Crinoverse

This is a massive setting and source for several games on the Atomic Think Tank, combining Green Ronin's Freedom City Setting, Halt Evil Doer and so many other popular creations known to exist.

The Crinoverse began in April of 2009 as a personal project for the author Crinos, who never actually intended to run games in it (he basically did it as something to do, to justify all the role playing books he had bought over the years, and with the hopes that other GM's would take and use his ideas.) Eventually though, he began his first official adventure: CSI Los Dios (a super powered Cop Show which quickly escalated into a more traditional super hero adventure due to Unexpected Genre Change). during this time he also ran two other games (New Warriors, a Reality TV supers game which ended when too many players quit, and Freshmen Terror, which also ended due to lack of interest from players.)

Currently, there are several games being run in the Crinoverse on the Atomic Thinktank Boards: The Avengers (A traditional super hero game set in Emerald City), Chicago Avengers (Another Super hero game, this one with more magical elements), September Falls (which deals with a chapter of the Covenant fighting supernatural threats), and Teen Force (set in Summit City and dealing with new, young heroes). Challengers of the Tomorrow (A Planetary style game with more emphasis on detective work than capes and cowl heroics.) is currently on hiatus?

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Tropes used in Crinoverse include:

• Affably Evil: Cave Johnson is a recurring NPC in the Emerald City Avengers game.
• Author Appeal: The author of the crinoverse is a huge fan of the webcomic Fans, so he often has Rikk, Rumy, and other cast members show up as friendly NPC's. He has also used Keith Feddyg as a recurring nemesis in the CSI Los Dios game.
• All Myths Are True: In fact, all the Gods of the Crinoverse, and the angels of Heaven, are of the same species; Cosmic Eternals.
• All There in the Manual: There are two HUGE setting threads on the crinoverse, filled with everything from major events, to character bios and relationships, to incidental bits of flavor text.
• Alternate Universe: In a CSI: LD adventure, Keith Feddyg strands Inspector Reinhardt in one of these, on a barren earth.
  • On another note, Alternate realities are a subject of Author Appeal for the creator, who often has references to parallel reality and occasional adventures in them.
• Big Bad: Somewhat subverted in most games, which don't have overarching villains but rather just several recurring enemies. New Warriors intended to have Penance as the big bad of the season, but the game ended shortly after his first introduction.
• Blessed with Suck: Plenty. Officer Anthony "Shifter" Dante could shapeshift into any known animal... but constantly had the Animal Spirits associated with them floating around inside his head, egging him on and ordering him about. Frank Meltzer lost his humanity when he became a humanoid triceratops.
• Chrome Champion: Diesel of the Chicago avengers, but he averts Made of Shiny, looking like he's made of dull, blackened steel.
• City of Adventure: Numerous, some better than others. In game the main ones are Los Dios, Emerald City, Summit City, and Freehold.
• Cool Shades: Inspector Lawrence Reinhardt has ubiquitous sunglasses that he rarely takes off, which also grant him X-ray vision.
• Composite Character: Numerous, most notably, there exists an entire team (refugees from a parallel universe) who are fusions of DC and Marvel characters.
  • Also, its the creators intent to make the Psimon of Champions into one with his DC version.
• Conspiracy Kitchen Sink: The Labyrinth is the secret world running conspiracy in the Crinoverse, and all other conspiracies? Just fronts for the Labyrinth.
• Crap Saccharine World: Equestria is an island of goodness on an otherwise hellish prison world.
• Curb Stomp Battle: Tends to happen a lot in favor of the PC's, partly due to bad luck with the die on the part of the creator and partly because the PC's tend to be more experience with the rules than the creator.
• Cute Monster Girl: Holly Meltzer willingly turns herself into one in order to stay with her husband.
• Deal with the Devil: Two major sources for these are Mr. Hoppy (current ruler of Hell) and Mr. Infamy.
• Embarrassing Nickname: The press dubbed Frank Meltzer "Tricera-Cop" once. He didn't like it -- and promptly corrected his partner when he used the same name.
• Evil Parents Want Good Kids: Bat Mech's "fathers" are Freedom City Villains Doc Otaku and Toy Boy. When encountered, Doc Otaku expressed pride that his creation was a hero. Word of God states that Otaku intentionally programmed Batmech to turn good because he thought it would be cool.
