The Campaign Builder's Guild

Sorry, I got those wrong. Gorgon, Basilisk's sister, is the superweapon. Basilisk is still very powerful because it doesn't automatically ossify those who see it. It takes a day for the process to become noticeable, which is a scary long time for a person with that kind of chops to be walking around unnoticed. Add to that the fact that it sheds its body as a snake sheds its skin making it all but impossible to track by mundane means, and you have a very, very scary creature indeed. Yes, its effects are local. But you won't know they're happening. It was incredibly difficult to capture it and put it away, and like any clever government, its captors decided it would be better to keep it alive and see what good could come of that. None, I'll wager.

(If the public had ever figured out a Power was the cause of the mysterious contagion that decimated a series of major cities, that would have been a nightmare for power/mundane relations. The fact that it is still alive makes some folks very uncomfortable - partly because of the threat it still poses but also because it serves as a reminder that Basilisk was only discovered due to being active in a media-saturated environment; in less developed places where news is harder to get, a creature like that could prove far more troublesome)

Cuchulain is easily a superweapon. He's nigh unkillable and, again, as big as a house, and he bays mournfully and deafeningly, causing the earth the bubble and erupt and swallow buildings and people. He wasn't originally that terrible but the British scientists (in what was appropriately called operation Caladbolg) figured out his transformations are brought on by events that remind him of the trauma of his empowerment, so they amplified it, warping his genuine memories into a gruesome horror epic. He could very easily destroy a major city from the inside in a matter of minutes. He wouldn't necessarily obliterate the people, but in a city like New York, with so much available to come crashing down as we all well know, they would be as good as dusted).

It's worth remarking that Cuchulain and his superhero/villain-seeming lot are a very small minority. Most are more like the ones mentioned in the first post. I'll shift back into low gear now so we don't lose track of the little picture.

Lamia has isolated herself from most of humanity for their sake. She isn't a malicious person, just terribly alienated, and she's trying to find a place where she'll neither hurt nor be hurt. She has fallen in with the Infinite Army (formerly called Infinity), whom she assists in a mundane political fashion. They are also protecting her from the likes of Entropos and the Maledict, who would love to get their hands on a being potentially capable of killing the next generation of the human race (or so they believe).

I like your idea for Mechanical Dream. I'll tweak it and see where we get.

So Gorgon does what? The same as Basilisk but on a larger scale? (promise this will be my last question about the big picture Empowered :p)

I don't know yet. She isn't Basilisk's actual sibling, she just adopted him.

Just a few dudes and dudettes:

Allmother: born Ndege in New Kenya. Her means of empowerment is not known. At the age of twelve she became noticeably pregnant overnight, causing a violent uproar in her community as her family searched for the culprit. Eventually it was determined that she had not in fact been impregnated. Her conception was, by all appearances, completely immaculate. Giving birth only weeks later her child was discovered to be a genetic clone of herself yet bearing virtually no physiological similarity to a human. It did not survive, but she would go on to mother dozens of other creatures, all of which shared her precise genetic makeup. She is a shapeshifter, possibly the most variable one on Earth besides the Protean, but rather than altering her own anatomy she parthenogenically creates new shapes via gestation. Among her 'children' are Chrism, Teratos and the Chimera.

Anwar Baz: one of the earliest empowered. For a long time his musical works and grimly epic poetry were considered unmiraculous, albeit stunningly well crafted. It was not until many years later when his Black Sonata was posthumously discovered and performed, inadvertently summoning Maitreya-shadow the herald of the Bodhisattva of Dread, that people began to suspect he had been other than normal. Since then all of his works post-2014 have been found to contain hidden occult significance across many layers of interpretation. Mundane 'sorcerers' champion him as the modern Aleister Crowly and practice the rituals uncovered in his writings and constantly interpret new ones, though very few of either sort have any real effect. Only the magically empowered, such as Axtetly and Red Rabbi can manifest his true sorceries.

