You weren’t one of those that Awakened like your companion, but you have a few gifts after dealing with radiation so long in your power plant. Sun Fury was like a Superwoman of your little ragtag team that is occasionally employed by the Fearless Force to patrol the Ossuary. You three were out on a C.O.P. Alert (Citizens Observe & Protect Alert) near the docks for a robbery that turned bloody. Sun Fury took two bullets and didn’t flinch, while you somehow got out of the way, and Shadow Heir took several more, dropping like a sack of potatoes.

Between you and Sun Fury, the four gangsters were apprehended. Sun Fury looked around, realized Shadow Heir was bleeding out and told you to hurry and find a car. She knew somewhere that they could get more immediate help than heading to the hospital an hour of traffic and streetlights later.

She pulled into the upper-crusty part of the Ossuary, into the driveway of a suburban house and told you to go in with Shadow Heir. “Tell the man you find that Sally sent you.” She said with an earnest look. “He’ll fix Shadow up, and I’ll be back after getting this outta here.” You nod and help Shadow limp into the house.

The man there is sipping from a wine glass as you enter, staggering under the weight of your companion. He’s in a robe and loose pajamas. The man stares over the scene for a moment before quickly moving to help. “Keep him here. I’ll get my kit. Is Sally okay?” He asks after shaking out a blanket over Shadow. You stare. “I’m her husband–Sun Fury’s husband. Is she okay?” He asks while walking into another room.

“Yeah.” You say uncertainly. “She was hit too but… shrugs it off, I guess?”

“Thankfully, she’s got durability on her side after her awakening.” The man says, coming back with a surgeon’s kit. “What’s your name?—Code name, whatever?”

“Uh… Arctic Silver.” You say awkwardly.

The man smiles and nods. “She talks about you two a lot. Considers you two friends. You’re welcome here any time.” He says, cleaning Shadow Heir’s wounds. You hear the door open and look around to see Sun Fury pulling her mask off her eyes and a hair tie off the nearby table.

You stare. “Hank?” she asks

“He’ll need some painkillers but should be fine if the bullets didn’t fracture.” Hank reports as he keeps going. Sun Fury–Sally exhales a sigh of relief and reaches for a bracelet on the same table she pulled the hair tie from.

Her subtle glow that named her fades the instant she’s in contact. You blink. Sun Fury smirks and holds up the wrist. “Helps me blend in so I can work my day job without blowing up the computers I program.” She offers. “Drink?”

You nod slowly before standing and clearing your throat. “Uh. Yes, please.” Sun Fury’s day job makes sense of why she’s almost as good with computers as you are. You became innately attuned to technology after the radiation leaks were noted and corrected.

---

If this little side story isn’t your style, that’s fine. This is called player downtime. Heyo! I’m Kat, and I’ve been a Games Master (GM) for over a decade now. I’m here to show you around Gemelos City and the world of Supers known as Destined. The biggest thing to note about Destined is the aspect of superheroes or supervillains not only being like Marvel. These Supers can easily be based on our favorites of Iron Man, Hulk, Black Widow and the like, but the way it reads to me is more like the characters of The Watchmen.

Destined has an overall give and take system (transactional sometimes) that reflects very well for both players and GMs to have customizability on Powers and Assets that I haven’t seen before. Let’s dive into the world of Destined and the city our masked vigilantes are running about, Gemelos City.

What is Destined?

Crime-fighting supers in tight spandex pants, of course! Not really–not all of them, at least. There are several ways that you can run amok on the pages of your own comic book world. Superheroes and supervillains are just the over-arching theme. As with any of the new settings I’ve explored this year, Destined has a Power Level system in place to take you from street tough vigilante in a ski mask to full-blown Justice League superheroes.

Whether you have a more down-to-earth gritty crime agenda or if you lean more heavily into the four-color beauty of true superhero on supervillain explosive combat scenes, Destined supports it. Gemelos City supports all levels too. It all depends on where you want to play your campaign.

Gemelos City in Destined

Gemelos City is the city that was created specifically for Destined Crime-fighters of all shapes and sizes and is one of the epicenters of an anomaly called “The Awakening”. First, let’s break down the sections – tiers – of Gemelos City. Then I’ll explain the Awakening.

