Starlord

Ugh. Too bad.

Anyone who thinks that comics are only intended for children, obviously hasn't opened a comic book in the last 30 years.

I've been designing a 'theme-based' superteam recently, and I've decided use the Project: Sunburst material from the gamebooks.

You might be aware that was a secret government project involving military personnel used as guinea pigs with nuclear power. A couple villains have come from its origins. My idea is that the secret base where the personnel who are still living (all in comas) has recently been moved to Millenium City. However, the weird energies produced have now been detected by Dr. Silverback. In brief, he investigates and the secret is blown wide open. In the ensuing chaos, seven new superhumans awake (or possibly, Dr. Silverback is able to awaken them later). Eventually, they form a group with Dr. Silverback as their mentor.

We now have seven basically good people, who are dealing with losing many years of their lives, betrayed by members of their government, and they also have superpowers.

The members of SUNBURST are:

Corona - female w/ plasma/heat energy powers

Dash - female speedster

Geo - male w/ Earth-powers, probable leader

Icestar - male w/ Ice powers and bad attitude

Powerhouse - male brick w/ narcissistic streak

Psyche-Out - female mentalist

Shade - male w/ shadowy energy powers

I'm currently trying to develop distinct personalities and specific problems for each of them. They will all be superior physically in many ways (on top of their powers) such as quick healing, somewhat stronger and faster than normal, physically they will be unaffected by their long years spent in a coma.

Remember that they are all former military (in some capacity or another). They will have family ties to rediscover, probably distinct weaknesses. These will be heroes trying to find their way in an almost new world.

Anyway, I'm looking for some possible suggestions as to their background and things they will have to deal with early on. Geo will probably be the level-headed, natural leader-type, but he will have a confidence problem, etc.

Well, any help would be appreciated.

PS: I've designed each member with Heromachine 2 already and I'll probable post them all over the next few days depending on how many people respond.

Here's Corona:

Originally posted by Polaris

Starlord,

 

Artemis is GREAT! Think I might steal it...err.. rather.. 'borrow'...

 

Polaris

Thanks, I like her as well. I've been designing a theme-based team recently, based on Project: Sunburst. I was thinking about getting some ideas about them as well.

As a matter of fact, perhaps I'll just make my own topic.

Originally posted by PhantomGM6101

Thank You Thank you thank You!

You've made me the happiest gm in the world I'll send you the second in the pms watch for them!

Here's the next. Personally, I don't think its my best work, but with all due respect I wasn't really a fan of the costume desc. or the color scheme you wanted. Lemme know if you want some changes.

I was asked to do some characters for PhantomGM6101. Here's the first:

For those who missed it, or just want to see it again

*All times Eastern on the History Channell

Saturday, 28th 10:00 PM

Sunday, 29th 2:00 AM

Sunday, 29th 6:00 PM

Monday, 7th July 10:00 PM

Tuesday, 8th July 2:00 AM

From Starlord, your Friendly Neighborhood TV Guide.

Originally posted by Doctor Agenda

The thing about comic book characters is they look the way they do on purpose. Unless the printer messes them up.

Actually, this might not be far off. I seem to recall different looking covers for the NM rules. One WAS of a significantly lighter shade, I believe. Perhaps someone can clarify this??

Besides her obvious African-American appearance on the cover, I base my statement on one of my black friends commenting at the time that she was his favorite of the 'new' Champions.

His comment?

"She's a good role model. I think it's great that they make a strong-minded black woman the leader of the new team."

To me (and him) it's as obvious as the fact that Thor carries a hammer. However, she's a character in a superhero game. I certainly won't argue that any such character is always open to interpretation, not to mention they are just offered as examples and anything about their origin or appearance can freely be modified or changed.

The New Millenium Quantum was clearly black.

My Champions would be:

New Millenium Quantum: Tough, militaristic black female. Also would be leader of the team. Female team leaders intrigue me.

New Millenium Defender: I believe the Team: Defender concept is much more interesting that the Tony Stark rip-off. He is a college kid that would grow into his role on the team.

Seeker: I've always liked Seeker. He grew especially well, to the powered up version in the original CU, to his 'World Class martial artist' version in Watchers of the Dragon. A swashbuckling martial artist is excellent. I've never understood the complaints about his 'origin'. Explain to me how it is more strange than 'radioactive spider' or 'last alien from dying planet'?

Obsidian: Combines the 'fish out of water' element with the 'Noblesse Oblige'. Rather unique character I think.

