Justice League: Shadow of the Gods

[MrDidact]

Link to OOC

"Who watches the watchmen?"

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S H A D O W O F T H E G O D S

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The Second Cold War

The year is 2052 and the world is in the midst of the Second Cold War, with World War 3 looming on the horizon. In the year 2018, Superman flew through the sky for the first time and revived humanity's hope for the future. In the months and years that followed, hundreds of metahumans and mystery men followed his example and became superheroes, with the Justice League representing the greatest of their number. They defended Earth from every threat, from would-be overlords to alien conquerors. Their numbers grew as their apprentices, children, and heirs took up the fight themselves. Hundreds of times, civilization was threatened by supervillains and unearthly foes. And hundreds of times, Earth's heroes stood fast and stood strong against the wolves at Earth's door. The heroes also sponsored great acts of altruism and scientific advancement. Mundane crime fell drastically, quality of life soared, and the future had never seemed brighter. It seemed that the world was in the midst of a Golden Age, with the Superheroes as its' stewards. This sentiment would not last.

A decade past, the Legion of Doom undertook one of the most ambitious, brutal, and successful campaigns of conquest in human history. After years of being defeated and rebuffed by Earth's heroes, the villains came to a realization. The wealthy, industrialized nations of the world were simply too powerful to subjugate, especially with the Justice League and other heroes protecting them. But they were hundreds of vulnerable poor nations, minimally defended by Earth's heroes, and ripe for the taking. Factions and organizations as diverse as the Kobra Cult and the League of Shadows united under the Legion of Doom's banner, pooling their vast resources, wealth, and connections together. They made alliances with alien empires and supernatural horrors. They raised armies of mercenaries, recruited metahumans, and fanned the flames of dissent in volatile nations. Then they struck. In a single day, the Legion's associates launched simultaneous acts of terror and wanton destruction throughout the industrialized world, while the Legion's armies marched on other nations, demons and monsters ran amok, and an interstellar invasion force led by Sinestro darkened the skies.

With the Joker and other villains wreaking havoc in Gotham, Metropolis, and dozens of other cities, it was all the Justice League and their allies could do to dampen the fires while Superman and the mightiest of his comrades repulsed the alien attackers. The Justice League brought peace back to their homes and thwarted the invasion, all according to the Legion's plan. By the end of the first day, the Legion had toppled nearly half of the world's governments in South America, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. Black Adam, Queen Bee, Gorilla Grodd, Ra's al Ghul, the Brain, Lord Naga, Vandal Savage, and many others were now world leaders, with their own fiefdoms and territories. Atlantis, Themyscira, the Kingdom of the Apes, and other lands allied with the Justice League suffered civil war incited by Legion operatives, while creatures straight from nightmare still infested many parts of the world and brought slaughter and terror to the innocent.

Though the great powers of the world and many of their allies still remained in the United Nations, almost half of the assembly's member-states had been usurped by the metahuman conquerors, and the Legion showed no signs of stopping. The Legionaries violently and ruthlessly cracked down on all rebellion and resistance in their conquered territories and began attacking Russia, China, India and many others. The seas ran red with blood as the upstart King Orm clashed with his brother King Arthur of Atlantis, and violence in hidden mystical lands spilled out into the mortal world with deadly consequences. Many feared that within months, the majority of the world would live under the Legion's control. It seemed that an even more destructive war of retaliation from the industrialized nations would follow, with many fearing the nuclear apocalypse. But the Justice League intervened. To prevent even more widespread violence the Justice League gathered the leaders of the free world and the Legion's warlords in Metropolis to sign a cease-fire.

