It all started in 1910. When Halley’s Comet passed through the skies of England, it didn’t visit alone. The particles of the comet’s tail opened windows in between Earth and the Spirit World, and and while only a select few humans or Spirits have directly traveled between the two, contracts were struck to transfer powers, stolen items slipped through the cracks, spells and rituals learned on either side - with the result that, while there’s one common origin for all supernatural abilities, the Empowered range from women with the strength, ferocity and swim speed of killer whales, to high school boys who put on the armor of Legendary Knights and gain their prowess, to lawyers whose grasp of contract language lets them summon and control lesser demons, to renegade spirits hiding out in human bodies and learning what it means to live as a mortal -- all the wild flavors of vigilantism and metahumanity, springing from a single common source.
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.
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.