Difference between revisions of "Halcyon Academy"

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Halcyon Academy Strength through Knowledge. Halcyon Academy Leader(s): Fayrechilde, Zizi, _Wiccan_, Sersi, Yasfan (Retired), Ivarian (Retired), Seffs, TheDart (Retired) Base of Operations: Halcyon Academy, Millennium City Concept: A school dedicated to turning today's children into tomorrow's heroes - costumed or otherwise. Founded: August 3rd, 2009 Website: Click Here Members: 52 Players Est. 2009

Halcyon Academy is a school whose founders are dedicated to a single purpose - providing a high-quality, low-cost education to any and all students who wish to pursue a life better than the one that they currently have.

IC

Founding & Purpose

In 1955, Harold Lockheart was born in Cambridge, England. His youth was a rough one, and by the time he was eighteen, he was secretly stalking the streets as The Crescent, a violent and cynical vigilante who operated under the firm belief that the only deterrent to crime was to simply kill the perpetrators and string them up as a warning to the rest.

As time wore on, however, he saw that his methods were ineffective - and, in fact, were proving counter-productive. Discouraged, Harold began seeking alternatives. By 1995, he had not only retired as the Crescent entirely, but had achieved two doctorates in psychology and criminal psychology, and dedicated his life to the rehabilitation of convicted criminals and supervillains. Education, he had decided, was the answer that he had been seeking.

In the wake of the 2009 Destroid Invasion in Millennium City, Lockheart decided to found a school. With funding from investors both private and otherwise, he built the Halcyon Academy, utilizing bleeding edge technology from his friends at Tanaka Industries to completely outfit the facilities with everything they could possibly need. He hired the finest educators he could find and cut deals with local law enforcement to provide the school with guest lecturers, and called in favors with superheroes, some he knew and some he didn't, to help mentor the students who exhibited the will to help others.

In September of 2009, the first classes at the Academy were held, and Lockheart's dream solidified into a tangible reality. Powered and unpowered students alike came together under one roof and began learning together, discovering new ways to better themselves and the world around them.

Facilities & Resources

Located near Millennium City’s central Renaissance Center, Halcyon Academy is, on its surface, composed of two buildings on adjacent lots – the Academy itself, and the school’s dormitories.

The Campus

The Academy itself is much larger than it looks. From the street, it looks like a rather standard, if large, inner city high school – three stories with a gymnasium for sports and an auditorium[1] for theater events, an open grassy area in back, and so on. It’s what’s inside the Academy – and beneath it –that makes it unique.

The entire facility is state of the art, thanks to donations and funding provided by the school’s investors. Throughout the facility – as well as the dormitories – is an advanced computer system with a Tanaka Industries Artificial Intelligence unit serving as its user interface.

Known as Holly, the AI recognizes voice commands and it is her job to answer questions, give directions, and generally help the faculty keep an eye on the student body and their visitors to make sure that no one is getting into too much trouble, or into parts of the campus that they aren’t supposed to be in without supervision, due to safety concerns. In addition to responding verbally to requests, holographic emitters throughout the school and dorms allow her to manifest in a form of her choosing when dealing with students, and she often tries to be more personable and relate to her charges. She does not always succeed.

In addition to Holly, each classroom has its own workstations, and the teachers are able to access their classroom’s holoemitters themselves to highlight the topic of the day in lieu of a more traditional chalkboard.

Located on the first floor of the academy is the school’s cafeteria[2]. Here, students can enjoy a respectable range of foods for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. However, the school also acknowledges that not every student’s metabolism and eating habits are the same. Because of this, the cafeteria staff is educated in preparing custom meals for students whose diets require unique specifications. The cafeteria also remains open until 3 A.M. to service any students whose systems run on a nocturnal cycle.

On the second floor is the academy’s library[3], where students may come to find research material or to sit and study quietly. Although most research and reading is done online, the academy keeps hard copies of most reference and classical literary works, bringing the library’s total of books to approximately 4 million. The library also has on hand a wide variety of maps, CD’s, news clippings related to supernatural phenomena, and materials for the blind.

