Game: Plot Seed From A Picture

[Arcturus]

In a secluded area of the world, high in the mountains, far above the clouds, a group of the most evil masterminds have come together with a plot to take over the world.

It could be Viper, or it could be a villain group ala Legion of Doom.

The base is deep inside the mountains and will be the location for the final showdown between the heroes and the villains, with a powerful weapon primed to blast the International Space Station. In their defeat, the villains set the lair to self-destruct and the heroes must then escape. They lose the villains which may or may not meet their demise in the fiery explosion.

[Ninja-Bear]

Fortress of Solitude is the first thing that popped into my mind. Naturally this outta be a Champions version of that.

[steriaca]

18 hours ago, Pariah said:

Next:

 

This is the place a certain Champions villain with the powers over ice and darkness is sealed away. This is actually the sealed gateway to the prison dimension which it was sealed away to.

 

And the name of this enity I actually can't remember. And I doubt I could spell it correctly if I actually did remember.

[Lord Liaden]

Do you mean Kigatilik, from CV1? And this would be his Frost Tomb?

 

If so, that would make sense.

[steriaca]

5 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

Do you mean Kigatilik, from CV1? And this would be his Frost Tomb?

 

If so, that would make sense.

Yep. Kigatilik.

[Quackhell]

How about this one. 

[Lord Liaden]

The Darvaza Gas Crater in Turkmenistan, commonly referred to as "The Door to Hell." That pretty much writes itself. 👿

[Quackhell]

2 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

The Darvaza Gas Crater in Turkmenistan, commonly referred to as "The Door to Hell." That pretty much writes itself. 👿

That is cheating good sir! 😆

[Ninja-Bear]

13 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

The Darvaza Gas Crater in Turkmenistan, commonly referred to as "The Door to Hell." That pretty much writes itself. 👿

I was going to go that route. However could this be where Firewing got his powers?

[Cygnia]

Or "Hold my beer and watch THIS~!"

[Lord Liaden]

4 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

I was going to go that route. However could this be where Firewing got his powers?

 

Nice one. "The Furnace of the First Ones," yeah. It's supposed to have a temple around it, but we could say that's behind the photographer.

 

Now, the real crater was formed in 1971 when a gas-drilling rig collapsed an underground cavern. Fearing dangerous gases being released authorities sought to burn the gas off, but the deposit is so vast that it's still burning over fifty years later, and shows no sign of running out.

 

For story purposes, maybe the drill crew found an even larger cavern beneath it, holding something terrible which is kept at bay by the flames. So when the gas finally runs out, or if someone extinguishes it...

[Duke Bushido]

Pulp adventure, as this is clearly an entrance to inner earth.  Somewhere in there, is a safe route to travel.

 

 

[L. Marcus]

The guy in the foreground? Luther Black.

[Lord Liaden]

Or any CU apocalyptic cult leader, e.g. Tappan Arkwright III, or Cairngorm.

[Ninja-Bear]

Forgot to mention that in The Watchers of the Dragon, there is an arena of Fire.

[Pariah]

It's a portal to a parallel Earth that fell victim to a nuclear holocaust. Bring your hazmat suit!

[Pariah]

Here's a fun one:

 

[steriaca]

2 hours ago, Pariah said:

Here's a fun one:

 

It's called Fun City. It is not actually a city...it is a "murderworld" arcade center/bloody hitman hunting grounds in the shape of a city, with armed murder machines everywhere. 

[death tribble]

18 hours ago, Pariah said:

Here's a fun one:

 

Night. The criminal frontier. These are the journals of the crime fighter Creed. His ongoing mission to confront strange new villains, to end continuing crimes like protection and blackmail, to bring safety to the city and the waterfront, to end once and for all the existence of crime in the business and residential areas of the city.

 

Creed operates like a Batman or Spiderman among the tall towers but also can take the fight against crime into and under the water.

 

It may not exactly be what is wanted but I saw the picture and a parody of Star Trek presented itself. 

