Small Team: Masks Play-by-Post

vd**Placeholder landing page for the Masks PbP**

File:Masks PBP (Play-by-Post) Brainswarming Survey (Responses) - Sheet3.pdf

Set in an Alternate Universe to Big Team

Connections to B-Verse requires approval from appropriate PC's player or B-GM

Masks PbP Player Files [1]

Masks PbP Setting Outline[2]

# **New Halcyon: Building A Better Tomorrow**

## **Aesthetics**

* **There is a growing divide between the Neo-Halcyon that everyone sees, filled with gilded architechture and a perfect system, and the Neo-Halcyon underbelly that’s full of crime, where those deemed unworthy of society must fend for themselves.**
* **While not quite back to its full majesty of yesteryear, the Shining City still makes an impressive sight, whether stretching above the horizon or sprawled across a map.**
* **The past styles of “neat, clean, and efficient” have been reimagined, in a spirit of rebellious survival, with vivid colors and light that mark most corners of the city. However, some of the more influential (read: institutionally entrenched) have clung to “traditional” styles.**
* **Popular Music? Synthwave/Retrowave**

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkgR0SxmMKo

## **Day-to-Day Life**

* **Public transportation is commonly, and freely, available. This tends to take the shape of either bus shuttles or air trams (a cross between helicopters and trains).**

* + **Private transportation methods are almost solely in the form of motorcycles. In this case, though, they often have three wheels for stability and an optional protective hatch. Small road footprints, low energy needs, and easy “linking” mechanisms (for more passengers) have made these wildly popular.**
* **The combination of technological innovation, economic stability, and a massive outpouring following The Accident, has meant strong support for social assistance programs.**

* + **From birth through adulthood, all persons are guaranteed subsidized access to medical care (curative and preventative). However, anything beyond that (ie cybernetics, cosmetics, etc.) quickly becomes prohibitively expensive, as a means to support more basic care services and often to make a profit.**
	+ **For a corporation to be granted land rights and other business allowances, they are mandated to maintain a “minimum investiture.” Each is required to report all monies exchanged during the course of a month, in addition to providing a percentage of said amount that is invested locally through various non-profit programs. The formula used to be based on employment rates and square footage, but unethical “contracts” and takeovers of small businesses led to a revamping to the current system. Funds are typically portioned based on the usage rates of services from the previous month, though calendar trends are taken into account (like increased clothing needs at winter and such).**

## **Healthcare**

* **Most vaccines and basic care are socialized but there are other problems like distribution and the advantages of extra resources, leading to some areas faring better than others.**

## **Magic and Magitech**

* **Magic exists. It is as much a part of the world as gravity, day and night, or those strange fuzzies that gather on your socks.**
* **Magitech, the combination of magic and technology, is a major part of everyday life. For those keen on understanding it, and in particular excelling in the field, it’s quite common to begin pursuing as young as adolescence. This could be through more traditional schooling programs, an apprenticeship, or hanging around an eccentric neighbor.**
* **How common and accessible is Magic in 2-Verse? The more useful question is "What quality and consistency of magic can you access?" There are at least a handful of products, services, etc. that try to sell people on "self-improvement." For example, OmegaLife Nutrition Supplements had a rather.... mishandled product that resulted in many outcomes. On the better (rarer) end, you turn into a plant person. On the other end, you burnout (as if taking high-powered stimulants) or just fade away (as if taking tainted depressants). People as a general rule might be careful about what they ingest or attach. Devices or practitioners tend to be trusted more.**

### **Sources of Magic & Magical Energy**

* **‘The void,’ as best we understand it, is a naturally-occurring energy form, behaving like the anti-matter of magic. Some have gone as far as to describe it as “destructive,” “entropic,” and “the antithesis of all existence.” It is incredibly hard and dangerous to access, the only plentiful source seeming to be interdimensional spaces. As evidenced by The Accident, even this harsh environment is not without creatures that call it home.**

## **Major Events**

**Following The Accident, many public and private organizations rose to satisfy the needs and wishes of the distressed population. Not all of them have the people’s best interests in mind.**

* **The Accident: at an exclusive tech demo, malfunctioning void-based teleportation tech (highly experimental, only a few OmegaCorp secret projects that use it) opens a wormhole, unleashing the Void Serpent and causing massive destruction**

