Paragons Pulp Setting! Weirdness! Need help!

[Captain Werewolf]

Great setting! I'm actually getting ready to run a similar game set in 1936. While my version does have Lovecraftian elements, it's much more grounded in the Doc Savage pulps, with 1930s versions of 1940s mystery men and even a 1960s-style spy translated back to 1930s pulp (think John Stone from Planetary but with a stealth airship and a jetpack).

The series also begins with each character having a solo adventure that ends somehow with each one either receiving an invitation to or finding out independently about a meeting with Ham Brooks (Doc Savage's lawyer) on the 86th floor of the Empire State Building concerning Doc Savage's recent disappearance. So . . . weird.

Anyway, here's a couple of suggestions I have re: your questions.

1) I like the Death Orchid idea more than a bunch of boring old minions, unless your players haven't played the game before (in which case, an easy skirmish against some minions might be a good way to ease them into the system). You could always do both: a few goons they need to mop up (maybe they're setting up the Death Orchid when the heroes arrive?), and then a weird Death Orchid thing that they need to investigate. Depending on how well they investigate, either it bursts open and unleashes, as you say, "gribbly things" (great term), the heroes receive clues concerning where to go next, or they destroy it and get neither!

2) If they can get clues from the Death Orchid, then you can have an extra "stop" in-between the penthouse and the town. I don't know what type of PCs you have, but maybe the Death Orchid has a certain residue or structure that sends the team off to get more clues somewhere else. An example: let's say one of your PCs has expertise in botany or something. He can take a sample of the orchid and test it to find out that it comes from a certain island (you know, one of those "weird" islands with carnivorous plants or something), where they find a "Death Orchid farm" run by the King's minions. They destroy the farm, kill (or incapacitate) the minions, fight a boss, and raid a secret lab/planning room on the premises, where they find the plans/clues that send them to the town.

BTW, his name is the Crustacean King: if you don't have them fight a giant crab monster with laser eyes, you have missed a choice opportunity

[chatty]

I've been mostly away from the boards since spewing over on my GM Thread that should probably be moved here.

I will catch up with this tonight.

[hellica]

Hey guys

Thanks for the input

I've decided though that there is going to be a significant reordering of events as i figured a way to make it a little bit more dynamic/involved for the players

They're stille going to start in the penthouse near Doc's corpse, but they're going to get to explore the penthouse and will find the murdered bodies of Doc's sidekicks, except a big ugly guy called Ronnie (blates Renny) still alive... just.

He's going to spill the beans to them a bit that they had investigated the crustacean king and had returned to the tower with the seed to plan their next move, and had ordered train tickets to a town in the middle of nowhere where they were convinced the King was holed up, either that or there will be a map with it circled

They will then obviously go for the train station, where they will see men with big scarves and hats board the train and will find them suspicious (as generally pointing stuff out to PCs makes them suspicious of it ) and they will take the train.

the suspicious men on the train will eventually carry a large case to the front of the train and unleash a swarm of gribblies from the murder orchid, most likely chitinous wormlike creatures atm who will start to rip the passengers to pieces to cover up their travel to the town. the PCs will obviously try and stop these things and pursue the suspicious men.

when they catch the suspicious men it will be nearing the destination and they will discover they are not truly men at all and mutated servants of the crustacean king!

The enemy will e reinforced at the station and the PCs will have a bit of a fight on their hands... but one they will surely win.

they then find the town abandoned but find a cave system nearby, going for short dungeoncrawl before coming face to face with an outsider who corrupted the town. They then discover that the people they were pusuing did not have the seed at all, and that it ws planted in the subway in NYC! and have to face down a high ranking demon before rushing back to NYC in order to stem the tide of madness spreading through the subway system before it is too late

[Captain Werewolf]

Sounds good, dude. I'm going to steal your Murder Seed/Death Orchid idea, btw--if you're okay with that.

Also, if you want a lot of good ideas for this sort of stuff, I'd suggest the Pulp Hero book for the Hero System RPG. You can't exactly translate stats between systems, but the Hero System books are great for brainstorming.

[hellica]

Np on the stealing the idea, just remember it's my intellectual property! (joke)

The idea behid it is that the orchid is one of the flowers fromt he spawning caves from an active seed all very subterranean etc etc

I'm setting up the Crustacean King to be one of the recurring enemies they will face, and he will be making a return in the fourth or fifth adventure.

and yknow, I never actually thoughht of Doc Osiris' lawyer being a version of Ham... I dunno why, it just never even crossed my mind :S

Just a comment on your idea, that if it's grounded in the Doc stories, is a murder seed really appropriate? I only know of one story where there was anything that didnt have a rational (if stretched) explanation... and that was the point Doc retired lol

My player's haven't gotten round to giving me finalised character concepts atm... which is annoying the hell out of me. I kinda want to know exactly what I'm dealing with.

