Project Prometheus (Original Setting Superhero Quest)

Faust only ordered us all killed after Hiver blew SM secret and there was no way for either handyman or leizi to realize just how big that secret was. Even then Hiver needed to go for that in order to create an opening for us to escape.

Hell Mona already blasted SM away before faust gave the kill them all order.

Really, this feels like complaining about 'us', the rest of the voters, making 'stupid' decisions based on morals instead of pragmatism. Veering dangerously close to troll territory there, Narasan.

Yeh and its not liek always going for killshots is a good solution to our problems. Theres a reason Leizi pointed out that going for the kill in all of monarchs isolated subordinates would just escalate situation compared to sending them to new Wonderland.

Unless you can handle the blowback of the escalation which killing brings. Escalation things can be a terrible move too.

Narasan said:

You are right. Scarlet maturity would have tried to kill us if we did that.

Did you forget that faust ordered all of us killed anyway?

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

They still want Lady Leizi alive, which wouldn't have happened if Faust's dead since SM would be the one calling the shots, and he's not going to be nice about it. Even if we had harmed Faust, that isn't gonna stop him from getting the rest of Powers to chase after us. The man clearly had a backup plan ready on the off-chance something went wrong, so him getting his teeth knocked out isn't much of an issue for him.

Intimidation only works if you have the upper hand, and with SM on Faust's side, we didn't have the upper hand at all. Faust isn't a simpering corporate executive either. If he had the balls to get SM under his sway, then Lady Leizi was never going to be able to intimidate him.

We're kind of locked into a Paragon run after the vote to try and be better, reinforced by how we handled New Dawn. The entire momentum of Lady Leizi's character has been moving away from her past as Justice Unlimited's hachetwoman, and trying to live up to the ideals that her friends blazed for her. She's trying to be better to serve as an example for Mona and Maddie even if the path she's walking is painful and very unfamiliar to her.

This is not an experience we would have with the other characters at the start. For Lady Leizi, being a Paragon is new and the potential for character development in this direction is why I argued in her favor.

I would like to see Lady Leizi leverage her criminal connections and fearsome reputation more in the future, but they're not really applicable to the current situation when Scarlet Maturity is on the other end of the table.

[X] Plan: Chew Toys

Twin, unrelated side notes:

1. Looking back at our options for "Fill-In Issues" that, assuming the first one wasn't a fluke, will be postcognitive dreams of Black Swan, it's clear what Flight of the Bumblebee is gonna be: Apiary's last defense of the Defiance Unit, and Scarlet Maturity killing her, and everyone except Memoria, since his DNA sample said he escaped. The Uiara one is still up in the air, however. Assuming no data on a third option popping up to replace the Nora one we did, which of the two do you want to do?

2. @LucidProp My personal justification for having a hiding-based plan for Leizi and Rhys is actually quite simple, aside from the 'inch from death' thing I mentioned before: I assume trying to hide/disguise themselves would be an Espionage check, and going to fight is a Hit one. Rhys and Leizi's combined Espionage is higher than their Hit, which means better odds of success.

LucidProp said:

They still want Lady Leizi alive, which wouldn't have happened if Faust's dead since SM would be the one calling the shots, and he's not going to be nice about it. Even if we had harmed Faust, that isn't gonna stop him from getting the rest of Powers to chase after us. The man clearly had a backup plan ready on the off-chance something went wrong, so him getting his teeth knocked out isn't much of an issue for him.

Intimidation only works if you have the upper hand, and with SM on Faust's side, we didn't have the upper hand at all. Faust isn't a simpering corporate executive either. If he had the balls to get SM under his sway, then Lady Leizi was never going to be able to intimidate him.

We're kind of locked into a Paragon run after the vote to try and be better, reinforced by how we handled New Dawn. The entire momentum of Lady Leizi's character has been moving away from her past as Justice Unlimited's hachetwoman, and trying to live up to the ideals that her friends blazed for her. She's trying to be better to serve as an example for Mona and Maddie even if the path she's walking is painful and very unfamiliar to her.

I would like to see Lady Leizi leverage her criminal connections and fearsome reputation more in the future, but they're not really applicable to the current situation.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Like I said the better play would have been wounding Ete and Printemps so that MW and Mona could handle evac in hindsight.

At the very least SM would have been unlikely to care about ete and printemps being attacked. With Hiver instinctively defending his family being the biggest danger.

But well handyman made his choice and we did fail to discuss having him attack ete and printemps instead of attacking faust.

