A Scrap Pile Christmas

Guest-Starring DAZZLER!

I had been wanting to do a holiday issue for a while. My first thought was Halloween, but that was inconveniently timed. The Christmas season, meanwhile, falling at a point where I wanted to remind everyone I still very much dig the Scrap Pile, but also at a point where I didn't have everything together to pick up the ongoing campaign again, worked out really well. We all got together (again, minus the unfortunately overbooked Magi), wore Santa hats, and had a great time.

So, it was a cold, snowy Christmas Eve on Lightfoot Island and the team had a drink together at the base before heading off to their separate engagements.

Disco flew off to his holiday DJ gig at a bar in Beta City. On the way, he was confronted by a dark, winged figure who identified himself as Flying Fish and demanded that he turn over "the gift-bringer." The Flying Fish conjured up wind blasts and stuff, but was particularly vulnerable to Disco's light because he was made of shadow. Upon being defeated, the Flying Fish dissipated and a big red and green gift-wrapped box appeared nearby. Disco opened it up.

Torpedo got in his car to head to Morgana's Winter Solstice service in a grove outside town. He was greeted there by Goth, a shadow-woman who had darkness powers and the same agenda as Flying fish. Torpedo turned into lava, ruining his upholstery, but enabling him to take out the villain who, like her apparent teammate, turned into a gift box. Torpedo called the bomb squad.

Land Shark started walking across Lightfoot Island to go volunteer at the shelter. He ran into Harvey Wallbanger, a globular do-gooder with a strong Boston accent. He was looking to make a name for himself by taking out the Dastards, who were reputed to live in this area. While Land Shark decided how to answer, they were attacked by Ballistic, a sort of fire-based flying villain. Land Shark's street clothes got burned off and he was left with a skimpy costume Disco made. I don't remember why. Again, they were left with a gift which they opened.

Disco, Land Shark, Harvey Wallbanger, and a bomb-diffusing robot all appeared together in an other-dimensional ski chalet. The fireplace was encased in a giant ice crystal and ephemeral shadowy forms flitted about. Santa Claus was chained to a post nearby. Eventually, we got Torpedo in there too. Santa was chained up and the fire pit was frozen solid. Shadowy forms were flitting around. Santa said a rebellious elf named Snaptooth (who wanted to be a dentist) had stolen his mojo and was freezing the world into shadow or something. Land Shark's pug, Mr. Chompers, was there too, and kept telling Disco to kill everyone. Strangely, only Disco could hear this.

They skied down to the entrance to Snaptooth's lair while fighting off pterodactyls, because pterodactyls are cool. On the other side, they fought some reindeer men who knocked Torpedo out, then some snowmen and evil elves that looked pretty gnome-like. Then they fought Snaptooth and got Santa's bag and... I wanna say I threw in the Baby New Year thing from City of Heroes too. Everything after the pterodactyls is a little fuzzy.

Back on the ski slopes, the Angry Beet attacked for some reason, but was quickly bounced by Harvey Wallbanger. They got back to Santa, where the bonfire sprang up and the shadows resolved into party guests, including Dazzler and her band. Disco was ecstatic to meet his idol. Dazzler performed "Shadows of the Night," and everybody had a Merry Christmas.

Rampage

This'll be a bit sketchier than usual because it's already taken forever and I want to get it done.

So, as per last session, there was a giant flying monster rampaging across Lightfoot Island.

Disco was badly wounded just before the cliffhanger, so Fire of Saturn rigged the containment tubes to heal him while the others freed the B Team. It became apparent that they had been kidnapped because Ghost Lad had maimed some guy called Techmaster with his phasing powers.

Disco then flew Torpedo out to the critter and dropped him on its back. While Torpedo was grabbing hold hold in lava form, Disco dodged (mostly) blasts from the monster's tail. Once the B Team members (minus Ghost Lad, who was missing) were safely on their way, Land Shark tunneled his way out while Fire of Saturn flew.

Land Shark was able to crack open the creature's armor and render it useless while Fire of Saturn used ice to incapacitate its gun ports and Disco sizzled it with his aura.

Meanwhile, Torpedo had been lava-oozing his way to the creature's core in an attempt to shut it down. What he found there was a psycho-mystical conflict with Dirge, the volcano spirit which had possessed it.

