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The Super Powered roleplay takes place in the fictional city of Citadel Creek, Idaho, in the United States of America. It makes use of an alternate timeline of world events which, while very similar to our world in the way major events turned out, is very different as far as how these events happened. This is because Metahumans, commonly referred to as Metas or Supers, are not uncommon, and have shaped the development of Earth and its people since the dawn of time.

Because there's so much to know about Citadel Creek and the alternate world in which it exists, this section was created as the ultimate guide to everything about the city. Every section is very long; imagine if you had a book that tried to tell you everything about the history, power groups, and landmarks in Berlin, London, or New York. You're not expected to read anything all the way through, though it would help immensely if you did. The only required reading is the last six paragraphs of the History section, because even if you're a recent arrival in Citadel Creek you'll know about the events discussed there.

You should also read the description of whatever district you happen to be in, as well as the information about whatever enemy group you're facing (if you're facing one at the time, of course). I wrote a lot (all of this took between 16 and 20 hours over about a week on and off), and unless you really want to, you don't need to read it from start to finish.

1. City Center: The center of both tourism and government in Citadel Creek, the aptly named City Center sees a great deal of traffic and is the best patrolled area in the city. A permanent police task force guards the area, and sees plenty of action given that the district is surrounded on all sides by Yellow districts. Containing the rebuilt City Hall, the police supreme headquarters, and the oldest building in Idaho, the City Center is the first stop for most aspiring heroes and the last for powerful villains. It has seen many attacks, particularly during the turbulent 1980's, but with a vast budget and devoted defenders it seems unlikely to be the battlefield for a power struggle any time soon.

City Hall and the famed statue of the Water Bearer that stands in front of it are the single most important landmark in Citadel Creek, having seen much history. The cracked pavement in front of the statue where Paragon fell after his defeat at the hands of the Kallam has never been repaired as a gesture of respect for Earth's once-disgraced defender. Aside from tourists taking pictures of the statue and with heavily armed and armored police patrollers, the area sees traffic from politicians and their flunkies, as well as the city's most respected Metas. Award ceremonies are almost never held near City Hall, lest it become even more of a target, but many prominent figures want problems taken care of quietly, or simply wish to congratulate successful heroes in person. The office buildings adjacent to City Hall, or the Hall itself, are usually the locations in which such meetings take place.

The CCPD's primary headquarters, aptly named the Supreme Headquarters, are also located in the district. From this location all emergency services are remotely coordinated with the aid of sensors throughout the city, and broadcasts are often sent out requesting heroic intervention in particularly difficult cases. The actual dispatches are cleverly encoded with ciphers that are changed weekly, but despite a relatively small window of opportunity almost every villain group in Citadel Creek would pay a small fortune to get their hands on the week's ciphers without the police becoming aware of the theft. Beneath Supreme Headquarters is an old military bunker that contains a special communications array; this array is used in dire circumstances to contact the Ghosts and request military intervention in the city. Next to the headquarters is the trading post constructed by Jack Gordon and his followers, lovingly preserved and cared for for over two hundred years; it remains one of the oldest buildings in the region, and certainly the oldest in Idaho.

2. Historic District: The location of Yates International Airport and the famed store for Metahumans known as "The Beyond", the Historic District was mostly constructed in the 1950's and sees a great deal of tourism as a result. The second most popular area for out of towners, it also gets plenty of police protection, second only to City Center in vigilance and numbers.

Yates International Airport, named in honor of the legendary mayor Andrew Yates, offers direct flights to most major airports in the United States as well as Canada, Mexico, and Panama. Its most famous service, however, is the massive double-decker superjet flight direct to Magadan, Russia, with continuing service to Moscow and St. Petersburg. Security has always been high, but thanks to a great deal of Meta attention no bomb plot has ever succeeded on any plane leaving or entering the city. Heroes and villains who need to get somewhere fast and lack super transport usually depart from here.

The Beyond is a rare business; a store targeted at Metahumans. Entered by getting into a parked limo, warded with powerful spells to prevent its destruction, the store is built in a pocket dimension and managed by a rogue entity of the void known as Kobal. Once referred to as the "Demon of hilarity", morbid practical jokes lost their appeal to Kobal around a thousand years ago. He now travels the multiverse, finding mysterious magical and technological treasures from a million million parallel worlds and bringing them home to sell. Money, of course, is useless to him, and he accepts only favors as payments. Incredibly curious, he often sends those who owe him into dangerous situations to answer some bizarre question, and with his powers of lie detection can easily determine if those he's dealing with are telling the truth. His store appears as a vast warehouse filled with racks of strange items; all are powerfully warded and entirely impossible for denizens of Earth to steal, and more wards ensure that powers of any sort are simply nullified within the pocket dimension. Kobal, who appears as a giant raven with a talking Human head in place of his tongue, expels anyone who tries to get violent and refuses to deal with them until a bit of time, say fifty years, has passed.

