A

Alliance Hall – The original Liberty Alliance HQ was a turn of the (20th) century mansion owned by the Crecy family in downtown New Atlantis. During the 1940s and ‘50s, it served as a headquarters for the Liberty League, and was known as Liberty House. When the Alliance was formed in 1963, Reginald Crecy offered it to the new new team as their headquarters. The mansion was destroyed during a massive attack by the Sword of Vengeance in 1979.

After the mansion’s destruction Vitruvian’s designs were used by the new Paladin to construct a new headquarters for the team, using the incredibly advanced materials and construction techniques the master inventor had developed over the years, and paid for in part by his own considerable fortune. Built on the land of the old mansion, the new headquarters was dubbed Liberty Hall, but lasted little more than a year before being destroyed in turn during an overwhelming attack by the terrorist organization Rising Sun in 1981 (an attack which also killed two young Alliance members). The Alliance was in eclipse for almost a decade after that, and it wasn’t until the team reformed and returned to New Atlantis that a new HQ was built, opening in 1992.

The new Alliance Hall was built in the middle of the recently renamed Alliance Park, to keep it, and the dangers it would certainly attract away, from the city proper. It consists of four aboveground levels and several underground levels. Only the layout of the building’s ground floor (which is largely open to the public) is well known. Details of the layout of the rest of the structure are kept relatively secret as a security measure.

The ground floor of Alliance Hall features the Liberty Alliance’s public facilities. It is mostly taken up by a lobby and reception area open to the public and “staffed” around the clock by a robot receptionist named “Gwen.” Gwen, while merely a non-sentient AI, is lifelike enough to maintain the illusion of being a “real” person during casual interactions.

The public level of Alliance Hall also features a press conference room and the Alliance’s trophy room and museum, the latter featuring displays of their adventures, trophies, and other items dating back to the original Liberty League. Three elevators connect to the other floors of the headquarters, but are keyed to operate only for members of the Liberty Alliance or their designated guests or employees.

With the construction of the Overwatch, Alliance Hall has been “demoted” to merely the Alliance’s  official “embassy” in New Atlantis, co-equal to similar facilities in other major cities around the world. Its public areas remain open to visitors, and it is still very popular with field-tripping students and tourists.

 American Eagle (Winston Washington, Sr.) – (b. 23 October 1915, d. 15 October 2002). Engineering graduate student who built a winged flight-suit, based on long-lost plans drafted by Leonardo da Vinci, which he had discovered while traveling in Europe. Nazi spies attempted to steal both the plans and the suit, but were foiled by Winston (although the plans were destroyed). A founding member of the Liberty League, father of the second American Eagle, and grandfather of the third. Died during the Z’ardani Invasion, when he donned his flight suit one last time to defend his granddaughter. First African-American hero to get his own comic book in the post-War years.

 American Eagle II (Winston Washington, Jr.) – (b. 7 October 1956). Son of the original WWII-era American Eagle, Winston Washington, Sr., and father of the third American Eagle, Suzy Washington. He discovered his father’s secret, and his flying harness, while home from college in the summer of 1976, and took up the heroic mantle later that fall. An on-again/off-again member of the Teen Squad between 1978 and 1984, then a member of the Liberty Alliance until he retired from the hero business in 1987, six months after the birth of his daughter.

 American Eagle III (Suzume “Suzi” Washington) – (b. 3 June 1986). Granddaughter of the original WWII-era American Eagle, Winston Washington, Sr. and niece of WWII Japanese-American hero Supido Kyo. Her meta-human powers manifested when she was 16, during the crisis of the Z’ardani Invasion – full-on feathered wings, giving her the power of flight, as well as enhanced strength, speed and toughness. In the first graduating class of the Brookhaven School, she joined the Liberty Alliance in the fall of 2005. Currently on Reserve status since 2015 and her marriage.

Artlu – Synthetic duplicate of Ultra created by Kronos. Defeated by the Liberty Alliance and exiled to the Ghost Dimension in 2004.

Arkanos (Prof. Roland Reid) – Earth’s former Magus Prime, having held the title for almost 80 years. For most of that time he lived in a mansion in the Cliffside district of New Atlantis with his Indian assistant/lover (and eventual husband) Devaj. The two were married in The Netherlands on 12 July 2001, shortly after it became legal there; the couple renewed their vows in the US on 12 July 2015. In the last decade of his life Arkanos sought an apprentice and eventual replacement, mentoring several younger magic-wielders including the Native American shaman Totem, the San Francisco-based Guardian, and the Israeli sorceress Sabra. In the end he chose Sabra as his successor, and after his death on 6 February 2018 she was granted the mantle of Magus Prime by the Powers-That-Be.

The Arsenal – Secret criminal organization which produces and sells high-tech weapons and other advanced devices to rogue governments, other criminal organizations, and occasionally (although it is always hotly denied) to national governments who should know better. Founded in 1971 by Nemesis, under the direction of his meat-puppet administrator Dr. Pieter Hänks, as an off-shoot of his Crucible organization.

ASTRA Labs –The Advanced Scientific and Technical Research Association (ASTRA) Laboratories was founded by Dr. Shaun Renner, who saw the opportunities inherent in New Atlantis during the war and decided to seize them. In 1946, through contacts in the scientific community and the government made while he was a member of the Science Trust, Renner secured the support and financing to start his own research company. It originally improved upon weapons and devices developed for the war effort, and many feel those improvements may have helped keep the US from using nukes in the Korean War. ASTRA quickly drew attention from the intellectual community of New Atlantis, along with a number of lucrative contracts from the government and various major corporations.

Today ASTRA Labs is the largest scientific research company in the world, with offices in over a score of cities. The company’s HQ occupies its own sprawling complex in the North End of New Atlantis, quite near the campus of Bensalem University, with a satellite annex on Victory Island near the Tesla Institute of Science & Technology. ASTRA Labs has established itself as an important resource for the Liberty Alliance, and the team often consults the company when they are in need of specialized equipment or assistance in analyzing a particularly difficult scientific problem.

Atlantis – Twenty thousand years ago, in the midst of the Atlantic Ocean, the island-continent of Atlantis was the home of humans upifted by contact with the god-like extraterrestrials known today as the Seekers. Using bits of technology left behind by the aliens, combined with their own genius, the Atlanteans created an advanced civilization far beyond any other human group then on Earth. They were explorers, with visions of uniting the world, and made contact with other lands, spreading the legend of the fabled island-continent and its powers far and wide.

In time, the Atlanteans came into conflict with Lemuria and the empire of the ancient Serpent People, time-displaced descendants of a previous saurian empire which had ruled the Earth millions of years previously. Although the Serpent People had become largely degenerate, they were led by cunning and powerful sorcerers and worshipped nameless cosmic entities of horror and madness. The war between Atlantis and Lemuria lasted for almost a thousand years. The Atlanteans ultimately gained the upper hand, at a terrible cost to themselves; but before they could achieve a final victory (however pyrrhic it might have proven in time), a terrible cataclysm destroyed both continents.

Most of the Atlantean populace died in the Great Cataclysm, but a few saved themselves by adapting to their new environment. Some became water breathers, either by magic, genetic engineering, or a combination of the two; others survived in domed enclaves beneath the waves for a time, before becoming water-breathers themselves. Most of the water-breathing Atlanteans lived in nomadic tribes, their civilization swiftly regressing to a primitive level. A few of these tribes were corrupted and interbred with Serpent People, taking on saurian characteristics and worshipping evil, forbidden gods. These become known as the Deep Ones, and are hated and feared by both species.

Over time, some Atlanteans resettled the ruins of their ancestors’ great cities and became more sophisticated, their culture vaguely similar in certain ways to that of the Roman Empire at its height. The current imperial culture has some access to ancient Atlantean technological and magical artifacts, although their understanding has been severely limited until fairly recently, and their ability to manufacture such devices remains likewise limited.

Atlantis’ existence became known to certain surface-dwellers in the 1940s when an Atlantean princess operated as members of the Liberty League. Atlantis’ relations with the surface world have not always been peaceful, however. Atlantean barbarians have been known to attack ships and coastal areas. There have also been occasional coups or secession crises leading to Atlantean attacks on various parts of the surface world.

Even the most peaceful Atlanteans are disdainful of surface-dwellers and their constant pollution of Earth’s oceans. Atlantis currently has a delegation to the United Nations, with observer status. While recognized as a sovereign nation by most of the surface world, contact is understandably limited. There is also an ongoing debate as to how far Atlantis’ “dominion of the oceans” extends, and whether or not their King can truly claim to be “Sovereign of the Seven Seas.” Although the royal attitude toward air-breathers has been generally favorable over the years (Queen Malina married one, after all, and her children, including the current King, are heirs to both worlds), not all of their people feel the same. As a result, diplomacy between Atlantis and the surface world remains… fraught.

Aurora Building –Art Deco skyscraper in the North Canal district of New Atlantis, NJ, built in 1939 and designed by Chrysler Building architect William Van Alen. In 1990 the 40-story building was purchased outright by Doctors Mark and Elizabeth Sampson, who then had it extensively retrofitted and refurbished, turning the top 20 floors into laboratory and living quarters. The first 20 floors continued to be leased out as office space, but after 2003 and the accident that turned the Sampson family into the Phenomenal Four, the leases were bought out and the entire building became devoted to scientific research and the administration of the Momentum Foundation. Since then the Aurora has twice been severely damaged in meta-human fights, and is now entirely rebuilt using advance materials and defensive technology – although care was taken to make sure Van Alen’s iconic design remained unaltered.

B

Baron Samedi (Richard Lastrang) – African demigod, currently slumming in the guise a Haitian criminal and gang leader, using his mystic powers to expand his cult and influence into the Carribean — and from there to North America. Opposed in most of his endeavors by the second Calypso.

