Imaginary Friends is an adventure for the Hero System/ Champions 6th Edition and Savage Worlds in which invisible playmates come to life with deadly consequences. As much a long-term campaign supplement as an adventure, it features a set of strategies and events using the characters and depicting forces at work, rather than a completely linear narrative.
You'll meet an entertaining array of sinister and unique characters who will engage roleplayers in tests of combat and the mind unlike anything you've seen before! I know you've probably heard that before once or twice, but I really mean it. Every playtest of this adventure has been fantastic, be it rules light or rules heavy.
We hope you'll be pleased and surprised at what you find inside the pages of Imaginary Friends. It's a very different sort of gaming experience.
What's inside:
A full supervillain team. (It wouldn't be nearly as cool an adventure if there wasn't a full supervillain team in it)
Villains opposing other villains!
A vast array of map locations that are easily reusable in any modern setting!
The groundwork for an easy to expand evil secret organization!
A sinister master mind!
A lesser master mind!
An agent-level mastermind!
Absolutely no mimes (or Master Mimes) whatsoever!
If you help us reach our goal, we may be able to get you stretch goals such as cardboard heroes of the characters or larger maps!
It is written by legendary Champions adventure designer Michael Satran, author of such works as Foxbat for President, War of Worldcraft, Unkindness, Pretty Hate Machines, and King of the Mountain.
We even got Sean Fannon to do our Savage Worlds conversions for us....
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/blackwyrm/imaginary-friends
Requests have been answered! A new tier has been added! You may now purchase three copies of the book for only 90 dollars! This is a fantastic deal, since it costs 40 dollars for one.
We have also added the Mr. Wumbles totem. Adding 20 dollars to any pledge gets you a squishy evil bunny rabbit with the Imaginary Friends logo emblazoned on the side.
So hop to it, and get on board with us!
Ladies and gentlemen, we now have really awesome tee shirts, featuring the absolutely amazing cover art, or Mr. Wumbles, one of the villains, with the logo "My Imaginary Friend Can Beat Up Your Imaginary Friend!"
Get on board and share the imaginariness!
We broke our first thousand and that means we're on a roll! At 1125, special secrets of Imaginary Friends will be unlocked. This happens again at 50 percent and 75 percent. At 100 percent, our project is funded and we can begin talking about stretch goals. Tell us what you'd like to see!
We’re off to a rousing start! Imagine that! Thank you to everyone who came in during the initial block of pledges. We hope that you’ll tell all your friends about this magnificent project, and we’re off to the races. With people like you on our side, I know we’ll see full funding!
Now it’s time for our teaser. It’s time to introduce one of the villains of Imaginary Friends.
His name is Toby. He’s five years old. We’re not going to tell you that much about Toby, except for the fact that he’s five and that presents a very different sort of challenge from what most superheroes are used to. (Except maybe Captain Diaper, but that’s a story for another day)
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...-friends/posts
It's Character background time. Today, you're going to meet one of the villains of Imaginary Friends, the sinister, armored Abyss.
Every time we hit another milestone from now on, we'll reveal another character from this grand project of ours!
Background: Bernard Goldfarb was born brilliant, and he knew it. While all the other children were playing jump rope and hopscotch, he was working on advanced mathematical equations and trying to figure out how the stars worked. The other children laughed at him, bullied him, and occasionally beat him up. Even though he wasn’t the most thin-skinned of children, Jake Bradford’s taunts stayed with him, calling him a nerd and a dirty Jew, even when Bradford and his friends threw him into a well near the school. Bernard spent twelve hours staring up at the top as the light faded. He called for help for almost a day until the police came.
The police couldn’t prove anything.
Bernard recovered physically, but never psychologically. He wanted the children who threw him down the well to suffer. After two months, he snuck onto Jake Bradford’s property and poisoned his pet collie. When his parents found out, he was grounded for three weeks. Bernard and Jake Bradford had a bloody fistfight over the dog, and Bernard was suspended from school. All Bernard could remember was Jake throwing him down that hole, and shivering in the dirty water without anyone to help him.
The well became a part of him. He would always remember it.
Bernard’s parents were shocked and horrified. “What did that dog ever to do you?” His father demanded.
Bernard’s mother looked away from her son in shame, but Bernard’s eyes were hard. “It was Jake Bradford’s dog,” Bernard said coldly. “He hated us for being Jews, and threw me into the well. What did you do for me, dad? You didn’t do anything except tell me it was wrong. I took his dog away. That was right. That was getting even. Like it says in the Torah. An eye for an eye.”
Bernard was sent to Yeshiva after that. He realized that his parents would never listen to him, and that if he wasn’t smart enough to take what he wanted, he would never have anything except the well. He would have to fill the well with knowledge.
Knowledge didn’t satisfy Bernard. No matter how brilliant the research he did, he always needed more money and more parts. He began to look for shortcuts. Several of his friends in his research group joked that if only there were aliens, he could take their technology instead. The well grew deeper. It was always empty.
Bernard reasoned that the best way to find out if there were alien technologies was to join alien conspiracy groups. He learned about the ways the government had concealed the existence of aliens from the public. He learned about what signs to look for, and how to avoid detection from government operatives.
