#enfilade (dyvj)

[drinkyourvillainjuice]

who do each of the altruists view as the most dangerous/formidable hound to fight?

I have a few Hounds-thinking-on-Altruists asks! They're all on my radar but for now I'll address one of the easier ones (need to keep my actual writing time in mind!)

Portrait - depends how exactly his encounter shook out. If Ghoul absorbed a construct, he has them SUPER high on his list, otherwise it'd be competing between Paradigm, Ghoul, and Architect (i.e. if Paradigm got the drop on him, they're higher, and so on)

Surpass - usually Dime unless they ran away or she completely kicked their ass, otherwise Architect.

Vantage - Architect unless Dime is very violent. (otherwise, she views Architect as more dangerous for having a powerful underling)

Arcade - Rampage, as she significantly counters him.

Enfilade - Hand-to-hand specialised Paradigm, otherwise Fracture because he can tank her shit.

Phalanx - Architect, since she considers him the brains of the operation.

[drinkyourvillainjuice]

How would the glory hounds (and altruists) treat their fans? (Phalanx especially. If Phalanx had a million fans I am one of them, etc etc etc)

oh I've got thoughts on this.

Vantage is a consummate professional, meaning she can come across as a little distant, but she does make time for fans and puts her whole heart into representing the Hounds well.

Enfilade is a deer in the headlights. She's comfortable in combat, she's not comfortable in social, and she comes from a background where anything she had to say in public was rigorously scripted and planned out. She's nervy enough about it to be accidentally rude at times.

Surpass loves the spotlight. A little too much, probably. She likes to show off and wow the fans, though there's also a like... tangible barrier she prefers to maintain. Crowds are fine, one to one is less fine. She can do it in short bursts, but she'd rather not spend a lot of time. She gets uncomfortable.

Portrait is great with fans and as mentioned in his game bio, does a lot of outreach within Alderbrook, so he probably has the most direct involvement with fans out of anyone (though he'd say that it's more involvement with people, you know?). Always ready to make out a personalised autograph.

This is Arcade's *scene*. He's the poster boy for the Hounds a lot of the time. He's charismatic and good with people, and he has an image as The Guy for the fans. It's a bit more... calculated than it may come across; like, the corporate side of the Hounds put him into those positions on purpose. He does genuinely like doing it though, he's just conscious about his image.

Phalanx is guarded with fans. A little like Enfilade, there's complications around her ditching the DPR for independent heroing. She did not like having obligations to interact in the DPR. So yeah, in general she's pretty distant and has low tolerance for bullshit. She'll be polite but not warm.

[drinkyourvillainjuice]

Hounds' Altruist Hot Takes - Enfilade

Architect

Behaviour: Ruthless and hence not to be underestimated. Doesn't necessarily hold a grudge towards him for taking her hostage, more she feels she screwed up by putting herself in that position.

Abilities: Highly competent and dangerous, and his powers, used smartly, are a real problem in any engagement.

Rampage

Behaviour: A reckless blunt instrument, which doesn't mean she isn't dangerous. Doesn't think too highly of her.

Abilities: Why is it always the hotheads that have wrecking ball powers?

Fracture

Behaviour: Gritty villains who don't want to give up are always a headache.

Abilities: Mildly impressed by how much punishment he can take without slowing down.

Ghoul

Behaviour: No strong opinions, but has disdain for elaborate costumes.

Abilities: Reserving judgement until she's seen their full kit.

Wyrd

Behaviour: Stop mouthing off and fight.

Abilities: Slippery. Clever. Don't underrate resilience.

Dime

Behaviour: N/A

Abilities: Versatile and hard to predict. Cautious of the possibility that they have more abilities than they've shown.

[drinkyourvillainjuice]

hounds for the dnd question?

Sure!

Surpass - Takes mild offence to the implication that she'll only play a class that walks around whacking things with sticks, proceeds to take a 'whack first, questions later' approach to everything. But I could see this being either a barbarian or a sorcerer. Because y'know, what is a fireball but a big exploding stick?

