Meet 'N Greet #9!

This particular feature of my blog has gone fallow ever since 'City of Heroes' went away, and I think that's kind of a shame because it was fun to talk about the concepts I had for my characters. I know that "please don't tell me about your character" is one of the standard jokes in fandom, but generally I feel like it applies more to people for whom the phrase "let me tell you about my character" means "let me tell you exclusively about the absurdly large/small [delete where applicable for gaming system] numbers I wrote down on my character sheet and the way it makes me better than everyone else at playing the game". Because numbers aren't inherently interesting, but characters frequently are.

Take for example today's entry, Paintboxer. He was a mad scientist, and when I say "mad" I mean "totally barking". His big moment of revelation came when he saw a truck passing his lab with the Sherwin-Williams logo painted on the side:

That was when he had his moment. This was no coincidence. It was a message, a coded message from the secret masters of the universe. This was his directive, his command, his all-consuming imperative from this day forth! He would design special gauntlets that could inject nano-engineered self-replicating paint droplets, and defeat the enemies of the secret world order by punching them with endless gallons of paint! He would design his own spacecraft, stealing to get the money if necessary, and he would put a bucket the size of the moon in geostationary orbit! And then...then, armed with his self-replicating paint and his massive paint-generating bucket, he would do the impossible. He would fulfill his orders. He would....

COVER THE EARTH

That was Paintboxer. You can see why I disagree that people who talk about their characters are boring.

Meet N Greet #8

In honor of the end of 'City of Heroes', I once again introduce you to another of my characters. This one was  the creation of a mad scientist with a love of the works of Roald Dahl. The creature had a perpetually shifting bodily structure, allowing it to rapidly grow razor-sharp spines from its body and slash (or fling them at) enemies with them. The beast's warping, semi-liquid flesh could recover from just about any injury within moments, making it a formidable foe.

But the scientist was surprised when the monster turned out to have a conscience. Somehow, its primitive brain understood the concept of right and wrong, and joined the side of the angels to bring justice to Paragon City. It could understand a few words, even if it only ever figured out how to morph its malleable flesh into a mouth long enough to speak one: "SCRAM!" (It never did figure out what it meant, but it was terribly proud of knowing how to say it.) This creature became a legendary hero, known only as...the Vermicious Knid!

(The best part of playing this character was when they installed the "Day Job" badges. The Vermicious Knid was a Shop Keeper, a Scientist, a Professor, an Architect, and a Fashion Designer...all without ever saying anything other than, "SCRAM!", apparently.)

Meet 'N Greet #7

Today, ye scurvy dogs, we be talking about another City of Villains character I made. This sea dog were once another ordinary pirate like you and me, until he ran afoul of cursed treasure that forced him to sail the seven seas for all time, doomed to search endlessly for the man he stole from so that he can return it!

His ailment, Cursed Treasure Syndrome or CTS, strikes a pirate every thirty seconds. CTS is the single largest cause of undeath for pirates, swashbucklers, privateers, and buccaneers across the Spanish Main. The CTS Spokes-Pirate is stealing, maiming and killing to raise awareness of CTS throughout the Rogue Isles. Your involuntary donation could help remove an unlucky seagull from around a sailor's neck, return cursed gold to its rightful owner, or just let an unlucky pirate have a night on the town (inasmuch as he can, given his inability to taste real food and drink.)

CTS can strike anyone at any time. So please, give before it hurts.

Meet 'N Greet #6

This time, I'm actually going to focus on two characters for the "Meet 'N Greet" (an irregular feature that describes the backstories of my 'City of Heroes/Villains' characters, as silly as that sounds. Hey, they let you put a lot of detail into these characters' biographies, so I'm going to share them.)

But the question is, are they really two characters? On the one hand, you have Mary-Sue Quantum, a high school student from the 30th century with an A+ in telepathy, an A- in telekinesis, and a potential F in history staring her in the face. Clearly, there's only one thing for her to do--travel back in time to the 20th century and learn about events first hand by becoming the super-hero known as...Millennium Girl!

