Mutants & Masterminds:CATastrophe - M&M3 Proposal

[Mary Masters]

Hello everyone, I thought I would take another stab at running something, and I believe it is time for the big reveal.

I had been considering two settings, and this setting I have been having clatter around in my head. It's a homebrewed up setting that has seen it's last in it's native home, but was so interesting to me that I wanted to try running it to keep it's memory alive.

I will be using Mutants and Masterminds 3rd Edition for the rules, and it will be a collaborative setting (in other words, the group will be a team from the start).

The first thing I am thinking, before I get into the fluff of the story is having 3 phases to the game's timeline.

The first phase is singular preludes in your character's youth.

The second phase is a team prelude where your characters meet up for the first time.

The third phase is the game itself.

And now you're wondering... what is the setting? Well, here it goes.

CATastrophe

The Time Before

Before the floods, Humankind had ruled the planet. Their technological prowess allowed them to adapt to the changing climate. The planet warmed, the cities flooded a bit, but mankind adapted. Moving their populations to the new shorelines, adapting their power needs to lesser impact power sources, and advancing their space technology to eventually build space colonies on the Moon and Mars.

Humankind thought the crisis was over after the last of the ice caps melted, raising sea levels 30 feet from where they were at the end of the 20th century. The once beautiful soaring cities that marked the coasts of the world had been turned into modern era venice-like settlements.

Mankind then took to the stars, colonizing the rest of the solar system, and making their way to the other stars in the heavens. By the start of the 24th century, Mankind reached a new golden age.

But... Earth had one more blow to strike. Deep under the oceans, under the very crust, there was more than lava. Massive aquifers, holding miles upon miles of water were under pressure across the planet. Then one day, they all burst.

Like geysers, these water eruptions started to further flood the planet. Humanity only had 5 years at best before the planet was covered in over an extra 1750 feet of water. Humanity took to two options.

6 Billion were able to take evacuation ships to the various colonies around the solar system. That was all that they could take. The remaining 2 Billion had to stay. They moved to settlements built in mountain ranges or on ship-born residences. Knowing that this remaining population would have to adapt, they released a virus that re-encoded the human genome to be resistant to depths and use less oxygen, as well as have biological failsafes to prevent suffocation or drowning. They couldn't in the time allotted make a genetic modification for gills, although they wanted to.

The unknown side effect is that the planet's remaining humans mutated, taking on aspects and forms of animal-human hybrids.

Once the flooding ended, the oceans began to develop new currents, storms ran unabated as the world climate adapted to having less landmass. Volcanos erupted, creating new landmasses that colonies would later be able to build upon. Unfortunately the "Century of Chaos" claimed 99% of the 2 Billion that remained on the planet. 20 Million remained.

Once Earth calmed, civilization rebuilt. The animal kind established new homes at the remaining settlement locations around the world. Divers taking advantage of their ability to go deeper and stay under longer started bringing back old technology. The Foxes that lived on their floating ship began charting the new world and opening trade routes as well as finding the resources to build new technologies. One of the centers of civilization is a crossroads trading city on the habitable slopes of Mount Fuji. The Fuji settlement has nearly Two Million people scattered between mountainside homes and homes built on the water itself, supported on stilts reaching to the seafloor. All to take advantage of the bustling trade of old technology, fishing, and new technology from the Foxes.

The animals of the world mutated as well. As the retro-virus was released in a medium that scattered across the world on the wind, and could survive immersion, all creatures great and small changed drastically. New land-walking species of shrimp dart across the land, fish adapted to live in the high-oxygen content water, scavengers flourished as predators in the water found it increasingly more and more difficult to find prey that could turn invisible. Kelp mutated to grow taller than redwoods, some reaching up for over a mile or more, becoming "Mega-Kelp", becoming the new oxygen producers of the world, and then some. Birds became expert scavengers and predators, looking for small prey and avoiding much larger and hungrier people. In fact, what is odd is that animals unless they aren't game animals tend to avoid people for various reasons, perhaps as a memory of past transgressions of Humankind or the fact that the new residents of earth look very much like what ate them.

