Arctic_Princess

I think my characters would, most likely, be totally unaware of the presence of a God and just be mindless puppets to be done with at will.

I do have a psychic and a couple of magic users but overall they'd not 'see' a God character.

Manny took in Nullman and the athletic girl.

"Quite unharmed. Did you make those vines appear?" She directed her question to Nullman.

"And retreating sounds like a very good idea. If I can get to higher ground I might just be able to block the path of this unholy storm. Tell me, do you fly?"

Manny jogged backwards a little distance and shouted at the young woman still in the storm's path. "I'm not sure going head to head with that thing is a highly intelligent course of action."

((Ignoring Beet so that Manny has time to react ;P))

Manny saw the arc of lightnign heading straight for her and she had no time to move out of its way. She braced herself for the impact, hoping that she could dissipate its force with her own weather magic.

She heard a slightly unpleasant noise - a wall of large vines had erupted in front of her, blocking the lightning. Then she heard the whipcrack in the air of further bolts. The goggles protected her from any flying derbis but they also prevented her from seeing who had thrown her the lifeline.

She used the short breathing space to grab her shoulder bag and retreat away from the column of storm. Her own efforts at controlling it were obviously not working, so perhaps, with a little more space and time, she could create a counter-cyclone...

"Voodoo indeed." Manny muttered at the departing figure. She addressed Nullman, "Well, you can stand around looking moody or come with me and help. If this storm isn't to be affected by magic then no doubt we will need a back-up plan, if not several."

Manny resumed her march towards the column of hissing air. Within a couple of minutes she stood a short distance away, her hair fluttering wildly in the wind. The top of the spinning column was visible, snaking through the sky and it looked far too dangerous to attempt anything from a height.

Manny set down her shoulder bag and pulled her goggles back down over her eyes to shield them from any adverse effects. She studied the immediate area and located a suitably churned section of tarmac, the earth beneath was perfect. Concentrating her mind to a point, Manny drew the rock and dirt to her and managed to build a solid-looking fort of about a metre round her, facing the static tornado.

Then she raised her arms in a dramatic gesture and began muttering under her breath. Her personal windstorm picked up in pace, seemingly feeding off the energy of the phenomenon before her and causing the fog directly in front of her to dissipate. Manny had no idea if this would actually work but it was worth a try...

I never said that Ms Adams's involvement would work...

Oh and I'm quite happy for her to be killed off should the need arise.

I am up for it - Ms Adams is in the Handbook although the information there is sparse.

Manny turned at the sound of the voice behind her. The fog obscured her view so she waved a hand vaguely in front of her and it lifted a little, revealing the figure of Nullman.

"I'm going to see what can be done about this storm. I assume there are other Heroes at the scene?"

Well, I now have a properly operational scanner as opposed to a heap o' junk that pretends it scans things so I am willing to have a pop at this.

Ideally, 50 sketches will improve my artistic ability. Realistically, heads will appear too large for bodies and hands will look disfigured. But I get to colour in and that keeps me happy...

The old motorbike and sidecar sputtered to a stop by the canalside. Dervish removed her goggles, misted up from the fierce rain that had been plaguing the neighbourhood. A few hundred yards away was the centre of the storm. She licked her lips and tasted salt, wet her finger and raised it up to gauge the speed and direction of the wind.

Manny disengaged from the bike and left it parked, confident that only the most obscure enthusiast for old machines would contemplate stealing it. Leaning down over the sidecar she picked up a small leather bag and hooked it over her shoulder. She reached inside her jacket and pulled out a chunky necklace made from polished balls of different wood and kissed it for luck before putting it back in the inside pocket.

"Well, I suppose I had better see what this maelstrom is all about." She mused to herself and strode off towards the scene of the disturbance.

As she walked, Manny made a strange sign with her right hand. Little crackles of magical energy earthed themselves in the ground and a slight wind picked up around her.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
World Villains


6. Walter wants the inferior humans destroyed so he can rule the mighty.



[/ QUOTE ]

Just thought I'd say, Walter has no intention to rule. He actually just wants things to progress as he thinks they should. He knows he is (or at least once was) human, and is therefore inferior to that which he aims for, so there is no way he can rule it, as he is still inferior.

Did that make ANY sense?

[/ QUOTE ]

Emperor, is Walter very single-minded and likely to be swayed by another who might put him up to World domination?

If the answer is yes then I may have someone who, like Fans's character, would rather do everything from behind the scenes.

