DocTachyon

Sensation & Wonder: An Absolute Comics Roleplay [DC & Marvel One Universe Style Game]

Dominic Toretto

C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T P R O P O S A L

P R O F E S S O R X

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^{_{C H A R L E S X A V I E R ♦ E D U C A T O R ♦ S A L E M C E N T E R , N E W Y O R K ♦}}

C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T:

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^{"Our heritage and ideals, our code and standards -- the things we live by and teach our children -- are preserved or diminished by how freely we exchange ideas and feelings." - Walt Disney}

Charles Francis Xavier is one of the world's foremost experts on metabiology and metasociology, with a particular concentration on human mutancy. Xavier has dedicated his life to the pursuit of mutant rights in the United States, and indeed, the world abroad. After decades of effort, Xavier's dream of human and mutant harmony seems to finally be coming to fruition.

What started as a school for troubled mutant youths, running out of Charles' ancestral family home - Xavier's School For Gifted Youngsters - has evolved into a sprawling campus dedicated to the betterment of mutants worldwide -- The Xavier Institute. Through the Institute, Xavier and his team are able to personally feed, house, and educate over a thousand mutants in the surrounding Lehnsherr Village, and provide support for those mutants that choose to live elsewhere.

Since the early days of the school, Xavier has operated the X-Men, an all-volunteer team of the best and brightest mutants Xavier had ever encountered. Starting as a clandestine effort to shield persecuted mutants, The X-Men have evolved into a full-blown super-team, battling alongside the Justice League and Avengers. Now organized into a dozen sub-squads, many of which have chosen to take their own names (X-Factor, X-Force, etc.), the X-Men are one of the world's most recognizable names in superheroics.

It is this popularity that has allowed Xavier to expand his efforts. With help from the business acumen of fellow mutant and original X-Man Warren Worthington III, The Xavier Institute have launched lines of X-Men merchandise, including action figures, apparel, and graphic novels, all created by mutants, for mutants. The additional funding allows the Institute to grow each year, accepting more mutants and bolstering activism initiatives.

With this level of reach, Xavier's dreams have only grown. He imagines a world where the Xavier Institute can help not only mutants, but metahumanity as a whole -- much to Lehnsherr's chagrin. To this end, The Xaiver Institute maintains mutant liaisons within the Justice League, the UN, and even the Avengers -- though this leaves the Institute in a precarious position with regards to the US Government's meta registration initiatives.

P L O T ( S ) & G O A L ( S ):

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In terms of my motivations for this character, I'm interested in working with lots of people, and I think the set-up of a very far-along X-Men will help me to do just that. I don't have much experience with comic X-Men (most of my knowledge comes from the movies and cartoons), but I know they have an incredibly vast history and cast to work with. Given the extremely collaborative nature of this game, it seems like an unprecedented opportunity to really dive in on the X-Men. And, this way, rather than just one having all the X-Fun, the whole community can dive in!

The heart of the conflict here is the fundamental disagreement between Xavier and Lehnsherr. The details need not be exactly as described above; all I'm really looking for is classic X-Men stuff. At the end of the day, these men want the same thing, but disagree on the most ethical way to get there. I think in this instance I'd like to see an Erik Lehnsherr that starts from a more moderate position, but grows more extreme over time; but the Magneto is your oyster.

Overall I'd like to de-emphasize mutant persecution and oppression from exterior human forces. I'm much more interested in the interior of the mutant community, and the disagreements within it. Do all mutants think the existence of the X-Men is a good thing? How do they feel about the Institute's monetization of their team, their history, and their culture, even if that money is reinvested into mutant interests? Where is the line between meta and mutant?

As big as those themes are, I'd still love to tackle them in a very comic book way -- with super folks in silly outfits beating the absolute tar out of each other. I'm open to all kinds of stories for the X-Men, and in fact, I'd like to see as many supporting characters as possible! With the exception of Magneto, I think the idea overall is to have many supporting characters from many different writers, even if each can only stick around for a short arc or even a tiny handful of posts.

C H A R A C T E R N O T E S:

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Working with me, you should know that I'm a planner, not a pantser. There's always room for improvisation, but it'd be mighty appreciated if we could talk on Discord or something and try to think ahead.

My ideal for writing partners is someone who'd be willing to work collaboratively in Google Docs with me rather than following traditional post-respond-post collaboration methods. I find it encourages communication and can make these stories feel a lot more cohesive and seamless, but I'm willing to pursue whatever way of collaboration you're most comfortable with.

