My favorite Conan story by Robert E. Howard is “Red Nails” and I found this amazing look at the possibility that Xuchotl, the walled city in which Conan and Valeria end up, might be based on a real location. Check it out and be just as impressed as I was by this scholarly examination.
Polite Leader
Prowess 3
Coordination 4
Strength 3
Intellect 4
Awareness 4
Willpower 4
Stamina 7
Powers
* Mossberg 500 Mariner cruiser 5
* Beretta 92FS Inox 4
Specialties
Athletics (+1 bonus), Leadership (Expert +2 bonus), Stealth (+1 bonus), Weapons – Guns (+1 bonus)
Qualities
*Delusional Social Darwinist
*A very polite psychopath
*”Mister and Missus, the man you are sheltering is nothing but a dirty homeless pig. A grotesque menace to our just society who had the audacity to fight back. Please just let us Purge!”
Background
Along with many other American citizens, he was eager to participate in the Purge night when it arrived. However, whereas other people had somewhat justifiable and logical reasons for desiring to kill people (ie people who had simply wronged them in their pasts), the Polite Leader was a sadistic man who delighted in first torturing, then mentally breaking, then finally killing his victims, all with a smirk on his face.The Polite Leader is a neurotic, delusional, and pretentious individual who seeks to cleanse America of unwanted (such as the homeless) and threatens to kill the protagonist’s entire family unless they surrender a homeless man that stumbled onto their property. He shows a perverse sense of respect for those of high social class and does not wish to kill his “own kind” if possible but has no qualms with murder and other atrocities towards the lower classes.
The antics of the Polite Leader and his gang are allowed due to the dystopian rule of the annual Purge – in which (almost) every crime is legal and no emergency services are called out, part of a Social Darwinist agenda by 2022 America to get rid of the “unwanted” members of society.
Divinity
aka Abram Adams
Prowess 4
Coordination 4
Strength 5
Intellect 5
Awareness 9
Willpower 9
Stamina 14
Powers
After Embracing the Unknown, Divinity’s physiology became augmented to near limitless levels, giving him the ability to control and manipulate space and time, as well as giving him access to the cosmic energies of the universe.
*Cosmic Power 10 (Extras: Absorption – Radiation, Alteration Ray, Blast, Dazzle, Detect, Duplication, Energy Control, Extrasensory Perception, Flight, Force Field, Healing {Divinity has raised the dead}, Images, Immortality, Invisibility, Life Support, Phasing, Telekinesis, Teleportation, Time Control {Extra: Time Travel}, Transmutation)
Specialties
Pilot (Expert +2 bonus), Science
Qualities
Godlike Being
Obsessed with getting to know his time-lost daughter
Former Soviet Soldier
Background
Abram began his life by being dropped off on someone’s doorstep in a basket as a baby. After years as a ward of the state, Abram joined the Soviet Union’s army, and during the height of the Cold War the army asked him to take on a dangerous 30-year mission deep in space. They thought he was perfect because he had no family ties, but secretly, he had a wife/girlfriend. Abram accepted and began to train extensively until he was ready. The night before he was sent into space, he told his wife he would have to leave for years. That night, his wife also confessed to him that she was pregnant.
His journey into space began in 1960. During the journey, he and his comrades went into a cryogenic state from time to time until they found something amazing, a place only known as The Unknown. Abram couldn’t breathe so he took off his helmet, and miraculously, he could still breathe. Then something changed him and gave him the powers of a god although it felt to him as it was the moment he died. This is also the moment he decided to return home. After 55 years, Abram eventually returned to Earth landing in the Australian outback in 2015.
Once Abram got back to Earth, he began granting nearby people’s wishes, even soldiers sent to take him down. Eventually, he amassed too much of a crowd, with travelers coming to him seeking advice, and the team Unity, consisting of Ninjak, Eternal Warrior, X-O Manowar, and Livewire was sent to capture him or terminate him if necessary. When they got there, Divinity made seconds turn into months for the heroes. But Ninjak had training and knew this wasn’t real. So he went to help the other heroes and eventually they got back to the real world. The battle began but Divinity already had followers, and worshipers, led by David Camp, a man Divinity had helped earlier. The followers started to attack the heroes but Livewire put a prison pod around Divinity as the other heroes attacked him while he was distracted by images of his dead wife/girlfriend and daughter. Eva, the wife, didn’t want to be back to life and she had died peacefully in sleep while his daughter, Anya died of cancer. Eventually, the heroes sealed up Divinity and were extracted by the giant robot GIN-GR. Afterward, Unity had a conversation with Neville, their organizer, saying they didn’t understand what Divinity did wrong. Unity put the prison pod miles below the Earth’s surface. Now Abram looks back at his life and gets to know his daughter more by talking to her when he can using his time manipulation.
