Unusual Hero Types

[Metaphysician]

What is the most unusual background/nature for a heroic character you have ever heard??

 

Here's my idea: good-aligned necromancer.

[Stray Cat]

The most unusual hero I ran was Glyx. He was an alien guardian/sheriff sort of character with a symbiotic suit that covered his entire body. A Kansas farmboy found the suit in the debris after the original wearer crashed. The suit adopted the farmboy as its new wearer, but it was damaged. The universal translator function constantly malfunctioned, so no one ever understood what he was saying. Oh, and he was trapped in the suit too.

 

Cat

[Doug McCrae]

Re: Unusual Hero Types

 

Originally posted by Metaphysician

Here's my idea: good-aligned necromancer.

That's a good one.

 

It was an option I considered for the character I'm doing now, Tiffany Trismegistus, but I decided to stick with the Dr. Strange style magic. I felt necromancy was too DnD-ish. The working title for that version was 'Buffy the Necromancer'.

[Corven_Ren]

I have a character called The Vandal who is basically a super heroic Indiana Jones, hes only 21 has a doctorite in archaeology. He got his powers from a battle axe he found on a dig in Germany and when he struck a tree with the axe he was bathed in mystical energy witch gave him super human strength and toughness. But here is the unusual part I created for him, for some odd reason the mystical energy that flows through him makes him show up as a mutant when scanned by anything that detects mutant dna.

 

 

A good aligned necromancer to me is not an odd idea, especially in a fantasy campaign. The good necro would not create any undead of his own but would maybe capture already existing undead to study them in an attempt to find better ways to destroy the undead.

[winterhawk]

Unusual characters...hmmm...

 

As mentioned in another thread, I had a player who had a light manipulating hero who played down the Energy Projector and instead was more of a street level vigilante.

 

I have an NPC called the Rumor, who's only power is that he can 'hear' radio signals. In this day of cellular communication, he is the ultimate eavesdropper and in turn, the ulimate anonymous informant. "Rumor has it VIPER will commiting a daylight robbery in the finnancial district." *click*

 

I have a street level hero named Bullitt, a brick by all appearances. Actually he manipulates probability subconsciously, twisting the odds so that he can lift tons or bullets bounce off his skin.

[TheEmerged]

Re: Unusual Hero Types

 

Originally posted by Metaphysician

What is the most unusual background/nature for a heroic character you have ever heard??

 

Here's my idea: good-aligned necromancer.

 

I actually played one of these under Dragonlance: Fifth Age. The DM joked that if our campaign was printed in book form the marketting line would read "A necromancer from the Nightlund. A renegade sellsword. A rogue weatherwitch. A female draconian. Now to introduce the bad guys..."

[Avatar]

The odd character I made, and have always loved: The Ogre Knight. In 2nd Ed D&D he was a Ogre that didn't want to just pillage and kill. He went looking for a better path (got kicked out cause he was a wuss by ogre standards, wouldn't eat a child, had to give creatures a fighting chance, liked veggies!!!) Met a old Paladin on the road, guy was blind but had good senses kind of thing. Knew enough common to talk together and traveled. Paladin died protecting the ogre from some crazed villagers that wanted to kill the ogre, something about hos the ogre had captured some man and must have tourtured him into slavery. The ogre, Rok was his name, kept trying to do good deeds and eventually became a Knight of Good, given special abilities by a group consensus of good dieties, no one would claim him, but as long as he was going to try to do good, why not help.

 

Few years ago I was play a Larp called SOLAR, Southern Organization of Live Action Roleplaying. Basicly Live action D&D (yes, I'm a big geek) And they have Half-ogre as a character race, and Knight as a subclass of fighter. In walks Rok the Ogreknight, and I swear more people poked and prodded me looking for the gimmick. When was I going to lead the Ogre hoards to their gate, what trick was I using to mimick Knight special abilities, etc. Some of the best roleplaying I;ve got to do in a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time.

[pinecone]

I once wanted to run a serial killer who worked as a bounty hunter and always seemed to bring'em back dead as a cover....also considered him as a street level champs character but I decided he was just Too grim.....

