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     The Avatar 
The divine avatar of Adeltom, the God of Heroism, the Avatar has been around since the 1920s as Earth-Gimel's very first and most powerful superhero, and is the leader of the Global Champions. He was dropped into Earth-Bet by Madman to solve a potential interdimensional threat. He joins the Guild to best handle international A-Class threats, as well as working in the Protectorate.
  • Anthropomorphic Personification: The embodiment of the abstract concept of heroism.
  • Been There, Shaped History: In Earth-Gimel's history, he's been around since the 1920s, and he's been actively involved in a lot of historic events, from participating in World War 2 to taking down the Ku Klux Klan.
  • Brought Down to Badass: His cosmic powers as the Avatar are a mere crippled fraction of the literally divine power he boasted as the god Adeltom, but condensing himself into a physical avatar was necessary to escape the banishment spell that imprisoned the gods in Limbo.
  • Chronic Hero Syndrome: It's stated that as a living concept of heroism, he literally spends 24 hours a day either performing heroic deeds or espousing them, and it helps that he doesn't need sleep. Though he isn't stupid about it and will inform and leave less important things to the authorities if need be, he will intervene for more immediate threats, like pausing his search for a super villain to stop a domestic abuser, and taking the time to convince the victim to seek help.
  • Death Is Not Permanent: As long as there is one sentient being with a spark of heroism in their heart the Avatar cannot be permanently killed; he'll be Back from the Dead in a while. This includes everything from humans to A.I.s like Dragon. Even many villains qualify, as long as they are not absolute monsters, since they contain the potential to choose to be better.
    • It requires the "one being alive with a spark of heroism" to be within range, though, which is why the Simurgh starts her fight with the Avatar by moving them both to an uninhabited dimension.
  • Experienced Protagonist: As said, he's been a superhero since the '20s, was a God since the beginning of humanity, and has faced threats ranging from Garzor and Nollius to Shadow and Professor Cryo. So yeah, he's experienced.
  • Flying Firepower/Flying Brick: A mix; his basic powers are Flight, Hand Blasts, and Super-Toughness, only lacking in Super-Strength. He makes up for that with Mind over Matter.
  • God in Human Form: Is the God of Heroism who took a human form. When he made it he felt an urgent need to make a public impact quickly to prevent disaster with the emerging mutants, and so picked a form optimized for a quick impact and public relations. Specifically an extremely handsome representative of the group with the most political power, namely white men. He shows some regret on choosing that form, since it's not very inclusive and subtly reinforces unjust power structures, and thinks that if he could do it again he might choose differently.
  • God of Good: Specifically, of heroism.
  • Hand Blast: His cosmic bolts are his main source of firepower, and they're immensely powerful; in Earth-Gimel's history, the nukes used in World War II were explicitly compared to them. Moreover, they resonate across many different planes, which makes them exceedingly effective at bypassing armor - even the interdimensional flesh of an Endbringer.
  • Hope Bringer: To a lot of Earth-Bet. His slaying of Leviathan caused Heel Face Turns all over the world.
    • Even in Earth-Gimel, it was his arrival and inspirational acts as the world's first superhero that caused the slow appearance of mutants to be as peaceful as it was.
  • Ideal Hero: Charismatic, altruistic, selfless, inspirational and steadfast, he literally embodies the heroic ideal in a way no human can. It's how Tattletale figures out that he's not a natural human - he's too perfect a hero.
  • Immune to Mind Control: He's a living concept; he is axiomatically immune to thinking in any other way other than heroism. Though he is perfectly reasonable and open to compromise.
  • Omniglot: Living as long as he has, he's picked up a lot of languages. Every time he's talked to someone from another country, he can flawlessly communicate with them in their native tongue.
  • Otherworldly and Sexually Ambiguous: A very subtle version. His presentation is as a very conventionally attractive man, and it was chosen deliberately, but that was entirely for expedience in public relations and he has no particular connection to it.
  • Physical God: He's a divine avatar of a god. Of course he is this.
  • Really 700 Years Old: The Avatar may have only appeared in the 1920s, but he's been around and watching humanity since the species began.
  • Seen It All: As he's been around since the dawn of humanity, he's seen all of what it had to offer, from the amazing to the horrible. When he witnesses the villain Blood Count using a stadium-full of caged prisoners to drain for power, he stoically thinks that the sight doesn't even come close to his top 10 of horrors.
  • Superhero Gods: He's the god Adeltom who decided to turn himself into a superhero to help humanity adapt to the appearance of mutants.
  • Super-Senses: Employs cosmic senses that can analyze every aspect of the world around him.
  • Speeches and Monologues: The Avatar has given out a lot of these in his time in Earth-Bet, and they never fail to inspire.
  • Swiss-Army Superpower: His cosmic energy manipulation is his most versatile power in his toolset, able to gift him almost any superpower he wants, from mental superspeed, matter creation and intangibility in direct fights, to telepathy, shapeshifting and mind-control when he needs to be subtle. However, it's limited in its maximum output, it takes time to swap powers and some powers are more energy-intensive than others.
    • One of his newest tricks in Earth-Bet is to use his cosmic manipulation to lock down inter-planar interactions, and since parahuman powers come from a different plane, this effectively gives him a parahuman Power Nullifier, though it is more exhausting than other usages.
  • The Cape: Is this in spades. In Earth-Gimel, it's theorized that if he didn't come on the scene when he did to act as a beacon and superheroic ideal, the rise of mutants into the public eye would've been a lot more controversial, tragic and violent.
  • The Needless: The Avatar has no actual bodily functions, not needing to eat, sleep or breathe. He only puts on a show of breathing because it freaks people out if he doesn't.
  • The Paragon: In addition to his credentials as the Ideal Hero and The Cape, he puts a lot of emphasis in inspiring others to do good - as the God of Heroism, he can do no less. It's what allowed him to influence the rise of mutants into the rise of superheroes, and something he espouses a lot on Earth-Bet.
  • Winds of Destiny, Change!: The Avatar can influence the winds of fate and change destiny as he sees fit, and it's the one power he has that cannot be predicted by precognitives. This is the only thing that even gives him a chance against The Simurgh and its infallible Combat Precognition. However, his use of it is very restricted.
  • World's Strongest Man: Though he has suffered several losses in his career, there is very little doubt that he is Earth-Gimel's most powerful superhero.

     The Global Champions 
Earth-Gimel's premier Super Team, founded and led by the Avatar. Though their roster has changed over the years, they have protected Earth-Gimel from all manner of threats, from criminal organisations and supervillains to alien invaders and evil sorcerers.

Although the Avatar was the member selected as the quest's protagonist, the author gave the possibility of any of the other members to go instead. Their profiles are detailed in the quest's first chapter.

Titan - Rumiko Kawazu


  • Arch-Enemy: Has one in the villainous Telepath Brain.
    • Also, she had a previous nemesis in Doc Prometheus, Tragic Villain and Robot Master, who threatened Japan with a host of hyper-destructive combat robots. She was given the Bastion Award and put on the Global Champions' radar for bringing him in.
  • Headbutting Heroes: She has some friction when working with the Neo-Samurais, another group of heroes that espouse hard-right Japanese ultranationalism, especially after she turned down an offer to become one of their members.
  • Heroic Lineage: She's a Mutant superheroine, the daughter of a Super Cop and the granddaughter of a Super-Soldier.
    • Although the heroism of her grandfather is dubious since he fought in World War II for the Japanese. She personally thinks her grandfather fought for the wrong side.
  • Never Accepted in His Hometown: Downplayed. Her membership in the Global Champions has made her a popular figure around the world, but she has a more controversial reputation in Japan, due to her making no secret of her opinion that her home country was very much in the wrong during World War II.
  • Nice Girl: Her bio mentions her friendly nature and well-grounded personality.
  • Sizeshifter: Her mutant powers allow her to grow to massive heights at will, augmenting her already-impressive strength and toughness.
  • Super-Strength and Super-Toughness: Even at a regular size, she's easily stronger and tougher than a regular human.

