A World Of Heroes - Television Tropes & Idioms

A World of Heroes is a pair of TV Tropes hosted Play By Post RPs, based around the same concept as Kingdom Come.

In the first one, in the near future, the clash between the supers Sentinel Striker and Ragnarok caused massive damage and loss of life in New Terrin (also known as Terrin City). As the city was rebuilt, a registration act was passed, requiring supers to register with the government. Naturally, some supers did not react well to this, preferring to continue protecting the people despite this. As the supers of New Terrin - both registered and unregistered - struggle to deal with the difficulties created by the new law, a new threat lurks in the shadows. However, due to inactivity from the players, this one was abandoned.

A little later, a reboot was conceived, this one set in a city called Megalopolis, and involving a mostly different cast of heroes. This reboot turned the level of superpowers Up to Eleven, and in doing so, raised the stakes even more. As opposed to the opening plot of the first one, in this version, a superhero known as Nuclo, who essentially had the same powers as Captain Atom, (a being of energy trapped in a containment suit,) was slashed open by Mad Scientist Dr. Mechano, and 300 people were killed in the resulting explosion. This resulted in the Superhuman Prohibition act, thus causing the superheroes to be pitted against each other. However, as our heroes will eventually learn, there's an ulterior force hiding away in the shadows, doing whatever it takes for their desired outcome to be reached...

The original is here

, and the reboot is here

These RPs provide examples of:

