Story Thread Descriptions

[Comatose]

Hello everyone.  I've observed a common trend of new players asking for a summary of the different threads before they join.  I've written the summary for Corvallis a half dozen times, but I can never seem to find my old post the next time someone asks.  I thought it would be a good idea for the GMs of the different threads to post their summaries here, and then we can just link new players to particular posts when asked for a summary.  

Anyways, here's my most recent summary of What Happened in Corvallis.  I don't like it as much as I remember liking older summaries, so I might tweak it if I ever track down the others.  

What Happened in Corvallis ... 

Spoiler

Corvallis is ruled by a group of Epics known collectively as the Queens of Corvallis.  Each Queen serves a key role in the administration and control of the city.  The Corvallis story line was initially pitched (and I hope it will continue to be) a story primarily about intrigue and politics, culminating in a slow descent into chaos, rather than outright rebellion or war.  Rainmaker and the other Queens are very powerful, which makes challenging them directly difficult, but there is lots of room for epics to maneuver situations to their advantage.  

Corvallis is popularly known as a lavish paradise where Epics enjoy extensive privileges based on their power and prestige.  Epics are assigned a rank when they arrive in the city, and are given a house and human slaves to reflect their position.  

The city is ruled by an epic named Rainmaker, who has the ability to distort the weather.  Incredibly powerful, Rainmaker's strength keeps the city safe from the threat of other High Epics, and keeps the epic population under control.  Perhaps more important, however, is Rainmaker's second in command, Euphoria.  With the ability to bestow happiness and the rewrite emotional histories, Euphoria keeps the human population content and pacified despite their slavery.  Cornucopia, who has the ability to plant any object and create a plant that produces that object, keeps the city supplies with every luxury it could possibly want for, while the epic Chase uses her tagging abilities to keep track of humans movements in and out of the city.  

The last three Queens are a group of sisters.  The most important, but also the most inactive is Bubbles.  Bubbles has the ability to create the large barrier that protects Corvallis for outside threats, and restricts movement in and out of Corvallis to specific times when the Bubble drops.  Bubbles is protected by her sisters, Buttercup, who handles city security and policing, and Blossom, who handles public relations and media.  

The story in Corvallis begins when Euphoria is confronted by a mysterious figure from her past - Insight, an elusive epic with the ability to view memories and to become intangible - and mysteriously vanishes.  Without Euphoria to keep the vanilla populace under control, the idyllic mood in Corvallis is quickly degenerating.  Long time citizens see Euphoria's disappearance as a sign of weakness form the Queens, while enemies of the city see the perfect chance to attack.  One such enemy is Iconoclast, an epic with the ability to resurrect himself, and to turn humans into mindless ghouls, whose sole aim is to create chaos.  Iconoclast has infiltrated the city, and has been causing chaos for the Queens since his arrival.  

The Queens struggle to keep control of the city as it is threatened by several High Epics, Iconoclast's ghouls, while also trying to locate Euphoria.  Meanwhile, in the absence of Euphoria's power, a human rebellion is beginning to form, which could cause problems for the Queens going forward. 

 

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles]

What Happened in Portland….

Spoiler

Spoiler

Even before the story began, Portland was known as the Wild West of Epic cities, the main rivalry being between Corpsemaker's Dominion and Altermind's Thoughttown, a neighborhood accepting only those Portland citizens who could pass the stringent entrance exam. These citizens pledged loyalty to Altermind and enjoyed relative luxury, free from the hunt for basic resources that characterized the day-to-day lives of most Portlanders. 

As the thread begins, a teleporter called Sightline imprisons Corpsemaker in a bank wall. Corpsemaker, being an invincible High Epic who can kill with a glance, is still alive, but unable to move. Following this, an influx of powerful Epics challenges the delicate balance of power left by Corpsemaker's absence—one of these Epics, a gifting healer and strength Epic called Nighthound, celebrates his arrival in Portland with a massacre. When a new arrival, an exuberant matter manipulator and teleporter called Doctor Funtimes, frees Corpsemaker from his prison, the sticky political situation of the city is complicated further. 

