State of the Guild
Guild Storyline
The world is populated with people wielding extraordinary powers. Some choose to be heroes, some choose to be villains. But regardless of whatever petty fights they've gotten into in the past, there are a few battles that would leave the world changed.A young boy with a spark for invention created himself an armored suit and an array of weapons. Idolizing a similar hero, The Strategist, young Tim Foley called himself the Tactician. Amused, though against his better judgement, Strategist let Tactician become his sidekick, training him to become a powerful hero.
Tactician was cocky, easygoing, and seemed to have an endless supply of one-liners, both good and bad. He tended to annoy his enemies more than defeat them, but served mostly as a distraction while Strategist quickly took them down.
Strategist's deadliest foe was a mysterious man who called himself Positron. Positron also used powerful technology to fight, and had designs on taking over. He seemed to believe he, and other geniuses like Strategist and Tactician, were superior to all the idiots running around, and that the three of them should run things. The two heroes obviously disagreed, and they came to blows often. Positron was a powerful villain, and managed to win half the encounters they came to, taking delight in causing innocents "idiots" pain and suffering, a natural-born sadist as it were.
One day, while on patrol, a civilian flagged down the two heroes. When they landed, two men jumped out from the bushes and grabbed Tactician, holding a knife to his throat. They yelled for Strategist to freeze, and he did. Before he could come up with a plan to save the boy, a powerful beam appeared from the civilian man's fists, burning a hole straight through Strategist's chest. He was dead instantly. Positron's new holographic disguise device apparently worked. Tim screamed out, but it was to no avail, the knife still at his throat. But his hand slowly inched towards a button on his belt. Meanwhile, Positron unmasked his longtime foe, and recognized the man somehow right away. He stood up and looked at Tactician. "I guess that makes you Timothy Foley then," he said, a smile in his voice. Ordinarily, there would have been a snappy one-liner from the boy, but nothing came out but an angry cry, which caused Positron sheer delight. But he then noticed Tim's hand reaching for his belt. He almost cried out to warn them, but it was too late. His suit released a powerful Tazer shot that knocked out both the goons, sent Positron flying, and knocked out the power grid for the whole city. By the time Positron recovered, both The Tactician, and Strategist's body were gone.
Strategist's alter ego had no family, no one who would know him to be missing. After Tim privately buried his mentor, the news of his death spread like wildfire through the superhero community. So did the news of the young Tactician. He had changed...and those close to him thought it was a terrifying ordeal to watch.
His personality did a 180. No longer was he a jokester who had fun on his missions. Nor did he take it easy on the bad guys anymore. He was brutal. Almost evil, it seemed. The criminals who stood in his way wound up in Intensive Care. He walked dangerously close to the line between heroics and vigilantism. His costume was darker, a deep green with white stripes. His name changed. Tactician was no more. Now he was the new Strategist. He now owned the League of Tactical Heroes, and things got militaristic fast. He appointed two heroes he'd known for a while to be his leadership council...the only two people he'd ever trust. And he waited. He watched. Positron was out there, and he knew his identity. It was only a matter of time before he came out to seal the deal. And this new Strategist was more than ready for him. He began to win. Fight to win. Positron found to his dismay that the brutality this new Strategist had was complete, the boy not even caring who else got hurt as long as Positron went down. Positron found himself losing constantly. Angry and annoyed, he developed a plan. It started from the underground criminal networks, messages passed along below the radars of the heroes. He rallied all the country's villains together. The heroes noticed it suddenly got very quiet on their patrol routes...until California was struck.
By the time they knew what was happening, Positron had taken over half the country. Without waiting for governmental approval (who has time for that anyway?) Strategist formed up and recalled all the heroes to Tactician's Tower, the headquarters for the League of Tactical Heroes. Meanwhile, Positron's "League of Conquerers" continued to advance. Aiming for the longitudinal center of the country, Strategist deployed the heroes under his charge. He war lasted for a year. Many deaths were reported for both sides as the war became a no-holds-barred death match. But when the smoke cleared a year later...Strategist had won.
Barely.
Positron's forces retreated. Strategist, The Zephyr, and Katran had been shown to be three of the greatest heroes in all of history. The League of Tactical Heroes was the superhero league to protect the country, and they were honored by the free states as national heroes. But Positron, not ready to admit defeat, still had a plan up his sleeve. Strategist, like he'd predicted, pressed forward to take back the western half of the country. But the reinforcements he'd asked for never came; Positron had encircled the country in a powerful force field, preventing outside heroes or foreign military aid from getting in.
Both sides at this point have retreated from the border area to regroup and strategize for the next strike. This is where you come in. With your own set of powers, will you go to Stone City and enlist in Positron's ranks to rule over the country and later expand to the whole planet? Or will you join up with The Strategist's League, and work to free the oppressed people on the western coast?
I'm sure some of our more observant members may have noted that the villains have a much larger workload as there are more states in the East than in the West. But the states are grouped together in the East to make an equal workload. Each group acts as an individual state. Any battles that take place there will shift control of the entire group to the winner.