Ari

That and its name is ripe for all the "green city" jokes imaginable. And it fits very well with the broader theme of hidden things since this magificent edifice is built on top of another city claimed by the nature it's trying to be part of. San Fransokyo is a pretty good comparison, and I especially like the idea of the various styles not competing so much as blending and melding across the city. A place equally alien to everyone else and equally familiar to everyone there. And of course all that newness and strangeness helps enormously with the atmosphere of something new and fresh, a stark break from the NYC-lite of Freedom and other East Coast cities with a majorly European influence.

GM The man's head exploded under the sword. She collapsed into ash even as she screamed. Dr. Chandler had the good grace to look away and be deeply chagrined. Or to look it, at least. "I'm sorry, Robin. It is no excuse, but I rarely deal with cases about such slaughter. The last time I had to spend six hours talking to Commissioner Kane about it." "Still not meeting Robin's eyes, he picked up the report and started skimming through it briskly "Must have been my memory playing tricks on me, anyway..." The paper rustled in the suddenly very quiet, and very tense office. And it rustled. And rustled. Chandler's eyes were squinted both at the poor lighting and in sheer confusion as he came again to the end of the report. For the moment it seemed like he had forgotten his patient. "Nothing about that...but...I felt...bleedthrough...." At the last word he suddenly looked at Robin with something between delight and horror. The tablet on his lap slowly and comfortably crushed itself into a neat, square block of expensive scrap. Shakily, the man in red stood up, staring wide-eyed at the teenager. The block clattered to the floor. "Not possible to get bleedthrough from the Sleepers...you're "Ultima!" The word rang out in the office, Chandler's face flushing as he clamped a hand over his mouth. Mumbling something, Chandler stood as if frozen, only his eyes trembling in their sockets, his pupils lit by a far-off blue light. Stirring to life and dropping the hand from his mouth, Chandler whispered "Is she...your mother, you look so much...do you know what...?" His jaw locked, and his eyes suddenly filled with tears as he sank to his knees, staring up in desperation at Robin. "Please..."

GM "Oh, any number of things, Mr. al-Misri!" Lavernius assured the financial mogul, taking out his ArcheType A3 smartphone and quickly swiping to a video stored on the device, which he handed to Amir "But this is the most dangerous result of a malfunction." The video was surveillance footage, showing a redshifter device being attached to an electric teakettle. It was switched on, and at first all seemed well, until the kettle and shifter simply vanished. "Total atomic dispersal. The bonds between the molecules simply disintegrating all at once." The physicist took the phone back, looking quite imperturbed. "But so far that has happened in less than one percent of all trials. And only by intentionally introducing flaws into the construction process. Redshift has learned from that...unfortunate accident with the truck. Ensuring people won't just freeze in place, or turn into ghosts, or come home to no home, will be all our responsibility. Especially mine."

"I take your meaning. Still not enough data. Thus, the enclosure." Bending over her experiment, Atraxia scrutinized the proceedings with great care. Narrow fingers darted across panels and swept against bars, though no obvious effect was achived with this. Stepping back and folding her arms behind her back, Atraxia nodded soberly to her guest, her echoing, reflected voice remarking "I saw much of that on Earth. A great deal of crime, want, fear. I am not used to it like your kind, cannot...live with it. Do not expect to find it. It is part of why I left." "I can relate to wishing you could stretch your talents. Another reason I left, I wanted to make a home, some place I could be and work without disturbing anyone else, discovering my limits..." As she trailed off, Red Moon's helmeted head completed the slow turn it had begun, looking with a thoughtful tilt at Jerry. "I could assist in your efforts. There are open, unused spaces in the lower levels that are as reconfigurable as the rest. Shall I create a series of challenges for you to overcome? Later, of course," she raised a forestalling hand "I must run some tests first. She turned to a wall-mounted cabinet that opened at a gesture, reaching inside to pluck out a small, smoky, closed cylinder dancing with inner lights. Extending her arm with a mix of uncanny smoothness and a jerky spider's-leg air, the Farsider explained briefly "Keep this with you, against your skin, when you use your powers. Should match your substance constancy." "Do you...enjoy fighting?"

