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I'm looking for plot ideas for my ongoing Marvel Super Heroes campaign.

Currently the story is that Red Skull has used an Norse artefact "The Hela Runestone" to summon a new Legion of the Unliving (basically a bunch of dead superheroes and villains brought back to life) to do his bidding, Hela being the Norse goddess of the Dead and all.

In one of those twists I never saw coming (but perhaps should have?), the party sought out Thor, who also happens to be a Norse god, to deal directly with Hela and get her to break the spell.

That sounded fun and it got me thinking, why not set the next part of the adventure in Asgard? It's a supers game, go nuts, right?

One possibility for the Asgardian plot is that Hela takes Thor prisoner and the heroes have to rescue him. That would be cool (and a heck of an ego boost for the players!), but I just can't quite figure out how the player would learn about this or even get to Asgard on their own steam. And anyone powerful enough to get them to Asgard is probably good enough to attempt to rescue Thor on their own (let alone have any reason to involve the party).

Alternatively it could be Hela agrees to break the spell but sets some conditions, which could be a set of tasks to be performed for her. That sounds very Tales from Asgard to me. In that case it would not seem too contrived if Thor himself brought the party over to Asgard to help – they are after all directly involved and not everything can be solved with a hammer.

So in principle one could send Thor to Jotunheim to take something from the Frost Giants (mostly to take him out of the picture), half the party on a quest in Nornheim, the realms of Karnilla and the other half on a quest in Valhalla, where they could meet Valkyrie.

The trouble is, I am kind of stuck for quest ideas other than the tired "retrieve obvious plot hook item #47" variety. Any suggestions out there?

Are you using the old Asgard, or the post-2008 version in Oklahoma? Because the latter would make it a easier for your party to get there.

One thing you could do is have Hela actually kill Thor, and have him appear (in a dream perhaps) as a shade to the players, beseeching them for help. They then have to search Niflheim, where she has dragged his soul. The catch is that Hela has set an enchantment on her minions there as part of a bid to control Asgard: every one they destroy reforms in Asgard to carry out a battle for conquest. There are a number of possible places that Thor's shade could be, and each is guarded by a powerful gatekeeper, so the players must make an intelligent decision about which places to search, because killing the gatekeepers will reinforce the battle in Asgard.

If that seems derivative, I apologize; I haven't read all that many Thor comics. What powers does your party possess?

Derivative is cool. My setting is a bastardised, non-canonical Silver Age mish-mash. So Asagard is still on a psychedelic asteroid in the void connected to the Earth by the rainbow bridge.

To be honest, my initial plan for the campaign was a sort of Marvel-lite, to just reuse second string characters from the MU the player porably had never even heard of and leave out the more iconic stuff which I though might feel a bit wierd or cheesy. As it were it's the players who have been dragging in more and more classic marvel characters, so I've just followed suit. And I have to say NPCing all the big name characters is a lot more fun than I'd like to admit.  

The idea of kiling off Thor and have his ghost warn the party is kind of cool. Though something that could kill Thor might intimidate the party. They are not on paper vastly powerful characters. I guess they are in the same league of Spiderman or the original X-Men. So I can't pitch them against the likes of  Ulik.

Quote from: Soylent Green;298354The idea of kiling off Thor and have his ghost warn the party is kind of cool. Though something that could kill Thor might intimidate the party. They are not on paper vastly powerful characters. I guess they are in the same league of Spiderman or the original X-Men. So I can't pitch them against the likes of  Ulik.

You could have the Odin Force be used on Hela as a way of weakening her down to a level that the players could realistically threaten. After freeing Thor, they go to Asgard to find the battle almost over, with the fallen surrounding Hela and Odin, locked in combat. Hela strikes Odin down, but not before he curses her somehow, making her weak to some sort of attack that the players have access to (Thor might have to inform them as to what the weakness is).

Oh yeah. Actually one could arrange that for the duration of the adventure the players have an Asgardian magical spell cast on them by Odin or someone that boosts their abilities by three column shifts so that they could beat up the likes of Ulik or Sutur. Find me a roleplayer who would not enjoy that :-)

I suggest making them work for it. Just giving out a major power-up gives no sense of accomplishment; instead, have them perform some sort of task. If you have any magic-using heroes, have an Asgardian shade give them the formula for a spell that will empower them, because he isn't able to do it; then they have to go on a series of mini-quest to gather components, or have to have one character perform an extended ritual while the others defend him from attack.

Just remember, if they're headed to Asgard, they're going to expect certain tropes to be hit (consciously requested or otherwise).  They want to meet Thor.  They want a Loki cameo.  They want to fight giants.  They want to see valkyries.  If they know their Marvel, they want to drink with the Warriors Three.  And one of your players might have Karma banked that they want to spend on a new power, and this is the perfect place to give it to 'em (especially if it's in a weapon or whatever).

And I agree that temporarily bumping them up is far more exciting (to a player) than temporarily bumping Hela down.  Give 'em a micro-taste of cosmic Marvel!  Who knows, it could set up adventures down the road...

