A Whole New (Super) World...

[steriaca]

What I would like to see is "The Superhero Grimor", a supliment about the magical side of superheros (from Doctor Strange, to Sailor Moon, to Mandrake the Magician, and everyone in between).

[Lord Liaden]

I would say more about the space setting, except that I haven't been able to convince people that the things I want to see there --West World, a cosmopolitan port city-- should be in the setting at all. 

 

We've had a decent start at the Solar System, though, with a criminally underused Ancient Mars (in my fanfic, I've got Mandaarian archaeologists there, because I think that just makes sense) and a blown-up asteroid planet, so there's that.

 

In fact the Champions Online MMORPG has turned the Snake Gulch tourist park/VIPER front, from Sharper Than A Serpent's Tooth, into a pretty obvious West World homage, albeit one that the snakes have corrupted to their purposes.

 

As for a "cosmopolitan port city," the Forum Malvanum on Earth's Moon, as described in Champions Beyond, actually fulfills some of the functions of that. It's attended by space-faring species from all over the galaxy, with luxurious hotels able to accommodate a range of biologies, numerous high-end shops showcasing a wide array of luxury goods, restaurants offering gourmet cuisine from many worlds, diverse gambling establishments, theaters and auditoriums providing various non-gladiatorial entertainments... and a thriving underworld selling nearly any illegal product or service, for the right price. It would be a great way to introduce terrestrial PCs to a cross-section of the galactic community without having to travel far; particularly given the Malvans' propensity for kidnapping Earth supers to fight in the arena.

 

Steve Long has mentioned that he was forced to cut back space he wanted to devote in Champions Beyond to describing the Solar System in more detail, to fit in all the material that Cryptic Studios was developing for Champions Online: the Forum Malvanum and Hamazakar Crater on Luna, and the expanded Qularr and Gadroon info. But I agree that more could be done with the ancient Martian civilization -- the bits revealed so far have been tantalizing. And plenty of cool stuff lurks in that asteroid belt to be discovered (I pulled a preserved survivor from the Phytian botanoid civilization into my games). For my part, I've been working to massage the references to ancient alien civilizations and events in CB and other books into a more coherent timeline.

[Clonus]

One superhero universe concept I've toyed with, is the idea that there is simply no United States or only a loosely organized one under the Articles of Confederation. I have after all seen plenty of comic book settings and plotlines where it would make more sense if the city, or at least the state is an autonomous entity.  

[DShomshak]

I once suggested to Steve Long that he should write Book of the Warlord. It could provide a look at the Third World in the CU, and at the mercenary/paramilitary/terrorist side of things.

 

It's nice to know that other people are using Babylon. It's one of my favorite creations, and I had a lot of fun with it in my Supermage playtest campaigns. (Personal favorite was the bachelor party the other PCs held in Babylon when Jezeray Illyescu married Black Fang -- long story, okay? The roaming party stopped at both a Roman gladiator bar and the Folies Bergiere.) I'd be tickled pink if someone else contributed to Babylon's development.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Lawnmower Boy]

What I've got so far.

 

-Queen's Hill: The "Hey, Look, it's Sherlock Holmes"neighbourhood. The butler's contract says that he has to arrange two locked-room murder mysteries before breakfast. Which is devilled kidney, if you were wondering.

-Rivertown: It's grey, it's seedy, and it's always rainy. Long, open street vistas let you see the checkpoints along the Wall.

-The Understate: A system of underground divided-lane expressways. (You've seen them in Lego Racers.) Just don't take one of the service exits. There's migdalor down there.

-The Library Cafeteria: high school students from across the multiverse. Every fashion you've ever imagined, and some you wish you hadn't.

-Food trucks. Better believe there are food trucks.

-The 'Burbs. Because Norma Jean has to be from somewhere.

[DShomshak]

Ooh, nice. I am indeed tickled pink.

 

Some years back I ate at an Assyrian food truck. IE, cuisine from northern Iraq, but the truck was painted with scenes and designs from ancient Assyria. It would have looked right at home in Babylon.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Lord Liaden]

Although I use the current official Champions Universe as the basis for my own campaigns, I've also imported a great deal of material from earlier editions of the CU, so I guess it could be considered a "new" world, or at least a "new-old" world. A lot of that older stuff was deliberately made to be fairly generic for a four-color supers campaign, so it's pretty easy to drop into a similar setting like the 5E/6E CU. Often times usable connections pop out at me that seem self-evident, like linking Dean's Monad from his 4E Enemies collection, Creatures of the Night, to the X'endron Network in current continuity (which also gave me an avenue to adapt Mechanon 3000 from Galactic Champions for contemporary use).

