All The Important Stuff

Setting Overview

Brockton Bay is a decaying coastal city in New England, USA. Once a proud industrial hub and shipping port, it has fallen into crime, corruption, and poverty. Much of the infrastructure is crumbling, and entire neighborhoods are controlled by parahuman gangs. The city is still populated and functional, thanks to stubborn civilians, struggling local government, and scattered heroes trying to hold the line.

Everyday life is defined by economic decline, rampant gang activity, and cape politics with civilians constantly caught between superpowered factions fighting for turf, ideology, or survival.

The World of Parahumans

  • Parahumans (Capes): People with superpowers triggered by extreme trauma (“Trigger Events”). Powers are unique and usually tied to the circumstances of trauma.

  • Cauldron: A secret organization that sells powers artificially, creating many “mystery capes” with no apparent trauma. Few people know about this organisation and few are willing to reveal anything about it.

  • Thinkers, Brutes, Tinkers, etc.: Powers are categorized by type (mental, physical, tech-based, etc.), but most capes have hybrid abilities.

  • The PRT and Protectorate: The government’s official cape organizations — meant to protect the public and regulate heroes. The PRT operates the Wards, a youth hero program. Corruption and bureaucracy often undermine them.

  • The Underworld: Gangs, mercenary outfits, and rogue villains dominate urban life, often more influential than city hall.

Key Factions in Brockton Bay

  1. ABB (Azn Bad Boys)

    • Leader: Lung — a dragon-like Brute/Changer who grows stronger as a fight continues, 'ramping up'. He does not wear much of a costume, besides an ornate steel mask that resembled a dragon.

    • Second-in-Command: Oni Lee — he teleports and leaves behind a duplicate that can operate for a short time before dissolving into dust. Oni Lee has a black bodysuit with belt and bandoleer of knives and grenades on it, and a demonic mask with leering, fanged, ear-to-ear grin. The mask was Japanese in style, crimson with two green stripes down either side.

      • Focus: The ABB commits crimes such as theft, protection rackets, peddling contraband, prostitution.

    • Territory: East side docks and industrial areas.

  2. Empire 88

    • Leader: Kaiser — can summon and manipulate steel.

    • Focus: White supremacist organization mixing ideology with violent control.

    • Territory: North Brockton Bay; well-funded, disciplined.

  3. Merchants

    • Leader: Skidmark — kinetic manipulation powers.

    • Focus: Drugs, chaos, scavenging; unhinged and unpredictable.

    • Territory: Slums and ruined areas.

  4. The Undersiders

    • Members: Grue, Tattletale, Regent, Bitch (Hellhound), and later Skitter (Taylor).

    • Focus: Small-time thieves with surprising depth and ambition.

    • Tone: Street-level gang that becomes central to the city’s fate.

  5. Faultline’s Crew

    • Leader: Faultline — a mercenary team running a club as cover.

    • Neutral faction focused on survival and professionalism.

  6. The Protectorate & Wards

    • Heroic factions under PRT command.

    • Notable members: Armsmaster, Miss Militia, Dauntless, Velocity, and the teenage Wards; with Aegis being the team leader for the Wards. (including Gallant, Aegis, Vista, Clockblocker, Shadow Stalker).

    • Struggle between idealism and bureaucracy defines their stories.

      1. Coil & His Organization

        • Leader: Coil — a secretive, hyper-rational crime lord.

        • Power: The ability to create and explore branching timelines (commonly described as “splitting” into two versions to test outcomes). He leverages this to run exhaustive contingency planning and choose the path that best serves his goals.

        • Focus: Information control, high-level manipulation, black-market trade, shadow financing, contract work, and contingency-based problem solving. He treats the city like a puzzle to be optimized.

        • Methods & Tone: Clinical, patient, paranoid. Coil rarely acts impulsively — he runs simulations, hedges every bet, and positions assets and operatives across Brockton Bay so he always has an exit. He uses bribery, blackmail, and staged events to steer outcomes while staying plausibly deniable.

        • Organization: A tightly controlled, well-resourced network rather than a flashy gang — operatives, tech, safehouses, and layers of intermediaries. Notorious for disappearing people and leaving no obvious trail. No single formal name—usually just “Coil’s organization” or “Coil.”

        • Relations: Often works behind the scenes with other gangs, the PRT, and merchants when it suits him; he’s willing to manipulate both “sides.” He was one of the few figures capable of approaching (or attempting to recruit) powerful parahumans because of his resources and foreknowledge.

          1. New Wave (formerly the Brockton Bay Brigade)

            • Overview: New Wave began life as the Brockton Bay Brigade and is a locally rooted hero family/team operating in Brockton Bay. They’re structured more like an extended family or community organization than a rigid heroic corporation.

            • Identity & Methods: Members routinely mix their civilian and cape lives — they don’t draw a strict line between “costume” identity and everyday identity. That makes them more accessible and visible to neighborhoods but also more vulnerable to vendettas and blowback.

            • Focus & Tone: Community defense, visible neighborhood patrols, mutual aid, and a hands-on approach to problems (rescue, mediation, anti-gang patrols). Their presence is oriented toward stabilizing local life and offering a more humane, less bureaucratic alternative to the PRT/Protectorate.

            • Relations: Respected in parts of the city for direct help, but eyed warily by bureaucrats and opportunistic gangs because of their openness. They can be unpredictable politically — willing to bend rules to protect civilians.

            • Narrative role: A human-scale counterpoint to both the exploitative gangs and the distant Protectorate: familiar, morally complex, and intimately tied to Brockton Bay’s neighborhoods.

Tone and Themes

  • Moral ambiguity: Heroes and villains often overlap; moral lines blur constantly.

  • Consequences: Every choice — political, violent, or emotional — has fallout.

  • Psychological realism: Powers reflect trauma and personality; many capes are broken or obsessed.

  • Decay and desperation: Brockton Bay itself is a character — eroding, violent, and symbolic of human failure.

  • Scale creep: Small crimes escalate into city-wide catastrophes and global threats.

Landmarks and Districts

  • The Docks: Derelict shipping yards, smuggler haven, ABB and Empire territory.

  • Downtown / Boardwalk: Once a tourist area; now semi-abandoned after Leviathan’s attack.

  • Lord Street Market: A chaotic black-market hub; neutral ground for many factions.

  • Captain’s Hill: Middle-class residential district, home to heroes and some PRT offices.

  • Trainyard / Merchant Turf: Ruined industrial areas crawling with addicts and scavengers.