Feel free to work on your character concept(s) here!

Super early preliminary ideas:

The Reformed: Individual trained under one of the Nautilian's lieutenants who broke rank with the flotilla to pursue personal wealth and glory.
The Transformed: Technopath created through less than ethical attempts to blend Cylien tech with the human form.
The Doomed: Individual whose powers appear to stem from a link with The Dark.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:19, Fri 23 July 2021.

All of those have potential, but the last one is tricky.

The Reformed: How long has this lieutenant been active independently? What kind of resources do they have? Are they still active now?

The Transformed: Who was behind those attempts, I wonder? And I suppose the changes go beyond simple technopathy, for this character to count as a Transformed?

The Doomed: I admit I am a little leery about such connections given that the Dark are meant to be a major setting mystery, and I wouldn't want to reveal too much about them too early. Then again, that mystery would need to be explored eventually anyway, and this could be a really cool angle to play with, both in that regard and in others. So to be clear, I am not forbidding this - it might just require some extra care on our part if you choose to go with it, though it can also be very rewarding. In any case, you say "appear" - so there is no certainty about the source? The character simply has some Dark-related abilities? Such as?
This message was last edited by the GM at 07:40, Fri 23 July 2021.

I was fairly sure that Doomed concept would cause problems so it's really no issue to cut it now rather than put a lot of thought into trying to reconcile any complications.

I said 'appear' both for a bit of a fudge (although that doesn't exactly work with the idea of a nemesis really) and because there was the natural contradiction of an unenhanced individual having become a locus for the power of beings who had previously appeared incapable of making such a connection. I didn't have any strong ideas but thought there might have been some kind of space there for explaining things away as actually not being The Dark and having the character discover in time that their approaching end was something other than what they'd been preparing for.

But yeah: shelving that one.

---

The Reformed

Honestly I'm not totally sure how to properly answer some of these questions. I haven't got the best understanding of the timeline so it's a bit hard to make judgements about the Whens.

My thought was to frame this lieutenant as someone who had been serving their own interests on the quiet (perhaps piggybacking off their hard-earned authority and responsibilities) to put together a dark mirror of the Nautilian's own enterprise in miniature, seeking to break from their master's isolation and return to the days of high piracy. An effort like that would have be the work of years and likely involve some sympathetic allies to have any real hope of succeeding, thus certainly putting a fair amount of resources at their fingertips, and I'd think of them as having set down ties in piracy, smuggling and the like within the territory they'd laid claim to as well as having established their own pale imitation of the "Secret School," likely more mundane in nature than the original.

As for whether they're still active ... I don't know. Originally I'd considered this PC someone who'd been set on the path to reform after the fall of their previous master, but it could work just as well for them to still be at large as a future antagonist and presence, with perhaps the "When Our Team First Came Together..." only pointing to one of their underlings. Maybe they've just gone to ground (sea?), and while the PC was released from their control and given a second chance after an earlier operation the matter still hasn't been properly put to bed. Could go either way really depending on how we want to play things.

The Transformed

Who indeed!

I feel like this is a concept where you could really go either way: cruel experimentation or a bit more of a Cyborg scenario where things are more above board.

I mentioned Technopathy just to flag up the direction I was going, but I was thinking of taking things in a biomechanical body horror direction, with their implants being far from subtle and having grown beyond their initial scope in a manner that isn't the most pleasant to look at. Probably at least a little Giger.

-

The Reformed is my preferred concept at this time.

One thing I was wondering (more to establish a tone and framework rather than in pursuit of any specific agenda):

One of the Moves for The Reformed concerns serious crimes committed in their past, and the options make it quite clear that these actions have a good chance of involving people being seriously injured. Now when I think of this particular playbook's archetype the characters who come to mind are people like Cassandra Cain and Rose Wilson, and those are both characters who had killed before taking a more heroic path. Naturally that leaves me wondering whether that's something I can consider integrating into this PC's backstory or if it has no place in this game given Masks' usual approach.

I'm not looking to play a character who kills while on the team, I'd just like to clear up whether it's part of my narrative toolbox to draw on for this character's past - and I might not do that even if permitted.
This message was last edited by the player at 14:56, Fri 23 July 2021.

Pretty much my thinking. There are some ways to play it, but... tricky.



The Nautilian went into hiding in the late 70s, towards the end of the War and a few years before the creation of New Atlantis. I don't really need an exact timeline, just trying to get the sense of how big a deal this person would've been to the rest of the world. Just another minor upstart who was active for a few years a while back is different from someone who terrorised the world from the War's end to this day. That would tend to affect how others see the character.

What sort of abilities are you thinking of for your character?

Re: killing (putting this here since it relates to this character), yeah, that's also tricky. It makes the most sense to allow that for Reformed than anyone else. After all, they are defined by having done very bad things on purpose in the past, but trying to be different now. (Compared to a Nova who could very well have killed people - but not on purpose.) On the other hand, it seems likely to seriously affect the tone of the game and everyone else's experience. After all, it would pretty much have to come up at some point.

On reflection, though, I would allow it - the requirement from the core book is that the character is not someone who "solves problems by killing" now. Also, considering the setting, sympathetic characters who have killed in the past are probably more of a given than they would be in a generic Masks game. Such themes might come up eventually anyway. So yes, you can use this tool if you think it works best for your concept, just be careful with it and be prepared for consequences. The examples you mentioned seem like a valid way of handling it (more so Cassandra since she had more extenuating circumstances and quit afterwards).



