Gamma Flight campaign images

[Moonblade]

Here in New York we've been running a set of dueling campaigns and I've taken it upon myself to provide illustrations. This first set is from our Gamma Flight campaign. The player who was Eclipse of Evil is no longer playing which is a shame cuz I felt I really got the concept visually. This is basically the characters in their trainee phase. [ATTACH]29561[/ATTACH]

[Moonblade]

Re: Gamma Flight campaign images

 

After a year (and about fifty points of EXP) they graduated to Beta Flight. Since Johnny Canuck already had his armor the way he liked it, only the other three remaining team members got their updated costumes. Here's Tundra:

 

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[Moonblade]

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And the Inuit Super-hunter, The Mighty Quinn:

 

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[Moonblade]

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And Finally, the Goddess of Mystery, Demi-Ra:

 

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[Shaft]

Re: Gamma Flight campaign images

 

Are you (the players, that is) a group of Canadian ex-pats in NY? It's not unusual for Canadians to play a team of Americans in a US city, but it's not too often that we hear about a bunch of Yankees playing Canucks (and please don't read any backhanded USA-centricism into that).

 

Very cool art, BTW. Repped.

[penemue]

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yeah.. cool stuff.

[Moonblade]

Re: Gamma Flight campaign images

 

Actually, NONE of us are Canadian.

That was the funniest part of starting up this campaign. I should note that while I've been playing Hero since 1988, I hadn't really run anything before. I developed the idea from Alpha Flight and wondered what it would be like to be in the training program Gamma Flight.

I added an additional level, Delta Flight and created a new setting. The idea is that the government created a free program to train people in these "meta abilities" that kept popping up in order to minimize damage. It was anonymous and required nothing further from the participants.

However, if your powers were useful and you fit the right psychological profile, then you could join the Flight program to become part of the national superteam. When I presented this, I said, "This doesn't have to be Canadian, it just sounded like Superhero Socialism, which probably would fly better there than here."

The first two people to hand in characters both created Canadian Superpatriot Characters (one of whom had a rivalry with same -- oy) so now, having been to Toronto once twenty-two years ago I had to learn about Canada right quick. Actual Canadians might laugh at this, but since I didn't want it in the hip hub cities most adventures would take place in (Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal) the characters are Gamma Flight Central, housed in...Winnipeg.

[penemue]

Re: Gamma Flight campaign images

 

Personally, I know people design them all the time, but I don't think a Canadian Superpatriot character would exist in Canada. I think we have too broad a brush in defining our national identity that we tend to roll our eyes at Canadian "Symbols". Funnily enough though we tend to rally around some Canadianisms that we like such as Tim Horton's Coffee, Hockey (known as ice hockey in the U.S.... I could never figure that out... why so specific?), Roots (which isn't even Canadian), Terry Fox (our only real heroes are the dead ones) and Peacekeeping (although our recent adventures around the world are bringing this up for debate).

Winnipeg is a fairly reasonable place for a National Canadian superhero team as it is fairly central. Winnipeg also has one of the largest crime rates in Canada relative to the size of the city.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Canada

http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/050721/d050721a.htm

 

Winnipeg also has a really thriving cultural community. It's kind of surprising and I think this article says a lot about it. I particularly like the witch's quote about converging astrological lines. http://www.torontosun.com/travel/canada/2008/08/31/6622761-sun.html

 

 

I set my campaign HQ in Ottawa only because there is so much bureaucracy, red tape and politics in my campaign. Most of Canadian supertypes would probably flee to the U.S. to "make it big" just like our actors and other artists, leaving a team of second stringers to be the "national team". In my campaign I solved that problem by making the U.S. a society that turned against super-powered people in the 1970s under Nixon and made it virtually impossible to operate as a costumed hero with superpowers. If you used martial arts or gadgets they pretty much leave you alone, but use of powers leads to incarceration and experimentation. So a LOT of Supertypes find themselves in Canada. It makes for some interesting campaign issues and ethical discussions.

In my campaign Canada strictly registers all Super-powered heroes. They must give up their identities and work for the government or else they are actively hunted down by federal RCMP agents known as C.A.P.E.R. (Canadian Agency of Paranormal Enforcement and Registration). The C.A.P.E.R. HQ is located in Quebec City and is quite diligent about enforcing anti-vigilante laws and hunting down, incarcerating and exposing costumed thugs.