* + **A temporary team of adult heroes defeated the threat. Includes Comet, Torpedo/Christina Crossover, The Grey Wolf (the last one), and Magus Riot, among others.**
	+ **Spunky/Abbie Normal was born from the HEROIC SPIRIT of the team, brought out into physical form by interaction with the Void.**
	+ **Dread Witch/Maggie Shen’s parents, Michael and Yue Shen, were present at the tech demo**

## **Technology**

* **Companies still seeking new ways to use/implement magitech as well as other possible sources for it.**
* **Rare unsanctioned human experimentation.**
* **Prevalence of wearable (magi)tech w/ some AI (visors/glasses with a HUD, earpieces, light projecting bracelets for screens).**
* **Of much debate, and litigation, are the many products and services that sprang up, advertising "quick & easy" powers to anyone willing to pay. Very minor (and strange) superpowers are known to crop up every day.**
* **The combination of adaptability and necessity spurred growth in (magical) technology development.**
* **It’s no surprise that one of the major tech battlegrounds has been teleportation. Outside of the rare superpowered individual, the potential of bypassing costs and time for instant travel has proved elusive. For now.**

* + **As a bit of a given, any notion of manipulating the passage of time, or one’s “place” in it, is beyond even the greatest minds at the moment.**
* **Of course, such fervent research and testing in how lifeforms exist in physical (and metaphysical) space have led to significant advances in biotech and extradimensional mapping, among other areas. Of course, much of this is still experimental (and cost-prohibitive) for most.**
* **Tech (NO MAGIC) traditionalists are a vocal group in public policy and business, though popular opinion has them keeping mum in more personal spheres, typically.**
* **‘Ghosts’ - individuals with no digital footprint, intentionally or unintentionally erased from society's eye. Rare and illegal - the downsides often outweigh the benefits**
* **Nature is regularly the inspiration and medium for technology.**

* + **High-resistance materials derived from spidersilk**
	+ **Lights made from bioluminescent plants**

## **Themes**

* **Intellect and Romance triumph over brute force and cynicism**

* + **Love is love is love.**
* **Surviving, and beginning to thrive, through such tragedy has instilled a strong spirit of community in many Halcyonites. This includes ideals such as:**

	+ **Collectivism**

* + - **Smaller/no burden placed on PCs to fix the City (it’s not our job as teenagers to Save Halcyon From Oppressive Dystopia & instill a better system).**
	+ **Collaboration**

* + - **Conflict between Hopepunk/Solarpunk/Greenpunk and Cyberpunk “factions” but they both have relatively equal power.**
		- **A general utopia (in terms of basically satisfying human needs) w/ a seedy underbelly (the methods some people/companies use) instead of a complete dystopia**
	+ **Renewable energy**

* + - **Pollution, exploitation, and natural resource depletion have been a concern for some time. While some believe technology can “overcome” these obstacles, many are committed to more environmentally-friendly sciences.**
	+ **Doing Good Things because they’re the right thing to do,  instead of just exploitation & oppression in Mainstream Society.**

* + - **Heroes tend to have the moral high ground**
		- **Earnest Authority Figures who try do what’s right but struggle under a stacked system**
		- **Positive public opinion regarding most heroic efforts**
		- **Always a choice; Always an ally; Always a way to make things better, if you can make it happen.**

# **The Small Team Base**

**WORK IN PROGRESS, TBD: An abandoned architechture apartment complex with a courtyard. The insides are an eclectic mix of graffiti and the gathered remnants and additions of generations of vagabond inhabitants. Scavenged furniture from five generations, wardrobes of vintage clothes, various half-finished or damaged forms of technology and magical artifacts and, of course, the haunt of our heroes. The apartment complex itself surrounds the courtyard that holds an unkempt garden that has but a single tree left due to only about an hour of sunlight exposure on its leaves each day**

# **The Shining City’s Sites**

## **Business District**

### **Good Vibes Fashion**

**A fashion boutique operated by Vivian Shen. It is an open secret among supers that Vivian operates a superhero costume design studio out of the back.**

* ====**Vivian Shen**====

* + **Aunt of Maggie Shen and Proprietor of Good Vibes, a fashion boutique known among supers to hide a superhero outfit studio in the back.**

