Menagerie Card Help

insomn14 · September 14, 2022, 3:56am

And because it was interesting to noodle out, I put together the start of a villain deck for both Pyrrhus and Jenny Byrne to show how they have similar mechanics but represent themselves differently. (Note: nothing about these is set in stone yet, everything is for demonstration purposes at the moment.)

Pyrrhus’ personas come out randomly and the only predictable thing about them is that you won’t get the same one twice in a row. But there is only ever one at a time. And the only way to get rid of them is to take out Pyrrhus.

Jenny’s poppet programs, however, are a part of her deck, so she could presumably have multiple in play at a time (and I’ll probably add a search card from them in the final deck). And because they have HP, if you get one that is seriously hosing you over (I need cards and can’t have the Infiltrator Program eating my hand) you can take it out with the downside that she’ll get a new one. But if she has two or more in play, you can destroy one (presumably the worse one in a given situation) without getting a new one.

On the surface very similar gimmicks, but they will feel very different in play.

insomn14 · September 15, 2022, 3:50pm

So just like I did with the AoA storyline, the Magic Kingdom is wrapped up and so we’ve gotten another look at Dr. Infinity and her plots. As you might remember, last time I talked about her I had no idea how to handle this. Let’s see if time, some additional reading material, and a fresh look at things helps.

So the commonality we’ve seen with both Dr. Infinity stories is you don’t beat her by standing toe-to-toe with her and duking it out. The Magus tried that and look how it turned out for him. Both times, it was all about striping away the artifice Dr. Infinity had built up around her (literally in the first story) and trying to reach the person locked away inside her armor. While I don’t think we can handle the emotional bits that follow that (Sentinels is, unfortunately for this scenario, a game about dealing damage to bad guys until they stop being a problem) I do think we can handle the thematic bits of that.

So how do we do that? So I see the initial side of Dr. Infinity/Clockwork (I’ll refer to her as Clockwork from here on out for simplicity) is that stand up, toe-to-toe fight. She needs to be nearly implacable. I’m going to steal a mechanic from another villain and give her 2 damage reduction for each Device card in play and then load her deck up with Devices: the Starfish Drones, Weird Time Gadgets, and of course the Keynome she uses to travel time. In fact, that Keynome is going to be a key part of her deck, summoned out at the beginning of the game. But how do you defeat her?

Once all her Devices are destroyed, she flips, showing the vulnerable Pnuema she really is. It only lasts for a moment (a single turn) but this is your real opportunity to reach her. To represent this vulnerability and to make up for all the damage you couldn’t do to her before, we’ll increase the damage she takes in this form (say +1 damage taken). But once that moment’s over, she builds her defenses back up. Bring the Keynome back to protect her again, maybe have a big burst of damage to signal we’re back to slugging it out.

I think it would probably be fun to show some time-shifted characters as well (it was one of the fun parts of the Magic Kingdom storyline). Like Nono from Atlantis, Clockwork would have collaborators from across timelines. Nono and Rossum would be the easy ones (and taken directly from the Magic Kingdom) but I wonder what others might be fun to throw in as “what-ifs”? Definitely something I’ll need to think over.

That gives us the following to-do list on the conversion:

Create devices to fill out at least half of Clockwork’s villain deck (12-14/25)
Create a handful of alternate timeline characters (5/25)
Fill out the rest of the deck (6-8) with some devastating one-shots.

Thoughts?

EDIT: Now also with a deck skeleton.

garrett · September 19, 2022, 11:35pm

Can “device” include time tactics, like an interdiction that forces heroes to discard some of their own cards?

insomn14 · September 19, 2022, 11:47pm

It could with some clever wording. Devices are generally targets with HP and thematically represent some sort of machine or equipment used by the villain, so as long as it can represented in those terms it can be a Device.

The interdiction effect as presented in the Phase Two stories, however, I was thinking about making an ongoing card (specifically, one that removes all of a random card from each hero’s deck from the game until it is gotten rid of, representing how the past has now changed in some significant way) since Ongoing cards tend to be things involving tactics, strategies, or making use of innate abilities of a character, which seems more in line with this effect.

