The World - Earth-324
Premise
The Premise of Heroes Reborn - A DCU Roleplay is that you are creating a character within a world that is similar to that of the DC Universe portrayed within the comics, animated series and other media. In this multiverse (which is infinite like its Marvel counterpart), there is no Clark Kent, no Bruce Wayne, Diana Prince or similar canon characters. On-324 in particular, there is (or perhaps was), a Krypton...there is still a Themyscira, Atlantis, Gorilla City and other memorable cornerstones of the universe. The familiar cities of Metropolis, Gotham and their ilk all exist.
In other words, while the characters themselves may not exist in the multiverse of this roleplay, the powers and abilities they're known for do. There are still Green Lanterns, still Amazons. You may create a character that possesses these powers, or may invent something entirely new and unique altogether!
Of course, there are restrictions to both of these options...but this will be covered further in the main thread should this garner enough interest.
This game will take place throughout the entirety of the Earth, but you should probably base your character in the United States, as the DCU typically centers on it. You can be elsewhere if you like, but your interaction with other players might be limited for it.
Should you have any questions about the premise, do not hesitate to ask! I'm happy to explain it all in detail!
The date is November 3rd, 2019.
Earth-324 is much like our own Earth-1...on the surface. Superpowers are the sole providence of fiction in the minds of the average men and women walking the street. A popular movie craze, nothing more. They fail to remember the great heroes of millennia past as anything more than a legend, a distorted myth.
But there are many differences between our world and this one. Not just the existence of cities such as Metropolis, Gotham, or Keystone…but a divergence in their histories. The most prominent changes began during the 1930s with the emergence of the 'Actor Activists', as the government would come to call them. Their origins were as myriad as their personalities...soldiers, dissatisfied police officers, boxers...
Donning now iconic disguises, these men took to the streets to ferret out those that preyed upon the innocent, be they cutthroat gangsters or uncaring businessmen that exploited the poor for their own gain. Often operating outside and even at times against the law, they were often scorned by the establishment, yet they continued to risk their lives despite ostensibly being nothing more than mortal men.
Things would further change in 1934. Businessmen, fearful of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "New Deal" and the effects it would have on their fortunes, began assembling a secret army of half a million ex-veterans in order to overthrow the President and institute their own Fascist regime—the business plot. On the precipice of launching their operation, they were discovered by a group of heroes lead by Killian “The Wraith” Graves.
For the first time, Actor Activists fought together as a team to defeat an enemy far too powerful for any one of them to best alone. Infiltrating their base, the heroes defeated the leaders of the plot, General Hugh Johnson and J.P. Morgan Jr. Without these unifying figures to rally and support it, their army quickly disintegrated.
Grateful for their exposure and defeat of this would-be coup, the President pardoned them for their previous crimes, and granted these Actor Activists official sanction from the government. Continuing to work together as a team, these men would be lauded by the public as “The Impossibles” for their almost miraculous accomplishments in face of overwhelming odds.
Beloved as guardians of the innocent and punishers of the wicked, they would operate with impunity throughout the 30s and 40s, many taking to the battlefield as World War II dawned. Indeed, it was these heroes that put an end to the evil of the Third Reich when—after having struck a deal with the Western Powers—they assisted the conspirators of Operation Valkyrie in the successful assassination of Adolf Hitler.
When—as a part of the aforementioned deal—the western powers moved to prevent the Soviet Union from advancing beyond Poland with the help of a resupplied Heer, Stalin viewed this as a betrayal of their alliance. Fighting once more erupted, this time with the allies (including Germany) on one side, and the Soviets on the other. A brutal grindhouse that saw hundreds of thousands on both sides give their lives, it was only the successful use of the world’s first atomic weapons at Stalingrad and Vladivostok that gave the dictator pause.
With a front line that stretched from Eastern Prussia down to northern Bulgaria, a tumultuous peace was signed in the mutually occupied city of Warsaw. This was the start of the Cold War. The war against Japan was brought to end when The Impossibles managed to successfully abduct Emperor Hirohito, forcing the military government to at last surrender.
Despite their increasing age, the post-war years were good for The Impossibles and the other Actor Activists. Viewed as war heroes and a symbol of freedom, they endured the changing times even as other institutes suffered through the Red Scare antics of men like Joseph McCarthy. Throughout the 50s, these weathered heroes continued their crusade for justice while a new generation donned increasingly flashy and ostentatious costumes.
Eventually, one after another, The Impossibles hung up their cowls. Their leader, Killian “The Wraith” Graves, having lied about his age to join the US Army at fifteen in 1917, was now in his fifties. Their time on the streets, it seemed, was over. But one of their members, Marvin “Maximus” King, had plans other than retirement.