The shining, richly described city has a history of masked vigilantes dating back to the time when it was first established as a railroad city. Its first vigilante was a crime fighter named The Coachman. Many from the time period believed that the Coachman was one of the founding fathers of Gemelos City, also known as Gemini City, for its dual climate.

The Ossuary of Gemelos City:

In the story hook I offered, the characters mention the Ossuary. This is the lower part of the city. The Ossuary is the location where most big-name superheroes likely wouldn’t care as much about knocking a building or two over. This space primarily features cramped alleys, flooded lowlands, and blue-collar workers hoping to avoid the gangs. It’s the perfect lower power level (or even a seed for a higher power level) location. It gives me streets of Gotham vibes with train tracks running over most of the lower, uniform-style buildings.

The Crown of Gemelos City:

Then there’s the Crown. This is the high-end, big wig, side of the city. This is also the home of the local and sanctioned superhero team, The Fearless Force. These are the superheroes to contend with or work alongside if you are one of the more gifted super individuals. This is a place of towering skyscrapers and breathing room. Perfect for higher-power campaigns. Think Metropolis vibes with shining tall skyscrapers and bustling open streets.

The Awakening:

Now that we’ve covered the city, let’s talk about ‘The Awakening’. The Awakening is a concept that does not have to be in your campaign. It can easily just be a blending of events that causes the powers to blossom in a person. The theory behind the Awakening, however, is simply that some random event–solar, cosmic, or just an aligning of the planets’ general consciousness–created this wave of superpowered individuals.

One character by the name of Dr. Janet Echidna has a theory that the Awakening (or just simply genetics) created superior humans via awakening or the presence simply of “The Godstrand”. This is her solution and can easily be yours as a GM or player (always remember to communicate!) to the ‘why’ you have superpowers.

Powers and Power Levels of Destined:

On the topic of powers and power levels, as I keep mentioning, the power levels of Destined are similar to the other settings I’ve written about this year. They have the gritty, street-tough style level–Street. Then there’s pushing the boundaries of society, like the X-Men–Epic. And last but certainly not least (or best) is Superman, Hulk, Pheonix, Dr. Strange, level–Paragon level.

Each of these has its merits, and much like prior settings, there are rules for bringing characters from Street all the way to Paragon. I personally prefer the concept of longer character arcs and would start with Street and watch my players grow into Paragon heroes. Or reverse it–kinda like in Power Outage, the module built specifically for Destined. (More on that later in Where Should You Put Your Super Story.)

Now that power levels have a bit of explanation, let’s talk about powers and the flexibility of the Destined Power Slot System.

Powers, Boosts, and Limits – The Destined System

X-ray vision, super speed, flight, telepathy, power armor, laser beams? Yes. The answer to all of these options as powers is YES. Here’s the kicker for Destined; each of these are categorized into its own variant, as your Origin Story.

What is your Origin Story?

Well, we all have one–characters or not–but in this case it’s how you got your powers more than what humble or not so beginnings you had as a child–don’t worry, that comes into character creation too.

Your Origin can be one of seven categories of how you became a super. Now mind you–these are just categories. The real details of how you gain your Powers is completely between you and your GM.

Your Origin Options:

• Created: When you think of created, think of androids, think of Vision from the Marvel movies. Created supers are those that were made by someone else.
• Experimentation: When you think about experimentation, think of Wolverine*, think of Cyborg (Victor Stone), think of Deadpool. Experimentation supers are those that became super through experimentation.
• Inherent: When you think of Inherent, think of those born with super powers, Think like Superman, Wolverine, Professor X. Inherent supers are those who are born with their powers.
• Mutation: When you think of Mutation, think of those who have been exposed to an outside force–radiation for instance. Think of the Fantastic Four. Think of the Hulk. Think Spiderman. Mutation supers are those who undergo a cause and effect from outside forces and mutate.
• Mystical: When you think of Mystical, think of those who are granted magical powers. Like Dr. Strange. Like Baron Mordo. Like Ghost Rider. Mystical supers are those that can use magic, or seem magical due to innate ability or by an artifact that grants them the power.
• Technology: When you think of Technology, think of those enhanced by technology. Lex Luthor, Iron Man, Batman, Antman. Technology supers are the superheroes that use intelligence in their favor and use machines to help them be stronger, faster, or more powerful.
• Training: When you think of Training, think of those who have honed their bodies into the machines they are today. Think like Black Widow, Hawkeye, the Comedian, Rorschach. Those Training supers are at their peak in whatever skills or powers they chose through training that skill long term.
  