STARDUST
AKA Doctor Mara or Dusty
Prowess 4
Coordination 5
Strength 3
Intellect 6
Awareness 3
Willpower 4
Stamina 7
Powers
*Light Manipulation 8 (Extras: Flight, Blast, Energy Absorption)
Specialties
Powers – Light Manipulation (+1 bonus), Science (Expert +2 bonus), Technology (Expert +2 bonus)
Qualities
*Unfamiliar with Earth customs
*Powers begin to fade if she is cut off from starlight
*Comes from a planet made up entirely of women – thus, she is far more comfortable interacting with females.
Background
Dr. Mara is from the planet Rur, a planet made up entirely of women who are born from the planet itself. Rur was at war with the Kronon Empire, and Dr. Mara was sent to Earth along with General Proxima to find Captain Paragon, who they sought to use as a weapon to turn the tide of the war. The two aliens found the Captain in a state of stasis and used Rurian technology to revive him. However, Paragon refused to fight in their war and left.
While Proxima pursued Paragon intending to bring him back by force if necessary, Dr. Mara discovered that the machinery she had used to awaken Paragon had absorbed a portion of his energy. She used the machine on herself and the stellar energy supercharged her cells. She found him just as his old foe the Black Shroud was able to kill him, and used her light-based powers to defeat the weakened villain. In return, Paragon agreed to help her people. After Rur had won the war, Stardust decided to remain on Earth to study its culture. She had always felt out of place among the warrior culture of her people, and she was tired of constantly clashing with Proxima.
What she did not realize was her example started a rebellion on Rur with other like-minded women protesting the militant culture. Eventually, open war broke out on the planet. Seeking to end the war, Proxima warped Rur into Earth’s orbit, causing catastrophic global disasters, and insisting that Stardust be returned or Earth would be destroyed. While the world’s heroes battled the Rurian invaders, Stardust reversed the device so that Rur would return to its proper place and the Rurians were defeated. In the aftermath, Proxima was exiled and traveled to Earth, swearing vengeance upon Stardust.
Stardust’s naiveté about Earth customs led her to get involved with David Burke, husband of Jennifer Burke, Ms. Victory’s daughter. While Stardust thought they were just being friends, David thought it was more and it contributed to the breakup of his marriage with Jennifer. As a result, most of Jennifer’s teammates on the Sentinels of Justice still hold a grudge against Stardust.
Information from “Knockouts and Powerhouses” the Superbabes Role Playing Game Supplement, copyright 1994 by Selex, Inc.
Balladeer’s Blog’s recent look at Eight Neglected Monsters for Halloween Season was a big hit with readers, so here are more.
DEVIL-BUG
First Appearance: The Monks of Monk Hall (1844-1845)
Cryptid Category: Malformed Human
Lore: This deformed and depraved man-monster grew up in Monk Hall as the son of one of the Hall’s members and one of the prostitutes enslaved there. He was squat, incredibly strong and grotesquely ugly with one large gaping eye and one small, withered, empty eye socket on his face.
Devil-Bug – the only name he had ever known – worked as a combination doorman, bouncer and executioner in the vile mansion called Monk Hall in Philadelphia. He killed on command and secreted the corpses deep in the sub-basements of the sinister mansion.
The unwholesome figure slept in a chilly dank room with the body of one of his victims lying next to him. Devil-Bug even…
View original post 726 more words
SHE-CAT
aka Jessica Hunt
Prowess 6
Coordination 6
Strength 5
Intellect 3
Awareness 5
Willpower 5
Stamina 9
Powers
*Strike 5 – Claws
*Immortality – Longevity 1
*Regeneration 3
*Superspeed 2 (Limit: Running only)
*Supersenses 3 (smell, hearing, vision)
*Ring of Sekhmet – provides an ability boost to her Willpower for the sole purpose of aiding her in preventing being possessed by Sekhmet. It does not aid her in any other way. For the purposes of using her willpower against Sekhmet, add +5 Willpower bonus to any rolls made to resist the cat goddess.