Works for me. Get an IC post up and we'll get this done.

In cyberspace the logs for that subject are pretty easy to find. The answer is yes. There's surveillance foltage showing what looks like a human-shaped mass of electricity being slowly pared down to the fun-sized thunderball currently being immobilized.

Well, one is in the US and doing shady stuff, the other is in the UK and dealing with time and interdimensional stuff. While a name change might be in order, I don't think in the context of threads in or about Bedlam City there will beany confusion.

Alright Exaccus, Sailor, what now? You've got the head of whoever was in charge of trying to figure out Facsimile's powers, odds are good Sanchez has gotten the word out that there's been an accident in the cells and is leading a team to help Wu get out of the door he left open. There's somebody else also being picked on by Ghostworks, and the security teams and defence measures are handling the problems of each other. So, what next?

GM taptaptaptaptaptap "I'll put you down for a 'yes', if you don't mind." Dr. Chandler said mildly, taking the reply well in stride, eyes roving over the tablet, fully absorbed and not even glancing at the report on the bisected desk beside him. "Dr. Marquez doesn't trust more nuanced analyses about 'his' patients from other doctors. I tell him "Marq, I'm in the same work, can't I go a little deeper?" but he just sets that jaw of his, looks at me like he's Judge of the Universe, and there's an end to it." There was a long silence as Chandler stared at the glowing screen. Suddenly he looked up to meet Robin's eyes. "If I may, I'm curious about this part you mentioned just now, about how you felt seeing and feeling the death of that "other" Victoria Atom. Your description was very...visceral, but a little out of place with your tactical assessment." Robin hadn't said a word about that. Though of course the memories were all too easily brought back, but that wasn't nearly the same. "It just seemed a little odd, going into such detail, given the topic." The man was also relaxed, the stylus flitting between his fingers, waiting for the sound and rational explanation this patient was so considerately providing.

GM "'Why you'? Hah! 'Cause maybe you're useful, you think?" Loma looked sieways at Ruby, a feat made much easier by the broad placement of her eyes. "You see that big guy when you came in? Kogar, remember? Looked like a hillock of muscle and horns?" The seemingly omnipresent Mattiden would have been hard to miss, even if he hadn't bothered to quietly greet the Voidrunners and smiled the smile of one professional to others, quirking one ponderous mound of scarred rust-coloured hide at his oblivious and voluble client. "I don't need anyone like that, you knowy why?" Loma's condescending smile disappeared for a tragically short time "Because you bring muscle when you know what you're up against, you bring smarts, guile, unconventional tools when you're hunting a guldik in the dark. Figuratively speaking, you know not to do that, right?" The impressively chairable smile came back "You can always back out, kid. Plenty of other mercies who'd kill to have your spot. But you know that too, right?"

"This arrangement, Templar, is as unnecessary as it is offensive." Following on the heels of the imposing Terrestrian, the even more imposing(if significantly rounder) form of Dol-Druth, observer of worlds and inquisitor of powers, the Speaker who gave voice to the tens of billions of minds who gathered together to name themselves "Dotrae", wobbled and swayed in the blazing Moroccan heat. Perspiration beading on the wholly bald, corpse-white flesh that emerged from his iridescent beige suit, the planet inspector went on irritably, slender antennae twitiching "We are not some truant child or ignorant visitor, we understand our job and have done it on worlds far stranger to us than this. We are not even allowed to use the combined mental power of our people, unless in extreme emergency that you alone cannot handle, and even then it would go through at least two levels of approval before I could so much as glean a thought or move a pebble." On the plane trip, crouched and bundled in the broad seats, the alienhad actually been quite personable and cheerful, something about the cramped conditions and chill air a powerful tonic for the manymind's ambassador. But as soon as they had taken ten steps on Moroccan soil the same dour grump had swiftly returned. Surveying the moving swells of people, their vehicles and their dwellings, the alien asked curtly "So, where are their aerospace administrators? Or should we interrogate the criminal element first?"

