Super-humans and war

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The Artist Formerly
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Super-humans and war

Unread post by The Artist Formerly »

So the advent of superhumans has to have had a massive effect on war. I've tried to reimagine battle history, and world history with these concepts. Trying to tie real world history with game history.

Using the guidelines that the GMs guide lays down, we can imagine the mythic age full of superhumans, mostly magic based, running around achieving all of the superhuman feats they are credited for. But then the renaissance happens, and the superhumans seem to disappear. I'd blame pope Alexander VI for the Europe arc, the various Islamic groups suppressing their own for Africa and the middle east, and the suppression of the shaolin monks handling China. These events and personas would act as a reason to conceal one's special abilities, pushing those who weren't found out and killed or absorbed into other people's war machines, out to the fringes. We still have super-humans running around, but they are concealed and seem to drop off through out the renaissance and into the age of reason.

Techniques and learned knowledge of powers would drop off without a master/student relationship, and religious belief would further suppress self-exploration. Magic items would fall into disuse for lack of worthy champions, end up in black vaults or government warehouses (guarded by TOP MEN). Because of the rigorous life style and often martial philosophies required to advance as a weapons character or physical training style, these superhumans would also likely be absorbed or suppressed.

This era does ushers in new heroes, tech heroes, but while special, they are mere men armed with science, and they have a high self-attrition rate. *Boom* All the usual suspects, Da Vinci through Tesla. Fairly straight forward.

Then the napoleonic wars happens. Violence on such a scale PPE goes screaming into the ley lines giving all magic based characters a bump. Western world leaders, so afraid of Napoleon, they start raiding the locked up stuff from the various black vaults and issuing it to the trusted few. Meanwhile, everyone's favorite French dictator is looting all of the secret stuff of everywhere he conquers, and starts issuing the loot to his trusted few. This leaves everyone's magic loot everywhere, though out Europe and all of the colonies. Meanwhile over in the US, the civil war has a similar effect, with fair less magic, and heck of a lot more tech. The lack of non-native American magic will leave the US stunted in the magic categories, and a strong tech bent that will continue to influence US superhuman efforts for decades to come.

This leads into the great war. And while everyone deploys some superhumans, the lack of practical experience with superhumans and how to deploy them, along with no real idea on how to deal with new weapons, and the generally atrophied status of superhuman activity leaves them as a small player in the fighting. Spec ops type work or dying badly from an artillery attack.

Then, the second world war happens. Nazi Germany takes an early lead with the help of Heinrich Vossen (VU Freakmaker) and Der Kommandant (CS mentioned under SHOCK's Ellis MacCrae). But in a twist of fate, Vossen's first move, an attempt to create a bio-plague using his chemical cocktails and a V2 rocket, hands Great Britton the win in the superhuman arms race. Britannia.

Now here is were things for gamer set in any period between 1919 and the current time get interesting. Things that happened in back then will still have ramifications in the now. The Soviet push into Germany more about capturing Vossen's labs. Internal stryfe within the Nazi hierarchy causing all kinds of splits and fragmentations, which contribute to Hitler's eventual defeat. Post war east vs west, spy vs spy with supers and spies (or super-spies) trying to capture each other's Vossen formula fragments. Wars and proxy wars being use to test the latest in superhuman development or counter superhuman tech.

Now, unless you're trying to tell an 'alternate history' event, look for ways to reinforce what really happened. Then you're simply modifying historical events. I've found this to be a really strong story telling tool, both as a GM and as a player. It explains the subtle difference between the HU world, and real world without having to rebuild all of time space.
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Re: Super-humans and war

Unread post by wyrmraker »

Seriously, look at the original Superhero comics, mostly written during WW2. Captain America, Bucky, the original Hourman and Mr. Terrific. Superhero comics set in history.
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Re: Super-humans and war

Unread post by The Artist Formerly »

Mythic age heroes can take on a verity of appearances based on the time period. Egyptian warriors battling to hold the line and keeping Set's (Seth's) minions from bring about eternal night, English knights working in service to King Arthur, elite warriors serving Caesar and the Senate. So long as you do a little research, changing things up to add super human exploits to the mix, especially if the supers' actions were lost to time (fire at the library of Alexandretta) or written out to make a given leader seem more heroic ("wait, I'm the one who untangled the Gordian knot..." ), allows for a lot of leeway in story telling.

