DShomshak

Quite possibly, humans have the wrong idea about what caused Sol System to fall into the oubliette. It could be a plot point for the PCs to discover that what people thought was causative was actually coincidence, or at least not causative in the way they thought. Like, the LHC doesn't create the oubliette, but creating a short-lived quantum black hole signals the oubliette's creators that humanity is advanced/interesting/potentially dangerous enough to sequester and observe. Dean Shomshak

The Cadmus Project was an example of a different trope, the Program. But a related trope, it's true. The chief difference is whether the people trying to create superheumans are doing it for a particular sponsor, to further that sponsor's interests, or (apparently) for anyone willing to pay the price. Cadmus was only one U. S. government program to create superbeings. I recall that Will Payton became Starman through an accidental deflection of the energies meant for another government program. He later met the pissed-off super-soldiers that program created. Over in Marvel, the two Serpent Squads were products of programs from the evil Roxxon Corporation. Many other examples -- the trope is a lot more common than the Power Vendor. As Christopher points out, the methods used by a Power Vendor must not be too cheap or easy, or why isn't the world even more full of supers? The limiting factor on a Power Vendor or Program can be as important, from a story POV, as the mechanism for origins. Dean Shomshak

Incidentally, Cassandra, if you want any more RL people to fit into the WW2-era period of your timeline, I suggest Hedy Lamarr. The famed Hollywood acress -- billed, not unjustly, as "the most beautiful woman in the world," was also a genius polymath. Most notably she and the composer George Antheil invented frequency hopping as an adjunct to her idea of radio-guided torpedoes. The two gave their patent to the Navy, which wasn't interested, but frequency-hopping is now a fundamental technology for cell phones, GPS, etc. She's probably the only person to be in both the Hollywood Hall of Fame and the U. S. Inventors Hall of Fame. In your world, she could have reacted to the Navy's disinterest by becoming a spy-smashing gadgeteer superhero! (The 100th anniversary of her birth passed last week, so there have been remembrances.) Dean Shomshak

I had forgotten about Barter! Though the only story I remember in which he conferred super-powered happened in the Armageddon 2001 series of annuals: In a possible future, he gave Dove's daughter the Kestrel enchantment... *Gave* it, in full knowledge of the consequences for breaking the law of his existence. I never read any stories involving Necron. I will look him up. Thank you, one and all. Dean Shomshak

Thank you for the responses but, er, many of them were not to the question I asked. I didn't just ask for people and groups able to grant super-powers. I asked for people and groups who will do this *for people who pay them.* So, the Oans are not power vendors. Unless they have changed a *lot* since I last looked into the DCU, they do not sell power rings. That a lot of lab accident origins happen at STAR Labs does not make it a power vendor. Can they grant super-powers reliably? If you hand them a big wad of money and say, "Give me super-powers," will they do it? I remember the former hero turned insane villain Mento used Promethium to give super-powers to the members of the Hybrid villain team. But they were his mind-controlled minions, not his customers. I didn't ask for the CU because I already know it. Yes indeed, Wayland Talos and ARGENT are examples of power vendors. Teleios seems to do this at least once in a while, going by Hurricane's backstory. Doctor Philippe Moreau sort-of-does this by supplying manimal soldiers, though apparently he can't give super-powers to people who ask for them. Mephistopheles is a power vendor: See Hell Rider. He just charges souls instead of money. King Cobra is very definitely *not* a power vendor: He seeks loyal minions, not satisfied clients. PRIMUS isn't selling cyberline. The Haynesville Project isn't looking for customers, either. And so on, for most of the other origin granters mentioned. So: Do any of the DCU origin-granters *sell* super-powers? (Though they may have a hidden agenda in doing so, the way Cauldron has an agenda of SPOILER CENSORED.) Dean Shomshak

