The Gentlemen’s Agreement

Overview
An in-character set of rules for heroes and villains, enshrined in the law and held up as a code of honor among metahumans. Lore-wise, heroes are required to publicly follow its tenets if they want to keep being viewed as such, and villains are given far more lenient sentences if they keep to its terms.

Those who break the Agreement will face not only legal punishment, but open scorn from both heroes and villains for endangering the peace. Though many Metas commit crimes, it is believed that without common limits, there would be little to prevent their conflicts from spiraling into cataclysmic civil wars.

Note: players can have their characters break the Gentleman's Agreement if they want. But doing so in a highly visible manner (ex: randomly slaughtering civilians in broad daylight) will likely result in corresponding in-character consequences, such as massive police intervention.

The Terms Of The Agreement:
 * No attacking a masked hero or villain’s civilian identity or family.
 * No widespread attacks against civilians (terrorism).
 * No rape or sexual assault of any kind.
 * Avoid using lethal force where possible.
 * Avoid using guns with lethal ammunition, as these can lead to deadly escalation of conflict.
 * Avoid escalation in general, and the deadly cycle of violence that results.

History
The creation of the Gentleman’s Agreement originated in 1984 in the city of Miami after a villain from lellorium named Blackwind kidnapped the 17 year old daughter of  Ex-Special Forces Officer Tyrian Fitz. Fitz had been a vigilante in Miami for 4 years under the Alias Lightstar and during that time had stopped numerous attempts by Blackwind to expand his influence into the city, sparking a rivalry between the two Metas. When Blackwind took Fitz’ daughter it became personal for the vigilante; Faced with meeting the demands of his opponent lest he risk the death or worse of his daughter his Lightstar persona was forced to fade into silence while he pulled together a ransom. Despite his compliance, Fitz was not willing to let Blackwind get the better of him during the situation. While Blackwind successfully expanded his operations into the city in the absence of Lightstar, Fitz began to gather all the metas he knew of outside of his Lightstar persona and told them what happened. With their help he gathered the ransom and more importantly, gathered their aid in the upcoming fight. When Fitz met with Blackwind for the hand off, a dozen other metas simultaneously attacked Blackwind’s operations. Blackwind was quickly alerted of this, souring the negotiation immediately and leading to a fight which ended in Blackwind escaping with Fitz’s daughter. Miami descended into outright war in the streets. Several public metapowered conflicts, Office shootings conducted by both sides and even a bombing were reported within the first week after the confrontation leaving dozens dead or injured in the crossfire between the two factions. At some point during the month Fitz received a video from Blackwind explaining that his non-compliance and continued practice as Lightstar had ruined his chance of getting his daughter back and as such he would have to see the consequences himself. Lightstar was forced to watch as his daughter was beaten, brutally raped into triggering as a light elemental and left in a cell to rot until her execution date or until Lightstar gave himself up.

Lightstar hatched one last plan to save his daughter, in which he would give himself up to Blackwind and when she was close enough for him to save he would grab her and escape. Lightstar's plan had almost succeeded, however it had been far too long since the date of the video and his daughter had decayed greatly from her powers. She’d tried escaping numerous times, building more and more decay in her desperation to escape her captors. Ultimately her treatment and powers had left her very weak by the time her father came to save her, which resulted in her death during his attempt to save her. The girl was unlucky enough to have been one of the very rare Elementals who would become an Awakened Broken the moment she’d died; killing her father, blackwind and hundreds in the city during her panic filled ‘undead’ rampage before the authorities could stop her. One month later, after the fighting had calmed down, it was agreed upon that if the current state of affairs were to continue that rules had to be made to mitigate the chaos and destruction that the confrontations caused. These rules would become known as the Gentleman’s Agreement, named after Lightstar who was often called ‘The Gentleman hero’ by his supporters during his tenure as a vigilante. In the following years after the GA's creation, it has seen several changes due to the rising threat of Desolates and Awakened Broken. Without metas most places were completely unable to defend themselves from the attacks of the powerful monsters as new ones continued to appear and wreak havoc.

In the first 5 years after the GA was created, a new rule was implemented granting villains who participate in defense efforts against the Annihilation class threats protection from arrest. Originally, this had not been the case. However, after a large Metahuman gang in Lellorium known as Gehenna had been arrested while they were too exhausted from fighting off the newly Awakened Broken Songbird by themselves to escape, the people of the island country created an uproar. They protested the idea that the only people who did and could defend them were being arrested. Their protests gathered the attention of people around the world, prompting a discussion about the topic. It wasn’t until Gubka appeared in Canberra and managed to destroy the entire city before being driven off, due in part to the refusal  to participate on the part of the Villains, that the movement began to gain traction. The rule was ratified in 1988 and proven successful in 1989 when Nightfall attacked Germany only to be repelled by the combined efforts of Heroes, Vigilantes, and Villains alike.