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Heroes and Villains Discussion

I was thinking lately since we not have a good wiki or one at all that I like to see how people talk about certain NPC's and how they compare to their Pen and Paper counterparts.

I try to collect data in form of the Character Bio/Info lately on such and only started today, people are free to add info also.

Was thinking such mostly due how many heroes and villains can be randomized in things like Bunker Buster.

Let's start with Red Winter:

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Comments

  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    edited March 2021
    Red Winter is an interesting case, in that they're actually original Cryptic Studios creations. But when Steve Long, former Line Developer for Hero Games (publishers of Champions) was updating the PnP game's roster of villains to the current (Sixth) edition of the game system, he looked for Cryptic-designed villains he could adapt and elaborate. For the most part the two versions of the characters match each other in broad strokes, but there are subtle differences. The characters and their relationships are also more complex than what's given above.

    Soviet Guard was the product of data stolen from the American government about the experiment that produced Liberty Guard. Hammer and Sickle were also recipients of the same process, but not being as genetically compatible to it as SG their physical enhancement was far less. The three of them were soldiers together, and SG used his influence to make sure the other two were both assigned to Red Winter. They're all also Soviet patriots, and would love to help restore the Soviet Union if possible. However, there's no indication that the Soviet Guard wants to become a dictator. All three of them want to serve Russia, but a Russia they can believe in, not the kleptocracy it's become, and which stopped supporting them. OTOH they all want the money, privileges, and influence they enjoyed serving the Soviet regime, which is why they chose to become mercenaries.

    White Wolf was cursed with lycanthropy as a child, after his parents offended a witch. Unable to cure or control him during his transformation they turned for help to the Soviet government, which took him from his parents and raised and trained him to control the beast. White Wolf used to be a committed Soviet loyalist, but over the years Red Winter have been mercenaries his bestial side has grown stronger, physically and mentally. Yet his admiration for Soviet Guard has also morphed into a lupine loyalty to his pack "alpha," so he still follows SG's directions, at least for now.

    Drago and Red Dawn are a different story. They are both cybernetically enhanced, although Red Dawn to a far lesser degree than the Cryptic text implies. Drago was an elite soldier and assassin before suffering crippling injuries in combat. He was rebuilt with bionic enhancements and equipped with unique high-powered weapons. Although he served the Soviet Union loyally, since the Russian government abandoned Red Winter his only priority is himself and what he wants. He's also a psychopathic murderer, and has come to resent Soviet Guard's principles and scruples, although he won't turn on his old comrade. At least not yet. But he always urges SG to be more ruthless and less discriminating in accepting contracts.

    Red Dawn isn't entirely a cyborg; it's mostly a big suit of powered armor. But any pilot for it required neurological implants to control it properly. Red Dawn the man was actually one of the engineers working on the armor, which became his obsession, so he volunteered for the risky bionic surgery. Like Drago he's amoral and greedy, and it was at the urging of those two that Red Winter became mercenaries. Their differing priorities from the rest of the team may lead to fracturing it one day.
  • ansemthedarkansemthedark Posts: 663 Arc User
    edited March 2021
    Thanks already, I was hoping you would reply to this, it did take a while till this thread got approved also, I collect the character information for now, mostly from the Nemesis missions since most have an interesting info and appearance.

    Next up would be I, something more off, the Domesday Device! Mission. The ones in the Cells at the end.

    Herculan.png
    Torment.png
  • ansemthedarkansemthedark Posts: 663 Arc User
    edited March 2021
    Scalpel is a special case with no description and him also being in the City Hall in The Violent Majority.
    Scalpel.png
    Edit: Need to split those posts a bit since forum for some reason not accepts longer posts on my side here with pictures.
    Side note also, not Lore related but does anyone know if we got Herculan's armor ever in game anywhere?
    Herculan_Armor.png
  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    edited March 2021
    All three of these are special cases lore-wise. Scalpel is a Cryptic creation that was never translated to PnP, so there's no lore to be had on him. Torment and Herculan were essentially as written, but the info about them is dated. Torment joined a faction within PSI that opposed the regime of Psimon and Medusa, leading to a three-way war between the factions and the New Purple Gang. In the end Psimon and Medusa were captured and sent to Stronghold (they were part of the mass breakout of 2009), Mind Slayer worked for Menton for a time, while Torment and his allies disappeared (possibly having left Champions Earth) and haven't been mentioned again in later publications. It's certainly possible that in the intervening years he could have fallen back into PSI's clutches.

