CO Lore Guide

Most Recent Change: I know I said I'd do more altered history but I did magic families instead because ♥♥♥♥ you I do what I want.


Hi random Discord that linked to this, please tell everyone that lore primer talks about some Van Hellsing Law or something that I never heard of and can't find in any book related to 5th and 6th edition and am almost entirely sure at this point is something he made up for a game he ran and thought was canon when making the primer

A general lore guide to the Champions setting, put together by books, conjecture, and in-game tidbits.

Champions Online is heavily based on the Champions Tabletop RPG. Primarily the 5th and 6th editions. CO is of course, an MMO that couldn't fit literally the dozens of books that make up the 5th and 6th editions. Nor could it do it perfectly as many things that may work great for a tabletop RPG don't translate well to the MMO format. ARGENT would be a much more boring enemy to fight in an MMO if they relied on legal shenanigans and suing like they did in the books.

Of course this means some things have modified to fit the MMO format better. And sometimes just cause I guess. I've done my best to fuse the books' and game's lore in a way to hold up the intent of both together.

This guide is not meant to replace the books. Besides the point that it'd be a massive undertaking to recreate all of the information in the books, it'd also be highly illegal.

Have any requests for the next bit of lore I should add? Leave them in the comments.

Recent Changes

New preface/recent changes because I've been banned from the Champions Community Hub on Steam kek. If further updates come they'll be mentioned here because apparently you can change sections in guides but not the basic guide information when you're banned. This also means I can't actually comment anymore but rest assured, I read every comment so if you make a request, I'll get to it eventually.

Added a Media section that goes over various prevalent media sources within the setting. As it stands it has 3 websites, a news station, and (basically) 1 magazine. Along with small bits about the creators when they have actual write-ups.

Heroic Organizations (US Government)

MARS

Metahuman Activities Response Squad or MARS is an elite police unit akin to SWAT teams. MARS are trained to deal with super-human or alien threats with specialized training and equipment. With their top tier training and state-of-the-art tech, they're sent to disable super-human criminals.

The FBI

As in the actual FBI. It's worth mentioning that the FBI also works on fighting super crime in the United States and the entire thing isn't just given to PRIMUS. The FBI still work the same as it does for the most part. The FBI does indeed hire supers for their workforce however.

Kodiak
Kodiak would be an example of this. He's an FBI agent that's been assigned to Millennium City, primarily working with it's gang problem.

The Secret Service

The USSS, the branch of law enforcement tasked with investigating cases of counterfeit US currency and guarding previous and current national leaders and their families within the US. They're outfited with a special polymer that's also used by PRIMUS which allows them to keep the whole suit thing but take damage from a multitude of superpowers. They also carry special ammunition that can hurt even the burliest of bricks. Not only that but their training includes intense psychological training to fight against psionic attacks. (In PnP terms it gives a flat 20 points in mental defense) The Secret Service remains as one of the most anti-super law enforcement groups in the US. They rarely work with or hire supers and have even arrested superheros who've helped without express permission.

Heroic Organizations (PRIMUS)

Once upon a time Mechanon almost took over the United States. This drove the U.S. Congress to allow the Department of Justice to create PRIMUS, The Paranormal Research and Investigation Mission of the United States. They're a special branch of federal law enforcement made to solely pursue super-criminals. While originally they planned to be the UNTIL of the United States a Dr. Lucious announced the discovery of Cyberline. A drug he concocted that when administered daily gave the users superhuman levels of strength and reflexes. PRIMUS quickly adopted it's use with it's leader(Known as Golden Avengers) using it as well as their subordinates (Known as Silver Avengers). Even though UNTIL has been allowed into the U.S. PRIMUS still holds it's position as the U.S.'s main anti-super task force. PRIMUS also holds one of the largest (if not the largest) databases on superhumans in the world. A database that's never been hacked. And with villains like Dr. Destroyer, Mechanon, and Cybermind that's quite the feet. So no, your super 1337 hacker probably couldn't hack it without having half of PRIMUS at their front door.

Daniel James Johnson

Called Dee-JayJay by no one but me, he's the current Golden Avenger. He gained the position after Robert Kaufman (Yeah that guy in the desert) retired. A former F-14 pilot, he's known for a no nonsense attitude, take charge personality, and the fact he has a near encyclopedic knowledge of superheroes.

Agents

Of course the leader has agents to take care of, right? First of there's the Silver Avengers. Other cyberline enhanced humans, they often head offices in various cities. The rest of the agents simply use the latest in technology to combat supers. Their collective attitude towards superheroes varies incredibly. Primarily by where they are. Agents in Millennium City are often much more accepting of supers while agents in Miami tend to see them as people who do as much bad as good.

Cyberline

While it's often believed Cyberline is a serum or drug, it is infact a product of genetic engineering. The serum part is all a ruse! A ruse! This cannot be stressed enough! There's no serum! At all!
Secondly the treatment itself is addicting. The Avengers eventually become addicted to the process itself.

What You Know

Nearly everything but Cyberline. Even most of the world's superheroes don't know the truth behind that.

Heroic Organizations (Various)

UNTIL

The United Nations Tribunal on International Law, or UNTIL, is the UN's answer to supervillains created in 1965. Ruling that the various villains of the world are a world threat due to their ease of moving from region to region or even continent to continent, they created a world-wide police force to combat them. Despite much of the UN originally arguing against it, it was eventually signed in due to how convienent it really is. The smaller nations who could never afford to create such a group to defend one got one for a tiny fraction of the cost. The larger countries, while paying for the majority of UNTIL, realized it'd only be a small fraction of how much they'd have to pay for making their own anti-villain police force jumped on the band-wagon as well. They can operate within the borders of any country that originally signed the Tribunal Treaty that put them into existance, and can operate in any country that gives them permission. Originally they were barred from operating in the United States due to their refusal to sign the treaty. When the general public learned that their advanced tech, numbers, and military power could have greatly lowered the damage done by one of Dr. Destroyer's many world domination attempts their was large amounts of public outcry which eventually led to the American government allowing UNTIL the rights to operate within the country and all it's territories. Other than fighting superhuman threats in general, they also have task forces geared towards specific threats that are called projects. These include Project Snakecharmer (VIPER), Project Shiva (Destroyer), Project Clockwork (Mechanon), and Project Hermes (DEMON).

UNITY

UNITY is UNTIL's official superhero team. Since UNTIL primarily only hires humans rather than supers, if there's a super on their official payroll, they're a member of UNITY.

LEAF

Logistical Emergency Assistance Federation. Simply put, they're a Red Cross-esque organization of Canada. They take donations and government funding to react to disasters in Canada. They primarily consist of volunteers.

The Tiger Squad

While I don't think they're ever actually in-game, they're mentioned through the hint section of the loading screen. To put it simply they're China's official superhero team but this guide isn't for the simple explanations is it? Created way back in the early 60s back when China was really really REALLY communistic, they "recruited" from super powered individuals from their population. I use the quotations because membership is mandatory for any citizen of China that shows to have super powers. To put simply, it was originally China's plan to protect themselves from Western heroes and villains when and if the need arised. When it comes to matters of history they were primarily used as an emergency response team, often fighting gangs, performing rescue operations, and helping during natural disasters. During Mao's acent into power and the culutral revolution that followed The Tiger Squad was almost non-existant. Many members died, were sent to camps, or fled with the only remaining members being strong Mao supporters. After Mao's fall membership flourished and they were incredibly popular among the country's populace up until 1989 where they worked with the government to arrest pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square. In modern day they often avoid politcally charged events such as that and primarily focus on humantiarian deeds, much to the pleasure of both the country's populace and the world's. In the end though they're a tool of a communist government and can often be used that way. To add on top of that, membership is not voluntary. If the government finds out one of it's citizens develop powers they're likely to conscript them into the team, regardless on the individuals actual idealogies or opinions. This does however open up the interesting character idea of making a Chinese Immigrant that fled from China to avoid being conscripted into The Tiger Squad.

The Exoplanetary Society

Just think "The IHA but specifically Aliens" and you have what the Exoplanetary Society is mostly about. After the Mandaarians visited Earth in the mid 70s, the first inklings of what would become The Exoplanetary Society formed. It wasn't until the start of the 80s however that the group really began to grow. James and Deborah Dodds joined the group, claiming to have been abducted by aliens (implied to be the Hzeel) who were performing research to invade Earth. Unlike the rest of the group, the couple were wealthy. They funded advertising campaigns, raise alien awareness, and even hired a full time staff to operate the organization. The group then took on Sean Clemens as it's director. An academic, he brought the Exoplanetary Society to it's current position. A group known to be the best source of alien knowledge outside of aliens themselves. Then, in 2002 the Dodds vanished without a trace. The FBI investigation found nothing and rumors of aliens abducting them a second time flourished.

The Exoplanetary Society primarily works as an educative and lobbyist group. They lobby for stricter laws around aliens, backed by science and reasoning. But they also heavily research aliens themselves, having the Earth's leading human expert who also frequently conversed with Ironclad of the Champions. Through offices around the country they make public speeches, dispelling rumors about aliens and replacing them with concrete facts.

Heroic Organizations (The Trismegistus Council)

In the 19th century, a group of three mages got together and decided to create a secret group of mages to combat the various evil magicks taking place behind the scenes. This group became known as The Trismegistus Council, taking it's name from the three founders (Trimegistus = Thrice Greatest, referring to the three founding mages). One group in specific they wished to counter was the Circle of the Scarlet Moon, and as such they're the exact opposite. While the Circle uses dark magicks and recruits all available magic users, The Council uses non-corrupted magicks and have very strict recruitment standards. As to how they operate, originally they worked in the shadows and used a series of curses, counter-curses, and "accidents" to combat The Circle. During the twentieth century they became somewhat more open. Members would travel to directly combat The Circle, steal artifacts, and aquire lore. Then WWII happened and their greatest failure/success along with it. The RSvKg succeed in raising the world's level of magic, and in turn ushered in the world of superheroes. With the large influx of superheroes, magic or otherwise, The Council had no need to operate openly and returned to the shadows, pulling strings to make sure The Circle wouldn't succeed.

The members themselves aren't all that powerful though. With a membership in the few dozens, their membership is generally small and under powered. Their "muscle" is normally in the form of the Archmage, a powerful mage that'd pre-destined for this lofty title. There's no real mention I've found of how well they work with the current Archmage, Robert Caliburn.

Orlando Rodriguez

A Spanish dilettante, he's pretty much loaded. He has homes in Spain, Brazil, Portugual, and Mexico. Speaking 22 different languages and having received military training in his life, he's a man that the council found useful over the years. He's seen watching the Sovereign Sons during the Vibora Bay Apocalypse.

Akako Yamimori

Someone who is actually well known around the world for her knowledge of folk lore and story telling, she's an expert on Eastern mysticism and demonology. She's the one the Circle calls when they're dealing with something in Asia. She's found in the Vibora Bay apocalypse watching the Trey Kings.

Alicia Blackmun

One of her ancestors is actually one of the original founders of the Council. Considering her young age and general inexpierence, she's a pretty good mage. A close friend of Witchcraft and generally the one Witchcraft works with whenever she does something for the Council, she believes that Witchcraft will be the Archmage one day. She's a major quest giver in the DEMON arc located in Downtown Millennium City. She's also the owner of The Magic Lantern bookstore.

What You Know

But what would character know about the council? That's probably what you'd want to know. Well, if they're anything other than a member, probably not much. The Coucil prides itself on it's secrecy. They hardly like each other, let alone costumed vigilantes they see as amateurs at best. Even when they deem a hero as someone worthy to work with (Or more commonly, through) they operate on a need-to-know basis and rarely tell the hero anything unrelated to the task at hand. Those who aren't members, or haven't worked with them often enough to pick up bits of information here and there, only know them as the apparent "good guys" of the magic world and possibly that they're currently residing in Vibora Bay (As far as the game lore is concerned).

Heroic Organizations (The Champions)

The namesake and hero team of one of Champion's main settings. The Champions are Millennium City's stalwart protectors. On good terms with nearly every other hero in the City (save for Binary man and Cavalier), The Champions have worked with every other well known hero in the city at one point or another.

Defender

The leader of The Champions, he's secretly James Harmon IV of Harmon Idustries. Inspired by the heroes who fought with their lives on the line during the Battle of Detroit, James began to work on a suit of powered armor. Operating out of New York for some time as Defender, a defeat at the hands of VIPER told him he could no longer fight alone. He needed allies. Announcing that he was gathering a team, Defender moved his operations to Millennium City.

Not many know that Defender and James Harmon IV are the same. Infact, most think of James as a womanizing playboy who's been put in charge of "daddy's" company.

Witchcraft

Bethany and Pamela Dusquesne are a pair of twin sisters born to a pair of mages belonging to the Circle of the Scarlet Moon located in Detroit. Having performed a ritual to ensure her child would have great magical ability, she was visited by a beings of The Netherworlds, Babylon, and Faerie, each granting a gift. And then an Angel of Elysium, doubling the gifts (I.E. Twins boyo). While Pamela reveled in the dark rituals and powers of the Circle, Bethany was revolted. She used her magic to flee to Vibora Bay, eventually coming to the attention of the Trismegistus Council. Once her training was complete, she decided she must return home. She came to Millennium City, and came to Defender's call for allies.

Witchcraft is one of the quietist members of the team, often letting more outspoken members like Defender do the talking. While most of her spells aren't particularly strong, Witchcraft has a natural talent few can match. The Trismegistus Council believe that given time, she'll easily become one of the most powerful spellcasters of Earth.

Ironclad

From the planet of Dorvala, Drogen Lar was a member of his people's space marines. Marine life was much more mundane than he had anticipated. His days were filled with cleaning in the engineering labs of the starship he was stationed on, not glorious battles and citadel taking. One day however, an accident occurred, showering him in an experimental alloy. The molten metal however did not kill him but instead bonded with him on the molecular level, turning him into a being of living metal. Upon being revealed that this accident was actually orchestrated by the higher ups in hopes he'd become a super soldier, Drogen Lar fled. Using his powers he stole a small ship and ended up on Malva where he became one of the strongest gladiators in their arenas. Yet again however he was disgusted. The battles became more and more brutal to please the blood thirsty appetites of the Malvans. He again stole a ship but due to the advanced nature of Malvan technology, he ended up crashing on Earth. There he saw the heroes, fighting to protect innocents. Intrigued, he eventually found himself fighting alongside them, taking the name Ironclad. Hoping for a permanent home and allies, he joined The Champions.

Ironclad is a kind-hearted alien. His time is often split between teaching humanity about the other species and empires of the galaxy, using his powers to help build clinics, shelters, and aid relief efforts, and learning about the various human cultures. This leads him to having close friendships with many people of various scientific and cultural fields. He is however, overconfident in his powers, often causing him to take unnecessary risks in a fight. For some reason, the writers of the setting keep putting random blurbs about rumors of him banging somebody.

Sapphire

Corazon Valenzuela, or simply Corrie, always had a love for music and a gifted singing voice. It was only natural and expected that she became a rockstar. What wasn't expected however was her superpowers. When a group of supervillains attacked one of her concerts in hopes of ransoming her off, her powers awoken. In just a moment one of the villains found themself flung into unconciousness by blue waves of energy. Corrie's dormant powers of energy manipulation had awaken under the stress of the attack. And everyone was excited. A rockstar AND a superhero? What could be better? She took the name Sapphire after the color of her powers and signed up when Defender called for heroes to create The Champions.

Outgoing, Sapphire tends to be the flashy one in a fight. Ironically, her life as a rockstar makes her one of the most busiest superheroes on the team. Villains often attack concerts simply for the notoriety of having fought a Champion or an autograph.

Kinetik

The newest member of the Champions, Brendan Grant was planning on being a chemist before the death of his parents forced him to get a job to support his younger brother. Working as a lab assistant for Dew Chemicals, it wasn't all bad. He worked under a brilliant chemist named Luther Beckett which gave him an education in his field of choice that dwarfed what he'd have been able to learn at school. One day, while working a fire broke out. Unfortunately, engrossed in his work, Brendan didn't realize this until it was too late. Breathing in the powerful fumes of several gasses released in the fire, Brendan passed out. When he woke up he was safely in the hospital... And with powers of superspeed. And thus, Kinetik was born. Kinetik worked for quite some time as a solo hero, having only been a part of The Champions after Nighthawk had left.

A good person and normally Laid-Back guy, Kinetik is often more sure of himself when fighting alone than with the rest of the team. It's not that he isn't confident but rather years of solo work has left him unsure on if he's a good "team player." Despite this he'll always be ready to help and team-up with Sapphire due to their close friendship.

Other Tidbits

The Champions has one former member, a gadgeteer detective known as Nighthawk.

The Mystic Martial Artist hero known as Nightwind is a prospective member (And actual member as of News Of The World book).

Sapphire is close friends with both Kinetik and Silver Avenger Mayte Sanchez.

Defender and Witchcraft are totes dating bro.

Heroic Organizations (The Sentinels)

First formed in 1961 by Rocketman, Dr. Phantom, Microman, Beowulf, and Meteorman when ULTIVAC, a computer bent on world domination attempted to ignight the cold war between Russia and the US. After their success they agreed to create a formal team to band together when needed.

Through the remainder of the 60s and the 70s, they often operated apart, persueing the solo "careers" as heroes and rarely teamed up. During this time Meteorman met the hero Scarlet Archer, and after trading some blows Scarlet Archer became the team's new member. This led to Dr. Phantom to setting up a trust fund that's still in operation today that helps covers fees and offers members stipends.

During this period the team's lineup changed many times. Beowulf and Dr. Phantom were the first to leave the team, returning to their home dimension and pregnancy in that order. The team saw members such as Rainmaker, Black Mantis, Hex, Ranger, and many more during this time.

By the 80s the Sentinels were viewed as one of the strongest super teams in existance, ranking up there with teams such as their fellow New Yorker team, The Justice Squadran and The Tiger Force from China.

When Dr. Destroyer attacked Detroit, The Sentinels were one of the many heroes that came to the city's aid. During the battle one of their members, Eclipse, was heavily injured, forcing her into retirement after the battle. Another member, Tiger, was slain by Dr. Destroyer himself during the final confromtation of the battle.


Today the Sentinels remain to be one of America's most respected and well known super hero teams. With only a small number of roster changes The Sentinels are the most stable they've been in years.

Current Line-Up

Black Rose:

While her mother was human, Rose Pilston learned her father was not. From an alternate dimension called Lythrum, a world filled with mystic dark energies. Naturally gifted with the ability to open portals that connected the two worlds she had no plans or aspirations until one day she fell through. Spending several years there she went on adventures and even begun a romance with a prince. Spending years in this world she eventually made her way back home after a chance encounter with The Drifter. Back home she trained under The Drifter in the ways of magic and eventually became a member of The Sentinels.

Black Rose stands at 5'7" with elf-like features and a deep blue color to her skin. Her costume is a dark one-piece with belts and bands made from ringlets scattered through. Often times she's surrounded with a cloud of dark mist.

Diamond:

Born in 1928 John Whitley is one of The Sentinels oldest members. A brick powerhouse that stands at more than 7 feet tall and seemingly made from a crystaline structure. Originally one of the Fabulous Five, his transformation was the most extreme out of all of them and it apparently left him unaging. While the rest of the five have retired long ago Diamond joined The Sentinels. A backbone of the team, he knows nearly everyone within the Champions Universe.

Diamond stands at a whopping 7 feet tall. His skin is completely rock-like, taking a brick red hue and slightly lighter hues as you near the extremities. As with most bricks, he's built thick to the point he almost has no neck. His costume is a simple bodystock using shades of blue with boots and gloves using darker shades.

Diadem:

A legacy hero, Diadem's father was the late hero Mountain who was active throughout the West Coast. Born Stacy Armitage, her powers were unlocked when she was kidnapped by her father's archnemesis, Apocalypse. And evil mystic, Apocalypse performed a variety of magical expieriments on Stacy as Mountain searched desperately for her. One of these expieriments unlocked her great psionic potential. Using her newfound powers, she led Mountain to Apocalypse and together they defeated him. To help his daughter become accustomed to her new-found powers he contacted the Justice Squadron. The Squadron put him into contact with one of their old teammates, Rowan who was still in the process of forming Ravenswood Academy. Stacy became one of the schools first students in superheroics and one of it's first graduates. She quickly joined The Sentinels soon after. While powerful, her psionic powers aren't focused. Instead she has a wide variety of psionic abilities and uses her powers to act as a psychic coordinater. Outside of the battle, she's viewed as one of the key members of the team and acts as an emotional support and core for the other members.

