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7 Horsemen of Apocalypse


marediv

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Well, the Seven Horsemen were never referred to as "of the Apocalypse." Yes, they did include War, Famine, Plague, and Death, but their creator and leader was Fear, Destruction was the most powerful, and Fear's henchman Dread was an entirely different class of entity. More isn't necessarily better, but greater diversity can be a tactical advantage.

 

I've long been struck by the realization that that adventure would be easy to fit into the current official Champions Universe. Fear's power derives from a potent mystic artifact called the Worm Scepter, which he also used to grant the other Horsemen their powers. That artifact was a remnant of Lovecraftian "Old Ones" who sought to colonize the Earth. In the CU the alien Elder Worm actually did colonize and rule antidiluvian Earth. They used blended magic and science like these Old Ones, and kept slave races and engineered monsters, to which the Black Death could easily belong.

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Now that's another interesting thing about these villains. By the standards of 3rd Edition Champions they were all quite powerful, some more than others, e.g. you'd expect Famine to be not as tough as War. However, Fear created the other Horsemen by bringing forth what he calls their "Aspects," i.e. the part of their personalities resembling the archetypal forces they embody. The stronger their Aspect personalities become, the stronger the villains are; but that means their behavior is driven by narrowly-focused traits. Most of the time Fear can keep them moving in the general direction he wants, but beyond that he has to allow them to exercise their proclivity for inflicting suffering, death and destruction on innocent people. They function better as a random distraction from Fear's true goal, than as his coordinated backup.

 

With smart and disciplined teamwork, a group of less-powerful heroes can defeat the Horsemen, especially if they recognize their individual Complications; but a lot of their time could be taken up just protecting normal humans if they're around.

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I believe The Seven Horsemen were set in the Protector verse of the module To Serve and Protect which had a hero team going bad.  I believe this team was the PC group that he created the Seven Horsemen to challenge.  If so, then I could see why.  This is a 10 man team with some very powerful attacks and team tactics.  But the heroes were on the whole 75 to 100 points lower that the SH.

 

PS One entity in the SH is a nasty construct with a 1d6 KA with 20 pts resistant piercing (every point reduces the Res PD by one point, so your 25 pd/ 25 ed is now 5/5).  As part of his Complications he had X2 body versus Find Weakness ( two heroes had FW), X2 body versus sonics (one hero was called Doc Sonic) and susceptible 3d6 vs fire (Hero Helios).  So he was built to be as scary as possible BUT if the heroes work together, can tear him apart.

 

I agree this is a villain team where if the heroes can put out the fires caused by the bad guys, can make them fold pretty easy.  

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Scott Heine, who wrote the adventure module To Serve and Protect, did imply in the module that the Protectors had fought the Seven Horsemen in the past, since almost all the Protectors had the Horsemen as a Hunted. However, Wrath of the Seven Horsemen was written by Andrew Robinson, and predates TSaP. It's more likely that Scott used the Horsemen in the Champions campaign he ran, which TSaP is based on, and incorporated them into the background of the published version of the PCs.

 

Mind you, Scott did some of the interior art for WotSH, so the interactions between him and Andrew may be more involved than I'm aware of.

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It would be interesting if Fear created multiple sets of Horsemen over the years to replace those who actually were destroyed (either by the heroes, or the powers involved eventually destroyed the subject over time). This, the new Horsemen need not follow the power levels of the past ones.

 

Also I like the idea of the actual horses being extensions of each Horsemen. Basically an excuse for a huge Running, Leaping, and even Flying on the characters (the horse being only a special effect).

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5 hours ago, assault said:

From memory, they could be beaten by a team with lots of ranged attacks, but otherwise they were likely to kill PCs.

That's the big problem in using the Horsemen. You have to use them carefully else you have them preform a TPK. And unlike DnD, you don't want a TPK in Hero, because of how hard it is to build a character and character attachment. 

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11 hours ago, steriaca said:

It would be interesting if Fear created multiple sets of Horsemen over the years to replace those who actually were destroyed (either by the heroes, or the powers involved eventually destroyed the subject over time). This, the new Horsemen need not follow the power levels of the past ones.

