- Pronouns
- He/Him
Actually I think this is stuff OTHER people call him!
LET'S READ: Wild Talents: Progenitor (Watchmen for TTRPGs)
- Thread starter DragonCobolt
- Start date
Actually I think this is stuff OTHER people call him!
- Location
- Earth
- Pronouns
- He/Him
About the best way we can hope that subplot to end. As long as Nixon follows through on his promise. But he seems like a pretty honest guy!
Okay wow, that's an ominous codename. I know it's an old term for a type of burnt sacrifice, but after the 1940's, nobody uses that to refer to burnt sacrifices that people are supposed to approve of.
I get that not everyone's a hypermind who can pick the perfect people to power up. Even Nguyet Cam doesn't have a perfect record! But surely he could've done a little vetting??
Expanding as in "creating more," or expanding as in "turning beachfront property and ports into normal inland land next to flat expanses of bare rock"?
I assume the former, because the latter sounds like it would probably get him kicked out of Japan.
Oh wow, it took him three months? He held out longer than I assumed.
Fifty years later (but in our timeline), it's still illegal in 11 US states, and 15 only allow medical use. A syntergene wouldn't hurt.
She's basically the aunt of their entire species. It's nice, but not surprising.
Okay, I got ahold of a PDF to figure this out.
My understanding of the text (pages 73-74 and 179-180):
- Amy was in French Guyana
- Her parents convinced her to come home and stand trial
- Amy was tried in absentia despite being in the USA (presumably out of fear that she'd kersplode the courtroom if she was found guilty)
- She was found guilty, and Nixon honored the breach of his promise
- Amy is sent to the Arizona Maximum Security "superjail," or perhaps was already sent there while her trial was going on and they just didn't let her out.
- Three months later, fifty-two of her nieces and nephews invite her to a party literally anywhere but inside that prison.
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- He/Him
Sorry for the confusion on that timeline!
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- Earth
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- He/Him
Another thing I discovered while skimming the book: There's an Irish metahuman nicknamed "De-Oxygenator," but she is basically unrelated to the guy whose power creates oxygen. The only explicit connection they have is that the De-Oxygenator thinks his excesses are inexcusable. And she's not wrong, but I can't be the only one who thinks The De-Oxygenator should have more unique interactions with Turn-Things-to-Oxygen-Man.
FourthWall
Love & Destroy
- Location
- Chiraq
It's still used to mean "all-consuming hell blaze that causes massive devastation" past 1940. Think "nuclear holocaust." Or that one Flobots song Handlebars.
The Holocaust gets the big H as a proper noun, but when people say little-h holocaust, it's usually to invoke the loss of life/general horror of the big one.
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Muhkat Lomorki
Draconic Sorcerer
What if a Progenitor wanted to create a tea that turns anyone who drinks it into their fursona?
- Location
- Earth
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- He/Him
Again, that's not a burnt sacrifice you're supposed to approve of. Nuclear holocaust is a bad thing. Probably worse than the original Holocaust.
I don't think those little nicknames are used by anyone, actually. Like, idk if anyone ever called Amy THE DETONATOR. They're basically just Stolze's way to give characters ironic superhero names that nobody ever uses in-universe because they just call people by their names.
You should absolutely use them whenever you type out the names, though. Amanda THE PROGENITOR, every time. It's funny and would help with JW names.
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- He/Him
What's funny is that in the Progenitor game I'm in is that several people HAVE been using their nicknames - though Jason Weeks was clearly joking.
...also, in a Stolzian display of masterful big brained, my GM (who is my girlfriend) turned my defeating Zipperneck, Jarvis West and Jack Grimes fairly early in the timeline and throwing them into superjail BACK on my head by having LBJ recruit them to be his official goon squad, using hypercharm to hammer them into his loyal servants, which my character learned when they crashed his wedding to require he register in the federal metahuman lists.
Basically, my girlfriend is big of brain and really good at running tabletop games, and I'm interrupting this ENTIRE THREAD to BRAG ABOUT IT
...also, in a Stolzian display of masterful big brained, my GM (who is my girlfriend) turned my defeating Zipperneck, Jarvis West and Jack Grimes fairly early in the timeline and throwing them into superjail BACK on my head by having LBJ recruit them to be his official goon squad, using hypercharm to hammer them into his loyal servants, which my character learned when they crashed his wedding to require he register in the federal metahuman lists.
