"Elektra" has made me think about ninjas, and how anyone who was young and nerdy in the 1980s has a special place in his heart for ninja lore.
I was pondering different setups for a d20 Modern / Blood and Fists ninja one-shot. The following come to mind.
1. The time-honored secret CIA ninja team. Since the days of the OSS, American intelligence has employed the services of one of the world's last great ninja masters [and his offspring, and carefully-chosen proteges]. I sketched this out once before...
http://www.enworld.org/forums/archive/index.php/t-107037
2. The family. Inspired by the obscure Marvel Comic "Shadowmasters". The PCs are all members of the same Japanese-American family that practices traditional ninjitsu. They aren't professional assassins or anything...this is just what they did instead of playing soccer. But when Grandpa's old enemy from the Yakuza targets the family, they have to put their skills to use.
3. The gang. Another obscure Marvel Comic, "Wolfpack", gave us a street gang in the South Bronx trained by an elderly African-American master warrior, fighting both ordinary street crime and an ancient evil conspiracy with guerilla warfare tactics and martial prowess. Update the street aspects by 15 years, and it still works.
[#2, by the way, works with any ethnic family, not just Japanese-Americans, as long as you keep a sense of humor about it. Native Americans, for example. Or Mexican wrestlers. As an Irishman, I would love to run this with an Irish family of boxers [and one brother's a priest, because who hasn't dreamed of playing an angry two-fisted priest]. "Next of Kin" with Patrick Swayze is all about hillbilly-fu in the big city. Heck, you could do a New Orleans Cajun savate epic, and it would be worth it just for the soundtrack, and it would be the best movie Jean Claude Van Damme never made.]
I was pondering different setups for a d20 Modern / Blood and Fists ninja one-shot. The following come to mind.
1. The time-honored secret CIA ninja team. Since the days of the OSS, American intelligence has employed the services of one of the world's last great ninja masters [and his offspring, and carefully-chosen proteges]. I sketched this out once before...
http://www.enworld.org/forums/archive/index.php/t-107037
2. The family. Inspired by the obscure Marvel Comic "Shadowmasters". The PCs are all members of the same Japanese-American family that practices traditional ninjitsu. They aren't professional assassins or anything...this is just what they did instead of playing soccer. But when Grandpa's old enemy from the Yakuza targets the family, they have to put their skills to use.
3. The gang. Another obscure Marvel Comic, "Wolfpack", gave us a street gang in the South Bronx trained by an elderly African-American master warrior, fighting both ordinary street crime and an ancient evil conspiracy with guerilla warfare tactics and martial prowess. Update the street aspects by 15 years, and it still works.
[#2, by the way, works with any ethnic family, not just Japanese-Americans, as long as you keep a sense of humor about it. Native Americans, for example. Or Mexican wrestlers. As an Irishman, I would love to run this with an Irish family of boxers [and one brother's a priest, because who hasn't dreamed of playing an angry two-fisted priest]. "Next of Kin" with Patrick Swayze is all about hillbilly-fu in the big city. Heck, you could do a New Orleans Cajun savate epic, and it would be worth it just for the soundtrack, and it would be the best movie Jean Claude Van Damme never made.]
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