Heroes-type Chain Story?

slyc_willie

Captain Crash
Joined
Sep 4, 2006
Posts
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[size=+2]The Progeny[/size]

Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three

Schedule:
Jan 26: slyc_willie
Feb 2: AchtungNight
Feb 9: KarennaC
Feb 16: Remec
Feb 23: ?

The Map

Back Story

The Villains:

Joseph Baines Krell
Age: 66

Dr. Miguel Ruiz
Age: 61

Born into money, Joseph Krell never had to want for anything in his life. His father, however, insisted young Joe learn what it means to earn a living, and had his son start off as a middle-manager for a product distribution warehouse in Kansas. It was a job Joe hated, although he proved to be an adept leader. Still, his arrogance was telling to those around him; Joe looked down upon most people, and it showed.

His father was impressed with the way Joe handled business, so the young Krell was promoted several times, until Joe Krell became vice-president of Krellco Industries. At only thirty-one, Krell began investing his share of the business in numerous endeavors, including military and government contracts. The elder Krell was none to fond of his son's business tactics, however, even though they made the company money. He finally began to realize just how ruthless his son was when Joe closed down some less-profitable textile plants in favor of devoting money toward medical research. Tens of thousands in America's heartland were put out of work, a fact which Joe did not seem to mind.

Joe's father eventually threatened his son with firing him, to which Joe responded by leaving Krellco Industries and taking his contracts with him. Forming a new company called Firefall, Krell amassed an incredible fortune through defense contracts and medical research grants. By 1980, Firefall was one of the largest defense contractors in the country, and with its patents on hundreds of forms of technology, a global corporate giant.

In 1981, Firefall made a hostile takeover bid of Krellco and either incorporated or liquidated all of its holdings. In a public press conference, Krell fired his own father. As of that takeover, Joseph Krell became the tenth richest man in the world. His father would pass away a few years later.

At the same time, Krell's interests in medical research yielded interesting results. A little-known scientist by the name of Dr. Miguel Ruiz had succeeded in genetic alteration in laboratory animals and claimed to have developed a means of altering human DNA with predictable results. No one would touch his research, however, given the moral complications of human genetic testing. Krell had no compunctions, however, and funded Ruiz's work. He set the man up in a laboratory in the Bahamas.

By 1983, Ruiz had supposedly perfected his process for altering human DNA. Krell was eager to see the results, and supplied Ruiz with several test subjects. Most perished in gruesome ways, but one survived albeit hideously disfigured. Ruiz decided that fully grown test subjects were not the answer. Humans would have to be altered before they were born.

Krell agreed and brought Ruiz to the States. In the small town of Firefall, Wisconsin (named for the company, of course, which owns everything in town), a fertility clinic was established as part of Krell's new apparent initiative of “Medical Research for a New Tomorrow.” Before patients could be treated, however, the clinic was destroyed by fire, with everything apparently destroyed and Dr. Ruiz perishing. In a press conference, Krell blamed the attack on “corporate terrorism,” citing his numerous business enemies.

Not everything was destroyed, however. Dr. Ruiz, having discovered that Krell planned to do away with him once his “Metahuman Serum” was complete, faked his death with the fire and fled, taking the fruits of his work with him. He changed his name and found work as a janitor at a different fertility clinic in Chicago. Over the following six years, Ruiz altered the sperm samples of numerous donors, and has been keeping track of the children as they grew.

Now, twenty-five years have passed, and Ruiz's “children” have come of age. Dr. Ruiz still lives in the Chicago area under the name Manuel Garza. He runs a small private practice, catering mainly to low-income minorities and generally flying under the radar. But he has been keeping tabs on "his" children, awaiting the day they were all old enough to be brought together.


The Heroes:

Name: Damon Ross
Author: slyc_willie
Age: 24
Basic Description: Stocky, muscular male, dark hair and fair skin. Wrestled and played soccer in high school, might have become a professional athlete if not for an injury to his left leg in his junior year. Went on to college but dropped out after two years. He now works as a bartender and supplements his income through the creation and selling of ice sculptures.
Ability: Cryokinesis. Damon is able to create and manipulate masses of frozen water, and has developed a level of control that allows him to fabricate intricate designs with relative ease. He can create ice from ambient moisture in the air, and can even condense it to make his creations stronger and denser. More humid environments are naturally more conducive to his ability, so he lives in the Seattle area.
Relations: Damon was an only child and believe that the man he calls 'dad' is really his father. His parents live in Belleview, Washington while Damon's apartment lies in Federal Way.

