Most Wanted Wrap Up

That's finished! Thanks to the esteemed Mr. Hite for kicking me into gear for finishing that up.

The intent of the Most Wanted Conspyramid was, well, there were a couple. One was to apply some new gaming technology to some of the old classics.

Another was to specifically design parts of a campaign that would reward detective style heroes - Batman and others like him are really popular but a lot of the time the focus is on their gadgets and badass martial arts skills rather than their detective chops. Building a massive conspiracy into the campaign gives them an in play reason to exercise those skills. (This also makes these sorts of skill based heroes dramatically useful around their more powerful allies.)

Finally it ended up feeling like a cosmic campaign. Being able to have what look like three different level one node plot threads - the drug gangs and the crazy vigilante hunting them, the cluster of more standard super villain tropes and the 'lets have an honest misunderstanding first' magical streets wanderer feel like the usual super-hero kitchen sink stuff. Then as the PCs start working their way up things get connected more and more.

Hopefully there will be a few moments of "dammit, the MEDUSA guys are behind it" followed by "Holy Cow, Leo has taken over US Military Intelligence, Zodiac is trying to take over all of Africa" or "Oh Bugger, Motivator already rules the world." I would love the big endgame, the taking down of Motivator, to feel like the end of Promethea, Tom Strong, or Planetary, where the world really is saved, completely different and better.

Where Optimism Wins.

Wouldn't that be nice for a change?

Most Wanted Conspyramid 8: Witches and Witch Hunters

This last piece of the Conspiracy details the on the ground battles of the war between the Witch Cults and the Men with Green Gloves. This is where the PCs are most likely to encounter the magical war.

Level Thee Node: Witch Hunter General
Mother Superior: Margret Mary Stevenson found her crusader’s arguments and began her witch hunts quite seriously (if derangedly), but was eventually approached by Motivator in one of her disguises and redirected to proper Crusader beliefs in targeting invaders of the West. In this she became the Witch Cult’s attack dog against the various agents of the Men with Green Gloves. She spends her time hunting, finding and killing Asian mystics, chi-wielding martial artists and other possible foreign agents. Does your hero group happen to have any of those?

* No changes in character sheet.

If the players are nosing around here it’s because they’re taken Dragonhand or Tengu’s claims seriously, or by interacting with them, coming to Stevenon’s attention and looking like the sort of people she targets. Stevenson will watch from a distance, gather information, find ways to weakness detect and then call out isolated heroes and pummel them. She doesn’t ambush per se, but picks the times to openly attack that are worst for the PCs, preferring one on one duels where her invulnerability won’t get swamped. She keeps her flight power very quiet, waiting until no one can see her before rocketing to or away from the PCs location.

If that doesn’t work she’ll try to reason with the other PCs, playing it off as the usual heroic confusion – her psionic ability to appear on everyone’s side helps here – and actively shares her intel on the criminal organizations that Tengu and Dragonhand are connected with, recruiting the PCs as allies to the cause. She’s fervent and completely dedicated and this might work for a session or two. Until she shows up again with another blood stain on her mace for bashing some Vedic mystics head in. Then the PCs will have to go after her in earnest, including back tracking her funding, which leads them to UCL Crypto.

Level Two Node: Martial Artists on the Run
Dragonhand, Tengu: Both Daniel Han and Tamishi Kageuski are in the US because they are on the run from Asian magical/criminal gangs. Whether this is true or not – they might be witting or unwitting agents of the Men with Green Gloves - Motivator doesn’t believe in taking chances and they, like all other Eastern magical practitioners must die. To this end both are being chased by the agents of the Witch Cults, plus Motivator’s agents through MEDUSA which include Shadowjack’s orginization in addition to their own backstory enemies. What limited aid they do get comes from regular old criminals who want their services and from the unaligned Voodoo and Bruja practitioners.

* No changes to Dragonhand, increase Tengu’s level to 3rd
* Tengu’s E increases to 15, add a second spell, an audible illusion that lets him speak through someone else’s mouth, and a third that lets him summon the spirits of those who died in the air (or from falling) to answer questions or scout areas for him.

If the players are nosing around here its either because the GM decided to jump start this part of the plot for some wixua goodness, they discovered Shadowjack’s standing orders to hunt and kill these guys or a conversation with Mystico led them to track one or more of these guys down to discover more about the secret war. Both Dragonhand and Tengu will be deeply suspicions –they are criminals, performing crimes to survive and have no reason to trust the PCs – and reluctant to talk about the secret war. Neither knows a ton, but they do know there are balanced forces from Asia and Europe, and that the European group is the aggressor. They’re just collateral damage.

If the players are unable to earn their trust originally, they’ll have a second chance as once either is jailed there will be repeated attempts on their lives, their cases will get remanded to SHARP where they will vanish into Tartarus and potentially die in custody. If the PCs are already interested in their case this sort of behavior will keep their attention – especially if they have a dogged public defender who keeps raising the concerns to the heroes.

Both men suffer from the problem that they require magical artifacts and daily rituals to keep their powers. Depending on how things play out the PCs might need to sneak into SHARP holding cells to get the artifacts back before they vanish into Dominator’s custody. Alternately they’ll have to protect a pair of now non-powered informants from attacks on several different fronts.

Level One Node: Wanderer With Secret Lore
Mystico: Mandrake Hayes is kind of like Dr. Ricard Kimball crossed with John Constantine. If either men were voodoo priests with alcohol problems. He travels from town to town, hunted and haunted by the mistakes of his past, trying to help people along the way. You see a lot of strange stuff on the road, and when he’s at least a little sober Mandrake is a damnably intelligent, perceptive and well-read guy. He’s also part of a magical tradition that has nothing to do with the East v. West war that dominates this farthest left column of the Conspyramid, which makes him a good go-to guy for the heroes needing to find out what’s happening without tiping their hand.

* I should be telling you to reduce his level to 2, but I won’t because he’s not so much an enemy as a misunderstood protagonist. It will probably only take a single conflict for the heroes to realize that he’s kind of on their side. Sort of. I would recommend changing his side to Neutral or maybe Good.

