[CENTER][COLOR=SLATEGRAY][B]C H A R A C T E R   C O N C E P T   P R O P O S A L[/B][/COLOR][hr]
[img]https://i.imgur.com/PSrr0Nu.png[/img][h3][sup][sub]F A T H E R   T I M E  ♦   F R A N K E N S T E I N  ♦ 
  R A Y   P A L M E R  ♦[/sub][/sup][/h3][img]IMAGE/BANNER[/img]
[/CENTER][INDENT][B][SUP][SUB][H3]C H A R A C T E R   C O N C E P T:[/H3][/SUB][/SUP][/B][/INDENT][hr]
[CENTER][sup]"It's a strange world out there. Let's keep it that way."[/sup][/CENTER]
[INDENT][INDENT][i]Created under the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson, S.H.A.D.E. has been operating in some form or another for decades. Initially only a metahuman covert ops team, the scope of S.H.A.D.E. has expanded to encompass a multitude of operations for the US Government, with a particular focus on the catalog and containment of metahumans, aliens, assorted magiks, and other paranormal phenomena.

Originally under the control of the spirit of Uncle Sam himself, S.H.A.D.E. would deploy codename "Freedom Fighter" team assets to observe and contain metahuman threats worldwide, as well as to counter enemy metahuman combatants at the various theaters of the United States' military agenda. Uncle Sam would eventually retire from his Director's Chair, passing the role onto Father Time sometime in the mid-80s. Time would retrofit the organization's technology, outlook, and approach in order to properly contend with what Time predicted would be the next great age of the metahuman.

Through liason with Checkmate, A.R.G.U.S., and even a close working relationship with Elijah Snow's Planetary, S.H.A.D.E. has established itself as a modern powerhouse of paranormal research, with less focus on active field agents that destabilize local governments, and more focus put on surviellance and containment. Thanks to the efforts of S.H.A.D.E. scientist Ray Palmer, the organization's current base of operations is The Ant Farm, a three-inch micro-city currently hovering a thousand miles over Manhattan, caught in an errant breeze.

Father Time, in his infinite wisdom (as he would call it), has long predicted the eventual rise of metahumans to the forefront of global culture. For now, his eyes watch the bays of CCTV monitors that make up the nerve center of the Ant Farm with great interest. Waiting for the next big thing, America's first official "Super-Man", and whatever threats he may bring along with him.[/i][/indent][/indent]
[INDENT][B][SUP][SUB][H3]C H A R A C T E R   M O T I V A T I O N S   &   G O A L S:[/H3][/SUB][/SUP][/B][/INDENT][hr][INDENT][INDENT][i]To be completely frank: I'm more or less entirely new to these characters. I blitzed through Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E. this week and have done all the reading I can on the gang across every wiki I could get my mitts on, but they're less than well documented. For me, this smacks of opportunity -- the ability to carve out my own little paranormal niche using a mostly clean slate.

This isn't to suggest that I'm going to serverely change how these characters are presented in the comics, but ideally I'll be expanding and deepening what these characters have been shown to do. As stated above, they've been in precious few books so far, but this is a team that really has legs, and I'd like to see them run.

Ideally, this will read like a rip-roaring Science-Fantasy adventure, steeped at once in the schlocky tropes of old monster movies and in the gothic horror of the darkest corners of the DC Universe. This run is cribbing a lot of notes from Planetary if I'm honest, but I think that S.H.A.D.E. has the breadth of organization that I'd need to accomplish my goals. We're gonna go a lot of places on this ride and meet everyone interesting I could find in DC's bargain bin -- think of S.H.A.D.E. as a toast to the D-List.[/i][/indent][/indent]
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[hider= Cast]
[b]Father Time:[/b] A mysterious old man who finds himself reborn into a new form on each and every New Year's Day. Currently in the form of a domino-masked Japanese schoolgirl, Father Time maintains his position as Chairman and Director of S.H.A.D.E., a position he will defend zealously, oversight board be damned. Time likes to play things close to the vest, keeping secrets from even his closest allies. What does he have to hide?

[b]Ray Palmer:[/b] A brilliant physicist and developer of cutting edge matter compression technology through application of White Dwarf Star material. Palmer is S.H.A.D.E.'s official UN Liason, though as time has gone on, Palmer has more and more found himself personally involved with the science team.

[b]Frankenstein:[/b] A man out of time, searching for his purpose. Since his creation at Castle Frankenstein and the defeat of his creator, Victor, Frank has traveled the world, slaying all manner of monster and demon, and learning more than his fair share of Keats while he was at it.

