Kamen: Japanese for masked. Phonetically close enough to "common."
As mentioned in my I Am The Weapon review, I am a big fan of the henshin hero motif. KAMEN ENEMY. is a list of ideas that help capture the world building tropes and power sets found in dark Japanese superhero media. From here on, "Enemy" is the term I will be using to describe characters that fit the bill of "dark henshin hero." KAMEN ENEMY. exists as an extended Pitch for I Am The Weapon. That game is necessary for not only its base system but also to develop the suggestions found here.
KAMEN ENEMY. assumes PCs still operate as fighters for justice.
Primary tropes include:
MASQUERADE.
All Enemies transform into a monstrous form but can safely stay in an unassuming weaker human form. Some may be stuck or unable to revert to their human form but this is a minority of Enemies.
All PCs, and potentially some NPCs, will have the Secondary Form power by default and additional Powers are typically reliant on being in your Secondary Form to be used. Many henshin heroes in media are often assumed to be super strong/agile/durable inherently while in their Secondary Form so consider whether or not that is the case when making your KAMEN ENEMY. setting. You can make it static among all existing Enemies (everyone gets Enhanced Agility d20 when transformed) or create a range (okay, roll your transformed Agility: d12 to d20+d20; d12=not Enhanced but faster than most humans).
CURSE.
There is something intrinsically wrong with being an Enemy that makes them feel that they should not be. This is often something so horrible that all Enemies are hated by society or otherwise could be if word got out
When defining your settings' Enemies, give them a shared curse and decide whether or not the public is aware of their existence. Common dark superhero curses:
HUNGER.
There is something that your Enemies must do. This hunger is monstrous either due to the extreme quantity that must be consumed (if relatively mundane) or the inherently despicable act of of doing so. Common examples include:
Cannibal. The Enemies are parasites. They must eat humans in order to live, be this blood, flesh, or brains.
Psychic-Vampire. The Enemies are trolls. They quite literally feed off of extreme emotion and need to cause emotional distress or elation in order to live themselves, this results in frequently detatched manipulation.
Highlanders. There can only be one Enemy. They live to kill one another and the world is their gigantic Battle Royale and damn the human who gets in their way.
Destruction. The Enemies are entropy. They exist to destroy the world. Breaking down buildings, forests, anything that has taken time to build, they feel an instinct to break.
Gluttony. The Enemies are voracious. They burn calories 1000x a normal person and eat whatever they can get their hands on.
Debt. The Enemies aren't their own. They are being controlled by another party and currently exist to serve it.
Failure to sate one's hunger should result in death or insanity.
RAGE.
Your Enemies are cursed with an extremely short fuse. This could mean stubbing their toe on a bad day can cause them to flip shit and destroy their own home, or it could be triggered by certain weakness. A reminder of the event that turned them into what they are, the presence of their weakness; or yeah, just losing their cool. If going the weakness route, a failed Calm check in response to their trigger means they act as if they've just hit 0 Calm until they can successfully Calm Check out of it; assuming they weren't already at 0 Calm. If your Enemies simply have a short fuse: frequently use Calm checks at being slighted, insulted, or receiving the slightest of set-backs.
PREJUDICE.
The world hates your Enemies and wants your Enemies to hate it. It wants your Enemies to give them a reason to pull the trigger and end them. This could be due to the Enemy's Hunger or Rage if those are a part of your setting or due to bad publicity, a few bad apples, or biological instinct (ex: humans think the natural smell of Enemies is revolting). No matter what it is, the players know it is unfair and they fight for coexistence - other Enemies may disagree.
ORIGIN.
There is typically a unifying origin that links all Enemies of a single campaign. They're all cyborgs; they're all the hosts of alien frogs; they're all amnesiac dimension-hoppers; etc. This should be the bulk of the Enemies of a single campaign. There may be "guest characters" that have a different power origin but those should be an infrequent novelty.
AESTHETIC.
Like with origin, the aesthetic of all Enemies should have a common factor. They're all cyborgs designed to turn into human-animal hybrids; the alien frog forces a grotesque manifestation of their ego; the dimension-hoppers adopt a fascination with a mundane human repair tool and meld with it.
When deciding your Enemies' Aesthetic, consider a Tag that all Enemies begin with that they must pick a starting Power from. The human-animal hybrids begin with the Animal Tag. The ego manifests as Mutant or Psionic-Tagged powers. The repair tool aliens begin with a Tech-Tagged power.
GIMMICK.
Your Enemies should have a central thing that they interact with to trigger their transformation. This could be interacting with a (normally) readily available item; shouting of a phrase; striking of a pose; recalling a traumatizing thought; all of the above; etc. Whatever it is, it exists to cement the unifying origin of the Enemies of your setting and could help define their weaknesses. Captain Marvel/Shazam can't transform if he can't speak. Don't make it too painful to do gameplay-wise; a KAMEN ENEMY. game assumes transforming at least every session.
ANTAGONISTS.
Like with the Enemies themselves, their antagonists should be unified in Origin & Aethetic. Perhaps they're Enemies themselves, simply unhinged; the Thematic/Aesthetic opposite of your Enemies; the creators of the Enemies now trying to exterminate or control their defiant experiments; completely divorced from the Enemies and their own entity entirely; a force the Enemies exist to purge. The antagonists should all fight under the same flag with a few powerful outliers occasionally causing trouble for the Enemies. They could be limited to a local threat (deranged mole-men terrorizing the local town,) country-spanning (a shady business conducting vile monster-making experiments,) or globe-threatening (dark gods from beyond reality looking to corrupt or replace those in power.)
SCOPE.
It is important do define how much of the planet has been changed due to the existence of the Enemies. If the entire world knows that Enemies exist, it does not necessarily mean that the game will go from the US to Japan, it just opens the door for characters to reasonably involve such far away locations in their backgrounds or the threats of Antagonists. Conducting inhumane experiments in a small town and the players dealing with its fallout and protection is a more than valid Scope and game. If the players, in this same example, hear that wildly different things are happening in the big city not far from them and want to take their powers there and deal with an issue that doesn't even involve their Enemy Origin, you're on your way to naturally expanding your setting.
INSPIRATION.
JAPAN.
Kamen Rider: Amazons & Black Sun.
Garo.
Bio Booster Armor Guyver's 89 OVA.
Digital Devil Saga.
Nihei's Abara.
Jagaaan.
Devilman: Crybaby.
US.
Nightbane by Palladium.
Werewolf: the Apocalypse.
The Incredible Hulk '78 TV Series.
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