Villains and Vigilantes - Round 3

I did love my Villains and Vigilantes game. I had a blast running it. The group that I had playing it continued to grow. Although Eric, Michelle, and John stopped playing almost immediately, the others – Dan (the Blue Knight), Brad (Daybringer), Warren (Beethoven), and Lance (Speed Demon) all continued to play.

Before I ran the second adventure, I had gotten another couple people to play.

• Tom Hood ran Phearless Phred, a winged, regenerating hero with a vibratory attack

• Karland Kilian was Kranos, a super strong telekinetic who had a pet.

One of the great features of the game was when you were able to create something. A pet did not necessarily mean an animal. It could have been a robot or something like that. Karland decided to go with an Iron golem – an animated iron statue that was superstrong and very hardy. It had a telepathic link to Kranos, and it was the strongest hero that was on the team. Karland named the golem Krunch.

I have to admit, I had a lot of fun with Krunch. I got to use a real groaner during a game. A villain was trying to escape, and Karland sent Krunch to stop the villain. I said “You can’t get away from the Krunch, because the Krunch always gets in your way!”

I believe Warren and Dan both threw a 12-sided throwing die at me…

We played a lot for the following several months, and added four more people –

• The first was Burton Davis, who created Animal Lord, a sword swinging, shape-shifting blind hero. Burton played a few times.

• The second was my little brother. We played quite a bit without the others around. He created Vibratron. He had regeneration, stretching power, vibratory attack and defense, heightened endurance, and a special weapon. The special weapon was a pair of electrified discs much like what you saw in Tron (therefore part of his name). During this stretch, Mark and I weren’t always getting along. I had hit my growth spurt early – I was 5’10” as a freshman, and grew maybe an inch and a half during high school, and Mark was going to enter his freshman year at 5’2” or 5’4”. In some real ways, I think getting Mark to play VnV with me helped me accept him for who he was. Sometime or another, I’ll delve more into Mark’s and my relationship, but now isn’t the time.

• A friend who moved away during 8^th Grade – Scott Kindshci, came back to visit, and I had him create Silver Storm. He had, obviously, storm control, and he may have had flight, but I can’t remember his other powers.

• The final member in that first year was Gian Pagnucci who created the Shogun Warrior. He had a robotic body, was as strong as Krunch, had wings, electrical control, a power blast, and had enhanced senses (radar). He was also very vulnerable to water.

This first set of adventures culminated in an attack of two of the recurring villain groups on our high school. It was a lot of fun destroying PHS. I can only imagine how paranoid people would be now if they heard we were 'destroying PHS. With all the publicity of school shootings and terror threats today, I'm sure I would have been called into the office and had to explain it.

Here’s the map that goes with it, as well as a picture I drew at the time – on the back of my geometry homework. The heroes were victorious. The pictures help remind me how far I have come.

After that adventure, Brad, Eric, and John graduated and went off to college. Dan, Mark, Lance, Warren, Gian, Tom, and I continued playing and beating up bad guys.