 

I have to give Steve Long and Darren Watts a lot of credit for having produced a setting with much internal consistency and interconnectivity, both in its history and in the present day. IMHO it's quite well thought-out, and I find that consistency makes it easier for me to figure out where to insert additions to fit most effectively.

[Lord Liaden]

What I've got so far.

 

-Queen's Hill: The "Hey, Look, it's Sherlock Holmes"neighbourhood. The butler's contract says that he has to arrange two locked-room murder mysteries before breakfast. Which is devilled kidney, if you were wondering.

-Rivertown: It's grey, it's seedy, and it's always rainy. Long, open street vistas let you see the checkpoints along the Wall.

-The Understate: A system of underground divided-lane expressways. (You've seen them in Lego Racers.) Just don't take one of the service exits. There's migdalor down there.

-The Library Cafeteria: high school students from across the multiverse. Every fashion you've ever imagined, and some you wish you hadn't.

-Food trucks. Better believe there are food trucks.

-The 'Burbs. Because Norma Jean has to be from somewhere.

 

I added the Autonomobile Shelter and Preserve. As Dean has written, in Babylon people's habit of treating their vehicles and appliances as though they're alive often manifests in real living machines, which sometimes run away from home and become "strays," or are abandoned by owners no longer willing to put up with them. The ASP takes in these rejected machines, repairs and cares for them, and attempts to adopt them to new homes.

[DShomshak]

I would suggest the X'endron Network description has one important typo, though: the reference to it as the Galaxy's "only" all-machine civilization should instead, IMO, read "latest." Or simply, "new." I think it's best to avoid saying what *isn't* in a setting (IE, "No machine civilization before X'endron.") Don't close off possibilities for future writers. (I've been called on this once or twice myself, and rightly so.)

 

Dean Shomshak

[Lord Liaden]

And Steve Long wasn't even the owner of the Champions Universe when he wrote that, so it's not like he had the definitive say any more.   He was also responsible for a bit of redundancy, in that something mentioned in CB called Armada, in the Andromeda Galaxy, sounds like much the same thing as the X'endron Network.

 

Don't know about anyone else, but for my part, I've been putting some of my favorite alien races and civilizations from earlier Champions editions in the Andromeda Galaxy, which has been only sketchily described to date for the current CU. Nebula and Vibron officially came from there, so others could potentially do so. It's a way to use those elements without spilling the CU Milky Way too badly.

[Lord Liaden]

One superhero universe concept I've toyed with, is the idea that there is simply no United States or only a loosely organized one under the Articles of Confederation. I have after all seen plenty of comic book settings and plotlines where it would make more sense if the city, or at least the state is an autonomous entity.  

 

Come to think of it, the CU has an alternate Earth where that applies. The official villain called the Cahokian comes from that world, so in Book Of The Empress where it's described, it's called "Cahokian Earth." Put briefly, many major nations of our Earth (and Champions Earth) are split into groups of smaller nations on Cahokian Earth, whereas some areas where our Earth has many nations have only one on Cahokian. In place of the United States are: New England (a republic including real Earth New England, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland); the Desotan Empire (all the states east of Texas/Oklahoma and south of Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio); the Empire of Cahokia (Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan); the Texas Republic (Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico); the Kingdom of California (Arizona, California, Nevada, Oregon); the Deseret Republic (Utah); and the Northern Republic (Washington, Idaho, Montana, the Dakotas, Nebraska, Wyoming). Compared to real Earth, several of these states (such as Cahokia and the Texas Republic) have larger populations of American Indians, who are far more involved in mainstream life and politics. [Courtesy BOTE p. 130]

[bubba smith]

 in re  minimal alien contact

 a world of supers has enough problems with CONVETIONAL illegal aliens, never mind the SF variety

[Lord Liaden]

Personally, I love the option of alien races in a superhero setting. But I admit I'm a bit disappointed at the dearth of "superhuman" races in the official CU. I mean, we do have a Skrull/Durlan analogue, and several species with significant "psionic" abilities (which I guess is more acceptably sci-fi), but none in which all the members have super-strength or energy powers. Steve Long did try to compensate for that by allowing occasional super-aliens to develop among most species, although not to the degree that they do among humans.

