STARSTRUCK

[metamods]

 

STARSTRUCK.

➢ This is the final log of our Starstruck event! As we head into this log, keep in mind that some of the changes made will impact the game long-term. If you would like to suggest something, we are still keeping an eye on our EVENT WORKSHOP.

April 3rd has been the anniversary of a tragedy for the last four decades. It was the day when everything changed, when worlds collapsed and new rules and regulations had to be created to prevent what happened from ever, ever repeating.

However, the action that spurned the world-changing event has been prevented. The death of his entire family was stopped, thus, Godfall never happened.

It's a change that goes against the Shining God's plan. A change that ruins everything, and she does not intend to let it pass unchecked.

History is forever altered. The question is simply how it will be changed.

SEPTEMBER 27TH, 2023

You hear a call. Wordless, but clear. Something is about to happen, you are all on the precipice of change and now is your last chance to help shape it.

It happens for all Starfallen: one moment they're continuing through their day, working jobs, taking a nice afternoon nap, defeating criminals or taking heroes down a peg when suddenly - vines sprout up from the ground, forming a delicate arch. On one side is the present, your present. On the other is the past.

The voice is whisper thin and fading, but somehow you know you can trust it. It's the force that kept you projected as you hurtled through time and space, the hands that held you as you fell. It tells you something in the past has changed, and it's going to change everything.

Walking through the archway isn't necessary; some may feel a push, one they cannot ignore no matter how hard they try. Some may miss the archway entirely as it appears just out of view, or some may feel the urge to continue through it but will be able to disregard the instinct.

Regardless: the archway lingers for several moments, before it disappears entirely. There will be no further option for them to travel back through time; the archway and it's call is the last the Willow Maiden can manage. Stepping through will take you to…

APRIL 2ND, 1985

Unfortunately, with her powers waning, she cannot guarantee where you will land. Only when.

Was your character in Central City in 2023? Well, maybe now they're in Egypt, stuck in a tourist trap. Were they in Excelsior? Maybe they've found themselves in Sunset Falls, standing off the roadside. While they seem to find themselves in areas known for massive levels of meta energy - it isn't consistent.

You feel the call, you know where you must go. Central City is where the world will change. Where the Godfall Incident is destined to occur. If you have any hope of influencing it, you need to find your way to Central City or connect with those already here.

Those already in the past will hear the whispers of the Willow Maiden in the trees, announcing the arrival and her best guess at where people have fallen. Use your resources to gather your allies, because tomorrow will change everything forever.

LATE EVENING, APRIL 3RD, 1985

It's April 3rd, 1985. There should be a tragedy happening.

Central City should be torn asunder right now. A teenage boy should be grieving a loss he was never meant to know, suffering a fate he didn't deserve. The sky should be blackened and cracked, reality coming undone at the seams. Rather than follow his usual route home and run into the likes of Eclipse, Starstruck spoke to Leo and took a different path. The butterfly flapped its wings and fate changed. The sight of Atomight on the rooftop of his home was enough to warn away anyone who would dare to attack, thanks to the tips of Dick Grayson. The plot to destroy him by destroying his loved ones - thwarted, as Eclipse finds himself instead being carted off to the nearest jail by the CCPD.

This decade's biggest turning point, the reason the guilds had been formed, what had been cause for the rules the metahumans of this world have been following for forty years - prevented.

The birds are singing and the sky is a bright, impossible blue. History has charted a different course and it is all thanks to you, the Starfallen, interlopers to this world making it a better place.

However, your task is not yet done. Chaos Gate is folded in on herself outside a suburban home that happens to be only blocks away from where Starstruck's family resides, eyes clenched shut. The home belongs to Neil Perkins, whom she believes is responsible for Fantastic's fate. Around her is a wall of magic that no native metahuman can penetrate. History was meant to repeat with her, but it seems she may yet serve as a replacement for the young Starstruck.

The young Atomight makes a valiant attempt to punch straight through, just as the young Mechanima attempts to test his latest invention - neither so much as make a dent. The archnemesis glance anxiously at each other. Military personnel are trying to flag all metahumans they can find, knowing that this is a bomb that's about to blow - and they want her taken out before her fuse reaches its end.

Starstruck himself doesn't seem to know what to do. He stands poised and ready to leap in and fight, but he doesn't seem to feel good about this choice.

When the Starfallen approach this barrier, though, they find it familiar. It's the same warm, loving magic that brought them here. It parts smoothly as Starfallen approaches, welcoming - or begging - them to avert this tragedy. Entering is easy, but take a few steps and you feel it. The Shining God's loathing, the threads of fate being severed with each step you take. It is agony, and each step feels like being born just to die.

INSIDE THE MAGIC

You know without a doubt that this is the power of metahumans. Whatever this is, the impossible has become possible. You are the conduit of change and this does not extend merely to this world, but to every other one that you have ever touched.