  *Wolverine: Wolverine falls under the Inherent and Experiment categories because he was first born with his gifts and then was experimented on.

Now that we’ve discussed the Origin of how you became what you are as a superhero (or villain) let’s talk about why I find the Power Slot system so amazing.

Boosts and Limits

When we talk about boosts and limits you can think about them like a point buy system. You can use your core power points and instead inflict better things that your powers can do OR make it so it can ONLY do something a certain way.

Here’s an example:

Enhanced Speed: Enhanced speed does exactly what you think it does, so how do we boost it? Some listed ways are with Hyper Action–you can keep running while taking down their foes. Or Whirlwind: (personal favorite)–you run so fast you can create a vortex.

So if you took Enhanced Speed–Whirlwind, you could run fast enough to create a vortex around your opponent.

Now here’s where limits come in.

Say instead that we wanted to Limit our super speed instead. We could use one of the listed limits like Easily Winded–you can run super-fast but you’ll be out of breath long before you get where you’re going. Or Hyper Metabolism–you can run long and fast, but you’ll need to eat 12 cheeseburgers and 8 large fries to recover what you burn.

So, if you limited Enhanced Speed–Hyper Metabolism, you would be able to run fast, but it would cost you.

I hear the question of why is this relevant? And why would we want to limit our superpowers, Kat!? Let me explain. When you choose boosts or limits, you can spend or gain Power Slots.

1 Power Slot = 2 Boosts. 2 Limits = 1 Power Slot. 1 Boost = 1 Limit.

And you get, on average, 2 Power Slots to use at Street level. 4 at Epic and 6 at Paragon. That being said, with GM permission and some clever calculations, you can have 3 Powers IF you limit two of the ones you take (Street). You can also Boost 1 Power twice with the opposite equation. If you sacrifice 1 Power, you gain two boosts that can be applied to the 1 Power you already took.

But powers aren’t the only resource you manage in Destined. Your lifestyle matters, too. Lifestyles have another significant impact on our super players. Let’s talk next about why we all can’t be billionaires.

Lifestyles and Allotments

Tony Stark. Lex Luthor. Bruce Wayne. Clark Kent. Green Lantern. Eddie Blake. Barry Allen. Ben Grimm. Peter Parker. Luke Cage. Al Simmons. Walter Joseph Kovacs. There are a variety of names listed here because there are a variety of different Lifestyles or levels of fortune that a person can have.

When we talk about wealth and think superheroes, we think of or see them as playboys, philanthropists, million-or billionaires. But that’s not always the case for supers. Some of them only ever have the clothes on their back or are concerned about when the rent is due or how they’ll put food on the table. Then there’s making sure their equipment for crime-fighting (or causing) is in good shape.

That’s where Allotments come in. Each player in Destined has a certain number of Allotments based on what their character’s lifestyle is. There are six levels that can be rolled at random or (if your GM is generous) you can pick your own.

So why can’t we all be billionaires?

Well, in a sense there isn’t a reason every one of the characters couldn’t be. However, unless you’re playing a Paragon Level Campaign, it wouldn’t make sense. That’s one of the reasons I gave you the list of different superheroes above so you could see the wide range of wealth.

Here’s the trick though; there are two different types of allotment:

• Personal Allotments: These are the allotments like your character’s own personal bank account, house, or buying power your character has for their gear.
• Organizational Allotments: These are the allotments that the group, organization, that your character is a part of that can ‘give’ your character items that are a little harder to get.

Now the balancing act begins when you realize you can split these percentages up however you want–so long as you have at least 10% in one of the allotment categories. Here’s another fun fact about gaining allotments when you start–remember Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne? They don’t have any superpowers; all their skills and ‘powers’ come from tech and honing their bodies.

