Los Angeles in the CU

[novi]

I'm thinking about running a Champions game in Los Angeles.  I've checked the books, and it looks like the only mention is that the California Patrol is active in the area.  Is there anything I missed in any of the other books?

[Stanley Teriaca]

Nope. If the heroes don't live in Millimumin City or Vibora Bay, they are "city not stated" so they could be located anywhere.

 

Most villains who are not tied to a city are actually moble, and can appear in any city.

 

And it sets you free to create any villains which fit the city you wish to use. Los Angeles screams Hispanic villains, evil buisnessmen, slumping Hollywood types, and more.

[Lord Liaden]

There are some other extant details. Champions Universe p. 45 mentions that PRIMUS maintains one of its regional offices in LA. Based on precedent from the history of Mayte Sanchez (see CU p. 181), there are probably a few Silver Avengers posted to the city in addition to agents.

 

On the criminal front, both VIPER and DEMON have major bases in the Los Angeles area. Per VIPER: Coils Of The Serpent pp. 91-92, VIPER's main LA Nest (no particular nickname) is housed beneath a nondescript city block. It also secretly owns and directs most of the businesses on the block. It's the second-largest Nest in the United States, and is involved in a wide variety of criminal activities, although its agents display a penchant for flashy, carefully-planned robberies. Its leader, General Antoine Russel, worked his way up through the ranks and is a gifted small-unit tactician who loves to take on and humiliate superheroes. Remarks in the Nest's entry suggest it's not the only one based in LA.

 

One Demonhame in Los Angeles is extensively described in DEMON: Servants Of Darkness pp. 122-25. "Studio Lot 0" is an apparently abandoned film studio for a defunct horror-movie production company, which masks the underground Demonhame, continuously active since the late 1950s. Its experienced Morbane, Hector Snipe, works as a tabloid film critic and gossip columnist. The base's description includes maps, its associated cult, and its funding and recruiting activities. There are also three plot seeds, and suggestions for connecting Studio Lot 0 to other cities.

Edited June 5 by Lord Liaden

[Lord Liaden]

There are certain other things about Los Angeles in the CU that we can logically extrapolate. The Port of LA is the busiest container shipping port in the Western Hemisphere. With that much goods and money passing through, it undoubtedly draws the attention of international criminals from Mexico and the Far East. Besides supervillains based in the US, almost any villain from those areas mentioned in Champions Worldwide might appear there. That includes major villains and villain groups with a significant international footprint, such as Dr. Yin Wu and the Cult of the Red Banner. (BTW the Cult has its own dedicated PDF mini-source book.)

 

UNTIL undoubtedly has a base in LA, although the agency's North American regional headquarters is in Denver, Colorado. While the Millennium City Police Department was the first to create a MARS (Metahuman Activities Response Squad), "dozens of other cities" have duplicated it, so LA unquestionably has at least one. (See the section on the MCPD in the Millennium City source book for details of MARS.)

[novi]

Thanks.  I probably should have looked in those books, but honestly, it's easier to just ask a question and wait for Lord Liaden to reply.

 

And as you point out, it is a very international city, which makes it easy to drop almost anything in.