Post by helioskitty on Jun 30, 2016 4:04:00 GMT -5
Universe 7 (y’know, the one the canon story of Dragon Ball takes place in) was relatively peaceful. Sure, they had their threats and difficulties every now and then, a Buu destroying planets here and a Frieza selling them there, but there was generally stasis, some sense of peace between brief threats and a revocation of many of the consequences of those threats after the fact thanks to the Dragon Balls. Things have apparently changed as of Super, with the revelation that many of Frieza’s planets are in active revolt, but those are relatively small conflicts on the galactic scale. It’s unlikely that those involved in the conflicts are faced with extinction, and the context of the wars paints the rebellious planets as oppressed freedom fighters destined to defeat evil. Throughout all we’ve been shown, there’s a distinct sense that things will be alright in the universe.
Unfortunately, we’re not in Universe 7.
This universe is in turmoil. An intergalactic war between three mighty empires, none able to claim greater nobility of cause than the others, threatens to teat everything apart, desperate warriors whose powers could be turned to good are forced towards evil to survive, and powers far outclassing anything our heroes can match have laid siege to the Earth. Massive forces cause destruction which can’t be defeated with strength, subverted with cleverness, or avoided with deftness. The only hope for change is to manipulate, to tip the scales and play these forces against each other, and to have the resolve to survive and uphold your ideals until you find the means to become one of those forces yourself.
Setting Summary:
Many galaxies are being torn apart. The three great space empires are engaging in a massively bloody and destructive war with planets left extinct or subjugated in their wake, pirates and rebels feed upon the defenseless, and independent factions feud wastefully and commit atrocities as they search for any and all advantages to not be crushed and pulled into the tide of one of the empires.
The Saiyajins, with their love of battle, quick birth and growth rates, and advantages such as the Zenkai boost and Oozaru transformation, form the core of the colonizing Saiyajin Empire, but are struggling to remain relevant in the war due to deficient technology, low resources, and lack of exceptionally powerful individual soldiers. They also have issues of unity and discipline, as Saiyajins are independent and hard to control by nature, and relatively few great leaders have appeared to reign them in.
The Changeling Empire thrives due to the Changelings’ ability to survive in space, its greater willingness to adopt different-species warriors from conquered planets into their armies, stronger individual soldiers than the other races, and incredibly advanced technology. They’re very well-unified, disciplined, and obsessed with excellence and efficiency, and typically make quick work of drilling these qualities into those other races who join the empire. While the Changelings are open to taking advantage of technologies from planets they’ve conquered, they rely most heavily on their own technological advancement programs, and it’s paid off, as the Changelings have multiplied and increased their fighting forces with the advent of intelligent combat androids, cybernetic and bio-enhancements, energy weapons for their less Ki-inclined warriors, and healing pods that can bring back any not killed rather thoroughly. However, this incredible practicality and individual power is also a weakness for the Changelings, as they’ve neglected to develop any traditions of mysticism and thus lack any magical capability, and though individual Changelings are strong they also breed slowly and take a long time to train, so any losses are felt much harder.
Finally, the Namekian Empire is about equal in power to the Changeling Empire but almost their exact opposite in methodology. They actually lack most forms of conventional technology entirely but have incredible mastery of the mystic arts, using sorcerous applications of Ki and magic rituals for healing, travel, resource management, and communication and maintaining unity through religious fervor rather than regiment. By far their greatest advantage, however, is their usage of the Dragon Balls, which they’ve effectively mass-produced by placing a set on each of their worlds, and though these Balls are relatively weak compared to any in Universe 7, they’ve been used for terraforming, planetary defense, mystically modifying and organically empowering Namekian soldiers (such as to turn Namekian growth masters into monstrous bioships), stymying enemy advancement, and many other boons. However, the Namekians have their share of weaknesses too, such as their extreme xenophobia (which causes them to typically commit genocide on conquered peoples and refuse to use their technologies), difficult reproduction method, and low battle power for those not enhanced by the Dragon Balls.
In a bit of fortune for the Humans, while the destructive war has damaged many galaxies, it has not affected anywhere near Earth. But the Earth couldn’t avoid danger for too long. (Because, as you all know, the fact that setting creators are self-obsessed humans means all stories must somehow make Earth important.)
A little over two years ago, a beast of unbelievable power known as Hildegarn appeared and attacked the Earth. Its immense power could be felt throughout the entire universe, and many were shaken by its mere existence, but not long after, the Hero of Earth appeared, and their battle shook throughout the cosmos, eventually culminating in both their energies vanishing.
