Here is the origin story for my charcter.
Dr. Alex Loft was a brilliant engineer. If anyone wanted something designed a built that would work at maxmium efficiency they would go to him and that is exactly what they did. He was working for the military developing a top secret weapons program that would completly obliterate anyone who got in their way.
One night whilst working late, he heard a noise and went to investigate and found five men waiting for him. He tried to escape but before he knew it he was bound, gagged and blindfolded and then thrown into a van.
When the van stopped and his blindfold was removed he found himself in a cage in a huge warehouse. And that is where he was kept for two years he blindly obeyed his captors building what ever they asked him to and doing what ever they wanted. But one night as he was sitting in the dark two men came for him they told him that his services were no longer needed and that they were going to kill him. They took him to the edge of a cliff and pointed a gun at him. As the man was about to shoot he jumped off and plumeted into the icy water below. His captors left believing he had died.
He swam to the shore and despratly ran off into the distance. He arrived at an abandoned rubbish tip and set up a make shift shelter. while sitting in the dark hudled over for warmth he vowed to find who ever had captured him and bring them to justice. So using what ever he could find he built a pair of high tech gauntlets with retractable claws and a pair of state of the art pistols. He donned himself Agent Grey and set out to fight evil dooers and find the people who had imprisoned him.
What do you think? I'd be grateful for some feedback.
Hope no one minds me stepping in here, but I've got a few things to bring up.
First, what was he developing for the millitary? Maybe he was kidnapped in order to build what ever it was for his captors.
Secondly, do you really want your hero complying with the wishes of terrorists and building super weapons for them?
And finally, why did he choose the name Agent Grey.
when talking to your friends, Alt.... how often do you use the word "whilst"? "donned"?
Its decient... feels like a cross between the Punisher movie, and Iron Man.. with a little bit of Forge in there.... decient source stuff for a story.... but you neglected a vital feature: "Context".
you say things like "doing whatever they told him"... but why, why was he willing to do it... theres always a choice, even if death is the other option... did he not consider what he was making all that bad? or was he just selfish?
how did "anyone" know to contact him for a project... was he in the yellowpages under "make anything"... he worked for the millitary, did he not have security on his lab.... MAXIMUM securty? so that people couldnt simply walk in and steal his military funded inventions... or himself?
the basic "plot" is fine..... but there isnt anything else there.... there needs to be a reason why these things happen... a reason why he's known for what he can do, and a reason why 5 men were able to capture him, and a reason why he was willing to be their slave for 2 years, and why the men were just going to kill him, and why they would bother driving him to a cliff when he'd been missing for two years... why not kill him in the warehouse and be done with it (other than so there was a gimiky plot device set up), and what planet is he on, that after working for a military, being kidnapped in a van, stored in a warehouse and dumped off a cliff... that it would have been preferable to "kick it" in a landfill across a lake.. rather than get back to civilization?
you have a lot of potential in the story, but you dont really use any of it.
He's a brilliant scientist working for a top secret military weapons project so powerful, no military would ever allow it to be built. When he hears a noise, rather than asking the omnipresent security forces or his bodyguard to investigate, he does it himself. In fact, he orders both security, whom he has no command over, and his bodyguard to remain behind. He then walks into an ambush of five men that apparently managed to make it into a top secret, high security facility without anyone noticing.
He's kept in the same cage in the same warehouse for two years with all the technology he would need to build his escape, yet blindly follows the orders of his captors the entire time. When they decide he's no longer of value to them, not only do they tell him this as well as their plans to kill him, they don't bother to tie him up before taking him to a cliff to shoot him.
When he jumps instead of being shot, these highly skilled and highly effective gentelmen decide he must be dead without even bothering to check. He then manages to find everything he needs for hi-tech vengeance in a trash dump, despite having been working with technology for the past two years in a more suitable environment without managing to do so.
The basic premise is sound. He's a brilliant inventor that has been hired by the military to work on top secret weapons design. As such, the bad guys want him and arrange to kidnap him to force him to build gadgets for him instead. However, that's about all that can easily be salvaged if you want the background story to be plausible.
For the following suggestions I'm going to use the word Group to describe an unknown criminal organization. If you choose to use any of the suggestions to tidy up your origin story, simply invent a name for the organization or substitute Viper for Group.
Dr. Alex Loft was a gifted inventor with a brilliance bordering on madness. Whereas most scientists devote their entire life specializing in a single field to develop expertise, Dr. Loft switched his studies as often as he fancied while managing to excel in each and every field he studied. As of late, his fancy had turned to the development of mechanically augmented exo-skeletons and hard suits.
This particular turn of fancy brought him to the attention of his nation's military. He was approached for recruitment into their top-secret R&D project meant to develop a working prototype of an ambulatory weapons platform that would allow a single soldier to perform the functions of a full squadron. With enthusiastic glee, he accepted the position he was offered and immediately began designing schematics for both a cybernetic exoskeleton that would link to a hard-suit.
After several invigorating months of effort, Dr. Loft had the preliminary schematics for the exo-skeleton itself drawn to his satisfaction and switched focus to the design of the accompanying hard-suit. Needing to ensure the soldier inside would be well protected as well as heavily armed also presented the unique problem of keeping him adequately cooled. To this end, Dr. Loft spent the next six months developing a more efficient cooling system and another year designing the hard suit itself.
With nearly two years spent merely designing the schematics for the complete prototype, Dr. Loft decided it was time for a vacation. While the labs actually built the system to his specifications, he decided it was time he went fishing. With no immediate need for his services while the three systems were being built, the military agreed that he had earned a bit of relaxation. However, due to the sensitive nature of his work, they insisted he be accompanied by a security team. The team would remain as inobtrusive as possible, but they were needed to safeguard the welfare of both Dr. Loft and the nation.
So wIth his security team trailing behind him, Dr. Loft went fishing. Unfortunately for Dr. Loft, the Group had other plans in mind for him. They sent their most highly skill "acquisitions" team to retrieve him. Dr. Loft never discovered what happened to his security team, but he spent the next two years being moved from one mobile lab to another while developing whatever weapon, gadget or gizmo the Group required of him.
He never once showed any sign of open defiance and his guards grew lax. He began secreting the parts and technology he would need to assist in his escape and built the original powered gauntlets and sidearms he still uses to this very day. With these knew tools changing the odds in his favor, Dr. Loft escaped the Group and took upon himself the mantle of Agent Grey. In this guise, he makes the world a safer place to live as he continues trying to bring the Group to justice.
At anyrate, the main point of that long bit of text wasn't to completely rewrite your origin for you. It was to show you one way in which you could make it more plausible.
The only elements I would see as necessary to keep would be that the weapon system isn't capable of obliterating everything in its path (no lawful military would seek to develop such a weapon) and he's not abducted by a team of 5 men from his lab because he was dumb enough to go investigate a noise. Although, as Ghost and Nan both mention, give him a reason to comply with their demands or a way to avoid doing so without being killed.
I would keep his location during capture moving, whether you use mobile labs or not. The government is going to want him back desperately and would be able to find him easily if he was never moved (assuming he's still in the country).
Also, do not have him kidnapped from the lab by a team of 5 men with no clue as to how they got there. If you keep the kidnapping at the lab, develop and describe an infiltrator that allows the team to get into the lab without raising the alarms and have them actively kidnap him, not make a noise that he decides to investigate. Yes, this is a repeat, but it really through me out of the story when I read that.
Remember to keep it plausible, but above all, have fun with it!
Just a thought.. Axel Brass (who your character is based off) was an Immortal. Not in the sense he can't die but that he ages slowly(ala Wolverine) so I was thinking you could have had him Kidnapped in the 1930s having been held for centuries he devlopes somekind of process to retard his ageing..and when he escapes it's the present day. Considering who your basing it of I've come up with some links so you can understand who Axel Brass is based off and similar too:
his Origins http://home.earthlink.net/~rkkman/frames/index.html
Who he's based off http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doc_Savage
and who he could be similar to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Strong
the thought of a mad scientist-esque version of Tom strong apeals to me
I've started on the backstory for my main, Jackass. It's only in the rough draft stages presently, but the jist of it is as follows. Corban Corrigan is an unemployed auto mechanic living in Chicago, and he's lived in squalor for pretty much all of life, having grown up in a horrible slummish orphanage.
He's just been diagnosed with some form of cancer that's metastasized like nobody's business, so he's pretty much down in the dumps. After waking up in the middle of the night in his trashy one-room apartment and lamenting his lot in life, he spies a commotion in the empty lot across the street.
Upon closer inspection, it's a woman being raped ( ). He sees other people awake in the surrounding buildings, hearing the woman's cries for help and just closing their blinds. So he decides to take it upon himself and saves this poor woman. Which he does, with much aplomb and spraying of bullets. Enthralled with the experience, his vigilantism escalates from there, until he's taking on bank robbers and pseudo-villains.
The first real "villain" (there aren't any real villains, per se, in this narrative, as I'm going for a more gritty, less fantastical tone -- like Watchmen or TDKR) is an out-of-work proctologist drug dealer. A lowly meth kingpin in the Chicago ghetto. Jackass takes him on and eventually apprehends him, but not before the proctologist loses a hand, which is later replaced by a hook prosthetic. An ironic acoutremont, for a proctologist. His name is something of a problem, however.
He's based on The Sloppy Proctologist, a CoV character of mine, but that's a little too frivolous a name for this narrative. I'm considering The Assman, but that seems maybe a little too silly. Any suggestions?
Ok, I wanna start working on a origin story for the servers for the character for which I am most excited to make when I get champions. Smirk.
I've got some pretty good ideas on what I want the character to be like in terms of appearance and personality, and as far as origins go I always envisioned him as sort of a mirror to Batman, only the mirror is cracked. His family was never rich, they still tried to make the city better but mostly for their kid, Jachob Ellsby. At 13 Jach gets hooked on drugs and becomes the very thing that his parents tried ever so hard to shelter him from, a junkie and a criminal. One night he succesfully robs a drug dealer's den, wearing a dirty yellow ski mask with a smiley face on it, for about $15,000 worth of heroine, some of which he uses that night to celebrate. After he OD's on the stuff his parents put him in a rehab program, which works, after a year being in therapy he again resurfaces, clean and ready to start anew, and when his parents come to pick him up and are taking him out to the car, the three of them are hit by a drive-by (the drug dealer he robbed), both of his parents die, his father jumping in front of his newly reformed son to save him. Seeing this the driver pulls the car over and puts Jachob in the car.
He awakens days later in a dark room, a bag over his head and he is tied to a chair. When they notice that he is stirring, the other people in the room walk over and rip off the cowl, turning on the overhead light, at first Jach thinks he's in a hospital, then he knows the truth, that he's in the basement that he robbed a year earlier, which seemed an eternity ago. He was given an offer, the dealer was impressed with how good Jach was at robbing drug dealers, so he told him he could work off his debt by stealing for him. Jach gracefully declined (by spitting in his face and yelling "I'll NEVER WORK FOR YOU!!! IF I GET FREE FROM THIS YOU'RE DEAD! DEAD!"). The dealer, smiled, lamenting his next action only as far as that he was losing a potential asset, and produced a needle filled with more than enough Heroine to overdose, though this needle wasnt filled with heroine alone, but with Crane's fear toxin (remember some of the drugs that were laced with the compound, yeah well one of the bunnies got mixed in with the bears, unbeknownst to the dealer here. Also this is a Begins reference, when I make the character in champions the fear toxin bit will be left out). Screaming at his assailant, he pleaded, "please let me go, oh god PLEASE dont stick that in my ar... NOOOOO! NO! Naa...."
Days later he again awoke, this time in an alley beneath layers of trash, dumped, as though dead. Confused he gets up, his clothes dirtied, images of what happened to his mother and father, he loses it. He bolts home, and once he arrives, he sees the police surrounding the place, "night would be best," he thought. And so he waited. At night he sneaks into the house, and retrieves his father's gun and 3 clips (his father was a police officer) and his mask, the one with the smiley face on it. Then he goes over to the dealer's house wearing the mask. There he waits in line, as though about to get drugs, and once its his turn he comes to the door and looks up, "One please" he says with a smile, as he retrieves his fathers gun and puts a bullet through the peek hole just as whoever is behind the door looks through, then kicking the door down, just as he did the first time, he rushes in his gun up and ready, looking for the dealer, who he finds sitting on the couch, about to put a needle in his arm, accompanied by a once beautiful hooker. Surprised the dealer stands up and removes his gun from its holster, another two thugs burst in through the back door and follow suit, Jachob responds by shooting the both of them in the face and then rounding on the dealer. But before he can get a shot off, the dealer shoots him in the right side of the jaw. In pain but still standing and holding his gun, Jachob raises his gun again, but catches the hooker in the forehead instead of his intended target, who flees, attempting to get away from what he thinks is another robbery.
thats just the beginning of the story and its only the basics, not much description/dialogue, just saying what happens, anyway he gets home, patches himself up as best he can and realizes the next day after he passes out on his bed in an alley, that the left side of his smile was ripped (on his mask) giving it the appearance of a smirk. What I need help with is like ideas on how he becomes a good guy after this because thats what he is, he's still a good guy, just has no problem killing the bad guys, enjoys it in fact.
Hm. Intriguing, Smirk reminds me in principle of the Death Wish movies.
I imagine him as almost being a Punisher kind of character (I assume that's what you were going for), planning his life solely around the next "punishment". It's difficult to mix career vigilantism with a social life.
He doesn't have any superpowers, I gather? That somewhat complicates his being in a field normally occupied by metahumans. On the other hand, it also gives me an idea of how he might become a hero.
