Tuesday, April 25, 2023

The Evermind, An Infinite Being

My stable of villains is a bit light on classic cosmic powerhouse types, so here's an example complete with their personal lair/environment and the time-displaced victims that serve as its playthings.

The Evermind

The Evermind is a cosmic entity that claims to possess an infinite existence, having access to all of time and space at will.  Its motivations are poorly understood at best and its scientific and technological skills are so advanced as to seem magical, but it maintains an inexplicable interest in the Earth and events in its history.  Any meddling with time has a chance to attract its attention and intervention, although it seems to be equally likely to act to destructively alter the known timeline as it is to maintain it.  Other appearances are completely unexplained although frequently associated with individuals or even small populations going missing from the vicinity during the event.  

When it does appear, the Evermind is often accompanied by its mobile headquarters, the Impossible Pyramid.  Even without the stronghold the fabric of spacetime seems to be strained by its mere presence, twisting more mundane environments to suit.  Several other powerful beings and time travelers have become associated with the Evermind over time, including Atomattack, Johnny Crisis, Carronade and 4-Cite.  The mad mega-genius Mordecai Mentallax claims that the Evermind is actually a future version of himself from an alternate timeline that he hasn't yet brought into being.  Mister Incredible is arrogant enough to make the same claim about himself, a source of contention between the two villainous inventors.  The cosmic being itself remains conspicuously silent on the subject.     

Description: A strange figure like some cosmic infant, with a massive egglike head that dwarfs the slender, sexless child-sized body that hangs below it.  It has a comparatively small, impassive face with three large, star-filled eyes, and its skin is gleaming silver.  The creature seems to ignore gravity, floating slowly but effortlessly.  A palpable aura of unnatural menace accompanies every word it speaks in its high, piping voice.

Gender: Beyond Such Concepts       Age: Ageless       Height: 8'2"       Eyes: Three Black Voids

Hair: None                           Skin: Silver                       Build: Enormously Macrocephalic 

Approach: Ancient                   Archetype: Domain

Health:  60 + (5 x H)

Powers: Cosmic d12, Postcognition d10, Precognition d10, Awareness d8

Qualities: Science d12, Technology d12, Imposing d10, Alertness d8, Infinite Being d8

Status: (# of Environmental targets/challenges) 3+ - d10 / 1-2 - d8 / 0 - d6

Abilities:

Consume Timespan (A) Roll any number of environment minion dice and Recover that much Health.  Remove those minions.

Outside Infinity (I) Ignore damage from an environment source during the environment's turn.

Rejected Reality (R) Take 1 irreducible damage to reroll the dice pool of someone Attacking or Hindering you.

Twist Spacetime (A) Activate one of the environment's twists in its current zone or one zone closer to the Red.

Universal Entropy (A) Hinder multiple targets using Cosmic.  Use your Max die.  Attack each of those targets using your Mid + Min dice.

Upgrades & Masteries (always):

Defense Shield (I) You cannot be damaged by anything except yourself until the defense shield is destroyed.  The shield has 40 Health, or can be deactivated with three Overcome successes.  If a hero takes a minor twist working on the shield, you can use a Reaction to Attack that hero by rolling your single Absorption die.  Gain Reestablish Shield (A) Overcome using Cosmic.  Use your Max die.  On a success remove one success from the deactivation challenge.  Alternatively, instead of an Overcome, use your Max die to Recover that much of the shield's Health.  This ability cannot be used if the shield has been completely removed.

Master of Mad Science (A) As long as you have access to materials, automatically succeed at an Overcome by using scientific principles and inventions.

Tactics

The Evermind is contemptuous of mortal beings, and even most immortals don't impress it much.  If confronted with hostile inferiors it prefers to toy with them by using Twist Spacetime to use the environment against them, especially within its Impossible Pyramid lair.  It makes regular use of Rejected Reality to reset an opponent's personal timeline when threatened, knowing it can restore its own vitality using Consume Timeline if need be.  Outside Infinity makes it immune to most damage during the environment turn, albeit not from anything triggered during its own turn.  When angered or seriously damaged, the Evermind will make repeated uses of Universal Entropy to defeat its foes with the power of time itself.

Its upgrade is a shell of static time that makes it much harder to harm until dispersed, while its mastery represents its near-omniscient knowledge at work.   

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Impossible Pyramid environment

The mobile stronghold of the Evermind is a flying inverted pyramid whose four faces are composed of Penrose triangles, and the interior is even less comprehensible to denizens of linear time and three-dimensional space.  Visitors (voluntary or otherwise) will confronted with time-displaced entities from across infinity, strange fluctuations in personal timestreams, and exotic energies that defy conventional physical laws.  Simply navigating the shifting spaces of the place can be a challenge to heroes. 

Infinite Energies d12, Disrupted Realities d10, Temporal Portals d10

Green Zone

(Minor Twists - all of these scale up in effect as the scene tracker advances)

Strange Phenomena: Roll the environment dice.  Hinder and Defend all hero targets.  Use the Min die if the scene tracker is in the Green zone, the Mid die if in Yellow, and the Max die if in Red.

