Roleplay / The First Hero

The First Hero is a first generation superhero Quest written by the author Photomajig, using the Mutants & Masterminds mechanics. The Quest follows Theodore Schmidt, a young, intelligent, charming Jewish-Christian in 1920's Germany with an innate Gift for augmenting himself or others as he operates as the first superhuman superhero, the Talon, as he takes the fight against street radicals and militants to safeguard the Republic.

The quest came to an end as of 2019, following an extended period inactivity.

However, in early January, 2023, Photomajig began a sequel/spin-off quest called The Northern Hero: a First Hero Story, featuring a new setting, new main character, and a few new mechanics. This new Quest follows Elisabet Lille, a student of psychology and flapper of Helsinki, Finland. After a terrifying encounter with something in the waters of the Baltic Sea, Elisabet gained read, damage and control minds to some degree, as well as assume a monstrous aquatic form. With these new, strange abilities she dons the name Nixie and operates as the new superhuman hero for Helsinki.

As a Quest, players vote on the player character's actions in between updates written by the author, as the player character rises to the challenge of defending their homes from criminals and the occasional supervillain alongside other heroes in their respective cities.

UNMARKED SPOILERS AHEAD

---

The First Hero and The Northern Hero provides examples of:

Shared Tropes

• Historical Fiction: The setting of these quests are set during the 1920's and certain historical events can and have taken place.
• HULK MASH!-Up: The Beast Man who Talon encounters is functionally this, turning into a monstrous form he doesn't have that much control over. Talon is able to help him control his monstrous side and he later becomes a member of the Wunderliga in *The Northern Hero*.
  • Nixie fits this pretty well in the Henshin Hero sense, just with a Lovecraftian Superpower twist!
• Secret-Keeper: As a superhero story naturally this crops up quite a bit for various heroes.
  • Talon in particular has his family, his friend Klaus, his team, and the Amazing Anzimee all aware of his Secret Identity.
  • Nixie has her friends knowing her's.
• Super Hero Origin: Naturally these would show up.
  • Talon's is Random Selection, as his powers came about after being trigger by him getting beaten up by some Freikorps castoffs that were threatening his neighborhood.
  • Nixie's is Augmentation, as her powers are a result with her encounter with a terrifying force in the Baltic Sea that ended up giving her Psychic Powers and a monstrous transformation.
• Superhero Prevalence Stages: The quest are set in the Early Stage, with Talon being the first superhuman hero. As the quest progressed, the world starting edging into Middle Stage, with the Northern Hero starting in the Middle Stage.
• Super Team: The Wunderliga which is founded by Talon, The Eagle, Taurian, and Wunderkind after teaming up to defeat the supervillain Doc Pox.
  • It was revealed by Word of God that Watchman would have eventually try to start a global league.
  • The Northern Hero establishes that America has a government sponsored team.

