Up next in 10
This week on Masks, with the tip from Perseus Pyrite, the Mavericks are hot on the tail of -- presumably -- Silver Age villain Mirror Master, back and probably up to no good. But why did Mirror Master want Pyrite's shield, rumored to be able to open portals in time and space? Is he truly operating on his own? Is the past ever truly buried and behind us? Our teenage powerhouses are about to find out those answers -- for better or worse -- in an encounter that will test their mettle as heroes... and as a team. If you like Young Justice, Young Avengers, and Teen Titans, you'll probably like this game.
GM Phil Ulrich helps our young heroes find their footing in Halcyon City, as the newly named superhero team The Mavericks takes on an old threat with mysterious means and motives. Here's our team:
- Joan as Vida, aka Little Marvel (Beacon). At just five inches tall, you could miss Vida entirely (or only see her service dog Lobo), but she's determined to prove that she can be a hero despite her size.
- Joe as Alex and T.L.O.N., aka Talons (The Host/ed). After a lab accident, Alex found themself merged with T.L.O.N., the Tailored Living Organism Neuropathic-Connection. Living with T.L.O.N. is sometimes complicated, but Alex is committed to using his new powers to help others.
- Matt as Arvana, aka Shrike (Scion). The daughter of interdimensional conqueror Nabasu the Annihilation, Shrike led her father's armies to earth. But, impressed by the heroes of Halcyon City, she decided work with these heroes and turn against Nabasu.
- Liz as Charlie, aka Jade X (Delinquent). Charlie has a habit of getting into (and usually out of) trouble using her power to create illusions. But when she finally got caught, one of the agents of A.E.G.I.S. saw her potential and assigned her to a team of young heroes for training.
This is the third in a three-part game of Masks: A New Generation by Magpie Games. If you like our game, you can pick it up for yourself from Magpie or DriveThruRPG. It's a Powered by the Apocalypse game, so characters are based on playbooks, and there are some great fan-made playbooks that expand on the official options.
Music for this game is "Hero Stuff," written and performed by Joseph Perez/Mad Shaman Studios. (Hey! We know that guy!)
Subscribe to Tavern Watch in your podcast player of choice to keep up with our latest liveplays:
RSS: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/674cf5861c6967d814005868
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3qIQaOPskXoKmqqOqNYz1k
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tavern-watch-podcast/id1788120623
Visit us at https://blizzardwatch.com for the latest news on Blizzard games, and don't forget to subscribe on Patreon to support our efforts! https://www.patreon.com/blizzardwatch
Discord: https://discord.gg/MY9p4d7t8U
Show More Show Less View Video Transcript
0:00
[Music]
0:24
welcome friends to the supremely spectacular superpowered Saturday morning show join our marvelous and
0:30
mischievous miners of Mirth and Marryman as they battle the malicious and malevolent forces making moves to
0:35
manipulate Hian City tavern Watch is proud to present the Mavericks
0:47
[Music]
1:12
last time on the Mavericks our team bonded over dinner kind of bringing the
1:17
best and worst out of each other were they friends did they insult each other both because they're teenagers
1:24
they decided to that after everything and taking stock of their day that they needed to get in contact with Perseus
1:30
whose shield had been targeted by these mirrored minions alex decided to cash in
1:36
his influence token little thing he had hanging over Blue Blaz's head and much to the Blue Blazes sugarin he
1:43
capitulated lunch was set and the team decided to make their way over there they
1:49
discovered that the metal that the shield was made out of was actually not a metal from this realm not made in some
1:56
far off distant land but made by Aegis itself kind of fitting for a shield from
2:02
an interdimensional meteorite that just materialized onto this plane it had special properties just like the team
2:09
suspected of not just refracting energy but apparently contacting and traveling
2:14
through other dimensions the team during this meeting also found out that Thirstston Wrup existed the chief minion
2:22
of the mirror master they then went back to their aegis counterpoint to figure out what happened with this person
2:29
finding out that he had been released on patrol and definitely definitely was
2:34
100% trustworthy they also discovered that the mirror master hadn't been heard from in about 10 to 15 years but when he
2:43
was he was in fact a member of Aegis who made off with elements of this meteorite
2:48
him targeting it possibly seems like the next logical step the team then gets
2:54
their contact to give them the ability to track this metal and they decide that it's time for all the embarrassing stuff
3:00
to be put aside while Alex decides that it's time to put the embarrassing stuff aside because he'd rather punch something because he's really really
3:07
good at that and well they're teenagers they're really good at making things a mess welcome back to Tavern Plays Masks
3:14
a game of teenage superheroes and we're going to thank you for that uh summary we're once again going to catch up with
3:20
the exploits of our teen heroes the Mavericks uh that voice you heard was of course Joe Perez joe would you like to
3:27
tell us who you are playing i am playing Talons who is combined of Alex Santa Lucia and its hosted wonderful friend
3:35
Ton the two of them making a perfect symbiotic relationship uh we also have Joan Albbright i am playing Vita Moreno
3:42
Perez also known as Little Marvel who is a 5-in tall superhero and you're also in
3:49
charge of Lobo the bestest boy uh bestest boy the bestest we also have Matt Rossi hello uh everyone i'm playing
3:56
uh Shrike real name Arvana Nanabasu dad's an evil conqueror mom's who knows
4:03
at this point uh she lives with an Aegis agent and spends a lot of time sleeping in Jesus' room uh having life explained
4:10
to her and last but not least of course Liz Harper hello i am playing Charlie
4:16
otherwise known as Jade X a superhero name she was required to take but secretly thinks is actually pretty cool
4:22
she's a little overwhelmed right now because she was just given a costume and what is even going on is she a real
4:29
superhero now is that how this works anyway fine totally fine playing it cool
4:34
rumor rumor has it that you may in fact be a hero and uh we see we see our
4:40
heroes we'll uh we will cut to our heroes on a uh on a rooftop very common place for uh heroes to end up at a uh at
4:48
