This blog will be the location for info regarding our DC Adventures game.
Here is the basic (short form) write-up on each of our heroes:
Tim's Character:
Hezikiah Ananias Dare's home was underground in Limbo Town, with the other lost descendants of the Roanoke Colony who lived in the tunnels beneath New York. In his studies of witchcraft and day-to-day duties directing the zombie farmhands who grew Limbo Town's food, he thought little of the world above… until the day Limbo Town was invaded. When Melmoth, the twisted immortal who had bred his inhuman blood into Limbo Town's ancestors and drawn them underground, came to harvest his descendants as slaves, Hezikiah Dare was sent to labor in the mines of the Red Planet, but escaped and found his way to the lost ruins once ruled by the shape-shifting sorcerer kings of aboriginal Mars. Imbued by mysterious alien glyphs with greatly increased magical powers over the vibrations of matter and energy, Hezikiah escapes back to Earth with help of Frankenstein, eventually partnering in mischief with his cousin, Klarion the Witch-boy. Aided by his familiar, one of the Spiders of Mars, Hezikiah the Witch-Boy seeks adventure both above and below the surface of Earth… and beyond.
First Appearance: Klarion the Witch-Boy#5 (Click to read summary)
Click here to read the first issue of Hezikiah's solo series: Hezikiah the Witch-Boy #1
Mike's Character:
Decades ago, there was an legendary fighter, by the name of Huang, who had never been defeated. He believed in the Chinese Zodiac, and set about having a son born under each sign. He trained each son brutally, nurtured their hateful aspects, and then asked them to kill him, so he would never be defeated. The sons became the evil martial arts killers known as the Twelve Brothers In Silk… but there was a thirteenth brother. This secret son of Huang, raised with strict morals and trained in the martial arts by the O-Sensei and Richard Dragon, was named Tien Shi. Settling in Calvin City, he fights for righteousness as the heroic martial artist Red Phoenix, the antithesis of all the Twelve represent. But his larger quest is to show his brothers the lie at the heart of their existence and offer them redemption or— failing that— to destroy them.
First Appearance: Birds of Prey#128 (Click to read summary)
Click here to read the first issue of Red Phoenix's solo series: Red Phoenix #1
Dave's Character:
While on a mission to Mars, astronaut Chet Edwards discovers strange ruins and a glowing pool hidden beneath the planet's surface. When a sudden explosion nearly kills him, Chet is also splashed with the unearthly liquid and exposed to uncanny alien nanotechnology. Chet's body is returned to Earth, where a secret organization combine cutting edge Earth technology with the Martian nanites to rebuild him and restore him to life. Still haunted by this mysterious past, Chet re-entered and shortly left the service of the U.S. government, who no longer employed him for space exploration, but for espionage. And today, members of the intelligence community compare rumors about the exploits of a freelance spy and adventurer named only in whispers as… the Cybernaut!
First Appearance: Detective Comics Presents #1 (Click to read summary)
Click here to read the first issue of Cyberanut's solo series: The Cybernaut #1
Jim's Character:
When 19 year old Ivy University political science undergrad Alexander Kostas encountered a hairy, toga-wearing hobo claiming to be the father he never knew, it didn’t end well. Little did he realize the man was telling the truth, and that his father was no mortal man, but Zeus the Sky-Father of Olympus. Gifted with artifacts and powers by all the male Greek gods of Olympus as an answer to the goddesses' female champion, Wonder Woman, Alex Kostas tries to live a normal life with his girlfriend, nursing student Rebecca Glass. But every day he confronts the truth that life can never be normal for the demigod champion known as Aegis, Son of Olympus!
First Appearance: Wonder Woman Double-Sized Annual #1 (as "the Olympian") (Click to read summary)
Click here to read the first issue of Aegis's solo series (and first appearance as "Aegis"): Aegis, Son of Olympus #1
(Click here to read the issues of his six-issue limited series as "the Olympian".)
Paul's Character
Grigori "Greg" Moore grew up in a Canadian orphanage, the only clues to his true parentage a note in the basket where he was found and a strange tattoo under his right eye. Seeking to become a Social Worker in the United States, he was attending college at Calvin City on his 21st birthday when his normal life came to an end. Saved from an assassination by a mysterious robed figure, Greg discovered he was possessed of superhuman powers, including flight, hyperfast learning, the ability to adapt to harmful environments, and preternatural good luck… powers he would need as unknown forces continue to seek to destroy him. Seeking protection from the U.S. government, he made a deal with Amanda Waller to join Task Force X, better known as the Suicide Squad! His code name: Descent.
