CU Villains Analyzed and Classified

[assault]

I'm a terrible fan of shared origins. It works nicely.

 

(The following isn't for Dean)

 

Just try this: Grond, Gremlin, Gargoyle and..  your character!

 

And another villain, related to your hero.

 

Or the Blood. Your hero, and a villain tied to them.

 

Etc.

[Lord Liaden]

I'm very fond of teams that have unifying features: common origins, motivations, themes or motifs. IMO they help to make each group distinctive and memorable. Like Eurostar, or GRAB, or Dean's own Devil's Advocates. Very often the unifying factor will even suggest plots for using the group. Seemingly random collections of villains who just decide to commit crimes together because, why not? quickly become forgettable to me.

 

On reflection, I realize I'm not nearly as picky for unifying hero teams as for villains. I think it's because heroes are already strongly motivated to protect and serve, and cooperating as a group let's them do that better; so common intent is already built in.

[Ninja-Bear]

About person gets power, I was asked by my son’s councilor a question what super power would I like. I told her that I’d like super strength will a little invulnerability. However, I can see myself using that for evil/selfishness. You take my parking spot? I’m picking up your car and moving it. Like throwing it.   

[Lord Liaden]

 

[Duke Bushido]

I agree about tired old origins- it came to the point that I had a character bitten by a radioactive ninja  (No; seriously) just to have something make a blip with the other players.

 

[Duke Bushido]

8 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

. However, I can see myself using that for evil/selfishness. You take my parking spot? I’m picking up your car and moving it. Like throwing it.   

 

 

To quote Strongbad:

 

"Do you use your powers for good, or for awesome?"

 

 

8 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

. However, I can see myself using that for evil/selfishness. You take my parking spot? I’m picking up your car and moving it. Like throwing it.   

 

 

To quote Strongbad:

 

"Do you use your powers for good, or for awesome?"

 

 

[DShomshak]

Another way to classify the CV characters is by their powers. This sometimes gets *more* subjective than origin types, because there are judgment calls about the boundaries of power types and whether a given power is really important to a character. But again, some trends might become visible.

 

* MENTALISTS are the most objectively definable, because Mental Powers are a distinct and definite set. You have them or you don’t. But I also include a few Powers such as Images, if the utility for the character is to modify another character’s actions through deceit.

 

* BRICKS, at least, are straightforward. Mostly. The question is how much Strength a character needs to be classified as a brick. I decided to make 40 STR the cutoff. Many characters have 30 STR just because it’s really useful to have at least 30 STR (especially in past editions with Figured Characteristics). But in a Superheroic game, a 6d6 punch is not a meaningful attack. So I insist on a minimum of 40.

 

* ENERGY PROJECTORS are blurrier, though. Anyone who principally attacks at range with non-Mental Powers is probably an Energy Projector. But if a character emphasizes ranged Drains, Entangles, Transforms, Change Environment, and other attacks that are more, hm, “battlefield control” than causing direct harm, I might file them under “Other” instead of (or in addition to) Energy Projector. But I repeat, this is *very* subjective.

 

* MARTIAL ARTISTS also get blurry around the edges. It’s for more than characters who use the Martial Arts mechanic: I also include many characters who emphasize nonranged attacks whose damage is not primarily due to Strength, such as a person with a shock-stick or a blade. But some unranged attacks are strange enough that I call these “Other” as well, such as characters with Damage Shield or stunning Phase Touches. I can’t pretend that these allocations are all that objective, either.

 

* OTHER accounts for Powers that push the boundaries of the big four categories further than I like, or characters that emphasize Powers such as movement or Shape Shift that aren’t directly used to cause harm. For instance, Vixen’s chief power is her intangibility: She has Martial Arts, but her damage classes are too low for this to be a major part of the character.

 

* COMPLEX characters fit in three or more categories. For instance, Tartarus is principally a brick but he also has Hellfire Blasts and some Mental Powers. Whenever possible, though, I try to pare characters down to their top two classes.

 

A WORD ABOUT POWER POOLS: I generally ignore them in classifying characters, because in most cases they would automatically make characters Complex. I stick to the Powers listed on the character sheet as always usable. So, Dr. Destroyer gets classified as a Brick and Enerrgy Projector — not because he couldn’t produce Mental Powers or other stuff from his whacking great VPP, but he won’t always do so. Or Dr Yin Wu gets filed under Martial Artist (his principle attack mode) and Other (Summoning his army of monsters), even though the sample Powers for his VPP include ranged attacks that could make him an Energy Projector.