Suppose that, after a few months of random criminal killings after becoming Smirk, he finds himself at a bank (perhaps on an informal stake-out for would-be robbers.) While there, the bank is attacked by an actual supervillain-someone minor enough to not have enormous resources, but locally well-known. While the usual complement of 2 or 3 thugs is guarding the customer-hostages, Smirk quietly slips away to the bathroom to don his mask. From there, he sneaks into the vault and finds the supervillain distracted as he is taking the money. Seconds later, the thugs rush into the vault upon hearing a gunshot, and find a sociopath in a sunny yellow ski mask standing over their dead boss. In a panic at seeing a "regular" actually kill a metahuman, they flee the scene before the police arrive (as does he).
The next day, a report in the local paper announces that the supervillain has apparently been murdered (perhaps with a comment that the local police have not put a priority on finding the killer). Thinking back on the thug's panicked reaction, he decides that ordinary criminals clearly look up to their superpowered counterparts, and comes to the conclusion that rather than having them constantly gain morale by escaping their various prisons, he can actually strike fear into the hearts of criminals by killing supervillains. He still "punishes" ordinary offenders, but looks out for opportunities to murder supervillains as well. Obviously, the approach of actually murdering people somewhat erodes his moral high ground, so he now has to deal with condemnation and almost no chance of assistance from "white hats".
So, a new style of crimefighter emerges. Typical superheroes want to keep supervillains away from society, and often hope to eventually reform them, setting a good example for citizens everywhere. Smirk takes a somewhat different approach, hoping to drill into criminal's heads (sometimes literally) the notion that if they commit crime, they run the very real chance of actually being murdered. Heroes give hope to ordinary people, Smirk makes criminals afraid to leave their homes. Presumably, he would try especially to find high profile crimes (eg, supervillainy, hostage situations, bank heists) to "stop", publicizing his reputation as judge, jury, and executioner.
Obviously, with a character like this, you have to remember that people who assosciate with criminals (family members, for example) would rightly percieve him as a vicious psychopath who kills their friends and loved ones out of a sense of primeval "law of the jungle" justice. There would be very large sectors of the community that demand that he be brought to justice. Indeed, he could even do more harm than good by eventually undermining faith in the police and supers.
Things to think about.
EDIT: You also might think about incorporating the obvious moral issues with vigilantism. Perhaps Smirk once (or twice, or thrice...) misread a situation and ended up killing an innocent person, or tampered with police evidence to keep them off his trail. Many options to choose from in order to have the notion that Smirk is not always the most heroic crime fighter in Millenium City.
I have to agree that the Smirk is more of a Punisher/Bronson homage than a Batman homage. In fact, the only real similarity to Batman is that his parents are killed in front of him. In order to do justice to a Batman homage you need to at least keep Batman's refusal to kill.
well, smirk isnt so much like a punisherish character in that he's a complete psychopath after being shot in the face he really only thinks of himself as smirk, blocking out his reason for revenge, even though his first job entails him shooting the bollucks off of the guy who killed his parents. As I said before he's like batman, but he's also like the joker, or jigsaw, and in some ways the punisher, in that he uses guns, but usually he uses the fact that no one knows about him to sort of join a criminal organization to learn more about it, then decapitate it by killing the boss. but the overall thing is that even through his psychosis parts of his old personality are starting to come through after a while, which I guess could be how he turns into a hero.
Also, I've never seen the death wish movies so in my mind its always been a batman homage, in fact originally he was supposed to be a villain/foil for batman someone who saves people but still needed to be stopped. Anyway, it was less about the fact that his family was killed and more about the fact that both of his parents were good people and HE got them killed, it was his fault, and while for bruce wayne it was much less his fault, he diddnt make a consious decision to do something that might be dangerous, it was still partially his fault, and so he was driven by guild. Then theres the fact that the Batman diddnt always have so many constrictions about killing bad guys, originally, he carried a gun as well, it wasnt until 2-3 years after he was created that they decided to make him a little less dark, and a little more justice seeking.
If you want Smirk to be a hero (anti hero really) you must really force the moral struggle. If Smirk stays in his psychosis any redeemable qualities he has disappear. The trick to a great anti-hero is that through all their immorality there is still the desire to do good. The anti-hero, whether he displays it or not, needs to put their initial instinct aside and do what is morally right.
A lot of people identify being an anti-hero with just the gruff exterior (Wolverine stereo type) and missing the internal struggle that defines this class of hero.
(Just thought of a better way to describe it) Anti-hero = struggle between Justice and Vengeance.
I would suggest Smirk's struggle to fight through the psychosis be a tool you use to begin his redemption. The anger, self loathing for causing his parents death, and doubt should be present, but if you want to avoid being a villain he still needs to be cognizant of right and wrong.
Maybe he realizes that the 'solace' he gets from murdering the guy in the vault isn't really solace at all. You could also work that into his past as a junkie, the pain goes away for a while but returns after a while.
You'll also have to walk a very fine line with how he punishes people, I believe you can still kill bad guys without being a villain, but if you are going to do that you have to make your motivation extremely clear, without being completely cold blooded.
Remember, you -must- humanize him in someway.
Oh, and I know I'm late to the book party, but I suggest Abarat by Clive Barker, does have a female lead but it is wonderfully written and illustrated (Barker illustrates many of his books, these aren't kiddy illustrations)
One of my other favorite books is The Thief of Always, also by Barker. I plan using that book to create a hero at some point as well, but am trying to be extremely careful with it as that story is one of my favorites ever written.
How can you kill a villain in cold blood without being a villain yourself? Now, if it's in defense of yourself or others, sure. Everyone has the right to defend and protect themselves. But to just go out and kill someone for being a criminal, that's murder itself and makes you a criminal as well.
Granted, there could well be other moral reasons for murder (although, personally I'm drawing a blank), but villainy and criminality are determined by the judicial system of the society within which you live, not by morality.
As you've described him, he's a villain. He's not an anti-hero, he's a psychopath that merely happens to target other villains.
What's more, you can't truly turn Batman into the Punisher (or worse) and call it a Batman homage. Batman has two defining character traits:
1) He's willing to break the law in order to see justice done.
2) No matter what, he refuses to kill.
Removing either of those removes any and all similarities to Batman.
his origins are more what I'm referring to when I say he's a batman homage, also, batman used to carry a gun and kill those he fought against, back when he was first created, and besides look at rorchak (pretty sure thats how u spell his name, havent read the comic in years) he's a psychopath who has no problem killing and torturing and he's still considered a hero. I'm not saying that he's a warm and fuzzy hero, he's not, fact is almost nobody else likes him in the comics that I can remember. Sure he's a bad dude, but is he a bad guy? if what he does and his methods are for the greater good, then how is he not a hero?
If you want Smirk to be a hero (anti hero really) you must really force the moral struggle. If Smirk stays in his psychosis any redeemable qualities he has disappear. The trick to a great anti-hero is that through all their immorality there is still the desire to do good. The anti-hero, whether he displays it or not, needs to put their initial instinct aside and do what is morally right.
A lot of people identify being an anti-hero with just the gruff exterior (Wolverine stereo type) and missing the internal struggle that defines this class of hero.
(Just thought of a better way to describe it) Anti-hero = struggle between Justice and Vengeance.
I would suggest Smirk's struggle to fight through the psychosis be a tool you use to begin his redemption. The anger, self loathing for causing his parents death, and doubt should be present, but if you want to avoid being a villain he still needs to be cognizant of right and wrong.
Maybe he realizes that the 'solace' he gets from murdering the guy in the vault isn't really solace at all. You could also work that into his past as a junkie, the pain goes away for a while but returns after a while.
You'll also have to walk a very fine line with how he punishes people, I believe you can still kill bad guys without being a villain, but if you are going to do that you have to make your motivation extremely clear, without being completely cold blooded.
Remember, you -must- humanize him in someway.
Oh, and I know I'm late to the book party, but I suggest Abarat by Clive Barker, does have a female lead but it is wonderfully written and illustrated (Barker illustrates many of his books, these aren't kiddy illustrations)
One of my other favorite books is The Thief of Always, also by Barker. I plan using that book to create a hero at some point as well, but am trying to be extremely careful with it as that story is one of my favorites ever written.
well yeah, thats a good idea, I was thinking something along the lines of the first group of bad guys he goes after after killing the people who killed his parents are a group of people who are messing with the homeless who live in his alley. So he kills one, but one of the homeless is a little girl and she either gets winged or killed, seeing that he seriously questions his motives, and starts to try and be a wee bit more careful. such as not fighting when the people he's protecting are around, or trying to use hand to hand combat more, instead of guns. I'm just having trouble making this guy less of a monster. My brother, who I'm writing a graphic novel with (different one, has nothing to do with Smirk, though I might do that in the future, when I figure this character out) told me to take some ques from Spawn who isnt necesserily good or evil and the comic is more about whether or not he will be a hero than anything else.
Something I want to point out, maybe just a little thing.
You keep saying "murder". Smirk isn't murdering these guys. Not in his head. In his mind he is "executing" them.
There is a HUGE difference.
Something to consider when putting this story together.
That being said,
He just doesn't seem to be much like Batman. I realize that Bats is the cool kid on the block these days, what with his movie and all, but Smirk just doesn't carry a Batman vibe, at all. I'd go with Bronson, like some of the others said.
OR Punisher.
Just my $.02 though
Something I want to point out, maybe just a little thing.
You keep saying "murder". Smirk isn't murdering these guys. Not in his head. In his mind he is "executing" them.
There is a HUGE difference.
Something to consider when putting this story together.
That being said,
He just doesn't seem to be much like Batman. I realize that Bats is the cool kid on the block these days, what with his movie and all, but Smirk just doesn't carry a Batman vibe, at all. I'd go with Bronson, like some of the others said.
OR Punisher.
Just my $.02 though
like I said, he's just where I got the idea for his origins, diddnt even make the connections till after I came up with the idea for a psychotic hero that I'd like to do. Just in my mind thats who he's always been a darker version of Bats, in fact when I originally thought of how close he could be to him, I thought that he should be a villain for him to stop. someone who no one really knew about. but people started attributing these gangs being taken down and murders to him, so bats goes into detective mode to see if he can figure out who this guy is. Then he finds out that this guy is a vigilante who is actually starting to do a better job of clearing the streets and making the bad guys run scared than batman is. then seeing his true face (his true metaphorical face, you know what I mean, anyway). He realises that he is nothing like him and even though the people will hate him for it he has to stop him. Like I said before, its like he's a mirror for batman only the mirror is cracked, like what might have been if he wasnt a rich guy, if he wasnt so well adjusted (ha ha). Then I figured to give him more story I should make him someone else, but thats how the idea originated. Thats why I keep comparing him to the Bat. Granted, I probably wouldnt have thought twice about him (Batman) if Begins and subsequently TDK haddnt come out recently (the former less recent than the latter) mostly because before that I thought of batman as this kiddy story, because that's all I'd been shown in the movies and I never read the comics till 06' (thats when I went into research mode about him), but Begins is the movie that reminded me what a dark piece of fiction Batman can be. that and he was semi-inspired by Rorchac (seriously someone tell me how to spell his name, its driving me nuts), who was my first real example of what a crazy hero could be. Then there was Sadistic Sam which was another character that I made, wrote a short story about him too, for CoV, and I kept toying with how I could make this guy semi-non-evil or even a good guy, but never could, not without sacrificing his oh-so-entertaining psychosis. Then I had Questionmark which was sort of the early version of Smirk except with a MUCH different story. Most of the idea, however was based on the notion of making something inherently scary, which is to say, serial killers, and make one on the side of the good guys (this was not at all inspired by dexter, never watched the show, he's way too normal for me).
A) you keep using the term murder. in your story you say he's going to hunt down and infiltrate, then kill the leadery guy, this -is- 1st degree murder
To have him fully, logically plan out the assasination of another human being is definitely villian stuff. Full blown mens rea without moral conflict will cause your character to slip into the villian side of things.
The important thing however is how you see -your- character. If you see him as a hero you need to ask yourself WHY you see him as a hero, or at least why he is in your eyes NOT a villian. You then have to make that come through in his story and his actions.
The important thing however is how you see -your- character. If you see him as a hero you need to ask yourself WHY you see him as a hero, or at least why he is in your eyes NOT a villian. You then have to make that come through in his story and his actions.
It's a tricky thing to do.
This is true. However, he did post in the backstory help thread asking for help and I personally believe it to be rather important to pay attention to such details.
As for Batman using a gun early career, I can only think of that as having been the Batman of what is now called Earth-2 in DC. I have no exposure to him so couldn't say. However, the Batman that immediately springs to mind for most people would be the Batman of Earth-1 (prime, whatever they're calling it) and he flat out refuses to kill or carry a gun.
What's more, having your parents killed in front of you as a child is a very common motivation in the comics. Granted, Batman is likely the most well-known character with such a story, but it's not unique by any stretch of the imagination. With that being the only point of commonality between the Smirk and the Batman, to call him a Batman homage is incorrect. As the story is written, you haven't created an even darker Batman, you've created the anti-Batman. He's a murderer that targets villains, not someone trying to bring villains to justice.
What's more, you cannot simply say, "he's demented and his dementia makes him a hero as he thinks he's doing the right thing!" If his dimentia interferes with his sense of morality, then he's neither hero nor villain. He's a sick individual that needs to be hospitalized and treated before his dementia causes (or allows, if you prefer) him to kill again.
Now, this isn't to say the concept isn't interesting, but you need to make a choice. As you've written it, the Smirk is, and can be nothing but, a villain. Without a redeeming feature, that is all he will remain. Even the Punisher has such a feature. The Punisher knows what he is doing is wrong, he simply sees no other way to achieve justice because he knows that the justice system is corrupt. So, he does what he believes is necessary, despite morality and the laws of society. But he doesn't rationalize it to himself as being the right thing to do, it's simply the only thing that will work (in his mind).
If you want to make the Smirk into a darker Batman, lose the "must kill all criminals" mentality. He definitely couldn't plan the cold-blooded murder of his arch-nemesis. Sure, he can keep his willingness to kill in order to protect others or prevent a criminal from escaping, but it cannot be his one-and-only solution. If you feel that making it the one-and-only solution he has is an integral part of his character, then simply stop referencing him as a Batman homage.
