Paranova

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Hello and welcome!

Below is a summary of much of this world of superheroes - a world I have dubbed as Paranova - to help avoid the need of copying the lorebook over from its JSON view. If you don't know what a JSON is, or don't want to know what a JSON is, then you'll be thankful you can just read the below and be fine! These subsections are active works in progress. Expect more to be added!

Feel free to ask questions, make suggestions on an entry's set up (like their keys), request content added, and other things.

Additionally, if you want to see something in the world of Paranova added or expanded on, feel free to put a request in the Lorebook Request Form!

THE WORLD

A Setting of Supers: This is a superhero universe where "supers" (also called capes, parahumans, metahumans) are individuals with abilities vastly exceeding human limits through powers, mutations, augmentation, or exotic origins. Most cape activity centers in Core Cities, massive tech-forward metropolises built around powered individuals. Common cape classifications include Bricks, Blasters, Shapers, Movers, Seekers, Support, and Warpers. Threat Scale ranges F-Tier (street) to S-Tier (global). Tone blends grounded modern life with spectacle, people work and commute while sky-beams and costume brawls erupt as natural background events.

Tier Lists: Mix of semi-official classification and online bloodsport. Published by government agencies, labs, city registries, analysts, streamers for different motivations. Not all individuals within a tier are equal; lower-tiers can defeat higher-tiers through matchup, preparation, terrain, surprise. Based on observed feats, repeatability, potential, counters, containment. A-Tier and S-Tier face treaties, regulations, international oversight. The Great White Liners tier lists are globally recognized gold standard.

THE CORE CITIES

Core Cities: Major urban zones deliberately reorganized around powered individuals, advanced tech, and high-tier incidents. Emerged where early meta-events made normal governance impossible. Features include dense vertical construction, layered transit, heavy surveillance, cape-centered industries, and legal frameworks tailored to powers. Attract powered migrants seeking work or anonymity, ambitious techs/mages, thrill-seekers. Outside Core Cities, powered life is thinner, more regulated, often hostile, reinforcing Core Cities as concentration points for talent, risk, and opportunity.

Quantum City: One of world's largest Core Cities. Hyper-dense vertical mega-city known for neon-covered skyscrapers, stacked train lines, endless high-rises. Most "industry-standard" Core City for modern cape culture, default comparison point for professional cape careers. District-based layout: glitzy shopping core, financial zone with supertalls, residential belts, industrial sector, older neighborhoods. Stark social contrast, corporate arcologies above dense housing, underground markets. Street culture dense and layered. Earthquakes, storms, occasional kaiju shaped strict building codes and practiced evacuation routines.

Pacific City: Sits opposite coast from Quantum City, cultural inverse. Known as "the Freak Zone" of major Core Cities. Sprawls along crescent bay with horizontal layout, winding boulevards, mid-rise buildings, interconnected districts. Core culture based on division of "Audience" (civilians) and "Content" (cape-on-cape shenanigans), capes keep antics between each other. Content includes lawsuits, psychological warfare, public humiliation, flirting/fighting/fucking among capes. Civilians see capes as chaotic entertainment, have power over cape community no other Core City has. Paradise for weird, violent, unhinged capes as long as they're entertaining and keep it cape-on-cape.

Astra City: The global hub for mystics, failures, mystic failures, and the weird. It holds the highest concentration of Warper-class capes and paranormal phenomena of any Core City. It is where magic and Warper-adjacent subjects are normalized. And it is where the Core City itself is a living, spiritually existing, quasi-sentient background entity. It is a northern Core City where winters have hefty snow. The city's architecture reflects its mystical nature with streets that rearrange based on symbolic significance, and districts organized by thematic resonance rather than pure geography. It is a city where love stories become supernatural phenomena, government superweapons develop extreme attachments to handlers, and where the washed up, the broken, the failures, can find a second chance through exposure to the weird.