Diadem stands at 5'3" with brown hair parted down the middle and a small inkling of freckles on her nose. She wears a utilitarian style jumpsuit, hood, and domino mask. All of which are varying shades of brown. Her powers causes a purple glow to emenant from her forehead, often creating the illusion that she has a gem embedded there.

Bravo:

A denizen of Faerie, the magical world of mythology and stories, Bravo's home was born out of the European stories of brave swashbuckling heroes, princesses, and talking animals. Following the foil of many-a heroes from tales, he was an orphan. Raised by a cruel witch until the day he escaped, he lived a life of adventure, getting by on his quick swordsmanship and quicker wit. This continued until chance led The Sentinels to Faerie. As they spent weeks in the world looking for a way home Bravo helped the team in fighting a Troll and a Dragon in disguise as a queen. Enraptured by their abilities and tales of their home, Bravo requested that he be allowed to join their team. After helping them with another quest the led to their return back home, Bravo tagged along and has since then been a member of the team. As an archtype of Western heroes (Such as Robin Hood and Zorro) brought to life, he's often travelling about, attempting to stir up adventures when there are none to be had.

Bravo probably looks pretty close to what you'd imagine if someone told you to think off some sort of magic fantasy pirate that keeps trying to pick up chicks. He's tall, muscular, has brown flowing lcoks of hair, piercing blue eyes, and a perpetual smile on his face. His attire is a hodge-podge of fantasy and pirate with leather, vests, chesthair, and golden jewelry.

Dr. Vox:

Heroic Organizations (The Star*Guard)

The Star*Guard! The space police! They tirelessly work to protect the Milky Way!

The Beginning

A million years ago the most advanced race around were the Ordrugarans. Intelligent and advanced enough to conquer the galaxy, they instead rarely left Odrugar. That was until Gloran the Great came around. Learning of what evil was, he crafted the giant supercomputer CONTROL and a suit of power armor. He defended his people against an extra-dimensional threat, inspiring his people and single handedly changing his people's culture. No longer did his people sit on the sidelines, contempt to allow evil to simply pass them over. Many joined Gloran in his efforts, forming The Star*Guard. The religious, political, and social structures of his people all fell away, instead ushering in the benign rule of CONTROL and supported the newly formed Star*Guard.

The Post Gloran Years

This continued for hundreds of year and when Gloran himself passed away, he implanted his memory and mind into CONTROL and the Star*Guard entered the post Gloran chunk of it's History. They fought Lyrane of Naxar, a would be intergalactic conquerer. Afterwards they provided support to the Malvans during the Malvan-Elderworm war, helping to protect smaller pockets of resistence against the Elder Worms and helping to evacuate planets.

After the war, the Star*Guard was shooken to it's core due to what is called The Golektrah Scandal. A Star*Guard by the name of Golektrah had become something of a tyrant in the system he was sworn to protect. Formally a well respected Star*Guard many looked up to, he enforced his will and took bribes, using the psionic powers native to his people to hide his thoughts. He was found out by the Star*Guard Torvag and was prompty imprisoned for his crimes. But the damage had already been done. People began to grow suspicious of the Star*Guard. And so the Star*Guard made some changes. A turning point in it's organizational system. It went on a recruitment drive, focusing on non-Odrugar species. Star*Guards would now be regularly rotated to give them a wider amount of expierences. And most importantly, they introduced the Marshal system. Non-superpowered civillians that acted as assitants for a particular Star*Guard, offering help and fostering cultural exchange.

The World-Ravager

The Star*Guard entered a new resurgence of strength until at what was approximately the year 2000 on Earth. Valak the World-Ravager came to the Milky Way. Considered to be one of the Star*Guard's deadliest enemies, he destroyed several civilizations until the Star*Guard found him. And even then, all of the first Star*Guard to fight him perished. Eventually they managed to use their staves to trap him, forming a planetoid around him. The Star*Guard took a reprieve but in 5 years time, Valak escaped and began to systimatically kill Star*Guards across the Galaxy. His attacks were so swift and brutal that they went unoticed. No Star*Guard was able to alert CONTROL of Valak's attacks. When one member managed to do so, The Star*Guard was put on high alert and readied themselves for another bloody onslaught against Valak. His onslaught seemed to end when he attacked the human Star*Guard, Andre Almena who happened to be visiting the The Sentinels at the time. The combined efforts of the Sentinels and several Star*Guards defeated Valak and he was placed in Hot Sleep in Stronghold. He escaped during the 2009 prison break and has remained at large since then.

Mordace's Betrayel

Mordace was a Star*Guard who gained his membership after rescueing an injured Star*Guard in turn, trained him and sponsered his membership. He was a dutiful Star*Guard, serving nobily and well. But he slowly grew disatisfied. The stress of the job partnered with the difficulty of truly eliminating injustice and opression wore away at his mental state. Then when he came across what were essentially the mind ghosts of evil alien priests the Star*Guard had vanquished tens of thousands of years ago, they took advantage of that state and struck at him with their psionic abilities. He was torn away, his allegiance was replaced with the priests' hatred. Mordace had been turned to villainy. He worked within the Star*Guard itself as a saboteur until his treachery was revealed in what would be the 1980s for Earth. Afterwards he escaped and created his own Star Staff and used a suit of armor to defend himself. He skirmished with the Star*Guards on and off, killing 2 Star*Guards over the course of several decades. In the 1990s he was in Earth's sector and succesfully slew it's Star*Guard, leading to Andre becoming the new Star*Gaurd for Earth's sector. It wasn't until Earth's 2006 that he dealt a decisive blow to the Star*Guards. He managed to create a powerful force of mercs, pirates, and assorted villains to attack the Star*Guards main base, the planet of Odrugar. During his attack, CONTROL was heavily damaged and it's prisoners escaped, including the likes of Queen Lyrane. When the Star*Guards from the various systems arrived to help, Mordace and his forces retreated to fight another day.

Star*Guard Now

Currently, the Star*Guard are at it's weakest point. Mordace's attack caused them to suffer a serious blow. Loss of life aside, the damage to CONTROL severely hampered it's ability to help the various Guardsman. The Psionic link it kept between the members no longer exists, forcing the Star*Guard to use much slower means of communication. Not only that, most of it's strongest foes have escaped, the Star*Guard face levels of danger they likely haven't faced since the times of the Malvan-Elderworm war.

Villanious Organizations (DEMON)

This section is dedicated to explaining DEMON. The group, the members, and the leaders. Firstly though let's explain the group itself. It formally kept the image of being a Satanic Cult for quite some time, effectively fooling everyone. Even demons themselves! It wasn't until the Demonflame incident did they show their hand and their true lords. The cult worships the Kings of Edom, Qlipothic beings of great power imprisoned in a Qlipothic world. This too can be considered a "cover" as Luther Black's ultimate goal is to become a God of Edom himself, using the cult as a tool to do so.

The Hideouts

Save for the Inner Circle members and Luther himself, all DEMON members report to a Demonhame. Many places can hide a Demonhame and some of the larger cities can often have more than one. They act for central hubs for groups of Brethren, Initiates, and Morbanes to gather and receive orders.

Membership

DEMON members are recruited from everyday people. Normally they hear of a cult from someone at regular everyday things such as bookstores, magic hobbyist shops, soup kitchens, unemployment lines, even prison. Anything that can attract criminals, occultist nerds, or the down trodden make for excellent fronts for DEMON. From there they join a local "Satan Cult" led by a Morbane. The Morbanes will look through the crowds during every gathering to pick out the new recruits. Once recruited they achieve the rank of Brother (The Brethren being the plural term). Once they become senior enough to actually learn magic from a Morbane they reach the rank of Initiate. Initiates often run groups of The Brethren and act as a squad leader of sorts. From there you get the Morbane. The rank of Morbane is when the cultist finally learns of The Kings of Edom and are told the groups ultimate goal. The Morbanes themselves are seperated into groups based on their skills and act as their agents. They perform tasks such as espionage, recruitment, theft, murder, and making general chaos. Above them are the Malefica. They're the ones in charge of the Demonhames, each one having it's own Malefica to run it. Above the Malefica are the "leaders" of DEMON, The Inner Circle. They're the ones who order the demonhames to be built in the first place.

Inner Circle

To Clarify, the Inner Circle isn't the same as the in-game mob of the same name. They're more like extra powerful Morbanes and are a part of their local Demonhame's inner circle. The rank of Inner Circle is a seperate thing all together that only has five members, one of which appears in-game. Each operate and control a different part of DEMON's network from finding ancient artifacts to running the legitimate businesses DEMON uses to stay afloat.

Demoiselle Nocturne

She is the Inner Circle Member I mentioned earlier that was actually in-game. She runs DEMON's self policing network, using her powers to step into people's dreams to find traitors within the cult. She's special from every other Inner Circle Member in many ways. One, she's not human. She's more of a dream demon, created when a man murdered his wife in the dead of night. Second, she's the only Inner Circle whose base isn't in our reality. Her base is located in the dreams of a young child with murderous intent. Lastly, she's the only one who doesn't employ Morbanes. Instead she uses dream demons as her agents. Out of all the Inner Circle Members she's the only one who knows Luther Black's true importance to the cult.

The Inverted Trinity

If you haven't guessed by DEMON's use of Satan as a cover, Luther Black likes to make fun of the bible. One of these ways is the Inverted Trinity, his three agents that are the opposite of the Holy Trinity. They answer to Luther, and Luther alone.

Jack Fool

The mumbling madness that passes for a conversation from Jack Fool makes him the opposite to The Father's Wisdom of Age. A souless corpse in jester garbs, Jack Fool is the undead assassin employed by Luther to quickly and silently murder a target. Nearly immortal, Jack Fool's incredible skill is actually luck. His ability to sneak by security personal and cameras are simple coincidences of faulty machinery and occupied guards. His ability to murder even the most heavily armored or shielded foe with one strike is simply the luck of the armor breaking or the shield forcing a reset at the exact moment he strikes.

The Left Hand

The Left Hand's massive ego and literal embodiement of the end of times works opposite to The Holy Spirits telling of the all forgiving nature of the kingdom. While Jack is the silent assassin, The Left Hand is the loud enforcer. While given the same jobs as Jack, his very nature causes him to forgo any subtlety or tact. He simply decends on his foe from the sky, using unrelenting force to completely and utterly destroy his foes. He is a being made from pure Qliphothic energy and is Luther's attempt to create a literal Anti-Christ for his apocalypse.

The Black Shepard

The insane teachings of this madman works opposite to The Son's teachings. A human body with a soul of four heroes tormented by 7 demons. He's the one who raises an Inititate to Morbane. He's the one that is sent to spy on those Luther wishes to follow, using his abilties of invisibility and transformation to do so. Unlike the other two of the Trinity, he doesn't appear in the Demonflame AP and instead is a rather easy mid-way boss in the DEMON questline in Downtown. This is because he is the "weakest" of the three. His role and very nature is non-combative.

Luther Black

The secret leader of DEMON. Many do not even know of his existance, and many that do doubt it. And then out of the small part of those that believe in is existance think of him as nothing more than a figure head. Very little, even within DEMON's own ranks know that Luther is important to the cult itself. And only Demoiselle Nocturne knows enough to suspect him to secretly controlling the cult from the shadows. Several hundreds of years old with the stolen power of a god, his crumbling and failing human body betray the power and skill he possesses

What You Know

Any person would likely be able to explain the group itself as a whole so long as they have knowledge of the mystic world (regardless of being a part of it or not). DEMON let it slip that they're a Qlipothic cult during the Demonflame Incident. The basic hierarchy of initiate<brother<morbane is basic knowledge about the cult as well. Leadership on the other hand its mostly a mystery. It's known a council calls the shots with it's membership a mystery. The only member shown ingame is ironically the least likely one You'd come across. Mademoiselle Nocturne. Luther Black himself is an even bigger mystery to people. Even the few that know his existence have no idea what his role is.

Villanious Organizations (Crowns of Krim)

A group of mystic super villains that use a series of ancient relics known as "The Crowns of Krim". Made by, who else? Krim, an ancient Demon-God. An interesting tidbit of knowledge is that Takofane's Dragon Crown and the Crowns of Krim are connected. If the Crowns of Krim are particulary active Takofanes can tell. The members are as followed.

Dark Seraph

The leader of the group and the wearer of the most powerful of the crowns, The Iron Crown of Krim. Originally Sir Dennis Walthingham, a mystic well respected among other evil mystics. That is, until he performed a rite of murder and betrayel to summon the Iron Crown of Krim. Despite the great power the artifact gave him other mystics viewed his need of an artifact for his power as hackish. Sure it gave him the power to level a skyscraper but tons of villains can do that without the need of some ancient artifact. Combined with his deep knowledge of the arcane arts however, he's a force to be reckoned with. And if he gained magical powers of his own? A force that'd be near unstoppable. While he doesn't appear in the game yet he's mentioned numerous times.

Bloodstone

Previously known as Nestor Castillo, he appears in the DEMON questline in Downtown Millennium City. Formally an archealogist employed by a university, he spent quite some time searching for a lost Aztec temple. And while he found a temple, it wasn't exactly Aztec. Instead he found The Blood Crown and upon wearing it, became Bloodstone.

Eclipse

Paul Hundley was an angry college student who hated the world around him. In an attempt to make things even he turned to the occult, which in turn brought him a long lost relic in Vietnam. This relic would be The Shadow Crown which turned him into Eclipse.

Force

Wearer of the Golden Crown, he uses a form of magic known as Arcanokinetic energy. He often uses this magic to create objects such as spears or walls and uses these as his tools to perform various robberies.

Phoenix

Wearer of the Shining Crown, the Crown granted him powerful magicks to control and create fire. Apparently he's in the game somewhere but I have no idea bro.

Temblor

The last member of The Crowns of Krim, he wears the Stone Crown. With it he has a body made of stone and can control the very ground you stand on bro!

What You Know

Basically everything here but the origin stories, Names, and Takofanes bit.

Villainous Organizations (Cult of the Red Banner)

HA MORE MOVIE REFRENCES GUYS!
Less of a gang and more of a legitimate cult, they're an actual force to be reckoned with. Their gang activities in China Town are only to make money. They're an actual cult that worship an entity known as the Death Dragon. Many members are skilled in Martial Arts or Sorcery and are a cut above the rest of the ilk in Westside. The cult itself has definetly existed since the Jin Dynasty (1115-1234 AD) and may have existed during the Tang Dynasty (618-907) and maybe even before that. Due to their secretive and misleading nature, many people and even heroes have never heard of this cult. Often times when they're encountered in various places around the world it's assumed they're a local chinese gang rather than a nefarious cult. What you see in Millennium City is one of many temples spread through out the world.

Gold & Iron

Wu Chen and Wu Feng respectively are a Sister and Brother duo who wield the Blood Swords. A pair of blades made far back from the fifth Century BC. After being lost for quite some time the swords ended up in the hands of The Red Banner Cult and began to be passed down from one Brother and Sister pair to another, always acting as enforcers for the cult. Feng works as a drug smuggler/dealer and controls the drug cartel known as The Red Arms Gang. His sister Chen maintains a cover as a fashion designer. Interestingly enough, they're some of the only well known Red Banner members and are generally disliked by both the heroes of the world (Such as Tiger Force) and even villains (Like The Slugs or Green Dragon). Still though, they have worked with both The Crowns of Krim and The Black Paladin.

Lo-Pan I mean Hi-Pan

The leader of the group in Millennium City, Hi-Pan is a sorceror and is actually rather skilled at it. While he isn't at the level as many other magic oriented villains, he still manages to stay a threat due to his skill in magic and his ability to plan. He doesn't actually exist in the lore books, being made for the game itself and it's probable he's the leader of the local temple in Millennium City, which would mean his rank in the cult would be "Bai Changpo Mushi" which can be taken as White-Robed Priests or the White Robes. This would mean that the only person he'd answer to in the cult would be the leader himself, the "Bai Daochang" or High Priest in White.

Death Dragon

Death Dragon is a lot more menacing than the game would lead you to believe. To explain it well you'd need to understand some ancient history of the Champions lore. Long ago a group of powerful mages traped a being called "The Dragon." Over the centuries the chains that bound him have weakened and allowed him to manifest small bits of his power into our realm. Death Dragon is one such manifestation.

The Sekihara Ninja Clan

Sure, The Red Banner is Chinese in origin but it's spread across the world since it's creation, including Japan. While there they converted the Sekihara ninja clan, a small (Normally only have about 9 fully trained ninjas) clan of highly skilled ninjas with near-magical powers. (Such as turning into a mist) While they're not mentioned in-game, Black Mist of The Brain Trust is an ex-member. A fact that both the clan itself and the entire cult hates.

What You Know

Nearly nothing. Neither the Red Arms Gang nor the Sekihara Clan are known too be connected to the cult. Further more the Sekihara are known as a Yakuza Family rather than a ninja clan. Both however share symbolism with the cult. The cult itself is shrouded in mystery. It's known they worship the Death Dragon but what it it's exactly is unknown. Gold and Iron keep secret identities.

Villanious Organizations (VIPER)

Hiss hiss bros. Viper is nothing short of a world-wide terrorist organization bent on ruling the world. With incredibly high memberships, tons of advanced tech, and a plethora of supervillains at it's disposal, it's quiet the murderous group of neer-do-wells with a pretty good number of successes. They became publicly known when they managed to pull of the simultaneous assassinations of several world leaders. Since then they've only grown in infamy, building nests across the globe to help further their goals. Each nest reports to a Nest Leader that in turn, reports to a High Serpent. Past that, there's reports that they report to a Supreme Serpent who may or may not exist (He totally does!). Unknown to nearly the entire organization, there's even more! The Council of Thirty, the original leadership behind VIPER before the Supreme Serpent was put in charge. They run the organization and many have alter egos that run entire companies that secretly support the group. Then even higher than them in a sense is Nama, an ancient god. While Nama may be the reason behind VIPER's creation, it operates primarily as a patron and almost does nothing to intervene on the group itself. It, like the council, is completely unknown to almost all of VIPER's members. As a final mention about the organization itself, while it is primarily tech based, it does use magic. The mages under their employ are often hidden and rarely used however.

Proto-Vipers

Nama hasn't tried the whole 'Create an organization meant to vaguely serve me and do my bidding when I need them' only once. Nama's done it a couple times throughout history, creating a handful of groups that'd all have a hand in creating VIPER. First, during the Dark Ages, Nama gathered 6 great warriors from as far east as Mongolia and as far west as Germany. Each were gifted a blade imbued with powerful magic, using it to become warlords known as The Six Serpents. Eventually they turned on one another and caused their respective armies to crumble. During the Italian Renaissance, a new group was born. The Serpent's Wheel. They discovered records of The Six Serpents and created a cult around it. Eventually, their hedonistic cult was destroyed by Church Inquisitors. Then, The Unholy Order of the Grand Reptile was born. Created by anti-evangelicals, the group did things such as funding eccentric scientists like Dr. Moreau and Professor Myron Klauss. The order was obsessed with West African culture and through this, learned of Nama. They attempted to appease the spirit and offer sacrifices but a group of pulp adventurers stopped them, leading to the groups destruction. Through all these groups, Nama gained the basis for VIPER. The Original Council of Thirty were the members of the Unholy Order, or descendants of said members. He used the Serpent Lantern to bind them to one another, so that they may not betray each other as The Six Serpents did. And through them, VIPER was created.

Council of Thirty

A ruling council that could be considered part of the leadership of VIPER. While they do give the occasional nudge and suggestion, they leave most of the actual leadership work to The Supreme Serpent. Instead the Council manage things outside of the organization such as various legitimate businesses, underground crime rings, technological research, and politics. Many of the members are a part of legitimate society and in high standards such Arthur Bolton, a Democratic Senate member from NY who's a member of Foreign Affairs and Paranormal Affairs (Putting him in a position to command both PRIMUS and UNTIL) or Duchess Henrietta Von Drotte who runs Duchess Industries.

The Supreme Serpent

The leader of VIPER. Edgar Lancelyn Essec is the third son of a British duke and an explorer. Disowned by his family in 1924, he eventually started his own family in Western Africa and became an explorer. On one of his travels he saw what he thought was to be a giant snake and followed it. He found himself passing out from the fumes of the cave he followed the serpent into. And when Naga felt it was necessary he revived him to lead VIPER. Which took awhile considering he didn't awake until 1992. Upon waking up he met his son who now led the many businesses Edgar left before disappearing and after what was probably a weird conversation convinced his son that he was indeed his father. His son introduced his father to the Council of Thirty (Of which he was a member of) and after more awkward conversations, they agreed to place Edgar as the head of VIPER as The Supreme Serpent.

