two-fisted tales revised pulp villains

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Page 1: Two-Fisted Tales Revised Pulp Villains
Page 2: Two-Fisted Tales Revised Pulp Villains

www.pigames.net

enhance your world of thrilling pulp action!

the threats of world domination, unusual powers, and evil genius await…

Page 3: Two-Fisted Tales Revised Pulp Villains

two-fisted tales creator

Matt Stevens

writing

Angie Bamblett (The Unmaker)Calvin Camp (Alexandre Leaone)Matt Carter (Butterfly Girl)Shane Jackson (The Pod)Andy McCutchen (The Queen, Oni No-dochi)Peter Schaefer (Jamal Jefferson)Ryan Span (The Black Duke)James Stubbs (The Flying Reaper, Queen Nebulara, The Veiled Scorpion)Mayavan Thevendra (The Moth)

production

Brett M. Bernstein

editing

Brett M. Bernstein Matt Drake

cover/villain artwork

Brad McDevitt

the villainous resource for thrilling pulp action

Revised Edition (version 2)

©2004, 2008 Precis Intermedia. All rights reserved. Two-Fisted Tales: Pulp Villains is a trademark of Precis Intermedia. Two-Fisted Tales is a trademark for Precis Intermedia’s roleplaying game of thrilling pulp action. Any mention or reference to books, magazines, radio shows, motion pictures, or television programs is not a challenge to the trademark or copyright of their respective owners. All incidents, situations, and person portrayed within are fictional, and any similarity, without satiric intent, of characters alive or dead is strictly coincidental.

www.pigames.net

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acknowledgements 4

the villains 5 The Moth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Jamal Jefferson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 The Queen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 The Flying Reaper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Oni No-dochi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Queen Nebulara . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 The Unmaker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 The Veiled Scorpion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Alexandre Leaone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 The Black Duke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 The Pod . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Butterfly Girl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

new defects, mastery, and schtick 29

table of contents

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The book you are reading may appear, at first glance, to be simply a collection of villains for the Two-Fisted Tales roleplaying game. While this is definitely a varied and interesting assortment of antagonists for heroic player characters, it is also much more.

In the summer of 2003, a group of freelance writers began an exercise to create villains who felt that they could have been characters in the pulp fiction magazines of the early Twentieth century. The entries were graded on quality, usefulness, and their adherence to the genre. These twelve villains were the best of the bunch.

Special thanks go to all the writers who submitted these excellent villains. This project could not have existed without them. Thanks also go to Matt Stevens for creating Two-Fisted Tales and nurturing it as a labor of love. Finally, this project would not have been possible without the efforts of Matt Drake.

Enjoy!

acknowledgements

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acknowledgementsthe moth

AbilitiesBrains ......................................................3Luck .......................................................12Mind ......................................................16Muscle....................................................20Reflexes .................................................18Savvy .......................................................8Status ......................................................0 Reputation ............................................0 Wealth ...................................................0Weird......................................................30

SpecialtiesMind (Stealth)Reflexes (Brawling)

SchticksAppearance ChangeClingingPoison GasScreechSuper JumpingThick Skin

DefectsUglyVulnerability

Special WeaponsClaws ............................................ Base+6Poison ................................................2D-4

The following is an excerpt from an edition of the Daily Herald, dated 14th April 1937.

Thanks to the sterling efforts of the Police Department, who worked throughout the night with the major broadcasting stations and local community centers, we have been made completely aware of the latest resident of our fair city. What you are about to read is the first-hand account of how the individual known only as the Moth came to be let loose upon the streets of New York.

Faithful readers of the Herald will know that it was our paper that first printed reports of the Moth five months ago, as he terrorized farmers and anthropologists alike in the sultry depths of the Brazilian rainforests. It was recently discovered that not only had the Moth

been captured alive some two weeks past, but also that he was brought to the Manning Zoological Institute here in New York for further study.

Yesterday evening, at the invitation of Dr. Philippe Samia, myself and other assorted members of the press attended what was being touted as an important scientific conference by the Institute’s publicity department, though this reporter quickly saw the affair for what it was—an exhibit, the latest in Samia’s contentious and explicit agenda of human and quasi-human studies. The stage for this spectacle was a vast examination room, dimmed to near darkness, yet more evidence of Samia’s theatrical bent. On one side of the room stood the press, on the other Samia and his staff, and in the centre, the showpiece—a great glass dome that loomed, ominous and silent, above us.

The doctor made a subtle hand signal, and a bright light flared into being just above the dome’s summit, revealing the interior. A small but convincing habitat of tropical plants and trees had been crafted inside. Within seconds, a rustle of movement caught our eyes. I could

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not help but recall the vivid stories that had accompanied the Moth’s first appearances in Brazil; stories about a vicious flying creature that breathed poison smoke, could take human form at will, and was strong enough to carry off a fully-grown man, leaving the half-eaten remains to be stumbled across days later.

What appeared from amidst that artificial undergrowth, and tentatively scaled the sheer glass surface up towards the light, seemed more like a man than any kind of mythical monster, though clearly it was no ordinary man. The photograph and description issued by the police last night will give a much clearer impression than could ever be recalled from that dim laboratory. When I looked past the yellow, wrinkled flesh; the great mane of wispy silver hair that lay around the neck and shoulders; and the features that were as much insect as mammalian, I saw the unmistakable spark of intelligence in those dark, bulbous eyes.

Dr. Samia’s appraisal of him was thus:

His origins are as yet unclear, but what is patent is that he is related in some fashion to our own species. His physical strength and agility greatly surpass that of an ordinary human; additionally, his thick skin grants him resilience to many forms of physical injury, though tests on skin samples have shown that he is extremely sensitive to certain chemical vapors, such as that of Naphthalene.

We had already observed his remarkable ability to adhere to vertical surfaces with his bare hands and feet, but according to Samia, his talents did not end there:

Here at the Institute, we are dedicated to replacing fiction with scientific fact; take for instance, the myth that he can fly—he cannot. Unlike his namesake, he possesses no wings; what he can do, however, as a result of his extraordinary musculature, is leap more than thirty feet into the air. In addition to his various physical traits, his intellect is equal to that of a man, though the expression of that intellect will seem bestial to us. We have been feeding him raw beef, but his dietary preference is human flesh, and his entire mind is applied to obtaining it. We discovered that he has become quite proficient at mimicking human behavior and appearance, even going so far as to clothe himself and move unnoticed through towns and settlements in search of his next kill.

Samia’s presentation continued, but here my attention wandered back to the Moth himself, as he clung to the glass, peering up at the glowing bulb. Nobody knows for certain why moths are attracted to light; there are theories about navigation and associating light with food. Watching him stare at it, like one of us might gaze at a starry sky, I imagined it was something deeper, something religious, or romantic—something profound.

My musing, however, was brought to an abrupt halt. At that moment, the Moth suddenly began to shiver violently and a great cloud of thick, brown dust shook itself loose from his mane. There was a brief panic, whereupon Dr. Samia appealed for calm, pointing out that the glass dome was sealed tight, and of a reinforced construction. It was not, however, soundproof, though I dearly wish it had been. The Moth, now hidden in the dust cloud, began producing an appalling, high-pitched screech that seemed to vibrate the entire laboratory. This terrible noise must somehow have weakened the structure of the glass, for the Moth broke bodily through it. There was a heave of bodies, and cries of alarm. For the next ten seconds, there was chaos of unparalleled savagery and fear, then yet again the sound of breaking glass above us, as our assailant made an incredible leap through the skylight window into the night air, and to freedom.