(Also it’s important to include some ongoing cards in all villain decks, because many heroes have cards whose entire purpose is to destroy ongoing cards, making those cards dead in hand if a villain doesn’t have at least a couple.)

garrett · September 20, 2022, 12:29am

Cool cool. So I’d suggest looking at her arsenal of devices like a magpie’s hoard, stuff gathered from her travels that she’s incorporated into her strategy of “my dream, whatever it takes”. Examples:

Parallel Development: a more advanced (or weirder) version of a gadget, from another timeline
Future Refinement: something taken from generations in the future, and it shows
Kitbashed Hypertech: a mashup of existing technologies to do something new
Reprogrammed Drone: someone else’s guardian robots that have been hijacked to serve Clockwork
Magitech Mashup: Clockwork will use the mystical as well as the scientific. Possible visual: a magical circle of runes or symbols inscribed onto a gear
Time-snatched Relic: an older device thought lost that has been found & restored to working order
Apocalypse Acquisition: tech taken from some dire “end of days” timeline, rickety, scary, and effective

insomn14 · September 21, 2022, 6:11pm

This is a really good list. I’ll need to scrounge through some of the odds-and-ends of the Menagerie-verse to pluck out some interesting options.

My first thought with this came from a very recent source…

Maybe I take my idea of Timeshifted minions and mine them for ideas. Like associate one of Clockwork’s unique devices with a particular Timeshifted minion to give a little cohesion to things?

I’ll let those ideas percolate on the backburner for a bit, since I still need to spend some time on some more immediately addressable projects. From my Trello board:

insomn14 · October 11, 2022, 4:38pm

A fun surprise this morning, Unmute was this week’s custom deck featured in this video.

And in case I haven’t shared previous Menagerie-based videos, here they are.

And now I am noticing that I completed all of the women of the Menagerie’s (and one of the villains) decks before making any of the dudes. Weird coincidence but fine. Just more of a reason to complete Mercury or Concord’s decks.

Dave · October 12, 2022, 6:54am

Watched the Charade video, and two things I took away from it:

Sentinels is a “Here are the basic rules, and every character is about how they break them” with the dial twisted to twelve. I simply couldn’t follow along the play pace, and just sort of went along with it.
I love the Charade cards. I’d seen them before, but seeing them again brought me serious joy. Thank you.

insomn14 · October 12, 2022, 12:28pm

Took a quick peak at the game to remind myself (that video came out on in March) and I’d say that dial is twisted to around 8 in my opinion. Take Walker’s videos can be a bit much to follow if you’re not familiar with the decks or his previous videos, however, since he treats anything that’s been in one of his previous videos as a known quantity and he has 250+ Sentinels videos in his back catalog, so there’s a lot that’s only given a passing mention. That said, I usually just tend to focus on the showcase deck when watching videos and I think Charade had a good one.

You’re welcome. I’m often very critical of my work but that’s mostly because I’m comparing it to what it could have been and the Menagerie characters have so much depth that it’s difficult to fit all of that into 12+ pieces of that where half of them have to focus on punch bad guys. But knowing that the core audience is happy with the end result is a sign that I did a good job.

insomn14 · October 26, 2022, 8:48pm

As part of getting ready to pull quotes, locations, and events for some upcoming decks, I’ve catalogued the Phase Two stories into some “series” to give them a bit of cohesion. While this is probably going to much more helpful when/if I get around to doing the Agents of Aegis characters, I bet I can get some good quotes for Jason, Link and the Newmen, and maybe a couple for Concord and Mercury.

If anything looks amiss or if anyone have any suggestions, feel free to leave a comment on that page (I’m pretty sure I enabled that).

garrett · October 26, 2022, 8:55pm

Looks great so far

insomn14 · November 21, 2022, 4:55am

A quick art update on this deck:

Community Service

Corner Store Snack Run

Interview of Tasha Starr

36% done! 7 more pieces to do.

insomn14 · November 22, 2022, 8:42pm

So let’s talk Nemeses. If I haven’t brought it up before, Nemesis is a simple mechanic in Sentinels where two share a Nemesis Symbol (the little circular logo symbol on the cards) have a permanent +1 damage bonus, showing their ongoing enmity towards one another. It’s usually pretty minor and easily forgotten when playing physically, but it means a lot to folks who follow the lore of the characters.

So far I’ve designated a few villain characters as nemeses (as shown below) but going forward I want to be mindful of who I mark as nemeses and why.

Existing Nemeses

Ego Trip (mini-nemesis): Radiance
Fractal (mini-nemesis): Concord
Netherwarden: Ghost Girl
Unmute: Mercury

Mini-nemesis is a term from the fandom for any target who isn’t a villain character but has a nemesis symbol. Basically anyone who is a part of another deck (for instance, Ego Trip and Fractal are a part of Unmute’s deck). Also Ego Trip, had I been confident that I would make decks for the Newmen as I am now, would have probably been their nemesis instead of Radiance (but I’ll get into the issue with nemeses for Radiance later).

