Two weeks after the events of chapter 4, all characters have received certified letters confirming their licenses have been approved.
Another text message goes out to everyone, but this time from Vinny. “Meet @ Donut shop @ noon – important surprise”.
When everyone arrives he seems very excited and asks them to stand in the parking lot a few doors down from the donut shop in front of two defunct businesses whose signs reading “D-Licious Sweets” and “Chester’s Vape Shop” are still hanging. Vinny says to wait as he runs around toward the back of the shopping center; he re-appears shortly on the roof above the signs. He addresses the group:
“So I know a guy who owes me a favor who knows a guy who owes him a favor. Swap a few favors around and I find a sweet deal on some commercially-zoned real estate. When I saw the signs I knew it had to be karmet or kisma or whatever they call it.”
“So without further ado, I present to you” – <points his gun at the 1st sign and blasts away everything after ‘D-Li’>
“our-” <blasts “Che” off second sign>
“headquarters!” <blasts everything after S on 2nd sign>
BusyBody: “I don’t think the apostrophe belongs.”
<Vinny fires again and removes apostrophe.>
“Like I said – our new headquarters! Eh? Eh? I know a guy in construction, owes me a favor. We get the middle wall taken out and open up the space on the cheap. Get some tables and chairs, leave the windows painted over and the front doors locked and people will keep thinking it’s unoccupied space!”
<BB is skeptical.> (If a player doesn’t say something similar first): “A superhero base in a strip mall? I don’t think that’s how it’s normally done.”
“Come on, give it a try! We can save up for a mini-fridge, and get a computer so we can find out about super-villains in the area by Googling them! Look, try it for a few months, and if it doesn’t work out I know a guy who’s looking for a place to put up an ice cream parlor. I’ll sell to him at cost and then he’ll owe me a favor.”
BB: “And the name, D-Listers… are we really going to call ourselves that? If we’re going to be a real team, can’t we come up with something better?”
Vinny: “That’s… uh, that’s actually a good point, but, see, here’s the thing… I already spoke to Lt. Starks this morning and state, county, and city police issued a joint press release saying they looked forward to a productive relationship with the new super-team, the D-Listers.”
BB: “Well, hopefully nobody was paying attention so there’s still time to change it without confusing anyone.”
At this point there’s a BANG from downtown, loud enough to hear where characters are, followed by a distant alarm sound. As characters climb into the BBMobile to investigate it, they hear police sirens, followed shortly by the echoes of gunshots.
They arrive downtown to find police squad cars cordoning off most of broad street, surrounding the corner bank just past the Irish pub. Caustic, Jag, & 3 others are there. As chars approach, passersby call out “look, it’s the D-Listers!” They notice the Everett Theater has “Welcome to M-Town, D-Listers” on the marquee.
A police sgt approaches: “Glad to see you, D-Listers! We’re in a bad spot here – I’ve got three of my men down and too many civilian gawkers in the area. Can you take on the supes and give us cover to clear away the civilians and the wounded?”
At this point Caustic monologues loudly. “We meet again, D-Listers!” (BB: “We’re not called – !”) “You already know me, Madam- no… Lady Caustic, and my familiar Jaggoleth. But now meet my partners, Dredge, Travesty, and Bombardier!” (“Bombar-dee-ay!” he says in a bad fake french accent.)
On Vinny’s first action he’ll approach close enough to fire at Caustic. “Hey! I thought we’d agreed to stay off each other’s turf!” <fires>
“Sorry, but I promised my new friends here that I’d hit the town with them!” (attacks him)
“How is this relationship supposed to work if we can’t respect each others’ boundaries?” <Fires>
All 4 BBs: “Relationship?!”
Vinny: “Have you seen her butt in those tights she wears? Well, have you? (Looks at Alexa) Even you as a sentient techno-thingie must at least be able to appreciate mathematical perfection when you see it!”
<Battle continues. At some point Lt. Starks shows up & can aid if necessary, saying “Told you I used to be a superhero!” afterward>
<After battle:>
Lt S: “Congrats on the license approvals, D-Listers!”
BB, now re-combined: “We’re not officially – oh… oh, I don’t feel so good.” <Runs to temporary roadside dumpster in front of local house and is noisily sick into it.>
<If asked if she’s pregnant, BB says she can’t get pregnant anymore since the accident, because she’s not really fully human – “maybe my powers are still weird from losing my other selves… or maybe it’s just that leftover tuna casserole I had for lunch”>
Vinny to Starks, as villains are being hauled away: “Hey, uhm, just out of curiosity, would you have any idea if conjugal visits are a thing in Delaware prisons?”
Aftermath
<Team is sitting around in HQ using 5 gal buckets of paint as stools, eating donuts from down the street and talking about their adventures so far. A truck is heard pulling up out back (the beeping backup noise of a delivery truck). Shortly someone rings the back bell. “I’ve got a letter and bunch of packages addressed to someone called the D-Listers.”>
BB: “We’re not… oh, dammit, whatever.”
<Envelope contains a short letter:
“Heard you were building a base. Thought some of our surplus ECP gear would be helpful. It’s not the latest and greatest, but it’s a solid start.” signed Capt G, Mor, Lumina.
Delivery guys bring in multiple boxes which when unpacked turn out to be a PC with access to the Department of Superhero Affairs database, a tech workstation with facilities for printing circuit boards & programming custom chips, and a slightly banged up IKEA MagIK™ table with all manner of glowing gems, phials of mysterious liquids, and rolled up parchments stuffed into various drawers and nooks. (These are basic facilities for chars to be able to use to start spending invention points).>
Notes
The “D-Lister” name was supposed to be a placeholder name for the team. I strongly suspected that if I simply asked my players to come up with one, it would take weeks at minimum to find the perfect one. So instead I tried to sort of impose one on them – with the understanding that they could change it and I’d find a way to work the change into the story – under the assumption that this would inspire them to come up with their own name in a more reasonable time frame. To my surprise, they seem to kind of like “D-Listers”.
I wanted to use Caustic as an occasional but recurring character because there are story arcs around her and Jaggoleth and her and Father Coughlin that I wanted to gradually build up, so I created a few new enemies to team up with her since she’s not powerful enough on her own to be a threat to the group and doesn’t have a pool of henchmen to draw from.
How It Played Out
I placed some car-tokens at various spots around the map partly in hopes that players might catch on to the idea of using them for cover for ranged characters and the badly injured – and they did! I find victories in some odd places, I guess.
This was our first full-on heros-vs-villains team fight (as opposed to heros vs henchmen-and-maybe-one-villain). Dredge, with his relatively high hit points and BusyBody-like kinetic damage resistance, was the last to go down – and it took a while.