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Wild Cards

Wild Cards

Character NameAffiliationOrigin
Black Eagle Ace Wildcards
Captain Trips Ace Wildcards
Carnifex Ace Wildcards
Cyclone Ace Wildcards
Doctor Tachyon Takisian Wildcards
Golden Boy Ace Wildcards
Mister Nobody Ace Wildcards
Mistral Ace Wildcards
Peregrine Ace Wildcards
Popinjay Ace Wildcards
The Great and Powerful Turtle Ace Wildcards
Wraith Ace Wildcards
Yeoman Nat/Norm Wildcards

History

For all practical purposes, Wild Cards Earth is the same as our own until 1939. Actual divergence of Wild Cards history from that of our similiar Earth began in 1939 when 12-year-old Robert Tomlin ran away from his orphanage and showed up at Bonham's Flying Service in Shantak, New Jersey. Professor Silverberg, who was working on an experimental plane under the auspices of the U.S. Army Air Corps, gave the kid a job. Tomlin was a natural pilot, the most plane crazy kid who ever lived. He helped Silverberg build his experimental jet engines, and eventually he and the professor became the world's first jet pilots.

Tomlin was test-flying the jet, which became known as the JB-1, when Nazi spies attacked the hangar in an attempt to kidnap Silverberg and steal the plane. The Nazis killed the professor, but Tomlin succeeded in avenging Silverberg's death when he riddled a car full of German spies with the plane's .30 caliber machine guns. This caused a diplomatic incident between the United States and Germany because the spies had diplomatic passports, and Tomlin was forced to flee to Canada. He joined the RAF (unofficially), and fought in the Battle of Britain and later in China with the Flying Tigers. After Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt gave him a special presidential commission, and Tomlin flew for the United States. He was given the nickname Jetboy while combat flying from 1939 to 1945. He was marooned on a desert island in the South Pacific in April 1945 and was rescued in August 1946. 

Although Jetboy shot down 500 planes, sank 50 ships, and cracked innumerable spy rings, he actually made little difference in the war effort, and did nothing to divert history from its familiar course.

The Arrival of Dr. Tachyon The first major dislocation between Wild Cards Earth and our Earth occurred one night in the last week in August, 1946, when a spaceship that looked like a giant seashell landed at White Sands, New Mexico. Its pilot claimed to be a prince from a planet called Takis. He said the Earth was in terrible danger that only he could avert, and demanded to be taken to President Truman... of course, no one believed him.

His name was unbelievably long and impossibly hard to pronounce, so he was given a nickname that eventually evolved into Dr. Tachyon. Tachyon was subjected to intensive questioning at the hands of Army interrogators, but he never changed his story.

He was, he claimed, a prince from the planet Takis, a member of one of the royal families who ruled the world through their potent mental powers. His flimily had been working on a secret weapon, an incredibly complex artificial virus that had been designed to interact with the specific genetic makeup of each host and grant incredibly potent physical and/or mental powers. After centuries of development, the virus was finally ready for testing.

But there were still a few bugs to be worked out. The virus frequently killed those exposed to it, or turned them into genetic freaks, so Tachyon's family didn't want to test it on themselves! But if they tested it on their enemies, and it worked at all, the surviving foes would have super-abilities! They couldn't just forget about it, so they hatched a plan to test it on Earth, the only known planet with inhabitants genetically identical to Takisians.

Tachyon thought it was an ignoble experiment. He protested the decision to test it on the Earth, but was ignored. In typical Takisian manner, he tried a grandstand stunt to stop the project, all by himself. He followed the cruiser carrying the virus, burning out the interstellar drive of his personal vessel in his mad attempt to intercept it. He caught and defeated his fellow Takisians, and the ship carrying the virus crashed somewhere in the eastern United States. Tachyon's ship was also damaged in the fray. He landed at White Sands Missile Base, where he thought he could get help to repair his ship and then look for the lost virus container.

But no one believed Tachyon's wild story... until President Truman himself received a ransom note demanding thirty million dollars in cash to prevent the destruction of a major U.S. city. While Tachyon was being detained and questioned, the canister containing the virus had been recovered from the wreck of the Takis ian spacecraft by a criminal organization led by the brilliant and unprincipled Dr. Tod, one of Jetboy's adversaries from World War II. Tod had experimented with the virus, discovered what it could do, and decided to make big money with it. The government, of course, did not accede to Dr. Tod's demands.