Got it. By Cyborg scenario you mean it was used to save the character's life when no other options were available? I could see something like that - the technology is far ahead of Earth's, and does include tools for cybernetic conversion (that may or may not have been properly calibrated for humans, at that). Study of it is heavily restricted by law pretty much everywhere - only the governments and groups with special permissions from governments are supposed to do it, and then in maximally safe conditions. Of course, some do it on the sly anyway...

It could also just be an accident from illicit research, really. Something might have activated on its own and no one could stop it from converting the character due to insufficient precautions.

Okay, so what's coming to mind (RE: The Reformed) is this:

When the Nautilian excused herself from the global scene it led to a schism in her organisation - short term, a year or two max after their disappearance. One (or perhaps more) of her lieutenants and their followers broke away with the intention of taking their skills, resources and technology and using them to return to the glory days when the sea was theirs to rule. While this faction did have a figurehead leader it lacked for true unity, and many of its captains and seneschals were as much concerned, if not more so, with carving out their own petty kingdoms as strengthening the whole. They made a menace of themselves for perhaps the better part of a decade, but eventually internal power struggles and concerted actions by the former Allies led to a beheading. The faction splintered without that veneer of common leadership and went a thousand different ways, some elements being eliminated in short order while others clung on and solidified powerbases that still exist today.

The PC was shaped in the system that came about in the aftermath of this, a child abducted and put through a crude recreation of the ‘schools’ that had once existed under the Nautilian. She was a favoured prospect of the organisation's former head, and following their death remained in the custody of their loyalists, being shaped into a weapon meant as much to target the operations of former allies as more standard fare. So in that sense she never truly acted as a threat in her own right under a genuinely big name; her villainous days were under one of the more powerful blocs born of the organisation that really held the world's eye - powerful but a small fish in a big pond.

---

I'm certainly going to be going with either Weapons and Martial Expertise or Ferromancy. Right now I'd probably lean towards the latter as it helps explain both why they were taken and favoured.

I think it's unlikely I'll make this character someone who has killed. It wouldn't be totally unfitting but I don't think it's at all necessary.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:21, Sat 24 July 2021.

All that makes sense - and establishing that there are active technopirate groups out there could be a very useful hook for an island setting.

Could you elaborate on how you envision ferromancy? Not just metal manipulation but some form of magic?

Sorry, that was a mistake on my part. My brain wants to say Ferromancy when I still mean Ferrokinesis like in the Playbook; I wasn't trying to take things in a different direction.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:34, Sat 24 July 2021.

Ah, I see. Still, that's curious in another way - some people might draw comparisons with the Steel Caudillo, given his similar superpower. Might just be a coincidence, of course, but that would never stop anyone.

That had actually gone completely under my radar; I'm guilty of only skimming the section on the Warlords beyond those who immediately grabbed my attention. Certainly makes sense in-universe as another hook to explain why someone might be willing to make a big investment in a kid with these powers and work to mold them into a willing follower, and it's definitely a comparison I can see being thrown their way, yeah.

I'm thinking that the PC is someone from a region that was still deeply unstable in the wake of WW3 - perhaps a refugee or orphan of a local conflict - who had been (very cautiously) using their nascent powers as just another tool to help them get by, doing their best to stay under the radar and avoid any unwelcome attention that might come with being special. Naturally they failed to do so in the long run (perhaps being caught trying to steal from someone with ties to the organisation or using them to defend themselves or another) and found themselves uprooted and dragged into a new life.

I quite like the idea that their relationship with the original 'big bad' was a positive one, if distant. They only really knew them through circumstances deliberately framed to present a kindly and understanding air, with any questions about their business and ways spun to emphasise concepts like freedom, family, and the deeds necessary to survive (nay, thrive) in a world gone mad. Whether their relationship would have stayed so sunny in the long-term never truly came up given the pirate lord's untimely death. Instead it merely gave their successor ammunition to push the PC in darker directions - anger, grief, revenge. Take as they have taken from you.

So to be clear, the original boss was the pirates' figurehead?

Were there others put through the training system? Were they allowed to socialise? That could be an interesting NPC hook.

Also, the character just trained under the original boss, but the successors put them to work? The Redeemed has to have done at least something to count as an ex-villain, I think - just training to be a superpirate wouldn't be enough.

So to be clear, the original boss was the pirates' figurehead?

Yes, sorry if that's got a bit hazy.

My intention is to have the PC as someone who was once connected to a genuine upper-mid tier villain (but never directly acted as a villain under them specifically) so that they can have that complicated element of still having positive feelings towards someone who the world views in no uncertain terms as a bad person. There are aspects of the PCs personality and worldview that were shaped by their relationship with a (somewhat) principled villain which left them open to an ideology built on harming others, to being abused and weaponised by those with looser principles, and ultimately to finding an angle on the world which let them take a more heroic position of their own.

Were there others put through the training system? Were they allowed to socialise? That could be an interesting NPC hook.

Yes.

The PC is someone who was picked up and brought into the system early (probably at something like 12-13) after displaying her powers, and were it not for the Boss' intervention it's not totally clear what might have become of her - there wasn't a standard protocol and some parties weren't keen on retaining a literal child for years with the added complication of powers. At the Boss' will she was effectively 'adopted' and to be given a chance to grow into her powers and circumstances alongside a looser regimen for a number of years, and while this was hardly without its own share of problems it certainly did help with her both coming into a better understanding of her gifts and finding a true sense of belonging and loyalty towards the enterprise. Some people took to calling her "Little sister" in time.