3. Financial District: Filled with towering skyscrapers that form vast canyons of glass and steel, the Financial District is the center of business in Citadel Creek, and every corporation with a local power base (along with several that lack one) maintains an office in the area. To both prevent villains from crippling this valuable economic center and to stall corporate warfare as much as possible, the police presence here is the third highest in the city. Of particular interest to Metahumans are the offices of Super Solutions, the one and only Super-Powered mercenary agency.

Super Solutions exists because, in Citadel Creek and across the world, there are tasks that normal Humans simply can't complete. When businessmen need super-intelligent folks to come up with infallible corporate plans or clever stock market moves, or when millionaires find that normal bodyguards aren't sufficient, Super Solutions puts out advertisements through channels both public and private seeking an individual with the desired powers on either side of the moral spectrum. When a Meta is found and accepts the job, fifteen percent of the fee goes to the company, while the Meta pockets the rest. There are so many requests, and each for so much money, that Super Solutions can easily pay its bills and much, much more with its income, and the company is highly successful and respected in the city and, to be frank, the world.

4. Tek Town During the 80's and 90's, the factories in what is now the United Technocracy were expanded and enhanced with the newest, best available technologies to help the city prosper. With high safety standards and very few accidents, people flocked to them, gaining tremendous respect for technology. They took the quiet residential district of Falling Water, which had violently protested against the construction of the factories, and turned it into the hip, bustling area known as Tek Town, a place they could be proud to live in-between factory shifts. When the Technocracy broke away in late 2008, the area looked doomed, but the locals banded together. They planned to create a business of their own that would allow them to survive the loss of the factories, and they succeeded with the birth of Virtuo City, the world's largest and most advanced arcade. The area is heavily patrolled by the police, lest it be taken over by the robot armies of the Technocracy and the income it provides lost to the city, and this promotes tourism in the area.

Virtuo City takes up four city blocks; a vast number of people volunteered to have their houses bulldozed in order to allow for it to be built, and were awarded the first jobs there as well as good quality apartments in return. Filled with total immersion arcade games that create an almost perfect feeling of being somewhere else, the place is the closest most normal citizens can get to actual being a Meta, or a medieval warrior, or (in some cases) married. Private rooms are rented out to parties, and both tourists and locals attend in force almost constantly, made possible by the fact that the arcade is open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, with no exceptions save for technological difficulties; so many people are trained to run it, and so much money flows in from it, that someone who's off most of the time can easily fill in on holidays, when even more customers are available. On a separate block is a service of more interest to Metas: the Virtual Training Dome. Built of nigh indestructible materials in an effort that cost nearly a billion dollars not counting the actual systems, the Dome allows any and all paying customers to run virtual scenarios that allow them to gain more precise control over their powers and hone their skills.

5. The Outpost: The only Green District south of the Elk River, The Outpost isn't a tourist area or important economic center; it is the site of most of Citadel Creek's government labs and housing for the scientists that work in them. The whole area is surrounded by a thirty-foot electrified fence with guard towers every thirty feet. A vast sensor net covers the whole area, granting advanced data to both Supreme Headquarters and the guardians of the compound. Those guardians are the most lethal military force in the world, for the compound is personally guarded by a detachment of the Ghosts.

Only the most powerful of heroes would ever be invited here, and even the most powerful of villains stand very little chance of making it inside. In the district labs research of every imaginable kind goes on; portal technology, practical faster than light travel, bombs that crack open planets, spells that could force the next jump in Human evolution to come early. Everything that's too powerful and disturbing for the public to ever know about or understand is locked up in one of the world's most inaccessible places to keep it safe from those who would misuse it, or, in many cases, use it at all.

6. Northern Docks: The Northern Docks have always been seedy. Lined with warehouses used for criminal activities by the Bomb Squad, the Gabrelovics, and the Southriver Assassins, this area is the most disgraceful Yellow district in the city; an area just south of the most important district and absolutely infested with crime. It is only because of its proximity to the City Center that it isn't a Red district; the police can quickly mobilize and do some good, at least, but it's dangerous work even against the gangs with relatively few supers. The fact that the Ghasts have begun to periodically raid the area to intercept legitimate artifact shipments and kidnap new recruits has only worsened a bad situation, causing warfare between the gangs to become almost impossible to disguise. With the mercurial balance of power and relatively few significant powered individuals, this district is the perfect starting point for young heroes trying to make a name for themselves with the police or villains attempting to muscle their way into a respected and feared position in the criminal underworld.

7. Gordon Park: West of City Center is Gordon Park, the location of the first settler's cabins built in Citadel Creek. None of those wooden constructions now remain; instead, criminals covertly war over the district, the gateway to the western half of the Northern Docks, while the police attempt to contain the situation with little success. The district, home to many middle-class families, is chock full of teenagers looking to rebel against respectable parents, and most of them end up on the wrong side of the law in the process. They quickly discover that the Bomb Squad thinks they own the area, but the Gabrelovic Mob is doing their best to set up their rackets and extend their reach until they can freely move into the Docks. With their superior numbers and cash, the Mob began to bribe the police and patrol the streets, but the Bomb Squad hit back, striking by ambush and killing many of the family's top soldiers in the area through ambush attacks. The police rushed in, disregarding bribes to save their jobs, and were promptly subjected to the same attacks.

