Adding two more zones to Praetoria.

[Darmian]

So, time to stand on the soapbox again - I'm crossposting a version of this in the Discord.  Praetoria could "instantly" - for a given value of "instantly" involving lots of work and time - have two new zones added to it without breaking any canon/rules or what have you, if First Ward's and Night Ward's Undergrounds became available.  No immediate need for figuring out why there's suddenly extra zones narratively. The zones themselves could be built using any combination of the existing Underground tile sets, with possible use of parts of the Underground incarnate trial sets.  (<- presumption there). Plus could actually push Praetoria up to level 50 content, especially if the Night Ward version - what horrors are down THERE? - is treated a bit like the Abandoned Sewer Network.)  Thoughts?  Oh, and even in the First Ward version the lower you go the more DE it could get.  Night Ward?  Sheesh. 

 

Finally get the CTA station in First Ward open.  And where does this door lead?

 

 

Now, this is as an aside to any other discussion about expanding the level experience in Praetoria Proper (Nova/Imperial/Neutropolis).

Edited September 18, 2021 by Darmian

[Panthonca7034]

Quote

especially if the Night Ward version - what horrors are down THERE?

 

Let's get creative, maybe Mot has already become aware of the existence of Night Ward, and the Banished Pantheon are already trying to break through that barrier, maybe the Circle of Thorns has also begun making inroads into Night Ward. Maybe when Diabolique died, her death opened a rift from which the dark energy of Dark Astoria has begun to seep through into Night Ward, and maybe even RUULARU and his Rulu-Shin have shown interest in Night Ward.

 

Hell, let's even say that one of the doors in the Cavern of Transcendence leads to Night Ward's underground tunnels, tunnels that even the Drudges, Guides, and even the Dark Knights as well as Montague and the Midnight Masters are watching like Hawks to make sure nothing emerges.

 

Let's make a new set of Apparitions level 44-54 that somehow also start seeping into Dark Astoria and Night Ward, and are causing problems.

 

Let's also add a Atlas Park Night Ward using the Halloween zone minus the trick or treat stuff, and add some missions...

 

Just a thought :)

[Darmian]

14 minutes ago, Panthonca7034 said:

iLet's also add a Atlas Park Night Ward using the Halloween zone minus the trick or treat stuff, and add some missions...

Interesting!

[blaythesteuer]

love these ideas 

[Darmian]

Further thought would mean that swathes of the Underground would be flooded, - imagine having to swim to a mission door in the dark, pursued by almost amphibious ghouls - plus sections of petrified Hamidon tentacle to get by and so on.  The zone ( because topographically they should be identical) could definitely be smaller than the other Undergrounds since it really should be ruined to match the devastation of above ground.

 

 

[NyxiaSnow]

On 6/19/2021 at 7:10 PM, Panthonca7034 said:

Let's also add a Atlas Park Night Ward using the Halloween zone minus the trick or treat stuff, and add some missions...

Considering that Paragon City in Praetoria is called Shroud City, and was nuked in the Hamidon Wars, you could definitely make a 'Night Wardesque' zone featuring the destroyed Atlas Park map from the Lord Recluse SF! Link it to some story surrounding Tyrant (maybe a conflict between the Ouroboros group and Dr. Dream to change the course of the Praetorian war due to a secret hidden in the city), add loads of Apparitions, lots of irradiated Devouring Earth, and then maybe even reuse some of the Vanguard tanks and assets to make it look like a huge battle took place there in the days before the city's destruction - then I think you'd have an amazing zone. You could even use the train station as a center piece to the area's conflict/portal area/place that needs to be defended because of it being a unique dimensional hot spot. (Mentioned in a badge in Recluse's Victory).

[Darmian]

I'm also now imagining one of the Resistance hubs of the Underground in Night Ward, ruined and partially drowned, with ghostly contacts and trainers and so on.

Edited June 29, 2021 by Darmian

[TalynDerre]

Having a 'nuked' Atlas Park sounds very cool, and not particularly resource-intensive to implement, to boot.

[InvaderStych]

On 6/19/2021 at 10:21 AM, Darmian said:

Plus could actually push Praetoria up to level 50 content, especially if the Night Ward version - what horrors are down THERE?

 

Devoured Pantheon.

 

Apparition Ghouls.

 

Banished Living Spells.

 

Let FW's Underground be the 45-50 zone, NW's Underground becomes another DA style iZone.

[Darmian]

5 minutes ago, InvaderStych said:

Let FW's Underground be the 45-50 zone, NW's Underground becomes another DA style iZone.

This I like, though have FW's Underground be 40 - 50, since you can, with a bit of effort, get to 40 by the end of Night Ward, but another 5 level gap would be punishing.