As for the program itself, it was really quite a scattershot thing. The Nautilian had always played her cards close to her chest, and that meant that the inner workings of many of her systems still weren't really known even to those who had been in her inner circle. Without defectors from within the secret facility to flesh out a training program or established ties to return to the days of sourcing stock from the witch hunts, the Boss and their underlings had largely returned to more traditional recruitment rather than seeking out those with extraordinary gifts. There were exceptions of course but those were more opportunistic pick-ups than the norm. Even putting aside the challenge in acquiring willing and stable recruits with powers or magical talent, any necessary facilities and knowledge would have to be built around them rather than ... however the Nautilian had managed such things.

The PC would have been rubbing shoulders with others - overwhelmingly without powers - who were her elders pretty much as a rule. Certainly she was kept on a short leash early on, but in time came to be at the very least begrudgingly accepted; she learned very quickly not to make trouble.

It’s not at all implausible that she had, say, a mentor (or someone who assumed that role) with powers, and certainly in later years as she got into her mid-late teens she’ll have been working with peers, although I imagine things might have become quite a bit more strict by then. There’s definitely room to establish NPC characters from her previous existence.

Also, the character just trained under the original boss, but the successors put them to work? The Redeemed has to have done at least something to count as an ex-villain, I think - just training to be a superpirate wouldn't be enough.

Once again, sorry if this hasn’t been very clear up to this point.

The idea I’ve been working with (which I’m very open to changing if it’s too unwieldy!) is that the PC was originally brought into the organisation under the original Boss and began preliminary training after a bit of an easing in period, not quite being treated with kid gloves but certainly being given time to find her feet. Though this ramps up over time, she’s never committed to a situation that demands she act as an actual combatant under the Boss. It’s only after their death, as the new regime looks to reassert itself, that things go a bit more Red Room. It certainly helps that she’s more than a little motivated to chase some retribution of her own.

During the handful of years before the present day she certainly cut her teeth in the theater of villainy writ large.

That all makes sense to me. I wouldn't worry about things being unwieldy. After all, she moved on from that life in any case, and I could introduce elements from it as the situation might merit it. But the more I have to work with, the better.

So, what exactly was with the pirates' ideology? I would guess it's "us, together, against the world", but the original boss also frowned on unnecessary cruelty and maybe even struck alliances with poorer coastal communities while preying on the rich and defying the lawful authorities (i.e. the old school pirate play book, which of course also makes good pragmatic sense), while the successors threw all those things out of the window in favour of more ruthless conduct? Or did they also start treating people within their "family" worse, using them as disposable tools?

[This probably gets a bit rambly. Sorry in advance.]

I’d say that sounds about right.

I’m inclined to think of them as more like a crime family (or perhaps a number of families) operating beneath an overboss. One of the criticisms of the Nautilian that first arose during WW3 and played into the splintering of her organisation in its aftermath was her refusal to take more. The rebels who parted ways with her at least partially represented those who had wanted to claim more territory and wealth for themselves, inflict greater losses on their enemies, and enjoy more independence rather than binding themselves to their leader’s mysterious grand designs. They absolutely were ruthless, but there was also (at least initially) a common vision that they could rebuild their empire in a way that would be stronger without the Nautilian choking individual ambitions.

Over time that doesn’t exactly hold up. Conflicting visions, personal greed, distrust and betrayal – it all makes any kind of oversight from above difficult to enforce.

On paper there’s a spirit of "us, together, against the world" and the understanding that alignment and loyalty is the best defence against outside threats or internal schism, but in practice those with power all have their own powerbases and blocs that drift further from group identity over time. When people have licence to live by their own rules it only gives them cause to resent any efforts to influence their actions, whether that be for the greater good or to reign in any ‘problem’ elements. It’s this which eventually leads to the cycle of deposing the boss of bosses, though in a far less respectful manner than the Nautilian was allowed.

I would frame the Boss under whom the PC was recruited as someone who understood the value of being both loved and feared. They were certainly capable of being cruel and callous enough to excel in their field and command respect, but at the same time they believed that it was important those close to you genuinely trusted you – more than the Nautilian had ever granted her own inner circle. They weren’t strictly a better person than their peers, but they thought (especially as the years went by) that the best way to avoid getting a knife in your back was to make sure people near you had your back. The rest of the world can burn, but my own are my family and I’ll always do right by them.

Their successor(s) stray from this not because they’re worse people but because of circumstance. With foreign powers breathing down their neck and civil war at hand they didn’t have the breathing space to take things easy and pushed everything to a war footing, changing tact from playing peacemaker and looking to hold things together to cutting out the rot before it could spread any further. That air of family evaporates because in that power struggle as survival at any cost becomes more important than that terms on which they survive.

I kinda like the idea that the reason the PC had a good relationship and sense of understanding with the Boss was the result of their past. They understood what it meant to live a life where you did whatever necessary to protect the things important to you, and the Boss presented them with this idea that you can’t change the world – the threats are too many and great, and more powerful people have tried and failed – so you seek strength for the sake of your own. Through family and shared purpose you can move beyond just surviving and seek to thrive and prosper instead, no matter what the world throws at you.

