The Negotiator:
Page: A man lies in bed. [This man is Ethan Summers.] Ethan sits up, [He volunteers at the fire station and hospital when he's not struggling to keep his job as a store clerk.] and heads outside to check the mail. Reading a letter as he eats breakfast, Ethan looks worried. The words "NOTICE OF FAILURE TO PAY INSTALLMENT" are visible at the top of the letter.
Page: Ethan gets into his car and begins driving. (Driving (Wits) check: 3+1(close) = 4, 3+0 = 3) Ethan parks his car by the side of a building, and walks into a building with a logo of three concentric red circles. [He works at Bullseye Retail, a small retail chain with a few stores scattered across about half as many counties.] He heads to a room in the back, where the managers and employees are gathered. After a few moments, the store manager speaks. Store Manager: "As you know, the results of the drug tests are coming in throughout today. We'll be pulling employees aside to inform them of the results and administer disciplinary action if necessary. I’m sorry that the tests were mandatory and on such short notice, but with the ongoing wave of drug abuse in this area it was a necessity."
Page: Several panels of Ethan working, with a clock in the background ticking forward from 9:00 to 10:00 to 11:00. A panel of Ethan eating lunch. As Ethan is finishing his lunch, the shift manager looms over him. [The people who evaluate drug tests are, sadly, not all paragons of moral righteousness.] Shift Manager: “Ethan, the drug test came back positive. You’re fired.” [Not knowing that Ethan’s name had been picked at random to swap with the name of an employee who knew he would test positive, the manager’s reaction was perfectly understandable.]
What does Ethan say or do in response?
Anathema:
Page: A small group of tourists are milling around while a man in a pith helmet stands in front of an entrance to a pyramid. Pith Helmet Man: “Alright, everyone, it’s safe to enter now.” [Hard to tell who you should be looking at, isn’t it?] The tourists look apprehensive. The man in the pith helmet quickly backpedals verbally. Pith Helmet Man: “Safe for the archeologists and artifacts, that is! Wouldn’t want any tourists going past the caution tape into the unexplored areas of this newly-discovered pyramid!...” [Well, pay attention to Orion Schulz. He’s the tall one in the back.]
Page: The group is heading down a wide stone hallway of the pyramid. A panel showing the man in the pith helmet and a few tourists. Pith Helmet Man: “Now, as I’m sure most of you know, the pyramids were built by the Ancient Egyptians.” [Orion is an anthropology student. Needless to say, he knows this already.] A panel showing an annoyed Orion, a few tourists, and a cut-off word balloon from the man in the pith helmet, who is at the front of the group. [Orion doesn’t look happy about how the tour guide’s dumbing it down. He came here to learn new stuff, not hear the absolute basics.]
What’s Orion going to do?
Contingent:
Page: A splash panel of a Titan Industries building in the early morning. [Titan Industries. Founded in 1971, it is one of the largest companies in the world, based on reverse-engineering metahuman-created technology.] A line of people in lab coats are streaming through a security checkpoint into the lobby.
Page: A panel showing the lobby. A panel zooming in on one man in particular. [This man is Peter Pevrett. He’s been working at Titan Industries for a few years now.] Several panels of Peter walking through the building. He opens a door, and heads into a laboratory with several scientists inside. [He was just placed in charge of a team researching a nanogoo sample with unknown behavior.] Peter picks a white hazmat suit off the wall and puts it on. (Wits check: 4+0 = 4) He suddenly looks down at the suit, alarmed. A panel showing the hand of the suit, with a square hole visible on one of the fingertips. Peter takes the suit off, scribbles a quick notice that the suit had a hole on a sticky note that was then stuck to the suit, and puts a different suit on. [Unfortunately, Peter didn’t think to check the new suit for holes, believing the problem to be simple wear and tear.]
Page: Splash panel of a glass enclosure. Inside are Peter, another a hazmat suit-wearing scientist and a pedestal with a purple blob on it. [He was deemed experienced enough to head the team, but not trusted enough to know where it came from.] Scientist: “So what tests do we have planned today?”
What’s Peter’s plan to investigate the nanogoo?
Dr. Mutagen:
Page: The inside of a laboratory, with assorted occupied animal cages and a man bustling about. [Dr. Burt Goldstine always wanted to know how animals worked, deep down.] Several panels of Burt running experiments on a tray of samples. [He learned much in the process of getting his PhD. in genetic engineering, but it wasn’t enough for him.] A panel of Burt turning his head to look at a large piece of scientific machinery on the other side of the lab. An extension cord is visible in the corner of the panel. [He would end up learning more than he expected, on one fateful day.]
What specific thing is Burt researching, and what’s the machine he’s about to take the tray of samples to?
The Lifebringer:
Page: A splash panel of a woman holding a lantern in a graveyard at night. [Dora Trisha works the night watch in a cemetery, making sure that any graverobbers or necromancers are reported to city law enforcement.]
Page: Several panels of Dora walking around. (Wits check: 3+1(obvious) = 4) A panel of Dora turning her head to the side to see a purple light on the ground near one of the graves.
How’s Dora going to respond to this phenomenon?
