File: 1348250449445.jpg-(1.46 MB, 1600x1162, Villain Quest Gang Map 2.jpg)

When there is no more bandwidth in Hell, TwirledMustache will surf the web again!

THIS QUEST IS NEWBIE FRIENDLY The summary below, in addition to catching up longtime players since my computer has been out for close to two weeks and took the quest with it, should also let totally new players participate without reading anything from the archives at all. And probably if I don't get some new players this quest won't make it, since my long hiatus has undoubtedly lost me some of my old ones.

Anyways, you are Smith Sterling, the Iron Master! Swordsman, a new super hero backed by the questionably ethical EdenTech corporation (currently undergoing congressional hearings over a chemical weapons research facility in a densely populated area and likely to become defunct in the near future), capable of immense power and with a curiously exact vendetta with you for unknown purposes, solidified his antagonism towards you by killing Kestrel, a super hero you'd been tempting to switch sides for some time and who had been showing fairly strong signs of turning to Team Red at the time of her death. This violated an unwritten but strictly enforced protocol among the supers community, in which heroes and villains alike do not kill each other except under exceptional circumstances, so you and the rest of Swordsman's now numerous enemies have basically free reign to get rid of him permanently and by almost any means necessary. Of course, this came in the wake of a superpowered brawl you escalated into full-on urban warfare between your robotic minions and local SWAT teams, which means your reputation among certain members of Team Blue as public enemy number one is certainly not fading fast.

For reference: Your gang is the Iron Guard on the map, and the cops are everywhere but mostly impotent due to an incompetent police chief.

THE IRON MASTER
Health: 1 (3)
Power: 3 (9)
Resources: 19
XP: 2

Athletics: 1
Cunning: 3
Technology: 4
Insight: 2
Observation: 3
Nefariousness: 2
Stealth: 1

Powers: AI, Terminators, SynthSkin, Model T, Mechs, Mobile Dolls, Ghost Whisperer

>Link to rules (including powers list): http://pastebin.com/kG7BnFkH

Minions:

Rica Rivera at H2 P0 A3 C1 T2 I2 O3 N2 S4
Powers: Deathless

4 Command mechs at H6 P6 A6 C0 T0 I0 O5 N0 S6
Powers: Super speed, Super durability, terminators, model T, enhanced vision

120 Warrior bots at H4 A4 C0 T1 I0 O3 N0 S4
10 Stealth bots at H0 A0 C2 T4 I2 O4 N0 S4
10 Pigeon bots at H3 A3 C0 T4 I0 O0 N0 S5
Steve the Android at H1 A1 C4 T2 I4 O2 N0 S2
Julio Pedone at H3 A1 C3 T2 I3 O3 N3 S2

Action Points:

The Iron Master: 1/2
Julio Pedone: 1/3
Rica Rivera: 1/2

Acquire Kestral's body, acquire cloning tech, bring her back. Is there any chance we can rebuild our character to take into account the changed rules? And the fact that Swordsman has roughly 5x our xp?

>>20811214
in conjunction with deathless ofc.

The archives can be found here:

>http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?tags=super+villain+quest

And, barring unforseen calamity, the quest currently runs every day at 14:00. It should be noted, however, that unforseen calamity has been depressingly common ever since I started this quest. Oh, well, people keep warning me about burning out for running this thing daily, so maybe the week-long hiatuses are a good thing, ultimately.

Also, there's been some people talking about how your plan failed because of nerfs. I guess partially this is true, in that without nerfs your plan might have succeeded, since you would have been more powerful relative to Swordsman and his allies. But since the plan amounted to "heroez showz up and den we krumpz 'em good" I would consider it a failure of the system if you were able to succeed without extraordinary luck. The fact that you even came close with such a straightforward plan targeted against three heroes, including one of the most powerful ones in the city, means that mechs are probably in need of being nerfed a little bit MORE. Swordsman is a combat monster. Trying to beat him in a direct confrontation was a bad idea and I don't consider it a bad thing that it failed in general. Kestrel's death was the result of failing to think things all the way through on my part more than anything else, but that's reversible anyway and Swordsman did more damage to himself than all his enemies put together when he killed her. So while I'll try to avoid dumb mistakes like that in the future, I don't think it's really a particularly big deal when you're a necromancer anyway. It mostly just brings up the question: How much are you willing to sacrifice to bring Kestrel back? Because that's totally a thing you could do.

Another thing that came up on the tail end of the last session was Kestrel. She's dead, but you're a necromancer and the costs of bringing people back from the dead are actually not TOO high for you. Specifically, it's only 4 XP. But there's a few catches. First, as with all henchmen but especially so for Kestrel, there's no guarantee she'll remain loyal to you, and you cannot take away the powers you give her while she's on your side should she choose to desert or betray you later on. There's a reason powers cost less for your henchmen than for you. Two, Kestrel is not amazingly powerful. Now, neither are Rica or Julio, who started with no powers at all, but still, an argument could be made that you are past the point where Kestrel is useful. And three, you already have a henchman with the Deathless power, which is a fairly expensive power. Giving it to Kestrel as well will be costly and won't significantly increase your power.

There are arguments in favor of bringing back Kestrel, however. First, you get XP for successfully turning her to Team Red, which will partially recoup the costs of bringing her back if you're ultimately successful. Second, she's on Team Blue, and even if she secretly switches sides, she doesn't have to tell the papers. Having a plant could do a lot of good, especially since the only people making accusations against her were the ones working with Swordsman, who's just been thoroughly discredited for murdering a pair of supers. Thirdly of course there's just emotional attachment. A number of people have said they think Kestrel is the best character in the quest.

So, then. It is the fourth week of December, just before Christmas.

>wat do?

>>20811104

Oh, and Iron Legion, not Iron Guard.

Also, wrt >>20811214

You need 2 more XP to make Kestrel Deathless, any plans as to where that'll come from? A Sundered Sword is the only event on the table right now, but you can also buy XP (at increasingly steep costs, but your gang is very profitable).

> Is there any chance we can rebuild our character to take into account the changed rules?

The rules didn't change any of the powers you actually took. You can already rebuild your mechs almost at will, so there's no reason to rebuild the character just because the mech builds are different now. The Model T power might not be doing much for you right now, but that has nothing to do with the rules change.

>>20811296
I thought the plan was "heroes show up, and we crump them good, because they catastrophically underestimate the number of mechs and other forces we have available."
So yeah, we need to talk to her first. And if we her to be a plant we need a convenient cloning facility. Or just the ability to rebuild her original body somehow.

>>20811367
buy the xp.

Holy shit you're alive.

We were worried about you when you didn't show up to GM for a couple weeks.

You still running that?

>>20811441

The Mechs and Mobile Dolls powers are not super hard to get. You could've had them both before EdenTech even unveiled the Swordsman Project and it would not have been very hard. Those two powers on their own should not be enough to make you the equal of a major antagonist in terms of raw power. As far as the terminators are concerned, they contributed basically nothing to the super brawl and were never meant to be able to contribute to super brawls. Mostly they just drew a whole lot of attention and police response, ballooning a standard super brawl into all-out urban warfare that drove up civilian casualties and property damage while not dealing any damage to any of the supers. Partially that was just because of bad luck, but mostly it was because Athletics 4 termies were never going to do much against guys who toss around Athletics scores of 10+, but over a hundred killbots spraying bullets all over the place is still a great way to call down a bunch of SWAT teams.

Purchasing the XP is going to leave your sheet looking like this:

THE IRON MASTER
Health: 1 (3)
Power: 3 (9)
Resources: 8
XP: 4

>Now what?

>>20811538

Yes, I'll be there next Wednesday. I was going to send an email to you guys sometime today letting me know that I'm fine and my computer just wigged out, but I guess I can just tell you instead.

could we maybe bring her back as something else or is that not possible? variety would be nice which is why i am asking.

>>20811595

What "something else" did you have in mind?

ah did we bring back that villain that was killed? Last time it was stated if we moved quickly(which we did) we would be able to save her.

>>20811617
I was thinking vampire.

Since well maybe she will turn to team red but well she maybe a bit iffy when it comes to taking over people due to her hero roots. Hell call up her ghost and ask if she wants be deathless or vampire lets give her a choice if vampire is an actual option of course.

game balance issues aside, we should talk to Kestral.

>>20811667
indeed we should ask Kestral for her opinion about it first and foremost before we think about what could be done.

>>20811661

Vampirism is a specific, separate power that you haven't purchased. It's cheaper than Deathless, but it doesn't work after the other person is already dead.

>>20811633

That was indeed stated, but not by me. I don't know why you guys were so concerned about her body since Deathless doesn't require you to have it and I doubt you'd dump 4 XP on someone you barely know anyway.

>>20811667

What did you plan on talking to her about?

>>20811741
I was thinking the fact that she is dead, and we can bring her back. Also, if we want her to be a plant we need her original body , or a clone or something.

Okay. Let's see if I can get back into this after like two weeks out of things.

Kestrel's ghostly figure emerges from the Reader as you lock in on her ectoplasmic signature. Her spectre stands upright despite the torso being so riddled with holes that it should logically collapse in on itself, and she is able to move her arms despite the fact that you can tell her shoulders are dislocated.

"What?" she asks, with the usual confusion of the recently dead, "what's going on, where am I?"

"You're in one of my workshops. I am the Iron Master," you say, "do you remember me?"

"Yeah," she says, looking around, "yeah, I do...Why am I here?" She sounds suspicious now. "What happened with...That night, why couldn't you just take me to a hospital or..."

"Kestrel, Swordsman unloaded an assault rifle magazine into your chest," you say, "I have some skill with necromantic technologies."

"You...My god, you're like if the Artificer and Dr. Spectre had a kid," she says. Well, she seems to be taking this better than Rica, even if she still seems a bit distraught.

"I may be able to bring you back," you say, "otherwise you'll likely pass on within weeks, or even days."

"Pass on to where?" Kestrel asks.

"I don't know," you say.

Kestrel hesitates a moment, and then asks "what do you want?"

>wat do?

>>20811935
"Well, your assurance that you won't tell people what I look like or where I am. I would also appreciate you not telling people you have this capability, as I have gone to great lengths to convince people I'm all robots all the time. Although I'm not really sure why you are surprised, I did tell you I intended to solve death after all."

>>20811935
I want to abolish death. I told you already. Someday I'll be able to do this on a worldwide scale.

Anyway, do you want to pass on? I'm pretty sure you'd go into heaven, if it exists.

If not, I can keep you around. You have anything sentimental you'd want you soul bound to?

>>20811935
Well first to give you a shot at saying goodbye first and foremost. You were really the only "good" person on team blue and I respect that.
Second, and this is completely up to you, is that I can bring you back, if I do this i should like to work with you, otherwise your free to pass on to wherever people go after their spirits leave this world.
Because if she doesn't want to be a parasite then we shouldnt make her. Explain the terms of deathless in full for her and let her decide on her own.

