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The Shadow Knows! (Final Update 6/3/04)
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<blockquote data-quote="The Shadow" data-source="post: 1371984" data-attributes="member: 16760"><p>This campaign is picking up from a duo Champions campaign run several years ago, in which the Shadow adventured with a similar outcast vigilante called the Forbidden. (A life-drainer who had to drain life occasionally to survive, who went after criminal low-lives so he could live with himself more easily.) The campaign fell apart when the GM prematurely offered the Forbidden a way out of his life-hunger, which was his sole motivation for adventuring. I'd always loved the campaign, though, so the GM and I decided to revive it in a solo M&M version. </p><p></p><p>In this campaign, all powers must come from the Psionic, Super-Science, or Training sources. (ie, no mutants, aliens, wizards, "gods", people hit by lightning, or whatever.) Psionics is genetic in nature, but not a mutation - it's a natural part of the human species, and always has been in one degree or another. (Most people with psi powers don't even realize it.) Super-Science is limited to a few geniuses, governments, and major corporations, and it's usually highly experimental. (Powered-armor superheroes are usually corporate PR stunts more than anything else.) Training is pretty much limited to people highly trained in martial arts or the like. The GM raised the cost of Mental Protection to 3 pp/rank because he wanted it to be rare - most psis are untrained. </p><p></p><p>Psionics is not publicly known to exist in this universe, though there's more chatter about it there than here. Several early researchers who talked about having definitive proof of it suffered mysterious heart attacks... The predominant attitude of the media and academe is withering skepticism. There are very few open "superheroes" - most of whom are military types hired to wear powered armor, beat up a few bad guys, smile for the camera, and mention the sponsoring corporation's products. </p><p></p><p>The only other major difference between this world and ours is that 9/11 did not happen - an anonymous phone tip cracked the plot wide open. Most people have forgotten about the whole thing.</p><p></p><p>Now for the main character. His sheet (among others) is in the Rogue's Gallery in the <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=77409" target="_blank">"LA Under Shadow"</a> thread. This background is repeated there to avoid confusion.</p><p></p><p>--------------------------</p><p></p><p>Alex Brighton did not have a happy childhood. Nobody seemed to like him, but they couldn't explain why... "There's just something WRONG about him, but I can't put my finger on it!" they'd say. He had to work five times as hard to get the same recognition and approval as others. Life, he decided, just isn't fair. </p><p></p><p>It wasn't. Alex was born a rare homozygous telepath - he inherited telepathy genes from both parents. (His dad was a consummate salesman - an unconscious Mind Controller - and his mom a sensitive soul with much insight into others and a not-entirely-unfounded belief that she could predict the future with Tarot cards. They broke up when Alex was 7 - Alex's dad couldn't appreciate a woman with mental shields for long...) His powers raged out of control, projecting his emotions - especially the darker ones not suited for public display - to everyone around him. Meanwhile he would occasionally "overhear" the ugly thoughts others directed at him in response, which only alienated him further. </p><p></p><p>The solution he instinctively hit on worked in the sense that he survived and remained sane, but it didn't leave him any better adjusted socially. He trained himself to suppress and control his emotions as much as possible so there was nothing left to project... Of course he wasn't entirely successful. When agitated, the steep mental walls he'd erected would slip and he'd "zap" people again. "Most of the time he's a cold fish, and the rest he's a hair-raising freak!" </p><p></p><p>A brilliant young man, he entered university early, majoring in chemistry. There he met Jennifer, a psych major who found him irresistibly fascinating. (She was genetically "mindblind", immune to telepathic vibes.) She saw a shy and retiring young man, but one with a nice smile and (once you got to know him) a magnetic personality. She couldn't figure out why everyone treated him so badly for no apparent reason... Alex for his part found friendship, and then love, intoxicating. Within a couple of years, they were married. </p><p></p><p>Alex got a good job at a major pharmaceutical company, researching flora and fauna from around the world to discover, purify, assess, and alter new drugs. Meanwhile, he and Jennifer had a little son named David. After making a name for himself with a highly promising new cancer therapy, he gained a coveted promotion despite his social awkwardness. Life was good, far better than he'd ever dared to hope for - he had a loving family, challenging work, the satisfaction of helping others, and, as he learned to shield better and better, even a few friends. He had the money to indulge a few hobbies, like growing rare tropical plants (something he'd started doing for his Ph.D. dissertation) and collecting tapes of old radio shows. Including "The Shadow". </p><p></p><p>Then Alex's world came crashing down about his ears when Jennifer was raped and murdered by a hopped-up burglar. To add insult to injury, the guy got off on a technicality! Alex snapped and went on a rampage through his precious tropicals, destroying them to vent his rage... but