Originally this was going to be a recycling of old material used to prep for an old, failed, campaign (because, in lieu of a proper hook, the players spent the entire thing cuckolding, murdering and trying to hide the corpse of a random bartender), hastily half-converted to sboob because of that one Archon’s Court post..
Then I ended up putting way too much effort into it all and there’s like, 0% old material surviving here now, it’s like, almost entirely new. Note that this assumes a fairly different mode of superheroic existence than the cyberpunk hellscapes of Bayport or I-Re… this is because it’s in the middle of the rust belt and the corporations have largely left this place to rot, so the main supermen-employing organizations are street gangs rather than megacorps or technofascist paramilitaries. Adjust your mission tables to match or whatever - you’re hitting licks, not taking jobs.
Still haven't figured out how blogspot formatting works, sorry for the wonky text spacing and stuff
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Kwangchow is dying. That is to say, Kwangchow - not Guangzhou, China, Kwangchow, Illinois. Kwangchow IL is in every respect dramatically inferior to its namesake, a small city of sixty-six thousand souls and a perfect model of the rust belt in microcosm. It’s a city that’s been in decline since the 60’s - June 6th, 1966, to be exact, the day Marx Steelworks finally shut its doors. You won’t find anyone in town that doesn’t have the exact calendar date drilled into their skull deeper than the day of their own birth, from the tweaker dying on the street corner to the gilded office of Mayor Ding-Marx herself.
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| What if Brockton bay was Gary, Indiana |
Founded in 1902 by Friedrich Wolfgang Marx of Marx Steel Industries, Kwangchow, like a few other american cities, took its name from its supposed geographical antipode. A former model company town, it lived and died inseparable from the industry that supported it, in many ways a model of the rust belt as a whole. Marx was an interesting figure - chiefly in the fact that he never sold, never merged, and never, ever, unionized. The city’s unique makeup is a testament to his legacy of racial tolerance - whites are still the majority, at around 55% of the population, and african-americans make up most of the rest, but there's also large hispanic and asian minority groups. The latter category is, unusually, composed mostly of hui and uyghur chinese- who first came as muslim warlord Ma Ding and his soldiers, personally invited to Kwangchow by Marx after their defeat by the KMT, whose collection of oriental artworks was been built up chiefly through purchase of Ding’s looted artifacts. The community has since been reinforced over the years by successive waves of muslim chinese migrants, the Uyghur community in particular migrating in large enough numbers to justify a rare piece of federal support (in the form of over a million dollars in grants to establish a local branch of the East Turkestan Government in Exile).
The steelworks still lies rotting, picked over by crows, raccoons, and bored teenagers. The rest of town fares little better, crumbling houses with overgrown yards and peeling paint. Economically, the only options left for those without pensions or social security to live off are to fight over the few jobs left in government and the service industries, commute two hours to Chicago, or turn to crime. Pump gas and flip burgers for senior citizens, teach timetables to the offspring of anyone still stupid enough to have kids in Kwanchow, or start stealing copper wire and dealing meth - the 2nd option is substantially less soul-crushing. It’s no wonder, then, that Kwanchow has an absurdly exaggerated Supervillain per Capita ratio - which means, of course, that there’s no shortage of opportunities for cape-work, for any enterprising super who walks into town. Someone, perhaps, much like yourself?
Places of Interest
Marx Steelworks - The factory-complex that birthed the town and served as its beating heart until it was finally shut down in the 60’s, when the bottom fell out of the steel industry - the Marx family saved from bankruptcy by a diversified portfolio, the workforce not so much. Deserted, fenced off, and the frequent target of urban explorers - every square inch covered in graffiti, periodic sweeps by the city police force evicting homeless squatters.
Absalom K-12 Academy - The integrated charter school that serves as the only public institution in the city for primary and secondary education, with a history rooted, unsurprisingly, in the privately-operated schools Marx had built when he first set up the company town. Notable for having had at least one bomb or shooting threat a year every year since 2002, and for the shoestring budget it’s operating on after payouts of several million dollars in child abuse settlements in a continuous string of scandals involving multiple different teachers and administrators (but mostly campus security).
Wolfgang-Marx Museum of the Orient - Inside the red-brick walls of a romanesque villa lie the only reason anyone would ever willing visit Kwangchow… an actually really good collection of chinese and central asian art, every single part of which was purchased illegally and which the Chinese government has demanded the repatriation of on an annual basis since 1949. Technically held in trust, the museum and everything else it manages are still entirely controlled by the Marx family, and the entire museum is not infrequently closed to the public for special events. The stuff on display is only ever a fraction of the full collection, the vaults below holding many pieces individually worth millions and the entire sum of the collection worth who knows how much more… museum security is tight, but far from impenetrable, and several ambitious heists have been foiled only seconds from completion.
