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Re: [General]The Return of CHARACTER CONCEPTS

Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2016 2:20 pm
by Shroom Man 777
I had an incredible idea - APPARATCHICS or APPARATCHICKS. A Soviet all-female superhero unit, the real name would be Spetzgruppa something-something but the western capitalist pigdog sexist media calls them the aparatchicks. Overt Psychological Warfare and Direct Action Operations Spetzgruppa F (for female) - which would in official US military terms lead to it being called the FOXTROT GROUP.

Overt psychological operations and direct action means it was made to serve publicly, to sway public hearts and minds, as agitprop against the sexist West AND as a fully capable elite combat group. A response to the Cold War-era US superhero group, including that "DAMN!" Definativeguy.

The field commander is some Eurasian person, of the interior ministry's border-security forces stationed in the far eastern Manchuria section who probably had to bayonet her fair share of SIN LO assassins. In the middle of the Sino-Soviet split, with border tensions and espionage stuff, she learned from a kung fu practitioner fleeing the Maoists or the Sin Lo or both, and is pretty much a Eurasian Beatrix Kiddo.

There's some FARC jungle fighter either student or teacher or rival of MAJOR MUERTE who is their elite jungle operations expert. She could be a survivor of the overthrown Allende government. If she's Chilean then she must also be a very good poet so she can do BATTLEFIELD POETRY.

A technowiz lady whose research into biochemical physics led to impact gel for Russki cosmonauts - a kind of flubber that allows her and her suit superdurability. Her on the spot savant-computation for the flubber means that she's the only one who can use the tech offensively or actively in the field. Aside from the gel as protection, she uses some kind of CLACKER VOLLEY projectile weapon, calibrated bouncy STEEL BALLS coated in the stuff just so that the bounce-gel vaporizes before FINAL IMPACT but after accelerating its SPIN by repeated bouncings. She's probably Polish. She's a sarcastic cocky-kinda nerd. Their Tony Stark.

There is a hotblooded Georgian MiG pilot and cosmonaut but whose accident in re-entry probably granted her the power of the SPEED FORCE. Yes, her reentering Soyuz capsule got HIT BY LIGHTNING. There. She flies their awesome Ground Effect Plane - an ekranoplan that can land on... land and is also a speedster. Or instead of speed force and lightning, she just survived the crash while the other passengers were liquefied. Turns out she has some Luke Cage like invulnerability but also survivor's guilt. I don't know if she has superstrength... I am liking the invulnerability + PTSD more... instead of speed force, it is some kinetic energy redirection/absorption? Can she redirect it back? That would be messy, she might've inadvertently released the absorbed impact-energy onto nearby things... like the recovery crew. If not... or either way... she still can also lug around explosives and bazookas that she can afford to use at point blank because she's invincible.

Probably someone from the pan-African revolutionaries who's the daughter of someone who learned the anti-Martian shamanisms. Perhaps this Martian Red Weed-using shamanism - she has the weed as a living exoframe armor? - is a tradition passed on by female practitioners, matrilinearly, due to the heavy male casualties of the past. She acted as a merc for Gaddafi too. :D

I commuted in the rain so these ideas just popped up.

Their numbers include a US celebrity girl who became an urban guerrilla of some Symbionese Liberation Font and then defected to Cuba :D who has the power of ACTING. A Fane Jonda or something. :D Shane Fandra.

There must also be a bookish kinda nerd who is actually a Soviet Sorceress, her speciality was in managing the infrastructure of the LENIN ENGINES. Maybe it was in the Far East and so Maoists (MAOISTS!) with understanding of some of the Marxist Magicks somehow homed in and hoped to steal Vladivostok's Lenin Engine and the Sorceress was the only one who didn't get murderized and got saved by and teamed up with Lieutenant KUNG FURIOSA and fought the Chicoms' asses and stuff. Anyway her ability to subtly and limitedly manipulate HISTORICAL INEVITABILITY (depending on her proximity to the Lenin Engines... or maybe she has some Lenin Relic that grants her more of this) allows her to do hijinks - from Time Stop (TOKIO TOMARE) to very limited Time Reverse to regenerate damage.

