What do you do
after all your wishes come true?
A
Powergame adventure by Dotan Dimet.
Powergame is the creation and property of Mikko Kauppinen
Details: http://www.uta.fi/~trmika/gameindex.html
Adventure background based on the Powerforce Universe setting, created by
Marcelo Sarsur (msarsur@hotmail.com).
Argus/Night Watchman (Frank
Chambers)
Goblin / Tengu (Kimiko Miyaki)
El Diablo (Gilberto Hernandez)
The game, as played in IGOR (27th April,
2000):
A year ago,
energies released by a strange meteor brought mankind to the next evolutionary
step, blessing normal men and women with amazing superhuman powers. Now, a
renegade scientist asks a simple question: why shouldn't everyone have super
powers?
At 9AM this
morning, each household in a peaceful suburb of Los Angeles received a very
special package.
By 11, the death
toll was close to a thousand...
Can you, the
world's greatest superheroes, prevent the dawn of the superhuman before normal
mankind becomes extinct?
Pandora Winters
was a scientist researching the event in which a strange meteor exploded into
the earth's atmosphere, releasing energies that caused certain people to
develop superhuman powers. The main goal of her research was to identify what
caused some people to develop superpowers while others didn't. Her tentative
findings are that a unique combination of irradiation and life-threatening
stress is required to unleash a person's superhuman potential.
Dr. Winters is an
idealist. She thinks that superhuman powers are the destiny of the human race.
She thinks that it would only be fair if everyone had these powers.
Recently, the UN
superhero team Powerforce prevented the mad super villain Dr. Kheops from
detonating a nuclear bomb powered by a massive stockpile of Superium (the name
given to the substance composing the strange meteor). The bomb's energies were
released in the atmosphere, once again causing incidents of people developing superpowers.
This time, Dr. Pandora Winters was ready. She observed the event onboard a UN
reconnaissance aircraft hovering above Dr. Kheops suspected headquarters in the
Sudan. As the released energies flooded the skies, she grabbed a parachute and
forced open an emergency door, screaming something incoherent about everyone
becoming superhumans now.
The last anyone
saw of Dr. Pandora Winters, she was hurtling towards the ground over a Sudanese
desert, wrapped in a collapsed parachute canopy. The pilot managed to regain
control of the aircraft, and all the passengers survived (thanks to the wonders
of safety belts) except for one, who rushed to close the door and was sucked
out of the plane. He was later recovered, having developed superpowers, as Dr.
Winters had predicted.
Dr. Winters' plan
worked. When she crawled out of the canopy, she found herself inside a
tarpaulin-covered manure heap in a nearby field. Apparently, she has gained a
peculiar superpower, which allows her to make things appear and disappear from
inside enclosed containers (boxes). She quickly used this power to good effect
by snatching from under the UN's nose the remaining stockpile of Superium it
recovered from Dr. Kheops' base.
She now intends to
put into motion her plan to bring about the true dawn of the superhuman. She is
taking advantage of the recent disbanding of Powerforce (Its leader disappeared
in the fight with Dr. Kheops, others were wiped out in an encounter with a
nasty super villain, and yet others went off into space. Super teams have off
days like this).
To create
superhumans, she needs the tried and tested combinations of Superium
irradiation and life-threatening terror. A third-world warzone would be ideal,
but she'll have to settle for Long Beach instead….
Pandora has
developed a set of miniaturized Superium bombs; She'll be releasing them in
intervals from a high-altitude balloon over a major populated area (she tried
to get a controlled release, but couldn't control the Superium chain reaction).
She would have preferred a satellite, but they're too damn expensive.
She picked a
heavily populated American city (Los Angeles) as her target. Her plan is to
place as many people as possible in a clearly life-threatening situation just
as she unleashes the first Superium flash. To do this, she's sent as many
people as she can manage in Long Beach a package (a box), which she's used her
powers to fill with time bombs (live grenades, actually, much easier to obtain
in big quantities). They will have a few seconds to realize that they're in a
life-threatening situation, which she hopes will be enough to trigger the
change. Once the new superhumans start causing more mayhem, she plans to
release another bomb, and another as the terror spreads exponentially.
Hopefully, the entire population of California will be transformed by the time
she runs out of bombs (another reason for picking California rather than, say,
Kosovo).
The packages got
delivered, from 8AM to 9AM - only some households were covered. The packages
were labeled with a return address of "Dept. of Civil Defense". Each
package is a small box with a radio sensor, that sends a signal if the box is
opened. Some people opened the boxes
immediately and found them empty. Then the first Superium flash went off,
lasting for maybe 10 minutes. Anyone who opened the package at the time
receives a live grenade. Of these, only some of the people have the terror
reaction necessary to trigger super powers. Some of the grenades go off (others
are deactivated by the newly-manifested powers). This causes other people to
open their packages. More grenades go off, causing more super humans. People
run out to the street, terrified. Some manifest powers, others suspect them of
being super villains, the situation escalates, fights break out, super humans
run around, spreading more terror.
