INTRODUCTION TO THE OFFICERS

THE ‘MOD’ SYSTEM

As an easy and efficient way to inform the players of the content of the game each week, Caitlin will send them all an email with the subject line ‘X-Women Episode __’.  The email will contain a ‘mod’ or adventure for the players to base their actions on, similar to games such as Dungeons & Dragons.  Think of mods as issues of a comic book, contained within story arcs that can run anywhere from 5 to 12 episodes.  We try to give all players an equal amount of ‘screen time’, but bear in mind every player cannot start in every episode.  Non-officer player ideas are accepted for mods, between Sunday and Wednesday every week.  Please email them to either Caitlin or Beth.

GAME HISTORY

The Atom Cell Saga

           

Just as the team was recovering from the Atom Cell crisis, a new evil burst onto the scene in the form of Cosmic, an alien entity with the power to travel, bend and manipulate space, time, and dimensions.  Cosmic’s first act was to go back in time and introduce himself to Rogue while she was still a lost and scared teenage girl.  Cosmic’s one mistake in that even was to also make contact with Wolverine, who remembered him when he came calling as Rogue’s long-lost friend over a decade later. 

Rogue did indeed remember ‘Zeke’, the kind boy who had aided her years before, and after a whirlwind courtship the two became engaged.  The only members of the team to distrust Zeke were Wolverine and the reformed Sabretooth, now a teammate and romantic interest of Logan’s.  Cosmic didn’t wait long before he revealed his true purpose—destruction of the X-Women from within and total domination of the earth.  With this revelation also came the truth about Raven—he was a entity of the same race as Cosmic, the only survivor when the madman massacred the other members of the race, and the only one with the means to stop him.  But in the thousand-odd years since Raven had seen Cosmic, the other being had grown powerful, and in the X-Women’s darkest hour he killed Slash and thrust Wolverine, Sabretooth and Icegirl into an alternate timeline.             

While trying to find a way out of the past, the three mutants met with some most unpleasant surprises—Wolverine discovered the buried truth about her lover Silver Fox and his death, and Sabretooth found himself powerless to save his childhood self from the abuse of his father.  No longer enemies, Logan and Creed found a wormhole back to the real timeline and set about to defeat Cosmic once and for all. 

           

It was Gambit and Raven who devised a way to defeat Cosmic, by creating a psychic wormhole that would plunge the evil entity into the deepest reaches of the astral plane.  Raven could create the physical aspect, but it was Gambit who had to use his talents to send Cosmic’s mind into perdition.  In a battle of galactic proportions, Cosmic was defeated, but Gambit paid the ultimate price when Cosmic melded minds with him, taking Remy’s soul down into the black whirlpool Raven had created.  Distraught, the remaining members of the team vowed that they would fight in Gambit’s name against any evil that would occur. 

           

The grief-stricken X-Women got only a temporary reprieve before a new threat came into view—two mutant twins calling themselves Deus Ex and Potentia, with the power to alter reality and an insatiable thirst for power.  In their first and most nefarious act, they took control of Wolverine’s mind and convinced her to murder the leader of Westchester’s chapter of the Friends of Humanity.  Believe that her dangerous berserker side had surfaced again, Cyclops held a trial for Wolverine and then kicked her off the team. 

Wolverine went to Japan, intending to center herself and find a way back onto the team, but she soon found herself fighting evil under the new code name of Exile, battling against a mutant named Masque who could seemingly vanish into thin air.  It took some time before Wolverine and the rest of the team realized that the twins and Masque were connected, each working in their own way to bring the X-Women down.  Deus Ex wanted a trained team of mutant soldiers to serve his will, while Masque was revealed to be Silver Fox, Wolverine’s Weapon X teammate whom she thought had committed suicide years before.  Silver Fox, however, was very much alive and blamed Logan for his death.  In the end, Deus Ex self-destructed, and took the other members of his plot down with him.  Wolverine was welcomed back onto the team, and the X-Women felt a solidarity that had been missing all along. 

           

The next chapter of the X-Women’s adventures began when Cyclops discovered her husband Slash cheating on her with another woman.  She promptly separated from him, and fortuitously Gene Grey returned from Shi’AR space to fill the rift that he had left behind.  Gene, however, was not without his complications, both from Logan and the Iron Fist, a group of mutants descended from Magneto’s Brotherhood, and intent on similar goals.  They were led by the magnetic mutant Mesmeric, the illegitimate son of Magneto, Phantom, a shadowy being capable of interdimensional travel, Diviner, a telepath with abilities equal to that of Phoenix, Nuclear, a scared mutant boy with cataclysmic powers, and Stronghold, an android who made up for his lack of intelligence with his adamantium body.  Phantom had developed a doomsday device that could safely harness the Phoenix force, and the team did succeed in capturing Gene Grey, but they underestimated the abilities of the X-Women, helped by Nuclear, who defected after the first battle.  Lead by the young man, the team infiltrated the Iron Fist’s stronghold under Notre Dame cathedral, freed Gene and destroyed the device.  The battle was not over, however, when the X-Women discovered that Phantom was more than a mere lackey to Mesmeric.  He was the real mastermind, keeping the other four mutants under mind control and determined to transfer the power of the Phoenix to himself, to become what Gene had fought so hard against—Dark Phoenix, the destroyer of worlds.  Ultimately, however, Phantom was consumed by his own lust for power, as the Phoenix incinerated him and then was recaptured by Gene, never to be used again.  In the end, things were bittersweet for Cyclops and the team, as Gene returned to space, leaving two broken hearts behind him.

Ultimate Gamble

When an insignificant Army colonel announces the reinstatement of the Sentinel project, the X-Women at first dismiss the rumor as his delusion. When Beast and new teammate Nuclear are attacked by one of the mutant-hunting robots, however, they decide to investigate further, and find shocking results. Colonel Drake Dubois has ties throughout the government that have allowed him to build a new army of Sentinels completely out of the public's view. Dubois's first target is the X-Women, but that fact isn't half as terrifying as the shadowy precense controlling Drake, an ancient evil that the X-Women know well, and an evil that will do anything to reign supreme once again. When Gambit is revealed to be alive, and comes back to the Institute with a new mutant named Arsenal, the team agrees to take in the former spy in exchange for his help revealing the true extent of Dubois's plan. Before they can, however, Dubois convinces the U.S. Senate to pass the Mutant Registration Act, declaring martial law throughout the United States and herding all mutants into holding camps. This is no alternate reality or possible future, this is real, and the X-Women are forced to flee to Madripoor with hatred at their backs and an unknown evil before them... 

THANK YOU FOR READING THE X-WOMEN HANDBOOK! HAPPY GAMING!