>>20812007

"Yeah, okay," she says, her voice wavering slightly. You sort of get the feeling her composure is ready to break down any second. Ghosts are so *whiny*. "Is that it?"

>>20812074
"Do you want to pass on or do you want a chance to say goodbye to certain people?"

I'm going to read the entire archive. Brb 8 hours.

>>20812104
please stop trying to convince her to pass on.
We should ask her if she would like to talk to steve first.
Quick question, could we use the data in that unethical science project to bring Kestral's corpse back to pristine condition, or do we need to clone her to give her a body that will let her be kestral again? (which would presumably require us to raid some tech place)

>>20812193
Fine. Also this is why we need an evil MD, if we had a body printer of sorts we could just make a new Kestral when her old body craps out on her.

"Those are my only conditions, yes. I told you I want to cure death. Someday, everyone will benefit from this," you say.

"Right," Kestrel says, considering.

"Do you want to pass on, or stay here? If there is a Heaven, I'm pretty sure that's where you'd end up," you say.

"I'm not so sure," Kestrel says.

"It's up to you," you say.

"I need to come back," she says, "there's still things I have to do here. I'll find a way to sort things out."

"Right," you say, grabbing a box cutter off your desk and slicing open a package of assorted bizarre alchemical ingredients you'd bought off a contact from the internet. "Just give me a minute to print off the spell, then."

Also if we start running legit businesses as cover for our prostitution(?) rings, could we potentially double our profit? Or atleast cut down on raids?

Oh, and once we buy the deathless power for kestral, we can buy it for other people with resources. Furthermore I happen to know a villain with at least 15 resources who currently requires our services...

>>20812193

Yeah, seems reasonable, so here's how I'll make it work mechanically: For 3 resources, you can create one ampule of what is basically Cancer Serum. Cancer as in the creature, not tumors. Its 1 PP of regeneration in a can, complete with chunky-salsa ignoring goodness. This is a much milder dosage compared to the treatment given to Jan Arnell. Side effects, like the healing factor itself, are going to be less severe and temporary. You can use this to restore corpses as well as heal people who have taken otherwise mortal wounds, and so long as you can catch a breather to inject the stuff, it allows any organic henchman or minion to have as much PP of the Regeneration power as you can pay for in advance.

can we use the Cancer Serum to bring back the villain that died?

>>20812294

Only Super Human Abilities powers can be bought with resources.

>>20812383

No. She's already dead and has been for hours.

>>20812399
so she would be a vegetable. I'm seriously tempted to suggest hacking her bank account, but I doubt we will get 15+ resources with a tech roll. So heal up her corpse and send her on her way. Then we need to talk to amp. I wonder if he will be willing to give us any information about Swordsman after what he did to Kestral...

>>20812553

Uh. No. Swordsman stabbed her through the heart. Unless I'm missing some critical medical fact about how death works, if your heart is magically repaired two or three hours after it was run through, being "sent on your way" means sent to a life support machine in a hospital until your family tearfully decides to pull the plug because it's clear you're never waking up.

>>20812627
Well according to top medical scientists "People do, if fact, die when they are killed." So if she wasn't killed then she isn't dead. Sadly thats not the case.

>>20812627
Would her corpse still have her powers?

Because using it as a body for Rica would be fantastic.

>>20812627
I was actually referring to healing Kestral's corpse and sending her on her way. Yay for indefinite pronouns.

>>20812701

Heh. That's a cool idea. The answer is that she'll inherit some, but not others. Strike is a metahuman so some of her powers are biological, but she also has some powers that come as a result of special training. Unfortunately her metahuman powers aren't super impressive and her relevant ACTIONS are about on par with your mechs.

>>20812723

Oh, right, yeah that'll work. Although you don't actually have Kestrel's corpse.

>>20812749
Well, we may as well grab the body if it won't cost anything to keep it around.

>>20812762
Maybe Kestrals respect if we keep her? I mean we got this one ladies body that we look at every so often in some corner of the lad.

>>20812762

Well, let's see. She was killed by Swordsman in a mostly randomly chosen parking garage. You know where she is and the public at large doesn't. At the same time, there was a gunfight/super brawl in that parking garage and the city has had plenty of time to react. Probably you're going to have to nab it from the morgue, but corpses are not typically heavily guarded.

>>20812756
Its probably in a morgue or something right? We have superpowered bots, shouldn't be hard to steel it. And we kinda need it if we want to have kestral pretend to be on blue team.We should probably tell Kestral exactly how much money this has cost us, and to consider it a Christmas present.

Yes, it shouldn't be too hard, mostly it just costs an action. Speaking of, everyone still has one action left, what do you plan to do with them? I believe the current item on the agenda is subduing police precincts, and I'd like to note that you need to be able to have a precinct completely subdued on the same turn you attack or else they can pump a whole lot of extra Heat into the neighborhood.

>>20812983
how fortunate that we have an bunch of superpowered bots and a genuine army of killbots to do the subuing. Concentrate on that one money making set we have left first, let Rica take charge of that action.

>>20813038

The maximum damage Rica can do with one action is two, which is half of what you need to subdue a police precinct.

She does exactly that, though, passing some minor bribes and plenty of intimidation around the local precinct, and roughing up uncooperative officers while leaving threatening notes lying around their children's bedside. Most of them take the hint, but not all.

Action Points:

The Iron Master: 1/2
Julio Pedone: 1/3
Rica Rivera: 0/2

>>20813199
Who has a better chance of finishing them off Julio or IM?

>>20813255

The Iron Master, definitely.

>>20813288
then have him finish them off while julio supervises the bots stealing kestral's corpse, which they will do all stealthy like.

>>20813341

Right. The Iron Master's victory over the good cops is a narrow one. Ultimately, you have a stealth bot assassinate the main inspiration to the straight cops early one morning, burning the body and then impersonating the cop as he goes about his patrols for a few hours before having him spin out of control and plunge into the ocean. This death, seemingly accidental enough to deprive them of a martyr, takes the wind out of the good cop's sails. By New Year's, the whole Avalon Precinct is answering to you, even if most of them don't know it.

Julio's having a pretty bad day all told, and things at the morgue heist don't go exactly as planned. He still manages to grab the body and get out, but he had to shoot a pair of security guards to do it. One of them didn't pull through. Still, you got the body and you're able to restore it, and then Kestrel re-enters. You've only made one ampule of the Cancer serum (that stuff is expensive), which means that, though alive once more, Kestrel is still injured. But hey, it's not the first time.

we wasted 4xp on the minion Kestral whose loyalty has not been proven to the extent Rica has. i am not happy about this. Rica had proven herself worthy Kestral not so much in my personal opinion.

>>20813426
okay. Give Kestral the keys to her old car, and a nicer apartment. If she complain just tell her its quite cheap, especially compared to the whole bringing people back to life thing.
Time for a chat with Amp.

The glass turns. Happy new year! It's now 2013. Although her association with Swordsman's faction has basically ruined Slemp's credibility, she stubbornly sticks with the fight against you. Rapidly losing political capitol with the officers under her, however, you only suffer from one raid from the police, against the Silver Guard for their part in the urban warfare. They take a fair amount of damage and are halfway forced into hiding (Morale 2/5), but don't end up completely destroyed. Redondo Beach in Palos Verdes remains vacant, meanwhile, and as crime festers unorganized in the area, the cost of recruiting a new set of any variety decreases by 1.

Kestrel has yet to rejoin the hero community, trying to figure out what to say to convince them that she isn't working for the Iron Master. Everyone knows her body was stolen, and then she pops up again after being confirmed dead? Suspicious, and Swordsman was spreading rumors already. At least she can confirm that she isn't any kind of robot with a quick DNA test.

Worse news, however, comes when Slemp's incompetence and taking exactly the wrong side in Team Blue's latest big issue finally catches up to her. She's sacked by Mayor Pellitier and replaced by Elijah Guadian, a lieutenant under her who had been on the front lines in the battle in Harbor City and who was also responsible for some of the more effective police crackdowns. He is of the opinion that the cops need to present not only a more competent but also a more approachable image, that LA cops need to lose their reputation for shooting first and asking questions later and also need to learn how to shoot straight when the guns do come out. Los Angeles, he says, has a historic and oft-neglected mundane crime problem that provides an easy feeding ground for super villains, and that concentrating on the super criminals has given rise to a reactionary and ultimately hopeless battle. He plans to dismantle crime in the city from the bottom up, by knocking out petty street criminals, leaving the villains with no minions, at which point they will hopefully be caught and kept imprisoned with no one outside to come help them, but otherwise at least leave the city for more criminal pastures. Making matters worse, Gaudian's frontline experience makes him an overnight war hero to the people (despite the Courier's best efforts).

In other words, yes, I rolled a 6 for this guy's Notability.

Now, how did you plan on contacting Amp and what did you plan on talking to him about? Also, new turn wat do?

THE IRON MASTER
Health: 1 (3)
Power: 3 (9)
Resources: 17
XP: 0

Athletics: 1
Cunning: 3
Technology: 4
Insight: 2
Observation: 3
Nefariousness: 2
Stealth: 1

Powers: AI, Terminators, SynthSkin, Model T, Mechs, Mobile Dolls, Ghost Whisperer

Okay so we need to plan for later, im thinking 2 months total for the next strike on swordsman. We make him mad and impatient. Lets try for a new, well though out plan. I threw this together, lets thinktank.

So first we have a heist go "wrong" one that Swordsman will stop for sure, we leave a single bot that survives, on him is a link to our "server" with secret "plans" and the like.
Then over the next few weeks we create a series of fake emails between us and Dr. Dandurand, making it look like we are planning on helping him bring EdenTech down.
After a few have "him" agree to meet us in long beach, on the neutral ground.
During this first meeting we have two or three terminators waiting all night long, no show on our "friend"
Have him email us back that he was afraid we were being watched,so a few more weeks of fake emails and other information exchanged, most of which are "operations" that we plan on having fail from the beginning.
When were sure Swordsman is getting fustraited and impatient we get another meeting, this time in some abandoned construction site in Chimera territory.
This site will be rigged with as many explosives, knockout gas, automated turrets, one really pissed off Rica (if she wants).
We have two sync skin robots (one that looks like us in our armor, another doctor Dandurand.) They chat for a few moments before getting in the car. Swordsman will swoop in the second he sees an opening, if he's irritated enough, and thats when we bring the hammer of god down upon him.

>>20813663
Also fill those sets with what we had before if at all possible, maybe tougher.

>>20813630
Wasn't Amp more or less machinegunned by the Ronin? So I presume we talk to him with the ghost thingy. Anyway I'm seroisly considering having Rica to arrange an "accident". Let her take control of a competent looking chimera dude and have her assassinate the new guy. Naturally the police will kill the nefarious assassin as it attempts to escape. Leaving them with an assassin with a traceable connection to chimera and a less effective chief.

