Making a Hat...

One of the unfortunate things about living on a farm is that not all the animals that live with you are welcome. I'm not talking about the foxes and coyotes; they don't live here, they live way off in the woods and just come by when they are hungry for chicken nuggets. I'm not even talking about the raccoons, although we've had a few run-ins with them over the years.

No, I'm talking about one critter in particular. Or, in this case, three of them.

That's right, three of them. A couple of years ago I caught a skunk in a homemade trap and released it a couple of miles away from our place. But I learned that skunks will always find their way back to the home they have chosen for themselves. Which in this case was our barn. And so it did.

We hadn't had any issues with skunks showing up for quite a while, though. Not until a couple of months ago, that is. Our barn cats couldn't eat their own food without the big skunk showing up and scarfing it all down. So, I kept trying to move the food where the skunk couldn't get to it but the cats could. Eventually, I finally settled on putting the food on top of the empty rabbit hutch. The cats can get up there; we named the first one Spider-Cat for a reason. Her kids can climb as well as she can.

Now, skunks do serve one useful purpose: Predators stay the hell away from skunk-infested barns. So we haven't had to worry about foxes showing up like we did earlier in the year when a single fox came in and took out no fewer than eighteen of our birds before we chased it off. But in the end, I don't want my barn smelling like skunk. So, believing there was just the one skunk, we planned to get rid of it.

Over the past several months, we had someone coming over to help out with the chickens while I recovered from my heart surgery. She was very interested in having a hat made of skunk fur, and it takes three skunks to make a hat. So, we called someone we know from the farmer's market who is a professional trapper. She came over and set up the trap for us. It took a few days (and two misfires with extremely pissed-off cats being trapped instead of the skunk), but we finally caught the stinker. Off it went with our trapper friend; what she did to take care of the skunk is not anything I want to know about. All I cared about was that the skunk was gone.

Except that the next day, I saw the skunk. The big one, with the massive stripes down its back. I realized that the skunk we trapped was actually a smaller one; a younger one. Great. Now we had a family of skunks to deal with.

Since trapping costs a hefty sum, we bought a trap ourselves. I assembled it and put it out in the barn the night I saw the skunk in the chicken coop. In the morning, I checked the trap...and big momma was in there. Skunk Two, bagged and tagged. The trapper came out that day and took the skunk away. Sure enough, though...

Two nights later, I saw the third skunk. We got our trap back today, and I set it up this evening when I put the chickens to bed. I checked it a few hours later to make sure there was no cat in there, and I was rewarded with the unblinking stare of a trapped skunk. That's three. We'll call the trapper again in the morning so she can come and pick up the third one, and our chicken helper will finally get her hat.

There are those who might think I should feel guilt about trapping these skunks, knowing their ultimate fate. Well, I tried letting one off with a warning, and it didn't take. So, there are consequences to breaking my rules, and the skunks will now have to live (or not) with those consequences. Such is life on the farm.

Gilded Age Heroes: Bloodhound

Alright, this is a book I published quite a while ago and haven't gotten back to yet. It's a collection of stories linked together by a common thread: Steampunk superheroes. It's a mix of comic-book heroes and pulp stories, with people having strange abilities and powers.

The superheroes in our comics obviously didn't get started until Superman showed up in 1938; he was the first and original. But there are later stories such as the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen that take the idea of literary heroes with special abilities to an earlier time. I chose to set my stories 30 years before Superman, starting in 1908. The trigger for this sudden change in the world? Easy: The Tunguska event in Siberia.

Since I just completed a Let's Read of the 1st edition Champions game, I thought that this would be a great way to both show off the game's characteristics and hype up my book at the same time. Yes, I'm shameless that way.

So, today I'm going to write up one of these heroes in the 1e Champions format. I might do some of the others as well over the next little bit; we'll see what I have time for as we get close to Christmas.

