Super Hero Role Playing

This post is way longer than I wanted it to be. I was going to fill this blog with wargame battle reports, so I thought, why not a rpg battle report. Oh well.

Last night we played Derek’s Mutants and Masterminds game and as always it was a well thought out and interesting game. The heroes are played by me, Alex, Stefan and Mike and in no particular order are:

Air Fist: a powerful telepath and psychokineser.

Caliber: A high tech weapons and equipment gunfighter.

Warspite: A Three meter tall, flying armoured suit.

Surfer: A drug induced body control specialist.

The group has been hired by billionaire Douglas Reed to form the core of a team of super powered warriors, to combat the growing menace of what the government has termed, ‘People of Mass Destruction’. The main antagonist is known as Thunderbird in the press and is a robotic suit of power armour that was the first prototype of the Warspite suit.

Thunderbird (who has recently taken to calling himself the First Born and indicating that Warspite is his younger brother) has developed a nanite that can control animals, making them very aggressive; it even works on humans. Luckily the nanites are detectible under UV light, so the group has so far been able to contain any microscopic invasions of their HQ.

Last night’s session revolved around us stumbling around in the dark, trying to figure out how to track down Thunderbird. In the comic books there is always some kind of weird science way for the heroes to track down the villain, but we are stumped. Our only lead was the word ‘Collider’, that Air Fist was able to pull from the mind of an unwitting pawn of Thunderbird. When combined with the image of Northern San Francisco, we worked out that Thunderbird was interested in the particle accelerator at Berkley.

The three human agents (posing as potential investors) entered the science complex (while Warspite loitered high above) to talk to those in charge and find out why Thunderbird would be interested in the collider. Outside, Warspite’s pilot was in direct mental link with Air Fist and was feeding the appropriate scientific questions to him…Warspite has a science background.

Out of nowhere an invisible force began attack Warspite, causing him to spin out of control toward the ground and severe the mental link with Air Fist.

Air Fist and Surfer left Calibre talking to the real scientist and exited the building quickly to help the beleaguered Warspite, who had managed to control his descent enough to avoid crashing. It turned out that the invisible attacker of Warspite was a being with the ability to control air and as Air Fist and Surfer attempted to help their armoured friend, a man suffused with light and breathing fire attacked them.

Meanwhile, Caliber left his meeting and pulled the fire alarm so that the civilians in the complex could escape the super powered battle that was just beginning. He then ran around to his vehicle to retrieve his weapons and armour so that he could help his friends. Warspite seemed to have the air being in a bear hug and was literally squeezing the life out of him, so his comrades turned their attention to the flame belcher.

Surfer knelt down and placed his hand upon the asphalt of the car park and moments later, dagger like, stone fingers erupted from the ground beneath the flame wielder, knocking him down and stunning him. It seemed that the fight was almost done; until the sound of splintering trees announced the arrival of the enemy reserve.

Smashing his way out of the nicely sculpted garden stepped a large man, who seemed to be chiselled entirely out of rock. He immediately headed toward Air Fist, who seeing this new threat, grabbed the brute with the power of his mind and began to squeeze, causing the big man to stumble. It seemed that Air Fist had the better of this new assailant, but then the stone man steadied himself and then picked up the pace toward the psychic hero.

With Warspite now on the ground and distracted by his own fight and Surfer moving to make sure the fire wielder was out of the battle, Calibre realised it was up to him. He could see the strain on Air Fist’s face as he put everything he had into stopping the onrushing juggernaut; but it wasn’t going to be enough. Pausing in his quest for his weapons, Calibre pulled out his neural dampener, a device invented by his brother, that was designed to temporarily disrupt individually targeted super powers. Taking aim at the large stone man, he thumbed the control stud. A thrumming noise reverberated across the car park and the big man went down.

Clearly in pain, the big stone warrior struggled back to his feet as Calibre slid over the bonnet of a nearby car to get to his own equipment more quickly. Opening the door, he snatched up his paired pistols in time to see Air Fist go down as if he had been shot. Blood sprayed from his friend’s side as Calibre watched the seemingly unstoppable rock coated assailant turn toward him. Air fist slumped to the ground, all attempts to deal with the fight out of his mind as he attempted to staunch the bleeding from the large gash above his right hip.

The stone man leaned down and gouged out a handful of blue black asphalt as easily as if it were wet sand. With a twist of his torso and a flick of the wrist, he sent the debris he had gathered spinning in Calibre’s direction. With barely a moment to spare, the gunfighter dropped to his belly, the car park fragments imbedding themselves in the panels of the car behind him. So that’s what happened to Air Fist, thought Calibre. Taking aim, he fired off a quick double shot, scoring a hit on the left shoulder of the titan and spinning him around and down out of sight behind more cars.

From the western side of the car park, water began to pour into the already debris strewn area of battle. From out of the pooling liquid a woman grew as if she was made of water.

“You were warned!” she yelled as she made a double armed sweeping gesture toward Warspite and the weakening air creature still in his grasp. A Tsunami of water engulfed the struggling pair and swept them aside.

The state of play had changed dramatically in the last few moments thought Surfer, as he stood up from the fire wielder, now writhing in agony from a low blow. Warspite was gone. Swept away by a momentary torrent of water. Air Fist was down and it seemed only barely managing to stem the flow of blood from his injury. At least he had Calibre he thought as he rounded to face the remaining two villains.

Putting his hand to the ground he made his sharp, stone shaped fingers, lance upward beneath the rock armoured man who had proven so dangerous. Unnaturally resilient skin turned the jagged finger shaped weapons as if they were paper and the man responded by stamping his foot, sending a seismic shock through the ground that sent the pair reeling. The liquid woman advanced menacingly to stand beside her compatriot and gloat over the coming victory.

With a sickening thud, the body of the air creature landed at the feet of the water woman, accompanied by the amplified voice of Warspite,

“So comes the end to all the tools of Thunderbird.”

With a deeply vibrating hum, his gravity rifle discharged, hitting the woman in the solar plexus and sending her to the ground unconscious. The combined attacks of Calibre and Surfer were enough to distract the last attacker, the man made of stone, as Air fist managed to stop the blood flow from his torn open side. Gathering the last remnants of his psychic reserve, he unleashed a powerful blast of pure mind energy at the brute who was already reeling under the relentless assaults of the Calibre and Surfer.

With a thud, the stone giant collapsed to the ground. The heroes were breathing heavily and one of them required medical attention, but they had bested their foes.