Tropes for Magical Girls and Masters of the Universe

[DShomshak]

Here's the situation:

 

One of my players has a fun idea for a character, but it involves genres I'm really not up on. Specifically, the character's backstory is that when she was a lonely 13-year-old, she imagined a fairly elaborate fantasy world in which she was Princess Moonray, heroine of the magical Moon Kingdom -- sort of an unholy mash-up of Masters of the Universe and Sailor Moon. When she was grown up, she somehow managed to help a supernatural creature that rewarded her by granting the deepest wish of her heart. Not what she wanted right now, but what she had wanted most strongly in all her life: to be Princess Moonray. And so that's her Hero ID.

 

The thing is, this wish also seems to have created the entire Magical Moon Kingdom, too! Princess Moonray's friends/allies live there, like the magical hummingbird MoonBlossom and the hunky Dorian Silversword. And her arch-enemy Queen Nocturna, ruler of the Dark Side of the Moon.

 

There's no way I'm leaving this undeveloped. There *must* be visits to the Magical Moon Kingdom, and her friends and enemies must visit Earth to make her life interesting.

 

Only... I never watched Sailor Moon or any iteration of He-Man and She-Ra. So far, all I know is that Queen Nocturna needs to have a cadre of lieutenants who can implement her evil schemes to conquer the Moon Kingdom. (Or Earth, as they follow Princess Moonray.) Maybe her son, Prince Balthazar Blackheart, who looks suspiciously like Leader Desslok from StarBlazers (but more "bishi'?), and a daughter Princess Shadira, who is totally an Azula expy from Avatar: the Last Airbender. But that's all I got.

 

I appeal to the wisdom of the Forum. What are the tropes? What powers are standard for someone like Queen Nocturna, and what minions should she have? Are there any must-have locations? Standard story elements?

 

(At least I already have the character sheet for Princess Moonray. So I know that the way magical attacks work is that she points at her target and shouts, say, "Staggering Moon Strike!" for a Mental Blast or ""Moon Mind Invasion!" for Telepathy. This is, hm, a new magical tradition for me to learn, but I'm not sure I'll ever want to write a new chapter for Ultimate Mystic.)

 

Dean Shomshak

[Lord Liaden]

I have only the most passing awareness of Sailor Moon, but somewhat more familiarity with He-Man and She-Ra and their milieu, even though I was older than their target audience; so I'll give most of my input from that perspective. The franchise was originally based on toys, so each character has a distinctive appearance related to an identifying gimmick, with a punning name derived from that. For the cadre of the chief villains, a skull-headed wizard-type called Skeletor for He-Man, or the shape-shifting Hordak who led the Evil Horde, flunkies like Beast-Man and Mer-Man are easy to visualize; but there was also the likes of Trapjaw, with metal jaws that could bite through most things; Triclops, whose helmet had three rotating eyes each with its own power; and the sorceress Evil Lynne. Heroic allies included Ram-Man, wearing heavy head and shoulder armor, and with legs like giant coiled springs; and Fisto, with super strength and one oversized fist with a metal gauntlet. (Remember this was marketed to innocent children.)

 

The He-Man series was set on the planet Eternia, where He-Man had a secret identity as the son of the king and queen; while his sister She-Ra had been kidnapped and raised on another planet, Etheria, and joined a rebellion against the Horde. Both heroes used magic swords to change to superhuman form, triggered by a special phrase. They also had animal companions as mounts, He-Man a giant cat, She-Ra a winged horse. And there were cute comic-relief characters as well, occasionally helpful.

 

The story of each episode involved a game of cat and mouse between heroes and villains, with the heroes thwarting the villains' latest scheme. Most of those adventures ended with the status quo being maintained. There was rarely any significant change to the setting, or major character development, but they weren't unknown.

 

I can add one other element I'm aware of from Sailor Moon: as is common with fiction aimed at young teen girls, there's an apparently unattainable male love interest who sometimes assists the heroine. In the case of Sailor Moon he's an initially mysterious figure called Tuxedo Mask, because that's his costume.

