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Old 01-09-2015, 07:36 PM   #1
Gef
 
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Yucca Valley, CA
Default Ideas for mutant-caused disasters?

I'm running a mutant campaign, modern day, 4000 mutants in the world, began appearing 8 years ago, now at the rate of one per day worldwide, manifest as teens. I didn't think that would be an unmanageable number...but they're spread over an unmanageable area, the whole world, and with modern tech, new travels fast. Of course, manyy countries try to keep their mutants out of the news, but sometimes that's impossible. What I'm asking you, is if you have any ideas for those occasions, when mutants make a splash that's too big to contain.

In the campaign so far, a new mutant manifested while he slept, and animals over an area of about 7 square miles became drastically larger, stronger, and enraged. People were attacked by their own dogs, the size of grizzlies, but this happened in New Orleans. There's a lot of biomass in the delta, and bugs were the real problem. Termites the size of rats exploded out of walls, eating everything in sight. Some of the bugs were the size of trucks, hawks were the size of airplanes, and the death toll was in the thousands.

The next event was in Karachi. The whole city and surrounding countryside is dust, millions of people just gone, and the specific cause remains unknown. With his political power base destroyed, the president of Pakistan fled the country (agian), leaving the military in charge, and they blamed India.

Now, I'm interested in any ideas that would make the news, even good things, and it's also fine if they are acts of malice or chance, but the PCs have decided to form themselves into a parahuman rescue team, with a teleportion for rapid response, so ideas for crises that they could try to address are what I need most.

So, what ideas did you have for you supers campaigns, that you never got to use?

Thanks,

GEF
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Old 01-09-2015, 07:47 PM   #2
robkelk
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Default Re: Ideas for mutant-caused disasters?

Within the mutant's area of effect, ...
  • ... everyone suddenly feels the same emotion. (Everyone feeling contentment could be a good thing; everyone feeling rage probably isn't.)
  • ... all samples of a type of usually-inanimate item become animate. (Do they attack? Is the effect permanent?)
  • ... pets gain increased intelligence and self-awareness.
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Old 01-10-2015, 12:04 AM   #3
Bramble Thorn
 
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Default Re: Ideas for mutant-caused disasters?

The minds of anyone within 21 feet of another person merge into a singular personality with the memories and skills of all component bodies, and who controls all the bodies. This merging is permanent, and the hive mind retains the memories and skills of a body even if that body dies.

If this happens in a large city, millions of citizens could merge into a few hundred hive minds, depending on how many groups of people are more than 21 feet from another group of people.

---

In small rural town in the bible belt, everyone wakes up perfectly fluent in classical Arabic, and if they think about it, find they have the entire Koran memorized.

---

Another mutants awakening amplifies bass sounds, turning all those tricked out car sound systems cruising the highway from merely annoying to literal earthquake machines.

---

A mutant apparently manifested in a Hershey's factory in the midwest seven years ago on Valentines Day. This was not known at the time, but every year since then EVERY M&M that was in that plant during the 2nd Shift on the day animates for precisely 12 hours, from 11pm Central Time on Feb 13th, to 11am Central time Feb 14th.

These M&M's have a personality determined by color, retain memory from year to year, and can grow to 4 feet high during those 12 hours if there is room to do so. After the 2nd time this occurred, all remaining M&M from that batch have become quite valuable, worth their weight in gold at a minimum.

---

One place had gravity's "down" direction shift 95 degrees towards the north pole for 17 minutes.

---

Once, all the industrial waste and airborne contaminants in the Bangkok metropolitan area turned into ozone.

---

One city had all used items located in any thrift store, salvation army, recycle bin and dumpster returned to "new" condition including new instructions and packaging. Of note was that newspapers and periodicals were advanced a year into the future, and may very well foretell the probable future.

---

At the site of one mutants manifestation at a electrical transforming station the power to the plant was cut, but it still outputs power, even to this day.

---

All metal in a junkyard in Deluth was magnetized. ALL Metal, even the non ferromagnetic stuff. There was about 10 tons of Copper coil on site, that is now somehow a superconductor.

---

And of course everyone remembers the Romero Classic "Zombie" outbreak, where the "zombies" were black and white and indestructible, and could only be killed not by bullets, but by the color red applied to the forehead.
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Old 01-10-2015, 02:20 AM   #4
Flyndaran
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Default Re: Ideas for mutant-caused disasters?

The sounds of local animals, humans included, were randomly switched for 1 week. 1% didn't change back.

How much for this cat making bird song?
Or the meowing pigeon?
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Old 01-10-2015, 02:22 AM   #5
Flyndaran
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Default Re: Ideas for mutant-caused disasters?

I've always wanted to have a campaign centered around capturing "mutant" non-humans for a specially designed zoo.

So, how about a mutant that acts as a Weirdness Magnet: Origins, but only for mundane animals?
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Old 01-10-2015, 07:08 AM   #6
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Default Re: Ideas for mutant-caused disasters?

You can "borrow" directly from Storm/Ororo Munroe a weather manipulator who powers are linked subconsciously to their emotions. Happy mutant pleasant weather, Sad mutant floods, Angry Mutant Violent Storms.Which deftly be "freak storms"
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Old 01-10-2015, 11:03 AM   #7
Gef
 
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Default Re: Ideas for mutant-caused disasters?

Great ideas here, thanks. That should last me awhile if I spread 'em over multiple sessions.
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Old 01-15-2015, 10:39 PM   #8
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Default Re: Ideas for mutant-caused disasters?

Oh this is fun!

Everyone who knows Patient X's name loses the ability to speak coherently gradually, over about 8 hours. This mutant manifested in a small town in Canada, resulting in 90% of the local population going mute overnight, and a disturbingly large number of NATO Mutant Support Services personnel in the following days.

A train loaded with iron ore, traveling through Austin, TX, at full speed, displaced to its left 50 meters and up 10.

A mutant manifested hard X-ray broadcasting abilities during an examination for a broken arm in Botswana.

Anyone who touches a mutant has a sudden, shocking revelation. 20% of these people commit suicide within the next two months. Has become a kind of guru. Some scientists believe that the mutant merely stimulates the "god" region of the brain, one associated with "transcendent" feelings...

Every woman within a 80-km wide area in rural Germany became pregnant approximately two months ago. The cause remains unknown, but parents fear a mutant boom, presuming they are all the children of a new mutant.

All artifacts in a 500-meter sphere surrounding a ground floor apartment in New Delhi vaporized, leaving bare earth, whatever plants and soil there were, all the people and animals, and hardly anything else. The people in the higher floors were more severely effected, but the people in the lower floors weren't happy either...

Two mutants keep switching places at random intervals. One of them is dead.

Last edited by PTTG; 01-16-2015 at 03:23 PM.
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Old 01-16-2015, 12:05 AM   #9
Flyndaran
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Default Re: Ideas for mutant-caused disasters?

Quote:
Originally Posted by PTTG View Post
...
Anyone who touches a mutant has a sudden, shocking revelation. 20% of these people commit suicide within the next two months. Has become a kind of guru. Some scientists believe that the mutant merely stimulates the "god" region of the brain, one associated with "transcendent" feelings...
...
(Sadly, that initial observation later proved to be erroneous. But for super settings...)
Imagine how long it takes to realize why certain people are immune. Many lacking such god modules may go through the motions of religion and refuse to ever self identify as atheists.
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Old 01-16-2015, 12:08 AM   #10
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Default Re: Ideas for mutant-caused disasters?

A mutant with infectious but incomplete invisibility power. A whole neighborhood's inhabitants display partial uncontrollable invisibility; limbs only, skin only, etc.
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