Subpages cleanup: Complete Monster

Soraya

Soraya.

Khoura.

Also HUGE to Soraya. I you haven't watched Maria del Los Barrio, you really should, it's an absolutely crazy show.

to Lord Khoura and Soraya Montenegro.

Largo, care to try to condense the current entry at María la del barrio?
Wow

edited 18th Jun '16 8:38:19 AM by ACW

Here's my effort post on the FallenLondon character I talked about yesterday. First, though, I need to give a crash course on the game's background lore.

The game world is very similar to ours except that it runs on the concept of a Great Chain of Being. More powerful creatures are on top and weaker on the bottom. The godlike beings on the very top are known as the Judgments, who are basically stars. They control the laws of existence and speak in a language known as the Correspondence. They communicate by etching Correspondence sigils on interstellar messengers that look like giant crabs. One of these giant alien space crabs, later known as the Bazaar, fell in love with a Judgment that just so happened to be our star Sol. The other Judgments did NOT approve of two beings on different levels of the Great Chain, so they told the Bazaar it had to prove that kind of love was possible.

The Bazaar created a plan to find these love stories. First, it realized it needed helpers, so it recruited a group of alien space bats by having them all adhere to an oath of fealty. These creatures would later be known as the Masters of the Bazaar (ironic considering they were basically its slaves). With helpers in tow, the Bazaar went to Earth to try to find the love stories it required. Knowing the Judgments would interfere if they had the chance, the Bazaar chose a gigantic underground cavern known as the Neath where law was severely weakened.

The Bazaar and Judgments previously agreed that they would allow the Bazaar to find its love stories in seven cities before its mission was failed. The Masters and the Bazaar then concocted their plan which would form the basis of the entire game. The Masters would promise leaders of a city that they would save someone the leader loved in exchange for the city itself. When this plan succeeded, they city was dragged off to the Neath where the Masters would collect love stories for the Bazaar. In the meantime, they would take up trade names such as Mr. Wines, Mr. Iron, and Mr. Fires to further their own goals and to collect the love stories. This cycle continues until London is taken as the Fifth City.

Enough of the background lore, here is the effort post itself on one of the Masters known as Mr. Veils.

Who is he?

Mr. Veils is the Master that deals in the trade of cloth in London. While each of the Masters try to collect love stories, they have become cynical of the Bazaar's mission and only want out of the bargain. Each of the Masters tend to occupy their free time differently: Mr. Wines enjoys tasting all manner of drink and throwing parties, Mr. Pages collects rare and illegal literature and writes sappy love novels under a pseudonym, Mr. Fires loves London and enjoys running London's docks and trade fleets, and so on with the other Masters. Mr. Veils is the only Master who absolutely despises the Bazaar and its mission, and takes part in by far the most horrifying pastime.

What did he do?

Bored out of his mind trying to help the Bazaar, Mr. Veils took to London's skies and began hunting and murdering people as the monster called the Vake. His primary method of hunting is creating a drink known as Black W Ings Absinthe which has a drop of his blood in it. People that drink the absinthe will experience terrible nightmares in which the Vake will ruthlessly haunt them. These nightmares allows Mr. Veils to get into the head of victims and torment them mentally before deciding which to actually hunt down and kill. It's worth mentioning that people in the Neath are much harder to permanently kill, and a person can simply stand up after getting a stabbing or two. This means the Vake has to horrifically butcher his victims to ensure they stay dead.

Information gained during the Bag A Legend story in game, in which Mr. Veils serves as the titular monster and antagonist, reveals that he sees what he is doing as a sport to keep him entertained and has been doing this since at least the First City. The Bag A Legend story also shows that Mr. Veils has a particularly sadistic manner of hunting certain victims. He masterminded a plan to have those that hunt him be led into a trap by one of his servants. The would be hunter is eventually told to imbibe a particularly potent absinthe laced with prisoner's honey, a narcotic substance that physically transports the user into their dreams, and a large quantity of Mr. Veils own blood. The imbiber is transported to a pitch black abyss where Mr. Veils torments them and slowly kills them over an extended period of time, acting like a truly sadistic predator.

Besides his love and hunting people as the Vake, Mr. Veils also differs from the other Masters in that he has something of a god complex. He has the Urchins, the orphaned children of London, offer him great quantities of rats as an offering so that he won't feed on them. A later story also shows that he has threatened the ambassadors in London's Foreign Office to sing in a choir for him in pseudo-worship for his own amusement.

His fellows Masters are also not safe from his wrath should they displease him. The Second City, known as the Egyptian city of Amarna, managed to entrap the Bazaar and caused the Masters to nurture a passionate hatred of the Second City. The only Master to actually love the Second City was known as Mr. Candles. Mr. Veils masterminded a plot to get rid of Mr. Candles and bring about the Third City at the same time. He convinced the rest of the Masters to betray their fellow by having Mr. Candles tied up from head to toe in chains and repeatedly stabbed. Veils took Candles to the Priest Kings of the Third City and made a deal with them. They devoured much of Mr. Candles thereby becoming the monstrous God Eaters, and Mr. Veils acquired the rest of the Masters the Third City. Mr. Candles, being a alien space bat, was remarkably still alive so Mr. Veils got the Bazaar itself to help strike the final blow. The Bazaar, having the be so far away from its beloved for so long, began weeping a substance known as lacre. Mr. Veils ensured Candles was dead for good by drowning him in lacre, dissolving the remains of poor Mr. Candles in purest sorrow. The disembodied spirit would become Fallen London's resident Eldritch Abomination named Mr. Eaten, but that long story is irrelevant to the current conversation.

Any mitigating factors?

Mr Veils has no redeeming features is certainly heinous by the standards of the story. Fallen London is mostly a comedy that occasionally dips into Black Comedy, but everything involving Mr Veils is portrayed seriously and a source of much of the game's Nightmare Fuel. Even though the Masters are on a higher level of the Great Chain than humans and are usually known for their antipathy towards people, they are absolutely subject to our standards of morality. The Bag A Legend story even reveals that Mr Wines created an secret order of militaristic nuns to destroy the Vake. No other Master shows his level of sadism and he is one of the very few characters in Fallen London with no comedic elements whatsoever.

Final Verdict?

I believe Mr Veils is an easy , but I'm more than happy to take questions.

So I've got a candidate to discuss—Doctor Doom's distant ancestor, Count Otto von Doom from "Marvel 1602". Spoilers ahead.

"1602" takes place in a badly altered timeline wherein Captain America's arrival in the past (as the white Indian "Rojhaz") has resulted in Marvel's heroic era starting early. Doctor Stephen Strange is Queen Elizabeth's physician, Sir Nicholas Fury her spymaster. Carlos Javier does his best to save the "witchbreed" from persecution, while his one-time friend, Grand Inquisitor Enrique burns those who cannot hide from the Church and rescues those who can. Matthew Murdoch is blind minster who wanders the world in Fury's employ. And so on and so forth.

Who is Count Otto von Doom? What has he done?

Otto von Doom is the current Count of Latveria, and the ancestor of our own Victor von Doom. Unlike the rest of the cast he is not a time-shifted man, but an ancestral character who ends up interacting with them. A narcissistic mad genius obsessed with his own supposed brilliance and handsome face, Doom desires world domination and, in order to gain it, aims to capture the treasure of the Templars, which agents of the Queen of England, led by Fury, are also after.

Doom sends two of his "vulture fliers" (more on those below) to England, with orders to assassinate Nicholas Fury and the recently arrived Virginia Dare. These assassinations are foiled by Virginia's shapeshifting ability, her native bodyguard Rojhaz, and Fury's own knack for knowing when somebody wants to kill him. He also sends Queen Elizabeth a mechanical toy which, unbeknownst to her, deposits poison in her drink, killing her. He also suborns Fury's agent Natasha by taking her as a lover, getting her to betray Murdoch and bring the Old Man of the Templars and their treasure to him.

We subsequently learn that Doom has been keeping the Four From the Fantastick imprisoned in his dungeons. Benjamin Grimm is kept wedged into a crack in the wall, unable (at least in theory) to so much as move. Susan Storm is trapped inside of a glass statue and used as an ornament in Doom's bedroom where she has to watch whatever happens there. Jonathon Storm is trapped under a waterfall, where his body heat turns it to steam to power the castle. And Sir Richard Reed is forced to work for Doom as a servant, constantly giving him scientific information which Doom then uses to fuel his world domination plans.

When an alliance between Fury and the witchbreed results in an attack on his castle that he cannot repel, Doom tries to use the supposed Templar treasure to kill all the invaders. Unknown to him the real Templar treasure is the old man, Donal's, walking stick, which transforms the elderly man into Thor of the Thunderers. Thor strikes Doom down, ruining his face, and putting an end to his role in the original "1602". He returns, however, in the sequels series starring the Fantastick Four", where he hires the Four Who Are Frightful to sail to a mythical city at the end of the world, and kidnaps William Shakespeare to document the journey. Along the way he throws Natasha over the side of the ship, killing her, because she questioned the sanity of the journey. Upon arriving at the city, he cuts a deal with its ruler, Numenor (ancestor of Namor) offering to deliver Susan Storm to Numenor and Jonathan Storm to Numenor's cousin Rita, as sex slaves, in exchange for power. In the end, Doom betrays Numenor and stabs him with his own trident, triggering a curse that is active when royal blood is spilled, and sinking the entire city beneath the ocean.

Perhaps Doom's worst crime however, is his maintenance, throughout all his appearances, of breeding pens, from which he generates his armies of dwarf servants and vulture flier assassins. We never see the pens in action, but no experiment in the breeding of human beings can ever be anything but hideous, and he commonly threatens to banish failed servants "back to the pens that spawned them".

Are his actions heinous by the standards of the story?

Otto von Doom is the worst person in the original "1602" bar none. I'm told that Norman Osbourne, from the Spider-Man oriented sequel, and Victor Octavius, are both pretty bad, with Osbourne involving himself in a native genocide and Octavius subjected a host of people to human experimentation, but even then, Otto's maintenance of breeding pens for human beings is an utterly disgusting crime that nobody is liable to top for sheer squick.

Pass.

Redeeming qualities?

None. Natasha is his girlfriend, but her murders her anyway later on, and while he's certainly Faux Affably Evil, nothing decent ever comes out of it. He gloats about being "too fine a fellow" to have Donal tortured, but immediately follows it up by admitting that his real reasons are because Donal would not long survive the torture, then throws him in a damp, unhygienic dungeon to rot. There's nothing redeeming about Otto von Doom.

Pass.

Freudian Excuse or other mitigating factors?

We know he inherited the breeding pens from his father, which would indicate that Daddy von Doom was as great a jackass as his son. We never meet the man though, and there's no indication that he in any way abused his son or even shaped his worldview. His motivation in the sequel is to have his face repaired by Numenor's people, but he only lost it because he was being such a colossal bastard in the first place.

Pass.

Final verdict?

Otto von Doom is a kidnapper, a murderer, and a slaver, who engages in mass eugenics experiments with human beings. He's void of good qualities, and characterized as a narcissistic douche obsessed with his own brilliance and handsomeness. I think he qualifies. What say the rest of us?

edited 18th Jun '16 10:52:55 AM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Otto von Doom.

Otto von Doom.

Veils and Otto.

to both Veils and Doom. Victor Octavius and Otto Von Doom? That has to be deliberate.

edited 18th Jun '16 9:17:59 AM by ACW

You don't say.

Veils and Doom.

So is this a new timeline ? Because it has my attention.

Doom.

Am I the only one who thinks Victorian superheroes needs to be a genre in on itself ? I heard the 90's Spiderman cartoon planned on doing something like this with Carnage loose in London...and giving us another CM in Old Jack.

edited 18th Jun '16 9:39:37 AM by Beast

These would be Elizabethan superheroes technically. What gets to me is how I—and most other people who read it—somehow failed to realize that "Rojhaz" the six and half foot tall blond blue eyed Native American was Captain America.

Never heard that myself, but given how weird that show could get I wouldn't be surprised.

edited 18th Jun '16 9:41:07 AM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Veils and Doom

Veils and Doom

Barring a sudden change in voting, looks like Otto von Doom will be going up.

Oh, and I know I have this week's batch, but there's only like 5 so far.

Tentative write-up for Otto:

• Marvel 1602: Count Otto von Doom is the narcissistic ruler of Latveria, and Big Bad of the miniseries. Obsessed with his self-aggrandizement, Otto believes that his supposed genius and handsome face entitle him to World Domination. Using the birthing pens he inherited from his father, Otto breeds up armies of brainwashed vulture flier assassins and craven dwarfed servants to do his bidding, keeps the crew of the Fantastick imprisoned in specially made prison cells, sends killers after Sir Nicholas Fury and Virginia Dare, and has Queen Elizabeth I murdered lest her agents beat his to the Templar treasure he covets. In the sequel, he murders his lover, Natasha, plots to sell Susan and Johnathan Storm to Numenor of Bensaylum as sex slaves (after hypnotizing them into killing Richard Reed and Benjamin Grimm), and finally betrays Numenor, murdering him and sinking the city of Bensaylum beneath the waves. Utterly vain and innately treacherous, Count Otto and his ego left a trail of ruined lives in their wake.

I'll note by the way that Otto's eugenics experiments are even worse than the name would imply. The vulture fliers are monosyllabic to the point of never speaking more than one word at a time (the total dialogue from them consists of "die", "trick" and "Doom"), and come off as handicapped, while his personal servants are all dwarfed and disfigured. Most villains who get into eugenics try to breed bad traits out in the name of creating the super race or somesuch nonsense. Otto's breeding deformity and disability in so that he can have servants who are more easily controlled and abused.

edited 18th Jun '16 1:59:52 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

to Master Veils and Otto Von Doom.

Yeah, you really should include some of that in your write up for him. When your dealing with someone who can make "eugenics" worse, you know you've got a monster.

Added a couple of descriptors to that effect. Made a few other adjustments to the write-up.

• Marvel 1602: Count Otto "The Handsome" von Doom is the narcissistic ruler of Latveria, and Big Bad of the miniseries. Obsessed with his self-aggrandizement, Otto believes that his supposed genius and handsome face entitle him to World Domination. Using the birthing pens he inherited from his father, Otto breeds up armies of brainwashed vulture flier assassins and craven dwarfed servants to do his bidding, keeps the crew of the Fantastick imprisoned in specially made prison cells, sends killers after Sir Nicholas Fury and Virginia Dare, and has Queen Elizabeth I murdered lest her agents beat his to the Templar treasure he covets. In the sequel, he murders his lover, Natasha, plots to sell Susan and Johnathan Storm to Numenor of Bensaylum as sex slaves (after hypnotizing them into killing Richard Reed and Benjamin Grimm), and finally betrays Numenor, murdering him and sinking the city of Bensaylum beneath the waves. Utterly vain and innately treacherous, Count Otto and his ego left a trail of ruined lives in their wake.

edited 18th Jun '16 2:22:40 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Khoura, Soraya, Veils and Doom.

Please add to the drafts; I'll do that tomorrow with the others.