The young, rebellious punks gravitated to the cause of the successful underdogs, and the Bomb Squad has found its ranks significantly bolstered in the area. Police and freelance informants report that they've stepped up their shipments of weapons into the area, perhaps preparing for truly open war in the hopes of driving the Gabrelovics out of Gordon Park and the Docks alike. While heroes can aid the police by defusing the situation, villains that manage to speed the process might be able to take advantage of the chaos such a gang war would cause.

8. Paragon Lane: Named for the most famous hero of Citadel Creek, Paragon Lane is a slum that tourists are shooed away from and does little justice to the man whose alias it shares. Inhabited by the desperate and poor, many of whom were pushed out of jobs when the reconstruction period ended and the gangs carved up the city, there is little love for those who profess to follow high moral codes here; for all the criminals they've busted, they've only driven more to crime and lowered the standard of life in the area as a result. The citizens treat the police, who live considerably better lives than they do, with hostility, and are subsequently blamed whenever something goes wrong that can't be pinned on a specific gang. Then again, their only alternative is to welcome a full takeover by the Gabrelovics, who don't care at all about the citizens of their territory.

The Gabreloivcs use the district as a road down to Gordon Park and the Northern Docks; the shops are so dirt poor that there's no purpose in racketeering in the area. The Bomb Squad leaves the place alone ; there are no government buildings or libraries to burn, and the police are more fun to harass in a less depressing atmosphere. The Brawlers, however, make an occasional appearance, sometimes attacking the Gabrelovics or even the police if they try to intervene. If they issue formal challenges to Metas, as they sometimes do, they offer to meet them in this district and question them about how they would change it before fighting them as hard as they can.

9. Kirk Square: Named for the large Presbyterian church (Kirk in the old Scot's tongue) that dominates the center of the district, Kirk Square is what Paragon Lane would be if more people believed the latter was worth saving. Though undeniably a slum, aid workers and police patrols are more common here, and community spirit is not focused into hostility toward the government. The Gabrelovics in Angel's Walk to the north would very much like to add Kirk Square to their domain, but are blocked from making a move by the constant media presence. While heroes might work to better the area by protecting aid workers from thieves and soup kitchens from protection rackets, villains could be paid a great deal by the Gabrelovics to ensure that the media attention disappears, allowing them to finally make their move.

First Presbyterian Church of Citadel Creek has usually done its best to aid the citizens of Kirk Square, but has found itself almost devoid of funds, and aid groups have been forced to spend all of their time and energy keeping Kirk Square from suffering the same fate as Paragon Lane. If a hero could find a way to support the Church's community outreach, or forge a new group to take its place, the aid groups might be able to restore Paragon Lane to a more pleasant status. Villains that managed to cripple the aid groups here could crush the hopes of the poor and destitute of Citadel Creek in one fell swoop.

10. Shepherd's Hill: When Citadel Creek was a booming town contested by both shepherds and cattle ranchers, Shepherd's Hill, as its name might suggest, was the headquarters of the former. This conflict proved an eerie premonition of what was to come more than a hundred years later, when what had become the peaceful residential district that was home to those who wanted to stay away from the new factories but close to the landmarks they knew was invaded by a strange enemy. The Rimefrost Coven, seeking to expand their trade in magical items, became discontent with waiting for people to come to them; they instead became aggressive door to door salesmen and women, doing their utmost to convince the local citizens to buy their goods and threatening them with a long and painful death if the police ever heard about the visit. People believed them, and rightfully so, but because of this it took a long time for anyone to realize that Shepherd's Hill had become a Yellow district overnight. Heroes and villains wanting to take on the Coven usually get their start here, outside of the place of true power inhabited by their foes.

The other reason the Coven targeted Shepherd's Hill is Clyde's, a famed auction house that sells artifacts from private collections when their owners die, need money, or tire of them. Many of the items they sell are tied to legends of immortality, if only by the scene a Greek vase depicts, and the Cabal is eternally interested in such legends. Clyde's also sells minor magic items from time to time; villains seeking money or power might be interested in a little smash and grab burglary, while heroes might work to protect such auctions from both the Coven and any other groups that try to seize them.

11. Oaken Vista: Not far from City Center, Oaken Vista plays host to Citadel Creek University, a private college known for its Metahuman, magical, and archeological studies programs. It is also known to give vast scholarships to the monetarily disadvantaged who excel in school across the nation, netting it donations that support its programs as well as a highly intelligent and determined (for the most part) student body. The neighborhood around the University is a wealthy one, with vast manor-like homes and fancy restaurants, but despite relatively regular police patrols it has suffered criminal incursions by the Ghasts and the long-reaching Rimefrost Coven. Both kidnap innocents, albeit for different reasons, and both fight over magical items that belong to neither of them, causing destruction and civilian casualties left and right.

