Chapter 0: Formation

[00:00:00]

RC: Hey everybody, Welcome to episode 0 of Masks and Mayhem, a superhero role-playing podcast using the tabletop games Mutants and masterminds. I am RC the Game Master and I am joined by my friends who will be playing the different characters.

DAN: I’m Dan. I play Yardak the first Atlantean ambassador to the surface in 200 years.

RACHEL: I’m Rachel I play Ruby Lawson, a film school graduate who creates Illusions and objects after contact with unusual meteor.

SAMA: I’m Sama, I play the Speedster post-human Maira Hasan.

RC: So yeah, the basic gist of this is we are all playing the tabletop game Mutants and Masterminds. It is basically a lot like Dungeons and Dragons. You roll a single 20-sided die, add the appropriate number, and you see if you beat the challenge. And for damage, which is the fundamental difference between this and other games… instead of having hit points. You do damage which grows over time. Every time you’re hit you get negative one to your roll. And if you fail a role by between 1 and 15, it does different amounts of harm to you, which will basically put you at a greater disadvantage. And if it’s more than 15, you’re knocked out.

[00:01:00]

RC: So let’s get into a little bit about the world. Dan tell me a little bit about Yardak himself and what he can do.

DAN: Yardak is an Atlantean. He is a member of the Atlantean guard. Uh, he is about 6 foot 2. He’s 200 years old, uh, he has black hair and blue eyes. His powers are water manipulation and healing. He can create things like water whips with his hands and force fields as well. He uses water as a conduit to heal so he can heal small injuries.

RC: Alright, cool Rachel. Tell us a bit about Ruby.

RACHEL: Okay. Ruby is a 23 year old woman and she’s about five seven and has long brown hair. With her powers. She can make smaller objects and bigger Illusions and something Ruby doesn’t know yet is that she can shoot light from her hands and it kind of looks like a strobe light.

In fact in my character sheet, it is called the Razzle Dazzle.

RC: And Sama tell us a little bit about Maira.

[00:02:00]

SAMA: Maira’s like a fun cross between Miss Marvel and the Flash. She’s a 22 year old Hazel eyed, brunette haired woman. Her power is super speed and now she’s discovering all the bells and whistles and ways she can use them to do the hero thing.

RC: All right, awesome. Uh, we’re gonna circle back around now and talk a little bit more about character backstories. So let’s. Go back to Yardak.

DAN: As I was saying Yardak is the ambassador to Atlantis, which the last Ambassador was actually his father who was killed in the War of 1812. Because of this Yardak has a bit of a standoffish attitude towards most of the humans that he meets while he is up on land.

Yardak is also pretty much a a ward of the palace. He is best friends with the prince Yarkalan. So he has lived in the palace his whole life with his mom as his dad was off doing the whole Ambassador thing and now it’s Yardak’s turn to step up to the plate and see what he can do for the people of Atlantis.

RC: And how long has he been doing that for.

DAN: Roughly half a year so far.

RC: Does he get to have regular contact with Atlantis?

[00:03:00]

DAN: Yes, Yardak actually has a what I like to call a shell phone. It is actually called the Ripple Com and he can use it to contact with Atlantis while he is up on land. And he also can go visit Atlantis and between missions as he can swim quite swiftly as well.

RC: Since we’re talking a little bit about it. The Ripple Com is basically like a bowl with a bunch of Atlantean runes around it that when he puts water in creates functionally a water hologram with whoever he’s just talking with.

DAN: Think Meg in Supernatural.

RC: Okay, let’s come back out of the sea and let’s hear a little bit more about Ruby’s pre-adventure life.

RACHEL: Ruby is from Texas and it was actually while she was back home that she saw the meteor and it basically disintegrated when she touched it Ruby actually moved to Riverside City to go to film school, which is where she met her best friend, Bethany. Ruby is a film nerd and a TV nerd and loves to make references especially to Space Cadet which is a very popular sci-fi program and Ruby is very into it.

[00:04:00]

RC: It’s not at all a knockoff of a popular multi series multi-decade spanning, uh Sci-Fi show in the real world.

DAN: Doctor Who?

RACHEL: So far before she gets roped into helping out with U.N.I.O.N., Ruby was using her powers to help with her film career. She would go and she often goes in private and make special effects with her illusion powers, or she doesn’t need to buy props because she can make them with her powers and it’s very convenient and very cost-effective.

