Even more Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – including never before seen stuff!
This is fun… just ran across the TMNT intro package we sent to Playmates (I think sometime in 1986?). It has character descriptions, story samples and lots of pin-up art. This is the first time it has been seen in this format in well over 30 years!
RAPHAEL
Personal Profile: Raphael has some kind of insanity that makes him the “crazy” man of the group. He has problems being controlled and cannot even control himself. When agitated, he has a 75% chance of going into a “berserker” rage. It takes several melee rounds for him to recover himself. He’s fine most of the time, but when he gets into a berserker rage, watch out! This makes him an awesome fighter, but also a little hard to live with.
He doesn’t like this side of himself, but he can’t yet control it. It is like a demon living inside him, barely kept in check. A large part of why Raphael hasn’t yet killed himself, or any of the other turtles, is due to his friendship with Michaelangelo. Michaelangelo is also Raphael’s main sparring partner. It is Michaelangelo’s great love of life and fun that acts as a balance for Raphael’s anger and depressions.
Raphael wants to make himself a better warrior. He practices a lot, but he can’t seem to keep from doing dangerous or foolhardy stunts. Though skilled in all ninjitsu techniques, his favorite weapon is the sai. He uses the Paired Sai in Leap Attacks as a master of Ninjitsu. As a fighter, Raphael is neither the most skillful (Leonardo is better) or the most talented (Michaelangelo is phenomenal), but he is the most deadly Ninja Turtle because of his raw energy.
Special Weapons: Pair of Sai.
DONATELLO
Personal Profile: Donatello is more interested in working out a troublesome computer program than fighting ninjas or robot mousers or whatever. Of all the turtles, he rebels most strongly against killing. In a strange way he is a pacifist ninja, and while his skills with the staff are highly honed, he would prefer not to use it against a living opponent.
Donatello gets off on gadgets and technology and many times he will sneak out at night and, using his ninja skills of silence and stealth, rummage through the dumpsters of electronics firms, gathering cast-off parts with which to construct his various devices. Although he lacks formal training, he is a natural inventive genius.
Donatello cares a great deal for his brother turtles, but is the least clannish of them. He lives most of the time within his own head, thinking and dreaming of new things to build.
Special Weapons: Bo Staff
MICHAELANGELO
Personal Profile: Michaelangelo is the fun-loving turtle. He lives to enjoy life. He tends to hang out with Raphael rather than Leonardo or Donatello because they’re too serious for him. H e has a gentle, though mischievous nature and is not above playing practical jokes. He reads comic books and science fiction and likes to sneak into movie theaters when they are playing double bills of “ET” and”Robin Hood.” Michaelangelo would also be the Ninja Turtle most likely to play in a role-playing game. In short, he enjoys practicing his Ninja skills, but also enjoys just fooling around.
Michaelangelo also likes to cook and it is he who prepares most of the turtles’ meals. In many ways he is he hedonist and a sensualist, appreciative of pleasures of the flesh.
Michaelangelo likes rough and tumble stuff and gets into a good fight almost as much as Raphael. He enjoys sparring, and he and Raphael do a lot of this. He doesn’t work as hard at the art of Ninjitsu as any of the others (except perhaps Donatello), but his naturally high Physical Prowess more than makes up for his lack of discipline.
Michaelangelo is adept at all ninjitsu skills, but favors a pair of nunchaku.
Special Weapons: Paired Nunchaku
LEONARDO
Personal Profile: In the absence of Splinter, Leonardo is the leader of the turtles. He ls a “take-charge” kind of guy who can size up a situation quickly. He excels at making plans that are complicated yet cleanly constructed, and almost always work.
He is also a perfectionist; a trait that gets him into trouble. Leonardo performs his tasks with an efficiency that any man or turtle would be proud of, but there are times that he sees it as a source of shame and a “loss of face”. He is always trying to live up to the ideal of his mentor, Splinter. Unfortunately, he has never really absorbed one of Splinter’s most important teachings; that it is honorable to strive for perfection, but alright to occasionally fail to reach that goal.
Leonardo also feels this loss of face when the other turtles do something wrong. He feels responsible for them and their actions. Of course, because of this, he goes nuts over Raphael’s rages and craziness.
Leonardo is perhaps the smartest of the turtles, at least in all-around intelligence. He is a voracious reader, and has a very good memory. His favored weapon is the sword, though he is skilled with all weapons and techniques.