 

In Book Of The Empress Steve actually invented a race in another universe, called the Korathon, who were all enormously strong and tough. But he had Istvatha V'han wipe out all but one of them.    (I figured out IMHO a logical way to sneak another one into my campaign anyway.)

[DShomshak]

Well, super-powered aliens might clash with the Terran Empire SF stage of the meta-setting. Like I said before, it's one reason I don't like meta-settings.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Lord Liaden]

I think that might have been in Steve Long's mind, too, when he made that decision. Thing is, when you look at the Champions Universe precedents already in published books, it doesn't logically have to be a concern. Since superpowers require ambient magic, when the magic goes away in the future, any super-powered aliens should lose their powers, just as Earthly supers do. Galactic Champions states that the entire Empyrean race lost most of their superhuman abilities during the non-magic era, although they retained their agelessness.

 

That was my rationale for utilizing Mike Surbrook's Nekhojin in my modified Champions Universe campaign. While magic is strong the Nekhojin are flying energy-blasting badass martial-artist cat-people. (And what comic-book-inspired setting can't benefit from some of those?) They're the greatest warriors in the known universe, too violent and independent to be effective conquerors, but highly sought-after as mercenaries. But when magic subsides the Nekhojin degenerate into primitive savages, practically forgotten by the greater galaxy... until the magic returns.

[Tasha]

Well, super-powered aliens might clash with the Terran Empire SF stage of the meta-setting. Like I said before, it's one reason I don't like meta-settings.

 

Dean Shomshak

 

I really HATED when they decided to go with a Meta-Setting. I would have been much happier with the genres not being tied together in any way. So the various Fantasy Hero Worlds would all be different worlds and not different places on a timeline. Star Hero would be stand alone. Champions the same. In fact it eliminates the possibility of doing a Champions Universe version of the Legion of Super Heroes from DC.

[bubba smith]

maybe not Tasha there can STILL BE a champions team in the 31rst century that meets the legion als reality storm

[steriaca]

@Tasha: Their is already a future superhero setting for Champions. Shure, the events which would of made it exist no longer are, but it exists (along with the Champions 3000).

[Lord Liaden]

To take a differing viewpoint, the past eras of the Hero Universe meta-setting give the world a sense of depth, a legacy that modern heroes and villains can draw from. Even DC and Marvel did that, DC with its Atlantis-era back story, Marvel when it incorporated Conan's Hyborean Age into its own pre-history. And of course, both comics companies have well-established future timelines and eras of spacebound superheroics (both around a thousand years from today, interestingly enough).

 

For my part, I feel that the great gaps in time between these various "ages" make them practically their own self-contained worlds, anyway. They simply happen to have a default past and future, but for the most part those don't have a major impact on what's happening "now." Unless a particular gaming group wanted to make those elements a more prominent feature.

[Lawnmower Boy]

To take a differing viewpoint, the past eras of the Hero Universe meta-setting give the world a sense of depth, a legacy that modern heroes and villains can draw from. Even DC and Marvel did that, DC with its Atlantis-era back story, Marvel when it incorporated Conan's Hyborean Age into its own pre-history. And of course, both comics companies have well-established future timelines and eras of spacebound superheroics (both around a thousand years from today, interestingly enough).

 

For my part, I feel that the great gaps in time between these various "ages" make them practically their own self-contained worlds, anyway. They simply happen to have a default past and future, but for the most part those don't have a major impact on what's happening "now." Unless a particular gaming group wanted to make those elements a more prominent feature.

 

It helps, I think, to put the colour back in. My basic take is that the Turakian Age took place on the Eurasian continent in the immediate pre-modern glacial, which we think happened around 70,000BC. In that case, Takofanes is either holding back the ice, or, possibly, accelerating it. Speaking of colour and the big guy, instead of thinking of the Turakian Age in terms of a generic AD&D-like setting, think of it as a golden age brought to a close by Takofanes, in much the same way that Tolkien looks back at the "Third Age." Have characters who were alive in those days (time travellers, suspended animation, immortal Empyreans...) refuse to use the cursed name. Instead, they might refer to "The King of Ivory," and describe it as"The Old Red Eon." ("Eon" is an actual geological term for a group of ages, and the Turakian period lasted several ages, and the Red Gods won in the end.) 