When the lighting had been restored, we found that the Moth had gored two of Samia’s colleagues, as well as one of mine—Robert Brinkman, reporter for the Daily Tribune. Doctor Samia fared worse than all, for he was nowhere to be found—when the Moth made his exit through the skylight of that laboratory, alive, injured or dead, Samia was with him.

This is how the affair started, and considering the ease and speed with which the Moth effected his escape, this reporter has to wonder if he could not have done so at any time he wished—which begs the question, who was really studying whom? Perhaps the answer will be found or perhaps not; yet the more pressing issue is that tonight there is a deadly stranger among us. So beware. Beware the lonely alley with the solitary street lamp, the deserted subway, and the nighttime shortcut through the park. For tonight, the Moth walks in the city, and he is watching us.

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Jamal JeffersonAbilities

Brains ....................................................21Luck .......................................................12Mind ......................................................14Muscle......................................................6Reflexes ...................................................9Savvy .....................................................16Status ....................................................15 Reputation ..........................................10 Wealth .................................................20Weird......................................................21

SpecialtiesMind (Science)Brains (Scholarship)

MasteriesMind [Computers]

SchticksReverse Electroencephalograph

There are some historical sources—the ones that tell children about how Christopher Columbus slaughtered Native Americans for gold and that Louis and Clark tortured Sacagawea to lead them to the west—that also speak of white devil Jefferson, made president by the rich, while he ruined the poor and raped his black slaves. Some of these texts suggest that it was his intention to free those children and pave the way for emancipation. Others are bleaker about his desires.

This is the lore fed daily into Jamal Jefferson with his mother’s milk. His mother, poor and half-mad in the slums of Philadelphia, believes it with all her heart. And so does he. It was Thomas Jefferson’s cruelty that slammed every door upon the hopes and dreams of Jamal’s ancestors. Jamal has imagined each of them thirsting for vengeance and drinking only dust. Jamal has sworn to taste it for them; his mind is poisoned against America and its government, and he has the means for revenge. He is one of the smartest people alive. He is also eight years old.

When Jamal was two, he found a much-abused set of encyclopedias in one of his neighbor’s apartments within the tenement. It was then that he learned the identity of the man which his mother cursed every night, the construction of the nation that hated him, the constitution that considered him half a person, and how the postal service works. By four years of age, Jamal had committed seventeen counts of mail-order credit card fraud and possessed a television, radio receiver and transmitter, and an offshore account. By age six, he had completed the first three wings of his hidden laboratory and command center in the basement of his rundown apartment building. Since then, his operations have only grown in scope and scale. He owns J & J International, a mutual fund company that manages Jamal’s financial interests, and also makes a healthy profit managing those of others. J & J holds controlling interests in several chemical and manufacturing companies, and has a great deal of influence in the national media. Jamal

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spends most of his time in his hideout, the laboratory and multi-purpose command center, which he calls Floor 3⁄5.

To the concerned observer it might look like Jamal has his hand in everything. J & J funds various weather-control, rocket technology, biological agent, and a half-dozen other research groups that sound suspicious and look even more so. The FBI believes that Mr. Jefferson has successfully bought three major elections in New England and made attempts at two more. The Secret Service suspects that he is responsible for five separate actions to destabilize America’s banks, three of which specifically targeted the Federal Reserve. Britain’s MI6 has three teams working to find him year-round, believing him to possess the Crown Jewels. And none think of him as younger that twenty or older than fifty.

Right now, all is going precisely as Jamal has directed. He diverts attention from himself and his intentions by stocking the pond with enough red herrings that no one will spot the goldfish among them. Even when one knows where to look, the goldfish is hard to find and even harder to catch. He privately owns five research companies around the globe, each with a separate focus and named according to number. Four of these are decoys. Only the Third of the five holds his real focus. The Third is stuffed to the gills with EEGs, EMGs, EOGs, sensitive electromagnetic sensors and field projectors—all cutting-edge technology. Jamal and the lab are well on the way to developing a Reverse Electroencephalograph—a device that

can force mental patterns upon others for a brief time. In brief, short-term mind control.

His plan is to embarrass the current president out of his station and raise into office a black puppet whom Jamal has maneuvered into position over the past three years. That is the point where he ceases to plan and begins to dream. He knows that a black president passing the sort of laws and amendments that Jamal desires would be highly suspect, but he imagines that other black Americans across the nation will rise to support his regime. Unless he has something drastic planned to achieve that support, it will likely not arrive. Jamal’s fanatic idealism and his fascination with the number 3⁄5, deriving from the original constitution, are his greatest weaknesses.

Despite Jefferson’s shadows within cloaks behind facades, he is not overconfident. He has a remarkable amount of misdirecting firepower at his command and can, with some effort, lay false tracks before a querulous foe and lead her astray. If the authorities stumble over his traps and locate his research facility (the Third), he has all of the data and can recover from the setback in a matter of six months to a year. Should some eminently clever person or group find Floor 3⁄5, he will harry them with the innumerable traps that he has set for such an incursion. If found in person, he will play the fool. After all, who would believe a scrawny eight-year-old with a shaved head to be the devious mastermind taken to task?

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the QueenAbilities

Brains ....................................................18Luck .......................................................11Mind ......................................................12Muscle......................................................9Reflexes .................................................10Savvy .......................................................9Status ....................................................11 Reputation ..........................................11 Wealth .................................................11Weird......................................................15

SpecialtiesBrains (Science)

MasteriesBrains [Biology]

SchticksSynthetic Insect Pheromone

Jessica Johnston was born in San Francisco in 1908. She was her mother’s first child and due to complications during the pregnancy, she would be her mother’s only child. Her father was a military man, and his position required that her family moved from place to place, never staying in any one town for more than a few months.

She did not have a happy childhood. A strict, controlling father and a shy demeanor made her school years very uncomfortable, having to adapt to new environments and new people every few months. She did very well in school academically, but her only friend was her mother, who loved her and pitied her for what she was forced to endure.

After the first World War, in the summer of 1919, Jessica’s father took her and her mother on a hunting trip to the jungles of South America. There, while crossing a river, an old walking bridge collapsed beneath them—her and her mother were swept away. They managed to stay afloat and reach the bank of the river, several miles downstream.

Separated from the rest of the hunting party, they decided to wait by the river until found.

The next morning, the eleven-year-old Jessica was found in a tree, directly above the skeletal remains of her mother. She was in a state of shock, mumbling something about the darkness crawling over her. The guides said that the night before, Jessica and her mother must have been in the path of a colony of army ants, who caught them sleeping. Jessica was quick enough to get away, but her mother obviously was not.

After seeing her mother eaten by insects, Jessica was understandably distraught. Her father sent her to a psychiatric hospital. There, after nearly a year of medication and aggressive therapy, it was concluded that Jessica was better and she was released back into the care of her father.

Jessica spent the rest of her pre-college years moving around the United States with her father, always brooding and hardly speaking.

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She became obsessed with insects, especially ants. After high school, she received a full scholarship and enrolled in college to begin study in the field of entomology.

Jessica was a promising young mind and she quickly gained respect in the academic community with her work. She made several exciting discoveries dealing with the ways that insects, such as bees and ants, communicate with one another. The future looked promising for Jessica Johnston. But that changed on the night of March 17th, 1927.

That night, one of Jessica’s professors came back to the university to retrieve something that he had forgotten in one of the labs. He entered the lab to discover Jessica using university equipment for an unapproved experiment. When he questioned her, she suddenly became enraged and lashed out, pushing the professor into a tank containing a small nest of Paraponera clavata—otherwise known as bullet ants. Their sting is one of the most painful and debilitating in all of the insect kingdom. The ants loosed their shrill warning sound as they stung him repeatedly. He died a most painful death as the neurotoxin wracked his body.

