Elsewhere, I posted a topic about sticking a superhero in one of my games, and Gregorious (rightly) ripped me a new arsehole for having such a stupid idea. However, I've been unable to let the idea go. Dark heresy is such a comicbook atmosphere that I see openings everywhere for comic book style characters like The Punisher, Blade, Doctor Strange etc. They;re all right there, just need a little resculpting and remodelling. Surely the 41st millenium has room for all kinds of quirky characters and weird powers, and it seems reasonable (to me) that some well intentioned (or evil) person is going to decide to put their abilities to use outside of the official channels. Does a mutant wish to use their gift to safeguard the human society that they can pass through unnoticed? Is some xenophile thinking small and using alien tech just for personal gain?

It's worthy of consideration at least, right?

...

right?

*crickets*

the closest thing to superheroes in the 41st millenium is inquisitors or space marines...other than that you can model them but they wont have the recognition like the actual ones.

Yes to "The Punisher" (who isn't a superhero, he's a vigilante), no to the others. If you have super-powers or you run around like a superhero, you're a mutant/cultist/recidivist, and you get killed.

The closest you can get are Inquisitors and their friends, which is, convieniently, what you play in DH.

They do a pretty good job in PtU w Brother Agamor (sp?), basically he shows up, whoops ass, then seals himself in a room to buy the PC's time.

It's perfectly fitting for a SM, and gets him out of the picture as to not overshadow the PCs'

In a universe who's first named Inquisitor was Obiwan Sherlock Clousseau, Id say there's definitly room for some nice place of pop-culture cheese to make an appearance now and again ;-) After all, the galaxy is a big place, there's room for just about anything.

If you're taking things in a satiristic direction, well, you won't have to do much but port the bodyglove wearing nutter right on into 40k. If your trying to play it strait, however, you may have a bit more work on your hands. First, you'd want to avoid a direct port of the comic character. It would be best to make a character inspired by a comic character as opposed to actually making it the comic character. Likewise, for a lot of them, their motivation would probably need some tweaking or rewriting and a healthy coating of grimdark slathered up and down them, but, once done, i don't see a problem at all with it.

For instance, take this Forge World enforcer who's ever on the trial of a notorious heritek aided by his niece who was just recently accepted into the ranks of the Priesthood of Mars...

Edit:

Just a few possibilities off the top of my head:

Bruticus Machenko (Batman): a hive noble with all kinds of cool toys (armoured bodyglove with a mesh combat cloak natch) and a need to hunt the most dangerous prey. While he usually hunts and slaughters social misfits, mutants, and recidivists that creep into his spyre, he has been known to work with the arbites and the inquisition now and again to take down particularly dangerous cultists and recivitists that have made their way into his spyre of blood. Unbeknownst to everyone is the fact that he is actually working with the logicians on a gambit to bring the Imperium (at least in the Calixis sector or on his home planet) to their knees for what they did to his parents.

Bastian Franks (The Punisher): a wandering mercenary with a small armory on his guncutter. Franks was once an officer of the PDF on Tranch before the insurrection began. He survived but his family didn't and after hunting down the nightmare twists responsible, he has consigned himself to a life of wandering the stars hunting vile mutants and those who would harbor or employ them, no matter how "minor" the mutation.

Sargent Kail (Superman): the sole survivor of the Crypt Lords space marine chapter (red and blue are their chapter colors), Kail was a mere scout when his chapter was slaughtered, their massive fortress fleet destroyed in an insane warp side attack by remnants of the traitor legions. Why the Emperor spared him, he is unsure. He doesn't remember the events that led up to the attack on them nor of much else before his salvation pd crashed onto Kanious VI, a small agriworld of little interest to anyone except the hive worlds who need it's corn and wheat. On Kanious, he was found near death and nursed back to health by a farmer and his wife (the Kentwoods). While on that small agri world, he helped turn away a siege by remnants of the traitor legion who attacked and slaughtered his brothers. Now as the last of the Crypt Lords, he wanders the galaxy crushing the Emperors enemies where ever found though, due to the Kentwoods, he has gained a new found respect for the common man (especially agri worlders) and will go out of his way to help them in their darkest hours...

And then there's talk of a strange halo device, like a glowing green lantern....

