A DV E N T U R E

ENTER: HYDRA

AN INTRODUCTORY
ADVENTURE
THE BRIEFING Alternatively, the players can create characters of their
This adventure is meant for three to six characters of rank own from scratch. These can be anywhere from Rank 3 to 4,
3 to 4. If that doesn’t match your players’ characters, you and the ranks can vary among the characters as they wish.
might need to adjust the number and ranks of the foes to They can even mix original characters with established
provide them a meaningful but not overwhelming challenge. Marvel heroes if they like.
To play this, you need a copy of the Marvel Multiverse Role- If the players are creating their own characters, they
Playing Game: Core Rulebook, some paper, pencils and at least should figure out why they’re working with the others
three six-sided dice. before the game starts. The easiest answer is that they’re
all Avengers—or auditioning to become Avengers. Original
heroes may have just joined the organization, but when the
The Heroes Avengers call, they answer, just like most Marvel heroes.
Throughout the adventure, the term heroes refers to the
team of player characters involved in the game.
The easiest way to get started is for the players to each Overview
pick one of the heroes profiled in the Core Rulebook and play An alert goes out from the New York Police Department
them. If they want to get moving right away, a copy of each requesting help from the Avengers to deal with some sort
profile should be enough to play with, but if they want to of Hydra activity at Empire State University, and the heroes
get a good feel for how the characters work, the players head there to investigate. They discover that a research
should each take the time to copy their hero’s information office is overrun with Hydra agents trashing the place,
over onto a character sheet. You can find blanks in the back apparently searching for something. They’ve captured a
of the Core Rulebook. pair of researchers and are interrogating them.
While the players can pick any heroes, we recommend The heroes defeat the agents and release the researchers.
the following profiles: As they try to figure out what the Hydra agents were after,
the room’s ceiling explodes. When the smoke clears, a set of
▶ Captain America (Steve Rogers) super-powered Hydra villains charges into the place and
▶ Black Widow (Natasha Romanoff) attacks the heroes. When the battle is over, the researchers
reveal to the heroes what the villains were after: recordings
▶ Jessica Jones
of an interview with the Silver Surfer about his travels
▶ Spider-Man (Peter Parker) before he first came to Earth.
▶ Spider-Man (Miles Morales)
▶ Wolverine (Logan)

