Earth Defense Force

Earth Defense Force by Gnome
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FX Prices for villainous wares.

You are James Blacwick. Your father has died, passing on his legacy of supervillainy to you. Now you must perform great heists for FX and cash.

Characters

Black Wick, The Baron Obsidian

The central character of the quest, a hapless grocer turned ambitious villain after inheriting his father's supervillain contract.

• First Appearance - Introduction
• Near-constant appearances since.
• Actual name James Blacwick. Supervillain name is generally written "Blackwick", although it's officially two words.
• Powers discussed in detail below, but center around teleporting all over the place and a strong fire and stone theme.
• Motivation centers mostly around doing what he wants. Add spin as necessary to sound appropriately villainous.
• Wants to be a classy villain and dislikes unnecessary violence. His ninja butler helps out on both counts.

Earth Defense Force

The first heroes introduced, who are inexplicably convinced that Blackwick wants to destroy the world.

• First Appearance - Introduction
• Second Appearance - Melting Glaciers
• Superhero names Blue, Green, and Pink; actual names James Whitewick, David Whitewick, and Maria Gelinskiwick.
• Blue has super-speed, Green has flying and energy blasts, and Pink has toughness and healing abilities.
• Currently seeking someone to take up the role of Red; apparently they want a bruiser type.

The Mayor

The supplier of all villainous powers in Adventure City, frequent dispenser of verbal abuse, and infrequent dispenser of valuable information.

• First Appearance - Introduction
• Name is Mayor Bloodswick. His first name may or may not actually be "Mayor".
• Refuses to show Blackwick his actual villain contract.
• Appears between just about every mission as Blackwick returns to him in order to get more powers.
• Apparently his counterpart amongst heroes is the police commissioner.

Wrench Monkey

A monkey-faced hero with remarkable powers of construction and a terrible track record.

• First Appearance - Monkey Business at the Concert
• Cameo Appearance - Melting Glaciers prelude
• Second Appearance - Heroes of Irony aftermath
• First name Greg, last name unknown. Presumably "Greg Constructionwick" or something similar.
• Can build things fast. Really, really fast. We're talking multi-story staircases in seconds. He's also quite strong and tough.
• Was rejected by the Earth Defense Force when applying for a job as Red.
• He asked Blackwick to throw a fight because he's just that terrible at everything. Blackwick offered him a duel with lackeyhood on the line in response.

Mr. Bewick

The manager of the grocery store where Blackwick works, Pig'Em's Grocery, and a huge villain fan.

• First Appearance - Angel in the Deli
• Cameo Appearance - Date with a Don aftermath
• Second Appearance - Heroes of Irony prelude
• First name unknown. Hopefully it is not "Pig", as he is much too cool for that name.
• Promoted Blackwick when it came out that he was now a supervillain.
• Is a generally awesome guy, and Blackwick's primary source of information on other villains.

Angel Frost

A fairy-themed hero who has some pretty great pornographic fanart Blackwick was immediately charmed by and asked out. They now date.

• First Appearance - Angel in the Deli
• Second Appearance - Date with a Don
• Third Appearance - Heroes of Irony aftermath
• Full name is Deborah Snowick.
• Has an assortment of very powerful ice-related powers, plus a fairy form.
• Always loved fairies, and is mostly only a hero for the theme and cool powers. Blackwick is considering turning her into a villain eventually, but getting paid for 'working dates' is pretty sweet.
• Provides an opportunity to make a near infinite number of ice based puns, along with Blackwick's usual fire-based puns. Keepin' it classy.

Don Dice

A mobster villain who had the misfortune to walk in on our date with Debbie, but eventually turned out to be a pretty cool guy.

• First Appearance - Date with a Don
• Full name is Nathaniel Bloodwick.
• Has a huge number of gangster minions with machine guns, a gigantic monkey boss minion, and is an extremely tough bruiser type personally.
• Calls Blackwick "kid" all the time, and dispensed some helpful advice regarding minions.

Hollow Queen

A pumpkin-themed villain. Much more terrifying than that sounds.

• First Appearance - Date with a Don aftermath
• Second Appearance - Heroes of Irony
• Real name unknown.
• Has extremely dangerous claws, great strength and speed, and can regenerate severed limbs in a matter of seconds.
• Masterminded the Heroes of Irony operation, calling in Blackwick, Blood Knight, and Delirium for support. Ended up in jail afterward.

Delirium

A drug-themed villain from Iron City. She has a reputation for being crazy that seems well-deserved, if a bit exaggerated.

• First Appearance - Heroes of Irony
• Second Appearance - Heroes of Irony aftermath
• Third Appearance - Nefariously hanging out
• Real name Sarah Peregrine, PhD. The lack of a -wick suffix on her last name boggles the mind.
• Suffers from crippling depression, anxiety, and nil self-esteem. Takes drugs of her own design to keep life tolerable.
• Has four tentacles attached to her torso, two of which have hands and two of which have drug-injector claws.
• Actually really nice, if a bit strange. Evacuated an injured and incapacitated Blackwick from battle at the end of Heroes of Irony.