If the players are nosing around here one of three things happened: 1) they encountered Mandrake and had a perfectly normal first meeting misunderstanding with voodoo priest and his pet zombie. 2) they’ve already heard about him and are coming to him for intel or 3) they discovered in the Coss Station files that their modified cadaver muscle implants are in part fibers from Mystico having once been hired by them to reanimate corpses and think that’s really creepy. (It also means he can use his Animal Control to control Bandit, and anyone else carrying around that semi-bionic tissue.)

He’ll answer their questions as best he can – including pointing the PCs at Dragonhand and Tengu as other magical types he’d encountered and got to know on the road who are in a spot of bother. Mystico likely knows everyone in the magical streets scene, but these are the ones that tie back to the plot. He has no real reason to fight the PCs, so will skip town rather than do anything else.

What he won’t do is get involved in some damn cosmic war, but he makes a great replacement PC with a broad knowledge set if someone’s character is removed from the action, or if the players befriend him he’s a wonderful dus ex machina as they start facing the higher levels of the Witch cults.

Most Wanted Conspyramid 7: Top of the Heap: Motivator

Anyone whose read Most Wanted has to know Motivator would be behind everything. It’s her style. Adding this final column to the Conspyramid brings a secret magical war into the mix.

Level Six Node: Motivator
Motivator: Karen Frost is exactly as presented in the book – power hungry genius telepath with a penchant for cruelty. She is gunning for subtle world domination and the only people really opposing her are the circle of Tibetan monks, the Men With Green Gloves, the ones who once trainer her before seeing th evil in her soul. To that end the Men with Green Gloves have constructed a network of Asian magical powers to stand against her. Motivator, in contrast, has taken control of an international criminal cartel that steals the very best in weapons for her to improve on, and taken control of the European Witch Cults and their entire magical apparatus. The PCs will likely have to team up with Fu Manchu to see victory over her.

* The only change required is that she has, through training, expanded her Emotion Control to Love and Trust.

If the players are nosing around here they have likely realized either that a) Virgo of the Zodiac is just one of Motivator’s many cover identities and she has been pulling Leo’s strings since the beginning or b) that the Grand Mother of the Witch Cults is, well, another one of Motivator’s man cover identities and she has been pulling their strings for a decade or more. Neither one is terribly comforting. Motivator has potentially been underestimating the PCs, right up to the point where they either deny her major assets in her war or they ally with the Men in the Green Gloves she’ll take the , er, gloves off. This means revealing and attacking their secret IDs, arming their opponents with their detected weaknesses, turning whatever assets are left from her organization against them. It should quickly feel like their world imploded.

If that still doesn’t work she’ll turn her mind and emotion control directly on them, making them fight each other as much, as often, and as publically as possible. This battle, if it happens, should almost be a campaign ender, as it will take a lot for the heroes to recover from what she will put them through personally and in the public sphere. If they win, however, the shadow of her mental cruelty will be gone (the Men with the Green Gloves will see to that) and the world will instantly become a kinder, gentler place – plus the ‘end of Planetary’ scenes where the authorities start distributing the miracle inventions in her vaults to the world.

Level Five Node: The Witch Cults of Europe
Samhain, Nightmare, Mountain Man, Jaws: The cults teased at in Samhain’s background are real and extensive, and these two men act as their agents. Neither are truly in the upper echelons – a circle of mystics who get most of their power from slow, coordinated rituals. They can change the world, just not a Super-Hero Pace. This means creating their own agents – Samhain and Nightmare (who now has a magical rather than mutant origin).
* Increase both to Level 10
* Training for Samhain is another +1 with knives. A to 12 and I to 15
* Training for Nightmare is E to 12, A to 15 and +2 to Emotion Control attacks.

If the PCs are nosing around here it means they’ve made the Virgo to Witch Cults connection or they have worked they way up from University College London. In either even the Witch Cults will target them back, using Nightmare to capture one of the heroes and replace them with a homonculous to lead the rest of the team into a trap. That trap is exiling them to Hell, which out to be fun to escape from.

If that doesn’t work, the Witch Cults will make a deal with at least one hero, promising something good for a devoted NPC if they make a simple arrangement to go away. Or alternately they will explain the nature of the shadow war against the Asian magical forces, and taking out the Witch Cults would leave the West defenseless. They will definitely play up the yellow peril aspect and it’s true that without the Witch Cults Europe would have fewer magical defenses, but since the Witch Cults are the ones on the Offense….. If none of that works then it’s showdown time, where the PCs have to race against their agents (and whoever is left of the Virgin Antiquities monsters) to stop them from casting a spell that erases the PCs entirely.

The super-villains at this level are pawns of the cults, but powerful, dangerous ones that know how to be patient. Everything about them is either delaying tactics or distraction/kidnapping.

Level Four Node: University College London Cryptozoology Department
Mountain Man, Jaws: Both of these monsters are unchanged from their original conception, save that they have been located, tagged and are now magically controlled (as needed) by the UCL Cryptozoology department, founded and funded by agents of the Witch Cults of Europe. The control is subtle and, in most cases, the commands are indistinguishable from their normal behavior. The PCs would need to have a magician on hand to even think to look for the evidence of control.

* No changes to either villain

The UCL Cryptozoology Department is very obscure and staggeringly well-funded due to several quiet bequests. The staff are a dedicated branch of the Witch Cults specializing in control rituals that let them place commands on the creatures they find, tag and release back into the wild. Often times these are what we today call super-humans, but no matter – a monster is a monster, and UCL Crypto leashes them.

If the players are nosing around here its because they either made a side entry into the conspiracy by finding one of the leashed monsters, detecting their leash and tracking it back (unlikely) or they managed to backtrace Mother Superiors support and funding (more likely). UCL Crypto will present a superb false front when the PCs look into them, and have a standing cover story inside their records that, when uncovered, will direct the PCs to an Asian criminal organization in London, a way to make the PCs switch target conspiracies and get the Men with Green Gloves against them.

