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Forums > Home› Champions Pen and Paper RPG

Lore on the Bloodmoon?

scorpio303scorpio303 Posts: 27 Arc User
in Champions Pen and Paper RPG
With the Blood moon coming up I thought it'd be a great time to ask about the lore behind it. Is it a Champions Online exclusive thing or did it come from the original PnP game? Does it cover the whole world or just the areas around MC? How does it affect supernatural entities like Werewolves and Vampires?

Answers

  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    edited October 2020
    The Blood Moon is a concept that Cryptic Studios developed independently of the PnP setting's history. However, it very much fits the pattern of Takofanes' activities since he arose in the modern world in 1987. He appears at seemingly random times and locations, wreaks havoc (usually involving animating the dead), then disappears before enough massed heroes can arrive to stop him. No one knows what the purpose of these attacks is, but many fear the Undying King is working toward some grand plan.

    After Cryptic's purchase of the Champions IP, the official timeline as presented in the most recent edition of Champions Universe (which details the whole setting) incorporated the first occurrence of the Blood Moon. I know many players assume its annual appearance in the game mean it repeats within continuity. IMO that would be a mistake, as much as believing replaying anything in the game, e.g. the Gadroon invasion or the Vibora Bay Apocalypse, means those events recur. It also doesn't really make sense from a game world or genre perspective.

    The Trick or Treaters were later added to the event, initially explained IIRC as bystanders transformed by the magic (really just a thematic gimmick). ;) Champions PnP only refers to the events in Millennium City during the Blood Moon, and that seems to be its focal location; but Champions Online lore explicitly states that the rampages of werewolves in the New Mexico Desert, northern Canada, and Monster Island (part of PvP starting in 2011 IIRC) was also an effect of the Blood Moon. I couldn't find any suggestion that other supernatural beings are affected by its power generally. However, if that connection would be appropriate for a character or story you want, it would certainly fit the genre. :)
  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    edited October 2020
    There is one other PnP detail which may be relevant to the Blood Moon. Before the IP sale, Hero Games published a supervillain compendium which included a mysterious supernatural villain called Rictus, whose main power is reanimating the dead as zombies. Rictus pulled essentially the same stunt as Takofanes, raising some of the heroes, and the villains, who died during the Battle of Detroit and using them to attack MC.

    That incident is not recorded in the updated official timeline from Champions Universe, and Rictus has not been reprinted or referred to since. (Another, earlier villain of the same name is mentioned in CU.) Most likely Rictus's attack has been retconned out of Champions Online continuity due to redundancy. Cryptic may or may not have taken inspiration from Rictus for the Blood Moon event.

    For my own PnP games I used Rictus as a lieutenant/protege of the Archlich. That is completely unofficial, though. ;)
  • scorpio303scorpio303 Posts: 27 Arc User
    bulgarex wrote: »
    The Blood Moon is a concept that Cryptic Studios developed independently of the PnP setting's history. However, it very much fits the pattern of Takofanes' activities since he arose in the modern world in 1987. He appears at seemingly random times and locations, wreaks havoc (usually involving animating the dead), then disappears before enough massed heroes can arrive to stop him. No one knows what the purpose of these attacks is, but many fear the Undying King is working toward some grand plan.

    After Cryptic's purchase of the Champions IP, the official timeline as presented in the most recent edition of Champions Universe (which details the whole setting) incorporated the first occurrence of the Blood Moon. I know many players assume its annual appearance in the game mean it repeats within continuity. IMO that would be a mistake, as much as believing replaying anything in the game, e.g. the Gadroon invasion or the Vibora Bay Apocalypse, means those events recur. It also doesn't really make sense from a game world or genre perspective.

    The Trick or Treaters were later added to the event, initially explained IIRC as bystanders transformed by the magic (really just a thematic gimmick). ;) Champions PnP only refers to the events in Millennium City during the Blood Moon, and that seems to be its focal location; but Champions Online lore explicitly states that the rampages of werewolves in the New Mexico Desert, northern Canada, and Monster Island (part of PvP starting in 2011 IIRC) was also an effect of the Blood Moon. I couldn't find any suggestion that other supernatural beings are affected by its power generally. However, if that connection would be appropriate for a character or story you want, it would certainly fit the genre. :)
    bulgarex wrote: »
    There is one other PnP detail which may be relevant to the Blood Moon. Before the IP sale, Hero Games published a supervillain compendium which included a mysterious supernatural villain called Rictus, whose main power is reanimating the dead as zombies. Rictus pulled essentially the same stunt as Takofanes, raising some of the heroes, and the villains, who died during the Battle of Detroit and using them to attack MC.

    That incident is not recorded in the updated official timeline from Champions Universe, and Rictus has not been reprinted or referred to since. (Another, earlier villain of the same name is mentioned in CU.) Most likely Rictus's attack has been retconned out of Champions Online continuity due to redundancy. Cryptic may or may not have taken inspiration from Rictus for the Blood Moon event.

    For my own PnP games I used Rictus as a lieutenant/protege of the Archlich. That is completely unofficial, though. ;)

    This answers a lot of my questions! Thank you!
    Loremaster Bulgarex saves the day again!

    I don't have too many supernatural characters myself, I'm more of a Tech guy. However, I do have a robot character that tends to wig out when Blood Moon and Nightmare Invasion rolls around as animated cadavers trigger her PTSD.
  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    There have certainly been enough major supernatural terrors in the past of Champions Earth to cause many people PTSD, including the Aztec god Tezcatlipoca manifesting on Earth in 2007 and rampaging across southern Texas slaughtering thousands of people; the Slug transforming tens of thousands of Londoners into Elder Worms in 2003; Takofanes arising in Oklahoma in 1987 and marching east, killing and reanimating all who crossed his path, until being stopped in Kentucky; and Luther Black's first Demonflame ritual of 1986, which raised a ten-thousand-foot hellish tower over Boston and loosed a horde of demons to terrorize the populace.
  • scorpio303scorpio303 Posts: 27 Arc User
    Oof! Champions Earth has it rough! That being said a peaceful world probably doesn't make for a very interesting game!
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