"Our fight is never over. Remember that. I have lost friends, and I have lost allies to this war that grips our world. I won't lie to you: there is no safety from this day forward. By pledging your life to this cause you put yourself at risk to pay the ultimate price as the ones before us have done. If you would, join me in a moment of silence for the fallen..."
For most of history, the existence of metahumans remained a secret to most of the world. That changed only as recently as the 1960s. Bogdan Alexeev, also known by the alias плеть (Scourge), set in motion a series of confrontations with the Russian Army in St. Petersburg. These encounters made the existence of metahumans known to the public. This event, soon known as the 'St. Petersburg Incident', resulted in the destruction of multiple blocks of the Petrogradsky district. Hundreds lost their lives, and thousands more were wounded. The event would later be categorized as a humanitarian disaster prompted an emergency meeting of the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council.
Three days after the St. Petersburg Incident, the UN assembled prominent world leaders to discuss the now public "mutant menace". Most of the nations in place were forced to reveal that they had, for some time prior to the St. Petersburg Incident, formed top-secret government-funded programs to monitor and maintain their countries' metahuman populations without letting the general public gain knowledge. Amidst these reveals, four countries stepped forward: The United States, United Kingdom, France, and the Soviet Union. These countries not only admitted to the existence of their mutant-monitoring agencies, but also revealed data on the species that would be known as Homo Melior, as well as technology capable of safely containing the vast majority of metahumans.
With this knowledge, a new piece of legislation was proposed. The Mutant And Super Security Bill, or M.A.S.S. act. Parts of the bill were passed into international law, and the domestic aspects were taken and modified by nearly all of the UN member nations. The M.A.S.S. Act 'officially' founded the organization CADMUS, and its sister organizations in other countries, and made it legal to detain suspected mutants with very few exceptions. In its essence, the M.A.S.S. Act stated that the rights of Metahumans would be suspended, and that it would be the right of the World Governments to detain, study, and if necessary, eliminate mutants, enhanced humans, and gifted persons.
The Civil Rights acts of the late 1960s grew to encompass metahumans within the umbrella of those crying out for equality, but the Meta Equality Movement, also known as the M-Rights Movement, only truly gained traction in 1979, continuing to burn through the 80s. On one end, the U.S. Department of Defense formed a secretive group called Unit M, a team composed of militarized metahumans under CADMUS' supervision to take on missions that did not have the official U.S. stamp of approval. Unit M served secretly in the Soviet-Afghan war, disbanding in 1984 with the formation of the St. Petersburg Accords.
The St. Petersburg Accords were groundbreaking legislation designed to give rights to Homo Melior for the first time in modern history. It disbanded the organizations that persecuted metas, such as CADMUS and the European UMTF. Furthermore, it established an international organization called ARGUS, which was founded with the duty of monitoring superhuman activity, making sure that metas still followed laws, but also allowing them to combat villains which would be too much of a challenge for non-meta law enforcement. In other words, it allowed the creation of Superheroes.
The fighting between heroes and villains remained low-key for some time, until the 1990s, when one moment changed everything. This incident was the catalyst that ignited a true and proper war between heroes and villains- the Chicago Incident. Jason Blackwood and Dr. Lance Turner, two members of a group called The Chosen, arrived at the O'Hare International Airport and attempted to enter the city. Blackwood made it through security, but Dr. Turner was flagged as an unsanctioned mutant by blood screening. Turner, known by his alias Corpus, began to lay waste to every living soul around him, turning the airport into a bloodbath. Blackwood accessed magical powers of his own, soon joining in the massacre.
Cypher's renown reached its peak when an organization calling itself Ouroboros attempted to destabilize several World Governments. They made a grand demonstration, and their success seemed inevitable. But Cypher showed his face and offered them one chance to stand down. They refused. In a single instant, before the first shot was fired, Ouroboros was destroyed.