1
 ENTER: HYDRA
THE OPENING the combat rules to the players and get them warmed up for
The characters meet at the old Avengers Mansion in the big fight on the way.
Manhattan, part of which has been turned into a museum The Hydra agents are scattered about the entire building.
open to the public. The regular Avengers are there to chat Two of them hold guns on the researchers in the center of
with potential new members. If there are any new (player- the third floor’s main room, while the others keep watch for
created) characters, they are there to discuss joining the an attack they hope won’t come. Place one by the front door
Avengers. Allow the heroes to chat for a bit and learn about and the others by any exterior windows on any floor. Put
each other before you start the action rolling. Also, be sure any extras in the research room with the hostages.
to have the players discuss and choose a team maneuver The heroes can try to talk with the Hydra agents if they
that suits them. like, but they don’t get too far. The Hydra agent in charge—
When it seems like an appropriate moment, a police who refuses to give her name—insists on proof that progress
captain appears on a communications screen and alerts the is being made on their ridiculous demand. She hangs up often
team to reports of a Hydra attack happening at nearby Empire and ends every conversation with “Hail Hydra!”
State University. The police have surrounded a campus Let the heroes figure out how they want to approach this
research facility where Hydra agents are holding professors situation. Do they want to storm in and attack through the
hostage. The police would like the Avengers’ assistance. front door? Or smash in through the third-floor windows?
When the heroes arrive on the scene, the police officer in Would they be better off sneaking around and taking out
charge informs them that the situation is even worse than the Hydra agents one by one? Maybe they want to have
what they were told. The Hydra agents are demanding that the police shut off all the power to the building first? It’s
the city of New York drape the Statue of Liberty in a Hydra entirely up to them.
uniform, and they’re threatening to kill a researcher every No matter what happens, the heroes should be able to
hour on the hour until that happens. There are five minutes make quick work of the Hydra agents, and with any luck
left until the first hour is up. at all, the hostages should remain unharmed. They might
be suspicious about how easily the situation was resolved.
Once the heroes confirm that all the Hydra agents are
The Research Facility down and the hostages are safe, they should congregate on
The hostage crisis happens inside the Howard and Maria
the third floor to speak with the professor and graduate
Stark Building, a three-story art-deco structure on the edge of
student and see if they can figure out what the Hydra agents
campus. Hydra is holding the hostages in an open area on the
were after. As they do this, the ceiling of the main room
top floor, which houses the Stark Center for Galactic History,
explodes above them. Any damage this might do to anyone
a unit that studies the history of interstellar civilizations
below is negligible, so feel free to ignore it.
and Earth’s place among them. About half of the top floor
is comprised of offices of various sizes, but there’s a larger
room that takes up the other half where various research THE BIG FIGHT
projects are carried out and presentations are made. (The When the smoke clears, the heroes can see Hydra agents
room is No. 14 on the Howard & Maria Stark Center for Galactic dressed in power armor standing on the edge of the large
History map.) hole in the ceiling. These suits of armor use stolen Stark
Hydra agents can be seen peering out the windows of the technology, and they resemble Iron Man suits but in green
larger room at the police cordon below. They dart back and and yellow rather than red and gold.
forth, wary of giving snipers a chance at them. Use the included profile for armored Hydra agent for
There are only two hostages in the entire place, although each of these. Add up the ranks of the heroes on the team
the Hydra agents have been implying to the police that there and consult the table below to figure out how many armored
are more. They hoped to find the place empty when they Hydra agents there are on the roof of the building.
broke into it, but they discovered two people working late:
Professor Ajit Patel and graduate student Kim Chen. When
the researchers raised the alarm, the Hydra agents decided
to take them hostage to buy themselves time to complete
Number of Armored
their assignment.
Total Hero Ranks Hydra Agents
The heroes don’t have long to act before the Hydra agents’ Up to 4 1
deadline. The agents aren’t actually planning to shoot either 5–10 2
of the researchers, though, and they don’t care if anyone
11–14 3
makes progress on completing their absurd demand. They
assume the police will try to negotiate with them, and they 15–18 4
want to stretch this crisis out as long as possible—but the 19–22 5
heroes don’t know that. 23 or more 6

The Hydra Agents

There are two Hydra agents per hero, each armed with a
pistol. You can find their profile at the end of this adventure. If you are using the suggested heroes for this adventure,
The agents shouldn’t present much of a challenge to the their ranks equal 21, therefore there would be 5 armored
characters. However, fighting them is a good way to introduce Hydra agents.

2
ENTER: HYRDA
ENTER: HYDRA
Tactics Either Way
If there is an equal number of heroes and foes, the obvious When the adventure is over, the heroes (and their players)
way to work the fight is to line up each hero against a single may have more questions than answers. That’s exactly what
foe and let the fists fly. It can be more intriguing, though, you want for now. This adventure is a prequel of sorts for the
to mix up the matchups instead. Hydra agents tend to be adventures in The Cataclysm of Kang, a full-sized adventure
bullies, so they might prefer to focus their attention on the book due out in November 2023.
weakest heroes first. In the meantime, you can come up with all sorts of new
Other Hydra agents often want to prove themselves and adventures for your group of heroes on your own. Be sure
rise through their organization’s ranks, so a couple of them to visit www.marvel.com/RPG to learn more!
might team up on the strongest of the heroes, hoping to take
them down fast and then move on to the others.
If an armored Hydra agent takes damage that would
knock them unconscious, they use their Tech Reliance trait
to lose all their technology-related powers and remain
conscious with 1 point of Health remaining. If they can, at
that point, they flee.
The villains don’t care about the hostages. They’re only
using them as bait for the heroes and don’t intend to harm
them. Even so, the hostages cower at the first sign of violence.
If you need a profile for either of the hostages, use the Average
Civilian profile from page 140 of the Core Rulebook.

THE AFTERMATH
Here’s how to handle things once the battle is over.

The Heroes Win

With any luck, the heroes manage to defeat or run off all of
the Hydra alternates and save the researchers. The heroes
can question any of the Hydra agents they defeated and
then turn them over to the authorities.
If the armored Hydra agents all get away, there should
still be plenty of regular Hydra agents lying around, and
they can be questioned too.
The Hydra agents initially refuse to talk, but a successful
Ego vs. TN 11 action check persuades them to change their
minds about that. At that point, the agents reveal they were
sent to the building to steal research about the Silver Surfer.
In particular, they were interested in the planets the Surfer
visited before he first came to Earth.
The Hydra agents might not have stolen the research—
which was stored on a computer in the office—but they did
manage to transmit a copy of it to a server someplace else.
They took the researchers hostage to give themselves time
to do that and to allow the armored Hydra agents a chance
to rescue them.

