Inferno: a superhero RP

Engelheim is a city of sorrow.

People born here go from cradle to coffin hearing sirens. Superhuman gangs had taken over long ago, and the whole town is riddled with poverty and crime. The police try as they might to suppress it all, but it either slips through their fingers, or kills them in the line of duty.

That is, it was.

Fifteen years ago, a young superhuman who went by the name of Jack Cahill created a gang called "The Guardians". The Guardians are different from the other gangs. Instead of perpetrating crime to further their own ends, they fight it to better the lives of the people. After leading human and superhuman alike in the fight against injustice for seven years, he retired, and turned it over to his lieutenant, Virgil. Jack then disappeared from the streets, and the eye of the public. Today, crime still rocks Engelheim, as even when Jack was leader, it never stayed down for long. Virgil is the proud leader of a new generation of guardians, and is still giving to the people.

As for Cahill, well, only the guardians know where he went, and while they miss his leadership, they are thankful for his current contributions.

In short, it's a superhero RP.

Our characters will be familiar with each other, unless specified as a newcomer. And Not Wearing Tights is in full effect. As far as powers go, stick to one, or a small set of related powers.

Sign up form here:

• Name:
• Age:
• Gender:
• Appearance:
• Personality:
• Powers (N/A if none):
• Skills (separate from powers, though they may make use of them):
• Backstory:

A quick outline of Virgil.

• Name: Virgil
• Age: 25
• Gender: Male
• Appearance: Tall and fair-skinned. Frequently wears a waistcoat of some sort, with a dress shirt and wears jeans and sneakers. Has brown, shaggy, shoulder length hair, and a beard.
• Personality: Virgil is a casual, laid-back leader. He has complete faith in his subordinates, and allows them to handle most missions. He is clever, and knows when to take a risk.
• Powers: Super-Speed, with all Required Secondary Powers.
• Skills: Virgil is a skilled lock-picker, and is a practitioner of Le Parkour, something he teaches to all members of The Guardians.
• Backstory: Virgil was found by Jack suing his powers to steal to feed himself. Jack offered to teach him how to become a hero, and to give him food and shelter, Virgil enthusiastically agreed, and took his new name.

And one for my player character.

• Name: Daniel T. Algire
• Age: 20
• Gender: male
• Appearance: Average height and weight. Of African descent, sports shoulder length dreadlocks. Wears an olive green jacket and black jeans.
• Personality: Daniel is a noble soul with a mischievous streak a mile wide. He always does his best to do the right thing, even if it means kicking up a little dirt. He likes to get to know his teammates. However, he does have a bit of a Knight Templar streak. If he gets his hands on someone dangerous or highly corrupt, don't count on them living long.
• Powers: Manipulates electricity and electro-magnetism to an extent.
• Skills: In addition to a knowledge of electricity and its workings, he is also a gifted con artist, and uses this to his advantage where possible. Learned Le Parkour from Virgil
• Backstory: Used to pull short cons on corrupt businessmen who funded some of the more classy gangs in Engelheim. But after finding out about The Guardians he signed up. After a while, Virgil made him his lieutenant.

I feel so tempted to sign in my old superhero but the problem is that it's name is Vigil...

Feel free!!

Just change the name.

I express extreme interest in this, I simply need a moment to decide which of my superheroes to use. A moment if you please...

Would a character who is merely a damn good shot and very good at stealth be allowed?

I'm thinking of using a lot of equipment akin to that used by Sam Fisher in his earlier adventures...

• Name: Paul Bonaparte
• Age: 24
• Gender: Male
• Appearance: 5 foot 5 inch skinny blond guy with short well combed hair, wears blue button down shirt and black slacks when he's not wearing silly looking striped rainbow sweaters and beanie hats with the pinwheels on them.
• Personality: A not very serious business man who is nonchalant and laid-back and very very very charismatic. He's friendly, talkative, persuasive, and thoughtful. He loves humor and loves to laugh, he especially loves practical jokes and doing in the wicked. Paul appears to be a major flirt but doesn't really date.
• Powers : He can turn one form of energy into another and him body is slightly resistant to damage from the elements as such.
• Skills: He's a polyglot, among his languages are French, Spanish, and Chinese to name a few. His reflexes are superb. He has excellent people skills and a superb liar and can convince almost anyone into doing anything. He's good with computers, and makes for an excellent distraction of the villain is a straight female. He knows enough Tae Chi to not get mugged.
• Backstory: From a well off French family, Paul was always amused by superheroics but doesn't have the stones or skill to be in the constant battlefield, and preferred to help the gang mostly by funding it. Paul is a graduated business student and aspiring entrepreneur who has many many connections with people of a wide variety of fields.

edited 7th Nov '10 4:54:22 PM by ACDrawings

One question, how do you feel about the supernatural in this game? I mean, besides heroes?

