Pandora's Box - a Powergame adventure

corky.net/dotan/Pandora.html

Pandora's Box
What do you do after all your wishes come true?

A Powergame adventure by Dotan Dimet.

Powergame is the creation and property of Mikko Kauppinen
Details: http://www.uta.fi/~trmika/gameindex.html
Adventure background based on the Powerforce Universe setting, created by Marcelo Sarsur
(msarsur@hotmail.com).

Pandora's Box. 1

Introduction. 2

Prelude. 2

The Plan. 3

What has Happened. 3

The Heroes Arrive. 3

Incidents. 4

Climax and Conclusion. 4

Dramatis Persona. 5

Pandora (Dr. Pandora Winters). 5

Player Characters. 6

Glory (Tracy Truman). 7

Eagle (Sam Campbell): 8

Spook (Julie Stewart). 9

Argus/Night Watchman (Frank Chambers). 10

Goblin / Tengu (Kimiko Miyaki). 11

1/19
El Diablo (Gilberto Hernandez). 12

Cheat Sheet 13

Cheat Sheet 2. 14

The game, as played in IGOR (27th April, 2000): 15

FireFight 15

Subway. 16

Goop. 16

Paranoia. 17

Showdown. 17

References: 18

Introduction
A year ago, energies released by a strange meteor brought mankind to the next evolutionary
step, blessing normal men and women with amazing superhuman powers. Now, a renegade
scientist asks a simple question: why shouldn't everyone have super powers?

At 9AM this morning, each household in a peaceful suburb of Los Angeles received a very
special package.

By 11, the death toll was close to a thousand...

Can you, the world's greatest superheroes, prevent the dawn of the superhuman before
normal mankind becomes extinct?

Prelude

Pandora Winters was a scientist researching the event in which a strange meteor exploded
into the earth's atmosphere, releasing energies that caused certain people to develop
superhuman powers. The main goal of her research was to identify what caused some people
to develop superpowers while others didn't. Her tentative findings are that a unique
combination of irradiation and life-threatening stress is required to unleash a person's
superhuman potential.

Dr. Winters is an idealist. She thinks that superhuman powers are the destiny of the human
race. She thinks that it would only be fair if everyone had these powers.
2/19
Recently, the UN superhero team Powerforce prevented the mad super villain Dr. Kheops from
detonating a nuclear bomb powered by a massive stockpile of Superium (the name given to
the substance composing the strange meteor). The bomb's energies were released in the
atmosphere, once again causing incidents of people developing superpowers. This time, Dr.
Pandora Winters was ready. She observed the event onboard a UN reconnaissance aircraft
hovering above Dr. Kheops suspected headquarters in the Sudan. As the released energies
flooded the skies, she grabbed a parachute and forced open an emergency door, screaming
something incoherent about everyone becoming superhumans now.

The last anyone saw of Dr. Pandora Winters, she was hurtling towards the ground over a
Sudanese desert, wrapped in a collapsed parachute canopy. The pilot managed to regain
control of the aircraft, and all the passengers survived (thanks to the wonders of safety belts)
except for one, who rushed to close the door and was sucked out of the plane. He was later
recovered, having developed superpowers, as Dr. Winters had predicted.

Dr. Winters' plan worked. When she crawled out of the canopy, she found herself inside a
tarpaulin-covered manure heap in a nearby field. Apparently, she has gained a peculiar
superpower, which allows her to make things appear and disappear from inside enclosed
containers (boxes). She quickly used this power to good effect by snatching from under the
UN's nose the remaining stockpile of Superium it recovered from Dr. Kheops' base.

She now intends to put into motion her plan to bring about the true dawn of the superhuman.
She is taking advantage of the recent disbanding of Powerforce (Its leader disappeared in the
fight with Dr. Kheops, others were wiped out in an encounter with a nasty super villain, and yet
others went off into space. Super teams have off days like this).

To create superhumans, she needs the tried and tested combinations of Superium irradiation
and life-threatening terror. A third-world warzone would be ideal, but she'll have to settle for
Long Beach instead….

The Plan
Pandora has developed a set of miniaturized Superium bombs; She'll be releasing them in
intervals from a high-altitude balloon over a major populated area (she tried to get a controlled
release, but couldn't control the Superium chain reaction). She would have preferred a
satellite, but they're too damn expensive.

She picked a heavily populated American city (Los Angeles) as her target. Her plan is to place
as many people as possible in a clearly life-threatening situation just as she unleashes the first
Superium flash. To do this, she's sent as many people as she can manage in Long Beach a
package (a box), which she's used her powers to fill with time bombs (live grenades, actually,
much easier to obtain in big quantities). They will have a few seconds to realize that they're in
a life-threatening situation, which she hopes will be enough to trigger the change. Once the
new superhumans start causing more mayhem, she plans to release another bomb, and

3/19
another as the terror spreads exponentially. Hopefully, the entire population of California will
be transformed by the time she runs out of bombs (another reason for picking California rather
than, say, Kosovo).

