Superheroes pt.3: Rebis Bondi

tl;dr What if Tsutomu Nihei did a take on something between Iron Man and Doctor Strange? So of course I use other artist and mangaka references in this post instead of Tsutomu Nihei ;). I've been sitting on this draft for a while but was inspired by Semiurge's Assorted Superhero Stuff to finally post this.

Not the best fit for the Rebis Bondi power armor but I googled "biblically accurate angel mecha" as a starting place, found this, and decided it was too good not to use.

Name: Mercury Maimonides

Appearance: Tall and muscular, but not bulky. Long, curly, shaggy auburn hair, brown eyes, and light skin. A straight nose and close-set eyes. Often wears retrofuturistic wraparound sunglasses, a satiny, bedazzled blue trench coat over a black jumpsuit, and red disco shoes.

Costume: The Magnum Opus "Power Armor". Like a baroque sculpture of an androgynous form, with a blue-gold mercurial sheen phosphorescing a mélange of black, white, yellow, and red. Carved into the eyes are the symbol of the squared circle, and on its forehead the symbol Mercury. It has sleek ears reminiscent of the helmet of Hermes, two sets of fighter jet wings, a nanofilament lion's mane, a sharp prehensile oxtail, and eagle talons. Two wheels of similar material spin and rotate around the body, lined with glowing alchemical symbols of squared circle eyes.

Description is more specific, but in my head it's almost like Rahxephon or Zone of the Enders as a power armor.

Powers and Skills:

• Magnum Opus (Power Armor)
• Quintessence Generator
• Akashic Intelligence Daemon
• Morphogenetic Field-Repair System
• Quantum Vacuum Engine

Power Level: ☿

Publication History

Rebis Bondi was first serialized in Adad Magazine of the eponymous anti-anti-art collective in Kingston, New York. Each copy of each issue of the magazine was created from scratch, from memory, as per the Adad Manifesto. Naturally, it did not receive wide distribution, and often two magazines that were nominally the same issue came out quite differently. Few issues were sold, and fewer distributed outside the area of Upstate New York. When Adad Publishing went out of business they had intended to destroy every copy of every unsold magazine in a suicide ritual, however, production editor Sarah Silver, who was holding several "copies" of Issue 6, was fatally struck by a car on that same day, and her family took possession of those remaining issues.

The ensuing media coverage over the publisher / art collective / cult's suicide pact and legal rights over the remaining works imbued Adad Magazine with a kind of legendary status, and from what few issues remained, early internet message boards pieced together (or often wholesale created) the catalog and continuities of the various works, with Rebis Bondi quickly becoming the most popular work. This was in large part due to the cover on one version of Adad Magazine Issue 6, a hand-drawn portrait of Mercury Maimonides with a kind of understated yet layered micro-expression sometimes compared to the Mona Lisa.

The rights to all Adad Magazine properties was purchased by Todd McFarlane Productions Inc. in 1995, and it was this X-Treme version of the property which became a mainstream success, to the chagrin of the online fan community that had formed around the legend of the original magazine[1]. Despite initially strong sales, Rebis Bondi sales dropped significantly after the first year, and the book was cancelled by 1997, and ongoing legal pressure by the Silver Estate, TMP eventually sold the rights to the Silver Estate for a nominal fee.

After a poorly received attempt at a reboot licensed by DC for its Vertigo imprint in the mid 00's, the property remained dormant until 2019 when Fantagraphics made arrangements with the Silver Estate. Although delayed due to Covid, this seminal run became a cultural touchstone of the Covid-19 Pandemic.

Shintaro Kago. The former we will pretend is Mercury Maimonides' environment suit she wears in the Chiral Mirror during the Fantagraphics run. The latter is what happens if she doesn't wear the suit.

Biography

Adad Magazine

Only one version of Issues 3 and 5 and three versions of Issue 6 of Adad Magazine have been preserved. In Issue 3 Mercury Maimonides appears to be in the midst of a psychedelics-assisted alchemical ritual like a Wizard Duel or Hacking Sequence, in opposition to the Machine Goddess. In Issue 5 she fights Grendel in the Rebis Bondi power armor. Issue 6 introduces the Baby's Laughing in Paradise cult, although the BLiP is presented quite differently in each Issue, as though the creative team were refining the concept across each version (see Publication History for more information on Adad Magazine).

Image / Todd McFarlane Publishing Inc.

The second volume of Rebis Bondi was a reboot of the series, more in the style of other Image Comics books of the 90's; sexy, hyper-violent, X-Treme. This version of Mercury Maimonides was a field anthropologist in the vein of Indiana Jones or Lara Croft (although preceding the first Tomb Raider by several months). The Machine Goddess was reinterpreted as her best friend from college and professional rival who becomes the Avatar of the Greek God Athena accidentally corrupted by a computer virus. The BLiP cult never appeared in this volume, although the BLiP M3-2 was reimagined as a demon from Hell in a crossover with Spawn. This Volume ended in a cliffhanger with the Spawn character Angela piercing Rebis Bondi with a sword through the heart and seemingly fatally wounding Mercury Maimonides.

Vertigo

A short-lived version of Rebis Bondi appeared briefly in Brian Azzarello's Hellblazer run before spinning off into a miniseries written by Azzarelo with art by Lee Bermejo. John Constantine investigates the BLiP cult in Japan and has a run-in with Rebis Bondi.

Fantagraphics

The Fantagraphics run saw Mercury Maimonides trapped within the Chiral Mirror, like an uncanny distorted reflection of our universe. The Rebis Bondi could not function in the Chiral Mirror, and so Mercury journeyed to find parts or achieve the necessary conditions to reactivate the armor piece by piece, solving problems through wits alone rather than alchemical power. Due to the chemical chirality of the universe, Mercury required an environment suit, viewing the world through a limiting visor screen, experiencing all senses as transductions of signals her brain could not otherwise perceive. Originally intended as an exploration of embodied cognition, it took on second meaning during the Covid-19 pandemic as an accidental metaphor for the shutdown period and viewing the world through digital screens.

I believe this is also Shintaro Kago, but for our purposes it's the Baby's Laughing in Paradise cult's M3-2 Power Armor (if we pretend the figure isn't Kaiju-sized...)

Villains

Machine Goddess: If history is another place, the ancient and unknowable Machine Goddess is like an alien being. In brief moments, through the projection of tinny recordings of lost lucidity, the Machine Goddess seems to have once been a being of crafts and creation, but now it appears only interested in destruction.

This is a repost of the description of The Machine Goddess from my Aquarian Dawn setting:

Her skin is twilight like the cosmos, dotted like a ginger with the violet-hot light of stars and nebulae. Lines like shooting stars course over her skin, thinning and branching into symmetric fractal patterns, vein-like, violet-whiteness fading into her forearms and hands, and ankles and feet. She has three pairs of arms that move in tessellation. She is covered in metallic armor, smooth and seamless, with lines that reflect and refract in a geometric manner; chitinous. A series of violet-white tubes arch along her back, always bending in uncanny ways, appearing the same when viewed from any angle, appearing detached from space-time when she moves or when one moves around her, or like a dimension unto herself. Her hair is violet-white and composed of straight strands that split into branches, each splitting into self-same branches; frizzy, but in an unnaturally symmetric, perfect way. The upper half of her face is kaleidoscopic, like many shifting spidery eyes, each a reflection of her whole face in miniature, with kaleidoscopic eyes reflecting the whole again, ad infinitum.

Grendel: This draconic cyborg, an ugly, disgusting, slimy creature, is the child of the Machine Goddess, but unlike its progenitor, there is no evidence of lost intelligence or drive to create. It is a being seemingly only of resentment and hate.

I envision Grendel as like the Afterbirth of the Broken Machine Dragon Poltergeist Form from Maximum Recursion Depth. Imagine like Evangelion Unit 1 but where the organic parts and armor are integrated more like a cyborg.