BLOODHOUND

Val Char Cost

15 STR         5

18 DEX 24

15 CON 10

10 BODY 0

13 INT         3

15 EGO 10

15 PRE         5

12 COM 1

7 PD         4

6 ED         3

4 SPD         12

6 REC 0

30 END 0

26 STUN 0

Total 77

Cost Powers

9 +3 Enhanced Vision

10 Ultraviolet Vision

9 +3 Enhanced Hearing

10 Ultrasonic Hearing

15 Parabolic Hearing

5 Discriminatory Smell

15 Tracking

5 Climbing 12 or less

5 Detective Work 12 or less

10 Find Weakness 11 or less

15 Martial Arts (Street Fighting)

10 +2 levels with any PER rolls

5 Stealth 12 or less

123 Total

Pts Disadvantages

20 Hunted by Rasputin, 11 or less

15 Physical Lim: Sensory overload

20 Psych Lim: Disturbed by bright lights, loud noises, etc.

10 Psych Lim: Sucker for a sob story

15 Secret ID: Harold Douglas

20 Susceptibility: Flash attacks 3D6, Common

100 Total

Point Totals:    Char 77 + Powers 123 = 200 = 100 Base + 100 Disads

Background:

    Harold Douglas was one step up from a hobo, traveling from place to place across America looking for a big score, or even just a place to fit in. He spent a few years riding the rails, then working in various mining towns before settling down in the small but growing city of Los Angeles in 1908.

    In the summer of that year, however, his life changed dramatically. He grew incredibly sensitive to bright lights and loud noises, and the smell of the city was nearly incapacitating. He couldn't stomach the taste of beer anymore, and his clothes felt raspy and rough despite being made of the softest cotton. He found himself unable to work due to the constant migraines and overwhelming sensory input, and in desperation locked himself in his room for three weeks until he ran out of food and had to leave.

    Unable to handle the sensory overload, he collapsed in the street. Two young Mexican boys picked him up and drove him in a 'borrowed' car to a convent where a nun was known to have miraculous healing powers. However, Sister Juanita was unable to cure him of his affliction.

    Undeterred, the nun offered to help Harold get his senses under control; two months later, he was able to walk outside. Darkness was no barrier; he could see as well at night as he could during the day. He returned to Los Angeles and discovered a valuable use for his abilities, tracking down a kidnapping ring and returning a young child to his parents. The grateful father offered Harold a reward, and staked Douglas to sufficient funds to start a private investigator's business.

Powers/Abilities:

    Harold Douglas, aka the Bloodhound, is a fit but otherwise normal man who has seen and done it all. He learned to brawl in the mining towns, and got quite good at it. His extraordinary senses give him a tremendous advantage in many situations; he can hear conversations in a room a hundred feet away, can see in the dark, and can identify people by their smell and follow them for hours. He's not a trained detective, but his senses compensate for his lack of experience, allowing him to find clues that elude even elite investigators. However, his senses are easily overloaded, causing him pain if the input is too great.

*********************

Alright, there you have it, the first Gilded Age character writeup. If you're interested, please click on the picture above to go to the Amazon page where you can find the book. It's only in eBook format at the moment, but that will change soon enough. Take care, and I'll see you all later.

Book Review: The Last Spike (1971)

Alright, this is the sequel to The National Dream which I reviewed not too long ago. That book was all about the prep work over the entire decade of the 1870s that laid the foundation for building the Canadian Pacific Railroad, the longest transcontinental railroad in the world at the time. This book is about the actual construction and the political and economic machinations that went on during the four years that the railroad was being built. And it is a wild story.

A quick summary, taken from the Penguin Books website:

In the four years between 1881 and 1885, Canada was forged into one nation by the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway. The Last Spike reconstructs the incredible story of how some 2,000 miles of steel crossed the continent in just five years — exactly half the time stipulated in the contract. Pierre Berton recreates the adventures that were part of this vast undertaking: the railway on the brink of bankruptcy, with one hour between it and ruin; the extraordinary land boom of Winnipeg in 1881–1882; and the epic tale of how William Van Horne rushed 3,000 soldiers over a half-finished railway to quell the Riel Rebellion.

