Friday, May 06, 2011

Meet The Crusaders -- The Archangel Gabriel

In the 90s, I ran a DC Heroes campaign for a close knit group of friends that lasted for a couple of years. The players all made characters who were supposed to be around "Justice League" power level, but they could make heroes based on any concept they desired. While I was using the DC Heroes rules set for the campaign, the characters were equally likely to be facing Magneto or Doctor Polaris in combat as I incorporated characters from both the Marvel and DC universes.

For a short period during the campaign, my wife made some short cartoon strips based on the role playing adventures of the team members. Some of the results were quite amusing. One of my favorite characters in the game was the Archangel Gabriel. My dear friend Matt York came up with the character concept. You see, Gabriel is an immensely powerful super powered being who believes that he is an Archangel in the service of the Lord. His power and righteousness might lead one to believe he is correct in this opinion, but his stint in an insane asylum and his interesting interpretation of what merits swift retributions might make you rethink the issue.

Click on Image for Larger Version

Click on Image for Larger Version


The third panel in the Origin strip refers to a time during our DC Heroes campaign where Gabriel was in battle with Ares in the European Theater of Operations during a time travel story. Gabriel used his Aura of Fear power in an attempt to intimidate the God of War and give the rest of the Crusaders some benefit during the combat -- Herakles wanted to "bestow upon Ares 'the Gift.'" Matt rolled his attack, which he had already pumped up with hero points to make more effective, and it came up doubles, so he rolled again and added that result to his prior result, but he had rolled doubles again. ...and so on, and so on. He rolled doubles more times than I can remember and his result was literally off the charts. The massive Aura of Fear, which now extended over the entire continent of Europe, not only cowed Ares, but sent put the fear of God into every person in the ETO.

It was a great moment from a great character.

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