 

That's everything I can think of for now. I hope that helps. Let us know how this turns out.

[Sketchpad]

2 hours ago, DShomshak said:

I appeal to the wisdom of the Forum. What are the tropes? What powers are standard for someone like Queen Nocturna, and what minions should she have? Are there any must-have locations? Standard story elements?

 

It sounds like they may have a bit of Princess Amethyst (from DC Comics) in there as well. Taking the shows as inspiration, most of your villains can fall within a kind of mismatch of power sets and levels. You have Queen Nocturna, who could easily have darkness/shadow powers with a mystical flair, or perhaps some kind of sleep/nightmare abilities. You could easily draw upon both to get "troops/mooks" that serve her in the same way countless drones serve Master Villain X. As for her lieutenants, you usually have something like:

 

- Monstrous Villain: A monster of a being, perhaps combining a handful of animals or monsters into one. 

- Element Villain 1: A humanoid adapted to a specific element (with maybe a few powers from it).

- Element Villain 2: See Element Villain 1, but with a different element.

- Magic Villain: Usually the major domo of Master Villain X. They occasionally will have conflicting feelings for the hero, or someone close to them. They may also transform friends into enemies.

- Weird Tech Villain:  Someone who uses either weird tech, or uses tech weirdly. They may have several mechanical faces, a helmet with a sense based power, or something else weird. 

- Weapon Villain: Take a weapon and make it weird, and go over the top. 

- Betrayer Villain: Once a friend, this villain has been transformed into something different (usually over something petty). But they may still have feelings for their former friend. 

 

Many of the villains in Sailor Moon are one-offs that follow a kind of Monster of the Week kind of trope. It's only through the "magic of the moon" that they can finally be defeated. Not really unlike Voltron and his blazing sword to be honest. 

 

Overall, think "high concept fantasy meets technology in a weird corner of a comic book universe where everyone is either muscle men, muscle male monsters, or hyper-pretty" and you'll be on the right path for the most part. Hope this helps.

[assault]

I've seen a bit of Sailor Moon.

The most important power Queen Nocturna would have is the ability to empower flunkies. (Or boost the power of lieutenants that already have powers.)

 

This means that there is no shortage of monster of the week plots you can run. Eventually, though, a "real" plot should kick in, with the secrets of the Magical Moon Kingdom being revealed, and Nocturna's attempt to take it over, initially through her lieutenants, only getting involved directly once that fails.

[Cygnia]

I remember some Sailor Moon villains getting redeemed by the Power of Friendship~!, so that could come into play (or get twisted cynically, depending on how much of a bastard you or the player are).

[dougmacd]

Starting with https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagicalGirlTropes and filtering them based off my recollection of Sailor Moon, Magic Knight Rayearth, Card Captor Sakura, Fancy Lala, and My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic:

• Befriending the Enemy (A very common tactic of magical girls. It's very likely at some point that a magical girl will at least attempt this)
• Brainwashed and Crazy (Often happens to the Magical Girl's friends or Love Interest)
• Dark Magical Girl (The Magical Girl's rival with a Dark and Troubled Past)
• Gotta Catch Them All (If her goal is finding something)
• Magical Girl Queenliness Test (A Magical Girl princess must prove she can also be a queen)
• Magical Land (where either the Magical Girl herself or her Fairy Companion comes from)
• Mentor Mascot (A small Talking Animal or creature who grants the Magical Girl her powers and acts as her mentor)
• Villain-Possessed Bystander (The Victim of the Week is used by the Monster of the Week to attack the Magical Girl)

Magical Hummingbird MoonBlossom sounds like the mentor mascot, and Princess Shadira fills the dark magical girl role. I would also expect there to be a proper Queen of the Moon Kingdom who's out of the picture -- probably imprisoned by Shadira.