Locque said:

Locque said:

dude, if u want to have a superhero in ur game...make and use ur superhero concept. too often folks here are looking for justification for their ideas from folks that most likely they will never meet. everyone on this forum has their own ideas of how things should be and what they want to do. do urs.

from another angle. most DH characters are head and shoulders above the rest of humanity in their prime stats. they have a level of advancement than the avg imperial citizen. they do things, encounter foes and live lives above the avg imperial citizen...already they look like 'superheroes'. for the most part a superhero is typically a being/person entity that operates outside the law to combat a foe or various foes for truth, justice and whatever way they fit. and of course u can have all manners of variations on this. all types of good anti-heroes out there.

can u have a high level psyker, with a secret identity fighting for whats right in a hive wearing a costume and what have u in DH. sure, why not? they will be hunted most likely by Inquistional forces but hey so was Batman. can u have a gathering of superheros with the same purpose, sure ..why not? in my mind thats what a Inquisatorial Warband is...but in ur campaign u can stretch that to include a band of mutants and psykers. maybe some influential ppl know. maybe a radical Inquisitor supports them. whatever. in a genre of Alpha ++ psykers, magic, daemons and foul aliens...it would surely include ppl that want to stand up for the lil ppl.

and by the way...the Primarch Night Haunter could have been a very dark version of the Batman, or the Punisher for all we know.

just do ur thing. everywhere u go, u will find naysayers.

cheers

Oh dear...are my posts THAT unfriendly?

No, really. Wasn´t inteded to add any orifices. Just to give you a friendly pad over the head...with this 9-70 entrenching tool

Back2topic:
The main problem I due see with "super heros" in 40K is that most "super heroes" are

- just
- altruistic
- mindfull about using violence

"Cut this out", and it might work. Whenever you re-design a "super hero", make sure they are somehow "form fitted" into 40K. I would not use "mutants", so. Mutants with real power are spawns of the warp in this world. Use superior training and/or technology. Perhaps turn them "PSYKER", but be carefull about this one.

Yes to "The Punisher" (who isn't a superhero, he's a vigilante), no to the others. If you have super-powers or you run around like a superhero, you're a mutant/cultist/recidivist, and you get killed.

The closest you can get are Inquisitors and their friends, which is, convieniently, what you play in DH.

Yes to "The Punisher" (who isn't a superhero, he's a vigilante), no to the others. If you have super-powers or you run around like a superhero, you're a mutant/cultist/recidivist, and you get killed.

The closest you can get are Inquisitors and their friends, which is, convieniently, what you play in DH.

Yet DotDG makes reference to Arbiters administering judgement themselves, flying in the face of imperial law, essentially being vigilantes. Who's to say psykers, mutates, or tech heretics can't do similar?

If you're taking things in a satiristic direction, well, you won't have to do much but port the bodyglove wearing nutter right on into 40k. If your trying to play it strait, however, you may have a bit more work on your hands. First, you'd want to avoid a direct port of the comic character. It would be best to make a character inspired by a comic character as opposed to actually making it the comic character. Likewise, for a lot of them, their motivation would probably need some tweaking or rewriting and a healthy coating of grimdark.

Yes, in the GM area I posted some ideas for revising the character which are being swirled about at the moment. I'm looking for a happy medium, so it seems like there will be some tech/genetic tinkering with the poor chap, and his past will be reworked a bit. Making him darker, though I don't want him to seem as bad as what he's fighting against. This guy should shame the acolytes a little, at least those who believe in things like right and honour, like our moritat. The guardsman probably won't care. On the other hand, to properly 40k-ify a superhero, I think they'd have to be a zealous, homicidal nutter. This could be great, but then I could lose the moral high ground a little.

Locque said:

If a mutant/psyker (or a group of them!) draws attention in that volumes, a purge is on. Same might be true for HereTek´s. Just remember, DH is about the efforts of the Imperium to put such things down BEFORE they get that much attention. Imagine how hard the hammer comes down on those who haven´t been weeded out before.

They can only "dodge" this by turning themselves into a cult or an "little empire" (like this Heretek Mentioned in in "Oblivion" Description who was "ruling part of the underhives). But then again, it is not a "hero thing" anymore. Is it?

I considered running a game based around the theme of Superheroes... The basic idea was that the Acolytes were going to investigate some sort of strange goings on in the lowerhives. The big reveal would have been that the incidents would have been cause by a group of 'freedom fighters' composed mostly of mutants. These mutants weren't worshiper of chaos or anything similarly sinister, they were just fighting against the oppression of the nobel classes, in addition to defending those weaker than themselves from the likes of Narco-gangers and Underhive crime lords... Of course they'd all need to be purged anyway, but it could have thrown up some interesting moral debates along the way... Or not, who knows?

Let us not stick ourselves in the rut of thinking in a strictly 40K set. The ruleset is a sound one, and it could easily be used to run super hero types, especially of the pulp or low powered types. In fact it lends itself to steam punk style heroes very well. But interjecting a hero type into 40K? I must say that to do so would mean you are not really in the 40K reality anymore. That would be more akin to an alternate reality.

