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Brave New World (role playing game)
Encyclopedia
Brave New World is a role-playing game
originally released by Pinnacle Entertainment Group in 1999
. The game was later sold to Alderac Entertainment Group
in 2000. The game is an alternate history
superhero
game set in a fascist United States of America living in a perpetual state of martial law
since the 1960s. Inspired by the Kingdom Come and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
comic storylines, X-Men
, Nineteen Eighty-Four
, and the political and social upheavals of the 1990s, the game depicts renegade superheroes fighting a corrupt and evil government.
, when a dying soldier discovered he had the power to turn incorporeal. He became the Silver Ghost, the first superhero, a secret spy for the War Department who helped end the Great War months early.
He was the first, but soon after the war many other super-powered humans started to appear. Nobody knew from where, but people who were in mortal danger would sometimes begin to manifest superhuman powers. In the early days, in the 1920s and 1930s, most of these new heroes didn't bother to wear disguises, and the government and people were fairly accepting of their vigilante methods. There were super-powered villains appearing, but heroes were always there to keep them in check. This was analogous to the Golden Age of Comic Books
. Fairly quickly, scientists began to refer to these super-powered beings as "Homo Delta" or "Deltas", meaning change. Mankind didn't know what these new people were, only that something had changed about them.
Then, in the late 1930s, one superhero named "Yankee" was officially deputized as a law enforcement officer by the city of Chicago
. Wearing a brightly colored, red, white and blue outfit, he worked with Eliot Ness
to bring down Al Capone
, and became a powerful role model for other superheroes.
was destroyed by Imperial Japanese Navy
fighters alongside military Deltas. The Third Reich and Imperial Japan had their own Deltas as weapons of war, alongside traditional weapons. The United States was drawn into World War II
. Delta Squadron was founded to be the super-powered arm of the United States. America had super soldiers who fought on the battlefields, and some were as strong as entire tanks, or as deadly in the skies as fighters and bombers.
In the fall of 1943, the Yankee was captured along with his young sidekick Sparky. They were taken to a concentration camp to be imprisoned and eventually disposed of, as the Nazis considered Delta soldiers, and Deltas who refused to serve the Reich, too dangerous to be kept alive indefinitely like normal prisoners of war. However, after almost two years of torture and interrogation, Yankee and Sparky staged their revolt. At first it seemed like the Yankee and Sparky, along with all the other Deltas, were killed in the resulting battle, but as the Nazis threw the Yankee and Sparky's bodies into the ovens to be incinerated, something incredible happened: out of the charnal fires of the ovens came Superior, the most powerful superhuman ever born.
Sparky had somehow come back to life, and come back far more powerful. He was apparently virtually immune to guns, could move at incredible speed, and was as strong as thousands of men. He rescued the Yankee and two other Deltas from the ovens just in time. Then, in a matter of moments, he killed every Nazi at the camp. The Nazi's own Delta guard, Kaptian Krieg, received the distress call, and came to put down what he thought was another Delta uprising, only to be torn limb from limb by Superior. With his incredible new superpowers, he flew to Berlin, fought his way into the bunker of Adolf Hitler
, killed him, and then flew across the world to force the surrender of Emperor Hirohito. In only a few hours, he brought the Second World War to a complete end.
The Cold War began in the aftermath, much like in the real world. The United States did not develop nuclear weapons for several more years (they didn't need to finish them, as Superior's early victory in the war meant the Manhattan Project
was canceled late in development). However, the real arms race was in the new "Alpha" class super-humans. A handful of other "Alphas" emerged at the end of the war, and in the aftermath, and the Soviet Union
was able to "create" several new Alphas, none as powerful as Superior, but still enough to challenge him. In 1949 they also detonated an atomic bomb, and the Cold War began in earnest. Even Superior was uncertain he could survive a nuclear blast. The United States quickly finished its own nuclear program, and like the real world, the fear and paranoia of the Cold War gripped the nation. Senator Joseph McCarthy
held his HUAC hearings, but Superior's moral superiority eventually shamed him into closing them.
