huggableflesh

[huggableflesh]

Super hero setting ramblings: H.E.R.C.A.L.E.S

The Acronym stands for Homeland Economic Regulation of Commercial Anomalous Legal Exchange and Supernatural goods.

Alright imagine its the early nineteen hundreds the second world war of anyone's life times just ended and the economy was finally starting to recover, superhumans were rapidly coming back home from war not just to acceptance but reverence from the people or at a minimum begrudging respect and acceptance one of the worst economic crashes in recent history was clearing up things looked good and they only got *better*. In 1945 a small child Catalyzed with a power that bordered on miraculous.

Wishbone, a name created when they were five that would stick with them well into adult hood their power was the ability to grant wishes. Not quite at will, not quite at a target of their choosing it's limits weren't exactly known but it was semi uncontrollable from what people could tell

People around them, or sometimes no where close were finding themselves holding a no strings Attached wish. Golden yachts, mountains of diamonds, cornucopia of infinite food and hotels that could somehow always make space for new guests and we're self cleaning. Wishes we're being granted left and right maybe not exactly how they were asked for or in a roundabout way but they were granted.

Then came the next child born to change the face of a continent was in Africa, One Amara Nkase at the age of five Catalyzed the ability to teleport things other then themselves . Despite discovering this ability they didn't realize how few limitations it had until one day they wished long and hard for a cold drink on a hot day and found a can of coke suddenly in their hands.

The girl discovered that while inability to teleport themselves or other people was a major limit of theirs, it was one of the *only* limits they had.

Rapidly with the help of their parents the girl had formed a business empire that had made every other form of shipping and locomotion obsolete almost instantly, for a time world hunger had been solved entirely. In-between infinite sources of food and entire aspects of public infrastructure being supplanted so Wholey it looked like the world was heading towards a golden age.

Sadly it wasn't too last, after 40 years wishbone died and Amara had fallen into a coma, in less then a year decades of what seemed like utopia started tearing at the seams.

Their powers didn't stop immediately, no wishbones wishing trinkets still worked and things born of wishes didn't suddenly cease to exist, it's just they no longer were connected to that seemingly infinite power source that charged all of the miracles people had been taking for granted.

people fell into panic, Cornucopias of infinite turned into cornucopias of "Only a few storage containers worth" of food.

The portals that previously were programmed to respond to outside stimuli, allowing the area it lead to be changed with the simple wave of a colored flag or a code became stuck to the last setting they were on.

The world went to shit fast, it was if electricity and running water suddenly stopped world wide (not to say that didn't happen in a few places).

But that's a different story, as governments scrambled to get the industries that had been growing moss for the last forty years back on their feet many many governments decided that never again could their country become so wholey reliant on the abilities of a single super human to function.

It wasn't the same in every country, nor did it have the same name but most places scrambled to get something akin to it.

In America we have H.E.R.C.A.L.E.S which dictates that the closest relevant governmental authority may place arbitrary restrictions on any business based on the sale of goods or services reliant on abilities unique to an individual.

The intent of bill was to prevent the economy from ever growing so dependent on a single schmuck with super powers that their death causes a national disaster, this isn't quite an outright ban but if any rogue Catalyst edges too close to too many major business they may end up being forced to have a maximum amount of clients they can take at a time or minimum prices they're allowed to sell their products for in order to make them arbitrarily expensive luxuries.

Later this bill would be expanded to effect any supernatural power not potentially available to the wider populace, which is to say pretty much all of them.

Now then from an out of universe context this law was created mostly as an explanation for why most businesses aren't employing superhumans with non punchy powers left and right or why no superhumans with incredible but not quite combat useful powers has made a killing.

Notably I also didn't want to make the government stupidly evil, the ban doesn't include charity or government contracts which are often used to supplement businesses while intentionally making sure to not drive them out of business.

No heroes with as massive consequences as wish bone or Amara have showed up or if they did they didn't get the chance to effect the world like they did.

[huggableflesh]

Super hero setting rambling: Gnosis Academy

Back in the 1900s when catalyst events first started happening there weren't really any laws or knowledge on what to do about them, some people saw those with unnatural abilities as the equivalent of the devil and others were known as these interesting wonders of their hometown now back in the day the vast majority of Catalyst events happened to non humans creating plants, animals, objects and places of legend.

