Rom's Custom Superhero Setting

[LoneWolf23k]

I decided I was going to work on my own "Customized Freedom City" setting. For this one, I plan on combining Freedom City with my other favorite Superhero setting, the world of GURPS international Super Teams, in addition to other ideas from various sources.

Now, before starting to go into the details, here are the basic concepts I'm going to work with...

#1- Metahumans are known to have existed since World War II. Unbeknownst to most, they may have existed for far longer then most people realize. Indeed, the History that most people know of in the modern day has gone through multiple changes over the past 70 years, as Reality Quakes have repeatedly upturned History since the appearance of the first metahumans, and possibly long before. Some supers have been changed by these "RetCons", while others have remained the same since their first appearance. Some are even immune to the Reality Quakes' effects, and can remember the previous History even when no-one else can.

#2 - Metahumans and the elements attached to them have had an impact on the world. World War II saw the first experimental Combat Robots and Death Rays used alongside conventional weapons, while both Allies and Axis fielded Superhuman Squadrons. Later on, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were prevented by their metahuman bodyguards; Kennedy's injuries caused him to leave politics, while MLK later was elected a US Senator.

In spite of this, history has more or less fallen down along the same lines as on our own Earth, up until the mid-80s, when more drastic changes started occuring, such as the UN ban on WMDs and Military Superteams and the formation of the International Super-Teams to enforce it.

#3- Reed Richards isn't useless. Which is to say that the wonderful inventions of super-geniuses and recovered exemples of alien technologies have started to trickle down into common use. More energy-efficient Power Cell technology replaced conventional batteries in the late 80s; as a result, early railguns and energy weapons are starting to phase out gunpowder weapons. Likewise, space exploration didn't slow down after the 70s, and as of 2000, there are multiple fully-functional space stations orbiting the Earth, as well as two operational moonbases, with talks of going to Mars.

Nonetheless, as with #2, the tech advancements haven't left the world looking that much different from our own, with the exception that current electronic devices have more features then those of our world, that the police have started using Sonic Stunners instead of tasers, and the US Army has started fielding simple walking battlesuits that cost the same to produce as a jet fighter (but are far from competing with Superhero Battlesuits).

#4 - While there are many known figures of wonder out in the open, there are many more hidden in the shadows, and a Secret War is waged for influence in the world. Taurus' Labyrinth is a vast and powerful conspiracy, but is far from being the only one in existence. The secret masters of Shambala head another conspiracy of martial artists and akashic masters to shape the world's Feng Shui; a massive organisation of wizards and supernatural creatures calling itself the Cabal seeks to secure absolute control over the world's Magics; a mysterious round table of powerful figures calling itself Argus controls the Company, a secret organisation dedicated to hunting down the bizarre and unnatural, for it's own dark purposes. And all of these conspiracies are stepping on each other's toes at one point or another, keeping things in an uneasy balance of power.

From time to time, the Superheroes who dwell in the light will stumble onto one of these conspiracies and interfere; but they are merely looking at the tip of the iceberg, leaving the rest of the organisations unseen and still operating.

...That's all I have for now. But I plan on continuing this. Perhaps by exploring the merged Freedom City/IST timeline, with some tinkering here and there (like shifting the Terminus Invasion from the mid-90s to the year 2000, for exemple.)

Crossposted on the M&M Settings board here.

[LoneWolf23k]

Okay, to get things started properly, we shall start exploring the merged timeline, starting from the top. Do note that, as mentionned above, the "Romverse" has undergone many Reality Quakes over the ages, and thus most of what will be revealed here is subject to change. But this is the current, stable history as can be determined by time travellers.

The Primordial Age

-Billions of years prior to the common era primordial entities from beyond the stars came to Earth, built colonies and empires. These "Ancient Ones" ruled the Earth for eons, creating numerous servitor races using both technology and magic, but eventually, they somehow lost control and were deposed. Some Ancient Ones were banished to other dimensions, while others were chased away to the stars or imprisonned beneath the earth and seas, leaving behind their servitors to squabble over the remaining territory, eventually wiping themselves out in the ensuing conflict.