 

Also, there's no reason why this stuff has to be completely mysterious. Australians know that their continent has an ancient sword & sorcery past, and there's even an archaeological theme park in Melbourne dedicated to a Valdorian Age dig. Why, that's the very place that the Melbourne Redshirts were murdered by Taipan, coincidentally enough.

 

Similarly, although the Valdorian Age is even harder to fit on a map than Ambrethel, I have plumped for setting it in Australasia. The Drindrish fled a long way at the end of the Old Red Eon, and had a long time to stew in their own juices before the ancestors of the Aborigines arrived on the continent. That means that you have to imagine the characters of Valdorian Age as ancient Australians, but the line needs more diversity, anyway, and it gives Valdorian Age a ready-made symbolic palette. 

 

The Atlantean Age is, IMHO, the worst cartographic misstep in the line, because I was brought up on "Swords and Planets" SF where ancient Atlantis has flying cars --or triremes, at least-- and colonies amongst the Neanderthals of Europe and dinosaurs of Yucatan, and an ancient Atlantean colony becomes Tarzan's lost city of Ophir.  Especially with shadowy Lemuria as Atlantis' counterpart, it should have been possible to write Atlantean Age in a very different way. Oh, well, water under the bridge and all of that. 

 

With Tuala Morn and the Legendary Age, I've really got nothing, so I tend to ignore it, I'm afraid. 

 

Moving forward into the future, we do have a Champions 3000 setting, which I quite like, glass cannon cosmic entities aside. The idea that superpowers come and go is at least intermittently present in the source material, and reflects extent of superpowered manifestation, not their existence entirely. It seems to me that you ought to be able to run Alien Wars and Terran Empire without reference to superpowers, or, alternatively, as a high psionics setting as you prefer, not by defining the universe's metaphysics to suit your preferences. Superscience Malvans and creepy Thanes may not work if you're determined to use Striker as a model for your RPG and turn a science fiction roleplaying game into a replay of the Rhodesian insurgency, but you don't have to put them in!

[Tasha]

Sorry, it still leaves me flat.

[Lord Liaden]

Sorry, it still leaves me flat.

 

Personal likes or dislikes require no justification or dispute.

[steriaca]

Personal likes or dislikes require no justification or dispute.

 

So true. Tasha is free to like or dislike any published campain she feals like. That is what original campain worlds are all about.

[Lawnmower Boy]

I once suggested to Steve Long that he should write Book of the Warlord. It could provide a look at the Third World in the CU, and at the mercenary/paramilitary/terrorist side of things.

 

It's nice to know that other people are using Babylon. It's one of my favorite creations, and I had a lot of fun with it in my Supermage playtest campaigns. (Personal favorite was the bachelor party the other PCs held in Babylon when Jezeray Illyescu married Black Fang -- long story, okay? The roaming party stopped at both a Roman gladiator bar and the Folies Bergiere.) I'd be tickled pink if someone else contributed to Babylon's development.

 

Dean Shomshak

 

Some more Babylon facts:

 

-A river runs through it. The River of Babylon, of course. (It flows into the harbour. It's said that with a good chart and when the stars are right, a ship can sail out of the port of Babylon to anywhere in the multiverse. It's also said that shipowners will tell their insurers anything.)

 

-On the Rivertown side of the River, a massive bund runs along it, with a street on top and a red light district of straggly, shaggy buidlings. On the far side is a massive esplanade, above which rises the Forbidden City, where if you don't feel like you belong, you don't. It includes a greenlit paradise of towers of domes, the emperor's palace, called the Chrysophase. There is a bustling City Hall, and the Polytechnic University of Babylon, where its next generation of High Programmers, architects, city planners, and general-purpose technocrats are educated. Plus some really swanky shopping.

 

Watch out, though, because while the Esplanade is usually the setting of mannered public art performances, sometimes a mime (always dangerous) will step into the midst of the tony actors doing a Shakespeare scene, and a giant pig balloon will come floating down, and it will turn into Carnivale, and suddenly the Forbidden City will be forbidden to the high and mighty instead...

 

-It's truly said that the Library of Babylon is the greatest library in the (human) multiverse. And it's true that it is the greatest library in Bablyon, but on the streets of Babylon, you want a map of Bablyon. For that, you want to go to the nearest 7-11 (because, yes, there are 7-11s in Babylon). In front of the checkout is a little rack of yellow-covered books. They're street maps of Babylon, and they're the only ones you can trust. And don't forget to pick up a Slurpee and one or two of those hot dogs.