When engaging in war, you have to have a lot of NPC badguy soldiers ready to die for the cause. PCs in this era aren't going to be constrained by modern morality and combat amounts to "kill all of them". Even low powered supers are going to splash normals like watermelons at a Gallahger show. Demons and aliens could lend you tools for amping up normals. Giving your bad guys a "dread legion" that only the PCs can match in a straight up fight. So could an army of the dead, or vampires, or werewolves. Or all of the above.

Lost Atlantis. So In Rifts, we have all this stuff about Splynncrith and his goons. But before he moved in, there was another people there. Because of the specifics of Rifts, we likely don't want to flat cut and paste from those books, but we can shamelessly plunder ideas and maps. Atlanteans running around in service to the king or queen, hanging out in sky ships (or for that matter Sky castles), smiting those who would challenge their nation state's might. High magic games, magic weapons/objects, mutants, experiments and even mutant animals can all be part of the mix. Atlanteans acting from the shadows could be involved almost anywhere. Good Atlanteans could be helping to save the day, while evil Atlanteans could be behind creations of monsters and problems. Imagine a minotaur that was a weapons test gone wrong. They can be used as either a setting unto themselves with the PCs as Atlanteans (or characters from other lands up lifted by them) or as deus ex machina causing the problems or providing the solutions. Palladium book's Atlantis is heavily influenced by the writings of Edgar Casey, a quick google can help GMs get a feel for what Kevin S and team were starting from, to maintain some sense connection.

As the Atlanteans were basically invisible to the known world, their wars are going to be few and they likely utterly destroy to the last man their enemies. The martial dichotomy is likely "be merciless in combat and generous in victory." The game may take on a more "black ops" type feel, in which the players are trying to hide the extent of their powers while they move to bring down the big bads of their world. You'll need godlings and demons aplenty for this one as Atlantis in all it's splendor will call for power.

Ancient Egypt has always held a special place in the minds of writers for these sorts stories, and with their strong belief in gods, magic, and all the stuff palladium has published on Egyptian lore, it's easy to get a frame work to run with. Egypt is so well recorded, and filled with such colossal monuments, it's easy to write super humans into the scene. Just grab and mix. You could be battling the forces of the pantheon of darkness against their hordes of undead mummies (huh, mummies) or just fighting in service to pharaoh against the armies of the other guys (pick a pharaoh, then send PCs after his enemies). Egypt occupies a place in the world where almost everyone has to bump into each other. The middle east on one side, what would become the silk road leading from there, the entire African continent south and west and all of Europe just across the Mediterranean. These story arcs can lead anywhere. Literally anywhere, as the basis of stone magic and human ability to harness ley lines was built here. While he credits the Atlanteans for the work, Kevin S took the ideas for all of that stuff from real world ancient Egyptian builders. There are two Egyptian characters and a short adventure that can be found in the HU GMs's guide, and the Solar Scarab from Gramercy Island is also an Egyptian style character to help give guidelines and ideas.

There are huge numbers of wars in this period. Everything from boarder skirmishes between neighboring kingdoms/empires to out right massed war. Legends of super humans abound. Guys working in service to the king/god/emperor or the rulers themselves having superhuman abilities. Get in there and smash some puny humans!

Greece. "When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain he wept, for there were no more worlds to conqour." Ancient Greece probably gave us the greatest inventors of all time. They built all the cool stuff, then under Alexander the great, conquered the known world. The first robot is from this era, as are a number of pneumatic devices, and a whole verity of other devices. A great many of these devices and mechanical ideas were lost when the Romans accidently burned the great library at Alexandretta. Down side is humanity lost technology that in several cases would take almost two thousand years to regain. Up side is you can add all sorts of cool technology and no one can prove you wrong. The Baghdad battery (even though it probably wasn't used as a electrical power source) is likely from this era (even though our only archeological discovery dates to 250 BC). We have myths from this period of death rays (busted), steam powered cannons (busted sort of), and arrow machine guns (confirmed). With a little mix of creativity your tech characters have game. Meanwhile, magic is fading but it's not out of the fight yet. And magic artifacts are still in production, it's just getting harder to make them. This can lead to a take and hold campaign for PCs who have to take control of line nexus points for the court mage to get his mojo on. Recall that some superhuman sense are screwed up in close proximity to ley lines in the Rifts setting, and things like ley line t-ports allow for enemy troops getting behind/through carefully built PC defenses. :)

The Chinese are ramping up as well. The Qin state is going from marginal player to military powerhouse. Several key inventions come out of the warring states period. Their metallurgical skills in this period are all but unrivaled. But remember gunpowder won't be invented for a while yet. Our friend Wise Owl is a walking encyclopedia on all things Chinese, or at least his knowledge is so much greater and deeper then mine it seems that way. If you want details that google can't give you, you might PM him for tips. Tell him Taffy sent you and he'll likely give you a three dollar surcharge. :) Also there is N&SS mystic china supplement, which can help with flavor and bad guys.