P O S T C A T A L O G:

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A list linking to your IC posts as they're created. This can be used for a reference guide to your character or to summarize completed arcs and stories.

Sensation & Wonder: An Absolute Comics Roleplay [DC & Marvel One Universe Style Game]

<Snipped quote by Lord Wraith>

Nobody laughed at this one. They take him more seriously, which is good.

@Sep

<Snipped quote by Lord Wraith>

It's a decision they'll come to regret.

@Sep

Rogue Continuum: The Singularity Crisis (A DC and Marvel RP)

The Flash was still thinking underwater, even as he ran across it.

He thought the prison was an extrapolation of the indestructible collar that he could still feel hanging off of his neck. An act of mad science against the typically inalienable forces of the universe, some expression of mutancy or magic festering in the prison’s very foundations that put him in deep. Past drowning, where the danger wasn’t the water filling your lungs, but the pressure, threatening to send cracks across your skull. So deep and black that no light, no matter how fast, could penetrate.

He knew his speed would come back after he escaped. His field of view would seem to pull out as everything slowed to a crawl around him; his brain would accelerate to keep pace with his new view of reality. Instead, the only thing he could think about was the run.

The others he’d met in the prison were being flown across. Barry insisted on running it for himself. A dead sprint across open water, nothing like the twists and hairpin turns of Mojoworld’s trials. A chance to run and think and just maybe a chance to go fast enough to become whole again.

He had dashed over oceans in the blink of an eye. But those were his oceans. Placid sheets of blue that to his eye moved only glacially, preserving the fish and creatures beneath as if in amber. This sea was alive, angry.

The water’s surface shifted as sands in a hurricane, dunes and valleys reshaping themselves before his very eyes. With every hand of brine that crashed across his costume, a boot would plunge into the deep, the force of his step and surface pressure mismatching, only to send him skipping like a stone across the water, legs pinwheeling above and beneath him.

A part of him wondered if this was another of the challenges. Maybe they were meant to escape. An extended bout that would see them picked off, one by one. A massive VR rotunda with climate control and tide machines to sell the illusion. But the blown out remains of the moon hanging in the sky and the whirring device on his belt told him otherwise. The tides were real. So was the death that lingered beneath.

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The rooftop was a chance to rest and recollect, and to attempt to explain the intricacies of the multiverse to the uninitiated. In the prison there were other possibilities -- time travel, wormholes, pocket dimensions. But to Barry, it had been plain as day once he saw the others. He knew he was just one Flash out of a community of red and gold runners in every shape, size, and variation, and knew that for the rest it was just the same.

This Steve Rogers was younger and yet sourer than his. He carried the same willful determination in his gait and his gaze, but the hopeful spark that Barry had come to associate with Captain America had long since gone out. He took the concept of the multiverse the hardest. In his world, he was the only costumed avenger, and now he was thrust into countless trillions of worlds chock full of them. Barry felt for the man, having his understanding of the world pulled out from under him. But at least he was alive, not cut down like the Batman they had crossed paths with.

And not a corpse like Damian. Six, Barry had to keep reminding himself. Not the Robin he had come to know, but a body with glassy eyes and pale skin, cloaked in a symbiote of some kind. It wasn’t of the same ilk as Venom’s, a supervillain from his earth, but something to keep an eye on, nonetheless.

Then there was M’gann, this time without her innocence. Not a member of the Titans but a full fledged Martian Manhunter. At the least, she was easier to separate from her counterpart than Damian -- she wasn’t green.

Jonah Hex, Barry only knew of from history. From the endless tomes of Central City Library that he’d read cover to cover again and again. A western adventurer, bounty hunter, and sometimes-lawman eking out an existence in tumultuous times. This one was similar enough to the legends. A hardened cowboy type with an iron on his hip and snake in his boot or somesuch. He described himself as a man out of time. Not brought just from his universe, it seemed, but from his future as well.

For Hex’s sake, hopefully Mojo’s device could travel in time, too. He had been studying the device as the child scavenged for food, watching the symbols dancing and shifting in the top left corner of the screen. Sometimes they’d change so fast even he would miss their transition. On his world he’d have been able to record every symbol a thousand times, test pattern variations, and determine for certain how to operate it. Instead he felt like a kid again in Central City Arcade, meaninglessly mashing buttons as Iris’ combos flattened him. Really, he shouldn’t have needed the damn thing at all. He could take everyone into his arms and run them home to wherever that was for them. He could be fast enough to defeat The Rival. He could see Iris, his Iris, one more time. He wanted to chuck the device into the sea, never to be found again.