Bleu-Blanc-Rouge - Alexandre Moran


  • Arch-Enemy: His nemesis is Doctor Combat, the leader of the Combat Network and the Mad Scientist that gave him his powers in the first place.
  • Berserk Button: As Kaiser in a What If? scenario finds out, don't be a Nazi on the same planet as him, or he will beat up your entire parahuman contingent single-handedly, cut your armor to pieces and leave you begging for mercy. On camera.
  • Captain Geographic: Is a French Super-Soldier and his name references the tricolour French flag.
  • Fights Like a Normal: With no overtly offensive powers, he uses his brains and skills (especially his fencing skills) to more than make up for them.
  • Master Swordsman: He was a hobbyist fencer before he became a Super-Soldier. The process made him superhumanly skilled.
  • Royal Rapier: His weapon, a Monomolecular Blade made of omni-metal, which can cut through tanks like butter.
  • Super-Soldier: An experimental procedure on his brain's motor centers gave him Super-Reflexes, super agility, and super dexterity, enough that Bullet Dodging and Parrying Bullets are second-nature to him.
  • The Strategist: A born leader and one of his world's greatest tacticians, he routinely takes battlefield command if needed.
  • Triple Shifter: Is a member of the French Military, the head of Task Force Synapse, and a member of the Global Champions. And unlike the Avatar, he does need sleep.

Mister Tomorrow - Driss Mernissi


Tracer Pulse - Kevin Banner


  • Arch-Enemy: His main nemesis is the Faux Affably Evil Gentleman Thief Baron Midnight.
  • Big Damn Heroes: He once rescued the Global Champions from Global Might, countering the Super-Soldier Blitzkrieg's Super-Speed with his own. That act was what put him in the running to be inducted into the Champions' ranks.
  • Blessed with Suck: The Super-Empowering procedure that gave him his powers is perpetually converting a minuscule fraction of his body mass into energy, which he can channel into his speed or release as blasts of power - but it also means that his body is perpetually burning up from the inside, wracking him in severe pain every moment of every day. The only saving grace is that it also regenerates his body as fast as it burns up.
  • Byronic Hero: Brilliant and knows it, driven by pride and a refusal to be weak, and quite ready to resort to violence. Redeemed by an actual burning drive for justice.
  • Disability Immunity: The immense pain his power inflicts on him every waking moment is also effective at repelling anyone that tries to read his mind.
  • Hand Blast: Can produce enough energy to level city blocks in seconds.
  • Hardboiled Detective: Straight out of a Noir novel, and has the analytical and deductive skills to back it up.
  • Heroic Willpower: Banner's powers burn his body up from the inside and leave him in perpetual agony - it's just that he can take the pain through sheer, stubborn willpower and not even show it in everyday life. Every other recipient of the treatment was similarly empowered, but they were so overcome by the pain that they all committed suicide.
  • Lowered Recruiting Standards: By far the most antiheroic of the Global Champions, and the Avatar actually voted against his being inducted. Though ultimately by the time the story begins the Avatar is willing to admit that everyone at the table deserves to be there. Even Tracer Pulse.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Is characterized as the most Antiheroic member of the Champions, acting like a complete asshole, being hard to work with on many occasions, and being insulted by bribes because they're a slight against his pride as opposed to his principles, along with the fact that he went to the Cryosphere to get his powers. However, no-one denies his incorruptibility and dedication to justice, just like his comrades.
  • Muggle Power: Got frustrated as an ordinary police detective that the force couldn't deal with superhuman villains and needed superheroes to do the work, so he decided to become one himself, even if he had to go to the Cryosphere to get them and no matter how much pain his powers would leave him in.
  • Phlebotinum Rebel: Went to the Cryosphere, Earth-Gimel's resident supervillain city, to get his powers.
  • Psychic Block Defense: Any psychic that tries to connect with his mind is instantly exposed to the full, burning agony he is constantly experiencing, which they invariably cannot handle.
  • Recursive Fanfiction: Stars in a reader written What If Omake, showing his confrontation with and forcible recruitment of Coil
  • Super-Speed: Fast enough to perform Bullet Catches and circle the world in minutes. The math works out to being over two miles per second - almost as fast as an orbiting satellite.

Causality - Kiran Devi


  • Bollywood Nerd: One of her epithets is "India's Marie Curie".
  • I'm Not a Hero, I'm...: ...an academic. She is a scholar first and only engages in heroism because duty calls for it.
  • Magic Versus Science: Taken the third option and combined both her profession of physics with the phenomena of magic, making her an extremely powerful sorceress, or as she prefers to call herself, an "acasual event generator".
  • Resigned to the Call: Several factors contribute to her not being fond of being a superhero, including her traditional leanings, her family values, her preference for academia and her dislike of superheroism as a career. Even so, knowing the magnitude of her powers and that the world needs her drives her into action.
  • Science Wizard: She is a world-class physicist who applied her profession to the study of magic.
  • Sufficiently Analyzed Magic: Her application of her genius IQ, modern physics and the actual scientific method to magic effectively allowed her to rewrite new, more accurate magical theories. As far as she is concerned, magic is just using a trick of quantum mechanics to skip some steps in "cause-and-effect".
  • Stay in the Kitchen: Zigzagged. On the one hand, she is one of the world's premier scientists, sorceresses and superheroines and part of the world's greatest Super Team, presumably all of her own choice. On the other, she still has a traditionalist streak and a husband that is a little insecure both about her scientific reputation and her job as a Global Champion.
  • The Archmage: Is scarily well-versed and far-reaching in her magical repertoire, from instant forcefields to dimensional transportation, and that's not getting into her rituals.

Techno-Paladin - Clifford Lewis


  • Arch-Enemy: Has a very intellectual rivalry with Valerius, magical vampiric mastermind and Global Might member, ever since Techno-Paladin uncovered Valerius's months-long scheme to impersonate New York's governor.
  • Brutal Honesty: He acts this way to villains as part of his commitment to honesty. When talking to heroes he can be more polite, but he absolutely won't flatter you.
  • Gadgeteer Genius: With how much capability his armor gives him (including a field workshop), he is definitely this.
  • Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Since his armor protects him by generating an invulnerability field that covers his entire body (and the armor itself), the lack of helmet doesn't actually put him at risk.
  • Humble Hero: Other people call him the smartest man in super-heroics. He's not even sure it's true - he's met a lot of geniuses - and also considers intelligence to be more complex than a simple number.
  • I Gave My Word: Notably not a case of Honor Before Reason. He has decided, rationally, that nothing he could gain from lying or breaking his word is worth the benefits he gains from being considered absolutely trustworthy.
  • Powered Armor: His main combat weapon, giving him all the capabilities of a Flying Brick.
  • Super Prototype: The Techno-Paladin armor was this, since it was supposed to be a prototype for mass-producible power armor to allow ordinary SWAT teams to defeat supervillains. This is why Lewis considers the Techno-Paladin armor to be his biggest failure, as although it made him one of the top superheroes in the world its Invulnerability Field required years of personalized calibration to his nervous system. Mass production is impossible.
  • Will Not Tell a Lie: He is extremely dedicated to always telling the truth and never breaking his word, since his trustworthiness being axiomatic is an incredibly valuable resource.
  • World's Smartest Man: Is outright called "the smartest man in superheroics".

Mimic - Stalec Igmar


  • Amnesiac Hero: Does not remember anything of his origins other than waking up in Nollius's dungeons.
  • Bold Explorer: Adventuring has always been one of his great loves. As an Wunderburg adventurer, he went into Limbo to find the banished Avalon and found it... whereupon Nollius captured him, put him into the dungeons, and subjected him to things best not remembered.
  • Defector from Decadence: Is originally from Wunderburg, a elvish city of Avalonian expatriates who felt stifled by Avalon's focus on tradition and duty.
  • Duels Decide Everything: A What-If Omake shows him challenging Glaistig Uaine the Fairy Queen - one of the most dangerous parahumans in the world - to duel, with the winner gaining a boon of the other. He wants her help fighting Endbringers.
  • Expy: As an elfin magical hero dedicated the freedom and adventure, with a distinct swashbuckling style, he has many similarities with the Azatas of Pathfinder.
  • Power Copying: Can do this with a touch.
  • Recursive Fanfiction: Stars in several reader-written What If Omakes, covering his confrontations with Nilbog and the Simurgh.
  • Shapeshifter: One of his main tricks.
  • Swashbuckler: One of his main characterizations, and is quite a Large Ham about it.
  • Swiss-Army Superpower: His power is basically to have virtually any power he wants, to a level of versatility unmatched by anyone else.
  • Rescued from the Underworld: Present in spirit on several levels. A What-If omake shows him fighting his way into and out of The Birdcage to free seven unjustly imprisoned inmates, with Glaistig Uaine explicitly describing it as a descent into Hell. And then, of course, there is his own amnesiac escape from the dungeons of Avalon.

Phantom - Vaxis


  • Energy Being: An alien being from the stars, intangible to virtually all matter and almost always invisible. He usually appears as a ball of light to communicate with others.
  • Mind over Matter: His telekinesis is second-to-none.
  • Paranoia Fuel: Is this for villains in-universe. A perfectly silent, invisible hero who can go through walls, might be spying on you without your knowledge at any moment, and whose intangibility makes most fights completely one-sided. What's not to be afraid of?
  • The Call Has Bad Reception: Was created by the Living Nebula to act as a herald to humanity of an upcoming intergalactic threat, but Phantom himself is completely unaware of his creator's telepathic communication and of his original purpose.

