▷ Heroes bleed. Heroes fall. Heroes die. They do what they must to protect the innocent and protect our world. Each action has its consequence for good or for evil and justice comes at a cost.
When their adversaries grew too powerful, the great superheroes of our age banded together to protect Earth. They fought together, side by side and defeated their enemies. In battle, they were brothers and sisters. But in peace, tensions began to rise. Leadership was contentious and with villains subdued, the best of them began to turn on each other. A decade of infighting left their ranks weak as sides were chosen and allegiances forged. There were many casualties. Those that survived fought in an epic war that raged for months, a war in which these all-powerful beings reduced the earth to a wasteland. As the skies grew dark over millions of innocent lives, something happened...
...time stopped and a new reality began.
This event would later become known as "The Convergence". No one knows why, how or who it was that intervened, save for one entity. An artificial intelligence had watched the battle as it raged. In a bid to save mankind and its defenders, it downloaded the consciousness of each hero to a "server" for safekeeping. The origin of the entity is unknown, but it survived the devastation. As the new reality was birthed, merging hundreds of timelines into one, the force was so great that the AI was greatly damaged and its data corrupted.
The AI had been programmed to awaken the superheroes under specific instructions. Due to its damaged hardware and the corrupted data, the AI rebooted from a back up source. The data was clean, but incomplete. But by then, the Old Earth was gone. With the New Earth reborn and time restored, our heroes began to wake; their histories erased, their memories changed, they were no longer themselves. The only evidence of their great deeds could be found in comic books, but like all mythologies and inspired tales, the details left much to be desired...
▷ As a mod team, we want you to know that you can come to us with anything. We promise to listen objectively and work with you to come to a resolution to the problem. We promise to be fair and honest. We want this to be a safe place and if you feel unsafe, bullied, harassed, belittled or condescended to, we want to know so we can do whatever possible to rectify the situation.
▷ Please do your research. While we understand that the game focuses around a supernatural plot and characters, we strive for realism to keep things grounded. We ask that you take this into account when working out your character's backstory and encourage research surrounding day-to-day plot, occupations and the lay of the land.
▷ If you bring another character into the community, please let the mods know by dropping a note in the dropbox or PMing us. Please do not mention it in your application for your privacy, as we will reply to application comments with a welcome comment and would not want any potential trackers to get the notification when it becomes unscreened.
▷ At the time of "The Convergence" your comic book persona (CBP) experienced a severing from their physical body. Their consciousness (soul, essence, etc) was removed from their physical body and stored on a secure server by the Artificial Intelligence. As their consciousness was stored for safekeeping, the AI looked for an alternate universe persona (AUP) in which to reunite your character's essence with a physical form. The AI found this in the New Earth, reincarnating the CBP in this new reality. Your character was born, raised and lived a life that was very different to their CBP. As the New Earth had no understanding of superheroes, your character became the person they would have been had they not been born with superhuman abilities.
▷ Because the new body was chosen at "random" to house the consciousness of your CBP, their looks and age do not matter, but we would prefer for you to adhere to their gender. Race is also arbitrary, but we would prefer that you racebend a traditionally white character, rather than whitewashing the race of a traditionally written minority character.
▷ Each character has an "Awakening" to their CBP. To members, this is when your character receives all of their cbp powers and items. For most characters, this will happen upon entering the game. Previously, there was a mass "Awakening" in June of 2016 and you may choose to use that Awakening if it suits your character's timeline better. If you choose to leave the game as a character and return later, you can resume them. If another writer brings in the same character, they must begin a new Awakening. You are free to be as creative as you like regarding how your character takes to these newfound powers and items.
▷ For the AI, memories that do not relate to the CBP pre-convergence are simply "the wrong data" manifesting itself and it will continue to work to reunite the character with the right data. The end goal of the AI is to completely transfer the CBP to the body selected for the character in the New Earth. Please note: The physical body is capable of housing both sets of memories, experiences, skills, feelings and personality traits. Before your character is awakened, the AUP will drive your character's persona. As the memories of the CBP return, it is up to the writer if any of the data from the AUP is saved or erased. This means that although your character is one single soul, they may choose to manifest themselves as two separate personalities to better cope with the situation. Please note that once erased, AUP memories cannot be added back to a character.