What has Happened

The packages got delivered, from 8AM to 9AM - only some households were covered. The
packages were labeled with a return address of "Dept. of Civil Defense". Each package is a
small box with a radio sensor, that sends a signal if the box is opened. Some people opened
the boxes immediately and found them empty. Then the first Superium flash went off, lasting
for maybe 10 minutes. Anyone who opened the package at the time receives a live grenade.
Of these, only some of the people have the terror reaction necessary to trigger super powers.
Some of the grenades go off (others are deactivated by the newly-manifested powers). This
causes other people to open their packages. More grenades go off, causing more super
humans. People run out to the street, terrified. Some manifest powers, others suspect them of
being super villains, the situation escalates, fights break out, super humans run around,
spreading more terror.

Half an hour into this, things grow to a peak, and another Superium flash is triggered. By this
time, we don't need the grenades: the super humans are already causing enough life-
threatening situations. More super humans manifest. A chain reaction is in place.

Meanwhile, Pandora is on the scene, spreading some more terror with her powers but mostly
just observing and timing further flashes.

The Heroes Arrive

The heroes are summoned to the scene by SPICE, a small independent Federal body which
coordinates between the different branches of the government (NSA, Justice Department, Civil
Guard) and available superheroes. SPICE is under scrutiny by the UN (International treaties
forbid national governments from organizing their own super-teams, due to suspicion that
these will rapidly develop into "Super-Armies"), but so far the superheroes that work with it
haven't joined forces on a regular basis.

Entering the city, they will see signs of devastation.

There's a huge pile-up on the Freeway, a pylon has been knocked down and hovers on the
edge. Police are blocking traffic and getting people out of their cars. Presumably, the heroes
move further into the city, while panicked people stream out.

Incidents

4/19
These are things the heroes might possibly run into as they explore the devastated area of
Long Beach. These are simply suggestions. See the description of play below for one possible
set of incidents.

A brick who knocked a building down on top of himself.

Pamela Anderson and Cindy Crawford run out a building, with a puzzled man running
out after them, pudgy and with thinning hair, wondering where they're going - he's got
the amazing power to teleport beautiful women right to him. (Could use him to catch
Pandora?)

A woman who entered the daily soaps - empty house, three televisions showing the
same show, all the handsome male leads fawning over this plain looking woman in a
tatty bathrobe.

People with "Death Vision", who can kill people with a look, or zap them, or shoot them
with their fingers - "bang, you're dead!" - having a big shoot out in midtown…

Musclemen with super strength hurling busses at each other - crushed busses, people
dead with shock, palm prints in the metal.

· A giant sized person, stomping on cars, hiding on a rooftop.

· Someone with a supersonic scream shattering windows.

· A flame person, burning boats in the harbor.

· A squadron of flying teenagers, gang members or something, they swarm like

vultures, buzzing people in the street, spraying graffiti, skywriting, raining down trash on
passers-by.

· Indestructible people, bulletproof mad gunmen.

· A shapeshifting couple, a young radical couple with a lot of tattoos & piercings,
making love in a thousand configurations, crawling through rain gutters & air-conditioning
vents to take revenge on their annoying neighbors.

· Invisible people running around, driving cars, and causing road accidents.

Climax and Conclusion

Eventually the heroes should discover Dr. Pandora Winters and confront her; They will learn
about the high-altitude weather balloon she has set up to drop Superium bombs over the city,
and should disable it.

It would be good if the super-beings the heroes seem to threaten to spread more havoc into
the surrounding area, perhaps launching themselves towards a densely populated area as
another bomb is about to go off. This will force the heroes to split into teams (one to try and
5/19
stop the bombs, the other to stop the metahuman rampage).

Dramatis Persona

Pandora (Dr. Pandora Winters)

Attributes: Agility 1, Strength 1, Health 1, Charisma 1, Wits 2, Psyche 1,
Protection 1, Speed 1

Superpowers: "Schroedinger's Boxes" - Matter Transmission 5

Good Things, Bad Things and Vulnerabilities: Special Knowledge: Super-humans,

Vulnerability: power works only on enclosed objects (to and from boxes).

Skills: Multi-disciplinary scientist: Psychology, Quantum Physics, Astronomy, Geology,

Genetics, Molecular Engineering. Has a deep knowledge of superheroes and villains, their
powers and probable origins. Is quite skilled in Electronics & mechanics, designing and
building equipment.

Equipment: Coat, sunglasses. Carries a few small boxes (matchboxes, cigarette packs) & a
cheap side-bag with her (for manifesting surprises). Her Superium bomb armed weather
balloon isn't radio controlled, it's completely automatic.

Appearance: Small thin English woman in her late Thirties with very fair long blond hair tied
back in a simple ponytail; green eyes, serious expression. Wears military-style khaki trousers
(lots of pockets), white T-Shirt, long brown coat and sunglasses.

