Enter Paradiso

[Peypeypeypey]

Howdy everyone,

Please see the link below for a document about the backstory for this campaign setting. It's a bit odd, admittedly, but it's a mix of post-apocalypse and socio-political intrigue that I think will be very interesting.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bWytVvjUbfol5hsU-IjFltFXAOwCiUZ-i_VHQAW-yQk/edit?usp=sharing

I will keep editing this document, and will post on here whenever I do if y'all are interested in reading it. As for what I need from you all now, I want each of you to think of a backstory that fits the setting and that has some interesting adventure hooks. I realize I forgot to mention this, but at the beginning of the campaign, each of your heroes will be recruited by a new Hero Agency to try to push back the gangs of the city further and expand the safe zone of Paradiso. For now, think of what powers you want your hero to have, your backstory, and maybe a few potential enemies they've encountered up to this point. Who is their Joker? Who is their Green Goblin? Or do they not have one? Are they brand new? If so, who from their past knows their secret identity? Who from their past might to motivated to help them? Or take up arms against them? Like I said in the other post, I want y'all to really dig into these backstories. Was your character involved with a gang, and is now trying to start a new life, haunted by what they did in the past? Were they raised in the safe zone, feeling immense guilt for living a safe, privileged life while so many others had to suffer and die? What did their parents do? 

You don't have to answer all, or even any, of these questions. These are just things to get the creative juices flowing. Please message me what you're thinking for your character, rather than posting it here. I don't necessarily want each character's backstory to be a mystery, it certainly doesn't have to be, but it's more organic and more dramatic if the other players find out about key plot details at the same time as their characters do, in my opinion anyway.

EDIT: I forgot to mention, but the power-level is between street-tier and Spiderman level. Don't worry too much about that though. We'll figure that out as we go

[Bergy_Berg]

Are there other cities like Paradiso in the world, or is it the last bastion of civilization? Could a wealthy person in the safe zone hop on a plane to Hawaii?

[michalecs]

Huh... Voyd's powers could be related to the catalyst that Neptune started 50 years ago. I have played an Voyd/OC hybrid before, and had her being a researcher in her ("Incredibles") timeline but having one of her portals messed with by a supervillain device which launched her from the 1960s to the world she ended up in.

Here's my idea. Karen was a research scientist on Neptune's project. Assumed dead, but instead flung into the future, landing in the timeline of the campaign inception. She'd have the Captain America/Aang thing going on, being a fish out of water initially (still in her backstory, hear me out), but quickly embracing the idea of hero work and adopting a costume and hero ID and joining one of the hero associations as Voyd. She would have been working as Voyd for some time, enough to get her to the experience level needed for campaign inception.

Before I take this football and run with it...
What do you think?

[OMFG]

I wish I knew how to read 😔

[Peypeypeypey]

4 hours ago, Bergy_Berg said:

Are there other cities like Paradiso in the world, or is it the last bastion of civilization? Could a wealthy person in the safe zone hop on a plane to Hawaii?

There are other cities like Paradiso. Emerald City, where Dr. Neptune conducted the experiment that started it all, still stands, along with many other big cities such as Marburn (a large factory town), Paccola (a Las Vegas-style city), and New Benoit (the former capital before the rise and fall of Neptunia). 

1 hour ago, michalecs said:

Huh... Voyd's powers could be related to the catalyst that Neptune started 50 years ago. I have played an Voyd/OC hybrid before, and had her being a researcher in her ("Incredibles") timeline but having one of her portals messed with by a supervillain device which launched her from the 1960s to the world she ended up in.

Here's my idea. Karen was a research scientist on Neptune's project. Assumed dead, but instead flung into the future, landing in the timeline of the campaign inception. She'd have the Captain America/Aang thing going on, being a fish out of water initially (still in her backstory, hear me out), but quickly embracing the idea of hero work and adopting a costume and hero ID and joining one of the hero associations as Voyd. She would have been working as Voyd for some time, enough to get her to the experience level needed for campaign inception.

Before I take this football and run with it...
What do you think?

I think that's a really interesting idea. It immediately gives her some hooks for stories and who doesn't love a tragic science-experiment backstory? That all sounds good to me, if you want to just expand on that. 

[Hugo Fowl]

Just now, OMFG said:

I wish I knew how to read 😔

Me too.

[michalecs]

1963, Somewhere in the deserts of New Mexico

 

"Are the calculations complete, Karen?" Asked a middle-aged man, with a wild frock of reddish-brown hair, dressed in a lab coat over a Hawaiian shirt and khaki pants.

 

"Yes Doctor Neptune. It appears that they should work but-" The mousy woman with drab brown hair and eyes replied.

 

"Excellent. Spin us up, Doctor Bush." He interrupted. Neptune was never one for buts.

 

"-the location of the portal is very likely to be unstable, both physically and temporally. Are you sure-" Karen tried to inform him of the risks.

 

Neptune didn't like are you sures, either. "Stay next to the main power switch then. If something goes wrong, dump the trial."

 

Karen's face twitched. She knew that if the portal was off center, it'd gravitate to the largest EM field. Namely, right next to the main power switch.

 

"Are you having misgivings, Doctor Bush? I don't have to remind you that there are dozens of other technicians clamoring for the job you're doing right now. Don't make me regret hiring a woman."

 

She took a deep, quivering breath. "No, Doctor. I'm just looking for my electrostatic gloves." She reached over and grabbed them, putting them on with a nervous smile.

 

It seems like he bought it as he barked with laughter. "Right. Don't want to have any stray EM throwing off the experiment. Now, spin us up, Karen."

 

Karen cranked the wheel that lowered the exotic power core into the vat of thick gel in the middle of the room on the opposite side of the heavy vault glass that the control room hid behind. The gel was a superinsulator, developed by Neptune himself. Sparks began to fly but were soaked up by the gel.

