Aces

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The material here is 'homebrew', it is non-canon.

The Agency for the Control of Supernatural Entities, or Aces for short (ACSE as an acronym), pronounced as a plural form of Ace. The agency is a group that seeks to control supernatural entities, among other goals they seek to have a catalog of them and they're powers.

Aces is designed for use with a campaign with lots of supernatural content. Not neccissarily 'supernatural' in the sense of magic or whatnot, merely things that aren't explained (they aren't designed for a standard supers campaign).

Contents 1 The Glove of Saint Patrick 1.1 Story 1.2 stats 2 Secret History

[edit] The Glove of Saint Patrick

An example adventure to introduce the agency.

[edit] Story

A mysterious individual named Henry E Griffith sends the characters a note (a yellow post-it note to be precise)

“	Meet me at the Sunnyside Cemetery on East Willow Street and California Avenue. 1:00am on Friday the sixth of January 2006	”
	,— Henry E. Griffith.

(replace the places and time with the current campaign time and a suitable place in the campaign; cemeteries work best)

He wants them to retrieve something for Aces; the glove of Saint Patrick which was stolen from "A storage Warehouse" and is now in the possession of Silver (a werewolf with nine sons).

The glove has magical abilities that Aces does not want the werewolves to have. The characters are also ordered to return with Silver's body dead or alive.

The Wolves of Saint Patrick are lead by Silver (also known as Argyris, which means silver) he has the ability to turn into a Crow, in addition to a Wolf, and he is semi-immortal, he has unkillable 2 (achilles heel: silver) and regeneration. When he dies, he says: "You do not realize what you have done!..." he gasps deeply "Take the glove," he throws the glove at the nearest character "... run!..." then he falls to his knees, and dies. A few seconds after Silver dies his body starts to decay rapidly, then smoke issues forth from the body, and the body disappears leaving nothing but a small hole that to all tests seems to have been made by acid.

The church that the Wolves of Saint Patrick live in is a normal church, and the Wolves help serve the church during the day. They are very religious and the people who go to the church will be most upset to hear they are all dead. Silver has been the Church's caretaker for longer then anyone else has been going to it.

Below is the explanation of the story:

The story is considerably more complicated then it at first appeared. Firstly, the glove of Saint Patrick was stolen by the Illuminati and given to Silver by a innocent person so as to insure that Aces would go after him. Aces on it's part was afraid that the Glove Saint Patrick is connected to the legends of Alcaeus Denzil, and that it might be used to bring him back to life. Silver thinks it can be used to bring him back to life. And no one's really sure what it'll do (except maybe whoever stole it).

The glove is really Alcaeus Denzil's glove, it may or may not have any relation to Saint Patrick, but it is involved in bringing him back from his stasis.

[edit] stats

Name: Silver Legal Name: Cronus Orpheus Argyris

Point Total: 500 (500/500) (not including any increases made to secondary attributes)

ST 15 [50]; DX 12; IQ 10; HT 14;

Will 17; Per 15; Speed 6; Dodge 9; Move 9.

Advantages: Resistant (immunity to metabolic hazards) [30]; Shapeshifting (alternate form: Wolf [99]; Alternate Form: Crow [15]); Regeneration (Extreme; 10 hp per second) [150]; Unfazeable [15]; Extra Life 1 [25]; Unkillable 1 (Achilles’ Heel: silver) [35].

Disadvantages:

Skills: Guns (pistol)/TL 8 at 12 [1],

Weapon: 44m Auto Pistol (3d pi+, acc 2, ROF 3, Shots 9+1(3), ST 12, Bulk -3, Rcl 4)

Wolf Form: 110 points total.

ST 10; DX 12; IQ 10; HT 12;           60 points

Will 17; Per 15; Speed 6; Dodge 9; Move 9. 60

SM 0; 120 lbs.

Traits: discriminatory smell [15]; DR 1 [5]; night vision 2 [2]; quadruped [-35]; sharp teeth [1]; temperature tolerance 1 [1]; cannot speak [-15].

Skills: brawling-14 [4]; tracking-18 [12] 16

Crow form:

Weapon: 44m Auto Pistol (3d pi+, acc 2, ROF 3, Shots 9+1(3), ST 12, Bulk -3, Rcl 4)

[edit] Secret History

The incarnation of Aces that was alive in the 1990s was based in New York and included Henry Edward Griffith. That one was destroyed, and in the mid 2000s when the next Aces formed, Henry Edward Griffith was at it's head. An important new member was Hyu (pronounced just like Hugh), a computer person who tried to understand the strange powers in the universe and create devices that could detect and hopefully one day interact with them.

Aces was founded in the later part of the 1790s, by Alcaeus Denzil, a hunter of supernatural monsters. He founded it in Scotland, just before he died. It degenerated after his death and, after growing for a time and eventually reaching across the UK, Aces was forced out of Britain. It then spread to the US where it's been ever since. The organization is cursed, and any incarnation of it, no matter how powerful, will in time be betrayed and destroyed. The organization has gone through many 'generations', times of rising and falling, over the course of time. Often it rebuilds from pieces of the old generation a few years after it's destroyed. Often one or two loyal members from it's past life show up to help and reveal some of it's secrets (such as stores of information that weren't destroyed).

Alcaeus and his arch-enemy Arjun (a vampire, or other more campaign-appropriate monster) didn't die at the turn of the century, they were put into a sort of stasis where neither could be alive as long as both stayed in slumber. Legends tell that Saint Patrick came to Scotland to perform this miraculous feat, that he put Alcaeus into a deep slumber, and transformed Arjun into a moral 'mortal' man again. Although Saint Patrick was dead in the 1790s, and he's historically known for being in Ireland not Scotland. And there's no reason to believe Saint Patrick had anything to do with what happened (if it happened at all), or that Denzil and Arjun aren't just dead.

The disagreement between Alcaeus and the original Aces was about a prophecy, Alcaeus had somehow concocted this wild notion that there would always be someone in the world who was destined to be in charge of Aces and that as long as they were Aces would be safe. But, the council that formed to control Aces decided they didn't like that idea, so, they didn't follow this 'destiny' idea, and just made themselves in-charge. This is believed to have caused the curse. Aces has since only sporadically been ruled by a council, but that doesn't seem to have helped lift the curse.