Dominating the whole saga are the men who made it all possible — a host of astonishing characters: Van Horne, the powerhouse behind the vision of a transcontinental railroad; Rogers, the eccentric surveyor; Onderdonk, the cool New Yorker; Stephen, the most emotional of businessmen; Father Lacombe, the black-robed voyageur; Sam Steele, of the North West Mounted Police; Gabriel Dumont, the Prince of the Prairies; more than 7,000 Chinese workers, toiling and dying in the canyons of the Fraser Valley; and many more — land sharks, construction geniuses, politicians, and entrepreneurs — all of whom played a role in the founding of the new Canada west of Ontario.

That sums it up more succinctly than I could. Below is the famous picture of the last spike being driven in by Donald Smith.

I really enjoyed this book; it is a great read. Berton is a master storyteller who makes the most common of men look like extraordinary heroes in what they do, even if it's just laying track across the trackless wastes of the Canadian Shield or blasting holes in the side of a mountain to make a tunnel. And he doesn't stint on the big names involved, either; Sir John A. MacDonald, Prime Minister of Canada at the time, spent most of the four years of construction trying desperately to find funding to keep the railway afloat. Had he failed at any time, it was likely that the railroad would never have been finished, at least not under Canadian control. Berton makes you feel the desperation and stress the PM was under, as well as the triumphant relief when the railroad funding was finally secured.

For students of Canadian history, I heartily recommend both of these books. They were written over fifty years ago; some of the men Berton writes about would have still been alive when he was a boy, and it's entirely possible that he met some of them in person. If not, he certainly would have been able to meet their children and grandchildren to get further details. After all, Berton wrote this book exactly 100 years after the saga began in 1871. In fact, he refers to the '70s and '80s in this book with the implicit understanding that he's talking about the 1870s and 1880s, simply because the 1970s and 80s hadn't happened yet.

Next on my reading list is Berton's Klondike, which tells the tale of the last gold rush in North America. I've gotten a few chapters in so far, and it's just as interesting. Even moreso, I think, because Berton was actually born in the Yukon only a quarter-century after the gold rush, so he certainly would have encountered some of the people he writes about. When I'm done, I'll let you know what I thought of it.

Champions 1e: Reflections

Alright, that completes our read-through of the 1st edition Champions game. And now, some thoughts on the game.

First of all, it's interesting to see how many similarities there are between the 1st and 4th, and even 5th, editions. The core essentials of the game didn't change at all. Converting a character between editions isn't difficult at all, thanks to the consistency. That doesn't mean nothing changes, obviously; point costs for powers, skills and disadvantages did change from edition to edition, and Elemental Controls and Multipowers changed several times in an effort to get them right. But for the most part, a character created with these rules can be easily updated to a later edition with minimal effort. That is a good thing.

There are a few things that I felt were missing from these rules. Not just some powers and skills, such as physical illusions (which would appear later on as Images), or the ability to transform something into something else; these would show up later on as well.

But I'm talking about things that, for a lot of people, would be considered essential to a superhero roleplaying game. What about a headquarters? How do you build one? Does the team have a vehicle? There are no rules for designing one in this edition, and there wouldn't be until the Champions II supplement that came out after the 2nd edition rules.

What about your character's secret identity and their job? Are you a mild-mannered reporter? If so, how good are you at your job? The skills list is quite small, and mostly covers ways to simulate Batman and other street-level martial arts heroes. But it does nothing for your secret ID. Again, this stuff would show up in later editions and supplements, but it does feel like an important oversight.

There are a couple of references in the rules to Special Effects, and a reference to a section discussing them. That section is not in this book, anywhere. Definitely an oversight that they corrected in the 2nd edition the following year. Special Effects are different from the Actual Effects of a Power. For example, Starfire can blast cosmic energy from her hands. Human Torch can throw fire. Cyclops has eyebeams. Green Lantern has a power ring that can create a huge boxing glove. Iron Man's armor includes repulsors. Storm can throw lightning. All of these function as an Energy Blast attack, but they all have different special effects. So, the description of the power explains how it works; the special effects are what it looks like. It's a very elegant way to avoid including a long list of powers such as 'lightning bolt', 'ice blast', 'fire blast', etc. They're all Energy Blasts at their core. This is a great concept, and one that really helps the game shine. In the 5th edition, there would be rules covering the different special effects and possible advantage or limitations based on the real-world way the special effect would work, but that was never really necessary. 5th edition got very, very wordy on that sort of stuff.