Traveler:
Page: Several panels of a man running through dark rooms gradually becoming more well-lit. Some are bedrooms, some kitchens, some living rooms, but none of them have doors or windows, only doorframes. [Followers of the Infinity Mansion series will know who this man is.] [For everyone else: He is Octavian Grey, an Ancient Roman noble once trapped inside a constantly-shifting mansion.] [Now, he is still trapped inside a mansion, but instead of running from animated suits of armor, he is running from a black goo that devours all in its path.] [The mansion hasn’t dealt with that very well.] [But as Octavian is about to find out, it’s still got a few surprises.] Octavian runs into a room, and stops abruptly. The room is small, well-lit, unadorned, and has exactly one doorframe on the opposite side... with a door in it, just barely open. Octavian glances back nervously, pushes the door open, and rushes through.
Page: A splash panel showing Octavian next to a door in the middle of a field of grain at sunrise.
Page: Octavian slams the door shut. A panel showing the hinges rip out of the doorframe. Several panels showing the door fall backward onto the ground as Octavian watches, with the sunrise visible behind him.
What will Octavian do with his newfound freedom?
The Man of Stone:
Page: Splash panel of a caveman village. A caveman wearing a red-and-blue-dyed animal skin is standing on top of a rock, making a speech to a crowd of other cavepeople.
Page: Zoom in on the caveman and the rock. Caveman: “That conclude Thrak’s talk about why Freedom and Justice are what the chiefs ought support.” A panel showing the crowd’s reaction: A mix between angry hecklers and silent, fearful faces. A group of cavemen armed with clubs push their way through the crowd. Member of the group: “Club Council say this is last drinking tube! You big bad so we sacrifice you to water dinosaurs!”
What Thrak do?
Cuddle Team Leader:
Page: Several panels of a woman rushing through the hallways of a laboratory building. [This woman is Sofia Ramirez, and she is late for Research Intern Orientation.] (Physique check: 4-1(late) = 3) Sofia pushes a door open and enters an auditorium. The speaker on the stage is clearly several minutes into the talk. [She works at Vindertech, a company that employs metahuman technologists who want to make money instead of change the world.] She sits down. (Wits check: 3-1(late) = 2) Several panels of Sofia looking bored, with a few cut-off word balloons about safety. The lecture ends, and the interns start scurrying off to their assigned laboratories, Sofia among them. When she arrives, she is met by a man in a lab coat with several other researchers visible in the background. Lab Coat Man: “Ah, you must be Miss Ramirez. This way to the large-scale mass-energy equivalence field projector.”
Page: A splash panel of a cubical device the size of a room. Lab Coat Man: “We won’t be using this for a while, since there’s no need for it, but it was fun to build.”
Page: Several panels of Lab Coat Man and Sofia looking at each other. Lab Coat Man: “It’s not even big enough to fit a human inside, too! With current technology, the necessary thickness is proportional to the square of the size. The proof-of-concept was the size of a marble and had walls as thick as a soap bubble!” Sofia: “Then why is this the first thing I’m being introduced to?” Lab Coat Man: “I said “With current technology”, didn’t I? You’ll be acting as my assistant while I work on improving the containment field.” Several panels showing Sofia carrying assorted gadgets around, as a clock in the background ticks forward. A panel showing Lab Coat Man look up. Lab Coat Man: “It’s time for the lunch break! Now, I’ll just work here a few more minutes, but you can go have lunch, there’s food in the fridge over there.” A panel showing Lab Coat Man gesture vaguely to one side, without looking up from his workbench. A panel showing Sofia look at a metallic, industrial-looking refrigerator with confusion. Sofia: (That doesn’t look like any fridge I’ve ever seen…) A panel showing Sofia walk over to it while shrugging. Sofia: (Must be part of the Vindertech aesthetic or something.)
What’s Sofia hoping will be inside?
The Stranger:
Page: An unkempt man lying in an alley next to a cardboard box. He stands up, brushes himself off, and walks out of the alley. Unkempt Man: “... can’t keep living on that sort of jobs … need to find something steady …”
Page: (Street Smarts (Wits) check: 4+0 = 4, 3+0 = 3) Glancing out of the corner of his eye, he looks slightly alarmed. He ducks back into another alley, heads out the other side, and starts walking towards the small business district of the city.
What kind of job is the unkempt man looking for?
Ringer:
Page: Several panels of a blurry ceiling slowly getting less blurry. A speech balloon reads “And Maxwell is the winner!”, with several speech balloons filled with cheering. A panel showing a bleeding man lying on the floor with a confused expression on his face. [This man is an amnesiac, a word which here means “Someone who has lost all memories about themself.”] Amnesiac Man: “Who… whuh?”
Page: The amnesiac man sits up, and the cheering speech balloons cut off. A panel showing the scene: A dimly lit wrestling arena-like setup, with the amnesiac man in the middle, a blond man wearing only red shorts off to one side, and about a dozen shadowed figures outside of the arena. The blond man throws a twisting punch in the amnesiac man’s general direction, and a ball of fire flies from his fist straight at the amnesiac man. (Physique check: 5-1(surprise) = 4) The amnesiac man scrambles out of the way and then stands up.
What are the amnesiac man’s plans for survival?
Author
Topic: Silver Age Superhero RTD (Read 16612 times)