Eagle Squad - Hidden History of the Cold War (Pulp, Freeform MGS/X-Men Inspired)

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Hi and thanks for checking in on this thread. I'm just making an interest check really on whether there would be enough people for me to set up a Freeform game for this idea I've had for a little while! I note in the title that it draws some inspiration from the Metal Gear Solid series (notably 3) and X-Men, specifically in regards to various mutations and the like present in the latter. The setting itself however is not connected with the canons of either of these franchises however so don't worry if they mean nothing to you. In a nutshell I simply want to set up a rather pulpy mix of social interaction and exciting action scenes taking place in the 60s with members of a top squad of people with mutant abilities.

Pretty simple base concept right? :)


What I'm Looking For:

• 4/5 Players (+ myself so we have a nice even group of 6)
• A good distribution of interesting powers and abilities
• If possible I'd like a good balance between males/females although may not necessarily be possible
• Players/Characters that can write and work well with both one another and myself to help create something fun and enjoyable for everyone
• Last but not least, the ability to post at least a few times a week (obviously with allowances for personal things etc.!)

Setup:
It is August of 1962 and the war in Vietnam still rages on, set against the larger backdrop of the Cold War. Direct conflict between the two opposing superpowers of the Capitalist United States and Communist USSR have so far been avoided and have instead battled behind the scenes through espionage and proxy wars. Whilst the fear of nuclear annihilation has prevented World War III the support offered to rebel groups and governments throughout the world against those of their rivals have created a fierce struggle for power in more than just Asia with fighting raging across Africa and the Americas as well. Many on both sides of the divide believe it to be only a matter of time before war once again rages across a Europe that is slowly attempting to recover from the devastation of the century's last wars. This is the story of a world teetering on the brink...



It was an unusually cool morning when a small group of top officials from the United States military and intelligence agencies were called to Washington. Most did not know what the sudden meeting was for, only that it was of the utmost importance and secrecy. Their movements were to be kept secret and any record of the gathering was to be destroyed upon its completion. For something so drastic many assumed that perhaps they were being summoned to discuss matters concerning the Vietnam War where American personnel were still fighting against the forces of the North. It wasn't until they were led into the White House and met by the President and his Chiefs of Staff did these men realise the severity of what was to be discussed.

A few days before an incident at one of the US's military installations had ended with a fire fight that killed a number of people working at the base. Even worse, it was soon realised that top scientists and their projects had been somehow spirited away and out of the country. Among these were an experimental weapon that was being developed to combat the power of the conventional nuclear arsenal. While the men in the room assumed that the thieves had been connected with the USSR they could not fathom how they had been able to break into such a heavily guarded facility and escape without to Russia without being caught. As the briefing continued however they soon realised that the perpetrators were not ordinary members of one of their enemy's intelligence agencies.

In fact many would hardly call them 'human'.

The attack had been carried out by members of an elite unit whose members possessed a number of extraordinary and frightening mutations, some more obvious than others. While the identification of the group was still mostly unknown their involvement had been suspected in a number of other espionage activities. Until now they had only operated across the border in Europe and had never directly attacked facilities owned by the United States.

After much deliberation and debate a response was finally agreed upon among those privy to the meeting. The United States would form their own unit to counter the threat posed by these 'Communist Mutants'. Of course, the US had used men and women with certain 'talents' before (most notably during the Second World War) but had neglected to form them into a cohesive outfit due to what official reports stated as a 'concern over reliability'. In truth it was more over the concern that their existence might leak out into the public and cause widespread panic, it was already enough with neighbours suspecting each other as red spies let alone them thinking they weren't even human.

They would gather the best of those they believed to possess such exotic powers they could find and, after briefing, ascertaining their commitment and proceeding with basic training locally, pack them all off to the Allied portion of Berlin wherein they would receive more specific orders and meet the other members of their unit.

This would be the first mission for the Eagle Squad.


Character Sheet:

Below is the character sheet I'm thinking of using. I don't have too many qualms in terms of length, a couple of paragraphs for the basic segments for Powers, Description etc. is fine and maybe a bit more for the biography. It's a very interesting time period so there is a huge amount that can be be written about for your own character so have fun with it! In terms of the powers I always think it's very hard to define things like this so I think the rule will be to not make something that would seem to be crazy powerful for the most part, I have no problems with people who also might have more physical mutations either. I think an important thing to remember here would be that your characters were recruited specifically because of their 'talents' so give some thought as to why your power would be useful, it doesn't have to directly be something destructive or even remotely in fact!

As a final word with regards to mutants, and I can write more if needed, my idea with them at the moment is just that  they're generally kept 'hidden' so the ordinary public doesn't really know anything about it. Of course, they may have served in the military and/or worked with governments or other groups in the past of course so that might be something quite interesting to put in there as well.

Name:
Codename:
Age:
Sex:

Powers/Abilities:

Description [Image Optional]:
Biography:

Other/Additional Info:


I'm quite interested in seeing how a group game handles on E if you couldn't tell already. I have quite a bit of experience with running larger group games in the past on other sites so I won't be totally out of my depth. I'm more of the type of GM that likes to have twists, turns a huge amount of player involvement and interaction in scenes so I'm looking forward to seeing if that goes down well with people here.

Any comments/suggestions/interests piqued I look forward to reading about and I can definitely answer any more questions people have!

(As an addendum I'm also more than happy to write out more with regards to setting etc. if more information is needed. I didn't want to go too indepth about certain things to avoid bombarding people with reams of text since I tend to like to create relatively fully fledged settings. I also wanted to see if others came up with ingenius ideas that might be worth including!)