Being a proposed campaign reboot.
Much that was, won't be. Much that never was, will be.
New PCs welcome, (some) old PCs as well.
SETTING
Kids these days. It's the common complaint of parents: the wrong shows, the wrong music, the disgusting things they do to try and one-up the antics of their own parents. Only now, that's nothing. The world is too big, too global, too much of everything. It's hard to hide, that some kids aren't kids. They're stronger, faster, dangerous. They're more than other kids, more than other people. Evolution on crack, as the leading theorist Ms. Elenora Thompson put it.
And if that were all, that would be enough. But there's other kids, too. Able to do things that defy reason, miracles that mock physics. Able to create fire, to turn things into other things, to change the way we see and understand the world. Why this is, no one knows. It was hidden. Though how any government did that, and for how long, is unknown. But too many escaped handling, escaped conditioning, flew under the radar [some literally] and slowly but surely a new kind of being has been discovered. Something old? New? Government tricks? Aliens? No one knows. Or if they do, they're not talking.
Two new species of humanity exist now. They get called different things, are capable of stuff no humans are, but as a brief rundown.
Homo Alpha: People who are better than human. Stronger, faster, quicker. They heal quickly, are smarter than most, shrug off drugs etc. They're widely believed to be a human answer to Omegas, essentially, and what humanity may some day become. Despite the title, there is a lot of variance among them: some are geniuses at one thing, others awesome at a few things and so forth.
[In other words, you can get Reed Richards (intelligence wise) and Captan America, ability wise, falling under the same penumbra. Since people are capable of pretty impressive things, it's often hard to prove someone is one without drugging them – and some have died of such things, so it is not an ideal test.]
Homo omega: The x-men style people. One, at the most two, related abilities that are, frankly, beyond the scope of modern science and understanding. A guy with strength CAN lift up an entire car, when his attempt should just rip off the bumper and so forth. Currently theory holds that there's some physics distortion field involved, but that's mostly scientists making up terms. The fact is that these people can do impossible things as easily as breathing and few of them look human at all.
Basically, mutants in the sense of being weird and different: red skin for fire-users, etc. It's generally held that the most visible and physical the 'tell', the stronger one is, but that's not strictly true since not some only have tells function when using abilities, but the general public is ignorant of this.
(Meta note: Telepaths don't exist, to the common knowledge of even alphas and omegas. Some abilities are so dangerous it's considered best no one knows about 'em.)
Things to keep in mind: telepathy won't
be allowed for PCs. Neither will time travel. The reasons for both
should be obvious.
Homo Omega Notes
Over the past 3 to 5 years, the existence of Omegas has become more obvious to the world at large: each year more humans were changing and it became harder for governments and families to hide them or dispose of them, especially with people having ready access to camera-phones. Photoshop explained some, but didn't come close to explaining all and in the last few weeks more have began to become visible, demanding rights, mentioning injustices and throwing legal and ethical systems into disarray.
No one knows how Omegas come to me: most evidence suggests puberty and/or stress as factors. A few people have become Omegas in their 80s, a great deal in their 20s and there is much anecdotal evidence suggesting that certain drugs can trigger the change, to say nothing of some Omegas being able to change others. It is all very complicated and religious people have thrown about angels, gods, devils and nephilim as if they were on a giant sale, while scientists have invoked dark matter and quantum in much the same way. Crystals, orgone energy, vril and aliens have also been tossed about, but only the latter has any degree of credibility. Exactly why aliens would want to cause random mutations has been dismissed as 'aliens' or 'because they are evil' by proponents of those arguments.
In game terms: It is going to be assumed your PC has only been an Omega for a short period of time, though exceptions are always possible if it fits a character idea and so forth.
SYSTEM: RISUS!
Dice: 13-15. 4 die max for starting cliches, 2 die cliche minimum. If you use less than the 15 dice, you basically get 'free' experience awarded quickly during game play.