    Herculan received court-mandated therapy after being captured and sent to Stronghold, and since he wasn't villainous at heart it helped him deal with anger and guilt over incidents from his past, and turn his life around. He was paroled, and used his superhuman strength to get legitimate work. Herculan still tries to follow his Fassai code of honor, and finds humans primitive and their behavior often foolish. His attitudes could have triggered a return to criminality. (But I notice his card says "Hero" at the top.)
  • ansemthedarkansemthedark Posts: 663 Arc User
    edited March 2021
    Thanks you are amazing bulgarex.

    Next up: Mission, Recumbent Incumbentis
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  • ansemthedarkansemthedark Posts: 663 Arc User
    Then it's follow up: Mission, The Violent Majority
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    Gargoyle.png
  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    edited March 2021
    These are easy. The first three are Cryptic creations which aren't mentioned at all in Champions books. I assume Steve Long didn't see adapting them as adding much to the game. Gargoyle gets essentially the same mention in Champions Universe as he gets on that card, but literally nothing else -- his name was just a background detail to add color to the setting's history.
  • ansemthedarkansemthedark Posts: 663 Arc User
    edited March 2021
    Interesting to know, thanks again.

    Next up I have: Nemesis Mission, Breaking Point
    Skullder.png
    Scylla.png
    Edit: Forgot Black Adder from the Mission before that, he is Viper but only appears there, will add him when I can.
  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    Don't worry about adding Black Adder, I can find nothing for him. Ditto the two above.

    I think I should point out the difference in the text on the cards for Herculan and Torment who originated with the PnP game, versus the last few characters that aren't in PnP. The text for the former was taken from their book write-ups, and has more detail, more sense of character, and a more serious tone. The latter are briefer, superficial, and flippant. The more obvious those second qualities are, the less likely they are to be in the books.

  • ansemthedarkansemthedark Posts: 663 Arc User
    Thanks again, same I guess reminds me of Redstone, he had an old wiki entry same for Jack Fool, but in game not reflects this anymore at all anymore as example.

    On to the next, some Heroes now in it: Mission, Deathray Demolition
    Bunker Buster I add after this and will add more if I can, since random what and who appears at times.
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  • ansemthedarkansemthedark Posts: 663 Arc User
    Lady_Rocket_Hawk.png
    Rocket_Hawk.png
  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    Nothing for the Rocket Hawks. Again, notice how they're written.

    Interestingly, Double Dealer did make the transition from CO to PnP. Randolph Exton is a mercenary who learned sophisticated sword fighting in Japan. He decided dual swords would be a good gimmick to help him get into the more lucrative supervillain market, and used his underworld contacts to help develop the identity of Double Dealer. Besides his swords and an armored costume, DD wears electromagnetic gauntlets which can draw his swords to him if he's separated from them. They can also pull any other ferrous object within ten meters.

    Despite his name, Double Dealer has a reputation for loyalty to any employer, a manifestation of his professionalism which helps him get contracts. That's somewhat counterbalanced by a tendency to use lethal force too quickly, when it would be desirable to keep someone alive.

    BTW Double Dealer and Herculan are both fully written up in Champions Villains Volume Three: Solo Villains. Red Winter all get the same treatment in Volume Two: Villain Teams. The second book also gives the current membership of PSI, but Torment only appeared in an earlier collection of villains which also dealt with PSI, called Conquerors, Killers, And Crooks.
  • ansemthedarkansemthedark Posts: 663 Arc User
    Hm, once again interesting, just posting to be sure and give people something to read if interested I guess.

    Next and last one is Bunker Buster with some missing still due to the random factor, which I want to add when I can later.