The Academy extends into five additional sub-levels, which is where the super-powered curriculum is typically handled, leaving the visible school above for more traditional classes such as English, math, and so forth. The sublevels are accessible only to faculty, mentors, students, and supervised family members, not out of any desire for secrecy, but due to the inherent danger of having an area dedicated to helping people learn to control potentially dangerous abilities – it wouldn’t do for someone to walk into the wrong place and get set on fire!

Amongst these facilities is a training area affectionately dubbed by the school’s comic book fans as the Danger Room. It is exactly what its name implies – a programmable room wrought with dangers, designed not only to teach students how to deal with such situations in a safe environment, but also to help the experienced heroes in residence stay on top of their respective games.

Although most of the school’s research material is located in the library, more specialized research such as Qularr Biochemistry, Demonic Alchemy, or manuals on assembling weapons, can be found in the school’s Science[4], Arcane[5], and Arms Development[6] laboratories located in the school’s sublevels. These labs are staffed at all hours by technicians and scientists, utilizing the Academy’s resources to do their research. Students are able to use these labs under their supervision.

The Med Bay[7] is a state of the art medical facility, a sharp contrast to the rather simple nurse’s office on the ground floor. Medicine in the Champions universe is advanced to a point where most diseases no longer exist or are simply obsolete, and the Med Bay reflects this.

The last of the Academy’s primary facilities is the hangar. While the Academy is happy to utilize the transportation provided by the Champions, PRIMUS and UNTIL whenever possible, sometimes there is no time to arrange it. In those cases, they have their own hangar, with craft donated by retired heroes, philanthropists, and good-intentioned gadgeteers.

One of these craft is the ship formerly used by the hero known as the Crescent – the Arc-1. Sleek, small, quiet, and armed to the teeth, the Arc-1 seats one pilot and four passengers comfortably, but is capable of carrying more in the event of a rescue mission or similar – it would just end up a bit cramped. The Arc-1 is not an easy craft to fly, even for trained pilots, but the Headmaster has trained several of the school’s mentors in the controls. Students who prove themselves mature enough and trustworthy enough may also be approached for lessons in flying the versatile little craft, though Holly’s interface makes the chances of anyone – student or otherwise – running off with the ship without permission a somewhat unlikely scenario. Still… nothing is impossible.

The Dormitories

When Headmaster Lockheart purchased the site of the Academy itself, he also purchased the hotel that already existed on the lot across the street. This hotel was extensively renovated and remodeled, and today, it serves as Halcyon Academy’s student housing facility, with Holly as the resident denmother.

The first floor is primarily dedicated to common areas – the lobby is a common lounge, there is a game room with a handful of arcade machines and a pool table, there’s a cafeteria with decent-quality food provided free with a student ID, and the heated swimming pool was not removed when the school moved in. As with all of Millennium City, the dorms have access to free high-speed wireless internet, making for a rather comfortable environment for relaxation and recreation.

The rooms themselves come in several flavors, and can be personalized via paint or wallpaper, if the residents so choose, provided they help clean the room back up if they should decide to leave.

Singles tend to be fairly small and modest, but also come at the lowest cost - they tend to be reserved for students who, for one reason or another, are unable or unwilling to be put into confined quarters with others, and the school is willing to meet their needs. It’s plenty of room for one student to live comfortably, akin to a studio apartment – one room for sleeping, studying, etcetera, with an attached bathroom and shower.

Doubles are a bit like the singles are, in that you have a single room with an attached private bathroom. Rather than just the one bed and desk, however, there are two, and the room itself is larger to accommodate this.

Quads are a mix of the two. There is a common living room with two bathrooms and a kitchenette, and four small, single bedrooms branch off of it. It grants both privacy and a bit of socialization, for those who are seeking an acceptable middleground.

Resources

There are two personal gadgets that are covered under every student’s tuition that they receive upon their arrival to the Halcyon Academy.

