Red Warlock's Short Stories

Three short story arcs for your enjoyment!

The Children of Astoria
Arc ID 217499
Short (1 mission)
Genre: Horror
The Legacy Chain send you on a mission to uncover the secret of how a small band of children have survived hiding from Zombies at the Old Children's Hospital in Dark Astoria. This tale of horror is filled with surprises, so be on your guard!

The Legion of Mutants vs. The Iron Agents
Arc ID 200364
Short (1 mission)
Genre: Classic Comic Book
The Iron Agents, advanced cybernetic warriors developed by the Crey, have taken the Legion of Mutants hostage, holding them at a high security prison. Break the mutants free and they will help you fight the Iron Agents! Story filled with mutant hunting androids and lots of fun elements!

The Shadow Rune of the Warlocks
Arc ID 124319
Medium (2 missions)
Genre: Magic/Fantasy
Difficulty Level: Moderate to Hard
The Adamastor has been captured by Warlocks and trapped beneath Moth Cemetery under the magic of the Shadow Rune. Help the Adamastor escape and he will help you defeat these ancient mages. (Story includes history of Moth Cemetery, many original characters, dialogue and fantasy storyline).

Any comments or constructive criticism will be greatly appreciated!

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Red Warlock
- "The Shadow Rune of the Warlocks" (Arc ID 124319).
- "The Legion of Mutants vs. The Iron Agents" (Arc ID 200364).
- "The Children of Astoria" (Arc ID 217499)

Hey all,

I would love it if anyone took a minute to check these out. I really put a lot of time into them and think they are a lot of fun!

Would really appreciate any feedback people have!

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Red Warlock
- "The Shadow Rune of the Warlocks" (Arc ID 124319).
- "The Legion of Mutants vs. The Iron Agents" (Arc ID 200364).
- "The Children of Astoria" (Arc ID 217499)

QR - I'm always looking for short arcs to fill an idle hour. I've added these to my list and I'll get them all played in the next day or two.

Eco

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MArcs:

The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)

Thanks Mr. CaptainMan - looking forward to your thoughts on them!

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Red Warlock
- "The Shadow Rune of the Warlocks" (Arc ID 124319).
- "The Legion of Mutants vs. The Iron Agents" (Arc ID 200364).
- "The Children of Astoria" (Arc ID 217499)

Shadow Rune of the Warlocks

I enjoyed this arc. The history lesson was a little confusing, between what had happened before and what was happening in the present. But I might have forgotten to check my clues when the second mission finished - my graphics crashed during the second mission, confusing me a bit.

It's a nice little story. The ally is like having a Shivan all the time - which does increase the requirements of the enemies, to make it fair. First time I met Red, he almost beat my ally (Red has good resistance to mez) but the second time, he was lame. Not sure what happened there. The other bosses may be more of a challenge above level 1 difficulty.

Overall, a nice story for just two missions, and a very cool looking contact. My comments as I played below.

Cheers, airhead


Perhaps put the large teams warning in another color (yellow if it's supposed to be loud, orange is more subtle).
So... very brief introduction. The contact already knew I wanted to find out the history of Moth Cemetary, so I guess I did.
2:45pm: Enter 1st mission
M1 entry pop-up: wandrered -> wandered
Moth Mole description: the -> them
Moth Mole, blind, has a laser eyes attack. Unusual.
I got the shadow rune of the Warlocks, but no Clue to explain it.
The Dead Horsemen guarding Adamastor have only the default lieutenant description. Same with the Earth Warlock.
Nice explanation why Adamastor can travel through these caves given when he gets lost.
Good map choice.
2:58pm: return to contact
I'm told twice to ally with Adamastor, perhaps only need one reminder.
2:59pm: Enter mission 2.
Found my ally already!
3:01pm: Return from hospital.
Siren of the Moth: Cemeterery -> Cemetary
Earth Warlock: I shall defeate you -> defeat
Shadow Warlock's soliloquy: througout -> throughout
3:27 return to contact.
Return message: Souveneir -> Souvenir

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The Children of Astoria
Arc ID 217499

Summary: Just what I want from a simple one-mission arc.

I like the intro and the setup. Dark Astoria is a favourite zone of mine, underused. The Mother Mayhem map is great for the setup. The first ally was kneeling apparently alone, the reveal gave me a big grin. By the time i found the second ally, i was in no hurry, and had fun clearing the map with them. The Big Bad was pitched just right for an easy afternoon scuffle, and the egg was a nice touch at the end (First time I've seen that object).