a warehouse in the docked district of Hian City uh occasionally a hot bed of
4:54
crime cuz things move in and out of the city including uh things that villains may want to get their hands on or you
4:59
know may have just per perloined for themselves uh this particular warehouse
5:05
according to the device that uh Vita is checking which looks sort of like a sleek black Star Trek triquarter uh is
5:12
we'll say beeping and vibrating alarmingly um with a little radar screen
5:18
that kind of indicates whatever you're after is right underneath you which as we may recall was uh metal sourced from
5:25
a mysterious meteorite uh once under aegis control safe and sound but
5:30
perloined by a villain known as the mirror master years ago no here's a question one of my moves is called All
5:36
the Best Stuff okay it's I've compiled access to ces of equipment and weapons
5:43
other supers have hidden uh in the city when you access a C say whose cage it is
5:49
if it's a hero roll a savior if it's a villain roll danger on a hit you find a tool or intel useful to your situation
5:55
does that mean that I could basically find a way to get into this place with my all the best stuff ability uh let's
6:01
see my father have compiled any sort of notes on this guy or the you know cuz we were spying on the planet for like 5
6:07
years before he actually invaded like I started you know before I was like I was only 10 when he started when you access
6:13
a cache say whose cash it is on a hit uh I think it's entirely possible that
6:19
maybe not this specific place but one of the mirror master's caches was definitely one you could have accessed
6:24
um in this case you will be rolling with danger because the mirror master is a villain so go ahead and roll plus danger
6:29
and then we'll see what you find if anything okay that's a three okay in this case we it is going to be this
6:36
place um I think so tell me so you guys have you guys have tracked this place
6:42
down and something kind of pings in your head you're like "Yeah this was one of the old caches of this guy." Like it's
6:47
slowly coming back to you because you had a lot of info during the invasion there was a lot yeah he was on
6:53
constantly yeah and you're like "I remember this place hold on." And then how do you set off an alarm well I
7:00
probably just reach over and like remember how to open the door and then open the door without even thinking
7:07
about whether or not there's an alarm on it this is one of those uh this is one of
7:13
those uh warehouses where there's kind of you know the the access door on the roof um where I assume I assume you
7:20
probably flew everyone up here best way to best way to get in on notice then you open this door and deep down in the
7:26
bowels of this building like you hear
7:32
you you hear an alarm going off a few floors below you that that's not what I meant to do oops uh Mios we're doing it
7:39
live okay folks look alive all right that count as another
7:45
potential uh yes that is a potential i've got two of those woohoo okay so are
7:53
you guys how are you guys it sounds like you want to get in there how are you getting in you've got we'll say you've got the you've got the stairs that you
7:58
could run down here on this door that uh Shrike just flew flung open and also we'll have the classic thing of there's
8:04
a row of double windows across the center that you could uh if anybody wants to be really dramatic you could just break those and fall in i would
8:11
like to assess the situation and uh the question that I can ask even on failure is what's the best way to get in okay so
8:19
how are Okay so I assume you're you're weighing your options here just tell tell me what what this looks like for
8:25
you is this just So I mean Charlie is always concerned with staying out of sight and I I think she's kind of doing
8:31
her usual thing where she's if there's she's doing what she can with illusion
8:36
to make it not obvious they're there if anyone was looking for them like
8:42
like maybe there's a sudden fog cloud like just to so she's trying to keep out
8:48
of sight while giving herself a minute to look around and figure out the best way to get inside if there is one okay
8:55
well let's assess the situation go ahead and roll plus superior uh that is not
9:01
good that's a six okay so go ahead and mark potential this is the episode where
9:06
your all's dice have decided to start failing you oh okay so even on a even on a miss you
9:12
do get to ask your question from criminal mind yes but then uh something
9:17
is going to happen to you so go ahead and ask your question uh what is the best way to get into this place safely
9:23
okay so uh As the the safest way in would be to uh head down the stairs of
9:30
the doorway that is um you know right next to you that was ripped open yes there's an alarm going off and yes they
9:36
know where that is but that can get you into the building onto some catwalks where maybe you can evade notice um and
9:43
that is exactly what you were thinking that you were going to do uh when you
9:49
you're heading for the door and all of a sudden where the door is you just see yourself and you stop
9:56
and you realize that in front of you is um not like a clone of yourself or
10:01
anything that would be too weird um the opening into the building has been it's it's like a mirror a mirror sprang out
10:08
of nowhere and you're looking at your own reflection um that entryway has been suddenly blocked off by a uh by a um
10:17
it's it's like I'm I'm trying to think of the word for like when a door like slams down over something to block it off um except in this case it's a mirror
10:23
because the mirror master has like a shutter yes a shutter that is exactly the word I was thinking of thank you Matt did it also come down over the
10:31
windows or just the door uh the windows are too long for it to have come over
10:37
all of them at once but you can hear like on on on the far end of the building here guys you can hear
10:43
the shutters start coming up if you want to get in you've got to find a way in fast time to go i think I I I think I
10:50
grab I'll grab Vita and uh our wonderful pup and I think I'm going to make a
10:56
barrel through the window all righty uh yeah so are you I'm assuming you're
11:01
trying to use your powers to uh you're kind of you're kind of hooking your way in there yeah i mean one of my things is
11:07
uh the mobility right so the unnatural mobility so I I literally I literally just like
11:14
make like a a baby Bejorn for like the pup and and Vita and like I don't know like make hard points on my feet yeah
11:21
like I I essentially unfold them uh I make hard points on my feet start and just smash through the window with uh
