What Happened in Edmonton
is a sequel to the series of various roleplays covering What Happened In Oregon, based off of the young adult trilogy Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson. It is hosted on the fansite for the author, the 17thshard.
After several key writers left the original for various reasons, the story ended up petering out. Approximately a year later, a reboot was proposed. Taking place in the Canadian city of Edmonton, shortly after the events of the first novel but a while after the first roleplays, WHIE contains a mixture of characters from WHIO and new ones to complement the split between new participants and returning ones.
Given Oregon’s inspiration- that the state was completely obliterated during the canon events- isn’t present, the ending goal is currently less defined.
The return of old characters is justified as Oregon’s destruction leaving many refugees seeking new homes, and the talk of an Epic increasing the probability of coincidence in the same way that the hypothetical character, Moral Guardian, justified the lack of swearing in the original.
Before the beginning of the roleplay, the city, renamed Olympia Polaris, existed in an uneasy truce. Epoch, the Epic in charge of one of the factions, recently suffered a leak of his weakness, and the death of Steelheart in Newcago destabilized the entire Epic world. The influx of refugees isn’t helping either.
Warning: All spoilers for the original book series will be left unmarked.
What Happened in Edmonton contains examples of:
- Absurd Phobia: All epics have a weakness related to the thing they most fear. Some of these weaknesses are comically arbitrary, such as weakness to kool-aid, or weakness to people with beards. This is justified in that each weakness stems from a traumatic event in the epic's past (in the former case, her parents once tried to poison her with kool-aid).
- After the End: Calamity might’ve caused the end of civilization, but the annihilation of Oregon counts as well.
- Angst Coma: Kokichi goes into a major one after spending too long with Nighthound.
- Animal Motif: The Circle Of Shield uses animals as code names, which establish a running theme for each character associated with it. Kokichi is a honey badger— a nod to the "honey badger doesn’t give a fuck" meme- and Liam is a moose. Kokichi is also tied to butterflies/moths, while Nighthound is connected with dogs, Arachnerd with spiders, and Taya with ravens.
- Apocalypse How: A planetary one somewhere between societal disruption and collapse, depending on the region, along with a regional total extinction in all of Oregon.
- Artistic License – Biology: Red’s blood is far sturdier than it has any right to be, and she doesn’t technically have any abilities that make it stronger. Technically.
- Call a Human a "Meatbag": In Canada, fans have decided to call all non-Epics "maples".
- Cape Punk: Everyone who develops superpowers is given a huge dose of corruption, leaving the few who manage to conquer it deeply traumatized, both from the guilt and the pre-existing issues that gave them the capacity for powers in the first time.
- Crapsack World: Yes, although it could be argued it’s lighter than the source material due to the prevalence of redeemed Epics. Then again, Nighthound doesn't exist in Steelheart.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Although Agor definitely deserved his death, being killed by Crimson’s Epic powers flipped his body inside out.
- Curse Cut Short: Justified. Moral Guardian serves as an in-universe reason why any swearing is either the tame “sparks”, “storms”, or never fully said."MAPLES, HOLY F—!"
- Dark and Troubled Past: Probably everyone qualifies for this, but especially Epics, because their weaknesses originate in triggers for some sort of PTSD.
- Death by Origin Story: Plenty of characters have family or friends only mentioned in their backstory, and the death rate of the universe is rather high.
- Do Not Call Me "Paul": Most Epics react badly to being referred to by their old names.
- Ear Ache: Ray still has the scar from when Nighthound bit part of her ear off, a few years back. It's worse than it sounds.
- Harem Genre: Well, only in the most messed up sense of the word. Nighthound formed a "harem" in Portland, starting when he kidnapped Ray and concluding when Voidgaze helped her kill him. His revenge on her, along with the presence of Red and Jacklyn, might end up forming another, equally messed up one, or it might not.
- Hates Being Alone: Red, Kokichi, and Epoch, whose powers are invalidated by mono-phobia.
