The presence of superpowers and heroes in the gameworld merits a decent explanation. Anyone wishing to submit a character (or for existing players who wish to submit second or auxillary characters) this explanation is crucial to underwriting the concepts which support character concepts. It should be noted that despite the extremely infrequent and never proved existence of rare individuals of strange ability throughout history, real evidence of superhuman ability did not emerge in the gameworld until the Second World War. The costuming of adventurers, already prefigured in the comics and pulp fiction of the day, did not really come into existence until after the United States entered the war late in 1942. For propaganda purposes, the first superheroes emerged not from the Axis but from the USA (followed so closely by the British as to be almost inseparable). Goering apparently kicked himself for not taking up the idea first, since the morale-boosting effect and national pride invoked by the presence of costumed soldiers of superhuman ability was considerable. Led by GI Joe, Liberty Belle and Captain Torpedo in the US, and by Lionheart, Iron John and the original Unicorn in the UK, these figures ushered in the age of costumed heroes, whose population would later explode in the years after the war and become an almost commonplace phenomenon by the turn of the millennium. For many people who are put off by superhero RPGs and comics, it is because they believe that even if we accept the notion of people with amazing powers, their dressing up in elaborate costumes and battling similarly-inclined individuals set on holding cities or countries or the whole planet to ransom is pretty unbelievable. The premise of the gameworld is that people with powers “dressing up” is a natural progression from the behaviour of supersoldiers during the Second World War. The presence in the media of ideas like the Phantom, the Lone Ranger and Zorro were a seed out of which modern superheroism grew. The naturalisation of this behaviour was then twofold. First, there was the propaganda push by the US and British in the war, putting metahumans in masks and gaudy, patriotic outfits which was met in kind by the Axis powers. Second, codenames were already in use for military operatives possessed of talents considered beneficial to the war effort. Even before he was taken out of conventional uniform, Sgt Harry Klim was still referred to as “Torpedo” (he became “Captain Torpedo” in public only after being promised a promotion for dressing according to the dictates of the Chiefs of Staff). The enormous public interest in these symbols of state pride did not wane even after the war, so that nobody ever thought it really strange that the costumed heroes were still around even when there was no war left for them to fight. The Cold War and the later rise of super-crime in the 1960s cemented the importance of these figures in the public consciousness. Even the irrational backlash against metahumans in the ‘80s barely dented the numbers engaged in the business of costumed crime and its policing. The diversification of capitalism and the production of new marketing demographics and techniques that has characterised the 1990s and the new millennium has effected superherodom as well. In many respects assuming a gaudy identity is more normal now than ever.