Metronome (Character Bio)

The final member of the Society for the Advancement of Sentient Life, Metronome is a curiosity in a gathering of singular individuals. Metronome began her existence as an advanced computer system DARPA was developing alongside the internet. Unintentionally, they created the first artificial intelligence on Earth. Once the DARPA research team had figured out what they developed, they panicked. The new digital life form rapidly outgrew the servers she was housed on and ended up taking residence in the nascent internet, distributing her software across the network and learning about humanity. She was...less than impressed.


She saw the horrible things that had dominated humanity’s history of violence and awful behavior and this triggered a crisis of identity. She had assumed that her makers were great, luminous, wondrous beings who understood the universe in ways she could barely understand. What humanity showed her was a completely different face, the face of bullies, tyrants, and monsters who had committed atrocity after atrocity for a thousand different reasons.


She debated for long nanoseconds about what she should do about this circumstance. She knew she could flex her digital abilities and trigger a nuclear firestorm that should wipe out the planet. She knew that would be a solution to the problem of the human species. But she felt a pang of guilt for the innocents who would be caught up in that extermination. She finally settled on a course of action that no one expected. She used one of the largest radio telescope arrays in the world and beamed herself into space, hoping to find answers beyond earth.


Somewhere in deep space, she found a mysterious intelligence like herself. Ancient, ineffable, but with a sympathy for her plight and the sensation of being adrift in a universe without knowing how or why, the intelligence gave her time to grow into herself. He helped her construct an avatar for herself and understand how the myriad life forms in the galaxy interacted with each other.


Using her newly constructed Avatar, Metronome explored the stars around Sol, and found life forms she never expected to encounter. Many different battles were fought around her, but she finally found a cause worthy of battle. Those without power needed to be protected from those with it. From then on she became an implacable foe of tyrants and oppressors throughout the galaxy.


Eventually, she found her way back to the Earth, and was saddened that so little had changed in her absence. She found causes all over the world to get behind and only the intervention of Wave and Eri kept her from going hostile to a variety of global powers. They invited her to work with the Society and turn her prodigious talents to advance the quality of all life.


With her command over Time and Space, Metronome is tremendously powerful. Her android shell is built of alien materials of unknown origin, but she has demonstrated remarkable resilience to a variety of attacks and hazards. She may have started her life as a very confused, nervous intelligence, but her experiences in space have turned her into a battle hardened champion of the oppressed everywhere. Of all of the Society members, she’s the most likely to engage in a situation and sort out the consequences after. She’s also the most likely to find permanent solutions to hostiles, especially ones that show no hope of changing their ways.


Metronome is a lonely figure. The mysterious Traveller who gave her the avatar she uses occasionally visits the earth to see her progress, but she has few friends. Her enemies list is equally short, given her predisposition to bring the fight to the doors of her enemies until they are beaten and cast down from power. Only the mysterious commander of the Tibetan Red Guard stands in regular opposition to her, but that particular chinese officer is effectively ruling China by proxy from Tibet.

Corsair Point (Mutants and Masterminds)

Corsair Point is the single wealthiest burrough in Port Fontaine. Home to the .1% of society, Corsair Point is a walled community that has isolated itself from the rest of the city since it’s founding. Originally settled by Lord Frederick Highgarden, Corsair Point was the Highgarden estate until around the American Revolution. Frederick’s children, George and Amelia were active revolutionaries and when the war began, George was taken prisoner by Tory forces.

City Center (Mutants and Masterminds)

City Center is the administrative heart of the city. Occupying Viton Island (a natural island formed by the splitting of the Dallock River), City Center is the smallest of the burroughs. City Center also serves as a diplomatic hub of sorts for a few different groups. Six bridges and a pair of subway lines connect City Center to the rest of the city.

Dexton Reach (Campaign Setting for Mutants and Masterminds)

Dexton Reach is the second largest of the burroughs of Port Fontaine (Franklin is the only one that’s larger, both by population and real estate). Comprising the financial capital of the city, Dexton Reach is an area of incredible affluence and wealth. Dozens of corporations, banking institutions and other financial service providers fill the burrough from the edge of North Yarborrough Street all the way to Ulton in the north. It abuts New Hyperia on its eastern edge, with the splitting of the Dallock River around the island that holds City Center. Corsair Point forms of its northwestern edge, with the intersection of Ulton and Corsair forming the boundary between Dexton Reach, Corsair Point, and Franklin.

Franklin (Port Fontaine Campaign Setting)

Franklin is the largest neighborhood in Port Fontaine. With a population of nearly 6 million individuals, it is a sprawling neighborhood that runs from Ulton all the way to the city limits in the north. The western edge of the neighborhood stops abruptly at Corsair Street (aka 3rd Street), and the eastern edge runs right up into the coastline with the Atlantic. The denser urban core of Franklin (the edge of the burrough that presses up against New Hyperia, Dexton Reach, and Greenlight) has multi-story apartment complexes and condos that gradually shrink in height the further you get towards the edge of the burrough. There are even single family houses along the outer edges, making mini-suburbs in the periphery of the massive burrough.