was the subject of an assassination attempt. However, in Brave New World, apparently Kennedy survived the assassination due to the intervention of Superior. Instead of sniper fire, in this world, Lee Harvey Oswald was one of several super-villains in power armor who flew in and destroyed the President's limousine with energy weapons. Superior managed to save the life of the President, but in the aftermath the government decided it must take a much harsher line on dealing with super-humans. The Delta Registration Act was quickly passed by Congress, making it a federal offense worthy of life imprisonment
to not register superpowers with the government within seven days of manifesting them. Furthermore, all super-humans essentially had no civil rights, and could be used by the government in any way it felt appropriate. The government created Delta Prime as a super-powered law enforcement agency to control unregistered Deltas. Witch hunts begin to flush out super-humans who had not registered.
In these troubled times, a group of heroes emerged to fight for freedom and civil rights. Calling themselves the "Defiance", they were a loosely organized resistance group that opposed having to register their superpowers. Portrayed as domestic terrorists by the government, they were a thorn in the side of the government for decades. In 1966, a battle between Delta Prime forces and the super-villain Devastator (who was responsible for the assassination attempt on Kennedy) ended up with Devastator escaping (although his entire tower in New York City
along with four square blocks were destroyed) and thousands of lives being lost. In the aftermath of this, Kennedy declared martial law throughout the country. Stoking fears of Delta terrorists, he was establishing himself as President For Life, ignoring the Constitution, and keeping the people in control by manipulating their fears. He considered everything from the Congress to the Supreme Court of the United States
to be merely "advisory" bodies; he would take advice from them, but he would make all the decisions from now on. Protected by a Secret Service detachment of Delta Prime, enforcing his will through hearings and secret trials that made HUAC look "like a Girl Scout meeting", and extrajudicial executions of many prisoners, the United States quickly became a neo-fascist nightmare. A super-powered prison, the "Fortress", a secret supermax
prison enhanced with super-science and magic was built somewhere in Nebraska
to house Delta and Alpha enemies of the state.
unless Superior surrendered to him. Of course, Superior would never surrender, but in the middle of the battle, Devastator set off the bomb. In that moment, the entire world changed. Everything within 25 miles (40.2 km) of the Sears Tower vanished without a trace. Buildings, people, plants, everything was gone. A shallow crater was even gouged into the earth, which Lake Michigan
immediately flowed into, creating "Chicago Bay". However, at that moment, every Alpha, everywhere on Earth, vanished. Millions of people died, an entire city was destroyed, and the Alpha superheroes, including Superior, which had been Americas greatest defender for 30 years, had vanished. Over the next few years, Crescent City would be built on the shores of Chicago Bay (named for the crescent shape it takes when seen from above). The center of superpowered activity on Earth, it would be the headquarters of both Delta Prime and the Defiance.
Without Superior and other Alpha superheroes to keep the world relatively calm, global politics collapsed quickly. The Defiance movement (as well as Delta super-villains) were emboldened to act, since they didn't have the mighty Superior to fear, leaving many American cities scarred and blasted from super-powered conflicts. Many nations of the world broke down into open war. The Iron Curtain
never fell, instead, in 1988 when the Soviet Union started to dissolve, a bloody military coup restored communist power, and the CIA decided that the General who initiated the coup had to die. The lowest point was in 1989, after the nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl
, sabotaged by American Deltas, when a limited nuclear war
between the US and USSR broke out. By the time calmer heads prevailed, Atlanta and San Francisco had been destroyed by Soviet nuclear weapons, while the US had destroyed Kiev
and Minsk
. The public was told it was an unprovoked first strike, and that the events in Chernobyl were a terrible accident wrongfully blamed on the USA.
The Defiance reached its greatest strength after that point, as the development of the Internet in the 1990s made it much easier for Deltas to stay in contact and organize. Secret, encrypted web pages, email, and offshore data havens helped the Defiance movement grow from a loose group of malcontents into a much larger and more organized movement. Kennedy would love to shut down the Internet, but it is too useful for commerce, and the sagging economy of the US needs all the help it can get.
