Have you used the Monad in games?

[DShomshak]

If so, how?

 

What additional information or alterations would you like to see?

 

I am revising the Monad for Creatures of the Night: Revised. I am going beyone simply translating the Monad into 6e/CC mechanics, to filling in gaps in writeups and adding new material. Especially new kinds of robots! This is your chance to say what needs fixing and how the Monad should be expanded and developed.

 

Addendum: I am aware of Mechanon 3000 from Galactic Champions, the X'endron Network from Champions Beyond, and the character Syzygy from CV3. If you want to refer to them, you don't need to explain them.

 

Addendum 2: Oh, and the supercomputer MAVRIC from one of the Champions Presents adventures.

 

Dean Shomshak

Edited August 7 by DShomshak

[Lord Liaden]

As I referred to all of those in discussion with you in the past, I won't belabor them again.

 

I find the optional motivation of the Monad, to preserve the history and culture of the civilizations they destroy, quite intriguing. On one hand it can be paralleled with Star Trek's Borg, or classic Brainiac's shrunken cities, as preservation activities in principle without a specific cause. But it occurs to me that the Monad could be preserving them from something, some great threat that they foresee which could wipe out life in the galaxy. That was the initial motivation behind Marvel's Collector, before his monomania set in. And that could tie in to the fact that when they attack a world, they initially present themselves in the disguise of giant organic monsters, as though they were trying to hide their activities from something. That was the reason why for my own games, I subsumed the Monad into the X'endron Network, which is being hunted by the Ixendar. But maybe what's really after them is a lot worse.

 

I'm also interested in Monad society. How are they organized and governed? Is it a big hive mind like the Borg, or are there separate consciousnesses, some type of hierarchy? Do they exist roving space like the X'endron, or do they have a home world like Cybertron? What do they actually do with a planet after they conquer it? Strip it of its resources? Build an expansion to their civilization, maybe hidden underground? Or do they allow it to lie fallow after its sapient inhabitants have been purged?

[Stanley Teriaca]

The Monad might be hunted by various worse aliens, like The Slug's race and Zaraell and his eleate.

 

Or maybe The Kings of Edon themselves.

 

...or maybe not.

[Lord Liaden]

I had thought of the Kings of Edom too. Perhaps the Kings destroyed the civilization that created the Monad. That would make the Monad very ancient, but they could be extra-galactic and only relatively recently migrated to the Milky Way.

[Lord Liaden]

7 hours ago, DShomshak said:

Addendum 2: Oh, and the supercomputer MAVRIC from one of the Champions Presents adventures.

 

Dean Shomshak

 

MAVRIC is useful for some robot templates, but beyond that is easiest to translate if you want the Monad to actually originate on Earth rather than space. I would suggest that plot is rather overdone.

[DShomshak]

While my goal here is to listen more than speak, I can confirm a few things already decided about the Monad.

 

It is a true hive-mind. The "field operations" robots range from machine intelligence to sapient with unbreakable directives, but are controlled by the autofactory that built them. The autofactories, however, are hyperspacially linked to form a single super-consciousness.

 

To represent this in the character sheet for "Monad O/S," the AI has 75 PRE, only usable when someone achieves EGO + 10 effect on Telepathy or some similarly invasive mental contact. They touch the deeper layer of Monad consciousness and find it's... really, really big. Default effect of the Presence Attack is to make the person break contact right away, but if the Monad expects the contact it can attempt some other impression.

 

The Monad, aware of cosmic-level threats such as the Kings of Edom? Interesting. Well, the Monad does record and analyze entire civilizations, right down to individual memories. And H. P. Lovecraft had something to say about the results of pulling together disparate information. If the information about the Kings, the Elder Worm, or some similar threat was available, or merely deducible, from a civilization's knowledge base, the Monad could plausibly have figured it out. This may be good for a story seed.

 

Dean Shomshak

[DShomshak]

Hm. Little if anything about how GMs have actually used the Monad in their games. Oh, well.

 

Anyway, the revised Monad will have an expanded roster of robot types:

 

The autofactory with its controlling AI remains central. (Though as mentioned, each AI is only a facet of an immensely greater col;lective intelligence.)

 

There will still be the three sample giant monsters, two types of murderbots, and the servobots that maintain the autofactories. (And can provide technical services in the field, if need be.)

 

While the primary inspiration came from Fred Saberhagen's "Berserker" stories, I've decided to mix in a bit of Star Trek's Borg and Dr Who's Cybermen, to make things a little more personal nastiness. The Monad now can convert any convenient humans into "hubots" who retain their skills and knowledge but are programmed to serve the Monad. A way for the Monad to exploit humans as a resource before their elimination. Also, easier than writing up a robot that takes over military vehicles, construction equipment, etc, to use them as additional forces: Just convert the people who already operate them.