The first is a laptop. While it is intended for academic use, the school’s laptops are advanced enough that they have no trouble with most current generation computer games, and they have enough storage capacity that one wouldn’t have to decide between one or the other. The laptop is theirs to do with as they please, after all – but it goes without saying that anyone playing Battleaxe 20,000,000 instead of paying attention to their English lecture would be in for a detention.

The second is a communicator. The comm is customizable to a degree – some students prefer to wear it like a watch, others a headset, some just a simple earbud – but it always works the same way, providing a line of communication between the students and the school itself. Most mentors also possess a communicator, though whether or not they leave it on when not officially on-duty with the school is a matter of personal preference.

Classes

Clubs

Where there are students, there are student organizations and clubs. The Academy is no different.

Yearbook

A collaborative effort between Halcyon's Student Government and the Outreach coalition resulted in Halcyon's first Yearbook Hardcover copies are only $29.99 and can be ordered at the Student Government office, located inside of Rave's Dorm room. Supplies are limited to order only.

OOC

Founding & Purpose

Once upon a time, there was a Star Trek Online fleet called Halcyon Epsilon Fleet. There, two of its members - TheDart and Zizi - found many friends, many awesome stories, and some kickin' rad company.

While enjoying the kickin' rad company of their new friends, they happened to mention Champions Online, a game also in the works from Cryptic Studios - and one that they had been testing since September of 2008. Though still under the NDA, they enthused as much as they could without getting into trouble, and as the open beta approached, convinced several of their friends to try the game out with them.

One day, TheDart joked, "We should start a spin-off guild in CO." Noone realized that she was joking, and within a day, she had obtained permission from the fleet's then-officers, set up a forum, and tapped Zizi and Ivarian to join her as the supergroup's OOC Head Honchos. Their mission: a lighthearted, fun supergroup full of likeminded individuals who, like them, were there to play the game, tell some stories, and make some friends.

Apparently, this mission was a very popular one, since the supergroup soon exploded into an 80-person guild that far exceeded their wildest expectations. Who knew?

In December '09, TheDart passed her officer hat over to Fayrechilde in a cunning scheme to make the guild more awesome.

Policies

Rules of Conduct

Halcyon Academy’s leadership is divided equally amongst its officers: Fayrechilde, Ivarian, and Zizi. Decisions of importance to the supergroup are put to a vote amongst these officers. A unanimous agreement is always the desired outcome – however, if opinions differ, time will be given for any dissenter to make their case to the others. If a concensus cannot be reached, the final decision will be reached through a majority vote amongst the three officers. These decisions include, but are not limited to:

- Acceptance of applicants

- Large-scale RP events that will affect the supergroup as a whole

- Disciplinary action and removal of members

We hold ourselves to the same standards as we do the rest of the group. If for any reason you feel that one of the officers has violated any of the rules listed below, contact us, and it will be addressed fairly and transparently. An officer who does not follow the rules can and will be removed from their position, or even from the supergroup as a whole, depending on the nature of the indiscretion.

General Standards of Behavior

Above all, Halcyon Academy is about having fun. Our primary goals include role-playing, storytelling, making new friends, chatting in our forums, and enjoying Champions Online together. We desire to be a tight-knit, happy group. To this end, we have a very low drama threshold. Causing unnecessary drama in any context will not be tolerated. Abusive or offensive language is not allowed and may be deemed grounds for immediate removal from the supergroup.

Put simply, we expect members to treat others as they would like to be treated. As a group of mature gamers and writers, we trust that our members have a solid foundation in common sense. We therefore expect members to use that common sense in how they behave and how they treat each other, as well as how they treat those outside the supergroup. For example, if you are unsure if you should say/type/post something, chances are you probably shouldn’t. When you post on the official CO forums, you still represent our supergroup as surely as if you were posting on the Halcyon Academy forums. We expect you to represent us proudly in the way you handle yourself not only in the game and in our own forums, but also on the official forums.

Be excellent to each other.

Role-Playing Standards

Halcyon Academy is a heavy role-playing supergroup. This means that we expect members to behave fully in-character while in the game. While some OOC is absolutely allowed on team and SG channels, we do ask that you clearly mark it so that it may be easily distinguished from any IC currently underway.