Aurora: born Neda Perun, third child of the Russian hero Enmity. She possesses the innate power of prophecy. Under the tutelage of her more potent sister Zorya (deceased) she developed her other notorious gift: the brief reanimation and control of the recently dead. She has a fraternal twin who is not a Power. His very existence is known only to a few, to preserve his safety.

Felix: born Martin Stall, he is a playboy millionaire constantly rated among the top ten most beautiful people in the world (all of whom are empowered). He does not recount the circumstances of his empowerment; in fact, he was looking at his reflection in a lake when the image leapt out of the water, strangled him to death and replaced him. Due to his high profile and eagerness to capitalise on his gifts, he has been targeted in a number of anti-power attacks. This has led him to employ Wolf Guard members Morton Petrossian and Kasa Chaudhry in his entourage.

Kirill Maslov: an American serial-killer turned hitman. He operates on a low scale but across the entire country, and is so talented his methods are practically untraceable. His gift is a total comprehension of the human machine. In a more noble creature that might have inspired undreamed of medical breakthroughs. In Kirill Maslov it has created the perfect monster.

Leadman: born Garisson Authement, his body is made of an incredibly dense quasi-organic metal, making him weigh well over a tonne. He is utterly without finesse and even now in his mid-fifties sometimes destroys things by grabbing them indelicately. He used to be an enforcer for the Sons of Libetalia, but he was retired after an encounter with the Human left him psychologically unstable.

Perigee: a young woman who achieves a state of superintelligence and untameable mania when the moon is closest to the earth, resulting in artistic works of unparalleled beauty and scientific proofs for questions no-one ever asked. One of her sculptures sits on the front lawn of the Presidium: it is actually a dormant refractive gate with an unkeyed destination. Another of her works, a mathematical exegesis of the esoteric poems of Anwar Baz, has been understood by only four known individuals: Mustanen Heikkinen, Michael Axtetly, Luna Abruzzese and the Second Icon. The work has not yet been adapted into a more intelligible form. Either this is impossible or those who have understood it simply do not want to share.

Red Rabbi: an unnamed sorcerer active in the principalities Prosody. He is believed to be exploring the occult power inherent in the various permutations of the metalanguage and has had dealings with the External Being Gevurah. He has also had contact with both Eser Ganem and Throne but the consequences of such meetings are unknown.

Wolf: a notorious ex-member of the British paramilitary organization AEGIS, with a chilling predatory instinct and carnivorous appetite. He is known for his violent methods and love of terror tactics, and strained the limits of the Protectors' 'don't ask don't tell' policy with regards to the methods of its high-level operatives. He developed a strong relationship with Fergus Ross (Cuchulain) and finally split with the organisation when he discovered the method by which they were cultivating the boy's 'talents'. He recently established an international protection service Wolf Guard with such high profile clients as Emil Cerl and Felix. Because Wolf Guard includes ex-foreign operatives among its members, he is treading on dangerous ground. His former employers may soon send someone to deal with him once and for all.

I want it in comic form with Dave Gibbons as illustrator.

How many children has the Allmother given birth to?  Thousands?

I feel like the tone and texture of this has shifted a bit since its inception (that's not a bad thing, though!), moving towards more extravagant/flashy/impressive powers and a more otherworldly landscape; closer to the heroes of Wild Cards or Marvel than the very mundane, fragile heroes of Watchmen (with the obvious exception, though I suppose Adrian would be an exception too).  Was this an intentional shift, or is it just that I'm ony picking up on the intended feel now?

I would so love to write a comic. That would be shweeeet. And Dave Gibbons is wonderful.

As for the tone/texture change, I just shifted into high gear for a bit. That was the more epic side of things. I'm going to get back to the nitty gritty now.

On another note: I just checked out Wild Cards. I don't feel so clever now. Dammit.

EDIT: yes, thousands.