>>20813763

Amp got machinegunned by the Ronin because Kestrel botched a roll for her dramatic entrance (her wings were damaged). At the same time, Swordsman was tackled to the ground and badly injured by a surprise attack from Strike, who halfway ruined his suit, basically taking him out of the fight. Kronos reversed time, Swordsman avoided Strike's attack, and Kestrel happened to roll better on her entrance the second time and then meta speed'd the tar out of the Ronin, thus saving Amp. Time travel!

Say do we know if Kestral took any of that Swordsman serum? Like and unfinished batch?

>>20813813
Oh, missed that. Then I reccommend just trashing his "secret lair" when he isn't there. steal all his suite data, steal all the spare part (which we don't take to our main lab, it probably has GPS on at least one piece) and leave a nice note that he shouldn't bring his cell phone to his secret lair next time. Oh, and that we will assume that anyone who helps swordsman agrees with his tactics, which we will take into account.

Okay first have Rica get some formal combat training she could really use it.

Next time for my idea well to complete a elite force that can rival and even beat SWAT teams. These elite forces will be recruited from those who serve the Iron Master. These men and women of Iron will be given the chance to join this elite force who can even consider themselves equal with the terminators. These Steeled (feel free to come up with something better) will be our elite living forces. Have Rica go to each of our sets to find potential candidates. The training will be hard so as to remove any of the weak and instill loyalty. These forces when not on a mission will establish some semblance of order(for profit of the Iron Master) and are to act as the living breathing versions of our Terminators. The training will be done in order to counter SWAT forces first but then eventually even be able to go up against actual military forces.

A message will be broadcasted to the sets saying something along the line of this.

"men and women of Iron soon you shall be given the opportunity to join an elite force. A force that shall become both renown and feared as the breathing arm of the Iron Master. Know this all of those who serve the Iron Master will be given an opportunity to be tested. Those who have proven themselves shall become hardened and specially treated to become Steeled no longer shall be you be of Iron but now of Steel."

>>20813869
i don't think so.

problem with the serum is they did something to it because of that we can't afford to give it to anyone. Until we can find someone who can go through and figure out what they did to it. Its pretty much worthless to us at the moment.

>>20813869

She did not.

>>20813872

Amp doesn't have a suit, just the sonic blaster gauntlets. But since you already know where it is and the extent of its defenses are mostly just a locked door, you go ahead and have some synthskinned bots kick the door down, raid the place, leave an ambiguously threatening note, and then scamper off.

>>20813888

You plan on making an elite team of soldiers who can go toe-to-toe with the SWAT, and the carrot you're dangling is that they will be considered *equal* to the terminators...Who have proven to be individually worse than SWAT officers over and over again?

>>20813920
>>20813941
Damn there goes Zombie Kestral bot...

>>20813941
And stole all his spare parts. And presumably all the spares of kestral's suite that are still there Given his teachers salary, those can't be easy to replace.

>>20814016

Kestrel raided the place for her own stuff back when she first ran away from home and ditched Amp.

>>20813979
ack my bad my point was just as the Terminators/mechs are the non breathing arm of the Iron Master this group breathing group would be Iron/Steeled the iron like terminators get their asses kicked by SWAT. The steeled on the other hand are going to kinda be the almost equivalent of the mechs but not quite. As in their actually capable of beating SWAT. Not heroes yet granted we have to figure out a way to fix the serum for that.

>>20814154

Well, more important than semantic quibbling is how exactly you plan to accomplish this. You don't exactly have any SAS dudes on hand to train these guys. The Iron Master is a physics geek, not a green beret.

Oh thank the maker, it's Iron Master back after a bad day, Thank You!

Can we have some more slice of life cutaways?
I love that there's a whole strategy behind this game inbetween the cutaways as well.
Steve - 'Zombie' Kestral, and the Iron Master.
Hey hey! we still need to do the Christmas one and we'd already pasted through to the new years, can we do a little rewind to see that, Iron master in the flesh now that Kestral saw him, through a monitor.
We eat with Both our AIs, Steve, Kestral, and maybe Rica if she wants.

>>20814207
Check through Julio's past, see if he knew anyone in the family with a military history that would be getting around his age, so we can pull the 'You dont want to end up like Old Yeller do you?' routine.

ooh i have an idea to put Kestral back up as a hero while eliminating problem is it kinda exposes our ability to potentially say fuck you to death. We shall stage a break out out for her.

Basically have Kestral act as our would of been prisoner. The Iron Master knew someone who could bring her back to life for a price. who she doesn't know exactly. The reason she was brought back the Iron Master had questions. Questions he needed answers for. Problem was she escaped when the trade off was about to occur in a non-disclosed location(warehouse or something). Kestral current injuries are due to her escaping.

Hopefully someone else has a better idea or can add stuff onto it.

>>20814222
perfect we need people with military experience at the moment and a chemist/biologist basiclly a mad scientist/doctor. Ah we need new minions/partners or something keep up coming with ideas but unable to do them because the Iron Master doesn't have the resources for it.

>>20814242
We may need to set of a 'tiny' explosive to make it more dramatic.
Nothing says escape like a detonation that levels the secret base of the Iron Master. Somewhere to the east of the city though, someplace visible enough from parts of the city

>>20814207

The slice-of-life cutaways typically only happen when there's some important part of someone's character arc to develop, and while Christmas would be a good excuse to do something like that...I can't really think of anyone who's arc needs to develop right now.

Probably if I could do this again I'd build the game around having a much larger number of named characters working with you from the start, but it'd be a huge balance overhaul to do that now, so you kind of have to put up with character bits being pretty occasional. Sorry.

>>20814268
Great idea my only problem with it is it kinda hints at another potential villain or power of the Iron Master something i am loathe to give away. Won't matter though if Kestral chooses to go back to team Blue she knows of our potential necromancy.

as in action for the Iron Master to take have him go through universities data bases to look for someone like himself an evil genius in the making for recruitment. Focus on Biology/chemistry for recruiting ground but also branch of elsewhere. Oh yeah that reminds me we need to find the other person who is also capable of making robots. Such a wild card concerns me whether they go hero or villain. Now for training go through the cities data base it shouldn't be hard to find martial art instructors to begin with. As for full blown military training a good start would be the homeless or any disenfranchised individuals who either being dishonorably discharged or forced to retire early could be a good potential ground for military grade trainers.

>>20814305
'Necromancy' Ha!
It is simple Science! It's like we're Dr. Venture arguing with Prof. Orphious
You call it 'perverting nature' and 'going against god' I call it a somatic diagrams and extroplamatic phase inducer on a 50 watt thornium pacifier. The Iron Master's superpower is Treknobabble.

>>20814368
It'll be a little tough since Chimera seems to snap up the military types while Ronin likely have their tiny yellow fingers in the martial arts scene.

>>20814389
The chimera are terrorists. We have a goal a mission many of those types who we would actually want like that.

As for martial arts we are on somewhat decent ground with the Ronin. having worked with them and even saved their villain. Plus the more types of Martial Arts we can get our guys trained in the better in other words were not picky so long as it works. I don't know if the Ronin i like precisely or not though.

>>20814389
Oh, Speaking of which, we should check up with the Damiyo. This is his second defeat by Swordsman, while we've brought down Two supers. (How has Behemoth been doing since his defeat by The Iron Master)

Julio's connections with his family are increasingly strained and distant. Both his parents and most of his aunts and uncles are dead, though that just because they're a poor family with bad life expectancies and Julio himself is like 45 years old. He also has two brothers and a sister. One brother is dead, having got into crime and not done too well with it. The other is on a life sentence and has been for close to twenty years, for being perhaps too zealous with his getting into crime. His sister is generally resented by the family for raising herself out of poverty by dropping out of high school to marry an upper-middle class guy. The marriage didn't last, but she's doing alright on alimony and child support and her estranged family isn't seeing a cent of any of that, which has bred quite some resentment. Julio's own marriage didn't fare much better. She ran out on him with the kids, though technically they're still married since they're both knee-deep in crime and don't want any courts examining either of their lives for any reason. Last Julio heard (some ten years ago) she's living in Houston.

You're not likely to pull much talent from that trainwreck of dysfunction, one way or another. In terms of biology/chemistry students, former EdenTech Doctors Rus and Iveson are skilled in those fields respectively and have a proven lack of commitment to ethics. They're also pretty popular right now and would be difficult to get a hold of, but probably quite grateful if you did get a hold of them.

>>20814428
...
I meant THE Family.
Sorry to hear that though Julio.

Try and find the Doctors on the Ghost Spy front.

>>20814428
ah in that case we "liberate" them. Use our awesome hacking ability to send a anonymous message to them stating click yes if you want to out and continue with your research or no if you wish to be left alone. If they click yes say we will come soon, then dispatch our terminators and a mech to kidnap them, than alert them of their new situation. If no never send anything to them again, but keeping on the lookout for a someone like ourselves with our incredible intellect.

>>20814461

THE Family personally hates Julio, has been shutting him out of mainland operations for years, and now wants to murder him. Although former members of the now defunct Colombo Outfit, assuming any survived the Hobs' attack on Hollywood, would be a pretty good place to start. Whether former military or self-taught super-murderers, those guys were the best of the best for the Family, and largely the reason why they were the second-most feared gang in the city.

>>20814422

The Daimyo is incensed and as eager as ever for another duel with Swordsman. So, this guy can't take a hint, is what I'm getting at. Behemoth continues regular patrols throughout the city, and while he obviously hasn't gone to the papers to publicly admit defeat, he's backed off for the most part.

>>20814503
Sweet mother look into those remnants asap if they could provide some of the much needed instructors to begin the first steps of training for producing our elite Steeled minions.

Daimyo is like that huh good to know. well we can use him and our mechs we might be able to take on swordsman if we can come up with a proper course of action and a good plan. Can't really think of anything other than your typical hero trap.

The big problem with springing Doctors Rud and Iveson from a Congressional Hearing is that Congressional Hearings are in front of Congress, which is not in Los Angeles. How exactly do you plan to go about all this?

>>20814503
Can we sneak him video of Swordsman blamming her before we 'bring her back and she escapes'
Although Kronos knows already but hasnt mad a fuss publicly about it it seems.

I had an idea about using a synth bot ambulance thing, but baring making one of them fake a heart attack (or inducing something that looks like one) it'll be tough.

>>20814572
this is when i wish we could fly dearly.

In that case well get some trucks fill with bots disguised as electrical and mechanical goods then send them over. Make sure however to remove the usual Iron Master tags in other words make it look like someone else sprung them. Then ship them over. When their close have them unload and make their way to the where their being held. Then shoot them grabbing their bodies and making retreating the bodies will be injected with the cancer serum saving their lives. From there have the bots disapear in the ocean marching to the closest trench. A few bots will remain disguised and smuggle them out in a vehicle.
Hopefully someone has something better.

Also keep checking those universities hell look into other schools to boot.

