Millennium Universe Overview

[DShomshak]

 

Mind you, nowadays not many people in this part of the world seem to care. We have numerous movies and television shows with main characters who are demons, angels, even God Himself. Heck, one ongoing series has Lucifer as its protagonist.

I quite enjoy it, too!

 

I think our circles are pretty secular, and as gamers we may be more accustomed than most people to taking any belief and field-stripping it, twisting it about, trying to put the pieces together in new ways, and assessing the resulting story potential. Mainstream comics have been a little more cautious -- though Marvel now has a Muslim hero (and the new Ms. Marvel is adorable). I don't know everyone here, though, so I think it's good manners to give "trigger warnings" to the theologically sensitive. If no one here fits that description, there's no harm done.

 

Dean Shomshak

[DShomshak]

Huh. I thought I'd also posted the dossier on two religiously-motivated villain teams, but it looks like it didn't make it. Maybe I hit the wrong button. I didn't bring that file with me today, either. Okay, later then. For now, here's a look into a segment of the Mystic World for the Millennium Universe. -- DS

 

 

HERMETIC LODGES

 

      Hermetic Theurgists form the largest bloc of magicians in Western culture. Most Hermetics belong to groups called lodges that constantly squabble and compete for members, prestige and potent artifacts and lore. Single lodges have attained primacy at various times, but Hermetics have never formed a disciplined, coherent organization.

      In the Middle Ages, the University of Salamanca hosted a lodge called the Scholomance that dominated Hermetic practice because it taught the largest number of students. As an open secret, the Scholomance was widely condemned as “the Devil’s School.” The Scholomance did teach demon-summoning as part of a curriculum focused on the Key of Solomon and Goetia, but did not teach actual Satanism. The slander arose from people who did not appreciate the distinction, and because a number of genuine Satanic groups coöpted its name.

      The Inquisition suppressed the Scholomance in the 16^th century. The lodge never revived. Nevertheless, groups that favor Solomonic magic are still sometimes called “Scholomance” lodges.

      At the turn of the 17^th century, Hermetics and Kabbalists formed a new lodge under the patronage of Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II. The English magus John Dee was only the most famous lodge member. (Not counting people who kept their occult activities quiet, such as the astronomers — and astrologers — Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler.) The Rudolfine Lodge did much to integrate alchemy and kabbalism with Hermetic practice, though it emphasized astrological magic and planetary spirits over Solomonic demon-summoning. Even after losing its royal patronage, the Rudolfine Lodge dominated Hermetic society and practice for more than a century.

      In the 19^th century, Paris became the center of Hermetic practice through the Lutetian Lodge. Paris had been a center for mundane and occult scholarship for centuries. A new generation of Lutetians such as Stanislas de Guaita, Oswald Wirth and Joséphin Péladan dabbled in art and radical politics as well as magical experimentation, with Eliphas Levi as their popularizer. Lutetian attempts to push magic into the open were sabotaged by their own infighting and opposition from all the other lodges. In time, even the most radical Lutetians were convinced to accept a formal “Code of Tetragrammaton” based on the four Guiding Words of the Magus: To Know, To Will, To Dare, and — especially, now — To Keep Silence.

      The various lodges and offshoots of the Golden Dawn became the public face of ceremonial magic from the end of the 19^th century to the middle of the 20^th. The Golden Dawn, the Argenteum Astrum, the Ordo Templi Orientalis, and all that lot had little real magical knowledge or power, though. S. L. Mathers, Aleister Crowley, A. E. Waite and their crew were not magi — merely a collection of dabblers, dupes, obsessed nerds and con men. Modern Hermetics grant that the Golden Dawn alumni did a good job of selling Hermetic magic, but most of what they published was incomplete or just plain wrong.

      In this period, the real, rising power among Hermetics was the Chrysologos Lodge. Its two areas of expertise were kabbalism and banking — many of the founders were Jewish, and they used magic to amass financial power. Several well-known banks in London, New York and other financial hubs were indeed Chrysologos fronts. The lodge used its vast mundane resources to cover up supernatural events and buy favors from other magicians, making it a power in the Occult World as well. For much of the 20^th century, Chrysologos was clearly the dominant Hermetic lodge.