CC University has a great museum of items its students and faculty recovered from across the world, but these items are constantly being stolen and many are destroyed in the process despite the hiring of a large security staff. Between the Ghasts, the Coven, and enterprising villains, heroes have a tough job keeping this area from turning into a war-torn Red district, which would cripple to college's reputation and deal a severe blow to the city.

12. Severance: The grimly-named Severance district was indeed severed; its citizens, a combination of middle and lower class people trying to start over south of the river in the wake of the Kallam fleet's destructive fall, were cut off from the rest of the city when the Southriver Assassins took over the docks north of them, and were further shut out when they were denied entry to the heavily fortified Outpost district. Trapped between uncaring government agents and criminals who wanted to tear them apart for sport and profit, the locals banded together and built their own little town, buying weapons from the Bomb Squad and using them to drive away the Southriver Assassins in a massed community effort. In a sad parody of the high-tech walls of the nearby scientific compound, Severance is a town built of scrap metal and surrounded by scrap metal walls topped with barbed wire. Security is tight, heroes and police are not trusted, and those known to be villains are fired upon as soon as they are spotted. These grim and gritty survivalists have lost even their dreams, but not their will to live.

If a villain managed to conquer Severance, whether by wit and guile or overpowering brute strength, he or she could twist the attitudes of the inhabitants into hate for the city and have a premade base populated with fanatical minions. If a hero managed to protect the district and bring them back into the fold, it would be a vital leap in the direction of restoring all the territories south of the Elk River, perhaps hosting the first intact police station in that region of the city. Either way, Severance is the key to the far south, and everyone there knows it all too well.

13. Quarantine: This district is still patrolled by the police for one simple reason; they have to keep anyone from getting out. A long-term task force is assigned to the area, and has been since a canister from the Kallam fleet fell and released an unknown toxin into the area. The toxin was considered dangerous, and the entire district quarantined for eight years, expiring on January 3, 2011. Until then, no one has any idea what's going on inside; some sort of electromagnetic interference destroys all sensor equipment deployed to the area, and due to the potentially massive hazard provided by the toxin no one that goes in is allowed to come out. Sentries in biohazard suits patrol massive walls, and report that the district is sheathed in a deep darkness even during the day; it is likely that the protective spells woven by hired Danger Outfit mages are the only things containing whatever force is generating the darkness. No hero nor villain has ever volunteered to enter.

14. Kindheart Place: A sleepy residential district that has now been taking over by a massive and mysterious silicon-based life form, Kindheart Place lies in ruins because of Silicae. Only the bravest, greediest, and most foolish will dare enter this area, in which every building has been leveled, every car crushed, and the ruins of the streets thrum with the pulsing of organs entirely incomprehensible to Human science. Protective spells cast by the Danger Outfit for a vast profit keep the creature inside, but to conserve energy for its attempts to break out, anyone can wander in. Of course, the same walls that hold Silicae in would hold in Metas and normal Humans alike if they entered; extracting them whether they met their objective or not would be tricky indeed.

((See Silicae under Power Groups Continued for more info))

15. Wintersedge: Now home to the Rimefrost Coven and their evil creations, Wintersedge was once a quiet and peaceful suburb. Unfortunately for its residents, it happened to fall on a nexus of ley lines, currents of magical energy that run through the Earth's crust. These ley lines can give spellcasters the extra energy they need to weave powerful spells, and the Coven quickly recognized their presence and importance. They struck hard and fast, drawing on the energy below to lock the district in perpetual winter and to animate many of the bodies in the nearby Last Journey Cemetery, transforming them into zombielike Hosts. With the police caught by surprise and pinned down by other problems, the Coven solidified their grip, making blood sacrifices to create defenses against intrusion. They then began to strike out at the rest of the city from their new home base, relentlessly pursuing the secret of eternal life.

The bodies of many of the Metas that fell fighting the Kallam were interred in a vast and ornate memorial crypt in the cemetery, along with the ashes of Paragon, who had been cremated in accordance with the will he written before becoming a costumed hero. These Metas provided the Coven with Metahosts, their peaceful rest disturbed as they shambled through the streets to guard the new fortress. In that crypt, the most powerful spellcasters of the Coven are suspected to reside, plotting their sinister rituals and seeking immortality.

((See Rimefrost Coven under Power Groups Continued for more info))

16. Angel's Walk: Once a lower middle class residential and business area, Angel's Walk is now ruled with an iron first by the Gabrelovic Mob, who seized power in the wake of the rain of flaming Kallam debris and expanded their domain with the assistance of a young but powerful Meta. With that Meta gone his own way, the Mob has become especially brutal to compensate, enforcing a curfew and dealing in a harsh and lethal manner with any who refuse to cooperate with their demands. Ippolit Gabrelovic rules the district from his fortified mansion, guarded constantly by his best men while he plans his conquest of the Yellow districts south of his position. His security is almost military tight, and the word is he's looking into hiring some Metas to keep his enemies on the defensive.

The citizens of Angel's Walk don't dare provide help to anyone but the Mob; many don't even dare to come out of their homes. Those who try to escape tend to show up gorily displayed as an example for others who try the same route; the whole district is a manmade hell.