Name: Samuel Baker
Author: Remec
Age: 24
Vitals: just shy of 6'. mid 180# range. Dirty blonde hair and hazel eyes (sometimes more green, sometimes more brown)
Power: Specialized form of intangibility and teleportation--Sam melds into shadows to the point of losing his physical form temporarily and becoming a two-dimensional silhouette. He can also shadow walk...slip from one pool of darkness to another one within his field of vision. (At first. He might be capable of blind 'porting, but hasn't tried or considered that yet.)

Name: Rowena Transen
Author: EmeraldDragon
Age: 19
Power: Strong receiving telepath, weak sending telepath (she hasn't used it on purpose yet.
Appearance: Very scandinavian, pale blonde hair, pale blue eyes, very fair skin that sun burns very easily. 5' 6" on the skinny side due to a recent hospital stay.

Rowena manifested her receiving telepathic abilities very young. They are mostly uncontrolled. Like standing in a noisy football stadium and trying to pick out voices. Her mother and step father have her seeing shrinks and on major drugs for mental illnesses like schizo. for which she was incorrectly diagnosed.

She is 19 her older brother Brody would have been 24. He killed himself when Rowena was 12 after years of "mental Illness" (he had telepathy also although they didn't manifest themselves untill puberty)

Home schooled for the most part because of her frequent hospitalizations she has been taking college courses on line for several years. She has recently started private lessons with a very respected Tae Kwon Do instructor (she cant handle crowds) and she is learning some meditation techniques from him also. This is helping her block her mind and she is wondering now if she is really crazy or if there is something else going on. The meditation is allowing her to filter out a lot of the extra background voices and zero in on the thoughts of people that are physically closer to her.

Rowena's mother is extremely over protective of her. She has a half-sister (same mother) that is six years younger than her and completely normal. They are not close.

Through her biology and genetics class she has figured out that the man she thought was her father was not (through blood typing). This search for her biological father will lead her to the clinic where her mother and 'father' had artificial insemination done with donor sperm.

Name: Ted Stackmore.
Author: AchtungNight
Occupation: Mining engineer.
Age: 24.
Description: Slavic-featured Caucasian male, brown hair and eyes, muscular from years of working underground.
Hometown: Jackpot, Nevada.
Powers: Passive ability to find mineral deposits and explore caverns by instinct alone. When under stress, he can make earth move with his mind. Open chasms, cause tremors, create walls, and so on. He doesn't entirely understand his powers.
Turn-Ons: Gambling, strippers, alcohol, moonlit nights.
Turn-Offs: Users, people who like to hurt other people, nosy investigators, dangerous explosions.
Notes: Has a conscience and a sense of decency. Not sure if he wants to be a hero or even really is. His powers could all be coincidence. "Maybe the earth shifts on its own and I just happen to be there." He still has to learn that isn't the case.

Name: Gretchen Kincaid
Author: Glynndah
Age: ?
Gretchen Kincaid lives in a small town close to where she grew up. She's an average woman, doesn't stand out in a crowd and has absolutely no psychic abilities at all. She knows because she was tested along with everyone else in her sophomore psychology class, as a favor to a friend. She scored average at best.

However, it's a rather odd thing. In high school she used to babysit in the kitchen while her neighbor gave palm readings in the living room. On the nights she was there, the reading were extraordinarily accurate, but no one noticed the coincidence.

It was true she manifested no psychic abilities at all, but while she was filing papers in the psych lab, everyone involved in that afternoon's testing scored dramatically high, almost 98% accuracy. Try as they might, they'd never been able to duplicate the results. Gretchen moved on to another job on campus that fit her schedule better.

And that cute guy in the apartment upstairs, the one she flirted with during the elevator ride they shared each morning? He moved out yesterday, leaving no forwarding address. But he probably wouldn't be getting his security deposit back anyway. The "souvenirs" his landlady found when she cleaned out his apartment, linked him to the murders of those ten coeds who'd gone missing.

