Preview Thread: Volume 1, Issue 1

[James Casey]

They can be a great people, Kal-El, they wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way. For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I have sent them you... my only son.

-Jor-El, Superman

With great power, comes great responsibility.

-Spider-Man

And there came a day, a day unlike any other, when Earth’s mightiest heroes were united against a common threat! On that day The Avengers were born — to fight foes no single hero could withstand!

-The Avengers

I am vengeance. I am the night. I. Am. Batman!

- Batman

HULK SMASH!

-The Incredible Hulk

From darkest noir to the brightest Technicolor, from print, digital, cartoons, games, movies and, of course, comic books superhero stories have appeared in almost every genre and medium of story-telling. And now, at last, they’ve reached the zenith, the apex, the pinnacle that all aspire to...

...the GDS forums.

Electricity, fire, psionics, water, telekinesis, flying brick, badass normal?

Killer, big boy scout, pacifist, plotter, street-level saviour, global protector, Booster Gold?

Where will your career take you?

What super-teams will be enriched with your presence?

Why will you become someone’s nemesis?

Who will discover your secret identity, or mind-control you and make you beat down your team-mates?

Where will you have exciting, super-powered makeout sessions?

How about a magic trick?

We welcome you, hero. Aim true, fight the good fight, protect the innocent, and keep those sales figures up – lest you get rebooted...

What’s your story?

[James Casey]

Hope no-one minds me starting this - even if we're waiting for the full release before getting too into our worlds, I imagine we all have ideas on what we might want to do with our games. I'm hoping to see some great stuff over the coming months!

[praguepride]

This is the day that Jack died.

If this was a movie, Jack's death might have had meaning. Maybe he would have uncovered a dark secret or witnessed an atrocity. With heroes and villains all around, why couldn't his death have more meaning?

Instead, it came down to a couple of strung out junkies and some bad luck. The pair had melted out of the shadows of an alley, stepping to either side of him reeking of musk and liqour. Jack handed over his wallet, just as he'd always been told but it didn't matter, the muggers were too strung and attacked anyway. They came in fast and there was a brief scuffle before they ran away.

As Jack looked down at his bleeding torso he didn't cry out in pain, he didn't watch his life flash before his eyes. He just stood there for a moment with a dumbfounded look on his face. He felt nothing, he thought nothing. Shock had shut him down even before the last drop of his blood had hit the pavement.

He slowly fell to his knees and then pitched forward, the same surprised look on his face. As the void enveloped him, a light rain began to fall.

[Comradebot]

This was my city.

But this is also my country. I left one, hoping to defend the other… but it was trick. There was war, there were battles, but they were not the kind I had dreamt. I was stuck in the desert, fighting for one while the other… the other wept. Ravenholme, it should’ve always been Ravenholme… a cancerous blight swept across its cold, grey sreets, festering and infecting and killing…

When my lips told the army that we were fighting the wrong war, they didn’t listen. When I spoke with my fist, they did.

Ravenholme… my city. It is there America knows true peril, not in some desert halfway around the globe. My Ravenholme… the disease has left her so withered, worn, desiccated, and corrupt that I barely recognized her face. The gangs, the murders, the psychopaths and sociopaths… they rule the city now, spreading fear, horror, and death to the innocent. They are a cancer corrupting all that was once good here, and the only way to save healthy tissue is to cut the cancer out.

My city, my Ravenholme… the streets are her veins…

*a soft sound of fabric as a vest slips over a dimly lit room*

… and now they’re filthy with scum, human scum….

*a tool cabinet squeaks open*

I aim to sweep these streets clean…

*a metal ‘schiick’ as knife slides into holster*

…one…

*a pair of clicks, magazine into gun…*

…bullet…

*… and safety off*

…at a time…







“The City Sweeper has you in his sights, punks, and he’s gonna power-wash the streets clean with your blood!!!”

[OctoberRaven]

"There are many things that frighten criminals."

"I will become one of those things."

"I will be the symbol the city needs."

"I will be much more than a man."

"I will be... a box."

BOX KNIGHT BEGINS

Coming Soon

[falling_star]

THE STREETS

OF RAVENHOLME

RACHEL NOIR

volume one

There is a place where the restless souls wander . . .
Burdened by the weight of their own afflictions . . . their sadness, their insanity . . .
Trapped somewhere between Heaven and Hell
These people search endlessly for a way to rid themselves of their pain . . .

There are those bound to codes of law . . . some who believe in honor among theives . . .
Some seek ease their own suffering by shining a light in the darkness for others to see . . .
Others simply seek an end to their suffering by inflicting their pain upon others . . .

