Aldaric Gaming Presents: The Illuminati

[Super Squirrel]

While the network was a great idea, I've decided that it isn't broad enough of a topic to garner the attention necessary to put it on Aldaric Gaming (for now). Because I needed something to put up there and I wanted a Dark Champions game, I have decided to create an Illuminati campaign setting.

 

The campaign setting puts players in a world where not one but three illumanti groups exist, struggling to expand their power base to cover the entire world.

 

Group 1 has existed for thousands of years. The group is countrolled by a certain number of wealth, powerful councilmen. When they die, their heir becomes their successor.

 

Group 2 was created in the late 1940s after the first atomic test. Its purpose is to protect the world from itself. It does whatever is necessary to see that superpowers are kept like kittens in the real scheme of things.

 

Group 3 is a mystery. It exists as both groups have encountered it. But neither group knows exactly what its sphere of influence is and what its true motivation is.

 

Now the only thing I need to finish getting the basics for The Illumanti online is help with some names.

 

I'm thinking that I'll call Group 1: The Council of Thirteen and giving the council thirteen members. If someone has a better name or a better number of council members to give it, please share.

 

I have no idea at all what to call Group 2. This is meant to be the group the player characters play from though Group 1 could also be used.

 

For Group 3, I'm thinking of calling it something like: The Circle of Serpeants or The Brotherhood of Serpeants. But I'm definitely open to ideas.

[Pogo]

Re: Aldaric Gaming Presents: The Illuminati

 

For group one, I'd go with "The Eight" and have fifteen members. After all, if I were part of an enduring cabal, I'd hardly advertise the real number of leaders.

 

For group two, the motto should be Latin for "we guard the guardians." As for a name, "Devi" might work. She is Shiva's consort in at least one translation, and after the Trinity tests, Oppenheimer quotes, "now I am become death, destroyer of worlds." Or, in keeping with the principle behind group one's name, they could be "The Goldfish Fanciers."

 

If you want a snake theme for group 3, Jormungand (The Migard Serpent) kind of works for a world-encircling consipiracy. Moving away from the reptillian, "The Order", "Spec Ops" [1], or "Renewal."

 

Good luck, and I hope these suggestions don't drive good ones from your head

 

[1] Sorry, I just finished the latest Thursday Next book and had to work something in.

[Super Squirrel]

Re: Aldaric Gaming Presents: The Illuminati

 

I like those ideas. I might just go with them. Or at least the Migard Serpent works well.

[Trencher]

Re: Aldaric Gaming Presents: The Illuminati

 

Group two could be called the peacekeepers their agents could be called Doves.

[Super Squirrel]

Re: Aldaric Gaming Presents: The Illuminati

 

Group two could be called the peacekeepers their agents could be called Doves.

It unfortunately makes them sound too much like pansies. There is nothing peacekeeping about an illuminati group that permits its agents to use whatever force is necessary and to let the Media Crew take care of the aftermath.

 

You know the scene in El Mariachi when he walks into the bar and kills everyone in this glorified massive shootout? That is your typical mission for this illuminati group.

[Super Squirrel]

Re: Aldaric Gaming Presents: The Illuminati

 

Okay, I have the basic system up.

 

http://aldaric.com/illuminati

 

There is nothing special just yet other than room to begin putting in information on The Big Three. I'll be doing a lot of work on that tonight.

[Trencher]

Re: Aldaric Gaming Presents: The Illuminati

 

It unfortunately makes them sound too much like pansies.

That was sort of the point.

[Super Squirrel]

Re: Aldaric Gaming Presents: The Illuminati

 

For group one' date=' I'd go with "The Eight" and have fifteen members. After all, if I were part of an enduring cabal, I'd hardly advertise the real number of leaders.[/quote']

The Council of Thirteen uses base 6 with a left to right number system. Therefore there are really 19 not 13 councilmen.

[Pogo]

Re: Aldaric Gaming Presents: The Illuminati

 

The Council of Thirteen uses base 6 with a left to right number system. Therefore there are really 19 not 13 councilmen.