Basically, my girlfriend is big of brain and really good at running tabletop games, and I'm interrupting this ENTIRE THREAD to BRAG ABOUT IT
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- Earth
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Who would give her tattoos? Even if another inmate knew how to tattoo people, they couldn't. Arizona law forbids tattooing a minor unless a parent or guardian gives written consent and is present during the procedure.
Kadmus
Dragon's teeth are surprisingly hard to sow
- Location
- Devon
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- He/Him
... these people are already all in prison, if there are any other putative supercriminals incarcerated with Amy. Why would they give a single flying fuck about whether or not tattooing is illegal, particularly as most prison tattooing is already illegal?
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- He/Him
Also, I think Amy's an adult now (well, legally speaking.
It's 1975, and she's 12 in verrry early 1968, so that's 7 years, 12+7 = 19!
It's 1975, and she's 12 in verrry early 1968, so that's 7 years, 12+7 = 19!
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- Earth
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- He/Him
Not gonna say it's a masterpiece joke, or even the best joke I have personally told on this website today. But I thought the fact that it was a joke was pretty obvious.
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
so, actually: Her regeneration power is permanent, but it is not always on. All extras are optional unless you have a flaw saying otherwise - like how Set had "full power only" so he couldn't tone it down. So, Amy is only regenerating for as long as she wants - the same is true of her invulnerability and armored skin.
Which means yes.
She can horrify her mom and dad by getting prison tattoos.
Ok, so how would it affect Amanda's Evil Meter?
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- He/Him
At least one percent in either direction depending on how you're playing her, obviously.
1976: Mr. Fusion
New
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- He/Him
1976
STEW METRICS
Suspicion: 3 | Technology: 4 | Economy: 2 | Warfare: 0
STEW METRICS
Suspicion: 3 | Technology: 4 | Economy: 2 | Warfare: 0
The year starts off with a pretty big bang as Glóir attacks London - but warned in advance due to clairvoyance and telepathy and all the other bullshit in Progenitor...THE ENTIRE CITY IS EVACUATED. That sounds implausible, but again, you do have the fastest woman alive. If it'd normally take months to move everyone out of London, Lin Wen could do it in a round, assuming she was given some means of carrying one person at a time (maybe a dollie?) and that's just Lin Wen! The Glóir team and Lin Wen, Barbara French, Alyssa Veronne (well, technically, Alyssa's host, a dreamboat Briton that she's currently infused with) and Boris Mizurski, backed up by the British army and London PD manage to drive off the IRA extremists but not after 70ish cops and soldiers are killed...also, Tower Bridge, Big Ben AND the House of Parliment all burn down!
Oh no!
Both sides, amusingly, claim total victory.
In Atlantis, some citizens open The First Bank of Atlantis and issue currency but a combination of protests from the more communist members of Atlantis and a lack of people opening up accounts causes them to close hilariously quickly.
Meanwhile, in America, a man named Roy Kilpatrick publishes a book called God's Will Manifest - a book claiming that dark energy is divine in origin. He stresses that, like free will, it can be twisted to evil, but it was made by God, given to us by God, and it tends to push people to use it for good. And while we do get a lot of attention for people using metapowers for self aggrandizement and doing evil, I would like to underline that most of the people in Progenitor who get powers do try and use it to do good! Like, some times there are pretty serious disagreements as to what "good" is - Cam thinks she's doing good, in the long run, and so does Amanda. But they are trying.
Anyway, Roy's book ends on note that we should be calling it "light energy" and...
Man.
Man that's not gonna work, dude. We're, what, eight years in? Almost a decade of dark energy being the term? people have DEtectors and DEfenders, no one's calling it light energy.
Now, depending on when the Glóir attack is, Abe arrives in London either a few weeks later in February...or the next day, in February, and immediately undoes every single bit of damage by molecularly reversing time on the buildings until they're fine. Then, quickly, he hops onto a plane, flies to Guatemala on the advice of Jason Weeks, and works with Cynthia Carls (btw, I like that Cynthia pretty regularly gets to teleport around thanks to Ngoc Vo for these kinds of events), the Dream and Ngoc Vo (hi Vo!) and a few other metas in the area to reduce the force of the gigantic earthquake about to hit there, evacuate civilians, and generally save lives.
In March, not much happens: Amy is in hiding, Amanda is in seclusion. Major notes are that the United Kingdom passes a law making the use of dark energy in Northern Ireland ILLEGAL without a government permit - likely stoking tensions considerably if there's even one healer in that area. Meanwhile, Jack Grimes travels to China to start politicking there.