Thermakron


Heroes

     Weaver/Taylor Hebert 
A young parahuman from Brockton Bay whom circumstances forced into villainy. After some support and sponsoring from the Avatar, her old dream of heroism was reawakened and she joined the Wards in Boston.
  • Heel–Face Turn: Went from a villainous member of the Undersiders to a member of the Wards in Boston.
  • Heroic Self-Deprecation: Considering everything she went through by the time the Avatar arrived and met up with her, her self-confidence is shot, and sometimes she cannot understand why the Avatar has so much faith in her, considering all the bad choices she had made up till then. And this is despite her credentials as one of the heavy hitters in all of Brockton Bay.
  • Hero of Another Story: In one universe, she was the protagonist. In this one, she's just a Brave Little Spider trying to regain control of her new parahuman life.
  • Hero-Worshipper: She decided to give another go to heroism because the Avatar thought she had the potential to do so much good, and she just cannot bear the idea to let him down on this.
  • Inelegant Blubbering: Devolved into this after the Avatar willingly listened to her problems, then flew over just to give her a hug, a far cry from the apathetic authority figures she had experienced thus far.
  • Pest Controller: Can control all invertebrates in her range with extraordinary skill, coordination and multitasking capabilities.
  • The Strategist: The Avatar has noticed that with her tactical and strategic prowess, her planning skills may be a bigger asset than her powers.

     The Guild 
An international parahuman organization dedicated to facing the worst A and S-class threats around the world. It recently picked up steam after it went on an international recruiting effort, including adding the Avatar to its ranks.

Narwhal

The Leader of the Guild.

Dragon

The world's premier Tinker.
  • Benevolent A.I.: Though no-one knows it. Which means she's incredibly surprised by the presence of A.I.s on the Avatar's world, including the heroic Thermakron.
  • Made of Iron: After the Avatar's arrival, she has constructed a suit made of omni-metal that the Avatar provided, codenamed Azazel.
  • Master of All: While other strong Tinkers may be higher in the specialties of their power (versatility, power, or upkeep), she's very strong in all of them and has no weak points.
  • World's Smartest Man: Between the power, versatility, and output of her tech, she is the only Tinker 9 in the world, with none having a higher rating.

Silver Crusader

A member of the New York Protectorate branch and part-time Guild member.
  • Expy: Is taken from the Fighting Fantasy game-book Appointment with F.E.A.R., having once faced the Fear Syndicate and its cybernetic leader Titan.
  • Gadgeteer Genius: Is a Tinker specializing in personalized equipment, being able to use handheld gadgets to do the work of tons of hardware.
  • Gut Feeling: His original game-book mechanics are replicated via a precognitive Thinker power (which he keeps a Secret Weapon) called his Trail of Crumbs, enabling him to get hunches on times and places to travel to, in order to find clues to accomplish a specific objective.
  • Hero of Another Story: His precognitive detective work was integral in the Protectorate's effort to stop the infamous Week of FEAR, a retelling of Appointment with F.E.A.R. where the eponymous Syndicate tried staging multiple terrorist attacks to conceal their ultimate objective of putting a Tinkertech WMD in orbit. The Protectorate's handling of the attacks and putting the leader Titan in the Birdcage with hardly a misstep is hailed as one of their best achievements.

Surdoué

A French superhero.
  • All Your Powers Combined: A mental version, he attains the skills and mental strengths of everyone in his radius, from tactical planning to cold-reading. It only works on mundane skills though, so no Thinker Power Copying for him.
  • The Smart Guy: His Thinker power makes him particularly apt at being this, since they literally make him the smartest guy in the room - no matter which room he's in.

Météore

A superhero from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Laser Fist

A superhero from Seoul.
  • All of the Other Reindeer: When she tried to press charges for her fiancé's attempted rape, his family immediately alibied him, the police declined to push the case, her company (of whom he was an executive) fired her for "disturbing workplace harmony", and her own family essentially condemned her for making a fuss and throwing away a potentially successful marriage.
  • Driven to Suicide: After her fiancé tried to rape her (tried since she kicked his ass) and she received nothing but apathy and derision from her family, colleagues and friends for shaking up the status quo, she got drunk one night and decided to throw herself in front of a train. Her last minute reconsideration caused her to Trigger, and her powers got her out of danger.
  • Flash Step: Her power is essentially to turn into an energy form that moves at light speed for a split second - which is more than enough to cross a good chunk of distance and impart a large amount of force.

Voodoo

A member of the Los Angeles Protectorate branch and youngest Guild member.
  • Liquid Assets: She is able to transfer and exchange injuries, to herself, from herself, or between others (and she must be touching at least one of said others).
  • Little Miss Badass: How she started out, triggering as a 7-year-old girl when she took bullets meant for her mother and transferred them back to the shooter. Her tenure with the Protectorate is filled with A and S-class encounters, including Endbringers and the Slaughterhouse Nine, and one of her go-to tactics is stabbing herself to transfer injuries to her targets. She's also the one to kill Shatterbird by transferring the cumulative injuries of several people to the Slaughterhouse member all at once.
  • The Medic: Of a fashion; her power to transfer injuries to and from others have made her invaluable to the Guild, especially when paired with regenerators like the Avatar.

Hazard

A member of the Protectorate and part-time Guild member.
  • Anti-Grinding: Built into his power unfortunately; he can't get any stronger if he doesn't face stronger opponents, and he's already facing diminishing returns.
  • Level Scaling: An inversion where he is the enemy; he is a Brute that gets stronger and tougher based on his opponent's strength.

Celo

An Argentinian superheroine.
  • Flying Brick: She's an lower-range Alexandria package, and it's easily her most visible powerset.
  • No-Sell: Her secondary and most useful power is her ability to become immune to the direct effects of other parahuman powers. She'd tried to keep it a Secret Weapon by dodging attacks instead of tanking them, but after the Argentinian cartels found out about it, they'd publicized it and largely reduced her effectiveness, since now they'd use mundane heavy weapons on her instead of parahuman powers.

Chubster

An American cape and one-time independent hero.
  • Flying Brick: His autokinetic powers allow him to fly, resist kinetic attacks and deliver hits proportional to his mass - which is why he stopped dieting.
  • Ineffectual Loner: His anarchism-leaning views and loner attitude made him resistant to joining the Protectorate, but after suffering burn injuries that his powers couldn't protect him from and being healed by others, he decided to join the Guild after he recovered.
  • O.C. Stand-in: He differs quite a bit from his canon counterpart Ben Cothran, who was a jovial Protectorate hero with immovability powers.

Radiant

A superhero and Cauldron cape from New Zealand, with mainland Chinese heritage.
  • Bare-Fisted Monk: Her national kung-fu tournament level fighting skills go well with a power that works with unarmed strikes.
  • Battle Aura: Her powers include a personal force field that is just barely visible (but still decently protective) at regular levels, but gradually increases in brightness the longer a fight goes on.
  • Gathering Steam: With every unarmed strike to a living target she deals, her personal force field increases in durability and brightness, and her strikes gain the power of every strike she dealt before. By the end of long engagements, she can be glowing like a star, tanking like a champion and hitting like a steamroller.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Managed to move to New Zealand before the revolution turned China into the Chinese Union Imperial.

Globe

A Case 53 Protectorate hero.
  • Brain Monster: His mutant appearance gives him a transparent skull and hypertrophied brain. Ironically, he's not a Thinker.
  • Destructive Savior: Since his temperature-manipulating ability is quite indiscriminate, concerns about collateral damage and lethal applications have been raised. As a result, he doesn't get to do much in his Protectorate branch and does more work with the Guild.
  • Heat Wave/Cold Snap: His Shaker power makes him immune to heat and allows him to instantly raise or lower the temperature of everything in a spherical globe around him. After getting teleported into the middle of a monster-filled base, he brings the temperature to 780°C and incinerates everything inside.

Doctor Volt

A Brazilian Tinker, recruited alongside the Avatar.
  • Jerkass Has a Point: He is not a particularly diplomatic man. But his assessment of how South America in general and Brazil in specific have been screwed for decades by United States Realpolitik - and how this, in turn, left them vulnerable to the Parahuman crisis - is entirely correct.
  • Knight in Sour Armor: He is devoted to changing the world for the better, but the way the world has treated him and his country (the only legitimate government in Brazil is the one for the city of Brasilia, everything else is cartel-controlled) has left him a bit bitter.
  • Shock and Awe: His Tinker specialty is electric fields and their applications, both electrostatic and electromagnetic. His electrical jammers have come in very useful for disabling enemy communications and tech.

