Welcome to Superseeds!

No, this is not a column about triffids from Krypton (although they may feature in a future installment), it is about ideas for supers games that have been rattling in my head for a few years. Some I ran, some remained concepts, but all occupied a lot of my time (according to my girlfriend, at least). So, in order to ease the pressure in my brain a little, I decided to share these ideas with my fellow gamers.

Each month I'll describe a seed for a supers game, which can be about superpeople, besides super-heroes. The seed can be anything: a campaign or an adventure outline, a description of a place, a character profile. Right now, most of my ideas fall in the first category, but I want to leave my options wide open. I'll try to remain systemless, but once in a while may invoke a term or mechanic from a game to exemplify something.

Obviously, anything in these columns should be regarded as suggestions. I'm not here to tell you how to run your campaigns, even if they are inspired by this material. Don't like something? Change it. Don't think twice. But later tell me what you did, what you changed or what didn'y work for you. I would like to hear about that.

Finally, a disclaimer: I'm no Kenneth Hite. So don't expect intricate webs of historical facts laced with conspiracy theories and interwoven with obscure occult trivia. I'll be glad if this column entertains you while giving ideas for your games and letting me have some fun writing.

Without further ado, the first installment of Superseeds: The Young Ones campaign!

The Young Ones

I like H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos stories. I'm not a devoted fan, but I find myself bringing the Old Ones into my campaigns whenever I have a chance, even if the setting may not seem all that compatible, like Star Trek. So it's no surprise that a few years ago I had this idea to combine supers with the Mythos, but not in the way you are thinking.

Pitch

After a supervillain kills most of the super-heroes in the world, the surviving champions find themselves ascending into callous beings of unlimited power.

Premise

One year ago, the villain Destiny went on a rampage that changed the world forever. He found out how to tap into a seemingly unlimited amount of power, allowing him to bend reality itself to his will. Destiny used his newfound abilities to cut a swath of destruction across the globe, killing several heroes - and a few fellow villains - in the process.

Eventually, Quantica, the Quantum Woman, discovered Destiny's secret and she herself made the breakthrough to unlimited power. However, she realized that alone she wouldn't be able to defeat the now mad villain and so summoned the twelve last remaining heroes to add her. She taught them how to access the energies that now fueled Destiny and her so that together they could take on the almost omnipotent villain.

The battle reached cataclysmic proportions and, at the end, weakened by the heroic onslaught, Destiny was grappled by Quantica and both super-humans disappeared in a flash of light.

Today, after helping in the world's reconstruction, the last twelve heroes gather to honor those that fell in battle and contemplate a very different future.

Who are the player characters?

In The Young Ones (TYO), the PCs are one of the Twelve -- regular heroes who have been through a world-shattering ordeal and now have access to a degree of power that can turn them quite literally into gods. This last detail is not known by them, save The Designer (more on him later). So, after spending the last year helping to rebuild, the PCs go on being heroes, fighting villains (there are still quite a few of them around) and generally trying to carry on with their lives.

TYO characters should be created as regular super-heroes of the system you've chosen to run the campaign. Although they can certainly be of Justice League-level, I believe the increase in power - a big thing in this campaign - would be more significant at the Avengers/X-Men/Titans power level.

Preferably, the PCs have at least one power based on their biology or mind, since this is the link needed to access the energy, but the GM can ignore this if he wants street-level vigilantes and gadget-based heroes as options for the players.

The PCs should have high-level contacts to the other Twelve. After what they have been through, they are, if not friends, on very friendly terms. Finally, the chosen system must have a metagame mechanic a la hero/drama/fate points or something that could pass for it. This will be used to mimic the PCs' access to reality-warping energy.

Divine Power

In TYO, superpowers are a very limited form of omnipotence. They manifest as particular abilities because that's the degree of reality manipulation that a human mind can cope with. In theory, anyone with a metahuman ability could break free of these limitations and ascend into greater power. This is not easy, however.

It requires first that you know such a thing is possible. Then you have to experiment, to study strange mathematics in long-forgotten tomes of eldritch power. That's how Destiny did it. Quantica, thanks to her deeper connection to quantum physics, could read the villain and find a shortcut to it. Once with that knowledge, she could bring the Twelve over.

But how do you represent that mechanically? Well, using hero points (or whatever your system calls them), but with an important distinction: in TYO this resource is not a metagame mechanic, it is real. What this means is that when a PC spends a point to improve the odds of hitting someone, change some detail in the scene, recover lost hit points or do something else, he is actually changing reality to accomplish that.

Remember, all the uses are possible. So, if spending points allows a character to return from the dead, he will come back to life, even if he died being vaporized by a point-blank nuclear detonation.

Hero points stop being a resource that increases and decreases due to metagame reasons and becomes a permanent pool that regenerates at a specific rate. How big is this pool and how fast it regenerates depends on the chosen system. Say you are using Cinematic Unisystem and heroes start with 10 drama points. Maybe they regain 1 DP/hour.

The hero point pool can be increased through the expenditure of xp. This should be cheap to reflect the lure of absolute power, for example, 1 xp/point. As soon a the players realize the importance of the pool, it is probable that they will choose to spend most - if not all - xp into improving it, ignoring the character's other characteristics.

