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Player Information
Opening Scene
The Campaign City
Doc Sterling
And the Men of Tomorrow
The Bad Guys
GM Info
"Hmm? Doc's dead? Again?"
- The Men of Tomorrow are not dismayed
The Sterling Legacy
I had some free time and I thought of this campaign. I haven't time or resources to run it myself, so I'm offering it to the 'net for anyone who wants to use it. Cannibalize it. Use bits or characters or plots; just don't make any money off it.Thanks to Viktor Haag, who suggested the opening scene.
Copyright © 1998 by me, but I grant permission for others to play it and to make hard copies for personal use.
No suggested game system; I'm most familiar with Hero, DC Heroes, and GURPS Supers (in that order), so those would be the systems I'd attempt to use.
The Sterling Legacy campaign is a superhero campaign for three to five players, although the numbers can be adjusted. This document describes all of the secrets of the campaign, so players shouldn't read it (or should only read the Player Information section).
For the purposes of this document, the Campaign City is named Bay City, although it could be New York, Newark, Chicago, or Hero Games' Hudson City, among others.
Player Information
Opening Scene
You come to consciousness in a cold dark space. You can feel bare metal under your skin, and you are under a thin sheet. The air has the dry metallic flavour of refrigeration systems. Something is pinching one of your big toes.
You don't recall your name or how you got here, but you know with a certainty beyond understanding that you are a hero. You defend the weak and enforce justice, as you see it.
You reach around to explore your chamber. The ceiling is low, and ridged. The entire space is a little bigger than a coffin. No problem. You've been in tougher spots -- though you can't remember them. You press your palms against the ceiling and are rewarded by a sensation of movement. The ceiling is sliding -- no, you are sliding out into the light.
You are in a drawer in the morgue. Your clothes are gone and wire has been wrapped around your toe to hold the tag there. You glance at the tag, looking for a clue to your identity. No good; you're a John Doe.
As you sit there, another drawer slides open. Other people in the morgue are in the same predicament.
Who did this to you, and why? And what do you do next?
The Campaign City
Bay City is a large port city. It combines striking futuristic architecture and an atrocious crime rate with all the grim grit demanded by 1990s players.
Bay City is home to dark skulkers of the night and men of tomorrow both. Since the 1930s, the protector of Bay City has been Doc Sterling, the ultimate man, and his associates, loosely known as the Men of Tomorrow.
Doc Sterling
Doctor Michael Faraday Sterling, or "Doc Sterling" is the Ultimate Man, a product of selective breeding, intensive education, and happy chance. A complete list of his skills would fill this book; suffice it to say that Doc knows something about everything and can design a gadget to fix the problem. (Jock Stewart usually built them.) His adventures have been legendary.
Doc doesn't age, or if he does, it's exceedingly slowly. He looks to still be in his twenties, and his birth certificate reads 1910.
Doc has been believed dead on three occasions, but has always shown up again. Each time, he stayed out of circulation for between nine months to three years.
And the Men of Tomorrow
The roster of Men of Tomorrow has changed over the decades, as members died in the line of duty, or retired due to disenchantment or age. Whatever Doc's secret of eternal youth, he hasn't passed it along to his teammates.
The original Men of Tomorrow (1932 edition) were:
- Jock Stewart
- wiry red-haired Scotsman who was a pilot and an engineer
- Ellery Winston-Potter
- elegant dark-haired lawyer and expert marksman
- G. Ross Vinni
- hulking doctor and Olympic fencer
- Joseph "Spats" Smith
- reporter and political expert
- Terence "Two-Ton" Tandy
- boxer and chemist
- Ezra "Easy" Thomas
- stage actor and disguise expert
By the 1950s, the original Men of Tomorrow had all left. Instead, Doc was accompanied by these masked adventurers (1956):
- The Maestro
- a mentalist
- The Golden Ghost
- speedster-brick
- Nighthawk
- dark skulker
- Jack Of Swords
- scrapper
- Amazon
- a brick
- Gorato
- an alien warrior (energy blaster)
Either masked adventurers are less durable than doughty sidekicks, or the villains were tougher, for the Men of Tomorrow have had a much higher turnover since then, replacing the entire roster every decade, if not sooner.
Most recently, all of the Men of Tomorrow were killed while foiling a nefarious plan by Doctor Dementia to destroy Doc and then rule the world. Doc himself is believed to have been killed in the process. (...but we've thought that before!)
The Bad Guys
Doc originally fought against criminals of all sorts, but with particular attention to the Tongs and Triads (believed to be fronting for Fu Manchu) and mad scientists bent on taking over the world.
In the latter category, no one could best Baron DeKay, a criminal mastermind with an intellect equal to Doc's, except possibly Doctor Dementia, whose search for the Fountain of Youth led him into bizarre realms of research and endeavour.
Later, Doc fought the Nazis (particularly the Flying Skull and the Aryan Eagle). He had a grudging respect for the Silent Ace (who had been blackmailed into working for the Nazis, and who switched sides as soon as Doc and the gang had rescued his sister from the Nazis), and for the Sable Phantom, who was of uncertain allegiance.
In the fifties, his foes tended to be alien conquerors (such as Modron, Koshakkil the Many-Headed, and the Mentallion) or plain old Communists.
By the nineties, his arch-foes had to be considered:
- The Emperor of Ice Cream,
- MADAM
- (the Modular Autonomous Defence and Attack Mechanism),
- Baron Dekay,
- Doctor Dementia,
- Mr. Whisper and the Razor Brigade
GM Info
The PCs are the Men of Tomorrow, current edition. They've been nullified because they present a threat to a villainous mastermind whose cunning is every bit the equal of Doc Sterling's...
...Doc Sterling.
Basically, Doc's snapped. Every trip to death and the fabulous Resurrection Formula has taken just a bit more out of him. He's good, but he's not that good.
So Doctor Dementia appeared. DD does things that Doc Sterling always wanted to.
Doc has one thing holding him back: he's still got a code against killing, even when he's being Doctor Dementia.
The general thread of the campaign would go like this: The PCs figure out that the kind of amnesia they have could only have been caused by superpowers or supertech, so they need to track down the Men of Tomorrow. (If they're hiding out, it may take them some time to figure out that they themselves are the MoT.) Eventually, following wisps of memory, they find one of the MoT hideouts. (There were several in the city.) The hideouts will provide them with technology and with sets of alternate identities. They will probably not provide them with all the answers they want.
Tracking down Doc is somewhat more difficult. He's dead (again), so they'll have to use information in the hideout to deduce the last plan of Doctor Dementia. (Fortunately, DD "died" at the same time as Doc.) This information should help them piece together the last days of their lives.
If they need to, some of the original Men of Tomorrow are still alive, in private nursing care. They can probably get in and talk to them. Clues should start to pile up. At your discretion, one of the surviving MoT can give them the secret ID of one of the 1950s MoTs who is still alive.
If they get too close to either Doc, then he'll have to tend to them before the Resurrection Formula has finished working. This way, they'll be dealing with a Doc who's not physically up to snuff and who probably isn't all there mentally, though he can still hold up a facade in public.
If they get too close, then Doc will have to deal with them. Is he too far gone even for his Code Against Killing? That will depend on what the PCs do. It might be possible for them to appeal to his better side. On the other hand, they might just have an enraged Ultimate Man to deal with.
Copyright © 1998 John McMullen
