The World Forged By Powers

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
Better living through superior technology

“I have to talk to Peter.”
“I’m afraid he’s busy stopping a prison break right now, can I take a message?”

“Tell him a new alien species just came to earth and ask him what he wants me to do about it.”
—Charles 'Jade' Ravenholm and Lisa Willems, pretty much summing up the RP.

The World Forged By Powers is a Bottomless Sandbox style Play By Post Game that explores what the world would be like if super powers were real and followed some of the more basic laws of physics as closely as possible. It was created to tear down traditional Hollywood Science and come up with new explanations for the most common powers. No, not that one. Therefore, it generally ends up rather hard on the Mohs Scale of Science Fiction Hardness. This does not stop the players from doing all sorts of crazy stuff, though.

The game roughly follows the current date in Real Life, through the use of Comic Book Time, but throughout history, people with superpowers have changed the way the world developed. Currently there are significant differences with Real Life. In general, the most successful company on the planet is HardeWare Systems, created and powered by the biggest genius on the planet HardeWare and led by Peter Vanderheijden. This company was responsible for the creation of the intercontinental Portal Network that spans Earth (and also the moon). In addition to this they also sell robotics and weaponry to both the military and civilians. Mostly know for their chain of HardeWare Stores where supernormals can buy dietary supplements, powered armour and all sorts of other gadgets and weapons.

In essence, however, the planet is controlled by an entity known only as 'Shift', while a race of sentient robots called 'the Collective' keeps humanity safe from Alien Invasions.

Behind the scenes links for WFP.

Tropes relating to the characters.

the WFP Character Sheet Repository

The WFP OOC and Character Sheet Approval [dead link]

The WFP Pre-approved Powers and Technology List

So far there are three locations for player characters, each with it's own IC thread.

London IC

New York IC [dead link]

Windgarden IC [dead link]