Name: Dorian Truslow
Author: KarennaC
Age: 22

Discovered his ability early, age 2 or 3, when he picked up a new toy and told his mother that a "bad man" made it. Turned out an employee of the factory where the toy had been made had been arrested for luring children with toys from the factory and... well, anyway, that's irrelevant to the chain.

Dorian's mom grew to be afraid of her son, especially since she was into some shady stuff herself and was afraid he'd find out about it with his ability. She became abusive, and Dorian ultimately ended up in foster care when he was 6. He realized that his ability freaked people out and also couldn't tolerate having so much information flooding his mind, so he trained himself to filter it, pushing aside anything that wasn't relevant and only focusing on things he needed to know. As he got older, he developed the skill of blocking his mind entirely, though when an object has information he needs to know, his hands tingle when he touches it and he then opens his mind to learn from it.

Even though people didn't necessarily know about his ability, Dorian made most of his foster families nervous, so they shuffled him around to the point that by his 18th birthday, he'd been in almost two dozen different homes. The day he turned 18, he took off from his final foster home and has been taking care of himself ever since. Because of the abuse from his mother, and the shuffling from place to place, Dorian trusts pretty much no one.

Physical appearance: Dorian's on the short side, only about 5'7"-5'8", and has a "baby face". At 22, he could easily pass for 15 or 16. He's skinny but muscular (had to learn to fight to deal with punks at school who hassled him for being a foster child and for being "weird"), and has brown hair and brown eyes.
 
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2. We'd have to agree on a basic origin for how everyone received their abilities. Government conspiracy? Scientific experiment? Natural evolution?

Half and half, natural and government experiments to combat this evolution backfiring ;)
 
Or maybe some government lab was able to isolate and accelerate a natural gene that triggers the abilities?

I just realized I don't like my own idea. Don't use it. Do the opposite (if you can figure out what that would actually be ;) ).
 
hmmm...interesting concept. I might be interested.

I actually started a series about a year ago, got up to about 50,000 words, but lost the whole thing when the old comp died.

The premise I went with was that a geneticist formulated some kind of triggering agent, then let it lose at a daycare. Some fifteen or twenty years later, after some of the now grown-up kids had begun to manifest their abilities, he started recruiting them.
 
I just realized I don't like my own idea. Don't use it. Do the opposite (if you can figure out what that would actually be ;) ).

Hey, we're just tossing around ideas at this point.

We might agree that aliens would be responsible . . . .
 
I actually started a series about a year ago, got up to about 50,000 words, but lost the whole thing when the old comp died.

The premise I went with was that a geneticist formulated some kind of triggering agent, then let it lose at a daycare. Some fifteen or twenty years later, after some of the now grown-up kids had begun to manifest their abilities, he started recruiting them.

Sort of an X-Men thing, then. I love the X-Men. :D
 
One character can see where people, animals, birds and insects have come and gone. He can see the trails left behind by their presence, and even though he just saw a mess of comings and goings, as he got older he learned to filter out all of the mess and focus on one or two particular trails, and is the best tracker in the world.

Kind of like Donny Darko in the party scene, but for seeing what has happened instead of what will happen ;)
 
Sort of an X-Men thing, then. I love the X-Men. :D

Maybe. Just, um, no adamantium skeletons. ;)

I like the way the show brought everyone together without making it seem like a recruitment drive. There was a sense of having to stick together for mutual survival, but it wasn't like everyone put their hands together and said, "we're a team." I'd like to maintain as much realism as possible.

One character can see where people, animals, birds and insects have come and gone. He can see the trails left behind by their presence, and even though he just saw a mess of comings and goings, as he got older he learned to filter out all of the mess and focus on one or two particular trails, and is the best tracker in the world.

Kind of like Donny Darko in the party scene, but for seeing what has happened instead of what will happen ;)

Hmm. I like it. Having a character who can locate anyone would come in handy. Have to be careful, though: we wouldn't want any character having an ability that could magically pinpoint where the bad guys are. That would take all the fun out of it.
 
Hmm. I like it. Having a character who can locate anyone would come in handy. Have to be careful, though: we wouldn't want any character having an ability that could magically pinpoint where the bad guys are. That would take all the fun out of it.