You might also consider that other-wordly adventures might lead to character alteration. You can explain changes if the players are unhappy with the status quo through Asgardian gifts, unknown heritage (Son of a Troll, Daughter of a Dark Elf, etc etc,) or Loki messing with things (his gifts are never gifts entirely.)


In addition to that, let them see the sites--the Ice giants, Surtur's realm, the rainbow bridge. Never forget that there is a lot of weird fantasy buildings that work in Asgard, fairy tale aspects merged with "magic is really ultra-tech)  and so on.

I don't really have an interest in these sorts of comic strips, but here's an idea from actual Norse mythology you might want to steal and adapt:

When the god Baldr died and consequently went to Hela's realm, she said she'll give him back, but only if every creature weeps for him. Now Baldr was very popular, but one creature refused to cry for him: the giantess Thokk (who IIRC turned out to be Loki in disguise); so Baldr stayed dead.

You could do something similar: Hela's willing to free Thor if certain parties intercede in his behalf, and the party's job is to locate and convince these parties. Of course, these parties will probably need some persuation and/or require some service in exchange. And of course, any one of them might be Loki in disguise and just flat out refuse, unless the party finds out his true identity and manages to blackmail him with something.

Good ideas all round, thanks!  I also discovered one of the MSH module is partly set in Asgard ("Ragnarok and Roll", would you believe). Bound to be something I can use in there.

Another thing you could do is have the characters die, and be brought to Asgard by a Valkyrie.  (My preference is Lenneth from the PS1 RPG Valkyrie Profile, but YMMV!)

Maybe have the bad things to Earth happen, and the heroes fall, only to be brought back alive past the Rainbow Bridge before it all went down and they have to rescue Thor and do all the cool stuff.  

Plus it allows for lampshade hanging about the revolving door deaths in the MU anyhow.

So after so thinking and reading, here's how I figure how the scenario should be.
What has happened before:
Red Skull (helped by Cyrus Black) summons the Legion of the Unliving using the Hela Runestone. The party contact Thor and convince him to talk Hela to break the spell.

So what happens now:

Hela captures Thor and turns him to stone.

News spreads quickly and soon the Frost Giants, Rock Trolls and Dark Elves armies raise to attack Asgard.

Odin, vexed with the party for having sent his son to Hel, summons them to Asgard. If the party offer to make amends he charges them with the task of recovering Thor. Odin and the Asgardians cannot spare anyone from the defence of the Realm.

Odin suggests before heading to Hel the party go see Karnilla, sorcerous queen of the Norns who, at his request will magically enhance their abilities (+3CS to any three Abilities or Powers for the duration of the adventure). Loki protests, offers to go himself as long as his abilities are enhanced. Odin sees right through him. Odin gives the party one of his rings as token. He also warns them not to mention to Karnilla that they are to lead rescue mission for Thor as Karnilla and Thor or not on the best of terms.


Loki will beat the party to the Karnilla's castle and forewarn her that the party are planning to rescue Thor, making the task for the party of winning Karnilla all that much harder.

The road to Hel goes through Valhalla and via the Gnipa Cavern. On the way there, worth having an encounter with some Frost Giants just to test those new powers.

The Gnipa cavern is guarded by the hellhound Garm who will let people in, but not out. There follows a long descent in darkness till the Gjallerbru bridge over the blood red river Gjoll. The goddess Modgud (with half the face of the beautiful maiden, the other half featureless) guards the bridge. She is expecting the party and invites them to her mistresses palace, Eljundir.

Hela serves a banquet. Stone-formed Thor in plain sight. What she wants is control over Valhalla. For this she will free Thor and also send her legions to help defend Asgard (the party hopefully will also remember their original goal, to undo the spell that summoned the Legion of Unliving). If not, her legions will join the attack on Asgard and help bring forth Ragnarok.

I know, put this way it sounds like of linear, but I think the story a lot of room to change and evolve based on what actually happens in play.

If it turns out in play to be as epic as it sounds on paper I might allow the players to keep permanently a single +1CS to one Ability or Power only from Karnilla's spell when they get back to Earth to resume their hunt of Red Skull.

Anyway, just ran the first part of this adventure and it was a blast.

It took a while for the players to warm up to the Asgardian theme. To start with they were very defensive, cracking mood-breaking jokes and not really committing to the game and almost embarassed by the whole thing. But as the game went on they warmed up to the theme more and more and by the time they were fighting Frost Giants outside they very gates of Valhalla, they were totally hooked!

Thanks everyone for the ideas.

Sounds awesome! More AP would be great!

Almost makes me want to play MSH now!

MSH has been a revelation for me. It really is so easy to prep and easy to play.  The system is a little coarse, it does accuratley simulate anything, but that actually helps capture the Silver Age comic book feel. Try imagine a Stan Lee story with photo-realistic illustrations - it would be jarring. And then there is karma. I cannot speak well enough about karma.

I would not use MSH for Watchmen, but for four-colour heroes very well.

I'm glad it works so well for you. It was my favorite superhero game for a LONG time.

Keep up the fun stuff!

This sounds awesome, soylent!

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