11:28
and then use my uh elongated hooks or talons from uh my hands to like
11:35
gracefully get us onto like a catwalk or or something they know we're here so there's no point in uh mincing it and
11:42
then as soon as we land I immediately release uh the two of them and start
11:50
making a little bit of distance so I can start trying to attract attack cool in fact Lobo also loves flying
11:58
did you do Did you do a three-point stance when you landed are you that cool oh 100% perfect uh okay so you uh so
12:05
Vita and Lobo and uh Alex land on this uh land on an upper catwalk um so you
12:11
guys can you uh you can kind of see inside the warehouse and Shrike and Charlie can follow you if they need to
12:18
um this is a so it it's a fairly This warehouse is emptier than you would
12:24
think it would be other than the fact that there are uh a lot of uh of course
12:30
mirrors set up down below in almost kind of a pattern and then there is one
12:37
extremely large one like and when I say large I'm thinking like this thing is like the
12:43
size of a movie theater screen and it is on one on the far wall of the warehouse
12:48
from where you are oh no um the alarm is causing like low red lights to kind of
12:54
flash on the bottom of the catwalk um too along with the you know the clacks that you can now hear um and the room is
13:02
uh there are a number of those mirror armored robot soldiers that you can see um kind of starting to sweep the
13:08
building um for intruders down below uh Shrike what are you up to what are you
13:14
doing um did the the the shutters didn't close over the window when he went through it right correct okay then I'll
13:22
just drop down okay um but I want to basically I want to be
13:29
noticeable like in a way that I want them to be focusing on me and not on everybody else okay because I'm kind of
13:35
a blunt force instrument we have the same the same damn idea yeah but I'm
13:40
getting to go so I as I come through I again do the
13:46
gravity thing i I grab the do the gravity hammer and pull myself to the floor okay super hard so that I'm
13:54
basically you know um this wouldn't be confronting a dangerous situation or you
13:59
know because there's nobody there yet uh what it would be doing is this is an unleash your powers because I'm trying
14:07
to basically reshape the floor into a giant crater
14:12
okay yeah I agree with that assessment roll plus freak okay even with uh my
14:18
current negative on freak because I wasn't told that they didn't change back um yeah the the changes to changes and
14:25
shifts to labels are permanent unless otherwise notice uh I shift again i got an 11 even with that cuz I rolled the
14:33
two sixes okay you do exactly the thing you want to do um basically the floor
14:39
gets hit anything within like whatever you decide is a reasonable range of me
14:44
that is hostile will be getting pulled to me by the gravity hammer like I'm literally going to yank it all to the
14:51
central point that I'm at just as I smash into it yeah I think this does the really weird looking thing of causing
14:57
the concrete to like ripple as you hit like shock waves cause it to like ripple almost like a strong earthquake and like
15:03
several of these like robot soldiers kind of go and like land in a pile near
15:09
you i guess they don't really go wow they're robots they and land remember what George Lucas tells you they don't
15:15
do that beep boop um but more importantly like also several of the
15:20
mass masks mirrors near you like fall over and shatter and from the far end of
15:26
the warehouse you hear you hear a voice say "Of course they send children to
15:32
fight a mastermind and they make a mess of the place." and a spotlight kicks on
15:38
and there is a man who I can only describe as looking like a uh sta a a
15:43
wiry looking stage magician in his 70s with a cloak made of mirrors on his back
15:49
which anyone especially Alex would recognize immediately as the original mirror master and as Alex sees us he'll
15:56
kind of scream out "Hey bro didn't you know Disco's dead
16:03
disco will never die and neither will I are is it okay to fight are we supposed
16:10
to fight geriatrics now i mean is this is this actually heroic
16:18
my father is several thousand years old and you didn't have any problem fighting him h Okay that's a good point that is a
16:24
good point villains are villains alex will scream i believe in equal treatment we're good charlie what are you do what
16:31
are you doing well we're we're playing with mirrors i
16:36
would like to create a whole I I would like to try and distract the robots and
16:42
the mirror master if possible with like lots of copies of like the team like
16:49
going in different directions i like this yeah my my intent is like like run one
16:57
way and have a couple of teams of us run in different directions and just kind of scatter and
17:03
let everyone scatter theoretically okay uh yes so this sounds like Are you
17:09
watching closely yes all righty okay I'm going to try yep so roll plus superior
17:16
that's a nine all righty uh on a nine they are fooled at least for a moment uh
17:23
and you get to choose two things from that list of options i'm going to say get an opportunity i want to say there's
17:29
confusion down there and it gives everyone an opportunity to get in a hit while the robots and maybe perhaps the
17:35
mirror master himself can't decide where exactly we are okay and what's the other
17:42
one uh that one of them is that they are confused at least for a moment that is actually you confuse them for some time
17:49
is the exact wording yep that just makes it longer uh before uh so I think he's I
17:54
think you see him kind of he has one of those uh weird uh lasers that the soldiers were armed with and I think he
17:59
tries to take a shot at you um his environment is working against him here because your clones as they run around
18:06
are then multiplied they're flashing across the mirrors around the room and I think he kind of just goes ba stop those
18:12
children i've got something to do and he turns around to what you can now see is there's like a console behind him um in
18:19
front of the giant theater sized mirror and he starts working on something um
18:26
fiddling with the controls back there um the robot soldiers meanwhile are they
18:32
are scattered they are they are chasing they are chasing shadows um and and the next person to act against them will get
18:38
a plus one forward from this move so let's go to let's go to Vita veto what
18:43
are you up to i uh well Lo and I are going to be Overwatch i'm pulling out a
18:49