April sees a group of tech-geeks going into business to sell some kind of "personal combater" - they name their company Apollo Computers. In Vietnam, a strange kind of new, lightweight car starts being produced that does not seem to need gasoline - drawing interest from the other governments of the world. In Atlantis, a bomb planted in a fish market (for unknown reasons) kills thirteen people in an act of terror that drives a lynch mob that attacks three supposed perps - only for them to later be exonerated by, you know, actual evidence. An island wide debate bursts into life about needing some kind of actual justice system in the face of the growing pressures and size of Atlantean society.
In May, earthquakes hit Italy and, as usual, Abe, Boris Mizurki and Cynthia Carls are there - joined by sometimes helper, Henry "Steelsuit" Dowd. Now, between all of them being American and Henry being an outspoken conservative, anti-communist, and Vietnam War veteran, there are protests at their arrival, and a conspiracy theory kicks off that Cynthia is creating the earthquakes as a PR stunt and to create debts to her and her Atlantean project.
In global news, the Shavian population has shrunk to 3,000, approximately.
In June, an American ambassador is assassinated in Beruit and General Colt is pulled in to "deal with" the perp in a "deniable fashion." From the perspective of the US government and cops, Colt does a perfect job: He finds the guy, then explodes a few blood vessels in his brain subtly and the guy drops dead. But people who know Colt personally knows that his already damaged psyche is pushed even harder now. His drinking problem is getting worse and worse, and he spends more and more of his time in conversation with Ngoc Vo or traveling the world with his clairvoyance. His family (who are all metahumans thanks to him infecting them - his wife is an unstatted healer and his son is an unstatted Zipperman) do their best to try and console him, but nothing seems to be working.
Then!
The world is STUNNED: An airplane is hijacked, flown to a new location, and the people get off - all without metahuman interference on either side!
July sees the introduction of another new character: A Tier 6 named Zelda Estillõn!
Lets say hi!
ZELDA ESTILLÕN - ONE WOMAN ARMY
SUM UP
Proggers said:
So we have our second IRA supersoldiers and while she's not nearly the level of psychotic maniac as Mr. Holocaust, she is still not exactly a nice person - with a 1 point passion in Sadism, she gets a little thrill from hurting people, but she's far more invested in the actual goals of the IRA (4 loyalty in there) and her own star (2 points into personal success.) Interestingly, the way that the mechanics work is...like, if she were ever in a situation where she REALLY needed to succeed, she'd burn base will. burning a base will off her Sadism to get that buff, then spending XP to get a new passion representing character growth is not impossible!
POWERS
So, Zelda has one of those complicated interlocking sets of powers that Greg sometimes likes to make to really flex Wild Talents as a the quasi-programming language of TTRPGs. Basically, she has three powers: Heavy ARmor, Minions, and Hyperbody. But each of them are split into Level A, B, C, D and E, with if/then statements that she can only have certain powers on when she doesn't have other powers on...which ALL translate to: She has two sliding scales between "Tank, Strong" and "Minions" and she can either go fully one or fully the other. At full tank, she has 10 hard armor, 10 health levels, and +10d to her body (making her quite strong, but not, like, Zipperneck strong), while at full minion, she has ten minions that she shares a telepathic link with.
Now, these minions are only temporary (she has duration) but, actually, the cap is not on 10 minions, it's 10 minions per use for the duration. So, she could set herself to half/half, and then spend a few rounds making minions, have 20 minions and go in tank mode in the center while they run distraction.
In short: Cool power, cool gimmic, and a fun way to give a tier 6 the same level of durability as a tier 4 like Paige "Rampage" Rampling. I like her, and I hope she gets a better friend fast!
And Zelda's first canonical action isn't so bad: She breaks a few left wing terrorists out of prison and you know me, I have a soft spot for left wing terrorists.
Other big July news: Abe's group of disaster relief buddies decide to shift from informal to formal and found INTERNATIONAL DISASTER/EMERGENCY ASSISTANCE or ID/EA. Catchy name! (Not really, I think it's kind of awkward.) Their goal is to get together whenever a disaster happens and, like...help. It's the same thing they were already doing, just, ya know, a bit more officially. But that is somewhat eclipsed by Bao Verong announcing (with Cam's hand firmly up his ass, I'm sure, to work his mouth) that the Progressive Republic of Greater Vietnam has been reorganized into the INDOCHINESE ECONOMIC GESTALT or IEG! Which I think is a lot more catchy, and were it not for Japan and WW2, would likely have had sphere in there. Yet another horrible crime we can lay at the feet of Imperial Japan.