That was how SPIDER found him and first began recruiting him. Bernard scoffed at the idea of working for a criminal organization, and told them he would think about it. It was better than having them come in the middle of the night and take him.
Bernard worked hard on a shoestring budget for months until his makeshift sensors finally went off. Something was going to crash nearby. He had to get there before the police and superheroes did.
When Bernard got there, there was an advanced escape pod with a humanoid, red-skinned alien it, half sunken in the swamp. The massively muscled creature was badly wounded. There was nothing Bernard could do for it. “Help me—“ The creature pleaded. “Warriors die well, not slowly.”
Bernard ignored the creature and began dismantling the escape pod. He had only a few minutes to get the things he needed. He took the power supply, a sample of the creature’s armor, the creature’s battle staff, and several of the key operational components in the pod’s engine.
The creature struggled, reaching for a button. Bernard barely saw it in time. The creature grinned. “So you are a coward. Run!” Bernard ran. He pushed his legs through the swamp as fast as he could. The escape pod erupted into a ball of flame, and Bernard was hurled into the muck of the swamp. Bernard crept back to his car with his prizes, skulking away in the night.
Bernard built his first suit of armor out of the parts and some steel and alloyed ceramics. It was clunky and awkward, and not nearly as sleek looking as the others of the day. He needed refinement, but he also needed money. He called himself “The Ace of Clubs.” He robbed half a dozen banks, but it wasn’t enough. He still couldn’t get enough money to make more advancements.
Bernard gathered a team of like-minded miscreants around him and built them suits of armor like his own, each the Ace of a different suit. His goal was to make money for his experiments. He didn’t care what the others did with their money. That was when opportunity knocked.
An agent of the Cult of the Ebon Flame approached them and hired them for an obscene amount of money to pretend to wield a four foot metallic baton called “The Rod of Baalphegon” and threaten the city with destruction while they made off with a mystic artifact from one of the local art museums.
It wasn’t even the real Rod of Baalphegon. The plan was simple. Superheroes would come, Four of a Kind would fight them, pretend to be defeated, and slink off.
It didn’t turn out that way. Instead, PTAH showed up, in force, and launched an all-out attack on Four of a Kind to recover the Rod. The Rod was recovered by PTAH almost instantly, the telekinetic grip of a PTAH operative yanked it out of his hand. The battle was short, swift and decisive, and Bernard barely escaped with his life. The others were all captured, and began spending long, agonizing lives in prison.
Bernard studied what had gone wrong, and fell into a deep depression. He was nothing but a little boy in a hole. He was still looking up at the sky, trapped in the water.
That was when Jorgi Van Der Voot showed up at Bernard’s door. A long discussion between the two scientists ensued. Jorgi had long admired Bernard’s work, and wondered what secrets the other scientist possessed.
“There’s something bothering you,” Van Der Voot said.
“There is.”
“I can give you money to continue your research. More money than you ever thought possible. I know you possess technology that very few on Earth currently understand. We would like to help you understand that technology. We will help you to improve it.”
“Really?” Bernard stared at Jorgi Van Der Voot. “What’s the catch?”
“No catch. Simply come out of your depression. You are a brilliant man, Doctor Goldfarb. Perhaps if something is bothering you, instead of obsessing over it, you should embrace it. It has worked for far lesser men.”
Bernard nervously reached out to shake Jorgi’s hand. “Deal.”
He could never go back now. Not to the life of an ordinary scientist. Jorgi had shown him the way. If he could not escape the hole, he would become it. Instead of using the power sources of the alien technology to power a battlesuit, the power source would become the power of the battlesuit.
He worked for two years in secret SPIDER laboratories, hammering out principles and reworking the technologies. Most of SPIDER’s leadership didn’t even understand what he was doing. When he was done, he had built a black hole generator from the black hole drive components that had once powered his old battle suit.
The Ace of Clubs was gone now. Only the Abyss remained. He painted over the Ace of Clubs on his battlesuit with a large, dark circle. It seemed appropriate.
Abyss became one of SPIDER’s most feared super-villains. Everyone dreaded the man in the black armor with the shimmering field that surrounded him, the light of a black hole generator.
Success followed success. He would never be captured.
Then the Webmasters offered him a project. A supervillain team to rival the greatest superhero teams of the world. Nothing complicated. Nothing fancy. Just Spider Alpha Team. Bernard took the job with the same methodical precision he did with everything else.
He would have revenge on the telepaths who cost him his old life. He would have revenge on the superheroes that thwarted him. He would have revenge on PTAH. They would fall into the Abyss.
And they would be crushed there.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/projects/235451/posts/365980/image-190615-full .jpg?1355109419
Thank you all for being with us so far. Your donations have unlocked another character from Imaginary Friends, Georgie, the Singing Giraffe!
You're kidding me, right? A singing giraffe? Not all superbeings are all THAT super.
Personality: Georgie is cheerful and outgoing, and nice to everyone. His personality is always cheerful and kind. However, deep inside Georgie lurks a desperate need to perform and entertain. If someone were to remove his ability to perform, Georgie would shatter psychologically and become a broken giraffe. He is always a showman, constantly trying to think of clever things to say and one-liners to deliver. Some of them are funny. Some of them fall flat.
