General Knowledge about the setting of Worm (No spoilers, trust me)

****Please read the other two Auxiliary chapters, this one I just wrote for fun, but the other two are rather important in order to be fluent in Worm slang.****

This is some general knowledge about the setting of the fanfiction, as while Worm/Ward and the whole Parahuman setting has a huge niche fandom, it is mostly unknown to outsiders, a lot of this is going to be explained in-story, but if you want something more comprehensible then here you go.

Keep in mind that this is only common knowledge WITHIN the setting, so stuff that an inquisitive citizen within the setting can know.

Here we go:

  -Earth-Bet-

  In this world, interdimensional travel was already discovered through the efforts of one Professor Haywire, a Tinker with a specialty in Dimensional travel, this person opened a portal from Earth-Bet to another Earth, called Earth-Aleph. Earth Bet has significantly more Parahumans than Aleph, with the latter being more peaceful.

People with superpowers did more than compensated. The Cold War fizzled out when Scion entered the picture and interfered with nuclear weapons testing. There are the remains of an abandoned base on the Moon that was being created by Sphere. Superhero comics are somewhat less popular and developed on Bet than in the real world.

-Parahumans-

  The technical term for people with superpowers, the colloquial one is "Cape" as in people with superhero costumes.

The exact origin of these powers is unknown, what is known is that ever since the appearance of the first Parahuman known as Scion in 1982, people started to spontaneously develop powers after a Trigger Event(to be explained later), and ever since 1987, these parahumans started to act as Heroes/Villains in costumes and do Heroic/Villainy stuff.

-Scion-

  The first (and largely known as the strongest) Parahuman in the world of Earth-Beth, he is a flawlessly perfect golden Human with long hair and a trimmed beard with no hair, he is extremely expressionless and does not typically talk with anyone, and he gives the aura of a perpetually sad person. Scion is ... a hero? I mean he helps people, but his sense of priority is not skewed, but absolutely fucking bonkers. A dangerous Parahuman is destroying a city! Where is Scion? Would you look at that?! He's helping a cat out of a tree in Sweden! 

  Yeah, so Scion could fly over a huge fire somewhere and completely ignore it in favor of helping an old lady cross the road on the other side of the world, he definitely knows what happens everywhere in the world, but he doesn't give a fuck for most things.

  His Power? We don't know, he can't be hurt, you can't run from him, he can fly, he doesn't sleep or eat, and has these crazy Golden Beams that destroy everything in their path.

-Trigger Event-

  The how to the powers, it is colloquially known as someone's absolutely worst day, so as you can imagine every Parahuman has some sort of fucked up psychic problem, don't talk or out a person's Trigger Event, that's a taboo amongst parahumans.

  Trigger Events are practically the world's ironic jokes, they are instrumental to what sort of power you're going to get, as the type of powers are often literal solutions to the problem that causes Trigger Events.

I say literally as in they're fucked up solutions, your trigger event is drowning to unconsciousness while you have a phobia of water? Well, there you go! Have the power to TURN INTO WATER!

  Each power is limited, so the only way to remove some of these limitations is by Second Triggering, upon which another of your worst days, which is VERY similar to the first, happens to you, and so you get a boost to your power, to use the previous example, You can turn into water but someone can control water and somehow recreates your trigger event? Well, congratulations! Not for the trauma, but now you can turn into other liquids! Now that asshole can't control you anymore. A good amount of Double Triggers are back to back, as in the event is so bad you trigger twice, so you get a greater power initially. 

  You can't trigger more than twice (:P)

-Manton Effect-

  The most common limitation present in Parahuman powers, it is very, very rare to not be Manton-limited and those that aren't are usually scary as fuck.

  It is the common tendency of powers to affect only inanimate objects or living targets, but not both. They seem to be "in-built" in powers to protect the Parahumans using them. If you can control electricity for example you can't control other people's bio-electricity, this seems to be a safety feature, so you don't accidentally try to move a lightning bolt only to electrocute your brain in the process. 