With Machine Goddess and Grendel, am I being lazy for reusing these ideas, or is it Final Fantasy Worldbuilding?

BLiP M3-2: The Baby's Laughing in Paradise cult started as a memestock / shitposting internet community turned LARP in the style of a Japanese death cult that eventually took itself too seriously. The BLiP M3-2 is an AGI robot, the messiah of the BLiP cult... according to cult leader Do No Evil Ape Akira. In fact, the BLiP M3-2 is merely a state of the art power armor worn by Akira like a Mechanical Turk.

The BLiP M3-2 power armor rests in an egg-like holographic fluorescing field. It's shape is like that of an embryo, a curled-up salamander of a body, bulbous outstretched head, beady eyes, and a maroon smile painted on its face. The splotchy colors of greenish-yellow and purple-maroon, patches of rust and oil, all accentuated by the oppressive fluorescent light, give the appearance of a newborn baby or stillborn corpse.

Think Eraserhead baby as a robot. I drafted this months before David Lynch died but RIP :(.

The publication history and biography sections got a bit conflated compared to how the information is usually presented in Wikipedia, but I'm reasonably satisfied with the end result.

Superheroes Pt.X2: Cold-Iron Killborg

One day middle-aged middle manager Soren Skelton jumped off a bridge, landing on his chrome dome only to wake up 6 years, 6 months, and 6 weeks later alive and kicking (literally) with the brains and hairplugs of his nepo-baby boss dripping from his front-raised foot.

Unbeknownst to Soren Skelton, his skeleton was reanimated in the Unseelie Undimension as the Cold-Iron Killborg. Still alive and finally back to consciousness, Soren learns to crudely communicate with the undead entity that is his own skeleton, and attempts to unravel the mystery of how he became the Cold-Iron Killborg.

Superheroes pt.2: The Fly

The Fly

Biotech scientist and social activist vigilante with a fly mask and a classic noir costume over superhero spandex. A small wiry man with a pet fly that sometimes talks to him and grants him extraordinary abilities.

The Fly can see in three dimensions of time, allowing them to respond to things before they happen. They also have superhuman agility and low-level superstrength.

Occasionally the pet fly grants them greater and more mysterious abilities, although usually they operate subtly, like luck or force of will.

Fly Vision in three dimensions of time is a compound kaleidoscope of scenes that appear spatially low resolution and muddy like old film.

Navy Bullfrog

Archnemesis of The Fly. A navy veteran turned entrepreneur who now runs most of corporate agriculture on the west coast, and a major financial supporter of the GOP.

An attractive brawny man in a navy suit. They produce a low frequency croaking vocalization that manipulates people subliminally. They wear a slimy blue helmet that amplifies their abilities to the point that they seem to influence consensus reality directly.

While Navy Bullfrog served in the armed forces, they were involved in a mission to wipe out an invasive species outbreak accidentally spread by the military overseas. This mission and all pertinent details have been covered up or classified.

Publication History

Unlike most superheroes, The Fly was introduced in medias res with no superhero origin story. In the years since, several creators have filled in some of the gaps, although these origins often contained major continuity errors, which later creative teams attempted to explain away as the effects of Navy Bullfrog's consensus reality-altering abilities or The Fly's Fly Vision.

From the beginning The Fly tackled social issues in the sciences, including critiquing the medical model of disability, tackling misinformation and disinformation around topics such as vaccines and genetically modified organisms, and WEIRD biases in research (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic). However, very early in the first volume, The Fly also subtly explored the intersections of scientific and spiritual thought, which later became a core theme of the character.

The villain Navy Bullfrog originally appeared as a one-off antagonist in Panic Attack! Vol. 1, sans his iconic helmet or any reference to his superpowers or strange past. The character was largely reinvented for The Fly, although later volumes of Panic Attack! would retcon the scope of Navy Bullfrog's influence in those early adventures.

The original creative team had intended for the pet fly to be an incarnation of a demonic entity and have The Fly interact with the Church of Satan, although this plotline was abandoned early in the run for unknown reasons [citation needed]. In Vol. 2 it was implied that the pet fly might be a Saturim agent working on behalf of Bright Mujo, although this was never confirmed.

During the XXX regime of 20XX, Vol. 3 of The Fly was censured mid-run. This led to a Streisand Effect in which the character became a symbol of resistance, and many underground "American Doujinshi" stories of The Fly would influence the official series when it was brought back into publication. This was controversial and led to backlash against the publisher for appropriating these stories while simultaneously attempting to reassert their IP control. Although they ultimately failed, the competition among publishers for this now public domain character led to an overall improved quality in storytelling compared to Volume 3, which had been losing buzz anyway prior to being censured.

I did not sleep well last night, and unfortunately nowadays that seems to be the best way to get my creative juices flowing. I should probably polish this off more but I dunno it feels right and I don't want to add too many details and muddle it, so I'm putting a pin in it and maybe I'll expand on it later.

Superheroes pt.X1: Panic Attack

Had a writeup for a different character for a Pt.2, and referenced a superhero team called Panic Attack as a part of that character's backstory, and I want to come back to that character, but I ended up becoming more interested in Panic Attack themselves. I do really like the wiki-style approach from the first one and this kind of free-associated inspiration is exactly what I'm going for (even if I mostly end up just inspiring myself lol), but I ended up doing some really good short-form writeups for them, so I'm just going to roll with that instead, maybe interchange both formats.

Superheroes pt.1: Vision Serpent

Panic Attack are superpowered individuals connected by The Panic Room, which can appear in any time or place. Members of Panic Attack all seem to have powers involving physical or psychological pain.

https://gifer.com/en/VPy8 Rhett Hammersmith (?)

The Itch

The Itch is the most brilliant person you'd ever know, if they could only think straight for a moment. But always it's there, The Itch, just underneath the skin, gnawing and crawling. The worms exist, they've been assured, it's just that no one else can see them. 

The psychic worms of The Itch evoke cosmic entropy like that moment pouring cream into coffee when the tendrils slither.

Peek (created by Semiurge)

Everybody's got an angle - Peek sees them all.

A woman suffering from agoraphobia. She entered the Panic Room, and never left. She's a sort of mission control for Panic Attack, muttering premonitions and observations while she stares into its corners, nodes of mineral intelligence crusted on and outsourced to her cheeks.

I imagine that Peek is never fully seen, only her eye or a portion of her face at any one time, from a viewslit in her Control Room.

Thiotimolina

The magical little girl shining brightly. She says in a tinny voice, "Here's an easy spell that anyone can cast, even you. A spell to flip causality itself. Malicious things may hide in shadows, but shadows are not the cause of malicious things. We make the shadows in which malicious things thrive. All it takes to defeat the malicious things is to smother our shadows; to rest and bask within the light."

Thiotimolina is a fairy of the mineral intelligence. She is an epiphenomenon of the endochronic properties of resublimated thiotimoline.

https://www.deviantart.com/merulagfm/art/Cyborg-Fairy-419432766

I'm gonna be honest I'm still not totally happy with how the "spell" is written, hard to balance evocativeness with logic with symbolism, maybe need to dedicate more time to polish it, but I still love the idea. 

The Man and the Monster

They embrace, a stimulating shock, an aggressive tickle, the primal fear of sitting in a tub of wriggling worms or the urethral penetration of the candiru. Squirming critters morph into butterflies fluttering in the stomach, a bloody new sensation. Beyond absolute terror, a novel awareness. A marriage of convenience gone awry, all with one little mistake. A little mistake called Love.

The Horror Frog

Broken bones, flexing phantom limbs in twisted sockets, sharp weapons cutting both ways, and other ways as well. A metamorphosis, a tadpole racing down a one way stream. A wisdom honed in a mangled form ill suited for anything else.

:= (The Walrus)

A poltergeist, an undead dream, the manifestation of a teeth-related nightmare. Temporarily assigned to haunt the Panic Room.

