A diverse group of villains, each with desperate needs of their own but at least temporarily sharing the same goal.
The Odds
Countless individuals have received superpowers (accidentally or otherwise) from exposure to mad science experiments over the years. Some of them have gone on to become well known heroes or villains, having won fate's lottery and received potent abilities with few drawbacks - or such vast power that any accompanying drawbacks seem worth the cost. Not everyone's a winner though, and the Odds are a diverse group of villains who got the short end of the stick when it came to things. They've banded together in part to support one another's driving needs, although some are more desperate (and more open to manipulation) than others.
Oddment is the group's nominal leader, and they all current follow his goal of acquiring technology for growing them new bodies and transferring their consciousnesses to them. He knows he's on the clock with a collapse into psychosis impending, but generally puts on a good show of being cool and in charge.
Vestige has devolved from a skilled scientist to a predator desperate to continue her existence by any means. When well fed she's stable enough to contribute some useful knowledge about the legal side of the scientific community, although bioengineering and mind transfer are far outside her field. She's discovered an odd resonance with Afterglow's powers, which serve to keep her from fading away more efficiently than others she's encountered.
The Homunculoid is a lost and monstrous bioengineering project. Oddment has made it promises that it may not even care about. The thing's motivations are its own and probably not rational at all, but something keeps it with the group. The others suspect its creator may come looking for it eventually, a creator with obvious skills in genetically engineering new life forms that might help with their long term plans.
Afterglow is more innocent victim than the villain she's been cast as, but she's also immensely dangerous to the civilian population and suffering from extreme mental fragmentation. Her rare moments of clarity might lead to connections in the shadier parts of the medical research field, which are only a short step away from mad science clone masters and experimental mind transfers. Her radiation output is hard to keep damped down to even semi-safe levels, but Vestige's reality drains seem to help keep it under control, making them a symbiotic pair.
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Oddment
Harrison Odell was once the mad science villain Cyber-Maker, a specialist in augmenting ambitious criminals with cybernetic upgrades that would make them true supervillains - and which included backdoor access that he could use to control them, slowly building a veritable army of cyborg muscle. A coalition of several heroes and villains twigged to the scheme and cooperated to bring him down, destroying his secret mountain lair and catching him in an explosion no one could survive. Unless, of course, one was a genius villain who had pre-programmed his robotic surgical assistants to preserve his life at any cost.
That cost proved to be the loss of his entire organic body and large parts of his once-great brain. What remained was augmented with a digitized recreation of his old personality, installed in a life support capsule implanted in the sturdiest combat cyborg chassis available in the ruined base's emergency backup shelters. No longer either Harrison Odell or his Cyber-Maker alter ego, the new hybrid of organic and digital minds took the supranym Oddment for itself and assessed its new existence. Odell had always avoided creating "full-conversion" brain-in-a-tank cyborgs because they went unstable too quickly to be of use, and now he was one himself. His artificial memory overlays would keep what was left of him rational for longer than most, but eventually the collapse would come. The only solution was to find a way to create an organic host body before the inevitable, which was not something he could manage on his own. He would need allies with similar end goals...or at least useful pawns for his pursuit of bioengineering and mental transfer technology.
Description: A large mechanical humanoid covered in variegated black, umber and tan scales over a dull metal chassis. Its human head sits deep in an armored collar atop the chunky torso, although this is an android fake - the real brain and its life support system are deep within the the chest in a separate armored capsule. The oversized forearms conceal a mix of cognitive modification mechanisms, while the chunky "boots" and backplate conceal jump jets for short bursts of speed. His strong baritone voice sounds quite natural, even when coming from concealed speakers after his decoy head has been destroyed.
Gender: Male Age: 48 Height: 6'4" Eyes: Brown
Hair: Light Brown Skin: Titanium Alloy, Variegated Scales Build: Cyborg
Approach: Generalist Archetype: Inventor
Health: 35 + (5 x H)
Powers: Power Suit d10, Deduction d8, Inventions d8, Robotics d6
Qualities: Science d10, Combat Cyborg d8, Technology d8, Criminal Underworld Info d6
Status: ( # of inventions & mods) 4+ - d12 / 2-3 - d10 / 1 - d8 / 0 - d6
Abilities:
Augmentation Mechanisms (A) Boost using Inventions. Use your Max die. Boost again using your Mid die, then either make one of those bonuses persistent and exclusive, or Attack with your Min die.
Decrementation Mechanisms (A) Hinder multiple nearby targets using Inventions. Boost yourself using your Max die.
Intercession (R) When an ally is Attacked, Defend them by rolling your single Power Suit die. Boost yourself using the same roll.
Simple Brute Force (A) Attack using Power Suit. Use your Max die. Recover Health equal to your Min die.
