It all began on a planet by the name of Brie. The people of Brie were a simple folk. They hadn't yet discovered the use of space travel yet (but the reasons for this may not be a simple as a lack of technology). The people of Brie knew a lot of the old history. They knew that at one time, all across the galaxy wondrous people began to spring up. People who could move mountains and run the speed of sound. People who could control the elements themselves. People who could read thoughts, move physical objects, and enter the world of your dreams with only their minds. People who could heal the sick, turn stone to gold, and even raise the dead. As these people -both good and evil alike- came into existence, they began to be known as 'gifted'.
Then, for unknown reasons, these types of people vanished from the galaxy almost entirely.
The people of Brie had texts, relics, and tales told from generation to generation of these mighty god-like creatures. They had no idea how much time had passed between that time and theirs, but it was likely centuries ago. What they did know however, was that those legendary people - the gifted - were beginning to appear again.
The Brie people knew that the gifted were powerful, and had the potential to be very dangerous, so they built a school designed to tutor them. The younger the gifted were identified and sent to the school, the better. at the school, they were taught not only normal studies, but how to control and use their powers.
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as I said before, I was very inspired by X-Men (and Collision Course, which had a similar pretense). Of course, there was a twist (isn't there always?), but more on that later. First, I'll introduce the characters.
Silverain created Adriana- a descendant of Kaze (Sydtronic's character in HFN). Like Kaze, Adriana has an affinity to an element as well as a guardian spirit animal. In this case, her element is shadow (Kaze's was fire) and her guardian is a rat (Kaze's was a dragon). Adriana is an orphan and she grew up on the streets. She had to learn to scrounge and survive for herself, behaving much like a rat. Her abilities allow her to slip into and out of the shadow realm, making her very good at hiding and thieving. One day, while scrounging in the trash, she happened upon a strange purple rabbit with impossibly long ears. The rabbit had gotten to the trash before her and stole a bit of food from Adriana. Naturally, she gave chase. The rabbit led her through ally ways, basements, and eventually out into the street. There she was found by a kindly old man who adopted her (she never caught the rabbit, which is important later on...). The man who took her in turned out to be the dojo master of the school for the gifted.
Sydtronic made Rad - a descendant of Lucky (Keiri's character in HFN). Rad is almost a carbon copy of Lucky; his gift base is centered almost entirely off of luck. Also like Lucky, he's a crack-shot with a gun - in this case, a shotgun (try to wrap your brain around that one - a shotgun sharpshooter). Of course, his intense accuracy with a shotgun is further proof of his gifts. Rad grew up in a small mountain village where he had pretty much everything he needed- fame among the entire village, the affections of a childhood sweetheart, loving parents, healthy life, and a peaceful environment. Of course, his parents (especially his father) wanted more for him; he wanted Rad to have a good education (go ahead, let the jokes fly we all do it XD). So Rad's father told the school for gifted that Rad had the ability to control the flight of bullets (luck, being what we call an invisible gift, could never get Rad into the 'gifted' category as far as NPCs see it. For all they know, he is normal with really good luck. Only we, as players, know that it's an unnatural luck).
Keiri created Wade - a descendant of Ne' Sonya (Silverain's character from HFN). Ne' Sonya was part of a race of angels. By the time 109's story takes place, the angel people had pretty much bred out their wings (damn you, evolution!). Before Wade was born, his clan prophecized that he was going to be the first in hundreds of years to be born with wings. Even before his birth, Wade was famous among his clan and was thought to bring salvation. Instead of the majestic angel wings, Wade was born with half-formed, ugly protrusions on his back. The clan took this not only as a bad omen, but as an insult. From that day forth, Wade was shunned by absolutely everybody in his clan - parents included. Living a terrible and unforgiving life, not to mention the guilt of not being what he should have been, Wade turned to the occult. He delved into the summoning of spirits in an attempt to strike a deal with one to grow his angel wings. Of course, as is always the case when dealing with such dangerous material, something went wrong when he attempted to summon one of these spirits. Instead, a demon was brought forth and became fused with Wade. The demon - in about as much control of the situation as Wade - was eventually trapped in Wade's arm and sealed there. Now, the demon and Wade live a symbiotic relationship - if one dies, so does the other. Over the years, they've been forced to work together (never in harmony). To make matters worse, when the demon entered (and wrecked havoc on) Wade's body, it grew out the wings. Not into beautiful angel wings, but the twisted wings of a demon. Impossible to hide his new appearance, Wade feared the worse. Fortunately for him, his clan was too afraid to even kill him, fearing a curse of some sort, and instead sent him to the school.
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It wasn't even planned out that the three would create characters based on each other's characters. It just sort of happened. Later on (much later on) we added Joseph Bags, and he broke that little pattern. Of course, I'll go into more detail on that when we get to it.
All in all, I'm very happy with the characters. It usually takes me some time to get used to and attached to characters, but I grew fond of these three relatively quickly. At the time, I thought it was because of their relation to the original Happy Force, but I recently realized that wasn't the case. Not long ago, I started up a new campaign called Happy Force Alternate, featuring alternate universe versions of the Happy Force characters and creating a re-imagined version of the story (much more gritty and dark). However, I haven't even begun to grow any affection to these characters.
I look back on it now and I think that 109 was simply on a good track from the beginning. I can say with complete confidence that 109 is the best campaign I've run so far.
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