Global crime rates plummeted, especially those related to Metahuman activities. Most heroes began to rest on their laurels, and some of the more seasoned ones to retire. Still, regardless of their apparent success, the cynical crime fighters knew that the Villains weren't done yet. With a drop in hero numbers, Cypher gathered leaders of the still strong teams and founded the William J. Nantz Institution to train young prospective heroes. They seek out the best and most promising young metahumans who have the highest potential to become heroes
"...But, as always, the Villains are regrouping. They are crawling back out into the light to use their powers and force their will upon the canvas of the world. It is your job to rise to the occasion and meed them head-on. Today, you officially join the ranks of sanctioned Heroes. Today you join the ranks of the New Guard."
-Cypher, William J. Nantz institution Graduation speech, 2023
Hello and welcome. This iteration of AWH takes place four years after the events of the previous version (Rekindled), of which, the events will be considered loose canon. This will be open world, so it is up to you to be involved and find things to do. You can be either a hero or villain, but you should be a newer and relatively unknown hero/villain.
I urge you to interact with other players and their characters. If you're a hero, pick a fight with a villain, and vice versa. Make rivalries, get revenge, you know... metahuman things. I will be running a few Hero and villain groups, and coordinating with Okayanos, our Co-OP, to have some large and over-arching threats to keep you all entertained from time to time.
On the matter of teams, you are free to form teams with other players, but you can't make an entire roster yourself. For now, all players will be limited to two characters with exceptions given on a case by case basis.
Rules
- The words of the OP and Co-OP are final in deciding matters
- Don't be a jerk, disrespecting another player or OP will result in you being banned from this and future AWH threads
- Limited to two characters per player for the moment
- There is a discord so we can increase coordination for the plot and to aid in the writing in scenes heavy in dialogue or back and forth exchanges. You will receive a link to the discord in your telegrams after your application has been reviewed and accepted
- It is YOUR responsibility to be aware of the plot and what is happening ICly. If your post contradicts what has already been established, you will be required to edit your post to fit.
- It is YOUR responsibility to find things for your character to do. There will be bountiful opportunities for your characters, but getting them in there is your job, not mine or the Co-ops
- However, if you get your character involved in the action and your inactivity is holding things up, I as the OP and the other co-ops reserve the right to take control of your character temporarily
- See the Character Creation section for banned character elements and powers
- Play responsibly and realistically. Your character may have superpowers, but make them a believable character as much as you can. If you make a jerk character or have them do outrageous things, expect realistic consequences. If you take on a villain team full of killers on your own, expect to die.
- DO NOT godmod or metagame. Be aware of what your character can do with respect to other characters, and be aware of what your character can logically be aware of. If a tree falls in the forest, don't have your character know about it unless they were A) there, B) told about it, or C) have power that allow them to know about falling trees
Character Creation
Alright, now lets get on to the fun stuff. After talking with my Co-op, we've come up with several things that we do and do not want to see in the RP. I am not going to enforce/suggest these things for no reason, granted some of them come down to personal preference but I promise I am not trying to take away your fun whatsoever. If you can't abide by the rules above or by what follows, I encourage you to look at the Multiverse community and either find somewhere that has what you're looking for or make your own space to include it. I do hope, however, that you decide to stick around here!
Powers: A very important element of superhuman rps is obviously the powers. In my experience in RPing, there are some powers that just really aren't fun to play against, or that unbalance things. I have also seen powers abused and twisted from their original interpretation. For that reason, I wanted to set aside this little portion to talk about them and help you understand what powers I will and won't accept for your character to have. The first banned power is Time Manipulation and similar abilities. If your character can stop time, there is literally nothing any other non-time manipulating character can do to stop you from killing pretty much everyone. So your character may not stop time, freeze time, slow time, accelerate time, or time travel either forward, backwards, or sideways (timeline hopping). The second banned power is super speed greater than 100 mph. Speedsters present much of the same complications that time manipulators can cause, namely the ability to kill other player characters before they have a chance to defend themselves sans metagaming or godmoding. The third banned power is precognition. This is only partially due to 'cogs ability to metagame with an IC excuse, but they can ruin plot twists (if the op allows them to by telling them what is going to happen) and/or they can state things and say 'well, my char has precog'. So I am going to avoid all that by banning precognition for player characters. The forth banned power is direct mind control and similar abilities that take control away from other players (note this is basically the general theme for the other banned powers; they take away other player's freedom or lessen it).