There is a place where these angels and demons dwell . . .
A city whose light was snuffed out long ago . . .
A place with streets that flow like rivers of filth . . .

These are the streets of Ravenholme . . .

[LordJaguar]

A nuclear accident created the Wastelands but it also created me...Nuke the Radioactive Man! When others would leave the scum to fester and boil within the walled terreotory known as the Wastelands, I am going to remove it. Just because there aren't many citizens still living here doesn't mean they don't deserve justice...

[Jman2k3]

This use to be such a nice town. . .
That is until the scumbags and lowlifes claimed it as their own. . .
Drugs being sold on the street corner. . .
Girls tricking themselves out like their stuff is going out of style. . .
You ask where are the cops. . .
The cops won't do anything because they are on the scumbag payroll. . .

Someone has to return this once beautiful city that has fallen from grace to the light once again. . .
A shadow in the night. . .
A cat on the prowl . . .
A man whose nine lives are almost up. . .
The criminals will know him soon because they will hear him roar. . .

For he is . . .

The Cougar . . .

Cougarisms.

"Either you can take your finger off the trigger, or I will. The choice is yours."

"You have two options: either I can go around you, or I can go through you. The choice is yours."

[Comradebot]

FYI: I wrote those "Cougarisms".

The whole thing is a massive in-joke that sadly, not nearly enough people are in on.

[James Casey]

Welcome to Ravenholme

Ravenholme. Dark, drug-addled, and a hard place to live. That's what they say, but for some people that shady influence doesn't make much of an impression.

There was a time when life was good. Dad was still alive - and so was David. It was just the three of us, the way it had been since Mom died when I was three and David was one. Dad never let us feel like we were missing anything with Mom not being around - in truth, I don't remember her very well. Dad was always there, and that was enough for the both of us.

Dad, Me and David in happier times

I was in the academy, Dad was on the verge of retirement and David was making waves in the small movie business we have here in Ravenholme. He was talking of heading off to San Habbershan to get involved in the wider media world - or so he said. I think he just wanted to try and get close to Cosmic Girl...

...who he's had a picture of on his wall since he was 14 or so. In San Habbershan he could try and get involved in the Union's TV show and charm Cosmic Girl. That was just my guess, though. He had luck, guts and charm, so he probably could have made something of himself, wherever he ended up.

One night, though, that wasn't enough. One night David did something brave, wonderful... and stupid.

There was a fight between Red Mystery and Vicki Hate, two of the 'super' beings who inhabit our world. Mystery's dead now, and no-one misses him too much, but back then he was some guy who tried to take on the world with a dart gun and some martial art moves he learned down the Y. Vicki Hate... she's a trained assassin. Scum, but in some cases they can be principled scum. A true Assassin takes pride in causing no collateral damage, and only ever killing someone who can defend themselves. Hate's just a killer who lives for slaughter.

David died a hero, they tell me. I'd rather he lived a coward, but he pulled a wounded person out of the path of Hate and Mystery during their fight. Why Hate took exception to that I don't know, but according to eyewitness reports she caught Mystery with a high kick that sent him staggering backwards, turned on the spot and shot David at point blank range in the back, spun back around and shot Mystery as well.

Mystery had armour. David didn't.

Dad didn't recover from David's death - neither did I, but while I had the academy and my classmates to keep me focused, Dad was left alone in our house with nothing but his memories and his grief. I could have done more, I should have done more, but I was too young to recognise how much pain he was in, how little attention he was paying to the world around him.

I was two weeks from graduation when my instructor pulled me aside. There'd been an accident at the rail station. The faintest inflection on the word 'accident' let me know that he had his doubts, and even the coroner recorded an open verdict at the inquest that followed. The funeral, of course, was a closed casket affair - I didn't even get to say goodbye to my father.

Inside of a year my life was over. I must have done enough to graduate because I was awarded my badge somewhere along the way, but I didn't apply for a place at any precinct. I didn't get measured for a uniform. I didn't line up with my fellow blue bloods.

I just went into a gun shop, bought two pistols, and started hunting for criminals.

Ravenholme has a dark, seedy underbelly - as bad as anywhere. It's what drove me to the police, wanting to keep my friends and family safe. But I was naive - I thought that the police could keep us safe. I was wrong. David wasn't saved by the police. Dad wasn't saved by the police. They were taken from me, and there was only one way to bring someone like Vicki Hate to justice.

Insurance payouts made me wealthy enough I didn't need to worry about money - not for some time, anyway. Staying in the family home was impossible, but it fetched a nice price and I put the money into my base. A place to train, to sleep, to recuperate... not to rest. Not that, not yet, maybe never. Certainly not until Vicki Hate lies dead at my feet.

