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All right, Bullseye8 has not been forthcoming with clarifications, so I'm going to throw out some Champs Uni references in the hope they'll spark a bit more discussion. :) There are four official singing superheroines in the CU that I'm familiar with, each of whom brings their own possibilities for who would kidnap them,…
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Hi, bullseye8. :) I'd love to help you, but I'd like a little more information, please. First, I'm unfamiliar with the Dazzlings, which I'm guessing are NPC heroes of yours who are singers. Is that correct? Then could you please specify what help you would like? Suggestions for what singing heroine(s) from Champions lore…
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Deleted due to technical difficulties.
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In this case, not really. Hidden Lands has at least 90% of what you would need: historical timelines, maps of relevant areas, descriptions of the physical environment, racial appearance and abilities, thorough cultural analysis, full backgrounds and character descriptions for multiple key NPCs. Yes, a few other details are…
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Well, I'm not going to comment about the direction of your story. I'll just provide relevant official lore items. First, it's "Lemuria," not "Lumeria." ;) The term was coined by scientists in the late 19th Century for a theoretical continent in the Indian Ocean submerged by tectonic action, and later appropriated by…
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:3 BTW interested parties can read more about the Xenovores in Champions Beyond; Nama in VIPER: Coils Of The Serpent; the Empyreans in Hidden Lands; and Lady Blue in Champions Villains Volume Three: Solo Villains.
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Names are fairly easy to come up with. Characters, not so much.
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Sorry, wingedkagouti, no criticism of you intended. You may legitimately have inspiration I lack. Or perhaps I'm just becoming a cranky old fart.
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Sure, it's plausible. One can come up with almost anything to fit any character if one is imaginative. That still doesn't make the character illos any more unique or compelling. Heck, I might as well take my shot. I'll try tying the characters to lore from the setting. Right to left: Grey Cat: Frank Merrit is a rookie cop…
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If you get "original" from that image, more power to you. I see a woman in a fairly generic super-suit who flies. She's smiling, so she's happy and/or has a positive attitude. That's it. Nothing about powers, origin, personality, motivation, nada. She could be a riff on Supergirl, Wonder Woman, Starfire, Jean Grey, Booster…
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Not much worse than some of the names/concepts Cryptic came up with TBH.
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Eh, they're not very original or distinctive. Except maybe the big green guy, whom I would name the Pantless Wonder. :s
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The Free for All trailer does show Defender deploying his facial armor, at the 25 second mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnTmaXpxTYk Thank you very much for posting the loading screen, theravenforce. But again, there's nothing about the other figures that identifies them with any official characters. I think they're…
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So, I still haven't been able to log in to CO; but I'm wondering if this is the image you're referring to: https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/9880/header.jpg?t=1670453594 If it is, I don't recognize the images of any of the new heroes, and they don't match any of the Champions "reservists" described in…
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I'm having trouble with loading, can't see it. I guess I've been inactive too long. :s As for Defender's armor, the real reason is almost certainly aesthetic. Cryptic just thought he looked better that way. Perhaps it was rationalized as Defender not wanting to look heavily concealed, to appear more accessible to the…
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I strongly doubt the Supreme Serpent cares about the ethnicity of the grunts on the front lines. To him they're just modern sepoys.