      Nazi-backed occultists challenged its dominance in World War Two, becoming powerful enough to destroy the Lutetian Lodge and loot Paris of its vast trove of occult manuscripts. The Nazis’ fall, however, was even quicker than their rise. After the war’s end, Chrysologos hunted Nazi occultists without mercy, and received a good deal of help from other lodges and factions in the Occult World.

      In 2007, however, the Chrysologos Lodge battled the Satanic financiers of the Invisible Hand. The battle threw global finances into turmoil, and the Chrysologos Lodge was utterly destroyed. As far as the Occult World knows, the Invisible Hand slew every Chrysologos member who did not surrender and sell their souls.

      Nowadays, the chief Hermetic lodges are as follows:

      The Rudolfine Lodge still exists, with headquarters in Prague. Despite its prestigious past and a large collection of occult texts and artwork, it’s come down in the world. The decades of Communism made it hard to attract top-notch students; the aging current leadership hustles for new members and hopes for some spectacular achievement in scholarship or magic to restore its prestige. The lodge is still a center for kabbalism. It is also one of the few lodges that still teaches true, supernatural alchemy — an art that fell into neglect because it takes so long and costs so much to practice.

      The Hebdomades Lodge in Italy dates back to the Renaissance. (It is actually older than the Rudolfine Lodge.) The lodge included a school called the Paolini Academy (named for one of the lodge’s greatest leaders), located in the hills outside Florence. After the suppression of the Scholomance, the Paolini Academy took its place as teacher of a standardized Hermetic curriculum. Nevertheless, the Hebdomades Lodge never attained primacy; always some other lodge overshadowed it.

      That may change. The destruction of the Chrysologos Lodge left a power vacuum. Moreover, two Academy students became powerful super-mages. The lodge’s leaders are torn between pride in the achievements of the hero Antares and the villain Silver Quick, envy at their power, and irritation at their going public with their magic. (The two were also, um, expelled, which somewhat limits their use as poster children for the Academy.) Hebdomades leaders also do not appreciate having people in the Occult World compare the Paolini Academy to Hogwarts.

      The Lutetian Lodge was restored by a few survivors who escaped the Nazis. It is still a small lodge, though. They search Paris for hidden relics of magic left by past magi. Unfortunately, much of the magic was Satanic — the “Burning Court Affair” in the late 18^th century was only the most notorious episode of French Satanism. The Lutetians destroy Satanic relics when they find them… and race against latter-day Satanists who also seek these artifacts of infernal power.

      The Hermetic Order of the Winged Sun, based in California, is one of the newest lodges. It began in the 1980s with the discovery of an old Scholomance textbook. The amateur scholars who studied the textbook apparently learned enough to find where to learn more. They went public in 1990, though they followed the Code of Tetragrammaton to the extent of eschewing public displays of magic. By 2000, they were poaching members and students from other lodges. The Winged Sun became deeply unpopular with the leaders of the older lodges.

            In public, the Winged Sun pretends to be just another collection of dupes and flim-flam men, promising marvels it can’t deliver. People deep in the Occult World know, however, that the Winged Sun wields real Hermetic magic. It is also one of the larger lodges; some believe it may succeed Chrysologos as the premier Hermetic lodge. The Winged Sun is also the most modern lodge: It is the only lodge with a website, YouTube channel, Facebook page and Twitter feed.

[DShomshak]

Okay, this time I remembered the file. --DS

 

DOSSIER: Unholy Warriors

 

Faith in a transcendent power can impel people to great deeds, but faith can motivate villains well. They feel called to force their doctrine on the rest of the world. Religion thus drives two of the world’s largest and most powerful and enduring supervillain teams. Crusade and the Sword of Islam vow each other’s destruction. In many ways, however, they are much alike.

 

The Sword of Islam began in 2009 with the appearance of the Mahdi. This mysterious figure claims to be the Redeemer foretold in Islam. Like the last notable figure to assume that title — a Mahdi who led a massive uprising against the British in the late 19^th century — the current Mahdi operates out of Sudan. (The Sudanese government officially disavows him but makes no attempt to capture or expel him.)

 

The Mahdi displayed vast powers. While he did not convince large numbers of Muslims of his divine mission, Islamist and Jihadist militias and supervillains quickly pledged their loyalty and launched a campaign to conquer North Africa and the Middle East. Local governments fought back with their conventional armies, super-soldiers and super-mercenaries; then appealed for help to Western governments and China. Foreign intervention turned back the Mahdi’s army and scattered his super-Jihadists, at cost of provoking even more hatred of local and Western governments from the region’s people.

