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Millennium Universe Overview


DShomshak

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Since other people's campaign setting notes have been well received, I thought I'd post a few from my own new setting, the Millennium Universe -- so called because I decided that superbeings first appeared openly in 2000.

 

For a start, here's the timeline in its current state. I fill in as needed, which is why there's very little once the Avant Guard team of PCs began play.

 

DOSSIER: Millennium Universe Timeline

 

* Events within a year are in alphabetical, not chronological, order.

 

2000

* Doctor Thane builds the first suit of powered armor.

* Intruder loots museums and Officer Pax pursues him from Zetria: First contact with aliens.

* Ravager invents the plasma blaster.

* The Teke Twins, Mover and Shaker, commit robberies in NYC: First mutant villains.

* The Warlock terrorizes Buenos Aires: First sorcerer villain.

 

2001

* CROWN founded as international criminal/subversive/terrorist organization.

* Extraterrestrial Legal Status Act passed in USA, acknowledging that the Intruder, Officer Pax and any other sapient aliens that might visit are legally people.

* Cyberman comes from a Utopian future, which no longer exists after he shares his cybernetic technology, so he can never go home.

* ‘Neural Pacemaker’ empowers Seizure: First psychotronic villain.

 

2002

* The Capella Project: EU gathers dozens of brilliant scientists to study one of the Intruder’s wrecked shuttles, then irritates them with bureaucracy. Gerd Lassen wins the race to see who goes supervillain first by becoming Waffenmeister, the world’s second powered armor villain.

* Doctor Thane upgrades to Mark Two armor (a month after Waffenmeister).

* Helix begins as a minor bio-power villain.

* Liberty Legion founded as patriotic champions of American capitalism.

* Rajendra Bharavi becomes Professor Proton, tries to conquer India by personal power.

* The Warlock opens a Hellgate on the plain of Megiddo; demon invasion turned back.

* A Zetrian task force comes looking for Officer Pax; the Intruder briefly escapes custody but is recaptured. He and Officer Pax return to Zetria.

 

2003

* Contessa begins mind-control crimes in Milan.

* Euroforce chartered as EU hero team.

* Hero team HyperStrike! begins as a reality TV show.

* Monad attacks China; People’s Victory team formed to fight it.

* Professor Proton develops his technology and criminal organization.

* Tiamat and Ninurta appear and do battle in Iraq: First divine villain and hero. Tiamat recruits Cerastes as her first Dragon Warrior.

 

2004

* Baron Frost begins his ecoterror campaign as a minor gadget villain.

* Contessa tries conquering Milan and finds the military and political limits of mind control.

* Doctor Synapse (another Capella Project alumnus) develops psychotronic implants, begins villainous career.

* Doctor Thane’s interest in geology results in several volcanic eruptions, but the Liberty Legion stops him from setting off the Yellowstone caldera.

* Helix becomes more powerful, starts making monsters.

* Professor Proton tries conquering East Asia from Proton Peak.

* Ultra Force Nippon chartered as Japan’s state super-soldier team.

 

2005

* Alsafian alien battle fleet tries to conquer Earth but must be rescued from Doctor Thane.

* Doctor Thane introduces Mark Three armor and is not impressed by Alsafian technology.

* Five separate villains attempt extortion by claiming they controlled Hurrican Katrina.

* ‘Generation of Vipers’: Tiamat curses the congregation of an Evangelical megachurch, turning them into weresnakes. Ninurta lifts the curse on all that he can find. Pastor Hiss origin.

* Hyperion quits Liberty Legion, alleging the team is a fraud.

* Monad Prime II steals nuclear fuel in Russia, captures ships in Caribbean; defeated by Liberty Legion but escapes.

* UN passes its own version of the Extraterrestrial Legal Status Act.

 

2006

* Intruder escapes back to Earth; Officer Pax follows again.

* Monad attacks USA by turning government leaders into hubots; Monad Prime II destroyed.

* Professor Proton invades Pakistan, tries destroying the country with its own nukes.

* Red Giant invents the Dynatron, the world’s only reliable “origin machine.”

* Tiamat attacks Moscow: Russian military lures her away and nukes her. Tiamat survives.

* Waffenmeister threatens Central Europe with a big plasma cannon. He is suspected of acting as a proxy for someone else with a strong interest in dominating former Soviet satellites.

* The Warlock killed for the first time in his attempt to re-open the Megiddo Hellgate.

 

2007

* Doctor Thane tests whether you really can destroy the world with Gray Goo nanobots; HyperStrike! and Doctor Future stop him minutes before he releases them.

* Dominion and his Golden Templars try to conquer the US by nuclear blackmail. The aftermath exposes secrets of (and secret connections between) CROWN and the Liberty Legion.

* Helix sends his first kaiju against Tokyo (it’s traditional). Ultra Force Nippon kills the beast.

* Huán Process developed in China and North Korea, with Fire-Eye its first success.

* Monad Prime III hijacks CROWN’s Orbital Mind Control Laser, nearly conquers China.

* ‘Parasite’ sect of Hyadans tries to enslave humanity through a phony offer of aid. When Euroforce exposes the scam, the Hyadans suggest humans would still gain economically from their enslavement. They leave convinced that humans are crazy.

* Storm Raider begins his career as a low-key robber.

 

2008

* Chibanosuke Industrial Research builds a prototype Tesla ionosphere tap. Lawsuits over the resulting weather disruptions nearly ruin the company.

* Contessa obtains a power-up from Red Giant; she guts Lehman Brothers investment bank.

* CROWN successfully extorts $1 billion with a threat to release smallpox; payers not known.

* Doctor Thane spends the year exploring the Galaxy and assimilating alien technology.

* Helix extorts $1 billion from CROWN with a threat to release multiple engineered plagues and exterminate humanity. He says, “Stop working my side of the street.”

* Intruder exposed as the Superforger who makes undetectable copies of anything from rare baseball cards to Cremona violins. (How? A super-advanced Zetrian 3-D scanner/printer.)

* Liberty Legion destroyed by scandal and Baron Frost.

* Sky-Q begins circulating as an illicit ‘smart drug.’

* Tiamat kills all but one member of Ultra Force Nippon, but retreats from her attempt to transform Japan back to Medieval conditions and rule as its Dragon Empress.

* The Warlock rises again as a lich; assaults Manaos with Burning Men.

 

2009

* CIR owner and CEO Chibanosuke Raiden turns to the Yakuza to save his company and builds a powerful battlesuit to become the supervillain Negaton. He steals $3 billion in gold from Japan’s national gold depository.

* Contessa catastrophically fails to control everyone in Rome, but briefly rules North Korea.

* Doctor Synapse starts selling psychotronic empowerment; Commander of the Faithful origin.

* Doctor Thane returns with Mark IV armor, Dark Energy weapons and singularity power. His experiment at changing the gravitational constant nearly crashes the Moon into the Earth.

* Euroforce collapses in an EU funding and administration dispute. Heldenbund, Special Bureau and other national hero teams chartered as replacements.

* Helix uses cloned mutants in his attempt to conquer Belgium (he likes the chocolate).

* Mahdi appears and nearly conquers North Africa; start of Sword of Islam.

* Professor Proton reoccupies Proton Peak, holds the Indian monsoon hostage using adapted ionosphere tap technology.

* Storm Raider changes his name to Storm Dragon and declares his allegiance to Tiamat.

 

2010

* Apostle buys psionic powers from Doctor Synapse. His scheme to subvert the US Congress nearly succeeds before Baltimore-based hero Nevermore exposes it.

* Asian Tigers super-soldier team chartered; starts by rolling up a Triad that had acquired Chinese military tech.

* Contessa briefly rules Myanmar, ending in the Battle of Yangon.

* Doctor Thane invents the Hylotron and plays with it in Melbourne. HyperStrike! takes it from him before he destroys much of the city.

* Huán Process revealed when the South Korean hero Hwarang captures Fire-Eye.

* Popular new smartphone brainjacks its users; Doctor Future reveals it’s a Monad plot and develops a counter-program.

* Southern Sentries founded in Atlanta, GA.

* Professor Proton uses sonic mind control in an attempt to subvert India’s government.

* Sword of Islam attempts conquest of Egypt; driven back by freelance heroes and villains.

* Waffenmeister starts selling battlesuits.

* The Warlock destroyed again after his Las Vegas Hellgate goes awry.