 

In all likelihood, the Moon Kingdom is not accessible.  The land is being held under the sway of Nocturna;  MoonBlossom only just managed to escape to get Moonray's help on Earth. The long term goal is to return to the kingdom, overthrow Nocturna, and free the Queen... and possibly succeed her.

 

A fairly typically plot twist would be that Shadira is actually one of Moonray's IRL friends, unwittingly sucked into the magic, and with no memory of her dark magical girl alter ego.  (Also helps encourage the "befriending the enemy" trope.)

 

 

Doug

If you've seen it, Buffy the Vampire Slayer also fits the magical girl tropes.

[Grailknight]

If you have time for research Hulu has the latest series of Sailor Moon.

[Lord Liaden]

I just had a thought. There's a website/YouTube channel called Death Battle, which stages animated conflicts between a wide range of pop-culture characters from movies, TV, cartoons, video games, and comic books. As part of the prep for the battles, the channel provides a narrated visual summary of the background of the characters and analysis of their abilities -- actually very thoroughly researched -- to determine who would be the winner. That research is presented in a pretty mocking, sarcastic tone for entertainment purposes, but is in fact a very informative, highly condensed primer. The battles themselves are also usually very entertaining.

 

I culled a couple of relevant past Death Battles, none of which require a major time commitment to get to the useful parts:

 

 

 

For some reason He-Man vs Lion-O is age restricted and can only be watched on YouTube (Admittedly the fight does get rather cartoon-bloody, and uses some suggestive language.)

[steriaca]

Congratulations Deen. Welcome to the wonderful wierd world of anime magical girls. 

 

The "fighting" magical girl started with basically Cutie Honey, which was made by Go Nagi and for boys. Sailor Moon took slightly from that and past "helping" magical girls, a bit of Power Rangers and put them into a blender. If you seen some Power Rangers, then some magical girl shows, then you get an idea about what is expected. 

 

Remember: henchmen tend to be less competent than the leader. This is more of a Masters of the Universe thing (as they have to follow television standards and practice for children's television), but can also show up in magical girl shows.

 

The monsters of the week tend to be expendable. If they are expendable, DON'T MAKE THEM FORMER TRANSFORMED HUMANS. If she has the ability to cure the monsters, then go ahead and make them transformed humans.

 

Top henchmen can have relationships with each other. This is important. For example, Zoicite and Nephrite are rivals, with Zoicite belittling Nephrite for each loss. He is also in a gay relationship with Kunzite, his superior. Shojo (girls) manga has been advanced on such relationships since the 1970's (even if the early 70's was more pore gay lovers who have to die together romantically).

 

Beyond that, well, everything is up to you and your players. 

[DShomshak]

2 hours ago, dougmacd said:

Magical Hummingbird MoonBlossom sounds like the mentor mascot, and Princess Shadira fills the dark magical girl role. I would also expect there to be a proper Queen of the Moon Kingdom who's out of the picture -- probably imprisoned by Shadira.

 

If you've seen it, Buffy the Vampire Slayer also fits the magical girl tropes.

I have indeed, but I never saw any other Magical Girl TV to make the connection! So thank you (and for reminding me of TVTropes -- it's been years since I used it, I

d completely forgotten about it.)

 

The player tells me that MoonBlossom indeed tries to turn everything into a "lesson." Whether it is or not.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Cygnia]

So...how would Queen Noctura react to find out she exists only because of a wish?  That she might not actually be real?

[steriaca]

6 minutes ago, Cygnia said:

So...how would Queen Noctura react to find out she exists only because of a wish?  That she might not actually be real?

Probably afraid and angry, willing to prove her existence by killing the magical girl whose wish created her as "prof" of her existence is real. "She is dead, and I'm still here! Don't you see? Don't you see! I'm not looking through my right hand now...I can't be slowly fading away. I'm real. I'm REAL!"

[Opal]

This concept begs for a storyline in which Nocturna &c conquer the world, and all is lost...