Captain Hydro

A superhero from Poland, recruited alongside the Avatar.
  • Captain Superhero: A rare example for the setting. She is literally a (firefighting) captain, granted honorarily, and thinks turning it down would be disrespectful despite not quite liking it.
  • I Owe You My Life: Since the Simurgh was reponsible for tanking her country's economy, she was ready to join the Guild when the Avatar asked her because he was the one to kill the Endbringer.
  • Making a Splash: Her main power is hydrokinesis, creating water out of thin air and controlling it.
  • Stock Superhero Day Jobs: Was a firefighter before she triggered.

Layabaddh (Harmonic)

An Idol Singer and Garama cape from India, recruited alongside the Avatar. Unknowingly a Cauldron cape.
  • Make Some Noise: Her sonic control is second-to-none, be it amplifying her voice and using it in her concerts, or as sonic attacks.
  • Magic Idol Singer: If you replace magic with superpowers, she counts as one. Her concerts are used to boost morale and bring hope.
  • Slipping a Mickey: The Super-Empowering variant. When her sales started dropping, her producer apparently went to Cauldron for a power vial, took up mixing cocktails as a cover, and gave her a drink laced with the vial. She makes jokes about her gaining powers from his bad drink, much to his chagrin.

Multi-Hit

A Garama cape from India, recruited alongside the Avatar.

Sunblade

A Japanese superhero, recruited alongside the Avatar.
  • Laser Blade: To make best use of his enhanced fighting skill, the Japanese Defence Force and associated Tinker teammates gave him a plasma sword and heatproof armor to use it.
  • Super-Reflexes: This, coupled with his super agility, are his primary powers. Add to that his spec ops training, and you have one capable fighter.

Iron Snake

An Indonesian cape, recruited alongside the Avatar.
  • Career-Ending Injury: Was an upcoming pencak-silat champion when he suffered one that crushed his dreams and caused his Trigger. Of course, his powers quickly fixed that problem.
  • Heroic Fatigue: He isn't a cynic yet, but he's getting there. He went from dreaming he can turn Indonesia into a democratic country in his youth, to just hoping he can keep it from collapsing in his lifetime.
  • Old Superhero: Downplayed. He was a founder of the Indonesian superhero team Red White. Now he's past his 40s and still going strong, but the years of combat and loss have worn on him and, while they haven't turned him cynical, have definitely shrunk his dreams for the future.
  • Stance System/Swiss-Army Hero: Halfway between the two; he has a pool of power that he can allocate at will to either Super-Strength, Super-Speed, Healing Factor or a mix between the three.
  • The Lost Lenore: Gunshot, his teammate and wife that was killed in the line of duty.

Doctor Metal

A Tinker from the Ivory Coast and a Cauldron cape, recruited alongside the Avatar.
  • Arch-Enemy: Swarm, the warlord who conquered her home.
  • Powered Armor: Her Tinker specialty.
  • There's No Place Like Home: While studying abroad in college, she was frequently homesick and was glad to return to her home country to improve it. Her one dream is to return to her home of the Ivory Coast, after the Tinker warlord Swarm chased her out of it.

Centro

An Argentinian superhero and a Cauldron cape, recruited alongside the Avatar.

Chevalier

The Head of the Philadelphia Protectorate branch, recruited after the Skylance operation.
  • Made of Iron: Has vastly increased the durability of his armor by amalgamating Leviathan's flesh into it.
  • Mix-and-Match Weapon: His signature cannonblade, which is an amalgam of different weapons and different materials merged into one, retaining whichever properties of whichever material he wants.

Myrddin

The Head of the Chicago Protectorate branch, recruited after the Skylance operation.
  • Hammerspace: Can open up portals to different dimensions, allowing him to store objects or release a wide variety of effects.
  • Large Ham: Plays up his wizarding cape persona to the hilt.
  • The Archmage: His cape persona, although the Avatar has checked and confirmed that he's not actually using magic.

Aura

A Case-53 Garama cape and independent hero from India, recruited after the Skylance operation.
  • Barrier Warrior: Can change and shift the force-fields that make up her body however she wants.
  • Energy Being: Her body is comprised entirely of force fields.
  • Sizeshifter: With a proportional increase in strength and durability.

Entropisch

A German cape and member of Die Deutscheritters, recruited after the Skylance operation.
  • Area of Effect: Is a Shaker that generates "entropy zones", which make everything and everyone in them harder or easier to damage.

Dauntless

A member of the Brockton Bay Protectorate branch, recruited after the Lustucru operation. A chat with the Avatar to put his all into hero-work encouraged him to take his job more seriously, and with the decreasing number of local villains in Brockton Bay, he has found the drive to join the global fight against villainy.

Ninja Roja

A Cuban superhero, recruited after the Lustucru operation.
  • Master of Disguise: Her Stranger power makes her look like whoever the observers most expect to see when they look at her. If observers expect to see their leader, their friend or their confidante wherever she is, that's who they'll see.
  • The Nondescript: The effect of her power making her look like everyday workers, employees, minions or average joes, allowing for easy infiltration.
  • Troll: Has a penchant for humiliating villains - or the Castro regime while it was in effect.

Centuria

A Cuban superhero, recruited after the Lustucru operation.
  • The Minion Master: Can produce projections of humanoid adults in vast quantities, literally allowing her to field armies.

Wing Warrior

A Japanese Tinker and superhero, recruited after the Lustucru operation.
  • Dirty Business: Does not like copying powers without permission or betraying trust, but is willing to do a few morally grey things if it's what it takes to keep the world safe.
  • Power Copying: His Tinker specialty is creating equipment that mimics the powers of parahumans he's observed, a lot of which he's modularized and put into his Powered Armor. However, like most Tinkers, maintenance limits the number of modules he can have on hand.
  • Unwitting Pawn: Entered a backroom deal with Prochnost and the PRT, helping them replicate useful powers like Tattletale's and Flechette's. However, he doesn't know that he's actually making deals with the Queen of Black and White and Cauldron.

Go-Go

A Japanese superhero, recruited after the Lustucru operation.
  • Stealthy Teleportation: She can teleport herself and anything she touches to any clear space within a few hundred feet. When she triggered during Leviathan's sundering of Kyushu, her power proved integral to evacuation efforts. Presumably Stealthy, as her teleportation has no information of visual effects in "The Battle of Lagos":
    Go-Go teleports on the outside of the gunship, and teleports away after placing a limpet mine.
  • Stock Superhero Day Jobs: Was a police officer before she triggered.

Mister Clue

A Nigerian superhero and member of the National Parahuman Alliance, recruited after the Lagos operation.
  • Frame-Up: His Trigger event involved his superiors taking a bribe to look the other way from a pedophile trafficking ring, and when he tried to intervene, he was framed as the culprit instead.
  • Great Detective: His experience as a police detective, augmented with his Thinker powers, makes him one of the most effective Thinkers in the NPA.
  • Super-Intelligence: His Thinker powers have effectively made his thought processes instantaneous. If the only thing keeping him from figuring out a problem or noticing something is time to think or observe, he comes up with the answer or notices his target in the very next instant. Then again, it doesn't work if he's not smart or observant enough to work it out.
  • Super-Speed: His physical speed is enhanced by a factor of 20.

Optima

A Nigerian Tinker and NPA veteran, recruited after the Lagos operation.
  • Magikarp Power: Her Tinkertech specialty is self-improvement to her own tech. Unlike most Tinkers who eventually hit diminishing returns in their upgrades, it takes her far longer to reach those diminishing returns; with enough time, she can upgrade her Tinkertech to match other Tinkers with similar field specializations.
  • Ray Gun: She carries a variable-effect ray gun as part of her standard gear.
  • Shell-Shocked Veteran: Her battle with Behemoth in 2001 left her in a coma for 10 months, and a lasting case of PTSD when she came out of it. These days, she utilizes a brain chip to keep her from panicking, as well as assist in her tactical thinking.

Deathblow

A Nigerian villain from Lagos working under the warlord Conquest. After she was defeated by the Guild, he was taken into custody with allowances to help out later in Guild operations.
  • Charged Attack: His Striker power allows him to release destructive force from his body, which gets increasingly stronger the longer he goes without using it with no known upper limit. A wait of 10 minutes delivers force equivalent to an ordinary punch, a wait of a day allows him to shatter thick walls and kill Brutes, and after not using it for several months, it was speculated that he could kill the Avatar.
  • Functional Addict: Conquest kept him addicted to drugs to keep him motivated enough to stay in her employ, while not addicted enough to affect his capability.
  • Glass Cannon: Is referred to in-universe as such. While his physicality is completely human, if he waits long enough, his Striker power can one-shot almost any target.
  • Recruiting the Criminal: After Lagos was liberated, there were talks to put him on parole for him to use his power for the Guild's services.
  • Sudden Principled Stand: When he is ordered to hit the Avatar, he refuses to, declaring he can't kill the man who killed Leviathan and the Simurgh and beat Madame Lustucru.