    Let us start with the heroes:
    Colossal.png
    Golden_Avenger.png
  • ansemthedarkansemthedark Posts: 663 Arc User
    Indy_Kid.png
    Liberty_Guard.png
  • ansemthedarkansemthedark Posts: 663 Arc User
    Golden_Gizmo.png
    Shinryoku.png
  • ansemthedarkansemthedark Posts: 663 Arc User
    Silver_Avenger.png
  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    Okay, last one for today, I have to actually work for a living. ;)

    No Colossal, Indy Kid, Golden Gizmo, or Shinryoku. The Silver Avenger card is pretty much spot-on with the lore. Mayte Sanchez in Millennium City is one Silver Avenger. The Cyberline superhuman enhancement process is only effective on a small percentage of the human population with the right genetic factors. It requires daily booster treatments to maintain its full effects.

    In the PnP version of the setting there are no "Gold Avengers," and only one Golden Avenger at a time, a promotion for the Silver Avenger most reactive to Cyberline. The first GA, Robert Kaufman -- who has retired as Golden Avenger and taken command of Project Greenskin -- was the initial success from the Cyberline process, but creating more of him would have been very expensive. So the government cut some corners to create somewhat less powerful Silver Avengers to strengthen the ranks of PRIMUS.

    In PnP Champs the code name for the series of flag-suited government super-soldiers -- half a dozen people, including one woman, since the late 1960s -- is "the All-American," not "Liberty Guard." They're recipients of the process developed by the Perseus Project to enhance the physical and mental capabilities of its subjects, although not to superhuman levels. The latest All-American is written up in Champions Universe. It seems that for some reason Cryptic Studios preferred to create their own. Maybe they just wanted a different name.

    The only mention of Liberty Guard in the books is in connection to the origin of the Soviet Guard as I related earlier on the thread. The two versions are consistent in that LG gained permanent powers from treatment with Cyberline, even greater than the Golden Avenger's; probably due to a latent mutation triggered by Cyberline. There's nothing about any past Liberty Guards, though.
  • ansemthedarkansemthedark Posts: 663 Arc User
    Thanks again Bulgarex, I wish you a good night and a good workday then hopefully.
  • ansemthedarkansemthedark Posts: 663 Arc User
    Let's finish this up for now with the mission Bunker Buster again, this time the Villains in it, not got all yet sadly but not want to overdo it for now:
    Crimson_Serpent.png
    Cybercide.png
  • ansemthedarkansemthedark Posts: 663 Arc User
    Cykill.png
    img
  • ansemthedarkansemthedark Posts: 663 Arc User
    Dr_Tenebrous_.png
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  • ansemthedarkansemthedark Posts: 663 Arc User
    Greyskull.png
    Morticus.png
  • ansemthedarkansemthedark Posts: 663 Arc User
    Raza.png
    Rook.png
  • ansemthedarkansemthedark Posts: 663 Arc User
    Tech_Titan.png
    The_Cadaver.png
  • ansemthedarkansemthedark Posts: 663 Arc User
    The_Fiend.png
    The_Griffin.png
  • ansemthedarkansemthedark Posts: 663 Arc User
    For the sake of completion, mission Electro, what? Poly, huh?:
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  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    edited March 2021
    (Rolls up sleeves)

    Okay. All of these are original Cryptic creations. A few are mentioned in Champions PnP sources, which I'll describe below. The rest have no information about them.

    The Fiend and Morticus are fully developed PnP characters, and the core of a nascent team they call the Futurists (Champions Villains Volume Two: Villain Teams). The Futurists are motivated to try to overthrow the political/economic/social systems in the world today, and replace them with something more just and fair for all of humanity, not just the elites. Morticus came to this philosophy after being so badly treated by "the system" he'd faithfully served, as described on his card. The Fiend acts out of a sense of noblesse oblige, the feeling that as someone gifted with wealth and privilege he should do something more meaningful with his life than just cause pain. He met Morticus on a mission working for VIPER (implicitly the Bunker Buster) and found they shared similar views of history and the modern world.

    The Futurists don't try to take over the world through force. They're conspirators working subtly behind the scenes, playing the long game. They genuinely do aspire to make the world a better place, although they believe they're the best persons to run it. They're among the villains most likely to help heroes against a common threat, although usually subtly. The Futurists want to expand their ranks, but as of the writing of CV2 the only other villain they've worked with regularly is Cybercide, whom the book describes as a "cyberkinetic" mental machine-controller and super-hacker like Cybermind, only more violent and vindictive. (No more details about Cybercide, though.)