In TYO, no one else, besides the Twelve, has hero points. This, by itself, ensures the PCs will be among the top dogs, powerwise.

Ascension

But how does the ascension into godhood happen? Well, it depends on their usage of power: the more they depend on it, the more powerful they will become. Think of this path as divided in tiers. At the base level, the PCs can only use hero points in the standard way described in the system.

After they have spent a certain predetermined amount (you will have to decide how much according to how fast you want them to evolve, it can be based on an attribute like willpower, say, will x2 or x5), they will pass to the next tier. Their minds have been reconfigured by the repeated use of the power and they have gained insight into news applications for the hero points.

These can be using the points to enhance themselves by burning them permanently. In this case, hero points should be equivalent to five or ten times regular xp. Or you could state that a hero point increases a power rank or an attribute by one or two for a whole scene.

Another use could be more outrageous power stunts that allow their regular powers to function as abilities to which they have no relation whatsoever. Their original powers could also increase automatically as they progress.

This is good, because even if the PC ends up becoming a god, he will still have a portfolio per se, that will include his initial abilities. For example, a fire-powered hero could become a fiery deity that control stars.

This process will go on and on, with the PCs climbing the tiers. At one point, they should start gaining new abilities simply by reaching a new level. Hero points become extremely cheap, xpwise, or are gained automatically after reaching a tier - maybe they double or triple.

You decide how many tiers are between being a metahuman and cosmic horror. Progression need not be uniform. Maybe climbing the first few levels is quick, but the later ones are slow. Or vice-versa.

The catch

Becoming a deity is not all fun and games. As I said before, each tier is reached when the mind of the character reconfigures itself to handle the new energy. This change affects the characters in another way: it makes them less human.

When a character reaches tier 2 (tier 1 being the one they start the game on), they gain a mental disadvantage along the lines of 'Cold' or 'Callous' (or lose things sense of duty, honorable etc.). If your system uses levels for flaws, the PC should get the lighter level. As he progresses, this becomes more severe and is compounded by other negative traits.

The idea is that the PC will get more distant from humans and mundane concerns as he evolves, to a point where he sees other sentient beings as mere ants or even microbes. He will also be aware of things on a cosmic level, such as the movement of the galaxy or the psychic tide caused by sentient minds. You know, grand stuff like that.

What else is going on?

Two things, actually: The Designer's plan and the arrival of the aliens.

Early on in the campaign, The Designer will call a meeting of the Twelve where he will explain that now is the time to change the world into a better place. Amid a flurry of mathematical formulas, he will announce he has devised a plan to issue humankind into an utopia. This can be accomplished slowly or quickly.

The slow way will take 200 years, the quick one, only two. However, the latter plan comes straight from the "can't make an omelet without breaking eggs" folder - it is draconian and a sizeable chunk of the population won't be there two years from now to rejoice in the new world order.

The Designer favors the fast plan, which superintelligent characters will know works, but it is extremely brutal. Hopefully, your PCs will be against it, since they are heroes, but, players being players, that might not be a given. Try to emphasize the plan's cruel and uncaring aspects.

In the end, the Twelve will be split, although not necessarily into even halves. It might be fun to have a few characters on the fence, with the PCs and their opposition trying to recruit them throughout the campaign.

After a brief pause (one or two adventures), The Designer and his allies will pursue their agenda, enforcing socioeconomical, political and environmental changes on the world.

What about the aliens?

What is going on with the PCs has happened before, millions of years ago in another galaxy. A small group of sentient beings evolved into cosmic entities, killing trillions and leaving almost as many insane, before losing interest in this reality and moving on to other dimensions.

The event was so traumatic, the survivors seeded the nearby galaxies with alarm systems that would warn them if that ever happened again. One year ago, one of the alarms went off. Although several millions of years can cool down even the most extreme hysteria, the aliens were worried and mounted a massive war fleet to go and deal with the problem.

As the campaign starts, the fleet has just arrived and is hiding behind the moon. Although the alien starships have enough firepower to obliterate the Earth several times over, the aliens themselves have an ethical code and do not condone genocide on a planetary scale unless absolute necessary.

During the early adventures, the PCs will be secretly followed by flying metallic globes that record their exploits and scans them with every possible sensor, sending data back to the fleet. After that, each one of the Twelve will be visited by a huge warbot intent on killing him or her (make them tough, but not impossible to defeat).

Although the aliens don't expect the warbots to defeat the super-humans, the experiment will help gauge the Twelve's power level. The third wave will be a squadron of warbots commanded by the aliens' special forces in powered suits sporting all sorts of advanced weaponry (this should be really tough and may require the PCs to act like a group to survive). They will use every bit of information on the heroes' weaknesses to win this fight. If they can't, the next step is wiping out the planet.

Fortunately, the special forces leader, Tarum Gaarde, is not a zealot. If the PCs do not seem like merciless cosmic monstrosities and try to talk to him, he will listen. Tarum will explain who the aliens are and why they have come, so you can use this scene to answer a lot of questions about the setting.

