:: The God Diversion ::
It started, as every terrible, shocking, and upsetting series of events does, in New York.
After a school bus disappeared in broad daylight, the nation was cast into turmoil. There were recordings, witness statements, and irrefutable evidence. Investigations and searches commenced. The federal government called in its resources and questioned tens of thousands of witnesses. Not an atom of evidence was found. It was a national mystery.
A year without answers, and then a similar event happened in Chicago. After a year more, one happened in London. Almost like clockwork, always in early September. Having discovered the apparent pattern coincided with the beginning of a school year, the world started to observe, awaiting new vanishings with bated breath.
After that, one more happened in Ayacucho, Peru.
As it occurred, however, the disappeared class of New York returned to Earth, spat out into the street they occupied formerly, all students and driver unharmed and conspicuously aged three years. Immediately, the media crews and reporters were asking questions over camera flashes. All of them including the driver claimed to have spent three years under the tutoring of an entity calling itself the Educator. Answers were forthcoming, albeit limited. Given that everyone believed the students were dead, and the media was swarming over the situation, no one pressed anyone for the truth. The class representative, Gabriel Storm, only commented he was looking forward to using their new education to aid the people of New York.
After that, it wasn't long before the presence of superheroes was noticed around the city, stopping accidents and intervening in crises. A mugging was prevented by Nightcowl. A car crash was stopped by Lady Justice. Already in the public eye, the students were soon connected to their costumed identities.
Following their formal debut, they unmasked and promised to protect the United States of America. The reception was mixed: some cheered them on, and some raised objections over such people being allowed even informal authority. The government was uncertain how to proceed, especially with the revelation about superpowers. Most of the nation was happy the missing students were safe, so certainly, taking action against the students would've been something of a faux pas. Especially now, that they were revealed as superheroes. In the end, nothing was done.
From there, it wasn't too long before the other shoe dropped, and the realization trickled in, all across the nation and the world: the New Yorkers wouldn't be the only class to return. They most probably would be the only actual superheroes, though.
From Chicago next year came the counterparts of the so-called New York Defenders, as the Cabal of Evil; supervillains declaring a state of total war on the federal government, spreading tendrils of influence across the states and beginning a loud conflict with the Defenders.
After that, it only continued - for over three decades, the Educator continued to abduct youths and inducted them into his strange brand of learning. The details of the phenomenon were explicated over the years and subsequently leaked to the public. Everything from the criteria of the Educator to his demonstrated abilities, and the powers he could engender in his students. There were still mysteries. Sometimes, he'd abduct two classes in a single year, and sometimes, he'd invite parents to attend the graduation ceremonies, and sometimes he'd send invitations and open portals instead of making an abduction in broad daylight. The exact patterns were muddled and unclear, but some general truths were discovered:
A class of students, or in other words, any group of young people learning something, would be abducted, most often alongside a single teacher or guardian.
After that, the Educator would present the students with a theme, or a 'subject,' and they would spend time as a class, developing the theme's ideas and making them more concrete, choosing roles within the theme to adhere to, carving out identities for themselves.
The Educator would then finalize the process and aid them in developing supernatural capabilities related to their roles, at the cost of three years spent learning under him. It was also possible to leave voluntarily, although it'd result in a failing grade, with some manner of scary yet nebulous penalty attached.
Now, the world is changed drastically as a result of his actions.
The Phantasian Council and its Shining Prince have seized control over the state of Oregon, enacting its secession from the United States and bitterly fighting off attempts at integration. The United Kingdom is a puppet that loyally serves the Crown of Logres and the Court of Camelot, its Once and Future King and the Knights of the Round Table.
And even five years after the Metaphysicist's debut, the northern hemisphere continues to experience random bouts of dimensional imbrication with worrying regularity, the side effect of his apparently successful attempt at inelegantly breaching spatial barriers to another universe for reasons largely unknown.
It's this world that you'll call your alma mater.
---
Through a whim of fate, our protagonist was part of the chosen class. Now, this collection of students shall be thrown into a world beyond their wildest imagination. Soon, the Educator shall address them and introduce the hapless students to this new world. What is the nature of our character?
[ ] The Hard-Working Athlete - A football scholarship can be a blessing. It can also be a curse. And for you, it was a little bit of both.
It did, after all, let you get into the school you'd always dreamt of attending, the same one your old man went to - but at the same time, it wiped away the traces of delusion you were getting in for anything other than your impressive pectoral muscles and ability to knock people over on their ass. It's not that you disliked the sport, or that you'd cast aspersions on the ones who choose to play it. Football always was and continues to be, in your eyes, a noble and thrilling undertaking.