@rally: Badass Normals are encouraged.

@AC: Sounds like a good character. Perhaps he should be involved as Mission Control as well?

@Daltar: Acceptable, but it is not widespread or common knowledge like 'normal' superhumans are.

Mission control works. The only reason why I have him in the a battlefield in my own story is that he usually has meatsheild allies or when they're facing someone who uses energy like say fire or light.

I had a character like this in a now abandoned project. He could do it with kinetic energy as well. You know, stop things in their tracks instantly.

I thought stopping things in their tracks seemed too powerful, but he can work with kinetic energy, or rather mechanical energy. The one in the pinwheel hat◊ is him, he would use the pinwheel to make kinetic energy to use to make other forms of energy readily available (yes, he is meant to be ridiculous).

edited 7th Nov '10 5:17:06 PM by ACDrawings

It would be, but just slowing them down works too.

Useful in case of an emergency, you know.

I'll keep that in mind, thanks for the advice. I think I'll implement it.

So how many before we start this?

I think five besides myself is a good start for a nuclear team.

• Name: Feather
• Age: 49 years since Feather first became conscious.
• Gender: Genderless
• Appearance: A really pretty person with an extremelly youthful appearance that never changes. Has shoulder lenght blond hair and blue eyes and a slim androgynous body. Tends to wear jeans and a white hoodie with sneakers.
• Personality: Innocent but quite serious. Cannot stand to see a crime or wrong doing in front of it without doing something about it.
• Powers: The ability to control it's own gravity. Feather can lower it to make itself light as a feather to jump to really great heights or increase it to make it itself harder to move. It normally keeps itself at a heavier gravity than normal to force itself to become stronger. Due to this Feather is a lot stronger and faster than a person of it's build should.
• Skills: Parkour comes naturally to Feather. It can also type at the same rate a person can talk. Feather is also a fairly good cook and housekeeper.
• Backstory: Feather one day woke up in the middle of a corn field, completely naked and knowing nothing but one thing. It wasn't human. What Feather is, it doesn't know. Feather lived some time under the care of a priest that found it until the man died of old age. By that moment the priest gave Feather a name, thought it all a normal person should know and how to write since he found out that Feather is apparently, mute.

One question: When would a superpower manifest? From birth? At one particular point in peoples life?

Also... my character is also gravity-themed... that's an unfortunate coincidence. Can we still do this, or do I have to come up with something new?

EDIT: Well, here's the guy, you be the judge.

Name: Joseph "Vertigo" Hitchens
Age: 20
Gender: Male
Appearance: A redhead, green eyes and a fairly angular face that, all together shows similarities to that of a weasel. Medium built if somewhat on the muscular side, usually wears fairly loose-fitting black clothing that he has fastened tighter with duct tape in strategic locations. Wears glasses when he's not doing superhero work, but usually opts for contacts when he's out to kick ass.
Personality: Joseph is a bit of a thrill seeker and a showoff, prone to doing risky or flat out dangerous stunts when appropriate, or whenever he's bored, which is most of the time. Despite what it might seem, he has a modicum of self-preservation instinct, but it usually takes a strong leader to get it out of him, meanwhile, anything less than stellar leadership will probably have him looking for ways to climb up on the organization chart.
Powers: Joseph can modify which direction is "down" for him, and gravity will oblige. This allows him to do anything from simply walking on walls, ceilings, or what have you, to a sort of flight, although a good bit of concentration is needed for this trick.
Skills: Highly trained in Le Parkour, employs a mishmash of martial arts techniques designed to take advantage of his gravity-altering powers, also a decent cook, but his penchant for the extreme also extends to flavor of the food he makes.
Backstory: Joseph was making gravity his bitch long before he made a career out of it as a superhero. He started out as a parkour artist at a young age, keeping the activity more as a hobby until his careless attitude had spelled the death of his attempts to be accepted into the police academy, thus throwing a sizable wrench into his life plans. Through his contact in the parkour and various extreme sports-communities of Engelheim, he got wind of a man named Vergil whose gang just might be the place he needed to be to unify two of his defining character traits, the desire to make the world a slightly better place and the desire to do ridiculous, dangerous and cool things. Long story short, after a prolonged and especially showy hard sell, Joseph managed to find his place in the group. Being the ambitious gentleman he is, though, he sure wouldn’t mind if that place was a ‘’little’’ higher.

