Dead Reign NPC going to conventions

[DtMK]

I finally made up my mind and am currently awaiting some items purchased on Ebay to arrive after the holidays. Dead Reign, with all its possibilities and variations has inspired me to do something I started doing at conventions with friends made involving the show Who Wants to be a Superhero? We've gone to conventions dressed as our own heroic creations, and are starting to get some positive attention for it. But with horror movies and video games also inspiring costumes and cosplay, I had an idea for an NPC I will not only use in future games, but will be going to Megacon in Orlando next year for his public debut!

In essence, I step things up for your average character offered for the game as-is. Imagine someone with latent psychic abilities a la Rifter #40, who won a cruise in the Pacific when The Wave hit. Suddenly you have zombies on a ship, and his powers manifest as a Wanderer from Rifter #18. He learns the limits of his abilities, but things go truly horrific when the ship and the last of the zombies make their way into the Japan Triangle, and this fledgling's Tele-Shield accidentally opens a portal that refuses to close, and the crew is now haunted by creatures and psychic impressions from the Lord of the Deep! When a Reacher starts to send lesser tentacles through, our hero faces the horrors and is reborn. Conquering zombies, Psirens, an alien intelligence and pirates on their way to Japan, our hero and others find respite with survivors at Mt. Fuji. Thanks to a rescue, our hero has dream visions explaining what he can do, and that he has a unique set of skills and abilities. What's more, he has visions of people he feels the urge to help, but discovers another Earth where the zombies are rampant, but there are differences. Instead of Unisane, there's Altrucure. He also finds worlds where the outbreak hasn't happened yet, and is trying to find help. Heroes willing to offer refuge or expertise to examine the medicines thought responsible, paranormal experts about this Brulyx thing he keeps hearing about, and why of all people is this happening to him? One things's for sure, someone people never thought of as the gun-toting, heroic type has become just that. Now he searches for answers across more than one Earth. And when he finds them, he will face the worlds where the Dead Reign...and there will be a Dead Reckoning.

That's my idea, a weapon-wielding Wanderer/Sea Inquisitor that can not only be used as a plot device for NPC's in various games for a crossover, but to promote my love of Dead Reign and survival horror at comic book and horror conventions. No real superhero outfit, just black cargo pants, boots and for now, my Dead Reign t-shirt along with a an arsenal of prop guns. Someone's got to represent against the supernatural, right?

I'm even thinking of making up some business cards for his own company called Dead Reckoning. Not just about paranormal investigation, but extermination. I'm all for sharing the love and spreading the word on this game, so what do you think? He could show up in Century Station, arrested or discovered by heroes in time for the Minion Wars, or if a certain superhero is contemplating taking a new drug promising to be the cure for cancer. Some in Beyond the Supernatural might think he's nuts but is worth investigating, while people on Rifts Earth would scoff because they have their own problems and there's no credits in it for them. And I'm taking him to a couple conventions next year as my own costume!

[Lord Death]

very good me like it when well u have a pic?

[DtMK]

Thanks! Probably when I get my Airsoft arsenal along with holsters. I never really got into cosplay until Who Wants to be a Superhero? came out, since then the only things I ever went as before were either as myself, my hero identity ReFusion or even as the Postal Dude from the Postal franchise. The best thing about my mock arsenal is it can be used for Postal Dude as well.

Admittedly, I'm not in the best of shape, but if the large guy on Lost can be stuck on an island and hardly lose a pound, a guy that can teleport and has an issue with Cortisol could explain the slightly prominent belly. But I'd like to hear if anyone else here has either went to a convention as a character you created for an RPG, or think it might be fun to do so since I'm doing it for Dead Reign and Palladium in general?

[DtMK]

Still assembling gear for The Reckoner, but I'm nearing completion for Megacon at the end of this month! I'll be sure to have plenty of pics when I do. But I thought you might enjoy a slice at the history and perspective of The Reckoner.

"A year and a half. Has it really been a year and a half already? Hard to believe. Well, some might not think it's been a year and a half here, but trust me, I've been busy. Let me start from the beginning.