But you'd always wanted to be viewed as something a little more than a musclehead with a penchant for charging into problems head-on and destroying them. You're no idiot by any means, but no Albert Einstein either, and your older brother, himself a physicist, always made sure to remind you of it in subtle and incisive ways that somehow managed to perfectly get under your skin and ticked you off. You burned to prove him wrong. To show him that you could do smart science things too. That you were just as smart as him, if not more.
Now, you'll never get to do that. You've locked yourself in. You're the guy who gets the touchdowns and the field goals. The star athlete without a single planet to his name. But maybe that ain't so bad. After all, you've got a second scholarship now, to a much different kind of place.
*Amazing physique and the determination to do even utterly tedious work with little motivation. Not as much of a dumb brute as some people would like to think.
*Not actually bothered much by expectations, but also not stupid about it; willing to shoulder the brunt of difficult work with little complaint, unwilling to be a doormat for others to walk on.
*Almost dangerously obsessive over fitness. Maintaining a strict exercise regimen is healthy not only for your body but almost entirely vital to your mental well-being. If you do not lift or run for too long, your mood could suffer a minor backlash.
*Strict diet. Once, you were offered a cupcake. After offering back a muttered thanks, you took it with you back home and later obsessively tore it apart into a sugary mush, mentally counting the calories and despairing over what it might've done to you - as if the cupcake were poison. You subsist in large part on creatine powder and dietary fibers.
*Better compatibility with physical roles.
[ ] The Popular Girl - Athletic and smart - yes - but neither that nor your rather significant access to wealth and influence are the true reasons for your popularity.
You're, after all, the daughter of the Archetype members, the world's first and most prolific superheroes: Olympian and Lady Justice, the founders of Archetype and the New York Defenders. In Cleveland, your parents fought and defeated the nascent Cabal of Evil and ensured peace and stability for the eastern seaboard. In more recent years, in the skies over New York, they fought against the evil Metaphysicist and managed to barely drive him away according to most sources.
For a whole three decades, they did everything they could to protect the world from the encroachment of evil, and they are now reaching their twilight years. It frightens you somehow, how such titans can become old and weary. More than anything, it frightened you how everyone seemed to expect you to somehow do the same and more.
Now, you'll never have to worry about that. Maybe you weren't born with your father's marvelous strength or your mother's control over reality, but you'll still have your shot.
*Most of the people around you expect you to either do great things or to somehow find a route to your parents through you. Beware the wolves in sheep's clothing.
*Now that you're being Enrolled, you'll have a natural way to assume a role of leadership. Are you sure that you want to?
*In some distant way, your parents must've expected you to follow in their footsteps as well. You aren't sure how they could've predicted the Educator snatching you away so conveniently, but you were trained: physically and mentally. It's nothing hardcore or excessive - you still had a decent life - but you've spent more free time than an average person your age on things like firearm drills, martial arts, and bona fide strategy and tactics lessons.
*You've always had a lot more enemies than your usual kid, and you're about to have even more. How do you know some idiot in your own class won't attempt to ingratiate himself to the Evil Genius by killing or kidnapping you? The bonds of trust will be tested.
*All-rounder, decent compatibility with all roles.
[ ] The Depressed Nerd - After your mother died, you attempted to cope by immersing yourself in other worlds. You're still coping a little to this day. It's been hard.
It didn't help, after all, when they started picking on you in every way possible. Calling you a loser at every opportunity, breaking into your locker, ruining your work, and making up complaints to the teachers were among the lighter pranks of your classmates. It seemed like, from day one, everyone was completely and utterly set against you.
It's been something of a living hell, these last couple of years. You're no psycho, though, so taking it out on them has never crossed your mind: and even if it did, you wouldn't have known where to even find a rifle. You'd rather be left well enough alone on your own. You aren't completely alone in this situation, but help is limited: your old man immerses himself in alcohol as much as you in fiction, your friends don't want to involve themselves too heavily for fear of also being targeted, and onlookers are too busy with their lives.
Now, though, your worries are fading away. Chosen as you were, you'll potentially have an opportunity to carve out a hefty destiny of your own.
*Smart, bookish. Reading both fiction and non-fiction have always been some of your favorite downtimes and you've acquired a broad knowledge base to draw upon from this. You're familiar with a lot of concepts that people would give you weird looks over knowing.
*You're glum and downbeat, and you have good reason to: you start with negative or completely indifferent social relationships with most of your classmates. If they aren't bullying you, they're at least willing to overlook it so it doesn't happen to them as well.
*Physically, you're a bit of a wimp: weaker than average through atrophy. Nonetheless, you hold the potential to self-improve and could become athletic if given the chance.