No, of course not. First you have to figure out which trail belongs to the person you are trying to track, and then you have to figure out which direction to track them in.

And have you ever tried to track someone through an airport? Not only do you have to figure out which plane they got on at which terminal (not so easy if you don't have your own boarding pass), but then you have to figure out when they flew on what plane to what destination. Sometimes they wonder if driving cross country while looking up to the sky would be a better idea, until the person they are tracking crosses an ocean ;)

My brain goes a mile a minute once I get an idea like this in my head. If I don't think of it now I will later and it will all make sense to me in the end ;)
 
I've always liked the idea of someone who could see into Time. Sort of the ultimate detective but with serious limitations. The individual can see a crime that has taken place and follow the perp but can't see in the present. And if he switches back to the present, he has to go back to square one and start over again. Obviously, some sort of escort would be needed. :rolleyes:
 
No, of course not. First you have to figure out which trail belongs to the person you are trying to track, and then you have to figure out which direction to track them in.

And have you ever tried to track someone through an airport? Not only do you have to figure out which plane they got on at which terminal (not so easy if you don't have your own boarding pass), but then you have to figure out when they flew on what plane to what destination. Sometimes they wonder if driving cross country while looking up to the sky would be a better idea, until the person they are tracking crosses an ocean ;)

My brain goes a mile a minute once I get an idea like this in my head. If I don't think of it now I will later and it will all make sense to me in the end ;)

LOL. No worries. I get the basic gist of it. The ability could be described as being able to read, say, electro-chemical auras, in a sense. Or maybe an instinctual power to "read" changes in the atmosphere left by the passage of living things.

Or something.
 
I've always liked the idea of someone who could see into Time. Sort of the ultimate detective but with serious limitations. The individual can see a crime that has taken place and follow the perp but can't see in the present. And if he switches back to the present, he has to go back to square one and start over again. Obviously, some sort of escort would be needed. :rolleyes:

Sort of like visual psychometry, or a postcognitive form of remote viewing . . . .
 
I'm so in on this. :D

As for origins, I have a few ideas:

~ The powers come from a set of ancient/magical artifacts. This could be good because then the villains would be after the items we possess and would give them their purpose for fighting us. Or maybe the villains have their own items.
~ Exposure to some kind of energy or event that caused the physical change.

lol, my head can't keep up with my overactive imagination, so I'll leave it at that.

I also think that along with an ability we should have specific weaknesses. All the best heroes have weaknesses. Nobody likes to read about an invincible hero. where's the fun in that if there's no danger?
 
LOL. No worries. I get the basic gist of it. The ability could be described as being able to read, say, electro-chemical auras, in a sense. Or maybe an instinctual power to "read" changes in the atmosphere left by the passage of living things.

Or something.

Exactly. Even he/she doesn't know.

__

Let's go typical easy street type. Human lie detector. He/she doesn't know what part of what you said was deceptive, or what the truth is, but they know you were lying, and they will work to figure out what about.
 
I'm so in on this. :D

As for origins, I have a few ideas:

~ The powers come from a set of ancient/magical artifacts. This could be good because then the villains would be after the items we possess and would give them their purpose for fighting us. Or maybe the villains have their own items.
~ Exposure to some kind of energy or event that caused the physical change.

lol, my head can't keep up with my overactive imagination, so I'll leave it at that.

I also think that along with an ability we should have specific weaknesses. All the best heroes have weaknesses. Nobody likes to read about an invincible hero. where's the fun in that if there's no danger?

I think the second origin scenario, while more generic, would work better. I dislike the idea of every hero having to depend on some kind of talisman or other object. That would stretch disbelief a little too much, I think, if a guy can lift a car over his head while he wears the magic ring, but take it away and he's just like everyone else.

Weaknesses . . . maybe. Certain abilities would have a natural weakness. If a character can generate cold, they would be weaker around fire, perhaps.
 
Exactly. Even he/she doesn't know.

__

Let's go typical easy street type. Human lie detector. He/she doesn't know what part of what you said was deceptive, or what the truth is, but they know you were lying, and they will work to figure out what about.

Now that I like. The character has an absolute sense of truth and dishonesty. No matter what, they can tell when someone is lying.

I see such a character as having a long string of previous relationships . . . .
 