In 1960, coming off the end of the Eisenhower Presidency, Marvin King announced his intention to run for President. Beloved as one of the men who helped to end the threat of Nazi Germany and Japan, he won in a landslide. President King was sworn into office with a historically high approval rating.
But this would not last.
While initially loved, the King Administration proved to be an increasingly oppressive as time went on. With surveillance of citizens, harsh interrogations of suspected “dissidents” and draconian laws passed in the name of fighting crime, his support began to plummet. Fully aware of his declining numbers, President King used his plethora of dirt on the Mafia from his hero days to enlist their aid in buying his reelection in 1964.
When the United States became involved in the escalating conflict in Vietnam in 1965, President King was initially frustrated by the army’s inability to defeat the comparatively poorly equipped Viet Cong rebels and Northern Army. Though trying many tactics, they were unable to fully suppress the massive insurgency.
Thus, on March 6th of 1967, President King ordered a nuclear strike on the North Vietnamese capital of Hanoi, along with several other strategic locations. The world was horrified by the callous bloodshed unleashed by King, with the Soviet Union threatening retaliation even as the crippled North surrendered. With the President refusing to back down, the world appeared to be on the precipice of nuclear Armageddon.
Unable to stand by and watch as his former friend prepared to plunge the world into a war that would cost the lives of billions; Killian Graves rallied the other members of The Impossibles for one last mission. Despite being sixty-five years old by this point, The Wraith lead his team to the White House to confront their renegade comrade.
The Secret Service, having been reorganized into something closer resembling a Secret Police force, stood in their way. Far past their prime and outnumbered, The Impossibles fell one after another even as they successfully fought their way to King’s officer. In the end, only The Wraith remained. Clashing with his old friend, Killian defeated the rogue President despite him still being in his mid-fifties.
Having just come within a hair’s breadth of nuclear annihilation, a fate only averted through what was essentially a costumed coup d’état, Congress quickly repealed the laws FDR had put in place to support the Actor Activists and imposed a ban on costumed vigilantism in its place. Furthermore, anyone with a history of vigilantism was now banned from ever running for any political office. Even in other countries, costumed heroics were prosecuted by the law with increasing intensity.
Though Marvin King was now safely in prison, his actions continued have lasting consequences. The United States could no longer be considered a true superpower after this point, for while it had the economic strength and military power of one, it no longer had the political influence and network of alliances it had gained after World War II. While Europe was not hostile, their alliance (NATO) had been strained to the breaking point by King’s actions. Many countries around the world became increasingly wary of America, and began working to develop their own nuclear deterrents. Thus, the dream of nuclear non-proliferation vanished on the winds of President King’s madness.
Society thus continued on without costumed heroes, but their influence was lasting. Comic Books would eventually be all the craze, for while having vigilantes actively going above and beyond the law to strike at those they deemed deserving of punishment was now unwelcome in the real world, the land of fiction offered a great source of escapism for children throughout the world.
Following the presidency of Marvin King, history diverged further still between Earth-148 and Earth-1. Our Presidents were no longer the same. The specific events that transpired from year to year no longer aligned. The countercultural movements and popular forms of music we know still occurred. Rock&Roll, Beatniks, hippies, disco...much remained the same, even as much had changed. There was no détente between the East and West during the 70s, and as a result the economic problems of the Soviet Union became apparent sooner.
The mid-1980s would see Eastern Europe erupt in war, as the dying Soviet Union turned its guns against the former states of the Warsaw Pact as they demanded full independence. With financial support from the west for the beleaguered former Pact members, the USSR would be further exhausted by the protracted conflict and would officially be disbanded on February 8th of 1989 in spite of multiple coup attempts by the military.
The 1980s and 90s were also marked by the ascension of Iraq-Syria (or the so-called Arab Federation) in the Middle East. Having united under the Ba’ath Party in 1966 after a brilliantly orchestrated joint coup by Hafez Al-Assad, they achieved a swift victory over Iran through the capture of Tehran in 1981, taking advantage of the country’s instability to capture the Khuzestan region. Many highly advanced weapons given to the Iranians by the American military were salvaged by them and integrated into their military machine.
Using this scavenged technology, Hafez successfully denoted his first nuclear device in April of 1985. The Arab Federation proceeded to invade Kuwait in 1987. The west, distracted by the escalating conflict in Eastern Europe, failed to intervene in a meaningful way.