Gregorius21778 said:

Very good point. Though that assumes the "heroes" in question can even be found. And, in the case of a Daredevil-esque hero, i think there might not be as much pressure to track him down if he exclusively hunts gangers and heretics. Remember in DD, for quite a while his entire existence was in doubt, not to mention there are similar heretical figures of legend, like the Alley Reaper.

The more I think about it though, the more I realise that anyone manifesting unexplained abhuman abilities would be killed by the inquisition. Would vigilanties with perfectly explicable powers be hunted as vehemently?

In retrospect, the Big Bad my players brought down last week was curiously reminiscent of Venom in some ways...

Locque said:

Gregorius21778 said:

Say we have a wolverine type character- he has regeneration (chemically induced? an implant? A mutation?), subdermal armour, retractable claws, and heightened senses. He doesn't really sound so far fetched does he? Hell, he could even be an acolyte. It really varies from character to character. I guess rogue psykers running round will incur the full wrath of the inquisition, whether they're heroes or villains, but will people like our Wolverine character draw the ire of anyone above the arbites? I suppose it depends on how much popular support he receives. If he becomes too iconic in the eyes of the authority, he'll be targetted by the inquisition. Characters like bullseye, hawkeye, the green arrow, and even iron man sound like they could have some kind of DH equivalent. Just that the players would probably be assigned to killing them sooner or later, depending on their inquisitor.

Don't get caught too much in the hype of Imperial Omniscience... they aren't all knowing after all. A wolverine character wouldn't even warrant a batting of an eye unless he did something truly blatant for quite some time and an Inquisitor could be bothered to look that way and he wasn't protected by someone else of power. Let's not forget that this Imperium is the same Imperium that is having a difficult time apprehending and holding the Burning Princess (come on... how supper villain is that?!) much less identifying who the hell she is, they've killed the Bathory like woman several times but she's still at large hosting crazy assed blood orgies, etc. To warrant the "hammer coming down" for all time and ending everything, you have to be some kind of crazy supper nutter and none of that I'm-blind-but-still-an-acrobat junk. The Imperium hires those guys and gives them a can of black spray-paint for clothing. Thats so far beneath most Inquisitorial radars it's not even funny... they're still hunting the girl who can burn a planet for Christ's sake.

In other words, just because it's not the Imperial Party Line dose not mean it will automatically get squished. In fact, it almost seems like the things that violate the imperial party line are the only things that can actually survive for any length of time in the Imperium.

Hehe, just picture it: if the X-men thought they had a hard time in "the real world" (you know, from persecution and governments outlawing them and such), just imagine how it would be for those poor sods in the 41st millenium?

"What!? Mutants and psykers running around unsanctioned during the middle of the day!? Send in the Red Redemption! Burn! Kill! Cleans this world of the warp-tainted filth!!!"

(btw, I seriously dislike x-men and marvel comics in general, except for The Punisher maybe. But that has nothing to do with these musings)

Graver said:

u took the words right off of my keyboard. i was about to make that very same point until i read ur post.

the enemies of the Imperium are super hard, super cunning, super intelligent that typically takes them a very long time to track down. those any less so get found and executed in short order. 40K canon is rife with these types. creatures anathema is a classic example with the likes of Archimedes Noxt, Magos Biologis Sar Resque, and Arch Heretek Nomen Rye, not to mention organizations that have proven exceedingly difficult to put down..and stay down.

not by any measure is the Imperium omniscient and omnipotent. there are more than enough places within Imperium society to hide and even more on the fringes. there are zones which even the Inquisitors have no sway nor power. and while the average person might fear an Inquisitor, those that truly know what they are up against will make all manners of nasty preparation for the Imperiums enforcement and execution units. the Imperium is rife with mutant gangs, psyker groups and all sorts of unpleseantness. why can't some of these typical baddies be goodies? why can't some of them take the stage to try and actually help ppl as opposed to being on the wrong side of the tracks.

gregorius stated the problem he saw was that superheroes were 'just, altruistic and mindful of violence'. i personally don't see a problem with this. even in a genre as dark and grim as 40K not everybody and everything in it has to be. not everything has to be nor should be kill and burn, and us and them. i've always found the true hallmark to role playing is using contrast, and all the weapons u can have at ur disposal as a GM to avoid falling into 'sameness'. its important to show ppl for being ppl with a wide range of personalities, character and motivations.