▷ Pre-Awakening, your character has lived in relative bliss, unbeknownst that they are a superhero. As their memories return, they will understand that they have the opportunity to override the AUP completely, merge their experiences with their own, or start a new life. Family, friends, etc, of the AUP may never know a change has even taken place. The details are up to you. Your character may choose to take up the mantle of superhero once more, or decide they prefer a quieter life with a few extra talents or precious items to help them get about their daily life. Memories will be unlocked in game through upgrades. For more information on upgrades and glitches, please see the Powers & Memories tab.
▷ Due to the nature of this game, crossovers are encouraged and there are no traditional "leaders" as they appear in the comics. In this reality, Batman and the Joker can be fraternal twins. Hawkgirl and Silk Spectre II can be best friends or lovers. Members also have free reign to choose a point in canon with which they prefer to write their character. We recommend the most recent comic timeline for ease, but this will not be policed. Timelines must be taken from comics, however, we want to encourage creativity so you are free to use other media (films, games, etc.) to inspire and round out your ideas.
▷ Although your CBP will enter the game without their memories, they will have their powers and items. The caveat, is that they aren't going to know how to use them yet. Keep in mind that any supernatural skin colors, body modifications or animal characteristics will not be in play here unless it is tied to their powers, like Angel and his wings for instance. Ronan the Accuser, however, will not have blue skin.
▷ The AI is an NPC, it is a neutral entity and cannot be tampered with by members. As the plot progresses, more information will be provided on the AI, it's origin, its mission and its true purpose.
▷ The Convergence occured amid a great battle in San Francisco, USA. As such, all characters will wake, live and work in and around the city of San Francisco.
▷ We encourage you to create the world around you, this includes businesses, homes, neighborhood activies, etc.
▷ Locations from the comics can be unlocked in the current reality and will be incentivised. Locations can be accessed by "keys", though they work more like portals and allow a character to travel to the location. Each character must unlock a separate key to access the location. Please note, the AUP body cannot survive in another location outside of New Earth for more than 72 hours.
▷ Locations can house certain items that belong to the superhero. Members can decide what these items are. For security precautions, we encourage members to choose to safekeep any dangerous items here until their character can safely handle them. Items can be picked up by other characters if more than one character has access to the same location. However, they can only be harnessed by the person they belong to. Even so, another character can steal them away, hide them somewhere else for safekeeping, or get up to mischief. -- We ask that these plots are dicussed in advance and both writers agree before they commence.
▷ Communication between somebody using a "key" and somebody in San Francisco is possible, but connectivity is weak. If both characters have keys to the same location, the signals are boosted.
▷ Keys cannot be transferred and are useless to other characters. Each key is marked by biological data belonging to the CBP as it is uploaded from the server.
▷ In June of 2016, a massive awakening began on New Earth. The reason remains a mystery to all but one, an artificial intelligence programmed to protect mankind and its heroes. For a time, there was no other activity until September which began another massive awakening. So far, the awakenings do not seem to have stopped.
▷ Your character will enter the game, or awaken, with all of their powers and items intact. The caveat is that they will not know how to use them. They will need to unlock memories related to their items, abilities and powers in order to harness them properly. Although they wake up with their powers, they may not know they exist until they manifest themselves. Discovering they suddenly have these powers or items will more than likely be startling to the character and they can try to learn to control them, but probably won't have much success until they unlock the corresponding memory.
▷ As a security precaution, the AI has assigned alternate names to each superhero. As such, your character will have three "names". Their real name, ie: Selena Kyle. Their superhero alias, ie: Catwoman and their civilian alias, ie: Serena Vanderbilt. Their civilian alias is tied to the AUP and its memories. As the game progresses and their memories are recovered, your character can choose which identity they prefer. Thus, villains can be redeemed and heroes can choose to renege on their responsibilities if they choose to do so.
▷ Memories are incentivised and part of upgrades that come to characters in the forms of dreams. Members may choose whether these manifest as dreams, nightmares, day dreams or hallucinations. Due to the security precautions, characters may find that their true names are blurred out in written documents or muted when they are addressed by other characters while they dream.
▷ Glitches are "corrupted data" being re-organised and backed up by the AI and serve as character development prompts. These glitches can cause any number of things to happen to your character from swapping bodies with another character to being caught in the rain without an umbrella. We encourage players to be creative with the glitches and use them to develop your character and to mess with them a little if you so choose.
▷ Unlocking memories will be limited to one per month. There is no limit to the number of glitches you can unlock. When you choose to unlock a memory or glitch, you may specify which one you would like to unlock or leave it up to random chance and allow the mods to select for you.
▷ Locations will be considered upgrades, but not in the traditional sense. They will be given out at random by the AI or may be used in conjunction with a glitch.