The Bastion –The long-time secret fortress of Ultra – secret, that is, as to its location and the specifics of its layout and contents, not the fact of its existence. Spoken of openly by the late hero as early as 1952, it has been made legendary over the decades by the movies, TV shows, comics, and novels concerning Ultra. Its precise location, however, remains a hotly debated matter even today, almost 20 years after the hero’s death.

The popular consensus is that the Bastion lies deep beneath the polar ice, but whether in the Arctic or the Antarctic is the dividing question. The polar theory’s popularity is mostly based on the 1978 Richard Donner film Ultra: The Movie, and the persistent rumor that the director had some inside information from Ultra himself. Minority opinions, believing the Donner movie to be a planted decoy, place the Bastion in the Amazon, or the Gobi, or Australia’s Outback, or the bottom of the ocean (take your pick as to which one), or in any of dozens of other hidden locales, including the far side of the moon.

Since Ultra’s death in the Invasion several individuals or groups have made serious efforts to locate the Bastion in the hopes of unlocking the hero’s secrets, either in the public interest or to further their own agendas. So far none have succeeded, and the Bastion remains a tabla rasa upon which writers, historians, and ordinary fans can fill in their own ideas.

Bensalem University – An Ivy League university in New Atlantis, NJ, named after the utopian land of pure reason and enlightenment in Sir Francis Bacon’s 1626 unfinished novel New Atlantis. One of the leading institutions in the world for meta-human studies, it also possesses a world-class law school, medical school, and several schools of both hard and soft sciences. Founded atop a hill called Plato’s Knoll in 1637, it began life as a school for all the children of the Dutch island of New Atlantis. It was the second public school in the New World, after the Boston Latin School in the English colony of Massachusetts.

The school became Bensalem College in 1641, and was chartered in 1665, after the English take-over of the former Dutch colony, as a gesture of British goodwill to their new subjects. On 17 April 1786 it became Bensalem University, the third such institution in the new United States, following William and Mary (1693) and Harvard (1780). Consistently ranked in the top three of the nine Ivy League schools: Harvard, Yale, Bensalem, Princeton, Columbia, Penn, Miskatonic, Darmouth, and Cornell are the 2018 rankings.

Black Dragon Society  –  Powerful occult secret society founded in Japan in 1901 by martial artist Uchida Ryohei as a successor to his mentor Mitsuru Tōyama‘s Gen’yōsha organization (The Dark Ocean Society). Its name was derived from the translation of the Amur River, which is called Kokuryū-kō (“Black Dragon River”) in Japanese, and its public goal was to support efforts to keep the Russian Empire north of that river and out of East Asia. It’s less public goal of Pan-Asian domination by Japan quickly attracted a number of powerful mystics devoted to the idea, and it soon grew into a hidden power. Allied to the Imperial military during the Second World War, it was forced underground during the post-War Occupation. During that time it spread its tentacles around the world, especially into the United States, and has since risen again to be a secret power in modern Japan.

Blitzkrieg (Edvard Bettinger) – Nazi Übersoldaten, product of a 1940 deadly experiment conducted by the Mystic Division of the Cerberus Project, which killed or maimed 18 of the 20 volunteers who agreed to try and bring down the power of the Norse gods into mortal forms. Edvard survived, with greatly enhanced strength, stamina, toughness and endurance, as well as the ability to summon lightning. Tried for and convicted of war crimes at Nuremberg after WWII, he spent thirty years in prison, until his death in 1986.

Blue Spectre (Various hosts) – A Spirit of Justice which possess worthy candidates to carry out its mission of combating injustice in the mortal world. The first documented appearance of the Blue Spectre in a human host in the modern era was in 1925, but some historians and scholars believe there is evidence for the spirit’s existence going back at least 1,000 years. The spirit imbues its host with a spectral blue fire that has several powerful aspects, not least of which is causing searing pain in those who have committed unjust acts, its intensity increasing with the severity of the offense(s). It also acts as a shield and a sort of “truth serum,” drawing out confessions from the guilty.

Blue Bolt (Bradley Donner, Jr.) – Jetstream’s son and a graduate of the Brookhaven School.

Boudica (Philipa Harman-Smith) – British archeologist who, in 1940, uncovered an ancient Celtic bronze torc which, on contact with her skin, imparted a kaleidoscope of past life memories to her — the experiences of all the women in the last two thousand years who had worn the artifact before her. It also granted her the strength, speed and wisdom of Boudica, the eternal protector of the British Isles. Member of the WWII European super team the Freedom Front.

Brigade (Col. Pat Townsend) – Subject of an experimental US government program, developed by the Science Trust that granted him near-perfect human abilities. An ally of both the Liberty League and the Freedom Front during WWII, he was never an actual member of either team, always remaining a government agent. Later served as the first director of SHADE, an organization he helped design and build. After his death from cancer, his mind was placed in a cybernetic super mind, code named MIMIR. There his knowledge and experience combined with that of several other scientists, artists and leaders who had proceeded him (and a few who have followed since) to create a synthetic intelligence used by the US government in an ongoing attempt to predict and guide world events.

Brood of the Bronze Talon – Mystical cult worshipping the Unspeakable One, founded by the Serpent People. Numerous off-shoot cults have splintered off over the years, and they are almost as hostile to one another as to outsiders.

Brookhaven Prepratory School – A quasi-secret school for the education and training of young meta-humans, preparing them to control and properly use their powers, whether or not they chose to become superheroes. Founded in 2003 by Joseph Cohen, the former hero Ultrason, after his crippling injuries during the Z’ardani Invasion of 2002 left him a paraplegic. Located in the New Atlantis suburb of Port Republic, the 120 acre facility is nestled in park-like grounds on the western shore of Lake Tisquantum. It includes all the usual prep school facilities one might expect of a high-class establishment, as well as extensive meta-human training (and containment) facilities. Many of the latter are underground, as is the hanger for the schools emergency suborbital spaceplane, courtesy of the Liberty Alliance.

There are on-site living accommodations for 120 students and 20 teaching staff, and the school accepts children between the ages of 12 to 20 (exceptions can be made for younger or older students on a case-by-case basis). Aside from Headmaster Cohen the teaching staff consists of top experts in almost every field of knowledge, as well as several retired or semi-retired superheroes, including the first Raptor, (Dylan Grey); the de-powered speedster Sprint, (Melody Carter); and Sea Sprite, (Atlantean princess Lenore Halpirn). A West Coast satellite school, Columbia Prepratory School, was set up in 2017 in Astoria, Oregon, following the explosion in meta-human breakthroughs there caused by the infamous Astoria Incident.

C

The Cabal –  A secret alliance of criminal organizations (and their masterminds) that have, since the mid-1970s and until very recently, controlled Astoria, Oregon from behind the scenes. After decades of getting their asses kicked, it was in the Seventies that it was drawn to the attention of several super-criminals in the major East Coast cities that getting out of town and laying low after a major crime might be a better long-term strategy than hanging around to fight the forces of “good.” Since most of the so-called heroes tended to stick to places like New Atlantis, Chicago, New York and LA., some of smarter players realized the wisdom of this idea. But where to go? No one wanted to rusticate in the sticks, after all…

Quiet, and mysterious, invitations to a select group of such forward-thinking villains drew their attention to the quiet northwestern metropolis of Astoria. The city was large enough to boast most of the cultural and social amenities that a discerning, and recently flush, villain might want, but was far enough off the beaten path to be essentially unknown to the East Coast and LA super-establishment. It also turned out, on closer examination, to have a significantly lower per-capita number of super-powered “heroes” than any other such area in the country. Virtually none, in fact.

The first few criminals to, cautiously, take up the mysterious invitation to visit found that the hype was true. There was just something about the place that made it easy to blend in and drop off the radar, while still enjoying the finer things in life (if in a more laid-back manner than that to which most such individuals were accustomed)

That something was the shadowy and powerful mutant psychic known, to the few aware of their existence, as Cerebral.

Perhaps a native, certainly a long-time resident, for years Cerebral had used his vast mental powers to make his home town unattractive to superheroes and other do-gooders. Criminal organizations that long pre-dated him eventually noticed this salutory effect, and began to take advantage of it without understanding the reason (or the person) behind it. The late Sixites and early Seventies were a good time for the established underworld in Astoria.

In 1974, Cerebral revealed their existence, and powers, to a select few of those major underworld players, and laid out the ground rules they would be following going forward. Those who agreed to those rules were allowed to continue to enjoy Crebral’s camouflage effect. Those who rejected the offer were soon dead in various creative, and often shocking, ways. By early the next year the bumps in the road had been smoothed out, a criminal alliance was forged, and the Cabal was born.

Crebral then sent out the first invitations to major players around the country. For a small percentage of their ill-gotten gains they were free to come and enjoy the anonymity and protection of Astoria and the Cabal. For the scheme to work, of course, the criminals who took up the invitation had to actually lay low. A few early invitees proved not to fully understand this, but Cerebral was ruthless in enforcing the rules. For all that no one was known to have ever actually seen the mysterious power-broker, none of the city’s “guests” were left in doubt as to who was responsible for the fates of those who drew unwanted attention. Few examples were needed after the first several lethal demonstrations.

Invitations to visit Astoria became a coveted mark of a villain’s success, a sign that you had joined the big leagues. The city became a secret underworld haven, and criminals paid handsomely to go “off the radar” for a time, while still enjoying the perks of their success that a first class city could provide. While these visitors enjoyed their protection, the Cabal itself divided and shared control of Astoria between several major criminal factions, the precise composition of which varied somewhat over the decades; in recent years the four ruling syndicates were Cerebral’s own Extralegal Villains Assistance League (E.V.A.L.) and the Chinese triad’s  White Tiger Society, both founding members, and relative newcomers the Oshiro-gumi (1992), and the Bratva Brotherhood (1998).

