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Old 11-02-2022, 04:06 PM   #2561
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Spring Storms

The very fact he called himself Doctor Chiller, made him seem totally ridiculous. Then he killed the city of Oslo by burying it in ice. I never heard of any survivors.

A dozen champions fought him. They all died. And the few witnesses say he brought the ice as he lay dying.

That was back in 1938. Only now is his icy grip fading.


The French Republic rules the southern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Morocco and Egypt have nominal independence and little autonomy. Morocco has some diplomatic independence. The Republic tolerates this to try to get better ties with the USA. The French Republic and the Anglo-Dutch Imperium both hold large chunks of Africa.

Ethiopia remains independent as does South Africa. Both play the French Republic and the Anglo-Dutch Imperium off each other. Both are friendly with the distant USA. Such friendliness costs them nothing and slows any attack from the other powers at them.

Latin America is a diplomatic hothouse. All the nations want advantage against each other. The French and the Anglo-Dutch manipulate the struggle for advantage hoping to gain a strong ally on America's doorstep.

There are towns on the moon. (If you have GURPS: Tales of the Solar Patrol, use their space ships) The US has New Plymouth at the south pole. The French and the Anglo-Dutch have bases in the northern hemisphere of the moon (Verne and Georgetown respectively). Brazil, Ethiopia, South Africa, and Japan have small bases on the moon as well.

Mars is has been made habitable by use of an ancient relic found in Cydonia. All three major powers have settlements on Mars.

The US has asteroid bases and has explored the moons of Jupiter.
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Old 11-06-2022, 04:10 PM   #2562
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Spring Storms

The very fact he called himself Doctor Chiller, made him seem totally ridiculous. Then he killed the city of Oslo by burying it in ice. I never heard of any survivors.

A dozen champions fought him. They all died. And the few witnesses say he brought the ice as he lay dying.

That was back in 1938. Only now is his icy grip fading.


Basically, this is a supers setting. But several different types of campaign are available.

The most obvious is supers/espionage. You'd make five hundred point characters with relatively low power levels and supernormals as well. The Americans, the French, and the Anglo-Dutch, are in a three way struggle. Both the French and the Anglo-Dutch want to expand their empires and make the USA a junior partner (very junior). The USA wants to avoid wars and preserve the independence of the few other genuinely independent nations out there. Note: Japan and the Latin American nations, Ethiopia, and Yemen, might be very weak compared to the big three, but that's all the more reason to get good intelligence.

There's an interesting low level supers game to be had on Earth's frontiers. The snowfields are melting. New areas of arable land are being exposed. Scouts will be needed to map an explore the newly recovered lands. It would resemble a pulp western crossed with western supers.

This is very much a four color supers world. There are exotic wonders out there. Lost races, hidden cities, mad scientist lairs. Picture groups like the early Teen Titans, X-Men, or Doom Patrol, in an Indiana Jones type adventure!

Mars in this world has had its atmosphere recently restored. But there are ancient ruins all over the place. Blend Northwest Smith with Indiana Jones and have that pulp explorers campaign.

Note: as this is a Four Color Supers setting, beef up the population of the Moon and asteroids (and let the asteroids be like the mini worlds from old space operas) and behold! Space Pirates! The PCs could be a team of Supers fighting the pirates!

Supers can show up anywhere on this planet. So why not the adventures of the heroes of Brazil, Ethiopia, or Trinidad?
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Old 11-12-2022, 06:41 AM   #2563
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Frost Warning

This whole geoengineering mess is Europe's fault. We were working on orbital solar shades, a system with an off-switch. Their sulfur dioxide system is turning the planet into an ice rink and creating super droughts, and there is no off-switch for it.

And because Europe fouled up America has to provide for an extra four billion people? How do they justify that?


Basically, the Western alliance has collapsed and Europe (while trying to show the world how competent they are) has caused a new Ice Age. The combination of brutal cold weather in the high latitudes and unending drought in the tropics is destroying civilization.

The wealthier nations are being flooded with refugees but can barely feed their own people.

There are a few rays of hope. The USA has built sea surface cities powered by Ocean Thermal Power and using Mariculture as a source of income. But these are to few to handle the displaced billions and America can't build them fast enough.

Similarly, space colonies are doing well. But can't be expanded in time.

Several developed nations including the USA have made major advances in Vertical Agriculture. Even though the USA could possibly get through the crisis that way, again it can't be expanded fast enough.

The introduction of commercial fusion plants a few years earlier were a hopeful sign. But, although these fusors will save civilization, they won't be in time to save the starving billions.

This is a dark brutal adventure setting. The PCs are mercenaries tasked with rescuing people from collapsing societies. Stranded aid workers, scientists working on cleaning up the mess, culturally significant people from collapsing nations who are needed to keep those cultures alive, and others will all need to rescued.

Other campaigns could involve espionage to gain information on the engineering specs of the sulfur dioxide haze that's freezing the world. Any possibility of ending the crisis early would depend on getting precise details on what was planned and what was done.

Diplomatic campaigns to rebuild the western alliance in order to meet the crisis would be another option.

The clock could be moved twenty years forward in a world were the crisis played out. There are islands of civilization in a post-apocalyptic hellscape. Trying to keep the remnants of civilization alive would be it's own challenge.
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Old 11-13-2022, 12:18 PM   #2564
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Empty Roads

Do I look like a history teacher?