Here, if the section on special effects had been included, it would have made this 1st edition close to perfect. It's still an excellent way to play superheroes, and it has stood the test of time as the cream of the superhero RPG crop.

Would I run a 1st edition game? Probably not, but then I've got the 4th edition books, all of them, so I'm more comfortable running and playing that edition over any other. But this edition is a great peek at what Champions would eventually become, an embryonic form that has incredible potential. Even though some powers are not yet included, the variety of possible characters with this ruleset is just about unlimited. You could create Superman (from the golden age, or the invincible 60s-70s version, or the Post-Crisis John Byrne version) from these rules. You could create the X-Men. You could create the Justice League or the Avengers, although it would require a much larger number of points to do these characters justice. However, considering how all of these characters got started in the comics, it's fitting that you could create the earliest versions of Superman, Batman, Hawkman, Human Torch, Sub-Mariner, Captain America, and others with relative ease from this earliest version of the game rules.

Overall, it was a fun read-through. It was different from my earlier Traveller Let's Read, simply because unlike Traveller, I am quite familiar with Champions and have been for about 35 years. So it was more a case of 'what did this game I love used to look like?' rather than 'what is the game that I've never seen before?' And it's not 80,000 words or so like the Traveller one was, simply because there was only one book here, and only 56 pages (four of which were dedications, copyright info, and table of contents stuff). So of course it was going to be shorter.

What will I do next? I was thinking of creating a few characters (other than Nightshade) with these rules just to see how flexible this early edition really is. I remember some characters I created decades ago for a different game (Villains & Vigilantes), and it would be fun to revisit the ones I remember. So, maybe I'll do some of that. Otherwise, I've got other stuff to go over as well: Book and music reviews, for example. Who knows what tomorrow shall bring?

Until then, face front, true believers, and Excelsior.

Let's Read Champions 1e (pgs 55-56)

Finally! Two pages left, but both are short enough that I'm going to do them both today and get this done. I'll do a final entry talking about my overall impressions of these rules, but for now, let's just finish this off.

The first thing I noticed on page 55 is that we actually have art that fits one of the characters: Shrinker! Yes, we have a cool drawing that visualizes the Shrinking power. I mean, sure, it could be Growth, if you look at it the other way, but on the previous page there's a villain with Shrinking power, so let's go with the obvious. It's nice to actually see some character art that fits what we've seen.

Alright, there's one more character here, but it's not a villain or a hero; it's an agent. Specifically, an agent of VIPER, the bad-guy version of UNTIL. They are mentioned in the background of several characters, such as Crusader and Pulsar, but other than that we've had absolutely no information about this organization. So, here is one of their flunkies. He's almost the same as the UNTIL agent listed earlier; he's stronger, but not as fast or tough. He's a better hand-to-hand fighter, but not as good with his blaster rifle as the UNTIL agent. VIPER is an international organization of top underworld and espionage figures. They hire a lot of mercenaries, including villains, and also hire out their muscle to the highest bidder. VIPER is basically a combination of Hydra from Marvel Comics and SPECTRE from the James Bond series.

VIPER is a mainstay of Champions, existing in every single edition. However, it wasn't until the 4th edition book VIPER that they became something of an actual threat. In fact, once that book came out, VIPER disappeared from a lot of players' Hunteds because of how utterly dangerous the organization became. For now, however, they're just mooks to be mowed down by heroes when they are feeling down on their luck.

The last page is the Afterword. The authors promise to produce more items (a promise they would keep, on a somewhat irregular schedule, for several years) such as adventures, books of villains, and supplements. They also solicit artwork, including character pics and scenes from actual play. Not to mention, they invite new Powers, Skills, Disadvantages, Power Advantages, Limitations, Weapons, Armor, and anything else that might be viewed as necessary. I know that vehicles and bases were a missing piece of these rules, but they would eventually show up.