Role-playing is never to be used as an excuse for behaving abusively towards other players, be they members of Halcyon Academy or not. If your character’s backstory includes a passionate dislike for aliens, we encourage you to incorporate this in good fun, but this does not give you free reign to verbally berate every alien in sight. Now, if an alien player is receptive to this RP and is happy to play along, it’s perfectly acceptable and encouraged. As a role-playing supergroup, we want our characters to behave in-character. But at the same time, we recognize the need to be sensitive to the needs of other players who may not choose to role-play, or who may not enjoy playing along with your style of role-play. The general rule here is: role-playing is strongly encouraged in any capacity, unless it’s taken to such an extreme that it is impeding the fun of another player.

As a group with a strong storytelling focus, we actively encourage our members to post character stories, journals, etc. in our forums. We do require that the content of these stories not exceed what would be considered a typical PG-13 rating. Basically, if what you are describing in a story is something that would push the bounds of what they could show in a television series that does not air on a network such as Showtime or HBO, we ask that you have an officer review that section of the story before you post it and make sure that, if it is cleared for posting, that you put a rating disclaimer at the top so that people have the option of avoiding content they may not wish to see. Violence is a mainstay of comic books, and we understand that. We just request that you leave any exceptionally gory details for the reader to infer rather than describing them in unnecessary detail. We are a family-friendly supergroup with several members who are sixteen years old or under. Keep in mind our rating and the setting that we’re all working with, and a creative writer can get away with a great deal.

One of our most important role-playing rules is regarding the use of other members’ characters in your stories. If you would like to incorporate another person’s character, please ask them first. It’s common courtesy. We have all spent a great deal of time creating these characters, and there is no worse feeling than having another member feature your character in one of their stories without your consent and seeing your character behaving and speaking in a manner you would not have chosen for them. We are very mindful of the ownership we feel over these characters we have each created. If you wish to use another player’s character in your story, get their permission to do so. The other player may want to write their own character’s dialogue, and we fully defend their right to do so. This may even open the door to full story collaborations between members, if both parties are interested in such endeavors!

We encourage members to post responses and feedback to member stories on our forums. Constructive criticism to our stories is also welcome, so long as it’s offered in a spirit of encouragement. We want to build each other up as role-players and storytellers, not tear anybody down.

Disciplinary Action

Any offense will normally be met with a warning from an officer. After three warnings, a member will be considered for possible removal from the supergroup. However, officers also reserve the right to remove anyone from the supergroup without warning, if the nature of the offense is determined to be deserving of such action. If you believe you have witnessed a supergroup member in violation of our standards, whether it be in-game, in our forums, in our chat room, or on the official CO forums, please notify an officer. We have set very high standards for Halcyon Academy, and we intend to live up to them in the hopes of making our group one of the premiere groups in Champions Online.

If you have questions about any of these regulations, please contact an officer – we’re happy to help.

A Word On Tone

Originally written by Zizi on 08/04/09

There is a large spectrum of "superhero school RP", so it's important that we mention where we choose to lay in the spectrum right up front.

Halcyon Academy is intended to be lighthearted, laid back and fun. You will not see grim, serious professors teaching students to always use their powers wisely(though the school only hires "role models"). You will see little "the world fears us, you must be careful" and very little of that sort of moralistic focus. This is, almost literally, normal High School/College with superpowers. We expect a certain amount of amusing but harmless hijinks, we expect fun, we expect that angsty gritty realist drama be kept in moderation.

To wit: this is not intended to be Xavier's School for the Gifted, this is Sky High. We're not Blood the last Vampire; we're Buffy the Vampire Slayer. We're not Space: Above and Beyond; we're Firefly. We're not Bladerunner; we're The Fifth Element.