Superior Technology (I) Whenever you create a bonus, increase the value of that bonus by one.
Upgrades & Masteries (optional):
Quality Upgrade (I) +20 Health. Increase all Quality dice sizes except Combat Cyborg by one (max d12).
Master of Mad Science (I) As long as you have access to materials, automatically succeed at an Overcome by using scientific principles and inventions.
Tactics
Oddment prefers to let his allies to the fighting while he observes his foes and tunes his mechanical body for optimal performance against them. He'll usually open with Augmentation Mechanisms, taking a persistent bonus for himself and sharing the other with an ally. He uses Intercession reactively to protect an ally every round he can, further Boosting himself in the process. He may continue building up bonuses or handing them out if he's being ignored, or he may switch to Decrementation Mechanisms to debuff multiple enemies while collecting yet another personal bonus. All of his Boosts will be improved by Superior Technology. If his Health is getting low he'll switch to Simple Brute Force, possibly piling his accumulated bonuses into the Min die for a big Recovery or onto the Max die to land a big hit and take out a particularly problematic foe.
His upgrade comes from spending time optimizing his internal processors and improves both durability and dice pools, which is particularly helpful when he can bundle in a big d12 Science die with his two mechanisms abilities. His mastery reflects his ability to carry out scientific and technological tasks quickly and reliably under pressure.
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Vestige
Once a respected dimensional science theorist pursuing the dream of a functioning FTL drive, Tatiana Roman had no idea she'd attracted the attention of SIN's Operations Directive until one of their acquisitions teams interrupted an experiment at a critical moment. The resulting malfunction consumed half the research complex in dimensional collapse, pulling everyone there into a null-reality state. Everyone but Tatiana. She resisted the pull through sheer force of will, but was left as a living anomaly, constantly being drawn toward un-being. Tatiana quickly discovered that she could stave off oblivion by siphoning some vital element of reality itself from others around her.
Only other humans could provide what she needed, and most of them were simply too fragile and weak-willed to endure even a single feeding before fading away - but her first encounter with superheroes investigating the catastrophe taught her that they were far better sources of what she needed, even if they were also more dangerous prey. And prey is what they were. Dubbing herself Vestige, Tatiana determined to survive no matter what it required to do so. She would endure until she found away to reverse the accident that had created her, and if others had to perish so be it.
Vestige was contacted by Oddment while she was on the run after her powers first manifested, offering her potential salvation by transferring her intelligence to a new form free from dimensional instability. The fact that his last recruit Afterglow proved to be able to "feed" Vestige's hunger safely for extended periods has further cemented her otherwise-dubious loyalty to the group.
Description: A ghostly image of middle-aged woman dressed in a white lab coat over a gray dress and low heeled shoes. Her natural colors seem faded and the entire figure is nearly translucent when the light is behind her. She does seems to shine faintly in actual darkness as though caught in moonlight, adding to her phantasmal appearance. Her sharp features are twisted with frustration and anger, and her hollow voice seems to come from far away. When using her powers to feed swirls of cold purple-blue energy seem to flow from her victims into her form.
Gender: Female Age: Early Fifties Height: 5'2" Eyes: Faded Blue
Hair: Faded Gray Skin: Fading Into Transparency Build: Stick-Thin
Approach: Specialized Archetype: Domain
Health: 50 + (5 x H)
Powers: Absorption d10, Intangibility d8
Qualities: Conviction d12, Close Combat d8, Fading From Reality d8
Status: (# environment targets and challenges) 3+ - d10 / 1-2 - d8 / 0 - d6
Abilities:
Call Victims (A) Activate one of the environment's twists in its current zone or one zone closer to red.
Destructive Grasp (A) Attack one target using Close Combat. Use your Max + Min dice. The target cannot Defend or use reactions against this Attack.
Endless Need (A) Attack up to three targets using Conviction. Use your Max die against one target, your Mid die against a second, and your Min die against a third.
Focused Hunger (A) Hinder one target using Conviction. Use your Max die. Attack that target using your Mid die.
Sacrificial Energy (R) When Attacked, redirect the Attack to an environment minion.
Siphon Reality (A) Roll any number of environment minion dice and Recover that much Health. Remove those minions,
Upgrades & Masteries (optional, only if Vestige has been feeding in one area for at least a few days):
Mook Squad +0 Health. Gain Call Fodder (A) Replenish your Depleted Fodder minions up to the number of heroes in the scene.
Master of the Unfathomable (I) If you are in a situation involving eldritch forces, automatically succeed at an Overcome to do the bidding of otherworldly entities beyond human concerns.
