Subpages cleanup: Complete Monster

Yes to Red Volcano (another for Jeff Bennett). Darkseid a keeper?

Yes to Marco and John.

John

Darkseid and Vandal are genuinely friends in this continuity.

They even have an agreement that they'll pool their resources to help conquer the universe together. And afterwards they'll see who wins and gets to rule the whole thing.

They respect each other for sure, but don't know if I'd go as far as to call them friends. They are ready to have their planets wage war when the time is right.

Either way, don't see Darkseid keeping, at least not at the moment

Edited by Snowy66 on Oct 20th 2021 at 5:18:16 AM

Reyes, José, Volcano, Marco and John. Here goes my contribution to spooky month!

What is the work? Vampire: The Masquerade – Redemption is the fantastic predecessor to everyone's favorite cult classic RPG, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. You take the role of Christof Romuald, a young French crusader who falls in love with the nun who saved his life, Anezka, despite the fact that their union is considered sinful by the church. Embraced into the Brujah clan against his will, Christof is quickly thrown into the unforgiving society of backstabbing Kindred, where he has to deal with wars between vampires and his own broken faith. As per usual, our candidate comes in the form of the worst breed of vampire in the World of Darkness: The Tzimisce.

Who is he? Vukodlak is... many things, some call him the Scourge of the Carpathians, Smiter of Lesser Clans, Slayer of Lupines, but most importantly, he is, as the feared Methuselah of Vysehrad, the grandchilde of the Tzimisce Antediluvian himself, having inherited all of his ruthlessness but none of his intelligence. Vukodlak is a perverted vampire with a fetish for "defiling" everything that is pure and innocent, especially good-hearted people. The only thing that matters to Vukodlak—beyond his wicked hobby—is his dream to usurp the third generation of vampires by drinking their vitae and destroying all of them, leaving him unopposed as the only Antediluvian in the world and giving Vukodlak what he needs to bring about his own definition of Gehenna, a world where humanity is reduced to cattle and the vampires worship him as a tyrant. Going against his own people to achieve his diabolical plan, Vukodlak's acts almost ignited a civil war within the Tzimisce clan, much to his indifference.

When his fellow Voivodes—the ruling council of the Tzimisce—caught wind of his mad schemes and had their pleas ignored by him, they denounced Vukodlak as a blasphemous renegade who had to be deposed from power. In the end, Vukodlak was sentenced to 20 centuries in deep slumber as a way for him to "learn humility". Refusing to serve his sentence in peace and adhere to the laws of the Tzimisce, Vukodlak periodically transfers his counsciouness to his servant, Libussa, whom he defiled to the point of insanity. Arriving in Prague with his followers, Vukodlak's band of rebels begin a campaign of forcefully embracing locals to conscript them into their army and fleshcrafting several grotesque monsters with the body parts of those who remained human. Becoming obsessed with Anezka and her purity, Vukodlak takes her from Christof and turns her into his personal ghoulified slave, spending the next centuries defiling her for his own twisted entertainment while discarding Libussa.

After the fall of Vysehrad Castle and constant failed attempts of resurrecting him, Vukodlak got tired of the Tzimisce of Europe and decided to move to an abandoned church in New York City, and it's beneath this church that Christof uncovers his masterpiece from the Dark Ages: A gargantuan replica of the Cathedral of Flesh that was originally created by his "uncle", Yorak. Instead of a living building, Vukodlak's version of the cathedral functions as an entire cave system made from countless corpses, skeletons form the walls of the cathedral; decomposed bodies decorate the ceiling; and at its deepest the cathedral hid the so-called "bowels", the disgusting organic core of the cathedral that closely resembles the insides of a human being. From the memories of Anezka herself we discover that, in his pursuit to defile Anezka, Vukodlak amused himself by forcing the nun to bind men and women to the walls of his cathedral. Christof's story ends in three ways:

• Good Ending: Christof kills Vukodlak for good, Anezka is finally saved and agrees to be embraced by the love of her life.
• Bad Ending: Christof surrenders and joins Vukodlak's side in a futile attempt to be with Anezka, Vukodlak then forces him to kill her while laughing at his face.
• Evil Ending: Christof diablerizes Vukodlak to gain his powers and kills Anezka.