    Based on comments I've read from Steve Long, I believe the Futurists are a concept the original CO developers intended to introduce to this game themselves, but never got around to.

    Cadaver was also adapted for PnP, but significantly changed. He's a product not of "the blackest mystic arts," but of science. Dr. James Cadmus developed a "Rejuva-Ray" which he believed would retard and maybe even reverse the aging process. As he tested it on himself VIPER burst in on him (he borrowed money from the snakes when his own research grant was cut). The Rejuva-Ray exploded, changing Cadmus into an almost corpse-like creature, but one with greatly increased strength, speed, and durability. The accident also affected his mind, making him obsessed with controlling other people. Now calling himself Cadaver, he built a "Zombiefiction ray" pistol which would mentally enthrall its targets to his will. A side effect of the pistol causes its victims to temporarily change physically to somewhat resemble Cadaver himself.

    "Dr. Tenebrous" looks to me like a ripoff of an established Champions villain (or at least "grey" character) called Dr. Teneber (CV Vol. 3). DT is a necromancer and vigilante, the closest thing to a "good" necromancer in the setting. Teneber seeks out restless ghosts of people who died prematurely and unjustly, and living criminals who have escaped justice. As a former medical doctor, Teneber kills the latter in a way that leaves the body undamaged, then places the ghost of the former into the body and uses his skills to revive it, for a type of reincarnation. As Dr. Teneber expresses it, if God won't see to it that bad people die and good people live, then he will.

    DT opposes supernatural evil that would harm innocents, and has combated it alongside mystic heroes; but most of those heroes are at least very uncomfortable with his methods, and watch him for signs he's crossed the line even further.
  • jaazaniah1jaazaniah1 Posts: 5,424 Arc User
    I've done Bunker Buster a fair number of times, and some of those guys I have never seen before. I sure wish the Devs would make some more use of those assets. Pity that so many of them seem to be hidden behind RNG.
    JwLmWoa.png
    Perseus, Captain Arcane, Tectonic Knight, Pankration, Siberiad, Sekhmet, Black Seraph, Clockwork
    Project Attalus: Saving the world so you don't have to!
  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    edited March 2021
    BTW out of curiosity I looked up the meaning of "shinryoku." It seems to usually be translated as "new greenery" or "fresh green leaves," often as the name of a color. Which would appear to have nothing to do with the CO character by that name above. I guess the devs at the time randomly picked a Japanese noun they thought sounded good. :/
  • ansemthedarkansemthedark Posts: 663 Arc User
    Seems so, great work as always bulgarex, you have done well, this is all I have for now also due to the RNG factor. Cadaver sounds honestly like they used this as inspiration for the resurrection serum advantage even.

    Cykill personal note wise he looks like a Kano Mortal Kombat ripoff, so I expected him to be random in a way. Same for some others, Rook is basically a Marksman Archetype Costume only with mild changes also.

    On the RNG also for jaazaniah1, Tech Titan as example I only encountered last time now as well, never seen him before that also. So who knows how many Villains hide in this mission. I remember a Samurai Armor with no Body inside also, sadly not know the name now and a Shark Guy, still need to encounter them and gather their information.

    Thanks again to bulgarex, you are amazing with your knowledge in this.
  • ansemthedarkansemthedark Posts: 663 Arc User
    Some new ones from Bunker Buster:
    Deadly Shrike was also totally new to me this time, and Shark I knew already.
    Deadly_Shrike.png
    Land_Shark.png
  • ansemthedarkansemthedark Posts: 663 Arc User
    Let us also add Deep Sea Dépente and All that Glitters now:
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  • ansemthedarkansemthedark Posts: 663 Arc User
    And not lets forget our once favorite cowboy, now cyborg:
    The_Drifter.png
    Edit: Forgot to make a screenshot of the Azec Guardian he fights, unsure if it is special or just a random monster.
  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    edited March 2021
    Of this last batch, the only one who's from the PnP game, and has any lore about him, is the Drifter. He's also perhaps the most extreme example of Cryptic devs warping an existing Champions character. :angry:

