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Playing VIPER, DEMON, PSI
nyghtshroude
Posts: 212 Arc User
I'd like to learn a bit more about who they are from a PnP point to flesh out my characters. I have played this game for years and decided I want to play some villains for a bit of RP flavor. One of the rules is they never fight their own faction in Alerts.
I have ideas for the names of my new characters but I'd like to learn more about the organizations for better RP. I've got most of the costumes unlocked so I'll look the part.
I have ideas for the names of my new characters but I'd like to learn more about the organizations for better RP. I've got most of the costumes unlocked so I'll look the part.
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I can suggest two alternatives to getting the background info you want. One would be to pick up the book titled, Champions Universe. It lays out almost all the history and current state of the official Champions setting, over a very broad range of topics, in no small detail. Chapter Five deals with superhumans and super-groups, including the three groups you mention; and the "GM's Vault" section of the book, containing info intended for Game Masters only, adds some of each group's deeper secrets known to relatively few. Between them you'd easily have enough information to flesh out your characters.
The other alternative would be to address any specific questions you have about those groups to this thread. I for one would be glad to answer them, within the bounds of Fair Use of the Champions IP.
https://www.herogames.com/store/product/39-champions-universe-6th-ed-pdf/
https://www.herogames.com/store/product/51-champions-villains-volume-two-villain-teams-pdf/
https://www.herogames.com/store/product/220-demon-servants-of-darkness-pdf/
https://www.herogames.com/store/product/459-viper-coils-of-the-serpent-pdf/
As for VIPER I made my character today. I focused on him having a powered armor theme and for the most part I even have recreated the armors used by VIPER. The coloring for the full Power Armor was tricky to match but in general he looks the part. Besides in the game most of the non specific VIPER operatives tend to have power armor. Golden Nest Leaders, VIPER Powered Armor, etc
In RP terms, my character just beat Kevin Poe and VIPER has promoted him to being their representative in West Side. As per my RP, he will never engage in any Alert or mission that has VIPER for enemies and same with my future villain characters unless that villain is not part of any organization.
In the PnP Champions Universe, most vampires are more than dangerous enough against normal people, but aren't that powerful compared to many other types of superhumans. Exceptional ones are certainly possible, though, particularly if they wield other magic in addition to their native abilities. Champions vampires can have all the powers, and weaknesses, of a classic gothic vampire. They don't possess all such powers when first created (when they're in thrall to the greater vampire who "turned" them), and grow into their abilities over time. Similarly, older vampires can learn to overcome some of their weaknesses. There may be vampires from other ethnic traditions, like the ch'ing-shi of Chinese legend, who have different qualities.
The CU doesn't feature much in the way of vampire sub-culture. Most vamps are solitary, because every other vampire is a potential competitor for food. Sometimes powerful vampires create gangs of underlings, but most such gangs don't last very long, because they attract attention from humans. References to vampires in Champions books, particularly The Mystic World, imply that they have to feed on living humans to survive. If that's the case they can't subsist on bottled blood, or animal blood. That harsh reality is probably a major factor in turning the majority of vampires to evil. (You could choose to say a vampire character of your creation has learned to subsist on other than human blood.) However, there are vampires in the lore who are neither good nor evil, and at least one who's actively a hero. Vampire motivations and interests can be as diverse as the humans they once were.
As one category of "undead," vampires aren't considered to have the same legal rights in the United States under the 14th Amendment as other "living" beings have. But that doesn't mean someone can slaughter them with impunity. If a vampire is living publicly in the guise of a human, the law would treat its killer as a murderer unless given unequivocal evidence of its undead status. And law enforcement would take a dim view of someone killing a known vampire if said vamp was law-abiding, especially if he/she acted as a hero. But on Champions Earth the majority of regular folks don't believe in the supernatural any more than they do on real Earth, so the justification of undead status may not carry much weight with them.
That all sounds reasonable. For RP purposes the main things you should know are, first, that VIPER's main organizational unit is the Nest, which functions like a terrorist cell, in many ways self-contained in its local operations. However, VIPER's command maintains contact with all Nests through its super-secure Serpentine computer network, and sometimes commands multiple Nests to coordinate for larger operations. It also sells high-tech weapons and equipment produced by various sources to Nests.
While all Nests engage in criminal activities, their priorities and style vary depending on their Nest Leaders. As of the last official word from the PnP game publishers, Millennium City has three separate Nests, each using a different cover for their operations. The McCloskey Tunnel is believed to be a failed venture to build another underwater traffic tunnel linking MC with Windsor, Canada; it was actually an excuse by VIPER to build a new underground base connecting to the Detroit River. Vitruvian Investment Services, smallest of the three Nests, is also the most profitable, concentrating on white-collar and computer crime, and financial fraud. Green Scales & Gauges appear to manufacture industrial measuring devices, but primarily makes and sells security devices for criminals and other Nests, as well as more conventional crimes. Note that it's not uncommon for a rising VIPER agent to be given permission to establish a new Nest.
