Kaige

OOC thread for Believe It Or Not, featuring Lord Steam and Samson!

I tried to give Lord Steam an in; if it doesn't fit your vision, let me know and I'll edit.

GM

6:00 PM, August 7th.

The Bedlam Arms Hotel was the city's ritziest, projecting an aura of aged elegance that was particularly impressive given that the building was less than five years old.

It was common for fleets of limousines to arrive, slipping through the smog of the Babylon district to drop off their passengers in the enclosed entryway, away from the poor. But tonight there was a virtual traffic jam of the vehicles, their drivers jockeying frantically for position - their jobs were on the line, as their irritated tuxedoed passengers told them between bursts of swearing. For this was not just any business conference or celebrity dinner. This was the Grant Conglomerate's Miracle Gala, and everyone who was anyone would be there, watching and judging through jaded and avaricious eyes.

Grant's stark, efficient corporate banners clashed oddly with the gaudy, vaguely rococo decor of the hotel's interior, but no one was looking. Instead they were peering into the mass of twenty-thousand dollar suits and daring dresses, trying to pick out the power players. Short, fat Chase Pennington Sr., the sixty-five year old ruthless landlord of half the apartments in Hardwick Park, stood by the entryway, bellowing racist comments about the state of the city. His doughy son Junior, singularly unattractive but wearing diamond cufflinks and a watch worth half a million dollars, had his arm around a visiting Slovenian model, who had to bend almost in half to allow it and kept quietly redirecting his hand away from her chest.

Doug Nylander, tall and athletic beneath his crown of distinguished grey hair, stood by the punch bowl - and no one was drinking any, for fear of coming too close to that coiled viper. His pretty blonde wife Wisteria, already buzzed on more than alcohol, hummed quietly to herself, lost somewhere far away. His daughters, Madison and Jenny, wore dresses that would certainly not be allowed at their high school, drinking in the attention that came with being the prettiest people in the room - even though much of it came from men twice their combined age. Horatio Hoggard III gorged himself on a plate of ribs, his jowls stained with barbecue sauce, while Dr. B. Hugo Lurman talked excitedly with a Grant representative about untested medicines, stopping every few words to go through a series of half a dozen nervous tics.

That accounted for the old money, but many eyes were on the new. This wasn't just Vivian Howle's first appearance in Bedlam; it was her first public appearance anywhere since her son Jason, a Bedlam cop, had been killed in the line of duty. Though nearing sixty, she looked good for her age, her close-cropped hair dyed back to the light brown of her youth and the results of her daily exercise apparent. She wore a black business suit that could match any man in the room for elegance and stood with her head held high, otherwise unadorned. As CEO of Howle Chemical, half of the massive Howle-Brandt Consortium, she needed to project confidence. So when socialites approached her, smiling shark smiles with crocodile tears in their eyes, and gushed how sorry they were for her loss, she managed to thank them.

It was a moment for mingling before speakers, dinner, and dancing, and all eyes were alert. It was rumored that someone all the way from Freedom City would be in attendance...

GM

Ross swallowed hard as he stepped into the office. He hadn't been sure what to expect; he'd never hired a PI before. But the room seemed to look the part, at least.

"Mister Steadman, sir," he said, crossing the room with what confidence he could muster and extending a hand, then half retracting it, unsure if that was what he was supposed to do. He had several inches on the detective, but still somehow felt small in comparison. His hand was calloused and scarred but his grip was strong, the souvenirs of a virtually unregulated Bedlam manufacturing job. Casting around for a chair, Ross sat down gingerly, staring at Steadman the entire time to make sure that he was allowed to sit. "I, ah... I'm looking for Susan," he blurted out, "and the police won't help anymore."

Mentally he kicked himself; if he looked like some kind of lunatic, the guy would think he couldn't pay and wouldn't take the case. Or would just take his money and run, knowing he could get away with it. This was Bedlam, and everyone was a shark. You had to show that you were too big to take a bite out of, even when you were asking for something. Clearing his throat, Ross mentally reset. "What I mean is that my daughter, Susan, ran away from home about a month ago." Reaching into his breast pocket, he ran his fingers over the crucifix with a little whispered prayer, then produced the photo he kept beside it and laid it gently on the desk.

Susan Haywood looked to be about seventeen or eighteen, and very pretty. She had her father's slightly-curved nose and high cheekbones, but her bright amber eyes and the soft line of her jaw were clearly owed to someone else. A cloud of curly shoulder-length hair billowed around her face, framing a wide smile. "When I lost my job at the Greely Toy Company," Ross began, "I hit the bottle. God strike me down if I ever hurt anyone, but I couldn't find a job. Couldn't really even look. So they took Susie away, said I was an unfit parent. She went to foster care, and it was hell." Involuntarily his fists clenched, digging his fingernails into his palms. "They'll let anyone do it in this city."