On September 15, 1946, a spectacular dogfight took place in the skies over New York City as Jetboy tried to prevent Dr. Tod from loosing the virus over the city. He almost succeeded. But "almost" wasn't good enough. The virus fell over Manhattan like a gentle rain and the world was forever transformed.

September 15, 1946: The First Wild Card Day On that day when the virus canister exploded over Manhattan, ten thousand people drew the Black Queen. They exploded in flames, they dissolved in pufis of dust, they melted into puddles of slime, they turned inside out screaming in time to their every heartbeat, none of them knowing what was happening. The new plague was quickly named "Wild Card," because no two victims were affected the same way.

Panic exploded over the city and hundreds more died in the riots that clogged every bridge and tunnel that led off the island. Martial law was declared. The National Guard was brought in and restored some semblance of order. People still died as the day wore into night, but not at the same incredible rate as they did in the early afternoon.

Hospitals were still overwhelmed, though, by over a thousand living victims who had been changed. Some, like the man whose every body orifice was slowly closing, were doomed to a slow, painful death. Others would live, but be forever marked by the virus, living out their lives as grotesque parodies of humanity.

Even in the very early days of the wild card era, people were afraid that those infected would spread their contamination. This was impossible, in tact, as the wild card virus is not contagious. But those deformed by the virus, the jokers, began to move away into the poor part of Manhattan where they could live unmolested, claiming as their own that part of the city which would become known as Jokertown.

Ten thousand drew the Black Queen, and over eleven hundred picked the joker from the deck. But there were a few, blessed by the blind crapshoot of the wild card, who drew the rare and wonderful ace. They were granted superhuman abilities by the virus. They became the terrifing new heroes of the wild card era... the aces.

The Exotics for Democracy: Early Triumphs Archibald Holmes, born to a moneyed Virginia tamily, was an attorney, judge and New Dealer who worked hard for Franklin Delano Roosevelt and supported anti-fascist causes in Europe long before it was tashionable. After World War II he worked for the United States government in its attempts at European reconstruction, until he was called back to the United States to head the relief effort in virus-stricken New York City. When he realized that some of the wild card cases had resulted in favorable mutations, he began to think of ways to put those extraordinary talents to use. He became the founder and guiding principle behind the Exotics for Democracy (EFD), popularly known as the Four Aces.

Jack Braun (Golden Boy), super-strong and invulnerable, was his first recruit. The tough, flying Earl Sanderson, Jr. (Black Eagle) was soon added to the team, and David Harstein (the Envoy) joined during their first mission in Peronist Argentina. Envoy's power was emotional: he could make people agree with him about anything. The fourth ace was Blythe Stanhope van Renssaeler (Brain Trust), who could absorb others' minds and memories.

The EFD were never officially part of the United States government. Holmes paid them out of his own pocket, supplying them with whatever cash and material they needed for a specific job. Though Holmes consulted with the State Department, he ran the EFD as a private, progressive army devoted to eradicating fliscism and spreading the gospel of liberation, enlightenment and education throughout the world.

Their first mission was in Argentina, where they deposed lascist dictator Juan Peron. They hunted for Nazi war criminals, capturing Martin Bormann in northern Italy, Mengele in Bavaria, and flushing Eichmann right into the arms of a Soviet patrol. Black Eagle saved Mahatma Gandhi from an assassin's bullet. Harstein walked into Generalissimo Franco's palace and talked him into making a live radio address in which he resigned and called for free elections, then baby-sat him as he went off into exile in Switzerland.

Things were starting to look good for wild carders. For aces, at least. Braun earned a lot of money for speaking engagements and for ghost-written articles about democracy and the American Way of Life. Hollywood knocked on his door with a long form contract and even more money. Sanderson followed his own agenda, consciously molding his image into that of a black role model, athlete, scholar, union leader, war hero and ace. Even die-hard bigots referred to him as "our colored flyboy." According to the public, the Four Aces could do no wrong. They were nearly overwhelmed with adulation and praise.

It couldn't last forever. And it didn't.

Wild Cards in the Rest of the World Although Manhattan was the center of the wild card disaster, pockets of the virus were carried in the upper atmosphere to every part of the globe. Sometimes these pockets would lie dormant for several years before bursting into virulence. Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Mombasa (Kenya), Port Said (Egypt), Hong Kong, and Auckland (New Zealand) all suffered major outbreaks of the wild card from 1946-1950. In Calcutta, India, Moslems and Hindus blamed each other for the virus. 25,000 died in the ensuing riots. Korea also suffered a major outbreak in 1951.

