City of Heroes (SIGN UPS)

[Mystic_clown]

Wherever there are people, there is crime. Where there are heroes, there are villains, and where there are super heroes, there are super villains.

And Megatropolis City is no exception.

A large city, built on an artificial island many years ago, Megatropolis has become a melting pot for ideas, technology, and cultures, and has become renowned around the United States, and most of the world. However, at the same time, the city has become a hive of criminal activity. And some of these criminals aren’t just regular thugs or burglers. Some of these criminals have abilities far beyond that of regular men, and are more than willing to endanger everyone around them in order to fulfil their own sinister objectives.

However, where there is evil, there is always good. There are those who choose to use their special abilities to combat these super powered villains to protect the peace. Whether they do this publicly, or hidden in the shadows, these beings are looked up to, admired, and adored by those who they protect. As long as there is evil, there will always be justice to face it.

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Now, this is basically a free roaming Superhero RPG. The plot will twist and turn according to what you do, so there is no set plot for this…at least for now. I will throw in events and catastrophes in order to keep you guys interested, as well as controlling the villains of the piece, but ultimately, I will try to focus the story on YOU guys. That’s right, YOU, or rather, your characters.

Speaking of which, character creation will be a little different. Using the character creation system from the roleplaying game ICONS, I will be randomising your characters powers, how strong they are, etc. Because in reality, most heroes don’t get to choose what their powers are, and your characters should be no exception. Of course, you still have plenty of freedom for your characters. So if you want to join, PM me, and I’ll work out your powers, then use the sign up form below. As for specialties, you may choose what specialties you have, only how many your character has are randomised.

Specialties:
-Acrobatics
-Aerial Combat
-Art (Drawing, Painting, Sculpture, any other visual art)
-Athletics
-Business
-Computers
-Criminology
-Drive
-Electronics
-Investigation
-Languages
-Law
-Leadership
-Martial Arts
-Medicine
-Mechanics
-Mental Resistance
-Military
-Occult
-Performance (acting, comedy, singing, music, other similar art forms)
-Pilot
-Psychiatry
-Science (anthropology, archaeology, astronomy, biology, chemistry, ecology, and other science fields)
-Sleight of Hand
-Stealth
-Underwater Combat
-Weapons (blades, bludgeons, bows, guns and throwing)
-Wrestling

Name: your real name.
Alias: What is your hero identity known as?
Age:
Gender:
Origin:
Race: applies to those with Unearthly and Artificial origins
Appearance: please try to include your alter ego as well. How do you look when not fighting crime?
Personality:
Powers: Your main weapons in fighting crime, of course.
Specialies: what non super skills do you specialise in?
History: try to tie this to your origin as well.
Relations: relationships make the world go round.
Other:

Mine will be up a little later.

[Asilynne]

Name: Dr. Grace Kells
Alias: Leaper
Age: 26
Gender: Female
Origin: Transformed
Race: Mutated Human
Appearance: Her alter ego has blond hair and blue eyes, her hair is shoulder length and neatly kept, and she wears gold rimmed round glasses. She normally dresses casually when not at work, but very neat and put together, in whites, silvers and golds. When at work she has a white labcoat and DNA projection goggles.
Her hero appearance physically is about the same, save for the fact that her eyes are now a bright gold. She has to wear blue contacts now when shes dressed normally. Ill make up her superhero outfit a bit later.
Personality: Very calm and logical, but not cold and without emotion. She is curious and likes to try to figure out how things work, and whether or not certain behaviors are coded into DNA or are learned behaviors instead. Shes quiet, and rarely speaks, preferring instead to think things through before giving her opinions or observations. She isn’t one to blindly rush in, instead gathering information before engaging in any sort of action. Has very sharp perceptive skills and is very intelligent. Is a bit naiive in social situations though.
Powers: Leaping- Able to jump out of visual range, Forcefield- Generate a forcefield to protect myself through force of will (if I’m stunned or dazed I can’t use it), Life Drain- Drain a targets life force from a max of 10 ft away, to heal myself.
Specialies: Acrobatics, Medicine, Biology
History: She was born in a normal family, and tended to keep to herself. She showed herself to be very smart at a young age, although quite the loner, preferring to spend her time in the library instead of out with friends. She taught herself many things, absorbing knowledge from books like a sponge. She was often bullied by the other kids, who treated her very unfairly and often roughed her up. Despite this she excelled in school and made it into a very high end University, where she specialized in human DNA. While pulling an all nighter in one of the labs, she was exposed to an experimental substance that had been locked away by one of the professors. In that case, her curiousity got the better of her and as it made contact with her skin it altered her DNA. The effects weren’t fully known until months later when her powers began emerging accidentally. Over the years since then shes gotten better control over her powers and had begun using them for good, defending the downtrodden and the underdogs.
Relations: Open
Other: Has a british accent.

