Teams
Award winning aquatic explorers – you’re not only on the front cover of National Geographic, you’re on the cover of Vogue. You’ve had many successful ocean expeditions and you love nothing more than posing with your latest catch.
You long to dive to the ocean bed and witness the unknown treasures. You crave the fame that comes with discovery and if you make a tidy profit to fund your next voyage, well, that’s just great. If you get a Gallery named after you, even better.
In this world there are only winners and losers, and you are not losers. Commissioned by a multinational conglomerate to retrieve the most valuable artefacts hidden around the world at any cost, you will stop at nothing to achieve your goals. Ruthlessly tough, wickedly smart, and unflinchingly on-target, very few opponents have squared up against you and come up winners. Working within the shadows of looming war, powerful weapons will be unearthed, wielded, and won; won by you.
Some explorers seek fame and glory, others wish to preserve history, many simply enjoy the thrill of exploration itself. You on the other hand are in it for one reason and one reason only: yourselves. You will do anything to grow your own personal fortunes, to establish a reputation amongst your peers and to gain esteem from those in power. The League isn't about to let insignificant things like morals get in the way of their ambitions. There are priceless artefacts just lying abandoned which will serve as a means to an end to your goals and you won’t suffer any fools getting to them first.
"The hardest hitting stories The Old Guard were uncovering lost cities, writing ground-breaking research and auctioning off legendary artefacts off to the highest bidders before most of these upstart explorers were even a twinkle in their fathers monocles. The Old Guard is made up of three of the most famous, celebrated and respected explorers the world has ever known and you intend to keep it that way. Although you have gone to seed during your advanced years, you’re not about to let some upstart whippersnappers steal your thunder.
Your team name was given to you by fellow explorers in jest about how tight lipped you all are. You’re known as an explorer team for private collectors who value anonymity. Recent developments have meant you have had to step out of the shadows, though not necessarily into the limelight (and you’d prefer to keep it that way).
The Travellers (or The Ryokou, as you’re known within Japan) have only recently formed, where each member has different goals and experience they bring to the table. They are united in their outlook that Japan should be seen as a player in the world of exploration, and that success in this will quench their individual thirsts for knowledge, glory and wealth that will help each of them achieve their own goals.
A grand old building in London, The British Natural History Museums looks as old as some of its artefacts – it is a great seat of learning and prestige. For the length of its service to the British people, the Museum has collected a large natural history collection which is the envy of the world, however as they are not too selective about their acquisitions, the Museum has a wealth of objects that look confusingly out of place on its shelves.
Until recently, Japan didn’t have any formalised Museums. As part of adopting elements of western culture it liked, Japan saw the value in the preservation and presentation of its culture and formed several new museums with gusto. Each with a mandate for preserving and recording Japan's rich history and heritage handed down from the Emperor himself!
The Associated Press live the life of campaigning reporters, travelling around the globe, writing editorials, and publishing news stories about significant world events. Front page headlines are your bread and butter, but lately your investigations have begun to lead you on more adventurous quests for knowledge.
You’ve crossed vast jungles, scaled the tops of the mountains, and even explored the bottom of the sea. You’re always keeping an eye out for your next potential scoop.
You’ve been in this game a long time. You’ve seen explorers take objects of cultural significance through force and you’ve heard of colleagues eating rare birds to extinction. You are explorers but you believe in a new era – you believe in immersing yourself in, understanding and protecting cultures. In an ideal world the ownership of artefacts wouldn’t be determined by the discovery and they wouldn’t be hoarded by the greedy. The world is not ideal and you just try to do the best you can in a broken system.
You seek lost and powerful artefacts. These objects should never fall into the wrong hands – great evil could be wielded and all that is good and free could disappear. Through the force of great intellect, pistol and bullwhip you aim to protect mankind. Your peers tend to think that you’re a bit over-dramatic about the job but you know what shadows lurk in the annals of history. Morally bound by a code of honour you do what you do with integrity and in the firm belief that you are saving the world, and goddammit you’ll do it all with style.
Changing times need new solutions, a team of “archaeologists” that can be trusted. Trained by the Australian Special Forces, The “Minnows” (code name only) are an adventuring unit like no other. Their military training has often led them to take assignments that no one else is capable of, requiring precise combinations of combat prowess, strategic deployment of subterfuge, and educated, if eccentric, brilliance. The Minnows’ primary objective is to safeguard civilization as we know it from the misuse of powerful and dangerous artefacts.
In an article by an esteemed peer you were all once referred to as the Arctic Crazies and unfortunately, like a tongue on a frozen railing, the name stuck. You’ve collectively spent long swathes of time on solitary voyages to frozen lands with only each other for company. Your peers don’t understand the strain of Polar exploration and they’re clearly jealous that you are fearless pioneers made of sterner stuff. Yes, you may talk to yourselves sometimes, but so would they if the only company they had was the Aurora Borealis and the chattering of penguins. They haven’t seen what you have seen – they haven’t done what you have done to survive! It’s a hard life but the pull of the ice caps; one of the last true frontiers, is far too strong – you must learn the secrets of this world buried beneath the ice.
You’re not exactly revolutionary – you just believe field work should be a bit more innovative, a bit more exciting. And the teams that tackle the field should be, y’know, a little more diverse than the old dusty professors that act as the gatekeepers to British exploration. You not only feel the urge to prove yourselves to be the best academically but you have an insatiable thirst for adventure and adrenaline. The more dangerous or bizarre a quest, the better especially if there’s a cheeky profit to be made at the end. There’s nothing quite like the rush you get when fleeing a collapsing tomb whilst desperately lugging a sack of priceless artefacts.
Independent but overseen like every other institution by the Bundestag (the German Government), the staff at the Bavarian museum do not necessarily support their Government and have international sympathy from other Museums of their plight. Maintaining their collections whilst avoiding being considered a threat to the State is a fine line to tread.
The Cairo Museum is not what you would expect. Its galleries do not present show-stopping artefacts from Egypt’s enviable history. Its surprisingly bare panels explain that certain items are missing due to theft and graverobbing, or that they are held in collections in other institutions. However, the museum is a proud and determined institution and its research output is almost unrivalled. The museum works with the best of the best, academics, paraprofessionals, and ‘archaeologists’.
There is a great desire to establish the Cairo Museum as the global centre for the study of Ancient Egypt – they can’t steal the pyramids after all!
The Smithsonian is the Museum for the new age of exploration, it is the seat of cutting-edge research and innovation. The Museum and its patrons are proud that it is 100% bona fide state-funded and, to some degree, always influenced by political administrations. After all, the museum is a symbol of the greatness of the American nation. Its collections are eclectic and huge, its building is state of the art and its mission is to demonstrate America’s position on the world map – as the greatest nation.