[Jhereg]

In FH, I played Thud, an inept half-orc waiter. He spent the game's down-time "quietly" eliminating the tavern's other waitstaff because they were cutting into his tips.

[Barton]

"15"

 

My current character is a robot (a 1M dome shaped robot with thin legs) from another planet. He is completely child-like and gulliable about human norms (but has a 35 INT). Fun to play as he likes to help out but does not understand humans ("it is not from around here") very well. Learned english from TV signals and learned about human culture the same way (quote from "15" -- "I would like to meet the Brady Bunch, they are such nice people").

[Sketchpad]

We once played a game of the old DC Heroes system ... one of the players made a hero named Force, a telekinetic alien whose veins were on the outside of his skin but otherwise looked humanoid ... whenever anyone looked at him without a cloak or something else on, they ran in fear yelling "MONSTER!!"

 

Another player once decided to use Marvel Superheroes' Ultimate Powers Book to make a completely random character ... heh ... Talk about a weird character ... grafting, floating disk, ice control and resistance to physical attacks ... the player decided to keep the character and describe him as an ice demon that had the ability to graft ice sculptures to him and make them functional, as well as having a durable ice shell and light-than-air ice platform

[tiger]

Had an old character that basically look like a big lump of clay until he changed into the form of some object.

 

Was kind of fun to use.

[Trebuchet]

Most unusual character I ever built was for a Galactic Champions high level game we never got to play. He was a metallic scorpion-like alien brick 10 feet long with a 100 STR (from a high-gravity world) named Heavy Metal. For interstellar movement he'd bolted two warp drive nacelles to his carapace. which gave him FTL flight.

[Lightray]

Well, if randomly generated characters are in, I once played a V&V character...

 

The Amazing Panther-Fern!

 

He could be a potted fern, or a really BIG potted fern, or a panther. And he could glide on his fern fronds. And talk to ferns and cats. And when he was a big fern, he could whap people with his superstrength fronds. He didn't have a human form.

 

His secret identity? He was the potted plant on the city editor's desk at the local paper. When a crisis came up, he'd fall out the window and glide to the rescue!

 

He was part of a dynamic duo with Psycho-Woman. Who wasn't psycho (much) but who had swirly psychotic-hypnotic disks on her braclets and ta-ta's.

 

She's a barely-dressed underage superheroine with hypnotic ta-ta's. He's a panther and a fern. They fight crime!

 

God, was V&V weird.

[Badger]

Never got around to creating him but me and one of my friends got an idea one time joking around and we basically working it out. Remember the "mini-Marlon Brando" in the Island of Dr. Moreau? Well give him the skills of MacGuyver.

And some Bruce Lee kung fu moves. That is basically the short (pun may or may not be intended) version of it.

[Doug McCrae]

Originally posted by Lightray

His secret identity? He was the potted plant on the city editor's desk at the local paper. When a crisis came up, he'd fall out the window and glide to the rescue!

That's a new one.

 

Think Panther-Fern wins the prize for weirdest character .

[Bengal]

You know, Panther-Fern is pretty good. He'd fit right in with the Legion of Substitue Heroes, which is the benchmark for weirdness in comic books IMO.

 

While I avoid "stock" character archetypes to some degree, I've got no one in my notebooks on par with Panther-Fern. The closest I have is Midget-Man, who I've posted here, who has no powers- he's just four inches tall and hangs out with superheroes so he can pretend to be a shrinker.

[Doug McCrae]

Originally posted by Bengal

You know, Panther-Fern is pretty good. He'd fit right in with the Legion of Substitue Heroes, which is the benchmark for weirdness in comic books IMO.

I'd say it was Grant Morrison's weirder stuff, like Doom Patrol.

[BNakagawa]

Obviously, this is only limiting yourself to superhero comics.

 

Otherwise, I'd have to toss in stuff like Savage Henry or those annoying Post Bros.

 

Then again, Ron was a superhero once...well, he had superpowers, anyway. (Mightiest Ron)

 

Back to superhero comics, there's my two favorites, Destroy!!! and Everybody Hates Fight Man!

 

"Big Strong Man! Bigger Stronger Man!! Biggest Strongest Man!!!"

 

The pain...the pain...