Looking into UCL Crypto’s funding finds the bequests date back to Murray and Frazier’s heyday in the 20’s. Of the still extant families that set them up they are seen as an embarrassing but difficult to unravel testament to their kooky ancestors, and all will point to articles in the 1970’s in the conservative press mocking them for funding Nessie hunts. The magical work that created the funding was done nearly 100 years ago and has vanished with time. To get higher up the chain the PCs have to realize the witch cults exist at all and flip one of the 13 members of the department.

If the original distraction doesn’t work the UCL Crypto people will sic a monster on a nearby community as a distraction, aid the heroes in driving it off with their specialized knowledge and set themselves up as an allied agency. Monsters are monsters after all, and they’ll find ways to leash the PCs too. If all else fails they’ll just disappear, using a magical ritual to shift to the Black Forest in Germany, which can be traced back to the Witch Cults  – it’s best if you can have a mini-arc with the UCL Crypto people sending the heroes after various monsters first.

Most Wanted Conspyramid 6: Zodiac

Continuing from the last post we’re adding another column to the left, which means another story element in the Conspiracy. This time we’re adding the international criminal cartel Zodiac. Adding this column changes the tenor of the MEDUSA column because now Alexander, while still rueful about his errors, was suborned by Zodiac. (Exactly how this happened tells you a lot about Leo: if Alexander was framed/tricked into killing another innocent that’s one thing; if we postulate a Zodiac member named Aquarius with Revivification and Leo showed up, beat Trickshot to death, had him revived while he had a cup of tea and beat him to a pulp again to prove a point that’s another.) With crooks below him, Alexander also has to provide technology and intelligence to Zodiac – and the threat from them might explain why he’s willing to own up and possibly face prison time rather than implicate further up the chain. This change also means Vindicator is running another asset in ARIES: Advanced Research Institute for Engineering Sciences.

Zodiac obviously has a 12 person membership, but only three are ‘permanent’: Leo in charge with Virgo (a Greek heiress with both emotion control and the odd ability that people near her have flashes of brilliance and insight) at his side and Crossfire/Sagittarius as his enforcer. The rest change over time: Gemini has been a pair of twin martial artists, a man with double normal human stats (akin to previously detailed and Blog Favorite Detective Double) and a man who could create temporary duplicates of things with a touch; Cancer has been woman with biological armor and a man who built aquatic war machines. As GM feel free to add in any villain you want with Zodiac chrome to fill out the team.

Level Five Node: Zodiac
Leo the Lion: President Doctor Leopold Lions III: The dictatorial kleptocrat of Simtawala has been a thorn in many hero’s sides with his schemes for personal power or vengeance for perceived slights. This is just a cover, playing the stereotype as he advances his greater plan of theft of US technology and power to make his nation superior to his neighbor and unassailable. From there comes his true goal of claiming continental dominance – this goes to make him a top rate Dr. Doom rather than an off label one.

One note here: the original Most Wanted Leo is the second kleptocratic president for life of Malawi, which is depicted as suffering from armed conflict and revolutions that sent he and the prior president in and out of the country as they seized and lost power. Malawi’s a weird choice for this because their president for life didn’t face armed rebellions, pushed money into infrastructure and stepped down after a national referendum. Not an angel, but not Leo either, and Malawi currently has democratic rule that’s less corrupt that others. Hence it’s becoming a generic fictional African country: Simtawala (a contraction of the Swahili words for Lion King).
* Increase level to 15 and age to 50.
* Training increases I to 21, Unarmed Accuracy to +3.
* Feel free to give him several high tech devices stolen or perfected by his agents.
* Increase US Security Clearance to 10 due to intelligence assets.
* As a ruler of a country, Leo has enormous resources, but it’s not a high tech wonder country like Latveria and Wakanda so it’s mostly limited to conventional weapons. Still, if pressed he can produce a security detail of mooks, and if attacked at home has an army.

If the players are nosing around here it’s because they’ve penetrated fairly deeply into the conspiracy: both Trickshot and Crossfire are very hard to turn for very different reasons. Things get really sticky at this level – if they have fought Leo before it’s been him in his cover identity of two bit dictator who flees his foiled schemes into his Embassy and claims diplomatic immunity (in fact the GM is encouraged to arrane such a meeting if at all possible prior to this point). The discovery that large swaths of the US military intelligence community, never mind corrupt police forces and criminal gangs are under his direct control will be a bit of a shock. The PCs may well underestimate his resources. If the PCs are only workin their way up one direction of this he will obviously blindside them with the other – he knows the full reach of his organization so even something as small as a Nicotines crime spree to distract them is entirely within his ability to command. Or using corrupt cops to legally go after their DNPCs. Or having Crossfire and Virgo directly recruit Mirage to set a murderous Ebony Angel on one of them. He’ll maneuver all of his chess pieces around to harry, distract and destroy the heroes.

Being super-heroes they might go all law abiding, breaking the news of the corruption to the press or the government. Leo would continue to work indirectly against them with deniable assets, while buying off people through Simtawala’s considerable shadow assets. He will be loathe to see the MEDUSA network go but will cut it loose much quicker than he would abandon Crossfire, who he can just relocate out of the US until the heat does down. But eventually he’ll try to destroy the heroes for that, and no more mister nice Kleptocratic dictator.

If that doesn’t work he’ll lure the PCs to an international incident attacking him in Simtawala, where they’ll have to face a modest army armed with advanced tech, including units carrying blaster rifles. Weapons will be tailored to the PCs weaknesses, and as many members of Zodiac as there are PCs will be there for the boss fight. Taking down Leo and Zodiac would be a hell of a campaign high point.

Level Four Node: Zodiac’s US Assassin and Spy
Crossfire/Sagittarius: Christine Friday lost part of herself in Simtawala, but gained a bond with the country’s future ruler. She and Leo had been on-again, off-again allies for years before they solidified the partnership with the formation of Zodiac. Friday doesn’t have complex plans or enormous life goals, which makes her a great ally for Leo. She also has a great relationship with Vigro, whom she bodyguards when the Greek Heiress is in the US, seeing her as a little sister.
* Increase level to 12 and age to 34
* Training increases E, I and S to 18, A to 24
* Feel free to expand her special weapon ammunition.

