Roleplay / Eclipse: A Heroes RPG

Where heroes are born... where heroes are made... what will you become?

Quite possibly the longest-running - if not the longest, given the reception of the parent show's latter seasons and its later miniseries - forum RPG based in the Heroes universe, Eclipse: A Heroes RPG is a play-by-post roleplaying game which began in July of 2008.

Created as a result of both the founders' love of the show and their distaste of the direction the show beyond Season/Volume 1, Eclipse decided to focus on a player-created original cast, relegating the show's characters to either occasional cameo appearances in out-of-character threads or appropriate references before being abandoned completely.

As a result of breaking away from the show's plot in such an abrupt fashion; only matching its canon verbatim up until the timeskip following the airborne explosion at Kirby Plaza (Season 1's finale, How To Stop An Exploding Man), Eclipse and its denizens set out on a divergent timeline all its own. Starting from their own Volume Three, the site made it up to Volume Ten in the middle of 2017 before effectively shuttering.

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This site provides examples of the following tropes:

The Players (or the forum itself)

• Artistic License – Linguistics: Oh, so very much. Though, with the vast majority of the players - past and present - being native English speakers, this was mostly out of sheer necessity. With characters able to speak French, German, Italian, Greek, Finnish, Japanese and even Arabic among others, a popular method for those unversed was to run the phrases through Google Translate and use the result. While this often leaves the resultant phrases rife with grammatical errors - a glaring point for those who can speak the languages in question - the players themselves settle for getting the gist of what was intended to be said and use the power of imagination to fill in the blanks.
• Flashback: As well as dealing with possible flashforwards, the Multiverse section of the forum is where these can reside. That is, if they're not flashback cuts that relate to the thread in question.
• Cross-Referenced Titles: Being a forum, this can happen whenever a player wishes. One good example, which also counted as a Call-Back, was Ryan and Adele's relationship. Referencing a conversation they had, the thread in which Ryan proposed was titled "Creative And Memorable". Nearly six years later, when the time finally came for them to get married, a new thread was created. Its title? "Creating The Memorable".
• Halloween Episode: On most years, an open-to-all (barring character-specific logistics) Hallowe'en thread has been created:
  • Let's Party! and Special Hallowe'en Ball for 2009
  • A Change To The Norm for 2010
  • Gossamer My Gown for 2011
  • A Hallowe'en Mentality for 2012
  • The Many Moons series for 2013
  • What Are We Made Of? for 2015
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Back in the forum's early years, the semi-OOC annual Eclipse Awards threads were guilty of this. The characters attended a full-on awards ceremony where they collected - or watched winners collect - the awards for which they were nominated.

The Factions

• Code Name: The twelve members of GEIST were each given one of these; more often than not based on their abilities.
• No Such Agency: The only thing organisation-wise that Eclipse took from its parent show was the Company, the special-policing government agency.
  • Renegade Splinter Faction: While the Company had its fair share of dirty jobs and secrets, the Elite were a group of top-level Company agents who were specifically tasked with the targets and tasks the regular rank-and-file either weren't proficient enough to perform successfully... or simply didn't know about.
• Legion of Doom: Kiros Monroe's Rogue Society was an example of this. While there wasn't much in the way of official infighting, there were occasions when outside forces set one member against another for brief periods of time and, in the end, the Society dissolved when Kiros was removed from the equation.
  • Bald of Authority: The ruthless head of a small crime syndicate, able to manipulate gravity, well-regarded amongst his criminal peers and subordinates? In addition to being a Scary Black Man to boot, Kiros Monroe was a villainous one of these.