[rjcurrie]

Re: Gamma Flight campaign images

 

Funnily enough though we tend to rally around some Canadianisms that we like such as Tim Horton's Coffee, Hockey (known as ice hockey in the U.S.... I could never figure that out... why so specific?), Roots (which isn't even Canadian), Terry Fox (our only real heroes are the dead ones) and Peacekeeping (although our recent adventures around the world are bringing this up for debate).

 

I think the "ice hockey" is more an international thing than an American thing. In much of the world, "hockey" means "field hockey" and I suspect they look at us funny when we use that name. As a result, the international sports federation that oversees what we call "hockey" is called the "International Ice Hockey Federation".

 

As for the peacekeeping thing, the main Canadian superhero team in my SuperSquad America universe is called "The Peacekeepers".

 

As for Tim Horton's, the only thing I can say is that I wrote a comedy scene about a decade ago where the Canadian embassy in a small fictional European country had a Tim Horton's in their east wing. Needless to say, I sort of chuckled when I heard they were setting up a Tim Horton's for our troops at the base camp in Kandahar.

 

As for the superpatriot thing I think that might depend on the people behind such a hero. For example, if the people in charge of a Canadian super-soldier program are intent on copying the Americans (not an uncommon thing) then you might get a "Captain Canada" being created. Also, a friend of mine whose family hails from Newfoundland claims he could easily a Newfoundlander donning such an identity.

[rjcurrie]

Re: Gamma Flight campaign images

 

Winnipeg is a fairly reasonable place for a National Canadian superhero team as it is fairly central. Winnipeg also has one of the largest crime rates in Canada relative to the size of the city.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Canada

http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/050721/d050721a.htm

 

Winnipeg also has a really thriving cultural community. It's kind of surprising and I think this article says a lot about it. I particularly like the witch's quote about converging astrological lines. http://www.torontosun.com/travel/canada/2008/08/31/6622761-sun.html

 

Unless you have really good method of transportation, I'm not sure that the idea of a national team in one location works and if such a team was a government-sponsored team, its location is as likely to be determined by politics as it is by geography. Of course, maybe a deal was worked out that if Winnipeg was given the superhero team, they would shup up about wanting an NHL franchise back.

 

in the case of the Peacekeepers mentioned in my previous post, they are based in Toronto primarily because of the money behind the team and they have in their membership, an old Newfoundland sea captain called The Ancient Mariner who has a mystical boat that can instantly appear in any body of water.

 

We now rejoin the scheduled thread already in progress ...

[Moonblade]

Re: Gamma Flight campaign images

 

Thanks for the Winnipeg "fun facts". I was using the gang problem in tandem with a transplanted Inuit's DNPC. The superpatriot issue goes to the fact that we're United States citizens (I hate the term 'Americans' - America is two continents and thirty-plus countries). Since Jingoism is so strong here, it's assumed that of course there'd be people who think Canada is #1 in the world (at least, for its size) and would express it out loud.

 

Both of the campaign ideas are very cool, though more extreme than I tend to do. And while these guys are patrolling Manitoba, it's established that there's basically Alpha/Beta/Gamma Flight East (Based in Toronto and Quebec) and Flight West in Vancouver. I actually considered that there'd be a fair amount of supercriminals who would go North assuming easy pickings and before there was an organized national effort, it probably was. In fact, probably the greatest danger to Yank supercrooks would probably be Borealis who could smear most of them if he so chose.

[rjcurrie]

Re: Gamma Flight campaign images

 

Since Jingoism is so strong here' date=' it's assumed that of course there'd be people who think Canada is #1 in the world (at least, for its size) and would express it out loud. [/quote']

 

Oh, I'm pretty sure such people exist. The big difference might be public reaction to such heroes. There is a good chance, however, that such a patriot would be strongly anti-US since there is a good bit of the Canadian identity tied up in being "not American".

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: Gamma Flight campaign images

 

Nice stuff, thanks for sharing!

 

I could go for some Timbits right about now...

[DusterBoy]

Re: Gamma Flight campaign images

 

H'mm, I suggest you check out "The Ultimate Captain Canuck Tribute Page" run by DK Latta at www.geeocities.com/SoHo/study/4273. There's also an essay on whether or not Canadians invented the whole superhero genre. Let's put it this way, DK Latta is proud to be Canadian and takes issue with those who are not.