Specialties
Athletics (Expert +2 bonus), Martial Arts (+1 bonus), Stealth (Expert +2 bonus)
Qualities
*The most vicious and deadly of the Femforce
*Lives in constant fear of losing her humanity
Background
When anthropologist Thadeous Hunt murdered Burmese followers of Sekhmet and returned home with the stolen priceless artifact that they used to summon the cat goddess, it was only a matter of time before Sekhmet, an Egyptian goddess of retribution, would take her vengeance. When Professor Hunt tried to summon the cat goddess to possess the body of a young native girl, Gautama, who he had kidnapped, he lost his head. Literally! Sekhmet tore it off! The cat goddess then sought out Professor Hunt’s daughter, the teenaged Jessica, who was more accustomed to civilization than Gautama. Sekhmet bonded with Jessica, bringing a chunk of Gautama’s sole with her.
It quickly became clear that Jessica was not strong enough to control the cat goddess’ bestial urges. She developed the costumed identity of the She-Cat to protect her identity during the periods when she lost control and the bloodlust took over and it became necessary for her to complete the bonding ritual with other strong-willed people in order to keep Sekhmet at bay. A bonding with Joan Wayne, Miss Victory, allowed her to control Sekhmet for many years, but when Miss Victory fell victim to the ravages of Rad, Jessica again was forced to bond with another.
The insecurity of constantly needing a strong bonding partner to keep Sekhmet from taking complete control of She-Cat’s mind and body eventually led to her discovery of the Ring of Sekhmet, an amulet which renders her immune to the goddess’ control while maintaining her paranormal abilities. Because the ring has been separated from Jessica with alarming frequency, Nightveil has turned it into a bracelet that fits securely over She-Cat’s left wrist.
Due to Sekhmet’s presence, Jessica has great health as Sekhmet is also a healing goddess. She-Cat is also unbelievably fast, cat-quick, you might say, and can slice through steel with her fingernails due to her bonding with the cat goddess. Furthermore, she has enhanced senses…like a cat! She also has developed great willpower from years of resisting Sekhmet’s ferocious nature. Finally, because Sekhmet is a goddess, She-Cat is immortal while Sekhmet inhabits her body, unless Sekhmet were to completely possess her at which point Jessica’s soul would perish, killing her.
Information from “Knockouts and Powerhouses” the Superbabes Role Playing Game Supplement, copyright 1994 by Selex, Inc.
TARA
AKA TARA FREMONT
Prowess 5
Coordination 5
Strength 4/9 (at full height)
Intellect 5
Awareness 5
Willpower 5
Stamina 9/14 (at full height)
Powers
*Growth 9 (Limit: If Tara uses her power to grow past level 6, the power is Fatiguing)
*Hunting Knife – Slash 4
*Gadgets 3
Specialties
Athletics (Expert +2 bonus), Business (Expert + 2 bonus), Drive (+ 1 bonus), Martial Arts (Expert +2 bonus), Medicine – Veterinarian (Expert +2 bonus), Mental Resistance (+1 bonus), Science – Animal Preservation and Marine Bology (Expert +2 bonus), Stealth (Expert +2 bonus), Technology (+1 bonus), Weapons – Blades, Thrown (Expert +2)
Qualities
*Mistress of Jungle Island
*Dedicated to environmentalism
*Insanely rich
Background
Tara Fremont was the daughter the most powerful and wealthy men in Florida and the heiress to one of the worlds most insidious industrial empires. Due to being raised in the protective arms of her social status, Tara would come to have the “blinders off” as she grew up seeing the environmental horrors her family’s corporation would cause. Tara choose to devote her life to environmentalism, using her family’s resources to ready her for a life of Activism beginning with her schooling in environmental sciences. From the Academy she was the idealist who organized rallies to protect the environment, having championed endangered species throughout the planet and in the process has adapted to life in various jungles and other locations far from civilization. Tara became an expert in both animal preservation and marine biology, graduating with degrees in Wildlife Management and Veterinary Medicine.