...but the hero can fix everything by giving up her powers and just being her ordinary person ID again.

[steriaca]

1 hour ago, Opal said:

This concept begs for a storyline in which Nocturna &c conquer the world, and all is lost...

...but the hero can fix everything by giving up her powers and just being her ordinary person ID again.

Yep. That is a doable part of the magical girl gendra. There are no stories of magical girls over 21 years old anyways... (well, mostly).

[Lord Liaden]

3 hours ago, Opal said:

This concept begs for a storyline in which Nocturna &c conquer the world, and all is lost...

...but the hero can fix everything by giving up her powers and just being her ordinary person ID again.

 

2 hours ago, steriaca said:

Yep. That is a doable part of the magical girl gendra. There are no stories of magical girls over 21 years old anyways... (well, mostly).

 

Of course Dean would have to see how the campaign progresses, and how the player would feel about it.

[steriaca]

1 hour ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

 

Of course Dean would have to see how the campaign progresses, and how the player would feel about it.

There is definitely difference between gendra conventions and game needs.

 

Deen, do you need a list of recommendations? You could always start with Bewitched and I Dream of Jennie. (Ha! Fact, the USA created magical girls first, as Samantha Stevens and Jennie the Genie inspired many of the first magical girls).

 

Special note: A "magical girl" needs not actually wield magic, just as long as the 'science' is so rubber it bounces like a super ball.

 

Magical Girls come in many flavors. They are:

 

1) Helpers: They usually have a wide selection of magical powers, but none of them are traditional attacks. They exist to help their neighbors, mostly using their magic in secret. They may have a long term goal, or maybe not.

 

2) Fighters: These galls act like superheroes, fighting monsters and henchmen to protect the world.

 

3) Instant Adults: The only "magic" makes the young girl an adult or older teenager, and they live a double life. May mix with others, but...

 

4) Magical Girlfriends: They are already magical beings and fall in love with some guy and stay with them and use their magic to make the life of the boyfriend...different.

 

Beyond that...

 

Fighting Girls recommendations:

 

Sailor Moon/Sailor Moon Crystal/Sailor Moon Eternal/Sailor Moon Cosmos : Well, everyone is recommending this. Netflix has Crystal and the two Eternal movies, and may get the two Cosmos movies by late 2023 (they are scheduled to be released in Japan in the spring/summer season). If you want to see the original series (well, VIZ's dub of it...only watch the DiC/Cloverway dub if you want to either laugh or bang your head against a hard object because of all the changes they had to do to make it palatable for the American Parents), I guess YouTube has clips. Hulu has the VIZ dub.

 

Cutie Honey: Technically not a "magical" girl (she is an android), her technically is ill defined (an object in her chest allows her to create any object she wishes, and can disguise herself, along with a sword and boomerang). Most of her shows are aimed at boys (except for Cutie Honey Flash).

 

Pretty Cure series: The current big hotness in magical girl shows. Each year a new bunch of girls. I personally don't care for this but your mileage may vary. 

 

Miraculous: If you think Japanese only does the Magical Girl thing, you don't know the French. The adventures of Ladybug and Cat Noir.

 

Earth Defense Force Love: I'm probably misremembering the name of this. A parody of the magical girl show, instead of a group of girls the 'magical girls' are cute high school boys. They don't even crossdress. And speaking of...

 

Is This A Zombie? : Not really a magical girl show, but a comedy surrounding a newly dead and resirected as a zombie high school boy and his bonded necromancer. To make matters worse, he is also picked to be a magical girl by another person. And he is given a magical costume which gives him magical powers but does not change his gender (but does allow him to withstand the sun which would instantly destroy him as a zombie).

 

Magical Girl Ori: Another parody. Two would be idol singers become magical girls because one girl's mom says so (along with her yakuza styled faerie familiar). The change increases their muscles and strength but doesn't actually give them magic (and makes them look like crossdressing bodybuilders).