 

2011

* Baron Frost traps the Davos economic conference in an ice dome and holds it hostage. CROWN’s Imperial Squadron shows up with suspicious speed to drive him off.

* Contessa briefly rules Belarus. Also steals Iran’s Peacock Throne but loses it to other villains.

* Doctor Synapse dies trying to conquer France using all the villains he empowered.

* Doctor Thane introduces Mark Five armor. He also teleports the Earth out to the Oort Cloud, but is persuaded to teleport it back into its proper orbit.

* Heldenbund discovers Helix’ Hot Zone; only two members survive.

* Negatron blockades the Strait of Hormuz with a laser-armed submarine, demands fees to let oil tankers pass. Driven off by American super-soldiers, he extorts fees for ships to use the Straits of Malacca. An offended Professor Proton destroys the submarine. Negatron is presumed dead for a time.

* Officer Pax and HyperStrike! visit Zetria, expose subversion by a really weird alien.

* Professor Proton threatens the world with a giant laser on the Moon.

* Sutekh, self-proclaimed ‘Dark God of Evil,’ loots and terrorizes Cardiff in his first outing. Anubis joins the fight against him: He insists Sutekh is not a god and not even really Egyptian.

* Tiamat makes Storm Dragon a Dragon Warrior and her consort.

 

2012

* Apostle tries capturing Washington, D.C. Southern Sentries member Psalm switches sides, kills teammate Swamp Fox, and escapes to become a founding member of Crusade.

* Contessa briefly rules Swaziland.

* Doctor Thane transposes the Dallas-Fort Worth area with its Cretaceous counterpart to show Evangelicals that geological history is real. Doctor Future puts the cities back, but several dinosaurs escape into Texas. Sport hunters rejoice.

* Monad Prime IV obtains the Hylotron, tries zerging the Earth with duplicates. Doctor Future and Nomad stop the plan: Start of Avant Guard hero team.

* Negatron holds Japanese finance hostage with an EMP device.

* Professor Proton lures several Indian heroes into a trap and kills them.

* Psi-Gems, a.k.a. Cosmic Crystals, fall to Earth and grant psionic powers to owners.

* The Warlock rises again when his staff possesses a person who touches it. He tries to make the 2012 doomsday ‘prophecy’ come true.

 

2013

* Asian Tigers kill Intruder during the villain’s attempt to conquer Laos.

* Contessa briefly rules Turkmenistan before super-mercenaries expel her.

* Doctor Future creates Avant Guard by pulling doomed heroes from doomed futures:

* — Recruits Csongor to stop Professor Proton’s battle station Jagganoor.

* — Recruits Thing Fantastic to stop Helix from conquering the Persian Gulf states.

* — Recruits Anunit to stop Tiamat from launching a nuclear attack on Terra Mythica.

* — Avant Guard stops Helix’s plan to threaten the USA with another giant monster.

* — Avant Guard prevents Negatron from building another superweapon, and incidentally visits the French Revolution.

* Helix performs a social experiment in Waxahatchie, Texas, turning the high school football stars into wimps and turning geeks and nerds into gorgeous athletes. Results mixed.

* Sky-Q recognized as involved in the origins of several gadget-based villains.

* Sutekh and his ‘Overlords’ villain team conquer Ecuador, are driven out by US Special Forces and super-soldiers; Sutekh killed.

 

2014

* Avant Guard’s adventures continue:

* — They stop Professor Proton from threatening the world with a comet and kill him.

* — They fight a mixed-up Monad creature in Eritrea and confront Monad Prime.

* — They stop Lei Tzu’s plot to terrify American Chinese into going back to China. They incidentally meet New York City’s resident mystic, the Bird Lady of Central Park.

* — They stop Baron Frost from building cold-generators meant to inflict a new Ice Age.

* — They save Cuba from a Monad swarm assault but enable Doctor Thane to hack the Monad collective’s core programming, turning it into a labor force for his next project.

* — End of Time Affair: They stop Doctor Thane from destroying the Universe through his experiment testing ‘decay of the false vacuum’ theories. Night Train joins team, but Dr. Future apparently destroyed along with Dr. Thane.

* Crusade tries and fails to kill Tiamat.

 

2015

* Avant Guard’s adventures continue:

* — They capture Pygmalion, a deranged and deformed villain who abducts artwork and beautiful women he believes are unappreciated.

* — When Helix breaks Pygmalion from prison, Avant Guard must capture the other villains he releases to cover his escape.

* — The Sword of Islam tries to kill Csongor and stop research on a bit of alien tech. The fight is a draw: The alien tech is destroyed but Csongor survives.

* — Stop Vesper, a deluded villain bioengineered by Helix, from terrorizing Pittsburgh with giant bats and testing mutation serums on captured college students.

* — Attacked by hired villains; they trace the attack to a sea base where Professor Proton’s lieutenants are rebuilding Jagganoor.

* Crusade attacks the Hajj, is repelled by ad-hoc alliance of Muslim heroes and villains; two members killed.

 

2016

* Avant Guard’s adventures continue:

* — Nomad retires. His place is taken by Huntsman, a demon-powered warrior who was part of Avant Guard from a previous timeline, when the Warlock’s minions restore his memory by attacking him. The team stops a scheme to vastly augment Hellhound, the Warlock’s most loyal lieutenant and another survivor of multiple timelines.

* — Crusade breaks Red Giant from jail and forces him to empower new members. Avant Guard puts a stop to it.

 

 

 

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Avant Guard's particular mission is to oppose the world's most dangerous villains -- the megavillains who can really truly conquer or destroy the world. Each PC comes from an alternate future in which a particular villain did just that. They have enjoyed some success. Here, then, are their greatest adversaries.

 

I'll add more later, if people like.

 

The World’s Most Dangerous Villains

 

Supervillains vary widely in power, but several stand out as significantly more powerful and dangerous than anyone else. Each of them can fight entire hero teams, and each has killed at least 10,000 people. Professor Proton is the most bloodthirsty individual, having destroyed three small cities to demonstrate superweapons. The Contessa, on the other hand, racked up most of her body count by accident when she tried controlling the minds of everyone in a city and didn’t do a very good job of it.

 

BARON FROST: Former German industrialist and scientist Helmut Brandheim became obsessed with environmentalism. His own board of directors arranged a hostile takeover that ousted him from control of his company. Embittered, Brandheim built gadgets based on a “cold ray” he had just discovered and became an ecoterrorist supervillain. He rapidly expanded and strengthened his arsenal, incorporating technology traded from other supervillains. Baron Frost now wears a battlesuit armed with cold-ray weapons potent enough to destroy armies.

 

Brandheim wants to annihilate industrial civilization and reduce the human population to “sustainable” numbers. To this end, Baron Frost periodically devises a superweapon to destroy civilization at a stroke. His last two were to flood the world’s coastal cities by dislodging the Antarctic ice cap with a giant laser, and a genetically engineered bacterium that catalyzes the rusting of iron. Still, he’s considered one of the less powerful megavillains; and at least his goals make an evil kind of sense, which is more than can be said for some of his megavillain rivals.

 

CONTESSA: Marietta Secchi is beyond doubt the world’s most powerful mutant and the world’s most powerful telepath, though she attained both conditions only by using a high-tech device to supercharge her powers. At first this scion of impoverished Italian aristocracy used her telepathic powers to maintain a high-society lifestyle through crime. Early defeats drove her obsession with ever-greater power. Secchi also developed a “mutant supremacy” ideology, but finds few adherents even among other mutants.

 

While the Contessa has affected the minds of everyone in a city, and instantly dominated other heroes and villains into becoming her slaves, so far she cannot enslave large numbers of people for long periods. She has conquered more countries than any other villain but has never held them longer than a month.

 

DOCTOR THANE: The world’s first master villain is even smarter than Doctor Future. No one knows what turned Silas Thane from a brilliant, somewhat obnoxious physicist into a psychopathic super-genius, but over the years he personally invented or refined much of the world’s super-technology. He built the world’s first battlesuit. His current battlesuit exists virtually, manifesting as needed to attack or defend. His “dark energy” projectors are the world’s most powerful personal weapon; his “cosmological field” enables him to warp space and time, teleport, change his size or instantly teleport enemies to miles away. Plus, he always has several other bizarre and deadly gadgets, and usually some robots.