## **Government District**

### **City Hall**

**Where public officials make decisions**

## **Public District**

### **The Museum of Unnatural History,**

**stands opposite the Museum of Natural History with Lincoln Square between them. One of its most famous exhibits is the teeth of a “Void Serpent” that once threatened Halcyon before being defeated by a Grey Wolf at the cost of his life.**

### **Halcyon City Botanical Gardens.**

**A large area near the city centre by the river full of exotic plants, greenhouses and open spaces. Amidst the gardens in a quiet corner is a statue of a former Grey Wolf.**

### **New Occupy OmegaCorp,**

**A semi-permanent camp of activists protesting OmegaCorps effects on the local climate. The original camp was burned down in a ‘freak accident’**

## **Schools & Universities**

### **University of New Halcyon Institute of Technology (UNHIT)**

**Technical/Engineering University with advanced degrees & online courses, that would let a 14 year old attend if they were smart enough, even if it’s rare. Think MIT, but in Halcyon, so also a bit magic. Prime spot for OmegaCorp & its subsidiaries to recruit top talent in engineering, computer sciences, etc.**

* ====**Dr. LeBlanc, a friend of the Davis’ and a leader in AI research and development at UNHIT, where he teaches.**====

### **Loretta Gay High School**

**Named for one of the city’s first openly “unmasked” heroes, Loretta Gay was a champion of the disenfranchised.**

# **Recognizable Residents**

## **Heroes**

### **Christina Crossover, aka Flux**

**Expert engineer in multiple fields, Future daughter of Christopher “Cyclone” Crossover**

### **Exile, aka X, aka Delia Hendricks**

**Social worker, Significant other of Christina Crossover, Transformed during [Incident]**

### **Comet**

**A guy with very fast, flashy flight and the ability to do low level air manipulation, enough to kick up dust or snow or sand, but not enough to actually push people around.**

## **Corporations**

* **Corporations that have mainly net-positive influences on the surface, but can utilize amoral methods.**
* **Negative corporate media coverage**
* **Untouchable corporate nemesis, with a shit-eating grin**
* **Corporations & influential people hire hackers & thieves to get info & resources (constant game of shifting leverage)**

### **OmegaCorp**

**Think Google+Amazon+FaceBook+Spectrum were all owned by the same company. They are ubiquitous. Everywhere. They’ve got a finger in pretty much every magitech-based pie you can think of, and some you haven’t.
Ties to weapon production and rampant pollution/natural resource depletion,
Ties to weapon production and rampant pollution/natural resource depletion,**

* **significant activist rebellion against said organization**
* **villains that are corporate hitmen**
* **programmed gem-like components of magitek that form the conduit between the magic and technology**
* **They’ve tried rebranding (with some meme-ably awful attempts). Most known: a Roman Legion Teddy Bear Toy line.**

**They’re moving technology forward, society forward. It’s all for the greater good….isn’t it?**

* ====**Gary Omega, CEO of OmegaCorp**====
* ====**Michael and Yue Shen, or Fear and Agony**====

* + **Executives at OmegaCorp, secret supervillains. Parents of Maggie ‘Dread Witch’ Shen**

### **Vulkan Industries**

**A smaller cybernetic/magitech R&D organization focused on enhancing the body. Believed to be a subsidiary or shell company for one of the larger corporations, but nobody has been able to find evidence to support the theory. It seems to be legitimate, but rumors circulate in darker circles that some of their facilities perform illegal human experimentation on ‘ghosts’ (individuals with no digital footprint- intentionally or unintentionally erased from society's eye).**

### **Aprico**

**A smaller company, founded by former OmegaCorp employees, that developed a highly advanced AI to most wearable tech that can run it. Surprising most everyone, it’s become wildly successful. If you listen closely, the AI’s voice might sound a little bit like their daughter.**

* ====**Orien Davis, Nohemi’s father, and CEO**====
* ====**Rosario Davis, Nohemi’s mother, and former head of OmegaCorp’s AI division**====

## **Organizations**

### **AEGIS**

**AEGIS is a Heavy Threat Response organization. Corporations buy AEGIS agents for espionage on other corporations. AEGIS works for every corporation as private military contractors. AEGIS has surveillance on dangerous and/or valuable person(s) of interest. Governments buy AEGIS teams to perform high risk counter terrorism.**

