Operation Cold Front is dedicated to investigating and containing matters regarding the Inuit God Kigatilik. Activities include subduing Ice Demon activity, gathering counter intelligence on the plans and motives of Kigatilik and his followers, as well as making strides toward mounting a flush and robust offensive against Lynx Fold using all of the resources the Canadian Wilderness has to offer.
Operational Supervisor - *Mark Derringer
Mission Director - Sean Pentecost (Warmaster)
Team Leader - Northwatch (Jason McRae)
Member/Pyromancer/(Bigfoot Expert) - Chinook (@crusader6628) (Little-Brave-Foot)
Member - ((Work in Progress. You may apply with your Canadian characters.)
Consultant - *Ravenspeaker (Billy Edenshaw)
Consultant/Kigatilik Expert - *Celestar (Lonnie Lawrence)
Standard Forces - *Steelhead Armed Mounties
Enemies
Kigatilik is a devout agent of the
Ice Spirit, and an exiled Inuit God. Released by
Rakshasa in 2009, he now sits atop Lynx Fold, plotting against the North, the shaman who betrayed him, as well as his fellow gods who cast him out. Ruling over legions of ice demons and their network of spies and corrupted servants, Kigatilik is the greatest threat faced by the Canadian Wilderness, and the sworn archenemy of the new Northwatch mantle.
Blackwatch
Blackwatch is an ice demon and doppelganger of Jason McRae. He was created by the Ice Spirit for Kigatilik in order to mock the Land Spirit's effort to hinder his plans as well as destroy the Steelhead Sentinel. He has all of Jason's abilities, with the notable addition of mimicry. Blackwatch can make himself look and sound exactly like Jason McRae, or Northwatch any time he desires.
His only motivation is to bait out and destroy Northwatch. He is a diabolical, sadistic mastermind who is known to manipulate other villains in order to antagonize and trap Northwatch.
Titanium Patriot
Kyle Reid was the long-time partner of Jason McRae. Stationed together in Yellowknife for years, they developed a strong friendship that went well beyond their occupation. Both men had a wife and daughter and their families became close through their extended friendship. Jason and Kyle did almost everything together, from training in the boxing gym, to competing in the ring, to seeing movies with the families and attending the girls extracurricular activities as families in support of one another. They had become like brothers, their daughters referring to the other as uncle.
In 2016, both men were reassigned to a posting at Force Station Steelhead as compliance officers. Their job was to observe the conduct of the Steelhead soldiers and staff, and send detailed reports back to Yellowknife. Neither was overly trilled to be taking such a position, but they agreed to lean on one another to get through the unfortunate situation. Several months and a lot of resentment from the Steelhead personnel later and the two men found themselves accompanying a patrol convoy to observe and report. During the routine patrol, their convoy is ambushed by a detail of Hunter-Patriots lead by their elite mercenary, Quick Trigger. The convoy is overwhelmed and all Steelhead personnel are cut down, including both Jason and Kyle.
Kyle's vehicle was struck by an RPG round that severely mangled his legs, leaving him confined to wheelchair. He is recovered by Quick Trigger as a prisoner of the Patriots. Kyle is tortured and interrogated repeatedly over the course of a year. Over time they begin to poison and cloud his mind with rage and resentment, making him believe that Steelhead left him for dead. When Kyle has been converted to their ideology, and the time is just right, the Hunter-Patriots provide Kyle with an advanced suit of indestructible power armor and unleash him upon Fore Station Steelhead.
Toy Maker
Edmund Strauss was a long-time super hero fanboy and a middle-aged toy designer/collector when the Battle of Detroit took place in 1992. Edmund's fascination with super heroes became morbid and unhealthy as time went on and he began to stalk heroes present during the fight against Dr. Destroyer, both in the media, and in person. He relocates from Vibora Bay to Millennium City's Westside and spends years developing a method of converting an individual subject into a living, breathing, toy-sized version of themselves.
In 1995, Edmund adopted the alter ego of Toy Maker with the goal of turning as many prominent super heroes as he could into living toys. He captures several heroes, starting small to prove and perfect his method before converting bigger name heroes. This brings attention his way, and in 1996, he is captured and defeated by a group of super heroes investigating the list of missing vigilantes. Although Toy Maker is arrested, only a handful of heroes from the list are located and rescued, roughly a dozen men and women are still missing.
Edmund is released on parole in 2015 on exceptional behavior, and works hard at landing a job working with FoxBat Con as a custodian. Over the next four years, he works his way up to assistant manager of merchandising, staying close to his passion, but seems to have reformed his villainous ways. That's around the time he sees news coverage of Canada's latest wonder boy, The Steelhead Sentinel.
The news piece had built him up to be the pinnacle of the modern super hero. The steel age crime fighter straight from Steelhead itself. It said he was a decorated, hero Mountie cop, one of the most gifted boxers among the Steelhead staff, and an all-round swell guy. The TV made him seem too good to be true. For Edmund...or Toy Maker, that meant trouble for Northwatch.
Force Station Steelhead receives a formal invitation welcoming Northwatch to appear at Foxbat Con.