[ooc]This is a setting update, detailing transformations of Renegade Earth as a consequence of player action.[/ooc][ic=EMPOWERMENT]...doesn't happen to just anybody. It is a catalyst, an impetus toward spiritual discovery and temporal accomplishment. Cab drivers, homeless alcoholics and store clerks have been empowered, as have fighter pilots and special ops hardcases, but no bus driver finds himself so thoroughly changed yet remains a bus driver. To be empowered is to be gifted with the means to seize opportunities often dreamed but until now thought beyond one's own reach.[/ic]
No-one in our group is especially religious, but for some reason when I asked them what sort of adventure they wanted to run as an intro to the setting they insisted on a party of fundamentalist Christian covert enforcers...

Well, I rolled with it, and thankfully I already had an organisation called Throne, with close ties to the Catholic Church and other, seedier, Christian operations. So the players were agents of god, at large on the mean mad streets of London in the latter half of the twenty-first century among brainfreaks and cyberchangelings and a thousand kinds of strangeness. It didn't last long...

Members of Throne's London Chapter

Chrism: a remarkable scientist and alchemist, and a devout member of the Second Age Church. His tissues produced fluid with restorative qualities that science never replicated. His allegiances were divided between Throne and the House of Alchemists, and he foolishly played them against each other.

Ernest Gao (PC): an English-Chinese mathematician and sorcerer, on occasion employed by Throne as a 'consultant'. He attempted to prove the divine origin of empowerment through thaumaturgic experiments. Unfortunately, the community of sorcerers is terribly small, and the subset of Christian sorcerers is much smaller still... thus his works were never peer reviewed before his untimely death.

Dipti Krishnatreya (PC): codenamed 'Seraph'. She is capable of projecting images into people's minds by eye contact. These images are of profound personal significance to the receiver, appearing as angels or nature spirits or gods according to the receiver's belief system. The images usually stupefy the viewer through some combination of awe, joy, revulsion and holy terror. During her tenure as a Throne operative she believed her ability was a manifestation of divine presence.

Leicester Weather (PC): pronounced and originally spelled Lester. He gained a measure of Sanguinity's haematomorphic ability when he received a transfusion of her nanite-stimulated blood. This was undertaken as a part of Throne's Active Ascension Directive (AAD). His power had many limitations that Sanguinity did not, presumably as a consequence of his foreign biology.

Mark Church (PC): codenamed 'Cherub'. He has the appearance of an eight year old boy but the physical capabilities of an accomplished professional athlete. He is also a stone-cold killer.

Others: Kent P. Wodehouse, priest and exorcist of the London underground (deceased); and Willemina Berg, interdimensional cryptolinguist (deceased).

What happened...

Chrism had discovered that his own 'healing humours' were beginning to consume the very tissues that produced them. His fellow philosophers within the House of Alchemists could help him at tremendous expense to themselves, but only if he would provide something significant in return. He began directing Throne operatives away from Alchemist activity in London, and even sent them on missions that directly benefited the Alchemists.

After the death of Willemina Berg during a grossly mismanaged sting operation, the Angelus Team (the PCs) began cluing in to Chrism's increasingly desperate game. They employed Ernest Gao to investigate Chrism's activities (Mark Church had been arrested and imprisoned and his player took on Gao, an existing NPC, as a replacement). By that point Chrism was already expecting trouble. He convinced his superiors that the Angelus Team had turned traitor, and his superiors authorised a hit against them. Kent Wodehouse went to warn them and was killed in the crossfire during the assassination attempt, which also killed Ernest.

At last Leicester and Dipti confronted Chrism. After explaining everything to them, Chrism shot himself in the head. An emergency response team was already on its way (alerted by Chrism, who obviously was not very contrite) and intercepted Leicester and Dipti as they were fleeing Chrism's estate. Leicester caught a bullet in his brain. Dipti was apprehended, and tasked with explaining the whole sorry mess.

Quote from: BugritLeicester Weather (PC): pronounced and originally spelled Lester.

Erm, how else would you pronounce Leicester?

EDIT: Less obnoxiously, it sounds like a great set of characters and a great game you ran with them! :)

Quote from: Kindling

Quote from: BugritLeicester Weather (PC): pronounced and originally spelled Lester.

