Mark Rand

Re: GURPS IST in Champions I have more information to give you. Redmenace suggested a Hellmouth in the area and I agreed with it. We are, I assume talking about BtVS Hellmouths, post season seven. Slayer Central is the 20 square mile manor in Westburry, England the Watcher's Council once owned. There's a helipad in front of the house, a small, stream-fed lake with small boats on the property, a wearhouse, two libraries and a gymnasium that they had constructed. They also own other wearhouses and libraries, transport companies, several ships, a fleet of cars, five helicopters, pieces of land all over the world, several shops and a zoo. In the wearhouse itself, when first examined by Buffy and company, were books, various weapons, excavations, religious items and magical weapons and artifacts. The Slayers, the IST and the Knights get along well. Since the Red Lord, a demon, and his thugs, the Banes, are foes of the Pendragons, the groups sometimes gather together and hunt demons and such. Kate, Astra TV's fearless and beloved reporter, bought her leathers before doing a five-part story on England's motorcycle culture. Since she liked how it felt, she decided to wear it regulary. When discussing Kate's armor, I forgot to mention her shield and the coat of arms on her shield and tabard. It is diamond-shaped with a blue field with three gold crowns placed up and down on the upper right and lower left. On the upper left and lower right is a right-facing lion on a black background. Hopefully, someone who knows about coats of arms will look this discription over and make sure I have Queen Guinevere's arms, after she married Arthur, right. Kate once said, "I am Kate McClellan, Knight of the Pendragon and current wielder of the Pendragon power once wielded by Queen Guinevere." Although the campaign's going to be set in Pittsburgh, I think the more background information on the world we have, the more real it seams.

Re: GURPS IST in Champions As promised,I checked my GURPS Supers book and checked my last report. In 1982, the UN forbad all national military superteams, on the grounds that they were a "destabilizing" influence. They still permitted them to employ metahuman bodyguards and law enforcement personal. They then revealed the IST to the world. Most nations capitulated. They also voted to ban strategic nuclear weapons. In response, the United States government eventually formed the DMI, The Division of Metahuman Information. In Europe, the governments aid superheroes as much as the UN regulations will permit. The United Kingdom's only team that operates throughout the country is the Knights of Pendragon, a group of three warriors that were infused with superhumasn powers by the Green Knight. All have heightened abilities, powers and senses. They have high-tech mystical armor that they can summon with just a thought and speeder bikes that can jump through ley space to where they need to be. The team consists of Francesca Laxley Grace, Kate McClellan and Joey Chapman. Joey's lover, Lady Jacqueline Flasworth-Crichton, often is with them. When she's on a mission, Francesca Lexley Grace, who likes to be called Grace, is always in full armor. Kate wears street clothes (she has recently started wearing black leather jumpsuits, motorcycle boots and gloves as street clothes) or golden scale mail with a black tabard and hooded cloak and brown leather boots, gloves and sword belt. Joey wears armor like Grace's or the Union Jack costume he wore before becoming empowered. Jacqueline, who was the World War II superheroine Spitfire and has been rejuvinated(sp), wears her old costume without its mask.

Re: GURPS IST in Champions When the IST was founded, a treaty was prepaired that prohibited military or national police supers and permitted the establishment of IST teams in the country that signed it. After seeing thatCongress might not like it, President Jimmy Carter, if I remember correctly, signed it as an executive order. (I'll check my GURPS Supers book and check on this. If I'm wrong, I'll correct it.) The United States government reacted by creating the Department of Metahuman Information, which sanctions superheroes and superhero teams in the United States.

Re: GURPS IST in Champions Sorry I couldn't join the discussion this past weekend. My home computer is being repaired and I can only get on the web at work. The UN Security Council has always had both covert and overt resources. Until 9/11, they were separate. After 9/11, however, they began assigning an intelligence analyst and a field agent to each IST embassy. Through some quirk of fate, portals to realities where Earth's population has died off have appeared in some embassies. Usually there are two, with one being a garden or garderns and the other having additional living quarters, a pool, and, occasionally, a chapel or church. If there is only one, the garden or gardens are there, too. In our world, nurse's uniforms and caps have gone out of style. Not so in the IST world. Nurses still wear uniforms (not always white) and caps (also not always white). In our world, gloves have, except for cold weather or the most formal occasions, gone out of style. Not so in the IST world. Although they were out of style during most of the 1970s, dressy gloves came back into style in 1979 and by 1985, they were being worn with casual clothes, too. Also in 1979 Wheel of Fortune hostess and stuntwoman Susan Stafford started wearing them after hurting her left arm in a movie stunt. (Due to letters from fans saying that they loved the look, Susan, who is still on the show and still looks young, continues wearing them.) Salome, a 17-year old belly dancer, who performs with the Pittsburgh Opera when they do Salome, wears long gloves as part of her regular belly dance costume.