Overall, It Was Fun.

Minor nitpicks: The 'return to contact' text mentions The Dark Surgeon, but Neither I or the contact know who he is at that point? Your nav instructions could have verbs added - 'Seek Friar Assissi' for example. Some of the bios are a little cheesy, but nothing horrendous.

Top banana. I'll get onto the others.

Eco.

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MArcs:

The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)

The Legion of Mutants vs. The Iron Agents
Arc ID 200364

The contact is 'The shadowy figure' - I found that funny for some reason, like he's THE Shadowy Figure as opposed to just any old shadowy figure. The instructions in the briefing go on in some detail about how to transverse the Zig map. In Character I can see that perhaps my toon hasn’t seen the map yet, but maybe ‘explore thoroughly and find a way into the Zig’ might suffice.

Once inside, the Nav instructions need some verbs again.

I noticed upon entering that your customs don’t have bios this time. That’s a shame.

White Lynx costume (and actually the way you meet her) is quite cool.

Aha..I like the release of the Mutant Legion a lot here, and the subsequent triggered spawning of the bad guys is nicely done too. The maps not a huge one, so its easy to backtrack and they weren’t difficult to find at all. However, the Iradium Vice – I thought that was the name of another boss, so you might want to make it clearer up front that it’s an object. You could add ‘defeat’ to the boss nav instructions, for example, but ‘destroy’ or ‘disassemble’to the Vice instruction. That’s a very simple way of differentiating objectives in very little space.

I think I enjoyed this about the same extent as the Astoria one, but with bios for the customs and some cleaning up it could be even better. It needs some more explanation of what the Iron Agents are all about. It definitely perked up after I reached the Mutants. The fights were again just right for my mood this afternoon. Some of your costumes are very nice too, but the Cyber Monoliths I thought looked a bit silly.

Can't complain, I had a gap in my work day today, and these two arcs filled it just fine. Based on the first two of your arcs I’ve tried, I’ll play your third without hesitation – I’m sure it’ll be fun. Downtimes about to start, so I'll get onto that this evening.

Eco.

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MArcs:

The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)

[ QUOTE ]
The contact is 'The shadowy figure' - I found that funny for some reason, like he's THE Shadowy Figure as opposed to just any old shadowy figure.

[/ QUOTE ]

Haven't played the arc yet (although it, and the others by the author, are on my list), but it doesn't sound so strange to me. As long as it's THIS Shadowy Figure, who is an actual CoV contact...

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[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The contact is 'The shadowy figure' - I found that funny for some reason, like he's THE Shadowy Figure as opposed to just any old shadowy figure.

[/ QUOTE ]

Haven't played the arc yet (although it, and the others by the author, are on my list), but it doesn't sound so strange to me. As long as it's THIS Shadowy Figure, who is an actual CoV contact...

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow! I never knew! Awesome! That does look like the contact, too.

That's great.

Eco.

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MArcs:

The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)

wow - thanks for all the feedback all! I'm on my way to work right now, but I'll respond more specifically later. Thanks again for playing my arc!

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Red Warlock
- "The Shadow Rune of the Warlocks" (Arc ID 124319).
- "The Legion of Mutants vs. The Iron Agents" (Arc ID 200364).
- "The Children of Astoria" (Arc ID 217499)

The Shadow Rune of the Warlocks
Arc ID 124319

Just played it on my 50 en/en blaster.

here are my thoughts as i did:

Great contact. Interesting intro. Entry popup intriguing. Some spelling errors, already covered by posters. I’d try to avoid repetition of ‘prey’.

Ah, BP map. Nice.

Nav – verbs, dude

Error in Moth Mole bio ‘makes the hungry’ – ‘makes them hungry’, possibly?

Wow. Its Adamastor! Can we use Adamastor in the MA? Coool.

OK, Adamastors wicked as an ally lol. But I’d have liked to see him doing something else apart from the kneeling animation. Im not sure it fits, either. Some kind of magical field, maybe? Apologies if you tried this, maybe he’s too tall for the floating stuff to work in the cave. Also, I really liked the atmospheric text and dialogue etc, but I felt a little confused as to what exactly was going on.

