I have some questions about the Doomed.
It seems like the most obvious doom is death, but I’ve also heard ideas for Doomed who would get stranded in other worlds, or transform irreversibly into monsters. Are those valid? And if so, what about a Doomed whose doom was losing their powers? They get to be super for a while, but after that it’s back to being a normal person. On the one hand that doom feels mild compared to the others, but emotionally it could be devastating.
Also, can there be situations where the Doomed dying is the good outcome? For example, imagine a hero who, for whatever reason, is fated to eventually destroy the world, but who plans to die before that happens, by their own hand if necessary. Is dying their doom, or is destroying the world their doom and dying their escape plan? What about a hero with a goal that will necessarily lead to their demise, like a time traveler who’ll be erased from history if they succeed in their mission to change the past? Is their doom to sacrifice themself, or is it what will happen if they don’t?
Sure, those all sound good.
I quite like the doom of losing your powers, because you could either go through with your doom and just go back to your normal life, or take an advancement before that to become a Beacon instead. 🙂
If just losing your powers doesn’t feel like enough of a doom, perhaps they lose their powers and their own memories of being a hero (See also Doctor Who season 4). Or flip that, so that the rest of the world forgets they were ever a hero but they have to live with knowing?
Or you could lose your hope, or your heroism.
Sebastian Baker You described Hellboy and Raven… the signature Doomed. 🙂
I’m not sure why you’re splitting hairs about dooms. Whether they die or something worse happens, I think the whole situation is their doom. It just has multiple possible outcomes, which is why we’re playing, right? To find out what happens?
The doom could potentially be anything. The only hard rule is that when The Doomed “confronts it and perishes” (however drawn out that encounter is), their story ends. So even if the character doesn’t have to undergo a literal physical death, they do have to effectively be dead.
For example, you could play The Doomed as a Middle Eastern girl who moved from Pakistan to Halcyon City when she a kid. Her Doom is her arranged marriage; all her life she’s known that she’s been arranged to marry a boy who still lives in Pakistan, but now that she’s 18, she’s forced to confront that reality and she doesn’t want to leave Halcyon City and her friends. Her Nemesis is her family, who all expect her to go along with it. When her doomsigns eventually pile up and she “perishes”, maybe she runs away or does fly off to get married, but regardless of what exactly happens, the team never hears from her again.