bunch of uh paintballs that I acquired um during our last downtime and I'm
18:57
going to start shooting them at the the masks of these mirror minions just
19:02
assuming that that's where the camera might be okay so I'm going to support
19:07
Okay i could have told her that if if she had actually asked me I would have known if because they're simul
19:14
basically where the cameras would be flashback to the way over
19:19
flashback she knows exactly where to aim uh now at this point it's just can she aim there uh okay trying to figure out
19:26
if this triggers a move of some it feels like you should it feels like you're trying support maybe yeah support is
19:33
what I'm going for well comfort and support is more about literally supporting people yeah it's emotional
19:38
support but defend because they're not attacking to injure but they're trying to keep Yeah when you defend someone
19:43
from immediate threat um I would So I would either I'm going to
19:49
use the beacon move no powers and not nearly enough training which gives me Yeah which lets me roll
19:56
mundane instead of whatever label it normally would be for the first time that I use a new piece of gear okay so
20:04
uh yeah that's fine so go ahead and cross that one off to note that you've used it and then it's to either directly engage a threat unleash your powers or
20:11
defend someone so I could see all three of those depending on your intent i'll leave it up to you and then roll with
20:17
mundane instead of your normal we'll go for unleash your powers since my gadgets
20:22
are my powers okay uh okay so roll plus mundane okay seven plus where' it go i
20:29
think it's two yes so nine nine okay all right so this will work but you either
20:35
need to mark a condition uh or you need or I will tell you how it's unstable or temporary um let me go ahead and tell me
20:43
how it's temporary okay um so you you know exactly where to
20:49
aim because of Shrike's uh Shrike telling you where their visual sensors
20:54
are in a flashback and you're just pop pop just paintballing these these robots
20:59
from above um and each of them stops in place uh they they've stopped chasing
21:05
Charlie and her illusions at this point and they just pause where they are um and then you watch as um they begin
21:12
taking their hats off uh yeah they actually pull off the front panel of their uh of their helmets
21:19
exposing the camera yeah that's perfect um and so they have like their face you can see clearly now that they are again
21:26
uh simuloids as Shrek knows them or robots um which have a yeah they just
21:31
have a they have a front-facing camera underneath the mirror panel of their helmet and they are now um so they'll be
21:37
distracted for a few minutes because each of them has to kind of run through run through a sub routine that explains that yes this is the best action to do
21:43
um their army is halted the army of robots is halted momentarily u but it won't hold forever which is the perfect
21:49
time for Alex to do something here yeah so I think Alex after seeing all the
21:55
mirrors and seeing the big thing and seeing him move to the console and taking what was told by
22:01
uh you know uh the agent and by Perseus about what this metal is is immediately
22:09
assuming that that giant screen is going to focus energy and that all of these mirrors are necessary for it because of
22:15
the pattern they're in so he launches himself and says like you literally hear
22:20
him say "Well what's a little more bad luck anyway?" uh and throws himself over
22:26
into the middle and before he lands uh if you've ever seen this image from like
22:33
the comic books or if you've played the Spider-Man game uh before he hits the ground he like launches his arms and
22:41
legs wide open and unleashes a terrifying potential as like thousands
22:48
of tendrils go flying from him and from Talons to try to smash and pierce as
22:56
many of the mirrors that are around here as possible to reduce the effect or
23:01
disrupt the effect that he's trying to go with refocusing the light okay i'm having such flashbacks to prototype right now it kind of Well I mean it's
23:07
not you're not not dissimilar uh so I'm going to move my freak up because this is what the move entails and I'm going
23:13
to move my savior down okay uh yes and so because your read on
23:19
the situation is Yeah when you unleash your when you unleash your powers in a terrifyingly inhuman way ass uh shifting
23:27
label down freak up and then roll to unleash your powers uh that's a 10 on the dice plus two on freak okay that is
23:34
a 12 my friend nice so if Joe had gotten a seven and nine this would be both unstable and temporary and a market
23:40
condition but instead he got a hit so he does what he wants these mirrors just
23:46
smash like you you send mirror shards everywhere it's honestly kind of like kind of cool looking for a second in
23:52
there it's really you know there's like glittery mirrors going around it's like that scene from the crow where he's like coming down from the window and the
23:58
glass is slowly flying out that is precisely what I'm picturing uh and then everyone goes "Oh crap it's dangerous
24:04
those are all glass." And so everyone takes a basic maneuvers except the robots but uh you hear a cry of
24:10
frustration off the other end the mirror masters "You will not stop me." And he kind of does like a big like a like a
24:16
wheeling motion on like the thing there's there's this thing it's almost like a lever like a wheel or like a valve or something on the controls he's
24:22
getting he kind of wheels it the um the the big mirror up at the end of the room
24:29
um he it goes from being just a mirror reflecting the room it shifts completely dark and for a second it kind of feels
24:37
like some of the air gets sucked out of the room and then there's like a weird almost per Yeah it's almost it's almost
24:43
like a purple glow uh across the whole surface of it yo who let grandpa play Minecraft
24:51
and there is just there's a humming sound uh Shrike what what what do you do as he is powering up this thing all
24:58
right um he's like wearing a mirror suit yeah he's got Well he's got like this finely he has on a finely tailored white
25:06
linen suit with like little with like little diamond shaped mirrors uh sewn into it uh as the pin as the pinstripes
25:13
and then he has a a cape of mirror panels yeah Alex just broke a bunch of
25:18
mirrors right uh all of them yes i'm going to reach out and grab all those fragments because they're reflective and
25:24
they reflect energy and stuff uh-huh and I'm going to throw them into the giant
25:30
void that was once a mirror and is now probably a dimensional gateway hoping they'll reflect it back oh okay yes i
