Okay, I'll play. :)
I do listen to music with an ear toward RP. Most my characters develop theme songs after I've been playing them for a while. Also, since I enjoy singing, I usually think about the vocal ranges my characters have, what kind of music they like/listen to, and whether they perform music themselves. In RL, I almost always have music going through my head, and music definitely helps me focus, decompress, psych myself up, etc.
Here's some musical thoughts for my CoX characters
E-VAC
"Holding Out for a Hero", Frou Frou (yes, this specific version)
Baritone, sings along with the car radio, hums quietly to himself sometimes
listens to: 80s, classic rock, oldies
I hear: "Hold On My Heart", Genesis; "The Saint (theme)", Orbital; "Sally's Song", Danny Elfman, Nightmare Before Christmas
Here at work, I'm having a difficult time clearing my co-workers out of my head to get the songs right. Will edit later.
The Vagabond
"Wherever I May Roam", Metallica
Tenor, sings to himself occasionally, excellent singing voice
listens to: classical music (esp. Baroque), jazz, anything others are listening to
I hear: The list of songs that make me think of Vagz or that I hear while playing Vagz is enormous. Metallica, Phil Collins, Elton John, Billy Joel, Danny Elfman... If you're curious about specific songs, I'll mention a few.
General
*For some reason, CoX combat in general brings the techno Mortal Kombat themes to mind. Doesn't much matter who's fighting. *shrug*
*I'm big on movie scores. Not soundtracks, mind you, but the actual musical score that plays with the movie. Some that I like to have playing while I play City of Heroes include Batman, The Incredibles, The Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Star Wars.
*Villainside, I also like Glen Danzig's Black Aria and Danny Elfman's score for Darkman.
Last edit: 5/31/07, 2:15PM PDT
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Team 3.0 - Early Thoughts
Well, I've already been discussing some of this with Fyre, but not all of it. Here are some of the thoughts and ideas I've had as well as suggestions Fyre gave me.
VILLAINS
The advantage of going "villainside" for T3 is that we haven't done the content to death. New archetypes, new powersets, new missions, new ways of teaming. Also, in my opinion, Mason and Fyre are sort of headed that way anyway. In my mind, though, E is not. And that's okay because I don't think I want to try and "re-roll" him again anyway. I've done his powers, and I think I want to do something different. So here are the potential villains:
1. E-VAC III
I know. I just said I don't want to "re-roll" E. But I'm not talking about Jason here. I'm talking about Jen. It would give excellent RP/story opportunity, and I could do her up as an AR/Thermal or Rad/Therm corrupter. Difficulty here is playing a young girl (10 or 11).
2. Doppleganger
This was an idea Fyre had: bringing E's ghostly companion to life as a character in his own right. The reason would vary based on how the current story pans out, but he would have to be some sort of dominator with the energy blast secondary, I think. Difficulty here is entirely new (and potentially weird) plotline.
3. Jefallen the Warlock
I've tried a number of times to work up the vagabond's arch-nemesis as a character. Trouble here is the character doesn't play well with others and as a mind control/energy dominator, it's a lot of powers I've done before, and frankly, I've found playing him to be fairly boring. Maybe a team would change that. Maybe not.
4. 'Ware Wolf
My first CoV character (MA/EA stalker) is a blast to play, and I love his RP. Like the first CoH E, he's stalled, and I'd love to flush some life back into him. Difficulty here is that I don't particularly want to "re-roll" him, so he'd be exemplaring (malefactoring?) for a long time. Which could be good 'cause infamy is a lot harder to come by than influence. Also, coming up with an RP reason to team him up might be tricky.
HEROES
Personally, I prefer RPing heroes. I can do villains as NPCs (and have to a lot), but it's something I sometimes have trouble with long-term. Reluctant or misunderstood villains, I can do, but heroes are so much easier for me. Also, from a pure mechanical standpoint, there's a lot more lag and graphics problems in CoV. CoH runs much smoother. If we do another hero team, though, here are the possibilities:
1. E-VAC III
Yeah, Jen could be a hero, too. Not sure what AT/PS I would choose, but something appropriate to her parentage. See above.
2. Doppleganger
Again, see above. More than likely an energy/energy blaster.
3. Vagabond Magus
I love Vagz, and I really like this newest version of him (Fire/FF controller) and would like to play him more. New team, new life.
4. Some other pre-existing alt
Sorta gathering dust on Virtue right now because of my fascination with T2, I have Jack Royale (grav/storm controller), Speed Trial (kin/rad defender), and Derick Darklight (WS), all of whom I would enjoy getting a chance to play more often.
Naturally, this is all just brain-storming. I don't have my mind or heart set on anything in particular, and we've still got time to think and talk about it. Most interesting to me at this point, though, would probably be a CoV T3 with Fyre, Mas, and E3 from a pure story point of view.
VILLAINS
The advantage of going "villainside" for T3 is that we haven't done the content to death. New archetypes, new powersets, new missions, new ways of teaming. Also, in my opinion, Mason and Fyre are sort of headed that way anyway. In my mind, though, E is not. And that's okay because I don't think I want to try and "re-roll" him again anyway. I've done his powers, and I think I want to do something different. So here are the potential villains:
1. E-VAC III
I know. I just said I don't want to "re-roll" E. But I'm not talking about Jason here. I'm talking about Jen. It would give excellent RP/story opportunity, and I could do her up as an AR/Thermal or Rad/Therm corrupter. Difficulty here is playing a young girl (10 or 11).
2. Doppleganger
This was an idea Fyre had: bringing E's ghostly companion to life as a character in his own right. The reason would vary based on how the current story pans out, but he would have to be some sort of dominator with the energy blast secondary, I think. Difficulty here is entirely new (and potentially weird) plotline.
3. Jefallen the Warlock
I've tried a number of times to work up the vagabond's arch-nemesis as a character. Trouble here is the character doesn't play well with others and as a mind control/energy dominator, it's a lot of powers I've done before, and frankly, I've found playing him to be fairly boring. Maybe a team would change that. Maybe not.
4. 'Ware Wolf
My first CoV character (MA/EA stalker) is a blast to play, and I love his RP. Like the first CoH E, he's stalled, and I'd love to flush some life back into him. Difficulty here is that I don't particularly want to "re-roll" him, so he'd be exemplaring (malefactoring?) for a long time. Which could be good 'cause infamy is a lot harder to come by than influence. Also, coming up with an RP reason to team him up might be tricky.
HEROES
Personally, I prefer RPing heroes. I can do villains as NPCs (and have to a lot), but it's something I sometimes have trouble with long-term. Reluctant or misunderstood villains, I can do, but heroes are so much easier for me. Also, from a pure mechanical standpoint, there's a lot more lag and graphics problems in CoV. CoH runs much smoother. If we do another hero team, though, here are the possibilities:
1. E-VAC III
Yeah, Jen could be a hero, too. Not sure what AT/PS I would choose, but something appropriate to her parentage. See above.
2. Doppleganger
Again, see above. More than likely an energy/energy blaster.
3. Vagabond Magus
I love Vagz, and I really like this newest version of him (Fire/FF controller) and would like to play him more. New team, new life.
4. Some other pre-existing alt
Sorta gathering dust on Virtue right now because of my fascination with T2, I have Jack Royale (grav/storm controller), Speed Trial (kin/rad defender), and Derick Darklight (WS), all of whom I would enjoy getting a chance to play more often.
Naturally, this is all just brain-storming. I don't have my mind or heart set on anything in particular, and we've still got time to think and talk about it. Most interesting to me at this point, though, would probably be a CoV T3 with Fyre, Mas, and E3 from a pure story point of view.
Secret Origins - E-VAC II v2.0
Not long after he and his allies were awarded their medals as "Heroes of the City", Jason Pace received a disturbing phone call: David Styrm had escaped from prison along with many of the Nights. Spectrum, the L.A.-based hero team Jason spent much of his time fighting as E-VAC, was going after him and they needed someone with inside information on the Nights.
Jason figured it could be a trick, so he decided to leave his daughter in Paragon City, protected by Longbow and by his closest friends. He would go to L.A. and there be protected and assisted by Spectrum. He would be safe, his friends would be safe, and most importantly, Jen would be safe.
It was a better trap than Jason had prepared for.
Spectrum wasn't even in L.A. The call was a fake even though the escape was not. Jason was captured and overwhelmed the moment he landed in L.A. He was taken to one of the Nights' hidden bases where Styrm put him back into the experimental chamber that had turned him into E-VAC in the first place. In addition to extensive doses of mutagenic radiation, Styrm and his cronies injected Jason with radioactive materials. They burned and cut his hands and arms repeatedly just to see how long the injuries took to heal, often re-inflicting the injury before it had completely healed. He was kept locked in the experimental chamber, little more than a glass closet with complicated equipment attached to the outside.
In addition to these physical tortures, he was allowed very little sleep. His former comrades would visit frequently to belittle him or just watch the experiments. Styrm himself kept up a steady bombardment of cutting speeches, subtle insults, and vague threats, always ending with the simple question "who am I?" Every answer to this question was followed by a disapproving frown and some new torture: electric shocks, bright flashes of light, ear-splitting noises.
Throughout all this, Jason tried to "broadcast" as strongly as he could, sending out his fear, his pain, and his need, hoping desperately that someone would sense him. Praying that against all odds someone would find him and save him. Eventually, the torture took away his hope, burying everything but his need to escape the pain.
And that's when he got the right answer. "Who am I?" Styrm asked as always. "My... master..." Jason said weakly. Styrm smiled and walked away. Coincidentally, a contingent of Longbow operatives burst into the base. Jason does not remember much of what followed, but he was rescued from the Nights and returned to Paragon City. He was moved into the medical facilities at Longbow headquarters.
When he was deemed well enough to return to active duty, he discovered his empathic powers were weakened, forcing him to slowly rebuild them. He also was leaking low levels of the mutagenic radiation he had been subjected to, something he would have to learn to control. Packing new powers, re-learning old, and separated from his daughter, Jason tried to bury himself in his work, seeking out his comrades and looking for answers.
Jason figured it could be a trick, so he decided to leave his daughter in Paragon City, protected by Longbow and by his closest friends. He would go to L.A. and there be protected and assisted by Spectrum. He would be safe, his friends would be safe, and most importantly, Jen would be safe.
It was a better trap than Jason had prepared for.
Spectrum wasn't even in L.A. The call was a fake even though the escape was not. Jason was captured and overwhelmed the moment he landed in L.A. He was taken to one of the Nights' hidden bases where Styrm put him back into the experimental chamber that had turned him into E-VAC in the first place. In addition to extensive doses of mutagenic radiation, Styrm and his cronies injected Jason with radioactive materials. They burned and cut his hands and arms repeatedly just to see how long the injuries took to heal, often re-inflicting the injury before it had completely healed. He was kept locked in the experimental chamber, little more than a glass closet with complicated equipment attached to the outside.