. Brave New World eschewed the use of poker
cards and poker chips, and only used six-sided dice
instead of the many polyhedrals of Deadlands. Superpowers were represented as specific "power packages" of thematic powers grouped together, such as "flyer", "speedster" or "blaster" (similar systems of archetypes are found in other superhero games, like City of Heroes
).
The Brave New World books were mostly black & white, with small glossy color sections that would give exposition about the setting and plot, and very important information, like new power packages.
The back of each book contained a "Guide's Handbook", which was information specifically for use by the game master, such as some of the secrets of the setting (see below).
The game was published from 1999 until early 2001, when AEG cancelled the line. Author Matt Forbeck has revealed on his web site the general plans for the game when it was canceled, and the direction it was going to take. A coming expansion would feature Superior reappearing in the skies of Crescent City, wounded and exhausted, but alive, and with him would be revealed the truth behind what really happened to him, all the Alphas, the City of Chicago, and eventually reveal where Alphas and Deltas got their powers, and other mysteries of the setting.
Matt Forbeck has stated his interest in returning to produce new Brave New World materials, possibly in PDF format, but acknowledges the legal and licensing issues that may make such a project very difficult. However in 2009, Alderac have released all of the Brave New World books in PDF through DriveThruRPG.
The most important secret was that President Kennedy was dead. He really was killed by assassins in 1963. The man who calls himself John F. Kennedy is actually "Facade", an Alpha shapeshifter
who Superior convinced to temporarily impersonate the President to allow for a more orderly transfer of office. Facade was not about to give up the most powerful office in the world so lightly, though.
Famous Defiance martyr "Patriot", supposedly executed by the government, was secretly rescued by the Defiance and living in hiding, with the Defiance unwilling to reveal he was alive and lose a powerful martyr, and the government being unwilling to admit that one of their biggest enemies was forcibly rescued from New Alcatraz.
Alphas and Deltas got their power from being descended from extra-dimensional entities. In other universes, the laws of physics were different, allowing beings to fly, or shoot beams of energy, or be incredibly strong. When they traveled from universe to universe, they were sometimes mistaken for gods, like they were on Earth. They interbred with the native humans, before being chased away by mysterious "multiversal police" who were an order of being far more powerful, "Omegas", who were as far above Alphas as Alphas were from Deltas. The Multiversal police considered it a serious crime to visit universes that did not natively have superpowers, as it seriously damages the fabric of reality to use superpowers in a world that isn't able to support them.
Thus, the gods and monsters of legend and the angels and devils of religions were real, and are not around anymore because they were chased away by other powerful beings. However, most of mankind is descended, however distantly, from at least one of these beings. Most humans have the raw genetic potential to be Deltas and Alphas, but never get the chance. Only the greatest stress could trigger the subconscious to actually use Delta powers, and the same stresses could turn a Delta into an Alpha. While Delta powers were not natural to Earth, their use was not very injurious to the universe. However, mighty Alpha powers were beginning to slowly destroy the world. If something was not done, the world would be destroyed fairly soon.
The Multiversal Police returned to Earth, and spoke with Facade (impersonating President Kennedy), explaining the real nature of their powers and the danger their world was in, and they made a deal with him. They provided Facade with a device which would eliminate most of the Alphas and prevent Earth's entire universe from collapsing. This device was handed over to Devastator, being told it was a doomsday bomb, which he activated during the Bicentennial Battle.
At the moment the bomb was activated, every Alpha on Earth who was not specially protected (such as being in a special prison) was teleported to a specially prepared pocket dimension, along with everything within 25 miles (40.2 km) of the bomb (the Chicago metropolitan area). Thus, the entire city of Chicago, along with almost all the Alphas on Earth, were imprisoned in a pocket universe, seemingly forever. It was intended for Superior, aided by a quarter century of work by every Alpha formerly on Earth, to escape, and for the truth about Facade, the Multiversal Police, the source of Delta powers to be revealed, and for heroes from Earth to be able to explore other universes, but that book, "Crossroads", never got to be published.