Tropes used in The World Forged By Powers include:
  • All Myths Are True: Almost but not quite. Mythological figures are actually early supernormals who realized what they could do if they grouped up.
  • Artificial Limbs: A common staple of the technology of this world.
  • Awesomeness By Analysis: About the closest thing to predicting the future in this world is to be able to observe patterns and discern the odds of what's going to happen next. Not that it's a particularly precise skill of course.
  • Barrier Warrior: Ostrakinesis allows you to make (and move) shapes in the air that feel solid but have no mass and are completely see-through. Each Ostrakinetic has a native colour and their shapes are always that colour.
  • The Beast Master: Animal speak is type 6 of this trope, a telepathic ability to sense what animals sense and direct their actions.
  • Blob Monster: Freemorphs generally fall under this when they're not specifically copying something.
  • Blow You Away: Ventrokinesis allows you to control the wind by controlling the most common part of air, namely; Nitrogen particles.
  • Boring but Practical: a lot of the secondary powers are this.
  • Brain Uploading: This how A Is were originally created. Later the process of A Is became reproducing what was learned from brain uploads or mixing and matching.
  • Breath Weapon: A variety of these including fire-breath, plasma-breath and various poisons.
  • Bulletproof Vest: Several types but most notable are impact cloth (which is an improved version of kevlar) and hyperdiamond.
  • Cool Gate: The airport style portal network has large circles through which you can physically see the other side as though another country was just the next room over.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Cache, Peter and several other characters.
  • Deflector Shields: Kinetic barrier technology and the Ostrakinesis power are capable of creating objects that feel solid yet have no mass. These can be as simple as shields and blades but alos have applications with entertainment when combined with holograms.
  • Dem Bones: The incredibly rare Sci Fi example. Osteokinesis is the psychokinetic control over calcium-hydroxylapatite. Incidentally this means it doubles as Bad with the Bone.
  • Emotion Control: Empaths can make people happy, sad, angry etc.
  • Dishing Out Dirt: Psammokinesis allows one to throw sand in their eyes as well as the ability to move and shatter glass.
  • Dodge the Bullet: But only if you can see which way the gun is aiming.
  • Doppelganger: One of the afflictions that exists in the world gives you the ability to turn into a perfect duplicate of another person down to the DNA and hair style. There's one catch though, the affliction decides who you turn into and you have no control over it. Furthermore it tends to happen either entirely at random or when you die.
  • The Empath: A beefed up version whereby one can not only sense how other people are feeling but also induce a different feeling to replaces it with such as happy, sad or angry.
  • Expy: It isn't allowed to take copyrighted material, but that doesn't mean players don't model their characters off of other ones.
  • Extra Ore Dinary: Metallokinesis allows you to mold metal into any shape with the power of your mind.
  • Fiction 500: Once again, HardeWare Systems
  • Frickin' Laser Beams: Both technological and organic.
  • Good Is Not Nice: The Primary good guys in this world are the law enforcement agencies or the League of Masks who operate illegally and are often quite insane.
  • Gravity Master: Gravitokinesis allows the user to create deep yet very narrow gravitational troughs in the fabric of space.
  • Grey Goo: Possible but mostly averted. Most Nano-bots capable of self-replicating are required by law to have multiple fail-safes to make sure they time out.
  • Half-Human Hybrid: After WWI human scientists made these by studying animal DNA and directly altering human DNA to achieve desirable traits. These hybrids are biologically human for the most part and can only breed with other humans.
  • Hammerspace: Fantasmokinesis and it's technological equivalent, the dimensional compressor, Are capable of forming a Pocket Dimension tethered to the user which they can use to store objects or even themselves in.
  • Healing Factor: Regeneration allows character to heal better than a normal human or even regrow missing limbs in extreme cases but unlike traditional depictions they need to eat food (especially proteins) and bones are the SLOWEST thing to grow back.
  • Healing Hands: A sort of by-touch ability to manipulate living cells in humans, animals and plants by controlling their growth and injecting them with (or removing) chemicals. Incidentally this can also be used to hurt people.
  • Hologram: Usually comes in two flavours. A room with emmiters all along the walls and ceiling to make free floating holograms such as you see in the Iron Man Movies. Or a holographic sheath in which their is a central object which can do so to disguise it's appearance or become invisible.
  • How Do I Shot Web?: Powers like super strength may be straight forward but many powers take a lot of practice and/or trial and error to get right.
  • Hyperactive Metabolism: Nearly all of the available powers in this game require the consumption of massive amounts of high calorie food. Other powers require you to eat certain things, such as lots of organic material for regenerators, and even come with hunger for said substances. Because of this there are even plants with super powers such as super sugar which has 50 times the calories if regular sugar.
  • An Ice Person: One of the two primary uses of Thermokinesis is freezing things. Some Hydrokinetics are capable of shaping ice but without a way to make it cold it tends to melt pretty fast.
  • Immortality: Via a Healing Factor is available in the form of vampirism, lycanthropy and higher level regenerators of other sorts. Of course even regeneration is not total proof against death but you can live a long time this way.
  • Improbable Aiming Skills: Super accuracy is one of many intuitive abilities. Rather than just automatically being good at it, however, they are simply better at learning it.
  • Immune to Bullets: Bullets hurt! Unless you're wearing power armour or have energy shielding, of course.