In addition to these physical tortures, he was allowed very little sleep. His former comrades would visit frequently to belittle him or just watch the experiments. Styrm himself kept up a steady bombardment of cutting speeches, subtle insults, and vague threats, always ending with the simple question "who am I?" Every answer to this question was followed by a disapproving frown and some new torture: electric shocks, bright flashes of light, ear-splitting noises.
Throughout all this, Jason tried to "broadcast" as strongly as he could, sending out his fear, his pain, and his need, hoping desperately that someone would sense him. Praying that against all odds someone would find him and save him. Eventually, the torture took away his hope, burying everything but his need to escape the pain.
And that's when he got the right answer. "Who am I?" Styrm asked as always. "My... master..." Jason said weakly. Styrm smiled and walked away. Coincidentally, a contingent of Longbow operatives burst into the base. Jason does not remember much of what followed, but he was rescued from the Nights and returned to Paragon City. He was moved into the medical facilities at Longbow headquarters.
When he was deemed well enough to return to active duty, he discovered his empathic powers were weakened, forcing him to slowly rebuild them. He also was leaking low levels of the mutagenic radiation he had been subjected to, something he would have to learn to control. Packing new powers, re-learning old, and separated from his daughter, Jason tried to bury himself in his work, seeking out his comrades and looking for answers.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Origin of the Character - City of Heroes 3
So the team was nearing the end of its 50-level run, and we all decided we didn't want the story to stop at 50. We toyed with teaming up other alts (Eve Moran, Suicidal Wombat, and Vagabond Magus were supposed to be a team), but we were all really enjoying the RP between E-VAC, Fyre Hex, Keen Stronghold, and Masonry. So we started talking about "re-rolling" them as new alts. I'm not going to delve into what the others did. I'll leave that for them.
So what to do with E? Well, his big schtick is the empathy and mind powers, so I started looking at controllers. Originally, it was a debate between Mind Control and Illusion Control. Empathy was the obvious choice for a secondary. I was leaning toward Illusion because it was a powerset I hadn't played with yet. On top of that, Mind repeated a lot of powers E already had. Boring. So I was going to be Ill/Emp.
But talking to Fyre and contemplating, I thought more and more that even with Illusion to keep me amused, I'd be going back over old ground with Empathy. Not only that, but I'd have to come up with an excuse for why he had the same powers but weaker all of a sudden. Just for fun, I started looking at the other controller secondaries. And that's when I noticed Radiation Emission. It gave me the heal to start with, but then there were all these other fun toys. And there's a lot of call for "rads", especially against AVs and GMs.
So I thought about it. And if you glance back over E's origin, you'll notice: he'd already been bombarded by radiation once in his life. What would happen if it happened again? Well, it'd interfere with his powers, forcing him to relearn them. And it might overload him, making it so he was actually pumping the stuff out. Nifty! So where's he going to get more radiation? Well, logically, it wouldn't be voluntary, so let's go back to the origin story again and make Styrm do it.
Now, in all honesty, looking back on it, I think this was my biggest mistake. We were having a blast with E, Fyre, and Mason. They were coming to grips with what had happened to them, relationships were established, trust had been made. We were putting together Team 2.0 to carry on the fun we were having.
And I broke E.
I sent him back to L.A. He was captured by his villainous former comrades, and subjected to torturous experiments. Not to boost his powers this time, but just to be cruel. To break E down and prepare him for what Styrm intended to do next. To force him to start over and set him up for a fall.
So E returned to Paragon City, rescued from days of torture, not by his brother and the woman he loved, but by Longbow. His empathic powers dulled by the pain, the damage to his mind, and the radiation, he had to learn to control them all over again, along with the mutagenic radiation now coursing through his body.
Mutagenic... ah, crap. Suddenly it made sense for Jen to be taken away from him, furthering the Styrm Agenda and adding to why he would've done what he did.
So after a long weekend, this is how E2 appeared in Paragon City. Broken. Hurting physically, emotionally, and mentally. Leaking radiation everywhere. Desperate for comfort. Wanting to know why the people he loved hadn't come for him, hadn't rescued him. Feeling guilty over having broken under the torture.
And the first thing he was confronted with was that his two dearest friends had died while he was gone.
So what to do with E? Well, his big schtick is the empathy and mind powers, so I started looking at controllers. Originally, it was a debate between Mind Control and Illusion Control. Empathy was the obvious choice for a secondary. I was leaning toward Illusion because it was a powerset I hadn't played with yet. On top of that, Mind repeated a lot of powers E already had. Boring. So I was going to be Ill/Emp.
But talking to Fyre and contemplating, I thought more and more that even with Illusion to keep me amused, I'd be going back over old ground with Empathy. Not only that, but I'd have to come up with an excuse for why he had the same powers but weaker all of a sudden. Just for fun, I started looking at the other controller secondaries. And that's when I noticed Radiation Emission. It gave me the heal to start with, but then there were all these other fun toys. And there's a lot of call for "rads", especially against AVs and GMs.
So I thought about it. And if you glance back over E's origin, you'll notice: he'd already been bombarded by radiation once in his life. What would happen if it happened again? Well, it'd interfere with his powers, forcing him to relearn them. And it might overload him, making it so he was actually pumping the stuff out. Nifty! So where's he going to get more radiation? Well, logically, it wouldn't be voluntary, so let's go back to the origin story again and make Styrm do it.
Now, in all honesty, looking back on it, I think this was my biggest mistake. We were having a blast with E, Fyre, and Mason. They were coming to grips with what had happened to them, relationships were established, trust had been made. We were putting together Team 2.0 to carry on the fun we were having.
And I broke E.
I sent him back to L.A. He was captured by his villainous former comrades, and subjected to torturous experiments. Not to boost his powers this time, but just to be cruel. To break E down and prepare him for what Styrm intended to do next. To force him to start over and set him up for a fall.
So E returned to Paragon City, rescued from days of torture, not by his brother and the woman he loved, but by Longbow. His empathic powers dulled by the pain, the damage to his mind, and the radiation, he had to learn to control them all over again, along with the mutagenic radiation now coursing through his body.
Mutagenic... ah, crap. Suddenly it made sense for Jen to be taken away from him, furthering the Styrm Agenda and adding to why he would've done what he did.
So after a long weekend, this is how E2 appeared in Paragon City. Broken. Hurting physically, emotionally, and mentally. Leaking radiation everywhere. Desperate for comfort. Wanting to know why the people he loved hadn't come for him, hadn't rescued him. Feeling guilty over having broken under the torture.
And the first thing he was confronted with was that his two dearest friends had died while he was gone.
On Keen Stronghold
No slight meant, but this is probably going to be a short one. See, Keen joined up with Team 1.0 late and sporadically. And he was quiet. I mean really quiet. He spoke up very rarely and usually just to let us know what he was doing tactically.
In-character, E was always suspicious of Stronghold for several reasons. First of all, quiet people who invent super-powerful devices and dress in strange costumes usually are building an army of killer robots in their basement in order to take over the world.
Secondly, Stronghold doesn't fight. Oh, sure, in addition to those potent and useful force fields of his, he'd occasionally take a long-range shot. But Stronghold seemed to take far more delight in pushing his targets around, knocking them to the ground, and other (to E) non-aggressive tactics. I mean, what's up with that? Shoot somebody, for cryin' out loud!
Thirdly, Stronghold made pushes into what E considered to be his territory. He had devices to heal and clear minds which, granted, came in very handy a number of times, "...but dammit..." E would think, "I'm the healer around here! Get back to your bubbles!"
So E spent a lot of time with one eye on the enemy, one eye on Masonry and Fyre to make sure they were okay... and one suspicious eye on Keen Stronghold. Just in case.
Yes, I know that's three eyes. Hush.
In-character, E was always suspicious of Stronghold for several reasons. First of all, quiet people who invent super-powerful devices and dress in strange costumes usually are building an army of killer robots in their basement in order to take over the world.
Secondly, Stronghold doesn't fight. Oh, sure, in addition to those potent and useful force fields of his, he'd occasionally take a long-range shot. But Stronghold seemed to take far more delight in pushing his targets around, knocking them to the ground, and other (to E) non-aggressive tactics. I mean, what's up with that? Shoot somebody, for cryin' out loud!
Thirdly, Stronghold made pushes into what E considered to be his territory. He had devices to heal and clear minds which, granted, came in very handy a number of times, "...but dammit..." E would think, "I'm the healer around here! Get back to your bubbles!"
So E spent a lot of time with one eye on the enemy, one eye on Masonry and Fyre to make sure they were okay... and one suspicious eye on Keen Stronghold. Just in case.
Yes, I know that's three eyes. Hush.
On Masonry
I never expected E & Fyre to be anything more than just another duo. But somewhere in the Hollows, in the piles of bad players, we found a "keeper". Well, I should say, Fyre found him. I don't remember which Hollows mission it was, but there was this crazy Stone/Mace tank called Masonry. He was funny. He had skills. He had a clever name. And after the mission was over, Fyre said those immortal words:
"Can I keep him?"
The world of CoH would never be the same. :)
Let me start by forcing E to admit something: he has always been jealous of Masonry. If you read between the lines of his backstory, E became the kind of villain he was to earn respect or to be feared and to not have to be afraid of anyone or anything. While his priorities changed as he grew out of the villain and started growing into a hero, those desires remained, smoldering deep down, but still there. Masonry is good-looking, strong, and seemingly fearless. Women flirt with him and people like hanging out with him.
Warring with this sentiment, however, is the fact that Masonry needs help. Even though he's a little older than E, there's a very strong "little brother" feel to him. He's gotten himself in trouble. He does stupid things sometimes. He's earnest, and most of all, he was killing himself. Fyre and Mason have likened Mas to a big dog: loyal, strong, not too bright. To Jason, Nathan (Masonry's real name) is his long-lost little brother. Someone he has to watch out for, teach, and help out of bad situations, hoping that one day, Masonry will become a better person than E-VAC.
And E took Masonry's slowly killing himself personally (back in the Team 1.0 days). There was no way E was going to let Mason die. He was going to fight that tooth and nail, even if it meant stripping Nathan of his powers and showing him that he could still be a hero without them (I was expecting/hoping Masonry Redux would be an AR/Dev blaster or BS/SR scrapper or something).