ScorpioSting said:

Twin, unrelated side notes:

1. Looking back at our options for "Fill-In Issues" that, assuming the first one wasn't a fluke, will be postcognitive dreams of Black Swan, it's clear what Flight of the Bumblebee is gonna be: Apiary's last defense of the Defiance Unit, and Scarlet Maturity killing her, and everyone except Memoria, since his DNA sample said he escaped. The Uiara one is still up in the air, however. Assuming no data on a third option popping up to replace the Nora one we did, which of the two do you want to do?

2. @LucidProp My personal justification for having a hiding-based plan for Leizi and Rhys is actually quite simple, aside from the 'inch from death' thing I mentioned before: I assume trying to hide/disguise themselves would be an Espionage check, and going to fight is a Hit one. Rhys and Leizi's combined Espionage is higher than their Hit, which means better odds of success.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

1.Im pretty sure Uira one is Qsanyins death and Uiara being inspired to become a hero with his words instead of whatever the fuck her father became.

2.That a good point actually and while powers aint stupid it forcing faust to move early meant theyre dragnet to make sure we cant escape isnt as solid. I still prefer attacking blue sky though but I can understand if that plan wins.

ScorpioSting said:

2. @LucidProp My personal justification for having a hiding-based plan for Leizi and Rhys is actually quite simple, aside from the 'inch from death' thing I mentioned before: I assume trying to hide/disguise themselves would be an Espionage check, and going to fight is a Hit one. Rhys and Leizi's combined Espionage is higher than their Hit, which means better odds of success.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

True, their espionage would serve them well during the retreat, but having them leave now would take their stats away from the current fight, and we really need their combined HIT 12 right now to help with passing the DC. That, and thematically, it would be really weird for them to leave after Menagerie Witch just had an epiphany about heroism. As she said:

"Heroes don't leave a friend behind."

I'd rather leverage their high espionage for an ambush. Besides, if they fail in the ambush, Menagerie Witch and Hiver will be there to help them. If they fail to hide during the retreat, they'll only have each other against a fresh metahuman. In terms of consequences, the former is more manageable than the latter.

...you know what? Fair.

[X] Plan: Chew Toys

Though maybe I should have specified that the plan would have entailed maybe Leizi stopping by the nearest clothing store and swapping into civilian clothing and maybe finding a wig or hat to wear while ditching the sunglasses, and Rhys naturally turning into a child or something.

ScorpioSting said:

Though maybe I should have specified that the plan would have entailed maybe Leizi stopping by the nearest clothing store and swapping into civilian clothing and maybe finding a wig or hat to wear while ditching the sunglasses, and Rhys naturally turning into a child or something.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

In the era of social media, a celebrity being seen injured in public would spread like wildfire and would tell Powers Lady Leizi's general area. They have a speedster on the roster too, so escape would have been difficult.

Yeh we needed a teleporter to safely leave immediately. But we needed rhys espionage to warn hiver and stall for mona and mw to get us out too.

We just didnt have the time and peopl to get out here without taking any risk. That said we can probably put bonus on the hit checks of leizi and handyman giving both of them a +5 for there ambush attempt.

Alectai said:

So, that's why "If you're known to be able to give superpowers, you get got" is the meta, because Scarlet Maturity probably enforces it to maintain his monopoly.

Yeah, that's not his Only Power I'm pretty sure, but "Scarlet Maturity is the power booster" is probably right, as is the "He gets stronger every time he boosts someone" Faust went "Almost right", so it's probably not a complete fabrication, since Faust already pivoted to "Kill everyone", so he doesn't intend to leave witnesses anymore.

That being said... This doesn't seem to make sense? People are only getting boosted now as far as we know, but Scarlet Maturity's been indescribably powerful from almost the start, hasn't he?

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Maybe he only capable of using it cause he has goldnine or due to the Movement?

Wing101r said:

Yeh we needed a teleporter to safely leave immediately. But we needed rhys espionage to warn hiver and stall for mona and mw to get us out too.

We just didnt have the time and peopl to get out here without taking any risk. That said we can probably put bonus on the hit checks of leizi and handyman giving both of them a +5 for there ambush attempt.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

It really is a shame that our only Teleportation 2x is Memorie + Nox, and that's a Potency 10 combo.

We could always try to risk a 1x teleportation gamble with Memoria, but our limited Ambrosia supply really is too big a investment to gamble on.

I almost want to have LL tell Faust to back off or she will release the information about Scarlet Maturity's power on every social media on a dead man's switch or something. Problem is, I don't know where Faust is and wherever he is, LL is probably too far away from him right now.

[X] Plan Interference Play V2

LucidProp said:

It really is a shame that our only Teleportation 2x is Memorie + Nox, and that's a Potency 10 combo.

