I mean, the most morally paragon character (imo) is Jason Weeks. He's subtle and he's quiet, but he's like, "I'm going to make a water purifier that works at a massive scale, and create anti-mind control music, and use my knowledge to inform stronger people of problems that need seeing too."
I mean, the most morally paragon character (imo) is Jason Weeks. He's subtle and he's quiet, but he's like, "I'm going to make a water purifier that works at a massive scale, and create anti-mind control music, and use my knowledge to inform stronger people of problems that need seeing too."
Boris seems pretty paragonish, his powers literally only hurt those who hurt others and so far I don't think he's done an imperialism.
As far as the Thinker problem goes it actually works out pretty well, since the Worm guys are explicitly bad at dealing with other precogs, the more there are in any given crossover, the more able you are to tell a story that isn't just step 40000 of someones master plan.
I was going to say that having people who Taylor uses her powers on gain superpowers could add a fun dynamic, then I remember that wormfic authors really don't seem to care about the finer details of triggers and just have that happen anyway.
Anyway, using my "never read worm voice" the correct crossover is Taylor becomes Amy and Tina's friends and they have adventures since Taylor is the only one who has powers that don't cause immense collateral damage and Amy and Tina can keep her alive, even against highly dangerous threats
"Does a Shavian count as a bug?"
"Yes, if they have bug features, so, about 30% of the time."
That's kinda the problem.
I don't want to say Taylor only works in one kind of story, but Vietnam War With Superpowers isn't a story she's suited for, especially not with Tier 3±1 Progenitor powers. Her Khepri phase was memorable, but it's a clear break with the person Taylor was for 95% of the story. She's not a titan clashing with other titans as the world quakes beneath her feet; she's an unusually clever gnat who mostly fights the flies and beetles in her way.
Eh, while being an underdog coming on top of progressively more powerful enemies through clever thinking and incredible violence is part of Taylor's appeal, I don't think it's the whole of it.
Dropping a girl with a huge chip on her shoulder about any kind of authority except her own (in which case she's A-OK with authoritarianism) into Progenitor mess while giving her enough power to stand alongside Zipperneck and similarly powerful individuals could be interesting. It would certainly be different than Worm and would need to rely more on internal conflict and moral questions, but I don't think it's a problem so much as an opportunity to do something new.
It remains very funny that we have a Satan running around who grants wishes in exchange for your soul, except, being a dark energy construct, he has no means to take your soul but does have means to grant your wishes. Thus does Stolze teach us an important lesson: if Literally Satan Who Is the Devil appears before you and promises to grant your heart's desire in exchange for a soul, do it.
Well, he doesn't actually take your soul, but he does create a mental dark energy construct with your personality and torture them for a long subjective time, which if you realize that becomes a whole different question of cost/benefit analysis.
Well, he doesn't actually take your soul, but he does create a mental dark energy construct with your personality and torture them for a long subjective time, which if you realize that becomes a whole different question of cost/benefit analysis.
Well, Cam composes brainwashing music for ProgHarm but does not perform it, she employs perfectly mundane musicians for that, so presumably yes, straight covers would work. Remixes and the like probably won't, or else they'd modify the message in unpredictable ways.
The possibility of some rock songs actually containing the subliminal message to worship the devil is not zero.
Eh, while being an underdog coming on top of progressively more powerful enemies through clever thinking and incredible violence is part of Taylor's appeal, I don't think it's the whole of it.
Dropping a girl with a huge chip on her shoulder about any kind of authority except her own (in which case she's A-OK with authoritarianism) into Progenitor mess while giving her enough power to stand alongside Zipperneck and similarly powerful individuals could be interesting. It would certainly be different than Worm and would need to rely more on internal conflict and moral questions, but I don't think it's a problem so much as an opportunity to do something new.
I guess? But Taylor needed a fair bit of pressure to reach the "I'm fine with being the dictator" point, and while I don't want to say she can't reach that point without a period as a street-level villain, I'm not sure how dumping a world-shaking power on pre-trigger Taylor would get her there.
Remember, she initially wanted to be a superhero. Taylor starts the story intending to be an independent superhero as escapism from her shitty high school life. Getting her from there to someone eager to control Brockton Bay's underworld wasn't easy.
On a more fun Worm/WT: Progenitor note, does anyone more familiar with the Wild Talents system want to take a crack at statting out Taylor's powers? I threw together a quick draft, but I'm pretty sure it's inefficient and doesn't work right.