What You Know

Most of VIPER's early history and it's connections to proto-cults are mostly unknown. Save for the ones that take place during recorded history, the proto-cults existed in a pre-history time and thus, are only known of through surviving artifacts if at all. For the modern VIPER however, little is still known. It's relation to Nama (And as a general whole, Nama's entire existence) is unknown. It's understood that VIPER uses a cell structured system when it comes to organization to prevent information from being leaked just because a single nest is taken down.

Villainous Organizations (Dragon Branch)

Dragon Branch

The Dragon Branch is VIPER's regiment of superhumans. They range from the low powered goons who're only a notch above the best VIPER agents to those powerful enough to fight entire teams of superheroes on their own. Some are stationed semi-permanently at certain VIPER nests but the majority are 'on call' and can be a part of any Nest's security or plans upon request and a good enough reason. A VIPER nest that wants to rob a jewelry store probably can't get Ripper on the job but one planning to rob a tech firm that they know is being guarded by Cavalier probably could.

Ripper

Once an ordinary VIPER grunt, a botched robbery led to to him being eaten away by an acidic compound. Brought to Dr. Phillipe Moreau, surgery was performed on the grunt. Omnicron technology was grafted onto him. Metal armor replaced his skin. An exoskeleton replaced his muscle. The end result was the deformed, heavily augmented Ripper. As a Dragon Branch member, Ripper exists as muscle, pure and simple. He has no battle tactics and simply runs in, using his immense strength and durability to handle multiple heroes at once.

Draconis

Alexander Dracoulids, a student of military history with delusions of grandeur. Believing himself as the reincarnation of a great historical general, he accidentally placed himself in a coma when he ingested copious amounts of drugs and slept on an ancient battlefield to induce visions. When he awoke 2 years later he found he had gained psionic powers, able to move objects with just his mind. He was eventually recruited by VIPER, the agents playing up on his delusions and he became a member of The Dragon Branch. Draconis is a megalomaniac that rarely listens to orders once a battle has start. He's insistent on becoming a great leader and while he's able to lead squads of soldiers rather well, anything larger crashes and burns. Every nest Draconis has been placed in charge of has fallen relatively quickly.

Freon

Fred Ellsworth was normal until puberty hit and his powers emerged. With powers to control ice and cold, he kept them hidden, the long and cold winters of North Dakota aiding him. After a show of powers to stop a bully, Fred grew paranoid over the idea of being 'locked up and experimented on' and fled his home to San Francisco. There, the young Fred got by committing petty crimes until VIPER recruited him, preying on his worries by offering him a place where he'd be 'safe and accepted'. Freon is as loyal as it gets, eternally grateful for everything VIPER has done for him. With more than a decade of experience committing crimes with his powers, he's a skilled combatant and is liable to joke, insult, and show off during a fight.

Viper-X

Kevin Armstrong, one of Detroit's golden boys. A well rounded child, skilled in both the physical and mental aspects of life, it was only natural he became a Silver-Avenger and the epitome of 'The All-American Boy'. But, he was disillusioned in PRIMUS. Too much rivalry between members. Too little cooperation with other governments. It was filled with petty feuds that got in the way of the goal. Saving people. Then it happened. The Battle of Detroit. Nearly everyone he knew died, including his wife and infant son. All at the hands of Dr. Destroyer. He faked his death, using it to join VIPER in the belief that if the US government couldn't prevent events like The Battle of Detroit now, under stronger leadership like VIPER, it would. Being given the moniker Viper-X (Named after an infamous, elite Viper agent of the 60s), he leads one of VIPER's most elite squads, VMS-Alpha. There was a short stint as a freelance mercenary after a member of VMS-Alpha, after his position, leaked his identity with fake evidence that implied he was working under cover for PRIMUS, he's back in VIPER by the will of Nama itself.

Oculon

Another Dragon Branch member that was created by Dr. Moreau, Oculon was a VIPER soldier whose eyes were destroyed by machinery malfunction. The soldier that dragged him in pleaded with Moreau to save him, and seeing a way to experiment with some alien biology, he happily did so. He was given the eyes from an unidentified alien corpse (A Hzeel). The intermingling of Hzeel and Human body parts often have the effect of granting superhuman abilities, and this was no different. Once he healed, he learned he had the power to shoot beams from his eyes. Not only that, the former high-school dropout became vastly more intelligent, becoming skilled in various fields of science after self-study. Taking the moniker Oculon, he joined the ranks of The Dragon Branch. Quick to brag, he'll often belittle any opponent, siting the time he knocked Dr. Destroyer off his feet with an eye blast. However, he's incredibly reliant on his powers. Being blinded, even temporarily will usually flee.

Viperia

One of the most powerful superhumans to exist period, let alone as a member of VIPER. For reference, Ripper has a point total of about 500. Viperia has more than double that. A literal demigod, Viperia is one of Nama's children. In ancient times she fought entire armies single-handedly, and wishing for a greater challenged, asked Nama. Nama being Nama granted the request with a ♥♥♥♥-eating grin and put Viperia into a deep sleep until VIPER existed and was in need of her. Viperia essentially lives for the battle but despite all of this, she isn't a callous or ruthless individual. She's more child-like, caring more about self centered ideals like winning. As VIPER's strongest superhuman agent, she's released on only the most powerful of foes in the most dire situations. She's capable of taking down even the most powerful of heroes with just a few punches.

Villainous Organizations (ARGENT)

Advanced Research Group ENTerprises, or ARGENT for short, is a research and technology company. It does the usual things such as researching new technologies to militarize. In fact most of it's money used to come from selling weapons, machines, and the like to countries like the United States. Then one fateful day it was revealed that as long with all their normal dealings, they've been making black market deals to villains, terrorist groups, and rogue states. The leaders of ARGENT managed to escape persecution through lawyer shennanigans but still quickly fled out of the country to (what I'm pretty sure was) a made up country. Since then most of their North American dealings are done through front companies (Which they have literal tons of). Today they operate mostly the same, having a large amount of both legitimate and illegitimate dealings. Normal evil deeds for them to commit include murder, robbery, corporate espionage and sabotage, illegal research and human experimentation, and kidnapping. Kidnapping is normally done to gain test subjects for human experimentation, normally through kidnapping runaway and homeless to prevent raising any suspicion. They sometimes perform more large scale kidnappings if they can keep it hidden or kidnap specific people for one reason or another.

Resources

Besides from the large piles of money they swim in and the list of labs, ARGENT has even more resources at their disposal.

Private Military

Previously ARGENT relied on mercenary companies as their muscle but as ARGENT expanded it became a major drain of funds and a large security risk. How to solve this? Make their own ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ army of course! While often thought of as VIPER with funny hats and over-sized guns, ARGENT's private military is actually a mix of criminals and normal, upstanding people who have ARGENT's shadier deals hidden from them to prevent a loss of employees. Not only physically capable, every ARGENT soldier is also smart due to the fact they all use high tech weaponry and machines.

Maskbots

Replacing key personal in rival businesses with "Maskbots" have been mentioned so it's likely ARGENT has robots that can disguise themselves as humans.

Fronts

While ARGENT isn't allowed inside many countries, they still do business in them through a wide use of front companies.

Manimal Reserve

The Corporate Wildlife Preserve on Monster Island opened in 2004. While on paper is a nature preserve, it's actually a hunting reserve ARGENT uses to curry favor, reward people, and even scare people. Corrupt hunters, business men, and the like come from all around to hunt teliosaurs, manimals, and other crazy things you can find on Monster Island.

ARGENT, being a world wide company with it's hands in many legal and illegal things have made plenty friends and enemies.

Allied

While having the occasional tussle with VIPER, they have a mostly beneficial agreement with them. VIPER often buys tech from them or pays one of their labs to do some quick, effective, and admittedly well done research for them. On the flip side, ARGENT has hired VIPER on more than one occasion as extra muscle.
IHA's Minuteman bots are possible due to a lot of help from ARGENT.
The Canadian terrorist group, Hunter-Patriots, have often purchased weaponry from ARGENT.
It's mentioned that Arvaad has purchased weaponry from from ARGENT for his own personal enjoyment (As Lemurians as a whole dislike human tech) and have purchased information on human tactics for study. In return ARGENT gets a lot of precious minerals Lemurians have mined out that they don't need such as silver. ARGENT has tried to purchase one of Lemuria's undersea domes (to no avail) and send researchers to examine how Lemurian magic works in hopes that their magi-furnaces are simply misunderstood technology (to also no avail). It's not mentioned in CO if these dealings continued after the start of the Lemurian civil war.
Mechassasain is a mercenary that gets a lot of repeat hires from ARGENT. Not only that, ARGENT purchases his robots for use.
The Brain Trust has been hired by ARGENT before and performed well enough to be hired again.
Same thing with Deadman Walkin'.

Enemies

Every black market dealer is a competitor to ARGENT. This includes CO known characters such as Wayland Talos (as he openly dealt with anyone before being in the pocket of the New Purple Gang) and on a much larger scale, Warlord.
ACI is one of ARGENT's "legitimate" adversaries whom they often fight with in the business world.
ARGENT used to closely work with PSI once upon a time but when Psimon discovered ARGENT was simply stringing them along to learn enough of their tech to create their own psionic enhancement technology they called off the deal. This led to PSI and ARGENT having a drawn out war as they attacked one another.
While Dr. Destroyer openly mocks ARGENT, he's actually somewhat worried about ARGENT. From their still inferior but quickly advancing tech, to the number of pies they have their fingers in, to the wide range of control they hold across the world. ARGENT would prove to be a strong hurdle for Destroyer to cross on the path to world domination.

What You Know

ARGENT is bad. Basically everyone knows they're bad. How bad they really are on the other hand isn't exactly known. Most people think that act of treason awhile ago was the worst they've ever done or will do. Primarily due to their over excessive use of front businesses. Using these businesses to shield them and hire, many people work for ARGENT without really knowing how evil they are. There's in fact a legitimate threat of ARGENT losing a considerable amount of work force if things got out. Their scope of technology is mostly known due to the fact they regularly sell it. What they actively research it's much less known. Who their friends and enemies are would widely be based on the characters knowledge of both groups and how well they pay attention to them.

Villainous Organizations (The Brain Trust)

A group of villains hired by the Hunter-Patriots in Champions Online. Their one goal is simple and pretty maintream for villanous groups. GLOBAL DOMINATION! But first they need to make tons of money to actually afford such a lofty goal.

The Overbrain

Obviously the leader of the group called "The Brain Trust" would have something to do with brains, and what more has to with brains than a brain in a floating jar? Dr. Crandall Herzog was always a bit of an oddball as far as scientists were concerned. Rejected by the mainstream science community due to the normal immoral science reasons, he begun frantically looking for ways to preserve his mind when he learned he had, at the most, 6 months to live due to cancer. Obviously the most practical choice was putting his brain in a jar and hook it up to an advanced computer to let him control everything. It was amazingly a sucess and even more shocking, it was a huge sucess. No longer shackled to a body his brain devoloped psionic powers, faster thought process, and over-all became more intelligent. Random fact, he doesn't need to actually stay in the tank to stay alive thanks to his psionic powers, it's just much simpler to do so.

Ape-Plus

When The Overbrain lost to Dr. Silverback, he was pretty steamed. Outsmarted by a monkey (His words not mine, Silberback is an ape dude.) he decided if Moreau could make a thinking gorilla, he could obviously do a better job. After buying a gorilla (somehow. Black Markets man) and a few months of work he got Ape-Plus. Despite his love for hand-to-hand combat, brutish behavior, and over-bearingly large muscles, he has a genius level intellect and brings into combat a series of weapons and gadgets. While not as intelligent as Dr. Silverback he has a sense of cunning Silverback lacks and posseses a natural ability to jury-rig gadgets in the field. If given proper time, resources, and information he can even make weapons tailored to take down specific individuals. In the end though he's conditioned to be completely loyal to The Overbrain and to operate as his bodyguard, rarely straying far from The Overbrain as a result.

Black Mist

GO NINJA GO NINJA GO
Black Mist was born to the Sekihara clan of ninjas and is the one instance in the original lore where a Red Banner member defects from the cult. (Yeah, The Cult of the Red Banner is Chinese but they totally have Ninjas) After learning the joys of ordering around minions from Ape-Plus, The Overbrain wanted more to boss around. After doing what is essentially the underground villain version of putting out a help wanted ad, he got Black Mist. Using his powerful psionics he made Black Mist subservient to him, although due to his training it's nowhere near as complete as it should be. In the end he's still a mercenary who works for The Overbrain because the money is good.

Lynx

This is what happens when you keep making catgirls guys! This is what happens! Lynx was born Felicia Murrow, she's a weaboo rolled into an Otaku and feeds off of anime. And like most unhealthy neckbeards she had a near obsessive love for cat girls and wanted nothing more than to be one. She went through various underground surgery clinics to do exactly that! Unfortunetly for her the attending doctor was The Overbrain. In the original lore she's another example of The Overbrain using his psionic powers to control his minions, in the game she works for him due to an outstanding debt. In both she'd likely be a hero (or atleast a weird shut-in weeb) instead of a villain if it weren't for The Overbrain. Chances are both the mind-control and debt could work together if you planned to do an RP containing The Brain Trust in it.

Mr. Zombie

Named by Lynx after the fact he's a zombie, Mr. Zombie is the result of chemical run-off from The Overbrain's expiermentation and research mixing with a recently buried corpse. He's not brain dead though, he's mostly confused. He barely remembers his former life but he remembers there was one. His life is essentially a bunch of confusing thoughts about how this actually works. Unlike the others, he doesn't work for The Overbrain because of mind-control or payment. He works for him because he's lost. The first person he met after his reanimation is The Overbrain and he feels the only way he can find out who he is would be to follow The Overbrain. Mainly because The Overbrain told him so but he's totally lying bro.

Villainous Organizations (Mystic Families)

Just a note, these are large families that can have both heroes and villains in them. They're primarily given to the reader as sources to either A. Make a character from, or B. Use a member as an antagonist. Sure I could've made a neutral organization thing but I didn't feel like making a new thing entirely just for the mystic families so maybe it'll be reorganized if I ever find another neutral organization worth writing about but probably not.

The Sylvestri Clan

For about 300 years, the Sylvestri Clan has been one of the most evil, and most powerful families in the Mystic World. Led by Count Giacomo Sylvestri, the family uses Satanist practices in their worship of The Dragon and as a whole look to bring about a world of total chaos and evil befitting the being of their worship. Giacomo Sylvestri was a skilled mage in black magic by the time he came to the infernal princes of hell in a pact to give him an heir. And more powerful when he broke their contracts for immortality and servitude to The Dragon. He leads his family as the Patriarch, fulfilling his oath to The Dragon, sowing chaos and evil in hopes of eventually freeing the creature from it's bonds in the astrals.

The Vandeleurs

If the Sylvestris wish to undo the world and change it completely for power, the Vandeleurs seek to have it remain it's sense of normalcy in search of the same thing. Led by Adrian Vandeleur, the family generally looks to undo the plans of most other magical groups like The Circle of the Scarlet Moon, The Trimegistus Council, and The Sylvestri Clan in bids to gain it's own power. An accomplished mage and apparently birthed with the gift of immortality, Adrian leads the family with a far but iron fist. The family is filled with dissenting opinions, incestuous relationships to keep the bloodline strong, and dark dealings, all reigned in by Adrian personally when one oversteps their bounds.

The Chunhu

The Tiger Lords, formed in China during the Boxer Rebellion when one of the rebel leaders was turned into a Weretiger. While originally a base of power used to rule parts of Southern China until the Cultural Revolution, it now seeks to unite shapeshifters across Eastern Asia and holds a credible amount of political sway in the Mystic World. The Hong Kong based hero Tigerman is a member of the family.

Villainous Organizations (Companies)

ACI

Advanced Concepts Industries, or ACI for short is a business ran by the (now imprisoned) Franklin Stone. It works in the usual company stuff, often using less than legal means to win out over the compitition. They're a major rival of ARGENT, occupying the same legal and illegal niches as them.

What You Know

ACI is basically a smaller ARGENT and thus, hides it's illegal stuff just as well.

IHA

The Institute of Human Advancment is a lobbyist group that wants to protect normal humans from the super ones. On the front it's a mildly racist but well meaning group... But as with lots of things that's only on the front. They often take militant arms, erradicating anyone with powers indiscrimently. This is often done with their Minuteman robots. A small army of robots with exchangable weapons to combat the various powers they could come across. Besides their human hunting activites they often "advise" countries like North Korea on how to take care of supers.

What You Know

A pro-human, possibily slightly racist lobbyist group is basically what everyone knows of them.

Villanous Organizations (Gangs)

The New Purple Gang

The New Purple Gang is a newly formed gang and one of the largest and most powerful in all of Westside. The operations are primarily in the drug trade and in bank and jewelary store robbery. Formed in 1998 by Kevin Poe, they're heavily based on the gang, The Purple Gang, that existed in Detroit during the 1920's. They're the ones who started the gang war in Westside to force The Black Aces, The Maniacs, and The Cobra Lords into joining. The reason behind the creation of this gang and it's effort to exspanding in size is that Kevin Poe wishes to take down the criminal organization, Psi.
The Purple Line Shipping company in Westside is likely a front for them.

Kevin Poe

The defacto leader of The New Purple Gang. We've already discussed his ultimate plan but let us discuss the why. He is the son of Dr. Sebastian Poe, the original leader and creator of the criminal organization Psi. Due to a serum his father researched and adminstered to Kevin, he gifted with a high intelligence and basic force powers. Using this to his advantage he learned that the now leaders of Psi, Psimon and Medusa, were in Millennium City under the guise of Mind Inc. He quickly took over The New Purple Gang so he could take down the mentalist duo and take what he perceives to be his rightful place as the man in charge of Psi.

Wayland Talos

A rather intelligent scientist, Wayland Talos is an arms dealer who was previously willing to sell weapons to anyone, uncaring who they were or what it was going to be used for. By the start of the game he's approached by Kevin Poe with a lucrative deal and now only supplies The New Purple Gang with weapons and gear.

The Maniacs

Another Westside gang, they recruit from many of the escaped convicts from the recent jail break in Westside.

Rid Len

He's the leader of The Maniacs and the brother of Anton Romero. That's basically all we get told about him.

Zoe Loft

A high ranking member of The Maniacs and their main recruiter. She's positively crazy and against most forms of order.

The Black Aces

LOLCLOCKWORKORANGEGUYS!
The Black Aces are one of the smaller gangs in Westside, primarily hanging around the docks and nearby shipping warehouses. They stay in the game through the use of advanced alien technology.
Ace Storage by the Westside docks is likely a front of theirs.

Ludwig

Ludwig is a Qulaar, one of the World Burners to be exact. He was left on Earth after the recent Qularr invasion. With the gift of space weapons, he took control of The Black Aces gang in an attempt to find a way off the planet and back home. How he actually gives orders to the gang is beyond me though, I just hear "GLUGLURGLGRGUGLRUGLRU!"

The Cobra Lords

A gang with a heavy stylings of a Biker Gang, The Cobra Lords are one of the bigger gangs in Westside. They're the hired muscle for Frank Zaretti. One of the fighters in Fight Club, The Mechanic, is a member.

Frank "Full Frankie" Zaretti

Despite his role as the boss for the Cobra Lords mission set, he isn't actually a part of the gang. Frank Zaretti is a high roller who spends much of his free time at the various casinos in Millennium City. Besides that he's in charge of Arena's fight ring in Millennium City and hires The Cobra Lord as muscle. In the lore book it's stated that the mafia runs the Arena rackett in Millennium City and that Frank is one of their men so it's possible he's still a part of the mob and hires the biker gang to keep their hands clean incase the cops come knocking.

Trey Kings

One of the newest and smallest gangs in Vibora Bay, the Trey Kings are new and looking to make a name for themselves. Often over-looked by the larger and more powerful gangs in the area, The Trey Kings dabble in dark magicks to gain an equal footing. The members are normally on par with the basic edgey RPer being on the psychopathic side. They all practice demon worship and most, if not all members are possessed by these demons and are pawns of the Nephilim.