Zodiac’s US operations rely on both key assassination (which Crossfire handles) and cultivating high tech assets. This node is just them, Thelma and Louiseing around the country killing people and cultivating ‘friendships,. They are friends with (and indirect control of) Vindicator and might be able to perform an intervention with her infatuation with Vibron that’s messing up her life.

If the players are nosing around here it’s most likely through Madam Frigia – Vindicator doesn’t see them as being players so much as friends, so PCs would really have to dig to make that connection. Friday does have occasional meets with Alexander to pass along orders (Leo doesn’t work with Alexander directly); that’s a highly antagonistic relationship as Crossfire is dying to try her cops against the legendary Trickshot. They might also just interrupt one of Crossfire’s perfectly normal assassinations.

In either event Crossfire does the same thing – go to ground, disappear, perhaps pick off one of the PCs later. Virgo will just vanish, ghosting out of the country – for various reasons she is almost impossible to catch and is functionally a non-combatant.  If the PCs catch Crossfire she’ll be very difficult to flip but it doesn’t matter as it is an open secret that she’s a Zodiac member. Her being involved in a massive conspiracy implicates Leo as a matter of course.

Most Wanted Conspyramid 5: ARIES and its spawn

This half column indicates the other advanced tech experiments and deniable agents that Eagleton is running out of the MEDUSA branch.

Level Three Node: Advance Research Institute for Engineering Sciences: ARIES

Madam Frigia: When Francine Curry was captured in the PCs territory (ideally by the PCs well before they uncovered the conspiracy) she was taken into SHARP custody. There Roy Alexander and Madge Eagleton found her and (with a little shove from Virgo) Eagleton pushed hard to have Curry moved to her custody where MEDUSA could set her up with a lab. Once again in possession of the position and respect that she had lost years ago Curry produced in spades, with her cryogenic and life support technology being critical for Cross Station and her business expertise letting her asset run deniable high-tech assets for MEDUSA. Of course she lacks even Eagleton’s faulty moral compass so her assets are straight up criminals that know enough to occasionally take targeting orders.

* Modify Ht. Attack so it applies only to her ice powers, but also her Intelligence score. She is the target of Virgo experimenting with her powers to make people smarter and now has an I of 21

If the players are nosing around here it’s because they have backtracked from Cross Station’s records (most likely) or have found the buried linkage between Shadowjack’s secret ID and ARIES. The institute is, on the face, exactly what it claims to be – a high tech think tank focused on life support systems for medical and space use and the study of ultra-low energy environments (i.e. cold and dark). The staff has some good jokes about this – they have the “Ice” labs and the “Dark” labs, which have been in reduced use since the accident that made Shadowjack. 90% of the staff are also exactly what they appear to be, and they hold Curry in a certain awe – she’s brilliant, her work is the cornerstone of this, and if she’s a little cold, well, big deal. Her cover identity is government provided and very solid. It will take a lot of infiltration, research, hacking or super-powers to uncover direct criminal activity that ties ARIES to the deniable tech assets or back up to Zodiac. It would be easier to trace funding and product deliveries to trace their support to MEDUSA and their output to Cross Station. Once they have that it might blow Curry’s cover but unless they find the ties to Shadowjack or Zodiac there’s nothing actionable, just morally questionable.

If the PCs go after them anyway Curry will counter with a calculated fury – she’s finally got what she deserves and these idiots want to take it away from her? HA! Frigia is a clever, dangerous adversary, and will call in some support in the attack from Vindicator and Sagittarius in sniper positions.  This is a great opportunity to change the facts on the ground in your campaign because if the PCs lose Frigia will pack them in cryogenic suspension chambers that won’t suffer a dramatically appropriate malfunction for months or years.

Level Two Nodes: Jacks of Shadows
Shadowjack: Jack Shelton, rather than being a college student, was working at ARIES when his black ole machine went haywire. Seeing him as a powerful tool Frigia supported his dark side, setting him up with the remnants of her own criminal enterprise. Now Shadowjack runs Jacks of Shadows, a large criminal consprtium of up and comers, and with carefully-funneled-to-make-it-look-like-he’s-stealing-it-from-his-old-boss technology supports a handful of high tech super villains on whom he calls for enforcement or when he’s given targets by Frigia (which he has learned not to question). In addition to technology he can smuggle them into Cross Station for medical work if they really need it, making him an all-purpose agent and fixer.

* Change level to 5: he’s a solid player in the underworld now
* Training raises his C to 12 and S to 15
* His bullwhip is pretty weak for a special weapon; feel free to modify it to something more potent. Personally I made it a Gravity Control device in the shape of a whip, where contact will increase or decrease target gravity, invert them sideways for a bit or do a ton of knockback. He has gravity studies in his origin so it fits.

If the players are nosing around here it’s because they’ve either backtracked from Cross Station or found some evidence that his contract super-humans are working for him. While it’s possible that they are just investigating his crimes it works a little better if his huge gang is so slick that the PCs only learn of it when they start nosing into his activities. If the PCs are nosing around Shadowjack will make a run at their base (if they have one) trying with his stretching and darkness powers to sneak in and investigate them, or will otherwise try to steal possessions or information.

Even if this doesn’t work his power set it makes it very likely he’ll get away. That means the heroes chase him back to his base, which is exactly what he wants – he’s operating in a relativelt run down building that he stuffs to the gills with his goons. This situation should feel like The Raid: Redemption where once the PCs are in the building it’s a fight until you can fight no more against endless streams of mooks, except in pitch darkness and with gravity playing tricks on them.

Level One Node: Deniable Tech Assets
Beekeeper, Boogeyman, Snowblind: Shadowjack has at least three supervillains on contract. He provides them with what they need to repair their tech and access to medical facilities at Cross Station, as well as paying contracts and legwork/prep for their own heists and actions and in return they do favors him him that come down the reporting tree from Frigia. Some of these are deniable back ops things for Eagleton’s branch of MEDUSA and some of them are, if the top levels of this column are in play, from Zodiac for their theft of inventions and weapons, kidnapping or blackmailing of scientists or just killing people. None of the three of them know and none of them care. In Boogeyman’s face he doesn’t need Shadowjack to fix his tech, bht the prospect of the people at Cross Station fixing his face is pretty powerful.