 

Doctor Thane used to steal stuff to pay for his research. He now apparently can build just about anything he wants all by himself. Thane has no political goals, merely an obsession with scientific research without regard for any bystanders that his experiments might harm — such as all of humanity. He once tried to destroy the world with self-replicating nanobots just to see if such a “gray goo” disaster was possible. Another time, he would have crashed the Moon into the Earth as a side-effect of his experiment in changing the Gravitational Constant.

 

There is no future in which Doctor Thane conquers the world and dooms humanity to eventual extinction. The threat of extinction always comes right away.

 

ADDENDUM: In 2015, Doctor Thane escalated from endangering the world to endangering the entire universe. He tried to test a theory about “decay of the false vacuum” that would have unraveled space and time. Avant Guard barely stopped him, apparently at cost of Doctor Future’s life. At any rate, Doctor Thane and Doctor Future both vanished in a dimensional implosion that might have created a new universe.

 

HELIX: Over the years, the world’s most powerful and evil biologist has changed his goals and methods. Sometimes he (or she; it changes) sought wealth and power through robbery, conquest or blackmail. Other times, Helix conducted grotesque experiments on unsuspecting populations, or set giant monsters rampaging just for the fun of it. He’s also spoken of designing a perfect super-race to replace humanity. His pre-villain identity remains unknown.

 

When the world first learned of Helix, the mad biologist possessed limited shapeshifting powers and an arsenal of toxins and other bioweapons. Then he figured out how to mutate his own brain for super-intelligence and quickly ascended to megavillain power. Helix is now super-strong, can change size and shape freely, and creates bioweapons from his own body. What’s worse, Helix possesses a psychokinetic power to transform the flesh of other creatures at will, to the extent of creating his own super-powered minions. He usually has various bioengineered monsters backing him up.

 

Lately, he’s been horribly whimsical. He tried to conquer Belgium with an army of clones of super-powered mutants apparently just because he likes their chocolate the best.

 

MONAD PRIME: The robot from outer space that calls itself Monad Prime has few rivals in sheer destructive power or the resilience of its metallic form. Monad Prime also can control any machines around it. Worst of all, the destructive humanoid robot is only the most powerful unit and spokes-entity for a hive-mind of robots and hidden automated factories. Each time superheroes destroy Monad Prime, the collective intelligence rebuilds it, more powerful than before. Other robots in the Monad hive-mind range from tool-equipped construction drones to automated artillery and Terminator-style infiltration robots, to humans enslaved and computer-controlled into working its will.

 

Monad Prime doesn’t quite want to replace or destroy humanity. Its stated goal is to turn all humans into cyborgs, merging brains with computers in a greater hive-mind. This is generous of the robot, since it claims machine intelligence is far superior to “meat” intelligence.

 

ADDENDUM: The Monad hive is apparently destroyed. Doctor Thane finally managed to hack the entire hive-mind’s core programming (with unwitting help from an Avant Guard member). He used the Monad as his labor force in building the False Vacuum test apparatus; the collective apparently died with him.

 

PROFESSOR PROTON: Doctor Rajendra Bharavi was India’s most brilliant physicist, a Nobel prize winner, and one of the top nuclear engineers in the world. The explosion of his experimental “proton reactor” (an attempt to duplicate alien technology) transformed Bharavi into a creature of living nuclear energy. It also hardened his stubborn arrogance into megalomania. As Professor Proton, he tries to conquer the world and impose a neo-Hindu caste system with Brahmin scientists restricting everyone else’s access to knowledge.

 

In addition to nuclear energy blasts that can destroy tanks or kill a city block through radiation poisoning, Professor Proton is a super-genius who can invent both nuclear-powered superweapons and a wide range of personal gadgets. He also leads a small private army, including elite Nuclear Kshatriyas in low-power battlesuits.

 

ADDENDUM: In early 2014, Professor Proton used a Gravitron to change the course of Comet ISON so it would slam into the Earth; he said he would deflect it again only if the world submitted to his rule. Avant Guard stopped his plan, killed him, and put the comet back on course.

 

TIAMAT: This villainess, who takes the form of either a woman or a dragon, claims she is the primal goddess of salt water and Chaos from Mesopotamian myth. The myths say the gods killed Tiamat. She says that for the sake of revenge she broke the bonds of Time and Death. Tiamat wants to destroy the gods, return the world to Primal Chaos and start over.

 

In her dragon form, Tiamat can destroy an entire naval carrier unit through raw strength alone (she’s done it). She can also dissolve local areas back into Chaos and reshape them into whatever form she wants, following whatever rules she wants. However, she performs her mightiest feats of magic in human form by scribing a cuneiform Tablet of Destiny. She manifests a Mantle of Radiance that stuns all but the most strong-willed people with awe. Thousands of people worship her as goddess, queen and the most beautiful woman in the world. On top of this, Tiamat creates monsters and demons — some of them her own children. Her most powerful minions, the Dragon Warriors, are people she transformed into god-monster supervillains as the start of a new pantheon.

 

THE WARLOCK began his career in South America. He also styles himself El Brujo Rey, the Witch-King.

 

The world thought it had seen the last of this evil arch-wizard when other villains killed him in 2006. He would not plunge all of humanity into the pit of Hell or feed the world to a nameless horror from outside known reality. Then he came back as a lich, more powerful than ever. Heroes destroyed the Warlock again in 2010… and he came back again by possessing someone who picked up his staff of power. The Warlock is still at large and nobody can say what it takes to end his threat forever.

 

Earth’s mightiest and most evil sorcerer can do nearly anything, from opening gates to Hell to turning everyone in a city into rabbits. One of his first great acts of magic was to erase all memory or records of his former identity, so nobody knows his real name or background. Fortunately, the Warlock’s greatest feats of magic take a long time to prepare. Unfortunately, even his quick-and-dirty magic enables him to battle whole teams of superheroes, and his magic bypasses the defenses of most heroes.

 

Dean Shomshak

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Avant Guard's particular mission is to oppose the world's most dangerous villains -- the megavillains who can really truly conquer or destroy the world. Each PC comes from an alternate future in which a particular villain did just that. They have enjoyed some success. Here, then, are their greatest adversaries.

 

I'll add more later, if people like.

 

The World’s Most Dangerous Villains

 

Supervillains vary widely in power, but several stand out as significantly more powerful and dangerous than anyone else. Each of them can fight entire hero teams, and each has killed at least 10,000 people. Professor Proton is the most bloodthirsty individual, having destroyed three small cities to demonstrate superweapons. The Contessa, on the other hand, racked up most of her body count by accident when she tried controlling the minds of everyone in a city and didn’t do a very good job of it.

 

BARON FROST: Former German industrialist and scientist Helmut Brandheim became obsessed with environmentalism. His own board of directors arranged a hostile takeover that ousted him from control of his company. Embittered, Brandheim built gadgets based on a “cold ray” he had just discovered and became an ecoterrorist supervillain. He rapidly expanded and strengthened his arsenal, incorporating technology traded from other supervillains. Baron Frost now wears a battlesuit armed with cold-ray weapons potent enough to destroy armies.

 

Brandheim wants to annihilate industrial civilization and reduce the human population to “sustainable” numbers. To this end, Baron Frost periodically devises a superweapon to destroy civilization at a stroke. His last two were to flood the world’s coastal cities by dislodging the Antarctic ice cap with a giant laser, and a genetically engineered bacterium that catalyzes the rusting of iron. Still, he’s considered one of the less powerful megavillains; and at least his goals make an evil kind of sense, which is more than can be said for some of his megavillain rivals.

 

CONTESSA: Marietta Secchi is beyond doubt the world’s most powerful mutant and the world’s most powerful telepath, though she attained both conditions only by using a high-tech device to supercharge her powers. At first this scion of impoverished Italian aristocracy used her telepathic powers to maintain a high-society lifestyle through crime. Early defeats drove her obsession with ever-greater power. Secchi also developed a “mutant supremacy” ideology, but finds few adherents even among other mutants.

 

While the Contessa has affected the minds of everyone in a city, and instantly dominated other heroes and villains into becoming her slaves, so far she cannot enslave large numbers of people for long periods. She has conquered more countries than any other villain but has never held them longer than a month.