Half an hour into
this, things grow to a peak, and another Superium flash is triggered. By this
time, we don't need the grenades: the super humans are already causing enough
life-threatening situations. More super humans manifest. A chain reaction is in
place.
Meanwhile, Pandora
is on the scene, spreading some more terror with her powers but mostly just
observing and timing further flashes.
The heroes are
summoned to the scene by SPICE, a small independent Federal body which
coordinates between the different branches of the government (NSA, Justice
Department, Civil Guard) and available superheroes. SPICE is under scrutiny by
the UN (International treaties forbid national governments from organizing
their own super-teams, due to suspicion that these will rapidly develop into
"Super-Armies"), but so far the superheroes that work with it haven't
joined forces on a regular basis.
Entering the city,
they will see signs of devastation.
There's a huge
pile-up on the Freeway, a pylon has been knocked down and hovers on the edge.
Police are blocking traffic and getting people out of their cars. Presumably,
the heroes move further into the city, while panicked people stream out.
These are things
the heroes might possibly run into as they explore the devastated area of Long
Beach. These are simply suggestions. See the description of play below for one
possible set of incidents.
·
A giant sized
person, stomping on cars, hiding on a rooftop.
·
Someone with
a supersonic scream shattering windows.
·
A flame
person, burning boats in the harbor.
·
A squadron of
flying teenagers, gang members or something, they swarm like vultures, buzzing
people in the street, spraying graffiti, skywriting, raining down trash on
passers-by.
·
Indestructible
people, bulletproof mad gunmen.
·
A
shapeshifting couple, a young radical couple with a lot of tattoos &
piercings, making love in a thousand configurations, crawling through rain
gutters & air-conditioning vents to take revenge on their annoying
neighbors.
·
Invisible
people running around, driving cars, and causing road accidents.
Eventually the heroes should discover Dr. Pandora Winters and confront her; They will learn about the high-altitude weather balloon she has set up to drop Superium bombs over the city, and should disable it.
It would be good if the super-beings the heroes seem to threaten to spread more havoc into the surrounding area, perhaps launching themselves towards a densely populated area as another bomb is about to go off. This will force the heroes to split into teams (one to try and stop the bombs, the other to stop the metahuman rampage).
Attributes: Agility 1, Strength 1, Health 1, Charisma
1, Wits 2, Psyche 1,
Protection 1, Speed 1
Superpowers: "Schroedinger's Boxes" - Matter
Transmission 5
Good Things,
Bad Things and Vulnerabilities: Special Knowledge: Super-humans, Vulnerability: power works only on
enclosed objects (to and from boxes).
Skills: Multi-disciplinary scientist: Psychology,
Quantum Physics, Astronomy, Geology, Genetics, Molecular Engineering. Has a
deep knowledge of superheroes and villains, their powers and probable origins.
Is quite skilled in Electronics & mechanics, designing and building
equipment.
Equipment: Coat, sunglasses. Carries a few small
boxes (matchboxes, cigarette packs) & a cheap side-bag with her (for
manifesting surprises). Her Superium bomb armed weather balloon isn't radio
controlled, it's completely automatic.
Appearance: Small thin English woman in her late
Thirties with very fair long blond hair tied back in a simple ponytail; green
eyes, serious expression. Wears military-style khaki trousers (lots of
pockets), white T-Shirt, long brown coat and sunglasses.
Personality: A cynical and self-berating sense of humor
covers fierce determination and a burning fanaticism. Pandora is a remarkably
accomplished woman who has had to struggle a lot to get to the position she had
as a top UN researcher. She threw all that away (and risked her life) because
of her determination that everyone should have a chance to get superpowers. In
her own way, she's playing as grand a game as any would-be world-dominating
megalomaniac: She wants to change the world, and she wants power to belong to
everyone, not to restricted elite groups. She's targeting California because a
lot of influential people live there, and might further her cause while
preventing governments from using her process to create their own super-armies.
Background: (Duplicated from the adventure's prelude,
actually) Pandora Winters was a scientist researching the event in which a
strange meteor exploded into the earth's atmosphere, releasing energies which
caused certain people to develop superhuman powers. The main goal of her
research was to identify what caused some people to develop superpowers while
others didn't. Her tentative findings are that a unique combination of
irradiation and life-threatening stress is required to unleash a person's
superhuman potential.
Dr. Winters is an
idealist. She thinks that superhuman powers are the destiny of the human race.