She fled the scene and ran across campus to her dorm room, where she sat, contemplating her next move. She looked up to see a line of bullet ants coming toward her from under her door. She was familiar enough with their behavior to know that the ants were not attacking her, but could not fathom their behavior. She then noticed the substance on her arm. During the confrontation with her professor in the lab, she accidentally spilled her experiment on herself. Now dowsed in a synthetic pheromone, the ants thought she was their queen.

The professor’s death was ruled an accident by local police, and Jessica continued to gain respect from her peers for her daytime work. She also continued her secret experiments at night, however.

Jessica has since succeeded in creating a colony of deadly ants who recognize her as their queen. The ants were cross-bred between bullet ants (Paraponera clavata) and army ants (Eciton burchelli). They possess the debilitating sting of the bullet ants and the voracity of the army ants.

Feeding a colony of ants requires a lot of food. When the number of her ants reached half a million, Jessica realized that stray dogs would no longer suffice. She now sends her army out into the city every night in search of food. Their diet consists mainly of the homeless, who are readily available.

She has little to fear from the police, who can find no traces of evidence when the skeletal remains are discovered. It is as if their flesh just disappears. Even their clothes are intact. She knows that even if the police realize what is happening to the victims, they will have a hard time connecting the deaths to her.

Jessica sees no wrong in what she is doing; she has formed a bond with her subjects and just as they will do anything to protect her, she will do the same for them.

NotesJessica can have control of bees or even

spiders rather than ants if preferred.

An encounter with the Queen would probably be unlike any encounter that the heroes have had in the past. They would be forced to decide how best to battle five-hundred-thousand ants, each one just as deadly.

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the flying reaperAbilities

Brains ....................................................10Luck .......................................................12Mind ......................................................16Muscle....................................................15Reflexes .................................................18Savvy .....................................................10Status ....................................................10 Reputation ............................................6 Wealth .................................................14Weird......................................................15

SpecialtiesBrains (Mechanics)Reflexes (Aircraft)Reflexes (Gun-Fighting)

Few things struck fear into the gallant hearts of Allied pilots more than the swooping black and red Albatros D.Va of the infamous Flying Reaper. The lucky pilots who managed to land their bullet-riddled planes and live told of a dead man cackling maniacally at the controls enshrouded in a wispy fog. One shaken pilot transferred to the front lines as an infantryman swearing that he would rather take his chances with the machine guns and poison gas of the Huns rather than flying into certain death again.

Baron Leopold Schmidt was the first of the Reapers. Rendered an invalid throughout most of his childhood by polio, the Baron was nevertheless gifted with an extraordinary intellect and keen eyesight. His strength returned during his teenage years through strenuous exercise routines and sheer dogged determination, even though his face was forever gaunt and pale. When war erupted in 1914, his aristocratic bloodline allowed him to enlist as a pilot. His vicious aptitude for aerial combat was soon revealed. Nigh unstoppable in the air, he quickly brought down seven French planes within the first week behind the stick, earning him the infamous moniker of the Flying Reaper.

Schmidt was a quiet man who valued his privacy. Despite his noble heritage, it was never flaunted to belittle others. The Baron was far more likely to be found in quiet study with a philosophical book rather than at a riotous tavern with fellow pilots. Many surmise that these periods of solitude were really spent deep in contemplation and analysis of the foes that he fought and how to maximize his own advantage the next time he encountered such tactics. Distant and calculating would be his two defining characteristics.

The German High Command quickly made the baron a hero, just as rapidly as the Allies vilified him. Still, the fortunes of war blow erratically and the Baron met his fiery end in October of 1915 after twenty-eight confirmed kills when a brash and suicidal British pilot rammed him rather than to admit defeat. Both pilots were killed as their planes erupted into flame before plummeting to earth.

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Loath to waste the reputation and valuable propaganda of such a public figure, the Germans secretly recruited a replacement look-alike named Herman Goetz. They trained him to fly and sent him to the front lines. He always applied pale theatrical makeup to his face before flying. The resulting effect was sheer terror for Allied pilots who swore that the Reaper had come back from the grave just for them. The effect on morale was devastating.

Goetz was a ticking time bomb, however. His sole qualification for the job was merely a physical similarity to the deceased Baron Schmidt. Goetz was an out-of-work actor who had turned to the comforts of opium dens. Desperate for money to support his habit, he gladly took the job. Goetz was only a mediocre pilot, but could compensate for his lack of talent by just being so erratic behind the controls that he confused his enemy to no end. Many pilots mistook his flying as clever misdirection rather than the drug-induced paranoia that it really was.

The Baron’s replacement only lasted two weeks before the wings of his Fokker tore away during a dive, but not before he added five more kills to the Reaper tally. The Germans quickly recruited a prominent fighter pilot named Victor Schuller and made him the next Reaper. Schuller looked nothing like the original Baron, so he was provided with a skeleton mask to wear while flying. They also thought up the trick of mounting small smoke pots near the cockpit to add to the terrifying appearance of the plane and pilot.

Schuller was given the controls of one of Germany’s most advanced fighter planes, the Albatros D.Va, renowned for its agility and firepower. Because the Flying Reaper was an elite pilot and a valuable psychological weapon, his plane was modified in several significant ways. The standard engine was

replaced by a prototype that delivered much more horsepower, the canvas skin of the plane was coated with a varnish-like substance that made it far more resistant to being punctured by enemy fire, and the twin machine guns were loaded with incendiary ammunition.

Schuller is a killer. He takes perverse and ruthless glee in killing other pilots, much to the disgust of many of his own squadron’s flyers. He is not above gunning a disabled or dead foe’s aircraft all the way down to the ground. There is no gallantry to him or camaraderie with any other aviator—only naked aggression. The only reason that he is tolerated by the High Command is that he can get results.

The Flying Reaper likes to cruise around the Paris front. His mere presence encourages only the most suicidal or foolhardy to engage him. This leaves the other German pilots plenty of time to bomb and strafe enemy troops or aerodromes. Recently, however, Schuller has taken on a new task—specific destruction of other pilots. When the High Command feels that an enemy pilot is becoming too good or propaganda starts to circulate, making a new hero, the Reaper is dispatched to kill him. He has already brought down three enemy aces and is eagerly awaiting the next chance to put another in his gun sights.

If the game is set post-World War I, Schuller survived the war. He is no longer sanctioned by his own government to kill at will, and rumor has it that he fled to South America. Distraught and furious, this is where he has taken up work with various rebels who provide him with money and a plane. Schuller still maintains the Reaper disguise, striking fear into anyone on the receiving end of his guns. Recent targets include scientific expedition aircraft, government truck convoys, and the occasional stubborn village that refuses to cooperate or pay protection to his employers.

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oni no-dochiAbilities

Brains ....................................................11Luck .......................................................10Mind ......................................................14Muscle....................................................18Reflexes .................................................18Savvy .......................................................9Status ......................................................5 Reputation ..........................................10 Wealth ...................................................0Weird......................................................30

SpecialtiesReflexes (Fencing)

DefectsOld-FashionedUndead

SchticksSummon Demon Sword (found item)Skeletal

Special WeaponsDemon Great Sword .................. Base+12

In the year 1180, the Gempei War began in Japan. This war occurred between two rival families, the Taira and Minamoto clans, who struggled for supremacy following the death of the leader of the country, Taira Kiyomori.

The war raged for five long years, with neither side gaining an advantage. It looked as if this war might go on forever. Minamoto Yoritomo, the most powerful and respected member of the Minamoto family, knew that if his clan won the war, he would be appointed Shogun, something that would pave the way for him to become Emperor. He grew impatient with conventional warfare, so he did something that was forbidden—he called upon evil spirits to aid his family in the war.

