About the Butcher

The demon known as the Butcher of the Pit is a master of torture and interrogation. His specialty is dealing with those damned souls who believe they are in Hell unjustly. Therefore, his best "clients" are those who are self-righteous, want to take over the world, or otherwise believe that they know better than everyone else. He has also, in the past, been in charge of interrogating prisoners in the War, including angels who managed to be taken prisoner.

He basically has the Hellish equivalent of an office job. He is not a front-line warrior or a tactician. He knows very little about the human world or Above except what he has heard or read in demonic texts. He does not know how to read any human languages, but he has learned angelic script.

He was raised to the material world by the Circle of Thorns, but in my mind, whoever called him up didn't know what they were doing. I haven't decided the specifics yet, but I imagine he was called on by mistake. The person who did the summoning may have read what his job was and misunderstood. Or possibly they were trying to summon someone else and got "Butch" by accident. He does enjoy spreading chaos and mayhem, ferreting out information, and tempting people to evil, but [SPOILER] only because he's never been given the opportunity to do so before. He's having a bit of fun with it all primarily because it's new to him. He may seem a little "all over the place" because of it, not really focusing except when he is being asked to find out secrets. [END SPOILER] He is naturally curious, which can and probably will get him in trouble. He's also pretty talkative in general, partly out of this same curiosity and partly because when he talks, it gets others to talk, sometimes letting secrets slip... >:)

As I was coming up with his personality and role, I started to realize that he could really be a hero just as much as a villain. While it's true that he's a representative of the Pit, his job is to punish those who have done wrong. And oddly enough, he could very easily be turned from a Dual Blades/Fiery Aura brute into a Fire/Dual Blades tank. It would cost him damage, but from an RP standpoint, it would make sense. It may be something to toy with in the future, especially since Evangeline could also be translated fairly easily from a Sonic/Kin corruptor into a Kin/Sonic defender. Unfortunately, since this would cost both of them damage output, they'd likely need to be teamed with a blaster to compensate.

David Styrm - Important Info

Keen's latest post combined with a few things that happened as we played made me think it might be helpful to everyone (myself included) to remind the players of a few things about Styrm. Keep in mind, some of this is stuff the characters might not know yet.

Styrm is a Genius
The player is most certainly NOT, but I try to play Styrm with a Lex Luthor/David Xanatos kind of genius. Brilliant technically, tactically, and financially. The battlesuit he's wearing now, he managed to build while imprisoned in the Zig. With a few upgrades made on the way to the Rogue Isles.

Styrm is Insane
Yeah, that fine line between genius and insanity everyone talks about? David has crossed it a bunch of times. Remember that the reason Team 2.0 went up against him in that giant mech is because his plans had been thwarted too many times. In response? He got into a giant battlemech and tried to smash his way through the War Walls to get at the people who got in his way.

Styrm is Evil
He is charismatic. He is smooth. He has a way with people. But what he really wants is the power and the resources to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants. He will try to eliminate anyone who stands in his way. He can sound very nice... but he's evil to the core.

Styrm has People
Styrm is big on minions. Generally-speaking, he doesn't like to get his hands dirty if he doesn't have to. He has people for that sort of thing. Before now, he rarely took to the field himself if he didn't feel he had to, sending his Nights to do the work for him, leaving him looking much "cleaner". Now that he's a known and wanted criminal and his empire is once again in ruins, he's in the field because he pretty much has to. But he's still going to prefer that his people (that'd be you guys :) ) do a lot of the work.

Styrm is a Father
Thanks to genetic tampering, E and Styrm are both the father of Eve and therefore of the clone. David named the clone "Dawn". E called her "Jennifer". Eve's mother (and therefore, Jen's as well, sorta) is E's ex-wife, the psycho who tried to shoot down an airliner with a bazooka just to kill E.

Styrm has Goals
Now, he's not sharing these with anyone yet, but what Styrm wants right now is to rebuild his own assets and organization, and build his new Nights up to strength. Once he starts to feel confident about those things, his goals include taking Jen back and making E, Frost, Fyre, and Masonry pay for their roles in thwarting him. But that's long-term.

Which is not to say that Styrm won't pop into Pocket D for a drink...

Thought for the Day

I have discovered it is very difficult to play Ryu properly when I'm grumpy.

Yesterday was kind of a bad day. Very busy at work and at lunch, one of the belts in my car's engine snapped and knocked the other belts off in the process. Had to leave work early, get towed to the mechanic, make sure the belts were the only thing wrong, and make arrangements for transportation for today. End result? CrankyVagz.

Now Ryu is supposed to be ultra-polite with very little ruffling his feathers (scales?) one way or the other. During a fight, the ninjas do all the fighting with me debuffing the enemy, healing the pets and the team, and maybe taking a shot or two of my own. Usually, it's fun, it's interesting, it's different, and I feel like I get to be creative with how I fight. I can be a villain without being Evil(tm), and the RP we're building is interesting.