* No need to make any changes to these three - by my earlier design they should be levels 1-2, but I think it works better if Shadowjack is pulling in people of varying levels.

If the PCs are nosing around here in a conspiracy sense it means they’ve made some connection between any one of these three and some percentage of their actions that lends itself to a political or espionage level. It’s less likely that someone will dig into where and how they repair their technology or get medical help (unless Brian Michael Bendis is running the game), but the GM can use any entry path he likes, and the players might well decide to investigate everything if they’re truly detective characters.

Shadowjack, if he starts to realize there is trouble, will try to lay low – he’s much more likely to have one of these guys give him up then he is to convince them to go after the PCs with murder in mind. They’re just not that sort. They’re also not crazed and easily targeted like Od or Ebony Angel, and are smart enough to know when they’ve been sacrificed. So Shadowjack’s best play is just to vanish and trust them to do the same. If they ask he’ll even get them to tickets to escape, which might be what gets him.

Most Wanted Conspyramid 4: Vindicator's Fiasco

Trickshot trusted some interesting people and funded an interesting project. The lower part of this column in the Conspyramid definitely tells its own Cohen Brothers story of bad decision making, but it is linked enough to the Buzzard’s Boys nodes for them to be part of a single narrative.

Level Three Node: Top Asset Runner and Asset

Vindicator and Vibron: Madge Eagleton was Alexander’s best post villain recruit. Vindicator, burned by the mob and now a free agent, saw Alexander’s sincerity and took a chance. She changed sides and started running assets for Alexander’s organization – she’s charismatic and perceptive as hell and made it work for a while. Unfortunately for Mr. Alexander her morals are still very loose, has an ‘victory at all costs’ mindset, so her assets have freer rein than they ought. (if you want, make her pistol have a paralysis setting like Bandit’s, which makes her more of a threat to the PCs).

Recently added minor hero Jeffery “Vibron” Mathers as an asset. In a happier story his innocence would have saved her. Instead she’s spending more time in bed with him than doing her job and then making cocky decisions – such as the Bandit op that netted Madge her disintegration pistol - to keep him engaged. Mathers is young, brilliant and self-centered; how this plays out is anyone’s guess.

* Increase Vindicator’s level to 8; Vibron is unchanged

* Increase Vindicator’s A to 15 and I to 14; Vibron is unchanged

* Give her a security clearance of 14

If the PCs are nosing around here it’s either because they’ve back-tracked from Bandit’s bad raid through the Cross Station to the people who ran it, or because they’ve cottoned to what’s happening with the prisoners at Tartarus, the superhuman containment facility that’s the home base for Psi-Phon’s Freakshow. Tartarus is where Vindicator selects possible recruits (who have since been shipped overseas unless you add the next column to the Conspyramid).

While Alexander is comfortable playing out a lesser charge, Eagleton isn’t – if the PCs come for her she will hit back. She’ll get deep into MEDUSA files and do field work in disguise trying to suss out secret IDs. She’ll send Vibron to scout out their bases and break into their computer files. She’ll use her natural skills and charisma to approach them to look for weaknesses. She’ll maneuver to bring Stigmata after them, or activate a bionic cadaver program from Cross Station. She’ll free Bandit if he’s in custody and send him to do something high profile and visible outside the country, so the players can chase after him in a Fast and the Furious side quest to buy her time.

If all else fails she’ll try to pick them off one at a time and store them in the same off the books holding facility the Freakshow would have used. In the end she’s not even above killing them.

What she won’t do is involve Alexander. She may undo everything Alexander worked for but she won’t implicate him in attacking super-heroes. Which means that if the PCs climb the pyramid this way they have a better chance of catching the level 4 node unawares.

Vibron, for his part, is a bit player. He’s 22, lazy in the way of naturally brilliant people, has an older, beautiful super-spy lover and thinks life is just cool as all hell. It’s not until things are about to fall apart that he’ll apply his intellect to the problem and either commit to helping Eagleton, skip out himself or take her to a hidey hole in La Paz.

Level Two Node: Cross Station

Stigmata: John Harker was an asset runner; reporting up through Eagleton he was in charge of Cross Station super-human creation. Cross Station was the remnant of the MEDUSA project that Frank Kmilek mind into a robot body, code named Stigmata. Alexander re-activated the project to see what it could do with more advanced technology, including synthetically altering cadaver muscles and grafting them back onto living humans and other feats suitable for a modern Prometheus.

Harker, seeing Eagleton lose her focus over Mathers and facing an aggressive cancer diagnosis, realized things were falling apart. He ordered the lab to put his brain in Stigmata and promptly went chiroptera-guano nuts. Cross Station is scrambling to decommission while the Stigmata Vampire hunts them.

This is a level two node because if the PCs find it early they can recover quite a bit about MEDUSA, the Cross Station projects (and people further left on the Conspyramid if they exist). Alternately, if they debrief Harker through his vampire psychosis he’s a wealth of information.

* Increase Stigmata’s level to 3; he is a former field agent. Increase is age to 55

* Increase I to 13.

* Harker had a Security Clearance of 17, but he can hardly access it now!

If the players are nosing around here it’s because Andromarkin has given up Harker as his handler, the heroes have used powers to ID Cross Station as where his operations took place –Or– the PCs have been called in as super heroes because there’s a freakin’ indestructible robot vampire on the loose.

If the former. the PCs will have the Cross Station person they’re interrogating yanked out a window and killed by the freakin’ indestructible robot vampire, which will derail their initial investigation. If they’re present because of the freakin’ indestructible robot vampire their search for him will be hindered by the people at Cross Station, and Eagleton, performing a cover up as they go.

