New Salem Character #21: Reverend Green

Reverend Green (current identity is Adrian Rose, birth identity unknown)

Pyramid Tier: 6    Experience level: 13

Affect/Gimmick: American evangelicals prosperity gospel preacher meets proper English vicar, he can alternate between turning on the bombastic charm to appearing slightly befuddled by it all as needed.

Gang?: No. If you get to the point where you're meeting him, it's just him.  

Status: He's the head of the New Salem Syndicate. It's hard to imagine how powerful he is. 

Powers: 4

1. Heightened Agility A: +10, bonus power of silent movement. 
2. Heightened Intelligence A: +12
3. Heightened Charisma A: +14, bonus power of using C rather than E for power. 
4. Heightened Expertise: +4 to hit with all attacks. 
5. Phobia/Psychosis: Has to be in charge of any organization he finds

Weight: 180      Basic Hits: 4    Agi Mod: +0

S: 12        E: 17        HP: 39

A: 28        I:  28        Pow:  85

C: 28                        Move: 57

Accuracy: +5 (+9)

Damage Mod: +5

Reactions Mod: +5

Carrying Cap: 280    HTH: 1d6

Inventions: His house has built in hologram generators where he can appear to be in any room, chatting with his guests. His books contain embedded memetic programming that requires a d% on intelligence to locate IF PLAYERS ASK TO LOOK FOR IT (or if they have some sort of power that would reveal it) that means anyone who has read them has a +4 on reactions to him, and has to make a save on d% vs. C*3 in order to attack him, but they also feel really good about themselves and their capabilites. His private office has an untested teleport gate for a last ditch escape; it will explode after 1 use and to be fair he's not 100% sure it works. His unique idiosyncratic combat style means that weakness detection is only half as effective on him (but you can use it twice to get full effect) and heightened defense is only half as effective for the first time you fight him.

Background/Origin: Whatever his birth name was, the man now known as Adrian Rose climbed to visibility as a televised prosperity gospel preacher, extending the promise of divine love (which, to be fair, he really does help people feel better about themselves) for delicious tax free money. The market for these was awfully crowded and incoherent, but he managed to forge the other preachers into a shared political and daytime television force before he got bored and moved on, leaving the movement to splinter and fester. He started writing self help books (and cozy romance mysteries about an Oregon based baker/café owner/yenta/sleuth) to great acclaim, getting a controlling interest in his publishing house and constructing a small entertainment empire before he grew bored and 'retired' to a wealthy gated community on one of the islands of New Salem. 

Do you know what doesn't bore him? Crime. He finds crime and the power it brings endlessly fascinating. One of his many slightly loony devotees told him about a possible UFO crash and he was able to salvage some tech through it via his contacts and former parishioners, which let him build/rebuild Miss White, and the two of them over the last 14 years have taken over New Salem crime. Only the three members of the Triumvirate have ever seen him face to face and thanks to memetic programs they can't discuss him under questioning. He's at the center of so many evils and such a nice old man.

New Salem Character #20: Doctor Black, the Ghoul

Doctor Black/The Ghoul (Randall Black)

Pyramid Tier: 5    Experience level: 11

Affect/Gimmick: Victorian era doctor/vivisectionist/resurrectionist. Heavy leather best, sometimes with apron, black leather doctor's bag, top hat when feeling jaunty. He's got a janky, almost movie monster way of moving where he's suddenly RIGHT NEXT TO YOU.

Gang?: Yes, the walking dead. See below, but assume these are masses of animal/attack at level 4 opponents.  

Status: He is known face to face to the Tier 4 triumvirate and Tier 3 heads, but no deeper than that. Everyone, and I mean even the Talon, are deeply disturbed and scared by this guy, but they follow what orders come from him, usually just commanding support to deal with a problem.