And, aside from one final piece of art depicting whom I presume is the hero Icestar (mentioned in the Dedications on page 2), that is it for this book. 64 pages, including the eight character sheets in the middle, and we have what is essentially a complete superhero roleplaying game. Imagine that: A complete game in a mere 64 pages. It can be done; many of the early RPGs were on that sort of a tight page count. Today, 64 pages doesn't even cover character creation in most RPGs, let alone combat or campaigning.

So, as I said, I'll do a final overview and collection of my thoughts on this book next time. Let me know what you thought of it, too; I look forward to your comments.

Let's Read Champions 1e (pg 54)

Okay, we're just about through this puppy. Today we'll cover the last two actual supervillains in the book. The first one is Pulsar. Another no-name Secret ID type, Pulsar was a VIPER agent (more on them next time) who was a volunteer for an experiment that went south. In the explosion, he became Pulsar and turned on VIPER for turning him into a supervillain. You would think he'd be grateful; I imagine the perks of being a supervillain working for an international criminal organization would be way better than being a rank-and-file agent, aka superhero cannon fodder. But some people just don't handle change well.

Pulsar is quick, tough, and difficult to bring down. He's got a powerful NND Energy Blast for 7D6 that is only stopped by Force Fields, and he's quite proficient with it (½ END, +3 levels). He's also a trained hand-to-hand fighter with Martial Arts, and can switch between villain and civilian identities instantly. He's ridiculously overconfident, and does not handle insults well at all; he might even go berserk if you hit him with a particularly good zinger. VIPER is hunting him, of course, and so is UNTIL for his work as a VIPER agent. He takes double damage from physical attacks, and suffers from a spate of bad luck (3D6 Unluck).

Pulsar is another one of those classic villains who has definitely been in every edition of the game. He's a natural skunk that players will love taking down. And in this version, he's actually pretty vulnerable; he doesn't yet have the Force Field power he would have in later editions, and with his vulnerability he's going to do down hard from being punched in the face. Still, every campaign needs a Pulsar.

Our last villain(ess) is the notorious Shrinker. This time we do have a Secret ID: Diana Whitworth. Another experimental transformation in a lab, she gained the power to shrink, and she can both fly and fire energy bolts when she's shrunken down. In a neat little twist, she used to be a hero and part of a New York-based team. The team had issues and temporarily broke up, and she fell into difficulties until she turned to crime to get out of her various jams. Now she enjoys making a fool out of heroes, especially the ones who used to be her teammates. Needless to say, she is hunted by that team as well as the FBI. She's very vulnerable to poison and chemical attacks due to her unique biochemistry, but it's almost impossible to even find her when she doesn't want to be seen. Her Shrinking is 5 levels, meaning she's at -10 to be spotted and +10 DCV. Her physical stats aren't all that impressive, but if you ever saw the Ant-Man movie and the stuff both Scott and Hank Pym could do, you'll know just how dangerous she can be.

So, that's our list of stock villains. Including the sample characters, there's Ogre, Armadillo, Dragonfly, Green Dragon, Howler, Icicle, Mechanon, Pulsar, and Shrinker. That's nine villains plus two heroes (Crusader and Starburst) to help get a campaign started. Not a bad place to begin, I think.

Okay, there are two pages left, and I'll cover both of them next time. Until then, keep the faith, True Believers!

Let's Read Champions 1e (pgs 52-53)

Yes, I'm going to cover two pages today and three characters, because page 52 only has one character ana piece of art that doesn't even match that character. In fact, it looks more like I would expect Starburst to look. A flying guy in a dramatic pose with a cape? Yeah, if it wasn't for the fact that I've seen future editions that included a drawing of Starburst, I would peg this as being him.

However, the character on the page isn't Starburst; it's Howler, our very first female Champions character. Like Dragonfly, Howler isn't given a civilian name even though she has a Secret Identity. She's a sonic energy projector; she can fly, has a Sonic Scream and a Sonic Shield, and her powers come from an alien amulet, Green Lantern-style. She's hunted by the FBI and the police, and she's vulnerable to bullets. She's afraid of guns and of aliens and other strange creatures. Unlike Green Lantern, she isn't a hero; her mind was twisted by the encounter, so she became a supervillain. I don't know if she made it to the 6th edition, but she did make it into 5th and ever other edition prior to that.