Georgie even sings to cheer himself or others up, especially when he’s afraid. Georgie admires Jack’s bravery and Imaginary Lisa’s attractiveness, and is disgusted by Polly Pooper’s constant defecation. However, he shares a deep and unabiding fear of Mr. Wumbles along with the others. He can’t stand it when his Lisa fights with Imaginary Lisa, and always tries to get his special friend not to cry because Imaginary Lisa is older and prettier.
Quote: “I think it’s time for a song and a little bit of dancing!”
“Let’s dance the rag until the break of dawn!”
“I know there’s a song in there somewhere, whoever you are, and we’re going to bring it out!”
Powers/Tactics: Georgie doesn’t really fight. He tries to run away as swiftly as possible. Unfortunately, he has little ability to hide, and even less fighting ability.
Campaign Use: Georgie exists to brighten the lives of Lisa and her friends as much as possible, even though he annoys everyone except Lisa by singing too much. He has songs for everything, and he’s not afraid to sing them, even (and possibly especially) when it aggravates others.
Appearance: Georgie looks like a singing humanoid giraffe that is about three and a half feet tall. He wears wide pinstripe suits and outrageously pleated white shirts with black ties. Sparkling cuff links always adorn his sleeves. He wears two tone shoes and carries a cane, along with a bowler hat and a tie bar. He usually wears paisley ties.
Thank you all for being with us so far. Your donations have unlocked another character from Imaginary Friends, Georgie, the Singing Giraffe!
You're kidding me, right? A singing giraffe? Not all superbeings are all THAT super.
Personality: Georgie is cheerful and outgoing, and nice to everyone. His personality is always cheerful and kind. However, deep inside Georgie lurks a desperate need to perform and entertain. If someone were to remove his ability to perform, Georgie would shatter psychologically and become a broken giraffe. He is always a showman, constantly trying to think of clever things to say and one-liners to deliver. Some of them are funny. Some of them fall flat.
Georgie even sings to cheer himself or others up, especially when he’s afraid. Georgie admires Jack’s bravery and Imaginary Lisa’s attractiveness, and is disgusted by Polly Pooper’s constant defecation. However, he shares a deep and unabiding fear of Mr. Wumbles along with the others. He can’t stand it when his Lisa fights with Imaginary Lisa, and always tries to get his special friend not to cry because Imaginary Lisa is older and prettier.
Quote: “I think it’s time for a song and a little bit of dancing!”
“Let’s dance the rag until the break of dawn!”
“I know there’s a song in there somewhere, whoever you are, and we’re going to bring it out!”
Powers/Tactics: Georgie doesn’t really fight. He tries to run away as swiftly as possible. Unfortunately, he has little ability to hide, and even less fighting ability.
Campaign Use: Georgie exists to brighten the lives of Lisa and her friends as much as possible, even though he annoys everyone except Lisa by singing too much. He has songs for everything, and he’s not afraid to sing them, even (and possibly especially) when it aggravates others.
Appearance: Georgie looks like a singing humanoid giraffe that is about three and a half feet tall. He wears wide pinstripe suits and outrageously pleated white shirts with black ties. Sparkling cuff links always adorn his sleeves. He wears two tone shoes and carries a cane, along with a bowler hat and a tie bar. He usually wears paisley ties.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...-friends/posts
Thank you, everyone who has backed Imaginary Friends so far. At this time, we are a third of the way to our goal. From now on, every ten percent of funded unlocks another major character in Imaginary Friends.
Every other day unlocks another map location, minor character, or combination thereof.
Today's NPC is: Manfernee Jones: Manfernee Jones is a mid-thirties African-American man who fell on hard times when his auto-repair business collapsed during a super-battle and he didn’t have enough insurance to rebuild it. He’s slightly overweight and relatively jolly for a security guard with a few financial issues. He moonlights at a Jazz club twice a week where he plays saxophone for a band, and is one of the more popular security guards to talk to. Some of the people who come to the museum are also fans of his playing style.
Plot Option 1: Manfernee is a musically themed supervillain or hero.
Plot Option 2: Manfernee is really the lead for a foreign cash scam, and runs money to and from the telegraph agency.
Thank you for everyone who has backed the Imaginary Friends project so far. We hope you'll be with us for the whole ride. Today's NPC is...
Poison Candace, Bouncer: Candace Levitsky is a naturalized American citizen from Israel in her late thirties. Unfortunately, there weren’t a lot of jobs in Israel for female Krav Maga instructors. Candace decided to move to America and explore her passion for music, but turned out not to be a very good musician. What she was good at was military strategy and self-defense. While she could have made a living in private security, she decided that she would rather have a lower salary and free jazz concerts. Candace is five foot one and weighs one hundred and four pounds soaking wet, leading to the unlikely nickname of “Poison.” Not a lot of people realize that Candace is a bouncer, but if they do, they are unlikely to walk away from it. Candace finds a lot of the people who visit the club not nearly as smart as they think they are, but never says so.
Plot Option: Candace takes jobs on the side for unscrupulous people of a deniable assets nature.
Virtually every NPC comes with a plot option here or there.We try to make our products reusable.
More special stuff coming your way Christmas Eve!
