Another experiment with doing something different with villain approaches. Focused villains usually rely on one very strong Energy/Element ability, with half their potential abilities revolving around E/E effects. This guy? He makes more of himself. A lot more. The only energy blasts are coming from all the zap pistols they're pointing at you.
Horde
The man (men?) known as Horde was originally Jason Graham, an experimental physicist and cousin to Jamie Small, aka the villain Miniac. Jason's own powers stem from him attempting to save his relative from a life of super-crime by inventing an "embiggening" device that would counteract the deleterious effects of Miniac's own technology. Following in his cousin's footsteps he opted to test a prototype mechanism on himself, with disastrous results. Rather than his space distortion device producing a growth effect as expected, it instead triggered a quantum duplication cascade, filling the lab with copies of himself whose psyches were linked on the subatomic level. Jamie Small had been driven mad by resizing his own brain repeatedly. Jason Graham lost his own mind by having it subdivided a thousand-fold in an instant.
Graham has since followed in the same trajectory as his older cousin, adopting the supranym Horde and building a reputation as a technically-skilled but somewhat unstable villain. He's crossed paths with Miniac a few times but never worked with him, and relations between them are frosty. Miniac thinks Horde was a fool for attempting to develop an embiggening device ("It obviously couldn't work, the science is ludicrous!") and Horde thinks his cousin is an ungrateful blowhard who refuses to admit the superiority of Graham's own scientific genius.
Horde's powers let him not only make stable duplicates of himself that can last hours or even days if produced in small numbers, he can also instantaneously manifest dozens, even hundreds of transient copies, which flicker in and out of existence when he uses Living Barricade or Massed Attacks. His Duplication is now an innate power, having been baked into his subatomic structure during the initial accident. He's also weaponized a variant of the technology, building his space-distortion pistols with their agonizing rays powered by Horde's own energies - which conveniently makes them useless to foes if he (or his duplicates) get disarmed. If Horde was more mentally stable he'd be a terrifying menace, but he's easily distracted and far too quick to take chances to be an A tier threat despite his raw potential.
Description: Tall, loose-limbed man in a bulky outfit that resembles a silver hazmat suit without the headgear, carrying a pair of strange-looking wide-mouthed energy pistols. His boots, gauntlets, gun belt, holsters and inevitable equipment pouches are matte black. He has a booming voice that trembles with excitement most of the time and a manic gleam in his eyes. The more duplicates he has active the more hyperactive he becomes - and the worse his impulse control gets.
Gender: Male Age: 35 Height: 6'1" Eyes: Brown, Lunatic Stare
Hair: Black, Close-Cut Beard Skin: Caucasian Build: Gangly
Approach: Focused Archetype: Legion
Health: 10 + (5 x H)
Powers: Duplication d12, Inventions d8
Qualities: Leadership d10, Manic Criminal Scientist d8, Ranged Combat d8
Status: (# of Legion Minions) 0 - d12 / 1-2 - d10 / 3-4 - d8 / 5-8 - d6 / 9+ - d4
Abilities:
Duplication Effect (A) Roll your single status die. Deal yourself that much irreducible damage. Create that many d6 Legion minions.
Energy Reverberation (R) When one of your minions is destroyed, roll its die and Recover that much Health.
Imperfect Teamwork (I) Whenever multiple Legion minions all take the same action against the same target, you must roll all their dice at once and use the lowest rolling die amongst them for each minion's result on that action.
Living Barricade (A) Defend yourself using Duplication. This Defend lasts until your next turn. If an Attack deals more damage than the value of the Defend, Attack the Attacker using the value of the Defend and then end the Defend.
Massed Attacks (A) Attack one target using Duplication. Use your Max die. That target cannot Defend or use reactions against this Attack. Attack multiple other targets using your Min die.
Space-Distortion Ray (A) Hinder one target using Inventions. Use your Max die. Attack that target using your Mid die.
Upgrades & Masteries (usually in play):
Power Boost (I) +20 Health. Increase all Power dice sizes by one (max d12). Add the following ability: Resilient Duplicates (I) Whenever a Legion minion with a die size greater than d4 rolls a save against physical damage, instead of the normal effects if it succeeds it splits into two minions, each of one smaller die size, and you take 1 irreducible damage. If it fails its save, it is only reduced one die size rather than being destroyed, and you take 1 irreducible damage.
Master of Superiority (I) As long as you are manifesting an effect related to a power you have at d12, automatically succeed at an Overcome involving usage of those powers.
Tactics
Horde is an enthusiastic (some would say manic) combatant, always happy for an excuse to duplicate himself and start blazing away with his space-distorter pistol. He invariably starts by using Duplication Effect, repeating it whenever his minion count drops below half a dozen even when his Health is low. His Legion minions are handicapped by Imperfect Teamwork but (with his upgrade in effect, which it usually is) made a bit more durable by Resilient Duplicates. Horde inevitably uses his Energy Reverberation reaction at the first opportunity every round. He should probably stay safe behind Living Barricade while his minions do the work, but if he gets excited he'll switch to Massed Attacks instead. Enemies with strong multi-target abilities will be singled out for a targeted Space-Distortion Ray if possible - and if Horde is still fighting rationally.
His mastery works any time he has minions active, making him (them, really) very good at Overcomes. His upgrade changes his minion tactics enormously. Without it they want to divide each type of action around between targets to minimize Imperfect Teamwork's drawbacks. With it, they can use Attack actions in pairs on each other, aiming to roll as low as possible so that the resulting saves split d6 minions into pairs of d4s instead. Visually this looks like two of them grabbing a third and pulling until they split in half. This can backfire occasionally but Horde's duplicates are as much danger junkies as he is so they'll often do this so their creator doesn't have to use Duplication Effect so often. With their small die sizes they often focus on putting out lots of small mods through Boost and Hinder actions, which are minimally affected by taking the lowest roll if they need to stack up on one target.
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