Trinity: Important Allegiances in the Seventies

[Waldi]

Ah, the seventies! What a perfect decade to set a Trinity-campain in! Lots and lots of classic crime-, action-, horror- and sci-fi-flics to draw ideas from. But since it could take a while until we get some official material for the seventies (if ever), it could be fun to invent some Allegiances for a seventies-setting.

At First: I would suspect, that the seventies in the Trinity Continuum are somewhat of a "little Brother" of the Classic Aventure!-Era. There are a lot of Inspired characters - lots of Daredevils as well as some Stalwarts and Mesmerists. "Pulpy" stuff can still be encountered (for example, adventurers could still stumble across Skull Island) but are, at least somewhat, rarer than in the 1920ies. So, all those weird Super-Spies, Martial-Arts-Masters, Cyborgs and mutated Animals, movies from the Seventies are known for, should have their place!

And now to some ideas for Allegiances from the Seventies!

The Ubiquitous Dragon Society
Asian Martial-Arts-Movies got really popular during the Seventies. So, of course all that "Kung-Fu-Stuff" should play a role in Trinity - Maybe, in form of the Ubiquitous Dragon Society! As we all (probably) know, the original Ubiquitous Dragon was a nefarious criminal mastermind during the 1920ies. But sometimes, just as heroes can Fall from grace, villains can redeem themselves. During the 1930ies and 1940ies, in the dark times of the japanese occupation, UDs organisation frequently fought the Japanese and even formed functional alliances with do-gooders like the Aeon-Society. Gradually, the organisation transformed from a criminal network to a group of honourable freedom fighters. Today, the Hong-Kong-based Ubiquitous Dragon Society battles organised crime everywhere in the pacific area, utilising martial arts as well as its in depth knowledge about several asian criminal organisations, the UDS worked with, when it was still evil itself. As a "byproduct" of its alliance with Aeon, the UDS also stands for friendly dialogue between East and West. Interrestingly, the UDS still has a vile reputation as an utmost dangerous crime-syndicate and sometimes uses this bad rep for its advantage.

GSG10
It is widely known, that in 1972, after the Munich Massacre, the Gouvernement of West-Germany founded the special counterterrorist unit GSG9. What considerably less people know, is that there is also a GSG10 - West-Germanys secret special Unit, that deals with all kinds of "abnormal" threats. Be it terrorists, who utilise superscience, leftover Nazi-experiments or strange creatures - GSG10 deals with it. Fast and efficient. Since the BRD is a Nato-Member, the GSG10 frequently works with Branch 9 and other, Western Secret Services, when "brute force" is required. Although, GSG10 can be considered to belong to the "good guys", a lot of people, who know the organisation, see it as shady, because it not only fought but also recruited former Nazi-Experiments. A small number of Cyborgs created by the German Wehrmacht during the last days of WW2 Work for GSG10 - hoping to get revenge in the Nazi-Scientists, who turned them into "Monsters".

Project Gaja
Those whole "Nature-strikes-back-trope" is a staple of Seventies Cinema. Of course, this should be reflected in Trinity. A lot of strange phenomena in the Seventies can be traced back to enviromental hazards and mutations caused by "Z-Waves" (would they still use this term in the Seventies?). Of course, the Aeon-Society has a branch, that deals especialy with those kind of threats. Where ever greedy industrialists poison landscapes, where ever Nature runs amok, where ever Spiders develop a hivemind and where ever Piranhas learn to fly, the idealistic scientists of Project Gaia try to save the day. But since a lot of Gouvernements still have no great enviromental conciousnes, this rag-tag-band of Ecologists, Rangers, Ex-Hippies and Enviromentalists all to often does mit only have to fight mutations but also local authorities.

[No One of Consequence]

There would have to be some government sponsored scientific intelligence agency, like the OSI in Six Million Dollar Man/Bionic Woman and the IADC in Wonder Woman. Maybe some sort of global alliance between the above, whatever secret branch John Sneed and his Avengers are working for, the above GSG10, and some sort of Japanese anti-kaiju force.

Also, Heroes for Hire

[glamourweaver]

Somewhere I came up with Allegiances for a gothic Victorian setting I was calling””Abnatural”. I need to find those. I bring it up because I also had a Wuxia inspired Allegiance. The twist was that despite the Yellow Peril stereotypes the white Westerners were projecting at them, true to the values of the Xia literary tradition, that particular Allegiance was actually the setting’s equivalent of Archangel in terms of mission.