Mosques - There are three different mosques in Kwangchow, the Islamic Center of Kwangchow, the Kwangchow Holy Mosque, and the WD Fard Moorish Temple. The Islamic Center is the older institution, founded by the hui community, the Mosque the second oldest, originally a Nation of Islam institution which was converted to mainstream sunni islam under Wallace Muhammad’s leadership and entered into communion with the existing hui community. The Moorish temple is the smallest but most militant of the temples, founded by those who rejected joining the islamic mainstream and entering into co-religionist relations with the Hui - fiercely independent, they’ve additionally refused to align themselves with Farrakhan’s revived church, and have largely degenerated into a criminal cult.
Other- Walmart super center #2,389, East Turkestan Government in Exile branch office, Kwangchow Municipal Hospital (exceedingly high complication rates), Kwangchow City Hall, Kwangchow public library, Kwangchow Jail, the headquarters of the Kwangchow Sun (only newspaper), Kwangchow Municipal Airport (incredibly tiny), Kwangchow savings bank, DMV of Kwangchow, Elysian Garden Residential Apartments (referred to by the locals the Lil’ O, as in O-block)
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| Read blood syndicate plz |
Factions
Volunteers (AKA: The United Volunteers for the Defense of Public Order and the Muslim Faith)
Kwangchow’s premier superhero group, vigilante peacekeepers who claim strict adherence to sunni islam and a purely charitable status, being, according to themselves, entirely funded by donations from “the community”. They are technically funded by donations, in the legal sense, being a registered charity, but the greater part of their funding comes from local business and wealthy elites , rather than ordinary citizens.. on account of the Volunteer response time being weighted substantially in favor of their sponsors. Allegations of Volunteer-legbreaking for the Ding-Marx family have been proven unfounded by multiple winning libel suits.
Symbols - Their emblem (literally just their full title in “oriental” font), Green and white spandex uniforms
Henchmen - Most of their official member-roll consists of local citizens who donate and report criminal activity.. there’s a few unpowered employees who run the call center, manage finances, keep the headquarters in order and such, but only the supperhumans handle the actual crimefighting (and only they get paid full salaries)
Leader - Golden Horde, 2Σ (Martial I [+WIS, CHA], Shift II [Brawn I, Durable I, Zap])
Transforms into a 6’8 proto-turkic steppe warrior-demigod whenever in contact with a equine, gaining superhuman strength, durability, and a bottomless quiver of shining golden arrows which explode like anti-tank grenades on impact. Fancy high-tech compound bow that requires super-strength to draw back fully, 3 pedigree warhorses imported from turkmenistan at great expense, samurai horse-archery trick riding bullshit that lets him shoot people accurately while hanging upside-down and sideways with one foot on the saddle.
In his “true form” a 4’10 uyghur woman in her early sixties, Turan doesn’t really have a costume on account of every moment he spends crimefighting being in his war-shape, the bulletproof, bronze-skinned black-maned giant with washboard abs and rippling biceps and such. Is the formal leader of the volunteers, and a strong personality both as cape and civilian, though with a charisma that expresses itself quite differently between the warrior-king and the elderly chinese woman who founded and ran the team behind the scenes before awakening her superpowers. Though intelligent, is somewhat handicapped by a combination of vanity, greed, and a loose grasp of the english language (though fully fluent in mandarin and uyghur).
Volunteer superhumans
Ottoman, 1Σ (Durable I, Brawn I) Like 7ft tall, strong enough to tear off limbs with bare hands also physically impossible endurance.. will keep fighting with both legs broken, intestines on the sidewalk, and heart utterly vaporized by laser-gun
Safavid, 1Σ (Ace I, Durable I) Totally fireproof, asbestos skin, can make anything he touches extremely flammable.. making concrete and glass burst into flames like they’re cotton balls soaked in rubbing alcohol
Mughal, 1Σ (Create II) Can produce enormous quantities of shaped biodegradable sandstone on the fly, enough to raise small minarets and onion-domes in seconds - useful for putting up barriers, getting places by quick-bridging, encasing people in stone
Timurid, 1Σ (Percieve I, Zap I) Well-developed pineal eye which can see in infrared and also fire invisible death-rays
Crossburners (AKA: The Kwangchow Crossburners, The Invincible Insane Cross-burning Nation)
A violent, all-white criminal syndicate with a few superhuman members, exactly as racist as the name suggests. Single largest group in the city, though outnumbered by the many smaller outfits. Still, hands in a lot of different pies - they deal a lot of drugs, do a lot of ordinary burglary and armed robbery and stuff, but they’ve got a few more complicated rackets they inherited when they absorbed the remnants of the Kwantung mob. They’ve already fucked up most of them, though, on account of most of the new generation have had their capacity for delayed-gratification totally fried by methamphetamine abuse.