* **With the ever increasing power of corporations, new benefits came to light. Most pressing (and controversially) came seats on the Council responsible for oversight of AEGIS. It didn’t take long for these seats to be abused, as AEGIS was pressed into creating and diverting funding to a new, Corporation Focused Division. The new division was staffed mostly by PMCs, eventually leading the division being called PMC Division. PMC Division would see the lion’s share of the funding, at the expense of several other divisions. Force Division, composed duty bound soldiers from across the world, felt the consequences of this blatant favoritism the hardest. PMC Division would always get the better gear, the more advanced prototypes, and better benefits, leading to a build of resentment, shared by many other divisions who’d suffered budget cuts just so PMC Division would get more. As it stands, there is a harsh divide between Force Division and PMC Division in interests, mentality, and equipment.**
* **frustrated Force Division Superiors who have to deal with less than cooperative PMC Division members, arguments over jurisdiction,**
* **PMC (Private Military Correctives): the "private" division of AEGIS was more "dealing with private threats & interests" rather than controlled by the corps. so, stopping corporate espionage or destruction of their property. whereas the duty division would protect bridges & homes and the general public.**
* **AEGIS Tech: Personal augmentations (cybernetic, magitech, biochemical, etc.) are rarely available to agents. AugIS (Augments for Intervention and Security) can be identified by the utilitarian chrome finish and a micro-etched serial number for identification.**

* + ====**Pandora Vox**====

* + - **Cyberneticist/Augmentation doctor. She is apart of AEGIS’s PMC Division. She provides AugIS and medicine for augmented AEGIS agents.**
* **AEGIS Orbital Platforms: Space Stations**

* + **maybe extraterrestrial defense?**
	+ **maybe homebase for AEGIS?**
	+ **(because space is technically international waters)**

### **Guardian Medical Center**

**A small hospital that does good work but doesn't have the best facilities or funding due to their location, though the doctors are no less skilled for it. Even so, their circumstance occasionally makes them a target for less scrupulous organizations seeking new volunteers for testing, etc.**

* ====**Dr. Shandra Aleksi**====

* + **An on-call emergency doctor at Guardian Medical Center. Currently the unofficial caretaker of Aurora outside the team, though unable to obtain legal guardianship. Old acquaintance of Flux and/or Exile.**

### **Blackhalo’s Rebels**

**Significant activist rebellion and eco-counter terrorism**

### **Blackhalo’s Gov’t Spooks**

**Government organization (or similar) with a stake in “shooting or recruiting” spirits from the dreaming as they appear in the world-Government cover-ups and backroom deals with corporations feeding into magi-tech advances;**

### **Elemental’s Gov’t Stuff**

**An actual government and actual courts, however ineffectual, slow and/or corrupt, so that The Grey Wolf has somewhere to take the bad people they arrest.**

### **PPA**

**People’s Protectorate Alliance of New Halcyon: A MASSIVE, quasi-militant “neighborhood watch” program (Guardian Angels, cir 1979). Slowly reclaims neighborhoods from the underbelly of the city, and rehabilitates them. Funded in perpetuity by the estate of a wealthy hero from Halcyon’s past, and overseen by an active legacy/protege adult hero. Also responsible for organizing youth centers (Think Police Athletics League or similar), food, clothing and blood drives, and free clinics.**

### **Apostate Church of St. Vincent de Paul**

**(Or a fictional figure, devoted to the poor)**

**A splinter group broken off from the Anglican Church proper (Or some fictional religious organization) to “Do God’s work for the people.” Rejects the position of the Church as a political organization, and the encroaching influence of capitalism. Special focus on providing food and shelter for the poor. Funded by parishioners, and a team of young street level heroes calling themselves “The Merry Men.”**

### **Guapo’s Tacos**

**A small, local restaurant chain (3 brick and mortar locations, and a dozen food trucks) dedicated to serving healthy, authentic, responsibly sourced Mexican and Korean food to the community (A tall order in 20XX). Makes a special effort to hire, and donate to causes supporting ex-cons and kids left to the mercy of the system. A community staple, respected even by the criminal element. Restaurants and areas around Guapo’s trucks are considered neutral ground, where criminals, authorities, heroes, and villains may have a meal in peace, or break bread together and attempt to find some common ground. Guapo has no enemies, and is a pacifying influence on even the roughest parts of the city. Also, kickass karaoke nights! :D**

### **Witches**

* **Kimmy's The only child of a family of witches who hunt down supernatural phenomena and entities. Killed by some evil organization, she must rebuild her family’s legacy.**