-Steelheart(deceased), former Ruler of Newcago and one of the most powerful Epics on Earth

In the year 2013 the world had its first supernatural phenomena. One day, with no warning nor fanfare a second sun appeared in the sky, burning a bright and brilliant red over the Earth. For roughly the next year the peoples of the world slowly came to adapt to the new life under their second sun while simultaneously the scientific institutions and governments struggled to explain its presence. It was around this time the world met its real threat, The Epics. Epics are superpowered humans with powers that defy any and all known laws of reality. For the next year these Epics terrorized the world,going from something as simple as a mild-mannered schoolteacher one day to a megalomaniacal sociopath the next, but the world kept up hope, for in every story where there are villains there will be heroes.

…But the heroes never came.

The Epics terrorized the world, some of them could be stopped by conventional means but many were too difficult to kill, until eventually the governments of the world just gave up. The world governments declared Epics to be as a force of nature, an act of God, immune to the laws of man. After that declaration things became worse, the Epics became bolder. Over the next ten years the Epics slowly brought down nearly every world government, carving up the cities and territories of the world into personal domains for them to rule. The United States specifically became known as the Fractured States, a constantly warring set of powerful Epic controlled domains.

It was around 5 years ago when the world heard the most shocking news since the fall of the governments, Steelheart was dead. Universally accepted as one of the most powerful Epics on the planet his death sent ripples through the world, mainly because it was alleged that The Reckoners, a group known to hate and kill Epics but previously seen as little more than an annoyance, had performed the deed. In the coming three years the world was only more shocked as the city of Newcago, formerly the city of Chicago and pre-death domain of Steelheart, declared its independence and established a new government. The shock was only compounded more when it was revealed that the Reckoners had successfully slain Regalia and reportedly slain Larcener, two more immensely powerful epics, though Larcener’s death is unconfirmed. Not only that but Prof and Steelslayer, the leader of the Reckoners and the reckoner who had been responsible for Steelheart’s death respectively, were both Epics themselves, with Steelslayer having apparently somehow inherited Steelheart’s powers after his death.

Shortly after these events, Calamity disappeared, and with it so did The Darkness, the word used to describe the esoteric influence that drove all but the strongest of willed Epics to evil. Suppressing every good thought and driving their Anger, hatred, paranoia, arrogance and every evil thought and feeling to the forefront of their mind. In the next 3 years Epics across the world have repented their ways as they felt the sins of their crimes while under The Darkness’ influence crashing down upon their newly returned consciences’. But not all Epics are such good people, and for every Epic who repented there is another who did not change their ways, and with Epics still manifesting on a semi-regular basis the number of villains continues to grow. Only this time the heroes are coming. The Reckoners, now an active organization based out of Newcago and with operations all through the Fractured States have begun to recruit Epics, both old repenting ones and new young ones as well as humans alike to take back the world from those who would rule over it.

Epic Tiers:

High Epic: High Epics are Epic's classified as being entirely unkillable by conventional means without the use of their weakness or a Nuke. High Epics are normally classified as Epics with a power known as a Prime Invincibility, a power that renders conventional weapons or attacks entirely pointless such as high-tier regeneration, invulnerability, intangibility, teleportation(when paired with a danger sense or other power so it triggers automatically), self-resurrection, turning themselves into metal, neutralizing Kinetic energy on contact, etc. High-Epics are not necessarily stronger than normal Epics though they usually are, some Epics who have immensely strong powers can be considered normal Epics simply due to not having any powers that make them immune to conventional weaponry. A good example is Tectonic an Earth Manipulating Epic who could control an entire cities worth of dirt rock and metal at a time, making her extremely dangerous, but she was killed by Steelheart because he was invulnerable and she had no power to let herself survive.

Epic: Epic is the general name for any individual who finds themselves with superpowers. These powers can awaken at any time and no logic to who does or doesn't become an Epic has ever been found. Their powers can range from Extremely destructive and powerful like Energy Manipulation to good powers like teleportation, mercury manipulation(the metal not the planet, to even minor and seemingly useless things like animating and controlling wooden dolls, or growing fingernails faster but not stronger.

General Epic Powers: All Epics have a form of Power Resistance, specifically for example an epic with blood manipulation could pull the blood out of a normal human with no problem, but against another Epic it would be very hard to do the same unless the blood Epic was immensely more powerful than the other Epic. An epic who can control matter can turn a human to dust with a thought but against another Epic it would be immensely more difficult, nearly impossible, to do the same unless they were significantly more powerful than the other Epic. All Epics also have Peak Human Condition even if their other powers aren't explicitly physical based, though this does not protect them from poisons, age, disease, etc unless their powers are physical based.

Powers: Powers in the Reckoners universe, much like the universe itself, are very diverse and very brutal. Superspeed can be used like A-Train in the boys to liquify someone by running through them, Super-Strength can be used to rip someone in half or rip their heart out, etc. All powers in the Reckoners universe are limited to 6-B in power tier at a maximum, also known as Large Country Level. Epic powers operate on an uninhibited scale on normal humans, a pain manipulator could cause a normal human so much pain they instantly die for example but epics are known to be fairly resistant to each others powers that would cause effects like controlling blood, causing pain, mind control, etc. unless the attacking Epic is far stronger than the defending one. Powers are immensely wide ranged and can be basically anything.

Aesthetic Powers: Many powers in the Epic universe have aesthetic qualities to them. A dimensional manipulator causes ripples in the air as they use their powers, an energy manipulator has his hands glow a neon green while doing it, a darkness manipulator seems to leak shadow whenever he uses his powers, an Epic who can cause anything they touch to shatter causes black veins to cover the surface before it shatters apart. These are purely aesthetic.

Power Limits:

-It is unknown why but a nuke can kill any Epic of any tier. Even an Epic who is normally fully invulnerable, or can resurrect themselves or respawn themselves will find themselves dead should a nuke be launched at them. The reason for a nuke's ability to bypass any and all resistances and powers any epic has is unknown.

-Many powers have limitation in the Epics universe. Teleporters who arent High Epics normally have a cooldown, and even a High Epic would if it weren't their "main power" so to speak. An Epic who can replicate himself infinite times has each successive clone become proportionally dumber with the number of clones that currently already exist.

-Even without the limitations/weaknesses many Epics have on their powers all Epics find prolonged or extensive use of their powers to be exhausting without prolonged and intensive training over years

-Its unknown why but transformative/transmutative powers do not function on organic matter. Someone who can turn any material to steel couldn’t do so to anything organic, a matter transmuter couldn’t use their power directly on a person, things like that

Weaknesses: It has long been known that every Epic has a weakness but the secrets to these weaknesses was not known until recently. An Epic's weakness is based on their greatest fears, their most vulnerable moments, their most serious trauma. An epic whos grandparents poisoned her with poison laced Kool-Aid is weakened when seeing Kool-Aid or touching it and loses her powers when she drinks it. An epic who had his marriage proposal rejected and couldn't get over the love of his life who rejected him gains a weakness to silver due to the silver of the wedding ring he bought. An epic who as a kid had a brittle bone disease and wasnt allowed to go play games with other kids by their parents loses her powers when someone wont play a game with them. An epic who was almost killed by a rabid dog as a child loses his powers when bitten by a dog and is weakened in their vicinity. You get the idea. These can also be very esoteric, an Epic who was a bully in High School and wants to be feared gains powers and finds themselves completely invulnerable so long as the person trying to harm them fears them in any way shape or form.

Any Questions?