Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Mal Havoc: I was waiting for this?

So back in the day I gleefully stole pretty much anything for my games. It was the 80's and we were all doing it. But one thing I remember fairly well was from The World's Greatest Superfriends. The episode was "The Lord of Middle-Earth" and the villain of the week was this Anton Le Vey, vampire looking wizard called "Mal Havoc" (or maybe just Malhavoc). I was psyched about this episode because at the time I was sucking up anything related to Tolkien, or rather more to the point, anything related to the Hobbit having seen the old cartoon on TV recently (well back in 77 or 78).

Well......that is not what I got.

I got trolls, and something like a Drider and a dragon. Which was all fine, but even then I recalled the episode was weak. But I did like the character of Mal Havoc (and I guess I am not the only one). So I began to use him in my D&D games. Though I admit I messed with the character a little. He was still a wizard, but I turned him into a real diabolic one. Not that he was fiendishly clever (he was) but diabolic in the sense that he worshipped Beelzebub. Did I mention it was the 80's?  Oh. and he was also a vampire.  So Mal Havoc became a "hellspawned vampire of the court of Beelzebub" and a semi-reoccuring bad guy in my games.  When I later went on to develop "The Dragon and the Phoenix" for the Buffy game I was running I knew I wanted one of my old D&D bad guys.  Mal Havoc was a serious contender, ultimately he lost out to Yoln (another baddie) since I didn't want to confuse my game with anything Malhavoc Press was doing at the time.

Watching it now I am struck by how bad these things really were (and I own several Superfriends DVD collections) and yet how much potential could have been here.  I can attest that Mal Havoc can be one serious bad ass.  Ok so he smacks around Superman, but that is fine Supes always had a problem with magic.  But he also does the same to Wonder Woman and Batman.  Aquaman doesn't even try.  He also a serious evil vibe going on.  He enslaved a race of trolls (ok more like gnomes really) and has some inhuman or subhuman lackeys working for him.  His "ultimate power" can even kill all the trolls in "middle earth". That serious shit right there.

Given my love (yes, it remains) for the old Super Friends I decided to give Mal the "Bruce Timm" treatment.  I updated the character look to seem more of physical threat, think Glenn Danzig only taller and with a goatee.  He is a wizard still or maybe one of the very, very few cases where I would use the term "Warlock" in a modern game, and look fiendish (and might even worship some devilish or demonic lord), but his deal is he is a vampire crime lord.  "Crime" in he is not interested in crime for money, it's just the things he does keeps him on the wrong side of the law; ie murder, kidnapping, theft, not your typical saturday cartoon fare.  Though in the original SF he had enslaved trolls to mine diamonds, so slavery, forced labor and diamond smuggling is also possible.  He has group of followers, his "Coven"  (not "Camarila" to stay true to the 70's/80's vibe) and of course lackeys and conscripted labor (ie slaves).  Maybe a tad mature for games with kids, but a perfect foe for a group of adult gamers looking to rid the world of evil.



So given that, it looks like that stating him up in Muntants and Masterminds is a must!
My M&M is a bit rusty, but here it goes.

MAL HAVOC
PL: 13 (200 pp)

Str: 22 +6
Dex: 18 +4
Con: NA NA
Int: 16 +3
Wis: 15 +2
Chr: 22 +6

SKILLS: Acrobatics 2 (+6), Bluff 4 (+10), Climb 2 (+8), Concentration 4 (+6), Diplomacy 4 (+10), Disguise (+6), Drive (+4), Escape Artist 4 (+8), Gather Info 4 (+10), Handle Animal 2 (+8), Intimidate 7 (+13), Investigate 3 (+6), Arcane Lore 10 (+13), History 2 (+5), Tactics 4 (+7), Theology and Philosophy 2 (+5), Medicine 2 (+4), Notice 4 (+6), Ride 4 (+8), Search 2 (+5), Sense Motive 2 (+4), Sleight of Hand (+4), Stealth 2 (+6), Survival 4 (+6), Swim (+6)

FEATS: Assessment, Fascinate (1), Fearless, Fearsome Presence (1), Leadership, Minions (2), Blind-Fight, Improved Critical (1), Power Attack, Rage (1)

POWERS:
2 Supersenses
5 Mind Control
1 Drain Constitution (blood Drain)
2 Hellfire Control
30 Immunity (Fortitude Effects)
2 Insubstantial (mist)
7 Protection
5 Regeneration (blood drain based)
1 Shapeshift (Giant Bat)
5 Magic
   5 Mystic Blast ("Hellbolts")
   1 Trasform (humans to trolls)
   5 Teleport
   5 Drain Powers

COMBAT: Melee 13 [Unarmed +6 (Bruise)] Ranged 13 [Unarmed +6 (Bruise)] Defense 23 (16 flatfooted) Init +4

SAVES: Toughness 7 (7 flat-footed) Fortitude 0 Reflex 9 Will 10

DRAWBACKS:
Weakness -Blood Dependence [Freq DC 10] [Sev DC 5]
Weakness -Holy Items [Freq DC 10] [Sev DC 15]
Weakness -Sunlight [Freq DC 5] [Sev DC 5]

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