((See Gabrelovic Mob under Power Groups Continued for more info))

17. The United Technocracy: The utopian secessionist "nation" on the outskirts of the city, the Technocracy has effectively punched Citadel Creek's economy below the belt merely by existing. Within its borders, patrolled by robots that combine magic and technology, opulent palaces exist beside massive factories crewed entirely by machines; these palaces hold some of the world's most narcissistic, self-serving individuals that lack powers, along with the mad genius that created the whole place, Jonah Pike.

((See United Technocracy under Power Groups Continued for more info))

18. Bannock Grove: Home of the strange Ghasts, Bannock Grove was once a moderately-patrolled residential district that was completely razed during the rain of Kallam fleet debris. Now, atop the wreckage, magically brainwashed men and women keep watch with bows and arrows while ghostly versions of long-dead Bannock Native Americans hunt equally ghostly and long dead deer and very real packs of feral dogs assist in the defense. It can be hard to tell which teepees are real and which are incorporeal, and almost no one has ever made it into the district peacefully. No permanent buildings remain, just a long plain of rubble atop which a half unliving encampment is built.

((See Ghasts under Power Groups for more info))

19. Southern Docks: Once a part of the shipping of legitimate goods up and down the Elk River and a port of entry to the districts on the southern bank, the Southern Docks are now ruled by the Southriver Assassins, a brutal gang of drug smugglers with illegally and dangerously enhanced henchmen to oppose Metas that strike at them. The district contains the fortified mansion of the Alchemist, an evil and callous brewer of illegal chemicals who leads the Assassins, though no one can be sure exactly where it is. Every other warehouse in the whole vast area has been turned to nefarious purposes, making the trade difficult to slow and almost impossible to break or seize.

((See Southriver Assassins under Power Groups for more info))

20. The Haven: Villains, unlike heroes, are often hostile to one another as well as their moral enemies; those who have just arrived in the city stand little chance of surviving in most Red or Green districts unless they have great power indeed, so they are forced into the Yellow to try and make a name for themselves. But the heroes and police could just retreat into the heavily-defended Green districts and be safe from all but the most powerful or most covert assaults, and only gangs with vast swaths of conquered territory could say the same. For that reason the thief and master contortionist Skeleton Key established The Haven in, around, and beneath the ruins of the Citadel Creek School of Engineering. In the Haven, villains of all affiliations can meet, hide from the law, buy illegal goods, and be at least somewhat safe from each other. The guards, powerful prototype robots stolen from The Outpost itself during a test drive, tend to disintegrate combatants first and ask questions later.

The Haven is a fully-functional and self-sufficient town, with housing and supermarkets and barbers, but it is also the place to go for those looking to hire villains or sell them various devices in relative safety. The police dare not come here under any circumstances, and even the mightiest of heroes should think twice before walking into a veritable nest of evil.

The Brawlers: During the ban on Metahuman vigilantism in the 90's, citizens of Citadel Creek who were used to being able to turn on the news and watch colossal super-powered fights began to become very bored. A gladiatorial spirit had awoken within them when they had they ability to watch the mighty attempt to crush one another into the pavement, and now that they were denied that pleasure they hungered for a way to find it again. Humans being Humans, opportunists soon recognized that the situation was perfect for a new business: underground fighting rings where people could come and watch teams of rough and tough warriors battle one another. They couldn't have picked a better time; most of the police officers were either assigned to Meta hunting and not street crime, or were also nostalgic for the great battles of old, which they had seen from mere feet away. With law enforcement in the front row seats, the rich in the lavishly decorated boxes, and the screaming crowd in-between, the clever managers had struck gold with their plan.

With perhaps thirty rings across the city, it would make sense that competition would be fierce, but a strange sort of community spirit arose between the arena managers. Thousands were in attendance for every fight, and there was little purpose in trying to make something illegal so concentrated in one spot that the city government would finally take real notice. Instead, the managers made deals to trade fighters whenever their audiences seemed to be getting bored, cooperating to keep them all in business for as long as possible. Even these plans could not ultimately save them, however, for another group was looking at their business with disgust. A mysterious group of strong, disciplined warriors began to show up at rings in the middle of fights, walking through the audience, climbing onto the stage, and beating up every fighter in the ring's employ at once. Sometimes they did the same ring twice, just to keep people guessing, but eventually they had hit every one, and showed no signs of slowing. People began to call them "The Brawlers", and tried to guess where they would strike next; a real fight was much more exciting than a staged one.

The Brawlers became more aggressive, beating up ring managers and interrupting transfers of fighters. No one dared report them, for to do so might uncover the fighting rings and force the city into action against them, as well as ruin the reputations of countless cops. Then, suddenly, they stopped coming to the rings at all, and the crowds stopped coming shortly after. Their appreciation of staged combat was at an end, and one by one, the rings closed. The Brawlers had proven themselves different from the ring teams by presenting a warrior's code of honor; fighting for money was abhorrent to them, and they had put a stop to it. As their foes faded away, so did they, and nothing was heard of them for several years. Then came the Kallam fleet and the three day war, and the Brawlers provided a service that the police could not: they maintained order while Citadel Creek's Metas were away. A man in a uniform is one thing; one who can and will break your legs if you don't do as he says is another entirely. When the war ended, the Brawlers vanished again, beginning to work covertly. Their goal was to test and temper the new generation of Metahumans through combat, and they continue to pursue that goal.

