Character sheets will look like this (Powers are optional, as are code names)Out of the depths of space, a light emerges from the darkness. Many lights shine in the universe, but this one is different. This light is the harbinger of life, and banisher of fear. Within it, hope springs eternal.
Welcome to
The Beacon of Hope
The Beacon of Hope is a massive spacecraft; 500 miles (~804 km) long and designed to accomplish any task set before it. It is a colony ship, a trading ship, a supercarrier, and more. Chief among the Beacon’s many purposes, though, is its job as the home base of the Cosmic Champions, a group of intergalactic and even inter-universal superheroes. These people range from unusually skilled, to superhuman heavyweights with demigod like powers. The group contains heroes from many planets and of all kinds of races and (sentient) species across the multiverse. The Beacon is always open to take in new recruits for the Champions, or anyone else who might want to travel with them. Recently however, the captain, Solomon Cohen, has upped the intake of new recruits to try to regain the strength they lost when his brother, Justus Cohen, left the group. Basic food, housing, and medical care are provided by the ship itself and lucrative job opportunities and activities are available, even to the non-powered.
Word is out that the dark dragon Odium is building power once again. As a result, the Beacon has been getting word of more and more worlds in need of saving. Expect some major superheroics, soft sci-fi space battles, alien invasions, and anything else you might find in a super hero story (as long as it doesn’t violate the forum or RP rules).
Ship Layout:
The ship is 500 miles long, 200 miles wide and 200 miles tall. It was made from materials purchased and gathered from many different planets. It uses a mix of solar sails, rocket propulsion, and portal generation to move between the stars. The bridge is located at the front of the ship. Along the outer hull, there are hangers, cargo bays, and defensive turrets with control and maintenance rooms attached. On the interior, and majority, of the ship is the commercial, recreational, and residential section. These are split into many “districts” that often function as towns and cities. Many districts will be designed to accommodate the often specific needs of the residents. Travel between sections of the ship is accomplished with stations for the maglev for short range transport and portal stations for long range transport. It takes little time to travel between sections of the ship despite how large it is.
Rules:
Species restrictions: Almost none*. While anthropomorphic animals are not a natural occurrence on this version of earth, there are so many ways past this that I’m not even going to ask you to explain. If you want to play an anthropomorphic wolf, play one. Want to play a cat? Play a cat. Want to play something exotic, like a dragon or a griffin, be my guest. If you want to play a member of a species with rat tails, lion heads, bat wings, a chinchilla body and unicorn launchers for hands… then stop stealing my ideas. *goes to file for a patent*
Anyway, what I am saying here is let your imagination soar! This is the chance to be as creative as you want and to bring your creations to life (if you so choose)! Though if you do make an alien species, try to explain some things about said species in the character sheet.
What isn’t allowed: I’m going to disallow PC villains. You can have an antihero (as long as it remains forum appropriate), but the ship won’t let villains on board. Also, super fights can get chaotic, so it’s best to simplify things by having the RP be more cooperative, and having villains be notable NPCs. If you have a villain idea though, tell me and we can talk about making them an NPC in an arc.
Character sheet changes: If your character has powers (not a requirement) please list them under “Powers” on the character sheet. In addition, I’m adding a stat to the SPECIAL stats called Power which indicates the scale of how potent your character’s powers are. To accommodate this, I’m changing the number of points available to 48, giving six more points to spend.
Powers:
The Power stat determines how potent your abilities are. If you don’t have powers, you don’t need to put anything in this one and instead can use the extra 6 points for whatever stat(s) you want. There are a few things to keep in mind.
One: Do not godmod. Set your character’s power, describe their potential and their weaknesses, and don’t deviate from it. Stay consistent. If something logically follows from the power given, that’s OK, but no motorboats made of web or anything like that.
Two: No reality or time warping. These kinds of powers can break the consistency or continuity of the story. That’s what killed the last superhero RP.
Three: (omg does this ever end…) things like a dog’s sense of smell are not considered powers if you play a dog (but are if you play a human), but if you are a fire breathing dragon you need to consider that a power.
Here are the different power levels and the values for the Power stat that match up with them. See http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SuperWeight as a reference to what these weights mean:
0 – muggle weight. These people have no powers or abilities standing above what are normal. I will have activities for people who decide not to play as heroes ready, as they might not be able to participate in all major arcs.
1-2 – Iron weight. This is the only weight where you can have something like super strength without absolutely needing to set the original stat to 10. It still needs to be an 8 or 9 at least though.
3-4 – Abnormal weight. Anything above this gets nerfed by a power limiter while on the Beacon of Hope with the exception being defensive powers and during attacks by hostiles.
5-6 – Super weight. Anything 6 or above must have some specific weakness. Try to make it logical, I am not a fan of Kryptonite factors.
7-8 – Hyper weight. A warning for this weight and above: They will not be welcome on all assignments and arcs. You don’t send Mr. Megaton Punch in to stop a galactic bank robbery. (don’t worry though; I will have stuff for you to do)
9-10 – World weight. Characters with this weight will be nerfed by a power limiter 24/7, being brought down to 4 while on ship and 7 when in a standard super fight. The only time they are allowed to be full power is when facing omega level (world ending) threats.
Finally:
I realize that people have lives and real life comes first, but please, please, please, PLEASE don’t go absent for more than a few days without telling me. When you go absent, anyone you are RPing with also can’t post. If the RP goes quiet for 48-72 hours, I will look for whose turn it is and give them a poke.
I’m hoping to start the RP with 5-6 people including me and a co-GM. However, there is no set upper limit. The ship is 500 miles long after all.