The Legion would halt their campaign of conquest in the human world in exchange for the right to keep control of their territories. Borders were redrawn and the Legion powers received seats in the UN. The members of their coalition came to be known as the Shiruta Pact, for the city where the Legion's plans were first hatched. Peace ostensibly returned to the human world while the wars still raged on in Atlantis, Themyscira, and dozens of super-powered nations, part of an alliance known as the Meta Entente. But both the Legion of Doom and the Justice League knew it was a farce. Open war was avoided, but a shadow war began. The Legion focused its efforts on attacking the Entente nations allied with the Justice League while sponsoring terrorism and rebellion in the human nations. The Justice League, unwilling to be caught unaware again, united all of the world's heroes under it's banner and reformed. The organization leveraged its considerable assets and resources to become a finite political power with an intricate web of diplomatic connections, clandestine operations, technological infrastructure, and a military force to rival the world's superpowers. The Justice League United, with thousands of members, received official sanction from the United Nations to operate in protection of the Earth's peoples and in keeping the peace while becoming more active in their prosecution of crime in their home countries.

The Second Cold War, a war of brutal skirmishes, secret missions, guerrilla attacks, cloak-and-dagger operations, political and economic intrigue, and metahuman-on-metahuman violence has raged for almost a decade. An entire generation of young heroes and villains have matured with this shadow war as their reality, and the Justice League has found itself in a position it never thought to be in. At the beginning of the year 2052, campaigns are well under way to elect the next President of the United States. And both the Justice League and the Legion of Doom are working behind the scenes to influence its outcome. Lex Luthor has announced his candidacy as President as an independent while decorated veteran Steve Trevor has done the same. Both Presidential hopefuls have vast networks behind them working to seat them in the Oval Office, as the American public will unwittingly decide whether the Justice League or Legion of Doom holds sway over one of the last remaining and most powerful democracies in the world. Meanwhile the secret war rages on many fronts as loyalties are tested and plots are enacted in a struggle that will shape the fate of the world.

This RP is based off of DC Comics with its many heroes and villains, but you aren't just fighting crime or committing crime. You are fighting in a war, with the Justice League on one side and the Legion of Doom on the other. You will fight this war on every possible front. Whether its brokering agreements in boardrooms, stealing secrets, manipulating public opinion, dealing in the black market, blackmailing and betraying one another, or the fighting battles, the deeds of your characters will shape the course of history. Your choices and actions as a group will determine which side gains the upper hand over the course of the roleplay, whether it be the resolution of conflicts and the fate of entire countries and peoples.

You will either defend humanity or subjugate it, you will either avert disaster or plunge the planet into war, you will be the salvation of humanity or it's damnation. And you can be on either side of the war while doing so. Whether you are a Leaguer or a Legionnaire, your choices will shake the Earth to its core. The first iteration of this roleplay will focus on the outcome of the 2052 US presidential election as well as several other international crises. The war is still being fought in the shadows with neither side having a clear advantage but this is a very delicate point. Both sides are backing a presidential candidate and the one whose candidate wins will have a massive advantage. Alongside the election will be other crises and flashpoints that will significantly influence the direction of the story and the world state. Your choices will also determine if the war remains covert or escalates into open conflict. Besides the overarching storyline I have in mind, you are encouraged to come up with your own sub-plots and ideas, and I highly welcome to chance to collaborate with you on both the storyline and the lore of the RP itself.

[BushidoBantam]

Wow. It's been quite a while since an interest check has grabbed my attention so immediately and subsequently held it long enough to convince me that there is actually some potential. Consider me interested.

[Barrett]

Anyone who uses Kingdom Come art in their interest check at the very least has my attention and the roleplay intro sealed the deal, colour me intrigued.

[Lucian]

I'm here, Didact, as expected.

[Rtron]

I'm down.

[MrDidact]

@Lucian@Rtron I always love roleplaying with you guys, looking forward to collaborating once more.

@Barrett@BushidoBantam I'm glad this caught your interest. Would either of you like to join the discord server? I can send an invite through PMs.

I've also reached out to some other people who are coming aboard onto the roleplay. I'll leave this up in case anyone has any questions about the concept or wants to talk about ideas, and an OOC will be within the week.

