TheBigBeak — Roleplayer Guild

K R A I N E   C I T Y

Welcome to the most famous megalopolis in the USA.

Fame and notoriety go hand in hand when it comes to Kraine City, known just as much for its daring and pristine heroes as it is for its sanguine underbelly and accompanying villains. All legal heroes are backed by mega-corporations that plaster their victories and likeness over their products and advertisements.

Other supers take to vigilantism on their own and garner cult followings to build notoriety, but the Kraine police department doesn’t like that. And neither do the corporations.

Science has yet to fully quantify the mechanism by which some individuals can tap into forces that bend the laws of physics and reality, leading to physiological and even mystical powers. With phenotypically super parents more likely to pass along these complex gene combinations, scientific literature estimates that one in one thousand humans are born with supernatural powers…But becoming a household name in Kraine City makes you more like one in a million.

What to Expect

Kraine City is a freeform RP focused on worldbuilding and character interaction. Here, you will find drama, intrigue, and action galore. Your character will save lives, cause mayhem, or simply try to navigate a semi-futuristic society where superhumans and technocrats reign supreme.

Everything can be branded, packaged, monetized, and sold. Even you.

GENERAL RULES

We try to be as fair as possible, but of course, some infractions are more serious than others. Any of these may be a bannable offense depending on severity. 

#0 Don’t be a dick. Don’t be annoying, be responsive and flexible IC and OOC, roll with the punches, and communicate with people if you’re having issues or you want to spring something on them that could be disruptive. We’re all here to have fun, so be courteous, and make sure your fun isn’t stomping on other peoples’ fun.

#1 - Do not attack, insult, or otherwise antagonize your fellow roleplayers OOC. We will decide the difference between banter and bullying. 

#2 - Discussion of sensitive or inflammatory topics is not allowed.

#3 - This roleplay will involve heavy topics such as sex, injury, addiction, and death. If there are certain subjects you’re uncomfortable with, please communicate them as they come up so your scene partners can do their best to accommodate, but know that by nature this roleplay is NOT a space that we can guarantee will be free of triggers or intense content. That said, however…

#4 - No smut. Some sensual scenes that “fade to black” or even “fade to blur” may be appropriate if they are character driven and not overly explicit, but gratuitously sexual content may be deleted. When in doubt, you're welcome to take those scenes to DM with your scene partner's consent. 

Character Submission

Submissions are to be made in the OOC here.

General Specifics

(An Optional Picture of the Character Here)

Full Name:

Nicknames: (What They’re Called by Their Friends and Family)

Age:

Role: (Heroe, Villain, Civilian, Student, Corp Employee, or Vigilante)

Code Name: (If Applicable)

Corporate Sponsor: (For Heroes. You may request a specific sponsor, but the Staff may assign you a different one.)

Power/Ability: (For superpowered individuals)

Residency: (The wealthy and middle class live in the Arc, lower class live in the Bastion. Only the deranged or desperate live in the dangerous Outer Layer.)

Day Job: (What they do for a living. Full-time, highly paid heroes might have one as a secret identity… or be assigned one by their sponsor.)

Appearance:

Height:

Weight:

Build: (Muscular, Average, Frail, etc.)

Hair Color And Style:

Eye Color:

Defining Details: (Visible scars, tattoos, facial hair, etc. Sponsors might get touchy about ink on your face.)

Costume Details: (If Applicable.)

Personality

Alignment: (Standard DnD Scale.)

Brief Overview: (A Short Summary of Personality Traits. Keep it to a paragraph.)

History

(Five sentences or less to describe where your character comes from and where they are now.)

Misc. Lore

P L A C E S  TO  K N O W

—TᕼE ᗩᖇᑕ—
The shimmering heart of Kraine City.

The Arc is a wealthy, densely populated part of town with a retro-futuristic flair. Skyscrapers and sweeping arches of glass and steel give Kraine City a gleaming, mirrored skyline as iconic as New York.

It's a popular place to meet heroes, and an equally popular target for spectacular villainous violence.

—ᑭIOᑌS ᑌᑎIᐯEᖇSITY—
The world’s oldest and most prestigious super-industry-focused university.

Pious Academy is funded in part by many Hero Industry corporations, and is proud to produce more sponsored heroes and hero-support-team members out of any college in the world.

