I think Gilligan's Island helped inspire my Superhero Setting

 

I mentioned once or twice that my Futuristic supers/cyberpunk setting HAVEN was based in large part on the Pacific island techno nation described in Superhero 2044. But there are plenty of inspirations, and why I like it to be a pastiche of genres. Comics (both superhero and otherwise), cyberpunk, future noir, supernatural, etc. 

It may not be pretty, but I can't
stop displaying it..

But it's that weirdness magnet nature of it. A place of magic and intermittent gateways to and from other places. The kind of stuff that for centuries gave it a haunted reputation that kept pacific islanders or adjacent Asian countries from inhabiting it for extended periods. Which meant that the United States could colonize it with no shame.

Though many Karens and Darrens may disagree

There were two weirdness attracting locations in my childhood TV time that caught my attention. One was a show called Green Acres (existing in the same continuity with other hick shows produced by Paul Hennig such as Beverly Hillbillies and Petticoat Junction). 

Hennig with our favorite
 (and most feared) TV Granny 

Starring old timey character actors Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor. Two New York socialites move to a rural dump of a farm, and tons of surreal and fourth wall breaking things start to happen. The husband is baffled, and the wife is clueless (it kind of felt like everybody was in on a conspiracy to drive Mr. Douglas insane). I don't think there were ever aliens or anything, but clearly there were odd things going on in Hooterville. As I got older, I was convinced a cult was at play in the county. 

As an aside, when I eventually watched reruns post puberty,
I was convinced everybody was sleeping with Mrs. Douglas.
I had weird fantasies I guess😇

The other weird show was Gilligan's Island. And a strong case for weirdness magnet. That pacific island often seemed small in the distance shots. 

But in general, depending on the particular episode sometimes, it would have to be much bigger. The Gilligan fandom wiki describes it at between 200 to 400 square miles. That is between the sizes of San Francisco and Rhode Island. Fairly sizable. But like anything in that show it was changeable. Sometimes it just had a volcano. Sometimes it also had a mountain range. And though the castaways sometimes found washed up crates of supplies, it clearly had enough food sources to keep everybody healthy, and the Skipper plump. Freshwater sources, and even natural gas. But it seemed changeable. And maybe part of its magic was it actually changes sometimes. 

And totally a taboo place. It is large enough to surely have been able to support at least a small population. But was never settled, even though it has multiple nearby islands, presumedly smaller, that supported natives. Not just that, but secluded, often hostile tribes. By the 1960's there should not have been much of that in the pacific. So if Gilligan's Island is at least partially part of some extra dimensional space (like The Isle of Dread is in some later editions of DnD), some other nearby islands may be as well. Some of those natives also practice what seems like a form or Caribbean Voodoo. 

The island also has, at times, chimps, and even a gorilla. Not species native to the Pacific. One could say they were part of a ships cargo that got wrecked in the past. But maybe also interdimensional gateways. Also in one episode a spider the size of a dinner table, though of course that could be from radiation, but hey, still weird. 

It's kind of jacked up and crippled looking, so 
the radiation thing makes sense. 

In the past, I have had monsters on the island of my setting Haven and will likely in this campaign. For example, keeping with the Pacific supernatural themes, am planning to have the group have to face an evil, anti-colonial shaman controlling a giant animated totem. 

Kind of racist, maybe potentially?

So lots of other weirdness. A jungle boy shows up. An advanced robot. A surfer who somehow surfs in on a tsunami from Hawaii...which the wiki says is over 200 miles away. Yeah. There is something to this island. 

When a young Kurt Russell decided the acting
life was for him. Hubba hubba. 

When the stuntman in the suit decided
the acting life was for him. 

OK, yeah, so these poor chumps were stranded on a magical, maybe cursed island. It was sort of the Twin Peaks of the Pacific. As a kid I thought it was all pretty funny. As an adult, it makes me think. But I am a gamer so it damn will should. It's all about imagination. And the show and its elements sure tapped into it. 

I will admit, when I was a kid and was altering the Pacific island nation setting from Superhero 2044 into my own vision, Gilligan's Island was probably not always on my mind. But over those early campaigns and the ones well into adulthood (crossing three decades) it no doubt got mentioned. But I am sure my young mind was informed by its elements. Without the show, for me the Pacific would have been being a Southern Californian surfer growing up and being exposed to Pacific Island people and culture, and otherwise what I saw in old war movies. Not all that weird. 

