Many many years ago, I was rolling up a new villain for my Marvel Super Heroes game. I needed a new baddie for the night for a solo fight with the team's tank. I was devoid of ideas, thus the need to roll on charts to jumpstart some creativity. The dice weren't being of much help. I rolled up a super-strong guy with four arms and the ability to generate light like a flashcube. Not having much time before the game, I declared the NPC to be named VISHNU!
The background I gave VISHNU was minimal. He was a guy who had one day just sprouted multiple arms and become a total freak. This drove Vishnu pretty crazy, but not towards the typical villainy you'd expect. No, Vishnu was going to use his newfound powers for GOOD! He was going to fight supervillains and protect the weak!
Since the hero team was a mutant group, this was the 80s, and we were raving fanboys for the X-Men, Vishnu targeted the clearly criminal mutant heroes. All he had to do was lie in wait for one to appear. To jumpstart the adventure, I decided Vishnu knew Tank's (yes, he was a tank named Tank) secret identity and planned to ambush him. I figured Tank would make short work of the loser and send him off to a mental asylum or something.
It didn't really go that way.
Vishnu couldn't hurt Tank much, but could do just enough damage and knockback to be extremely irritating and destructive. To add insult to injury, Vishnu's flashcube maneuver constantly left Tank blinded and unable to lay the smackdown on him. The battle severely damaged several buildings spread among 2 or 3 city blocks before Vishnu got a truck thrown into his face, and decided to withdraw from the battle.
Of course, Tank and our heroes got blamed for all the damage and the endangering of helpless citizens.
After that, I used Vishnu a few more times. He would always catch Tank unaware and shout his battle cry of, "I AM VISHNEWWWWW!" or sometimes "SURRENDER TO THE RIGHTEOUS LIGHT OF VISHNEWWWW!" I always hammed Vishnu up and made him crazier and crazier with each encounter. And for some reason Tank's dice just wouldn't let him cream this bastard. Vishnu always escaped to fight another day. My stupid random roll one shot baddie became a major villain in the campaign.
I feel kind of bad about sticking Tank with such a stupid nemesis, but the player still remembers Vishnu to this day. He still dearly wants to kick Vishnu's sorry ass. Sometimes you do something right entirely by accident.
Tags: Marvel Superheroes Random MSH FASERIP
