So I'm brainstorming setting history for my superhero mash-up of Green Ronin's Freedom CityParagons settings. The age of paranormals kicked off when a cosmic string (understand this is a very inaccurate, comic booky interpretation of what a cosmic string is and does) whipsawed through part of the planet in 1908, ending in an enormous explosion that came to be known as the Tunguska event, perhaps most famously referenced at the end of Ghostbusters. Areas through which the string passed suddenly start experiencing a lot more Fortean phenomena, as well as become the regions where people eventually manifest superpowers as time passes and the noetic seepage from the quantum substrata increases. and
I started thinking about what other places on Earth would be affected by this, so I downloaded Google Earth and drew a line around the globe from Tunguska to where Freedom City is located, which is roughly Bostonish. I discovered that not only did the line pass through a lot of empty territory in the Arctic circle, but also a lot more of Russia, southeast Asia and a tiny bit of Australia. To me, that put a new spin on the Cold War and the purported fight against Communism.
The United States poured so much into military spending because they were disadvantaged in the paranormal race. Far more talents and psychics arose in Russia, China and neighboring countries than in the US because of how the string passed through the planet. So America not only put what few paranormals it could muster to work to keep the whole super powers thing under wraps, but it poured gas on the military-industrial complex as well. It could even be the secret reason behind questionable wars like Korea and Vietnam.
Now, one hundred years after Tunguska, paranormals are breaking out more frequently and with greater power than ever before. The time is ripe for the public to discover the truth about the last century of human history, and what's really going on. Naturally, the PCs will be right in the thick of it.
Tags: Superheroes Rpgs Mutants Masterminds Paragons