The fight continued both inside and out. Towards the end, the spirit said, "Curse you, Prince of Atlantis! Your homeland will pay dearly for this affront." And with simultaneous final blows, Torpedo and Disco blasted the creature apart. Pieces of cooling lava flew everywhere.

Land Shark, cranking it up to eleven, made a bunch of giant stone sharks rise out of the ground to catch the falling rubble before it could do too much damage, inspiring cheers and adulation from the not-completely-squashed townsfolk.

Rapture

Interrogating their captive with a little help from Disco's bright lights, they learned that Corrosive Soul was going to use the brains to power a dimensional spike to unleash demons on Beta City. She was also using the bodies to make cybernetic vampires. She was working in Joe Casanelli's old mansion on the north face of the volcano, abandoned since Darkshade and Groovy Lad took down the Necrodon (from a convention game, so it never got written up here).

Back at Scrap Pile HQ, the heroes discussed their next move. Well, most of them did. Disco was mostly concerned with discovering whether or not Land Shark was gay. He enlisted Fire of Saturn to commence a program of temptations designed to bring out the big lug's true preferences. Not too well-versed in seduction but eager to fit in with the heroes, she agreed to follow Disco's prompts. When the team decided to go to the hideout as the Dastards, Disco made an incredibly skimpy (and, of course, shiny) costume for her, which she at first covered in a robe.

Despite surreptitious radio suggestions from Disco, Fire of Saturn's "moves" were awkward at best. Once she even turned an ankle on the ridiculous heels she was wearing. Did I mention there were demons stealing brains and making vampires and stuff? Yeah, let's talk about that for a minute.

So, the Dastards (Land Pirate, Bad Fish, Blacklight, and Space Invaders) pulled up to the mansion in the Chevy Malibu of Evil and demanded to talk to whoever was in charge about joining up.  They saw more vampires and some normal humans, mostly working with the machinery.

They were led downstairs, where there was a high-tech lair with big glass panels overlooking the channel between Lightfoot proper and Weatherhead. Corrosive Soul was down there with captured B-Team members, a big glass vessel full of bees, a skeleton labeled "Von Meyer," and a blue-glowing rock. At some point they learned that this was all part of a cult called "Rapture."

I don't remember exactly how things went here. Seems like Torpedo went through a cave from the junk yard on the west edge of the volcano or something. I know he communed with lava spirits and found out something. I should have written this while it was all still fresh in my mind, but it was a busy week.

Fire of Saturn left for some reason before the big fight, or they just left her with the car. Anyway, they fought vampires and Corrosive Soul, who crowed while being Torpedo-lava-punched that human hands did not summon her, nor could they truly destroy her. Then she literally fell apart. There were also some surprise werewolves.

There was a cut scene where we saw a man with mechanical hands and a scarred face leading a hornetroid toward a lava pool where he was going to do some kind of ritual. Then, because of the lava spirits Torpedo had spoken to, the lava pool started getting frisky. Tendrils of lava reached up, pulled the mechanical hornet down, and consumed it. Then it rose again, transformed into a living cyber-magic lava monster. The dude who had been leading it screamed and ran away.

So anyway, while the Scrap Pile's fight continued, the glass broke and the bees swarmed over the glowing rock. Eventually they started saying "Swarm, Swarm, Swarm," and formed into a humanoid shape with big glowing blue eyes. It turned out to be hard to hurt, but Disco and Torpedo were able to damage it with their sizzling auras. In the course of doing so, however, Disco was badly stung and lost consciousness. Then the ground started shaking.

Fire of Saturn, who had seen the giant lava hornet fly out and start attacking the city, showed up and said, "Guys, I think we have a new problem."

Working at the Car Wash

The Scrap Pile is back! Well, mostly. We're still hoping to get an occasional Giant Size issue with Magi, but complications bleeding in from the lesser world make it hard for him to be around much.

Back from their disturbing ordeal with the Warmaster; Land Shark, Torpedo, and Disco came home to find that they had been away for over six months. A lot of people thought they were dead, but Morgana had kept everything running in their base, despite Caravel's attempt to talk her into selling everything and renting the building out to Boost Mobile.