when the juice soaked into his hands, he started to shake and then had a seizure. </p><p></p><p>When he got to his feet, he discovered to his astonishment that he could "hear" the thoughts of his terrified son in the next room. When he stumbled outside, he heard a neighbor thinking that he must be drunk... when Alex glared at him, the man's face was suffused with terror and he ran for his life. Alex, while not entirely understanding, smiled grimly. He could use this. </p><p></p><p>The murderer died that night, and he was very, very frightened before he died. (The coroner ended up ruling the case a truly bizarre suicide. You don't want to know.) While stalking him, Alex discovered something new - when he didn't want to be seen, he WASN'T. He was like the Shadow, clouding men's minds! </p><p></p><p>And why SHOULD some other guy lose his wife, some other little boy his mommy? There were more animals out there. Somebody should do something about it... somebody like him. Who else knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? </p><p></p><p>Alex didn't do anything rash. He took a sabbatical from his job, and used his chemical knowledge to isolate and purify the compound that had opened the door in his mind, altering it so it would no longer impair his judgement or give him hallucinations like it had that first night. (The seizure turned out to be due to another, unrelated compound.) </p><p></p><p>He got a gun and learned how to use it. He took karate classes, and then classes in other, more esoteric martial arts. He turned out to be something of a natural. (He has genes for biokinetic powers as well, but they're latent as they don't mix well with telepathy. But they make him stronger and faster than a guy his age and size ought to be.) </p><p></p><p>And when he felt ready, he donned black clothes, pulled on black gloves, swept a black cloak about his shoulders, and put on a battered black hat. Then he took a small white pill. The Shadow lived again... his eerie, mocking laughter from thin air striking fear into the hearts of the criminals of Los Angeles. "The Shadow knows!" (He also muffles the lower part of his face with a black bandanna, and uses a tiny amount of Illusion to fuzz his features, making them entirely nondescript save for the blazing intensity of his eyes.) </p><p></p><p>Five years now he has stalked the streets, a year or two of which alongside the tormented mystic known as the Forbidden, and there have been many changes. He has put together an enormous network of informers - criminal scum who fear him more than they fear higher-level criminal scum. And he has found a few people who approve of what he does and are willing to help him. </p><p></p><p>David is seventeen now, and starting to worry his father. The boy is much too strong, much too fast, and heals ridiculously quickly. (The biokinetic genes that skipped the last couple generations of telepaths came out with a vengeance in him - Jennifer's mindblindness in effect canceled out the telepathy genes David got from his dad.) David has inherited his father's stern sense of justice, and might try his hand at fighting crime more rashly than his father. His raging biokinetic hormones (mentioned in no biochemistry text) make for a fairly stormy relationship at times, too. </p><p></p><p>Still, David has received an object lesson that may give him pause. He was kidnapped and severely roughed up by a syndicate who discovered the Shadow's secret identity about a year ago. (The Shadow and the Forbidden utterly dismantled it - nobody who learned anything compromising is still alive.) He of course healed the physical damage rapidly but the psychic scars are another matter. </p><p></p><p>David found out about his dad's powers and "night life" at that time, and still isn't sure how he feels about it. It has become an edgy subject for the two of them, a sleeping dog neither cares to disturb. It is pretty much a given, though, that David would NOT approve of Carlos, who has been the Shadow's sidekick for the last eight months or so. </p><p></p><p>Carlos is a former gangbanger (18 years old) who turned over a new leaf after a nasty run-in with the Shadow. He caught the Shadow's notice by his immunity to the Shadow's mental invisibility... Carlos also has compellingly accurate, if unpleasant, dreams about the past and future, and often gets flashes of danger moments before it occurs. At a second run-in - the Shadow rescuing Carlos from gang members beating him up for trying to go legit - he managed to save both their lives by giving warning of a sniper bullet. </p><p></p><p>The boy had absolutely nowhere to go (a truly awful home situation, and in the neighborhood of his old gang to boot) and the Shadow liked his spirit, so he brought him to live at the base and support him in his work. He doesn't let Carlos go out on patrol or mix up in the rough stuff (though Carlos has had to come pull his bacon out of the fire once or twice) - mostly Carlos feeds him information from the base computer through his (Garrity-provided) commlink and offers him what he can from his unpredictable psychic talents. </p><p></p><p>Anyway, Carlos all but worships the Shadow - the closest thing to a father he's ever had - and he and David would likely feel highly threatened by each other should they ever meet, which Alex tries to make sure doesn't happen. </p><p></p><p>Alex has determined that the drug he uses is not addictive... but the same cannot be said for the Shadow persona it makes possible. Alex doesn't LIKE the Shadow, but he NEEDS the Shadow - needs to let the rage and anguish he feels out of its cage sometimes. (His Psychic Assault is nothing more sophisticated than exposing the target to his swirling confusion of bottled-up emotions all at once.) He keeps his two lives - and thus David and Carlos - as separate as he possibly can while still remaining sane. It's gotten a bit precarious at times...