assault Posted July 24, 2005 Report Share Posted July 24, 2005 OK, well, I was watching bad Australian movies tonight, and during the ad breaks trying to organise a campaign. I don't yet have DEMON, or Hidden Lands, but it ocurred to me that the combination of those, and CKC, could provide something close to a full-time campaign for Australian supers - that is, for the characters played by the people that buy Hero Games products here in Australia. OK, so I'm thinking about who superheroes in Australia are going to spend their time fighting? Or, to put it another way, who are the pre-authorised villains in Australia? My initial list, to which I am requesting additions... VIPER Taipan (a snake. See VIPER.) The Well of Worlds. This keeps us busy. ARGENT. Well, we all know that the rumours about New Zealand aren't true, so why should we care? The South Pacific. Yes, OK, various masterminds have bases under the sea. So, unless we want to make up our own stuff, who, from canonical 5e material, should keep us busy? DEMON? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supreme Serpent Posted July 24, 2005 Report Share Posted July 24, 2005 Re: Australia in the current CU I would think you could use just about anyone. Any of the Master Villains would work just fine, as they're globe-spanning. Dr. Destroyer could decide he wants a BIG island base. Isthvaa's portals could have an easier time opening there. Perhaps one of Takofanes' old lairs happens to lie in the Outback. Home-grown criminals could hire some of the normally American supervillains as muscle, or the villains could come to Australia where they think it'll be easier going. Maybe some of the battlesuit villains like Anklyosaur are now Australian, a local having taken possession of the suit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kirby Posted July 24, 2005 Report Share Posted July 24, 2005 Re: Australia in the current CU Oh' date=' yeah. You know why I think Assault is good? He's got a copy of first edition Champions. And he can leap tall buildings with a single bound. Do you? Can you? [/quote'] Yes, I have the 1st Ed also. No, I can't, but my characters usually fly instead. I'll contribute more lately, I have to go now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Libra Posted July 24, 2005 Report Share Posted July 24, 2005 Re: Australia in the current CU Or mabye you could take the nominally non-aussie Villains and give them an ausssie spin. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hermit Posted July 24, 2005 Report Share Posted July 24, 2005 Re: Australia in the current CU OK, well, I was watching bad Australian movies tonight, and during the ad breaks trying to organise a campaign. I don't yet have DEMON, or Hidden Lands, but it ocurred to me that the combination of those, and CKC, could provide something close to a full-time campaign for Australian supers - that is, for the characters played by the people that buy Hero Games products here in Australia. Since you mentioned it, Hidden Lands has a small section of the Well of Worlds that should be just what you were predicting, along with a very bad being. IIRC Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest darthvegita666 Posted July 24, 2005 Report Share Posted July 24, 2005 Re: Australia in the current CU just use guys from the mad max movies and youll be all good Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobGreenwade Posted July 24, 2005 Report Share Posted July 24, 2005 Re: Australia in the current CU Increasingly, I've been getting the feeling that if DOJ ever goes back to doing geographic sourcebooks for Champions, Champions Down Under should be the pilot project. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
assault Posted July 24, 2005 Author Report Share Posted July 24, 2005 Re: Australia in the current CU Whoa! My second personality was really breaking through last night. I find roleplaying Assault easy. I just go temporarily insane. My serious point, about canonical villains in Australia, is still valid, and I thank everybody for their responses so far. (I really should design Assault a proper pair of Kirby boots. Unfortunately, he's already wasting a whole lot of points just being himself...) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Liaden Posted July 25, 2005 Report Share Posted July 25, 2005 Re: Australia in the current CU Canonically, I'm afraid Australia is one of the supers-deprived regions of the official CU. Taipan is the only native supervillain mentioned in the Champions Universe supplement, with a grand total of three superheroes. Which I suppose is consistent with that book's assertion that the prevalence of superhumans in Australia is one per five million normals. Australia's population is around 20 million, isn't it? I'm personally rather disappointed that DOJ made this decision about a country that seems to have its fair share of HERO gamers, and IMO lots of adventure potential. Oz in the Fourth Edition CU was a far livelier place supers-wise. I rather think that Down Under is ripe for a major super-spawning event in your campaign. My suggestion would be a shower of Kelvarite-bearing meteors. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