With this in mind, I looked forward to my upcoming decks and tried to determine who would be nemeses for our existing heroes.

Future Planned Nemeses

The Azure Empress: Jason Quill, Ghost Girl, Concord, Mercury, and the Newmen
The Concordant Trio: Concord
Clockwork: Ghost Girl, Radiance, and the Newmen
Devon Crowninshield (mini-nemesis): Ghost Girl
Director Quill: Jason Quill, Charade, and the Newmen
Grasscutter One: Charade
Hannibal Lectric: Jason Quill, Ghost Girl, Concord, Mercury, and the Newmen
Hecete: Radiance and the Newmen
Poppet/Jenny Byrne: Jason Quill
Pyrrhus: Jason Quill, Charade, Agent 1337, Hot Mess, Nono, and SNOWMAN
Rossum the Minion-Maker (mini-nemesis): Radiance and the Newmen
Rumble Bee (mini-nemesis): Mercury
The Yule Cat/The Jólakötturinn: Jason Quill, Ghost Girl, Concord, Mercury, and the Newmen

As you probably noticed, a lot of these have multiple nemeses which is something I can do (And have been mindful of, since there are limits when making the decks in Digital. Pyrrhus hits the limit for max amount of nemeses for a Villain character, while environment targets like Rumble Bee and Devon can only have one.) but I’ve been wondering if I should. So far I feel like all of these relationships are justified but it definitely feels less special than when you can point at a villain like Unmute and say “yes, Mercury’s nemesis.”

The characters I most feel like I’m shorting however are Radiance and the Newmen. Those characters are so intertwined that it feels weird to have a character be a nemesis of one and not the others. That said, if I were to have Commander Saito or Mina Onnanoko are nemeses, it definitely makes sense for them to specifically be the nemeses of the Newmen and not Radiance. While this is a solvable problem (especially when including expanded lore characters like Rumble Bee, who exist because “of course a character like that would exist”) but one that has been on my mind as I’ve been planning these decks out.

Thoughts?

Also, some quick asides that I’m sure will be asked.

Yes, I am planning on making a Hecete villain. And it’s going to be zany.

The current plan is for Grasscutter One, Hannibal, Hecete, and Poppet to be Vengeance Villains (the mechanics and differences I believe I’ve gone over before). They’ll be joined by a Dr. Sidrov deck, who I’m considering not have been anyone’s nemesis. “No one is worthy enough to rival Sidrov” seems on brand for that guy.

Rossum is going to be a mini-nemesis in the Tyran/Rook villain deck. The Rosa stand-in is another person I’m considering for “doesn’t have a nemesis” status, but I can be swayed toward her just being Jason’s nemesis or having her be the Menagerie as a whole, or maybe just Jason and the Newmen.

If I continue my plan, Concord’s going to have most nemeses (Fractal, the Sablestar stand-in, the Concordant Trio, plus all the Menagerie-wide nemeses) which I’m worried is something I’ve subconsciously done since I’m making the decks. Or it could be because I was super happy to make a rogues gallery for Concord.

I’m planning on having all three Newmen decks (Link, Pneuma, and Otto) share a nemesis symbol. I’ve also got some plans for making their decks unique from the rest of the Menagerie heroes, but that is another long post so I’ll get to that as I get closer to working on their decks.

garrett · November 22, 2022, 8:55pm

So my Radiance Reinvention project will start in earnest around Phase 3. This will give her more independence, a new (small) rogue’s gallery, and some other stuff. Unfortunately I don’t have concrete plans to give you here (unless you want P3 spoilers - let me know). It’s going to happen, it’s just not happening yet.

Leo, to everyone’s great surprise, doesn’t really go out and pick fights. Rossum is basically the only person he feels personally about. He definitely shares that sentiment with Otto and Aria (and Summer, but she tends to be more forgiving).

insomn14 · November 22, 2022, 9:58pm

Exciting!

Never, except for the offers I’ve already made of getting some character concept art made ahead of time.

Certainly fair. It definitely would feel wrong if Rossum did not make an appearance as Leo’s nemesis (and because of the shenanigans involved with his storyline, he’s going to be in two different decks ).

