A MBIENTES

The Golden Age of the Champions Universe begins in May of 1938 for the same reason I date the actual superheroic age the same way: that’s when Action Comics #1 hit the stands, intro-ducing Superman to the world as the first real superhero. Now, of course, you can place the specific debut of your own first superhero any time that you like, but choosing this one not only provides a certain dramatic appeal and tribute to the real world event that started all of this wonderfulness, but also works out excellently for timing a long-term campaign. I have run three campaigns using the “Martian invasion” (p. 312) from the War Of The Worlds radio broadcast as the event that brings my table’s disparate superhe-roes together. If May or June is their “origin,” then they’ve had a few solo adventures before teaming up over Halloween, just enough to have plausibly established a bit of a reputation, some supporting-cast NPCs, and maybe a recurring villain or two.

The period of 1938-39 in a long-term campaign should be focused on building the characters and the team. They should experience regular victories, and have the opportunity to establish their personalities and how they interact with each other in comparatively low-pressure situations.

The earliest superhero stories generally involve complete power fantasy fulfillment- the hero discovers an injustice, and sets about righting it with very little in the way of setbacks. Rarely did early superheroes ever run into threats that were genuinely at the same power level as themselves;

they might be surprised by an interesting power or tactic, but they would adjust quickly and generally resolve the situation with overwhelming force. The stories tended to be more about puzzle-solving than direct contests between equals. Costumed but non-super theme villains commit clever crimes that need to be solved by the collection of clues or interrogation of street thugs. Mad scien-tists might have a dangerous, even world-threat-ening device, but the heroes would track down the location of the lab and destroy it, dispatching Dr. Klaw with pretty much a single punch in the process. Mobsters run protection rackets and plan

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big robberies at banks and jewelry exchanges, until a masked vigilante or three catches wind.

I recommend that this stage not last long, as players are likely to lose interest in situations that are solved too easily. I have usually run through this period in 8-10 adventures, most of which are resolved in a single 3-4 hour session, and that includes running the Sirian invasion and a couple of stories set at the 1939 World’s Fair. If players have provided you with individual nemeses as part of the character creation (and I always ask for this if they’re willing, though some players prefer to have me create surprise arch-enemies for them), then be sure to use them in this initial period to establish what they’re about and why they should be brought back multiple times.

Several characters in the Rogues’ Gallery beginning on p. 286 are designed for use in this period. Liquidator is an excellent foe for an early session, as his mode of robbery is weird and mysterious and should provoke investigation, and even if you give him a gang of thugs most teams can defeat him inside a turn. The Mink, Brains Bentley, and the Rattler are all also suited for this period. I generally don’t bring in Axis villains to a game this early, preferring to keep the slowly-gathering menace on distant shores for a bit longer. Instead, simply keep the players informed of events from the newspapers and let them decide their characters’ levels of interest- the collapse of Czechoslovakia, the end of the Spanish Civil War, the formal alliance of Germany and Italy in the Pact of Steel.

There are plenty of interesting times and loca-tions during this period to expose your players to and establish the period in their minds. After spending Halloween 1938 fighting alien tripods, I like to let players explore the campaign city a bit, as well as decide on what they’re doing for a base and team organization. The annexation of the Sudetenland and Neville Chamberlain’s “Peace in Our Time” speech occur at the end of September and beginning of October, an excellent entry for discussing the current political state of Europe with non-historically-inclined players. Similarly, Kristallnacht happens ten days after the “invasion.”

In April 1939, the New York World’s Fair opened in Queens. This is a brilliant setting for superheroic activities, and I strongly recommend doing the required research to bring the location to life. There are countless exhibitions featuring potential targets for criminals, from priceless objets d’art to high-tech gadgets to the actual Magna Carta. There are international pavilions representing countries around the globe, and certainly many of these nations would wish to show off their new flagsuit-wearing heroes and heroines. A time capsule containing magazines, a letter from Einstein, millions of pages of microfilm text, a Mickey Mouse watch and seed packets was buried with the intention of digging it back up in the year 6939. Westinghouse showed off the antics of their robot Elektro the Moto-Man and his dog Sparky. The Futurama exhibit showed attendees what the metropolises of the 1960s would look

like. In the real world, July 3rd of 1940 was declared “Superman Day” and several comics were published featuring the Fair itself - what might they have done in a world with real superheroes abounding? (The All-Star Squadron actually placed their base inside the Trylon and Peri-sphere, the two geometrically-shaped buildings that served as the symbol for the Fair.) Add in the spectacular events, amusement park rides, camel rides and girlie shows, and any GM should find it easy to stage stories there.

In August, the world became aware of the temporary alliance between Germany and Russia to divide Eastern Europe between them, and our allies began to go on a war footing themselves.

(I’ve staged this revelation during a story that also featured the release of The Wizard of Oz movie, a 1930s artifact that almost everyone remains familiar with. Of course, this being a superhero story, actual wicked witches from the lands of Faerie showed up.) Then in September, Poland was invaded by first Germany and then the Soviet Union, and Europe formally went to war.

