var WebSite = { My : Sign In, Create Account, Cart ], Games : [ Darwin's World, Tiamat, Modern^20, Modern d20 ], Misc : [ Store, Downloads, Blog, OpenRPG ], Search : }
RPGObjects News
Posted by Michael Lafferty on 2009-02-23
Work continues on the sequel to Defcon...below the cut are 3 new art images from Jacob Blackmon, Darren Calvert and Jon Gibbons

Liberator - the leader of the NATO super-soldier team stationed in West Berlin in the 1980s. (Art by Jacob Blackmon)

The final image for Arrow - a Canadian battlesuit hero. Art by Darren Calvert

The Iron Hand, a mid-80s German street vigilante (art by Jon Gibbons)

Posted by Michael Lafferty on 2009-01-31
RPObjects recently published a source book Mutants and Masterminds  called DEFCON.

 The premise was: 4 color superheroes in the Cold War. 
There are a lot of niches/settings being served in Supers RPGs - steampunk, WW2 era, gritty White Wolf angtsy, Pulp - - but the Cold War was conspiciously absent.

In fairness, the big 2 comics companies hadn't done much it. Iron Man's origin has even been retconned to take out any mention of Vietnam. Except for the occasional villain with a Boris and Natasha accent - the Cold War was almost absent from mainstream comic. So - it was a blank slate. (OK - the GI Joe comic at Marvel had the Oktober Guard - a Warsaw Pact analog of GI Joe who were shown as sympathetic characters (they even appeared in seveal of the animated episodes.) But that's the exception that proves the rule)

Anyway - I'm working a few sequels

1) Checkpoint Charlie - -a campaign model for a Supers game set in Berlin during the mid 80s. Heroes and villains (on both sides of the Berlin Wall) and several adventure hooks.
2) Evildoers of the Cold War - Collection of supervillains tailored for the late Cold War period.
3) Superagents and Soviets - A campaign model for playing super-agents (think SHIELD and UNCLE) in a Cold War/Superpowers setting. So - I've commissioned some art for the sequels - -

This one was designed by Darren Calvert - an excellent artist who's had work published by some of the big boys in the industry (including Green Ronin)

The concept I gave him was just: "A Canadian Superhero during the Cold War".  And you can see the image below of what he came up with. In Darren's own words:

"This concept is Arrow, based on the Avro Arrow, a Canadian jet design that got killed by budget constraints. In this alternate history I imagine it being a flight suit project which created one successful prototype to be flown by a RCAF pilot. Powers would basically be supersonic flight and probably some enhanced physical abilities. " 

 


By Jon Gibbons - Here's der Stahladler (the Steel Eagle) - a West German super whose concept and battle rig was designed by the psyops division of NATO as a way to endear the Allied supers with the German populace.



And with the arms race impacting everything - including superheroes - here's the inevitable East German response to Stahladler - Kreigvogel (Warbird)(drawn by Jacob Blackmon.




And here's October Crusader - leader of the East Berlin team of Warsaw Pact supers

Out!