>>20814646
The huge issue is doing that to Congress in Metahuman America. Crazy psychics would speak to the divine that tell them the hearing will be attacked and shit like that.

Hitting them with Congress? Ha, impossible, we have to wait after the hearing or when they're in their quarters. Secured locations, or a prison, but 200 time easier then doing it there.

So...Are we waiting or going with the ambulance thing or what?

>>20814285
Rica? She has someone she apparently really dislikes, but we never really learned more about that.
Anyway, I think we first need to make an elite set on our vacant spot, then change that spot from drugs to hookers. Then I think we should do the whole assassinate the competent police chief with a possessed chimera bloke.

>>20814798
I really say wait. The Ambulance thing can we done wi- Oh Hey, i had an idea.
We make a really Fat synthed termi.

No really, keep with me here, morbidly obese termy and the ambulance, They show up near whereever the doctor's are being held (hopefully some sort of hotel) and the EMT (also termys) desperately request the posted guard's help moving MechaLardo as they seem the most able bodied sorts around. Distracted, another stealth team goes in to extract the Doctors.

>>20814814

Rica's arc is going to come out in time. Now is not the right time.

>>20814855

This runs into the same potential problems of psychic premonitions or divine oracles warning about the scheme in advance, though. "I'm getting...A vision, a vision of catastrophe...It concerns...Dr. Rud and...Something called...MechaLardo..."

>>20814954
Likely less in focus as they arnt directly threatening Congress or the government

Work a try, try a different Self destruct system on the Terminators this time instead of the acid.

I'm thinking absurd electrical discharge frying and charring everything. Mecholardo would rank up the hotel with it's spoiled burned cottage cheese fat.

>>20814913
fair enough

>>20815011

Okay. Well, this involves a supers community I am completely unprepared to work with. I have no idea what the supers in Washington DC are like, and Dr. Rud isn't exactly a nuke anyway, so I'm just going to roll a d20 and play odds and evens. My first thought was to have someone roll it and be all interactive, but I think it's clear by now that the /tg/ dice hate this quest.

And indeed, my own dice like you enough to hand you Dr. Rud. The MechaLardo ploy works. Rud and Iveson are successfully smuggled back to LA and no one is the wiser.

>wat do?

Does anyone think having julio create an elite set and then change the neighborhood type to hookers is a bad idea?

>>20815128
make them an offer to continue their research under our protection within certain limits or they can go off on their own.

File: 1348273226179.jpg-(9 KB, 250x269, Asgard.jpg)

>>20815128
Offer them a job. As to what they will be working on? Pic related. (one of the best looks at using SCIENCE! for immortality. Their mistake was not encouraging having kids on your first body)

File: 1348273278498.jpg-(71 KB, 570x315, jjonahjameson.jpg)

>>20815128
Front page news is of a fat man who spontaniously combusted as result of his like of birthday cake and flatulant gas pockets that'd formed inside his own flabs.

at least half a dozen thought dead or critically wounded, and even more scared for life by the foul lard that rained from the skies of a DC hotel room today.

God help us if the British papers get a hold of this story...

>>20815225

I was hoping I'd see you again.

Dr. Rud and Dr. Iveson inquire as to what sort of job security and compensation they can expect if they start working for you.

>>20815281
I'm not one to treat my minds as disposable assets, My genius is only but one of many on this world. Job Security, You're looking at very stable work toward the betterment of mankind be it short term conquer to long term rehabilitative effects. Compensation we'll start by going with the hell i've dragged you out of Doctors, you woul've been dragged through the dirt, and likely even killed by your former employees at one point. I wont put you constantly on work that will be for Destruction, or death, but real moral projects. I know what you two have done, dont try to fool me, i've seen your research, your transcripts, my attacks have gained me much information from Edentech. But, I know you're honest. You were the right people in the wrong line of work."

>>20815281
Job security: we have this very nice pension plan called immortality. It has very nice benefits but is hideously expensive, also doesn't come with a body. In fact one of their jobs will be to drive down the marginal costs of that procedure, and fix the whole need to steal body bit. I'm thinking cloning.

>>20815281
>>20815281
Somewhat messy as it is, >>20815383 sounds good, but we should add:

In a more physical sense, you will have the security of a number of highly armed gangs and robot minions, and [insert equivalent amount of resources to their old salary here]. We also have highly comprehensive medical coverage, covering dental work, injuries, sickness, psychological counseling, all types of wounds, and death.

>>20815462

This gets their attention. They agree to sign on with you, as if nothing else their professional life is in shambles already. Mostly thanks to you, but whatever, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

The Iron Master: 1/2
Julio Pedone: 3/3
Rica Rivera: 2/2

>wat do?

>>20815540
set up an elite set, say the platinum guard and turn their neighborhood into a drug town. Julio does setup and whoever is better at neighborhood conversion of him and rica turns the place to hookers.

>>20815643

Wait, so are you turning the neighborhood to drugs or hookers?

>>20815676
Its the place that our money set used right? So I assume it was drugs. Therefor we turn it to hookers for more money

rolled 29 = 29

look into that destroyed set for potential remnants perhaps use Julio. Their recruitment will give us a start for the elite Steeled. Keep looking into potential geniuses in colleges we gotta find someone eventually hopefully a super. Then Rica have her undergo some formal martial arts training to improve her effectiveness.

Julio is successfully able to convert the area to Hookers, and while there's a bit of social upheaval nothing really changes socioeconomically speaking. Things are better if you're a desperate woman and single motherhood rates are about to go through the roof, but angry young men who think the video game solution of solving everything by shooting people they don't like applies to real life are suddenly in for a bitter disappointment. The fates are cruel.

Regardless, you dump 14 resources on an elite set, call them the Platinum Guard, and then send Julio to snoop around Hollywood for remnants of the Colombo Outfit. Unfortunately, the Hobs were pretty thorough and the new Conti Outfit in the area, while not quite as vicious as the Colombos, are still enough to run off Julio. He ends up taking a point of damage, but fortunately he's a tough guy and doesn't spend much time on the frontlines anyway.

Action Points:

The Iron Master: 1/2
Julio Pedone: 0/3
Rica Rivera: 2/2

Wow, that update took a while. Sorry, was away from my computer for a bit.

rolled 19 = 19

bugger send in some synth skin terminators to investigate instead, have Julio advise if he can. also keep on investigating the colleges for potential recruits. Is Rica getting that training?

What other tasks can we set about, besides messing up Swordsman or Cerberus?

Resource mining?
We still need to take down, or subvert, the new police chief.
Because TM keeps hinting at Swordsman is freakishly powerful against us.

>>20816142
have Rica posses a chimera bloke and assassinate the new police chief. Shouldn't be to hard just use a sniper rifle or something. Have her make sure the guy dies in a believable fashion.

>>20816191

What exactly do you mean by "believable?"

>>20816190

The only way to go resource mining that's built into the game is to go on a robbery spree. Which could net you anywhere from 3-9 resources and is pretty in-character anyway, so.

Before the end of the turn you'll also have to figure out exactly what your plan with Kestrel is, but that isn't necessarily going to take an action.

Anything we can do, teck or power wise, to power up our bots so they can fight better?

Maybe buy a plasma power and equip bots with plasma weapons or reasetch some stronger metals or somethin for defence?

>>20816273

No. If you can get your hands on the data that Chimera has on Project Aegis and Project Photon, those would be helpful. The data on Project Strider would also be helpful, but its been blown up. Assuming Doctor Dandurand's mysterious disappearance was him going into hiding rather than being killed outright by EdenTech, you might be able to recreate the Strider data if you can get him to help.

>>20816301
so does that mean capturing Swordsman suit will no longer work for reverse engineering purposes. Damn that used to be a major incentive.

As for Kestral what about that plan that was mentioned earlier?
Actions keep on digging we need two things at the moment specialist minions and resources.

>>20816301
Can we set our new SCIENCE! team to work on their areas of expertise towards the betterment of the common man?
Visa vi, the eggheads work on perfecting, or dumbing down, the Swordsman serum information for a somewhat metahuman serum that could increase lifespan as well as fortify fortitude, reflexes, and even stimulate brain power.
Not so much a superhuman serum, but more 'Better than you were before' injection.

>>20816261
not obviously suicidal. Make it look like the assassin just screwed up.

>>20816362
ah that reminds me what do those two doctors we recovered specialize in? Also lets do some digging of doctor Dandurand while were at it.

>>20816364
don't forget they also need to figure out the nasty surprise they included with the serum. Once that is taken care of we can actually use the serums.

>>20816362

You already have all the data on the Swordsman suit. There were several plans mentioned for Kestrel, which one are you referring to?

>>20816364

Sure. Dr. Rud is a biologist and Dr. Iveson is a chemist, so the two of them can get to work on revising the Swordsman serum pretty much immediately.

>>20816373

You've done some digging on Doctor Dandurand already. After a scuffle with EdenTech over Project Connor, which ultimately mutated regular girl Jen Arnell into the horrible monster Cancer (which you later killed), Doctor Dandurand suddenly vanished, either leaving EdenTech and dropping out of the industry or else he was got rid of altogether. Dandurand and Span (Kestrel's father) were basically EdenTech's shoulder angels, while Iveson and Rud were the shoulder devils.

Looking for dandurand sounds good then.

Steve know kestrals up and running?
Amp must be,pissed at swordsman, surely he'd be eager to help cap the fool

>>20816190
if you look at his stats its kind of insane. his ACTIONS are ALL better than ours.
>>20816301
as for a plan, i reccomend her saying that she had access to some of project cancer and she had put it on a delayed timer based off of heart activity. So when that prick swordsman shot me I got better.

>>20816467
you stated if we acquired his armor we could reverse engineer it enough to acquire project Photon tech and one or two others can't remember which exactly.

use the scientist to reverse engineer the serum. They have two objectives number 1 create a lesser cheaper super human serum not hero but human level. Objective to find whatever nasty surprises that have been built into the serum and deactivate it.

Hm i have a feeling Kestral's father may have an idea or even lead on Doctor Dandurand investigate that. Keeping searching for potential recruits geniuses or ex soldiers whatever really. Dispatch Synth Skin bots to look up the those remnants.

Can we do the breakout for Kestral to give her a alibi yet?

>>20816470

How do you plan on looking for him? And yes, Steve knows Kestrel is back. Amp is indeed incensed with Swordsman. Everyone is. Commissioner Guadian has issued a warrant for his arrest and lists apprehending him as one of the primary goals of the LAPD in restoring order to a city gripped by fear and panic, along with shutting down Chimera and the Iron Legion.

>>20816540
So are we and Chimera considered the top two criminal gangs in the city? I like how everyone has basically forgotten about the goblins

Wait.
Why haven't we recruited Dr. Span yet?!
Now might be the best time, since you know, we'll need to stop him from killing himself over Keastral's confirmed death. Shit.
Make that a Priority One action, Contact Kestral (and make sure she doesnt mention though whole 'i was dead' bit), and get the Rica mech (With a pidgeon bot and 2-3 Synth termys (with consealable weapons)) over there ASAP.