[Architect]

Bunch'a nerds.

Same, tho.

[Chev]

This does look interesting. Normally I do casual but this has caught my interest.

[BushidoBantam]

@MrDidact I'd love to join the Discord and try bouncing some ideas off of the group. I think it'll be especially helpful in regards to avoiding redundancies in character design and formulating sub-plots. Feel free to PM me the invite!

[Sep]

I was unsure when I first looked at it.

Though the Kingdom Come banner is on point.

After coming back to it though I have to say incredibly interested.

[DJAtomika]

I guess since @Rtron dragged me here and I've got a thing for superhero RPs. As long as we're making our own dudes and not controlling the existing DC characters?

[spicykvnt]

Are we able to apply with existing heroes?

Happy to pitch my own idea but also keen on potentially playing an existing!

[MrDidact]

@Architect You're one of us Jace and always will be, good to have you.

@Chev Thank you for throwing your hat in. You don't need to write essays for your posts, the important thing is depth of material not length.

@Sep Kingdom Come is one of my favorite superhero stories and I've always loved the art style. You can expect a lot of inspiration from it in the RP. It's great to have you on-board.

@Stormflyx@DJAtomika I welcome you both to the club! To address both of your questions, players will have options in the RP.

You can play an existing character while modifying them to fit the setting and timeline, such as an old Oliver Queen or an adult Billy Batson. This version of DC is going to draw elements from all the disparate DC properties, so you can have characters inspired by the Flashpoint story, Kingdom Come, Batman: Beyond or any number of alternate timelines existing in this world. I don't know a ton about the Wildstorm universe but those characters could also show up here if they fit.

You can also make up a legacy character such as creating a child or grandchild of say Mr. Terrific and playing as them. You can create an OC who still has strong connections to existing lore, such as an original Atlantean or Green Lantern. Or you can make up a completely original character who fits in the setting. And you can play multiple characters.

And in case anybody had this concern, canon characters and other NPCs may be important parts of the narrative but PCs will have plenty of agency and it'll be their choices and their successes or failures that have the greatest impact on the world state, the fate of other characters, and the storyline as a whole. To use books as an analogy, the NPCs will affect the plot and character dynamics because of their presence and their actions. But the PCs will be the PoV characters who actually drive everything forward and have the most impact because of their agency. I'm also a big fan of collaborating with players on every level of the RP, so you can always come to me with ideas for plotlines, lore, and NPCs as well.

Since this has gotten a lot of traction, I'm going to edit a link to the Discord in the OP. Everyone should feel free to join.

I'm really looking forward to seeing what concepts people come up with and exchanging ideas.

[Sep]

@MrDidact So to put a film analogy on it, NPCs are passive characters and PCs are active.

[Themerlinhawk]

DJ, Rtron, and DC comics oh my. I may not have all the time in the world but I've been looking for something DC ish for a minute.

[MrDidact]

@Sep Yeah that illustrates it pretty well.

@Themerlinhawk Welcome! I like Marvel, but I've always been a DC fanatic. It's shaping up to be a pretty good week for DC fans too.

[Mistress Dizzy]

What is up mah homies

[DJAtomika]

@MrDidact You say this and I might just make a Green Lantern.

Question: do Lanterns of other colours (Yellow and Red notwithstanding) often work together? I admit I'm not too familiar with DC lore.

[MrDidact]

@Mistress Dizzy Crashing this plane... WITH NO SURVIVORS!!

@DJAtomika The Yellow and Red Lanterns sometimes work together if their goals align but they often clash. The Green Lanterns are very close with the Blue Lanterns, and sometimes the Indigos and Sapphires are allies. That's my understanding at least, but there are other players in the group with a greater knowledge of the GL lore than me.

A Green Lantern would be a great addition though.

[Themerlinhawk]

Well if what I read is right, Earth needs a lantern right now doesnt it?