Earth Prime campaign

[dean day]

I am going to  use this thread to detail my upcoming hopefully long term superhero campaign using Hero 5th edition. The only rule so far is that I am only going to use NPC's that have previously been published in the huge amount of super rpg's I have. One of the fun things I am going to try to do is create a huge world of supers and try to mix them all together, changing, eliminating and using various characters, groups, events, etc from the all the games and settings I have.

 

I will be using the next few postings for timelines, groups, organisations, places, lists of characters and will come back to  edit and add to them as time goes on. I will be using the Champions universe as my base reality so when I add in a character from another supers setting my golden rule will be to connect them to at least one other character or group from the original champions setting.

 

I will also be eventually coming up with say 30 to 50 of the settings most important heroes and teams, the ones where in the setting they are popular or unique enough to have  a comic or multiple comics published about them and organizing the villains into rogues galleries of those heroes or the PC's.

 

If you guys can think of any other cool connections between characters or groups as I go then feel free to suggest anything you feel would add to the campaign. i have plenty of time to develop the setting so am in no rush going to slowly add stuff as I go. I will also be using setting stuff from other genres, the conspiracy genre comes to mind as I have a ton of Conspiracy X material that I love which would be fun to include. 

[dean day]

Earth Prime Timeline

This post will be used as an expanding timeline for the campaign

 

1970

The future Dr. Destroyer born in Romania.

 

1993

Dr. Destroyer is hideously disfigured in a scientific accident in America involving Dr. Atom

 

1996

Dr Destroyer and his highly advanced body armor first revealed to the world when he publicly attacks the Atom Family for the first time.

[dean day]

Earth Prime Origins

This post will be used as an expanding list of origin types and details for the campaign

[dean day]

Superhero Groups

This will be a list and description of superhero groups of the campaign and their locations.

 

The Atom family

Famous group of adventurers and explorers based in New York City, who originally gained there powers in a space accident. 

Enemies include Dr. Destroyer and Lord D'Arc.

 

 

[dean day]

Organisations

This will be a list and description of organisations of the campaign.

[dean day]

Supervillain Teams

This will be a list and description of supervillain groups and their locations

[dean day]

Superheroes

This will be a list of superheroes in an A to Z encyclopedia form

[dean day]

Master Villains

This will be a list of the elite master villains of the campaign in an A to Z Encycopedia form.

 

Dr. Destroyer

Considered one of the most powerful threats in the super human world, the ruler of Romania has been the arch enemy of the Atom Family since their very beginning. The fact he created his suit of powerful armor independently and not based on designs from Daedalus is testament to his scientific genius. Is rumored to also be a sorcerer of the dark arts of excellent ability although this has never been confirmed. Various crimes have never had a hope to be proved due to his diplomatic immunity as his countries absolute ruler. Is said to be the father of Lord D'Arc.

[dean day]

Supervillains

This will be a list of supervillains in an A to Z encyclopedia form

[dean day]

Alien Races & Planets

This will be a list of known alien races and planets in an A to Z encyclopedia form.

[dean day]

Dimensions

This will be a list of known dimensions & realities.

[dean day]

Comic Titles

For fun, a list of the fictional comic titles and descriptions that are published in the Earth Prime setting.

 

The Atom Family Adventures of the world most famous explorers.

[dean day]

Companies & Corporations

A known list of companies, corporations and conglomerates that could impact the supers world and the campaign. 

[dean day]

Places Unique

A list of places which are unique to Earth Prime and not in the real world.

[dean day]

Places of Reality

Real world place list and how they have been changed or effected by the supers setting.

 

New York City

Said to  be the city with the most super human activity in the world. superhero groups that call it home include The Atom Family.

 

Romania

Ruled by Dr. Destroyer and Lord D'Arc and is said to have in the past a refuge for many vampires and the vampire lord Dracula.

[dean day]

Normal NPC'S

A list of NPC's that are major parts of heroes supporting cast or important in their own right, this can include both real and fictional individuals.

[dean day]

Cosmic Entity's

A list of important, powerful cosmic entities.

 

[dean day]

Eliminated Elements & Characters

A list of Champions of other super game setting characters and other elements (teams, organisations etc) that will not be used in the campaign and a brief reason why.

[dean day]

Dr Destroyer

I am using Destroyer but in a very different way from how he has been presented in the last couple of editions. I am really bringing his power level down to his early appearances in the game much like he was back with the Island of Dr Destroyer. Looking at his bloated uber powerful right ups in the recent editions I think he basically became unbeatable and unusable, which is a real shame for such a great old school champions character. He was always a blatant Dr. Doom homage even down to his name with also some Red Skull riffs in his Nazi background. 

 

If you look at Doom closely in the comics he gets involved in many fights with the FF and other teams and he is all about his defenses, which are super high but his offense output was never huge.

I am going to lean into the Doom homage much more and make him very much the arch enemy of the Atom Family (My choice from Mutants & Masterminds for my FF type group) I will be using a lot of the background for Romania in the Super powered Legends setting for Lord A'Arc. 

I am also removing the world war 2 Nazi element in his background and moving him up in the time scale so he would be maybe in his early fifties when the campaign begins. 

 

Also to his write up I will be adding some sorcery and spells to give him a slight mystical sub bent of powers, but overall I just want to dial back hugely on his offensive power which has just turned him into a hero killer as far as I can see. I want to actually use him in the campaign and yes he will trounce my starting pc heroes, but he won't kill them in a few segments! 

 

Motivations

Conquer the world the classic one obviously

Humiliate and destroy Dr Atom's reputation and to a lesser extent the Atom Family as a whole - Not kill, but humiliate and cause as much pain as possible, particularly wants to destroy Atom's scientific reputation. This begs the question does he want to do the same with other heroes with reps for being tech geniuses such as Daedalus and other villains as well? I am guessing anyone that has a scientific reputation rivaling his own who find themselves in the line of fire to some extent.

