Where would you set a Deviant and Promethean Dark Era?

[The MG]

You mean like the Zeky? And yeah, I can definitely see the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki creating a bunch of Deviants (or at least allowing a conspiracy to create them).

I guess?

The idea is less nukes = Deviants, and more about how the displacement of great swathes of the population would allow the Remade and the Created to blend in better with the mortal population. For Prometheans, this means the chance to enmesh themselves in human suffering and perseverance, to meet people who have become as rootless as themselves, and to pick through the ashes for Milestones. For Deviants, this would be more about the opportunity to strike back at the extant conspiracies when they're weak, while secret labs and altars burn and while the war throws the Web of Pain into chaos.

And then the war ends, the Allies move in, and their new and hungry conspiracies come crawling with them.

In all honesty, the Deviant half of the idea is much more developed than the Promethean half.

[Penelope]

Yeah, but Deviants are superpowered beings. And at least since the Sixties a lot of superpowered beings have their origins in nuclear radiation. So do the Zeky. My way could work too.

[Tessie]

Yeah, but Deviants are superpowered beings. And at least since the Sixties a lot of superpowered beings have their origins in nuclear radiation. So do the Zeky. My way could work too.

You're right about the radiation bit, but both Deviants and Prometheans (though I'm not sure about Zeky in particular) generally have recognisable individual creators. It's a pretty big part of Deviant's themes, and if we do look to the origins of superpowered characters they're almost all created in experiments rather than outright bombings. When bombings or radiation from bombed sites creates something in media it tends to be outright monsters like Godzilla or giant bugs, etc, rather than superpowered humans.
That said, I do definitely think it can work to have a few Deviants result from the bombs themselves with a nascent Conspiracy after them in particular, but I think that would serve best as a smaller part (basically the new powers moving into a power vacuum) of the proposed main theme of the Dark Era: The massive upheaval for existing Deviants and Conspiracies in the wake of a great catastrophe.

In any Dark Era featuring both Deviants and Prometheans I think it would be best to find or come up with something which definitely sets them apart in their creation process, other than just whether the subject was alive or not before the process. Or perhaps do the opposite and tie the two together as "not so different", like a flare of Azoth in the area that allows Deviants to stave off Instability or increase Acclimation (with hints about being able to even reverse the Divergence) by taking part of the Pilgrimage, similar to Fetches in The Seven Wonders.

[No One of Consequence]

Two slightly odd ones that spring to mind. (With the caveat that I'm only really familiar with Promethean's first edition and only moderately familiar with Deviant's overall concept.)

The first a variation on the 90s thing others have suggested. Specifically, a mix of the "Dark Deco" influenced animated series from the period, very early 90s RPGs, and parts of the Iron Age of comic books. Something generally gritty, urban, and somewhat violent, in a world of monsters and antiheroes born from dark science, arcane experiments, and ancient secrets. Influences would include certain episodes of Batman: The Animated Series (specifically On Leather Wings, Terror in the Sky, Tyger Tyger, Feat of Clay, Heart of Ice, Deep Freeze, Heart of Steel, and House and Garden), aspects of Disney's Gargoyles (especially anything having to do with genetically engineered creatures, cyborgs, and the character of Coldstone), Grant Morison's run on Doom Patrol, parts of Alan Moore's run on Swamp Thing and V for Vendetta, Peter Milligan's Shade the Changing Man, The Enigma, and The Extremist, the original black and white Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics and the Palladium RPG based on them (the license has long lapsed, leaving it's After the Bomb spin off as the only available version of it), the first edition of Vampire: The Masquerade, and some of the early Cyberpunk 2020 material. Basically, something very dark, strange, surreal and stylized where the PCs are part of a world that exists in the shadows, cracks and corners of late 80s/early 90s NYC (or some other major city; London would work just as well, as would Tokyo with a few added anime influences).

The other is sort of a variation on the above, based around the science fiction and comic book tropes (especially that of early Marvel Comics) of the early 60s as seen through a much darker and slightly more "realistic" lens. If you look at most of Marvel's early characters, they tend to be misfits of science. People who've been turned into something beyond human by strange radiation, chemicals, and the like. Characters like the Hulk or the Thing are clearly inspired by earlier monster comics from the 1950s, while Spiderman and the other members of the Fantastic Four can easily be taken in a much more horror oriented direction (see some of the later issues of Marvel's What If series, Warren Ellis's Ruins story, and the film Earth vs The Spider, which is literally Spiderman done as a monster). Ant-Man and the Wasp both clearly drew inspiration from The Incredible Shrinking Man and Attack of the 50 foot Woman. Iron Man is a broken man trying to rebuild himself via technology. Even Captain America taps into some of the ideas about using science to create a race of overmen. Then you have the X-Men, who are feared by "normal" humans just because of what they are, in a way that echoes certain aspects of the Created. You can mix into this period science fiction ideas taken from various episodes of The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits, as well as period films.

[Mad_Maudlin]

In any Dark Era featuring both Deviants and Prometheans I think it would be best to find or come up with something which definitely sets them apart in their creation process, other than just whether the subject was alive or not before the process. Or perhaps do the opposite and tie the two together as "not so different", like a flare of Azoth in the area that allows Deviants to stave off Instability or increase Acclimation (with hints about being able to even reverse the Divergence) by taking part of the Pilgrimage, similar to Fetches in The Seven Wonders.

Oooh, I like the idea of Deviants trying to imitate the Pilgrimage.

I think a difference in process is less important than making sure the different themes of the games have space to shine. Promethean is ultimately pretty hopeful and forward-looking, towards the Great Work, while Deviant is profoundly hopeless, always looking back to what the Broken lost. Any crossover of the two should highlight that discrepancy, imo, which is why so many of us went for revolutions and regime changes as Dark Eras - the best of times and the worst of times, and all that.

[Penelope]

[QUOTE=Mad_Maudlin;n1431535]

Oooh, I like the idea of Deviants trying to imitate the Pilgrimage.

I think a difference in process is less important than making sure the different themes of the games have space to shine. Promethean is ultimately pretty hopeful and forward-looking, towards the Great Work, while Deviant is profoundly hopeless, always looking back to what the Broken lost. Any crossover of the two should highlight that discrepancy, imo, which is why so many of us went for revolutions and regime changes as Dark Eras - the best of times and the worst of times, and all that.

That’s a very good point about Prometheans and Deviants!

[Grimmi05]

I don't know, I think one of the main considerations of choosing dark eras is how a particular Dark Era affects the splats and why does it affect these splats more than others. Like what Era would affect Prometheans and Deviants? and why those two in particular? A regime change might affect them because the chaos during it might free some of them from bondage or that they are fleeing the area. While a more stable era might be because the peace allows the demiurges and conspiracy to thrive and allow their work to flourish.

[No One of Consequence]

A regime change might affect them because the chaos during it might free some of them from bondage or that they are fleeing the area.

I would suggest the Bronze Age Collapse, but I'm not sure how either group would look in that era.

Maybe Europe during the 1848 uprisings? Or Japan during the Meiji Restoration? Or China during the Warlord Period (1916 - 1928)?