There have been a few threads here at RPGnet about using songs as seeds for adventures or campaigns. They usually vary a bit on their approach, but the basic idea is to use the song or one of its elements as inspiration.

I thought this would be a good theme for a column and opened a thread in Tabletop Open to get suggestions, but the response wasn't as enthusiastic as I had hoped. I did get good song ideas, but seeing as I wouldn't have had enough for the column, I decided to use songs I like in this installment.

Next month, hopefully, I'll have a few more suggestions with which to write a second column. By the way, there's no need for the songs to be supers-related -- the more varied, the better. Also, the seeds can come from any aspect of the song: melody, lyrics etc.

Besides the name of the song and of the artist (not necessarily the original interpreter), each seed will contain an entry on which supers subgenre it's geared for, but that doesn't mean it can't be used with other campaign styles.

Can't stop moving

Artist: Sonny J
Subgenre: Four-color/Golden Age/Time travel
Seed: Doctor Disastro was an evil genius who kept the Golden Age heroes busy with his fantastical (and homicidal) creations. No invention of Disastro was greater, though, than the Spirit of Steel, a 40-foot robot that could keep an entire army at bay. Armed with death-ray eyes, missile fingers, piston-powered super-strength, jet boots and plated with battleship armor reinforced by an electromagnetic force field, the Spirit of Steel proved a match for the city's premier team of Golden Age heroes. They defeated the robot again and again, but it was always a close call. When Doctor Disastro found out he had cancer and only a couple months to live, he decided to transform his greatest creation into an eternal reminder of his genius. Disastro developed and installed the chrono coils, a device that would propel the Spirit of Steel continually into the future. The robot would jump around 10 years or so and pop back into the time stream to battle future heroes and remind everyone why Doctor Disastro was the most brilliant supervillain of all time. The plan worked and every decade or so, the Spirit of Steel shows up for 16 minutes and 7 seconds (the coils' recharge time) of massive destruction before moving forward in time. The spot the robot appears in the city always varies, so heroes go into alert mode when ìSteel timeî is around. Now it's the PCs' turn. Since every jump fixes all the damage he suffered, the Spirit of Steel is always at top condition when he appears. And his sheer power makes up for his somewhat outdated tech. The plan is usually to contain the destruction and minimize casualties, since outright destroying the robot seems too difficult. In the last few seconds of the battle with the PCs, the Spirit of Steel will stop fighting and actually talk to the characters. It is the voice of an artificial intelligence (AI) that has awakened in its neural circuitry and is trying to gain control of the robotic body from Disastro's original programming. The problem is that this takes longer than 16 minutes and every jump resets the programming, undoing all of the digital consciousness' work. The Spirit's AI asks for the PCs' help in disabling the chrono coils just as it moves forward in time. The characters can leave the problem to future heroes or follow in the wake of the time displacement to the Spirit of Steel's next stop. There, they may have to convince the current heroes (maybe their future selves) of their mission and find a way inside the robot to disable the chrono coils and give the AI enough time to defeat the programming.

Howl/Dog Days are Over

Artist: Florence + The Machine
Subgenre: Horror/Mystical/Gritty
Seed: A killer is on the loose in the city. By the description of the witnesses, it appears to be a werewolf or a meta than can change into a human-wolf hybrid form. It's actually the former, but this lycanthrope doesn't seem to depend on the moon to change; still, it only appears at night. The killer seems to be on a revenge trip, since most of his attacks have been concentrated on the city's more powerful organized crime family. The problem is that the creature doesn't discern between criminals and innocent bystanders -- although most of the deaths have been of criminals, some were of people not connected to any wrongdoing. If the PCs try to track and confront the werewolf, they will have their work cut out for them. It is strong, fast, tough and extremely intelligent, although still bestial. And the nature of its curse makes it undetectable by mystical means during the day. Investigation will reveal its first appearance was in the city's Little Italy district, where it mowed down a group of thugs from the city's mafia family. What happened was that these thugs conducted a hit on a rival gangster in a small restaurant in the neighborhood, where Connor McGregor was proposing to his longtime girlfriend Jennifer Spencer. Jennifer died riddled with bullets and the intense emotional distress, coupled with the taste of her blood as Connor hugged her lifeless body, triggered the McGregor's long-dormant curse. There were no witness to the transformation, but if the PCs track down Connor he will show no awareness of the change. This is a lie. Although he doesn't fully remember his actions as a werewolf, Connor knows he changes into a beast and is conducting a crusade against the mafia family. He feels for the innocent who have fallen, but consider this collateral damage, after all, he's freeing the city from a dangerous criminal organization. There's another complication: a secret society of monster hunters from Scotland called the Wild Hunt is after Connor as well. They are relentless and see the werewolf as something that should be put down. If the PCs get in their way, then they are helping the monster and will be dealt with in the same manner. And of course, the mafia family is not taking this all quietly. It has hired its own supermuscle for protection and payback.