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

Hehee, my first RPG sign-up.

Name: Sven Johanson.

Alias: Superbbrain

Age: 30

Gender: Male

Origin: GIMMICK. Meaning all my powers come from devices, like Batman. This of course means my devices, and powers included, can be stolen.

Appearance: Sven Johanson is rather thin, 187 cm tall, red hair, no beard, wears usually a white lab coat and doesn't care much about his other clothes. Just what he finds from his wardrobe. Plus, he wears glasses. However, his alter ego Superbbrain wears always blue hooded overalls with lots of pockets for devices. His hair gets also a new color that is black.

Personality: His identity is secret and in real life, he plays a nerd not interested in fighting. However, he is open-minded and creative, which he must be in order to make those devices he needs.

Powers:
1. Reflection (strong) - This is a defensive ability, allowing me to bounce attacks back at my attackers. This strong ability can deflect all weak and some very strong attacks.
2. Transformation Ray (moderate) - This ray allows me to change the shapes of objects and people into other things. However, this does have a limitation that transformation is appearance only, they don't gain any of the physical properties and additional limit is that it doesn't always work on humanoids.
3. Flight (strong) - the ability to fly, obviously. This strong ability allows me to fly at a maximum of 110km/hour.
4. Invisibility (strong) - This makes me invisible to the naked eye, though smell, sound, rain and such can give me away. I can also turn others and objects invisible as long as I'm touching them.
This ability also comes with a bonus power, Invisiblity Ray, allowing me to turn others invisible from a distance. To have it though, I must surrender one of my other powers.

Specialies: Computers, Science

History: Sven Johanson is originally a Swedish scientist that has moved to the States. Seeing the city of Megatropolis facing crimes done by super criminals, he wants to get rid of them with the power of science. So he invents cadgets, chemicals and other stuff he can find helpful. That's right, he drinks chemicals in order to maintain his powers.

Relations: Not married, has relatives in both Sweden and America. Sometimes gives lectures in universities, where has his collagues. Also, if there are other players in this RPG who'd like it, I would like him to establish a relationship with some of them too.

Other: Likes videogames and computer games and is also a programmer. Often challenges kids living near to him to play.

[Blademaster]

This title sounds familiar, somehow...