While working on my latest project, Shared Origins: The Dynatron, I realized it was built around a different comic book trope than I first thought. In the introduction, I'd like to cite examples of that trope from different superhero settings. The trope is "Powers For Sale": A person or organization that can confer super-powers on anyone who's willing to pay. There may be some other agenda too, but the vendor at least gives the appearance of being in it for the money. This sets the vendor apart from other people who can grant super-powers or otherwise create superbeings, but do so only to create powerful minions, give their best friend a suit of powered armor, or other personal reasons. The Marvel Universe has Power Broker, Inc. Justin Hammer and the Tinkerer supply technical upgrades for gadget-based villains (though I don't off-hand recall them supplying gadgets or battlesuits "from scratch" for would-be villains), so they also count as examples of this trope. The online serial Worm has the organization Cauldron, which sells super-power serums. (And there's a lot more to them, but that's the part their customers see.) I don't know the DC Universe as well as Marvel, but I'm sure there must be a power vendor or two in this setting. Could some kind expert in the DCU please clue me in? Thank you in advance. (Or, hey, if you know of any power vendors in the indie comic book settings, I'd like to hear of them as well.) Dean Shomshak

It seems vaguely appropriate at this point to note that the last two episodes of Grimm featured a mind flayer. hey didn't call it that, but that's what it was. Dean Shomshak

I notice you slipped in a bit of The Waste Land, too. But that's okay. Dean Shomshak

I love understatement. :-) (Also, not up on the latest/most complete treatment of mind flayers. I don't read or buy D&D supplements; the three corebooks have always been enough for my needs.) Dean Shomshak

The "oubliette" premise also reminds me of DC's Mosaic, in which the last Guardian of the Universe, going nuts from loneliness, abducts communities from dozens of worlds to Oa. Including, of course, from Earth. How do all these aliens get along with their new neighbors? It could be that each new star system brought into the pocket universe causes a reshuffling of the jump points. People know it's happened when the old jump points vanish and it takes a few years to find the new ones. Decades may pass between shuffles, but it shapes how alien races interact. Nobody plans on the assumption they'll be neighbors forever. Illithids in the Sundered Stars? Interesting, especially if they aren't the villains. Sure, they have some unpleasant biological requirements, but reasonable people can overcome such difficulties, can't they? Dean Shomshak

Well, people wouldn't see the stars go out immediately; the light that already crossed the border keeps going. The first clue would be that jump points out of the sundered zone stop working. Then people see the stars go out in a wave, starting from the nearest edge of the Sundering and sweeping around to the opposite side; slowest near the edge of the zone (I presume it's spherical) and faster near the center. At the exact center, the stars all seem to go out at once. If the Sundering destroys all the jump points at once, then all people know is that they are trapped in one star system. They have to infer everything else from the pattern of stars going out -- at least until the new jump points form and are discovered. Dean Shomshak

Lois McMaster Bujold's "Vorkosigan" series has similar "wormholes." That interestellar travel is only possible along these specific routes is an important part of the setting: The history of series hero Miles Vorkosigan's home planet was shaped by its sole jump point closing shortly after colonization, leading to the barbaric, centuries-long Time of Isolation; when a new wormhole opened, Barrayar's sole exit route led to the planet Komarr, whose only resource is that it's a hub for several jump-point routes; and after a very bad invasion abetted by the Komarrans, the Barrayarans conquered Komarr to make sure they controlled their own front door, leading to further story-shaping consequences. Since Cancer brought it up, I notice that Bujold's wormholes cancel relative velocity. (It's noted in a couple novels that ships must deliberately move away from the wormhole afterwards, to make sure they don't collide with other ships coming through.) Presumably, the ship's energy gets stored in the five-space vibrations of the wormhole. In one book, someone finds how to pull energy out of the wormhole -- though not in a particularly controllable fashion, and that's not what the people were trying to do. Starships need a living pilot who's had his brain specially wired to interface with the ship's jump drive. Exactly what the pilot contributes is not clear in the stories, but they are necessary: No robot ships. This becomes important in the first book, when the Barrayarans use the technique to cover their retreat from a military debacle. If you detonate a nuke mid-jump, the resulting five-space vibrations block the wormhole for some weeks... which means sacrificing a ship and its pilot. Cordelia Nismith, from the ultra-civilized planet Beta Colony, is gobsmacked that the Barrayarans would use a suicide tactic -- and that a pilot would volunteer. Dean Shomshak