And what new character will be unlocked at the 40 percent backer mark?
Greetings to all Imaginary Friends backers. We would like to wish you a merry christmas at this time.
Mr. Wumbles will not deliver you anything, nor will he break into your house.
We would like to release today's NPC! Sorry it's a couple hours late, but more great superhero roleplaying and playtesting was going on, and I didn't quite make it home before midnight.
Michael
Today's NPC is:
Kate Felton, KCTV: Kate Felton is a lovely young blonde reporter, chosen for her attractiveness, blue eyes and classic Midwestern good looks, as most reporters secretly are. Kate’s actual resume was ignored, despite her degree from an Ivy League university and her relationship to her father, a Midwestern broadcasting business executive. This makes Kate all too eager to prove herself, and more than a little willing to take risks to place herself in dangerous situations. Kate makes a good reporter DNPC for any hero, and her father makes a good social enemy for any hero, especially if a hero becomes attracted to Kate. No man, not even a superhero, is good enough for Bill Felton’s daughter, and Bill will tell them so if he meets them. Even repeated rescues will only make Kate more determined, and confident that a hero will save her at every turn. This will also make her dad angrier. If a hero didn’t bother to name his reporter DNPC, Kate is now that DNPC. Kate will ask sharp, smart, probing questions designed to get the truth out of a hero.
Because we care, we thought we would show you what the T-Shirt logo looks like. Merry Christmas once again.
Sometime in the next few days, we will have a sample map to show you!
And if you have an imaginary friend, remember that Mr. Wumbles is coming for it.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/blackwyrm/imaginary-friends/posts
Ladies and Gentlemen, tonight's NPC is a tough cop in a superheroic world!
I give you...
Tom Alvarez, Police Sargeant: Tom has seen a lot of unusual things in his time on the beat, including more than a few supervillain attacks. He has a wife named Maria and two children named Vito and Florence. He is a tough, no-nonsense guy who wants to get to the minimum retirement age, settle into a comfortable life, and enjoy his pension in a low-tax state. Alvarez will allow the heroes to lead in any area which does not involve police procedure, but in the event of a procedural violation, he will be the first to come down on them.
Plot Option: Alvarez is a long-term deep cover SPIDER agent whose goal is to mislead the heroes.
Thank you to all of our backers so far. Please tell other people about us. Imaginary Friends has only eleven days left. We're almost at the final countdown. Let's get cracking!
Well, we said a few days until the map. We have good news for you...
We lied!
This is the map of the Winehouse Estate. We won't tell you what it's for, but it's a pretty nice map, even by itself. We hope you like it. We hope you tell your friends about it. We hope you tell your imaginary friends about it.
www.kickstarter.com/projects/blackwyrm/imaginary-friends
Wow! Forty percent funded and quite a ways to go!
Your efforts have unlocked a new major character in Imaginary Friends.
Meet Tarantula! SPIDER Webmaster! Usually, Tarantula is encountered on a video screen or with dozens of minions nearby. He's an agent level mastermind, kind of like the guys who are saying "Yes, Cobra Commander" while plotting against him.
Tarantula has no hair under his costume. Not all super-soldier formulas are big winners.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/blackwyrm/imaginary-friends/posts
We're into the final push, everyone. There's only nine days left in our kickstarter to go. Help us get to 50 percent before the weekend is out! Today's NPC is your favorite coroner and mine, at least as far as Imaginary Friends is concerned! Meet Marcus Arbuckle!
Marcus Arbuckle, Coroner: Marcus is a short, fat, balding man who survives on fast food. He has thick coke-bottle glasses and scraggly beard stubble that looms on his triple chin. He typically wears lab coats and jeans, and favors old pairs of sneakers over other forms of footwear. Oversize sweaters rest under the lab coat like shaggy carpets. Marcus is in his late forties, and has a wife named Ethel who calls him fourteen times a day. He possesses a SC: Forensics skill of 13- and a Forensic Medicine skill of 12-. He is a dry, bland man who goes home and reads the newspaper at the end of the day after everyone has talked about everything. His voice is as bland as his habits.
Plot Option: Marcus develops a fascination with dead bodies that is decidedly unhealthy, and could get worse over time.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/blackwyrm/imaginary-friends/posts
Wahooooo! We broke 2000 and it's only Saturday Night! Get us to 2250, which is 50 percent, and our obligatory cheesecake villainess will be revealed!
Today's new NPC is an Imaginary Friend!
Yes, True Believers, we raise the stakes as the time draws closer! Help us unlock another villain at 50 percent!
In the meantime, we leave you with Angela Winehouse, and her Imaginary Friend, Polly Pooper, the Pooping Parrot.
Yeah. Not all Imaginary Friends are THAT much fun.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/blackwyrm/imaginary-friends/posts/37772 7
Happy New Year from the Entire Imaginary Friends Team!
We'd like to take the time to reach out to all our backers and potential backers and wish them well for the new year.
For those of you who are still on the fence, make the new year's resolution to back Imaginary Friends in the coming year! Get us over 50 percent to that Cheesecake Villainess!
All it takes is one more!
We hope that you'll get us all the way to 4500, and bring us to the noble goal of getting Imaginary Friends for everyone!