    The Drifter's full write-up appears in Champions Universe p. 75. Jonathan Keyes was a district attorney in New York City in 1938, when he was framed by a mobster he was investigating and lost his job and reputation, eventually becoming a homeless alcoholic. One night he tried to stop a mugging, but the muggers killed him. But Keyes found himself in a misty landscape confronting a mysterious entity who offered to send him back to life to fight for what's right. Keyes returned with several new magical powers, including the ability to "drift" across the myriad dimensions, which was the inspiration for his new name. Over the intervening decades the Drifter learned many secrets of magic, becoming one of the most powerful sorcerers on Earth. He was a founding member of the Justice Squadron (this setting's analogue to the Justice Society/League), and remains a reserve member of the team today (he doesn't age).

    So why does a Pulp-era New York detective look and sound like a cowboy in CO? He doesn't in the PnP game. His origin story offhandedly mentions that in the 1970s people associated him with the contemporary Clint Eastwood Western movie, High Plains Drifter, in which Eastwood plays
    what is implicitly a vengeful ghost.
    The early Cryptic developers of this game, who displayed an obsession with pop-culture references, apparently ran with that.

    What does all this have to do with the Drifter becoming a cyborg? Absolutely nothing. He wasn't one when he first appeared in this game, but the change happened when Cryptic started offering cyborg costume pieces for CO toons. It's clear this was nothing but advertising for them, and logic and respect for the character went out the window.
    Post edited by bulgarex on
  • ansemthedarkansemthedark Posts: 663 Arc User
    Yeah, it was always odd to see him change so, only thing I kept thinking was that he got injured in the Ghost Veil mission, and he became the cyborg chronological wise. Still made no sense and now became a glorified vendor for lockbox currency sadly.
  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    BTW Land Shark above has the lamest cliche origin imaginable. The devs didn't even try with him.
  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User
    edited March 2021
    The legacy wiki on the wayback machine has a pretty complete list -- Bunker Buster is by far the largest source of named supervillains in the game. Reading off of http://web.archive.org/web/20131216082123/http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Bunker_Buster you're still missing a bunch (you might need to go in with a team, some of them spawn based on team size or number of adjacent allies)
    • Motorpool Villains: Black Scorpion, Crucible, The Greyskull, Monolith
    • Motorpool Heroes: Golden Gizmo, The Machinist
    • Robot Room Villains: Cybercide
    • Stasis Room Heroes: Diamond Chill, Indy Kid, Jack Flash, Liberty Guard
    • Stasis Room Villains: Morticus
    • Barracks Heroes: Arrow Eye, Colossal, The Bullet, Transducer
    • Barracks Villains: Dragon King, Dread Metal, Howitzer, The Reaper
    • Lab Villains: Crimson Serpent, The Cadaver
    • Lab Heroes: Golden Avenger, Ladyhawke, Sabre, Shinryoku
    • Brig Villains: Drago, Hammer, Red Dawn, Sickle, Soviet Guard, White Wolf
    • Brig Heroes: Silver Avenger, Silverhawk, Sky Strike, Tess Tesla
    • War Room Villains: Black Ice, Cursed Dragon, Cykill, Deadly Shrike, Death Phoenix, Dr Tenebrous, Lacuna, Land Shark, Raza, Rook, Tech Titan, The Fiend, The Griffin, Volta
    Most of them have quite minimal information (apparently The Reaper appears in Champions Villains Volume Three: Solo Villains). Five of the villains (Raza, Dr Tenebrous, Dread Metal, and two more I don't remember, possibly Lacuna is one) are used in the Stronghold Apocalypse PvP map.
  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    That's a great contribution, Panta, thank you very much. :+1: Looking at what's not yet crossed off from that list, I can tell you that they're all Cryptic originals, and the only one adapted for the tabletop game, as pantagruel01 intimated, is the Reaper in CV3.

    In 2009 a building in San Francisco collapsed, killing over a hundred people, and trapping several others for hours or days before they were rescued. One of those trapped people had an extreme fear of dying. As he lay under the rubble for nearly three hours his terror built until he finally died of a heart attack. His overwhelming terror did... something. Perhaps he lingers on as a demonically altered ghost, or his fear spawned an especially potent atavism, or called a real demon to Earth. Whatever it did, the Reaper first appeared not long after, killing dozens of bystanders until being driven off by superheroes. Since then he's appeared repeatedly around the world, racking up a body count in the thousands.