After a brief fight in the bank, which Funtimes transformed into a bouncy castle, Funtimes and her companion, an ordinary guy named Nathan who she is passing off as an Epic called Traveler, forge an alliance with a megalomaniacal necromancer Epic called Lightwards. Later that night, she, Nathan, and Lightwards engage Nighthound in an extended and rather insane street fight, after which Nighthound joins them in an uneasy alliance. The following day, the three take control of a Museum of Natural History, Lightwards resurrects the dinosaur skeletons within, and the Empire of Light emerges as a new Portland faction. Nighthound's sister, Lucentia, leaves her kingdom in Astoria and soon joins the Empire, complaining about it every step of the way. Other mid-range Epics follow, joining one of the city's three factions as they see fit. 

Funtimes and Lightwards discover that they do not get along all that well. The former, who has chosen several ordinary folk seemingly at random to be her "friends," discovers that one, a hunter named Remington Springfield, despises Lightwards even more than she does. She sends him to contact the Reckoners in hopes of undermining and eventually killing Lightwards. 

Meanwhile, a rebellion is brewing. Max, whose loved one was killed by the morally bankrupt Electro, gathers followers into a rebellion called the Black Fist. Unfortunately, an ill-fated uprising that kills multiple people drives him and his rebellion back into the shadows. Although the Reckoners seem to be still gathering intelligence, the Black Fist has lost its valuable momentum. 

Corpsemaker, now allied with an Epic named Toymaker, capable of transforming toys into living beings without free will or consciousness (similar to Lifeless) goes on the offensive. He sends Quota, an empath capable of dampening emotions (like a Dementor) to Upgrade, an Epic who can amplify the powers of other Epics. Quota sends out a blanket of despair over the entire city of Portland. 

Spoiler

I think that's everything. I think. If I missed anything important, please tell me and I'll add it in. 

 

[Edgedancer]

This may end up being improved upon a bit as well but until then this is what happened in Astoria.

Spoiler

Astoria is a city ruled by a powerful tyrant called Lucentia, yet the power situation within the city isn’t as structured as one may think. This is not because Lucentia is incapable of keeping control within her own city but because it would be too much of a bother for her to do so. Thus, gangs lead by Epics and the like are free to struggle for power, as long as they do not cause any noticeable commotion that would annoy their queen. Should any disturbance of the city happen, the guilty party is certain to quickly be subjugated.

For that purpose, Lucentia has found means to dispose of every Epic in town that has even the slightest chance of opposing her, in most cases their weakness.  
The two most important Epics working under Lucentia are Deathgale, who acts as her right hand and deals with most official work and delegating to subordinates, and Bloody Mary, Lucentia’s spy master that unbeknown to the populace has created a wide net of information by infecting the blood of nearly everyone in the city using her powers, differently from Deathgale she is an even less public individual than Lucentia.

Other noteworthy Epics in town that are not quite as loyal to Lucentia as these first two are the Metal, an High Epic with an obscene amount of raw physical power that used to rule the city before Lucentia’s arrival and is only held in check by the fact that Lucentia managed to replace his skeleton with a diamond construct created by her, The Financier, an Epic capable of duplicating objects and thus highly essential in up keeping Astoria’s resources, and Winterspell, who has been given highly autonomous rule over the Columbia river and nearby islands, he resides in an ice castle he himself created and his wife Lightwrought’s ability to color the sky together with Lucentia herself having covered large parts of Astoria in layers of diamond have noticeably changed the city’s landscape.

In an attempt to track down her brother, Lucentia has left her domain. While her absence is not yet known to the public at large, Winterspell has chosen this moment to bring the city under his own control. Seeing how he can not lead such an attack himself he has instead gathered various powerful Epics that either operate relatively close to the city or have no one base of base of operation and have taken interest in the city themselves, be it because of chance or because he lead them there.