Keelung sounds interesting. If you decide to use a made-up city, you could use Keelung as a starting point. To get the expat/cultural melting pot aspects of Singapore and Macau, maybe create a "Taiwan's Hong Kong" sort of city. In the 19th century, the Taiwan city was leased to European country as a port and trading post. The lease, of course, is about to expire -- so who does sovereignty revert to? The Taiwan government assumes of course that it takes over the city, but the PRC is (of course) claiming that it's the legitimate successor to the Qing empire. If the soon-to-be former colonial power has severe economic problems -- say, Spain or Portugal -- the PRC could exert a lot of pressure/bribery to be designated the new owner. In any case there could be a lot of PRC spies at work in the city. They would not be the Big Bad, but could be a pretty important distraction or red herring. I hope to hear more about this project. Dean Shomshak

Do you yet have a cool bar with a cool bartender? It might be a "neutral ground" for all the super/supernatural types, like MacAnally's pub fromj the Dresden Files. After all, people who have adventures traditionally meet in bars. Dean Shomshak

I think it's a good idea, too. Not everything should have "body loot," but maybe that just means alchemists have not yet found what something is good for, hmm? (Pet peeve: Fantasy settings in which *everything* is already known, and PCs have no chance of discovering/inventing anything new. It's rarely stated explicitly, but often seems implicit in the setting.) Dean Shomshak

I surely will! Incidentally, searching though old files I found a Cartesian coordinate map I made years ago of stars within 25 LY of Sol, from Gliese Nears Star Catalog data. I'll share it if anyone wants it. I also made a set of 8 maps showing 30 LY cubes of space, with Sol at the center of the system, from Gliese data with RECONS additions -- I have the printouts, but can't find the files anymore. Annoying! Dean Shomshak

My thanks as well, Xavier. Years back, I downloaded the Gliese 3 star catalog and a simple program to convert the data to Earth-centered or galactic XYZ, but I don't doubt that more accurate catalogs are now available. Dean Shomshak

Iain Banks' novels of "The Culture" offer an example of extreme transhumanism. I've only read Excession, but in that one placing a human mind in a radically alien body apparently is only moderately challenging, while the AIs of the General Service ships have advanced far beyond their creators: Non digital intelligences cannot hope to comprehend the Infinite Fun Zone the AIs created for their recreation. A single General Service ship also proves able to confront an entire alien race bent on war, and win. The Culture isn't gothic in tone, though; more mind-blowing excess of power and possibility. This future doesn't go to 11, it goes to 20. I haven't read it, but from a friend's description, Glen Cook's The Dragon Never Sleeps might give a darker tone. IIRC, the premise is that in the past, human civilization created nigh-omnipotent warships and crewed them with immortals to keep the interstellar peace. Only, over the millennia the ships have recruited new members from different cultures and species, their own little societies have changed, and there is basically no comprehension between them and the people they nominally protect. Settlement is so wide that a world might not encounter one of these ships for centuries -- but when one arrives, you have no idea what it will do, and probably no way to stop it. A gothically transhuman future might feature entities of such power and divergence from their human origin that they are effectively gods, or demons. People know some of the ways to alter themselves in the directions of these dark gods, but are viewed with suspicion for doing so. Would-be transhumans also must be wary of the beings they would emulate: Some of them might help humans along the transhuman path for their own ends, but only so far -- the gods are jealous of their power and do not want rivals. Dean Shomshak

(Well, and Dune. I get Dune.) Cordwainer Smith's "Instrumentality" future history might supply inspiration as well. The main period of the Rediscovery of Man was a retreat from transhumanism, or posthumanism; this period also included the emancipation campaign of the Underpeople, animals wrought into human form as a labor class. C'mell was the original catgirl. Dean Shomshak

