A title given in a mocking tone that is slowly becoming a legend, the Guardians of the Galaxy are a band of spacefaring outlaws with a (usually) strong sense of right and wrong. Even to consider them a team, for their formation occurred more from chance than desire, can seem somewhat premature, but bonds forged in the fires of battle are strong. Their story begins in Earth’s past, with the birth of an alien-human hybrid, the child of a human woman and an alien prince stranded on Earth and momentarily free of the responsibilities of a stellar war. Duty, or power, eventually overcame love and so the human was left behind with a newborn. While they may have had no role or even knowledge of their lineage, the child would one day discover their only gift from their father, a twin set of pistols able to harness the elements themselves. Shortly after their lineage would have more tragic consequences, as several groups of aliens would secretly come to Earth in the hope of riches by ransom, or simply revenge. The most notorious of these groups, the Badoon, were at least partially successful, both in infiltrating the Earth and in locating the Quill family. When they struck, under the guise of local armed criminals, they murdered Peter's mother and took the boy prisoner, intent on turning him over to an enemy of Peter's unknown father.

They would never reach their intended destination, intercepted by the Ravagers under the command of Yondu Udonta. The spacefaring bandit felt some kind of kinship and sympathy for the young Earthling, rather than return him to Earth or attempte to fulfill the bounty himself, he adopted Peter into his crew. During his spaceborne adventures, Peter would eventually encounter the cosmic being the 'Star-Lord' and deemed worthy of its power, becoming the new bearer of the title. While the Ravagers under Yondu, in particular with Peter's influence, became more akin to the loveable rogues of Earthbound Loxley, eventually their true nature would show, abandoning Peter to the Nova Corps rather than face further pursuit. Locked away in the secure facility of the Kyln, Peter would encounter those who would become his companions. Genetically engineered Rocket Racoon and the last of the Groot. The pair had become close after ending up within the prison due to matters they at least considered to be beyond their control and saw a similar situation in Quil, even if it took some time for anything close to trust to grow between them.

The Klyn had been notorious as a facility from which no one could escape, not just from the security of the facility but also due to it's close orbit of a Black Hole time-space anomaly. Yet fate would not be content for the Corps to claim this particular trio. An attack on the facility allowed them to stage a daring self-rescue, taking with them the Nova Corps ship, the Milano. Chosen to allow the Nova Corp to keep prisoners of both criminal and political reasonings for essentially indefinite periods. The anomaly would create a previously unknown eventuality, however, when a gleaming device of terrifyingly advanced technology was ripped out of its interdimensional and back into reality close to the Kyln. Such was the force and power of the displacement that its occurrence was detected far and wide, and soon came calling some of the greater threats of the universe. Some may have had forewarning of what the vessel represented, some simply wished to claim any potential source of power for themselves. Either way, the immediate chaos formed by warring powers enabled a desperate escape. Sizing the Nova Corps craft, the Milano, our intrepid heroes had little aim other than leaving as soon as possible, but curiosity and then compassion prevented such. At the heart of the conflict was a young woman of seemingly incredible power, yet no doubt likely to be eventually subdued by those seeking already to claim her. She may have appeared similar to Peter Quill, but it was clear she was different in the extreme in hidden biology. This was how our rag tag bunch of rogues met Kara Zor-El, Scion of Krypton and passenger from the future.

With the passing of time external being far longer than their relatively brief incarceration, even the other members of the Guardians found themselves largely cut off from any contacts they may have known. With Kara insistent that she must make her way to the fabled ‘Planet Earth’ and Peter who wished to take the opportunity to return to his true home, the Guardians looked to find the distant planet. Unfortunately so far they have found any limited reference to the planet removed from any database they have found, a no doubt deliberate attempt to obfuscate the location of the planet. So they continue to search, while continually getting into trouble they should better avoid, and steadily building the reputation of the Guardians, who may one day even be the heroes some once joked they could be.

Doesn't this look like that other sheet you wrote? Yes but I never got to actually write for that and I feel I've adapted this to a new game state.