August starts off with a deeply painful moment for Abe - probably why he was so busy with founding the ID/EA, to avoid being at home. But he (and we) cannot avoid it anymore: Amanda files for divorce.
Oof.
...still, there is now the most powerful woman in the world who is just entering the dating pool, if any of you want to touch that.
Richard Nixon gets nominated for the presidency in the run up to the election. Meanwhile, a huge peace march in England gets marred by a battle between British metahumans and IRA metahumans - but, in another display of common sense and gallantry that is often missing from Progenitor, the ENTIRE battle takes place in the sky. Here's what I think happened: The IRA is like, "Listen, uh, Terry...you have to stay home cause...you can't fly! The fight's going to be in the sky, for propaganda purposes!" And Terry's like, "oh fine..." and they send their non-psychotic flying metahumans over. The resulting battle is extremely impressive but has no casualties, captures, or collateral damage.
Honestly, good on the IRA?
In September, the United States launches...THE ENTERPRSIE!?
Has Amanda found Faith??? of the heart???
...okay!
Why not!?
Jack Grimes, having either been kicked out of or finishing his schmoozing in China heads to the USSR. I think he's still trying to find a way to get back to Atlantis that will not end with him being teleported DIRECTLY into prison. Or, considering Vo's feelings on him, the sun. As he arrives, the INDOCHINESE ECONOMIC GESTALT unveils the Tu Do powerplant: It is a large, somewhat ineffective and based on the Farnsworth Fusor style reactor that utterly failed to catch on in the 1960s (because, as it turns out, it takes more energy to run than it outputs.) The Tu Do powerplant avoids this - barely. It makes a trickle of power and everyone around the world chuckles mirthfully as it sits there, making energy...and immense amounts of Helium-3 as a byproduct.
Helium-3 that is then used for the immense number of Xem-Trat Tu PROTABLE FUSION GENERATORS!?
Yeah, all those tiny, light, no gas cars are running on Mr. Fusions! From Back to the Future 2. In 1976! And I can see what it is that Cam's doing here: She wants decentralized power production to be the general throughline of Progressive Harmony, to improve its survivability in the face of catastrophic, strategic attacks. Why have one big fusion power plant that they can rod from space, HMM? At least, I think that's her thinking, it is not fully described in the book.
While the XTTs are used primarily in cars, I see no reason why you can't use them to run a bunch of other shit too.
In Atlantis, the debate on law and order rejects cops, embraces superheroes. Literally, they start hiring metahumans, training them in conflict de-escalation and the use of their powers to solve crimes and disputes, and giving them cool costumes. I, as a big nerd, approve!
In October, the democratic national convention convenes, with private citizen and former President Lyndon B. Johnson being one of the speakers. He steps up onto the stage, hears a faint click - and then explodes as the bomb planted well, well, well in advance of him arriving goes off. The bomb was tied to a Dark Energy Detector to avoid it hitting the wrong person. And just like that, LBJ joins Set in the list of Dead Tier 2s. RIP.
Now, the most awkward part of the story comes back into play as Howard "Reddy" March uses his race reversal beam on a man named Winston...and apparently, Howard has managed to get all the way to 1976 without zilching his infections, because he infects the man and creates HELL FOR ME. Because this guy is named...
Å - DARK ENERGY MESSIAH
...and I'm gonna have to use that special character every single frigging time Å shows up in the plot. Which is a lot! Also, his backstory is long and has some edits for brevity and so I don't get mod slapped.
Proggers said:
Å did track down Reddy and asked him politely to turn him black again because...like, I get it, you're surrounded by the cops, trying to escape, do anything you need, but also YIKES.
Anyway, Å is fucking bullshit.
POWERS
Power one: Controlled Vector, 2hd, it's obvious, touch only and it is made of two usefuls: One of them lets him choose if he infects someone or not, and the other one lets him CONTROL THE POWERS THEY GET. Which, like. I know Cam can do that too using hypermind, Å is just using a miracle (in Wild Talents mechanical parlance, a 'miracle' is a power that isn't a hyper-stat or hyper-skill) to do with what Cam only did with skills and intellect, but it somehow feels like cheating. THen he has 10d in a relatively gentle Control Weather power, 10d in a relatively gentle control earth power (the scale on that is WAY lower than Cynthia Carls, and he can't defend or attack with it - it's more slowly reshaping the land, but still wildly useful.)
Next, he has 4hd in heavy armor for that nice "assassination proof" vibes that a chosen divine messiah needs, combined with 8d in Hypercharm, 9d in hypercommand, the ability to have his voice be selectively heard by anyone he wants within Low Earth Orbit (so, he can speak to every human being at once OR he can speak to just Rod and Tod, or anything in between.) And finally...he has that thing that Sybok has from Undiscovered Counrty.