Powers: 4

1. Psionics - Madman's Mind: Like a movie monster he's vey hard to put down, and he always comes at problems from insane angles. +10 to Endurance and Intelligence, and any saves against those characteristics are made one level easier (d% becomes, d% vs. characteristic*3, for example). 
2. Heightened Agility A +10 Bonus, can throw scalpels and other similar unbalanced shar items to A" range.
3. Heightened Defense: -4 to be hit from all attacks when conscious and mobile.
4. Absorption - Devices: Dr. Black's peculiar genius makes him an expert at deciphering and integrating super-hero level technology... once he's stripped it off your corpse. These devices becomes permanent adds to his power set. 
1. Non Corporality Device: hand-held vibrational crystal, 4 hours of use, taken from the original Cat Who Walks Through Walls
2. Flame Powers Device: type A, 25" range, 18 charges, 1d12 damage, 1 action to use as defense, a pistol taken from Firebug. 
3. Flight Device: 220 MPH, 14 hours of use, Flat rocket pack under his Victorian leather long coat, this makes an awful racket. Taken from Captain Skye.
4. Invisibility Device: 6 hours of use. the Victorian leather long coat. Taken from Johnny Springheel (one of the late Stagedoor Johnnies) 
5. Heightened Strength Device: tablets give 2 hours of super strength - add 30 bonus power and movement, 90 bonus HP, and increase carry capacity to 7000 lbs. (2d8). Taken from TikTok the Clock Master.
6. Mutant Power Device - Necrotech: Apply to any fresh corpse to both embalm it and make it a controlled 'robot' with 1d10 basic HTH, 10 HP and 8 Agility. It can't roll with attacks. He can control up to twice his HP in necrotech zombies at one time, one action per round to command them, Control band is in his hat. Taken from the Vivisectionist. 
5. Prejudice: Negative Reactions from EVERYONE! He's that damn creepy. 

Weight: 190      Basic Hits: 4    Agi Mod: +0

S: 13        E: 24        HP: 54 (69)

A: 26        I: 24         Pow:  87 (117)

C: 13                        Move: 59 (89)

Accuracy: +4

Damage Mod: +5

Reactions Mod: -1

Carrying Cap: 347 or 2000   HTH: 1d6 or 1d12

Inventions:  His impressively organizable doctor's bag contains his various devices organized in such a way to be immediately accessible (movement only to grab), his impossibly sharp monofilament scalpels are +2 to hit, +1d4 damage, and he, bit no one else, can throw them 26". 

Background/Origin: Randall Black was obsessed with Jack the Ripper from an early age, and also of the personality type prone to serial killing. After the third of his killings was, almost by accident, the semi retired super-hero Captain Skye. That's when Black hit on his real calling - killing device wielding supers and taking his powers for their own. This didn't stand in the way of medical school, of course. A man has to have an occupation. 

It takes a lot of time and patience to locate and kill super-tech wielders, but he is uniquely suited to the work. In time it brought him to the notice of Reverend Green, who was looking for a right hand man with a unique viewpoint and skill set. This turned out to be a match made in hell, and since then Doctor Black has been Reverend Green's private physician and scary-as-hell intermediary to keep the Syndicate heads in line when needed. 

Friday Book Recommendation (Jan 19)

This week's reads:

Piccadilly Jim by P.G. Wodehouse: a lot has been said about Wodehouse being the "greatest English comic writer of the 20th century". I will take some issue with that because, <ahem> Sor Terry Pratchett, which is what you get if Wodehouse had a kid with Dickens, so the comic romps have a much stronger sense of social consciousness and awareness of the power of comedy to transform. That being said. Piccadilly Jim is a absolute corker of a comic novel, full of Wodehousian flair without being one of his standard character sets. If the ending didn't quite live up to the promise of farcical mayhem, I still read many phrases aloud to my family with much chortling. 

Did you know that around 1940 Wodehouse, who had been living in the U.S., was living in France for tax avoidance reasons? and then got captured by the Nazis? and had to make broadcasts for the Nazis to the then still neutral U.S. population? and because of that had a huge reputational hit after the war and was never able to go back to the U.K. even after he was knighted (his OBE was delayed for years, and then happened 6 months before his death)? PAY YOUR TAXES, KIDS!

Worlds Beyond Time: Sci-Fi Art of the 1970s by Adam Rowe: I am sure that I have violated some fundamental rule by having a coffee table book I have actually read cover to cover. I'll risk it. Rowe gives a symposium on the styles, trends, and masters of the SF and Fantasy art of the 1970's (bleeding in from the 60's and out to the 80's), what was popular when, what changed with the times, etc. with pages focusing on individual artists. It was fascinating and beautiful from top to bottom (though starting with the surrealist works of the late 1960's put me off just a little because I wanted goddamn space ships and rayguns! Pew! pew!) and highly recommended.

New Salem Character #19: Miss Wight

Miss Wight (Sarcophoga White)

Pyramid Tier: 5    Experience level: 11

Affect/Gimmick: The perfect executive assistant - organized, strategic, tactical, logical, brilliant, beautiful, ageless, albino, android. Visual is 1950's secretary to captain of industry, all in white with albino features. 

Gang?: Yes, The robotic cleaning and household staff of the manor is entirely under her direction and are all combat capable.  

Status: She is known face to face only to the Tier 4 triumvirate, and her existence hinted at enough to the Tier 3 heads that if she appears they won't question it when she backs it up with code words. So through intermediaries she can command nearly all of the Syndicate, but to J random gang member on Tier 1 she's a non-entity.  