Even now, this conflict of how to feel about Masonry wars inside E, made worse by the things that have gone on since starting Team 2.0. In addition to jealousy and brotherly love, other warring emotions have been added: fear (what is he capable of?), anger (he was willing to betray us), mistrust (mix the two). And on top of it all, Masonry has (in E's mind) always been his chief rival for Fyre's affections, made worse recently by Fyre's willingness to forgive Mason.
With Masonry's attitudes (and intelligence) having been all over the map through his career, E is never quite sure what's going to happen with him from day to day. One day, close friends. Another, deadly enemies. Friendly rivals, comrades-in-arms, priveleged favorite, ally in trouble... There's really no way to predict where this relationship will end up.
"Can I keep him?"
The world of CoH would never be the same. :)
Let me start by forcing E to admit something: he has always been jealous of Masonry. If you read between the lines of his backstory, E became the kind of villain he was to earn respect or to be feared and to not have to be afraid of anyone or anything. While his priorities changed as he grew out of the villain and started growing into a hero, those desires remained, smoldering deep down, but still there. Masonry is good-looking, strong, and seemingly fearless. Women flirt with him and people like hanging out with him.
Warring with this sentiment, however, is the fact that Masonry needs help. Even though he's a little older than E, there's a very strong "little brother" feel to him. He's gotten himself in trouble. He does stupid things sometimes. He's earnest, and most of all, he was killing himself. Fyre and Mason have likened Mas to a big dog: loyal, strong, not too bright. To Jason, Nathan (Masonry's real name) is his long-lost little brother. Someone he has to watch out for, teach, and help out of bad situations, hoping that one day, Masonry will become a better person than E-VAC.
And E took Masonry's slowly killing himself personally (back in the Team 1.0 days). There was no way E was going to let Mason die. He was going to fight that tooth and nail, even if it meant stripping Nathan of his powers and showing him that he could still be a hero without them (I was expecting/hoping Masonry Redux would be an AR/Dev blaster or BS/SR scrapper or something).
Even now, this conflict of how to feel about Masonry wars inside E, made worse by the things that have gone on since starting Team 2.0. In addition to jealousy and brotherly love, other warring emotions have been added: fear (what is he capable of?), anger (he was willing to betray us), mistrust (mix the two). And on top of it all, Masonry has (in E's mind) always been his chief rival for Fyre's affections, made worse recently by Fyre's willingness to forgive Mason.
With Masonry's attitudes (and intelligence) having been all over the map through his career, E is never quite sure what's going to happen with him from day to day. One day, close friends. Another, deadly enemies. Friendly rivals, comrades-in-arms, priveleged favorite, ally in trouble... There's really no way to predict where this relationship will end up.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
On Fyre Hex
I'm not sure when it happened. I'm not sure exactly how or exactly why it started. But somewhere along the way, in spite of their fights and in spite of how hard she tried to push him away, E fell in love with Fyre.
He saw that she had been hurt. He could tell that she'd broken. He felt the sharp edges, but underneath, in spite of everything that had been done to her, the real Alexandra (Fyre Hex's real name) was a warm, caring person who still clung to high ideals. She saved people, helped people, and protected people. Even after years of betrayal, she still said it herself, over and over again, even if she didn't realize she was saying it: people deserve to be treated better than they are.
Jason saw something in Alexandra not only reflecting his own past, but to be admired. Fyre Hex should've been a worse villain than E-VAC had ever been... and she wasn't. She had far less reason to be a hero, and she was still out there as often (or more) than he was. She had so many people who would've been very happy if she just fell apart and let them make a puppet out of the pieces that were left... and she had the strength to pull all her pieces together and not only stay standing, but remain in command of her own destiny.
On the outside, she sometimes comes across as strong, cold, all hard edges. But the person at the core of Fyre Hex is protective of people around her, possessing of deep emotion, and generous to a fault. And in spite of all claims to the contrary, Jason saw someone he wanted to protect, care for, and yes, even save. He has a bit of a martyr complex to begin with, but here was someone E was willing not only to be hurt for: he was (and is) willing to die for her.
Or to kill for her.
He saw that she had been hurt. He could tell that she'd broken. He felt the sharp edges, but underneath, in spite of everything that had been done to her, the real Alexandra (Fyre Hex's real name) was a warm, caring person who still clung to high ideals. She saved people, helped people, and protected people. Even after years of betrayal, she still said it herself, over and over again, even if she didn't realize she was saying it: people deserve to be treated better than they are.
Jason saw something in Alexandra not only reflecting his own past, but to be admired. Fyre Hex should've been a worse villain than E-VAC had ever been... and she wasn't. She had far less reason to be a hero, and she was still out there as often (or more) than he was. She had so many people who would've been very happy if she just fell apart and let them make a puppet out of the pieces that were left... and she had the strength to pull all her pieces together and not only stay standing, but remain in command of her own destiny.
On the outside, she sometimes comes across as strong, cold, all hard edges. But the person at the core of Fyre Hex is protective of people around her, possessing of deep emotion, and generous to a fault. And in spite of all claims to the contrary, Jason saw someone he wanted to protect, care for, and yes, even save. He has a bit of a martyr complex to begin with, but here was someone E was willing not only to be hurt for: he was (and is) willing to die for her.
Or to kill for her.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Build/Slotting - E-VAC II v2.0
Here is the current build for E2. Being level 42, it's time to either stock up the level 45 SOs or start investing in IOs. I'd especially like to hear Keen's opinion on the matter (especially when it comes to sets that would be useful), but I'm open to any and all suggestions. I tend to choose my powers based on RP and character development, but when it comes to slotting, the math makes my brain hurt.
Here it is:
E.VAC, level 42 Illusion Control/Radiation Emission/Primal Forces Mastery controller
Illusion Control
Blind: 1 accuracy, 2 hold, 2 damage, 1 Calcite (acc/mez)
Spectral Wounds: 1 accuracy, 3 damage
Group Invisibility: 3 recharge, 1 defense buff
Phantom Army: 2 recharge, 1 accuracy, 3 damage
Spectral Terror: 1 accuracy, 2 fear, 1 Nightmare IO (acc/end)
Deceive: 1 accuracy, 1 confuse
Phantasm: 1 accuracy, 3 damage
Radiation Emission
Radiant Aura: 2 recharge, 3 heal
Radiation Infection: 1 to-hit debuff, 1 defense debuff, 1 to-hit debuff IO, 1 Anti-Proton (to-hit & defense debuff/end)
Accelerate Metabolism: 3 recharge, 3 endurance mod
Enervating Field: 1 endurance reduction, 1 endurance reduction IO
Mutation: 1 recharge, 1 endurance mod
Lingering Radiation: 1 accuracy, 1 recharge, 1 endurance reduction IO
Choking Cloud: 3 hold, 1 endurance reduction
EM Pulse: 3 recharge, 1 accuracy, 1 hold
Inherent
Brawl: 1 damage
Surge: 1 run speed
Rest: 1 recharge
Teleportation
Recall Friend: 1 interrupt
Teleport: 1 range
Fitness
Swift: 1 run speed
Health: 2 heal
Stamina: 3 endurance mod
Primal Forces Mastery
Power Blast: 1 accuracy, 3 damage
Here it is:
E.VAC, level 42 Illusion Control/Radiation Emission/Primal Forces Mastery controller
Illusion Control
Blind: 1 accuracy, 2 hold, 2 damage, 1 Calcite (acc/mez)
Spectral Wounds: 1 accuracy, 3 damage
Group Invisibility: 3 recharge, 1 defense buff
Phantom Army: 2 recharge, 1 accuracy, 3 damage
Spectral Terror: 1 accuracy, 2 fear, 1 Nightmare IO (acc/end)
Deceive: 1 accuracy, 1 confuse
Phantasm: 1 accuracy, 3 damage
Radiation Emission
Radiant Aura: 2 recharge, 3 heal
Radiation Infection: 1 to-hit debuff, 1 defense debuff, 1 to-hit debuff IO, 1 Anti-Proton (to-hit & defense debuff/end)
Accelerate Metabolism: 3 recharge, 3 endurance mod
Enervating Field: 1 endurance reduction, 1 endurance reduction IO
Mutation: 1 recharge, 1 endurance mod
Lingering Radiation: 1 accuracy, 1 recharge, 1 endurance reduction IO
Choking Cloud: 3 hold, 1 endurance reduction
EM Pulse: 3 recharge, 1 accuracy, 1 hold
Inherent
Brawl: 1 damage
Surge: 1 run speed
Rest: 1 recharge
Teleportation
Recall Friend: 1 interrupt
Teleport: 1 range
Fitness
Swift: 1 run speed
Health: 2 heal
Stamina: 3 endurance mod
Primal Forces Mastery
Power Blast: 1 accuracy, 3 damage
Friday, May 25, 2007
Spectrum Beyond
At the end of the Contest, the heroes quite naturally had to go toe-to-toe with Evil Incarnate. In this case, a fiendish fellow called "Neron" (see "Underworld Unleashed" if you're a DC Comics fan). The group had gotten very powerful, and I felt the plot required nothing less than the ultimate challenge. I gave him all the powers I felt he should have at the power levels they should be. He was god-like, scary, and I've rarely put numbers that high on a character sheet before.
They beat him in three rounds of combat.
Well, when your heroes fight the Devil himself and kick his ass, that's a good time to do something drastic. It was pretty obvious we had to start over with new characters. In this case, I offered two possible suggestions: we start over in another city with a brand new team, or we take a cue from the "Batman Beyond" cartoon and jump into the future. They chose the future.
The current DC Heroes game follows the same team (Spectrum) in the same city (Los Angeles), but the year is 2050. Most the old heroes have died or retired, as have most the villains. Anyone that was exceptionally young is still around, but as an NPC, and we have players who are playing the children of previous characters as well.
Replacing David Styrm as "biggest pain in Spectrum's butt" is... Dawn Styrm. In the previous post, I mentioned what became of Eve and Dawn. Well, Dawn is a complete nutcase with her dad's smarts, her mom's upbringing, and magical powers trapped inside her. Oh, and when her mom died, Dawn strapped her into a special life-support chamber. Dawn is keeping EVAC barely alive because (1) as far as she's concerned, her mom is the only one that ever really cared about her and she refuses to let her go; and (2) the "special" part allows Dawn to continue to use E's healing and warp powers as if her mom was a machine instead of a (barely-) living person.
Such a precious child...
In any case, there's an entirely new team with a few players who weren't part of the game in the past (present?). Two of those people play City of Heroes and are using their "Beyond" characters. It's confusing to me because in my head, I'm having to reconcile two different time streams. Hopefully, it's not to anyone else (or wasn't until I mentioned it) who met Springheel'd Jack the other night and were introduced to him as a member of the hero group E fought against. 'Cause he is. Or will be. Except E will be a vegetable when they meet. Except they don't meet. Not really. 'Cause the meeting hasn't happened yet. And E will be mostly dead when it happens.
