Ravenswood Classes of '04 and '05: Who, and Where?

[AlgaeNymph]

We know about the infamous Class of '03 (and why bullying should never be dismissed), and the classes of '06 through '10 are detailed in Teen Champions and News of the World, but what about the two years in between?  They get any detail anywhere, or are they free characters for the GM (or writer)?

[AlgaeNymph]

So...free creative reign, then?  That's what I'm guessing since I didn't see even so much as an "I don't know."  Odd.

 

Apologies for the necromancy; just wanting to be certain is all.

[archer]

I'd guess that those classes were deliberately left blank. But I'm not one of the gurus who know everything about Champions Universe history.

 

I don't really have any more idea than you do.

[Ninja-Bear]

Where’s Lord Liaden when you need him! @Lord Liadenyouve been humbly summoned.

[Lord Liaden]

[Swirl of smoke and flame and stench of brimstone]  WHO DARES?!  👿 💀

 

"Ahem!" I haven't been able to locate any specific information about Ravenswood students other than in the books AlgaeNymph mentioned in her OP. I'm not sure if those classes were left deliberately blank as archer suggests -- references to Ravenswood students from years earlier than the Class of '06 are scattershot -- but the likelihood anything "official" will be done with them in the foreseeable future is negligible. I'm confident they're open for you to fill as you wish, A.N.

[AlgaeNymph]

On 1/5/2021 at 2:56 AM, Lord Liaden said:

I'm confident they're open for you to fill as you wish, A.N.

Thank you, Mr. Destroyer Person!

 

Now I just need to figure out what sort of characters, and powers, to think up...

[Jhamin]

5 hours ago, AlgaeNymph said:

Now I just need to figure out what sort of characters, and powers, to think up...

 

If it helps, here are some of the nontraditional students in my Ravenswood game:

Senior Year:
Thad Jones (Tower) - Brick.  Big & Harry, oversized hands & feet.  Never shows up cleanly on photography equipment.  Raised by foster family & Isn't sure where his powers come from but finds himself most comfortable when alone in the woods in the Pacific Northwest. His laid-back charisma make him an excellent RA for the boys dorm.

Christian Anderson (Tide) - Water themed powers (mom was a powered armor Naval Hero, Dad was an Elemental) and is able to shift into a watery form.  Knows alot about the Superhero world from years as Mom's DNPC, but hopes to just focus on his music after graduation.

Alissa James (Crawler) - Has some kind of insect powers but has never bothered to identify /which/ insect she might be emulating.  More interested in psychology.

Junior Year:

The Blue Wizard (Ahmed Ghulam) - Has been learning magic most of his life from a spirit advisor only he can see.  Very studios, a bit repressed, has strong opinions about the Simirillion

Bustarius (Cyprian Krax) - Lemurian Weapon's master who is trying to live in the wider world at the urging of his Uncle, an escapee from Lemurian Society.  Keeps failing Superhuman Ethics because he can't wrap his head around the a non martial philosophy of life.  Weirdly best friends with Tower,

Rodinia Ambrose (Concord) - Empath and star singer in the Choir

 

Sophomore Year:

The entire incoming Sophomore year except for Fortress chose to drop out of Ravenswood and join a rival school that may or may not be a front for something nefarious.  Just about everyone is torn up about this but no coercion can be proven.  My PCs are new Sophomore transfer students

Carol Millner (Fortress) - Stubborn.  Scads of special defenses and has the ablity to "root" herself.  When rooted can ignore ridiculous amounts of damage as long as she doesn't take a step.  No offenses whatsoever.

(PC) Edith King-Johnson (Reflex) - Studious Geek with Photographic Reflexes (think taskmaster, but 15 and more interested in Parkour)

(PC) Harper Cubbington (Jane Doe) - Anmesiac soul placed into an undead body by Dr. Teneber.  Dealing with the fact that her body was formerly a mean girl queen bee at the rival school & her old crew are not sure how to handle her "new" more compassionate, moral life.
(PC) Justin Cline (Junior) - A semi-organic bioroid "son" of Mechanon and the Engineer born after a battle in one of Mechanon's bases caused some weirdness in on of the manufacturing lines.  Works hard to keep of his parent's radars.