• Fantastic Fighting Style: Indomitable, of the Chicago Avengers, practices Rokushiki.
• Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Thanks to the Imageria, a mythical realm made up of all human imagination, not only are mythical creatures, real, but with multiple versions.
• French Maid Outfit: Xiao comes to the Pantheon Halloween Party in this getup. Apparently, the Major Havoc costume mysteriously vanished and Phenom and Usako rejected the first choice of Mr. Stay-Puft.
• God Guise: The Pantheon, who worships any and all superbeings as gods. Naturally, some of their "gods" encourage this beleif, and with members like Usako and Xiao, some are actually pretty close to being real gods.
• Half-Human Hybrid: Harmony, a side character (and girlfriend to Shifter), was turned into one by the Red King. She has a human top, and a Tiger bottom (like a centaur).
• Hammerspace: Where does Inspector Reinhardt keep all his wonderful toys? Charli makes this a little more literal by teleporting whatever she needs (spacesuits, ray guns, and asteroids) from wherever they were before to wherever she needs them.
• Hippie Teacher: Holly Meltzer is this to her team in the Tomorrow Society (Which is made up of the kids from Avengers Academy)
• Hover Board: Troy has one of these, among his complement of devices.
• Humanoid Aliens: There are plenty of these running around, including Darlene, from Sapce Australia.
• Image Song: Crinos tends to give these to major NPC's, and encourages his PC's to give their own characters them as well.
• Insistent Terminology: Its 'Inspector' Lawrence Reinhardt. Even if his official title is detective.
• Kid Hero: A lot of the characters from Teen Force fall into this category, being highschoolers.
• Laughably Evil: Count Reich.
• Lighter and Softer: A lot of darker and more malicious characters and aspects are toned down in the crinoverse. For instance, Smashface, a Juggernaut Expy who, in his default setting, is a child murderer and rapist, is toned down to being just a mercenary who also happens to be incredibly strong.
• Lightning Gun: Inspector Reinhardt has one of these, among his many other gadgets.
• Living Relic: Aum-Ra, of the Avengers, as well Big Charli, AKA Novendicim, and some of the other Centurion machines
• Loads and Loads of Characters: The Crinoverse thrives on this trope.
• Mass Super-Empowering Event: Numerous, but the most recent one occurred in Freshman Terror, where the Metahuman Supremacist group Gene Nation (From Halt Evil Doer!) Unleashed the Wild Card Virus on numerous college campuses worldwide, creating countless new superhumans (and killing a lot of people in the process.)
• Mayor Pain: King Bradley is the mayor of Emerald City, and a type A. After he's removed from power, the new Mayor is Xellos, who's also most likely a Type A, though so far he's been quite helpful.
• Mega Crossover: The setting is this by default.
• Miles Gloriosus: Victoria Alastia Helena St. Croix, better known as Phenom, at least until she actually got superpowers, and startedusing them for good.
• Nobody Can Die: Crinos really hates killing off characters (Since it limits his ability to use them later), so he typically only kills off characters its a special occasion (or a PC gets tired of playing a character and wants to try a new one.)
• Not Wearing Tights: Charlene 'Charli' Brown goes by her own name in heroics, and doesn't really wear a costume. Same thing with Troy after he stops using powered armor.
• Patchwork Fic: A lot of settings get mixed together based on the authors personal preferences; Captain Marvel (both versions) gets combined with Harry Potter, Legion of Super-Heroes gets combined with Total Drama Island and other Teletoon series, and most notably, Green Lantern gets combined with Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.
• Powered Armor: Technus of the Avengers has a few suits of armor for various different uses. In one adventure, Inspector Reinhardt cobbled together his own suit from his gadgets and mothballed armors of an alternate world's Daedalus.
• Pre-Ass-Kicking One-Liner: Numerous.
  • Inspector Reinhardt's "Hitler's theories on eugenics were dubious at best" before blasting the former Nazi supervillain Overshadow
  • Also, right before Relentless escapes Kapek's Sun World and destroys Grunn's gate with a bomb set to go off after his departure: "Well, I declare Kapek's Sun World permanently closed."
