Romanov

Tease.

((This ad is running in the classified section of The New Inquirer newspaper. It is also the subject of flyers stuck up all around Paragon City and the Etoile Isles, in such places as nightclub bathrooms, train stations and police station notice boards.))

CAUGHT A HERO WITH HIS TIGHTS DOWN?

We at the New Inquirer want to hear from you. We will pay $500 dollars for verifiable tips about members of the hero community acting in a way unbefitting a hero licence holder.
We will also pay $1,000 for a photograph or video footage exposing a hero’s shame.
Don’t worry if you think your information would not make a story in the city’s best and brightest newspaper – let us be the judge of that and earn yourself $$$ in the process.
Send stories and photos to yournews@newinquirer.pc or The New Inquirer, News Room, Floor 13, Romanov Tower, Steel Canyon.

((We are now opening the New Inquirer to the rp community. This is exclusively for sensational expose or kiss and tell type stories about heroes – The New Inquirer is not interested in celebrating or even reporting genuine acts of heroism. You can send a full story but ideally send the information you wish exposed, details about the character that is common knowledge or that a journalist could uncover and quotes from no more than three different people. We will then put together a New Inquirer style story for publication. Also include a jpeg photograph you wish to represent your character or a screenshot.
New issues will be released as and when we have enough content and the time to produce it. Front pages/lead stories will be chosen by the New Inquirer’s editor in chief.
Send contributions to romanovmt@hotmail.co.uk ))

I've noticed a small mistake in my original post due to posting an earlier version of the My Two Cents column. "Miasma-Explorer" should read "Veritas Press".

Congratulations Watchmen.

Last night, White Vampyr, High Burn, White Nightingale and myself defeated Henry Swift and dealt a significant blow to his company Ironguard and the League.

Using Berkley’s information, we were able to gain entry to the Ironguard facility in Brickstown. We met with significant opposition, but the months we have spent training and fighting together paid off and we were able to incapacitate Swift’s troops. Shortly after Suzi had downloaded information from Ironguard’s computer system though we realised we were in a trap about to be sprung.

We were teleported to a cargo ship where we were at last face to face with the man that killed Hyperion Star and Comette and caused the Rivera incident. He revealed that Jack Carver and James Carter were still alive and offered them as well as a cure for our condition in return for The Watchmen staying out of his interests. We refused and engaged Swift and his freakish protectors in combat.

Two of our opponents escaped, but we managed to defeat and apprehend Swift and his chief henchman - a powerful but mentally challenged brute called Metric Tonne. I messaged Stanley to call in Freedom Corps who were on standby. Led by the heroes Britanic and Miss Teen, the corps is now in the process of a full investigation into Ironguard and League Associated Industries. All information pertinent to our situation will be made available to Dr Furnace and the Watchmen research team.

Please meet at the Bunker at 8pm on Wednesday when we will discuss our future at Watchmen now that our objective has been achieved.

Hyperion Watchmen Commander
Bastinado

((Just a reminder/notification that tonight's session will be the conclusion of Chapter One: The Rivera Incident started way back in Febuary. It will consist of one mission, an IC face off with our archvillain and a PvP battle between the Watchmen and the League. Try to be online as close to 8pm as possible as we will need to adjust the villain team to match the Watchmen team.))

Message sent to all Watchmen today:

Watchmen,

I have returned from a brief interview with Dr Eugene Berkley who is being held in the maximum-security hospital wing of the Zig.

During the short time we were alone together during a guard change, he confessed to me that he was planning to use the giant robot we saw destroyed in a bid to take control of Ironguard and the Iron Hands from Henry Swift.

He has agreed to provide us with information on two conditions. The first is that should he go to trial for his crimes, a representative of the Watchmen will testify to his cooperation in taking down Swift. Secondly, should he escape from prison the Watchmen will not assist in the efforts to recapture him. As our target has always been Swift I have agreed to these conditions.

Berkley has provided me with the location of Henry Swift’s hideout in Paragon City. He believes that due to the heat brought down by our efforts near St Martial, he will have temporarily left the Rogue Islands. Although he is certain that security protocols will have been changed since his arrest, Berkly has provided me with some fail-safes that he had introduced in preparation for his hostile takeover.

All Watchmen should meet at The Bunker no later than 8pm for a briefing. Tonight we bring Swift to justice.

I'll also volunteer to play the host, or guest host, if needed when you want to have one of your characters be the interviewee.
You don't want to be talking to yourself, people will talk. More than they already do

((You can see the launch issue of the New Inquirer in its full glory here:
New Inquirer
Words by Romanov, Magazine design by Love Angel/Rhino and original artwork by Blackdove.))