Freshman Year:

Gabe Williams (Archive) - Memory beyond photographic.  Can remember things written in a book he fell asleep on but usually doesn't understand it.  Usually feels a bit overwhelmed

Arianna Bellington (Fury) - Happy, Friendly cheerleader with an irritatingly sunny disposition.  If pushed she transforms into a 12 foot furry beast with razor spurs.  Not doing well at Enhanced Gym because she finds it difficult to find the beast as she really isn't that angsty.

Jacob Singh (Athoeter) - Constantly afraid of accidentally using his power to disintegrate almost anything in a column in front of him

Wilma Nessen (Sine) - Mousy, quiet girl with loud ear-shattering screams

 

 

Special Mentions:

Kyle Ward (Nocturne II) - A traditional student sent to Ravenswood by her mother to *try* to keep her out of trouble.  He older brother is the sidekick to the Black Mask and they are both the children of a previous Black Mask.  She is well aware of the secret parts of Ravenswood but thinks that she has fooled Headmistress Timmons into thinking she is an ordinary student.  She thinks she is Bruce Wayne stuck in high school by a mother that doesn't respect her, but in actuality needs to learn some hard lessons about experience vs confidence, apparently from someone other than her family.

Kalla Howery - Perfectly normal, under-confident girl.  Has become friends with the PCs but doesn't know about their abilities.  In several future timelines she becomes a time-enhanced solder opposing the villainy of either Junior or Jane Doe.  This has resulted in several competing adult versions of her coming back to try to influence the present.  Neither Junior or Jane Doe can imagine doing any of the things she accuses them of, but the secrets they are keeping from her 15 year old self make them worry about how she will react if she finds out about them or her future selves.

[DShomshak]

Hey, someone used Dr. Teneber in their campaign! Happy author woohoo!

 

The Doctor of the Dead isn't just a villain I created for Arcane Adversaries. He's my PC from a "dark supernatural" campaign inspired by the "Midnight Sons" line of titles Marvel did for a while. Doc turned out to be far and away the "darkest" PC. Okay, he ended up crashing the campaign, but I had a lot of fun with him.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Jhamin]

53 minutes ago, DShomshak said:

Hey, someone used Dr. Teneber in their campaign! Happy author woohoo!

 

The Doctor of the Dead isn't just a villain I created for Arcane Adversaries. He's my PC from a "dark supernatural" campaign inspired by the "Midnight Sons" line of titles Marvel did for a while. Doc turned out to be far and away the "darkest" PC. Okay, he ended up crashing the campaign, but I had a lot of fun with him.

 

Dean Shomshak

 

That's very cool.  The PC in question has him as a contact, but only on an 8- so he frequently ends up deciding he has more important things to do than deal with her high school drama.  (Which, to be fair, a lot of it is).  He did come in handy when a weird interaction between Blue Wizard's arcane training, Archive's ability to randomly soak up knowledge, and a Halloween scary story contest summoned The Monster while shifting the dorms into a shadow realm.

As the GM, I've been playing him as sort of a Doctor Strange character but willing to exorcise the living if he feels that someone recently dead deserves their body more.  Other mystics find his philosophy repugnant, but he still wants to keep Tyranon or DEMON or the Devils Advocates from taking over the world & finds it disappointing that heroes like Dr. Ka and the Drifter have such limited imaginations.

The PC is basically "mostly dead".  The "rightful" soul for this body was a young psychopath.  Probably not ever really super-villainous or even violent but destined for a life of petty, casual harm to those around her.  The Sorta-Good Doctor swapped that soul for another.  The new soul has no memory of who she was.  The body was from a powerful and well-connected family, and was very attractive, and can pass for older than it is (the PC even spent points on a fake ID), but wasn't super powered.  After the Soul-Transfer the body is "mostly dead" and has a suite of solomon-grundy style "zombie" type powers (strength, damage resistance, ect).  That isn't what was supposed to happen and Teneber knows he didn't make mistakes in the rituals.  He suspects some outside force interfering but is keeping it from the PC until he has too.  He doubts telling her will matter for her life and doesn't want to over-complicate her adaptation to her new body.  He is pleased with how the new soul is using it's new life and considers the whole thing an interesting "complication" of his procedure.

[Lord Liaden]

29 minutes ago, DShomshak said:

Hey, someone used Dr. Teneber in their campaign! Happy author woohoo!