She thinks that it would only be fair if everyone had these powers.
Recently, the UN
superhero team Powerforce prevented the mad super villain Dr. Kheops from
detonating a nuclear bomb powered by a massive stockpile of Superium (the name
given to the substance composing the strange meteor). The bomb's energies were
released in the atmosphere, once again causing incidents of people developing
superpowers. This time, Dr. Pandora Winters was ready. She observed the event
onboard a UN reconnaissance aircraft hovering above Dr. Kheops suspected
headquarters in the Sudan. As the released energies flooded the skies, she
grabbed a parachute and forced open an emergency door, screaming something
incoherent about everyone becoming superhumans now.
The last anyone
saw of Dr. Pandora Winters, she was hurtling towards the ground over a Sudanese
desert, wrapped in a collapsed parachute canopy. The pilot managed to regain
control of the aircraft, and all the passengers survived (thanks to the wonders
of safety belts) except for one, who rushed to close the door and was sucked
out of the plane. He was later recovered, having developed superpowers, as Dr.
Winters had predicted.
Dr. Winters' plan
worked. When she crawled out of the canopy, she found herself inside a
tarpaulin-covered manure heap in a nearby field. Apparently, she has gained a
peculiar superpower, which allows her to make things appear and disappear from
inside enclosed containers (boxes). She quickly used this power to good effect
by snatching from under the UN's nose the remaining stockpile of Superium it
recovered from Dr. Kheops' base.
She now intends to
put into motion her plan to bring about the true dawn of the superhuman.
Attributes: Agility 1, Strength 1, Health 1, Charisma
2, Wits 1, Psyche 1,
Protection 1, Speed 1
Superpowers: Absorb Energy 4, Release Energy 4,
Remarkable Charisma.
Good Things,
Bad Things and Vulnerabilities: Famous, Connections (Film Industry) (2 Good Things left over).
Skills: Acting, Modeling, Wardrobe, Make-up. Has a
good knowledge of the Los Angeles Area, Hollywood & the film Industry.
Familiar with classic movie trivia (a hobby). Speaks Spanish & French, but
not too fluently.
Equipment: Small white handbag with cellular phone,
credit cards, make-up kit, gum, tissue. Drives a well-kept vintage sixties pink
Cadillac with roll-down roof.
Appearance: Tall statuesque woman in her mid twenties,
shoulder length platinum hair, blue eyes. Wears a strapless white dress, white
satin evening gloves reaching over her elbows, white high-heel shoes, nylon
stockings, a white scarf & black sunglasses.
Personality: Tracy is a big fan of past movie stars,
and she's modeled her look on Marilyn Monroe; She dislikes more
"superheroic" costumes (spandex and masks) because they remind her
too much of her B movie past. Tracy originally became a superhero to become
famous and advance her movie career, but she's found she enjoys it more than
she wants to be a movie star. Saving lives and helping people is something that
gives her real satisfaction, and makes acting seem very shallow and silly in
comparison.
Background: Tracy Truman was a struggling Hollywood
actress who dreamed of being Grace Kelly or Marlyn Monroe, but found herself
trapped in B-Movie roles (generally, a stripper or a monster's victim,
sometimes both). Her career took an unexpected turn when she was involved in a
terrible car wreck. Lying bleeding in a death trap of mangled metal with the
gas tank about to ignite, she saw the sky light up as the Superium meteorite
hit the earth. The next thing she knew, she was lying amid the debris of the
exploded car, unharmed. Tracy soon discovered that she had developed the power
to absorb any kind of energy (heat, light, kinetic) and release it again at
will. She now uses her powers in a new career as "Hollywood's
Superhero", mostly fighting earthquakes and fires. As a superhero, she's
become quite a local celebrity, and is constantly confronting gossip about her
"sordid" past. She lives with her three year old daughter (she won't
say anything about the father) and a roommate (Theresa, a struggling
scriptwriter).
Attributes: Agility 3, Strength 2, Health 1, Charisma
1, Wits 3, Psyche 1,
Protection 1, Speed 1
Superpowers: Amplified Agility, Amplified Wits, Flight
5.
Good Things,
Bad Things and Vulnerabilities: Connections (US Government), Remarkable Strength, Gadget
Vulnerability: Flight is dependant on Flight Harness.
Skills: Airforce Pilot (Jets, props, Helicopters),
Martial Arts (Tae Kwan Do), Firearms (Handguns), Airborne guns. Speaks English
& Spanish, a little Russian and Arabic.
Equipment: Flight Harness with extendable metal
"wings" (about a 10 meter wingspan in full extension, used when
flying at top speeds); Two Colt 45 automatic pistols in holsters on his belt, a
survival knife in a sheath on his boot. Strapped on his back beneath his flight
harness is an emergency pack with first-aid equipment, chocolate and flares.