Captain Argentina

An Argentinian superhero, and a once big-name before the cartels took over. The Guild got in contact with him at Centro's request, and he was made a full member after the Slaughterhouse Nine operation.
  • Captain Patriotic: Has the blue-white-and-sun-marked costume to fit his country, the name, and the desire to save his home country.
  • Mind over Matter: His telekinesis both allows him to fly and manhandle opponents with ease, even though it only works on people and the surfaces of objects.
  • Sent Into Hiding: Once the Argentinian cape-scene started to become a battle of Cloak and Dagger, he went into hiding until the Avatar helped Centro find him.

Singularidade

A Brazilian governmental superhero, assisted in and recruited after the Slaughterhouse Nine operation.
  • Destructive Savior: He has never been able to turn down the level of his singularities to a level where it won't cause serious injuries, meaning that he struggles not to kill his opponents.
  • Gravity Sucks: His Blaster power generates singularities that instantly pull everything in a radius to them with destructive force.
  • Stock Superhero Day Jobs: Was a firefighter before he triggered, which meant that after his first public use of his powers killed some villains, the entire fire department was targeted in an attempt to flush him out.

Reflexão

A Brazilian governmental superhero, recruited after the Slaughterhouse Nine operation.
  • Eye Spy: Without the detachable eye part; she can create a number of vantage points that she can see from as if she was standing there, which she can create from any point in her line(s) of sight.

Ninguém

A Brazilian governmental superhero, recruited after the Slaughterhouse Nine operation.
  • Stealth Hi/Bye: Her Stranger power allows her to turn Invisible as long as she's not in the line of sight of anyone who knows she's there.

Excruciante

A Brazilian governmental superhero, recruited after the Slaughterhouse Nine operation.
  • Agony Beam: Melee example; as befitting her moniker, she can induce debilitating pain with a mere touch.
  • Super-Strength/Super-Toughness: Her Brute power makes her bulletproof and capable of bench pressing a few tons.

Eidolon

A Cauldron Cape, member of the Triumvirate, former leader of the Houston Protectorate branch and current member of the Mexico City Branch, recruited after the Slaughterhouse Nine operation. Widely known as the Trump in parahuman discourse, he was transferred to the Mexico City branch to facilitate the country's inclusion into the Protectorate, and later requested to join the Guild to become more of a front-line fighter against villainy.
  • Aloof Ally: After being inducted into the Guild, he was noted to have some lone-wolf tendencies that needed to be worked through in training.
  • He's Back!: For a while, it was noted that his powers seemed to be waning, until some interaction with Tattletale gave him some insight on how he could get them back.
  • Swiss-Army Superpower: Has the power to have any three superpowers he wants, a level of versatility that not even the Avatar can match. Though he normally is in thick of things with more combative powers, the Avatar has encouraged him to try out Thinker powers instead.
  • World's Strongest Man: Other than Scion, he was the strongest superhero around until the Avatar showed up, and even then which one of them is more powerful is debatable.

     The European Brigade 
A parahuman organization that was supposed to be an international alliance of superheroes across Europe, but the Simurgh effectively rendered the project stillborn, with only a few token heroes in its roster. With the Avatar's arrival and his triumph over the Simurgh, the project has been given new life, with new recruits being chosen.

Napoleon

A Polish superhero.
  • Combat Clairvoyance: His Thinker power generates tens of thousands of predicted scenarios of the future within a minute, painting him the most likely scenario of what's to come and the best course of action to take.
  • False Flag Attack: In his first scene where he's caught on the wrong side of a five-on-three villain face-off, after using his powers to come up with a plan, he gives an order to one of the five villains to distract them all for a crucial moment.
  • Pragmatic Hero: Shows shades of this. He won't hesitate to go for kill shots against villains he faces, especially if one of his teammates is injured.
  • Superhero Packing Heat: Carries a sidearm since his power isn't the most offensive.

Ice Queen

An independent parahuman from Italy, and one of the strongest parahumans in Europe. The Avatar asks her to consider associate membership with the European Brigade.
  • An Ice Person: Her control over ice and snow, as well as alter its physical properties, is second-to-none. And considering she's effectively used it against Leviathan, that's saying something.
  • I'm Not a Hero, I'm...: Doesn't care for her Ice Queen moniker given by the media, preferring her astronomer credentials as Dr. Esposito.
  • The Hermit: Is incredibly antisocial, and prefers to live alone in her ice observatory on a mountaintop.
  • You Are Better Than You Think You Are: The Avatar tells her as much, considering that despite her preference to being alone, she still comes down from her mountain to defend humanity against A and S-class threats.

Peur-de-Rien

A French independent parahuman team that strives for heroic panache in their deeds, who holds significant prestige in the country. The Avatar asks them to consider being associate members of the European Brigade, if not full members.
  • Absurdly Sharp Blade: The second-in-command Cyranette can summon a weightless blade that cuts effortlessly through most solid materials.
  • Conservation of Ninjutsu: Charge invokes this - the more enemies she faces the stronger and faster she becomes.
  • Eye Beams: The power of Laser Ninja, the team's youngest member. He's also incredibly agile, though it's up for debate whether it's a Mover power or if he's just a really talented Le Parkour.
  • Giftedly Bad: Cyranette likes to spout witty wordplay and poetry during her fights like her namesake Cyrano de Bergerac, but unfortunately, her skill with such only exists in her delusions.
  • Homage: The Tinker Goldorak actually patterned himself after the anime UFO Robo Grendizer (which he couldn't get away with if he was government-sponsored).
  • Humongous Mecha: Goldorak, the last surviving founding member and current leader, is a Tinker who specializes in giant robots. Unfortunately, limitations to his teleporter tech means he can't actually operate outside Paris.
    • This changes when the Avatar tells him about a potential Brigade Tinker from Spain that specializes in pocket dimensions, which could help him move his machine to further engagements.
  • One-Woman Army: The parahuman Charge applies, as she gets linearly stronger and faster the more enemies she faces, which means she's at her best at the beginning of a fight.
  • My Greatest Failure: They got caught in a Simurgh plot after an encounter in Lausanne, where, in a battle with the the Front pour la Patrie, offshoot organization of Gesselschaft, the French-Algerian team leader killed an enemy cape that turned out to be a 15-year-old girl. The scandal left a big mark on the team's reputation, and the deaths of the majority of the team (including the leader) in 2003 by Behemoth at Lyons didn't help matters either. It says something about their reputation that other independents still decided to join them after that disaster.
  • The Minion Master: The bio-Tinker Éprouvette can create powerful creatures to fight alongside her, and her skills allow her to pull double-duty as the team's Medic.
  • Super-Senses: L'Inspecteur Masqué has hyper-awareness of everything around him, making him adept at figuring out enemy plans.
  • Super-Toughness: La Matraque Bleue, in addition to her own strength and durability, can reinforce other objects with the same toughness, like her warhammer weapon.

Leonardo

A Tinker from Milan and newly-minted Cauldron Cape that is a member of Italy's Legione Difensa.
  • Hero-Worshipper: The Avatar has really caught his attention.
  • Job System: A winner of the Superpower Lottery in that his Tinker specialization is variable; he can change it once a day to any specialization he wants, from robustness to chronotech. The former has proven immensely valuable in reducing the maintenance needs of his fellow Tinkers, and the latter has proven immensely valuable to cancelling Grey Boy loops.
  • Renaissance Man: Like his namesake, his power allows him to excel in a multitude of Tinker specializations, making him incredibly versatile.
  • New Meat: Only recently came onto the cape scene, and thus he's a little unprofessional and green around the gills.

Niszczyciel

A Polish parahuman and ex-criminal.
  • Heel–Face Revolving Door: Hasn't had an easy go with the law: started off as a criminal, triggered in jail, got convinced to give heroism a try, but lost faith when he couldn't harm the Simurgh and decided to become a full-on villain, but after the Avatar arrived, he turned himself in and asked to make amends as a Brigade member.
  • Must Make Amends: After the Avatar killed Leviathan and spoke about hope and redemption, he decided to turn himself in and give heroism another go.
  • No-Sell: When he first chose heroism, his destructive field had everyone thinking he could hurt Endbringers. The first time he fought the Simurgh, he broke his hand trying to punch her. He later finds out this may have been deliberate when he successfully destroys Leviathan's flesh during testing; the Simurgh may have actually broke his hand with her telekinesis to both break his spirit and to protect herself from an attack that could hurt her.
  • Touch of Death: Has a skin-layer force-field around him that can selectively destroy whatever he touches, making him nearly invulnerable.

