The shadows grow long, the night is cold, and dark power flows to those with dark intentions. Earth has plunged headfirst into the NetherWar, and no one even knows they’re fighting for their lives.
In 2013, Una the Invincible killed Adrian Eldritch, the Master Mage of Earth-Prime. For seven years, your team has held back the darkness as best they can. While heroes like the Freedom League and the Atom Family grab headlines, you face ancient sorcerers, escaped demons, and monsters from beyond space, among other threats. Seven years later, a new threat grows in the shadows, and only Eldritch (our team, not the Mage) can face it.
Green Ronin has just announced a new set of adventures for Mutants and Masterminds 3e: Netherwar. This recruitment is to find a team to play through them.
Expectations for Players:
I expect players to post once a day. Under normal circumstances, I can only post one or two times a day, so my campaigns tend to be a slow burn.
I expect players to be willing to drive the story. I’ll try to engineer scenarios that help you tell your stories. You need to be willing to lean into your character.
Expectations for Characters:
PL 10, 150 PP (though the first adventure will be set in 2013, and characters will be PL 8 120 PP)
Characters should have flaws and weaknesses. I’m not looking for your most optimized M&M builds. I want you to kick ass, but you should also be able to have your ass kicked.
Power origins must be either training or magical. The goal is to create a magical team, so no aliens, technologists, or science experiments gone wrong.
Tone: This game will be pretty Four Color. Modern Four Color. Sometimes dark, but not really edgy dark. More dark fantasy dark. This isn’t a Vertigo title.
I have to players already who will check in when they have a chance. One of them is an academic who becomes an ancient giant (sort of a magical hulk) and the other is a wielder of Excalibur.
I expect recruitment will take two weeks or so. Hammering out M&M characters always seems to take a while.
First Adventure will be set in 2013, shortly after the death of Earth-Prime's Master Mage. Characters will be PL 8. Second Adventure will be set in 2020. Obviously, lots of character concepts for a magic themed campaign could be immortal or long lived, so it could just be that you are the same character 7 years later. Could also play a teen hero who grows up by the second adventure. Could flip that and play an older character for the first adventure and a younger legacy character for the rest of the campaign. Just wanted to make the time skip clear up front.
I'm one of the aforementioned players, and more specifically the one running the scholar of folklore who can magically call upon his heritage and become Eoten: the mythic giant of the team.
Already play in a great MCU based game with SuperTumbler and am really excited about this one.
Have some minor rebuilding to do on the character so align him more with the game (at both PL8 and PL10), so am curious to see what pitches come in and if there's any scope for collaboration etc.
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Dotting!
I've never played Mutants & Masterminds but have always wanted to. I have three very distinct ideas that I want to play with and see which one has the most potential.
Also, question: To what extent do we need / have to worry about alter egos? Is this a "Superheroes are all over the place / accepted" thing or a "Hide who you really are" kind of thing?
The setting is the default setting for Mutants and Masterminds 3rd Edition, Freedom City on Earth-Prime. It is definitely "Superheroes are all over the place." There is a big JLA/Avengers type team called the Freedom League, an academy for teen heroes called Claremont Academy. The whole setting is a love letter to the big two comics universes. At the same time, like in Marvel and DC, magic heroes tend to be a little more hidden (or occult, as it were). For example, Daedelus, Medea, and the Minotaur are all prominent heroes/villains. And they are actually those ancient characters, but most people think they are just people using those names, not that Medea is actually the sorceress who was married to Jason.
Some heroes will be heroes all the time, some will have secret identities. And some might just have alternate forms or identities that aren't terribly secret.
For players new to the system, character creation can be somewhat daunting, so don't hesitate to reach out for help. The system is really simple in play, especially for d20 veterans.
I've not played m&m for about 20 years, but have fond memories. Will dig into character creation and see how it goes.
edit: Are there any other sources besides the 3e Heroes Handbook I should gather/borrow?
Of course there is an srd site with rules info.
If you really want to dig into Earth-Prime lore, Freedom City 3e or Atlas of Earth-Prime might be useful.
There was a Book of Magic for 2nd edition that might be handy for how to build concepts.
None of that is necessary.
Not sure what a hecatoncheires would look like as a character. Feels kind of like a villain to me, though I guess there are some myths where they are on the side of the gods and not the titans.
At first glance, thinking some sort of mystical thief turned hero. Not sure how many powers I can squeeze in after abilities and skills, but illusion and creation seem like fun to me.
I've got a bit of a nutty idea. Basically, the character would be a buddhist monk who took control of his karmic cycle, and now reincarnates through the six cyclic realms, but only when he's killed.