"I won a cruise in the Pacific, hobnobbing with the rich, BEAUTIFUL women, unfortunately including a couple cougars trying to hit me up, and even learning a trick of two from Alice frigging Cooper! Say what you want, the man knows how to draw a bead on something and hit it. And it's all going well, until everyone doubled over with pain. It happened simultaneously in the morning. I finally shook it off after a few minutes and went to see what the hell happened. I heard people moaning in their cabins and outside. It was a lovely sunrise, it sucks that the uber-hangover/food poisoning had to be my alarm clock. But at that moment, that sunrise was the last part of anything normal I'd ever experience again. I saw crew members and passengers alike going nuts, attacking each other. Not just hitting, but scratching. Biting. They were actually trying to EAT each other! It was like the Aerosmith song mixed into a Romero movie!

"In trying to find what was going on, fighting off the attackers and finding sane people, I discovered something. I had always had some psychic tendencies, but something kicked them into overdrive. I found out I could pick up vibes from things I touched, feel people's emotions and...well, I'll tell you that part later. It was like something out of a bad movie. Zombies on a Boat! It was a fight trying to get the keys for the onboard anti-pirate arsenal, trying to fight without getting infected. God, I was such an amateur then. Thank goodness I've gotten better.

"After wrangling many of the...screw it, I'll say it: zombies into cargo areas, dance halls and locking the rest in their rooms, the rest of us tried making sense of it. We found out by the satellite tv and internet that this wasn't just us. There goes my hope of getting rich or free cruises from a lawsuit. The pain? People were calling it The Wave. And everywhere, zombies were walking, running and biting. Anyone getting bitten would get sick, die, then come back. And I didn't know it then, but I felt we were getting close to something. I couldn't put my finger on it.

"That something else I told you about? Don't laugh....well okay, laugh, get it out of your system. I think I laughed like a maniac when I realized what I could do too. I was cornered, I was swinging a fire axe taking out zombie after zombie, but was getting tired. But when I was getting winded, I heard the moans, saw them coming around the corner. I just wished I stayed in my room, watching pay per view adult channels, drowning out this crap! Why can't I be in my room?

"The it happened. I teleported.

"See? I KNEW you were going to either laugh or give me that deer in the headlights look of disbelief! But yeah, I found out I could 'port. Not very far, though, I couldn't concentrate on it while fighting, I dropped off into the Pacific a couple times testing my range, then I was drained after several tries. I could also put up a giant round shield I could move around at will to block attacks. Unfortunately I found the down side.

"See, the shield isn't just some kind of force field, aparently it's made up of the same energy my 'ports are. Kind of like a stable portal. I found this out when we drifted off course, my senses telling me something was close, then apparently we were in the Japanese Triangle, their version of the Bermuda Triangle. It was good, the zombies seemed to stop being as hungry. But when a few got out and I put up a shield to protect me and a group of survivors, it should have eventually shut off. It didn't. Worse, it got bigger, and it stopped the ship. From then, I and others started hearing a voice, a calling from the portal. Seductive, dark, powerful. It seemed interested in me, offering me anything I wanted if I joined it. It seemed to sense what I could do.

"I had no idea. I made things worse! The calling kept me from sleeping, seducing others into the portal, and then monsters, aquatic demons came through. I did what I could fought off and killed a lot of them. But the voice got worse. It called itself the Lord of the Deep. It sensed the pain, fear, desperation of this world, and the people of this ship. It wanted me to be its doorway not only here, but to countless other places! When I refused, he threatened me, started having his hordes freeing the zombies, taking people. Then a gigantic tentacle followed by smaller ones grabbed at everyone, and grabbed me. It threatened to take me, and everyone else if I didn't help it. But something in me snapped. I felt something come from my very soul. The beauty of life, hope for everything, and a responsibility. I would rather die than let this thing hurt another world, another group, another life. There was a blue light, and the thing let me go.

