Worm
Vibrant and thriving, Boston is the jewel of the Massachusetts Commonwealth. The PRT, Protectorate and local police keep the streets quiet enough that people can go about their everyday life without the threat of violence. Scratch away at that facade, though, and it won't take long to spot the rot hidden just below the surface. Despite the gleaming alabaster of the Protectorate's floating fortress, the city remains a hub of both organised and unorganised crime - acting as a haven for societal scum from every walk of life.
Which is why, when a small-time drug dealer turned up dead in an alley, it didn't even make the 5 o'clock news.
No-one predicted just how far events would spiral out of control. As the bodies continued to pile up, the gangs got more and more jumpy. They hired extra muscle from both inside and outside the city, worked out underhanded deals with local information brokers and ramped up their purchases of illegal weapons and narcotics. To meet the rising numbers of gang members, the PRT is being forced to recruit more people. The Protectorate has begged for additional parahumans to transfer to the city, but until they arrive, heroes are being forced to bend the rules to cope - and the line between good and evil is blurring more than ever.
Couple that with the rising number of vigilantes and vigilante gangs crawling out of the woodwork to "do their bit for society", and you have a city which is nothing more than a glorified powder-keg waiting to blow.
And everyone is holding a match.
That's where you come in. Will you be the next in a long-line of villains, fresh off the plane and ready to carve out your niche - a foothold into your own criminal empire - by any means necessary? Are you a hero, answering the Protectorate's plea for help from a neighbouring city, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and unaware of the horrors lurking within? Is being a vigilante Anakin Skywalker your thing, seeking to bring balance to the Force, even if it means stepping over the weak and powerless to do so?
Welcome to Boston. May God be With Us.
So, I debated for a long time whether to launch this as a rules-lite dice game, or purely narrative. Since I don't really have the free time for a dice game - and much prefer narrative anyway - I finally decided to just roll with it like this.
Fair warning. I have no plot in mind. I don't GM like that anymore. What I do have is a city full of characters fleshed out over multiple different campaigns with a total run-time of roughly 6 years. A cast of fully organic characters with their own motives, schemes and skillful deceits. Whenever you make a move against an NPC or NPC faction, they will respond how they will, rather than down a scripted planned path.
Worm characters are kinda my thing. I've been wanting to do this for a while, so it's finally time to see if there is any need for a RP to fill this space right now. Don't expect DC or Marvel-like things here, though. Morally Gray is the only colour you are likely to see here. After all, Worm's own motto is "The Wrong Things, for the Right Reasons."
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