Using a ritual that is now long-forgotten, Yoritomo contacted these spirits and asked them to send him a weapon to use against his

enemies. They sent him a huge sword called Oni No-dochi (demon great sword). It was imbued with the spirit of a demon and it came with a warning. The spirits told Minamoto Yoritomo that while this sword would most certainly bring swift death to his enemies, it would also bring a great suffering to the one who wields it.

Caring not about the consequences, Yoritomo handed the sword to his son, Minamoto Hanshiro, who was more than eager to please his father and prove himself in battle. Hanshiro grasped the weapon and felt the dark power surge through him. His father sent him out to battle.

Just three months later, the Taira clan was defeated. Those soldiers who survived refused to fight against the power of Oni No-dochi. A victorious Hanshiro returned to his father’s side. When Yoritomo looked at his son for the first time in three months, he saw a different man. He wore the great armor of a samurai and

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a demon mask. Behind the mask, his eyes were empty and soulless, though. Yoritomo told his son that his task was nearly complete.

He set his son upon anyone who he thought might pose a threat to his rise to power. After eliminating all of his acute and potential enemies, including close family members, Yoritomo was appointed Shogun. His dream was nearly realized.

He called his son to him. Seeing that there was hardly anything left of the boy, and regretting what he had done, Yoritomo ordered him to hand over the weapon. Hanshiro refused. Yoritomo ordered his guards to remove the weapon from his son’s hand, but he attacked and his sword cut through them like stalks of bamboo. He fled his father’s house and disappeared into a nearby forest.

Yoritomo called together the greatest trackers, warriors, and mystics that he could find. They set out to find his son and release him from the grip of Oni No-dochi. They eventually found him in the city of Kamakura, where they fought a great battle. Many of Yoritomo’s men were slaughtered, but they managed to subdue the boy with powerful magic. Realizing that his son was no more, but being unable to bring himself to kill Hanshiro, Yoritomo had the soulless creature sealed in an iron box and taken far out to sea to be tossed into the deep waters. There he slept for seven hundred and fifty years.

Now, the year is 1935 and the crew of an American salvage ship has stumbled upon an iron tomb with ancient Japanese writing. After returning to port, they fly the box to a museum in New York City for restoration. Only

one member of the restoration team survives when they open the tomb and discover what lies inside. Just before she dies, she claims to have been attacked by someone in Japanese armor.

Hanshiro finds himself in a new world, but one, yet again, on the brink of war. Hanshiro knows no fear and has only one purpose—to kill. Underneath his armor, he is now nothing more than an animated skeleton. With the influence of the demon sword, however, he is as strong and deadly as ever.

Though Hanshiro’s flesh is no more, the demon who resides inside his sword is not willing to release his soul. They have much work to do. Each time that Oni No-dochi takes a life, the demon also takes their soul. But this is not simply a hungry demon in search of food; it has a much darker purpose for the spirits that it steals…

NotesAll of Hanshiro’s power comes from the

sword, so if the heroes can manage to separate it from him, the remains of his body will crumble and his soul released. This should not be possible by a simple disarm attempt, however, as Hanshiro’s remains can never let go of the sword unless the demon commands it. Instead, the separation should be somehow worked into the story. They must find a way to subdue the creature long enough to sever his arm, for example. Or they may have to find a way to contact the demon itself and convince it to release Hanshiro. The heroes could also be tasked with searching for a descendant of one of the mystics that Yoritomo used to stop him centuries ago.

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Queen nebularaAbilities

Brains ....................................................14Luck .......................................................12Mind ......................................................16Muscle....................................................12Reflexes .................................................16Savvy .....................................................18Status ....................................................22 Reputation ..........................................21 Wealth .................................................23Weird......................................................24

SpecialtiesReflexes (Gun-Fighting)Savvy (Well-Connected)Savvy (Seduction)

SchticksRay Derringer (found item)

As beautiful as she is dangerous, Queen Nebulara of the planet Harkula poses a grave threat to all intrepid spacefarers and colonists. The Harkulan Empire is so infamous among the galaxy for its unrepentant warlike ways, that it was expelled from the Planetary Security Council over sixty years ago. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers; scores of war rocketships; and an untold number of spies, saboteurs, and assassins are ready to mobilize and strike at a moment’s notice.

Queen Nebulara shares the red-tinted skin, black eyes, pointed ears, and raven hair common to all Harkulians, but the ravishing looks and figure of her teenaged years that made her a reputation among the debutantes of the galaxy remains to this day. Her appearance is one of her most dangerous weapons, as she knows that she can distract most males and dupe them even easier with a few honeyed words and reassurances. She is most often found wearing jeweled diaphanous gowns that show off her figure to best effect. Nebulara is not without her own fangs, as she is a crack shot with a ray derringer that she keeps hidden in the small of her back.

In addition to her physical radiance, Nebulara enjoys the services of two Byrathian bodyguards, renowned for their intelligence and strength. Tongar, the larger of the two, is a brute with large, bulging arms and little in the way of brains. He likes to use his giant electro-mace to pummel his foes. The other bodyguard, Kerisha, is lithe and easily overlooked as a threat. That is a deadly misjudgment as she is an expert marksman with a ray gun and a battlefield strategist without peer.

Having the entire resources of a planet geared for war at her disposal also helps. Harkula boasts the largest and most-sophisticated weapons factories in the galaxy, and her troops are comprised of large numbers of veteran soldiers who have experience from numerous invasions and skirmishes over the years. Her navy has the rockets with the best armor and weaponry, and her information network is so vast that even the Queen herself has little

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idea of how far it has infiltrated the society of Harkula and other worlds.

Raised as the only daughter of King Geldrak and Queen Alimura, Nebulara was always treated to the finer things in life and pampered by her parents, whose wealth grew from the Empire’s spoils of war. In fact, the royal family’s opulent lifestyle and rising military spending was slowly destroying the lower classes of Harkula. It was only a matter of time before a rebellion sparked. That time came shortly after Nebulara’s sixteenth birthday. Enraged rioters ambushed the state gravicar, killing both her mother and father. In grief and anger, Nebulara used her new authority to have the army mercilessly crush the uprising. There are rumors on Harkula that it was General Nurk who arranged the ambush and also encouraged her to use force. Since then, Nurk has been a trusted advisor to the Queen. Many wonder if the Queen, fueled by her own fears, is merely a puppet being fed false information so she destroys his own enemies and furthers his political agendas.

Ever since that fateful day, Nebulara has ruled Harkula with an iron fist, keeping all those below her ground down underneath her heel, making certain that none ever get in a position to threaten her. As tales and political repercussions of her ruthlessness grow, her attentions are becoming increasingly drawn to the worlds of the Council, which she views as a threat to her well-being. Once viewed as an impotent political organization with little stomach to back up their proclamations with force, the formation of the Space Rangers and the few encounters her forces have had with

them are changing her mind. Their ingenuity and superior tactics are causing her to think that they should be destroyed before becoming a serious foil to her ambitions.

Despite all her power, Nebulara is in many ways still a very scared young woman. The death of her parents, who had always been so larger than life to her, shook Nebulara to the core. An erected emotional shield of never letting anyone get too close to her is really the only thing that prevents her from completely breaking down. Her own fears are funneled into a self-destructive channel of ruthlessness that only serves to increase her isolation. The uncovering of Nurk’s conspiracy and his years of using her as his pawn could do much to help her realize the error of her ways.

