Setting Information

[Narrator]

Game Information:

There will be other, more in-depth posts on the setting and locations of the game, but this topic is designed to give you a quick overview of when and where the game is set, and what kind of game will be played.

The setting is in the city of Maldon, England. More specifically, the game takes place mostly in and around the University, the Xavier's University, or more commonly called XU. The year is the current one, on somewhat on a sliding scale to account for the game moving a bit slower than real time. Check the date and semester information at the top of the forum for the current date, if you're reading this sometime after the game begins. The world of the X-Men is a familiar one, much like our world, but there are more fantastic people and occurrences than we normally see. Technology is more advanced and robust, mutant powers are becoming abundant, and there is occasionally contact with aliens or other weird entities.

The game's universe is that of the Marvel X-Men, mutants who have strange and wonderful powers exist, and in fact are only becoming more and more common in the world though society remains skeptical if not outright hostile. The Xavier's Institute, founded by Charles Xavier, leader of the X-Men, is a high school for mutants in the state of New York, in the United States. This school is an extension of the Xavier Institute program to the collegiate level, and is still nominally overseen by Charles Xavier, though age is catching up with the formidable Professor X, and he is much less active in the administration. Following the passing of the Mutant Registration Act in the United States the Institute in New York closed it's doors officially, though X-Corp works to enable high school students to transfer to the University in Maldon where a high school curriculum has been established.

The player characters are either students at the University, mutants who have a degree of control over, and power in their mutation, but still have much to learn before they can stand among the giants of their people; or they can be high-school students struggling or slowly beginning to gain control of their mutation. Player characters are somewhere along the way to becoming the new generation of legendary X-Men that will fight the heroic battles of the coming years with University students serving a bit of a mentor role to the high school kids.

The time scale of the game will not be linear. Rather, each school semester will have one or more action plots that we will call Issues, in honor of the comics that inspired the game. Each Issue will take place over the course of several real life weeks, and the in-game time the issue takes will depend entirely on the type of plot that is happening. An issue may take months of game-time, or it may happen in the space of a single game-day.

Between Issues, there will be a 'downtime' period where a fair amount of game-time will usually pass, and where more mundane occurrences like classes and the like will be summarized or played out in short scenes. We will try to schedule these downtime periods around holidays and other times when people are busy and unable to play as much whenever possible.

Once the downtime period is completed, another Issue will take the fore, and exciting and dramatic plots will play themselves out.

[Narrator]

Setting Information:
Mutants are everywhere. What had originally been a rare occurrence has long since turned into a national phenomenon. Or an epidemic, if you believe a significant portion of humanity who considers mutants a threat or abominations and it's not rare to find religious zealots decrying them as sinners and crimes against God. Public opinion differs from country to country but is often generally negative. A few holdouts exist but they tend to come with their own drawbacks. The island nation of Genosha is a save haven for mutants, but is a borderline fascist regime founded by the late Magneto. Despite repeated attacks the nation has prevailed and rebuilt time and time again but the mutant supremacist legacy of Erik Lehnsherr has a firm grip on most of it's citizens.

In the United States a recent wave of anti-mutant sentiment has resulted in the passing of the Mutant Registration Act, a law requiring every mutant to register with their name and subject to examinations to determine the nature of their mutation. Especially the less progressive areas of the country treat them as second-class citizens at best and many young mutants end up homeless and disowned by their families.

Europe considered itself overall more progressive but that turned out to mostly result from a desire to consider themselves better than the US than out of genuine concern for their mutant citizens. France, Spain, Italy and Greece all passed similar laws to the MRA and public opinion of mutants is at an all-time low. Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland currently have laws protecting mutant citizens, although public opinion is divided on the issue. In the United Kingdom there has been a recent push for what is almost a carbon-copy of the MRA, thanks to political pressure from the US as well as the UK's far right receiving an upswing in popularity as the de facto anti-mutant party. The Royal Family thinks generally favorably of mutants, in no small part thanks to the Princess being saved by the X-Men, so public opinion has not seen quite as bad a shift as in other countries.


About the University:
Xaviers University was invested in by X-Corp, as well as private donors, both mutant and human, with their own motivations. It is an extension of Charles Xavier's mission to educate and train young mutants in a safe environment – an extension (and currently replacement) of his Institute in Westchester, New York. The current headmistress is Samantha McManus, former student of Xavier and former Avenger. The university's student body tops out just over 200 students – the university is forced to be rather selective both due to space concerns and due to lack of 'open' mutants. This means the student body is rather close-knit, and most people know nearly everyone else.

Xavier's Institute is the high school version of this program, originally founded by Charles Xavier in his manor. However, due to the recent passing of the Mutant Registration Act, that campus was closed for the protection of their students. While some dispersed back to their homes, a decent sized selection were moved to the campus of Xaviers University, where they will continue to be tutored and learn in a smaller, more personal environment.


About the Campus:
Braddock Manor was originally the home of Dr. James Braddock, his wife Elizabeth, and their children Jamie and the twins Brian, and Betty, better known as the one-time Captain Britain and Psylocke. When the trustees of Xaviers decided to open a mutant university, Brian offered his manor as an endowment, providing a space for the university to work. Having undergone modest renovations to handle the enrollment, Braddock Manor and it's surrounding estate will meet nearly all of the university's needs. After the passing of the Mutant Registration Act, it is also an ad-hoc location for the refugee students from Xavier's Institute in Westchester.


About Maldon:
Maldon is a small town in Essex, about an hour northeast of London proper. It sits on the Blackwater estuary, and is known as a quiet, seaside town. For the X-Teams, however, Maldon and the manor are best known as the home of Excalibur. The formerly demolished Lighthouse has since been rebuilt thanks to the combined effort of the school. It overlooks the nearby cliffside and the estuary.


Here's a map that can serve as a general guideline. It's by no means 100% accurate though as things sometimes move around a little in proper comic-book fashion.