"I'm almost a year sober," he said, half with pride and half as a warning not to try to pull one over on him, "and I want my little girl back. But the court systems, they're full and broken. Before I could get a court date, Susie ran away from that b@$t@rd they sent her to live with. He didn't even report her missing. I did. There was this one detective who seemed to actually care, but he got killed a week in and no one has taken over the case. Not killed over this, mind," he hastily amended, knowing all too well that he couldn't afford hazard pay. Then he launched the closer he'd rehearsed. "So I'm looking for a private solution to find Susan."

Alright, thanks so much for the interest! Here's what I have so far:

All That Glitters: IC / OOC

Justiciar

Stronghold

Arrowhawk

Through the Cracks: IC / OOC

Savant

Samson

Mind over Muscle: IC / OOC

Sofia Orellana

Red Rat

Samson

Believe It or Not: (not posted yet; just wanting to double check first if you want to do two of my threads at once, Supercape)

Lord Steam?

Samson

Threads are up, links are posted, and we're ready to roll! All That Glitters folks, let's not put down more than a few posts each so that we give time for Arrowhawk II to get approved.

OOC thread for All That Glitters, featuring Justiciar, Stronghold, and Arrowhawk!

Let me know if I can help provide a reason for your character to be at the scene.

7:15 AM, August 4th.

In Bedlam’s halls of power, nothing ever changed. On the streets, little ever stayed the same.

It was about six in the morning that the first early commuters noticed that the front windows of Rothstein’s Jewelers were, for the first time in living memory, totally empty. Most of them just put their gaze right back down on the pavement; not their problem, not when they couldn’t afford breakfast and wouldn’t get dinner either if they missed their shifts. A few dared to wonder if the place had gone out of business, but that seemed odd. Not even the youth gangs spray painting swastikas on the façade had been able to drive Saul Rothstein out, and a man who at eighty-one could still pressure-wash them off personally seemed too lively to just up and die.

It wasn’t until seven that someone thought it was odd enough to bother calling the police, and then only by dumb luck. Adam McConnell, who taught at Thaddeus Grissom High, had been saving up for almost seven months to buy that wedding ring in the center window display, and he came by every morning like clockwork to remind himself why he kept trying in a job that was killing him. He knew Saul personally; the old man had a grandkid at Grissom, and had cut almost half off the ring’s price just for Adam. He knew that Saul would die in that store if he had his way. Nothing else would make him close up.

Police response time in Stark Hill, even at the edges, was about five minutes; the Bedlam PD actually cared about white folks, if no one else. But as far as they were concerned, Rothstein didn’t really qualify. They saw no reason to hurry if some Jew got himself robbed. So at 7:15 Adam was still the only person who had bothered to stop outside the store, increasingly worried not just about Saul but about losing his job if he didn’t show up by eight.

The question kept running through his mind, though: why hadn’t any of Saul’s alarms been tripped?

OOC thread for Mind over Muscle, featuring Sofia Orellana, Red Rat, and Samson!

I've tried to leave a hook for our heroes to get involved without predetermining too much. Let me know if I need to structure it better.

GM

Any megacorporation is shrouded in conspiracy theories. In Bedlam, many of them happened to be true.

The Howle-Brandt Consortium was the figurative new kid on the block in the “City of Now”, though they’d been established long enough that their towering jet fuel refinery was one of the top employers in town – and one of the least safe. It was an open secret that their legal team were experts at getting rid of maimed workers without providing any benefits, but rumors went further than that: shadowy military contracts, unethical human experimentation, robots poised to replace the labor force.

Bedlam’s hacker community, or “freedom of information” community in their own words, had been trying to confirm it all for years. But whoever did HBC’s cyber security was smart and well-funded. Their clearance system was stricter than the federal government’s, and any sensitive information was squirreled away in databanks requiring direct physical access. They didn’t bother to hide their Bedlam employment practices, which would get them crucified in a town where people had anywhere else to work, so what did they think was worth hiding?

The rumor that had popped up lately was that it might be possible to find out. Some user was making the rounds of the surface-level conspiracy and hacker boards, claiming to have inside knowledge of illegal drugging of HBC’s workers. He said he didn’t have proof, but he knew how to get it, if anyone who could beat a secure system was willing to come with him.

Cynicism ran fever-high in Bedlam. It was a survival mechanism in a city of broken promises and abandoned dreams. So most of the discussion on each of those posts was trying to figure out the user’s angle. Was he working for HBC’s security team, trying to catch potential hackers? Was he going to ask for money, then disappear before he had to deliver? He’d been inventive with the details, they had to admit, coming up with all that about addictive muscle stimulants to keep the workers coming back. But they had all seen better scams before, and they hadn’t fallen for those, either.

But the user, In$id3r, didn’t give up. He kept a private instant messaging channel open to anyone who believed him and wanted to help.

OOC thread for Through the Cracks, featuring Savant and Samson!

I tried to leave the details pretty vague on Savant's PI office; I'm happy to edit to change things or add specifics.