The Heroes Lose

If the heroes lose, the armored Hydra agents set the building
on fire and depart. As soon as the Hydra agents are gone, the
two researchers revive the heroes. Once at least a couple of
the heroes are awake, it should be simple enough for the
heroes to haul the researchers—and any still-unconscious
heroes—out of the burning building.
Once the immediate danger is over, the researchers can
reveal that the Hydra agents stole their research about the
Silver Surfer. They don’t understand why anyone besides
them would want such material, but they’re distraught
at how much of their work might be lost in the fire.
They can only hope their off-site backups are intact.

4
ARMORED HYDRA AGENT BIOGRAPHY
KARMA Real Name: Varies
RANK
—
4
Height: Varies Weight: Varies Gender: Varies
Eyes: Varies Hair: Varies Size: Average
Distinguishing Features: None
Occupation: Military
HEALTH DAMAGE Origin: High Tech: Battle Suit, Special Training
REDUCTION
90 -2
Teams: Hydra
Art by Mike Deodato, Joe Pimentel & Matt Milla

Base: Secret
History
As a terrorist organization, Hydra uses most of its
many recruits (Hydra Agents) as cannon fodder.
FOCUS DAMAGE
REDUCTION
But sometimes, Hydra will spend the resources

120 —
upgrading an agent to be their tank on the battle-
field. Hydra reverse-engineers the technology of
heroes and villains, like Iron Man, War Machine,
Iron Monger, Titanium Man and others, to create
their own specialized armor. While this new
INITIATIVE armor may not be as dependable as those super-
SPEED beings, it can still create a shock troop who can
MODIFIER
Run: 6
+3E
carry out the heaviest Hydra missions.
Climb: 3
Swim: 3 Personality
ABILITIES Flight: 24 While Armored Hydra Agents remain anony-
mous members of the terrorist organization,
ABILITY DEFENSE NON-COMBAT they have an elevated status among their peers.
SCORE SCORE CHECKS Like all Hydra agents, they are fanatical, mean
TRAITS & TAGS
2 12 +3 Traits Tags
and merciless.

MELEE ◆ Battle Ready ◆ Extreme

◆ Combat Expert Appearance
6 16 +7 ◆ Combat
Reflexes
(in battle suit)
◆ Secret Identity
AGILITY
◆ Connections: ◆ Villainous

3 13 +3
Military
(Hydra)
RESILIENCE ◆ Determination
◆ Extraordinary
3 13 +3
Origin
◆ Piloting
VIGILANCE
◆ Situational
Awareness
2 12 +3 ◆ Tech Reliance
EGO
POWERS
4 14 +4 Basic Elemental Control Ranged Weapons
LOGIC ◆ Accuracy 1 (Energy) ◆ Covering Fire
◆ Discipline 1 ◆ Elemental Blast ◆ Double Tap
DAMAGE ◆ Flight 2 ◆ Elemental Burst ◆ Headshot
◆ Mighty 1 ◆ Kill Zone
5 2
MELEE

◆ Sturdy 2 ◆ Return Fire

◆ Snap Shooting
◆ Stopping Power
AGILITY

5 6 ◆
◆
Suppressive Fire
Weapons Blazing
/8/ CHARACTERS

5 2
EGO

4 4
LOGIC

5
 /8/ CHARACTERS

HYDRA AGENT BIOGRAPHY

KARMA Real Name: Varies
RANK
—
1
Height: Varies Weight: Varies Gender: Varies
Eyes: Varies Hair: Varies Size: Average
Distinguishing Features: The green-and-yellow
Hydra uniform
DAMAGE Occupation: Military
HEALTH
REDUCTION
30
Origin: Special Training

— Teams: Hydra
Base: Secret
Art by Stefano Caselli & Daniele Rudoni

History
Hydra has reportedly been around in one form or
FOCUS DAMAGE
REDUCTION
another since the days of Ancient Egypt, and it’s