The Brawlers have no generic grunts, no special forces, and no real hierarchy. They are a true democracy that works toward a specific, though mysterious, goal while obeying the tenets of their warrior's code. They way they operate is simple; they target a young Meta, whether heroic or villainous, and send a squad of their men and women after him or her with instructions to do battle. If they lose and are arrested, they plead guilty and do whatever time they are assigned, crossing the Meta in question off their list unless they believe further testing is required. If they win, they move the Meta to a hospital anonymously and make a note to test them again once they've had time to recover. Their most obvious goal seems to be bringing balance to a city that has precious little of it; powerful heroes and villains alike can transform the districts and their petty criminals into something far greater. They only ever pursue someone with true malice if the person has killed one of their own, in which case they spare no expense in hunting down that person and returning the favor. They operate out of Yellow districts, moving around to stay hidden from prying eyes.

Though none of the Brawlers that are commonly seen are Metas, gaining what abilities they have from a combination of natural aptitude, warrior spirit, and intense training, one of the two things known for certain about their reclusive leader is that she most certainly is. The other is that she is a she. Speculation as to her exact identity usually takes one of two forms. Many say she is the hero Yottagram, the strongest person on Earth, who pulled an entire warehouse full of poorly-contained toxic waste out of the Elk River in the late 80's before vanishing during the ban on Metahuman vigilantism. Others suspect she is Tessa Godwinson, a woman more than a hundred years old with the ability to see the future and how the events of the present shape it. Either way, her motivations remain mysterious; all that is known for certain is that she seems to want all young Metas to achieve their true potential, and many who believe she is Tessa suspect she is attempting to prepare the city for another disaster in the not so distant future.

The Gabrelovic Mob: The mention of mobsters usually stirs up images of men in fedoras with tommy guns and Italian accents, but this television-based stereotype couldn't be further from the truth in the case of the Gabrelovic Mob. Started by the immigrant family of a Russian politician who had been banished to Siberia by Stalin, the mob picked up an Italian method of organization but kept all of their Russian survivalism. They flew under the radar of the Metas, smuggling drugs and weapons, but those trades were seized by bigger gangs with bigger chunks of city. The Gabrelovics and their henchmen waited patiently for the right moment, and that moment came when flaming wreckage rained down from the sky and Citadel Creek went up in flames. While the police worked to save the areas of historic and civic importance, the Gabrelovics mobilized and seized a vast swath of territory from the northwestern portion of the city. Ippolit Gabrelovic, the mob's leader, had emerged temporarily victorious, but problems soon beset his group once again. Other mobs which had been around longer and had more of the police in their pockets began a full-scale assault to take the new domain, and step by step they were winning.

A second answer to prayers came after five years of desperate struggle, when a seventeen year old Meta calling himself Loudmouth was found loitering in the streets on what remained of Gabrelovic turf. Ippolit encountered the boy while returning from a negotiation and instinctively felt that there was something special about him. His suspicions were proven correct when Loudmouth demonstrated his mighty sonic screams, a weapon that none of the other mobs could match. He treated the boy well, grooming him almost as an heir and teaching him much about the ways of crime. The Gabrelovics grew bold, and managed to hit a bank and escape with the aid of their secret weapon. Ippolit could not have been more pleased; he began to build a vast empire of protection rackets through his turf, and used the proceeds and Loudmouth's skill to systematically destroy every other mob family in the area. He turned to administrating his territory, setting himself up as a monarch. Then, the unthinkable happened: Loudmouth, a celebrity in his own right, abandoned the Gabrelovics and struck out on his own. Ippolit struggled to hold onto everything he had gained, and in the process became iron-fisted and tyrannical to an unbelievable degree. He also swore to destroy the Meta that had used him, then cast him aside.

Though concentrated in the northwestern city, a Red district known as Angel's Walk, the Gabrelovics also operate in nearby Yellow districts. They hold a monopoly on racketeering, with every honest businessman fearing them and most paying protection money regardless of their distance from the family's base. When setting up a new racket, the mob sends a pair of simple thugs and a negotiator, with a sniper to cover them if things go exceptionally poorly or if the police arrive. Usually their reputation is sufficient to secure cooperation, but if it is not, the thugs will rough up the store owner and probably smash his or her goods. If that still fails, and it rarely does, the trio leaves calmly without another word. To deal with those who refuse to pay or miss payments, they send four to eight burly gunmen armed with AK-47s. Each simply gets out of the car, fires several clips of ammunition through the front windows, gets back in, and departs. When that fails to kill or intimidate the store owner, a rare occurrence indeed, the mob comes back and hangs the owner outside the store. Their bribery of key police officers allows them to move virtually freely through Yellow districts, making this brutality possible.

