The Powers That Be (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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synodiporia_ooc2018-03-05 04:02 pm
powersthatbe) wrote in synodiporia_ooc2018-03-05 04:02 pm
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HEROES OVER HAMBURG - walkabout info
(A Newport Prequel Walkabout)
March 12-April 21
During World War Two, when a bomber full of war heroes carrying state secrets is shot down behind enemy lines, the Manticore sends a squad of paras to the rescue: the worst superpowered criminal refuse the White Company has ever locked away, ‘volunteering’ for a suicide mission in the hopes of earning a pardon. But as the heroes & villains team up to sneak through the countryside to their pick-up at Calais, it becomes clear that at least one of them is leaking secrets to the enemy…
WORLD INFO
We are still on an Earth which has had the first Great War, its details largely the same. Only one in ten thousand people, on average, is Empowered to a significant degree (perhaps one in two thousand can change radio stations without touching a dial, make flowers bloom, or always guess the right number between one and ten). As for Spirits themselves, maybe a few thousand in total have crossed into the world, most of them small, inoffensive, and determined to blend in. Only a handful of Spirits have made a direct personal impact. The Manticore, the sword-maned, scorpion-tailed, bat-winged, human-faced lion who now sponsors the British throne, and Shesha, the Nagaraja protector of India, are the most powerful by several orders of magnitude. (Manticore has enough power to lend to the Manticore Knights, who always number one hundred. Shesha had enough power to drive the British Empire out of India with earthquakes, and by turning off the stars at night. Everyone but a Manticore Knight will admit that Shesha is more powerful, but either has the ability to fight an army to a standstill unassisted.)
The Empowered have no more or less legal power or liability than other citizens in Britain - legal, professional heroes are licensed sheriffs, bailiffs, deputies, bounty hunters, private security officers, private investigators, bail bondsmen or similar, and must acquire casualty insurance if they don’t want to be sued or imprisoned after their first big fight.
The British Empire as a whole - is it a beacon of reason, prosperity, and opportunity? Is it, rather, a tyrannical, overreaching surveillance state, self-centered and continually harming the world at large? That question is no more answerable in the world of Newport than in our own, with opinions as fervent and as varied, both globally and locally. It’s complicated. Some people view the Manticore with dread and paranoia - he did, after all, overthrow the government and Empower a new royal family, restoring the monarchy. But the United Kingdom is one of the safest places to live, one of the most prosperous, and the shrewd, unstinting outsider’s perspective the Manticore brought to domestic policy is a part of that.
The Manticore Knights are Great Britain’s premier superteam - all British citizens, all either knighted or serving military officers, all Empowered with something of the Manticore’s - strength, poison, a powerful voice, an impenetrable hide, lion or sword or bat or scorpion-themed powers, or so on, as suits. They are a proud, elite force of law enforcement, functioning as a commando unit, as palace guard, as spies - consummate supermen, doing whatever is needed in the name of the state. Compared to other super-teams, they are above the law - not literally, just very hard to prosecute - and they are the best-equipped, most heavily armed, most disciplined team there is. Knights and perhaps a few Squires (cadets) will be the most relevant to this walkabout. The Exorcist Corps - ten Knights with powers of insight or territorial defense - always work in teams of two, and at least two are always held in reserve in Newport.
The White Company, by contrast, is a kinder, gentler force. Empowered who seek citizenship and who meet a series of qualifications can serve five years in the White Company, a humanitarian mercenary unit sponsored by the Queen. While Manticore Knights all get their powers from one source, after training, the White Company must already be Empowered to join, and come from all over the world, so their abilities (and discipline) are less predictable. More traditional do-gooders, the White Company takes on public relations projects - everything from guarding relief shipments, rescuing refugees or hostages, goody-two-shoes stuff with harp music and choral singing - to assassinating warlords, counterterrorism, off-the-books black-ops work that can’t be traced back to the Crown. The Manticore Knights exist to protect the rule of law. The White Company exists to do what’s right.
WALKABOUT-SPECIFIC INFO
Spirits are one of the things the Third Reich is trying to “purify”. Captured Spirits are forced to surrender their powers into enchanted objects, which SS teams and other military units later use.
In general, this plot is not meant to be focused on conflict with external threats, but the psychological pressure cooker of these groups of people struggling to trust and depend on one another when one unreliable moment could spell death for everyone, and clashing backgrounds, objectives, and methods all naturally and sensibly build distrust - especially when circumstances indicate that at least one person present is NOT trustworthy. Ideally, Infiltrations should be planned so there is at least one concrete reason to doubt each member of the team on their own demerits.