The Characters

• Action Girl: More than a few.
• Amicable Exes: Despite getting married to someone else almost a decade later, Ryan Alcroft stays on good terms with his high school ex, Michelle Flynn.
  • Sex with the Ex: Very good terms, if his one-time threesome with her and Adele Couteau (then his fiancée at the time) was anything to go by.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Jung Facility head Marshall Quatrevaux suffers from inattentive ADHD.
• Battle in the Center of the Mind: As the thread's title suggests, Meeting Of The Minds revolves around this. In one corner, astral projectionist Ryan Alcroft. In the other, the grieving mind manipulator Jordan Mercer. Right after Ryan had unknowingly trod all over his new Berserk Button.
• Big Brother Bully: Ryan's elder brother Darron. The bullying had actually stopped for the most part when Darron earned himself a school suspension at the age of fourteen but, due to their age gap (six years) and the fact that Darron moved out to attend university, the siblings didn't get to start patching things up officially until a number of years later.
• Big "WHY?!": After finally facing the accidental death of his parents (which he caused) head-on after almost thirteen years and being brought to their graves by Khalidah, Devon Ridgeman finally lets out one of these, turning an innocent parked car into scrap metal and dust with his ability in the process.
  Devon: Why, Khalidah?! I don't deserve any of this!
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: With a middle child who used his ability to commit a spontaneous massacre in Rome, a former psych-patient younger child who can toy with the nervous systems of other people and an imposing Matriarch/Patriarch duo with ties to Danish royalty, the Kroners definitely qualified as this with ample room to spare.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Adam Lynch. He even managed to comment on the text colour his player was using to denote his speech, for crying out loud...
• Cool Car: Among others...
  • Dakari Johessman's dark purple Porsche Boxster◊
  • "Dolly", Khalidah Rahal's Corvette Stingray◊
  • Felicia Rahal's lime green hearse, complete with URNEXT license plate.
  • Adele Couteau's Lotus Elise and Ryan Alcroft's BMW M6...
  • ...until a car collector working at the Company gave them a Pagani Zonda F Roadster. Each.
  • Thomas Kroner, being from an immensely wealthy noble family, obviously had a Bugatti Veyron
  • And, as an inversion, Nireva Hale's girlfriend has a Pontiac G3. It's not cool, fast or stylish.
• Death by Origin Story: Marcus Grant III (Marine squadmates), Adrian Kilvayne and Devon Ridgeman (their parents), among others.
• Delinquent Hair (and sometimes Spiky Hair): One of Layton Ranta's defining features is his dyed hair. The most common colour he goes for is bright red but, as an inversion to the "Delinquent" part, he's perfectly law-abiding, polite and isn't averse to washing the dye out if a situation (costume parties, work and so on) warrants.
• Elevator Going Down: Ryan Alcroft and Adele Couteau have done this at least once. They've even drunkenly sung the trope quote in a bar.
• Fiction 500: Intellitouch, Khalidah Rahal's biotechnology firm is the most prominent example in recent years. Other candidates for inclusion on the list include Vital, Reier Technologies and Ark Industries.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: You could build quite the list of people who fit the "monstrous ability/unassuming background" combo. For instance, Ryan Alcroft went from graduated exchange student to super-powered accomplice to a serial killer in a little under three years.
• Horsemen of the Apocalypse: The Horsemen Plot involved elements based on these. The cholera outbreak and the government cover-up of a US-wide famine (Pestilence and Famine) was brought to light and stymied by the then Ark Industries CEO Christian Moynahan, the battle between the National Guard stationed in Washington DC and Dakari's Jamaican Dominion represented War while Lilith's presence at that same battle - due to her powerful ability - represented Death.
• Immortality: While the genes for this trait have been known to skip certain members (such as Amalia Djanescu), a combination of The Ageless and Healing Factor is a defining facet of the evolved abilities of many of the Rahal family members.
• Improvised Weapon: To defend himself against a Company agent when he first met Adele, Ryan Alcroft clubbed his assailant with a bronze bookend.
• Insanity Defense: The manifestation of Devon Ridgeman's ability led to his state-appointed lawyer successfully mounting one of these in 1997.
  • ...and after going Mad From The Isolation, he broke out of the psych ward he'd been remanded in in 2009.
• Mass Super-Empowering Event: During the tenure of former leader Noah Rydberg, Ark Industries publicly demonstrated an experiment in 2010 that, albeit temporarily, resulted in this. Simply dubbed April Fourth after the fact, numerous miscalculations resulted in one disaster compounding another. What was originally meant to synthetically grant abilities to a select few people in a televised press conference ended up giving everyone on the planet an ability for four and a half minutes. The panic which stemmed from this resulted in the deaths of a quarter of a billion people, making it technically the biggest in-universe terrorist incident by numerous orders of magnitude.
  • Power Incontinence: The reason so many died during the above. The only people who weren't affected by April Fourth were the ones who already had (and therefore were accustomed to) abilities.