Functionally, it would involve use of the immortality talent along with heavy use of alternate forms.
For instance, human form would be pretty squishy, good for running into combat and getting killed. Upon dying, he'd come back a short amount of time later as, say, a deva (god) and be able to fly or an asura (wrathful demigod) and be good at fighting.
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Not sure what a hecatoncheires would look like as a character. Feels kind of like a villain to me, though I guess there are some myths where they are on the side of the gods and not the titans.
"Yeah, I get that a lot," Briareus says, motioning to the other chair in his office. "After the war, ol' Ze-us," he says, with an odd accent, paying homage perhaps to the original greek, "didn't want no schmoozers butting in on his act, so he starts this rumor what says it was just him an' his crew! Sheeyah right."
His top-most left arm lights the cigar in his top-most right, while his middle-right arm brings a crystal goblet to his lips. The object d' art seems an odd accent to this dingy corner office, but your leads said the man was a bit eccentric.
"You want th' real story? A'ight, Cronus was a dick. No one denies that. Guy saw that me an' me bros, the other Hecatoncheires, an' the Ky-klo-pes--Oh man, for only having one eye did those guys know how t' party! See, we used to steal these boats, big merchants ships full of wine--ah, nevermind, I'll tell ya later.
Anyway, so the ol' man, the Cronster, he sees we're bad-ass. How can ya not, amirite? An' he dumps us down down down to the dark place. You prop'ly heard of Tartarus. Oh man you do NOT wanna go there!
So we're up the crick without a paddle, right? But then the Z-man comes, says he's gonna do a jail break on the whole shebang, but, get this, he says he ain't gonna do it without -our- help. What a D, right?
But we don't got no options, so we says yeah, and then the whole Titanomachy starts. Oh man, what a riot! Back in the day I was pretty buff, me an' my bros could lift a whole island and toss it--ah, nevermind, you didn't come here for that.
Anyway, yeah, we beat whole ass an we win. But! And this is the part that burns me....
Ze-us says, Ay yous guys! We gotta keep the titans in Tartarus, it's the only place that can hold them. And YOU guys know it better than anyone! So why don't you, y'know, 'watch over them'," he accents the phrase with finger quotes, " and make sure they don't escape?
I figure yeah whatever, BUT...and this is a big but, what I hear later is that he passes around that WE fought against him and we're -prisoners- down there with Cronnie baby! What a D.
So fast forward, Cymopolea comes and grabs me outa there, tells me what's going on, and here I am."
He stubs out the last of his cigar and stands. He shrugs into the long coat, his lower arms folding up neatly to his sides, so he just looks big, like an ex-football player.
"You ready t' go? We'll get sushi on the way. My treat."
It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to PbP, and I’ve really missed M&M so I am dotting this.
My ideas thus far:
- A mundane human whose eyes are just now opening up to the magical world and his potential. If I play this character, he would be a bit of a legacy character. Perhaps in 2013 I can play the character who awakens the Mundane’s potential in 2020. By modern times, this Hero can pass the mantle on, or perhaps has been lost to whatever challenges took place in the past. Not sure on power profile, but he would fill the role of a sidekick to the team.
- An enemy-turned ally. A skeptic in 2013 who constantly tried to bust the heroes, who then teamed up for a common cause. In 2020, he finds himself a full fledged member of the team. I’m thinking as a villain he went under the name The Spartan and was known for his lethality. As a hero, he has adopted a new persona and has taken on more of a defender role, often shielding his teammates and fighting aside the wielded of Excalibur. Pretty much a captain America pastiche but with some magic sprinkled in.
- Not sure how to work this one out, but an anthropologist explorer whose sole actual super power is that he was born with the ability to understand and speak any language, a la douglock, but this crosses over into the languages of magic. He’s used his ability to tether magical items to himself, having a small collection. He’s got an eye that allows him to see beyond mortal sight, a gauntlet that lets him manipulate elemental energies, and a series of mystical daggers that seem sentient. Granted this idea is a lot more Pulp than it is modern four color, it could potentially work.
@Echos: Eoten's alter ego; Æthelweard, is an academic with connections to the British Museum (specifically the Keeper of British and Medieval Antiquities).
Could be that your collector of magical items (cool idea btw) is known to him (former colleague perhaps)? Given your ability to understand any language (especially those that are "dead" like Old English which Eoten speaks) they may well have collaborated at some point.
Æthelweard gained his powers through the discovery of the long forgotten artifact The Heortestan (OE: “Heartstone”): the fabled stone heart of the mighty Cornish giant Cormoran. May have been recovered on one of your expeditions/adventures??