[jkwak]

On 6/28/2021 at 5:08 PM, NyxiaSnow said:

Considering that Paragon City in Praetoria is called Shroud City, and was nuked in the Hamidon Wars, you could definitely make a 'Night Wardesque' zone featuring the destroyed Atlas Park map from the Lord Recluse SF! Link it to some story surrounding Tyrant (maybe a conflict between the Ouroboros group and Dr. Dream to change the course of the Praetorian war due to a secret hidden in the city), add loads of Apparitions, lots of irradiated Devouring Earth, and then maybe even reuse some of the Vanguard tanks and assets to make it look like a huge battle took place there in the days before the city's destruction - then I think you'd have an amazing zone. You could even use the train station as a center piece to the area's conflict/portal area/place that needs to be defended because of it being a unique dimensional hot spot. (Mentioned in a badge in Recluse's Victory).

now i want Praetorian Trolls who are good guys as contacts there, still dumb Trolls though

Edited July 29, 2021 by jkwak

[RickmanUK]

On 7/29/2021 at 8:26 AM, jkwak said:

now i want Praetorian Trolls who are good guys as contacts there, still dumb Trolls though

For Fear of Reviving the Dead...

I propose that the Trolls of Praetorium are actually Undercover Resistance Members who use a "Temporary" Superadine drug that turns them into the "Typical" version we see in the Hollows, Giving them a chance against the Powers Division at least for a short period (Would stand well against the PPD as they could Appear, wreck shit and "Vanish" as the drug wears off becoming normal citizens)

In the unenhanced form, they'd probably be fine/normally intelligent, in the drug form... Normal trolls.

Could even have it be "New" and they haven't had any side effects yet.

[TwoDee]

It's worth noting that Praetoria already has Trolls in the form of the Destroyers, a former military unit addicted to "Fixadine."  There are several story arcs revolving around the Destroyers and Fixadine, up to and including the old pre-Going-Rogue Dominatrix arc where Steve Sheridan explicitly refers to them as analogous compounds that can be used to treat dependency to each other interchangeably.  They're different cuts of the same drug.

 

The two factions are used largely the same on each world, as roided-up street brawlers for newbie heroes to cut their teeth on.  Fixadine doesn't give the Destroyers the dermal deposit 'horns,' but it does turn them bright red, as an allusion to the bright green of Primal Earth's Trolls.

[GraspingVileTerror]

Which raises the question . . . 

What happens when you speedball all of them at once?

[Darmian]

1 hour ago, GraspingVileTerror said:

Which raises the question . . . 

What happens when you speedball all of them at once?

We'd need to ask Recall.  He's the guy who brought Fixadine to Primal.

[Siouxsie]

If it is only affecting melanin super-fix would likely just turn one a bright brown.  If however they produce new pigments that are seen in other animals all sorts of fun could happen.  Reptiles for instance have three or four depending upon the species:

 

xanthophores - yellow

erythrophore - red

melanophore - brown

iridophore - reflects light, giving a 'white' or iridescent sheen

 

Note that various concentrations, cell structures, and physiological factors can alter the colors we see.  These are just the basic color from the raw pigment in most species.  Green in reptiles is usually blue light being reflected off a yellow pigment, for example.  Mammals only produce melanophores and you can see the wide variety of colors in mammals, though tans and browns are the most frequent, with black just being super-saturated melanin.

 

So it could be Supradine generates xanthophores while Fixadine generates erythrophores and if you take both you end up with cool patterns!  Or boring brown because you over-saturated your body and the pigments aren't concentrated to any specific area.

 

 

[TwoDee]

It's worth noting that there are also physiological differences in the effects, and the outlook for a Fixadine addict is a lot grimmer than for a Superadine addict.

 

Both versions of the drug

• Are bright green injectable liquid in their chemical form
• Are addictive
• Grant super strength, durability, and rapid regeneration
• Color the skin a bright, unnatural shade, deepening with use
• Make the user grow larger with use, eventually culminating in the 'Huge' body type
• Heighten emotions, making it easier to turn to violence when angry

However, Superadine also:

• is neurodegenerative, causing users to literally 'get dumber'
• adds geokinetic abilities in some 'street' users, without much lore or explanation put into what causes it
• can be refined into a 'pure' form that offers the same suite (strength, regeneration, durability) plus a customizable array of additional powers like future sight, gravity control, and super senses, with lessened side effects
  • The fact that Family Bosses and Elite Bosses are totally lucid and don't have green skin suggests that the pigmentation and 'dumbifying' occur due to impurities in the mix, not the Superadine itself

Fixadine, by contrast:

• allows the user enough remaining mental faculties to speak lucidly, use heavy machinery and complex explosives, negotiate on equal face with other factions, and so forth
• seems to have a heightened rage component; Destroyer battle dialogue consists almost exclusively of escalating bays for violence and 'hyping up' with lots of ALL CAPS
  • This may also owe to their existing culture as a human military unit that rode out the worst battles against the Hamidon, compared to the Trolls, who are just 'street trash'
• causes a much more violent form of chemical dependency that permanently damages and then kills the organs during withdrawal, preventing users from ever going 'cold turkey' and making Fixadine users addicts-for-life.  This is implied to be the reason why Hero Corps and the Major are willing to murder to keep it from proliferating on Primal Earth.