This is a test. Of you, of your determination, of your spirit and dedication to forge your own future. There is a push and pull, order and chaos are waging a war and you are the pawns that chaos is using to break the shackles this world is bound to. The landscape is ever shifting, the magical storm preventing you from reaching the out of control host of all this possibility. The effects vary from person to person.

➢ A VISIT TO THE PAST, you are transported to a pivotal moment in your past. A choice you had to make. Doing so completely alters the trajectory of the world you make that choice in.

➢ ALTERNATE SELVES. You feel the possibilities of who you could be suddenly waging for control of you who are. Villain, hero, something inbetween - you may try to sabotage other Starfallen who enter, trying to prevent them from reaching Chaos Gate. You may also be compelled to try to kill Starstruck, who is also lost within this shifting realm, as that would put the timeline right.

➢ DYSTOPIAN TIME TRAVEL. You may end up at different points throughout the world - your world, this world, and others. A butterfly flaps its wings and you are viewing the changes. Perhaps you find yourself in your own past, where your choice to deviate from the intended path has led to destruction. Perhaps you find yourself in the ruins of this one, or another you had briefly drifted into throughout your time in the multiverse. This is a threat, showing you what could happen if you change the past. Most of these will be dystopian futures, imaginary what-ifs.

These effects will last until Chaos Gate is subdued. However, they can feel as long or as short as wanted - time doesn't pass normally within the storm.

AT THE CENTER

The Shining God makes herself known in the hurricane of power, burning brilliantly amidst the shifting landscape. She is the center point to which all are drawn to. It is plain upon arrival that this is not the Goddess herself, but rather one of the cult who has imbued themselves with her power. Agatha shines with the might of her God, and she is eager to serve her well.

It does not appear as though this individual can be reasoned with. To kill her would be to slay some aspect of the Goddess' divinity.

And rest assured, she is unwilling to accept any other defeat. She stands ready to eradicate all threats to their plan.

Once the Goddess has fallen, all there is left to do is to tend to the Chaos. There is an easy solution to your problem - slaying the girl would be a quick, clean end to all of this. However, speaking your own truths about what you have faced in this labyrinth may be enough to calm her raging heart.

Whatever action characters take is true: each may slay the girl, and each may save. In this pocket of time and space, both actions are equally true. Schrodinger smiles as his experiment rings true.

At least until, Wonder Woman steps in with a weapon gifted to her from Eros, subduing Chaos Gate and bringing all this chaos to a close.

SEPTEMBER 28TH, 2023

The moment Chaos Gate falls unconscious, you find yourselves back in the present. The world appears far more vibrant than it did before, the leaves in the trees still a brilliant green despite the onset of Fall.

Yet the world has changed. Is changing.

The past and the present are reconciling slowly, weaving together to make a new whole. These changes will take time, but you can already see them starting to take shape - there are more metahumans than you remember there ever being before. The cult of the Shining God does not appear to be nearly as prevalent as it once was.

And none of the NPCs know who Fantastic is, nor are they able to recall the events of July… save for the three unofficial leaders of the Metahuman population.

They can't say what ways the cards are going to fall, but they tell you that they will have your back no matter what.

CLIFF NOTES.

➢ Portals are opening to allow all Starfallen to return to the past to face the coming battle. Those who opt to travel through time will arrive more than 24 hours before the event occurs.

➢ They could wind up anywhere. Now is your chance to have a globe-trotting adventure to gather your friends!

➢ On the evening of April 3, 1985 Central City will be consumed by a hurricane of metahuman energy - not caused by Starstruck, but by Chaos Gate.

➢ Inside this hurricane, Starfallen will be faced with a number of challenges. They may find alternate selves struggling to take control of their body, they may be transported to a different point in time, they may find themselves at a point in their own past with the chance to change everything.

➢ The deeper you travel through the storm of meta energy, the more dramatic the onslaught gets.

➢ At its center are two figures - Chaos Gate and an avatar of the Shining God. The Shining God fights by creating duplicates of herself that move in unison, and bends light to create weapons. Players can SIGN UP to land the final blow.

➢ Once she has been defeated, Diana will be subduing Chaos Gate. However we are leaving room for players to debate the outcome, and their actions and choices will still have impact.

➢ Starfallen will find themselves back in the present, perhaps not knowing how this played out. The timelines will slowly merge together over the course of October.

➢ We will provide further updates on the shape things are taking in the October State of the Game.

WILDCARD.

Metaheroes takes inspiration from all walks of comics. Take a look at the CITIES to get an idea as to what day to day life is like in the other cities. Perhaps you've encountered a supervillain (or hero) who needs to be thwarted, or a metahuman with unusual powers creating bizarre effects.

