Friday, November 7, 2008

Old Campaign Ideas--for YOU!

Here are some campaign seeds for you to use. I originally wrote these up for GURPS about 10 years ago, but they can be useful as a source of ideas for your campaigns today!

CLASH OF THE HEAVENS
A superhero idea.

Mythology and the superhero genre have been going together as long as comics have been around. Many comic book companies have appearances and continuity tied to gods and devils from diverse cultures. This seed involves these mythological forces.

Metahumans are appearing at an alarming rate around the world. This would not be so unusual, except that many of them adopt identities based on mythology. Soon the new metas start banding together and call themselves the gottkinder (roughly translated "god child").

Tensions soon arise as the new metahumans begin to splinter into groups based on classic pantheons. An evangelistic preacher has begun to preach that the gottkinder are demons that are on Earth to bring about the Apocalypse. He has begun to amass weird technology and metahuman mercenaries in an attempt to end their threat.

What's going on? A recent surge of spiritual energy has awakened the meta potential of people chosen by the forgotten pantheons. This choice is usually either a distant descendant of a particular god, or a person "adopted" just because the god happens to like him or her. Most are normal people who call forth a manifestation form, a physical embodiment of his/her power. Each manifests powers and abilities based around a concept or idea.

An annoying side effect is a resurgence of old grudges and hatreds. The gods are subtly manipulating the gottkinder to reenact the past. Hera still bedevils kinder loyal to Zeus. The Celtic and Greek pantheon gottkinder have a cold war going on over the Romans brutal colonization of Britain.

Enemies exist for the gottkinder other than your average supervillains. Some religious people are amassing forces to destroy the "demons". Also, the same force that animated the gottkinder has also resurrected other, darker things as well.

The number of gottkinder can remain the same throughout the campaign, or it can grow or shrink as the GM desires. It could be just an interesting break for a campaign, or this new force can become a regular facet of the PCs world.

Gottkinder Characters

If the GM wants to design gottkinder, the base character should be built as an alter ego character ala Captain Marvel. Each gottkinder has a Human form and a Kinder form that they can change to at will. Most mental skills shared between the forms.
You have the whole range of mythology to choose from. Pick a pantheon and use that as a base to for the manifestation form. Weapons and magic items that never lose a charge or can be taken should be bought as powers with the necessary enhancements and limitations. The fact that it is a weapon is, of course, a special effect.

Yes, I know there are a ton of really good games out there with this very theme. At the time I wrote this there was no real good source campaign material. The Gottkinder would work with any system.


DRAC AND FRANK GO TO IOU
An adventure seed for GURPS IOU

This seed is a tribute to all those Abbott and Costello and House of ...movies of the 40s. It is intended for a Silly IOU campaign.

As the title of the adventure seed says, Dracula and the Frankenstein Monster come to that bastion of education, Illuminati University. The reason? Very simple. The great Count Dracula has fallen in love with the Arch Dean. He will do anything to get her attention.

Being the King of the Monsters (TM), Dracula has brought over some of his friends over to wreak havoc. Yes kiddies, all of the classics are here. The Wolfman, the Phantom, the Creature of the Black Lagoon, the Fly (the cool one with the big ass fly head), Dennis Rodman...all your favorites.

The PCs can be brought into the fray in several devious ways. They could be the victim of a monster attach or scare. One of the deans could ask the players to investigate strange rumors in exchange for leniency for last session’s destruction. Or, in best movie fashion, they could stumble on to it obliviously.

What happens next is a comedy of terrors as the monsters begin to chase the students around campus. Pull out all the great gags: mistaken identities, hypnosis, shape changing, the "fool the monster for a minute" plan, etc. Whatever is planned by the GM. the monsters will stop at nothing to keep the students from telling the ArchDean about Dracula's plan.

The scenario could end with the ArchDean setting up Dracula with a succubus friend of hers. It could get really weird--the ArchDean could accept Dracula's proposal of marriage. The wedding can be an adventure in itself.

GURPS IOU is a great sourcebook. I say search it out at conventions. The setting is worth adapting to other systems.


LO, THE CREATURES AWAKEN
A Giant monsters running about seed.

This campaign/adventure seed involves giant monster akin to the Japanese kaiju films and the classic Kirby/Lee Marvel monsters from the 50s. Another inspiration for this seed was the short-lived animated series Inhumanoids. Best kiddy Lovecraft on television.

The time period is the 1950s or beyond. The world is our own, movie style. In the distant past of the world, the creators of the creatures took various dinosaurs and experimented on them. These dinosaurs formed the building blocks of the new creatures, forged in the mutating bath of the Sepulchers.

Sepulchers are structures buried deep within the Earth that hold the Shaping Pools and Holding Chambers that creates the creatures. The genetic material is placed in the shaping pool, where it sits in the Holding Chambers until the resulting creature is released by outside forces. The structures are very difficult to destroy.

An evil force releases the Sepulchers Creatures upon an unsuspecting world. Each creature is between 30-40 feet tall. Each is an unique entity with its own powers, invulnerable to conventional weaponry. Each has unique weaknesses and vulnerbilities that can result in the death of the beast. (Never make a weapon you can't neutralize.) The possesor of such an army has a formidable force at his/her command.

The players are the forces that fight against the coming Sepulcher Creatures. They can be a team of scientists and military specialists formed to fight the monsters. A group of supers with a mission to destroy the monsters is another option. In the MASS (Monster Assault Strike Squad) setting, the main characters use heavy weapons, powered armor, and hi-tech vehicles in their fight. The MASS Force battles against the evil Dr. Mysteria, deposed head of several universities and mad scientist extraordinaire.

A campaign can detail a running fight between the players and the creatures. The Attack of the Sepulcher Creatures can make a fun adventure(s). Fight alongside the world's greatest superheroes to defeat the marauding creatures.

Yes. This one begs to be ran using CAH Season 2 or your favorite superhero game.

That's all for now. See ya!

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