Queen Nebulara’s latest scheme is to recruit a spy within the Planetary Security Council. She has enticed the son of a senior member from Earth by overtures of love and his own political ascension to report to her on the actions and plans of his father in the Council. He is purely expendable to her and can even be used to threaten a scandal if discovered. The provisional government of the planet Hestish has been a thorn in her side with their constant survey missions at the borders of her Empire. Her own intelligence sources have confirmed that they are nothing more than glorified spy ships with the Hestish Science Foundation logo painted on the side. She intends to attack their planet and bring it under her control, but wants to know if the Council has suspicions of her plans or any major military forces in the immediate area that could threaten her invasion.

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the unmakerAbilities

Brains ....................................................16Luck .......................................................12Mind ......................................................16Muscle....................................................10Reflexes .................................................14Savvy .....................................................20Status ....................................................12 Reputation ............................................9 Wealth .................................................15Weird......................................................19

SpecialtiesBrains (Business)

The words slipped through bright-red lips amid a voluminous puff of cigarette smoke.

“In the midst of the mundane, a good killer can paint a scene that will influence the world around him long after he himself is gone. His brush is his highly-trained body. His palette is mixed from dabs of stealth, intelligence, intuition, agility, and ruthlessness. His canvas is the rough weave of an unfair world thinly treated with a lacquer of fear and stretched over a frame of corruption and greed.”

The young lady across from me at the table concluded with a nod and another drag on her Chesterfield. The diamond inlay on her long, Tiffany cigarette holder winked in the bright noonday light streaming through the windows beside us. I could only raise a brow and chuckle. “Is that so?”

“Yes, Tristan, it is.” It was the tone of voice that said ‘Shut up and listen, foolish mortal.’ Amelie has always been especially good at that tone and the cutting look that goes with it, so I wisely took a sip of my coffee and settled back to get comfortable for the long haul. My intelligent lady friend has a penchant for waxing philosophical over drinks, while my butt goes numb.

“Of course, Amie, dear. Do go on, please…” I managed to sound admirably interested, I think. At least it earned me a reprieve from her scowl.

“Mmm… Yes, an assassin is an artist. What he creates from his… attributes… well, that depends on his purpose, execution, method, and style.”

Each point was accented by the demise of another stray cherry on her plate. She smeared the remaining blood-red mush around on her plate.

“There are killers who tint their work like this, in shades of blood, preferring bold statements to grace of execution. Others work in such fine line, such tight detail, that the evidence of their artistry is nearly invisible to the untrained eye. Some have even mastered a gamut of styles, ranging from slaughter to pinpoint precision on the whims of their employers, you know,” she lectured, absently tapping one perfectly-manicured fingernail against the crystal of her

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tumbler. The murderous fork found its resting place on her white napkin, spreading a vivid stain across its otherwise pristine surface. Amelie has a gift for poetic illustration.

I nodded, taking her pause as a cue to prove that I was listening; it usually is with her. “Yes, so I’d heard. Martignac always gushes on about his newest playtoy, that Daniels man.”

The noise Amelie made in response to that comment was a rather blunt reminder of her less-than-cultured background. I had to work hard not to grin.

“Christian Daniels is an artless butcher, my dear man. He has no flair or panache, only a dreadful mean streak and a twisted love of gore. People like him give the art a bad name, and you aren’t to ever call him an assassin in my presence,” she admonished, wagging a sharp-looking fingernail beneath my nose.

“Anything my lady wishes,” I smirked, offering her a mocking bow, “but if he annoys you so much, I’m sure I won’t have to remember that for long. You usually make… arrangements for the people who really bother you, employer or no. After all, there’s no artist like Amelie Reisleder, is there? That genius they call the Unmaker is an eliminator unparalleled in our dreary little world, whose style is unique among all who call themselves assassins.”

During my pause for dramatic effect, my companion rolled her eyes, but my melodrama still earned me one of those rare, beautiful smiles of which she is capable. I had to see what else I could achieve through blatant flattery, so I continued in my best Shakespearean tone, “She is respected above all others, skilled with a talent that no one else can approach—a genius, a visionary, a groundbreaker in a world of ancient training and established methods. She is the only assassin who can kill a man from half a world away and with the stroke of a pen.”

“Tristan Vogt, you are an absolute loon,” Amelie laughed, nearly choking on a fresh sip of her brandy. “But, please, do continue... I’m enjoying this immensely!”

I had to laugh myself, as much because of her words, as because of the rare joy of inspiring humor in my enigmatic young friend. Amelie has never been what you’d call a light-hearted person; I imagine it’s related to her time spent within the twisted maze that is the British MI6 organization. I’ve never gotten details out of her, but I know that her time with them was characterized by unpleasant revelations and a crushing betrayal. Whatever happened, it makes laughter a difficult exercise for the lady. Thus, I do my part to inspire it where possible, and I was forced to redouble my efforts. Laurence Olivier, eat your heart out!

“Where others end their victim’s life, this woman takes it with a slight-of-hand so deft that no one ever knows she is upon them. She destroys people from the inside out by taking the things in their lives and demolishing them. Toppling companies. Sabotaging finances. Ruining relationships.” I grinned my darkest and leaned close, sharing a conspiratorial whisper like the best back-alley informant. “She is the assassin who can sow the seeds of betrayal and mistrust and hatred and make them grow with a skill that borders on the miraculous, and she will worry away at your carefully-woven life until it unravels right before your eyes.”

“She is the Unmaker, and she is an artist the likes of which you never want to know.” The finale was a masterstroke, punctuated by a gentlemanly kiss of her fine-boned hand and a smile that’s been known to melt hearts.

Tsk. All I got in return was a smack on the shoulder and a muttered, “You’re full of it, you bloody Yank.”

You see? She really is ruthless.

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the veiled scorpionAbilities

Brains ....................................................19Luck .......................................................10Mind ......................................................11Muscle......................................................8Reflexes .................................................10Savvy .......................................................9Status ....................................................10 Reputation ..........................................10 Wealth .................................................10Weird......................................................17

SpecialtiesBrains (Science)

MasteriesBrains [Chemistry]

SchticksInvisibility Potion

“…Police investigations into the mysterious criminal who calls himself the Veiled Scorpion have been stymied by the lack of witnesses to the crimes, despite the blatant disregard he shows for law enforcement precautions. The one thing that defines the modus operandi of this daring thief is the leaving of a calling card emblazoned with a scorpion. As listeners might be aware, he struck the First National Bank at noon three days ago and made away with over one million dollars in cash and securities. Not a single witness could be found among the fifty people in the bank at the time. Before then it was the theft of the Puraji Emerald from a heavily guarded case in the Modern Museum. Chief O’Leary assures the public that this criminal can only elude justice for so long. This concludes this evening’s news. We now return to our regularly scheduled big band broadcast…”

Believing that the Scorpion is a common thief is what is misleading the entire police force. The robberies are merely a means to flaunt his superiority and to acquire wealth to satisfy his

own ego. Money is nice, but this is much more of an effort to snub those who rejected his ideas and laughed at him. The Veiled Scorpion is merely a flamboyant identity assumed by a rather unremarkable amateur scientist named Edward Noonan. He is a man who reads far too much cheap fiction.

Noonan was experimenting with a formula to make a super-efficient gasoline in the hopes of selling his idea to a big company for lots of money. His experiments were all abysmal failures and he only managed to make fires or horrible smells that lasted for days. Disheartened, frustrated, and worried about his upcoming rent, which he did not have, Noonan dashed the chemicals with which he was experimenting into the sink. To his amazement, the bottom of the sink seemed to turn invisible wherever the mixture splashed.