Erm, how else would you pronounce Leicester?

As an Australian, whose exposure to the word is exclusively through British media, I'm aware that many of my peers have no idea how to pronounce that word, just as they wouldn't know how to pronounce "Siobhan". The point, though, was that the character's name was Lester, and he changed it too Leicester, because roleplayers are juvenile and capricious and like their characters to engage in harmless stupidity.

QuoteEDIT: Less obnoxiously, it sounds like a great set of characters and a great game you ran with them! :)

Thanks. More to come. It ended up being a veeeery long campaign.

Quote from: BugritThanks. More to come. It ended up being a veeeery long campaign.

Awesome, I would love to hear more! I know this game is only really in the superhero genre loosely, but I still feel I'd kind of learn from hearing more about it, as I've never played a supers game and have always struggled a bit to imagine how they would actually play out beyond like "here's a supervillain, fight!"

In terms of the actions of the characters, I honestly wouldn't call this a superhero setting. I created Renegade Earth in great part as a response to classic supers comics, which I can never take seriously. Superpowered individuals seem to exist in a vacuum, wherein they never really affect the world, so much as they affect other superpowered beings (with some collateral damage now and again).

Renegade Earth is an exercise in "What happens when Tony Stark concentrates his vast wealth on the public weal? What happens when Reed Richards commits his astonishing intellect to civil projects? Or politics?"

There are no "supervillians" in Renegade Earth. No-one is conspicuously trying to conquer the world. Empowered individuals have simply supplanted mundane humans in the most powerful of the world's positions, or have created new organisations that act according to established custom, notably AEGIS, Presidium and Unity.

In short, I guess the only thing limiting a superheroes campaign is the assumption that characters would limit themselves to superheroics. Why do that, when in public eyes you have the gifts of angels or demons or gods? The organisation called Throne is financed by the Church of the Second Age, which believes these gifts presage the coming again of the Messiah. In Israel there is an organisation called Keter that is committed to the empowerment of the entire Jewish race (There is no longer a Palestine). Empowerment is changing the whole world, even if it has happened to a fraction of a percent of the global population.

Addendum: the most quintessentially "comic book" 'powers to have existed thus far are Kid Alpha and The Enharmonic. Kid Alpha in his current state can be likened to "Doctor Manhattan with a serious hardon for genocide" and The Enharmonic is now scattered across the spectrum of some unimagined cosmic medium.

With the setting clearly established in our minds, we decided to move onto higher stakes. This time, the players were 'superterrorists', their agenda was global anarchist revolution.

It wasn't until all the characters were written up and I'd plotted out half the campaign that I realised the players were crafting an homage to Metal Gear Solid.

Sons of Libertalia

Nestor Vorobyov: the one-armed marksman. He had no paranormal power to speak of. He was simply balls-to-the-wall crazy and charismatic as hell. He, like his unnamed superior, believed that empowerment was the instrument of Chaos, the driving principle of the universe, and that a global anarchist 'eutopia' was long overdue.

Viper: an ex-member of the elite paramilitary unit les enfants terrible. Whenever he remains stationary and slows his heart rate he is functionally invisible. Also, those who encountered him are incapable of remembering details about him once he departs. This includes recorded media; someone could memorise a drawing of his face but would not associate it with him unless they were referencing it while looking at him.

Terrence Stamp (PC): a former Presidium interrogator. He can integrate his mind with that of a nearby person, sharing their thoughts and impressing his own upon them. With sufficient time and effort, he can even manipulate their motor processes. Due to his frequent mind integration he eventually lost all sense of personal identity. The Presidium managed him for a time with artificial personalities, but each of those in turn deteriorated. Soon after being interred in the Presidium's Retirement facility he was 'rescued' by the Sons of Libertalia. For a time Cordelia Maas kept him stable through a regimen of holographic meme impression, supplying him with motivations consistent with her personal agenda.