(Love is Like A) Heat Wave

Artist: Martha Reeves & The Vandellas
Subgenre: Four-color/Mystical
Seed: Heatwave is a famous super-heroine with fire-based powers. She's been protecting the city for 10 years now, but lately Heatwave's been acting strange. Usually upbeat, joyful and extroverted, her last appearances have shown a different side of the fiery heroine. The first time the PCs encounter Heatwave in this new phase, she appears quiet and preoccupied. In later appearances, she is sour, spiteful and snarky. Heatwave will evade questions about her behavior change and leave the scene as soon as the problem is solved. Finally, she will start showing up to battle depressed and melancholic. Perceptive PCs will spot her crying as she fights. Plus, her powers start malfunctioning, usually with spikes in power level resulting in extra-powerful blasts and explosions. If questioned, Heatwave will finally break down and reveal the source of her troubles. Ten years ago, she sold her soul to the Devil in exchange for superpowers. The deal was that she would get the abilities to become a super-heroine and a decade to use them. At the end of that time, the Devil would come to collect. The time is almost up and the Prince of Lies has been appearing to Heatwave, taunting her. The Devil reveals that her powers come from a demon he has bound into her soul and that when her time is up, he will be free to wreak havoc on the world. Now the PCs have to find a way to save Heatwave, but at the same time contain her, as her power complications can become a danger to the city. If the characters can't save Heatwave, at the strike of midnight of her contract's deadline, she will be consumed by her own flames and Pyroticus, the demon bound to her, will be free, becoming a new supervillain in the campaign.

Nada vai me acontecer (Nothing will happen to me)

Artist: Roberto Carlos
Subgenre: Four-color/Cosmic
Seed: Eternon has served for centuries as the herald and scout of galactic monstrosity Nebulara, but now he's tired of being a slave and wants to be his own man. So he flees to the one place in the galaxy that survived his master's incursions: Earth. Eternon lands in the PCs' city and will try to talk to the first heroes that respond to his bombastic appearance (he does one of those explosive landings, causing a lot of property damage and hurting people). If in your campaign there's an Eternon equivalent, chances are there's also bad blood between him and the hero community, who might not be willing to parlay. Being an arrogant prick, Eternon will not tolerate any back talk and will attack the PCs if he thinks he's not being shown the proper respect. Needless to say, he will also fight back if attacked. So, even if nobody has ever heard of Eternon in your setting, there's a good probability things will go south before he can bargain for their help. If everybody talks, Eternon will tell the characters he has fled Nebulara and wants to be free again. He will claim that all his past misdeeds were the result of his master's control over him, that he's actually an honorable guy. At that point, Nebulara arrives, demanding the return of Eternon (this will also stop the fight, if one has broken out). The PCs will probably think that handing Eternon back over to Nebulara is the safest course of action, especially if they didn't buy the whole ìhonorableî talk. If they convince the rest of the heroes to go along, Eternon will threaten to blow up the whole planet. He will tell them he brought a nova bomb with him and set it deep into the planet's core. By the way, Eternon is impervious to telepathic probes or other means of ascertaining if he's lying. The best course of action is to stall Nebulara and, at the same time, have a small group of heroes try to locate this bomb and disarm it -- or use it against Nebulara himself. If the PCs defeat the cosmic menace (probably with the help of a lot of fellow heroes), they still have to deal with Eternon, who is now convinced that his new empire could have no better capital than Earth itself.

Your song

Artist: Billy Paul
Subgenre: Real world
Seed: The PCs attention is drawn to a town whose inhabitants seem to have been hit with massive bad luck: freaky accidents, strange deaths, the works. If they investigate, they will find out there was another wave of odd events right before this one, but it was a beneficial one, with lost puppies being found, people recovering from illnesses and even a lottery winner. If they investigate the good events, they will discover that most of the beneficiaries had at one point interacted with a traveling musician and songwriter named Paul Winston, who arrived in town a couple months before and played gigs at a local bar. Winston has been missing for three weeks now and most people assume he's moved on to another town. The investigation of the bad events will eventually reveal one thing in common, a man named Gregory Jenkins. Jenkins is a recent widower -- his wife died in an accident at the local factory, but Jenkins is convinced it was her boss' fault. He is also a posthuman with the ability to detect others superbeings. He spotted Winston when he arrived in town, but did nothing, even though he realized the sudden wave of luck was the musician's doing. However, when his wife died, he decided to harness Winston's ability. Jenkins kidnapped the musician and forced to make his wishes come true. Winston can change reality in a limited way by writing a song about the desired effect and performing it on his guitar a few times. Jenkins keeps him chained away in a cabin, where the musician writes the songs and, after his captor reviews them and hands him the guitar, makes them happen. The PCs will probably figure out this by using their powers, but the problem is that Jenkins last wish was to have his wife back. Due to Winston's stressed state, his interpretation of his own lyrics is a bit warped and instead of resurrecting Jenkins' wife, he's bringing her -- and a lot of others -- back as zombies. So the PCs have to contain Jenkins, free Winston and make him undo his latest reality manipulation, all the while fighting a horde of zombies!

I hope you liked it. Feel free to share any comments, suggestion and criticisms on the forum. If you ever run this, let me know too.