 

The Power Class breakdown works out like this:

 

Brick: 76 characters; 26%

Energy Projector: 139 characters; 48%

Martial Artist: 53 characters; 18%

Mentalist: 45 characters; 15%

Other: 39 characters; 13% (but many of these could arguably be filed as Energy Projectors or Martial Artists)

Complex: 30 characters; 10%

 

Nothing here seems noteworthy. The analysis gets more interesting, IMO, when you *intersect* the two classifying methods to find, say, the Power breakdown for Supernatural Beings or the Origin breakdown for bricks. Forthcoming.

 

Dean Shomshak

[DShomshak]

SUPERNATURAL BEINGS:

 

Brick: 9 characters; 30%

Energy Projector: 10 characters; 33%

Martial Artist: 2 characters; 7%

Mentalist: 6 characters; 20%

Other: 6 characters; 20%

Complex: 9 characters; 30%

 

Male: 23 characters; 77%

Female: 7 characters; 23%

Other: —

 

TOTAL: 30 characters

 

The first thing I notice is the prevalence of complex characters. This is partly because supernatural creatures can have lots of different powers (and Powers), and partly because supernaturals are heavily represented among Master Villains who tend not to be one-trick ponies. But some of them could be pruned back to two power classes if you decide that some of their Powers shouldn’t count as major aspects. 

 

For instance, Takofanes is mostly a ranged combatant, with his undead horde Summoning as a major Other power, but he has a pretty big Mental Blast, Undead Command, and his Power of Command, which I think qualify him as a mentalist. But your mileage may vary. Arguments can also be made regarding Skarn and Tyrannon. OTOH I call Tezcatlipoca a Brick/Other (for his Drains and his battlefield control Darkness), but he I wouldn’t argue if you called him Complex for having a few mental powers and his Soul Strike (which could qualify as a Martial Artist Power).

 

I've waffled over other characters, too.

 

Deadman Walkin’ and Samhain are the only characters I classed as martial artists: DW for his knife use (but not quite being a brick), Sammy for his weird NND antlers. If someone wants to create a supernatural villain with an unusual feel, a non-brick unranged combatant might be a good place to start.

 

Dean Shomshak

[DShomshak]

MUTANTS/MUTATES:

 

Brick: 12 characters; 18%

Energy Projector: 23 characters; 35%

Martial Artist: 13 characters; 20%

Mentalist: 18 characters; 28%

Other: 7 characters; 11%

Complex: 2 characters; 3%

 

Male: 44 characters; 68%

Female: 21 characters; 31%

Other: 1 character; 2%

 

TOTAL: 65 characters

 

Masquerade is the one nonbinary character.

 

Nothing here surprised me. It seems esthetically right to me (as well as consistent with Marvel mutant portrayals) that mutants should have focused powersets: the only two complex characters are the Rogue expy Eclipse and the mutate Thorn ("plant powers" can cover a lot). Maybe I expected more bricks, but I wouldn't call the proportion strangely low. Mutant mentalists have long been a thing in SF, so the relatively high proportion seems apt. It would probably be even higher if more members of PSI had made the cut to CV2.

 

Dean Shomshak

[DShomshak]

ROBOTS/CONSTRUCTS

 

Brick: 3 characters; 37%

Energy Projector: 4 characters; 50%

Martial Artist: --

Mentalist: --

Other: 1 character; 12%

Complex: 2 characters; 25%

 

Male: --

Female: 3 characters; 37%

Other: 5 characters; 62%

 

TOTAL: 8 characters

 

As noted before, I include Corundum and Oubliette here, though I don't deny the argument to file them under Supernatural Beings -- in which case there's only 6 characters.

 

The strangest thing is that 3 characters (Mechana, Corundum, and Oubliette) are presented as at least superficially female, but Steve Long did not make the others "default male." He rigorously uses "it" as their pronoun. I am not sure what this means, but if anything.

 

Both of the complex characters, Mechanon and AVAR-7, would be classified as bricks and energy projectors if they did not have other major powers as well. No surprise, really, these are the most obviously "mechanical" types of Powers. Mechanon is the only mentalist (his machine control suite). No martial artists, unless you count AVAR-7's "phase tough" attack, which I am inclined to file under "other." The number of characters is too small to assign much significance to the omissions, but if you want to make a robot villain who feels a little different, a robot martial artist or mentalist might be a starting point.

 

Dean Shomshak

[steriaca]

As far as I know, PSI is as a group as dead as a door nail. The group exists, kinda, but also doesn't exist.

 

It is possible for a Warrior or Combat robot to have downloaded into it's computer brain various martial arts styles. The thing being just how many styles and  manuvers should a martial arts robot have?

[Lord Liaden]

1 hour ago, steriaca said:

As far as I know, PSI is as a group as dead as a door nail. The group exists, kinda, but also doesn't exist.

 

 

As of Champions Villains Volume Two, PSI has mostly reconstituted around Psimon and Medusa after the Stronghold mass breakout of 2009, and are back to their old tricks.

[Lord Liaden]

8 hours ago, DShomshak said:

 It seems esthetically right to me (as well as consistent with Marvel mutant portrayals) that mutants should have focused powersets: the only two complex characters are the Rogue expy Eclipse and the mutate Thorn ("plant powers" can cover a lot).

 

Thorn is an interesting case to me, not primarily because of his powers, but because he's an exception to my earlier complaint about the frequent sudden change in a villain's personality as a result of their origin in the characters under Steve Long's direction. First, Doctor Lawrence Lloyd was not an outright evil man, but he was vain, arrogant, and envious, so what happened to him can't be said to be wholly undeserved, nor a complete shift from who he was. Those traits led directly to Lloyd's transformation into Thorn, even though it was unintentional, hence he bears ultimate responsibility for all the harm Thorn has done. As Thorn his hostility toward humanity, and all fauna, isn't a random psychopathy, but a logical outgrowth of his new floral perspective and botanical bias. IOW this villain IMHO is an example of an abrupt extreme physical alteration to a character's personality, done well.

[steriaca]

9 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

As of Champions Villains Volume Two, PSI has mostly reconstituted around Psimon and Medusa after the Stronghold mass breakout of 2009, and are back to their old tricks.

I guess they are more powerful mentalist then I gave them credit for, to make me forget them or discount them.

 

What PSI needs is a psionic version of a brick, someone with a strong mental command over his entire body.

[Lord Liaden]

I think Psimon's "Psi-Giant" form was sort-of intended to fill that role, but as written falls short. If I were to use him, I'd change his "Psi-Giant Psychokinetic Enhancement" from +20 TK to +40 STR (or more). Or perhaps create another member of PSI with that Special Effect, so as to be a true brick. (Mind Titan 2.0?)

[DShomshak]

15 hours ago, steriaca said:

It is possible for a Warrior or Combat robot to have downloaded into it's computer brain various martial arts styles. The thing being just how many styles and  manuvers should a martial arts robot have?

As many as the GM wants, of course!

 

But I would prefer just one, to keep a distinctive style.

 

Example: Fencing. If you've seen The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, remember the scene where Tom Baker brings the statue of Kali to life as a six-armed golem armed with swords, fighting Sinbad's whole crew at once? Or if a big stone statue seems like it ought to have 40+ STR, how about a cockpunk robot fencer with a rapier, or Darth Maul's two-bladed lightsaber?

 

But this classification does not require actual Martial Arts as a game mechanic. It just means the character principally fights HTH but doesn't depend on raw STR for damage. Like, say, an ungodly fast robot -- hey, let's add the Kali golem's six arms, just for fun -- but each hand delivers a powerful electrical shock when it hits.

 

Dunno if the CU has any technologists who would build anything so fanciful, but I could see Zorran the /Artificer building magitech constructs like this.

 

ADDENDUM: Ah! Now I know. Doctor Crandall Herzog, later to become the Overbrain. He used to supply technical services to various criminal and terrorist groups and secret government programs. If somebody paid him to build robot martial artists, he'd shrug, take their money, and do it. I dare say he was a bit wackadoodle even before becoming a disembodied brain.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Lord Liaden]

Grace Gallowglass, aka The Engineer, strikes me as another who might create martial-arts robots. Robots are her primary servants and physical combatants, and she's already more than a bit wackadoodle. 😋

 

EDIT: Not precisely robots as we usually conceive of them, but the Phazor (ruler) of Malva is protected by a corps of bodyguards known as the Shadow Guard. They're synthetic humanoids programmed for absolute loyalty to the Phazor, and great skill in the Malvan martial art of Haruji, as well as stealth, deception, and observation skills -- essentially alien ninjas. They can also turn invisible. And they have four arms. And are nearly as strong as Grond, but faster and more agile, maybe even tougher, and much smarter. (See Champions Beyond.)

 

I could see the Phazor dispatching a Shadow Guard on a covert mission to Earth. It would be a nightmare for most PCs to face.

