CONFLUENCE 03

[metamods]

THUNDERSTRUCK

This time there was warning. Any being with precognitive abilities finds themselves brought to their knees a few hours before the event, plagued with a hazy vision of chaos and fear. There's not enough detail to say what is to happen, but at least they have the where and when.

Excelsior, Washington.

The people seem annoyed when they are told to evacuate. After all, Excelsior was built to last. This is a city exempt from the unpredictability of nature. They have weather control systems set up to ensure nothing disrupts their research. This a city built upon scientific advancement, with every inch of infrastructure reliant upon it, and they are confident that they are safe within its borders.

And even without the stubborn minority, the Alliance knows there isn't enough time for a full evacuation. But still, they try. They call upon every available hero to race toward whatever chaos may be about to drop over the city. The Society has sent a few faces too, more quietly. Whether to help or hinder is anyone's guess, as there's whispered encouragement to do both.

The city isn't anywhere near empty when the air goes very still. Everyone and everything pauses and looks skyward as a few drops of rain begin to fall, and the artificial sky fades to reveal roiling clouds.

The Confluence begins.

ITS RAINING (SUPER) MEN

Rain slashes sideways as the skies darken, taking unnatural colors with every flash of lightning. It's beautiful and awe-striking, but knowing that somehow this bizarre phenomenon is the calm before the storm keeps anyone on the ground from enjoying it. Even the those who lack self preservation in the scientific community don't want to investigate the cause of this.

There's a flash of light and a boom. Those still caught in the streets waiting evacuation brace themselves.

And then people begin to fall.

If you are one of these people, you awaken to find yourself hurtling towards the ground at breakneck speed. You come into awareness just in time to register you're about to make impact with the ground, or a car, a building, whatever is underneath you. The impact pulverizes the surface strike, leaving a sizable crater, and as you pull yourself up you find yourself unharmed. Yet there's energy crackling in the air around you. If there are bystanders near you they whip out cellphones to capture the occurrence for their followers or for scientific posterities, crowding around the craters a buzz of excitement. Some of the more fearful ones simply turn and begin running in hopes they can beat the storm.

CRYPTO OR CRYPTID

Confluences give people powers. That's part of the deal. And while those of you who just fell from the sky are discovering your new gifts, others are also suddenly uncovering their own brand new talents.

Excelsior isn't exactly known for natural superpowers. Most of its heroes are self-made geniuses, armed with metasuits or other augments. Those that do have powers got them from scientific accidents, transforming due to experiments gone wrong or accidentally tumbling into toxic waste. They have emergency medical protocols ready for that - not for random people on the street suddenly gaining abilities.

Newly empowered townspeople may jump in to help deal with the evolving chaos, but their lack of control of their powers makes them a bigger threat than whatever threat they were trying to stop. Others will shamelessly take advantage of the chaos to live their villainous dreams, robbing stores and taking revenge on their shitty bosses, landlords, or exes.

The reserve members of the Guardian Alliance spring into action. The heavy hitters are elsewhere, trying to deal with the loss of power and getting the city back online, and so you're left with the rookies trying to keep pace. Many of them are inexperienced and unable to keep up with the raw power and ruthlessness of newly awakened metas. Fantastic, an aerokinetic and one of the newer recruits, seems to be the only one even remotely holding his own.

It's clear they need your help to contain this!

The storm doesn't peter out after the new arrivals have all landed, either. The panic and chaos below seems to fuel it to a second peak. Clouds roil, electricity snakes, and the thunder builds into a deafening crescendo. Then with one final, blinding burst of light, everything goes dark and quiet.

The power is out.

More than just the power — Excelsior is out. The powergrid has been downed, its internal networks corrupted, anything that makes the city function is completely fried, that last surge of the storm apparently having acted as an EMP blast. All of Excelsior's internal systems are now offline. The lights are all out.

Vehicles are stalled out in the streets. And then comes the first crashing boom of a falling hover car. There are more still in the air, but anyone who might be in a position to save them will have only moments to do so before they smash apart on whatever or whoever is unlucky enough to be stuck below them.

And it's not just that. Hospitals are now without power.