Her Lenin Relic might be The Order of Lenin - each Lenin Engine probably has an Order of Lenin, literally a medallion containing crude punch-slot coding delineating its programming. If she has an experimental small (and thus small-scale) Lenin Engine on her... woah. A miniature Time Turner... But this only works within Soviet areas covered by the Lenin Engine! And is at the risk of breaking from chronotensions or giving the users TIME DISEASE or inviting paradoxes or other lethal shit. Her bookishness allows her to memorize the bestest ways to use it! She read the manual!

(Man I am making the Chinese a recurring villain... how relevant! :D )

Re: [General]The Return of CHARACTER CONCEPTS

Posted: Fri Apr 28, 2017 5:34 pm
by speaker-to-trolls
I like them, they seem like a fun bunch :P

I would give the indestructible pilot energy absorption and redirection powers but make it so she doesn't want to use them and doesn't really even want to fight despite being the team tank. She's a pilot first and foremost and that's what she'd prefer to be doing, not only because it's what she likes but because she wants to believe she's a good pilot and that it wasn't her fault, and that's reinforced every time she pushes through the fear to make a perfect landing (or something, I don't know) Edit: Also for extra angst, maybe she didn't pulverise the recovery crew, but she has this terrible suspicion that she made the crash worse by redirecting ghe energy away from herself and into the rest of the spacecraft, and that some of the crew might have survived if it weren't for her power. She could be an effective human shield or do things like defuse bombs or clear obstacles and she'd be OK with that. But, being a commie superhero, she keeps getting put into situations where she has to fight and possibly pulverise capitalists/Maoists/other things, which makes her very stressed and upset.

You would want to give her a hug if it weren't for the serious risk of being accidentally pulverised. :P

Kinetic Woman could thus be the reserve tank, while Flubberova could be the primary tank. I caught Flubber on TV a few weeks ago, that stuff is terrifying, I can imagine her clearing a building of enemies by firing a few Flubber coated ball bearings through the window, waiting a minute and then walking in when there's nothing left but blood on the walls. Maybe that's too harsh for these ladies, I don't know, I just saw that movie and was shocked by how bloody it should have been were it not for blunt force trauma not really existing in Hollywood.

The Red Weed shaman would present an interesting opportunity to flesh out the Pan African movements, the Ghost Tree, the anti Martian efforts etc. I'll freely admit my old Deimos article seems to lack a certain nuance now, so I like the idea of going into what the shamans were doing and how they were responding to Cold War Shenanigans back then. Weed seems a bit flimsy to be armour, though, except for something like hand to hand knife fights. But then we never really clarified what the weed could do, so who knows.

One alternative idea I did have for a red weed shaman was 'Scarlet Medusa', where the weed is attached to her head, it can act as a conduit for her spells and maybe do things like inject itself into people, drug them,poison them, turn them into zombies, maybe steal their memories. That's another way you could go with the idea. The other thing about that idea is that people assume it's just hair, or at most a wig, so she can be innocuous (a black woman with bright red hair is hardly going to be the strangest thing you see in this world, even on a slow day ;))

So, very very late,but there are my thoughts :)

Re: [General]The Return of CHARACTER CONCEPTS

Posted: Sun Jun 18, 2017 6:37 pm
by Shroom Man 777
Thanks for that. And the characterizations! Those really work... though I don't know what else to add at the moment.

On another note... RICHARD NIXON'S GHOST:

[youtube]http://youtu.be/21lhiKfc1p4[/youtube]

Re: [General]The Return of CHARACTER CONCEPTS

Posted: Mon Sep 25, 2017 5:05 pm
by Shroom Man 777
Philippine superhero concepts, which I'll also post on the Philippine reddit.

Rani - The current leader of a lost tribe in Luzon that successfully fended off the Spanish colonizers and protected their society, at the cost of relocating to an utterly secluded, supernaturally shrouded place in the remotest highlands. The tribesfolk are by no means primitive, they have developed an egalitarian culture and have blended mystic knowledge with pre-industrial technologies to attain comfortable living standards. Their experiences fighting the Spanish have resulted in a wariness of the outside world, so to maintain awareness of any potential threats and stave off ignorance they send agents to live amongst the outsiders' and learn their ways before returning to serve as advisors. Sometimes, even a few of the rulers' children take up this task, though not the direct heir. Rani, who was not the first in line, spent years among the outsiders before being called back home, when tragedy struck and the ensuing crisis resulted in her succession. Thus she became the leader of the tribe, and its protector, donning the mystic amulets and armaments that imbued her with the might needed to protect her people. In the time since Rani went public, due to a crisis that went beyond their tribe's borders, the existence of her people has also been revealed (though elements of the government have known for some time) and negotiations are ongoing as to their autonomy.