Tropes from the first RP

Ax Crazy: More like Shotgun Crazy, but Emote certainly has his moments.
Badass Longcoat: Adamant wears one to conceal his metallic body.
Badass Crew: The SWAT team that eventually storms the bank takes down Jackal and his assistants effectively by themselves. For that situation, the Supers involved were used in primarily a scouting/reconnaissance/spying role.
Bad Dreams: Stretch had a rather ambiguous one. He's quite clearly shaken though; he can't walk straight, sometimes pauses when speaking, and keeps closing his eyes while putting his right hand to his forehead. He has some serious problems...
Bavarian Fire Drill: Doppler uses this to get through the crowd and into the police cordon without attracting undue attraction. Well, technically he is from Lockheed Martin as he'd claimed...
Berserk Button: Apparently, there are "special pictures" of Alyson floating around online. See Power Incontinence for the results of pressing this button...
Big Eater: Anima has to do this to fuel her powers. It has one side effect...
Break the Haughty: Incubus.
Broken Bird: Fogata, due to running away from home to avoid registering.
Can't Hold His Liquor: Subverted. After the first time we see Stretch take some liquor, he seems to be... actually doing pretty well. It's only after he sleeps soon afterward, that he gets way out of control, jumping out the window and stretching away in a blinding rage, until he finally gets out of it... at which point, he is unable to stop himself from discontinuing his swinging, and he promptly drops to the ground like a brick; it's only his powers that prevent him from going splat on the pavement. (Or rooftop, it's hardly consequential.)
Chrome Champion: Adamant, complete with some unusual abilities.
Comes Great Responsibility: Fogata believes in this.
Compelling Voice: Incubus.
Deadpan Snarker: Beanie Boy snarks at everyone and everything.
Drives Like Crazy: Incubus, just Incubus.
The Ditz: Anima. Especially when it comes to her "secret" identity.
Elemental Absorption: Adamant can do this with metal to heal himself.
Emotion Control: Emote's main power.
- Incubus to a lesser extent: the emotions he has control over only come with his experience as a hostage negotiator - panic and calm.
The Empath: Malachi "Incubus" Wolf
- Emote. He's a telepath, but is better with reading emotions.
Everything's Worse With Bees: Yellow Jacket can command bees and wasps with her power. But sometimes she loses control...
Fish Out of Temporal Water: Dax Dresden.
Flying Brick: Anima's powers make her one of these.
Glamour: Incubus.
Green Thumb: Cecily James's power.
Grey Goo: Somehow is used to kill The Jackal while he is in prison.
Hallucinations: Emote's secondary power, encompassing all five senses. For the most part, he uses them to make his Emotion Control more potent, but can use them in concert with Emotion Bomb to induce Sensory Overload in targets.
- His "telepathy" is actually an auditory hallucination, meaning that those he's speaking to hear his voice in their ears, rather than in their heads (He can still hear other people's thoughts, though). Telepaths, being the jaded bunch that they are, look down on him for this. Incubus doesn't seem to mind, though.
Humans Are Bastards: Incubus's mindset.
Humanshifting: Part of Stretch's power set.
An Ice Person: Fogata can use her power to do this indirectly, as long as there's something to freeze.
Improbable Weapon User: Revolver uses golf balls to attack at one point.
Infrared Xray Camera: Doppler's abilities subvert this trope: he can utilize different wavelengths of radiation, including infrared and x-ray and many others, to see through walls. That said, IR-vision is plenty helpful in the dark—just not for seeing through walls.
Intrepid Reporter: Stretch is this in his civilian guise. By now though, he's been fired from his job by his boss.
It's All My Fault: Incubus's beginning to feel this way over the Jackal's death. This is most likely the only thing he feels guilt over.
Jerkass Victim: Incubus when he get's his tongue bitten off by Toymaker.
Leeroy Jenkins: Precision pulls one at the bank. Being unregistered, it promptly gets him arrested.
Living Lie Detector: Incubus by virtue of telepathy, and Toymaker naturally.
Meganekko: Alyson/Yellow Jacket, at least from Sandy/Doppler's point of view.
Magical Girl: Anima is a very stereotypical one.
Masochist's Meal: Hint: You do not want to eat what Anima normally eats.
Mind Over Manners: Incubus has none.
Moment Killer: Dax's eagerness for police work doesn't exactly help Doppler and Yellow Jacket all that much.
Mundane Utility: Doppler's control of electromagnetic radiation means that he can give himself a fairly even tan. Played for Laughs once the local tabloid gleefully publishes a picture of him and describes him in rather...complimentary terms, much to his chagrin.
Nice Hat: Beanie Boy's trademark beanie cap.
Ninja: Schroedinger is one of these. However it really just translates to what a real life ninja would normally do, though his powers work well with common myths on ninja. this Also the design of his second costume is based on this
Otaku: Schroedinger is one, which is how he hits it off with Anima (see the below entry).
Otaku Surrogate: Anima and Romana are both this in spades.
Parking Garage: Fogata confronts Beanie Boy in one. It doesn't end well.
Playing with Fire: Just like An Ice Person, Fogata can do this indirectly.
Power Incontinence: Yellow Jacket gets hit with this hard, making a mess for a number of other supers to clean up. Anima also can get hit with this, depending on the emotions of those nearby.
Psychic Block Defense / Psychic Static: Psychic "Nulls" - people while abnormal mental processes (e.g. sociopaths) cannot be read by telepaths. Such as the Toymaker.
- Of the supers, Beholder has this, as do Incubus and Emote to a limited extent.
Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: "See. The. Light!"
Rubber Man: Stretch, of course.
Super Registration Act: The driving force behind the the main plot.
Stalker with a Crush: Red Cap, an incredibly creepy girl (who may not be human) who stalks Anima.
Stop Helping Me!: This is Fogata's initial reaction to how Beanie Boy handles their meeting with Yellow Jacket.
Telepathy: Incubus's main power.
- Emote, sort of. See The Empath & Hallucinations above.
Troll: Incubus's hobby - he's looking to convert Emote.
Verbal Tic: Alyson refers to all arthropods by their Latin names.
Alyson: "I spy with my little eye, three Vespula vulgaris...I do NOT spy with my little eye any Pepsis formosa or any Vespa mandarinia which is a relief...Nor do I see any Dolichovespula maculata. This is also good."
- The wasp species she's referring to are: the Yellow Jacket, the Tarantula Hawk, the Asian Giant Hornet, and the Bald-faced Hornet.
What Happened to the Mouse?: The golf balls Revolver shot into the bank's ventilation system somehow vanish.
Wouldn't Hurt a Child: The Jackal, once given the choice. Incubus as well, despite being a human-hater.

