time travellin' heros.

[Cosmic Coyote]

Hey y'all!

I posted in another thread that I was working on a Time-Travel/Alternate timeline adventure. I'm stuck and I'm looking for suggestions....

My team is normally called "The Guardians" This is what my players decided on, so when I start having the 'public' refer to them as "The Freedom Society" they'll (hopefully) be off kilter.

What they don't know is that a group of villians has gone back in time and changed the origins of the Freedom League. For example: Ray Gardener wasn't the pilot in the plane that got hit by Dr. Stratos' storm; As Icarus fell, a mysterious stranger catches him and saves his life thus the Gods do not grant Dadelus immortality; A car 'accident' kills the pregnant wife of Jacob Wade, thus Johnny Rocket is neverr born. This sort of thing.

The heros get involved when little Ray Gardener Jr, asks the 'Freedom Society' to help save his father, who keeps trying to get himself hit by lightning. After talking with Ray Sr. the Society knows that something's wrong.

Here's my problem....

What happens next? How should I get the characters to realize that someone has gone back and changed time?

The time portal that was used is located in the basement of Dadelus Labs.

The person who was hit by Dr. Stratos's storm is now a villian called The Thunderer and will be one of the villians the team needs to defeat. Some of the other villian I want to use are Dr. Sin, an aggressive & leathel Lady Liberty and Dark Raven.

I see the whole thing ending up with the 'Freedom Society' going back thru time and putting things back on their proper course.

Any ideas???

Thanks.

CC.

[Cosmic Coyote]

oops...

forgot to mention that the whole idea was a joint plot between Drs. Sin and Stratos, so Stratos will be a villian too.

CC.

[Anthony]

Well, unless the players are already extremely familiar with the way the world is supposed to be, you're probably going to need to throw some fairly blatant clues at them. For example, if they haven't encountered the 'villians' of the piece before, there's no real reason for them not to just think of them as generic villian of the week.

[Tempest]

CC,
You might also want to pay attention to place names.
I'm not too familiar with the FC setting (yet), but, in your altered timeline, if Daedalus never lost his son, and was never made immortal by the Gods, would there actually be a Daedalus Labs, where a time portal existed?

Good luck!

[mrfusion]

Okay, so you say after the heroes talk to Ray Sr. they know something is wrong. Why? does he have visions of the former timeline? A photo album of all the missing heroes? Oh, I know: Ray Sr's bizarre behavior starts when Ray Jr. shows him his "secret origin" in a comic book. The comic also has secret origins of the other missing heroes.

If the PCs need more convincing, you could have one or more members of the Atom Family come through the Terminus, with their memories of the previous timeline intact. They could be captured, or all but one killed by the villians before the PCs can rescue them...

Daedalus Labs becomes the locus for bizarre weather and other temporal disturbances. When the heroes look up building records, or try other ways to find out who built or owns it, they find out it doesn't exist. They must then defeat both the villians and the temporal maelstrom to get to the time machine and set all things to right...

Hope this helps!

[Strand0]

A mysterious stranger (tm) should appear and drop a load of Castle Comics in the player characters' laps. The Secret Origin issues of all the Freedom League members.

Who is this?
Options,
1) The twisted Dr. Metro. Who is missing the energy of several people who were resued from thebuilding that collapsed in his origin. This doppler-ghost was created by a problem in the time machine. He is the reason Ray Sr. is having problems as well.
2) Eldrich. He knows what is wrong, but is restained because the use of magic would further fray the bonds of reality. These bonds are already damaged. Scientific time travel is what the PC must create/find and use.
3) Dr. Otaku. If he thought if was boring under the Freedom League, it is far worse with all these OLD MEN running everything. "Mega-YAWN 24/7! Gotta get thing back to plain-ol-boring."

[Cosmic Coyote]

Thanks guys!

And thanks MrFusion for reminding me that ya'll don't have telepathy to read my mind...

After Ray Jr. convinces the Society to talk to his father(at the McNider Memorial Hospital, after gettign hit by a bolt of lightning) Ray Sr. Tells the Society about the dream he's be having where a man of stone tells him to "Grab the lightning" and to "save us..." as the man of stone fades away.

He is, of course, the real Dr. Metro, who's trapped in another dimension. (Not Terminus, as I have BIG plans for Omega's lackey Auntie Madder and her Sorority of Sorrow.)

As for the lab named Daedalus, I wanted that to be a BIG sign for the heros. Is it too big a sign? I want the Society to have vague recollections about something called the Freedom League.

Maybe have Dr. Stratos or The Thunderer trying to destroy the labs?

CC.

[Strand0]

So the villains remember?
Their you go! When did you ener fear of a villain that could keep from bragging!
If you don't want one of the big guys to do it. Devil-Ray could take care of it telling people.

[Cosmic Coyote]

Only the villians involved remember. Even the heros don't remember how everything was.

CC.

[Nightlynx]

HEY CC
I came across this while looking for sommething else - How did this work out for ya?

very curious

peace and good gaming

Nightlynx

[Cosmic Coyote]

HEY CC
I came across this while looking for sommething else - How did this work out for ya?

Never expect the players to do what you expect them to do.

It's going well. The only FL member they still need to save is Daedelus. It's turning out to be a problem for them.

Dr. Stratos went back in time and saved Icarus from dying, thus Hermes never granted Daedelus immortality.

Of course the player-heros have a problem with going back in time to let someone died to fix the timeline. They find it rather un-hero-like to let someone die.

After they solve this problem, they'll fight the Crime league as a whole and then discover that someone else (insert mysterious uber-villian) had been manipulating the Crime League.

I'm leaving that open, for another adventure.

I'm also going to be introducing a "Phantom Stranger/Pariah" like character. He knows a lot but can not act.

CC.

[Nightlynx]

COOL BEANS!

Please keep us posted - I have found this to be a really cool idea and may very well use a version of it in the not to near future

peace and good gaming

Nightlynx