On the next page, we get our second female Champions character: Icicle. She's built on only 185 points, and aside from her DEX and CON she's pretty average in terms of her characteristics. Again, no Secret ID name given. Her powers are basically Iceman's starting suite, built in an Elemental Control; her three powers are an Ice Ram (EB), an Ice Slide (Running), and Ice Armor. She's hunted by a New York supergroup, and is vulnerable to fire and lasers. She's a teenage runaway whose father nearly killed her for the crime of being a mutant. So, they're going with the X-Men background in the core game. Well, I suppose. It wasn't completely overdone in 1981 the way it is today.

Ah, here we go...Mechanon. The ultimate bad guy in many campaigns, Mechanon is a robot who was originally supposed to be an LA superteam's security system until his programming went haywire and he decided that his goal in life was to exterminate all organic beings. Oops. Someone rolled an 18 on their Computer Programming roll on that one. Mechanon is a megalomaniacal robot with extreme paranoia that has tons of contingency bodies hidden away in case his current one is destroyed. And every time he is rebuilt, he is given a defense against whatever destroyed him. That's inconvenient. Anyway, Mechanon is build on a whopping 345 points, which is a lot for this edition of the game. He's got a 60 STR, 40 CON, 65 STUN, fully resistant 30 PD and ED, a SPD of 7, a 10D6 EB, flight, flash defense, and 2 Overall Levels. He's hunted by UNTIL and the supergroup that built him, and he's both overconfident and, as mentioned before, a megalomaniac.

Mechanon is built to take on an entire team of heroes by himself. It's funny to see this now, since by 5th edition, 345 points is a beginning superhero's point total (actually 350), and this version of Mechanon is a pansy by comparison. Of course, in later editions he gets plenty more points (4th edition has him somewhere around 770, as I recall, and his 5th and 6th edition versions are even more ridiculous). Still, as it stands Mechanon is probably capable of taking on a full team of 1e characters, assuming they aren't overloaded with Disadvantages to give them stupid amounts of points. I will note that Mechanon is the only character thus far that is given a special 'Villain Bonus' of points to enable him to buy all those powers and abilities without having to take crippling Disads for points. So, that is a handy device. I know we'll see it in other characters in other products, but I doubt we'll see them on the last couple of pages.

And there you have it. Two distaff villains and an uber-villain for your pleasure. Take them on if you dare. Well, the first two should be manageable. But Mechanon...yikes. See you next time.

Let's Read Champions 1e (pg 51)

Okay, we've got two more characters to meet today. First up: Dragonfly. He was an UNTIL scientist working on DNA experiments with insect genes, because every scientist in comic-book history was an absolute idiot when it came to doing DNA experiments. At least he didn't dose himself on purpose; an accident is responsible. Anyway, thanks to the magic of comic-book science, the experiment serum that got all over him during an electrical explosion didn't just dye his skin green or give him cancer; instead, he turned into a human insectoid with wings and an Energy Blast. He's hunted by both UNTIL and a Chicago supergroup, takes double the stun from Physical attacks, and otherwise is having a rough time of it. He ended up as a villain, to the surprise of no one. Although, in 3rd edition they actually gave all of the sample characters a 'hero option'. It didn't catch on past that edition, though. Too bad; there were some interesting ideas there.

Next up is Green Dragon. He's just a bully with exceptional martial arts abilities. And he has a SPD of 7, which will definitely get your attention. This dude is fast. He bought +3" of running, giving him a base movement of 9". With a SPD of 7, that means he can, if he so chooses, move as fast as 63"/turn, or 126 m. in 12 seconds. That's Olympic sprinter speed. That's Usain Bolt's level. So yeah, Green Dragon is fast. But he's also a deadly martial artist and a master of disguise. He's hunted by UNTIL, the CIA and the FBI; not a popular guy. He's Chinese, has a younger sister that he protects (despite her not wanting to be protected), and has a tendency to go berserk in combat. Here he is called 'Aaron Chow', whereas his later appearances his name was Deng Chow. And here, he's mixed-race (Oriental dad, Occidental mom), and his parents were killed in Hong Kong thanks to a bad villain's insidious plan.