I'll shut up now. Back to our regularly-scheduled programming.
They beat him in three rounds of combat.
Well, when your heroes fight the Devil himself and kick his ass, that's a good time to do something drastic. It was pretty obvious we had to start over with new characters. In this case, I offered two possible suggestions: we start over in another city with a brand new team, or we take a cue from the "Batman Beyond" cartoon and jump into the future. They chose the future.
The current DC Heroes game follows the same team (Spectrum) in the same city (Los Angeles), but the year is 2050. Most the old heroes have died or retired, as have most the villains. Anyone that was exceptionally young is still around, but as an NPC, and we have players who are playing the children of previous characters as well.
Replacing David Styrm as "biggest pain in Spectrum's butt" is... Dawn Styrm. In the previous post, I mentioned what became of Eve and Dawn. Well, Dawn is a complete nutcase with her dad's smarts, her mom's upbringing, and magical powers trapped inside her. Oh, and when her mom died, Dawn strapped her into a special life-support chamber. Dawn is keeping EVAC barely alive because (1) as far as she's concerned, her mom is the only one that ever really cared about her and she refuses to let her go; and (2) the "special" part allows Dawn to continue to use E's healing and warp powers as if her mom was a machine instead of a (barely-) living person.
Such a precious child...
In any case, there's an entirely new team with a few players who weren't part of the game in the past (present?). Two of those people play City of Heroes and are using their "Beyond" characters. It's confusing to me because in my head, I'm having to reconcile two different time streams. Hopefully, it's not to anyone else (or wasn't until I mentioned it) who met Springheel'd Jack the other night and were introduced to him as a member of the hero group E fought against. 'Cause he is. Or will be. Except E will be a vegetable when they meet. Except they don't meet. Not really. 'Cause the meeting hasn't happened yet. And E will be mostly dead when it happens.
I'll shut up now. Back to our regularly-scheduled programming.
Personality & Description - E-VAC II, part 2
Yeah, I know. It's going to crush some hopes and dreams and boggle some minds, but E is not gay, bi, or even confused about his sexuality. He grew up in L.A. and was part of a criminal organization that was almost entirely guys. There was a very "locker room" mentality with a lot of pressure, I think akin to being in the military or being a cop or firefighter (I base this on the experiences and attitudes of friends). And E's an empath. He knows how people feel and, for the most part, he knows how he feels. I honestly did consider playing him as gay at first, but I didn't feel I could do it justice. So E is very secure, very open, and way more than willing to tease and joke. But he's definitely straight.
Which brings me to Masonry. E could tell that any mention of homosexuality made Mason uncomfortable. And diving into that "locker room" mentality, that just made it more fun to joke and tease. Even though Masonry is a little older than E, there's something very "little brother" about Mason that just made it fun to mess with him, tease him, and joke with him. I think that's part of why Fyre decided we should keep him in the first place. But E saw that a casual joke about "man love" makes Masonry flip out? Awesome! Let's see how often and for how long we can keep that up!
Now don't get me wrong. E is not a homophobe nor is he afraid to express his feelings for people, male or female. Most the time, when E tells another character how he feels about them, he's being completely honest about it... at the time. Especially when emotions are running high, his or those around him, E has a tendency to get swept up. Buried in his emotions and the emotions of people around him, he becomes caught up in the moment with no regard for anything but what he is feeling and/or sensing now.
Keep in mind, this is all about the set-up and early days of playing "E1". Much of this is still the same, yes, but there have been a lot of changes along the way, the biggest of which (obviously) was the transformation into "E2".
Moving along to the actual play and development, I have to say that, especially at first, playing E & Fyre together has never been easy. The two of them have strong personalities, both have been hurt in the past and try to keep up strong "shields" to protect themselves, and especially at first, neither of them really wanted to be a hero. The players had to play a few tricks on their characters to keep them from going their seperate ways and possibly (though not for certain) to keep them from trying to kill each other.
Now, Fyre may not know it, but in addition to being a big influence on the development of E's character, she also had a dramatic impact on E's backstory. Remember the comment I made about losing an entire universe? Well, E originally came from my DC Heroes game, a game firmly grounded in the DC Comics universe. Most the biggies have made guest appearances: Batman, Green Lantern, Superman, Wonder Woman, etc. While I can't actually play those characters for copyright reasons, I can still reference them, right? Right?
Well, no. See, the majority of role-players in CoX seem to have decided that the universe is the same as the real world with only those changes that the storyline in the game asks us to make. So our heroes watch the same movies, read the same books, listen to the same music, etc. And that means when E mentioned he'd seen Batman in action... Fyre laughed at him. Well. Okay. So with a big "alley-oop", I tossed the entire DC Universe into the dumpster. I kept the hero team that E's villains had fought against, figuring I could get away with referencing other people's characters, but E would not be taking his vacations in Metropolis. No big deal.
So from all this came the story of E-VAC as told by "E1".
Which brings me to Masonry. E could tell that any mention of homosexuality made Mason uncomfortable. And diving into that "locker room" mentality, that just made it more fun to joke and tease. Even though Masonry is a little older than E, there's something very "little brother" about Mason that just made it fun to mess with him, tease him, and joke with him. I think that's part of why Fyre decided we should keep him in the first place. But E saw that a casual joke about "man love" makes Masonry flip out? Awesome! Let's see how often and for how long we can keep that up!
Now don't get me wrong. E is not a homophobe nor is he afraid to express his feelings for people, male or female. Most the time, when E tells another character how he feels about them, he's being completely honest about it... at the time. Especially when emotions are running high, his or those around him, E has a tendency to get swept up. Buried in his emotions and the emotions of people around him, he becomes caught up in the moment with no regard for anything but what he is feeling and/or sensing now.
Keep in mind, this is all about the set-up and early days of playing "E1". Much of this is still the same, yes, but there have been a lot of changes along the way, the biggest of which (obviously) was the transformation into "E2".
Moving along to the actual play and development, I have to say that, especially at first, playing E & Fyre together has never been easy. The two of them have strong personalities, both have been hurt in the past and try to keep up strong "shields" to protect themselves, and especially at first, neither of them really wanted to be a hero. The players had to play a few tricks on their characters to keep them from going their seperate ways and possibly (though not for certain) to keep them from trying to kill each other.
Now, Fyre may not know it, but in addition to being a big influence on the development of E's character, she also had a dramatic impact on E's backstory. Remember the comment I made about losing an entire universe? Well, E originally came from my DC Heroes game, a game firmly grounded in the DC Comics universe. Most the biggies have made guest appearances: Batman, Green Lantern, Superman, Wonder Woman, etc. While I can't actually play those characters for copyright reasons, I can still reference them, right? Right?
Well, no. See, the majority of role-players in CoX seem to have decided that the universe is the same as the real world with only those changes that the storyline in the game asks us to make. So our heroes watch the same movies, read the same books, listen to the same music, etc. And that means when E mentioned he'd seen Batman in action... Fyre laughed at him. Well. Okay. So with a big "alley-oop", I tossed the entire DC Universe into the dumpster. I kept the hero team that E's villains had fought against, figuring I could get away with referencing other people's characters, but E would not be taking his vacations in Metropolis. No big deal.
So from all this came the story of E-VAC as told by "E1".
Personality & Description - E-VAC II, part 1
One of the things I love about all the incarnations of E is that the character flies in the face of the stereotypes. Your stereotypical empath (mentalist)/healer is either the caring, nurturing, touchy-feely, mothering type or the withdrawn, closed-off, dark, burned-by-the-world type. When I first set the character up (each time), I knew from the outset E was going to be something a person with his powers rarely is: a jerk. Yeah, he feels your pain, understands your emotions... but he doesn't care.
Now, in the case of the new E, the key for my role-play of the character was that he doesn't care... yet. But he's starting to. Partly because he's been forced and partly because he wants to. So I wanted the character to start out as a jerk and slowly develop... well, whatever way he ended up developing.
It was actually pretty easy to justify him being a jerk. In addition to having been a villain, here he is in Paragon City, the City of Heroes, and his co-workers are all heroes. The kind of people he's battled most his life. And worse, his criminal record isn't a secret, so his co-workers all know what kind of a person they're dealing with. And, let's face it: if you've played the game all the way through to 50 and then you start over again from scratch, one of the first things you start to realize is actually pretty funny...
Your contacts are trying to get you killed.
It's kind of harsh, if you think about it, but to me, especially the longer I played E1, it was hilarious. Go flush out the sewers. There's a strange signal coming from this office building. You've been invited to an ambush and I know it's an ambush, but I'm sending you anyway. Your contacts are either monumentally stupid or they hate you and want you to die.
Okay, so E's a jerk, but I also wanted his softer side to show at least a little right from the start. Piece of cake. He's a single dad, trying to raise a daughter, keep her safe from the boogeyman, and keep her from making the same mistakes he did. So his personality was set exactly where I wanted it to be to start with, and the lanes were wide open for his development to be affected by the people around him.
Now, there's been a lot of discussion in the other blogs lately (Keen's & Mason's, check the links to the left) about sexual orientation, who loves whom, homophobia, etc. Since the subject is being talked about, and I happen to be making a post about E's personality at the same time, I feel it's time once and for all for E to come out of the closet. Jason Pace, the villain-turned-hero, code-named E-VAC is and always has been...
...straight.
Now, in the case of the new E, the key for my role-play of the character was that he doesn't care... yet. But he's starting to. Partly because he's been forced and partly because he wants to. So I wanted the character to start out as a jerk and slowly develop... well, whatever way he ended up developing.
It was actually pretty easy to justify him being a jerk. In addition to having been a villain, here he is in Paragon City, the City of Heroes, and his co-workers are all heroes. The kind of people he's battled most his life. And worse, his criminal record isn't a secret, so his co-workers all know what kind of a person they're dealing with. And, let's face it: if you've played the game all the way through to 50 and then you start over again from scratch, one of the first things you start to realize is actually pretty funny...
Your contacts are trying to get you killed.
It's kind of harsh, if you think about it, but to me, especially the longer I played E1, it was hilarious. Go flush out the sewers. There's a strange signal coming from this office building. You've been invited to an ambush and I know it's an ambush, but I'm sending you anyway. Your contacts are either monumentally stupid or they hate you and want you to die.
Okay, so E's a jerk, but I also wanted his softer side to show at least a little right from the start. Piece of cake. He's a single dad, trying to raise a daughter, keep her safe from the boogeyman, and keep her from making the same mistakes he did. So his personality was set exactly where I wanted it to be to start with, and the lanes were wide open for his development to be affected by the people around him.