War is common and well documented in this period. Every major power in the world is trying to expand their powerbase and might. Both through internal struggles and external war. As complex economic factors start to show their hands, we have military leaders having to bow to economic concerns as a repeated issue. This was probably always the case, even in earlier periods, but for the first time we can see it documented and explained. Conquest of your enemies, and absorption of their forces, as both a means to expand your army and deal with pacifying conquered territory becomes a significant technique, one Alexander the Great would use, even when it angered other elements of his forces. Rome is going to take that to a whole new level, but for now, it was just about adding to your conquest lists. Tales of super human exploits span the entire period. Pretty much every named character in the Trojan war had some superhuman attribute or four. The conflicts are still violent and very bloody, with regular humans getting smacked around for annoying people by being in the wrong place and the wrong time. Stupid humans. Still, you can get away with all of the dread legion ideas from above, plus add army of robots to the list. We still don't have sharks with fricken' laser beams on their heads, but we're getting there.

Next up I'll follow this road into Rome.
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Re: Super-humans and war

Unread post by The Artist Formerly »

The Rome empire as we would call it had three phases we want to note. On the rise, or the age of the senate, which is right up until Brutus killer Julius Caeser. The age of Caesers, which is everything until the empire is split into two, and then the fall of Rome and then Constantinople, leading us into the dark ages.

In terms of mass, and power the Romans were neither the first, nor the biggest empire builders, but no one had more style. Some of the stuff they did, both as builders and as military leaders, we're still using today. This plays well into the game because it allows for a number of ancient battles in which diverse power categories can all be part of the team. Every player character has something to offer.

Most characters are likely going to have some sort of magic touched backgrounds for their power source, even if their character isn't a magic user of any sort. Magic of some sort will be used to explain all sorts of stuff that otherwise couldn't be explained. With HU's Earth's ley line powers fading, using ley line high points and capturing nexus points will be of extreme importance to both the Romans and those who would challenge them. For example, what if Hadrian built his famous wall to keep monsters from Scottish based ley line storms from invading his English garrisons? Or Julius Caeser's push into Germany was to take advantage of a nexus high point event, enchant him a suit of magic armor to make him invincible to his enemies (Ironic, no?) and then retreat before the monster men of Germany counter attacked?

Men of magic would be both respected and feared through out the empire. Those outside the empire would be prime targets for being un-alived while with in the empire, they'd be watched like hawks, just in case. As the empire grows, military power will out match magic power (with the fading of the lines) and spell casters will fade from sight (both figuratively and literally) to conceal themselves. Only the very proud and the very powerful will proclaim their status late in the empire (especially with the rise of Christanity). But still most wise Emperors and important provincial leaders will want to have at least a hedge mage on staff to ward off curses of their enemy's hedge mage, and whip them up potions of virility and age reduction.

All of this magic focus, along with earlier magical study will net out a number of magic items and weapons. Those of you with PFRPG should feel welcome to grab some of the basic magic weapons and items from that book and hand them out to minor characters and villains. It adds a level of play that makes the player characters have to work a little harder, and if subtlely done, they might not even clue in on what's happening. Of course this can lead to power inflation, so a GM needs to have a plan for that possibility.

Magic item/weapon PCs should be the bread and butter of this time period, and both classes offer a number of possibilities to for play so they don't all seem cookie cutter. As the empire grows, it will add new cultures to it's mass, and not all of them are taken by force, some join willingly for the benefits of being part of the empire. So a Gaul warrior bearing two Francisca and a Egyptian Kopesh user could party up and party on without stepping on each other's combat roles in game. Magic item characters are in the same boat, however as they have more power options to play, can inject a lot more character style and land of origin flavor into their builds. More flexibility, more game hook.

Aliens as Aliens can lead to some difficulties, but aliens as angels and demons works great. Of course PU2 has a bunch of options for angels and demons under the immortal category, but they tend toward the extremes of power levels and if other players are playing out of the basic HU rule book, then a GM might want to just toss Immortal class all together, as normal human bad guys are so out matched they might as well not even show up. As a player and a GM I've always liked using the alien table to reflect demons and angels, after all, nothing is more alien then something from another dimension. Then again, if you're up for a megas game...