On the radio, listeners frequently request Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama" and Billy Joel's "Piano Man." Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells" is also popular, as is Barry White's "Can't Get Enough of Your Love, Baby." Grammy awards go to Olivia Newton John and Paul McCartney's band Wings. Academy awards go to The Godfather, Part II and Chinatown while film viewers also flock to Blazing Saddles, The Man with the Golden Gun and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
Well, son of a bitch! They killed westerns! ...wait, that was in the OTL too.
In America, January sees Nixon signing the "Mental Liberty and Security Act" into law - it is now a federal offense to use "direct psychic interference" to control or persuade people in US soil. This gets some pushback from the right in that it takes a valuable tool out of law enforcement's hands, and honestly, probably some pushback from the left because it makes no provision against US telepaths being used to violate international law. Nixon does this, by the way, while stonewalling about accusations that he was in secret negotiations with Vietnam before the election as a way to swing things in his favor.
In February, a leftist extremist group - the Symbionese Liberation Army - kidnapped Patty Hearst in both our timeline and in the Progenitor timeline. In Progenitor, Abe Sykes tracks her down within a day (as opposed to our timeline, where it took years to find her and apparently she joined the SLA after either threats, brainwashing, or of her own violation depending on whose story you believe (i don't know enough about the whole shitshow beyond going "wow! what a shitshow.")
Abe was mid-negotiation with the SLA on Patty's release when Amanda appears. Now, note, Amanda teleports by appearing in a pillar of green fire, so it's not entirely shocking that the SLA open fire. Either out of callous disregard for their lives, concern for Abe and bystander's lives, or a mixture of the two, Amanda incinerates two of them, which produces an IMMENSE and extremely awkward public screaming match between Abe and Amanda.
What is Amanda's evil meter at right now? It remains in flux based on how the GM wants to run things - but by now, she definitely should have known better than to just appear, even if she thought Abe was in potential danger (which, as a note, he absolute was: Abe's defensive powers are fairly remarkable but they often depend on him reinforcing stuff he already has on his person and cohering their molecules together - and he's got no protect against telepaths or psychic attacks, which are...just...a thing you have to be worried about when terrorists can be metahumans as easily as they can be baselines.) I think it's a pretty solid 55% - she doesn't want to kill people, but it's easy and she's often putting herself into situations where she feels she has to, even if some thought and foresight and creativity could have solved the situation easier.
As the Comedian said: You could have turned their guns into smoke. You're slipping. God help us all.
Meanwhile, Tina Shaw - who is pretty consistently bombarded by both fanatical well wishers and people who want her dead - decides to move to Atlantis with her family, meaning she will at least get some privacy ensured by her monsters. Hopefully..
March starts with Nixon and Bao Verong snapping a photop together as they sign a peace treaty. The war is officially, actually, FINALLY over. Yes, the Vietnam War Wild Talents TTRPG has ended the Vietnam War and we've still got 26 more years to go! This good news is bolstered by an unstatted hyperbrain has built a diode that converts light to laser light at a 72% efficiency.
In even better news: Jack Grimes has been found guilty of his obvious crimes and sent to jail! Yay!
In bad news: Jack Grimes has escaped from prison and fled to Atlantis. Boo!
A "Super Outbreak" of tornadoes hits in April of 1974 (it was the biggest until 2011's super outbreak) and it is made up of hundreds upon hundred of tornadoes. Amanda Sykes and Christopher Marshall (the infinite recruiter, the guy who makes Turf Warriors) descend on the area. Thousands upon thousands of functionally well trained US army troopers made out of living earth and a godlike woman rebuild most of Ohio in, like, a few hours and save hundreds of lives. In Utah, an unstatted hyberbrain named Norma Mae Lewis (a normal housewife until she got her metahuman powers) builds "ZIR Glass."
What is ZIR glass?
Proggers said:
Invented in 1974 by a Utah housewife named Norma Mae Lewis, glass with zero refractive index rapidly becomes phenomenally successful for use in windshields and lens coatings. Ultimately, its use in loss-free fiberoptic cable is much more important.
To be clear (no pun intended), the "refractive index" of a transparent substance determines how much light gets distorted while passing through. With no refractive index, ZRI glass is completely invisible. It does not distort light any more than air. (This can make it hard to handle, but typically it comes with edge markers to keep people from bumping and smudging it. It has no glare or distortion, but it still gets dirty.)
Using a ZRI glass coating over a normal glass or plastic lens (or windshield) goes a long way towards keeping it from picking up scratches or blemishes. The ZRI glass gets dinged up, of course, but the flaws are as invisible as the unflawed glass—or, they are as long as they stay clean.
...so, that seems like a big deal. Discuss how in the comments, I am too stupid.