Somtow Sucharitkul's "Inquestor" series had starships piloted by the brains of whale-like creatures. There was a gengineered society of blind, deaf whalers -- the only people who could stand to hunt the creatures without being overcome by the beauty of their synesthetic songs. In fact, the Inquestor series sounds very much like what you describe: Immortal aristocracy, hyper-decadent and commanding godlike technology, and a Galaxy of people who have to live with their whims. The Inquestors have a job to do -- supposedly, preventing humanity from being seduced by false utopias -- but their attitude is pretty much, "Whatever the hell I want." Also makes me think of Moorcock's "Dancers at the End of Time" series. I've never seen Fading Suns or any of your other references, except the first couple episodes of Farscape. May have more comments later. Dean Shomshak

I hope people enjoy Sky-Q as much as I enjoyed writing it. I want to write several more Shared origins mini-supplements, and I’m spoiled for choice. Let me describe the types of shared origin stories that I ponder, and the examples I think could make good supplements. Some are further along than others; but I’ll prioritize the projects that get the best response here. Origin Substance: Radiation, Super-Serums or other exotic drugs, strange meteors… I already did this one with Sky-Q, so I’ll wait a bit before writing about any others. Shared Accident: Whatever the source of their powers -- a chemical spill, exposure to a nuclear explosion, a gift from a powerful wizard or god, or whatever -- a group of characters received their powers at once, through events they did not plan and which would be difficult to duplicate. Paradigmatic case: the Fantastic Four. As a premise for a supplement, Shared Accident has the advantages that characters can be tightly connected, and even more than other shared origins you only need to write the origin story once: It’s a good origin story for entire teams. OTOH, it may be hard to fit in new characters after the fact because only so many people experienced the accident: Once the accident is done, it’s done. (Though someone might try duplicating the accident, the way the Red Ghost and his Super-Apes, and the U-Foes duplicated the Fantastic Four’s origin. In which case, the origin story might slide into a different class of story.) * Demoniacs of the Doomsday Cross. The villainous master wizard Archi -- I mean, Zazamanc the Witch-King (working name, could change) -- created the Doomsday Cross to channel powers of demons of the four elements. When the blasphemous Cross was shot, it exploded. The four demons were wrenched out of Hell and forced to seek refuge by possessing four nearby mortals. All four became supervillains: Quake, Pyre, Tempest and Flood. The teenage Quake was less influenced by his possessing demon, and ended up pitting his powers a master villain’s Earthquake Machine. The cowardly demon abandoned Quake and fled back to Hell, but Quake kept his powers: He now tries to go straight as a superhero. The other three remain possessed and more or less mad and evil. Pyre, for instance, sees her rampages as performance art. What do a bunch of people burned to death matter, compared to Art? Problem: There’s no room for inserting your own characters. Solution: The Doomsday Cross recreated itself, but now it calls random demons out of Hell and places them in the bodies of susceptible people who hold the Cross. After being the cause of one Shared Accident, it now functions as an Artifact (q.v.) * The Parallax Event. The secret government Parallax Project to study a wrecked alien FTL drive was compromised from the start. The military security liaison and one of the scientists were bribed by a big tech company to smuggle out experimental data and bits of the drive so the company could perform its own experiments. One such experiment blew up when a couple of beat cops stumbled on the improvised lab. Several nearby people gained super-powers with space-warping aspects. The surviving cop became the super-strong, super-fast flyer Blue Star. The company gathered surviving employees (including its two bribed agents) as a villain team dubbed the Constellation. The company quickly had the new supervillains trash the Parallax Project and steal the rest of the alien tech, covering up that some of it was already missing. The Constellation now acts as the company’s secret strike force, attacking rivals and gathering materials and data for its own FTL research -- because the first group that reaches the stars stands to gain incredible power and profit trading with aliens, and why should governments be the only ones to compete in the Secret Space Race? The Parallax Event creates one hero and a complete villain team in one shot. It’s conceivable that one or two other people gained powers in the accident, but there just isn’t room for a whole lot more. OTOH, if anyone can get hold of the same sort of alien tech, they might attempt a duplicate “accident.” * The Sparrow’s Curse: The adventurers from Earth should not have broken their promise to the little bird that guided them. They should not have laughed when it cursed them, and then killed it. Even less should they have touched the Rhinegold, the object of their evil quest. In Faërie, the curse of one truly wronged has power, and the Rhinegold magnified that curse into a force the gods would fear to challenge. An eldritch wind blows through Faërie. It seeks out beings of power and sends them to Earth in a whirl of golden motes. The Sparrow’s Curse is upon them: They cannot return to the realms of myth until they find and slay one of the supervillains who betrayed and slew the sparrow… or anyone who fights to defend one of the villains. A few castaways of the Curse have noble hearts. Rather