Season 3: in the shadows
So we’ve faced a criminal conspiracy and alien incursions
– it’s clearly time for evil magic! The over-arching plot of this season is Mr.
Noman/Oliver Daniels, the Latin professor who took over for Mr. Kling/Proditor
Capella, is trying to recruit someone for his nascent villain group by ‘helping
them become a hero.’ This can be one of the PCs but if no one bites it will be
Miss Douglas, whose powers (but not memory) will then be returning and
strengthening over the course of the season. If you go that route Miss Douglas
becomes one of the opening credits regulars for the season.
3.1: Islands
… but not just yet. The first episode of the season opens
with one of the PCs, or someone close to them, witnessing Sgt Ramble
materializing somewhere in the school. I like the idea of a cat and mouse thing
where a disoriented but skilled Ramble is trying to get away from the PCs in a
chase where they have to maintain their secret IDs, but at the end of the day
Ramble isn’t a threat. After 25 years of dimensional wandering he’s just happy
to be home. He can fill the PCs in on the original experiment and the threats
that are massing in other dimensions. Mr. Noman starts recruiting
3.2: Shrouds
Bodies are going missing from the graveyard. Again people
immediately blame ANT labs (man, you steal some kids for their organs and no
one trusts you again) but the real culprit is the Shroud in his secret ID as
the town undertaker. As an aside, characters like the Shroud who make up for
the clunkers like Hoopsnake – he has a nice self-contained story for the PCs to
investigate and resolve right in the sourcebook. I don’t really need to add
anything. Mr. Noman may assist in thwarting this, either directly by advising
the PCs or indirectly by advising Ms. Douglas, who tells them.
3.3: Carnival III
Hey, hey, the Circus/Carnival is back in town! This
year’s new star/threat is Dr. Wraithman, who has arrived in town looking for
magical artifacts that are in the school science lab storage area, having
appeared some 10 years ago. Their first point of appearance was on the Floop
Executive Retreat compound, so the PCs will have their first point of
investigation/conflict being there. Wraithman blew through their security (the
Floops are out of town, save Whippet in his ridiculous pants) to find the
artifacts gone, so he has to track them to the school, giving the players
several shots at them. Ida Rollins is, of course, working double time and sees
the PCs as her Scooby gang.
3.4: Game, Set, Match:
We learn that Mr. Jenkins (aka Hoopsnake), the gym
teacher since Coach Gummins went all nutso and iconic in S1E4, is also pastor
of a small church in town that are actually Set worshippers. The tennis team,
made up of the school’s wealthiest kids, is having an award winning year.
Jenkins is using that to hypnotize more and more of the community elite to Set
worship, and when one of the students turns up dead from snake venom for
falling out of the cult the PCs have to unravel the mystery. Mr. Noman’s
recruitment efforts continue as in S3E2 except pressing the need to treat such
evil ‘definitively’.
3.5: Bow Before Zoom!
Cosmic Zoom is back! He managed a blood sacrifice of a
mouse to get his powers back and easily escaped jail with his shrinking
ability. He keeps appearing and disappearing around town (being able to shrink
to 1/8th of an inch can do that) and creeping the heroes out, but
he’s also planning for his first human sacrifice to get back in his master’s
good graces – this should be someone close to the PCs. Mr. Noman, one way or
another, pushes that Zoom’s ability to escape means he must be killed to
protect the world, knowing that murder would bind the hero to him forever.
3.6: Tower:
The final revelations about Mr. Noman fall into place
this session, either with him bringing the PC in to his lair or doing the same
with Miss Douglas, now Justice-Avenger, and trying to get them to do something
irrevocable; bear in mind Mr. Noman’s superhuman charisma will be at work. This
should be a chance for the PCs to have a lot of emotional role playing about
good and evil, about powers and responsibility, and then tear into the
fledgling Tarot Masters in their base. Justice Avenger might well slide to the
dark side if the PCs aren’t able to convince her.
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