As promised, in this last installment I’ll discuss possible identities for the Friend and provide sample Todkinder, as well as seeds.

Possible Friends

Although the Friend is more a plot device to get the ball rolling, there’s no need for you not to use him or her, especially if you want your campaign to have some sort of metaplot besides fighting against government agencies.

Depending on whom you choose to be the Friend, the nature of the metaplot changes. On the surface, the Friend’s goal is the same: destroying the Todkinder programs. However, the ulterior motive for his or her actions will be different.

So here are some suggestions on who can be the Friend. Obviously, these are by no means limiting and serve only to illustrate the possibilities.

Eli Kaplan: Most people assume Eli Kaplan died after Nina destroyed the Auschwitz lab, but the truth is his power saved him by absorbing every scrap of energy nearby and jumpstarting his body back to life. Eli walked aimlessly for hours until he collapsed and was found by a couple of Polish farmers. They nursed him back to health and found out Eli could not remember anything about his life from before meeting the couple. In the postwar confusion, nobody asked questions about the new boy at the Kowski household and Eli became their adopted son, whom they called Marek. Eli led a happy life with his new family. His frequent nightmares decreased with time and, despite knowing about his power, he never used it, feeling it was connected to his now forgotten past. Forty years passed and after the Kowski died, Eli moved to Warsaw where he worked as an electrical technician. One night, while returning home from a late shift, Eli witnessed a Todkinder confrontation. This unleashed a torrent of repressed memories and the horrors of the Nazi experiments came back to him, although somewhat diluted by his fuzzy recollection. Eli helped one of the Todkinder who had been left for dead and through him learned about the agencies. Appalled by this discovery and understanding it all had started with him, Eli vowed to destroy all of the deathchildren programs and free the Todkinder. Able to sense and manipulate energy, Eli can correct the electrical imbalances in someone’s mind, helping them regain some stability. He now wanders the world freeing Todkinder so that they can take the fight back to the their would-be masters.

Nina: Nobody knows what happened to Nina after she disappeared into the countryside. No one could even guess that the girl left not only the lab, but this plane of existence as well. Nina traveled to other universes and dimensions, where she met other… beings, so to speak. Intrigued by the newcomer, these entities studied Nina extensively, changing her mind so she could communicate with them. They taught Nina the hyperspatial intricacies of existence and the polydimensional subtleties of time. At the end, the girl was no longer human, but something in-between these beings and us. Nina returned home half a century later to a world that had industrialized the horror of her childhood experience. She concluded humankind had exhausted all excuses for its continuing life on Earth and decreed the death of our civilization. However, Nina realized she was nowhere near as powerful as needed to conclude her mandate as the bringer of apocalypse, so she decided to let her fellow Todkinder be the instruments of her will. Besides her teleportation/apportation and dimensional shift powers, Nina can make minor adjustments to reality, enough to fix the psychological problems of the Todkinder and send them on a crusade against the agencies. Her plan is to stop the development of new deathchildren and end any attempt of a concentrated effort against her. Then, she will use the surviving Todkinder to throw the world into chaos that will lead to a nuclear holocaust. After her work is done, Nina plans to leave our dimension forever.

Midwich olivers: After destroying Midwich, the olivers scattered around the world. Accomplished telepaths and telekinetics, it was easy for them to disappear into society. Their always-on telepathic network provided them enough stability to overcome their autistic disorder. The primary concern of the group was survival, so they planned accordingly. Each oliver joined a powerful family in a different country and through their foster kin attained positions of power. However, they knew that temporal power would be of no avail, if Twist House – or any other Todkinder program -- found them. So they devised a plan to use the deathchildren against the agencies and then employ the surviving Todkinder as their own private superarmy. All of the eight have, at one point, freed a deathchild, but they never reveal they are not the only Friend. In fact, different Midwich olivers may have freed the PCs. The Midwich olivers use their telepathic network as a template to adjust the minds of the chosen Todkinder and allow them to function properly.

Alien: The increase in super-human activity on Earth did not escape the aliens who secretly monitor us. If they are good aliens, they watch us because the appearance of paranormal powers can lead a civilization to disaster. It has happened before in the galaxy – especially, if the natives explore these powers in a belligerent way. However, full intervention is not allowed, because humans are not deemed ready to join galactic society. A disguised agent is sent to correct the rather horrendous way in which certain Earthlings exploit their fellow paranormal. The alien uses advanced tech to cure the Todkinder and explain what has been done to them. The alien expect the deathchildren to end the exploitation of their kind and prevent an apocalypse. If they are evil aliens, they want to destroy the Todkinder and the agencies, super-humans being an unknown quantity – no one has seen them before in the galaxy – that can derail the aliens’ plan of conquering Earth. They use advanced tech to cure the Todkinder and send them against their former masters. The idea is to prevent new Todkinder from being created and cull the current numbers.