[b]Dr. Nina Mazursky:[/b] An expert biologist with an interest in gene-splicing. Mazursky has been a part of S.H.A.D.E. for some time, since the death of her unborn child and her husband's suicide. Within S.H.A.D.E. she is responsible for decoding the metahuman genome alongside Kirk Langstrom. For the past decade, the work, and nothing but, has been Mazursky's life.

[b]Dr. Kirk Langstrom:[/b] A biologist and zoologist by trade, S.H.A.D.E. recruited Langstrom due to his ground breaking research on the combination of stem Cells and Chiroptera DNA. Though still looking to use his research to aid the blind and deaf, S.H.A.D.E. offers Langstorm as much wider array of resources to accomplish his goals, so long as he cooperates with their other efforts.

[b]Science Agent Belroy:[/b] By all rights a complete madman, "Science Agent" Belroy is the only S.H.A.D.E. agent to hold the title. He actually has the longest tenure with S.H.A.D.E. of any active operative, having been in the organization since the days of Uncle Sam. Due to inefficent bookkeeping, Belroy is often the [i]only[/i] one who recalls why certain pieces of S.H.A.D.E. tech function at all, or who can offer explanations for certain strange parts of The Ant Farm. it is this utility that lets him keep his tenure as S.H.A.D.E.'s only "Science Agent"... Whatever the hell that means.

[b]J.A.K.E.:[/b] One of the holdouts from the Uncle Sam Era, J.A.K.E. is the commander and sole surviving member of S.H.A.D.E.'s Robo-GI program. What GIs were not destroyed in battle were disassembled for parts and melted for scrap metal -- with the exception of J.A.K.E., who has begun to exhibit something that looks almost like sentience...

[b]Elijah Snow:[/b] A man whose name can be heard echoed through all the corners of recent history, Elijah Snow heads up the Planetary organization. Planetary's mission objectives tend to align with S.H.A.D.E.'s current operational parameters more often that not, so Father Time and Elijah have developed something of a friendship.[/hider]

[hider= Notes]
-To all Batman players: I don't NEED Kirk Langstrom/Man-Bat, but I would quite like him. Hopefully, we can work together with it, but otherwise, I defer control of him to you, of course.
[/hider][/i][/indent][/indent]
[INDENT][B][SUP][SUB][H3]S A M P L E   P O S T:[/H3][/SUB][/SUP][/B][/INDENT][hr][INDENT][INDENT][hider= Sample][center][img]https://i.imgur.com/PSrr0Nu.png[/img][/center]
[indent][b]S.H.A.D.E.[/b][/indent]
[indent][b]Issue 0[/b][/indent]
[hr]

[indent][b]New York City, NY --- 1000 miles above [i]Rudy’s Bar and Grill[/i][/b][/indent]
[hr]

High, high above the denizens of New York City, beyond the reach of the all but the most desperate skyscrapers, a three inch sphere meandered with the errant will of the breeze. By all appearances, a blip. An eye-floater to be blinked away. It simply could not be what it was: The Ant Farm, a diminutive city all on its own, floating out in its bubble to the farthest corners of the sky.

In all his years as acting chair of S.H.A.D.E., Father Time was certain he had never seen all of The Ant Farm. For every hallway he had hurriedly rushed down, for every bay jammed with personnel and impossible weaponry, and for each grease-stained, metal-choked vista within The Ant Farm’s swallowing walls the frequent misfires of the teleporter array sent him, he still had the inkling that parts of it eluded him. Like there were scores of closed-off passageways just out of reach.

Science Agent Belroy claimed he really [i]had[/i] seen all of it, but Belroy claimed a lot of things: these days it was mostly mumbled certainties about green men from Mars or screeching, incoherent rants about aglets. To Father Time he sounded like that raging nutjob from down in Hub City, but at least Belroy got a government paycheck for it.

Father Time supposed Belroy would ultimately know about such things better than him, he’d headed up the committee for building The Ant Farm, after all. Then again, if Belroy [i]really[/i] knew better than Father, then [i]he[/i] would’ve been the one to weasel his way into the Director’s chair. Father had half a mind to fire the man, but Belroy had a better memory for past S.H.A.D.E. casework than every serverbank or wayward poindexter in the whole complex… Father needed better desk jockeys.