But the touches of weirdness are not all Pacific Ocean in flavor. The worldwide crisis of WW3 around 40 years ago caused the biggest migration crisis in known history, and Haven has very diverse populations. Caribbean, Russian, Latin American, and others reside in Haven. And in certain enclaves in New America City. The southernmost part of the city, "The Bottoms," comes up against swamp land, and the beliefs of groups like Caribbeans and Creole bring some of the mystique in their history to the proceedings. Old Town and The Bottoms is steeped in a certain amount of mystery. Old buildings. Think the Bradbury Building in Bladerunner. 

One of the characters for sure keeps things Weird. He is Ra Ta, a little alien who flies around in a small UFO. His player is an 18-year-old with school and work, so he pops in for an hour or two here and there. So I just assume he comes in and out of a liminal space. He and the player are pretty funny, so I don't mind. 

But yeah, bottom line, I like my weirdness whatever the genre. And I get my inspiration wherever I find it. Just as it should be. YMMV.

Cheers

The Evolution of a Superhero setting

 

So in my earliest days of hanging out and playing as a kid at "OSR Famous" Aero Hobbies in Santa Monica, I had access to a lot of older post DND game systems. Bunnies and Burrows, Empire of the Petal Throne, Bushido, etc. But since I was a comic book collecting kid, Superhero 2044 had an instant fascination for me. I mean, the over itself was very Marvel looking, despite none of the characters being Marvel. 

Well, that may be Doctor Strange.

When I got my hands on the game, I used its setting for a brief period as described in the book. And why not? The artwork in the book was very evocative. Especially for a 70's rpg.

This image just makes you want
to do a superhero fight right now!

Anyway, I would very soon create New Haven, and it was very based on Superhero 2044's high tech futuristic Pacific Island nation Inguria. It was also called Shanter Island, and we had a hard time as kids not calling it "Shatner Island."

It was explored in the 1800's by an English sea captain, was the site of combat in WW2, and fell under American control eventually. Nuclear war ravaged the US eventually, and Inguria became its own nation, and eventually joined the European Commonwealth. The nation eventually took in Formian refugees from space, who now lived among the human population. They are described as carnivores who at times might prey on humans, but not much more is written on that. I would evolve away from a lot of the stuff, especially the Formians. I always had the setting be only 20 years in the future, as opposed to Superhero 2044's close to 70.

So in my version, the island was considered very taboo by Pacific Island and Asian people of the Pan Pacific. So though about the size of Hawaii, it was never inhabited permanently for hundreds of years. I decided this was mostly because it was a "weirdness magnet" that attracted strangeness. Gateways to other dimensions and galaxies. And lots of supernatural magic being around. This fed into my desire for a pastiche kitchen sink setting. Where comic book stuff, cyberpunk, future noir, and future supernatural stuff could go on. 

After the US took control after WW2, it became an out of the way place to build some industry, and of course secret science labs. The worker population eventually demanded a city grow out of the jungle, and New America City was born. 

So for decades I had a paper map, but for this recent stuff I did up a revised map of Haven. 

New America still contains all the neighborhoods I devised during those years of steady campaigns. Beverly and Sunrise Park, based on Beverly Hills and West Hollywood/Brentwood. City Center, based on Manhattan and Century City in Los Angeles. Chavez, a working-class part of town. Old Town and Chavez where the first inhabited areas of the city by laborers back in the day. And the Bottoms was the oldest part of town, abutting the marsh and lake areas, and very diverse from the refugee crisis after the great war decades ago. So Pacific Island, Caribbean, and various world supernatural elements might mingle. 

So since I have used Haven in the 80's, 90's, and a little mid 2000s, have retconned a bit over the years. Why not? Most comic companies more or less reboot about every 10 years. Iron Man's origin was in the Korean War I think. Later Vietnam and even later in the Middle East. So I do something similar. I still want to use some NPC's going back to my teens, and I don't want them to all be elderly. Though I have had time go by. Important long time NPC, the Japanese Irish CEO (one of the only non evil ones) who was in her late 20's in old games, will be in her 50's now. But still lovely. 

Wears a ring, but just to keep wolves at bay. 
She is married to her company.

So here is some history from the game Discord "Info Dump" text channel. It by now is only a bit inspired by the setting of Superhero 2044, but very much its own thing that has evolved or 40 years of games. 