What I would like to see are more innovative abilities alongside the old classics. Try and be creative with your powers and abilities if you want, but don't make your character over powered. I'll talk more about balancing in the next section, but even if you say 'I won't abuse that power' I don't care: if your character has an ability that can be exploited to turn into something op, I won't allow it despite how many times you cross your heart and hope to die.
Weaknesses, Drawbacks, and Limitations: Balance is very important to ensure things are as fair as possible, and on that notion I want to talk about how to balance your character. Just so we're using like terms I want to define 'weakness' as something that your character has, either physical or mental, that could be exploited by another character to lower their effectiveness in combat. This means that 'being human' is not a weakness, so don't try to pull that as justification for having op powers. Your character does not necessarily have to have a weakness, but if that is the route you choose to go in an attempt to balance your character, there are some things to consider. Firstly, having something like a 'kryptonite' is not really a solid weakness. If its a really rare and obscure substance then how or why would other character's have it? And if its really common, how can you be effective at all? To top this off as a bad weakness, if it is a true analog to Superman's kryptonite, it would make your character basically useless if it is present. Try to have a weakness that is common enough to keep you from super saiyan, but that doesn't turn you into a weak kitten when exploited.
Drawbacks are another way to balance your character that instead of relying on external factors, focuses on ramifications of character powers. Possible drawbacks could include, but are not limited to, needing large caloric intakes or ways that using powers harm your character, like having flame powers that can still burn the user.
Limitations are hopefully self explanatory, but in short they are limits that you put on powers that could otherwise be overpowered. Some limits could be something like being able to fly, but only be able to fly carrying less than 50 lbs of extra weight. Keep these things in mind when making your character to increase the likelihood of your character being accepted.
Species: Sorry, I'm not allowing aliens or alien hybrids this time around.
Magic: For balancing purposes, you may not have 'magic' as an ability. Therefore, you cannot have a character that can cast spells. Why? Well, I feel that creates a character that is too much of a 'swiss army knife'. Now, magic CAN be an explanation for powers. that means you can shoot fireballs and call it magic instead of mutant human powers.
Tech: The tech level for this RP is strictly modern-tech. So if it isn't in current use it is not available to your character(that means experimental tech and prototype tech and theoretical tech is not allowed). The exception to this is having your character be a tinker-type specialized in a particular field of technology or science. This will count as an ability for your character to grant them access to this more advanced technology.
Money: If you choose to have your character be well-funded from the get-go, that will count as an ability
Application
- Code: Select all
[box][align=center][size=150][b][u]Argus Metahuman File[/u][/b][/size][/align]
[b]Name:[/b]
[b]Alias:[/b]
[b]Age:[/b]
[b]Alignment:[/b] (Hero or Villain, no in between)
[b]Gender:[/b]
[floatright][spoiler=Appearance](place appearance description or image link here)[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Suit or Transformation Appearance](place appearance description or image link here for suits or transformation abilities)[/spoiler][/floatright]
[b]Powers:[/b] (please list and describe. Do not just put links to superpower wiki)
[b]Drawbacks & Limitations:[/b]
[b]Weaknesses:[/b] (If applicable)
[b]Equipment and weapons:[/b] (please list, if applicable)
[hr][/hr]
[align=center][size=150]BACKGROUND[/size][/align]
[b]Nationality:[/b]
[b]Hometown:[/b]
[b]Personality:[/b]
[b]Bio:[/b]
[align=center][size=150]ADDITIONAL INFORMATION[/size][/align]
[b]Fears/Phobias:[/b]
[b]Skills:[/b] (additional languages, mechanical skills, etc)
[b]Theme:[/b][/box]