RC: So Sama. Let’s hear a little bit about what led Maira down the hero path.

SAMA: Maira recently moved to Riverside City with her family. She has a younger brother Mo who’s pretty much her best friend and an older sister Hazeema whom she doesn’t always see eye-to-eye with. Um, she was in a situation that she really wanted to escape and she just ended up running really fast.

RC: So now we’re gonna talk a little bit about the world that this takes place in.

[00:05:00]

Riverside City is a Northeast United States like Metropolitan hub in the vein of New York or Washington or Boston and it’s where Yardak has been stationed as an ambassador. It’s where Maira recently moved to; its where Ruby went to film School in his living now that she’s a graduate.

So we’re talkin a large city with skyscrapers and industry. The main thing that has drawn the three of them together is a group called The United Nations Irregular Operations Network. Otherwise known as U.N.I.O.N. The organization is to basically combat extraterrestrial threats and post-humans, which are the superhuman people of this world. This group through their adventures has been drawn together to fight alongside U.N.I.O.N., where they get some of their missions from and a lot of their assistance.

From the couple adventures we’ve played so far. What are your thoughts on U.N.I.O.N.?

DAN: Betsy Bullard is not the best of friends with Yardak.

RC: So he’s referring to Director Betsy Bullard the head of U.N.I.O.N., who he had a frosty first meeting with.

[00:06:00]

SAMA: They don’t have the best recruitment tactics.

RC: And Sama means is Agent Kevin Lewis who is like one of the top field agents was in charge of recruiting Maira and to do so, he created a fake house burning scenario to kind of get her to use her powers and test herself before revealing his true intentions of bringing her to U.N.I.O.N. to talk more about her abilities.

RACHEL: Ruby’s actually been getting along great. They all seem like they’re nerds like her. Especially Frank.

RC: Which means Frank Dunlap who is the head engineer for U.N.I.O.N. and he actually developed the Holographic Hazard Intensity Chamber, nicknamed The Horns, which is a sort of holodeck-type area to do different combat scenarios in.

SAMA: And he’s the cute coma guy?

RC: No, Frank’s like middle-aged. You know, he’s a little I described him as portly

RACHEL: I mean he’s old compared to the 23-year-old.

RC: And the cute coma guy is Agent Alan Rickard who is really a rather minor character.

[00:07:00]

RC: uh that they just met during their first adventure and he got knocked into a coma.

RACHEL: Literally had happened is I asked if he was cute and then he got knocked into a coma and so I’ve been very concerned.

SAMA: It’s a tragedy.

DAN: And this is where we insert the music of the Heart Wants What It Wants by Selena Gomez.

RC: The only U.N.I.O.N. NPC we haven’t really mentioned is Dr. Lidia Alvarado, who is the head sort of science, medical. person for U.N.I.O.N. who Ruby met her when she first came in to meet U.N.I.O.N. They gave her a blood test to kind of examine her abilities and learn more about like what makes her powers work.

So they’ve been on a few Adventures which were just kind of go over a little bit. The first time that they ever played the game together. This was before Sama actually came on to the team. It was Ruby and Yardak and a few other characters who were transported to an arena in space and forced to fight their way out escape from the clutches of Uniban who was the warlord of the arena.

[00:08:00]

RC: Eventually, they deposed him. One of the people that they were captured with, Gemini, who is a mimic who can who can touch people to mimic their powers, Gemini was a part of U.N.I.O.N.

DAN: Do we even need to mention Gemini?

RC: Yeah.

DAN: Oh.

RC: You thought these characters were gone. No!

DAN: Player knowledge character knowledge.

RC: I mean your character met them. So they do know him.

DAN: I guess.

RACHEL: Yardak has a bad memory.

DAN: I have a bad memory. Good God.

RC: I was gonna say for the two of you that were there. What was your biggest memory of that of that whole time.

RACHEL: Well Ruby was very freaked out but very like excited to be in space Also. There was a lot of chaos and Ruby felt like she had to be the mom with the group.

DAN: Yeah. I remember a lot of chaos some sort of bedroom where somebody was hiding under the covers.

RC: Uh-oh, that was Gemini hid under a pillow when guards attacked.

[00:09:00] 

RACHEL: Gemini also went up to a group of aliens and tried to pretend to speak an alien language and then I had to turn her invisible that that’s when that’s when Ruby went into mom mode. They’re like, oh this people are crazy.