VLOG SQUAD STRIKES BACK

In every disaster, the best and worst of human nature can be found. The best shines in every outstretched hand and combined effort, in every life saved. The worst is a gaggle of young adults that live together in the city's least favorite content creator house, known with equal parts irritation and secondhand embarrassment as The Vlog Squad. It seems five of the eight streamer/vlogger/influencers have developed meta powers, including one with the power to record, edit, and broadcast with her mind. The entire group made an on-stream pact to become (non-guild affiliated) supervillains, and their views are skyrocketing.

One of them jumps off a building to demonstrate how he can put holes in everything below him.

Playlist, the ringleader with a sizable following on Youtube and TikTok, has the ability to Freeze, Rewind, Fast Forward reality. Be unlucky enough to be caught in her gaze and find yourself frozen in place, talking in reverse, or zipping around faster than you can control. Good luck getting someone to understand you when you sound like a chipmunk.

Then there's there's the second in command, Filter, an up and coming Instagram star. Filter's powers seem to be tied to their phone. If they get a picture of you in the air - welcome to anti-gravity, you're now stuck floating like a balloon until someone can get you back to Earth. If they slap a sepia filter on an unflattering photo of you, you're now encased in stone until someone drops a compliment. Each filter does something a little different and the unfortunate effects are yours to find out.

The rest of their squad is less notable, both in terms of power and in terms of following. There's a young man who can project his voice for miles around. A young woman who can compel people to dance to the beats dropped by her literal soundcloud. There's one unfortunate fellow whose only real power seems to be to turn people's heads into emojis for 30 seconds.

They're targeting known heroes, but will settle for property damage if it means getting attention. New metas may find themselves accosted by a unpleasant young adult with a camera, mockingly asking if they plan to become heroes. No matter the answer, the result is the same - they'll mock your choice and reasoning and try to get away with a cruel prank.

POWER RESTORED

The power is restored. With it, a belated message makes it to guild and society phones: the guild says restrain the Vlog Squad however you can and await authorities.

Meanwhile a very different message hits the airwaves. Mechanima's digitized voice comes across official channels, torn between amusement and annoyance. He says deal with them, don't care how you do it, but start with the broadcaster.

Once that's done, the guild places a call back to its headquarters to bring everyone back with a teleportation spell. The spell reaches out for whatever metahumans it can find in the area and pulls.

All the metahumans who were involved in the Confluence — new arrivals and old — to a white training space that has already transformed into a luxurious waiting room.

Atomight arrives quickly and makes the following announcement:

Thank you for your help out there. The casualties would be so much higher were it not for those of you who risked your lives to save strangers. To those of you grappling with your new abilities, please rest assured that this room will give you a much needed reprieve. We have staff on site who can work with you to gain control of you new abilities, and nullifiers if you find it's still too much.

You are the third set of newly powered individuals this confluence has brought. Though many of you are native to this world, others among you have come from far off universes. To those of you who have been flung far from home, we'll put you in connection with the others. Many of them are here today and can advise you of what your new reality is here.

We of the Guardian Alliance are committed to doing everything we can to get you home, and to give you some time to get your feet under you. And as this may be your home for a while longer, I wish to formally extend an invitation to those of you who wish to use your powers to defend the innocent to join us.

They hand out cellphones to all present. Once everyone gathered has been looked over and attended to they're directed to the Diadem in and handed a credit card.

Later into the night, another message comes across those phones. The Society of Villainous Reformation formally extends an invitation to all those villainously inclined. Reply for more info.

IN SUMMARY

• New arrivals are falling from the skies. They're unharmed despite what should be a lethal impact. People in the city also begin developing superpowers upon landing.


• Players are free to create their own powered NPCs for these encounters and can use them.


• A notable group of online content creators called the Vlog Squad have developed powers and are terrorizing the city and are livestreaming every minute thanks to their powers.


• The Vlog Squad has declared on camera that they do not intend to join any guild and are already showing signs of disrespecting the code. For those already committed to guilds, this means:

  Atomight will ask player characters in the Guardian Alliance to deal with them peacefully.
  