25:38
like this i'm going to use this as directly engage a threat because I figure I don't Yep i don't think there's anything else this could be yeah so okay
25:46
uh everything lined up that's a nine exactly nice uh okay uh perfect okay so
25:53
you two will trade blows on a seven to nine you get to do one of those things
25:58
on that list resist or avoid their blows take something from them create an opportunity for your allies impress
26:03
surprise or frighten the opposition please note that take something from them can also be read metaphorically it
26:08
doesn't have to be like physically taking an object like if you were uh doing uh you know Anakin and Obi-Wan you
26:14
could take the high ground yeah i What I'm trying to do here is take the what I
26:20
think is a portal into the like dimensional vortex away from him i love it uh yeah so those metal shards go
26:27
flying across the room and for the briefest moment on the other side in like IMAX movie size you see your dad's
26:35
face um and he's looking through I knew it i knew it he starts to say something
26:41
he starts to he starts to speak to you and the shards just hit right into this mirror and it just
26:47
cracks and you see his face like well up in frustration and he just punches whatever's on the other side of this and
26:53
he's pounding on it trying to force his way through and whatever is on his side cracks and shatters and it's like for a
27:01
moment like you're looking at a giant TV that's set to static and then you're just looking at a plain old mirror again
27:08
and then it literally shatters and falls apart part and the mirror master turns
27:14
around and levels his rifle and he says "You've ruined my last chance at
27:20
redemption and fires his laser right at you where you're standing where you had to aim that shot you have no chance to
27:26
dodge it i need you to roll to take a powerful Okay that is 2d6 plus the
27:32
number of conditions you have marked which is zero at the moment okay so just a flat 2d6 and remember this is one
27:38
where you want to try to roll low uh no I took it i just rolled in a basically a
27:46
10 okay so on a 10 uh what on a 10 you choose one of these
27:51
options you must either remove yourself from the situation flee pass out etc you lose control of yourself or your powers
27:58
in a terrible way or two options from the 7 to9 list and this is the 7 to9
28:03
list lash out verbally provoke a teammate to full hearty action or take advantage of your influence to inflict a
28:09
condition or give ground your opposition gets an opportunity or you struggle past
28:14
the pain mark two conditions i'm going to go with I lose control of myself or my powers and specifically the
28:21
psychological trauma for seeing that this guy's working for my father mhm and then he hits me with this like laser
28:28
thing and I like just sc just shriek as
28:33
the the cosmic energy inside me like lashes out and begins rewriting reality around me like it's literally like the
28:40
the superhuman teenager version of I reject your reality and replace my replace it with my own except literally
28:47
yeah and like things are like the the gravity is shifting around me the mirror
28:52
pieces are dancing i'm screaming and like every like there's like a Doppler
28:57
effect as like other versions of me seem to like exist shortly and then vanish
29:02
back into me as I'm just losing control of the thing that makes me what I am okay so uh we're going to circle back to
29:11
uh to Charlie here uh the mirror master seems to have been foiled he seems to not be happy about it unfortunately
29:17
neither is Shrike um what do you do in this situation uh wow so
29:26
I Charlie's going to Man this is not going to work charlie's going to go for Shrike okay you know just um Can you use
29:35
your power to calm them down at all or get them to uh I can try to deceive her
29:42
i think uh I I don't know if additional deception is a good idea here and that's
29:48
the only thing I'm actually good at um I would like to try to to comfort her and
29:55
say "Hey we're in this we are here together we are We've got this we're
30:01
We're going to We're going to be okay you just Come on it's okay hang on
30:08
that's all I That's all I got and I'm not I comforting people out does that uh
30:16
people is the comfort and support move which you will roll plus mundane you
30:21
know what i'm actually really good at being mundane [Laughter]
30:28
i'll also ask since we haven't used it would anyone like to try to help her we have all this team sitting in the pool
30:34
oh yeah yeah i was going to say like if Vita wants to do it go ahead yeah how so how much team can we spend at a time uh
30:43
one per person you just tell me how you're helping and then you spend one team from the pool to give Liz plus one to this role all right yeah so Vita is
30:51
going to kind of back her up and say "Arvana it's okay we got you." Okay so
30:59
Liz go ahead and roll plus mundane and then add a one to it as Vita backs you
31:04
up that is a 10 perfect uh okay so on a
31:09
hit they hear you they mark potential clear a condition or shift labels if they open up to you on a 10 you can also
31:16
add a team to the pool or clear a condition yourself uh you don't have a condition so we'll add a team back to
31:22
the pool that VA used to help you um Arvana does this does this work and if
31:27
so what happens uh I at first you don't think I hear anything uh but then Yeah and I'm I've like gotten in close even
31:34
though there's all this weird energy around you i'm not sure whether I should touch you but I'm like in close talking
31:40
to you for like after like a couple of seconds like my my face which had kept
31:46
warping as different versions of it came over snaps back in into like something resembling like a regular normal face
31:52
just sitting there and I look at you with like my eyes look like I'm just dead inside he killed her she given him
31:59
what he wanted so he had her killed and now he's going to come back he's going to come here and he's going to hurt me
32:06
for what I did he's going to punish me he We aren't going to let that happen we aren't going to let that happen that's
32:13
not going to happen here can't let him come back and I uh So we won't we'll
32:19
fight together i kind of collapse and like like as the power just cuts and I
32:26
kind of collapse forward so unfortunately for Charlie she has to hold me up yeah i'll I'll try to catch
32:32
you but it probably doesn't work well because I think you probably have like two feet on me i'm like 6 and 1/2 ft
32:37
tall and I'm wearing powered armor essentially it's powered by me but still
