Help planning Champions campaign

[Grow-Arm-Hair Lad]

It's weird. I've been GMing Champions for....30+ years. I just can't seem to get this one together.

 

Here are the inspirations I'm playing with:

 

1. Something like Brandon Sanderson's Steelheart, which is a bit like The Boys, but I'm leaning toward Steelheart as the inspiration.(Click on the link if you want a synopsis of Steelheart.)
2. But also, themes of alien invasion. More like an infiltration, like They Live or Marvel's Secret Invasion.

 

I just can't seem to come up with set pieces and plotlines that draw these ideas together.

I also need escalating events and a nice "Season Finale" battle or scenario

 

My world is a homebrew with some Champions villains thrown in. The world feels like Marvel, but has no Marvel characters. 

 

Does any of this get your neurons firing?

 

 

[Lord Liaden]

Okay. I think I see your difficulty, in that the inspirations you're looking at are kind of contradictory. On the one hand, Steelheart is about a very open tyranny by superhumans; but you also want elements of covert alien invasion. There are two potential ways to approach this campaign, either as single or two-stage. First stage would be the heroes discovering and battling the infiltration by the aliens. They may win some fights, but ultimately the aliens succeed in gaining control of key strategic assets, subjugate the Earth and declare themselves openly. If what you want is along the lines of Steelheart, you might want to set your campaign during this second stage.

 

Since you're mixing in Champions with your home brew, I'm going to base my suggestions on material drawn from Champions Beyond, the source book for the alien/cosmic side of the official Champions Universe. If you don't have that book and have no intention of getting it, feel free to ignore the rest of this post.

 

The Roin'esh are a race of alien shape-shifters written up in CB. In the book they're desirous of establishing an interstellar empire. They've also identified Earth, particularly its superhumans, as a potential obstacle to their plans. That's sufficient justification for a secret invasion of Earth. The majority of Roin'esh have basic shape-shifting, able to assume any humanoid form. But some are much more versatile and powerful, on the order of the Changelings/Founders of the Dominion from the Star Trek universe. There are examples of such Roin'esh in CB. So if desired you could have the one race be both the first-stage infiltrators, and the second-stage superpowered tyrants.

 

However, officially the Roin'esh are subjects of the Malvans, humanoids who are one of the oldest races, and the most technologically advanced race, in the galaxy. Once great imperialists, the Malvans have largely sunken into decadence, but some of them still retain ambitions of various kinds. It may be that the Malvans directed the Roin'esh to subvert Earth so Malva could more easily subjugate it. However, I think a more interesting variation would be for the Roin'esh to try to start building their empire out of their masters' sight, but the Malvans discover what they're doing and decide to bring their errant slaves to heel, in the most direct manner, by conquering Earth themselves. That would create potential encounters with Roin'esh who either serve the Malvans, or who oppose them and are willing to ally with humans to get the Malvans off their backs.

 

If your world already has superhumans, the Malvans might have wanted to seize Earth to draft our supers into their favorite entertainment, gladiatorial games. However, Malvan technology is so advanced, they're able to induce almost any super power in themselves or any other race. They often do this to create superhuman gladiators. So there's potential for Malvan-created human supers, as well as Malvan superhumans, who could be enemies or even allies of your campaign's heroes.

 

There's a great deal of information about Malvan history, culture, technology, and a number of fully-written NPCs, in Champions Beyond that you could adapt to your campaign. But if you wanted a Malvan analogue to Steelheart himself, I would recommend using the most powerful Malvan super, Firewing, as your template (most recently written up in Champions Villains Volume Three: Solo Villains).

 

Anyway, that's a much fire as I can get out of my neurons right now.   I hope some of that is of use to you. Feel free to use as much or as little as you like, or ignore it entirely. If it doesn't work for you at all, if you outline your concerns in more detail we could try again.

[Doc Democracy]

Hmm.  So what you are suggesting is that we see superhuman increasingly get involved in politics, possibly to the point the execute an effective coup where participation in executive politics and governance is based on personal power.

 

This process, which the PCs may be investigating, has, in the shadows, been supported and provoked and potentially subverted by the aliens.  Driving human societies to this, driving them to take-up offers to be made super. They then manoeuvre elections away from broad suffrage to gladiatorial contests, broadcast as part of the bread and circus element of authoritarian societies.

 

Is that it?

Edited November 12, 2023 by Doc Democracy

[Lord Liaden]

If you're asking me, I was just throwing out some broad parameters to see if any of it resonated with GAHL. I wasn't being that specific, but that's certainly a logical direction to take it.

[Rails]

Maybe the aliens are actually trying to free the Earth from the supers in charge?  They're not _quite_ heroes, but not necessarily villains either.  The PCs could establish a working relationship with them, fight them, or possibly even be aliens themselves.

[Grow-Arm-Hair Lad]

4 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

If you're asking me, I was just throwing out some broad parameters to see if any of it resonated with GAHL. I wasn't being that specific, but that's certainly a logical direction to take it.

 

This is exactly what I needed. You hit the nail on the head that the inspirations are contradictory.

 

I usually do pick two semi-contradictory elements and try to weave them together. This was the most extreme. But your brainstorming really got my neurons firing! Bringing in the gladiatorial angle is what I needed, plus all the other suggestions. Very cool, and this was exactly the help I was dreaming of. : )

[Grow-Arm-Hair Lad]

Yeah, the shapeshifters and the Malvans. I have the corrupt, invulnerable superhero ready to seize control--a former teammate of the PC superteam. The stuff with the aliens will play well with what I was already building, and having a gladiatorial spectacle like Hulk vs. Thor in Ragnarok as a finale will fit perfectly.

 

And I'm already seeing how the plot-building skirmishes will play out, a little like The Great Supervillain Contest....

 

Thank you!!