The state of Israel was created on November 28, 1947 by resolution of the United Nations General Assembly. Arab armies invaded the new country on May 15, 1948, the day after its formal independence was declared. The Port Said wild card outbreak had killed thousands the previous winter, but also created a handful of potent, chiefly Egyptian, aces. These aces, led by the terrifing Khof, accompanied the Arab armies into combat, and tipped the delicate balance of that war, turning it into a bloody stalemate. Count Folke Bernadotte, the U.N. mediator, successfully negotiated a peace treaty in late 1948 that created two states, Israel and Palestine. These states were configured along the lines of the first U.N. Partition Plan, which gave Israel significantly less territory and indefensible borders. Jerusalem became an open international city under U.N. mandate, ruled by a joint council of Arabs, Jews and Christians. Bernadotte was assassinated by Israeli terrorists, but his peace held. The peace, such as it is, still exists today. Israel and Palestine co-exist in a wary stasis and many ordinary Arabs and Jews live peacefully side by side, as they have for centuries. Only in Jerusalem, the "cause" for unending terrorism by fanatics on both sides, does hatred reign, turning that city into a beleaguered Middle Eastern version of Belfast.

India gained her political independence from Great Britain in the late 1940s and Mahatma Gandhi guided his country through her first few years of independence. Though a fervent Hindu, Gandhi preached tolerance toward the other religious groups of the subcontinent. As a result of his policy of restraint, the All-India Congress was unable to obtain total power in the new nation. The state of Pakistan was created simultaneously with Indian independence, but Gandhi never accepted the partition. After the death of Mohammed Ah Jinnah in September, 1948, Pakistan was reabsorbed into a decentralized India. India continued to exist much as it had under the Raj, divided into a tapestry of small kingdoms based along religious, cultural and geographic lines. Even today these kingdoms are united only by courtesy under a weak and ineffective central government in New Delhi. Patiala is a rich and powerful Sikh kingdom in the Punjab. The Hindus control the south, the Moslems the north. The British continue to wield considerable social and economic power in India through the Commonwealth, as they do in other parts of the world that were once British colonies but have achieved political independence.

Back to America: Darkness Falls The year 1948 saw the Four Aces undertake their most dramatic and possibly most important mission since their creation. Unfortunately, it was also their first public lailure.

At the request of the State Department, Holmes and the EFD flew to China as part of a last ditch effort to partition the country between Mao Tse-tung's Communists in the north and the nominally democratic Kuomintang in the south. David Harstein worked his magic again, but this time it couldn't hold. The peace treaty and partition pact fell apart within days, and within months all of China had lallen to the Communists.

That was the last great political event to publicly involve the Four Aces. After the China disaster, they separated to work on their own private political and social agendas.

HUAC - The House Committee on Un-American Activities - had been formed in the late 1940s to investigate supposed Communist infiltration of the film industry. In a grievous day for American constitutional rights and freedoms, they used innuendo, hearsay and the despicable - and illegal - practice of the blacklist to ruin the life of anyone who was a Communist, anyone they thought was a Communist, and anyone they thought associated with Communists.

After making Hollywood safe from the Reds, HUAC turned to bigger game. Blaming Archibald Holmes and the Four Aces for "losing China to the Communists," the committee hauled them before a tribunal that was a mockery of justice. Everything fell apart for the aces. Van Renssaeler went insane, Harstein went to prison, Braun became a friendly witness and Sanderson left the country. This was to be only the beginning of wildcarder persecution. 

In 1950, in a successful effort to make a political name for himself, Senator Joseph R. McCarthy made his lamous speech beginning, "I have here in my hand a list of 57 wild cards known to be living and working secretly in the United States today," placing himself firmly in the vanguard of the anti-wildcard hysteria that swept the nation in the mid-1950s. 

McCarthy created and chaired the Senate Committee for Ace Resources and Endeavors (SCARE) in 1952, a permanent Senate committee charged with investigating all reports of parahuman powers. SCARE was extremely active under McCarthy, hunting down and blacklisting any ace it could find - and sometimes unfortunate normals charged wrongly with being aces. 

The 1950s became a time of fear for those touched by the wild card. Between 1952 and 1956 more than 200 men and women were served with subpoenas by SCARE, often on insubstantial reports by anonymous informants. It was a modern day witch hunt. Those hauled before SCARE for the "crime" of being an ace sometimes had a hard time proving their innocence. How do you prove that you can't fly?