The first issue of the New Inquirer hit the newsstands of Paragon City on Friday. Although technically a new title, it seems to have set an agenda for exposing unfit heroes (in particular Silent Tempest if the first issue is anything to go by) much like it's predecessor.

Lead story:

THE DEVIL IN MISS DEE DEE
By Anna Sharma

THE LATEST addition to the rogues gallery in the loosely and indeed offensively termed “super group” Silent Tempest is a gang member, junky and sexual deviant, The New Inquirer can exclusively reveal today.

Not only is Dee Dee Diablo, 22, a known associate of an incarcerated Hellion leader, she has left a string of damaged lives in a wake during a life of repeatedly sticking one finger up to decent, law-abiding citizens like our readers.

Sordid sex Svengali Andre Kraft has earned a well-deserved reputation for recruiting misfits, malcontents and barely legal teenage girls to his crackpot cult.

But this time even the man who proudly refers to himself as Coitus Kraft has gone too far in recruiting a member of the diabolical street gang who has a string of crimes and misdemeanours to her frankly satanic sounding name, including numerous arrests for drug offences, drunk and disorderly behaviour and, most sickening of all, desecration of a National Monument.

Even her mother has nothing good to say about this wayward street punk, who is tainting the minds of your children as the leader of a popular “punk rock” band.

Margaret Dublin, 53, of New York, said she was horrified when her intelligent, obedient daughter turned into a promiscuous and violent devil.

Ms Dublin is a woman broken by her daughter’s behaviour scraping money together each day to buy alcohol to numb the pain and shame.

Our reporter found her in some rundown gin joint where she said: “She betrayed me, there is no other word for is. We were a happy family and I had found myself a good man. But
I found out that she had seduced my boyfriend into her bed. Although she was only 14, she always seemed to be older than her years and I can’t blame him for being tempted. I mean, what kind of girl steal’s her mother’s man?

“It was all downhill from there. Almost overnight she turned from a good daughter who was doing well at school to a teenage delinquent. Every other night, the cops would be at my door with Dee Dee saying she’d set fire to this, stolen that or was out of her mind on drink. I don’t know where she learnt that kind of behaviour.”

Diablo has an arrest sheet that would fill an edition of the Paragon City’s best and brightest daily newspaper by itself.

She has been arrested and cautioned by law enforcement officers across the country for drug use and possession, violence and drunken behaviour.

She was even charged with the desecration of a National Monument when she was caught on the Tomb of the Unknown Hero in an act, that we as a family newspaper can only call “sexual activity”, with emo pin-up Ethan Ink of the band Dead Birthday Clown.

And it was out of the frying pan into the fire of Hell when Diablo hit Paragon and hooked up with one of the city’s most troublesome gangs.

One Hellion member spoke out, we have called him Jark Mones, to protect his identity.

He said: “It is true that Dee Dee Diablo was one of our gang. In fact, come to think of it, it was her who gave me the idea to do the crimes what I have been accused of.”

And there are those in the music industry who believe that Diablo and her band The Last Word are a destructive influence on the tender minds of our youth.

For example, Marion Goodwill, of Christian radio station WWJD, said: “There are those that think this girl is some sort of genius, urban street poet. But those people are wrong. Disgusting songs like Slip of the Tongue and Chemical Burn should be banned. When our forefathers defended every American’s right to free speech, I am darn sure they would not have meant this dirty bird. Won‘t somebody think of the children?”

Won’t somebody think of the children indeed. What society is this when perverted individuals like Andre Kraft and Dee Dee Diablo can pull on a pair of tights and say they want to protect us? Well, we at the Inquirer say “not in our name” and today call for tougher legislation on hero licensing.

Editorial:

My Two Cents
Inquirer Editor in Chief
Don Wesper

TODAY sees the launch of the New Inquirer. The very paper you have in your hand has set itself an ambitious mission to bring readers the truth rather than spoon-fed you embellished or manufactured stories about our city’s heroic community. One of my journalistic mentors once told me “if it’s a good story there will be at least one person who doesn’t want you to tell it”. Let that be a warning shot to anyone who thinks a secret identity or mask will keep anything hidden that does not befit a hero.

Thanks to a merger between Miasma-Explora and Romanov Press, the New Inquirer will be the best and brightest daily distributed throughout Paragon City with a quality magazine published each month. But more importantly this is the paper of the average working man and woman. The people who have a right to know the truth about those who claim to protect them.