Attempting to understand what had happened and how the conflict had been resolved, many groups around the universe researched planet Earth and its surroundings. Several groups discovered lore about the incredibly powerful Dragon Balls on Earth, those that make the Namekians’ many sets of Balls look puny in comparison. Many sought to go after the Balls for personal gain, but the Empires couldn’t afford to distract their armies from fighting one another to send substantial forces, leaving insanely powerful individuals and independent forces rather than vast armies to become the main contenders for control of the planet and its Balls. Though many from around the universe raced towards the planet, the vast majority of weaker contenders were wiped out by rivals in space before even managing to reach Earth.
So it was that, one year ago, the planet was laid under siege by those who would come to be known as the Five Great Powers. The Five Great Powers landed on the planet at roughly the same time, causing great destruction upon their arrival. They spent the next year consolidating their power, establishing themselves on the planet, wiping out the relatively weak Human heroes who came to resist them and battling amongst themselves while searching for a way to locate the Dragon Balls. The Five Great Powers were so mighty as to be seen as godlike to the Humans they now lorded over, to the degree that many Humans indeed began to venerate them as deities. Whether these Humans were simply killed like the rest or allowed to serve as slave labor depended on the mood of the Great Power in question.
The Five Great Powers have plunged the world into chaos, leaving cities in ruin, the landscape blasted, and the sky warped and dark. The population is dwindling, and the Humans can do nothing but flee and hide. Most of their heroes are dead and the rest have decided that the best thing they can do for Humanity is to hide with them to try and rebuild their strength.
Not much is widely known about the Five Great Powers aside from how massively powerful they are, but the PCs will have access to more about the Five Great Powers right off the bat than most in the setting, so here’s about as much info as they’ll have on the Five Great Powers:
The first Great Power is a space pirate named Novrik. He commands a group composed mostly of Tuffles and brainwashed Androids of various base species (including purely mechanical) though he welcomes members of other species who show useful qualities. He himself is an Android who seems to be able to absorb Ki. He has a much larger fleet running back in the galaxies where the intergalactic war is taking place, and brought only one of his ships with him for this conflict, which he’s landed on the planet and is working out of as a base. Where the other Great Powers with henchmen have powerful underlings, it’s pretty apparent that Novrik is carrying the entirety of his force. This is not to say he’s any less of a threat than the other Great Powers, and indeed many think he’s the most likely victor simply for his immense strength and near invincibility.
The second Great Power is Malakal. At a glance, he appears to be a partially-decaying, undead Namekian wearing a constantly shifting and writhing suit of golden armor. However, Ki sensing reveals that the actual source of Ki for the body is the golden suit of armor. Those who know this hypothesize that the suit of armor is actually MalakaI, not the Namekian. He’s by far the weakest of the Great Powers and has no army, but is at the very least as durable as any of the other Great Powers, for as far as any have witnessed, neither a Human hero nor an elite of one of the other Great Powers’ armies has ever wounded him even the slightest bit. He’s also much sneakier than the other Great Powers, and has a tendency to show up in Human hideouts completely without warning, killing a few civilians until some Heroes show up, killing them too, and then moving on as suddenly as he appeared.
The third Great Power is Gaius. Gaius is the only Great Power directly associated with one of the three Empires, though even with the Changeling Empire he was always something of a selfish loose cannon and thus stood out from the disciplined regiment of the Changelings. Despite this he is also considered one of the greatest Changelings to have ever lived and is a technological savant, having roboticized an entire planet and converted it into the Red Eye, a massive spaceship with what could be the greatest supercomputer in the universe. He has since built his consciousness into the planet’s artificial intelligence and interacts with the world through constructed clone cyborgs using the DNA of his original body. He came to Earth with a relatively large fighting force by flying the Red Star to Earth and putting it in orbit around the planet. His planet’s influence is part of what caused the Earth’s sky to be permanently warped. Little is known of Gaius’ true capabilities since he usually allows his soldiers (both mechanical and organic) to do his dirty work for him, but during the beginning of the siege of Earth, he wiped out an entire legion of united heroes with a single blast. It’s unknown if any of the other Great Powers could do the same, since they haven’t had that much resistance at once to put down. He is tied with Dabura for having the most powerful army of the Great Powers, and his is much better-organized.