Also carries an oxygen mask and tank for high-altitude flying.
Appearance: Tall athletic Caucasian man in his
mid-twenties. Light brown hair, blue eyes, strong jaw. When flying, wears a
navy-blue costume, consisting of a modified flight jacket with armor padding,
blue trousers & boots. Wears a blue Aviator's cap, goggles and a red scarf.
The front of his jacket is adorned with a five-pointed star in one corner,
trailing a red and white stripe that cuts upwards across the jacket.
Personality: Sam is a responsible and levelheaded
person who reacts swiftly and efficiently in crisis situations. However, he is
also a daredevil and a thrill-seeker, who won't hesitate to take risks, even
when they do not seem justified. He is generally a bit too reckless to get on
with most authority figures. Sam is a patriot, and has served his country
selflessly, but he's not a fanatic. He will go to great effort to protect
civilians, but always keeps the bigger picture in mind, and is willing to make
the hard choices one expects from a military man.
Background: Sam Campbell was an Airforce pilot who was
assigned to fly a reconnaissance mission on the night the Superium meteor
crashed to the Earth. He flew an experimental supersonic jet to where the
meteor was supposed to land, and as the meteor exploded, he lost control of the
Aircraft and crashed. Amazingly, he survived, and while convalescing in a
military hospital, he discovered he had developed superhuman agility and
reactions. The military decided to train Sam as a covert operative, but after a
few operations, his superiors became convinced that his personal style was too
flamboyant for covert work. Instead, he was offered the option of becoming the
US government's own Superhero. Sam was equipped a special flight harness of
unknown origin (his guess is that it's recovered alien technology, but no one
tells him anything)and given the codename "Eagle". He is assigned to
SPICE, a small independent Federal body which coordinates between the different
branches of the government (NSA, Justice Department, Civil Guard) and available
superheroes. Eagle's work mostly involves fighting crime and terrorism within
the borders of the USA. Recently, he crossed paths with a tragic vigilante, the
woman called Spook, and found himself both touched and smitten with her.
Attributes: Agility 2, Strength 1, Health 1, Charisma
1, Wits 1, Psyche 1,
Protection 1, Speed 1
Superpowers: Invisibility 4, Intangibility 4, Amplified
Agility.
Good Things,
Bad Things and Vulnerabilities: Drug Addiction, Connections (Street life) (4 good things to spend).
Skills: Lockpicking, Streetwise, familiar with LA
underworld, good knowledge of Drugs.
Equipment: Handgun, drug stash (for personal use).
Appearance: Short, thin Caucasian woman in her early
Twenties, pale skin and short dark hair, blue eyes. Usually wears sneakers,
baggy white trousers and a sleeveless hooded sports jacket with the hood up.
Spook keeps parts of herself invisible as a disguise and for shock effect -
either see-through "holes" or gaps in her arms and face, or areas
where layers of her body are invisible, giving them a "skinned" look
- making her face a naked skull, for example.
Personality: Quiet, edgy, paranoid, depressive,
reckless. Julie has little in the world she cares about, and is driven by anger
and fear to lash out savagely against the mob which killed her family and
lover. She is perversely imaginative, for example using her powers to make
parts of her body invisible (or only certain layers - revealing muscle and
bone) as a cheap scare trick. Behind her hard exterior, she is very
compassionate, able to show empathy to a street kid, a bum, a junkie or even a
drug dealer. She will use violent force only against known killers or brutal
bastards. A new romance with Eagle has rekindled some tenderness in her.
Background: Last year Julie Stewart and her boyfriend
were both unemployed drug addicts working for the local mob as flunkies,
couriers and errand-runners. Desperate to get out of this dead-end life, Julie
and her boyfriend stole 20 Thousand dollars from their boss and made a break
for it. He caught up with them in Nevada, at the home of Julie's sister's.
Julie came back from buying cigarettes and found a mob hit squad waiting. Her
sister, her husband and daughter had been murdered, her boyfriend was dead from
a lethal overdose and a mob hit squad was waiting. The boyfriend had shown them
where the money was hidden, so there was nothing they wanted from her. They
just sat her down on the couch and placed a live grenade on her lap. Julie
stared at it and wished she would just disappear. She did, just as the grenade
exploded and the house began burning. The dawn of the Superium had taken place
a month earlier, but this was the first time Julie manifested any special
abilities: She could make herself and objects she touches (up to about 10 kgs
of extra mass) invisible and/or intangible. Officially dead, Julie became the
fearsome vigilante called Spook, who terrorizes the LA underworld. Recently,
her activities lead her to cross paths with Eagle, a crimefighter with ties to
the government. Eagle's compassion towards her has touched a part of Spook she
had considered dead, and they are cautiously developing an odd romance.