Power Slot Flexibility in Destined

We talked about the fact that Power Slots are interchangeable to create limits and boosts or other powers in Powers, Boosts, and Limits. These Power Slots are also interchangeable for Allotment rating AND Skill points. The exchange is below:

• Power Slot = 20% Allotment Boost.
• Power Slot = 30 Skill points.

There is no limit on how many Power Slots you can exchange for either of these. Some of the bigger named – or more financially noted supers likely traded ALL of their Powers for these slots in creation.

Let me give you two examples.

Let’s look at Tony Stark (Iron Man):

He would be in the category of Wealthy. So he starts off with 20% as his base allotment, if we run him in a Paragon Campaign (seems only right considering the Avengers) he has an additional 50% to play with based on the Campaign level. This also gives him 6 Power Slots to work with. In his case (my thoughts) he would trade at least 1 Power Slot for Skills and 5 for Allotments.

This gives him an additional 30 skill points and 100% in the way of Allotments on top of the starting 70% that he had from Campaign level and Wealthy status.

He divides those into organizations and Personal Funds, which grants him exceptional ‘buying’ power when it comes to tech or other gear he may need.

Now let’s look at the skill based swap.

Let’s look at Walter Joseph Korvacs (Rorschach):

He would be in poverty (-10% to personal allotments), run in a Paragon Campaign gives him the same Power Slots as Tony, but instead of the initial 50% he would have 40%. He would be required to have 20% in his Personal Allotments (creating the 10% minimum) before he could put any Allotment % into the organization he’s a member of.

Now let’s talk Power Slot Exchange. Rorschach is another super that is skill-based–or the Trained Origin. To create him as the killing machine he is, he would exchange ALL of his Power Slots for Skill Points.

With these two examples you can see why I state this system is extremely flexible when it comes to building your superheroes (or villains).

Now that you have your concepts of how to build your characters, where can we play them?

Where should you put your super-story?

I’m a big fan of pre-gen cities or locations much like Gemelos City, which is very well laid out with plenty of plot hooks for any GM to work with and build on. My first choice would be to work within the Ossuary–the lower portion of Gemelos City–since it is rife with crime lords, gangs, and general chaos.

For those of you who are looking for Epic or Paragon campaigns, I would lean you towards The Crown of Gemelos unless you can envision a place like New York City (going back to Avengers), or Gotham City (leaning towards another major arch).

When you are planning your play, I would also suggest looking at the C.O.P. Alerts. There is 1 for almost every section of Gemelos City, which is why my final verdict would be to use what’s already built.

Gemelos City has two tiers that you can use at any level campaign. The C.O.P. Alerts give you building blocks for you to work with or build spin-offs on your own. The folks who wrote Destined didn’t skimp on ideas for any GM to use.

And if after the C.O.P. Alerts you don’t have any ideas, there is always checking out Power Outage. This is a Destined Module based around Supers who have lost their memory and must follow the breadcrumbs of killer robots and experiment notes to find out who they are and what their powers may be.

Personally, this is a module I would introduce my players to Destined through, then build my own campaign with hooks from the C.O.P. Alerts in Gemelos City.

Verdict on Destined

As you can tell by the depth of this particular blog there is A LOT of things to think about and work on as both GM and player. The perk of this particular book/setting is that it’s a 1 book game setting/system. You don’t need to know Mythras or even understand it beforehand to pick up Destined and start playing out your superhero (or villain) fantasies.

Gemelos City alone has plenty of hooks for story ideas, and each super can be 100% unique even if everyone chooses the same Powers because the customizability of skills, boosts, limits, and allotments is insane. So far there is only one module out for Destined–Power Outage is a promising start for GMs looking for an ease into superpowered players and rumor has it there’s another module on the horizon in 2026.

While Destined, the superhero/villain aspect isn’t my forte, the system itself, checks and balances and exchanges of how the Power Slots work with the rest, is something that I respect and adore. It gives not just customization but gives people a reason to limit their powers to gain more in other aspects of their character. This gives greater range for player (character) development, and that’s something that I am always looking for in my games.

If you’re ready to bust right in and learn more, check out Destined (and Power Outage) on the Design Mechanism site. If you’re a little hesitant, join the Discord channel and get into the discussion with the rest of us!

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