Personality: A cynical and self-berating sense of humor covers fierce determination and a
burning fanaticism. Pandora is a remarkably accomplished woman who has had to struggle a
lot to get to the position she had as a top UN researcher. She threw all that away (and risked
her life) because of her determination that everyone should have a chance to get
superpowers. In her own way, she's playing as grand a game as any would-be world-
dominating megalomaniac: She wants to change the world, and she wants power to belong to
everyone, not to restricted elite groups. She's targeting California because a lot of influential
people live there, and might further her cause while preventing governments from using her
process to create their own super-armies.

Background: (Duplicated from the adventure's prelude, actually) Pandora Winters was a
scientist researching the event in which a strange meteor exploded into the earth's
atmosphere, releasing energies which caused certain people to develop superhuman powers.
The main goal of her research was to identify what caused some people to develop
superpowers while others didn't. Her tentative findings are that a unique combination of
irradiation and life-threatening stress is required to unleash a person's superhuman potential.

Dr. Winters is an idealist. She thinks that superhuman powers are the destiny of the human
race. She thinks that it would only be fair if everyone had these powers.
6/19
Recently, the UN superhero team Powerforce prevented the mad super villain Dr. Kheops from
detonating a nuclear bomb powered by a massive stockpile of Superium (the name given to
the substance composing the strange meteor). The bomb's energies were released in the
atmosphere, once again causing incidents of people developing superpowers. This time, Dr.
Pandora Winters was ready. She observed the event onboard a UN reconnaissance aircraft
hovering above Dr. Kheops suspected headquarters in the Sudan. As the released energies
flooded the skies, she grabbed a parachute and forced open an emergency door, screaming
something incoherent about everyone becoming superhumans now.

The last anyone saw of Dr. Pandora Winters, she was hurtling towards the ground over a
Sudanese desert, wrapped in a collapsed parachute canopy. The pilot managed to regain
control of the aircraft, and all the passengers survived (thanks to the wonders of safety belts)
except for one, who rushed to close the door and was sucked out of the plane. He was later
recovered, having developed superpowers, as Dr. Winters had predicted.

Dr. Winters' plan worked. When she crawled out of the canopy, she found herself inside a
tarpaulin-covered manure heap in a nearby field. Apparently, she has gained a peculiar
superpower, which allows her to make things appear and disappear from inside enclosed
containers (boxes). She quickly used this power to good effect by snatching from under the
UN's nose the remaining stockpile of Superium it recovered from Dr. Kheops' base.

She now intends to put into motion her plan to bring about the true dawn of the superhuman.

Player Characters

Glory (Tracy Truman)

Attributes: Agility 1, Strength 1, Health 1, Charisma 2, Wits 1, Psyche 1,
Protection 1, Speed 1

Superpowers: Absorb Energy 4, Release Energy 4, Remarkable Charisma.

Good Things, Bad Things and Vulnerabilities: Famous, Connections (Film Industry) (2
Good Things left over).

Skills: Acting, Modeling, Wardrobe, Make-up. Has a good knowledge of the Los Angeles Area,
Hollywood & the film Industry. Familiar with classic movie trivia (a hobby). Speaks Spanish &
French, but not too fluently.

Equipment: Small white handbag with cellular phone, credit cards, make-up kit, gum, tissue.
Drives a well-kept vintage sixties pink Cadillac with roll-down roof.
7/19
Appearance: Tall statuesque woman in her mid twenties, shoulder length platinum hair, blue
eyes. Wears a strapless white dress, white satin evening gloves reaching over her elbows,
white high-heel shoes, nylon stockings, a white scarf & black sunglasses.

Personality: Tracy is a big fan of past movie stars, and she's modeled her look on Marilyn
Monroe; She dislikes more "superheroic" costumes (spandex and masks) because they remind
her too much of her B movie past. Tracy originally became a superhero to become famous and
advance her movie career, but she's found she enjoys it more than she wants to be a movie
star. Saving lives and helping people is something that gives her real satisfaction, and makes
acting seem very shallow and silly in comparison.

Background: Tracy Truman was a struggling Hollywood actress who dreamed of being Grace
Kelly or Marlyn Monroe, but found herself trapped in B-Movie roles (generally, a stripper or a
monster's victim, sometimes both). Her career took an unexpected turn when she was involved
in a terrible car wreck. Lying bleeding in a death trap of mangled metal with the gas tank about
to ignite, she saw the sky light up as the Superium meteorite hit the earth. The next thing she
knew, she was lying amid the debris of the exploded car, unharmed. Tracy soon discovered
that she had developed the power to absorb any kind of energy (heat, light, kinetic) and
release it again at will. She now uses her powers in a new career as "Hollywood's Superhero",
mostly fighting earthquakes and fires. As a superhero, she's become quite a local celebrity,
and is constantly confronting gossip about her "sordid" past. She lives with her three year old
daughter (she won't say anything about the father) and a roommate (Theresa, a struggling
scriptwriter).