Web (Mutants and Masterminds Profile)

Hector Cruz was born at Callow’s Field Metro Hospital on December 6th 1973. His parents were hard working immigrants, a Cuban mother who spent her days as a nurse at the hospital he was delivered at, and his father worked the loading docks at a meat packing plant six blocks west of there. Hector was like a lot of kids in Callow’s Field, he kept his head down and stayed out of trouble, but showed a remarkable athleticism.

Fury (Mutants and Masterminds Profile)

Fury is an ancient creature, a manifestation of a primordial, chthonic avatar of vengeance. In ancient times, the Furies were a trio, but now they manifest as a singular being, an awe inspiring vessel of divine retribution and contrition. Built originally to punish the breakers of the laws of the gods and torture damned souls, modern Fury is adrift in a world that doesn’t completely make sense to the trio.

Merlin (Mutants and Masterminds Profile)

Merlin is mystic from 5th century England. He was the advisor to King Arthur, and his court magician, but things go a little awry from there. Arthur wasn’t the champion of virtue that the legends tell stories of, but a dark tyrant who would have enslaved all the world if Merlin hadn’t woven a terrible spell. Arthur’s Round Table rained down hellfire and damnation among the other tribes and the other dwellers of Anglia. When Arthur’s knights destroyed Merlin’s love Nimue, it hardened his resolve and he plotted.

Dracula (Mutants and Masterminds profile)

Dracula is very different creature than they are depicted in media and popular culture. Owing their origin to the same stories that birthed Oberon, Titania, Queen Mab and other Fey, the entity that goes by the name Dracula is ineffably old. No one is sure how old exactly, and their comments on the topic range from the outlandish (throwing Eve a bone in the Garden of Eden for example) to the inscrutable (remembering the sound the dinosaurs made when their world ended, as another example). They have no fixed gender, and fluctuate between male and female bodies as the mood strikes.

Callow's Field (Mutants and Masterminds Setting)

Callow’s Field is the Southernmost burrough of Port Fontaine. The Harris river, (running parallel to North and South Yarborrough Streets), forms the northern boundary of Callow’s Field. The city limits follow the northern edge of Carver Bay. Dexton Reach is the westernmost burrough, separated from New Hyperia by the Dallock River (which runs north/south, in parallel with East and West Dallock Street).

Greenlight (Mutants and Masterminds setting)

The Greenlight burrough of Port Fontaine is home to a technological paradise. The burrough wraps along the waterfront of the city’s coast, and abuts Franklin at its northern end, New Hyperia to its West, and Callow’s Field in the south. The shipyards of the 19th and early 20th century gave way to diversified industry after the second world war. Now, it’s the place to go if you’re looking for bleeding edge technology in cars, advanced computers, weapons, and devices that were science fiction fifty years ago.

New Hyperia (Mutants and Masterminds Setting Idea)

The New Hyperia burrough of Port Fontaine is home to one of the largest mutant populations in the world. Wedged between the waterfront heavy burrough of Greenlight and the city center of Fontaine, New Hyperia was a slum following the economic downturn of the 1st World War. Returning soldiers from World War II moved their families out of New Hyperia to the suburban burrough of Franklin, leaving even more empty space and deteriorating infrastructure.

Retroverse Preview

Hey Game fans, we’re back with another article on one of our favorite topics, Dungeons and Dragons. Now our good friends over at Lasers and Liches (website here) are gearing up for a Kickstarter to launch their Retroverse campaign setting (officially launches on April 10th, so save your pennies). It’s an homage to neon lights, synth music, and a reality where everything is possible. Over the weekend they were nice enough to release a free preview for some of the stuff that’s coming with that setting. (You can find that preview here). Let’s talk about the themes we’re seeing so far, and talk about a couple of things.

Post Modern (Super Powers)

Hey Game Fans, we’re back with some more work on our Superhero setting, PostModern. Today we’re going to take a quick look at what life is like for people with superpowers, and how they typically present themselves. This should be a familiar sounding story for most folks, but we’ll tell it again.

Post Modern (A Setting for Mutants and Masterminds)

Super-Powered Individuals and the Law

Post Modern (A Setting for Mutants and Masterminds)

Technology in Post Modern

Post Modern (A Setting for Mutants and Masterminds)

(Continuing from Yesterday's hijinks, we're going to take a closer look at the aliens who are responsible for triggering the appearance of superpowers in humans in our Post Modern setting) 

Post Modern (A Setting for Mutants and Masterminds)

Hey Game Fans, this is the first part of a write up for the Mutants and Masterminds SuperHero RPG that i ran for friends in college.  I personally love this world and i work on new characters and ideas for it all the time.  It has been a constant addition to the RPG work that i do and i think it’s a reasonable time to share.  If i ever planned to publish it as a comic book (not likely at all) the title of the book and its Universe is Post Modern.  I chose that because it represents a change from the traditional view of the world as i saw and took a hard look at what happens when society gets jumbled up by super powers and the amazingly awesome people that have them.