After they got settled in and announced their return, they were invited to be on the talk show, "Literal Hotness" with Thod (pronounced "Todd") Roades. Disco got out his tightest spandex outfit and helped Land Shark spruce up his look as well.

Once they got there, Thod ambushed them with questions about the imperialist message in Torpedo's origin story, the toxic masculinity of Land Shark's destructive powers, and concerns about representation, calling them, "The Sausage Pile" at one point. Torpedo took the opportunity to claim all of America as a colony of Atlantis. Then Thod asked them why they were showboating on a talk show instead of investigating the brain thief at Patriot's Landing.

On their way out, Disco befriended a cat with light powers. They learned to communicate with each other on an empathic level using strobing color shifts. Disco also discovered pretty quickly that Rainbow Kitty could also teleport. Somebody said this meant they were replacing Magi with a cat.

Checking with Hero Corps, Torpedo learned that the organization was looking for someone to investigate a DMV office in Patriot's Landing, a rough Lightfoot Island dockside neighborhood named for the hero, Acting Patriot.

At the office, they found a woman wearing high tech, if somewhat haphazardly assembled, gadgetry interviewing customers. While Torpedo and Land Shark went to talk to management, Disco checked out the costumed stranger. An assortment of conversations told them:

• The woman was Fire of Saturn, who had been known to associate with the Lizard Moll, but wasn't otherwise listed as a known criminal. 
• The people whose brains had been stolen had all recently gotten a new or renewed license from the same clerk.
• The clerk, Brian Ferrys, had started acting strangely after taking a weekend job promoting a run-down car wash on Weatherhead Island, a smaller island immediately adjacent to and generally treated as part of Lightfoot Island. 

Fire of Saturn

Fire of Saturn got a little antsy as the questions continued, and left. The rest of the team decided to follow her back to the Lizard Moll's office over the Mermaid Tavern. Because the B Team had some history with the Lizard Moll and Joe Casanelli, they checked in with them first, but they were busy investigating the theft of Nazi mad scientist Fritz von Meyer's skeleton.

The Lizard Moll gave them some additional information, saying she believed that a poorly conjured spirit in a self-constructed biomechanical body was the problem. It had taken to calling itself "Corrosive Soul" and was attempting to carve out its own territory in the Lightfoot Island underworld.

The Lizard Moll, aware that the Scrap Pile had recently lost its tech guy, suggested that Fire of Saturn help them out. Fire of Saturn took this opportunity and several others to explain that she wasn't really a criminal, just a well-meaning inventor who had been "put in a bad situation" by her former employers. She was happy for the opportunity to prove herself to the good guys.

Taking the Scrap Van over to the car wash, they were greeted by a conspicuously immobile clerk and asked to put on hospital gowns while they waited. Meanwhile, the car wash started spraying some kind of foul-looking fluid on the Scrap Van and pelting it with ball bearings. Pushing aside the gowns, they found that the operators were thinly disguised floating brains with tentacles. They fought the brains, giving Fire of Saturn a chance to use her fire and ice powers.

Once the brains were dealt with, they looked around, finding some extracted brains in coolers and a bunch of de-brained corpses stashed nearby. There were quite a few more bodies than brains. They waited and some cyber-vampires showed up in a van to collect the brains, so they ambushed those guys or at least tried to and got caught. Anyway, they won that fight too, with one vampire still conscious in a block of ice for interrogation.

Giant Size Scrap Pile #3

This Itty Bitty World

First off, if the picture isn't enough of a hint, this scenario was a loose adaptation of Fantastic Four #236 by John Byrne. I picked it because, after the long break, I figured it'd be a fun way to welcome everyone back.

I started the session in the middle of a fight with "The Purple Flush" a differently-tinted version of the Crazy Gang, promising to catch everyone up on continuity after this scene. It was going fairly well. There were some heroic team efforts and several Purplers went down. Then Tweedledope, who had been hanging back from the fight, hyuck-yucked his way forward and revealed his latest creation, a giant metal rabbit that kept reciting the days of the week over and over. The Rabbot stomped the team flat in no time, and then Disco woke up from his nightmare.