[zornwil]

Re: Unusual Hero Types

 

Originally posted by Metaphysician

What is the most unusual background/nature for a heroic character you have ever heard??

 

Here's my idea: good-aligned necromancer.

 

Huh, we had a PC who was exactly that in my former group in SC.

 

For me personally, in that same group I think the loose adapation of Eddie Maiden (from the Iron Maiden covers) was most interesting. This character was all muscle and bone, no flesh, and lacked a penis. He was in some ways like Frankenstein's monster, full of pathos and wanting to belong, yet often being ostracied for his unusual nature. And he did have a seething hatred of the use of the male member in rape while also having a real problem with people making comments relating to one's manhood/member. He once very nearly killed a man who called him "dickless", so indeed he could be as much monster as hero when pushed. Yet he tried very hard to be heroic; ultimately, shortly before his untimely death, he engineered a biomechanical AIDS solution, a series of nanobots that could be injected into the body and would kill off the AIDS virus. It was highly expensive and time-consuming, and he was making it as available as possible.

[zornwil]

Originally posted by Lightray

Well, if randomly generated characters are in, I once played a V&V character...

 

The Amazing Panther-Fern!

 

He could be a potted fern, or a really BIG potted fern, or a panther. And he could glide on his fern fronds. And talk to ferns and cats. And when he was a big fern, he could whap people with his superstrength fronds. He didn't have a human form.

 

His secret identity? He was the potted plant on the city editor's desk at the local paper. When a crisis came up, he'd fall out the window and glide to the rescue!

 

He was part of a dynamic duo with Psycho-Woman. Who wasn't psycho (much) but who had swirly psychotic-hypnotic disks on her braclets and ta-ta's.

 

She's a barely-dressed underage superheroine with hypnotic ta-ta's. He's a panther and a fern. They fight crime!

 

God, was V&V weird.

 

This IS weird! Well done, though.

[zornwil]

Oh, and from my oldest HERO campaign, Scissor Man, bulit on the XTC song "Scissor Man". The PC was warped and fully believed XTC songs all meant something deeper than they appear and as such became Scissor Man to fight crime and save runaways (XTC song "Runaways"). Like the Scissor Man character, he had a book of names, bad guys to go after. And he got instructions from the "Fly on the Wall" (another XTC song). Below are the lyrics, he pretty much followed those as far as his particular likes/dislikes and functions, except that we never did make the scissors sticky, I guess the player missed that.

 

Snipping, snipping, snipping goes the scissor man

Putting end to evil doers games

Snipping, snipping, snipping goes the scissor man

Maybe you are in his book of names

Maybe you are in his book of names

 

So be kind and helpful to your mother

Just think twice before you try to steal

When he cuts with sticky silver snippers

You may find the wounds will never heal

 

All self made bad boys

If you refuse to believe he exist

You won't be frightened when you find out

You're on his list

You're on his list

You're on his list

 

So be good and never poison people

Just think twice before the deed is done

When you wake up guilty in the morning

You may find important pieces gone

[Pegasus]

Originally posted by Lightray

...He was part of a dynamic duo with Psycho-Woman. Who wasn't psycho (much) but who had swirly psychotic-hypnotic disks on her braclets and ta-ta's.

 

She's a barely-dressed underage superheroine with hypnotic ta-ta's. He's a panther and a fern. They fight crime!

 

Priceless. Absolutely priceless!

 

So, when do I get to read the team-up with Bizarro Hitler?

[Jhereg]

Reflecting my distaste for D&D, while fulfilling my need to play something , my roommate and I made twin circus jugglers for a 2nd Ed D&D campaign. We loaded up on Non-WP’s like juggling and acrobatics; nothing to help in combat. In fact, all we did in combat was dazzle enemies with our antics. The kicker was we didn’t speak any common languages, and no one else in the group spoke ours. They were influenced by the pill-bugs in “A Bug’s Lifeâ€.

 

However, the best I’ve seen was a friend of mine, and brand-spanking-new roleplayer who made a FH Lizardman-Pimp, named Silky Draws. He carried a mace, and wore a pink ascot. His tagline: “Don’t make me mace you, ho.â€