Yudhishthira’s Dice

Take 3 parts Neon Genesis Evangelion, 2 parts Incredible Hulk, 1 Part Delta Green, and a dash of Final Fantasy. Shake (don’t stir), bring to a chill, and play with Bronze Age style:

The Apotheosis Pranayama

In 2002 Dr. Malkuth Michael, billionaire and PhD in Mysticism, discovered a great secret in a collection of ancient scrolls he had illegally acquired from Iraq. These scrolls, written at the same time as the Dead Sea Scrolls, were a pure and simple explanation of the fundamentals for what had become the Tree of Life in later centuries. Following the directions, which were more practical than mystical, Dr. Michael became the first human to use the Apotheosis Pranayama, and promptly became a god — Bahamut.

Unfortunately for Dr. Michael the human genome had changed ever so slightly over the past 2000 years, and the resulting mischanneling of energies destroyed him in a blast that took out his mansion and a part of the nearby town of Victory, Vermont. The local media caught onto the story and interviews with locals told wild stories about angels and giants being seen just before the explosion. For a short time the area became the darling of tabloids, UFO hunters, new agers, and cultists who believed that the archangel had appeared to herald the end of the earth.

There were three more important groups that also investigated, and that found out a good deal more of the truth. Dr. Michael’s son, Crown Michael, inherited many of his father’s notes on the process as well as his father’s ashes. Dr. Michael’s corporation, Crown International, recovered the fragments of the Pranayama Codex. The ultra secret board of controllers – known as the Sepheroth — realized that they needed Dr. Michael’s diary to use the damaged scrolls, and made a pact with Crown Michael to work together to make all of them into gods. Every side, of course, intends to destroy the others – because one god is omnipotent, but if there are many gods it makes each god less than all powerful.

In order to discover the secret, as well as what had gone wrong with Dr. Michael’s ascension, the Crown Corporation started the delta-classified Pentateuch Project, hiring many of the best biologists on earth to study how the human genome had been remapped and many of the best mystics and physicists to discover how the ancient rituals could be fixed to fit the new genome. As part of this project many of the religious documents and artifacts of the ancient Babylonian period were acquired and made available to the teams, though they were always spread out and classified in such a way that no one researcher could figure out the full story of what was going on.

The third group that found out, due to its ability to use broad investigative powers including highly-advanced scanning and temporal field instrumentation, was the U.S. Government – specifically Majestic 12. M 12 was initially held back by their belief that the phenomena was of extra- terrestrial origins. Eventually, however, their top minds cracked the energy codes and started on the long process of reverse engineering the process that had lead to Dr. Michael’s ascent and death. Realizing that they must be behind Crown on the project, M 12 sent deep cover agents into Crown in order to recover all the data, and any physical remains, that they could get their hands on.

One of the agents, Marrie Junto, was able to recover Dr. Michael’s remains. However, she was caught and executed before she could get clear of Crown. In the confusion of her capture she switched the remains with a soil sample being sent to the biology department. Before the switch was discovered the remains were sent to Dr. John Spencer, a PhD in Microbiology working on the Pentateuch project.

In what would later be ruled (incorrectly) to be a freak accident Dr. Spencer opened the remains at the same time that physicists one level up were recalibrating an atomic splicer, which malfunctioned and created a large warp-field of energy. Under the effects of the field, Dr. Michael’s remains partly animated and infused Dr. Spencer’s body.

Dr. Spencer immediately became Bahamut, and all hell broke loose. M 12 agents scrambled to his home to get his fiancé for leverage, while Crown agents tried to stop him at the Pentateuch complex. What none of them realized is that there were actually 3 beings involved. Dr. John Spencer, Bahamut, and Neo-Bahamut – the evil god that was born of the death of the original Bahamut and all the greed and malice filling the temple of his rebirth. Neo-Bahamut took over, and massive deaths resulted.

Now everyone is after Bahamut. Crown must have him to have their immortality, Mr. Michael must have him so that he can become the sole god, and M 12 is after him for national and human security, as well as their own power. In addition normal government and military agencies are out to stop this “mutated threat” before it can bring more destruction.

What none of the involved parties know is that they are not the only ones researching apotheosis, and that Bahamut’s rebirth has opened a gate in the life-breath temporality. From the moment he was born other gods have started to rise – thus turning the world into the age of superheroes. Many of the others will not know where their powers come from, however, and may just rise spontaneously to fill needs in the universal unconscious. It will take the efforts of Bahamut and Dr. Spencer to uncover the truth and bring balance back to the world.

Notes: This is, obviously, a “Gods as supers” setting. I always loved the idea of Thor and other gods as supers, but wanted something more in the background to drive plot than the standard “well, they’re just there.” The setting wears its sources on its sleeve, so don’t expect to sneak it past any player who’s ever seen Evangelion.

(For another take on Gods as Supers, check out Legends Walk.)

In the few sessions of this game I actually got to run Bahamut ended up fighting M 12 and destroying a large part of an entire brigade, but was injured and driven into the wilderness. There he had a less than pleasant confrontation with Wendigo, another recent god-awoken, that Bahamut only survived with the help of some forest rangers. I’ll get the stats for Wendigo, and Kali, up at a later date.

Resources: a low res M&M character sheet for Bahamut.