Palador

Okay, let's toss out a couple of mine: * Mender Silos has gone back in time to stop/alter the creation of Lord Nemesis (aka: Himself). What he found is that the person everyone believed to be the original Nemesis is in fact just building off of blueprints given to him by someone else, and the guy's DNA doesn't match that of Silos. Unsure of where/when/who the real Nemesis is, Silos is having to make small changes to snowball events into the end he wants, rather than stopping Nemesis directly. And that will lead to his other goals. * The group that created the 5th Column spun off another group as well. They had a strong interest in magic, and were in league with the Thule Society to investigate it. The Thule Society eventually realized that they didn't believe in a "master" race, but that it was the ability to use/control the forces of magic that marked one as superior. This caused a bitter split that lasts to this day, and left the Council scrounging for pseudo-magical allies such as the Path of the Dark. The Mages of Thule (as they now call themselves) eventually found a pocket dimension in the Atlantic that they decreed the fabled Island of Thule and set up as their base of operations. Due to their concern with magical ability and bloodlines that carry it, they have ties with both the Mu and the Legacy Chain. They actually back the Chain (secretly), and use them as a public front. * City Hall offers various services and programs to heroes that many don't know about. This includes a small amount of pay for anyone doing enough freelance hero work, therapy sessions, classes on dealing with a crime scene/people before the police arrive, and a wide range of classes that can be summed up as "How to do Basic Stuff That You Never Learned Because Your Dark Backstory Left You With No Life Skills" classes. Most of those classes are taught by heroes that volunteer their time. * Overbrook has an unusually high population of heroes in the apartments there. That's because the company that owns the apartments felt that offering targeted discounts to heroes would make the building safer than the more hazardous area would suggest. * There are hero social groups that have formed around having some kinds of powers. Speedsters getting together for morning jogs, flyers playing Quidditch, gun clubs, and so on.

It's a common view (I think?) that the Empathy power set is sub-par compared to other buff sets, especially at higher levels. I've seen some suggestions to help bring it up to speed, but they mostly just leave it doing what other sets are already doing. I'd like to see it do something unique, thus my suggestion. Currently, Absorb Pain is a targeted click to heal, that does damage to the user and prevents them from healing for a while in exchange for a large and fast heal. It can be good, but it's perhaps one of the more questionable powers, and entirely reactive. My suggestion is to make it a more proactive power. Make it a toggle with very low End cost, or maybe no End cost at all. You target a teammate and turn it on. As long as it's on, you take part of the damage for them just like a Mastermind pet in Bodyguard mode. You have to decide in advance who you're going to protect, if anyone. And if there's multiple Empathy users doing this on one person, it works the same as a MM having multiple pets. This is something no other set does, but it's something that's already in the game for something else and with luck can be ported over. And I'm sure players could get some use out of it, without it being too overpowering compared to other sets. Thoughts?

I'm voting Stealth, because like many powers, it can actually be used to represent different things. A ninja character? They're not invisible, they're just really good at blending in and not drawing attention. Mind controller? Oh, you see them, you just don't notice them. Like the keys in your hand as you search for your keys, your brain is just not registering them. Homeless guy sitting in the gutter? Everyone knows they're there, but everyone's trying REALLY HARD to pretend that they don't see them. Cyborg covert ops agent from an alternate future timeline? Thermoptic camouflage, which IS a form of invisibility. The one power is how you can represent all of these ideas, but only one of them is actually Invisibility. They are all forms of Stealth, however.