"I was born again. I know it sounds corny, the kind of crap you'd hear Televangelists pushing. But something erupted in me. I had trained in martial arts, boxing, wrestling and other things when i was younger, but gave them up because I didn't want to hurt anyone, and especially be hurt. But I suddenly had a knack for kicking the ass of anything supernatural! I got the last of the arsenal, routed the monsters, even a few things that were human, volunteered to go with the monster willingly, and came back as twisted half man, half sea life. I tore into them, and every bullet and grenade I fired seemed to be a blue tracer round! Finally, I stopped the damn thing, and destroyed every undead or inhuman thing on the ship.

"Eventually we were rescued and taken to a safe haven in Japan at Mt. Fuji. That night, I had a vision I was visited by a dragon. I'm not kidding, a huge, serpentine dragon! She told me what I was, about the Lord of the Deep, my Transformation, and that the Demon Triangle as it's also known is a huge magic zone. The Lord of the Deep might have sensed the pain and my portal shield, but he could have opened a doorway aanyway. The fact that it happened the way it did, where it did and how may have been a focal point to have actually dealt with it. She helped me to learn what I could do, and that I had several names. Wanderer. Shadowpath Walker. Sea Inquisitor.

"The next night, I had a vision. Someone in trouble, and I could help them. So I gathered my things and weapons, and took off. And that's when I learned that time moves differently in some dimensions. It was night when I left, and day when I arrived. I checked the papers, the dates were off too. That's the way it's been. I have a vision, I go to where I saw. Sometimes it's moments, minutes, hours, days before the danger I see happens. The most time that's passed from vision to event has been one week. I go where I'm needed, going to different worlds, different Earths, trying to help people and picking up supplies where and when I can.

"I've been to at least six different Earths with a zombie outbreak, some different reasons or theories. A cure of diseases, the will of God, military or coroprate experiments, cults. I've also gone to worlds that were normal so I could rest and heal, others where the apocalypse had come and gone, and all kinds of weirdness. I had a vision of people and a huge lizard guy being attacked. I was trying to save people, tried talking to the lizard guy. Turns out he was some high muckety muck magic thing and the Donald Trump of something called techno-Wizardry. Blah blah blah! He turned me away when I warned him, but I pulled his ass out of the fire when three undead super soldiers tried hitting him when his magic was cancelled by some cloud on a scroll they read.

"Yeah, I know how it sounds. But I SWEAR it's true! I broke the butt of my rifle on the giant one's head when it was squeezing me to death! Had to grap a handful of left hemisphere out of its open skull, shake it in front of him and toss it like playing catch with a Great Dane to make him let me go! Thank whatever God was watching me that I hit it with another rifle grenade to make it rain super zombie chunks! The other two were a fight too, fought the sniper to a standstill before the lizard guy saved me and another person I saved. He was so grateful he bartered with me for various items and goods for some exclusive stuff. I gave him some ideas, he's actually putting them into production now calling them the Reckoner line. It's all over his city called Stormspire about how I saved him from the 'Night of Reckoning.'

"Great, I'm the poster boy for the magic using NRA on this place called Rifts Earth. F#%$ing wonderful. At least the ammo's cheap here, plus he told me to come back in a while, he'll have something special for me.

"I've gone to worlds, warning people who'd listen about what I've seen. Many don't believe me. For other worlds, they freak out when they see me using my powers. I've been to worlds with other superhumans. It's either total doubt, or they're worried about their world, so they couldn't be spared. Other places, the zombies are actually attracted by my abilities. I'm not a superman, I'm better than average in a fight, especially against the supernatural. I'm a little faster, tougher, stronger, but still human.

"Human. I've seen some messed up examples of that. I've tried to be there to support people, take the tensions off with jokes or karaoke, but I've seen a darker side of people after the end of the world. Case in point: I was with some survivors camped out at a bowling alley, they heard about a mountain town where they had minimal zombies, if not wiped out altogether. We were going to convoy there after a few more survivors would rendezvouz with us. Ammo was low, but I did what I could to help cover from the roof. A van pulled up, dragging its bumper, making all kinds of racket. The driver was fighting with a zombie and crashed into a lamp post. It led the zombies to us. While I was on one side of the roof, the refugees made a break for the main door. A woman trying to protect a five year old she saved tripped, dropped the kid, got up without her and headed towards the bowling alley.