Attributes: Agility 1+1, Strength 1, Health 1,
Charisma 1, Wits 1+1, Psyche 2,
Protection 1, Speed 1
Superpowers: Telepathy 4, Telekinesis 4, Amplified
Psyche.
Good Things,
Bad Things and Vulnerabilities: Doesn't sleep, agile, witty, Connections (Media).
Skills: Journalism, Research, Streetwise,
Lecturing. Speaks quite good Spanish and is slightly familiar with a dozen
immigrant languages - Portuguese, French, Russian, Korean, Chinese, Japanese,
Arabic.
Equipment: Raincoat, small tape-recorder, Pipe.
Appearance: Tall Black man in his early forties. Very
short hair, receding from his forehead, going gray at the sides. Big sad black
eyes. Wears a tan brown raincoat, loose baggy gray trousers, and a light blue
button shirt. Wears a badge (pin) with an eye on it, pinned to his coat. Looks
a bit like the CBS logo.
Personality: Argus worries all the time. He worries
because he knows pretty much everything. He reads peoples' minds constantly,
learns their secrets and problems, and uses his Telekinetic power to correct it
- punishing the guilty, helping the victims. Argus prefers to work discreetly,
keeping his anonymity. He is a reluctant superhero, and worried about his
health, his wife and his daughter. He works out religiously since his heart
attack. He suffers from insomnia, caused by what is practically an addiction to
reading people's minds and worrying about their problems. Frank has a driver's
license but never uses it, because he prefers meeting people on public
transportation. In conversation, he is an excellent listener, quiet but
offering wise advice.
Background: Frank Chambers used to be a newspaper reporter,
covering social issues, who had grown bitter and depressed with how ineffectual
he was at changing things and helping people. He finally quit the paper and
wrote a book. He currently makes a living lecturing. Shortly after he turned
forty, he woke up one night with a heart attack. As he felt himself about to
die, a strange light shone in from the window and he found himself restarting
his heart with the force of his will. Over the weeks after the dawn of the
Superium, he discovered he could hear thoughts. In fact, it was almost
impossible for him not to hear them. He began to lose sleep, eventually finding
himself lying awake in bed beside his sleeping wife, listening to the world's
problems. Because of his wife and daughter, Frank was never willing to risk his
life and join a super-team, but he finds he is unable to stop righting wrongs.
Attributes: Agility 2, Strength 1, Health 1, Charisma
1, Wits 1, Psyche 1,
Protection 1, Speed 1
Superpowers: Amplified Agility, Shapeshift 5,
Regeneration 3
Good Things,
Bad Things and Vulnerabilities:
Skills: Art, Computer graphics, Aikido, Flower
Arrangement. Speaks fluent Japanese & English.
Equipment: Nothing. Her body is her instrument…
Appearance: Japanese woman in her early twenties (but
looks younger), long straight black hair. When not pretending to be a normal
person, she usually goes naked, because she can change her skin into any
costume she can imagine. Usually she appears bright red with intricate colored
swirls hiding her naughty bits and with big pointy ears. Her hair color (and
shape!) also changes with her mood.
Personality: Kimiko was raised her whole life to be
quiet and demure; When pretending to be normal, she seems polite, quiet and
shy. Her identity as Goblin gives her an escape valve, and when she assumes it
she is wild, reckless and fun-loving, knowing that little can harm her. She is
creative and imaginative (in either identity), but as Goblin she prefers
everything loud and flashy, while Kimiko is almost annoying with her subdued
good taste. Despite the noise, even as Goblin she is clearly a good and caring
person. She is (obviously) a huge Manga fan.
Background: The daughter of a Japanese businessman,
Kimiko moved with her parents to America when she was 12. She's adapted to
American culture quite quickly. Currently she is studying graphic design and
animation in LA, living in an apartment of her own (Daddy pays the rent,
although she also works teaching Japanese, doing freelance design and making
special floral arrangements for a local stylist). Kimiko's powers manifested
while on a home visit to Tokyo, a month after the Dawn of the Superium, when
she was caught in the subway during a terrorist bomb threat. Terrified masses
streamed for the exits, trampling people underneath. Several people died, but
Kimiko didn't. She pushed the broken bones back into place, and began exploring
what had happened to her. After discovering the full extent of her
shapeshifting abilities, she decided to create a new identity, as the
supervillainess Tengu (Goblin, in Japanese). However, after the ease of robbing
a few banks and playing pranks on some cops, she decided she was too nice for
this line of work, and became a good guy. So far, rescuing cats from trees,
lost teenagers from cliffs and beached whales is all she's really done, but she
feels better with this than with robbing banks.