GM

4:00 PM, August 3rd.

Ross Haywood had seen better days, but he’d seen worse ones too.

The mark of those darker times was still on him. He was underweight for his considerable height, and a spider angioma extended its tendrils along the right side of his neck and the base of his chin, harsh purple-red against the soft brown of his skin. But he was walking more steadily than he used to, and the shaking of his hands was so slight that it was hardly noticeable. Smiling at the thought, he patted the little iron crucifix he carried in his jacket pocket, close to his heart. Twelve steps had seemed an awful long way a year ago, but he’d walked them.

That kind, honest smile faded as he remembered his purpose. He’d worn his best suit, secondhand and faded but still possessed of a reserved elegance, in the hopes of gaining an air of respectability. Maybe it was stupid to think of hiring a PI as an occasion, but Ross had been turned down in enough interviews to know that first impressions mattered in any deal. One hand in his pocket, he ran his fingertips across his daughter’s picture and said a little prayer in the back of his mind. He was running out of options, and out of time to make this right.

They said that Xavier Steadman was honest. In a town like Bedlam, that was either said derisively or with a vague sense of awe. Ross clung onto the hope that it was true like a drowning man to the edge of a raft. He didn’t have much, but he had learned the hard way what really mattered in life, and he would spend every penny he’d ever scraped together for this if he had to.

He’d walked several miles to Steadman’s building; it’d been a long time since he’d been able to afford a car, the buses were dismal, and it would crush his soul to be one taxi fare short of whatever price the PI named. As the building loomed up before him, he took a deep, steadying breath that came out shakier than he’d meant to let it. “Okay, Susie,” he whispered, his voice a deep, rich baritone. “Here we go.”

Reaching the office door, he forced one trembling hand to knock.

Hey friends! I've just looked up from lesson planning and discovered that not only has my character been approved, but we have a fancy new Bedlam City subforum. Let's put it to good use, shall we?

I'm wary of biting off more than I can chew just as I'm starting to meet a new crop of ninth graders, but I've also been planning for this moment for quite some time, so I'll go ahead and go for broke. What follows are a number of thread ideas I've cooked up for the Bedlamite PCs that have been approved thus far. If you're not interested, or would prefer some tweaks, that's okay! Just let me know. I have been watching lots of film noir and playing lots of crime-focused video games in preparation for these threads, and I think I have a pretty solid grasp on the tone and content to go for in Bedlam. Let's see what you all think.

All That Glitters:

Capacity: 2-3 total heroes

Description: Bedlam City is a dangerous place for pretty much everyone, but it's an especially dangerous place to run a jewelry store. Yet Rothstein's Jewelers, on the border between downtown and Stark Hill, has survived for years thanks to the extreme caution and expensive security systems employed by the owner, Saul Rothstein. This morning, though, it looks like his luck has run out. The store has been cleaned out without a single alarm being tripped, and Rothstein himself is missing. It's a race against time to find out who snatched the old man before they decide that, now that they're past his security, they don't need him anymore...

Believe It or Not:

Capacity: 2-3 total heroes

Description: The "Grant Miracle Gala", the Grant Conglomerate's debut event in Bedlam, is meant to highlight all the wonders the company will bring to the city. All of Bedlam's upper crust will be in attendance, new money rubbing shoulders with old, soaking in the warm and fuzzy feeling of a feigned interest in philanthropy. Backroom deals and disgusting excess will be the order of the day, heavy security separating the participants from the common man - and especially any muckraking journalists or meddling vigilantes. But one former Grant customer is less than satisfied with their service, and willing to kill to prove his point...

Through the Cracks:

Tailored To: Savant @angrydurf

Description: Xavier Steadman, Private Eye, is hired for a case outside the normal fare of cheating spouses and bad insurance: a missing person. The client, Ross Haywood, is looking for his daughter, who ran away from her abusive stepfather. Normally the police would handle this sort of thing, but this is Bedlam, and the last detective who actually cared about the case is dead now. Of course, that detective happened to be Jason Howle, and his brother (now the vigilante Samson) is looking to help close the cases that Jason never got the chance to resolve. Savant might need the help; Susan Haywood has fallen into a deep, dark place...

Mind over Muscle:

Tailored To: Sofia Orellana @Alderwitch

Description: L0vel@ce gets the conspiracy tip of a lifetime when an inside source in the Howle-Brandt Consortium reveals that the company is using an addictive muscle-building stimulant to control its workers. There's only one problem: the only conclusive evidence of the company's wrongdoing is in an off-grid data hub deep within the company's corporate offices, surrounded by lethal security devices and brutal Iron Talon mercenaries. But the source, none other than the vigilante Samson (for whom the stimulant and the company are both very close to home), is willing to help her get it...

Four is probably about the most I can handle, so I'll pause here to see if there's enough interest in each of these. Feel free to plan other Bedlam threads here as well!

Thanks again! Edits made.