edited 8th Nov '10 3:27:53 AM by slowzombie

I'm thinking of a character that is stylistically similar to Sam Fisher with elements of Delta Oh-Seven, Captain Scott Mitchell, Captain Johnathan Price and Paragon Lieutenant Commander Shepard. Maybe even a little Optimus Prime just for good measure.

The primary abilities of this character: stealth, aim. The real issue is balancing the threats he faces with his abilities: If it can't be done in real life through extensive training or sheer dumb luck, he can't do it. That may present a problem when coming up with a decent primary villain.

Oh, one other thing: This guy doesn't believe in honor. He isn't flashy or dramatic. He gets the job done, nothing more, nothing less. If you don't like story arcs being stopped by first phases being thwarted and villains being killed off, stop me now. Otherwise, be prepared to have to shuffle in new villains on a regular basis, and have them use all manner of trickery, planning and tactical knowledge in order to survive.

edited 7th Nov '10 6:29:14 PM by rallyfan9000

• Name: Jack Elliston
• Age: 25
• Gender: Male.
• Appearance: Trench coat clad, perpetual frown and short black hair.
• Personality: Pissed off. Hates the Cops almost as much as the criminals and blames the government and the current state of affairs. None the less under it all, he's got a heart of... silver. He doesn't like to see anyone get hurt who doesn't deserve it anyhow and does his best to make the world a better place, no matter how impossible he believes it may be. He'd just rather be pumped full of lead than show it.
• Powers: Mind reading. Requires physical contact with the readee.
• Skills: Between Mind reading and book reading, he's gotten pretty knowledgeable about things, keeping up with the gang has forced him to get relatively proficient at combat. Usually has a handgun on person, will carry a shotgun on large busts, he is proficient with both but not to any notable level. He also has basic boating and hunting skills.
• Backstory: Joined up sometime ago as an idealistic new recruit believing the best in everyone. Seven years later, He's now a cynical bastard believing the best in everyone doesn't stop them from being complete morons and trying to kill eachother.

edited 7th Nov '10 7:12:06 PM by Fauxlosophe

I'm actually going to try my hand at playing a guy this time... wish me luck!

• Name: Eric Langley
• Age: 25
• Gender: Male
• Appearance: Average height, very lean though. Built like a marathoner. He has thick, wavy brown hair reaching near to his shoulders and grey eyes, and he wears glasses.
• Personality: Laid back. He wants to be the cool guy, but knows he isn't. His greatest fear is dying without making a difference. And he's not exactly coordinated, though it isn't obvious upon meeting him.
• Powers: He channels kinetic energy to cause organic objects to burst into flame. But the problem is that the powers just manifested, and he's got no idea how to control them. He doesn't shoot flame or control it. He just causes things to catch on fire, and it pisses him off.
• Skills: He's a poet.
• Backstory: His life was pretty normal, actually. He has a decent family and a pretty nice home, but he left it to find a job in the city about a year ago. Although he did succeed at finding something to do, he found out that the urban lifestyle was full of superhuman gang wars. And now he's woken up with a hand that sets things on fire.

Raaaagh. Well, I probably shouldn't do this, but here goes anyway...

If you need an appropriate Big Bad, Lock, and would rather not have another for your six/seven- man band, I've got one all planned out. I'd gladly do it if it means being able to take the mantle of villain from the start, unlike so many other R Ps I'm in.

Oh, what the hell.