First Appearance: Giant-Size Suicide Squad Special #1 (as Greg Moore) (Click to read summary)
Click here to read the first issue of Descent's solo series (and first appearance as Descent): Descent #1
John W.'s Character:
One of the inventors of the extreme sport called Parkour, American expatriate Alan Penn had just finished college in late 1980s France when the events of Zero Hour gave him strange and uncontrollable powers over time. His unwilling jumps through time brought him to the attention of Wally West, the Flash, who helped guide him to the distant future, where the technology of the 85th century saved Alan from his new powers. Returned to 21st century Earth, Alan teaches history at Calvin City College by night and works as a messenger by day, eschewing a bicycle for the super-speed granted by his time control powers. But as one of the founders of Parkour, Alan is not content to merely run on the streets faster than the eye can see. For him getting there is ALL the fun, and when he's not carving newer and more challenging split second paths across the city, he chases an even greater thrill by fighting crime as the superhero known as Rush!
First Appearance: Zero Hour: Rush #0 (as Alan Penn) (Click to read summary)
Click here to read the first issue of Rush's ongoing solo series: Rush #1
(Click here to read his first appearance in costume as Rush, All-Flash Quarterly #36)
Jon F.'s Character:
Spencer Cross was a good cop who was shot by his own partner to keep him from revealing corruption on the Calvin City PD's Vice Squad. One minute, Cross was bleeding to death in an alleyway. The next, a glowing ring was hovering above him. A robotic sounding voice said, "Spencer Cross of Earth, you have the ability to overcome great fear. You have been chosen..." Cross fell unconscious before he could hear anymore, but awoke healed of his wounds, with no sign of the ring. After his whistle-blowing got a lot of dirty cops fired, Cross left the force, a hero to the city but a pariah to his comrades. He became a private eye. One night, while he was snapping pictures of a cheating spouse from a rooftop, the ring finger of Cross's left hand began to glow green. The strange ring he'd encountered in the alley had somehow been on his finger all this time! Inside his mind he heard: "Green Lantern, Designation 2814-Sigma -- report for duty." Then he blacked out, and a new personality took over-- a computerized intelligence known only as Viridian. To this day, his body is host to this entity that performs acts of heroism Cross can barely remember. Now, he tries to reconcile his life to sharing his body with a mysterious superhero, for while Spencer Cross is just a down-on-his-luck private eye, Viridian is Earth's newest representative in that ancient interstellar police force known as... the Green Lantern Corps!
This is what I wrote when I was asked to give a little background on what the game would be like:
The campaign will be mostly set (and will begin) in two, twin cities, one large, one small, that are right next to each other. The two cities are Calvin City, Connecticut (home to Al Pratt, the Golden Age Atom) and Ivy Town, New York (home of Ivy University, where the Silver Age Atom, Ray Palmer, discovered his shrinking technology). The two cities are separated only by the Housatonic River, which also happens to be the state-line between CT and NY.
Calvin City is a massive American city filled with skyscrapers and industry, a city that has seen better days culturally and economically but is still a monument to the achievements of post-WWII American capitalism. With its own major metropolitan newspaper, large police force, wealthy aristocracy, organized crime activity, college (though only a community college, for reasons that will be clear later), a subway system, museums, poltical intrigue, etc., Calvin City is very much the stereotypical superhero comic book city, much like Metropolis, Gotham, Keystone City, Star City, etc.
Ivy Town is completely different. It is a somewhat cozy college town in upstate New York, one that very much revolves around Ivy University, one of the world's most respected institutions of higher learning and a cutting-edge source of scientific research on the level of UC Berkeley or MIT. Much of Ivy Town has a small-town, New England feel, but not all is normal there. It has been revealed that due to the constant shrinking/unshrinking and time/dimension traveling activities of the Atom, the laws of physics are just a bit off in Ivy Town. The walls separating our own universe from other levels of existence are a bit thinner in this particular part of the world. As a result, life in Ivy Town tends to be weirder than just about anywhere else.