Eagle (Sam Campbell):

Attributes: Agility 3, Strength 2, Health 1, Charisma 1, Wits 3, Psyche 1,

Protection 1, Speed 1

Superpowers: Amplified Agility, Amplified Wits, Flight 5.

Good Things, Bad Things and Vulnerabilities: Connections (US Government), Remarkable
Strength, Gadget Vulnerability: Flight is dependant on Flight Harness.

Skills: Airforce Pilot (Jets, props, Helicopters), Martial Arts (Tae Kwan Do), Firearms
(Handguns), Airborne guns. Speaks English & Spanish, a little Russian and Arabic.

Equipment: Flight Harness with extendable metal "wings" (about a 10 meter wingspan in full
extension, used when flying at top speeds); Two Colt 45 automatic pistols in holsters on his
belt, a survival knife in a sheath on his boot. Strapped on his back beneath his flight harness is
an emergency pack with first-aid equipment, chocolate and flares. Also carries an oxygen
mask and tank for high-altitude flying.
8/19
Appearance: Tall athletic Caucasian man in his mid-twenties. Light brown hair, blue eyes,
strong jaw. When flying, wears a navy-blue costume, consisting of a modified flight jacket with
armor padding, blue trousers & boots. Wears a blue Aviator's cap, goggles and a red scarf.
The front of his jacket is adorned with a five-pointed star in one corner, trailing a red and white
stripe that cuts upwards across the jacket.

Personality: Sam is a responsible and levelheaded person who reacts swiftly and efficiently in
crisis situations. However, he is also a daredevil and a thrill-seeker, who won't hesitate to take
risks, even when they do not seem justified. He is generally a bit too reckless to get on with
most authority figures. Sam is a patriot, and has served his country selflessly, but he's not a
fanatic. He will go to great effort to protect civilians, but always keeps the bigger picture in
mind, and is willing to make the hard choices one expects from a military man.

Background: Sam Campbell was an Airforce pilot who was assigned to fly a reconnaissance
mission on the night the Superium meteor crashed to the Earth. He flew an experimental
supersonic jet to where the meteor was supposed to land, and as the meteor exploded, he lost
control of the Aircraft and crashed. Amazingly, he survived, and while convalescing in a
military hospital, he discovered he had developed superhuman agility and reactions. The
military decided to train Sam as a covert operative, but after a few operations, his superiors
became convinced that his personal style was too flamboyant for covert work. Instead, he was
offered the option of becoming the US government's own Superhero. Sam was equipped a
special flight harness of unknown origin (his guess is that it's recovered alien technology, but
no one tells him anything)and given the codename "Eagle". He is assigned to SPICE, a small
independent Federal body which coordinates between the different branches of the
government (NSA, Justice Department, Civil Guard) and available superheroes. Eagle's work
mostly involves fighting crime and terrorism within the borders of the USA. Recently, he
crossed paths with a tragic vigilante, the woman called Spook, and found himself both touched
and smitten with her.

Spook (Julie Stewart)

Attributes: Agility 2, Strength 1, Health 1, Charisma 1, Wits 1, Psyche 1,

Protection 1, Speed 1

Superpowers: Invisibility 4, Intangibility 4, Amplified Agility.

Good Things, Bad Things and Vulnerabilities: Drug Addiction, Connections (Street life) (4
good things to spend).

Skills: Lockpicking, Streetwise, familiar with LA underworld, good knowledge of Drugs.

9/19
Equipment: Handgun, drug stash (for personal use).

Appearance: Short, thin Caucasian woman in her early Twenties, pale skin and short dark
hair, blue eyes. Usually wears sneakers, baggy white trousers and a sleeveless hooded sports
jacket with the hood up. Spook keeps parts of herself invisible as a disguise and for shock
effect - either see-through "holes" or gaps in her arms and face, or areas where layers of her
body are invisible, giving them a "skinned" look - making her face a naked skull, for example.

Personality: Quiet, edgy, paranoid, depressive, reckless. Julie has little in the world she cares
about, and is driven by anger and fear to lash out savagely against the mob which killed her
family and lover. She is perversely imaginative, for example using her powers to make parts of
her body invisible (or only certain layers - revealing muscle and bone) as a cheap scare trick.
Behind her hard exterior, she is very compassionate, able to show empathy to a street kid, a
bum, a junkie or even a drug dealer. She will use violent force only against known killers or
brutal bastards. A new romance with Eagle has rekindled some tenderness in her.