</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="The Shadow, post: 1371984, member: 16760"] This campaign is picking up from a duo Champions campaign run several years ago, in which the Shadow adventured with a similar outcast vigilante called the Forbidden. (A life-drainer who had to drain life occasionally to survive, who went after criminal low-lives so he could live with himself more easily.) The campaign fell apart when the GM prematurely offered the Forbidden a way out of his life-hunger, which was his sole motivation for adventuring. I'd always loved the campaign, though, so the GM and I decided to revive it in a solo M&M version. In this campaign, all powers must come from the Psionic, Super-Science, or Training sources. (ie, no mutants, aliens, wizards, "gods", people hit by lightning, or whatever.) Psionics is genetic in nature, but not a mutation - it's a natural part of the human species, and always has been in one degree or another. (Most people with psi powers don't even realize it.) Super-Science is limited to a few geniuses, governments, and major corporations, and it's usually highly experimental. (Powered-armor superheroes are usually corporate PR stunts more than anything else.) Training is pretty much limited to people highly trained in martial arts or the like. The GM raised the cost of Mental Protection to 3 pp/rank because he wanted it to be rare - most psis are untrained. Psionics is not publicly known to exist in this universe, though there's more chatter about it there than here. Several early researchers who talked about having definitive proof of it suffered mysterious heart attacks... The predominant attitude of the media and academe is withering skepticism. There are very few open "superheroes" - most of whom are military types hired to wear powered armor, beat up a few bad guys, smile for the camera, and mention the sponsoring corporation's products. The only other major difference between this world and ours is that 9/11 did not happen - an anonymous phone tip cracked the plot wide open. Most people have forgotten about the whole thing. Now for the main character. His sheet (among others) is in the Rogue's Gallery in the [URL=http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=77409]"LA Under Shadow"[/URL] thread. This background is repeated there to avoid confusion. -------------------------- Alex Brighton did not have a happy childhood. Nobody seemed to like him, but they couldn't explain why... "There's just something WRONG about him, but I can't put my finger on it!" they'd say. He had to work five times as hard to get the same recognition and approval as others. Life, he decided, just isn't fair. It wasn't. Alex was born a rare homozygous telepath - he inherited telepathy genes from both parents. (His dad was a consummate salesman - an unconscious Mind Controller - and his mom a sensitive soul with much insight into others and a not-entirely-unfounded belief that she could predict the future with Tarot cards. They broke up when Alex was 7 - Alex's dad couldn't appreciate a woman with mental shields for long...) His powers raged out of control, projecting his emotions - especially the darker ones not suited for public display - to everyone around him. Meanwhile he would occasionally "overhear" the ugly thoughts others directed at him in response, which only alienated him further. The solution he instinctively hit on worked in the sense that he survived and remained sane, but it didn't leave him any better adjusted socially. He trained himself to suppress and control his emotions as much as possible so there was nothing left to project... Of course he wasn't entirely successful. When agitated, the steep mental walls he'd erected would slip and he'd "zap" people again. "Most of the time he's a cold fish, and the rest he's a hair-raising freak!" A brilliant young man, he entered university early, majoring in chemistry. There he met Jennifer, a psych major who found him irresistibly fascinating. (She was genetically "mindblind", immune to telepathic vibes.) She saw a shy and retiring young man, but one with a nice smile and (once you got to know him) a magnetic personality. She couldn't figure out why everyone treated him so badly for no apparent reason... Alex for his part found friendship, and then love, intoxicating. Within a couple of years, they were married. Alex got a good job at a major pharmaceutical company, researching flora and fauna from around the world to discover, purify, assess, and alter new drugs. Meanwhile, he and Jennifer had a little son named David. After making a name for himself with a highly promising new cancer therapy, he gained a coveted promotion despite his social awkwardness. Life was good, far better than he'd ever dared to hope for - he had a loving family, challenging work, the satisfaction of helping others, and, as he learned to shield better and better, even a few friends. He had the money to indulge a few hobbies, like growing rare tropical plants (something he'd started doing for his Ph.D. dissertation) and collecting tapes of old radio shows. Including "The Shadow". Then Alex's world came crashing down about his ears when Jennifer was raped and murdered by a hopped-up burglar. To add insult to injury, the guy got off on a technicality! Alex snapped and went on a rampage through his precious tropicals, destroying them to vent his rage... but when the juice soaked into his hands, he started to shake and then had a seizure. When