-Millions of years later, during the age of reptiles, the first truely native race of Earthly sentiants, the Serpent-people, arose on Earth. They stumbled onto the remains of the Ancient Ones' magic and technology, and used those to found their own empire, Lemuria. They were also pitiless and cruel, enslaving the proto-humanids and other native races of the world, such as the original Lemurian stock race.

-Circa 100,000 BCE, the alien Preservers (also known as the Precursors or the Seeders by different civilisations) come to Earth. They discover the already decadent and degenerating Serpent-people, and disregard them entirely, focusing on the potential they see in Homo Erectus. They tamper with the genetics of the species, then take samples back with them to "seed" other worlds with humanoid life. The Preservers also terraform Venus and Mars, experimenting with seeding life on those worlds. There is evidence that the Preservers did this on many other worlds, to many other pre-intelligent species, both uplifting them and granting them the Meta-Gene, which gives the potential for super-abilities.

On most of those worlds, the life-forms' abilities would be shaped by the environment and the stresses experienced by the evolving species. But Solar flare activity on Earth caused the human Meta-Gene to go into dormancy.

On one of those worlds, Lor-Van, the proto-humans evolved more rapidly, and quickly developped a technological civilisation, which was contacted by another species, the advanced Alphans (which are basically the Grey), a race of amoral creatures interested only in survival, acquiring power, and raiding other species for genetic material. They quickly enslaved the developping Lor, and experimented with mutating some members of the species. The resulting Lor Mutants were possessed of powers beyond belief, which they used to aid their people overthrow the invaders and chase them away. Unfortunetly, those same mutant powers made them unwanted by their own people, and thus the mutants left Lor-Van and were forced to flee the Alphans, who had invested much research in their creation.

The 400 Lor mutants eventually arrived to the Solar system, where they finally eluded the Alphans by making them think they were destroyed along with Atalan, the fifth planet (between Mars and Jupiter. It's an asteroid belt now). Arriving on Earth during the Ice Age, the mutants helped the developping humans fight off the serpent-people, and formed the kingdom of Atlantis, living as literally immortal god-kings.

Then came the Arend-Roland comet, which carried another race of aliens, which are now called the Arendians. Stellar wanderers who fled their dying homeworld by downloading their consciousness into computer libraries which they had installed deep within the cavernous bowels of the comet, to activate when the comet would reach a comfortable star system. Which it did when it approached our Earth, releasing the Arendians, now transformed into psychic entites of pure thought who needed host bodies to survive, and who found the primitive humans perfect for their needs. Fortunately for humanity, the Lor mutants discovered these parasitic entities and began fighting them, building powerful electromagnetic generators in the form of pyramids to trap the entities in prisons all over the globe (humanity would eventually imitate those pyramids, not remembering their original purpose).

Unfortunately, this war distracted the Lor away from Atlantis, which went into war with Lemuria. The two great powers unleashed their most powerful weapons of mass destruction, triggering a great cataclysm that sinks Lemuria and Atlantis, scattering the inhabitants of both island continents. The already weakened Serpent-people are shattered and reduced to barbarism, while the Atlantean survivors scatter across the globe, forming the foundations of human civilisation. A few of the survivors formed a new colony, which later became known as Utopia.

A few others, however, were altered by the energies unleashed during the Cataclysm, and became a match for the Lor mutants themselves. These went far to the north, where they founded the hidden city of Ultima Thule. The remaining Lor Mutants, realizing that mankind was becoming more powerful and dangerous, willingly have up their "godhood" and faded into the population, living incognito.


That's it for this update. Next time, we'll explore Antiquity: the rise and fall of Egypt, Ancient Greece, Imperial Rome, the coming of the Gods, the rise of Sorcery and the foundation of the Cabal.

