Anthropomorphic Characters?

criswolf09

Hello, I was trying to write a background story for one of my heroes and I wonder what does the CU Lore say about the anthropomorphic heroes like Manimals created by Dr. Moreau or other creatures alike say... the Karkaradons of Multifaria who are supposed to be the counterpart of Lemurians?

bulgarex

Whew! That is actually a big subject, because there are quite a few potential sources for "anthropomorphic" characters in the CU.

Starting with Manimals/Beast Men, besides those created on Monster Island there's a colony of them hidden at Dr. Moreau's original lab in the Ukraine, at "Beast Mountain" (Gornyj Zver, outlined in Hidden Lands), who freed themselves from Moreau's control many years ago. An entire race of winged birdlike humanoids, the Birdpeople, live on Thar, an island in the Indian Ocean only discovered in the 1960s. Not yet discovered by humanity is the Kingdom of the Apes, a civilization of mutated intelligent gorillas abiding in underground caverns in Africa.

As for the Karkaradons, while they may occupy a similar aquatic ecological niche as the Lemurians, physically and culturally they aren't that similar. Their descriptions and PnP game stats very strongly resemble the Sharthak, a race of shark-men existing on Champions Earth in pre-historic times, but extinct there today. Given Multifarian Earth's fluid flow of time, they could very well both be the same race which can still be found there. Note that past eras of civilization on Champs Earth (detailed in Hero Games's "Fantasy Hero" game line) included several sapient races resembling animals, such as Pakasa (cat-men), Erqigdlit (dog-men), Vulchine (vulture-men), and Leomachi (essentially lion-centaurs).

Champions Earth today has a few groups of therianthropes (human-animal shape-shifters), notably the Chunhu clan in China, and the were-jaguar priests who rule a hidden survival of the pre-Columbian Inca civilization in South America, called the Valley of Night. And of course, the Lemurians who have renewed their allegiance to the Bleak Ones are shape-shifters, whose natural forms are reptilian.

Champions Beyond, the source book for the space/cosmic side of the CU, outlines nearly eighty alien races in the Milky Way Galaxy to varying detail. A sizeable fraction of those resemble some form of Terrestrial animal: dogs, cats, rats, birds, reptiles, fish, insects, and more. Some of them have interstellar civilizations, while others are less technologically advanced (but there are still ways they could find their way to Earth).

A few dimensions other than Champions Earth's are inhabited by beings with an animalistic appearance. That includes the "Imaginal Realms," created out of the Astral Plane by collective human imagination, some of whose inhabitants are actual animals with intelligence and speech.

Given all that, it would be helpful to know what sort of background you'd like for your character (including its apparent species), to narrow down the possibilities.

criswolf09

That's actually a lot of very useful info, thanks again Bulgarex. My heroes are all beastmen and some lack background stories which I am getting inspired to create these days so you gave a good starting point to begin.

bulgarex

Along those lines, a few Manimals have been known to leave Beast Mountain to find their way in the wider human world. They include Snake, who acts as a supervillain based in Los Angeles; Ram, the bouncer at the Minefield, Valerian Scarlet's nightclub in Vibora Bay; and Lynx (not the member of the Brain Trust villain team), who has become a pop-singing sensation in Japan. They haven't disclosed the existence of Beast Mountain, though.

jonsills

One of my toons, Supermanx, started off as a parody of the way some people "misspell" trademarked names so they can use them, but of course I couldn't leave it at that. Instead, I came up with a half-mad genetic-engineering grad student who virtually worships the work of Teleios and Dr. Moreau, and decided to try some recombinant work of his own. He started with a stray Manx cat and a drunk he found sleeping in one of Westside's many abandoned warehouses.

Unfortunately for our Moreau-wannabe, the drunk he found was in fact the former hero Starflare, who fell into a bottle in despair when his powers couldn't save his family during the '09 Qularr Invasion. The creature he created, rather than being the subservient cat-man he'd imagined, turned out to have powers - in this case supernally sharp claws, a powerful regenerative ability, and flight. The newly-created creature burst free, learned from some of the young heroes running around Westside, and took up a costumed identity as Supermanx.

(He also inspired Starflare to undertake rehab; the hero is back in the game, renaming himself Starfall as a reminder of what can happen if he's not careful.)

bulgarex

That name-change was probably prudent both in and outside Champs Earth reality, since there's a member of the official supervillain team, the Crimelords, who uses the code-name Starflare. Ironically given your story, this Starflare is a clone, created by Teleios (although Starflare doesn't know it). His DNA was taken from that of the minor villain Pulsar, but Teleios improved his powers, making him as strong as Pulsar only imagines himself to be.

Ground-breaking geneticists are not uncommon in the Champions Universe, from recurring menaces like Teleios, Moreau and the Overbrain, to obscure one-shots such as Aldo Sanchietti, who turned his own daughter Carla into the lethal cat-woman Pantera (and was her first victim). Pantera has since joined Eurostar.

(You can find full write-ups for all the members of the Crimelords and Eurostar in Champions Villains Vol. 2: Villain Teams.)

ealford1985

Ratasassin origins and bio is based on the manimals and Dr. Moreau....I mean look at me, I’m an abomination...how could I not be.

bulgarex

"The Tarmin are slightly smaller than Humans and look very much like tailless, bipedal rats. They come from the planet Tarmo, which has 1.2 G gravity; as a result they’re slightly stronger, on average, than Humans. They prefer to live near water, and their cities are Venice-like mazes of canals.
Although to Human eyes they’re likely to appear sly and malevolent, in truth the Tarmin are usually honorable to a fault and avenge all insults — especially any derogatory references involving rats."

(Champions Beyond p. 282)

ealford1985

Heh that ain’t me. I’m like the highlander of rats, there shall be only one!

rtma

Any Dragon Anthro's? Except for Red Banners Death Dragon. o.3.o

bulgarex

The less said about CO's take on the Death Dragon, the better.

This depends somewhat on one's definition of "dragon." There are certainly true dragons who interact with the present-day Champions Universe, both of the Western tradition (winged and fire-breathing), and the Oriental (wingless, masters of the air and water). Some of them use magic to take a human form, partly or wholly. As I mentioned previously, the Lemurians' natural appearance is reptilian, but there can be significant variations among them. One Lemurian cast out from Lemuria as an infant developed the power to shape-shift to resemble a huge Oriental dragon, and served Japan during WW II under the name "Bakemono." He's written up in Golden Age Champions.

The legacy of dragons on Champs Earth goes back many millennia earlier than recorded history. During the Turakian Age (the era of Takofanes' origin), one reptilian race calling themselves the Drakine claimed to be descended from dragons. Here's an illustration of a Drakine, taken from The Turakian Age source book: https://grulls-companions.obsidianportal.com/

As mentioned earlier on this thread, there are sapient reptilian alien species in the Milky Way. Two notable examples are the Mon'dabi, and the Kolajik (although the latter look more like Jurassic Park velociraptors). You'll find more about them in Champions Beyond. There are other, more obscure examples we could explore, if none of those suit what you're looking for.

rtma

@bulgarex Handsome, thanks for sharing.

bulgarex

I recently elaborated on the potential sources for anthropomorphic animal characters on the discussion forums for the Champions Online Role Players (CORP) community. Rather than transcribe all that here (which would require accounting for info already posted above), it seems most efficient just to leave a link to the thread on the CORP forum for interested parties: http://championsonlineroleplayers.shivtr.com/forum_threads/2832359

criswolf09

Bless you for this, thanks!