more of them bear darker natures. This is the most open-ended “accident.” It will keep pulling characters out of Faërie until all the targets of the Sparrow’s Curse are dead. (It also has aspects of a Program or a Heritage -- q.v.) But it’s the least developed Shared Accident so far. Artifact: An object might give people super-powers. The simplest form may be a weapon or device that’s so powerful whoever has it functions as a super-being. That’s okay for one character’s origin (or a series of people might wield the artifact), but that isn’t the only option. Instead, a single object might cause several origins, whether serially or all at once. The object might be magical, or the product of super-advanced or alien technology, or some freak of nature. What matters is that the object can pass from person to person, but cannot itself be duplicated. If you want an origin, you must obtain the artifact. For a variation, the “artifact” is a place. More than one person can come to that place and receive super-powers. For another minor variation, a small set of objects might grant powers to one person each. * The Dynatron: Many brilliant scientists have tried to build a machine to give people super-powers. The Dynatron is the most successful, and the most aggravating. It’s highly reliable; its inventor, the villain Red Giant, is sufficiently skilled at its operation that people hardly ever die from the machine; and the parts are surprisingly easy to obtain (Red Giant scavenged many parts from junkyards)... but the Dynatron only works if Red Giant built it. Telepaths have ripped secret from his mind, but several governments, criminal syndicates and master villains have warehouses full of precisely duplicated, non-functioning Dynatrons. Once Red Giant builds a Dynatron, though, it will work for other people. The villain takes care never to let a Dynatron pass out of his hands: He knows that as long as people need him to rebuild his miraculous machine, he will not stay in jail for long. His client list includes organized crime gangs, villain teams seeking additional members, strongly motivated individuals with money and no scruples, rogue regimes, and not a few “respectable” governments. Because when you have POWER for sale, you never lack for customers. (I’m well advanced on this one, with several characters written and illustrated and most of the background written as well.) * The Cosmic Crystals: AKA the Psi-Gems. These quarter-sized crystal lenses fell in a meteor. The man who found them sold them on eBay. Only later was it found that some people who obtained a crystal lens also gained psychic and psychokinetic powers. They kept most of the powers if they lost the lens, too. Ambitious people throughout the world try to obtain a Psi-Gem in hopes of gaining super-powers, or to regain a gem they lost. And somewhere far away, the vast, cool, alien intelligence that created the Cosmic Crystals watches the people who claim and use the gems. Soon, It shall render Its judgment. This is an example of a “limited set” Artifact. Each can empower a character, (or even several in sequence), but there are only a few Cosmic Crystals circulating. Naturally, some people aren’t satisfied with just one, and characters do get power-ups if they can obtain more than one gem. I’ve only just started writing characters, though. (And yes, any resemblance to the Lensman series or the Infinity Gems from Marvel is purely intentional.) Dangerous Choice: The mechanism for this sort of origin story matters less than the motivation of characters. The mechanism could be anything from use of a drug that might kill you if it doesn’t give you powers, to a course of training at a secret martial arts temple with a final test that not everyone survives. What matters is that people risk death for a chance at gaining super-powers. Usually they know how dangerous it is, but they take the chance anyway. * Metamorphosis of the Green Butterfly. This ancient grimoire gives the instructions for a mystic ritual. Those who perform the ritual correctly gain powers like unto a god. Those who make even the slightest error die or are transformed into tormented, rampaging monsters. For centuries, occultists dismissed the Green Butterfly as a legend or a fraud (there’s a fake grimoire of that name, of the Faustian tradition). The master warlock Zazamanc found the Green Butterfly, however, refined its magic, used it to empower minion villains, and made several new copies. Those copies now circulate through the Mystic World and the damndest people obtain and use them... The superhero Coil tried curing his AIDS by embedding the ritual in a prayer to Asklepios, the Greek god of medicine: It worked, and incidentally transformed him into a super-strong snakeman with healing powers. A stockbroker in trouble with the Mafia, who also practiced minor astrological magic, became the supervillain Capricorn. A member of a small occult lodge who resented its sadistic and manipulative leader built the ritual around the sigil of the silver-tongued devil Belial and became the Dictator whose commands no one can resist. And a college student whose occult knowledge was limited to tacky pop-occult books screwed up the ritual completely and became the mad, rampaging Elemental. This particular Shared Origin was actually complete but built around a story arc of the Devil’s Advocates trying to mass-produce copies of the book. I now prefer to stay away from the characters I contributed to the mystical side of the Champions Universe, so something else is going on with the Green Butterfly. I’d also like to add at least one more character, who might be involved with why people are obtaining copies of the book. Heritage: Some characters in some sense inherit their powers. For a shared