Twenty Years Ago...Dr. Dread's Fairy Tale

On New Year's Day, 1988, the Aegis gang got together for a marathon Champions session at Doug's house. It was an important day in the Aegis game. The third group of player characters had grown extremely powerful, and four of the players were set to replace them with new characters that they had created.

The adventure started with an attack in Aegis' base by a mind-controlled Ronin, who was romantically involved with the armored villain Dr. Dread's daughter, Blossom. After activating several teammates' mind control by using code words, Willforce, Prism, and Killshaft disappeared with Ronin.

Left with three other rookie heroes, Silverwing set about recruiting new heroes to do the unthinkable: invade the Chicago base of Deathcorp, Dr. Dread's legitimate front corporation and rescue the most powerful members of Aegis! News articles had recently reported the debuts of new superheroes in Baltimore, and the team tracked them down.

Quantum was a female construction worker whose exposure to radiation had given her a wide array of powers that could be focused one set at a time; The Gorilla brothers, Captain Dynamo and Colloid were also very versatile. Captain Dynamo could sense and copy the powers of other superbeings, while Colloid had a gelatinous form that could change shape at will. Demonbane was a researcher of the occult who read the wrong book and now stood eight feet tall and was covered with orange fur. Along with Thunderfist, Star Knight, Silverwing and Element, the heroes took off by jet to rescue the rest of Aegis.

Arriving on the scene, the new team used their past experience with Deathcorp headquarters and its undefeatable security systems to determine a plan of action. They would attempt a direct assault against one of the most powerful supervillains in the world. Thunderfist dove from the jet, reaching terminal velocity and landed fists first on the roof. He caved in two floors, ending up in Dr. Dread's throne room. He got an opening line out, and the collapsed. The rest of the new team followed through the hole in the roof and engaged the old team.

The fight was intense, but reasonably short as the more powerful members of Aegis were beginning to dominate the less experienced heroes. But when the new team figured out the code words that were keeping the old team enthralled (fairy tale names, hence the adventure title), the tide turned and Dr. Dread was defeated.

After the battle, Willforce, Killshaft, Prism, and Ronin resigned from the team to pursue other interests. The new heroes were invited to join as probationary members of Aegis.

Now bear in mind that I took no notes in this adventure, but I did record it with audiotape and listened to it several times during the next few years. I can't locate the tapes and haven't heard them in over ten years but I sure do remember how that day went. I have never felt closer to a bunch of friends. We played at a dining room table for something like six hours that day, and it was a lot of fun. What's even more fun for me is that I'm still friends with every one of the guys at the table. We don't see each other as often as we used to, and I sure miss the weekly gathering.

Next week, I'll have one of my favorite Aegis pictures on display with a story behind it!