Tropes from the second RP

Badass Normal: The heroes who have no superpowers of their own, such as those who are a Science Hero, are still able to keep up with the hectic situations in Megalopolis.
Bizarre Alien Biology: Among other things, Arguma's lungs don't react very well to Earth's atmosphere.
Chef of Iron: The shawarma guy, who also turns out to be Strongman.
Cuteness Proximity: Charity's reaction to Abu.
Disproportionate Retribution: The owner of the shawarma restaurant will repay a minor offense with quite a bit of pain.
You will wait here for your meal, if you do not wait, I will track you, I will find you, and I will fill you with so much Shawarma that your bellies will literally burst. Your intestines will then be used as Shawarma meat.
The Empath: Scio can read other people's emotions.
Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Strongman apparently has Super Strength.
Fedora of Asskicking: Wildcard wears a white fedora with a black cloth strip as he goes around fighting crime.
Fish Out of Temporal Water: Dax Dresden is a cop from the future who finds himself in the present.
Flying Brick: Isaac is super strong, flies, is bulletproof and then some, and if he somehow gets injured, he has a Healing Factor that lets him regrow his body.
Gas Mask Longcoat: Wildcard's costume features a pure white gas mask and longcoat.
Genki Girl: Charity
Gravity Master: Evelyn/Freefall can manipulate gravity fields near her.
Haunted Fetter: Matthew himself acts as one to Kara.
Humongous Mecha: The backstory involves Dr. Mechano's giant robot, and the beginning of the RP features yet another 40-foot-tall robot.
Immune to Fate: Wildcard receives his powers by being Immune to Fate, which when he stumbles upon a magic cave, causes him to violate The Prophecy and just get some minor powers rather than destroying the world.
In a Single Bound: Many of the heroes can leap quite high, either a standalone superpower, or as an application of Super Strength.
In the Hood: Several of the heroes incorporate hoods into their disguises.
Invisibility Cloak: Arguma's ship, the Exile, comes complete with a cloaking device.
Knockout Gas: When the registered heroes are coming up with a plan to prevent a group of unregistered heroes from executing a prison break, Wildcard suggests they "flood the place with gas and knock everyone out before they even show up."
Le Parkour: Freefall's preffered method of travel.
Mind Over Matter: Kara, Scio and Comedy can use their telekinesis to move objects just by thinking about it.
Not Quite Flight: Several heroes get around town as if they were flying by gliding, jumping, propelling themselves through the air by shooting out their own blood, or using a Grappling-Hook Pistol.
One Steve Limit: Accidentally averted with two Eva's - one being a speedster and the other having powers over gravity.
Our Ghosts Are Different: Kara, who has psychic powers in addition to standard ghost material.
Playful Hacker: Charity's past-time.
Roof Hopping: Wildcard's main method of getting around the city is simply jumping between buildings.
Sexy Santa Dress: Red Cap's outfit is a a female Santa Claus costume.
Shock and Awe: Charity and Volt have the ability to control electricity.
Shout Out:
- Several of the heroes go out for shawarma after defeating Red Cap.
- Lucas mentions he was watching The Legend Of Korra and talks about the Spanish Inquisition.
- Wildcard calls Dax "McFly".
Super Registration Act: As with the first roleplay, the plot revolves around the division between the two main sides - those heroes who are registered and work for the government, and those who are unregistered and on the run or in hiding.
Super Toughness: He's called "Arguma the Living Tank" for a good reason. This is one of them.
Space Whale: Arguma is a humanoid alien that bears more that passing resemblance to a whale.
Tailor-Made Prison: The Super-Prisons are designed to take into account the diverse amount of supervillains (and heroes) that will be held there, and preventing them from simply using their powers to escape.
Robert: Mind you, at first, it was just your regular prison, but that soon turned out to be very problematic. Imagine guys who can shrink to a centimeter tall, and not even touch the sides of bars; or how about fellows who can turn into fine mist, and fly out the barred windows? The heroes had to keep recapturing them at least once a month.
Translator Microbes: Arguma's device that allows him to breath normally also comes with this function, [THOUGH IT DOES COME WITH ITS QUIRKS.]
Utility Belt: Strix has one loaded with gadgets.
Vigilante Man: Before the registration act, several of the heroes were simply vigilantes instead of government-backed heroes. Some who remain unregistered remain vigilantes in addition to fugitives.
Voluntary Shapeshifting: Kali can turn herself into any living creature.