*You're probably the sort of person that formerly would've desperately sought out the Metaphysicist for a superpower elixir if given the chance. (Desperate for meaning.)
*Within you is the potential to quote every Star Trek episode.
*Better compatibility with mental roles.
[ ] The Slacking Loafer - Absolutely no career prospects. Absolutely no interest in learning or hard work. Somehow, this has even persisted into the Educator's Super School.
You've always had intellect and talent, a level of innate comprehension: about people and events. It made them so utterly predictable it was almost terrifying to you as a child. Now, it's almost monotonous. You predicted your parents' divorce five years in advance, as a six-year-old, during their happy and lovestruck period. The moment you saw him, you predicted the exact chain of events that would lead the Depressed Nerd to get stuffed into a locker in June (yes, in June: you warned him and he didn't believe you.) It's such a fucking bother since no one believes you or wants to extend any belief toward you. The classwork was always childishly easy, so you eventually stopped doing it, unable to engage, and your teachers gave up. Predictable.
And yeah - you even predicted your class would be chosen by the Educator, and took with you some worthwhile items you can sell to your classmates. But then, who would've believed you? They'll simply believe you're a freak for carrying this stuff around and happened to get lucky for being born weird.
Now, you continue to slack off, not eager to do any hard work even with access to superpowers. The end results are predictable anyway...
*Genius without motivation. Brilliance without determination. You've got every possible resource needed to achieve extreme success, but the spirit falters. In order to succeed, you'll need to find something to actually motivate you.
*Incredible social instinct. You've adapted a conversational speedrunning approach that allows you to skip through bothersome dialogues with the NPCs, directly to the moment where you get what you want out of them, be that sweet blessed silence, or some minor favor. Your skill at maneuvering the minds of your lessers is so advanced it can be likened to minor feats of hypnosis.
*Physically worthless. And in terms of willpower, you're hopeless.
*The only passion you have is for coffee jelly. It's easy to bribe you with it.
*You'd rather spend all day sleeping.
*Better compatibility with social roles.
In order to give you an opportunity to generate Student Credit, the meta-resource of the quest, and additional characters you'll be able to name role ideas for a given Theme. If I consider them fitting, they'll make an appearance.
Select Theme:
[ ] Gothic Horror - Fear and haunting. Vampires and werewolves. Lunacy and madness. A world cast in yellow moonlight and dark shadow, its main actors the monsters that lurk in the recesses and come out to hunt, its victims the commoners who are made their prey.
Potential Roles: The Vampire, the Werewolf, the Occultist, the Mad Scientist, the Freak, the Abomination, the Eldritch Horror, the Scared Peasant, the Ghost [...]
[ ] Action Movie - Fists and guns. Cool guys and explosions. Bad guys and epic fights. A world of adrenaline-pumping action and pure awesomeness, its main actors the heroes who stand against evil and fight against it actively, their foes the evil bastards who earned their just deserts.
Potential Roles: The Gunman, the Driver, the Robber, the Martial Artist, the Cowboy, the Mafia Boss, the Hunter Robot, the Retired Killer, the Epic Master [...]
[ ] Science Fantasy - Science and magic. Space and adventure. Good and evil. A classic fantasy saga conducted in the depths of outer space, adventures among asteroids, space stations, and exotic planets, its main actors the cast of chosen heroes, and its antagonists the evils who oppose them.
Potential Roles: The Energy Swordsman, the Wise Mentor, the Smuggler, the Bounty Hunter, the Animal Companion, the Android, the Plucky Robot, the Space Princess [...]
[ ] Tarot Cards - Fate and destiny. Cards and traditions. Readings and mediums. An atypical and prosaic Theme: the setting defaults to a strange subset of medieval fantasy, albeit with elements of predetermination. Its actors are the chosen of the Tarot, fortune-told and mighty.
Potential Roles: The Fool, the Magician, the World, the Chariot, the Hermit, the Emperor, the Hierophant, the Lovers, the Devil [...]
[ ] Write-in
It's recommended that you avoid Themes already used.
Past Themes: Superheroes, Supervillains, Knights of the Round Table, Hard Science Fiction, Horror Movies, Magic Academy, Ancient Greece, Classic Fantasy, Ancient Babylon, Video Games, Alien Conspiracies, Action Archeology, European Folklore, Cyberpunk, Valentines, Nordic Mythology, Pirates, Slavic Mythology, Medieval, Feudal Japan, Wild West, History, Roman Empire, Journey to the West, Golden Age Science Fiction, Noir, 19th Century Romance, Mars Colonization, Music, Naval Age of Discovery, Post-Apocalyptic, Steampunk, Weird West, Space Opera, Highschool Drama, Philosophy.