We also have a special new year update for folks coming up real soon!
It's not cheesecake. But it is a woman. We promise. Sort of.
You didn't get to the cheesecake villainess. But because it's New Year's Day, we have something for you anyway.
Meet Doris. She's a secretary. A very important secretary.
But Doris has a secret that will be revealed to backers at 100 percent funded!
Here she is!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/blackwyrm/imaginary-friends/posts/37831 8
We've got five days to go! Just five days to go! it's going to be a tough journey but I still think we can make it! Get us over 50 percent! Get your cheesecake villainess! We will push on to 100 percent!
We can do it! We know we can!
A lowly push from almost any backer will bring us halfway home!
We need 2509 right now! Show us what you've got!
Ladies and Gentlemen! Today's new NPC is an Imaginary Friend!
Introducing Jack Bombem!
He's the guy in the pilot outfit. The kid's name is Jim Coberson!
Get to know our NPC's, and wonder just what they might be all about! Let's get this project active!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/blackwyrm/imaginary-friends/posts/37877 9
Congratulations to all Backers! We are halfway home with five days to go! You have earned the semi-divine presence of Lady Warp (at least in her own mind, she's kind of vain), at least as long as she doesn't teleport away!
Lady Warp also has cool powers like "Rocks fall. Everybody dies."
Don't let this gorgeous champion of villainy teleport away! Get us to funded by the end of the day!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/blackwyrm/imaginary-friends/posts
Well, we don't want ladies to feel left out. Sixty percent gets you our obligatory beefcake villain!
That's 2700 for the uninitiated!
Help us get to this not-so lofty goal, and fund us right away! We've got many more surprises in store for you guys as the clock ticks down!
Imagine that!
A special thank you to signed and numbered backers 2-5, all of whom have made a special commitment to our project.
We appreciate your support and dedication! With only 1969 dollars to go, we hope that you'll all help us to succeed!
Thanks for everything!
Michael!
Thanks to an absolutely fantastic burst of activity last night, we are almost at 2700! Get us over the next percentage level today!
At sixty percent you get a beefcake villain!
At seventy percent, you get a villain made entirely of photons!
At eighty percent, you get a villain who can change into multiple animals! At once!
At ninety percent, the master villain of Imaginary Friends will be revealed.
At 100 percent, Doris's secret will be revealed to backers only!
It's a great day to be your friend.
It's a great day to support Imaginary Friends.
There will be a new NPC this evening!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/blackwyrm/imaginary-friends/posts
Ladies and gentlemen! We are at sixty percent with three days to go! I give you your well-earned beefcake villain, the muscular, egotistical, and violently destructive Adonis!
Background: Marcus Randall grew up in Southern California, not far from one of San Diego’s many beaches. He spent hours working out near the beach, living clean and not paying enough attention in school. His parents were okay with C grades as long as he stayed healthy. When he dropped out of school, he was thirteen years old. He spent all of his time on the beach, and never went back.
By the time he had reached the age of fifteen, his body had solidified, but he was still a boy. His only choices were steroids or having sand kicked in his face by older, more mature bodybuilders. He was already stealing most of the girlfriends of some of the older bodybuilders, and they called him a ‘pretty boy’, a ‘boytoy’, and a freak.
Marcus had sand kicked in his face a lot. His dream was to be a professional bodybuilder, but most of those avenues were still closed to him. When he finally placed third in a competition, everyone said he was too young, especially the fourth place finisher, Antonio Lopez.
Marcus finally felt he had everything. He was on his way to fame and fortune on the bodybuilding circuit. Unfortunately, there was one thing Marcus didn’t have. Antonio Lopez had a crowbar.
Marcus didn’t even see it coming. Antonio Lopez had left the competition early and waited near his house. The first swing of the crowbar shattered Marcus’s jaw, the second broke his ribcage, and the third left a deep scar along the line of his forehead.
He was only three hundred feet from his door . The last thing he saw was Antonio’s grinning face as the crowbar cracked his ribcage. The last thing he heard was his mother screaming.
When he woke up in the hospital, there were bandages on his face and his mind was clouded with drugs. His mind vaguely processed something about his parents being unable to pay the bills—something about his face being ruined. He screamed desperately in rage, but it came out as a pathetic whimper over the sedatives and drugs.
“It’s all right, Marcus.” His father’s voice. “We’ll love you no matter what you look like.”
Marcus cried until long after his parents were gone.
The incident attracted the attention of the local SPIDER Webmaster. A young, healthy man abused by his peers and shattered in his prime was perfect recruitment material for the SHAPE project.
“We can rebuild your face,” the recruiter said. “It seems you have a latent mutant ability that we are capable of bringing out. Hundreds have died in this project. It seems unlikely that you will. We would like you to join us. You don’t have many other choices.”
Marcus nodded in his bed. The next day, he was checked out of the hospital. By the time missing persons reports were filed, he was in the heart of the SHAPE Project. They placed him in a canister and injected him full of so many chemicals that he thought he was going to have a seizure. Then the electricity took him, seething through his body.
Even through the sedatives, Marcus felt pain. He could feel his broken bones reknitting, his muscles straining under the effect of his neurokinesis. Then he looked into the mirror and saw the bronzed, tanned god that he had become.