To make matters worse, he could not even convince anyone that he had concocted an invisibility potion because of the reputation

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he had garnered over the years as a crackpot inventor. Spreading word on the streets, however, eventually drains into the gutter. Noonan found himself staring down the one-eyed peeper of a thirty-eight special in the gorilla-like mitts of Big Ed Boscone. Noonan found Boscone willing to let him demonstrate the potion with the stipulation that he was the only person able to make it and that he would supply Boscone and his gang with as much as they need in exchange for ten percent of their earnings. Boscone, for his part, would never have agreed to such a deal, except that he could see the desire for revenge in Noonan’s speech and figured that he would not rat out any of them to the cops, especially once he was an accomplice to the crimes they would commit.

Despite his meek exterior, Noonan was cunning. He never openly spent or flaunted his money. In fact, he always made sure to be late with his rent or come up with some excuse as to why he could not pay on time, despite having huge amounts of money hidden beneath a loose floorboard in his apartment. In the meantime, however, he hoarded his share of the loot. A plan was forming in his mind on how he could get even more money, but most importantly, respect for his great intelligence. During his earlier gasoline experiments, Noonan had discovered a particularly volatile combination of chemicals that could cause great damage when mixed incorrectly, even in the smallest of doses.

Noonan decided that making a large bomb of this material would be impractical, but numerous smaller ones would be viable. He convinced Boscone and his gangsters that blackmailing the city for a large sum of money would be infinitely less risky than numerous smaller heists that only netted them money

in irregular intervals. Dubbing himself the Veiled Scorpion, Noonan made an anonymous phone call to the city paper demanding that the government pay him ten million dollars in cash or he would blow up the electrical power station on the outskirts of town. He fully expects the police to ignore his threat as a crank phone call. They will certainly take his words seriously enough once half of the city is plunged into darkness and chaos, however.

For his own part, Big Ed does not let Noonan out of his sight. In his mind, the little egghead might be crazy as a loon, but can come through on the invisibility stuff. Until Noonan gives him reason to believe otherwise, Boscone is willing to let Noonan play his little fantasy games while he rakes in the dough. If the little rat decides to squeal, Rocky, Guido, Vinnie, and the rest of the boys have a special lead severance pay that they would be happy to deliver.

Edward Noonan is a very sad person who constantly wallows in self-pity with delusions of vindication against those who he feels have wronged him. The Veiled Scorpion persona is merely an outward show of his inner feelings of repression and anger struggling to be released. Physically, he is less than imposing. He prefers to remain invisible whenever in the presence of the gang, as their bulky physiques make him feel inferior. Noonan, when visible, appears to be a man in his forties with thinning hair, a threadbare suit, and large glasses. He has even made up a red hood with a stylized scorpion painted on it, but is far too self-conscious to actually wear it. Noonan may pay too much attention to wild flights of fancy fueled by trashy pulp fiction or he really is a diabolical genius trapped inside a coward’s body.

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alexandre leaone Abilities

Brains ....................................................19Luck .......................................................13Mind ......................................................10Muscle....................................................11Reflexes .................................................11Savvy .....................................................10Status ....................................................15 Reputation ..........................................12 Wealth .................................................18Weird......................................................17

SpecialtiesBrains (Business)

MasteriesBrains [Biology]

The Leaone Foundation is considered one of the unsung heroes of our time. Specializing in biological and medical research, this innovative company has saved the lives of thousands with their legendary breakthroughs in medicine and advanced surgical techniques. The waiting list of eminent scientists and doctors who have applied for positions with the company is long indeed; only the best work for the Foundation.

The Foundation is the brainchild of Alexandre Leaone, a noted scientist and two-time Nobel Prize nominee from Avignon, France. Alexandre later moved to the United States and established his groundbreaking company. His has been a story of unparalleled success ever since.

Alexandre Leaone is a solitary man. He is highly respected in his field, yet there are none who really know the man. He treats colleagues and others politely, if a bit coldly. He does not participate in interviews or attend social events, and he is only rarely seen in public.

Some whisper that Leaone may have a sinister side. Other detractors speak more loudly and say worse. Despite accusations of all manner of transgressions against the laws

of God and Man, the Foundation has yet to be investigated. Conspiracy theorists claim that has much to do with the Foundation’s involvement in illicit experiments sanctioned and funded by the government for its own nefarious purposes.

While it is public knowledge that the Foundation has secured numerous government contracts, it has not been revealed what those contracts involve. Some insist that these contracts are for the development of poisonous gases and terrible diseases to be used as weapons, while others claim that the Foundation is doing experimentation designed to provide the military with a new breed of scientifically-enhanced soldiers. Foundation and government representatives have refused to discuss these accusations, dismissing them as the delusions of a handful of radicals. Since these rumors and accusations seem to disappear as quickly as they surface, few people pay them any mind.

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Although his company has developed many helpful and beneficial products and techniques, by questionable means or not, there is still a very dark side to the Foundation. Alexandre Leaone, though brilliant, is a man totally without moral or ethical compunctions. He has close contacts in the United States government and the parliaments of other nations, who care little for his methods, so long as he gets the results they desire. He has become a very wealthy man researching and developing exotic weapons of war. Leaone has used this vast fortune to fund his personal projects.

The facility that Alexandre calls his Sanctum is located deep underground, far below even the top-secret labs where the weapon development work takes place. Its existence is known only to a small handful of trusted subordinates, handpicked for their dedication to Leaone’s vision. Here is where the real work of the Foundation gets done. In this man-made cavern, never touched by the light of day, is a place that could very well be a little piece of Hell. This is where Alexandre performs his research into what he calls accelerated evolution, the study of human mutation.

In an environment of sanitized perfection, exacting scientific precision, and the utmost care and dedication to the research, Leaone and his loyal assistants perform horrifying and terrible experiments on both animals and human beings. From vivisection to tissue grafting, radiation exposure to chemical and drug treatments, there is nothing Alexandre will forego in his quest to understand and manipulate the potential for human mutation. His goal is nothing less than attainment of the next level of human evolution.

Despite the income potential in the scientifically-altered super-soldiers he has been accused of trying to create (and indeed he

has experiments underway in that direction), he sees such a possibility as only a single step on the path to his vision. For Alexandre Leaone, in his madness, truly believes that he is doing this work for the eventual betterment of mankind. He cares not a bit for the wretched abominations he has created with his experiments, neither those who died, nor those who lived for a time. His eyes are set on the greater goal.

Alexandre may be playing God, but it is his true desire to become like unto a god himself. He generously plans to bring the rest of mankind along, of course. He dreams of the day when his techniques of accelerated evolution will raise all of humanity to a higher level, allowing them to truly be a superior race. While perhaps his goal may be one of twisted altruism, his methods are surely those of a consummate psychopath.

NotesAlexandre Leaone and his covert lab would

be an excellent addition to a campaign set in the time leading up to or during World War II. His theories on creating a superior race would mesh well with the philosophies of a certain German dictator, and there is a well-known doctor from Auschwitz who might approve of his scientific methods. Some word of what is happening in Leaone’s Sanctum has already leaked. All it would take is hard evidence, and poor Alexandre might be looking for a new home. If he found it in Germany, the potential for an army of mutant Nazi super-soldiers and chemical weaponry might be interesting.

He could be equally at home in a pulp super-heroes game as a mad scientist creating evil mutants as antagonists for the heroes. There is potential for a great deal of mayhem before the heroes figure out who is behind their troubles.

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the black duke Abilities

Brains ....................................................14Luck .......................................................12Mind ......................................................16Muscle....................................................12Reflexes .................................................14Savvy .....................................................15Status ......................................................7 Reputation ............................................0 Wealth .................................................14Weird......................................................13

SpecialtiesReflexes (Gun-Fighting)Reflexes (Watercraft)

Born in the latter half of the nineteenth century, Nelson Bartholomew Atherton III spent most of his childhood imprisoned in boarding schools and disciplinary facilities. At the age of eight, Nelson already towered above most of his older, lesser-born compatriots. His temper grew just as quickly. The Duke and Lady Atherton did what they could, leaving him in children’s institutions for weeks at a time, but were finally forced to send him away shortly after his ninth birthday.

