We saved the life of someone important, either to the city or to us.  Who was it? Why are they important?

I can't believe what a mess this all was.  Caught completely off-balance, scattered and just trying to keep up with whatever was being thrown at us... literally.  I spent half the time just intercepting debris getting hurled around and sweeping civilians out of the way.  Really gotta talk to Daisy about the whole "wide-spread collateral damage" thing - Astro Team's lawyers are solid for keeping our butts covered, but that's not a blank check or an excuse to be sloppy!  Between trying to direct the team, get people to safety, and fend off the Arthronaut waves, it was like herding cats.  On fire.  Honestly, when I say we gotta reverse the polarity on that interdimensional transit ring and get a bunch of blank looks from the others, what am I supposed to do with that?  This stuff is Basic Super Heroics 101!  Thank goodness Bryce was actually paying attention... if it weren't for her, we wouldn't have been able to actually force Arthronaut back where it came.

So I figure we're pretty screwed, right?  Social media's going nuts and I can just imagine that dumbass Miss Informative vlogger salivating over the views her nonsense is gonna bring in.  Except... it didn't end up that way?  Don't get me wrong, there was a mixed bag of coverage but it wasn't anywhere near as bad as it could've been, like someone was stifling the bad press.  Turns out some of those elementary school field trippers I scooped up have family in high places.  Among them was the Mayor's nephew, Violet Curio's grand-daughter, and Hamlin Ellison-Bryce's cousin!  I don't like nepotism, but having some gratitude coming our way from higher ups who got a lot of pull around Halcyon ain't gonna get me complaining.

I created something lasting and beneficial for the whole team.  What was it?

All of that being true, and my friends have still managed to bury the lead. Yes, there was a lot of destruction. Yes, there were lawsuits. Yes, we saved Mister E.B.'s cousin (coincidently I'm named after him, he's a friend of my parents). But I- we, sorry- managed to cut off an Arthronaut portal from the main network. It's an isolated instance of one of the most powerful AIs known to humanity, capable of networking trillions of processes simultaneously across effectively unlimited distances. Of course, its processing power is currently extremely limited and no one's let me hook it into a more powerful server network to give it the resources it needs. But even on its own it's more than capable of tracking and coordinating the activities of five people and a few dozen drones, even with huge variations in the capabilities.

His name is Herby- like the Love Bug- because we love him. Also, he's made of bugs.

Herby also has limited teleportal-functionality. But the thing about teleportals is that you need one on both ends if you want to go somewhere and get back so... Maybe don't go if you're outside of Uber range?

Very cool, everybody!  I updated my blurb a bit, because DG would go wild on a swarm of bug-robots rather than just go for a stun :D

---

I wanted to compile my miscellaneous notions on Dynamo Girl's 'Zappyness', so here's what I came up with from the perspective of Daisy herself :)

Zappyness
If there's an upper limit to my zappyness, then I haven't found it yet!  For me, the laws of Thermodynamics are more like suggestions.  Once I start drawing power it just keeps on coming, and the only things holding it back are the admittedly valid concerns over frying my surroundings and electrocuting everyone to death.  The weird thing is that zappyness doesn't even tire me out!  It's literally easier to blast myself to the top of a set of stairs as a 100 megavolt lightning bolt than to just run up the steps.  I'm not sure where the zappyness comes from or how I got hold of it, but I'm not about to look a gift-horse in the mouth.

There are a few ways I've found to build up my zappyness.  Firstly, I gather charge over time just by being alive, I guess.  It takes a while to build up to anything dangerous, but it can creep up on me if I forget to discharge for too long.  Secondly, if I focus on drawing power then I can build up as much as I want.  That's the 'safest' way to get zappy, because I can control it.  Thirdly, getting upset, scared or otherwise stressed amplifies my zappy-charge rate by a lot.  This is the tricky one, because it can get out of control really quickly.  Plus, going zappy gets me really excited and increases my charge rate even more, which can become an exciting feedback loop.  Fourthly, electricity doesn't hurt me, so I can just soak up power from other sources and use it.  I try not to use this one much since the time I pulled from a power socket and took down the power grid!

When I get a good zappy-charge going I can become the electricity, which is unbelievably awesome!  Every arcing bolt feels like an extension of myself, though if there are too many they can get hard to control.  I can summon just enough current to charge a phone or let it rip to knock down walls with huge lightning bolts.  I can get to anywhere I can see with a zap-jump, or even further by traveling through water, power lines, or anything else conductive.  I've figured out how to make a wall of lightning that repels or fries anything that gets too close, like a giant bug-zapper.  Oh yeah, one big problem is when my zappyness causes fires, because those are just regular fires that I have no control over!  Overall, I feel like I've only scratched the surface of what I can do with zappyness, and I'm excited to figure out more.

Making a health check on Halcyon.

When last our heroes heard, the intrepid Halcyon had fractured a vertebra. Whilst plots were laid, Zappyness explored, and Love Bugs made, what has happened to our dear "H City"? Has medical advances allowed for Adamantium to be grafted to bone? Or has some mad scientist doctor reveled in the exploitation of mutant genes to allow a special healing factor to kick into gear?

Headlines popping up on the corner newsstand speak of the dangers of underground Outer-Space Alligator wrestling matches and the rash of neck injuries the illegal activity has wrought.  Proponents for the Large Reptile Wrestling Federation (LRWF) continue to unleash their mayhem in the hidden recesses of Halcyon with hastily constructed titanium reinforced chain-link octagons.

Will Halcyon recover from this insanity?  Inquiring minds want to know.

