The Contest - Good vs. Evil

The original DC Heroes game ran a very long time. Players and heroes swapped around a bit, and toward the end, "Spectrum" (as the team called itself) rivaled the Justice League (or the X-Men for you Marvel fans). I started pitting them against greater and greater enemies and more and more complex problems (ask them how they feel about the Joker). Finally, I decided in true Justice League fashion, it was time to put the fate of the world in their hands.

The forces of Good approached our heroes with a request: be Good's champions in a contest against Evil. Now Spectrum counted in its membership a Native American shaman, a druid, and a devout Anglican knight. There was no doubt in my mind they'd accept, and to my glee, they did.

I'll spare you some of the details, but here's the basics: a child would be born soon after the rules were established. All our heroes had to do was make sure the child lived to be 5. Easy, right? Yeah, I know you're laughing again. Well, the terms were negotiated (and later, when Evil cheated [shock!], re-negotiated), and our heroes prepared themselves to guard this mystery child, whoever she turned out to be.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to our heroes, Styrm had a bucket of mortality tossed over him. He realized he wasn't going to live forever, and he had no heir and no prospects. Well, he realized he had a woman handy who was beautiful, smart, practically raised by him, and would therefore be perfect for the job of providing Styrm and heir. So far as EVAC was concerned, she was renting out her womb to a man she respected (vaguely), so she was okay with the idea. So Styrm and E had a child and named her "Eve".

And as soon as she was born, the mystical alarms went off, and the contest began in earnest. That's right, our heroes had to guard the daughter of one of their greatest foes... from an even greater foe. Demons came for her, angels guarded her, warlocks tried to sacrifice her, totemic animals helped rescue her, and in the end, as usually happens in comic books, Good triumphed over Evil, and the child lived.

And again, our heroes didn't realize that behind the scenes, things had only gotten more complicated instead of less.