The Traveler: My Sentinels of the Multiverse "Design a Villain" entry...

Back in September, the creators of "Sentinels of the Multiverse" had a "Design a Villain" contest with a Time travel/alternate dimension theme.  Sentinels gets played a TON up at the local shop, and I'm definitely a fan, so I jumped at the chance to submit something.  Sadly, I didn't win, but I thought I would share exactly what I submitted to "Greater Than Games".  (Note: if you are not familiar with the mechanics behind Sentinels, then a lot of what I'm listing out will mean little to you!)

"THE TRAVELER"

I envisioned something kind of like
the Shade from DC comics.

Aliases: Drake Dexter
Age: 47 (at the time of receiving his powers)
Height: 5’ 8”
Weight: 157 lbs
Hair Color: Black
Eye Color: Brown
Birthplace: Unknown
Power Source: Mystical/Alien
Group Affiliation: None
Occupation: Time Traveler, self-proclaimed god
First Appearance: Mystical Mysteries #4

Nemesis: The Visionary

Physical Appearance- 

"Gentlemen" looks.  Early 1900's black tuxedo, top hat, white gloves, monocle, and black cane with a silver "ball" on top.

Backstory - 

A shrewd business man from a wealthy background, Drake Dexter felt there was nothing outside the reach of his money... and what his money couldn't buy, he could always pay someone else to steal.  A museum exhibit made the front page of the "Herald", and the main attraction was a priceless orb recovered from a recently discovered sunken city in the south pacific.  Drake attended the unveiling, and was instantly mystified by the orb... he knew he MUST have it all for himself!  As usual, he knew the museum "stiffs" would refused to sell, so as usual in these cases he sought some outside help to acquire the orb.

Once in his hands, Drake was transfixed.  The orb itself was a silver that shone unlike anything he had seen, with deep, intricate grooves flawlessly cut into its surface.  Drake was constantly drawn to the orb, he never wanted it out of his sight, he had a special cane crafted with the orb fixed to the top so he could carry it with him wherever he went.  Slowly, and by accident at first, Drake started to unlock the orb's powers.

Odd things began to happen, a "business associate" would walk into Drake's office and with a tap of his cane onto the ground, time would briefly rewind, and the "associate" who had just entered moments ago would re-enter the room oblivious of anything out of place.  In time, Drake managed to master the orb's abilities, and by changing how hard he struck the ground with his cane, or how many times, Drake could vary the length that time would jump forwards or backwards.  Large leaps in one direction or another would open temporary "gates" that Drake used as a means of travel.

Drake used his new found powers to manipulate time and space to add to his already vast fortune.  After all, playing the Lottery is a simple thing when you already know the winning numbers.  Soon, he started to thing bigger.  Started to manipulate events on a global scale.  Like many villains, he though himself invincible, even god-like!  His old name forgotten in his constant time-hopping, Drake Dexter started calling himself simply: "The Traveler".  Eventually, one of his schemes found himself in the present times, only for the first time ever, The Visionary was there to stop him!

Somehow, The Visionary's abilities allowed to her to temporarily keep The Traveler's gates open long enough for herself and the Freedom Five to follow.  For the first time ever, The Traveler had one of his plans foiled at the hands of the Freedom Five.  So, what would a Villain with near god-like control of space and time do?  He'd use his abilities to destroy The Visionary and the Freedom Five, when they were at their weakest.  He'd take them out in the past, before the idea of the super group were even devised!  This time, The Visionary faces her greatest challenge yet.  If The Traveler succeeds, it will be as if the Freedom Five never even existed.  The Visionary will need to follow the Traveler through space and time via the gates he leaves open, and destroy his beloved orb, thus leaving him trapped in time...

Game Mechanics-

Summary- The Traveler has a single "gate" card in his villain deck for each playable environment.  Each time a gate is revealed, a new environment deck is added to the game, creating a "chain" of multiple environments representing The Traveler's trail through space and time.  