…The number they’re not putting on their website is how many villains they churn out too.

But as Pious leadership knows, Kraine City needs both for the market to thrive.

—ᕼEᖇᗩTEᑕᕼ—
The most successful science & technology fortune 500 since the fall of Apple.

HERATech is the biggest player in the Kraine Hero Industry. Powerful heroes like Shard Knight and Doctor Hourglass are household names worldwide. Landing a hero sponsorship with HERATech is the pinnacle of achievement.

But becoming a public-facing hero isn’t the only way to contribute to the virtuous efforts of HERATech’s heroism programs. Scientists, costume designers, engineers, and PR specialists are all needed to help run the show.

(But don’t SAY it’s a show. Seriously, don’t. It’s part of the NDA you signed during employee onboarding. And don't ask about the labs, either. That's classified.)

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—ᕼEᗩᖇTᕼSIᗪE Iᑎᑕ.—
A diverse collection of brands, and a rising star in the Hero Industry scene…until the recent death of their most profitable sponsorship.

Hearthside has grown from its roots as a real estate agency into a heavily diversified fortune 500 corporation.

Hearthside sponsors a handful of medium-popularity heroes under some of the many brands nestled under the Hearthside Umbrella (including an expensive fashion brand called UrbanElements which appropriates is inspired by Bastion styles, mealplan delivery kits, nail polish, ethnically ambiguous hot sauce, or anything else you’d like your hero character to have to make commercials about).

The average citizen is unaware that these companies are really one big conglomerate, but the heroes who work for the brands all operate with Hearthside’s HQ as a base, and are as familiar with one another as they are with Hearthside’s habit of choosing token-minority heroes to sell products designed in boardrooms full of old white guys.

The Hearthside brand itself has always kept one hero slot publicized above all the others… but the beloved heroine Ashfall, the former face of the Hearthside company values (Courage, Compassion, and Collaboration), was recently murdered in her home.

And you know what that means: Applications Open! Hearthside is in the market to make a fresh new hero’s career.

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—KᖇᗩIᑎE ᑕITY SᑌᑭEᖇ ᑭEᑎITEᑎTIᗩᖇY—
The austere block of a building squatting between the Arc and the bad part of town gives new meaning to the phrase “super max.”

Led by the warden known as Blue, the only dedicated holding facility equipped to contain powerful supers within seven states is a destination for everyone from run of the mill murderers with powers, to famous local villains, to white collar criminals from out of town who just so happen to be super.

There are no known reliable power-suppressing measures available, so the prison's extensive staff goes to great lengths and expense to create security measures hand-tailored to each prisoner's powerset, in addition to the liberal use of sedatives.

If you happen to be a headliner villain, your security measures aren't the only thing that's hand-tailored.

Prisoners fitted with electronic bracelets and collars fill the sterile, cold holding facility, dressed in uniforms of sage green and blue, because it films better than orange. Certain notorious inmates are issued a prison costume styled after the branding aesthetic of their public persona personalized uniform (in the Penitentiary color palette, of course) that can help contain their abilities, as well as conceal their appearance while leaving them distinguishable and recognizable to the prison staff.

This farce is justified under the Kraine ordinance "The Vigilante Identity Protection Act," which is (quite intentionally) written with a loophole that allows virtually any superpowered lawbreaker with a secret identity to keep their real name and face concealed from the public.

And it certainly does look fabulous for the cameras that roll through almost every day.

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—TᕼE ᗷᗩSTIOᑎ—
Picture urban decay, and you picture the Bastion.

The bad part of town, nicknamed ‘the bastion’ or ‘The Hole’  is the underbelly of Kraine City, home to rampant organized crime, decadence, and a large portion of the villainous population. The areas of the hole range from mafia suburbs, ghettos where violence is the rule of law, and the most famous line of strip joints in the country.

Sponsored heroes are rarely deployed to the Bastion, so vigilanties find themselves with plenty of work to do there. 

—TᕼE OᑌTEᖇ ᒪᗩYEᖇ—
Locals usually advise only flying or sailing in and out of Kraine City. Driving through the Outer Layer tends to get a bit…weird.

The laws of the universe seem more like suggestions of the universe in the Outer Layer.