 

DOCTOR THANE: The world’s first master villain is even smarter than Doctor Future. No one knows what turned Silas Thane from a brilliant, somewhat obnoxious physicist into a psychopathic super-genius, but over the years he personally invented or refined much of the world’s super-technology. He built the world’s first battlesuit. His current battlesuit exists virtually, manifesting as needed to attack or defend. His “dark energy” projectors are the world’s most powerful personal weapon; his “cosmological field” enables him to warp space and time, teleport, change his size or instantly teleport enemies to miles away. Plus, he always has several other bizarre and deadly gadgets, and usually some robots.

 

Doctor Thane used to steal stuff to pay for his research. He now apparently can build just about anything he wants all by himself. Thane has no political goals, merely an obsession with scientific research without regard for any bystanders that his experiments might harm — such as all of humanity. He once tried to destroy the world with self-replicating nanobots just to see if such a “gray goo” disaster was possible. Another time, he would have crashed the Moon into the Earth as a side-effect of his experiment in changing the Gravitational Constant.

 

There is no future in which Doctor Thane conquers the world and dooms humanity to eventual extinction. The threat of extinction always comes right away.

 

ADDENDUM: In 2015, Doctor Thane escalated from endangering the world to endangering the entire universe. He tried to test a theory about “decay of the false vacuum” that would have unraveled space and time. Avant Guard barely stopped him, apparently at cost of Doctor Future’s life. At any rate, Doctor Thane and Doctor Future both vanished in a dimensional implosion that might have created a new universe.

 

HELIX: Over the years, the world’s most powerful and evil biologist has changed his goals and methods. Sometimes he (or she; it changes) sought wealth and power through robbery, conquest or blackmail. Other times, Helix conducted grotesque experiments on unsuspecting populations, or set giant monsters rampaging just for the fun of it. He’s also spoken of designing a perfect super-race to replace humanity. His pre-villain identity remains unknown.

 

When the world first learned of Helix, the mad biologist possessed limited shapeshifting powers and an arsenal of toxins and other bioweapons. Then he figured out how to mutate his own brain for super-intelligence and quickly ascended to megavillain power. Helix is now super-strong, can change size and shape freely, and creates bioweapons from his own body. What’s worse, Helix possesses a psychokinetic power to transform the flesh of other creatures at will, to the extent of creating his own super-powered minions. He usually has various bioengineered monsters backing him up.

 

Lately, he’s been horribly whimsical. He tried to conquer Belgium with an army of clones of super-powered mutants apparently just because he likes their chocolate the best.

 

MONAD PRIME: The robot from outer space that calls itself Monad Prime has few rivals in sheer destructive power or the resilience of its metallic form. Monad Prime also can control any machines around it. Worst of all, the destructive humanoid robot is only the most powerful unit and spokes-entity for a hive-mind of robots and hidden automated factories. Each time superheroes destroy Monad Prime, the collective intelligence rebuilds it, more powerful than before. Other robots in the Monad hive-mind range from tool-equipped construction drones to automated artillery and Terminator-style infiltration robots, to humans enslaved and computer-controlled into working its will.

 

Monad Prime doesn’t quite want to replace or destroy humanity. Its stated goal is to turn all humans into cyborgs, merging brains with computers in a greater hive-mind. This is generous of the robot, since it claims machine intelligence is far superior to “meat” intelligence.

 

ADDENDUM: The Monad hive is apparently destroyed. Doctor Thane finally managed to hack the entire hive-mind’s core programming (with unwitting help from an Avant Guard member). He used the Monad as his labor force in building the False Vacuum test apparatus; the collective apparently died with him.

 

PROFESSOR PROTON: Doctor Rajendra Bharavi was India’s most brilliant physicist, a Nobel prize winner, and one of the top nuclear engineers in the world. The explosion of his experimental “proton reactor” (an attempt to duplicate alien technology) transformed Bharavi into a creature of living nuclear energy. It also hardened his stubborn arrogance into megalomania. As Professor Proton, he tries to conquer the world and impose a neo-Hindu caste system with Brahmin scientists restricting everyone else’s access to knowledge.

 

In addition to nuclear energy blasts that can destroy tanks or kill a city block through radiation poisoning, Professor Proton is a super-genius who can invent both nuclear-powered superweapons and a wide range of personal gadgets. He also leads a small private army, including elite Nuclear Kshatriyas in low-power battlesuits.

 

ADDENDUM: In early 2014, Professor Proton used a Gravitron to change the course of Comet ISON so it would slam into the Earth; he said he would deflect it again only if the world submitted to his rule. Avant Guard stopped his plan, killed him, and put the comet back on course.

 

TIAMAT: This villainess, who takes the form of either a woman or a dragon, claims she is the primal goddess of salt water and Chaos from Mesopotamian myth. The myths say the gods killed Tiamat. She says that for the sake of revenge she broke the bonds of Time and Death. Tiamat wants to destroy the gods, return the world to Primal Chaos and start over.

 

In her dragon form, Tiamat can destroy an entire naval carrier unit through raw strength alone (she’s done it). She can also dissolve local areas back into Chaos and reshape them into whatever form she wants, following whatever rules she wants. However, she performs her mightiest feats of magic in human form by scribing a cuneiform Tablet of Destiny. She manifests a Mantle of Radiance that stuns all but the most strong-willed people with awe. Thousands of people worship her as goddess, queen and the most beautiful woman in the world. On top of this, Tiamat creates monsters and demons — some of them her own children. Her most powerful minions, the Dragon Warriors, are people she transformed into god-monster supervillains as the start of a new pantheon.

 

THE WARLOCK began his career in South America. He also styles himself El Brujo Rey, the Witch-King.

 

The world thought it had seen the last of this evil arch-wizard when other villains killed him in 2006. He would not plunge all of humanity into the pit of Hell or feed the world to a nameless horror from outside known reality. Then he came back as a lich, more powerful than ever. Heroes destroyed the Warlock again in 2010… and he came back again by possessing someone who picked up his staff of power. The Warlock is still at large and nobody can say what it takes to end his threat forever.

 

Earth’s mightiest and most evil sorcerer can do nearly anything, from opening gates to Hell to turning everyone in a city into rabbits. One of his first great acts of magic was to erase all memory or records of his former identity, so nobody knows his real name or background. Fortunately, the Warlock’s greatest feats of magic take a long time to prepare. Unfortunately, even his quick-and-dirty magic enables him to battle whole teams of superheroes, and his magic bypasses the defenses of most heroes.

 

Dean Shomshak

please do post more of theese

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As if Sheldon Cooper finally had that Radiation Accident.

More or less the premise, yes. "Power of Doctor Destroyer, personality of Sheldon Cooper" is an adequate description.

 

It isn't just the godlike power that makes Doctor Thane scary even to other megavillains. (Tiamat actually teamed up with Avant Guard to stop him from destroying the Universe. And she wants to destroy humanity and the world as we know it.) It's that he doesn't care. Like Commander Vimes said to a vampire genealogist in one of the Diskworld books, "Give me a reason. Give me something evil and insane that I can understand."

 

Helix has a bit of that, too, but he is more obviously crackers.

 

Dean Shomshak

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Every campaign needs a SPECTRE/HYDRA clone. Mine is CROWN. (Although the name is in all caps, it isn't really an acronym. It's just done that way to look impressive. People try to come up with acronyms for it, though. Proposals from heroes are usually insulting, such as "Completely Ridiculous Organization, Worth Nothing" or "Criminal Regime Of Wannabe Nazis.")

 

DOSSIER: CROWN

 

In addition to the megavillains, one group makes a serious play for global domination. The world-wide crime syndicate called CROWN promises its members, “Every man king by his own hand.” By working their way up the ranks, CROWN members can earn little fiefdoms in lawless parts of the Third World where they can rule and exploit the populace as brutally as they want. CROWN’s activities in the developed world are designed to identify and train the strongest, smartest, most competent and ruthless officers to rip wealth from the rest of humanity and to punish governments for interfering in CROWN’s activities.

\

CROWN soldiers are ranked as Armsmen, Squires and Knights. A Baron leads each CROWN cell. Barons tithe to regional commanders called Counts. The Counts in turn tithe and take orders from Dukes who oversee CROWN activities in large sections of the world. For instance, CROWN divides North America into the duchies of Dixie (the southeastern US), Rust (the northeastern and midwestern US and Canada) and Sierra (all the US and Canada west of the Rockies). Fierce resistance from local gangs keep CROWN out of Mexico thus far.

