Conspiracy

Context

This article is 100% meant to be read after our Ulysses Bloodstone character profile, and won’t make much sense otherwise. It used to be a part of it, but was spun off for reading comfort.

The Conspiracy is an obscure corner of the Marvel Universe’s past, first seen in 1975. It could easily spark scenarios, NPCs or even PC background ideas.

History

So what do we know ? Not much.

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Ulluxy’l Tae Kwan Syn and the Conspiracy

Ulluxy’l Tae Kwan Syn thought he belonged to something called the Conspiracy. What it was was never revealed. The three main possibilities are :

1. “The Conspiracy” was an alternative name for the circle of five guardians. The one that the Exo-Mind was supposed to create to conduct the ritual and tap the Hellfire Helix’s energies.
   Since Ulluxy’l was the one and only known guardian, in this interpretation the four other slots of “the Conspiracy” are vacant. Ulluxy’l has been the only member for 10,000+ years. The Conspiracy would thus be more like a goal than an organisation.
2. There never was a Conspiracy. It was a delusion of Ulluxy’l fed by the Exo-Mind, much like the Exo-Mind manipulated Bloodstone. Perhaps Ulluxy’l didn’t know about the Exo-Mind and thought he was working for “the Conspiracy”, never meeting these secret masters. Perhaps he thought these were the five Elders back in the chaotic universe.
3. Ulluxy’l’s Conspiracy was the same as the later five-members Conspiracy. It had the same roster — except Centurius replaced Ulluxy’l Kwan Tae Syn. In this hypothesis, Ulluxy’l had been working for some time with the four persons described below. This is the simplest reading, but is not that well-supported by the story.

Bloodstone stated that he has battled Ulluxy’l and the Conspiracy “for centuries”. Of course, this may just mean that Ulluxy’l mentioned the Conspiracy some centuries ago. This statement tells us little.

The Conspiracy seen during the 1970s

A five-members Conspiracy was assembled by the Exo-Mind. Bloodstone detected its existence in the mid-1970s. It presumable isn’t much older than that.

Apparently, the five were told that the Exo-Mind would soon switch to new vessels. They were hoping that after the Bloodgem was rebuilt, the Exo-Mind would dispose of Ulysses Bloodstone and make them its new immortal vessels. The Exo-Mind had hinted that it wanted to experience life through less benign hosts.

In the 1970s the Conspiracy, likely guided by intelligence from the Exo-Mind, swept up the last fragments that were out there in the wild. Well, except for the Bloodstone Choker. Rebuilding the Bloodgem could be done quickly from there, by :

1. Taking out Bloodstone and Ulluxy’l with the Exo-Mind’s help.
2. Grabbing their troves of gem fragments. Over 10,000 years, these two had found almost all fragments.
3. Performing the Ritual of Joining as per the Exo-Mind’s instructions.

Membership of the Exo-Mind’s Conspiracy

• Centurius, who has his own writeups.org profile. He was one of the two heavyweights of the group
• Kaballa, a sorcerer, who seemed to be the other heavyweight. He could summon powerful elementals. He also managed to keep Bloodstone stupefied until the end. However, these effects may have been the work of the Exo-Mind. It has a long track record in monsters summoning and clouding Bloodstone’s mind.
  Kaballa *did* mention that it was the Bloodgem fragment in Bloodstone’s chest that was instrumental in stupefying him. Giving credence to the hypotheses that Kaballa’s seeming power may largely have been a result of the Exo-Mind’s actions.
  Kaballa could hurl lightning bolts from his hands, powerful enough to stun and knock back Boodstone.
• Dr. Juden Bardham, apparently a reputed cardiologist. He may have been chiefly recruited to perform the very difficult surgical removal of the Bloodgem fragment from Bloodstone’s chest.
• Bubbles O’Day was presented as an ecdysiast, which is the word we suave, urbane people with large vocabularies use for ’em strippers. Kaballa said that she had procured a Bloodgem fragment from a client. She implied that she killed that person after pretending to accept selling sexual favours.
  Kaballa stated that O’Day now could “floor an audience with her mind”. So she presumably had psychic powers.
• Atlan was a dolphin. In a large fish tank. Apparently he was sapient , and a magician of some sort. Having an intelligent magical dolphin was in keeping with the 1970s New Age themes Gerber used in the story.

My interpretation of the roster would be that the Exo-Mind needed Centurius to do the heavy lifting, plus four useful idiots. All that mattered, apparently, was to have five trained persons do the Ritual of Joining to reconstitute the Bloodgem. Of course, if one of them intrigues you as a GM and you want to weave them into your campaign’s history, you can make them more than a patsy.

When Bloodstone scried the captured souls of the Conspiracy members, he knew that they were “evil” persons. Keep that in mind if you want to use them further in your campaign.

Remainder of the Conspiracy facts

• The hideout of the Conspiracy, deep below Manhattan, was protected by old school mechanical traps. Tubes shooting spikes from the walls, pit traps into magma, ceilings lowered to crush trapped persons, lots of spikes, etc..
  These worked even decades after the destruction of the Conspiracy, killing curious Moloid stumbling upon the place. Since these traps are very much what one would expect to find in a tomb in an Indiana Jones movie, one suspects that these headquarters were constructed centuries ago. Possibly by Ulluxy’l Kwan Tae Syn.
• When Kaballa held Bloodstone’s Bloodgem he stated that it was the fifth fragment. Since at one point we are told that all the fragments were geometrically perfect, it is likely that the small fragments can be combined into medium fragments, which can be combined into big fragments like Bloodstone’s, etc. in a mathematically regular way.
  The tiny sliver in the Bloodstone Choker was not necessary to reassemble the full Bloodgem. So presumably the gem can grow back minor missing chips over time. Perhaps using a similar process that allowed it to “spawn” the Star of Capistan.

• The Conspiracy’s astral  forms were seemingly destroyed when Bloodstone destroyed the Exo-Mind, the Hellfire Helix and the Bloodgem. As to their bodies, the skeletons were found later decades by Captain America (Steve Rogers). They were right where they had been killed at the apex of the Ritual of Joining.
• Having, within a sinister secret organisation out to kill an Aryan guy and take over the world, somebody named “Juden” and somebody named “Kaballa” may not have been… the best idea, really. It probably wasn’t deliberate, but if you use those elements in your campaign you may want to be careful about that.

By Sébastien Andrivet.

Source of Character: Marvel Universe.