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Crisis at Crusader Citadel"Don'tcha just hate us?!" --Temper |
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Death Duel with the Destroyers The Island of Doctor Apocalypse Villains and Vigilantes Collector Checklist |
 The
1st published adventure for Villains and Vigilantes was
included in the boxed set, and it was titled Crisis at Crusader
Citadel. The plot of this one is deliciously simple but still
exciting, especially for a new superhero rpg'er. The newly designed
superheroes all show up at Crusader Citadel hoping to join the
Crusaders, the city's premier group of superheroes. In true comic
book fashion, the player character heroes might or might not mistake
each other for villains and fight. (If I were running this adventure
today, I would encourage this option.)While they're at Crusader Citadel, they eventually realize that the Crusaders have been defeated and are being held hostage by their arch enemies, the Crushers. Since Crisis at Crusader Citadel was included in the original Villains and Vigilantes boxed set, it's probably been played more often than any other Villains and Vigilantes scenario. I know we played through this one multiple times. Looking back, it's interesting to me how much adventure could be packed into 20 short pages back in the day. Between the characters and the setting, the seeds of an actual Villains and Vigilantes campaign are actually planted in this scenario. Obviously after rescuing the Crusaders, the players will realize they work pretty well together, and they'll probably form their own team. But they will definitely have made enemies of the Crushers themselves. Crisis at Crusader Citadel Plot DetailsLike a lot of Villains and Vigilantes scenarios of the time, it's a two-parter. In the 1st part, the players meet up with a reporter outside of Crusader Citadel who describes how the Crusaders are missing and the Crushers have been on a crime spree. The players wind up defending Manning Enterprises against an onslaught of 6 of the Crushers. The 2nd half of the adventure has the players invading Crusader Citadel itself. One of the fun things about the scenario is that Crusader Citadel is located in the top 4 stories of the Harmon Building. If that concept sounds familiar, think of the Fantastic Four and the Baxter Building. Crusader Citadel is a great example of a 1980's style superhero base too. They even have a space shuttle. The villains and the heroes all had interesting combinations of powers that made them more than just your standard template type characters that you see so often in newer superhero games like Champions and Mutants and Masterminds. For example, one of the supervillains is Marionette, whose powers include shrinking, always on, and mind control. Another really cool and unique villain featured in the scenario is Mercury Mercenary. Think the Flash, only with all kinds of cool military weapons in addition to his superspeed. I read a thread on a forum once where someone had run a big campaign style adventure called Crisis at Infinite Crusader Citadels. The concept was that every time this adventure had been run in history, it happened in an alternate universe, and all of those universes are somehow combining. So there are literally dozens or hundreds of new superhero teams showing up at Crusader Citadel all at the same time, and multiple alternate universe versions of the Crushers. One of these days I might give this concept a try in my own house campaign. You can find stats writeups for some (not all) of the Crusaders and the Crushers here: Villains and Vigilantes characters. They include statistics for characters like Dreamweaver and Shrew. Their stats include conversions into the Hero system. A company called Lance and Laser has made miniatures of the characters in Crisis at Crusader Citadel - that's worth checking out too, if you like to play with miniatures. |