Background: Last year Julie Stewart and her boyfriend were both unemployed drug addicts
working for the local mob as flunkies, couriers and errand-runners. Desperate to get out of this
dead-end life, Julie and her boyfriend stole 20 Thousand dollars from their boss and made a
break for it. He caught up with them in Nevada, at the home of Julie's sister's. Julie came back
from buying cigarettes and found a mob hit squad waiting. Her sister, her husband and
daughter had been murdered, her boyfriend was dead from a lethal overdose and a mob hit
squad was waiting. The boyfriend had shown them where the money was hidden, so there was
nothing they wanted from her. They just sat her down on the couch and placed a live grenade
on her lap. Julie stared at it and wished she would just disappear. She did, just as the grenade
exploded and the house began burning. The dawn of the Superium had taken place a month
earlier, but this was the first time Julie manifested any special abilities: She could make herself
and objects she touches (up to about 10 kgs of extra mass) invisible and/or intangible.
Officially dead, Julie became the fearsome vigilante called Spook, who terrorizes the LA
underworld. Recently, her activities lead her to cross paths with Eagle, a crimefighter with ties
to the government. Eagle's compassion towards her has touched a part of Spook she had
considered dead, and they are cautiously developing an odd romance.

Argus/Night Watchman (Frank Chambers)

Attributes: Agility 1+1, Strength 1, Health 1, Charisma 1, Wits 1+1, Psyche 2,

Protection 1, Speed 1

Superpowers: Telepathy 4, Telekinesis 4, Amplified Psyche.

10/19
Good Things, Bad Things and Vulnerabilities: Doesn't sleep, agile, witty, Connections
(Media).

Skills: Journalism, Research, Streetwise, Lecturing. Speaks quite good Spanish and is slightly
familiar with a dozen immigrant languages - Portuguese, French, Russian, Korean, Chinese,
Japanese, Arabic.

Equipment: Raincoat, small tape-recorder, Pipe.

Appearance: Tall Black man in his early forties. Very short hair, receding from his forehead,
going gray at the sides. Big sad black eyes. Wears a tan brown raincoat, loose baggy gray
trousers, and a light blue button shirt. Wears a badge (pin) with an eye on it, pinned to his coat.
Looks a bit like the CBS logo.

Personality: Argus worries all the time. He worries because he knows pretty much everything.
He reads peoples' minds constantly, learns their secrets and problems, and uses his
Telekinetic power to correct it - punishing the guilty, helping the victims. Argus prefers to work
discreetly, keeping his anonymity. He is a reluctant superhero, and worried about his health,
his wife and his daughter. He works out religiously since his heart attack. He suffers from
insomnia, caused by what is practically an addiction to reading people's minds and worrying
about their problems. Frank has a driver's license but never uses it, because he prefers
meeting people on public transportation. In conversation, he is an excellent listener, quiet but
offering wise advice.

Background: Frank Chambers used to be a newspaper reporter, covering social issues, who
had grown bitter and depressed with how ineffectual he was at changing things and helping
people. He finally quit the paper and wrote a book. He currently makes a living lecturing.
Shortly after he turned forty, he woke up one night with a heart attack. As he felt himself about
to die, a strange light shone in from the window and he found himself restarting his heart with
the force of his will. Over the weeks after the dawn of the Superium, he discovered he could
hear thoughts. In fact, it was almost impossible for him not to hear them. He began to lose
sleep, eventually finding himself lying awake in bed beside his sleeping wife, listening to the
world's problems. Because of his wife and daughter, Frank was never willing to risk his life and
join a super-team, but he finds he is unable to stop righting wrongs.

Goblin / Tengu (Kimiko Miyaki)

Attributes: Agility 2, Strength 1, Health 1, Charisma 1, Wits 1, Psyche 1,

Protection 1, Speed 1

Superpowers: Amplified Agility, Shapeshift 5, Regeneration 3

11/19
Good Things, Bad Things and Vulnerabilities:

Skills: Art, Computer graphics, Aikido, Flower Arrangement. Speaks fluent Japanese &
English.

Equipment: Nothing. Her body is her instrument…

Appearance: Japanese woman in her early twenties (but looks younger), long straight black
hair. When not pretending to be a normal person, she usually goes naked, because she can
change her skin into any costume she can imagine. Usually she appears bright red with
intricate colored swirls hiding her naughty bits and with big pointy ears. Her hair color (and
shape!) also changes with her mood.

Personality: Kimiko was raised her whole life to be quiet and demure; When pretending to be
normal, she seems polite, quiet and shy. Her identity as Goblin gives her an escape valve, and
when she assumes it she is wild, reckless and fun-loving, knowing that little can harm her. She
is creative and imaginative (in either identity), but as Goblin she prefers everything loud and
flashy, while Kimiko is almost annoying with her subdued good taste. Despite the noise, even
as Goblin she is clearly a good and caring person. She is (obviously) a huge Manga fan.