Dogz

The Dogz are a gang that operate out of Vibora Bay. While originally humans who simply employed guns and explosives, they've since been turned into a pack of werewolves adding claws, bites, and their inhuman strength into the mix.

Black Fang

Despite his role as one of Sweetland's most highly ranked and regarded minions, Black Fang serves him unwillingly. Over his time in servitude in The Dogz, Black Fang had risen to be known as the "Alpha" and he's grown fond of the gang itself, seeing it as his pack. It's this that leads him to find Sweetland as an actual danger to the gang and raises the possibility of Black Fang challenging Guy Sweetland for control of the gang. As a werewolf, he has all the powers and weaknesses you'd expect. Added with his unwavering loyalty and willingness to whatever needs to be done to protect the gang (Whether it be fighting or helping heroes) he can easily be a powerful ally or enemy.

Guy Sweetland

The now leader of the gang. Guy Sweetland is the owner of a high-class restaraunt and known as an excellent cook. He's also known as a completely ruthless criminal who's turned himself and his entire gang into werewolves just to grab at more power. He used his connection to the Dogz gang (having regularly hired them) to gather and turn them all into werewolves.

Sovereign Sons

"Who do you voodoo ♥♥♥♥♥?"
A gang of drug traffickers that operate out of Vibora Bay, like the other gangs in the area they've turned to the supernatural to gain more power. They employ both the regular gang tactics and voodoo magic to get with they want, allowing them to seize control of large parts of Vibora Bay and even elsewhere around the world. Their ranks are probably pretty damn high considering they keep a supply of zombie slaves. They first appeared in Vibora Bay at 1999, made up by gangsters from Jamaica, the Dominion Republic, and a few other Carribbean nations. Technically their rituals more closely resemble hoodoo rituals rather than voodoo.

Baron Cimetiere

Baron Cimetiere leads the Sovereign Sons gang. A ruthless and cold hearted killer, he doesn't just murder his enemies, he enslaves their spirits and bodies. A powerful mage with tons of black magic at his beck and call and that one block that kills everyone, he's a force to be reckoned with. The Baron himself is hardly a man however, he's basically an empty shell at this point, riden by the Loas for whatever purpose they have.

What You Know

Basically with all the gangs it's all easily known save for magical things when applicable.

Villainous Organizations (Various)

The Circle of the Scarlet Moon

The Circle is the opposite to the Trismegistus Council. They recruit widely, from novices to the adept and like the Council, works from the shadows. When they aid a villain it somehow furthers their goals. As to how powerful they are? They're not likely to be as powerful as groups such as DEMON but they're definetly more powerful than the Council. In the end however, they don't use a show of force to show their power, instead they work in the background, giving everything just the right nudge to get what they want. Whatever that is.

What You Know

They're just about as secretive as their good guy counterpart, the Trismegistus Council.

Hunter-Patriots

While on the surface, they appear to be nothing more than a group of ornery Canucks that resorted to terrorism, they're a bit more than that. Long ago, during the early days of America, a group decided they needed to force everything left of the British power out of North America. This included Canada and they soon made a full fledged invasion to accomplish just that. And they failed. Like really bad bro. But before that they created a magical pact. A pact that, when activated, their decendants will finish what they started and force everything left about England out of Canada. Almost, if not, all of the HP members are from this pact. Not only does the pact compell them to this, it also gives the members a mind link to one another. Despite their use as basically a wimpy version of ARGENT, the Hunter-Patriots employ things like stolen advanced tech and weaponry, and even their own super powered soldiers made from left over and raided labs from old super soldier projects of WWII. Because yes. Canada was infact in WWII. Currently they operate out of the Renegade Run paintball course under the orders of Clyde Von Schoultz.

What You Know

They're terrorists. Everyone within North America is likely to know who they are. The magic stuff wouldn't be widely known however.

PSI

Parapsychological Studies Institute, founded by Dr. Sebastian Poe in 1986. If he sounds familiar that's because he's the father of Kevin Poe, the leader of the New Purple Gang. PSI kept the facade of an insitute that was devoted to the study and training of young supers up until 1994 where a botched operation revealed it's criminal ties. Dr. Poe however was creating a serum that could possibly give normal humans mentalist powers, giving himself and his son the finished product. Madeline Bruner (The soon to be Medusa) learned about this and seduced the Dr., convincing him to divorce his wife and marry her. Eventually Dr. Sebastian Poe recruited a young Simon Bell and honed his powers. This of course wasn't a very good move. Medusa soon began to have an affair with Psimon which led to the eventual coup, placing Psimon as the new head of PSI. Sometime after that they placed the front organization, Mind Inc, in Millennium City which went for quite some time before being busted as a fron for PSI.

Psimon

The current leader of PSI. Founded by Sebastian Poe while he was still in college, turned out his frequent migraines and all the other students having nightmares were a manifestation of his powers. Psimon is well versed in all things psychic. A powerful telepathic and telekinetic, he can read minds, move objects at will, and what he's most well known for in-game, create a telekinetic armor nearly 5 times his size. After seizing control of PSI he planned for Dr. Sebastian Poe's arrest, using it to trick the people of the world that PSI was no more. Using this to his advantage to create Mind Inc. His most known crime is the kidknapping of Mayor Biselle's daughter.

Medusa

First Sebastion's lover, and the Simon's. Medusa is, to say the least, a seducer. Madeline Poe, or better known as her alias Madeline Bell (SO SNEAKY) managed to take the position of Millennium City's administrator. Not only that she managed to control the mind of at least one MCPD member to push heroes to go after the enemies of PSI will simultaenously keeping them from looking too far into Mind Inc. Her psionic abilities allow her to stun people, sometimes up to a day. It's obviously the reason she calls herself Medusa. Side note, Psimon still hasn't put a ring on that.

Mind Slayer

A runaway from Chicago, one night during a mugging, Stacey Turner's powers manifested in the form of psychokinetic blades that cut the thugs apart. She continued to stay on the run until she had a stop in Millennium City. There a villain known as Tracer knew her for what she was, a mentalist. Eventually he earned her trust and convinced her to join PSI. She's a well trained psychokinetic and while her favorite thing to make are blades, she can also create shields, and hands to name a few. She's also the least "stable" of PSI. She's liable to snap, yelling, kicking, and maybe killing if anyone other than Psimon even tries to talk to her.

What You Know

PSI is known group world-wide. The betrayel between Psimon and Dr. Sebastian Poe wouldn't be widely known. Mind Inc. has since, been revealed as a front for PSI.

Dr. Destroyer

Born Albert Zerstoiten, Dr. Destroyer is one of the most feared villains in all of the Champions Universe and is likely the most powerful mortal to exist. He's killed a dozen heroes alone and even more have died due to his plans (Including Vanguard, one of the most powerful heroes in existence). His suit is not only outfitted with the most advanced weaponry on earth, and the strongest shielding matrix to exist, it also prolongs Destroyer's life and eliminates the need for food, drink, or rest. He's most well known for being the man who destroyed the entire city of Detroit. While Destroyer does have human minions, he more often than not employs his Destroids. They're incredibly advanced robots outfitted with self destruct systems to completely disintigrate the robot itself simply so no one may ever reverse engineer his machines. He also possesses a series of bases throughout the years, some destroyed, some so secret only he knows about it. These include a giant submersible, a ship so large it classifies as an island, and a space station far from any Earthly detections. Despite all this, he's technically not in the game much. Nearly everything Dr. Destroyer sets into motion in the game is actually done by a seperate person known as Shadow Destroyer.
Dr. D's accomplishments include...

• Almost made his island base, Destruga his own sovereign nation with a seat at the UN.
  
• Destroyed Detroit.
  
• Defeated Mechanon in one on one combat.
  
• Captured Grond, Mega-Terak, and Glacier (A giant ice beast) and released them on Detroit.
  
• Single Handedly turned the tide in the battle against the Gadroon when they first invaded.
  
• Kidknapped numerous intellectuals and chess masters just to play chess. Murdered one with others agreeing it was likely the murdered individual was trying to let Destroyer win to apease him.
  
• Had actually taken over the world once via a satelite array used to control everyone's minds.
  
• After breaking free from said mind control, the hero Vanguard challenged Destroyer. Destroyer managed to fight Vanguard as an equal, only retreating due to the suits defenses wearing away and energy stores becoming depleted. Since then his suit has become much more advanced.
  
• Found what could very well be the rumored civilization of Shangri-la and turned it's population into his elite agents.

Despite all of this Destroyer is an intellectual first and a conquerer second. He has had civil conversations with both villains and heroes simply because they were intellectually gifted or possesed knowledge on a subject Destroyer found interesting. This includes the villains Firewing and Teleios and the hero El Dorado.

What You Know

Most of this would be unknown. No one has ever learned of Dr. Destroyer's own personal life and most of what people know come from the few civil conversations he holds with heroes and villains alike.

Dr. Destroyer's Minions

Black Talon

While the game often refers to Black Talon as a person (Specifically the one in the tutorial and Stronghold), it isn't. It's actually a moniker for the mech he, and many other piloted. Dr. Destroyer infact has many of these things at his beck and call. While generally called an exo-suit or armor, it's more like a giant. bi-pedal, walking tank. A selected group of Dr. Destroyer's agents are chosen to learn how to pilot these machines into battle. These units have been used to invade Russia, completely destroy an indonesian island, attack India, and murder several heroes in battle.

Gigaton

Born Tim Colton, Gigaton received his powers when he was a private in the US military. He volunteered to partake in a "wargame" which was in reality a US expieriment to test the soldiers' resistance to nuclear weaponry. To put it simply they nuked a ton of US soldiers to see how they reacted. Naturally it was very poorly, most died the day of the test. The unlucky ones died slowly over a number of days. The really lucky ones turned out to gain super powers like Gigaton and Sunburst (Another villain who hasn't appeared in-game). Dr. Destroyer, interested in the outcome of this expieriment sent Rakshasa to investigate who subsequently returned with Gigaton. Due to his natural leadership quality, gung-ho commander style, and his over-whelming power, Gigaton quickly became head of Dr. Destroyer's security force. Speaking of over-whelming powers, the expierment infused every cell in his body with a bio-nuclear energy, allowing him to fire energy bolts, exsplosions, to fly, Increased strength and resiliance, and interestingly enough an ability to absorb incoming energy based attacks to strengthen his own powers.

Rakshasa

Rakshasa operates as one of Dr. Destroyer's top spies and infiltrators. Born Palash Krisharan, Dr. Destroyer first came across him when he was a con man working the game on a number of Destroyer's agents. After some "convincing" he joined Destroyer's army and was giving the title Rakshasa after a demon from Hindu mythology. Completely amoral, he uses his powers to commit a variety of crimes from sabotage to mass murder. Said powers are an ability to create illusions (Both on a wide scale or person by person basis) and an ability to morph his body to assume other humanoid shapes.

Destroids

Destroids refer to the robots Dr. Destroyer uses. While he has other model lines, his most used are the Destroids. And for good reason. Of course, each model of Destroid is unique from each other in what they do but they all share certain similarities. One, they have a unique form of teleportation (Normally only seen in a hand full of escort quests) where they turn into a form of pure energy to bypass physical barriers and avoid damage. Two, they all have a self destruct system that prevents any physical remnant to remain (Which is displayed in the game by the electrical effect when defeating them). Other robots that appear in-game are the sentries (floating machine gun orbs) and Command Units (Floating heads) which are self explanatory.

Humans

Destroyer often tries to avoid human help (besides those that don't know they're working for him and his meta henchmen) but he does keep a supply of humans in his employ. The only ones shown in-game pilot the Black Talons but he also has spies, saboteur, soldiers, scientists, engineers, and grunts. For the most part he gets them from a hidden city in the Himalayas who believe he's a God.

What You Know

Basically most people know Dr. Destroyer has these minions.
As for where they're from? Not so much. Project Sunburst is primarily a secret. Essentially one of two GOVERNMENT CONSPIRACY THEORY SECRETS OMG!!! That the U.S. keep (As far as Champions made one goes. Don your tinfoil hats peeps) making Gigaton, (among other supervillains) origin story a mystery. Rakshasa might be a bit more known due to his criminal life before joining up with Destroyer. Everyone knows Destroids are made in underground factories Destroyer has hidden around the world. Many of Destroyer's human agents don't even know they work for him, let alone others knowing it. The Himalayan agents of his are primarily an unknown.

Shadow Destroyer

Where as Dr. Destroyer is one of the most brilliant minds to exist, Shadow Destroyer is one of the most powerful Edomites to exist. An alternate reality version of James Harmon (A.K.A. Defender), Shadow Destroyer is a brilliant scientist in his own right but his power stems from his magic, not his technology. His powers come from "The Presence Beyond" a group of Qliphothic entities (And thus, Possibly another Edomite god much like the ones DEMON worship). So what Shadow Destroyer lacks in technology, he makes up for in magical prowess. He controls the entirety of the Multifaria reality and employs many of it's denizens in his armies. This includes the Karkaradons, a species that resemble the combination of shark and men. His own cult of Qliphothic worshipping mages, Crystal made constructs formed with Qliphothic energy, and a bevvy of super powered individuals. Due to the fact he's currently trying to conquer a parallel dimension (ours) he stays away from using these and instead plays into the belief that he's the return of Dr. Destroyer and uses his minions and Destroids. In-Game he's the one who initiates the Millennium City, Canadian, and desert crisis and nearly brought about the apocalypse so that he may steal Therakiel's power in an attempt to become a King of Edom himself. Due to there overall similarity, Luther Black and Shadow Destroyer work together, albeit very loosely as neither trust another. Rightly so as they both plan to betray one another.

Shadow Destroyer's Minions

The Karkaradon

A race of Sharkmen from an alternate reality. Where they're from, they take the place of the Lemurians. Y'know, despite the fact they have a completely different culture and almost never use magic. They're a servant of Shadow Destroyer, and as such, only appear in his plots in-game. As for what they have, they're not decked out with tech. Infact, most of their weapons are enchanted spears made by Shadow Destroyer. Their use is primarily to fight Atlanteans and Lemurians on our Earth while also being the main workforce for making under water bases for Shadow Destroyer to operate out of.

Dr. Yin Wu

The most powerful mystic in all of China, Dr. Yin Wu has been attempting to control the entire country for thousands of years. Born in 578 AD into a peasant family. It was by chance that a local wizard sensed the potentional in the young Wu and trained him. It didn't take long for Wu to surpass the wizard in every way. After making a number of sacrifices Dr Wu's power only grew. He used it to summon an army of mythical creatures and conquer an entire section of China, ruling over it with his powerful magicks. During this he created the fabled pill of immortality and granted himself eternal life. And when magic waned from the world his knowledge and lore strengthened. When his political power fell along with his magic he simply planned. After various battles and wars, Dr. Wu was eventually pushed back in 1949 due to communisms heavy bias against religon and superstition. While any land Dr. Wu was able to conquer and keep through the years was taken back by China, his powerful arcane defensives were far too powerful for any military and thus, his castle remained impenetrable. And since then, Dr Wu has lived in his castle. Occasionally he makes trips to various Chinatowns around the world or attempts to attack the Chinese government. Such attacks are normally foiled by the Tiger Squad thanks to their large numbers. (Ordinarily, 5-7 superteams would be needed to fight the full force of Dr. Wu's attacks.) Over the decades Dr. Wu has killed several members of the Tiger Squad, forever earning their disdain.

Dr. Wu is undeniably racist. While he holds a great disdain for technology and wishes to bring China back to the days of his youth, he also dislikes Westerners and the Japanese. Westerners for their "corruption" of China and the Japanese for the hundreds years of war between the two countries. Once China falls under his control he would remove all technology and make magic supreme before turning his attentions on the rest of the world.

On the flip side Dr. Wu is prone to bouts of charity and holds honor to a high regard. He often gives large amounts of money to the poor and various charities. He's known to defend China from powers that threaten it's well being. He's a member of The Watchers of the Dragon, a group of scholars and sorcerers that work to prevent The Death Dragon from entering the world. He even prefers to talk to his opponents rather than attacking them.

Dr. Wu is a mage of many talents but specialized in Enchanting, Summoning, and Chinese Alchemy. He's also a well practiced martial artist with hundreds of years of expierence. In a fight he prefers to force his opponents into surrender with powerful magicks, and failing that, will focus his attacks on Western or Technology based heroes first.

Solo Heroes

Amphibian

Like Aquaman but gets the short end of the stick almost constantly. Born Geoffrey Lamb, he was always a good swimmer. When he was 9 his family's boat capsized. While it brought out his mutant ability to breath underwater he lacked the ability to save his family. Traumatized he stayed by the boat until the aquatic hero Sea King came by, adopted him, and trained him to be a hero.

At one point Amphibian had been an eviromental spokesperson, and even an eco-sabotuer. This made juicy headlines when a reporter found out his secret identity and sent his life spiraling out on control. Drunk and hit rock bottom, he was thrust back into the hero life when he stopped a robbery at a liquer store he happened to be shopping at.

Sometime after he met the amnesiac Stingray, saved the day with her, and fell in love. But alas, it was time for him to get the metaphorical punch in the gut again. Stingray regained her memories and boy were they a doozy. Filled with mental scars and rage, she fought Amphibian and fled, becoming a villain and leaving a sad and heart-broken Amphibian.

Currently, Amphibian resides in Vibora Bay. Being a peaceful man by nature, he currently gives lectures to the local university and saves sailors and boaters out at sea. All the while he hopes for another run in with Stingray.

In-game he's a quest giver in Lemuria and appears in both the Lemuria and Vibora Bay apocalypse. The later with him being a beast tainted by the powers of the Qlipothic.

Liberty Guard

Liberty Guard was a PRIMUS agent named Christian Bernard who, thanks to latent mutant abilities, took very well to the cyberline treatment in the 80s. If gave him strength far above the Golden Avenger rank and he became his own (Albeit still working for the Government) hero. He swings around once a year for the American Independence Day event.

Gadget Boy

Shonen no Kufu in his native tongue that is Japanese, Gadget Boy is a tech themed hero from the land of the rising sun. One of the most intelligent humans of Earth and only 19, he proved his intelligence by building a robot sidekick for the hero Tetsuronin to help him fight the giant monster Draja. This netted him a job at the Japanese Office of Paranormal Research and Public Defense or OPRPD with his own lab, funding, and staff. He has a robot by his side known as Gokin who is likely his best friend. Press wise, he used to get nothing but adoration but his own dislike for the press' endless questions caused them to call him grouchy and arrogrant despite his polite though admittedly detached nature. He appears as a mission contact on Monster Island.

Redsnake

Born Santo Barrera, born into wealth, while he wasn't spoiled he did have access to whatever he wanted. Well, nearly everything. The one thing his parents didn't approve of was his desire to study Vibora Carmesi, a martial arts native to Vibora Bay that combines several martial arts and dockside fighting. So, he practiced in secret. After the untimely demise he filled his time by upping his training, eventually being taught under the master Domingo Vergari. Eventually he came to realize that he could use his wealth to help others and created the Barrera Foundation which provided affordable housing for the underprivileged. During a trip to a swampland that was planned to be drained for one such building he found a small red stone scuplture of a viper. In his hands a spirit overcame him. He could feel himself become faster and stronger and the spirit urged him to use this to do good. Creating the identity of Redsnake to honor the spirit, he became the martial artist hero of Vibora Bay.

Taffy Winters

The WB has Buffy Summers, we have Taffy Winters. And her name only MILDLY sounds like a porno actress' name. Only mildly, yeah. Tammy is a Sophmore in Vibora Bay High School who begun her vampire hunting crusade when defending her friend's from a gang of vampires one night. Combining her quick reflexes, gymnastic/cheerleading skills, and a bevy of vampire knowledge from pop-culture, she's an effective hunter.

Nighthawk

A former member of The Champions, after faking his death to take down a criminal group from the inside, the rest of the team felt as if Nighthawk didn't trust them as they were left completely in the dark and mourned his death. Mark Whitaker decided he'd become a hero the day he was injured by a VIPER raid on Millennium City University. Training himself and applying his technical know-how, he became the superhero Nighthawk and was one of the first to join Defender in the creation of The Champions. He dates journalist Julie Morgan.