  Mechanima demands that members of the Society of Villainous Reformation deal with them — whether this means incapacitating them, forcing them to join, or killing them is their choice.

• If anyone wants to engage Mechanima or Atomight, HERE is a top level where we will summarize their responses to PC questions and comments. Please also reply to this comment with what your character plans to do with the Vlog Squad. We encourage you to make posts on the OOC comm plotting out conflict and responses. You may also use this top level to ask event-specific questions about the effects on this page! (Please refer general questions about the setting to the FAQ, and refer any player plots to the PLOTTING page.)

VLOG SQUAD ENCOUNTERS

For each event with a clear antagonistic NPC force — such as the Vlog Squad, in the February arrival — interested players can pitch their characters' encounters with those NPCs. Whether characters are heroic and suited to the role or not, the aim is the group effort of pitching in, so we highly encourage collaborating on these encounters. Once enough NPC encounters have been submitted, we'll determine if and how the trouble has been addressed, and select one of those encounters to be the final, conclusive one in the game. Everyone else's encounters will also have taken place, but may have been temporary stopgaps in addressing the conflict rather than a conclusive blow. For this Confluence, we are asking that submissions be finalized by 3/5.

How it works:

• Reply to the relevant top-level comment with an encounter and/or questions about the encounter. The mods are happy to go back and forth with before locking in exactly what a character or group of characters does. Any conversations between characters and NPCs will most likely be happening prior to combat unless specified by the players.


• The mods ask that players present two options. In one version, the character or group of characters kills, immobilizes, or otherwise apprehend the villain(s). In the other version, one way or another, the villain escapes or overcomes the character or group of characters. Players who wish to have a specific spot in the timeline (near to the beginning or near to the end) should make this request explicit, and the mods will make efforts to accommodate this.


• The mods will RNG the results for the final encounter. For all other submissions, the escape/overcome option is selected. Open calls for collaboration which result in multiple player characters contributing to an idea or solution (see: Kamala Khan's solution to the Cerberus fight) have a much higher chance of being the final encounter, as we want to reward player collaboration and innovation. Please be sure that after everyone has weighed in you return to the top-level comment to report exactly what is happening and who is doing what.


• The mods will reply to player submissions with a brief outline of how all of the run-ins go, whether it's a fight or a slapstick series of hilarious accidents that involves the character(s).

Request NPC encounters using the following form —
<B>Characters involved:</b> Name (username) <b>Details of the encounter:</b> What's the plan? <B>How might the villain escape or overcome the player character(s)?</b> <B>How would the player character(s) kill, immobilize, or apprehend the villain?</b>

EXAMPLE—

Character(s) involved: The Iron Giant and Hank Hill
Details of the encounter: Hank will ride in Iron Giant's hand as they search the city for the Vlog Squad, eventually spotting them in a public park. They land explosively in the middle, throwing all of the squad off of their feet while the Iron Giant sends out a signal to scramble their livestreams and begins trying to catch the offenders up in both hands. Hank will try to tackle at least one of them.

How might the villain escape or overcome the player character(s)? Playlist slow motions Iron Giant and they easily duck its grasp, and Filter leaves Hank floating upside down as they make their escape.

How would the player character(s) kill, immobilize, or apprehend the villain? Iron Giant grabs Playlist before she can slow it, then picks up and captures all but Emoji; Hank throws a branch and beans that guy right in the head. Iron Giant gathers him up too, and they turn them in to the first batch of emergency responders they find.

Comments

Otto Octavius | OTA

[doctopoda]

i. thunderstruck

[Otto smashes right into a car, because of course he does.

He clambers awkwardly out of the crater, supported by only one of his lower claws. The other is severed, and he quickly grabs hold of the broken actuator with his hands; it's twitching and spewing sparks everywhere. Not the greatest condition during torrential rain! Scowling at anyone nearby with a cell phone, he hurries off as quickly as he can.

Otto doesn't particularly want to start looting, but he wants to be a walking electrical hazard in a rainstorm much less. It's easy to break his way into a hardware store, where he can be found carefully applying some electrical tape and insulation.]

You're fine, you're fine. I know it isn't fixed, we'll deal with that later...