[Captain Werewolf]

Just a comment on your idea, that if it's grounded in the Doc stories, is a murder seed really appropriate? I only know of one story where there was anything that didnt have a rational (if stretched) explanation... and that was the point Doc retired lol

I guess it's not so much grounded in the Doc Savage pulps, but rather everything else radiates out from there. It's really more like the Wold Newton universe, where every fictional thing exists--even the stuff that contradicts the other stuff So Tarzan, the Phantom, Dracula, Prof. Challenger, Conan, etc. all exist in this timeline.

A good way to put it would be to say that 99% of the people think they live in a normal world, where the most fantastical person on the planet is a genius inventor who works out of the Empire State Building. The other 1% (including Doc and the PCs) knows that just ain't true. Most normal people in the setting have a sort of "weirdness censor," so they don't necessarily know about all the really crazy monsters and madmen that go bump in the night.

All of the PCs, on the other hand, either have flat-out supernatural powers or fantastical super-science abilities that the media and general public regard as sensational, but often play off as legend, trickery, illusion, etc.

[Captain Werewolf]

And a lot of the characters, settings, etc. I get by doing what I call the "Grant Morrison school of brainstorming"; I just put together two words that don't go together, then figure out what the hell that thing is.

(I think that's why I like "murder seed" and "death orchid.")

Watch, it's fun : Rainbow bullet (a bullet that disassembles its target into different frequencies that are then trapped in their respective dimensions). Boom computer (a Turing machine that uses soundwaves instead of vacuum tubes as switches). Hypnosis bloom (a flower which, when approached, shoots out a puff of gas that makes you into a mindless minion of the botanist supervillain that designed the plant). Fight cathedral (it's like a religion for which underground death matches are the most holy sacrament). Karate cemetery (I really shouldn't have to explain what a "karate cemetery" is).

This helps: http://www.desiquintans.com/noungenerator.php

[hellica]

That's prettymuch the way i used lol, cept i didn't actually have a name for it

Anatomy Dogsled... brings up some dark thoughts.

May have to dodge that one

Colony Witness - could make somethign out of taht

Governor Twine

I like this generator, it's all kinds of hilarious

[Captain Werewolf]

See, you just need to switch a couple of those things around:

Dogsled Anatomy: a shapeshifting ability that allows you to form your body into a sled shape for skimming over ice and water.

Witness Colony: a secret government internment camp where people who have "seen too much" are put so that their Knowledge of the Unknown doesn't infect the rest of civilization and break its weirdness censor.

Governor Twine: the leader of a city whose population is made up entirely out of 6-foot-tall sack people. Or 6-inch-tall voodoo dolls. Your choice.

I would totally use the second one in a game.

[hellica]

ah, but see, i didn't feel the need to change it round necessarily

a colony witness could be the final member of a race who attempted to found a colony on earth and was in charge of taking history of the project.

an Anatomy Dogsled could be a dogsled made of ripped up body parts created by an alien yeti creature.

Governor Twine screams invasion of the body snatchers/pod person type mind control plant to me


I've finally had some news on the PC characters now

We have -

Prof Steel - Two Fisted Southern Man of Science!

Lazarus - A Century baby who entered the war as a youth and was caught up in a German weapon test. An acid gas burned away his flesh and he was later gunned down, only to discover that he could not die. Now hideously disfigured (his face no more than a skull) he returned to the US, becoming a vigilante with the help of his long barrelled pistol capable of firing explosive bullets and a collection of long knives he uses to maim his enemies.

and the third player is undecided on whether he wants to be a Shadow knock off with the ability to become mist or a Pulped up spiderman

[Captain Werewolf]

I like Lazarus a lot. There's a somewhat similar PC in my game.

As for the Shadow type/pulp Spidey, I think the Spider-man character would be more fun. I was actually never all that into the Shadow, but the "turning into mist" thing is neat. Kind of Dracula-esque.

Oh, combine them! A Shadow type guy that can climb walls and turn into a swarm of spiders!

[hellica]

Lazarus is probably my favourite too, but then again, half the ideas came from me lol.

It was the problem player telling me what he wanted then me sortof converting it into somethign more appropriate.

he wanted to resurrect, so i said call him Agent Lazarus and be a secret agent.... he then said he wanted to be a vigilante so i said cool.

Me - "Two words - Skull Mask"

Him - "Two words - real skull"

then he wanted a trench axe and a shotgun... which got turned into the throwing knives and explosive revolver, which is tbf, something he wouldn't have known would be available, since he isn't very familiar with what can and can't happen in the setting. (Which is guess is one of my flaws as GM... i tend to go for a really specific feel that can be very hard to explain to the players)

The next bit i want to champion to him is that he could have the ability to disguise himself by applying putty to his skull and get the "Man of 1000 faces" shizzle going on


And yeh, I'm more for the Spiderman type guy, since Lazarus is already close enough to the Shadow in terms of MO tbh.