[Waldi]

Hmmm..."Asian Archangels". Sounds quite intriguing and also very fitting for the Seventies 😀.
By the way, somehow subverting those old yellow-peril-tropes was one of the prime reasons, why I came up with the idea of having the Ubiquitous Dragon do a heel-face-turn and turn good. In Adventure!, the Ubiquitous Dragon plays all those yellow-peril-tropes very straight. The guy is basically not much more than a Fu-Manchu-Clone, seemingly without any redeeming character-traits. So, I thought, it would be funny, if - of all the pulp-villains of the Adventure-Era - he would be the one, who turns to the good side. Also, having a redeemed Ex-villain somewhere, could fit the optimistic overtone of Trinity well.

@global alliance of several Secret Services: Here, I could easily see something like Interpol or an overarching Nato-Organisation. Since it seems, that Branche 9 is struggeling in the Seventies, I am Not quite sure, if they would be the ones, who could fill this niche.

@Kaijus and people, who fight them: Hmmm...this is a difficult topic. On the one hand, I would see the Seventies somewhere between Adventure and Continuum, when it comes to the "Fantasy-Level". Somewhat less fantastic than Adventure! and somewhat more fantastic than Continuum. So, a full on Kaiju-Assault on Tokio could be "too much".

On the other hand....you GOT to have Kaijus in a fantastic version of the Seventies. Maybe, it could work the following way: during the Fifties, thanks to unholy combination of nuclear testing and the Usage of barely understood Z-Wave-technology, the dimensional barrier between our world and a strange, primordial reality (or a different Planet?) of Jungles and really big critters was severely weakened. There where always some possibilitys, that you could strand in Skull Island, the Land beyond time or whatever you want to call this place, when travelling the Pacific Ocean. But now, things start to work the other way round. Now, creatures from there start to strand in our dimension. Under normal circumstances, Kaijus "spawn" pretty much in the middle of nowhere and behave like animals do (since Here, unlike in Pacific Rim, they are normaly not controlled by alien intelligences).The said Japanese Anti-Kaiju-Force works hard to KEEP the Kaijus in remote places - a "Godjira-Event", where one of those critters reaches inhabited areas is to be prevented at all costs! Unfortunately, the Anti-Kaiju-Force is split into two different, ideological factions: those, who want to close the dimensional gateways, that lead the Kaijus here, and those who want to keep them open - on the other side, in the Kaijus primordial home-dimension, wonders and ressources could be found, that all mankind could benefit from. Also, some Kaijus can be befriended by Mesmerists.
So, factions A tends to fight Kaijus with advanced Technology, while faction B utilises some tamed "Pet-Kaijus" to keep other, dangerous Kaijus at bay.
Booth factions cooperate, when it comes to defend mankind against rampaging Kaijus, but tend to be ad odds with each other in nearly every other way

[No One of Consequence]

The Daughter of the Dragon as his heir who after WW2 (as a reflection of China's - both Nationalist and post-Nixon Communist - relationship with the US) is motivated primarily by the idea of "Make China Great Again" rather than "destroy the West", playing varrious geopolitical, technological and superpowered factions to her own - and China's - advantage. This is the angle Warren Ellis used with the Harks in Planetary, and has echoes in Jeff Parker's Agents of ATLAS. Such an organization would make a good 'tweener' faction, one that can be ally or antagonist as needed and be sponsor for some interesting PCs inspired by 1970s Hong Kong and Chinese martial arts, police and espionage films.

As for kaiju, the Hollow World from the original game can serve as a template for a "Monster Island" full of weird giant creatures, in its own little pocket in the Pacific. Here it is watched over by a small organization - mainly Japanese with some USNavy and UN support - that includes a small boy in short pants and Ultraman.

Also, some Mexican brotherhood of masked luchadors.

[moonwolf8]

Other RPG's you could mine for inspiration are "Damnation Decade" and "Mecha vs. Kaiju".

[Eldagusto]

Oh I’ve had a lot of ideas for that time!

MI0
Military Intelligence Section Zero is the most secret wing of the United Kingdom’s spy network, as an organization that doesn’t exist they specialize in the secret history of the World, things don’t exist, aliens, the supernatural, time lost voyagers and mad men threatening to doom the planet with Weather Control Machines.

The MiB
The Men in Black do not exist, and neither do Aliens, and by the 70s they certainly are not expanding their operations beyond the Americas.