Name: None; has been nicknamed 'Peter' because it sounds similar to his codename
Alias: Project PIDOW (PIE-doe): Psionic Interdimensional Organic Weapon
Age: Appears to be young, maybe 15 at the oldest
Gender: Male
Origin: Artificial
Race: Humanoid
Appearance: Our poor nameless friend is a beginning superhero. So he has no in-uniform clothes yet. His casual clothes consist of plain jeans, a new pair of sneakers, and a T-shirt. He hasn't been shopping for long, hence his limited wardrobe.
Personality: Peter is a nice kid, very shy, but he's scared of EVERYTHING. He tends to laugh nervously a lot, and anything that poses even a SLIGHT threat to him will cause him to freak out and shield himself, which can in turn trigger his powers inadvertantly.
Powers:
1. Immobilization (strong) - He can freeze people, animals, and objects within his proximity and stop them from moving. His primary defense.
2. Animation (moderate) - He can animate and control objects around him with limited success, which typically results in him sending things flying around randomly. His other primary defense.
3. Duplication (mild) - He can summon up copies of himself from alternate timelines. At the moment, he can only summon up to 5 duplicates and they can only be from a short timespan in the past or future (relatively speaking).
4. Time travel (moderate) - His secret weapon. He can instantly warp across time and space to the near past or future. When he eventually realizes the potential of this skill and masters it, it will make him immensely powerful.
Specialties: Art, Investigation, Stealth
History: Peter's history is largely clouded because he wasn't ALIVE during most of it. According to him, the earliest thing he remembers is being surrounded by people in a bright white room, looking out at them from inside a glass tube. He was kept in the tube for awhile, then he was put in a room and some strange equipment was attached to him. Everything after that, he claims, is fuzzy because his powers first manifested during this time, somehow controlled but not by him. He remembers the room as being "scary," and that the people there wanted "to hurt him and for him to hurt others."
He eventually was coerced into using his duplication powers, which terrified him. His counterparts were equally horrified, and when instructed to banish his duplicates, he nearly dropped dead from fear on the spot. In a frenzied, suicidal panic, he switched places with one of his duplicates at the last second, damaging the equipment he was forced to wear (some sort of interconnected series of black bands that wrapped his ankles, wrists, knees, elbows, thighs, waist, chest, and neck, culminating in a strange visor strapped over his mouth and nose). He found himself in the same place, but the people around him looked a bit younger. He quickly found himself somehow in control of his duplication power and repeated the process, over and over in a desperate attempt to escape that awful place, before finally winding up in a city of some kind, at night.
It was there that he was discovered, a totally unknown boy lost and crying, clothed in a hospital gown of some kind and several bands attached to a strange mask hanging off and dragging behind him. Recognizing his bizarre abilities and what they could mean for him and the world around him, the woman who found him took him in; he has been living with her for about 2 months now.
Relations: Obviously very open... Perhaps Dr. Kells is the one who took him in...?
Other: Despite his appearance, he is actually only about sixteen months 'old.' In fact, going chronologically, he is actually -29 years old.


And yes, he's artificial because he was made in a lab from various cells, lab-grown comic book freak cells, and multi-trillion dollar tachyon technology. So there.

[Asilynne]

Im cool with having Dr. Kells taking him in ;D

[Mystic_clown]

Asilynne: accepted for now. Looking forward to seeing the rest.

Mikachu: accepted. Hope you enjoy your first RPG

Blademaster: Accepted. Looking forward to have time ^&*#ing schenanigans with your character.

And now, without further ado, my character.

Name: Damian Arkens
Alias: Chord
Age: 19
Gender: Male
Origin: Transformed
Race: Super Human
Appearance: Damian stands at 5’8’’ with a lean build and a slightly pale complexion, one of the physical side effects of the experiment. His eyes are a bright orange, though he hides them behind brown contacts and his hair is platinum blonde, falling messily down to his chin. He has slightly sharp features, and an almost wolfish smirk.

In regular society, he dresses like a regular teenage slacker. With a white sweat shirt, slightly baggy black pants, and old black combat boots. He wears a black choker around his neck and on some occasions wears black fingerless gloves.

When fighting crime, Damian wears full body black leathers, with numerous belts and buckles around the waist, arms and legs. He wears black, shiny combat boots and gloves. He no longer wears the contacts and hides the top side of his face behind a sharp, black mask with a pointed nose. His hair is slicked back and spiked. He carries around a black electric guitar, which is normally strapped to his back.
Personality: Damian can be best described as a loudmouth teenager. He’s cocky, loud, and tends to make a lot of wisecracks during battle. He does have a tendency to pick fights, and is a bit reckless in his tactics. However, despite this, he does know right from wrong, and has a staunch hatred of those who use and abuse others, mainly due to his own past. He will fight to protect others, and will throw his all into it.
Powers: Damian has control over the medium of sound. He can use sound as a weapon, ranging from deafening people to letting out a shockwave that can shatter glass and rupture metal. He can also use sound as a barrier to stop, or at least weaken, oncoming attacks. He can detect sounds around him, and can almost pinpoint where certain sounds come from. Finally, he can manipulate where sound waves go, allowing people to hear certain sounds and preventing them from hearing others. (Elemental Control (Sounds) – Attack, Defensive, Detection and Shaping)
Specialties:
-Music
-Bludgeoning Weapons
-Athletics
History: Damian’s most recent, clear memory was waking up in a hospital bed at the age of 17, apparently being found unconscious on the side of a road. Once he had recovered, he was taken in by one of the doctors from the hospital and her family. As Damian settled into his new life, he discovered his ability to manipulate sound while listening to music in his room. After experimenting with his abilities while his foster family wasn’t looking, Damian at first used his powers for more self serving reasons, such as pranks.