Re: GURPS IST in Champions Agreed. No doubt, we'd have one heck of a battle.

Re: GURPS IST in Champions I remember the series. The idea was wonderful, but the stories weren't that great. Of course, it still could be under the desert somewhere, either abondoned or still in operation. Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea was anotherseries from back then. The Nelson Institute of Marine Research could exist in California and there could be a new Seaview. We might even meet the Battlestar Galactica on day (the original, not the miniseries, of course).

The existance of Stargate Command was revealed to the world by the President during the height of Anubis's attack on Earth (at the end of season seven). The President is Henry Hayes. The Vice President is Gloria Valdez (former Vice President Robert Kinsey is in jail). The Chief Justice of the United States is Evelyn Baker Long. Dr. Elizabeth Weir is now the head of Stargate Command. Former SGC commander Major General George Hammond now commands the Prometheus, an X-303 spaceship, the world's only space battleship and its X-302 starfighters.

Good ideas from Redmenace and Just A Guy Name. Thank you. We can locate Stargate Command in the Laurel Highlands, which are the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains, a part of the Appalachian Mountains. It was secret until an alien invasion caused the President to reveal that it existed. We can even decide that Samantha Carter is still Jolinar's host. Would the UN call Teal'c or Somantha/Jolinar supers? The Hellmouth can be in southern Allegheny County. The Initiative let the IST know about the Hellmouth, Slayer, vampires and related stuff. I don't think Pittsburgh's Slayer(s) would be part of the IST, but they's work with it. I visited the IST World website and got good ideas from it.

In the 1990s, Steve Jackson Games came out with the International Super Teams (IST) for its GURPS Supers game. What do you think of using the IST universe with the Champions system? With a team at UN Headquarters in New York and another in Washington, D.C., and other teams in the country, would it be reasonable for a team to be in Pittsburgh?

Re: Las Vegas Knights For those who are interested in looking at the original headquarters plan, go to the Open Directory Project, http://www.dmoz.org, click on RPGs, click on systems, click on Hero Systems and you'll find the Hero System FTP Archives. The files are zipped text files. Once they're unzipped, I use Wordpad to read them. Next timew, hopefully, we'll meet some of the staff and look at some of my additions to the Las Vegas area.

With the rise in crime committed by metahuman criminals, PRIMUS, in my custom universe, has given permission for individual bases to create superhero teams. PRIMUS Las Vegas's team is the Las Vegas Knights. The team, so far, consists of Guardian, a man in powered armor, and Warder, a lady mage. Accompanying Warder is her familiar, Amber, a female Western Screech Owl. The support staff, all supplied by PRIMUS, consists of a maid, computer expert, electronics engineer, nurse, secretary, and agency liaison. The base itself is on the top floor of a government-owned office building, Its floor plan is based on one I found on the Hero System FTP Archives. Warder has put two gates in the base. One, in her quarters, that only she and Amber can use, leads to her residence. The second, that anyone can use leads to a church with a rec center on the same block that were taken from a world where all life died out in 1866 after, according to a newspaper found there, a necular war started. Because I like her character and have her character sheet, Terry Kestler is Las Vegas's silver avenger.

I like the idea of using the Stratosphere Tower as a secret escape craft. Think of all the hostages VIPER could have up there if the police, PRIMUS or superheroes tried to stop them. The hotel/casino could be a good cover for VIPER. Most of the employees don't know about the secret operations, but the big shots and a few dealers are crooked. The people getting paid off are told what table to go to, what time they're to go there and how long to play. I considered setting a superhero campaign in Las Vegas. This thread is inspiring me to consider it again.

After weeks of consideration, I've come up with a new team. Although they'll be based either in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania or Millennium City, Michigan, they're still The Champions. So far the heroes are Avatar, a winged woman with mental powers, an energy sword and martial arts skills, and Lady Arcane, a mage with a barn owl as a familiar. The support staff consists of Carol, a nurse, Wendy, the housekeeper, Christine, an electronics engineer, and Midori, the team's secretary/receptionist. Carol was on the swim team in high school and college. Christine races cars for fun, was a college and Olympic gymnast, belly dances and is a reluctant ninja. There are liaisons from the DOSPA, FBI, Homeland Security and PRIMUS. John Masters, the DOSPA liaison, is a middle-aged bureaucrat who spokes a pipe. FBI liaison Helen Gray can shape-shift into a couger. Homeland Security liaison Susan Anders, a former actress in a university stock company and CIA agent, always wears gloves in public. According to her, she started wearing them while preparing to play a fashionable woman in a play that was set in Boston in 1902. This led her to discover that she liked wearing gloves. PRIMUS liaison Cathy King has law degree. Terry Kestler is the local silver avenger.