You are true with your reference to the Burning Princes and Miss Sinderfell. But they all have one difference to the "Heroes" mentioned so far:

They do not try to proctect a "turf" & they have the backing of a cult (as far as me suspects/knows)

If a "heroe" would be "moving on" after some drastic measures... and there fore not be "defending the hood" but rather "moving from target to target and/or from planet to planet", he would be indeed hard to track or to bring down. Evading the Imperium like all the other mentioned "anti-heroes".

Yes, Miss Sinderfell did not. She was "killed" more then once. But the difference I perceive between types like her (and trust me, I like her!) and "Heroes" is that they ARE A CULT. While the typical "heroes" are much "loners" with perhaps a small support group, those figures have a veritable network of underlings. And most of time, stunning amounts of gelt at there hand. Not like your typicall "Peter Parker".

Like I already stated in a prior post, if you change your "heroe" into the head figure of cult, he (or she) has the powerbase to deal with things like "=I= is after me".
Same if he is NOT a cult, but simply moves on or stays with his action beyound the radar.

Otherwise, I still say that a (for example) a very powerfull mutant/mutant group "mobbing up the hood" would be down within thrice and thrice of the time then the up-rooting of a "regular DeathCult" that stept out to far.

Simply because the "powers that be" have an insane hate/fear for mutants and rogue psykers.
Turn them cult and/or nomadic, and it will work.
Stick to the "super-heroe-stereotyping" of "defending a hood" and they will get smoked. Unless, this place is very hostile by itself (like a underhive or a jungle. See the classic heroe "Phantom" whom had a lair in the depths of a jungle. The jungle was not that big, but buy 1930 going in and search for him with a very-very risky task.

Say though, in a crowded hellhole like Volg, where the hero DarkDevil (see what I did there?) has won over significant portions of the public in the area he's protecting... he'd be insanely hard to track down. Moving in absolute darkness with ridiculous agility, in a place absolutely full of bolt holes and hazards to hide in, with multiple safe houses (friends who'll swear in the Imperial Creed that they saw him go that way). He'd be an absolute nightmare for anyone to try and locate. If there are rumours someone is crippling gang members in a certain neighbourhood, I doubt that even the magistratum will be looking too closely, though there'll be no doubt numerous occasions of them firing at him as he takes off into the night.

And while Farran Ghast and Myrchella Sinderfell are, without a doubt, figuers who have the backing of their own personal armies, The Burning Princess is operating alone, IIRC. Blending in with the populous until sudenly, there's another firestorm.

Look no further than Spyrers from Necromunda. They're on the villainous side, but they're exactly along the lines you're thinking of.

Dangersaurus said:

Look! It's the Super Friends! Or would that be the Legion of Doom?

I'm pretty sure all of this is covered. People with mysterious and powerful abilities helping the citizens whilst hiding from the authorities who would stop your good work. Eventually finding other 'gifted' people and forming a band dedicated to helping a city or hive district which under the sway of a tyranical corrupt government.

Sadly in DH the players job is put these people down.

X-men = Chaos Warband

Superheroes could be fine if you manage to actually mesh them into the 40k setting rather than just add them in.

Remember that the 41st millenia is a world of dark ruthlessness. It's a world where a Blade character might jump around and be awesome, only to get dragged to the ground by a swarm of no-name losers and get clubbed to death. It's all about how unimportant and insignificant the individual is. No matter how good or important you are, you're just one unwary moment away from death.

Superheroes are kinda the antithesis to that line of thinking. Combining the two could be interesting if pulled off with respect for the genre. The more ordinary, realistic hero types would probably work the best. Remember that all supernatural powers in 40k, without exception, are evil and wrong. That said, we have space marines, we have inquisitors, we have imperial assassins (is Blade really that different from a Callidus? The Vindicare was pretty openly based on the Punisher ).

While not really a superhero, my current character is a masked vigilante inspired by characters such as Fracas and the Scarlet Pimpernel. Smooth-talking nobleman by day, daring outlaw by night!

If I could be a superhero

I would be Zealous boy!

Telling the world of the evil's of Chaos

And all of the lives it destroy

And I would take all them heretics, blaspheming so high

with their chainswords and stubbers and chaotic war cry

AS I BURN THEM ALIVE I WOULD SQUEAL WITH JOOOOOOOOOOOOOY!

'cause I would be Zealous boy!

Or this one:

If I could be a superhero

I'd be Red Redemption Dude!

I'd send all them mutants back to their holes

For eating up all of our food

And breathing our clean air, and stealing good jobs to boot

Like slag-mining, dishwashing and cleaning off soot

I'd set fire to them all to get rid of their brooooooooooooood

'cause I am Red Redemption Dude.

(people who are not familiar with Stephen Lynch will probably not get this pun)