Superheroes pt.1(?): Vision Serpent

Despite numerous posts about superpowers, I've yet to properly make a bunch of superheroes. The Recursers and Nazarites and the various other characters in MRD and MRDVol2 and the campaign are in the vein of Superheroes, but still. I get so caught up in the worldbuilding, but there's value in having Superheroes that can be a bit more plug-and-play, so that's my intention here. You could build a Superhero universe around these characters, or adapt them for MRD, Marvel, or DC.

I'm considering making a collaborative superhero worldbuilding project if there's interest, these could be seen as the seeds for that. I was originally going to make several of these but only had time for two and only received feedback on one of them (which is a little discouraging but oh well...), so this post will just be the first and I'll maybe make it a series for the rest of them.

The idea is that they're a little more straightforward than the stuff I would usually do, and while they might homage traditional superheroes or tropes, as the sum of its parts it shouldn't feel like a Marvel or DC universe knockoff, but something original and thematically distinct, with an emphasis on progressivism and solving systemic problems vs. brute violence, reactionary action, and defending the status quo. Also a heavy emphasis on diversity, intersectionality, and globalism.

The format is reminiscent of a wiki article or those old superhero handbooks, with things like "Power Level", but instead of any numbers it's some abstract description, a parody of the idea. Some words might be bolded where those could be articles in themselves which could be hyperlinked.

The "wiki articles" should be written in a way to invoke the sense that there is more between the lines; feeling not like the cohesive narrative of one writer's vision but a living collaborative world developed by many creators over time under various corporate, economic, and creative constraints; an emergent pattern, a character arc or narrative conceit built around the noise and chaos and incoherence of a superhero connected universe not bound by the notions of fantasy or science fiction or horror or even itself.

First an Index of previous Superheroes-related posts:

Weird & Non-Violent Superpowers

Superpowers 2.0

Cantrippers

Superpowers or Mutations

Maximum Recursion Depth, or the Beginning is the End is the Beginning (MRDVol2 abandoned concept)

Three "10 Superhero Fantasy Species" Settings

100 superheroes and villains as fantasy species 

FASERIP Marvel/DC/My Hero Academia Crossover! (Play Report)

Vision Serpent

Name: Len Levi (aka Veto Sanz)

Appearance: Unassuming size, light bronze skin tone, five o'clock shadow, tired and wise eyes, casually strong posture.

Costume: Lightly armored dark green serpentine body suit with red and yellow trim. Helmet reminiscent of a crested rattlesnake with a retractable lower face guard.

Powers and Skills: Wings of Saturim (Flight; Mildly Hypnotic); "Spiral Senses"; Master of the martial art Spiral Minding; Knowledge and gadgets of Saturim science and technologies.

Power Level: Just above human in most regards, but with a certain je ne sais quoi.

Biography: Trans-Masc (He/They) Mizrahi Jewish Mexican from Mexico City. Has a Ph.D in signal processing, where he developed a prototype Inverse Frequency Oscillation Device (IFOD), which had the potential to radically disrupt the telecom monopoly MegaXCom in Mexico and revolutionize communications across the world. Betrayed by their startup cofounder Gil Peretz in a corporate espionage showdown, just as the device was about to be destroyed and Len "disappeared" in a bodybag, instead he disappeared for real, teleported to another galaxy to serve the alien god Bright Mujo.

Serving in his Wave Palace overwatching the Saturim Civilizations, Bright Mujo personally educated Len in the sciences and technologies of the Saturim and their gods, modified them with the wings and Spiral Senses of the Saturim, and trained them in the martial art of Spiral Minding, incorporating the Wings and Spiral Senses to unique effect.

After an extended stay in the Wave Palace and after developing a complicated relationship with Bright Mujo, Len wished to leave, but Bright Mujo jealously would not allow it, and certainly not with the IFOD, nor the knowledge that went into making it.

To win their freedom, Len was tasked with telling a novel story profound enough to invoke a novel dream for Bright Mujo, the god of Memory, Patterns, Learning, and Nostalgia. After conceiving nights upon nights of stories and never succeeding, Len eventually resorted to generating stories from pseudo-random equations, mathematically derived poetry skat, inducing in Bright Mujo from his memory patterns a pseudo-novel narrative of his own free association. Bright Mujo accepted this partial solution, allowing Len to leave, but keeping the IFOD and the knowledge of how to produce it.

Returned to Earth, Len's startup was acquired by MegaXCom under Gil's leadership. Assuming the fake identity Veto Sanz, Len infiltrated MegaXCom, working to set right those harmed by the corporation both as Veto and as The Vision Serpent, while systematically instigating a boardroom coup. Complicating matters, just as Len was settling back into life on Earth and hitting their stride, Saturim agents reveal themselves, on the hunt for Len on behalf of Bright Mujo, seemingly reneging on their agreement.

Rorschach Not-Review

I finally read Tom King's Rorschach and it's really good. I especially like the way he juxtaposed Rorschach's Rorschach with the smiley-face of The Comedian; or Frank Miller's "Dark" with the Silver Age's simplicity, of meaning vs. nothingness but also clarity vs. obfuscation.

I've talked a lot before about the idea of pareidolia, and of how the way perception imposes anthropomorphism onto things could be like a kind of animism, or a control mechanism, a cybernetic interface to the noosphere.

It would be interesting to have something like a pulp hero, a Rorschach type, with a pareidolic mask. A living symbol like Batman claims to be, a force churning through the system of human minds via human bodies like Frankenstein's monster.

Willed into being, something connected to the human experience, a reflection on meaning lacking any of its own.

Weird and Non-Violent Superpowers

I was really happy with my previous Superpowers 2.0 Weird & Wonderful Table (and from there I link some older tables), but I'm also really interested in Non-Violent Encounter Design which is a emphasized in my game Maximum Recursion Depth, so I wanted to try conceiving of superpowers that are dynamic and interesting, but not strictly violent in utility or nature. So, rather than generic "telepathy" or "mind control", it might be "knows when a lie is told". It's ok if the powers could theoretically be used violently, but they should be interesting in non-violent ways. Redlight from the Superpowers 2.0 table would also be good for this table but I'll do new ones. It wouldn't surprise me if I accidentally recreate some powers I've written before but will try to avoid doing that.

Was gonna do 50 but then lost my momentum, so here are 21.