origin, super-powers might run in the family, they were taught by the same mentor, or something of that ilk. Super-powered “hidden races” such as Marvel’s Eternals and Inhumans, super-powered alien races, or pantheons of deities push the idea to an extreme. Clans of vampires or tribes of werewolves are other examples. Characters who share the Heritage are intimately bound to each other and to allies, enemies and conflicts based on that Heritage. (Think of Thor’s allies within the Aesir, his enmity with Loki, giants, trolls, and the various monsters of the Nine Worlds, or the enmity between New Genesis and Apokalips.) * Five-Element Kung Fu. For centuries, the Five Families kept the secret of Five-Element Kung Fu, the world’s second-most powerful martial arts style. They held themselves aloof even from the rest of the Martial Arts World. In the Superheroic Age, though, all secrets are revealed. A scion of the Families, trained in the Metal substyle, lives in America as the superhero Steel Phoenix. His renegade father, who broke the proper cycle of training to study the Water style (and perhaps went mad from Qi imbalance), is now the Triad enforcer Crashing Wave. Other members of the Families serve the Chinese or seek their fortunes in defiance of tradition. It is even possible that a kung fu genius will learn Five-Element Kung Fu without being trained from childhood to properly attune and strengthen his Qi. * Zetrians. This humanoid alien race lives relatively close to Earth. Zetrians enjoy technology far in advance of Earth’s and a near-utopian society. Even here, though, some are discontented. Zetrian criminals see Earth as chance to seize profits they could never obtain at home. A few Zetrian lawmen want to stop them, or see the primitive planet as a chance to do some real justice instead of writing interplanetary parking tickets. Zetrians have no intrinsic super-powers, but technology that Zetrians consider off-the-shelf (such as their omnipresent antigravity bracelets) make them powerful superbeings by human standards. Programs. A government, megacorporation, crime syndicate, or other well-resourced group tries to recruit or create a group of superbeings to serve its ends. They might use cybernetics, psionic training, battlesuits, origin substances, an artifact, or other means to empower their recruits. Several groups might use the same methods in parallel Programs (and particularly expensive methods, whether measured financially or in lives of candidates, are most plausibly used by Programs rather than individuals). What matters most for the story is the connection to the sponsor. * The Huán Process. Many superbeings gain powers from chemical, electrical, or radiation accidents that should have killed them. Why not? Doctor Huán said: Who cares? Just gather a group of people and keep hitting them with everything, then try o keep them alive until someone gets super-powers. (And close monitoring might even reveal the X-factor responsible for empowerment.) Even with the best medical care, the Huán Process suffers at least 90% mortality; but some people don’t care. Dictators of rogue regimes, criminal gangs, and terrorist zealots have conducted several Huán Process programs, never empowering more than one or two superbeings at a time… but they keep trying. The Huán process carries some risks for the scientists as well as the test subjects. Doctor Huán’s first and only success, the North Korean supervillain Fire-Eye, killed him as soon as his pyrokinetic powers appeared. Different sponsors attempt different gambits to keep their successes loyal. Spinoff Characters: Sometimes one superbeing can give other people powers like his own. The paradigmatic case is Tony Stark building powered armor for various friends, and having his technology stolen for use in other people’s battlesuits. (Red Giant and the Dynatron are an example of Spinoff Characters as well as an Artifact, since RG gained his own powers of Growth and glowing red force field from the machine he invented.) * The Psychotronic Cyborgs of the Sinister Doctor Synapse. An experimental “neural pacemaker” gave telepathic powers to a man who suffered from severe epilepsy, creating the villain Seizure. A French neurologist figured out how to duplicate and control this fluke. He first used electronic brain implants to become the telepathic supervillain Doctor Synapse. After his first stint in jail, Doctor Synapse decided it made more sense to sell psychotronic empowerment to other people. The psychotronic implants, surgery, and tweaking and training weren’t cheap but Doctor Synapse did very well in his new business. It was, of course, a ploy. Eventually Doctor Synapse sent the radio signal to activate the slave-circuit in all his patients and gathered them into a psychic army to conquer France. Doctor Synapse failed and died (no, really, they found the body) but other scientists are reverse-engineering his discoveries. Most psychotronic cyborgs are still villains, such as the super-Jihadist who calls himself Commander of the Faithful, but a few have chosen the hero’s path. * The Gifts of Zazamanc. The mystical master villain Zazamanc creates potent mystic items and gives them to people he believes will serve his goals. Most of them don’t know they are his pawns. The hero Sir Ebon sure doesn’t. He believes he found magic items and rituals to restore a lost order of monster-hunters who use the powers of Darkness against the creatures of the night. Most people who receive Zazamanc’s gifts become villains. The greatest gift, though, is Zazamanc’s own staff: The warlock first cheated death by coming back as a lich; destroyed more completely, his spirit now possesses people who touch his indestructible staff of power. So, what would you most like to see? Dean Shomshak