In the end, however, he is your character and yours is the only vision that he needs adhere to. I'm just making comments and suggestions based off being a highly literal person that cannot stand (personally...as in it bugs the hell out of me, but doesn't really matter type thing) to see terms misused.
Maekellen I think you and I are pretty much in agreement here. I just wanted to make sure he knew that I wasn't saying his character COULDN'T be a hero.
But, he would have to make the why of his willingness to kill extremely plain, and that he would have to really highlight the morality struggle.
Having no sense of moratily is -basically- (not the exact deffinition certainly) makes your character a sociopath. If you want him to be a hero, you need to look at him and ask yourself why YOU see him as a hero, and then make sure it's in his story, otherwise, at best he is a mentally disturbed person.
As written now, if he were taken to court he would be found mentally incapable of understanding his actions and sent to a mental institution, not prison. Anyway I really hope your character works out, I like how you worked his physical character description and name, just need to work out that back story.
If it makes you feel better I'm at a roadblock of sorts (roadblock via too many paths to take my character down, doh!)
Oh, and also, infiltrating a villain organization with the sole purpose being to murder the head honcho, in my eyes immediately disqualifies a 'Hero'.
The character I stuck as my avatar, the little pink cat. Wafers.
Energetic fluff ball that is technically just a cat, but for practicality purposes I gave the ability to turn into a human form similar to a little person (albeit on the anthro side) so that I have a decent way of communicating and emoting to other people, and an excuse for in games as to why she's not just a neon pink cat.
Key traits, she's named in relation to Necco Wafers, due to her neon and cotton candy pink fur and that she's as energetic as a toddler hopped up on sugar. She's very intelligent though that only occasionally shines through her usually bouncy and childish behavior. She likes to be adorable and occasionally pilfer stuff if it's shiny.
Powers are shape shifting, claws, invisibility, and cuteness.
Back story involves a mommy cat that was part of gene splicing experiments and animal testing in a effort to make super-humans. The operation was found out and shut down by PETA. Wafers was one of the pets deemed 'salvageable' and shuttled off for monitoring and care, eventually being adopted by a detective who worked with super heroes, where they discovered that her unique powers spanned beyond her pink fun and cuteness.
She can talk, though not in her normal form, she has to shape shift into something that has the vocal capacity for speech and be able to understand the language.
This was actually a fun character for me, I used to play her quite a bit. ^_^
Awesome thread. I put my own thread asking for help with a character I'm thinking of about an hour ago. But I figured I'd place a request here as well.
Anyways, I got a character in mind that for whatever reason, I CAN'T seem to come up with an awesome background story for him. I didn't really have this problem with the other characters I have in mind, but this one is a blur. Maybe u guys can help me out.
I already know what I want to name him and more or less his appearance. His name is going to be "Cerberus". I don't want him to have 3 heads, but I do want him to have the apperance of a mighty wolf/fierce Dog. An Intimidating but not quite evil, look. And I want him to be like a big tanker as well.
I don't know what kind of powers I want him to have apart from Brute strength, but I'd like for him to have something. Just to make him more of an appealing character and not a Werewolf version of Hulk.
So yeah, could u guys help me out with this? I'd really appreciate it...
I'd just like to add that I've seen a number of threads posted to various fora asking for info about the extensive Champions Universe background, for people who want their characters to tie into it. If anyone here has any such requests, I and other Champsfiles will be happy to offer suggestions.
I'd just like to add that I've seen a number of threads posted to various fora asking for info about the extensive Champions Universe background, for people who want their characters to tie into it. If anyone here has any such requests, I and other Champsfiles will be happy to offer suggestions.
Yah, well, I had to go digging with the plethora of requests for bio help.
As for the Champ's background data, I'm largely clueless. I have the 4ed rulebook and that's it for my exposure hehe.
thanks for signing on Lord.... not that we ever really had a Sign up.
I wish this would get stickied... so people could get more imput than just us "regulars"
we got stickied
didnt think that would actually work.
Well, if it wasnt already clear to all around, Backstory help is Up and Running... any question, any at all, post up here, there's a whole crew of dedicated community members that would love to help in any way they can... Me included.
---- In "that other game", I came up with the concept for an ancient evil warrior, possibly B.C. time period. His name is Ka'tul. The problem with him still walking around is the actual story and when it was supers started appearing in the world. So, I had to pretty much make up a story that wasn't what I wanted originally (tied him into CoT rituals and resurrection saying he was brought back to help fight with them and switched sides to help Virgil Tarikoss instead because he wanted to have a new life as a hero). But it played off okay.
IG Quote after task force:
"I can do you no further harm, and were you to harm me, your part in this matter would be revealed to all. So we are at an impasse, and neither of us gets what we truly wanted. Take this as a lesson, then: When you choose a life of darkness, you will find no one to trust. But let's not leave on completely grim terms. Consider this: You saved the islands, and possibly the world. I doubt you'll take satisfaction in it, but the achievement is yours all the same."
So now he shares a hatred with Arachnos for the Legacy Chain. That was all I had.
Okay now for the fun part..
---- What I need help with for CO is a way to tie it into the new story (possibly the same resurrection scenario, its kinda cool after a while). I tend to not stray from actual in game time-line events. If he were to actually be as old as ancient times, I would have to somehow be invincible, or I never age (that doesn't fit into the Champions Universe aka makes him a NPC godlike character.. I think.) Also, I need a pre-backstory for my character. You know, before he was resurrected. I have yet to come up with one that is interesting.. He has the look of your classic evil warrior from any fantasy game. Wields a very large axe and has super human reflexes, although he stands 6'6, is well built, and weighs over 300 lbs (something you don't see very often, no fatty pun intended. :looks down:) I have been trying to come up with a reason for him being evil, and he has no specific origin (both location and source of powers) yet. I was thinking of maybe... ancient Greek or Egyptian for where his background originates from. In his new story, he actually becomes a hero.
---- So with that, I thought, since the thread says "Backstory Help", I could get some for mine. I have a large imagination but, I'd like to see what kind of story others would come up with
Edit: Notice, I'm only good at creating Villain backgrounds, I'm horrible with Heroes.
Another edit: In my sig, I have a timeline that dates 100,000 years B.C. There is so much to choose from.
Keep in mind that "magic" is the root of many super powers in CO (the others being scientific experimentation and weapons/tech)
Might I suggest, that in the distant past, an arrogant warlord found, stole, was trapped in a cave with a source of magical power (wellspring, magic fruit tree, weapon, armor, amulet, etc).. this source of magical power turned this small warlord into a king, powerful and terrible. he took over great expanses of land and affected many cultures. He called his kingdom "Zimbabwe" and errected a great citidel. War came, and the people under his sway shattered into various tribes. his iron rule was finally torn down, and he was imprisoned in the very stones of his citidel.
centuries passed, time and weather wore away the stone. Ka'tul sat, and waited. In his imprisonment, he learned much of the nature of his powers. he would grow old, his powers would dim, and he would enter a great sleep, when he woke, he found himself young again.
Eventually the prison began to crumble, and Ka'Tul was released. His citidel was nothing but grassy mounds and an encroaching jungle... how much time had passed since he was king of all the world?
He used his dark power to enslave the tribesmen that worked and hunted on his land. He bid them rebuild his citidel.... but the world had changed. He could sense it in the rocks and the wind, and even as the final touches of the citidel were completed, he released his people and abandoned the site.
Thus began his great exploration. In his time asleep, the great and terrible king had been universally forgotton. Thinking himself so mighty, it came as a great blow to Ka'tul that the world was not all that he could see in the african plains, but a much greater and more powerful existance ravaged the lands beyond its coasts.
He fought with ancestors of his people against armies of pale men... only to discover that both sides fought in the name of the same god.
He became jaded with power in his lives in exile, as he drifted through the world, dying and being reborn, leapfrogging through time.
He saw the abuses of Tyranies that were the image of his own once-great kingdom, and he was ashamed. he saw his people enslaved and set free by outsiders and by eachother. and he was enraged at the cuelty in humanity.
He was an elderly man in 1992, and he watched through a Sears window at the distruction caused by Dr. Destoryer. Ka'Tul weilded such power, this madness could have been his doing... the distruction of the world was too much to bear.
He was reborn to the world beyond Millennium city. It stood out to its people as a beacon of hope, a city of the future... To Ka'tul, it was much more.
It was a Citidel.
A great castle against the encroaching darkness. Mankind's stronghold against those who would use power to enforce their will on the weak, or to destroy them entirely.
It was a Citidel, and Ka'Tul would stand. He would defend this house that was not his home, and perhapse, finally make ammends for a long dead warlord's petty pride and the crimes he commited to a great and proud people.
Voided, as you note in your signature, one of the interesting things about the official Champions Universe is that it's part of a larger "Hero Universe" with an extensive prehistory, including past "ages" of civilization and magic, relics of which sometimes affect the modern day. For example, Takofanes the Archlich was once ruler of a great portion of the civilized world 70,000 years ago. Now, GhostHack's suggestion of basing your character in Africa gives me an idea from published CU history that I think might work for you, and can even incorporate some of GH's suggestions.
There's a cave in West Africa which contains rare volcanic gasses which suspend the aging process. 50,000 years ago it was inhabited by three pythons who, over the span of a thousand years, grew gigantic and gained sapience. One of these serpents, Nama, survives to this day. He learned much magic over the millennia and has long been worshipped by locals and other cultists as a god. Nama has something of a trickster's personality. He may sometimes help heroes when it suits his purpose, but he's just as likely to assist someone villainous. Ultimately Nama only cares about Nama's best interests. The serpent god actually has great but secret influence in the modern CU (I'll say no more about that here so as not to spoil the secret for people who like surprises).
In ancient times Nama's brother serpent Beda lorded over his kin and created a tyrannical empire in the lands that are now Africa. According to official history, during the "Atlantean Age" some 30,000 years ago Beda was slain by "a great hero from the north." Nothing more is revealed about that incident or what became of the hero, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if Nama recruited and equiped him to destroy Beda. Nor do we hear what became of him or Beda's former empire. The warrior could very well have tried to succeed Beda, becoming just as much of a tyrant.
Here's another useful datum: more than once Nama has magically summoned his servants to his cave and placed them in enchanted slumber, preserved unaging by the fumes in the cave, until he has a use for them in the world. On one occasion he did so at the behest of his worshippers, when the servant in question was causing too much destruction.
In case Voided or someone else is curious, here's the secret spoiler about Nama:
Known only to a very few, Nama is the creator and patron of VIPER, the largest supercriminal organization in the world. Nama actually has no involvement in the day-to-day activities of VIPER, nor directs its overall goal of world domination (i.e. he isn't VIPER's Supreme Serpent). Nama created VIPER to protect himself from the powerful beings he foresaw as coming during the Age of Superheroes, and while he mostly lets it run on its own he has on a very few occasions ordered VIPER to take specific actions along those lines.
---- Everything fits perfectly, really. My character was supposed to be African (and I didn't even mention that.) I had a dream this morning about my character ( your stories in parenthesis ). He was King of a great empire ( GhostHack - that was once Beda's -Lord_Liaden ), a "Hero" to his people ( hiding his affinity for the dark "God" Nama. - possibly the source of his powers? ) When word broke out, people started forming alliances, thus bringing the war ( GhostHack ) and the fall of his empire ( enslavement in citadel ), awakening, journey etc. I think what we have here is Ka'tul's background for CO!
---- I appreciate the help. Fantastic story fellas ( I don't say this often but, great minds think alike. ) When I get the chance, I'm going to pick up a few of the Champions PnP source books for more background reference, and type up a complete story
( crediting the both of you - say nay if you please. ) I know what VIPER is, but have absolutely no clue what is it they do specifically, and how their history plays out in the CU ( other than what you have told me thus far. ) Such as Nama and Beda's background stories and events where VIPER played a key role in history. Let me know if I should just wait to play the game for that, I don't want to ruin it for myself.
Glad you like our ideas, Voided. (Just call me LL - that's how I'm commonly known on the Hero Games forums.) I agree that GhostHack produced a compelling narrative. If you develop a fuller origin, you can credit me or not as you prefer.
As for what VIPER does today, essentially anything and everything it can to gain as much power as possible, political and financial power as well as brute force. In some ways it's like COBRA or HYDRA, building a paramilitary army with cutting-edge weaponry, developing or stealing breakthrough technology, creatiing supervillains to serve it, devising world-threatening schemes; but it also takes over legitimate businesses, manipulates elections, muscles into organized crime, engages in espionage, bribery and blackmail. Individual VIPER Nests have their own styles which may emphasize overt or covert actions, so there's no stereotypical modus operandi.
Now, it's hard to say how much of that will make it into CO, or will be changed by Cryptic, so I can't guess how much might be spoiled by purchasing VIPER: Coils Of The Serpent. There is a fair-sized chapter on "VIPER Through The Ages" describing what the group and its predecessors have been involved with across history, if that interests or would be useful to you. OTOH the majority of the book goes into detail about everything to do with VIPER; and a great deal of the book is devoted to Champions PnP game stats for these things.
Okay, so. I had a vague idea for a new character that I think I would enjoy playing, but i've hit writer's block. And i'd love it if someone could provide some fill-in-the-blank here.
The general inspiration for the character (in principle) is Spider-Man. In fact, the specific thing I had in mind was a model you could have in the early N64/PS1 games, "Quick-Change Spiderman". Basically, the hero costume half-on underneath a mostly-covering hoodie/jacket and sweatpants. It really epitomizes the idea of very much a street-level hero with a quasi-urban legend feel to him, someone who goes on patrol in street clothes to avoid attracting attention, but can quickly go into action mode on the scene when something happens.