However, this changed when he one evening, when walking home from a club, came across a poor man being mugged. Ready to run in to fight to help the guy, Damian accidently triggered his powers, knocking the muggers unconscious. The victim, still a bit shaken up by what happened, thanked Damian before fleeing, unable to see him clearly in the darkness. Being a hero felt kind of nice to the platinum blonde, and in typical teenage fashion, decided to do some more. Of course, he’d need an alter ego. Taking ideas from comic books, Damian crafted his costume in secret, and adopted the name “Chord”. He decided to use the electric guitar his parents gave him as a way to generate the sound he can control, as well as adding to his super hero persona. It wasn’t long before the name “Chord” hit the papers.

Recently though, Damian has been starting to have flashes, memories from his past. Flashes involving experiments, pain, an escape, and others like himself. He hasn’t worked out the full story yet, but he has figured out that his powers were not natural. Furthermore, one word keeps appearing over, and over again.

Grave…
Relations: Has one a couple of occassions teamed up with Deadpunk to take down criminals. As a result is on good terms with him.
Other: Is very fond of sea salt, and tends to put it on everything.

[Crystal Tears]

Name: Kate Worthington
Alias: She doesn't have one.
Age: 25, or she appears this age.
Gender: Female
Origin: Unearthly
Race: Being from another plane of existence, but she thinks she's human
Appearance: Kate is one of the many street-savvy women in the hive of downtown Megatropolis City. She has a sleek sense of fashion and appearance, always look her best for the people around her. She stands at 5'8'', with dark brown hair (complete with highlight and lowlights) that comes down about an inch or two below her shoulder, though its a bit longer when she straightens it. She has quite the fashion sense, but usually stays to darker colours, rather then bright ones. Her eyes are a dark brown, though they tend to turn an electric blue when a surge of strong emotions overtake her. When using her powers, strange, alien lines will appear on her skin and radiate the same bright electric blue colour, they however, quickly fade and disappear when she uses her chameleon ability, able to hide them.
Personality: Kate for the most part, keeps to herself. She's polite enough to people she doesn't know, but she doesn't go out of her way to make friends. She has a couple of close ones and that's enough for her. However, she does go out occassionally and likes to have fun, enjoying a night on the town. She has a clear definition of right and wrong, and doesn't get caught up in the black, white and grey ideal. To her, there is only black and white, and people need to fess up to what they're doing. She has a good sense of humour, and a strong opinion, one that sometimes she can't hold back, or won't change due to her head-strong, stubborn nature. She has a rather dry, sarcastic sense of humour that can drop down to the gutter occassionally, which means most of the time she's smirking. Oh, and she doesn't know how to take compliments, often brushing them off as undeserved or just awkward.
Powers: 1. Wizardry (strong) - The power of magic. Simple as that.
Chosen form: Gadgets - you posses, or can make, many devices to perform these magical abilities. However, these devices can be taken from you.
2. Chameleon (strong) - The ability to change you, your clothing, and anything your holding into colours to blend with the background. Similar to invisibility, only much easier to detect.
Specialties: Driving, Electronics, and Weapons (Guns)
History: Kate, unaware of her origins, grew up and has had a normal life. She wanted nothing to do with the various crimelords and 'heroes' running around the city. All her life though, she's been plagued with dreams that were both terrifying and amazing, showing a word that's nothing like Earth in anyway. It's become her personal quest to figure out what they mean and how they relate to her. She knows of only one of her powers, Chameleon, she discovered it when a man broke into her house and she hid in the closet, blending in with the darkness and shadows.
Kate's father taught her how to use numerous weapons, but she's more proficient with a gun. She's recently acquired one as she doesn't know where her search with take her.
Relations: Open?
Other: She's an author, having wrote a couple of pretty standard romance novels for a big company for a couple of years. Now, she's working on another piece of work that's completely in the science fiction genre. Her pen name 'Katie Quinn' is well known in the book world, having started with children's books, then moving on to the romance genre which entertained her for a bit.

[Unbraced]

Is this heros only or can I be a villain?

[Mystic_clown]

Heroes only, though you can be an anti-hero.