[insert your own Vin Diesel meme here]

In the time that follows that idea becomes impossible to hold onto. Power and vengeance are satisfying and sustaining in their own way and there’s still a sense that darker deeds are being done in the name of holding everything together, but any sense of heart’s gone out of it. She has become a mere tool and weapon; she is just surviving, not seeking more. It eats at her, and in the end it leaves fertile ground for differing viewpoints once she’s removed from that environment.
This message was last edited by the player at 16:05, Sun 25 July 2021.

Still makes sense. :) It seems like they have followed the classical organised crime group trajectory - trying to follow certain principles and stick out for each other at first, at the expense of the rest of society, but eventually the pressure that results from their line of work makes such conduct impractical. They are forced to adapt, to cross lines they didn't cross previously, and those who adapt most ruthlessly will survive and thrive.

Therefore, whoever comes out on top in this power struggle could be a serious threat to New Atlantis... if anyone ever does for long enough.

Whether that happens or not, it would also be an interesting angle for any of your character's dealings with organised crime groups in New Atlantis. Much of it would seem familiar, I'd bet.

It occurs to me that the Nautilian may have let those defectors go with little hindrance on purpose. Volatile, ambitious elements liable to blow up into infighting are exactly what she doesn't need at this stage. Or at least, it is what she would claim later.

By the way, do I understand correctly that you settled on the Reformed?

Also, any ideas on the hero name? If any. If there is one - was it changed from what she used before?

It feels like all the names I've considered are either already attached to existing characters, pretentious or just don't fit.

I'll keep thinking about it, but it's possible I'll end up running with the idea that this character no longer feels comfortable using the moniker she went under in her previous life but hasn't found anything else she like since. Maybe she'll start out with something generic like Mag and see about working out a better sense of identity down the line.

Edit: It's nothing special, but maybe Ferra?

---

I'm pretty set on playing The Reformed, but I think I might still try and put together another character before the deadline.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:50, Mon 26 July 2021.

So a question I'm going to throw your way (not because I can't potentially answer it myself but because I'm trying to get a sense of how these systems could work):

Working off the angle that Ferra was taken down in the aftermath of an incident that went badly wrong and saw her all but left for dead, how would that see her end up in New Atlantis? Would it make sense perhaps for this to be something that ties into ATLAS' activities and some kind of international arrangement for imprisoning/rehabilitating superpowered beings?

Ferra might work - was that what she was using before?

As for the other thing, well, maybe. One problem I can see is that if there is such an agreement, both sides in the Cold War are going to renege on it on a regular basis. Superpeople are an invaluable asset. Even more so if they are relatively obscure and no team or family of other superpeople is likely to come for them. The Suicide Squad model (not called that in-universe, I think, and not exactly identical, but the core premise is similar) is quite popular. Stuff like that is part of why so many superpeople preferred to relocate to New Atlantis.

ATLAS may or may not be above such methods. However, they may have decided that someone like her (not too powerful, not too evil) is better brought to New Atlantis and reintegrated into society. Perhaps there were several groups involved in the incident, which would put an added incentive for all parties to keep things aboveboard?

I am curious as to what her relationship with ATLAS would be, though. What did you have in mind? Did they just bring her there and leave her in the care of some local government or non-government organisation specialising in this sort of thing? Was she rehabilitated in their own program and then let go? Is she basically on probation, complete with an ATLAS probation officer? Can they call upon her in an emergency? Any of those options could be valid, and there are probably others I haven't thought of yet.

Ferra might work - was that what she was using before?

No. Right now I would tentatively suggest that one of her handlers had given her the name Kashu (which I’m led to believe is a Hindi name that can mean “Iron Spear”) but she certainly wouldn’t want to retain that label in her new life. All this is a fresh start – a severing of ties.

---

Really all of this was just me going through the background questions and suddenly being hit by the realisation that this game demanded a reasonable explanation for the character finding her way to New Atlantis. I asked specifically because I didn’t have any preconceptions about that sort of thing and want to check whether you did before ploughing on myself in the wrong direction. I was backfilling, read through the setting details again for guidance and found myself thinking “Maybe I can slot in ATLAS here...”

Still very much spitballing here:

She and hers were victims of a trap set by ATLAS (either pitting two groups at odds so that they could pick the bones for their leaders or a more traditional ambush) and Ferra ended up taking the fall off the back of a moment of reluctance to really push her powers and likely cause significant loss of life. As an ATLAS job they weren’t specifically beholden to hand her over to anyone – it wasn’t on the record – and they ran her through their own system for a time after concluding that she was just a kid being exploited rather than some hardcore ideologue. There was something salvageable there.

She was transferred to one of their New Atlantis holdings for further evaluation and potential training, in part considering whether it would be possible to ease her into a civilian role where her powers could be useful – construction, security or a technological field for example. She wasn't keen. Violence was first and foremost what she knew, and she wanted a chance to fight for something good now she'd had a glimpse of what that was.

What happens after that is kinda up in the air. I definitely like the idea of her being on probation (perhaps being tagged, having an assigned probation officer as you said, and being on this team under terms of a deal with ATLAS) but the nature of all of that is a bit hard to pin down without knowing what sort of team we’re on and how it came about. The pieces will fit together differently if we’re a bunch of impromptu misfits rather than something actually put together by an official agency for example.