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I thought of mentioning Viperia, but when you have that much power someone is going to try to use you to their advantage regardless of whatever else they think of you, so she can't be considered emblematic. Viperia is too undisciplined to be a leader, though. In terms of how VIPER employs her, she's more like a cross…
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Please, be my guest. You're welcome to link any of my lore threads from the forum. I put them here hoping they'd be of use to CO players, so widening their exposure increases that chance. :+1:
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I have to correct myself. I recalled one named woman who's in a position of authority in ARGENT: Dynamic Technologies Research Group: This technology research and consultation firm is actually the main front company for ARGENT in Millennium City. It's run by Dr. Victor Hopewell, with the assistance of his gifted…
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I can't speak definitively to ARGENT, as the scattered references to it don't address the gender issue specifically. All the leader-types named are male, but that could just be coincidence. However, per VIPER: Coils Of The Serpent, VIPER definitely is not male-only. Although membership is predominantly men, most Nests…
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Empyreans have had contact with nearly every human ethnicity/culture that has ever existed, so there's bound to have been a lot of cross-cultural language influences. (The "meta" is, of course, they're just a bunch of made-up sounds intended to be cool.) :p I'm glad you found something that works for you. :)
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Here are all the named Empyreans from Hidden Lands and elsewhere. I'll add an asterisk by names that are confirmed female: Amlin, Ogurn, Marya*, Garon, Gaex, Ashari*, Madux, Hadon, Shaneva*, Laddoc, Othor, Hazor, Ashima*, Arvad, Shaderon, Haldor, Abechan*, Brax, Zoltar, Noatar, Handrel*, Archon, Davos, Thalya*, Lannet,…
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You betcha. B) Here are all the named Empyreans from Hidden Lands and elsewhere. I'll add an asterisk by names that are confirmed female: Amlin, Ogurn, Marya*, Garon, Gaex, Ashari*, Madux, Hadon, Shaneva*, Laddoc, Othor, Aleja*, Hazor, Arvad, Ashima*, Shaderon, Haldor, Abechan*, Brax, Zoltar, Noatar, Handrel*, Chard,…
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Looking back over the backgrounds and history to the Empyreans and Lemurians in Hidden Lands, it strikes me that there's a strong parallel between Highfather and Darkseid of the New Gods, and the Empyrean king Hazor and his estranged and exiled brother, Arvad the erstwhile king of Lemuria. Hazor the wise and benevolent…
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Because you mention your characters are Greco-Roman inspired, I'll just toss out another idea. Tens of thousands of years ago, Atlantis was the world's dominant power, and its culture was very much that Classical style, with the admixture of epic-scale magic. The gods of Atlantis had that culture's typical divine fondness…
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As I indicated, if you want to "channel the Eternals," the Empyreans very clearly stand in for them in the CU, and fill the role you want. As their city and valley of Arcadia in Antarctica is hidden from human detection, it's the next best thing to an alien planet in terms of separation from the rest of Earth. If it's…
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I thought of another approach to this character-creation subject. Book Of The Empress makes clear that other worlds than Earth can have their own versions of Earth's Astral "Imaginal Realms," if the conditions on a world, and the beliefs of its people, are conducive to generating them. So there could be alien mythological…
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Interesting side note about the Empyreans with implications for this topic: Around 10,000 years ago a civil war broke out for leadership between two of the Ancients, Amlin and Ogurn. (See "Being Empyrean" above.) The two of them apparently destroyed each other in battle, after which nine of the remaining Ancients decided…
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The setting does have a clear analogue to Marvel's Eternals (comic version, not movie version) known as Empyreans. This thread elsewhere on this forum gives you a synopsis of relevant character-building background: Being Empyrean. The New Gods in general don't have direct CU analogues (but see below), but the exception to…
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I think there are a few issues at play here. One, the specific verbal pronunciation quirk in Hi Pan's dialogue that was brought up, and how it appears to be played for laughs, has been a particular point of mockery for generations, along the lines of Native Americans portrayed as always saying, "How." Two, Big Trouble in…
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Yep, he still exists, he's still a raging male chauvinist (along with other, equally endearing, qualities), and his purpose is as comic relief and to get his overconfident bragging butt handed to him, often by female supers (he's actually shocked the first time one of them hits him). Witchcraft of the Champions once turned…
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I guess the aggravation comes from that particular verbal quirk having been played for mockery in portrayals of Asians for many decades. But I appreciate your perspective.