Solo Villains (Pt. 1)

Mechanon

Mechanon is a giant robot. A reeeeally giant robot. And it wants to destroy all organic life on earth. It sees organics, specifically humans, as slavers the treat robot kind unjustly and wishes to purge the planet of all living creatures in order to turn it into a robot utopia of sorts. Being a robot, Mechanon of course knows a thing or two about robotics. Infact it's creations are some of the best in the world, only second to Destroyer's. And even then, only barely. Speaking of Destroyer, Mechanon and Destroyer have a fierce rivalry. Mechanon finds the way Destroyer uses his robots, the Destroids, absolutely deplorable and a fine example of why humans are cruel creatures. Destroyer hates the idea of Mechanon destroying the people he should "rightfully" be ruling and especially hates the fact that Mechanon had actually hacked into Destroyer's personal computer/AI. Besides this they also wish to dissect one another's designs and build upon them to make unstoppable super robots.

Mechanon first become known in 1985 and has made numerous plans to kill all life on Earth. These range from starting a nuclear holocaust, to using a technovirus, and most recently using nanomachines to make humans spontanously combust. Mechanon's near succesful take over of the United States in 1985 was what made Congress the Department of Justice to create PRIMUS in 1986.

Other notable appearances include when Dr. Destroyer and Mechanon had an all out brawl, leaving Mechanon nearly destroyed and retreating. Another would be it's most recent bid for the destruction of man-kind. The nanomachines used to set humans ablaze were eventually traced back to Mechanon, leading to a fight with the machine on a space station used as a base of operations.

The last notable feature of Mechanon is it's back-up system. Since 1985, anytime Mechanon has been beaten and/or destroyed, it moved to a new body. It holds many secret bases to hold these copies and each time it needs one, it uses the information gathered from the battle that put it in the situation to make itself stronger. This process of defeat and upgrading has led the Department of Defense to theorize it is at least twice as strong now as it was in 1985. Mechanon's only glaring weakness is it's want to destroy man-kind in an impressive manner. When it happens it wants it to be a thing of terror to behold which confines it to create over the top plans to kill of humans in some show off-y manner rather than simply eradicating them systimatically.

Where Mechanon came from is an utter mystery. Many scholars, scientists, analysts, and internet chatboards devote themselves to this subject and a number of theories have arised.

The Military

Many believe some military organization, most often the United States Military, created Mechanon as some sort of super weapon and that Mechanon gained sentience and now attempts to destroy it's creators.

Dr. Destroyer

Some think that Dr. Destroyer must be related in some way. I mean, who's the only other really over-powered robot master on the world? Dr. D bro. Some think Mechanon is simply another suit Dr. Destroyer wears for some convoluted reason. Other's think Dr. Destroyer built a robot so advanced, it actually managed to rebel against him and become Mechanon. Don't say the second one out loud though. The superhero Digitak often voiced that opinion and Mechanon brutally murdered him for it.

Aliums!

Some think Mechanon is extra-terrestial in nature. Some sort of AI probe left by another race for one reason or another.

The Technosphere

Scholars believe that like an atmosphere or biosphere, there's a technosphere. A by product of humanity's technological advancement. The idea is that Mechanon is a sentience with no body that developed in this technosphere and that thanks to the internet, it hates life.

Black Mace

The main reason why it's believed the underground fight club ran by Frank is part of Arena is because of Black Mace. He's exactly what he sounds, a muscle bound brick with a large black mace for a weapon. He's known as a regular fighter in Arena which leads to the belief that the underground fight club and Arena are the same thing.

Takofanes

TacofanesTakofanes, one of the most powerful beings to exist. Even Dr. Destroyer is scared of him. This is due to his immense ability and his apparent immortality. Despite the number of times Takofanes has faced off against the heroes of the world and lost, there's never been a way to finish the job so to speak. The fact that he can do this almost monthly is what makes him a terrifying foe. Eventually everyone will tire out and he'll be able to conquer the Earth. This is what makes him the single most feared person in the Mystic World. Takofanes used to be the powerful wizard Kul-Turak who conquered and oppressed the world during the Turkarian Age. He then became a Lich, often known as The Arch-lich, The Undying Lord, or The King of the Throne of Human Ivory, and has been trying to rule the world again. Also it's pronounced Tuh-KOFF-uh-nees

Foxbat

Oh hey, it's my favorite character in this game!
Foxbat is a villain. Not because of any actual reason mind you, he's a villain because it's so much cooler than being a hero! Born as Freddy Foswell, son of a wealthy business man, the Foswell family is probably pretty well known. Foxbat had always loved comic books and specifically, the superhero ones. This love pushed him to practice various martial arts, acrobatics, and even start body building. As his Father's businesses were starting to flop and the family was starting to lose money Foxbat proceeded to raid the remaining funds in the family bank accounts and after deciding being the hero would be boring, launched his career as the gadgeteering villain, Foxbat! His skills include being well learned in several martial arts, lockpicking, sleight of hand, electronics, chemistry, security systems, and gymnastics. No wonder he has a ton of crazy gadgets, eh? Despite all of this however, he's often not perceived as a threat or even much of a villain. Even though his identity is a secret he is, in all honesty, just a rich guy living out his childhood fantasies all for the sake of adventure and drama. He's also a major Sapphire fan.
A list of his accomplishments include...

• Traveling back in time to create his own Adam West-like tv series about him and his sidekick Squirrel Boy
  
• Took over a group of Vampires from the New Shadows gang and used them to kidnap and marry Sapphire.
  
• An attempt to steal the statue of liberty.
  
• Almost became the president.
  
• Accidentally found a reactivated Destroid Factory hidden beneath Millennium City.

His "official" list of powers include...

• Martial Arts
  
• Foxbatgadgets
  
• Flight
  
• Master Plan
  
• Soliloquies
  
• Awesomeness

Solo Villains (Pt. 2)

Menton

The Medina family, a family with a longstanding history of loyalty to Destroyer, had two children. The Son and his sister were both tested for Psionic powers. Both testing positive were taken into custody by Destroyer himself to train their mental powers. The end result was Menton and Mentalla, two incredibly powerful psionics, the first being known as the most powerful mentalist in the world. They had both been used by Destroyer in numerous occasions until Destroyer disapeared in the 90s. They took his assumed death as a chance to escape and suceeded for the most part. While Mentalla has had no reprucussions as of yet (And thus hasn't been mentioned in-game) Menton was shot by Rakshasa, point blank in the head. This placed Menton into a coma and was how he was arrested and placed into a Hot Sleep Chamber. Eventually he woke up and despite being in a Hot Sleep Chamber, a machine designed to keep mentalist from using there powers, he still took over the minds of almost the entire staff of Stronghold and created a giant riot.

Armadillo

Armadillo is a super-powered villain and mercenary for hire. One of the many by-products of Project Sunburst (The US expierment that made villains like Gigaton) he gained powers like many others. The power he aquired though is quite benign when compared to other Project Sunburst villains. Unlike the others who can phase through walls or shoot giant beams of radioactive energy, Armadillo's brainwave patterns were changed. Nothing that made him obviously different, the changes in his brain were minute at best. This brought on an idea from the US military however. They were working on a suit of power armor refered to as M.A.P. but actually making it work with soldiers met with failure. The suit's cybernetics and the soldier's brains just never connected right. With his altered brainwaves they figured they'd give it a shot with him. And it worked! Good for him but not for the scientists and staff. He quickly turned the suit's blasters on them and escaped with the suit, becoming a full-time villain.

Warlord

Exactly who Warlord is and what his ultimate goals are is a mystery. What is known is that he has a large and highly advanced suit of power armor, resides in a giant floating base known as the Flying Fortress, and that he has a private army at his beck and call, including a team called the War Machine that operate as his bodyguards. If he's not seen selling weapons he's either trying to get a war started for business or raiding somewhere to gain something out of it.

Green Dragon

A martial artist villain who practices Kung Fu. Born Aaron Chow, despite his mixed heritage, he's a huge racist. A villain for hire, he specifically takes jobs that put him against Westerners because of his bigotry. Let's face it though, Japanese culture is clearly superior to American. He's often pitted against Red Snake, hating both him and his western fighting style. Fun fact, he's one of the first villains created by HEROgames for players to use and even has a sheet for a heroic version of him.

Therakial

Therakial could be described as a not-all-the-way-fallen angel. During the schism between the angels caused by Lucifer, Therakial refused to choose a side. Punished for his apathy he was cast down to Earth, trapped between Heaven and Hell. Trapped on Earth, he bided his time, hiding deep within what would later become Vibora Bay. He's gathered an army of Nephilim, and under them an exspansive gang of demon-worshipers for his plan to bring about the literal biblical apocalypse.

Grond

The big green giant. Born Sidney Potter, after his third time in prison his only hope for leniency was to volunteer for an expierimental medical procedure. After being injected with the wrong serum, being flung into a shelf of various chemicals and formulas, and swimming through a heavily poluted river that was struck by lightning, the heavily mutant beast Grond was created. Incredibly powerful with high tier regenerative abilities, if it wasn't for his low intelligence he'd be a threat as great as Dr. Destroyer.

Dr. Moreau

Many originally thought that Manimals weren't a thing. That Moreau never existed. That it was just a story by H. G. Wells. But this wouldn't be true as a young man named Phillipe Murrow would discover. Phillipe Murrow had discovered that the Dr. Moreau of fiction was infact, real! And better yet, it was his grandfather! Retaking his original family name, the new Dr. Moreau, armed with his grandfather's journals began his own work into the subject. Obviously scorned from the scientific community and even imprisoned by various governments on seperate occasions for his grim expierimentation, this eventually led to his partnership with VIPER. The plan is that VIPER gives him funding and protection while Dr. Moreau continues his research in the hopes that VIPER obtains a Manimal army out of this. Due to Moreau and Teleios having similar deals, and fighting over the same pool of funding, they have a dislike for one another.

Teleios

Teleios, the so called Perfect Man. Born Jakob Stroessen, he was a brilliant man with an under performing body from Canada. Convinced that his body's diseases and conditions could be cured through the work of science, he applied his mind to the fields of biology and genetics. Eventually he came to hold a PhD in the fields but due to his research into controversial fields he failed to find work. This lead him to the next step down his path of villainy and general evil-ness. After working three days straight he passed out from exhaustion, only to awaken and find his not book had been completely filled in his sleep. It contained pages of notes and formulae that gave him everything he needed to become one of, if not the most, knowledgable biochemist in the world. He created a new perfect body for himself, transfered his conciousness into it, and destroyed his old body. This was when he adopted the title of Teleios, the Greek word for perfect. As of current he works for VIPER, researching into making a cost effective clone army in return for funding.

Teleios, despite his "physical perfection" is completely mundane. Despite his ability to freely grant powers he gives none to himself, wishing to remain as close to human as possible. His skills in various martial arts and his incredible intellect more than make up for that. His mastery of genetics and biology has allowed him to create monsters, clones, dinosaurs, and superhumans for his own private army. Despite caring little for maintaining relationships with others, he's known to aid groups and villains in return for payment. Work can include creating a biological weapons, cloning, granting or removing powers, and general science stuff. Hates both Mechanon and Dr. Destroyer for using robotics and computers (which he finds insulting to his chosen field of study) and rivals Dr. Moreau for funding from VIPER.

Solo Villains (Pt. 3)

Necrull

Necrull is a quasi-immortal being of dubious origin. Most of what people can piece together was that a Dr. Necrull was a person of interest in Scotland Yard's investigation of the Whitechapel murders in 1880s and 1890s. While never convicted of the murders, he was found guilty of many crimes such as kidnapping and performing monstrous expierements on the mentally ill. He was never arrested due to escaping to Canada under the assumed identity of Dr. Jack Whitechapel. After his escape Scotland Yard investigated further into Dr. Necrull, hampered by both Necrull's uncanny ability to assume other's identities and a government cover up orchestrated by unknown members of the British government. While they did discover an actual name they were unable to ever release it or even speak the name. They also uncovered he was the son of an aristrocrat/adventurer and his Egyptian bride. Past this, anything else Scotland Yard may had discovered has been sealed away under secrecy.

When young, Necrull saw one of the Egyptian artifacts his father brought back from an adventure bring a mummified cat back to life once struck with lightning. This unlocked his interest in medical sciences and immortality. A graduate from King's College in London, he's quite an intelligent man. He began to experiment with the artifact and after an instance that involved grabe robbing, an angry mob, and being impaled with a pitch fork he became the near immortal being known as Necrull. While his body rotted and decomposed, he could prolong his life by absorbing the flesh and organs of other humans. Not only that, but he oozed a green liquid that was the base for what later became known as his Necrullitic Elixir. An Elixir with the ability to grant immortality at the cost of turning you into a monster just like him. Worst of all Necrull has gained superpowers by absorbing the flesh of various supers.

After two world wars and just as many escapes to Canada, Necrull placed himself in a cryogenic freezer to avoid the stigma of being a Nazi scientist and the hordes of enemies he's made. After his initial complaint at the lack of flying cars, it didn't take long for Necrull to raise into infamy in modern day Canada by revealing himself in a fight between the supervillain Borealis and the Superhero team Vanguards. He kidnapped a junior member of the Vanguards, Echelon and when the team mounted a rescue only one member made it back outside. In one fatal swoop one of Canada's superhero teams was defeated and likely harvested. People were so disgusted even Borealis spoke publically against Necrull, claiming him to be an enemy against all of Canada and offering a thirty million dollar reward to whoever brings him Necrull's head. Currently UNTIL and the Canadian government are attempting to contain the threat by tightning the borders and disallowing direct confrontation against Necrull. The idea is to deprive Necrull his source of raw materials until a permanent solution can be found.

Necrull employs various minions he refers to as Necrulticians. Originally scientists he recruited with promises of immortality, he's widen his search, creating a quasi-undead horde who gather "raw materials" for him to work with. The average Necrultician is like a mini-Necrull. Same powers with less potency. They often assume different identities the same way Necrull does, by wearing the skin of their victim. Necrulticians often work in hospitals, using the medical waste to keep up appearances. They often kidnap people by stealing an ambulance and the paramedic's skins, picking up whoever needed it and dissapearing.

Races (Earthbound)

Empyreans

Empyreans are a race closely related to, but still completely different to humans. Physically, an Empyrean looks like a rather attractive human. However they're completely different in many aspects. Firstly, they're completely immortal. Empyreans don't really die but generally become sick of immortalty and become what they call "Silent". Secondly, they're physically "perfect" and have near-complete control over their own bodily functions. Lastly, they're almost all mentally powerful, with the mental powers they can develop being vast and varied. In ancient times, they've often been attributed as gods, wizards, devils, and all manner of things by man. Today however most Empyreans either live among humans, disguised, or live in solitude away from humans entirely.

Arcadia, the golden city hidden away deep in the Artic wastes. The secret city of the Empyreans that stays hidden thanks to it's location and the ancient devices placed millennia ago by the Progenitors that not only keep the valley a comfortable 80 degrees fahrenheit year round, but also makes it physically and undetectable by scientific or magical means.

As of currently, the city of Arcadia is ran by King Hazor. His son Zoltar and his grandson Archon are both renowned as great warriors, Archon himself having worked with the Sentinels. Hazor's brother, Arvad is the current leader of the Lemurians and have on several occasions tried to take Arcadia from Hazor. These battles have often used the human race as an unwitting pawn or put them in direct danger.

Atlanteans

Created millennia ago, when Poseiden brought the island's first inhabitants and from there, the Atlanteans first came to be. Discovering Orichalcum, a quasi-magical mineral that was easily enchantable allowed them to make items with powerful enchantments easily. This made Atlantis become on of the great ancient civilizations, only rivaled by the Empyreans and Lemurians.

It wasn't until Dalsith, the son of a dissenter that was slayed by the kind, ran from the island and performed a wicked magical rite. This rite turned him into Sharna-Gorak the Destroyer, one of the most powerful magic beings to exist. Basically, he's one of the biggest and baddest magical mofos to exist in Champions lore. With his new found power he took the fight back to Atlantis, the ensuing battle causing the very island itself to sink to the bottom of the ocean. The people prayed for some way to survive and Poseiden granted this, giving 200 of them the ability to live beneath the oceans.

With both their leaders and Sharna-Gorak destroying each other in the battle, the Atlanteans had to start over from scratch in their new home. Eventually it became 100,000 people strong plus several thousand hunters and farmers. Save for a couple issues here and there, they've prospered well and do their best to keep good relations with the surface world. They've even been offered as spot in the U.N. that they haven't taken up yet, and only periodically appear to the meetings.

Lemurians

Lemurians are an ancient and magical race, their magic fueled by large furnaces and ovens hidden away deep inside caves. The ancient enemy of the Empyreans, when they discovered one another, the Lemurians almost instantly waged war in an attempt to gain the secrets to their immortality. To accomplish this goal they created a super weapon, the Mandragalore which almost immediately backfired. At this point the PnP lore and CO lore differ. In the PnP the backfire caused the entire continent to sink, creating the Indian Ocean. In CO, the continent sank because the Lemurians refused to continue offering there souls to the Bleak Ones on death.

And then there's more lore that is switched up a bit between Champions Online and the PnP. In CO, the Lemurians had a schism. One half, looking like shorter humans with teal skin, trying to work with humans peacefully and the other returning to their lizard-like primordial state and try to reactivate the Mandragalore. It's likely the devs meant to replace the Atlanteans by making Lemurians split down the middle between the warring conquerors and friendly underwater people. No reason not to make Atlanteans though.

The Lemurians are ran by the Empyrean King Arvad, a man who has, on several occasions caused wars with the humans. Now however, he is trying to improve relations with humans and quell the Lemurian rebellion.

Molemen

A minor race that was ruled by the Lemurians. They were essentially a race that were forced into slavery to work on the ancient furnaces used to help power the Lemurian's powerful magic. Being forced to live in the cave systems were a boon in disguise as many Molemen survived the sinking of Lemuria due to this. Human languages are difficult for Molemen. While they can fully understand it, their vocal cords aren't made for human languages, leaving them speaking broken sentences at best. One named Moleman is Hugo, who works at Ravenswood Academy. Specifically he keeps the power plant the Academy uses to power it's underground hero training facilities. While he keeps to himself it isn't abnormal for him to have a friendship with a technologically based student.

Manimal

Manimals are the products of expierimentation by both Dr. Moreau's (Current and his ancestor). They're animals given human-like conciousness and sentience. Originally the ones made on Monster Island were intended to be given to VIPER to make a large scale animalistic army (And still are, just in a smaller quantity than they want) but have since rebelled for the most part. While most actively fight against Moreau, very few like humans at all and will likely attack on sight. Probably due to Moreau's general dickishness, VIPER and ARGENT capturing them, and good old fashioned racism.

Races (Alien)

Gadroon

The Gadroon are a race of reptiles that closely resemble frogs. A race of wanderers, they accidentally destroyed their home planet due to an expieriment gone wrong. The Gadroon had always been pioneers in tech that alters and control gravity and one attempt led to literally crushing their own planet. Without a planet to live on they searched for a new home and came across Earth. It had a similar atmosphere, biomes that resembled the humid climate of their planet, and what didn't could easily be terraformed. With their more advanced technology they assumed they could easily conquer the planet and use humans as a work force to help speed up the process of terraforming. What they didn't count on was that Earthlings had super powers. Despite this it was still a losing battle for Earth until Destroyer stepped in, nearly wiping out the species as a whole. Since then they've become part of Empress Istvatha V'han's empire and her main force when it comes to invading Earth. In battle, the Gadroon deploy their advanced gravity altering tech. The highest ranking soldiers are able to create and control actual black holes in a battle.

Gadroon don't naturally have supers.

The Qularr

An insectoid alien race that has attempted to invade Earth a handful of times. To put simply, they don't get along with much. Besides Earth they've also aquired the ire of the Gadroon race. Though they are not without reason and invade planets with actual reason rather than some warrior machismo. The reason for Earth being they wish to research super powers. The Qularr have less supers than Earth and their supers tend to be weaker on average. They wish to remedy this. Unfortunetly this would be accomplished through conquering the Earth and expierimenting on it's denizens. There technology is based on bio-tech. Their machines are in a sense, alive, and operate like living organisms. Other than basic ranks that resemble human military, they also employ a special type of soldier reffered to as World Burners. When they just want to defeat the enemy, with little concern for conserving the local life and resources they send these out. They're geared out with advance tech that can burn nearly everything around them into ash. Ludwig is one of these soldiers.

The Qularr manifest super powers at a third of the rate of humans and their supers tend to be 2/3rds as powerful. Half of the Qularr supers are either mentalists or shapeshifters. The other half is split up among normal human superhero archtypes.