>>20816617
Seconded.

>>20816533

You can stage the breakout whenever, if you decide that's the story you want to roll with.

Iveson and Rud weren't part of the Swordsman Project, but Rud would occasionally assist them with the serum and they would frequently discuss things related to all their projects with Span and his crew just as a matter of curiousity, so it's not long before they walk in to an unused meeting room where you, Kestrel, and Steve are chatting aimlessly. Kestrel's been hanging around your secondary lab in Palos Verdes to avoid being spotted out and raising questions, and has taken to wearing some of Rica's old masks so that if someone sees her through a window or something they'll just think she's Iron Guard Female Minion #7 instead of recognizing her as Sofia Span.

"We've completed our analysis of the serum," Dr. Rud says, and Kestrel leans forward attentively. Dr. Rud hesitates and glances towards her. He's aware that she isn't really part of the operations so much as just sort of friendly towards you, and appears uncertain as to whether he should continue while she's here.

>>20816540
ah just wait until we can get our Steeled minions going but first we need TRAINERS damn it. We got ourselves the basic scientists now we need good instructors so as to begin to produce elite troops. Dispatch synth skin bots to investigate remnants. Look into Dandurand vey Kestral's father. If there is a lead he should have it. Also do that pretend breakout to give Kestral that alibi include explosions big ones. If anyone asks Kestral about that have her state that some of the self destruction chemicals Terminators use are highly explosive when not mixed.

>>20816617
We haven't recruited him because he has principles. We first need to use ghosts to scope him out

>>20816632
See if Kestral and Steve will pop out for a bit, not because we dont trust her, but because its a liability if she hears too much too fast.

>>20816632
Have her stay its about the serum her father's company made. Not to mention she was the one who pointed the strangeness out she deserves to hear.

>>20816632
"Kestrel, it may be best you see your father again, especially now." IRON VOX (it's just a walkie talkie with IM on it) "Rica. Collect her father, Bring a team with you with gloves on." (I'm making up code! Gloves on = synthed)

"Go on Dr."

>>20816599

Concerning this, by the way, a full news cycle has passed since the Goblins did anything that anyone cared about. Only the families of the deceased still consider them a high-priority threat, because you can Chimera have done equally crazy stuff more recently (especially since no one on Team Blue knows exactly who was responsible for what during the Eden Tower raid, and specifically, which of you bombed Compton and unleashed the chemical weapons in Downtown). Chimera probably would've faded by now except that Kestrel had basically set them up as her nemeses and she was just martyred by Swordsman, so the media's wringing a pretty good story out of the city's heroic efforts to win Kestrel's last battle post-mortem.

>>20816712
which means we need to have Chimera murder the top cop. then sit pat for a while.

>>20816712
Well serious.y Collect Dr. Span! Nab him in the night, we need him not suicidal over the death of her daughter using the machine He Built which wasnt good enough to save her from the Swordsman

>>20816730
agreed we HAVE to take advantage of this. Dispatch Rica to nab a Chimera goon and kill the police chief. Than we sit back and build up.

>>20816737

Swordsman also having been using a machine he built, yeah, I can't imagine he's doing very well right now. Not really seeing a decisive vote one way or the other as to whether Kestrel should stay or leave, so let's roll a d20 for it.

>>20816737
ghost recon first. It doesn't take an action, and it will make sure we don't screw up

>>20816757
"Kestral, out, I've sent men to collect your father, he's likely not doing well after your... yeah. Instead, put a smile on his face, introduce your boyfriend, all that jazz."

>>20816737
we should leave that up to Kestral its her father after all. Oh and while she is sticking around we should take advantage of this and educate her. Focus on her own suit so she can modify and upgrade as necessary but make sure she is well rounded. Put Steve in charge of educating her on need to know/useful info. Were a genius we should no whats good or no good in school systems and what she will want to know during her missions.

Well, still waiting on a d20 roll but the votes seem to swing in favor of having Kestrel leave, so let's go with that.

"Kestrel, you should send your father a message," you say, "discreetly, of course."

Her disappointment and suspicion are quite visible. You're not sure if she's not bothering to hide it or if she's just really bad at it. "Yeah, sure," she says, as she and Steve get up from their chairs and leave the room.

"Well?" you ask Rud and Iveson.

"It's completely clean," Dr. Rud says, "there's no mind-altering properties of the serum at all. It's not like Dr. Span to do something like that anyway, they would have asked me to do it if they wanted to be certain of Swordsman's loyalty."

"Nothing that might just drive him insane, even as an accidental side effect?" you ask.

"Well, it's all in theory in the data," Dr. Iveson says, "we'd have to examine Swordsman ourselves to know for certain, but Dr. Span did and he would've reported something like that. We would've heard about it, and we heard nothing of the sort."

"Besides," Dr. Rud says, "a mind control serum would be shrewd, but letting a super rivaling Kronos loose in the city while mentally unstable as a direct result of our serum? The executives would have had Span's head."

"It's possible he was just mentally unstable to begin with," Dr. Iveson says, "and that a sudden rush of power increased narcissistic tendencies that were already present. Our psychological screening process wasn't terribly strict. He was supposed to be the first of many soon to follow, so we weren't terribly concerned if he ended up going rogue eventually. There were supposed to be more were he came from."

rolled 5 = 5

>>20816929
Who the hell is he anyway?

>>20816929
in that case we need to speak with Doctor Span and get Swordsman's corpse to examine just in case. That we need to make sure unstable individuals are not treated if it can exaggerate mental problems. In that case develop a lesser strain a super human strain not super hero. Once that is taken care of go through project cancer and see what can be done with that.

Do Kestral's breakout once we assassinate the police chief vey possessed Chimera goon.

>>20816994
I'm not sure we want to use that cover story, as it gives us even more heat. I like the idea that she had acquired a bit of cancer serium and had installed it as a deadman switch revival thing. It has the benefit of being basically true after all.

>>20817031
do you have a better idea we have to figure out something otherwise Kestral gets babysat by Steve.

>>20816994
>mfw we run into a Chimera goon dressed as 'the iron master'
>they'd also come to kill the police cheif
>Cue the both of them wrestling in the street infront of the police precint

>>20816960

"His name is Matthew. The executives knew his full name and something of his history, but he never told any of us," Dr. Rud says.

"He was very secretive, didn't like talking about his past," Dr. Iveson says. "The higher-ups assured us it was nothing that would embarrass the company, nor anything particularly special. That last bit may have just been to discourage people from looking, though." Iveson shrugs. "Maybe he came from a family that abhors the military. Who knows. Either way all we really knew about was his physical specifications and he was certainly in excellent condition. That's all Span needed to do his job and I didn't eat lunch with the CEO."

>>20817047
now THAT would be hilarious even if it ruins our plans would be good laugh though.

>>20817047

That's so funny I almost want to make it happen.

>>20817044
She stole some prototype cancer serium at the same time she got the suite. It was dangerous, so she kept it under deadman switch. It was a bit slow, but it worked.

>>20817086
make it happen but has noncanon if only for shits and giggles.

>>20817066
"And what of my assumptions that Swordsman is actually a Chimera mercenary? Chimera could've gotten rid of any other reasonable applicant or paid off the CEO on this to get him in, to which you'd given powers unimaginable. Cant say im much better, my possible test subjects might to be gangbangers, hired thugs, and drug pushers."

"And how does your work with the Serum itself go, have you manage to synthesize any 'minor' doses?
I've been thinking of a name of a reduced formula, should have something catchy. How about Gladius? Shorter swords, helped build rome."

>>20817066
Ask them how Chimera got access to ghost blocking tech. And what happened to their disappearing scientist

>>20817136

Eh, I don't really see how I could make it funnier than what's already in that post.

File: 1348283651689.jpg-(18 KB, 200x317, JJJSwordBreaker.jpg)

>>20817146
IVE GOT SOME IDEAS.

>>20817146
was only a suggestion

>>20817141

"We have no idea," Dr. Rud says, "It could be, we never touched that end of things. Certainly the executives never would've done so intentionally, not as a whole. It'd be business suicide! But they'd only have to bribe one man to get Matthew past the background checks and a Chimera agent would certainly have the military background we were looking for."

>>20817142

"We're not sure," Iveson says, "the ghost-blocking tech wasn't just out of our respective departments, it was already completed before either of us were brought on. Evidently the government commissioned it back when Dr. Spectre was active. That would've been sometime in the 80s or 90s. Chimera was around back then, I suppose they could've stolen it." You're not so convinced yourself. Chimera was founded in the mid-70s and spent most of the next two decades establishing themselves in Eastern Europe and the Middle-East. They didn't come to the United States in any significant numbers until the mid-90s, and haven't been a significant criminal presence until just five or six years ago. Iveson and Rud haven't done as much research into Chimera's history, of course.

"Dr. Dandurand was pushing too much, threatening too much," Dr. Iveson said, "he was a huge threat to our scientific progress. Not to mention our bottom line. What he was threatening to do would've landed a lot of powerful people in prison for a long time."

"One day he didn't show up and the executives told us that he had very suddenly resigned, and gone to India to find himself," Dr. Rud said, "we all know what that means. You can't make threats like that to people that powerful without ending up...Well, dead."

>>20817254
"So what you're saying is, You dont know., but he likely ended up as food for Cancer or vaporized thanks to project photon. And what about Dr. Phan? What had be been up to? What was said behind closed doors about him?"

It would seem Commissioner Guadian is expecting some trouble from the villain community. He's made himself difficult to track down, and thus while finding a Chimera agent standing around ready to be yoinked is mostly a matter of persistence (Chimera grunts are harder to possess than your average thug, but Rica doesn't need to be picky so she just keeps on trying new ones until she gets lucky), she is unable to track down Guadian. His security on press conferences and the like is impenetrable and he's nearly impossible to find otherwise.

Your ghostly spies report that the Span house is deserted. Kestrel is able to give you a few more potential locations to look for him, but you're unable to find Doctor Span anywhere.

>>20817365

"Doctor Span put his bleeding heart before the advancement of science," Doctor Iveson said, "but he knew not to push things too far. EdenTech doesn't just walk around disappearing everyone who gets on their nerves, of course, or else no one would ever come work for them! Span never threatened to destroy the company, so he was left alone."

"Besides," Dr. Rud said, "for all his whining, the man was a genius. Just his resignation would've been a significant blow to the company, especially given his vital role in Project Swordsman. That project was a huge gamble, it could've ruined the company completely or made us a permanent part of history and entrenched us in the markets for a century. I, uh, suppose that gamble didn't pay off. But anything that threatened it at all would've made the suits nervous, and if you killed someone just for leaving the company, well, you'd only make things worse for yourself."

>>20817402
Check the house yourself. not literally of course.