Average grunts of the Gabrelovic Mob are simple men with pistols and AKs that know how to conceal their weapons and how to use them effectively. Metas that interfere with mob business first get swarmed by these guys, who aren't the toughest, but can do serious damage to the inexperienced and inattentive. Should this tactic fail, a hit squad is sent after the troublemaker. Armed with stolen SWAT sniper rifles and plastic explosives, these hit squads are highly dangerous and lethally clever, striking whenever the Meta least expects them to in ambush attacks that have claimed the lives of many lesser Supers over the years. Should the hit squad fail, a new tactic is devised. If the Meta in question is heroic, the mob usually takes prisoner a large number of civilians and threatens to shoot one to three for every subsequent interference; they're willing and able to carry out that threat. If the Meta is villainous and unlikely to care, they are offered a vast amount of money paid over several years to keep out of mob business. They do deliver, but also keep tabs on the Meta, trying to find some way to kill him or her before the cash flow stops and the attacks resume. If that offer is refused, or if things get way too close for comfort, Ippolit personally devises a plan to deal with the Meta. He rarely fails.

Ippolit himself is in his early sixties, but is remarkably fit and athletic for his age. His mind is keener yet, with a shrewd business sense and a total disregard for morals and Human rights. He can and will have people shot and buildings burned at a whim if it benefits him in even the tiniest of ways, and his tyranny of fear over the citizens of Angel's Walk makes them entirely unwilling to help anyone who opposes him, lest they and their most distant relatives die in ways too horrible to imagine. The rewards for defeating him are substantial, but doing so would create a massive power vacuum in that area of the city, and the consequences of such a vacuum could be dire indeed.

The Rimefrost Coven: Idaho is one of the last place anyone would expect to find a group of evil pact mages, but Citadel Creek is hardly a normal Idaho town, and power attracts power-seekers. The Rimefrost Coven is a recent arrival in the city, but managed to carve out a space of its own with ease, taking over the Yellow district of Wintersedge and transforming it into a Red district within a week. As pact mages, members of the Coven invite otherworldly entities to share their souls and bodies, gaining powerful abilities at the cost of eternal damnation to the void between worlds. Few would seek it if they knew the real risks, but the magic is addictive, and many entities make it their mission to convince more and more Humans to take it up so that they can feast upon their souls when they arrive in the void. Most discover the truth too late, and spend what remains of their lives seeking immortality to avoid the fate they have earned. None are known to have succeeded, but the Coven is willing to go to any length to find the answer. They control the trade in magical items with an iron fist, and continuously attempt to research the transference of consciousness to a body built of nonorganic materials, often stealing and kidnapping to get the information they seek.

Shortly after seizing Wintersedge, the Coven came to understand that they needed income to survive in the modern world, even as enemies of the law. Being mages, they made the obvious decision to trade in magic, and imbuned items from rolls of duct tape to handguns to forklifts with minor spells that enhanced their performance. But before they sold a single one, they systematically hunted down and killed almost every trader of magical items in the city, creating a nearly complete monopoly on the trade and gaining further supplies in the process. They then set up shop, advertising themselves by word of mouth as the only group that could make life a little better in an affordable manner. Those that believe the tales and dare to enter Wintersedge itself are quickly found by Coven sentries and subjected to mind-reading spells. If they prove to be clean of any hostile intent toward the Coven and of any police involvement, they are allowed to browse the vast warehouses of minor magical items the Coven has created. If and when they buy something, and most do, they are instructed as to how to work it and sent on their way. Those who come back for seconds are told that they could learn to make the items themselves, and if they show interest, they are slowly inducted into the Coven.

The Coven's search for immortality leads them into Yellow and sometimes even Green districts across the city. Whenever an object of any culture that is rumored to be connected to myths of eternal life shows up at an auction house or museum, the Coven moves in and steals it. Whenever a doctor or university professor mentions immortality in a lecture or interview, they tend to go missing in the next few days. Even if the people know nothing or the artifacts prove worthless, the Coven doesn't harm them; they are released somewhere in a Yellow district or subtly returned to their owners and crossed off the list for a while. If they do have some knowledge or power, however, it is ruthlessly stripped from them by whatever means the Coven can devise. They have discovered ways to transfer brain patterns to fresh bodies, but this merely creates a copy of them rather than moving their consciousness, and is frightfully expensive and dangerous. They now seek grimoires of the blackest magic, trying to transfer their minds into mechanical bodies to evade the call of the void, and occasionally attempt powerful rituals to do so. Usually these go spectacularly wrong; frogs once rained over Wintersedge for almost a week before vanishing.

