DC Villains #18: The Purification Plague
DC Villains
Episode 18:
"The Purification Plague"
[Inspired by Justice League Task Force #10-12 "The Purification Plague" by Michael Jan Friedman]
Roll Call:
Bucky
Captain Republican
Chemical Lad
Mr. Roboto
Amanda Waller gathered her Squad: "Do you want the bad news, or the worse news?" A group of white supremacists called the Aryan Brigade had broken into a top secret government lab and made off with samples of "Virus X" -- developed years ago as a biological weapon, and then put into storage because it was simply TOO virulent and deadly to ever be deployed. Intelligence indicated that the Brigade planned to modify the virus so that only the so-called "inferior races" would be affected.
To facilitate this, they would need the scientist who worked on the original program, Dr. Maru. In the 1940s, she developed chemical weapons for the Japanese, earning her the nickname "Dr. Poison". After the war, she defected to the U.S. and worked on weapons for us, including Virus X. She was still alive, but long since retired and living in a facility in Florida. The Squad raced down to the location, only to find that the Aryan Brigade was already there, threatening Maru and taking pictures of her old research notes. The Brigade team consisted of Backlash, whose arms were whip-like tentacles, the super-speedy Baroness Blitzkrieg, fire-wielding Heatmonger, and the super-strong Iron Cross.
The Squad concentrated on taking out Blitzkrieg first, but not before she super-swiftly took pictures of Maru's notes and emailed them to her confederates. The other neo-Nazis fell in short order, but the damage was done.
[Loot Drops: Dr. Poison's Pills (Healing), Iron Cross' Belt (Density Increase).]
Maru explained the reason why Virus X was so deadly: It originally came from planet Krypton, and was thus indestructible and incurable. She and her team had successfully modified the virus to affect Earthlings before the program was scrapped, and she believed it would be fairly easy to modify it further to only be harmful to certain races. The trick was, you needed a way to temporarily weaken the virus so it could be manipulated, specifically Kryptonite.
The Squad had previously stolen a large batch of Kryptonite for their ex-boss, the Penguin, who in turn had sold most of it to Lex Luthor. But he'd also kept back some for himself, and the Squad correctly guessed that the Aryan Brigade would go after the Penguin as the easier target. Making a beeline for Gotham City, they returned to their old headquarters, the Penguin's Iceberg Lounge, just in time to interrupt the Brigade's attack. The super-strong Captain Nazi led a team consisting of Bonehead, who's skeleton sprouted lethal bone spikes, Golden Eagle, who's razor-sharp wings were both transport and weapon, and Shadow of War, a cloaked figure who could drain an opponent's energy or psychically induce fear.
This group was tougher than the previous one, and the Squad was hard-pressed, but in the end they managed to defeat the invaders.
[Loot Drops: Captain Nazi's Pistol (Special Weapon), Shadow of War's Cloak (Heightened Defense).]
The Penguin was overjoyed to see his old gang again, until they revealed that they, too were here to take the Kryptonite. Outraged, the Penguin attacked. As battered as the Squad was from their battle with the Aryans, it looked for a moment like the Penguin, with his tricky umbrellas and his flock of trained ravens, might actually take the day. But the power of the Squad was finally too much for him, and they confiscated his supply of Kryptonite.
[Loot Drops: The Penguin's Umbrella (Special Weapon - Gun and Sword, Shield).]
After a bit of "friendly persuasion", the captured Brigade members revealed the location of their main headquarters: a "survivalist" compound in Pine Heights, Nebraska. Buried beneath the mundane-looking compound was a high-tech facility where the virus (and the means of delivering it) were being worked on. When the Squad arrived, they saw what appeared to be glass vials full of Virus X being loaded onto a rocket. Evidently the Brigade had managed to get hold of some Kryptonite after all. With billions of lives at stake, the Squad attacked.
The leader of the Aryan Brigade was the Iron Dictator, an armored madman who believed himself to be the reincarnation of Adolf Hitler. His remaining Brigade members included the energy-powered Blackstarr, the renegade Valkyrie Gundra, the steel-skinned Reichsmark, and the fiery-armored White Dragon.
These proved to be the Squad's toughest foes yet -- Chemical Lad fell to a combination of Iron Dictator's disintegration pistol and Blackstarr's power blasts, and the Dictator managed to mentally dominate Captain Republican into switching sides briefly. But the Squad held on, and one by one the white supremacists fell, until only Blackstarr was left, hiding behind her force field and finally surrendering in humiliation. The rocket was dismantled and the Virus X capsules confiscated. The Aryan Brigade was defeated, their dreams of mass destruction joining their hateful ideology on the ash heap of history.
[Loot Drops: Iron Dictator's Pistol (Disintegration Ray), Reichsmark's Spear (Special Weapon), White Dragon's Armor (Armor, Flame Aura).]
[The player characters earned 3 character points each, giving them a total of 154.]
