In the world of Powerpunk, science and technology occupy a funny space. During the Cold War, technology was viewed as a necessary median; “the only true measuring stick for a nation’s greatness” necessity. It was a grand love affair, with the known limits of science being reestablished almost quarterly and the great nations treating scientists like rock stars. The East and West both took to collecting doctors, professors and engineers, like children collecting trading cards. Giving them larger budgets than many of them had ever dared to imagine, these scientific minds were tasked with finding and cultivating any potential advantage against the opposing bloc.

It was amidst this age of political desperation that all avenues of science, including the fringe sciences, were being treated with open minds and open wallets. This was a glorious time for scientists who started signing up with grant after grant and put real effort into experiments and inventions that they hadn’t ever thought they could complete. This was the age of “hypertech”. 
Super-science tools capable of bending terrestrial and celestial energies into fuel for weapons and vehicles, bending minds, transforming the body of a person into a walking arsenal of bio-weaponry. These tools that pushed through the established limits of the scientific field and into storied fiction appeared in every field. All the while the tensions of the Cold War grew closer and closer to the brink of open conflict. 

The era came to a screeching halt as prolific communist agents  like “Soviet Supreme” and other frequent criminal collaborators from soviet nations were caught time and again by the U.S Government’s special forces, D.A.N.G.E.R. These communist agents seemed to favor the use of hypertech knockoffs from the Eastern bloc that never seemed to quite work as intended under pressure. They favored it so much that although the USSR was pretty far behind the U.S in production of hypertech in both number and quality it became, in the eyes of the public, communist or”pinko” tech. 

This stigma brought an end to free and unchecked scientific experimentation and discovery and saw the rise of tighter restrictions on independent laboratories. Hypertech faded into obscurity, a technological oddity known for being highly unreliable for some to marvel at while the wider world passed it by. However, the turn of the millennium saw a drastic slowdown in hardware innovations across all markets.

The early 21st century, as the short lived Russo-American alliance went to war against extremists in the middle east, was perhaps the last time new hardware was released. Very quickly companies had to turn to releasing re-packaged versions of the same model already on the market over and over as programs grew in complexity to sell the illusion of breakthroughs. Cracking into the hypertech market had made anything less seem paltry by comparison.

A generation of people grew up with the knowledge that advancement was out there and being kept just outside their reach and so some turned to expensive, custom goods that could grow as they needed. Still a few companies have re-discovered the idea of Hypertech and with clever re-branding are eagerly rushing to market determined to ride at the forefront of an inevitable tech-boom. 
​
This is where characters in Powerpunk find themselves currently; mostly recycled tech that has inched on slowly for more than two decades. Programming has grown at a reasonable pace but has seemingly caught up to hardware now and both are growing at a controlled, predictable pace. All the while, visible on the horizon, is the dreaded return of hypertech.
​

Possible variants or an evolution of the Quarks, the Kin do not wield the forces of earthly energy but instead embrace their role as dominators of cosmic powers. With skin flushed by the radiation of solar flares, muscles pulled taut with gravitational pull and a mind rippling with magnetic waves from out in the void. Gravity, Kinetic, Magnetic, Radiation, Temperature and Vibration are the celestial toolkit of these exim. Not more than but certainly not less than their Quark contemporaries, the Kin are the other face to a powerful coin.

Absorption: Turn a cell phone into an anabolic steroid, a microwave into a lifeline, the l000 degree temp from a fire into a zero calorie snack to stave off starvation, or a howitzer shell to the face to rude, albeit, harmless tap from metal.

Density Manipulation: This is actually two powers that combine to become one greater than the sum of its parts. On one hand, you can increase your density till your skin is like steel and the city of towering steel and concrete feels like cardboard and paste. Or increase the density of your favorite item till it rivals some dwarven crafted alloy of adamantium and mithril. On the other hand, you can reduce density to the point where the space between molecules serves as a new doorway to you and a molecular cage to others.  The body can flow like water, is as malleable as clay, and deadly attacks can harmlessly pass through. But What if we combine them…?

Super Speed: As noted before, move like a blur, strike like a flash, escape like lightning greased in the blood of a cheetah...that was...struck by lightning. That’s SPEED-CEPTION!

Native Element Control: Back at it again, this scoundrel two-timing power has been described before but instead of Fire, Electricity, water etc, you harness the harness of gravity, master magnetism, redirect radiation, drumbeat the world with vibration, temper heat and frost and even control kinetic output (I can’t make a kinetic pun or witticism) like a punch, a bullet or the freight train at the end of the tunnel coming your way.

Dev-X & Ethereal Deep Diver | Stock & Bull Entertainment

Would you like to spot someone in a crowd by the smell of their personalized shampoo care kit? Do you like the idea of having two sets of claws; one for tearing through fabricated material and the other for flesh. Do you have the desire to soar like an eagle over a target and then turn into an plated 6 ton bunker busting elephant? Then you might want to play a Proteán.  

Proteán
Masters of adaptability and the living tool that is their bodies. Physically intimidating and dominating; they are the teeth in the darkness, the Talons in the Night, mermaids, centaurs myth made manifest, shapeshifter and body mixers. What follows is a small smattering of what they can do:

Body Adaptation: This allows you to build a catalog of body mods that your character can switch between or mix and match. Picking from things like adhesive grip and extra arms; for expert wall crawling and a hellish grappler. Or Extra stomach and extra mouths for a very disturbing magic/smuggling trick. There's also fins and too much more to tlk about in a single paragraph.

Natural Weaponry: It's exactly what it sounds like; access to the weapons of the animal kingdom. But not just access, the ability to combine these weapons in different and devastating ways. Like mixing a tentacle with plating and claws to make a living version of Ivy's(from Soul Calibur) whip sword!

True Flight: Do I have to say more ... YES! It's the ability to fly and enter into what can only be called Aerial Kombat. Taking advantage of being able to move in three dimensions to pull off a whole set of maneuvers and gain a number of bonuses/boons.

Last and way far from least-
Animal Transformation: Its what it sounds like and sooooo much more. Yes, you can transform into different animals from a library of animals that your character has memorized. You choose which animals and all the animals have different natural boons that boils them down to their core (usually 2 to 4). You can customize your transformations to fit your play style; you can transform animal to animal, from frightening lion to slithering snake like Beastboy. Partial transform like equipping the eyes of an eagle or the pump of a gorilla arm. You can even go with the essence of the beast a la Vixen. Not enough for you? Good, because it wasn't enough for us either. We also built in the ability to mix the different animals in your libraries to make Chimeras! You can also transform into Were creatures and YES you can become WERE-CHIMERAS!

Oh and all these powers can be used together ... just wanted to let you know that little fact.

Ethereal Deep Diver "Sam" | Stock & Bull Entertainment

Yes, it's at a Library but beggars can't be choosers! Hell they made this Boss poster for us!
We'll be teaching people how to RPG using our System and Setting. If you can make it, AWESOME! If not, don't fret, I'll be posting the best bits here on the site.

Ethereal Deep Diver "Sam" | Stock & Bull Entertainment

"...you can go sideways, and slantways, and longways, and backways..."
 -Willy Wonka, describing the effects of Gravity Control

This sketch and the previous rough brought to you by Alvaro Estrada.

Turning people into unwitting pawns is the purview of the power Mind Control!

This sketch and the previous rough brought to you by Alvaro Estrada.