Heinous? You know this guy is bad when both the old Tzimisce and an entire sect of the Sabbat want to see him gone. Vukodlak is a borderline Omnicidal Maniac and a sadistic hypocrite who superficially claims to be saving the Kindred from the Antediluvians when all he wants is to become an Antediluvian himself, he's the most dangerous villain in the VTM video game duology, no challenge. A member of the NYC Sabbat explictly states that with the power of the thirteen Antediluvians, Vukodlak would doom human and vampire alike... And we didn't even get into his recreation of the Cathedral of Flesh, ugh.

Mitigating Qualities? Hell, he has the honor of making the rest of the Tzimisce look sympathetic!

Conclusion? Easy, easy

Vukodlak

to Vukodlak

Vukodlak.

Before I get to proposing Cherdenko, I just want to look over the votes for the husband from Kopakanon’s story and see if he got enough. That alright?

Leaning yes on Vukodlak, but cautiously, as I know Vampire has a sizable heinous standard. Though he DOES seem worse than Andrei or Vick.

Edited by ACW on Oct 20th 2021 at 9:29:41 AM

Love VTM: Redemption! to Vukodlak, he really is beyond the pale, even by the standards of most disturbing Clan and Sect in the setting.

I've got another one:

What Is The Setting?'

BattleTech: I'll spare the long spiel this time, and just say it's kinda like Game of Thrones with less nudity and more Humongous Mecha.

Who Is The Dancing Joker? What Did He Do?

The Dancing Joker is just one (but the most famous) alias of the Inner Sphere's most prolific, high-profile, and best virtuoso assassin.

We're first introduced to him under the name of Karl Kole, a florist — sorry, botanist — in a Tharkad flower shop. His story seems utterly disconnected. . . what does a florist have to do with the Inner Sphere's games of politics, intrigue, intelligence, and war? Well, we find out that Melissa Steiner, the ruler of the Federated Commonwealth since the death of her husband, Hanse Davion, a few years earlier, has a love of a particular kind of flower and makes sure several arrangements of it are at any important public gathering she attends. The shop Karl works at, and Karl himself, will be providing these flowers this time, and Karl has made the pots out of plastic explosive with a cunning remote detonator to evade security sweeps. Karl leaves behind a suicide note, changes identities, and boards a DropShip outbound from Tharkad, turning on the TV equivalent to watch Melissa start to give her speech. Then he triggers the bombs. Melissa is killed instantly, along with many others, including Salome Kell, wife of Morgan Kell of the Kell Hounds mercenary unit, who loses an arm in the blast. Many others are injured and maimed. It should be noted that Karl knew a bomb would be the best way to attempt to kill Melissa, and when his client informed him of when the hit should take place and that "collateral casualties are acceptable," he was only relieved he didn't have to try and change his plan.

After several more identity shifts, the assassin, now going by Chuck Grayson, settles down (relatively speaking) on Solaris, in an intimate relationship with a woman named Judith Calley. But he's a little miffed that the FedCom is not giving credit for Melissa's death to a professional assassin, so is lured out of hiding by the promise of another high-profile contract, this one against Ryan Steiner, professional troublemaker in the Commonwealth's Isle of Skye. This is, of course, a trap by FedCom intelligence to catch Melissa Steiner's killer. They still want him to kill Ryan, though, because Ryan's a pain in the ass. Knowing that after the job is done, he'll either be executed or imprisoned for life — except if Victor Steiner-Davion has need of his services again — the Joker does the hit, then slips out of the net set specifically to keep him captured.

In the next novel chronicling the events between the Truce at Tukayyid and the Great Refusal, we're introduced to mild-mannered aspiring political thriller writer Noble Thayer. He's settled on Zurich in the Sarna March to get inspiration to really start his writing career. He meets some people from the Rencide Medical Center and starts a romantic relationship with one of them, Cathy Hanney. Unluckily, Zurich, and the rest of the Sarna March, is about to be embroiled in conflict as Thomas Marik and Sun-Tzu Liao team up to regain the worlds Hanse Davion took from the Free World's League and Capellan Confederation in the Fourth Succession War. Sun-Tzu has been sponsoring terrorist revolutionary groups in several former Confederation worlds, like Zurich, and with Thomas' support, these groups go all in, often backed by Free World's League mercenaries. Almost overnight, Zurich becomes a People's Republic of Tyranny under "revolutionary" leader Xu Ning. Noble comes home to find some State Sec goons in his apartment, where they've searched it and found loads of Kroner currency and some weapons. Noble promptly and silently kills them both. He rescues Cathy from being stopped for questioning by more State Sec agents, gets the rest of their friends from the Rencide Medical Center involved, and launches a counter-revolutionary campaign against Xu Ning. His first act, in which he gives himself the Dancing Joker moniker, involves attending a public execution of 200 "undesirables" of Xu Ning's new order. . . intellectuals, free thinkers, ardent teachers and students, you know, the kind of people who enforce these immoral class systems. The Joker lets the execution commence, since there's nothing they can do to stop it without dying, but the hijacks the hi-tech jumbotron making sure the audience can see every detail with an animated Dancing Joker playing card, threatening that Xu Ning's people shall "reap the whirlwind," then blowing up the supports and bringing the giant screen crashing to the ground.

Several more successful operations follow, their resistance grows, but there's one guy Noble just isn't sure he can trust. Seeming to decide he's okay, he sends this guy and Cathy to be lookouts while he plans to bomb a power plant. Well, the guy's a mole, Cathy kills him, but she's captured. Noble had said that if an operation ever went wrong, if someone was taken, walk away. They'll mount a rescue later, they won't leave anyone in Xu Ning's hands a second longer than necessary, but attempting a rescue at the moment of capture is too risky.

As it turns out, the power plant wasn't the Dancing Joker's target, but the base for the Black Cobra mercenary regiment, assisting Xu Ning's new government. The Cobras leave to deploy elsewhere, and when they get there, bombs in their munitions linked to pressure sensors go off and the whole regiment is destroyed. Joker wanted to kill the Cobras, he didn't much care for specifically when or where it would happen.

Cathy is tortured, eventually breaks, and is finally executed by Xu Ning, all the while knowing Noble is going to come for her. Xu Ning learns about Noble Thayer and reads the draft of his latest book, clearly based on the events that have transpired. But one thing doesn't add up: in the book, the Xu Ning character does capture the Cathy Hanney character, but the Noble Thayer character rescues her a daring raid. That did not happen, but it had to have been written before the actual event it's describing. The only way this would make sense is if Noble set Cathy up to be captured, tortured, and murdered.

Which is exactly what happened. The disc Noble's book was on contained a virus to crash the planetary computer system, and gives Noble the chance to sneak into Xu Ning's office. As Noble kills Ning, Noble corrects the assumption that he's a Davion agent. . . he's the man who killed Melissa Steiner. He meant to retreat into a nice, quiet retirement on Zurich, but Xu Ning's regime reminded him how much he loves his work. And toppling a whole planetary dictatorship must look good on a resume. When Xu Ning compliments the Joker on being able to sacrifice the woman he loves for victory, the Joker's reply is simply "Noble loved her, I didn't."

We next hear of the Joker when he's contacted asking if really has come out of retirement to assassinate Precentor Martial Anastasius Focht. The Joker heads to the Second Whitting Conference and foils the assassination of Focht by someone claiming to be the Dancing Joker. After all, can't have copycats tarnishing a good brand.

The Joker takes his last assignment to assassinate Omi Kurita. His first attempt is foiled, but he does get her on Luthien. Unfortunately, Minoru Kurita is able to track and analyze this most clever of assassins, tracing many of his false identities and leaving little reminders of them in the Joker's path. His greatest skill, his ability to become someone else entirely, is turned against him as he begins adopting bits and pieces of his assumed identities. Finally, the Joker retreats to a safe house, only find Minoru waiting for him. In appropriately Kurita fashion, Minoru beheads him with a katana as proof that the Dancing Joker is no more.

Summary

Kills Melissa Steiner with a bomb that kills, maims, or injures many others. Had already decided on a bomb as the best way to get to her, and when he client stated collateral casualties were acceptable, was pleased he didn't have to change his plan.

Kills Ryan Steiner on behalf of FedCom intelligence, then evades their attempts to keep him captured. Considers that he's now worked against the FedCom (killing Melissa) and for them (killing Ryan, who was fomenting the Isle of Skye secession movement), so now he and the Federated Commonwealth are even.

Puts down a new People's Republic of Tyranny on Zurich, not because it's an evil regime, but because toppling a planetary government would look good on his resume, and it's his way of saying "thank you" for showing him that he's not ready to retire yet. Sacrifices his cover IDs girlfriend, who is tortured to death thinking her badass insurrectionist boyfriend will rescue her in a bout of thrilling heroics, to achieve this.

Stops the assassination of Anastasius Focht by an imposter to his name. Not because he cares about Focht, but because he cares about his name.

Assassinates Omi Kurita, daughter of Coordinator of the Draconis Combine, after two attempts. This ultimately results in his death at the sword of Minoru Kurita.

Mitigating Factors

The Joker does seem to readily connect with and like the people he befriends in his cover identities, but as the fate of Cathy Hanney shows, there's a huge gulf between the cover ID and the actual man. The Joker himself doesn't care about anything except his reputation as the best assassin you can buy. Even the money isn't as important to him as the challenge of a well-planned, well-executed assassination of a high-profile target that no one else could possibly touch. He doesn't even enjoy the act of killing per se, rather the puzzle of how to bring death to someone who has legions of people who spend every waking moment ensuring death stays as far away from them as possible. Quite simply, he possesses almost no emotion comprehensible by ordinary humans, with the notable exception of Pride in his work, but he is exceptionally good faking all of them.

Heinousness Standards

While there are noble characters in the BattleTech for whom things like romantic love are alien concepts (the Clans, when they're not being too villainous), even they hold deep personal betrayals as horrible. You might leave a comrade to die horribly because you cannot rescue them, or even because an objective is more important, but they know why you're doing it. Telling someone you will come for them, then callously sacrificing them for your objective, is very bad. Even that might be forgivable if the objective is noble and the lie necessary to achieve it. You can argue the Dancing Joker liberating Zurich was a noble goal, but he didn't do it to spare the people from tyranny or end a dictator too heinous to live. He did it because it was a challenge of his skills, because he loves his work, and because it will help him get more work in the future that the can find equally enjoyable. He loved puzzling out how to kill someone more than he loved the (apparently one of many) woman who loved him. Many of the villains of BattleTech can at least be respected for doing what they think is right, no matter how twisted their reasoning. The Dancing Joker. . . just likes the challenge of committing an endless stream of perfect murders.

Analysis of Xu Ning and The Dancing Joker

For most of Bred For War, Xu Ning is painted as the evil dictator of his own little dystopia. Everything must be done his way, because his way is better. Food and even electricity rationing, abolishment of wealth and class systems so all are equal and free. Anyone who doesn't get with that program, of who Xu Ning believes inherently stands in the way of it, are executed. Questioning can be done humanely, but then the answers obtained are verified by torture. Meanwhile, Xu Ning sits in the old planetary governors mansion, availing himself of the well-stocked wine cellar and fine gourmet cuisine. The Joker seems a noble citizen (helped by his assumed name) standing up for the needs of the people and loyalty to the Federated Commonwealth. Then we learn who he really is, his real motivations, and what he'll do to achieve victory. In one scene, The Dancing Joker is revealed to be a far more souless and personal kind of vile than Xu Ning could ever hope to be. The contrast is deliberate, the reveal is not just that The Dancing Joker is the assassin who killed Melissa Steiner, but just how nonexistent his sense of morality is. The hero you thought was standing against the foul tyrant is actually far worse than the tyrant.

Final Verdict

Reading Bred For War the first time, I came away more disgusted with the Dancing Joker than any character I'd read about in this universe. While a recent reread naturally lacked that same "bottom of my stomach fell out" feeling at the revelation, I'm still impressed by just how empty the Dancing Joker is. People say the Clans are like aliens, but you can understand the Clans, bargain with them, even admire them as you learn why their society works the way it does. The Dancing Joker. . . is just a monster. A monster who loves being what he is.

Edited by ErikModi on Oct 20th 2021 at 10:38:11 AM

to Reyes, José, Volcano, Marco, John, and Vukodlak.

Yes to Vuko.

Yes to Joker too.

Edited by SkyCat32 on Oct 20th 2021 at 11:10:54 AM

Vuko

I saw this from ‘'Infinity Countdown'', and this entry looks like it needs a rewrite.

• Ultron, as always. After killing the Magus and obtaining the Soul Stone, Ultron uses its power to wipe out all life on the Planet, Saiph, convert all its inhabitants into Ultron Hybrids, Ultronize the Silver Surfer, and if that wasn't bad enough, he has built rockets which contain his virus ready to transform THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE INTO ULTRONS!
• Worst of all, a soul fragment of Hank Pym (Who is still merged with Ultron) is trapped inside the Soul Stone, and can't do anything to stop his hated creation.

Vukodlak

Thats 616 Ultron. His entry already has that stuff.

Though the Age of Ultron stuff should probably be split off from Earth-616 Ultron.

Sure.

I could read it and do an ep for that version.

Vukodlak.

Yeah, probably a good idea. I remember Age of Apocalypse was combined with OG Apocalypse at one point.

Plus, this would help shrink Ultron's entry...dude does a LOT, to be sure, but his writeup's up there with Skull (who if I ever feel motivated I may try trimming, though I'm inclined to allow some leeway for him).

Oh, speaking of Skull, happy belated 80th birthday to the legend.

'Yes' to Volcano, John and Vuk(insert rest of name)!

Next up from Far Cry 6...

Who is Admiral Ana Benítez? What has she done?

The naval commander of Yara promoted to her position by Antón purely because she was "a woman in the military", Benítez makes up for her lack of knowledge about the position by going the route of No Kill like Overkill.

As naval commander, Benítez is quick to confront anyone who tries to flee Castillo's brutal dictatorship...if she doesn't immediately kill you and every passenger alongside you for trying to flee, she immediately sends you to slave camps run by José.

Stories are related throughout the game in explicit detail about Benítez's methods. We see a severely wrecked town—Benítez executed half its population recently for not obeying fishing orders to feed their starving populace. Major character Yelena reenacts and names victims of the time Benítez walked into her school, called students up to the front, and executed a lot of kids while making their classmates watch, simply because they had pamphlets against Antón. Dani's ally Jonron was saved from a prison by rebels...Benítez reacted by ordering the entire populace of the prison—including Jonron's brother—be immediately killed.

Regularly murdering and hanging "rebel" bodies against the Castillo regime around the city like fuckin' fish catches of the day, Benítez also runs a resort turned into what is flat out called a "prison-torture-hellhole”, where prisoners are abused by staff and tortured horrifically by Benítez's interrogator "the Dentist", whose workplace is covered in blood of victims and corpses are currently being dragged away when Dani infiltrates the place.

Benítez tries several times to kill freedom fighters against the Castillo regime throughout her story, from using allies as hostages to trying to find their bases and mow them down...when Dani eventually attacks Benítez's headquarters, Benítez orders the many current prisoners of the place be burned alive so they can't be rescued, then holes up in her office with a rebel to use as a bullet shield, threatening to kill the hostage until Dani barges in and shoots Benítez dead, after which her body is hung up like so many rebels she's done it to.

Freudian Excuse or other redeeming features?

Nope, best thing you can say for her is that Antón is an asshole who put her in a position she's underqualified for, but she's so godawful horrific with what she does that there's zero sympathy afforded her, she enjoys her position and what she gets up to utterly.

Heinousness?

Benítez isn't experimenting on or slave driving a ton of people like Reyes or José....but the acts she gets up to are bad. Executing half a town, killing school kids in front of their classmates, running a Hellhole Prison and having the entire populace of one of her prisons killed because a single prisoner escaped, her climactic attempts to burn every single prisoner she has alive...I think she does enough.

Final Verdict?

I'd saaaaay Keep.

Btw what version of Skull does this part of his entry come from btw.

". In an alternate future, he spent his time triggering natural disasters, then showing up to inform people that he would not be saving them."

to Admiral Ana Benítez

Out of curiousity, are there any other villains in Far Cry 6 who are heinous enough but have redeeming qualities like Castillo and can't qualify?

Vukodlak, Dancing Joker, and Ana

Ana

Yes to Ana.

Tentative yes to Benitez, if not as confident as the other two.

Dancing Joker...any way to trim that effortpost? Or at least give a summary of his actions?