Thanks! Fixed the Strength notation issue.

Samson
Power Level: 7/10 (150/150PP) 
Unspent Power Points: 0 
Trade-Offs: None
 
In Brief: Rich kid starts taking super serum to avenge his brother and fix the harm his family has caused.
Catchphrase: "You should run."
Theme: Forever - Kamelot
 
Alternate Identity: Aaron Howle
Birthplace: Cape Cod, Massachusetts
Residence: Bedlam City
Occupation: Socialite
Affiliations: None
Family: Vivian Howle (Mother, CEO), Todd Lester (Father, Art Dealer), Jason Howle (Brother, Deceased)
 
Description:

Age: 23
Gender:  Male
Ethnicity: Caucasian
Height: 5'11"
Weight: 180 lbs
Eyes: Blue
Hair: Brown

Aaron Howle is modestly handsome, with a strong, sharp face but soft, deep eyes. He wears his hair short, with a well-trimmed beard running along his jawline and upper lip. It's a fairly recognizable face to anyone who reads the business page of a major newspaper. Aaron's build, though, has changed somewhat since most of those photos. He has put on twenty-five pounds of pure muscle, leaving him broad-shouldered and with corded arms and legs that stand out all the more given his merely average height. Young and fresh-faced, he has had dark circles beneath his eyes almost perpetually of late. He is a sharp dresser, and fills out a twenty-thousand-dollar suit nicely.

In costume as Samson, Aaron favors mobility and anonymity. He wears a loose black duster coat with an attached hood; a cloth scarf up to the bridge of his nose works with the hood to keep his vision clear while hiding his identity. Beneath the coat, Samson's clothes are durable but flexible, a close fit but not a tight one. They are unarmored, as Samson's layer of muscle just beneath his skin is as tough as kevlar, and particularly violent fights or big explosions can burn or tear big holes in the costume. Fortunately it's not difficult for Aaron to afford many, many spares. Samson wears padded gloves and boots to help absorb the impact of punches and long jumps.

History:

"You can't imagine how bad it is here, Ron. The money-changers are in the temple. The foundations are rotten. And our family's deep in it. Come and see. Please. I can't fight this alone."

Aaron Howle's world began to unravel with that email. Until that moment, everything had been easy. Born the second son of internationally-famous businesswoman Vivian Howle, who had refused to give up the maiden name she shared with her company and had soon given up her husband instead, Aaron grew up surrounded by wealth and privilege unimaginable to most of the world. A reasonably intelligent and very well-mannered kid, he did well in school and made friends easily - in his little bubble of extremely elite private schools, from kindergarten to college. Coached on how to behave in the spotlight, he was used to the media circus that surrounded his family. He never gave the tabloids any ammunition except the rumor that he might be secretly gay, as he'd never dated anyone. In reality he was just shy, but if that was the rumor they were going to run with, he wasn't insulted.

Four years and a personality gulf separated Aaron from his older brother Jason. Where Aaron was laid back and a little bookish, content to live the life he'd been given at his own pace and eventually take over from Mom, Jason was driven and possessed of deep convictions; Mom's example of fierce independence and strongly-held beliefs had worked a little too well on him. Jason always had a cause, and it usually wasn't a cause that lined up with the Howle-Brandt Consortium's business plan. Arrested twice for environmental protesting in college, he turned around and pursued a law enforcement degree at the University of Wisconsin, hoping to create internal reform in the local PD. He refused Mom's money and made his own way through school with scholarships and part-time jobs. Yet for all that they were different, Jason and Aaron were inseparable. They talked on the phone almost every day.

Jason quickly proved to be a good, conscientious cop. He made detective at 26, just as Aaron was graduating from Georgetown's McDonough School of Business, though he flew out for the ceremony. Mom did too, and she might even have been a little proud. But Jason always had to have a cause, and when he looked around he saw blighted, corrupt Bedlam City just up north, a city where Howle-Brandt was one of the major (and virtually unregulated) employers. So he transferred to the Bedlam PD, full of spunk and idealism, with no idea just how deep the pit he'd just leapt into really was. The open graft and corruption shocked him like nothing he'd ever seen before. His refusal to participate, and attempts to tell IA about it, would have gotten him immediately killed if he had been less famous. As it was, he was sidelined to the dead-end Missing Persons squad. He took to the assignment with gusto anyway.

Still, it took its toll. Not even his partner would talk to him, and he was handed the most hopeless cases the department could find. His calls with Aaron grew less and less frequent, and his brother grew worried. Then came the email. Jason said he'd found full and irrefutable proof of the Bedlam PD's corruption, enough that the Feds would be forced to step in and take over the department. But he couldn't do it alone; there was no one he could trust, and he was afraid the higher-ups were on to him. Aaron dropped everything and came to Bedlam as fast as the company jet could carry him. It wasn't fast enough. He landed to the news that Jason had been killed in a shootout with a Wolverton gang up on Industrial Row. He couldn't view his brother's body; he had already been cremated. He couldn't claim his personal effects from his office; they were "relevant to an ongoing investigation." Jason's apartment had been tossed. Even his car was gone.