Special Weapons: Daisho, the Samurai paired weapon of Katana and Wakazashi.
SPLINTER
Personal Profile: Perhaps Splinter was never a very ordinary rat. It is even likely that he was a mutant long before the strange ooze from the broken T.C.R.I. canister began changing him. In any event; as a young rat he was very intelligent; smart enough to be able to mimic and memorize the ninja techniques of his owner, Hamato Yoshi. Years later he remembered, and passed on the Ninjitsu techniques to his own disciples, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
How close Splinter is to the end of his life-span is not known. He is an old rat and his fighting faculties are getting a bit rusty. After the turtles avenged the death of Splinter’s master, Yoshi, by defeating the Shredder, Splinter has been somewhat bereft of purpose. Up to that point, his reason for existing was to gain vengeance. Now that vengeance has been gained. something else must animate his life. For this reason, Splinter has been doing more meditation and thinking about philosophy. It is unsure whether or not he will leave the turtles to fend for themselves. He may go off alone to think his thoughts.
While Splinter may no longer be a great warrior, he is still a formidable teacher and is knowledgeable in all the fighting arts of the ninja.
Special Weapons: He has a set of Daisho but he usually carries just a staff.
Criminal Record: None
APRIL O’NEIL
Personal Profile: April is a very intelligent young woman. As a teenager she was a dedicated computer “hacker.” The skills she gained then were later translated into her career as a computer programmer, specializing in robotics software. This is how she came to be associated with Dr. Baxter Stockman and his “Mouser” project.
April also has an interest in antiques and junk, with the emphasis on the junk. The brownstone that she lives in has a junk store called “Second Time Around” on the first floor. This is the one her father used to own and run before he had his stroke. Now April operates the store part-time. The Mutant Turtles are now living in the building with her.
Except for taking a few self-defense courses, April has no special fighting skills. She is in good shape though and runs and does aerobics regularly.
Special Weapons: None
Criminal Record: None
CASEY JONES
Personal Profile: Casey Jones is an alienated young man who lives by himself in a run-down apartment building. He makes a living, if you could call it that, by fixing things in the apartment building and doing odd jobs.
Casey’s only friends are the three TV sets he has going simultaneously and continuously. He works out with barbells all the time, while watching television. He watches all of the cop shows and his views and attitudes are shaped by them. This makes him more than a little bit warped. He has the idea that the streets of the world are full of human slime and scum.
Donning an old hockey mask and carrying a golf bag filled with various clubs, Casey ventures out into the streets, looking for the human vermin who prey on the weak and innocent. On these creeps he will wreak his vengeance. Unfortunately Casey has no sense of scale. Casey will treat a purse snatcher just as he would treat a murderer. He’ll beat any criminal senseless or even to death.
Casey’s fighting skills were learned mostly on the streets, though he did take some martial arts courses before being kicked out of class for being too brutal. Working out with weights all the time has given him a toned, muscular physique which helps him in his chosen pursuits.
Special Weapons: Golf bag filled with various clubs, hockey sticks and odd items. They are all taped for grip and balance. Damage is usually lD6 or lD8.
Criminal Record: None
SHREDDER
Personal Profile: Oroku Saki (Japanese use family name first, given name second) was an evil ninja, head of the New York City branch of the ninja clan known as the “Foot”. He ran this group and its illegal activities (drug and arms running, assassination, etc.) effectively and ruthlessly, both as Oroku Saki and with his other identity: The Shredder. When Saki donned this fearsome costume, studded with razor-sharp blades, he was almost unstoppable.
One of the reasons that Saki came to New York from Japan was to find the killer of his brother, Oroku Nagi, and avenge that death. Hamato Yoshi was the murderer, living peacefully in New York City with his wife Tang Shen. They had fled Japan to avoid the “Foot’s” anger after the death of Nagi. What Saki didn’t know was that Yoshi had killed Nagi after being provoked by Nagi’s brutal, near-fatal beating of Yoshi’s lover, Tang Shen. Even if he had known, it probably wouldn’t have made much difference. Oroku Saki was obsessed with the idea of vengeance and one night he fulfilled that destiny: He ambushed and killed both Yoshi and his wife.
Unnoticed by Saki, Yoshi’s pet rat, Splinter, escaped during that fight. Splinter eventually found the turtles and mutated along with them. This was the origin of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Eventually, Splinter sent his trained ninja turtles against the Shredder and they succeeded in avenging Yoshi’s death by apparently killing Saki.