Background: The daughter of a Japanese businessman, Kimiko moved with her parents to
America when she was 12. She's adapted to American culture quite quickly. Currently she is
studying graphic design and animation in LA, living in an apartment of her own (Daddy pays
the rent, although she also works teaching Japanese, doing freelance design and making
special floral arrangements for a local stylist). Kimiko's powers manifested while on a home
visit to Tokyo, a month after the Dawn of the Superium, when she was caught in the subway
during a terrorist bomb threat. Terrified masses streamed for the exits, trampling people
underneath. Several people died, but Kimiko didn't. She pushed the broken bones back into
place, and began exploring what had happened to her. After discovering the full extent of her
shapeshifting abilities, she decided to create a new identity, as the supervillainess Tengu
(Goblin, in Japanese). However, after the ease of robbing a few banks and playing pranks on
some cops, she decided she was too nice for this line of work, and became a good guy. So far,
rescuing cats from trees, lost teenagers from cliffs and beached whales is all she's really done,
but she feels better with this than with robbing banks.

El Diablo (Gilberto Hernandez)

Attributes: Agility 2, Strength 4, Health 1+1, Charisma 1, Wits 1+1, Psyche 1,

Protection 3, Speed 1

Superpowers: Flame Breath 3, Amplified Strength and Protection, Remarkable Agility.

12/19
Good Things, Bad Things and Vulnerabilities: Connections (Street Gangs).

Skills: Martial Artist (Muay Thai), Wrestling, Boxing, Fencing, Acrobatics, Car mechanic,
Spanish, Protugese, French, Streetwise, Dancing.

Equipment: Big red car, mechanics tools, police radio.

Appearance: Muscular latin man in his mid twenties, slick “Elvis” haircut. In costume, wears a
full face red mask and skintight red costume without sleeves, part spandex and part latex.
Strangely enough, he doesn’t seem to sweat half as much as he ought to in it.

Personality: Gilberto is a good honest guy who tries to live up to high ideals. He’s very
concerned about honor and being a gentleman, and he’s also very macho, so his attitude to
women is slightly old-fashioned. His heros are Zorro, John Wayne and the young Elvis.

Background: Gilberto grew up in the barrios of Los Angeles, a good kid who just wanted to
kep his nose clean, get an honest job, a girl and a car. However, when local mobsters running
a protection racket put their eye on his dad’s garage, they came head to head with Gilberto’s
honor and he ended up beaten within an inch of his life inside a burning garage.

Just then, the Dawn of the Superium hit. Gilberto survived the fire and clawed his way out of
the wreckage, prepared to wreak a terrible revenge on the hoodlums who did this to him.

To protect his family, he faked his death and took a secret identity, based on the mexican
wrestling heros of his childhood. As El Diablo, he smashed the protection rackets and sowed
terror in the heart of gangsters throughout the neighbourhood, who view him as a supernatural
figure, a true devil.

Gilberto has since relocated to San Diego, where he works in a car repair shop. He makes
regular visits to LA, both to visit his family and to continue his work in cleaning the barrios from
crime, particularly drugs and protection.

Cheat Sheet
Pandora (Dr. Pandora Winters):

Agility 1, Strength 1, Health 1, Charisma 1, Wits 2, Psyche 1, Protection 1, Speed 1

"Schroedinger's Boxes" - Matter Transmission 5

Glory (Tracy Truman):

Agility 1, Strength 1, Health 1, Charisma 2, Wits 1, Psyche 1, Protection 1, Speed 1

Absorb Energy 4, Release Energy 4, Remarkable Charisma.

13/19
Goblin / Tengu (Kimiko Miyaki):

Agility 2, Strength 1, Health 1, Charisma 1, Wits 1, Psyche 1, Protection 1, Speed 1

Amplified Agility, Shapeshift 5, Regeneration 3

Spook (Julie Stewart):

Agility 2, Strength 1, Health 1, Charisma 1, Wits 1, Psyche 1, Protection 1, Speed 1

Invisibility 4, Intangibility 4, Amplified Agility.

Eagle (Sam Campbell):

Agility 3, Strength 2, Health 1, Charisma 1, Wits 3, Psyche 1, Protection 1, Speed 1

Amplified Agility, Amplified Wits, Flight 5.

Argus/Night Watchman (Frank Chambers):

Agility 1+1, Strength 1, Health 1, Charisma 1, Wits 1+1, Psyche 2, Protection 1, Speed 1

Telepathy 4, Telekinesis 4, Amplified Psyche.

Cheat Sheet 2

Chimera (Carol Martin)

Agility 1, Strength 3, Health 1, Charisma 1, Wits 1, Psyche 1, Protection 3, Speed 1

Stretching 4, Amplified Toughness & Strength.

Shock (Jimmy Mendez)

Agility 1, Strength 1, Health 1, Charisma 1, Wits 1, Psyche 1, Protection 1, Speed 1

Electric Bolts 4, Control Machines 3, Electromagnetic Shield 3

DeathBoy (Tim Bains)

Spotty Blond 19 year old student

Agility 1, Strength 1, Health 1, Charisma 1, Wits 1, Psyche 1,

Protection 1, Speed 1

Death Beams 4, Force Shield 4, Flight 2

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Kid Quake (Felipe Ramos)

17 year old latin kid

Agility 1, Strength 1, Health 1, Charisma 1, Wits 1, Psyche 1,

Protection 3, Speed 4

Blast 3 (effect is big muddafucking gun that keeps popping into his hands), Amplified
toughness and speed.