But the device was coming to life in his hands. Symbols migrating from their corner to the screen’s center, growing in scale as the device began to ping, as it had done before sending them here.

“I think we have another doorway coming, people…” Barry said. He looked out over the ocean, dead in every regard but for the warring tide on its surface. “Unless anyone’s keen on finding this world’s Atlantis, it’s our best bet.”

Moments later, another rift opened in reality. With his full speedforce, Barry had slipped and slid through the walls between times and dimensions, but this was a hole. Almost like a boom tube, a shimmering silver circle hanging on nothing that promised passage to elsewhere.

“Well… Once more unto the breach.”

Young Justice Renegades: A Team Worth Dying For

how the fuck can a roleplay get so many posts in one month

@AlphaTheAllwing

With skill, experience, and the GM-know-how of the original Dinoman, praise be his name.

Young Justice Renegades: A Team Worth Dying For

Uh, DocTachyon, Varo is already going after the gunmen. So Hayden does not have to. Unless you do not want to change that.

@Theyra

I assumed there were multiple gunmen, possibly in other parts of the building and whatnot, but I defo should have made that more clear. My bad.

Young Justice Renegades: A Team Worth Dying For

This time, Hayden would do it. For sure. During her travels with Captain Marvel she’d experienced a few means of teleportation -- Zeta tubes, Shazam mumbo jumbo, and a smattering of other magical means of movement. But, still, she had never seen it, the moment of transposition. The interiors of the Zeta tubes were always too bright for her to watch as they transported; and the lion’s share of the other means would apparently melt a mere mortal’s brain into clam chowder upon simple observation.

It was one of the things on Hayden’s bucket list, the one she started with scratches on the floor of her former cage, and one that only swelled as her experiences broadened. A list of perfect places and staggering sights -- to see the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, to visit Dinosaur Island, to witness the very moment of instant transport. What would it look like? Conor and Julian’s device smacked of opportunity, to see it before her very eyes… Eyes that were starting to itch.

She kept them open, regardless, as Julian rattled off the teleporter specs and how many teraflops or whozit-whatsits it had. The squad lineup passed her by as she focused on keeping her eyelids peeled back, demanding her saurid eyes didn’t miss the magical moment of transition. There’d be time to see who she was deployed with at the bank, certainly.

Her eyes begged for relief. A quick blink to quell the budding tears in her eyes… Maybe she could chance it, just one. Julian had a way of going on, and on, and on…

Hayden closed her eyes and opened them somewhere else.

“Damnit.” Dino-Man squeezed his gloved fists. Another chance to see something otherworldly, gone. And Julian had sent the fossilized crime-fighter to the Precinct, away from the real action. Dino-Man made a mental note to turn all of Julian’s tools into a deluge of diminutive dromiceiomimus and make him chase them around the penthouse. But that would have to wait. There were hostages to save, and he could tell the other team was already getting into action.

The impressions from his network of paper dinosaurs were already washing over him, the scent of adrenaline and the faintest copper tang of blood -- the enemy’s, Hayden hoped.

“Someone take out the gunmen”, Gabi said, cracking Hayden’s focus, “I’ve got the big guy.”

“I can handle a few peashooters, leave ‘em to me! I got this!” Hayden yelled. Hopefully the others would go help Gabi and leave him to his own devices, except for Roy, perhaps. A colorful distraction that wasn’t half bad on the eyes couldn’t hurt…

Besides, Gabi might need the backup. Since he didn’t have the ability, Dino-Man didn’t quite understand it himself, but the scaling on superstrength was weird. Red was one of the biggest, toughest guys Hayden had ever met, but Gabi could probably punt him like a football -- and who’s to say this goon couldn’t do the same to her? Gabi was a tough cookie, but the prospect of seeing that cookie crumble set her stomach into further dis-ease.

Hayden approached a pair of desks on the bullpen floor of tanned and rusted metal. Whether they were fused together at production or from years of wear and heat was anyone’s guess, but right now they were exactly what he needed.