I was in hospital recently to visit a relative. I was there for less than an hour but my eyes were opened. I saw a team of doctors and nurses fight to save the life of a young boy who had been hit by a car. They would not give up on him and I realised something I hadn’t before…those men and woman were heroes. Now, you wouldn’t have heard about them saving that boy’s life or the countless other small miracles they perform each and every day on the news that night or read about them in any of Paragon’s papers. Why? Because in this city a hero is defined not by their actions or bravery but by a fancy costume, ridiculous codename and a little plastic card that gives them licence to create havoc in the name of protecing us.

The collateral damage alone caused by these self-appointed costumed guardians runs into millions of dollars each year that you pay for with some of the highest taxation in the country. And what if you look behind the mask and ask questions about these “heroes”? In today’s paper we expose a diabolic street criminal and moral degenerate who calls herself a hero. Is she an isolated case? She most certainly is not. The perverts, murderers, aliens, thugs and lunatics that have been sanctioned to protect us would make you weep.

That is why we at the New Inquirer are not afraid to tug at the cape of these primary colour charlatans and bring you the truth. The title “hero” is not fit to be given to the majority of those that claim it without a second thought for its meaning. A hero is the mother who works every hour to make sure her child has the best start in life, the fire-fighter who enters a burning building without “powers” to protect him, the King’s Row high school teacher who inspires his students to a life beyond the one they were born into. It is these heroes that the New Inquirer will champion.

And for the others? The truth will out!

((A conversation between two men in the mid twenties at a newsstand in Steel Canyon, representative of the first issue of the New Inquirer generating a widespread buzz for The Last Word and their music.))

Dan: Steve, have you seen this girl on the cover of the New Inquirer?

Steve: *reading the cover* Dee Dee Diablo, never heard of her.

Dan: Man, you should read some of the messed up stuff she’s done…and she’s a card carrying hero, dude.

Steve: A bad girl, eh? Me likey.

Dan: She’s in a band too…The Last Word. Ever heard them?

Steve: No, but I think I’d like to. Do they have a CD out?

I'd be happy to take part too.

You could have Miss Teen if the interviewer wanted to use her as a role model for today's youth.
Or Dee Dee Diablo if he wanted to do the opposite.

The first two Wednesdays in September are scheduled to be Rikti invasions so I suggest we use these to get all the characters the Watchman badge as it seems a missed opportunity not to get an accolade with our name in it.

The next big thing will be adapting the Hess taskforce as the Watchmen's first strike against the League. This will follow on from info provided by White Vampyr and Carter, as well as Carver and Bast's covert mission in the Rogue Islands. Players whose Watchmen characters are too low (-25) can use other characters, eg GoodGuy.

If successfull, the Watchmen will then have enough information to find and confront Swift. This will be done on msn and *shudders* PvP.

That will then bring the Watchmen's opening plot to an end. I have an idea for the second chapter but thought we could run a few smaller plots to resolve issues that certain characters have, I'm thinking Solar, Carter and Carver.

Any ideas throw them on the Watchmen forum.

Bastinado saw his opportunity.

“The Watchmen are out too. History can be the judge of the merits of the treaty, but it’s served its purpose. My team have things to attend to; and certain people having this treaty to hide behind is going to make things messier than they have to be.”

His face was as emotionless as steel. “If the Rikti situation changes, I may reconsider. But that’s my final decision on it at this time.”

Bastinado of the Hyperion Watchmen entered. He took his usual vantage point away from the seated council members. Would the threat of further Rikti attacks be enough to hold together a treaty too ridiculous to exist outside of war? He made an almost imperceptible nod of acknowledgment to Coile of the Silent Tempest.

The war had fired things within him dulled by months of investigation and dead ends into the so-called “League” behind the Rivera incident that had changed the lives of some, ended the lives of many, and given birth to the Watchmen.

Leading the Watchmen on guerrilla strikes against the invaders in the concrete jungle of Steel Canyon and Skyway City had convinced him they were now ready to confront the cause of their problems head on. To do that he would need to push for an end to the ceasefire between heroes and villains if the opportunity arose.

The Last Word

Vocals: Desirée “Lady Cacophony” Bell
Vocals/Bass: Dee Dee Diablo
Lead Guitar: Lance Simmons
Drums: Alice Springs
Keyboards: Special guest **** Angel

The curtains drew back and the five members of The Last Word ambled on to the stage. Dee Dee Diablo placed a bottle of Jack Daniels next to her amp, earning several whoops of recognition, then stepped up to her mic.

“Hey Paragon. We’re The Last Word and everything you’ve heard about us is true.”

