Hello everybody! I’ve always loved superheroes and superpowers and one of my all time favorite settings (which to my knowledge has never seen light of day within the roleplay community) is Worm. Worm is about a young woman named Taylor Hebert trying to be a hero within a twisted world (openly advertised spoiler: it doesn’t work out that way). I recommend to anybody that loves a good superhero book and has time to spare to go read it. This may have some spoilers if you care about world-building and all that but if you don’t have the spare time to read almost two million words then allow me to break up the setting into little bites!!

How do powers work?: Powers are granted via trigger events by inter-dimensional sentient space worms, called Entities, that want us to duke it out. Yup, you read that right- SPACEEEEE WORMS. These space worms shed off things inter-dimensional supercomputers called shards which have primary objectives issued by these Entities but since the Entities are uncreative they give these shards with handicaps out to creative species, such as humans, and allow them to find creative uses for them. Thus, superpowers!

Trigger events which grant shards/superpowers happen whenever a person reaches a breaking point through trauma and stress and it’s just really really pooey. Trigger events are personal and differ from person to person but it’s not just a one time ‘bad day’, no, they are usually a culmination of bad events that can take place over days, weeks or months.

Say if you get held at gun point and then trigger. That doesn’t seem too likely/impactful to give a power but if this happened:



Certain feelings and situations can give different powers. Shards want to help their host from their trigger event but shards are alien and uncreative. They will not grasp the situation entirely thus some powers can be painfully ironic. In Worm our protagonist is trapped in a locker of biowaste and insects and she feels isolated, trapped, and scared thus she triggers with the power to control insects. Powers have ratings to them and these are the 'aspects' in which a power manifests. Say, if you have the power to manifest portals you would have a 'Mover' rating since these portals give the person superhuman movement. These are some of the emotions/responses that can give certain powers, but notice there is some crossover:



I really haven't gone over everything concerning powers such as group triggering (triggers involving multiple people) and second triggering (boost in the power under initial trigger sceneario) but this section has stretched on QUITTEEEEE a bit. But I love dealing with powers since I'm weird like that so feel more than free to ask general questions about the powers or how they work or if a certain power you have in mind will work!!!

What is the plot?: I'm debating on the initial city but I'm either going with some fictional big city, or perhaps New York. This story begins ten-twenty years after powers start to manifest with the first case of triggering ending in a tragedy with the S-class threat Mockingjay still roaming freely till this day. People are a jumble of nerves as the notion around parahumans, those with powers, is in the negative. The president of the United States has issued a formation of a government sponsored group to be located within multiple city: The Parahuman Response Team, or PRT. The PRT opens a multitude of programs such as: the Protectorate dealing with grown parahuman adults, the Wards dealing with underage parahumans, and Watchdog a group of thinkers dealing with information gathering. Villains are continually growing as the world descends into chaos. What side will you take? Will you desperately try to protect the innocent or will you make your path in the world as a victor and risk being branded as a villain?

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Okay! I think that's enough for a information spam since this is already going over 1000 but the plot is sorta ehhhhh it's susceptible to change but I think it's decent as it is. I’m wanting to get everybody’s opinion on the setting, how the power works, and if the plot is bland or could use some further spicing up from my short ass description but I’m drawing blanks with it.

I’m also wanting opinions on whether I should implement a XP system that could balance out power issues. You would get a certain amount of points to spend on how your power functions such as: “shield”, “strike”, “zone”, “aura”, “pressure”. You can combine these effects to produce a unique power effect for example: Strike/Aura/Pressure: Once you touch somebody they start to give off an aura that adores everybody to their presence. I have a more detailed system review if people recommend I go that way in favor of balancing powers out more.

One last thing I want people’s opinion on: should the staff team make the powers? The powers within worm verse have their own unique flair and I would like to keep the site continuing that same flair. But would having the staff make the powers whilst the applicants provide the trigger event be really that off putting? If they want a stranger power or blaster power they will most likely get that but just not in the way they see fit which adds some element of surprise. Idk, this is the main thing I wanted to get people’s opinion on too, well that and the EXP system.

I think this has gone on long enough though but I’ll be more than happy to answer questions or supply my thoughts or anything in between! Don’t be afraid to ask anything and thank you all for providing feedback and reading through this mess.