We could always try to risk a 1x teleportation gamble with Memoria, but our limited Ambrosia supply really is too big a investment to gamble on.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Tbf Memoria clairvotance is secondary effect in his power. QM mentioned that memoria will always give some form of movement power so a Power with memoria as core will most lieky give us teleportation.l as long we give proper combinations.

Another option is asking wulong for a synergy thats teleportation since created synergies are automatically included as long as the required keywords are met.

Edit: Though hmm Chatroom+Memoria+Mr Hunch could work.
Make clairvoyance a sure thing then whether we get Teleport or Ally empowerment we still get a strong hero and things go really well we might get Clairvoyance, Teleportaiton & Ally empowerment. giving us a Bailout option and Telepathic comms.

CoreBrute said:

I almost want to have LL tell Faust to back off or she will release the information about Scarlet Maturity's power on every social media on a dead man's switch or something. Problem is, I don't know where Faust is and wherever he is, LL is probably too far away from him right now.

[X] Plan Interference Play V2

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Theres also the fact they have anansi so they can just remove any info we spread or discredit it

Thats a threat that only works with moon river and even then it might just force them to go all in on wiping us out even if we escape from here.

Wing101r said:

Theres also the fact they have anansi so they can just remove any info we spread or discredit it

Thats a threat that only works with moon river and even then it might just force them to go all in on wiping us out even if we escape from here.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Right, Anansi the computer algernon.

I wish there was a list of supers introduced, because it's really difficult to keep track of all the ones mentioned and who belongs to what team.

I dont disagree with the choices taken. I dont disagree with the situation, this was always going to end up difficult.


I expected lady leizis character to influence hoe actual threats reacted to us, i expected a more nuanced, real take on how someone would enforce spy rings and gain a reputation. I expected being the scary one to mean something. I am not disagreeing with the chioces. I am not disagreeing with the mechanics. I am not disagreeing with the way leizi herself is depicted.

i am disagreeing with our mc having half of her original character profile dismissed without a roll, and then not having an answer for that.


Why are we the scary one? It doesnt mean anything? We are the worst fighter, the worst speaker,we are ,for now, the best spy,and thats it.


I expected more from a badass mc then "yeah i cant really back up any threats, you got me."


It just feels so weak. As a character.

Edit: if intimidation doesnt work,why are we trying it anyway?

Our enemies are going to want to kill us anyway, they are either villains, or have mercury and are not about to go back on a threat.

If they kill one of us, thats already a failure for me, and they are not the kind of people to go back on threats.

And, yes, we should go for killshots, but thats not going to happen, so we should do something. Anything other then just standing there, being unable to do anything.
Specifically lady leizi and handyman i have problems with. The other characters are behaving like they have been described.

I dont like how there is no ruthlessness left. I like the positive decisions, but i dont want to become a boyscout. And it seems like we already are. Hence my disappointment.

Edit2:

• "Pistols aren't for threats. They're for actions! Are you willing to risk your life?"

I feel like our characters reputation has been tested for the first time, and shattered immediatly. That upsets me.
had we chosen the golden retriever, ok.
Had we chosen a bussisperson. Ok.
This situation broke my expectations, in a bad way.

i will stop now. The posts after the first were reactions to the other commentators, and trying to explain my actual issue in differne words. It was also a somewhat toxic rant.
I wanted to leave it after the first comment, but not answering the rest feels like running away. I stand by what i wrote. But i know this can upset a writer.

Edit3:
Hey,boss. I dont like how you handled leizi in this scene. I was expecting a different vibe. Its not what i wanted from the main character, but right now im mostly upset at all the people feeling attacked by me and attacking back.My toxicity was mostly directed at them.
This is a good quests. You write great characters and the premise is interesting.
I just hoped for a different direction.
If you want me to shut up,which is understandable, just write in thread or private,and i wont argue anymore.

Narasan said:

You are right. Scarlet maturity would have tried to kill us if we did that.

Did you forget that faust ordered all of us killed anyway?
Handyman dying is already a failurestate for me, and he was doing it anyway!
If faust got punched his teeth out, our only opponents would have been scarlet( same result) the two braindead( just really scared and unsure this time) and no backup!

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

yes, that is what happens when gambits fail, you do not get the benefit. I don't really see handyman going for the capture rather than the kill in that situation being due to some shining no kill rule or paragon always do the right thing approach, I think it was a tactical gamble that didn't pan out.

I understand where your coming from, you thought the game would be darker than it was, and I'm sorry that's making it hard for you to enjoy the quest, but the tone is largely the result of votes. Its unlikely to go dark unless the thread decides to vote for it.

