Quote from: daniel_ream;896897Anyone who remembers children's television in the province of Ontario can mine Math Patrol for ideas.  I've always liked His Highness Lord Minus, the Takeaway Thief.  In RPG terms he just has a very short range line of sight teleport only usable against inanimate objects.  He's a small time petty thief with delusions of grandeur.

Fortunately Mr Big gave me this kangaroo suit, so it's all good.

Thanks for that trip down memory lane!

That persistent bugbear, Intellectual Property Rights, means we'll never see any of those classics rereleased.

Pity, really, Read All About It was freaking trippy.

Quote from: daniel_ream;896996That persistent bugbear, Intellectual Property Rights, means we'll never see any of those classics rereleased.

Pity, really, Read All About It was freaking trippy.

That and Tomes & Talismans.
And Newscast From the Past.

Here are some I used for my campaigns:

Nicholisk Kochkurovo. (Sci-fi, used him in my Robot Warriors campaign) Russian spy and assassin. Skilled with sniper rifles, why try to kill a guy in his mech when you can pick him off from a mile away before he gets in it? His biggest moment was when he orchestrated a massacre at a rock concert and got it blamed on one of the PCs (which he killed that night.)

Skullon (Fantasy, used in a short AD&D campaign.) Think "Ultron" but for the undead. Created by a mad wizard to be a body guard. The wizard poured too much magic into his creation (or read the source book incorrectly) and his bone golem became sentient. It killed the wizard (or gravely injured) then ran amok.

Tishella and Joachim. (Fantasy, used in my RQ6 campaign.) Children of a chief among the Rigani nomads. They are angry that the Empire has encroached upon their lands centuries ago. When the local legion guarding the area was moved away leaving behind a skeleton force Tishella (younger than her brother but more brash) convinced their peers that they could win glory by taking back the land. They moved in and slaughtered the couple dozen legionaires left behind. They were ready to burn the town when the PCs arrived. Both escaped although they lost most of their cohort. It was a dark day when they had to return to their father and try to explain what they did. They are now on blood-vengeance against the PCs.

Karatos, "Druid" of the Crimson Tree:

A leader of a powerful cult in the eastern, more forested reaches of the kingdom, the Followers of Crimson Tree praise peace and coexistence with nature, their communities dedicating to helping people out, and offering cheap foodstock to nearby cities. It's almost odd that as soon as those communities start trading with a given place, Iron Dust arrives on the market as well. An extremely potent substance, it grants a high unlike any other, magically enhancing the senses for the duration of a sniff - induced dose. However, as the victim takes more and more Iron Dust, his body starts to mutate, and slowly, bark - like mass starts to cover the skin of the victim...

 What almost nobody knows (and those who suspect, are swiftly dealt with), Karatos nor his priests aren't druids, but actually a lesser demon of corrupted gluttony. The key to the power are Crimson Trees, grown in carefully guarded groves. The seeds produced by said trees are ground up to manufacture the Iron Dust, and actually, if the seeds themselves are digested, they root immediately within the victim, turning them into a Sprout Zombie, a mindless automation obedient to the "druids" of Crimson Tree.

Sentient Virus

An alien (or constructed nano-virus) sentient plague has descended on a city / country / world. It does not kill, just infect and wait patiently inside its victims, carefully redirecting its victims actions so it can come in contact with more powerful members of society or those specifically connected to something the virus wants. Then, at an appointed time, the virus takes control of the victim had to perform certain actions (such as shutting down a planetary protective grid, voting for world peace, etc).

Somehow the PCs learn the virus is real and has a plan, but they have to fight something that can be anyone, anywhere, and capable of spreading with a sneeze.

The Prophet of Blades. For my Godbound game, an Oasis States Sand Prince (bandit warlord) who's actually a reject from an eugenics program, with access to the Time Word and vengeance/conquest on his brain. Yes, I'm a lazy fuck.

"khaaaaannnn!"

Quote from: daniel_ream;896996That persistent bugbear, Intellectual Property Rights, means we'll never see any of those classics rereleased.

Pity, really, Read All About It was freaking trippy.

huh why not ??/

Who is killing the gnomes?

As the PCs travel through the region, they keep hearing stories about gnomes in town being killed. No mass assaults on gnome warrens, or other large groups of gnomes, just the murder of a single gnome or those in a small homogeneous group. All victims are missing their heads. Maybe some gnomes will even want to seek safety and travel with the PCs, and those gnomes will probably get murdered too if they stray from the PCs. Is it a cult? Is it one assassin?