“Oh, my,” Jorgi Van Der Voot observed. “We seem to have made a virtual Adonis.”
Adonis became a supervillain in the service of SPIDER. His debut came when he arrived on a beach where Antonio Lopez was lifting weights, and crushed his spine with a single hand, leaving the man who had once crippled him paralyzed from the neck down.
Marcus was capable of absorbing tremendous punishment. He didn’t miss his parents. He didn’t need them. He didn’t need anyone except SPIDER. They protected him when others had failed. He had become a supervillain. And he loved every minute of it. He was handsome, brutal, and virtually impervious to attack. Women adored him, he was one of the most handsome men in the world. Sometimes, he would even get letters from crazed supervillain worshippers of the opposite sex begging him to kidnap them! Life was good!
When the call for the creation of SPIDER Alpha Team came down the line, Marcus’s webmaster immediately thought of him and put him in for the position. Marcus had become too powerful to keep around, and placing him in a unit of his super-powered equals was just another way to rein him in.
Marcus eagerly joined SPIDER Alpha Team. It was nice to have a father surrogate in Abyss, even though a part of him didn’t really trust Abyss at all. He knows he’s nothing but muscle.
But that’s not such a bad thing…is it?
Personality: Adonis is a bullying, selfish, narcissistic man. He cares only about how handsome he is and how many women he can make swoon over his perfectly cut body. His craving for attention is nearly limitless, and nothing pleases him more than media attention during a battle. He will deliberately take actions of the most spectacular sort designed to showcase his vast lifting capacity and draw attention away from less resilient members of the team. Above all else, Adonis is shallow. He has fairly low class needs, and much prefers spending time with Negafire than with Abyss, who is far too intellectual, or Totem, who is notoriously straight-laced. He enjoys demonstrating his powers and proving just how amazing those abilities are. Against weaker opponents, he will torment them for a while, but Abyss has already found ways to turn this to his advantage. Adonis might have been capable of being a better person once, but all that has since been crushed out of him. He enjoys fighting dirty, and likes superbattles far more when he is fighting dirty.
Quote: “And now, the most handsome man in the world is going to stand victorious over your corpse!”
“Hey, baby! Once I get my arms around you, you’re never going to want me to let go!”
“Get out of my way! You’re just an obstacle! And I smash obstacles!”
Powers/Tactics: Adonis is a powerful combatant who relies on aggression and showy moves to terrify opponents. He enjoys grabbing and crushing heroes, holding them helpless while his neurokinetic powers weaken those who try to free them from his mighty grip. Adonis is one of the strongest men in the world, and enjoys using his strength while absorbing punishment from those around him. The name “Adonis” in superhero circles is synonymous with the words “destruction of property.” Adonis gleefully smashes buildings and destroys public transportation to terrify people and threaten the lives of the innocents. He will hold opponents helpless for others on his team to group attack, and readily hurls nonflying heroes skyward to be the victim of multiple energy bolts. Whereas many of the other members of SPIDER Alpha Team are ruthless and efficient, Adonis is a glory hound, and frequently seeks additional missions from Webmasters on his own. These missions usually have excessive amounts of backup. Losing a superbeing as valuble as Adonis to prison is not to the advantage of the SPIDER Supreme. Adonis also enjoys taking a hero apart psychologically. If a male hero has a family, Adonis will seduce their wife or significant other. If a female heroine has a husband or a boyfriend, Adonis will try to seduce the heroine. Usually, in cases like this, Adonis operates with a SPIDER camera team.
Campaign Use: Adonis is a villain with many different campaign uses. As a member of SPIDER Alpha Team, Adonis is their physically strongest member as well as the one who can take the most punishment. Most superhero teams won’t have anyone as strong as Adonis, or as resilient and tough. As a single supervillain with agent backup, Adonis is fairly dangerous, especially if the agent commander should be smart enough to use him to his fullest potential under the tactical circumstances. Adonis could develop a crush on a particularly attractive female character, and seek to lure her away, either by charming her heart, or by kidnapping her outright. If another hero is a bodybuilder or spends a lot of time on the beach, Adonis could develop a rivalry with that character that isn’t really so friendly. Unfriendly rivalries take on a whole new meaning when your rival hurls boats at you.
Appearance: Adonis looks like a tanned, bronze skinned, muscular beach god. His hair is soft, silky, and hangs down around his shoulders, and his muscles look sculpted onto his six foot, six inch frame. He wears jeans, tee-shirts and occasionally, high-fashion clothes when he is out on seduction missions, which he gets a fair number of. Adonis’s supervillain costume is a tight little bathing suit. He relies on his ridiculous good looks to get powerful female heroines to not attack him. It generally doesn’t work, but Adonis feels the results are worth it. Adonis usually wears sandals or black wrestling boots. He is one of the most handsome men in the entire world, and he isn’t afraid to rub this in.
Welcome to tonight's new NPC!
Meet the piano player. Hopefully, you'll enjoy figuring out why we have a piano player.