Attributes:
Agility 2, Strength 4, Health 1+1, Charisma 1, Wits 1+1, Psyche 1,
Protection 3, Speed 1
Superpowers: Flame
Breath 3, Amplified Strength and Protection, Remarkable Agility.
Good Things, Bad Things and Vulnerabilities: Connections (Street Gangs).
Skills: Martial
Artist (Muay Thai), Wrestling, Boxing, Fencing, Acrobatics, Car mechanic,
Spanish, Protugese, French, Streetwise, Dancing.
Equipment: Big red
car, mechanics tools, police radio.
Appearance:
Muscular latin man in his mid twenties, slick “Elvis” haircut. In costume,
wears a full face red mask and skintight red costume without sleeves, part
spandex and part latex. Strangely enough, he doesn’t seem to sweat half as much
as he ought to in it.
Personality:
Gilberto is a good honest guy who tries to live up to high ideals. He’s very
concerned about honor and being a gentleman, and he’s also very macho, so his
attitude to women is slightly old-fashioned. His heros are Zorro, John Wayne
and the young Elvis.
Background:
Gilberto grew up in the barrios of Los Angeles, a good kid who just wanted to
kep his nose clean, get an honest job, a girl and a car. However, when local
mobsters running a protection racket put their eye on his dad’s garage, they
came head to head with Gilberto’s honor and he ended up beaten within an inch
of his life inside a burning garage.
Just then, the Dawn of the Superium hit. Gilberto survived the fire and
clawed his way out of the wreckage, prepared to wreak a terrible revenge on the
hoodlums who did this to him.
To protect his family, he faked his death and took a secret identity,
based on the mexican wrestling heros of his childhood. As El Diablo, he smashed
the protection rackets and sowed terror in the heart of gangsters throughout
the neighbourhood, who view him as a supernatural figure, a true devil.
Gilberto has since relocated to San Diego, where he works in a car
repair shop. He makes regular visits to LA, both to visit his family and to
continue his work in cleaning the barrios from crime, particularly drugs and
protection.
Pandora (Dr.
Pandora Winters):
Agility 1,
Strength 1, Health 1, Charisma 1, Wits 2, Psyche 1, Protection 1, Speed 1
"Schroedinger's
Boxes" - Matter Transmission 5
Glory (Tracy
Truman):
Agility 1,
Strength 1, Health 1, Charisma 2, Wits 1, Psyche 1, Protection 1, Speed 1
Absorb Energy 4,
Release Energy 4, Remarkable Charisma.
Goblin / Tengu
(Kimiko Miyaki):
Agility 2,
Strength 1, Health 1, Charisma 1, Wits 1, Psyche 1, Protection 1, Speed 1
Amplified Agility,
Shapeshift 5, Regeneration 3
Spook (Julie
Stewart):
Agility 2,
Strength 1, Health 1, Charisma 1, Wits 1, Psyche 1, Protection 1, Speed 1
Invisibility 4,
Intangibility 4, Amplified Agility.
Eagle (Sam
Campbell):
Agility 3,
Strength 2, Health 1, Charisma 1, Wits 3, Psyche 1, Protection 1, Speed 1
Amplified Agility,
Amplified Wits, Flight 5.
Argus/Night
Watchman (Frank Chambers):
Agility 1+1,
Strength 1, Health 1, Charisma 1, Wits 1+1, Psyche 2, Protection 1, Speed 1
Telepathy 4,
Telekinesis 4, Amplified Psyche.
Chimera (Carol
Martin)
Agility 1,
Strength 3, Health 1, Charisma 1, Wits 1, Psyche 1, Protection 3, Speed 1
Stretching 4,
Amplified Toughness & Strength.
Shock (Jimmy
Mendez)
Agility 1,
Strength 1, Health 1, Charisma 1, Wits 1, Psyche 1, Protection 1, Speed 1
Electric Bolts 4,
Control Machines 3, Electromagnetic Shield 3
DeathBoy (Tim
Bains)
Spotty Blond 19
year old student
Agility 1,
Strength 1, Health 1, Charisma 1, Wits 1, Psyche 1,
Protection 1, Speed 1
Death Beams 4,
Force Shield 4, Flight 2
Kid Quake
(Felipe Ramos)
17 year old latin
kid
Agility 1,
Strength 1, Health 1, Charisma 1, Wits 1, Psyche 1,
Protection 3, Speed 4
Blast 3 (effect is
big muddafucking gun that keeps popping into his hands), Amplified toughness
and speed.