Tara used her families vast wealth to create her home-base is an artificial island, Jungle Island,which was created just off the coast of Florida. After years of construction so the island would be self sustaining and free of pollution as much as possible, Tara had herself and a few other naturalists move onto Jungle Island. Tara felt she had needed this island to create a sanctuary for specific endangered wildlife who she knew would disappear in a matter of a short time in the outside world. Due to her having Jungle Island created its renown as an expert site in animal preservation. Tara was later mutated and gained the ability to increase her own height and strength to those of a giantess. She then returns to her natural height at will. She has demonstrated no abilities to shrink to smaller heights.
SYNN
AKA SILVA SYNN
Prowess 2
Coordination 3
Strength 3
Intellect 2 / 7
Awareness 2 / 4
Willpower 3
Stamina 6
Powers
*Hyper-Intelligence – Adds +5 to Synn’s intellect as well as +2 to her Awareness and allows her to access several Specialities (see below). Synn’s intelligence increases when exposed to extreme mental effects or stimuli. During this time she uses her imagination and inventiveness to save the day in unusual ways. It slowly returns to normal over time.
*Illusion 9
*Dimensional Travel 7 (Limit: Synn must first travel to Limbo before going to any other dimension or place)
*Telekinesis 8 (Extra: Flight)
*Mental Blast 8
*Mind Shield 6
*Immortality 1 (Longevity)
Specialties – Those listed in italics are usable only when Synn’s Hyper-Intelligence is in play.
Performance – Dancing (+1 bonus), Science (Expert +2 bonus), Technology (Expert +2 bonus)
Qualities
*Alternates between being a good-natured airhead and a super-genius.
*Extremely optimistic.
*Sometimes experience acid flashbacks.
Background
Silva Synn was a go-go dancer in Florida when she was kidnapped by the Brotherhood of Purity. The Brotherhood was a pious, self-righteous group determined to eradicate anything they viewed as obscene. The undesirables they could not run out of town they abducted and turned over to Dr. Dirk Dorcas, a crackpot scientist who needed human subjects to experiment on. Dorcas was trying to perfect a system for cryo-freezing human subjects and used the victims the Brotherhood brought him for his tests.
However, Dorcas was enraptured by Synn’s beauty and decided to toy with her. He subjected her to electric shock, but the results were not what he expected. In her youth, Synn had frequently used LSD, and the residual drugs in her body chemistry reacted with the voltage and expanded her mind to near god-like levels. She became an all-powerful entity, capable of nearly anything, except self-control. Subject to frequent acid trips, her powers caused everyone in her vicinity to share the hallucinations. Ultimately, government agents with the help of Atoman captured her for study and training. Her heightened intelligence fluctuated over time, and at its peak she escaped confinement. Before the government could recapture her, Synn stumbled across a battle between Nightveil and Alizarin Crimson. Synn helped Nightveil win the day, and in return Nightveil was able to get Synn into the Femforce where she’s stayed ever since.
Solar, Man of the Atom
aka Phil Seleski
Prowess 4
Coordination 6
Strength 7
Intellect 6
Awareness 9
Willpower 6
Stamina 13
Powers
Solar is composed of pure energy. His ‘physical form’ is, in fact, nothing more than a hard light hologram. When he suffers physical damage, he doesn’t bleed – rather, energy seeps from the ‘wounds.’ Because of his energy nature, he does not age nor does he need to eat, sleep, or breathe.
*Cosmic Power 10 (Extras: Absorption – Radiation, Alteration Ray, Blast, Dazzle, Detect, Duplication {Limit: Uncontrollable; in times of stress, Solar will sometimes split off variant personalities into hard-light forms}, Energy Control, Extrasensory Perception {Solar will generally break off a body part and dispatch it to other locations, allowing him to sense things at that site}, Flight, Force Field, Healing {Solar has raised the dead}, Images, Immortality, Invisibility, Life Support, Phasing, Telekinesis, Teleportation, Transmutation)
Specialties
Science – Nuclear Physics (Master +3 bonus)
Qualities
Godlike Being
Nuclear Physicist
Emotionally Unstable
Background
Much of this comes from the Valiant Fandom Wiki:
In Muskogee, Oklahoma, Philip Seleski grows up a comic book lover. His favorite comic, Doctor Solar, Man of The Atom, inspires his interest in science and determines his field of study. Like his hero, Phil excels in the sciences and becomes a brilliant nuclear physicist. His crowning achievement is the design and construction of the first nuclear fusion reactor for the Edgewater Advanced Fusion Energy Research Center.