My answer is kobolds found a dead dragon...with a decent, untouched hoard. The King Kobold "Man Tongue Bastard" is using the coins from the dragon hoard to pay a variety of assassins to only kill gnomes (half pay up front, half when the head is delivered). The pay is great and the assignment is easy - the kobolds couldn't care if which gnome is killed, just that more and more are slain and the fear in their community ratchets upwards.

"Man Tongue Bastard" assumes the surface folk will send adventurers for him. That's why he's got evil human spies on the payroll listening for bounties and other such "adventurer bait" while investing in trick/trap/murder upgrades to his tribes' warren against the eventual attack.

And who the fuck is this smart ass psycho dog midget? "Man Tongue Bastard" is no ordinary kobold. He's an reincarnated evil human fighter who was betrayed by gnomish adventurers in his past life.

Quote from: Spinachcat;899880Who is killing the gnomes?

As the PCs travel through the region, they keep hearing stories about gnomes in town being killed. No mass assaults on gnome warrens, or other large groups of gnomes, just the murder of a single gnome or those in a small homogeneous group. All victims are missing their heads. Maybe some gnomes will even want to seek safety and travel with the PCs, and those gnomes will probably get murdered too if they stray from the PCs. Is it a cult? Is it one assassin?

My answer is kobolds found a dead dragon...with a decent, untouched hoard. The King Kobold "Man Tongue Bastard" is using the coins from the dragon hoard to pay a variety of assassins to only kill gnomes (half pay up front, half when the head is delivered). The pay is great and the assignment is easy - the kobolds couldn't care if which gnome is killed, just that more and more are slain and the fear in their community ratchets upwards.

"Man Tongue Bastard" assumes the surface folk will send adventurers for him. That's why he's got evil human spies on the payroll listening for bounties and other such "adventurer bait" while investing in trick/trap/murder upgrades to his tribes' warren against the eventual attack.

And who the fuck is this smart ass psycho dog midget? "Man Tongue Bastard" is no ordinary kobold. He's an reincarnated evil human fighter who was betrayed by gnomish adventurers in his past life.

A better scenario would be "Who are the Gnomes killing"?  The Gnomes are always the murderers.

Good point. It would be creepier if the murders were committed by gnomes against humans. Thus, instead of kobold trap lair, there would be a gnome lair full of illusions and nasty badgers.

Quote from: Spinachcat;900355Good point. It would be creepier if the murders were committed by gnomes against humans. Thus, instead of kobold trap lair, there would be a gnome lair full of illusions and nasty badgers.

That's more like it!

C'mon, we need more villains here!

Some of the worst villains can be those who aren't out for power, or wealth...  no, they're just dicks who like really like to fuck with people.

Quote from: RunningLaser;900688C'mon, we need more villains here!

Some of the worst villains can be those who aren't out for power, or wealth...  no, they're just dicks who like really like to fuck with people.

Challenge accepted. :cool:

Blue-collar type of job. He doesn't get much respect, money or other things he thinks would make him happy. He doesn't have many friends, if any at all. His life is boring. He hates it. He hates his job, people around him, their smiles, their "worthier than thou" attitude.

So, he found himself a hobby: every Saturday night he breaks into food related building (factories, warehouses, small shops, markets) and adds some nasty, deadly things to random products. Sometimes he throws shattered glass into chocolate tanks, sometimes he adds arsenic into coughing syrup, sometimes it's rat poison in beer. He knows a lot about food processing, so he knows when, where and what to add to avoid control protocols.

And then he awaits. Each time there's a story about people dying, or at least getting sick because they ate or drank something, he feels joy, he feels power.

Patience is his second name - some of his products won't reach their victims for months to come, some might come into play years from now on. He doesn't mind. It gives him a sense of control.

He doesn't crave for recognition, although it might change - he is surprised that no one has added 2 to 2 so far. He shouldn't be, after all he is very careful. He often uses some disguise and travels to a different towns. He rarely uses same poison and selects different product almost every time. There's no way to connect his victims, time of their deaths, circumstances - it all seem to be random. The pattern, while exists is very hard to see, especially since everyone follows Occam's Razor and accepts that people die due to poor standards, other people's mistakes, or simply connect it as parts of local stories ("oh, that guy, yeah, I've heard he was involved in drug business, no wonder he was silenced"). After all, it would be folly to think that someone does all those things on purpose. That's the biggest strength of his plan - it's massive. We're talking about small incidents across whole country.