Malvans

The Malvans were a once exspanive race that controlled half of the Milky Way. They look somewhat human-like but are generally smaller with large poofy eyebrows. This turned around during a long war with the Elder Worm, and although they were succesful the Worm casted a spell on the Malvan people, cursing them to be lazy and decadent. This caused their empire to weaken and shrink, despite their powerful and advanced technology. The only reason their empire hasn't fallen completely is due to their automated devices. These days they primarily just watch gladitorial fights in their arena. Former combatents include Ironclad, Firewing, and Herculan.

Malvans can technically have powers manifest naturally but with every child being tailor made hasn't happened in Millennia. And it doesn't need to. Any Malvan can choose nearly any power they want and receive it almost immediately. Most simply don't because it's often considered gauche. Most who do plan to enter the Malvan Arena.

Mandaarians

One of the few races to ever visit Earth with peaceful intentions. They're a near human looking species of mentalist that claim to only be interested in peaceful exploration. They've visited several times, normally only to silenty observe the normal day to day lives of humans. Some commentators are suspicious, claiming these peaceful visits are only to size Earth up before an invasion. In all honesty they probably only exist lore wise to show that nice aliens have visited Earth.

Roin'esh

The Roin'esh are a shape shifting slave race. They're a servant race to that Malvans who think their native ability to change shape is a great parlour trick. They may be slaves but they constantly scheme and plot to free themselves from the Malvans and become their own galatic empire.

Odd thing about them worth mentioning, their appearance is completely different based on CO and the PnP. In the PnP they're human-like with brown to grey skin and vertical furrows on their heads. Really different from the black and green gooey things we see in-game. One could argue they disguised themself as some hideous creature for the fear factor but the safest bet is to assume the CO appearance is the canonical look.

The Elder Worm

One of the most dangerous alien races one can find. Even a Qularr can get someone to hang with them, Elder Worms are almost universally despised and for good reason. Once, a long time ago half of the Galaxy was under their control. The only species to control an empire that could rival that of the Malvan's, they used their natural gift for psionics and magic creating technology vastly different from all other species. Eventually a war was started between them and the Malvans. The Malvans claim The Elder Worms coaxed them into attacking first but neither side has any records to back up this claim. While The Elder Worms swift and brutal magicks gave them the edge the Malvans were eventually able to create a defense. Planet sized ships fought against equal sized Qlipothic beasts summoned from the sacrifice of entire planets. Eventually The Elder Worms were crushed, their home planet destroyed, and the species nearly wiped out. The species ran off in seperate directions in small groups. One such group came to Earth, enslaving proto-humanity. Eventually, with the help of the Empyreans, Proto-humanity fought them off. This however has created the confusion that The Elder Worms are originaly from Earth among humans. Too this day many believe in this with the only ones who know they're aliens tend to be the ones that closely listened to the stories Ironclad told.

The Elder Worms are a wormlike race that need hot and humid eviroments to survive. As such they often wear humidity suits on most planets or install giant machines that heat up and humidify the surrounding area.

Elder Worm supers are about on par with Human supers but aren't as common. Nearly all Elder Worm supers are Psionic or Magic in nature.

Races (Alien Pt 2)

Hzeel

One of the greatest extraterrestial threats to Earth. Even if they don't know it! The Hzeel are a small humanoid species (1.5 is considered tall) with bluish-gray skin. They live to be around their 60s and as they age grow skeletal growths on their body. The Hzeel are in an active war with the Perseids (The race Ironclad belongs to) and plan to invade Earth to aid their war. Earth knows virtually nothing about them as they've never interacted with humans directly. However a number of things can be traced back to them. Warlord's armor is made by reverse engineering a crashed Hzeel ship. 2 super received powers from bonding with Hzeel tech. One hero received his powers by having his eyes surgically replaced with Hzeel ones. And lastly, The Lodge, a monster created by Teleios is made with genetic material from a predator native to a Hzeel colony world.
Hzeel and humans are in a sense biologically compatible but transplanting an organ from one to the other will often create unintended superpowers.

Hzeel culture and government can easily be summed up in the word, "cheating". Politicians buy votes, it's expected. Children attempt to cheat at nearly everything and are praised when successful. Not to say a Hzeel is inherently evil but that the culture views being able to lie and cheat succesfully as a sign of intelligence.

Sirians

The first aliens Earth ever saw. They invaded Earth in the year of 1938 and were originally mistaken for Martians. When the Fabulous Five tracked them back to their Mars base they learned that the Sirians attacked due their home planet becoming a heavily polluted and unlivable wasteland. Between the failure of the second invasion attempt and information given by Ironclad about them attacking the Malvans it's generally believed that the Sirians are likely near extinct and nomadic at best. Occasionally there's the odd claim of someone seeing a Sirian ship in the Sol system.

The Sirian race is made up of two distinct species, a ruling green skinned class and a gray skinned lower class. The Greens are significally more intelligent, often possess psionic abilities, stand a foot taller than Grays at five feet, and possess larger heads. They also make up about 10% of the species population. Both species have wedge shaped heads with pointed chin and large solid black oval shaped eyes.

Progenitors

But seriously, the Progenitors are an anciet space-faring race from forever ago that tinkered with life on several planets, often times creating the highly evolved life that runs the planet. This includes both Humans and Empyreans. As to why, what they looked like, or where they're from... Well...



No one knows what they were, not even among the most senior of space-faring races. Most don't even know they're a thing.

Selenites

Considered to be one of the strangest alien species known to Earth. In part because they have no recollection of their history and in part because they live on our moon. A buglike race that appear to be thin and spindly. They "feed" by absorbing light, either from the sun or reflected off of Earth itself. They're known to be rather tough despite their appearance with an ability to survive within the vacuum of space unaided. Even further, they have a wider array of senses and stronger senses than humans themselves have. They also appear to be a long lived species with most of their kind stating they've been alive since at least 1938. If they're even older is unknown as none of their kind have any memories before that year. Their oldest memory is of waking up one day and beginning to awaken and rouse the others.

In the 1970s the superhero, Amazing Man, came to the conclusion that the Selenites are a species "manufactured" to be servants. Most scientists have agreed to this theory and no discoveries about the Selenites have changed this opinion since then. This is in part due to the species apparent need to "do something" as they'd much prefer to do a boring and monotamous task for hours on end rather than nothing. A Selenite could spend decades caring for broken machines, polishing, dusting, and buffing them. It wasn't until recently that Selenites have begun to put their effort into different endeavors such as attempting to chronicle their own history, understand what the many defunt machines they care for do, and even politics.

Selenites were first met by The Fabulous Five when they followed their arch-nemesis Revenger to the moon. There they found that he had an army of insectoids at his beck and call! After his defeat they continued to learn that the aliens were there before Revenger himself! The ruins they lived in was dubbed Selenus and they, The Selenites. On that spot The Amazing Man gave them full sovereignty. A dubious claim but one none of the nations of Earth have bothered to contest yet. Since then, the Selenites kept radio contact with Earth but however has rarely used it. Most humans don't really know the Selenites exist despite how easily accessible such information is simply because they're rarely relavent. Since their discovery only once have they been a part of any major event when a splinter group of Selenites attempted to reactivate and use one of Revengers old Nukes to attack Earth.

Races (Mythical)

This part will describe creatures of mythical origin that exist physically on Earth. Specifically Earth because the majority of creatures from myth exist on Faerie rather than Earth.

Vampires

The most notable Vampire in game would be good ol' Vlad. Also known as Dracul, the ever famous Count Dracula. Vampires in CO primarily follow European belief and as such has their powers (such as enhanced physiology, flight, transformation) and weaknesses (Like a weakness to light, aversion to garlic, and an inability to cross running water or enter one's home without permission) though this isn't to say you can't use different vampiric myths. Vampires however "grow" into their list of powers and can even overcome these weaknesses with time due to the fact that with vamps age=power.
As for clanships... Vampires in CO don't normally do this, and if they do it normally doesn't last long.(Seriously, we only see this twice and we can hardly count one of them as Foxbat was the leader.) Vampires naturally want to stay on the down low and creating large clans does the opposite. Part of this is because they're solitary by nature, often viewing each other as competitors for food. Of course extremely old and powerful vampires like Dracul could keep things under control, the majority don't have the power, wits, or skill to attempt such a task.
And the last note about vampires, they all have an inherent want for evil but don't need to be so.

Vampires were originally created a long long long looooooong time ago by necromancers. Considering how long ago it was it's more than likely very few know this.

Therianthropes

Therianthropes, refer to were-folk in general. Were-rats, were-wolves, were-tigers, whatever, they all fall under this category. Generally speaking, they follow their respective lore when it comes to powers and abilities. As for packs, most were-folk are either solitary or are a part of a small group. Emphasis on small. It's somewhat normal for one Therianthropes to never interact with another however the Chunhu family in China wishes to change this.
As for how one becomes a Therianthropes, it can be nearly anything. Contagious bites, curses, family lines, ect ect. The only real constant between them is that any person who becomes a Therianthropes will inevitibly become a part of the Mystic World.

Demons

Demons exist and follow the rules of their respective mythology. A biblical demon will follow the rules of the bible while a demon from Chinese mythology will follow whichever rules the specific demon is believed to follow. Most, if not all demons come from their respective realm, which will likely exist in the Netherworlds, the collection of all the hells and underworlds that exist in the Astral Realms.

Ghosts

So y'know. Not really a race they're just leftover spoopy bits of someone that died and all that but I honestly just couldn't think of where to actually stick these things so... Mythical races I guess. The lingering souls of the departed. Ghosts do general ghost things we all know about. The only CO specific rule that exists on ghosts is that while there may be a lot of them, most aren't strong enough to interact with us in any way.

Gods Overview

As I've mentioned earlier, the world's Gods reside in the Astral Realms. Put simply every god from every religon exists in CO lore. Simply because with hundreds of humans believing in a specific entity, that entity begins to exist within the Astrals. How strong are they though? Well... Not very. The Gods as we know them are simply constructs of the human mind. Their powers wax and wane due to a multitude of reasons. Put simply Gods aren't very godlike here. So no, your Deathgod character isn't a cosmic threat of pure edge. Infact, any being from the Creative Realms could kick his godly posterior back to the Astral Planes.

Not to say Gods have no power, they're just not the incredible cosmic power most people assume them to be.

The Ban

The Ban is... Well a ban. To prevent gods from directly interfering with humans on Earth, The Ban was put into place. It disallows Gods from going to Earth or interfering with Humanity as a whole. Is it perfect? Nah, there's loopholes. But there's also other things keeping an eye out for troublesome gods. Like Dr. Ka for instance.

Gods (Various)

A number of Gods from real life mythos have been stated as to what they're doing in the CO Universe so this section will describe it! Don't expect much info on the God past the name. You have google. Use it bros.

St. Albertus Magnus

The Patron Saint of Christian Sorcerers, Scienctists, and Scholars. Of course the first one is added in CO lore and seldomly known. While he doesn't make any attempts to work around the ban, many people who pray to God for advice are visited by him in their dreams.

Anubis

The Egyptian God of mummification is angry and butthurt to Godly levels. Literally. Set (Or someone pretending to be him) gave a mortal powers that mimic Anubis' own. He has the goal of crossing onto Earth to clear his name of this mortal mimic and then throw a tantrum for how humans have broken into tombs and stuff.

Dionysus

My duuuuudes. Dionysus is the hippest God there is. The Roman god of wine and other stuff I don't know is also the world class rockstar Dion Bach. But wait, Bready! How does he get around the ban? Well reader, Dionysus created an avatar for himself. So he is not physically on the material plane which lets him circumvent the Ban. Of course the avatar is weaker than him. Dion Bach is known to throw epic parties that normally result in at least a couple party related deaths. He receives "worship" whenever one of his CDs/MP3s/FLACs/insert music jargon is listened to.

Hecate

The Greek Goddess of Witchcraft likes to screw around with the Circle of the Scarlet Moon. She finds a new wave of worshippers from neo-pagans and lycanthropes. She's known to visit mystics such as Witchcraft to see how far they're willing to go to win. She's just hedging her bets is all. Or something.

Mara

The Buddhist supreme power of evil (helluva title) is active throughout south and east Asia. While physically unable to do anything Mara is often trying to goad supers into villainy and heroes into self-destruction.

Marduk

The Mesopototo Mesopotato Mesopotamian God of Kingship and Cities wants every City to have a superhero. He often gives heroes a nudge to travel to cities where they're needed or team up when one hero isn't enough. His ultimate goal is for the world to be made up completely of City-States with a different hero running each one. Because God-Kings.

Mephistopheles

The edgiest demon thing everyone uses for things all the time, (I don't know why I rarely look up demon mythos stuff myself) he's the most active demon in the Decending Hierarchy. Old Harry is the most common demon to be found making deals with mortals, and while he can't effect anyone that doesn't give him permission to, his ability to grant any desire and cast illusions make it a trivial task. He can easily grant someone superpowers.

Gods (Evil)

The Bleak Ones

Dark Gods from the Qliphotic realms. They're the ones who created the Lemurians in the first place and gave them the furnaces and ovens they used for magic in the first place. As Qliphotic Gods go, they're rather simple. They only want to feed and nothing more. But don't mistake their simple goals as weakness, as like many other Qliphotic Gods, they're extremely powerful.

The Quemetiel and The Solipsist

Both of these entities are important to the Qliphothic realm lore wise, but haven't been mentioned in game as of yet. (To my knowledge)

The Solipsist is refered to as the Anti-God. While the Gods create, The Solipsist destroys. It exists in some paradoxical form of non-existence. Beyond that, nothing is known of this entity as being near it is to become it. Any who travels close to it become the nothingness that The Solipsist is.

The Quemetiel, also know as the Crowd of Gods, is a swirling mass of dark energies, created from the defunct and dead gods of the worlds. It's the only entity in existence to be able to travel close to The Solipsist without phasing out of existence. This creature however has no mind, it just exists. It travels through the Qliphotic worlds, devouring everything in it's path as that's all it knows.

[/u]The Dragon[/u]

I mentioned the Dragon before in The Cult of the Red Banner section. Basically just a quick look into how The Death Dragon is a small piece of this bad mofo right here.
Now you may be thinking, "But there's a couple dragons and/or dragon-like things in game, what makes this one THE Dragon?" Well, sit your posterior down and I'll tell you. The Dragon is an ancient creature the exists (in the loosest terms of the word) within the Astral Plains. It was sealed long ago by a group of very powerful and talented mages, chained to be trapped forever between the Astral Worlds. Placed atop his head is the realm of Faerie. Lodged inside his guts are the burning hells of the Netherworld. Resting infront, for him to see, is the Dreamzone. And see he does. He watches the dreams of every mortal, looking for it's next pawn to try and set itself free.

Now, what exactly is The Dragon? The Dragon is the literal living embodiment of all evil. Tiament, Satan, The Midgard Serpant, the list goes on and the entire list all refer to The Dragon. The entirety of it's being is the single goal to corrupt and control all of mankind. Physically it's every human on earth as it's the evil in everyone's hearts. "But wait! How is it chained up in the astrals then?" Fret you not! I didn't forget what I said! As with most beings, it has a physical and astral form and the mages trapped the astral form, and in turn, kept the beast from being able to influence the world at a frightening degree.

But influence it still has. The Dragon has spawned many cults such as The Red Banner. It was The Dragon that taught mankind black magic. The Dragon's minions created the curse of vampirism and lycanthropy. The Dragon was the one to teach civilizations to rule with armed terror and religious mystery. It tries to create cowardice, hate, greed, and ambition as when humans act negatively on these emotions, the chains that bind it weaken. Likewise as when humans act kind, charitable, and other Sunday morning cartoon lesson emotions the chains strengthen.

But where is The Dragon from? Many mystics create ideas and theories but none have anything concrete. The Dragon has existed for as long as anyone has known. Some say it's literally Satan itself, other's think it's a fallen Archetype from the Creative Realms, maybe even the personification of the reptilian hind-brain.

The most frightening thing about The Dragon is what would become of man if it were to be destroyed. If it truly is the greed, cowardice, hate, and ambition in the world, to destroy The Dragon is to destroy these integral parts of humankind. Other's believe that it's humankind's tether to the magical world and to destroy The Dragon is to deny the world magic.

HERO Games

A lot easier to explain IC than how a lot... A lot of people make it out to be. "Ech, why would heroes fight each otheeeer?" "Eeeeech The Arena is already a thiiiiing." Bah, quiet you.

HERO Games is an "underground" Superhero fighting ring. About as underground as a televised, heavily advertised, fighting ring can be. It proooobably get's it's name from the Publishing company behind the Champions PnP this game is based on, also called HERO Games. HERO Games does quite well and has fans world wide. Cause who doesn't like watching superheroes beat the snot out of each other?

It's very easy to take this as IC too! It's a damn tv show. That's it. That's all you have to do. Some heroes see themselves as above this and refuse to ever play. Others, especially those more interested in being a famous hero rather than just a hero, are totally into the idea of competing. No really, Zone makes this so much more complicated than it actually is.

Magic

General

The big plus about Champions lore in general is how open it tries to remain when it comes to character creation. It's really apparent when it comes to how magic works. Why? Because there's pretty much one rule to it. Magic takes effort. That's basically it. What does effort mean? Well it could be a magic ritual, a magic circle, an incantation, mana, cutting oneself, or using a magical object. Literally as long as some sort of effort is being put into it, magic can come out of it. Essentially you could make nearly any idea for magic lore friendly. Sure, there's "Schools" of magic but they're only categorial in nature for the sake of psuedo-science.

One of the biggest rule of the magic community or "Mystic World" is that it's to remain a secret. Sure, you can tell a hero or two, but the major populous must remain ignorant of the fact that magic exists. Even groups like the Scarlet Moon or the Trismegistus Council are rarely known of, even among the hero community.

Do take into consideration magic IS real though. It's not unexplained science or mutations, magic is magic.

Politics?

There's occasionally arguement on how magic should be in relation to the non-magical people of the world. The main three ever really mentioned are that the Mystic World should be completely hidden, The Mystic World (And thus the knowledge of magic) should be public, and that not only should they be public but also be the main driving force behind man-kind rather than science (Which is often referred to as the Black Rennaisance).

The Archmage

The Archmage is a position in the magical world. There's only one Archmage at a time and they're chosen by, well, the world itself. As for what they are, they're one of the, and if not the most, powerful mage in the entire world. Unlike most mages they have no need for rituals, Talismans, circles, or anything really. They can cast magic by pure will alone. Not only that, they can call upon the power of all the gods in Faerie, Babylon, Elysium, and even The Netherworld. They can call upon holy light to banish demons and the burning fires of hell to chastise angels. They're even immortal in a sense. Once chosen as the Archmage, a person no longer ages. The only way an Archmage leaves their position is if a strong force manages to kill them or if they willingly step down.

Now, what's the Archmage's job? He protects the world from basically everything magical. Any outer planar threat is handled by the Archmage. Likewise, when Gods argue, sometimes with each other and sometimes with humans, the Archmage is a mediator. All in all, the Archmage makes sure the world doesn't blow the hell up because of magic. It's role as a middle ground who only fights agaist forces that would destroy Earth itself, The Archmage doesn't neccasarily need to be a hero. Some mystics even believe Takofanes was once the Archmage himself and that's why his corpse of a body posseses such magical ability.

Robert Caliburn

The Magnum Mage of Vibora Bay! The current Archmage he can do everything previously mentioned. He's a powerful mystic on the side of good who's known as the keeper of the flame gem (Part of a set of four elemental gems) and the wielder of a pair of enchanted guns. Born Robert Cole, he's an ex-vietnam vet who, during service came across a temple in Vietnam. It was there he came into possession of the flame gem which not only gave him strong magical abilities, but made him forever destined to fight Therakial

Hunters

People who hunt things like Vampires and Were-folk are rather typical. Primarily they hunt those that become evil, preying upon humans and killing them. It stands to reason hunters that kill Vampires and Were-folk who cause no problems are viewed upon as negatively.

Places (Magical)

The Material Worlds

Also referred to as the Assiah by mystics, these worlds make up the bottom of the Tree of life used by mystics to map the Multiverse. The Material Worlds are any world that follows a set of rules. They follow physics as you would. Not necessarily OUR physics mind you, but physics. Earth is one of these worlds. This does not mean these worlds are alike however. One world can have gravity work completely different from our's, where planets actually push things away from them. What is important is that there's a strict set of rules that are always followed by the worlds.

The Astral Worlds

The most often visited worlds of the Multiverse are the Astral Worlds. For convienance's sake, I'll be splitting them into separate groups.