Tactics
Vestige's foremost concern is continuing her existence at any cost, but superheroes offer so much more "reality" to draw on than everyday people that fighting them is well worth the risks involved. Against a single foe she'll rely on Focused Hunger (usually pooled with Absorption) at first, shifting to Destructive Grasp (often with Intangibility) if they display strong reactions or Defend abilities. Against a group she'll reach out for as much energy as she can with Endless Need, using Sacrificial Energy to reactively use a minion for protection against Attacks. Her sizeable base Health lets her hang tough in combat while accumulating environment minions with the occasional use of Call Victims for a single big Recovery using her Siphon Reality healing ability.
If she has her upgrade she may use Call the Fodder rather than rely solely on the environment for minions to victimize, although they're fairly inefficient "food sources" when used as such. Her mastery reflects her jumping at any opportunity to cling to reality, even as a pawn of the terrible things that lurk beyond it.
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Depleted Fodder d6 minion
Description: They can look like a female human of any age, ethnicity or occupation, but all are strangely faded, almost colorless and translucent as though they weren't fully real. Obviously unnatural, they move like shambling phantoms. Their touch is chilling, and their hopeless stare leaves victims feeling hollow and hungry.
Last Dregs: You count as an environment minion for Vestige's Sacrificial Energy and Siphon Reality abilities, but your dice always count as rolling a one for Health Recovery or for saving against any damage inflicted when resolving those abilities.
Reality Leech: When you deal damage to a target with an Attack, the target also suffers a -1 penalty.
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Homunculoid
The creature known as the Homunculoid is an escaped bio-construct crafted from some horrific and utterly unethical manipulation of the human genome. Who created it and what purpose they had in doing so remains unknown, lost behind memories of fire and chaos. The thing knows only what it has gleaned from the minds that open to its telepathy, and takes its guidance only from the fleeting visions that run wild in its distorted psyche. It literally latched on to Oddment when he accidentally encountered the Homunculoid in the ruins of another scientists lair, and has stuck with him since then. Sometimes it dreams of having its mind transferred to a new, human body as Oddment has promised. Other times it knows that promise was a lie, and is tagging along solely for the joy of the chaos his "ally's" plans will bring.
Description: A clearly inhuman creature with a distorted human-like head over 18" across, set low between two powerfully-muscled shoulders leading to a pair of three-foot long arms that carry its weight. An absurdly small humanoid torso in a red and green body-stocking dangles beneath that huge head, trailing two useless vestigial legs. It mouth gapes open menacingly, equipped with teeth like crooked tombstones and panting steadily. It speaks only telepathically, where its "voice" is an irritating shriek. For all its awkward-seeming physique the thing is surprisingly nimble, bounding about on its powerful hands with ease.
Gender: None (uses he/him) Age: Unknown Height: 3'2" Eyes: One Blue, One Green
Hair: Stubbly Black Skin: Sickly Grayish-Blue Build: Bizarre
Approach: Tactician Archetype: Fragile
Health: 15 + (5 x H)
Powers: Intuition d8, Telepathy d8, Agility d6, Leaping d6
Qualities: Alertness d10, Acrobatics d8, Murderous Bio-Construct d8, Gadgets d6
Status: Green Zone Health - d10 / Yellow Zone Health - d8 / Red Zone Health - d6
Abilities:
Gestalt Awareness (A) Boost using Alertness. Use your Max die. The bonus applies to every ally's action until the beginning of your next turn.
Mindripper (A) Attack using Telepathy. Use your Max + Mid dice. Hinder yourself using your Min die.
Surprisingly Agile (R) When Attacked, Defend yourself by rolling your single status die. If the damage is reduce to zero, you may move to anywhere else in the scene.
Vindictive Behavior (R) When a nearby ally makes an Attack, you may also Attack the same target by rolling your single Murderous Bio-Construct die.
Upgrades & Masteries (optional):
Quality Upgrade (I) +20 Health. Increase all Quality dice sizes except Murderous Bio-Construct by one (max d12).
Master of Total Chaos (I) Automatically succeed at an Overcome when you throw out all the rules during a situation that is spiraling out of control.
Tactics
The Homunculoid is a pretty unstable combatant who undergoes radical personality shifts as he suffers damage. While mostly healthy he concentrates on supporting his allies with Gestalt Awareness while evading strikes and staying mobile using Surprisingly Agile. Once he reaches about half Health he switches over to making Mindripper attacks against whoever has hurt him most, throwing out more damage when allies Attack using Vindictive Behavior if he has a reaction left when the opportunity arises. If he somehow winds up being the last villain standing he'll do his best to flee even if the opposition is looking pretty rough as well.
His upgrade relies on getting access to booster drugs tailored to his unique biology, while his mastery represents his quirky, erratic flavor of problem solving.