 

Have you had your acorn stash tested for ergot?

 

Nice website, by the way. How did you do the Easthaven maps?

[Super Squirrel]

Re: Aldaric Gaming Presents: The Illuminati

 

Thank you. I have put a lot of time into it and will continue to put work into it as long as I can. I'm probably not adding any additional campaign settings for a while. My plan has been to get two systems fully available and then work out all the imperfections in the system. I wanted them to be Fantasy and Dark Champions.

 

Well, those two maps, I didn't make. RPMiller did. But we both use Campaign Cartographer Pro for map making. He has the entire system, I just have CC2 Pro and City Designer. I have a mostly finished map of Calthorn I need to upload. Speaking of which, I need to bug RPMiller about the revised world map.

 

Oh, those Google Ads on the side are going to pay for commissioned art. Once the ads reach $50.00, I'll get my first check which is going towards paying an artist for some artwork. So feel free to click on those ads anytime you think of it.

[Super Squirrel]

Re: Aldaric Gaming Presents: The Illuminati

 

I have some examples of City Designer below:

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=35286

 

I also recently made a battlemap for the streets of Calthorn for Alice that we never ended up using. It is very simple to make maps on the fly with CC2.

[Super Squirrel]

Re: Aldaric Gaming Presents: The Illuminati

 

Regarding the campaign itself, if anyone wants to jump in and help me design the three illuminati groups, please feel free to assist. I'm just getting the basic information and subcategories setup so that players and GMs can get the feel for the differences of the group.

[CraterMaker]

Re: Aldaric Gaming Presents: The Illuminati

 

While the first two groups have conflict about the use and misuse of temporal power, the reason the third group barely registers on their radar is because it pursues spiritual power - Perhaps finding the name of God, or preparing humanity for Armageddon (or Ragnarok). Just as violent and devious because the stakes are so high, but to an outsider their actions appear incoherent with any "rational" goals an outsider might imagine.

 

As a group they refer to themselves as the Shepherds, and the uninitiated masses as Sheep. Their more violent agents are called Confessors, after the atonements they perform when they return from a mission. Confessors are either naturally imbued with photographic memory, or are trained to observe situations with near photogenic recall.

 

The Shepherds are not of the Christian faith, in fact they seem to adopt parts of many faiths to their practice. Some things they believe are contradictory, at least to outsiders. They have masqueraded as belonging to nearly every religion in the world, and have copious knowledge of the inner workings of Organizations of Faith.

 

-CraterMaker

[Super Squirrel]

Re: Aldaric Gaming Presents: The Illuminati

 

I like that idea. Even the name of the illuminati group invokes something that it isn't creating even seeming more incoherent system.

[Pogo]

Re: Aldaric Gaming Presents: The Illuminati

 

Regarding the campaign itself' date=' if anyone wants to jump in and help me design the three illuminati groups, please feel free to assist. I'm just getting the basic information and subcategories setup so that players and GMs can get the feel for the differences of the group.[/quote']

 

Do magic or miracles exist ? If so, is it reasonably well known or do one or more of the groups try to hoard that knowledge? I'd allow The Migard Serpent (or are they now the Shepherds -- an excellent name by the way, CraterMaker) some weak power which they keep secret, possibly by misdirection as I'm all in favor of having deranged alchemists playing in underground lairs. This may not be the mood you wish to set though.

 

From the sidearm description of group ????, it appears at least some technology has advanced past what exists today. How far? Assuming the Illuminatii have more advanced gadgets, the next question is whether their research is just better than everybody else, or do they actively impede R&D worldwide?

 

I'd go with ???? trying to impede development. Primitive monkey-brains not ready for big boom weapons and all that. They might try to divert R&D into less dangerous channels. This, of course, plays into The Council of 13's hands, as they're in favor of people making their lives more comfortable. Unfortunately, the Council also has a lucrative arms business, and finds the occasional war good for [censored] reasons. As ???? cuts into this, they must be controlled. ???? wasn't really aware of the Council until recently when three high priority projects didn't work quite right.

 

PS, the "view all entries" link takes you to Easthaven. Was that your intent?