Now, there's been a lot of discussion in the other blogs lately (Keen's & Mason's, check the links to the left) about sexual orientation, who loves whom, homophobia, etc. Since the subject is being talked about, and I happen to be making a post about E's personality at the same time, I feel it's time once and for all for E to come out of the closet. Jason Pace, the villain-turned-hero, code-named E-VAC is and always has been...
...straight.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Secret Origins - E-VAC II (aka E1), part 2
It was another botched bank robbery. Jason's fellows who had more brawn than brains had screwed it up again, drawing too much attention to themselves. Naturally, that meant it was his turn. He went in, flinging around phantom pain, crippling injuries that were all in the target's head. He reached the vault area where his fellows were being handcuffed, and shredded into the minds of the police officers with reckless abandon.
But something went wrong. One of the officers crumpled under his assault, cried out... and died. His empathic senses wide open, he felt the man die. Felt his pain and his fear and his... nothing. Felt the officer go from a person to an inanimate object.
Jason tried to blow it off and let it go, but the memory of it was burned into his brain. And then it happened again. And again. He began to doubt what he was doing. What he was being told to do. He opened his senses more and more to the victims of the group's crimes and to people just passing by. And he began to think of them as people.
During this period, his wife became pregnant. Jason was distracted from his introspection by the prospect of becoming a father. Styrm seemed to have a fascination with the process, too, doting on Jason and his wife and seeing to their every need. When the child was born, Styrm and a team of doctors oversaw the birth. Jason was kept outside the delivery room, supposedly to protect him from the onslaught to his empathic senses as well as to keep him from doing anything stupid.
And with the birth, all hell broke loose. Literally. ((Here I chose not to vary from the original story much. The battle between Good and Evil took place very much the way I described in the previous post.))
During the contest, Jason came to discover he very much enjoyed being a father. They called the girl "Jennifer". Jason spoiled his daughter, but was also hyper-protective of her. Understandable seeing as many people wanted her dead.
The death knell of Jason's criminal career began sounding during yet another botched job. He had gone in to bail out his team-mates once again, but his mind wasn't on the job. He was worrying about Jen, left back at the Nights' headquarters with only Styrm to keep an eye on her. He teleported into the wrong room, whirled on the only movement he saw, and shredded into...
...the wrong mind. An elderly woman, trying desperately to get out of the way and hide, suddenly found herself in tremendous pain from non-existent wounds. She cried out in shock and began to have a heart attack. In horror, Jason tried to do something for her, but all he could manage was to hold her up and stare as the light went out of her eyes and feeling went out of her body. He fled, leaving his team-mates to be jailed. He did later retrieve them, but he knew that he was done. He had to find a way out, not just for himself, but for his daughter.
His opportunity came after the final battle of the Contest. The Nights had been mustered in force, every last one of them including Styrm himself. Weakened in the battle, the heroes arrested them to a man. Dr. Jason Pace agreed to turn State's Witness against Styrm and all the Nights in exchange for amnesty and protection for himself and his daughter. The plane he and Jennifer were on was fired on as they left, but they escaped Los Angeles safely, arriving in Paragon City, RI. There, Dr. Pace would serve out a form of community service sentence, taking up a Hero I.D. in order to serve and protect his fellow citizens and fellow heroes.
Originally asked to work in the hospital system, Jason instead asked to serve with the Paragon Police Department. His application, however, was picked up by the budding organization known as Longbow. His first assignment, however, came from M.A.G.I.: act as a liaison and medical expert to the mystical supergroup known as the Dauntless Reverie.
His second assignment also came from M.A.G.I., after a fashion. He was teamed up with a young woman code-named "Fyre Hex", ordered to protect her as she learned to control her powers.
But something went wrong. One of the officers crumpled under his assault, cried out... and died. His empathic senses wide open, he felt the man die. Felt his pain and his fear and his... nothing. Felt the officer go from a person to an inanimate object.
Jason tried to blow it off and let it go, but the memory of it was burned into his brain. And then it happened again. And again. He began to doubt what he was doing. What he was being told to do. He opened his senses more and more to the victims of the group's crimes and to people just passing by. And he began to think of them as people.
During this period, his wife became pregnant. Jason was distracted from his introspection by the prospect of becoming a father. Styrm seemed to have a fascination with the process, too, doting on Jason and his wife and seeing to their every need. When the child was born, Styrm and a team of doctors oversaw the birth. Jason was kept outside the delivery room, supposedly to protect him from the onslaught to his empathic senses as well as to keep him from doing anything stupid.
And with the birth, all hell broke loose. Literally. ((Here I chose not to vary from the original story much. The battle between Good and Evil took place very much the way I described in the previous post.))
During the contest, Jason came to discover he very much enjoyed being a father. They called the girl "Jennifer". Jason spoiled his daughter, but was also hyper-protective of her. Understandable seeing as many people wanted her dead.
The death knell of Jason's criminal career began sounding during yet another botched job. He had gone in to bail out his team-mates once again, but his mind wasn't on the job. He was worrying about Jen, left back at the Nights' headquarters with only Styrm to keep an eye on her. He teleported into the wrong room, whirled on the only movement he saw, and shredded into...
...the wrong mind. An elderly woman, trying desperately to get out of the way and hide, suddenly found herself in tremendous pain from non-existent wounds. She cried out in shock and began to have a heart attack. In horror, Jason tried to do something for her, but all he could manage was to hold her up and stare as the light went out of her eyes and feeling went out of her body. He fled, leaving his team-mates to be jailed. He did later retrieve them, but he knew that he was done. He had to find a way out, not just for himself, but for his daughter.
His opportunity came after the final battle of the Contest. The Nights had been mustered in force, every last one of them including Styrm himself. Weakened in the battle, the heroes arrested them to a man. Dr. Jason Pace agreed to turn State's Witness against Styrm and all the Nights in exchange for amnesty and protection for himself and his daughter. The plane he and Jennifer were on was fired on as they left, but they escaped Los Angeles safely, arriving in Paragon City, RI. There, Dr. Pace would serve out a form of community service sentence, taking up a Hero I.D. in order to serve and protect his fellow citizens and fellow heroes.
Originally asked to work in the hospital system, Jason instead asked to serve with the Paragon Police Department. His application, however, was picked up by the budding organization known as Longbow. His first assignment, however, came from M.A.G.I.: act as a liaison and medical expert to the mystical supergroup known as the Dauntless Reverie.
His second assignment also came from M.A.G.I., after a fashion. He was teamed up with a young woman code-named "Fyre Hex", ordered to protect her as she learned to control her powers.
Secret Origins - E-VAC II (aka E1), part 1
As a young child, Jason Pace was always empathetic. He brought his parents animals with the slightest injuries and cried when playmates were hurt, even if the playmate wasn't crying. He would allow himself to be hurt before he would raise a finger to hurt another. This got him into any number of schoolyard brawls as children would pick on him, not believing he'd refuse to strike back. But luckily, Jason was a healthy child and recovered from his injuries quickly.
As he grew into a teenager, he figured out that he could feel the emotions of others around him. He could tell what they were feeling and by extension, whether they were lying. He put this extra sense to use, taking advantage of his "inside knowledge". But he still could not bring himself to inflict harm as their pain became his. And the bullies continued to press their advantage, leaving Jason a very angry teenager.
When he was 16, the new school counselor had a proposition. He had a gift, the man said, though a minor one. He could help him focus that gift. He would teach him how to use it and make him feared and very, very rich. Jason liked the idea and agreed, running away from home. He was introduced to David Styrm and so began the experiments.
Mutagenic radiation, gene-splicing, and other torturous experiments took the minor gifts Jason and his fellow "gifted" and expanded them. Jason's ability to sense others' feelings became the ability to manipulate those feelings as well, both for good and for harm. Strangely, his ties to a hidden pocket dimension came to the fore as well, allowing him to teleport, store items, and even enter the dimension partially and become invisible or intangible for short periods.
Jason also trained physically and mentally, bulking up and learning tactics and strategy. Styrm sponsored him at a number of disreputable medical colleges, making sure that his "healer" learned actual medicine. With his special gifts, he became a kind of "wheel-man" for Styrm's "Nights", as he called them. The others, their gifts more direct and overt, would often get themselves into trouble, especially with local heroes. Jason, code-named "E-VAC", would be in charge of extracting and healing his team-mates. These same team-mates considered him weak and a coward, so he would often go to extremes when he was actually sent in, inflicting pain in brutal fashion. His "bed-side" manner also lacked sympathy.
Rolling in cash, able to vent his anger, and working for a man he had a great deal of respect for, Jason thought he had it all. He and the only female Night Captain, a girl with an uncanny knack for weaponry, were often sent on missions together, and the two became fast friends. They even got married, one of the other Nights presiding over the brief and... odd ceremony. Yes, entering his late twenties, Jason thought he was living the high life he'd always dreamed of.
Then Jason killed.
As he grew into a teenager, he figured out that he could feel the emotions of others around him. He could tell what they were feeling and by extension, whether they were lying. He put this extra sense to use, taking advantage of his "inside knowledge". But he still could not bring himself to inflict harm as their pain became his. And the bullies continued to press their advantage, leaving Jason a very angry teenager.
When he was 16, the new school counselor had a proposition. He had a gift, the man said, though a minor one. He could help him focus that gift. He would teach him how to use it and make him feared and very, very rich. Jason liked the idea and agreed, running away from home. He was introduced to David Styrm and so began the experiments.
Mutagenic radiation, gene-splicing, and other torturous experiments took the minor gifts Jason and his fellow "gifted" and expanded them. Jason's ability to sense others' feelings became the ability to manipulate those feelings as well, both for good and for harm. Strangely, his ties to a hidden pocket dimension came to the fore as well, allowing him to teleport, store items, and even enter the dimension partially and become invisible or intangible for short periods.
Jason also trained physically and mentally, bulking up and learning tactics and strategy. Styrm sponsored him at a number of disreputable medical colleges, making sure that his "healer" learned actual medicine. With his special gifts, he became a kind of "wheel-man" for Styrm's "Nights", as he called them. The others, their gifts more direct and overt, would often get themselves into trouble, especially with local heroes. Jason, code-named "E-VAC", would be in charge of extracting and healing his team-mates. These same team-mates considered him weak and a coward, so he would often go to extremes when he was actually sent in, inflicting pain in brutal fashion. His "bed-side" manner also lacked sympathy.
Rolling in cash, able to vent his anger, and working for a man he had a great deal of respect for, Jason thought he had it all. He and the only female Night Captain, a girl with an uncanny knack for weaponry, were often sent on missions together, and the two became fast friends. They even got married, one of the other Nights presiding over the brief and... odd ceremony. Yes, entering his late twenties, Jason thought he was living the high life he'd always dreamed of.