Les Quatre As

The ace Super Team of France's Irréductibles, whom they call on to handle the worst threats, effectively the equivalent of the Protectorate's Triumvirate. The Avatar assists Irréductibles leader Victoire and Surdoué to convince France's government to give them associate status with the Brigade and allow them to assist in other countries.
  • A Hero to His Hometown: After two members were killed in Newfoundland's Endbringer attack, France's government stopped sending them to foreign Endbringer fights, earning them some scorn on the international stage.
  • Combat Clairvoyance: The Leader L'As de Coeur is a precognitive that can see how the next few moments play out if not for her power. Her armor has an enhanced sensor suite to augment that, provides her Super-Speed and a tinkertech sword to do something about her visions, and a voice projector to warn others.
  • Fighter, Mage, Thief: Three of the four Aces fall into this trope, with the fast-hitting Carreau being the Fighter, the bomb-slinging Trefle being the mage, and the teleporting Pique being the thief. The fourth and The Leader, Coeur, is mostly a Support Party Member with her precog providing battle intel, while still being able to hold her own if needed.
  • Flight: L'As de Carreau has 360° vision, Super-Reflexes and hypersonic flight... but doesn't make her tough enough to survive flying at such speeds. Her armor fixes that by giving her that toughness, and also inertially protects her from harm if she collides with anything or anyone, especially while impaling them with her spear.
  • Having a Blast: L'As de Trefle can turn small objects that he touches into contact-fused bombs. His exceptionally heavy armor comes with a gun with bullets that he can charge before firing, as well as allowing him to fly and release concealing smoke.
  • My Suit Is Also Super: The Tinker specialty of Professeur Plus, the team's engineer, is to create tinkertech that complements the powers of other parahumans. Every member of the Aces has Powered Armor to complement their powers, and once the group was inducted into the Brigade, he was tasked with equipping many other heroes as well.
  • Playing Card Motifs: Natch for a group named "the Four Aces". Their members are named L'As de Coeur (Ace of Hearts), L'As de Trefle (Ace of Clubs), L'As de Carreau (Ace of Diamonds) and L'As de Pique (Ace of Spades).
  • Teleportation: L'As de Pique can teleport to the side of anyone he's seen in the last nine days, across any distance. His armor complements that by briefly generating Deflector Shields and a Power Nullifier-effect in the instants after teleportation, as well as providing him with an electrified staff.
  • The Notable Numeral: Les Quatre As, a.k.a. the Four Aces.

     The Pentagon 
Kenya's elite Super Team, five capes that have great power synergy between them. They're the main reason Kenya is relatively stable compared to the rest of Africa.

Radar


  • Super-Senses: All five of her senses are vastly superhuman, providing massive battlefield awareness, especially when coupled with her perfect memory.
  • The Leader
  • The Sleepless: Is a Noctis cape, which means she doesn't require sleep.

Kinesis


Kraken


Mamba


  • Knockout Ambush: When imbued with Kinesis's Super-Speed, this becomes a very easy tactic for him to execute.
  • Poisonous Person: He can use his Striker power to manifest chemicals inside the body of anyone he touches. He usually uses paralytics and narcotics in this way to subdue his targets.
  • The Medic: Turns out manifesting drugs in a person's body can go miles in helping them heal.

Fortress


  • Deflector Shields: Her Tinker speciality. She has used it to give personal shielding to her teammates as well as a useful bubble gun.
  • Younger Than They Look: She's used a lot of Kinesis's Super-Speed over the years to develop and maintain her equipment, and the Avatar can't help thinking that she's aged a lot more than her birth certificate would imply.

Villains and A-Class Threats

     Moord Nag (Murder Night) 
The parahuman warlord of Namibia.
  • Living Shadow: The reason she is so feared: her shadow beast consumes human life and gets stronger with every life it devours.
  • Omnicidal Maniac: Is constantly looking for political reasons to commit mass murder; the Avatar posits that she just wants a good reason to power up her shadow.
  • Reset Button: If her shadow beast is destroyed, her shadow loses all its strength gained thus far and has to start over in its weak, sentient form.

     The Purifier 
A parahuman who has subjugated Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, under his absolute rule. With an interpretation of Islam that was too strict even for the Taliban.
  • Achilles' Heel: For one thing there's a range limit on his power, it's just larger than the city. For another, he must see the person in real-time... operative word: see.
  • And There Was Much Rejoicing: Minutes after his rule is ended and the Avatar announces his capture there are celebratory riots in the streets.
  • Big Brother Is Watching: Set up an entire network of CCTV cameras all over the city to monitor the populace and inflict his power on anyone he wants to. Also encourages people to inform on each other.
  • Boomerang Bigot: Believes that all parahumans are abominations that must be killed on sight. But obviously he's not a parahuman, he's been given God's gift...
  • Expy: If Light was thrown out of the Taliban for being too extreme and had bought the Shinigami Eyes.
  • The Fundamentalist: Is an ex-Taliban who believes he was given Allah's blessing and duty to keep the world pure and free of parahumans. To this end, he'll kill anyone in Kabul he observes not following his radical interpretation of Islamic preachings: the five daily prayers, women wearing anything other than a burqa, anyone not a Muslim, etc.
  • Instant Kill: His power. If he can see someone he wants dead, they die. No ifs, ands or buts about it, heedless of Breaker or Brute powers.
  • Modest Royalty: He lives a simple ascetic life, constantly monitoring CCTV cameras and killing anyone who breaks his definition of virtue.

     Wyld Hunter 
A Brazilian parahuman and A-Class threat that has ravaged the country for several years.
  • Locked Out of the Loop: Disappears into the wilderness between attacks on civilization, and his last appearance was three days before the Avatar showed up on Earth-Bet.
  • Reality Warping: Within his domain, Wyld Hunter has full control over his surroundings: making monsters appear, turning day into night, dropping lightning, even surviving in a vacuum. That last part is important when the Avatar exiles him to the moon.
  • The Exile: To the moon.
  • The Wild Hunt: Or "Wyld Hunt" in his case; his modus operandi was riding through a populace every so often and using his powers to turn it into a living nightmare, inflicting as much harm as he could. Some towns and cities even begged to be put under villain control just to have some defence against him.
  • Xtreme Kool Letterz: Wyld Hunter.

     Heartbreaker 
A Canadian parahuman and one of the world's most infamous Masters.
  • Brainwashed: Heartbreaker has an entire harem of women controlled this way, including one celebrity, which put him on the Protectorate's priority list.
  • Emotion Control: His main schtick, and it lasts even past his death.
  • Logical Weakness: Like the Purifier, his power is vision-based.
  • No-Sell: Him using his power on the Avatar; you can't Master a sapient idea.

     The Kings of Pride 
A coalition of parahuman criminals and warlords from around the world, gathered for the purpose of bringing down the Avatar.

Lord Cognito

The leader of the premier crime cartel in Mexico.
  • Challenge Seeker: He openly welcomes conflict and challenge, always seeking Worthy Opponents to test himself against, both physical and mental.
  • Evil Virtues: Openly embraces his Pride and megalomania, claiming it as his source of strength.
  • Instant Expert: His power enables him to touch books, electronics or tools and instantly learn all the information stored on them, in addition to how to utilize them. It even enables him to maintain and upkeep Tinkertech, though not repair or rebuild it.
  • Villain with Good Publicity: He has a reputation for fair dealing Pragmatic Villainy in areas under his control.
  • You Owe Me: When dealing with civilians he prefers to trade favors rather than cash. Justified - the people he exploits don't have much money anyway.

Bariq

A warlord from Iraq.
  • Powered Armor: Utilizes a set that augments her already-devastating powers.
  • Shock and Awe: Her main source of power. Lord Cognito has called her a "modern-day Zeus".
  • Super-Speed: Her other primary superpower.
  • The Strategist: Her tactical mind has shown keenly in many of her conflicts with local forces.

Storm Rider

A Myanmar warlord in the process of conquering the whole country.

Swarm

A warlord that conquered the entirety of the Ivory Coast.
  • Arch-Enemy: To the new Guild Tinker recruit Doctor Metal, after Swarm took over her home country and chased her out.
  • Corrupt Corporate Executive: Was the CEO of the country's biggest Internet service provider, who Triggered when the government nationalized the service. Upon triggering, she promptly overthrew the government and took control.
  • Nanomachines: Her Tinker specialty; her greatest weapon is her smart gel made up of millions of drones that can assemble into any configuration imaginable. It's what makes her one of the few Tinker 8s in the world.
  • One Nation Under Copyright: The Ivory Coast's fate under Swarm's rule; she's essentially running the country like a giant corporation. Results are... mixed.