If they get in his way often enough, or if any of them are beautiful women, Harker might decide to target them as well as his original victims. Vindicator ultimately knows Harker well enough to direct him at the PCs or some other target, with only a small chance that Harker will realize she’s a beautiful woman.

Level One Node: Hotshot Deniable Asset

Bandit: Bonn Andromarkin is significantly re-tooled. The accident did a lot of muscle and skin damage, replaced at Cross Station with synthetically modified cadaver tissue. His Ht. Str. and Speed Bonus are ‘bionic’ muscles, his Invulnerability from bionic skin and his Heightened Expertise comes from imbedded perfect balance and control (extend the bonus to any saves vs. A for super-Parkour)

* Reduce level to 2: Bandit is just starting out.

If the players are nosing around here it’s because Bandit has just committed another high profile crime. The PCs may have directly witnessed it and failed to catch him, have been alerted by the media or called in by their police contacts. In any event this node is meant as a likely Conspyramid entry point – Bandit stole his super pistolsin a daring daylight raid - leaping off the top of a bridge through the windshield of the transport van below, rolling through the van, grabbing the carrying cases and exiting out the back at high speed. Eagleton set this up to get herself a Disintegration Gun.  

Harker set up this op and then ‘moved in’ to Stigmata so Andromarkin is operating freelance. This means high speed, high stakes, low violence crimes that hopefully you can string out as long as possible.

1) The pistols theft, which the PCs can’t prevent so best to have them investigating it afterwards.

2) A second flashy crime that the PCs reach in time, but he likely will be able to escape with the surprise of his paralysis pistol (or EA appears, see below)

3) Another flashy crime where before the PCs can seal the deal Ebony Angel shows up, hopefully buying Bandit time to scarper. EA has been tracking Bandit, having him on her conspiracy board as someone who Buzzard’s organization brought back to life in their side deal with Dracula. As usual, she’s nuts but not far wrong.

4) A final crime where Bandit is out of tricks and the PCs finally corner him. Of course if they catch him in an earlier crime no harm, no foul, just move forward – though perhaps have EA show up and accidentally free him while trying to question him.

Once he’s captured they’ll find he kept two pistols but the remainder are gone, passed along to a buyer. Eagleton will tell Anexander the Op went south, and Alexander will lean on Cooper to clean it up. SHARP shows up to thank the heroes and ‘take over’ the missing gun investigation. This shouldn’t feel like a ‘get out of here, punks’ from SHARP, but a happy hand holding, knowing is half the battle freeze frame as the PCs pass off the boring stuff to the cops.

This should not work – the point of having Bandit be so annoying with his getting away is to get the players invested in him, so they keep digging. When they do they find SHARP’s investigation is cursory at best, but the ones doing the research just see it as not prioritizing a cold trail. Questioning Bandit reveals that this isn’t his first action – he’s bee being unknowingly run as an asset by MEDUSA agent. Harker slipped up and careful questioning Andromarkin will give them enough to track back to Harker, his recent “death in a car accident with the brain missing” and eventually Cross Station or, if they have powers that support super-investigation, back to Cross Station directly.

If the PCs fall for the SHARP story but you want to keep digging into this Fiasco (Pat Pend Jason Morningstar), no problem – they get called in for the freakin’ indestructible robot vampire and pick up at Cross Station.

Most Wanted Conspyramid 3: MEDUSA

Continuing from the last post in this series we’re adding a new column to the Conspyramid with MEDUSA – the Military Espionage Department, United States of America. This group recruits captured super-villains for rehabilitation as clandestine agents and develops high tech to build their own super-agents. These assets are used to explore, recruit and degrade foreign military science and protect US assets from same, though sometimes that means ‘liberating’ it to create ‘deniable’ weapons for use black ops use.

  

Adding this column to the Conspyramid expands the conspiracy from a corrupt police organization to domestic espionage. This could have a huge change on play, but given the villains involved, that this is still a super-hero story and it’s placement in the Conspyramid we’re going to say it’s just the regional office. Plus in this version its one where the people involved got to hell with good intentions rather than by chartering a jet there the way Buzzard’s Boys did. (This would change somewhat if you add in the next column of the Conspyramid, which we’ll do later).

Regional MEDUSA has significant control over the local SHARP program; Buzzard’s effectiveness with the Freakshow led to his being tapped for more work, and his willingness to loan out his men for domestic black ops support and cover up any messes makes him a key part of their team. One kept at arm’s length of course, and just as Mirage knows Buzzard can hose her, he knows MEDUSA can hose him. No one else in Buzzards Boys explicitly knows about the connection, but Psi-Phon has enough ideas about where some of the non-psionic captives go to make a good guess.

Level Four Node: MEDUSA Regional Office

Trickshot: Roy Alexander was the first super-villain recruited for a suicide mission as a test, and he worked out very well. Still with MEDUSA in his secret ID he is now in charge of this regional office based on his sterling field record and charm, but is in way over his head. He trusted too many people who tracked mud into his office and now has to cover it up or lose everything.

* Increase level to 11 and increase age to 40; he’s been in this game a while.  

* Node Level: 4

* Add Govt/Bureaucracy as a background, acquired via training. Other training raises C to 15.

* feel free to add more specialized bullets, however outrageous, to his guns. If he has had time to prep against the investigating PCs powers he certainly will be ready for them.

* Give him a Security Clearance of 10 thanks to his high status.

If the players are nosing around here it’s because they’ve tracked things up through his corrupt Asset Runner or have made the tie from Buzzards dirty SHARP operation. Of course even finding out MEDUSA exists is hard, it being hidden in both the Army Intelligence and DARPA budgets and behind a dozen shell companies. PCVs will be stymied by previously set up false leads, very difficult data analysis, recently abandoned warehouses, etc. This node is protected by government espionage level secrecy.