Then Jason killed.
Origin of the Character - City of Heroes 2
All this backstory finally brings us to what, I'm sure, most of you have been waiting for: the version of E most of you are most familiar with. We've refered to him as "E1" or "version 1.0", but as you can see, it's probably more correct to consider him as either version 2 or 3. Let me back up half a step.
Fyre and I have been duoing for a while now. We've put some duos together out of characters we had: Cassandra Noir (MA/Inv scrapper) and The Vagabond Blade (BS/Regen scrapper), Jack Royale (Grav/Storm controller) and Skylar Blaze (PB). We've also created quite a few duos, some on servers other than Virtue: Scarlette Blade (Katana/Regen scrapper) and Speed Trial (Kin/Rad defender), Derick Darklight (WS) and Lorelei Laughlin (Ill/Rad controller). Fyre and I play together very well, and I really enjoy her company.
I forget the exact circumstances, but we were having another fit of altitis, and I decided I really wanted to revisit the Empathy set again. E-VAC (the female one) had languished too long, and I knew that with Fyre, I stood a really good chance of not getting stuck again. So I decided I'd "re-roll" E and she came up with a Fire/Fire blaster. I'd say "the rest is history", but the point of this blog is to tell that history. :)
Now, I decided from the outset to learn from my mistakes with the first CoH E-VAC. First of all, I decided I was going to make the character better-equipped to solo. More "blasts" and all E's attack powers are slotted at least with 1 ACC/3 DMG. Since I had been uncomfortable long-term role-playing her as a female, she underwent gender re-assignment. No, the character has not had a sex-change operation. I'm talking pure game mechanics. I re-wrote the backstory so E had always been a guy.
Which is where I hit my first hitch. I fully intended to make use of the original character's rich backstory, but some elements just didn't work with the new gender. The name was the easiest part. "Jennifer Pace" became "Jason Pace". But the relationship between E and Styrm? I mean, comics are weird, but even I'm not going to have a male character give birth.
So I took David Styrm, the original EVAC, and the first CoH E, added some extra ingredients, and dumped it all into a blender set for "frappé". Then I poured what came out into three cups: a revised Styrm, a revised E... and a new character, E's ex-wife. As usual, I figured a lot of backstory would come out slowly, keeping interest without seeming tedious. I'd borrow heavily from the original material. I'd also leave plenty of room to make things up as I went along, although again, I'd be taking elements of what had already been written and combining them with all I now knew about the City of Heroes world.
I also ended up re-designing the costume a bit. While the all-white, red cross body-suit looked good on the female form, on the male form it made him look... blank. Generic. That just didn't work. I started by changing to actual boots and the strapped gloves. Still not there. So I added the red stripe, tweaked with it a bit, and came to the costume E wore all through "E1" and at the start of "E2".
Funny thing is, the first element of E's backstory to get discarded was an entire universe.
Fyre and I have been duoing for a while now. We've put some duos together out of characters we had: Cassandra Noir (MA/Inv scrapper) and The Vagabond Blade (BS/Regen scrapper), Jack Royale (Grav/Storm controller) and Skylar Blaze (PB). We've also created quite a few duos, some on servers other than Virtue: Scarlette Blade (Katana/Regen scrapper) and Speed Trial (Kin/Rad defender), Derick Darklight (WS) and Lorelei Laughlin (Ill/Rad controller). Fyre and I play together very well, and I really enjoy her company.
I forget the exact circumstances, but we were having another fit of altitis, and I decided I really wanted to revisit the Empathy set again. E-VAC (the female one) had languished too long, and I knew that with Fyre, I stood a really good chance of not getting stuck again. So I decided I'd "re-roll" E and she came up with a Fire/Fire blaster. I'd say "the rest is history", but the point of this blog is to tell that history. :)
Now, I decided from the outset to learn from my mistakes with the first CoH E-VAC. First of all, I decided I was going to make the character better-equipped to solo. More "blasts" and all E's attack powers are slotted at least with 1 ACC/3 DMG. Since I had been uncomfortable long-term role-playing her as a female, she underwent gender re-assignment. No, the character has not had a sex-change operation. I'm talking pure game mechanics. I re-wrote the backstory so E had always been a guy.
Which is where I hit my first hitch. I fully intended to make use of the original character's rich backstory, but some elements just didn't work with the new gender. The name was the easiest part. "Jennifer Pace" became "Jason Pace". But the relationship between E and Styrm? I mean, comics are weird, but even I'm not going to have a male character give birth.
So I took David Styrm, the original EVAC, and the first CoH E, added some extra ingredients, and dumped it all into a blender set for "frappé". Then I poured what came out into three cups: a revised Styrm, a revised E... and a new character, E's ex-wife. As usual, I figured a lot of backstory would come out slowly, keeping interest without seeming tedious. I'd borrow heavily from the original material. I'd also leave plenty of room to make things up as I went along, although again, I'd be taking elements of what had already been written and combining them with all I now knew about the City of Heroes world.
I also ended up re-designing the costume a bit. While the all-white, red cross body-suit looked good on the female form, on the male form it made him look... blank. Generic. That just didn't work. I started by changing to actual boots and the strapped gloves. Still not there. So I added the red stripe, tweaked with it a bit, and came to the costume E wore all through "E1" and at the start of "E2".
Funny thing is, the first element of E's backstory to get discarded was an entire universe.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
How I Role-Play
Now, shrewd readers who have played with E or read Masonry's blog will already have caught a number of elements of E's backstory in the previous posts. Some of the differences should also be obvious, although some are more obvious than others.
I feel like it's relevant to mention here that I tend to role-play "from the hip". Whether I'm Game Mastering, storytelling, or playing a character, I usually have general ideas of what I want a character or the story to be like, and then I sit down at the table or the keyboard and let things fly. I like my players and fellow characters to take a significant role in the development of plot and character, and so I often make things up as I go. Inspiration strikes me randomly and frequently. Things sometimes come up that call for me to make spot decisions, and I do. People that I game with have complimented me frequently on my ability to just come up with stuff, and sometimes, the spur-of-the-moment stuff becomes the best-remembered moment or the key element of a plot I hadn't considered until then. But I don't always get it right.
Let me say that again: I don't always get it right.
Sometimes I'll come up with something off the top of my head and spend the rest of my life kicking myself for coming up with something so stupid. Sometimes something that seems like a great idea clashes with what's going on or requires more effort, more thought, more... something than it would have if the idea had never seen the light of day. Sometimes, my memory will fail me and something I just came up with clashes with something that already happened. So suddenly I have to reconcile the two things.
But even with that danger, I still love the improv of it all. I tend not to write stories: I sketch outlines and see what it turns into. I might have an idea of what I want the story to be about, but within that framework, I just like to see what happens. And I almost never write an ending ahead of time.
Almost never.
I feel like it's relevant to mention here that I tend to role-play "from the hip". Whether I'm Game Mastering, storytelling, or playing a character, I usually have general ideas of what I want a character or the story to be like, and then I sit down at the table or the keyboard and let things fly. I like my players and fellow characters to take a significant role in the development of plot and character, and so I often make things up as I go. Inspiration strikes me randomly and frequently. Things sometimes come up that call for me to make spot decisions, and I do. People that I game with have complimented me frequently on my ability to just come up with stuff, and sometimes, the spur-of-the-moment stuff becomes the best-remembered moment or the key element of a plot I hadn't considered until then. But I don't always get it right.
Let me say that again: I don't always get it right.
Sometimes I'll come up with something off the top of my head and spend the rest of my life kicking myself for coming up with something so stupid. Sometimes something that seems like a great idea clashes with what's going on or requires more effort, more thought, more... something than it would have if the idea had never seen the light of day. Sometimes, my memory will fail me and something I just came up with clashes with something that already happened. So suddenly I have to reconcile the two things.
But even with that danger, I still love the improv of it all. I tend not to write stories: I sketch outlines and see what it turns into. I might have an idea of what I want the story to be about, but within that framework, I just like to see what happens. And I almost never write an ending ahead of time.
Almost never.
The Contest - Meanwhile...
Now first of all, it didn't take long for our heroes to realize there was more going on here than just fighting the badguys. The smart guys in the group realized from the wording of their contract that they were only signing on to a small piece of what was going on. The heroes of a mystical bent also realized that Eve was a Child of Destiny, someone who will one day do something very, very important. So they weren't jumping into the situation blind or stupid. Just... well, they knew there were things going on they didn't know, and after a number of frustrating attempts to figure it all out, they decided they were okay with not knowing.
Which brings us to some the stuff they didn't find out.
Styrm is a very well-connected guy. He found about the contest very quickly and realized that, since his daughter was the object, he had a stake in its outcome. He therefore went to Evil and negotiated his own part in the unfolding drama. Our heroes never learned what the exact terms of his agreement were. They only saw him sign their part of the contract with an asterisk.
Styrm is an excellent negotiator and a very intelligent guy. He's also not above attempting to cheat when it suits his purpose. Just in case he and the heroes failed, he had Eve cloned, jokingly naming the genetic copy "Dawn". His thought was that, should Eve die, he could present Dawn as a perfect genetic match and claim that whoever had killed her had been mistaken: here was Eve. Would it have worked? Well, we'll never know.
When the contest was over, Styrm was relieved. Since his real daughter was all right, well... he didn't need two heirs, now did he? He ordered Dawn to be terminated, in his mind a very sensible course of action.
And this is where E's hidden motherly instincts kicked in. Now, she never expected to actually like being a mom. She thought she hated it. Thought it was one more dirty job she was being paid to do. But when Styrm ordered one of her babies killed, something snapped. She snatched up Dawn and quite literally disappeared. Styrm gave a token pursuit at first, but eventually decided neither E nor Dawn were worth the effort since he had the original. The two girls were raised seperately.
Styrm had a slow and small change of heart during the contest, however. He plea-bargained for some jail time and hefty fines and went back to being a run-of-the-mill (if shrewd) businessman, obeying the law a little more than the average company man since his daughter literally had angels watching her. Eve never wanted for anything and grew up to be a very proper young lady.
EVAC reverted to her criminal ways and raised Dawn underground (sometimes literally). They survived, fought, and did all right for themselves, never allowing themselves to rely on anyone if they could help it.
Which brings us to some the stuff they didn't find out.
Styrm is a very well-connected guy. He found about the contest very quickly and realized that, since his daughter was the object, he had a stake in its outcome. He therefore went to Evil and negotiated his own part in the unfolding drama. Our heroes never learned what the exact terms of his agreement were. They only saw him sign their part of the contract with an asterisk.