The original idea I had was that a normal human, as a prank during a night of drunken revelry in college, submits a superhero license registration form for laughs. However, through some bizarre and extremely unlikely turn of events (stray cosmic ray, involved in crash with radioactive waste truck, bitten by mutant animal, something SIlver Age), he is gifted with superpowers without realizing it.
From there (here's one of the main areas I could use help in) he ends up deciding to use his powers to fight street-level crime for whatever reason, a step above the average vigilante because his prank hero application form ended up going through, giving him official sanction.
One of the issues here is that I can't decide exactly what his powers should be. Again, the inspiration here is Spider-Man, so it should ideally be some sort of utilitarian power that can be used to great effect outside of combat.
Suggestions for filling in any of these fields would be more than welcome.
I hope you all don't mind me jumping in. I've had an idea for some characters I had been developing for a story I was going to write at one point, but now I'd like to develop them for CO and perhaps start a Supergroup with them. You'll, of course, see the X-men illusions immediately, but I think I added enough differences so it's not a total case of idea theft.
Basically, in the original story,on May 3rd, 2017, the earth is exposed to a wave of cosmic energy that had been sailing through the cosmos for millenia (think the Nexus in Star Trek: Generations) and a large portion of the population (both humans, animals and plants alike) begin to mutate and develop various 'super' abilities. Once this happens and word spreads as civilization rebuilds and reconnects after the disaster, these new humans (which I called Meta-forms) are viewed as diseased and polluted, are ostracized and actually viewed as less than human.
With that in mind, this is where I start getting to the background of the characters I wanted to adapt...
After the Meta-forms become the pariahs of humanity, one man, an industrialist by the name of Ashton Reynard, not even a Meta-form himself, speaks up for equal rights and treatment for their brothers and begins to gather support amongst influential politicians, military leaders and media stars to join his cause. It took some years, but after finally convincing the general public that all of their lives had been changed on May 3rd, 2017, that, even if they were physically different, the Meta-forms were still human and that all humanity needed to band together to rebuild in the new day they now lived in, people began to accept each other and the two groups began to drop their guards and join together. It was revealed sometime later, only after the situation had cooled, that one of Reynard's driving forces for Meta-form civil rights was his young daughter, who herself had been changed.
9 years later, during a chance encounter with an old friend, Major General Charles Walker, leader of the first Meta-form-based U.S. Military unit known as the Guardian Force, Mr. Reynard learned how ill-equipped and unprepared America's military academies were for the influx of superhuman recruits. In response to this, Ashton proposed to General Walker an idea that he had developed with his daughter: a private academy to train Meta-form use to develop and use their powers for the good of the nation. While independently wealthy, Reynard did not possess the resources to completely establish the project himself with all of the special equipment they would require. Thus, with General Walker's assistance, he presented his project to the appropriate officials and military sub-committees. In exchange for the developmental resources and aid of the US government and the school's ability to remain a non-military entity, the US Government would be allowed to recruit from the Academy's students upon graduation. Reynard agreed to this and began building his school immediately, choosing an isolated location in Pennsylvania's Poconos region for their campus. Starting initially with only United States citizens but eventually broadening their scope to taking students from US allied nations, the school would receive children at a young age, give them a quality education and then, at the same time, train them to develop and use their powers stably. After three years of construction, development and building of the curriculum, Ashton Reynard's 'Laurus Academy' went into business in the Fall of 2029. One of the first instructors in the Academy was Viktoria Reynard, Ashton's daughter, who had been trained and tutored privately to use her super strength and agility properly.
Over the coming decades, the Laurus Academy produced many skilled heroes, some who went into private practice, some who went into public service and others who joined their home militaries, such as the Guardian Force in America. The US Government kept a close eye on the training curriculum of the Laurus Academy to assure that it continued to meet their standards so that they could continue to recieve their support. With the approval of their government sponsors, however, Reynard established another means of funding their operations: Taking on some of the instructors within the school and those graduates who wished to stay on to form a private, freelance Hero organization (which I have yet to name) that would service the needs of their clients and aid the military and police forces in times of extreme emergencies.
Around the time of the Academy's thirtieth anniversary, Ashton Reynard unexpectedly grew ill as a result of a cancer that had been growing within his body, developed as a result of cosmic radiation that had bombarded the planet. Within three months, his health declined to the point where his body could no longer sustain itself and he passed away.
After a time of mourning, locally and nationally for the civil rights hero, Viktoria Reynard, now age 56, stepped forward and became the new administrator of the Laurus Academy.
Already I know I'm going to have to move this history back into the 1900s to fit with the universe of the game, but I don't know enough about Champions' organizations and influential figures to know how this fits into everything. Thus, I'll take any suggestions for what needs to be added, removed, or changed to make this all fit into the lore of the universe.
One of the issues here is that I can't decide exactly what his powers should be. Again, the inspiration here is Spider-Man, so it should ideally be some sort of utilitarian power that can be used to great effect outside of combat.
Suggestions for filling in any of these fields would be more than welcome.
this looks like a job for my favorite power suite of all time..... Probability Manipulation.
In a night of drunken revelry, he gets dared to sign up for a hero card. The lady at the front desk flat out refuses to even look at his application... but if she doesnt accept it, he'll loose the bet! As Luck would have it, Lakshmi, hindu goddess of fate (and incarnate wife of the avatar of Vishnu) again in human form sees the young man and falls madly in love with him. (whether she was drunk at the time remains a question...)
She secretly bestows on him a gift of good fortune, and the lady at the desk calls him back, to say that his application has been accepted any forwarded to the proper authorities.
bemused, our Hero returns home to sleep it off, and wakes up to find Lakshmi sitting at the foot of his bed, his dorm room clean, and his clothes all cleaned. He is shocked further as she wont shut up about calling him Vishnu.
After much complaining, and more "I'm not who you think I am", he finally gets her to leave.... but being loved by a goddess aint easy.
at first its just little things... getting 110% on a test he didnt study for, or finding $20 in a pair of pants he hadnt worn in 6 months....
but things started getting weird when he recieved his laminated SuperHero registration card. They had a little "fight" about it... and upsetting a goddess is worse than having one like you. He told her to shove off, after she threw his TV into a different dimension. She left.
Things are sort of up and down, these days... He started using his powers to help people, when he accidently stopped a convenience store robbery and a purse snatcher in the same day... just by being there. The gun accidently fired, to reveal it was a toy, and the pursesnatcher slipped right as he grabbed the handback, and feel face first into a parking meter.
Lakshmi, trying to get him to fall in love with her "again". It hasnt exactly worked yet.... but as long as he stays on her good side... he can help the people in his neighborhood...
future problems, of course... what happens if he starts getting too "Flirty" with other girls? (flashback scenes from every romantic comedy ever).... or worse, what happens if Vishnu or his current avatar show up looking for his bride to be, and shes all smitten with some "mortal"???
as for your actual powers... they can be anything in the game.. just make sure your ACC is maxed ;P
in the PnP, it would be fun to see "hex" type powers, or anything that could get your enemies into "silly situations".... wouldnt want them to be too deadly... cause what happens if your patroness desides you need to be taught a lesson? ;P
if Viktoria Reynard is 56 when her father died(in 2042)... she was 31 when the radiation hit earth (by your numbers, she was born in 1986)
you'll have to get the details from LL, but I think that the Nazis did something that went "oops" and let a bunch of "magic" into the world, causing a similar effect in the CU, that your radiation incident caused.
now, if you make Viktoria a baby boomer child, and use the 60's and 70's as a mirror for this "rights movement"... combined with vast "secret goverment projects" in those years... you could easily set up a situation nearly identical to your own....
Viktoria would be matronly now (50's or 60's) perhaps with children, or even grandchildren of her own... running her fathers financial enterprises as well as the Laurus Academy. her wealth and influence could easly be a building block of the Post-detroit peroid of American history.
Let's see... 9 years after the civil right movement is when the idea for the academy was proposed, 3 years after that the Academy is built and opened, 30 years after that Ashton dies and Viktoria takes her place as the head of the Academy, so as far as I figure she'd actually be a little younger than 24 years old (since the event happened a nebulous 'a few years' before the end of the civil rights movement). At least, that's the way I figure it, so perhaps she's only his 'young' daughter at that point from a certain point of view. You know fathers and their 'little girls.'
I do remember hearing about this Nazi magic accident way back when being the cause of the world's super powers, so I agree that that could perhaps take the place of the Radiation wave. Good thinking.
I actually had thought of using the real world civil rights era as the place where I could shift Ashton's activity... I just need to find out what happened there uniquely in the CU to see what I can connect to. You're right, though, that it shouldn't be too difficult to adjust that.
At the point where Viktoria takes over the Academy, I do see her more as an administrator than a fighter, but she has kept up her abilities enough that she's not defenseless. If the Laurus Academy ever came under attack, she could defend the children. As well, perhaps she is married at this point (I had always considered her single, but this works well) but the forces that gave her the abilities she has also made her barren, so she has to consider her students as her children. I was thinking she could perhaps work solely as the Laurus Academy's administrator and oversee their Freelance Heroes (still need a name for them...) while he unidentified husband runs the corporate branch of the Reynard business conglomerate. In the circumstance that she IS married, perhaps she just kept her maiden name for business purposes since the Laurus Academy is deeply associated with Ashton Reynard.
I also like the suggestion of their wealth being a building block in Post-Detroit America. I'll definitely have to see where I can take that thread.
As well, if I'm not mistaken, I believe there are other private institutions for the training of super-youth and it might be good to tie them together somehow. Perhaps rival schools. The one I'm trying to recall has 'Raven' in the name somewhere...
See, i worked backwards, not forwards.
we know these details:
"Ashton Reynard's 'Laurus Academy' went into business in the Fall of 2029"
"Around the time of the Academy's thirtieth anniversary....Within three months, his health declined to the point where his body could no longer sustain itself and he passed away"
so, 13 years after 2029, Viktoria is 56. so, 56 years back from 2042... she was born in 1986.... and we know that the radiation event happened in 2017..
2017-1986 = 31....
so, although she may always be "daddy's little girl"... he isnt likely secretly protecting his young, defensless daughter from the prejudice of the world.... shes an adult, probably already starting a family (if she hadn't 6-10 years earlier) when she became "super"... likewise, its unlikely that she was tutored at home secretly to develop her powers...
your discription of Viktoria universally smacks of a child-daughter... 5-10 years of age when the event happened.
I highly suggest that you stretch out your time line, give more stuff in between...
be very very very wary of solid dates, as they confine you to a particular timeframe. (ive already made a huge screw up in my own stories that im struggling to rectify.)
As for her relationships... you could make her a Widow. if she was 10 or so at the time of the event things would work swimingly... in the 10-15 years it takes her father to set up his school, Shes grown into a young woman, and found a Meta-form boyfriend...
the young man, however, has a much more unstable mutation, and never had the luxury of Viki's private training... though she helped him to stay relatively stable, it was a losing battle... and eventually he self-destructs, or dies from degeneration, or is killed by the government (giving her a strong desire to break her fathers ties between the school and the government?)
they have children... she was probably in her 30's when he died... and used her family's vast wealth to support her children, and cared for them herself.
that allows you to keep her Single Matron persona as the head of the school.. but gives her some life, some love and loss and....depth.. in her past to make her a complete person, rather than just Ashton 2
Hi, R_Zion. You have an interesting story background there. The main departure from official Champions Universe history, apart from the dates, is that the CU has never featured a widespread "anti-paranormal" backlash. There are certainly people who hold to the philosophy that paranormals as a whole are dangerous and need more stringent controls, and some of those people are influential or organized; but they're the minority.
I do remember hearing about this Nazi magic accident way back when being the cause of the world's super powers, so I agree that that could perhaps take the place of the Radiation wave. Good thinking.
Yes, the so-called "Walpurgisnacht Working" in 1938 substantially boosted the level of ambient magic in the world, which "loosened" the laws of probability and physics enough for the development of all sorts of superhuman abilities, through sorcery, genetic mutation, "supertech" far surpassing contemporary science, and just about any comic-book origin you can think of. It marks the transition of heroics on Champions Earth from "pulp-era" adventurers to true super-powered heroes, like the shift in popular fiction that occured in the real world at that time.
As well, if I'm not mistaken, I believe there are other private institutions for the training of super-youth and it might be good to tie them together somehow. Perhaps rival schools. The one I'm trying to recall has 'Raven' in the name somewhere...
Yes, Ravenwood Academy, in the suburbs of Millennium City. It bears a lot of similarity to Xavier's school in the Marvel Universe: a training facility for young superhumans to learn to use their powers responsibly, and perhaps become heroes themselves. Some of its graduates have already joined established superteams. Except for ties to the government and military (its true nature is secret, and it's a private school funded by other supers) Ravenswood performs much the same function as your Laurus Academy. It's even run by a retired superheroine, Kristina Pelvanen aka Rowan.
If you did want to keep a closer government connection to your proposed team, you should know that the United States has been conducting secret research projects to develop "superhuman soldiers" ever since WW II, with mixed success. Given that spotty track record, I could see the US government shifting from creation to recruitment and training of people with superhuman powers.
Probability manipulation...interesting. I can see that being somewhat problematic in game power terms, but it wouldn't be impossible. Maybe have a few points in a wide variety of powers, to suggest a wide variety of things his "blessing" from Lakshmi can do. Maybe a solar-powered supervillain is suddenly stopped by a freak cloud formation on a perfectly clear day, or a water main happens to blow up right underneath a gang of thugs. Or really, if I wanted to push it, have a giant doomsday device ironically happen to have been constructed directly in the path of a meteorite. Though the problems of a mercurial deity having a spat with him present obvious limitations to that. Just generally a very interesting concept, a character who technically has access to theoretically unlimited power...if his patron is feeling nice that day.