[Super Squirrel]

Re: Aldaric Gaming Presents: The Illuminati

 

Do magic or miracles exist ? If so' date=' is it reasonably well known or do one or more of the groups try to hoard that knowledge? I'd allow The Migard Serpent (or are they now the Shepherds -- an excellent name by the way, CraterMaker) some weak power which they keep secret, possibly by misdirection as I'm all in favor of having deranged alchemists playing in underground lairs. This may not be the mood you wish to set though.[/quote']I'd like to keep the world as mundane as possible. I don't the existance of magic to a degree as long as it is very, very difficult and requires massive people in complex rituals.

 

From the sidearm description of group ????' date=' it appears at least some technology has advanced past what exists today. How far? Assuming the Illuminatii have more advanced gadgets, the next question is whether their research is just better than everybody else, or do they actively impede R&D worldwide?[/quote']Good question. Feel free to answer these yourself. I hadn't put much thought into it yet.

 

I'd go with ???? trying to impede development. Primitive monkey-brains not ready for big boom weapons and all that. They might try to divert R&D into less dangerous channels. This' date=' of course, plays into The Council of 13's hands, as they're in favor of people making their lives more comfortable. Unfortunately, the Council also has a lucrative arms business, and finds the occasional war good for [censored'] reasons. As ???? cuts into this, they must be controlled. ???? wasn't really aware of the Council until recently when three high priority projects didn't work quite right.

I would imagine they were not aware of the Council as an entity but had seen signs of some group out there. I can see all of this working though.

 

PS, the "view all entries" link takes you to Easthaven. Was that your intent?

That would be a bug. When I created The Illuminati I had only one campaign setup, Easthaven. I copied the sidebar, header, and main viewing system over and cut out all of the extra links keeping only one for overview, one for detailed information, and one for view all entries. I should have had the view all entries refer back to campaign information until I got that link fully implimented. I clearly did not.

 

I'll get it fixed.

[Pogo]

Re: Aldaric Gaming Presents: The Illuminati

 

OK, here's a proposal. Use whichever sentence you find useful

 

?????, hereafter group X, have more advanced weapons than any government. They have members in most defense contractors, as well as the DoD. These individuals will report on promising avenues of destruction. Appropriate saboteurs will then be sent out to make these avenues seem unworkable. The Sgt. York would have worked if not for group X special ops.

 

Delaying learning isn't enough. Group X also tries to deflect research into less dangerous areas. The Question was almost right -- aglets originally had a sinister purpose, but not anymore. To this end they use seduction, bribery, blackmail, diversion, and on rare occasions, force. Allison's husband asks if she really wants to do this work, or would she be happier elsewhere. Defense contractor Fred's girlfriend wants him to move to Clemson, SC. He'll have to find a new job. Oddly enough, a lucrative one will have just opened up. Pat has been encouraged to change companies so that photos will not be published -- most group X members don't like this sort of correction, but accept it as necessary.

 

Recently group X discovered a combination of sound, light and odors which makes most people more agreeable, more pliant. This is not a simple box agents can carry around to make their jobs easier. However, the components can be hidden in an office building or a large home. Rigging someone's apartment is not yet possible without the owner's cooperation, but is being worked on. In the meantime, rental properties in the DC, LA, and San Diego areas are quietly changing hands . . . .

[StGrimblefig]

Re: Aldaric Gaming Presents: The Illuminati

 

Are you explicitly avoiding the "historical" Illuminati? Their name was, iirc: the Ancient Illuminated Seers of Bavaria.

 

I can understand why you would want to avoid any of the group names used in fiction or in other games (e.g. SJGs "Illuminati" card games). However, for thematic ideas, you really should read the "50 Awful Things About the Illuminati" (if you haven't already). A copy of GURPS Illuminati couldn't hurt either -- don't worry, there is a minimum of GURPS-specific mechanics, and a wealth of conspiracy information.

 

Perhaps two or more of these groups claim to be descendents of the "historical" Illuminati, and call the others pretenders. That would give them something other than pure ideology to fight about.