It was blatantly obvious to Aaron that everything Jason had been saying was true, and that his brother had died for it. For the first time in his life, he felt totally powerless and adrift. That feeling only intensified as he got a glimpse into his family's company's operations in Bedlam. The Howle-Brandt Refinery and the surrounding corporate dorms were warrens of human misery. Every dime in his trust fund began to feel utterly tainted. And in that moment, some of the steel that Jason had possessed found its way into Aaron. He was going to fight this, all of this madness and corruption and ruin. He told his mother, whom he was no longer sure he trusted, that he was moving to Bedlam full-time for charity and political work. However ruthless Vivian Howle could be, she mourned her son, and she understood - for the moment. But money was not the only weapon Aaron intended to use.

Aaron had friends at all levels in Howle Chemical, not to mention extensive clearance as the boss's business-involved son. That was how he knew about Xanacet-12. It was designed to be given in small doses to heavy labor employees, enabling them to build muscle faster and bigger than just daily exercise would. But things like caution and "small doses" had little place in Aaron's mind; his new mission occupied his every thought. He had never shot a gun or taken a karate class, didn't have magic spells or psychic powers, but he needed a way to become powerful enough to fight this fight. So he took Xanacet-12, a lot of it, and regularly. Heavy injections of the strength serum bulked him up to inhuman strength while maintaining a fairly slim build, changing the very makeup of his musculature. The rush that came with it, the power, was the best thing he'd ever felt, a relief for that helpless hopelessness that had descended over him.

In the back of his mind, he's not sure he could stop even if he wanted to. Either way, he won't. Not until he finds the truth, reveals the corruption, undoes the harm... or dies trying.

 
Personality & Motivation:

Aaron is driven, even obsessed, when it comes to finding out who killed his brother and bringing them down - along with the entire system of corruption and disorder that led them to that point, or as much of it as he can reasonably dismantle. But he also recognizes that he's had chances most people never get, and that anything he does has consequences for people with less freedom than billionaires. He was always kind and thoughtful, thinking first of others, and while he doesn't much care what happens to him personally, he would never put an innocent person in danger to pursue his goals. Killing for any reason is totally beyond him.

In truth, Aaron runs the serious risk of running himself into the ground. He has always been hard on himself, berating his every failure and devaluing his successes, while granting others easy grace - sometimes too much. The potent cocktail of grief for Jason and guilt over the way his easy life was financed that drives him allows him little rest even as he picks a fight it's impossible to ever completely win. His practical experience outside boardrooms, resorts, and private schools is limited, which he freely admits, and while he has always been quick and eager to learn, gaps in his real world knowledge might well be the death of him if his self-destructive impulses don't get him first.

 
Powers & Tactics:

Aaron can do a lot of good at a benefit dinner or charity fundraiser, and he tries not to lose sight of that. He's very good with people, and has tremendous resources at his disposal through his trust fund, his wealthy and powerful contacts, and his access to Howle-Brandt. When that isn't enough, Samson picks up the slack. Fast and strong, it's a simple matter for him to bowl over entire groups of armed thugs and pound them senseless - he actually has to hold himself back to keep from breaking their bones beyond repair. A slap of his hands or a stop of his feet can bring down opponents without his ever having to touch them through resounding shockwaves.

 
Power Descriptions:

Thanks to Xanacet-12, Aaron is strong massively beyond human limits. Capable of bench-pressing semi trucks and throwing punches with the force of a sniper rifle, he is a human weapon of considerable power. His muscles allow him to take great bounding strides at speeds of up to a hundred miles per hour or leap multiple stories in a single bound. The tough, corded muscle tissue is strong enough to flatten bullets and withstand heavy impacts. The drug makes all of this possible with muscle growth hormones, myostatin inhibitors that mean the body isn't told when to stop producing muscle, and RNA strands that build muscle tissue along the pattern of coiled steel.

 
Complications:

I Can Stop Anytime I Want: Xanacet-12 is deliberately addictive, an intentional means of keeping Howle-Brandt's workers from leaving the company. It also doesn't keep working forever; continued consumption is required to maintain the muscle-building effects. Aaron has discovered the hard way that his enhanced musculature shuts down if he stops regularly taking the massive doses he's been using to achieve super-strength. As his body's myostatin levels return to normal, it frantically starts breaking down his muscles in order to normalize his metabolism (he eats A LOT when he's on Xanacet-12). Withdrawals are both physically and mentally debilitating for him.

• If Aaron is unable to take a dose of Xanacet-12 for more than two days, he loses all powers and gains a hero point. At the GM's discretion, he may begin to suffer random DC17 Confuse effects and gain a hero point.