He wasn't Disco, though. He was Josiah (Josh) Stern, son of Dr. & Mrs. James Stern, of Pilgrim's Rest, Pennsylvania. He was an "A" college student and popular athlete. He found a picture of his girlfriend, Debbie, on the nightstand. There was no Scrap Pile and no Beta City. His teammates did seem familiar though. Torpedo was his swim coach, Dorian Chalice. Land Shark was football star Quint Brody. Magi was a weird guy he had seen at the park. He couldn't remember the name.

As he thought about his alter-ego, "Disco," Josh realized that it didn't even make sense. He had never heard of disco music or rock or jazz or anything like that. The closest thing he could think of was big band leader David S. Pumpkins' occasional forays into swing.

While Josh got over his disorientation and had an awkward conversation with his parents ("what if I dreamed I was a gay super-hero?"), Quint and Coach Chalice were meeting at Der Waffle Haus. Magi's alter-ego, on the other hand, was waking up to a different situation. Algernon Touchshriek worked in a disreputable shop downtown called "Vintage Cock," where he was employed for the purpose of building, modifying, and repairing sex toys for senior citizens. His hobbies included looking through windows for demons and watching children play in the park.

Yeah, we've seen the last of the Comics Code Authority for this title. From now on, The New Scrap Pile will have to go direct distribution only. Wave of the future, right?

So anyway, Josh eventually ended up at the cafe with Coach and Quint, and they started talking about how they had all been having weird dreams. The Coach had dreamed about underwater adventuring and synthezoid imposters, while Quint had dreamed about a weird sand-sailing vessel captained by an Ahab-like Algernon Touchshriek hunting a giant sand shark.

Touchshriek, wandering by and hearing this, stopped and told them all about his own dream, in which they had all been scientist-explorers who had been exterminated by giant insect people. Despite finding him generally objectionable, the three clean-cut college types continued to talk with Touchshriek about this topic (and about Touchshriek's message for Josh that, "your dad's special order is ready") before moving on to their daily lives.

There were some fairly awkward scenes with Josh and his girlfriend, and Dorian, trying to find out how long he could hold his breath under water, also discovered that he could only breathe air.

Meanwhile, Touchshriek went back to the store, wondering why he had so much trouble focusing on any one subject for more than a few minutes.  The postman, Carl, stopped by with a package and chatted with Touchshriek. The two speculated that the package was a final component for the machine Touchshriek's boss, Rex Quirk, was building.

Before they could check it out, Professor Quirk himself swooped in and snatched it away, sneering about how Touchshriek could never understand it. Touchshriek said something about imagining a world where he was a scientist and Quirk was repairing used dildos. This seemingly caught Quirk off guard, so he just stomped upstairs in a huff.

Speaking of huffs, Touchshriek decided to take a break by getting high on aerosol cleaning chemicals. In his stupor, he had another dream. He was part of the Scrap Pile, as in Josh's dream, but they were all recovering from a different fight, one involving a computer hive-mind, an insane psychic villain called Bedlam, and a lot of guest stars.

As the exhausted heroes started cleaning up, they heard a low-pitched, disorienting sound that quickly faded into just a disquieting sensation. Then their minds went blank, and they were led away by a shadowy figure. He wasn't really in shadow, but somehow Magi's mind was failing to register his face.

Finally, as they got into his vehicle, escorted by android guards, his features became plain. It was Doctor Righteous. More than that, though -- he was also James Stern, Josh's father in the Pilgrim's Rest version of reality.

Touchshriek woke up, but he wasn't just Algernon Touchshriek anymore. His head was clear. He had all Magi's memories and skills, although, since Magi's super-powers mostly depended on his technology, he didn't have those yet. And he knew the key to restoring the rest of the Scrap Pile: getting them to snort dangerous psychoactive inhalants.

He was able to "wake up" Disco fairly easily. Land Shark was somewhat more difficult, and Torpedo put up quite a struggle, but eventually they were all huffing their way to enlightenment. They didn't, however, get their powers back, and they weren't sure why. There was some discussion of doing even more awful things to catalyze that process, but in the end they decided to go to the one person who they knew had some answers.

Everybody popped over to the Stern household, where Josh's mom, Faith, answered the door and was immediately punched out by Torpedo. Doctor Righteous, realizing they knew at least a significant portion of the truth, agreed to tell them what was going on.

They were in artificial bodies in a town built specifically for this purpose. Most of the townspeople were robots, but he and the Scrap Pile were inhabiting synthe-clone bodies.

