Shadows of Valor

The Genesis of Valor
In 1984, the world witnessed its first miracle: The Emergence. Cosmic radiation sparked a genetic evolution across Modern Day USA, granting godlike abilities to select individuals. The government quickly commercialized this phenomenon, partnering with corporate conglomerate Valor Corps to brand these individuals as symbols of American exceptionalism. For two decades, these "Heroes" fought crime, built shining skylines, and unified a proud nation.
The Corporate Rot (2004–2018)
By the turn of the century, the golden age fractured. Behind closed doors, the Valor Corps out of Detroit, Michigan treated heroes like walking commodities, covering up drug scandals, civilian collateral damage, and horrific abuses of power. Undefeated and legally shielded by corporate lawyers, the heroes grew depraved.
The turning point came in 2016 during the Chicago Cataclysm. A drug-fueled brawl between America's premier hero, Apex, and a minor rogue leveled thirty city blocks. Valor Corps framed it as a "tragic alien incursion," but a faction of rogue intelligence agents leaked the truth. The public realized their protectors were untamed monsters. Activists and regular citizens who spoke out began disappearing, neutralized by black-ops hero squads.
The Great Fracturing (2019–2024)
In 2021, the system collapsed entirely under the weight of The Schism. Paragon, the world’s most powerful and trusted speedster, suffered a psychological break after discovering his entire career was engineered by corporate handlers. He slaughtered the executive board of Valor Corps and declared himself the sovereign ruler of the Eastern Seaboard. To this day, he is still in power.
Instead of uniting against him, other hero factions seized their own territories. Traditional states disintegrated as caped warlords divided the continental United States into feuding fiefdoms:
• The New Republic: A fascist military state controlled by heavily armed, zealous supes.
• The Wastelands: The ruined, irradiated Midwest, left to lawless, predatory supervillains.
• The Corporate Zone: A heavily policed technocracy in California run by surviving tech-monopolies.
The Shadow Era (Present Day, 2026)
Today, America is a hollowed-out battleground. Traditional military forces are completely obsolete, reduced to desperate insurgencies or mercenary bands serving super-powered masters. The line between hero and villain has been utterly erased; there are only those who wield absolute power and the normal humans who crawl beneath them.
From the ashes of the old world, a desperate underground human resistance has emerged: The Jury. Operating out of ruined city basements, they track, hunt, and execute rogue gods using stolen alien technology and chemical weaponry. They do not fight for justice or peace—they fight purely for human survival in a world where the gods have truly gone mad.