[DShomshak]

The player does intend Princess Moonray to be a temporary character for this particular campaign, so final victory coming from giving up the Magical Girl powers and identity is not out of the question. We'll see how the campaign goes.

 

I Dream of Jeanie and Bewitched in the family tree of Magical Girls? O-kay! Yes, I do know them; watched them growing up.

 

I don't intend to do a great deal of research for this, but I might look for a Sailor Moon movie or two, or one DVD's worth of episodes at the library. I might look for She-Ra to watch a few eps (probably not a full season, uff da) because IIRC J. Michael Straczinski was the executive producer. That probably makes it better than He-Man, and She-Ra is a girl who's magic (don't know if she's really a Magical Girl, though).

 

Dean Shomshak

[Opal]

Well, she has a transformation sequence?

 

 

[Cygnia]

Hey, if it's more than a full-round to change, that could be a Complication!

[steriaca]

6 hours ago, DShomshak said:

 

I don't intend to do a great deal of research for this, but I might look for a Sailor Moon movie or two, or one DVD's worth of episodes at the library. I might look for She-Ra to watch a few eps (probably not a full season, uff da) because IIRC J. Michael Straczinski was the executive producer. That probably makes it better than He-Man, and She-Ra is a girl who's magic (don't know if she's really a Magical Girl, though).

 

Dean Shomshak

Depends on if you actually prefer your magical girls to actually cast spells or not. She-Ra basically has superhuman strength and resistance of her twin brother, and her sword (which she never uses as a sword because of standards and practices) is able to transform into whatever object she needs (at least She-Ra's sword is useful beyond transformation).

[Hermit]

If I might suggest for research on one possible way to present Queen Nocturna, you may want to catch an old Star Trek voyager episode called "Bride of Chaotica" where Mulgrew as Janeway must play "Arachnia, Queen of the Spider People" in a holo deck adventure. The actress is clearly having a ball being over the top side by side with the guest star. I am not a big voyager fan, and it's more pulp parody than magical girl adventure but it seems to me that 'everyone having strong feelings!' is often a commonality and Arachnia ala Janeway might be worth stealing bits and pieces from for your villainess to torment your player with

[steriaca]

8 minutes ago, Hermit said:

If I might suggest for research on one possible way to present Queen Nocturna, you may want to catch an old Star Trek voyager episode called "Bride of Chaotica" where Mulgrew as Janeway must play "Arachnia, Queen of the Spider People" in a holo deck adventure. The actress is clearly having a ball being over the top side by side with the guest star. I am not a big voyager fan, and it's more pulp parody than magical girl adventure but it seems to me that 'everyone having strong feelings!' is often a commonality and Arachnia ala Janeway might be worth stealing bits and pieces from for your villainess to torment your player with

It's no secret that ST:TNG and beyond many of the writers are fans of anime. Reminds me of a Romalin (?) code which starts with "Kei no yuri... " (the two leads of the Dirty Pair). It wouldn't surprise me if they dipped into the magical girl gendra slightly for the Voyager episode (just for the over the top way head villains act).

 

Also reminds me of a Star Trek fan thing which fan characters like Data's android daughter were made into Sailor Senshi...

[DShomshak]

I've made progress on this project.

 

Between querying my friend some more, reading on Wikipedia, and watching some episodes of Sailor Moon S, it's clear that the standard Sailor Moon story arc goes: Boss Villain sends minions and Monster of the Week to collect/harvest something from random people -- "energy," "pure hearts," whatever -- but these are only instrumental to achieve some greater goal. Queen Beryl wants to release/re-empower her dark master Queen Metaria, and has her four gem-named minions deploying the Monster of the Week to gather energy from people; the Professor and Kaolinite are sending one-shot Daemons in search of Pure Hearts, because three of them hold the Talismans that can summon the Win Button, i mean, Holy Grail...

 

Latter example shows the Master Plan does not need to make sense from an adult perspective: Why would the Professor assume the three talismans are all in this one neighborhood where, coincidentally, the Sailor Guardians live? Because this is a show for children, that's why. (Or maybe this is explained later in the season, but I doubt it.)

