New Gladiators #20: Intercrime

[jkcarrier]

Episode 20:
"Intercrime"
Played on 4/13/2024

Roll Call:
Claw Master
The Dude (with Donny Kerabatsos)
Hulk
Sonic Boom
Walter Sobchak
Weather Wizard

Resources used:
H.I.V.E. - DC Heroes module by Troy Denning
Intercrime: Hostile Takeover - Villains & Vigilantes module by Jeff Dee
Super-Crooks and Criminals - V&V module by Ken Cliffe and Patrick Zircher
Most Wanted Vol. 1 - V&V module by Jack Herman and Jeff Dee
Most Wanted Vol. 3 - V&V module by Troy Christensen and Patrick Zircher

Additional images:
https://www.deviantart.com/chuckcem
https://www.deviantart.com/mdiemeer
https://www.artstation.com/yatzenty
https://www.freepik.com/author/safiasajid
Google Maps

The Anti-Gladiators:
Jeff Altman (Legends of the Superheroes)
Jeff Bridges (The Big Lebowski)
Steve Buscemi (The Big Lebowski)
John Goodman (The Big Lebowski)
Juliana Harkavy (Arrow)
Hugh Jackman (X-Men)
Mark Ruffalo (Avengers)

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police got in touch with the Gladiators. An injured man had staggered into one of their stations, insisting he needed to talk to the heroes. The man was Whiteout, a Canadian supervillain they had fought in the past. Whiteout's wife, the villainess Bora, had reformed and helped the Gladiators on a case, only to die in the process [see Episode 16]. Whiteout insisted that he had just seen Bora alive, and needed their help to rescue her.

Racing to Vancouver Island, the team met with Whiteout and he explained that he'd been snorkeling off the coast when he saw Bora grabbed by a pair of thugs. They were dressed in the uniform of Intercrime, a global crime organization that was broken up years ago by the hero team known as the Crusaders. He'd tried to rescue his wife, but her captors' disintegrator weapons were too much for him and he'd had to flee.

Whiteout supplied them with scuba gear, and took them by boat to the approximate location where Bora was captured. After some searching, they found the shattered remains of an underwater base. The heroes spotted the Intercrime thugs dragging Bora away, but when Clawmaster tried to attack them, his claws passed right through -- it was a hologram. However, there was a very real group of Intercrime troopers ready to attack, along with their two lieutenants:

BLUEGILL
[Companion (Kraken), Life Support Gear, Power Blast Gear, Special Weapon (Trident)]

KRAKEN
[Natural Weaponry (with x4 Autofire), Size Change (15' Long), Speed (Fast Swimming), Special Requirement (immersion in water)]

JAWS
[Adaptation (Drowning, High Pressures, Low Temperatures), Heightened Attack, Heightened Defense, Natural Weaponry, Speed (Fast Swimming)]

INTERCRIME GARRISON
[Armor Gear, Communicator, Disintegration Gear, Heightened Expertise (Pistols), Low Self-Control (Compelled to obey orders)]

Despite being outnumbered, the Gladiators managed to rout their opponents. Towards the end of the battle, they saw a missile take off from what was left of the Intercrime base. Interrogating one of the Garrison, he informed them that they had taken their prisoner to Intercrime's base in the Himalayan Mountains, though he did not know for what purpose.

[Loot Drops: Bluegill's Trident (Power Blast), Jaws' Teeth (Heightened Attack)]

Eager to help despite his injuries, Whiteout pulled some strings with his criminal contacts and arranged for a jet to fly them to Mount Kabru in Nepal. There, they found another damaged Intercrime installation, although this one was in better shape than the underwater base. Inside, they saw a large monitor with an image of Bora yelling, "Forget about me! Save yourselves!". As if on cue, another large group of Intercrime Garrison troops appeared, this time with 3 lieutenants commanding them:

DUSTDEVIL
[Invulnerability (Kinetic), Super Speed, Power Blast]

MASTER ZERO
[Cold Aura, Ice Armor, Ice Blast, Vulnerability (Heat Energy)]

SUPER NOVA
[Flame Aura, Flame Blast, Fiery Flight, Invulnerability (Energy)]

Once more, the Gladiators were able to defeat the Intercrime crew, and once more they heard the sounds of a rocket taking off -- this time, they were told, it was a shuttle headed for Intercrime's orbiting satellite base.

[Loot Drops: Dustdevil Boots (Super Speed), Super Nova Emblem (Invulnerability - Energy)]

The team paused overnight to patch themselves up (including Whiteout) before taking the remaining Intercrime shuttle to the space base. Unlike the previous bases, this one appeared to be in perfect working order. Entering the airlock, they began searching the satellite. Upon entering a large, empty chamber, they found themselves suddenly locked inside. Whiteout ended up on the outside, and the heroes briefly wondered if he'd betrayed them. But he began angrily pounding on the doors, trying to get in to join them.