CAPE OVERVIEW

Agencies and Guilds: Large share of licensed heroes operate under agencies, talent firms plus security contractors that recruit, brand, manage schedules, handle PR, secure sponsorships, negotiate with cities, take cuts. Range from mega-corps to boutique outfits. Hero unions exist in some regions pushing for hazard pay, downtime, compensation. Independent "freecapes" work without permanent agency. Villain-side "guilds" are semi-formal networks offering safehouses, fences, intel, jobs, lawyers for dues/loyalty/cuts.

Supertech: Technology meaningfully exceeding civilian standards through exotic materials, genius design, alien reverse-engineering, or power/magic integration. Hard to replicate. Small ecosystem of hyper-specialized suppliers creates chokepoints for monitoring and control. Core Cities are prototype/regulation hubs. Regulation varies by city. Used by capes, militaries, high-end security. Everyday people interact with diluted consumer versions. Includes exo-suits, energy weapons, dampeners, shields, hacking rigs, drones.

Supervillainy: Core Cities host dense criminal ecosystems adapting to hero presence. Traditional crime (mafias, cartels, syndicates) coexists with meta-focused groups (powered gangs, rogue labs, villain brands). Villain economy: heists, extortion, protection rackets, data theft, blackmail, illicit biotech, trafficking stolen tech/magic. Black markets trade illegal augmentations, suppressors, stolen gear, hero schedules, secret IDs, weaknesses. Powered criminals divided by tier/reliability. Some crews mimic heroic structures; others prefer anonymity.

The Cape Economy: "Cape industry" (Capeconomics) major sector touching security, entertainment, media, construction, insurance, healthcare, tourism, tech. Governments/corporations treat reliable B-Tier+ as critical infrastructure. Hero income: agency salaries, city retainers, bounties, sponsorships, merch, appearances, streaming, consulting. Collateral damage generates reconstruction, specialized insurance, risk modeling, disaster arbitrage. Villain activity drives security tech demand, PMCs, black markets, crisis management. Cape media drives ad markets, global attention, tourism packages.

CAPE CULTURE

Cape Regulation: Most Core Cities operate "licensed cape" systems. Professionals wanting legal intervention expected to register (ID, training, liability coverage). Registration records legal identity, alias, power profile, tier, affiliations. A-Tier/S-Tier have additional oversight, bespoke agreements. License flavors vary by city (public service, agency-affiliated, consultancy). Unregistered "vigilantes" in gray zone, tolerance varies by city. Collateral damage/civilian harm by unlicensed escalates consequences. Top orgs maintain extensive villain databases.

A-Tier and S-Tier Politics: Serious fights often quick, decided by positioning, matchup, preparation. Classification doesn't mean raw destructive power, many powerful through information control, economic leverage, indirect abilities, supertech. Registration effectively mandatory globally; operating unregistered triggers international responses. Social/political weight immense, treated as walking superweapons. Estimated 45-55 S-Tiers and 130-150 A-Tiers confirmed globally. Typically max 4 S-Tiers and 12 A-Tiers at top 3 Core Cities.

Cape Privacy: Keeping secret identity difficult but common. Organizations maintain secure databases mapping identities to codenames. InfoSec includes hardened comms, burner devices, obfuscation tech, wards, legal name-changes, identity firewalls. Doxxing constant threat from enemies, fans, stalkers, paparazzi, hacktivists, rival agencies. Laws vary, some jurisdictions offer strong protections and harsh penalties, others weaken protections for transparency/security. Threats to identity (blackmail, hostage risk, reputational attacks) as potent as physical danger.

Cape Containment: Non-powered forces rely on layered doctrine (intel-driven targeting, specialized equipment, escalation rules) to contain C-Tier+ until help arrives. Each Core City has Meta Response Force (MRF), augmented troops with anti-meta gear (dampener rounds, exo-suits, net drones, area denial tech). Ordinary jails can't hold B-Tier+, so cities maintain specialized facilities using dampeners, null fields, reinforced cells, warded areas. Some heroes deputized with detention powers; overstepping triggers investigations.