The Queen of Black and White (Koroleva)

A conniving socialite puppetmistress from Russia and one of its strongest oligarchs.
  • Aristocrats Are Evil: She's an oligarch and a string-puller that is slowly putting Russia under her thumb; it goes without saying.
  • Gut Feeling: Her power gives hunches onto the chances of success or failure with every action she makes.
  • The Chessmaster: Literally; in addition to being a Manipulative Bitch that picks and chooses who comes into power at her leisure, she was a grandmaster chess player before her Trigger.
  • The Woman Behind the Man: Russia's bank shares are owned by her, St. Petersburg's city officials were picked by her, and the city's elites have their social relevance fully dictated by her whims.

Throne

The parahuman king of Uzbekistan, who conquered the entire country by force.
  • Artificial Human: Artificial Parahuman in this case; he was the attempt of an Uzbek bio-tinker to create Super Soldiers for the country. It worked.
  • Expy: A Smug Super with golden hair and red eyes that can summon swords with a variety of powers? Sounds an awful lot like Gilgamesh.
  • Phlebotinum Rebel: Was created to serve Uzbekistan, but instead overthrew the government and became its king.
  • Smug Super: And how.
    Throne: The world is my court. So-called neutral grounds are as much my possession as anything else.
  • Spontaneous Weapon Creation: Can create and banish swords from nothing as he wishes.
  • Super-Soldier: Was created to be one and has the super strength, speed and resilience to go with it. The superpowers from throwing in one Cauldron vial into his creation are just the icing on the cake.
  • Victor Gains Loser's Powers: With every parahuman he kills with one of his swords, he permanently imbues that sword with that parahuman's powers. And considering he can summon and banish those swords as much as he wishes, he's accumulated a lot of powers.

     Gesellschaft 
A neo-Nazi organization in Europe, which holds a lot of power through racist rhetoric and ultranationalist leanings.
  • Manipulative Bastard: Rhetor, the organization's leader, whose Thinker power enables him to know exactly the right things to say and how to act to convince others.
  • Irony: Aperçu is a high-ranking precognitive member who thinks that Gesselschaft's racist ideology is just a front for their real elitist intellectual goals, and that as a powerful Thinker, she is part of that inner circle that knows the truth. In addition, she knows about Rhetor's powers and how they work, and believes that since she knows about his manipulation, she can't be manipulated. All of which Rhetor told her specifically with his powers to manipulate her.
  • Villain with Good Publicity: Despite their hateful rhetoric, their movement has a lot of steam, especially among ultra-nationalists, and they have many child organizations around the world, such as the Empire 88 in the US, Camelot in Britain, and the Front pour la Patrie in France.

     Ash Beast 
A parahuman surrounded by a perpetual explosion and an A-Class threat that has plagued Northern Africa for many long years. His real name is Naguib Salmawy.
  • Having a Blast: His body uncontrollably emits explosions that damage, push away and blind everyone and everything that comes close to him.
  • I Just Want to Be Normal: Immediately begs to be cured from his powers when he hears how much destruction he left in his wake.
  • Inelegant Blubbering: After several years of total isolation, hearing the Avatar's voice sends him in a messy breakdown. Then again when the hero promises not only he will ensure Naguib won't hurt anyone else by making him The Exile, he will visit him until a way to control or annul the explosions have been found.
  • Mike Nelson, Destroyer of Worlds: Terrified of his power and resulting isolation, he has caused a lot of unintentional destruction while walking the earth all this time.
  • Power Incontinence: Which really blows when your power is Having a Blast.
  • The Exile: The Avatar's best solution is to move him to an alternate Earth with no people with constant promises to visit and check up on him.
  • Walking Wasteland: Everywhere's he's gone, he's pretty much scoured clean.
  • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Triggering made him a Walking Waste Land unable to communicate with anyone. The Avatar explicitely tells him he's just as much a victim of his power as the many he accidentally harmed or killed.

     The Four Ghosts of Santiago 
Four parahuman villains that between them, eventually took full control over the Cuban city of Santiago. The Guild, revamped with the addition of the Avatar and other international heroes, took them down.
  • From Nobody to Nightmare: They never really set out to conquer the whole city, but when they clashed with the big dogs of the country, even the hero Invencible from Havana, they were the ones standing tall at the end.
  • Shadow Archetype: Are this to the canon Undersiders, as a team of villains with good power synergy who ended up conquering the city after clashing with authority and winning the escalation game.
  • The Worf Effect: For all their synergy, reputation and track record, their whole purpose in the story are as the first targets chosen to demonstrate the Guild's updated roster and increased effectiveness.

Poseedor

The leader of the Four Ghosts, who triggered during the Castro regime.
  • Body Surf: Poseedor's main power is to jump into the body of the nearest person when he is killed, possessing them, wiping out their mind and completely taking over their body. Has the minor flaw of not being able to use powers of any Capes he's put into.
  • Immortality Immorality: The possibilities of getting away with anything due to being able to survive anything really appealed to him.
  • Never Going Back to Prison: He learned early to never give his foes the option of taking him in alive, as when he's alive, he's not being killed, and thus, unable to jump into a new body.
  • Suicide Attack: With his power, he has taken to killing his own bodies to Body Surf into the minds of his victims, and since no power around can protect against the possession, it's a very potent weapon.

Espectro

The second member to join the Four Ghosts.

Horror

Once a member of a budding villain trio called the Dominadores, she is the third member to join the Four Ghosts.
  • Supernatural Fear Inducer: Her parahuman power, allowing her to send crowds running in panic.
  • Turncoat: After the death of her first teammate, Poseedor and Espectro convinced her to join them and take out the other one.

Mil Ojos

An ex-heroine and the fourth member to join the Four Ghosts.

     Skylance 
A Japanese parahuman warlord who came into power after the Sundering of Kyushu, taking control of the resulting refugee camps and establishing herself as their protector, though her intentions were hardly noble. The Avatar and the Guild helped take her down.
  • Failure Gambit: Skylance tries to enact one when the Guild comes for her head, planning to surrender herself for the good of her people, make herself a martyr, and get enough public support to pressure the government to release her. Unfortunately, Fuji-Sama crashes the party and short-circuits that narrative by calling her a coward.
  • Manipulative Bitch: She is a demagogue that proclaimed to the refugees that the government and the outside world had abandoned them, that Leviathan's attack was a foreign plot, and that uniting under her leadership is the only way to survive. In reality, she actively keeps national and international aid out of the refugee camps, acquires and redistributes the aid supplies to keep them dependent on her, and her only motivation is to gain enough support that she can eventually supplant the government.
  • Not Quite Flight: Spends her fights falling from portal to portal through the air, keeping her aloft while launching attacks through more portals.
  • Shadow Archetype: Is this to canon Skitter after she became the warlord of Brockton Bay, as a parahuman who took control of the chaos after a Leviathan attack, visibly helping the public while keeping the government out of her territory, while building up a lot of goodwill in the process. The difference is, while Skitter genuinely cared for the public, Skylance is doing it out of pure demagoguery.
  • The Exile: After her capture, the Avatar puts her on an empty alternate Earth until her trial, after which she is Birdcaged.
  • Thinking Up Portals: Her parahuman power allows her to create portals that are stationary relative to each other, but not to the world. And she has a brutal range; she can launch high-speed streams of lava by establishing a portal beneath the Earth's surface on the other side of the planet (which is moving in the opposite direction to her current location, and thus moving at high speeds relative to where she is).
  • Villain with Good Publicity: Thanks to her doctrine and her own shaped narrative, she is held in high esteem within the refugee camps.

