The Spark

Reyna jumps as she hears the sound of footsteps approaching her door. Her parents are home early – and she can't be seen in her mask. With a flash of light, she's gone, reappearing against her school locker, far away from them; her secret identity remains hidden for another day.

Ethan waves out the last customer of the night at Dressed to Invest¹⁾. He drops his clerk mannerisms and sets about closing up shop; just before he heads out, he flexes his fingers – and instantly, all the locks on the premises click, sealing themselves shut.

Hiding behind a set piece in the theatre, desperately trying to escape a pack of bullies, Hope holds their breath – as they do, their body ripples, the colours changing to mimic the environment around them. Cowering and afraid, the bullies get closer to them… before passing them entirely.

The Spark is a little researched phenomenon affecting a small fraction of the population of Citropolis. Perhaps 1 in 20 people are Sparked, but exact numbers are unknown. Sparks emerge around puberty – usually around 12-14, but early and late bloomers by a few years have been known (and, in even fewer cases, people are born with a spark; see Jen at The Alan Hoyne Institute).

Sparked individuals have something that we might understand as a superpower – exactly what this means should be informed by a liberal use of pop culture, and the bounds of your creativity. Most sparks are some kind of concealed ability, at least until used, but some are obvious physical characteristics – for instance, having a set of wings. The “power level” of sparks vary wildly: from a limited ability to float, to being literally indestructible, to even locally altering reality. Some sparks, on the other hand, have seemingly nothing to offer except inconvenience, such as constantly dripping goo.

Sparked history is murky at best, with “Spark” not being widely recognised politically, or as an identity, until The Fallout. Nonetheless, there have always been Sparks in Citropolis. The origin of The Spark is not something that will be explored in Origin Story, and any attempts to discover its origin will not bear fruit. The Spark is not obviously genetic, arising seemingly randomly across the population.

For a few examples of sparks, see Sample Characters.