Landmarks in the Outer Layer, such as the town of Farrowburgh (a settlement with a reputation for oddities) never seem to be found in quite the same spot along the road, and people who spend too much time there always come back with tall tales.

Maybe after many generations’ worth of supers congregating in the city, a few of them left some hallucinatory or metaphysical scars on the land.

Or perhaps there’s something else at work out there entirely.

B R E A K I N G  N E W S

SHARD KNIGHT AND DOCTOR HOURGLASS SAVE HUNDREDS OF PASSENGERS ON MALFUNCTIONING SKYTRAIN

If you haven't been introduced to Doctor Hourglass yet, you should know our favorite Knight in Crystal Armor has a new sidekick, and we haven't shipped anyone so hard since those rumors about the nefarious Dr. Nightshade. It looks like the diamond of Kraine has a thing for strong ladies with an MD.
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HERATECH’S NIHILISTIC TWITTER FEED HAS SOCIAL MEDIA ROLLING

No, it’s not an act of villainous technomancy that broke the internet this time. But whoever fills HERATech’s social media (@SCEPTREOfficial) with roasts of people we love to hate like, ”The Campaigner to fight childhood illiteracy by beheading it in the school courtyard as an example to the other educational challenges,” or deadpan, #relateable dead-end-office-job angst like, “I have not been near a vending machine in at least a decade,” deserves a raise.
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THE PERFORMER’S FINAL STREAM?

In case you missed it, another livestream recently dropped on the Performer's socials, but this time it wasn't some travel vlogger in the kill seat-- it was the Performer himself. 

You guessed it. In another bout of poetic justice, the Brothers Grim turned the tables. (Though after the brutal murder of some of our favorite heroes, including Hearthside's Ashfall, this editorialist wonders exactly what passes for justice for the violent anti-super duo.)

The Performer never got the Grimm ending he deserved, however, because the stream was interrupted by local law enforcement before he got his just desserts.

Reports indicate that Shard Knight was at the scene long before police arrived, but the exact nature of his involvement in the incident is still unknown.
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ECCENTRIC BILLIONAIRE OPENS CHARITY HOSPITAL IN THE BASTION

Billionaire Sophia Von Riegan has just cut the ribbon on the new Von Riegan Medical Center, which offers free medical services to low-income citizens of Kraine City. When asked about her motivation for such a dramatic, philanthropic gesture, Miss Von Riegan stated, “It was one meaningful way I knew I could do something good. I’ve made mistakes in my life, and I just want to leave a net-positive impact on the world.”
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TAGGER VANDALIZES SUPERHERO ADS ACROSS THE CITY

The extremist anti-super vandal Tagger had a busy night. Kraine city residents woke up to the irreverent artist’s work all over the city. The criminal’s many targets included a HERATech poster for the new SCEPTRE-compatible SmartWatch (available this June!) featuring Shard Knight’s face, giving him a poop emoji head and the phrase #ShardTurd. A beautiful 200-foot UrbanElements™ portrait of the stunning Mirage on one building was plastered with “SELLOUT.” 

Perhaps most disrespectful of all, a memorial billboard sponsored by RagerLager Brewery™ for the six month anniversary of the death of Xavier Marx (who we all know as the lovable bastard Burnout) was vandalized with the phrase “Grimm did nothing wrong.”
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ONE GRIM BROTHER STILL AT LARGE

Grimm news, everyone. One half of the super-killing pair is known to be on the run.

Detective Adam Slain of KCPD confirmed that one of the Grim Brothers and the Performer were apprehended in the raid and are safely contained at Kraine Super Penitentiary awaiting trial, but declined further comment on whether they had any leads on the missing Grim or Ashfall's kidnapped niece.

We would also like to issue a correction on a previous article to inform any concerned readers that Shard Knight was not, in fact, present during the livestream, and has had no involvement with the Grim Brothers or the Performer.

A HERATech representative reached out with this message of hope from the Knight himself: "My heart is full of gratitude for our boys in blue after hearing about their successful capture of two of this beautiful city's most dangerous enemies. I still believe that if anyone can do it, they, with the full support of the hero community, will eventually return Helena [Ashfall's niece] to safety if she is still alive out there, and close the final chapter on the Brothers Grimm."

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