Roosevelt announced America’s neutrality, but everyone knew who the good guys and bad guys were. There may be one or two more stories set in later 1939, but the prologue is clearly over. It’s time to get serious.

PLOT SEEDS FOR 1938-1939 THE HAUNTED PRISON

Newly-built Averhill Prison, a high-security facility on the outskirts of your campaign city, is rapidly acquiring a reputation for being haunted.

There are reports of spectral figures wandering the corridors late at night, terrible sounds of mocking laughter and clanking chains have been heard, and several guards have reported seeing hideous visions before fainting dead away. Worse yet, several prisoners have gone missing out of their locked cells! Superstitious inmates are on the verge of rioting, so the heroes are called in.

When they do some investigating, they find that the prison’s architect, John Lambert, secretly had several escape hatches and hidden tunnels installed in the prison when it was built and has been selling “escape policies” to criminals under cover of the “ghost stories,” which are mostly the result of hidden speakers in the ceilings and pipework. Lambert himself (with the help of a few henchmen) also sneaks into the prison dressed in ghostly robes to facilitate the escapes, and is armed with a wrist-mounted spraygun full of hallucinogenic gas that might be a nasty surprise for any heroes who try to catch him.

ATTACK OF THE LOBSTER-MEN

A pod of lobster-men (see p. 306) has been driven from their native undersea hunting grounds by the outbreak of war between Atlantis (under the rule of Dargon the Usurper) and the surrounding barbarian tribes. A single lobster-woman, confused and alone, has wandered to shore and killed a couple of homeless people living near the beach. Though terrifying in appearance,

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she probably won’t be too difficult for the heroes to overcome and capture; the question should be what precisely to do with her! The police will want to incarcerate her at best, or even execute her for murder, while any NPC scientists in your campaign will definitely be petitioning the govern-ment for access to study her alien biology. Then, matters will become considerably worse when the rest of the pod, hundreds strong, are attracted by the terrified creature’s pheromones and attack the beach on the most crowded day of the summer.

(Coney Island works well for this if you’re using New York City for your campaign.)

1940-1941: A GATHERING

DARKNESS

With the beginning of World War II in Europe in September of 1939, the tone of your campaign should change. America at first was determined to remain formally neutral, but most Americans personally chose up sides immediately, and the arguments in the early days were bitter. While the majority sided with England, France and Poland (not yet referred to as the Allies), Hitler’s Germany found plenty of support in the States (to be fair, mostly among people quite unaware of the true nature of the Nazis.) The opportunistic Soviet Union, another of the “Dictator Nations,” took advantage of the moment to seize part of Poland for itself in agreement with Germany, while also opening hostilities with Finland to begin the Winter War.

The early battles of the war were mostly fought at sea between England and Germany, as German subs played havoc on British ships around Scotland and then Scandinavia, but the British countered by defeating the cruiser Graf Spee near Uruguay. The Winter War came to an end in March of 1940 with a peace treaty that stunned the world with the harshness of the conditions for the Finns. Then, in April, Hitler opened a new front by simultaneously invading Norway and Denmark, the latter of which surrendered after about six hours of fighting. On May 10th, Germany followed up with invasions of France and the “Low Countries” (the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.) France, regarded as one of the primary obstacles to Germany’s reach, was quickly outmaneuvered and overwhelmed with speed that both Britain and America found too stunning to believe easily. Neville Chamber-lain resigned as Prime Minister in disgrace and was replaced by Winston Churchill, who rallied the British with a series of impassioned speeches that were replayed around the world. By the end of the month, the remains of the British Expedi-tionary Force escaped from Dunkirk in a heroic display of civilian support, while most of the rest of Europe fell to Germany.

Italy threw its support behind Germany, while France was divided between an occupied west and

an east that remained “free” ruled by a German puppet regime at Vichy, and De Gaulle escaped to Britain. Later in the summer, the German Luft-waffe began a brutal bombing campaign across the Channel, beginning the Battle of Britain. While American sentiment remained in support of our beleaguered cousins, pockets of isolationism and even outright support for Germany continued to flare, as Bundists held rallies and national hero Charles Lindbergh insisted that Europe’s fight is not ours.

At the end of September, Italy and Japan joined Germany in the Tripartite Pact and became the Axis Powers, though in the end there would be little actual cooperation with Japan (more so in the Champions Universe, of course.) Italy launched a clumsy invasion of Greece, which eventually required German support to succeed. As 1941 dawned, British forces engaged Italy in North Africa with the support of units from Canada and Australia.

The United States, retaining its formal

neutrality, began its Lend-Lease program in March of 1941, sending weapons and vehicles to Britain for the cause. With that aid the British continued to hold off the Luftwaffe. In June, Hitler’s supreme overconfidence manifested with Operation Barbarossa, his massive invasion of his former allies in the Soviet Union. Churchill promised Stalin that Britain would stand alongside anyone that stood against Hitler, and the Soviets made common cause. In September German forces began the siege of Leningrad, and the most brutal fighting of the war broke out on the Russian Front.