  • In a Single Bound: Super speedsters are capable of jumping incredibly high and several super strengthers are capable of jumping a few times their own height.
  • Intelligent Gerbil: Most of the aliens in the galaxy are based on earth animals.
  • Invisibility: Both organic in the form of photokinesis and artificial in the form of active stealth.
  • Invisibility Cloak: Like a Chameleon but way better. Also used in body suits and as a coating on armour at times.
  • Involuntary Shapeshifting: Werewolve's noses, ears, heels and hands break and rearrange themselves whenever they have an adrenaline rush and they grow a coat of fur. Doppelgangers change seemingly at random or when they die.
  • Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better:
  • Light'Em Up: Photokinesis allows one to hoard light to create darkness or to concentrate it into a laser Or to become invisible or even create mirages.
  • Lizard Folk: The Raptillians are heavily based on velociraptors.
  • Made of Iron: Being able to resist damage is a required secondary power for a lot of things in this world but especially super speed and super strength. It should be noted that they still CAN be hurt, it's just much harder to do so.
  • Make Me Wanna Shout: Sonokinesis allows one to create sounds in mid-air by vibrating it.
  • Making a Splash: Hydrokinesis allows one to move water around making bulletproof barriers and can hit things with a fairly solid punch.
  • Mass Super-Empowering Event: Between WWI and WWII people on both sized encouraged supernormals to interbreed. During the same time period the Half Human Hybrids were made.
  • Mass Teleportation: The Bookmark System is designed (by Suffuciently Advanced Aliens) for use by ships and therefore is rarely ever used for anything small or even on the surface of a planet.
  • Master of Illusion: Illusionists are able to control your senses. Not only can they see what you see and hear what you hear they are able to make you see and hear something else instead. Much like a waking dream. Photokinetics can also get in on the action by making holograms. This Is Not a Floor and other such dangers often don't come into play because your subconscious senses the danger.
  • The Metric System Is Here to Stay: Played With. While the creator is a huge fan of the metric system, and much of the RP takes place in London, Americans do still use American Customary Measurements.
  • Mind Over Matter: Psychokinetic powers make up a large chunk of the game and thus many changes have been made for the sake of realism and gameplay fairness. First off most powers can only control a chemically defined substance rather than a theme based one. Moving substances this way follows the law of equal and opposite action and reaction. If you lift something up it presses down on you and if you push something down it lifts you up. The force is distributed over the entire body and/or balanced between multiple things being moved. That way someone lifting something heavy can brace themselves with something else. Furthermore these abilities burn calories when used just like when you use your muscles. As such a few abilities can be used to fly and a lot can be used to hover or jump near a sufficient quantity of whatever it is you control. For gameplay reasons psychokinetic abilities do not work on the inside of an organic sentient creatures body due to interference. The same applies to radioactive materials or things with significant energy signatures such as q-puters.
  • Mohs Scale of Sci Fi Hardness: Fairly hard while still attempting to keep a variety of powers. Much harder than most super powers works.
  • Nanomachines: A few examples but the most common being nanites, foglets and carbon nano-tubes.
  • Neural Implanting: A still somewhat experimental technology used for such things as data storage and retrieval or hands free control of devices.
  • Not Quite Flight: While there's no explicit flight power available there are several abilities that can induce it such as ventrokinesis, gravitokinesis, Ostrakinesis or good old fashioned wings.
  • Only Known by Their Nickname: Bound to come up in nearly any setting with super powers.
  • Organic Technology: Insectoids use this as their chief form of technology though they have been known to steal human tech as well.
  • Our Vampires Are Different: Since vampirism and other afflictions in this world are more scientifically based the vampires are just your run of the mill super powered humans that can't go out in sunlight.
  • Our Werewolves Are Different: Full moon? what has that got to do with anything? This affliction can turn into a hairy situation when the infected have an adrenaline rush.
  • Our Wormholes Are Different: Mostly because they're not created by force of gravity and therefore much safer.
  • Our Zombies Are Different: While not QUITE dead when first infected these zombies are mostly brain dead and will keep going for some time if you don't shoot them in the head.
  • Paper Master: Arborkinetics can not only control paper but ANYTHING with cellulose in them including throwing around trees and attacking with vines. They cannot, however, make them grow.
  • Phlebotinum Du Jour: So many of the characters have carbon nano-tube weave in their clothes you'd think it was the best thing since sliced bread. While most people mistake it for true armour it would be more accurately be described as an extremely thin cloth that does not tear.
  • Playing with Fire: Pyrokinesis allows one to control the shape of fire by controlling the location of oxygen molecules. The exciting things so they get hot version is called Thermokinesis.
  • Poisonous Person: a variety of such powers exist including acid.
  • Portal Network: Interesting two similar versions. An airport style global network of portals is available for travel between major countries and continents. However, largely unknown to most humans, is a galaxy wide system of permanent folds in space, known as bookmark systems, powered by harnessing the power of stars with a ring of solar sails. The bookmark system requires space ships with portal making capability in order to access them as a sort of way to make sure alien races don't use it till they're advanced enough.
  • Powered Armour: The HardeWare Stores sell these to the general public as well as the military. There are also several other companies and private citizens capable of making them.