 

Barons lead their soldiers in criminal ventures ranging from ordinary Mob activities (drugs, protection rackets and the like) to high-profile robbery and terrorism-for-hire. Counts and Dukes sometimes attempt greater prizes, such as holding cities for ransom with superweapons or trying to replace a country’s leaders with CROWN imposters.

 

The Dukes answer to a group called the Secret Sovereigns. In its early years, CROWN spread fables about its creators and overlords, such as that they were aliens (tithing to a galactic syndicate), immortal Atlantean warrior-kings, or the descendants of royal families who sought to regain their old titles. Since one Sovereign broke away in 2007, tried using CROWN assets for his own goals and was captured, it’s now known that the Secret Sovereigns are a cabal of billionaire businessmen and financiers. They already have vast power: They want total power (on the grounds that the rest of humanity owes them for the wealth they create) and are offended that governments dare to interfere with them.

 

Many people offer guesses about who’s on CROWN’s board of directors. Many people also believe that major governments know damn well who the Sovereigns are, but the billionaires have threatened to crash the world economy (again) if anyone moves against them.

 

Most CROWN soldiers use ordinary military weapons such as machine guns and grenade launchers. If a baron expects to face superheroes, though, he might acquire exotic, high-tech weapons such as laser rifles or sonic disorientation guns. CROWN also employs supervillains, both ad-hoc and a standing team called the Imperial Squadron.

 

CROWN is proudly brutal and vicious. Heroes know not to underestimate its power or its willingness to kill innocent bystanders.

 

Doctor Future says that CROWN has no chance of conquering the world. More precisely, CROWN might conquer sections of the developed world — but it will quickly lose them to powerful supervillains. From his point of view, the greatest danger from CROWN is that it could weaken humanity’s defenses against the megavillains.

 

Dean Shomshak

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Doctor Future, as the Timeline says, is the founder of Avant Guard who called the team together. He's the sorld's second-most brilliant gadgeteer, after Doctor Thane; and also the world's most powerful precognitive, able to watch timelines millennia into the future. He's a time traveler. His backstory is obscure because he and other time travelers have changed his history many times. (Notably, his enemies killed his grandparents, parents, and earlier selves in attempts to get rid of him.) He's gone, for now.

 

Dean Shomshak

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The Millennium Universe includes all the classic origin types, but they don't always carry the same "baggage" as in, say, the Marvel or DC Universes. Notably:

 

MUTANTS IN BRIEF

 

Many superbeings are mutants. However, “mutant” often means nothing more than, “You don’t know why you have super-powers.” You didn’t build a battlesuit, you don’t cast spells, you weren’t bitten by a radioactive wombat, and you didn’t undergo experimental medical procedures. So, you must be a mutant!

 

Super-scientists (such as Helix and the renegade geneticist-for-hire Splice) have in fact identified “mutant power genes.” They code for proteins that seem to fold four-dimensionally and stabilize the energy fields involved with superhuman powers. Or something. The mechanics are still obscure. The genes are hidden in sections among the “junk DNA” of chromosomes, until… something… makes them recombine. However, biologists still have very little success at identifying the fragmented power genes of a “latent mutant.” They have no greater success explaining why super-powered mutants started manifesting in 2000 and not before.

Mutant Characters

Mutant characters are common, but “Mutant” is not valid as a Distinctive Feature. Finding whether a character is a mutant involves genetic tests that only a few labs can do. These tests take weeks to process. There are no “mutant detectors” and never will be.

 

“Mutant” is also not valid as a Social Limitation because nobody cares. Why would they? Anyone who wants to scare people with talk of “Homo Superior replacing Homo Sapiens” must compete with more immediate threats such as the Warlock feeding the Earth to the Void, or the Monad turning everyone into robots. It just doesn’t matter.

 

To the extent that anyone thinks of mutants as such, it’s more often with envy — the ultimate in pure dumb luck.

 

Dean Shomshak

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In my previous setting, through a few "Heroes of the City" campaigns, the two Supermage playtest campaigns and a fill-in campaign called UNICoRN (United Nations International Criminology Resource Network; unofficial motto, "The Greatest Heroes We Could Get On Short Notice For No money"), I nearly ignored aliens. Not so with the Millennium Universe. This time, aliens are a fairly important part of the setting.

 

DOSSIER: Aliens

 

Humans have met several extraterrestrial races and civilizations. First contact came in 2000 when the Zetrian robber dubbed the Intruder looted museums around the world and the Zetrian cop Officer Pax came to Earth in pursuit: They were among the first supervillains and superheroes. Since then, other aliens visited Earth and a few heroes and villains went to the stars. Other alien civilizations are known about second-hand.

 

The Corundum Interdict: The Zetrians discovered Earth millennia ago. The Arcturans probably knew about humanity long before that. Nevertheless, no alien spaceship ever landed on Earth before 2000. It’s the law.

 

When a spaceship approaches the planet of a sapient race that has not yet achieved space travel, a six-sided tablet of pure corundum — clear sapphire — is found in orbit nearby. The tablet bears an inscription in the explorers’ language and script telling them not to land or contact the natives in any way. Ships and crews that disobey the Corundum Interdict disappear.

 

Zetrian xenologists watched humanity from orbit for a long time. They knew when humans started shooting rockets into space. Zetrian microprobes watched Neil Armstrong set foot on the Moon. The Interdict tablet vanished. Nevertheless, the traditional force of the Corundum Interdict made the Zetrians hesitate to make contact until humans achieved interstellar travel. Then the Intruder took the initiative, Officer Pax followed, and the Proper Authorities scrambled to catch up with events.

 

Names: Humans often do not use an alien race’s name for itself. Sometimes an alien language is difficult to transcribe, such as the Volantids (whose speech sounds like clarinet music). Some aliens are culturally fragmented and have no common name for themselves or their homeworld, as in the case of the Arans. But sometimes it’s just laziness, because the name for the aliens’ home star (or the constellation it’s in) is already well known.

 

Earth and the Devachan: Despite the Corundum Interdict, humans and aliens first met millennia ago. Mystic masters can use astral projection to visit other worlds: Alien mystics occasionally visit Earth, and human mystics occasionally visit other worlds. A few humans even join the galactic alliance of sorcerers called the Devachan. Why the Corundum Interdict permits this limited, spiritual contact but blocks technological visits is a matter of much conjecture.

 

Globular Clusters and the Core: The Galactics say they don’t go into the Galaxy’s core or the halo of globular clusters. These regions of densely-packed stars are inhabited by stange and powerful entities that are dangerous for lesser beings to encounter. These include the Filigree, vast and complex structures of metallic threads that surround and penetrate jovian worlds; the Opalescent, large crystal spheres that float in the atmospheres of red dwarf stars; the Quadrature, known only from centimeter-high ridges that form rectilinear patterns on the surface of white dwarf stars; psionic Ice Coral that grows on frozen rogue planets; and the Omniac, described below. These entities show no malice to lesser entities… but humans rarely show malice when they step on bugs. Few beings who encounter these entities emerge whole in mind or body.

 

ALSAFIANS: Officer Pax called the Alsafians “the Galaxy’s North Korea.” This race lives in the Sigma Draconis star system, called Alsafi in old Arabic star charts. Humans call these aliens “Alsafians” instead of “Draconians” because the latter name makes people think the aliens should be reptilian, and they aren’t: Alsafians look very human except for their reddish skin, slitted eyes and silver, golden, or copper hair. The race’s own name for its world, in its dominant language, unfortunately duplicates a rude word in English. So, they are Alsafians.

 

A century ago, Alsafi suffered from economic and environmental collapse. The Alsafians had launched space capsules, though, so the Zetrians contacted them and began an aid program. The Alsafians took the technological aid, but their government became even more repressive. Alsafi’s environment is still wrecked, and the society is still poor — but the ruling oligarchy can afford a massive military. Alsafi also has a program to steal advanced technology from other societies: Agents have tried kidnapping human super-scientists. The heroine Cosmonaut is an Alsafian scientist who escaped a purge by re-stealing a stolen Arcturan space-warping device and then seeking asylum on Earth.

 

ARANS: Humanity’s nearest alien neighbors inhabit a world orbiting a red dwarf star 15 light-years away in the constellation Ara. They have no dominant language or government. Using one culture’s name for their world gives offense to other Arans. “Aran” is safely neutral.

 

Arans have jet-black skin; red, black or yellow hair; and vaguely feline features. Their vision extends into the near infrared, but they can’t see blue or violet light.