Venkataram Sudayaram, Piano Player: Venkataram always had musical talent, and his parents encouraged it. He received many awards in school, and eventually got a scholarship to Princeton for music, where he also excelled. In an American University, he discovered jazz piano, and used it as a force to create his own work while drifting away from classical. He has recorded three jazz albums at the age of twenty-five, and typically wears tuxedos or obnoxiously colored double-breasted suits while performing. He prefers “Venky” to his full name, though not on his album covers.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/blackwyrm/imaginary-friends/posts/38009 3
Plot Option: Venkataram’s grandfather is the notorious supervillain from India, The Great Pandit. The Great Pandit is famous for his use of a sitar as a weapon and his deathtrap design skills. He has no powers of his own, yet somehow has survived to the present day. Venkataram doesn’t know this, and idolizes his extremely healthy relative. Perhaps the Great Pandit is secretly grooming Venkataram to be his successor.
Ladies and Gentlemen! I give you the artwork for Adonis!
We're 60 percent funded with three days to go! This is it! Our big push!
70 Percent gets you the mysterious being of living light known as the Shimmering!
Eighty Percent Gets you Totem, the Chimeric Man! (A note to our fans from Haymaker! You guys got to see him already, so I'll have some special Champions Rules stuff for you guys when we hit 80 percent!)
Ninety Percent gets you the master villain of Imaginary Friends.
His name is Lord Dominus.
Funded gets you all the cool stuff we've promised you, and backers get to discover the secret of Doris!
Booyah!
We're on our way!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/blackwyrm/imaginary-friends/posts/38012 1
All right! We've got less than 72 hours to make Imaginary Friends a reality! Tell everyone you know that it's time to get some new Imaginary Friends.
Don't tell them that one of them is Mr. Wumbles. That might be a little disturbing!
Anyway, we hope you'll help us by telling everyone you know, everyone you might think you know, and hype this project for everyone who might even think about purchasing it!
Because this is probably the longest single superhero adventure ever published.
Because it is different from every other superhero adventure ever published.
Because we care about keeping things interesting and shaking things up for players.
Because we're old school enough to want to provide a good read while challenging minds.
Because we care about roleplaying.
Because we care about fun.
1599 to go. Give us the opportunity to give you some stretch goals.
Ladies and Gentlemen, we are three quarters of the way there with a little over two and a half days to go.
You have been promised a villain made of photons, and here he is! Ladies and gentlemen, I give you The Shimmering!
A glorious fusion of man and light, the Shimmering is the unfortunate result of a holographic brainwashing program gone wrong. Not that the man survived the transformation intact...
What's left is more like an insane psychiatrist with violent episodes...
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/blackwyrm/imaginary-friends/posts/38078 8
It's amazing, Imaginary Friends fans! We're almost to 80 percent!!!
We have a whole bunch of cool stuff to tell you!
In an odd twist of fate, it's Canadians First! Shipping to Canada will only be 15 Dollars. I have spoken with our editor, Daring Dave Mattingly, and he has agreed!
In a weirder twist of fate, Elvis Second. King of the Mountain was somehow left off the complete package list. Well, complete to us means complete, so you backers who went for the whole thing will get that included in your rewards. That's all for now. Bring us your friends, your imaginary friends, and show us what you got!
Michael
Oh. And 998 dollars to go!
Well, you guys should have known this one was coming up at some point. Here he is...
Joseph Woletsky, Training Analyst: (A psychoanalyst is a psychiatrist with additional training. A training analyst is a psychoanalyst who trains other psychoanalysts) Joseph is a middle-aged man with salt and pepper hair, a greying beard and mustache, and extensive experience in behavioral analysis and treatment. He originally became a psychiatrist to avoid paying higher professional insurance rates, but has grown to enjoy his job and helping people cope with their psychological problems. Joseph is married, has two children and sends his children to Hebrew School. One of their bar-mitzvahs is coming up, and this is the main thing on his mind. Joseph can be a useful contact for player characters to have in analyzing the behavior of criminals, and can easily provide psychological profiles of many different sorts of people
Yeah, you would figure with all the weird stuff that's going on in this one, that a psychiatrist might be on the list somewhere. Some heroes may need a good one after the adventure is over...
Ladies and Gentlemen, we are 953 dollars away from funded!
That's just 47 dollars from a new villain, 497 dollars from the master villain, and 953 to Doris's Secret!
You may have to wait a little bit once we get to 80 because I might be at work, but I promise you all of your updates for the day as soon as I get home!
With just under two days to go, I know we can make it and bring you one of the biggest superhero adventures ever!
Oh, yeah. And a special Thank You to all the people so far who have come out and purchased the everything package. We'll remind you once again that Everything includes King of the Mountain as well. That just slipped through our typing. It was always our intention to put it in.
Thank you!
Michael
We're at Eighty Percent with a little more than a day to go! First, let me get to our requisite villain update!
I give you Totem, the Chimeric Man!!!!!
Totem is a little cooler than some other shapeshifters in that he can assume pieces of multiple animals at once, so he can become a Frog/Bear/Scorpion or a Fish/Bird/Elephant.
This is weird, but also awesome!
We stand at a great threshold. Only 868 dollars remain until Imaginary Friends is a reality. That sounds weird, too. But also awesome!