Now, there's a guy who thinks there is a Pattern. He might be a former detective, paparazzi, or a newsman - someone who worked with scraps of info, connected them all into a bigger story. Problem is, nobody is willing to listen to him. You know, that schizophrenia, and the history of alcohol abuse, not to mention drugs... And man, did you see how he lives? Myriads of articles torn out of newspapers, covering each wall in his flat, each and every about some disaster. Sick, man, sick.... The coherency of his story leaves much to be desired too. See, he is just like every tinfoil hat, who produced some interesting conspiracy theory and now thinks it's an underlying pattern to all things and events.

That car crash last Friday? Match! That plane that fell out of skies for no reason? Definitely part of the conspiracy. Herbicide in menthol pills? Check! Yeah, it's exactly like that. He adds everything, every disaster he hears about to that theory of his.

Fortunately, he thinks there are different divisions, cells or agents working on different sub-goals and therefore he perceives the happening as a stream of threads, lines representing disasters running in parallel to each other, rather than one big bowl of spaghetti.

Visit him and you'll learn about "car crash group", "plane devastators", "cell phones parasites"... and yes... "food poisoners".

Possible evolution:
- Kind of conspiracy: the "detective" is right, there IS a conspiracy, exactly like he predicted. Where does he err? He assumes it's some organized movement, while all there is are people, sick people working in similar fashion across whole country/globe. They are completely unrelated to each other, don't know a thing about others, they were simply born "under a bad sign" and enjoy what they do. Kind of "Fight Club", but evil.

- Global conspiracy: as above, but there's some shady organization behind it all. It sends its agents to inflict chaos and disasters. Juiciest part: said operatives don't have to know they are working for powers-that-be. They might be mind controlled, manipulated, blackmailed, "Manchurian Candidates"-type of hidden agents... Heck, perhaps they aren't even people - they are Androids. "Food poisoner"? He is part of it all, even if he doesn't realize that.

- Supernatural: as above, but it's not a shady organization. It's a supernatural force, chaos incarnate. Some time ago it operated via selected units, it produced world leaders, dictators, serial killers. It learned there's a better way, more sophisticated and harder to spot. And it puts it into use.

Application:
- Help me, guys: most obvious one. The "detective" is a friend, a former employer or a coworker. He needs help, he calls his buddies, manages to convince them there's something going on. Proceed.

- I AM THE LAW: PCs are law enforcers. They work on a bit different case and by accident they catch a glimpse of the Bigger Picture. Introduce half-crazy "detective" a bit later - he contacts PC(s) and offers his insight and help. Will they pursue this path, or skip it and favor simpler explanation?

- One of us: PCs work for some organization. They are field agents sent on missions usually involving breaking things, planting bombs, things like that. Bad guys? Yeah, unless you choose otherwise. After all, it's not that "good guys" can't fight "evildoers" on a bit different level. There's some sort of poetic justice in learning that a terrorist mastermind who trained suicide bombers dies courtesy of a carbomb. "Live by the sword...", eh? Anyway, PCs meet the "poisoner" and learn that he does similar thing (it requires a slight modification - he doesn't add poison to just ANY product, he select his targets carefully. Perhaps it's a luxury wine that travels abroad, or specific kind of medicine). Thanks to this "random" meeting they learn that they are part of a bigger project, and that they indeed might not be as good as they thought they were (or the opposite of that, they understand now that they are working for Bigger Good). They should perceive their employers in a bit different light, and question their agenda. And you know what happens when one starts to ask too many questions...

- Supernatural hunters: PCs are part of an organization similar to SCP Foundation, Hoffman's Institute, C.H.I.L.L., Inquisition, or something more mundane - cops, soldiers, "supernatural" message board dwellers - whatever floats your boat. Important thing is that they are attempting to find either an evil artifact that "makes people do bad things", or they are pursuing an ancient, supernatural entity that possess people and uses them to commit atrocities... (BTW, there was a movie with a scenario similar to the latter part, but I don't recall specific details). The "detective" might be their ally or even better, the initial target. He seems to be connected to random acts of food/medicine poisoning, because he might be spotted near places where plenty of accidents happened. No matter what will be the outcome of their meeting, ultimately they are gonna learn about the existence of "food poisoner" and whatever force drives him to play his game.

- The doom that came to New York: an addition to above applications rather than separate plot seed: people have seen the Pattern. They realize something's going on. There's panic, there might be riots (one of victims was black but none was rich: white conspiracy to wipe out black and/or poor), citizens demand actions. PCs are thrown right into the middle of that chaos. Perhaps they are law enforcers or supernatural hunters, perhaps someone close to them has been poisoned, perhaps they are somehow connected to the "poisoner" himself. They have to do their job, find the culprit and put him to justice. The problem is... he doesn't add poison anymore. He awaits and observes how his actions in the past influence the present. And he smiles.

...That's as far as my morning coffee takes me.