[Captain-Captain]

This sounds like it'd run best as a low power game. For one thing villains powerful enough to point at a city and vaporize it don't do secrecy that well. For another low level supers wouldn't be considered the next phase of warfare. Ten Billion to produce a supersoldier who's a match for a halftrack?

A world where a handful of supers in emergency fields save lives, more help tourism by staging hero and villain battles in cities that amazingly do little serious property damage (and the little that is produced turns out to be props put there to be demolished). Supers are by and large freaks and minor nuissances.

[Crakkerjakk]

Originally Posted by Captain-Captain

This sounds like it'd run best as a low power game. For one thing villains powerful enough to point at a city and vaporize it don't do secrecy that well. For another low level supers wouldn't be considered the next phase of warfare. Ten Billion to produce a supersoldier who's a match for a halftrack?

A world where a handful of supers in emergency fields save lives, more help tourism by staging hero and villain battles in cities that amazingly do little serious property damage (and the little that is produced turns out to be props put there to be demolished). Supers are by and large freaks and minor nuissances.

Are you familiar with Freedom City? It's definitely not low power. I didn't think IST is either. Why do you think the combination should be?

[Captain-Captain]

Originally Posted by Crakkerjakk

Are you familiar with Freedom City? It's definitely not low power. I didn't think IST is either. Why do you think the combination should be?

Because it appears to be a place where the real action is behind the scenes. This implies that the action the players will see is superficial.

[Crakkerjakk]

Originally Posted by Captain-Captain

Because it appears to be a place where the real action is behind the scenes. This implies that the action the players will see is superficial.

Well, there are conspiracies (The Labyrinth is from Freedom City, Not sure about Shambala, Cabal is obviously from the GURPS setting of the same name, and the Company is Black Ops) but I don't think it necessarily follows that Superman would necessarily stumble over conspiracies controlled by beings as intelligent and sneaky as he is strong.

Seems to me it's just the classic "arcane/criminal/alien conspiracy" angle that a lot of four-color settings have.

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Originally Posted by Captain-Captain

This sounds like it'd run best as a low power game. For one thing villains powerful enough to point at a city and vaporize it don't do secrecy that well. [snip]

A powerful Chi or Magic-powered being could hide in plain sight as a public superhero or supervillain while secretly belonging to Shambala or the Cabal. When you can vaporize a city, people spend less time worrying about whether you can also control minds (or reflecting on why they tend to do what you want in general). Characters who present the public face of a crazed, trigger-happy vigilante with no powers could be Combat Black Ops with the rest of their team posing as their innocuous supporting cast. Or they could be somebody else's supporting cast ("Gosh Mega Captain, does your smart-alecky Kid Reporter friend have to photograph everything?")...

I'm not seeing a problem with high-powered Supers + Conspiracy.

[LoneWolf23k]

Yeah, the intent of this is "Four-Color/Cinematic Superhero setting, with a lot of shadowy goings-on behind the scenes". As Crakkerjakk pointed out, mainstream superhero comics tend to have a lot of similar shadowy elements behind the scenes.

[vitruvian]

Okay, I see elements from IST, Atomic Horror, Cabal, Feng Shui, Black Ops, and the Mythos. Not familiar enough with Freedom City to recognize those bits, I guess - was it mainly Taurus' Labyrinth in the first post.

Looks good, and I agree that there's no reason not to have dark conspiracies run by those with more subtle powers in the background of what appears to be a four colour superhero world.

Couple of questions here, though... is there any kind of 'grand unified powers theory' where superpowers, magic, and chi abilities are all connected, or are they truly completely separate? What's the mana level of the setting? Just how common and powerful do supers tend to be?

[LoneWolf23k]

I haven't really thought about the connection between Magic, Psi and Supers much. But I am using the Cabal model for wizardry, only with comic book wizardry, Doctor Strange-style. Assume Low-to-Normal level Mana, although mages are still rather rare and prefer concealing their abilities from the mundanes.