Firstly, given the changes to Kryptonians and the state of Krypton in the Superman background I thought it best to wrap both Kara's into one character, simultaneously being Superman's cousin while also being from another dimension/time. This includes adapting Power Girl's newer dimensional abilities along the lines of changes to the way Kryptonian physiology works. If she is actually from the same Krypton as Superman or from a slightly different one is something that could be explored later, although she certainly believes her mission to reach Earth revolves around finding her cousin.

I've trimmed the Guardians roster down to focus on the original adventuring core of the group rather than Gamora and Drax who pull the group more into the intergalactic threats scale. These are a bunch of displaced people looking for a home they can secure, while accidently being heroes along the way. The idea for me would be to get to Earth quickly so that I could interact with others and also deal with the whole fish out of water scenario they'd all find themselves in.

Eventually some of the more traditional Guardians threats could crop up, but I feel like those are more whole game threats than anything I would opt to write on my own.

"What really happened that night?

Really, Rubberband? You wanna go over it all again? You want to know the truth? Alright, cuz this is the 100 percent unverified truth. Static style.

I'mma hear None of that bull served by those pigs on the TV. 'Gang war'. 'Robbery'. Buncha bullshit.

Only thing we all agree with was that it started with the Big Bang. Triple G's to blame for that stupid ass nickname. I'll just call it for what it is. Same old story of protests and police that's always happened in America. I was out there that night protesting. Yeah, you heard me. You think you remember who I was, I say come fuckin get me.

We were out there that day because of Marvin. Media probably forgot about him now but they were sure quick to offer their sympathies that day. You remember him too, Rubberband. Marvin. 16 yyears. Perfect SAT scores. Got a Stark Industries internship. Genius. One of those guys you knew who could change the world.

Two weeks before the protest, he got wasted by the friggin' cops for taking out his smartphone the wrong way.

 We wanted to have our voice heard. Cops didn't.

So, an hour into the protest and we're in the docks when all of a sudden, we hear sirens. Couple of the stragglers bounce but we try and keep chill. We let the authorities know we're organizing. Having a peaceful protest. Things was different, though. Before, everyone was all loose and calm. Now, with a couple of glorified mall cops peeking over our shoulder, we all felt as though we were a dog in a cage. People were getting antsy and fritzy.

Couple of those corpo freaks from AlvaTech lended a couple of Reach tech to the police. Called it a enhanced non-lethal crowd dispersal tool. I'mma just call a duck a duck. It was tear gas. Not the usual, onion in your eyes crap but different. It didn't make you cry but it made you freeze up, locked all your muscles in place. Some of my buddies called it like having glass shoved down your bones and your legs turn to rubber- no offense, Rubberband.

 We know now in the Agency papers that the gas they used was an experimental nanotech gas that was meant to subtly change your genetic makeup over time. Hypothesis from the feds was that it was an experiment to see if the meta gene could be slowly introduced over a period of time in a general population. One guy could just run fast, his son would run at the speed of sound, you get the drift.

What those Reach guys didn't plan that day was the shipment of chemicals that had arrived on the port that day. I've thought so many times about what went wrong that day. Maybe, it was one asshole in our crowd, some carrying iron when they weren't supposed to....Anyway, protest took a turn. Police began to call SWAT. They began unloading that tear gas on us, they call it quantum gas now. Then, the Bang happened. Some bullet hit a gas tank and the gas tank exploded with all the chemicals stored at the dock.

I don't remember what happened much until I woke up with a bunch of tubes hooked up to me. Few weeks later, people start developing powers. You probably know all the famous ones by now. Ebon....Kangorr.....Talon....Shiv......Media started calling us Bang Babies, Triple G gets all the credit for that one. Agency locks Dakota City out and turns it into a quarantine zone. Blah blah blah blah, go search up Wikipedia if you want to write an essay on this.

So, why do I do this, Rubberband? I do it cause I want to make something out of myself. We all only got one life on this earth.

Before the Big Bang, I was nothing, hear me.

Now, I get to be something.