My only real villain, Ms Adams, is the result of a previous villain (Midnight Rose) being resurrected by the 'Thorns.

It's most likely that any World domination plan could get messy (i.e. is she wanting World domination for herself or on behalf of her resurrectors (is that even a word?)?)

Oh and she's a bit of a Lady Macbeth.

((apologies for corniness in the following post - I've been watching an awful lot of Murder, She Wrote lately...))

An old woman sat hunched up on a chair in the Reference section of the Steel Canyon University Library, her legs curled round as if she were in some sort of yogic meditation. She was reading a first edition of The Tempest and so engrossed was she in the book that she had failed to notice her tongue stuck out and to the side of her mouth.

She managed to look up as two students entered the silent hall. They didn't look accustomed to the notion of study and one of them was carrying a portable radio. The static alone made Manny Azeerah (aka Whirling Dervish) wince. She reached for the trusty pointer on the desk and tapped it sharply on her desk. A slumbering student woke with a start.

"...storm of unknown origin continues to rage over in Founders' Falls. Citizens are advised to take cover whilst the authorities and the Hero community tackles this unusual problem..."

Manny beckoned over the two arrivals to her station but they weren't the brightest young people she had met. So she resorted to her favourite trick:

Concentrating for a moment, Manny muttered under her breath. The student with the radio looked round suddenly, not entirely sure where the cold blast of air had come from and why, on the edge of his hearing, it had seemed to say, "Please see the librarian at once." Manny smiles as he walked over and, in hushed tones said;

"May I have your radio for a moment, young man?"

"Sure, whatever."

Manny listened for a little longer as a few experts explained why a sudden storm in Founders' Falls was such an odd occurrence. Satisfied, she switched the radio off and handed it back to the student.

"I'm willing to overlook your misdemeanour at bringing a radio to the library if you will do me a small favour." Manny smiled at the boy and continued, "Mind the library for me until Miss Hills gets here. I just remembered that I have an important appointment to attend."

The student nodded, "Sure, cool, whatever." He studied the simple computer behind the desk for a moment,. "This thing got GTA?"

Manny rolled her eyes, not having the slightest idea what 'GTA' was, although she imagined it involved noise of some sort. She looked at her watch, "Miss Hills should be here in an hour. Sit tight and make sure no one tries to steal any books."

And with that Manny picked up the keys to her old motorcycle and sidecar, donned her greatcoat and headed for the faculty parking lot.

I just hope I have enough time...

I have, so far, bugged trhe hell out of GM_Emily. It's usually when I'm playing very late at night and doing a solo mission. She is always very polite however, and patient, especially the time I got 'stuck' between an Oranbegan wall as my Stalker and spent 2 minutes hitting spacebar repeatedly - Who knows how I got there.

So, they do exist. And Emily doesn't have her powers displayed although I saw GM_Max's once and was immediately insanely jealous...

Helena's mediport device, although a little cracked, seemed to work fine as Union found it and actviated it.

Her body flashed out of sight.

But her mind, still very much insistent that everything was fine if only her body would wake up, reached out at Union's touch.

The orange glows, focus on them. I don't know how to fight them but you must destroy them.

The prone body of Helena Hammond was sent rolling some distance as the alien form attacked. Her bodysuit was ripped to shreds as she continued to roll, ending up rather unceremoniously squashed up next to an overturned trash can.

Wake up! Her mind screamed out but her body refused to respond. At least hit that mediport thing!.

Why not have the Voodoo Doll work in a similar-ish way to Oil Slick?

Anyone can attack it but:

If it is set on fire then it's victim(s) take DoT Fire damage

If it is frozen...

If it is knocked back...

and so on?

It would mean that range was your number one friend and, I think, could make teaming with this kind of MM very interesting.

'Levels' to maps are, AFAIK, not levels at all. All the levels of a map are on the same floor - which is why in those Crey labs and especially during Frosty, you can see that a fellow player is only 32 yards away, but they are, in fact, a level down from you.

I think that hot tip came from ShadowGhost who also went on to ponder if that's why it can take longer for certain missions/bases to load

The blade that struck the first clone had weakened its grip considerably - well, the arm had fallen to the floor and gone 'gloop!', that was quite a considerable lessening of pressure.

Unfortunately Helena had blacked out by this point and she fell to the floor with a nasty smack.

She thought she could hear the voice of a man, whispering some odd incantation: "...bee-oh-kayyy" but that might well have been the last vestiges of her psychic power, echoing in her mind before she bit the big one.