Sure, that would work. We can hash out those details later.

It would make sense for ATLAS to either have a rehabilitation program of its own or to be connected to a government rehabilitation program in New Atlantis. Presumably she was there long enough for them to accept that she can be allowed to go outside of their facility, at least, although still with some supervision. Then maybe she was assigned to the team, or maybe she just fell in with them without time to ask for permission. (When Our Team First Came Together encourages the latter by default, but of course there are ways around it.)

I do think that any rehabilitation workers would be a good deal more wary around her if she openly stated or gave enough reason to believe that she is only interested in violent work. Or would she have tried to hide that, instead trying out the things they suggested but without discovering any great enthusiasm for it?

You know, when you put it like that I'm actually going to take my previous idea in completely the opposite direction.

Ferra gets taken to New Atlantis and makes a genuine effort at starting a new life there. I like the thought that she ends up doing something legit in Downtown, some kind of hands-on work where it's of real benefit to have someone who can move and manipulate considerable quantities of metal without heavy machinery. The violence and things she's been through are absolutely still a quiet part of her - they're not something she can easily let go of - but she's trying her best to move beyond that and live a life that helps the community without taking from someone else to do it.

The Reformed's When Our Team First Came Together... is "We fought a terrible enemy from my old life."

And there you have it. Ferra gets dragged back into the game by a very personal threat, feels the pieces of herself slip back together (albeit not quite as they did before), and ultimately decides that if she's got the power to go and challenge all these assholes out there in the world living off the rewards of other people's suffering then she can't just turn a blind eye. And maybe deep down she also enjoyed getting to throw her weight around again a little too much to put down the sword again.

She's shown her observers that she's capable of improvement, made genuine effort in her home and work life, and now she's got a team backing her up that she's shown at least the preliminary signs of being able to cooperate with. I don't think it's too unreasonable to think they'd sign off on letting her do some work with this new team, if not without at least some modest oversight.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:54, Mon 26 July 2021.

I think that works out great. I guess she provisionally worked for some sort of construction company? I can see the rehabilitation program being in touch with a number of companies that have use for such unorthodox talents (and are prepared to cope with the problems they may bring with them). If so, that may be a source for some interesting contacts, such as other reformed (or "reformed") supercriminals.
This message was last edited by the GM at 05:55, Tue 27 July 2021.

So like ... how common are attacks (of any kind) on New Atlantis?

I'm wondering because I'm thinking about how I might approach that 'When Our Team First Came Together...' question, and my initial reading is that presenting oneself as an immediate threat to New Atlantis seems kinda suicidal unless you've got one hell of a exit strategy. Maybe there's a risk/reward thing at play, but I'm not totally sure what would drive someone to risk staring down the barrel of all those countermeasures.

I absolutely have ideas for what I'd go with, but I'd just like a feel for whether this is an MCU Wakanda sort of situation (one guy pulls off a successful heist and it puts him on the radar for decades) or if New Atlantis is dealing with some level of comic book crime and villainy, and perhaps the efforts of other outside powers, on at least the semi-regular.
This message was last edited by the player at 11:31, Tue 27 July 2021.

Who mentored you in supervillainy?

Most of what I know about fighting I learned from a guy called Ashutosh Malhotra. He was ex-Para: spent his time post-War hunting down people like me for paramilitaries, rogue states, supervillains. His thing was taking them alive - they had him train them, not kill them. That’s why Serpiente’s people went after him when they needed someone to work with me. Can’t be many people out there knew more about making kids with powers into weapons.

Malhotra liked hurting people. He made me like hurting people. Made me think that was all my powers were good for.

He was the kind of person who’d use live rounds to test if I could stop a bullet. Proper motivation...

What was your goal as a villain?

When someone hurts your family you hurt them back. La Reyna gave me everything, so when they took her from me … I was just a kid. Wasn’t hard for someone like Malhotra to use that anger. I didn’t care what he needed so long as it got me closer to anyone Serpiente said deserved it. Hurting them like they’d hurt me was the only thing that mattered.

It wasn't how things were when we started out, but in the end I just wanted revenge.

Who first showed you that you could do good?

La Reyna did what she called ‘charity with purpose.’ She told us that when you’ve got power it’s easy to do little things for the people with nothing, and what’s nothing to you can mean everything to them. Some people would say that’s not doing good – I get it – but there are places out there that have nobody looking out for them. The devil who pulls you out of the fire might as well be a saint.

I was young enough back then that I didn’t see it like that. I saw people who were like how I used to be and wanted to help them if I could. She let me. She liked to find things for me to do - said it was good training. Probably thought it was a good way to show the world she had people like me working for her.

It’s not all black and white. I didn’t need the ‘good guys’ to fix me, I just needed some perspective.

What caused you to switch sides?

I grew up in a box. When ATLAS took me outside that box the world wasn’t what I thought it was.

It’s really that simple.

Why do you care about the team?

[waiting for a better understanding of who the team actually is before filling this in]

---

Key:

• Yolanda “La Reyna” Pargo - Former lieutenant of the Nautilian and original overboss of the organisation (which I'm maybe calling Patala).
• "Serpiente" Gaspar - Current head of the organisation. Former member of La Reyna's inner circle who won the power struggle within the loyalist faction.
• Ashutosh Malhotra - Operative in Para (Indian special forces) who went rogue during WW3 and made a name for himself in the acquisition of empowered individuals.