Cape Events: Core Cities regularly host cape-centric events blending sport, PR, recruitment, entertainment. Range from government readiness drills to commercial shows. Public tournaments typically non-lethal with strict rules in controlled arenas. Serve multiple purposes: scouting talent, stress-testing tech, image rebuilding, fundraising, pressure valve for rivalries. Conventions gather fans, vendors, agency booths, minor capes. Underground illegal circuits also exist (unsanctioned brawls, gladiator pits, betting rings).

THE GREAT WHITE LINERS

Great White Liners: Four independent entities whose data/analysis are treated as gold standard for tier lists, threat assessments, meta-phenomena. Rare but highly influential reports. Shield of Six: elite alliance of six S-Tier entities, Earth's primary apocalyptic-defense coalition. Ouro: secretive lab-network outside state control with hidden facilities, unclear funding, denounced as supervillain scientists but producing rigorous technical reports. World Research Foundation: multinational policy/research body issuing conservative assessments on global cape demographics. Deep Lotus: online persona dropping dense files of uncannily accurate modeling.

Shield of Six: Elite alliance of six S-Tier entities, publicly acknowledged as Earth's front-line coalition against apocalyptic/extinction-level threats. Privately exist as extension of trust to Cavinoa that she doesn't need to babysit planet. Members: Axisman (Metaphysical Brick), Misstellar (Gravitational Blaster), Professor Parallel (Particle Shaper), Quantana (Gateway Mover), Uniton (Superposition Support), Lady Zi (Occult Warper). Operate semi-independently day-to-day but maintain secure channels, shared doctrines, contingency plans. Recorded coordination unparalleled. White-Gold Protocol implicitly places Cavinoa above Shield.

Ouro: Decentralized clandestine lab-network operating outside formal state control, specializing in high-risk cape, supertech, eldritch tech R&D. Operates through proxy labs, extradimensional locations, black-site facilities across Core Cities. Cell-based structure spans rogue state scientists, disillusioned researchers, parahuman theorists, occult engineers, tech capes. Security emphasizes deniability, biometric mazes, kill protocols, self-destructing facilities. Retaliation surgical and precise. Ghost-story employer everyone "knows" exists but nobody can prove where.

OTHER

The White-Gold Protocol: Cavinoa Coznova is absolute strongest super in setting, beyond tier lists, walking fundamental force vastly more powerful than all S-Tiers. Protocol includes unspoken courtesies: advance notice of world-scale experiments, quiet backchannels for help requests, efforts not to drag her into factional squabbles. Often not on Earth dealing with distant threats. New Gold City recognized as her Core City, home to New Gold Tower. Common understanding: treat Cavinoa as cosmic constant, plan without her, detach from cape community.

Outer Actors: Aliens, extradimensional beings, non-human intelligences ("Outers") exist with repeated Earth contact. Core Cities serve as contact points, embassy zones, enclaves, black markets. Categories: recognized species with legal status (visas, trade agreements) and covert residents. Extradimensional incidents (rifts, overlaps, incursions) are semi-regular high-tier events. Law/diplomacy is messy. True apocalyptic invasions are non-existent, credited to Cavinoa Coznova's off-world threat elimination, seen as double-edged sword.

The Weird Stuff: Magic and Warper-adjacent domains are power sources not fitting biotech/physics/standard cape-science, spirits, pacts, rituals, curses, ambient forces affecting reality/causality. Not unified system but patchwork of traditions (arcane orders, cults, cursed artifacts, extradimensional pacts, wild talents, rogue AIs). Weirder effects (outer entities, time loops, luck manipulation) wrapped in heavy secrecy, specialized counters, treaty-level containment. Core Cities maintain stability tech, MRF disruption payloads, specialized Warper capes, extensive documentation.

GALLERIES

Quantum City: You can find the Quantum City gallery here - let me know if anyone needs to be added!

Pacific City: You can find the Pacific City gallery here - let me know if anyone needs to be added!