One thing that I will note is that I have an environment tentatively up on the board just called “Prison Break” that would involve a mass escape of villains from AEGIS custody that’s just a big excuse for include minor characters like Professor Midnight and the All-Nighters and originally Hannibal Lectric, though the pivot to have him as a Vengeance Villain has changed that. Similarly, this was also an excuse to include cards for Parker, Waters, and Agent 1337, but given that Alex is currently slated for a hero deck, they’re also off the list for that. So there’s definitely room for expanded lore villains for folks. I’ve long been amused with the idea of an actual Fairy Princess that has it out for Radiance and might try to wedge them in here.

insomn14 · November 26, 2022, 8:02am

So with Challenger Park all wrapped up, that brings us half way through what I had planned for the core set of Menagerie of the Multiverse. As a recap, that set has the following:

Charade (hero deck) [done]
Concord (hero deck)
Ghost Girl (hero deck) [done]
Mercury (hero deck)
Radiance (hero deck) [done]
Netherwarden (villain deck) [art in progress]
The Concordant Trio (villain deck)
Unmute (villain deck) [done]
Challenger Park (environment deck) [done]
Oakland Cemetery (environment deck)
Saint Lucia Medical Center (environment deck)
Stanley Sports Center (environment deck) [done]

My current internal debate is “do I try to make all of the future sets 12 cards?” Surprisingly, that works out for the MIA/Agents of AEGIS set I have in mind, which currently slated for:

Agent 1337 (hero deck)
Hot Mess/Agent M (hero deck)
Nono Rodriguez/Agent R (hero deck)
SNOWMAN (hero deck)
Pyrrhus (villain deck)
Grasscutter One (vengeance villain deck)
Hannibal Lectric (vengeance villain deck)
Hecete (vengeance villain deck)
Poppet (vengeance villain deck)
Sidorov and TALOS (vengeance villain deck)
The Stronghold/Prison Break (environment deck)
The Hidden Fortress/Secret Chin Base (environment deck)

That said, MIA isn’t my current plan for a next set. That’s Tech Support, which includes the rest of the Menagerie not included in the base set. But Tech Support only has 11 decks currently.

Jason Quill (hero deck)
Link (hero deck)
Otto (hero deck)
Pneuma (hero deck)
The Azure Empire (villain deck)
Clockwork (villain deck)
Director Quill/Quillverse Jason (villain deck)
The Tyran Corporation/Tyran High Tension Thinkers Group (villain deck)
Quill Foundation Corporate Campus/Quill Tower (environment deck)
Quillverse Halcyon (environment deck)
The Sepiaverse (environment deck)

Currently, Tech Support is looking fairly villain heavy with four villain decks (as opposed to the core set’s three) which makes me think if I do add another deck to bring it up to twelve it should be an environment. And when I look at this list and what I have from the other sets, perhaps that theoretical environment should be something Azure Empire/Vyrotovia-themed. Option one there is to do the Flying Island as a single environment. The other is to have one of the Empire’s floating islands. Alternatively, I should say that the Sepiaverse deck is the Azure Empire environment (I mean, they did come from there) so I could do something else if the mood takes me.

Not sure. Thoughts? And not just on this last question but on the schedule overall?

garrett · November 26, 2022, 4:23pm

My suggestion for the environment deck is a Vyortovian (etc.) weapons/vehicles factory and testing ground, set up on the icy mountain. It’s not canonical but feels very Sentinels-y and in keeping with the Tech Support theme. Battles atop prototype hover-ships. Dodging automatic laser turrets. Freezing temperatures and cold metal. Explosive fuel canisters. Exotic magitek weapons.

The overall schedule sounds great to me, I’m looking forward to seeing what comes out of all this.

insomn14 · December 4, 2022, 6:34pm

So yeah, Space Bug is definitely coming to my Sentinel decks soon after Concord does. And as a hero at that.

I may have been working on this for a little bit as a treat.

insomn14 · January 10, 2023, 9:55am

After getting to peak at Bill’s well done Notion site for his Phase Three plans, I really enjoyed how much cover images added to the experience, so I overhauled my setup to use them too. This actually helps me out a bit, knowing where some of my gaps are.

insomn14 · January 20, 2023, 6:38am

So last time I talked about future sets and I think I’ve fallen into the decision of “whatever feels right is what it should be.” Not an exciting answer, but an answer.