She launched into the frenetic bassline of the band’s anthemic show opener Slip of the Tongue , soon joined by thrashing guitar riffs and thunderous drumming. Bell ran to the front of the stage, emitting a raucous scream that seems to shake the buildings foundations and announce that anyone not ready to rock should run for cover. The band’s fanbase must have been represented in the crowd they joined in singing the first chorus: “What we did was fun/Won’t say it was wrong/But you and me, honey/Was a slip of the tongue”.

There was no letting up with the second song. Thunderous base and screeching guitar launched the band into the hard and heavy Chemical Burn.

As the song ended, Diablo came to the front of the stage; she name checked each member of the band and thanked their special guest **** Angel who was filling in on keyboards. This **** Angel seemed quite flustered at something Diablo had said, waving her arms until the haunting guitar of Simmons signalled the start of Mother's Ruin. Diablo on lead vocals duty for this number, sang with a desolate, dirty emotion that seemed to resonate throughout the venue.

Diablo continued her soul bearing with the intro to Turmoil, until Bell screamed the accusational chorus and led the band into frenetic overdrive.

Although there were rumours of the band debuting a new song, they closed their triumphant set with the crowd-pleasing The Place Where You Are. Bell’s vocal gymnastics and the band’s relentless, frenetic sound merging to create a cacophony that had almost every hand punching the air.

Article in the Breaking News section of Stigma Magazine Online posted on Tuesday, August 7:

The Unity Vigil press office have confirmed that one of the bands performing at tomorrow's Rock Against The Rikti gig will be hardcore punk hellraisers The Last Word.

Whether another worthy issue gig on the back of their recent set at the Angel Foundation charity ball will harm their gutterpunk rep remains to be scene. However, rumour is that they will be debuting a new Diablo-penned track called City on Fire, which this mag hopes will be another step in the outfit's nitrous-fuelled evolution.

The main thing for me would be that such a thing would be effectively a handbook for roleplayers and GMs.
For example, when The Last Word band were touring the city, it would have been useful to have a list of clubs with brief descriptions and locations.
I remember reading a story, I think by Coile, of someone being admitted to a mental institution. It would make things more authentic if details of this institution were available if someone was running a similar plot.
What I guess I'm saying is personally I wouldn't so much want to read a 1,000 story about how CHaracter X escaped his home planet of Zog, was thrown in Grayville Asylum on arriving in earth and how he got a job as a dishawasher in the Dirty Dog cafe. But I would like details of the planet Zog, the Zog race, Grayville Asylum and the Dirty Dog cafe to possibley use of reference in my own plots/stories.

((I suggest we spend Wendesday’s session earning the aptly named Watchman accolade))

Message to all Watchmen.

Extensive interrogation of the prisoner Violet Tasker has yielded little. All she has revealed is that the villainous operation using the name League Associated Industries have concerns in both Paragon and the Rogue Islands, and as such operate several businesses in and around the ports. Myself, Carver and Mr Carter have be concentrating efforts in Striga, Independence Port and Talos.
So far, we haven’t found any conclusive leads. As Tasker is no longer of use and a continued threat to our security, I have arranged to hand her over to the authorities.

A bigger menace that the one we have been combating these last months has reared its head. We are under attack from the Rikti and, as Watchmen, we must no decide whether to put our own objectives to one side to help repel these invaders.
When next we meet I will ask you all whether you wish to make a stand against the Rikti. I, however, have already made my choice. Whatever wrongs this country has done me; I will die to defend it.

Bastinado

Bastinado, commander of the Hyperion Watchmen, entered the room. His expression was as impassive as cold steel, but the Rikti blood on his boots and military-style trenchcoat would betray is feelings towards the alien invaders and how to deal with them.

He scanned the room. He wouldn't normally enter an enclosed space with some of the occupants, but these were desperate times. Desperate enough to divert the Watchmen from the prime objective. What was the point of ensuring your own surival if everything you cared for could be wiped out in the next Rikti strike.

He positioned himself with his back to the wall, the door and everyone in the room within his field of vision.

Three more people will be joining us, taking us up to 8. If anyone can't make it tomorrow let us know please.

Urgent message to all Watchmen

Last night the Bunker came under attack by a team of supervillains. They caused significant damage to the Bunker’s computer system, transporter room and cellblock.
High Burn, Big Daddy and myself attempted to repel them, resulting in the deaths of two and the serious injury of a third. Unfortunately, two of them escaped with Penelope Suarez/Penny Black.

Due to the actions of Commander James Carter prior to and during the attack, I have placed him under house arrest and assumed full command of the Watchmen.