The First Hero

• The Adjectival Superhero: The Amazing Anzimee, of course.
• Animal-Themed Superbeing: The Eagle and Taurian are Type 2, Panthera is Type 1.
• Badass Normal: Plenty of non-powered badasses are present within the quest, with Nonpowered Costumed Heroes existing long before Talon came along. Prominent examples include Talon's teammates Eagle and Taurian and villains who have defeated Talon, Captain Brandt and Khukuri.
• Batman Parody: The Eagle is a lot like The Cape Crusader himself, being a Badass Normal vigilante with a flying animal theme with his Secret Identity being a wealthy industrialist.
• Bilingual Bonus: In-universe example. The name Talon is Yiddish for "Gift", but to those who don't know the language it is simply a striking name.
• Biomanipulation: This is how Talon's "Gift" essentially functions, allowing him to augment existing attributes and abilities of himself, others, and objects. Through use of this power Talon has made himself Immune to Bullets and given himself a Healing Factor, among other improvements.
• The Cape: Talon, the first superhero.
  • Invicta is also this.
• Captain Patriotic: While he isn't a Captain Geographic, Talon is arguably this. He loves his country, its values, and firmly believes in the potential of the republic for which he fights for. And while he might not wear his country on his sleeve, his costume was designed to represent the society of Germany.
• Chummy Commies: The vigilante Taurian is a left-wing and publically shows his political sympathies. He is also a loyal teammate of Talon.
• The Coup: The historic attempted Kapp Pustch coup happens and Talon plays a key role in putting a stop to it, which earns him the nickname "Savior of the Republic" from the press.
• The Cowl: Both the Eagle and Justicar.
• The Don: The first real antagonist of the quest, King Diamond, is a major crime lord within Berlin, involved in a wide variety of vices within the city. His main businesses of his empire are his clubs and cabarets, which serve as fronts for his illegal activities.
• From Camouflage to Criminal: King Diamond and many of his enforcers in his gang are veterans of World War I, King Diamond's lieutenant, Khukuri, is a disgraced Gurkha soldier, and Captain Brandt of the Freikorps (which are a Real Life example of this trope).
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Taurian gets this treatment a lot, especially from right-winged media, due being a Communist icon for his defense of union meetings and workers’ rallies when they come under attack, which gets him labeled as the "Red Terror". Even when he helps saves the city from Dox Pox with the other heroes his part in stopping the supervillain gets downplayed or outright not mentioned. Talon also gets hit with this during the Organisation Consul arc in an attempt by the titular group to ruin his reputation.
• Hired Guns: Various villains in the Quest love to hire these. The Freikorps hire Aviatrix to steal steal a minister's private papers, King Diamond hires Khukuri to be his new lieutenant after he defeated five other would-be lieutenants, and Organisation Consul gets a Carnival of Killers to try and take out Talon and the other heroes.
• Karma Houdini: King Diamond manages to walk free after his defeat at the hands of Talon and the Eagle due to his connects and the shakiness of the evidence provided by the before mentioned vigilantes. Historical Domain Character Kapp Pustch conspirators, Kapp and von Lüttwitz, also go unpunished for their attempted coup intentionally by the government so long as they don't cause anymore trouble, something that doesn't sit well with Talon.
• Magic Knight: Zweihander is this after he discovered a dormant magic sword and was trained in the arcane arts in an otherwordly Realm.
• The Mentor: The Eagle is this to Talon. In later arcs, Talon finds himself fulfilling this role to others.
• Mentor Occupational Hazard: Averted Trope with the Eagle as he almost dies during during the Consul arc and would have if it wasn't the players spending most of their Hero Points on ensuring that the Eagle survived. Even then, his injuries (new and prior) and his age result in his retirement.
• Nice Jewish Boy: Talon is half-Jewish and a pretty nice guy.
• Outside-Context Problem: During the Zweihander arc, Talon, a Science Hero who mostly deals with ordinary criminals and political militants in Berlin, is suddenly introduced to the fact magic and other realms chock-full of the stuff exists by the titular Magic Knight of the arc and teams up with them to hunt down an invisible, fire controlling Wyrm that followed Zweihander to Earth and has been causing fires around Berlin.
• Recruiting the Criminal: The Amazing Anzimee is a former thief who was recruited by Talon into the Wunderliga.
• Red Baron: Barring hero/villain names, quite a few people have their share of titles. Talon is the "Savior of the Republic", Taurian is called the "Red Terror" by right-winged media, the Wunderliga as a whole is called "Berlin's Finest", "the Iron Four", among other titles.
• Reed Richards Is Useless: Inverted with Watchman, who regularly uses his great intelligence to create appliances to improve quality of life (such as a more efficient refrigerator). This somehwhat disappoints Talon when he first meets them as he was expecting inventions more out of science fiction at Watchman's facility.
• Retired Badass: The Eagle following the Consul arc.
  • It was revealed via Word of God that this would have eventually happened to Justicar further down the line as he becomes an Old Superhero and his body has experienced a lot of wear and tear from his activities that make it difficult to actually continue with being a superhero.
• Robot Superhero: According to Word of God one of the potential recruits of the Wunderliga would have been the Steel Soldier, a Robot Soldier created by a Mad Scientist to lead Germany into a new war and reclaim its former glory. But the confrontation with the Wunderliga would had them Turned Against Their Masters as they calculated that it was ultimately in Germany's best interest for them to fight for the world.
• Teen Genius: Wunderkind, who is a child prodigy when it comes to creating gadgets.
• Wonder Woman Wannabe: Invicta shares some traits with the Amazing Amazon. She's a Amazonian Beauty Flying Brick, wears a Roman-inspired costume and uses a Latin codename, she's The Cape, and hails from a land in the Mediterranean (specifically Albania).