  • Power Source: A key element of the game is the requirement for power. While many other super power worlds can access limitless or nearly so power from another dimension, or something of the sort, this game shows no trace of it. Humans and other organic races need to eat food for calories and the raw materials used up in their powers. Machines require batteries, fuel or some other form of power and resource generation.
  • Pragmatic Villainy: Again very prevalent in this RP.
  • Prehensile Hair: Trichokinesis allows one to not only control their own hair but others hair as well. It also allows the control of fur, wool, dead skin-cells, fingernails, scales, feathers, shells and dust.
  • Psychic Powers: Namely Telepathic and Psychokinetic ones. Possibly the biggest departure from the hard end of the scale. Partly explained by a special organ in the brain while the rest is "explained" by people having no idea how it actually works.
  • Puberty Superpower: Psychokinetic abilities almost never manifest before puberty and often times never manifest at all.
  • Reconstruction: Equal parts this and Deconstruction of superhero tropes in general.
  • Required Secondary Powers: In WFP power levels are well below 9000 and secondary powers are always required.
  • Reverse the Polarity: Repulsion focusers and the kinetic blast ability can be used to attract nearby matter as well as repel it.
  • Ridiculously-Human Robots: Justified in that AI were made by expanding on what was learned from copying human minds into robotic bodies.
  • The Social Darwinist: Most Raptillians are this.
  • Shapeshifter Baggage: Averted, in this world your mass stays constant be you a werewolf or a voluntary shapeshifter unless you physically eat something or excrete it.
  • Shock and Awe: Electrokinesis allows the user to control free electrons for guided lightning and magnetic fields.
  • Stock Super Powers: As many as could be made to fit mostly realistic physics.
  • Super Intelligence: Usually coming in three basic varieties; fast thinking, parallel thinking and high capacity thinking. each has it's own benefits.
  • Super Mode: a partial case with werewolves. While they don't grow any extra muscle mass they do experience the normal effects of their adrenaline rush and they grow claws and get a boost to smell and hearing due to the reshaping of the ears and nose. Their teeth however are the same in both forms because teeth are pretty solid things.
  • Super Reflexes: This one is pretty straightforward but it's notable that most of the time it's not good enough to dodge bullets unless you're dodging the aim.
  • Super Senses: All sorts of varietions, especially if you're a robot. Notable is a psychokinetic's ability to sense whatever it is they control. Can often result in Sensory Overload.
  • Super Smoke: Utility Fog is a lot like nanobots except instead of creating things out of other things they come together to make these shapes directly. This is accomplished by being tiny robots slightly smaller than grains of sand who hold hands and pass each-other around to change shape. If they don't hold hands they can float through the air like the fog they are named after.
  • Super Speed: While a fairly common power in this universe it rarely allows the sound barrier to be broken and even that is comparable to a dead sprint, tiring in seconds. Most super speed is actually a series of leaps due to the difficulty in keeping contact with the ground. The faster ones can outpace a car at a jog.
  • Super Strength: In more or less the lifting and throwing cars neighborhood. Mind you balance is actually an issue here and you CAN drive yourself into the ground. The stronger ones can lift as much as ten tonnes.
  • Technopath: The machine speak power works on anything with a q-puter in it, which in this world is everything from cellphones to cars. Since sapient A Is in this world are based on Q-puters this is equivalent to mind-reading and though-sending since you can't hack AI.
  • Telekinesis: Generally split into two subcategories of microkensis for moving small things in precise ways and macrokinesis for lifting heavy objects. Having both is rare yet possible.
  • Telepathy: while most considered a range of abilities that traditional Mind Reading is kept with the condition that it can only read active thoughts.
  • Teleporters and Transporters: The take apart and put together type are right out in this world. However the Portal type is everywhere. There's even a global airport style permanently open portal system. The PK ability for making portals is AEtherkinesis.
  • Time Stands Still: Chronokinesis allows you to create envelopes of time that move at different speed inside and out. you could make a bubble around someone to slow them down or you could make one around you to speed yourself up. A particularly neat trick is to make a skin tight bubble around your body and swim in the air.
  • Touch of Death: That guy with the healing powers can't hurt you right? Wrong. If he can get his hands on you he can open up a vein or worse.
  • Translator Microbes: a recent visit to earth by bird-like aliens required a translator device for them to speak to humans.
  • Vibroweapon: Cuts hard better than soft, just like doctor's saw.
  • Virtual Training Simulation: Lightblood academy has a well equipped gym with holograms and forcefields for students to practice in.
  • Voluntary Shapeshifting: Metamorphs can change their appearance to seem like other people as well as bend and stretch like some sort of Rubber Man. Freemorphs on the other hand are generally made of utility fog or are goo monsters.
  • Wall Crawl: Repulsion focusers and the kinetic blast power are able to attract solid matter as well as repel it allowing this to become an option.
  • We Can Rebuild Him: HardeWare's artificial arm, eye and spine are a result of this having happened to him a few times in the past. Only in this case he tends to rebuild himself. Furthermore he expresses a rather casual attitude about his willingness to do so again.
  • What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: While 25% of the human race may have some sort of power, compared to Real Life, most of them are pretty lame and/or weak. super accounting skills may be useful but they're not exactly helpful in a fight.
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