• Name: Kali "Zombz" Jacobs
• Age: 23
• Gender: Female
• Appearance: 5' 5", slender, with literally white skin and shoulder-length ash-blond hair. She favors old, faded (but well cared for and clean!) clothes in the black, white, and gray spectrums, excepting her trademark red handkerchief mask. Patches with obvious stitching are often prominent. She always wears a pair of fingerless leather forearm gloves that used to be black, and faded black calf boots with really good grip on the soles.
• Personality: Often quiet, but in a sort of optimistically observant way rather than a reclusive manner. She can be very friendly when approached, and if you're unfortunate enough to get her talking about one of her major topics of interest, she'll talk your ear off before you realize her lips are moving.
• Powers (N/A if none): Mild case of super strength/endurance. Zombz is roughly twice as strong as an average person of her size. She also has great stamina, and is resistant to harmful environmental conditions, such as temperature extremes, air-born toxins and diseases, and radiation.
• Skills (separate from powers, though they may make use of them): Zombz is a practitioner of Le Parkour, and is very agile with a great sense of balance. She likes to travel light and pick up weapons where she finds them, making her an Improbable Weapon User, but she carries a multitool with a small knife at all times, just in case.
• Backstory: The self-proclaimed Sparkle Zombie Princess Queen of Engelheim came to be six years ago. An orphan living on the streets with a gang of similarly situated kids, Zombz came into the public eye at the age of seventeen when she happened to run through the background of a live newscast. Being shot from a helicopter. She was leaping rooftops downtown for kicks, is what we're getting at here. Soon after, she was approached by a super villain named Draculoth with an offer to be his part-time henchchick. After a couple years of henching for Draculoth, Zombz decided he was a nutcase and cooperated with the Guardians to capture him. Draculoth swore revenge on his former minion, and Zombz was acquitted of her crimes committed under him in exchange for her help. She joined the Guardians herself shortly after.

[edit] No "s" in that trope name.

edited 8th Nov '10 4:46:54 AM by Wryte

All made with the appropriate form are approved.

@slowzombie: Around four or five, usually after they get a decent sense of the world.

@rallyfan: Okay, that doesn't really fit here. I'm not about to rewrite the setting for this character, I cannot approve him in this form.

@darkside: It's okay, feel free to throw another protag in there. I'll take care of antagonists.

Oh god, why do I always get suckered into these things?

• Name: Shay Faraday
• Age: 17
• Gender: Female
• Appearance: 5'10", and slightly lanky. Flowing chestnut hair, curly and slightly frizzy. Blue-grey eyes. Tends to wear slack and loose clothes, with tons of pockets to keep all sorts of knick-knack.
• Personality: She'll laugh at most anything, because with her sense of humour, there's no situation or phrase that can't be turned into a joke. Likes to collect anything remotely interesting, and keeps everything that could be of some use along the way. Despite this, she tries to stay serious, and has a seething hatred of violent criminals. To some she'll seem like an ice queen, but to those she likes, she's very friendly. Oh, and can go through rather violent mood swings.
• Powers: Telepathy and teleportation. The latter is limited in range, and it takes some energy out of her to do.
• Skills: While Shay is by no means weak, she doesn't have the talent for hand-to-hand combat. To compensate, she's trained up to become an excellent shot with most handguns and a very competent sniper. Due to her parents, speaks both English and German. Because of her item-collecting habits, and slight paranoia, she tends to be just short of Crazy-Prepared in terms of having the right things for any given situation along.
• Backstory: Her family didn't take too kindly to realising that their daughter could jump around places, and tried to make sure she'd never learn to properly use her powers. This failed spectacularly, because there really isn't any good way to keep a teleporter in one place. After finally getting fed up at the age of 14, ran off and went through a string of misdemeanors and petty theft to keep afloat, using the time to develop her powers and practise with firearms. Joined the Guardians just recently, because her hometown deserves to be cleaned up.

Edit: Oh good, I can finally play someone younger. That should make for a more interesting character. Age changed, and backstory (hopefully) appropriately so.

edited 8th Nov '10 3:54:31 AM by balrog1911

Also, I should note.

Given how the Guardians work, it's not unreasonable to see operating members as young as 12.

If any of your characters can be younger, feel free to make it so.

Also, approved.

EDIT: I forgot to mention, after reaching full physical maturity, superhumans age about half the speed normal humans do.

edited 8th Nov '10 4:17:42 AM by lockonlockon