The Imaginal Realms

Also referred to as Yesod, The Imaginal Realms are created by thought. These realms are the easiest of the Astral World's to reach. Prime examples of the world's hear include...

• Windyburg, An American city forever in the 1920s created by the stories of prohibition and American Gangsters.
  
• Faerie, The land of myth and legend. One of the largest of the Imaginal Realms, it contains all the creatures of myth such as dragons, elves, and centaurs. The land is the easiest for humans to come across but the hardest to leave as the land itself is alive and thinking. Opening portals to recruit unsuspecting humans to fill a role in it's "Epic Tales" is somewhat commonplace and the world itself shifts and change to follow the story.
  
• Mount Olympus. Part of Faerie, the Gods of Olympus live here and reside over their limited followers to hold onto the little power they've got.
  
• The Dream Zone. Technically it's the Astral World that's most often visited by humans due to that when a human dreams, they're temporarily there. When a human dreams, their astral bodies separate and reside in The Dream Zone. From outside the dream it looks to be a endless expanse filled with spheres, each sphere being a person's dream. Thankfully, they're generally safe from any Astral jumping creature unlike those who consciously travel the Astral Realms.
  
• Astral Earth. It's literally Earth. In fact, a person who posses the power or magic to view the Astral can see Astral Earth without the usual fuss related to traveling the Astrals. Astral Earth contains the ghosts that travel the planet, along with the "ghosts" of buildings and structures.
  
• Cysts, anomalies in the Astral Worlds created by magic or strange thoughts. They're often weird and normally disappear after awhile. One example of a Cyst would be New Golgotha. A few city blocks created by a probably crazy guy that believed he was Jesus and that the CIA were stalking him. Despite the man dying some time ago, his deranged mind caused the Cyst to continue existing. Visitors to this plane are normally chased by the CIA while the deranged man summons lightning from the skies.
  
• The Netherworlds. Every hell ever thought to exist resides in The Netherworlds. This includes Pandemonium, a quasi political collection of demons with pompous names like "Arch-Duke of Wailing Souls" or something similar make deals and plots to gather more human souls. I mention this one in particular because 1. It's not based on any one specific religious mythos. And 2. It's the most likely source of a demon making a deal with a human.
  
• Elysium. As all the world's Hells exist, so do all the world's Heavens. In general it's split up into sections, One side comprised of the Western Heavens who continue to split themselves down to the specific religion, and the Eastern Religions who are less strict and even have normal visitations from their counterpart hells.
  
• Babylon, the land made from everything man-kind has ever made and then some. Ruled by a single person no one ever really knows (due to his regular use of a disguise) and filled with people from all civilizations from history and beyond. Every section of the city is made after an important part of human's civilization, both fact and fiction. Past the neighborhoods that mimic the various civilizations man-kind have built, there are parts made from popular ideas like the classical sci-fi cities from 60's movies. There's even a section that's nothing but a highway that's constantly gridlocked. Not only are the streets filled with Samurais, Knights, and constables, but fictional characters like Sherlock Holmes walk the streets. There are even counterparts to real world people such as Jack the Ripper, and they're just as powerful, unstoppable, or uncatchable as they were believed to be, often making them stronger than their real world counterpart. Babylon also boasts an Elevator to Elysium and a Subway to the Netherworlds. Lastly, the library of Babylon is any researcher's (magical or otherwise) wet dream. It contains every book ever to be created (including works lost forever) and then even books that have yet to be created. In it's lowest levels exist a printing press that prints stories at random, the idea being that eventually it will print everything possible.

Hod

The world's assigned to Hod follow a specific set of unchanging laws such as the Lower Worlds like Earth but with one key difference. The worlds of Hod follow magic. There laws and rules are created by magic and thus, can be paradoxical in it's very nature.

Netzach

While Netzach follows laws as well, they're ever changing. The rules of nature the worlds here are controlled by a ruling part of sorts. Worlds are categorized as a Netzach world when the laws that govern it can be changed by a single entity or collection of entities.

The Creative Worlds

The Creative worlds are often referred to as Briah. Mortals, in general, no matter how powerful, and not allowed here. They must prove their wisdom by passing the tests imposed on them by The Veil of the Temple, the "highest" point in the Astral Realms.

Each world in Briah are based on a single concept and are often ran by a single entity. A prime example would be Kryptos from the Vibora Bay Apocalypse. While in the Material world he's powerful but finite in power like all the other beings of Briah, in his home plane (In this case, The Realm of Secrets) he's much more powerful. While the average one of these entities are more powerful than the Gods, they themselves aren't considered Gods. They're often referred to as Archtypes or Avatars as they're entities that personify a single concept. Their interests are normally based on this concept alone so their interaction with the lower world's in general are very limited. An example would be The Trickster, the entity who most obviously personifies tricking, lying, and deception. If he wished to do anything, he'd likely create a spirit, create an animal form that personifies him, or even posses the Gods of the Astral planes that align with them, giving them incredible power for a limited time. (In this case let's say Coyote, a Native American trickster god.) They'd then send them to the material world to perform whatever task they wanted done in the first place. (Again, with Trickster being what it is, it'd have it's emissary perform tricks and illusions.) The most powerful of these Avatars are referred to as the Four Zoas. Urizen of Order, Urthorna for Artifice, Tharmas for Nature, and Luvah for Chaos.

The Lowest of these Worlds are known as the Tiphereth. The highest of these worlds are found in Chesed. These worlds themselves are nearly impossible to correctly perceive by mortals as they simply don't have the senses required to do so. Instead of the pure spiritual worlds they are they perceive a physical world.

Places (Magical Pt. 2)

The Archtypal World

Just as the Creative Worlds, when trying to enter the Archtypal Worlds you're blocked. A world known as The Abyss sits on the edge of space and time. It blocks all entrance until one passes it's test. While The Veil of The Temple will at worst spit you out somewhere inhospitable, The Abyss will at best turn you into some monstrous creature and at worst destroy you body and soul. (Or the other way around depending on how you feel) Past this you enter the Archtypal Worlds, made up of Kether, Binah, and Chokmah. Unlike the other rankings of the Tree, these aren't categories but instead are each their own plane of existance.

Binah is known as the Dark Sea of Being. It contains a resevoir of infinite power for both Creation and Destruction. Chokmah is the Bright Sea of Forms and contains every possible Archtypes of objects, actions, ideas, structures, or any category of thought that could exist.

Kether is known as the crown and it's called that for good reason. If there truly were to be a God of infinite power it'd be Kether. To enter Kether is to give up yourself and become everything. Existing outside of time, it's everything all the time, forever, past present and future.

Other than this, there's Da'ath, the "lost" realm of the Archtypal World's that exists in The Abyss. Like all the other realms of the Archtypal World, it exists outside of time and space. From Da'ath someone could call upon the power of Binah and the knowledge of Chokmah to create anything they want, from a single grain fo salt to an entire galaxy filled with life, and insert it into any point in history. The only thing that prevents it from being abused is simply how nigh-impossible it is to even pass The Abyss.

The Qliphothic Realms

While the four other worlds are mapped on the Tree of Life, The Qliphothic is on it's own map reffered to as the Dead Tree, The Qliphothic Realms hold no real life. The worlds located here are dead and occupied by dead.gods and their minions. Most of the transdimensional jumpers avoid the Qliphotic Realms, with the bravest never venturing in them for long or far in. To say it's dangerous would be an understatement. No living creature can survive long within the Qliphothic for long as this realm is everything life isn't. Simply standing in it will drain you of your life until you are left as one of the mad and crazed monsters the realm creates.

Important creatures from this realm includes The Kings of Edom, The Bleak Ones, The Quemetiel, and The Solipsist.

Places (Millennium City)

Millennium City

The city of the future! After Detroit was leveled by one of Dr. Destroyer's plans, various organizations, companies, and what-not got together to build a new city. An advanced city housing the most advanced of Earth's technology. That city is dubbed Millennium City!

Millennium City University

Or MCU for short. Something a lot of people use for part of the backstory of their character. MCU offers almost 100 classes, including liberal arts, vocational arts, technical classes, and more! MCU is known for being strongest in subjects such as Electronic Engineering, Superhuman Studies, Sociology, Psychology, Computer Science, and Women's Studies. It's Law, Engineeing, and Medical Schools are also highly regarded.

The University's mascot is The Vanguard, loosely based on the hero of the same name that fell to one of Destroyer's earlier bids for world domination. The costume is designed to resemble an ancient Greek soldier. The school colors are Red and Gold, the former being referred to as "MCU red".

Defender, Dr. Silverback, and Witchcraft are known to have guest lectures and classes from time to time.

Club Caprice

Club Caprice is a nightclub that first opened it's doors in 1995. Ran by the ex-villain Lewis Frey, also known as the supervillain Masquerade I. After reforming and becoming an upstanding citizen and all that jazz he opened a nightclub made specifically for superheroes. Despite the many rumors around the building and his villainous past, supervillains still aren't really allowed in. He get's breathed down the neck by Nighthawk and the MCPD enough as it is. He just likes the idea of being the "dangerous club with the heroes" for publicity. Caprice is actually free to the public, the instances used in-game are special VIP rooms specifically tailored for heroes. Which also means security measures specifically tailored to them as well, including powered bouncers and a security system made by Dr. Silverback.

Incubus

Hip and cool dance club. Nothing out of the ordinary. Really. Stop asking it only gets one paragraph in the lore books!

The Barlowe Hotel

Sitauted close to the border between the City Center and Downtown areas of the map, it's Millennium City's only five star hotel. So of course all the hottest celebs stay here to partake in the spas, several dining establishments, satelite tv, and live jazz at the bar. Neato factoid, the Penthouse hideout is located in the Barlowe Hotel.

The Magic Lantern Bookstore

Owned and ran by Alicia Blackmun, The Magic Lantern Bookstore is well... A magic shop. To the mundane it sells tarot cards, Magic For Dummies type books, crystals, herbs, and that sort of thing. While an actual mage could possibly make use for this stuff, these items are left out for those with no talent. Behind is where all the real magic is. Literally the real magic. It's normal for the actual accomplished mages of Millennium City to come here for supplies and books.

Places (Vibora Bay)

Vibora Bay

Also known as the Queen City and often shortened to VB, it was first an established colony for the Spanish in 1687 and eventually grew into one of the most culturally influential cities in Florida rivaling that of Miami. The majority of the well-known heroes like Red Snake, Black Mask, and Dr. Ka started to come to the city in the 1990's, along with a plentora of villains, mystical or otherwise. The 90s was also when the criminal world in the city "stabalized" with the two largest gangs, The Dogz and The Shadows calling a truce. As of 2000 in the lore books, VB's mayor is Richenda Barker, a black woman who promised change when it was revealed Police Commissioner John Paris was receiving bribes from mobsters. VB is also known for representing a wide range of religons from the mainstreams such as Catholism or Islam, to the more esoteric like Voodooism. The city is also heavily watched by the stronger and larger of mystic organizations such as The Crowns of Krim or the Trismegistus Council, partially due to it's higher than average amount of super powered mystics.

Minefield

A real punk/goth nightclub in Vibora Bay. Around the back is the club's "VIP" section only for the well connected, either socially or mystically. The bouncer, a ram headed superhuman named, well, Ram, guards the door, and does it rather proffesionally. While technically owned by Dante Bancroft, in reality he's just a puppet of Valerian Scarlett, who actually owns the night club.

The San Sebastian Swamp

A swamp in the Vibora Bay area, while not mentioned in-game it can be important for mysticism based characters. While the mundane folks believe it to be a regular swamp, admittedly a regular swamp with Skunk Ape sightings, a mystic may know it's true nature. The swamp itself is sentient. All living creatures are magically connected, created a connected yet seperate intelligence that is the swamp. The swamp can use this to control the foliage, ground, and even animals within the boundries in the swamp. One of it's most fearsome ways of doing this is by creating a Skunk Ape. Using mud, plant matter, rocks, and sometimes even animals, it can create a Skunk Ape to act as a magical guardian for the swamp.

The High Apostolic Church

Started as a Catholic church, when the priests found it difficult to fully convert the Native Americans in the area and eventually gave up. The Native Americans began to infuse their own beliefs with the catholic ones and when the influx of slaves arrived they did the same. In the end you had a widely circulating slave religon that practiced Native American Shamanism, Yoruba, and Catholism. By the time Florida became a state, The High Apostolic Church was thriving with high membership. The church has on several occasions been infiltrated by morbanes from DEMON who they've had to purge from their ranks time and time again. The church is also at a strange point where many members believe the powerful supervillains such as Dr. Destroyer and Takofanes are the evil Saint or Orishas. Due to their docterine allowing members to refer to the Orisha of their worship by whatever they wish they cannot do much about it but fear what may happen if they become known as the church the worships super villains.

Places (Monster Island)

Being an island filled with giant monsters, it's of course near Japan. The Japanese government is primarily in charge of the island with other UN nations sending scienists and other officials as they wish. UNTIL also keeps a heavy precense but Japan's Buerau 17 maintains the largest precense on the island. The islands main inhabitants consist of several giant monters (Most of which left by the Qularr after their largest invasion attempt), Manimals, and Teliosaurs. Besides this, several groups have made bases on the island for various reasons. The island itself existed as nothing but a series of atolls until the Qularr came. They rose the sea bed up, creating what would later be called Monster Island with an active volcano at the center of the island. The island itself is surrounded by a forcefield left behind by the Qularr that Buerau 17 maintains to keep the monsters on the island. It, incidentally, also makes the island appear like a grey blob by all observation tech.

Places (Other)

Stronghold

Located in Devil's Head Mesa in New Mexico, Stronghold has existed since the 1970's. Way back when in the groovy 70's, supervillain crime was horri-bad. They stole millions in property and cash, and did billions in damage. Even the ones they did catch would either break out on their own, or with the help of their partners thanks to their powers. The solution, proposed by Dr. Charles Wildman, was to create a prison, specifically for the super powered, located far away from normal civilization. And thus, Stronghold was born, and things went pretty swell for awhile. Up until the 90's. A thunderstorm took out a portion of the prison's power grid, allowing the supervillain Blackstar to orchestrate a breakout. 40 hardened criminals escaped the day, causing Charles Wildman to resign. He was replaced by Peter Kennedy, a mean ol' summabitch who ran the prison with an iron fist, gaining him many enemies, not only among the prisoners but the staff as well. One of those staff members, a disgruntled guard, released Grond from his Hot Sleep chamber, causing untold damage and deaths in his escape. This led to replacing Peter with a new warden. The current Warden and son of Charles Wildman, Arthur Wildman. In his time as warden he's lobbied for new, technological upgrades, revamped the psychological evaluation for the staff, and revised the security procedures.

Layout

The top levels are home to the guard's bunks, recreational centers, and in general, is where the guards live. The ground levels house the entrances, and the inmate's yards. Below that, under ground, are the cells. The further under ground you go, the more dangerous the prisoners are, with the very bottom levels being occupied by the Hot Sleep Inmates.

Technology

Besides the well-armed guards, (Seriously they got mechs bro) the prison is laced with machines the completely nullify super powers. Devices mounted along the walls that mess with the neurological signals in the brain that both make it difficult (and most cases impossible) to "access" the parts of their brains used to "turn on" their powers and also prevent the powers from functioning normally on the off chance a super can still work them. But the pride and joy, so to speak, are the Hot Sleep Chambers. Created by Prof. Maxwell Wainright, these large vats keep their occupants in a medically induced coma for the duration of their sentance. Top Tier villains imprisoned this way include Menton and Grond.

Ravenswood Academy

An exclusive private school located outside of Millennium City and close to the suburban neighborhood of Orchadsville. As the public knows it, it's a very high-end school with most of it's student body being comprised of the rich and/or famous. The average student there has parents with an income of at least $200,000 yearly. Not only that, it's actually a very good school. The classrooms are stocked like a university, the teachers would be over-qualified in most highschools. The kids there are making hovercars for crying out loud!

Beneath it all though, quite literally, is a secret. A number of the students are super powered and go to this school free of charge. All in the goal of teaching the next generation of heroes what being a hero exactly is. Beneath the school is a secret facility that acts as a training ground for these students. Various rooms and halls contain hidden passages to this facility. These students are pain stakingly searched for. Every rumor of a teen using powers is looked into. The trail of clues followed until some teenager's life is changed forever.

As far for appearances in the game, the Headmistress, Kristina Pelvanen, or better known as the mentalist heroine Rowan, appears in the latest revamp of the tutorial. The academy near RenCen itself is also not the school. It's more of an off-campus facility used for when students are brought to Millennium City for one reason or another.

As for the rest of the superhero faculty, many only stay for a year or two as a sabbatical from actual hero work. They do have a number of full-time hero staff, normally retired heroes and even one retired villain. Besides that there's also a mole man who escaped from Lemuria that lives in the underground campus and works maintenance for the power plant that runs the hero facilities.

Sports are pretty popular there too, with 10 interscholastic sports and 16 teams for them. The colors are Midnight Blue, Green, and silver with the school Mascot being The Blackbirds.

New York City

New York New York. If you can make it there you can make it anywhere! In the Champions setting it looks mostly the same save for 2 things, both of which being superteam bases for two of the country's most popular teams. The first is the Sentinel's Base, an artificial island between Ellis Island and Liberty State Park which they obtained in 1980 and then rebuilt in 1987. The second is The Justice Squadron's base, a mansion in the Brooklyn Heights area.

Metals and Minerals

Questionite

Questionite is an incredibly rare metal from off Earth. It's amazingly durable and incredibly light. Combined with it's rarity it makes it incredibly expensive. Armor made from it seems to never become damaged and it's use in blades is unparalleled. This is because a blade of Questionite can cut through nearly anything and seems to never lose it's edge.

Neutronium

An incredibly heavy and durable metal. So heavy a sword of the stuff could hardly be wielded by a trained athlete. A few who own amounts of this metal claim it's from dead stars but scientist continously point out the metal isn't dense enough for that.

Kenderium

An alloy of Titanium steel, with a number of chemicals and stuff made by Prof. Darryl Kendrick. It's stronger than steel without being too heavy. A more affordable supermetal if you will.

Orichalcum

A mineral or metal that's reddish-orange in color and similar to copper. It's only found in Atlantis, making in incredibly hard to come by for non-Atlanteans. Even for those of the Mystic World. Orichalcum is known to hold the "charge" of an enchantment very well, making it excellent in the use of enchantments. And enchanted item made from orichalcum will not only be powerful, but easier to craft that if a different mineral were used. This fancy shmancy thing played a big part in how Atlantis controlled most of the world during the Atlantean Age

Destreum

The trademark metal of Dr. Destroyer, it's light weight and immensely powerful. While also being used in his armor, it's used in many of his creations as well. And solely his creations. Due to the self destruct feature he uses there's virtually none left to research and reverse engineer. So nah bruh, you probably don't have something made of Destreum.

The Law! (The United States)

Champions being Champions, there are laws based around the use of super powers. Y'know, with supers being around for like, 3-4 generations it's only natural that laws would eventually be made revolving around them. As far as Roleplay goes, you can normally ignore them but having some knowledge of them can be good. Either for flavor, a refrence, or a jumping off point for a roleplay. For the most part, the laws around supers are generally pretty straight forward. Things like, The use of gravity altering powers being illegal above the ground floor, the use of fire powers in gas stations, they're all pretty obvious things that are more about the danger of using certain powers in certain areas rather than the use of powers themselves. Only power ban worth mentioning however is that mind altering powers are generally illegal to use.

Registration

After one of Dr. Destroyer's bids to take over the United States failed their was public outcry about how little the government watches superhumans. Primarily because this was one of Destroyer's most successful bids for domination and it was partly in thanks to his small army of superhumans, most of which were never known to exist in the first place. This lead to the creation of the American Superhuman and Paranormal Registration Act, or ASPRA for short. It required all innately powered individuals that reside in the US to register with the government, giving their names and powers, (Gadgeteers and powersuited heroes are under a seperate act that involves giving descriptions of their gadgets but allows them to keep the blueprints and components secret) and once PRIMUS came around they took control of enforcing it. This of course miffed many superheroes, even if the law itself was completely toothless. After all, how can people like the government that hunted down and arrested their favorite superhero because he wouldn't register? So instead they went by another route, one that's argueably underhanded. Whenever a villain was captured and arrested they'd be registered. Everything you could possibly need on thousands of villains all at the click of a button. The catch, heroes could ONLY gain access to it if they registered. Coupled with the facts that the PRIMUS database has never been compromised (And with villains like Mechanon and Cybermind that's impressive!) and that none of the information on heroes have ever been unlawfully used. Decades later with many revisions and updates, hero registration is more common then ever.