So, that's where we are with these two; they're two iconic Champions villains that have lasted through multiple editions, although I don't know if Dragonfly made it past 4th edition. Green Dragon definitely did, though. And that's it for me for tonight. Next time, I'll be doing just one character, so I might actually do two pages to get it to three characters to make it more interesting. Until then, stay strong and fight on!

Happy Birthday, Peanut!

God help me, I have two teenagers in the house now. Happy Birthday to the sweetest boy I've ever known. Autistic or not, he is a bundle of unconditional love who is very much into Lego, puzzles, and coloring. He has certainly come a long way, and he has been one of the greatest blessings in my life.

Here he was at the age of three, before we knew about his autism. Big Brother Ashton was teaching him how to run a riding lawn mower. Actually, that's a tractor with an excavator bucket on the back. Ashton has always been into that sort of thing. Garrett always had fun with Ashton; they are very, very close.

I don't take a lot of pictures of my family, but the ones I do have are precious. Garrett means the world to me, and I am so grateful he's been in my life for thirteen whole years. I used to write a daily journal for him, but unfortunately our precious dog Raven ate the flash drive on which it was stored when he was only a couple of years old. Ah, well.

Happy Birthday, Peanut, and may you have many, many more as fun as this one was.

Let's Read Champions 1e (pg 50)

Okay, we're into the sample characters now. Or rather, the sample villains (with one exception). As I said last time, these are iconic characters that almost all made it through all six editions of the game relatively untouched. The fifth edition versions were given more comprehensive writeups, but overall these characters are stalwarts of the Champions game.

We start off with the one non-villain sample character: An Agent of UNTIL, the United Nations Tribunal on International Law. These are the good-guy agents, the Champions equivalent of S.H.I.E.L.D. The agent is a standard one, built on a mere 50 pts with improved DEX and CON and a SPD of 3. They get Martial arts and a skill level with guns. As normals, they don't have to pay for their equipment, so they are assigned a simple 5D6 blaster rifle and a 6 PD/6 ED bulletproof vest with an Activation roll of 11 or less. No disads required, and they're done.

UNTIL is, as mentioned, the 'good-guy' agency that can act as a liaison for PCs; they have a headquarters in the UN building in New York, and they fight against international crime organizations such as VIPER (a not-so-subtle clone of HYDRA). These agents are the basic squads sent to provide backup to heroes; they're combat types. Later editions would include more detail about the organization, but all we get here is their original purpose was to watchdog countries with nuclear weapons, and it expanded to becoming the super-spy agency under the command of Paraguayan ex-freedom fighter Major Martinez. So, they're a very useful group to have around.

Now we get our first actual villain: Armadillo. Randall Gordon was a junior Engineer for a contractor on the "Armadillo" suit; he saw the suit's potential quite rapidly, and stole it for himself piecemeal to hide the theft. The armor gives him a lot of characteristic boosts (he's basically useless without the armor) such as STR 50 and CON 28, as well as an Energy Blast, full Damage Resistance, an HTH Killing Attack, Tunneling and Life Support. He's hunted by a Chicago superteam, a Canadian superteam, and the organization he stole the armor from; he takes 2x STUN from Ego and Sonic attacks, has a secret identity, and is paranoid about the suit being stolen. Since pretty much everything is bought with his armor, he gets massive cost breaks on his point totals; he's built on only 223 points total. Even his INT is boosted by the armor, which is weird. But, it's there, so we'll roll with it. His most common function in a game is as an errand boy for organized crime, and of course fighting superheroes who try to stop said organized crime.

So, that's our two characters for today. Well, one character and a representative of a whole organization. Armadillo is a bit of a twit, to be honest; as I recall in later editions, he has a tendency to announce his every move, making it easy to counter him once you know what he's capable of. Still, a 50 STR and fully resistant 24 PD and ED makes him a tough customer for beginning heroes, so be careful around him. He might just take you down.

And that's it for now. Tomorrow, we have more characters, both with a dragon motif.