Arcade - A smooth-talkin' disaster rogue.

Portrait - Wizard. Immediately gets a familiar. Protects familiar with his life. Somehow adopts half the animals the party encounters.

Enfilade - Plays paladin because it seems to make the most sense with her morals. Really tense about the whole roleplaying thing, and struggles to loosen up.

Vantage - Unholy cross class munchkin who will break the entire game given half a chance, and so restricts herself to DMing instead.

[drinkyourvillainjuice]

ok sure world building questions here's a few softball ones,

You said Alderbrook wasn't the big leagues, are heroes/villains in bigger ponds much more directly powerful or just more more skillful?

How often is it that someone gets a power that's all downsides?

You said the adVenture crew was in a different town, more or less dangerous than Alderbrook?

Since there are superpowers does the supernatural, or even magic also exist?

Are augments used to treat physical disabilities?

Does the government regulate augments?

Did superpowers change how wars are fought?

Did 9/11 still happen?

Big Leagues -

It's a combination of strength, skill, and MO. Almost nobody in Alderbrook can, say, knock down buildings or effortlessly destroy a semi truck. Even some of those that can have limitations: Arcade's lasers can be very powerful, but realistically he doesn't get time in combat to charge them up all the way.

While the overall mask population of Alderbrook is a bit higher than average, there are few independent heroes and villains in town and those mostly have relatively minor powers.

Of the villainous gangs, the Businessmen keep a low profile and are focused on profits, not trying to take the town over. The Shreds are dangerous, but disorganised and generally kind of shit at strategy. S.C.U.M have a bit of a 'smalltime' mentality: they're rarely making shows of force (and are still recovering from their losses in the Zone)

To take another example, a guy like Scour is in theory really dangerous: he turns into a sandstorm, and that's destructive over a wide area and difficult to combat. However, he isn't interested in being that kind of a problem, he's content being a heavy with a cushy job that pays well for little effort.

The Zone incident basically put Alderbrook on the mask map. It wasn't drawing too many eyes before then.

Except from Hypothesis, apparently.

All-downside powers? -

No, every power has at least some use. They might suck on a day to day basis and have nasty side effects, but nobody's power say, explodes their own ribcage and nothing else.

AdVenture's hometown -

FAR less dangerous than Alderbrook. No villainous gangs, little parahuman activity, a teeny DPR hero team with barely an office. Alderbrook isn't big leagues, but AdVenture's hometown isn't even a blip.

The existence of supernatural, magic -

So I picture this debate morphing, in DYVJ, to "we can't attribute to the paranormal/magic what can be explained by parahuman powers!"

What I can say is that some power interactions (and powers in general) manifest very, very strangely, and where combinations form, one can begin to see effects difficult to explain when regarded purely with the lens of "what do power A and power B do?"

Augments to treat disability /Government regulation on augments -

Cybernetics can be used to aid people with disabilities, yes! There's a distinction - one I should really make more textual - between 'person with an advanced prosthetic' and 'an augment' in the setting. Someone's prosthetic hand isn't equivalent to a militarised bionic arm, you know?

The more potent a piece of cyberware gets, the more likely it is to be regulated, and higher grade pieces have maany hoops to jump through. Anything with an actual combat application is off limits: nobody's walking off the street and getting Enfilade's bolt launcher arm installed, for example.

In any case, if anyone's getting enough cybernetics packed into them to be deemed an augment, it's either with the government's knowledge or completely illicit.

Superpowers and warfare -

Yes, parahumans changed warfare. Kind of a weird tradeoff between, in the long term, probably resulting in less hot conflict, but only because individuals could be so destructive to regular soldiers.

But yeah, I think countries are probably at war less simply cause... if your elite parahumans all got killed in action, who's stopping the villains back home?

Did 9/11 happen?

No.