Golden Age Champions pdf released

[assault]

Not bothered by any lack of Australian characters (that would be asking too much) but it got me thinking about what the heck we might have had in comics at the time, and it turns out to be VERY interesting. Basically the Australian comic industry was largely reprints of US and UK ones prior to 1941, but after that point the import art dried up and the local industry took off until about 1959, when import reprints took hold again as the Silver Age took off. (I well remember that my superhero comics as a lad in the 70's were pretty much black and white DC reprints with colour covers. Plus The Phantom, of course). The timing could not be better from a GAC campaign's point of view if you wanted to develop Australian mystery men and bizarre heroes. i.e.:

 

 

(They do tend to be more Atomic Age/Cold War than WW2, though. And that Captain Atom is from 1948, well before the 1965 US one of the same name)

 

Now I've got a new project to source some of these Golden Age Aussie books!

 

There are a bunch of scans online, if that is all you need.

 

Try here.

 

I discussed Australian characters on Darren's "What do you want to see" thread way back when. I suggested that even if there weren't any Australian superheroes, it would be quite reasonable for there to have been high-end commandos and pilots. But then it occurred to me that such characters are pretty generic across nations.

 

So basically, I'd see Aussie characters as mainly amongst the war front types.

 

Did Darren include stats for such characters?

[Nothere]

O.k. That just seems odd to me. Did someone sit there thinking we'll the guy I've designed has huge wings. Think I'll call him Comet something. Or did they goCRimson Comet. Good name now what would visually say comet? I know huge wings.

[Armitage]

Not everyone fighting for the German military was Nazi.  In fact, almost none of them were, the greatest majority were just fighting for their country.

 

 

I remember someone on another forum commenting that it was hard to sympathize with Colonel Klink and Sergeant Shultz on "Hogan's Heroes", since they were Nazis.  It was pointed out that Klink was career military, long before the Nazis came to power, and he had a pretty low opinion of them, as shown by his half-hearted salutes and his obvious disdain for the Gestapo.  Shultz was a retired WW I veteran recalled to active duty, was shown to be disgusted by the Nazis, and was a family man and wealthy industrialist eager to get back to his family and business.

[Lord Liaden]

To be fair, the German WW II supers in GAC were used as much, if not more, for propaganda purposes than for actual fighting, at least before the United States joined in the war effort. IMO that's pretty consistent with Hitler's ongoing PR campaign. Going along with the slogans and rhetoric meant the supers could continue their celebrity lifestyle. Some of them took what the government and their handlers told them at face value, not trying to find out more because they didn't want to know more. Not very noble, but understandably human.

[mrinku]

Also, the Meta-scenario has the worldwide mass arrival of supers as a direct result of the big ritual that the Nazi wizards cast in 1938, and they appear to be on top of any accidental local origins. Most of the German supers are the direct result of the original ritual or Totenkopf's experiments, and even outliers like Rind and Hexe are brought in under his control pretty sharply. Under Darren's scenario all the German supers are under the direct command of Totenkopf, so you can expect he'd spot any noble soldier types and dispose of them if he couldn't corrupt or otherwise control them. I expect some of the "failed" experiments might fall under this category. The other countries - even Japan - don't have the same iron central control of superhuman production, and Japan's own evil experimenter's few "successes" are horrors to be locked away.

 

Having said that, Donner and Der Rind are basically regular guys and not particularly evil. And you certainly don't need to be a genuine Nazi to be racist or anti-Semitic in the 1940's. One way a careful GM could throw players for a bit of a loop would be to have a noble, Nazi-hating hero that the players have been allied with and have grown to admire and respect, casually reveal racist views. (BIG fat warning sign on this! Only for mature people and GMs that really know it won't ruin the game for their players!!!)

 

Der Rind's name is a small boo-boo, by the way... it really means "The Cow" or "The Bovine" i.e. it's the general word for cattle of both genders and doesn't particularly imply great strength any more than "He's as strong as a cow!" does, so people may want to rename him "Der Ochse" or "Der Bulle". He may be a little slow, but he's also a farmboy and would know the difference. (Mind you, that wouldn't stop "Der Rind" sticking as a sarcastic nickname behind his back.)

 

"Wo ist Der Rind?" (Where's the Cow?)

"Ach, er hat sich germolken..." (Oh, off getting milked...)

 

Finished my read-through now.

[mrinku]

 

So basically, I'd see Aussie characters as mainly amongst the war front types.

 

Did Darren include stats for such characters?

 

 

No, the characters are basically the superhuman cast for the official Champions Universe campaign plots. There's a chapter on military hardware, of course. Since 6e got rid of package deals, a lot of the old soldier package deal stuff has been simplified, but there are templates. On the other hand, normal 6e soldiers cops, thugs etc. really just need 1940's equipment, and I think they saved pages by assuming that.

 

The Mystery Men types would be easily adapted into Sgt Rock style heroes, or given an Australian background, though.

 

Thanks for the link!

 

Edit: I've read through some of the Crimson Comet stories now. Interestingly, he almost never flies, and only uses the ray gun now and then (he usually relies on his punching). The wings are almost a handicap more than an asset, since they force him to wear a trenchcoat and appear to be a hunchback in his normal identity as a private eye! Good stuff, though, especially the Flash-Gordon style adventure in Atlantis.