Physical Description

Vanderglories are a race of colorful, bipedal gastropods. Your typical vanderglory stands anywhere between 7 to 8 feet, many sporting a very muscular build. Those who have encountered vanderglories off planet will often describe them as ‘eerily humanoid’, in spite of their natural charisma. While appearing muscular, a vanderglory’s body is actually quite soft and squishy, and this is only made more apparent once they leave their home planet.

The body of a vanderglory is vibrant, coming in mostly primary colors with many accents. Vanderglories wear skin-tight suits, specifically designed to help keep moisture in, and will only take them off in the safety of their own homes. Although appearing as a part of their wardrobe, the cape and mask of a vanderglory is a part of their body, known as the mantle. The mantle helps conceal a small respiratory pore, tucked away in the folds of the cape. Vanderglories will shy away from others placing their hands upon their capes for this reason alone. The mask of a vanderglory will always be the same color as their cape.

Upon the top of their heads, vanderglories have a full head of ‘hair’, which are actually cerata (a type of gill). A healthy vanderglory’s hair will be a glistening, snowy white, and those under the weather will turn grey; Their skin follows suit, dulling with illness. From their foreheads are a pair of antennae that emote with the vander’s facial expressions.

Personality

A vanderglory is a creature driven by their need for justice. The urge to act upon heroics is both cultural and down to an instinctual level, as almost no vanderglory can stand aside idly while there is crime to fight. Whenever possible, vanders will put aside time to actively help others in one way or another, making vanderglories an incredibly team effort focused species, and as well social butterflies. The call to justice is so strong that many will drop everything that they are doing in the moment that they hear a call for help, or spot impending disaster. This is most true for the majority population, the Super Powered individuals, who are on constant patrol for any wrongdoings that they may come across during their daily lives.

Most vanderglories are born with anywhere between one to three or more anomalous abilities. These vanders make up more than half of the population, and have a handful of monikers to refer to them (Supers, Superheroes, Super-Powered, etc). While their abilities will be discovered throughout their adolescence, their first and what will become their ‘main’ ability will usually show up around their first birthday. Following that, vanderglories will build their entire identity around the powers that they had been born with, finding appropriately matching colored outfits and a symbol that represents themself. Vanderglory children that develop powers will be sent off to specific schools and programs to train and test their abilities, so that they may use them to the fullest extent in their futures.

Vanderglories are noted for being highly resistant to leaving their home planet, in favor of attracting tourism and notorious villains to it instead. Although cautious of others, vanders are quite desperate to accept aliens onto their planet, as so they may flex their anomalous abilities to them, and hopefully integrate more working class citizens into their society. Vanderglories are exceptionally prone to boredom as a result of them having an instinctual need to fight injustice, and the most commonly accepted way to circumvent this is to either invite dangerous individuals to their home planet, or stir up disasters themselves. It’s an open secret that a good portion of crime and natural disasters are done by vanderglories themselves, something they are quick to cover up if discovered.

Upon reaching a certain distance outside of Victropolis' atmosphere, vanderglories lose all of their abilities. These abilities are restored upon reaching the surface of Victropolis, so consequently the few vanderglories that do venture from their home planet typically return soon after. The stripping of one’s innate anomalous abilities is cited as a demeaning, sometimes even traumatizing experience for vanderglories. Even more so, many vanderglories that have left Victropolis report feelings of depression and anxiety off-planet. Their natural inclination towards justice never goes away, but often do they find themselves unable to actually do much to stop crime on their own. They may become overwhelmed with injustice, many taking jobs in law enforcement but quickly becoming disillusioned by the justice system in many places in the universe. Once they are unable to take it anymore, these defeated vanderglories will quietly return back home to the safety, and mundanity of Victropolis.

A vanderglory that returns back home from disillusionment is never quite the same again.

History

Who would've guessed that a single being’s well intentioned plead, would have doomed an entire species?

Home Planet

Victropolis is described as a clean, bright and active planet with a utopian-like society. The many populated continents are dotted with cities, most of which are encased under large, clear domes that help regulate weather conditions within them. Although vanders are mollusks and prefer a damp environment, the suits that nearly every individual on Victropolis wears keeps them at perfect hydration levels, while enjoying the warm weather provided under the domes.

Victropolis, in spite of the super-variant's constant vigilance, is still home to a fairly significant rate of crime. However crime is more of a spectacle than it is truly a problem. Rarely do these acts ever end in death, excessive blood shed or tragedy. Rather, to commit a crime on Victropolis is in itself an open invitation for challenge to any superhero that wishes to engage. Or, perhaps it's a game of chicken, seeing how far one can go before they are ultimately caught by the law. Either way, rather than being a deterrent for tourists to visit Victropolis, it is seen as a selling point to see the local superheroes in action. Vanderglories readily encourage tourism as a result, and adore visitations by other species, no matter the intention.

Subspecies

Civilian: The majority population of vanderglories is made up of the super powered, while all else is filled in by the civilian variant of vanderglory. They’re virtually physically indistinguishable from superpowered vanders, however they lack any anomalous abilities since the day they were born. Although powerless, they are not looked down upon by their superpowered brethren, instead the civilian vanderglories are revered, and are essential to keeping Victropolis’ economy and society afloat. Simply put, they are the glue that holds Victropolis together, filling in jobs that super vanders would not normally fit into.

A civilian, while still inclined towards the side of justice, is not expected to go out of their way to fight crime like a super-powered vanderglory is. Civilians are also noted to have a far less number of individuals that develop depression in their lifetimes, compared to the anomalous vanderglories. Additionally, civilians that leave Victropolis do not experience the same emotional distress that super-powered vanders do when leaving their home planet. Even so, because of how little civilians are left and with their numbers steadily decreasing, the immigration of civilians off Victropolis is highly discouraged by the Vanderglory government.

Year by year, the number of civilians born on Victropolis continues to drop at an alarming rate. Due to its controversial nature, research into what makes a vanderglory born super, and what can be done to produce more civilians is not often practiced nor funded. However it is predicted that within the next few hundred years, the numbers of civilian vanderglories will dwindle to almost nothing if their population continues to drop- only leaving the super variant.

Special

Hero to Zero: It is not well understood as of now, but once a vanderglory has left their home planet’s atmosphere, they will lose all and any anomalous traits that they once had on Victropolis. It is not until the vanderglory returns to Victropolis that their abilities will return to them. One benefit to this is that off-planet vanderglories naturally negate anomalies and anomalous activity, however they are not entirely immune to them.

Trivia

• Vanderglories in their most vulnerable state, often when asleep, will wrap their capes around themselves like a blanket, as a form of self comfort. Few will seldom ever see this behavior, if ever at all.

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