(A strange thing about these amulets and arms, as these were blessed by the gods themselves to Rani's ancestors and bound to their bloodline, which is one of the reasons why her family are the hereditary leaders of the tribe even though power is shared with a council whose members are chosen by the entire tribe, a proto-democratic arrangement that was actually their original form of governance until the coming of the Spanish forced them to annoint a protector and craft the aforementioned mystic amulets.)

(For Rani, think a thematic combination of Wonder Woman and Black Panther. Modernized not-sexified indigenous gear, as their society is a mix of Wakanda and the Amazons.)

Illustrado - Initially a network of masked agents during the revolutionary period, a secret society that drew from the learned class of Philippine society and set to the task of liberating the islands from colonial rule. While the term "illustrados" generally refer to elites that included Rizal, Mabini and others, many of which were involved in the revolution, some of them were actually also members of this secret society of masked adventurers who vainly named themselves after their social class. Recognizing that the revolution extended beyond the battlefield, they donned their disguises and engaged in clandestine activities where their vast talents as intellectuals, scientists, prominent members of high society and such would have as as much clout against the Spanish regime as a platoon of katipuneros. They were not only spies and propagandists, those who trained in the finest fencing schools of Europe or practiced marksmanship and dueling, for example, proved to be excellent assassins and in other covert wetwork.

Alas, many perished in the fighting and of course as the years went by and as the succeeding American regime entrenched itself, the society dwindled. But some kept the faith and passed on the mantle to heirs, either to their descendants or to recruits who they thought were worthy (often foolhardy youths who romanticized the revolution). As they did so, they also distilled the curriculum of their predecessors, combining intellectual rigor that encompassed multiple fields with intense physical training to embody the concept of the Renaissance Man. The successors they groomed also inherited a fair amount of wealth... and informal connections with society's elite, good old boys, old money and old blood descending from the bygone illustrados.

The secret society still persists, resurging during Martial Law and other trying times, upholding their principles of liberating the nation, even if each Illustrado may have different perspectives toward them, not to mention methods in achieving their goals.

(Think The Phantom, The Shadow and Batman, except there's multiple of them so they're more like a not-evil Court of Owls or something... appearance is domino mask or Zorro-type mask and 1890s upper class men's fashion. At least, the ones who take themselves too seriously wear anachronistic gear. Others can wear anything, sleek and practical.)

Babaylan - A shaman of a matrilineal line of Visayan mystics, Babaylan is by no means from some isolated tribe in the misty mountains. She and her parents and their parents are from the inner city, where the supernatural spirits of old - both good and bad, and neither - have adopted to urban life. Her family's likewise modernized the ancient methods, using spraypainted graffiti to ward alleys from aswangs, inscribing seals into shotgun rounds, and haggling with diwatas in jeepneys or duwendes roaming in the shanties. Her mom's retired, having performed the ritual to pass on her powers to her heir (in their line, there is both learning the mystic ways AND inheriting a spirit) but offers advice and assistance some of the time, when it's necessary and after scolding her daughter for screwing up. Of course, she's not the only one in existance, her sister is also partly trained but busy having an actual job. There are also rivals from other towns, and team ups do occur when things get desperate, but not after a lot of bickering and blaming.

(Constantine played by Chai Fonacier pretty much.)

"King" - Once a kid genius whose knowhow led to his becoming a mogul of a prominent Filipino tech company (that actually just makes cheap knockoffs of all sorts of products, initially just from CD-Rs but eventually including everything from solar panels to rice cookers ;) ), a tragic series of events led to his development of moral character, and his decision to use his talents and hardware for the good of society. Think a 30-something year old Pinoy "Tony Stark" except not as charming, probably portly... probably less in the field as Iron Man and more as electronic support, hacking, gadget-making. Unless other countries develop power armor, in that case he's actually developed a dodgy knockoff!