AirRaid (Tessa Williams)

24 year old black

Agility 1, Strength 1, Health 1, Charisma 1, Wits 1, Psyche 1,

Protection 1, Speed 1

Flight 4, Sonic Scream 4, Sense Vibrations 2

The game, as played in IGOR (27 th April, 2000):

The game was run at IGOR (Israeli Gathering of RolePlayers) on the 27th of April 2000, during
the 2nd round.

The characters are going about their daily business: Frank & Tracy taking their daughters to
school, Sam eating breakfast and going to SPICE HQ to train operatives in martial arts, Kimiko
attending class, Julie in a diner. Characters who were outdoors had a chance on noticing a
strange flash in the sky, very high above. They start hearing reports of a shooting or bombing
incident in a mall in Long Beach. Reports are confused, mentioning multiple incidents in
several places, multiple wounded and dead. There are reports of traffic congestion on
highways going through the area, massive pile-ups, trouble in rescue operations. A TV report
shows images of a collapsed building. A perception (Wits) check let them notice a human
handprint impressed on a concrete support beam.

They speedily hurried to Long Beach, passing the highway pileup, evacuation operations,
refugees, and making their way down the broadwalk or main street, where they find deserted
streets, smashed and damaged cars, and plenty of corpses.

They could see smoke rising from the area of the mall/subway station, pick up psychic
impressions of wounded and hurt people nearby. They found an overturned bus filled with
dead people. On the pavement beside it, a suit of clothes was carefully arranged, as if the
person wearing it had simply evaporated (these are the "remains" of Smog, described below).
On Television sets in stores, a Soap Opera was running, showing a plain-looking woman in a
dressing gown being admired by handsome young men with perfect teeth.

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FireFight
Then shots were fired at them. Tengu morphed into a snake, Spook turned invisible (and
intangible) and they both began moving towards the area where the shots had originated.
Argus picked up a mental impression from the shooter (Kid Quake).

Then shots were fired again, from another, far apart position. Argus realized this was a single
gunman. Glory blasted the gunman twice, and both Spook and Eagle fired at him, but he was
only slightly fazed (note: PowerGame lethality has dropped drastically!).

Argus pinned the gunman in a telekinetic grip while Tengu noticed another figure approaching,
a spotty-faced blond youth floating in a glowing sphere. The youth fired an energy blast from
his eyes at a mailbox as he approached, incinerating it. Tengu approached him and he fired on
her, shouting "Die, Bitch!". I believe she ducked.

Meanwhile, Eagle rammed the telekinetically-trapped gunman, slamming his shoulder into the
guy's jaw. The punk went out like a light, and his gun dissappeared.

Tengu (back in her Tengu-shape again) morphed an arm to be long and strong and hurled a
rock at the guy in the floating sphere (DeathBoy). The rock penetrated the force bubble, hit the
guy and dropped to the ground, fazing him.

Spook decided to take more drastic action. Rushing towards DeathBoy, she performed an
acrobatic leap up to his level, stuck her intangible arm and pistol into his force sphere, and shot
him in the gut. Badly wounded, DeathBoy passed out (deactivating his force field and flight)
and dropped to the pavement. Eagle bandaged him.

Subway
Argus scanned the area with telepathy and picked up a terrifying image, a woman cowering in
a locked apartment being attacked by some amorphous tentacled entity crawling out of a
ventilation duct. The others heard her screams and Eagle flew off to investigate. Argus sensed
the woman's death.

Tengu changed into a bird and rose up to survey the area. She looked towards the transit mall
and saw a giant naked man waving a bus. They rushed towards the mall.

Using Telepathy, Argus calms the giant (Beanstalk), who is in fierce pain and suffers from
delusions of having insects swarming all around him. The doors of the mall are blocked with a
smashed car. Glory tries to blast the car aside, and succeeds on her second attempt. Tengu
changes into the form of a pigeon and flies into the mall through a ventilation entrance. The
mall is deserted, but there are people trapped in the subway station below. Argus, Spook,
Glory and Tengu meet at the subway platform, and find the subway train has derailed, with a
partially crushed compartment blocking the entrance to the tunnel where the other cars are
stuck. Wounded and helpless people are trapped in all the subway cars.

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Tengu morphs into a strong form and rips off the door of the first (derailed) car; the heroes help
people off onto the platform. A man is trapped with his legs crushed under twisted metal in the
corner of the compartment; Spook uses her powers to dematerialize the piece he's pinned
under, freeing him. Argus uses telekinesis to move the derailed car away from the tunnel
mouth, and to pull the other cars out, allowing the remaining people to escape.