1. Babylon: Understand all languages, and also understand the nature of semantics, syntax, and pragmatics.
   
2. Martian Tonic: Secretes a vapor that evokes a panic response in anyone who tries to lie in their presence.
3. Pre-Tort: Immediate and flawless knowledge of all laws and legal precedents in a location; supernatural ability to identify, defend against, and exploit legal loopholes and fine-print.
4. Psy-cartography: Real-Time high-resolution mental map (not "live-footage", still symbolic) of any city-sized area that reveals itself as an area is explored for the first time, and can be accessed at any time.
5. Lockpick: Pick any mechanical, electronic, chemical, etc. lock and encrypt any code, without conscious knowledge of the key, lock mechanism, decryption key, algorithm, etc.
6. Atomic Schedule: So long as an event was feasible at the time of adding it to the schedule, can never be late for any scheduled event, nor be required to leave early, nor be the cause of rescheduling. The universe itself will conform to make the schedule work.
7. Raw Power: Fully power any object car-sized or smaller effortlessly (including themself), whether the object requires food and water, gasoline, electricity, etc. Can power larger objects to varying degrees with effort.
8. Finders Keepers: Lost items softly glow in their presence, and if taken, gently compel them towards the original owner.
9. Tag: Any person or object tagged can be tracked via a tag sense for up to 24 hours. Only one thing may be tagged at a time and tagging something new replaces the previous tag.
10. Rhetoric: Supernaturally persuasive at argumentation, so long as the argument had any realistic chance of convincing in the first place. The power is in the argument, not a kind of mind manipulation per se.
11. Vuvuzela: Produce the sound of a vuvuzela that cannot be dampened even in a vacuum, nor magnified. Exceedingly annoying.
12. Matryoshka: Dismantling any object (without breaking it) yields a smaller but otherwise perfect replica of the original thing. Replicas can be further deconstructed, but a deconstructed object reconstructed cannot again be replicated.
13. Blame: If anyone else could conceivably have committed an act for which they would otherwise be the most likely perpetrator, any of those others will be suspected before them, especially if they point towards one other person or group specifically.
14. Forget-Me-***: Immediately forgotten when not in the presence of others, and immediately remembered when back in their presence.
15. Super-Synesthesia: Sense-responses mapped to other sense responses (like colors having a smell, or concepts having a tune, etc.) as with regular synesthesia, except the stimulus evokes the response even when it can't be perceived; e.g. even if blindfolded, someone wearing a yellow shirt would still smell yellow.
16. Hypno-Boar: Supernaturally boring. Not literally hypnotic nor sleep inducing, but one might be surprised with what they can get away with saying or doing in plain sight, or just behind the scene...
17. Treefall: Silent, so long as nobody is listening.
18. Hierarchy: Fill any power vacuum unquestioned. Maintaining the power structure is another matter...
19. Sponsor: Any one person at a time besides themself cannot be impeded from trying to better themself, so long as it is not intentionally at anyone else's expense.
20. Naptime: Any consenting individuals in the vicinity may immediately enter a restful, healthy, and otherwise natural sleep.
21. Becko-neko: Summons a needy golden cat randomly at inopportune moments. Heeding the beckoning cat provides a magic gold coin redeemable for any experience which the spender would otherwise deem too luxurious.

Guardians of Justice Not-Review

 

I wanted to find more screenshots of the show to share but most of the screenshots I've seen fail to capture what makes this show so interesting, which is a shame, because it really is visually amazing. I will acknowledge that the acting is not always the best, you can tell it has a limited budget, and the writing is sometimes more corny than campy. I'm frontloading the negative, because that aside, it's a truly creative and brilliant show and I really appreciate it for what it is.

This is superhero pastiche done right. On the surface of it, it feels very rooted in Justice League and Marvel/DC-style superhero tropes, as well as the full gamut of Watchmen, Dark Knight Returns, the 1980's, videogames, etc. Even so, as the sum of its parts, it feels unique, and that is in large part due to the excellent art and sound design. It does things I've never seen before in the way it blends live action and many, many, many kinds of animation.

Adi Shankar (showrunner of Netflix's Castlevania, among other fan favorites) does amazing work and I'll watch anything of his, but I also appreciate that he has on his youtube channel a series of mini-documentaries (a few minutes long each) explaining the various influences on the show. He discusses at one point how he had the idea for this show, and people told him it couldn't be done, and he wanted to challenge that notion, and as someone who also often veers into that territory, I get why this resonates with me, but unfortunately I think a lot of people will just write it off or not really give it a fair shake, which is a shame.

The story goes a few places I didn't expect while still following along the path. There are many twists that I won't spoil, and most of them are interesting and feel earned, some of them exceptionally so, and even the few that don't, or that muddle the subtext, don't ruin the experience. That said, the heart of this is definitely in the presentation. I'd love to see more works like this, that really challenge preconceived notions of different kinds of media and genre (even as they pay homage to them). My understanding is that it's getting a season 2, so that's cool at least.

My first not-review was for the underappreciated TTRPG Super Blood Harvest, and while this is focused on superheroes, this does have a very similar feel, so if you've liked my sensibilities up to this point, check out Guardians of Justice. This is a perfect show to not-review because there's really not much more I can say. Watch the first episode if this sounds at all intriguing, you'll probably know immediately whether you're into it or not.

Superpowers 2.0

My old Superpowers (or Mutations) Weird & Wonderful Table is still one of my most popular posts (as can be seen on the sidebar), and there were a lot of cool ideas there, but it suffers from the problems of many of my older writings (and frankly many of my current ones still 🙃) of being overwritten, overly dry or "clinical", and not enough regard paid to gameability. I'd like to think I've improved on that front, so here's a new set of 50 superpowers (this is actually my third superpowers table if you include Cantrippers).

You may note some redundancy compared to previous lists (not including the superhero funnel posts since this is just an extension of that), but these are much more tightly written, and I tried to only use powers that would be gameable and threw in some that are less high-concept but still tickle my fancy for whatever reason.

These were originally posted on The OSR Pit and also The Cauldron, and most of them previously appeared in my last Superhero Funnel post. As much as I still really like the idea of a Superhero Funnel, I ultimately decided I wasn’t happy with the direction that my Superhero Funnel was going and realized I was going to have to scrap a lot of the work I had done, and so it sort of sapped my motivation for the time being, but I do hope to come back to it or something like it eventually. But for now, here's the list of 50 superpowers I created for it.

1. Bloodhound: Has the proportional strength, speed, and senses of a bloodhound.
2. Gray Goo: Nanomachines convert non-living matter into other things (must understand the creation’s properties), and create virtual reality spaces.
3. Vector: Unstoppable while moving in a straight line, vulnerable while pivoting.
4. Pinball: Superspeed and proportional superstrength, but must account for inertia and other laws of velocity and acceleration.
5. Snake: Floating orbs spontaneously appear around them. As they eat the orbs, they grow longer. Their sharp scales are dangerous even to themself.
6. 2D: Two-dimensional. Can flatten against surfaces, slip through crevices, and fold like origami.
7. Scanner Darkly: Superspy skills and gadgets, appearance and voice scrambling mask, separated brain hemispheres for multitasking, and deep-cover identity dissociation.
8. Mushroom: Grow giant-sized or shrink to the size of a mouse from eating mushrooms.
9. Flash Fry: Project hot grease and resistance to grease fires.
10. Cinnamon: Emanate novas of burning-hot capsaicin.
11. Mint: Emanate novas of ice-cold menthol.
12. Alkahest: Project a universal solvent.
13. Kintsugi: Injuries make them stronger with scars of gold.
14. Librarian: Paper Elementalist.
15. Technomancer: Override software and control devices as an extension of themself.
16. Herbalist: Gain superpowers relating to the properties of held plants.
17. Landfill: Telekinetic control of trash and waste.
18. Schrodinger: While unseen, can be anywhere and nowhere in the vicinity.
19. Laservision: Laser-grid visual overlay for perfect accuracy and precision.
20. Aye-Aye Aye: Long bony finger, like an aye-aye, with advanced supersenses.
21. Memetos: Living idea that can infect the collective unconscious over time, or more rapidly the consciousnesses of individuals in the vicinity.
22. Constructor: Rapidly construct cartoonish but functional devices and structures from minimal resources that break down shortly after use.
23. Cleric: Summon rays of cleansing, healing, but also searing light.
24. Parkour: Superhuman agility, dexterity, flexibility, reflexes, etc., that accelerate so long as they remain in motion, returning to athletic human levels if halted.
25. Icarus: Waxy melting wings, dripping with the heat of Greek Fire. Wings melt and regrow over the course of a turn.
26. POP: Compel any non-living object to spontaneously combust. The force of the explosion and predictability of the detonation time is proportional to the size of an object.
27. Flurry: Throw rapid and near-infinite consecutive strikes.
28. Wavecrash: “Teleportation” via the internet and strike from the other side with the force of a vehicle speeding down the information superhighway.
29. Babylon: Scramble or silence sounds, including language, and emit sonic force beams.
30. Triplets: Coordinate in perfect harmony; far greater than the sum of their parts.
31. Warhead: Fortified with an organic metal shell. Can explode without harming themself, but lose their metal shell for the remainder of the conflict.
32. Kafka: Proportional strengths and abilities of various arthropods, although their greatest power (and weakness) is their utterly horrifying appearance.
33. Combo Ace: Store three pre-programmed athletic or combat feats like video game controller macros, infinite use unless replaced (between conflicts).
34. Chopper: Human attack helicopter cyborg.
35. Wormhole: Create a temporary human-sized portal between two locations in the vicinity.
36. Snapshot: By taking a photo and holding it up to their face in the exact spot it was taken, they may retrieve small objects from the same place and in the same state as in the photo, even if the object is no longer in that place or state.
37. Rainmaker: Project a torrent of (fake) money strong enough to knock over an average human. By shooting into the air, those caught under raining money are overcome with excitement and susceptible to greedy impulses.
38. Rust: Make metal rapidly rust.
39. Roller: Superspeed from biological wheels under their feet.
40. Superposition: They can take up to three brief actions in a row, all occurring simultaneously and able to affect each other, before collapsing into the last action.
41. OP: Can’t affect or be affected by things they can’t see; lack of “object permanence”.
42. Firehose: Rapidly absorb any raw material (e.g. water, dirt) by pressing one hand into it and simultaneously project it as a powerful and steady stream from the other hand.
43. Nono the Non-Euclidean Clown: Wibble-wobble in spacetime-bending strides stretching and collapsing like a human slinky.
44. Redlight: Bathe the vicinity in red light and cancel out any one kind of action (e.g. moving, fighting, talking) for the round, once per conflict.
45. Plasma Platypus: Electrolocation, biofluorescence, venom “plasma” shock, and other superhuman abilities proportional to a platypus.
46. Tetraminos: Summon brick-like tetrominoes that can be rotated as they fall in a 10x20 block grid. Once started, they continue to summon for the duration of the conflict. At 20 rows they are incapacitated for the rest of the conflict, but a filled row disappears and lowers the others.
47. Tough Enough: Always and only as tough as the toughest other person in the vicinity.
48. Broadway: General superhuman abilities and a magic weapon only active while monologuing in song and dance. Infectiously spreads to others (without the benefits).
49. Nitro: Nitrogen-related powers including freezing liquid nitrogen, explosive TNT, superspeed of nitric oxide (NOS), and biological effects of nitrous oxide (laughing gas) which they can use to self-empower or release as gas to affect others.
50. Captain Canine: Uplifted experimental super-dog; a “one dog army”.

