tkdguy

Starring a Wood-Elf Dream Mage and his Dwarf Assistant? 

Here I thouGht this was going to BE A western version of Fantasy Island
 
Fantasy Gulch perhaps?

This is the introduction to a new world I am creating for a Supers Campaign. I have an extensive background because I am also using it for a setting for a few short stories. Let me know what you think or if you see any serious problems or even if you just think something would be "cooler". Anything constructive is appreciated. I do not have a name for the setting yet so its just world setting. I have some ideas but I am waiting for an Ah-Ha moment. So here it is:
 
The adventures will take place at a time of great upheaval. The Character’s lives will develop in the immediate aftermath of an immense and continuous bombardment of Earth by Extreme Energy Cosmic Rays originating from a Supermassive Blackhole in the Ursa Major Cluster.  
 
A blackhole with a mass 9 billion times that of our sun in the center of that galaxy, rotating at 85% the speed of light has been spraying Cosmic Rays towards the center of our own Milky Way galaxy for nearly a billion years like a colossal woodchipper launching a spray of hyper-accelerated, deionized nucleons instead of bits of wood.
.  
As our solar system gyrates around the galactic core as part of one of its spiral arms, we cross paths with these enormous waves of Cosmic Rays like driving around an enormous water sprinkler with the window down on an undulating road. 
 
These rays and their sub-particles bombard Earth through its magnetic barrier, the heliosphere, causing mutations and activating passive adaptations hidden in the DNA of nearly all forms of life on the planet from bacteria and virus floating in the upper limits of the atmosphere to strange life forms adapted to a life without light, leeching the energy to survive and replicate from the chemical vents in the deepest depths of the oceans. 
 
Plants and animals can exhibit traits from species far back in their genetic tree often regressing nearly entirely and other times only exhibiting a few minor throw-back traits. Other creatures blend genetics into strange hybrids, many familiar to us through legends and mythology. Monsters like dragons, giant apes, and even unicorns have their basis in Affected animals in bygone years during past Events. Often these traits are spread broadly or were spread by particularly successful species like humans.  
 
A few of these life forms can inter-breed with local life and completely new species often emerge in generations rather than millennia or ages.  On the other side of the coin, entire Genus and Families of creatures annihilated almost overnight as ancient mosses, algae and fungi alter local ecosystems often after wreaking havoc on local life or by creating new alpha predators that decimate local plant or animal populations. 
 
Previous Events have caused mass extinctions and a particularly long Event was responsible for the Cambrian Explosion 55 million years ago. The effects have also ensured that no animal has successfully evolved to use radio or higher frequency organs on Earth as the cyclical nature of The Events cuts their branch short before it ever has a chance to be useful. Until now... 
 
Humans, in their inexhaustible curiosity and exploration have altered the very climate of Earth in great part fueled by the advances in electronic and communications technology including the use of high frequency radio and the harnessing of sub-atomic particles.  
Our technology allows us to store knowledge and communicate information across the globe in microseconds. It is the technology behind intercontinental ballistic missiles and The Internet. It has allowed us to gain dominance over the entire planet as measured by sheer impact like no other species before. Except...  
 
Without our tools, we are not much more than very curious, very weak, little monkeys. The average medium sized domestic canine could very likely kill the average, unassisted and unarmed owner if they decided to turn against them fearlessly. Forget about the average 21st century human fighting off a predator of any size alone and unarmed. 
 
But we don’t lose access to all of our tools, our species has survived and clambered to the top of the food chain on a trail of blood and fire littered with the carcasses of the species that have caused us fear and even more of those plants and animals that are resources, food or labor.  
 
We are not a peaceful species and we will not go out without a fight. Another of our greatest assets as a species is our ability to adapt to the most hostile environments, we find a way to cling to life and eventually to dominate it at times against seemingly impossible odds.  
 
Even without radio, electricity or computers we are still far from declawed. Firearms, explosives, Kevlar, RPG’s, and napalm all still level the playing field in our favor against these Monsters, and we are going to need it because... 
 
This Event is different in more than one way.  For one, its duration will be measured in decades not years or weeks. As it continues the world will continue to evolve/devolve and chaos will start to play a part as permutations of permutations twists the world into something unrecognizable to those that live to see its effects. 
 
This event also differs in another important way. Amongst those Affected humans that exhibit strange god-like powers are some from previous ages. The eldest have lived millennia, immortals for all purposes and this time they have been waiting.  
 
Since time immemorial the Affected born fortunate enough to look Human have served “civilized” men until eventually and inevitably, they too are feared or envied and eventually killed. Our species only knows one cure for fear.  
 
From the besting of Enkidu by Gilgamesh to the theft and then blinding of Polyphemus by Odysseus, history repeated itself endlessly. The victors hailed as heroes for every creature slaughtered regardless of the threat it posed or how hard it tried to avoid contact with this xenophobic and genocidal primate.  
 