 

Ara itself has an elliptical orbit. It turns on its axis three times for every two orbits of its sun. This results in very long days with wild temperature swings, massive daily storms and frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. The ecology visibly shifts through the day and night as different species emerge from and return to hibernation — while the small and tattered continents visibly change shape as tides advance and retreat hundreds of miles.

 

Ara’s harsh and chaotic environment prevented the growth of large societies. On the other hand, constant danger and war resulted in Arans developing some of the Galaxy’s most advanced martial arts. Aran technology is Medieval at best, but Aran masters build Qi-powered starships… or karate-chop space itself to open portals to other worlds.

 

Aran sifus now teach some of their mystical martial arts to talented humans. Some Aran training methods have been published on the Internet, resulting in a surge of powerful human martial artists.

 

ARCTURANS: This race doesn’t come from Arcturus, but they use that red giant star as an interstellar depot. (They call themselves “Nivoncoli,” but most humans still call them Arcturans.) When their distant home planet faced destruction tens of millennia ago, the Arcturans moved en masse to space colonies. They eventually became galactic nomads, spurning planets to subsist on comets, asteroids, and star systems that nobody else uses.

 

Arcturans look a bit like humanoid antelopes, complete with short horns. Their technology is incredibly advanced, able to move city-sized — or moon-sized! — space habitats between stars; they use naked singularities for power. An encounter with Doctor Thane scared the crap out of some visiting Arcturans, though, and no Arcturan has visited Earth since then.

 

CIRCINITES: On the far side of Zetrian space, in the direction of the constellation Circinus, lives a race whose every member is psionic. They are also called Orbics. The race inhabits hundreds of worlds.

 

A young Circinite looks like a levitating, soccer ball-sized globe with an eye and a few short tentacles. A growing Circinite divides to become a clump of such balls squished together, with up to 20 eyes; the Orbic’s mental powers proportionally grow in range and power. Circinites further increase their race’s power with a psionic technology, or possibly magic, that the Zetrians don’t understand at all. Since Orbic social interactions are almost entirely telepathic, other races find their motives opaque. HyperStrike! encountered a single rogue Circinite on the team’s visit to Zetria but never understood what it wanted. For what it’s worth, though, the Zetrians are pretty sure their race does not live as mind-controlled puppets of the Circinites.

 

CRYONS: This powerful but distant race lives in extremely cold conditions like those of Pluto. A Cryon resembles a large trilobite made of ice. Cryons possess technology comparable to modern Earth, combined with a religion powerful enough to miraculously reshape their home system into a ringworld… which is also the largest prayer wheel in the universe, surrounding their red dwarf star. Fortunately for everyone else, Cryon ethics are developed as highly as their practical religion: They never use the vast power of their gods to attack anyone else (though they defend themselves very well). The heroine Snowmaiden is a Cryon saint who transubstantiated herself into human form to observe and teach humanity and its gods.

 

HYADANS: This race’s home system currently passes through the Hyades star cluster. Centuries ago, they terraformed and settled dozens of the star cluster’s very young planets.

 

Hyadans resemble man-sized scorpions but have internal skeletons, indigo skin instead of chitin, and a pair of three-fingered hands as well as a pair of pincers. They possess a highly advanced biotechnology, though they must use “hardtech” for starship engines and various other purposes.

 

Hyadans lack emotions: They think purely in terms of risk and gain, like the idealized consumers of classical economics. Their societies — “sects,” for lack of a better translation — are based on different genetic, ecological, and political strategies for optimizing success.

 

The “Parasite” sect tried to subvert humanity in 2007 but backed off when Euroforce exposed its apparently generous offer of aid as a trap. The Hyadan agents then argued that humanity would still derive net benefit from its enslavement and found human anger incomprehensible.

 

OMNIAC SPHERE: Other races aren’t sure whether the Omniac Sphere is a race or a single interstellar hive-mind entity. The Omniac are one of the Galaxy’s most advanced and powerful machine cultures, made of nanotechnology. They, or it, occupy an entire globular cluster that is relatively near Earth and the galactic disk (but still more than 15,000 light-years away). The Omniac built Dyson spheres around all 150,000 stars of their cluster long ago, rendering it invisible from Earth except as an anomalous infrared source. Massive stars were split into red dwarfs so they would last longer; on the other hand, the Omniac occasional crash stars together to create artificial supernovae for extra surges of energy. The Omniac seldom interact with other races because no one else has anything it wants, and no one else presents a threat. Really, no one. Once in a while, though, aliens encounter small Omniac probes engaged in unguessable missions. The Zetrians fear them.

 

PHLEGRANS: This race, sometimes called the Seraphim or Salamanders, inhabits a superheated world with lava oceans and a biochemistry based on silicon and aluminum. A Phlegran resembles a snake with a humanoid torso and arms, and a four-eyed falcon-like head.

 

Instead of technology, Phlegrans developed powerful sorcery. Phlegran magi contribute spells to the galactic Devachan network: For instance, the popular Sigils of Suppression invoke talisman-matrices built on Phlegra. Their government, the Gnostarchy, is led by a parliament of seers who divine the consequences of laws and policies.

 

Phlegrans and humans can never meet physically, but sorcerers can visit each other’s worlds using astral projection. The super-sorcerer hero Dervish, one of humanity’s thaumaturge heroes, has a Phlegran mentor.

 

VOLANTIDS: These aliens inhabit a few dozen star systems in the direction of Volans, thousands of light-years from Earth. Volantids resemble huge jellyfish. They wield sorcery of great power, casting spells through intricate mudras that only creatures with at least 12 arms could perform. Volantid journeyman sorcerers sometimes travel the Galaxy to sell magical services to other races. They participate in the Devachan alliance.

 

The Volantids come from a super-Earth whose atmosphere is so dense that much of the life is aerial. When the Volantids ventured into space, they found no nearby worlds resembling their own. Instead they settled “warm Neptunes” — small jovians orbiting in the Volantid habitable zone — by creating immense bubble-habitats floating deep in the dense jovian atmosphere. Over time, their magi Volantiform the atmosphere through transmutation. In the Volantids’ post-scarcity society, art has become the chief measure of social prestige: Sorcerous leaders of colonial communities compete to establish the dominance of their theories of habitat design.

 

ZETRIANS: The people who originated at the Zeta Trianguli Australis star system look nearly identical to humans, except they have crests of feathers instead of hair and skin in various shades of blue or violet. The dominant Zetrian language includes many click sounds, making it easy for certain Africans to speak and very difficult for any other humans. “Pax” is the closest that English-speakers come to the proper name of the Zetrian cop who pursued the Intruder.

 

Zetrians now inhabit about a dozen other star systems, making them the nearest multi-planet civilization to Earth. Their advanced technology features gravitic devices such as personal flight-bracelets. Since the Zetrians have no poverty, war or other spurs to ambition, their civilization and technology stagnated millennia ago but show no signs of decaying. Zetrian government is efficient and honest enough that their few ambitious criminals must seek opportunity on primitive worlds such as Earth. By the same token, Zetrian lawmen see backward cultures as opportunities to do some real justice instead of writing interplanetary parking tickets.

 

Negotiations continue on establishing formal diplomatic relations between Zetria and Earth. Several countries (including the US) want their own treaties with Zetria, but the Zetrian government regards the United Nations as humanity’s only legitimate representative. So far, one or another member of the Security Council has blocked every attempt to choose an ambassador to Zetria or a location for a Zetrian embassy on Earth.

 

Dean Shomshak

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Circumstances of Earth's first latter-day mythological god hero and villain:

 

DOSSIER: Tiamat Appears

 

In 2003, Tiamat appeared suddenly over the Persian Gulf. She spent several hours flying over southern Iraq, going from ruined city to ruined city. American fighter jets scrambled to intercept the gigantic dragon; Tiamat destroyed them. She also annihilated Coalition ground forces that fired on her. Her survey complete, she flew northwest along the Euphrates River to the ruins of Babylon and then to Baghdad.

 

After destroying some more planes and Coalition artillery, Tiamat landed in front of Saddam’s presidential palace, assumed human form and created a throne of solid diamond. She waited for Coalition soldiers to gather, as well as local Iraqis. When the American commander demanded that she surrender, Tiamat retorted by demanding that everyone fall down and worship her as Goddess and Queen of the World — and activated her Mantle of Radiance. Virtually everyone obeyed.