Jason posted a link in the Product Line forum. Will that do? I'll probably be incommunicado from the forums for a while. When I can return, I hope we can discuss what other Shared Origins supplements people would like to see. Dean Shomshak

Hello, all! Within days, (I hope), the HERO Store will stock my latest little supplement. It's called Shared Origins: Sky-Q. I hope to make it the first in a series of mini-supplements that supply reusable character origin gimmicks and stories. This one deals with Sky-Q, the "smart drug" that sometimes works too well. Not only do people who use it a lot get addicted, sometimes it makes them super-smart, able to master exotic sciences and invent radical new technologies... but also makes them barking mad, with peculiar obsessions. The effects never last, though. As with many drugs, abusers develop a tolerance: They are only super-genius inventors for a short time. The madness, however, is permanent. In short, it supplies an origin for all those goofy "theme" gadgeteer villains, or those guys who somehow are smart enough to invent one or two bits of amazing super-tech but never invent anything else. The supplement gives background and mechanics for Sky-Q, and writeups of 5 sample characters: one hero (who got an intervention before she went off the deep end), and four villains. Later on, I'll try to get some feedback on what Shared Origins projects to finish next. (I have several in various stages of completion.) Dean Shomshak

Well, super-powered aliens might clash with the Terran Empire SF stage of the meta-setting. Like I said before, it's one reason I don't like meta-settings. Dean Shomshak

I would suggest the X'endron Network description has one important typo, though: the reference to it as the Galaxy's "only" all-machine civilization should instead, IMO, read "latest." Or simply, "new." I think it's best to avoid saying what *isn't* in a setting (IE, "No machine civilization before X'endron.") Don't close off possibilities for future writers. (I've been called on this once or twice myself, and rightly so.) Dean Shomshak