St. Eustacius Catholic School for Boys is a rather bland name for Nelson’s private window into Hell. Mortal danger lurked around every corner at St. Eustacius. Fisticuffs had long stopped being about fists, and also included daggers, shivs, and clubs. Brutal gangs ruled the grounds. Anyone caught on his own stood a good chance of disappearing until morning, only to be found battered, dead, or worse. Nelson’s size and speed kept him alive long enough to align himself with the Bobbies, one of the more civilized gangs. He was forced to forgo his recklessness and lack of discipline in order to continue breathing.

During the more peaceful hours, Nelson began occupying his time in the library. Books and stories captured his young imagination; those of his namesake, Admiral Horatio

Nelson, in particular. Nelson became a devoted student of strategy and tactics. His brilliant mind sought to employ this wisdom in the real world and to devastating effect.

After finishing his studies at nineteen, Nelson applied for a commission in the Royal Navy. He won a lieutenant’s position on the ironclad HMS Warrior. Duke Atherton’s name opened doors that would have remained closed to even the most skilled of commoners. The prodigal son served with distinction in various campaigns, supplying and transporting British troops during the Zulu war. By the time war with the Boers broke out in 1899, Nelson had been promoted, and captained his own steamer across the high seas. He always remained courteous and compliant with the rules of naval warfare. If good men were to fight each other, he reckoned, they might as well do it in a civilized manner.

In 1901, Duke Nelson Gareth Atherton II passed away. Lady Atherton joined her husband

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less than a year later. Nelson, reaching his forties, could not get leave to attend either funeral, despite repeated letters and telegrams to Royal Navy officials. Being denied twice proved too much. Disgusted and resentful, he resigned his commission and rushed home.

Seeing his dilapidated family mansion almost broke Nelson. The servants had left, his parents were buried, and his brothers and sisters scattered to the four winds. Nelson had nothing of his heritage remaining.

He sold the estate and moved to London, where he spent most of his days drinking and wallowing at his lost youth. This changed when he met a young serving girl named Mary Mayhew. Within weeks, they had fallen in love, married, and bought a house together on the outskirts of London. They lived happily for almost ten years. Then, Mary died.

Nelson plunged into a dark miasma of despair, depression, and rage. For months, he locked himself in the house, almost starving himself to death.

Lost in a haze of nightmares and hallucinations, he stumbled onto a small beach south of the River Thames. He had not seen so much water in ten years. As the tip of the sun rose over the horizon, the broken peices of Nelson’s mind fell back into place. The sea, his true love, had healed him.

Dark clouds gathered over Europe. The world raced towards the Great War of 1914–1918; an aging but vital Nelson waited for it on his brand new Dreadnaught-class battleship. The Navy was glad to reinstate his commission. However, years and regrets weighed down on his shoulders. His noble face had become leathery, and his hair scraggly and thin. A lonely soul occupied his black eyes.

In the Arctic Sea near Scapa Flow, his passion returned to him. With the help of one British submarine, he held off three German cruisers long enough to rescue the crew of a sinking destroyer. A lucky torpedo broke one

of the cruisers in half and the other two ships were forced to retreat, leaving their drowning comrades behind.

Disillusioned with the virtue and gentility of the Royal Navy, and disgusted with himself, Nelson summoned a small fleet of like-minded friends to his side. He offered his crew the option to disembark. No one did.

The Jolly Roger was hoisted up the Dreadnaught’s flagpole, and the fleet set course for the southern tip of Africa, to reach the great oceans on the other side, and to terrorize them as proper gentlemen.

The Black Duke, as Nelson is now known, bases his operations off a small group of uncharted islands just north of Australia. The largest island, called Gareth (after his father), has a fully-fledged seaport capable of maintaining and repairing his entire fleet.

Nelson keeps a tight crew—no traitors, no criminals, and no bloodthirsty psychopaths. All who violate his law are subject to various degrees of punishment: the firing squad for theft, the plank for striking a senior officer, and keelhauling for murder.

His fleet preys mostly on Chinese merchantmen and any British ship that dares to sail the Indian ocean. This is a severe detriment to British interests in India and the Far East, making it virtually impossible to conduct trade or transport. The Royal Navy has dispatched several fleets after him to seek and destroy, but no one has yet been able to locate his base.

There is a strict code about seizing ships that Nelson follows to the letter. First, he fires a red flare. If the target does not stop, he places one or two warning shots off her bow. If the target still does not stop, he engages, but tries to keep the ship from sinking until after her cargo has been taken. The crew on a ship that chooses to fight has even odds of survival; if they fight well, they are allowed to disembark. If not, they are executed.

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the podAbilities

Brains ......................................................0Luck .......................................................10Mind ......................................................20Muscle......................................................1Reflexes ...................................................1Savvy .......................................................0Status ......................................................5 Reputation ..........................................10 Wealth ...................................................0Weird......................................................30

SchticksPlantClone

Everyone cautioned you about the dangers of the jungle; you should have listened. I can hear every warning they gave as though I were there. But you, the bold adventurer, dismissed their warnings as nothing more than academic shortsightedness and primitive superstition.

It was a quest for the Lost City and its legendary riches. You were determined to succeed where all others had failed. Your oldest friends at the club pleaded with you not to go on a quest that had already claimed two other teams. Twelve people had been swallowed by the jungle and never returned. But that was what made it good for you. That was exactly the kind of legend for which you were looking. And adding your name to that legend—there could not be anything better than that. Besides, you had an edge that the other team did not. You had a map.

You never learned its origins, but it seemed to show a path through the wildest parts of the jungle to an ancient city no modern man had ever seen. To you, this was a straight flush, and you were willing to bet it all. And you had to bet it all. You could not find a financier to save your life and the university certainly was not sending another team. You ended up having to liquidate your own worth to generate the funds and that meant this

was going to be a one-man show. So much the better, you said.

Getting to the location marked on the map was tedious. You had to rely on a great deal of local transport and fortunate opportunities. Since you could not afford to charter your own boat, you had to wait six days for a barge that was heading your way to take you up the river. You could only afford three porters who claimed familiarity with the area. In retrospect, it seems that they were more familiar with telling people what they wanted to hear so that they could get paid. After a few frustrating missteps, you eventually made it to a small village very close to where you believed the city would be found. You spent that evening conferring with the tribe’s leader.

“That part of the jungle is cursed,” the chieftain told you. “You must not go there. The evil gods, they will eat your dreams. You must not sleep there in the bad place.”

You laughed.

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You were obsessed with the quest, hunting for gold and glory, and would not let such warnings sway you. After hearing the chieftain’s pronouncement, only one of the guides, the village idiot, was tempted enough by the coin you paid to stay by your side. You then spent a miserable, fly-infested week chopping down the undergrowth with a dull machete and a duller companion. All that searching, and you still never found the Lost City; but I found you.

Another fruitless day had passed and you found a nice, quiet campsite next to a small stream. You washed yourself for the first time in a week, carefully boiling the water to kill parasites, and finally turned in for some sleep that looked as though it would be undisturbed by the almost nightly downpours for once. That was really just an invitation for mosquitoes.

The guide woke you in the middle of the night, screaming something about a giant snake. You were surprised at the amount of foliage that had fallen on you while you slept, covering you with so much sticky sap that you had to hack at the vines and take some of your own scalp off in the process.

You never found a snake or evidence of one; you ran off after your guide, leaving me to grow in peace and quiet.

