I need help figuring out a villain’s powers. In my campaign the PCs are going up against a government super-soldier conspiracy called Project Aladdin, and they went to talk to a super-soldier who defected from them (and was in the hospital after a fight with these same PCs, long story) when two superpowered government agents showed up to silence the defector. I find I run best when I make things up as I go, so I hadn’t really planned the agents out in advance, but once the fight started I went with my gut and had one of the agents draw a sword out of nowhere, deciding on the spot that his power was to summon weapons. Our session ended before the second one could show their power.
One of the players had been looking through a random superhero name generator and reading off a bunch of silly names, among which were Giant Katana and Heart Stealer. And when I had the first agent summon his sword, the players got very excited about the idea that those were the two agents. I’m not using those for their actual codenames, but since it excited my players I want to embrace the idea. Obviously the sword-summoning guy is Giant Katana, so the one who has yet to show his power is Heart Stealer.
The first possible power that comes to mind for Heart Stealer is some kind of mind control, but I find mind-controlling villains are a pain to run. The second possibility is some kind of psychic surgery, where he can remove, insert or rearrange things inside a target’s body just by touching them, for example literally stealing someone’s heart. It’s a cool power, and fitting for a government assassin, but with something like that I don’t know how to keep him from just instantly killing any PC he lands a hit on. So I need to either find a way to nerf that, or come up with a different power for him. Any suggestions?
How about Heart Stealer always looks like the person our hero idolizes/loves? Guard comes down, the gates to the kingdom are open. And to boot, they know their opponents innermost desires.
Heart Stealer isn’t an outright mind-controller, but steals something from your heart: a memory, a dream, a promise, a bond. You may or may not notice that something’s missing.
Power of voices. He can take your voice away (literally sent to silence), and he can use voices he’s captured. Basically Ursula from Little Mermaid.
Heart Stealer makes his victims the targets of a raving horde of irrationally love-struck innocents. They’re love zombies (or more like, sneaky love psychopaths) out for the target’s heart. They will fight each other for the target’s attention and they will try to kill anyone they perceive to have the target’s affection.
Heart Stiller – he slows your metabolism down, going from dulling your reactions and your thoughts to putting you into stasis
Heart’s Dealer – nasty wish-granting type who twists your wish into the worst possible version
Hardsteeler – can turn himself and anything he touches into steel, like a cross between King Midas and Colossus of the X-Men
Oh, another one: do them all, and make his meta-power that he switches persona & power set every time he takes a condition.
Being able to mimic the powers of anyone he elicits a strong emotional reaction from.
Produces a steel cage around a subject, that also mutes all their emotions. Could be used defensively or for capture. Involves a pun.
And a really scary one for a government agent, though not an assassin, would be that he can sense your social network — the psychic “smell” you leave on people you interact and care about. Then give him near mind-control, but with no effect on supers…all your normal friends trust and like him, and can’t figure out why you don’t even if he’s attacking you.
Hart’s Dealer – creepy earthly agent of a malevolent mystic force or nature manifesting as The Hart. Always wears a suit. Fantastic cook.
Think this guy, but with a supernatural twist: tvovermind.com
Heart Stealer can mystically acquire your heart and put it in a cage or jar (something with a dark fairy tale vibe). Your blood magically keeps pumping…as long as he wants it to.
Great villain-behind-the-villain who could turn out to be controlling another baddie or hero-mysteriously-turned-baddie. PCs might have to stealthily steal back the heart from him—he’s basically too dangerous to confront directly, though if someone does lose to him it’s a great opportunity to playbook shift to the Doomed.
Make him Kilgrave. What he syas just makes sense, even if it’s against your better judgement. You just want to do what he says, ans there’s nothing worse than having some members of your party turn against you, especially if the players are down for it!
For mind control like that, I usually offer characters XP if they do what he says. The players still have control over their character, it’s just a tasty treat if they go along with the plan.
In comic books, at least, mind control exists for the Hero to shake it off at the climactic moment while the mind-controller sputters about how this is impossible.