Thanks for the questions, both of you!! I’m pretty happy to answer all of them :) Anyways this’ll be a little long…
Most Badass characters
So I’m gonna go out here and say there aren’t many established characters right now, just early concepts that I got out of the earlier word building I’ve already done. But if I had to put a finger on the most badass right now, I’d definitely say the entirety of the characters belonging to Xi, one of the factions/groups I’ve established. Xi is pretty small and for a reason - the qualifications to get into Xi are pretty high. And even then the survival rate for Xi members are low, so if there’s members who have been active in it for over a month, they definitely fit into the ‘badass’ criteria.
Especially if they were apart of the Deities, a smaller separation of Xi. Xi averages around 30 members, which isn’t that many. The Deities, a classification (and term only coined after a certain event) fit into around 7 of the members, so those 7 members right there are pretty badass. Why, you may wonder? Well..
- they survived a massive Aberration nicknamed Devourer, since that’s what they do.. Devourers consume just about anything, living, non living, any sort of mass. The thing with Devourers is that they just appear for a certain period of time then leave after an hour or so. No one knows what happens to everything that was eaten. It is VERY HARD to kill one.
- With the Deities, they were unfortunately trapped within the Devourer, but also not killed, somehow - one of the members of the Deities is nicknamed Lady Luck (who is a pretty cool character in her own way) so some think it was her, others believe in pure coincidence
- In that hour, they had to escape. Not even the Deities are quite sure how they escaped the Devourer, which has resulted in many stories being told of the Deities, some greatly exaggerated.
- The Deities earned their nickname for the fact they survived what no human had ever survived. All the living members are very much human, though some believe otherwise. Again, legends.
Aberration Appearance
Some Aberrations are more humanoid than others, but all follow a pretty basic formula - rarely ever a solid form/body. It should be noted that they don’t seem to have muscles, organs, and bones like we do, but are able to retain shapes. They do seem to have some variation of organ/muscle like we do, though (but this only applies to certain Abers.)
Aberrations are pretty interesting for the fact they sometimes don’t even look like anything, they’re just invisible, or apart of the environment. Still, those Aberrations can be dangerous for the biological effects they can have on living beings.
A lot of Aberrations almost have a plant like look to them. They may be massive, or small, but rarely ever the size of any Devourer (which is currently the largest known Aberration, may or may not change. Recorded Devourers are around 150 metres tall sometimes. Thing is, Devos don’t even stand upright either.) Sometimes capable of movement, other times stationary.
Of course, the most well known Aberrations are the ones that move around, actively hunting. Some bear appearances like real world animals, for example Strikers and Skulkers (both have similar looks but should not be confused for one another) almost have a cat like body to them. Their heads though, as a rule, don’t look like anything unidentifiable at all.
In terms of colour, Aberrations again have the similar formula. Often ‘black’, or various shades of grey in looks. They generally have red, orange, yellow, etc ‘eyes’ (but it’s unknown if these are eyes or not) with the exception of Devourers who almost have purple eyes to them. Some lack eyes.
Some don’t have any similarities to known animals, and can often look very alien.
North America
Like a lot of the world, it’s in tatters. Well, it does have a pretty stable population still, just cut off from each other, or at least limited communication. At least, stable population for the current status of the world. Stable doesn’t always mean it’s safe.
Generally, areas with low population were fine, unless a ‘spike of energy’ occurred. In this case, electricity usage of all sorts. Humans had to learn when they were making their new homes that lights must go out at a certain time for a certain amount of hours. It was find with one person, maybe. But several cities worth of people just attracted the Aberrations, and mankind at the time had no clue how to defeat the Abers.
Areas with higher population had better defense, but attracted more Abers, thus cities with higher population in North America were in trouble. Some people saw the correlations and took off. Others couldn’t, or refused to.
The current status of North America is kind of broad, seeing as continents themselves are big. Now, straying away from the people, a very good percentage of this landmass does fit into what can be considered an Aberration Zone. This means the populations live in much larger groups, closer together. In fact, out of all of the continents, this is where living underground is more common; since you can conceal an energy signal a lot better below ground. However, it’s not invisible, and they still need to shut off power at certain times of the day, or for situations.
Some zones were abandoned particularly because people thought the Aberrations would get those areas, but they didn’t. While it’s not even been 30 years, it’s been more than enough time for nature to resume collecting its bounty. However Aberrations could easily undo all of that work if they discovered these areas. For wandering humans, these areas are good areas for scavenging.
Factions
There’s Xi, the one I spoke of before. SIGMA as well, the very first faction I established. Technically they’re not really ‘factions’. They were more so established by governments of countries still around or other. The factions exist to fight against the Aberrations, each with their own respective purposes. Xi and SIGMA have the same job, fighting against the Abers. However, there differences between them. Xi is smaller, while SIGMA is a lot bigger. Xi has a lower death rate oddly enough (perhaps due to the fact they’re rarely deployed) and SIGMA is higher. But Xi is focused on taking down the unknown, and overcome deadlier terrains (than what SIGMA has to, which is saying something.) SIGMA is for the common, known Abers.
Omicron (have you noticed a…theme?) is all-skills sort of faction. For factions in need (minus Xi, rarely does anyone fit into the qualifications) they send their members over.
Eta is more healers type of things, focusing on healing in safe areas (non aberration zones). Zeta, who has a similar name, focuses on healing in the aberration zones. Often deployed alongside SIGMA.
Iota is in charge of mapping. What areas are more…at risk? What are safer areas to retreat to? Iota members generally do go on field to survey the areas. They also assist with Tau, in researching the Aberrations. Tau and Alpha are the rare cases where you have two factions working on the same thing; documenting and researching the Abers.
Of course there’s a lot more but do feel free to ask if a certain faction exists or not or ask of the ones I’ve already put down.
Governments
Like the real world, there are a lot. But it’s rare there’s a total government controlling an entire country due to the fact communication is very hard. You’ll mostly find governments that control ‘sectors’, areas with different settlements in them. I’ve yet to name sectors, however.
You’ll also learn that there’s some that have taken advantage of this Aberration, and move to stop trade from going on and whatnot, often forcing a toll..also like the real world, in some places. These groups are governed (well..loosely governed) by a singular leader, almost like a warlord. Actually, strikingly similar to one. There’s a lot of governments in this world, but some are less beneficial than others.