The fourth Great Power is Dabura, prince of Hell. Dabura was actually the first of the Five Great Powers to appear, and most Ki experts agree that he was able to open a gate from Hell to Earth because of Hildegarn’s massive evil energy. While demonic influence was relatively manageable at first, the portals grew larger and more frequent as time went on, and by the time the other Great Powers showed up, Dabura had almost complete access to Earth with his army of demons at his disposal. Along with demons, he’s also added Humans who offered worship to his forces. He has a sword with great fire powers, has shown skill wielding it beyond the world’s greatest sword masters, and he seems to be able to empower and enslave people with evil energy. In opposition to Gaius’ typically precise and calculated attacks, Dabura’s strategy (or, as some have hypothesized, only choice, given the chaotic and vicious nature of his soldiers) has been to point his army in a general direction and allow them to run roughshod over the area, slaughtering and pillaging all in their path. Most people think it's reasonable to assume that the whole “portal to Hell thing” is part of why the Earth sky is all wonky now.
The fifth and final Great Power is known simply as the Black Seed. It’s can take the form of a tall pitch-black humanoid, perhaps most closely resembling a Namekian, but spends most of its time outside combat in the shape of a gargantuan shell with roots reaching out of it to dig into the ground. When it’s in this shell form, it constantly grows plantlike soldiers out of the ground around it. While these Saibamen are mostly individually weak and unintelligent, they have a sort of hive mind and move surprisingly cohesively. They also have weight of numbers, as while the other armies have fairly set numbers barring the lengthy process of reproduction (or whatever demons do to make more demons… Questions for later) the Saibamen are spawning quite rapidly. Despite how effective they would be at it, the Saibamen typically ignore human settlements unless provoked, instead simply scouring the countryside, presumably looking for clues as to the location of Dragon Balls. When all the Saibamen converged on a target at once, though, their sheer numbers and unique capabilities allow them to crush it as well as any of the other Great Powers’ forces.
With such incredible forces engineering the devastation of the planet, it’s truly a bleak time for humanity. However, perhaps not all hope is lost, for while most heroes have gone into hiding or been slaughtered, there are a few who have not given up the fight. A few who, through perseverance and combining their unique talents, may be able to make at least little differences in the hellish landscape they’ve found themselves in.
So let’s introduce them, shall we? OUR HEROES! (Well, ish. Most of them? Heh.)
Link to doc containing their basic physical info and backstories, no mechanics: docs.google.com/document/d/1GK6sZFTd6fwzvUisBUiHu7HiK1rm-56dze8AcoRyx6c
This campaign will be covered in story form. Meticulous notes shall be taken throughout the session, with dialogue in particular copied down by an outside observer, so that it can be presented more like a fun story adventure rather than a simple series of notes about what happened.
Thoughts welcome. I'll edit a table of contents into this post once I have posts about individual sessions going up. That way we can use this thread both for posting sessions and talking about them. (Assuming anyone's interested in chatting, anyway.)
Unfortunately, we’re not in Universe 7.
This universe is in turmoil. An intergalactic war between three mighty empires, none able to claim greater nobility of cause than the others, threatens to teat everything apart, desperate warriors whose powers could be turned to good are forced towards evil to survive, and powers far outclassing anything our heroes can match have laid siege to the Earth. Massive forces cause destruction which can’t be defeated with strength, subverted with cleverness, or avoided with deftness. The only hope for change is to manipulate, to tip the scales and play these forces against each other, and to have the resolve to survive and uphold your ideals until you find the means to become one of those forces yourself.
Setting Summary:
Many galaxies are being torn apart. The three great space empires are engaging in a massively bloody and destructive war with planets left extinct or subjugated in their wake, pirates and rebels feed upon the defenseless, and independent factions feud wastefully and commit atrocities as they search for any and all advantages to not be crushed and pulled into the tide of one of the empires.
The Saiyajins, with their love of battle, quick birth and growth rates, and advantages such as the Zenkai boost and Oozaru transformation, form the core of the colonizing Saiyajin Empire, but are struggling to remain relevant in the war due to deficient technology, low resources, and lack of exceptionally powerful individual soldiers. They also have issues of unity and discipline, as Saiyajins are independent and hard to control by nature, and relatively few great leaders have appeared to reign them in.
The Changeling Empire thrives due to the Changelings’ ability to survive in space, its greater willingness to adopt different-species warriors from conquered planets into their armies, stronger individual soldiers than the other races, and incredibly advanced technology. They’re very well-unified, disciplined, and obsessed with excellence and efficiency, and typically make quick work of drilling these qualities into those other races who join the empire. While the Changelings are open to taking advantage of technologies from planets they’ve conquered, they rely most heavily on their own technological advancement programs, and it’s paid off, as the Changelings have multiplied and increased their fighting forces with the advent of intelligent combat androids, cybernetic and bio-enhancements, energy weapons for their less Ki-inclined warriors, and healing pods that can bring back any not killed rather thoroughly. However, this incredible practicality and individual power is also a weakness for the Changelings, as they’ve neglected to develop any traditions of mysticism and thus lack any magical capability, and though individual Changelings are strong they also breed slowly and take a long time to train, so any losses are felt much harder.
