Shadow-Force Files [ M&M ]

[The Shadow]

Comic Relief

Seattle sports two villains whom the GM has traditionally used to lighten the mood. Without further ado, the comic relief:

The Great and Terrifying Psychic Vampire of the Night! usually doesn't get done saying his codename before being knocked unconscious. The GaTPVotN! is prone to jumping out at people in the park and announcing himself, trying to scare them. He has a draining attack that might actually be fairly scary, if he could manage to hit anyone... [SP says of him, "The worst-designed 250 point Champions character I ever created. I wanted to see just how close I could get a character to being plausibly effective, while still being utterly useless."]

"I am the Great and Terrifying..." "Oh. Him again." *thwap*

The Silver Paladin is, in his own eyes, a hero among heroes, a friend to the weak and downtrodden. In reality... not so much.

Calling him dumb as a box of rocks is insulting to boxes of rocks. He is painfully, appallingly stupid - so much so that he sports enormous mental defenses on the grounds that it's hard to find his mind. Alas, his ego is quite intact.

The Silver Paladin is a flying brick who wears enchanted armor. He is monstrously strong and nearly invulnerable to all forms of damage. His sole idea of tactics is to dive-bomb his target, usually leaving a large crater. (It never hurts him, of course!) But he has one other minor power, that causes more trouble than the rest put together: He has a super-sense for detecting heroes and villains. Which is always, always wrong.

So... Shadow-Force would be fighting a villain group, really mixing it up. Maybe they'd even be getting the upper hand. And then they would hear the dreaded sound, the sound that strikes fear into the hearts of heroes everywhere:

"Hey hee hee HO ho! Halt, villains!" (Words on a screen do not do this justice. You have to hear SP do this to appreciate the full horror.)

Turning to the villain team, he would congratulate them on their selfless service to humanity, and then start dive-bombing the good guys, all the while saying things like, "Your wicked ways have come to an end! Now you will learn that Crime Does Not Pay!" He will lecture upstanding heroes on their moral depravity at the drop of a hat. (No hat actually necessary.)

Reasoning with him is useless (see 'painfully, appallingly stupid') and just confirms his every suspicion. He sees what he sees, and that's that. He also is incapable of realizing when he has lost a battle. You can be dragging him away in chains and he'll go on saying things like, "Ha! I have defeated you!"

The Phantom finally figured out how to get rid of this thorn in their side. Configuring his psionic Variable Power Pool to Mental Images, he made himself seem like the most evil being imaginable, a cross between Hitler and Cthulhu. This, naturally, caused the Silver Paladin to all but worship him. (Mental Defense doesn't apply to the Images power, so this was his Achilles heel.)

"O great Silver Paladin, you must not waste the powers you have been given on these petty villains! Your true quest is to recover the Holy Grail!" "Where is it, kind sir?!" "It is at the bottom of the Mariana Trench." The Silver Paladin didn't know where that was, but the Phantom was only too happy to give directions.

So far as I know, he's still looking for it.

In later years, SP tried to give the Silver Paladin a tragic twist, the enchanted armor that gave him his powers gradually destroying his brain... but nobody bought into it.

[Note: The Silver Paladin was briefly mentioned in 'Bolt From the Blue', but SP says he isn't likely to turn up in this campaign. (The siren song of the Mariana Trench is just too much, I guess! The GATPVotN! conceivably might.]

 

[Asha'man]

From the sounds of it, the Silver Paladin would just be annoying, but if SP hammed it up enough, then... yeah.

GaTPVotN sounds like a "the Tick" refugee. I mean that in the nicest possible way. Do you know what made him decide to TtN? How he got his powers, and why he uses them in his inimitable way instead of just being a Slacker?

 

[The Shadow]

From the sounds of it, the Silver Paladin would just be annoying, but if SP hammed it up enough, then... yeah.

Oh, he was definitely annoying, no question there. As Alpha said in 'Bolt From the Blue', "His greatest power is super-annoyance." But yes, SP hammed him up to the max, and while he elicited groans of dismay, he didn't get dice thrown at him.

GaTPVotN sounds like a "the Tick" refugee. I mean that in the nicest possible way. Do you know what made him decide to TtN? How he got his powers, and why he uses them in his inimitable way instead of just being a Slacker?

I'm afraid we know nothing about him. Frankly, part of the humor of the guy is that he is a complete (if very brief) distraction; we never felt the need to get to know his story.

What's TtN stand for?

 

[Asha'man]

What's TtN stand for?

It was derived from your abbreviation: Terrify the Night.

 

[The Shadow]

Timeline: McCarthyism

When I wrote up the timeline, I unaccountably left out an important snippet of history: McCarthyism in the Shadow-verse. I've updated the original post, but here's the changed bit so you don't have to go looking for it:

1950: Senator Joseph McCarthy - a very mild esper - notices an attempt by a Russian telepath to read his mind. He embarks on a crusade to root out Communist telepathic spies, and many innocent telepaths are caught up in his net. McCarthy is remembered in 2008 as a heroic figure fighting a genuine threat, who became tragically overzealous and went too far. [This world's equivalent of McCarthyism was focussed almost exclusively on those with psionic powers.]