- Heroic BSoD: Kokichi has caused people this, lampshaded when they first show off their Nightmare Face.They’d once sent someone into a BSOD for a month with that face alone.
- Implausible Hair Color: Kokichi and Phytomagnet, though the former’s make the latter’s look tame. Phytomagnet’s is simply green, while Kokichi’s starts shock blue and neon orange before changing to bright violet with literally golden hair clips. Kokichi’s is both justified and somewhat deconstructed— they use constantly shifting colorful appearances to distance themselves from their past self, a broken, static kid without any color at all.
- Power Nullifier: Every Epic has a weakness that nullifies their powers based on a fear. Most of the writers have different interpretations on what this means exactly, leading to an interesting array of examples, which include:
- Epoch being alone.
- Kokichi being called butterfly.
- Red feeling like a disappointment.
- Meaningful Name: Plenty of this.
- Kokichi’s original name, as Atsuki means sunrise and Chiyou butterfly in Japanese.
- The Jaeger siblings— Jaeger means hunter in German.
- Megan (MV), one of the Epics planned to overcome the corruption, shares a first name with Megan (Firefight), who is the first canonical Epic to do so.
- Arabella Jarvis. Her last name comes from the social activist, Anna Jarvis.
- Meaningful Rename: Most Epics rename themselves in order to separate their traumatic past from their powerful present. If an Epic is redeemed, they might go back to their original name. Both Megan/MV and Kokichi/Atsuki Chiyou do this.
- Moral Guardians: In-Universe. The character, Moral Guardian, serves as a reason why people are getting brutally murdered, tortured, and maimed left and right, but true profanity is avoided and any scenes involving explicit sexual content fade to black. Lampshaded by Kokichi, whose powers are somewhat similar to his.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Most Epics have one of these, though a handful just pick things they think sound cool without making an effort to sound intimidating.
- Nighthound, whose last name, Jaeger, means hunter in German, qualifies on two counts.
- Quietus means death or something that causes death.
- Armageddon. No elaboration needed on this one.
- Never My Fault: Red’s prone to this because acknowledging she failed someone is her weakness.
- No Holds Barred Beat Down: Nighthound’s never been prone to holding back, but now he’s back from the dead and pissed as hell at Ray and Voidgaze for killing him.
- Oblivious to Love: Kokichi. They’ve managed to accidentally seduce people of all genders, completely accidentally, even though the effect their powers have should make it obvious.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Kokichi, resident silly kid with too much power, crying and losing all color? This means something is seriously wrong.
- One-Steve Limit: Averted. Megan, from the book series, shares her name with the roleplay’s Megan, who’s also known as MV, and the reintroduction of Nathan inevitability leads to confusion with Nathaniel.
- Refuge in Audacity: Kokichi’s entire post-Florida life, but some particularly egregious examples include blatantly lying to Phytomagnet’s face and getting away with it. Lampshaded with Kokichi’s internal monologue. This was also Funtime's modus operandi, with her entrance into the original story including several sparkles, one ex-gun hamster, and a large number of silly nicknames.
- Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: Although many Epics are known for enslaving maple servants, the most egregious example is, again, Nighthound. It was his habit of forcing Epic girls into being his own personal harem that helped earned him the not-so-honorable moniker of “The worst. Just. The worst,” both in universe and out.
- Tastes Like Friendship: Kokichi offers Liam some of their candy. He accepts.
- Terms of Endangerment: Kokichi's weakness, being called my butterfly, was formed because that’s what Agor called them.
- Trauma Conga Line: Several characters experience this, with Nighthound as the prime perpetrator. From Ray, to Kokichi, he is likely responsible for at least several links in the chain of traumatic experiences.
- Villainous Fashion Sense: Many Epics are prone to this, as they're usually the only ones who can afford to look attractive.
- Armageddon always wears an impeccable suit to compensate for his years living in rags on the streets.
- Nighthound likes suits.