This message was last edited by the player at 15:23, Fri 30 July 2021.

The thing about the countermeasures is that most of them are there to prevent large-scale attacks. An invasion or a full-on takeover would be doomed to fail unless backed up by overwhelming power and/or some sort of special edge. As a result, none have been attempted so far, not counting some magical portal plots that were derailed early.

Smaller attacks, on the other hand, are easier to get away with, if only because they don't trigger an all-out mobilisation against them. The technological security assets are non-negligible, but most supervillains or even the smarter criminals tend to find ways around them (or through them). Also, the robots and similar are typically used to contain violence rather than to resolve it where superpowers or similar are concerned. That is what the superheroes are for, but far from all of them are going to be around and unoccupied at any given time, and the city is very big, so they may not be able to respond in time. Especially if there are other situations distracting them, as is often the case. And of course having a good exit strategy is critical, but people interested in this lifestyle have become pretty good at those. The presence of supertech in this world cuts both ways. I suspect there may be cloaked safehouses and escape routes, among other things. Do let me know if it still doesn't make sense, so I can think some more. :)

That said, I'd say it's closer to the latter out of your two exampoles, so long as we don't include full-scale invasions as a typical occurrence. It's mostly just supervillain attacks. Hypothetically speaking, a small-scale, surgical pirate raid backed up by sufficient technology and/or superpowers might succeed in some limited objective through sheer audacity and shock before defenders can rally. Though admittedly it would be very risky. But presumably a credible threat would have a good plan and a worthwhile goal.

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Maybe I'm missing or forgetting something, but what exactly happened to La Reyna? Who killed her - and who was blamed for it, if it's not the same people? Who did Ferra primarily fight in those days - other pirates, or...

Still going with what you said about Ferra's history before? i.e. that she was brought into the organisation at around 12 after a period of barely eking out a living somewhere?

Thanks for the clarification on that first point.

I'm having a bit of a rethink about background details, and while Ferra herself is going to stay basically the same there are definitely going to be some changes around her. There's a pretty good chance that I'll actually be keeping La Reyna alive in this new version of things for example. Now that I'm characterising her as someone prone to using small kindnesses to manipulate and gaslight others, I think it makes much more sense to keep her around and make her complicit in Ferra's education and push in a more violent and villainous direction. Maybe there's still a civil war or some other escalation, but perhaps even that's partially a manufactured (or at least somewhat embellished) excuse to rationalise any increased roughness in her training and the need to send a message in her deployments.

Nothing totally concrete yet but I think it's probably a better and more focused direction. Also gives another reason for ATLAS to ship Ferra out if La Reyna's still active in the area and likely wants her attack dog back.

I've been talking about things behind the scenes with the GM for a couple of days now and I've made some changes that aren't massive but certainly are changes. This is something like my third attempt at writing up something to go here, so I've kinda reached that so-long-as-it-gets-done stage where I'm forcibly making myself go into less detail than I want to. Brain's got caught in a bit of a loop where it keeps iterating over again and just won't let me be happy with how things are turning out.

I'm sure the way I express things here will demand some more questions to clear things up or flesh things out, but that's just how the process works.

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Ferra is Artiana Lleshi, an Albanian-born ferrokine who left the country in the mid 90s while she was 13/14 years old.

She was to be taken across the strait to Italy by people smugglers, but when they learned of her powers they instead handed her over to contacts in the Corsair Network under La Reyna, self-declared queen of the Mediterranean, hoping to improve their standing with her organisation and secure future trade and support.

La Reyna welcomed Artiana with open arms, won her over with honeyed words, and handed her off to one of her lieutenants to begin training and acclimatisation to her organisation's methods.

Artiana served under a number of captains across a period of several years, usually book-ending those spells with a period in La Reyna's court. She grew in confidence, both in herself and in wielding her powers.

Most notably Artiana spent a season under Serpiente on the west coast of Africa, the captain actively seeking to inure her to violence and make her comfortable with the idea of wielding her power as a weapon rather than a tool. It was a lesson that took but Artiana never found the stomach to kill. She could relish throwing her weight about and the fear and awe that came with it, but she was always squeamish about killing and corpses.

While housed in Algiers on the journey back La Reyna's court her company received word of the warlord's assassination, her transport from a meeting with local business partners rigged to explode. It was news that sent shockwaves through the Corsair Network, rumors and accusations abounding, and though things remained tense but stable in the days and weeks that followed cracks soon began to show.

A three-way split emerged within La Reyna's inner circle - loyalist, rebels, and those who refused to be drawn on sides. The degree of co-dependence necessary within the Network forced a civil war more cold than hot, but sabotage, assassinations and proxy wars fought by targeting each other's interests were not wholly uncommon, particularly among the smaller parties.

Artiana got caught up in this on the loyalist side and as an individual with powers she found herself thrust into the spotlight as bodyguard, escort, and concealed weapon for those in ranking positions. She performed her duties diligently enough even when they turned to callous aggression but certainly found her conviction shaken. Without La Reyna it felt like any sense that she was working towards something good had gone.

She and some of her comrades were captured by ATLAS after one of their contacts fell prey to a sting operation and gave up details of a scheduled meet-up. Artiana might yet have made it out of that incident, but during the ensuing fray she barely caught herself on the verge of killing a disarmed ATLAS agent in her panic and locked up completely.