Maximum Recursion Depth, or the Beginning is the End is the Beginning (MRD2 abandoned concept)

With Maximum Recursion Depth, or Sometimes the Only Way to Win is to Stop Playing, the first "issue" of the Maximum Recursion Depth "zine" published (drivethrurpg, itch.io), I've been thinking a bit about what to do next. This was one idea I had considered, but since it's no longer my top choice for an MRD2, if I even want to commit to an MRD2, I figured I'd share the idea for now. Maybe I'll circle back to it, but for now my head is going in another direction. Note that this draft was written at a time when I thought this would actually be MRD2.

Shared by Roque Romero in the Weird Places & Liminal Spaces discord server, felt appropriate here.

Maximum Recursion Depth, or the Beginning is the End is the Beginning

A standalone but cross-compatible game, that takes place in the same setting and explores similar themes, but where players are superheroes or other superpowered beings who aren't specifically Recursers and Poltergeist Investigators.

I am not subtle about my love for superheroes and the ways that superhero comics have inspired me creatively, and there are already a lot of superhero comics influences on MRD. I'm still glad that the original game is what it is, I think it's a more unique and personal vision. However, The Beginning is the End is the Beginning will probably be a more marketable/mass-appeal product, even if it's still tied into this atypical setting. I had considered just making this an expansion, but realistically, it is probably going to be a tough sell to produce more MRD content that requires additional purchases, I would be better off either keeping the expansions much smaller, or allowing them to be played standalone so that someone could purchase just one book if that's all they want, and in this case, I thought the latter was warranted, although I may do just expansion issues in the future, we'll see.

The core mechanics will be basically the same (again, cross-compatible), but the Karma system will work a little differently, and there will be some kind of superpowers list or superpowers generator process. In practice, it will probably be too rooted in the setting for someone to use as a generic Into the Odd-adjacent superheroes system, but ideally, somebody should theoretically be able to hack it for more generic purposes.

The Karma system will be inspired by that of FASERIP, but flipped on its head a bit to better reflect my interpretation of Karma in Buddhism, as opposed to FASERIP's more colloquial definition. PCs will make Heroic Attachments, Karmic Attachments that are more specific to Superhero issues, and can also adjust their Karma by altering the result of their Karma die on Saves, or by doing Superhero Stunts, or things of that nature. Superheroes are not capable of recursing (unless they are also Recursers...) and are generally at lower risk of becoming Ashura. Instead, the higher their Karma, the more powerful the threats they face, and if their Karma exceeds 6, a Major Threat Event occurs, like a major supervillain or arch-nemesis, or some kind of disaster. The Advancement system will be tied to encountering and confronting these threats, but there will be conditions tied to the Heroic Attachments, and if those conditions aren't met before the Major Threat Event is triggered, it will be significantly more difficult, and they may be more likely to become Ashura.

I think this ties in well with the overall themes of MRD, but also creates a good superhero arc baked into the game. It's somewhat inspired by Anyone Can Wear the Mask, which I had the fortune to play with Jeff Stormer himself. There will probably be some random tables players can use for generating these threats, and ideally, it should be structured so that I won't even need to include a Module in the book because the character creation process and the game itself naturally gear the story, although I may do so anyway. It's a little more prescriptive and genre-focused than I usually prefer, but as with ACWtM which is itself a hack of a game that is not about superheroes, I don't think this is so limiting that you can't do other things; at its core, it's still MRD, you could largely ignore the Advancement system and still have fun.

As is often the case with me, the subtitle of the game is multilayered with symbolism relating to MRD, but also an in-joke/reference to a superhero-related thing that probably only like three other people besides me will catch but if you're familiar with superhero stuff, maybe think about it ;).

I'll try to find a balance with the powers, between things that are a little more typical and grounded, with things more so rooted in the setting. Some possible origins / PC species I'm considering are the Deva (or regular humans with Dharmatic modifications), Agents of WORD, Nature Spirits, Mu Hosts, Rogue Poltergeists, Refugee Gods, and Dysfunctional Devils.

Superhero Funnel Design Update 2

This is my second post outlining my idea for the Funnel Jam. First post here. I have fallen way behind on this, but fortunately, the deadline has been extended.

I'll put the full text (of what I currently have) below, but tl;dr compared to the first version, I now have a completely different resolution mechanic based on dice pools and how to spend a limited number of successes across tasks, and I've also stripped-down the superheroes themselves pretty significantly.

Premise

The Superhero Funnel is inspired by the My Hero Academia Entrance Exam. The players each control some number of prospective superheroes who must go through a series of trials (Issues) to be accepted into the superhero school. Players will variously play their superheroes altogether as teams, play each superhero individually, or split their superheroes across teams with the other players. The goal is for superheroes to “survive” Issue by Issue and earn a sufficient number of Hero Points.

Ability Scores

Abilities are more about an approach or style than physicality or other specific abilities. Sure, there are certain things one superhero may be able to do that another simply cannot, given the differences in their powers, but it is generally assumed that, even as students, all of these prospective superheroes are capable of completing challenges, and they are being challenged not just on their raw power, but on their individual aptitudes and character.

Roll 1d6 for each Ability

SHOWmanship: Power displays, catchphrases, signature taunts, or moves.

TEAMwork: Inspiration, self-sacrifice, prosocial behaviors, public safety.

WILLpower: Endurance, resistances, overcoming limitations, facing fears.

TECHnique: Infiltration, ingenuity, trained skills.

EXAMination: Investigation, surveillance, planning.

Hero Points

The starting Hero Points (HP) are 10 for all superheroes. HP are awarded throughout the tournament such as for completing Issues. If a superhero falls to 0 or negative HP, they are eliminated from the Entrance Exam even if they are not defeated or outright fail an Issue.

