This story begins with the last thirty minutes of Jerry's life... and the last thirty minutes of the old world. This is the story of the children who, willingly or not, became the heralds of a new world. This is the
DAWN OF A NEW AGE
— GrateEscape in the opening post.
Dawn of A New Age is a Play-by-Post Game, hosted on TV Tropes and created by GrateEscape. The plot centers on a group of high school students who suddenly gain superpowers from comic-book heroes and villains, and have to deal with the ramifications of what their new powers represent for society as a whole.
Everything was perfectly normal in Hightown, Connecticut... until the night of April 22nd 2015, that is. Getting locked in after a blackout and witnessing the school janitor, Jerry, get consumed by flames, the afterschool students are soon enveloped themselves. Yet, instead of dying, they awaken at home and discover that they now have superpowers.
However, not all the students think alike, and fantastic conflicts like this world has never seen will now arise. How did the mysterious green flame enter their school, why do they have to "prove themselves", and who or what gave them these powers?
The roleplay can be found here
, with the Discussion thread here and Sign-Ups here.
In 2017, the RP was rebooted as Dawn of a New Age: Oldport Blues, featuring some returning characters and concepts.
Dawn of A New Age provides examples of:
- Bad Future: The flashforwards to 2021 show that the world has become a wreck; some of the students are barely surviving, while others are taking part in destroying the world even further. That said, the future depicted is only one of many possibilities.
- So far, it's been revealed that Jessica Hawkins has become a sex trafficker, someone has a prison for empowered people, the White House was destroyed in 2016 (taking then-president Barack Obama's life), Cornelius is the leader of a Center for Superhuman Studies, the city of Hightown has been abandoned (probably due to Johnathan unleashing his full powers) and, perhaps the only good revelation, Benjy and 'Scales' went on to have a child.
- Bad Powers, Bad People: Discussed when it's revealed that some students inherited powers from supervillains. They don't take kindly to the idea that they'll become villains themselves as a result of it.
- Black Dude Dies First: Poor Jerry...
- Blessed with Suck: Especially for the kids whose powers marred their physical appearance.
- Body Horror: Trent's death by The Void. It outright gleefully says it imploded his body.
- Character Blog: Ones have been set up for Jennifer and Cornelius on Twitter, and Benjy on the Marvel wikia.
- Comes Great Responsibility: Played with but mostly averted. Cornelius interprets responsibility as restructuring society and the immediate motivation of most of the teens is to hide their powers, although they do act somewhat altruistically. The future suggests that most of them avert this.
- Deconstruction: The roleplay is intended to be one of the 'teenagers gain superpowers' idea, showcasing how such an event would have devastating effects on their everyday lives.
- Differently Powered Individual: The term being used to describe the students is New Ager, referencing the fact they have the power to bring about a new age.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: Some of the students (Jessica and Victor for example), at least temporarily, just wanted to go back to normal. Of note, these are all students who have become physically changed.
- Interspecies Romance: Judging from one of the future posts Scales and Benjy would count.
- Masquerade: Actively defied, as a good deal of the students want to use their powers and there's already been several blatant moments of superpowers (A car getting crushed against Terry's body, Johnathon's unrefined speed and flight causing property damage, and a New Ager robber). In addition to that, Trent's death is clearly the act of something inhuman.
- Mass Super-Empowering Event: The mysterious green flame that flooded the school is what gave each of the students superpowers.
- Power Glows: A few of the New Agers, such as Terry and Blake. Whether the glow is relevant to the power or an unintentional side-effect varies however.
- Pstandard Psychic Pstance: Zia, Blake and Terry occasionally have shades of this. Blake takes it to the extreme with no particular advantage.
- Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Any evidence of the fire happening (including the existence of Jerry) is subjected to Ret-Gone, with only the students remembering what happened that night.
- Shout-Out: Cornelius' deal with the Void leads to a notebook that acts as a supernatural kill list. Very heavily lampshaded by Cornelius.
- Stronger with Age: The powers and skills the students inherited from their source will continue to grow without limit, leading to two likely outcomes.
- Superpowerful Genetics: It has been confirmed the children and clones of Genetic New Agers would inherit their powers. In the case of Mutants their children will likely manifest random mutations instead.
- Superpower Lottery: Some of the students have acquired extremely potent abilities (Ciro, Zia, Cornelius) or acquired a multitude of powers (Terry, Luna, Johnathon) that makes them extremely dangerous.
- Superpower Russian Roulette: The powers that the students manifested seemed to have been random, and there appears to be no limits on its system as several students (Victor and "Scales" for example) inherited the unique physiological features of their donors... Even if that means becoming a virtual intelligence, in the case of Ruth.