So let’s talk about something that is exciting: variants. Every hero comes with a character card usually referred to as “the base version” by the game fandom. But (at least in the core set of heroes) each hero also has a set of alternate character cards that can be used in place of the base version called variants. Many heroes only have one but at least one (Bunker) has 5 variants (admittedly I think part of that was attempts to “fix” Bunker who is seen as one of the clunkiest heroes in the base game).

These variants can represent anything, versions of that hero from another universe, versions of that hero from different points in their storyline, or even versions of that hero from what-if-style stories. Hell, the Cauldron released a set of Halloween-themed variants for several of their heroes in 2020.

With this in mind, let’s run down the list of our heroes and what I have in mind for them, variants-wise. Several of these have themes that I’ll talk about at the end but I’m sure you’ll pick up on them on your own.

Base Set

Charade

Menagerie Charade: Charade as part of the Menagerie, going into the final battle with Clockwork.

MIA Charade: Charade as leader of the MIA. Probably more focused on team leading than damage.

Secret Origin: Alycia Chin: Alycia on the run from AEGIS/the Division before becoming Charade.

Concord

Menagerie Concord: Concord as part of the Menagerie, going into the final battle with Clockwork.

Keynome Kid: Teen Adam from the Keynome storyline (but needs a new name).

Kid Concord: Concord before he had the adult super form and also early in his run, so probably a lot more spotty than normal Concord.

Ghost Girl

Menagerie Ghost Girl: Ghost Girl as part of the Menagerie, going into the final battle with Clockwork.

Ghost Girl Pandemonium: Ghost Girl from the Quillverse who became Pandemonium.

Ghost Girl, Spirit of the Solstice: (already done) Ghost Girl with the Solstice Candle.

Magus Ghost Girl: (already done) Charlotte as the Magus.

Mercury

Menagerie Mercury: Mercury as part of the Menagerie, going into the final battle with Clockwork.

Quillverse Mercury: Older Mercury who was trapped in the bubble from the Quillverse. Not super excited about this one, but it was the only thing I could come up with for Harry.

Radiance

Menagerie Radiance: Radiance as part of the Menagerie, going into the final battle with Clockwork.

Secret Origin: Numina: Holographic Summer action as team overwatch.

Princess Radiance: (already done) Radiance in the role of Princess of the Fairy Kingdoms.

Tech Support

Jason Quill

Boy Adventurer Jason Quill: Young Jason, not as experienced but makes up for it with zeal.

Quillverse Jason Quill: A repentant adult Jason with the Quillverse after Leo reintroduced himself to himself.

Link, Otto, and Pnuma

I haven’t thought too hard about these because I’m still trying to decide how interconnected these need to be, but at least one thought is that Big Bill and Mo could be variants of Otto, but that is a very early idea. Also if Link is his own character and not part of a shared deck with Pneuma, I’m sure berserker Link from phase three will probably be one of his variants.

MIA

Agent R

MIA Agent R: Nono as a member of the MIA.

Comrade X

MIA Comrade X: Alex as a member of the MIA.

Secret Origins: Agent 1337: Alex during their time with AEGIS/the Division.

Firebrand

MIA Firebrand: Emma as a member of the MIA.

Secret Origins: Hot Mess: Emma as an anti-villain in training.

SNOWMAN

MIA SNOWMAN: John as a member of the MIA.

ASIST

A10

Irregulators A10: Andi as a member of the Irregulators.

Alloy

Irregulators Alloy: Alloy as a member of the Irregulators.

Armiger

Irregulators Armiger: Will as a member of the Irregulators.

La Cordera

Secret Origins: Superchica: Keri while she still had the ‘tude.

Telekinetian

Irregulators Telekinetian: Nate as a member of the Irregulators.

Megaverse

Princess Peri

I don’t know for her yet. Still super early days here.

Space Bug

Halloween Space Bug: Space Bug cosplaying as Ash from the Evil Dead. Who gave that Moth a chainsaw and boomstick?!

So broad strokes on some of the themed variants.

Team Variants: (Menagerie, MIA, Irregulators) Exactly what it says on the tin. Variants with powers that make them work much better on their team than normal or makes them slot more into the role they played in that team (for example, Menagerie Charade is a loner, MIA Charade is a leader).
Secret Origins: These are callbacks to the hero’s previous heroic/villainous/etc identity.
Holiday Themes: Ghost Girl has Christmas and Space Bug has Halloween. I’m sure we can fit a few more in (or just throw in more Halloween themed ones because those are always fun).

I’m sure I’ve missed some obvious ones, but what are your thoughts on this?