Finally, the Namekian Empire is about equal in power to the Changeling Empire but almost their exact opposite in methodology. They actually lack most forms of conventional technology entirely but have incredible mastery of the mystic arts, using sorcerous applications of Ki and magic rituals for healing, travel, resource management, and communication and maintaining unity through religious fervor rather than regiment. By far their greatest advantage, however, is their usage of the Dragon Balls, which they’ve effectively mass-produced by placing a set on each of their worlds, and though these Balls are relatively weak compared to any in Universe 7, they’ve been used for terraforming, planetary defense, mystically modifying and organically empowering Namekian soldiers (such as to turn Namekian growth masters into monstrous bioships), stymying enemy advancement, and many other boons. However, the Namekians have their share of weaknesses too, such as their extreme xenophobia (which causes them to typically commit genocide on conquered peoples and refuse to use their technologies), difficult reproduction method, and low battle power for those not enhanced by the Dragon Balls.
In a bit of fortune for the Humans, while the destructive war has damaged many galaxies, it has not affected anywhere near Earth. But the Earth couldn’t avoid danger for too long. (Because, as you all know, the fact that setting creators are self-obsessed humans means all stories must somehow make Earth important.)
A little over two years ago, a beast of unbelievable power known as Hildegarn appeared and attacked the Earth. Its immense power could be felt throughout the entire universe, and many were shaken by its mere existence, but not long after, the Hero of Earth appeared, and their battle shook throughout the cosmos, eventually culminating in both their energies vanishing.
Attempting to understand what had happened and how the conflict had been resolved, many groups around the universe researched planet Earth and its surroundings. Several groups discovered lore about the incredibly powerful Dragon Balls on Earth, those that make the Namekians’ many sets of Balls look puny in comparison. Many sought to go after the Balls for personal gain, but the Empires couldn’t afford to distract their armies from fighting one another to send substantial forces, leaving insanely powerful individuals and independent forces rather than vast armies to become the main contenders for control of the planet and its Balls. Though many from around the universe raced towards the planet, the vast majority of weaker contenders were wiped out by rivals in space before even managing to reach Earth.
So it was that, one year ago, the planet was laid under siege by those who would come to be known as the Five Great Powers. The Five Great Powers landed on the planet at roughly the same time, causing great destruction upon their arrival. They spent the next year consolidating their power, establishing themselves on the planet, wiping out the relatively weak Human heroes who came to resist them and battling amongst themselves while searching for a way to locate the Dragon Balls. The Five Great Powers were so mighty as to be seen as godlike to the Humans they now lorded over, to the degree that many Humans indeed began to venerate them as deities. Whether these Humans were simply killed like the rest or allowed to serve as slave labor depended on the mood of the Great Power in question.
The Five Great Powers have plunged the world into chaos, leaving cities in ruin, the landscape blasted, and the sky warped and dark. The population is dwindling, and the Humans can do nothing but flee and hide. Most of their heroes are dead and the rest have decided that the best thing they can do for Humanity is to hide with them to try and rebuild their strength.
Not much is widely known about the Five Great Powers aside from how massively powerful they are, but the PCs will have access to more about the Five Great Powers right off the bat than most in the setting, so here’s about as much info as they’ll have on the Five Great Powers:
The first Great Power is a space pirate named Novrik. He commands a group composed mostly of Tuffles and brainwashed Androids of various base species (including purely mechanical) though he welcomes members of other species who show useful qualities. He himself is an Android who seems to be able to absorb Ki. He has a much larger fleet running back in the galaxies where the intergalactic war is taking place, and brought only one of his ships with him for this conflict, which he’s landed on the planet and is working out of as a base. Where the other Great Powers with henchmen have powerful underlings, it’s pretty apparent that Novrik is carrying the entirety of his force. This is not to say he’s any less of a threat than the other Great Powers, and indeed many think he’s the most likely victor simply for his immense strength and near invincibility.