No, seriously.
Proggers said:
So, if Amanda is the power set that makes you go, "Oh, I see" when you realize just how hands off Wild Talents is, Å is the powerset where you go, "OH SO THAT'S HOW IT IS" when you realize just how hands off Progenitor is. Amanda is a character you can just make in any WT game with a 500ish point value, she doesn't break a single rule for Wild Talents, but Å feels as if he's edging onto player character bullshit powers that some sneakthief smug munchkin would make. Like, Å is breaking the rules of the setting.
I can see it now, like...I can just see my friend Scott's face focusing as he goes, "...can I make the Dog Welder?" and I go, "yes, you can very easily make the dog welder' then he'll go, "NO! Wait! Can I make a guy whose superpower is choosing other people's superpowers?" and I'd go, "...sigh...yes Scott, you can do that too..." And he'd slap his hands together and go, "THAT'S THE GUY! I'M SUPERPOWER POWER MAN!"
Also, interestingly enough, Å's voice heard throughout the land power...it says he speaks into minds, but here's my hot take: I think it shouldn't be telepathic, it should be dark energy bullshit manipulating sound waves because that's just more evocative to me.
...anyway, we now have TWO groups of people (The Church of the Emerald Virgin, and Å's followers) who both see Amanda as the godhead.
This is Fine (tm.)
In November, Nixon's fumbling of Amy Sykes and the immense groundswell of support for the democrats after the assassination of LBJ - and probably, Metagate too, don't forget Metagate - see Nixon ousted in favor of Jimmy Carter. The ID/EA runs into some problems when Turkey refuses them entry into their country when they arrive before an earthquake. After it hits, they're finally allowed in, only to be attacked by a group of metahumans and heavily armed baselines. The reasoning is unclear, but the battle draws the attention of Amanda Sykes - she might not be married to Abe anymore, but she's not about to let him and his friends all get killed.
So she teleports there and kills several of the attackers before the rest run.
Evil meter: I think at a low 60%, you think?
In December, Jason Weeks predicts a major eruption in Zaire (which is true) and buys a bunch of land cheaply in the area using his immense fortune that he gets by just being a hyperbrain.
And with that, 1976 has wrapped and Amanda is entering a pretty bleak part of her life. It's not being mentioned here, but in 1977, there is a sentence talking about how she's being 'hounded by the press' - presumably, her divorce is VERY public news the moment the filing is registered, and her life is probably pretty miserable. Isolated, alone, with the only people who are willing to talk to her being either adoring fans or people who want things from her, Amanda has definitely started to hit the downward slope that's going to end in 1999.
...unless?
*looks meaningfully at YOU! The READER!*
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Arkalest
ELOP Stan In The Streets, Dromok Under The Sheets
Nah let them slide, I wanna see what happens.
- Location
- some computer lab
I wonder what Jason Weeks wants that land for. If it's to hoard when his superpower literally gives him infinite money by playing the stock market I am giving him his own evil meter.
10ebbor10
DON'T PANIC
- Location
- Present
The place was probably still half evacuated from the Doctor visiting on Christmas.
You're not a proper alt-hist if you don't have airships, after all.
Kinda interesting that the Gestalt's flagship product is a car. With their highly regulated, homogenous society, you'd expect them to have super public transport or something.
On the other hand, it's not unrealistic. This is the 70's. Cars are the sign of prosperity, and everyone is building highways everywhere.
SWEET DREAMS ARE MADE OF THESE
RPG party ahh family, dps dad healer mom tank son
CMIIW but I really doubt a Vietnamese woman would choose to honour China in the name. I mean in real life, China invaded Vietnam in '79 as revenge for getting rid of the Khmer Rouge.
I mean, they started it...
I'll, uh, get on the fanfiction? I can't find any tables that aren't 5e... also I'll probably drag on the fanfiction just like I keep putting off updating my quest
Well, it's easier to sell a car abroad. Maybe they're still working on their own infrastructure.
I'm excited to see how Amanda's decline interacts with the cults around her.
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- He/Him
Man, that was cool! Imagine, a superhero movie where a superhero saves people using superpowers! Incredible! If only more films could crack this secret code.
ThatGazzer
Minds Eye Bind
- Location
- PNW
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- They/Them
I don't think the car is the important part. It's the Engine. Using it in a car just creates trust in the concept of the engine itself.