The Maker's Dozen
Twelve men and women - heroes and villains - have been trapped in one of Toy Maker's clandestine lairs for nineteen agonizing years. Stuck in immortal, living action figure form, sealed away in durable packaging designed to act as prisons, keeping them in mint condition. Rodded of any innate or genetic super powers, they wither away spiritually and mentally, plotting their escape and awaiting rescue.
WIP| I am developing all twelve of these characters now.
Black Magic:
One of the villains Toy Maker obsessed over, and a Battle for Detroit survivor. When Destroyer was in position to level Detroit, Black Magic actually opposed him, fighting alongside heroes to ensure Destroyer's defeat. After the incident, Black Magic was beginning to step back and examine her villainous alignment and motives when she was ambushed by Toy Maker and imprisoned in living action figure form.
During her time spent in captivity, she has become fixated on trying to escape their mysterious, power-dampening package cages. She spent years trying to devise a way to escape, expose a structural weakness, or conjure so much as a spell from within its walls. After accepting the reality that escape from within is likely impossible, she slipped heavily into meditation and spiritual training to both avoid breaking down and attempt to improve her odds of accessing magic.
Captivity in close proximity has forced all of the Dozen closer together, but what Black Magic will do should they be released is yet unknown. She seems to have matured and changed, but she harbors a somewhat evident storm of rage nineteen long years in the making.
Freedom Flight:
WIP
Twitch:
Miles Melbourne was a member of Detroit's Watchdogs super team, genius gadgeteer, and autistic vigilante. His scrappy, inspiring start-up career caught the attention of Watchdogs members. The self-proclaimed vigilante regulators were impressed by Miles' character and ingenious inventions, recruiting him over time despite his being nervous and hesitant at first. They help him build confidence and core crime fighting skill as he becomes a key member of the team over several years.
Leading up to the Battle for Detroit, Destroyer abducted Twitch, targeting him as the weakest, most vulnerable member of a super team he anticipated would be standing in his way. Destroyer tortures Miles until he reveals all of his allies weaknesses and vulnerabilities to him. Destroyer used this information to incapacitate the entire team during the conflict, rendering them useless and costing Anvil, a Watchdogs veteran, his life. As a reward, Destroyer let an unwilling Miles safely watch the destruction of Detroit from afar.
After the battle, Miles attempted suicide several times using conventional methods, but either failed or was saved by team members. The guilt and self hatred had consumed him, robbing him of almost all ambition and self worth. He quits his role as a crime fighter, gradually becoming homeless. It is during his most vulnerable hour that Toy Maker begins to manipulate Miles incognito. He takes full advantage of his guilt, offering him both a punishment and a way out of his miserable existence.
Unbeknowst to any of the others, Twitch is the only member of the Dozen who gave consent to be transformed into a living action figure. Captivity coupled with his pre-existing guilt have greatly affected his mind over the years.
Killswitch:
"If it's got a kill switch, I can find it."
—Killswitch
Little is known about the man behind the mantle, but the mantle itself was renowned in the State of Michigan. Killswitch was a prolific mercenary who specialized in contracts involving the superpowered or supernatural. Killswitch offered a special type of service using a special skillset. Killswitch handles unconventional situations and individuals, resolving solutions that greatly favor his employer by deploying a small ensemble of genetic mutations that have run in his family for centuries.
Born into a genetic and evolutionary legacy, Killswitch possesses a mutated brain characterized by his families DNA alone and all sub-branches of the family tree. His brain functions at a higher baseline capacity than the average human brain. He has a superhuman intellect, capacity for adapting and learning, as well as enhanced senses and perception. To read it in a government file, you might be thinking he's some sort of god-mind, but it only provides him with the core skill set to be one of the most efficient assassins on the face of the planet in the 1990s. Famed for being able to find the "kill switch" on anything, and hit it, the reputation behind his alter ego needed no introduction or posturing when he arrived in 1995. Smart as he may be, he wasn't anticipating Toy Maker, or both of them targeting the same mark, at the same time.
Toy Maker simply improvised. One might even assert that he panicked. Nevertheless, Killswitch joins the Dozen early on to his horror and dismay. Unknown to [WIP Female #1], a veteran Watchdogs leader, Killswitch was there to kill her that night. During their nineteen long years in captivity, sharing adjacent package prisons, [WIP Female #1] has grown fond of his mind and personality when exposed and vulnerable.
Over the last decade or so, Killswitch has become unstable. Vindictive. Brooding. To spite Toy Maker and the concept of their cages, Killswitch removed some fingers to begin mutilating his action figure form. . .
"How often do we really use our pinky fingers. . .Right?"
—Killswitch
(I decided this story arc is a bit too invasive to use any known Champs IPs from the BfD, so some of the Maker's Dozen will be fanfic BfD survivors.)
Death and Legacy
Backed by the Armed Mounties and other Canadian allies, the members of Operation Cold Front battle Kigatilik in the very near future. During the conflict and attempt to seal him in the Frost Tomb, Kigatilik kills Northwatch. Upon his death, Akna's gifts migrate to Jason's seventeen year old daughter, Hailey Jade McRae. She rises in his memory to take up her father's mantle and become the next Northwatch.
After his death, members of Cold Front and other friends of Jason form The Sentinels team in his memory, pursuing a broader range and scope of work to help the Canadian Wilderness, as Jason had always insisted Cold Front should.