 + Skills 33 + Defenses 19 = 135 points [b]Complications: [i]Revenge--Motivation. Paranoid Misanthrope With Delusions of Grandeur. Smokes, Too.[/i][/b] [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
Character Builds & Optimization
[Mutants & Masterminds] A World Less Magical But No Less Fantastic
Top