*Species must be sentient in order to properly RP, and they obviously must be able to fit in the ship, so no giant space whales.
Character Name: Solomon Cohen
Codename: “Hivemind”
Color: #00BF00
Type: Main
Species/Breed: Human
Age: 50 human years
Neighborhood: Beacon Of Hope
Powers: Solomon is a powerful technopath and a zero range telepath. This means that he is able to exert psychic control over a near unlimited number of computer run systems, though he cannot take over sentient systems. As a zero range telepath, he can communicate psychically with someone if he is in direct contact with them.
Weakness: An EMP can knock out most of the systems under his control. In addition, his human body is vulnerable. He has a neurological condition that, among other things, causes him to be hyper-sensitive to light and sounds. If his physical body is in pain he starts to lose his control of some of his controlled systems.
Appearance: Solomon in person has chaotic dark brown hair and light brown skin color. He typically wears lightweight cotton and polyester casual clothing, as most other things “feel wrong” to him. He is a little over 6 feet tall and wears glasses that filter out light and also come equipped with a Heads-Up-Display. He has a fairly thin build that betrays a lack of activity in his lifestyle.
Personality: Solomon is highly asocial, but more because being around people puts him under a great deal of stress than it is a case of having no desire to interact. He typically hides in his room or on the bridge, interacting with others through telepathically controlled robots. He finds the indirect interaction to be much less stressful. He is extraordinarily intelligent partly because he has millions of computers his mind is connected to, and partly because he can focus on an interesting subject for quite a long time, studying it until there is nothing more to study.
Other notes: Solomon is the inventor and captain of the Beacon of Hope. He “pilots” the ship using his technopathy. Calling him a captain or a pilot of the ship is somewhat understating things, as the ship is more like an extension of his own person. The “AI” of the ship is not, in fact, and AI. It is Solomon, controlling the ship with his mind. Any robots he builds and deploys in the ship are in the same way extensions of Solomon. He recently began recruiting for the Cosmic Champions again after their decline following the departure of his brother, Justus, five years prior to the events of this RP.
S.P.E.C.I.A.L stats:
- Strength: 4
- Perception: 6
- Endurance: 4
- Charisma: 5
- Intelligence: 10
- Agility: 5
- Luck: 6
- Power: 8
Post your character sheets here if you want to play. Or you can ask any questions you have. I will try to answer the best I can.Character Name: Randy Steele
Codename: “The Lycan”
Color: Bold
Type: Main
Species/Breed: Lycanthrope
Age: 52 human years
Neighborhood: Beacon Of Hope
Powers: The Lycan is, as the name implies, a lycan. He is a wolf-like creature that shapeshifts into a human. In this universe, however, lycan’s are different from other places. They don’t infect others with lycanthropy, as that isn’t a thing. Lycan’s are a species. Instead they possess venom in their bites that cause people to hallucinate their worst fears. Though this is not really a power, the Lycan is also a master of smoke and mirrors, as well as playing to people’s expectations of horror tropes.
Weakness: N/A (power level isn't high enough to need one.)
Appearance: In his wolf form, he takes the shape of a midnight black bipedal wolf. He stands at nearly 7 feet tall. He has a heavy, muscular build and stands on semi-digitigrade legs that aid him in fast movement. His fur is reminiscent of when shadows are cast on shadows, and it is somewhat stiff and prickly to the touch. In his human form, Randy is just over 6 feet tall (he doesn’t have the long ears anymore.) and still has the heavy muscular build. His hair is the color of his fur. He possesses some features that might tip off the perceptive that he isn’t human, such as his large irises and the fact that he has claws instead of nails. He hides these with contacts and false nails. Finally, he wears casual clothes that adapt between forms and goggles that help him see better in the daytime.
Personality: While he looks fierce, he is actually quite docile. When he isn’t fighting crime, he is often just either relaxing, hoping nobody catches him napping at his workbench, or he is building new devices he can use for crime fighting. He is friendly, yet cautious, towards strangers and is willing to hang out with new people. He thoroughly enjoys horror movies and inventing. When fighting crime, however, he turns the battleground into a horror movie, hunting his opponents down and quietly incapacitating them one by one, dragging them into the darkness.
Other notes: Randy is the father of Eira from RGV and the husband of Morgan Steele, aka “The Tempest” (I expect to introduce her later, but for now…). He cares about them both deeply and tries to protect them despite admitting that they are both much more powerful than he is. Because of his caring nature (and because he is one of the few founders left in the group), Solomon appointed him to introduce new recruits for the Champions and get them equipped.
S.P.E.C.I.A.L stats:
- Strength: 8
- Perception: 5
- Endurance: 6
- Charisma: 5
- Intelligence: 9
- Agility: 6
- Luck: 5
- Power: 4
EDIT: There has been a little confusion as to what conflicts there can be if villains are not allowed on the ship. Quests and arcs involving villains will either be them attacking the BoH from the outside, or the Champions have been called to stop villains that are posing a threat planetside. The Beacon scans for distress signals and signs of trouble and then sends heroes in response. Otherwise,the army of supers would be kind of pointless. There are more supers on board than would ever be needed for simple security on a spacecraft.
Also, there has been some confusion in the past about weaknesses. They are meant to be a way for a villain to get past your character's primary power so that nobody can solve every problem themselves. This is to encourage teamwork and prevent godmoding. Weaknesses must be something that either keeps the power from working properly, weakens the power, or otherwise makes the power ineffective. An offensive power's weakness can't be that people could get hurt, that's the point of it. A power's weakness can't be that it corrupts the player or makes them unstable, as that could lead to a PC villain, which isn't allowed. Keep this in mind when making a character.