RC: So after that after that adventure in space, Ruby had a small adventure of her own where she was almost mugged after her and her roommate Bethany were coming home from a bar one night.

RACHEL: Yes first there were some people in the bar. They’re very rude to us. And then they got mugged and we went in hid in an alleyway. And I very creatively made a dumpster to hide behind. But the guy saw us so I made a fake wallet put real money in there because… I counterfeit money a crime and then I saw but then I saw him later he tried to attack me and I made a hammer attack him.

RC: and also yeah, and then he was arrested and it’s also worth noting that during that time you were dealing with some problems with filming your latest movie.

[00:10:00]

RACHEL: Yes, I think Ruby is trying to make her first movie out of the like film school. So try to make it on her own no help from professors.

RC: Or producers.

RACHEL: Yeah, or producers. That would actually be helpful, but you know, she’s trying to make it out of her own and she was that had to rally, you know her actors behind her vision.

RC: And around that same time as Ruby was having her mugging and filmmaking things going on Yardak was called back to Atlantis.

DAN: It was not under the best of circumstances. There was actually an insurrectionist group that was attempting to rise up in Atlantis and they were detonating explosives around the city and causing chaos.

RC: And during that adventure Yardak met Yaradamo, who was a soldier in the Atlantean guard who had proven his loyalty to the king during a time where the king wasn’t sure who he could trust and so they had to team up to fight back this insurrectionist group.

DAN: Yes during our time investigating through Atlantis. we experience some trials and tribulations of sorts and…

RC: A little bit of tension

[00:11:00]

DAN: A little bit of tension of uh, the unresolved sexual kind. And at the end of the adventure Yardak and Yaradamo got to know each other biblically.

RC: And on a separate note. It was discovered that the interactionist group was being led by a former member of the Atlantean guard and friend of Yardak’s who everyone thought had died.

DAN: Also an important aspect of the adventure.

RC: Yeah also separately, uh, maybe not as important. And then uh in again in a similar time frame Maira had an experience saving someone from a mugger.

SAMA: So the mugger was on top of a building and Maira had to figure out how to not only get there but also prevent him from doing harm to anybody else. Uh, I’m I don’t really remember how our solution ended up being.

RC: I believe you ran up grabbed the person and got them out of harm’s way, tried to fight him, and ended up just taking his gun and taking it apart real quick before running him to the police station and leaving him tied up in front of the police station.

[00:12:00]

SAMA: That’s right. And I also had to figure out some excuse to tell the mugging victim that like I’m nobody important.

RC: Yeah. I was gonna say you learned a very importantly that you have to cover your face when you’re fighting crime. If you want to stay anonymous.

SAMA: And after that Maira always wears a scarf around her neck should the need arise for her too tie it around her face.

RC: And then they all were gathered together shortly after their individual adventures for their first group adventure. We had Maira be recruited by Agent Kevin Lewis. We had Yardak in his first meeting with Director Bullard since becoming the ambassador between Atlantis and the humans and we had Ruby being brought in for her blood test to learn about her powers. And so they got to each interact with these individual NPCs before they were all asked to do a simulation battle in The Horns where they got to fight some Nazis.

RACHEL: Nazis, bad.

DAN: 100 Nazi scalps,

SAMA: We hate Nazis.

RACHEL: So I have a tendancy to put people in boxes.

RC: Not metaphorical one’s.

[00:13:00]

RACHEL: Not metaphorical ones, actual stone boxes. And I made a point to not make holes in the boxes with the Nazis because one, they’re fake and two, they are Nazis.

SAMA: We are pro-Nazi punching.

RC: So post Nazi punching the group was let out and congratulated by the U.N.I.O.N. executive staff. And it was at that same time that an alien known as a Quarnian was being transported through the lobby area. The container with the alien creature inside of it lurched from its force, knocking rubies blood sample out of the doctor’s hands where it broke and that blood mixed with it somehow and made it extremely more powerful and then it broke out from its container and fought the whole team before escaping.

RACHEL: Yes. We were very concerned and we’re like we should go after that thing.

SAMA: Not good.

RC: I just remember it did a big swipe with one of its basically tendrils and hit a bunch of people like Frank and the doctor, but like you guys and Director Bullard all kind of dodged out of the way of it.

DAN: And then we ended up following the Quarnian into a park, I believe.

[00:14:00]

RACHEL: I think it was like an outlet mall, right?