Sultan - The leader of a people in Mindanao whose ways parallel that of Rani's tribe... he has on him imbued implements of comparable power and likewise shepherds his people towards their autonomy - though in a less diplomatic fashion than Rani. Sultan is straightforward and as the first-born heir of his people (unlike Rani who was not first in line), he is accustomed to his role and more than comfortable with wielding his immense power. Due to misunderstandings, he has come to blows with Rani and other superheroes before, though the situation was resolved to all the protagonists' satisfaction.
Sultan is harsh but nonetheless just, he chose to emerge from seclusion when the situation in the south proved unbearable, when he could not ignore the plight of those his previously-secluded people considered their kin, though his move unsurprisingly rattled a national government still uncertain with Rani's tribe.

Spada - Street-level vigilante, when a daughter who lost most of her family to the killings decided that enough was enough and began exacting retribution. She cuts them up but leaves them alive, if barely. Ironically she learned how to do this from a reformed killer, one who decided to make amends by teaching her and, in the end, having her prove herself by fighting and killing him.

Chameleon - Shapeshifting master, or mistress, of disguise. Formerly an entertainer who began from nothing, climbed up the ladder and desired to pursue serious and meaningful roles but became pigeonholed in cliche'd roles thanks to the industry's stagnation all while on a downward spiral leading to an encounter of that industry and high society's most unsavory aspects. A breakdown ensued, and s/he traveled the world in a journey of self-discovery and spent a lot of money on an obscure but cutting edge operation... Now s/he has returned to get even.

(Think DC's The Question but if he was played by Vice Ganda or in RuPaul's Drag Race)

I'm also gonna add Bolo's basic concept, though I'll remove the unnecessary gruesome family death thing (and the spirit imbuing thing from tragedy since I think it's unnecessary too) and so he'll be like the Filipino (Lito Lapid) version of Jackie Chan's "I don't want trouble!" guys combined with Tony Jaa's guy in The Protector!

Re: [General]The Return of CHARACTER CONCEPTS

Posted: Mon Sep 25, 2017 5:28 pm
by Shroom Man 777
DYNAMITE FISHER - Either an eco-crusader or just a pirate... the gist is that there's this reef that got struck hard by dynamite fishing. But a boat laden with dynamite was sunk, either by not-Greenpeace or by the Coast Guard or by other pirates or just by storms or something. The explosives were dissolved in the water and absorbed by the fish eggs that remained in the area. THEN radioactive substances from either Fukushima or other incidents, like say some Chinese sub that malfunctioned near or in Philippine waters, likewise contaminated these eggs. They hatch and turn into a massive a school of mutant fish that can somehow metabolically synthesize explosive compounds in their bodies and have developed a behavior where some of them sacrifice themselves by darting towards predators or leaping out of the water and landing onto boats... and then detonating! Either eco-crusaders with technology, or some bad guys who raided Steve Zisou's facility from Life Aquatic (since Tagalog-speaking pirates were featured there), attained the ability to control these fish and utilize them for their goals!

Re: [General]The Return of CHARACTER CONCEPTS

Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2018 2:32 pm
by Shroom Man 777
SHEBA

Ethiopian superheroine, I'm not sure if she'll be either a mystical relic-based Shazam/Captain Marvel (DC) style hero or some techno-badass Black Panther lady with a mini-Wakanda.

My reconciliation would be that SHEBA is a title passed down from generations and there's this enclave in Ethiopia that's boosted by Solomonic artifacts. The Ark of the Covenant is stored there and powers a utopian community... like an Ark Reactor if you will.

SHEBA herself wields a Ring of Solomon, the one he gave to the Queen of Sheba which she gave to her children (who got the Ark). Maybe this inherited artifact initially resulted in a Shazam-type character. Perhaps it got broken in some epic confrontation against the Martians or who knows what. Against Mustafa Crimson or some preceding evil? So the current incarnation of SHEBA has to use supertech to reactivate the Ring, which is worn in a chestpiece of an armor, but nonetheless it provides enough mystic juice to power a techno-magical armor invented by some genius lady. (Hmm... I think Hiram shouldn't be the only one with magical weaponscrafting...)

She may or may not drink from a concoction made from RED WEED... or some RAS TAFARI ways... to enhance her mind and give her abilities too!

This might be such a blatant knockoff of Black Panther. Alternatives for the herbal supplement thing is appreciated.