By the late 1980s, The AF had become the world's largest oil producer...and yet Hafez Al-Assad was not content. On the precipice of the Soviet Union’s collapse, they invaded Saudi Arabia, annexing their oil fields to the north. Already possessing more than enough control over the world’s supply of oil to cripple the western economies, and with a nuclear deterrent to dissuade any attempt to use their own ICBMs against him, their threats did little to deter his ambition.
Now the undisputed power in the Middle East, and with the western powers held hostage by threats of destroying the oil fields under his possession should they try to intervene militarily or impose sanctions, Al-Assad continued his expansion by annexing Jordan in 1993, and was only checked from further expansion by threats of mutually assured destruction via nuclear retaliation from Israel. Hafez would be succeeded by his son Bassel Al-Assad in the year 2000.
They would be known for allegedly funding numerous terrorist cells throughout this period, funneling countless billions into those that sought to spread fear and chaos throughout the globe. Through this, they kept the west distracted from their own activities...advanced missile and chemical weapons programs being developed underground with the goal of gaining an edge on their hated enemies. An ICBM test in 2004 revealed they now had the capability to reach the shores of the United States itself, horrifying the world.
Even before this, in 2002, fear and panic had taken hold. A terrorist group known as Harkut-ul-Jihad Al-Islami (HuJI for short) perpetrated the worst terrorist attack in United States history when they detonated a series of high yield explosives along the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, causing the bridge to collapse at the very height of rush hour. More than 2,000 American civilians perished that day.
Bassel Al-Assad disavowed association with the group, citing that they were primarily based further to the east, in Pakistan and India. The group claimed it to be in revenge for the west’s support of Indian persecution against Islam.
The United States responded immediately through military intervention in Bangladesh, which had fallen under an extremist Islamic regime backed by HuJI and known for sheltering the terrorist group from India as they launched their many attacks on the neighboring country. The invasion would prove long and protracted, with urban fighting reaching a scale never before seen as US forces invaded the most densely populated country in the world.
But a dramatic change was coming, even if none had yet realized it. In a certain city within the United States, an extraordinary individual had begun their shadowy war against the criminal underground. Striking with barely a trace save for the panicked whispers spread by their terrified victims, this ostensibly normal human being sent shockwaves through both the criminal world and law enforcement, even though most people still regarded them as a mere urban legend.
For nearly two decades they carried out their crusade, with others throughout the country…perhaps the world…being inspired by tales of their actions. Some would attempt to emulate them; donning outrageous costumes and patrolling the streets of the towns, neighborhoods and cities…many would die foolishly as their inspiration battled not only ordinary criminals, but also madmen and women whom were no less outlandish or extraordinary than their heroic counterpart.
But now, on this day, November 3rd of 2019…everything is about to change.
The magic is returning…and the world will never be the same again.
Earth-324 is much like our own Earth-1...on the surface. Superpowers are the sole providence of fiction in the minds of the average men and women walking the street. A popular movie craze, nothing more. They fail to remember the great heroes of millennia past as anything more than a legend, a distorted myth.
But there are many differences between our world and this one. Not just the existence of cities such as Metropolis, Gotham, or Keystone…but a divergence in their histories. The most prominent changes began during the 1930s with the emergence of the 'Actor Activists', as the government would come to call them. Their origins were as myriad as their personalities...soldiers, dissatisfied police officers, boxers...
Donning now iconic disguises, these men took to the streets to ferret out those that preyed upon the innocent, be they cutthroat gangsters or uncaring businessmen that exploited the poor for their own gain. Often operating outside and even at times against the law, they were often scorned by the establishment, yet they continued to risk their lives despite ostensibly being nothing more than mortal men.
Things would further change in 1934. Businessmen, fearful of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "New Deal" and the effects it would have on their fortunes, began assembling a secret army of half a million ex-veterans in order to overthrow the President and institute their own Fascist regime—the business plot. On the precipice of launching their operation, they were discovered by a group of heroes lead by Killian “The Wraith” Graves.
For the first time, Actor Activists fought together as a team to defeat an enemy far too powerful for any one of them to best alone. Infiltrating their base, the heroes defeated the leaders of the plot, General Hugh Johnson and J.P. Morgan Jr. Without these unifying figures to rally and support it, their army quickly disintegrated.
Grateful for their exposure and defeat of this would-be coup, the President pardoned them for their previous crimes, and granted these Actor Activists official sanction from the government. Continuing to work together as a team, these men would be lauded by the public as “The Impossibles” for their almost miraculous accomplishments in face of overwhelming odds.
