Introduction
This is a campaign setting framework designed to work with most super hero RPG's. Feel free to use any or all of the ideas, if you are a player and you think your GM has use this then I would advise not reading this as it will spoil the suprises. Plus any sneaky GM will change some of it just in case his players have read this. You've been warned.
Christine sat in the quiet restaurant eating her noodles and looking out at the university buidlings. She was still trying to place the strange feelings she'd been having for the last few days. Something felt wrong but she just couldn't grasp what. Has she desultorily picked at her food her mind was trying to place the feeling of wrongness but everytime she thought she was onto something it felt like a fog wrapped around her mind. She shock her head as a man three tables away started to scream.
She looked up in shock as he violently pushed his table away from him and ripped at his shirt. As he did so the fabric over his his arms bulged and began to tear, bone spikes and taut flesh poking through. Christine stood up as the restaurant erupted into chaos, people screamed and ran for the door as the man tore his constricting clothes away from his growing frame. For some reason Christine felt at ease, she darted forward and pulled a young girl out of the path of the man who was reeling about. His screams were taking on a certain animalistic quality as more bone erupted through his skin all over his body. He turned and looked at Christine, they locked eyes and his screaming stopped.
She stood facing him, feeling a power coursing through her and her mind seemed clear. The man, now standing at seven feet of taut muscle and bone spikes glared at her. The next thing she knew she has his spiked fist clasped in her hands, she hadn't seen him begin to move, or her reaction. But that wasn't as shocking as the bluse flames engulfing her hands that were starting to move up her arms. As the two of them stood locked in the position Christine knew that she might finally be on the way to finding out what was going on.
The Premise
This is the basic breakdown idea of a campaign I ran a few years ago in Edinburgh. The original games used the Marvel super Heroes SAGA system but any system that does super human powers well should be OK.
The PC's are all superhumans, they just don't know it, in fact there are a number of things that happened recently that most of the planet have no recollection of. No one realises that a full 25% of the earths population has disappeared, no one thinks about Australia. Anytime people get curious about old friends, empty buildings or the big island on the maps their minds fog up. Except now some people, those with super powers, are starting to remember.
What has gone before
Like many of my campaign settings it was based in Edinburgh. This is because it made it eaiser to get the players into the game quickly as everyone knew the places I was describing. This way we could focus on character developement and finding out what the hell was going on. For some reason I like writing games which focus on the players finding out some kind of secrets, that and horror seem to be my two major campaign themes.
Five years ago the first demonstrateable super powers appeared. All across the world roughly 1% of the population started to demonstrate powers. The world quickly learnt to cope, super humans integrated into society. Some chose to use their powers for selfish gain, though not always outside of the law, whereas other chose to help others, again not always within the law. In the United Kingdom superhuman criminals and vigilanties were treated as any others. The government recruited a number of superhumans to work alongside the police to help combat super human crimes. Anyone working outside this organisation to 'fight crime' was deemed a vigilante and treated as such. Though some of these maverick 'super heroes' were ignored by their local constabularies. An uneasey new status quo was reached and the world began to move on. Meanwhile research into the origin of these powers was ongoing.
Then a year ago the Vastarg arrived to check on their experiment. Four years previously these aliens has seeeded earth with a virus they had developed, it had two effects on those it infected. Firstly it unlocked their dormant super powers and it also made them more susceptible to Vastarg mental control. The Vastarg were in need of super human troops to help them in their various wars across the galaxy and as the experiment has worked they were ready to move to stage two, harvesting the human race.
Vastarg are lizard like aliens with grey scaled skin, they stand on average 5 feet tall. They have access to advanced technology and also have telepathic powers, the amount of telepathy any one Vastarg may have can vary.
The basic concept is that all intelligent life in the galaxy evolved some sort of super power, it's kind of linked into intelligence. For some reason this was supressed in humans only occasionaly surfacing leading to tales of magic and such like. The Vastarg virus unlocks the supressed human powers but as we haven't evolved with them all kinds of things happen. If you've read GURPS IST or Wild Cards you'll recognise these ideas...
The first the human race knew of the Vastarg invasion was when meteors struck all the major Australian population centres almost simultaneously. Within hours all contact with the continent was lost, the last communications had mentioned fleets of alien ships attacking. Then nothing. A multinational super human strike force was quickly assembled and sent to investigate. They sent back disturbing videos of the destroyed Australian cities, with no sign of any human habitation. As the world paniced, people fled from each major urban centre the strike force reported finding an alien installation at Ayers Rock. Then all commuications ceased.
The strike force returned with htheir new alien masters five hours later, the liazrd like aliens and their human slaves quickly defeated the combined armies of the earth and within a week the planet was under alien domination. As the aliens began their plan of shipping most of the population off planet to be used in their wars a small band of super humans managed to hold on. Six months into the alien domination 1 billion people had been killed or kidnapped, the people of earth lived in fear of the super humans who ruled the world with an iron grip for their masters. Then the last free supers, some who had been heroes but all now working together, lauched a last ditch assault on the alien base in Australia. The fighting was intense, at it's peak the alien mental control system was damaged, the remaining super humans realised how they had been used and turned on their 'masters'. Finally the aliens were defeated but the world was in shock, as a large contingent of the super humans, guilt ridden by their actions, took control of the alien fleet and headed off to rescue the stolen people of earth the other headed home to try and rebuild the world.
A small number stayed in the badly damaged alien base though, they didn't thing the people of Earth could cope with what had happened to them. They were scared that a backlash against super humans could occur. And so a desperate plan was formed, the alien mind control apparatus was rebuilt but repurposed to boost the powers of one super human Mentat. Mentat strapped himself into the device as his companions flew off. Then he created a Mind Cloud that would make the people of the world not think about the events of the last five years. No one would remember there had ever been super humans or the alien invasion. It seemed like the best thing to do.
I'm going to leave out a detailed description of power levels and leave that up to you as GM. The only major power required by the setting is the Mind Cloud and A) that's breaking down and B) it's powered by hyped up alien tech. Basically it's a plot device, it's up to you if you want four colour heroes or something less powerful.
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Notes
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