Issues

The Entrance Exam consists of a series of trials such as obstacle course races, hostage rescue, facing supervillains, and investigations. One could think of each trial as an Issue of a comic book. Some Issues are team-oriented, while others are solo or free-for-all. Superheroes are awarded HP for completing Issues and may gain bonus HP by completing certain sub-tasks or be penalized HP for failing to meet certain conditions.

Action Strip

Issues and other superhero challenges consist of Action Strips, where single actions are Panels on the Strip. For a given Action Strip, roll as many d6’s as the decided Ability Score and an additional 2d6. Rolling 4 or higher on a die counts as a success. Each Panel costs a certain number of successes in order to be completed.

At the start of an Action Strip, the GM will lay out the Panels on the Page; explaining what each Panel entails and the base cost in successes for each Panel. Additionally, players may be able to suggest Panels of their own and the GM will determine the cost. These costs may fluctuate Page by Page, and additionally, the GM may spring Surprise Panels on superheroes as a result of their actions.

A Page consists of the Panels for all superheroes on a given side of a conflict (if there are multiple sides), and all Panels resolve in parallel. Meanwhile, available Panels, Surprise Panels, and costs are re-evaluated on the next Page.

By spending half the cost (rounding up), a superhero can create a Danger Panel. They roll 2d6, and on a full success (both dice >= 4) it is as if they paid full price, but on a partial success (only one die >= 4), they may suffer consequences such as increased costs of Panels on the next Page, fewer available Panels, fail the Panel but without increasing costs or losing Panels or succeed but evoke a Surprise Panel. On a full failure (both dice <= 4), consequences are even graver, such as failing the task and increasing costs, losing Panels, or evoking a Surprise Panel.

Example

For this Issue, a group of bank robbers have taken hostages, planted a bomb, and are preparing to make their escape with the money. This Issue is a Three-Panel Action Strip where each Panel on the first Page costs 1 success, and the Issue is worth up to 5 HP. Bloodhound has 5 TECH but knows that she’s being tested specifically for her ability to keep the hostages safe and inspire confidence and that she will receive +3 HP if she can complete the Issue using TEAM, so she chooses to use her 3 TEAM instead.

She rolls 5d6 (3 TEAM + 2 default) and gets 4, 6, 1, 2, and 5, meaning she gets 3 successes. While this is technically enough to succeed on all Panels, she suspects that if she rescues the hostages or defuses the bomb, Meanwhile the robbers will have more time to make their escape, increasing the cost of that Panel on the next Page. She also suspects the reverse to be true- if she goes after the Robbers, Meanwhile the bomb will keep ticking and hostages will have less time to escape, increasing the cost of those Panels on the next Page. When the player asks, the GM confirms this is so, but would have kept it a secret if the player hadn’t asked, because they prefer the style of play that encourages player ingenuity, as was discussed in their session 0. She also suspects that if she does not rescue the hostages on the first page, then she will not receive the bonus HP (this is also confirmed by the GM).

Given these circumstances, she chooses the hostage rescue as her Panel for the first Page. She spends 1 success and, using her proportional strength and speed of a bloodhound, is able to pull the hostages out of harm's way, beat back her foes, and do it all with an inspiring smile.

Meanwhile, the bomb keeps ticking, and the robbers begin to make their escape. She’s close enough to the bomb that the cost for this Panel has not changed, so she chooses this as her Panel on the second page. However, instead of defusing it, she wants to detach it and toss it in the path of the robbers, blocking their escape. While normally these would be two Panels with a total cost of 3 successes (the cost of stopping the robbers had increased after the previous Panel), the GM allows this maneuver because it’s clever. However, Surprise Panel! A “supervillain” (actually one of the teachers, of course), intercedes the bomb, and without any more successes to spend, the robbers are able to make their escape.

Having succeeded at 2 of the 3 Panels, the administrators decide to award Bloodhound 3 of 5 HP. However, since she used TEAM and prioritized rescuing the hostages, she received the bonus HP for a total of 6. Having lost 3 HP after landing on a trap in the obstacle course of the previous Issue, this brings her up to 13 HP, still at the lower end of the superheroes who passed the first two Issues, but not so far behind that she can’t catch up.

Superheroes

1. Bloodhound: Has the proportional strength, speed, and senses of a bloodhound.
2. Gray Goo: Nanomachines convert non-living matter into other things (must understand the properties of the creation), and create virtual reality spaces.
3. Vector: Unstoppable while moving in a straight line, vulnerable while pivoting.
4. Pinball: Superspeed and proportional superstrength, but must account for inertia and other laws of velocity and acceleration.
5. Snake: Floating orbs spontaneously appear around them. As they eat the orbs, they grow longer. Their sharp scales are dangerous even to themself.
6. 2D: Two-dimensional. Can flatten against surfaces, slip through crevices, and fold like origami.
7. Scanner Darkly: Superspy skills and gadgets, appearance and voice scrambling mask, separated brain hemispheres for multitasking, and deep-cover identity dissociation.
8. Mushroom: Eating mushrooms makes them grow giant-sized or shrink to the size of a mouse.
9. Flash Fry: Project hot grease and resistance to grease fires.
10. Cinnamon: Emanate novas of burning-hot capsaicin.
11. Mint: Emanate novas of ice-cold menthol.
12. Alkahest: Project a universal solvent fluid.
13. Kintsugi: Injuries make them stronger with scars of gold.
14. Librarian: Paper Elementalist.
15. Technomancer: Override software in devices and control them as an extension of themselves.
16. Herbalist: While holding a plant, gain superpowers relating to its properties.
17. Landfill: Telekinetic control of trash and waste.
18. Schrodinger: While unseen, can be anywhere and nowhere in the vicinity.
19. Laservision: Sees a laser-grid overlay for perfect accuracy and precision.
20. Aye-Aye Aye: Has a long bony finger, like an aye-aye, with advanced supersenses.
21. Memetos: A living idea that can infect the collective unconsciousness over time, or more rapidly the consciousnesses of individuals in the vicinity.
22. Constructor: Rapidly construct cartoonish but functional devices and structures from minimal resources that break down shortly after use.
23. Cleric: Summon rays of cleansing, healing, but also searing light.
24. Parkour: Superhuman agility, dexterity, flexibility, reflexes, etc.
25. Icarus: Waxy wings that melt away, dripping with the heat of Greek Fire.
26. POP: Compel any non-living object to spontaneously combust. The force of the explosion and predictability of the detonation time is proportional to the size of an object.
27. Chopper: Human attack helicopter cyborg.
28. Flurry: Throw rapid and near-infinite consecutive strikes.
29. Wavecrash: “Teleportation” via the internet and strike from the other side with the force of a vehicle speeding down the information superhighway.
30. Babylon: Scramble or silence sounds, including language, and can emit sonic force beams.
31. Triplets: Able to coordinate in perfect harmony; far greater than the sum of their parts.
32. Warhead: Fortified with an organic metal shell. They can explode without harming themself, but lose their metal shell for the remainder of the Issue.
33. Kafka: Proportional strengths and abilities of various arthropods, although their greatest power (and weakness) is their utterly horrifying appearance.
34. Combo Ace: Store three pre-programmed athletic or combat feats like video game controller macros, infinite use unless replaced (30min programming time).

My Hero Academia-Inspired Superhero Funnel Proof of Concept

As I'm wrapping up Maximum Recursion Depth, I've been considering what I want to do next, or if I want to take a break before working on my next big project. I've got a lot of thoughts on follow-up issues of MRD, but then I learned about this Funnel Jam on itch.io, and I'd been sitting on this Superhero Funnel idea for a while, so I thought I'd try this as a palate cleanser. I don't know if I'll actually finish it on time, or if it will receive any kind of layout or just be a google doc of a glorified blog post, but I'm excited about the idea nonetheless. One of the MRD followups I've considered is superhero-related, and that's all I'll say on that for the moment, but this might inspire or replace that to some degree or another, we'll see.