 

I haven't written Queen Nocturna yet, but then, she can remain in the background. Player says that Princess Moonray already had an adventure as part of her origin in which she returned to the Magical Moon Realm, gagthered her friends, and liberated the Light Side from Nocturna's rule; but of course Nocturna will try to conquer it again.

 

Nocturna's two chief lieutenants are, as mentioned, her son Balthazar Blackheart and her daughter Shadira. Both of them have point-and-shout Simister Sorcery (but only a few such powers -- most characters have limited power seclections) and a few Darkforce powers focused on mobility, defense and, of course, Darkness. Balthazar also conjures a magic sword that can cut through anything inanimate but can't actually inflict BODY on people, because cartoon for young people. Shadira also does whipfighting using Darkforce TK. Both are obsessed with Princess Moonray, in their own ways. Balthazar vows she will be his. He does the Wicked Chuckle. Shadira vows that she will DESTROY!!! Princess Moonray, the only woman who is prettier than she is. She does the standard Evil Princess Scornful Laugh.

 

Basic monstrous minion type: Vulture Bats. Queen Nocturna created them with her Dark Sorcery, and Shadira can summon small numbers of them. They are invisible to normal sight because they are creatures of dark nightmares, but anyone with magical senses (such as Princess Moonray) can see them. Used as spies, backup in fights, and to further evil schemes such as planting Psychic Siphon enchantments in sleeping mortals.

 

Other villains will be one-shots, such as the warrior Demonax (who wields a Demon Axe and is named for a prominent crater on the Moon) and Frozor, Duke of Frigoria, ruler of the Moon's north polar regions, embittered by Moonray's long absense from the Magical Moon Kingdom. I'll borrow the writeup fro Glacier in CV3 for the form he takes when drawing on the power of the Psychic Siphons. I'll probably repurpose other CU villains as Monster of the Week.

 

Naturally, all of Queen Nocturna's minions have a Rivalry with each other for her favor. It's easy to persuade or trick one lieutenant into undercutting another lieutenant's plan.

 

Magic jewels! Light Side magic items are usually set with Moonstones. Dark Side magic items are set with Black Moonstones. But there are also very rare, very powerful Blue Moonstones and Blood, or Eclipse, Moonstones, to serve as MacGuffins. Dorian Silversword's sword, however, is set with a Sunstone that makes it especially damaging to Dark Side creatures. And Nocturna can seek the apocalyptic, Win Button power of the Midnight Sunstone. (Thank you Raven McCracken and World of Synnibarr for the name. Originality through incompetence!)

 

Oh -- Nocturna has one other important minion to lurk in the background: Her teacher of Dark Sorcery, now her vizier, Magister Thorn. He's the one who actually comes up with the plans to find artifacts A, B, and C, and bring them together at Place X to obtain the Win Button. But he's not himself any more; and Queen Nocturna is not, in fact, the boss villain that she imagines. Because you can't have an entire magic land appear from nowhere and powerful people in the Mystic World don't notice.

 

I hope the other PCs (and players) will be suitably freaked out and amused.

 

Dean Shomshak

[steriaca]

Well Deen, any updates? Are the other players enjoying this?

[DeleteThisAccount]

Honestly, I wouldn't see the villain, or the other people of the magical kingdom, being dismayed or even surprised that they exist as results of a magical wish from a child. The wish of a child forming a kingdom of magic from their imagination is a perfectly standard thing for that sort of society. I'm also not sure it makes them any less real or valid. Certainly there's no reason for any disappearances when the child is killed. They may have wished for a magical kingdom, but now that its existing, the child isn't integral to continuing its existence. Like if an architect designs skyscrapers, so a bunch of construction workers in a union make their buildings, then if all of them got killed later, the skyscraper has no reason to vanish.

Edited August 25, 2023 by KingAdipose