Lights flashed within the chamber, and the heroes found themselves confronted by weird reversed duplicates of themselves:

The Anti-Gladiators had the same super abilities as the originals. In addition, whenever a hero touched his double (or vice versa), there was a burst of black light, and both hero and double would lose a portion of their life-force [Power Points]. A progress meter on the wall of the chamber seemed to be tracking this lost vitality.

The heroes quickly realized they were better off attacking someone else's duplicate, although their doubles continued to target them, deliberately trying to trigger the energy loss. The meter on the wall continued to fill up, even as the heroes began to gain the upper hand. As each duplicate fell, they would vanish in a burst of light, and once the progress meter was full, the remaining Anti-Gladiators disappeared as well. They had evidently served their purpose, and the team could hear some kind of machinery elsewhere in the complex powering up.

The door to the chamber opened, and two more villains, apparently the commanders of this particular operation, entered carrying the unconscious body of Whiteout:

ORION
[Invulnerability Gear (Energy), Life Support, Flame Blast Gear]

PROFESSOR POLARITY
[Gravity Control (Increase, Decrease, Gravity Well), Magentism (Manipulation, Force Field), Vehicle (Grav-Cycle)]

The villains were apparently hoping the heroes were on their last legs after their battle with the Anti-Heroes. But although they were badly drained, they still had enough life in them to put up a fight. Swinging his sword, Donny found out that Professor Polarity's magnetic field made him virtually immune to metal weapons. But other objects, like the Hulk's meaty fists, got through his defenses easily.

Once the two commanders were subdued, Whiteout regained consciousness. He was highly distraught, as the villains had revealed to him that Bora was never there. It was all a ruse so that he would bring the Gladiators to them. Their plan was to use the heroes' life-force to power up the satellite's weaponry, which they could then use to blackmail the world.

The world was saved, and Intercrime's resurgence was nipped in the bud, but to Whiteout it was cold comfort. The Gladiators couldn't help but wonder if this experience would inspire him to reform, as Bora had, or make him more bitter than ever.

[Loot Drops: Antimatter Cube (Devitalization Ray), Orion's Rifle (Flame Blast), Professor Polarity's Harness (Personal Gravity Well)]

[The characters received 3 Character Points, giving them each a total of 175]

NOTES:
* When the scenario I was using called for a kidnapped friend, Bora seemed like the obvious choice. She's one of the few NPCs the players have expressed any fondness for (and that was mainly because they found her healing powers useful). Whiteout, on the other hand, didn't seem to make much of an impression. But I think there's at least some potential there, so he may turn up again somewhere down the line.

* A battle between the PCs and their twins might sound like it could go either way, but the players had a few distinct advantages. For one, the evil duplicates didn't have any of the loot items that the originals have collected, which give them various buffs. Also, the duplicates weren't fighting optimally; their goal was to trigger the Devitalization effect, even when a melee attack wasn't the smartest one to use. This lead to some confusion at one point:
Me: Ok, Walter is hit. Don't forget the extra Power Point damage.
Walt's Player: He doesn't take the Power damage.
Me: Yes he does, if he got hit.
W.P.: No, you said only if he's touched. He wasn't touched.
Me: It's a Contact attack. If the hit was successful, he got touched.
W.P.: No, because Anti-Walter would attack at range with Power Blast.
Me: No, he's punching.
W.P.: But his hand-to-hand damage sucks!
Me: I know, but he's doing it anyway.

* Speaking of confusion, one of the players was a little unclear about Bora's fate in the previous adventure. Every time someone mentioned that she was dead, he would insist that she wasn't. "We talked to her. She wanted to stay in that other dimension," referring to them speaking to her ghost. Finally I said, "She's dead the same way Obi-Wan Kenobi is dead" and that seemed to get the concept across.

* (To be clear, I take full responsibility for these communication breakdowns. GMing is hard.)

* Since I didn't have artwork for the player characters, and was too busy/lazy to draw something, I amused myself by "casting" real-life actors as the Anti-Gladiators. Dude, Walter, and Donny were obvious, since they're named after "The Big Lebowski" characters in the first place. Likewise, the Hulk was a gimmie. Wolverine as Clawmaster and Black Canary as Sonic Boom wasn't a big leap. Weather Wizard was a challenge. A Weather Wizard appeared on the CW Flash series, but his costume was very bland. Then I remembered the super-cheesy Hanna-Barbera special from the '70s, "Legends of the Super-Heroes". That one starred none other than Jeff Altman (before his stand-up career took off) as Weather Wizard. Here he is, un-reversed, in all his hairy-chested glory: