The Good, The Bad and The Spandex: an Original Superhero Game!

Okay, so I'm concerned by the fact that there are several similarly mind-oriented characters. I don't want to step on any toes, so if you think the themes get too close to the other mind-specced characters, I'll try to cook something new up. Feedback more than welcome, as I have a feeling that this is a broken mess begging to be balanced.

Identity: Fracture.

Alignment: Villain

Secret Identities: Alexander Lux, Rehab.

Powers & Abilities:

• Psyche Seed: Can 'nudge' a person in a direction using mental interference, causing the formation of an idea or emotion. It is impossible to get them to do what they normally wouldn't at first, but the more this power is used, the more malleable the victim becomes, until they are the psychological equivalent of putty (this is, however, bad for any task that needs actual knowledge). The person's mind isn't suppressed; it's effectively overwritten, piece by piece, over the course of many uses. However, it is likely that one can extract the original personality... Somehow.
• Neural Bypass: Can alter perceptions of up to three targets. This number is raised by the targets having lower willpower and Fracture being in a nice, quiet place. It's lowered by targets with abnormally high willpower, hallucinations that need more detail than a simple vision, and a distracting atmosphere. Anybody who's actively being protected from mental effects (including simple effects such as nervousness) is immune to this ability.
• Emotional Overload: Fracture's body constantly produces and reabsorbs clumps of neural tissue that can communicate with him without needing to be directly connected to his nervous system. If Fracture's bare palm is placed on any bare skin on a host, his nervous system can rapidly grow through his hand and their flesh (rather painfully), rendering his limb useless for around an hour, but allowing a several minute long procedure to implant a mass. Once a mass is inserted, Fracture may open a mental link to the host, allowing him to either use the host as a proxy sensor, or attempt to ransack their mind for memories. If the target has a shield blocking psychic activity, the clump cannot send or receive information without direct physical contact. This ability works far worse the further away he gets, and the clump may be removed safely, although it would likely give a small shock to both members of the relationship, as if something inside them had popped all of a sudden.
• Psionic Whiplash: Attempts at psychic warfare against Fracture are possible, but ill-advised; all links created with his mind are made two-way, giving him a pathway down which to use Emotional Overload (although his focus is significantly disrupted by the attack, so he can do few significant things). This passive ability is only active when he's on guard.
• For Science!: Alexander Lux was a scientist first and a CEO second; although he's no god of knowledge, he can certainly make a decent impression on a whiteboard. Of course, designing something gives you an edge at operating it, but only talent or practice will actually make you good at it.

Weaknesses:

• Human Frailty: He is weak, even by civilian standards; his constitution is that of a scientist, not a warrior.
• Short-Circuit: His abilities are powerful, and he can use the lesser ones with ease, but actively maintaining hallucinations and infiltrating someone's mind are very taxing procedures that he'd rather not repeat too often; overtaxing his nervous system can cause headaches, mild at first, but they slowly escalate to migraines, then paralysis, then aneurysms, as his nerves demand more and more until the body can't provide.

Description: Fracture generally wears a mask and a robe◊ over casual clothes, whereas Rehab prefers a more sane-looking suit◊ and tie.

Personality: Fracture often acts cold towards people, despite not really hating them; he just finds people to be annoying, and would rather have something more predictable. When he remembers that innocent civilians exist, he avoids collateral damage, occasionally taking a minute or two to stop his plans from harming anyone present. He tends to get tunnel vision, however; anything irrelevant to his plans is usually put to the side when it's go time, including civilians, and even other heroes and villains!

Background: Alexander Lux was a rather wealthy businessman and scientist. Founder of Omnitech Industries, he desired only to push forwards the limits of science. Unfortunately, charitable science doesn't pay the bills, so he had to accept a hush-hush contract involving bioweaponry and largely lethal mutagens. After heroes got wind of this, they immediately broke in... Through the wrong wall. Bursting open the hazardous containers, they flooded the entire laboratory with lethal mutagenic substances, accidentally killing most of the scientists present. The government pulled the plausible deniability card, and could only be persuaded to allow continuation of Omnitech's operations using many a healthy bribe. Convinced that they needed a scapegoat, the government still deigned to press charges against Alexander himself, who was forced to step down and submit to several long months of trials. He appeared to commit suicide shortly before month 7. Of course, the word "appeared" is there for a reason; Alexander resurfaced several months later as the newbie hero Rehab, there to turn criminals towards a better direction, step by step! As if miraculously, all criminals he had sessions with slowly became more and more obedient, and he became trusted with patients in prisons, asylums, what have you. Three years later, Alexander donned a new guise: Fracture. Clad in a crimson cloak and a white mask, he showed up in the middle of battles, on the sides of heroes and villains alike, his white-robed acolytes charging to help his chosen side with a fervor unmatched by most humans.

"Everyone's corrupt, not just those imbeciles. This city is just Square One."

Sorry for wall of background. I promise I'll try not to repeat it once I fully learn how to format.

edited 19th Aug '16 7:53:37 PM by Mistfader

Approved! I'll add him to the Villain roster. And welcome to the game!

Man-Slayer, War Dragon

• Princess Mei Mah, Anti-Villain, well-known
• Mei Mah, so long as she has that spear on her person, is the same class of being as the Monster, a living story inside of a person. Hers is that of the simple, violent pragmatism, the Iron Warrior.
  • Empty-Handed Pugilist Knack: The Iron Warrior has reshaped the Man-Slayer’s body until she has attained a form and muscle memory befitting the myth. She is just above peak-human and fights with an unknown martial art that lacks in either grace nor fury, but a cold, unfeeling yet perfectly placed brutality.
    • Arrow-Catching Wit: When targeted by any kind of ranged missile, her reflexes and speed will suddenly accelerate to the point when she can catch the damn thing. Just a couple of them though, a barrage is a problem.
    • I Punch Them In The Face: She does. Like, really hard.
  • Meteor Shower Style: Though the Iron Warrior spirit has come to identify with more medieval weaponry, it recognizes modern weaponry as its heir. It jealously guards against the use of other melee weapons besides itself but holds no reservations for guns, rockets and grenades. The War Dragon has fed upon this, and her mastery of such weapons has become instinctive beyond that of elite operatives.
  • Thankful Lent-Hand Acceptance: Whenever a meta-human would use an active power against the Man-Slayer, and be so foolish enough to do so right next to her, she will teach them to regret it. Grabbing a hold of them, specifically whichever part of them most closely to do with the active power, she will actually gain control of that power and turn it against them. IE, someone who shoots fire from their hand at her, she will grab hold of their hand and shove that hand in their face, forcing them to shoot fire continuously in their face. A telepath means to control her mind, she grabs their head and begins taking control herself. Any resistance they may have to their own power is temporarily overcome as she does to them what they planned to do to her.
  • Armament-Forging Soldier Sagacity: The armaments of the future are the inheritors of the world once ruled by swords, spears and arrows. The Iron Warrior must be responsible for raising them as a governess of an heiress, a farmer raises his crops. In her mind, schematics to weapons of war flow. War Dragon does not understand the sciences behind them, only how to build these tools of destructions. A nuclear bomb, she knows how to build them, in theory, but nuclear physics, energy, no. A suit of weaponized power armor, yes, but ask her to build a robot meant for building, for creating, and she will fail. The Man-Slayer, in fact, fights in a suit of powered armor.
    • Heroic Panoply-Forging Puissance: Her knack for forging weapons of war extends to magic as well. So long as the sorcery is of the sort meant for battle, she has the capability of forging artifacts meant for it. She might have enchanted her power armor as well; to what extent if at all is unknown.
  • Iron Stomach Development: Favorable metabolism. Poisons, for example, the Man-Slayer shows resistance too, especially ingested ones. Anything that would help her, though, she wrings the most out of, again especially if ingested.
    • The Stomach Knows: That which she consumes, she begin to know about, as long as she is focusing when eating it. Specifically, what affects it would have on her and if she should just shove a finger down her throat.
  • Marching Fortress Stamina: The Iron Warrior demands endurance and the Man-Slayer has given it. She has become more flesh golem than human, enduring deadly environment and long spans of time without rest.
  • Iron Will Fortress Discipline: Inside the War Dragon's mind is a literal fortress, a mental construct of bunkers, turrets, ever vigilant guards and laser grids. Any mental intrusion will have to get past a No-Man's Land of barbed wires, mines, artillery barrage, snipes, machine gun nests, break into the fortress, evade its guardian warrior and defenses and find the hidden treasure room where the War Dragon keeps her true mind. There she is, a sentinel constructed fashioned after herself, the last guardian. Only then could a telepath hope to read or rearrange her private thoughts.
  • Manslayer Shintai: [LOCKED] The Man-Slayer has yet to embrace her name sake. If she ever were too, she would lose the capability of seeing those far weaker than her as people at all. They would become indistinct shadows, each no different from the rest. In exchange, she would gain an unparalleled sense of battle, a constant awareness of the perfect way to kill everything she can see, forever.
  • Underdog-Training Montage: War Dragon may take others under her wing and train them in fighting, battle and war. Those under her tutelage find the process of learning such arts supernaturally accelerated. Those national loyalists that have raised arms by her side have benefitted from this training.
  • My Story Doesn't End Here: If she were to die, the Man-Slayer will not be kept by Death's embrace. She will fight her way out of the afterlife and return to her people, atop the corpses of angels and demons alike if need be. She’s done it once already, and the forces of the Hereafter have prepared for her coming this time. She, in turn, has prepared for her return.
  • A Reliquary For The Fire Of The Gods: The Spear is a vessel of power. Though the Iron Spirit inhabits it, the entity will shares its home with destructive magic and other forms of living energy. It need not be ritualistically prepared, the spell or what have you can simply be sunk in.
  • Extension-Of-One's-Self Methodology: The Spear's spirit and the Man-Slayer’s have grown close. When in her hands, it guides her movements and strikes deadly.
  • It Is Called Foe-Hammer: The Spear has drank deeply upon the blood of the divine, and the dripping essence left over is bane to beings that might be called demonic in nature.
  • Of Black Diamonds That Cut The World: The Spear is impossibly hard and sharp. Like, Wolverine claws here.
  • Privacy-Inhibiting Attachment: The Spear has chosen the Man-Slayer to be its wielder and will always return to her if taken away, reappearing in her hand as if by magic. However, it takes a few moments for it to be roused into doing that. Done once and it will remain wary.
  • Bloodshed With Greater Purpose: So long as the Man-Slayer fights for her stated purpose (more on that below), the Spear strikes all the harder, all the more deadly and is coated in a metaphysical venom bane to those opposed to this purpose.
  • Shearing The Tapestry: The Spear has the power to cut through immaterial things, like ghosts and stuff. If a being attempts to hide in some neighboring demi-plane, the Spear will also cut through to that, just to kill them.
• Appearance:
  • Armor◊(Albeit, better suited for her body, without the head tail, some draconic markings)
  • No armor◊
  • Spear◊
• Think "Warrior Princess", with equal emphasis on both. Arrogant and cruel, cultured and violent, honorable.
• Once, there were two men. Once, there was a rock. These men, with fists, went to murder each other for resources and the blood of the fallen seeped into the earth. Later, another man lifted this rock up and bashed yet another man's head in. In another time, a man tied this rock to a stick and he bashed many heads in. His son replaced that rock with a sharper rock and that son's daughter replaced the stick with a sharper stick and she had a spear. One of her descendants took that spear and broke it over his knee. Not as a gesture of peace, but of progress, for he took up a spear of solid bronze. In all that, the rock had endured. Jumping from weapon to weapon, often spears, the nascent soul of an unborn god has lived on, passed from wielder to wielder. In the hands of a god, it killed so many it never stopped dripping blood. In the hands of a mortal, it supped upon the blood of a demigod. In the hands of a madman, it oversaw the genocide of a people. The Iron Myth, the Warrior, the incarnate narrative of purest battle itself.
  • Once there was a nation to the East that worshipped dragons. Once there was a princess born with the countenance of one. She was blessed and held above all others, hailed as a savior to her people that would lead them to a glorious age. In actuality, she was a metahuman, a mutant born with merely the superficial appearance of a reptile. Anywhere else, she might've been considered a freak, but part of a royal family, in such a particular culture, she seemed like a sign from the heavens. If only. Its enemies rose, the political climate changed, the nation fell and fell hard. Some purging of the royal family here, some ethnic cleansing there, the Communist marched in and the Americans came to "save the day". In all that, Mei Mah grabbed hold of a family treasure she felt calling to her, a spear. She held it aloft and with her will, her royal prerogative, she reached out to the Iron Myth and it answered, giving her its power. Forced to flee, she vowed to see her nation resurrected, with a secondary goal of vengeance, no matter what the cost. Since then, she's been involved in numerous unpleasantries, always working towards her intended goals, gathering to her a small army of national loyalists saved from the fires.
  • She was there during the invasion, standing to defend earth alongside its heroes. She saw the Hunter become the Monster. She died in a heroic last stand. It took her some time to claw her way out of the Hereafter. She'd been gone for a while, but back for a while too. I leave the details vague

edited 20th Aug '16 12:00:45 PM by God_of_Awesome

I have an idea for a potential villain for a musical arc, a girl group inspired by Crystal, Ronette, and Chiffon and The Music Meister, who can make people burst into song and dance.

edited 17th Aug '16 4:07:42 PM by emilyorthoclase

Go for it!

I love those three from Little Shop of Horrors!

The Belladonnas

• Identity: Laurel and Lily Jenkins and Jessamine Pierce. Laurel and Lily are sisters and Jessamine is their cousin. They're villains, but of the harmless variety- mostly.

• Powers:
  • Telepathy: The Belladonnas can project their thoughts and perceive and manipulate the thoughts, memories, and emotions of others. They also possess illusion and mind control powers.

  • Spontaneous musical number causation: By using their telepathy in tandem, the Belladonnas can cause people to suddenly burst into seemingly memorized, perfectly choreographed song and dance routines about either what they're currently doing or feeling. The Belladonnas don't have to sing themselves to do this, but they do anyway.

• Description: Three African American women in their early to mid-twenties (Laurel is 24, Lily is 21, and Jessamine is 22). They change outfits a lot (whether it's by using their illusory powers or they're just good at that is unknown). They tend to favor long, sparkly dresses and bouffants, though they change to suit their surroundings.

• Personality: While the Belladonnas are largely motivated by money, they also enjoy causing toe-tapping chaos. They're not actively malicious (most of the time), even if they take a bit too much pleasure in the way their powers inconvenience or embarrass people.
  • Laurel is the level-headed leader, Lily is the snarky cynic, and Jessamine is the dim but plucky hopeless romantic.

• Background: The Belladonnas got their start when all three of them accidentally set up a three-way telepathic link as children. They honed their telepathic and musical abilities together as they grew up, and as adults, they started a girl group. When they failed to make any traction in the music world, they turned to crime. Now, they travel from city to city stealing cash.

edited 17th Aug '16 5:20:11 PM by emilyorthoclase

Approved! Wonder what Reverb will think of them.

Major fan of them, if not outright working with them at times.

I've wanted to do a Musical Episode for the longest time! Thank you so much!

Admittedly, it probably won't happen right away- maybe after character interactions are a bit more solidified? Say in a month or so (RL time).

I am so in for that!

I'd like to imagine Reverb and the Belladonnas are good friends. Like, they hang out and talk about doing evil things.

Never let it be said I don't do my best to make everyone happy.

Headcanon accepted.

And we love you for it, boss.

Would it be alright if I wrote up a character to be an NPC for now but maybe switch to later?

Are we allowed to use more than one character? Or no?

And Dragon Man singing and dancing is going to be funny as hell.

I'm pretty sure you can, so long as you feel up to juggling more than one.

And, I very much look forward to watching Dragon Man's musical numbers...

You can make as many characters as you want. But only play one at a time.

Clarification: Minions do not count as characters, you can have as many as you want. You can also create supporting characters (parents, etc) but those are under my control.

Special Note: In addition to a superhero game, this is a World-Making group effort, sort of. Everyone is welcome to add details and ideas as long as they do not contradict the ones that have already appeared in the story. First Come, First Served.

edited 18th Aug '16 7:11:18 AM by Sijo

I'm interested. Are characters who don't have powers per se but have something that does give them abilities ala Iron Man allowed?

"Minions do not count as characters..."

I find that racist!

Minion rights! Free bananas!! Better salaries! MORE FUN TIME WITH GRU AND THE GIRLS!

Erm, hi, interested here.

Would a minion still not count if I was to solely play a minion? Because I have a character idea for a career henchman >_>

Could I play a Iron Man style character or a Mega-Man style humanoid robot?

First, thanks for the expressions of interest (Hi Slendid!) And yes, you can have armored/robotic characters if you want.

Oh and a minion is perfectly ok as a character; I was explaining that you can only control one fully-realized character, if they have minions they are expendable, OK?

Hi Silence!

Hey Gobb. I'll have a character eventually. Just need to draw him up.