Side Effects May Include: No one, least of all Aaron, has any idea what the long-term effects of taking massive doses of Xanacet-12 will be. It's designed to be sprinkled into food in doses less than a sixteenth of the size of what Aaron is injecting. There are nights when he stays up late, hunched over the toilet as he wonders if his newly-empowered muscle action is actually capable of making him puke up his own organs. It hasn't happened yet, but he is not infrequently sick and rarely sleeps well. If something does start to go wrong, it will be very difficult for him to get help without revealing who he is and how this happened... so he probably won't.

• At the start of a scene, Aaron may be fatigued from poor sleep, gaining a hero point. At the GM's discretion, he may have to save against a DC17 Nauseate effect at an inopportune moment, gaining a hero point.

Why Yes, I Am Aaron Howle: Aaron was somewhat famous for all of his life as the son of Vivian Howle of the Howle-Brandt Corporation, and the recent media circus surrounding his brother's death and his own public presence in Bedlam have only increased his reputation. This can be very inconvenient for someone trying to lead a double life abusing muscle-building drugs to beat mobsters over the head by night. Aaron is keenly aware that he has a great deal to lose if his secret is revealed - his activities are against the law in Bedlam, and discovery could lead to the loss of his money, his reputation, and his freedom, plus plenty of problems for his surviving family.

• When out of costume, Aaron may (at the GM's discretion) be inconvenienced by reporters, admirers, or protesters to whom he must not reveal his secret, gaining a hero point.

It Must Be Put Right: Aaron is dangerously obsessed with solving his brother's murder, fixing the damage his family's company has caused, and punishing those responsible. He is perfectly willing to sacrifice his own safety and well-being for the slightest chance at advancing one of those goals, but not the safety and well-being of innocent people. Even as he puts himself in increasing danger, Aaron feels compelled to go out of his way to help and protect those in need. He is also very careful to restrain his tremendous strength so that he doesn't hurt anyone beyond their ability to eventually heal, no matter how awful they might be. He can't cross that line.

Abilities: 2 + 2 + 4 + 4 + 4 + 4 = 20PP
Strength: 12 / 25 (+1 / +7)
Dexterity: 12 (+1)
Constitution: 14 (+2)
Intelligence: 14 (+2)
Wisdom: 14 (+2)
Charisma: 14 (+2)

Combat: 8 + 8 = 16PP
Initiative: +5
Attack: +7 Melee, +4 Ranged
Grapple: +12 (+7 Str, +5 Super-Strength)
Defense: +7 (+2 Base, +5 Protection)
Knockback: -3

Saving Throws: 7 + 8 + 5 = 20PP
Toughness: +7 (+2 Con, +5 Protection)
Fortitude: +9 (+2 Con, +7)
Reflex: +9 (+1 Dex, +8)
Will: +7 (+2 Wis, +5)

Skills: 80R = 20PP
Acrobatics 4 (+5)
Bluff 8 (+10)
Computers 4 (+6)
Diplomacy 8 (+10)
Drive 4 (+5)
Gather Information 8 (+10)
Intimidate 8 (+10)
Knowledge [Business] 8 (+10)
Knowledge [Civics] 8 (+10)
Notice 4 (+6)
Search 4 (+6)
Sense Motive 8 (+10)
Stealth 4 (+5)

Feats: 34PP
Attack Focus (Melee) 3
Benefit 4 (Filthy Rich, Status: Upper Crust)
Chokehold
Connected
Contacts
Dodge Focus 3
Fast Overrun
Fearless
Fearsome Presence 7
Grappling Finesse
Improved Grab
Improved Grapple
Improved Initiative 1
Improved Overrun
Improved Trip
Improved Throw
Stunning Attack
Takedown Attack 2
Uncanny Dodge 1 (Auditory)
Well-Informed

Powers: 13 + 2 + 5 + 5 + 15 = 40PP
Enhanced Strength 13 [13PP]
Leaping 2 (5x distance; 85ft running long jump, 42ft standing long jump, 21ft high jump) [2PP]
Protection 5 [5PP]
Speed 4 (100 mph; Feats: Alternate Power 1) [5PP]

• AP: Swimming 4 [4/4PP]

Super-Strength 5 (50 effective strength; Power Feats: Bracing, Groundstrike, Shockwave, Super-Breath, Thunderclap) [15PP]

Drawbacks: (-0) + (-0) = -0PP

DC Block
ATTACK          RANGE          SAVE                 EFFECT
Fearsome         35ft radius     DC17 Will           Fear (Mental)
Groundstrike     70ft radius     DC17 Reflex      Trip (Physical)
Shockwave       70ft cone       DC22 Tough      Damage (Physical)
Stunning Fist    Touch            DC17 Fort          Stun (Physical)
Super-Breath    70ft cone       DC17 Reflex      Trip (Physical)
Thunderclap     35ft radius     DC17 Reflex       Dazzle (Auditory)
Unarmed          Touch            DC22 Tough       Damage (Physical)

Totals: Abilities (20) + Combat (16) + Saving Throws (20) + Skills (20) + Feats (34) + Powers (40) - Drawbacks (0) = 150/150 PP
 

Great, looking forward to it!