The end room was a nice punch up, I really liked the steamy mist effects again and the hovering lotus position dudes were cool.

The debriefing does put the details of what’s going on clear, which is good.

Mission 2 was ok, although a little bland. I freed Adamastor and then in short order found the four bad guys. I felt this mission needed more of a climactic feel to it.

The first mission, I was loving it. It has a nice new atmosphere (at least, to me – if someone else has done this I haven’t met it yet). Your customs are well-designed looks-wise and challenging to fight, and the warlock faction was interesting. I think mission two could be awesome with some more varied objectives.

All told, Another Fun Arc.

Eco.

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MArcs:

The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)

@Airhead: Thanks for the feedback on the Shadow Rune of the Warlocks. It was my first story arc I created and I put more time into that one than any of the others.

It sounds like both you and MrCaptainMan felt the history was difficult to follow. I'll look back on that and see if I can tighten it up some.

About Red - that's interesting that you thought the first Red was harder than the 2nd Red. The first Red is just a boss while the 2nd is an elite boss. I'm not sure why the second red was so much easier for you to beat... I'll try playing the two again and see what's up with that...

Also, I appreciate your wanting colored text for some parts - where in Architect do they allow you to color/bold/italicize your text? I haven't found that feature yet and would love to go back and color lots of text in the stories...

Thanks for all the detailed response to each section - I'll go back and fix the spelling errors you caught. (always good to have an outside eye for those things...) Also, will cut the additional reminders to find the Adamastor... Very helpful...

Regarding descriptions for the Dead Horsemen & Earth Warlocks, I'll try to add more descriptions, but I'm actually at the maximum memory for this mission and am not sure where to cut to add more detail, so I'll have to figure that out. But I would love to add the descriptions... I'll find some way to add it in.

Thanks again for all the time you put into reviewing this. I'll go back and rework those details and I'm glad you enjoyed it!

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Red Warlock
- "The Shadow Rune of the Warlocks" (Arc ID 124319).
- "The Legion of Mutants vs. The Iron Agents" (Arc ID 200364).
- "The Children of Astoria" (Arc ID 217499)

QR - You can change the color of the text by holding down the mouse as you mouve over the text youve alread typed and right click - you'll get a drop down menu with colors, fontsizes etc.

Eco.

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MArcs:

The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)

@Mr.CaptainMan re. Children of Astoria,

Wow - You totally made my day with what you said about this arc being "Just what I want from a simple one-mission arc".

I love creating short story arcs because I think it's fun to pack one mission with as many twists, turns, character and story as you can. I like long stories too, but you only have so much memory to play with, and so I do short stories because I love to load them up with as many original characters and interesting things as I can pack into each mission.

Dark Astoria is my favorite zone too - and I feel it's underutilized as well. Perhaps one of the things the developers will get out of Architect will be a sense of what people love about their game. I wish they would do more with Astoria, and maybe some of us Astoria fans will give them a sense of what a cool place they created there, and what might be some fun additions they could make to run further with it.

I'm glad the opening to the mission put a smile on your face. I'm very proud of how that part came together. The Children of Astoria was my last mission I created and that introduction was something I thought of after playing lots of missions and getting a feel for what makes a mission exciting.

And yeah, the Egg is fun - I think it's one of the most interesting objects, especially if you reinterpret it as something else...

About the "Nav Instructions", I'll have to look into that. I admit, I still don't understand how to use those or when they are helpful or not helpful to people. I'll look into that some more.

I wrote the bios pretty quickly the other day - I'll give them a re-read for cheese and see if I can edit them a bit

Thanks again for taking the time to check it out and I'm glad you enjoyed it so much! I'm off to work, but I'll respond to your other posts later...

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Red Warlock
- "The Shadow Rune of the Warlocks" (Arc ID 124319).
- "The Legion of Mutants vs. The Iron Agents" (Arc ID 200364).
- "The Children of Astoria" (Arc ID 217499)

[ QUOTE ]
QR - You can change the color of the text by holding down the mouse as you mouve over the text youve alread typed and right click - you'll get a drop down menu with colors, fontsizes etc.

[/ QUOTE ]Keep in mind though that the color/font/style tags all use character spaces so you'll eat into your available amount of text.