@Avenger Assembled Deciding on placement in the timeline, I think we can afford to move it back to just before the big changes hit. The rest can be decided in play. Apart from that it's largely the same, besides the slight tonal and aesthetic adjustments upthread, so not much work needed. Changes so far Columbia instead of the Albian River Chinook instead of Hekawi Different construction and visual style ... Not a long list. @Raveled I don't see why we can't have people operate in different places and still be Freedom Play-by-Post. Edge is primarily associated with international dealings and UNISON now, we have an entire superteam that's just for the U.K. and several that are just for space

Player Name: Ari Character Name: The Salmon Power Level: 7 (105/105PP) Trade-Offs: +3 Attack/-3 Damage, +3 Defence/-3 Toughness Unspent Power Points: 0 In Brief: Aquatically-adapted and linguistically-gifted mutant way out of his depth in the Emerald City underworld. Residence: 635 Tkope Ekoli Way, Riverfront District, Emerald City Base of Operations: (Incomplete) A cave in the flooded subway tunnels. Catchphrase: "I got this!/I don't got this!" Alternate Identity: Ishmael Paris Redwater/Ishi/Fishy Identity: Secret Birthplace: Emerald City, Oregon, USA Occupation: Student, translator, superhero Affiliations: Golden Dragon Society, the Malakov Mafiya, the Takazumi-gumi, Emerald City Community College Family: Ellen Riverrun(aunt, paternal), Abraham Hector Redwater(brother, elder) Description: Age: 18 (March 21st, 1998) Apparent Age: N/A Gender: Man Ethnicity: Coastal Chinook(Clatsop) Height: 5'6" Weight: 160 lbs Eyes: Brown Hair: Black Ishmael is slim and athletic with shoulder-length straight black hair. Everything from his fresh-faced, guileless good looks to his relaxed, fluid body language to his relentlessly casual dress sense seems almost tailored to make people feel comfortable around him. He generally wears clothes at least one size larger than fits (mostly hand-me-downs from his brother), many of which have pithy slogans or intricate designs. His favorite outfit, regardless of weather, is a beaten green jacket, red t-shirt, green cargo pants and scuffed red sneakers. His voice is usually soft and awkward, but can quickly switch to clear and projecting. He has the names "Priam" and "Cassandra" tattooed on his shoulders. When talking in most languages, he does not have a noticeable accent. As the Salmon he wears a green and black costume with slanted orange eyes and patterns of thick wavey lines of the same color on the trunk. In costume he becomes much more expressive and animated, talking with a slight accent he doesn't have in normal life. Power Descriptions: Ishmael's powers are internal and nonlbvious besides what they let him do, being a mutation of his body chemistry and biology making him superhumanly-fast, his skin capable of absorbing oxygen in liquid form and improving his ability to sense vibrations. History: Abandoned by his parents as an infant, Ishmael grew up with his brother Abraham in the extended Riverrun family. The boys early formed a bond with their aunt, Ellen, and Ishmael still lives with her and helps out at the art gallery she runs. Growing up, the boy developed none of his brother's self-assurance or independence, instead remaining reliant on others for direction and purpose. As a result, Ishmael's social skills quickly surpassed solitary, introspective Abraham's, and the younger brother became adept at getting in and out of trouble, confident in his legion of pals to back him up. Exposed to so many people from other cultures, he also quickly picked up on other languages with a dedication that far outstripped his academic efforts. While his brother was around, Ishmael had a steady role model to keep himself out of the ever-present gangs around their school. But only two years after Abraham left on a scholarship to Freedom City's Hanover Institute of Technology 'Ishi' has become an invaluable asset to the Emerald City underworld. Lured in by both the promise of easy money and the stylish, iconoclastic flair of mob prince Ryu Takazumi, Ishmael became enmeshed in the inner politics of the crime families as an interpreter and go-between. Thanks to his Amerindian ethnicity and facility with languages and people, Ishmael was ideal as a neutral, inconspicuous party. Even after graduating high school and starting at Emerald City Community College, even after it's become obvious just who he works for and what they do, Ishmael has found it impossible to leave. Besides the money and implicit threats, it's the first time in his life that he's really felt needed or wanted He has only just come into his powers