bryant

A superhero campaign setting, elliptically inspired by Alan Moore's Supreme:

There is only one metahuman in the world. He is a 17 year old boy, who lives in Pembroke, Kansas. His powers are strong enough to affect the entire world, and they do. Every day, all the time. There are few humans alive who have not been touched by Kenny Ringsen. He has no idea that he has powers at all.

Every day, costumed superheros fly above the streets of New York, of Los Angeles, of Chicago. Supervillains scheme in the sewers of Paris, and plot while hiding on deserted tropical islands. The official Russian superhero team works pro bono all across the world in an unofficial effort to restore the prestige and honor of Mother Russia. Metahumans are a fact of life.

These two worlds are not different. They are one and the same.

Kenny Ringsen has one power. His dreams of superheros, which he has had ever since he was eight years old, come to life in the real world. He's not immortal, or invulnerable, or any of those other things; he's just a normal kid, except that when he first imagined what the world would be life if his comic books were for real, it happened.

On that day, everyone in the world remembered a history filled with colorful costumes and dastardly deeds. Superheros first showed up around 1942, and they'd been a part of life ever since. Kenny's imagination wasn't really all that rich, but the reactions of those around him to the reality he'd created inspired him further: we start with one SuperPatriot, and Amazing Comics invents a sidekick for him, and Kenny subconsciously works the sidekick into his fantasies. The world of metahumans grows more complex. Nobody knows any different.

Ah, but that's not quite true. There's one marked exception. Anyone who Kenny invented knows exactly what's going on. They know who dreamed them up, and what his name is, and where he lives. They have a Creator and they know all about him. They also know that when Kenny dies... so do they.

The final gotcha is this: metahuman powers can't touch Kenny. He's immune. Even the indirect effects don't work out; if you throw a house at him, you'll miss. There have been suicidal supervillains who wanted to go out with a bang over the last decade, but the easy way doesn't work.

So, then, what's a metahuman to do? Once you've sprung to life, you're a free agent, no longer restricted by what Kenny dreamt for you. Most superheros keep on doing good; personalities don't change instantly, and everybody dies eventually so they aren't really any worse off. If anything, it's more important to do good while you can, because there aren't going to be any successors.

Some take that a little further and decide that the world needs to be changed while there are still superheros to do it. The line between these superheros and
supervillains can be thin.

There's a cult, made up of superheros and supervillains alike, which is religiously dedicated to ensuring that the Creator produces a long and healthy line of descendants. Perhaps, after all, someone will inherit his power. And his dreams.

There's a sect of that cult which believes that it is appropriate to attempt to influence Kenny's dreams. In his teens, new female hero costumes got skimpier. The implications were obvious. There's another sect which believes that such manipulation is heresy.

In Pembroke, a small but determined and very well trained group of superheros guards Kenny 24 hours a day. A supervillain could use a sniper rifle, after all. Kenny usually has an invisible force shield around him, although he doesn't know it, and the superheroine Vision has the power to detect other metahumans. She has come to terms with the fact that it's better for the world if she lives in Pembroke for the rest of her life.

A lot of superheros and supervillains just do what they'd do anyhow and try not to think about Kenny. They lie about succeeding.

It's Kenny's World. We just live in it.