Helena hadn't noticed the stream of orange glows what with being occupied by two attackers. A handful rippled across her body where she lay.

The result of Helena's attack was yet to be seen. However a blast of energy clipped her ear and caused her to fall backwards. Her hair whipped up in the wind obscuring her view somewhat and she staggered around in a circle, trying to regain her composure. She felt a foot, possibly booted, collide with her face and she tasted blood on her lip. It was unclear at this stage, with all the commotion, if the move had been intentional on the part of a clone or simply a case of too many cooks.

Luckily for Helena the situation coupled with the weird green gas, which was still pumping away it seemed, masked her awkward movements.

Helena managed to drag herself up to standing, wiping drops of blood from her mouth where she thought they might be. Two panicked clones, looking half-dissolved but still with those curious orange-glowing foreheads, loomed in front of her. One stuck its hand out and Helena. not a person endowed with any great strength, couldn't stop it from closing its hand round her windpipe. She spluttered, trying to make a noise so that anyone would hear her. The other clone mindlessly struck at her body, landing a blow on the right side of her stomach and making her convulse.

Helena felt her consciousness fading and, with a great effort, she desperately tried to shout ,

"Heeghlllll...."

Helena allowed herself a remark out loud,

"Finally, something I can work with!"

She avoided heroic language wherever possible because she knew that pride always came before a fall. But the plant/meteor/alien/whateverthehellitwas had shown that it had psychic power. Helena had thrown up a wall of psionic resonance around her which had kept most of the attack at bay. Her ears were ringing from the echoes of the blast but now she was able to do something other than merely scanning the area for troubles unseen.

As the 'flower' wilted, Helena hitched on to the psychic signal as it drew back. Effectively she surfed its waves, walking slowly towards the meteor and building up strength. She was a hundred yards from it now, managing to glide past the convulsing clones on the way there, although she had to push one to the floor to get a clear line of sight with her target.

The strange gas enveloped her body and dulled the bright sparks of purplish energy which began to radiate from her eyes. She stood, stock still, and raised her arms above her head. The ground around Helena became much darker, as if the sun were moving to an eclipse, and in slow motion she let her arms fall as a torrent of spiky psychic energy surged through the air, unseen by most, and grounded itself in the flower, coursing down the 'stalk'.

Helena concentrated just enough to pick up the vaguest sense of how many living things here were present. Unfortunately the place in her mind lit up like Christmas.

Oh great! So, these clone things are living.

The gigantic guy pounded one of the clones and the orange glow faded. Helena detected, too briefly, a loss of a life force. Could it be that the assembled heroes might have to kill these things?

Helena came out of her trance and shivered at the thought. Well, they're attacking so they can't be too friendly. Unless of course they're scared witless.

Fear was something Helena could use with confidence. She abhorred that her true psychic power fed off the fears of others and she was never comfortable with trying it out on alien lifeforms ever since her experiences in the First Rikti War. I really hope they're not hiveminds - all that chattering drives me nuts.

The clones were acting in a peculiarly panicky way so Helena braced herself and picked one of the things that hadn't quite made it into the thick of the fight. This time she simply clasped her hands together, as if in short prayer, and let her mind focus to a sharp point. Her eyes flashed purple as she aimed for the orange glow on the clone's forehead. There was certainly a lot of fear mingled in with an intense burning hatred: so hot was the emotion that Helena reeled backwards and toppled to the ground. Being a short woman helped the fall but there was hardly any meat on her bones which made the impact on the hard concrete road more painful.

"Y'ouch!" was her rather embarrassing cry, followed by a sickening burning in her head as all that hot anger poured through her mind and out to the rest of her body.

Oh dear. They're hostile. And we're going to have to kill them.

The slight figure of Helena Hammond, swathed in a deep purple bodysuit, arrived on the scene. She took in the sights before her:
Cloned heroes and civilians battling their counterparts. The strange orange glow on the forehead of each clone intrigued Helena: Some sort of psychic signal?. Well, surely they had to be controlled by something?

She had heard the reports of the meteor/plant thing and was glad she had not been struck by the 'lightning'. For now, at least, the clones didn't seem to be displaying any metahuman characteristics and Helena would not have wished her own powers on anyone.

Helena followed the column of gas upwards. What purpose does that serve I wonder?

She was a safe distance away from the crowd of capes and civilians and it gave her time to consider what she might try to do to help in some way. First of all would be to determine exactly how many 'entities' were here. That might give her a clue as to where the source of the clones' animation was coming from.