He had devised this entire scheme because Disco looked just like his son in the 80sVerse. The real Josiah had been lost to sex, drugs, and rock'n roll. He had even joined one of those D&D cults and eventually committed suicide. "I just wanted my son back," Righteous sobbed. Torpedo punched him.

Magi wondered how Doctor Righteous was able to pull off all this mind transfer clonebot stuff. They hadn't seen anything close to the technology needed in the 80sVerse. Righteous said he had found a partner who could help him. When he didn't elaborate, they prodded him for the name.

A booming voice from above said, "Surely, that is not so difficult to deduce." Running outside, they saw a ridiculously huge figure blotting out the entire sky. "Who else could have taken the childish plot of Doctor Righteous and crafted it into the perfect vengeance against his most hated enemies? Who but THE WARMASTER?" It was Qth-raq. He ranted on a bit about how they were prisoners in his tiny village while their real bodies were helpless and then said he was off to regain his rightful position.

Magi took the opportunity to remind everyone that this was the guy they had all been so eager to cozy up to in Dimension Q. He kept saying, "Yeah, let's team up with him! He's a great guy!" When they discovered that Righteous was trapped here as well, Magi said, "Wait, you mean you worked with Qth-raq and he turned on you? Whoa! That's so weird! Who could have predicted that something like this could happen?"

Anyway, they eventually worked out a plan involving the machine Rex Quirk (who Magi had just recognized as Qth-raq with hair) had been building and a horrible assortment of spare parts from the store. Using his magical mechanic skills, and driven by his hatred of Qth-raq, Magi was able to adapt the machine to send them back to their real bodies.

They found themselves in a small building with the tiny town, lots of tech, and not much else. Magi snatched several of the synthe-clones and used them to stage mock arguments in which his teammates defended Qth-raq. Outside, they saw that they were on an island in the ocean and Qth-raq was speeding off to another island on some kind of evil jet-ski thing.

Torpedo, finally able to use his salt water-based powers, launched himself across and smashed Qth-raq into the wall of the building he had been heading for. The others followed. A tech-enhanced Tar Pit came out to help. More fighting. The Warmaster had some nifty new gadgets in his armor. Magi pumped up his flames as much as he could and let loose on Qth-raq, incinerating him and then stepping on his charred skull. Tar Pit surrendered at the sight of that and explained that he was helping Warmaster on behalf of the Unbeholden.

Disco and Torpedo told Magi they were going to have to arrest him for killing Qth-raq. In response, Magi announced that he was quitting the Scrap Pile and bounded away to the evil jet-ski. Torpedo was confident that he could catch him, but chose not to pursue.

These Dreams

Here are the dreams from Giant Size Scrap Pile #3, unedited from the messages I sent to the players. I used their super-hero names in the text instead of the fake history names because they had these descriptions before they knew they were going to be brainwashed.

Everybody but Disco got these instructions: Here's some stuff for the next Scrap Pile session.‭ ‬This is a dream your character will have at some point in the game.‭ ‬I'm sending‭ ‬it to you now so you can relay it in conversation to the others in character rather than having me take over to cram it into the narrative.‭ ‬I'll tell you when it's okay to share it.‭ ‬Before that,‭ ‬don't mention anything about it to the others.

Coach Dorian Chalice (Torpedo)
The four of you are all there,‭ ‬but you don't have super-powers.‭ ‬You do‭ ‬have funky high-tech suits like in the old Steranko Agents of Shield comics.‭ ‬Your current mission is underwater,‭ ‬so you have bubble helmets with big air hoses and propeller-jet backpacks.‭ ‬There's a gigantic cyber-turtle waking up in the depths,‭ ‬and you're‭ ‬trying to prevent it from rising,‭ ‬somehow.‭ ‬Partway down,‭ ‬you realize that all the others are‭ ‬synthezoid‭ ‬infiltrators and suddenly you're afraid that maybe you are too.‭ ‬Then‭ ‬all the water disappears.‭ ‬With nothing to support you,‭ ‬the whole team falls to its death.

