Taint

I use counters to represent Hero Points in the game, white ones for Hero Points and Red ones for Taint.

The characters can gain a rank of Taint when they have contact with a source of the taint, such as a demonic entity from the beyond.

Once a character gains their first rank of Taint the following rules come into effect.

At the beginning of each session the character gets one red counter per rank of Taint. The Taint counter can be spent as a Hero Point, but only when the character is out of regular hero points.

• If the character spends a Tainted Hero Point on self-preservation or other non-heroic act then the character needs to make a Willpower save [DC: 10+ PL + Taint Rank] to avoid gaining another rank of Taint.

While a character has a Taint counter they may make use of extra-effort without becoming fatigued.

• If the character uses extra-effort and avoids the fatigue level then the character needs to make a Willpower save [DC: 10 + Taint Rank] to avoid gaining another rank of Taint.

Taint Drawbacks
A character may possess up to 4 ranks of Taint with no ill effects, however when the fifth rank of taint is awarded the GM will assign a 5 point mental or physical drawback. The character can avoid this by taking a mental drawback at any time equal in value to the current effective rank of Taint.

Taking the drawback doesn't award the character any points.

Once the 5 point drawback has been assigned the character then gains two ranks of Taint where they would have gained one previously. If the character gains double the amount of taint they had when the 5 point drawback was assigned then that character is lost to the darkness.

Removing Taint Drawbacks
A drawback can only be removed when the rank of Taint has been reduced to a point below when the drawback was assigned.


Okay, I'm confusing myself. Let me have a think and I'll try and re-write this with a little more clarity.

What Happens in Vegas...

Las Vegas
The team are here at the invitation of Mighty Lawman, Snr (a "Paragon" sheriff from the old west) who's Immunity to Ageing is failing and with the prospect of a long, painful and drawn out death has asked his "son" if he can go out in a blaze of glory and have a heroes death. The team agreed in principal.

Mighty Lawman, Snr even knows of something that he would like to gain vengeance upon the menace wiped out his posse back in the 1890'ies and that he has been running from ever since. Mighty Lawman, Snr's nemesis is Cactus Jack (a native American shaman who sacrificed his entire tribe to gain power) who managed to summon a giant spider demon to do his bidding, as far as M.L.Snr knows Cactus Jack and the demon are still about, lurking somewhere in the dark as the demon can be destroyed by the light.

The team, with the guidance of M.L.Snr search the desert for Magic Mesa which they find. They encounter the Mesa's guardian, avoid conflict with him and attempt to discover what is wrong with the Mesa, as it's showing signs of being corrupted in some way. A connection is made with the Spider demon and Cactus Jack so the team vow to defeat the bad guys and (hopefully) lift the curse on Magic Mesa.

The team return to Vegas to sleep and plan how to take on Cactus Jack and his Demonic Spider. They encounter Eldrich at the Casino and speak with him about the Mesa and the Demon, he reveals that is was a former Master Mage (Lady Violet Pennyworth) that managed to defeat Cactus Jack and his demon for long enough to bind them with an entrapment spell, a spell that is powered by the energy of the Mesa and keeps them safe today. While the team are wondering just how Lady Pennyworth defeated Cactus Jack (who some say is immune to magic) along comes Dr. Tomorrow, Guardian of Time and asks the Team if he could be of any help?

Dr. Tomorrow has been following their exploits since there abduction by Mastermind and it was him that left them messages on how to defeat Mastermind and save the world from an ice age. He bargains with them for their help back on Erde for an interview with Lady Pennyworth so they can, with any luck defeat Cactus Jack. For his part Eldrich can banish the spider demon back to where it came from provided the team can handle Cactus Jack. They are all agreed, the team leave for Victorian London (all except Juggler as the player was being an ass and didn't want to play along) and Eldrich heads back to his base to prepare for the long ritual to banish a demon.

Tinka Winky
As Juggler is heading for her room she hears a smashing sound and loud shrill yells of "Jackpot!" Upon investigation she discovers that a small green fairy is smashing up the one armed bandits of the casino. Approaching a security guard she asks him if they need any help.

"Don't worry miss, we have everything under control."

As he says this TinkaHULK crashes out the front of a giant one armed bandit yells "Jackpot!" at the top of his tiny voice and proceeds to fly directly upwards creating a TinkaHULK shaped hole in the ceiling.

What followed was a hectic chase between Juggler and TinkaHULK the highlights of which involved Tink flying under a coach of Elvis impersonators and throwing it at Juggler and the destruction of several other cars, Tink also managed to assault several showgirls by giving them a "gentle" pat on the behind (sending them flying into the air).