At any rate, of all the anomalous haunts that populated The Ant Farm, from the Project M Labs deep in the belly of the beast to each and every pop-up Bar chiseled into the machine work to support weary S.H.A.D.E. agents after hours, the Command Center was the place to be. Sutured at the very top of the structure as a gleaming dome, a white logo emblazoned on its surface that caught each shaft of sun filtering through the military-grade ballistic glass sphere that housed the city.

Inside was a nest of wires and monitors, casting the place in blue light at war with the yellow glow of overhanging fluorescents. There were budget swivel chairs appropriated after The Pentagon’s last upgrade, poised at silver-slick desks that seemed to have been called forth from the grand machine of The Ant Farm itself. The Command Center was a dance of labcoats and glowing personal palmtop computers all around its centerpiece -- a machine throne, awaiting its watchful king. But today his rightful seat would have to wait. Father Time expected a guest.

For anyone else Father Time would’ve gotten out the child size seats, the kind of chunky plastic chairs in garish colors that suited his current form, and watch his guest be forced to draw their knees to their chest as they squeezed into the seat and they worried about what to do with the rest of their gangly, oversized bodies. But Elijah Snow deserved at least a modicum of his respect, and he was one of the few that would wisely choose not to comment on Father’s booster seat.

Elijah entered The Ant Farm like no one else, without the thrumming noise of the teleporter array to announce his presence, no blips or beeps or secretaries fighting for Father’s attention. Just Elijah, stepping through the automatic door, all white suit and white hair framing the pale, weathered skin of a man just barely beyond time’s touch.

“World’s changing,” he said. A common refrain for whenever he found himself in Father Time’s office.

“As it always does.” Father Time gestured to the seat across from him, “how have you been keeping, Snow?”

“Busy.” Elijah grumbled. The man moved like an old machine, creaking bones aligning themselves as he steadied himself into his seat, bit by bit.

“Plenty to keep you that way, these days. More and more metahumans popping up. More and more headaches.” Father reached to adjust the pigtails on either side of his head, and reaffirm the seal of the domino mask to his eyes.

“More of a non-stop migraine.” Elijah leaned, resting against the whining seat back. His eyes closed and his thumbs went to his temples, trying to massage the lines of tension all over his face.

“That I can empathize with. The Pentagon’s been banging on my door, trying to find out if the The Superman is an alien or a meta or a walking Russian test tube. Or if he's real at all. Half my staff is tied up placating them.” Father said. Elijah nodded slow.

“And this is just the start of it. Things are going to get a whole lot stranger from here." 

"What brings you my way, Elijah? I’m sure you have more important things to do than check up on old friends.”

Elijah's organization, Planetary, was a little like S.H.A.D.E., but it was older, narrower in purpose. It had always been Elijah at the helm, leading his organization forward by his own whims, chasing those leads he found the most interesting. No Government to appease. No messes to clean up from a previous Director.

“According to my people, things are… Changing. In a subtler way than we’re giving it credit for. I don’t have the resources to investigate as thoroughly as I’d like.” Elijah leaned forward as he spoke, elbows on the table, casting a shadow over Father Time’s small form. Father pursed his lips.

“Expand. [i]Changing[/i]?” He said. His voice almost cracked, small vocal chords struggling with the timbre of his voice.

“Little things. Changes in migration patterns, plant life, tiny shifts in the currents of the oceans. According to my people we’re even seeing changes in the machine world. Ripples across the internet.” Elijah explained.

“And this points to?” Father time cocked an eyebrow.

Elijah shrugged. “If I knew I wouldn’t be sitting here.”

“Do we know it’s dangerous?” Father Time said. “I’ve got a lot on my plate here.”

“I was under the impression that it’s not your job to care whether it is.” Elijah cut back. “Think about it, at least.”

Father Time opened his mouth to speak, looking for a retort, something to tell Elijah that he’d look into it when it developed into a [i]problem[/i], that it wasn’t S.H.A.D.E.’s job to chase after Planetary’s fancy, but the door slid open on the far side of the room.

Something huge and green and mottled stood in the doorway, blocking the light from the outside. It was wrapped in blown-out Victorian clothes that might’ve been a size too small before the monster was forced into them.

“Father,” Frankenstein croaked, “[i]where[/i] is my [i]wife[/i]?”[/hider][/indent][/indent]
[INDENT][B][SUP][SUB][H3]P O S T   C A T A L O G:[/H3][/SUB][/SUP][/B][/INDENT][hr][INDENT][INDENT][i][hider= Post Catalog]
Issue 0 (NON-CANON)-- See above

[url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/5155120]Issue 1[/url][/hider][/i][/indent][/indent]