Cerebral’s daring scheme proved to work surprisingly well, and the Cabal poured the profits they were soon raking in back out into infrastructure projects and bribes to maintain their control. They seldom bothered with those at the top, recognizing that real power for control of the city lay in the mid-level bureaucracy. A career manager in the Planning Department at City Hall was much more capable of implementing the Cabal’s desires than the Mayor’s office, more open to corruption or cohesion, and at the same time both more invisible and more expendable.

For various reasons a few of the occasional capes who tried to set up shop in the city were tolerated, but for most such ambitious do-gooders… well, heroing can be a dangerous business, after all. And of the few who managed to survive, most eventually gave up in the face of the Cabal’s invisible but almost suffocating control, seeking greener pastures elsewhere.

But all good things must end… or at least evolve. Seeing signs that SHADE might be getting suspicious at last, and finding the attentions of Artemis increasingly difficult to divert, Cerebral was preparing contingencies for both possibilities when destiny took an unexpected turn. The Astoria Incident hit the city, shattering the balance of power in the organization by its creation of a large group of new meta-humans who knew nothing of the old divisions of power and answering to no one. Gang warfare, once kept to a minimum by the Cabal’s iron-fisted control of the underworld, soon broke out in the streets of Astoria. The factions split apart in the struggle to control what was left, while increased attention from SHADE, as well as interventions by Artemis and her new allies of the Vanguard, made it impossible for the Cabal to remain a secret any longer. By the end of 2016 the Cabal was effectively broken.

While the Cabal is gone, their legacy lingers on in Astoria yet. Most of the component factions remain intact, some more than others, and the culture of corruption the Cabal fostered still exists in parts of the city. They created a whole “shadow society” and the infrastructure to support their criminal enterprises, and Astoria is riddled with it remnants:  secret safe houses, “private clubs,” and a host of other places still cater to the needs of those outside the law. Some such are finding other uses in the post-Incident era, while some remain secret, known only to one former Cabal faction or another. While most of the factions are no longer interested in an alliance, all of them hope to become the new, singular, force in the city’s underworld scene!

Cerberus Project – A massive Nazi research organization created to develop the most powerful weapons and defenses possible for the Third Reich. Formed in 1939, it was divided into three divisions, or heads, each of which was focused on a different area of research – The Science Division, on the cutting edge of so-called super-science; the Arcane Division, dedicated to searching out mystical and supernatural sources of power, be they rituals or artifacts; and the Synthesis Division, focused on combining both science and magic into the ultimate power.

Originally co-equal, by 1942 the Synthesis Division had become the de facto supreme branch of the project. Under the command of Dr. Gerhart von Richtor, brilliant scientist, powerful member of the occult Thule Society, and a key advisor to Hitler, the original heads of the other two divisions were either forced out by scandal or tricked into foolish actions. It was widely believed in certain circles, for example, that it was von Richtor who convinced Rudolf Hess, the first head of the Science Division, to fly to Britain in 1941, on his ill-conceived “mission of peace”, leaving less-capable (and more easily dominated) men to try and fill his shoes.

Von Richtor used his position to ensure that many of the Nazi super-agents created in any of the three divisions of Cerberus, but most especially in the Synthesis Division, were loyal to him personally, foreseeing the day when he would need to remove Hitler and claim ultimate power for himself. He was the shadowy mastermind behind numerous Nazi schemes, and it was his rituals (combined with stolen chemical formulae) which granted Shattenjäger and several other created meta-humans their powers. When the Third Reich finally fell, von Richtor was well positioned to loot the vast resources of Cerberus, both physical and intellectual, as well as those of the Thule Society. He used all of those resources in South America to re-consolidate his power base, and to eventually create Cerberus’ successor organization, HUSH.

Challenger, Prof. Arthur – Scientist-explorer who discovered the portal to the Lost World on a plateau in South America and great-grandfather of Alexander Challenger, alias Zandar, the Jungle Lord.

Challenger, Alexander – See Zandar, the Jungle Lord.

Chimera – Cybernetic construct created by Dr. Maknetíc to mimic all the elemental powers of the Phenomenal Four. After several failed attempts to imbue the powers into purely mechanical android shells, the good Doctor Jovanović realized there needed to be an organic, sentient element involved. To that end, in 2010 he “volunteered” one of the best fighters amongst his mercenary forces (if not the brightest) to donate his living body to science. Fusing the mercenary’s nervous system with cloned tissue stolen from the body of the shapeshifting Ultra-Dramorg, the doctor grafted the result into the Chimera cybernetic systems – very little of Logan Laird remained, beyond his brain, spine and a few glands, but it was enough to achieve success. The Chimera could summon up and use all of the Phenom Four’s powers, simultaneously. Although the first attack on his former teammates failed, Dr. Maknetíc managed to recover his masterpiece, determined to try again.

The Chimera had other ideas, however. Although Jovanović believed he had erased all of Laird’s memories and personality, the regenerative powers of the Dramorg tissue reconstituted the mercenary’s mind, at least to some extent. Combined with the fragmented memories of the Ultra-Dramorg, the resulting mind (ironically, another chimera of sorts) decided it wanted no part of Jovanović’s vendetta, and violently escaped the doctor’s labs, fleeing Illyria. Since 2012 it has allied itself with the Helix, believing it has found in The Prodigal a kindred spirit.

Columbia Preparatory School – A second quasi-secret school for the education and training of young meta-humans, created in Astoria, OR as a satellite institution to the Brookhaven Preparatory School in New Atlantis. At the suggestion of Elizabeth Grey, Jacob Cohen opened the school in the wake of the explosion of meta-human breakthroughs caused by the Astoria Incident. Set up on the grounds of the Van Sant estate on Tidewater Island, it opened to students on 12 September 2017. Chris Terazzo, aka Kid Singularity, and Cassie Hartwal, aka Ghostlight, were among the inaugural class.

Confederated Union of Worlds – The Confederated Union of Worlds, more commonly referred to simply as the Union, is a loose alliance of governments spanning approximately a fifth of the Milky Way Galaxy. It includes just over a thousand star systems, roughly 60% of which are inhabited by human-descended races. This startling fact is the result of human seed stock taken from Earth 20,000 years ago by the inscrutable alien space gods known as the Seekers and relocated to a variety of worlds across the galaxy. Often the original human stock was genetically altered to adapt to the new environments in which they were placed. Today these human-adjacent species are the largest single racial block in the Union, and tend to dominate the joint interstellar government.

The Kevrin Ur, Syganti, and Tulromites are the most technologically advanced worlds of the Union, and were the impetus, eleven centuries ago, which brought together the first twenty worlds to form the CUW. Within 50 years of the signing of the Articles of Union and the creation of the Charter of Rights, the habitable but then-unoccupied planet of Halicon was chosen and settled by representatives from all member species in the Union. It was designated the seat of the joint government, and for a thousand years it has reigned over the growing CUW.

Since its inception the Union has been steadily expanding, bringing new races into the fold —many of them humanoid as well, but a significant number of other racial types are well represented. Until recently the Union boasted 1,032 full member states, with 83 Protectorate or Associate members. Several smaller interstellar governments are either allied, neutral or resistant to the Union, depending on the specific year and the shifts in the astrographic political winds.

The CUW learned of Earth decades ago when they encountered Vitruvian, who was exploring the galaxy in his ship, the Star Grazer. The Union’s contact with Earth has been regular since then, given the number of superhumans the world generates, and official relations were established with the United Nations in 1987. For the time being, the Union has declared Earth off-limits as a “developing world.” Once humanity is advanced enough, they might be considered for membership. An observer ambassador currently resides in New Atlantis.

Most races of the Union, human-descended or not, tend to have few prejudices regarding race or ancestry (there are a few exceptions)—but “genetic fitness” is an important factor in many cultures. Specific advantageous traits a race might start with are often magnified through breeding and outright genetic engineering; for example psionic abilities are greatly prized by the Kevrin Ur, while immense strength and durability are the pride of the Tulromites. And this may be why the existence of Earth and of its meta-humans poses a problem for many in the Union.

Most of the general public on humanoid Union worlds vehemently reject the idea that their race(s) originated on Earth. Many prefer to believe that Earth is a lost colony from some earlier age of interstellar exploration, from one of their own member worlds. It is an emotional reaction, and therefore difficult to counter with mere facts; especially given that many planets have been arguing for centuries about which of them is actually the theorized seed world needed to explain their obvious genetic and ethnological connections.

Union scholars and scientists who have been to Earth or have actually studied the matter will admit privately that the Earth Theory is almost certainly true – indeed, the actual evidence is overwhelming. But while current popular sentiment in the Union is so strongly against it, few are willing to say so professionally. It has been suggested, however, that in time the public will come around to the idea, if someone is bold enough to really promoted it; not least because such a solution wouldn’t leave any of the various historic rivals as the “winner.”

As Earth has become better known to the larger public in recent decades, despite the Union tendency toward a superior attitude concerning what they see as “developing” worlds, their fascination for the diverse powers shown by Earth’s meta-humans has grown. Scientists, on the other hand, are more than a little concerned by how greatly Terran meta-human powers tend to exceed the abilities of Union humanoid races.

Many theories have been advanced in CUW scientific circles to explain the phenomenon. The humanoid races within the Union are incredibly diverse, the human genotype having proven amazingly adaptable (perhaps one of the reasons the Seekers spread it so widely). Almost any skin tone, build, hair (or similar feature, such as feathers or antennae) can be found on the streets of major Union worlds. In many cases, with minimal effort, Union humanoids can pass on Earth without comment or notice, at least visually. Indeed, a few such races are actually interfertile with the humans of Earth without major medical intervention. With medical intervention, even more mixes can produce viable offspring. Yet no other branch of the human tree produces as many, or as powerful, metas as does Earth. The question remains: why?