 

An unknown Iraqi broke the spell by screaming “Allahu Akbar” and firing on Tiamat. She disintegrated him, but a number of Evangelical Christian American soldiers fired on her a second later. Within seconds, battle raged in the heart of Baghdad. Tiamat appeared to flee into the palace, but only to obtain a few undisturbed seconds to resume her dragon form. She burst out of the palace, destroying most of it in the process.

 

Tiamat exhaled waves of Chaos that dissolved the soldiers and onlookers in seconds. Another exhalation created a vortex that dissolved the ruins of the palace; a mighty ziggurat began materializing in its place. Reinforcements arrived as the ziggurat was complete. Although the tank, artillery and missiles did not wound Tiamat, they did seem to batter and annoy her. On the other hand, she demolished weapons nearly as quickly as they arrived. American and Iraqi super-soldiers also joined the fight; Tiamat swatted them almost as easily.

 

Then a chariot of shining clouds with wheels that flashed lightning rose out of the city, driven by a muscular, dark-skinned man who brandished a large mace. Tiamat recognized the newcomer: Ninurta, one of the warrior-gods of Mesopotamian mythology. After Ninurta belted her a few times, Tiamat retreated. Ninurta bashed the ziggurat several times, and it crumbled back into the ruins of the palace.

 

Ninurta explained to Coalition commanders who and what Tiamat was. More than 5,000 years ago, the gods’ warrior-king Enlil had been about to kill her. (Not Marduk, as the Epic of Creation claims. When Marduk’s city of Babylon achieved political dominance in Mesopotamia, Marduk’s priests rewrote the Epic of Creation to make their god the hero.) Now the gods know what happened to Tiamat: She projected herself forward in time. When she reappeared, Ninurta crossed over from Terra Mythica as quickly as he could to fight her. He promised to stay on Earth until Tiamat was defeated once and for all. Ninurta has since become Tiamat’s most persistent foe, and one of the few to survive multiple combats with her.

 

Addendum: The Mighty Ninurta. The Mesopotamian warrior-god has prodigious strength and resilience. He also carries a magical mace that further amplifies the force of his blows, making him one of the world’s hardest hitters. Ninurta can’t fly, but he can summon a magical cloud-chariot to carry him through the sky. He also has some limited powers over earth and vegetation, associated with his mythic roles as Conqueror of the Mountains and inspector-god of fields and irrigation canals. The god had to “compress” his power and merge with a mortal host to live on Earth, but the longer he stays on Earth the more of his full godly might he can manifest.

 

In addition to his solo adventures, Ninurta has spent time with various hero teams such as HyperStrike! When he isn’t heroing, Ninurta assists various NGOs with agricultural development in the Third World, especially irrigation projects. He is deeply unpopular in the Middle East, both for being a pagan god and for mocking the corruption and incompetence of Middle Eastern governments. Back in his day, kings knew how to run a city-state! The Sword of Islam, Commander of the Faithful and other Jihadist supervillains hunt Ninurta as much as Tiamat does; and he hunts them right back.

 

Dean Shomshak

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A little. I may get to it later -- especially related to the Warlock. The Millennium Universe is less magic-intensive than my old campaign setting, though. Been there, done that.

 

One big difference that I can briefly describe: Instead of the Quaternion of dimensions that are now part of the Champs Universe, I gave Earth one all-purpose dimension for all the gods and creatures of legend: Terra Mythica. In the first Avant Guard adventure, Tiamat tried to send nuclear missiles through Gates to attack the strongholds of her arch-enemies, the gods of Mesopotamian mythology and related pantheons. There being some correspondence between Earth and the various pantheon "districts" of Terra Mythica, this would have resulted in a dozen or so nukes going off in the Middle East... including Jerusalem and Mecca, just in case Yahweh is one of her old foes using a new name. (Anyway, the Queen of Chaos doesn't like competition.) Doctor Future saw that this would lead very quickly to humanity's destruction and Tiamat''s victory.

 

Dean Shomshak

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Now a bit about Helix, my crazed super-biologist, and a glimpse of the Millennium Universe's first (so far, only) "hidden land." It may seem small, but... Should I reveal this? Sure, I'm pretty sure my players don't follow the forum very much.

 

There's more to the Hot Zone than what is currently known.

 

A lot more. Helix has been busy. Perhaps the PCs will discover how much.

 

DOSSIER: The Hot Zone

 

In 2011, the German hero team called the Heldenbund tracked Helix to a secret base in Africa. The highest point of the Tibesti Plateau, in the lawless north of Chad, is an extinct shield volcano called Emi Koussi. A bat-infested cave in the crater wall led to a labyrinth dripping with caustic bacterial slime and, finally, a huge cavern that Helix had illuminated and filled with strange plants and animals.

 

By the time the Heldenbund reached this cavern, two heroes were already sick from insect bites they suffered in the bat cave. They quickly found the subterranean jungle was a gigantic biological death-trap of toxic spores, acid-spraying beetles, man-eating plants and fierce predators. They never even reached Helix's apparent "vacation home" in the center of the cave before the super-athlete Hirsch ("Stag") and the sorceress Fernsicht ("Perspective") were dead and the other three retreated. The battlesuit hero Parsifal died in hospital back in Germany, victim of a disease contracted once his armor was breached. The only member of the Heldenbund who emerged unharmed was Platinfrau ("Platinum Woman"), a robot. Volksmann, the "living embodiment of German strength" ("and compassion," he always adds), got very sick but recovered on his own.

 

Based on the survivors' tale, the cavern was dubbed the Hot Zone: both for its tropical climate and as the name for the region of a deadly disease outbreak.

 

In 2012, the People's Republic of China sent a team of government heroes to survey the Hot Zone. Despite their attempt at stealth, Helix caught them. None of them made it out. They are hoped dead.

 

In the YouTube message to the world in which Helix revealed the Chinese expedition, the supervillain said he was very angry about trespassers breaking into his home, and that was why he had just unleashed a flock of rocs on China. He threatened that if it happened again, he would release smallpox, or maybe an exciting new form of the Black Death.

 

Platinfrau and Volksmann want to return to the Hot Zone, but only if they can bring a nuke. No government has yet accepted their offer.

 

Dean Shomshak

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Heh. In my friend's campaign, the Squad, my hero Chrysaor (mentioned in Ultimate Mystic/Mystic World) carries a bit of his home dimension of Olympus with him. It gives him an "Aristotelian Zone" Around him, heavier objects fall faster than light objects. And if you aim a telescope at the sky while he stands nearby, you might catch a glimpse of the crystal spheres that carry the sun, moon and planets around the Earth.

 

It freaked out some aliens we met.

 

Dean Shomshak

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A bit more about Helix, offering a view of the "Wheee!" style of villainy he sometimes adopts.

 

DOSSIER: The Waxahachie Experiment

 

Some of Helix's acts of villainy can only be considered nasty pranks, though he prefers to call them "social experiments." His Waxahachie Experiment is one of the less grotesque examples. On June 1, 2012, Helix announced the experiment in his usual manner, a YouTube video, with the text as follows:

 

"Hello, hominids! Helix here, with another exciting exploration of science and society. This time, take a look at Waxahachie, Texas. This little town was going to host the Superconducting Supercollider, but then the United States Congress pulled the plug. Poor Waxahachie! But I, in my infinite benevolence, offer the great state of Texas another chance at scientific fame.

 

"Do you remember back in high school, how the jocks lorded it over other kids? That they could win at sports, and beat you up, wasn't just dumb luck of genes and upbringing. No, they were better than you because they had discipline and teamwork and good stuff like that. They deserved to get the respect and the girls, an easy ride through college and, if they were good enough, beaucoup bucks in the NFL or whatever.

 

"Oh. Yes, it's possible I have issues.

 

"Even still, let's put this to the test. Last night, I visited all the boys slated to be the first string on next year's varsity and junior varsity football teams at Waxahachie High. They aren't so buff anymore. I also visited an equal number of the school's freaks and geeks, wimps and nerds. And they're looking pretty good this morning!

 

"Please note that I did not tamper with anyone's brains or genes. This is just a body modification. If the jockiness of the jocks is really the result of character and innate superiority, they should have no trouble getting back into shape for the football season next fall. And if the reverence they enjoyed was merely the just reward for their being such wonderful human beings, I'm sure the entire town will support them in their, ah, reconditioning. It won't matter at all that the kids they didn't respect and reward — the fat kids, the scrawny kids, the chess club kids, all that lot — now have builds like Schwarzenegger, without doing a thing to earn it.