But Millennium Girl doesn't spend all her time in the 20th century, and sometimes when she's gone--especially after big, earth-shaking events--another time traveler shows up. Marisu Neutron, a nuclear mutant who's one of the last survivors of a dying human race, claims that for all their good intentions, it was heroes who caused the atomic holocaust that produced her future. The only way to stop World War Three, she claims, is to unite the world under a single leader, Lord Recluse (Statesman's arch-nemesis, and ruler of the Rogue Isles.) So, taking her cue from the last few ancient historical records she found with the time machine in the underground lab she stumbled into, she fights for Lord Recluse's cause as...Dystopia Girl!

Many have noted the remarkable similarity of appearance between the two women (once mutations are accounted for), but only the top temporal physicists have began to suspect what it might mean...and even they aren't sure what to do about it. But they suspect that despite the presence of two time travelers, time might be running out.

Meet 'N Greet #5

A little something different for this one--this is a character I actually deleted, because I didn't like the way it played, but I love the concept, so I'm keeping him alive in some small way by blogging about him here.

We all know about the famous secret bio-weapons projects the US government runs. They're well-known for concealing plans to make the ultimate living weapon, some sort of perfect killing machine with, say, razor-sharp claws, and perhaps some sort of, oh, I don't know, healing factor. Just as a hypothetical example. (Wink wink, nudge nudge.)

But what's less known is that there are also Brazilian secret bio-weapons programs. They use the molds from the American bio-weapons programs, and then repackage the resultant living weapons under a generic name because they're cheaper. Sure, it violates trademark and copyright, but nobody really cares about the kind of cheap, imported killing machines you can buy in the dollar store, ones with bad paint jobs and the chest logo put on with a sticker. (Damn, lost the subtle thread of the analogy there...)

That's what this character was--the generic Brazilian knock-off of a famous mutant super-soldier. Created from a different secret weapons program, made for cheap with a bad costume and no real personality, he's not Weapon X...

He is...Brand X!

Meet 'N Greet #4

Once, he was an ordinary clown. His was a happy lot, entertaining children, loving his beautiful wife (also a clown), and looking forward to teaching his young son the craft of circus entertainment.

Then, one day, all that changed. A group of renegade mimes from the infamous 'Cirque du Soleil' crime family gunned down his whole family with invisible bullets. With no ballistics to trace, the police could do nothing. But he could.

Now, he's no longer a clown. He's a clown with a gun. And he's going mime hunting. No invisible box can save them. He's a one-man force for justice, an unstoppable white-faced, big-haired torrent of revenge...

No. Not revenge. Funishment.

He is...the Funisher.

(True story: This character was inspired by a "wannabe" on the 'City of Heroes' game, someone who'd simply made a copyrighted character and changed his name slightly to avoid being deleted for copyright infringement. He had made the Punisher, but had added an "h" so it was the "Phunisher". Apart from being appalled at the lack of imagination, I was quite irritated at the poor understanding of phonetics. That wouldn't sound like "punisher", it'd sound like...and then I realized it was the Best Character Idea Ever.)

Meet N Greet #3

(Ironically, this entry was delayed by a day because I was checking out the new patch for 'City of Heroes'...)

Colonel Meyer Hagen walked into the dimly-lit lab, already mentally biting his nails. Doctor David Flagg wasn't the worst scientist he'd ever had to deal with in his five years as liason with the civilian technical personnel on Alpha Base, but there was just something so irritatingly...childish about the man. No, not childish. Childlike. Flagg just needed to grow up, that was the problem. Put away childish things. He--

"Colonel Hagen! Good to see you down here again!" Flagg enthusiastically slapped the colonel on the back, receiving a tight-lipped smile in return.

"Doctor Flagg. I believe you said you had a breakthrough for me?"