Narasan said:

I expected lady leizis character to influence hoe actual threats reacted to us, i expected a more nuanced, real take on how someone would enforce spy rings and gain a reputation. I expected being the scary one to mean something. I am not disagreeing with the chioces. I am not disagreeing with the mechanics. I am not disagreeing with the way leizi herself is depicted.

i am disagreeing with our mc having half of her original character profile dismissed without a roll, and then not having an answer for that.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

I don't really see that? Lady Leizi's reputation doesn't exist in a vacuum. We're not the scary one in this situation because there are scarier people on the table right now. The fact that Faust saw fit to deploy Scarlet Maturity, one of the literal strongest metahumans to ever exist on the planet, and still have a back-up plan just in case showcases how much respect and fear Lady Leizi actually inspires in him. Against someone who can't bring buildings down with their fists, bringing Scarlet Maturity should be a instant win condition and yet, Faust still thought that wouldn't be enough and had a back-up plan ready.

Just because someone isn't pissing their pants at the mention of her name doesn't mean that part of her is suddenly gone. It's worked into the context of the scene, and if you want to see how other characters react to Lady Leizi's reputation in context of the mission, then look at how overprepared Faust was for this meeting.

I really don't get what your issue here is, and accusing everyone else of "feeling attacked" is really poor form. No one here is attacking you or being attacked by you, so please, return the same courtesy.

I'd get your complaint if we were up against someone less powerful, but Faust and Scarlet Maturity? It wouldn't make sense for them to be openly intimidated by her at all.

BTW not to be forceful or anything but for the guys who have a bonus any thoughts on using them up for making sure Leizi and handyman dont die?

Alectai said:

... Oi, @Bitterman , how long has Scarlet Maturity been in action?

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

So funny story. I wrote this all up in the original draft of the first update of the mission, before I realized Lady Leizi didn't know Scarlet Maturity would be there in person. It will com up later but:

- publicly active for 15 years
- always queued for Powers, was always an A-lister, but it wasn't until he had a very public fight with King four years ago that people went "holy shit, you're that strong?!"
- early in his career he had a reputation for recklessly taking damage in fights. He became noticeably more durable over time, which is why people though he was an "adapt to harm" type
- he's also noticeably gotten taller, going from 8 feet to 12 in the last 15 years. It's not unheard of for things like that to happen, but it's odd enough that types like Lady Leizi though there was more to his powers

LucidProp said:

Question, but are we on the rooftop of the church or the street?

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

The street.

ReaperofInterest said:

@Bitterman, are Printemps and Ete each starting with a wound level? Or did Faust use that Lethal Anodyne stuff he brought with him in order to make sure they were at top shape

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

It will come up next update, but they're seemingly at full health.

EternalObserver said:

Hmmmm, remind me again if Scarlet Maturity was present in the QZ when Uiara gave the hero's call and gather everyone up to face the endless hordes of behemoths?

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

He was there as was all of SLAYERS.

Alectai said:

Frankly, just based on what we know, I'd be surprised if he Isn't another Potency 14

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Scarlet Maturity is potency 13.

MrKermie said:

You've made something special, something spectacular. A living, breathing world that seems to open up by the second. That gilded post is a testament to that

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Thank you so much!!! That really means a lot. I hope I can live up to everyone's expectations!

ScorpioSting said:

Verity Law Offices

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

This is giving me job flashbacks. Have a +1!

CoreBrute said:

I wish there was a list of supers introduced, because it's really difficult to keep track of all the ones mentioned and who belongs to what team.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

. . . I should really make one of those. I have an internal list I have to reference. I'll try to post something.

As for the direction of the story, anyone is free to disagree with choices made or dislike where the quest goes. Not everything is going to be for everyone; I can only write the story I find interesting. Criticism is good! It's a form of feedback that lets me know how readers are feeling. I just ask that discussion remain civil and we all try to keep in mind this is a story.

My general feelings on "grey morality" is that it's rarely done well and often it has the "Grey Jedi" problem—"I want to do bad things, but also still be a good guy". In real life, all actions have consequences, regardless of your intent. For example, convincing someone to euthanize one of their only surviving friends so you can steal her power WILL come back one way or another, especially if said person ever finds out. It didn't matter why you do something, people will have feeling about what you did no matter how "grey" a decision it is. Striking some middle ground where you do stuff like that but everyone forgives you because it was a "hard" decision", well . . .

. . . there's lots of superhero stories like that. I don't like them very much. Stupid current Batman run.

I Really dont know what the best course of actioms should be, heres hoping we make out of this alive...
[X] Plan: Chew Toys
[X] Plan Interference Play V2