In May, Isreali and Palestinian metahumans throw down in Ma'alot, during a parallel to a real world terror attack. Another major terror attack of note, an IRA bombing, kills one of Johnson's unstatted power progeny while he was working in London. And...this is less of a terror attack and more a moment of sheer petty bullshit: Seventeen year old Amy Sykes is found under her assumed name going to high school while living with her cousins. They report her location and...there's a plot point I think I forgot to mention. After Amy Sykes blew Zipperneck into the Boston Harbor when she was thirteen years old, Zipperneck swore an no shit actual oath of vengence on her.
On ya know.
The thirteen year old girl? That he kidnapped? That girl?
Well, with his target now revealed, Zipperneck drops into her suburb and starts trying to murder her. The resulting battle injuries hundreds, kills dozens, and is only ended with Ian Kraus (the queer medic from ages, and ages and ages ago, who can turn damage back on people) shows up to help drive Zipperneck off, revealing that he's been keeping an eye on Amy for her parents. Amy, with a combination of horror at the damage and teenage angst, is infuriates that her parents had someone spying on her.
In June, we have another major cape v cape brawl as Glóir attacks Parliment, met by Lin Wen the speedster, Barb French and several low teir allies. As a note, by this point Lin Wen has adopted wearing a superhero costume, if not using a superhero name - and in a remarkable display of skill, the entire fight goes off without A SINGLE FATALTY on either side. Good job, Lin!
The Dream (aka, the ghost of martin luther king, remember) hears that India is going to be testing a nuclear bomb and, as part of his general leftist/anti-war vibes, organizes a public action against the test site. The bomb is destroyed, but one of his allies (an unstatted Tier 6 "Zipperman" - which is the Progenitor slang term for anyone who can fly, is super strong, super tough, and doesn't want to be sued by DC Comics) is killed by the Indian Army. Not really sure what you were going for, Mr. King, like, even in the 1970s, nuclear bombs were a fairly...common technology, the difficulty was in the industrial production of them using enrichment and mining uranium, right? Or am I crazy?
July sees a minor brushfire near Amy's house, which leads to an evacuation - which she uses as a chance to immediately start walking to the east coast. She walks into the sea and, by the time her parents arrive, is almost at Atlantis. They get a phone call saying that she's fine, invulnerable, and moves in with her friend Tina Shaw. She arrives just in time for the first Atlantean election, which sees Jack Grimes machinations bear fruit: His party gets fucking trashed, they pick up a grand total of 2 fucking seats out of 9. THIS GUY MAKES GOLD OUT OF THIN AIR! The elected "People's Servant" (aka, president) is Dith Ngyuen, a baseline pharmacist from Vietnam who runs as an Atlantean Socialist. Good for him!
In August, a tier five teleporter testifies that she brought Vietnamese diplomats into the US to meet with Nixon...at the Watergate hotel. Ahahahahahahhahahahahaha. TELEGATE! WE HAVE TELEGATE SCANDAL EVERYONE!!!!!!! Meanwhile, in New Hampshire, an arrest warrant is filed on a costumed vigilante named "The Northwesterner" but it gets overturned by not being specific enough.
September has another real world terror attack cropping up: In 1974, a French Embassy in the Hauge was seized by communist radicals from Japan. Well, in Progenitor, somehow, SOMEHOW, they managed to get their hands on fucking Zipperneck. Whether he was paid there or lured in by the hope that he'd get to kill Amanda (to thus, get revenge on Amy), he's joined by a sadistic Shavian who seemed to have just joined for fun, and two Vietnamese metahumans spawned by General Colt (so, they're tier 3s, extremely powerful) who got purged out of ProgHarm by Cam for being "ideologically unstable" and considering who they're working with, that's not a shock. Amanda Sykes, Lin Wen, and Barbara French are all pulled into the fight, which levels a good chunk of the Hague and leaves 20+ people dead.
In October, Dith Nguyen fulfils his first campaign promises in Atlantis and gets an actual hospital built so you don't have to track down a metahuman for healing if you get sick! Meanwhile, Spiro Agnew and his stupid name are found guilty of tax crimes, the only crimes that the rich care about. Nixon pardons him so he can keep working in the white house.
Then...
November.
Atlantis.
Over a dozen men - some posing as tourists, some slipping onto the island in the dead of night - approach the Shaw household with military rifles, body armor and a plan. They probably know Amy is there, so they plan to hit fast and get out of there. And they do. In a few short seconds, they've killed Tina Shaw. Amy is invincible, unharmed, and in shock while the attackers escape. This is the first public attack by Remember November, the radical extremist branch of the Metavictim Advocacy Group. THe New York Post, in a wildly callous move, print the fact that Tina Shaw saved more than four thousand people with the spurious "fact" that the Shavians killed "twice that number."