Powers: 3

1.  Android Body: 91% human (completely white skin tone/hair passed off as albinism, but it's just how she's built), 64% healing, +12 Endurance. 
1. Body Power: Integrative Brain - treat her Intelligence as being quadruple normal for any saves made against it (detections, area of knowledge checks, etc.) and for damage modifier, but not Hit Points or Power Score. She has a photographic memory, and can project images from her memory through her eyes as holograms.
2. Note: She has a very high weight for her petite frame (5'1", appears to weigh 100 lbs soaking wet), but that's just how the dice fell. 
2. Adaptation: Per book, power requirement 1 per use as defense or 1 per hour in extreme conditions, Miss Wight can remain crisply turned out and functional at the bottom of the ocean or inside a star. 
3. Disintegration Ray: the alien energy core that powers Miss Wight can be opened, and the gaping space in her chest can create a regular disintegration ray out to 15" range, or attack everyone in a 3" semicircle in front of her. Either case is PR 2, 1d20 damage.

Weight: 200      Basic Hits: 4  ]  Agi Mod: +0

S: 15        E: 30        HP: 41

A: 14        I: 15/60    Pow:  64

C: 16                        Move: 59

Accuracy: +1

Damage Mod: +9

Reactions Mod: +2

Carrying Cap: 525    HTH: 1d18

Inventions: Her super-alloy clipboard is Structural rating 20, and can be used either to hit people (+2 to hit, +1d4 damage) or as Armor (65 ADR) with her integrative brain being able to predict and 'bullets and bracelets" attacks. Her tricked out fountain pen is a dagger (+1 to hit, +1d2 damage) and can create a curiously buoyant ink cloud that acts as total darkness in a 3" radius for 2 turns - she can't see through it but she can use her I rather than A as a save for moving in it without harm. Her toxic business cards can, with skin to skin contact, negate someone's ability to use their super powers (Paralysis ray attack, d% save vs. E per turn to get them back); she can apply these to any open skin with a special attack in melee, but normally she just hands them out to anyone dumb enough to not have gloves. 

Background/Origin:  No one is really sure whether the head of the Syndicate, Reverend Green, created her himself around the alien power core he found, or if she is the last remnant of the alien ship, but in any event "Miss Sarcophaga White" is her latest name (Previously Miss Bianca Snow, Miss Ivory Ecru, and so on). She's a funny functioning and completely independent AI, and her loyalty to Reverend Green is earned, not programmed. She finds humans, and their collapses into dissolution, endlessly fascinating and enjoys watching them from up close as the second in command of the Syndicate. She's been at his side for the decades that he's been running the Syndicate and, by extension, most of New Salem, and its slow dissolution to chaos is her hobby. 

Weekly Cooking Report January 18: Wedge Salad

Last week I tasked you with making a whole duck meal, but that is a very big, very rich meal. This week lets go a little smaller and ostensibly healthier. As healthy as anything with a lot of bacon and blue cheese can be. 

To my money the Wedge Salad is the best salad in the world. And it has the advantage of being both a whole meal if you do it right. Or it can be side dish that you use to support someone else making the main meal. Either way it's delicious and easy. 

Now, this here recipe goes all in on how to make it, including making your own blue cheese dressing. Yeah, you don't need to go that far but it's here for reference. 

The shopping run for this is easy: A head of iceberg lettuce. A pint of cherry tomatoes. A jar of blue cheese dressing and hopefully a container of blue cheese crumbles. A rasher of bacon. a bag of croutons. As usual you may have a bunch of this in the house. 

Got all that? OK, get the bacon cooking. If you aren't comfortable with cooking bacon on the stovetop in a frying pan, you can use this technique to make it in the microwave. This may be better as it is uniformly crispy bacon. If you really, really, don't want to cook bacon, by a bag of 'bacon bits', but real bacon is much better. If this is meant to be a meal, use 3 slices per person. 

While the bacon cooks and drains, whack the lettuce head on its root to break it out, remove it, and then cut the head into at least 4 wedges, but otherwise one for each person eating, up to say, 8. You can also gauge this by how much people like lettuce. Then take about 4-5 cherry tomatoes per person, slice them in half. 

Pour on some of the blue cheese dressing. Then add the tomatoes. Then the blue cheese crumbles to taste. Crumble the bacon over the salad. Finally right before serving add the croutons and a little more dressing. Serve to a grateful family. 

The richness of the bacon, the tang from the cheese, the bright acidity of the tomatoes, the creaminess of the dressing against the crispness of the lettuce and the crunch of the croutons... it's nigh unto perfect. Enjoy!