McCarthy's most lasting legacy was the Wild Card Acts passed in the mid- 1950s. The Exotic Powers Control Act (1954) required any person exhibiting paranormal powers to register immediately with the federal government. This was followed by the Special Conscription Act, granting the Selective Service Bureau the power to induct registered aces into government service for indefinite periods of time. Rumors stated that a number of aces complied with the new laws and were inducted into various governmental agencies, including the Army, the FBI, and the Secret Service. If so, the agencies employing the aces kept their names, powers and very existence a closely held secret.

The next year McCarthy introduced the Alien Disease Containment Bill, which would have mandated compulsory sterilization for all wild card victims, jokers as well as aces. That was too much for even McCarthy's staunchest supporters. The bill went down to defeat and McCarthy, in an ill-advised effort to recapture the headlines, launched a SCARE investigation of the Army to ferret out the "aces in the hole" that rumor insisted had been secretly recruited through the Special Conscription Act. But McCarthy had gone too lar. His accusations became wilder and wilder, his proposed "solutions" to the wild card problem sounded more and more Hitlerian. Public opinion swung dramatically against him. He was censured by the Senate, and his political power and his health were both broken.

But his laws remained on the books. People continued to be affected by the virus, though of course in dramatically fewer numbers. But those who survived the initial wild card onslaught went on with their lives, in some cases passing the wild card genes on to their children. The numbers of jokers were growing, as was the place they had come to call their own, Jokertown.

A New Era of Hope and Despair From approximately 1951 to 1963, while Jokertown took root and grew, there were no public aces. Although presumably some aces obeyed the law, registered, and disappeared into government service, most ignored the registration act and either went underground or attempted to lead ordinary lives, hoping to avoid detection. After McCarthy's death, SCARE became much less active and much less feared. It continues to exist even today, as an apparently toothless coordinating committee that helps aces communicate with the public. Its current chair, Sen. Gregg Hartmann, has his own private plans for the committee and its powers.

The election of John F. Kennedy in 1960 began a period of liberalism and tolerance in regard to both jokers and aces, although the old laws remained in force. The emergence of the Turtle, after Kennedy's assassination, began a new era of public ace activity. Tachyon returned to sobriety and public life and opened the Blythe Van Renssaeler Memorial Clinic (popularly known as the Jokertown Clinic) for the treatment of jokers and research into the wild card virus.

Most of the new aces of this era, safe behind the anonymity of assumed names and masks, simply ignored the registration laws. The Justice Department had other priorities by then, and these protesting draft resisters were usually left alone.

The escalation of the Vietnam War again caused controversy in regard to aces. Hawks wanted strict enforcement of the ace registration laws and the use of aces in Vietnam. Doves and the antiwar movement demanded the abolition of the Wild Card acts. Some aces (notably Cyclone in the late 1960s) ended up fighting in 'Nam. Others (such as the Turtle) were prominent antiwar protesters and wound up on Nixon's enemy list.

Notable in action on Vietnam's front lines, but rarely seen on the television screen back home, was the Joker Brigade. Jokers were drafted by the hundreds and were sent to 'Nam in all-joker units commanded by nat officers. The carnage experienced by the Brigade was awful. Its casualty rate was the highest of any unit in 'Nam.

By the early 1970s, however, it became "in" to be a wild carder, or at least an ace. Publications like Aces Magazine fed the public's new lascination with the metahumans blessed by the wild card.

Understandably enough, some jokers were not satisfied by the slight strides they had made toward social justice. Xavier Desmond and his Joker AntiDelamation League (JADL) had been working quietly for some time for jokers' rights, but many jokers deemed their progress insubstantial and unsatisfying. Gimli (Tom Miller) founded Jokers for a Just Society (JJS) with a more confrontational philosophy. They demanded jokers' rights, and, of course, many normals felt threatened by the jokers' growing militancy.

This confrontational atmosphere led to the worst domestic political disaster of the 1970s, the Great Jokertown Riot of 1976, during the Democratic National Convention in New York City. Senator Gregg Hartmann, a last-rising political star with a bright future, lost his composure before a televison audience of millions and had to be carried away from the scene of the rioting. This cost him all hope for the nomination. Jimmy Carter was nominated and eventually elected president. During the first year of his administration both the Special Conscription Act and the Exotic Powers Control Act were repealed by narrow votes in Congress.