 

The Doctor of the Dead isn't just a villain I created for Arcane Adversaries. He's my PC from a "dark supernatural" campaign inspired by the "Midnight Sons" line of titles Marvel did for a while. Doc turned out to be far and away the "darkest" PC. Okay, he ended up crashing the campaign, but I had a lot of fun with him.

 

Dean Shomshak

 

A few years ago I played in a few sessions of a kind of "Justice League Dark" storyline with official Champions supernatural characters. I was Robert Caliburn, another player took Doctor Teneber, while the remaining players built PCs around other NPCs alluded to in The Mystic World but not game-statted: Dr. Ibrahim Khalseran, the ghost of Lieut. Mark Gentry, and the vampire Charles Torres. They were gathered at the instigation of the Drifter.

 

BTW by the end of that story Teneber had found a new body for Gentry to inhabit.

[Jhamin]

4 hours ago, DShomshak said:

The Doctor of the Dead isn't just a villain I created for Arcane Adversaries.

 

For what it is worth (and we are drifting really off topic here ), I really enjoyed Arcane Adversaries.  There was a lot of good stuff in there & several of the villains got a lot of use in my games.

- Brother Bone launched an inquisition against the totally-not-Monaco fictional nation one of my PCs hailed from.  Brother Bone had a few points when he talked about the hedonism it had fallen into.

- The Devils Advocates almost stole the "curse" of Lycanthropy from a PC when he returned from his confrontation with Brother Bone.

- Hell Rider was an ongoing antagonist seeking vengeance against a large corporation that a PC was intertwined with.  He deserved vengeance, but the PC couldn't let him take it out on everyone as he was doing.
       * Once the original Hell Rider's vengeance was satisfied, the mysterious stranger passed the powers to a campaign NPC that felt the PCs has wronged his father (who was secretly a villain they rightly defeated)
- Mother Gothel is one of my favorites.  So much that she has escaped Hero system and now shows up along with her frenemy the merciless agent of order Mrs Meigs in any campaign I run that acknowledges such things.  Players smile and groan when she appears with her warm tea and Meig's Compass Men.

EDIT: As it has been pointed out that Brother Bone came from an earlier book by Dean Shomshak & didn't actually appear in Arcane Adversaries, I'll leave my praise as it's all for the same man but add:
- Black Fang.  As has been mentioned a long running PC in my games was a playboy prince whose family was "Cursed" with lycanthropy.  Black Fang was a "dark mirror" antagonist, showing *why* people were afraid of werewolves and was a constant threat to the PC's good reputation

[Lord Liaden]

It's a sign of how deeply woven the Champions history is, when there's this much inspiration you can pull out of it.

 

BTW Jhamin, Brother Bone isn't in Arcane Adversaries. Dean Shomshak included him in the earlier incarnation of the Devil's Advocates for Creatures of the Night: Horror Enemies. BB, Granny Hex, Maze, and Apollyon all got dropped, but some new characters took their places.

[Lord Liaden]

10 hours ago, AlgaeNymph said:

Thank you, Mr. Destroyer Person!

 

Now I just need to figure out what sort of characters, and powers, to think up...

 

If you haven't seen this thread from the Champions sub-forum, you might find a few ideas of interest: Champions Universe: Unique Character Origins

[Jhamin]

5 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

BTW Jhamin, Brother Bone isn't in Arcane Adversaries. Dean Shomshak included him in the earlier incarnation of the Devil's Advocates for Creatures of the Night: Horror Enemies. BB, Granny Hex, Maze, and Apollyon all got dropped, but some new characters took their places.

 

 

You are of course correct.  It's easy to get confused by the shifting membership of a team as it changes across books.  I like to pretend that the lineups shift in-universe much the same way (Say) the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants has a classic lineup but the actual membership changes over time.

 

Brother Bone makes more sense as a solo villain IMHO (Likely with lots of undead minions)  I never understood how The Demonologist would keep peace between him and anyone he didn't agree with.  Of course the same coule be said about lots of teams.

[Lord Liaden]

Like Dean said in the Demonologist's write-up, "He takes the petty rivalries of his fellow Devil's Advocates in stride; power relationships are the very essence of demonology."