 

This meant writing up the "Medibot" that implants the machine bits to turn a human into a hubot. Also the "Collector" or "Snatchbot" that captures people and delibers them to the medibots.

 

The "Slaver" is a more advanced specialty robot, developed as the Monad learns more about human neurology, like a big metal crab that wraps its legs around a person's head and drills into the person's head to take control of them.

 

From the beginning, I mentioned Monad warships. They get a writeup now. The Monad only deploys them once it takes the measure of human resistance, though. These have been tricky to write up, as they must function both as plausible adversaries in ship-on-ship space combat, and as formidable but defeatable opponents to Standar Power suyperbeings.

 

I may write up another Vehicle, a "Transbot" that ferries other robots around the world so the Monad can initiate a new gambit anywhere in the world.

 

Each type of robot gets at least one Story Seed as an example of how to make it an important part of a scenariop.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Steve]

I would be curious to see what sort of interactions the Monad would have with other AI beings and supervillains.
 

Mechanon, for example, could be an enemy aware of them due to his origin of being sent from the far future, or that origin might all be a ruse, tweaking him from an independent threat into a distraction from the subtler Monad efforts because he is so grandiosely over the top with his schemes.

 

Doctor Destroyer would be another issue for the Monad to deal with. Since his genius could potentially find a way to turn them into his slaves, the Monad would see him as a serious threat to be destroyed.

 

If they’ve been roaming the CU since long ago, how do the other ancient races like the Malvans or Slug’s people view the Monad?

[Stanley Teriaca]

The problem with the Monad is that Mechanon exists. We have two different villains which do the same thing and are machines. It makes inexperienced GMs say "we have Mechanon at home".

 

This is probally why your not getting lots of replies on this. You have to put in a section of how the Monad is different then Mechanon, and how you can use both.

[DShomshak]

6 hours ago, Stanley Teriaca said:

This is probally why your not getting lots of replies on this. You have to put in a section of how the Monad is different then Mechanon, and how you can use both.

Unfortunately true. And the most likely solution is, "Don't use both." Or strip-mine one for game resources to add to the other.

 

This is possible, because CotN was written before there was a definite, canonical "Champions Universe," and I retain that approach with the revised edition. No characters have definite connections to anything in the CU; CU characters are mentioned only as possible examples.

 

Dean Shomshak

 

[Grow-Arm-Hair Lad]

On 8/8/2024 at 1:16 PM, DShomshak said:

And H. P. Lovecraft had something to say about the results of pulling together disparate information. 

 

Dean Shomshak

 

Dean, can you elaborate on this? Which Lovecraft concepts are you thinking of? Is there a specific story that prompted this? (Totally curious!)

[Stanley Teriaca]

33 minutes ago, Grow-Arm-Hair Lad said:

 

Dean, can you elaborate on this? Which Lovecraft concepts are you thinking of? Is there a specific story that prompted this? (Totally curious!)

Might be the idea that knowledge is the path to insanity. The more you know, the crazier you become.

[Grow-Arm-Hair Lad]

4 minutes ago, Stanley Teriaca said:

Might be the idea that knowledge is the path to insanity. The more you know, the crazier you become.

 

I agree that's a big part of Lovecraft, not to mention the Call of Cthulhu game (which I am currently playing!).

 

But I interpreted it that he was hinting that there was a story where Lovecraft explained that an investigator looked at several religions or cultures and saw a void of (censored? excised? redacted?) information that taken together implied the existence of the Elder Gods, and I wanted to hear more about that.

[DShomshak]

2 hours ago, Grow-Arm-Hair Lad said:

But I interpreted it that he was hinting that there was a story where Lovecraft explained that an investigator looked at several religions or cultures and saw a void of (censored? excised? redacted?) information that taken together implied the existence of the Elder Gods, and I wanted to hear more about that.

It's the opening paragraphs of "The Call of Cthulhu" itself:

 

Quote

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of disconnected knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful place therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

 

...That glimpse, like all dread glimpses of truth, flashed out from an accidental piecing together of disconnected things--in this case an old newspaper item and the notes of a dead professor...

Dean Shomshak

[Grow-Arm-Hair Lad]

30 minutes ago, DShomshak said:

It's the opening paragraphs of "The Call of Cthulhu" itself:

 

Dean Shomshak

 

Thank you, Dean! This does say exactly that. I hope you didn't take my question the wrong way--I was legitimately interested! : )

[Stanley Teriaca]

Actually, how many villains in Champions falls under we have "we have (already published villain x) at home"?

