busyTerramagne is my superhero setting. It's pronounced "Terra Main" like Charlemagne, and it means World of Greatness.
If you want to understand the infrastructure, start here. For a character introduction, see the prose poem "Damask Speaks." If you don't like spoilers, start with "Cut to the Quick," which is the origin story poem. See the series page Polychrome Heroics for more.
The setting style draws inspiration from the cinematic school, characteristic of the Golden Age of Comics although it's popular in some modern ones as well. I used the awesome gamebook Truth & Justice to help figure out some infrastructure decisions, and it has some good descriptions of this stuff: "Life is hard but fair. Bad stuff happens to good people sometimes." [...] "Lies and injustices are equally matched with truth and justice; heroism is fighting the good fight, which could be easily lost if the hero falters."
Crucial contrasts include truth vs. falsehood, justice vs. corruption, honor vs. villainy. These help map out the thematic tone of the setting. The primary tension, however, lies between these two great attractors of morality:
"With great power comes great responsibility." -- Uncle Ben (Stan Lee)
"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." -- Abraham Lincoln
Moderate mimetic mode -- Heroes may be realistic people or idealized people, or anywhere in between. The middle range is often called "stylized."
Moderate melodrama -- There are some black/white moral extremes, but more often matters are shades of gray, nuanced and complicated as typical in the Silver Age of Comics. Tragicomedy is an example from the middle of this spectrum.
Moderate pageantry -- Costumes tend to be stylized, rather than street clothes or spandex. People are aware of superpowers; some are fans, but many are not very supportive and there are significant discrimination issues. Settings are eye-catching, but often with stylized rather than gritty detail.
Palimpsest timeframe -- The year reflects modern time, but with technology and cultural motifs from past and future. This helps avoid dating the material too quickly, gives a timeless feel, and shows some of the effects of superpowers and super-technology on the world.
Malleable physics -- Many but not all comic-physics tropes apply, insofar as they can be explained plausibly. Frex, super-strength involves manipulating forces such that a lifted building holds together and does not drive the character into the ground like a tentpeg. This is what distinguishes ordinary from super strength. A character attempting the same feat with super-armor would fail, not from lack of strength, but from lack of compensatory physics.
Metaphysics is just a more advanced level of the same universal structure, a little like going from Newtonian to Einsteinian physics. To employ a computer analogy: ordinary people are like end users, only able to do basic system functions. Most superpowers are like cheat codes or modules, allowing a single limited exception to basic functions; superheroes are thus like moderators, with more authority than users. Some powers, called metapowers, have a very broad and flexible application; for example, sorcery. Sorcerers are like system administrators, with a lot of authority to change things as they see fit. Entities that grant powers (deities, spirits, etc.) are programmers, who may be working in an established language (allowing them to grant certain types of abilities and oversee a domain) or all the way down to binary (allowing them to encode universes and do anything they can imagine). It is natural and necessary for there to be different levels of authority in a universe constructed this way, for the same reason Wikipedia requires an account to edit its pages: letting random people make changes will cause problems for everyone.
About half of all empowered people try to live commonplace lives, hiding or not using their powers; they are called crickets. Of the remainder, about two-thirds are supervillains and one-third are superheroes, although not all are in the crime/justice field. (Power tends to corrupt, but sometimes it inspires.) Many more people have the potential for empowerment; these are the ones who don't die as expected in freak accidents, but survive to develop strange new powers. Only a few of them actually do manifest, often under extreme circumstances. However, some powers such as shapeshifting run in families; these are more prone to emerge as part of natural childhood development.
Many empowered people have only one power, and some are not very strong. The more diverse a power set, the weaker it tends to be; people with multiple powers have each at a lower level. Finesse and strength increase with use, and occasionally hard-working soups develop whole new powers.
Some powers are inherently conspicuous, such as shapeshifting. Some are inherently subtle, such as super-intellect. Many fall in between. Speed and strength can be scaled from ordinary to super feats. Illusions or magic can make small, discreet changes or quite dramatic ones. Energy beams tend to be visible, but most forcefields are invisible or detectable only by a faint ripple. Some cultures also pay more attention to superpowers than others; they may be more or less accepting than average. Cross-cultural news covers the most famous and powerful soups but there is little exposure for many who live in obscure places.