There has to be evidence of him disappearing, signs of a struggle, a note left, Something. Although, her reappearance may draw him out, or, reveal that Chimera kidnapped him because of his knowledge of Swordsman.

Second idea, leave a note for Amp,
>Kestral not as gone as you'd think
>But I need your help
>Find Dr. Phan
>With Love, The Iron Master~ (How'd you heal up?)

>>20817516

There's no signs of struggle in the house when your synthskinned bots arrive to investigate, nor any note left. In his room, however, it appears he packed up a few belongings, so he probably didn't kill himself, or at the very least not immediately, and he seems to have left of his own volition. That, or a very clever assailant wanted you to think that.

Amp is still hospitalized from the wounds he took in the battle last week, but you stick a synthskinned bot in some scrubs and have him drop the note while he's asleep.

>>20817547
Gotcha, change the heal up to 'Get well Soon'

Keep up the search for Dr. Phan, sneak Pigeon bots into various Apple stores to hack into Edentech's remainder to see if he'd been brought back in to rebuild the project.

Okay. Sick ghosts, pidgins to locate top cop. Rica just needs to try again. Honestly its okay if she doesn't suceed in actually killing the cop as long as chimera catches the heat.

>>20817254
Do they have any idea who made the hit, because I have a nasty suspicion I know who did.

>>20817651

You tell Rica to be more reckless about it, and she has some fun yoinking every Chimera agent she can get her hands on and ramming them straight into Guadian's security, heedless of odds for actual success, then getting in gunfights with the cops and refusing to surrender, forcing the police to shoot her to death. The public and police alike are notably worried that Chimera has developed an al-Qaeda-esque zeal for getting rid of Guadian.

With their best crews gutted, EdenTech hasn't been able to do much to patch up the holes in their security you'd previously exploited, which means most of them are still there. You're able to crack into their databases, but they're dumping data like mad in the wake of the federal investigation. There's no mention of Doctor Span, however.

>>20817714

No, they're completely clueless. EdenTech is not typically homicidally sinister, but inquiring as to who did their dirty work when they finally did decide to get rid of someone is a good way to get them to go to the trouble of killing again.

>>20817735
May as well take the opportunity to catch everything they're dumping away, and nab whatever tech they're trying to hide as well (Could use some more tubes and shiny bits to spruce up the labs.)

>>20817814

It'll be your last action if you do. Wanna raid what's left of EdenTech?

>>20817882
All the computers, robot construction, and lab equipment would set us up a lot more. I say we go for it while Rica and Julio keep trying to find Dr. Phan.
I'm sure Kestral is too, and now Amp.

>>20817882
Sounds good

Any of the cops from the precincts we took over heard any rumors about where tjat commisionor guy is?

rolled 13 = 13

>>20817882
fuck yea lets see if we can get in quickly enough to steal stuff from the labs too like bots and anything expensive looking

You send a bunch of synthskinned bots in worker clothes to Eden Tower. The defenses are literally shot, and with the labs reduced to debris and the company in serious legal trouble, not a whole lot of effort has been put into restoring them. While walking your bots through the offices and bombed out labs, you sort of get that feeling that you've come back to a really hard level of a video game after the plot has moved on and all the enemies have left. You can remember intense gunfights in these corridors, cautious stealth in those ventilation shafts, how you carefully disabled alarms and fought a seemingly endless parade of iRobots. And now you can just walk through. Weird.

Anyways, you've loaded up about half the truck outside and are wheeling out some half-charred scrap metal that still looks usable when a familiar and unwelcome hum draws your attention to the shadows. You recognize Swordsman's blue and white armor and bolt as he chases after your bots, slicing one of them to pieces. The bots shout in panic, not because they actually feel fear but because it'll draw the attention of the cops outside. Running in, they draw their guns on Swordsman. "Freeze!" they shout, "you're under arrest!"

"They're with the Iron Master!" he shouts, gesturing towards the wreckage of the bot he's destroyed, "get out of my way!"

"Drop your weapon!" the cops say, and Swordsman blasts one of them away with a stun bolt. The other cop opens fire, to little effect, and is then blasted away himself. By this time, your bots already have enough of a headstart to get to the van and make their escape, tires screeching as they shout about how Swordsman's come and started killing people for some reason.

You gain two resources for your trouble, but no insights into EdenTech projects have survived the bombs.

After their attempted assassinations, and being that they're fighting with Swordsman for the top of Guadian's list of priorities in the first place, Chimera takes the brunt of Guadian's police blitz. With so many actions to play with, however, the city ends up punting another raid your way, and unlike Slemp, Guadian concentrates on finishing off weakened sets instead of spreading the hurt around to keep everyone sort of halfway suppressed. Fortunately it's a bad week for the Hawthorne Precinct, and they're unable to make much headway against the Silver Guard, dropping their Morale from 2/5 down to 1/5. Still, the Silver Guard is teetering on the brink of annihilation.

The police crackdown on Chimera find themselves joined by possibly the last person they'd been expecting: Kestrel.

When asked what the Hell isn't she supposed to be dead, Kestrel explains that she had some prototype Cancer serum that she'd put on a deadman's switch tied to her heartbeat, since if her heart had stopped probably the serum wasn't going to make things any worse anyways. Her gamble had paid off and she'd slowly regenerated. Unfortunately, by the time she came to, her corpse had been stolen by Chimera, whom she says was planning to turn her into some sort of cyborg-zombie. Her guess is that they wanted to demoralize the city and didn't think cyborg-zombies would actually be all that cost-effective. When asked about her escape from Chimera, her response was "look, let's be blunt: I robbed MurderTech. Running out on a bunch of terrorists who weren't really expecting me to get up and start walking in the first place isn't a huge deal for me."

Morgue officials protest that she was completely dead on arrival, no brain activity, but her response is a shrug of her shoulders and a guess that the Cancer serum is apparently just that good. With EdenTech a smoking ruin and Cancer's body nabbed by the Iron Master when he killed it, no one can really prove her wrong.

>>20818338
Did she find our upgraded Kestral suit? Steve, did you show her the suit? I havent finished the finishing touches! It was going to be more Chrome.

Set to work strengthening our sets and weakening the police precincts in our city.

THE IRON MASTER
Health: 1 (3)
Power: 3 (9)
Resources: 17
XP: 0

Athletics: 1
Cunning: 3
Technology: 4
Insight: 2
Observation: 3
Nefariousness: 2
Stealth: 1

Powers: AI, Terminators, SynthSkin, Model T, Mechs, Mobile Dolls, Ghost Whisperer

Action Points:

The Iron Master: 2/2
Julio Pedone: 3/3
Rica Rivera: 2/2

>>20818440

You've yet to upgrade the Kestrel suit. Giving out powers costs XP.

How exactly do you mean "strengthening our sets?"

>>20818489
More men, hardened bases, A few termy bodyguards (1-3) at major locations of Set leaders, get set members some luxury's and spatting of swat armor.

Boost their morale and defenses against police crackdown.

>>20818520

Okay, how many resources do you plan to sink into that? Do you want to concentrate it anywhere in particular or spread it out?

>>20818690
Well, we've got some construction capacity and materials, why not buy some concrete from walmart/ect. and build ourselves literal Stronghouses inside our Sets which have defences greater than a police precinct.

We're going to want to rise to the level of Chimera and Ronin, with economic businesses, stock trade, import export, ect. A bunch of pimps and drugpushers, though profitable in the short term, do not an organization make.

>>20818755

Concrete strongholds aren't going to do much except get ever more powerful government agencies involved. If the police can't raid your hideout, they'll just call up the local Air Force base and drop a bunker buster on you. Criminals who plan on fighting the government directly don't do well.

>>20818809
The political ramifications on that would be HUGE!

The GOVERNMENT dropped a BOMB on a US CITY. This could be done in Assfuckistan, but a major us city?
they literally cant even try that, no politician is mad enough to. Sure, we might deal with FBI, ATF, and anti-Villain superhuman task forces, but not Bombs.

I mean start leaning toward legitimate businesses, pay taxes and have actual jobs, while we set up these Iron Legion stronghouses. And get those soup kitchens up if we havent yet. We really should've done that during Winter.

I'm going to pass out, im glad Kestral took this well, but also disappointed because i thought it would hit her and her father harder.. Dont disappear on us again Twirled, i like this quest.

>>20818875

I think you're underestimating the political ramifications of all the shit you are almost constantly pulling. The city is freaking the Hell out and you are not really slowing down at all. How many bombings, chemical weapon attacks, and open turf wars between armies of robots and every single SWAT officer in the city do you think the government will tolerate before they declare martial law, roll in the National Guard, and get rid of you by any means necessary?

Pump up morale and take down the most threatining police stations

Okay, I need to be off in probably about half an hour, and the thread is chugging anyway, so here's the archive:

>http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/20811080/

Hopefully life will not screw me over for like a week for a while.

Okay, I need to get off now. However, I would like to inform you all that ironmaster.wikia.com is now a thing. It's also kind of bare bones. Meaning, we have a plot summary and that's it. As time goes on I'll fill in a few more things like characters and probably drop a link to the rules paste at some point, but right now I mostly need to focus on the Obsidian Portal thing I've got for my D&D campaign. Speaking of the rules paste, the rules have been updated. Normally this wouldn't happen so quick, but I had nearly two weeks to turn stuff over in my head even if I couldn't get to my computer and edit the files I keep this stuff in (note to self: port to Google Docs). So, yeah, there's another round of powers updates coming. Hopefully it will actually be balanced enough this time that we won't have to do this again. Sorry I'm so bad at getting this stuff right the first time.

>>20818983
This brings up a good point. For the next month lets conserve our strength, let the city cool off, and just hold our territory.
Can we pump up our morale and just maintain it at max for some time without the cops raping our new territory?

>>20818983
Frankly the only thing that surprises me is how little public heat the Ronin has taken, since they helped out on both operations, guess that's the advantage of letting us take the credit, and the blame. On the plus side, the apparent alliance of us and the Ronin is probably giving everyone in the criminal world pause, which is good
We really have to lower our public profile and heat and lay low for at least a month.
Things to do:
1. Continue corrupting Kestral. I think we should basically become her mentor over time. Start by using our resources to give her good targets to pounce on. Then providing her room and board and suite repair. Furthermore we can provide training services to her as combat mechs and murder bots provide great sparing partners. Eventually, she will be completely dependent on us and working for us even if she doesn't realize it.
2. Laying low: No open roberies, no expansion. Just provide services to other supervillain's in this time frame, tech support to black cat's robberies, selling cancer serum to villains who want it, maybe even hiring out bots as disosable muscle. Aside from screwing with swordsman we do nothing that could draw heat.
3. Be on the lookout for a competitor to project strider our ex eden tech guys might know people, though probably not in our city. (if you don't want to have to invent a whole new bunch of heroes just have us go against Amp's mentor)
4. keep an ear to the ground for the emergence of new heroes, as the recent spate of fights have probably inspired a few do gooders to take up cape and cowl.
5. Keep an eye on all the gangs in the city, especially the Espada and Chirma, as there is a good chance that those two might drift together in response to our alliance with the Ronin.
6. Find out who is backing the goblins, we've put it off for far to long.