Comments

3

[purplexing]

[The targets are many but that only makes it easier in that it gives him a clearer focus. He can still feel himself stressing and straining at the edges of the boundaries that define him as one Donnie apart from whatever varying iterations of him there are. But in this task, most of them are in agreement; the Shining God must pay for her hand in things, for the problems caused by her intervention when their own existence in this world had been beyond their control.

Purple light flares with each conjuring of his mystic-tech as Donnie lets loose, meeting the multiple targets with a barrage of artillery from missiles to lasers and anything in between that he feels will do the trick. His ability is only hindered by his imagination, and it seems when it comes to technical weaponry, he's not lacking.

But there are so many, and he's only one. Thankfully not alone, vaguely aware of the others here in this strange space.

The teen turtle turns at the shout, and it's mostly out of reflex that he brings up his bō, catching the incoming glowing blade of one of the dopplegangers as it swings down at him.]

-!

[avatarfortruth]

[ She coils the lasso with a quick motion, then swings the bow into position, a gleaming arrow nocked at the string. ]

Mind your eyes.

[ She releases. The arrow goes thrumming through the air with a high, silvery whine, piercing the doppelganger through the heart. It dissipates with a shriek, vanishing in an eye-watering blaze of light. Diana flies toward the turtle, shouldering the bow once more and taking her lasso into her hands as she lands lightly behind him, guarding his back. ]

Your weapons are most impressive.

[purplexing]

[The arrow seemingly comes out of nowhere but Donnie shuts his eyes the moment he sees it hit, and even then he can still see the flash past his eyelids. But he feels the pressure against his weapon ease up, and when he looks, the light is already fading out from where one of the Shining God's copies had been.]

Thanks! [He says, both for the assist and the compliment as he looks to the woman who's landed by him with a brief pause.] Wow, you're beautiful. -did I say that aloud.

[He shakes his head. Focusssss.]

If this continues for too long, I'm not sure I can keep things up. We have to find the original...

[avatarfortruth]

You did.

[ Said equably as she loops the lasso around another doppelganger and forces it to confront the truth of itself: that it isn't really here, that it was never really here. ]

But while I appreciate the compliment, you're correct. We lack the time to spend on pleasantries.

Have you observed any pattern to their attacks that might help us find their source?

[purplexing]

[His face flushes slightly at that, but Donnie turns his attention to the ever-appearing numbers around them, clutching his bō.]

No patterns, but this isn't the first time I've fought against the Lady of Endings' forces.

[He pulls his goggles down, hoping his actual tech holds out in this space.]

Her power is kind of like an inversion- it's like looking at negative space or a vacuum. -Gah!

[Spinning his staff, he parries another attacker before driving her back with a forceful jab.]

All her copies embody that same property, but I imagine the real one will be somehow more concentrated.

[avatarfortruth]

Would you be able to find it, if the field were not so cluttered with duplicates?

[ She has no method of finding the avatar of the Shining God on her own. There'd been some hope that she could follow the spiraling lines of the energy storm, or that the duplicates would be clustered around her like bees around their queen, but those are assumptions at best. ]

[purplexing]

It'd be a little less to have to look through, that's for sure! And if she has to actively generate them, maybe it'll show up somehow on my scans.

[Purple glows around him as he creates another flurry of hardlight missiles, sending them flying forth before they separate and home in on the nearest targets.]

[avatarfortruth]

Then allow me to provide some space.

[ She blurs into motion, the lasso moving so quickly through the air it spins into a golden, glowing disc. She flicks it at first one duplicate, then another, then another and another, moving around him in a widening circle that slowly begins to clear.

She can't keep it clear forever, but perhaps he won't need that long. ]

[purplexing]

[Oh the uses he'd never considered for a lasso. Not that he's really had need to consider using a lasso, and he suspects from the glow of it that this is no ordinary one. Well, still, good to know!]

Whoa!

[But there's no time to be impressed- Donnie's got a job to do too, and so he sets to work scanning the field as Diana clears out what she can.]

[avatarfortruth]

[ This place holds a myriad of truths. Even the lasso could not tell the difference between one unwalked path and those she had taken. Even now, they're buffeted by more truths than she can parse: Chaos Gate is dead. Chaos Gate lives. The avatar of the Shining God is fighting for her life. The avatar of the Shining God is nowhere to be seen, but her triumph, clear and vicious, rises around them.

She sets herself to revealing this singular truth: that the duplicates are nothing but illusion. As the lasso whips around them, catching throats and wrists, ankles and waists, the truth reveals itself: their weapons are made of light, and can not hurt. Their bodies are a dream, and cannot hold together.

Despite her effort, her call to him is clear and steady. ]

Anything?

[purplexing]

[Donnie can't see things in shades of truths like Diana's lasso detects. His mystic-imbued goggles however offer him a different slant on that aspect, his violet-tinted view dotted with splotches of black.

