World of the 400

The World of the 400 is the background for two currently running Champions campaigns.

Other links to the World of the 400 are

Players in either campaign, and anyone else, are welcome to read the following page, its information is all public knowledge in the World of the 400. Players in UN PEACE MUST NOT read the home page for Academy. Players in Academy MUST NOT read the Open Questions page for UN PEACE. Since UN PEACE is a public superteam, Academy players may read the other UN PEACE pages if their characters follow superhero news.

Background

It's modern day earth, with the difference that there are about 400 significant superbeings on Earth; distributed evenly about 1 for every 10 million population except that the U.S. has twice as many as it should have and China appears to have none so far as anybody knows.

About 1/3rd of them protect human society and laws (let's call them "superheroes"), 2/3rd believe their own desires or plans override the rule of law (let's call them "supervillains", but not where they can hear us), and there don't appear to be any sitting on the sidelines. When a superbeing dies (not as rare as it used to be), another one pops up eventually. There are estimates that perhaps 4000 people world wide have at least some paranormal ability but 90% of them aren't powerful to make any difference, and further estimates that perhaps 1 in 10 of the 400 are powerful enough to destroy a city. Speculation regarding whether the 1 in 10 step up in power applies to those 40 as well is strongly discouraged as being too unsettling to think about. There are a handful of people who dress up and play superbeing even though they don't have superpowers; it's pretty rough.

The following is what the average US teenager somewhat interested in supers in the World of the 400 would likely know, mostly from comic books and news reports.

History

Apparently there were superbeings on both sides of WW II, ending abruptly July 28, 1945 when The Golden Agency and their arch-enemies all died when the B-25 they were fighting in crashed into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building. The Golden Agency included Liberator, Fox, Dreadnought and Torch, but their comics aren't as popular in the 80s and so you may not know much about them. They formed in the early 40's when they saved FDR, and seem to have spent most of the war foiling various insane plots by the brilliant Doc Odin, his unstoppable army of Aryandroids, and the Legion of Doom. The Legion and Doc Odin himself also died in the B-25 crash, and there was no super-being activity after that until the 60's.

Team One

The members of Team One saved President Reagan in 1983 and formed a team; the original members were Paladin, Key and Monolith. Laurentide joined in issue 4, Centurion in issue 25. Monolith turned out to be an alien princess and returned home to the stars in issue 50 (remember, this is how the comic book reports it). Key turned evil in issues 91-99 and Slipstream joined in issue 96; in 100 Key left the team for good. It's somewhere around issue 180 as of July 1998. All the team members have their own comic books as well as the team book.

Team One is often called "The National Team" because they'll go anywhere inside the US to fight evil or injustice too strong for ordinary measures. They're not officially affiliated with the US government but the President has a golden phone to call them with, and in practice most everyone considers them America's Team. Current members are:

Previous members include:

New York Rangers

New York City has its own team of superheroes, the New York Rangers, headquartered atop the Empire State Building from 1989 to May 1997. They split up temporarily in May 1997 but like each other too much to stay seperate for long, it's thought. And New York badly needs heroes, with the recent wave of supervillains laughing off the attempts of New York's finest to bring them to justice.

Former Rangers:

Manhattan also has a solo hero, Spookshow, best described as a a cross between Spiderman (with his black costume) and Batman (think, "Marshall Rogers cape that eats people"), who wages a campaign of psychological terror against street-level criminals. He (possibly she) has several comic books, some cartoony, some quite dark and violent. Spookshow never uses guns and never harms innocents. While officially a wanted criminal, has saved enough cops' lives to be practically untouchable by New York's finest. Currently stretched very thin by being the only active local superhero in NYC.

Pax, the UN's only superhero until recently, operates out of UN HQ in Manhattan but doesn't have any adventures in the US itself, apparently. Mostly he's off doing good deeds and foiling evil ultranationalist plots to derail peace processes, and that sort of thing. His comics tend to have heavy moral or social lessons pounded into them. Was badly injured saving the UN Security Council in early July 1997 but recovered enough to fight the Legion of Doom to a standstill on the steps of the UN Building in spring 1998. Hasn't been seen since.

UN PEACE

As though Pax weren't enough by himself, there are now The United Nations Paranormal Education and Cooperation Envoys, Envoys for short.

Associate Members (in training in Switzerland but do not go on missions):

Former Members:

Force 10

There were a couple of reports of a mysterious team of heroes calling itself Force Ten operating in the Midwestern U.S. They defeated Tar Babe in Akron Ohio in the spring of 1997, and some believe they may have been involved in saving Chicago in the winter of 1996. The Seven Boots League has issued a public challenge to them but so far they've remained in the shadows, their intentions known only to themselves. They briefly fought the Legion of Doom in New York City in August 1997, saving the Statue of Liberty at considerable risk to their own lives.

There is an unofficial Force 10 Comic book which may or may not have any link to reality. The heroes in it are teen escapees from a secret government project, now masquerading as a rock&roll rock band until trouble looms, then turning into:

In 1998 Force 10 was unveiled as Team Two, working for the US Secret Service. The actual members consist of:

Weirdness by the Bay

Goldenwatch (or possibly Golden Watch, accounts differ) in San Francisco doesn't have a comic book of its own (or rather, they do, but even kids can tell it has no hooks to reality, and the writers change every few issues), so about all that's commonly known about them are 3 of the 4 team member names (Kohl, Svaha, and Pandora), that they never operate outside the bay area, and that it's just maybe possible that ALL of them belong in the 40.

Meanwhile, elsewhere...

Los Angeles has a B&W comic with the Adventures of Action Girl ("Trinity's Best Friend"). She doesn't have any superpowers ("a little judo, and I can draw a bit") but she's pretty clever, and can actually pull off looking cool in a costume with a skirt and a big A across the front of her jacket. She runs around LA and southern California on her motorcycle and tricks villains into defeating themselves or at least not beating her up. Trinity Herself doesn't appear in the comic book.

Action Girl was inspired by the wonderful comic Action Girl Comics ("Girl-positive and female-friendly -- never anti-boy") by the amazing Sarah Dyer, which you should rush out and buy lots of, 'cause it's cool. Especially the issue with the paper dolls on the cover.

Others

A by-no-means-exhaustive list:

UN PEACE has encounted another teen team whose name and goals are not known, currently in Canadian custody:

Copyright © 1996 Carl Rigney except for Action Girl, who belongs to Sarah Dyer.