Helena adopted what she liked to call the 'Public Relations Psychic Pose' - she rested her outsretched fingers on her temples and started to scan the area for signs of 'real' life.

Helena Hammond flicked through the want ads in the Galaxy Gazette, searching vainly for an apartment. The stuffy environment of living in accomodation paid for by the city was getting to her. You never knew who had lived, or died, in the rooms you stayed in.

Seems everyone wants in here. Not even the dubious one bedroom apartments with limited floorspace for offer.

A kindly waitress approached her with a pot of coffee and a plate of doughnuts. She placed them on the table and peered over Helena's shoulder.

"It's on account of the recent Rikti activity, my cousin's son-in-law tells me. Everyone wants in on somewhere a bit safer. No safer place than the headquarters of that Heroes Force. And what with all them heroes hanging around the statue making the place untidy. Still, it pushes up the price."

Helena looked up, a little startled by her waitress's eulogising on the condition of the local real estate market.

"Are you sure you'll be wanting all those doughnuts Miss? Forgive me for saying but there's hardly anything to you." The waitress smiled at Helena in the way all nosey people with no idea of personal space smile.

"I'm thinking of trying out 'fat'. I hear it's the latest craze." Helena replied, the sarcasm very much evident in her tone. The waitress shuffled away, unsure if there was a reply to that.

And wondering if she'll get her tip

Helena cursed herself for taking a glimpse into the older woman's mind.

Then a poster, fresh against the bacdrop of ld carnival bills, caught her attention.

RAPIER. Sounded like fun. Especially the part about possible death. It certainly beat investigating old cases for SERAPH and MAGI that no one else wanted to touch. Without thinking she ripped the notice from the wall and folded it, placing it in her top pocket for when she got back to the 'apartment'.

[ QUOTE ]
I would suggest that the system work at two levels. When you create a mission, you can keep it private and run it with other people on an invitation basis. Most importantly, you can keep it that way. If you want to publish it for others to use, then there's an option to do that. Put a rating system in and have a league table. But don't unlock extra mission aspects based on rating, hand out badges or award rare recipes, or something, so there's an even playing field for the content.


[/ QUOTE ]

Sorry Ravenswing, only just saw this!

I agree. It could be set up in an Arena-style event listing.
I'd also hope that the server team were able to go through periodically and do some housekeeping. A mission that was created a month ago and has had no play whatsoever should be deleted. I'm sure even the generous timescale of a month would cause an uproar, wailing and a gnashing of teeth. But heck.

How about a little pop up at the end, with the rating system, that says: This arc was brought to you by @[insert name here]. ?

I like the idea of anonymity from the start. And I know I'm a horrible person for suggesting such a thing, but if a spellchecker/grammar checker could be included, that would make my experience more enjoyable.

By far the Content Creator is my most-wisehd for item on the list. The possibility of creating individual bosses is not only fanboi-squealworthy, but actually makes sense. I mean, if we have access to the CC for our own characters, then why not utilise it for the Content Creator. Hey, kinda makes sense now why they've included those pre-sets in the drop downs, don't it? (Yes I am aware it was also to make the CC easier to pick out a basic costume, but it does suggest to me that this ties in with proposed custom content too - [/speculation])

Whilst the vain monster in me would love for everyone on Union to go, "Wow! He's the coolest!", I also agree with Brighteyes - some of the content I create would be for a specific group of people. I've already asked a friend of mine to be my guines pig when it comes to running missions, to see if they work. The price? Double vodkas and redbulls are bleedin' expensive!

A few points:

1) Me want mission editor baaaad!

2) Me willing to pay, as long as later on expansion not come free (at least, for a year)

3) Me not bothered about power customisation

4) Me intrigued by Spy AT. More details please. If you're thinking about it, I would like to know how it will be markedly different from the exisitng ATs - all of them

5) If new zones are planned (and it does sound remarkably like a paid expansion as opposed to an 'I've been here longer or I've farmed longer than you so I get more cool stuff' thing) please use some existing ones (Boomtown and Perez spring to mind) first before adding to the map. And a few more Villain zones so it evens up the 'need for travel powers' imbalance between CoV and CoH first.

6) Me want War Witch's brain for mission editor. At least for the dialogue and, if necessary, mob placement. Oh and level design if that's there too. Basically, bring on the Mission Editor and I will happily be your female dog