But honestly, after the day I had, switching over to Will and shooting things was much more relaxing. I hope everyone will write off Ryu's "off" day to his building hunger for real food. :)

And next time I'm feeling grumpy, I'll just have to remember I need to play somebody else.

Ryu Tatsu

Yes, he is seven feet tall and thin as a rail. His hair is a fiery red, and he appears to be Japanese. Those things are all obvious. But some things I imagine about him may not come across very well in the game, so here's some more things about him that would probably be obvious to the other characters.

Movement
I imagine that Ryu moves with the same almost-supernatural grace of expert martial artists. Every movement is smooth and graceful, and he almost never seems to be rushed or in a hurry. His servants also move with similar grace, but there is more of a fighter's edge to it. In contrast to Ryu, they move very quickly.

Speech
His voice is a soft tenor, although he seems to be able to make himself heard without needing to raise his voice. He does not speak with a noticeable accent. His servants, on the other hand, have definite Japanese accents even though they obviously speak English very well. I realized from reading others' posts that Ryu can sound sarcastic, but he is not. On the contrary, I am trying to play him as almost painfully polite. Difficult sometimes since the player likes to joke around and be sarcastic.

There is much more still to be revealed about Ryu, but I don't want to tip my hand too early. Some of it the players already know even though the characters do not. That part I'll be able to play into once I get a second costume slot. Unfortunately, that'll have to wait for level 20 since none of my characters on Guardian have Halloween salvage or the infamy to buy some.

E-VAC's Attitude

I was originally going to make this a post explaining why E reacted the way he did, but the more I wrote, the more I realized: it's relevant to the way he reacts and responds to just about everything. So I've scrapped the original post in favor of a broader one.

There are three things Jason does not handle well: things he doesn't understand, change, and death. Arguably, all three are the same thing (or at least related), but it's easier for me to explain them separately.

But I Don't Understand...
E has a very scientific mind. Everything has labels, limits, and explanations. Everything has to be quantified and have a logical reasoning behind it.

Even if it wasn't for all the mystical types coming after his daughter, E would probably still be distrustful of magic. As it is, in his mind, it's magic's fault his daughter's life is constantly in danger. The Contest Between Good and Evil was for his daughter's life, and as far as E is concerned, it had nothing to do with her. So on top of his natural inclination to distrust comes a fairly understandable if fairly unreasonable fear and hatred of all things magic.

As a side note, this aspect of the character can sometimes be difficult for me to play. E's player is fascinated by magic and my main is an ages-old wizard. So sometimes things come along that I want to find out more about... and I have to slap myself and let E be afraid of it. Dammit.

Note that this is not confined strictly to magic, though. Aliens. Other dimensions. Fortunately, things like the Rikti have explanations that can be delved into and learned. They follow rules that E can understand. So instead of fear, distrust, and hatred, they spur him on to learning. Unfortunately, not much is known about, for example, the Kheldians or the Rularuu.

This is why: E distrusted Fyre, he hates Oranbega and the Circle of Thorns, he distrusts Vagz, he will not look at magical alternatives, he will not go to Mirror Spirit, he freaked about the Kheldian bonding (partly), he will not go to the Shadow Shard, etc.

Change Is Bad
Jason has always been a fan of settling in and getting comfortable. When it comes to most things, he likes to settle into a nice routine. He likes to know what to expect out of his day and when. He's not an extremist about it and doesn't freak when things don't go off precisely on time. He's just not a fan of surprises, and there's something very comforting about routine.

When forces outside his control disrupt his routine, he gets irritable in general. But beware if a person (or persons) are responsible for this breakdown. Instead of being generally irritable, his anger has a target. Depending on the situation, he will get frustrated, verbally angry, or (less often) quietly resentful. He tries to avoid people who unsettle his routines, especially if they seem to do it willfully (I'm looking at you, StarWyng :) ), and he is happiest when he knows what to expect from the people around him.

Well, maybe "comfortable" is a better word for it than "happy".

This is why: E gets quiet on large teams, he gets grumpy or angry when someone won't follow instructions, it took him so long to reform (partly), he freaked about the Kheldian bonding (partly), etc.

Death Is the Enemy
I've known a few people in the medical profession as well as seeing them portrayed on T.V., and this is a fairly common attitude that intrigues me about people in that line of work. So naturally, I gave it to E. Death is not "a part of life" or "something to be accepted". Death is the enemy. Death is the cold, heartless, brutal killer that must be stopped at all costs. Guns don't kill people. Death kills people. And it's up to doctors (nurses, healers, medics, whatever) to stop him.

This is why: E tried to help Masonry live even against his wishes, he freaked out about Fyre dying, he assembled his medical team, he would rather sacrifice himself than see a friend or ally fall, etc.

I hope this gives you a little insight into E's personality.

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".

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.