Note that the Homunculoid's Gadgets power represents small, easily concealed equipment that was either gifted to him by Oddment or stolen from any available source.
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Afterglow
Mary Curry was once a research assistant in fringe nuclear medicine before her unethical employers chose to use her as a test subject for their latest drug. The chemical was designed to allow human tissues to absorb and metabolize even hard radiation without harm, and it succeeded spectacularly after a fashion. Mary became a living atomic reaction, generating impossible amounts of some heretofore unknown exotic radiation and thriving upon it. Moreover, the process seemed to be dividing her very being on some quantum level, causing her body and mind to partially fission over and over again before collapsing back in on itself. Unfortunately for such a promising research project, her endlessly fragmenting mentality led her to take violent action that resulted in the termination of all involved staffers, the destruction of the lab facilities involved, and the irradiation of entire site.
That feat earned her the supranym Afterglow in the news media, and she's now widely regarded as a villain rather than a victim. Even if she was stable enough to explain the situation as she understands it, she can't control her dangerous radiation output and remains a menace to everyone she encounters. If Oddment hadn't offered her a haven after following the Homunculoid's cryptic guidance to the site of her first "destructive spree" she'd be in a government containment facility already, and quite possibly scheduled for euthanasia in the hopes it would end her out-of-control reaction. Instead, she's stumbled into allies who might grant her a second chance at life in a new body - and she and Vestige serve to help stabilize one another's erratic powers through some unexplained resonance.
Description: A buxom woman glowing with neon green radiation, wearing a similarly glowing halter top, knee-length shorts and ankle boots. As she moves she continually leaves afterimages trailing behind her, blurring into one another and making one person look like half a dozen or more. She usually hovers casually just above the ground but can fly faster than most people can sprint. She has a rich contralto voice that echoes with reverberations of her duplicate selves.
When she spawns independent legion minions they share her radioactive glow but don't leave a blur of phantoms behind them the way she does.
Gender: Female Age: Early Thirties Height: 5'6" Eyes: Glowing Green
Hair: Flowing, Glowing Green Skin: Glowing Green Build: Curvaceous
Approach: Skilled Archetype: Legion
Health: 10 + (5 x H)
Powers: Duplication d10, Nuclear d8, Flight d6
Qualities: Acrobatics d10, Imposing d10, Fragmented Mentality d8, Medicine d8, Ranged Combat d8, Science d8
Status: (# of Legion Minions) 0 - d12 / 1-2 - d10 / 3-4 - d8 / 5-8 - d6 / 9+ - d4
Abilities:
Divided Mind (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.
Fleeting Images (A) Hinder multiple targets using Acrobatics. Use your Max die. If you roll doubles, Attack each target using your Mid die.
Full Separation (A) Add two Legion minions to the scene. Their starting die size is one smaller than your current status die.
Furious Response (R) When Attacked, Defend yourself by rolling your single Imposing die. Deal that much damage to another target.
Merge Energies (A) Remove any number of Legion minions from play. Roll their dice and Recover that much Health.
Upgrades & Masteries (optional):
Power Upgrade (I) +20 Health. Increase all Power dice sizes by one (max d12).
Master of Total Chaos (I) Automatically succeed at an Overcome when you throw out all the rules during a situation that is spiraling out of control.
Tactics
Afterglow is well aware of her relative fragility and her tactics attempt to compensate for it. She'll usually rely on Fleeting Images (using Duplication) to hamper as many heroes as possible with a short-lived swarm of duplicates, and can even inflict some real damage with them if she rolls doubles to keep them stable long enough. Her Furious Response reaction both prevents and deals some damage, and can be a major source of damage output, especially with bonus support. Once she loses even a small amount of Health she uses Full Separation to spawn a pair of d10 legion minions, ideally letting them act before her next turn before removing one or both of them with Merge Energies to heal. Like all legion minions their actions are a bit limited by Divided Mind, but with only two of them in play they can generally avoid suffering its ill effects. She almost never spawns more than two minions at once, preferring to cycle them in and out of existence to maintain as much healing as she can while still getting some further mileage out of them. A lot of her effectiveness will depend on how initiative goes and how much support she gets from her allies.
Her upgrade reflects her getting either a significant charge of nuclear energy in the recent past or building up a charge over a day or two of relative inactivity, while her mastery draws upon the confusing nature of her multiple duplicate afterimages.
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Afterglow Duplicate d4 to d10 legion minion (usually d10, rarely d8)
Description: Physically identical to Afterglow, although their minds seem more focused and their psychic signature lacks the fragmented nature of their creator. They share her flight and signature radioactive glare.
Exact Duplicate: You may move as though you had Flight d6, or d8 of Afterglow has her upgrade.
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