Which...is quite a trick, considering there's a total population of about 2,000 Shavians due to how many have been killed by either An Toran Do or people with the DEfender weapon (which has been on the market for two years now.)
This is one of the bleakest, saddest moments of the Progenitor setting for me - which is saying something. Tina Shaw was utterly failed by the world, and if your game starts on or before 1974, that's a number one goal, make sure you help her. But god, it also must be indescribably awful for Amy, who...now that i think about it, has one of those awful lives where she walks through everything unscathed, it's just everyone else who is hurt.
So.
Needless to say, it's no shock when December starts with Amy Sykes (with the help of Ian Kraus) track down two of the attackers who hit Tina Shaw's house and blow them into bits. Amy is on the warpath, and I think Remember November is only just beginning to realize that they made a horrible, horrible mistake...
Oh. Wow. Yeah. Given the insane collateral damage of Progenitor fights... Yeah. This is actually legitimately insanely impressive! The people paying her to superhero are definitely getting their money's worth!
Good to know the news media in Progenitor hasn't changed its outlook from 'How dare this plebeian child create an object or system which results in thousands of deaths? Doesn't she know that's supposed to be the privilege of the wealthy elite, like executives in the military-industrial complex or health insurance?' even despite all the changes to history and society.
Yeah, I just throw in little reminders cause there are...a FUCKTON of CHARACTERS. There are so many that I tried to count how many, got to 20 and stopped! That's more than 20 characters!
Also, like, I've compared this to Aberrant...but the population of metahumans in Aberrant is way lower, there are 10,000 novas worldwide max in Aberrant within 20 years of the setting start. Within 20 years of Progenitor's start, there are easily 500,000, possibly 1,000,000 depending on how you swing things.
The Dream (aka, the ghost of martin luther king, remember) hears that India is going to be testing a nuclear bomb and, as part of his general leftist/anti-war vibes, organizes a public action against the test site. The bomb is destroyed, but one of his allies (an unstatted Tier 6 "Zipperman" - which is the Progenitor slang term for anyone who can fly, is super strong, super tough, and doesn't want to be sued by DC Comics) is killed by the Indian Army. Not really sure what you were going for, Mr. King, like, even in the 1970s, nuclear bombs were a fairly...common technology, the difficulty was in the industrial production of them using enrichment and mining uranium, right? Or am I crazy?
It's difficult to say how "common" the technical capability was, were given that existing nuclear powers were (and are) trying pretty hard to prevent anyone else from building one. But yeah, I mean, 30+ year old tech, and RL India pulled off a detonation just 27 years after independence from colonialism by buying plutonium from abroad ("yeah don't worry guys this is just for peaceful reactor research ahaha")... yeah, if I were Mr. Dream, I'd have gone after their plutonium stores instead. But that's harder to organize the public around.
Is there a "super prison" yet, or did they just put the guy who can convert matter in a normal jail cell? What was the plan, hold him at gunpoint 24/7?
Is there a "super prison" yet, or did they just put the guy who can convert matter in a normal jail cell? What was the plan, hold him at gunpoint 24/7?
On a more fun Worm/WT: Progenitor note, does anyone more familiar with the Wild Talents system want to take a crack at statting out Taylor's powers? I threw together a quick draft, but I'm pretty sure it's inefficient and doesn't work right.
Controlled effect is only needed if the power strikes everyone in the area or works on Mass rather than Range or something like that. There are other ways to represent Taylor being able to attack everyone she wants.
Line of sight not needed is not necessary. Consider Hoover who can scan everyone in the world without ever seeing their face. There is an Extra in WT that allows you to affect anyone you can see, even through camera, but it's here so you could just ignore range.
Most crucially, every power facet: Attack, Defense, Utility - must be built as its own power, with full scope of Extras and Flaws, even if they all belong to the same overall power. They may share the dicepool, but not function or capabilities.
So, something like that:
Bug Control 4d
Attack (Range): Engulf (+2), Endless (+3), Interference (+3), If/Then (need a sufficient concentration of insects in the area) (-1), If/Then (Endless only works so long as you remain in range) (-1), Horrifying (-1)
Defense (Self): Endless (+3), Interference (+3), If/Then (need a sufficient concentration of insects in the area) (-1), If/Then (Endless only works so long as you remain in range) (-1), Horrifying (-1)
Utility (doing whatever bugs can) (Range): Endless (+3), Interference (+3), If/Then (need a sufficient concentration of insects in the area) (-1), If/Then (Endless only works so long as you remain in range) (-1), Horrifying (-1)
Total cost: 17 points per dice, for 68 points total, which gives the range of 80 yards, slightly less than a city block according to Google. Some dice can be replaced with wiggle dice at 68 points each if you want.