Mutants and experiments can both have some sort of mystical tie in. Even if that has nothing to do with the character's origins, people from this age will likely attribute their powers to the supernatural. Touch by Jupiter or cursed by Pluto. Magic users (like the Atlanteans from my last post) might transform a character giving them super powers in a HU version of "a wizard did it!" Replacing some of the mutant characteristics or experiment side effects with "power runes glow across the body" in place of some of effects might be a neat hook. Beyond that, the characters are stand alone ready to go.

Now, in this era, we're likely to see special forces groups of super humans battling it out, as either the tip of the spear going into combat or as behind the scenes players, setting things up for the benefit of the regular army. Surgical strikes against key defenses, capture or elimination of priority targets (like Archimedes), taking key points so they can't be destroyed in the fighting (like the great library at Alexandretta) or just flat out killing to the last man an elite unit of enemy soldiers.

Another neat possibility is to have super human gladiators slugging it out in the arenas. Either as part of a gladiatorial stable (freemen) or as part of a slave population because you are a one trick pony who's used up all of his logical character development but since you are Stan Lee legacy character, they keep trying to make you interesting by sending you to another... Oh wait, I digress. Slave gladiators, because that's never been done before! Yay!

As we progress into the advent of the Christian church, magic is going to be less and less used. As a game group we've always supposed that their was a great vault of magic items under Vatican city where the weapons of the enemies of the church were locked away. And then we usually break in and steal them.

Emperor Constantine told tale of seeing the symbol of the cross in the sun during a dream and or it was painted on the shields of his soldiers when they arrive to battle or something. Depends on who you read. Anyway Constantine won, and afterwards Christanity became a tolerated religion in Rome. With the rise of popes the papacy, Vatican city's black vault could be a pressure relief valve for powers in the area who need a way to deal with magic items that won't work for them, and they don't want lying around the castle. In these efforts players could be a sneak team sent to recover the one ring of awesome or they could be members of the churches own special forces unit sent to take out real deal demons and vampires and whatever else you can think of.

All in all, the Roman empire is a great place for a bunch of multicultural events and characters running around doing impossible stuff, and then partying like a roman with super powers. That sort of duty+hedomism tends to play well with most groups.

And then darkness fell! Next up the dark ages and the renaissance. Hmmm, Count Dracula a mutant with vampire powers as a mega-character...
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Re: Super-humans and war

Unread post by The Artist Formerly »

The Dark ages and renaissance are full of great story potential for historic super humans. You've got everything from the previous game timelines to build on, and a opening for all of the dark, fearful stories for setting.

In our game world, we Dracula was just a story, but vampires are a real thing. I hinted at it in my last post, but the vamps were a real thing. Instead of Palladium's... interesting take on Vamps, we used the HU rule set to generate them. They are an experiement class with special need to feed on blood and vulnerability to sunlight. The spesifics of the powers vary, based on blood lines (in our game, we've found four separate bloodlines, and one subset which likely should be counted as it's own). Creation of a vamp requires some special circumstances, uptick PPE or site with abnormally high amounts of it. AND. The blood of a superhuman. Something with power built into the character. It can't be an exterior force or exceptional human however. So a Instilled ability magic character would count, but a magic weapon would not. All of them gain the agelessness (they don't age, that's it). One bloodline, house Tuer'ro, has Invulnerability and a love of face punches from my characters they are our best known house, another has Divine Aura (and a preference for French and Swiss for their base humans to be brought into the family). A new victim is bound to the will of his or her creator, gains the family ability and one other minor power (they vary). Plus as they age AND if they can find and slow kill superhumans, they can gain new powers, even evolving into mega-characters. Also they are ****s. And sometimes mage ****s.

If Dracula isn't your thing, then consider the other great horror stories from this era. A other way to look at Frankenstein's monster might be a steam punk cyborg. That kills people. A killer cyborg if you will. :) Werewolves, well there is a power that covers that, figure it out.

Now then, historically, the dark ages refers to end of Roman power (western empire) and is Europe focused. Time line is hard to define as modern historians have a hissy fit when someone disagrees with their terminology and few agree about anything. But for most game world, you're likely to want a tightly defined light vs dark with dark winning until the renaissance, great for horror character origins, monsterous villain origins (like **** vampires) and anti-hero characters.