he got to his feet, he discovered to his astonishment that he could "hear" the thoughts of his terrified son in the next room. When he stumbled outside, he heard a neighbor thinking that he must be drunk... when Alex glared at him, the man's face was suffused with terror and he ran for his life. Alex, while not entirely understanding, smiled grimly. He could use this. The murderer died that night, and he was very, very frightened before he died. (The coroner ended up ruling the case a truly bizarre suicide. You don't want to know.) While stalking him, Alex discovered something new - when he didn't want to be seen, he WASN'T. He was like the Shadow, clouding men's minds! And why SHOULD some other guy lose his wife, some other little boy his mommy? There were more animals out there. Somebody should do something about it... somebody like him. Who else knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? Alex didn't do anything rash. He took a sabbatical from his job, and used his chemical knowledge to isolate and purify the compound that had opened the door in his mind, altering it so it would no longer impair his judgement or give him hallucinations like it had that first night. (The seizure turned out to be due to another, unrelated compound.) He got a gun and learned how to use it. He took karate classes, and then classes in other, more esoteric martial arts. He turned out to be something of a natural. (He has genes for biokinetic powers as well, but they're latent as they don't mix well with telepathy. But they make him stronger and faster than a guy his age and size ought to be.) And when he felt ready, he donned black clothes, pulled on black gloves, swept a black cloak about his shoulders, and put on a battered black hat. Then he took a small white pill. The Shadow lived again... his eerie, mocking laughter from thin air striking fear into the hearts of the criminals of Los Angeles. "The Shadow knows!" (He also muffles the lower part of his face with a black bandanna, and uses a tiny amount of Illusion to fuzz his features, making them entirely nondescript save for the blazing intensity of his eyes.) Five years now he has stalked the streets, a year or two of which alongside the tormented mystic known as the Forbidden, and there have been many changes. He has put together an enormous network of informers - criminal scum who fear him more than they fear higher-level criminal scum. And he has found a few people who approve of what he does and are willing to help him. David is seventeen now, and starting to worry his father. The boy is much too strong, much too fast, and heals ridiculously quickly. (The biokinetic genes that skipped the last couple generations of telepaths came out with a vengeance in him - Jennifer's mindblindness in effect canceled out the telepathy genes David got from his dad.) David has inherited his father's stern sense of justice, and might try his hand at fighting crime more rashly than his father. His raging biokinetic hormones (mentioned in no biochemistry text) make for a fairly stormy relationship at times, too. Still, David has received an object lesson that may give him pause. He was kidnapped and severely roughed up by a syndicate who discovered the Shadow's secret identity about a year ago. (The Shadow and the Forbidden utterly dismantled it - nobody who learned anything compromising is still alive.) He of course healed the physical damage rapidly but the psychic scars are another matter. David found out about his dad's powers and "night life" at that time, and still isn't sure how he feels about it. It has become an edgy subject for the two of them, a sleeping dog neither cares to disturb. It is pretty much a given, though, that David would NOT approve of Carlos, who has been the Shadow's sidekick for the last eight months or so. Carlos is a former gangbanger (18 years old) who turned over a new leaf after a nasty run-in with the Shadow. He caught the Shadow's notice by his immunity to the Shadow's mental invisibility... Carlos also has compellingly accurate, if unpleasant, dreams about the past and future, and often gets flashes of danger moments before it occurs. At a second run-in - the Shadow rescuing Carlos from gang members beating him up for trying to go legit - he managed to save both their lives by giving warning of a sniper bullet. The boy had absolutely nowhere to go (a truly awful home situation, and in the neighborhood of his old gang to boot) and the Shadow liked his spirit, so he brought him to live at the base and support him in his work. He doesn't let Carlos go out on patrol or mix up in the rough stuff (though Carlos has had to come pull his bacon out of the fire once or twice) - mostly Carlos feeds him information from the base computer through his (Garrity-provided) commlink and offers him what he can from his unpredictable psychic talents. Anyway, Carlos all but worships the Shadow - the closest thing to a father he's ever had - and he and David would likely feel highly threatened by each other should they ever meet, which Alex tries to make sure doesn't happen. Alex has determined that the drug he uses is not addictive... but the same cannot be said for the Shadow persona it makes possible. Alex doesn't LIKE the Shadow, but he NEEDS the Shadow - needs to let the rage and anguish he feels out of its cage sometimes. (His Psychic Assault is nothing more sophisticated than exposing the target to his swirling confusion of bottled-up emotions all at once.) He keeps his two lives - and thus David and Carlos - as separate as he possibly can while still remaining sane. It's gotten a bit precarious at times... [/QUOTE]
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