-World Matters-

  The emergence of Parahumans naturally changed the world in drastic ways.

  Africa was a constant warzone ruled mostly by emerging Parahuman Warlords.

  South America is completely under the heel of cartels and several criminal organizations and 75% of parahumans are villains.

  After Scion ceased the Cold War, the Soviet Union collapsed into the Russian Federation, where while Parahumans are not hated, they are constantly disliked, the government tends to isolate them and foster competition between capes, they also think both Chinese and American Parahumans to be too self-serving or controlling.

  The Republic of China became the Imperial Union, where an organization called the Yangban (nominally under the rule of the emperor, but no one knows if that is actually true or not) leveraged the powers of several of their members to capture and brainwash all the parahumans in their territory and even do the same within foreign lands, they are the most powerful entity within Asia.

  While in the rest of the world, Parahumans divided themselves into "Heroes", "Villains", and the industrious "Rogues", in India, capes are divided into the "Garama", media-savvy, well-known "hot" capes, and the Thanda, unacknowledged, unofficial "cold". However, the latter are generally more powerful than the latter since they specialize in "serious" fights in order to fight S-Class threats (Threat Assessment in another chapter) and the Endbringers (To be explained).

  The European Union was not able to form due to opposition from Villain organizations and Endbringer attacks, so the state of their nations varied from prospering countries to terrorist havens.

  Oceania in general (Australia and New Zealand) saved themselves from problems by allowing the Parahuman Response Team or the PRT(To be explained) to manage their Parahuman situation, so they share the same situation as North America.

  North America (Mexico excluded) saw the emergence of the Triumvirate, extremely powerful Parahumans that vowed to use their powers for the betterment of mankind, originally four people, these three capes were instrumental in forming the Protectorate, a government-sponsored organization of superheroes that spans both the USA and Canada, they fall under the jurisdiction of the PRT which is a paramilitary organization (like the police and other organizations within the government) that is responsible for dealing with Parahumans and the fallout of their actions, PRT members aren't allowed to be Parahumans.

-The Triumvirate-

  As was previously explained, they are the golden trio of the USA, powerful parahumans that singlehandedly managed to bring order. Their Members are Eidolon, Legend, and Alexandria.

  Alexandria: The Superwoman of this world, a Brute(Power classifications on the previous auxiliary chapter) power capable of making her invulnerable and super strong, a Mover rating for superspeed and flight, and a Thinker for faster thinking and perfect memory, so basically Superman without his weaknesses and auxiliary powers like supervision, cold breath, laser eyes, etc...

Named after the legendary Library of Alexandria due to her cognitive abilities. Known for being ruthless and pragmatic. The only injury suffered by the hero was at the hands of the Siberian, where she lost an eye.

  Legend: Rainbows, Rainbows! RAINBOWS! No seriously, he has all the lasers, can turn into light and move and process things equally as vast, can make lasers that can destroy, freeze, and electrocute city blocks faster than a machine gun, and can sacrifice a number of lasers in order to make singular SUPER lasers that can do much more.

He is openly gay and the sole reason for Earth-Beth being way more LGBT+ friendly than normal (Not for the Nazis though, but fuck'em), known for being kind and charismatic.

  Eidolon: The Trumpiest Trump(Power Classification in the previous chapter), the human Swiss army knife, the most versatile cape and largely known as the most powerful parahuman aside from Scion, has the ability to choose 3 to 5 powers depending on their strength that are the most useful in the situation.

Dealing with someone who can turn into water? Well, it has a power that can create water-repelling forcefields, one that helps you make freeze rays, and one that makes you hydrokinetic. His powers can range from dimension travel to how to sit in the most comfortable position.

Known for being aloof and mysterious.