[He abruptly stops speaking if he notices anyone around. He really needs to stop doing that.

Once the tentacle is secured to his satisfaction, he heads back out into the streets to try and figure out just where the hell he is this time. He makes a somewhat imposing figure, tall and broad with a long coat and collar pulled up around his face, and of course the huge robot tentacles. But people don't seem...that alarmed? Not by him specifically, anyway, there's a lot of general running and yelling.

It's a little heartening. Enough so that he stops rushing about in a bid to get off the streets, and starts helping to clear them or pull people out of craters instead. He even lifts a car out of a few inches of rushing floodwater at one point!

He flees as soon as anyone starts taking photos, though. Seems he's not a big fan of his picture being taken.]

ii. post-arrival

[Immediately after being dragged away (to yet another location, probably by yet another wizard or some shit), Otto spends quite a while in the power nullification room. Look, if you're in a room that can materialize whatever you want, you may as well take advantage! He's set up a little welding station - in a corner, as private from everyone else around here as he can manage - and is fixing the claw back onto that broken tentacle.

One of the other actuators is helping. The other two sway idly behind him, like they're looking around - ]

Can I help you with something?

[He asks dryly without looking up from his work, if someone looks like they're staring. Yeah, they're totally looking around, don't worry about it.]

iii. the diadem

[Frankly, Otto is sick of being yanked all over various random dimensions. You can't really blame him for lurking in a corner of the hotel bar for a little while, drinking and trying to pretend like people aren't looking at all of the tentacle shit going on over here. He probably won't be approaching anyone here, sorry, but other people can totally approach him! The tentacles aren't even doing anything too scary!

Some do, anyway. That's where he runs into Peter, and then Norman, and that - he's not alone here. Not entirely. That's something.

Otto spends most of his time up in the room after that, but he does venture down to the lobby at one point to pick up takeout and some extra towels. Which is why the elevator you just called opens to reveal a large man with a large array of robot tentacles inside, taking up most of it.]

Oh. Sorry, I can -

[He pulls the tentacles in as much as he can. It's awkward and not that effective!]

iv. wildcard

(( hmu on lluosogrwydd or goldfinch#4530 on discord if you'd like to plan out something else! ))

( iii )

[bestversion]

[ kamala can't help staring. isn't that doctor octopus?? ]

Uhh, maybe I'll take the stairs.

[ not sure if sharing a elevator with a known supervillain is a good idea. ]

[doctopoda]

[His smile immediately goes a bit strained. But you know, that is so fair. Otto probably should have just taken the stairs himself; god knows he can get up them with a lot less effort than most.]

No, no - [He stops the doors closing (with a tentacle) and goes to step out.] - you go on. I'll wait for the next one.

[bestversion]

[ that doesn't seem very supervillainy. maybe he's halfway through some kind of redemption arc. ]

You sure?

Maybe these elevators just need to be bigger. To . . . accommodate more people.

diadem!

[discrepantly]

This is becoming habitual, [ norman says as he steps into the bar and settles next to otto, trailing fingers over one of the actuators almost fondly as he does so. ] Probably one we shouldn't indulge in too often.

[ norman certainly shouldn't, at least, so he doesn't bother to signal the bartender for a drink. instead, he rests his elbow on the bar and his cheek in his palm, eyes sliding toward the other man. ]

I saw earlier that one of the actuators was damaged. You're alright now?

[doctopoda]

Oh, it's alright for now.

[Otto's aware that he may be verging on some unfortunate coping habits. Let's not talk about it!

He lifts the actuator in question, turning the claw to and fro. You can see the line where it was welded back together pretty easily, and its movement isn't as fluid as the others. An annoyance, for a perfectionist like him, but the important thing is that the AI has finally shut up about it.]

I want to get some better materials later, have another go at it. But that's not a problem. They're all due for some work, anyway. [He has no idea if Norman realizes what exactly caused that damage, but he's just downplaying the issue anyway.]