A gallery of deathchildren

Here are some sample Todkinder with which to populate your campaign. Although the Pac-Man Fever codename and the KGB reference set Alexei and Evelyn in a specific timeframe, these characters can be contemporaries in your campaign. Just change the girl’s codename to another appropriate song and substitute KGB for FSB if you want to bring Alexei to the 90s and onward.

Black Angus: Rory and his parents were in a car accident in an out-of-the-way part of Scotland that killed both adults and left the boy in shock. Wandering through the wilderness, Rory collapsed after a day of exposure to the elements, but was found by Twist House operatives, who also provided a convenient body to pass as Rory’s at the site of the accident. After being twisted, Rory developed depressive behavior and an extreme fear of open spaces (agoraphobia). He’s also able to teleport about 200 miles and can carry up to two other people with him. If left alone in the field or forced into an open space, he will automatically teleport back to his small room at Twist House.

Dmitri Karamazov: Alexei was the son of a KGB spy who betrayed the agency and was caught. As a result, Alexei’s parents were assassinated and he was shipped to Gorod Prizrakov. There, the boy was put through the “process” and ended up a bipolar wreck that has two main abilities, depending on his emotional state. When manic, Alexei displays super-strength and resiliency, like he’s overflowing with lifeforce. When depressed, Alexei becomes a sinkhole of vital energy, able to drain a person of his vitality in seconds and up to a distance of 50 yards.

Pac-Man Fever: Evelyn was a smart Midwest child with an innate knack for building small gadgets of a normal sort. One day, she embarked on an adventure: run away from home for a day to go visit her grandfather’s body shop two towns over. She never made it thanks to the Nursery’s recruiters. Her stay there raised her talent to super-human levels and she became the gadgeteer supreme among Todkinder, cranking out sinister toys for the Nursery agents and scientists. She also became riddled with obsessive-compulsive disorders.

Some Todkinder seeds

Here are a couple of seeds for your campaign.

Return to Midwich: The characters learn that Twist House is attempting to reproduce an apparently failed Todkinder experiment from the late 50s. When they track down he facility, they find out their information is incorrect – Twist House has already successfully reproduced the experiment. There’s a batch of six two-year-old olivers that display abilities similar to the original Midwich ones. Twist House has learned its lesson and this new batch is under constant surveillance and medication, with a few Todkinder assigned to the facility as extra security. The new batch easily detects the PCs and alert the Twist House agents, who set a trap or order an strike against the characters. Another complication comes form the Midwich olivers, who have also learned of the experiment. Although curious about their new siblings, they consider them a threat and want them eliminated. They send a mercenary team to take down the facility and everyone inside. One of the olivers will also go, but he or she will refrain from taking part unless it’s clear the new batch will escape alive. If the Midwich olivers are the Friend, they will urge the PCs to kill all the entire new batch – unlike previous times, when they asked the characters to bring captured Todkinder to them so they can be cured --, claiming they threaten the whole world.

The Zero Gun: Non-Todkinder Nursery agents are tough to take down thanks in no small part to Pac-Man Fever. Her newest invention is the Zero Gun, a weapon that can neutralize Todkinder abilities. The Nursery scientists haven’t had the time to decode it, so there’s only the prototype Pac-Man Fever has cobbled together. Since the characters have been a thorn on the side of The Nursery, the gun has been issued to a particularly effective group of field agents that has been tracking the PCs. The adventure starts with the characters being attacked by the agents with the Zero Gun. Neutralization is a temporary effect, but there’s no guarantee Pac-Man Fever won’t upgrade it to a permanent one. The PCs need to destroy the gun (or steal it) and maybe think of a more permanent solution to Pac-Man Fever.

Inspiration

Here are a couple of sources of inspiration for a Todkinder campaign.

Godlike: If you want to keep the action in World Ward II, you could push back Mengele’s experiments with Eli Kaplan and have all talents, or at least a new type (maybe a wild talent), be Todkinder.

Monster and Other Childish Things: Another ORE game, though I never played this one, but, from the premise, it could be an interesting take on this seed. The psychological problems could be strongly linked to the powers, to the point that they are like a separate living entity that haunts the Todkinder.

OK, this concludes the Todkinder seed. I hope you liked it. Feel free to share any comments, suggestion and criticisms on the forum.