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QR - For the nav instructions, just add a verb to them depending on what you want the player to do. If theres 3 objectives, a hostage to rescue called Phil McCavity, an Ally to meet up with called Yosemite Stalin, and a Villain to defeat called The Trufflehound, if you leave their navigation isntructions bare in the MA then the nav will just have their names, like this:

'Phil McCavity,Yosemite Stalin,The Trufflehound'

If you type into the nav instruction field (for singular) 'Free Phil McCavity', and 'Meet with Yosemite Stalin' and 'Defeat the Trufflehound', you'll get all those in the nav. This makes it clearer for the player what he has to do.

You can use this to play around with what the player knows, too. If The identity of the Trufflehound is supposed to be a secret until he's discovered, put 'Defeat the bank robber' or sth in the nav instruction field, and that'll be the thing the player sees.

That's a basic example of what you can do. I recommend searching the Guides section for the guides to the MA, I think it was Lazarus who wrote them 9apologies if it was someone else) - theyre excellent.

Eco.

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MArcs:

The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)

QR - I also recommend Policewoman's arc Celebrity Kidnapping. It also has a Zig breakout mission, and IMO it's perfectly designed. Check out the great atmosphere of riot as you go in, and the pacing of the ambushes after springing the rescuee, who is also pitched perfectly in terms of powerset choice as support for the Player.

Eco.

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MArcs:

The Echo, Arc ID 1688 (5mish, easy, drama)
The Audition, Arc ID 221240 (6 mish, complex mech, comedy)
Storming Citadel, Arc ID 379488 (lowbie, 1mish, 10-min timed)

@Mr.CaptainMan re: Legion of Mutants vs. the Iron Agents.

Thanks for all the detailed critique here - glad you enjoyed this one too!

"I noticed upon entering that your customs don’t have bios this time. That’s a shame."

I will work on this. That's one part I just haven't got around to yet, but I'll work on it soon...

Glad you like the release of the Legion of Mutants. I agree with you, I think that this is actually the most interesting moment in the story...

"However, the Iradium Vice – I thought that was the name of another boss, so you might want to make it clearer up front that it’s an object. You could add ‘defeat’ to the boss nav instructions, for example, but ‘destroy’ or ‘disassemble’to the Vice instruction. That’s a very simple way of differentiating objectives in very little space."

-I'll go back and make that more clear. Thanks for the heads up on that.

"Cyber Monoliths I thought looked a bit silly..."

good to know - maybe I'll go back and do some reworking there...

Thanks for playing the arc and for reviewing it! I really appreciate the feedback and I'll let you know when I've made the changes you suggested here...

(also, I'll check out the Echo and The Audition and report back to you too )

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Red Warlock
- "The Shadow Rune of the Warlocks" (Arc ID 124319).
- "The Legion of Mutants vs. The Iron Agents" (Arc ID 200364).
- "The Children of Astoria" (Arc ID 217499)

@Hellguard Re. THE Shadowy Figure, "As long as it's THIS Shadowy Figure, who is an actual CoV contact..."

Thanks for the clarification Hellguard. That was, in fact, The Shadowy Figure I used as the contact. But maybe he's not known well enough to some players and I should give a little background on him and why he's telling the story...

Hope you get a chance to play the arc!

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Red Warlock
- "The Shadow Rune of the Warlocks" (Arc ID 124319).
- "The Legion of Mutants vs. The Iron Agents" (Arc ID 200364).
- "The Children of Astoria" (Arc ID 217499)

@Mr.CaptainMan re. Shadow Rune of the Warlocks:

Thanks again Mr.CaptainMan for the detailed review. I'm glad you enjoyed this one as well!

This was the first mission I created and I put a LOT of time into it. I agree with most of what you say in your review and will go back and rework those parts of it. It was my first attempt and has lots of elements that I love, but also is a bit quirky in places and could use some refinement.

- Spelling, I'll go back and correct.
- Prey repetition, thanks for the heads up, I'll correct.
-Nav Verbs, thanks for the tutorial you wrote later. I'll go back and add...
- Moth Mole Bio, I'll fix.
-Adamastor Starting Animation: I couldn't seem to get him to do some of the other animations I wanted him to do. I'm not sure if he can't do any other animations than the default, but he definitely can't do some that I wanted.

And yes, when I found out you could make Adamastor into an ally, this made the mission LOTS of fun. There is nothing more satisfying than watching Adamastor stomp on minions... there's just something really hillarious about it...