It does raise a minor problem. I'd ideally like to have some kind of standby power for him, something to fall back on. A signature move, if you will. Though the quandary of having a constant with such a context-based power is obvious. Hmm.
hence the "hex" idea (scarlet witch used it for AGES, afterall)... find something in the game you like.. a blast, a bolt, or a trap of some indeterminant look (energy or lightning work well).... it could be melee as well...
think of it like hitting your enemy with bad luck... maybe it makes him incontinent... maybe it makes him remember he left the gas on... but its sort of like.... an outpouring of love, baby, yeah...
perhaps he's learned to "diffuse" his patron's "bad luck" gifts, into some sort of offensive, weaponized structure...
the way I see it, you give him a good, solid "one-two".. it could be any combination of two attacks, make them a dark color (black or dark red work), and consider those his "mainstays".... then on top of that, you could give him freezing rain spells, and a gun with impossibly accurate shots, and a patch of quicksand, or any number of other "grab baggy" abilities that he can sort of "pull out of nowhere" (giving him that "prank" sensibility to mentioned.)
he's sort of a comic character... but the joke isnt on him ;P
See, i worked backwards, not forwards.
we know these details:
"Ashton Reynard's 'Laurus Academy' went into business in the Fall of 2029"
"Around the time of the Academy's thirtieth anniversary....Within three months, his health declined to the point where his body could no longer sustain itself and he passed away"
so, 13 years after 2029, Viktoria is 56. so, 56 years back from 2042... she was born in 1986.... and we know that the radiation event happened in 2017..
2017-1986 = 31....
Actually, that says thirtieth (30th), not thirteenth (13th). Even so, you're right about things not adding up. When I was adapting my notes for the post (they focus solely on Ashton, not Viktoria), I had pictured her as a child when all this occurred, thus all of that about his 'young daughter' and the tutoring at home. As I went on, however, as you can see, things shifted a bit.
Despite this, however, most of that post doesn't hold up anymore. I obviously can't have these events take place immediately after the "Walpurgisnacht Working" in 1938 or else that makes Viktoria over 70 by 2008. However, all this I'll get to in a second when I address L_L's post. I finally named Viktoria's husband, though (David Pallas-- last name from the Hellenistic god Pallas, father of Nike, associated with the Olympic games where the laurel wreath was given at the Pan-Hellenic games).
Before I really get into the events of her life, I should define the era she lived in. I do have some ideas I'll share shortly...
Hi, R_Zion. You have an interesting story background there. The main departure from official Champions Universe history, apart from the dates, is that the CU has never featured a widespread "anti-paranormal" backlash. There are certainly people who hold to the philosophy that paranormals as a whole are dangerous and need more stringent controls, and some of those people are influential or organized; but they're the minority.
Alrighty then....that could be a problem. So what's going on in CU America during the Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968)? Is there any possibility that such a movement of backlash could take place, at least in certain areas of the nation if not in its entirety? Or any suggestions into modifying that area of the story with the universe as is?
Yes, Ravenwood Academy, in the suburbs of Millennium City. It bears a lot of similarity to Xavier's school in the Marvel Universe: a training facility for young superhumans to learn to use their powers responsibly, and perhaps become heroes themselves. Some of its graduates have already joined established superteams. Except for ties to the government and military (its true nature is secret, and it's a private school funded by other supers) Ravenswood performs much the same function as your Laurus Academy. It's even run by a retired superheroine, Kristina Pelvanen aka Rowan.
Is there a date of establishment for Ravenwood? Also, were there any events in American history where superhumans (even if they weren't superheroes, per se) are called into action for the nation's defense. I don't want Viktoria to be a hero, per se, but I would like for her to have been there to give aid in certain circumstances when something big went down.
If you did want to keep a closer government connection to your proposed team, you should know that the United States has been conducting secret research projects to develop "superhuman soldiers" ever since WW II, with mixed success. Given that spotty track record, I could see the US government shifting from creation to recruitment and training of people with superhuman powers.
The subject of superhuman soldiers actually ties into another character that will eventually become associated with the Laurus Academy, but I'll deal with him later.
That leads me to wonder....I know UNTIL has a superhuman division (UNITE, right?). Does any sort of organization like that exist in the US military that might conflict with the eventual establishment of the Guardian Force, or is there something I could replace it with? Also, are there dates for the military's various Super-soldier experiments? If I can see what was done when, I might be able to include a military superhuman recruitment effort in there.
As well, and I didn't mention this earlier, but during the Meta-human Civil Rights movement, Ashton Reynard was supposed to be a single father to Viktoria, his wife having perished in a thus far undefined situation. Thus he might have a little more cause to be protective of her.
I was also thinking that, for the CU version of Ashton's ailment, he could have been exposed to high levels of radiation after trying to calm down a young student with developing but very potent radioactive powers. In this circumstance, the development of his cancer would have been found but quickly metastasizes, leading to his slow and slightly painful demise. It was his lifelong efforts to help superhumans that leads to his demise.
Viktoria always took more of an interest in her father's educational efforts and cared little for business (though Ashton himself was able to balance both). After her father's death, she is given administrative duties for the Laurus Academy while David Pallas, an ambitious young executive (and non-superhuman) Ashton had been groom to be his corporate heir, takes over operation of Reynard Mechanical Enterprises. David and Viktoria had met several times before at family and business functions (in fact, her father had tried to bring the two together at one point- Viktoria only wanted to focus on her career and wasn't really interested in romance), but it wasn't until Ashton's funeral that the two really began to come together. Despite an emotionally stable and physically strong individual, Viktoria took her father's death quite difficultly and David to the opportunity console her. Thus, with the absence of her father, Viktoria drew close to David to fill the void in her life and discovered that she did have an affection growing for the man. She takes the time over the next few years to really get to know the man and has her eyes opened to this man her father had taken such an interest in before finally being proposed to.
The two are eventually wed two years after Ashton's death. At this point, I'd say we're getting close to the point where I'd like her to be 56 and the two are actually contemplating whether children would be a good idea given their age. Because of Viktoria's superhuman origins, she is physically more youthful than a normal fifty-six year old woman, so it still is physically possible for her to give birth. With both of their very busy lifestyles, however, they've not sure it's such a good idea.
I'm entertaining the idea that this is not her first romance and has had bad experiences in love in the past, thus pushing her to focus more on her career, but that I'll save for when I figure out when she was born. At this point, if she's 56 in 2008, she would have been born in 1952.
I think that takes care of ideas for now. We'll see where we go from here...
that would put her as an older teenager, or in her 20's when the "movements" happened at the end of the 60's and into the 70's, yes?
that might be interesting, given that her position and family wealth would put her sort of abvoe and beyond the social events taking hold of the country.
as for "an event that brought heroes together"..... In 1992, Dr. Destoryer razes detroit... just a thought.
Comments
Hope no one minds me stepping in here, but I've got a few things to bring up.
First, what was he developing for the millitary? Maybe he was kidnapped in order to build what ever it was for his captors.
Secondly, do you really want your hero complying with the wishes of terrorists and building super weapons for them?
And finally, why did he choose the name Agent Grey.
Just some things to think about.
Its decient... feels like a cross between the Punisher movie, and Iron Man.. with a little bit of Forge in there.... decient source stuff for a story.... but you neglected a vital feature: "Context".
you say things like "doing whatever they told him"... but why, why was he willing to do it... theres always a choice, even if death is the other option... did he not consider what he was making all that bad? or was he just selfish?
how did "anyone" know to contact him for a project... was he in the yellowpages under "make anything"... he worked for the millitary, did he not have security on his lab.... MAXIMUM securty? so that people couldnt simply walk in and steal his military funded inventions... or himself?
the basic "plot" is fine..... but there isnt anything else there.... there needs to be a reason why these things happen... a reason why he's known for what he can do, and a reason why 5 men were able to capture him, and a reason why he was willing to be their slave for 2 years, and why the men were just going to kill him, and why they would bother driving him to a cliff when he'd been missing for two years... why not kill him in the warehouse and be done with it (other than so there was a gimiky plot device set up), and what planet is he on, that after working for a military, being kidnapped in a van, stored in a warehouse and dumped off a cliff... that it would have been preferable to "kick it" in a landfill across a lake.. rather than get back to civilization?
you have a lot of potential in the story, but you dont really use any of it.
not at all, Nan.... this is a place for anyone to help anyone else, and anyone to ask for help.
He's kept in the same cage in the same warehouse for two years with all the technology he would need to build his escape, yet blindly follows the orders of his captors the entire time. When they decide he's no longer of value to them, not only do they tell him this as well as their plans to kill him, they don't bother to tie him up before taking him to a cliff to shoot him.
When he jumps instead of being shot, these highly skilled and highly effective gentelmen decide he must be dead without even bothering to check. He then manages to find everything he needs for hi-tech vengeance in a trash dump, despite having been working with technology for the past two years in a more suitable environment without managing to do so.
The basic premise is sound. He's a brilliant inventor that has been hired by the military to work on top secret weapons design. As such, the bad guys want him and arrange to kidnap him to force him to build gadgets for him instead. However, that's about all that can easily be salvaged if you want the background story to be plausible.
For the following suggestions I'm going to use the word Group to describe an unknown criminal organization. If you choose to use any of the suggestions to tidy up your origin story, simply invent a name for the organization or substitute Viper for Group.
Dr. Alex Loft was a gifted inventor with a brilliance bordering on madness. Whereas most scientists devote their entire life specializing in a single field to develop expertise, Dr. Loft switched his studies as often as he fancied while managing to excel in each and every field he studied. As of late, his fancy had turned to the development of mechanically augmented exo-skeletons and hard suits.
This particular turn of fancy brought him to the attention of his nation's military. He was approached for recruitment into their top-secret R&D project meant to develop a working prototype of an ambulatory weapons platform that would allow a single soldier to perform the functions of a full squadron. With enthusiastic glee, he accepted the position he was offered and immediately began designing schematics for both a cybernetic exoskeleton that would link to a hard-suit.
After several invigorating months of effort, Dr. Loft had the preliminary schematics for the exo-skeleton itself drawn to his satisfaction and switched focus to the design of the accompanying hard-suit. Needing to ensure the soldier inside would be well protected as well as heavily armed also presented the unique problem of keeping him adequately cooled. To this end, Dr. Loft spent the next six months developing a more efficient cooling system and another year designing the hard suit itself.
With nearly two years spent merely designing the schematics for the complete prototype, Dr. Loft decided it was time for a vacation. While the labs actually built the system to his specifications, he decided it was time he went fishing. With no immediate need for his services while the three systems were being built, the military agreed that he had earned a bit of relaxation. However, due to the sensitive nature of his work, they insisted he be accompanied by a security team. The team would remain as inobtrusive as possible, but they were needed to safeguard the welfare of both Dr. Loft and the nation.
So wIth his security team trailing behind him, Dr. Loft went fishing. Unfortunately for Dr. Loft, the Group had other plans in mind for him. They sent their most highly skill "acquisitions" team to retrieve him. Dr. Loft never discovered what happened to his security team, but he spent the next two years being moved from one mobile lab to another while developing whatever weapon, gadget or gizmo the Group required of him.
He never once showed any sign of open defiance and his guards grew lax. He began secreting the parts and technology he would need to assist in his escape and built the original powered gauntlets and sidearms he still uses to this very day. With these knew tools changing the odds in his favor, Dr. Loft escaped the Group and took upon himself the mantle of Agent Grey. In this guise, he makes the world a safer place to live as he continues trying to bring the Group to justice.
And while I'm typing madly, three posts show up.
At anyrate, the main point of that long bit of text wasn't to completely rewrite your origin for you. It was to show you one way in which you could make it more plausible.
The only elements I would see as necessary to keep would be that the weapon system isn't capable of obliterating everything in its path (no lawful military would seek to develop such a weapon) and he's not abducted by a team of 5 men from his lab because he was dumb enough to go investigate a noise. Although, as Ghost and Nan both mention, give him a reason to comply with their demands or a way to avoid doing so without being killed.
I would keep his location during capture moving, whether you use mobile labs or not. The government is going to want him back desperately and would be able to find him easily if he was never moved (assuming he's still in the country).
Also, do not have him kidnapped from the lab by a team of 5 men with no clue as to how they got there. If you keep the kidnapping at the lab, develop and describe an infiltrator that allows the team to get into the lab without raising the alarms and have them actively kidnap him, not make a noise that he decides to investigate. Yes, this is a repeat, but it really through me out of the story when I read that.
Remember to keep it plausible, but above all, have fun with it!
his Origins
http://home.earthlink.net/~rkkman/frames/index.html
Who he's based off
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doc_Savage
and who he could be similar to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Strong
the thought of a mad scientist-esque version of Tom strong apeals to me
I've started on the backstory for my main, Jackass. It's only in the rough draft stages presently, but the jist of it is as follows. Corban Corrigan is an unemployed auto mechanic living in Chicago, and he's lived in squalor for pretty much all of life, having grown up in a horrible slummish orphanage.
He's just been diagnosed with some form of cancer that's metastasized like nobody's business, so he's pretty much down in the dumps. After waking up in the middle of the night in his trashy one-room apartment and lamenting his lot in life, he spies a commotion in the empty lot across the street.
Upon closer inspection, it's a woman being raped (
The first real "villain" (there aren't any real villains, per se, in this narrative, as I'm going for a more gritty, less fantastical tone -- like Watchmen or TDKR) is an out-of-work proctologist drug dealer. A lowly meth kingpin in the Chicago ghetto. Jackass takes him on and eventually apprehends him, but not before the proctologist loses a hand, which is later replaced by a hook prosthetic. An ironic acoutremont, for a proctologist. His name is something of a problem, however.
He's based on The Sloppy Proctologist, a CoV character of mine, but that's a little too frivolous a name for this narrative. I'm considering The Assman, but that seems maybe a little too silly. Any suggestions?