Tell everyone you know. You'll get a new surprise at 95 percent, too. A special villain insert outside the usual ten percent tiles. Let's just say that he's a classic with a twist.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/blackwyrm/imaginary-friends/posts
With only 24 hours to go, Imaginary Friends has 748 dollars remaining to get to funded! Show us that you want this project to achieve reality, or at the very least, an imaginary quasi-reality!
You guys have been great so far! We hope you'll find enough additional people to get us over the goal!
Every hour that passes brings us closer to success!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/blackwyrm/imaginary-friends/posts
So here we are! 183 dollars away from revealing the Master Villain of Imaginary Friends, and 623 away from funded!
At 95 percent, the villain Negafire will be revealed! Get us to 90 percent! View Lord Dominus in all of his majestic might!
And at 100 percent, backers get Doris's secret!
It's a good day to be your friend!
It's a great day for Imaginary Friends!
Fund on, true believers! Fund on!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...s/posts/381611
Wow! Talk about an early morning wake up call! You guys have been great, and we owe you a whole slew of updates that will knock your socks off! First, let me introduce our master villian, who has several unique abilities, including body switching, psonic device building, and other unique and devastating mental abilities! I give you Lord Dominus!
Dominus's might doesn't just come from his mind! Dominus is so powerful that it generally takes an entire team of superheroes just to face him. A true world-conquering, jackboot mentalist, he is very rare indeed.
Thank you for your support so far! You guys are amazing and deserve big kudos!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/blackwyrm/imaginary-friends/posts
Ladies and Gentlemen! Allow me to introduce your 95 percent villain! Meet Negafire! Negafire's powers come from his heart, mystically transplanted from an evil witch into his body! He fires blasts of the very Ebon Flame for which the Cult of the Ebon Flame is named! (For those who will be getting a copy of King of the Mountain or already own one, this is a slightly bigger deal!) If Negafire ever truly masters the mystical artifact lodged within his body, he may become one of the mightiest villains of all!
We're only 3 percent away from funded! Thank you to everyone who has supported us so far!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/blackwyrm/imaginary-friends/posts
Ladies and Gentlemen,
We are FUNDED with a little less than 15 hours to go! At this time, we would like to announce our first stretch goal!
Cardboard Heroes!
We will make little cardboard images of villains and agent types (Yes, there are agent types) on a sheet of thick cardstock and add them to the adventure for you to use.
There haven't been cardboard heroes for an adventure in a long time. I think the last product that had them was Alien Enemies! (That's a long time ago.)
Let's get on the ball and get us there!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/blackwyrm/imaginary-friends/posts/38169 2
Ladies and gentlemen, only 12 hours to go until our project ends!
Can you get us to Cardboard Heroes at 6000?
We will have other stretch goals if we make this one, so let's see what we can do!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...s/posts/381736
With only eleven hours to go, we are at 4502.
For 25 dollars added to any tier, you can get one of our Imaginary Friends Tee Shirts. Signed and Numbered backers get one for free.
There are two shirts:
One: The Cover! That gorgeous painting that you see up front on our home page!
Two: Mr. Wumbles, with a picture that looks like the one below. We also put this in announcement 13, but a casual reminder doesn't hurt.
You may add 50 dollars and get both shirts! Sizes above 2x are an extra 5 dollars per size.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/blackwyrm/imaginary-friends/posts
With six hours to go, Cardboard Heroes are on the Horizon! We only need 1148 more to bring you pulse-pounding battlemap tools!
Make Cardboard Heroes for Imaginary Friends a reality! It's always easier to imagine when there's a cardboard hero ready to help you out!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...s/posts/381872
We made a small error! We only have 1232 dollars until we get to Cardboard Heroes! After Cardboard heroes, if we make that, we'll have a new stretch goal for you!
Get some battlemap tools! Get a really tiny cardboard picture of Mr. Wumbles!
Bring it on!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...s/posts/382103
It's not Power Level 9000, but we'll take it! 982 dollars to cardboard heroes with less than an hour to go! Can you get us there, my fine Imaginary Friendlings? (Warning, Friendlings is not a real word, and is not endorsed by the Imaginary Friends team)
The minutes tick by! Show us your commitment to...umm...cardboard!
It's been a pleasure serving you with announcements over the past month. We did it! This product is a reality.
I'd like to thank Dave Mattingly and Jason Walters for putting up with me, and all of our wonderful backers for making this project.
I'd like to thank Sean Fannon for bridging the gap between the writing he used to do and the writing he does now and will do for us.
I'd like to thank Bill Keyes, our layout man and the inspiration for Mr. Wumbles. For Teh Bunneh will kill you in your sleep.
And I'd especially like to thank our art team for giving us enough beautiful pictures to whet your appetites.
So before August First...
We will show you the BUNNY! :)
The next time you look for my name in print, you will be journeying to the center of the Earth. Because many of you demanded it!
Next Product, True Believers....
What lies at the Center of the Earth? Is it truly a roiling ball of molten magma? Or are these lies spun by those who know nothing of the center of the world?
A powerful magical force resides in the rocky depths, one that watches over the hidden land of lizard people below...
His name is The Oligarch! And he determines the rules of magic for the world!
For the Council Shall Rule the World!!!!!
And the Oligarch Shall Rule the Council!!!!
Good luck...