VILLAINS: THE EVIL WITHIN (M&M Superlink)

[TheLe]

[imager]http://www.thele.com/thelegames/images/tn/mm_villainsevilwithin_tn200w.jpg[/imager]

Evil takes many forms, but very often they take the form of Super Villains!

VILLAINS: THE EVIL WITHIN is a new 20-page pdf book for any M&M SUPERLINK world. Within this book you will find 10 new PL-15 Villains! Each villain comes with a history, full stats, and a color illustration to put those pesky super heroes in their place. But wait, there's more! We've also added 10 additional PL-20 variants of those same super villains, for a total of 20 villains!

Written by Bob Bretz, this book is perfect for any M&M SUPERLINK campaign!

Still not sure? Well check out the
Free Demo!

Yeah baby!

 

[Crothian]

Villains Evil Within

Villains Evil Within

In the super hero worlds there are always plenty of through away villains. These villains need to be able to show up, harass and both the party, and then be defeated by the end of the issue. Some times they can last a little longer and even return later if the initial introduction yields some cool and entertaining facets that make the villain popular. However, many villains come and go with ease and it can be a pain for the storyteller to keep coming up with new ideas and new characters for villains that just do not last a while. That is where Villains: Evil Within comes in as a time saving device.

Villains: Evil Within is a PDF by Te Le Games and is their first using the Mutants and Masterminds Superlink. It allows other companies to write support products for the MnM game. The Le Games has a few dozen PDFs publishes and are probably best known for their Unorthodox series of books that presents alternate core classes for many of the typical fantasy classes. The PDF is about twenty five pages long and the layout is a little loose and plain. The art is pretty good with recolor pieces for the same hero. The book has good book marks.

The book offers ten new NPC Villains to use in a Mutants and Mastermind game. There are no new powers, feats, or other rules options presented here. Each villain is written up as a Power Level 15 and PL 20 Villain. They are all given a short history and it is expanded on a little for the PL 20 version. This is a very straight forward product. The characters are a variety of powers and each can easily challenge the players. This book is a time safer. With ten easy to use villains all packaged up this book will really safe time as stating out NPCs can be a time consuming process. None of the villains need to be larger then life, they can serve as henchmen or one shot adversaries. Yet, there is no reason that the histories cannot be expanded on to make the villain a more intrical part of the story.

Atimico: This villain was a hero who is now a crazed hero. Perfect for the players to want to defeat but possible try to save and bring him back to the side of good.

Black Dragon: She is a ninja assassin and carries a powerful blade.

Chill Kill: She is also an assassin, but the background hints at once having moral questions about it. She is another villain with possibilities to redeem.

Daemon: a nasty creature kicked out of her former home a version of hell. Now she wants to reign supreme on Earth.

Doctor mon Star: He makes creatures and uses that ability to cause havoc and make a little cash.

Night Wolf: This Villain is either alien or were wolf. One neat thing they did is have his PL 20 version not be an advanced version of him, but what he is like at night as he gains power at that time.

Obsidian Ghost: One of the rare geologist villains he has ghost like abilities and steals gems and jewels.

Silverlok: She is a mental powered super hero. I like the added detail she fears her powers may grow beyond her control.

Steel Titan: This is a suit of armor like Iron Man that became sentient and now causes havoc for all humans.

Thrasher: he is a rock and roller with powers. He does some crimes but really prefers the rock and roll lifestyle.

The villains are a nice variety and should really serve as decent obstacles for the party. I would have liked to see more about each villain with greater insights into personality and perhaps even some adventure hooks. However, as presented it does serve to be a major time saver and should offer some interesting opponents.

 

[Varianor Abroad]

Villains - The Evil Within

Review by William L. Collins

This is an M&M Superlink book containing 10 villains. The author is Bob Bretz. This 25-page pdf comes from The Le Games. Three of the pages are the OGL – which in my opinion could have been compressed to a smaller size for publication. The art is a mix of clip art from Louis Porter and black and white drawings by Tony Perna. The product retails for $2.25 on RPGnow.com. I received a free copy for review purposes, as part of Crothian’s Review Project. The publisher provides a full-color “screen” version and a black and white printer-friendly copy as part of the 3.5 Meg download.

Ten villains get profiled for this volume: Atomico, Black Dragon, Chill-Kill, Daemon, Doctor Mon-Star, Night Wolf, Obsidian Ghost, Silverlok, Steel Titan, and Thrasher. All the villains are dual-statted for PL-15 and PL-20. Since I never play at PL-20, this volume isn’t as useful to me as it would be if it were dual-statted for PL-10 and PL-15, but it’s still a good source of villains if you need one fast.

Out of these ten, the standouts are Atomico, Doctor Mon-Star and Silverlok. They all have something interesting about them – Atomico is a former hero teleported into the future and given a radiation accident. Doctor Mon-Star tries to bring silver screen monsters to life (hey, is he really Ray Harryhausen?). Silverlok learned how to project her mind into computers for the US Air Force and to control some Psycho Spheres.

Unfortunately, the background on these villains is fairly short. We get a paragraph or two on each one’s origin, but few other details. Too many of the villains had the Disturbing weakness. (Weaknesses are not the be all and end all like Disadvantages are in Champions, but a little more variation would be good.) Many of these are riffs on common superhero/villain concepts (Obsidian Ghost for example seems a lot like Eclipso, right down to the mysterious gem that gives him powers). There are no new powers or abilities in this volume; there are also no questionable Flaws applied to the powers. It’s all by the book, which means you don’t have to double-check or reread a lot.

The good news is that these villains are fairly optimized and not weak. You can slot them in and they’ll give PCs a run for their money

The illustrations are okay, but I wonder if they wouldn’t have looked better as black and white? (That’s the problem with four-color superheroes – everyone’s a critic.) Objectively though, they definitely beat some of the art in Champions First, Second and Third Editions, so that’s a positive. However, the advent of 3E meant art standards rose, so I would have liked a more consistent art style, especially for a comic book-inspired medium.

This is a 2005 release. It doesn’t state if it’s for First or Second Edition M&M, so it’s probably First Edition. It should be compatible with either though. I found a few typos and editing errors, which definitely brought down the rating. With nothing strikingly new or interesting, but some utility, I give this product a 3 because of its utility. If you need a bunch of new villains for your game tonight, and are strapped for time, the price makes the download reasonable.