Episode 18:
"The Purification Plague"
[Inspired by Justice League Task Force #10-12 "The Purification Plague" by Michael Jan Friedman]
Roll Call:
Bucky
Captain Republican
Chemical Lad
Mr. Roboto
Amanda Waller gathered her Squad: "Do you want the bad news, or the worse news?" A group of white supremacists called the Aryan Brigade had broken into a top secret government lab and made off with samples of "Virus X" -- developed years ago as a biological weapon, and then put into storage because it was simply TOO virulent and deadly to ever be deployed. Intelligence indicated that the Brigade planned to modify the virus so that only the so-called "inferior races" would be affected.
To facilitate this, they would need the scientist who worked on the original program, Dr. Maru. In the 1940s, she developed chemical weapons for the Japanese, earning her the nickname "Dr. Poison". After the war, she defected to the U.S. and worked on weapons for us, including Virus X. She was still alive, but long since retired and living in a facility in Florida. The Squad raced down to the location, only to find that the Aryan Brigade was already there, threatening Maru and taking pictures of her old research notes. The Brigade team consisted of Backlash, whose arms were whip-like tentacles, the super-speedy Baroness Blitzkrieg, fire-wielding Heatmonger, and the super-strong Iron Cross.
The Squad concentrated on taking out Blitzkrieg first, but not before she super-swiftly took pictures of Maru's notes and emailed them to her confederates. The other neo-Nazis fell in short order, but the damage was done.
[Loot Drops: Dr. Poison's Pills (Healing), Iron Cross' Belt (Density Increase).]
Maru explained the reason why Virus X was so deadly: It originally came from planet Krypton, and was thus indestructible and incurable. She and her team had successfully modified the virus to affect Earthlings before the program was scrapped, and she believed it would be fairly easy to modify it further to only be harmful to certain races. The trick was, you needed a way to temporarily weaken the virus so it could be manipulated, specifically Kryptonite.
The Squad had previously stolen a large batch of Kryptonite for their ex-boss, the Penguin, who in turn had sold most of it to Lex Luthor. But he'd also kept back some for himself, and the Squad correctly guessed that the Aryan Brigade would go after the Penguin as the easier target. Making a beeline for Gotham City, they returned to their old headquarters, the Penguin's Iceberg Lounge, just in time to interrupt the Brigade's attack. The super-strong Captain Nazi led a team consisting of Bonehead, who's skeleton sprouted lethal bone spikes, Golden Eagle, who's razor-sharp wings were both transport and weapon, and Shadow of War, a cloaked figure who could drain an opponent's energy or psychically induce fear.
This group was tougher than the previous one, and the Squad was hard-pressed, but in the end they managed to defeat the invaders.
[Loot Drops: Captain Nazi's Pistol (Special Weapon), Shadow of War's Cloak (Heightened Defense).]
The Penguin was overjoyed to see his old gang again, until they revealed that they, too were here to take the Kryptonite. Outraged, the Penguin attacked. As battered as the Squad was from their battle with the Aryans, it looked for a moment like the Penguin, with his tricky umbrellas and his flock of trained ravens, might actually take the day. But the power of the Squad was finally too much for him, and they confiscated his supply of Kryptonite.
[Loot Drops: The Penguin's Umbrella (Special Weapon - Gun and Sword, Shield).]
After a bit of "friendly persuasion", the captured Brigade members revealed the location of their main headquarters: a "survivalist" compound in Pine Heights, Nebraska. Buried beneath the mundane-looking compound was a high-tech facility where the virus (and the means of delivering it) were being worked on. When the Squad arrived, they saw what appeared to be glass vials full of Virus X being loaded onto a rocket. Evidently the Brigade had managed to get hold of some Kryptonite after all. With billions of lives at stake, the Squad attacked.
The leader of the Aryan Brigade was the Iron Dictator, an armored madman who believed himself to be the reincarnation of Adolf Hitler. His remaining Brigade members included the energy-powered Blackstarr, the renegade Valkyrie Gundra, the steel-skinned Reichsmark, and the fiery-armored White Dragon.
These proved to be the Squad's toughest foes yet -- Chemical Lad fell to a combination of Iron Dictator's disintegration pistol and Blackstarr's power blasts, and the Dictator managed to mentally dominate Captain Republican into switching sides briefly. But the Squad held on, and one by one the white supremacists fell, until only Blackstarr was left, hiding behind her force field and finally surrendering in humiliation. The rocket was dismantled and the Virus X capsules confiscated. The Aryan Brigade was defeated, their dreams of mass destruction joining their hateful ideology on the ash heap of history.
[Loot Drops: Iron Dictator's Pistol (Disintegration Ray), Reichsmark's Spear (Special Weapon), White Dragon's Armor (Armor, Flame Aura).]
[The player characters earned 3 character points each, giving them a total of 154.]