• Previous Player Character Cameo: Two of Yeoman's old PC's: Megan Conner (from CSI Los Dios) and Janice (New Warriors), have appeared in Chicago Avengers. Inspector Reinhardt, as well as Megan have both showed up in Avengers as well.
• Ray Gun: Troy, Inspector Reinhardt, and Charli, among several others, have all used these at one time or ontehr. Troy and the Inspector built theirs, and Charli just has that much stuff from her travels.
• Reason You Suck Speech: During the second season finale of the Avengers, Farah Tohma reveals the triple dosage of her normal alchemical formula she took prior to the attack on Xiao, Usako and Phenom's wedding is killing her and she may die soon. After an initial exchange of words between the group, Relentless deals what his player admits right here is a nasty yet true commentary. "So, to be patently blunt and potentially heartless, if you die- you'll die the way you lived... making terrible decisions. To my present knowledge, you and your Ascending Ones group had no qualms about being the drug lords of Emerald, even to the point of starting a gang war with Cortex. You twisted Troy's heart around for your own purposes. Warehouse 23 was the exception that proves the rule. And now, Farah Tohma, you've put the world at risk, and even if you were right about Usako being the target, her safety is the last thing to expect from Mansbane. But what really gets me- is that your self-proclaimed protectors of humanity- you in clear particular- allied yourself with the Labyrinth. So much for your higher cause."
• Rubber Man: Elasto, from the Avengers is one of these, based (powers-wise) on Monkey. D. Luffy. Several of his attacks, while unnamed, have been copies of Luffy's.
• Rule of Cool: The Crinoverse runs on this.
• Secret Government Warehouse: Avengers episode/chapter 11, deals with the Avengers going into one of these, Warehouse 23.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: Inspector Lawrence Reinhardt fights crime in three-piece suits, which is also where he keeps his gadgets.
• Shooting Superman: Certain heroes and villains (Big Charli, Elasto, and others) are simply too tough to be harmed by small arms fire and other conventional methods. Not that this stops some people from trying.
• Invisible to Gaydar: Batmech of the New Warriors was this, in addition to being a giant robot.
• Super-Hero School: Numerous, the most prominent being the Claremont Academy, as well as PS238.
• Team Mom: Cecelia Grimson, wife of Relentless Is this to the Avengers.
• Teleport Interdiction: As the Avenger's most powerful member, Charli is a teleporter, those enemies of the teams who have the means and the foresight will often come up with methods to jam her teleportation.
• Tempting Fate: While fighting Xiao and Technus, Mansbane King (a giant beast Exalted) is confronted with Elasto, jumping into the scene. Elasto punches him in the face, to no real effect. Mansbane arrogantly asks 'Is that all you got?' In response, Elasto kicks his face into the pavement. This, along with other reinforcments, prompts a tactical withdrawl from MBK.
• The Power of the Sun: Xiao, one of the Emerald City Avengers, is a Solar Exalt, and thus many of his powers are based on mythic properties of the sun.
• Time Travel: One of the CSI: Los Dios adventures had the PCs recruited by Dr. Tomorrow to travel back to the post civil war Los Dios.
  •  : Also, for reasons no one knows (yet), Relentless of the Avengers will sometimes travel back to World War 2 Europe. Apparently, this was always the case, and in those times, he was known as the Unknown Soldier.
• Technopath: Inspector Lawrence Reinhardt is one of these, controlling electronics with his mind, although he can't wave his hand and fix machines. At least not without suing one of his many, many gadgets.
  • Also, from the Avengers, Technus.
• Took a Level in Badass: Most PCs end up doing this (those who aren't already badass), the most notable case is Frank Meltzer of CSI Los Dios; Who went from a self loathing super strong freak in a ratty apartment to the most powerful and celebrated Joker in world history after he one hit KOed Smashface.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Detective Robert Scheer in CSI Los Dios did this more than a few times, as did his second character agent Macbeth.
  • In a more recent example, during a recent Avengers game Technus used his technopathic powers to shut down Trawler's life support systems, nearly killing her. An act which drew some controversy from some of the other players.
  • In the second Avengers adventure, Technus blows up a ship full of Yeerks and their host bodies on the orders of Relentless. Elasto was not pleased, and Technus himself has had nightmares of the incident.