All the time this was going on Winky watched Juggler with knowing eyes from his spot on the top of a flagpole, occasionally saying "meow."

The rest of the team by this time return from Victorian London and see the bedlam caused by "The Juggler" not waiting to change from their Victorian costumes the rest of the team take up positions all around attempting to help out where they can.

Mighty Lawman "saves" Winky from the flag pole, Winky gives him a knowing look and clings onto his arm. Once the initial clear up has been done the team look for TinkaHULK and notice that he has entered another casino.

Mighty Lawman checks in with the Lighthouse to get information about TinkaHULK, he speaks to Captain Thunder who gives him the back story and explains that TinkaHULK is a royal pain in the butt and a trouble maker.

The team enter the darkened casino (TinkaHULK has smashed all the lights) they spread out and try to find him, Juggler taunts TinkaHULK and he attacks her, the hit bouncing off her force field.

Winky looks as demure as he can at the Mighty Lawman (Disarming attempt to befuddle Mighty Lawman) who ignores the cat (getting a natural 20 [DAMN!]) Winky then jumps off into the room and vanishes behind a table.

The team leap into action and unleash all their attack at poor TinkaHULK, which he managed to soak or avoid. TinkaHULK flys over to where The Anti-Light is and provokes Mighty Lawman (wins the rolls and manages to redirect Mighty Lawman's attack into Anti-Light).

Other highlights of the battle include both Mighty Lawman Snr and Jnr teaming up to lift/grapple TinkaHULK out of the Casino, while this was under way Winky sneek attacked Jnr and almost badly savaged his ear (he burnt a HP to avoid being dropped to unconscious)

Also Captain Thunder's description of Winky as being the bigger threat and that he badly savaged some of the Freedom League when they encountered him while busting Mastermind, who is the former owner of Winky.

Masterminds Major Arcana

When Mastermind kidnapped the victims/subjects as part of the process he tattooed a Roman numeral on the back of their head once he had removed all their hair. This was all part of the transformation process.

Here is a list of the people who were kidnapped and altered.

• The Fool [0] - Oxana Malaya
• The Sorceress [I] - Melanie Pinkerton (Pat)
• The Priest [II] - Jamia Al'Teranni
• The Emperor [III] - Vince Bloomburg
• The Empress [IV] - Danielle Oto (Justin)
• The Priestess [V] - Vicky Bradshaw
• The Lovers [VI] - Jake Falon
• The Chariot [VII] - Suzy Lovelace
• Justice [VIII] - Patrick “Paddy” Flint (Bill)
• The Hermit [IX] - John F Hooper
• The Wheel [X] - Leo Johnson
• Strength [XI] - Evie Wolf
• The Hanged Woman [XII] - Amanda “Giovanni” (Kelvin)
• Death [XIII] - Neil Oliver Summers (Gavin)
• Temperance [XIV] - Jacqueline Daniels
• The Devil [XV] - Simon Horewood
• The Tower [XVI] - Phil Adams
• The Stars [XVII] - (Jay)
• The Moon [XVIII] - Maddie Fforde
• The Sun [XIX] - Bill Pardy
• Judgement [XX] - Neeta Nehar
• The World [XXI] - Mary Jane Kelly

The Story So Far

Adventure One - Project Snowball
This was the team getting together and discovering that they had been kidnapped by Mastermind and have been genetically tampered with to "awaken" their super powers.

It lasted a couple of sessions and went as well as I expected. They stopped the tanker full of the super-freezing reagent that Mastermind wanted to dump into the Atlantic ocean to kick start an ice age. Flew to his base in the wastes of the Antarctic (using his escape plane) and eventually gave him a sound thrashing. Well, they destroyed his base.

Final scene was the real Mastermind turning up to destroy his flawed clone and vowing to undo the flawed work that his inferior clone had started.

Adventure Two - Seed
The adventure ran as written, none of the villains gave the heroes any trouble. Green Man himself ended up as a tree in a park within Freedom City.

Introduction

Earth-VII
This is the base Earth for my own Freedom City series.

So far I've had Mastermind kidnap 22 normal people and enhance them with powers. His whole idea was to create a team of support that would help him take control of the world.

However, this is not the Mastermind that you know and love, the Preserver technology at one of his bases has malfunctioned and created a new (and flawed) clone of Mastermind. The other spanner in his plan is that the players happened to be among the 22 people that he kidnapped.