 

That's one of several suggested long-term plot elements to be derived from WotSH. The Worm Scepter can be used to create more Horsemen, or non-affiliated villains if it's taken away from Fear. What I find most interesting is that Fear doesn't actually control what Aspect he brings out in a person. That's a function of each individual's personality and motivations. Fear tries to best-guess what the Aspect will be based on known evidence, but it isn't a precise science. For example, when Fear worked on a professional mercenary to try to create War as the team's battle commander, what he brought out was Death itself. It's even possible the Worm Scepter might inadvertently be the origin for a new superhero, such as Justice, Vengeance, or Compassion; although said hero would probably be very single-minded and inflexible.

 

Another thing outside of Fear's control is the degree to which an Aspect dominates and drives the super, which sets the magnitude of their power. The strongest of the Seven Horsemen was only a petty vandal before she was transformed into Destruction incarnate. The Horseman called Terror was so mighty he nearly usurped control of the team from Fear, who needed the help of the other Horsemen to kill Terror.

 

11 hours ago, steriaca said:

Also I like the idea of the actual horses being extensions of each Horsemen. Basically an excuse for a huge Running, Leaping, and even Flying on the characters (the horse being only a special effect).

 

IIRC the horses the Horsemen rode were another creation of the Worm Scepter, but were just the Special Effect for Flight Usable On Others, controlled by Fear. Rather than literal horses, I think I'd prefer each Horseman to have their own thematically appropriate Special Effect for a movement Power. For example, War could have a "horse" justifying increased Running, while Plague could fly by turning into a cloud of flies, and Destruction might enhance her Leaping by unleashing an explosion beneath her feet.

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21 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

It's even possible the Worm Scepter might inadvertently be the origin for a new superhero, such as Justice, Vengeance, or Compassion; although said hero would probably be very single-minded and inflexible.

 

Justice was an NPC hero in a campaign many years back, and that was his background. He started out as an Infrequent, Normal DNPC brother, but became more powerful and more frequent (same Disad points). Also became a romantic interest for a second PC.  Fear wanted to bring out a more Vengeance archetype from a disillusioned lawyer, but he did not get what he expected.  Very rigid, and very powerful, out of the gate, he evolved to less rigidity, with a commensurate reduction in power to the PCs level.

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  • 2 months later...

Long ago, as in several decades ago, I started working up two additional Horsemen, Hate and Wrath. I never finished Wrath for some reason, but I do recall Hate being completed. Then back in the early 2000's I started converting these guys over to another system, and replaced Plague with a new character, Pestilence, who had similar powers. If I can find my old notes, I'll post some background info on them. 

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Wrath of the Seven Horsemen  is one of those modules with significant long-term utility. It leaves you with so many potential plot elements you could choose to carry forward: more supers created by the Worm Scepter; the Prime and other Elites who could have escaped; other lost eggs of the Old Ones which might have survived besides the White Crawler and its larvae; the next possessor of the mind-amplifying Stone Crown; the alien space ship, artifacts found within it, and/or mutagenic effects of the radiation from its damaged engines.

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On 3/9/2022 at 10:52 AM, Lord Liaden said:

The Worm Scepter can be used to create more Horsemen, or non-affiliated villains if it's taken away from Fear. What I find most interesting is that Fear doesn't actually control what Aspect he brings out in a person. That's a function of each individual's personality and motivations. Fear tries to best-guess what the Aspect will be based on known evidence, but it isn't a precise science..

 

The immediate and obvious implication of brining Wrath into the modern CU is that Slug as a representative and ruler of the Elder Worm would almost certainly drop everything else he was doing to go get the Worm Scepter away from Fear.  As Slug is a master of Elder Worm magic, in his hands it would *not* be uncontrolled and based on guess-work.

 

If you have sufficiently setup Slug in the game, everyone would understand this is a very bad thing.  To the point where PCs might have to work with Fear to keep that from happening.

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That is a very valid point, and works well as a long-term goal in a campaign where both the Slug and the Horsemen are extant. But it need not happen immediately after both parties appear. First, the Slug would have to learn of and recognize the Worm Scepter. Second, he would have to locate and catch up to Fear and however many other Horsemen he has with him. Third, he would have to be backed up by enough power to wrest the Scepter away from Fear.

 

As a parallel to this situation, for years Takofanes has hunted the Crowns of Krim to either bind them to his service or take their Crowns from them, with no success so far as has been recorded. When he does find them the Crowns have always managed to escape.

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