[discrepantly]

[ let's not talk about it for now, anyway.

he lifts his head again to eye the repair thoughtfully, brows knitting. ] How was it damaged in the first place? [ his head aches thinking of all that's happened just in the last day. ]

Are you planning to go out into the city? [ he almost feels as if he can face the idea of it if he's going along with otto instead of venturing out on his own. ]

ii

[chulk]

[It's not rude to snoop on a supervillain is what Amadeus tells himself as he stares openly at Otto's work.]

Probably not.

[He goes back to staring or it's more accurate to say he's running some calculations of his own.]

You should try to get 6% more heat on that.

[He really shouldn't be giving a supervillain tips, but the need to show off overrules common sense.]

[doctopoda]

Is that so?

[Otto's been a proud man in the past, he can't deny that. But it's hard to remain so after making the kinds of mistakes he has. He is definitely open to advice - and, after a moment of running through that himself, he nods and takes it.

Unfortunately (?), that's definitely gotten his attention, though! Now two of the tentacles have turned to focus on Amadeus. He looks young. Seems you can't go anywhere without tripping over some kind of tech prodigy these days.]

You have engineering experience?

[chulk]

I'm not in college or anything, but I've picked up some things. [Amadeus specialised in raw calculating power, but at his level they all dabbled in other fields as well.]

I'm good at running numbers and you can figure out most things by doing enough calculations.

iii

[rehandle]

[ The cloak precedes him, which is par for the course at this point. There's something about the scale of the place that puts a spring in its... levitating... and it sticks to him more emphatically than it did even in the Sanctum whenever he leaves his room. Maybe that's because it barely gets to leave the building. Maybe it needs more walks.

Anyway, here it goes, tearing through the bar as the strained voice of a man who would rather not be chasing an overconfident drape through the most expensive hotel in Central City trails after it. ]

Will you stop—

[ Which it does, wrapping itself over the corner of an upholstered booth bench with an abrupt thwack of fabric, just a few seats along from a man who is very clearly trying to mind his own business. Stephen comes into view a few seconds later, scanning the room. His gaze holds on the guy with the... whole lot going on, a second or two, before drifting on again with not much more to show for it than the brief tweak of his brow. Turns out, swaying metal tentacles provide great camouflage for hiding cloaks. ]

[doctopoda]

[Luckily for the cape, Stephen's arrival draws Otto and the actuator's attention pretty quickly; they're not gonna give it away by staring at it when the wizard has just walked into the bar. He returns the arched brow for the second the man's looking at him, both upper actuators watching with slightly opened claws.

He's not...really holding a grudge about the whole "send them back to die" thing. If it had just been him, he might actually think the man had the right of it. But it wasn't, and there's a certain petty satisfaction in just...not being at all helpful here! He takes a sip of his drink and mutters to the cape out of the side of his mouth:]

On the run from fate?

[Maybe he's a little too accustomed to speaking with faceless, arguably-animate things, but here we are.]

[rehandle]

[ The cloak lifts the half of its collar closest to the man addressing him, acknowledgement or a shh it's difficult to say, then flops back flat. Stephen meanwhile is casting his attention around the bar, desperately trying not to have to start asking strangers have you seen a cloak fly through here.

Perhaps sensing its advantage, the cloak starts worming ever so slowly closer to its would-be ally while Stephen's focus is elsewhere. Blind spots are hard to come by, but since a certain somebody seems to be actively ignoring the most obvious focus draw in the room... perfect hiding spot. ]

ii.

[nepotis]

[ This white room is too bright. Harry wishes he had his sunglasses still, but he seems to have lost them, either in Excelsior, or in Kansas, or even before that, back in his own universe. The whole thing is bullshit, and he's been on edge since he first landed.

So when he sees some weird metal claw seemingly staring at him, well, yeah. He's going to glare back. ]

Your fucking tentacle is staring at me.

[doctopoda]

They'll do that.

[Could he stop them? Sure. But it takes focus to hold them still, and he’s busy. The tentacle in question looks briefly between Harry and Otto, apparently aware it's being discussed.]

Don't worry, they're just interested in all the new stimuli. They won't bite.