The political organization of the Union superficially resembles some ancient Earth governments, in certain broad respects. A Senate represents the interests of all member worlds. A High Chancellor, elected by the Senate for a term of 10 Galactic Standard years (8.97 Earth years), holds executive power, while a Security Council and Supreme Judiciary provide constitutional balance. Member worlds are generally free to adopt whatever form of government best suits their people, history and customs, within a broad framework of Sapient Rights outlined in the Articles of Union and, more specifically the Charter of Rights — slavery is not allowed, for instance, nor is the exploitation of less advanced species or civilizations. Colonization in general is heavily regulated, although not forbidden on worlds lacking intelligent native species.

Citizens of the Union have a great deal of personal freedom, in thought, expression and action, especially when traveling between member worlds. Loyalty to the Union, however is a bedrock principle and expected of all. The Union is not a strongly martial society (although certain member states certainly are), but maintains a strong military arm which is respected by (most of) their neighbors. Intellectual and cultural pursuits are often more highly valued, and the brilliant and creative are especially honored.

Union technology is highly advanced. They have very advanced sub-light spacecraft, stutter-warp starships, and Star Gates; energy beam and ballistic weapons; anti-gravity, limited teleportation, energy transfer and transmission, force fields; and many other technologies. Technological research is a major pursuit in the Union, and a major draw for prospective new worlds… although occasionally new advances do come in the other direction, with the admission of new worlds into the CUW bringing new ideas and technologies.

The primary rival of the Union has long been the Dramorg Consensus, and the two have warred over dominance in this area of the galaxy for centuries; the past 40 years of fragile peace has created a state of détente, but recent activities have awakened old grudges. The Union has also faced challenges from various “barbarian” worlds and small encroaching empires. The most successful and aggressive of these is the Stellar Protectorate of the ruthless Z’ardani, whose first major offensive 50-some years ago was repulsed only with the aid of the immortal Earth hero Vitruvian and the Paladins of Light.

Unfortunately, this state of balance between the Union and their various rivals was disrupted in 2016 when the matter-devouring cosmic terror known as Entropy found its way to Halicon. The mindless force destroyed the planet in hours, although most of the Senate, the Security Council and the High Chancellor were able to escape thanks to the intervention of the Earth heroes of the Vanguard. It is estimated that less than 100,000 people, out of almost 10 billion, escaped the death of the planet. Approximately 10% of those survivors headed for Earth as refugees.

With the destruction of their capital world, the Union was thrown into chaos and their enemies were quick to take advantage of it. The Dramorg Consensus attacked within days, and in less than a week the Stellar Protectorate did the same. Not all of the Union Navy had been called back to Halicon, of course, but enough capital ships were missing from the marches that, facing a two-front war, the CUW fractured.

In just over a month almost a third of the worlds in the Union had fallen to either the Consensus, the Z’ardani or smaller opportunistic vulture-states such as the Kash’rodan “Empire.” The Senate and the High Chancellor re-established the Union government on Kaldoryn, the oldest of the CUW’s colony worlds, and eventually restored stability to their reeling people. With a central command once more in control, and a sadly shrunken volume of space to protect, the Union Navy stemmed the tide at last, with some help from Earth’s famed Liberty Alliance. For the moment the Confederated Union of Worlds remains — bowed, physically fractured, but spiritually unbroken, and fiercely determined to retake the conquered worlds.

Cosmia (Ania Volkova) – Brilliant Russian psychic researcher during the Cold War, who became a being of pure psychic energy bent on incorporating all humanity into a cosmic “hive mind.” Defeated on several occasions by the Liberty Alliance and, in more recent years, by the Sampson Family, she left Earth in 2011 to seek a more fulfilling destiny amongst the stars.

The Crucible – Secret international organization with tentacles of influence reaching into many of the political, economic, social and criminal centers of power around the globe. The seeds of the Crucible began centuries ago, in the various cells of agents and mind-controlled meat-puppets created by the ancient alien AI known as Nemesis. Prior to the technology that would allow for tighter integration, such cells were connected only through the conscious control of Nemesis himself.

When The Prodigal activated his Helix organization in the early 20th Century, however, Nemesis instantly saw the benefits to his long range goals of more connections between cells. He moved quickly to integrate and activate his own network, elements of which were already embedded in the Helix, and named it the Crucible – the forge in which he would temper the steel of humankind, to turn it into a weapon worthy of… whatever his ancient masters wanted.

Even more so than the Helix, which is an unwitting part of it, the Crucible has proven incredibly difficult to fully uncover, and impossible to eradicate. Few heroes or government agencies are even aware of its existence, and even those few know it only as a shadowy, nebulous force deep in the shadows. Even Nimrod, the ages-long opponent of Nemesis for the soul of Mankind and the one being most familiar with his ancient foe’s tactics and strategies, has yet to uncover the full scope of the Crucible’s reach.

D

DNAgents – A rogue meta-human mercenary group composed of survivors of the early DNA-Xcelerate  genetic enhancement process developed by the Arsenal. With a range of power sets and various mental problems (the latter not always a result of their generally traumatic origins), the group will hire out to anyone willing to pay their immense fee. They are seldom without offers, and are believed to base themselves out of Cuba, as do so many meta-human criminals, given the island nation’s strict non-extradition policy. The group’s numbers has varied since they first appeared in 2014, depending on arrests, fatalities, or retirements – they are currently thought to consist of five individuals, only two of whom are founding members. The only non-negotiable criteria for joining is that one’s superpower must have come from undergoing the DNA-Xcelerate process (or one of its several offshoots).

DNA-Xcelerate Process – A genetic enhancement program developed in secret for the Arsenal, who use it to create meta-human agents. Other organizations seem to have gained access to the process since it was exposed by the Liberty Alliance several years ago. Most recently a variant of the process was found by the Vanguard in a “rogue” project of the VTS corporation.

Dolórüska the Damned – The ancient undead horror that is Dolórüska the Damned was once considered the greatest master of the mystic arts of his time. In the generation before the destruction of Atlantis he rose from obscurity to the heights of that empire’s arcane circles, eventually earning the mantle of Magus Prime. For most of the 40 years that he held the title he was considered by his Atlantean peers to rival the power and wisdom of the first Magus Prime, Thalor-Van himself.

But eventually something went terribly wrong. Some speculate that it was the specter of his looming mortality, as he aged, that drove him to his crimes, others that it was the tragedy of a lost love. But most scholars agree that he studied too deeply the ancient, unclean cults of the hated Serpent People, seeking a way to defeat them for good, and became corrupted. Whatever the truth, the result was the near enslavement of Earth by ancient, unspeakable Elder Gods from beyond the Void. Dolórüska made pacts with those unclean Powers, promising to sell them our world for the promise of eternal life for himself and the governance of the planet as its Dark Lord under their hideous over-rule.

Fortunately the other mages of Atlantis learned of his betrayal before those promises could be fulfilled. Combining together they confronted and battled the now-insane Magus Prime, eventually stripping him of that mantle, and with it the ability to fulfill his unholy oaths. Not best pleased at this, those alien god-things nonetheless gave Dolórüska one of their promised gifts – life eternal and undying. Soon enough, the former master of Earth’s magic learned what a curse and horror that truly was.

Unable to kill him now, the surviving mages of Atlantis bound him with powerful spells of containment, and imprisoned him within the deepest tomb they could construct, in the midst of a remote desert wasteland far inland on the continent to the east of Atlantis. Although stripped of the mantle and powers of Magus Prime, Dolórüska remained a skilled and potentially powerful wizard, and precautions were taken to make sure that he might be contained once more, should he ever mange to free himself. It is believed by some that it was at this time that the Powers that Be came into existence, as a way to prevent the mantle of the Magus Prime falling again on the wrong person.

For 16,000 years the undead mage lay entombed, until fate led two Egyptian brothers during the Third Dynasty, to discover and unlock the lost tomb in the year 2607 BCE, in the reign of King Djoser. It took years, the death of many Egyptian mages, and the terrible sacrifices of the vizier Imhotep to re-imprison the ancient undead wizard. This time, however, he would remain imprisoned for only another four thousand years.

In 1938 an expedition from Bensalem University, led by famed archeologist Phineas Morton, unearthed a previously unknown chamber beneath the Step Pyramid of Saqqara. Only undergraduate student Roland Reid survived the release of the undead mage, when he was imbued with the power and knowledge of the ancient Egyptian mage Imhotep, part of the failsafe left to ensure Dolórüska would not escape.

Reid pursued the ancient lich, now possessing the body of Reid’s teacher and mentor, Dr. Morton. Although he defeated Dolórüska, he was unable to save his teacher, who’s mortal body crumbled to dust when the spirit of Dolórüska was trapped once more within his Golden Helm – another of the ancient Atlantean failsafes.

Over the next 80 years the undying mage would make repeated reappearances, whenever some foolhardy or unlucky person would place the Golden Helm on their head, allowing him to possess their body and slowly alter it, until his curse eventually transformed them into a replica of his own decayed body. In his periods of freedom he seeks, always, to regain the mantle and power of Magus Prime and ultimately to rule the world; but even without the title he remains a dangerously powerful master of the arcane arts, especially of ritual magic – giving him time to prepare is never a good idea!

Dramorg Consensus – The Dramorg Consensus is an expansionist, militaristic, interstellar empire at least partially in the same quadrant of the Milky Way galaxy as Earth. The expansion of the Dramorg has been checked in this region by the presence of the rival Confederated Union of Worlds. Still, the Dramorg are not about to let the Union prevent them from achieving their destiny, which they know is to rule all inhabited worlds in the galaxy.