Defense represents bug clones, breaking line of sight, strategically biting enemies and various other distractions. Utility can technically be broken into numerous separate utilities, depending on whether you think producing silk should count separately from making tripwires and communicating through the swarm, but, eh, given the general WT ethos, it's fine.
In additional, Taylor also has two standard powers with Attached Extra:
Hyperstat (sense) at 8d for 48 points (I assume her normal sense is 2d, Hyperstat could be less otherwise), making her nigh-omniscient within her range.
Multiple Actions for however many points she has left and didn't spend on base will, bough as hard dice (I thiiiink the type of dice only matter during the activation of multiple actions roll, and then they add normal dice to your dicepool, otherwise we'd want normal or wiggle dice). They're dirt cheap at 2 point per die (can't go lower even with flaws), which is what allows her to attack everyone, everywhere, all at once while weaving a new costume at the same time. Let's say she has 10hd for 40 points.
Points total: 156, which narrowly puts her in tier 7, leaving her with 44 point to spend on base will.
Like it's said in the text, it's really useful for fiber optic cables which in IRL have to be held like a delicate flower so you don't ruin the whole cable IIRC. Seems like the kind of little thing authors throw in sometimes, like in Exalted how Dolars have a charm where they write books in their heads and then they just get written.
The thing that always fascinates me about Progenitor is that if you drop in relatively low tiered PCs that don't know the whole story there is a ton of potential to make things better. But like also a ton of potential for things to get worse. Its like a truly fascinating sandbox.
I don't think it's a stretch to have players that think LBJ is lesser evil compared to Nixon and kinda help him to pull of the whole mindscrewer President dictatorship a term longer with like ??? consequences.
Or the players really get it in their head to hate ProgHarm. Like depending on what you roleplay as even a relatively well meaning 1960s character might make some really bad calls with godlike powers. Like idk I can totally see various interesting character concepts that also go a bit...Amanda with it.
Controlled effect is only needed if the power strikes everyone in the area or works on Mass rather than Range or something like that. There are other ways to represent Taylor being able to attack everyone she wants.
Line of sight not needed is not necessary. Consider Hoover who can scan everyone in the world without ever seeing their face. There is an Extra in WT that allows you to affect anyone you can see, even through camera, but it's here so you could just ignore range.
Most crucially, every power facet: Attack, Defense, Utility - must be built as its own power, with full scope of Extras and Flaws, even if they all belong to the same overall power. They may share the dicepool, but not function or capabilities.
So, something like that:
Bug Control 4d
Attack (Range): Engulf (+2), Endless (+3), Interference (+3), If/Then (need a sufficient concentration of insects in the area) (-1), If/Then (Endless only works so long as you remain in range) (-1), Horrifying (-1)
Defense (Self): Endless (+3), Interference (+3), If/Then (need a sufficient concentration of insects in the area) (-1), If/Then (Endless only works so long as you remain in range) (-1), Horrifying (-1)
Utility (doing whatever bugs can) (Range): Endless (+3), Interference (+3), If/Then (need a sufficient concentration of insects in the area) (-1), If/Then (Endless only works so long as you remain in range) (-1), Horrifying (-1)
Total cost: 17 points per dice, for 68 points total, which gives the range of 80 yards, slightly less than a city block according to Google. Some dice can be replaced with wiggle dice at 68 points each if you want.
Defense represents bug clones, breaking line of sight, strategically biting enemies and various other distractions. Utility can technically be broken into numerous separate utilities, depending on whether you think producing silk should count separately from making tripwires and communicating through the swarm, but, eh, given the general WT ethos, it's fine.
In additional, Taylor also has two standard powers with Attached Extra:
Hyperstat (sense) at 8d for 48 points (I assume her normal sense is 2d, Hyperstat could be less otherwise), making her nigh-omniscient within her range.
Multiple Actions for however many points she has left and didn't spend on base will, bough as hard dice (I thiiiink the type of dice only matter during the activation of multiple actions roll, and then they add normal dice to your dicepool, otherwise we'd want normal or wiggle dice). They're dirt cheap at 2 point per die (can't go lower even with flaws), which is what allows her to attack everyone, everywhere, all at once while weaving a new costume at the same time. Let's say she has 10hd for 40 points.
Points total: 156, which narrowly puts her in tier 7, leaving her with 44 point to spend on base will.
This is added solely so you would run through glass panels held by exasperated workers crossing a street during chase scenes.
My one issue with your statting is Taylor's range ends up being several blocks. Unless this is Very Early Skitter, she probably needs a few more points in range.
