Haven Walkur

Re: A DC Animated-style HeroMachine And here's The Hero Factory application again; I keep coming back to it in odd moments. Yes, it's very limited, but it does have some charms; simple, clear graphics, easy interface and characters you can customise to the point of originality (if you fiddle around enough). Saint Michael's Cross is my first male pic using HF.

Re: A DC Animated-style HeroMachine Another pic made with the classic Dini/Timm style Fábrica de Heròis...ooh, how I love that application. The shirt's actually something I had to create, oddly enough; for all the variations available, Fábrica doesn't offer a sleeveless midriff top. And no, the lady isn't a demon of any sort. Just a tiger-lady who happens to have wings. Ah, the HEROBoard doesn't like psp. Let's try that again: The pic in question.

Re: "Neat" Pictures That is the best and most literal definition of "thinking outside the box" I've ever seen.

Re: Query's Art & Stuff Thread This is phenomenal, Query! Such a sense of motion and menace from a D&D-style monster. This is fearsome, and the body of the poor tragic victim is beautifully realised; the pose is convincing, the clothing and hair fall naturally (according to the law of gravity). Is the victim a male Elf, or some similar species? I ask because of the long fall of hair, the pale skin.... Someone made a "tentacle monster" comment about the monster, and I suppose it is, technically...but it has a plausibility, a creative conviction that the classic TMs lack; after all, they're only there for one thing! In general, TMs are more plot devices or symbols of violence/rape than vital, living critters with habitats, life cycles and convincing physiology -- but this monster-y, tentacle-y creature looks as if it might have all three. This creature (and just what is this frightful fiend, anyway?) has a sense of authenticity that fantasy monsters usually lack; it looks convincing, perhaps even likely, and very, very nasty...and that's due to your talent! Well done, Query; this is impressive. Thank-you for sharing. How big is the original? Oh, and Repped.

Re: in the spirit of christmas! Hah, I actually tracked him down by his handle on deviantART! And I concur with DusterBoy; Dr. Dee, you are indeed a 'proper artist' -- and what's more, you are an extremely talented and creative artist, with a broad understanding of style, media and mood...and I like your work. A lot.

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! I like the diction (the pronunciation errors in his English look convincing for someone with a strong German accent, at least to me) and the content in this character quote; gives a strong feeling of who the speaker is and was, and what issues he's facing. My only pickable nit...since you're writing this phonetically, shouldn't "Fatherland" be "Faderland"? Well-presented character.

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! Oh, well done, my Tribblus Maximus Magnus! This is a battle not 'for' the ages, but 'of' the Ages -- namely a Bronze (or Silver) Age villain seeking retribution against a set of (rusty) Iron Age heroes. I love the meta-questions -- explicit and implied -- here: To what lengths will The Rush go? Will he abandon his Bronze Age moral beliefs and ethics about what the 'proper way' is for a hero (or a villain) to behave, and embrace the Iron Age? Does violence, like power, corrupt...and is the progression through the Ages always downward? A traditional character in a modern and sophisticated situation -- good stuff!

Re: Kingdom of Champions expanded character sheets. Darling daddy Death Tribble...please don't be cross with your Tribblette progeny ;-) Oh, I understand the glorious clichés of the superheroic source material, and to roleplay in the superheroic world, I think one has to at least entertain a fondness for the hoary comic-book traditions, clichés and more-than-occasional silliness (remember, I'm a big fan of the original Legion of Super-Heroes), if not outright delight in 'em. Howeeeever...something about KoC as a gaming supplement really aggravated me. Granted, there may be worse offenders out there in terms of unappealingly dull characters and superficial backgrounds, but KoC is the one that affronts me most. I don't like KoC stylistically, and I don't like the content. Perhaps it's my disappointment in what I consider a very poor effort to present my favourite nation's super-community that makes me judge KoC so harshly? Obviously there's some disagreement as to the precise degree of KoC's offenses....[wink]

Re: Kingdom of Champions expanded character sheets. "Generous 5th Ed gamer Rep" for you. Thank-you so much for sharing your updates/character builds; I much prefer FREd to 6th Ed'n, and I know what a chore writing up (or tweaking) large numbers of Champions characters is. By the bye, I never much cared for KoC; I'm British-born, and the character concepts (all but a few) seemed generally dull and unconvincing, the background "colour" very superficial and clichéd. But that doesn't mean I don't appreciate your work.