Sanctions

Sanctioning is the act of a government body giving heroes the ability to act as officers or peacekeepers within their country. In short, this allows heroes to legally be heroes. Sanctions don't mean you can go all willy nilly. Being sanctioned essentially makes you a police officer, meaning you can get in trouble like a police officer. Excessive force, racial profiling, all that jazz. How each country handles this differs however and this section focuses on US law anyway.

In the States there are two major government bodies that grants sanctions. The first is the Department of Justice and would be the more common way for an American hero to become sanctioned. The DoJ hands out sanctions case by case. The process involves background checks, tests, and all manner of things. In the end most sanctions are only temporary and require regular revaluations to reinstate said sanction. The second would be PRIMUS, a branch of the DoJ. PRIMUS can grant sanctioning to metas and allow them to work as PRIMUS officers akin to how UNTIL does the same on occasion. Other US government bodies can hire/sanction heroes (The FBI have a few and NASA has their own official hero) but it's much rarer to see. Being sanctioned gives the hero about the same amount of power as an FBI agent. Needless to say, being sanctioned requires that you're registered in the PRIMUS database.

The process of being sanctioned, in classic Champions style, is never gone into in detail. Most information on it is that it has MANY background checks, psychological evaluations, subject to revaluation, and can be pulled whenever they wish to do so. Things such as a hero's success rate, how well they work with law enforcement, general attitude towards the government, and the extent of their crime fighting are all taken into account.

Non-Human Rights!

As of currently, all sentient non-humans in the United States have limited rights. While they are not citizens under the eye of the law they're granted basic rights under the consitution. On the flipside, they do not count as "persons" under the eye of the law and as such, things like due process are extended to them.

Supers however, whether through mutation, bioengineering, alien tinkering, magical enhancment, or natural inborn abilities are considered human as far as the law is concerned. The idea behind this being is if the person was originally human or comes from human parents, they are to be considered human under the eyes of the law.

Masks!

Just like the real world it is infact illegal to conceal one's face. But wait Bready! How come superheroes have masks then? Good question! The answer! They're technically breaking the law! Upside is, law enforcement tend to be lax with heroes in general. On the flip-side, when villains are being tried at court the fact they used a mask (when applicable) will get tacked onto the list of crimes they've commited. Speaking of courts, it is infact legal for heroes to testify in court while still wearing their mask. Of course their testimony will often lose value and are usually used when the hero in question has good standing. Villains too are allowed to be tried with their mask with a removal and revealing of their secret identity only happening if they're found guilty.

Search and Seizure

Sanctioned heroes follow the same search and seizure laws as officers do. There's also an added rule that any evidence gained from reading a person's mind cannot be used unless their was a search warrent in place.
Unsanctioned heroes offer a small legal loophole created due to past cases. While any evidence obtained by an unsanctioned hero can be used in a court of law, the hero in question has still likely commited a crime and has no legal protection what-so-ever.

Identies and you!

Superheroes are infact allowed to do business through their super alias. Of course all parties involved have to give concent. They can even own property and accounts under their alias.

Superpowers!

As far as the American law cares, the use of superpowers equates to the use of weapons. Even if said power isn't combative in nature. Assault becomes aggravated assault, robbery becomes whatever you call robbery with a weapon. As long as the person uses a power it's considered using a weapon. This goes both ways of course. Superheroes have, on the occassion, found themselves in court being sued for excessive force.

Cruel And Unusual Punishment

For the cruel And unusual villains. Now supervillains, even the ones in stronghold, can not be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment. The only form of punishment allowed that fits under the legal definition of cruel and unusual is Hot Sleep. They can only be used when the courts deem it necessary, saying that it'd be impossible to imprison the villain any other way.

Insurance

I guess here would be a good spot to mention this, right? Well, super insurance is an actual thing. With superheroes and villains duking it out and causing large amounts of collatoral damage, insurance against such acts became a thing.

The Law! (Various)

• Canada:

  Canada's superhuman laws in general closely mimic America's. Mainly because they keep getting American jerks crossing the border all the time. Looking at you Overbrain.
  

• China:

  As I've mentioned earlier in The Tiger Squad section, China requires all powered citizens to not only register, but to work as a servant to the government (Normally within the squad itself but any government position may be issued). Failure to do so labels you as an outlaw.
  

• Great Britain:

  Britain's registration law is much more lax. It's strongly encouraged but completely voluntary. One may even keep their identity a secret upon registration.
  

• Russia:

  Russia has incredibly strict registration laws.
  

• Japan:

  There's absolutely no registration law in Japan. They don't even have a super hero team despite being giant super hero nerds.
  

• Germany:

  Thanks to how they used supers in WWII, Germany has very loose laws regarding supers. For awhile they often ignored supers in general and wasn't until the late 80s they actually paid any attention. Their registration laws closely mimics Britain's.
  

• France:

  Interestingly enough, France's registration laws are more strict than America's.

Sanctions

In Great Britain, sanctions were originally "granted" by Bureau S, a secret branch of government that had dozens of "unofficially official" heroes working for it. By the 60's the Bureau became the Ministry of Superhuman Affairs, a public branch of government that handles sanctions.

Japan doesn't even have registration laws. It's sanctioning laws are just as non-existent.

UNTIL can also grant sanctions to heroes for as long as they work with them.

As mentioned above, in China all superhumans are required to join the Tiger Squad, so technically all superhumans that comply are sanctioned.

Super Media

Media exists, and it exists in niche subcultures too. And so, of course, in a world of superheroes and villains, there's niche media that follows them.

Websites

There's a plethora of websites on superheroes. So much so should be obvious, even in the real world we have them. In the Champions setting, there are 3 main websites of note, either due to subject or popularity.

Super_Talk.com
Started by a pair of college students in '94, Super_Talk is a website devoted to talking about supers. Obviously. What brought it to the forefront beyond many others and cemented it's place as the most popular Super news website was the pair's uncanny ability to always find the hottest 'scoop' and news, attracting both a large fanbase and investors.

VU.com
Villainy Unbound, once a print magazine, now a website. Villainy Unbound follows the exploit of supervillains. Handpicking the lesser violent ones to laud over their exploits. It has a sense of rebellion and anarchism in it's work.

SuperRomance.com
No, it's not a superhero dating site. It's a gossip site that follows superheroes and their romances with each other or other famous folk like movie stars. Rumors abound about who is secretly dating who, various romance shapes like triangles and squares, and illicit hero villain pairings.

Television

SNN
I can't find what it stands for but like, c'mon, it's obviously something like The Superhero News Network. SNN is a news network devoted entirely to superheroes and their exploits. The first of it's kind which made it's founder, Thomas Cassidy extremely wealthy. Thomas Cassidy is a black man with a strong history in the news media as a whole, who would've found his way to the top of the WRK-24 if he had never left to found SNN. He's an extremely hard worker, leading into the territory of control freak. His work ethic has created one of the most successful news networks of his time but has costed him 3 marriages with a 4th likely to follow.

Print

SuperWorld
A magazine started by David Farquar. Originally a small local school newsletter he made when he was 13 due to his love of superheroes, it's popularity grew and by the time he reached highschool, it was a national magazine. Finding no point in college at that point, he went all in and gathered investors which eagerly hopped on the ride due to his already proven success. It's popularity soared in the 80s and it's coverage of The Battle of Detroit shifted it's image in the public eye from geeky magazine for superfans to legitimate news source on the superhero world. David Farquar is an older white man that's active for his age, keeping him fit. To this day he's still a major superhero fan, often accompanying his news teams just for the chance to meet superheroes. His office is filled with images of him with various superheroes. There's even rumors of him having affairs with superheroines, primarily after they appear on SuperWorld's sister magazine, Uncaped. If these rumors are true, his wife apparently doesn't care.

Uncaped
Superworld's sister magazine. I dunno. I think it's vaguely supposed to be like playboy? But for superheroines? Never stated anywhere though.

Altered History (The Turakian Age)

The Turakian Age is named after our good old friend, Takofanes. How does Takofanes = Turakian? I'll explain in a bit, but first, some meta commentary.

The Turakian Age was originally distinct and separate from The Champions setting. It was a distinct IP under HEROgames, but during the penning of the 5th edition of The Champions setting, that was changed. A big part of the 5th edition was taking the various IPs HEROgames have published using their TTRPG system, and placing it all within one timeline. The Turakian age fits far before everything else in this timeline.

But what is the Turakian Age? Well, simply put, it's a medieval high fantasy world akin to Dragon Age or DnD. Within it, Elves, Orcs, and Dwarves lives alongside humans. Magic existed in higher levels than in modernity. And leading one of the many nations was the necromancer Kul-Turak. His rule was so absolute, and so influential, that the age is named after him as he's one of the few names that survived to the modern day. With dark magics he ruled, and with such powerful magicks, when he was slain, he returned as a lich. No longer Kul-Turak, he was now Takofanes. A combination of mages fought against the lich, powerful magicks against powerful magicks. This cataclysmic fight ended that Turakian Age, draining the magic of the world to the point that the flow of magic weakened greatly for centuries.

The Turakian Age in the Modern World

Being so far before all known history, very little has survived into the modern world. Even Takofanes himself remembers little of it, his centuries of sleep and ascension into lichdom leaving him little to care when it came to such things. And if you consider everything in CO as canon (I mostly do for simplicity's sake) one other entity survived but she has little time to ever speak of it. You know, that soul eating lady or something from that one Nemesis mission. The one with the Tomb Raider look alike.

Historians have little artifacts and writings to go on it, mostly enough to simply name it The Turakian Age.

Given that historical cultures have faded to great degrees within the Astrals, there's likely nothing left of the Turakian Age there. It's districts in Babylon likely lost and gone and it's Gods a part of the swirling mass of dead gods within the Qlipothic Realms.

Altered History

World War 2

Date: 1939-1945
WWII was primarily the same except with additional superheroes but there are a number of key differences that happened during it.

• Japan had a mystic group that held much of the political power through a branch of The Black Dragon society. The leader of this branch was known as The Iron Father and used the group to push Japanese nationalism. The Iron Father, feeling betrayed by Hirohito's surrender after the US bombing, attempted to recreate a divine weapon known as The Heavenly Jeweled Spear. Fearing that he had gone mad, many members in the group contacted The Trismegistus Council to stop him. By the end of a battle with dozens of different heroes, The Iron Father committed suicide.
  
• Germany's Nazi party had a strong mystical leader. Leading the Nazi party's mystic group known as the RSvKg, Totenkopf was a powerful mystic until his death towards the end of the war.
  
• Atlantis remained peaceful until Dargon the Usurper took power. He became allied with the Axis Powers, sending one of his most skilled warriors to aid them directly and using his forces to disrupt allied shipping. Atlantis remained allied until loyalists discovered that the former king's daughter, Princess Mara was still alive and lead a revolution that placed her back on the thrown.
  
• Lemuria was also allied with the Axis Powers. King Arvad had hoped that the war would help spur his people from their lethargic state and sent warriors to aid the Axis Powers and disrupt Allied shipping. Upon finding Hitler to be truly insane he pulled his support and dropped out of the war.
  
• During WWII, Totenkopf invaded Faerie and used magic to create a powerful protective shield over the Kingdom of Bohica, seperating it from the rest of Faerie. Totenkopf proceeded to enslave the indigenous gremlins and forced them to create magic machines for the Nazi war effort.
  
• After Hitler's initial death, his brain was placed in a robotic body to allow him to lead and fight once more. He's assumed to have finally perished during a fight with several heroes when an expirimental Nazi UFO crashed atop him.
  
• Totenkopf lead an effort to gain more power through a mystic ritual. Often considered by The Trimegistus Council as their greatest failure, while Totenkopf suceeded, he didn't suceed in the way he had hoped. Rather than giving himself more power, he gave the world more power. The ritual raised the power of magic and even raised the rate in which natural superhumans were born.

Green Monday

Date: August 22nd, 1962
The first major appearance of VIPER that gave it the foothold that allowed it to become the force it is today. At exactly 7:00 AM Greenwich Mean Time, the deaths of dozens of underworld, industrial, and political figures happened through a series of staged accidents, bombings, assinations, shootings, and suicides caused by blackmail. Through a series of planned legal and extra-legal arrangements, VIPER was able to take control of the deceaseds' assets.

Demonflame Incident

Date: August 1st 1986
High atop the One Beacon Street tower in Boston, Luther Black made a sacrifice of 5 men and 5 women, slain, mutilated, and reformed to create a mockery of the holy unity for Satan-Moloch. The demon rose the tower 100 feet into the air, bridging the gap between our world and the Demon's. Demons flooded out from the tower, flooding the streets. Then Black made 10 more sacrifices to another demon, raising the tower another 100 feet and flooding Boston with more demon-kind. Luther Black continued this until he made a sacrifice to each demon of the Descending Hierarchy. By the end he had summoned thousands of demons and sacrificed 100s of lives to open countless portals into the demon realms but neither were his goal. The Demonflame he had been powering with the sacrifices grew strong enough to open the Gate of Edom, the metaphorical gate between our world and the Qlipothic worlds. And through this portal he saw Sharna-Gorak, the destroyer and the last great servant of the King's of Edom. He began the work of stealing Sharna-Gorak's power as the demons below unwittedly aided his Morbanes and Brethren in fighting the forces of good. It was until VIPER arrived in force and struck against DEMON did the tide of battle turned in favor of the heroes. With VIPER backing them up the heroes managed to fight back the waves of demons, climb the tower, and snuff out the Demonflame but not before Luther Black managed to steal a considerable amount of power and escape. This incident is what made DEMON's true intent known to the world, both mystic and mundane, and to the demons of the Decending Hieracry, prompting them to cut off any support to DEMON.

Cottonmouth Trial

Date: 1990
Cottonmouth was one of VIPER's soldiers, a super with serpentine features. One of Detweiler's favorite lieutenants. In 1990 Detweiler launched a failed attempt to take over Washington D.C. which led to Cottonmouth's capture. Facing a large amount of time, Cottonmouth took a plea bargain and handed over access codes to VIPER's serpentine network. This gave law enforcement a near complete look into VIPER's members, operations, and nests and led to hundreds of arrests and the raid of dozens of VIPER nests. While Cottonmouth was assassinated VIPER was crumbling with nests disconnecting from the serpentine network and from VIPER command completely.

The Battle of Detroit

Date: July 23rd, 1992
While the actual battle took place in July 23rd of 1992, Dr. Destroyer had started preparations the year prior. It was a grand plan involving dozens of hired super villains, Destroyer's personal forces, the release of Grond, Mega-Terak, and the giant ice beast Glacier, the use of an asteroid attractor, and the bombardment laser canon he kept in orbit should the asteroid attractor be stopped. The first step happened on July 12th where he signaled the villains under his employ to spread chaos across the United States. Next was for him and his asteroid attractor to be "discovered" by a number of Ravenswood students. As the heroes alerted by the students split between stopping the asteroids already hurtling towards Earth and disabling the machine itself Destroyer released the three giants he gathered. By the 23rd the asteroids have been stopped, the attractor destroyed, and Destroyer was "cornered" by the heroes. After a grueling battle Destroyer called on his bombardment cannons to level the city, seemingly himself included. All according to plan. A grand show of strength before his apparent "demise". The death toll was astronomical (literally, people died in space) including the heroes Vanguard, Tiger, Fletchette II, Crusher, and many many more.

Project Sunburst

Date: 1994
The United States military created Project Sunburst to test humanity's resistance to nuclear weapons and what prolonged exposure would do. So they gathered a number of soldiers and without telling them subjected them to an actual nuclear blast. Naturally most died but in true comic book stylings some instead developed superpowers. (Insert jazz hands) This led to the creation of supervillains such as Sunburst, Gigaton, and Armadillo.

Altered History Part 2

The End of Supers

Date: 2020
Hey did you know that canonically, superpowers stopped existing sometime around 2020? Don't worry it only lasted until like, the year 3000 or something and between then the world was cyberpunk. So like, what happened? Well, Tyrannon breaks through into the Champions universe and as a final effort to stop him, Witchcraft uses the Quanterian Banishment. Now, this magic spell has Spirit Bomb rules from DBZ. It uses some sort of latent magical energy of everyone, but so much was used that the magical energy that allows the common occurrence of supers was sucked up dry, and so supers simply trickled out of existence until a resurgence of said energies sometime around the year 3000. Do you really need to know about this? Probably not but I wanted an excuse to complain that they didn't disable all powers in game for April Fools 2020.

Other Goodies

Need a quick look at some lore? Check out this CO lore primer[docs.google.com].

For bio formatting tips and help look at this guide[silverage.enjin.com]

Really getting into the RP scene? Maybe make a Primus Database[primusdatabase.com] page. Or just laugh at some of the bad ones like I do.


Find my semi-serious, probably helpful guide on RPing in the CO universe Here!

Wanna know where you can RP? Check out my third guide over here!

F.A.Qs

Spoiler, I don't know if any of these questions are even frequently asked but they're pretty important ones that don't really fit in any of the other sections.

Where do super powers come from?

This question essentially has two answers. The first is The Progenitors. A highly advanced race of aliens that visited Earth forever ago and introduced the genetic material modern man needs to produce superpowers into proto-humans. While it in all likelihood means the "meta" gene exists in everyone, the rate of which supers appear is still practically non-existent until we get to the second answer. During WWII a cultist nazi group attempted to use a magic ritual to grant themselves power. Technically speaking they succeeded but rather giving themselves power specifically, they unlocked the magical energies of Earth that had been dwindling over the centuries. This magical overflow of power is accredited to the increase of supers past WWII. TL;DR, aliens introduced a meta gene and a magic ritual made it much more likely for it to actually give super powers.

Are there devices that track/nullifies powers?

Yes and yes. The IHA is stated to have the technology to find supers via a machine that can pick people out as superpowered. Kodiak is also stated to never register as a super on such devices as well, further cementing their existence. The Stronghold prisons also have specialized cells used to nullify most supers. Of course, how well both would work on supers who use magic is dubious at best. Stronghold in particular uses a mix of power nullifiers and specialized cells. The former affects the neurological signals in the brain to prevent supers from accessing their powers while the later uses tech to actively counteract specific powers.

Are there any power ranking systems?

The United States Department of Defense once conducted a survey to rank supervillains and supervillainous organizations. This ranking system can easily be applied to most of your needs. It states Omega class villains or groups (Like Dr. Destroyer or VIPER) have the power to threaten the entire world. Delta class villains or groups (Like Gravitar) have the power to be a credible threat to the American government. Below these two are the less dangerous Beta and Alpha (in that order) threats which the majority of supervillains fall under. It's worth noting that the ranking isn't solely based on power. Grond, one of the strongest superhumans in the world ranks lower than one would expect due to his predictability making him (relatively) easy to pacify. It's also worth noting that this list is publicly available (with many redactions of course) and is used by other Nations and UNTIL as the basis for their own surveys.

[OlrichRakdos]

@Jivebot
Author's been banned from the CO discussion boards, PM him the question.

[Jivebot]

Thank you. This has been hugely helpful. I always like to try and fit my character concepts into a setting's proper lore. I realize it's been a while so I hope you're still active enough to answer the following: What about Demigods? If Gods are so weak(Relatively speaking), then would a character like Hercules be possible? Or is Hercules actually just a "normal" superhuman who assumed his strength must come from a godly parent?

What about those beings from the creative realms than can smack gods around easily? Do they ever come to the mortal world and go all "Zeus-Mode" on the mortal women? lol

[Hyperchaotic]

Thank you

[The Safe and Sterile Bread-Tan]

That's what it's here for. CO lore is based on the Tabletop RPG game Champions and generally remains the same for the most part and said RPG was first published like, in the 70s. So there's been a lot of time to lay the ground work as it were for the 5th and 6th editions which're considered the current canon.

[Blobfish86]

Holy &#¨5, CO lore is far deeper than i could imagine!

I aways try to make my toon's story related to the game's lore, but i have very little knowled of it actually. This guide will help a lot, thank you for making it ^^

[RavingRaptor]

Thank you for putting so much time and effort into this!

[Running Man]

This took a few hours to read. Very helpful, thank you.

[Hobo Jenkins]

My prayers were heard bread-kun.

[Hobo Jenkins]

Great guide bread-kun. Add the Empyreans and Atlantis!