Styrm is an excellent negotiator and a very intelligent guy. He's also not above attempting to cheat when it suits his purpose. Just in case he and the heroes failed, he had Eve cloned, jokingly naming the genetic copy "Dawn". His thought was that, should Eve die, he could present Dawn as a perfect genetic match and claim that whoever had killed her had been mistaken: here was Eve. Would it have worked? Well, we'll never know.
When the contest was over, Styrm was relieved. Since his real daughter was all right, well... he didn't need two heirs, now did he? He ordered Dawn to be terminated, in his mind a very sensible course of action.
And this is where E's hidden motherly instincts kicked in. Now, she never expected to actually like being a mom. She thought she hated it. Thought it was one more dirty job she was being paid to do. But when Styrm ordered one of her babies killed, something snapped. She snatched up Dawn and quite literally disappeared. Styrm gave a token pursuit at first, but eventually decided neither E nor Dawn were worth the effort since he had the original. The two girls were raised seperately.
Styrm had a slow and small change of heart during the contest, however. He plea-bargained for some jail time and hefty fines and went back to being a run-of-the-mill (if shrewd) businessman, obeying the law a little more than the average company man since his daughter literally had angels watching her. Eve never wanted for anything and grew up to be a very proper young lady.
EVAC reverted to her criminal ways and raised Dawn underground (sometimes literally). They survived, fought, and did all right for themselves, never allowing themselves to rely on anyone if they could help it.
The Contest - Good vs. Evil
The original DC Heroes game ran a very long time. Players and heroes swapped around a bit, and toward the end, "Spectrum" (as the team called itself) rivaled the Justice League (or the X-Men for you Marvel fans). I started pitting them against greater and greater enemies and more and more complex problems (ask them how they feel about the Joker). Finally, I decided in true Justice League fashion, it was time to put the fate of the world in their hands.
The forces of Good approached our heroes with a request: be Good's champions in a contest against Evil. Now Spectrum counted in its membership a Native American shaman, a druid, and a devout Anglican knight. There was no doubt in my mind they'd accept, and to my glee, they did.
I'll spare you some of the details, but here's the basics: a child would be born soon after the rules were established. All our heroes had to do was make sure the child lived to be 5. Easy, right? Yeah, I know you're laughing again. Well, the terms were negotiated (and later, when Evil cheated [shock!], re-negotiated), and our heroes prepared themselves to guard this mystery child, whoever she turned out to be.
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to our heroes, Styrm had a bucket of mortality tossed over him. He realized he wasn't going to live forever, and he had no heir and no prospects. Well, he realized he had a woman handy who was beautiful, smart, practically raised by him, and would therefore be perfect for the job of providing Styrm and heir. So far as EVAC was concerned, she was renting out her womb to a man she respected (vaguely), so she was okay with the idea. So Styrm and E had a child and named her "Eve".
And as soon as she was born, the mystical alarms went off, and the contest began in earnest. That's right, our heroes had to guard the daughter of one of their greatest foes... from an even greater foe. Demons came for her, angels guarded her, warlocks tried to sacrifice her, totemic animals helped rescue her, and in the end, as usually happens in comic books, Good triumphed over Evil, and the child lived.
And again, our heroes didn't realize that behind the scenes, things had only gotten more complicated instead of less.
The forces of Good approached our heroes with a request: be Good's champions in a contest against Evil. Now Spectrum counted in its membership a Native American shaman, a druid, and a devout Anglican knight. There was no doubt in my mind they'd accept, and to my glee, they did.
I'll spare you some of the details, but here's the basics: a child would be born soon after the rules were established. All our heroes had to do was make sure the child lived to be 5. Easy, right? Yeah, I know you're laughing again. Well, the terms were negotiated (and later, when Evil cheated [shock!], re-negotiated), and our heroes prepared themselves to guard this mystery child, whoever she turned out to be.
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to our heroes, Styrm had a bucket of mortality tossed over him. He realized he wasn't going to live forever, and he had no heir and no prospects. Well, he realized he had a woman handy who was beautiful, smart, practically raised by him, and would therefore be perfect for the job of providing Styrm and heir. So far as EVAC was concerned, she was renting out her womb to a man she respected (vaguely), so she was okay with the idea. So Styrm and E had a child and named her "Eve".
And as soon as she was born, the mystical alarms went off, and the contest began in earnest. That's right, our heroes had to guard the daughter of one of their greatest foes... from an even greater foe. Demons came for her, angels guarded her, warlocks tried to sacrifice her, totemic animals helped rescue her, and in the end, as usually happens in comic books, Good triumphed over Evil, and the child lived.
And again, our heroes didn't realize that behind the scenes, things had only gotten more complicated instead of less.
Secret Origins - E-VAC I
Her back-story began the same as in her DC origin, save with a stronger emphasis on her empathy and less emphasis on her ability to regenerate. In my mind, her psychic attacks were bursts of empathic control, causing her targets to feel pain and exhaustion.
As part of a plea-bargain, Jennifer Pace (aka EVAC) turned State's Witness against her old boss, David Styrm. Fearing reprisals from his vast organization, she was placed in the Witness Protection Program and sent to Paragon City, RI. Signed up with a Hero ID, she somewhat reluctantly serves the city and its heroes, putting her healing and teleportation powers to good use for a change.
As part of a plea-bargain, Jennifer Pace (aka EVAC) turned State's Witness against her old boss, David Styrm. Fearing reprisals from his vast organization, she was placed in the Witness Protection Program and sent to Paragon City, RI. Signed up with a Hero ID, she somewhat reluctantly serves the city and its heroes, putting her healing and teleportation powers to good use for a change.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Origin of the Character - City of Heroes
In 2004, a friend of a friend introduced me to this great new game: an MMORPG called "City of Heroes".
Now, I'd been burned by my previous MMORPG experience, so I was leery. See, I'm a huge fan of the "Ultima" series. I've played every game, know the story of the world in and out, and it's a universe I love. Ultima Online destroyed that. I came to the game wanting to immerse myself in that world. In the six months I played it, I met exactly one person who'd heard of Ultima before UO and had exactly one RP experience. The rest of the game was fleeing in terror from city to city to avoid the "Player Killers", cutting trees for firewood, earning a few gold for a nice suit of armor and a sword to go avenge myself... and getting killed and having to start over. I hated MMOs.
But here was this shiny new interface... superheroes fighting crime... super-powers from day one... no crafting... no PvP... it was... *sniffle* beautiful...
It wasn't long after the game came out that I started playing. And of course, my first thoughts were of my DC Heroes game. We could all get together, re-create our heroes, and go play together! It'd be great! Just one tiny little hitch: all the heroes I got to play were canon DC comics characters. I didn't want to steal a character from one of my players, and I couldn't break copyright, so that left... the villains.
Okay. I had two friends playing the game: one on Pinnacle, the other on Virtue. I'd take my two least "evil" villains and fire them up. Torak, the enslaved warrior bodyguard of one of my mystical villains is still languishing on Pinnacle. SL8 Broadsword/Invulnerability Scrapper. EVAC was my other obvious choice.
Let me explain just a bit here: my first RPG was Dungeons & Dragons. My first and longest love has been playing clerics, special emphasis on their ability to heal and fight. I figured E was a lock 'cause after playing all those clerics, it'd be a natural for me. Everyone appreciates a healer, right? Right?
Yeah, I'll give you a minute to stop laughing.
Okay, so Damage Transference became Empathy, Projectile Weapons became Psionic Blast, and Warp became Teleportation. Why Psi? They get their snipe the earliest, and the other blast sets just didn't work for my mental image of E. So, minor re-write of the powers, slight tweak to the history, and I was ready to rock. Her costume got some adjustments for aesthetics. I let her hair out and uncovered her mouth. I had a blast with her for quite a while. She was fun on teams, she got flirted with (never seriously), and even was given gifts by those she helped and "admirers".
And then I entered the high 20s in level.
It seems that after a certain point, people either start to realize they don't need a healer, or they learn to compensate for not having one all the time, or they give up on the characters that "need" a healer around. That point (and trust me on this one) is in the upper 20s. The first CoH E hit a wall at 28. I couldn't get teams for her, and she couldn't solo for squat since she only had two attacks and I'd focused on her healing/teaming powers. She stayed at level 28 for over a year. I'd re-visit her by taking her to the Hollows and doing the TP/rez/heal thing for the newbies, but that only amuses for so long. I brought her into the Dauntless Reverie as a member of the Dauntless Consortium (associated non-magical heroes), but had a hard time role-playing a female character with people.
So she sat on Virtue while I played my main (The Vagabond Mage) all the way up to 50 and indulged in altitis. I enjoyed the game, and never really had the heart to delete the first character I made on Virtue.
Until someone lit a Fyre.
Now, I'd been burned by my previous MMORPG experience, so I was leery. See, I'm a huge fan of the "Ultima" series. I've played every game, know the story of the world in and out, and it's a universe I love. Ultima Online destroyed that. I came to the game wanting to immerse myself in that world. In the six months I played it, I met exactly one person who'd heard of Ultima before UO and had exactly one RP experience. The rest of the game was fleeing in terror from city to city to avoid the "Player Killers", cutting trees for firewood, earning a few gold for a nice suit of armor and a sword to go avenge myself... and getting killed and having to start over. I hated MMOs.
But here was this shiny new interface... superheroes fighting crime... super-powers from day one... no crafting... no PvP... it was... *sniffle* beautiful...
It wasn't long after the game came out that I started playing. And of course, my first thoughts were of my DC Heroes game. We could all get together, re-create our heroes, and go play together! It'd be great! Just one tiny little hitch: all the heroes I got to play were canon DC comics characters. I didn't want to steal a character from one of my players, and I couldn't break copyright, so that left... the villains.
Okay. I had two friends playing the game: one on Pinnacle, the other on Virtue. I'd take my two least "evil" villains and fire them up. Torak, the enslaved warrior bodyguard of one of my mystical villains is still languishing on Pinnacle. SL8 Broadsword/Invulnerability Scrapper. EVAC was my other obvious choice.
Let me explain just a bit here: my first RPG was Dungeons & Dragons. My first and longest love has been playing clerics, special emphasis on their ability to heal and fight. I figured E was a lock 'cause after playing all those clerics, it'd be a natural for me. Everyone appreciates a healer, right? Right?
Yeah, I'll give you a minute to stop laughing.
Okay, so Damage Transference became Empathy, Projectile Weapons became Psionic Blast, and Warp became Teleportation. Why Psi? They get their snipe the earliest, and the other blast sets just didn't work for my mental image of E. So, minor re-write of the powers, slight tweak to the history, and I was ready to rock. Her costume got some adjustments for aesthetics. I let her hair out and uncovered her mouth. I had a blast with her for quite a while. She was fun on teams, she got flirted with (never seriously), and even was given gifts by those she helped and "admirers".