Find a way to extend his own life I find it possibly amusing that in a world of extended life spans from all sorts of origins, that Destroyer has yet to find anything that works on himself. If i have him in his mid 50's now in my campaign I would like to see him age in the armor over the next few years and this become a real priority for him, It was one of the things I actually really liked in the champs Destroyer write up that he becomes a wizened old weak man behind the armor's mask.

Save his mother - I always really like this motivation from Marvel's Doom as it made him more into a real person and gave reason for his interesting delve into magic. In the superpowered legends book (Lord D'Arc) is involved heavily in saving Romania from vampires, so I will take this one step further and say his mother became a bride of Dracula!

Destroy Dracula and all Vampires Lets set up Dracula as his 2nd biggest enemy after the Atom Family due to revenge for his mother.

Protect Romania and it's citizens Lets humanise him again a bit more and say he actually wants to protect Romania and its citizens, but that in his head does not make him a brutal dictator (which he is) but still means the average Romanian has a great quality of life (which strangely enough with all his tech improvements they actually do).

[Lord Liaden]

Do you have Book Of The Destroyer? Huge amount of background info for DD, lots of write-ups for his minions, bases, technology, servants, much more than in his Champions Villains entry. Including stats for his earlier armors when his power level was much lower.

 

If you want to add a mystical side to the character, you could look at his otherworldly doppleganger, Shadow Destroyer, who fuses science with sorcery. As one rationale for his having acquired that knowledge, I tend to connect his Javangari followers and their variant Shiva cult having taught him magic.

[dean day]

3 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

Do you have Book Of The Destroyer? Huge amount of background info for DD, lots of write-ups for his minions, bases, technology, servants, much more than in his Champions Villains entry. Including stats for his earlier armors when his power level was much lower.

 

If you want to add a mystical side to the character, you could look at his otherworldly doppleganger, Shadow Destroyer, who fuses science with sorcery. As one rationale for his having acquired that knowledge, I tend to connect his Javangari followers and their variant Shiva cult having taught him magic.

No I don't have that supplement as I got a bit turned off him in the last two editions as he became in my opinion a bit unusable in an actual campaign in face to face slugfests. yes of course he is still fine to use as a master villain, but I always liked the pay off of the PC's duking it out at the end with them. 

 

But I think this was a general trend with the master villains for champions anyway, Mechanon is another great example of becoming too deadly to use. Once you go into the 30d6 attack range of power, unless your group is of cosmic level defenses themselves they are going down fast and hard. I look at these write up and wince.

 

Mechanon was hugely challenging back in the day before these more modern write ups! anyway just my personal opinion. I want him much more at a real Dr.Doom level where he used to off nameless minions easily in a comic panel, but not superheroes in the story! (My bronze age preferences coming through).

 

Thank you Lord Liaden, Shadow Destroyer sounds very intresting. 

 

[starblaze]

On 1/27/2023 at 1:48 PM, dean day said:

No I don't have that supplement as I got a bit turned off him in the last two editions as he became in my opinion a bit unusable in an actual campaign in face to face slugfests. yes of course he is still fine to use as a master villain, but I always liked the pay off of the PC's duking it out at the end with them. 

 

But I think this was a general trend with the master villains for champions anyway, Mechanon is another great example of becoming too deadly to use. Once you go into the 30d6 attack range of power, unless your group is of cosmic level defenses themselves they are going down fast and hard. I look at these write up and wince.

 

Mechanon was hugely challenging back in the day before these more modern write ups! anyway just my personal opinion. I want him much more at a real Dr.Doom level where he used to off nameless minions easily in a comic panel, but not superheroes in the story! (My bronze age preferences coming through).

 

Thank you Lord Liaden, Shadow Destroyer sounds very intresting. 

 

Well, one of the complaints about the Champions universe is that there are many really uber powerful villains, but all of the heroes are of relatively lower power in comparison.  It's a wonder that they haven't taken over the world yet.

[Lord Liaden]

There are a few major league CU heroes who have been written up, e.g. Celestar, the Drifter, Rashindar, Tetsuronin, StarGuard Andre Almena; while others have been alluded to as being among the world's most powerful, but not game-statted, including Albion, Dweomer, Hyperion, and Ushas. The CU's Superman analogue, Vanguard, died during the Battle of Detroit, while the world still awaits a new Archmage. (Champions Online moved Robert Caliburn into that office.)

 

That tracks with the way the mainstream comics have always shaken out. Villainy generally outnumbers heroism, and outweighs it as an aggregate. Dramatically, villains exist for the heroes to defeat, so they always need more. "Realistically" most people granted extraordinary power would not use it selflessly. Specifically for the needs of gaming, PC heroes are supposed to be the stars of the game, and too many NPC heroes who outclass them will make them question whether they're even needed. PCs also tend to form teams, so individual master villains need the clout to stand up to all of them. (As a tangential note, one of our long-missing forum colleagues, Lord Mhoram, once posted that not long after Conquerors, Killers, And Crooks was published, he ran Dr. Destroyer as written against his campaign's PC team of high level, Justice League-class heroes. LM asserted that the heroes killed DD -- killed him -- in two Turns of combat. So campaigns do reach that level.)

 

All that said, for my own Champs games I have reached into some of the earlier incarnations of the CU for powerful NPC heroes to flesh out the upper ranks of the good guys, including Nuada of the Silver Hand, Archmage Vincent Dimitrios, Captain Australia, and Peacekeeper the heroic version of Mechanon.