[DShomshak]

Incidentally, I created one robot mentalist for my "Avant Guard" campaign, called the Autocrat. Its/his predecessor was a third-tier gadget villain called Nevermind, who invented a "hypno-ray." The robot hive-mind called the Monad, in one of its sneakier plots, captured Nevermind and built an improved hypno-ray with various other weapons into a battlesuit worn by an android that was given an edited version of Nevermind's memories. The Autocrat then began recruiting third-tier super-criminals and giving them battlesuits as a power-up, forming a villain team... not telling them the suits were Monad tech, designed tpo slowly subvert their will and make them the Monad's obedient slaves. But the Autocrat didn't know this either, or that it was an android... Everyone was very upset when the PCs presented them with the truth. The Autocrat's recruits joined the heroes in destroying the android, but what the Monad built once it can build again.

 

Dean Shomshak

[DShomshak]

ENCHANTMENT

EDIT: Corrected for the addition of Stingray (see LL's post)

 

Brick: 910 characters; 42%

Energy Projector: 1011 characters; 46%

Martial Artis: 4 characters; 17%

Mentalist: 1 character; 4%

Other: 3 characters; 12%

Complex: 1 character; 4%

 

Male: 22 characters; 92%

Female: 12 character; 8%

Other: --

 

TOTAL: 2324 characters

 

Harpy is the sole female character. EDIT: And Stingray, but the number of female characters is still strangely low.

Vesper is the sole mentalist, for his power to call and control bats.

Necrull is the sole complex character. He's got a Blast, a Drain, Mental Paralysis, and high end Shape Shift, even before you get to his Power mimicry.

The relatively high number of energy projectors is misleading: Six of them are the Crowns of Krim, whose energy Powers all come from Foci. I would classify them only as Weapon users, except they also have superhuman Charactristics that are not bought through a Focus, and so I infer are permanent enchantments. This enables Dark Seraph, Bloodstone and Temblor to be bricks as well as energy projectors.

White Wolf and Black Fang illustrate how a single origin -- werewolf -- can be spun to give characters a different emphasis. WW is a brick, though still very fast; BF is emphatically a martial artist, though superhumanly strong.

I presume that Firewing's transformation was magical, though with Malva one gets into Clarke's Law territory.

I also presume that Shadowdragon's power over darkness is magical, since it seems that something supernatural is using him to enter the mortal world.

 

All in all, CV does a good job showing the diverse possibilities for sources of empowering enchantments: pacts, curses, potions, artifacts and magical places, deliberate enchantment by a sorcerer, etc. But the extreme lack of female characters seems odd.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Lord Liaden]

Are you not counting Stingray? She used a magic spell to augment her body with superhuman strength and bioelectric powers. Also, if you're including Vesper -- a human transformed into a monster by contact with an enchanted object -- that sounds a lot like Eclipsar.

 

But in general, mystical female villains in Champions tend to run toward sorceresses. With the occasional demon, vampire, dragon etc. thrown into the mix.

 

I've been operating under the assumption that Dr. Yin Wu is correct, and that Shadowdragon's powers come from some manifestation of The Dragon. The malevolence it caused in him certainly sounds like the Dragon's influence, as does his being harmed by Holy objects and places. It may not be the way you ran the Dragon, but Martial Enemies Volume 2 which details the Cult of the Red Banner, includes several supervillain-class cultists who directly channel the Dragon's power in specific ways.

[DShomshak]

Yes, I did forget Stingray: I just had her down as a sorcerer, but her super-strength, bio-electric powers, and inky cloud are indeed permanent enchantments. So add one more character, a brick/energy projector. The table is now corrected.

 

Eclipsar's origin story is not clear about the relation between Lucia Esquivel and the force from the Anti-Inti, but since there's so little of her left and she has total, inherent Life Support, I classified her as a supernatural being. She's just a Lucia-shaped vessel for a force of darkness and destruction.

 

Dean Shomshak

[DShomshak]

WEIRD SCIENCE

 

Brick: 16 characters; 30%

Energy Projector: 22 characters; 41%

Martial Artist: 5 characters; 9%

Mentalist: 5 characters; 9%

Other: 10 characters; 19%

Complex: 2 characters; 4%

 

Male: 45 characters; 83%

Female: 9 characters; 17%

Other: --

 

TOTAL: 54 characters

 

Nothing here surprises me.

 

Dean Shomshak

 

Dean Shomshak

 

 

[Lord Liaden]

There's a nice variety of established mutagenic substances in the CU: Kelvarite, Radium X, the Psi-Serum, X-9/X-53 (may be related), Trilenium (that one's in Champions Worldwide). Things that exposure to which frequently results in the creation of new villains, or heroes. Cyberline is supposed to be a gene therapy, but its effects require frequent "booster" treatments, so it would be questionable to call it a true mutagen. OTOH at least two official supers gained permanent powers from Cyberline, likely due to the infamous "latent mutation" interacting with it.