  Hero(Deceased): Previous member of the group, a very formidable Tinker whose specialty was Wavelengths, known for his ability to replicate Scion's golden beams, but most importantly as the Heart of the Team who was the embodiment of what a Hero should be.

He died while protecting fellow hero Alexandria from a notorious member of the Slaughterhouse Nine also known as the Siberian, Eidolon was known to have frantically tried to heal him, but to no avail.

-Case 53's-

Or "Monstrous" capes, they were first discovered in out-of-the-way locations in urban areas across North America and around the world. They all exhibit retrograde amnesia, with their first memories being waking up in a strange city. They typically exhibit severe physical alterations or disfigurements and are each marked somewhere on their body with a symbol resembling a stylized "C" or the Greek letter Omega. 

-The PRT, the Protectorate, and the Wards-

  The PRT is a paramilitary branch of the government that deals with managing the fallout that may come from Parahumans and their powers, they handle everything, the training, and deployment of professionally trained mundane men who are equipped with dealing with most low-threat capes, the containment of Hazardous zones made by S-Class Threats and the Endbringers, managing the local branches of the Protectorate in order to fight effectively against criminal parahuman elements in the region, handling the logistics for capturing, judging, and emprisoning Parahumans, and recruiting local Parahumans into the Protectorate, with underage ones going into their auxiliary team known as the Wards.

Every significant region within their jurisdiction claims both a Branch of the PRT and the Protectorate, with the local directors of the PRT having a lot of autonomy in their methods.

The Head-Director of the PRT is Rebecca Costa-Brown, a hardass woman known for her smarts.

  The Protectorate is a team of superheroes funded and managed by the PRT that functions in a decentralized system similar to the PRT, usually members of each branch are local triggers, with exceptions, but Parahumans can be shuffled between branches as the situation, either received as reinforcement for repressed branches, or sent away due to the low presence of criminals within the region.

Each of the Triumvirate heads a local branch of the Protectorate, New York(Legend), Houston(Eidolon), and Los Angeles(Alexandria). Legend is also head of the Protectorate in general.

  The Wards is an auxiliary Hero team of the Protectorate dedicated to the safe training and protection of underage Parahumans, and most of them join the Protectorate when they reach majority.

The Youth Guard is an activist organization concerned with the welfare of the Wards and young Parahumans that gained significant power over the PRT due to court rulings, which meant that while underage had access to significant advantages within the justice system (Couldn't get sent to the Birdcage per example), they also put significant restriction in the Wards modus operandi which meant they weren't much help to the Protectorate as actual Heroes.

Deliberately attacking and targeting a Ward is a no-no, doing so - even if you fail- will bring the wrath of god on whoever is responsible, either as significant reinforcements towards the local Protectorate and destroying whoever is responsible, or bringing a member of the Triumvirate on your head, and getting destroyed anyway.

-The Guild-

  The Guild is a Canadian hero team focused on the handling of international threats (As in A and S class threats), due to their amicable relationship with the Protectorate, members of the latter could also be members of the former.

The Guild has extremely high standards and requires - and allows - a high degree of autonomy from its members, as well as a certain philosophy. Their most famous members are Dragon and Narwhal, with the latter being their leader.

  Dragon is the currently uncontested most powerful Tinker in the world, her specialty is Reverse Engineering, and she is one of the very, very few Tinkers capable of mass producing their technology, the only other known Tinker to do so is also a member of the Guild, Masamune, whose specialty was actually mass production.

She is known to wear a different suit every time she deploys, with each and every one of them being superior power armor to any other known Tinker, some argue that she is the most powerful Parahuman in Earth-Bet, but that is more accredited to Eidolon.

She also is one of the few capes who have a 'Nemesis', namely the Dragonslayers, a group of Tinker mercenaries known for stealing and escaping for Dragon numerous times, although no one knows how. 

  Narwhal is the Head of the Guild and the Protectorate leader of the Toronto branch, she is a seven-foot-tall woman with military experience, and her power warped her personality into being hard-headed and very workaholic.