Set Up-  The Environment is picked as normal.  After the Environment has been selected, pull out the Gate card associated with that Environment from the Villain deck.

The Villain card -  Life between 40 - 60.  His card "flips" when the number of gates in play equal or exceeds 3. (could be more of less depending on playtesting) Once flipped, the heroes have effectively lost track of the Traveler in time and space, and must catch back up to him.  While flipped, The Traveler is immune to damage from heroes.  Re-flip the Traveler back to his starting position once the number of gates in play is below 3.  The Traveler himself does no damage to heroes, instead he relies on the numerous environments in play to whittle heroes down.   As the nemesis of The Visionary, she'll take 1 extra damage from the environment deck and she'll deal The Traveler 1 extra damage as normal.

The Gate Cards - 20 life or so.  The Villain deck contains a gate card for each playable environment.  The gate cards are ignored by the Environment deck, will not trigger environment effects, and is immune to effects and damage from the Environment deck.  When a new gate card is played from the Villain deck, add that gate's associated environment deck to the left of the current ones in play.  Gates are destroyed once they are reduced to 0 life from hero attacks.  When a gate is destroyed, return its associated environment deck back to the box and remove the destroyed gate from the game.

Modified Environment - Each gate card put into play likewise, puts an additional environment deck into play.  Each new environment deck is added to the left of the last one played. (or the initial environment deck in the case of the 2nd gate to reach play)  During the environment turn, flip cards starting with the leftmost environment deck and work your way towards the right.  Complete all "at the start of the environment" effects starting from left to right, and then each "at the end of environment" effects from left to right as well. Any "+ damage" and "- damage" effects will stack, and any "change the damage type to X" will be resolved from left to right, with the "change damage to:" effect farthest to the right taking precedence.  When a gate is "closed" (i.e. destroyed) return all the associated environment deck cards in play, in the deck, and in the discard pile back to the box.  These Environment cards are NOT being discarded, so effects on Environment cards that would normally be triggered by this removal are NOT triggered.

Winning & Losing -  The heroes win once they have either killed The Traveler or closed/destroyed a number of gate equal to (H).  The heroes lose when the last player is eliminated as per normal, or The Traveler has a number gates in play equal to (H)

New Environments-

"Megalopolis: The Past" - The Traveler tries to escape back to his current time of the 1920's.  The heroes that follow him are instantly thrust into a world that has yet to see its first superhero!

"Megalopolis: The Future" - In the far, far future humanity is a thing of the past and machines rule.  Without the Freedom Five to defeat him in this timeline, could Omnitron actually have taken over the world?

Villian Deck Card ideas -

Gate cards. 1 for each playable environment.  Dates in the card titles for flavor and to reinforce the "time travel" Idea.  Example: 

"Insula Primalis: 173 Million BCE" - 20 damage - "Gate" Keyword - Put the Insula Primalis Environment deck into play.

"Master of Time & Space" - Ongoing - Heroes may not be made immune to environment damage.  Heroes may not reduce damage they receive from Environment cards.  (Meta for Legacy and "immune to environment" effects)

"tap" titled cards represent The Traveler's abilities to control time & space by tapping his cane on the ground to activate the orb's powers.  card examples include:

"1 tap" - One shot - "target hero with the lowest HP, they may not draw cards during their turn."

"2 taps" - One Shot - "target hero with the highest HP, they may not play cards during their turn"

"3 taps" - one shot - "reduce the number of Powers each hero can use by 1 during their turn"

Titles could drop off the numbers and just be "tap", "tap-tap", and "tap-tap-tap" for more flavor.

The Villain deck Comprises of -

10x Gate Cards (1 for each environment)

2x "Master of Time & Space"

5x "1 tap"

5x "2 tap"

3x "3 tap"

- 25 Villian  cards.  Number of duplicates could be altered as need be based on playtesting.