VIPER maintains a specific division of superhuman employees serving the organization as a whole, called Dragon Branch. However, it's not unheard of for individual Nest Leaders to employ super-class operatives, with innate powers or advanced tech; or even to be such a superhuman themselves.
If you want more info, fee free to post followup questions.
DEMON is in many ways the supernatural analogue to VIPER. The public is aware of them thanks to some of the really big schemes they've been involved in. Many governments and law-enforcement agencies take them as a serious threat to world security, although no one outside the organization grasps how big an existential threat they really are. Like VIPER, most of DEMON's activities are carried out covertly -- their Demonhames (individual bases) are hidden or disguised, their members act normally when in social situations, their sacrificial rituals are discreet. But when they want something that requires overt force to achieve, DEMON has no qualms about breaking out the troops, in distinctive robes like good supervillainous minions, and firing blasting wands rather than high-tech guns. Their Morbanes (the sorcerer-priests who lead Demonhames) are supervillain class, wielding flashy combat magics; and their Demonbound (human DEMON members fused with actual demons) have other superpowers and often distinctive appearances. Aside from the organization's overall goals, individual Morbanes will sometimes engage in quite visible schemes designed to win them greater power, wealth, or status within DEMON.
The rank and file of DEMON, up to the Morbanes, are devoted followers of whatever supernatural agencies they believe DEMON serves. The details vary depending on the region a Demonhame is based in, and the culture it draws its agents from. It's all just a front for the group's true goals, anyway, so DEMON couches its doctrines in whatever trappings it believes will appeal to the locals. The Morbanes believe they know the "true" gods of the organization, but that's also a masquerade. Granted, most members of DEMON serve for what they can get out of it, but believe their patrons will reward them for faithful service.
The recruiting and indoctrination procedures for DEMON Brothers (the basic rank of membership) are designed to identify those with true capacity for evil, and to push them to ever more vile acts. By the time one of them rises to Morbane status, he or she is almost always so far down the road of corruption as to be beyond redemption.
Within the Mystic World sub-culture on Champions Earth, the word is out that DEMON actually serves the purposes of horrific, "Lovecraftian" entities from the Qliphoth... and believe me, what Champions Online has shown of that is nothing like and nothing compared to the alien nightmares described in the PnP books. As a result most other mystics will have nothing to do with DEMON, and their Morbanes know no more about the Mystic World than the doctrines DEMON feeds them. Even the rulers of Hell will no longer traffic with the Morbanes or the group's higher-ups, so they have to find ways to compel service from demons -- hence the Demonbound I mentioned above.
In 2001 the Champions brought down Millennium City's Demonhame, but DEMON's leader, Luther Black/the Edomite, sent three Morbanes to revive the organization's presence in that city. One of them, Sebastian Sarrazene, has established his Demonhame out of the Delacroix Mansion. The other two Morbanes and their operations aren't mentioned.
Note that all I've detailed on this thread is only a highly abridged summation of what's described in the books. But none of the books give hints as to what might have happened to DEMON since Black's failed apotheosis scheme. For your purposes I would suggest just assuming that individual Demonhames have gone on independently of the larger organization.
It's interesting that even demons from hell won't work with them because of the Qlipoth association.
It's quite common for a Morbane whose primary magic is of one type, to have a "minor specialization" in another, giving him a few of the specialized abilities above, and/or at a lower power level; enabling you to mix-and-match them to customize your Morbane. Also keep in mind that those spell descriptions are for what Hero System (the game mechanics for PnP Champions) calls "special effects." Characters may use Powers that are the same mechanically one from the other, but their Special Effect may be fire, or lightning, or ice, or sound, or bullets, or rocks, or whatever else describes how those particular effects "look" and "feel." For example, I remember one published example of a sorcerer who was a demonologist, and one of his spells for disrupting his opponent's magic was to conjure a small "anti-magic" demon and throw it at the target.
Even demons recognize there are some things worse than them. It's hard to tempt humans into evil and claim their souls, if abominations from Beyond devour the souls of every human.
The Qliphothic universes are not supposed to be "Champions Hell." The Champions world already has every Hell of human conception. The Qliphoth is the antithesis of life, matter, energy as we understand them. Its denizens aren't evil the way humans define evil, but alien and fundamentally incomprehensible. They harm us because they're destructive by nature, and because they don't care about us. A King of Edom views a promise of power to a human in exchange for service, like leading a horse to slaughter with a carrot.
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My characters
The Inner Circle had a greater grasp of what the five Kings of Edom are that Luther Black (whom they knew only as "the Edomite") dealt with, but did not know the full scope of his apotheosis scheme. Only Black's Inverted Trinity understood what he was trying to accomplish. But none of these villains actually worshiped or served the Kings -- they were only in the game for what they could get out of it.
But that is entirely my own extrapolation, and not Champions Universe canon. Just how I'd handle it if it were up to me.
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My characters