Narwhal originally had the power to create violet crystalline forcefields that she can control remotely with fast speeds (40km/h), due to her second Trigger her power was no longer Manton limited within 50 feet, which meant that she could create forcefields inside someone's body, bisecting their bodies. This makes her extremely potent in lethal takedowns.

She also goes out almost nude in her cape persona, with only several crystalline scales made of her power hiding as clothes.

-Endbringers-

  The Endbringers are monstrous beings that take turns attacking locations around the globe, seemingly with no other goal than to cause as much destruction as they possibly can. After sustaining sufficient damage, they retreat to their respective domains to heal, only to attack again months later.

Aside from the regeneration and incredible durability associated with their physiology, all Endbringers have some offensive time-intensive ability. Endbringers cannot be predicted easily with the typical Thinker danger sense and are also a blind spot to the typical precognition.

  Behemoth - also known as "Hadhayosh" and "Prathama" - was the first Endbringer to appear. He made his first appearance in the Marun Field of Iran on December 13, 1992.

He is a dynakinetic capable of manipulating energy in all of its forms; he can also bypass the Manton effect within a radius of around 30 feet. Because of this, he gained a reputation as the 'Herokiller', possessing a high body count at short range.

The Protectorate recommended that capes should maintain a distance of at least 100 feet from him, as any closer would mean little chance of escape should he wish to close the gap and vaporize, electrocute, or otherwise kill them; even super-speed capes could be out-sped and killed by his lightning.

That said, Behemoth seems to lack complete control over his energy manipulation, as demonstrated in the New Delhi fight, when Weaver and several Wards with her were able to create a large metal structure that acted as a lightning rod and re-directed some of his lightning bolts.

  Leviathan — also known as "Jormungand" or "Jörmungandr" — first appeared in Oslo, Norway on June 9, 1996. His abilities include macro-scale hydrokinesis, extreme speed and agility, and a water "afterimage" that follows behind him and moves as fast as Leviathan himself. He is known for causing immense environmental damage, devastating areas such as Newfoundland and Kyushu to the point of becoming uninhabitable.

  The Simurgh, also known as "Ziz", first appeared in Lausanne, Switzerland on December 30, 2002. She has psionic abilities (most infamously manifesting as a "song") and the ability to draw on Tinker powers around her in order to build her own devices.

She also has near-perfect precognition, which not only makes her extremely effective in combat but also enables her to target key locations or individuals.

When she attacks a location, she is known to use her telepathic and precognitive abilities in order to set up chains of events that will cause future strife and devastation, manipulating individuals so that they will unknowingly bring tragedy upon themselves or others. Any region she attacks is subsequently quarantined to try and mitigate these effects, such as in the case of Madison, Wisconsin.

Long-reaching plots of this Endbringer are colliaquilty known as Simurgh Plots, and people that are not obviously affected by her brainwashing are known as Simurgh Bombs.

  Until now, there have been no cases of Endbringer death. The Endbringers all attack at set times, with the time between attacks decreasing as the number of Endbringers increases. When Behemoth showed up, an attack occurred 1 per 8 months; when Leviathan joined, the attacks became 1 per 5 months; when the Simurgh joined, the attacks became 1 per 3.5 months.

  There exists groups such as the Fallen who worship Endbringers as gods, and are reviled and hated by most people.

-Unwritten Rules-

  Due to the existence of the Endbringers, several Unwritten Rules between Parahumans came to be in order to be able to fight against these threats, the initial one is known as the Endbringer Truce, upon which any Parahuman that takes advantage of the time of these attacks is to be targeted by the rest, Heroes and Villains nonetheless. 

Several other rules came to be after the first one, some of them differed according to the region, but the common ones are known. Mainly, don't try to unmask a Parahuman, don't use lethal force (if you do so, then you can bet your ass everyone will do the same to you), don't rape, and don't target other people's families and close ones.