I got the guidebook page up. Let me know if I overdid it; I got a little excited.

@KnightDisciple there are a few genuinely good charitable organizations that have managed to survive so far in Bedlam (the Celestial Spirit Fellowship [nondenominational shelter for children], the local battered women's shelter, the Wolverton and Hardwick Park free clinics, the Stone Ridge Animal Shelter), but there's plenty of room for shakedowns and harassment of charity workers. In the situation you describe, it's probably something that would come from the police. Some corrupt officers might try to shake down the hot meal providers. It'd be either, "Ma'am, distribution of food to the homeless is a misdemeanor; it encourages them to stay out on the street instead of getting jobs. There's a $50 fine. We can take care of it right here, if you want to save the hassle of going down to the station." OR "Ma'am, you need an aid work permit to distribute free meals. I can provide you with one for fifty bucks." And the next time they come by, their "permit" has "expired".

Charity workers might also run into problems due to neighborhood gangs. Distributing medical aid in Wolverton or Hardwick Park is a good way to get Eesntsy Z's or the Mara's attention, respectively, as they would want to control that resource for their guys (and they might enforce letting their guys get first dibs on hot meals, too). White, Asian, and Hispanic workers in Wolverton and White, Black, or Asian workers in Hardwick Park run the risk of getting mugged, and it's practically guaranteed for anyone who tries to help out in Ash Street, the Country Club, or south Babylon. Minority charity workers in Stark Hill or Greely Point, even with the best of intentions and good results for the local homeless or injured, run the risk of being spat upon or beaten by local youth gangs, and the police would almost certainly turn a blind eye to such treatment.

There are genuinely good people in Bedlam (public defender Fido Turwood, tireless and selfless priest Father Dennis, women's shelter legal advisor Marla Zaranovsky), but they tend to be beaten down by both the system and crime.

Thanks! I've been having fun with this so far. I do think it would be lovely if the people planning Bedlam characters would consider a thread to talk backgrounds and such in order to create cohesion in the newly-launched setting, though I don't know if that is how things are done here.

I was thinking of a location a ways south of Sturgeon Bay, plunking Bedlam down on top of Manitowoc (evenly between Green Bay and Milwaukee). We can move it, but I would have to redo the map. Due to my version of Bedlam's location between the two cities, I extended the sorta-subway train line so that it runs to both of them, with five additional stops in the city. If that violates the spirit of the city we want, it's an easy fix.

I have redrawn and reoriented the map given in the sourcebook to match the outflow of the Manitowoc River into Lake Michigan, and I've also added the Babylon district I proposed (though that is easy to erase if people don't like it!). I also put together a list of all of Bedlam's major structures with the intent of putting together a number-coded location map like the one in the Freedom City book, but that's not in yet. I will have to either pick only a few highlights or make the map a lot bigger because there are a LOT of locations described in the book. I have already had to take some artistic license with a few spots which are not given clear map locations.

Without further ado, I give you the revised city map of Bedlam City, Wisconsin. Feedback is very welcome; I may well have missed something, or it may not fit your vision. Just let me know.

I'm working on a new map that faces the right direction and has location markers, both with and without the potential Babylon district, but I ran out of oomph this evening. One more thought:

Villains Aren't Street-Level: Agreed. Fortunately, there are a lot of spaces for people to create their own villains. A few such spots include:

- For corrupt cops, the Fifth Precinct (and the Sixth if we use Babylon) is left completely open, and most of the detective squads have only a few characters.

- For mafia villains, only two of the ten plus Scarpia captains are detailed in the book. The Gorganzuas have fewer overall captains, but almost none are detailed.

- For street gangs, neither the Mara nor any of the youth gangs of Wolverton or Stark Hill has more than a single character detailed, leaving lots of room. The gangs of the Country Club are barely described.

- For evil bikers, the Bloody Cross up in the Country Club has only one character detailed, and the Brotherhood has only three. The trucker smugglers of Thunder Road have no characters.

- For other organized crime, the Triads have only one character each. Same for the Russian mob and the Jamaican posse. The Rock and the Stone have only a few defined soldiers.

I'm also working on taking the existing villains and scaling them down in PL while adding some Freedom-verse elements to their backgrounds, though that doesn't fix the fact that some are comic evil rather than gritty.

Lots of good discussion going on here. I'll throw in my two cents on a few of the issues raised so far.

Wisconsin Superhero Laws: I think having restrictive Superhero laws in Wisconsin (or wherever) is a fantastic idea to help explain the setting. There has been no super-team in Bedlam since 1999, when Justice Xtreme disbanded, and it was never a superhuman hot-spot; such laws could explain why. My first thought is that Bedlam's superhero litigation would come about due to the activities of its former resident vigilante The Scorpion. Although brutally effective against even the normally untouchable Mafia families, the Scorpion was not a nice guy, and the FBI under Hoover spent a lot of time trying to hunt him down.