"When I got to that side, the kid was crying, paralyzed with fear. No one was running back out to get her, the zombies were closing on the kid. We all knew that this was only going to whet the appetite of the dead. I pleaded with the other rooftop cover sniper, ammo was running too low to waste. The best he could offer...

"Let me compose myself.

"The best he could do was to put a kill shot in the kid's head. The best MERCY he could do was to shoot out a five year old girl's head to keep her from being eaten alive.

"That wasn't good enough for me.

"I popped up a shield on an angle to block the zed's from the child. Risky, I know. Every time I used my powers, it attracted them. So I 'ported on the other side of the large, shambling crowd. If I 'ported to get the kid, I couldn't fight and 'port at the same time. So I gave them a better bait. Me. I emptied out every gun I had at them, then used my fire axe, then my own hands. I went through them like a hot blue glowing knife through undead butter. After I cleared away the horde and saw more coming, I picked up the crying child, looked deeply at the man on the roof. His fright of wasting ammo, of the horde approaching. It was a tough choice, and I notice he didn't fire on the zombies I was fighting either. But he knew what I was thinking when I 'ported the child and myself away. His 'mercy' wasn't nearly enough. Not if you want to rebuild a world worth living in. I took the kid to the hospital in the haven town, the people from the bowling alley eventually came to town. She didn't want to go with any of them, and she couldn't come with me. Not where I was going.

"So that's me in a nutshell. I'm trying to gather food, supplies and something to pay or trade people to make my own group, Dead Reckoning Inc. I can have branches on different Earths, trying to help people not only survive, but to have hope, to hang onto their humanity. Because there's a LOT worse out there. Believe me. And now I find myself on another adventure, this group of people look promising. Talented, capable, and even compassionate. Good. Because if what I brought with me can help to be made into a cure for this, the it'll be worth it. Until then, I fight for those that have no other heroes. And when I find the cause of all this, there will be a reckoning. A Dead Reckoning.

What do you think?

[Shawn Merrow]

What do you think?

Very nice.

[DtMK]

Next week is Megacon, and it should be HELLA fun! I'm still waiting on a couple shirts, there was a mixup in the order, so with luck I'll have them by next week. Plus, I have a new prop in my arsenal! So as not to get into copyright crap, and as a fan, I'm stating that one weapon I have was inspired by a video game franchise The Reckoner had introduced to K'Zaa at Stormspire. Now thanks to this, he's making a new line of weapons called the 'Double J' series in an attempt to get the business of Juicers. There's just something about a varied rifle with a chainsaw bayonet that gets people's attention...

[DtMK]

I just found out the hard way that I can't seem to input pics here. I have them on my Myspace, but I can't seem to figure out how post them in this thread. Any suggestions?

[The Galactus Kid]

I just found out the hard way that I can't seem to input pics here. I have them on my Myspace, but I can't seem to figure out how post them in this thread. Any suggestions?

We can't post images in threads. We can however post links to photobucket sites and others where they might be stored.

[Nightbreed]

What do you think?

You don't think small do you?

GREAT story!

Too bad you can't attend the Wizard World con in Phily this year. If you had that costume, you'd be a sight to see.

[DtMK]

Yeah, and get a bunch of other people and go as the zombies- but everybody wearing Dead Reign t-shirts. So you can "rescue" hot chicks.

Now THAT would rock! I need to find my DR shirt again, fortunately I have a couple other zombie themed hunter shirts for the costume. Megacon '10's coming up in a month, this time I'll go without the chanisaw gun replica, but I'll have another item that should bring fear to monsters. It's a replica of Stormbringer from Marvel Comics, in The Reckoner's hands I'll call it a weapon I posted in another thread called Dimentorrent, the Rifter's Wrath. Nothing like a big hammer with an axe head to invoke skull severing fear in the living and undead alike!

[DtMK]

Next week The Reckoner will be rocking out at Megacon! Is anyone else going to be in the Orlando area around that time?