The second Great Power is Malakal. At a glance, he appears to be a partially-decaying, undead Namekian wearing a constantly shifting and writhing suit of golden armor. However, Ki sensing reveals that the actual source of Ki for the body is the golden suit of armor. Those who know this hypothesize that the suit of armor is actually MalakaI, not the Namekian. He’s by far the weakest of the Great Powers and has no army, but is at the very least as durable as any of the other Great Powers, for as far as any have witnessed, neither a Human hero nor an elite of one of the other Great Powers’ armies has ever wounded him even the slightest bit. He’s also much sneakier than the other Great Powers, and has a tendency to show up in Human hideouts completely without warning, killing a few civilians until some Heroes show up, killing them too, and then moving on as suddenly as he appeared.
The third Great Power is Gaius. Gaius is the only Great Power directly associated with one of the three Empires, though even with the Changeling Empire he was always something of a selfish loose cannon and thus stood out from the disciplined regiment of the Changelings. Despite this he is also considered one of the greatest Changelings to have ever lived and is a technological savant, having roboticized an entire planet and converted it into the Red Eye, a massive spaceship with what could be the greatest supercomputer in the universe. He has since built his consciousness into the planet’s artificial intelligence and interacts with the world through constructed clone cyborgs using the DNA of his original body. He came to Earth with a relatively large fighting force by flying the Red Star to Earth and putting it in orbit around the planet. His planet’s influence is part of what caused the Earth’s sky to be permanently warped. Little is known of Gaius’ true capabilities since he usually allows his soldiers (both mechanical and organic) to do his dirty work for him, but during the beginning of the siege of Earth, he wiped out an entire legion of united heroes with a single blast. It’s unknown if any of the other Great Powers could do the same, since they haven’t had that much resistance at once to put down. He is tied with Dabura for having the most powerful army of the Great Powers, and his is much better-organized.
The fourth Great Power is Dabura, prince of Hell. Dabura was actually the first of the Five Great Powers to appear, and most Ki experts agree that he was able to open a gate from Hell to Earth because of Hildegarn’s massive evil energy. While demonic influence was relatively manageable at first, the portals grew larger and more frequent as time went on, and by the time the other Great Powers showed up, Dabura had almost complete access to Earth with his army of demons at his disposal. Along with demons, he’s also added Humans who offered worship to his forces. He has a sword with great fire powers, has shown skill wielding it beyond the world’s greatest sword masters, and he seems to be able to empower and enslave people with evil energy. In opposition to Gaius’ typically precise and calculated attacks, Dabura’s strategy (or, as some have hypothesized, only choice, given the chaotic and vicious nature of his soldiers) has been to point his army in a general direction and allow them to run roughshod over the area, slaughtering and pillaging all in their path. Most people think it's reasonable to assume that the whole “portal to Hell thing” is part of why the Earth sky is all wonky now.
The fifth and final Great Power is known simply as the Black Seed. It’s can take the form of a tall pitch-black humanoid, perhaps most closely resembling a Namekian, but spends most of its time outside combat in the shape of a gargantuan shell with roots reaching out of it to dig into the ground. When it’s in this shell form, it constantly grows plantlike soldiers out of the ground around it. While these Saibamen are mostly individually weak and unintelligent, they have a sort of hive mind and move surprisingly cohesively. They also have weight of numbers, as while the other armies have fairly set numbers barring the lengthy process of reproduction (or whatever demons do to make more demons… Questions for later) the Saibamen are spawning quite rapidly. Despite how effective they would be at it, the Saibamen typically ignore human settlements unless provoked, instead simply scouring the countryside, presumably looking for clues as to the location of Dragon Balls. When all the Saibamen converged on a target at once, though, their sheer numbers and unique capabilities allow them to crush it as well as any of the other Great Powers’ forces.
With such incredible forces engineering the devastation of the planet, it’s truly a bleak time for humanity. However, perhaps not all hope is lost, for while most heroes have gone into hiding or been slaughtered, there are a few who have not given up the fight. A few who, through perseverance and combining their unique talents, may be able to make at least little differences in the hellish landscape they’ve found themselves in.
So let’s introduce them, shall we? OUR HEROES! (Well, ish. Most of them? Heh.)
Link to doc containing their basic physical info and backstories, no mechanics: docs.google.com/document/d/1GK6sZFTd6fwzvUisBUiHu7HiK1rm-56dze8AcoRyx6c
This campaign will be covered in story form. Meticulous notes shall be taken throughout the session, with dialogue in particular copied down by an outside observer, so that it can be presented more like a fun story adventure rather than a simple series of notes about what happened.
Thoughts welcome. I'll edit a table of contents into this post once I have posts about individual sessions going up. That way we can use this thread both for posting sessions and talking about them. (Assuming anyone's interested in chatting, anyway.)