[nepotis]

[ Harry starts scratching his neck compulsively; the healing he'd gotten from knocking out Emoji is already starting to wear off, and the added stress from being stared down by a fucking robot arm is making his skin crawl. ]

You talk about them like they're alive.

yet another iii

[vexish]

[Harley doesn't even really seem to notice the whole tentacle thing. She's too busy focusing on her phone, playing some angry squirrel game. Still, she manages to duck and dodge around the robot tentacles, showing some kind of peripheral awareness of her surroundings.

That awareness seems to end the second she scores a big win and gives a jump to celebrate. She manages to bonk her head right on one of those tentacles. And it's then that she pries her eyes off of her phone and tips her head to look up and really observe who she's in the elevator with.]

Wowza. Talk about getting handsy. Do those things have a mind of their own, or what?

[doctopoda]

[Otto was slightly surprised at the woman's complete lack of concern, but he didn't allow himself to dwell on it. This world's weird; maybe things like this happen? He's not going to complain about someone not recoiling at the sight of him!

He does make the effort to hold the actuators away and still, though, which is why he arches his eyebrows down at her when she manages to both bash her head into one and then immediately intuit their general nature anyhow.]

Sort of, yes. Are you alright? [With that focus gone, the tentacle she bonked her head on rotates around to look at her as well.]

i.

[planetary_bonds]

[Yusei notices the electrical store's door hanging wide open and ducks in to get out of the rain. It's only after he shakes his hair out that he hears Otto talking to his...mechanical limbs? Huh?

The whole talking to electronics thing isn't the weird part - Yusei's murmured words of encouragement to his D-Wheel when trying to test drive it enough times to know the feeling (it's an engineering thing, babe). It's the whole...giant, sparking limbs thing. Yusei's torn between going "what the fuck" and "actually those are cool though, can I look," but neither of these options seem entirely...polite? Feasible? Appropriate?

It's not like Yusei to worry about those kinds of things, but, well. It's been A Day, and he hasn't actually sat through an entire day yet.]

...Ah. [brilliant.] Do you...need any help?

[doctopoda]

No, no. This is nothing.

[He plainly knows what he's doing, hands moving quickly and confidently, but the nature of doing it in a general hardware store means that it's necessarily a bit slapdash. Otto doesn't feel like this is the time or place to sit down for some proper repairs, even if he did have the materials he'd need.

...ehhh, speaking of. He winces a little and adds.]

Actually - do you have a pen? I should probably leave a note about the window.

[planetary_bonds]

Um.

[Yusei probably should have guessed that would be the response, but his hands twitch regardless as he restrains himself from immediately coming over to help regardless. Instead, he jerks his head in the direction of the door and frowns.]

Given what's happening outside, I don't think that's necessary.

[Even if he did. have a pen. which he doesn't. sorry.]

ii

[portolan]

[ After getting yanked back here from the aftermath of the fight with Filter, Balthier slept for at least an hour. He's not all the way back to himself, but he's alert enough that he can't sleep any longer with all the noise. Balthier knows he can either sit stewing in frustration that his magic is more or less useless, or he can keep himself busy.

And figuring out a way to power his bike that isn't by using his own energy would be a great help. ]

If you don't mind my asking, what's powering your machines?

[ He hasn't seen anything like this before, but after being here for a month and a half, there isn't a ton that surprises him. ]

[doctopoda]

[Otto keeps his eyes on his work, but he doesn't seem to mind the question.]

There's a thermo-electric generator in there. Small, but it serves its purpose. Why do you ask?

[you know, I was gonna complain about having to bullshit an answer to a science question, but actually it turns out the comics wiki contains absurd amounts of detail on that kind of thing. the more you know.]

iii

[thecoolerloki]

No need.

[he says with a seemingly polite smile as he steps into the elevator. He's pretty tiny so he squeezes in easily.

Once the doors close and they begin moving... Loki starts repeatedly poking at each tentacle within his reach. Still smiling politely.]

[doctopoda]

[The tentacles react more than the man does; they whir and twist about to look at Loki. Their claws open, but it doesn't seem like an aggressive motion. Maybe they would have been a little bit snappish under different circumstances, but Otto's very much paying attention to this whole thing.]

What are you doing?

[He doesn't seem annoyed! Honestly it's a little refreshing.]