If you had not followed that madman out into the jungle, and instead traced that sticky vine back to its source, you would have found me, pulsing and throbbing as I grew. Of course I was very small then, hardly appearing human. You had nearly killed me when you sliced my umbilical from your head. Fortunately, I had all the information I needed to finish my growth.

By morning, I was complete. My pod burst and I stumbled to the water’s edge, where I saw myself for the first time. I saw your face, your lips, and your eyes staring back at me.

I gathered our gear and made my way out of the jungle, returning to civilization. I only stopped to soak up water through my skin from the numerous streams, and to occasionally lie in a clearing under the rays of the sun, allowing my body to change the light into energy.

I sometimes wonder if you will make it out of the jungle. Without your gear, it will certainly be difficult, but not impossible. We are very resourceful after all, and I was able to do it from your memories with no guide. If you do make it back, I hope you will find me. You can look for me on the lecture circuit, traveling from university to school, trying to raise funds and gather a large group of students for another expedition to search for the Lost City. Then I will make sure that the whole group spends an undisturbed night at the old campsite. That place can really grow on you.

As for when we meet again, I have unfinished business with you. You see, for me to truly be complete, you must become fertilizer.

NotesThe Pod can be killed when it is collecting

information through the victim’s skull, by cutting the connecting vine. Four (4) points of damage will do the trick. Otherwise the whole plant must be burned, its water supply must be cut, or its roots can be ripped from the ground.

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butterfly girlAbilities

Brains ....................................................10Luck .......................................................10Mind ......................................................13Muscle....................................................13Reflexes .................................................14Savvy .....................................................14Status ....................................................10 Reputation ..........................................10 Wealth .................................................10Weird......................................................12

SpecialtiesBrains (Occult)Reflexes (Martial Arts)Savvy (Deception)Savvy (Seduction)

SchticksAnimate Tattoo (found item)

Do you really want to hear about the butterfly girl? All right, listen up. Maybe you’ll learn a thing or two about women.

Me and Charlie—that’s Charlie Hsu, a Chinese cop and a hell of a guy in a fist-fight—were throwing some weight around in Blood Alley, looking for anyone who knew about the scroll of—what? That’s right, Blood Alley. It was the dirtiest place in all of China; no matter why you went there, I guarantee that you would come out knee-deep in bullets and women. In the summer, it was twice as bad. Me and Charlie loved it.

Anyway, we were there on a little… independent business. As far as the law was concerned, Charlie was acting as a private citizen, and I was a known face in Shanghai. Known by all the wrong people, that is. So we were in a hurry and nervous, and maybe that’s why we got sloppy. Or maybe we were just young. Whatever. We had heard of the Butterfly Murders. I mean, who hadn’t? I guess I just didn’t take that kind of thing too seriously back then.

See, there were all these guys found dead, about nine or ten in total. All of them around Blood Alley, and all of them Chinese, which was two whole reasons the authorities didn’t care. And they all had these tattoos of butterflies. Cute, huh? The weird thing was that the tattoos were on their faces and necks and all over their chests; the kind of places that you would notice a tattoo. Well, nobody made a lot of noise about it. Everybody figured it was just the gangs killing each other some more.

So where was I? We were looking for the scroll of Liu Pang, some ancient Buddhist scripture that supposedly contained the single word used to create the universe. The temple that lost it wanted it back, and the Vatican wanted it for different reasons. Imagine if somebody proved that God spoke Mandarin. Yeah, I bet the Pope was sweating Buicks. So we were in a hurry, and it looked as though we had finally found the right head to bust. Some guy from the Chungking Underground—that’s

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the anti-Japanese resistance movement—was supposed to have the scroll, and we had found the cathouse in which he was hiding. We thought we would do it the easy way so we dove in, rods first, and told the scumbags inside to touch the ceiling.

We were right; it was easy. The broad at the front desk played dumb till Charlie showed her why I took him along. I’m no angel, but Charlie was a real bad man around women. She didn’t last long before giving up the number of the poor stiff’s room, and I left Charlie down there to watch my back while I went to give the guy the treatment.

The thing about the Japanese in Shanghai was that they were not real nice to their women. All right, that sounds a little funny after what Charlie did downstairs, but it’s true. The kind of women they sold in the Foreign Quarter were fragile and cool like porcelain, and they fetched a pretty penny. So it was not unusual for even the Chungking boys to spend the night with one. Anyway, he is up there with a girl right now. Her name is Chouchou, the old girl said. It meant butterfly. I didn’t think about it at the time.

I was straight through the door, all muscle and gun, and my mouth started working before I could take in the whole scene. Then two things hit me. The first was this girl’s tattoo. This one was something else. The only parts of this dame not covered in butterflies, apart from a few little spots, were her hands, head, and feet. There must be a tattoo artist somewhere who is really sick of butterflies.

The second thing was that the guy was dead. He was twitching and turning blue, like she had just killed him. I saw them. The butterflies were on his face. They were moving.

The things were in his mouth like an apple in a pig, wriggling and crushing each other for the sake of choking this poor sap. I almost screamed. I could see the scroll in the guy’s jacket pocket, and I knew that I might not get another chance, so I went for it.

That was when she did it. She didn’t even twitch and the butterflies were all around her, filling up the air like bees or confetti. I was moving pretty fast and had the scroll, almost reaching the door before they shut it in front of me. That just left me with the window. Well, it was either that or try to shoot down a bunch of butterflies, and I’d done the window thing before. I just had time to look down at the poor stiff in front of me before I went for it. Sure enough, they had turned into tattoos. They were almost pretty, and bleeding like fresh tattoos do. Chalk up another victim.

I broke something small and painful when I landed, but I felt one or two of them touch me so it didn’t stop me running Hell-bent for leather across town. I looked back once, and sure enough, I was trailing butterflies like some kind of crazy comet. There was nothing else for it; into the Whang Poo for me.

Half a minute later, I broke the surface. Butterflies of every color were scattered about my head, bobbing with the ripples and beautiful in a way that nothing else could be. I wandered back to my hotel, drying quickly in the twilight. The scroll was ruined.

That’s the whole story. I got out of Shanghai after that. I guess the butterfly dame was an assassin. I heard that the murders carried on for some time, even reaching the rest of China. She had a whole lot of butterflies in those tattoos. For all I knew, there could have even been a whole bunch of butterfly ladies. I didn’t want to think about it. I still don’t.

I had noticed the pain straight away. I figured that I just hit the back of my neck in the fall or something. It wasn’t until I was squeezing my next dame that she pointed it out:

“Isn’t it a little odd for a man to have a butterfly tattoo? Pretty though. Looks foreign.”

I tell you, I never looked at butterflies the same way again.

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new defectsUndead� 1

This defect is applicable to many forms of the undead, but not all of them. A character with this defect does not heal wounds—if a chunk of flesh is blown off his shoulder, it stays that way. He is also vulnerable to spells that target the undead. The character may be subject to a number of restrictions at the gamemaster’s discretion; for instance, he may not be able to enter hallowed ground. Undead characters do not bleed uncontrollably or fall unconscious after taking a serious wound.

Vulnerability� Resistance (1–4)The character takes a number of wounds

equal to the roll of one die from substances that are harmless to normal humans. The point value cannot be less than 1 or greater than 4.

new masteryComputers Science

Characters with this brains mastery can build, repair, and hack computer systems exceptionally well.

new gadgetreverse

electroencephalographTarget: Brains (Science) [Physics] 20Hero�Points: 6Size: Huge

This gadget allows a character to use a form of Hypnotic Suggestion on targets within audile range of the device. The effect’s duration is an hour, rather than a week, however.

Page 31: Two-Fisted Tales Revised Pulp Villains

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