I've got some pretty good ideas on what I want the character to be like in terms of appearance and personality, and as far as origins go I always envisioned him as sort of a mirror to Batman, only the mirror is cracked. His family was never rich, they still tried to make the city better but mostly for their kid, Jachob Ellsby. At 13 Jach gets hooked on drugs and becomes the very thing that his parents tried ever so hard to shelter him from, a junkie and a criminal. One night he succesfully robs a drug dealer's den, wearing a dirty yellow ski mask with a smiley face on it, for about $15,000 worth of heroine, some of which he uses that night to celebrate. After he OD's on the stuff his parents put him in a rehab program, which works, after a year being in therapy he again resurfaces, clean and ready to start anew, and when his parents come to pick him up and are taking him out to the car, the three of them are hit by a drive-by (the drug dealer he robbed), both of his parents die, his father jumping in front of his newly reformed son to save him. Seeing this the driver pulls the car over and puts Jachob in the car.
He awakens days later in a dark room, a bag over his head and he is tied to a chair. When they notice that he is stirring, the other people in the room walk over and rip off the cowl, turning on the overhead light, at first Jach thinks he's in a hospital, then he knows the truth, that he's in the basement that he robbed a year earlier, which seemed an eternity ago. He was given an offer, the dealer was impressed with how good Jach was at robbing drug dealers, so he told him he could work off his debt by stealing for him. Jach gracefully declined (by spitting in his face and yelling "I'll NEVER WORK FOR YOU!!! IF I GET FREE FROM THIS YOU'RE DEAD! DEAD!"). The dealer, smiled, lamenting his next action only as far as that he was losing a potential asset, and produced a needle filled with more than enough Heroine to overdose, though this needle wasnt filled with heroine alone, but with Crane's fear toxin (remember some of the drugs that were laced with the compound, yeah well one of the bunnies got mixed in with the bears, unbeknownst to the dealer here. Also this is a Begins reference, when I make the character in champions the fear toxin bit will be left out). Screaming at his assailant, he pleaded, "please let me go, oh god PLEASE dont stick that in my ar... NOOOOO! NO! Naa...."
Days later he again awoke, this time in an alley beneath layers of trash, dumped, as though dead. Confused he gets up, his clothes dirtied, images of what happened to his mother and father, he loses it. He bolts home, and once he arrives, he sees the police surrounding the place, "night would be best," he thought. And so he waited. At night he sneaks into the house, and retrieves his father's gun and 3 clips (his father was a police officer) and his mask, the one with the smiley face on it. Then he goes over to the dealer's house wearing the mask. There he waits in line, as though about to get drugs, and once its his turn he comes to the door and looks up, "One please" he says with a smile, as he retrieves his fathers gun and puts a bullet through the peek hole just as whoever is behind the door looks through, then kicking the door down, just as he did the first time, he rushes in his gun up and ready, looking for the dealer, who he finds sitting on the couch, about to put a needle in his arm, accompanied by a once beautiful hooker. Surprised the dealer stands up and removes his gun from its holster, another two thugs burst in through the back door and follow suit, Jachob responds by shooting the both of them in the face and then rounding on the dealer. But before he can get a shot off, the dealer shoots him in the right side of the jaw. In pain but still standing and holding his gun, Jachob raises his gun again, but catches the hooker in the forehead instead of his intended target, who flees, attempting to get away from what he thinks is another robbery.
thats just the beginning of the story and its only the basics, not much description/dialogue, just saying what happens, anyway he gets home, patches himself up as best he can and realizes the next day after he passes out on his bed in an alley, that the left side of his smile was ripped (on his mask) giving it the appearance of a smirk. What I need help with is like ideas on how he becomes a good guy after this because thats what he is, he's still a good guy, just has no problem killing the bad guys, enjoys it in fact.
I imagine him as almost being a Punisher kind of character (I assume that's what you were going for), planning his life solely around the next "punishment". It's difficult to mix career vigilantism with a social life.
He doesn't have any superpowers, I gather? That somewhat complicates his being in a field normally occupied by metahumans. On the other hand, it also gives me an idea of how he might become a hero.
Suppose that, after a few months of random criminal killings after becoming Smirk, he finds himself at a bank (perhaps on an informal stake-out for would-be robbers.) While there, the bank is attacked by an actual supervillain-someone minor enough to not have enormous resources, but locally well-known. While the usual complement of 2 or 3 thugs is guarding the customer-hostages, Smirk quietly slips away to the bathroom to don his mask. From there, he sneaks into the vault and finds the supervillain distracted as he is taking the money. Seconds later, the thugs rush into the vault upon hearing a gunshot, and find a sociopath in a sunny yellow ski mask standing over their dead boss. In a panic at seeing a "regular" actually kill a metahuman, they flee the scene before the police arrive (as does he).
The next day, a report in the local paper announces that the supervillain has apparently been murdered (perhaps with a comment that the local police have not put a priority on finding the killer). Thinking back on the thug's panicked reaction, he decides that ordinary criminals clearly look up to their superpowered counterparts, and comes to the conclusion that rather than having them constantly gain morale by escaping their various prisons, he can actually strike fear into the hearts of criminals by killing supervillains. He still "punishes" ordinary offenders, but looks out for opportunities to murder supervillains as well. Obviously, the approach of actually murdering people somewhat erodes his moral high ground, so he now has to deal with condemnation and almost no chance of assistance from "white hats".
So, a new style of crimefighter emerges. Typical superheroes want to keep supervillains away from society, and often hope to eventually reform them, setting a good example for citizens everywhere. Smirk takes a somewhat different approach, hoping to drill into criminal's heads (sometimes literally) the notion that if they commit crime, they run the very real chance of actually being murdered. Heroes give hope to ordinary people, Smirk makes criminals afraid to leave their homes. Presumably, he would try especially to find high profile crimes (eg, supervillainy, hostage situations, bank heists) to "stop", publicizing his reputation as judge, jury, and executioner.
Obviously, with a character like this, you have to remember that people who assosciate with criminals (family members, for example) would rightly percieve him as a vicious psychopath who kills their friends and loved ones out of a sense of primeval "law of the jungle" justice. There would be very large sectors of the community that demand that he be brought to justice. Indeed, he could even do more harm than good by eventually undermining faith in the police and supers.
Things to think about.
EDIT: You also might think about incorporating the obvious moral issues with vigilantism. Perhaps Smirk once (or twice, or thrice...) misread a situation and ended up killing an innocent person, or tampered with police evidence to keep them off his trail. Many options to choose from in order to have the notion that Smirk is not always the most heroic crime fighter in Millenium City.
Also, I've never seen the death wish movies so in my mind its always been a batman homage, in fact originally he was supposed to be a villain/foil for batman someone who saves people but still needed to be stopped. Anyway, it was less about the fact that his family was killed and more about the fact that both of his parents were good people and HE got them killed, it was his fault, and while for bruce wayne it was much less his fault, he diddnt make a consious decision to do something that might be dangerous, it was still partially his fault, and so he was driven by guild. Then theres the fact that the Batman diddnt always have so many constrictions about killing bad guys, originally, he carried a gun as well, it wasnt until 2-3 years after he was created that they decided to make him a little less dark, and a little more justice seeking.
What's more, you can't truly turn Batman into the Punisher (or worse) and call it a Batman homage. Batman has two defining character traits:
1) He's willing to break the law in order to see justice done.
2) No matter what, he refuses to kill.
Removing either of those removes any and all similarities to Batman.
A lot of people identify being an anti-hero with just the gruff exterior (Wolverine stereo type) and missing the internal struggle that defines this class of hero.
(Just thought of a better way to describe it) Anti-hero = struggle between Justice and Vengeance.
I would suggest Smirk's struggle to fight through the psychosis be a tool you use to begin his redemption. The anger, self loathing for causing his parents death, and doubt should be present, but if you want to avoid being a villain he still needs to be cognizant of right and wrong.
Maybe he realizes that the 'solace' he gets from murdering the guy in the vault isn't really solace at all. You could also work that into his past as a junkie, the pain goes away for a while but returns after a while.
You'll also have to walk a very fine line with how he punishes people, I believe you can still kill bad guys without being a villain, but if you are going to do that you have to make your motivation extremely clear, without being completely cold blooded.
Remember, you -must- humanize him in someway.
Oh, and I know I'm late to the book party, but I suggest Abarat by Clive Barker, does have a female lead but it is wonderfully written and illustrated (Barker illustrates many of his books, these aren't kiddy illustrations)
One of my other favorite books is The Thief of Always, also by Barker. I plan using that book to create a hero at some point as well, but am trying to be extremely careful with it as that story is one of my favorites ever written.
Granted, there could well be other moral reasons for murder (although, personally I'm drawing a blank), but villainy and criminality are determined by the judicial system of the society within which you live, not by morality.
his origins are more what I'm referring to when I say he's a batman homage, also, batman used to carry a gun and kill those he fought against, back when he was first created, and besides look at rorchak (pretty sure thats how u spell his name, havent read the comic in years) he's a psychopath who has no problem killing and torturing and he's still considered a hero. I'm not saying that he's a warm and fuzzy hero, he's not, fact is almost nobody else likes him in the comics that I can remember. Sure he's a bad dude, but is he a bad guy? if what he does and his methods are for the greater good, then how is he not a hero?
well yeah, thats a good idea, I was thinking something along the lines of the first group of bad guys he goes after after killing the people who killed his parents are a group of people who are messing with the homeless who live in his alley. So he kills one, but one of the homeless is a little girl and she either gets winged or killed, seeing that he seriously questions his motives, and starts to try and be a wee bit more careful. such as not fighting when the people he's protecting are around, or trying to use hand to hand combat more, instead of guns. I'm just having trouble making this guy less of a monster. My brother, who I'm writing a graphic novel with (different one, has nothing to do with Smirk, though I might do that in the future, when I figure this character out) told me to take some ques from Spawn who isnt necesserily good or evil and the comic is more about whether or not he will be a hero than anything else.
You keep saying "murder". Smirk isn't murdering these guys. Not in his head. In his mind he is "executing" them.
There is a HUGE difference.
Something to consider when putting this story together.
That being said,
He just doesn't seem to be much like Batman. I realize that Bats is the cool kid on the block these days, what with his movie and all, but Smirk just doesn't carry a Batman vibe, at all. I'd go with Bronson, like some of the others said.
OR Punisher.
Just my $.02 though
like I said, he's just where I got the idea for his origins, diddnt even make the connections till after I came up with the idea for a psychotic hero that I'd like to do. Just in my mind thats who he's always been a darker version of Bats, in fact when I originally thought of how close he could be to him, I thought that he should be a villain for him to stop. someone who no one really knew about. but people started attributing these gangs being taken down and murders to him, so bats goes into detective mode to see if he can figure out who this guy is. Then he finds out that this guy is a vigilante who is actually starting to do a better job of clearing the streets and making the bad guys run scared than batman is. then seeing his true face (his true metaphorical face, you know what I mean, anyway). He realises that he is nothing like him and even though the people will hate him for it he has to stop him. Like I said before, its like he's a mirror for batman only the mirror is cracked, like what might have been if he wasnt a rich guy, if he wasnt so well adjusted (ha ha). Then I figured to give him more story I should make him someone else, but thats how the idea originated. Thats why I keep comparing him to the Bat. Granted, I probably wouldnt have thought twice about him (Batman) if Begins and subsequently TDK haddnt come out recently (the former less recent than the latter) mostly because before that I thought of batman as this kiddy story, because that's all I'd been shown in the movies and I never read the comics till 06' (thats when I went into research mode about him), but Begins is the movie that reminded me what a dark piece of fiction Batman can be. that and he was semi-inspired by Rorchac (seriously someone tell me how to spell his name, its driving me nuts), who was my first real example of what a crazy hero could be. Then there was Sadistic Sam which was another character that I made, wrote a short story about him too, for CoV, and I kept toying with how I could make this guy semi-non-evil or even a good guy, but never could, not without sacrificing his oh-so-entertaining psychosis. Then I had Questionmark which was sort of the early version of Smirk except with a MUCH different story. Most of the idea, however was based on the notion of making something inherently scary, which is to say, serial killers, and make one on the side of the good guys (this was not at all inspired by dexter, never watched the show, he's way too normal for me).
I think where people are getting hung up is that
A) you keep using the term murder.
To have him fully, logically plan out the assasination of another human being is definitely villian stuff. Full blown mens rea without moral conflict will cause your character to slip into the villian side of things.
The important thing however is how you see -your- character. If you see him as a hero you need to ask yourself WHY you see him as a hero, or at least why he is in your eyes NOT a villian. You then have to make that come through in his story and his actions.
It's a tricky thing to do.
This is true. However, he did post in the backstory help thread asking for help and I personally believe it to be rather important to pay attention to such details.
As for Batman using a gun early career, I can only think of that as having been the Batman of what is now called Earth-2 in DC. I have no exposure to him so couldn't say. However, the Batman that immediately springs to mind for most people would be the Batman of Earth-1 (prime, whatever they're calling it) and he flat out refuses to kill or carry a gun.
What's more, having your parents killed in front of you as a child is a very common motivation in the comics. Granted, Batman is likely the most well-known character with such a story, but it's not unique by any stretch of the imagination. With that being the only point of commonality between the Smirk and the Batman, to call him a Batman homage is incorrect. As the story is written, you haven't created an even darker Batman, you've created the anti-Batman. He's a murderer that targets villains, not someone trying to bring villains to justice.
What's more, you cannot simply say, "he's demented and his dementia makes him a hero as he thinks he's doing the right thing!" If his dimentia interferes with his sense of morality, then he's neither hero nor villain. He's a sick individual that needs to be hospitalized and treated before his dementia causes (or allows, if you prefer) him to kill again.