[Stanley Teriaca]

Just now, Grow-Arm-Hair Lad said:

 

Thank you, Dean! This does say exactly that. I hope you didn't take my question the wrong way--I was legitimately interested! : )

Considering he wrote Horror Enimies, I'm sure he is familiar with Lovecraft, Poe, King, Hill, Barker, Crypt Keeper, Cravin, and lord knows how many others who I never knew there names.

 

And beyond that? Well...I honestly don't know and can't know. I apologise for speaking for you. Don't curse me please.

[Ninja-Bear]

You asked about GM input. To be fair @DShomshak I never heard of Monad until this thread. I don’t own Creatures of the Night. That is a Horror Hero supplement? So perhaps it being a lesser known supplement in a little played genre (here I’m making a Huge assumption) is the reason why you’re not getting a lot of feedback GM wise?

[Stanley Teriaca]

9 minutes ago, Ninja-Bear said:

You asked about GM input. To be fair @DShomshak I never heard of Monad until this thread. I don’t own Creatures of the Night. That is a Horror Hero supplement? So perhaps it being a lesser known supplement in a little played genre (here I’m making a Huge assumption) is the reason why you’re not getting a lot of feedback GM wise?

No. A Champions supplement with heavy horror elements. First appearance of the Devil's Advocate supervillain team.

[FenrisUlf]

I'm just glad to hear that there's going to be an updated Creatures of the Night supplement. I really hope we get a redone Lady Twilight that sticks a little closer to her original more Gothic feel as a villain. I recall that a third party publisher included her with the reworked Asesinos but they made her more of a combat monster.

[Stanley Teriaca]

One can say that version is compelled to be in the Asesinos until Stalker returned and revealed to be an imposter, if you wish. Unforcently Tiger never did the 6ed of that Stalker's stats.

[Ninja-Bear]

On 8/13/2024 at 9:50 AM, Stanley Teriaca said:

No. A Champions supplement with heavy horror elements. First appearance of the Devil's Advocate supervillain team.

Sorry, I haven’t heard of them either.

[Stanley Teriaca]

1 hour ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Sorry, I haven’t heard of them either.

Well, the Devil's Advocate is a mystical villain group whose major goals are the promotion of magic, the creation of a 'magical renosance' (please excuse my misspelling) without regard of ethics. The leader is the Demologist, and the lineup has changed drastically from Dean's original lineup but the goals are the same. 

 

They are in Champions Villains Volume 2: Team Villains in the 6ed.

Edited August 21 by Stanley Teriaca

[DShomshak]

Yeah, the Devil's Advocates received a major change to their lineup between their first appearance in Creatures of the Night and their 5e appearance in Arcane Adversarie, because reasons. I've already rewritten Shadowfire as an independent villain (along with his daughter Nightstar and a new villain, Darkhand, the "enforcer" Shadowfire inherited from the previous leader of the Greater Dark cult, so he sort of has a small team of his own). I've revised Brother Bone as well. I hope to revise Granny Hex and Apollyon. Maze is out for good: Other characters make him excessively redundant.

 

Lady Twilight remains a Gothic vampire, a mind-controlling manipulator and mistress of social warfare. I haven't seen Tiger's version, so I can't comment. It will still be true that the vampire who turned her called himself Stalker, but it isn;t the Stalker in CV3. Over her century-plus of undeath, Lady Twilight has met several vampires who called themselves "Stalker." It's a thing among vampires. 

 

The vampire artist Charles Torres and the activist Shirlee also get writeups as examples of less powerful vampires. Both have connections to Lady Twilight, though Shirlee doesn't know it. With them as examples, it should not be difficult to write up other vampires -- at least other characters of their sort of vampire, the Upyr. Folklore gives many other sorts of vampires, and any of them could be real in your setting.

 

As for the Monad, it's getting so much expansion it could almost become a booklet of its own. But it won't. It'll just be a fairly long and detailed chapter.

 

Dean Shomshak

[FenrisUlf]

That's all good to hear, Mr. Shomshak.

 

And I finally have a physical copy of the Sylvestri Family Reunion, and I love it, but one OT question if I may - how has astral projection changed for Champions, or at least what is the 'current' version? I've sen it go from Duplication to the APG's Desolidification/Projection with several limitations to Georgius Liefeld's (great write-up of him BTW) Extra-Dimensional Movement with limitations about leaving a body behind and needing to return in 24 hours.

 

If this is the wrong place to ask that question, I apologize.