Artiana was held by ATLAS for more than a year before being relocated to one of their New Atlantis facilities in the face of La Reyna's apparent return from the dead. With a resurgent Corsair Network rapidly reclaiming its lost territory with newly-acquired tech and funds, and evaluations indicating her suitability for rehabilitation, it was deemed prudent to move Artiana and other held assets far from the warlord's potential reach.

Now approaching 20 years old, Artiana has been engaged in the Rebirth Program on New Atlantis for some time. She's far from truly free, but with much of her criminal record sealed and with proper support from government and civilian organisations she's come some way towards re-integrating with society. She's an active (if somewhat withdrawn) participant in outreach and construction programs in Downtown and has engaged with a number of work programs that meshed well with her talents. Through it all she's made sure to stay in shape, attended classes both to support her rather unorthodox education and refine her fighting skills with traditional martial arts, and on occasion has been allowed to practice her powers under ATLAS supervision for combat data and to track her potential (and with it threat level).

She's far from a model citizen, but she's trying...

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Featured Names:

The Corsair Network: A loose web of smugglers, arms dealers, pirates and crime families and shell companies held together by the means and expertise of a group of defectors from the Nautilian's flotilla. They returned in the wake of WW3 and used their expertise and advanced technology to firmly plant themselves in the Mediterranean and secure a position as the predominant force in the illegal movement of goods, people and information. Despite that dominance their efforts have proven notoriously difficult to pin down, and stories abound of many civilian agencies and vessels that have been unwittingly or unwillingly roped into their activities.

Yolanda “La Reyna” Pargo*: Former lieutenant of the Nautilian and current head of the Corsair Network, La Reyna is something of a legend in the Mediterranean. Regal and imperious yet irresistibly charming, she presents herself as one who laughs in the face of the hypocrisies of East and West alike and the friend of any who would defy their cruelty and greed. It's a promise which has proven effective across the years - enough so that ATLAS has its suspicions that she may in fact possess powers capable of subtle mental manipulation. Following her return from 'death' she has led from a formidable submersible presumably retrieved from one of the Nautilian's sunken bases.

"Serpiente" Gaspar: Once a close ally and attack dog of La Reyna within the flotilla, Serpiente has been content to eschew the politics and subtler business of the Corsair Network for bloodier work on the west coast of Africa. She's fostered close ties with local pirates and warlords - those she didn't subjugate by force - and has shown great interest in taking the rich bounty of vessels bound for New Atlantis. La Reyna has always shown a distaste for her former ally's actions in polite company but appears to have made no effort to dissuade from such things.

The Rebirth Program: An off-shoot of an earlier civilian initiative, the Rebirth Program was founded by a former supervillain couple (Mister and Mrs. Smiley) to provide the necessary care and support for retired villains and henchmen to start fresh lives on New Atlantis. Over the decades it's had a number of success stories - those who've chosen to go public about their pasts - that have gone some way to offset concerns and ill-feeling towards its somewhat controversial mission, and a number of its graduates have even gone on to become permanent fixtures on some of New Atlantis' own super teams.

*@GM: While not mentioned here, previous discussion about La Reyna's ambitions regarding New Atlantis absolutely still hold true.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:27, Sun 01 Aug 2021.

I'll look over it again later but I think it all checks out!

Are we keeping the idea of her having an ATLAS probation officer?

Also, is Serpiente independent now (former ally)? Or is that unclear?

This is very well put together. There are so many active characters added to the world too! Nice one.

Funnily enough both of these things were addressed in the WIP but didn't end up in the version posted here because I either changed my direction or just didn't feel confident in what I was saying/how it was being said.

Absolutely keeping the ATLAS probation officer. In the earlier version I had her down as wearing a tag and possibly having travel restrictions or a curfew, but at that point it felt like I was introducing elements that could make telling stories more difficult/awkward depending on the direction the game took and I decided to keep any of that out of the to the point summary.

Serpiente is like ... semi-independent. They're still part of the Network but sufficiently removed from its main powerbase (by distance and focus) that La Reyna allows an extremely loose leash so long as her own people are left alone to conduct their business and any aggression from Serpiente's people doesn't bring too much heat down of the organisation as a whole. As we talked about behind the scenes La Reyna has her eyes on New Atlantis, and when you're planning on expanding westward an ally who already holds territory in the west and isn't afraid to get their hands (extremely) dirty is a valuable asset indeed.

In earlier drafts I had Artiana attached to Serpiente's people during the big schism within the Corsair Network but it all became very messy and I wasn't sure how I was going to bring everything together in the end. I had to let some of the things I'd originally written/planned for that angle go because it felt like it was really coming to dominate the focus of things and pull the character away from what I wanted.


Thanks!

I'm an overthinker (and I mean that in a negative sense) so when I get stuck I tend to either give up completely or re-iterate the same things over and over again in the hope that eventually I'll find more momentum and actually finish them, and at least some of the time that means the end product is pretty detail-dense once it's refined and cut down to size. The previous draft of this is excessively long; it went the best part of 1,000 words without even reaching the first mention of Serpiente XD

Note: I'm in no way suggesting the previous version was better. It's full of padding and fluff details that absolutely don't need to be here.
This message was last edited by the player at 11:41, Sun 01 Aug 2021.

For that matter, are you getting rid of Malhotra? I suppose Serpiente may have taken over that role - then again, no reason why she can't have named underlings of her own.