B.P.R.D
The Bureau of Paranormal Resarch and Defense, the best and Brightest of the Allied Forces answer to the Thule Geiselshaft’s apocalyptic endeavors, originating from Abraham Lincoln’s Secret Cabinet and eventually spreading into a Cross Alliance Task Force. They fight secret wars against the Frogmen of Agarta, they killed Hitler the second time, they raise Antichrists to be good citizens and investigate impossible things across the World.

The Last Dragons
You already have a Kung Fu group with the Ubiquitous Dragons. But my group idea is that Bruce Lee and a number of secret Masters have agreed to break with tradition and secretly spread knowledge of the Martial Arts across the World, with particular interest in finding Talented individuals.

From my other Thread, the Legacy of the Men Who Cannot Die. Basically your masked Vigilante Allegiance, they concentrate on individual legacies and their expanded support group, like Batman and the Bat Family, or the Shadow and his secret allies who owe their lives to him, and Robin Hood and his Merry Men. Basically vigilant’s are encouraged to develop legacies so their Missions don’t end with a stray Bullet. It was founded by the Phantom almost half a millennia ago when the man Christopher Walker received training From the League of Shadows (a group of assassins specializing in influencing politics from the shadows, themselves derived from the Ten Thousand Immortals of Persia, who cultivated immortality through a replaceable mantle becoming concepts and legends rather then men) and their Immortal Head of the Demon, but broke from them to avenge his father. He became the Phantom and trained his Son to some day take up the Mantle, Lairing in the mysterious country of Bangalla. Centuries later after encountering Similar legacies of Gunslingers and swashbucklers in the America’s they accepted pact of mutual aid and took the Oath of the Man Who Cannot Die to ensure they help train inheritors for a Legacy should a proper heir not be ready to take up the Mantle.

The GDF
The global defense force originated from an extraordinary squadron of Scientists and Adventurers in the National Defense Force of Japan who manages to achieve what tanks and missile could not and managed to solve or defeat a number of gigantic monstrosities (Kaijus and Mechs) which started to plague that region of the Pacific in the decade after the World War which invented the Bomb. They quickly expanded beyond Japan and became an international agency much like Interpol, but for Giant Monsters.

The Twilight Society, a group of vampire and demon hunters recruited from survivors of attacks. They specialize in suppressing supernatural outbreaks in the poor, minority, and immigrant communities hunting Blood Suckers in the UK, The America’s and The Caribbean. Their major nemesis group is the Brood of Mamuwalde.

[Eldagusto]

The Daughter of the Dragon as his heir who after WW2 (as a reflection of China's - both Nationalist and post-Nixon Communist - relationship with the US) is motivated primarily by the idea of "Make China Great Again" rather than "destroy the West", playing varrious geopolitical, technological and superpowered factions to her own - and China's - advantage. This is the angle Warren Ellis used with the Harks in Planetary, and has echoes in Jeff Parker's Agents of ATLAS. Such an organization would make a good 'tweener' faction, one that can be ally or antagonist as needed and be sponsor for some interesting PCs inspired by 1970s Hong Kong and Chinese martial arts, police and espionage films.

As for kaiju, the Hollow World from the original game can serve as a template for a "Monster Island" full of weird giant creatures, in its own little pocket in the Pacific. Here it is watched over by a small organization - mainly Japanese with some USNavy and UN support - that includes a small boy in short pants and Ultraman.

Also, some Mexican brotherhood of masked luchadors.

Oh yes Monster Island and Luchadors!

Damnit how did I forget the Luchadors!

[macd21]

The Panther Claws, a group of African-American activists who have uncovered that a secret society known as the Monetized Aryan Nation are plotting to incite racism attacks and reverse equal rights legislation. The MAN has also turned to the forces of the occult to further their aims. Though few in number, the Claws have so far managed to counter the MAN’s schemes.

[Eldagusto]

Los Hermanos del Sol de Liberdad, a coalition of clans descending from ancient warriors and kings of Central and South America that raise capable warriors exemplifying liberty and virtue. Their Luchadors train both younger relatives as well as worthy talented individuals whom they encourage to wed into the family. In the days of old they ensured civilization lived to see the next sunrise by besting their Enemies and sacrificing their Hearts. Eventually they failed, civilization ended and they joined with their enemies both new and old to ensure they would not fail again. Time and again they have proved that the mettle of man has been enough to foil the most terrifying of plots, whether it was the renowned El Rey Father of Heroes and his defeat of El Diablo Robotico, or Tizoc the Grifón resisting the impossible mesmerism of La Vampira to retrieve terrible Contract of San Venganza, or when the twins Las Hermanas de Cero defeated the entire army of Las Martes Rojo in a single night battle royale rope match.