[Heald]

With the powers given, it was too easy to go for a vampire/necromancer style character. I decided to go for something a little different.

Name: Mack Evans

Alias: Deadpunk

Age: 17

Gender: Male

Origin: Transformed - You gained your powers through some sort of experiment or accident. Either way, you gaining your powers was not intentional.

Race: Human

Appearance: Deadpunk's (as he always goes by; he is (almost) never in 'normal' mode) appearance is dependent on his power. When he drains life, he returns to his youthful looks. Every hour that goes by without draining life, his face becomes gaunt, then decayed, until finally only becoming a bloody skull with eyes (he fully assumes this form 24 hours after he last drained life). As a result, he always wears a hockey mask, both to mask his true identity and to mask his hideous disfigurement. He is African-American, but his skin becomes more pale and grey as he goes without life. Otherwise, when he is at full 'life', he has black dreadlocks, a youthful & unblemished face and brown eyes (that slowly become red as he goes without life). He is around 5' 11" and has a slim yet athletic build. He normally wears a plain black shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a dark-grey short-sleeved hooded top jeans and black hi-tops.

Personality: A very divided individual. Has a strong sense of justice and social responsibility, but at the same time feels life is unfair and that his powers are a curse, rather than a blessing. As such, he has become withdrawn from normal society and has cut off all ties with friends and family (who believe him dead). Finds it difficult to get close to people. He is understanding, but is also blunt and quick to anger, allowing emotion to cloud his judgement. He has trust and authority issues, but is often selfless to the point of recklessness. He is aware of his morbid nature and will use terror as a part of his arsenal, speaking in a rough, deep manner (like Batman).

Powers:
1. Life Drain (moderate) - The ability to drain the life out of others to heal yourself simply by touching them.
2.Burrowing (strong) - You have the ability to burrow under the ground. You can burrow through almost all but the strongest of materials.
3. Astral Projection (strong) - You can project your astral form (mind and spirit) from your body, leaving it in a coma-like state. You cannot interact with the physical world, but you can fly and phase through objects. You can also travel to dimensions linked to the astral plain. Those with astral detection or telepathy can detect you. If your body is destroyed, you remain trapped in your astral form.
4. Binding (strong) - you can project an attack that binds or traps your target, such as mud, glue, webbing, etc.

Specialties: Weapons (specifically, bludgeoning weapons), Acrobatics

History: Mack was an ordinary teenager from a large but poor family living in the slums of Megatropolis, but he made the best of his situation, trying hard at school and getting into basketball. He is unsure of how he quite gained his powers, but one year prior to the present, he was trying to shake off a gang of muggers and hopped a fence into, unknown to him, was a disused morgue that was being used by a supervillain specialising in reanimating the corpses there. The villain did not take kindly to Mack's trespassing and ambushed him, using his magics to try to kill him. Attempting to fight back, Mack accidentally triggered an explosion. He woke up minutes later, although not in his body, but in his astral state. He found his body amongst the ruins of the morgue and entered it, it being still alive, but barely (and his features disfigured by scalds and burns). Unaware of his powers, he, in terrible pain, attempted to seek help, but grabbing at people indiscriminately, he drained them of life accidentally. Since then, he has gained control of his powers (and also gained full realisation of his other powers) but has chosen to use his powers to fight crime. He never went back home, instead spending his nights on the streets and sleeping rough, before finally finding a disused storage cellar in an old warehouse complex near his neighbourhood, where he operates from (often keeping a watchful eye over his neighbourhood or the city in his astral form).

Relations: Has a large family including a mother and brothers and sisters but he no longers makes contact with them (although he will often visit them in his astral form).

Other: Carries a close-combat weapon at all times, like a bat or a metal pole (he has found a long metal pole that unscrews in the middle that he uses as a quarter-staff, this has become his signature weapon).

His theme song is The Prodigy - Take Me To The Hospital

[Mystic_clown]

Crystal Tears: Accepted.

Heald: Accepted. Mind if Chord has met Deadpunk a couple of times while crime fighting?

Ok, we've got a good lot. Just waiting for a few more people who I gave powers to sign up before starting. (you know who you are)

[Heald]

M_c: That sounds great, the two characters are very compatible. Feel free to do whatever in your history or something (like they worked together to bring down a gang or a supervillain or something).