File: 1348342923785.jpg-(34 KB, 420x340, do_not_404_on_me.jpg)

Sorry for the late start. People are irritating sometimes. Anyways, this thread is still around so let's go with that.

>>20825004
kay but we are the autosage

We're on the front page now, and this thing was on page 10 when I dug it up. Did we just barely hit the auto-sage threshold?

Although we still seem to be missing my audience. Maybe that's just because of the late start.

>>20825127
Maybe my could was off
>>20825262
Run it anyway, lets do some shit with just me.

>>20825281
Count*

>>20825297

Heh, sure, wouldn't be the first thread that was carried by just one or two people.

First of all, here is what will hopefully be the last rules update for a while:

>http://pastebin.com/utmjLqag

Update notes:

-The sneak attack combat maneuver has been added to help bring down opponents who have buffed their Athletics through the stratosphere.
-A note clarifying how multiple attacks works has been added. I've gone back and forth on exactly how I rule on extra attacks, but now this note is officially setting it into stone. This is a bit of a mild buff for super speed, even though this is how the rules worked most of the time anyway.
-Several attack powers have the added benefit that they ignore mundane armor, upgrading both them and Super Durability, which is still effective against these powers.
-The attack powers from Shadow Powers now ignore all DR, including that from Super Durability.
-Healing Factor has been collapsed together with Shapeshifting. The cost on some Healing Factor powers has been increased to stop the set from being overpowered. Also, the Monster Form power has been revised a bit to make it more powerful when used as intended while also preventing it from being abused.
-Plant Control and Animal Control have been collapsed into just Nature Powers, however I am open to suggestions for new powers that could be used to make this power set not suck so much. Mostly it has minion powers vastly inferior to Machines and Necromancy, attack powers vastly inferior to any other attack set, and Animal Tongue, which is neat but not super awesome.

>cont

>>20825262
nah, autosage is at 300 posts. Anyway have Julio bolster our weak set

>>20825402

-A minor benefit has been added to super speed in that it is now much easier to beat a very brave retreat when you are much faster than an opponent.
-Favored of the Fates was added to the Fortune power set.
-Ice Powers has been converted from a generally sucky power set to a jack of all trades power set that grants you a lot of flexibility and can be used to shore up almost any weakness at all (even if it still kind of sucks on its own, it's a pretty good secondary power set now, so that's something)
-Ghouls can now have powers.
-Mech powers have been nerfed such that you'll have to choose between making them a command node OR giving them a mess of combat powers, instead of having both. Also, the way powers on Super Vehicle have been changed. Instead of having any one power, you can instead have 6 XP worth. This is both a buff (you can have more than one power) and a nerf (you can't take very expensive powers for free anymore).
-The way Time Travel works has been altered slightly.
-The Martial Arts power set was added, and the Ninjitsu power has been moved from Shadow Powers to Martial Arts. Sadly, it appears Strike will not live to make use of the Martial Arts set.

>>20825412

Stuff that isn't fixed but needs to be:

-As mentioned above, Nature Powers is like a suckier version of other power sets right now. It can't go for the jack of all trades approach because Ice Powers is already doing that.
-The powers in Density Control are all pretty good, but there's not very many of them and it's not really worth it to unlock the set as a whole. Probably they should be collapsed together with another set, but I'm not sure which, especially since relevant sets like Gravity Powers are pretty strong already and don't need to be buffed with the addition of three really nice, fairly cheap powers.
-Other than Stone Wall, which is a cool utility thing, Earth Powers sucks pretty bad.

Any suggestions as to how these four outstanding problems could be fixed would be welcome. Also welcome would be balance problems that I just haven't seen yet. Fortunately they all relate to powers that no one really uses.

And also we have a plot summary at our wiki:

>http://ironmaster.wikia.com/wiki/Plot_Summary

That should get people up to speed quicker than an archive binge. Finally, pictures and quotes for the wiki would be cool, so if anyone remembers or happens across a cool quote for a certain character or a good picture that would work for someone, please tell me. Also, Hero Machine 3 is still a great place to make pictures of your own if playing around with character creators is your thing. Also, also, I'm pretty sure you can edit the wiki yourself, so go ahead and fill in stuff that's missing. Eventually I'd like to have a nice directory of different characters, articles for Team Red and Team Blue, etc. etc.

Anyways. Julio. Sets. Gameplay. Let me roll some dice.

So im like resuggesting >>20821714's plan.
I want to keep it cool and just let the other gangs fight eachother, let Swordsman get shot by the cops and just keep our sets at max morale.

>>20825421
For earth, I would reccommend an earthquake spell for massive property damage. Furthermore, I would rule that the minions with powers can only take minion granting powers that the supervillian has himself unlocked. Its rather silly that robots can build robots you don't know how to build. Also, the ability to stack cold shoulder and burning hands is still quite funny.

File: 1348346276605.jpg-(40 KB, 720x572, Slade-and-Terra-teen-tita(...).jpg)

>>20825421
How I've always seen Kestral, not necessarily her looks but more of a mental image. We're the guy in the back btw. Hopefully this time we won't die in magma this time.
Bonus is the heroine in this pics shows a bunck of grate ways to use earth:
1. Levitate a block of earth to fly yourself and others slowly
2. stone grapple arms
3. making tunnels for underground transportation.
4. Using lava

File: 1348346418405.png-(42 KB, 400x600, Kestrel.png)

Okay. Here is a Kestrel thing I started idly toying with last night and finished up while waiting for people to show up. Hero Machine 3 is getting closed now so I can concentrate properly. It's amazing how effectively that thing kills my ability to multitask.

Anyways, Julio is successfully able to tick the Silver Guard up to 2/5. Did you want him to sink all his actions into that, or just one? He's going to get less and less likely to succeed as the set's Morale increases.

Also, yes, that Kestrel looks kind of dumb. I'm hoping to get her looking better before I write up her wiki article, but that'll have to wait. The game is afoot.

Action Points:

The Iron Master: 2/2
Julio Pedone: 2/3
Rica Rivera: 2/2

>>20825412
Don't worry, between us, chimera and the goblins there has to be at least one batman origin story around. How much would it cost to bribe the set up to full?

>>20825757
Booste Morale and just hold back on crime. Defense only.

>>20825943

Alright, Julio kicks the Silver Guard up to 4/5 Morale, but it's basically hopeless boosting past that point, no one has enough Insight. So the rest of the actions went into cleaning up some lingering damage from the sporadic police raids back when Slemp was calling the shots, patching up some minor holes in your sets. They probably would've regenerated anyway, but you've got time to kill and you're trying to lay low.

A bored Rica advises that you set your sights on the Stalkers next, and disguise some bots as Chimera agents to begin weakening them. The other gangs might think that Chimera, basically unopposed since the Goblins took out the Colombo Outfit, is planning on taking the entire city. Police heat will shift back onto Chimera, and if you can make a big enough spectacle, you'll be able to return to robbery and other relatively minor crimes without anyone noticing or caring.

Julio opposes Rica's plan on two fronts. First, the Hounds and Stalkers are right in the middle of the city, and going there now sacrifices the advantage you gained by starting on the coast. A border with other gangs wasn't a huge deal when you were small and no one really cared, but after Eden Tower and Harbor City, the other gangs are paying a lot more attention. The Goblin Gang up north is a much better target, as it only adds the Ronin and the Family to your borders. The Family don't really care much about you one way or the other, and the Ronin are quite friendly towards you (for now, at least).

More importantly, if a false flag attack loses even ONE disguised bot, it'll be clear to everyone that the downed bot is, in fact, a bot. Then you'll accomplish exactly the reverse of what you intended.

One thing Rica and Julio agree on, however, is that Guadian has to be got rid of and the sooner the better. He's smart, he's tough, he has a much longer memory than the masses and he won't be easily swayed by polls. He'll keep a careful eye on you long after the newspapers have moved on.

>>20826241
For Guardian.... hmm...
We need him dead, if only Chimera would bomb the police HQ or something.

>>20826241
sorry I forgot, who's Guardian, its the asshole with time manipulation, that's Chronos right?

>>20826429
*its not

Guadian punts two actions over to your patch of the city. The Rancho Palos Verdes Precinct, attempting to track down the Cat who remains active in the area, cracks down on the Steel Legion, a worker set, dissolving them completely. Meanwhile, the Hawthorne Precinct cracks down on the Silver Guard. Normally this wouldn't be a big deal (their Morale is currently 4/5), but one of the Silver Guard sells out some key members of the set. With half the leadership in prison, the set falls apart, leaving not one, but two neighborhoods vacant in Palos Verdes.

As bad as it is for you, it's much worse for Chimera, who now bear the brunt of Guadian's assault. They have a large stockpile of spare resources that they use to play whackamole, rapidly replacing downed sets. Though Chimera is not seeking out gunfights, with their key hideouts regularly being raided by police officers and SWAT teams, they often end up in gunfights. The police stumble across the stealth aircraft again, but it cloaks and gets away. Chimera is slowly being bled dry. Two further attempts by apparently unaligned assassins have been made on Guadian, the first by a skilled assassin-for-hire from Europe and the second by Dead Eye. Both failed, although Dead Eye did see Guadian hospitalized. He continued to direct police forces from his hospital bed, where he has three police officers guarding him at all times. He's said to the press that "I'm not going to die until the battle for this city is won."

It is now the third week of January.

>wat do?

>>20826429

Kronos is the time dude.

Elijah Guadian is the new police commissioner. The name was randomly generated and supposedly comes from US census data. I just took the very first name that popped up. That the name of the police commissioner who rolled 6 for his Notability just so happened to be what appears to be a misspelling of Guardian is a happy coincidence. There is no r in his name, though. I double-checked. Dunno if it's a glitch in the generator, a mistake in the census data, or just how someone decided to spell their last name, but there've been weirder names in comics, so I'm rolling with it.

>>20826503
derp right sorry, thanks

Oh, almost forgot:
THE IRON MASTER
Health: 1 (3)
Power: 3 (9)
Resources: 27
XP: 0

>>20826473
Pidgeon spies on Guardian, we figure out who his doctor is, drug him, then send in a syncskin doppleganger to put him down
that or we could throw together a mini bugbot to break his morphine button (if he's shot he has one, and he is using it. He isn't superman that shit hurts really bad) remove the limit and increase the dose, BAM overdose, machine error.

Have Rica posses one of his guards (preferably a new one) and kill him. Set up some hints ahead of time that the assassin works for chimera, but this should be stuff they only find with a good bit of digging.

>>20826639
>>20826611

So, which of these three do you plan on going for? All at once?