The Dramorg are a protean, shape-shifting species from the dark planet Dram Prime, whose location they keep a closely guarded secret. Although little is actually known of their history, it is generally believed that as they evolved, the Dramorg actually differentiated into different “castes,” with specialized roles and intellectual capabilities specific to each type. Others have theorized that the Dramorg are actually a single entity which buds off bits of itself to perform remote tasks in service to the whole.

Dramorg are disdainful of “solid” creatures with fixed forms and consider themselves inherently superior to other forms of life. They are an arrogant and xenophobic species and believe it is their manifest destiny to rule the galaxy and enslave all other races.

The Dramorg expand their Consensus using their shapeshifting powers to infiltrate and subtly take control of other civilizations they encounter until they amass sufficient power to rule openly. On occasion, on more technologically primitive worlds, they simply invade and seize control directly. The presence of Kevrin Ur psionicists has limited the Dramorg ability to infiltrate the Union, although there are still some Dramorg moles active in Union society. Dramorg have also infiltrated Earth society in the past, although the full extent of their activities remains generally unknown to the public at large.

The Dramorg Consensus is made up of a number of client races ruled by the Dramorg with an iron fist and the aid of legions of soldier drones. The Consensus’ technology is advanced, but largely stolen or mimicked from other civilizations they have assimilated. They have stutter-warp starships, Star Gates, energy weapons, force fields, anti-gravity, and so forth. They’re particularly proud of their weapons technology, which includes a variety of nerve stimulating pain weapons and capture devices in addition to standard-issue blasters and implosion grenades. They are lacking in advanced medical sciences, however, due to their own unique physiology.

The Dramorg have been interested in Earth for some time, the first known contact having occurred in 1947. In that year one of their scout craft crashed in the Southwestern Desert of North America after an orbital battle with Union forces. Since then, the Consensus has sent additional scouts and other forces to Earth for various reasons. One thing the Consensus knows is that it has little chance of conquering the planet while its native superhumans (notably the Liberty Alliance), the Paladins, and the Union all watch over it. Many Dramorg schemes are intended to discredit or eliminate Earth’s superhuman protectors so the aliens can then invade in force.

Dramorg Drone – The lowest Dramorg caste is made up of “drones,” warriors with only limited awareness and metamorphic abilities, directed by the higher castes of their species. While drones are fully capable of acting on their own, they require the mental powers of an Overmind for true coordination and initiative. Kevrin Ur psionicists have interfered with this coordination in the past, another reason why the Consensus has been historically unable to launch many successful large-scale anttacks against the Union.

 Dramorg Incursion – The year 2004 saw the most open attempt by the Dramorg Consensus to conquer Earth, sending a flotilla to try outright conquest where more subtle approaches had failed. They were apparently unaware of the recent failed Z’ardani attempt on the planet, and the resultant heightened defenses. In early June Dramorg infiltration agents kidnapped and replaced the Sampson Family with shapeshifting duplicates and imprinted Darr’Kan, a specially bred and modified warrior, with the powers of all of the Phenom Four. They intended him to be the first of a new generation of ultra-Dramorg battle drones. Although originally planning on the Liberty Alliance as their target, circumstances lead them to switch goals mid-operation. Something about the Sampson’s elemental powers, however, broke Darr’Kann’s connection with the Overmind. Awash with a sudden sense of individual self, overwhelmed by a new fear for its own life, and full of sudden personal ambition, the so-called Ultra-Dramorg turned against its creators.

Escaping with the help of Variance, the renegade Dramorg hero who had long been living on Earth, the Sampsons inflicted major damage on the alien flotilla, while the Liberty Alliance, with its allies and reserve members, including Stormfront, managed to hold off the aliens’ troop landers. In orbit above Earth, Arkanos defeated the Dramorg Overmind in mental combat, with the aid of the Earth’s gathered psychics and mystics. The telepathic shock of that defeat disabled the Dramorg military, sending them fleeing back into deep space — but not before assassinating their own renegade, the Ultra-Dramorg. They were forced to leave its body behind on Earth, however.

With the residual psychic power of the combined planetary mind-meld at his disposal, Arkanos was able to dampen the memories of this second alien incursion in the minds of the general public of Earth – a task made easier by the fact that most of the fighting was either in orbit or confined to New Atlantis.

Dramorg Metamorph – Over time, drones mature, develop greater awareness, and attain the metamorph level, the Dramorg “commissioned” caste. Metamorphs are as intelligent as humans (more so, in their own estimation) and have fully developed shape-changing powers, which they use to infiltrate alien cultures, preparing the way for invasion and conquest.

Metamorphs have limited telepathic abilities and are psychic parasites, feeding on the neural energies of their prey, learning to mimic them more effectively by doing so. A Dramorg “will-drain” reduces the victims’ awareness of any danger, and eventually places them in a comatose state of suspension, allowing the Dramorg to replace them, with sufficient surface memories to convincingly imitate their victims.

Dramorg Overmind – The pinnacle of Dramorg development is an Overmind, the local leader of the Consensus forces in a region. It is made up of the brain-clusters and bodies of numerous Dramorg, merged together into a single collective being. An Overmind still possesses protean traits, but is too massive to mimic most creatures. More important are its formidable mental powers, gained from the fusion of many minds. Fortunately for the cosmos, an Overmind’s powers are limited to physical contact when dealing with non-Dramorg. Their ablilty to mentally communicate with and coordinate other Dramorg across vast distances make it the true intelligence of the species.

It is believed that all local Overminds are somehow connected to a single,  overarching intelligence on the home world. This theorized Grand Overmind, if it exists, would seem to be the driving force behind the Consensus’ constant push for conquest and expansion.

Dramorg Rogues – The Dramorg are telepathically linked as a species through the Overminds. Even Dramorg metamorphs have only a limited sense of independent identity apart from the Consensus. On some rare occasions, however, “rogue” Dramorg develop with completely independent personalities, most often after extended telepathic interaction with an alien mind. The Dramorg liken these rogues to cancers within the “body” of the Consensus, and they are usually hunted down and re-assimilated or destroyed as soon as possible.

A few Dramorg rogues have been able to avoid this fate, most notably Variance of the Liberty Alliance and, briefly, the mutant Ultra-Dramorg. Variance has hopes of granting his entire race independent awareness and the ability to make their own moral choices (hopefully peaceful ones) while others, like the Meta-Dramorg, have ambitions of replacing (if it exists) or becoming (if it doesn’t yet exist) the Grand Overmind and absolute ruler of the Consensus.

Doctor Tempest (Stavros Diamondias) – Criminal scientist who invented a weather control device (and inadvertently gave Jetstream his powers). Later developed weather-control powers of his own. Leader of the current incarnation of the Syndicate.

Doctor Tomorrow (Heinrich Sauer/Henry Sayer) – Nazi “super-man” from an alternate Earth where the Axis won World War II. Rejecting the fascist philosophy of his world, he attempted to travel back in time to prevent the Nazi victory. Instead, he travelled to the past of a parallel reality, which he mistook for his own. His warnings, while not changing his native time-line’s history, did help inspire the creation of the Liberty League in this reality and, most critically, saved Ultra’s life in his first encounter with nullium.

E

Ebony Night (Korith Dhal) – Once considered among the greatest of the Paladins of Light, now one of their greatest foes; generally considered the most dangerous individual in the known galaxy. A member of the Saurian-offshoot race known as the S’kleth from the planet Sha’ruhn, Korith Dhal was inducted into the Paladins of Light in 1982, the first of his species to be so honored. From the beginning he showed great promise, and rose quickly through the ranks during his training and early career.

When the despotic Star-Master, brutal ruler of a savage interstellar alliance, led his massive fleet against the Confederated Union of Worlds in 1987, Paladin Korith Dhal’s strategic prowess and tactical skill were instrumental in helping his fellow Paladins and the Earth adventurer Vitruvian ultimately defeat the invasion, saving the Union’s Spinward Sectors. Dhal’s renown spread throughout the known galaxy, and he was hailed by many as the greatest living Paladin. 

In 1992, while exploring on the far edge of the galaxy, Paladin Korith discovered a massive black crystal on a desolate, dead world. The ancient artifact embedded a fragment of itself in Dhal’s chest, fusing with his nervous system and imbuing him with a dark energy, the very antithesis of the pure white light of the Keepers. On returning to Rampart almost two years later, with this new power coursing through him, Dhal was enraged when the Keepers wished to expunge the dark light from him. They said it was the Black Heart, a remnant of an ancient evil beyond his understanding, and a grave danger not only to himself but to the very universe. He rejected their counsels and rebelled. In the process of escaping Rampart, he killed seven of his fellow Paladins and injured a dozen more.

For 16 years he roamed the galaxy, making his name feared by many and admired by a few, endlessly pursued by or attacking the Paladins. During this period he built his own network of agents and partisans, as he strove to bring his personal sense of order and justice to the galaxy. In 2010 the renegade arrived on Earth, having heard the tales of the planet’s powerful meta-humans and the relatively plentiful number of Seeker matrix crystals to be found there. Shortly after his arrival Dhal met Nemesis, who quickly realized the true nature and full power of the Black Heart energy the renegade wielded; after realizing the impossibility of seizing the crystal for itself, the AI conceived of a plan to instead use the renegade to its own advantage. Nemesis unlocked the full secrets of the Black Heart for Dhal, who then formally adopted the name Ebony Night, a sobriquet which many across the galaxy had been using for him for years. In exchange for his help, the now even more powerful alien agreed to act as Nemesis‘ occasional agent in the wider galaxy, hunting out ancient Seeker artifacts and bases that might be used to their mutual goals.