These spectra of scope and noticeability mean that some people may not realize they have superpowers, and plenty of people use theirs only for personal purposes. If they're open about using power -- even under a secret identity, as is popular -- then they count as superheroes or supervillains. Some go into crime/justice but others just use their powers in their current profession. So there are super actors, park rangers, scientists, etc. as well as the "classic" professions of crook, mercenary, and peacekeeper. Discrimination makes it harder for known soups to get work, but some people's usefulness, connections, or other resources can overcome that.
The main location is Urbanburg, a city with a population around 300,000. It includes the campus of Urbanburg University and its satellite Gargoyle High School. The Lionbrary is the university's main library, so called for the two stone lions guarding the front of the building. Crown Hall is a huge auditorium shaped like a crown, part of the university's Performing Arts Department. Bitty Bohemia is a neighborhood connecting campus and the city center, spanning several streets along the blocks between the two endpoints. It contains many coffeehouses, art boutiques, funky clothing stores, ethnic restaurants, music stores, used book stores, small theatres, and other cultural attractions. Statuesque Park borders it for one block in the middle.
Trackside is the "bad" part of town, near the railroad tracks and switchyard. It houses the working poor and the just plain destitute. There are some blue-collar neighborhoods, housing projects, and slums. Things built in this area seem to break down faster than they should, mold and rust spreading with surprising speed. There are houses with caving roofs, broken windows, or sagging porches. Fences tilt drunkenly, often with saplings growing through them. Derelict cars sit in abandoned lots. Trees are gnarled, twisted things. Shadows seem to move in unnatural ways.
Littleton is a small town not far from Urbanburg. Young people often move from Littleton to Urbanburg for school or employment. Old people sometimes retire from Urbanburg to Littleton.
Eastbord is a massive metroplex lining much of the East Coast, and Westbord is the same on the West Coast.
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Notes:
The Golden Age of Comics introduced many ideas we now take for granted, including many of the most famous characters. Comic "ages" refer to broad trends in art and narrative style. You can see some evolution over time in examples like Superman. The setting style determines what kinds of characters and stories it will support. Not all stories will work in a given setting. This raises questions about the spectrum from mythic to legendary to realistic material. You may find it useful to explore the structure and vocabulary of literary criticism.
Mimesis is a fancy term for modeling literature. It lets you look at the axis lines you're using to create a multidimensional world. The cool thing about studying literature is that, as a reader, it can tell you about cultural thought patterns -- and as a writer, it can help you design infrastructure to fit your desired storytelling.
Melodrama is about extremity vs. modulation. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but you should know where you are on the spectrum to avoid making mistakes of plot and tone.
Pageantry means showmanship. If you're thinking that superheroes are ridiculous and implausible ... well, people actually do this in our world where it doesn't even work very well. Imagine how much better it would work in a world with genuine support like superpowers. Anyhow, this topic considers things like the symbolism of costumes and stage design of setting.
In speculative fiction, the natural laws can vary from what we know -- or think we know. Some things might not work in our world, but could work in a different world or with a higher understanding about natural laws. The physics of superheroes has been explored in depth. You can really, really see my scientific background in the way I write, because I pretty much can't look at speculative stuff without trying to figure out how it works. So Terramagne holds a lot of my headcanon for how stuff can happen in comics.
A story can be anchored in a specific time and place, or given a flavor of anywhere/anywhen. The more specific, the easier it is to set the scene but the faster it will date itself. Consider Disney's Hercules -- a heroic movie with lots of pop culture references giving it a distinct timestamp despite its classic Greek hero. Now think about Firefly, with characters equally skilled in riding horses and flying starships. Look at the diversity of technology in comics. Layering technological and cultural influences creates a sense of timelessness. The lyrical tense is another way to do that. Universal themes and props also convey timelessness, as they do in art.
So basically this is me doing that thing where I start with a cool idea, dig in to see how it works inside, and then use that inner knowledge to create a storyline that holds together well. There's a terrific outline in Understanding Comics about the "six steps" of Idea/Purpose, Form, Idiom, Structure, Craft, Surface. If I'm looking at more than a quick tidbit, if I'm thinking about worldbuilding, I aim for those first three core layers. Because if those aren't solid, nothing else will be, and I'm not into writing sizzle when I could be having steak. I understand that this is not the most common paradigm, but what the hell, if you've read this far you're probably a steak-lover too.
June 25 2013, 14:56:16 UTC 8 years ago
*laugh*
June 27 2013, 18:41:12 UTC 8 years ago