The Scorpion, undefeatable and uncatchable scourge of the criminal underworld, died of lung cancer in 1963, though no one knew anything about that except that he had vanished. Some years later, Bedlam suffered a major superhuman scandal when a superteam called The Now was arrested for horrifying crimes. It was a frame job, but it made people worry about the possibility that more violent criminals would become Scorpion copycats. In response, in 1972 the state of Wisconsin (or just Bedlam) passed Assembly Bill 591, which became popularly known as the Scorpion Statutes.

The bill prohibited vigilante activity in Wisconsin/Bedlam, and Mayor Franklin Moore adapted much of its language for the Moore Act ten years later. Clayton Stone (aka "Black Anvil") operated in spite of this law, and the Hammer of Justice got by because he was a mob-backed racist. Fear of the serial killer Capricorn kept support for measures against "costumed freaks" high throughout the eighties.

With the restoration of superhero-related optimism after the terminus invasion, Moore Act-like measures became very unpopular, and many cities and states repealed such legislation. Bedlam was slow, cynical, and still heavily influenced by the mob, so it took longer. But in 1998 the Scorpion Statutes were amended... slightly. While vigilantism was not completely illegal under the revised statutes, it remained heavily restricted: superheroes did not have legal identities, and therefore did not have the rights of citizens. If they disclosed their true identities, they had the same rights they would normally have; no citizens' arrests, etc.

Of course, they could then be charged with crimes such as trespassing, assault, and the like.

This was all to pave the way for the arrival of Justice Xtreme, a superteam backed by the city government and therefore immune to some of the issues raised for costumed heroes by the Statutes, in 1999. The team, of course, proved to be a disaster. The revised Scorpion Statutes remain in place, but in the post-Xtreme mood of renewed cynicism toward superheroes some are pushing for the revisions to be repealed so that any and all vigilante activity is punishable by arrest. Except for the Hammer of Justice, of course. He's a stand-up guy.

Have-Nots, but no Haves: I can see the objection here; we've got stagnating aristocracy but no one getting genuinely rich off of the common man's misery. On the one hand, that may be one way to play Bedlam: the city is dying, and even the old money and the crime syndicates are just pulling the pieces off of its corpse before it rots away to nothing. On the other, iron age-y settings thrive on conspiracies, corruption, and corporate bad guys, so it might be nice to have some. The sourcebook notes that it's very possible to add districts to Bedlam if something is missing, so here's my solution: the Babylon district, incorporating some of angrydurf's ideas.

Just a thought to get the ball rolling; no offense taken if this feels like too big of a change.

I can see the merit of a mix-up, but if we want to change the name of UNICORN, here are a few suggestions.

In the source material, UNICORN isn't actually an acronym; it just means that the organization is rarely seen, like a unicorn. If we want to go along those lines, we could do:

TOMORROW (which never comes)

BLUEMOON (once in a...)

SYLPH

WRAITH

If we'd rather go the traditional acronym route (since the version of UNICORN I cooked up is a dark parallel to AEGIS designed to combat superhumans), we could go with:

FIRE (Federal Initiative to Regulate the Enhanced)

CAIN (Commission to Analyze and Influence Neohumans)

IFRIT (Initiative to Find, Research, and Influence Transhumanity)

MARS (Metahuman Analysis and Regulation Service)

Thanks, all! It's already been fun, and I'm looking forward to keeping going. I've put together a description of the city's major villain groups, taking Shaen's ideas into account and adding other Freedom-verse elements where possible. I'm very open to suggestions if anyone can think of other places we could Freedom-ize Bedlam's core content.

So I've been lurking for a long while, and this may be the thing that gets me to stop. I've owned Bedlam City for years, and I love the setting to death. I'd love to see it here.

I'd be the first to agree that Bedlam has terrible adventures (and I'd add that many of the villains aren't worth much, either). What's fantastic are the adventure seeds, the descriptions of districts and businesses, the NPC relationships, and the dark secrets and conspiracies. It's a great city for vigilantes and mystics, with intricate descriptions of organized crime and dark magic alike. Where Freedom City is in the odd position of being the bright, shining city of tomorrow while also somehow having a seedy underbelly for the local street level heroes, Bedlam is a city so broken that street level heroes will never run out of things to do.

You don't know me yet, and I don't want to presume too much, but I'm tremendously excited that Bedlam might become an option here. As such, I've written up a draft guidebook page as thoughts to get the ball rolling. Just drafts; I'm happy to change anything and everything, including scrapping the lot if I've overstepped. If all goes well, I'll see about doing one for Bedlam's organized crime factions.

I've placed Bedlam on top of the small city of Manitowoc, Wisconsin, between Milwaukee and Green Bay. It'd be easy to move it, though. Let me know what you think.