But these rules are unwritten so they can't be applicable in court (Except for the Endbringer Truce), so any villain that thinks he can get away with this or is powerful enough to ignore the consequences will have no qualms breaking them.

The Protectorate abides by these rules because it keeps collateral damage at a minimum. A villain won't go catatonic if he has a safe place to go back to in his civilian identity.

-Kill Order-

  Kill Orders are documents signed by the PRT allowing for the murder of a Parahuman without repercussions, they can be issued to punish people who consistently break the Unwritten Rules (For the Endbringer Truce, just once is enough to get your ass done). 

They generally only applied to people whom even other villains agreed needed to be dealt with.

Signing a kill order usually involved the local PRT discussing the situation with the civilian government, police, judges, and often neighboring PRT Directors. It involves an "abbreviated trial" and sentencing. While kill orders usually take a while to be implemented, sometimes the process is expedited or even pre-signed as a deterrent measure.

-The Birdcage-

  The Baumann Parahuman Containment Center, better known as the Birdcage, is a prison specialized for holding dangerous Parahumans that pose some danger to society, it was singlehandedly built by Dragon somewhere in Canada, and no one but she knows where it is. She is also responsible for personally escorting every person sentenced to holding there, and it is beyond even her power to take out someone inside.

The most famous inmate is the notorious Glaistig Uaine, a powerful Trump capable of manifesting any three ghosts of any Parahumans within an unknown range around her while being able to insta-kill any Parahuman with a touch. 

As with any prison, the inmates have their own economies and trade relationships. Cellblock leaders are recognized within the prison as authority figures but not outside it. There are more cell blocks than there are leaders but it is recognized that this works. There are lawless zones outside of the cell blocks where people can reside.

Dragon specifically places or directs inmates to specific areas and orders inmates to do things in order to keep the peace.

-Famous Kill Order Recipients-

The Slaughterhouse Nine:

  A group of -you guessed it- nine Parahuman known for being, well, psychopaths. They are known to visit towns are massacre the entire population, and while some of them get eliminated, the group forcefully inducts other parahumans through "tests" if you know what I mean. Although they have core members.

They are active in the USA.

  Jack Slash is the leader of the group and the oldest member of the group responsible for killing King, the previous leader. Has a not-so-powerful ability that allows him to project the cutting/slashing ability of any handheld cutting tool at his disposal, what he can do is actually limited to the capability of the tool used, he can use his fingernails for example, but they can't actually do anything.

But for all his weakness, there are no anecdotes upon which he lost any fight, as he compensates his rather unremarkable power with his intelligence. He is very charming and charismatic, although very obviously demented. (Think Batman who laughs without the paranoia).

  Bonesaw is the pubescent "Annie" of the group, a notorious bio-tinker, as in a tinker who can affect biological matter with their technology, she can augment her allies, giving them low-Brute level and anti-Master abilities, and she can make corpse puppets out of corpses that keep their Parahuman abilities, engineer Plagues that cannot be cured with normal technology, and is suspect to have implanted several back-up devastating plagues in her and Jack Slash's bodies in the cas they die capable of erasing a continent's population.

  The Siberian is a black and white striped woman, and so the effect can be fully appreciated, she leaves her 5'8" frame completely bare. The Siberian is both an unstoppable force and an immovable object, her body can for all perception ignore the laws of physics, she can ignore any defense, and take any amount of attacks without moving an inch. She can also share the property of her body with anything else through physical contact, which she commonly uses on Bonesaw whom she expresses maternal instincts.

Some time-based powers, or "annihilation" type effects can temporarily 'pop' the Siberian, upon which she can reform.

Her fight against Hero and the future Triumvirate (i.e., Legend, Alexandria, and Eidolon) is remarked to be "the first time a truly dangerous villain made an appearance". She fought the Triumvirate numerous times.