Dino-Man placed his palms on the metal and concentrated. Something big and brawny, as muscular as Red but as durable as Johnny’s armor. Something that could eat lead and keep going ahead. The dinosaur’s form began to coalesce as sweat beaded beneath Hayden’s mask.

The desks groaned as they twisted and changed, metal scrunching itself into an armored plate with dull, bony spikes protruding around the sides. The surface of the plate lurched forward, defining a snout and a face as the remaining metal folded itself into a chest cavity.

And there it was, a full metal triceratops. Hayden’s hair was damp in his mask, pressed tight against his skull. He ignored the beads of sweat beginning to leak down his face and out the suit’s orifices as he mounted the steel saurid. The triceratops let out an acknowledging bleat as Hayden sidled closer to its head. By sitting far enough ahead, and crouching just a little, he could protect his whole body from the bullets behind the shield of the dino.

“Dial 1-800-DINO-MAN if you need more backup!” he shouted after Gabi. He dug his heels into the triceratops’ sides, “c’mon, boy, we have some fools to foil!”

Young Justice Renegades: A Team Worth Dying For

How do you make a living, Hound? Out of interest.

@Roman

He is the protector of K'un Lun, The Immortal Iron Fist... So I guess a Security Guard, you could say.

Rogue Continuum: The Singularity Crisis (A DC and Marvel RP)

C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T P R O P O S A L

F L A S H

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^{_{B A R R Y A L L E N ♦ 3 2 ♦ C E N T R A L C I T Y ♦ J U S T I C E L E A G U E}}

C H A R A C T E R B A C K G R O U N D:

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^{"Don't worry, Barry. Zoom will teach you."}

Barry Allen has never been able to slow down -- and he's still not fast enough. Not fast enough to save his Mother, without the speed to be there for Iris, and not quick enough to save Pietro Maximoff from himself.

Barry has undergone much of the standard Flash origins, the death of his mother at the hands of the Reverse Flash, his life with the West family, and the lab accident that would transform him into the one and only scarlet speedster, The Flash.

In this iteration, The Flash is close friends with Pietro Maximoff, a fellow officer at CCPD who revealed his mutancy to Barry after deducing the fellow officer was, in fact, The Flash. Inspired by Barry's then-month of antics as Central City's red streak. The badge was hardly enough to contain Pietro's ambition, and he would join The Flash on the scene as the hero Quicksilver.

With the tutelage of the previous Flash, Jay Garrick, the speedsters scarlet and silver would battle all manner of metahumans, mutants, and madcap scientists across Central City. From Captains Cold and Boomerang to the dastardly pair of Weather Wizard and Whirlwind, Barry and Pietro kept the city safe and were, for a time, awarded with idyllic lives. Pietro rising in the ranks of CCPD, and Barry finding love with his childhood friend Iris West.

Things would change with the re-emergence of the Reverse Flash. Faster than Quicksilver and Flash put together, it would take weeks of training and the combined efforts of all three of Central City's speedsters and the local branch of STAR Labs to defeat the man in yellow, and send him back in the timestream from whence he came. But Barry's speed now sat differently in his body; as fast as he and Pietro had become in their training, Barry was only getting faster.

The faster Barry became, the harder and harder it was to slow down. Seconds long quips around the office water cooler stretched into minutes and hours; even Pietro was falling behind. At a point, the other speedster might as well have been as slow as anyone else.

Pietro grew envious of Barry's speed, and sought out the X-Men for further, specialized training as a mutant. During this time, Barry became Central City's sole protector, with the occasional assist from Garrick or other heroes. His work as The Flash was the one thing keeping him sane, zipping to punch bank robbers and save cats from trees in-between the beats of conversations wherever he could, sparing his undivided attention almost exclusively for Iris. As long as it took for Barry to understand even her simplest words, he hung on them, an anchor to a less tumultuous time in his life.

Everything changed on Pietro's last mission with the X-Men, learning of his true parentage: he was the spawn of Magneto, leader of the Brotherhood of Mutants. Believing Magneto could lead him to the speed he desired, Pietro turned on the X-Men, becoming a zealous believer in Magneto's cause. In his father's world, Pietro could be the fastest mutant alive.

Despite Pietro's dreams, his hopes were dashed by Barry's intervention. Alongside the X-Men, The Flash defeated The Brotherhood, putting Magneto behind bars as Pietro disappeared to the four winds.