AirRaid (Tessa
Williams)
24 year old black
Agility 1,
Strength 1, Health 1, Charisma 1, Wits 1, Psyche 1,
Protection 1, Speed 1
Flight 4, Sonic
Scream 4, Sense Vibrations 2
The game was run
at IGOR (Israeli Gathering of RolePlayers) on the 27th of April
2000, during the 2nd round.
The characters are
going about their daily business: Frank & Tracy taking their daughters to
school, Sam eating breakfast and going to SPICE HQ to train operatives in
martial arts, Kimiko attending class, Julie in a diner. Characters who were
outdoors had a chance on noticing a strange flash in the sky, very high above.
They start hearing reports of a shooting or bombing incident in a mall in Long
Beach. Reports are confused, mentioning multiple incidents in several places,
multiple wounded and dead. There are reports of traffic congestion on highways
going through the area, massive pile-ups, trouble in rescue operations. A TV
report shows images of a collapsed building. A perception (Wits) check let them
notice a human handprint impressed on a concrete support beam.
They speedily
hurried to Long Beach, passing the highway pileup, evacuation operations,
refugees, and making their way down the broadwalk or main street, where they
find deserted streets, smashed and damaged cars, and plenty of corpses.
They could see
smoke rising from the area of the mall/subway station, pick up psychic
impressions of wounded and hurt people nearby. They found an overturned bus
filled with dead people. On the pavement beside it, a suit of clothes was
carefully arranged, as if the person wearing it had simply evaporated (these
are the "remains" of Smog, described below). On Television sets
in stores, a Soap Opera was running, showing a plain-looking woman in a
dressing gown being admired by handsome young men with perfect teeth.
Then shots were
fired at them. Tengu morphed into a snake, Spook turned invisible (and
intangible) and they both began moving towards the area where the shots had
originated. Argus picked up a mental impression from the shooter (Kid Quake).
Then shots were
fired again, from another, far apart position. Argus realized this was a single
gunman. Glory blasted the gunman twice, and both Spook and Eagle fired at him,
but he was only slightly fazed (note: PowerGame lethality has dropped
drastically!).
Argus pinned the
gunman in a telekinetic grip while Tengu noticed another figure approaching, a
spotty-faced blond youth floating in a glowing sphere. The youth fired an
energy blast from his eyes at a mailbox as he approached, incinerating it.
Tengu approached him and he fired on her, shouting "Die, Bitch!". I
believe she ducked.
Meanwhile, Eagle
rammed the telekinetically-trapped gunman, slamming his shoulder into the guy's
jaw. The punk went out like a light, and his gun dissappeared.
Tengu (back in her
Tengu-shape again) morphed an arm to be long and strong and hurled a rock at
the guy in the floating sphere (DeathBoy). The rock penetrated the force
bubble, hit the guy and dropped to the ground, fazing him.
Spook decided to
take more drastic action. Rushing towards DeathBoy, she performed an acrobatic
leap up to his level, stuck her intangible arm and pistol into his force
sphere, and shot him in the gut. Badly wounded, DeathBoy passed out
(deactivating his force field and flight) and dropped to the pavement. Eagle
bandaged him.
Argus scanned the
area with telepathy and picked up a terrifying image, a woman cowering in a
locked apartment being attacked by some amorphous tentacled entity crawling out
of a ventilation duct. The others heard her screams and Eagle flew off to
investigate. Argus sensed the woman's death.
Tengu changed into
a bird and rose up to survey the area. She looked towards the transit mall and
saw a giant naked man waving a bus. They rushed towards the mall.
Using Telepathy,
Argus calms the giant (Beanstalk), who is in fierce pain and suffers from
delusions of having insects swarming all around him. The doors of the mall are
blocked with a smashed car. Glory tries to blast the car aside, and succeeds on
her second attempt. Tengu changes into the form of a pigeon and flies into the
mall through a ventilation entrance. The mall is deserted, but there are people
trapped in the subway station below. Argus, Spook, Glory and Tengu meet at the
subway platform, and find the subway train has derailed, with a partially
crushed compartment blocking the entrance to the tunnel where the other cars
are stuck. Wounded and helpless people are trapped in all the subway cars.
Tengu morphs into
a strong form and rips off the door of the first (derailed) car; the heroes
help people off onto the platform. A man is trapped with his legs crushed under
twisted metal in the corner of the compartment; Spook uses her powers to
dematerialize the piece he's pinned under, freeing him. Argus uses telekinesis
to move the derailed car away from the tunnel mouth, and to pull the other cars
out, allowing the remaining people to escape.
The heroes head up
to ground level and escort the rescued people out onto the street and towards
the evacuation forces. As the ragged crowd moves down the street, the heroes
notice a strange flash in the sky and then a car explodes as the crowd walks
past it. However, Glory manages to use her power and absorbs the energy of the
explosion, preventing anyone from getting hurt.