and already made a monumental, horrible mistake with them that resulted in the death of now-late Triad dragon head and beloved Jadetown community leader "Uncle" Zhi. Ishmael's alter-ego, the Salmon, is already a murder suspect and hunted by both the law and the mob. Caught between the endless possibilities of his new gifts and the crystal certainty of his old life, he's finally going to have to decide what he is. Personality & Motivation: Ishamel is a jokey, cocksure, fun-loving and irreverent guy who's grown adept at lying to people(in luding and especially himself) and telling them what they want to hear. He doesn't like making his own opinions known, and mostly just goes with majority views and whatever will get him off the hook fastest, which has badly-strained his relationship with his family. Ellen doesn't know what he does for money, but as he evades and dodges she gets more and more worried, which pushes him to lie more. At heart, Ishmael is deeply unsure of himself and afraid of being abandoned or unwanted. But as he starts to understand that the underworld needs him more than he needs them, that's beginning to change. For now, however, he's still learning that his alter-ego can be something besides a liability and convenient cover. As the Salmon, Ishmael mostly just copies what he's seen speedsters like Johnny Rocket and Velocity be like on TV: confident, quippy and a little impulsive and prone to water or fish-based puns(Johnny went through a rockets and speed jokes phase that the League is trying very hard to forget). Powers & Tactics: Run up to a guy real fast and hit them, maybe run around a bunch of guys and get them tangled up in some stuff. The Salmon is still very new at this, and his martial training is very basic. Complications: After my alter-ego: The Salmon is not a popular guy after he apparently killed the respected "Uncle" Zhi. The police and the city's underworld are both after him, and they may not exactly have different ideas of what happens after he's caught. Black mark: Being partly responsible for a man's death has left a deep scar on Ishmael's soul. He'd do anything to avoid that happening again, and anything to undo what he has done. Dependence: Ishmael Identity: Secret. Responsibility: Family, especially his aunt, Ellen Riverrun. The lowdown: Ishmael knows a lot of what's going on in Emerald City, much of it could cost him his life if it's found he told someone. Switcheroo: As the Salmon, he can't show he knows what Ishmael does. As Ishmael, he can't reveal anything about the Salmon, not even to other heroes. Abilities: 6 + 6 + 6 + 4 + 2 + 6 = 30PP Strength: 16 (+3) Dexterity: 16 (+3) Constitution: 16 (+3) Intelligence: 14 (+2) Wisdom: 12 (+1) Charisma: 16 (+3) Combat: 8 + 8 = 16PP Initiative: +3/+11 Attack: +10 Melee, +4 Ranged Grapple: +13 Defense: +10 (+4 Base, +6 Dodge Focus), +2 Flat-Footed Knockback: -1 Saving Throws: 0 + 4 + 4 = 8PP Toughness: +4 (+3 Con +1 Protection) Fortitude: +3 (+3 Con, +0) Reflex: +7 (+3 Dex, +4) Will: +5 (+1 Wis, +4) Skills: 48R = 12PP Bluff 7 +(10/+14) Diplomacy 7 (+10/+14) Drive 2 (+5) Gather Information 7 (+10) Knowledge(Streetwise) 8 (+10) Languages 8(Chinook Jargon, English(native), Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Russian, Spanish, Vietnamese) Sense Motive 9 (+10) Feats: 19PP Attack Focus(Melee) 6 Attractive Benefit (civilian I.D. trusted by the Emerald City underworld) Contacts Dodge Bonus 6 Equipment 1 Move-by-Action Well-Informed Equipment 1= 5EP [Masterwork] Smart Phone(Nova Comm's network)[1EP] [Masterwork] Lock-release Gun[2PP] Motorcycle(book-standard)[0EP] Powers: 20 = 20PP Physiology Mutation 4(20PP Container; Action: Passive, Duration: Permanent)[20PP] Biology, Mutation Enhanced Array 6(12PP Array, Feats: Alternate Power 2)[14PP] Base Power: Damage 1(Extra: Aura, Autofire; Feats: Mighty[DMG4])[12PP] AP: Enhanced Feats 2(Moving Feint, Wall Run)[2PP] + Enhanced Speed 4(to Speed 5(250MPH, 2500FPH))[4PP] + Enhanced Swimming 4(to Swimming 5(50MPH, 500FPR) + Super-Movement 1(Water-Walking)[2PP] Enhanced Feat 2(Improved Initiative 2)[2PP] = 12PP AP: Snare 6(Extras: Area(Burst, 30ft), Blocks Sense(Visual, Normal); Flaws: Range(Touch), Limited(requires suitable materials(clothing, drapes, carpets, etc))[12PP] Immunity 1(Drowning)[1PP] Protection 1[1PP] Speed 1(10MPH, 100FPR)[1PP] Super-Senses 2(Tremorsesense(Danger Sense, Radius, Tactile))[2PP] Swimming 1(2.5MPH, 25FPR)[1PP] Drawbacks: (-0) + (-0) = -0PP DC Block ATTACK RANGE SAVE EFFECT Unarmed Touch DC 18/23 Toughness Damage(physical) Totals: Abilities (30) + Combat (16) + Saving Throws (8) + Skills (12) + Feats (19) + Powers (20) - Drawbacks (0) = 105/105 Power Points