Blood Knight

A villain from Corneria who fights both heroes and villains in duels to the death.

• First Appearance - Heroes of Irony
• Real name unknown.
• Has impressive blood-themed powers, and seemingly also the ability to return from the dead.

Happy Time

A clown hero who alternates between depressed and batshit crazy.

• First Appearance - Heroes of Irony
• Real name unknown.
• Uses lots of knives and impressively fast reflexes in combat.
• Is not at all funny and is generally an even worse clown than he is a hero.

Mana

A hero who has turned into a robot girl.

• First Appearance - Heroes of Irony
• Real name unknown.
• Can rapidly shapeshift her hands into a variety of weapons, has some kind of threat-analysis vision, and is rather tough.
• Wouldn't smile even when Blackwick told her she was pretty. How rude.

Law Legs

A powerful hero who has only one arm, but generally kicks ass. Carries a bible and has church bell noises when he uses his abilities.

• First Appearance - Heroes of Irony
• Real name unknown.
• Very fast, extremely strong, regenerates from wounds, has powerful ranged attacks, can jump off nothing to move through the air. Scary bastard.
• Had a remarkably epic fight with Blackwick which consisted mostly of Blackwick desperately trying to not get his ass kicked.
• Is a National hero, which presumably reflects competence. Asked Blackwick why he fights and gave him a chance to give an epic speech, the style points from which pretty much carried Blackwick into National status himself.

Superpowers

Teleportation

Blackwick can teleport about 100 kilometers per second of charging. Blackwick can create choose to create obsidian gates when he teleports, and permanently bind the beginning and end point of the teleportation together, until the portal is dismissed or one of the obsidian gates is destroyed. Blackwick can carry another person with him when teleporting.

Potential Upgrades

• Distance (3 FX): Increases distance per second tenfold. Five of these and the moon base is within an hour's reach. Eight of these and the charge takes half a minute.

# of Upgrades	M/S	Time to Moon Base	FX cost	Total FX cost
1	10	1y 79d 21h 51m 40s	3	6
2	100	44d 11h 47m 10s	3	9
3	1'000	4d 10h 46m 43s	3	12
4	10'000	10h 40m 5s	3	15
5	100'000	1h 4m 5s	3	18
6	1'000'000	6m 25s	3	21
7	10'000'000	39s	3	24
8	100'000'000	4s	3	27
9	1'000'000'000	400ms	3	30

• Carrying Capacity (3 FX): Double the amount to bring with. We currently have one upgrade, allowing one extra person, or something about that size.
• Teleport String (3 FX): Teleport an additional time in quick succession, before needing to wait on the power to recharge. We currently are allowed up to two successive teleports.

Fire Aura (Invulnerability + Flight)

A thin, fiery aura that cushions blows, and allows flight. Very stylish, and teleporting leaves fiery afterimages while it's active. It could be upgraded to protect from most environmental hazards. Being made of fire, it can be used to burn things. It is deactivated whenever Blackwick is fully immersed in water, but small amounts of water have no effect.

Potential Upgrades

• Reduced Impact (3 FX): The shield is better able to prevent damage from attacks. Can be specialized against specific kinds of attacks.
• Faster Flight (3 FX): Fly more quickly. Blackwick is not sure this is absolutely necessary, considering he can teleport.
• Fire Shield Strength (3 FX): Increase the heat/damaging potential of the aura.
• Environmental Shield (3 FX): Protects from various environmental hazards, specified when the upgrade is purchsed. Breathing in space seems to be one of the options!
• Shield Ally (3 FX): Blah blah can protect someone else with fire who cares.

Forge Obsidian

Allows to create and shape obsidian with bare hands. We have a single upgrade to creation rate, and can make a longsword in an instant. Larger things require more time. We can create at up to ten meters distant.

Potential Upgrades

• Faster Creation: This would let me make larger obsidian objects in less time. The general quality still wouldn't improve without putting effort into shaping it. The single upgrade we have so far is enough to make a spare obsidian sword on the fly. An additional rank would let the Baron make two swords at once, or something of similar size. This is one of those exponential growth rate upgrades, where it doubles every time we take it.
• Intricacy: Allows the Baron to shape the obsidian as he makes it, as well as making it easier for him to shape and in general making him a better sculptor. This is probably going to be a must have for general shenanigans outside of making pointy rocks. Only really needs to be taken once, but a second time would allow for intricate details and simple machinery, and a third time would allow Blackwick to make fully functioning mechanisms, such as a pulley or a wheel-and-axle. Obsidian robots! Not sure how feasible they would be with how brittle and sharp obsidian is, but it's worth thinking about.
• Distance Shaping: Blackwick can make Obsidian at ten yards away. This only costs 2 FX to purchase, and doubles the distance each time.
• Lava Manipulation: Or any other kind of material manipulation, really. As a power add-on, the Baron could only make Obsidian or Lava at any given moment, not both, but otherwise this would basically let him buy an entire new power with its own upgrade tree for 3 FX. The mayor tells us it is "less like lava and more like liquid fire," however, because actual magma is extremely lethal and all sorts of beyond Blackwick's capability to control right now. The Distance Shaping and Faster Creation upgrades would apply to both Lava and Obsidian manipulation, but the other Obsidian Shaping upgrades listed here only apply to solid materials.
• Durability: Allows the Baron to make his obsidian significantly less brittle, so it doesn't crack so easily. A single rank of this would basically prevent it from being destroyed through normal means, although enough super strength could still snap it. A rank of this would let Blackwick use his Obsidian Shaping as a Deflection type defense.
• Shattering: Allows Blackwick's obsidian to shatter more easily and more violenty. Obsidian made with this property is more prone to breaking, and it really hurts for anyone near it when it does. A rank of this would let the Baron use Obsidian Shaping as a Deflection type counter attack.