"Oh, better than that. I've got a completed prototype, ready for field-testing." He flipped a switch, and banks of lights illuminated a corner of the laboratory. "Allow me to present the ultimate in human-operated exoskeletal technology...the Human-Occupied Law-enforcement Computer, version 1.0!"

Colonel Hagen looked at the seven-foot tall metal form for a long moment. Finally, he said what had been in his mind since the second the lights went on. "It's...green."

"Yes. Now the breakthrough came when I realized that instead of attempting to integrate a weapons system, you could simply focus on increasing the strength and durability of the HOLC system to levels that make it effective in combat without needing--"

"I'm sorry, the what?"

"HOLC. Human-Occupied Law-enforcement Computer."

"So you want us to test a giant green robot...called the HOLC. Which is super-strong and indestructible."

Doctor Flagg nodded enthusiastically.

"You've got issues, Flagg."

"Every single one since 'Tales to Astonish' #67. Now, I've increased the leg strength, so it should be able to jump great distances. The arm strength allows it to clap its hands to create giant sonic booms..."

Meet 'N Greet #2

It's, um, still Thursday, right? (Seriously, yes, I know this is late. Had some stuff to deal with that couldn't wait and took up a good chunk of time. But it's not every day one gets a free car.) So, only two days after it was supposed to be up, the origin of another fabulous super-hero/villain!

Karin Colbert was out jogging in Paragon City one bright spring morning when she had the seeming misfortune to turn down the wrong street at the wrong time. As she rounded the corner, she heard the sounds of chanting, and spotted an eerie green light--all of which stopped as she practically bumped into a group of three men in dark robes, their eyes glowing under the hood.

"So," one of them said, "the prophecy is true! Our ritual has, indeed, been interrupted by the legendary Champion of Light!" He raised his sacrificial dagger. "Speak, mighty Champion! Tell us the name of the hero we are slaying this morning!"

"...eep."

"Very well, Eep, prepare to die!"

Karin flung out a hand, attempting to block the dagger...and was stunned when a mass of whirling cinders flew out from it into the face of the cultist. He collapsed, choking, and the other two cultists quickly fled. The would-be victim stood up, and walked over to her.

"Congratulations, Champion," he said. "From this day forth, your karmic destiny is set. You shall battle evil. You shall fight the darkness. You shall be our Champion of Light. You shall be...EEP!"

"But I don't want to!"

"Too bad. Sucks to be you." And he vanished.

And ever since that fateful day, Karin Colbert has accidentally run into evil wherever she has gone, unwillingly fighting it with magical powers that she doesn't know how to use and doesn't want to, as...EEP!

Meet 'N Greet #1

As previously noted, this blog is here for little creative bits that I don't think will make me any money anywhere else, but that I want to share with other people because I'm immensely egotistical and think I'm very clever. So, in that spirit, I thought I might share some of the character concepts I've used on "City of Heroes/Villains", because if there's anything that fits the above definition, it's that.

Today, we meet Isaac Barnes. Isaac was an ordinary man, a homeowner who paid off his mortgage quickly due to a bit of luck with the lottery. He found himself with some spare cash, and decided to build a deck in the backyard. As it turned out, the project was a great success--aesthetically pleasing, increased the value of his home, and nice for barbecues. The people at the local home improvement store were a great help.

So he decided to add on a bit more, expanding the master bedroom. It turned out to be another easy, economical project. Isaac started to suspect he had a gift for this sort of thing. He then moved on to expand the living room, widen the garage, and he was thinking of adding a spare bedroom when he realized there was a small problem. He was out of property. Naturally, there was only one thing to be done.

Isaac built himself a suit of power armor, an army of robot followers, declared martial law, and annexed his neighbor's house.

From there, things spiralled out of control pretty rapidly. Now, Isaac Barnes is no more. Obsessed with home improvement projects, he has become...The Home Despot!