[Quackhell]

On 1/6/2023 at 3:21 PM, Pariah said:

Here's a fun one:

 

 

Science City: The product of some of the world's greatest minds that is filled with cutting edge experimental technology and overseen by a prototype AI. Unfortunately the AI has been corrupted by an outside source(Mechanon perhaps?) and has trapped the citizens within the city. The heroes must find a way to rescue them while dealing with weaponized tech of a rampaging and insane intelligence.

[Stealthgamer]

On 1/6/2023 at 2:21 PM, Pariah said:

Here's a fun one:

 

Meanwhile, in stately Millennium City... our intrepid group of adventurers (Intrepid because they certainly don't have the luck of the Enterprise) confront Nick Mancuso, organized crime leader manque, at his "Piston Club" adult entertainment club in Rivertown, about his connections to the IHA and to Eric Marburg, now secretly known to the heroes as the leader of the local Circle of the Scarlet Moon coven.

 

Other heroes in the party also want to take Mancuso to task for running such a sleazy strip club, when there are so many better ones in Motown now. He's giving the others a bad name... how does he make a profit, when the Piston is like a school snow day? (No class.)

 

Sorry, the tall building to the left reminds me of the Pharos Building, and there's a nearby bridge. the bright lighting and reflections are so MC it hurts...

[Lord Liaden]

14 hours ago, Stealthgamer said:

Meanwhile, in stately Millennium City... our intrepid group of adventurers (Intrepid because they certainly don't have the luck of the Enterprise) confront Nick Mancuso, organized crime leader manque, at his "Piston Club" adult entertainment club in Rivertown, about his connections to the IHA and to Eric Marburg, now secretly known to the heroes as the leader of the local Circle of the Scarlet Moon coven.

 

Other heroes in the party also want to take Mancuso to task for running such a sleazy strip club, when there are so many better ones in Motown now. He's giving the others a bad name... how does he make a profit, when the Piston is like a school snow day? (No class.)

 

Sorry, the tall building to the left reminds me of the Pharos Building, and there's a nearby bridge. the bright lighting and reflections are so MC it hurts...

 

Sounds good to me. Using an available setting resource can be a definite plus.

 

Anyone thinking Eric Marburg leads a local Scarlet Moon coven better have rock-solid evidence, though. Besides the Circle covering their tracks extremely well, Marburg is actually an Archdruid leading a lodge, i.e. all the covens in a region. He has massive political, social, and economic clout to turn against his enemies.

[Stealthgamer]

On 1/27/2023 at 1:59 PM, Lord Liaden said:

 

Sounds good to me. Using an available setting resource can be a definite plus.

 

Anyone thinking Eric Marburg leads a local Scarlet Moon coven better have rock-solid evidence, though. Besides the Circle covering their tracks extremely well, Marburg is actually an Archdruid leading a lodge, i.e. all the covens in a region. He has massive political, social, and economic clout to turn against his enemies.

This is part of a plot (actually a sideplot) of my current Champions campaign, which I've titled "All That Glisters Is Not Gold Body Paint."

 

Nick Mancuso is an ally of Franklin Stone of ACI fame, but a rival to the Cresse family. He fancies himself as a replacement to Joseph Sorrelli since the old Don's death a few years ago. The Piston's one of his main money laundering establishments - he's very scrupulous about paying his licenses and so forth so everything appears above board. The Piston is a popular spot for the hard-chargers in the Lennie business community. However, despite its popularity, the Piston is hemorrhaging money, because Mancuso has recently lost other less savory "businesses" and has to increasingly lean on the Piston to pay his lieutenants and soldiers. His connection to the IHA is a natural one - nearly every Lennie organized crime group has to ally with somebody who hates superheroes and can manage some means of defending themselves against them, or else the "capes" will wipe the floor with them. (They also need better-than-average protection against VIPER. If they aren't getting help from the IHA, it's ARGENT or Wayland Talos or somebody like that.) Mancuso also is aware he has to act fast for his play at leadership, before the far-more-sophisticated-technologically New Purple Gang steals a march on him. That they'll also steal a march on every other Mob group in New Motown is not a solace to Nick Mancuso. (Rumor has it that the kid who runs it is some sort of fexxin' genius.)