32:43
yeah yeah i I stagger to the ground but I we don't fall
32:49
i'm just weeping i'm literally just just sobbing wow i don't know how to handle
32:54
this i'm going to try to hug you but I I'm not Okay we got this we can do this
33:00
we'll figure it out and uh Matt are you are you marking a potential clearing a
33:06
condition i don't think you have one or should I have a condition i'm going to mark a potential because that will put me to five i failed two rolls before
33:13
here that got me up to four so now I'm at five oh wow okay um uh when you fill
33:19
your potential track you advance choose from the list below and when we come back to you we'll find out what you've picked uh Vita what did you uh what are
33:27
you doing what are you doing now the shri the strike situation appears to be calmed down but Mirror Master is advancing on them angrily with a nasty
33:34
laser gun and the robots are starting to uh react again it's paintball time
33:42
okay so I'm going to try and and uh shoot at the mirror master's face with
33:49
my paintballs and blind him okay um yeah I I don't think this could be anything
33:56
but directly engage a threat at this point uh all righty see if I can actually pass
34:01
the throw i believe in you oh we got minus one so that's a five i missed
34:09
again so let's see i believe there was still a lingering plus one from
34:14
somebody's move to engage him but that only gets you to a six um would somebody
34:20
like to assist Vita in some way can I yeah no I I I got it cuz you're you're doing your thing i'll spend one from the
34:27
team okay uh how does Alex assist with this um I think as Vita takes the shot
34:33
Alex sees that it's off Mark and like makes a little ramp type thing with a
34:40
portion of uh the armor and like redirects the shot oh my god like a
34:45
paintball rail gun almost kind of yeah okay cool yeah so that shot goes just
34:51
goes straight at him and right in the face so this is now a seven so on a hit
34:57
you trade blows on a seven to nine you pick one of the list resist or avoid their blows take something from them
35:03
create an opportunity for your allies or impress surprise or frighten the opposition i'm going to frighten the
35:09
opposition okay i think this paintball comes
35:14
literally out of nowhere and hits him right in the face and um I don't know if you've ever been hit with a paintball on
35:20
bare skin it hurts uh and so he got hit with a thing that hurts out of absolutely nowhere and now he can't see
35:27
except for What color did you shoot him with orange orange he's He's When he can see he sees through a haze of orange and
35:34
he's just like stumbling backwards trying to wipe his face off what was that where did that even come minions
35:40
find them and stop them and he's just like he's backing away like trying to hide behind something cuz he doesn't
35:47
want to be blind in this moment um like rapidly trying to like get this paint off of his face um and he is going to
35:56
like he falls behind his minions and you see him kind of make like an upward gesture and literally like a little
36:01
cubicle of mirrors like springs from the ground around him like a shield um to
36:07
defend him from you guys um uh Alex what are you up to so he's basically put himself into like a panic room yeah
36:14
pretty much well boy howdy i think we're good at
36:19
going to just try to make our way and try to do some smashy um smashy smashy so I think I'm going to barrel through
36:27
any minions that are left uh and I am going to unleash my power by essentially
36:33
forming a giant sledgehammer with my hands like join them together in like
36:38
essentially what is just a giant hammer uh and do like the wrestling double axe
36:43
handle at the box he's in uh to try to uh to break uh see now like Matt now now
36:49
I'm getting flashbacks to prototype because that was literally one of the moves he had i love it okay uh yes roll
36:57
the unleash your powers to smash that box five on the dice plus two is going to be a seven so it hits but
37:07
it hits but either it's unstable or temporary or you mark a condition unless
37:12
this was unless you were using the joined move again in which case both of those things happen no I'm not going to use I'm not using a join move because
37:18
the the terrifying potential is a little bit too much I think for this um yeah this was I wouldn't describe this as a
37:25
terrifyingly inhuman way like when you turn into a ball of tentacles instead I
37:30
think I'm going to mark a condition and I think I am angry um I think that Alex is just in this moment so filled with
37:39
rage and so is is Ton of Shrike going down what happened to Shrike uh and
37:46
seeing the the team being put in a vulnerable position by this person who should have faded to obscurity uh
37:53
decades ago uh and he's just so seethingly angry and I think the armor
38:00
also starts to like slip from that perfect uh armor shape and become a little more monstrous uh maybe like
38:07
there's a m now instead of where the beak was uh and it looks like it's a little more ragged uh the visor splits
38:14
into two very dark red eyes that begin to glow uh and he just starts trying to
38:19
mash his way through this box to get to this guy oh man um yeah but uh yeah I
38:26
think you you smash this box open and like the mirror master has gotten his
38:32
eyes cleared at this point and he kind of recoils as his little as his like temporary panic shelter shatters around
38:37
him and you batter through his army of minions he kind of backs up against the wall and he says "Freak a monster." They
38:43
send a monster to fight me not just a child in I think he I think he is uh I
38:50
think in response to this he is also going to attempt to uh he he is trying to tell you who you are would you like
38:56
to accept what he says or reject his influence uh I think I'm going to reject the
39:01
influence uh so I need to roll savior flat uh flat 2d6 that's an 11 on the die
39:09
perfect uh on an 11 you successfully hold yourself in two amount you also choose two of these options clear a
39:15
condition or mark potential by immediately acting to prove them wrong shift one label up and one label down your choice or cancel their influence
39:22
and take plus one forward against them i'm going to take the plus one forward against i'm not clearing the angry anger condition um okay and in a double
39:30
layered voice like this is both voices speaking at once now it's modulated
39:35
and it's like we are not a freak we are not a danger we are a hero if we were
39:42
anything other than that we would have eaten your heart by now old man stand down
39:49
uh I love this a lot um yeah so you Okay