The basic troops of the Coven are the Hosts, dead bodies possessed by entities of the void. Slow, dumb, and weak, a single Host provides little challenge to a ten year old with a hockey stick. The problem is that the Coven can literally field a small army of the creatures against a single Meta, and eventually the wall of decaying hands is capable of pulling down anyone. Above the Hosts are the Metahosts, the bodies of slain Metas that provide havens for more powerful entities. Metahosts are considerably rarer and not all that much improved over their lesser cousins, but have weak control over the powers they used while alive, making them unpredictable and surprising in a crowd of normal Hosts. Above Metahosts are Rimefrost Golems, creatures carved from tainted ice. Faster and stronger than normal Humans, the Golems are vulnerable to heat, and are time-consuming to create. They are usually sent after Metas that provide problematic for the Hosts. Above the Golems are the actual witches and warlocks of the Coven, capable of throwing minor spells of darkness and ice as well as enhancing their strength, endurance, and speed to superhuman levels by invoking pact magic and sharing their bodies and souls. They are often armed with magical items, and can be very dangerous indeed.

The Coven is certainly well-organized; Wintersedge is a nightmare district, patrolled by the dead and ruled by the evil and corrupted. A single entity directs the group in its efforts, one very powerful in black magics of all sorts, and the magic of powerful spellcasters aligned with the law indicate that the entity is the underappreciated super spy of the Second World War, Chill Shadow. It is suspected that he was forced to call upon pact magic to escape from Germany with the vital plans he stole, and soon became addicted to it, losing his soul with terrible rapidity. Now has extended his life by unnatural means, driven mad by his experiences and retaining only enough coherence to recognize that his soul is in grave danger and only further depravity can save it.

Silicae: Shortly after the destruction of the Kallam fleet, during the process of rebuilding, a relatively intact cargo container of Kallam origin was discovered after having crashed into the middle of the Kindheart Place district. The container was opened in the presence of Metas, but the police soon discovered that whatever had been inside had already escaped by burrowing through the bottom of the container and into the ground beneath. The container was removed and the street repaired; all was quickly forgotten. Six years later, in mid 2008, a violent earthquake shook Kindheart Place. Emergency services were hindered in their arrival by vast tendrils made of what seemed to he an extremely flexible metal; they swiped at whatever came close, destroying the aid vehicles before they could do anything for the district. Kindheart Place had already been a Yellow district, and it was clear that it was fast becoming a Red one. The police did their best to evacuate and resettle all those within, taking significant losses in the process, then walled off the district and hired mages from The Danger Outfit to cast powerful spells to encase the whole area in an orb of energy. Whatever menace was inside, it was there to stay, so long as the spells held.

Recent scans of the area show strange pods growing out of the earth, made of much the same material as the vicious tendrils that still defend the area. The scans also reveal that the creature is, in fact, the first silicon-based life form Humanity has encountered. It was dubbed "Silicae", and researched from a distance. Precious little is known about it save that it must be vast indeed, for all the tendrils seem to connect to the same being. Each of the pods seems to contain a tiny silicon embryo, a baby version of the creature that single-handedly took over a city district. Needless to say, power groups across the city have very different plans for the pods. Those with foresight are willing to pay for them to be destroyed, then harvested for genetic material and researched; those with more ambition than sense want one of the pods brought to them for use as the ultimate biological weapon, a threat against any city in the world. Heroes and villains alike have set sights on the destroyed district for a multitude of different reasons and employers, but only the wisest have realized that it will be nearly impossible to survive threatening the young of a creature with a bestial intelligence and a body the size of thirty city blocks.

The United Technocracy: The Technocracy would like to believe that they are not part of Citadel Creek at all; in fact, they consider themselves to have officially seceded from the United States. Based in the former Forgehammer district, they have declared independence and maintained their status by threatening to detonate a bomb that would destroy the whole district by triggering a massive earthquake if anyone should attempt to take them back. They are led by Jonah Pike, the inheritor of the massive music company Resonance Instrumental Ltd., who had a bone sliver driven into his brain in a car crash and went insane. Charismatic and clever despite his madness, Jonah stirred up support for his rebellion by pointing out that the police had left large sections of Citadel Creek to rot, and that the U.S. government had been sluggish and seemingly reluctant to send any aid to the city at all. In his new order, he promised, every citizen would be cared for, and technologies would provide all necessities. He painted a picture of a utopia so vivid and beautiful that his following grew massive; when he seized the factory district of Forgehammer to be his new country, there was little the police could do to stop him without sparking massive riots across the city.

Jonah bankrupted himself working on a vast army of server robots to work the factories and fulfill the every whim of his followers, and when his money was nearly gone he gave the rest to the Rimefire Coven to craft a permanent enchantment of animation upon the robots, making them semi-sentient beyond the limitations of computerized artificial intelligence. Knowing full well they would betray him, he enlisted the help of heroic mages, begging for their aid in what he described as a Coven assault on his innocent followers. The two groups clashed in mid ceremony, and as a result the robots got their sentience and evaded the Coven's control. Adding to the magic with a little bit of programming, Jonah created a combination army and workforce that prevented either group from getting even. Only a few hundred people now inhabit the lavish palaces that stand between the factories, but they have truly found a utopia through the genius of a madman while they city they escaped dies economically due to their greed. His robot armies are destructible, but his bomb is a lingering threat. Heroes who restore the district to Green status might well save the city; villains who seize it for themselves could become wealthy and powerful beyond their wildest dreams.