Beloved as guardians of the innocent and punishers of the wicked, they would operate with impunity throughout the 30s and 40s, many taking to the battlefield as World War II dawned. Indeed, it was these heroes that put an end to the evil of the Third Reich when—after having struck a deal with the Western Powers—they assisted the conspirators of Operation Valkyrie in the successful assassination of Adolf Hitler.
When—as a part of the aforementioned deal—the western powers moved to prevent the Soviet Union from advancing beyond Poland with the help of a resupplied Heer, Stalin viewed this as a betrayal of their alliance. Fighting once more erupted, this time with the allies (including Germany) on one side, and the Soviets on the other. A brutal grindhouse that saw hundreds of thousands on both sides give their lives, it was only the successful use of the world’s first atomic weapons at Stalingrad and Vladivostok that gave the dictator pause.
With a front line that stretched from Eastern Prussia down to northern Bulgaria, a tumultuous peace was signed in the mutually occupied city of Warsaw. This was the start of the Cold War. The war against Japan was brought to end when The Impossibles managed to successfully abduct Emperor Hirohito, forcing the military government to at last surrender.
Despite their increasing age, the post-war years were good for The Impossibles and the other Actor Activists. Viewed as war heroes and a symbol of freedom, they endured the changing times even as other institutes suffered through the Red Scare antics of men like Joseph McCarthy. Throughout the 50s, these weathered heroes continued their crusade for justice while a new generation donned increasingly flashy and ostentatious costumes.
Eventually, one after another, The Impossibles hung up their cowls. Their leader, Killian “The Wraith” Graves, having lied about his age to join the US Army at fifteen in 1917, was now in his fifties. Their time on the streets, it seemed, was over. But one of their members, Marvin “Maximus” King, had plans other than retirement.
In 1960, coming off the end of the Eisenhower Presidency, Marvin King announced his intention to run for President. Beloved as one of the men who helped to end the threat of Nazi Germany and Japan, he won in a landslide. President King was sworn into office with a historically high approval rating.
But this would not last.
While initially loved, the King Administration proved to be an increasingly oppressive as time went on. With surveillance of citizens, harsh interrogations of suspected “dissidents” and draconian laws passed in the name of fighting crime, his support began to plummet. Fully aware of his declining numbers, President King used his plethora of dirt on the Mafia from his hero days to enlist their aid in buying his reelection in 1964.
When the United States became involved in the escalating conflict in Vietnam in 1965, President King was initially frustrated by the army’s inability to defeat the comparatively poorly equipped Viet Cong rebels and Northern Army. Though trying many tactics, they were unable to fully suppress the massive insurgency.
Thus, on March 6th of 1967, President King ordered a nuclear strike on the North Vietnamese capital of Hanoi, along with several other strategic locations. The world was horrified by the callous bloodshed unleashed by King, with the Soviet Union threatening retaliation even as the crippled North surrendered. With the President refusing to back down, the world appeared to be on the precipice of nuclear Armageddon.
Unable to stand by and watch as his former friend prepared to plunge the world into a war that would cost the lives of billions; Killian Graves rallied the other members of The Impossibles for one last mission. Despite being sixty-five years old by this point, The Wraith lead his team to the White House to confront their renegade comrade.
The Secret Service, having been reorganized into something closer resembling a Secret Police force, stood in their way. Far past their prime and outnumbered, The Impossibles fell one after another even as they successfully fought their way to King’s officer. In the end, only The Wraith remained. Clashing with his old friend, Killian defeated the rogue President despite him still being in his mid-fifties.
Having just come within a hair’s breadth of nuclear annihilation, a fate only averted through what was essentially a costumed coup d’état, Congress quickly repealed the laws FDR had put in place to support the Actor Activists and imposed a ban on costumed vigilantism in its place. Furthermore, anyone with a history of vigilantism was now banned from ever running for any political office. Even in other countries, costumed heroics were prosecuted by the law with increasing intensity.
Though Marvin King was now safely in prison, his actions continued have lasting consequences. The United States could no longer be considered a true superpower after this point, for while it had the economic strength and military power of one, it no longer had the political influence and network of alliances it had gained after World War II. While Europe was not hostile, their alliance (NATO) had been strained to the breaking point by King’s actions. Many countries around the world became increasingly wary of America, and began working to develop their own nuclear deterrents. Thus, the dream of nuclear non-proliferation vanished on the winds of President King’s madness.
Society thus continued on without costumed heroes, but their influence was lasting. Comic Books would eventually be all the craze, for while having vigilantes actively going above and beyond the law to strike at those they deemed deserving of punishment was now unwelcome in the real world, the land of fiction offered a great source of escapism for children throughout the world.