This time, the eldest and wisest, the survivors of these inevitable Monster Hunters and so-called Heroes have asked, “Why should a town of filthy, superstitious, ignorant fishmongers be granted more right to life than a unique and majestic Dragon that, if left alone, will live for millennia?” and the answer was, “They should not be.” They asked themselves, “What is the worth of a noble griffon in lives of men?” and the answer was, “A great many.” And when they asked, “Why should we let them hunt us one by one, alone, hiding in the deepest caves, in the most isolated corners and the furthest isles?” and the answer was, “We should not.” 
 
This time, they are prepared. Those able to infiltrate human society have gained positions and made fortunes. They have prepared supply lines and equipment that will not be affected by The Event. Their vision is a world where the leaders shepherd the planet instead of ravage it. That nature be allowed to run its course and that undesirable traits be restrained, trained or controlled by whatever means possible but that only in the direst cases are unique species to be destroyed.  
 
They wish to impose their will on the destructive humans like the days of old in Ancient Olympus, Ancient Sumer and Old India. Before this endlessly destructive Age of Man.  
 
But first they must bring man low. Shatter his pride and take his tools so that he will know his place at the feet of the gods.    
 
A war is coming which side are you on?  
 
 
 

Time to get started.
 
The Junior Justice Foundation Team has just filed into the conference room.  Lotus, who heads the senior team, and an Oriental woman in business casual are there.
 
"Good morning, everyone," she says.  "I have communicators for each of you."  She passes them out.  Next, I'd like to introduce PRIMUS Intelligence Agent Michelle Yamashiro, who is their liaison to both teams."
 
"Good morning, everyone," Michelle says in an unaccented voice.  "I will do my best not to get in your way."
 
"One last bit of news," Lotus says.  "You now have your own aircraft, a 7-passenger Airbus Helicopters H-135, and a pilot, Joanna Rivers."  She puts pictures of both on the large video wall.  "Ms. Rivers will land where the police tell her to and not get involved in your cases."

Check out these historic photos of Old San Francisco

Speaking of which, I finally got around to scanning this satiric fable from Feinberg and Shapiro's Life Beyond Earth (published 1980) -- in this case, making fun of what they considered prematurely pessimistic interpretations of the Viking lander test results:
 
Fable 3
 
The results of the fifth space probe of minor planetoid three were being described at the Jovian Conference on Space Research. Sarpedon, the chief scientist in charge of the probe, reported on it:
 
The probe passed through the thin atmosphere of planetoid three successfully. From the experience that we gained by previous unsuccessful probes, we were able to construct this probe out of special materials that could resist the extreme environment at the gasliquid interface of the planetoid. The highly' oxidized outer coating of the probe enabled it to avoid the fate of probes number one through four, which rapidly combined with a toxic gas in the planetoid's atmosphere. When the probe reached the interface, it was subjected to the chemical action of the hydrogen-oxygen liquid compound that forms the main component of the interface. This gradually removed the oxidized protective coating of the probe and so exposed the inner machinery to the toxic atmosphere. As a result, only seventy-two minutes of data were obtained. But this data is enough to confirm the previous opinion of the best scientists— that life is impossible on such planetoids.
 
If the toxic atmosphere and liquid surface were not enough to show this, an immense flux of deadly radiation of optical light was detected at the surface, which was hardly screened by the thin atmosphere. This radiation can dissociate many chemical compounds that are essential to life, and is more intense at the interface of planetoid three even than in outer space near our planet. Also, the temperature at the interface is as low as that in the uppermost levels of our planet. This means that chemical reactions proceed very slowly, and life processes would be extremely sluggish, if indeed there has been time enough for life to evolve there. Finally, none of the complex molecules with which we associate life could be detected at the interface. A sample of the liquid region showed the overwhelming part of its composition to be oxide of hydrogen, with small amounts of dissolved sodium chloride and other metallic salts. There are minor traces of dissolved oxide of carbon, as well as traces of volatile carbon compounds of a type not known on Jupiter. One mobile subprobe was lost in an unknown way, apparently falling into a floating mixture of hydrogen oxide with solidified and nitrogenized carbon compounds. The high temperature of the probe eventually melted this mixture, but not until the probe had been dissolved and oxidized. Small amounts of solid material from the interface were recovered by' another subprobe and placed in a nutrient solution containing essentials of life such as hydrogen cyanide, at an absolute temperature twice the normal value at the interface. At first, the solid material reacted chemically with the nutrients, liberating various gases. But after a short time, the reactions stopped and no further activity was observed. The unwillingness of any hypothetical organism to use rich nutrients is a serious blow to the belief that planetoid three is a home of life.
 
On the basis of these results, it appears safe to conclude that planetoid three is not a place where life can exist, and no further biological probes of that planetoid are warranted. Our future studies of the minor planetoids should concentrate on planetoid two, whose thick atmosphere and high temperature at the interface make conditions there much more similar to those on our own world, the only one that we know is hospitable to life. Perhaps life, as we know it, can exist (if only in an attenuated form) on the second planetoid from the central star, but surely not in the wholly alien conditions of the third planetoid.
 