Outside ear shot of history goons, you can generally assume 600 AD to 1500 AD to cover the dark ages, but in different nation states, those dates might vary. Brush fire wars happen all over the place, and several major fights break out. Italy, is almost continually at war with itself, broken into a collection of city states, sometimes called principalities, some times called papal states, all warring with each other over which nostril one Caesar or another was breathing out of when he sentence someone to death and why that's important. In 800 AD, Charlemagne is crowned emperor of the holy roman empire. It would exist until Napoleon came and smashed what was left to little bits. The Crusades happen during this period as well, with MANY different views on what happened and the morality of those acts I'll side step the drama of right and wrong with I don't care and point out that they start in 1095 and continue until 1291 when the last Christian strong hold of Acre falls. The accepted legend origin of Robin Hood starts here around the time of King Richard, though that's extremely unlikely in reality, it's fun to work with. Robin saves maid Maryon, and then Patrick Connery as King Richard shows up just in time to marry them. Robin Hood, like Sun Zhu is likely a collection of men who's actions and words are all attributed to a single man under an alias. Robin Hood legends span almost the entire medieval period in England. Wiki says the earliest appearance is 1262 in text, but must have predated that because parts of the legend was already known.

During a time travel event (if your hero game doesn't have time travel, you're doing it wrong) mutant with Longevity, EX PP and healing factor. He was born noble, but passed his title (by faking his death) to his cousin, and trained super humans and extraordinary humans for the English crown. Bowman, swords man, vampire face shooter, and master of taking other people's stuff. Also lover of Morgana LaFey. But that's our take.

Meanwhile over in the middle east, we have the golden age of Islam unfurling, and then is promptly stomped flat both by internal fighting and external fighting (read, crusaders). They'll take part of Spain, then lose it, less from some massive army and more from guys changing sides to and back. Wiki it if you want to poke through it. There is a couple good bits, but a bit outside my experience and hard to turn to a heroes game without treading on the religious aspect.

Now CHINA. Oh my. First of all, if you want real world info on China, I'd poke Wise Owl.

Anyway, China is coming out of the period of disunity (post the era of three kingdoms, or romance of the three kingdoms for those of you who play video games. They're inventing all kinds of cool stuff, though a lot of times they sucked at realizing how to use them. Still pretty cool stuff. If you want to play a tech hero, Chinese is a great call, even if you're surrounded by western barbarians. The Tang dynasty falls to calamity, and internal troubles, and is eventually taken by Genghis Khan. He has almost seen as many villain connections in comics as Hitler has. The man was absolute proof that sheer naked brutality is a perfectly functional way to run a government. He killed everyone in his path if they didn't give in right away. And sometimes just because, or it was Thursday. Regardless the guy kicked so much ass that Chuck Norris would be envious.

I'll push off the renaissance till the next post.
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Re: Super-humans and war

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I like the way Arc Dream handled it for their supers games, Godlike and Wild Talents. History remains mostly unchanged because all sides involved are deploying superhumans. Their efforts cancel each other out rather than shift the balance in favor of either side. I can see that you're very excited by this idea though and you should keep going if you're enjoying it.
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Re: Super-humans and war

Unread post by The Artist Formerly »

Bill wrote:I like the way Arc Dream handled it for their supers games, Godlike and Wild Talents. History remains mostly unchanged because all sides involved are deploying superhumans. Their efforts cancel each other out rather than shift the balance in favor of either side. I can see that you're very excited by this idea though and you should keep going if you're enjoying it.


Sure, Britannia leads Euroforce to victory over Heinriche Vossen's super freaks working for ol' Adolf. I totally agree. The point I'm trying to make, is show where our group's game worlds, have added super to the mix of history. Giving a starting point and suggestions on wheres, whens and what classes one might use.
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Re: Super-humans and war

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I find the TV series Haven gives an interesting idea about how superhuman instances can be swept under the rug by the populace, easily forgotten, explained away. As does the foreword for Beyond the Supernatural 2nd Ed.
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Re: Super-humans and war

Unread post by Warmaster40k »

The rise of Christendom takes place with the fall of the last superhuman. The Leylines continue to decrease till the black death, when in the renaissance magic is at its lowest and no super is born. Mage societies wage secret wars over the last trickle of ppe from the places of power. Waiting till WWI before the first superhuman has their power come into being.
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