"Mission 2 was ok, although a little bland. I freed Adamastor and then in short order found the four bad guys. I felt this mission needed more of a climactic feel to it... I think mission two could be awesome with some more varied objectives."

I totally agree here. I tried to make the outdoor map fun by loading it up with characters, but there isn't the kind of defined story going on in the second mission and I'm not sure what to add to give it a little more bang. In fact, this is why I often just make short, one mission arcs because I think that you can often make a more dramatic story in one mission utilizing the right tools than I find I can in longer missions. Longer missions can trail off and seem rudderless at times. If you have any suggestions on how to make the second mission more interesting, I'd love to hear them.

Thanks again for all the time you put into playing and reviewing the arcs!

Red Warlock

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Red Warlock
- "The Shadow Rune of the Warlocks" (Arc ID 124319).
- "The Legion of Mutants vs. The Iron Agents" (Arc ID 200364).
- "The Children of Astoria" (Arc ID 217499)

[ QUOTE ]
"Keep in mind though that the color/font/style tags all use character spaces so you'll eat into your available amount of text."

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks for the tip Jophiel!

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Red Warlock
- "The Shadow Rune of the Warlocks" (Arc ID 124319).
- "The Legion of Mutants vs. The Iron Agents" (Arc ID 200364).
- "The Children of Astoria" (Arc ID 217499)

All Three Stories Have Been Revised per Comments in This Thread!

Thank you Mr.CaptainMan, Airhead, Jophiel and Hellguard for your comments in this thread. I went back and revised all three of these stories based upon feedback from your comments.

The Children of Astoria - Text has been tightened up, minor changes here and there.

The Legion of Mutants vs. Iron Agents - I wrote background stories for the Iron Agents and tightened up small changes as requested.

The Shadow Rune of the Warlocks - Airhead, I think you in particular will enjoy the changes I made. It is now a 4 mission arc that expands much of what I had tried to do in two missions. It is (I think) a more interesting epic now. I'm really happy with the final product and think it builds well as a longer story into a more interesting climax at the end.

I put a great deal of work into these changes and I think the missions are much better because of your feedback. Thank you all for taking the time to review them, and I will be reviewing your missions soon as well. I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts on the revised arcs!

Red Warlock

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Red Warlock
- "The Shadow Rune of the Warlocks" (Arc ID 124319).
- "The Legion of Mutants vs. The Iron Agents" (Arc ID 200364).
- "The Children of Astoria" (Arc ID 217499)

Great update to The Shadow Rune of the Warlocks! This flows well. I also see Moth Mole's laser beams now highlighted in his description.

Mission 2 is tricky - glowies. I can see them from about 15'. Thank goodness they're all in one place (I ran this twice to be sure). I couldn't find one (they're that hard to see) but since I'd found the others, I just kept searching nearby.

Fascinating history Clues. I'd always assumed the Banished Pantheon referred to the gods those dudes worshipped.

And nice finish. Great all around.

Cheers, airhead

Still a typo in Siren of Moth, Cemeterery -> Cemetery
The 4 warlocks should be boss-only needed to complete. Otherwise I'm tracking down unknowns on an open map.
I have the Earth Warlock to go, but my nav says "Red Warlock"
The runes seem to be crystals.

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Thanks Airhead! Glad you enjoyed it...(and I fixed those typos you mentioned last night...)

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Red Warlock
- "The Shadow Rune of the Warlocks" (Arc ID 124319).
- "The Legion of Mutants vs. The Iron Agents" (Arc ID 200364).
- "The Children of Astoria" (Arc ID 217499)

I just captured some screen shots from "The Shadow Rune of the Warlocks" I thought people might enjoy:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2572/...1f76d1b59c.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2605/...5e32e85ed9.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3422/...da4bb4ea95.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2502/...87a7b1e36d.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2553/...ac6e798680.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2668/...c1ff646220.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2448/...8ba8d33359.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2598/...329347a853.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2496/...4a66e72995.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3419/...6fc09200a4.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3462/...13824afefd.jpg

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Red Warlock
- "The Shadow Rune of the Warlocks" (Arc ID 124319).
- "The Legion of Mutants vs. The Iron Agents" (Arc ID 200364).
- "The Children of Astoria" (Arc ID 217499)