Non-military hostilities continued to grow between the United States and Japan in the summer of 1941, and when Japan invaded French Indo-China the US responded by freezing Japanese financial assets. The situation grew steadily tenser, until finally the Japanese launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor that drew the United States into war. The other allies declared war on Japan, and the Axis nations did the same to America. Regardless of what the heroes have been doing to this point, after December 7th nothing will ever be the same.

In this “era,” the world the heroes live in should seem to grow ever more dangerous. The home-front villains should become more skilled and more powerful, and superhuman activity should increase around the globe. While you should continue to introduce new domestic villains regu-larly (more powerful bad guys like Electro-Man, the Black Pharaoh and the Jersey Devil from the Villains section of Chapter 6 are designed to be appropriate for this era), don’t forget to regu-larly bring back earlier villains that the players responded well to with periodic upgrades in their power level and the sophistication of their plans. Indeed, it’s never a bad idea to rehabilitate a handful of solo loser villains by combining them into a single team like the Alliance of Evil and letting them develop some tactics to improve their performance.

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Though friends and allies are found among some foreign supers, they are outnumbered by those who seem to present a menace to America.

1940 and 1941 should be when your heroes begin to run into the forces of the Axis, both super-human agents individually or in groups and also skilled secret agents, commandoes and powered-armor stooges. It’s appropriate for heroes to get active against the enemy before the rest of the country does- indeed, the fact that we’re not at war yet with the countries sponsoring the villains’

nastiness should be an added complication. Any hero worth his or her salt is going to want the battle against the Axis to get started, so let them thwart saboteurs at home and go on missions abroad, perhaps for the FBI, the Army, or even the President himself. Let them help rescue the BEF at Dunkirk, perhaps providing cover against an attack of Eisenmenschen on the “Little Ships.”

Send them to North Africa when marauding Italian soldiers accidentally uncover an ancient djinni burial ground in Libya. Have them discover Bundist saboteurs planning to use the cover of an “America First” rally to steal or blow up some important piece of top-secret technology being developed for the coming war effort.

PLOT SEEDS FOR 1940-41

If you’re planning to run the Enter The Aesir adventure found in the Golden Age Secret Files, the first chapter is set in May of 1941.

THE MAN WHO STOLE MANHATTAN

One day in 1940, residents of New York City were stunned to suddenly see a massive, miles-long spaceship appear in the sky over their city. As they watched, the entire island of Manhattan was covered in a single transparent but impenetrable force field, and then the island itself detached from the mainland and rose slowly into the air.

Bridges, cut in half, collapsed sideways into the rivers. Tunnels suddenly exposed began to flood.

The city began impossibly to float, and once about half a mile in the air, suddenly vanished with a quiet “pop!”

Korrex has stolen the island of Manhattan to study more about Earth in this time, and has miniaturized it to a tiny fraction of its size, keeping it in a display hall on his massive time-ship. He has reduced it in scale so that one mile equals about one foot, so the island and its surrounding “bubble” is about 4 meters long and less than one wide. Presuming they are in the city, the heroes will be shrunk as well. Korrex will invite any publicly-known heroes to be his guests so he can pepper them with questions about Earth’s defenses and political situations – if the heroes are uncooperative he’ll have them sent to his arena to fight and die for his (and his subjects’) amusement.

Other heroes may sneak out of the force field while still shrunken, in which case they can avoid Korrex’s guards but might run afoul of mecha-nized miniature cleaning robots. Of course, the heroes might get involved with Azim’s rebellion movement on the ship, or become the object of

Azuris’s wandering eye, or perhaps one of the heroes is brilliant enough to come up with a cure for the cerebrophagial plague currently being suffered by Earth of the 51st Century (and thereby earn Korrex’s personal gratitude and a promise not to invade this century?)

THE DEADLY DISINTEGRATOR

A villain (perhaps Brains Bentley, or Liquidator seeking an upgrade to get his revenge for prior defeats) begins a reign of terror in your campaign city using a terrifying new weapon – a disinte-grator! This hand-held pistol, seemingly straight out of a Flash Gordon serial, fires a beam of energy and whatever it targets instantly is reduced to its component molecules. Or so the villain claims. Find a way to get the heroes hit by the beam – perhaps they target the villain himself and find a way of quickly disarming him, only to be struck by surprise when his backup weapon goes off! Of course, the disintegrator weapon actually does nothing of the sort. Instead of disintegrating the target, it teleports it to a parallel earth, one where humans never evolved and dinosaurs roam the jungles. The heroes will be delighted not to be dead, especially when they see the field they appear in is strewn with whatever objects and people the villain has used the device on so far.

They’ll be less delighted when they realize they have no way to get home, and they’ll have to join with the other “survivors” to fend off attacks by tyrannosaurs. Fortunately, this particular alternate timeline is used by Korrex for dinosaur-hunting entertainment, and his hunting party will find the heroes. Will they be willing to make some sort of deal in order to get home?

THE ATLANTIC CHARTER ASSASSINATION PLOT

In August of 1941 President Franklin Roosevelt declared that it was time for a brief fishing

In August of 1941 President Franklin Roosevelt declared that it was time for a brief fishing