INFILTRATOR/INVESTIGATOR ROLES
The Rooks: 5 or 6 supervillians or rogue spirits with diverse powers, all guilty of crimes in England, sentenced to time in the Tower of London, now deployed as paratroopers to rescue the crew of the downed bomber.
The Mole: a deep-cover operative of the Third Reich, motivated by greed and desperation, carrying out a very specific mission. The Mole will collaborate weekly with the mods to prepare complications for the others on their trip. If volunteering for this role, be prepared to be a thoroughly nasty person. Sign up here if you’re interested.
Investigator Roles: The paras will land near a POW labor camp - step one of their mission will be breaking out Allied soldiers and French Maquis resistance members to help the larger escape and cause confusion. Investigators will appear in the camp garbed appropriately, but convincing Infiltrators to trust them is their job.
TIMELINE
POWERS/SKILLS
Vigilante/Guerilla/Terrorist/Secret Police/Mercenary Training
The skills for a superhero plot are very broad. We cannot easily define limits on them. During the duration of the Walkabout, we will not be placing hard limits on any skillset imaginable for heroes, except that mod permission will be required to play Superman/Phoenix/Magneto level powers, or for any powers which replicate Liminal or Telepathic skills. At the end of the Walkabout, outrageous power levels will be capped in collaboration with the player on a case-by-case basis, and psychics, teleporters, or reality manipulators will receive Psychic or Liminal equivalents rather than their original powerset.
In general, powers come in two sorts.
First, an Empowered Ability or Item, which leaked through from the Spirit World, and can have come upon a character by accident, destiny, prophecy, genetics, government experimentation, as the result of a quest or a strange encounter with the paranormal - hey man, your origin story can be as wild as you want it to be, with the full range of options open. Investigators may acquire Empowered Abilities, as the incidents and leaks which cause them are rare, but ongoing, and cluster at places and times of great importance (like New York City in the 1960s).
Second, superhuman discipline and world-class achievement, such as Batman, Black Widow, Hawkeye, or others might possess, and which is listed as “(type) Training.” Through smarts, professionalism, rigorous learning, and skills, some few people possess aptitude to make Navy SEALS shake their heads and whistle. Depending on the type of training, this may include military, investigative, acrobatic, or other skills, and knowledge of how to outmaneuver law enforcement, evade detection, crack safes, build bombs, brew chemicals, or perform other complex scientific feats granting a tactical or technological advantage no matter who the enemy is. While ‘Training’ skills are teachable, for Investigators during this Jaunt they may ONLY be acquired as Second/Taught Skills.
Many possess both Training and Empowered Abilities, of course, especially those with long experience on a team - Manticore Knights, for example, are Empowered with a gift from the Manticore, but also have Secret Police Training.
Training may be taught outside of the bounds of the walkabout setting; Empowered abilities or items may not.
RESOURCES
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_theatre_of_World_War_II
QUESTIONS
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She's make an argument that she needs her gear back to be as effective as they want her to be on this top secret mission, if that helps. /o/
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Yes, if their only power was an Empowered item, it would have been returned!
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Both is fine!
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Not that I can think of at the moment - if anyhting occurs to me I will let you know right away!
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Re: QUESTIONS
Well, except murder, but that's not mission-related.
im sorry if this came across as rude or rushing, that was not at all my intention and i apologize
Re: QUESTIONS
Totally no worries - walkabouts are generally player-driven, not something mods give a heads-up on until much further along, but it's a valid request, we are totes unoffended, & we will try to get to it tonight or tomorrow.
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who says the casket is an inanimate targetOh, yeah. This can work.
We assume the next question is "What would Insight reveal about the casket?"
The casket contains an Antelope Jackrabbit Spirit in magical suspended animation.
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That was honestly my suspicion.Thanks! (And yes, that would have been my next question.)
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Correct.
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besides Raidou, nowwho would know the contents of the casket, or did the Manticore withhold that information?no subject
Not at this time!
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Two hundred or two hundred fifty pounds.
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It is not.
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For that matter, is Koschei considered a human, a spirit, or something else?
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I think, without IP, it wouldn't cover it; Koschei is technically still human but spirits might consider him a spirit, because they're mostly less particular/precise about taxonomies. He has spirit powers from long exploitation of spirits; he might as well be one.
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