The reason I'm using Lady Arcane's mansion is simple. I don't have plans for Homestead. Does anyone have them? If so, please post them here or email them to me at jakelene@yahoo.com. Thank you.

We continue. The DOSPA liaison is a middle-aged bureaucrat who smokes a pipe THe Homeland Security liaison has strawberry-blonde hair and prefers jeans, sneakers and either tee shirts or turtleneck sweaters to dressier clothes. Lisa's mansion is on Millionaire's Row, which is Fifth Avenue between Devonshire Street and Shady Avenue. Rose, the resident ghost, is very nice. PRIMUS Pittsburgh is on the South Side, near Station Square. Silver Avenger Mariko Nakamura and Keiko, the superhero team's engineer, are sisters and Christine Hunter, the electronics engineer for the Champions, was adopted into the ninja clan Keiko and Mariko were born into.

Now, onto Pittsburgh. One of the city's heroes is Warder, a mage, who is publically-known to be wealthy heriess Lisa Grant. She's accompanied by her familiar Amber, an Eastern Screech Owl. A second hero is Protector, an armored hero. The team's base is Lisa's mansion which is a fastness. The support staff consists of a secretary, Donna, the housekeeper, Carol, the nurse and a former Pitt swimmer, Keiko, an electronics engineer, former Pitt and Olympic gymnast, an amateur race car driver and a reluctant ninja. More later.

Don't know. As far as the SGC knows, the ninja's just a highly-skilled 5-foot 3-inch Japanese-American nurse, with short, black hair and sparkling eyes, who was a gymnast, has had some martial arts training, and likes to carry a sword that, she claims, has been in the family for centuries. I'm assuming the team wears BDUs instead of individual uniforms while on a mission. Now, how do they meet the local heroes? Here's my idea. The SGC hears, from Jacob Carter/Selmac, that a moderate-level goa'uld is headed for Earth in a cloaked ship. By the time they close in on him, the police have notified both PRIMUS and the local superhero team.

Another member of the base's superhero team comes to mind. She's a highly-skilled nurse who is also a ninja. She's the team's medic and a creative hand-to-hand fighter.

We could always say that women in the CU wear gloves more than the women do in our world because they're trying to, in part, imitate female supers. Of course, we could also say that Denise wears them when she can instead of at all times.

Some GMs are letting players take 1 point disadvantages known as quirks. I plan to do the same. Denise could have a quirk, "likes to wear gloves", or a psyc limitation, "doesn't want people to know that she was a third-generation cat burglar before joining the CIA as a black bag job specialist".

Didn't think of those. My original thought was that when she was in the CIA, she was an expert in black bag jobs and wore gloves because she didn't like leaving fingerprints behind. This would also be one reason why she and Christine, an electronics engineer/ninja, get along so well.

I could've said that Denise always wore gloves because she liked to do so, but this seemed more reasonable. Let's take a quick trip to the British Isles and meet their best-known team, the Knights of Pendragon. This group (from Marvel UK) consists of people that carry the powers once possessed by King Arthur, Queen Guinevere, the Knights of the Round Table, and their associates. They are Joseph Chapman, Kate McClellan and Franchesca Lexley Grace. The next stop on our tour is Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. That's coming soon.

The above-mentioned book also mentions that the usual weapon the Valkyries employ is the shock spear. I'm writing it up as 10D6 RKA, OAF spear, NND (defense is not having naquadah in the blood). Three minor changes to the SGC continuity. 1) Samantha is still Jolinar's host and acts as the Tok'ra's liaison with the SGC. 2) spoiler alert!!! Janet is still alive. 3) spoiler alert!!! Kinset isn't the Vice President. He's just a crooked senator.

At the team's first meeting, Denise explained why she always wears gloves, then removed one, letting the heroes see the rash that covered that hand. After replacing it, she revealed the other hand. The team's nurse is keeping an eye on the rash and staying in touch with Denise's physician.

Since the old gods do exits, in alternate dimensions, in the CU, I'm assuming the SGC keeps a discrete eye on anyone who claims to be a god or have been given powers by them. Now, for the SGC's own metahuman team. Victory, from Champions Universe, would be a good choise. Being an air force officer who can travel FTL, she might've been briefed on the SGC. The book Fantastic Frontiers: Stargate Season One for Alderac Entertainment Groups Stargate SG-1 RPG mentions that the Asgard train chosen women as Valkyries, their special forces, and assign some to planets covered by the Protected Planets Treaty. (Earth is one such planet.) One could be assigned to the SGC. She might've even been chosen from the women assigned to SG teams.