39:55
so the you cancel your influence over and take plus one forward um and you just you're not clearing the condition
40:01
you're just uh are you going to mark potential i will mark potential prove him wrong okay sounds good
40:08
uh all right so let's let's circle back to our other two because he is he's kind
40:13
of on his left legs like he is he is he is cowering in a corner he is like this is a hopeless old man at this point he
40:20
doesn't look like a villain anymore his his his suit is in tatters um Charlie or
40:25
Strike one of you bring this home i'm going to I'm going to do my mo my uh moment of truth oh that's what you've
40:31
unlocked okay wow okay so as I straighten up off of Charlie because I I
40:36
realize I'm crushing her that's very nice of you i'm sorry
40:41
oh it's okay you I go up into the air and every single piece of
40:49
extradimensional technology in this place flies up into the air and compacts
40:55
itself into a ball the size of my hand as I use gravity and the strong and weak
41:01
force to com just compact it into this incredibly dense material yeah the uh
41:07
the remaining robots and even the ones that are down kind of rip themselves apart as the the beacons and the
41:13
technology that he uh had stolen/borrowed uh compacts into this ball in front of
41:18
you then while I'm holding it I look to him and say "Do you even know who you
41:24
were dealing with do you know what he would do to you and this entire planet
41:30
you'd be a slave." And he's just kind of sputtering excuses he's like "He he promised he promised me there must be a
41:36
place at his side that the place you rejected girl oh you want to be You want
41:42
the place at his side that I had i'm going to just drop down in front of him his eyes are his eyes are wide your
41:48
brain runs on electrochemical process this is what it's like to be on his side
41:54
and I reach out and touch him and just give him my memories of serving Nabasu i
42:01
just put them in there yeah that's my move his his jaw drops open in kind of a
42:06
wordless scream and the mirror master slumps to the floor unconscious because
42:12
no one is going to survive having someone's memories especially traumatic ones injected directly into their mind
42:19
did he kill him i immediately he's not dead no he's he has life signs um he's
42:25
he's overwhelmed and in shock right now then I drop the the incredibly dense metal ball quang on the floor and go it
42:32
it sinks about 6 in into the ground i think we should call Aegis now alex is
42:40
not moved from over the unconscious man and as you see even though he is unconscious like Talon's uh tendrils
42:48
from Talon actually like move off and start binding him so that he cannot do
42:54
anything should wake up um can't hit anything can't touch anything can't do anything uh and then I look over and I'm
43:03
like "Yeah still in that modulated voice we probably should call them in for cleanup." Yep and then we uh we smash
43:09
cut to the the four of you five of you excuse me lobo is here outside uh there
43:15
are uh police cars in the back uh cleaning up some of the mess uh and there is uh agent Abasi there for the
43:23
handover um the mirror master has regained consciousness at this point he's still bound by Talons's uh tendrils
43:30
um he's not he's not fighting he's not moving he looks he looks utterly
43:36
defeated in this moment he looks like what he is an old man in a fancy suit
43:41
who attempted to summon an interdimensional conqueror um and Abasi is just like "Well you kids made quick
43:47
work of that one." And uh it sounds like it's a good thing you got here when you did yes i'm like I can't let you look at
43:54
her yeah oh she'll take her little device back from you uh VA the problem that we don't know yet is we don't know
44:01
how he knew about him or how to contact Yeah well my father likely contacted him
44:07
yeah the spent years doing surveillance on this planet before I was even old enough to go into the field yes no no
44:14
doubt he's reached his influence here before uh this was the first person foolish enough to take him up on it but
44:20
uh luckily and she kind of flashes a kind of a rough smile at uh Shrek she
44:25
says "I know it's hard but you may be our best hope against him because you
44:31
know him better than anyone." And she kind of looks around and she says "All of you at this point you you kids you've saved the city twice in you know as many
44:39
weeks." She says "I I I feel confident about the future of Houseian City with you all around." And I think at this
44:45
point like as uh the mirror master is handed over and like the transfer to the shackles or or whatever Aegis uses to to
44:52
restrain them uh I think Alex powers down um does not reveal the the the face
45:00
in front of anybody who you know like the immediate team and whatever is fine but like I think he's just back to like the sort of like the skinnish suit thing
45:07
and looks sort of normal uh to his normal costume and uh just walks over to
45:14
uh Charlie I think and uh very carefree puts his arm around Charlie's shoulder
45:19
be like see you're a hero after all what you did I want to I want to ask a
45:26
question is that when Shike and Talon said that they're a hero was that the truth in their eyes absolutely like
45:34
without without like it's like it's a shining beacon like Talons believes that you are a hero that you I meant
45:42
in the fight oh you're more of your fight when when Talon said to uh the
45:48
mirror master that that Yeah no 100% she will just hug you back kind of you know
45:54
a onearmed hug don't and I think Talons reach out and like wrap Shrike up in a like a weird tendril hug and like lifts
46:00
Shrike up off the ground a little bit and then Yeah grabs a group hug what you
46:06
see actually happen when you do that is that Shrike's helmet just kind of
46:11
vanishes and she like presses her cheek up against Ton like the the actual
46:16
altered and like she's like nuzzling him and I grab I grab Vita and uh and our
46:22
wonderful pup companion i I grapple I grapple my way up with my my paperclip grappling hook
46:29
grapples her way into the group hug i love it and I think uh I think our episode will end there with you guys uh
46:37
you've you've stopped another interdimensional threat for now and you uh you have a group hug it's good what
46:44
will come tomorrow was this count as earned the respect of a hero you admire uh do do you admire your teammates uh I
46:51
was talking about Asian Dasi oh yes yeah Asian Debbasi definitely respects you
46:58
now you you you you went headtohead with uh you went to headtohead with an older uh more practiced villain and also