Reignition

A healing power that only targets the Baron and is only useable once per day. The normal Heal power costs 6 FX, but with the above drawbacks, we got this at the base level for 2 FX. It heals all superficial wounds, can heal one moderate wound entirely, or can stabilize a severe wound.

Potential Upgrades

• heal more wounds at once
• heal more severe wounds (3 FX)
• heal other, specific problems, such as poisons, diseases, or unconsciousness (3 FX per recovery option). In the case of unconsciousness, your Second Wind power would activate the moment you lose consciousness, healing whatever wounds it has the power to do so and also reviving you.

Paragon Powerset

The Paragon Powerset is the powers you got just for becoming a supervillain, and includes: Endurance, Reflexes, and Faster Recovery.

Potential Upgrades

Improving Endurance effectively doubles the amount of punishment your body can take. Improving Reflexes improves your reaction time by a marginal amount. Faster Recovery improves your body's natural ability to heal itself, but not the need for medical attention.

Potential Future Powers

Obsidian Body

Would let the Baron turn his body into Obsidian at will. This would grant him immunity to any side effects of his own obsidian, as well as granting him greater toughness overall. This would be an on/off all or nothing similar to Angel Frost's Fairy Form, without some improvements, which the Mayor says he can list for us if we decide on buying this. "It's not important if you don't. I just thought it would be neat if you did the same sort of thing as your dad. And, you'd be so damn shiny."

Some of the upgrades we could give to this power would overlap with fire aura upgrade options, and some would not. The mayor also mentions that combined with my Obsidian Shaping/Sculpting power, this could let him reattach, regrow, or resculpt broken body parts, allowing for a strange kind of self-healing power.

The Mayor says if I take a power like this, I can never take other body-element powers, so I should think on it carefully. Fire, lava, or Smoke might also be good choices, with my theme being what it is.

Drawbacks

The Baron may gain extra FX by negotiating "drawbacks" with the mayor, such as weaknesses, limits on power capability, and narrowing a power's focus. The mayor gave a couple example drawbacks:

• Instant Limit: Putting a limiter on how far Blackwick can teleport in a short amount of time. As the Mayor put it, "do you really need to teleport halfway across the planet in the middle of a fight?" This would 1 FX back for every "level" of teleportation barred in a single minute of charging. Essentially, it would add a 1 minute charge time to all teleports above a certain attempted distance, which isn't too bad.
• Bane: The Baron could take some sort of weakness that saps his powers. How many FX he gets out of this seems to vary based on how strong the bane is, and how common it is. The mayor says the upper limit Blackwick could get for this is 10 FX, for something common that completely paralyzes a power. He offers "being submerged in water" as a reasonable example, although adds that it would make more sense if that Bane only took away my fire aura. We now have Water negating the fire aura for 3 FX.

• Weakness: Similar to Bane, but instead of weakening the Baron, this would be something that hurts him more than usual. Much like Banes, these give a pretty meaty FX return, usually ranging from 3 FX for a rare attack type, and up to 10 FX for something more common.

Water Bane: Fire Aura

If the Baron is completely submerged in Water, his Fire Aura shuts off. So, he can't fly or burn things underwater right now. He can still teleport out of the water and then reignite his aura.

Minions

Black Knights

Pack of six Black Knights. Tough, slow, heavy-hitting types. Replenish at the end of the day when defeated.

Walter

Ninja Butler. Weak in melee combat, but as you might expect, very fast. Being a ninja, doesn't require Blackwick to carry him around, appearing and vanishing on the fly. He has been upgraded to have a personality.

Allies

The people we have met and exchanged contact cards with.

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Trivia

This quest is very awesome.

ITQ

Appearances by the cast Inside the Quest, including The Baron Obsidian Advice Corner.

ITQ: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]

Gallery

Official

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  Character Sheet

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  1 FX

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  Rule 63

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  More Rule 63

Fanart

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  Ideas for a villain theme.

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  Brainstorming our superpower's visual aesthetics.

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  By Reka, in discussion thread.