Yet more superpowers for the MARVEL SUPER
HEROES game by David Edward Martin from Dragon Magazine #134 June 1988 pp.
89-91.
Judges should rewrite the Power Generation tables on pages 14-16 of the
TUPB in order to accommodate these additions, if they are used.
S32 - Collective Mass: Tom Lamphier looked at the Marvel Super
Villain Swarm and came up with this variation of the S16/Physical Gestalt body
type. The body of the character is a collection of individual bodies held
tightly together and functioning as a single unit. Unlike Physical Gestalt, the
individuals retain their distinct physical forms (though admittedly it may be
hard to actually spot any given individual if they are tiny). One helpful side
effect of this power is that the individual bodies do not physically suffer
while they are joined together; breathing is assumed to occur without
difficulty. However, the Collective Mass will probably have to break apart in
order to allow the individual units to eat.
Primary
and secondary abilities are rolled on Column 1 of the Rank Table on page 11 of
the TUPB. Because of its peculiar dual nature, a Collective Mass has two sets
of primary abilities. The first set represents the average abilities possessed
by the individual component entities; the second set is that of the Collective
Mass. The majority of powers can only be manifested by the Collective Mass.
Individual entities can at best exhibit Feeble-rank versions of the available
powers; otherwise, why bother to be a Collective Mass in the first place? The
Collective Mass's abilities may be affected by the loss or addition of more
individual entities to its form.
A
Collective Mass gains +2CS Resistance to physical or directed energy attacks
(lasers, for example). Its unique physical structure allows it to simply create
holes in its body to avoid making contact with the attacking force. However,
such beings have a peculiar weakness: A successful Grappling attack breaks the
body into two masses! The body can automatically rejoin in 1-4 turns unless
something prevents this, like teleporting half the body into a parallel
dimension.
The
Collective Mass can be any size, depending on the size and number of the
individuals entities that compose it. Most Collective Masses in Marvel Universe
campaigns are human-size and composed of smaller creatures generally less than
3" long (between the size of a mouse and a dragonfly). If the judge
allows, a Collective Mass may be a giant composed of human size entities. In
special cases, the Collective Mass may even be a titan composed of relatively
large beings.
Ordinarily
the number of individuals composing the Collective Mass is less than the rank
number of the Collective Mass's Reason, multiplied by 100. The individual
entities can be of any nature, whether animal, plant, or machine; the
individual components may be sentient or not. If the Collective Mass is
composed of relatively ordinary creatures (as opposed to something strange,
like a colony of snakes mutated by a nuclear test at Los Alamos), the
Collective Mass has the option of absorbing more of these component creatures
into itself. A Red Psyche FEAT allows this to occur. In such a case, the
addition may have the effect of increasing the Collective Mass's primary
abilities.
In
an Earth-based Marvel Universe campaign, the Collective Mass has the ability to
transform itself into a human likeness by making a Psyche FEAT. However, the
visual appearance of the individual bodies does not change; a disguise is
needed if the Collective Mass is to impersonate a normal human.