I like the turning into a swarm thing, but i know the player (who is my brother and usually a pain in the ***deleted*** ass) won't go for it, or if he did he'd use it in ways that would just make a dozen trimes more work for me as GM

[Captain Werewolf]

Then I think pulp Spider-man is the best way to go. That way you get a trio with The Good (Professor Steel), The Bad (Lazarus), and The Weird (Spider-man).

There are some cool pulp-ish Spider-man pics if you search for "noir Spider-man":
http://sixmorevodka.com/SUPERPOST/Spide ... sion03.jpg

But this is what I'd use if I were the player, because it's a little less dark:
http://www.alexrossart.com/artforsale.asp?sc=ARSP1

[hellica]

Nah, he knows how he wants to look.

it involves a domino mask and a spiderweb pattern scarf around his neck and a three piece suit with the same pattern. Properly Rockin' the pulp.

I was expecting the spiderman Noir appearance too, but it's his character and my policy is only to argue when if it's truly out of the bounds of the setting and tone.

I'm sorting out an overarching antagonist group atm

The Society for the Advancement of Mankind -

which is going to be a secret society formed by Marcus Set to assist him in the pursuit of his agenda, just making it sound like it's the right thing to do. Kindof a midguided Pulp JLA.

[hellica]

The Society for the Advancement of Mankind
“Doctor Osiris may be a great man, but he is also a short sighted one. He speaks of protecting the world from horror, but what is the point of defending it from the horrors that gnaw at it without trying to protect it from the horrors that come from within?
Less than two decades ago the world was plunged into a war that did far more damage than any number of the creatures from the Imageria I have seen put together. A war caused by human avarice and petty machinations of the nation state! Why does he do nothing about this? With our abilities we could end war, but he refuses. He will not accept the responsibility of our kind – to make mankind great.
I have attempted to make him see sense in the past, but it always comes to a physical confrontation, a confrontation I always came away worse from due to my pride. My refusal to rely on others spelled my defeat in the face of his superior numbers.
I have seen the error in my ways; I will need assistance in my sacred duty, and to this end I have gathered a group of like minded individuals. Individuals who wish to bring order to this world. - Marcus Set

Rasputin –
“Ivan Grigorovich Rasputin was a lucky find; the offspring of the Mad Monk and a Child of the Century. He may be a fanatical madman, but his personal and political power is undeniable. Similar to his father, he seems to be absurdly difficult to kill and with only a few possible exceptions is the most capable “magician” I have ever met.
He has spent the century as the terror of the Bolshevik cause. He is head of an enormous network of royalist cells in the Soviet state and outwardly champions a return to Tsarist rule. Luckily, like many autocrats I have met over the years he has no qualms with using... extreme methods of control.
I intend to keep an eye on this one, he has far more of an agenda than the others and it may be difficult to remove the ugly old coot if it ever came to that”

Virago –
“Ah, my Virago, Beautiful and deadly. She is a world class assassin, capable beyond what would seem within human ability. I would assume her to be a Child of the Century, but as the old saying goes; never ask a woman her age.
She believes in our goal more for the benefit of women than anything else. I must admit that this is a suitably noble reason for her involvement and not a significant enough change to the goal that it makes any difference. It does, however, bring her into conflict with Rasputin at times. From what I have seen, however, her ability to kill may be greater than his ability to sustain damage.
I must admit to having my lusts stirred by her as well, which gives yet another good reason to have her in the society. One grows tired of looking at the Russian and a pair of masked men.


Tesla
“Tesla... what else is there to know? An old decrepit man I use for the sake of his technology, it was only luck that he agreed to support out of idealism rather than having to be forced to give up his technology.”


The Fury
“Jonathon Clark was “blessed” with the ability to hear the cries of the wronged. He then spent his entire life acting as a petty vigilante in an attempt to stop the voices by avenging them; modelling himself on the Furies of myth. Along the way he even met Osiris and impressed him enough to be given a set of his auto pistols.
Despite his apparent loyalty to my nemesis it was not difficult to recruit him; the opportunity to help end human suffering was impossible for a man who suffers for the sins of others to turn down.
He has proven a useful ally; his almost inhuman strength and charming ability to cause his opponents to hear the same screams as he does make him an excellent foot soldier.”

Prometheus
“Another deluded fool that believes that petty vigilante activity is something other than a bandage placed upon a cancer patient. This time with flame based abilities. Another foot soldier, nothing more.”