Cordelia Maas (PC): a hyperintellent engineer, psychologist and neurologist with obsessive compulsive tendencies. She often worked as a freelance with AEGIS and Altman Pharmaceuticals, and she made groundbreaking contributions to the field of subliminal impression.

Codename Octopus (PC): a chess prodigy, master sharpshooter and shapeshifter. His genes and physiology are constantly changing, so that across the span of a month he will inevitably transform into a wholly different person. Through a combination of chemistry and psychosomatic suggestion he can both direct and tremendously accelerate this process, but it is very painful.

Hassan Shamoon (PC): the notorious 'Burning Man of Pakistan'. His body weighs approximately 500 kilograms and has an 'idle' temperature of between 300 and 500 degrees Centigrade. When making a conscious effort he gets much, much hotter. He does not eat, and draws oxygen through his skin. If denied oxygen he reverts to an inert metal, comparable to the substance of which Garisson Authement is composed. He spends most of his time in a suit devised by Unity scientists which regulates his intake and exhaust. He can direct waste energy as a concentrated beam through outlets in his gloves. Before being rescued by Nestor Vorobyov he was being used as an inexhaustible energy source by Chinese separatists (they lived to regret it).

Penny Dreadful (PC): a musical pioneer in the genre of sub-Coma, she could manipulate frequencies of sound to produce temporary impressions of possible futures. This allowed her and her companions to live the consequences of certain actions and determine if they were viable before actually undertaking them.

Others: Jiri Svoboda, a corporate accountant and one of Octopus' marks; Peng Jian and Lei Ting, 'brother' demolitions masters with a single mind, connected by an almost-tangible electromagnetic field; Codename 2D, Terrence Stamp's handler; and Valiant, Cordelia Maas' brainscrubbed bodyguard, with various chemical augmentations and sub-dermal armour.

In case you missed it, Vorobyov is Revolver Ocelot, Viper is Solid Snake, Terrence Stamp is Psycho Mantis, Cordelia Maas is Naomi and Codename Octopus is Decoy Octopus. Hassan Shamoon and Penny Dreadful are replacement characters for Cordelia's player, who is establishing a trend of low survivability. She doesn't mind though.  The 'Others' are extra characters available as temporary PCs so that players can remain engaged in each other's storylines. Don't ask me why the psychic is called Terrence Stamp. I have no idea.

What happened...

(Forgive me if I get a few details wrong. It gets confusing.)
Chrism's body is secured by Throne, but en route to an experimental facility it is hijacked by unknown persons. It is at this time that Viper goes AWOL during a routine assassination in some South American backwater territory. Very few people have been memetically imprinted with the memory of Viper's appearance, and Vorobyov wants to keep it that way, so no one is sent to find him. Meanwhile, these interesting things are happening to the PCs:

Codename Octopus' deep cover operation of several years is blown. He is shot half to pieces during a corporate meeting (in which twelve other people are killed) and escapes to his storehouse where his Shifting apparatus is located. Accelerated shifting produces accelerated healing, but he's stuck with several very uncomfortable bullets in himself.

Terrence wakes up in his vacation apartment surrounded by broken furniture, freezing cold (its late autumn and the balcony door is open) with a massive headache and a bunch of extra memories. He cannot remember Sons of Libertalia, but he remembers a woman named Madeline Ashton, and he 'knows' that he must consume her mind. (For the record, the player remembers SoL)

Cordelia Maas is in one of her labs working on a new brain array for a line of private sector anthroids that will bypass current international sanctions against Artificial Intelligences. The facility suddenly goes into emergency lockdown and her personal scanner indicates foreign, nonhuman presences in the upper levels, butchering her researchers. She and her bodyguard Valiant get ready to kick ass and take names...

(The events starting off the player's personal adventures are written by them, and are called Kickers: 'events or realizations that your character has experienced just before play begins. They catalyze him or her into action of some sort.' I believe they were first introduced in Ron Edwards' Sorcerer. It's my job to tie them all together so it seems like the events were always related)