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View Full Version : The Demon Headmaster in Sunnydale



Evil DM Mark3
2011-05-03, 01:08 PM
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Some friends of mine and I had a weird conversation a while back. We where pondering far more interesting things that could have happened in the seventh season of Buffy and started talking about how the school is prominently reintroduced, and amounts to about as little as everything else.

The Demon Headmaster is a series of books and a TV series about a man with peculiar mental abilities. For the purposes of this Vs thread:

The Demon Headmaster is literally that, a demon. He has physical capabilities in line with a human at the peak of human fitness despite his physical appearance being that of a late middle aged man. He has a high level IQ and considerable experience at long term planning. Most notable however is his ability to hypnotise people.

He can cause people to recall events as differently to how they happened.
He can cause people to behave in certain ways, including post-hypnotic suggestion and trigger based programming.
Over time he can restructure a person's personality. (As seen by his highly sadistic prefects)

He is somewhat uncreative with these abilities however and will often leave large groups of people with the same basic programming and his groups often display unrealistically orderly behaviour. A small sub-group of the population (about 0.5% based on the average size of a British secondary school). His plot in Sunnydale is to gain control of the town and from there extend his influence into other areas, probably via the mass media. He has a significant aversion to mess and disorder. He will start where he has had significant experience however, at a school. His abilities require people to look into his eyes and he wears tinted glasses to prevent his abilities being used inadvertently. For the sake of this debate his abilities work on Vampires and weaker demons, but not powerful ones.

The Scooby Gang consists of Buffy, Dawn (who attends the Headmaster's school), Xander, Willow and possibly Spike and Giles. For the original discussion we decided that one person would be immune to the head, determined by dice roll to be Xander. Fits rather nicely don't you think?

While I do expect the Scooby Gang to defeat him (being protagonists and all) I am interested to see how you think that would happen. What things would he try and how long would it take for them to work things out.

chiasaur11
2011-05-03, 02:06 PM
I'm guessing "Hit him a lot".

Figure this would be a one and done. Xander suspects something is seriously wrong with Dawn's school, no-one believes him because hypnotism, he finds a way to convince Giles, Giles tips Buffy off, using research to provide protection.

Then?

Hitting in the face. So much hitting in the face.

Traab
2011-05-03, 02:10 PM
Sounds like Brother Blood off of Teen Titans. Also, isnt Xander basically the butt monkey of every mind controlling bad guy in existence? Preying mantis teacher, hyena spirit, dracula, the little baby demons in the eggs, he gets mind controlled a LOT. Sure you could use the acquired immunity due to repeated exposure, but from the sheer number of times? I dunno.

chiasaur11
2011-05-03, 02:17 PM
Sounds like Brother Blood off of Teen Titans. Also, isnt Xander basically the butt monkey of every mind controlling bad guy in existence? Preying mantis teacher, hyena spirit, dracula, the little baby demons in the eggs, he gets mind controlled a LOT. Sure you could use the acquired immunity due to repeated exposure, but from the sheer number of times? I dunno.

Not every.

He was left out with the egg demons. His father's legacy of awful parenting saved the day there.

Traab
2011-05-03, 02:20 PM
Thats right, he hard boiled the egg, (a badass idea that I loved) I cant believe I forgot about that! Even so, it wasnt out of any resistance to mind control that he pulled it off. I say dawn should be immune. How better to notice something odd going on at the school than to not be effected by his hypnosis? Her being a mystical dimension shattering glob of energy should be more than enough justification for her immunity. (spoiler included in case you lived under a rock and never watched the series but want to someday. :smallbiggrin:)

Mewtarthio
2011-05-03, 02:25 PM
He strikes me as the kind of guy who'd need the Scoobies to be unwary to succeed. Normally, he'd have a shot at it, seeing as his powers are somewhat more subtle than the usual Monster of the Week fare, but if it's the same school... Well, the gang was suspicious enough of Robin for no reason other than "He's building a school on top of the Hellmouth how is this not bad news?!". That's a strike against the Headmaster right from the start. If he then goes and establishes order in a student body where kids randomly explode from time to time, he's not going to last very long.