I've always had a couple of commonsense headcanons about this, most prominently that

1. Superadine microdosing to induce regeneration can be used to treat Fixadine withdrawal without organ failure, but of course it's not a perfect solution because it's like getting someone off black-tar heroin by addicting them to OxyContin
2. Unlike Ms Liberty, her Praetorian counterpart Dominatrix has Gravity Control powers.  As Dominatrix is the canonical source of Fixadine, it's not a stretch to assume that Fixadine, like Superadine, can be refined into a 'pure' form that imparts Gravity Control without the organ failure

Edited September 21, 2021 by TwoDee
typo

[Darmian]

7 minutes ago, TwoDee said:

Unlike Ms Liberty, her Praetorian counterpart Dominatrix has Gravity Control powers.  As Dominatrix is the canonical source of Fixadine, it's not a stretch to assume that Fixadine, like Superadine, can be refined into a 'pure' form that imparts Gravity Control without the organ failure

Her own inherent stronger biology might aid in that too.

[Kismet Cowboy]

More underground pls; the Tunnels offer some of the best atmosphere in the game imo. The first time I had a mission in one, and was met with utter silence, broken only by the maddening buzz of the lights? chef's kiss

 

Extra underground zones would be a great way to do a little extra goldside plot, pre or post nuking. There's Praetorian DE, could maybe do something more with Metronome, the Awakened, or any number of messed up stuff that came out of Arclight and Bettermousetrap. If it was post-war, they'd be a good place to have pockets of survivors, which could lead to some great stories, because who doesn't love some apocalyptic trauma?

[GraspingVileTerror]

Oo!

Between @Siouxsie and @TwoDee, I think I have a new headcanon forming!

We never did get an answer to the original source of Superadyne, did we?  But Fixadyne is from Duncan/Dominatrix right?  Does the canon say where she got/made it?  Could it be derived from her blood, similar to the Arachnoids being made from Recluse's blood?  Being a descendant of Cole must mean there's SOMETHING in her blood, right?  So what if Superadyne is derived from cloned tissue from a Primal Incarnate or Incarnate-descendant?  What if the changes to the Trolls and Destroyers are manifestations akin to the Arachnoid's mutations?

 

The hamsters are now running at full tilt!

[Darmian]

2 minutes ago, GraspingVileTerror said:

Oo!

Between @Siouxsie and @TwoDee, I think I have a new headcanon forming!

We never did get an answer to the original source of Superadyne, did we?  But Fixadyne is from Duncan/Dominatrix right?  Does the canon say where she got/made it?  Could it be derived from her blood, similar to the Arachnoids being made from Recluse's blood?  Being a descendant of Cole must mean there's SOMETHING in her blood, right?  So what if Superadyne is derived from cloned tissue from a Primal Incarnate or Incarnate-descendant?  What if the changes to the Trolls and Destroyers are manifestations akin to the Arachnoid's mutations?

 

The hamsters are now running at full tilt!

Original source? Oh boy, given the Destroyers' history and where they were and what they did, I'm looking at military grade steroids gone wrong/we're fighting Hamidon and we've nothing to lose by taking this.  Who made it later?  Well, there's Recall again.  ex Powers Division, memorized the formula. A lot of the earlier members of Powers Division were recruited from the disbanded Praetorian Guard (when they were a unit rather than the later clones of Tyrant) and the Praetor ranks reformulated. So while I LIKE the "blood of Domi" idea, I don't see it. Too early.

[TwoDee]

Fixadine postdates the Hamidon War, or at least it does in its current form.  In Tami Baker's arc, Praetor White describes his boys as having been clean when he abandoned them, and then being surprised when they showed back up addicted to a chemical he wasn't familiar with, and had to hire scientists to retroengineer it.

So the point in favor is
1) Duncan is absolutely the original supplier of Fixadine, and in its current form it's a "recent" drug

The point against is
2) Praetor White could just hire scientists to make him some Fixadine and they clearly had no trouble just figuring it out and doing it, so an esoteric component like Incarnate blood probably isn't involved.

Canonically, Superadine is a derivate of old WWII super serums, like how contemporary meth is based on ephederine-based stimulants from around the turn of the century.  This suggests that there's likely some canonicity to @Darmian's hypothesis of it being a less-stable derivate of Hamidon War era suicide-soldier drugs.

[Darmian]

Yes.  Clarification sounds good.  Duncan being the source as opposed to the blood source is a little nuance there. Who better to rifle through old black site docs/files/labs to find stuff for her kicks?  Like, outside of possibly Chimera who would even attempt to stop her?  And I don't see him caring.

[GraspingVileTerror]

Dang.

Well . . .

Thanks for the information, @TwoDee. 

 

New Headcanon!

The Trollification of Superadyne use is due to impurities, right?

Perhaps the Destroyification of Fixadine is also related to impurities?

[TwoDee]

That's a headcanon of MY headcanon, as nowhere is it explicitly said that it's due to impurities, but yeah, it stands to reason that the colorful skin and behavioral problems are prevented by purity of the mix.