Quint Brody (Land Shark)
The four of you are on a ship that sails on a sea of sand.‭ ‬You're the first mate,‭ ‬with Disco up in the crow's nest and Torpedo in charge of something below-decks.‭ ‬Magi is an Ahab-like captain,‭ ‬totally obsessed with his prey,‭ ‬a giant sand-swimming shark that bit his leg off in a previous encounter.‭ ‬Disco has just caught sight of it when the dream starts.‭ ‬The pursuit ends in disaster when it turns and wrecks the ship.‭ ‬You fall into the sand,‭ ‬which sucks you under and smothers you,‭ ‬and then you wake up.

Algernon Touchshriek (Magi)
The four of you are scientists who do more exploring than villain-punching.‭ ‬This time,‭ ‬though,‭ ‬you find yourselves fighting your way through a horde of cybernetic ape-men.‭ ‬Then you're in a world of giant insect-like creatures.‭ ‬They're intelligent,‭ ‬living in a huge,‭ ‬weird-looking city.‭ ‬They're not too fond of tiny visitors,‭ ‬though.‭ ‬One of them sees you and sprays you with something like bug spray‭ (‬mammal spray‭?)‬.‭ ‬Disco gets hit dead on and is tossed up into the air like a leaf.‭ ‬Land Shark tries to run into some kind of mouse-hole,‭ ‬but doesn't make it.‭ ‬The spray reacts with your equipment and you catch fire.‭ ‬Then you wake up.

And of course Disco's dream was played out by the whole team to open the adventure.

Coming Soon!

After a long hiatus, Giant Size Scrap Pile #3 is on the release schedule! (Pleasedontfallthrough-pleasedontfallthrough-pleasedontfallthrough!)

The bad news is that there's likely to be another hiatus afterwards, so that's all the more reason to make it awesome. I'm looking to resolve one long-running plot thread, at least.

That's pretty much all I can say, because almost everything about the story is supposed to be a surprise and, like, 99% of my audience is going to be playing in it.

Citrus Shocker Scandal

The New Scrap Pile is still in reprints, so we're going back even farther this time for a story from the original Scrap Pile:

Citrus Shocker Scandal Deepens

Apparently, cozying up to Arbiter Sands wasn't enough for the Scrap Pile. Now team leader Citrus Shocker has been accused of serious dereliction of duty by some of her fellow guardians of Paragon City.

Early in the evening of May 2nd, 2007, Citrus Shocker responded to a call for heroes to roust some Circle of Thorns cultists from a hidden temple in the Hollows. As one would expect of a hero, she joined the ad hoc team assembled by Police Drone 774 and joined them at the site. That's where the trouble began.

"I kept radioing her to ask if she could teleport me," said team member Iceman_X_123, "but she never answered. Later, I found out that she never even mentioned it to the other team members. She just stood there, reading her newspaper, while I jogged all the way across the Hollows. My cape was still on fire from Outcast Torch attacks, and she just stood there reading!"

Once in the temple, Shocker's behavior became even more... well... shocking. "She got in some good hits," says MedicHeelrDude. "I'll give her that, but then we all did. It was just an overwhelming horde of mages, guards, and some kind of screaming ghost things."

Police Drone 774 adds, "I took most of the aggro [sic] because I attacked first, but almost all of us went down. Poor TankerBelle will never be the same. As I collapsed on the stone tiles, gasping for help, I saw Citrus Shocker. She was badly hurt, but not down, and she was running for the door. And I'll tell you exactly what she said, because those words are burned into my memory. She looked over her shoulder with this annoyed expression, like she was really put out by our cries for help and said in a weird voice which I can only assume was a bad Eric Cartman impression, 'screw you guys; I'm going home.' That's what she said. And then she was gone."

"I saw her flying past as I came out of the hospital," says scrapper TrinityCatwoman. "I caught up to her and asked her to come back and help us finish the job and all she said was, 'You guys are morons. I don't have time for this.' Like it was all just a game to her. She's so mean."

Citrus Shocker could not be reached for comment, but she was photographed later the same evening, frightening civilians by kicking gang members below the belt in King's Row.

In Reprints

We won't be producing original material for a bit. Gotta wait for some Scrap Pile members to find their way back to Beta City.

We'll be back, though, bigger and weirder than ever!

For now, I guess we're in reprints, so check out the classic Scrap Pile adventure, "Oh, What a Night."