 

Several of the region’s more zealous Sunni superbeings remained loyal to the Mahdi, though, resulting in a permanent supervillain team, the Sword of Islam. Since 2009, the Sword of Islam has launched other bids to conquer countries in the Middle East or to cripple Western countries with massive terrorist attacks. Recently, the team attacked Advanced Research Methodologies, a laboratory outside New York City, in order to destroy a bit of alien technology being studied there. Avant Guard was on hand to fight them, but the Mahdi got his way by threatening to kill large numbers of civilians if the heroes did not surrender the widget.

 

The Mahdi seems able to manipulate time. People who fight him move in slow motion, while he can accelerate his teammates. He has performed feats such as stopping the bullets in a wide area, leaving them hanging in midair before dropping harmlessly to the ground. He also projects waves of space-time displacement that leave people reeling with disorientation. The Mahdi looks like a bald man in white robes, with a gray beard and mustache. He affects a gentle air, acting in sorrowful necessity rather than anger; but he does not hesitate to kill.

 

Crusade began with Axel Poston, a.k.a. the Apostle, a member of the informal group of American Evangelical business tycoons who call themselves “God’s Mafia.” Poston, however, goes far beyond bankrolling political candidates or policy think-tanks. In 2010, he bought psychotronic empowerment from the criminal French neurologist Simeon St.-Cyr, a.k.a. Doctor Synapse. Poston’s telepathic powers particularly focus on manipulating the senses, though he can stun opponents by inducing sensations of overwhelming pain. His hired technicians also developed a psychotronic helmet that magnifies his powers and enables him to brainwash people who have a small psychotronic widget stuck to the back of their necks. The more brainwashed, widget-equipped people Apostle has around him, the greater his mental powers become until they are virtually invincible.

 

Alone in 2010, Apostle tried using his telepathy and illusions to make the U. S. Congress hostile to various secular-society and Muslim groups. The scheme was exposed by the Baltimore mystic Nevermore (who claims he received his “necro-psychic” powers from the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe). Poston avoided jail only by deploying lots of high-priced lawyers and because Doctor Synapse activated the unsuspected slave circuit within Poston’s psychotronic implants, using Apostle as a soldier in his 2011 attempt to conquer France. (Poston’s lawyers argued he might have been under Doctor Synapse’s control all along.)

 

In 2012, however, Apostle used his new psychotronic enhancement technology to brainwash thousands of people in Washington, D.C. and lead them in an assault on the U.S. government. He was assisted by an Evangelical former Green Beret he’d equipped with a battlesuit and thermite weapons as the supervillain Pentecost, as well as several minor super-criminals he’d captured and brainwashed. Apostle was opposed by Federal super-soldiers and the Southern Sentries hero team, including Nevermore. Apostle was defeated, but only at the cost of the lives of three heroes; while the Southern Sentry called Psalm switched sides.

 

Since then, Apostle has recruited other supervillains to his Crusade to impose theocracy on America. Some were already radical zealots; he may have brainwashed others. Just as most Muslims reject the Mahdi and other Jihadists, most American Christians reject Apostle’s “Dominionist” ideology. However, he has enough followers in government and on voter rolls to discourage official action against him. Besides, officials who oppose Crusade tend to die in accidents or be killed by “isolated maniacs.”

 

Crusade and the Sword of Islam have both had members killed over the years. The two teams came to blows in 2015 when Crusade attacked the Hajj. While Apostle enslaved an entire Saudi tank battalion, the Sword of Islam was present along with various other Muslim heroes, villains and super-soldiers, who struck a truce for the occasion. Crusade very nearly provoked the “war of civilizations” sought by Jihadists and some American ultra-conservatives, but its defeat gave cooler heads a chance to prevail.

 

Most recently, Crusade replenished its membership by breaking the criminal Red Giant, inventor of the power-conferring Dynatron, out of jail and brainwashing him into rebuilding his miraculous machine. Avant Guard tracked Crusade to its base, freed Red Giant and captured two members of Crusade, but it is not known how many of Apostle’s followers were given super-powers. Crusade will certainly strike back, as one member of Avant Guard is a self-proclaimed goddess and daughter of Tiamat, while another’s powers appear to be of demonic origin.

