CODEWORLD is a campaign setting that borrows heavily from a number of popular cartoon, comic, and toy franchises where the heroes and villains all have fascinating codenames, like Black Adder, Magnum, Overkill, and Code Blue.

It could be used for a heck of a supers or super-agent game, or even the backdrop of nearly any modern, sci-fi, or science-fantasy game system.

This is a world with four color action, but no masked superheroes to speak of. Its tongue is firmly in cheek, but lovingly so.

CODEWORLD

Rank One Code Groups
These are the largest, and best-known code groups. They are among the most important forces on Earth.

POLYMECHS are sentient, sapient robots able to take on multiple forms–normally one that is roughly humanoid and one that closely resembles a vehicle. They are divided into the GUARDROIDS (which include Morality Circuits that cause them to struggle to act in ethical ways and protect weaker entities), the dangerous WAR MACHINES (which are locked into carrying out ancient military operations despite their original foes having long-since been exterminated), and the COMPUTECHS (which are free-willed but lack anything recognizable as ethics, and function on pure pragmatism).
The three groups all originated in different extra-terrestrial societies, with the WAR MACHINES the oldest (having destroyed all the biological entities that created them), the COMPUTECHS nearly as old (having survived as probes and exploration surveyors for a culture that died out long ago when their system was consumed by a red giant star), and the GUARDROIDS only a few centuries old (having evolved from assistance-AIs created by a race that suffered a slow decline as devolution caused them to be less and less viable, even as younger civilizations attacked them, including the WAR MACHINES).
All three POLYMECH groups were ravaged by a 3-way internecine war that left their numbers radically reduced and their resources depleted. The WAR MACHINES seek out new worlds (such as Earth) and seed them with enough of their kind to conquer it and turn it into a support planet for their endless conflicts. The GUARDROIDS attempt to send a unit to stop such efforts and preserve as much of the invaded world’s culture as possible, and the COMPUTECHS think it’s a bad idea not to keep an eye on any world where the other two POLYMECH forces are fighting.
Because their advanced technology is well beyond Earth’s tech base, and support is far way, all three factions prefer to remain camouflaged as much as possible on Earth, revealing themselves and their true battle forms only when absolutely necessary to achieve a major goal.

S.T.E.E.L. is the Special Taskforce on Espionage and Enforcement of Law. It is an international force, operating alongside but separately from the U.N., which draws its members from the elite forces of most of the Earth’s nations. S.T.E.E.L. operates only against threats deemed by all its supporting nations to be a serious risk to the collected nations of Earth, which generally includes international terrorist cells (most often MAMBA) unaffiliated with any member-nation, extraterrestrial threats (including WAR MACHINES in specific, and POLYMECHS in general), and lone madmen and apocalypse cults. S.T.E.E.L. has its own chain of command, its own (small) fleet of military air, water, and land vehicles (including a single submersible aircraft carrier, the U.N.S. Ironside), and an extraterritorial prison for extraordinary prisoners (Codename: Limbo).

PROJECT HELM is a semi-independent division of S.T.E.E.L. that uses vehicles enhanced with retrofit POLYMECH technology, which was confiscated by S.T.E.E.L. after several early clashes with the WAR MACHINES, and partially reverse-engineered in conjunction with a COMPUTECH who felt giving humans more advanced technology was the only way to maintain a balance of power on Earth.
Since the POLYMECH tech used by PROJECT HELM is retrofit, and its neural inputs are still too advanced for any mechanical or computer input device to control, PROJECT HELM operatives use helmets with neural relays to allow pilots to  learn how to control specific “Great Helm” vehicles that have various POLYMECH tech in them (some of which are capable of partial transformations, such as from car to boat, or motorcycle to powered armor).

MAMBA is a ruthless terrorist organization, built by a coalition of billionaire oligarchs who seek the means to anonymously impact international politics, and manned with the spies and operatives of failed states, renegades of nations with recent revolutions, ideological zealots who wish to maintain the status quo at any cost, and angry extremists working against progressive reform and willing to allow the ends to justify the means. While no nation on Earth publicly supports Mamba, enough powerful people with vast resources support it to give it a huge (if decentralized) military branch and incredibly effective cybercrime, covert operations, and assassination branches.
MAMBA generally seeks to gain power at any cost, and has had infrequent but not unproductive collaborations with the WAR MACHINES. The most far-reaching of these was a project where the WAR MACHINES aided MAMBA scientists in building incredibly advanced mecha known as the FOE-BOTS, which were used to artificially boost the apparent size of the WAR MACHINE presence on Earth in an effort to convince the nations of the world to capitulate. However the FOE-BOTS are cheap knock-offs of true POLYMECHS, able to change form from battle mode to some camouflage state, but not functioning beyond the most basic level in that camouflaged mode, and requiring human pilots to operate. While that plan failed, the FOE-BOTS division of MAMBA remains one of its strongest units, and are the most common antagonists of PROJECT HELM.

Rank Two Code Groups
Rank Two groups are either significantly less numerous than rank one groups, or less powerful, or a combination of both, but they still play important roles in world events even if they aren’t as well known.

CALIBURN is a solo hero who appears to be the last of the STAR KNIGHTS (who place their life essence in soul rings so their android knight bodies can fight eternally against the vile FEL GHULS, a semi-unliving race of space sorcerers and shapeshifter). However, he has done his best to equip a small group of young people who have a natural talent to see FEL GHULS’ true nature even when they are shapeshifted, creating the STAR SQUIRES, who have spirit disks that boost their natural psychic abilities in random ways when triggered, giving them a new set of powers (and codenames and costumes) whenever they are used, but which can only function for one hour out of every 24.

The FEL GHULS wish to create the Negalife Ritual, which will kill all life on the Earth and raise their FEL TYRANT, an elder god that sleeps beneath the Pacific Ocean.

KAIJU are giant monsters created by the FEL GHULS to subjugate the world. Opposed by the RONIN FORCE of giant robots that represent the only joint effort between the GUARDROIDS, CALIBURN, and S.T.E.E.L. Because the KAIJU threat is unpredictable and requires massive firepower to oppose, and are most often fought in international waters, the RONIN FORCE is largely left to handle such matters with little outside interference. While most of RONIN FORCE are giant mecha with multiple human pilots there are two exceptions, LASER LEOPARD, a giant robot controlled by a transplanted STAR KNIGHT soul-ring with no memory of its previous life, and ROCKET OMEGA, the enormous POLYMECH transforming starship that brought the COMPUTECHS to Earth, but has since decided the FEL GHULS’ desire to wake their FEL TYRANT is the greatest threat in the galaxy.

PATREON
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