Please free Taipan

bulgarex

In the official Champions Universe, Taipan is a superpowered assassin for hire, considered by many the deadliest assassin in the world. From 1997 to 2000 he's known to have killed nearly two dozen people, more than half of them superhumans. Super targets was a specialty of his; VIPER, ARGENT, and the Warlord all employed him on multiple occasions.

In 2000 he was captured by the Chicago superhero team, the Peacekeepers, after being hired to assassinate all of them (he did succeed in killing two). He was tried in Australia, scene of his first known murders, and sentenced to a lifetime in Hot Sleep in "House Taipan," a super-prison specially built for him in the Outback. He's been there ever since.

IMHO this guy should have been broken out by now and be terrorizing CO PCs. Since he's a mercenary he could show up in the employ of almost any villain or villainous group. He can be part of a story arc involving other villains, or be featured in an Alert. His true identity and background are completely unknown, so can be developed as needed for story purposes.

After Champions Online broke a whole slew of villains out of Stronghold, springing one more doesn't seem a lot to ask.

(Taipan is fully written up in Champions Villains Vol. 3: Solo Villains.)

dialamx

Do you actually have the books, or did you get the info online?

I ask because I've tried searching for Champions lore info, and haven't found anything except sites for buying a couple books

bulgarex

I actually have the books. All of them published for the tabletop RPG version of the current official Champions setting -- several dozen, in fact. Almost all of those books are still purchasable from the online store of Hero Games, publishers of the tabletop game. Often at a very low price.

I guess I should provide a little more description of Taipan for folks who haven't heard about him before. SPOILERS below for anyone who doesn't want to know:












More than anything else, Taipan is a speedster. His descriptive text repeatedly calls him "blindingly fast." He's capable of bursts of near-Flash-level speed, not only in how rapidly he covers ground, but how quickly he acts and reacts.

But his abilities extend well beyond that. Taipan has low-level-superhuman strength, and extraordinary agility. He's an exceptional martial artist, but also has the skill to hurl any available hand-held object with deadly force and accuracy, even several of them at once. Most frighteningly, his "venomous touch" power, the Taipan's Bite, can be lethal even to the strongest superhumans.

Taipan kills from up close. He's quite stealthy, typically attacking his target or targets from ambush, striking fast and hard then withdrawing; but has proven able to mix it up with entire superteams.

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spinnytop

So, which major NPC(s) are they going to kill off as part of this storyline?

bulgarex

spinnytop wrote: »

So, which major NPC(s) are they going to kill off as part of this storyline?

Wow. That possibility hadn't even occurred to me. But in all seriousness, that could be a really effective and attention-getting way to shake things up in CO. Maybe even run a storyline like that of Marvel Comics's Scourge, as an excuse to clear out some of the dead wood.

crypticbuxom

Killing off characters that players aren't invested or even interested in benefits no one.

bulgarex

crypticbuxom wrote: »

Killing off characters that players aren't invested or even interested in benefits no one.

That's a fair perspective. OTOH IMHO eliminating one or more such characters can clear the field to introduce a character new to Champions Online who might be better received. It can also provide incentive and urgency for PCs to be brought in to investigate and stop the killings. Civilized society can't tolerate serial killers, even if some of the people killed arguably make that society better by their absence.

At the very least, it would cement Taipan's reputation as a bad@$$.

gaarafrednorrisp

Even better, have Taipan's return to the scene be the set up for that of an even bigger villain. Who hired him to kill Hero X (Or.. Villain X)? What possible reason could this mysterious foe be?



>.> be awesome if someone hired Taipan to attack a certain pair in Eurostar for their.. ehem.. "Deadly" Past?

bulgarex

gaarafrednorrisp wrote: »

Even better, have Taipan's return to the scene be the set up for that of an even bigger villain. Who hired him to kill Hero X (Or.. Villain X)? What possible reason could this mysterious foe be?



>.> be awesome if someone hired Taipan to attack a certain pair in Eurostar for their.. ehem.. "Deadly" Past?

Love that thought. I'm pretty sure I know who you mean. I got an article published in Digital Hero describing one way to bring him back and update him to the current official universe.

bulgarex

Many people believe that Taipan's first recorded attack in Melbourne, Australia, which left three local superheroes and two civilians dead, was done to advertise his services to potential clients (at which it succeeded very well). A newly-freed Taipan might well want to repeat that tactic, to let employers know he was back in the game and hadn't lost his edge. That could lead him to try a more public and destructive attack than his usual M.O.

spinnytop

What I was getting at was Sapphire. Taipan should kill Sapphire. During the next anniversery... as a gift to the playerbase.

vorshoth

I'd be careful with permanently killing a character in-story. Obviously they'd still be in the game, otherwise people would... I don't know, boycott Club Caprice or something as they wouldn't be able to complete their missions.

That said, it is a comic book THING, especially in the 80s and 90s as the whole grim darkyness vestiges got their tentacles into the industry and characters were dying left and right, making the afterlife revolving door superheroes have (aka JUST DIE FOR GOOD SERIOUSLY WHAT IS THIS HERE I AM A HARDWORKING VILLAIN AND YOU JUST POP BACK UP LIKE DAISIES?) more prominent.
It's a slippery slope... But then since the Champions setting is a love letter to comic book tropes, which have slipped and slided down that slope enough times they've got a season pass, I say make it so, folks.

A better way I feel though would have the PCs prevent an attack by intercepting him and his goons, leading to them escalating things... Against the PCs. Aka making things personal.

Also more examples of speedsters in the setting would be nice, not least so we don't just have Kinetik as a example in-universe, because, while he is a sweetie, is kind of bland in the game. Not sure what he's like in the RPG books, I forget and get distracted drooling over the villains.