60 —
evolved into one of the most dangerous criminal
organizations on Earth. The latest incarnation
sprang from the ruins of World War II-era Ger-
many and Japan, and various factions of it have
wavered back and forth between organized crime
INITIATIVE and fascist power.
SPEED
MODIFIER Hydra recruits agents all around the world. In
Run: 5
Climb: 3
Swim: 3
+1E public, they know each other by secret signals
and whispers of “Hail Hydra.” In secret, they
don their green-and-yellow uniforms and chant
ABILITIES Jump: 3 the Hydra oath: “Hail, Hydra! Immortal Hydra!
ABILITY DEFENSE NON-COMBAT We shall never be destroyed! Cut off one head,
SCORE SCORE CHECKS two more shall take its place! We serve none
TRAITS & TAGS but the Master—as the world shall soon serve
1 11 +1 Traits Tags
us! Hail Hydra!”

MELEE ◆ Battle Ready ◆ Secret Identity Personality

◆ Combat ◆ Villainous Agents join Hydra for a number of reasons that
1 11 +1 Reflexes
◆ Connections:
usually boil down to money and power. They
believe that Hydra can take over any organi-
AGILITY zation or government, and they want to be on
Military the winning side, no matter what they have

1
(Hydra) to do to manage it. The Hydra uniform makes

RESILIENCE
11 +1 ◆ Determination
◆ Situational
them mostly anonymous, fitting well with their
oath to replace one fallen agent with two more
Awareness just like them.

1 11 +1
VIGILANCE POWERS

1 11 +1
Ranged Weapons
◆ Double Tap
EGO ◆ Snap Shooting
◆ Suppressive Fire
0 10 0 ◆ Weapons Blazing
LOGIC

DAMAGE

1 1
MELEE
AGILITY

1 1
1 1
EGO

1 0
LOGIC

6
HYDRA OFFICER BIOGRAPHY
KARMA Real Name: Varies
RANK
—
2
Height: Varies Weight: Varies Gender: Varies
Eyes: Varies Hair: Varies Size: Average
Distinguishing Features: The green-and-yellow
Hydra uniform
DAMAGE Occupation: Military
HEALTH
REDUCTION
60
Origin: Special Training

— Teams: Hydra
Base: Secret
Art by Stefano Caselli & Daniele Rudoni

History
Hydra tends to treat its lowest-level recruits
FOCUS DAMAGE
REDUCTION
(Hydra Agents) as cannon fodder, foot soldiers

90 —
who can be spent or lost without hesitation. After
all, there never seems to be a lack of disaffected
people looking to join up with the fascist organi-
zation to do their part for world domination. As
the Hydra oath goes, “Cut off a limb and two more
INITIATIVE shall take its place!”
SPEED
MODIFIER Those agents who survive long enough—or are
Run: 5
Climb: 3
Swim: 3
+2E ambitious enough—find themselves promoted to
positions of leadership within their hierarchical
organization. Often they’re the leaders of inde-
ABILITIES Jump: 3 pendent cells sequestered from the rest of Hydra
ABILITY DEFENSE NON-COMBAT for operational security, and the fact that they’ve
SCORE SCORE CHECKS survived to that point means (at least to them)
TRAITS & TAGS that they must be doing something right.
2 12 +2 Traits Tags Personality
MELEE ◆ Battle Ready ◆ Secret Identity While Hydra agents like to follow orders, Hydra
◆ Combat Expert ◆ Villainous officers have developed a taste for giving them.
2 12 +2 ◆ Combat
Reflexes
They like to shout at their underlings and boss
them around, and many of them harbor aspira-
AGILITY tions of one day becoming the Supreme Hydra
◆ Connections: themselves. They tend to be mean and merci-

2 12 +2
Military
(Hydra)
less—to outsiders, to their subordinates and most
especially to those they see as rivals. Many of
RESILIENCE ◆ Determination them see the fact that they’ve risen in the ranks
◆ Situational as the proof of their superiority, and because of

2 12 +2
Awareness this, they tend to be cocky as well.

VIGILANCE
POWERS
2 12 +2 Basic Ranged Weapons Tactics
EGO ◆ Combat Trickery ◆ Double Tap ◆ Battle Plan
◆ Inspiration ◆ Snap Shooting ◆ Keep Moving

0 10 +0
◆
◆
Suppressive Fire
Weapons Blazing
LOGIC

DAMAGE

2 2
MELEE
AGILITY

2 2
/8/ CHARACTERS

2 2
EGO

2 0
LOGIC