I think replacing the fictional Hekawi people from the book with the actual Clatsop Chinookian folk who live around/along the Columbia River is a good idea. Especially since Freedom's local American presence, the Lenape, are real themselves.

Actually I only noticed that because you mentioned it in Chat while talking about Woodsman. Totally slipped by me otherwise. Should have credited!

I do declare, it is suprising how quickly you miss Freedom City's up-front statistics. Emerald City's setting book is maddeningly vague and disorganized in that respect. Oh sure the religion block has its numbers, but that's not much when figuring on how describe the makeup of who lives there.

I've nothing whatever to add on the subject of using sexual violence, except my voice thanking Alderwitch for pitching in with her perspective on its appropriateness. On the racism front though, I do have some problems. I voted to keep it as a core function of the city in the site, but in hindsight I regret that. KnightDisciple, I understand entirely that it's just for simplicity's sake that your suggestion was focused on the more overt stuff, but I think it's both a missed opportunity and actually a really bad idea to paper over the side that's not covenants of white people deciding Black Americans can't live near them, or random jerks yelling at Muslim teenagers, or police officers doing what they do best. At least in North American countries there's a lot of effort redirecting and obfuscating the more mundane ways racism manifests, which is mostly dull and complicated and something only really useful to a trained sociologist. Mostly because that's just easier. It's like why European countries figured trans people didn't exist. But the result is that racism, while widely recognized as a Bad Thing, is then something only Bad People do, because the alternative is stuff like Amy Schumer's racist dad in that movie, which is beside the point but I'm keeping that in because I can't let a woman beat me at rambling. Even in Freedom City, there's implicit racism in the removal of a Black majority city for one that's mostly whites, and while White Knight is hardly unbelievable the fact that racial discrimination is represented by him and the LITERALLYNAZIS organization is one of those comic-y things we might benefit by moving away from, if we we're serious about being more serious in Bedlam. So I'd suggest that, as a stylistic thing, we do what sounds like the opposite of what would make sense and follow my line of talk and focus on the effects, rather than the cause. There's a pretty concise essay by Mr. Desmond Cole for Toronto Life where he talked about how people being suspicious and fearful of him because he's Black had a very real and radical impact on how he behaved in turn. If anyone is curious: here is the essay. The focus, to be pointlessly brief, I believe should be primarily internal. On how deliberate racial stigmatization hurts people in ways that can't be measured in social or economic power. At the least, that's more difficult than beating up imaginary racists and I feel much more effective in showing how broken Bedlam and its people have become.