Barry would grow faster still, now able to approach lightspeed, he had all the time in the world; yet, still, less and less for Iris. Barry abandoned his job at the CCPD at dedicated himself to full time crimefighting, never slowing for an instant, zipping across the the country to solve problems wherever he was needed.

Achieving such phenomenal speeds, Barry learned of the Speed Force, as well as its self-appointed expert and guardian, Professor Zoom. Under Zoom, Barry would break the barriers of light and time, becoming one of Earth's most powerful heroes, and facing off once more against Eobard Thawne, this time within the confines of the speedforce. Barry emerged victorious, but his challenges were far from over.

Zoom had another pupil. The Rival, a black clad speedster spoken of only in rumor. The Flash would clash with The Rival in his now worldwide sprints, in sparks of black and red too fast for even Superman to follow -- The Rival was, in all Barry's years, the only man to ever truly keep up with him. Everything fell to the wayside in Barry's life. There was no Justice League, no X-Men, no Iris: only the threat of The Rival, approaching over the horizon.

In their final battle, The Rival unmasked himself: he was Pietro. Using a combination of the experimental drug Velocity 9, his personal notes on Barry's accident, a mysterious benefactor, and the blood of countless other speedsters, Pietro had finally achieved the speed he so desired.

In their pitched battle, Pietro was able to leverage his newfound command over the Speedforce to sever Barry's connection to it -- before the other speedster disappeared, without a trace.

Barry now finds himself on Mojoworld, significantly slower than he should be, relying exclusively on his biological speed. For the first time in his ten years as The Flash, Barry has been forced to slow down and reflect. Through each of Mojo's trials, barry reflects on what he's lost in his pursuit of the speedforce: his career, his allies, his closest friend, and the love of his life.

W O R L D B A C K G R O U N D:

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Not a lot to say on the world background here: this is a pretty standard Marvel/DC One Universe setting that integrates the two universes quite closely with one another. The most major change is Pietro's inclusion, both as Flash's ally and as his enemy.

C H A R A C T E R N O T E S:

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-Leaving current his speed limit pretty unspecific for the time being. Figure it'll just scale appropriately to the strength of the accepted party.

-In case its not clear completely from the bio, I'd like to make it crystal that this version of Barry cannot slow down his perspective once he begins tapping into the Speedforce. To access it is, fundamentally, to tie himself to a life in the fast lane.

-There's an implication in there that The Rival is working with Mojo -- I leave it up to the GM to decide whether this is actually the case.

Variety Hour: An Absolute Comics Roleplay

A FISTFUL OF KETCHUP

I am Batman’s arch nemesis.

Me -- Mitchell Mayo. Don’t let the clowns or the birds or owls tell you any different. There’s only one game in Gotham that isn’t a crock of tartar sauce, and I’m through waiting for the rest of the city’s pest-o’s to ketchup.

Criminals in this city will a-salt the Bat with everything they got: pepper him with bullets, try to barbecue that pointy-eared head; someone even mustard the courage to get in there and break his back. But the Bat always ends up on top. These galooks are in a jam, if you ask me. New guy thinks he has a big dill plan and gets his goons into the same pickle, and then they get to spend the next few months chili-ing out in Arkham.

Not me. Now, you’re a-dressing The Condiment King, the man that knows Batman’s true weakness! Superman has kryptonite. Martian Manhunter can’t soy-vive a fire -- and Batman? Really, it’s as simple as yum yum sauce.

He’s weak to sauce. They tell me I’m crazy -- too much honey in my mustard, or something -- but I’ve seen it. Bat leaves the mask open at the bottom so you can’t miso what he’s feeling. He wants you to see that grim, square, serious jaw right before he sends you to the hospital with all manner of aioli-ments.

I can tell from the way he mayo-ntains focus on my condiment applicators. The horrible way his mouth curls, like he’s just taken a spoonful of vegemite. He knows I’m getting close, that soon I will unlock the special sauce that he fears most. The corners of his mouth struggle as I bring out the curry-worst weapons in my delectable depot of destruction. The tang of tabasco and the cutting chutney, as soon as I reach the right combination he’ll be sleeping with the fish sauces. Each time we have done battle, I see it on his face:

A haunting smile -- syrup-titiously trying to hide his fear, the emotion bubbling up inside... I relish it.

GRAVEYARD SHIFT - A 24/7 HORROR QUEST

[X] - Zhang Hae-Sung (The Keyboard Wizard)