    Whatever it is, the Reaper claims to be an embodiment of Death; but it's more accurate to say he embodies the fear of death. He exists not just to kill, but to first terrify his victims with the prospect of their imminent deaths. He's very difficult to hurt, and even if apparently killed will eventually return.

    The Reaper has a huge and deadly sickle blade in place of his right hand. His head is a pallid skull with glowing red eyes, and he wears a dark body stocking and a hooded cloak.
  • ansemthedarkansemthedark Posts: 663 Arc User
    Thank you very much for the contribution Panta, some names I have never seen before and if it is steam size based no surprise I never encountered some of them.

    A big Thanks to Bulgarex again also for his big knowledge in all this.
  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User
    Oh, the other villain who appears in Stronghold Apocalypse is Ogre (who isn't in Bunker Buster, though he's a random convict in the Stronghold mission). He's most certainly an old-time tabletop villain, I remember him from the core rules in 4th edition.
  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    Ogre is as old-time tabletop as it gets. He was one of a handful of sample villains included in the first edition of Champions, from 1981. His latest write-up is in CV3.

    Years ago Jack Stevens was among a group of people kidnapped by ARGENT to test a "Devolutionizer Ray." Exposure to the ray caused him agonizing pain, and changed Jack's body, giving him great superhuman strength; but also left his mind dumb as a stump, with little memory of who he was. The former Jack Stevens broke free from his captors, and since then has been a well-known supervillain. His mental deficiency makes him easy to manipulate, and he's worked for many supervillains, one of whom dubbed him "the Ogre." Ogre does remember being tortured, although not who did it, and he thus has a hatred for "bullies," which category can include anyone who tries to stop him doing what he wants. ARGENT has tried several times to recapture him to study, so it can determine how to make the Devolutionizer Ray work how they want it to. Foxbat once rescued Ogre from some cops, so he now thinks of Foxbat as his "little buddy" and would go out of his way to protect him.

    As a character Ogre resembles the classic Hulk, as does Grond, but Ogre isn't nearly as strong as Grond.
  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User
    edited March 2021
    Ogre was actually pretty dangerous on the scale of starting PCs, because he was such a pure and straightforward build, not wasting any points on fluffery like 'skills' or 'intelligence'.

    Hunting down my copy of 4th edition, a lot of characters in there no longer exist; guess Steve Long didn't like most of them. The only one of the Champions from 4e that still exists is Defender.
    Post edited by pantagruel01 on
  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    I remember Steve Long once remarking that he wanted to write up the 5E example Champions characters himself, because he just liked making characters. But if you look at his 5E example Champions roster vs the 4E one, it wasn't a very big departure. Besides the nearly-identical Defender, you had the female sorceress outcast from her "coven" (4E Solitaire, 5E Witchcraft); the superstrong alien (4E Obsidian, 5E Ironclad); the mutant energy-projector who's a woman and a minority (4E Quantum, 5E Sapphire); the detective (4E Jaguar, 5E Nighthawk, who was one of the team's founders). Nighthawk also filled the martial-artist niche occupied by Seeker in 4E.
  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User
    My suspicion is that he just hated Australian Ninjas, as Seeker was the only 4th edition character who was all that high profile (I remember people talking about a 'Seeker test', where the sign of a good book was Seeker getting beaten up on the cover).
  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    Seeker is an orphaned country bumpkin Australian trained in ninjutsu by a survivor from a Japanese ninja recon team from WW II hiding in the Outback since the war, who wears blousey white karate pants and a bare chest and likes to swing from chandeliers. He's a melting pot of 1980s pop-culture cliches. Over time he did mature as a character, but now in an era with generally more widespread understanding of Australia and Japanese culture, he's pretty groan-inducing.
  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User
    Even by the standards of the time he was a really stupid character, but now I'm curious about 'where are they now' from the other characters from the back of 4e (since I happen to have it accessible). Armadillo, Bluejay, Cheshire Cat, Green Dragon, Mechanon, and Ogre are in CO, but of the rest:
    • Crusader (fairly redundant detective/martial artist/captain america homage)
    • Starburst (because being unable to use your attacks and defenses at the same time is a good idea...)
    • Mindlock (amazingly generic telepath who inexplicably dresses like a ninja)
    • Shrinker (shrinking, sonic blasts)
    • Pulsar (rather generic energy projector)
    • Icicle (character who manages to not make any sense because she's connected to Icestar who Hero Games no longer had the rights to as of 4e)
    • Dragonfly (bug guy)
    • Powerhouse (giant size wrestler).
  • ansemthedarkansemthedark Posts: 663 Arc User
    Pulsar, I swear I heard that name before or did read in somewhere in CO once, or it is generic, and I confuse him with a comic book character from Marvel or DC.