The reason we've chosen to go this way is because this isn't MUO or DCU or CoH. Champions, as an IP, is not exactly a parody by any means-- but it IS a self-aware wild romp through superhero tropes that treats itself and the genre with a sort of cheeky irreverence and tongue-in-cheek humour, and this seems to be a facet that Cryptic is aware of and a tone they themselves are taking (See: Foxbat, Snake Gulch, the end of the new Melee Video, Tunneling Travel Power, etc). This is likely to be a game about Fun more than about Serious. And that is how we're choosing to Roleplay in it.

So there you go, that's what to expect. Game on.

Powers Guidelines

It says guidelines, because they're flexible. However, these should be taken seriously, as they will be used if for some reason a conflict needs officer arbitration.

Naturally, there is a limit to what the game can provide in terms of powers. As players and role-players, we therefore have to be flexible about what the game provides and allow for things it doesn't. However, it is important to keep this reasonable and reconcilable. There will be times in RP where what one person claims to be able to do is not accepted by another player-- in these cases, we must have a meterstick.

Since Halcyon Academy is not a closed group-- that is, we allow and encourage members to RP with people outside the group, this meterstick must be common beyond our own collection of players. Thus, we ask players respect the following guideline:

If it can't be represented in the game somehow, it is not valid where conflicts exist. In short, Champions Online and its ruleset is the ultimate arbiter of OOC roleplay conflicts in regards to powers, especially with regards to interactions outside the Academy. Internal conflicts may be arbitrated by the OOC officers if both parties agree to that alternative. We ask that players restrain themselves to abilities that are relatively easy to represent inside Champions Online directly to make this easier. We feel this is fair, because Halcyon is intended to be a RP group based in the game in question.

In plain language: If you can't prove you can do something inside the game, don't insist anyone treat your character as if they can.

For example: Player A's character concept is a reality manipulator, represented in the game by a large variety of power choices. However, their IC power encompasses a lot more than that, and in RP, they alter the reality of a situation to resolve it. Player B feels this is unfair. In this extreme case, the situation is arbitrated in Player B's favor, as the game does not support in any fashion what Player A is attempting to do. Therefore, Player A's abilities are only valid as far as other players are willing to grant, or as far as the game can represent in terms of the actual powers they have taken.

For another: Hydro boy is a water-powered hero, which he has represented in the game by re-coloring certain powers. Another player takes issue with his stated ability to shoot water and knock things down, as the game does not have water powers(hypothetically). Since he has taken projectile powers and colored them to attempt to make them seem like water, Hydro boy's claims are considered valid for our purposes.

There are many more examples-- too many to count. Most people will never have issues with these guidelines, but there are always a few folks that insist on reaching far outside of the game and want everyone around them to bow to their wishes. No one likes getting stuck playing with that sort of person. That is why we have this policy-- to avoid being a group people avoid because of members inside it acting in this fashion, and to provide a firm guideline for what most of us already realize is a necessity.

Alt Policy

Update: October 11th, 2009

A player may have a maximum of six total characters within the supergroup. This can be a mix of anything - mentors, students, or alts. There is no max number of a given type of character that one can have, only a limit on how many total.

If you have an alt you'd like to bring into the Academy, you've got two options:

One is bringing them in at the Guest Speaker rank. This is our rank for true alts, characters that are not technically affiliated with the school to the same degree as students and mentors are. For example, Seer's sister would be at this rank, since she does not attend the school herself. If the alt is roleplayed, we can come up with an excuse for them to have access to the com channel/sg very easy so that you don't have to miss out on any of the fun that goes on there. However, these characters cannot live on the school grounds - that affiliates them with the school, and for that, you need a Student or a Mentor. Otherwise, it looks like you're just trying to get around writing a background for the character like everyone else has to when they want a character in the SG, including the officers, and that annoys us.

Don't annoy us.

The other is bringing them in as a student or mentor formally. To do this, just run your character idea, in brief, by an officer - we'll give you a WOO if they fit our tone, same standards as any other characters here are put to, and then you just post a bio (note: NOT AN APPLICATION!) and if all is well after the bio has been reviewed, we get your alt all recruited. Officers have to do this, friends of officers have to do this, and you have to do this. Everybody has to do this.

Both of your options will require a complete list of your existing SG characters so that we can be sure you're not going over the cap.