Just spitballing ideas for connecting the mystical dots between us. Much of above to easily apply to Mishima's proposed arcane thief too.
Figure if the magical supers community is pretty close knit we'd have been aware of each other/been interconnected before coming together as a recognised team per say.
I'd like to submit something for this, I love M&M system and just need to come up with a cool magical concept. Eldritch brings to mind some Lovecraft so maybe I'll have a mystical private detective character whipped up.
So, new system for me, focusing on crunch a bit. Trying to think what aspect of the thief I want the magical powers to be. Since you said no technologists, instead of taking the Tech skill for disable device, would something like:
Penetrate Concealment (vision) (xray vision)
Darkvision (to see inside closed objects lacking light like locks)
Transform (any material to any material), extended range to perception
...make me able to walk up to a door and turn the mechanism inside a lock to air? Or the same with the door to a safe? Or rear suspension on a motorcyle (disable device), etc?
If so that sounds kind of cool, because transform seems to have a lot of utility to get creative with. Hole in a wall to escape jail...melt guards gun that raises it shouting halt...etc
Plus its polymorph object, a classic mage power. Would be a fun power to focus on maybe.
Ze-us says, Ay yous guys! We gotta keep the titans in Tartarus, it's the only place that can hold them. And YOU guys know it[/b]...
Fair enough. Seems fun.
Echos Myron, all three of those sound interesting.
I like the idea of a villain turned hero. Could be a villain who was an enemy of Adrian Eldritch. Once Eldritch was gone, he realized there are worser things in the dark and they need to be held back.
The anthropologist is a great example of how you can play a gadget based character with magical descriptors.
So, new system for me, focusing on crunch a bit. Trying to think what aspect of the thief I want the magical powers to be. Since you said no technologists, instead of taking the Tech skill for disable device, would something like:
Penetrate Concealment (vision) (xray vision)
Darkvision (to see inside closed objects lacking light like locks)
Transform (any material to any material), extended range to perception...make me able to walk up to a door and turn the mechanism inside a lock to air? Or the same with the door to a safe? Or rear suspension on a motorcyle (disable device), etc?
If so that sounds kind of cool, because transform seems to have a lot of utility to get creative with. Hole in a wall to escape jail...melt guards gun that raises it shouting halt...etc
Plus its polymorph object, a classic mage power. Would be a fun power to focus on maybe.
Transform is a powerful and versatile power, but that concept works.
For everyone: I don't mean to be completely restrictive when it comes to character backgrounds. No technology backgrounds means I don't want Iron Man, but doesn't mean that you can't have a cell phone or know how to use computers or have a good Technology Skill.
Characters like Magik or Scarlet Witch blur the boundaries between magic and mutants, for example.
I think that my concept of an arcane gadgeteer has some overlaps with Mishima's arcane thief. I'll gladly offer up any of my ideas regarding that character for your thief, Mishima!
Looking over the other ideas, I see we have some traditional Supers team roles filled. With that in mind, I think I'm going to try to go for someone who can aid and control the battlefield in some way. This gives me an idea for my fledgling hero/sidekick. His powers will be drawn from dreams and be stronger at night. Teleportation and telekinesis are the first two things that jump out to me.
Ah sorry, didnt realize you were doing an arcane gadgeteer style character. I can think up something off the beaten path surely.
Have been enjoying reading the 3e handbook. All I remember from last time I played this is spending 8+ hours making our characters then someone shot a bazooka into a gas station in the first 5 minutes of gameplay and pretty much destroyed us all. XD That mustve been the first edition, I didnt realize M&M was so relatively young.
This is definitely interesting; I played M&M a long time ago and never really got to sink my teeth into it. Now I just need to figure out a concept and get it statted out.
Ah sorry, didnt realize you were doing an arcane gadgeteer style character. I can think up something off the beaten path surely.
Have been enjoying reading the 3e handbook. All I remember from last time I played this is spending 8+ hours making our characters then someone shot a bazooka into a gas station in the first 5 minutes of gameplay and pretty much destroyed us all. XD That mustve been the first edition, I didnt realize M&M was so relatively young.
Not necessary at all! I’ve got another idea cooking
Mishima, for general thiefing, DC comics Shadow Thief is another fun magic based example. Not that you would need that theme, but he uses magic to be invisible, intangible, to blind enemies.
So many great character ideas being thrown around. My character concept would be a powerful spirit medium who was thrown in the deep end when the Master Mage died. Now along with spirits and demons, this supernatural investigator must deal with gods, monsters, and all manner of things that go bump in the night. Now a powerful psychic, he has made very strange friends and nightmarish enemies.