The Fuji Settlement

Fuji is a dynamic setting. On the island, beachfront resorts, mechanics sheds, docks, fishing markets, and traders all make their living. Children learn the trade of salvaging and diving along with their daily studies. People living on the off-shore "stilt homes" make their living from their boats, catching the day's haul and bringing it to the market or selling the meat they cook from their homes like a restaurant.

Intrepid divers strike out from Fuji to challenge the deep, looking for old technology, trying to reclaim what the Earth's oceans consumed. Luckily technology from the 24th century kept well, everything was freeze-dried, hermetically sealed, vacuum packed, or other various preserving methods. Some things were even kept in airtight chambers, only accessible through airlocks or complex methods that only the most expert divers have figured out. Almost as if those that stored it there wanted it to be found.

Luckily Fuji is not alone. The Fox Floatilla has it's 7th Naval Fleet docked at a platform seaport they built a few miles north from Fuji, it's search lights just barely showing on the horizon from Fuji at night. Providing a presence that makes novice pirates and catnip-runners ill at ease. Oceanic Search and Rescue's Eastern Mobile Fleet patrols the waters looking for distressed divers and mariners. The Oceanographic Research Institute in their white and sky blue striped ships travel along the new sea currents, charting weather patterns, and placing communications cables wherever they can, to connect as many settlements as they can.

There... That is the basic background.

I will post generation stuff after I see some interest. Note this is tech-wise a 15 minutes into the future tech level, no powers (other than what can be expected for each race) and you live off of Advantages, Skills, and your gear.

This is also a low-lethality setting. So... feel free to build support.

[Mary Masters]

I have posted the setting PDF HERE -

Please read that file, it has everything you need to know.

[Vivi OOC]

This looks really cool! I may putter around with a Fox, or do a revamp of an old cat-type PC from a previous game on the forums.

[Mary Masters]

Oh hell, that was the wrong stuff... ignore that, I'll just pop up the PDF for the homebrew setting.

Read at your leisure, guys.

CTM&M Combined Document.pdf

Note: I am the one who wrote it... for the community I write for we usually go by our aliases.

Also, I won't be using EVERYTHING in that file. One it is a work in progress and also it is written for players and GMs to read. For instance the random encounters and events charts... ignore them. Gear is a work in progress too, but the races are better balanced and built and fluffed as well in it.

I also invited my friends in the facebook group to perhaps participate.

I should add, what are my goals with this game?

I want to develop a fun world, where adventure isn't just cracking skulls. It's finding new things, exploring mysterious places that seem familiar to us now, and most importantly have a few chuckles on the way. Success isn't going to be measured in bodycount, instead it is in the creation of a story of a group of brave, reckless, lucky, and talented divers retrieving what once was. That and the stories of their friendship, courage, pitfalls and triumphs.

Heck I don't want it all to be a bed of roses... although the analogy fits because roses have thorns. It's not going to be perfect, but it is going to be something where your character probably will survive to tell the tale.

[Mary Masters]

If there are any further questions on this setting, please, feel free to ask away.

[Mary Masters]

I am considering adding humans to the available races, but they are extremely rare (1 for every 6 players) in the world. They will have the same universal mutations as their hybrid counterparts with some extra little perks on the side. More later. (Note, this will be exclusive to the game here. The setting is generally hybrid only).

Addendum: I'm dropping this particular change to the setting.

[Mary Masters]

I'm not exactly sure why I've not got any attention here.

I have a feeling that I may have put up this proposal as a sudden surge of new games popped up.

I'm still interested in running this, but the lack of interest is causing me to reconsider.

[Jordan]

No offense to you Tommy but this is an anime furry game, thus my particular lack of interest. I can't speak for anyone else but I don't think that particular genre is high on a lot of peoples "I want to play this" list. I also don't recall seeing you talk about this in the chat, which might be why it isn't on anyone's radar. Perhaps if you pooled the chat to see if there was any interest or to advertise it, you might get more nibbles.

[Mary Masters]

No worries, I tried.

I'm going to drop this from consideration.