>>20826554
Julio replaces the downed sets. We might want enact Operation Kestral-Bot.
Step One: we rob something, swordsman will be drawn out like a magnet.
Step Two: Kestral-Bot (who has a very nice but completely nonfunctional replica of her suite) reveals herself.
Step Three: Swordsman tries to kill her again
Step Four: We detonate the C4 that we built the bot out of right in swordsman's face.

>>20826718
Prioritize stealth, if the morphine bug dont work then we send in Rica as a Chimera sleeper.

>>20826611
I don't really see the point of sythskin doctors when possession is possible

>>20826758
I completely forgot about that truth be told

>>20826758

Rica's possession is very hit-and-miss. If you need to possess a specific person or someone from a small group of people, it's not likely to work out. If you just need to possess anyone from this particular gang or whatever, she can do that just with attrition. Since she is statistically almost certain to eventually succeed after hundreds of attempts even if the odds don't favor her, I don't even bother in a case where she can plausibly try a hundred or more times. This isn't one of those cases, though.

>>20826804
In that case Dr. Roboto may actually be better as we just need to disappear. Lets send the bot after the doc disguised as a chimera member. Fucking police sketches man.
We should do both at once, just get the bot to take him after the bug fails. a standby thing.

>>20826839
>Lets send the bot after the doc disguised as a chimera member. Fucking police sketches man.
sorry
Lets send the bot to drug the doc, and have him disguised as a Chimera member.

>>20826839
I'm pretty sure that isn't in his contract. Also, we don't have a mind control drug.

>>20826611
both of these plans rely on skills that the general public, and the cops know we have. If anyone doesn't believe our cover story for the possession they'll probably think mesmer did it.

>>20826870
Chloroform, our chemist might have one, baseball bat?
Im saying take care of the doc, keep him from work, and send a bot disguised as him into the hospital.

The morphine bug plan falls through when one of the officers notices the bug inside and flicks it off, then informs a doctor that they aren't doing a super great job of keeping the environment sterile. Guadian's picked some pretty attentive officers and they know what to look for. Observing disembodied, Rica goes for Plan B.

The first guy shudders slightly, and tries to squeak out a warning, but he's taken before he can manage. "Are you alright?" one of the other officers asks.

>wat do?

>>20826924
Lie, say we are fine, we just need him to hesitate slightly, then we shoot the top cop. The rest of the body guards will kill our guy, but that doesn't really matter.

>>20826924
"Dizzy spell... can you get me some water? I need to sit down for a second." would be a good excuse
when he's gone we move. If he won't go then we need wait for an opening then take him down.

>>20826954

The other two officers are not fast enough to react as the third, possessed by Rica, draws his gun and aims it at Guadian.

Guadian, however, rolls boxcars. A breathless Joseph Gordon-Levitt enters a moment later to find that the Commissioner has already downed his assailants.

>>20827120
That should be impossible. I'm pretty sure this qualifies as an ambush

>>20827160

Yes, technically Rica's possessed dude got gunned down by the other officers in the next round. Likewise, Joseph Gordon-Levitt did not, in fact, enter the room afterwards. Though since we're in Los Angeles I guess that wouldn't have been completely out of the question either.

>>20827191
Fuck it, C4 pidgeon the room if the windows open. Or hell fly through it. Would that be unexpected?

God damnit even when we try to do something clever and stealthy we fuck up....

>>20827191
Fair enough. Fuck it, use ghosts to keep him under constant surveillance. Then when he leaves we have Rica in a possessed Chimera blow up his car with a fucking anti tank bazooka. We never did use the ones we got from the armory job.

>>20827239

This was less your having a bad plan and more the dice saying "fuck you." Don't beat yourself up about it.

We going with kamikaze pigeons or the anti-tank approach? The former is nearly guaranteed to succeed, since a regular dude who's already injured can't really hope to survive C4 (though if the dice decide to keep sucking him off, anything is possible), but it carries the drawback of being pretty obviously from you. You've used those pigeons before.

>>20827324
Fuck everything. Umm...I want him dead but I want chimera to take the blame.

>>20827324
Okay is that sniper, umm deadeye? is he still around? We could always tell him he can make his move now if he's there now.

>>20827324
wait, he has a window? Then just shoot the bazooka though the window

File: 1348354842146.jpg-(201 KB, 1680x1050, NotMakingThisUp.jpg)

Alright. Rica yoinks a Chimera grunt, picks up the anti-tank rocket launcher, and then basically camps the hospital for the next few days. Police officers in plainclothes make fairly regular sweeps of the area, but she's able to pick them out from the way they carry themselves and the way they're scanning the area, and avoids a confrontation. Guadian's departure from the hospital is not announced in advance for security reasons, but it's not long before he's out (despite his doctor's wishes that he stay for a bit longer).

The hard part is over. Rica just needs to roll her Athletics, already superior than his by one point even before he took the penalties for being still quite injured, and it's basically an insta-gib. From the safety of a nearby rooftop, she steadies the anti-tank weapon on her shoulder, aims at the car...And rolls snake eyes.

This is so absurd I have included a screenshot. I swear I am not making this up. That was ambush and now Guadian's beating his very brave retreat, so Rica does get another shot, though.

>>20827610
This is fucking hilarious. If he survives this we should just fucking turn to good, as any god wants this mant alive.

>>20827610
FUCK! I take it that close doesn't count with horse shoes, hand grenades and anti tank rockets?

>>20827654

God's love for Guadian is just not quite strong enough. Although given her 4-point advantage it's still kind of ridiculous that Rica's total was only one above his, it was still above his. The anti-tank rocket slams into his car as it speeds away from the hospital, going up in a fireball and taking Guadian with it.

>>20827754
Fuck finally. Damnit. Give Rica a bonus for this one.

Towards the end there I was kind of rooting for him myself, for how insane his luck was. But anyways, that's done with, Rica starts a gunfight with nearby police officers so as to get herself killed and not have to lug this Chimera yahoo's body around anymore. Here's where your action points stand:

The Iron Master: 1/2
Julio Pedone: 3/3
Rica Rivera: 0/2

>>20827843
have Julio replace those sets that got killed.
For future reference, can we just assume we are using our ghosts to keep an eye on the various gangs and heroes in the city?

Spend the rest of the turn Replacing the destroyed sets and boosting our lowrst morale sets

>>20827923

I typically do, but most of the more interesting ones are hard to spy on. The Family, Chimera, and lately the Goblin Gang all have one variety of anti-ghost measures or another, and the rest aren't up to much that's interesting (possibly those three aren't doing much that's interesting either). As for heroes, most everyone is either concentrating on Chimera, patrolling the city more or less at random, or else effectively retired.

>>20828083
how competent is the guy who replaced our dear leader?

>>20828128

You're about to find out, officials get replaced on the city's turn.

The Iron Guard replaces a few sets and you and Julio both try to bump the Morale of the Tungsten Guard, ultimately to no avail. Fortunately, the city is too busy trying to replace Guadian to crack down on you, especially since Chimera is now taking more heat than ever.

The Iron Guard gets a snappy new wiki page so that you can keep track of their stats. I went ahead and deleted these from my notes, as I'll just use that page to keep track of the Iron Guard's stats from now on. I've also locked it so that only admins can edit it, for what I hope are obvious reasons. Feast your eyes upon the statistical glory of your gang.

Anyways. Guadian is succeeded by police chief Erinn Capalbo. I'm going to go ahead and say that's a girl's name, but I'm seriously not quite sure. Regardless, Erinn was one of Guadian's more trusted officers, but she is quite lacking in experience. Put into office mostly because she can keep the police firmly on the side of Kronos and Mayor Pellitier. The city mourns the passing of Guadian, but the new Commissioner Capalbo says that she is firmly committed to bringing his murderers to justice.

Her Notability is 2, so yeah, good luck with that. Chimera breathes a sigh of relief.

Oh, by the way, while we're meandering about, you guys are going to have to rebuild your mechs at some point. The old build isn't legal anymore. Also, you've got 24 resources to play with right now.

>>20828396
Could we improve the Guard somehow with those resources? Maybe make good on giving our minions some real tech, like cybernetics or some such.

>>20828396
What needs to be done for that?

>>20828609

Read the rules for Mechs in the new rules paste (http://pastebin.com/utmjLqag) and draw up some new stats for them that follow the new rules.

>>20828730
So average 4 would "H6 P6 A6 C0 T6 I0 O6 N0 S6" work? Give our mechs the ability to hack aswell?

>>20828884

Yes, although that build has no powers at all. Prior to the rules update you'd been using mechs as command nodes by giving them the Terminators and Model T powers, thus greatly amplifying the number of bots you can command. Giving them no powers at all would reduce the number of commandable bots to just the four mechs. Plus, without any super speed, strength, or durability, those mechs aren't much for combat anyway.

>>20828945
Sorry I picked this up recently and im not super sure of anything. Ah well someone smarter can handle this.

You seem to be about the only one around right now. I'll toss out a few things I threw together just to keep things moving. People can always redesign them later if they want:

Blitz Mech:
H6 P2 A6 C0 T0 I0 O4 N0 S4
Powers: Super Speed, Meta Durability

Guard Mech:
H6 P4 A6 C0 T0 I0 O6 N0 S0
Powers: Super Strength, Enhanced Vision, Meta Durability

Command Mech:
H6 P6 A6 C0 T0 I0 O6 N0 S0
Powers: Terminators, Model T, Reanimate Zombie, Peak Durability

Battle Doll:
H6 P4 A6 C0 T0 I0 O0 N0 S6
Powers: Super Speed, Meta Durability

Every Command Mech can control up to 36 terminators and 18 zombies. They're not pushovers in a fight, either, though they won't last long against your average super. Blitz and guard mechs are combat based. They have no minion powers of their own which means that every blitz or guard mech you take is reducing your pool of minions by about fifty, counting both terminators and zombies (you've never used zombies before and they're not very discreet the way your terminators are, but they're cheap in terms of XP so I tossed them on). These are the things you bring when you want to take down a super. Finally, the Battle Doll is for Rica. When Rica possesses something (or someone), she uses some stats from the host and some stats from her own writeup. The Battle Doll splurges on all the stats contributed by the host while flat-out ignoring every stat Rica will have to supply on her own anyway, and uses the savings to take some powers that are good for murder.

>>20829103

Sorry, slight mistake: The command mechs can control 36 terminators and 36 zombies. I forgot that undead are Zerg.

H6 P6 A6 C0 T0 I0 O6 N0 S0
Powers: Bullet Time, Terminators, Model T, Peak Durability
Would this be possible? I like the +2 bonous over giving then the chance to summon Zombies. Let's keep that to ourselves a bit longer.

>>20829188
bonus*

>>20829188

The powers have to come from sets you've unlocked, and you don't have Time Manipulation. Technically you don't have Super Human Abilities either, but you can access it anyway because of Project Swordsman shenanigans. You could bump the command mechs' Peak Durability up to Meta if you don't want the zombies, though.

>>20829221
In that case let's go for that, better they keep moving longer.