 

"So — let's see what happens!"

 

As Helix said, the varsity and JV boys were now either scrawny or flabby. On the other hand, the kids Helix augmented not only gained bodybuilder physiques, he gave them perfect eyesight and male-model good looks.

 

The results of the experiment were mixed.

 

The football coach promptly dumped the former star players and recruited the former nerds, most of whom accepted.

 

Most of the ex-jocks suffered severe bullying from former nerds, the remaining jocks and other kids. Cheerleaders dumped ex-jock boyfriends for buffed ex-nerds. (Two of the ex-jocks kept their girlfriends, but those were not cheerleaders.) Three ex-jocks committed suicide in the next six months. On the other hand, several of them threw themselves into other interests.

 

Despite these impediments, some of the former jocks worked their hearts out over the summer trying to get back into shape and made it back onto the teams as second-stringers.

 

Grades dropped for most of the ex-nerds as sports, girlfriends and drinking took up much of their time. Many of them became enthusiastic bullies, beating up both ex-jocks and the school's remaining nerds, including former friends whom Helix had not enhanced.

 

The Waxahachie football teams did not do well in the Fall 2012 football season. The ex-nerds had muscle, but they lacked practice at using it. Strength and mass matter a lot in football, but the sport does involve skill, too. The result was a team of strong but unskilled ex-nerds, skilled but weak ex-jocks who had stuck with the sport, and former second-string players. By the end of the 2012 season, the unaltered kids made up most of the first string and many of the gorgeous bodybuilders were warming the bench.

 

Notable or exceptional cases include:

 

• Alvin Lubchek, former computer gaming geek, did moderately well as a quarterback. (He had good hand-eye coordination.) Success went to his head. The school and the town cops excused Alvin's drunk-and-disorderlies. When Alvin raped a girl, they tried to cover it up. With world media watching the Waxahachie Experiment, though, they failed. Alvin had just turned 18. Alvin went to prison. He was paroled in 2015 and dropped out of sight.

 

• Ethan Brown, former quarterback and all-around Golden Boy, dieted and worked out to get back in shape, but then he didn't try to rejoin the team. He really wanted to be an actor, and revealed that he had a lot of practice already because he was gay. He now studies Theater Arts at an Austin community college.

 

• Jesse McBride, former defensive lineman turned 98-pound weakling, managed to build himself up to become a second-string JV running back, his lighter build making him better suited for this position. By the end of the season he was back on the field as a first-string player. He did well on the varsity team in 2013, too, and earned a football scholarship to Texas A&M.

 

• Ronnie Moritz -- shy, bookish and a little weird -- surprised people by becoming a decent running back in his senior year. (He already had a lot of practice running because classmates assumed he was gay.) When he came out of his shell, he surprised people even more by showing he was a decent human being, too — one of the few ex-nerds who was nice to the ex-jocks. He didn’t try to continue with football, though. He now attends college as he follows his dream to become an entomologist.

 

• Troy Stross, former halfback, decided that Helix was God's way of showing him the vanity and self-indulgence of his former life. Troy devoted himself to God's work in his local church and is developing a talent for Gospel music.

 

• Wade Parrington, Math Bowl star and science fair contender, refused to take up football despite pressure from the coach, school principal, town mayor and civic leaders. Instead, he began studying martial arts with the goal of becoming a superhero. Mybe someone should look in on him.

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As you may have guessed, the Millennium Universe is not Silver Age. Very bad things happen on a large scale to lots of people. The deeds of heroes and villains have consequences that ripple onward for a long time. One of the biggest examples comes from China, which has probably suffered more from a single megavillain than any other country.

 

DOSSIER: The Coming of the Monad

 

In May 2003, the Monad declared itself by attacking towns in the high mountains of eastern Kansu Province, China. The first robot invaders captured thousands of people and turned them into hubot soldiers before the provincial government even knew there was a problem. By the time the military responded, the provincial capital of Lanchou was besieged. The only message from the robot invaders was this simple catechism:

 

            Humanity is imperfect. The Monad is perfect.

            Individuality is limited. The Monad is unlimited.

            Flesh is mortal. The Monad is immortal.

            The Monad is order. The Monad is unity. The Monad is completion.

            Do not resist. You will understand when you join the Monad.

 

The advance was stopped only through intensive use of cluster bombs and napalm. Then Monad Prime flew into Lanchou with a group of surgeon-bots, captured the military commanders and turned them into more hubots. A quickly-gathered "People's Victory" team of super-soldiers fought Monad Prime, additional hubots and the robots that were streaming in to build a beachhead in the city center. The super-soldiers also had to fight the military's own tanks and artillery, taken over by tiny robots. Monad Prime was damaged and driven off at cost of the lives of two super-soldiers and hundreds of infantry.

 

While the Chinese military and super-soldiers sought the source of the robots, Monad Prime created another hubot army and quickly conquered the town of Longzi. After a month of chasing Monad invaders from town to town, People's Victory found the buried automated factory producing the robots. They damaged the factory enough that it was possible to place a nuke inside it, destroying it completely. They thought Monad Prime was destroyed as well.

 

Two months later, the Monad attacked again in Hunan Province. Again, the Red Army and People's Victory narrowly stopped the Monad before it overran major cities. Before the Hunan campaign ended with the location and destruction of the new autofactory, though, another Monad assault began in Manchuria.

 

China's war against the Monad lasted more than a year. The death toll ran into the hundreds of thousands. Two small cities were nuked outright after the Monad swarmed them. The turning point in the war came when the gadgeteer Compass hacked into the coded radio signals between Monad robots. At last, the Chinese government declared that every Monad robot was destroyed, including Monad Prime.

 

In October 2005, a new Monad Prime struck in Russia, capturing a power plant's worth of nuclear fuel rods. A month later, robot submarines began sinking cruise ships in the Caribbean and capturing their passengers for conversion in an undersea base. Fortunately, the teleporting supervillain from the future called Sidestep was enjoying his ill-gotten gains on the second ship that was taken. Sidestep escaped into the Monad base and contacted the outside world. The Liberty Legion followed his signal, destroyed the base and rescued most of the people. These were the first hubots anyone captured and deprogrammed. The Legion's corporate sponsors also salvaged a great deal of Monad technology from the undersea base.

 

The Monad has struck more than a dozen times since then. China suffered three attacks since the Monad War, more than any other country. Heroes and villains destroyed Monad Prime at least once more, along with five more autofactories. The autofactories became harder to find, though, while Monad Prime learned subtler tactics than the swarming assaults it used in China. But swarm attacks still happen. Heroes and militaries know they must stop a building swarm quickly, by any means necessary. If they cannot, the People's Republic of China promises it will use nukes to do so... anywhere in the world. Monad attacks are one of the few events that can prompt heroes, villains and governments to set aside their differences and fight together.

 

The Cryon heroine Snowmaiden believes the Monad grew from a remnant of the Mechanoid Ultra fleet that attacked her people. This is plausible — Mechanoid Ultra was a cult devoted to robot/cyborg ascension, which attacked the Cryons because that race's theotechnology offended some point of cult dogma — but the connection is not proven.

 

Dean Shomshak

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2010...

* Doctor Thane invents the Hylotron and plays with it in Melbourne. HyperStrike! takes it from him before he destroys much of the city.

...

2012

...

* Monad Prime IV obtains the Hylotron, tries zerging the Earth with duplicates. Doctor Future and Nomad stop the plan: Start of Avant Guard hero team.

 

OK, so what does the Hylotron do?

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OK, so what does the Hylotron do?

I have a dossier on that but haven't got around to posting it.

 

Short answer: The Hylotron is a universal matter/energy creator. Input the plan of whatever you want, and the Hylotron makes it, from a laser beam to a working laser cannon. It works through controlled Hawking radiation from the naked singularity that forms the device's heart. The engineering is a little tricky, getting the singularity to produce coherent structures instead of random particles, but the underlying science is almost trivial.

 

If you're Doctor Thane.

 

Monad Prime used it as a duplicator, inputting the program of its own construction.

 

(The name comes from the Greek word hyle, "stuff," used by some nature philosophers for a hypothetical primordial matter.)

 

Dean Shomshak

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