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Talisman, Battle of Detroit

Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
Hey all, I'm interested in finding out more information about Tailsman and the Battle of Detroit via the source books. Does anyone know offhand which would have the greatest intersection of these two topics? I'd specifically like to know where Tailsman was (and what she was doing) during the Battle, but I'd also like to get a detailed history about her as well. Thanks in advance!
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  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited August 2011
    Villians Volume 3 and the main champions sourcebook both include info on Talisman (though it is largely the same info).

    Talisman likely wasn't anywhere near the Battle of Detroit for one main reason. She would have been a kid at the time. Witchcraft is listed as in her early 20s and she is Talisman's twin. Add in the fact that the Battle of Detroit was almost 20 years.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited August 2011
    Dardove wrote:
    Villians Volume 3 and the main champions sourcebook both include info on Talisman (though it is largely the same info).

    Talisman likely wasn't anywhere near the Battle of Detroit for one main reason. She would have been a kid at the time. Witchcraft is listed as in her early 20s and she is Talisman's twin. Add in the fact that the Battle of Detroit was almost 20 years.

    Dardove: ty so much!
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited August 2011
    I'd like to add this is essentially the case with all of the current members of the Champions [the existing NPC team] as they weren't around back when the city was still Detroit, prior to the destruction of it's main central area in the Battle of Detroit. *

    Most of this confusion is due to the general state of repair Westside and a few areas east of Ren Cen still show ongoing, but these reconstruction efforts have nothing to do with that almost two decades old catastrophe, they are due to the events of the recent Qularr Invasion, canonically stated to have occurred in early September 2009 [coincidentally the month the game shipped] and our Tutorial / Millennium City Crisis Zone.

    Many people I think are confusing these two events via the long time in between the reading of the various in-game lore bits, which often occur quickly during the press of missioning, and details of which are as quickly meshed together.

    Just logging in a high level alt that you've collected a ton of the typical lore perks on and reading them clears a lot of this type of confusion up, but only lore freaks like Dardove and myself would log into the game to read. :D




    *I made my main character, and the vast majority of my Role-playing stable of alts, to fit this "Newer generation" of Hero mold as well, as these types of character fit into the games lore much easier. Only a couple are carefully inserted into areas of the games history where they wouldn't affect Canon continuity adversely.

    The 'character' Rune, first appeared publicly as a Hero in September of 2008, a full year prior to the Qularr invasion, as this was also the real life date coinciding with my invitation into the Champions Online Beta, and he first actually gained his full suite of super powers, in February of 2008, as a nod to the month the forums opened for business. :p
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited August 2011
    Rune wrote:
    Just logging in a high level alt that you've collected a ton of the typical lore perks on and reading them clears a lot of this type of confusion up, but only lore freaks like Dardove and myself would log into the game to read. :D

    I'll have to do that next time I log in.

    Do you know how divergent the PnP game is with CO in terms of lore? I was already thinking of picking up some of the sourcebooks so I can do essentially what you did (carefully inserting a CO character into the game history without breaking anything), and now my WoD PnP group is looking for something additional to play to change things up. It'd be nice to kill two birds with one stone :-D
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited August 2011
    Well, since Cryptic owns the license to Champions the majority of the lore in 6th edition will be the same between the two except where Steve Long asked for permission to diverge.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited August 2011
    Dardove wrote:
    Well, since Cryptic owns the license to Champions the majority of the lore in 6th edition will be the same between the two except where Steve Long asked for permission to diverge.

    Exactly.

    The only thing I can think of that is notably different is Menton. In Champions Online, he's a skinny black dude with a freakish glowing pulsing brain, wearing geeky highwaters.

    In Champions Offline, he's more like the old school European Royalty ultra handsome man.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited August 2011
    Champions Universe has a couple of pages describing the Battle of Detroit, under the history of Millennium City. Book Of The Destroyer goes into even more detail, almost blow-by-blow.

    As far as continuity between the PnP game and the MMO goes, up until 2002 (which is when current Hero Games management published their official reboot of the Champions Universe), their histories are virtually identical. Cryptic Studios drew heavily on the many books published for Champions in creating Champions Online. Almost all their departures from what came before have been to character appearances, and power sets in a few cases (to match what's used in the MMO). Post-2002 the biggest change was introducing Shadow Destroyer rather than bringing back the true Doctor Destroyer; but the latest edition of the PnP books have adopted Cryptic's continuity. And of course, what Cryptic has added to the setting.

    As Dardove mentions, in a very few instances Steve Long asked for permission to change something for the PnP game. Menton's appearance is one notable detail -- PnP Menton is incredibly subtle, but Cryptic needed a more visually striking villain as a stand-up foe for PCs. In another case, one can still encounter Dr. Timothy Blank in the MMO as a VIPER scientist; but in the PnP game
    Blank became the supervillain King Cobra and founded his COIL organization years ago. KC and his followers were already fully detailed in published source books, so it would have been a waste not to include him.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited August 2011
    ...Dr. Timothy Blank in the MMO as a VIPER scientist; but in the PnP game
    Blank became the supervillain King Cobra and founded his COIL organization years ago. KC and his followers were already fully detailed in published source books, so it would have been a waste not to include him.

    Plus, Dr. Blank and Stein's Monster is one of the coolest missions you'll play in Champions Online, and who knows? Maybe there's a chance;
    King Cobra and COIL can appear in an upcoming content addition? Cryptic has had to have saved more than Mechanon, Istvatha Vahn, Eurostar and Firewing for level 41-50 content.

    I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Lord Liaden, who I know and greatly respect from the Hero Boards, for taking valuable time out to answer lore questions around here, I'm one of those "up on the lore" guys myself, but the majority of my knowledge is rooted in Forth Edition and earlier, I only have a few select fifth edition books, such as Scott Bennie's Coils of the Serpent and Allen Thomas' Teen Champions books, along with what I've learned from the MMO as Updates.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited August 2011
    Do you know how divergent the PnP game is with CO in terms of lore?

    Generally speaking, they diverge as little as possible. We want to keep them unified to minimize confusion as people pass from one game to another. This also allows for cross-creativity; Cryptic gets plenty of ideas for CO from our books, and I take ideas from them as well (heck, if not for Cryptic's work on aliens and the Moon, Champions Beyond would've been much, much shorter ;) ). However, there are a few exceptions:

    1. The PnP game covers a lot more "territory" than CO does, since programming new characters, settings, events, powers, etc. into CO takes a huge amount of time and effort but is a simple matter in a book. This isn't a "divergence," exactly, but it may tend to make the PnP stuff seem "different" even though it's just a lot broader and more diverse.

    2. There are a few instances where I specifically requested permission from Cryptic to change something or use an "old" version of a charater. The primary examples are (a) Menton (significantly different appearance); (b) the Slug (different appearance); (c) Stronghold (significantly different appearance); and (d) ARGENT (functions like an evil corporation, not a group with costumed agents). In these cases, differences arise because the needs of the two types of games differ -- for example, in CO, Menton needs to look "monstrous" so it's easy to see on-screen that he's a major bad guy, but that's not a consideration in the PnP game, where he can look like an ordinary guy.
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