The heroes head up to ground level and escort the rescued people out onto the street and
towards the evacuation forces. As the ragged crowd moves down the street, the heroes notice
a strange flash in the sky and then a car explodes as the crowd walks past it. However, Glory
manages to use her power and absorbs the energy of the explosion, preventing anyone from
getting hurt.

Goop
Meanwhile, Eagle has found the source of the screaming heard earlier (the house where the
woman as murdered by goo oozing from a ventilation shaft). It’s a four story building with a
manicured front lawn and tidy little apartments, clean and trimmed and kitchy. However, the
top floor has a loft with black-painted interiors and messy, gothic style decor, and a homemade
sign hanging from the window advertising "Tattoos and Piercings". As he circles the building,
Eagle finds people in one of the flats. A young girl is screaming in terror on the living room
couch as a middle aged man (probably her father) is being strangled to death by an
amorphous blob of skin-colored goop (Chimera).

Crashing through the living room window, Eagle confronts the goop, aiming his pistols at it,
ordering it to cease and desist, and offering it chocolate in English and Spanish. Perplexed, the
goop seems to loosen its hold on the middle-aged man, and turn its attention to Eagle. An eye
appears on the amorphous surface, joined by another, and then by another pair of eyes drifting
up towards it. Around the two pairs of eyes, features resolve out of the goop, forming male and
female faces arranged 180 degrees to each other, sharing a single mouth. The goop bellows
and lunges towards Eagle.

Eagle punches (or shoots, I don't recall) at an eye, but has little effect. He finds himself
wrestling with the goop, which threatens to engulf him. However, once he is sure that the goop
has left its original victim alone and is now focused on him, he triggers his flight harness and
flies out of the room at top speed, heading directly for the Pacific Ocean, enveloped in goop.

Meanwhile, Argus has picked up that Eagle is in trouble, and the others have headed his way.
Tengu and Argus fly up the side of the building just as Eagle hurtles out at top speed, gaining
altitude and streaking out of sight, wrapped in liquid skin. However, while they scratch their
heads, Glory spots four other flying figures approaching rapidly from the North.

Paranoia
The figures are those of a young black woman (AirRaid), a being of living smoke (Smog), and
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an overweight woman in a pink leisure suit with bright red hair (Susan Schwartz) being carried
by a winged blond man resembling an Angel (Gabriel). Tengu flies up to meet them (in her
Tengu shape, but with wings added), but Argus detects that the group is under the psychic
control of the red-haired woman. The red-haired woman, Susan Schwartz, is a paranoid
certain that they are either violent monsters or evil government agents who are responsible for
all these mutations.

Argus tries to calm Schwartz telepathically, but this just fuels her paranoia. Tengu tries to
behave in a conciliatory, non-threatening way and to persuade Schwartz that she means her
no harm. However, Schwartz commands her mental slaves to attack the group.

AirRaid hits Glory with a sonic blast, but Glory absorbs the sound energy and tosses it right
back at her, K.O.ing her quickly. Next Smog made his move on her, but with a daring stunt,
Glory used her ability to project energy and created a vortex to trap the smoky superhuman.

(I had conceived of Glory as able to absorb/release kinetic energy. A less liberal interpretation
of her powers, or stronger limits on what powers can or can not be defined, would have made
the player's life more difficult).

Eventually, the group overcame Susan Schwartz’s gang, probably by Argus using telekinesis
to pin the flying man’s wings and causing him to drop Ms. Schwartz. Tengu tried to grab her
and save her from the fall, but failed. Without her leadership, the rest of the gang quickly
dispersed.

Showdown
Meanwhile, Eagle is over the Ocean, covered with goop (Chimera). He rotates at high speed,
exerting a powerful centrifugal force that throws the shapeshifter off of him and into the sea
below. He turns around and flies back to the embattled city.

Passing over the city from above, he spots someone at the roof of a tall building (the civic
center, I think). Zooming towards the figure, he confronts Pandora Winters, and manages to
stop her from ducking into the building.

He contacts Argus telepathically, and the rest of the gang converges on Pandora. Argus uses
his telepathy to discover her dastardly plot. The heroes learn she has an high-altitude balloon
over the area, dropping miniature superium bombs that explode in the atmosphere. This (+
stress) is what is turning people into metahumans.

Pandora pulls out a matchbox and opens it, releasing a blinding cloud of smoke. Under its
cover, she makes her getaway. The heroes are left to stop the balloon from releasing any
further bombs. Eagle and Argus fly up and disable the bombs, causing them to explode
harmlessly over the ocean (or simply diabling their mechanism and crashing the balloon into
the ocean.

The End.
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References:

Powergame is the creation and property of Mikko Kauppinen and can be found at:
http://www.uta.fi/~trmika/gameindex.html.
The setting of this adventure is the Powerforce Universe, created by Marcelo Sarsur,
(msarsur@hotmail.com), which is available at: http://powerforce.tripod.com.

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