*The city of Colshire. Founded in the 1800s by the world-famous Edward McIntyre, known also as Professor Metropolis, Colshire has been a technological wonder since its inception; originally a mining camp on the east coast of the American colonies, Edward’s disenfranchisement from his ancestral home in England for his radical ideas about technology caused it to become much more. Edward used it as a test bed for many of his ideas, enhancing (and complicating) the lives of miners and workers, and a city grew out of the resultant works.

Over his life Colshire was turned from a camp into a city, with only the occasional terraforming mishap, and his legacy was strong enough that since that time every mayoral election has had a McIntyre in the running, with few people from outside the family ever managing to place into the political position, creating a kind of subtle monarchy that still manages to stay within the laws of the USA. This state of affairs has lasted through the past hundred and seventy years as the world has adapted and changed, with each successive generation funding and organizing grand-scale infrastructure projects that have overhauled the city time and time again; at this point, Colshire is a layer cake of technological eras and grand projects, to the point most people barely even know what’s on the surface, much less what’s buried. This wonder of technology has brought savants from all over the world to study at the Colshire University of Technology, called The Bubble by locals for the grand Faraday cage over the entire campus. And the presence of so many savants has brought similar numbers of other metahumans in.

A time of trouble appears to be coming, as the venerable mayor Caleb McIntyre and his son Logan were found burned to death in their homes, and Logan’s wife Dorothea is missing, leaving their teenage children orphaned and alone. As a friend of these kids with powers of your own, you’re one of the few that can keep them safe in the coming days; nobody stops at just destroying part of an extremely important family.

This event hasn’t gone unnoticed. Politicians are making moves, and villains are taking advantage of the chaos to push their own agendas, with the heroes disorganized and facing down serious problems they don’t have good answers for. You’re an unproven nobody right now; you have power, but the world doesn’t care, and it’s moving before you’re ready. Life doesn’t wait for anyone. You’ll have to make challenging decisions in the coming days to keep the world from tumbling apart.

Welcome to The Brighter Side of Gray, where you’ll be taking the role of a young superhero or supervillain making their way in a world that’s suddenly turned upside down. I’m new to this whole Quest Master business, but I’ve been working on this setting off-and-on for years at this point, and I think I can make something that’s a lot of fun for the audience with it. To that end, we’re starting this off with character creation, the unfortunately most complex part of the system I put together for this. For all considerations, remember that your character has just turned become an adult recently, with their 18th birthday having been within the last year.

Please, feel free to ask questions. I’m aware that there’s a lot of concepts and setting ideas being presented in this opening post, and I’m happy to elaborate on anything that needs it.

Remember, all choices in character creation, even powers, come with both benefits and drawbacks, though what they are may not be immediately obvious. I reserve the right to veto power selections I believe I wouldn’t be able to write interestingly, like taking three stacks of Major Heteromorph to be a kaiju or something.

What is your background? (Choose 1) [ ] Orphan Life has not been kind to you. Forced into the foster system at a young age, you’ve bounced from home to home waiting for someone to give you a home and it never happened. Now you’re old enough to make your own way - you’re streetwise and sensible, but you’re also living in poverty, forced to take crappy jobs to make ends meet. Having just turned 18 means you’re finally able to qualify for positions where your powers would be useful, though, and you’ll make damn sure you’re not in the dumps for long.

[ ] Member of the Seawater Clan The Seawater Clan is a family of fish people that are in charge of the docks. Not every member of the clan is a heteromorph - some marry in, others are born without any obvious mutations - but it’s an insular group that doesn’t particularly like outsiders and keeps an iron grip on the goings-on around the Colshire docks. They aren’t a major power within Colshire, but they’re still a fixture of the city’s political landscape and take great care to watch each other’s backs given the trouble they’ve had with the government in past decades.

[ ] Student of the Dancing Storm School One of extremely few schools for cultivation practices in North America, the Dancing Storm was founded in pursuit of control of the self and the elements. After the original grounds burned down in 1880, the school’s founders relocated to Colshire, having cut a deal with Elizabeth McIntyre, Edward’s daughter, for protection from further persecution. Since then it’s become a city campus as Colshire has grown around it, and its recruitment practices reflect that; the outer sections are a school ground for mundane martial arts, welcoming anyone who can pay or do services for the school, and a few promising students are pulled from their classes to be introduced to the inner mysteries the founders left behind.

[ ] McIntyre Heir More than just a friend of the remaining McIntyres, you are one. Like every member of your family going back to the city’s founder, Edward, you’re a Savant and an important part of the city, though your twin sibling Castor is technically your elder by a few minutes, and is the one that stands to inherit the family holdings and fortune. This, naturally, also means you’re a target of whatever the hell just killed your parents unless you can unravel it quickly. Good luck with that! (Note; locks your origin into Savant)

[ ] Inheritor of a Heroic Legacy Metahumans have been around forever, but superheroes are comparatively recent, coming about in the 40s and 50s following World War 2. You come from a family dating back to that time, and have a family history to live up to. Of course, you never got a say in this; everyone just assumed you’d take after your parents, because that’s what they did. Whether you actually want to or not is another matter.