Before that, however, Ebony Night spent two years on Earth, honing his growing new powers under the meticulous guidance of Nemesis. After one final battle with the Liberty Alliance, with whom he often sparred in those years, Ebony Night decided he was ready to undertake Nemesis’ plan, and to further his own delayed ambitions.  He left Earth for the stars, and over the next year he recruited the first seven of his Nightwraiths. Shortly before his departure Nemesis convinced him to use the power of his dark crystal to energize the ancient AI’s own collection of matrix crystals, and began to form his plan to metafy all humans on Earth. Since that time Ebony Night has returned to Earth at least three times, all relatively brief visits, if noteworthy ones.

Edgerton, Reginald, Colonel SAS, ret. – Current Director-General of UNEXIS, on assignment to the United Nations from Great Britain. Among Col. Edgerton’s qualifications for his current post is a long stint with the Ministry of Powers in Britain, dealing with various supers, and experience with agencies like SHADE. In fact, Edgerton worked several times with Brandon Regent (now Director of SHADE) when the two of them were field agents for their respective organizations.

Director-General Edgerton knows full well he is skirting the edge of his authority in aiding the Liberty Alliance. Thus far, he hasn’t overstepped his bounds, at least not sufficiently for the UN Secretary-General to call him to account for it. He finds the limitations placed on UNEXIS endlessly frustrating, and is glad to be able to assist the Liberty Alliance, and get their help in return. He would like to see UNEXIS become a true international law-enforcement and peacekeeping agency for dealing with superhuman threats, but knows there are many barriers keeping that from happening right now.

Colonel Edgerton is a remarkably fit, good-looking man in his 50s. He has brown hair, now turning silver at the temples, cut military-short under his blue United Nations beret. He wears a U.N. peacekeeping officer’s uniform on duty with the UNEXIS logo on the shoulder.

Elder, Josiah– (1660 – 1751) An Enlightenment scholar and religious philosopher, originally from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1692 he left his home in Salem after trying, and failing, to stem the horrors of the on-going witch trial hysteria. An erudite and charismatic man, after settling in New Atlantis he quickly gained a devoted following, drawn by his humanistic philosophy and radical ideas. Many of his views were opposed, however, by the established scholars of Bensalem College, and he was eventually asked to leave. Elder and a number of his followers founded the township of Seagate on 15 March 1695 on the island that would eventually come to bear his name. That same year he inaugurated the Elder Athenaeum, a school of science and philosophy open to all, without regard to wealth, status, race or gender. After his death the Athenaeum would move to a larger campus on Victory Island, where it would eventually become the core of the Tesla Institute of Science & Industry.

Erigayn – (EHR-eh-gain) A star located in the center of the Nykluni Expanse, a stellar desert more than 60 light years across, vacant of any other stars. Erigayn’s nearest neighboring star system is 30.7 light years away, and the closest system with a stargate is 32.2 LY distant. It possesses seven planets and one major asteroid belt: three small, rocky worlds closest to the sun; four larger, variously habitable planets; and a single gas giant, beyond which orbits the asteroid belt. It was first surveyed by Union explorers some three hundred years ago, but despite possessing four planets within its “Goldilocks Zone,” all life-bearing and suitable for colonization, its isolation left it long overlooked. It wasn’t until two hundred years after the initial survey that it was finally settled.

Beginning in 1901 BCE four disaffected groups, of four different species from four different Union worlds, combined their resources to charter the Erigayn star system as a colony, and to pay for passage to it. In 1914 BCE the first two colony ships arrived in-system, between them carrying 10,000 colonists of each species, all in stasis. Each species had laid claim to the planet that best suited their needs, and the settling and terraforming began immediately upon the colonists’ awakening.

The canine-like Kryssadan chose to settle the innermost of the four habitable worlds, a desert planet similar to their native world of Luh-Gahara, if somewhat harsher, with a hydrosphere of just 38%. The settlers were of a sect more interested in science and building, especially in the fields of metallurgy and materials science, than was normal on their aggressive and warrior-obsessed home planet. They named their new home Kyrnoka, and quickly began mining and fabrication industries, which they eventually used to created orbiting arrays to moderated the harsher aspects of of the planet’s climate. Despite being considered pacifists on their native world, the Kyrnokans are the most aggressive and militarily powerful of the systems’s planets. Kyrnoka possesses three small, rocky moons.

The crocodilian-like Geron, originally from the planet Gress’ok Prime, are more pacifist by nature than the Krysssadans, but nonetheless maintain the second strongest military in the system. They chose the second planet in the habitable zone for its 77% hydrosphere and large equatorial region of hot, humid, marshy lands, both of which which make it an ideal crèche world for the family-oriented sect. Naming their new home Aress’ka, they had very few planetary modifications to undertake, and immediately began reproducing. Most cultures on Gress’ok Prime have a lassie faire attitude toward their offspring, letting them more-or-less fare for themselves once they hatch. Only those who survive the vulnerable first three years of life are welcomed thereafter into the formal family/clan structure. The Aress’ka settlers were of a decidedly minority religious group who believed in nurture and concern for their offspring from birth, a practice which eventually drove them off their home world. This familial concern, and fear of outsiders with more aggressive views, is what leads them to keep a strong defensive military. The planet has no natural satellites.

The sixth planet out from the sun, and the third planet in the habitable zone, is a wet world, with a vast, generally shallow ocean covering 87% of its surface. Settled by the aquatic Xi’nim, who named their new home Dezirin, the temperate world-ocean proved particularly hospitable, and the planet’s rich deposits of methane and heavy metals were a boon to their high-tech industrial interests. The émigrés differed from the majority of their specie’s cultures by being little interested in art, philosophy or music, and more interested in technology, innovation, and exploration. Two moderately sized moons orbit the planet, as does a series of rings.

The last habitable planet in the system was a temperate-to-cool world with a hydrosphere of 72%, whose original ecology consisted largely of marine life and a bewildering variety of land lichens and mosses. It was settled by a Tulromite back-to-nature separatists group, which itself splintered off from another colony world of their people. That group had left Tulromite homeworld of Hy’gan Thal several centuries earlier, seeking a pristine planet on which to live as low-tech an existence as possible. Over time, some desired to use terraforming to better adapt their new home to suit their needs, but were opposed by the majority and consistently outvoted. The faction eventually departed, and once settled on Prokira, as they named their new new world, immediately undertook a massive terraforming project. In a single generation they turned large portions of the already fertile planet into a veritable Eden. The project is on-going, absorbing almost all of the colonists resources; combined with their disdain for high-tech (outside that needed for terraforming, of course), they are the least militarily equipped planet in the system. Prokira possesses a single relatively large moon.

The eighth and outermost planet in the Erigayn System is the gas giant named Pharosia, also called the Jewel of Erigayn. Slightly larger than Jupiter, it is a planet of swirling bands of brilliant, almost garish colors, and possesses a system of 17 moons of various sizes. The largest of these is Irikand, approximately three-quarters the size of Mars, very icy, and possessing a thin, barely breathable atmosphere roiled by frequent storms. Nonetheless, the colonists built a large trading port there, mainly to receive and organize shipments of supplies and colonists still coming in during the first few decades of settlement. This kept outsiders away from their own worlds, along with any unwelcome “contamination,” while still allowing needed communication with the larger Union. In time the port grew into a neutral city where the leaders of the four planets could hold tribunals to settle disputes and debate issues affecting the entire system.

With the fallout from the Entropy War, the Erigayn System, which once lay comfortably within the borders of the Union of Confederated Worlds, is now uncomfortably close to the edges of what remains. The Dramorg Consensus controls former Union worlds only 80 light years away and, while the Stellar Imperium is a little further removed, it too is uncomfortably close. Both pose a serious potential threat to the four worlds and their continued independence. Their isolation has protected them so far, but should anything draw the attention or interest of the those galactic powers…

E.V.A.L. (Extralegal Villains Assistance League) – The ironically named Extralegal Villains Assistance League, otherwise known as E.V.A.L., is one of the most influential known criminal syndicates in North America. Starting as a relatively small operation in Astoria, OR in the early 1970s, E.V.A.L. has grown in size and influence to the point where its presence is felt all over the world. It was the initiatives taken by E.V.A.L. that drew supervillains to Astoria in the first place with the promise of a safe haven, and it was the indirect influence of the syndicate’s elusive leader, Cerebral, that until recently kept the presence of superheroes in Astoria to a minimum.

E.V.A.L. operates in a manner completely unlike any other criminal syndicate. Rather than maintaining a large gang of members, the syndicate instead acts more like a temping and training agency. They offer otherwise solo criminals the training, support, and back-up they need to complete a specific job, as well as providing assistance with planning, covering of tracks, and even prison escapes if needed, all for a reasonable fee or cut of the take.

E.V.A.L. utilizes a novel approach in contacting potential employees and clients. Instead of maintaining a regular base of operations where meetings can be arranged, individual clients are mentally contacted by Cerebral when he senses they might be in need of his services. From that point on, Cerebral assists in planning any heists, arranges for support personnel to contact the client, and offers any other services that might be required. Similarly, Cerebral mentally contacts specialist criminals in his organization with potential job offers and directs them to those that need them. This method of operation has proven to be highly successful, creating an organization that is incredibly difficult to trace, and almost impossible to infiltrate beyond the small gangs that are organized for individual jobs.