    Icicle and Powerhouse would be interesting since we have the Powerhouse as location and Icicle as AT, let us hope they not forget that when those should show up, and we not have a disaster with former F.R.E.O.N. now Frosticus name dilemma.

    Great contribution you both, Bulgarex and Pantagruel01, again, I like where this is all going, so much to learn of such as interesting side info.

    Speaking of Ogre in Strong hold also, there is also some "Werewolf?" guy, I forgot his name sadly now. Speaking about werewolves also, is it me or are there different types of them, the typical curse one, the ones applied due to a bite, then others seem magical source wise and others seem science wise. Which also brings me to the Werewolfs and Hunters from Bloodmoon, are those mentioned in PnP and the Lorebooks?
  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    edited March 2021
    Of that group, Shrinker and Pulsar are still official, and aside from their updated character stats are mostly unchanged. Icicle was replaced with a very similar character called Snowblind. Dragonfly is also official, and although his origin is different he started out pretty much as per his 4E version; but over time his body continued to mutate, until he's now a hideous, nearly subhuman monster. All of the above are detailed in Champions Villains Volume Three: Solo Villains.

    Crusader and Starburst are now treated as historical/background characters, without game stats or detailed bios. Starburst, "a flashy scientist... with a suite of light powers" (Champions Universe: News Of The World p. 69) joined the famous Justice Squadron in the mid-1960s until his retirement around 1980. There are references to three heroes using the code-name Crusader, none really resembling the 4E character. The first Crusader, "a masked vigilante who had some knowledge of the occult" (CU:NOTW p. 69) replaced Starburst in the Justice Squadron, but was killed by Takofanes in 1987. Also in the Eighties, a "sword-wielding solo vigilante" calling himself Crusader appeared in New York City (Champions Universe p. 15. It may have been an editorial oversight to have two superheroes by the same name operate out of the same city at the same time, but it does raise some interesting conjecture as to what their encounters might have been like.) ;) The current Crusader, described as "blaster-armed," is based in Millennium City and is an auxiliary member of the Champions (CU p. 89).

    None of the others have been mentioned yet in the current setting AFAIK.
  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    Pulsar, I swear I heard that name before or did read in somewhere in CO once, or it is generic, and I confuse him with a comic book character from Marvel or DC.

    Icicle and Powerhouse would be interesting since we have the Powerhouse as location and Icicle as AT, let us hope they not forget that when those should show up, and we not have a disaster with former F.R.E.O.N. now Frosticus name dilemma.

    Great contribution you both, Bulgarex and Pantagruel01, again, I like where this is all going, so much to learn of such as interesting side info.

    Speaking of Ogre in Strong hold also, there is also some "Werewolf?" guy, I forgot his name sadly now. Speaking about werewolves also, is it me or are there different types of them, the typical curse one, the ones applied due to a bite, then others seem magical source wise and others seem science wise. Which also brings me to the Werewolfs and Hunters from Bloodmoon, are those mentioned in PnP and the Lorebooks?

    My apologies, Ansem, I missed this question before my last answer. :s I'm not sure which werewolf is in Stronghold, haven't checked out that location in quite a while. But as far as werewolves, and shapeshifters in general go in this game world, this thread summarizes relevant info. If you want to know how they connect to the Blood Moon, and about that supernatural event generally, I would suggest scanning this one.
  • ansemthedarkansemthedark Posts: 663 Arc User
    No worry, thanks for pointing me out to them. And about the wolf guy in Stronghold, need to find time to do the mission on a character again to get a screenshot I guess. Thanks as always.
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