Easy as pie.

The number of characters allowed within the supergroup, as defined by CO's code, is presently 250. Should we begin to near that number, the maximum number of alts may once again be reviewed.

New Additions: Sept 16th, 2009

Some people have raised the topic of having many alts that are all technically the same character - toying with other builds that the Build system itself isn't robust enough to handle. What's the policy on that?

Sure!

Just let us know what's up and instead of posting a new bio, update your existing character's biography with the information on the alt(s). That will let me keep track, which is a GOOD THING.

They will then be added to the census as if they were a completely different character so that the Total Characters number still matches the Students/Mentors/Other total and my brain doesn't explode as a result.

This means that, if you have one character with five variations on their powers, that counts as five of your six character slots in the supergroup - not as one. Be mindful of this fact.

Similarly, there has been some confusion of late as to why we ask for a quick sum-up of a character and still ask for a bio after we deem them OK. Here is why:

Sometimes, what sounds fine in three short sentences does not actually fit our theme when we have a more complete picture of the character.

When we say "Sure, that sounds good - write up a bio!", it is not a guarantee that the alt will be accepted into the supergroup. It means that there is nothing glaringly obvious in the summary you gave us that might make us put the brakes on your idea, and so going ahead and writing up a bio would most likely not be a waste of your time.

We read the bios before we admit alts into the supergroup for this very reason, and besides - why would we ask you to post them if we weren't going to read them? That would be silly of us.

Census

Players: 52

Students: 108

Mentors: 31

Other: 14

Total Characters: 153

SG Character Limit: 500

Last Updated: 09/18/2011, 12am EST

Members

Students

A Bot, Alex Williams, Aries, Arla, Benjamin Drake, Black Willow, BladeStorm, Blitzengirl, Brendan MacLeod, Brianna Frost, Bruiser, Cameron Lane, Candle, Carrion, Catora, Chak Ti, Clarissa Burke, Clump, Creed, Cyn-D, Danna, Darklyn, DarkWatch, Daru'cha, DeMara, Djinnja, Dusk Hawk, Ebon, Esper, Ethan Cross, Feyra, Fire Ant, Fleche, Fletch, Foreshadow, Framework, Friction, Gally, Grill, Grimtress, Hannelore O'Hare, Helios, Hellion, Hellstorm, Intensia, Jury, Kadiric Brookes, Kaelianna, Kaiden, Kelise Ravensword, Kozue, Kunoichi, Leo Buckland, Lightlance, Livewire, Longstride, Lyndsey Darkholm, Macro, Maul Rat, Medusa, Mishakari, Ninja Grrl, Noetic, Notch, Pagan, Pharos, Phoenix Knight, Powersurge, Psi Shadow, Psilas, Psyblade, Rain, Ralon, Raspberry Ice, Rastrinfharian, Rave, Recurve, Rogue, Sandie, Sarah Staten, Scrap-heap, Shifter, Signe av Lofn, Silexa, Siocteine, Sky Blast, Static, Steel Fang, Storm Dragon, Strato-Girl, Sylistra, Taloure, Teep, The Belfast Brawler, Toby Murphy, Toxin, UberGirl, Unyfy, Valiant, Velvet Stone, Vincent Daniels, Violet, Vyelle, War Child, Xage, Xu'sci, Yellow Jacket, Zachariah Greenthorne.

Mentors

Aeterna, Archimedes, Artful Fox, Belinda Post, Brink, Cajun Style, Catheryn Grey, Chill, Darkmyst, Dr. Derek Altman, Dr. Farenheit, Dr. Jack Zorn, Ferrislade, Genryuu Kyoute, Heretic Green, Hjarold the Hjerald, Johnny Law, K'Listral, Lizbeth Sartori, Nilaka Glacialdancer, Pill, Ralon, Recurve, Sarah Raveneye, Shara, Spike, Steel Angel, Superior, Sylistra, Typhoon, Zelly.

Guest Speakers and Support Staff

Fayrechilde, Michelle Staten

Enemies

Kitbat