Iron Age/Dark Champions Concept

[teh bunneh]

(Not sure if this should go on the DC board or this one, but what the heck...) This is a concept for a one-shot I'm planning to run. Low powered (around 250 points) superheroes. Any thoughts?

 

"A Broken Heart"

The city of Nocturne sits amid a great swamp, straddling a mighty river that empties into the sea just to the south. It's a wretched place to live – blazingly hot in the summer, freezing cold in the winter, humid and rainy year-round. It is an ancient place, the crossroads of a dozen cultures over its 3+ centuries of existence, filled with mystery and decadence.

 

It is a corrupt place with a dark heart. Politicians buy their way into office. Those police not afraid to leave their precinct houses are bought-and-paid-for by the kingpins who run this place. It's a staging ground for drugs, weapons, and illegal immigrants to enter the country, and for cash and kidnapping victims to leave. The economy is in shambles – the middle class fled the city more than a decade ago, leaving behind only the very rich in their glass-and-steel towers, and the very poor in their filthy, huddled ghettos.

 

But it wasn't always this way. Only a decade ago, Nocturne was the shining city of tomorrow, filled with hope for the future and home of the nation's premier superhero squad – the Strike Team. Its members were known as Salt (a wizard), Star (an energy projector), Power & Might (brothers, both bricks), and Ouragan (a weather-manipulator).

 

But that ended in a massive fireball. The Strike Team's airship exploded high above downtown. The wreckage of the plane carved a swath of destruction across the east part of the city. Hundreds of civilians plus everyone aboard the ship died that day. Everyone aboard the ship, that is, except one – Power, strongest of the Strike Team, nearly invulnerable and with the power to heal any injury. But even he was badly hurt. He lay in a coma for months while his shattered body tried to mend itself.

 

When he finally awoke, the world had changed. The powers that set him above humanity and made him a champion burned themselves out healing him. Broken in mind, body, and spirit, he retired to his team's mansion and disappeared from the public eye. It was a time when the city needed a hero more than ever, but there were no longer any to be found.

 

It didn't take long for Nocturne to turn from a shining example to a sordid display. The drug lords, mercenaries, and gangsters who had been held back by the Strike Team moved in and made the city their own. They used their money, influence, and ruthlessness to take control of City Hall and the Police Force. No one stood against them.

 

No one except Heartbreaker. She was a minor hero, an occasional ally of but nowhere in the league of the Strike Team. She stood up against the rising tide of evil, and where others failed, she stood strong. She became the city's hero – a darker hero for a darker time. Without her efforts over the last decade, the city would have plunged into the abyss, a hellhole of crime and corruption worse than any place on this Earth. She gave hope to the hopeless; she inspired fear in those who haunt the night; she was a glimmer of light in the darkness of Nocturne.

 

And today, the newspapers are reporting that Heartbreaker is dead.

[PoorWandering 1]

Re: Iron Age/Dark Champions Concept

 

Very bleak and very cool. Please keep posting if this runs.

[Chimpira]

Re: Iron Age/Dark Champions Concept

 

Sounds good. Why only a one shot though? It sounds like you could tell quite a few stories there.

[teh bunneh]

Re: Iron Age/Dark Champions Concept

 

Sounds good. Why only a one shot though? It sounds like you could tell quite a few stories there.

 

Thanks! I'm planning to use the setting for one-shots and Convention games, if the first game is successful (with any luck, I'm running it at NukeCon next month...)

 

BIll.