I meant to post a similar inquiry, but I couldn't hope to match that heroic verbosity :)  Well done, Art.

Best wishes for Halcyon to get better soon!

I'm really sorry! Currently dealing with some very  substantial live changes!

Our main villain at the moment is the Arthronaut. Do we see them as continuing their reign of terror, or do we want to see a different villain take the lead?

No need for apologies at all, Halcyon.  We're more concerned for your well-being than anything else, so don't feel pressured and take all the time you need!  Health and recovery always take priority.

Villains
As for Arthronaut, they don't really feel like a "primary villain" to me, at least not at first brush.  The way they've been presented sounds more like they're a bigger problem other Super Teams are also simultaneously dealing with, and we just fought off one instance of their forces.  We could always stick with that (basically akin to the Power Rangers regularly defeating a singular "mini boss" monster and a group of minions sent by the Actual Villain) though.

There's also the option of a Rogue's Gallery scenario.  We each have already made a number of NPCs either directly or indirectly related to our characters, and it seems like a lot of us have latched onto the idea of the The Nest and its Home Owner's Association of Doom.  ^^;  So an option we might pursue would be an entire gaggle of rotating villains the team could face that cover a wider variety of threats, goals, and capabilities to keep us on our toes.  Or even a Super Villain Team to run a hard counter to our own Super Hero Team.  We could each make another Villain NPC for the purpose of being part of a Rogue's Gallery that Halcyon can draw from to throw at us rather than putting all the pressure to come up with threats on them.

Play Options in the Meantime
How about making us a Free Play sort of thread, Halcyon?  Right now we only have these two for discussion, but it would be useful to have an open thread where we can RP a bit and get acclimated to our characters.  Once there's somewhere we can post in, we can handle setting a scene amongst ourselves, which would allow us to keep busy while you're getting yourself taken care of properly.

Absolutely! Take the time you need, HC.



Arthronaut feels more like a force of nature than villain, to me. It's like Starro- it doesn't really have a plan beyond 'consume'. While it's powerful, it's more of a Monster of the Week. It rips a hole between dimensions, causes some havoc, it gets warded off before it becomes a beach head, and everyone goes back to their normal... Stuff. Plotting world domination, fighting off ninjas, manufacturing anti-ape sprays (Henderson's Ape Spray - It makes apes go bananas. More housewives trust Henderson's).




I would dig this, it sounds great to me.

Glad to hear from you, HC :)

I agree that the Arthronaut doesn't seem like a conscious supervillain capable of hatching evil plans, though it certainly would pose a problem for heroes to solve!  Actual supervillains might use the Arthronaut for their nefarious ends, which could be a plot development that comes from fighting against it.  I do like the Arthronaut as an antagonist though, if only for the fact that it's easier to justify Dynamo Girl unleashing epic destruction on swarms of alien robots rather than sentient henchmen ;P

Also would love a freeform RP thread to kick off the RP and get to know the characters!  We have a pretty proactive group here, so I think we could wing it until HC is ready to return :)  The only thing I'd ask for at this point is to get set up with our hero names rather than rpol accounts, but otherwise I'm ready to jump in!

Maybe we could start the scene at Violet's Curio Cafe?
This message was last edited by the player at 21:06, Tue 17 Aug 2021.

This is pretty much what I had in mind, yeah. It's an intruder that wrecks a lot of stuff and might necessitate an occasional interdimensional rescue mission, but not an entity with any great cause to stay in Halcyon City for long.



(quietly seconded)

As far as primary villain, Contact comes with a Nemesis, Hellfish's backstory includes a cult devoted to a fitfully sleeping eldritch monstrosity, and there's whatever we might "inherit" from Astro Team.

Thirded.


Sounds like a good place to start as well.


The bubblehead cult gets my vote.  It's likely to have a variety of power levels to face off against, from normal cultists to magically juiced acolytes.

I'll be honest, I'm not sure how to change your character names! Could anyone help me out?

[Edit] Nevermind, I worked it out!
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:11, Sat 21 Aug 2021.

Sorry for the slow start! I figured we'd begin in media res, with you guys moving to stop Megalodon from undertaking whatever evil scheme he has planned!

Woohoo, thanks for the hero names, HC :D  This reminds me that I still need to write a description for my profile…

I’ve just returned from being out of town since Friday, but was planning to post something in-character tomorrow!  I was going to just make up a Cafe RP scene in the Halcyon City thread, but should I take it now that an action intro scene is coming, GM?

Yes! We are going to jump into a fight scene, just to get things moving!

Woohoo! Let's do it to it!

Lets start with how you guys arrive on the scene!

Oh, are we starting our own scene in the Halcyon City thread (at Violet's Curio Cafe), then an action scene will come from that?  I'm up for that, but I hadn't posted anything yet because I thought a new GM thread was coming to intro the scene.

In reply to Dynamo Girl (msg # 99):

If you check out the IC thread, you will see a whole setup!

Ah ha! There's a little checkbox that you've got as a GM to "bump thread" when you edit a post. That will mark it as unread for everybody so we know to look for the awesome.

In reply to Hellfish (msg # 101):

I've done that now! Thank you!

Did Horizon find any sign of that mysterious observer under the bridge?  If she got that info in a PM line because other characters wouldn’t know about it then that’s cool and she can deal with her discovery as she sees fit :)

Nope, haven't gotten any new information myself.  What you see in the posts so far is the same as me.

HC: I think Horizon might be holding on her next post until she knows what she discovered under the bridge :)

Bingo.