Sarpedon stopped burping spurts of hydrogen sulfide, which was his method of communicating with his fellow scientists. They, in turn, signaled their approval of his conclusions by producing small pulses of heat, intense enough to boil some of the magnesium chloride crystals contained in parts of their bodies. The result was a small train of bubbles in the dense hydrogen surrounding them all, forming a beautiful but transient pattern pleasing to the speaker and audience alike.
 
On planetoid three, known to a few of its inhabitants as Earth, countless living things were being born, existing, and dying every second, unaware of the negative verdict about their possible existence which had been rendered by Jupiter's leading scientists.
-----
Feinberg and Shapiro tried to think outside the box to identify every imaginable habitat for Life As We Don't Know It. One critic said they thought so far outside the box they lost sight of the box completely. But they provide some excellent ideas for SF.
 
Dean Shomshak
 

It's like reading a new edition of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Here's a more detailed explanation of swords in the Dune universe. The relevant section can be found from around 1:30 to 3:15.
 
 

China has developed a new deep-space craft.

I don't know what you're talking about
 

Korean hot dog recipe
 
If that's not extreme enough, have a hot dog with bulgogi and kimchi

The big bruiser is The Skipper. He doesn't have a nautical theme but he has the annoying habit of calling people "lil buddy" so the Skipper tag just sort of stuck. He's a bit on the dim side mentally but his personality is bright, cheerful, and he's always ready for a fight. He's the nicest guy you'd ever want to meet, if you stay on his good side. Definitely a hero's hero. (The Skipper over the years has developed the secret desire to own a boat if he can find one which can bear his weight.)
 
The purple guy is Freezo. His original freeze gauntlets used to have some feedback issues. A couple of times as a beginning hero when he was trying to introduce himself, he started off with a dramatic entrance and announcing, "I'm the Amazing Freez...ow!" as the gauntlet feedback nearly froze his own hands off. It was easier going with "Freezo" than trying to reintroduce himself to the public and, in comparison, at least "Freezo" is much better than "Freez-ow!"
 
The lady is the Scarlet Ninja. Veronica is colorblind and a bit touchy so don't criticize her choice of costume.
 
The codename of the short fellow in the front is Buzzcut. Spencer Graham is a former Marine and an ace tactician. He's the field leader of the group but he usually palms off the public relations aspects of the job onto one of the others. He's sort of like Captain America on steroids...lots and lots of steroids.
 
Together, they are The Slammers!
 

This is the "old Main" building in Cincinnati in 1874
 
(caption included because a lot of these things are neater when we know what they are, in case we want to look further into it)
 
Looks like it would be an awesome "secret library" location for some pulp or urban fantasy games.  
 
 
 

More black hole news
 
Three-way collision course: https://earthsky.org/space/sdss-j08491114-3-black-holes-due-to-collide
 
Tearing up a planet: https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/science/2019/09/27/nasas-tess-mission-video-captures-black-hole-tearing-apart-star/3784540002/
 
Is Planet Nine a black hole? https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/09/planet-nine-may-actually-be-black-hole

It really depends on what you mean by "drone". 
 
For 6th Ed
The Book of the Machine and the Book of the Destroyer each have several versions of super drones.
Starhero has one example of a sensor drone.
 
For 5th Ed
The Hero System Bestiary has a hunter seeker drone.
The Hero System Vehicle Sourcebook has a Predator UAV
Starhero has a sensor drone.
The Spacers Tool Kit has several various of Tauro-Mind Drones
Alien Wars has two fighter drones and a messenger drone.
 
 

"Servobot! Dictate the following."
 
Servobot: "YES SIR!"
 
"I Billy Lipniski have tired of  being surrounded by idiots and fools. By the uneducated masses and rubes. Also I tire of having my allowance being so low. Ridiculous! How am I supposed to build my Stupendous Devastationator Cannon with 5 dollars a week? Impossible...no strike that!"
 
Servobot: "STRIKEN SIR!!"
 
Billy: "As a genius of the highest level I can overcome any obstacle. I will become a master villain. I shall be the bane of all dums dums and dullards. Authorities will quiver at the mere mention of my name!"
 
Servobot: "APOLOGIES SIR, BUT THAT DOES NOT COMPUTE. BILLY LIPNISKI CALULACTES OUT TO .00000451 ON MY INTIMDATION-O-METER."
 
Billy: "Silence you bucket of bolts! I will not use my given name. No I shall be....HEL..."
 
"LANGUAGE!!"
 
Billy: "Er...sorry Mombot...I shall hence forth be known as HECKRAISER!!! Muhahahaha!!!"
 
Servobot: "EXCELLENT EVIL LIFE SIR. BRAVO"
 
Heckrasier: "Stop sucking up Servobot...I shall spare you the compactor...this time. Now let's get back to work on my fully functioning super cool Light Sab..."
 
Servobot: "SIR. PERHAPS ANOTHER NAME? YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE SUED BY...THEM."
 
Heckraiser: "Hmmmm....indeed Servobot...not even a supervillain as brilliant as I will be can stand up to the Mouse and his Evil Empire. So....let's call it the Blazer Sword. Yes...that will work just fine. Beware planet Earth....Tomorrow you meet your new master!"
 
 

a truculent river was told that it was going to be curbed replied that it did not give a dam.