47:04
honestly uh almost an interdimensional conqueror so yeah she definitely respects you all which means you get to
47:10
mark one of your beacon drives off woo yes I do congratulations you may be 5 in tall but uh you are a hero all of you
47:18
are heroes today but just today even Charlie whether she wants to be or not
47:24
yeah and I think uh I think like we we wind up just like going back retreating to somewhere we don't have a base yet um
47:32
we go to Vita's house we do we I don't care i want to grab some of
47:38
Vita's mom's like special ravioli i'm hungry and I'm tired and I want comfort
47:45
food and I want to not have to think about what I did was right or wrong and I know she won't judge us and I know
47:50
she'll feed us and I know she'll care about us i'm sure she'll also call everybody else who has parents parents
47:57
so this could end up with like uh you know Alex's parents there and agent you
48:03
know Agent Abasi there and even you know just everyone could end up there just kind of like a small person right yeah
48:12
oh he he definitely he definitely shows up looking a little out of looking a little out of place in casual wear but
48:18
he's definitely there uh and when he walks in as we're eating like literally Talon has formed that or Ton has formed
48:24
that other like body next to me as we're both sitting at the table eating yeah do
48:30
you guys have two chairs it's okay vita's family has two chairs i'm sitting on the other side where like where
48:37
Talon's new like current you know temporary body is kind of just like leaning up against it like oh okay all
48:45
right yeah i think I think uh Vita's I think Vita's uh dad takes like one look at you guys and just like starts just
48:51
like starts cooking just like extras for dinner and he's just he's
48:56
just doubling or tripling whatever he was already making uh and yeah I think you guys are there i think Abos is there
49:02
parents alex's parents definitely show up at some point don't know how well they know Vita's parents but you know they're they're glad to hear that
49:08
they're uh their kids all right probably well enough i mean consider I would consider that that that that uh the the
49:14
tiny Marvel here probably would have been genetically screened at some point to like find out the nature of like the
49:19
power and whatnot so I know what was happening it's kind of like my my parents whole bag yeah it's fun to watch
49:25
Vas parents cuz they're really the the only normies in the house yeah they're super normie with a whole dining room
49:31
full of like their their daughter's cool but weird friends so yeah I think uh so
49:38
if you guys want to if you guys want to have anything to say to each other here at the end otherwise I think that may be the image we close on i think that's a
49:44
perfect place to end it um yeah I'm good at ending that phil thank you very much for running it go ahead oh thank is this
49:51
what being a superhero is supposed to be like i mean is this and Alex kind of
49:56
like leans over to to Charlie as Charlie says that and goes "Well I mean if you want to come over sometime and and look
50:01
at comics I can I can show you." Yeah that'd be and seen love it
50:09
phil thank you very much for running yeah know I've wanted to play I've wanted to play Mass again for years now
50:16
and hadn't gotten able to i had to I've run it for other people twice but I've not gotten to yeah for those of you for
50:21
those of you at home this is uh Masks a new generation uh it is available uh through Magpie as well as there's uh
50:29
PDFs of available through drive-through RPG we don't have an affiliate link for them quite yet we'll work on that
50:34
someday I'm sure um but they're just good people uh and they make good products and if you're interested in
50:40
this uh the best description I can give you at the end here is it's a superhero game that belonged on CW uh so like it's
50:48
all about that inner Tell me I'm wrong no no no I'm not it's great great
50:53
description the the whole uh the whole emotional ending to the Pastalito dinner where everyone's you know having their
50:59
their their really introspective vulnerable moments and then you guys go out and punch a bad guy in the face yeah
51:04
that's absolutely a CW show yeah it well worth your time sorry go ahead Phil i
51:10
was going to say uh you can to be exact magpieame is magpygames.com uh you can pick up the core book uh in
51:16
physical form for a poultry $30 uh PDFs on drive-through rpg.com and masks also
51:22
has a number of additional books you can pick up that add extra playbooks extra uh just extra background on the default
51:29
setting of Hion City uh cool story hooks more about Eegis the uh the shield
51:36
standin for the Masks universe um and uh even characters like Matts who Matt is
51:41
Matt was playing the Scion a playbook from uh Unbound from Unbound uh which is
51:48
a uh the actual kid of a villainous character and how they try not to be them yeah and I will say that while we
51:54
will be also be linking likely to the fan-made playbooks that the caveat of they are fan-made playbooks uh your
52:01
mileage will vary however there's an extremely active community of people who
52:06
love and play this game and want to look through the tropes of both the TV shows and movies and comics that we we've love
52:13
and uh the superhero ideas and make playbooks that maybe uh are a little
52:18
more closer to some of the heroes that aren't necessarily represented by uh the main books and this is something that
52:24
Magpie has encouraged uh if not in an official capacity uh I believe when we
52:30
interviewed uh Brendan on the podcast uh even he said that he was you know really
52:36
taken aback by how well the community took to it and and how passionate they are about it so it's a it's a good game if you're interested and a lot a lot of
52:42
variety yep all right well uh thanks everybody for playing and uh everybody
52:48
thanks for listening liz Liz do you want to do we do the outro here or does No it's all pre-recorded you add all that
52:53
in okay yeah cool all right well thanks everybody bye everyone bye bye
53:07
blizzard Watch is made possible due to the generous contribution of patreon.com/wizardwatch your continued support means that this
53:14
podcast siting community is able to thrive and grow blizzard supporters enjoy exclusive benefits like early
53:20
access to our podcast a better chance at having your questions answered on our podcast to the queue and an ads free
53:25
site experience thank you for joining us this week friends we'll catch you next time
53:40
[Music]
#Arts & Entertainment
#Online Media
#Roleplaying Games