Originally E.V.A.L. focused on individual villains with the unique skills needed to complete a particular job, possibly with a handful of thugs as backup. Eventually E.V.A.L. expanded its operations to include pulling together unique supervillain teams designed for specific heists. For years the authorities were unable to understand why villains who were known to work independently would come together, in apparently random groupings, only to perform a single crime and then inexplicably disperse again. It wasn’t until the villain known as Fortress was apprehended that law enforcement gained any information about E.V.A.L. at all. Unfortunately, Fortress was broken out of jail before he could provide the authorities with any actionable information regarding the organization, beyond the fact of its existence. Very shortly thereafter his badly mutilated body turned up in downtown Chicago.

In the aftermath of the Astoria Incident, E.V.A.L. found itself inundated with potential new members. Seizing the opportunity, Cerebral appears to have begun recruiting and training so-called Incidentals/Changelings he thinks have potential, giving them the opportunity to learn how to use their powers effectively and increasing the group’s available resources. The incidence of E.V.A.L.-sponsored criminal activities increased significantly in Astoria post-Incident, giving the authorities significant cause for alarm. The Vanguard fears the group may be attempting to create a veritable super-criminal army—all under the direction of the mysterious Cerebral.

Pinpointing the types of criminal activities that E.V.A.L. are primarily involved in is difficult, as they provide their services to any that have the need and the means to provide payment. Their services have been engaged for crimes ranging from simple bank robberies to prison breakouts, corporate espionage, and elaborate extortion schemes, to name just a few. Likewise, the individuals that utilize E.V.A.L.’s services are equally diverse, ranging from unpowered criminal masterminds, to other criminal syndicates, to such supervillains as Dr. Tempest, White Knight, and Conundrum.

Often, the members of the group have goals of their own, and work with Cerebral to pull together a team. These teams operate mostly on their own to get the job done and are the most likely to be found socializing after hours at dive bars (or wherever the members prefer) while planning the gig. When the job is finished, the goods are split up, Cerebral gets his cut, and the “team” splits up. Sources have hinted that it is not uncommon for a handful of members of a team to stay in contact, however, if they became friendly on the job. Cerebral is unlikely to approve of these relationships, since they could turn out to be connections the authorities can use to track down other members… but he is also likely to recognize that there’s safety in numbers… which, really, is the whole idea behind E.V.A.L.

F

La Fantôme d’Argent (The Silver Ghost) (Amandine Siraudin) – World War II Allied superhero, active mainly in the European Theater as part of the Freedom Front. The only survivor of a French family killed for resisting the Nazi occupation of their town; the trauma awakened her meta-human powers, allowing her to become both intangible and translucent, able to pass through solid matter like it was air. Killed by the Shattenjäger in March 1945, along with most of her team.

Freedom Front – World War II Allied super-team, active mainly in the European Theater of the global conflict. Founded on Christmas Day 1941, after an ambush by Nazi leader Gerhart von Richtor and his Übersoldaten killed four of the eight Allied heroes lured into the trap. The survivors, Boudica, the Golem, Iron Hawk, and la Fantôme d’Argent, realized working separately was ineffective and dangerous, and agreed to team up permanently. Over the next four years others would join the team, including the Roma hero White Lantern and the American hero Inferno. Most of the team were killed by Shattenjäger in March 1945 while trying to apprehend Dr. von Richtor as he fled the crumbling Third Reich.

The Forsaken (unknown) –  Shadowy figure in Asia, who heads an unnamed network of skilled agents who carry out a variety of tasks, from espionage and sabotage, to kidnapping and assassination. Most recently believed to be behind an attempt to unleash a pandemic-level bio attack on Astoria, OR in the US. Known to both hire and work for various other criminal or terrorist organizations around the globe, although mostly focused in SE Asia.

Dr. Fu Manchu (Zhao Xiwáng) – aka the Doctor. b 1881 in Manchuria, China. Brilliant mastermind of a hundred schemes that have bedeviled the heroes of the West for almost a century. Born into an impoverished Mandarin family, he showed his genius early, and was one of the original 160 students in the inaugural class of the new Imperial University of Peking. There he impressed, and occasionally intimidated, his teachers; the Boxer Rebellion interrupted and delayed his first doctorate, and began his life-long disdain of the West.

In 1904 he was one of 47 students sent by the Imperial University to study abroad, the first time such a thing was allowed by the imperial government. For eight years Zhao Xiwàng studied at various Western universities, including Heidelberg, Oxford, the Sorbonne, Bensalem and Harvard, gaining several more doctorates in physics, medicine, and chemistry along the way. In the wake of the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty and the formation of the Republic of China, he returned home where, given his illustrious educational career and valuable understanding of the West, he was welcomed as an advisor by newly-elected President Sun Yet-Sen.

He eventually consolidated his own power base during the chaotic Warlord Era. As a warlord Zhao Xiwàng, having established the pseudonym of Dr. Fu Manchu in mockery of an English author’s puerile fictional portrayal of him, began building an international network of spies, informants, saboteurs, and assassins. His agents soon began to come into conflict with the agents of various Western powers, especially the British Empire, although he himself remained mostly behind the scenes, little more than a shadowy rumor to the West.

In 1933, during a series of wars in the Xinjiang region of China,  Zhao Xiwàng, now generally referred to domestically as simply the Doctor, was driven out of his strongholds in Shandong by the Nationalist government. He retained the nucleus of the international organization he had been building for years, however, and quickly re-established himself in Qinghai, near the border with Tibet. Leaving this new base under the command of his son, Zhao Zhengyi Jian he sought out the fabled Himalayan land of Shambhala, where he eventually stole what he believed was the secret to immortality. He resumed plotting against both the West and the rising tide of communism in China, but his sanity seemed to suffer from his “immortality” treatments, and tensions arose between Xiwàng and his son, who had grown used to command in the years of his father’s absence.

In the latter half of the 20th Century the Doctor’s plots and schemes grew increasingly Baroque and grandiose, as his sanity appeared to wax and wane. He appeared to finally die in 2008 when he attacked the Rockport, Maine compound of his long-time foe Dr. Benjamin Quinn. Although Dr. Quinn’s body was identified in the wreckage, the remains of Zhao Xiwàng were too badly damaged to allow for absolutely positive identification. Nevertheless, there have been no sightings of him, or even rumors of any activity, in over a decade.

G

Gaia (Kala Zan) – World War II Allied superhero, a native and representative of the extra-dimensional Salomon Island, home to a human off-shoot race of almost immortal superhumans. Sent by her people to counter the acts of the renegade Salomoni exile Neanon Var, who had joined the Nazi’s as thier Übermensch super-soldier, she sided with the Allies. She made her first appearance in the weeks after Pearl Harbor, towing ashore a Japanese sub that had tried to enter San Francisco Bay. A founding member of both the war-time Liberty League and the post-War Liberty Alliance, she is strong, tough, fast, and can fly, thanks to a combination of Salomoni genetics, psionic training, and advanced technology.

Gambit – The current Gambit is the second organization to use that name. The first was founded and controlled by Tikhon Kulikova, an ambitious and disillusioned KGB operative. Founded more than thirty years ago, it consisted of highly-trained former espionage and law-enforcement personnel recruited by Kulikova in his guise as “Black King.” Most of the agents were ranked according to specialty – Knights for combat, Bishops for intelligence, and so on; however, some members were elite enough to earn their own unique code-names, such as the logistics expert Endgame and the infiltration specialist Rook.

Masters at behind-the-scenes manipulation, Gambit’s leader intended to take the reins of powers quietly and secretly while the hero community was diverted by more obvious and colorful menaces. Eventually, SHADE (aided by the first Raptor and a shadowy female hero) brought the organization down. The majority of the organization, including its founder, ended up in federal prison in the US. Tikhon Kulikova was broken by his defeat and died behind bars less than five years after his incarceration.

The only one of Kulikova’s Gambit operatives to avoid death or capture — a man named Yasha Vorobev, codenamed “Endgame.” He dropped completely from sight in 1986, with the destruction of the organization, and his Interpol file was listed as Inactive for years – he would be in his seventies today. In light of the recent reemergence of a more technologically advanced version of Gambit the authorities are again taking an active interest in Yorobev and his current whereabouts.

The Vanguard has theorized that Kulikova’s son, Vasya, may have formed the new Gambit organization, perhaps with help from Yorobev. Ten years old when his father went to prison, his mother divorced his father and moved them to Idaho in 1988. Shortly after her death in 2007 Vasya seemed to vanish from the grid – no credit cards, utility bills or any other electronic footprint remains, and his current location and status is unknown.

Gaoler (Thomas Delosano) – Thomas Delosano used to believe in the criminal justice system and was proud to be a part of it. He moved from his native England to America, where he developed the cutting-edge technology used by prisons like Ironrock and Forty Fathoms to hold super-powered criminals and other threats to society. Nobody was better at designing prisons… and yet still prisoners escaped. But the problem didn’t lie in his designs, technology or systems—no, the problem was the people running it. Thomas came to believe that if the bureaucrats and the bleeding hearts would only let him do his job, there wouldn’t be any prison escapes. But no, they continued to hobble him with regulations, rules, and concerns about the “rights” of the prisoner. Didn’t such people give up those rights when they broke the law and became criminals?

When his sister and beloved nephew were killed in a deadly attack committed by an escaped supervillain, Delosano became obsessed with creating the perfect prison. Not for rehabilitation or even fair treatment, but solely for containment and punishment of prisoners. Eventually he was blackballed, following an investigation into his experimental and unethical technologies at Ironrock. It wasn’t long thereafter that he realized where the real dangers to society lay—in the bureaucrats and so-called “heroes” who kept people like him from maintaining order. Delosano donned a mask and used his devices to capture and imprison the Mayor, District Attorney, and several New York judges before the Raptor tracked him down and put a stop to his “new system of justice.” Delosano found himself, for the first time, on the other side of the bars. 