The Funnel is inspired by My Hero Academia, a brilliant superhero shonen anime where the characters are students at a superhero school. The opening arc involves a competition where only the top X participants, or participants who exceed a certain score, I forget off-hand, but only a limited number of applicants get into the school, so in effect, it's a Funnel. So that's what I'm going for here; less so deadly DCC Dungeon, more so My Hero Academia competition.

Below is the basic outline for what I'm thinking, and I would absolutely appreciate feedback, but I might change things pretty significantly by the time I actually put it together. I have never designed, run, or even played in a Funnel, so I imagine there are a lot of concerns I'm not fully anticipating.

It will be a while before it's ready, but I would also like to playtest it if anyone is interested!

Funnel Jam

Basic premise and mechanics

The game is designed specifically for the module/funnel in mind, although I think it could work for a longer form MHA-style campaign with the addition of advancement mechanics.

Because it's a funnel, it would be hard for players to create and roleplay multiple interesting characters with interesting personalities, without any guarantee of who will make it and who won't, so I wanted a set of pre-made characters ready to go, but with some randomization both to increase the number of possibilities via combinatorics and also to give the players some sense of ownership over the characters.

There will be a list of pre-made superheroes with superhero names, costumes, and powers, but with high randomization so that no two games have an identical batch of superheroes. For instance, the superheroes table is separate from the alter ego table (imagine if Bakugo and Midoriya were flipped!). Also, each superhero will itself have some degree of randomization as well, like different signature moves or variants on their powers. My hope is that way you could even have two heroes with nearly the same powers in the same game and it would still be interesting; you'd just need to give them a different name and costume but otherwise, they could have "the same" powers.

• Inspired by My Hero Academia UA Entrance Exam.
• Very rules-light, FKR-ish.
• Hero Point system on top of "survival".
• Ability scores aren't physical but based on the scoring categories of the competition.
• Diegetic.
• Challenges or trials can be solved in many ways, but bonus Hero Points in some cases for solving in one way over another creates interesting circumstances.
• Random Tables:
• Superheroes (name, costume, power).
• Weaknesses/shortcomings.
• Signature moves.
• Variants.
• Alter egos (using my character formula).
• Multiple trials with different conditions.

I have not decided on a resolution mechanic yet, but it'll probably be ability score generation with 3d6 and roll-under ability with d20. Could also be roll-under with 3d6.

Ability Scores

The ability scores are abstracted, as are the Hero Points (as opposed to Hit Points), which all tie into the ideals of superheroes but also sportsmanship and celebrity, the kinds of themes that MHA explores. In this way, the various conditions of the trials of the tournament and how the superheroes engage with them are diegetic and create interesting tactical or strategic choices. Like, maybe you could solve a trial with either SHOW or TEAM, but for this particular trial, bonus Hero Points will be rewarded if you use TEAM, so you may be incentivized to use TEAM even if you have much higher SHOW.

It also allows for characters with very different powers to all interact in a relatively "balanced" way. There's definitely an FKR component where I think sometimes you just have to say, there is no feasible way this character could / could not succeed at this specific action given their powers or those of the opposition, and I think that's ok, but this framing of abilities should hopefully lend itself to interesting encounters regardless of team composition.

• SHOWmanship: Power displays, catchphrases, signature taunts.
• TEAMwork: Help others, self-sacrifice, wholesomeness, public safety.
• WILLpower: Resistances e.g. elements, suppression, manipulation, and overcoming limitations.
• TECHnique: Using items or abilities in complex or atypical ways, technology (excluding tech relating to powers / personal gadgets), infiltration.
• EXAMination: Notice subtleties, investigation, deduction and prediction, intel gathering.
• Hero Points: Hit Points, stress, tournament score.

Trials

The meat of the module will be in the trials themselves. The trial structure lends itself well to one-shots and funnels where you maybe want things a bit more game-y and focused. Ideally, I want these to have some degree of randomization, but I also think there's an opportunity to pre-design them in very interesting ways, so I'll need to find the balance.

Trials can involve things like obstacle courses, defeating enemies, sports or games like king of the hill or capture the flag, rescue trials, morale trials, and so on.

Where things get complicated is in managing the Funnel. How many teams should there be? How many PCs should each player have per team? How do you manage free-for-all vs. team reorganization? I had originally thought that PCs should be punished for leaving their team or switching teams, which I still think is true to some extent, but logistically, to manage all the characters, there needs to be a way for players to move their characters around for the sake of game flow, so I added some conditions under which PCs can swap teams freely. But I think this is the part I'm most worried about.

• Free-for-all: Reach the goal, bypass opposition. After all other PCs have passed or failed, the last PC gets a single action to finish, or else they auto-fail.
• If they pass, they get bonus points.
• Teams: The PCs are broken into teams to pass a team-oriented trial. Ideally, each player should only have one superhero per team, with team sizes of 3-4 (or whatever works best). GMPCs or players with multiple superheroes per team can be used if necessary.
• Subsequent trials don't require superheroes to stay with their team, but they lose points for leaving their team and even more points for betraying a teammate.
• Superheroes should be able to amicably switch teams without losing points, or under certain conditions like between trials. I like the idea of the team/solo tradeoff and "punishing" superheroes for being selfish, but if players have superheroes who get disqualified asymmetrically, I want there to be ways for teams to regroup to help with game flow, without punishing them.
• Solo superheroes or partial teams can make new teams so long as the max team size is not exceeded.
• Trials are more difficult for solo or partial teams, but more points, so being strategically selfish is sometimes viable, creating tension and drama.
• Various challenges
• Defeat villain
• Reach a goal
• Rescue civilians
• De-escalation
• Morale
• Medical assistance
• Protect object or environment / minimize collateral damage
• Sports / Game-y like capture the flag or king of the hill

Despite this outline, I think some more thought will need to go into the overall design of the module and how the trials fit into that before I can delve deeper into particulars.

Heroes

Here are a few Heroes as proof of concept, although I may change this up significantly for the actual game. I want them to have distinct appearances and personalities, even if the players aren't doing much roleplaying per se (it seems like it would be difficult to get into character with a Funnel), they'll at least have some idea of how the character would behave.

Also, I want the powers to be interesting. I've created plenty of superpowers already, but I think these will be a little simpler and more focused.

For weaknesses, variants, and signature moves, roll 1d4 for one each. The "Signature Move" doesn't have to be taken too literally, they're more so just to inform how to think about and potentially use their powers. So potentially a hero could do something similar to one of the other Signature Moves, but more limited in scope or a less impactful effect.

Likewise, some of the powers may have weaknesses implicitly or explicitly, but the randomly rolled weakness is either especially vulnerable or to emphasize the point.

Superhero

Bloodhound

Costume: Form-fitting black and tan or amber suit, mask with floppy ears that pick up scents and assist in scent analysis.

Powers: Low-level superstrength, durability, speed, agility, and super-smell. They can reconstruct entire scenes from smell, including precise spatial and temporal resolution, pheromones, and minute chemical particles.

Weaknesses: 

1. Poor vision.
2. Ears sensitive to touch and also loud or high-frequency noises.
3. Singularly focused when following a scent.
4. Sensitive stomach.

Variants:

1. Powers are entirely technological, with the ears doing all of the scent analysis.
2. Anthropomorphic bloodhound.
3. Foxhound; smaller but faster and more agile.
4. Uplifted bloodhound.

Signature Moves:

1. Blood-bound: If they draw blood, they can perfectly track their target until the wound no longer bleeds.
2. Scent Analysis: By touching their ears to the ground or a surface, they can reconstruct a scene, including the order of events, and to some extent thoughts or sentiments (from pheromones), from the scent alone.
3. Bloodlust: They become significantly more powerful, but enter a near-uncontrollable rage, after drawing blood from one of their targets.
4. Power Pack: Their super senses and animal instincts make them excellent team players and benefitting their whole team on tracking-related tasks.