If the PCs do find it through the projects Alexander funded that he shouldn’t (Cross Station) or the former super-villain agents he shouldn’t have he will confront the heroes directly and come clean, sort of the programs are defensible if looked at in the right frame, he can cover everything up with national security and is willing to work with the heroes to close down the project as long as they keep quiet. He will threaten to make their lives really difficult if they do blab about the secret government programs and he can certainly do so to an extent, but contrition will be believable enough

He’s more comfortable burning Cooper and his corrupt cops. He suspects Cooper has a dead man’s switch of data somewhere, but is emotional enough to put a bullet in Cooper’s head and call it done. Trickshot isn’t normally a killer, but he knows how bad a man Cooper is, and might be better able to live with himself if Cooper dies in a hail of gunfire and gives the heroes a nice clean ending to a bad man.  If the PCs are approaching from Cooper’s organization and Alexander thinks he has enough to connect he might just pull the trigger in advance, hopefully freezing their investigation there.

You’ll notice in both of these cases Trickshot is trying for a bank shot, while pleading out to a lesser crime. This is his prior MO, so that’s consistent. Players my find it unsatisfying if the presumed big bad at the top of the conspiracy escalates by talking and helping them dismantle his own works (under the cover of state secrets and national security), but it should make for an interesting change. It also makes it harder to climb higher if there’s a higher to climb. At least until Cooper’s dead man’s switch goes off and the PCs inbox is flooded with files incriminating MEDUSA. 

More to come next post

Woot! and Welcome!

I did hear that the king of the conspiracy, Ken Hite, gave a shout out to this blog and the Most Wanted Conspyramid on his Twitter Feed. That nudged me to, ya'know, finish the thing.

This means a brief break on the IMTU Chimera stuff, which I needed to do anyway after Joshua helped get my head straight on the Blade Shticks.

Anyway... Woot! Happy Dance!

The Most Wanted Conspyramid 2: SHARP

Continuing from the last post, this second row represents the SHARP resources that Buzzard can call into play.

“The Freakshow”

Psi-Phon: Seril Wembler’s initial escape was aided by the recently promoted Lt. Cooper, who personally cornered the boy and gave him money and contact information rather than capture him. Since then Psi-Phon has had a symbiotic relationship with Buzzard, using his powers to track down and weaken super-villains to improve Cooper’s department’s numbers – his special psi-tracking and incarceration unit is called ‘the freakshow’. As long as Cooper keeps providing him with money, shelter and most importantly delicious new powers to try Psi-phon will keep working with him. Make the following updates:

* Node Level: Two

* Increase level to 3; he’s been at this a little longer and received some police training.

* Feel free to give him as wide an array of psionic powers as you like, since the police are feeding him other psis.

* He has an indirect access to a Security Clearance 18 and the small group of 8 special weapons SHARP officers in the Freakshow. While it’s clear that Cooper directly orders them it’s not clear whether his human officers or Wembler makes decisions about their tactics.

If the players are nosing around the Freakshow in the basic campaign Psi-Phon it’s likely because of Od (in a more extended conspiracy they might have backtraced Bandit as well) but if they haven’t Seril will buy time by trotting the art psycho out again as a distraction while the Freakshow hides itself.

If that doesn’t work Syril will move to a more physical confrontation. Low level as he may be in this incarnation he’s similar to Syler from _Heroes_ - a mass of possible powers that make it possible for him to take out the hero team. He’ll start, obviously, with other psychics to boost his own power but will take on anyone. The Freakshow agents will keep in the background for this, but will move in to take out wounded or tired heroes. Captured heroes will vanish into an off the books SHARP holding facility, since killing them is always more trouble than its worth.

Od & The Avant Guard

Omar Drekman was an early capture by the Freakshow, but Psi-Phon saw something of his earlier self in young Od and arranged to have him cut loose with supervision and hypnotic conditioning. Od now runs his collection of street gangs, as well as his elite Avant Guard, in the city as a dangerous theme villain that keeps both the street gangs and super-heroes occupied. Make the following updates

* Node Level 2

* Design his crimes to befit a theme villain – he should feel like a Batman villain with crimes that perpetuate his art fixation and a gang of thugs dressed to match his madness.

If the PCs enter the conspiracy through this node it’s because they’re either fighting gang crime and stumble on Od running his latest gang or because Od has received subliminal orders and is engaging in another multi-target art themed crime for the PCs to investigate/encounter and lose or have Od escape/ escape deathtrap or track down his current base. If the latter it’s because the Freakshow or Cooper is running some other op and needs the media distracted and Od is their go-to murderous lunatic.

Psychic heroes might suss out Od’s programming (not that he wouldn’t be crazy without it) and backtrack that to the Freakshow. Street detective ones will determine that there’s some linkage between Od and the Nicotines in that he never targets or recruits from them – there should be a war there and there isn’t. Any suspicious player might wonder how this guy keeps getting away, leading them to question SHARP and finding the Freakshow inside it.

The Most Wanted Conspyramid 1: Buzzard's Boys

Reading Nights Black Agents (Ken Hite’s Spies v. Vampires game) led me to crease a supers-game conspiracy pyramid. For accessibility I’m doing so with the villains in Most Wanted Volume 1 lightly modified.

The Conspiracy Pyramid is a way to make the supers games more investigative, which gives detective themed heroes an additional way to contribute.  It has 21 nodes (6 level one nodes, 5 level two and so on) that start at the street level and lead up to the head of a global conspiracy. I’ll be presenting these in groups of 3-6, showing how thematic elements of the conspiracy fit together and how they react if poked by the heroes. Villains in level one nodes are level 1-2, level two node villains are 4-6 and so on.

The Buzzard’s Corrupt Cops

Level Three Node

SHARP

Buzzard: Lt. Cooper had been a ‘supercop’ (honest, sterling record, top human agility) and hid his narcotics corruption and career as the Buzzard so well that he was promoted to lead the states Super-Human Apprehend & Rehabilitate Program (SHARP). For this make the following updates

* Node Level: 3

* Swap starting S and I – he should be in worse shape but smarter in this version.

* Increase Level to 8. He was an experienced police officer followed by years as a super-villain.

* Training increases E to 9, I to 15 and C to 15.

* Inventions include thermal lenses for 20” range IR vision, the difficult to penetrate communications network for his ‘special’ units and new gasses for his bombs as you see fit – possibly some custom tailored to the PCs to make him a formidable threat. He also carries an auto-pistol and nightstick.