RC: It was like an outlet mall or a shopping center. So throughout the battle at the shopping center, alot happened. Uh, they tried drowning it, uh with Yardak’s water manipulation. The creature actually just went into a complete rage and in one hit slammed down on the head of Agent Alan Rickard and that’s how he ended up in his coma.

RACHEL: I just met him.

DAN: At the end of the fight. I use one of my Hero Points to leap into the air and use my spear that I carry to impale the Quarnian and stick him into the ground.

RC: And that’s actually a good chance to mention Hero Points. That is another thing that differentiates Mutants and Masterminds from some other tabletop games. Hero Points along with Extra Effort allow you to kind of push your character beyond their normal limits. You can get a reroll on a failed role. You can do kind of a what’s called a power stunt, which is a power you couldn’t normally do if you do it with Extra Effort it fatigues you which hinders you or you can use your hero point. You gain that throughout the game through special events that you do or situations where the Gamemaster kind of puts you at a disadvantage. You can use it at a later time to kind of make up for that.

[00:15:00]

Yardak used a Hero Point in that example to get a better role to pin the characters of the ground and Ruby, what was your creative solution?

RACHEL: So at some point someone had told us that they didn’t like fire. Ruby made a giant match and lit it on the ground and held it over it until it begs for mercy because it was so scared of the fire.

RC: So yes after recontaining the beast, they took that back to base along with Agent Alan Rickard who has been cared for by Dr. Alvarado and the team of U.N.I.O.N. medical staff. Uh, and then in their, second to most recent adventure., the team was brought back for another combat session in The Horns where Frank kind of put them in a situation that they had to save some hostages.

SAMA: I think it started with two guys that were holding people hostage. And then the more we went in to try to save the victims the more hostage-takers kept showing up. I think Ruby made like an illusion of a sound in a different room to distract them at some point.

[00:16:00]

RACHEL: Oh, and I also made us scrubs and like stole some badges.

SAMA: Oh, yeah. So we really like a secret identity of nurse/doctor people. So they wouldn’t question who we were, why we were there.

RC: Yeah. Yeah, you guys did some pretty clever ideas on how to blend into a situation.

DAN: And then this is also another situation where I spent a Hero Point where Yardak ended up being captured by the hostage takers and had his hands bound behind his back. And as Yardak’s powers come from his hands he was at a great disadvantage.

So I ended up needing to spend my Hero Point in order to break out of these binds.

RC: After the team had finally either put all the bad guys into boxes or knock them out or took their weapons. It was at that point that the HoloKnight showed up which is basically a giant robotic knight that exists in the simulation world and it actually swung and slightly singed Ruby with its giant flaming sword.

[00:17:00]

It was at that point that Frank kind of paused the simulation and said “Hey guys, what do you think about this you want to change it up?” And through the interaction between the team and Frank the HoloKnight realized basically that it was in a simulator and was able to zero in on where the control room was and blasted Frank which meant that he could not end the simulation and you had to continue your fight with it.

SAMA: That was scary.

DAN: After the HoloKnight put a big hole on The Horns to be kind of at a loss of what to do and how to end the simulation and then eventually throughout the fight. We remembered that the HoloKnight has a sort of power pack on his back where his energy comes from. So I ended up using my water whip to basically explode this power pack on the whole nights back which ended up winning us the fight.

RC: The team was then able to end the simulation. They grabbed Frank and took him up to the doctor to get treated for his injuries. Everyone sort of discussed. The fact that Frank had accidentally built a semi-sentient  artificial intelligence.

[00:18:00]

RC: It was at the end of that adventure when Ruby and the team were back talking with the doctor and with Frank that they all talked about maybe going out and hanging out at some point. And the doctor hesitantly agreed and went back into the medical room with Frank and kind of turned and gave Ruby a very pointed, concerned almost sad look, before closing the door.

RACHEL: I still do not know what that was about.

RC: in a brief postgame sequence right after that Frank and the doctor were talking.

The doctor said “Frank, should I tell her?” Frahk put his head in his hands and said “Doc, don’t don’t tell her, it won’t change anything.”

That was a bit of a refresher for the audience and for you guys.

RACHEL: I remember because I still want to know and the next time we saw her it was fine. So, I don’t know.

RC: Yeah, it’s a after these adventures that we find ourselves in the first recorded adventure. Our pilot episode, which is also available.