Player Characters
Professor Demigauss - A mad scientist bent on world domination, specializes in robotics and force field technologies
Menagerie - a well-known hunter of endangered species, Sheila Masters was cursed by a witchdoctor to “live in the skins of those animals she had killed”
Cannonade - A flying explosion looking for somewhere to happen, enhanced by Professor Demigauss
Doctor Zarathustra - a three-in-one entity seeking to corrupt and collect souls
Prior History
Four supervillains, Professor Demigauss, Menagerie, Cannonade, and Doctor Zarathustra (in his root personality, Charity), found themselves in prison cells, held by unknown captors. The only representatives of their jailors were the guards that patrolled past their cells every 10 minutes. The guards wore military fatigues and black berets. The badge on the berets was a serpent infinity symbol with a graphic of the Western Hemisphere on the left and the Eastern Hemisphere on the right. Most of the guards had a US flag on the left chest where their name would be.
After a period of time, the facility came under attack and agents of The Organization rescued the team. The four villains did not know who their "rescuers" represented, but it seemed better than being in prison cells. The cost for being rescued was being put on the job, in this case the job was to take over Capitol City's underworld from the criminal organization Kraken and run it for The Organization.
Not having better options and believing they could eventually turn the situation to their personal benefit, the villains agreed to the job, taking the code name Four Summoners.
The Plot
After spending some time scouting out Capitol City, the team selected a location for their base and started construction of it using trusted followers of Professor Demigauss. While it was being readied, Professor Demigauss took the team on a mission to evaluate tactics.
The team stole dynamite and fuses from mining locations in Virginia. They then selected the small town of Bitburg in Pennsylvania as their testing ground. Doctor Zarathustra mind controlled some crack addicts, gave them the bundles of dynamite and a lighter, and sent them into a bank in Bitburg, screaming for the money or they would blow everything up.
Ghost [one of Doctor Zarathustra's 3 forms] monitored the crack addicts to keep them screaming while the rest of the team observed the bank from locations around the bank. Professor Demigauss watched from the back of the bank with his invisibility field up, Doctor Zarathustra and Menagerie observed from an eatery in the parking lot next door, while Cannonade observed from the roof of a building across the street.
After three minutes, the police arrived (both cars) and blocked the front parking lot. A little later, the local SWAT guys arrived in a truck, further blocking the front parking lot, and deployed.
Professor Demigauss Note to self: If we ever come back to this town to rob the bank properly, we should exit out the back as the local police will never notice our exit.
Finally the local hero arrived, a man going by the nom de guerre of Shellshock, although the team did not learn that until later. He rode a motorcycle, wore black leather, and carried a large rifle with many attachments. Summoner immediately started their attacks. Cannonade attacked the hero’s bike, Professor Demigauss unleashed his Van der Botz (v1.0) with orders to attack the hero and any police that shot at them, and Menagerie moved in to get a better view of the target.
Resolution
In the ensuing fight, the motorbike was knocked around and destroyed. Cannonade was seriously wounded by Shellshock before Shellshock was put down by Doctor Zarathustra. Menagerie was continually foiled in her attempts to get a line of fire on the hero, but was not identified by the police either. The Van der Botz were able to put the police officers out of the action, but kept missing Shellshock. Professor Demigauss and Ghost grabbed loose money out of the back of the bank, but the vault had been closed and they could not get a large amount.
Commentary
[There was a session zero where we played out the whole "wake up in prison and eventually get rescued by people we now owe a favor to" but really, that summary covers the whole thing so I never wrote it up.]
[The reason we went to Pennsylvania for our shakedown run was two-fold. First, if things went poorly, no one in our target city would know and our reputations would not suffer. Second, hitting only locations in Capitol City would tell law enforcement we were based in Capitol City. By spreading out our attacks across the Eastern Seaboard, we could obfuscate where our base was. In fact, by selecting our targets properly, we could even suggest we were based in a different city entirely, which was our goal.]
Capitol City - The Landing Page for Superhero Campaigns
Next Session: Snatching TURTLEs [not yet linked]