assault Posted July 25, 2005 Author Report Share Posted July 25, 2005 Re: Australia in the current CU I'm personally rather disappointed that DOJ made this decision about a country that seems to have its fair share of HERO gamers, and IMO lots of adventure potential. Oz in the Fourth Edition CU was a far livelier place supers-wise. I rather think that Down Under is ripe for a major super-spawning event in your campaign. My suggestion would be a shower of Kelvarite-bearing meteors. Yeah. New Zealand is another place where this applies. Adding the Well of Worlds to the picture helps as a handy potential source of supers. Kelvarite, on the other hand... Its "glowing green rock"-ness is useful. I've tended to underuse it because of its obvious cheesiness, but then again, my world is full of associations with the dairy industry. Maybe I should reconsider. I admit that under the influence of the Smallville TV series, I did briefly consider a world that had a single cause of superpowers. An influx of mutagens capable of producing both induced and inherited superpowers would work nicely. Especially if the key superhero was allergic to the source that powers everyone else... Hmm. Let's see: Superman. Duh. Green Lantern. Could be powered by a glowing green rock. Flash. Mutated by exposure to "chemicals". Now, which "chemical" might have done that? Aquaman. Well, his origin could stand as is, but he could also be a mutant. Wonder Woman. See Aquaman. Martian Manhunter. He's a green alien. For all I know he could be mutated pond scum. Batman. "Just a guy." No power source needed, although you could tweak his genes if you think it's necessary to allow him to do what he does. Doing the same for Marvel is easy enough. Mutants. Children of people exposed to Kelvarite. Fantastic Four. Duh. Spidey, Hulk. Indirect exposure. Ant-Man. Guess what the secret ingredient of his shrinking gas is? etc. I'm not sure if I would bother, but, yes, a Kelvarite meteor show would allow a nice localised cluster of superbeings to arise. About a year ago, I started writing an article I was considering submitting to Digital Hero. It was provisionally titled "Local Hero", and was intended to provide some suggestions for how to rationalise a game set outside Big Cities. In short, it was "a bunch of excuses for why your game is set in your own home town". Maybe I should take another look at it. The key idea was that superbeings are usually found in clusters, which means that statistical analyses of their prevalence tend to break down. While statistics suggest that you wouldn't expect to find any superbeings in South Nowhere, Nebraska, local conditions can radically change this. This kind of argument can also be used to explain why there isn't a squillion superbeings in, say, India, unless you want them there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rage Posted July 25, 2005 Report Share Posted July 25, 2005 Re: Australia in the current CU I know a quantity of herogamers in Australia and New Zealand, and it would be nice to be thrown a little bit of an official universe bone, even if it was just in a .pdf or some such you know? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Southern Cross Posted July 25, 2005 Report Share Posted July 25, 2005 Re: Australia in the current CU I agree with Rage.If one in every five million Australians/New Zealanders has superpowers,New Zealand won't have any superhumans at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigJackBrass Posted July 25, 2005 Report Share Posted July 25, 2005 Re: Australia in the current CU Given the global nature of some supervillains it would make sense to me that, even if they lacked substantial home-grown heroes, the Australian and New Zealand governments would try to attract heroes from overseas to offer assistance. Of course, that leads to its own problems if the local population objects. Under such circumstances I would expect to find some sort of programme to create powered armour and other ways to equip troops to take on superhuman adversaries. If ever there was a country built to have a secret government base hidden in the interior it has to be Australia, the geography is perfect. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
assault Posted July 25, 2005 Author Report Share Posted July 25, 2005 Re: Australia in the current CU Of course we are dealing strictly with the official CU, not with the variations individual GMs inevitably introduce, so "if you don't like it, change it" isn't really an appropriate response in this case. The easiest way to deal with the lack of Australian and New Zealand supers is to take note that the figures given in Champions Universe were from 2002. A lot of supers could have emerged since then. That's not quite adequate if you want them to have been active before then, but at least it would be a step in the right direction, and I would be willing to stop whingeing about it. So I think we could reasonably lobby The Powers That Be to eventually make it official that relatively large numbers of supers have been manifesting in Australia and NZ over the last few years... Why that would be occurring can be left as an exercise... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Liaden Posted July 25, 2005 Report Share Posted July 25, 2005 Re: Australia in the current CU All of us in favor of suping-up Oz and NZ should keep lobbying in mind as we get closer to the Champions Universe update book scheduled for next year, particularly if Steve or whoever's writing it starts a "What Do *You* Want To See?" thread for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Southern Cross Posted July 25, 2005 Report Share Posted July 25, 2005 Re: Australia in the current CU Count me in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darren Watts Posted July 26, 2005 Report Share Posted July 26, 2005 Re: Australia in the current CU In the interests of fairness to us, I should point out that Champions Worldwide introduces half a dozen additional Aussies (well, one's from New Zealand.) dw Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hermit Posted July 26, 2005 Report Share Posted July 26, 2005 Re: Australia in the current CU In the interests of fairness to us' date=' I should point out that Champions Worldwide introduces half a dozen additional Aussies (well, one's from New Zealand.) dw[/quote'] The more I hear about this book, the more I'm looking forward to it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mantis Posted July 26, 2005 Report Share Posted July 26, 2005 Re: Australia in the current CU "ANZACs Assemble!" Count me in, too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curufea Posted July 26, 2005 Report Share Posted July 26, 2005 Re: Australia in the current CU I'm actually more in favour of a low-Super Australia. Which would attract super villains precisely because there would be few superheroes. Ergo - the normals would create organisations to take on super villians. It ties in with the whole "Aussie Battler" concept. Possibly even televised and treated as a sport Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karma Posted July 26, 2005 Report Share Posted July 26, 2005 Re: Australia in the current CU or the villains could come to Australia where they think it'll be easier going. Lets face it, in 'canon' 5E CU Australia *is* easy pickings given the low number of supers of any kind in/from Australia the number of super heroes and rival super villians would make it the prime spot for a little 'easy money'. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quedorm Posted July 26, 2005 Report Share Posted July 26, 2005 Re: Australia in the current CU Hmm... In a previous Champions game I played in a few years ago, my Character was an American who had moved to Perth Australia with his family, because his dad, a corporate CEO, was personally overseeing something his company was working on... A few weeks after, Mercades college, a private all-girls school Sabre's younger sister attends, is held hostage by Foxbat for a sum of five trillion dollars. Sabre shows up first, fights foxbat and beats him. Then a mystic of some sort shows up, and blasts Foxbat with a spell, causing him to grow to 200 feet tall. The rest of the heros show up and the fight drags out until they all find themselves at Kings Park,eventually ending when 'Giganto Foxbat' was pushed off the edge and got knockd out when his head hit Kings Park hospital. The media soon show up, and the heroes (Sabre included) are called The Perth Saviors. Sorry to have prattled on like that... The point I was trying to make was that just because you aren't born an aussie, Aoesn't mean that your superheroic debut can't have you recognised as an Australian hero. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Liaden Posted July 26, 2005 Report Share Posted July 26, 2005 Re: Australia in the current CU In the interests of fairness to us' date=' I should point out that Champions Worldwide introduces half a dozen additional Aussies (well, one's from New Zealand.) dw[/quote'] Cool. That's a good start. I had assumed that CW would concentrate on just writing up the heroes and villains mentioned in Champions Universe, but if we're getting more than those so much the better. Just to be clear, are those half a dozen Aussies in addition to the ones from the CU sourcebook - Taipan, Harrier, Brigade and Walkabout? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Hopcroft Posted July 26, 2005 Report Share Posted July 26, 2005 Re: Australia in the current CU On one hand, the Aborginal culture has some hooks that would make for interesting supers (a person who can interact with the other dimension known as the Dreamtime). On the other hand my understanding is that race relations have always been a very touchy point with Austrialians of all stripes (witness how reluctant the government has been to have any dealings at all with refugees). As for New Zealand, I can easily soo a Maori superhero winning a following. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darren Watts Posted July 26, 2005 Report Share Posted July 26, 2005 Re: Australia in the current CU Cool. That's a good start. I had assumed that CW would concentrate on just writing up the heroes and villains mentioned in Champions Universe, but if we're getting more than those so much the better. Just to be clear, are those half a dozen Aussies in addition to the ones from the CU sourcebook - Taipan, Harrier, Brigade and Walkabout? No, it's full writeups on those four, plus two more (Lightning Man and Anathema.) At least, that's what it's got before facing the mighty axe of Steve Long The Executioner. People really wanted the CU characters (at least according to the informal discussions here before we started the book), so we tried to make sure to hit those as well as toss in a few new ones in each region. dw Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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