[ ] Scion of the Vampire Lord Avus Morch is a nearly 500 year old vampire originally from somewhere in Europe. With Colshire’s Fissure and undercity, he’s become the landlord to the single largest community of vampires and free savants in North America (among other people), and is one of the main political movers of the city. In the past few decades since the creation of cloning technology he’s been making use of it, along with willing partners, to create living children for reasons nobody is totally certain of except for the old vampire himself. At least one thing is for certain; he clearly cares for all his progeny, both vampiric and biological, and takes pains to protect them.

[ ] Just an average person You’re not special. You don’t have some grand history, you didn’t have a weird home life, you’re not connected to important people by anything except having powers. You could be anyone from anywhere, caught up in these events only by the barest chance. Whether you like it or not, though, you’re not going to be just average for long.

What is the origin of your powers? (Choose 1) [ ] Wizardry Magic in this world is a science like any other, but also an art. Every child is taught in school how to do the very basics of channeling will and creating tiny lights, similar to how in the real world most children are taught how to make potato lights or code simple programs on a computer. Studying magic in earnest is a lifelong vocation, and choosing this as an Origin states that you’re adept enough at it to compete in the realm of costumed supers with nothing but your spellcraft. Wizardry is a versatile art, but requires time, mental conditioning, and concentration to achieve anything. Your power selections represent spells that you’re good enough at to cast on the fly, with other spells being temporary and more difficult to put together, but entirely possible with some time and effort.

[ ] Metahuman Metahumans are ‘wellsprings’ of power. In a moment of great stress your soul reached out to a free-floating concept that was nearby - perhaps fire, or swords, or glamour, or literature, or fish, or something else - and transformed you into a being capable of wielding this power effectively. Your power is inherent, instinctive, and can never be separated from you any more than your own soul could. The drawback is that being a metahuman deadens you to external magic - it’s not impossible for a metahuman to learn wizardry, summoning, or cultivation, but it’s like attempting to see the stars from inside a major city; light pollution muffles anything but the most dedicated effort.

[ ] Summoning You’ve made a pact with an elemental or concept spirit, binding it to an object in your possession. Forming these bonds can give you powers similar to a metahuman, but as they’re commanded by another entity, you need to maintain a good working relationship with the spirit in order to keep your powers from going on the fritz. On the other hand, you aren’t limited to only one pact bond, so long as you can keep all your companions happy.

[ ] Cultivation* Through meticulous effort you’ve managed to refine and reinforce your body and spirit by layering the magic of the world into yourself, refining who and what you are instead of relying on random chance or external powers. No absorbed concept, borrowed power, or time-consuming ritual is this; you have made the concept of yourself more real within the world, and thus better able to enact your will upon it. The drawbacks to this are that you have amplified all your best and worst traits, making them more extreme, and continuing to advance your power is dangerous to your body and soul in ways the other Origins are not. Most likely, you’ve learned to develop your power from the Dancing Storm School here in Colshire.*

[ ] Savant Savants are a curious form of metahuman, carrying with them no direct powers with which they can enact their will on the world - instead, savants find that they can process information at a massively accelerated pace, and subconsciously pick apart and reimagine whatever they’ve learned about. In the modern day most savants dedicate this talent to technology, and Colshire has historically been one of the centers of the world for the development of the machines savants produce. A savant is versatile, being able to make any power that fits within their specialties and learning, but in exchange requires resources to pay for materials to make their inventions, time for both creating the device and maintaining it, and virtually all savants have quirks to their design style that frustrate as much as they enhance. All of your creations are as much works of art as they are tools.

[ ] Thing From Beyond You are an anomaly. You have human parents, you look human, you think like you’re human, you grow like a human. However, you were born with your powers, they don’t follow the rules, and you aren’t sure where they actually come from; studies have been done into your nature and your biology is something modern methods are unable to properly parse. You shouldn’t have any power, you shouldn’t be alive, your biology shouldn’t even work, and yet here you stand in defiance of understanding. It’s probably fine. Probably.

What are your powers? (Choose 4. The same power may be selected up to three times, each time multiplying its potency. All powers must be unified by a theme or matched concept. The exception to these rules is Mastery Of A Skill; each selection of Mastery Of A Skill must be a different mundane skill, and it can be chosen up to 4 times.) [ ] Super Strength (Includes basic toughness) [ ] Invulnerability [ ] Energy Manipulation (What sort?) [ ] Telepathy [ ] Telekinesis [ ] Regeneration [ ] Force Fields [ ] Super Speed [ ] Major Heteromorph (You are permanently inhuman enough in appearance and biology to impact your day-to-day life. Comes with minor regeneration and any benefits that make sense for such an altered body plan, like muscle density, photosynthesis, or unusual senses. Define what you look like as part of this selection.) [ ] Flight [ ] Super Senses (What sort?) [ ] Energy Constructs [ ] Mastery Of A Skill (What type of skill? Grants +25 points for stat distribution.) [ ] Multiple slots on one power (Which one?) [ ] Write-in