I'll work on this concept tonight at work.
I'll dot in!
Give me a day to put together a character.
Okay so I kicked around a few different ideas, and I think I settled on this as a rough concept:
My character is a phenomenonally powerful natural sorcerer (once a generation level of power) whose power was threatening to rip holes between the dimensions. Adrian Eldritch found him and took him to Shangri-la, where his power was used to inscribe tattoos on his body that regulated it. He also trained extensively with warrior monks to control his magic (which he refers to as Qui) and also learned to punch holes in walls and make wuxia leaps.
Mechanically, he's going to be a character with good fighting and slight levels of Enhanced Traits, Power Lifting, Protection, Speed, and Regeneration. Basically, he's an enhanced human that can only use his magic to empower his body (kinda like a physical adept from shadowrun).
Lots of interesting ideas.
There is a players guide to the Netherwar campaign tha might be useful. I'll share it here. Obviously, please avoid the GM version, which is full of spoilers.
The player's guide isn't quite as restrictive as my version of the campaign, but it has some good advice about skills, powers, advantages, etc.
I was thinking maybe I could have my own dimension, a place called something like 'Thief's Cache' similar to a bag of holding (mansion of holding) with some limits.
Basically, all the stuff the thief steals gets sent to this dimension. Thinking maybe its a Teleport Objects type of power, essentially making things seem to disappear but actually appearing in the Cache. Things sent to the Cache can never come out, so basically all the thief's acquisitions have built up over time into a dragon hoard of unusable wealth.
A further limitation could be that it only works on items above a certain value, for example a $600.00 glock pistol pointed his way could go the cache, but a prison shiv built out of a toothbrush couldn't. The exact value could maybe be tied to a significant event in his backstory.
The thief can travel to the Cache with a Movement Dimensional power and interact with the objects there, but again can never bring anything back out. He also has a Remote Sensing power that he can view the Cache with, and view the real world with while there. So, he can sort of use the Cache dimension in a way similar to teleport. Step into Cache, Remote Sense reality, step into Reality in different spot.
Would any of that work?
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As I read up on things I'm getting a very Lovecraft vibe. It seems my character is veering toward a private eye path. He's been around forever (literally) but he needs to learn about all these new, dark things going on.
I have some basic rules questions.
1. If one wanted to shoot guns with both hands simultaneously, how would one do that? can that only be done with extra actions?
2. Of what use is the wealth Benefit? It seems like everything that we can have needs to be paid for in Equipment points.
2. Wealth is more of a narrative tool while Equipment is for adventurer things. Wealth lets you access things that aren't equipment, but like it says, its a benefit. So you can have an awesome sports car with wealth. If you have enough wealth, you can smash one every adventure. But if you want the batmobile, with weapons, movement powers, a cloaking device, or whatever, that is equipment (or even a Device). Wealth can also give you a some narrative capacity. If Bruce Wayne wants a meeting with Lex Luthor, he can probably swing it. If he wants to buy some real estate or prevent a foreclosure, he could.
1. That would just be the multi-attack extra. You probably don't want to just shoot equipment guns, but get guns as powers.
I have two different ideas i'm toying with
A. "Justice". Based on the iconic imagery, she'd have DareDevli-esque senses and be a Captain America-type leader. Aura of Protection, Heal, a Fascinate, some stuff like that, and using the sword.
B. An urban explorer / graffiti artist punk teenager type whose drawings can cause things to happen. This build would probably be more along the lines of debuffing, and battlefield control type things.
I'm leaning towards the second, especially since there's already talk of someone wielding Excalibur, and doing something with art feels different than most things I usually play.
I’ve always had weird dreams— vivid, lucid, prescient dreams. Never endlessly falling, or constantly late, or attacked by an absurdly big rabbit. It started with mundane things— dreams detailing what would be for lunch at school the next day, dreams of what presents I’d get for Christmas. They always ended up happening and I’d get a weird sense of deja vu. As I got older, they got weirder. I dreamed of Master Mage Adrian Eldritch’s death, someone who at the time I had no idea of. I even... I even dreamed about my father’s disappearance and... when it came true, I nearly went insane. I never wanted to be a hero, or have super powers. I wanted a mundane life with a family intact, to play sports in high school, go to prom, parties, live the American dream. Instead, my family splintered when my father disappeared, and I was hospitalized.
