PCs
Aces – the team’s “Sorcerer Superb”
Mnemesys – teleporting martial artist with no official name, yet
Black Light – light manipulator with withering attacks
Mars – super-powered ex-professional wrestler
Sentinel – battlesuit-wearing inventor
The Terrapin Avenger –model and spokesman for TURTLE Armor™ line of battlesuit products from DanCo
The White Shade – mentalist with a Pulp style
NPCs
Max Powers – President and CEO of Futuretech Systems and sponsor of SABRE
Chance Morway – PR representative for SABRE
January 10th, 2012, Capitol City, Downtown
At the end of a six months selection, testing, and training program, the newly revitalized SABRE was meeting for a briefing for the press conference on Thursday the 12th of January. [A convenient fiction for me to have the PCs all in the same place and to provide a short description of the characters to the players.] Mars, Sentinel, and The White Shade are long-standing members (although only Mars has continuous service since the founding in 2006), but Aces, Mnemesys, Black Light, and the Terrapin Avenger are new to the organization.
Max Powers was discussing the agenda for the press conference when Chance Morway stuck his head into the room and said, “You need to see this.” Chance activated the wall monitor and set it to show the Channel 8 News Team working a breaking story. Video from a traffic copter was showing a group wearing black tactical armor hauling deposit bags out of an overturned armored truck and placing them in large duffel bags. Several people recognized the location listed in the bottom scroll as very close to SABRE Tower, where they were right then. In fact, after opening the blinds, the scene could be clearly seen from the conference room floor-to-ceiling windows.
Sentinel immediately recognized the group as The Pistoleers, a temporary group periodically formed by the Pistolero Brothers, criminals he has run into multiple times. The Pistolero Brothers are known to be smart, disciplined, and working to improve the technology at their disposal. He shared this information with the group. Openly attacking an armored car barely a kilometer from SABRE Tower seemed suspiciously arrogant even for them and the team suspected a trap of some sort.
The heroes split into three groups: Aces, Black Light, Mars, and the Terrapin Avenger for the first group, which would be teleported to the site by Aces; Sentinel and White Shade who flew there (Sentinel carrying White Shade); and Mnemesys, who teleported himself on site. Aces put the lead team directly adjacent to the criminals, which surprised both groups as he failed to mention he was doing so to the other heroes. Sentinel and White Shade flew left via a balcony and arrived directly over the scene, albeit roughly 10 stories above the scene. Mnemesys arrived safely on the roof of a nearby business.
After the initial surprise of the suddenly appearing heroes, things got frantic. Ray Pistolero backed up to some minor cover and plugged The Terrapin Avenger with a Lightning attack from his high-tech pistol. The huge discharged knocked The Avenger out [although he would wake up quickly after a couple recoveries]. Jay Pistolero shot Aces, stunning the mage but failing to knock him out. Black Light faded to invisibility and then unleashed a weathering attack at the fire arms all of the gunmen were carrying. This destroyed the guns of the mooks, but only damaged the superior weapons of the Pistolero Brothers.
The mooks were divided into two groups. The first group threw SlickFoam Grenades ™ at Mars, covering everything up to 10 m around him in low friction foam [6d6 Suppress vs Running and Leaping]. The other group fired spotlight bombs from launchers at The White Shade, blinding her for 10 seconds [10d6 Flash, Area of Effect: 1 hex]. Then Cybermind [criminal hacker with machine telepathy and control] stepped out of the armored car and commanded Sentinel’s suit to fly down to the ground. It responded to Cybermind’s control, shutting Sentinel out of control of his own battlesuit.
This was the high point of the villain’s fortunes.
Mnemesys teleported amongst them, knocking Cybermind down and nearly unconscious. Mars successfully grabbed two of the mooks and slammed them together, breaking bones and knocking them unconscious. Aces recovered from being stunned and cast a healing spell on The Terrapin Avenger, bringing him back into the fight. Sentinel, once again in control of his armor, used quick-drying foam to bind Ray Pistolero.
It was too much for the mooks who activated their jet boots and started jet-assisted hopping for the hills. All but one was stopped or captured by the heroes before they could successfully escape. The Terrapin Avenger stopped Jay Pistolero from escaping with a large area of effect goop ball. Black Light used her weathering attack to destroy the jet boots on two of the mooks (she actually arrested one and the other was picked up barefoot by a nearby CCPD patrol car) and Mnemesys “ran” a third down. Only the one Mars was chasing managed to escape, and then only due to a ready escape plan.
After gathering the criminals back together, they turned everything over to the Capitol City Police Department, providing statements and the captured evidence.
Later, The White Shade and Chance had a “discussion” about the text of the press conference on the 12th. Having observed the advantage of criminals being unfamiliar with the powers of the new team members, Shade wanting to eliminate all description of the powers of the new team members. This discussion went around several times, but eventually Shade was able to win her point.
Local and state news were all about the incident and speculation about the heroes fighting alongside SABRE for the rest of the day. Are they new members of SABRE or did they just happen to be in the area? Are they the new SABRE and the old team is retiring? Who are they and what are their actual powers?
January 11th, 2012, Capitol City, Downtown
Sentinel (SABRE’s designated law enforcement liaison and contact point) received a preliminary report on the materials taken from the attempted armored car robbers. All the weapons were extremely weathered [Black Light’s doing] and the police doubt they would have been a threat. Attempts at test firing the weapons failed. The weapons from the Pistolero Brothers were still partially functioning, but also showed signs of extreme weathering. The foam weapons and the flare weapons are of different manufacture that the rest of the gear. No serial numbers or locations for serial numbers and only one identifying mark: a stylized set of teeth/fangs in white framed by a white square. No matches have been found in any database tried so far.
January 12th, 2012, Capitol City, Downtown
The press conference went off without a hitch, introducing the newest members of SABRE. Chance and White Shade shared speaking duties, deflecting or redirecting questions about the new SABRE members’ powers and abilities other than to say they are “trusted and contributing members to the team.”
End of Session
[This was the first session with these characters and was all about getting a shake down of their powers and an introduction to the campaign. It also helped me get a better feel for the characters so I can judge threat levels better as the GM.]
[After the game, we discussed how things went. I requested that Black Light’s weathering power be modified as a 20” cone on the map was overwhelmingly huge and well beyond her power descriptions in her backstory. The power was vital, so I wanted her to keep the power. We agreed that either Area of Effect: One Hex would fit the bill much better, so she’ll be changing that. This will let her do her thing while not warping the game on a meta level.]
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