Now one of these creatures was an interesting species of clam that possessed the ability to process knowledge and information into their pearls. Fed properly with the right ingredients and an environment designed to have them near sources of knowledge they could gleam from their pearls would allow anyone who consumes them to simply learn that information instantly this on its own is a neat trick but something of limited use for a school (it'd be easier to just sell the pearls to the highest bidder) until it's founder a woman who went by the name Margaret Gretchen they eventually figured out that blank pearls that lacked any information formed an amazing *medium* for information storage and by applying it to soemthing or someone their capacity to hold am absorb knowledge was supernaturally enhanced. On books this allowed them to hold more knowledge per word and for people allowed them to learn at a *much* faster rate then was thought possible.

Thus Gnosis private school for enhanced academic learning was born a growing school that promised to make whatever child was sent to it a genius in the arts of science, music and literature and thanks to the pearls of wisdom it was all the more possible. Over the years Gretchen expanded the curriculum making the school cover all grades from pre kindergarten all the way to what would be advanced college courses at the time, anyone who could pass the hellish entrance exams or get a scholarship via impressing one of its faculty or more commonly paying a large sum of money to the school they could enter it's gilded halls. Of course the flood of new students rapidly started to outpace pearl production and thus Gretchen invested their accumulated wealth into finding the best teacher, curriculum and equipment both mundane and supernatural wealth and favors from those in high positions of society could buy.

In truth gnosis academy has gotten worse over the years, having went from a state in which a month applying there meant anyone who went there would get enough pearls to rapidly work their way up to a doctorate to "merely" producing prodigies of all ages with an impressive number of students who went on to have major achievements.

Recently it has gotten flack in recent media for being a shining example of super powers and supernatural help creating a caste seperate from the rest of the "normal folk" and thus they have taken an initiative to bring in people who normally wouldn't be able to get into the school.

[huggableflesh]

Super hero setting rambling,Jesse Winchester: Child of the GUN

alright since I've got a tumbler I may as well use it and talk about a character of the super hero setting I'm writing.

In their civilian ID Jesse is a girl who doesn't bring much attention to themselves, always wearing baggy clothes and jackets the most striking thing about them is the deep blue colored tips of their hair, formerly that was a stylistic choice but after they catalyzed they eventually realized the dye wasn't coming out no matter how thoroughly they washed and it occasionally seemed to glow in the dark (less like a glow stick and more like one of those cheap glow in the dark toys).

Personality wise their a bit of a pessimist that's grown out of the doomerism that pervaded their life when they were younger now instead of listening to crappy emo music and disrespecting their teachers for being symbols of authority they listen to (but will never admit) Nightcore and snark at authority figures when they're doing their job badly. Considering they go to a school who's students body are there by thanks of 60% blatant nepotism and 90% obvious bribery they often have whole lot of snarking to do to their teachers.

They catalyzed after the schools janitor sold their soul to a demon in exchange for the school becoming the staging ground for some kinda fucked up school shooter battle Royale where despite the name and the fact their father was an ardent gun nut they never learned to shoot a gun, something they only regretted once their school was flooded with violent lunatics coming from both within and without.

The situation was only barely stopped from becoming a bloody massacre rather then merely a destructive tragedy because they had the bright idea to to take the elevator the roof and shoot one of the emergency flares rather then try to evacuate down the stairs like all their class mates were doing. It was only a few weeks later when they woke up one day holding a fancily detailed and blue rather then red colored flare gun in their hands had they realized they catalyzed.

Now to talk about their super hero identity that being the gun wielding vigilante, Winchester (yes their super hero name and last name are the same). Being rather new to the game they're pretty unskilled not knowing the ins and outs of vigilante work and rely on natural aptitude for using their power to aim rather then being a trained marksmen.

Their primary power can be boiled down to two parts the first of those being the ability to summon a phantasmal gun usually something that looks like a mix of stylized musket and WW2 era rifle that would assuredly cause any gun nut that might see it to froth at the mouth from the sight of it but they can use any make and model of gun, even ones that can only be loosely described as a gun such as flare guns or air soft guns. These summoned guns have infinite ammo and by default don't have to deal with recoil.

The second part of that power is the most interesting it allows them to siphon power from nearby Catalysts and use them to create magic bullets that contain their power, this isn't quite flat power copying as magic bullets have to adhere to the mold of "Projectile that has effect on hit and is fired from the gun" usually when the power is left to automate this process it tends to take the path of least resistance ranged beams are fired from the gun, touch attacks are shoved into a bullet and trigger on hit when they get their hands on weirder powers it's forced to attempt a different plan such as causing informant type powers to try and overload someone with information or area of effect powers to trigger where they hit.

These aren't necessarily what the power *has* to be but simply what it tends to default too when automated.