I’ve a confession to make. I have lots of ideas, and many of them are bad ones. That’s not necessarily a bad thing in itself though, because the law of averages says that some of the ideas will be quite good too. And sometimes, even the bad ideas can turn out pretty good in the end if given a little twist and push.
I’m rambling, I know.
The idea popped into my head, thus: “I know! How about a guy like Cyclops! Only… only…..he’s black! And his eye beams….. they’re white! Yeh! Yeh!”
Promptly, all the other braincells ganged up on that poor little neuron and beat it into submission, but somehow it limped away and became a memory instead. Bear with me here. I’m not good on brain surgery. Not that I’ve ever tried, of course. Hypothetical brain surgery, then.
Time passes, and I’m wanting a villain for a one-shot adventure for an unknown number of gamers (somewhere between one and four, depending on alcohol consumption the previous night). He needs to be some guy who’s memorable and fun but not too taxing to GM.
That’s when the Little Neuron Who Could popped out from wherever he was hiding and reminded me about the Cyclops-guy.
And lo, Jak the Shell was born. His body is merely a container for the light within that he can barely contain. Rather than work out stats I just jot down the following.
STR 16, DEX 14, CON 12, INT 12, WIS 14, CHA 12
Attack +4, +10 with Blast. Defense +8, Tough +4, Init +4
Blast 10 (Light) and alternate powers (area effect, autofire, etc) as required
Drive +5, Notice +6, Stealth +4
It’s good enough for a game. He’s a little on the low-Power side for a foe in a PL 10 game but I’m not expecting a full complement of gamers and I know from experience a guy with a decent Blast means the Heroes will be busy rescuing innocents, holding up falling buildings and the like. He’s not a villain as such (yet!), but a guy who desperately needs help. How the heroes react will dictate whether Jak becomes Jedi, or Sith. Expect a running battle through Freedom City as Jak tries to escape the toughest opponent of all – himself.
Origin? Backstory? Full stats? I’ll worry about those if he passes the playtest and survives the night. For now though, he’s good to go. I love lazy GMing Mutants & Masterminds. From idea to scenario outline in minutes. Prep? Done.
Thank you, little neuron.
If there’s a moral, it’s this: never throw anything away. You never know when it deserves to jump back out of the wastebasket.
Yeah, I’ve got newspaper clippings, note cards, whole page descriptions, tagged emails, all sorts of “ideas” in all sorts of forms.
Fun Fact: Niles, writer of 30Days of night, first dreamed up the idea when he came across an article in the paper about a place in Alaska where they get 30 days of night. He reportedly wrote “Vampires” in pencil next to it