Symbols - A burning cross, the confederate flag, the colors white and red
Henchmen - Stereotypical white trash, men and women, with rotting teeth and a fondness for white wifebeaters, red plaid, and shotguns
Leader - China White, 1Σ (Zap II [Fly I])
Telekinetic control over any and all porcelain objects within 15 feet, with a lifting capacity near half a ton. “Flies” by telekinetically lifting his several-hundred pound suit of ceramic armor, floats a couple of old, dirty toilets behind him to throw at people - more damaging if he has time to spin them up to speed before he lets go.
He rarely lets himself be seen outside the armor, but when he does he’s just an extremely fat, extremely pale white guy in his late 40’s… lack of fitness and excessive paleness both caused by spending most of the day levitating around inside rather than like, walking normally, with some amount of bare skin showing. Not the brightest guy, though he is the leader - he’s arrogant as hell, but not actually that smart, mostly just ruling through fear and brute force.
Crossburner superhumans
Black Tar, 1Σ (Martial I [+DEX, STR], Ace I) , Combustion (gunfire included) fails in 30-ft radius, attempts jam machinery with black slime, fast as a racehorse, dual-wields machetes
Go-fast, 1Σ (Weird I, Martial I [+DEX, Con]) Daily “resets” to exact location, physical, mental, state, where he last had sex.. fearless, immune to pain, runs around nude with sawn-off shotguns
Bolivian March, 1Σ (Ace I, Create I) Can turn human corpses into clones of himself and his stuff (dissolves into corpse-dust when killed again), who walk in lockstep and repeat all his actions exactly… uses literal 19th century rifle-and-bayonet tactics
Moorish Native Mujahideen (AKA: The Moorish Native Mujhadeen, The Almighty Moorish Nation) -
A criminal syndicate from the south side of Chicago, the windy city’s largest and most powerful. They credit their success to the practice of a heterodox form of afrocentrist “islam” that appropriates doctrines from a bunch of other groups, but in practice it functions more as recruiting tool than actual moral code. They’ve tried taking over Kwangchow twice before, both times failing miserably. They’ve got a new guy trying it, though, a smarter guy.. under Poprock, they’ve been moving slower, more cautiously - still distrusted, but they’re making inroads, getting to know the city, recruiting locally.. at the moment, nobody thinks them a big enough threat to throw everything at, and by the time they change their mind, it’ll be far too late to matter.
Symbols - the letters MNM, scimitar and star, ankh and skull, stylized candy, rainbow-patterned clothing
Henchmen - Mostly older black guys with rainbow-bandanas and glocks, almost all imported from chicago.. very few local recruits atm
Leader - Poprock, 2Σ (Martial I, [+WIS, DEX] Ace I [Fly], Durable II)
Can reverse gravity for himself and anything he’s carrying, falling upwards into the heavens until he decides to stop. Ultra-tough, flexible flesh stops most bullets and makes him nearly immune to blunt force trauma, which he takes advantage of to let him get places quickly by just anti-gravving high up and then crashing to the ground wherever he needs to be. Proficient in dual-wielded uzis.
The leader of MNM’s expeditionary group, an older, but still lithe and agile black guy who’s been with the syndicate since its foundation. Sunglasses, fancy suit and shiesty, the latter two bleached-white and covered in swirling patterns of colorful rhinestone. He’s a seasoned criminal, and he didn’t get that way through being an idiot.. he favors a methodical, reserved, and cautious approach to criminal enterprise, or at least as cautious as one can be in a business like this. Really, there’s something in his calm, professional ruthlessness quite a bit more frightening than the in-your-face hostility of the stereotypical bloodthirsty lunatic.
MNM superhumans
Pixie-stick, 1Σ (Zap I, Durable I) Superheated plasma instead of blood, erupts as jet from any cut or breach and annihilates anything nearby.. Paper-thin skin, easily torn, but heals ultra-fast to close wounds, doesn’t help with internal injury though.. rapper of exceptional talent, only still robbing guys for the love of the game
Jolly Rancher, 1Σ (Create I, Martial I [+CON, CHA]) A cow-whisperer of exceptional skill.. can painfully vomit up a live, full-sized texas longhorn in about a minute, usually has a decent sized-herd built up to stampede
Airhead, 1Σ (Think I, Shift I) Instinctive knowledge of in-situ production of chemical weaponry, which she’s immune to because of the gas mask fused to her face
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| Read Marshal Law but not this far |
Immortal Soul (AKA: The Immortal Soul Disciples)
The second-greatest of Kwangchow’s supervillain groups, with a body of unpowered members on par with the crossburners and certainly exceeding MNM’s current presence - relegated to a secondary role by their lower number of superhumans, largely due to higher turnover rate. Mostly african-american, but a small latino minority - their relative inclusiveness being one of the things differentiating them from their archenemies the Black Mambas, with whom they’re constantly engaged in low-level territory war.