* He has access to SHARP resources – which are high end but not superhuman – to investigate and apprehend criminals, or super –heroes if he can manufacture charges against them. Give him a Security Clearance of 13.

If the PCs are nosing around this level of the Conspiracy it’s either due to lack of trust issues with authority figures or because they’ve already uncovered the corrupt narcotic officers or the freakshow inside of SHARP. Cooper is willing to burn one of those branches to keep his reputation as a good cop who has been victim of a conspiracy under him, but not both. Of course if the PCs have discovered both then there’s no way they’ll buy his teaming up with them to stamp out corruption as there’s just too much of it.

He will absolutely try to bring down the PCs via the method that hasn’t already been used, but backed up with his own attacks, tactical prowess and, if need be confiscated weapons. Buzzard will appear and attack with narcotics, hallucinogens, and firearms whose ballistics can be traced to guns owned by some known or suspected criminal on whom everything might be pinned. Cooper will always, always try to redirect the heroes towards someone else – some other gang, some other villain, some other part of his organization, and ultimately the Buzzard ID itself to keep his Lt. Cooper ID’s hands clear. He’s even savvy enough to have had hypnotic residue implanted in his mind to convince telepathic PCs of his innocence after his capture – and will point to Psi-Phon or Mirage as the real villains, so catching him in the act n the Buzzard suit is not a guarantee of victory.

Corrupt City Narcotics Officers

Mirage: Lt. Cooper co-opted Meryl Johnson by being totally honest with her: if she loyally worked for him as the ‘forensic chemist’ and lead of his corrupt narcotics team he’d support her, if she betrayed him he’d bury her. So far the alliance has worked to her advantage. Make the following updates:

* Node Level: Two

* Swap starting S and I – again, this is a smarter, scientific version of the villain.

* Reduce level to 6. This is minor, but she should be less experienced than Buzzard.

* Reduce E to 10 to account for level loss.

If the PCs start pushing at this level Mirage will move to co-opt the PCs if someone hasn’t already done so, with the vice cops recruiting them against another target. This may well have already happened, and if so it’s time to move to the smear campaign. This starts with solid illusions of the PCs committing a crime – preferably a narcotics related one - and then the PCs being ‘attacked’ by a ‘villain’ who is hurting them who turns out to be a normal person under an illusion while Mirage projects Phantom Pain. Once that happens, the police will move in to arrest the heroes, possibly with lethal force.

Some players will love this chance to temporarily engage in the wanted vigilante plot, some will hate it and some already live there, so gauge how long you can run this.

Once the PCs trace this back and find evidence against the corrupt cops Mirage will move to disappear, letting the cops take the fall, but Buzzard will make sure she’s implicated in everything, attributing mind control powers to her to shorten his men’s sentences and make sure there’s no backtrail to his time in the organization. If he hasn’t co-opted the PCs yet, now’s the time to introduce the Serpico one good cop Lt. Cooper to clean house.

Level  One Nodes

The Nicotines

The street gang at the back of the V&V 2.0 rulebook is the gang that Buzzards corrupt cops use to do their dirty (well, dirtier) work in the city. They do deliveries and enforcement and only their leaders know that they have some police protection (that can rapidly turn into a lethal raid that kills them all if they spill anything). The Nicotines are very careful to not kill people since that moves their activities out of Vice and into Homicide, where they have less police coverage.

* Assume the Nicotines are 5-6 gangs of this size (with convenient identical stats), but only operate in these smaller groups to threaten low level heroes. At least until the GM wants a full scale gang war.

If the PCs access the conspiracy through this node they’re doing the urban defender thing, going against a drug gang. Depending on their power level this could be complex or easy. The Nicotines have a half dozen hangouts and, if a few of their members are captured will try to set up a two-unit ambush on the heroes. If that fails they’ll go to ground and see if they can just wait the heroes out; if still pursued they call on the corrupt cops to cover for them.

The Nicotines don’t sweat getting arrested – they’ll be released due to irregularities and lack of evidence – but if the PCs kill any of them Buzzard’s police step in very quickly to capture the ‘killer costumes’. If the PCs are too close to taking the Nicotines down entirely the corrupt cops move in to co-opt them, offering to liaison in a drug war that targets other gangs.  This will likely work short term, but if the PCs keep digging on the Nicotines it serves as the entrance to the next level of the conspiracy.

Ebony Angel

Erica Knight is what might happen to the heroes if they underestimate Buzzard. Under Buzzard’s orders Mirage messes with her since her powers make her too difficult to contain. Erica knows Cooper is behind it all, with evidence that he’s working with the Mole-People and Queen Victoria. She’s not nuts, but Buzzard and Mirage have done a great job of making her look that way. Make the following updates:

* Reduce Level to 2; she’s a relatively recent threat.

* Reduce S to 15, A to 12 and C to 12 to account for level loss.

If the PCs access the conspiracy through this node it will be because they have made direct contact with Ebony Angel – either having heard news  reports of her and hunted her down or because they responded to the same crime. Buzzard and Mirage keep careful track of EA’s movements and will be alerted if that happens more than once. That’s when Mirage will step in and have an illusion of at least one of the heroes attack EA when they PCs are nowhere close, so that when they encounter EA again she has placed them on her gonzo photographs-news-clippings-and-twine conspiracy board and won’t trust them again without a lot of work on their part.

EA’s initial contact will have her share her story, which is now half-truth and half fiction, and another option is that Buzzard uses Mirage’s powers to frame someone else as being part of Cooper’s ‘conspiracy’ and let EA drag the players in on that attack. Once that goes south and the PCs have helped attack an innocent bystander EA won’t have much stock with them, or her for them.  They players might not trust her upward analysis any longer, but her evidence tying Od and the Nicotines together gives them two other avenues of exploration.

In any event Cooper will eventually step in and use this to draw the PCs into his confidence. The Players should be angry with the GM for getting their PCs to trust a nutbar like EA, not suspicious that the SHARP leader is the head of a conspiracy.