[AlgaeNymph]

10 hours ago, DShomshak said:

The Doctor of the Dead isn't just a villain I created for Arcane Adversaries.

He isn't even a villain at all.  Rather, he's a hero who actually gets things done for the everyman, and not just another face-puncher for the cameras.

I'm curious, what other characters did you write up?  And are there any other writers lurking in the forums here?

[Lord Liaden]

Dean Shomshak wrote The Mystic World, source book for the supernatural/multiversal part of the official Champions Universe. Almost all the characters from that book, and from the villain compendium Arcane Adversaries, were written by him and/or came out of his RPG campaigns. Dean also wrote The Ultimate Mystic, a thorough guide for adapting real-world mythology, folklore, and occultism to gaming in general, and Hero in particular.

 

Those books are all for Fifth Edition Hero System, although most of those characters were translated to the Sixth Edition Champions Villains trilogy. However, much of what they cover was drawn from Dean's Fourth Edition books, The Ultimate Super Mage, The Super Mage Bestiary, and Creatures of the Night: Horror Enemies. Basically, when it comes to magic in Hero, Dean Shomshak is the guru.

[DShomshak]

15 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

Dean Shomshak wrote The Mystic World, source book for the supernatural/multiversal part of the official Champions Universe. Almost all the characters from that book, and from the villain compendium Arcane Adversaries, were written by him and/or came out of his RPG campaigns. Dean also wrote The Ultimate Mystic, a thorough guide for adapting real-world mythology, folklore, and occultism to gaming in general, and Hero in particular.

 

Those books are all for Fifth Edition Hero System, although most of those characters were translated to the Sixth Edition Champions Villains trilogy. However, much of what they cover was drawn from Dean's Fourth Edition books, The Ultimate Super Mage, The Super Mage Bestiary, and Creatures of the Night: Horror Enemies. Basically, when it comes to magic in Hero, Dean Shomshak is the guru.

Aw shucks, I'm blushin'.

 

Credit where it's due: Tyrannon and the Vandaleurs were originally created by Allen Varney in Mystic Masters,  for... Third edition? Newton's comment about standing on the shoulders of giants applies here.

 

HERO author Scott Bennie occasionally posts in these forums. I consider him my sifu in writing character descriptions, for supplements such as Villauny Unbound and the 4th ed VIPER book.

 

Teen hero games can be a lot of fun, though mine wasn't for HERO System. My "Scion High" campaign was for the SCION game by White Wolf, of modern children of mythic gods a la Percy Jackson. In addition to modern demigods, the students of Avalon High encountered giants, werecreatures, jinn, and other mythic creatures.

 

Much of the fun comes from the teen part, and how you interweave it with the super-adventure part. Cars, afterschool jobs, dates for school dances, and other "mundane" things become weird and wonderful -- and can be just as important to ultimate success as any battle.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Jhamin]

2 hours ago, DShomshak said:

Much of the fun comes from the teen part, and how you interweave it with the super-adventure part. Cars, afterschool jobs, dates for school dances, and other "mundane" things become weird and wonderful -- and can be just as important to ultimate success as any battle.

 

This is really what I'm finding. 

 

- The romantic brinkmanship surrounding who is whose buddy during the class field trip was at least as big a deal as the discovery that Nosferatu Red & his Comrades of the Night had taken over the hotel.  (Nosferatu Red was last out of his coffin in 1937)

- When the kids escaped from The Fashionable One's Moon Arena (with some help from Zpartykys who felt like he should help out Junior) and returned to earth, Jane Doe's biggest concern was all the stuff her robot duplicate had been posting as her on social media

- Junior having his first kiss while keeping his secret identity intact during an attack on the boardwalk by Leviathan & Admiral Cascadia's troops.

- Wrangling dates & getting formal outfits in time for Homecoming, only to have all the students who dropped out of Ravenswood to attend VonDrotte Academy crash the party.  Drama ensued, especially when Bustarius confronted the girl who broke up with him to transfer schools.

- Nocturne II's ongoing frenemy rivalry with Reflex

- The fact that Jane Doe's old girl posse Livia, Jade and Rebecca are more actively malevolent than many of the supervillains they actually run into. (Mista Finsta and The GOAT are just kinda jerks, these girls are out for high-school blood now that Jane Doe is spending more time with Reflex than them)