Meanwhile, Eagle
has found the source of the screaming heard earlier (the house where the woman as
murdered by goo oozing from a ventilation shaft). It’s a four story building
with a manicured front lawn and tidy little apartments, clean and trimmed and
kitchy. However, the top floor has a loft with black-painted interiors and
messy, gothic style decor, and a homemade sign hanging from the window
advertising "Tattoos and Piercings". As he circles the building,
Eagle finds people in one of the flats. A young girl is screaming in terror on
the living room couch as a middle aged man (probably her father) is being
strangled to death by an amorphous blob of skin-colored goop (Chimera).
Crashing through
the living room window, Eagle confronts the goop, aiming his pistols at it,
ordering it to cease and desist, and offering it chocolate in English and
Spanish. Perplexed, the goop seems to loosen its hold on the middle-aged man,
and turn its attention to Eagle. An eye appears on the amorphous surface,
joined by another, and then by another pair of eyes drifting up towards it.
Around the two pairs of eyes, features resolve out of the goop, forming male
and female faces arranged 180 degrees to each other, sharing a single mouth.
The goop bellows and lunges towards Eagle.
Eagle punches (or
shoots, I don't recall) at an eye, but has little effect. He finds himself wrestling
with the goop, which threatens to engulf him. However, once he is sure that the
goop has left its original victim alone and is now focused on him, he triggers
his flight harness and flies out of the room at top speed, heading directly for
the Pacific Ocean, enveloped in goop.
Meanwhile, Argus
has picked up that Eagle is in trouble, and the others have headed his way.
Tengu and Argus fly up the side of the building just as Eagle hurtles out at
top speed, gaining altitude and streaking out of sight, wrapped in liquid skin.
However, while they scratch their heads, Glory spots four other flying figures
approaching rapidly from the North.
The figures are
those of a young black woman (AirRaid), a being of living smoke (Smog), and an
overweight woman in a pink leisure suit with bright red hair (Susan Schwartz)
being carried by a winged blond man resembling an Angel (Gabriel). Tengu flies
up to meet them (in her Tengu shape, but with wings added), but Argus detects
that the group is under the psychic control of the red-haired woman. The
red-haired woman, Susan Schwartz, is a paranoid certain that they are either
violent monsters or evil government agents who are responsible for all these
mutations.
Argus tries to
calm Schwartz telepathically, but this just fuels her paranoia. Tengu tries to
behave in a conciliatory, non-threatening way and to persuade Schwartz that she
means her no harm. However, Schwartz commands her mental slaves to attack the
group.
AirRaid hits Glory
with a sonic blast, but Glory absorbs the sound energy and tosses it right back
at her, K.O.ing her quickly. Next Smog made his move on her, but with a daring
stunt, Glory used her ability to project energy and created a vortex to trap
the smoky superhuman.
(I had conceived
of Glory as able to absorb/release kinetic energy. A less liberal
interpretation of her powers, or stronger limits on what powers can or can not
be defined, would have made the player's life more difficult).
Eventually, the
group overcame Susan Schwartz’s gang, probably by Argus using telekinesis to
pin the flying man’s wings and causing him to drop Ms. Schwartz. Tengu tried to
grab her and save her from the fall, but failed. Without her leadership, the
rest of the gang quickly dispersed.
Meanwhile, Eagle
is over the Ocean, covered with goop (Chimera). He rotates at high speed,
exerting a powerful centrifugal force that throws the shapeshifter off of him
and into the sea below. He turns around and flies back to the embattled city.
Passing over the
city from above, he spots someone at the roof of a tall building (the civic
center, I think). Zooming towards the figure, he confronts Pandora Winters, and
manages to stop her from ducking into the building.
He contacts Argus
telepathically, and the rest of the gang converges on Pandora. Argus uses his
telepathy to discover her dastardly plot. The heroes learn she has an
high-altitude balloon over the area, dropping miniature superium bombs that
explode in the atmosphere. This (+ stress) is what is turning people into
metahumans.
Pandora pulls out
a matchbox and opens it, releasing a blinding cloud of smoke. Under its cover,
she makes her getaway. The heroes are left to stop the balloon from releasing
any further bombs. Eagle and Argus fly up and disable the bombs, causing them
to explode harmlessly over the ocean (or simply diabling their mechanism and
crashing the balloon into the ocean.
The End.
Powergame is the creation and property of Mikko
Kauppinen and can be found at: http://www.uta.fi/~trmika/gameindex.html.
The setting of this adventure is the Powerforce Universe, created by Marcelo
Sarsur, (msarsur@hotmail.com),
which is available at: http://powerforce.tripod.com.