The raiding party spoke of belonging to a “League” and mentioned that they were following the orders of “Mr Swift.” I have assigned Watchman Jack Carver to research any villains this name could refer to.

The tracking device placed in Penny Black is operational but limited. Watchmen Solar Flare, High Burn, White Nightingale and myself will attempt to locate her as soon as possible. Under no circumstances should any Watchmen attempt to retrieve her or approach her alone.

Due to the repair work needed at the Bunker and the backlog of research materials, Watchman Captain Doc Furnace will be removed from the operational roster for the next five weeks.

All available Watchmen should meet at the Bunker as 8pm tonight for a full briefing.

Bastinado.

((Hi, I think you posted that Nene was a musician too. I'm keen for the Last Word to appear at other rp events and, due to the practicalities of getting five people online at the same time, was thinking the band could establish a roster of guest musicians to fill in. Maybe Dee and Nene should swap numbers next time they meet.))

((I thought it was a great success too. An amazing turnout of people without being overbearing.
Here's an account of The Last Word's performance.))

Stigma Magazine Online review

((This review is posted on the Stigma Magazine website at 10am this morning.))

Stigma Magazine Online

“The Last Word Stripped Bare”
The Last Word at the Silent Tempest/Angel Foundation Charity Ball
Monday, July 9.
Review by Chance Mullet

I have just returned from the least secret gig in secret gig history, and I want to tell you that it rocked. The rumor mill has been working overtime about The Last Word performing a set at a charity gig, but fans found it impossible to get tickets for last night’s high-class shindig. But Stigma Magazine was there and witnessed the latest step in the evolution of Paragon’s hottest, genre-blurring outfit.

This was The Last Word stripped bare. Without the melodic keyboards of Samantha Carter and the awesome vocal gymnastics of Desiree Bell, the performance was raw, brutal and frenetic. With the band’s songwriter Dee Dee Diablo taking on vocal duties with a schizophrenic tone jumping from raucous staccato to heart-felt, dirty emotion, The Last Word showed authenticity and maturity sometimes lacking in their early performances.

It usually takes the acquisition of a couple of mansions and a private jet before rockers start producing their worthy cause material. But Diablo has jumped the gun with the first of three new tracks performed last night. Other Side of the Street isn’t your usual charity track though, seething with Diablo’s trademark rage and language of the gutter. Backed by Alice Spring’s machinegun drumming and Lance Simmon’s screeching guitar riffs, Diablo enters an on stage confessional with a song about a girl, lost and abused on the street’s of Paragon. Losing her familiar **** you swagger, Diablo becomes the vulnerable girl in her song as she tells us about a young woman bouncing between one night stand to one night stand in search of the love never shown to her but condemned to always be on the “other side of the street.”

The Last Word didn’t disappoint the audience, although they didn’t exactly look like the band’s usual crowd, playing the high octane anthems Slip of the Tongue and Chemical Burn before Diablo got all introspective again with the heartrending diatribe of Mother’s Ruin.

The band rounded off the set with another brand new track. Turmoil is a Jekyll and Hyde of a number, with Diablo baring her soul in the versus about a girl at a crossroads between her self-destructive lifestyle and the looming danger of alowing herself to believe in the hope of change.

But after she has laid it on the line, she screams “But let’s talk about you again!” leading Springs and Simmons into a rollercoaster cacophony of rage.

The Last Word have released a charity CD to coincide with the Silent Tempest/Angel Foundation charity ball. It is being sold for $5 (or whatever people wish to donate above five bucks) at Paragon University and several of the city's clubs and bars.
It will also be on sale at the ball itself where guests will have the opportunity to have it signed by The Last Word members (should they be in a fit state to do so).

The CD

On the back of the CD it reads:
Lyrics and music by DD Diablo.
"All profits from this CD will be donated to the Angel Foundation to support projects working with homeless children in Paragon City.”
Bonus tracks: Place Where You Are (live), Slip of the Tongue (live)
Read about The Last Word at Stigma Magazine Online.

Word is rapidly spreading among Paragon's students, Hellions and music fans that The Last Word will be performing new material at The Silent Tempest/Angel Foundation charity ball on Monday night.

I like this idea. I agree that forum rp can end up dragging (it took us about two months to play out a day recently) but I think Pious’ last post would be a good place to start. Plots could start in the forum, or pass through it, but people would have the freedom to play them out in a way that suits them whether it be IRC, MSN, in game or another forum.
I have two characters with links to the uni (a student and a prof) and think it would be interesting to have a way for them to interact with their peers and become involved in rp with people outside my normal circle.