Some of the details can certainly be refined or modified later, when there is a team.

As a meaningful presence, definitely. It's not unreasonable to think he could be one of La Reyna's lieutenants or someone who played a notable role in Artiana's training at some point, but once I switched to this model where that had her study under multiple individuals (and moved away from setting things in the Indian Ocean) that character didn't seem a necessary inclusion. What I've put there isn't exhaustive though and I'd might end up adding a few more characters before the cut-off point. I'd like to get some names down for at least a few other players in the Network even if there isn't much to say about them.
This message was last edited by the player at 11:57, Sun 01 Aug 2021.

Feel free to do so. They may well come into play at some point or another. Of course I can just make up my own Network members when I need them, but I wouldn't say no to having a reserve to draw upon.

Bit of a grab bag of things today.

I've been debating this for quite a while now, and despite the name already being 'taken,' Artiana's heroic identity is going to be Ironheart. This isn't the Marvel universe, she's got very little in common with Riri Williams, and I think there's quite a bit of mileage in playing with different readings of it and Artiana's relationship with a name she didn't entirely choose herself - or maybe not at all.

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More additions for the list o' names:

Ash: An individual with powers who worked for Serpiente, probably in their early twenties when Artiana was around so mid-late twenties now. Ash (not their real name) was a weak pyrokene, although in their case it was less a lack of power and more that their power was fairly specific in its function. They could manipulate fire, smoke and ash but had minimal ability fabricate or amplify them, making those powers rather niche in application. This had left them somewhat bitter and spiteful, and naturally those feelings only got all the worse when Artiana showed up and wanted to play understudy. They didn't get along well at all.

Marije ten Broek: Artiana's probation officer. Well-meaning if a little inexperienced working with superpowered individuals, she's played a fairly active role in trying to push Artiana to set down roots in New Atlantis and work out what she actually wants from her life. Probably more than a little annoyed at the extra paperwork that comes with her charge adopting a costumed identity but far from unsupportive if she can stick the landing.
This message was last edited by the player at 14:11, Wed 04 Aug 2021.

Ironheart seems good to me (though the first reading that jumps to my mind is a distinctly villainous one, which couldn't help her reputation). What do you mean by it not being chosen by her, though? How was it chosen, in-game?

I have this feeling that Artiana isn't exactly sold on the whole superhero thing. She might recognise in hindsight that she was working for what the world would call a supervillain and was herself something of a supervillain-in-training, but she was never really part of that world of capes and costumes, and while she did pick up a nickname of her own - La Aguja - she never really thought of herself in those terms. She's been trying to live a reasonably quiet civilian life for a while now, and throwing on bright colours and trying to make a symbol of herself has been just about the last thing on her mind.

As such I've always been running with the line of thought that whatever identity she assumed would be largely inspired by (if not entirely handed out from) a third party. Maybe she's signed up on an official government registry and as part of the process they demanded a seat at the table in deciding her self-expression, or perhaps it's an idea from someone around her that Artiana just whatever'd because she really didn't care so long as she wasn't stuck with something embarrassing. I just don't feel like she's the sort of person who (at this time) would be sitting around for hours lovingly crafting a costumed identity if she could let someone else worry about it instead.

I'm totally open to someone else on the team claiming responsibility for the name if they'd like or suggesting their own if they have better ideas.

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Of course it's always possible we flip that on it's head and say it feels a little villainous or self-depreciating precisely because she chose it herself. She meant it to say something like confident, stoic and unyielding, but people have a way of reading it (and in turn her) as more cold and unfeeling instead.

Not to mention that it's hardly as if there isn't a history of characters using their former villainous aliases (i.e. Ravager) even after a face turn.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:56, Thu 05 Aug 2021.

Perhaps I should've asked this earlier, but how strong and versatile is her ferrokinetic ability? Can she create metal, or just manipulate what's already there? Also, can she alter their basic properties, or does she just move/reshape them?

I was very much in the space of basically a telekine who only does metals but with some ability to change their basic properties - to mould and reshape them rather than anything crazy like transmutation.

Artiana's absolutely someone who can throw cars or shift loaded cargo containers by will alone, but despite that the way she fights and employs her powers more often revolves around precision and fine control than big displays of force. She works with tools and weapons, sometimes using her powers to alter them to suit her needs on the fly, and has enough proficiency and eye for detail to display real artistry given time. With the proper reference she's just as capable of shaping a key from raw metal as she is of ripping the lock off a door.

This whole time I've been picturing her as someone who fights with a small flock of blades* rather than by tossing big metal objects about. She's a needle, not a hammer.

*When I say 'blades' I'm more thinking blunt metal objects small enough to conceal on her person or hide as part of the ornamentation on her costume rather than actual knives. They're weapons that would be fairly useless to anyone else but in her hands - metaphorically speaking - could be used to fight at range or combined to handheld weapons, sharpened to pin down people through their clothes, or even used to create handholds to scale things.

Note: I'm totally happy with adjusting/limiting this in any way you might suggest or dropping it entirely if you don't like it at all.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:53, Thu 05 Aug 2021.

It looks fine to me. I think the main limit (other than all the stuff you said she couldn't do) is her mentality and practice. She could move big objects, sure, but if it comes less naturally to her, it would be harder to do so with precision and skill when it is necessary. The costume angle is neat.