Role-playing game
A role-playing game is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making or character development...
originally released by Pinnacle Entertainment Group in 1999
1999 in games
This page lists board and card games, wargames, miniatures games, and table-top role-playing games published in 1999. For video and console games, see 1999 in video gaming.-Game awards given in 1999:...
. The game was later sold to Alderac Entertainment Group
Alderac Entertainment Group
Alderac Entertainment Group, or AEG, is a publisher of role-playing game and collectible card game products. AEG was formed by Jolly Blackburn in 1993 and is based in the city of Ontario, California...
in 2000. The game is an alternate history
Alternate history (fiction)
Alternate history or alternative history is a genre of fiction consisting of stories that are set in worlds in which history has diverged from the actual history of the world. It can be variously seen as a sub-genre of literary fiction, science fiction, and historical fiction; different alternate...
superhero
Superhero
A superhero is a type of stock character, possessing "extraordinary or superhuman powers", dedicated to protecting the public. Since the debut of the prototypical superhero Superman in 1938, stories of superheroes — ranging from brief episodic adventures to continuing years-long sagas —...
game set in a fascist United States of America living in a perpetual state of martial law
Martial law
Martial law is the imposition of military rule by military authorities over designated regions on an emergency basis— only temporary—when the civilian government or civilian authorities fail to function effectively , when there are extensive riots and protests, or when the disobedience of the law...
since the 1960s. Inspired by the Kingdom Come and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns is a four-issue comic book limited series written and drawn by Frank Miller, originally published by DC Comics under the title Batman: The Dark Knight in 1986. When the issues were released in a collected edition later that year, the story title for the first issue...
comic storylines, X-Men
X-Men
The X-Men are a superhero team in the . They were created by writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby, and first appeared in The X-Men #1...
, Nineteen Eighty-Four
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is a dystopian novel about Oceania, a society ruled by the oligarchical dictatorship of the Party...
, and the political and social upheavals of the 1990s, the game depicts renegade superheroes fighting a corrupt and evil government.
Deltas
While the history of the Brave New World setting actually diverged from real history in antiquity, the first point of divergence known to the general public was in the trenches of World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, when a dying soldier discovered he had the power to turn incorporeal. He became the Silver Ghost, the first superhero, a secret spy for the War Department who helped end the Great War months early.
He was the first, but soon after the war many other super-powered humans started to appear. Nobody knew from where, but people who were in mortal danger would sometimes begin to manifest superhuman powers. In the early days, in the 1920s and 1930s, most of these new heroes didn't bother to wear disguises, and the government and people were fairly accepting of their vigilante methods. There were super-powered villains appearing, but heroes were always there to keep them in check. This was analogous to the Golden Age of Comic Books
Golden Age of Comic Books
The Golden Age of Comic Books was a period in the history of American comic books, generally thought of as lasting from the late 1930s until the late 1940s or early 1950s...
. Fairly quickly, scientists began to refer to these super-powered beings as "Homo Delta" or "Deltas", meaning change. Mankind didn't know what these new people were, only that something had changed about them.
Then, in the late 1930s, one superhero named "Yankee" was officially deputized as a law enforcement officer by the city of Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
. Wearing a brightly colored, red, white and blue outfit, he worked with Eliot Ness
Eliot Ness
Eliot Ness was an American Prohibition agent, famous for his efforts to enforce Prohibition in Chicago, Illinois, and the leader of a legendary team of law enforcement agents nicknamed The Untouchables.- Early life :...
to bring down Al Capone
Al Capone
Alphonse Gabriel "Al" Capone was an American gangster who led a Prohibition-era crime syndicate. The Chicago Outfit, which subsequently became known as the "Capones", was dedicated to smuggling and bootlegging liquor, and other illegal activities such as prostitution, in Chicago from the early...
, and became a powerful role model for other superheroes.