What's the use of power if you don't use it to help the little guy on the street?"

---

Born the child of Robert and Sarah Hawkins, Virgil's life was just as ordinary as it could be for a teenager until one bad day, when he got caught in the middle of the Big Bang. The incident changed Dakota City forever, giving rise to a new breed of meta-humans dubbed by the media as Bang Babies. Manifesting electromagnetic abilities from the incident, Virgil became the vigilante known as Static to control the outbreak of bang babies and chaos that ensued after the Big Bang.

One year after the Big Bang, the Agency declared Dakota City a quarantine zone on account of a disturbing new trend. There were reports of spontaneous development of metahuman powers within Dakota City, a phenomenon known as bang bloomers. Until the effect was fully studied and understood, Dakota City would remain closed off from the world. Virgil managed to escape in time alongside his family and hopes to make a new life for himself in New York City.

Unfortunately, the shadows of Dakota won't leave as more meta humans from Virgil's city flock to New York in search of a new home.....

Static is back, baby!

So, after some mulling and some time spent off the character, I decided to return back to Virgil with a fresh lens. I feel that Static's overall history (limited as it is) and the themes that have resonated from both the show and the comic with me fit well with the overall meta-narrative of resistance and government overreach in this universe.

We aren't telling the origin story of Static this time around. Static has been operating in the public eye for a good two or three years now. He can't quite return back to his home city as it is the site of the Big Bang and therefore, has served as a metahuman quarantine zone. Static managed to sneak out for reasons that will explored later in the story and is now based in New York City alongside a couple of other stragglers from the Big Bang Incident.

The key element that I want to reframe significantly in this version of Static's story is the villains. Static villains are the same people that participated in the protest that led in the Big Bang. What happens when you give a bunch of young people, disillusioned with the powers that be, actual superpowers? Certainly not heroes but certainly not villains either. I think that's something I want to explore in this RP.

First things first, instead of being a kid who turns into Magical Superman, this is just an empowered kid. Which is also every version I write of Captain Marvel/Shazam/Black Adam, so you all know what you're getting at this point.

While in past OU games, I've merged Billy and Mar-Vell, this version keeps my habit of merging aspects of Billy and Black Adam, with this take leaning into Black Adam's revised origin as a slave. The main tweak to the origin here is that Teth is meant to be Shazam's illegitimate child (making him a half-brother to Satanus and Blaze). I've connected him with Mar-Vell to bridge the two Captain Marvels as well as provide for an NPC'd mentor while still having the Wizard die right when he's needed most (as per Billy's usual origin). Nothing in this concept is intended to bar a Billy Batson or Carol Danvers, including as a successor Captain Marvel. Shazam could have selected another Champion prior to Teth being released, and Mar-Vell is having adventures out in space where Teth can't follow, so plenty of narrative room on both sides for others to play with if they so choose.

Teth's power level is scaled back considerably to provide balance for his power set otherwise rolling Superman, Flash, Black Vulcan, and Zatanna all in one. Key to my interpretation is the idea that, with the Wizard gone, the magic now flows directly to Teth instead of through Shazam, making it where Teth is having to re-learn how to manage and control his abilities, while also trying to comprehend the world he's in and find his place in it.

Like Jason and the Argonauts, in this version, Shazam and Teth are historical-mythological figures whose actual existence is debated among scholars. Aligning Shazam and Black Adam to older literary figures (Gilgamesh, David, Samson, Beowulf, etc), their flaws are as much part of their story as their virtues. Shazam a wise philosopher who reigned over an advanced civilization for the time period, but also a pragmatist and opportunist. Teth-Adam a brave warrior, but also arrogant, brash, disrespectful, and disruptive. Shazam is said to have betrayed the city to the Achaemenid Empire, with Teth falling in the Siege of Kahndaq in a tale with many parallels to Troy and the story of Achilles.