 

Until one of them wasn't. A bright blue crackle of electricity flashed directly through the gel and the glass, striking the control panel.

 

Neptune's eyes widened. "No. That's impossible! Quick, kill the power, Karen!"

 

Karen reached down and grabbed the switch…

 

The world went white. Pain. No, not pain. It was like every pore of her skin was vibrating. It was almost pleasant. She looked around…

There was nothing but the white, for an indeterminate amount of time.

 

Meanwhile, what Doctor Neptune saw was an arc of lightning strike Karen, who disappeared entirely, except for the rubber boots and electrostatic gloves, which flopped to the ground.

 

"Well, I suppose you were right, Karen. You'll be missed." He began taking notes and deciding who his next assistant would be, while trying to think over what he was going to say to her family.

 

2020 - 20 miles outside of Taos, New Mexico.

 

The white faded. She lay on the ground for a few minutes before sitting up. Her eyes eventually refocus. There's a road sign.

 

Arroyo Seco 9

Taos 20.

 

"I'm fifty miles from the lab! It worked! I've got a long walk though…" Karen stood up realizing she was in her pantyhose. Her shoes and gloves had disappeared. "The insulation exempted them from the transport."

 

She dug in one of the pockets of her lab coat for her Mary Jane's and a lock of bright blue hair fell in her face. Shocked, she got out her compact and noticed that her hair and eye color had changed. "Gee willikers." She slipped on her shoes and began walking to Arroyo Seco.

[michalecs]

It was nightfall when she arrived in town. Arroyo Seco was a sleepy little village, and the signs she saw were for campgrounds and other outdoor activities. The cars… well they looked different. She didn’t see a newsstand anywhere, but she walked up to a place called Abe’s Groceries & Bar and Grill.

 

When she got inside, she was assaulted by the jukebox music, and the various other distractions. There was a Television (in color!) mounted on one wall of a size she’d never seen before! The news was on. She watched for awhile, as she got a few looks but not what she’d expect for a girl arriving alone with crazy-colored hair.

 

She staggered up to the bar and took a seat. “Rough day?” The bartender asked.

 

“Yeah. I… ah.. My ride broke down about nine miles out of town and I had to walk.” Karen responded.

 

“Need a drink?” The old guy asked.

“Desperately.”

“Cash or card?” This got Karen to blink a few times. Right, charge cards were probably more common in this year than where she came from.

 

“Oh! Uh… cash.”  She dug in her lab coat and fished out a $5 bill.

“What’ll it be?”

 

“Brandy?” Karen asked.

 

“For five bucks? You know what, you look like you had a rough day. First one’s on the house. You need a little food, missy?”

“Mm.. I think so.”  She looked at the menu and paled a little at the prices. Right, inflation, sixty years. She’d better find work soon or she’d be out of money really fast. Karen put away the $5 and got out the emergency $50 she kept in her billfold in case of emergencies.

Ten dollars poorer and a combination plate later, she was telling the bartender, whose name was Jake, the story - the real story, after she’d learned of what Neptune had eventually… accomplished and how it literally sent her into the future. She’d been allowed to borrow the old guy’s smartphone to search information about herself - she had been reported missing, but not dead, and Dr Neptune had sent monthly payments to her family for two years after her disappearance.

 

She looked up the phone number for her niece. Boy it was tough thinking of it that way, and her sister’s daughter, (her sister had a toddler when Karen had her accident), and called.

 

“Hello?” The older lady answered the phone.

 

“Hi. Uh, this is going to sound crazy, but this is Karen. Aunt… Karen. Please don’t hang up.”

“Listen, I don’t have time for pranks-”

 

“I can prove it! Your mother’s favorite color is grey, she has a scar on the inside of her right elbow from when we fell out of a treehouse when we were kids, your middle name is Lucille because she loved Lucille Ball and she even bought you a red and white polka dot dress for your third birthday because she liked Lucy so much.” Karen rattled off.

 

There was a pause at the other end. “That was… random. But correct. Fine. If you are my aunt, you’ll know what TV show creeped me out as a kid.”

 

“Davey and Goliath. Oh, and Gumby. Anything claymation. You’d scream and run away when they came on.”

 

“...I’ll text you my address. I- I have a lot to process here. We’ll talk more when you get here.”
The phone call ended and Karen’s eyes went wide.

“You never told me-” She started, then the text message notification came in, which was a bullwhip sound, causing Karen to drop the phone. She reached for it as it fell…

And suddenly it was in her hand again, shimmering portals about a foot from the floor and a few inches over her hand floated midair.

 

“Nice. You’re Empowered. Didn’t think anyone was that far back.” The bartender commented.

“I didn’t used to be, Jake. Oh. Ohh. The portal. When it discharged, it infused my body with the breach material… that must be why my hair and eye color changed.”

“Nice. Can you… make those things disappear? They might be a bit in the way when it gets busy in here.”

 

Karen thought for a moment, waving her hands around a bit. Finally she got them to disappear. She laughed nervously. “That’s going to take some practice.”  She looked at the phone again, and saw the address on the screen. “Oh, that’s what she meant by text. Neato.”

 

“Neato?” Jake chuckled.

“Give me a break I grew up in the 50s. I don’t think fifty dollars will get me to… Paradiso? I don’t even know where that is.”

“I got a solution for you, Karen, but I hope you like chickens…” Jake smirked.

Three hours later

 

She was sitting in the air-cooled trailer behind an autonomous semi truck driving through Arroyo Seco on its way to Paradiso, delivering chickens to a farm nearby the city. They were supposed to be free-range, so even in the trailer while they had perches and boxes, they pretty much meandered all over the trailer. And Karen.

 

“I like chickens, I like chickens…”