Witchcraft: A copy of Solitaire? Yep. However, I prefer her costume, the evil sister angle, and she doesn't have the annoying triple identity/actress crisis.

*Also, I realize that the characters were made primarily as generic examples. Fine. Except they are routinely mentioned as a paramount team in the new Champions Universe. The ACTUAL canon version of the team for the current CU universe should be 450-500 point characters in my opinion.

Originally posted by Storn

But when it is specifically about Ironclad... I must admit I have a tough time drawing him. Greg's version is very lithe, a bit too much so for me. Someone that strong should look it UNLESS it is a specific and declared character trait ('She looks like a teenager but she can lift a tank!")

THANK YOU! I thought I was the only one who was upset with that. He doesn't LOOK like a brick, darnit!

I'm getting close to 1,000 images scanned from HERO products over the years.

*For Personal Use Only*

I sorta got the impression that the current Empyrean 'prince whatshisname' fills the Superman archetype in CU.

FWIW = for what it's worth

Originally posted by Lord Liaden

Interesting critical analysis, zornwil. I haven't played M&M so I can't really comment on your comparison of in-game utility and clarity, but I'll keep your observations in mind.

 

Since you're thinking of picking up Freedom City, I'm not sure whether you're aware that FC author Steve Kenson posted HERO System versions of many of the characters from that book as a free dowloadable RTF file. As you seem to prefer HERO to the M&M system, that might make the book more worthwhile to you. You can find the stats here:

 

http://members.aol.com/talonstudio/freedomcity/fchero.html

Hey, that's a spiffy new avatar ya got there, LL.

It's possible Monolith's point could be split up into Heroes and Villains. You don't necessarily want powerful and fascinating Hero NPCs all over the place. It is possible they will outshine the PCs. As time goes on they become synonymous with the gameworld itself, ala the characters of D&D's Forgotten Realms, and some players can become annoyed.

Interesting neutrals and villains I'm all in favor of.

Here is where I get alot of my character pics:

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/hosted/Pozas/gallery_main.html

The flavor of M&M is very impressive, lots of Silver Age coolness. However, now that I've had a chance to play some random encounters and combats for M&M, HERO is still far superior rules-wise in my opinion.

Several Champions modules will be out within the next few months, not bad for a company that is a year-and-a-half old and had essentially one writer up till a little while ago. Hopefully, they will sell well as I'm a big fan of pre-made modules myself. I particularly think the 'multi-module' format could be viable.

Well, if nobody's going to step up to the plate...then I'll be Steve Long!

Ahh, the money, the women, the adulation of gaming geeks everywhere.

Yep, I'm SURE that is pretty much an average day in Steve's life.

Originally posted by Killer Shrike

Which I become by......

Dude, just look to the area on the left side of the screen where it says DIGITAL HERO. Right between Discussion Boards and Policies.

Click on it.

It sounds like he's talking about Chocobo's, from the Final Fantasy games.

Originally posted by Monolith

Art is, of course, always subjective, but the rough pencil sketch looked pretty good to me.

 

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=37072

Alright! That looks like it's gonna be great!

Originally posted by Steve Long

It was never going to be $25. The standard price on our genre books has been $29.99. This one will be the same unless we have time to change it, in which case it will probably be $31.99. However, at this point I think it's already been solicited at the $29.99 price, and resoliciting it's not worthwhile.

Ah. I was just going off FRPGames. They have the price before preorder at $24.99.

Originally posted by Steve Long

Yes, right now it's still on track for a GenCon release. It really depends mostly on Andy and Allen, since from this point the hard work -- laying it all out and getting it ready to go to the printer by late June -- falls on their shoulders. But even if they get everything done in time, wackiness might ensue at the printer, the shipper, or the like. As usual, we make no promises until we can definitely say that "the printer has shipped the book."

Cool, and even though it will apparently be much larger than expected is it still going to be only $25?

Originally posted by Steve Long

As a quick update...

 

I finished the first draft of FH today after many long weeks of work. Huzzah! Now I have to read back through and edit/revise/supplement as necessary.

 

Right now it adds up to 299,760 words -- making it longer than the 5E manuscript by about 1,000 words, and also making it the longest single book I've ever written. However, I don't necessarily think it'll be quite as many pages as 5E, since Andy gets a little cleverer with layout every book we do and will probably work his usual miracles of space-saving.

 

More as circumstances warrant....

So it still is on track for July then?