Symbols - Heart with halo and wings, the colors white and blue
True Immortal, 2Σ (Shift III, Martial 1 [+INT, CHA])
Whenever he takes an actually substantial amount of damage, True Immortal transforms into a 12-ton mass of spiny red tentacles, strong enough to pull down concrete walls, fast enough to outrace most cars, and just about immune to anything short of high explosives. In this state, he is totally uncontrollable and fully non-sentient, and will attempt to kill and eat everything in sight.
The leader of Immortal Soul, a black guy in his late 50’s who goes about in diamond-studded chain and balenciaga, no costume other than raw wealth. His abilities are widely known, and he’ll try tactics like holding his enemies hostage by holding a gun to his own chest - generally not in his best interests to actually transform, due to the inevitable damage to his own side, but when push comes to shove he won’t hesitate to pull the trigger.
Baroque, 1Σ (Zap I, Shift I)
Constantly and involuntarily emits a blindingly bright light from her eyes, strong as a football-field floodlights when not blocked by her sunglasses.. with concentration, can focus into a single coherent beam powerful enough to flash-carbonize flesh at a range of several hundred feet.
Black woman who goes about in a hoodie, a black balaclava, and extremely thick flip-up-sunglasses (to protect everyone else ).. In her early 30’s, is actually True Immortal’s niece, has been trying to work up the courage to run away and go “hero” for ages now.
Coraźon, 1Σ (Shift I, Brawn I)
Ordinary super-strength allows him to go around cavorting around in extremely heavy metal armor without collapsing. Can dial up super-strength to substantially higher-levels, but starts sweating like a waterfall - has to throw back a bottle of gatorade every 6 seconds to avoid dying of dehydration while in super-state, more afterwards.
Immortal Soul’s remaining superhuman, a mexican dude whose recruitment was the reason Immortal Soul started letting latinos join at all - True Immortal thought he was too good to pass up, Cape muscle being relatively rare even in Kwangchow.
Black Mambas (AKA: The Almighty Mamba Nation)
Kwangchow’s third-ranking super-gang, Immortal Soul’s greatest rivals.. have fewer unpowered members and a smaller territory, but just as many capes, and a slightly better rep among the younger generation. For the most part the two gangs are bitter rivals, fighting constantly over territory and blood-debts and things of that sort, but they’ve collaborated once before, in the semi-recent past.. joining hand-in-hand to foil MNM’s second attempt at taking over the city. This time, though, there has ben and will be no alliance - not unless someone convinces them otherwise.
Symbols - A serpent with fangs bared, the colors black and red
Grootslang, 1Σ (Shift II [Durable I, Fly I, Brawn I])
Can, at will, take on an obviously draconic form, gaining a coat of black scales that turns knives and slows bullets and a pair of membranous wings which let him fly like a really large eagle. Flapping of wings creates deafening thunderclaps, can sweep up dustclouds and blow away light wheeled vehicles and small animals.
The leader of the black mambas, in his human shape a somewhat obese, heavily tattooed african-american male in his early 30’s, with a great deal of ambition but lacking the power or skill to match. Spends every night cursing the name of his younger brother, who he spent his childhood bullying for his interest in music, up until said brother attained actual success as a rapper and moved away to fame and fortune. Carries an M-16 with an underbarrel grenade-launcher.
Lazy Eye, 1Σ (Durable I, Percieve I) Extremely obese black man, with enough padding to reflect most blunt objects and cushion from sudden impacts. Can rotate eyes independently, see though own flesh, including back of head, giving effective 360 degree vision - surprisingly good at shooting backwards.
Antipatrick, 1Σ (Durable I, Create I) Immune to most poisons, can turn any water he looks at into a writhing mass of extremely aggressive venomous serpents which crawl as a living flood towards him until he reverts them to water. African-american, never been to europe, affects a faux-irish accent as part of the gimmick.
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Have I mentioned you should read Blood Syndicate
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Fire and Ice
A smaller gang founded and led by twin sisters Pyroclastic and Cryoplastic, who have matching superpowers and luchado-styled costumes. It consists of them and a few henchmen, engaging mostly in low-level violent crime - smash-and-grabs, muggings, home invasions, corner-store stickups, etc. They’re both white (soundcloud rappers), but the gang itself is multiethnic on account of being a purely money-making operation.
Symbols - A burning ice cube, the colors blue and red
Pyroclastic, 1Σ (Zap I, Ace I) Can project blasts of flame from her hands, except her fire has the strange property of making whatever it heats more rigid, not less - everything solidifies, hardens, becomes inflexible, even ice.
Cryoplastic, 1Σ (Zap I, Ace I) Can project blasts of liquid nitrogen from her hands, except her cold has the strange property of making whatever it freezes more plastic, as the name implies - water becomes more malleable as it freezes, somehow.
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