PCs should have at least one hobby/future profession cliche that won't lend itself to being Useful. For Omegas, you have one power and one mutation as cliches. (How obvious the 'tell' is that the mutation == not human is up to each player.)
Experience will be awarded, allowing for increasing power and control over it as the game progresses. As Omega have ability X and don't change, plan ability(s) your PC can grow into as the game goes on. Keep in mind that you can learn new cliches, so starting a PC without is both valid and entirely acceptable, or say getting better at those skills, learning new ones and so forth.
PC cliches will be considered to max out at 5 dice (6 for something one is really, really good at). XP can be spent to increase dice or to increase the power of an ability beyond what it begins the game as.
Homo Omega: Likely the PC, naturally. One-two abilities. If more than one, the other is physical and based on mutation of the body in some way. In other words, one could have Fire (and burning eyes when using it) or Fire and flight with red skin/giant flaming wings, as an example, though the two don't have to be connected. In general, the more obvious the mutation, the more powerful the Omega's ability is -- or could become.
(For really impressive abilities, assume that the
physical change doesn't grant specific abilities all its
own: this will be determined on a case by case basis.)
Note: Omegas spend their lives human until either some Huge Stress, puberty or being around a lot of Omegas fighting triggers abilities/powers/changes. Unlike alphas, who are born as they are, omegas do get to lead a normal life to a point.
Note (2): Whatever ability(s) the PC has should ideally be scalable. Game begins with PC new to the power/ability and with player providing ideas for scaling it up. So you begin with control/understanding of power at basic level, RP it up a notch as the game goes, and then have further milestones achieved via experience dice. Having one power ability and one mutation-style one allows for growth in both, naturally.
Homo Alpha: Post-olympic level ability (X), And (Y). Sometimes Z, or a more general 'all-olympic level'. Basically, you could get ninjas, batman, the punisher and the like out of this. They look like normal people, but aren't. Downside is their senses are better than human, so intense aural or visual stimuli can throw them for a loop. (This is not well known, naturally.) Also, at least a third suffer some degree of sociopathic or autistic tendencies but most of that is blamed on upbringing.
NOTES ON MAKING YOUR PC:
The game is set in the modern world. On one hand, you have 'humans' who look like everyone else but are Better and on the other weird mutants who are Unclean and so forth and can probably kill other people with a thought, if sufficiently annoyed. The law hasn't begun to come to grips with this, and drug are already being marketed that can boost Omegas (and Alphas) to new heights – or depths. To say nothing of fast-tracking vastly illegal government experiments on humans (a la iron man) to give humanity a 'fighting chance'.
The world is basically a powder keg, and into that steps the PCs. What you all do with it and how the city of Municiburg is shaped is entirely up to your choices.
I shall assume the PCs are roughly college-aged, since I don't have much desire for a high school RPG game. You could have a job, be in school, self-employed or whatever you desire.
THEMES:
Destiny: What does one DO with such power, especially when one begins to get inklings of the upper limits? You are, after all, a walking WMD, and the consequences of that can be pretty dangerous at the best of times, to say nothing of when being framed and so forth. As per the 'ism', it takes a lot of strength to be hated and not internalize some of that hate, eg: becoming a monster since people figure you are one and so forth.
Shaping the world: Should the Omegas ignore the humans, let them make their own path, catch them if they fall or raise them up? A lot of this gets deep into nanny state level ideas: what if people no longer put parachutes in planes because the odds an Omega would show to stop the plane from falling being ~70%? etc. As the PC and NPCs gain in power, this becomes more and more important: you can have a huge impact on the world, become Celebrity famous, be the latest Hitler to scar the pages of history. It's pretty heady, and should prove fun to explore.
Ism: Speciesm for and against Omegas is going to be common. Where PCs stand on that will be up to them. This will be a factor that fluctuates during the game due to PC and NPC actions.
Conspiracies: For the sake of my sanity, there will be far, far less of these. That is all.
