You’ve all watched the news and seen stories of supervillains, their bizarre costumes, and their latest dastardly deeds. News journalists, law enforcement, and the general public cheer as superheroes swoop in from above and save the day. But how much do those heroes really know about the villains they’re fighting or the people they are supposedly protecting?
Background
Evergreen: A burgeoning city in the Pacific Northwest covered by fog and overrun with skyscrapers. Located on a Pacific island less than a mile off the mainland, it is now a playground for tech company billionaires wanting to live in a city with low minimum wages and less government oversight.
The formerly peaceful island town went from a population of about 100,000 to over 2 million in just two decades. The middle class has been impoverished, and many old residents feel that the gentrification has created a massive gap between the haves and have-nots. Many citizens have been forced into commercial or government high rises with barely affordable rent and high crime. As the Casino District attracted more organized crime, tech billionaires pooled their resources and established Libra, a company that hired superpowered heroes to patrol the streets and establish justice, effectively privatizing the city’s law enforcement.
While Libra patrols did work well in eliminating organized crime and gang violence initially, news stories began to surface about patrol brutality, incarceration without charges, and racial profiling. As crime decreased, patrols became even more emboldened to carry out their brutal vigilante justice for smaller crimes.
HIVE (Halt Injust Vigilantes of Evergreen) first formed as a citizens’ organization to protest the vigilante justice and income gap in Evergreen. Its two founding members, B. Hive and Hood, started organizing sit-ins and protests at Libra HQ and outside tech companies which funded the superhero corporation. HIVE members first donned costumes and created false monikers to protect their identities and ridicule the so-called heroes of Libra. As the protests grew, the most famous heroes of the corporation began to blame HIVE for crimes around Evergreen. Many HIVE members were arrested by heroes, but the protests continued to grow.
Then an explosion at Futura Biotechnologies allowed a dangerous experimental chemical to escape into the atmosphere, leaving five people dead and over a dozen more badly disfigured albeit with unusual abilities. The Futura Incident was blamed on HIVE, and the organization’s official leader, B. Hive, suddenly vanished. HIVE officials were put on the most wanted lists for the FBI and Libra. The organization was kept alive in secrecy in order to protect those who had been disfigured by Futura and to find out what actually happened in the explosion.
Without its popular leader, cracks within the organization quickly began to surface. Some established members rejected Hood for being less committed to non-violence than his predecessor. His supporters argued that B. Hive and the other members had not made a strong stand against racial and economic injustice.
Emma Flamer, a pyrotechnic-loving drag queen and co-owner of the biggest club in the Old City district, emerged as another possible leader of HIVE. Emma’s desire to improve support for LGBTQ in the community and establish Club Flame as base of operations was not well-received among more traditional, established B. Hive and Hood supporters.
The Futura victims who became new members seemed most focused on understanding their new abilities, coping with their disfigurement, and plotting their vengeance.
HIVE was no longer a unified group of social justice protesters in outlandish costumes. They were now a group of misfits tied together for survival without a common cause.
Running out of funds and safe havens, HIVE had no choice but to forge an uneasy alliance with a sophisticated organized crime network known as the Collective. The secret organization claimed they had the same “Robin Hood” agenda of robbing and exposing the super wealthy 1%, though many HIVE members suspected they must be up to something more insidious. With Libra searching every crevice of the city for them, HIVE had no choice but to burrrow deep underground in the Collective HQ known as the Circle.
The story begins with HIVE, Futura incident victims, and the Collective meeting for the first time in the Circle. Tension is high as the group makes decisions on how to strike back at the Libra Corporation. The decision redeem yourself or further descend into villainy is yours to make.
Character Creation
This game tracks the journey of a group of former protesters who took a stand against the injustice of corporate-sponsored vigilantes and were labeled villains. As they are forced into hiding, they must decide how villainous they are willing to be to redeem themselves or seek vengeance.
For this game, you will be creating your own villain with a heavy focus on character backstory. What happened to your character that drove them to join HIVE and be labeled a villain?
These villains should be cast in a similar light to Batman villains. By that I mean they should have a great theme with an interesting character backstory and abilities that may involve mild superpowers but nothing too overpowered. Please stick to the natures and subplots as they’ll play into the story. The strengths and weaknesses are a bit more flexible, so please edit the descriptions of your strength and weakness card. For example, if you have a mastered a weapon, make sure to change the card to describe the weapon, write how it fits with your backstory, and add a photo of it as well. There are plenty of cards available, so please try to choose one that hasn’t already been chosen.
When telling your story, feel free to add a bit of humor in while keeping the story mostly dramatic. Also, remember that you’re a villain who is misunderstood by society, not psychopathic murderer. There will be moral dilemmas about how far you would go to get what you want, but no senseless, gory killing whatsoever. Some level of moral ambiguity definitely makes the story more interesting.
The reason I want to write this story is to incorporate issues of social justice into a superhero comic setting. We’ll touch on issues of racism, homophobia, sexism, income inequality, privatization of public services, and others. Feel free to contribute ideas and let your character share their opinions. However, I don’t want the commentary to turn into a running political argument. Try to funnel opinions into your characters in a way that makes sense without sidetracking the story.
Characters will be very mortal and may die throughout the story. Some weak endings for obstacles may include character deaths. If you need to leave for a time, your character can be incarcerated until a jailbreak occurs.
We are currently opening the game back up to some possible new recruits for HIVE. Please be able to dedicate yourself to making at least one move per day. Make sure that you choose either ne recruit or escaped Libra prisoner for your nature.
Hosted and narrated by:
Etantrebor
Started 05/20/14.
Scenes played: 8
License: Community License