     Fuji-Sama 
A Japanese parahuman, A-Class villain and far-right political figure. He was once a member of the Yamato Party and in line to be elected to the Japanese National Diet until a terrorist scandal crushed his career and caused him to trigger.
  • Brutish Character, Brutish Weapon: He marches into battle with a giant hammer that weighs 10 times more than he does, which he can easily wield with his Brute power.
  • Fat Bastard: Styles himself as a masked sumo wrestler by deliberately overeating, and is one of the worse villains in Japan.
  • My Country, Right or Wrong: He is an ultranationalist to say the least. The aforementioned terrorist scandal was linked to attacks against Korean businesses in Japan, and he now controls a "foreigner-free" part of Tokyo while trying to be the face of the ultranationalist movement.
  • The Exile: After his capture, the Avatar puts him on an empty alternate Earth until his trial, rather than a jail he can just walk out of. Later, he's put into a Lockbox.
  • The Rival: To Skylance, since her acts and nationalist doctrine have put her in the top position for the face of ultranationalist front, which he wants. The Guild uses this to their advantage when taking out Skylance.
  • Stout Strength: Given his power to both ignore physical effects on his body and exert irresistible pushing force on anything he touches, he certainly has the "strength" part, and he Invokes the "stout" part by making his cape image that of a masked sumo wrestler named after Mount Fuji. Ironically, he has no actual background in Sumo Wrestling.
  • Unwitting Pawn: How the Guild effectively used him in their operation against Skylance. By seeding him with information about her confrontation with the Guild, he crashed the party to try and usurp her ultranationalist agenda and put his narrative in conflict with hers, preventing her from controlling it and portraying herself as a martyr.

     Madame Lustucru 
The psychopathic warlord of the city of Kolwezi in the Congo, inflicting horrors on its inhabitants day after day. The Avatar and the Guild helped oust her from power.
  • Do Not Go Gentle: Once she heard that the Avatar was gunning for threats like her, she was willing to do as much damage to the Kolwezi populace before she went down.
  • Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: The Avatar makes note of how nondescript and unassuming she looks in comparison to the evils she had done.
  • For the Evulz: She outright says she has no motivation at all for the atrocities she does, other than "because".
  • Hope Crusher: Is this in spades. One of the more sadistic plots she devised was to actually invoke a Hope Spot for her country - arranging for her and her forces to be ousted by a rebellion, only to reveal later that the rebellion was working for her all along.
  • Lesser of Two Evils: The Greater Evil in comparison to the Triple Alliance, three warlords in control of the rest of the Congo, who use her as the worse choice to allying with them. That said, some of the capes under her command think of her as the better choice compared to the Alliance.
  • Making a Splash: With horrifyingly, no Manton Limit. Meaning that even the water in the human body is hers to command at will.
  • Would Hurt a Child: Oh, absolutely. Two of her final ploys included holding children hostage in a propane-filled room, and dropping 200 children from 100 feet up.

     Blood Count 
An A-Class villain and the strongest cape in the warlord-infested city of Lagos, Nigeria. He was just one of the seven major warlords that were captured during the Guild's operation to cleanse the city.

     Black Sun 
One of the major warlords of Vietnam. She recently entered a ceasefire with her rival Phosphor after the Avatar's arrival.
  • A Lighter Shade of Grey: In the Morality Kitchen Sink of Earth-Bet, Black Sun is relatively better than most warlords. She's fairly quick to execute rivals, clamps down on freedom of speech, and employs villains as enforcers. But she does at least want a country to rule, and so also invests in infrastructure and standard of living.
  • Anti-Magic: Her Tinker speciality is energy cancellation, and she has used it to great effect through devices like light-cancelling darkness generators or heat-cancelling freeze bombs. There's a reason she's one of the few people worldwide rated Tinker 8.
  • Disintegrator Ray: Her infamous 'blacklight' ray weapon, which cancels electrostatic bonds between molecules on whatever it hits.
  • Heel–Face Turn: Downplayed. She has not quit villainy or her warlord based rule, but the arrival of the Avatar did inspire her to make a ceasefire with her bitter enemy.
  • Young Conqueror: Was only in her teens when she Triggered, and promptly used her new capabilities to eliminate the warlord that took over her city.
  • You Owe Me: To facilitate the peace talks between Black Sun and Phosphor the Avatar promises to defeat three of her enemies, as long as they are also villains. So far she has two such favors remaining.

     Phosphor 
One of the major warlords of Vietnam. He recently entered a ceasefire with his rival Black Sun after the Avatar's arrival.
  • A Lighter Shade of Grey: In the Morality Kitchen Sink of Earth-Bet, Phosphor is fairly reasonable. He strives mightily to keep civilians out of the line of fire, but he's not above withholding resources and using strong-arm tactics to get what he wants.
  • Heel–Face Turn: Downplayed. He has not quit villainy or his warlord based rule, but the arrival of the Avatar did inspire him to make a ceasefire.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: His Trigger event was going through with his general's orders to fire on protestors to take over a city. When he got his powers the next day, he killed the general and took over.
  • Plasma Cannon: Can launch streams of burning-hot plasma from his hands.
  • Unfortunate Names: He's a Vietnamese parahuman who named himself after white phosphorus. According to the author, he suffers from self-loathing.

Other

     Toybox 
An association of Tinkers who collaborate and sell their products to the highest bidders. As the Guild gained higher acclaim, they decided to ally with the Guild to offer their wares for future operations.
  • Jack of All Trades: Artisan's Thinker power makes him a master in all forms of craftsmanship, and his Tinker power, while unspecialized, makes creations that aren't that far off from those of a specialized Tinker.
  • Made of Indestructium: Prochnost's Tinker specialization is robustness, and most of his Tinker creations require far less maintenance than other Tinkers. His skills are frequently used to improve other Tinkers' work.
  • The Mole: One of its members, Prochnost, secretly works for the Queen of Black and White.

     The King's Men 
The United Kingdom's premier parahuman organisation, headed by Lord Walston.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: Between the Simurgh's attack on London, the effective decapitation of the country's leadership, and the lack of international aid that resulted in Britain seceding from the European Union, the country has been through a lot of problematic times.
  • Ignored Expert: One scene has Johnny Kong, a teamwork Thinker, advising Lord Walston on keeping some capes out of a future operation to prevent possible future unrest, only for Walston to ignore his advice on account of viewing half-measures against "scum" (dissidents, criminals, and minorities - in his mind the same thing) as weakness.
  • My Country, Right or Wrong: Johnny Kong is of the opinion that disloyalty to one's country and superiors is a vice above all else, even above blind obedience. He works for Lord Walston, head of the King's Men, who has become an ultranationalist that advocates order and stability over personal rights.
  • Make Some Noise: Lord Walston's parahuman powers, which give him full awareness of all sound in his radius, making him a very effective clairvoyant.
  • Stealth Pun: Johnny Kong styles himself as a neo-Confucianist. In Mandarin, Confucius was called "Kong zi" (Master Kong), and in Chinese tradition, his name was "Zhongni".
  • Team Spirit: Johnny Kong, a member of the King's Men, is a Thinker specializing in teamwork and synergy.

     Madman 
A dimensional traveler who has toyed many times with the Avatar and the Global Champions, and the Mad Scientist to end all mad scientists. He's the one who threw the Avatar into Earth-Bet in the first place.
  • Clarke's Third Law: Not actually a God, or even a natural Reality Warper, but instead a Mad Scientist whose technology is so advanced that he can effortlessly overpower the setting's actual gods.
  • Everyone Has Standards: Not many, but he has them, mostly along the lines of keeping things fun and interesting.
    • His antics are usually high in property damage, but very low in terms of body count, and it's perceived that he won't actually let other cosmic beings threaten the Earth, if only under a "don't break my toys" policy.
    • The Man of Might kerfuffle was one that he didn't see coming, and his intervention was the turning point that allowed the heroes to defeat him (shoot the Man of Might from a Venture City station in orbit and have Venture Industries take the credit). Moreover, after the global hero population was cut in half, he decided to shore up their ranks by building Thermakron.
    • An interdimensonal mess that threatens all of reality? Better send someone to fix it!
    • An Endbringer using an alternate inhabited world as a battlefield against the Avatar? Billions of people unavoidably dying is far too Grimdark. Swap the planet with an uninhabited one, mocking the Simurgh while he's at it!
  • Great Gazoo: His effective personality - he's not really malicious, he just loves causing chaos for amusement. One scheme of his was to set off nukes as a distraction simply so that he could pie the president in the face.
    • Another scheme involves popping in to troll Tattletale by making her power read him as a Nigerian Prince who wants to sell Male Enhancement drugs... and then throwing a pie in her face.
  • No Challenge Equals No Satisfaction: Cuts both ways. On the one hand, he admits that the Champions could absolutely steamroll Earth-Bet's problems if he sent them all. Which is why he's only sending one. On the other, though, he's unstoppable and all powerful. The only reason it's possible to stop his schemes is because he makes it possible.
  • Sufficiently Advanced Alien: He didn't stop at understanding the laws of the universe; he learned how to rewrite them. Whatever he's using to cross worlds and cause chaos, it's not magic; his technology is simply so far ahead of everything else that he's virtually The Omnipotent.
  • The Omnipotent: Thus far, no-one's ever been able to beat him, just stop his schemes. Implicitly because he lets them, since No Challenge Equals No Satisfaction.

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