And suddenly that weird Egyptian skirt of his makes total, complete sense. He's a creature of the city, which means lights, and he's got no lights elsewhere, so it must be there.

@Kaige If you vanish now, after that, then I will invent the phenomena necessary for ghosts to exist and haunt you from before the grave. One aspect of Bedlam that's useful is how it's the kind of place the Labyrinth might breach the surface. No superheroes worth mentioning, precious few villains, everyone in any kind of authority is a puppet on financial strings, it's the perfect place for GRANT CONGLOMERATE, SAVIOUR OF HUMANITY to step in and make some waves. The depressed areas would be perfect for running borderline-open DNAscent research, who's going to notice...anybody going missing? Besides which Taurus is, well, a Taurus, odds are good he would hate Bedlam's current state like somebody with OCD hates an imbalanced table and he's arrogant, long-lived and smart enough to try and "fix" a city. Might be genuinely neat to play on the differences between what the PCs want to do to help Bedlam versus the man-bull's more utilitarian ideals. That plus the dark magic at work(I use the word loosely) makes this like DC's Vanity if Aztek never showed up. Which is my way of saying Shaen you should DEFINITELY make a bright, goofy Silver Age hero to play off the brooding badbutts that actually make sense in Bedlam.

Speaking of which, on top of the if/when side, its origin is a subject I've been thinking about for a while. I feel either a modified version of the stormer!Commander or Scion the Ultronesque would "mesh" better with this version of the city than Tellax the Redeemer, if only because they can have plots that last and change rather than being one-shot campaigns. Maybe Tellax is out in space instead, if existent at all. Or a creation of a Stormers' mind and powers.

I had not forgotten the Champions, don't worry Knight. If the votes had gone the other way we'd have needed a way to fold the Sentinels and they together(two big teams that close together is just gauche) But luckily that was unnecessary. So now that the issue of place is out of the way, what about time? I still think shifting just a little back, just before the Silver Storm and the breakup of the Chamber, might be a better moment to start since it means PCs can be more involved there and get to know the place before it goes very very weird.

Seeing as this has been four days and the votes are unanimous, I will ask for the thread to be Archived later today. So it is decided, this Emerald City will be in the same general area as in the book. As for geography, the only suitable place fitting its layout is the Columbia River delta in Oregon, which means the existing city of Astoria will be displaced by it. The Atlas Mountains and Mt. Stanley are a little trickier, but Apparating some mountains into existence is easy enough, and not out of place that close to the Rockies.

GM Loma's snicker and eye-roll spoke volumes, but she condescended to add "If I knew more'n that, you think I wouldn't have already trapped this thing? Nobody knows hardly anything about this 'Visitor', Voxx, that's why the reward's so high, get the holo?" "Nobody even knows if the standard Niralnite cages will contain it, but so far it's not gotten closer'n it needs to those, so I'm willing to take a risk on that. Like I am on you people. Clear?" Swinging her legs off the table with a grace that belied her size and bulk, Slife drummed her heavy claws on the wall, watching the rest of the Voidrunners in case there were any further questions.

One of the suggested alternatives to "rich industrialist Maximillian Mars bankrolls a superhero team" is "rich industrialist Maximillian Mars bankrolls a West Coast version of Charles Ex-Xavier's House of Pain for Gifted Youngsters". The Elysian Academy is so those PCs have a source of baddies, and adult PCs have a potential source for conflict and probably going after the what-might-have-beens of their life.

Very true. And also in Antarctica is Niflheim, stronghold of Overshadow, whose millions of clones are each potentially a superhuman as well. Not to mention the Ice People and the it's a black site super-prison get serious also on that continent.