• No-Sell: Both Felicia Soler (though she wasn't married at the time) and her mother Khalidah Rahal have no-sold Devon Ridgeman's ability of "tactile molecular decay", due to both having a healing factor.
  • Though their reactions were different. While Devon was - when they first met - able to decay Felicia's forearm to the point where he could tear it off with little effort, any selling of the assault she made was an act to make him think he had the upper hand. With Khalidah's own power being vastly in excess of her descendants, her no-selling was more literal in nature; her healing factor was simply so powerful that it repaired the damage faster than he could cause it and she simply waited until he burned himself out.
• "Older Than History!": Khalidah Rahal has dubbed herself to be this. Being the matriarch of a family of immortals, not even her own descendants precisely know how old she is. Given that she's never stated an exact number, the best her daughter (born in the 13th century) can do is guess.
• One Head Taller: Ryan Alcroft is this to his wife Adele Couteau, measuring in at six-foot-two compared to Adele's meagre five feet.
• Power Perversion Potential: In a world based on a show featuring people with superpowers, there's bound to be a few.
  • Before they became friends, Felicia Rahal suggested that Devon Ridgeman could use his ability to rob banks in order to keep himself financially afloat.
  • Ark Industries in 2010 became the in-universe poster child for this trope. Experiments into synthetically granting abilities through technology resulted in an accidental and thankfully fleeting Mass Super-Empowering Event which resulted in the deaths of millions.
  • With most of the upgrades to his ability revolving around possessing other people through his astral projection, Ryan Alcroft's definitely at risk of succumbing to this. It's a wonder he hasn't, given the company he keeps.
• Pre Ass Kicking One Liner: When the riots - sparked in response to the famine cover-up (see Horsemen of the Apocalypse) - reach Ryan Alcroft's front door in the form of three jocks intent on smashing his car, the one he comes up with shows just how much the past few years have changed him. The fact that his victim wound up with cracks or breaks on eleven bones meant that this was something of a Curb-Stomp Battle to boot.
  Ryan: You two. Watch this. As for you: get up.
  • Despite the ass-kicking not taking place "on-screen", Nireva got one when the same rioting spread to LA, leading to her narrowly rescuing her girlfriend Jenna from a beating through mistaken identity.
  Nireva: Hey! I hear you fuckers are looking for me!
• Relationship Upgrade:
  • Among so many others over the years, Jenna and Nireva, Devon and Amalia (both started as pairs of roommates/cohabitants). As well as Marshall and Jessica (co-workers to lovers).
  • After Ryan Alcroft hooks up with Adele Couteau in the latter half of 2008 (the summer of 2009 in real time), it took them until the last few months of 2016 to finally get their plans together and get married.
• Roaring Rampage of Rescue: Heaven Have Mercy started out as this on Ryan's part. Realising that Adele had been abducted and captured, he drove across nine states (Texas to New York) over the course of two days.
  • Although it was averted pretty harshly in that Ryan didn't get the chance to do any roaring, rampaging or rescuing, due to the Company heading him off on his way into New York City.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Although with not so much roaring, Adele Couteau went on one of these in Heaven Have Mercy, killing a dozen people with a combination of her ability and conveniently placed bladed medical instruments. And this was after she saw an illusion of Ryan being killed by gunfire.
  • And when Adele was killed by the Company (although she got better), Ryan lashed out and went on one of his own, directing his fury at his work partner at the time by driving up to Missouri and killing a sizeable portion of his extended family.
• Secret Identity: There have been a few.
  • The Fixer Killer - ...was actually a persona formed by the collective actions of a quartet; Mark Hooper, Jeff Classic, Raj Kapoor and "Agent Spike".
  • Pulse - The hacker alias of Watchers' PI leader Zoey Lindstrom.
  • Kinesis - The superhero alias of another Watchers' PI member, Ronan Mac Guinness.
  • The Twelve Swords (including the Architect, Wraith, Misericorde, Spark, Beast, Orphan and Chameleon) - The collective name given to the prospective members of GEIST.
• The Family That Slays Together: The Johessmans. Despite the façade, Dakari and her numerous relatives operate their own self-contained crime family of sorts, covering for Dakari whenever she skirts the bounds of the law.
• Writers Cannot Do Math: A minor example of this explains the discrepancy in the otherwise "real time (vaguely) matches forum time" world of Eclipse. With the time taken to finish off threads resulting in one centred around Ryan Alcroft's 20th birthday only getting started in 2010 (he was born in 1989), the year of his meeting Adele - thankfully never explicitly mentioned at the time - was nudged back to fix the error.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: It's probably easier to list who is still a sweet adult.
• Yandere: Adele Couteau could quite easily qualify as this. If one is inclined to liken her to Yuno Gasai (after all, knives are their mutual weapon of choice), then Ryan Alcroft is her Yuki. The first deaths she caused were either for selfish reasons (her college roommate was disrupting her med school studies) or outright curiosity but, when Ryan shows up, just about every kill under her belt after that point involve him as a primary reason, whether to protect him, exact vengeance on his behalf or to ensure that she can be with him.