Following the presidency of Marvin King, history diverged further still between Earth-148 and Earth-1. Our Presidents were no longer the same. The specific events that transpired from year to year no longer aligned. The countercultural movements and popular forms of music we know still occurred. Rock&Roll, Beatniks, hippies, disco...much remained the same, even as much had changed. There was no détente between the East and West during the 70s, and as a result the economic problems of the Soviet Union became apparent sooner.
The mid-1980s would see Eastern Europe erupt in war, as the dying Soviet Union turned its guns against the former states of the Warsaw Pact as they demanded full independence. With financial support from the west for the beleaguered former Pact members, the USSR would be further exhausted by the protracted conflict and would officially be disbanded on February 8th of 1989 in spite of multiple coup attempts by the military.
The 1980s and 90s were also marked by the ascension of Iraq-Syria (or the so-called Arab Federation) in the Middle East. Having united under the Ba’ath Party in 1966 after a brilliantly orchestrated joint coup by Hafez Al-Assad, they achieved a swift victory over Iran through the capture of Tehran in 1981, taking advantage of the country’s instability to capture the Khuzestan region. Many highly advanced weapons given to the Iranians by the American military were salvaged by them and integrated into their military machine.
Using this scavenged technology, Hafez successfully denoted his first nuclear device in April of 1985. The Arab Federation proceeded to invade Kuwait in 1987. The west, distracted by the escalating conflict in Eastern Europe, failed to intervene in a meaningful way.
By the late 1980s, The AF had become the world's largest oil producer...and yet Hafez Al-Assad was not content. On the precipice of the Soviet Union’s collapse, they invaded Saudi Arabia, annexing their oil fields to the north. Already possessing more than enough control over the world’s supply of oil to cripple the western economies, and with a nuclear deterrent to dissuade any attempt to use their own ICBMs against him, their threats did little to deter his ambition.
Now the undisputed power in the Middle East, and with the western powers held hostage by threats of destroying the oil fields under his possession should they try to intervene militarily or impose sanctions, Al-Assad continued his expansion by annexing Jordan in 1993, and was only checked from further expansion by threats of mutually assured destruction via nuclear retaliation from Israel. Hafez would be succeeded by his son Bassel Al-Assad in the year 2000.
They would be known for allegedly funding numerous terrorist cells throughout this period, funneling countless billions into those that sought to spread fear and chaos throughout the globe. Through this, they kept the west distracted from their own activities...advanced missile and chemical weapons programs being developed underground with the goal of gaining an edge on their hated enemies. An ICBM test in 2004 revealed they now had the capability to reach the shores of the United States itself, horrifying the world.
Even before this, in 2002, fear and panic had taken hold. A terrorist group known as Harkut-ul-Jihad Al-Islami (HuJI for short) perpetrated the worst terrorist attack in United States history when they detonated a series of high yield explosives along the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, causing the bridge to collapse at the very height of rush hour. More than 2,000 American civilians perished that day.
Bassel Al-Assad disavowed association with the group, citing that they were primarily based further to the east, in Pakistan and India. The group claimed it to be in revenge for the west’s support of Indian persecution against Islam.
The United States responded immediately through military intervention in Bangladesh, which had fallen under an extremist Islamic regime backed by HuJI and known for sheltering the terrorist group from India as they launched their many attacks on the neighboring country. The invasion would prove long and protracted, with urban fighting reaching a scale never before seen as US forces invaded the most densely populated country in the world.
But a dramatic change was coming, even if none had yet realized it. In a certain city within the United States, an extraordinary individual had begun their shadowy war against the criminal underground. Striking with barely a trace save for the panicked whispers spread by their terrified victims, this ostensibly normal human being sent shockwaves through both the criminal world and law enforcement, even though most people still regarded them as a mere urban legend.
For nearly two decades they carried out their crusade, with others throughout the country…perhaps the world…being inspired by tales of their actions. Some would attempt to emulate them; donning outrageous costumes and patrolling the streets of the towns, neighborhoods and cities…many would die foolishly as their inspiration battled not only ordinary criminals, but also madmen and women whom were no less outlandish or extraordinary than their heroic counterpart.
But now, on this day, November 3rd of 2019…everything is about to change.
The magic is returning…and the world will never be the same again.
United States
Arab Federation - powerful dictatorship in the Middle East.
Slovenia - dictatorship under the rule of mysterious Count Viktor Zylle.
Bangladesh - unstable democracy currently propped up by US occupation force.
Just so we're clear, there will be certain restrictions on the characters you can choose. This thread is simply to gauge people's interest, you should wait until I post the main thread to set your heart on any one concept.
MAIN THREAD IS NOW UP!!