Somewhere he can catch the familiar traces of Chaos Gate's magical signature, interspersed with the Shining God's retaliation. It's dizzying and between his expenditure of energy from thinning out dopples earlier and the headache from trying to pick out a virtual needle in a haystack, not any easier a task. But wait...]

-I think she's one of the ones mostly engaging with Chaos Gate!

[avatarfortruth]

Then let us stop her.

[ She stills the lasso, letting the golden coils wind around her own arm, and reaches for him. There's the slightest edge of amusement to her smile, mild despite their situation. ]

I hope you don't mind heights.

[purplexing]

No objections there!

[Donnie grins back at her, holding his hand out.]

Never had a problem with them before!

[avatarfortruth]

[ She smiles, a flash of laughing grin, and nods. Diana grips his hand in hers, then pulls, tossing him up into the air before she leaps into it behind him, catching him beneath the arms before he can fall. This way, at least one of them has two free hands, and can wield their weapons. ]

– There. I see them.

[purplexing]

[Maybe he should have asked what she had in mind but in the next moment he's being flung- wow she is strong- and then she's caught up with him. Aw sweet, she can fly without tech!

Donnie catches on with his role pretty quickly at least, batting away any attacks that come within range of them.

His brow furrows as he catches sight of Chaos Gate.]

...I know she's the one responsible for things...but I don't want to fight her. I don't think we can anyway- but... I'm not sure how to stop her. The first time didn't work out so well.

[avatarfortruth]

Your compassion does you credit –

[ She blinks, then looks down at him, apologetic even in the face of the howling energy storm and minions of the Shining God around them. ]

– I'm sorry, what's your name?

[purplexing]

Donatello, but just Donnie's fine.

[He's taking the opportunity to rest up a bit from mystic-tech slinging, but he won't hesitate to conjure up anything to intercept any attempted attacks he might not be able to dissuade with his staff.]

Chaos Gate- she's not bad. She's just hurting a lot and really desperate to fix things.

[avatarfortruth]

Donatello. My name is Diana.

[ Despite everything – the storm, the destruction, the way truth and truth and truth smash together – her voice is gentle. ]

I know. I don't wish to hurt her. But she must be stopped, so she will hurt no one else.

[purplexing]

[He nods, committing the name and face to memory. He's not sure how things will pan out in this swirling mess, but he hopes they all make it out in one piece.]

I know...

I sure hope you have an idea on how.

[He's not very good at non-violent means of solving things when it comes to this sort of problem.]

[avatarfortruth]

A few ideas.

[ They're nearing the center now, Agatha and her doubles seething below them. ]

But we'll have to stop her, first.

[purplexing]

[That's better than what he's got, so he's glad to hear it. Ah, but there is that problem.]

Yep. She's never been a fan of us.

[He spins his bō, grasping it tightly in both his hands as he nods.]

Let's take her down.

[avatarfortruth]

An excellent idea.

[ He has his weapon in his hands, ready. She'll need to set him down to access hers. The doubles swarm as soon as she sets him down, but then she's in motion, slipping her tiara from her forehead and sending it spinning, a lethally sharp boomerang, into the ranks of Agathas. ]

I can keep them off you. Go.

[purplexing]

[The moment his feet touch whatever sort of ground they've been able to stand upon, Donnie's moving, fast. His staff snaps out at any of the copies that try getting in his way, Diana's tiara helping to cut a path for him.

That is so cool.

He doesn't waste the effort, taking every advantage of clearance to move in like a ninja do.]

[avatarfortruth]

[ The tiara comes whirling back, and she catches it, tucks it back into her hair, then swings the bow back into position and begins firing gleaming arrows into the mass of duplicates. True to Eros' word, the quiver never runs empty, and the bow sings in her hands, flexing without any sign of breaking.

But the range the bow offers means she can clear Donnie's way from a distance, giving the turtle an open path forward. ]

[purplexing]

[The atmosphere is ever shifting, one breath spread across a dozen moments, every action splintering into another timeline, another possibility, every choice altering the course of numerous events.

The real Agatha stands like a blistering hole in the strange landscape, a void that seems so surreal it tries to force the eye away. Donnie hurtles forward, missiles tracing in the air beside him before flying off to assist with clearing the way.

Diana's shots are impressive and certainly help. If he had the time then he'd be interested in having a better look at what she was using, those arrows already showing up with interesting readings for each shot that flies within his goggles' view.

Donnie reaches deep, pulling out all the stops. It's only been a scattering of missiles and lasers, but he figures the best way to handle things is all at once. This close to their target, he hopes even he can catch a goddess by surprise.

It's not just a tank or a canon that comes into being; it's battery upon battery of heavy artillery, an arsenal of pure hardlight weaponry. Neon violet light lances through the air as he strikes, trying to keep sight of his main target amidst the flash and flare of his ninpō.]