What I was told in the creche was that someone created the sterility plague. Because they released it behind a natural pandemic certain nations got lucky breaks in dealing with the new plague. The USA, because of our physical isolation, our internal lines of supply, our high population, and the recent development of commercial fusion power plants, was uniquely lucky. Although other nations like France, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, and Sweden, also got lucky, if not as lucky as us Americans.

Although I never felt lucky. My mother had twelve children. I was one of the nine kids she sent to a creche to raise. The lawyers said my mother wouldn't see me and that she only had me for the government benefits. She even got sperm from a sperm bank so her husband isn't my father.

So I'm a throwaway kid on a half empty planet.


This is a varient cyberpunk setting. The Sterility Plague crashed the world population down to a few hundred millions. Many cultural groups are extinct. The Earth is full of the ruins and detritus of the plague times a mere eighty years ago. Even with cheap clean fusion power, robotics, and Tech Level Nine technology, society seems poor and threadbare.

The PCs would be wanderers in a largely empty landscape dealing with the isolated survivors. Unlike most cyberpunk settings wilderness skills will be vital here.

A class conflict of a sort between "Creche kids" and "Home Babies" could easily be part of the setting.
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Old 11-16-2022, 02:57 AM   #2565
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The Cuckoos

Why are you so angry?

One of the newcomers told me that our whole community was like a stock root. But they would be the grafted bud. They would provide the fruit and flowers we'd only be the roots.

The culture they came from was always known to be full of themselves. I don't doubt they believe that racist trash.

They get all the good jobs now and they control the educational system. We need to kick these parasites out now while we can.

We're farmers and tradesfolk, we need scholars. We just need to teach the scholars that we're the people who built this colony. And we won't let them push us out or make us servants.


An extrasolar planet that has been largely successfully terraformed is getting a large wave of new colonists. These new colonists are from a radically different cultural group or groups. The descendants of the first settlers aren't happy. Their culture is being dismissed as worthless and dull. The newcomers snobbishly look down on them. Partially this snobbery comes from religious and cultural differences. The locals are seen as boorish and uncultured. Much of it comes from insecurity among the newcomers. They are afraid their culture won't be respected. Both sides are motivated by fear and jealousy.

Basically, this is a social game, but it could break out in violence from either side. PCs could be arbitration experts trying to stop a civil war. They could also be freedom fighters from either side fighting against oppression.

It should be noted that some real world cultures do have points of rigidity and would refuse even the most necessary changes, especially if they see core values endangered. Some relationships just don't work even with the best will in the world. Think about which two cultures you slot into this scenario.
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Old 11-21-2022, 04:54 AM   #2566
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Closed Gates

Why are you crying.

They changed the rules.

Which rules?

They can send people back to wait in their own lands. The Europeans say the working classes feel dispossessed in their own lands. And they're saying the new American immigration rules are as bad as the 1920s.

The rich made the poor pay for immigration in order to make the poor hate immigrants.

But we can't stay here, the famine is worse and the drought won't go away.

I don't know where to go.


This is a cyberpunk game set in a realistic (or at least nonspectacular) version of 2050. The advanced countries (technologically and possessing democracies) aren't doing badly. However, non-democratic nations are in chaos. The Indian Ocean monsoon system has stopped. This means multi century droughts in some areas. (No this is highly realistic).

Social cohesion in the democracies is at an all time low. The kind of sacrifice needed to save billions requires moral authority. As no one is allowed moral authority, nothing will be done.

Basically, this is a hell world, but a very realistic one. Mercenaries, smugglers of people or goods, are solid choices. Aid workers would be adventures in this setting.

(Some people said my settings were too optimistic)
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Old 11-21-2022, 06:38 AM   #2567
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(Some people said my settings were too optimistic)
I'm not sure why. 0_0
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Old 11-21-2022, 09:48 AM   #2568
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I'm not sure why. 0_0
Me either. But they might stop now.
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Old 11-21-2022, 07:48 PM   #2569
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(Some people said my settings were too optimistic)
So you decided to set one in the future we appear to be heading for?

EDIT: OK, one of the more plausible futures, anyway.
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Old 11-25-2022, 07:15 AM   #2570
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"...if you've a Lucifer..."

What did you just say?

A Lucifer, a match, when matches first came out they were seen as uncanny.

So they called them Lucifers?

It's kind of related to our problem. New things and ideas are often seen as dangerous or risky.


The old world died in plague and famine. And you the PCs are trying to spark the new world into something better than it is. Sure people know the cities are rich and glamourous. Which is why the powers that be constantly preach against the cities.

We bring small wonders from the cities. Strong brightly colored thread, steel needles and thimbles, glassware, storybooks, knives, tools, spices, all small wonders that speak of other worlds. Sparks to light the fire.

Basically, the PCs are agents of change in a post-apocalyptic world. They are working under the noses of powerful locals who don't want change, at least not the kind of change that takes their power and status away. Think of The Boss in Things to Come .

The PCs work as peddlers and mountebanks. Putting on shows to attract crowds and selling them small wonders and useful goods. They also disguise as Patten Medicine Men. Although selling real medicine. Often passing out vaccines disguised as candy. Note: The powers that run the local communities are also given candy. But rarely the disguised vaccines.

The PCs are playing a long game to free the masses. The local elites have a limited understanding of that. The game is on.
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