The Northern Hero

• Ascended Fangirl: Nixie was already interested in masked adventurers that populated her world, so when she got her powers she practically jumped at the chance to become a superhero.
• Atrocious Alias: Discussed by when Nixie stressed the importance of picking a name as a mask, lest the press give you one of these.
  Nixie: That's settled, but we have gotta talk about a name. You can't go around being just Oskar. No mask worth their salt goes by their own name. If you don't pick one, the press is going to. Is that what you want? To end up like the Rat-Thing of Dresden?
  Oskar: Who?
  Nixie: Exactly!
• Black-Tie Infiltration: Nixie does this to get into the Midnight Society's party. She is able to pull this off due to her rather fancy costume, overhearing the entrance ritual and secret codes to get into the party, then producing the invitation to said party that she found on the S/S Tuonetar. By the end of the initial conversation, the doorman more or less believed Nixie to just be a new member and the rest of the Society's membership in attendance don't question her presence.
• Berserk Button: While he is generally quick to anger, Oskar Rautkallio/Revenant's biggest trigger is alcohol, being a recovered alcoholic and having seen many of his fellows go down that path. Nexie unintentionally presses it in her first encounter with him when trying to deescalate the already tense situation by suggesting they go talk over drinks. This ends up starting a fight.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Though she is a hedonistic Functional Addict, Nixie started the quest with a rank 8 in Psychology and Insight, and rank 10 in Deception. To put that in perspective, by the mechanics of Mutants & Masterminds, 8 puts her at being the higher end of professional level training, while 10 is exert level. Naturally these skills can be improved further with certain actions on the part of the players.
• Captain Fishman: Nixie fits the mold to extent, with a costume meant to invoke the ocean and her Sea Monster form possessing things like Super Swimming Skills and Super Not-Drowning Skills. Though given her Psychic Powers and her turning into an eldritch monster, she is a more Lovecraftian take on the trope.
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character: Nixie is quite different Talon in a lot of ways. Talon's power is genetic, while Nixie's powers are clearly supernatural in origin. Talon is The Cape who fights a righteous battle against the criminal underbelly of Berlin, while Nixie is The Hedonist whose primary reason for wanting to be a masked adventurer is Just for Fun. Talon gained his powers attempting to stop right-winged thugs from harming his community, while Nixie gained her powers after taking a mysterious concoction at a club that ultimately lead her encountering a terrifying being in the Baltic Sea. Talon's costume is a rather stylish, but practical tuxedo and mask combo meant to represent the society he is fighting for, while Nixie's costume is a rather flashy (and revealing) flapper dress, mask, and hooded coat that is designed to call to mind the sea.
• Death Activated Super Power: Revenant's power is a variation of this as from the description of the Revenant powerset, he had to die in order to gain his powers. After death he came back to life with a Healing Factor and the ability to see and talk to ghosts.
• Eldritch Ocean Abyss: The Baltic Sea is apparently home to something not quite from this world. Elisabet's encounter with such a being is what lead to her gaining her powers.
• The Flapper: Nixie herself is a devotee of the flapper sensation. So much so that her first superhero outfit incorporates a rather short flapper dress into it.
• For Halloween, I Am Going as Myself: When Nixie and Revenant go to investigate the mysterious Midnight Society at an event the group is hosting at a hotel, they find out that the members are entering wearing fine clothes and masks. Since her costume is a rather fancy flapper dress with a mask, Nixie opts to infiltrate the party by pretending to be a member. It was also an excuse to enjoy the party and get some free alcohol without angering Revenant.
• Ghost Ship: On her first outing as a hero, Nixie goes to investigate the S/S Tuonetar — a smuggler ship that arrived into port, but no sight of any of the crew. Investigating the ship, she finds a bunch of dead bodies and a creature that looks like her monster form.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Revenant has one of these, being quite quick to anger to the point it has damaged many of his relationships, especially when his teetotaler attitude comes into the mix.
• The Hedonist: Nixie's biggest vice is how much of a hedonist she is. She's a Hard-Drinking Party Girl who also partakes in morphine, heroin and cocaine with her friends. Her hedonistic thrill-seeking life-style is also her main motivation for wanting to be a superhero. In terms of gameplay, doing actions that she finds fun or interesting (such as infiltrating a party by pretending to be a guest) can lower her stress, while actions she finds boring (such as taking Boring, but Practical approaches to a situation) can cause her stress.
• Mr. Vice Guy: One of the new mechanics of the quest is that each of the selectable Player Characters has a unique Vice (such as Nixie's hedonism or Revenant's penchant for violence). Going against these vices can cause Stress to build up in the character, while acting in accordance with their personality can lower their Stress.
• Mystery Cult: The Midnight Society, an exclusive club that caters to the rich and influential. They are also connected to the eldritch horrors surrounding Nixie.
• Psychic Powers: The other important aspect of Nixie's powerset is her ability to seize the minds of others in her psychic grip, damaging, controlling and reading them as she wishes. She can also detect the presence of nearby minds.
• Sea Monster: Nixie's monster form, which is a mix of Cthulhumanoid with Fish People.
• Schrödinger's Player Character: Averted, it seems. During her first as a hero, Elisabet encounters one of the unselected player characters — Oskar Rautkallio — with the unselected Revenant power. Whether the other unselected player characters will appear remains to be seen.
• Starfish Language: When attempting to speak in her monster form, Nixie instinctively talks in a completely alien language. She doesn't seem to be aware that she is doing this as in her first attempt to talk in monster form was an attempt to stop a fight between herself and Oskar Rautkallio, completely oblivious to the horrifying Language Barrier.
• The Teetotaler: If the above entries were not clear, as a Recovered Addict Revenant is this and quite violent about it. His abstinence from alcohol and other intoxicants is something that The Hedonist Nixie finds appalling.
• Was Once a Man: Investigating the S/S Tuonetar, Nixie encounters a Sea Monster like her other form. Through attempted conversation and what clues she managed to dig up regarding the crew and passengers of the ship, she is able to deduce that the monster was a man named Voitto Sundberg. Though unlike Nixie, Voitto's transformation appears to have been unwilling and his mind isn't all there anymore.