Alphas
On December 7, 1941, the US Navy base at Pearl HarborPearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor, known to Hawaiians as Puuloa, is a lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. Much of the harbor and surrounding lands is a United States Navy deep-water naval base. It is also the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet...
was destroyed by Imperial Japanese Navy
Imperial Japanese Navy
The Imperial Japanese Navy was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1869 until 1947, when it was dissolved following Japan's constitutional renunciation of the use of force as a means of settling international disputes...
fighters alongside military Deltas. The Third Reich and Imperial Japan had their own Deltas as weapons of war, alongside traditional weapons. The United States was drawn into World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Delta Squadron was founded to be the super-powered arm of the United States. America had super soldiers who fought on the battlefields, and some were as strong as entire tanks, or as deadly in the skies as fighters and bombers.
In the fall of 1943, the Yankee was captured along with his young sidekick Sparky. They were taken to a concentration camp to be imprisoned and eventually disposed of, as the Nazis considered Delta soldiers, and Deltas who refused to serve the Reich, too dangerous to be kept alive indefinitely like normal prisoners of war. However, after almost two years of torture and interrogation, Yankee and Sparky staged their revolt. At first it seemed like the Yankee and Sparky, along with all the other Deltas, were killed in the resulting battle, but as the Nazis threw the Yankee and Sparky's bodies into the ovens to be incinerated, something incredible happened: out of the charnal fires of the ovens came Superior, the most powerful superhuman ever born.
Sparky had somehow come back to life, and come back far more powerful. He was apparently virtually immune to guns, could move at incredible speed, and was as strong as thousands of men. He rescued the Yankee and two other Deltas from the ovens just in time. Then, in a matter of moments, he killed every Nazi at the camp. The Nazi's own Delta guard, Kaptian Krieg, received the distress call, and came to put down what he thought was another Delta uprising, only to be torn limb from limb by Superior. With his incredible new superpowers, he flew to Berlin, fought his way into the bunker of Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
, killed him, and then flew across the world to force the surrender of Emperor Hirohito. In only a few hours, he brought the Second World War to a complete end.
The Cold War began in the aftermath, much like in the real world. The United States did not develop nuclear weapons for several more years (they didn't need to finish them, as Superior's early victory in the war meant the Manhattan Project
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development program, led by the United States with participation from the United Kingdom and Canada, that produced the first atomic bomb during World War II. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the US Army...
was canceled late in development). However, the real arms race was in the new "Alpha" class super-humans. A handful of other "Alphas" emerged at the end of the war, and in the aftermath, and the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
was able to "create" several new Alphas, none as powerful as Superior, but still enough to challenge him. In 1949 they also detonated an atomic bomb, and the Cold War began in earnest. Even Superior was uncertain he could survive a nuclear blast. The United States quickly finished its own nuclear program, and like the real world, the fear and paranoia of the Cold War gripped the nation. Senator Joseph McCarthy
Joseph McCarthy
Joseph Raymond "Joe" McCarthy was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957...
held his HUAC hearings, but Superior's moral superiority eventually shamed him into closing them.
Forced registration
The largest divergent point in this alternate history was November 22, 1963. In Brave New World, like in the real world, John F. KennedyJohn F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
was the subject of an assassination attempt. However, in Brave New World, apparently Kennedy survived the assassination due to the intervention of Superior. Instead of sniper fire, in this world, Lee Harvey Oswald was one of several super-villains in power armor who flew in and destroyed the President's limousine with energy weapons. Superior managed to save the life of the President, but in the aftermath the government decided it must take a much harsher line on dealing with super-humans. The Delta Registration Act was quickly passed by Congress, making it a federal offense worthy of life imprisonment
Life imprisonment
Life imprisonment is a sentence of imprisonment for a serious crime under which the convicted person is to remain in jail for the rest of his or her life...
to not register superpowers with the government within seven days of manifesting them. Furthermore, all super-humans essentially had no civil rights, and could be used by the government in any way it felt appropriate. The government created Delta Prime as a super-powered law enforcement agency to control unregistered Deltas. Witch hunts begin to flush out super-humans who had not registered.
