I was going through my notes from my planning sessions for this game (and some from decades ago...God, I'm getting old) I came across some background information that I worked on. A friend of mine, who said he was interested in the game, also said that Secret Ids were a stupid concept. So I wrote a short paper called Mystery Men In America. With very few changes I added to the background data for the game because I thought it was interesting. I am including it here in case you want to read it but do not want to comb though the history on the splash page again. --- Before the Exodus The history of Mystery Men in America is a long and convoluted one. It started in the American Revolution where the patriots who battled English tyranny wore masks to protect their identities. The tradition continued in the lawless west when men stood their ground but hid their identities to protect their families from revenge by those they opposed. Even in pre-American California the masked Zorro defended the people from the Spanish governors who ruled like kings. The civil war had its share of heroes who concealed their identities who protected the weak when the armies took more than what was needed or slaughtered those who could not protect themselves. These were all mortal men who used cunning, skill, and bravery to fight injustice, they bled and died just like everyone else. There were tales of those who learned secrets from the Indians, possessed magical powers, or held supernatural items that aided them, but these were just tales that made these heroes seem larger than life. Nothing more…perhaps. There are tales of a league of extraordinary gentlemen in Europe who adventured together to protect the common man that endure to this day. The exploits and membership of this league is highly suspicious and suspect. If they existed some of the members were very powerful individually and others has access to science decades if not centuries ahead of their time. It was not until after the great carnage of the Great War, WWI, that people with unnatural abilities were confirmed. Nicholas Orion Thyme was one of America’s greatest heroes during WWI. Few remember him by that name, he is remembered as Minute Man. All that is known about how he got his powers is that he came from a lab somewhere in Colorado. He could run 60 miles a minute and was strong enough to overturn a jeep. During the war he was joined by a small group of other ‘super’ heroes of the conflict. Giant a large suit of armor impervious to bullets with great strength, Major Victory possessing strength enough to life a fully loaded tank, Vanguard a muscle bound patriotic cliché and his son Vanguard Jr. Their unit was called Salvation Brigade. All members of the Salvation Brigade were lost in action battling Kaiser Wilhelm’s Hell Legion, but they took the Legion with them. During Prohibition a number of mystery men appeared on both sides of the law. Some did battle against the growing power of syndicate, others joined the crime families for the wealth and power they brought. One of the most effective and infamous of these heroes was known as The Bat, or in some circles he was called Batman. He was a master detective, martial artist, and was equipped with an impressive array of devices to battle with the criminal cartels of New York. When the Second World War broke out intelligence of crack unit of Nazi soldiers reached the States. The S.S. Werewolves were deployed three nights of the month during the full moon. In most cases they left no survivors but sometimes a survivor or two was lucky enough to escape. They described the Nazi soldiers as wolfmen as seen in the 1935 film Werewolf of London. The fledgling OSS went into preparation in case America got drawn into the conflict, which of course we were. America’s answer to the S.S. Werewolves was the now famous Creature Commandos. Dr. Myrra Rhodes (Dr. Medusa), PFC Lucky Taylor (Frankenstein), Sgt. Vincent Velcro (the Living Vampire), Private Warren Griffith (the American Werewolf) and their commanding officer Lt. Matthew Shrieve who possessed no paranormal attributes. Those who had power gained them from Project M whose files are still classified Top Secret. The Creature Commandos greatest advantage over the S.S. Werewolves was that they were combat ready every day (and night) of the year, not when the moon dictated. The tragedy was that after the war these heroes could not return to anything that resembled a normal life. They lived out the rest of their lives on a military compound set aside for them. Governments being what governments are they continued to try to refine and perfect the super soldier process during peacetime in preparation for the next war. In 1962 as the Vietnam War continued to heat up using names like Project Durable, Project Epsilon, Project Jackknife, and others American servicemen were asked to volunteer for ‘special training and treatment’ to become better jungle combatants. In most cases the experiments were dismal failures in a few rare cases the soldiers developed minor enhanced abilities for slight powers. The defense department filed the results of the experiments a fiascoes and returned to the drawing board. Their opinion was perhaps premature. While the test subjects didn’t have immediate measurable gains over time a few had their abilities grow impressively. The children of all the test subjects after reaching puberty, after being exposed to some form of extreme stress, gained even more significant abilities than their parents had. The success of the Vietnam projects largely went unnoticed but a few astute members of the government and other interested parties paid attention leading to the paranoid and the unscrupulous to repeat and refine the experiments regardless of the costs. And still there are the non-powered(?) mystery men on both sides of the law running around.