"Konoah" was in older times a mostly uninhabited Pacific Island. a bit bigger than size of Hawaii, pacific peoples never permanently inhabited it because as far back a oral history goes, it was considered a cursed and taboo place. Where gods and demons freely visit. Legend has it that it is a place that touches on the edges of other worlds and realities. That it is a realm not always considered as part of the normal world. Such was its reputation. Even fierce nations such as Japan historically avoided it, as it was feared as a place where monsters dwell and relalities collide.. In the early 1800's it was put on many modern charts. Its first real occupation occurred during the 1930's, when The United States established a military base there

During WW2 America kept dominion over the island, though Japanese forces attacked the military fields multiple times. After the war, it was widely reported that the US atomic bomb was developed stateside, when in reality it was secretly mostly created on Konoah. At this time it was renamed by the US as Shanter Island after Samuel Shanter, the chief scientist of the secret government labs started during the war. Into the 1950's Shanter was utilized heavily for scientific and industrial work. As laboratories, office buildings, and a few high tech factories grew, a local populace that worked on these areas, as well as in the military defense fields boomed and a town slowly grew into a city. "New America Town" became "New America City" by the early 1960's. in 1965 the island was rebranded as "Haven."

The island became famous as it was a place where science and industry lived alongside tropical beauty. It became not just a place of a booming permanent populace, but also a tourism trade grew. In 1980, in this reality, Haven was designated as the 51st State of America. As the mainland's Silicone Valley became the high tech capital of the free world, Haven had its own technological breakthroughs and heavy global corporate presence. But at the same time the island local remained steeped in mystic superstition. As the new millennium approached, and the city grew with a newer image in the north districts, while the southern "Old Town" area of the city still presented the old esthetic of retro technological concerns along with the spiritual reputation of the island state. Old neighborhoods such as "Mutie Town," "Electric Avenue" in old town (in the 60's and 70's the high tech sector but now the lower end of the economic scale) and "The Bottoms" with palm tree lined old avenues, and the "Down City" area with its well lit office buildings and shopping areas surrounded by once well maintained mini lakes and canals and adorned with a landscaped portion of the shadowy southern jungle outback that always seems to be creeping into the more lighted areas.

Into the 90's New America City grew, and its northern sectors reflected its focus on science and industry that many of the more privileged people got to enjoy. Long before Hong Kong adopted a city scape of light, the Uptown of New America City lit up the Pacific with neon and laser light.

In 2001 the attack on the World Trade Towers in America began a domino affect that started World War 3. During this period besides escalating world conflicts and refugee crisis', and with anti-mutant sentiment grew across many parts of the world the use of mutant hunting Sentinel machines also grew and the combination of AI aggression in general and activities of military powers of the world in lead in January of 2005 to nuclear strikes across the world but most significantly in parts of the United States, Russia, China, India, and other pockets in the middle east. It was not full scale global nuclear war, but the civilizations were heavily impacted and the great nations of the world faced great crisis. Years of strife and governmental turmoil and and break down were suffered. The global market collapsed.

Some places, such as Japan, Hong Kong, and the newly organized Western European Commonwealth continued to survive and became the new world powers to varying degrees. Haven came out of it fairly unscathed. The newly implemented Weather Control satellites, which Haven had shared the tech with the previously mentioned countries, helped shield these places from some of the affects of short term nuclear winter and Fallout. Haven announced its status as a sovereign nation the day before new years eve 2005, a democracy still close to its American roots. Over the following decades while the once great powers of the world continued to try to recover from apocalypse, Haven leads the new world powers into an age of progress with a theme of the world arising from ashes through science and industry.

Haven announced its status as a sovereign nation the day before new years eve 2005, a democracy still close to its American roots. Over the following decades while the once great powers of the world continued to try to recover from apocalypse, Haven leads the new world powers into an age of progress with a theme of the world arising from ashes through science and industry.

Haven is a democracy, and always has 2-4 viable parties during elections periods, and sadly the Republican and Democratic parties still exist, perhaps evolved/devolved, but in the last two or three decades alternatives often win.

Science Police: originating uniquely in Haven after 2005 as an anti-nuclear/terrorist force, by the late 90's in Haven the Science Police changed into policing dangerous technology in general, and meta humans in general. Now Sci Pol exists across nations as a global force similar to United Nations, but with the aforementioned focus.