Telepaths have been perceived as a wronged minority ever since this time. [This is one reason why they are not more feared for their powers - it smacks too much of McCarthy. It's also one reason why crimefighting registration is so lenient and hands-off at the first level.]

William MacCrae (the future Bazooka) is born.

 

[The Shadow]

The Shadow-Force Base

The Shadow-Force base is built in the shape of a cross. (Erebus wanted the corners to be killing fields, with crossfire potential from two wings at a time.) It is warded against magical and esper scrying from outside, though the Phantom can wander about freely if his body is within.

The external defense grid can only be described as formidable. (Though currently in the game it is offline.) Laid out by Erebus, designed by Technoid, and built by him and Alpha, it can bring a frightening amount of firepower to bear on anyone foolhardy enough to try to attack. The interior defenses are less extreme (don't want to put holes in the walls!) but still impressive. Nonlethal options are available in both cases. All defenses are under Alpha's direct control, though they can also be operated manually if desired. All doors, windows, and intercoms likewise can be activated or deactivated by Alpha, or manually from the Situation Room.

The 'front' wing contains a lobby and reception area. (No receptionist though, at least not one made of meat!) Also present here are a large Conference Room for press conferences and presentations; also a well-appointed 'parlor' for smaller meetings, interviews, and the like. Also a small kitchen. There's a secure viewing area for the Trophy Room here, but the public are not actually allowed in. The front wing can be sealed off from the rest of the base with security comparable to external measures elsewhere in the base; it is functionally a separate building.

The 'central' section of the base is the heart of Shadow-Force. The Situation Room is here: Alpha's main interface, along with viewscreens, a state-of-the-art comm system, and chairs for team meetings. Stairs lead down to the Vault, guarded by a massive door of super-alloy. The door checks handprints, voiceprints, retinal and iris prints, DNA, and mental signature before permitting entry. (The voiceprint is also a frequently-changed code phrase.) In the Vault are a safe containing confidential information about Shadow-Force; Alpha's main processor; and a hospital bed to receive the Phantom's inert physical body.

Also in the central section is the Trophy Room, with mementos from many of Shadow-Force's battles: Seth-Amon's knife (now stolen by Jessica), a pumpkin-shaped helmet from one of Jack o'Lantern's early suits, a glove of Red Dragon's, a disenchanted amulet belonging to Diabolus, and others. As well as fragments of several deathtraps Shadow-Force has been placed in over the years.

The left wing is the living area of the base. Michael Thompson's room is here (still preserved just as he left it), as are a number of guest rooms, and a dining room. There is also a small lounge, favored for more informal meetings between team members.

The right wing contains holding cells for supervillains, with all the usual precautions. The well-stocked Infirmary is also here, as is a gym.

Finally, the 'back' wing holds Technoid's lab (now much larger on the inside than the outside), the central power system of the base, and various maintenance supplies. Beta's 'room' is here, dominated by his charging station. He is within easy calling distance from the Situation Room.

Alpha has a variety of specialized robots, mutually designed and built by himself and Technoid, which serve as his 'hands' at various tasks. None of them are designed for combat, but some have tools that could serve in a pinch. Besides his repair 'bots for maintaining the base, he has a couple med 'bots in the Infirmary and the Vault - though the latter is now painfully obsolete. As well as workshop 'bots to bring his visions to life.

 

[The Shadow]

If Shadow-Force Were A Comic...

[So on a slow day I had a few thoughts about Shadow-Force from the point of view of the comics industry - what would have driven the direction of the campaign from a comic company's point of view? I wrote the following and sent it to SP, thinking it likely to amuse him. I was right! Perhaps it will amuse you too. I see the company in question as a smallish one that has somehow managed to acquire title to some Golden Age properties.]

I think originally there was an Erebus book which was fairly popular. (He's basically a magical-darkness version of Wolverine, after all.)

When they started heating up the P.S.I. arc, they introduced the Phantom to team up with. Probably they were wanting to see how this went over with the fans; the Phantom could've ended up as a one-shot (though popping up later in other contexts, of course), as a sidekick of sorts - or, if he proved popular, he could even get his own book.

The P.S.I. arc proved wildly popular. So much so that the editors wanted to keep Erebus and the Phantom together, and started floating the idea of a team. They introduced a supporting character, a minor second-tier guy Technoid that they hadn't done much with in a while, to see how that went over. It did fine, though Technoid was never as popular as the other two.

So they started a new "Shadow-Force" title. Brimstone and X-97 were created from scratch; Bazooka had probably been, like Technoid, an established minor character they'd never done much with. I don't know if the Erebus solo book continued; probably not.

Mystra and Chameleon were introduced by different writers as allies, but not every writing team felt inclined to use them, so they languished a bit. Meanwhile, Shadow-Force was tied in with the Freedom Squad, an old Golden and Silver Age team that still saw some use, but which hadn't carried its own book in a while.

The "shocking conclusion" to Forestrike's criminal career received critical acclaim; the team had finally 'arrived' as a cemented feature of the setting. (And likewise, the Phantom firmly established as a major A-list hero and leader of the team.) So the editors started thinking of ways they could capitalize on this.

