Catalog Of Super Realities

[David Johnston2]

Helios: The setting of Exalted. A world dominated by an empire that vigorously hunts the reincarnated members of a superpowered ruling class that went nuts and were overthrown. Visiting supers may find themselves mistaken for Solar Exalted and attacked by the Empires elemental Exalted.

Rhea: The setting of the Marvel Reboot thread.

[David Johnston2]

Echidna: A reality mostly dominated by eldritch horrors. The United States seems to be a bit of an exception. One of the things that gives it hope is a superheroic team of defenders although the public might be disturbed if they knew more about the sources of their powers.

[David Johnston2]

Scylla: A reality where, thanks to the super soldier serum given to all American and German military personnel (which only worked on a few hundred of them) during World War II, 10% of their grandchildren mutate into physically altered mentally unhinged superbeings, throwing the United States and Europe into chaos in the 1980s. (The Patriot Potion by Steven Marsh a 2007 Pyramid Article)

Charybdis: A reality still in World War II where the Patriot Potion is being issued to American service people and a dozen or so American super-soldiers are already in the field.

[Phantasm]

Hebe-2 - On this world, supers (and only supers) either don't age or enjoy highly reduced rates of aging - so long as they remain active. This includes super-normals and tech-users who don't otherwise have powers but still engage in activities that can be considered "superheroic" or "supervillainous". Some folks will age at a greatly reduced rate, having been active in WWII and still active today while looking only 20-30 years older (these will always have gray/silver hair, either fully gray/silver or just at the temples). Others seemingly have stopped aging altogether. Once they retire, however, they resume aging at a normal rate. Coming out of retirement - or even just entering semi-retirement by acting in a supporting role to another super - restores the reduced aging factor.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

Hebe-2 - On this world, supers (and only supers) either don't age or enjoy highly reduced rates of aging - so long as they remain active. This includes super-normals and tech-users who don't otherwise have powers but still engage in activities that can be considered "superheroic" or "supervillainous". Some folks will age at a greatly reduced rate, having been active in WWII and still active today while looking only 20-30 years older (these will always have gray/silver hair, either fully gray/silver or just at the temples). Others seemingly have stopped aging altogether. Once they retire, however, they resume aging at a normal rate. Coming out of retirement - or even just entering semi-retirement by acting in a supporting role to another super - restores the reduced aging factor.

Choosing whether or not to fully retire, or once retired, whether or not to come back, would be a much bigger thing on that world, then. Could be very interesting, culturally, since that will be noticed.

[Curmudgeon]

Sparta - primarily named for the Spartan twins, Castor, Pollox, Helen and Clytemnestra.

As in Gemini supers occur as multiple births with twins being the most common format. Whether twins are fraternal or identical, one is super-powered while the other is not, usually. Supers usually manifest their powers at puberty and lose them on attaining adulthood.

Hereafter, the weird stuff.

Devices, usually paired and often in the form of finger rings or necklaces, are known to exist which allow switching between twin pairs. The commonest form is that the non-powered twin rubs his ring and gains his twin's powers, and his twin loses his powers until they switch back, which can be done by either twin rubbing the ring. The device doesn't seem able to switch powers if the powers are in active use. There is some question about exactly how the power transfers. The following have all been observed at some time: fraternal twins shift only the powers, fraternal twins shift minds and powers between bodies, fraternal twins shift body characteristics, minds and powers (e.g. the boy in opposite sex twins becomes female and his sister temporarily becomes male but the boy [now girl] is still a redhead and the girl [now boy] is still a brunette.), fraternal twins simply switch places (a castling teleport?). The same is presumably true of identical twins, just harder to discern.

When more than one pair of twinned supers exist in a family, the devices occasionally switch powers between the different sets of twins. This seems to be under the control of the rubbing twin but not reliably so, and there are questions about exactly how it was managed, even by "rubbing" twins.

The age range for supers varies between the current ten years old to eighteen years less a day to the older twelve years old to twenty-one years less a day. The switch appeared to occur when more than 50% of the supers lived in jurisdictions where the age of majority was eighteen. There was a period of time (about 33% of all supers in jurisdictions with eighteen years as age of majority) when supers kept their powers into adulthood, vanishing on their twenty-first birthday.

Supers don't always graduate into adulthood. If both twins decide to, on what should be their eighteenth (or twenty-first) birthday, they will awaken as just starting puberty again. (They often change secret identities to be cousins or siblings of their former selves, occasionally losing all connection with their former selves and no one seems to notice, they were apparently "always there.") Puberty doesn't always restart at the same age for the same individual, e.g., just because you puberty didn't hit until you were twelve last time, doesn't mean it won't hit at ten this time around the block. Powers are usually relatively stable across cycles, but it has been known for a completely different power set to manifest. There is some thought that Sparta is not actually a single world, but part of a skein of worlds that are offset by a cycle's length and the Spartans switch between them. There do appear to be several numbered Spartas but they are offset by less than a cycle's length and have entirely different Spartans on those worlds. One Sparta, Sparta-15 does seem to be a far future (1008 years ahead) version of Sparta-1 and Sparta-5 is populated entirely by toons/furries/funny animals (the jury's still out on exactly how the inhabitants should be classed).

Finally, karmic ties usually continue across cycles, i.e., the same friends and enemies keep showing up across cycles but at least sometimes the karmic ties will alter, a previous friend showing up as an enemy or who should be an enemy showing up as a friend. The current best guess for these role reversals is that the universe is trying to balance the karmic accounts toward zero.

[Eschwenke]

I know this one’s been used already, but:

Demeter - The vast majority of superpowered individuals and scientific geniuses realize that their gifts can be marketable skills. As such they generally find ways to be productive members of society without resorting to committing or preventing crimes. TL 9-10, normal mana

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by Eschwenke

I know this one’s been used already

See, this is why I made mine "Hebe-2", since Hebe was already used. So yours could be "Demeter-2".

I'd probably end up calling yours Hephaestus-2, though, since he's basically the god of industry.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Morality-1 - This world saw an increase in positive, selfless behavior (i.e. "good") among humans concurrent with the rise of superheroes in the early 1940s. This has lead to a world where many of Earth's social ills have been dealt with, which has almost made superheroes obsolete.

[cptbutton]

Originally Posted by SilvercatMoonpaw

Morality-1 - This world saw an increase in positive, selfless behavior (i.e. "good") among humans concurrent with the rise of superheroes in the early 1940s. This has lead to a world where many of Earth's social ills have been dealt with, which has almost made superheroes obsolete.

The first part reminds me of David Brin's short story The Giving Plague where a benign blood-borne disease that makes donating blood feel good leads to a general increase in altruistic behavior.