Scanner Darkly

Costume: Suit and tie, mask that obscures their face and shifts facial features, and modulates their voice, so that they are entirely unrecognizable.

Powers: They can infiltrate a group without anyone realizing it. They take on the features and personality of whoever they need to be to best fit into the group they infiltrate. Like dream logic; obvious after the fact that they don't belong, but makes sense at the moment. They also have a secret benefactor such as a corporation or government, who gave them various combat and espionage training and superspy gadgets.

Weaknesses:

1. The longer they stay in deep cover, the more likely they are to lose sight of their original purpose.
2. Brain hemispheres operate independently, leading to infrequent hallucinations or delusions.
3. Substance abuse problems relating to controlling their powers.
4. Burned by their organization; they have limited resources and many enemies.

Variants:

1. Powers are entirely drug-based.
2. They are actually a distributed intelligence funneled* into a human shell; underneath the mask is an empty void. Even their "true" self is an illusion.
3. Powers are entirely technological.
4. No secret benefactor, this is itself a delusion; training and gadgets come from acquired through mysterious means.

*pun intended

Signature Moves:

1. D: Even if spotted, if there is a crowd, they can seamlessly blend into the crowd under (D)eep cover.
2. Multi-Task Maneuver: Their split brain hemispheres allow for superhuman multitasking, and they are uniquely trained for fighting while outnumbered and using their opposition's numbers against themselves.
3. Panopticon: Carries holographic scanners, an array of micromachines tossed like dust that can coordinate within a space to reflect light signals between each other, functioning as a comprehensive surveillance system across a large space.
4. Blue Flower: Attached to the suit lapel, causes mild hallucinations and delusions to those in the vicinity when pressed, and the effects compound over the number of exposures in a short time and proximity to the flower.

Gray Goo

Costume: Iridescent silvery-gray particles that lick against their body like flames.

Powers: Convert matter within a 6x6 space around them into nanomachines, which can be converted into anything so long as they understand its composition, or integrated within a nanomachine virtual reality which they must consciously maintain. Living things may be converted only into the virtual reality, only as themselves, and are ejected as themselves if the virtual reality is shut down such as due to lack of concentration.

Personally, I find this power to be really interesting and I've explored this idea on my blog before, but I worry that most people won't understand the intrinsic relationship between nanomachines and virtual reality or how the distinction between real and virtual becomes somewhat arbitrary when nanomachines are involved, and it would probably be too bulky to try to explain it. Yay or nay on this?

Weaknesses:

1. The nanomachine virtual reality has subtly incorrect details like objects being differently colored, or lower resolution like being static to wind or light.
2. Converting too many objects in a short time span makes them lightheaded.
3. One experiences a distinct myoclonic jerk like falling asleep when scanned into the nanomachine virtual reality.
4. There is a 1 in 6 chance that a converted object is dysfunctional, and this will not be apparent until it is used.

Variants:

1. They are actually gray goo and their human form is that of or inspired by a human loved one.
2. The gray goo is an artificial intelligence with its own personality, loyal to the superhero but with cat-like independence.
3. The gray goo is an alien or extradimensional organism that has developed a symbiotic relationship with the superhero.
4. They are a gray goo blob and for some reason cannot change their own form except inside the virtual reality.

Signature Moves:

1. Labyrinth: The nanomachine virtual reality is a maze full of paradoxically twisting planes that disorient those inside who may not be aware that they're in a virtual space.
2. Entropy Bath: The nanomachines vibrate into a 6x6 sphere of plasma.
3. Protocol 42: The nanomachines operate as a super-advanced quantum computer, able to perform computational tasks that would otherwise be impractical or impossible.
4. Golem: The nanomachines are programmed into larger forms that protect them and attacks opposition within their influence.

Alter Ego

These first four are adapted from a previous blog post where I discuss my Character Formula. It's a common trope for superheroes to have alliterative names but I'm undecided if I want that to be the case for all of them or just a large number of them. I altered these to better fit the MHA/student theme, but in retrospect, this doesn't have to be a high school module, the assumption could be that they're college students or adults of any age really.

1. Riley Reiner: Rambunctious athlete and stamp collector who loves the limelight.
2. Simone Simpson: Nihilistic engineering geek and soup kitchen volunteer who isn't sure what she believes anymore.
3. Neal Nguyen: Charismatic class president and vlogger who enjoys the simple life (when he can have it).
4. Jivan Jarodia: Perky homebody and aspiring graphic designer who sublimates his violent temper through acts of kindness.

Example Superhero 1

Superhero: Scanner Darkly

Alter Ego: Riley Reiner

Rambunctious athlete and stamp collector who loves the limelight.

Hero Points: 6 (Tentative default)

Ability Scores (Tentatively assuming 3d6, down the line for simplicity)

SHOW: 14
TEAM: 7
WILL: 13
TECH: 14
EXAM: 10

Weakness: Burned by their organization; they have limited resources and many enemies.

Variant: Powers are entirely drug-based.

Signature Move: 

Panopticon: Carries holographic scanners, an array of micromachines tossed like dust that can coordinate within a space to reflect light signals between each other, functioning as a comprehensive surveillance system across a large space.

This version of Scanner Darkly is a bit of a contradiction; being high in showmanship despite their powers being very much the opposite. However, this goes well with their Alter Ego Riley Reiner, who loves the limelight. Perhaps they got burned by their organization specifically for trying to be too SHOW-y, and so they feel they have a lot to prove. I imagine they like to taunt their opposition, using the surveillance data from their panopticon to punk them in various ways. High TECH goes well with their Signature Move even though they didn't get the technology-based variant. The "medication" they've been taking for their powers and how it's affected their adolescent development (a metaphor if I've ever seen one...), along with their training, might explain their above-average WILL.

Example Superhero 2

To demonstrate the randomization, I'll stick with the Superhero Scanner Darkly, but reroll the rest.

Superhero: Scanner Darkly

Alter Ego: Neal Nguyen

Charismatic class president and vlogger who enjoys the simple life (when he can have it).

Hero Points: 6 (Tentative default)

Ability Scores (Tentatively assuming 3d6, down the line for simplicity)

SHOW: 9
TEAM: 13
WILL: 10
TECH: 10
EXAM: 12

Weakness: Brain hemispheres operate independently, leading to infrequent hallucinations or delusions.

Variant: Powers are entirely technological.

Signature Move: Blue Flower: Attached to the suit lapel, causes mild hallucinations and delusions to those in the vicinity when pressed, and the effects compound over the number of exposures in a short time and proximity to the flower.

Although they have a just average TECH score, the TECH ability is actually TECHnique rather than just technology, and even then it's more about external or novel technology, rather than the use of one's own gadgets, so I don't think it's a contradiction here. The fact that they have an above-average TEAM score and slightly below-average SHOW is a nice contrast to the previous version of Scanner Darkly that I rolled up. As class president and as a vlogger, they have good leadership skills and presentation skills, but more so dry, perhaps soothing, but less so sensationalist, which is also a nice contrast to the previous version. Their supertech was created by their benefactor in order to compensate for the neurological disorder they developed due to exposure to an experimental hallucinogenic blue flower. Their benefactor has since created a version of the blue flower that is safe for long-term exposure and may have beneficial pharmaceutical applications in the future, but for now, our Scanner Darkly uses it as a weapon. While I think the other version of Scanner Darkly gelled a little bit more cohesively on-face than this one, I can see the potential for this character if they pass the trials; this backstory lends itself to quite a few questions. What is the blue flower? Why were they exposed to it? Who is the benefactor? What are the supposed pharmaceutical applications? Is it actually safe?

Despite having the same superhero name, costume description, and base power, I think we have two fairly distinct characters who are both interesting in their own right, so I'm pretty happy with this prototype.