 

His connection to Eric Marburg is originally through his ne'er-do-well son Tyler, who attempted to get hired at, then buy out or bankrupt a recently renovated rival adult nightclub in Dearborn, the "Pantheon". (The Pantheon's co-owner is a contact and friend of the heroes - a strip club makes a handy neutral site for discussing and negotiating matters with criminals of all stripes. She hired Tyler because she's also a bit naive, being that she's actually an avatar of a Celtic fertility goddess who more or less bought the club to keep a constant supply of fertility energy). The Pantheon is new, roomy, shiny, with a rising avant-garde clientele, generally prettier and friendlier girls, and things that might even attract someone that normally wouldn't go to a strip club, like a mid-range cocktail lounge, gaming tables run by the local Native bands, and even a small cigar bar. (Some of the players were a big help in its design.)

 

Tyler was using Dad's money, to help his buddy Nick; Nick would repay him through his increased revenues with the Pantheon's closure. It didn't go well; he's not a bright lad and got himself into such deep kimchi (involving hiring underage strippers, just for starters, that the owner knew about and notified the authorities) that Dad Marburg had to scramble just to keep him out of prison. What's worse is that he put his dad on the authorities' radars for the first time, and for once Eric's vaunted sixth sense let him down, because the threat wasn't really about him. Nick found out about Marburg pere's business and political clout, and he's been trying to get into his hip pocket ever since.

 

The hero group in my campaign knows Eric Marburg has a high rank in the CSM (but not the full extent of it) because one of them is a fairly strong telepath with IPE. She managed to read his mind briefly twice, once while he was out and about pulling strings to get his spawn released on bail, and then when he was in a cocktail party with other high-society figures in MC (which including the father of one of the PCs, who happens to be the new DOSPA Secretary, ironically after making a name for himself in anti-psionic technology for the Federal government...). Marburg has Mental Defense, but not enough - and he doesn't cover his tracks very well in his own head, especially when he's had a few Old Fashioneds in him.

 

They don't confront Marburg directly because they don't have hard evidence, and well, they know people who get on Eric Marburg's bad side tend to have all sorts of nasty things just happen to them, which the players have appropriately dubbed "Ebola Marburg". He'd also be a distraction from their major enemy - DEMON. He's also fairly ruthless as a businessman, which combined with his seeming ability to stay ahead or above trends, has raised suspicions in an already ahead-of-the-curve town like Millennium City, so they can count on other non-blackmailed people in Millennium City to keep Marburg's head down. He's still got rivals who think he's got insider info - too much insider info. (Interesting point - what if the group that runs him to ground was the FTC?) He's also not really smart about his relationships with business and political figures - he tends to wield his influence with them like a club, which makes them afraid of him - but also angry. So the heroes are starting from the far outside of his network and working their way in, as they should. A kind of Jim Rockfording of the case, not a Frank Columboing.

 

The heroes are unaware of his Lodge leadership because they don't know that the CSM has organization above the local level. Not even the telepath has put the puzzle together that he's the "Archdruid Airetach" yet (because the player forgot to ask if he had any aliases)- just that he's got a metric butt-ton of secretive clout in the Detroit area from his association with the Scarlet Moon coven there, he's extraordinarily well-connected, and he has an icky array of artifacts and spells. (One of my players said - "Oh, so it's as if PAGAN from the Ackroyd/Hanks "Dragnet" movie really did have magical powers!") They heroes, however, been so busy with DEMON (as well they should, as they're a much greater immediate threat and the primary focus of the campaign; eventually they're going to be the ones to bring DEMON down) that they've put any investigations into the Scarlet Moon on the back burner. They're looking for some way closer to him, if not inside his house, then at least those near him inside the coven, but for later.

 

Eric Marburg, meanwhile, has problems of his own... his pet talking mummified head has been giving him portents of his own inescapable doom. Dooomm! Like any aging Boomer narcissist, he's frantically trying to figure out ways to avoid his fate, while the head keeps playing "warmer, warmer...naw, now you're getting colder" with him.

[Lord Liaden]

 

(I hope none of your players read this forum. If so, Spoiler tags would be prudent.)

[DShomshak]

Excellently done, Stealthgamer!

 

Dean Shomshak