Now, this isn't to say the concept isn't interesting, but you need to make a choice. As you've written it, the Smirk is, and can be nothing but, a villain. Without a redeeming feature, that is all he will remain. Even the Punisher has such a feature. The Punisher knows what he is doing is wrong, he simply sees no other way to achieve justice because he knows that the justice system is corrupt. So, he does what he believes is necessary, despite morality and the laws of society. But he doesn't rationalize it to himself as being the right thing to do, it's simply the only thing that will work (in his mind).
If you want to make the Smirk into a darker Batman, lose the "must kill all criminals" mentality. He definitely couldn't plan the cold-blooded murder of his arch-nemesis. Sure, he can keep his willingness to kill in order to protect others or prevent a criminal from escaping, but it cannot be his one-and-only solution. If you feel that making it the one-and-only solution he has is an integral part of his character, then simply stop referencing him as a Batman homage.
In the end, however, he is your character and yours is the only vision that he needs adhere to. I'm just making comments and suggestions based off being a highly literal person that cannot stand (personally...as in it bugs the hell out of me, but doesn't really matter type thing) to see terms misused.
But, he would have to make the why of his willingness to kill extremely plain, and that he would have to really highlight the morality struggle.
Having no sense of moratily is -basically- (not the exact deffinition certainly) makes your character a sociopath. If you want him to be a hero, you need to look at him and ask yourself why YOU see him as a hero, and then make sure it's in his story, otherwise, at best he is a mentally disturbed person.
As written now, if he were taken to court he would be found mentally incapable of understanding his actions and sent to a mental institution, not prison. Anyway I really hope your character works out, I like how you worked his physical character description and name, just need to work out that back story.
If it makes you feel better I'm at a roadblock of sorts (roadblock via too many paths to take my character down, doh!)
Oh, and also, infiltrating a villain organization with the sole purpose being to murder the head honcho, in my eyes immediately disqualifies a 'Hero'.
The character I stuck as my avatar, the little pink cat. Wafers.
Energetic fluff ball that is technically just a cat, but for practicality purposes I gave the ability to turn into a human form similar to a little person (albeit on the anthro side) so that I have a decent way of communicating and emoting to other people, and an excuse for in games as to why she's not just a neon pink cat.
Key traits, she's named in relation to Necco Wafers, due to her neon and cotton candy pink fur and that she's as energetic as a toddler hopped up on sugar. She's very intelligent though that only occasionally shines through her usually bouncy and childish behavior. She likes to be adorable and occasionally pilfer stuff if it's shiny.
Powers are shape shifting, claws, invisibility, and cuteness.
Back story involves a mommy cat that was part of gene splicing experiments and animal testing in a effort to make super-humans. The operation was found out and shut down by PETA. Wafers was one of the pets deemed 'salvageable' and shuttled off for monitoring and care, eventually being adopted by a detective who worked with super heroes, where they discovered that her unique powers spanned beyond her pink fun and cuteness.
She can talk, though not in her normal form, she has to shape shift into something that has the vocal capacity for speech and be able to understand the language.
This was actually a fun character for me, I used to play her quite a bit. ^_^
Anyways, I got a character in mind that for whatever reason, I CAN'T seem to come up with an awesome background story for him. I didn't really have this problem with the other characters I have in mind, but this one is a blur. Maybe u guys can help me out.
I already know what I want to name him and more or less his appearance. His name is going to be "Cerberus". I don't want him to have 3 heads, but I do want him to have the apperance of a mighty wolf/fierce Dog. An Intimidating but not quite evil, look. And I want him to be like a big tanker as well.
I don't know what kind of powers I want him to have apart from Brute strength, but I'd like for him to have something. Just to make him more of an appealing character and not a Werewolf version of Hulk.
So yeah, could u guys help me out with this? I'd really appreciate it...
I'd just like to add that I've seen a number of threads posted to various fora asking for info about the extensive Champions Universe background, for people who want their characters to tie into it. If anyone here has any such requests, I and other Champsfiles will be happy to offer suggestions.
Yah, well, I had to go digging with the plethora of requests for bio help.
As for the Champ's background data, I'm largely clueless. I have the 4ed rulebook and that's it for my exposure hehe.
I wish this would get stickied... so people could get more imput than just us "regulars"
we got stickied
didnt think that would actually work.
Well, if it wasnt already clear to all around, Backstory help is Up and Running... any question, any at all, post up here, there's a whole crew of dedicated community members that would love to help in any way they can... Me included.
IG Quote after task force:
"I can do you no further harm, and were you to harm me, your part in this matter would be revealed to all. So we are at an impasse, and neither of us gets what we truly wanted. Take this as a lesson, then: When you choose a life of darkness, you will find no one to trust. But let's not leave on completely grim terms. Consider this: You saved the islands, and possibly the world. I doubt you'll take satisfaction in it, but the achievement is yours all the same."
So now he shares a hatred with Arachnos for the Legacy Chain. That was all I had.
Okay now for the fun part..
---- What I need help with for CO is a way to tie it into the new story (possibly the same resurrection scenario, its kinda cool after a while). I tend to not stray from actual in game time-line events. If he were to actually be as old as ancient times, I would have to somehow be invincible, or I never age (that doesn't fit into the Champions Universe aka makes him a NPC godlike character.. I think.) Also, I need a pre-backstory for my character. You know, before he was resurrected. I have yet to come up with one that is interesting.. He has the look of your classic evil warrior from any fantasy game. Wields a very large axe and has super human reflexes, although he stands 6'6, is well built, and weighs over 300 lbs (something you don't see very often, no fatty pun intended. :looks down:) I have been trying to come up with a reason for him being evil, and he has no specific origin (both location and source of powers) yet. I was thinking of maybe... ancient Greek or Egyptian for where his background originates from. In his new story, he actually becomes a hero.
---- So with that, I thought, since the thread says "Backstory Help", I could get some for mine. I have a large imagination but, I'd like to see what kind of story others would come up with
Edit: Notice, I'm only good at creating Villain backgrounds, I'm horrible with Heroes.
Another edit: In my sig, I have a timeline that dates 100,000 years B.C. There is so much to choose from.
Might I suggest, that in the distant past, an arrogant warlord found, stole, was trapped in a cave with a source of magical power (wellspring, magic fruit tree, weapon, armor, amulet, etc).. this source of magical power turned this small warlord into a king, powerful and terrible. he took over great expanses of land and affected many cultures. He called his kingdom "Zimbabwe" and errected a great citidel. War came, and the people under his sway shattered into various tribes. his iron rule was finally torn down, and he was imprisoned in the very stones of his citidel.
centuries passed, time and weather wore away the stone. Ka'tul sat, and waited. In his imprisonment, he learned much of the nature of his powers. he would grow old, his powers would dim, and he would enter a great sleep, when he woke, he found himself young again.
Eventually the prison began to crumble, and Ka'Tul was released. His citidel was nothing but grassy mounds and an encroaching jungle... how much time had passed since he was king of all the world?
He used his dark power to enslave the tribesmen that worked and hunted on his land. He bid them rebuild his citidel.... but the world had changed. He could sense it in the rocks and the wind, and even as the final touches of the citidel were completed, he released his people and abandoned the site.
Thus began his great exploration. In his time asleep, the great and terrible king had been universally forgotton. Thinking himself so mighty, it came as a great blow to Ka'tul that the world was not all that he could see in the african plains, but a much greater and more powerful existance ravaged the lands beyond its coasts.
He fought with ancestors of his people against armies of pale men... only to discover that both sides fought in the name of the same god.
He became jaded with power in his lives in exile, as he drifted through the world, dying and being reborn, leapfrogging through time.
He saw the abuses of Tyranies that were the image of his own once-great kingdom, and he was ashamed. he saw his people enslaved and set free by outsiders and by eachother. and he was enraged at the cuelty in humanity.
He was an elderly man in 1992, and he watched through a Sears window at the distruction caused by Dr. Destoryer. Ka'Tul weilded such power, this madness could have been his doing... the distruction of the world was too much to bear.
He was reborn to the world beyond Millennium city. It stood out to its people as a beacon of hope, a city of the future... To Ka'tul, it was much more.
It was a Citidel.
A great castle against the encroaching darkness. Mankind's stronghold against those who would use power to enforce their will on the weak, or to destroy them entirely.
It was a Citidel, and Ka'Tul would stand. He would defend this house that was not his home, and perhapse, finally make ammends for a long dead warlord's petty pride and the crimes he commited to a great and proud people.
There's a cave in West Africa which contains rare volcanic gasses which suspend the aging process. 50,000 years ago it was inhabited by three pythons who, over the span of a thousand years, grew gigantic and gained sapience. One of these serpents, Nama, survives to this day. He learned much magic over the millennia and has long been worshipped by locals and other cultists as a god. Nama has something of a trickster's personality. He may sometimes help heroes when it suits his purpose, but he's just as likely to assist someone villainous. Ultimately Nama only cares about Nama's best interests. The serpent god actually has great but secret influence in the modern CU (I'll say no more about that here so as not to spoil the secret for people who like surprises).
In ancient times Nama's brother serpent Beda lorded over his kin and created a tyrannical empire in the lands that are now Africa. According to official history, during the "Atlantean Age" some 30,000 years ago Beda was slain by "a great hero from the north." Nothing more is revealed about that incident or what became of the hero, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if Nama recruited and equiped him to destroy Beda. Nor do we hear what became of him or Beda's former empire. The warrior could very well have tried to succeed Beda, becoming just as much of a tyrant.
Here's another useful datum: more than once Nama has magically summoned his servants to his cave and placed them in enchanted slumber, preserved unaging by the fumes in the cave, until he has a use for them in the world. On one occasion he did so at the behest of his worshippers, when the servant in question was causing too much destruction.
---- I appreciate the help. Fantastic story fellas ( I don't say this often but, great minds think alike. ) When I get the chance, I'm going to pick up a few of the Champions PnP source books for more background reference, and type up a complete story
( crediting the both of you - say nay if you please. ) I know what VIPER is, but have absolutely no clue what is it they do specifically, and how their history plays out in the CU ( other than what you have told me thus far. ) Such as Nama and Beda's background stories and events where VIPER played a key role in history. Let me know if I should just wait to play the game for that, I don't want to ruin it for myself.
---- Thanks again,
---- Voided.
As for what VIPER does today, essentially anything and everything it can to gain as much power as possible, political and financial power as well as brute force. In some ways it's like COBRA or HYDRA, building a paramilitary army with cutting-edge weaponry, developing or stealing breakthrough technology, creatiing supervillains to serve it, devising world-threatening schemes; but it also takes over legitimate businesses, manipulates elections, muscles into organized crime, engages in espionage, bribery and blackmail. Individual VIPER Nests have their own styles which may emphasize overt or covert actions, so there's no stereotypical modus operandi.
Now, it's hard to say how much of that will make it into CO, or will be changed by Cryptic, so I can't guess how much might be spoiled by purchasing VIPER: Coils Of The Serpent. There is a fair-sized chapter on "VIPER Through The Ages" describing what the group and its predecessors have been involved with across history, if that interests or would be useful to you. OTOH the majority of the book goes into detail about everything to do with VIPER; and a great deal of the book is devoted to Champions PnP game stats for these things.
The general inspiration for the character (in principle) is Spider-Man. In fact, the specific thing I had in mind was a model you could have in the early N64/PS1 games, "Quick-Change Spiderman". Basically, the hero costume half-on underneath a mostly-covering hoodie/jacket and sweatpants. It really epitomizes the idea of very much a street-level hero with a quasi-urban legend feel to him, someone who goes on patrol in street clothes to avoid attracting attention, but can quickly go into action mode on the scene when something happens.
The original idea I had was that a normal human, as a prank during a night of drunken revelry in college, submits a superhero license registration form for laughs. However, through some bizarre and extremely unlikely turn of events (stray cosmic ray, involved in crash with radioactive waste truck, bitten by mutant animal, something SIlver Age), he is gifted with superpowers without realizing it.
From there (here's one of the main areas I could use help in) he ends up deciding to use his powers to fight street-level crime for whatever reason, a step above the average vigilante because his prank hero application form ended up going through, giving him official sanction.
One of the issues here is that I can't decide exactly what his powers should be. Again, the inspiration here is Spider-Man, so it should ideally be some sort of utilitarian power that can be used to great effect outside of combat.
Suggestions for filling in any of these fields would be more than welcome.
Basically, in the original story,on May 3rd, 2017, the earth is exposed to a wave of cosmic energy that had been sailing through the cosmos for millenia (think the Nexus in Star Trek: Generations) and a large portion of the population (both humans, animals and plants alike) begin to mutate and develop various 'super' abilities. Once this happens and word spreads as civilization rebuilds and reconnects after the disaster, these new humans (which I called Meta-forms) are viewed as diseased and polluted, are ostracized and actually viewed as less than human.
With that in mind, this is where I start getting to the background of the characters I wanted to adapt...
After the Meta-forms become the pariahs of humanity, one man, an industrialist by the name of Ashton Reynard, not even a Meta-form himself, speaks up for equal rights and treatment for their brothers and begins to gather support amongst influential politicians, military leaders and media stars to join his cause. It took some years, but after finally convincing the general public that all of their lives had been changed on May 3rd, 2017, that, even if they were physically different, the Meta-forms were still human and that all humanity needed to band together to rebuild in the new day they now lived in, people began to accept each other and the two groups began to drop their guards and join together. It was revealed sometime later, only after the situation had cooled, that one of Reynard's driving forces for Meta-form civil rights was his young daughter, who herself had been changed.