  Crawler, the last core member of the group, is a very powerful Changer, his power is adaptive regeneration, upon which he has a very potent healing factor, and any method used to injure him slowly loses effectiveness. His resistance to certain types of damage can go down to "make space" for other adaptations, due to his abilities he is notoriously hard to injure let alone kill, and his long experience meant that he already amassed a spectacular array of resistances/immunities.

He is however a masochist who gets off on pain, and so he spends all his time fantasizing/searching for someone who can do so.

He no longer has a humanoid form and is more reminiscent of a lizard abomination.

Not unlike the Siberian, he is a cannibal.

  Shatterbird is a silica-based shaker, as in she has the ability to control any silicone over a large region through sound-based vibration, she is known as the group "Announcer", as any Slaughterhouse attack is almost certainly preceded by a ringing sound that destroys most silicone based objects within the area, including glass.

  Mannequin, formerly known as Sphere, was a Tinker targeted by the Simurgh due to his project of building a base on the Moon, he was driven crazy by the latter, both through her "Scream", and by murdering his wife and child. He is known to target Tinkers who wish to reciprocate his efforts in humanitarian projects, which caused most Tinkers to refrain from these types of projects.

  Aside from their core members, Slaughterhouse Nine members don't have a particularly large life expectancy, as they are either killed by one of the members or a particular hero/Bounty hunter.

Nilbog:

  James Rinke, Nilbog(Goblin in reverse) is a bio-tinker capable of creating living organisms from organic matter (including human bodies), he massacred his hometown, Ellisburg, and created a kingdom made of his creatures to replace its inhabitant, similar to Bonesaw, it is believed that he has several back-up biological measures in case of his demise.

His creations can have biological components that can make them equivalent to Parahumans in power, which allowed him to massacre the first and only attack sent by the PRT in order to execute their Kill Order on him, leaving only two survivors. 

He is content to live in his fantastical kingdom while the PRT surrounds the city of Ellisburg in Containment, with various troopers and Parahumans patrolling the vicinity for any issues.

Sleeper:

  A Russian S-Class threat that can make reality-warping storms, the exact nature of his powers is unknown, but he is capable of using them to devastating effects, mostly left alone by the Guild and the Russian government since he is not known to openly cause chaos, but under constant surveillance.

Heartbreaker:

  Technically, Heartbreaker doesn't have a Kill Order on his name, but that is only due to the fact that he has moles that may be capable of causing irreparable damage to the organization. 

A powerful Canadian Master, he is capable of manipulating the emotions of any living being within his line of sight, he uses this power to force attractive women to fall in love with him or to convince them to give him money, he has a huge harem of women willing to do his bidding, and has 'infected' several spies within the government and the PRT.

He has numerous children and is known for his powers on them to cause debilitating sadness or fright. Due to the tendency of children of Parahumans also developing similar powers to their parents, he has caused several of them to experience a trigger event and uses them as members of his Gang.

Ash Beast:

  Ash Beast is a cape active in North Africa.

Ash Beast's power is not fully understood but relies on conversion between mass and energy to constantly surround himself with some kind of explosion. He seems to possess a regenerative ability and exhibits partially uncontrolled shape-shifting. His explosions are comparable in power to the destructive capabilities of an S-Class threat.

It is unknown whether he is even conscious or not, as he seems to be unable to react to any communication efforts, but he is constantly, slowly, edging towards close settlement. Due to his slowness, it is fairly easy to evacuate everyone before his arrival, but any settlement is completely lost after he goes through it.

Three Blaphsemies:

  The Blasphemies are a result of multiple tinkers of different specializations simultaneously and independently constructing something nearly identical. Their exact powers are unknown, however, they are capable of being negotiated with and are much more reasonable than other, crazy, S-Class Threats.

The Machine Army:

  It's a Machine AI made by an already deceased Tinker that did what Nilbog did to Pittsburg to Eagleton, they're scary and self-replicating.

Well, that's it.