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Champions PnP makes the default assumption that a character in modern day is literate in any language he speaks fluently. Illiteracy would be a Complication, i.e. something that makes the character's life more difficult and ... interesting... in some way, and which they can get Character Points for taking which can be…
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By his PnP stats Zerstoiten speaks thirteen languages with great fluency, including his native German, but his stats say he should have a German accent, yes. His word choices for describing himself are unusual, which adds to the impression I had; but as you say, we can't tell for certain. But I'm ready to move beyond it --…
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It's just a video game. It's just a book. It's just a TV show. It's just a movie. It's just a joke. That's the attitude and excuse that's allowed these stereotypes to persist since forever. "The reality is most people are aware of stereotypes about their own race/religion/sex/nationality and are used to it." That statement…
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Welcome aboard, Jfoxtail! I hope you'll enjoy your adventures in the Champions Online world, and your visits to our community here. I'm a past-middle-age tabletop gamer who cut his teeth on boxed-set D&D in the late 1970s, so... how ya doin', kid? ;) I think you'll find most of us here friendly and helpful, and welcoming…
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I guess "catlike body with human head" was supposed to cover the sphinx part. I do think the fur on his body could be more obvious to distinguish it from his head. (A tail would also be helpful.) ;) The arm bands and collar are vaguely suggestive of the era and region, but making the collar look more like Egyptian tomb…
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I believe I can upload an image of the Living Sphinx, from CV3:
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When it comes to groups of villains, I find it more interesting if they have a common, unifying theme, motif, and/or motivation. Something to explain why they're together, and that sets them apart of any other collection of "Bad Guys." Like Eurostar all coming from different European countries, and following Fiacho's…
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What was it that led you to think CO was dead a few years ago? It never shut down (aside from maintenance sessions), people never stopped playing.
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All the Westworld-analogue stuff you can lay firmly at the feet of Cryptic Studios. In PnP, Snake Gulch -- introduced in the multi-part adventure, Sharper Than A Serpent's Tooth -- appears to be an Old West ghost town refurbished as a standard Wild West tourist theme park, as a cover for the VIPER Nest beneath it. No…
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For anyone curious, here's a brief overview of Egypt in the grand scheme of things.
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After you're signed in, left-click on your name at the top right hand of the page. On the drop-down menu, click on either "My Profile" or "My Account" - different pages may produce either menu, but either link will take you to your profile. Left-click on the gear icon at the top right, which will drop a menu including…
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Just to highlight further potential, while the Living Sphinx generally acts alone, he has in the past worked with the supervillain called Anubis, a powerful magic-wielder who's the primary servant on Earth of the god Set. The Sphinx considers Anubis a divine messenger and willingly follows his orders.
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Sort of. "The Living Sphinx is a horrifying creature, as much beast as man. His chest and lower body is vaguely catlike, complete with short black fur, clawed feet, and a long tail. Unlike his mythical namesake, however, the Living Sphinx stands upright... and, at 6’6” tall, towers over most people. His neck, shoulders,…
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The Mystic World, primary source book for the supernatural side of the CU, includes an NPC who'd make a fine mission-giver or contact for an Egyptian-themed adventure. Dr. Ibrahim Khalseran: When the Nazis unearthed this Egyptian priest-magician’s tomb, they awoke the mummified priest, who expressed his dislike of…
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It would be a nice occasion to introduce a new Egyptian-themed villain from the IP, e.g. Anubis, the Curse, and/or the Living Sphinx. They have full background, power write-ups, and artwork in Champions Villains Vol. 3. And yes, the khopesh may be an antiquated weapon compared to later swords, but it does look very cool.
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It's funny, for years I've been coming here answering Champions lore questions as best I can. I try not to push people toward playing what I would play, just to find out what they want and help them get there, or show them options they might springboard from. It gives me real satisfaction if they indicate I've been able to…
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I'm sorry you feel that way. I hope you find what you're looking for elsewhere.
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You see, for my part, I've run many tabletop RPG sessions using a slightly-modified Champions Universe, and I've never had a problem mining it for interesting, challenging, and from most reports, fun adventures and story arcs. What you consider "bloated" and "broken," I find to be a rich, coherent, solid framework to hang…