From there, Shazam disappears from the historical record while Kahndaq lapses into a cycle of conquest. Alexander the Great followed, then the Ptolemaic Kingdom and the rise of the Roman Empire. The eventual rise and fall of the Ottomans in the modern era led to Kahndaq's re-emergence, only now as an Islamic Republic with connections to both Egypt and Iran for its history with both. Behind the scenes, Shazam was working to try and protect the world from otherworldly threats, particularly Dormammu and the arch-fiends of Hell.

Teth reappeared in the world three years ago, having been released by a Wizard mortally wounded in the fight against the Reach. Without the Wizard, Teth found the power uncontrollable and was more menace than hero for it. A Kree soldier fighting on Earth by the name of Mar-Vell was able to use Kree technology to help Teth regain control of his wild energies, with the two joining the fight to re-take the Earth. Now, while Captain Marvel continues to battle the Reach across the cosmos, Teth is left to try and find his place in a world he no longer recognizes.

It took me a long time to think of how to approach the game's narrative. Shazam and Teth are both intended to be presented as more complex characters with regard to their motivations, having done great and terrible things each. I think that gives him a great perspective coming into the current world. The Reach was an enemy he could touch, whereas the political fallout is much more difficult to grasp, particularly in terms of right and wrong.

The general vibe I'm aiming for is Billy's "superhero in a homeless shelter" kind of cynicism around saving the world not paying anything, with all the emotional baggage of Teth's storied history. In terms of hooks for others to grab onto, Teth's participation in the latter part of the Reach Invasion is meant to supply a possible connection to other heroes who battled the Reach. Otherwise, two stories I'll be running will use Oom (the alien serial killer) as a murder mystery exploring another alien threat on Earth, and re-imagining Mr. Atom as a rogue autonomous weapon system.

Although having been born not as far apart as some might think, their stories could not be more different... And at the same time, more similar...:

T'Challa was born into the very lap of luxury and drilled from the moment he could walk to be the next ruler of his country of Wakanda. Son of King T'Chaka and Queen N'Yami, he never had a single choice in his life. Everything decided at the moment of his conception. He would learn from master warriors and poets and physicists, trained in science, mythology, combat and diplomacy. He did what he was told, went where he was told, learned what he was told and made to become the next great leader of his country... Of course, he managed to find moments of respite here and there, going to local festivals and stealing time away to play with his friends M'Baku and B'Tumba, as well as his sister Shurei. His adopted elder brother Hunter was more of a bodyguard than a friend, much to T'Challa's chagrin.

Meanwhile, Ororo found herself born into a dirt poor village out in the Kenyan sticks. Food was never a problem due to her grandmother, the Shaman, using her "Vast Magics" to keep their crops growing and healthy no matter how the rest of the country was. Her mother, N'Dare was not blessed with the gift, but she raised her daughter right along with her father, David Munroe, a doctor from America who moved out to practice in the Peace Corp and fell in love. When Ororo was 4 years old, their village was attacked by a Ugandan Warlord who had snuck across the boarder in an attempt to kidnap the witch who made the crops grow. Her grandmother was killed, but she and her parents were able to escape. They ran back to America and moved into Harlem in New York. When Ororo was 6, the Warlords men managed to find her. In the ensuing attempted kidnapping, both of her parents were killed. It was during this traumatic event that her powers activated and she attempted to use them to escape. She was found by Callisto, a Mutant, who managed to murder her attackers and took Ororo into the underground, where she taught Ororo to survive.

It was 8 years ago that their paths crossed. When T'Challa had not yet become the Black Panther, and so managed to escape from his royal duties and went to America in order to get some time to himself. He knew he'd be quickly tracked down and recaptured, but he needed at least SOME time away. When he was in New York, Ororo picked his pocket and took his Kimoyo Card. He tracked her down with all of his training, despite her powers, she was not able to escape him. He tracked her back to the underground and attempted to steal back his card, but when he finally got a good look at the theif... The brilliant blue eyes, the perfect skin, the blizzard white mane that cascaded down her shoulders... Poor boy of 18 years of age never stood a chance... Instead of apprehending her, he got down on his knee's and begged her for a date. She reluctantly accepted and the pair of them went out and quickly developed a relationship. For the entire time that T'Challa was in New York, he kept visiting her. And when both his brother, The White Wolf and the Dora Milaje finally tracked him down, he begged her to hide him that they could stay together.

