HISTORY OF H.A.V.O.C.

Campaign | Reality

CAMPAIGN

H.A.V.O.C. originally formed in the year 1983 to defeat a super-villian group calling itself the Flame. The original members, Heli-Arc, Baja Knight, Shadow, and Spokes, were brought together by the sorceror Cerebus. After tracking the Flame for a week, H.A.V.O.C. confronted the Flame at the city's dock. A viscious battle ensued, a battle in which one of the members of the Flame did not walk away from. Tidal Wave had cornered Heli-Arc behind a large stack of shipping crates. Seperated from the others and battling for his life, Heli-Arc hit Tidal Wave with the full power of his electric attack. Unable to disperse that much pure force, Tidal Wave perished. The other members of the Flame were rounded up in due course. Only the mastermind behind the group, Master Evil, escaped. With the threat of the villians averted and Heli-Arc facing criminal charges, the group disbanded. The charges against Heli-Arc were later dismissed, but this did not bring the team back together.

Late in the year 1987, a small group of villians calling themselves the Vulturians began to harass the city. Unable to defeat the group of flying lawbreakers, the police were forced to call on the only resource they had avaiable to them, super heroes. Heli-Arc, having resumed crimefighting shortly after the criminal charges were dropped, was the first to arrive. Shortly after him, the other founding members of H.A.V.O.C. arrived. The group was able to defeat the Vulturians with the aid of two new heroes, Iossue and Jedi. Iossue was a heroic Norse warrior who found himself mysteriously propelled through time. Jedi was a minor mentalist who wielded a force sword. Together, they realized that the world once again needed their abilities and H.A.V.O.C. began patrolling the streets.

H.A.V.O.C. was not the only group reforming that year. The members of the Flame had managed to leave their incarseration, either through parole or escape. This time they were led by a woman calling herself Nemesis. Empress, using her mental powers, captured Iossue. With the warrior in their clutches, the Flame spirited him away to an abondoned amusement park on the edge of town. There Iossue was guarded by the deranged Sledgehammer. Leaving clues for the heroes to follow, Nemesis returned to the amusement park and planned the ambush.

Arriving as a group, Jedi detected the ambush before it was sprung. Any hope of springing the trap, the Flame paired off against the heroes. Empress attacked Jedi hoping to pit her mightier mental powers against his. Her concentration diverted, Iossue was able to break free of his mental coma and square off against Sledgehammer. Pyro pitted his flame powers against the combined might of Spokes and Baja Knight while Shadow had his insubstantial hands full dealing with the concussive force of Soundwave. This left Heli-Arc to deal with the every changing abilities of Nemesis.

The teams fought vigilantly against one another, but as in their previous fight, a member of the Flame was destined not to survive. Unable to overcome the mental flurry of Empress's powers, Jedi lost control of himself and blindly attacked with all he had. In his rage, he was unable to control himself and he struck down the woman. Recovering from his berserk fury, Jedi fled the scene and the team.

Having defeated the Flame, H.A.V.O.C. enjoyed its new found popularity. The Team was contacted by Scott Stane, the CEO of Stane Enterprises and the son of the late Obediah Stane. Mr. Stane agreed to help finaince the budding team in return for a presence of his own at their table. Agreeing to his proposal, the group welcomed their newest member, Guardian. Guardian was the armored security for Stane Enterprises and an inventor as well. Stane was good to his word and soon the team had a headquarters, communicators and flight boots. With the headquarters came two new members, Firewing and Asian Tiger. Firewing was a flame weilding mutant, while Asian Tiger was a secretive martial artist. Seeing the team in capable hands, Cerebus discreetly left to follow other pursuits.

The addition of new members was fortunate for the group as they were soon to face a new threat, the Hellgate Society. The Hellgate Society was a large criminal organization built along the lines of the Tarot. It was split into four seperate divisions; Coins, Cups, Swords, and Wands. The group first encountered the Swords division at a construction site. A battle ensued, but at the close of the fight, H.A.V.O.C. was left with more questions than answers. But fate was ready to take another bad turn, leaving the group with no other option but to put the Hellgate mystery to the side.

Iossue had gone out on solo patrol only to encounter the super villian Rhino robbing a bank. Iossue tracked the juggernaut to an isolated part of town before confronting him. Safe in the knowledge that no innocents would be hurt, Iossue tried to arrest the Rhino, but the villian was determined not come along quietly. Iossue, forced to defend himself, did the best he could but was seriously outmatched by the behometh of a man. Broken and battered, Iossue was not able to stop the Rhino as the villian made off with the stolen loot. Iossue limped back to headquarters with a brave face, but his super-heroing days were through.

A few days later, Guardian stumbled across the Alternate Earth in an experiment he had been working on. Guardian was trying to create a transdimensional portal. Stepping through the portal, Guardian found himself in the Alternate Earth, beseiged by Hell Hounds of the villian Bedlam. It took Guardian a week to return to the portal and step back through. To his dismay, he learned he had not only created a dimensional portal but also a time manipulator. To those who remained while Guardian stepped through the portal, the entire experiment seemed to fail for they only saw him pass from one end of the portal to the other, much like crossing over the threshold of a door. Only the damage to his armor indicated that something more had occured.

The entire team returned to the Alternate Earth to investigate further. Once again, the team only spent a week in this dimension before retreating to their own world, beaten back by the forces of Bedlam. With them, they brought a fledgling hero by the name of Cobalt. Cobalt was unable to continue the fight and wished nothing more than to leave. When the team returned, Guardian checked the portal to ensure another trip, but the machine was damaged by the excessive heat and power needed to generate the portal and they unable to return to the Alternate Earth. Cobalt stayed with the team as a hero in training, but the loss of Iossue was a blow the team could not withstand. The team soon closed the doors to their headquarters for good.

Or so they thought...

 

 

...Here begins the adventures of a new H.A.V.O.C.

REALITY

The H.A.V.O.C. campaign started my freshman year in college back in 1987. We had just finished a long stretch of Stormbringer, a fantasy game published by Chaosium. We weren't quite sure what to play when someone suggested a super hero game. Champions was suggested, but we were looking for something easy to play. Something that would help bring in new players, not scare them off. So someone else suggested Marvel Super Heroes. The game became a quick success.

There was just a handful of us to start. I was the gamemaster as well the NPC's Cerebus and Guardian. John, whose copy of the game it was, played Heli-Arc. Andy and Troy, whose dorm room we played in, played Spokes and Shadow respectively. Steve, when not on duty with the National Guard, played Baja Knight.

We only played one or two games before we had some more players joinng the group. The first to join in was Chris, who played Iossue, the Norse God of parties. That whole idea struck us as odd, not for the fact that he was playing a Norse god of parties, but that he used the last name of the President of the college. Next to join was Wayne. Wayne was a big Star Wars fan and insisted on playing a jedi knight. I think I would have been keener on the subject had he not called his character Jedi. Really original there.

This pattern of new players continued once more when Tony and Tom joined up with the group. Tony played a fire based character named Firewing. Later he would revamp Firewing's powers and rename him Presto. Tom, the last person to join the group, played the martial artist Asian Tiger.

The game ran from the end of the Fall semester and through most of the Spring semester. It started falling apart during the Spring semester as Tom and I trailed off and joined the same fraternity. Tony trailed off as well to join a different fraternity. Wayne was having trouble keeping his grades up, so he had to leave the group. And Andy, who had also joined the same fraternity as Tom and I, decided to transfer to a college closer to home at the end of the semester. So the game came to a slow gradual halt. But we all enjoyed it while we played.