Now that I like. The character has an absolute sense of truth and dishonesty. No matter what, they can tell when someone is lying.

I see such a character as having a long string of previous relationships . . . .

But should it be man or woman?

If it's a woman it's stereotypical. She knows her boyfriend is lying about something, starts a big argument about it, finds out he was just trying to keep a gift to her secret, but by the time she figures it all out she has pissed him off so much he has moved on to a new fling.

If it's a man, it's stereotypical. He knows that hse is lying about something, assumes she's a slut, cheats on her to get back at her and finds out she was just trying to keep a secret for her sister.

That one is such a double edged sword it hurts my brain...

And all of my characters don't have built in weaknesses. They are just people with regular weaknesses. None of them is vulnerable to anything special. They don't fear water, or kryptonite, or what have you. Instead, one of them has a temper, one of them is a coward, and one of them is agoraphobic (wouldn't it be funny if the tracker was afraid of open spaces? don't do that, I was kidding).
 
The lie detector needs to be buzzed on alcohol! The more drunk they are, the better they are at telling what part of a statement is true/false! Maybe...

If not them, than someone else has to be drunk to use their powers.
 
But should it be man or woman?

If it's a woman it's stereotypical. She knows her boyfriend is lying about something, starts a big argument about it, finds out he was just trying to keep a gift to her secret, but by the time she figures it all out she has pissed him off so much he has moved on to a new fling.

If it's a man, it's stereotypical. He knows that hse is lying about something, assumes she's a slut, cheats on her to get back at her and finds out she was just trying to keep a secret for her sister.

That one is such a double edged sword it hurts my brain...

It would come down to your writing, of course. There's nothing new anymore, of course, so the challenge is to make the character itself original. Give him/her an interesting or unusual job in which their ability to detect lies is helpful . . . or, conversely, make them an absolute nobody who has been suppressing or misusing their ability.

The lie detector needs to be buzzed on alcohol! The more drunk they are, the better they are at telling what part of a statement is true/false! Maybe...

If not them, than someone else has to be drunk to use their powers.

Hmm. That has possibilities. A person's natural inhibitions could keep them from utilizing their ability because, when sober, they simply don't believe what they can do. Give 'em a few drinks, and presto!

:D
 
I think the second origin scenario, while more generic, would work better. I dislike the idea of every hero having to depend on some kind of talisman or other object. That would stretch disbelief a little too much, I think, if a guy can lift a car over his head while he wears the magic ring, but take it away and he's just like everyone else.

Weaknesses . . . maybe. Certain abilities would have a natural weakness. If a character can generate cold, they would be weaker around fire, perhaps.

To be honest, the item idea came from Yu-Gi-Oh. I've been watching all 220 episodes over the last couple weeks, so that's kinda taking over my brain right now. :p
 
Hmm. That has possibilities. A person's natural inhibitions could keep them from utilizing their ability because, when sober, they simply don't believe what they can do. Give 'em a few drinks, and presto!

:D

So maybe that should be a typical trait for all of them? Definite possibilities there.

Did you want this fiction to stay mainstream or go erotic? I feel I should know now, if I am to contribute more ;)
 
So maybe that should be a typical trait for all of them? Definite possibilities there.

Did you want this fiction to stay mainstream or go erotic? I feel I should know now, if I am to contribute more ;)

I don't see any reason why we can't have it both ways. If you've read either of the first two chapters of my Beyond The Veil series, you'll see that the sex is not exactly center stage. More like a bonus. I see this series as going the same way. There's no push to make it heavily erotic in content, but that should not be discouraged, either.

I say we leave it up to individual writers. ;)
 
Okay, so for anyone contemplating joining in, let's get a few things tentatively established.

I see this chain as an ongoing story, not a collection of stand-alone tales. I think what would work best would be if everyone wrote their first chapter as a sort of introduction of their character. I see everyone being scattered about the country, maybe even the world. Subsequent chapters will bring everyone closer and closer together.

All those joining in, make a basic character sheet:

Name:
Sex:
Basic physical description:
Ability:

As far as the origin of how all the characters received their ability, there's still much to debate about that. But it would have to be something that initially connected the characters at some point in the past, but they are not aware of it at first.

Just some thoughts. Everything remains negotiable, of course. ;)
 
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