When hostages were taken at the U.S. Embassy in Iran, President Carter sent in a secret strike force of aces to free them, but the operation was a horrible botch and many of the hostages died. Carter took full responsibility for the failure. It was largely because of this debacle that Ronald Reagan succeeded him as president.

In late 1985, the Earth again experienced an extraterrestrial invasion. This time it was the asteroid-sized sentient known as the Swarm Mother. Ravenous creatures, "buds" of the Swarm, landed on every continent except Australia. They touched down in northern Germany, in Thrace near the Greco-Turkish-Bulgarian border, in China, Poland, the Ukraine, Siberia, Africa, Canada, the United States and South America. The American and European infestations were destroyed, at great cost of life, by military action aided by aces. The Soviets resorted to nuclear airbursts to destroy the Siberian swarm. Major infestations in Peru, Chad, Turkey, Nigeria and Tibet continue to be a problem even today.

Although Swarm buds still trouble remote parts of the Earth, major disaster was averted when Dr. Tachyon led a group of aces that somehow "persuaded" the Swarm Mother to leave the solar system. Details have never been released to the general public.

By the late 1980s, the country had again taken a swing to the right. Wearied by the Swarm Invasion and frightened by the violence of Wild Card Day 1986, which had ace assassinations and a pyrotechnic super-battle over the skies of Manhattan, nats again are beginning to look askance at their wild card neighbors. No laws have been enacted, no repressive measures have been taken to curb aces or jokers' rights, but a certain segment of the population has definitely become uncomfortable about wild carders. A new religious fundamentalism is on the rise, and the fundamentalists are flexing their political muscles.

The nation teeters on the edge, uncertain whether to go back to the repressive days of the 1950s, or continue the enlightened policies designed to give aces and jokers the social justice that they deserve.

Character Creation rules:

Dice Roll Physical Form Sub-form
01-15 Normal Human (Nat/Norm)  
16-20 Joker-Demihuman Centaur
21-24 Joker-Demihuman Equiman
25-27 Joker-Demihuman Faun
28-30 Joker-Demihuman Felinoid
31-33 Joker-Demihuman Lupinoid
34-37 Joker-Demihuman Avian
38-40 Joker-Demihuman Chiropteran
41-43 Joker-Demihuman Lamian
44-47 Joker-Demihuman Merhuman
48-50 Joker-Demihuman Other
51-53 Joker-Animal  
54 Joker-Vegetable  
55-56 Joker/Aces-Abnormal Chemistry  
57-58 Joker/Aces-Mineral  
59-60 Joker/Aces-Gaseous  
61-62 Joker/Aces-Liquid  
63-64 Joker/Aces-Energy  
65-66 Joker/Aces-Ethereal  
67-68 Joker/Aces-Modified Human Extra Parts  
69-75 Ace Modified Human-Organic/Skeletal/Muscular  
76-81 Ace Random  
82-85 Ace Induced  
86-97 Robot/Android-Of any type (Belong to creator)  
98 Deity (Joker or Ace version of this deity)  
99 Angel/Demon (Joker or Ace version)  
00 Alien/Humanoid Race  

Aces

Above and beyond what they would ordinarily get for their character type they receive the following bonuses.

Jokers

Above and beyond what they would ordinarily get for their character type they receive the following bonuses and Penalties.

Joker Traits

Dice Roll Afflication
01-06 Gigantism/Dwarfism (Player's must choose from being very tall or short in stature).
07-12 Extra Appendage or Tail
13-20 Extreme Fat or Extremely Thin
21-28 Deaf/Mute/Blind (Player's must choose one disability).
29-34 Functional extra organs, such as eyes or ears. These don't count as a power unless they give heightened senses.
35-38 Claws/Fangs 
39-45 Amphibian Trait (Gills or Flippers).
46-52 Feline Features
53-59 Horns or Tusks
60-66 Wings
67-70 Transparent (Skin is invisible, showing muscles, skeletal structure, or other internal features).
71-74 Prehensile Feet
75-79 Leathery Skin or Hardened Skin
80-86 Arachnid Body
87-93 Reptitlian Body
94-00 Uncontrolled change to another form, which must be either joker or animal in appearance. Roll one extra time, for a particular attribute of the new form. Other joker defects, if any, may be applied to either form.

Androids/Robots

Same as the Advanced Players Handbook or Ultimate Powers Book with one exception, +20 Popularity for being a "Unique Device".

Alien/Humanoids

Same as the Advanced Players Handbook or Ultimate Powers Book.

by Keith Kilburn