During the reactor’s first test run, something goes horribly wrong. There is a core breach, and a nuclear meltdown is imminent. Doctor Seleski, after running out of ideas to stop the disaster, throws himself into the reactor’s core in a moment of desperation. As a conscious Seleski floats in the plasma, he wishes that the whole incident will stop, and it does. The anti–proton pumps stop leaking and all of the deadly radiation simply disappears.
Seleski survives the incident and makes a startling recovery. However, things will never be the same for the good doctor. The accident somehow transforms him into a being of pure energy. He soon discovers that he has the power to manipulate energy in all its forms. Empowered, Phil takes it upon himself to ensure that no other accidents like the one that changed him will ever occur. Policing the world, he eradicates nuclear facilities that he deems too dangerous or unsafe. This brings him into conflict with an unnamed governmental organization that enlists the aid of the equally–empowered Erica Pierce to stop him. In the ensuing conflict, Seleski inadvertently creates a black hole that destroys his world in an attempt to tame his out of control power.
Through unexplained means, Phil finds himself in the past at a point in time before the accident happened. He also discovers that the world has subtle differences, the extent of which he soon realizes. He sets in motion a plan to prevent his past self from making the same mistakes, but when faced with an insurmountable obstacle he suffers a schizophrenic attack that, given his bizarre physiology, literally splits him into two persons; one a physical manifestation of his guilt, and the other an incarnation of his childhood hero, Doctor Solar.
“Born” with the collective memories of Phil Seleski and his own comic book origins, Doctor Solar believes that he exists only to kill Phil, while becoming colder, darker, and more cynical, Phil realizes that Solar has taken all of the attributes that make him a good person. During a final conflict in the same reactor that spawned them, Seleski convinces Solar of his intent to save the world. Seleski absorbs Doctor Solar and emerges from the reactor at the point in time that his past self is about to hurl himself into its core.
In the process, Seleski observes that the fusion reactor is a sort of a “wish machine”; it allows him to make his childhood dreams, inspired by the Doctor Solar comic books, to become reality. Phil tells his past self that the reactor is granting him his wish to become superhuman, and warns him that becoming what he wants will only lead to catastrophe. Offering his past self the power, knowledge, and tools of God that he desires in exchange for his humanity and another chance with Gayle Nordheim, they merge and the fully recombined Phil Seleski successfully prevents nuclear disaster. Fulfilling his dream of being a hero, Seleski also earns a second chance at life as Solar, Man of the Atom.
As Solar, Phil goes on to have many adventures, fighting a wide variety of threats, from Spider Aliens to malevolent Harbingers to Mothergod. One of the differences that Phil discovers about the world he finds himself in after his trip through time is the existence of a number of strange and unusual people, some with extraordinary power of their own.
After centuries of life, Solar blows himself up in an effort to stop the Spider Alien invasion of AD 4001.
Solar is basically a godlike character and probably shouldn’t ever be used a player character. He’s just way too powerful. His biggest weakness is that he’s an emotionally unstable guy… stress him out too much and he’ll create some variant of himself. He also has a tendency to create his own problems — both Erica Pierce (Mothergod) and Fred Bender (Doctor Eclipse) basically became arch-villains because of Solar himself. To say that he doesn’t make very good choices is the understatement of the millennium.
Nature Girl
aka Darla Crandall
This version of Nature Girl belongs to Pro Se Productions
Prowess 3
Coordination 5
Strength 3
Intellect 4
Awareness 5
Willpower 4
Stamina 7
Powers
*Nature Powers 8 (Some examples of Nature Girl’s abilities: Fire Control, Wind Control, Water Control, Flight, Emotion Control (Limit: Love Only), Plant Control, Earth Control)
*Immortality 3
*Damage Resistance 4
*Metal Bracelets – Damage Resistance 6 (Requires a successful Coordination test to use them to block bullets and other ranged attacks)
Specialties
Aerial Combat, Power – Nature Powers (Expert +2 bonus)
Qualities
*Nature Boy’s plucky little sister
*Pure of Heart
*Product of a Government Experiment – Implanted Memories
Background
Nature Girl was a character originally published by Charlton Comics and she is available for anyone to use in the public domain. This character writeup (and the art) depicts MY version of the hero. For more on her background in my universe, look here.
In my universe, she has worked alongside Assistance Unlimited and the E-Force — and she and her brother currently work at the Tartarus Super-Prison.
Barry Reese - Writer of Badass heroes 