The Campaign Builder's Guild

I devised this campaign as a means of keeping my gaming group entertained while I work on my revision of Dystopia (http://www.thecbg.org/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?20839.last), and to provide them with an introduction to the GURPS rule system.  It was inspired by a transhumanist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism) conversation I had with a friend, which swiftly delved into the territory of eugenics, genetic stratification of social classes and the ambiguity of human nature, among other things.  That in turn led to the idea of conflict between those who saw self-modification as a human privilege, and those who saw it as a human obligation; the next essential step in humanity's pursuit of transcendence.

So I thought "Why not make a campaign about these themes?"  The initial idea was very straightforward: the bad guys were posthuman fascists, seeking to bring the "purity of perfection" to the lesser peoples of Earth (by way of the bullet), and the players were those who opposed this gruesome ultimatum.  But as the setting's period changed (it was originally in the 22nd century, but eventually shifted some 2'000 years), the circumstances altered also.  The tone got lighter, less bleak, more cinematic - heck, almost mythic in scope.

In Bellum's new incarnation, the players will work to reclaim their planet, which has been conquered by the Mordant (the aforementioned fascists), and from there work to reclaim their entire solar system.  However, first they must unite their own scattered people, for the Mordant have divided and diminished them, depriving them of resources so that they must work against each other for their very survival in ruined cities that have been resurrected in an authoritarian, self-imposed hegemony.  Only united may the invaders be overcome, and even when the last of their foes lie dead, the reclamation will have only just begun.

As aforementioned, Bellum is highly cinematic, with a decidedly mythic tone.  The heroes will rise from the ruins to command interstellar armies and wield insidious alien sciences - even in the early stages, they will kill their enemies by the dozens with pneumatic fists and monomolecular blades.  There will be brutal firefights in toxic forests beneath skies of permanent night, and epic confrontations amidst the collapsing chaos of once-glorious ancient cities.  There will be faceless hordes of slavering mutants, and insidious masterminds who wield godlike powers.  Superscience will defy possibility, blurring the boundaries between technology and magic.

It will be put to the players to restore order to a galaxy that is tearing itself apart, be it by the gun, the word, or a world-shattering cannon.

This is about heroes, and bloody, brain-splattering glory.

Influences
Orion's Arm, Gears of War, Conan the Barbarian, Half Life, Killzone, Beowulf, Halo, Mountains of Madness, Gattaca, The Iliad.

More coming.

Can we post here?

This sounds interesting.  I do love a good deep theme or two for a campaign.  Do you mean the game takes place on/near Earth in the year 4000ish?  Or in that year on an alien world called Bellum?

It initially takes place on the planet Causicaa, which was colonised by humanity a few hundred years before the adventure begins.  The current year is 4350 AD, or 2010 by their calendar.  The campaign is called Bellum because it means "war".

Causicaa is part of the Meritas system, one of dozens of solar systems colonised by "man".  It is a relatively insignificant world, being on the fringe of the "known galaxy", and politics is such that the more inward systems do not care for its existence (there is not one human empire, but rather, many, and they don't really like each other).  This puts Causicaa in a very vulnerable position, and when the campaign starts, the Mordant will already have conquered half of Meritas.

So the Mordant basically want to create the ubermensch... Wow, this feels kind of like Indiana Jones. I'm guessing one of the primary themes would be reclaiming one's humanity. For a couple of interesting ideas you might want to look up Battle Angel Alita, it's decidedly darker in tone, but it still has a wealth of concepts to offer you in terms of how to handle cyborgs.

Reclaiming one's humanity, yes, but reclaiming it in an age where the nature of that humanity is difficult to discern.  Two millennia of genetic tampering and technological advancement has yielded a plethora of peoples so distinct from one another that they might as well be called different species.  The players themselves may only appear marginally human, although Causicaa is by-and-large an Originator Planet: a planet dominated by more conventional humans.

I suppose it is more the right to define one's own humanity, be that anthropoid, invertebrate or even inorganic.  In the pursuit of the "ubermensch", the Mordant would gleefully destroy that which defines us, and impose on mankind their own concept of perfection.  Bellum chronicles the struggle against that impetus.

More to come.

Is this then at all related to your Antebellum setting?  I was also intrigued by what you had written of that in some other thread.

An invertebrate human?

Not really in anything other than name.  The "Final War" of Antebellum occurs waaaay after the events of Bellum (many many thousands of years), and it does not necessarily inhabit the same universe.  I suppose it would be interesting if it did, but Bellum is about a sense of final triumph that I think is incompatible with Antebellum.

And yes.  An invertebrate human.

Anyhoo, sorry to say that I don't think this idea is panning out as well as I'd hoped.  Not that the players don't like the concept, but I have other plans up my sleave.  So Bellum, like all of my settings (bar the unconquerable Dystopia) is about to be recycled into something more spectacular!

(As usual, any idea you guys like, feel free to pilfer for your own purposes)