In these troubled times, a group of heroes emerged to fight for freedom and civil rights. Calling themselves the "Defiance", they were a loosely organized resistance group that opposed having to register their superpowers. Portrayed as domestic terrorists by the government, they were a thorn in the side of the government for decades. In 1966, a battle between Delta Prime forces and the super-villain Devastator (who was responsible for the assassination attempt on Kennedy) ended up with Devastator escaping (although his entire tower in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
along with four square blocks were destroyed) and thousands of lives being lost. In the aftermath of this, Kennedy declared martial law throughout the country. Stoking fears of Delta terrorists, he was establishing himself as President For Life, ignoring the Constitution, and keeping the people in control by manipulating their fears. He considered everything from the Congress to the Supreme Court of the United States
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
to be merely "advisory" bodies; he would take advice from them, but he would make all the decisions from now on. Protected by a Secret Service detachment of Delta Prime, enforcing his will through hearings and secret trials that made HUAC look "like a Girl Scout meeting", and extrajudicial executions of many prisoners, the United States quickly became a neo-fascist nightmare. A super-powered prison, the "Fortress", a secret supermax
Supermax
Supermax is the name used to describe "control-unit" prisons, or units within prisons, which represent the most secure levels of custody in the prison systems of certain countries...
prison enhanced with super-science and magic was built somewhere in Nebraska
Nebraska
Nebraska is a state on the Great Plains of the Midwestern United States. The state's capital is Lincoln and its largest city is Omaha, on the Missouri River....
to house Delta and Alpha enemies of the state.
Disappearance of Alphas
Then, on July 4, 1976, in many ways, things got even worse. The "Bicentennial Battle" erupted in downtown Chicago, as a showdown between the Devastator, his minions and allies, and Superior and the forces of Delta Prime. Devastator threatened to detonate a mysterious "doomsday bomb" on top of the Sears TowerSears Tower
Sears' optimistic growth projections were not met. Competition from its traditional rivals continued, with new competition by retailing giants such as Kmart, Kohl's, and Wal-Mart. The fortunes of Sears & Roebuck declined in the 1970s as the company lost market share; its management grew more...
unless Superior surrendered to him. Of course, Superior would never surrender, but in the middle of the battle, Devastator set off the bomb. In that moment, the entire world changed. Everything within 25 miles (40.2 km) of the Sears Tower vanished without a trace. Buildings, people, plants, everything was gone. A shallow crater was even gouged into the earth, which Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America and the only one located entirely within the United States. It is the second largest of the Great Lakes by volume and the third largest by surface area, after Lake Superior and Lake Huron...
immediately flowed into, creating "Chicago Bay". However, at that moment, every Alpha, everywhere on Earth, vanished. Millions of people died, an entire city was destroyed, and the Alpha superheroes, including Superior, which had been Americas greatest defender for 30 years, had vanished. Over the next few years, Crescent City would be built on the shores of Chicago Bay (named for the crescent shape it takes when seen from above). The center of superpowered activity on Earth, it would be the headquarters of both Delta Prime and the Defiance.
Without Superior and other Alpha superheroes to keep the world relatively calm, global politics collapsed quickly. The Defiance movement (as well as Delta super-villains) were emboldened to act, since they didn't have the mighty Superior to fear, leaving many American cities scarred and blasted from super-powered conflicts. Many nations of the world broke down into open war. The Iron Curtain
Iron Curtain
The concept of the Iron Curtain symbolized the ideological fighting and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1989...
never fell, instead, in 1988 when the Soviet Union started to dissolve, a bloody military coup restored communist power, and the CIA decided that the General who initiated the coup had to die. The lowest point was in 1989, after the nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl
Chernobyl
Chernobyl or Chornobyl is an abandoned city in northern Ukraine, in Kiev Oblast, near the border with Belarus. The city had been the administrative centre of the Chernobyl Raion since 1932....
