Earth

The place

Earth

The time

modern day (plus a few years)

The myths are true. The legends are real. Magic exists, and so do demons, aliens, and killer robots. This is the Earth of Harry Dresden, Harry Potter, Fox Mulder, Dean Winchester, and Buffy Summers. It's an all-encompassing mythology, like the world of Gaiman's Sandman, or Marvel and DC when they aren't being especially over-the-top.

There are plenty of bad guys in this world. Vampires, warlocks, insane metahumans, secret alien invaders, demons, ghosts, and just plain criminals can be found everywhere. And with the possible exception of a few secret government agencies, whose motives may be questionable, no police force, no national guard is equipped with the knowledge, tactics, and equipment needed to face supernatural threats.

Most supernatural communities keep on the DL. For 2000 years, the Catholic Church has worked to expunge the supernatural from its orderly world, and ever since the Age of Enlightenment, magic and monsters have been the subjects of fairy stories, not serious literature.

Wizards hide themselves away in pocket planes and corners of the world impervious to muggle detection. Vampires, among other monsters that can easily pass for human, outnumber more hideous and fearful creatures that once roamed freely, but still they must keep to the shadows. And naturally, those that were never welcome in the light--warlocks, demons, evil cultists, etc--remain outside the watchful eye of civilization.

But the rising stakes of this global world mean that good men cannot sit idly by anymore. The wicked, though few in number, have a greater power than ever to twist the world to their ends, to prey upon innocent people, and to undo all the progress and enlightenment of the modern age, which many among them blame for their long exile.

Still others might otherwise be innocent, but, ignorant of the supernatural realities of this world, fall into power they don't understand, and are corrupted by it to horrible ends. These understandable menaces sometimes start out with the best of intentions, but soon become villains outside the capability of mortal authorities to handle.

And so this world, for all its police, armies, and scientific know-how, is in dire need of heroes. Heroes from the same world as the monsters, heroes versed in the lore and powers of the supernatural, heroes who wield powers dark and light for the betterment of man...or at least to the net detriment of villains.

PCs in this setting are creating heroes, or at least anti-heroes. It is quite possible to create villains, but that is not the primary intent, and will not be a focus of development.

Power Sources

Main article: Power Sources

While PCs need not conform to the traditions of comic-book superheroes, they are all decidedly super. Not all PCs are strictly superhuman, but, by virtue of being heroes, and perhaps by virtue of leveling, they become far more capable than average joes.

There are many Power Sources, all of which can be boiled down into three categories: Magic, Technology, and Racial.

Magic encompasses all magical arts, such as wizardry, witchcraft, primal magic, divine magic, etc. Technology is for those without any superpowers, who use gadgets, alien technology, or just the wonders of guns and explosives to level the playing field. Racial powers describe the innate abilities of any superhuman or non-human, from vampires to metahumans to cyborgs.

The Power Sources are very much acknowledged in-character. Wizards tend to stick together, as do witches, etc., and the relations of each such organization are a cornerstone of the roleplaying experience. For example, in this world, a council of wizards, whose power and dominance is rooted in Victorian England, lays claim to the entire magical world, much to the dismay of witches, warlocks, and even other wizards who resent their reactionary and outdated ways. The struggle for independence from this organization can inform many entertaining plots for PCs of a magical Power Source.

The primary purpose of Power Sources is to explain the "super" nature of the heroes. They're more than firemen or marines. They're larger than life, and Power Sources are the reason why. They are also what makes them different from "normal" humans, and a source of potential angst or wonderment. In a world of medieval fantasy, there is little difference in terms of awe and surprise between a wizard and a waterclock; both are rare wonders, well outside the grasp of ordinary folk. But in this modern world, we all wish to discover new frontiers of science, to rediscover magic, or to explore human potential.

It is intended that Power Sources are open-ended. Instead of the typical medieval fantasy world, where magic is a dead-end (all wizards either become liches stuck in the mid-20s, or just die of old age), and a plethora of gods overshadow even the mightiest of magical heroes, a modern superhero universe allows the PCs to be the gods, to explore limitless possibilities, to make their own decisions about how to use their power. For those (typically the majority) who don't believe in gods, there are no divine arbiters to punish evildoers...the heroes must do that themselves.

Purpose and Style

This author believes that the function of comic-book heroes was to recreate mythology from the perspective of a world dominated by human ingenuity and unrestricted by divine laws. In the modern, western world, only the most backward fundamentalists believe that religious beliefs should hinder human progress; the majority believe that we should strive to solve all the worlds' problems through technology, social change, and self-improvement. These values are entirely different from those of the medieval world, where the Church, not the individual, defined such things as self-worth, purpose, and destiny.

In a world such as this, heroes serve an entirely different purpose. They represent ideals, and inspire the masses to better themselves, and to contribute to their world's well-being, rather than to give in to cynicism and despair. They are, in effect, gods, fulfilling the same role that divine beings always did, until the Enlightenment, but themselves human, full of flaws, introspection, and very human emotions.

Thus, superheroes are more interesting than either gods or the lesser magical heroes who serve beneath them in medieval fantasy. This setting focuses on those heroes, hoping to tell more interesting and nuanced stories than can be told in an archaic world.

The modern setting relieves the PCs of the need to spend creative effort adapting a character concept to a strange and alien world, and frees the DM from having to invent an entire world, to instead focus on crafting individual villains, adventure hooks, and engaging stories.

The style of these adventures can vary along the superhero spectrum, encompassing everything from the uplifting, technicolor universe of Superman and the Justice League, to the dark, brooding environs of Gotham City, to any number of gritty worlds where supernatural heroes investigate crimes perpetrated by like-powered villains, and try to save mundane victims from monsters, even as mortal authorities question their claims and sanity.