I've been hunting for months. I met her once, but she didn't know who I was, and she settled for shooting me cleanly, once. It would be enough to kill most people, but along the way I met a shady man who offered me a drug that would kill me or empower me. It wasn't much of a choice, and now I can heal from wounds that'd kill most people. Vicki won't make the same mistake another time, I'm sure - but I won't make the mistake of hunting her down until I'm really ready to kill her.

Ravenholme has other protectors. There's Combat Wombat, who doesn't talk much. No-one really knows why he hunts criminals, but he does, and he does it well.

Combat Wombat and Risktaker - my allies

And there's Risktaker, who has even less going for him than Mystery did, but somehow he survives. He has a hate for the man who really controls Ravenholme that almost matches my hatred for Vicki Hate.

Narco - Drug runner and crime kingpin. I don't really care, except that he pays Hate's wages...

And then there's the saintly Dupin.

Dupin. Bastard.

Just look at him - handsome, media-friendly, well-dressed and has a hard-earned reputation as a truly honest cop.

Hard-earned - but not well-earned. Dupin spends far more time giving interviews about how he'll clean up Ravenholme then he does actually trying to do it. Vicki Hate's case had been sitting on Dupin's desk for a long time before she killed my brother. I broke into his office a few months ago - the file was covered in dust, and he'd probably never opened it. He had scribbled a note on the front cover about a TV interview, though.

I took the file. Its contents are pinned to the wall of my base - there's a lot that Dupin could have done with it. If he'd acted on it, Vickie Heat wouldn't have killed David. One day, I'll make him pay for that.

Maybe I could have been smarter about Dupin. He leads the Ravenholme Resistance, and will take on anyone who fights crime to work with him... for him. But Risktaker says that Dupin won't have me on the team. Apparently my opinion of him has reached his ears.

So I'm going it alone. Risktaker and Combat Wombat help out where they can. I've got a couple of 'friends' who I keep in touch with to remind me that the rest of the world is still out there... and to pump for any information they might cough up.

Irish Mikey and Sienna Scarlet. They know stuff, sometimes...

My mission is a simple one. If, along the way, I can help Risktaker take down Narco, then fine - he's a good man, and needs the help he won't get from Dupin.

But that's secondary. I want to catch Vicki Hate, and put a bullet between her eyes. Once I do that, David and Dad will rest easy in their graves, and maybe I can I can do something else with my life, because it's a hard life, and it might kill me... and it's certainly not doing me any good, trying to kill people before they kill me every single night. But I can't stop - not until Hate is brought to justice. Until then...

Me. Leaner, harder, faster, stronger, angrier, deadlier.

...call me Rachel Noir.

[jhd1]

Looks good, James. Without taking anything away from your writing, I can't be the only one really wishing when I first loaded the page that you were taking Edd Stone to Ravenholme

[Comradebot]

Bah, so very, very, very many Ravenholme diaries goin' on already. Maybe I'll have to shelf my City Sweeper game as a personal one only and find something less saturated, give folks some variety in what to read.

[Midnightnick]

Originally Posted by Comradebot

Bah, so very, very, very many Ravenholme diaries goin' on already. Maybe I'll have to shelf my City Sweeper game as a personal one only and find something less saturated, give folks some variety in what to read.

Comrade.

I want to see you take on Captain Persia.

[Comradebot]

Originally Posted by Midnightnick

Comrade.

I want to see you take on Captain Persia.

... I'll be honest, it'd turn into a hate crime pretty quickly, and I'd possibly get some death threats from Al-Qaeda.



Not saying I might not give him a try, though.


And not writing off City Sweeper by a longshot (no pun intended). Some of his issues I've had in game so far would be absolutely fantastic fun to write, my only concern is the potential over-saturation of Ravenholme. Don't want to see it become the USPW and WWE of CBH diaries. Awesome, sure, but if EWA taught me anything it's that I likes as much creative freedom as I can get. Quite the conundrum I face.

[SmithBiggzOwner]

Originally Posted by Comradebot

... I'll be honest, it'd turn into a hate crime pretty quickly, and I'd possibly get some death threats from Al-Qaeda.



Not saying I might not give him a try, though.


And not writing off City Sweeper by a longshot (no pun intended). Some of his issues I've had in game so far would be absolutely fantastic fun to write, my only concern is the potential over-saturation of Ravenholme. Don't want to see it become the USPW and WWE of CBH diaries. Awesome, sure, but if EWA taught me anything it's that I likes as much creative freedom as I can get. Quite the conundrum I face.

Why not make City Sweeper a wanderer and make him move town every few issues to take on different villains(This will also keep this dynasty fresh)