9 years later, during a chance encounter with an old friend, Major General Charles Walker, leader of the first Meta-form-based U.S. Military unit known as the Guardian Force, Mr. Reynard learned how ill-equipped and unprepared America's military academies were for the influx of superhuman recruits. In response to this, Ashton proposed to General Walker an idea that he had developed with his daughter: a private academy to train Meta-form use to develop and use their powers for the good of the nation. While independently wealthy, Reynard did not possess the resources to completely establish the project himself with all of the special equipment they would require. Thus, with General Walker's assistance, he presented his project to the appropriate officials and military sub-committees. In exchange for the developmental resources and aid of the US government and the school's ability to remain a non-military entity, the US Government would be allowed to recruit from the Academy's students upon graduation. Reynard agreed to this and began building his school immediately, choosing an isolated location in Pennsylvania's Poconos region for their campus. Starting initially with only United States citizens but eventually broadening their scope to taking students from US allied nations, the school would receive children at a young age, give them a quality education and then, at the same time, train them to develop and use their powers stably. After three years of construction, development and building of the curriculum, Ashton Reynard's 'Laurus Academy' went into business in the Fall of 2029. One of the first instructors in the Academy was Viktoria Reynard, Ashton's daughter, who had been trained and tutored privately to use her super strength and agility properly.
Over the coming decades, the Laurus Academy produced many skilled heroes, some who went into private practice, some who went into public service and others who joined their home militaries, such as the Guardian Force in America. The US Government kept a close eye on the training curriculum of the Laurus Academy to assure that it continued to meet their standards so that they could continue to recieve their support. With the approval of their government sponsors, however, Reynard established another means of funding their operations: Taking on some of the instructors within the school and those graduates who wished to stay on to form a private, freelance Hero organization (which I have yet to name) that would service the needs of their clients and aid the military and police forces in times of extreme emergencies.
Around the time of the Academy's thirtieth anniversary, Ashton Reynard unexpectedly grew ill as a result of a cancer that had been growing within his body, developed as a result of cosmic radiation that had bombarded the planet. Within three months, his health declined to the point where his body could no longer sustain itself and he passed away.
After a time of mourning, locally and nationally for the civil rights hero, Viktoria Reynard, now age 56, stepped forward and became the new administrator of the Laurus Academy.
Already I know I'm going to have to move this history back into the 1900s to fit with the universe of the game, but I don't know enough about Champions' organizations and influential figures to know how this fits into everything. Thus, I'll take any suggestions for what needs to be added, removed, or changed to make this all fit into the lore of the universe.
Many thanks!
this looks like a job for my favorite power suite of all time..... Probability Manipulation.
In a night of drunken revelry, he gets dared to sign up for a hero card. The lady at the front desk flat out refuses to even look at his application... but if she doesnt accept it, he'll loose the bet! As Luck would have it, Lakshmi, hindu goddess of fate (and incarnate wife of the avatar of Vishnu) again in human form sees the young man and falls madly in love with him. (whether she was drunk at the time remains a question...)
She secretly bestows on him a gift of good fortune, and the lady at the desk calls him back, to say that his application has been accepted any forwarded to the proper authorities.
bemused, our Hero returns home to sleep it off, and wakes up to find Lakshmi sitting at the foot of his bed, his dorm room clean, and his clothes all cleaned. He is shocked further as she wont shut up about calling him Vishnu.
After much complaining, and more "I'm not who you think I am", he finally gets her to leave.... but being loved by a goddess aint easy.
at first its just little things... getting 110% on a test he didnt study for, or finding $20 in a pair of pants he hadnt worn in 6 months....
but things started getting weird when he recieved his laminated SuperHero registration card. They had a little "fight" about it... and upsetting a goddess is worse than having one like you. He told her to shove off, after she threw his TV into a different dimension. She left.
Things are sort of up and down, these days... He started using his powers to help people, when he accidently stopped a convenience store robbery and a purse snatcher in the same day... just by being there. The gun accidently fired, to reveal it was a toy, and the pursesnatcher slipped right as he grabbed the handback, and feel face first into a parking meter.
Lakshmi, trying to get him to fall in love with her "again". It hasnt exactly worked yet.... but as long as he stays on her good side... he can help the people in his neighborhood...
future problems, of course... what happens if he starts getting too "Flirty" with other girls? (flashback scenes from every romantic comedy ever).... or worse, what happens if Vishnu or his current avatar show up looking for his bride to be, and shes all smitten with some "mortal"???
in the PnP, it would be fun to see "hex" type powers, or anything that could get your enemies into "silly situations".... wouldnt want them to be too deadly... cause what happens if your patroness desides you need to be taught a lesson? ;P
if Viktoria Reynard is 56 when her father died(in 2042)... she was 31 when the radiation hit earth (by your numbers, she was born in 1986)
you'll have to get the details from LL, but I think that the Nazis did something that went "oops" and let a bunch of "magic" into the world, causing a similar effect in the CU, that your radiation incident caused.
now, if you make Viktoria a baby boomer child, and use the 60's and 70's as a mirror for this "rights movement"... combined with vast "secret goverment projects" in those years... you could easily set up a situation nearly identical to your own....
Viktoria would be matronly now (50's or 60's) perhaps with children, or even grandchildren of her own... running her fathers financial enterprises as well as the Laurus Academy. her wealth and influence could easly be a building block of the Post-detroit peroid of American history.
I do remember hearing about this Nazi magic accident way back when being the cause of the world's super powers, so I agree that that could perhaps take the place of the Radiation wave. Good thinking.
I actually had thought of using the real world civil rights era as the place where I could shift Ashton's activity... I just need to find out what happened there uniquely in the CU to see what I can connect to. You're right, though, that it shouldn't be too difficult to adjust that.
At the point where Viktoria takes over the Academy, I do see her more as an administrator than a fighter, but she has kept up her abilities enough that she's not defenseless. If the Laurus Academy ever came under attack, she could defend the children. As well, perhaps she is married at this point (I had always considered her single, but this works well) but the forces that gave her the abilities she has also made her barren, so she has to consider her students as her children. I was thinking she could perhaps work solely as the Laurus Academy's administrator and oversee their Freelance Heroes (still need a name for them...) while he unidentified husband runs the corporate branch of the Reynard business conglomerate. In the circumstance that she IS married, perhaps she just kept her maiden name for business purposes since the Laurus Academy is deeply associated with Ashton Reynard.
I also like the suggestion of their wealth being a building block in Post-Detroit America. I'll definitely have to see where I can take that thread.
As well, if I'm not mistaken, I believe there are other private institutions for the training of super-youth and it might be good to tie them together somehow. Perhaps rival schools. The one I'm trying to recall has 'Raven' in the name somewhere...
we know these details:
"Ashton Reynard's 'Laurus Academy' went into business in the Fall of 2029"
"Around the time of the Academy's thirtieth anniversary....Within three months, his health declined to the point where his body could no longer sustain itself and he passed away"
so, 13 years after 2029, Viktoria is 56. so, 56 years back from 2042... she was born in 1986.... and we know that the radiation event happened in 2017..
2017-1986 = 31....
so, although she may always be "daddy's little girl"... he isnt likely secretly protecting his young, defensless daughter from the prejudice of the world.... shes an adult, probably already starting a family (if she hadn't 6-10 years earlier) when she became "super"... likewise, its unlikely that she was tutored at home secretly to develop her powers...
your discription of Viktoria universally smacks of a child-daughter... 5-10 years of age when the event happened.
I highly suggest that you stretch out your time line, give more stuff in between...
be very very very wary of solid dates, as they confine you to a particular timeframe. (ive already made a huge screw up in my own stories that im struggling to rectify.)
As for her relationships... you could make her a Widow. if she was 10 or so at the time of the event things would work swimingly... in the 10-15 years it takes her father to set up his school, Shes grown into a young woman, and found a Meta-form boyfriend...
the young man, however, has a much more unstable mutation, and never had the luxury of Viki's private training... though she helped him to stay relatively stable, it was a losing battle... and eventually he self-destructs, or dies from degeneration, or is killed by the government (giving her a strong desire to break her fathers ties between the school and the government?)
they have children... she was probably in her 30's when he died... and used her family's vast wealth to support her children, and cared for them herself.
that allows you to keep her Single Matron persona as the head of the school.. but gives her some life, some love and loss and....depth.. in her past to make her a complete person, rather than just Ashton 2
Yes, the so-called "Walpurgisnacht Working" in 1938 substantially boosted the level of ambient magic in the world, which "loosened" the laws of probability and physics enough for the development of all sorts of superhuman abilities, through sorcery, genetic mutation, "supertech" far surpassing contemporary science, and just about any comic-book origin you can think of.
Yes, Ravenwood Academy, in the suburbs of Millennium City. It bears a lot of similarity to Xavier's school in the Marvel Universe: a training facility for young superhumans to learn to use their powers responsibly, and perhaps become heroes themselves. Some of its graduates have already joined established superteams. Except for ties to the government and military (its true nature is secret, and it's a private school funded by other supers) Ravenswood performs much the same function as your Laurus Academy. It's even run by a retired superheroine, Kristina Pelvanen aka Rowan.
If you did want to keep a closer government connection to your proposed team, you should know that the United States has been conducting secret research projects to develop "superhuman soldiers" ever since WW II, with mixed success. Given that spotty track record, I could see the US government shifting from creation to recruitment and training of people with superhuman powers.
or brainwashing poor confused kids with powers they dont understand... for AMERICA! ;P
It does raise a minor problem. I'd ideally like to have some kind of standby power for him, something to fall back on. A signature move, if you will. Though the quandary of having a constant with such a context-based power is obvious. Hmm.
think of it like hitting your enemy with bad luck... maybe it makes him incontinent... maybe it makes him remember he left the gas on... but its sort of like.... an outpouring of love, baby, yeah...
perhaps he's learned to "diffuse" his patron's "bad luck" gifts, into some sort of offensive, weaponized structure...
the way I see it, you give him a good, solid "one-two".. it could be any combination of two attacks, make them a dark color (black or dark red work), and consider those his "mainstays".... then on top of that, you could give him freezing rain spells, and a gun with impossibly accurate shots, and a patch of quicksand, or any number of other "grab baggy" abilities that he can sort of "pull out of nowhere" (giving him that "prank" sensibility to mentioned.)
he's sort of a comic character... but the joke isnt on him ;P
Actually, that says thirtieth (30th), not thirteenth (13th). Even so, you're right about things not adding up. When I was adapting my notes for the post (they focus solely on Ashton, not Viktoria), I had pictured her as a child when all this occurred, thus all of that about his 'young daughter' and the tutoring at home. As I went on, however, as you can see, things shifted a bit.
Despite this, however, most of that post doesn't hold up anymore. I obviously can't have these events take place immediately after the "Walpurgisnacht Working" in 1938 or else that makes Viktoria over 70 by 2008. However, all this I'll get to in a second when I address L_L's post. I finally named Viktoria's husband, though (David Pallas-- last name from the Hellenistic god Pallas, father of Nike, associated with the Olympic games where the laurel wreath was given at the Pan-Hellenic games).
Before I really get into the events of her life, I should define the era she lived in. I do have some ideas I'll share shortly...
Alrighty then....that could be a problem. So what's going on in CU America during the Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968)? Is there any possibility that such a movement of backlash could take place, at least in certain areas of the nation if not in its entirety? Or any suggestions into modifying that area of the story with the universe as is?
Is there a date of establishment for Ravenwood? Also, were there any events in American history where superhumans (even if they weren't superheroes, per se) are called into action for the nation's defense. I don't want Viktoria to be a hero, per se, but I would like for her to have been there to give aid in certain circumstances when something big went down.
The subject of superhuman soldiers actually ties into another character that will eventually become associated with the Laurus Academy, but I'll deal with him later.
That leads me to wonder....I know UNTIL has a superhuman division (UNITE, right?). Does any sort of organization like that exist in the US military that might conflict with the eventual establishment of the Guardian Force, or is there something I could replace it with? Also, are there dates for the military's various Super-soldier experiments? If I can see what was done when, I might be able to include a military superhuman recruitment effort in there.
As well, and I didn't mention this earlier, but during the Meta-human Civil Rights movement, Ashton Reynard was supposed to be a single father to Viktoria, his wife having perished in a thus far undefined situation. Thus he might have a little more cause to be protective of her.
I was also thinking that, for the CU version of Ashton's ailment, he could have been exposed to high levels of radiation after trying to calm down a young student with developing but very potent radioactive powers. In this circumstance, the development of his cancer would have been found but quickly metastasizes, leading to his slow and slightly painful demise. It was his lifelong efforts to help superhumans that leads to his demise.
Viktoria always took more of an interest in her father's educational efforts and cared little for business (though Ashton himself was able to balance both). After her father's death, she is given administrative duties for the Laurus Academy while David Pallas, an ambitious young executive (and non-superhuman) Ashton had been groom to be his corporate heir, takes over operation of Reynard Mechanical Enterprises. David and Viktoria had met several times before at family and business functions (in fact, her father had tried to bring the two together at one point- Viktoria only wanted to focus on her career and wasn't really interested in romance), but it wasn't until Ashton's funeral that the two really began to come together. Despite an emotionally stable and physically strong individual, Viktoria took her father's death quite difficultly and David to the opportunity console her. Thus, with the absence of her father, Viktoria drew close to David to fill the void in her life and discovered that she did have an affection growing for the man. She takes the time over the next few years to really get to know the man and has her eyes opened to this man her father had taken such an interest in before finally being proposed to.
The two are eventually wed two years after Ashton's death. At this point, I'd say we're getting close to the point where I'd like her to be 56 and the two are actually contemplating whether children would be a good idea given their age. Because of Viktoria's superhuman origins, she is physically more youthful than a normal fifty-six year old woman, so it still is physically possible for her to give birth. With both of their very busy lifestyles, however, they've not sure it's such a good idea.
I'm entertaining the idea that this is not her first romance and has had bad experiences in love in the past, thus pushing her to focus more on her career, but that I'll save for when I figure out when she was born. At this point, if she's 56 in 2008, she would have been born in 1952.
I think that takes care of ideas for now. We'll see where we go from here...
that might be interesting, given that her position and family wealth would put her sort of abvoe and beyond the social events taking hold of the country.
as for "an event that brought heroes together"..... In 1992, Dr. Destoryer razes detroit... just a thought.