Tarum is willing to give the PCs a chance to solve the Designer problem, whom he sees as a greater threat than the heroes. However, he will warn them that if it looks like the PCs are losing, the aliens will go on with their annihilation program.

I need more complication

OK, here you go. On the day the Twelve defeated Destiny, John Prophet, a minor precognitive hero, had an horrifying vision: the Earth scorched clean of life under a red sun and the Twelve in orbit around the dry, lifeless husk of the planet; their bodies changed and engulfed in strange, cosmic energies.

The vision was so traumatic John had a nervous breakdown. When he recovered, he went underground and started putting together a movement to fight the Twelve and prevent the terrible future he foresaw from coming true. He names this resistance The Thirteenth. Now, one year later, they will start harassing the Twelve with smear campaigns, pirate TV signals that "reveal the truth" about the heroes etc.

Then, they will up the ante and help villains track down the Twelve, attack their loved ones and next of kin. Finally, they will go for large-scale assaults on the heroes. Although their resources aren't that great, The Thirteenth count on John's precognition to give them an edge. He will foresee potential flaws of their plans and correct them. Use this to retcon stuff in favor of the movement, it's the closest thing to hero points anyone besides the Twelve have.

Boiling down

If everything worked out right, you will have a situation where the PCs are fighting The Designer's group, but refraining from going all out with their cosmic powers for fear of turning into monsters and convincing the aliens Earth is a lost cause.

The Designer and his allies, on the other hand, have no such compunction and will use every ounce of power to attain their goals, probably evolving faster than the PCs. Eventually, this might force the heroes to dive into the cosmic pool as well, with dire consequences.

The end of the campaign might see the tragic triumph of the characters, vanquishing their foes only to become that which they most feared: the next generation of Old Ones -- the Young Ones.

The "easy" way out

At some point, your players may decide it's better to have the characters kill themselves than let them complete their transformation. Depending of the desperation/hopelessness level of your campaign, you might want to block that option. It's easy, just assume the subconscious mind is also being transformed. So, if they kill themselves, their subconscious will spend hero points to bring them back.

It's tough being Cthulhu.

Important people

Some NPCs you might find useful.

The Designer: a cross between Reed Richards and Metron (complete with flying cybernetic throne) with a splash of Professor X, The Designer is a superintelligent gadgeteer with mild telepathic powers. He is the first to realize the potential for cosmic evolution, but incorrectly assumes his mind will be able to cope with the enormity of the final state. The Designer believes in his plan and doesn't think it harsh or inhumane (this is, in fact, a reflection of the ascension process, since he is two or three tiers ahead of the PCs). He is aware of the aliens, but doesn't consider them a serious threat. Just in case, he is building a planetary shield that will come online after the PCs convince Tarum to give them some time.

Ms. Might: the daughter of WWII British super-heroine Miss Might, Susan Merville is superstrong, tough, able to fly and ages at a slower rate (she was born in 1964, but looks like she is in her late twenties). She carries on her mother's legacy with gusto, although she is afraid that, like her, she will die of supercancer. Ms. Might will stand firmly against The Designer's plan and is a possible ally for the PCs.

Gibraltar: an earth manipulator with a body of rock and moss, Gibraltar lived through one of the many conflicts of Northern Africa. He will side with The Designer and will concentrate on 'rescuing' Mother Earth by effecting radical ecological corrections, like turning the Sahara into a lush, rich, fertile land. He is aware these are unstable changes and will use his cosmic power to make sure they become permanent without adversely affecting other areas of the planet. At least, other areas he's interested in.

Tarum Gaarde: an elite soldier who joined the slightly ridiculed institution tasked with leading the charge if the alarm was ever sounded, Tarum never thought the day would come that he and his comrades would be called to fulfill their sworn oath. But the day did come and his legion became a prestigious assignment around which billion of sentient species gathered. Tarum has survived many wars and tragedies himself, and even though he understands the danger of what is happening on Earth, he cannot bring himself to simply kill the heroes and raze their planet. He will stall the alien fleet until it is clear the PCs are losing. Then, he will be their greatest foe.

Inspiration

The following works served as inspiration for me and might help you ran your campaign.

Zenith: a British comic book from the 80s written by Grant Morrison and illustrated Steve Yeowell. The whole series is good for ideas, but Phase IV is the most appropriate for this campaign.

Miracleman: a small group of superpowered people change the world beyond recognition. This comic book by Alan Moore and different artists, including Gary Leach and Alan Davis, might give you good ideas if you want the campaign to last through the whole of The Designer's plan.

Pantheon: another comic book, this one by Bill Willingham. It deals primarily with a supergroup trying to foil the world-domination plan (for the good of the masses, of course) of a former superhero, Deadalus, the real inspiration for The Designer.

Call of Cthulhu: the stories by H.P. Lovecraft are full of cosmic entities and their effects on humans. It's a good source of description for the effects ascension might have on the PCs and those around them.

I hope you liked it, but even if you didn't, feel free to share any comments, suggestion and criticisms on the forum. If you ever run this, let me know too.