Callisto did not take this well... It was bad enough they had to deal with Humans living above them, but now they would have one living with them? So, Ororo had no choice. She challenged Callisto for Leadership of the Morlocks. The battle was intense, but just as Ororo was about to come out ontop, the Dora Milaje finally burst in to take their Prince home. Thinking quickly, T'Challa took one of his rings and slipped it onto Ororo's finger begging her to be his bride. This... Complicated things to say the least. Hunter had no choice. They took them both back.

Ororo wasn't happy that, once again, she'd been torn away from everything she knew... But at least this time she had been given a room that made the penthouse at the Ritz look like the janitors broomcloset and was waited on hand and foot. All things considered, this wasn't so bad. T'Challa and her relationship was strained by his brash actions, but was strained moreso by King T'Chaka demanding that she pass their trials of worthiness to be his sons bride. Naturally through a combination of her wits, cunning and powers, their traditions proved no match for her. And soon, they earned the right to be betrothed, but as was tradition, they could not marry until he was king.

The next major complication came along with the Reach. Naturally, Wakanda's Vibranium deposits made them a VERY tempting target for invasion. As such, King T'Chaka closed the borders and forbade any and all travel into and out of Wakanda for all except himself, Hunter and the Dora Milaje. Ororo used this time to reach out to other Mutants. She and T'Challa would regularly sneak out of the country to help mutants around the world. Including meeting up with one of Storms old friends from when she was a Morlock for a certain mission in Cairo. Things got even more complicated when the Reach became openly hostile. King T'Chaka took part in the battle of New York, but he was wounded by their alien weapons even beyond the Herb's ability to heal him. He was transported back to Wakanda and with his crippling, T'Challa was forced to undergo the ceremony and become the new Black Panther. T'Chaka would remain king, however. The official word put out into the world was that T'Chaka had stepped down from the throne willingly and retired, leaving T'Challa as the new King (This was of course a lie to save face and make the other nations accept T'Challa as the diplomatic head of their nation.)

With the rise of Maxwell Lord as the new President of America, Wakanda again closed itself off. King T'Chaka had put Wakanda's security and safety as the only priority of his rule now. The rest of the world was on its own. T'Challa still had to go out to be the Diplomatic face. T'Challa found himself living more and more at the Wakanda Embassy in New York. During this time, he and Ororo came to a decision. Using a few contacts within the Dora Milaje and with the situation deteriorating, they would endevour to help Ororo's people. Calling it "The Silk Road" they would begin smuggling Mutants to Friendly countries such as Genosha and even into Wakanda itself.

T'Challa and Storm are two of my favourite Marvel characters... But, frankly, their relationship in the comics was barely even a thing, but i always liked the idea of one of the Avengers and one of the X-Men making a go of it. I kinda want to explore their relationship in a more compelling manner. And also, with this current world? Where Mutants are being persecuted left, right and center. They need to do something. There was never a situation where they DIDN'T get involved. So, i kinda want to make their story one of adversity. The entire world is working against them. The US Government, the Wakanda Government, even a number of mutants. But they know what they are doing is right.

Some story idea's that i had:

• Storm recruiting the Morlocks to help her run the Silk Road.
• T'Challa having to politically maneuver around the US Governments investigations into Wakanda to keep them off their back.
• Hunter's conflicted emotions about the Silk Road, leading to a crisis of allegiance, where he has to choose whether to be loyal to his brother or Father.
• King T'Chaka's PTSD about being broken by the Reach when he took on and lost to one of their Beetles. As well as attempting to use their tech to heal his broken body.
• Storm attempting to found her own Institue for Gifted Youngsters in Wakanda itself
• T'Challa investigating Waller's illegal operations.
• Storm learns she is Pregnant and becomes torn between her duty to her people and her duty to her husband and child.
• Major Force being sent by Waller to take down the Morlocks and dismantle the Silk Road.