And then I entered the high 20s in level.
It seems that after a certain point, people either start to realize they don't need a healer, or they learn to compensate for not having one all the time, or they give up on the characters that "need" a healer around. That point (and trust me on this one) is in the upper 20s. The first CoH E hit a wall at 28. I couldn't get teams for her, and she couldn't solo for squat since she only had two attacks and I'd focused on her healing/teaming powers. She stayed at level 28 for over a year. I'd re-visit her by taking her to the Hollows and doing the TP/rez/heal thing for the newbies, but that only amuses for so long. I brought her into the Dauntless Reverie as a member of the Dauntless Consortium (associated non-magical heroes), but had a hard time role-playing a female character with people.
So she sat on Virtue while I played my main (The Vagabond Mage) all the way up to 50 and indulged in altitis. I enjoyed the game, and never really had the heart to delete the first character I made on Virtue.
Until someone lit a Fyre.
Secret Origins - EVAC I
As a young girl, Jennifer Pace was always empathetic. She brought her parents animals with the slightest injuries and cried when playmates were hurt, even if the playmate wasn't crying. But empathy and sympathy are two different things.
As a teenager, Jennifer began inflicting pain. She hurt animals on purpose and caused injury to her classmates. After she was caught and punished, she would start again. Her therapist likened it to the phenomena of "cutting", as Jennifer seemed to feel the pain she inflicted. This pain seemed to overwhelm other emotions, and although some thought Jennifer appeared to enjoy it, that was an over-simplification. The girl felt like no one understood her, and her classmates often teased and picked on her.
When she was 16, the new school counselor gave her a proposition. She had a gift, he said, though a minor one. He could help her focus that gift. He would teach her how to use it and make her very, very rich. She liked the idea and agreed. She was introduced to David Styrm and so began the experiments.
She was infused with a kind of healing gift to supplement her own empathy. This remarkable regeneration surfaced in at least one odd way: she could fire pieces of her own body (typically fingernails) at high speed. The experiment to gift her with teleportation uncovered an oddity as well. Jennifer gained instantaneous access to a secret chamber buried beneath a step-pyramid in the Amazon. The reason for this has never been discovered, but Jennifer could instantaneously enter that chamber from anywhere and then exit it *to* anywhere, seemingly allowing her the ability to go wherever she wished.
Her uniform covers her from head to toe, leaving only her eyes and fingertips uncovered: an all-white body-suit with a simple red cross on the chest. She is a striking brunette with piercing green eyes. The other Night Captains consider her powers weak, so she often strives to prove just how vicious she can be, going over the top to injure and inflict pain... until the retreat is called and she has to drag her team-mates back to the Nights' hidden base.
As a teenager, Jennifer began inflicting pain. She hurt animals on purpose and caused injury to her classmates. After she was caught and punished, she would start again. Her therapist likened it to the phenomena of "cutting", as Jennifer seemed to feel the pain she inflicted. This pain seemed to overwhelm other emotions, and although some thought Jennifer appeared to enjoy it, that was an over-simplification. The girl felt like no one understood her, and her classmates often teased and picked on her.
When she was 16, the new school counselor gave her a proposition. She had a gift, he said, though a minor one. He could help her focus that gift. He would teach her how to use it and make her very, very rich. She liked the idea and agreed. She was introduced to David Styrm and so began the experiments.
She was infused with a kind of healing gift to supplement her own empathy. This remarkable regeneration surfaced in at least one odd way: she could fire pieces of her own body (typically fingernails) at high speed. The experiment to gift her with teleportation uncovered an oddity as well. Jennifer gained instantaneous access to a secret chamber buried beneath a step-pyramid in the Amazon. The reason for this has never been discovered, but Jennifer could instantaneously enter that chamber from anywhere and then exit it *to* anywhere, seemingly allowing her the ability to go wherever she wished.
Her uniform covers her from head to toe, leaving only her eyes and fingertips uncovered: an all-white body-suit with a simple red cross on the chest. She is a striking brunette with piercing green eyes. The other Night Captains consider her powers weak, so she often strives to prove just how vicious she can be, going over the top to injure and inflict pain... until the retreat is called and she has to drag her team-mates back to the Nights' hidden base.
Origin of the Character - DC Heroes
To fully understand the character and what he's been through, I feel like I should step all the way back. If you only want to know E's in-character backstory, then you might want to skip this post and any others with similar titles, but I feel like this is important to understanding the complexity of the backstory, so I include it for completeness.
As a few of you know, the character pre-dates City of Heroes. She (yes, "she", stay with me here) was first created for my DC Heroes RPG (Mayfair, 2nd ed.). A table-top, pen-and-paper game. The game was first started with a few friends back in 1992.
The first "big bad" I created for that game was David Styrm aka "The Night Lord". Cheesy name, I know, but trust me, it was appropriate cheese. :) He was a legitimate business man by day (CEO of Styrm Enterprises) with a secret identity as the leader of an underground criminal organization he called "The Nights". Any business problems he couldn't solve in the boardroom were taken care of in the back room. I based much of the character on David Xanatos ("Gargoyles"), Lex Luthor ("Superman"), and just a little bit of Doctor Octopus ("Spider-Man") and Frankenstein (the scientist, not the monster). As the Night Lord, Styrm appeared only on T.V. and such, wearing a black fedora, dark wrap-around goggles, and a mask across his lower face that featured a voice-changer. His grunts did all the face-to-face work with Styrm pulling the strings, supplying the funding, and creating the gadgets the Nights used to pull off their schemes. The hero group (back then called "The Shadow Squadron") quickly got the Nights' number and defeated Styrm's schemes handily. Okay. So Styrm needs powered flunkies. But Styrm's a creator and a manipulator, schemes within schemes, so what does he do?
Clones.
Well... sorta. See, the heroes were given quite a beating by Styrm's men, enough that they left blood and what have you. So Styrm collected DNA samples. But he needed flunkies *now*. So he looked for people that already had similar powers to the heroes, but at levels too low to make them heroes or villains in their own right. He sought out these people and made them an offer: join me, and I'll give you real powers.
Mutagenic radiation, gene-splicing, plastic surgery, genetic manipulation, and other torturous experiments produced copies of the heroes, each with similar enough powers to pass for the heroes, but each having some "freak" power that made them different. These became the "Night Captains", leaders of the rank-and-file Nights, answering directly to Styrm.
One of these, as you may have already guessed (or known) came to bear the code-name EVAC. She had Damage Transference (a "healing" power that takes damage from someone else and transfers it to the power-wielder), Warp (a form of teleportation where one opens a tunnel from one point to another and then steps through for instantaneous transportation), and Projectile Weapons (she could fling pieces of herself at targets to cause physical damage). At first blush, the heroes took her to be the weakest of the lot, but she became and has remained a huge thorn in their side.
As a few of you know, the character pre-dates City of Heroes. She (yes, "she", stay with me here) was first created for my DC Heroes RPG (Mayfair, 2nd ed.). A table-top, pen-and-paper game. The game was first started with a few friends back in 1992.
The first "big bad" I created for that game was David Styrm aka "The Night Lord". Cheesy name, I know, but trust me, it was appropriate cheese. :) He was a legitimate business man by day (CEO of Styrm Enterprises) with a secret identity as the leader of an underground criminal organization he called "The Nights". Any business problems he couldn't solve in the boardroom were taken care of in the back room. I based much of the character on David Xanatos ("Gargoyles"), Lex Luthor ("Superman"), and just a little bit of Doctor Octopus ("Spider-Man") and Frankenstein (the scientist, not the monster). As the Night Lord, Styrm appeared only on T.V. and such, wearing a black fedora, dark wrap-around goggles, and a mask across his lower face that featured a voice-changer. His grunts did all the face-to-face work with Styrm pulling the strings, supplying the funding, and creating the gadgets the Nights used to pull off their schemes. The hero group (back then called "The Shadow Squadron") quickly got the Nights' number and defeated Styrm's schemes handily. Okay. So Styrm needs powered flunkies. But Styrm's a creator and a manipulator, schemes within schemes, so what does he do?
Clones.
Well... sorta. See, the heroes were given quite a beating by Styrm's men, enough that they left blood and what have you. So Styrm collected DNA samples. But he needed flunkies *now*. So he looked for people that already had similar powers to the heroes, but at levels too low to make them heroes or villains in their own right. He sought out these people and made them an offer: join me, and I'll give you real powers.
Mutagenic radiation, gene-splicing, plastic surgery, genetic manipulation, and other torturous experiments produced copies of the heroes, each with similar enough powers to pass for the heroes, but each having some "freak" power that made them different. These became the "Night Captains", leaders of the rank-and-file Nights, answering directly to Styrm.
One of these, as you may have already guessed (or known) came to bear the code-name EVAC. She had Damage Transference (a "healing" power that takes damage from someone else and transfers it to the power-wielder), Warp (a form of teleportation where one opens a tunnel from one point to another and then steps through for instantaneous transportation), and Projectile Weapons (she could fling pieces of herself at targets to cause physical damage). At first blush, the heroes took her to be the weakest of the lot, but she became and has remained a huge thorn in their side.
Introduction & Explanation
First of all, I want you to know that this is my first blog, so please... be gentle. :)
The intent and purpose of this blog is primarily to lay out the backstory of the City of Heroes character known as "E-VAC". Depending on how much I end up rambling, other things may find their way in here as well, but the focus is going to be on laying out a timeline of events. The main reason I'm doing this is to help clear up some of the confusion surrounding E's complex history, but I have to warn you:
It's going to get MORE confusing before it gets LESS.
So if you're interested in learning more about the character, bookmark this blog, add it to your favorites, or set it up to be e-mailed directly to you. It's going to be a long process, and I don't guarantee it's going to tell you everything you want to know. Feel free to add comments, ask questions, and make cruel, sarcastic remarks.
Hang on, everyone. E-VAC is about to teleport you into his world.
The intent and purpose of this blog is primarily to lay out the backstory of the City of Heroes character known as "E-VAC". Depending on how much I end up rambling, other things may find their way in here as well, but the focus is going to be on laying out a timeline of events. The main reason I'm doing this is to help clear up some of the confusion surrounding E's complex history, but I have to warn you:
It's going to get MORE confusing before it gets LESS.
So if you're interested in learning more about the character, bookmark this blog, add it to your favorites, or set it up to be e-mailed directly to you. It's going to be a long process, and I don't guarantee it's going to tell you everything you want to know. Feel free to add comments, ask questions, and make cruel, sarcastic remarks.
Hang on, everyone. E-VAC is about to teleport you into his world.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)