, sabotaged by American Deltas, when a limited nuclear war
Nuclear warfare
Nuclear warfare, or atomic warfare, is a military conflict or political strategy in which nuclear weaponry is detonated on an opponent. Compared to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare can be vastly more destructive in range and extent of damage...
between the US and USSR broke out. By the time calmer heads prevailed, Atlanta and San Francisco had been destroyed by Soviet nuclear weapons, while the US had destroyed Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
and Minsk
Minsk
- Ecological situation :The ecological situation is monitored by Republican Center of Radioactive and Environmental Control .During 2003–2008 the overall weight of contaminants increased from 186,000 to 247,400 tons. The change of gas as industrial fuel to mazut for financial reasons has worsened...
. The public was told it was an unprovoked first strike, and that the events in Chernobyl were a terrible accident wrongfully blamed on the USA.
The Defiance reached its greatest strength after that point, as the development of the Internet in the 1990s made it much easier for Deltas to stay in contact and organize. Secret, encrypted web pages, email, and offshore data havens helped the Defiance movement grow from a loose group of malcontents into a much larger and more organized movement. Kennedy would love to shut down the Internet, but it is too useful for commerce, and the sagging economy of the US needs all the help it can get.
Outside the United States, 1990 to present
- In 1996, Nelson MandelaNelson MandelaNelson Rolihlahla Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing...
was murdered, ending any chance of a peaceful settlement of apartheid in South Africa, where racial order is enforced by superhuman powers. - Australia is actually quite open and hospitable to Deltas, and is one of the few havens in the world where they are treated as equal citizens, assuming they can make it to Australian soil to claim the offer.
- Canada has its own laws requiring registration of Deltas, but they are nowhere near as harsh as American laws.
- China is strangely shorthanded with Deltas, compared to other countries, for reasons nobody quite understands. Fearing that the United KingdomUnited KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
would not return Hong KongHong KongHong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
, they staged a military invasion of the island in 1998, which still was ongoing as of the 1999 date of the books. - The European UnionEuropean UnionThe European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
never formed, and Europe is a fractious, contentious continent of heavily armed police states, although Norway and Sweden are also havens for Deltas. - Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, but the world was too busy to expel the Iraqi invaders, so Saddam Hussein is slowly building an empire of his own in the Middle East.
- The city of Madras in India was destroyed by a nuclear weapon, although it could never be proven it was from Pakistan, so a nuclear war was avoided, barely.
- In the aftermath of the Bicentennial Battle, the Emperor of Japan reasserted his power, reasserted his divinity, renounced pacifism, and began to rebuild the Japanese Empire, and the rest of the world had too many problems to be able to stop him.
- The Soviet Union still goes strong, with a government which is seemingly immune to coup attempts (with coup or assassination attempts happening frequently).
Game system
The game system of Brave New World was based on a simplified version of the rules system developed by Pinnacle Entertainment Group earlier in 1996 for DeadlandsDeadlands
Deadlands is a genre-mixing alternate history roleplaying game which combines the Western and horror genres, with some Steampunk elements. It was written by Shane Lacy Hensley and published by Pinnacle Entertainment Group....
. Brave New World eschewed the use of poker
Poker
Poker is a family of card games that share betting rules and usually hand rankings. Poker games differ in how the cards are dealt, how hands may be formed, whether the high or low hand wins the pot in a showdown , limits on bet sizes, and how many rounds of betting are allowed.In most modern poker...
cards and poker chips, and only used six-sided dice
Dice
A die is a small throwable object with multiple resting positions, used for generating random numbers...
instead of the many polyhedrals of Deadlands. Superpowers were represented as specific "power packages" of thematic powers grouped together, such as "flyer", "speedster" or "blaster" (similar systems of archetypes are found in other superhero games, like City of Heroes
City of Heroes
City of Heroes is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game based on the superhero comic book genre, developed by Cryptic Studios and published by NCsoft. The game was launched in North America on April 27, 2004 and in Europe on February 4, 2005 with English, German and French language...
).
The Brave New World books were mostly black & white, with small glossy color sections that would give exposition about the setting and plot, and very important information, like new power packages.
The back of each book contained a "Guide's Handbook", which was information specifically for use by the game master, such as some of the secrets of the setting (see below).