Time Warp: Roll the environment dice.  If the effect die is even, use it to Boost all environment targets until the start of the next environment turn.  If the effect die is odd, use it to Hinder all environment targets until the start of the next environment turn.   Use the Min die if the scene tracker is in the Green zone, the Mid die if in Yellow, and the Max die if in Red.

Unnatural Acceleration: Roll the environment dice.  Attack and Boost all heroes and villains.  Use the Min die if the scene tracker is in the Green zone, the Mid die if in Yellow, and the Max die if in Red.

(Major Twist)

Baffling Distortions: Roll a d4 for each hero that has not completed the Achieve Understanding challenge (see below) and move that hero to location that matches the result.

Yellow Zone

(Minor Twists)

Portals To Infinity: Roll the environment dice.  Add Mid die Time-Lost Warrior minions (see below) to the scene.

Threat From Beyond: Add a single Menace From Infinity lieutenant to the scene.

(Major Twist)

Temporal Pulsation: Trigger two different Green or Yellow environmental twists, one after another.

Red Zone

(Minor Twist)

Forever War: Roll the environment dice.  Add Max die Time-Lost Warrior minions (see below) to the scene.

(Major Twist)

Temporal Exploit: Roll the environment dice.  Increase the die size of all environment minions and lieutenants by one size (max d12).  All villain targets recover Health equal to the Max die.  Add a number of Red zone boxes to the scene tracker equal to the result of the Min die (max 3 extra boxes).

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Scene Layout

The interior of the Impossible Pyramid contains five discrete locations, each of which is a dimensionally confusing Escher-esque space filled with bizarre machinery and large enough for characters to seek cover, maneuver for advantage, forcibly reposition foes, etc.  Moving between locations is difficult without first completing the challenge below, which can be attempted in any location.

Achieve Understanding 0

Each hero must Overcome this challenge independently.  Until they have, moving to a new location by any means takes that hero to a random location other than the Sanctum, which can include the one they were trying to leave (roll ad4 to determine where they wind up).  Once a hero has Overcome this challenge they can move anywhere in the environment on their turn without using their action, bringing along any other willing heroes that start in the same location for free if desired.

Villain and environment targets move between locations via the normal rules, although the Evermind moves for free (it rarely leaves the Sanctum unless pursuing fleeing heroes).

1: First Facet Access Portals - This is the starting location for heroes when the scene begins.  You may take an Overcome action to use the exotic mechanisms found here to trigger a Temporal Purge in this location.  If successful, all environment targets in this location are removed from the scene and all hero targets in this location lose Health equal to your Mid die.

2: Second Facet Augmentation Chambers - If you take a Boost action targeting yourself in this location, you may use the strange technology found here add a +2 bonus to an effect die but lose Health equal to your Min die.

3: Third Facet Space Folding Labyrinth - Overcome actions taken in the Achieve Understanding challenge in this location suffer a -2 penalty.  Defend actions taken in this location receive a +2 bonus. 

4: Fourth Facet Entropy Engines - Attack actions taken in this location receive a +2 bonus.  Any Health Recovery in this location is reduced by 2. 

5: The Sanctum - Can only be moved to by a hero who has completed the Achieve Understanding challenge, possibly leading other heroes there at the same time.  Heroes in this location can attempt the following challenge: Temporal Reset 000  When completed, roll the environment dice.  Remove all environment targets from the scene.  Deal damage equal to the Max die to all targets in the scene.  Then reset the scene tracker to the first space in the Yellow zone.  This challenge can only be completed once per scene.

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Time-Lost Warrior d8 minion

Description: Drawn from across all of infinity, these a wild mix of soldiers from countless wars, violent criminals, primitive hunter-gathers, hostile aliens, dangerous predatory animals, killer robots, post-apocalyptic mutants and stranger things.  Utterly confused by their current situation, they're functioning on blind instinct at this point.  While they aren't individually powerful, they are dangerous in numbers - and their numbers are infinite.

Hostile to Everyone: You may only take Attack actions, and treat all targets outside of your minion group as enemies.  

Wild Attacks: Whenever you roll an odd result on your die during your turn, reduce the die size of one nearby enemy minion by one (minimum d4).  Whenever you roll the maximum possible result on your die during your turn reduce the die size of one nearby enemy lieutenant by one (minimum d4).

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Menace From Infinity d10 lieutenant

Description: Any of a variety of more dangerous threats from all across time and space, from dinosaurs, armored vehicles and alien beasts to military-grade mecha, bio-engineered monstrosities and cyborg super-soldiers.  Each is serious danger by itself, and as unremittingly hostile as other time-lost warriors.

Counterattack: When you fail a save against damage from an Attack, the Attacker takes damage equal to your save result.

Indiscriminate Aggression: You may only take Attack actions, and treat all other targets as enemies.  When you Attack, you may roll your dice twice and use the lower of the two rolls to Attack all nearby enemy targets.

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Design Notes

This is an uncommonly tough villain and a complex environment and the scene locations have a number of further complications for the heroes to deal with.  Just what's written here should count as about four medium or two difficult scene elements, so unless you have a large group adding more villains or other threats might be overkill.  There are several things that may alter the way the scene tracker usually advances, so don't be surprised if the heroes wind up with more time to work with than usual - and a lot of it in the Red zone.


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