Power Rangers Lightning Force.

I’m putting this together because one of my kids already has his character put together before I’ve even shown him the PDF. This kid is stoked for Power Rangers RPG. Which of course got me excited to build a campaign.

I mentioned last time I had a plan for villains. I may have to take this whole thing down, so I’m going to do this the wrong way all in. My villains for Season One are referred to as The Triumvirate. They are Generals Gnarl, Krohn, and Slayn. Besides Putties, each General has his own types of troops.

Of course, I’m borrowing heavily from the Warhammer 40K Universe for villains and (probably miniatures, too.) I have plans for Season Two to revolve around Dreench and his Machine Empire. (Machine Empire is borrowed for the bootleg Power Rangers movie, but I’m not going all ultra violent with this.)

There is a LOT of stuff behind the scenes in this series and I’m excited to discuss more. I’m not going to use “demons” or even “daemons” so much as freaky, somewhat campy, rubberized suit versions of many of the 40K Chaos monsters. Obviously I have to tone Khorne way down from the usual frightful mess that he is.

General Gnarl is basically Nurgle. I’m going to have his creatures be a slimy mess and we’re probably going to do a Halloween episode where he raises zombies from the town cemetery. General Slayn has a lot of sound based monsters, such as a kind of cartoony thrash metal guy. Slayn will mess with the Rangers’ powers, too.

That’s going to lead us to Season One Part Two: Super Lightning Force. where basically the Rangers get access to new Zords, new powers, and a new Megazord. So far we don’t have a Pink or White Ranger planned. There’s also other Ranger Aspects, such as Gold, that I want to introduce.

I don’t plan to use any GW images and I’m going to be really careful with the Ranger art that I put here on the site. My intention here is to enjoy building the campaign, share its construction with you, and hopefully not get in massive copyright trouble.

My plan is to run episodes like the TV Series.

Other than my distinct plots for the two-part episode to start, episode six, twelve, and 22-24, I don’t have specific plots for the episodes. We’re going to run monster of the week type stuff in between. We might even be looking at doing two episodes per game session depending on how fast the format goes.

I’ll talk more about pacing in my next installment. If you watch any of the Power Rangers TV series, like- ever, there’s a pretty distinct formula to most of them and it changes very little from one series to the next all the way from Mighty Morphin all the way up to Dino Fury? Which one are we on now? (Honestly, my youngest has watched Ninja Steel about three times all the way through. I dunno what’s current.) There are some distinctly different episodes in every series, but some episodes are pretty formulaic and I’ll break it down for you next time.

There is so much behind the scenes I haven’t even discussed yet.

Lightning Force is going to be set on the East Coast of the United States unlike most of the other series that seem to take place out in California. I’m borrowing some from Angel Grove, but I want to call the town Bennet’s Cove. I know I originally said I was going to keep Angel Grove, but I kinda want to make this more original and I’m no stranger to designing fictional cities. I might be using some really awesome products for ICONS RPG. I love Stark City for building a lot of superhero stuff.

The best plot point and creation of the entire series hinges on the fact that Lightning Force is set in an alternate Earth timeline. Tentatively it is Earth 129. Rita Repulsa from a different timeline threw a spell that had unintended consequences across several Earths. Zordon from Earth 129 knows most of what happened, but will keep it a secret.

One of the changes is Alpha Four or “Alphour” as we’re calling him. I’m going to sketch him as a sort of praying mantis style robot with a more serious tone and demeanor than the dreaded Alpha Five of the TV series and Rangers RPG main book. Honestly, I’m one “Ay yi yi yi-yi.” away from jumping out of a window. I wanted a slightly more serious helper for Zordon. She’s going to have almost a creepy tone to her voice, like the one Google uses. I’m going to do a whole bit with the group and her being able to change her voice at will.

I’ve got other plot stuff in mind that I’m going to discuss later, along with a timeline build for the campaign. I’m pretty excited about this. We’ve got villains, monsters, a place to roam… Next time we’ll talk about the Zords and some other plotlines.

Have a great weekend. Stay safe. Please stay healthy. See you soon,