The dreams became more infrequent, dull, lifeless. Finally, I thought, normal quiet every day dreams. Some nights, I didn’t dream at all, and it was peaceful in a way. Serene. To be able to sleep and JUST sleep. Fall into a dark slumber and open your eyes to the sun shining, and not some technicolor dreamscape or glimpses of what’s to come. It was too good to last. I may not have been dreaming the same, but the dreams found their way to me in vivid swaths of color in my waking life. When an orderly caught a glimpse of what was happening in my room, the psychs figured that what was happening was less a medical problem and more a magical. On my 18th birthday, I was released and given a card that read simply “Eldritch”.
Through utilizing the Dreaming, I am able to alter the mental states of others, pull them into a deep slumber, create illusions and fly. Under nightfall, when the Dreaming is strongest, my powers are amplified. I am able to channel beasts from the Dreamtime, use the fabric of dreams to weave barriers and create weapons, and even banish beings to the realm of Dreamtime (...well that was once and I was knocked out for a week but still). I used to think my gift was a burden but now I understand my calling. I am one in a long line of defenders tasked with protecting the Waking World from the horrors of Nightmares. I am ....
Oneiromancer is less a name and more a title for now while I figure out a suitable name that is NOT Dream Weaver.
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Mishima, I think you can make all of that work. I'd go farther with that concept. Having lots of cool stuff in an extradimensional warehouse would make me want to use it. So maybe you have some items that you pull from it to use? Things you have collected over time. You could also have a pool of points to pull out something we have never seen before.
The teleport is just teleport with a portal, and maybe a limitation that there is a time delay. You have to go in one round and come out a round later.
** spoiler omitted **...
But..but...you'd have a built in theme song.
But..but...you'd have a built in theme song.
Night Moves by Bob Seager is a great song.
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Mishima, to make the dimension itself, you would buy an installation (like a secret headquarters) and make it Concealed and Sealed. Sealed can mean that the only way to access it is via Dimensional Travel.
I was thinking Dream Weaver
Oh, I know.....I know....
Hmmm... been a long time since I've done some M&M... I might play around with an idea this weekend, if it's not too late.
I expect to continue recruitment through next week. It takes time to get these characters right.
Indeed. Especially since the last time I played M&M was 2nd edition. XD
Going to attempt to complete a 'first try' at a completed character crunch by the end of the week.
I'm excusing myself from submitting my character. I am truly blown away by the amount of amazing character ideas seen proposed. I'll have to follow this campaign when it starts. Good luck to all submiters.
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Oh man I forgot how much I like playing this character. Now that I've got him up, he won't stay out of my head!
The personality is shaping up to be a combination of Joe Pesci from Goodfellows every character from Goodfellows, mixed with Telly Savalas from Kojak (of note, I have never actually seen Kojak, so the inspiration comes from how I think that character would act from looking at pictures of the character) mixed with every ignorant but well-meaning private dick from every Lovecraft story that has one.
Rules question: I notice that there is a power called Suffocation that has different rules from the rules for Suffocation (which involve holding one's breath for a minute and then making checks.)
The obvious need for the game designers to purchase a thesaurus aside, the Power is instantaneous, correct? It seems to read that way, in as much as a Force-choke starts to take effect right away, whereas holding someone underwater gives them a bit over a minute.
Okay, so here's my submission (but first, a Picture):
Str 0 | Agi 0 | Sta 0 | Dex 0 | Ftg 0 | Awe 0 | Int 0 | Pre 0
Attack +10
Dodge r10 +10
Fort r10 +10
Parry r10 +10
Toughness +10
Will r10 +10
Advantages:
Accurate Attack
All-Out Attack
Assessment
Benefits (Alternate Identity; None)
Close Combat r10
Defensive Attack
Diehard
Evasion r2
Fearless
Great Endurance
Hide in Plain Sight
Improved Initiative r1
Instant Up
Move-By Action
Power Attack
Prone Fighting
Second Chance (Mind Control, Life Drain)
Takedown r1
Uncanny Dodge
Skills:
Acrobatics r10 +10
Athletics r10 +10
Insight r10 +10
Intimidation r10 +10
Investigation r10 +10
Perception r20 +20
Stealth r20 +20
Treatment r10 +10
Powers:
Damage (Close Range; Qui) r10 (DC 25)
Protection r10
Regeneration (Persistant) r5
PL 10 (150 pts)
Abilities: -40
Advantages: -30
Skills: -50
Powers: -30
Okay, so here's my submission (but first, a Picture):
** spoiler omitted **
Can’t speak much on the build as it’s been a long time since I’ve rolled an M&M character, but that artist is spectacular and I will most definitely give him a follow.
ya, it's from a comic book I've never seen before, but I'm probably gonna pick it up.