[DShomshak]

What do I have handy that I can post? Hm, how about another of the Warlock's minions that he empowered by giving them a copy of the Green Butterfly?  --DS

 

DOSSIER: Shatterman

 

      Name: Lucas Dobson                                Date of Birth: 1978

      Appearance: Interracial (light-skinned black) male, 5’ 8”, moderately athletic build, with brown eyes and loosely curled, short black hair. As Shatterman, Dobson wears shiny, blue-black tights with sky-blue trunks, boots and gloves and blue-black goggles. A yellow and sky-blue “lightning burst” covers much of his torso.

      Occupation: Former retail clerk; now professional criminal and insurgent

      Legal Status: U.S. citizen convicted of murder, attempted murder, armed robbery, aggravated assault, destruction of property and public endangerment; wanted for same and breaking jail. Shatterman has killed hundreds of people, mostly by collapsing buildings they were in.

      Threat Rating: High

      Known Background: Lucas Dobson was known to many self-proclaimed occultists and mystics in the Los Angeles area. He came to the attention of law enforcement in 2007 for persistent attempts to meet the sorcerer superhero Antares, including trespass and creating a false emergency. Dobson’s actions led to fining, brief imprisonment, and a restraining order against him. He then tried to contact the Warlock. It is believed the Warlock prompted Dobson’s theft of an ancient Buddhist reliquary from a Los Angeles museum, and his failed attempt to use it as bait to lure and kill Antares.

      Dobson was released from prison early due to overcrowding. Three months later he murdered his parole officer in an occult ritual, destroying the building he occupied immediately thereafter. Dobson attacked HyperStrike! two days after that, proclaiming himself the Shatterman. He destroyed the team’s base and knocked out Atalanta, the sole hero in residence at that time. Not only did Shatterman kill or injure the first wave of SWAT police to respond, his torturing of Atalanta apparently removed her super-powers. (She later regained her powers with the help of her teammates.) Dobson remained on site just to fight Antares, but the rest of HyperStrike! joined the attack and quickly subdued him.

      Despite warnings from Antares about how to keep Dobson restrained, Shatterman escaped custody a week later. Shatterman then served as one of the Warlock’s “Templars Infernal.” He was severely injured and captured in 2010 during the cataclysmic end of the Warlock’s attempt to re-open his Las Vegas Hellgate. When the Warlock reappeared in 2012, he promptly freed Shatterman from prison. Shatterman has served loyally since then. While heroes have captured Dobson, the Warlock has never left him in custody for more than a month at a time.

      Known Powers: Shatterman evokes blasts and bursts of energy that resembles lightning (and feels like it to people it strikes), though it does not always behave as electricity should. Although Shatterman waves his hands when he evokes his lightning, he does not need to do so.

      This lightning hurls targets back with tremendous force. It also causes a great deal of damage to buildings and other objects; Shatterman can send tendrils of this lightning boring through buildings or other structures until they collapse. Shatterman’s fights against Antares and other alleged sorcerer heroes show that his blasts can apparently disrupt magic. Most dangerous of all, Shatterman can send lightning painfully through an opponent’s body as long as he maintains his grip: Not only does this seem to bypass mundane defenses, if prolonged it can suppress a person’s super-powers indefinitely. (If this happens, consult HyperStrike! on potential methods to restore a person’s super-powers.)

      Dobson possesses few other powers. He seems immune to his own lightning or other electrical discharges. Attacks that should knock him off his feet rarely do so, and he is never pushed as far as an attack’s force would suggest. Dobson also wears a bullet-resistant and insulated costume and goggles that shield his eyes from bright light. Shatterman claims to perform divinatory magic using crystals and Tarot cards, but reliable reports are lacking.

      Most of the time, Shatterman attacks directly. He is willing to cause massive property damage, and indeed he seems to revel in it. Dobson flees from close combat, if he can. (He has no special mobility unless the Warlock gives him a talisman for this). If Shatterman cannot retreat, he threatens to collapse a nearby building on innocent people; and he will try to do so.

      Known Associates: Shatterman usually acts as a member of the Templars Infernal, a cadre of supervillains that serves the Warlock. Like their master, the Templars Infernal claim their powers are magical. Dobson rarely works with any other supervillains, and only on missions to further the Warlock’s plans.

[DShomshak]

For anyone who's following this: What would you like me to post? No guarantee I'll supply anything, but it's possible your request will start me thinking nin a productive new direction.

 

Dean Shomshak