His presumed death took place after a ferocious rooftop battle at the climax of which Saki (who had been stabbed in the chest) plunged off the side of the building, along with a live thermite grenade. No body was found, although it must be said that the turtles did not look too hard for it, assuming that their enemy had been blown to bits.
THE FOOT
The “Foot” is a clan of ninjas going back several hundred years. Originating in Japan during that country’s feudal period, the “Foot” has spread over the world, estab1ishing bases of operation in major cities.
As with most ninja clans, the “Foot” is a very secretive society and not much is known about their initiation rites or organizational structure. They are ruled by a Council of Eight headed by “The Faceless One.” The “Foot” is unlike the traditional ninja clan in that it has thoroughly adapted itself to 20th century civilization. Its members are not adverse to using modern, high-tech weaponry and surveillance devices, in addition to their time-honored techniques
of ninjitsu.
It is said that the “Foot” gained its clan name from the style of fighting they preferred, one which used extensive kicks and other leg and foot strikes.
Roughly 10,000 Ninja are members of the “Foot”. The New York membership runs to about 600. The “Foot” also uses street gangs like the Purple Dragons as pawns and informants in their network of crime.
BAXTER STOCKMAN AND HIS MOUSERS
Personal Profile: Baxter Stockman has several degrees in advanced electronic engineering and computer science from top universities. He has worked extensively in the field of high-tech microelectronics and robotics, though he never achieved the kind of success he craved.
Baxter’s frustration led him to devise the “Mousers,” small ambulatory robot rat-catchers. He was able to trick the New York City government into funding research and development of the Mousers. The mousers did catch a lot of rats, but their primary purpose was known only to their creator. Baxter secretly programmed new instructions into the mousers’ “mother” computer and used them to tunnel into bank vaults and snatch money and valuables.
Using the stolen money, he constructed an underground mouser manufacturing plant and control center. When it was finished, he had hundreds of mousers which he used to dig strategically placed tunnels under the foundations of certain, large and Important buildings. He then proceeded to ask the city for ransom for the buildings he was holding hostage. If they refused. Baxter’s mousers would complete their tunneling and the buildings would collapse.
How successful this endeavor would have been is unknown, for Baxter’s plot was uncovered in time. He was stopped by his assistant April and her new-found friends, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Other than his considerable intelligence and engineering skills, Baxter Stockman possesses no special abilities. He is not a very effective hand to hand fighter. He has an unstable personality, prone to delusions of grandeur and persecution complexes. This combination can lead him to commit cruel acts, such as sending mousers to kill April. Baxter is currently undergoing psychiatric observation to determine his competency to stand tria1.
T.C.R.I. ALIENS
(Note: T.C.R.I. stands for Techno-Cosmic Research Institute. )
The aliens who run the mysterious facility known as T.C.R.I. (“Techno-Cosmic Research Institute”) are short, rather strange creatures whose natural means of mobility is by stubby cilia on their undersides. Here on earth, they use humanoid robot bodies to get around with more ease and with which to interact with the human population. The aliens fit into the abdominal cavities of these robots and control them from there.
The aliens have been stranded on earth for thirty years and only in the last two decades has human science and technology progressed to the point where it Is advanced enough for the aliens to utilize in making the transmat device which they hope will return them to their
home planet. It was one of their canisters of waste material (being shipped by truck to a disposal site) that accidentally started the turtles’ mutation. The glowing ooze that the baby turtles crawled around in was actually a mutagenic microbial agent, a by-product of one of the aliens’ experiments at producing organic circuitry.
The aliens are not hostile, but are so close to reaching their goal of returning home (the tansmat device is almost complete) that they respond with undue alarm when the turtles invade their facility in T.M.N.T. #4.
TRICERATON
Bipedal aliens. Average height 7′. Average weight: 300 lbs.
The Triceratons are the masters of the Triceraton Republic, a large interstellar domain. They are saurian creatures, possibly descended from the same genetic stock of the Earth species of dinosaur, the Triceratops… but this is just speculation. They are tough and aggressive, though almost entirely herbivorous.
The Triceraton Republic is now engaged in an ongoing conflict with the Human Federation, as both empires’ borders come into contact. Full-scale war is not happening yet, but each side is jockeying for position, hoping to gain some advantage which will lead them to a devastating strike against the other.
We also sent a 10 page story showing the “ethical alignment of TMNT’s” (from role-playing game #2) – included here as a gallery. Man this stuff is OLD!