Within days, he was free, of course, for what prison could really hold him, the master gaoler? He clashed with the Raptor, and even took a commission from HUSH to imprison the entire Liberty Alliance (which he succeeded in doing, if only briefly). He sold work through E.V.A.L. to clients in need of various sorts of traps (deadly and otherwise) while continuing to plot his revenge against the system that had so unjustly wronged him. 

Delosano remained difficult to keep incarcerated, and efforts to have him declared mentally unfit and get him into therapy and treatment were frustrated by both the system and Delosano’s own defiant nature. As his list of crimes and convictions grew longer, his grip on reality continued to loosen. He was a “lifer” now, whether in or out of prison. Jail was his true home and there was no going back. Taking the code name Gaoler (none of this bastardized American spelling for him!) he realized the entire world was nothing but an extended prison — it was just that no one else saw it. 

Almost no one, that is. Gaoler became increasingly interested in the occult and notions of “the prison of the world” and devoted his time not spent dodging the law in arcane research. He learned a great deal about the mystic arts in a relatively short amount of time—being a quick study, and having some native talent in that direction, apparently— and hit upon what he felt was the secret behind his intuition. 

Gaoler magically crafted a temporary “key” to allow him access to the legendary Dimension of Doors, a nexus between realities — his “escape” from the prison of the world! He knew of the Guardians of the Gateways who protected that place, but he had dealt with and avoided prison guards before. Clues pieced together from ancient texts led him to an unused and barred portal within the maze of doors, and his mastery of locks and bindings helped him to open it for the first time in who knows how long. Beyond it was a vast maze containing untold secrets and power. 

Gaoler claimed what he refers to as the “Dungeon Dimension” for himself, forging a permanent key to connect to it. It has given him a whole new edge: a headquarters outside of space and time as Earth knows it, where he can not only escape and store his arsenal and all the resources he needs, but also imprison those he chooses to, in ever more fiendish and cunning ways. A prison from which there is no escape since, as Gaoler learned, the entire world is the prison, and in this world he is the absolute master. 

Gaoler spent some time becoming familiar with his new “domain” and crossed swords with the Guardian of the Gates of Horn & Ivory, one of the chosen guardians of the Dream Dimension. Recently he has returned to Earth, ready to resume to his sanctified mission to create order. His order.

Geisha (Keiko Ishido) – WWII Japanese agent of the Black Dragon Society with the ability to control the emotions of others. Originally using her powers to fleece men out their money for her own gain, when she chose the wrong victim she came to the attention of the Black Dragon Society, who recruited her as an operative. She continued her successful espionage career for many years after the War ended, retiring in the ’70s when her powers began to fade.

Ghost Dimension – An inter-dimensional realm of stasis and eternal stillness, forever unchanging. It is a dimension between dimensions, a realm apparently used by some to traverse the dimensional planes, and by others as a place to simply store things… or exile prisoners.

The Ghost Dimension is an endless vista of silvery-white mist. Cosmic flotsam drifts through it, ranging in size from small rocks to entire planetoids. Gravity is strictly a local phenomenon in the Ghost Dimension; larger objects have their own gravitational fields, but otherwise things just drift aimlessly.

Vision tends to be limited, like moving through a thick bank of fog or an endless cloud. The “mist” of the Ghost Dimension isn’t actual water vapor or any other sort of physical cloud. According to Dr. Sampson, it’s actually a “cloud” of probability; the further away something is, the less fixed and certain it’s actual location, or even existence, is and so a quantum “cloud” fuzzes out its shape. More distant objects cannot be seen at all.

This means the travelers’ expectations and thoughts actually creates the substance of the Ghost Dimension to some degree. Aspects of the dimension sometimes respond to thoughts, conscious or subconscious, bringing those things to life. Scientists posit a possible connection between the Ghost Dimension and the Astral Plane and/or the Dream Dimension.

In the past, the Ghost Dimension has been used as a place of exile and imprisonment. Ultra banished Superior there years ago, although the ex-Nazi eventually escaped; and the Liberty Alliance also banished Kronos’s fake Ultra duplicate to the Dimension. Alien races (some long dead) also used the Ghost Dimension as a prison, or simply a dumping ground. Since the Dimension is influenced by thought, it can become a “heaven” or “hell” of the exiles’ own making, depending on factors like strength of will and length of banishment. Visitors have found some “pocket” realities within the Ghost Dimension formed in this way.

Gojira – Giant radioactive reptile that threatens Pacific Rim coastal areas when it goes on a rampage, and seems particularly fond of Japan. On rare occasions has appeared in the Atlantic Ocean. Fist appeared in 1954 near Odo Island in Japan. After several sightings at sea, the sinking of numerous ships, and the devastation of villages on Odo, the creature surfaced in Tokyo Harbor, wrecking considerable havoc in the city. Both Japanese and American conventional forces were unable to stop the monster’s rampage, and it was only the Japanese meta-human Shokubai (Catalyst) who was finally able to drive it off by converting the oxygen in the water around it into an inert gas.

Gojira’s first attack on American soil, occurred in 1963 near Astoria, Oregon. Coming ashore the kaiju inflicted minimal damage on the city, however, before it was driven off by Lashkari, former member the WWII home front team Victory Flight. The once disgraced hero had been trying, with little success, to rebuild his heroic career after serving his time on the HUAC contempt of Congress charges, but his confrontation with the giant radioactive lizard finally turned the tide of public opinion. The black-and-white photo of him hovering in mid-air, snapping his energy whips at Gojira’s face, maked papers across the world, although how exactly his powers cowed the creature was never satisfactorily explained. Lashkari himself was tragically killed just two weeks after repelling Gojira, gunned down while stopping a liquor store robbery.

In 1970 the cutting-edge American submarine Seaview sustained significant damage while saving Honolulu from an attack by Gojira. The last attack by the notorious kaiju on American soil was in the summer of 2002. Driven from the depths by Atlanteans under the influence of the Serpent Scepter, Gojira rose up in Union Bay and attacked the Nelson Naval Ship Yards. The Liberty Alliance were able to eventually drive the monster back into the sea, with the only significant damage to the city being that done to the Sunrise Bridge.

Given the more than half a century between the creatures first and most recent attacks (Tokyo in 1954, and Okinawa in 2010), the widely varying reports of its size, and the apparent lack of scars that might be expected from its many battles with superheroes, various militaries, and several other kaiju over the years, it has been theorized that there have been more than one “Gojira” in that period. While experts are strongly divided on this question, the general public tends to believe there is only one Gojira.

Golden Cheetah I (Khar’ton) – Protector of the African nation of Kurunda, gifted with peak human strength, speed, and agility as well as a brilliant technical mind. Father of the Golden Cheetah II, he occasionally worked with the Liberty Alliance in the late 20th Century. He died in late 2002 defending his homeland during the Invasion.

Golden Cheetah II (Shan’aria) – Protector of the African nation of Kurunda, gifted with peak human strength, speed, and agility. Daughter of the Golden Cheetah I, succeeding her father after his death during the Invasion. Aside from the powers the mantle of the Golden Cheetah bestows, she also inherited her father’s technical genius.

The Golem – World War II Allied superhero, created through Kabbalistic magic by Warsaw Rabbi Dayan to protect the Jewish people of Poland from the rising tide of anti-semitism sweeping Europe. With the death of its creator, the Golem expanded the scope of its protection, becoming a founding member of the Freedom Front. Destroyed toward the end of the war by the Nazi monster the Shattenjäger, along with most of the others on the team.

Guardian (Grant Bryant) – Young mystic in San Francisco who is a living “nexus” between the “dream dimensions” and the material plane. His full title is Guardian of the Gates of Horn & Ivory, and as such he acts as the bulwark between Earth’s reality and incursions by entities manifesting from the vast collective unconscious of humanity. He is also an outspoken member (and unofficial protector) of that city’s LGBTQ+ community.

H

 HAMMER (Humans Against Metahuman Menance, Excess, and Recklessness) – Anti-supers political organization in New Atlantis, at its peak in the 1980s and ’90s. It played a major role in getting Mayor A.R. Wentworth elected. Currently a shell of its former self, and generally considered irrelevant in post-Invasion American politics.

Harpoons, Astoria – The Astoria Harpoons are a professional American football team based in Astoria, Oregon. The Harpoons compete in the National Football League as a member of the league’s National Football Conference West Division.

The Helix– Secret international organization with tentacles of influence reaching into many of the political, economic, social and criminal centers of power around the globe. The seeds of the Helix began in the criminal organization of the late 19th Century mastermind Professor James Moriarity, the remains of which were taken over and greatly expanded after his death by a shadowy figure known only as The Prodigal. The network was formally activated in 1919, and since then it has proven incredibly difficult to fully uproot and eradicate, although many heroes and government agencies have tried over the last century. It has layers upon layers of organization and strategy branches, front companies and organizations, and many deeply hidden cells. Very few  people have ever learned the true identity of The Prodigal, and given the apparent longevity of the Helix’s leader, some theorize that it is really a multi-generational identity, handed down to various successors over the years, like the Dread Pirate Roberts. Other’s believe The Prodigal is really one of Earth’s immortals, of which there are known to be at least a handful.

HUSH (Hierarchy to Usurp and Subjugate Humanity) – Vast criminal conspiracy devoted to world domination, controlled by the mysterious Overlord and his circle of lieutenants known as the Silent Circle. The organization first appeared in the early 1960s and clashed with the forces of SCOPE, the Liberty Alliance and the mystical superhero known as the Sesen. Over the decades, plots by individual members of the Silent Circle have been uncovered and foiled, and Overlord himself has been seemingly killed several times in the spectacular destruction of various HUSH facilities, but he has always returned, apparently unharmed, as does his organization. With every defeat and setback, HUSH rebuilds, improves, and becomes an ever more powerful threat to freedom in the world.