"Shadow-Force" started getting a backup feature called "The B Team" or something like that - lighter stories about trainee superheroes. Sometimes the reservists popped up in the main plot of the book too, just to spice things up. One of them, Photon, proved surprisingly popular. Although he'd started out basically as comic relief, his innocent, sincere goofiness won people over.

"The B Team" faded out after a while, but Photon got his own limited miniseries, just to see how it would do. They tried taking him in a bit more serious direction, while keeping him idealistic and awkward. The arc against the Covenant did quite well. Meanwhile the main "Shadow-Force" book continued to do well, and fans started to clamor for Photon to take on a bigger role; so he joined the team as its most junior member.

At this point the writers started pushing things to the next level. To the glee of the 'shippers, Bazooka and Brimstone got engaged. And they started introducing new cosmic-level villains: Red Dragon, Diabolus, and most of all the Doctor.

In that last arc, they decided to go 'dark'. They built things up heavily - 'Who will live and who will die?', that kind of thing - and then actually killed off the Freedom Squad (which by that point were basically also-rans for Shadow-Force anyway). It sold a lot of comics, even hit the mainstream news - "American Eagle" had been a popular Golden Age book, after all.

The dimension-travelling arc going after the Doctor caught the fans' attention as seriously cool. Meanwhile people wanted to know what was going on with Photon in the team's absence. The writers started doing minor arcs with Photon and Beta trying to cope, and these were well-received.

At this point the editors decided to roll the dice and try something new. The major driving dynamic of Shadow-Force had always been the relationship between the Phantom and Erebus; a new writing team had quite a bit of nostalgia for the early days of the P.S.I. arc.

So they gave the Phantom and Erebus their own duo book to have weird dimensional adventures in and in the process gave Photon a "radiation accident" so he could start stepping up as more of an equal with the others. But sales for "Shadow-Force" started to slip without the two main characters... The stories were lackluster and the book came perilously close to cancellation.

Until somebody had the brilliant idea of taking things a step further. Photon got his own limited series again, "Life & Light" in which Bazooka and Brimstone also left the team. (Perhaps got their own miniseries as well.)

These had been intended to be temporary changes to revitalize the title, but "Life & Light" *took off*. The fans loved it! (Even when the series culminated in another 'shocking conclusion', with the lackluster hero Technoid being turned into a villain and defeated by Photon.) The editors weren't quite sure where to take things from there, though, except they wanted more.

"Life & Light" had focussed on the trials and tribulations of Photon trying to hold the city together more or less alone; it gave the writers an excuse to do teamups with some less-used characters, like the Protectors and the Texas Legends. But what had really captured the fan's attention was Photon being forced to mature, to lead. You couldn't keep that up forever with temporary teamups.

After some dithering about what to do, it was decided to recreate Shadow-Force almost from the ground up, a little 'edgier' this time. *And* reviving American Eagle (the oldest and most popular Freedom Squad hero) with a fresh new look, while hinting that Black Phantom (the second most) was not far behind. I'm sure Hardhat fans are sending in letters.

 

[The Shadow]

Diabolus

Diabolus was one of the greatest threats Shadow-Force ever faced. An extradimensional archmage powerful enough to conquer several dimensions single-handedly, he'd intended Earth to be next. Breaching our dimension in Seattle, he was narrowly defeated and banished by the combined efforts of Shadow-Force, Mystra, and the Freedom Squad.

The archmage is capable of looking like whatever he pleases; he 'honored' his new slave race by taking human form during his attempted conquest, but upon being banished his true form was revealed as that of a satyr. It is now speculated by some scholars that the satyrs who breached our dimension causing much trouble in the 1930's were partly advance scouts and partly refugees.

Diabolus has only two real weaknesses. The first is his towering ego, which is greater even than his immense (and seemingly limitlessly versatile) power justifies. He proved resistant to the belief that mere mortals could threaten him in any serious fashion, and realized his mistake too late.

The second is his phobia of science and technology - which he cannot understand and thus fears and hates. Photon, of all people (he was painfully green at the time) reduced the mage to incoherent terror for a time by reflexively taking light-form when Diabolus attempted to control his mind. The experience of relativistic travel through Photon's mind, and the associations leading to Jon's world-class knowledge of the subject, nearly unhinged the wizard - enabling the other supers to get in some devastating attacks. (Diabolus wasn't nearly that hysterical about, say, Technoid; it seems that it was more scientific theory than actual technology that bothered him. Or perhaps it was the unexpected onslaught that brought on his fit.)

Jon for his part, in struggling to throw off the mind control, ended up beyond the orbit of Jupiter and had some HIGHLY awkward and dangerous moments getting back to Earth without a spacesuit. Back then, he could only travel in straight lines with his light-form, and had to materialize multiple times to get his bearings to find the Earth again. He was lucky to get back alive; Technoid made him a spacesuit afterward in case of future mishaps.

Diabolus' name has become a byword for evil and fear in many dimensions, even those he is not known to have visited - it seems that traumatic events sometimes 'echo' across dimensional boundaries. Some now theorize that the Devil is in some esoteric sense named after him, rather than the reverse.