 

It sounds like Thorn's origin isn't exactly gene-splicing as you defined it in your first post, as he consumed an experimental plant-based drug which wasn't supposed to alter him so radically. Thorn's write-up strongly suggests he could use his "botano-serum" to create other plant-human hybrids. There's also origin potential in Cadaver's "Rejuva-Ray," and the "Devolutionizer Ray" that produced Ogre.

 

Hornet's creation of his fellow insectile villain Dragonfly in his "Enthro-Mutation Chamber" appears similar to those last two, and not like a conventional gene-splicing technique; but Dragonfly's write-up did describe his changes as genetic, so it may just be an unusual process to achieve the same result.
 

[DShomshak]

Thorn was among at least a dozen characters I thought were iffy between Mutant and Weird Science; to be rigorous, I could have restricted the Mutant category to characters who actually had the Distinctive Feature, "Mutant." But then what of cases like Medusa of PSI, who is called out as having a latent mutation, but it wasn't strong enough to give her powers or (still) be detectable by "Mutant Detectors"? So I ended up putting characters in one category or another based on how their descriptions seemed shaded. Thorn's description explicitly mentions plant DNA and that it "altered his cellular structure," so I filed him as a mutate. But I am very much trying to impose order on chaotic data and create categories that are more distinct than the characters I place in them.

 

I also admit to a personal Psychological Complication (Uncommon, Strong): I intensely dislike "Distinctive Features: Mutant" and the attendant handy-dandy "Mutant Detector." Especially since it creates a binary distinction out of a condition that entries such as Medusa says is a spectrum. So I am not inclined to treat the Distinctive Feature as the final word.

 

For Mutants/Mutates and Weird Science, though, I don't think moving characters back and forth would alter the overall spread very much. Maybe a few less Martial Artists and Mentalists in Mutants (goodbye Medusa and Pantera, for instance) and placing them in Weird Science. But in neither class of characters do any power types seem bizarrely out of proportion.

 

ADDENDUM: And what is the mutant detector detecting in a "natural" mutant, that isn't there in someone given powers be, say, Teleios, or the latent mutation strengthened by the Psi Serum? I know, I know, it's really all magic. But to me it seems not well thought out. It pushes my willing suspension of disbelief too far.

 

Dean Shomshak

[DShomshak]

Moving along...

 

CYBORGS:

 

Brick: 1 character; 14%

Energy Projector: 7 characters; 78%

Martial Artist: 3 characters; 43%

Mentalist: --

Other: 1 character (17%)

Complex: 1 character: 17%

 

Male: 7 characters; 78%

Female: 2 characters; 22%

Other: --

 

TOTAL: 9 characters

 

As discussed before, CV is short on cyborg villains, even when I extend the category from tech to people with magical bits added. But I'm still surprised at so few bricks and so many energy projectors -- even discounting Fiacho and Drago, whose ranged attacks come from weapons rather than their body modifications.

 

If anyone's interested, here's the full allotment:

 

Interface (brick, energy projector)

Warcry (energy projector)

Silver Hand (martial artist, other)

Fiacho (energy projector, martial artist)

Drago (energy projector, martial artist)

Cairngorm (energy projector, though you could make a case for "other" in addition)

Engineer (complex)

Evil Eye (energy projector)

Howler (energy projector)

 

Another thing: No repeat/shared origins. Well, maybe. ARGENT rebuilt Interface; Soviet scientists rebuilt Drago; but those scientists probably worked in Larissagrad (see CHAMPIONS Universe), which now is part of ARGENT. And while Fiacho's backstory doesn't say where or who surgically altered him, is it implausible that Danar Nicole knew about Larissagrad?

 

Cairngorm, Engineer, and Howler owe their powers to unique events, but the others could be part of shared origins. In addition to ARGENT/Larissagrad, the Warlord has the resources to create other super-cyborgs. Doctpor Yin Wu can probably make other magical prosthetics. Archimago, too -- and the only reason there wouldn't also be an Archimago-made magical hand out there, waiting for the person who will use it and be forced to work with Evil Eye, is that Doctor Yin Wu already made one. Too bad; it would be nice to have Archie doing a Vecna homage. 

 

The Engineer might turn people into cyborgs; well, put human brains in robot bodies as a way to liberate people from icky meat. And she might even find volunteers. If I've learned one thing from the internet, it's that there's a fetish community for *everything.*

 

Dean Shomshak