The game was published from 1999 until early 2001, when AEG cancelled the line. Author Matt Forbeck has revealed on his web site the general plans for the game when it was canceled, and the direction it was going to take. A coming expansion would feature Superior reappearing in the skies of Crescent City, wounded and exhausted, but alive, and with him would be revealed the truth behind what really happened to him, all the Alphas, the City of Chicago, and eventually reveal where Alphas and Deltas got their powers, and other mysteries of the setting.
Matt Forbeck has stated his interest in returning to produce new Brave New World materials, possibly in PDF format, but acknowledges the legal and licensing issues that may make such a project very difficult. However in 2009, Alderac have released all of the Brave New World books in PDF through DriveThruRPG.
Secrets of the setting
Brave New World books always were intentionally vague about some parts of the setting, implying that there were mysteries that the general public (and player characters) would not know about. The truth to these elements was revealed in the "Guide's Handbook" part of each book. Elements of the setting that were planned, but never published, were revealed on the author's web site in 2004, providing a much clearer picture of the Brave New World setting.The most important secret was that President Kennedy was dead. He really was killed by assassins in 1963. The man who calls himself John F. Kennedy is actually "Facade", an Alpha shapeshifter
ShapeShifter
ShapeShifter is an Application Enhancer plugin for Mac OS X developed by Unsanity that allows the user to make system-wide modifications to the appearance of the operating system's graphical interface by applying GUI skins through “injection” into running code and without modifying system files,...
who Superior convinced to temporarily impersonate the President to allow for a more orderly transfer of office. Facade was not about to give up the most powerful office in the world so lightly, though.
Famous Defiance martyr "Patriot", supposedly executed by the government, was secretly rescued by the Defiance and living in hiding, with the Defiance unwilling to reveal he was alive and lose a powerful martyr, and the government being unwilling to admit that one of their biggest enemies was forcibly rescued from New Alcatraz.
Alphas and Deltas got their power from being descended from extra-dimensional entities. In other universes, the laws of physics were different, allowing beings to fly, or shoot beams of energy, or be incredibly strong. When they traveled from universe to universe, they were sometimes mistaken for gods, like they were on Earth. They interbred with the native humans, before being chased away by mysterious "multiversal police" who were an order of being far more powerful, "Omegas", who were as far above Alphas as Alphas were from Deltas. The Multiversal police considered it a serious crime to visit universes that did not natively have superpowers, as it seriously damages the fabric of reality to use superpowers in a world that isn't able to support them.
Thus, the gods and monsters of legend and the angels and devils of religions were real, and are not around anymore because they were chased away by other powerful beings. However, most of mankind is descended, however distantly, from at least one of these beings. Most humans have the raw genetic potential to be Deltas and Alphas, but never get the chance. Only the greatest stress could trigger the subconscious to actually use Delta powers, and the same stresses could turn a Delta into an Alpha. While Delta powers were not natural to Earth, their use was not very injurious to the universe. However, mighty Alpha powers were beginning to slowly destroy the world. If something was not done, the world would be destroyed fairly soon.
The Multiversal Police returned to Earth, and spoke with Facade (impersonating President Kennedy), explaining the real nature of their powers and the danger their world was in, and they made a deal with him. They provided Facade with a device which would eliminate most of the Alphas and prevent Earth's entire universe from collapsing. This device was handed over to Devastator, being told it was a doomsday bomb, which he activated during the Bicentennial Battle.
At the moment the bomb was activated, every Alpha on Earth who was not specially protected (such as being in a special prison) was teleported to a specially prepared pocket dimension, along with everything within 25 miles (40.2 km) of the bomb (the Chicago metropolitan area). Thus, the entire city of Chicago, along with almost all the Alphas on Earth, were imprisoned in a pocket universe, seemingly forever. It was intended for Superior, aided by a quarter century of work by every Alpha formerly on Earth, to escape, and for the truth about Facade, the Multiversal Police, the source of Delta powers to be revealed, and for heroes from Earth to be able to explore other universes, but that book, "Crossroads", never got to be published.