Re: Help name my Hero Group The Po'Boys (after the popular and long-lived New Orleans submarine sandwich) Les Pécheurs de la Nouvelle-Orléans ("The New Orleans Sinners" -- play on the NFL's New Orleans Saints The Metairie Marvels (the New Orleans metropolitan area is actually composed of New Orleans–Metairie–Kenner) Pontchartrain Powerhouse (for the huge brackish lake/estuary in New Orleans) Les Champions du Vieux Carré ("The Old Quarter Champions," referring to the historic French Quarter of New Orleans)

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! I wasn't aware of this. I don't know who first resurrected the term "alicorn" for a winged unicorn, but since I really dislike Piers Anthony and make a practice of avoiding his writing, his books are probably not where I encountered the usage.

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! Erm, yes AND no, depending on the period. The Roman writer Pliny in his "natural history" claimed that the horn of the unicorn (a beast which probably resulted from the confounding of traveller's descriptions of rhinos and antelopes) was composed of three colours; red, blue and black. I believe he was the first Westerner to refer to unicorn horn as "alicorn", a term he apparently borrowed from Arabic. In the Middle Ages, "alicorn" was often used interchangeably with "unicorn", in reference to the creature itself. However, another common usage referred to an amulet supposedly crafted from the horn of a unicorn. As in Pliny's description, the horn in these amulets was generally tri-coloured, with several distinct stripes -- usually of red and white, with purple, black, blue or silver as a third colour. When in the presence of poison, these amulets would change colour; "alicorns" also possessed the power to neutralise poisons and purify food and water by touch.

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! THE ALICORN This hunter-killer beast of Nightmare is a manifestation of vengeance. In shape, it appears as an Alicorn, a great winged unicorn gray as morning light, with hooves and horn of starlight and a mane and tail like smoke on the autumn wind. Its huge wings are like eagles’ wings, with every pinion bright and white as snow and light as gossamer, and its eyes are pale as stars. The Alicorn is impossibly, heartbreakingly beautiful; its appearance alone is enough to awaken feelings of unworthiness in even the coarsest and hardest souls. Though it has the shape of a magical beast, the Alicorn has both wit and will, with a formidable, cold intelligence and a deep comittment to its mission of vengeance. The Alicorn has and uses at its own discretion various spell-like powers, including Inescapable Location, which allows it to follow its quarry wherever the quarry runs, and Compulsion, Fascination and Dreamwalk, which the Alicorn uses to make the victim become obsessed with it. The Alicorn possesses endless stamina for the chase, never tiring as it haunts its quarry, appearing to the victim only to disappear if approached, leaving no tangible sign of its presence and driving its victim to distraction with the longing to touch it. The Alicorn uses its Selective Invisibility power to make it unseen and undetectable by any but the victim, and visits the victim’s dreams via Dreamwalking whenever that person sleeps. Once the victim is completely obsessed by the Alicorn, it uses the spell-like power Whisper of Doubt to make the victim begin to believe that his own unworthiness is the reason he can never approach or touch the object of his obsession -- and will never be able to. At this point, the Alicorn departs, leaving the heartbroken victim to follow after, struggling to catch glimpses of the beloved being and tormented by dreams of the Alicorn. Eventually the victim, prompted by the workings of the Whisper of Doubt, comes to believe that his only hope of ever embracing the Alicorn is to beg it to take his life; a life which had become ever more wretched since the visitations began. And when the victim finally begins begging the Alicorn to kill him, the Nightmare prolongs the agony, playing coy, dancing away and shying back from the victim until it senses the victim’s mind is on the verge of snapping -- and then it delivers the coup de grace, a thrust to the heart with that starlight horn

Re: The October Eight competition Metanormal Amalthea “Amy” Best is a cat-girl, a real one. When she invokes her power, she can meld with her beloved pet cat Grimaulkin to become the Madcat, part human, part feline. And the Madcat is not a pretty sight. (Full background to follow -- and it's wonderful to see your work again, Dr. D. I'm always delighted by your concepts and your squiggly lines.) Amy is Canadian, born and raised in (Old) South Ottowa, Ontario. She’s fair-skinned, brown-haired , short and burly, something she used to good effect as a fullback on her high school – and later, university – field hockey team. Her boisterous, rough-and-tumble good humour made Amy popular with her teammates, who nicknamed her ‘the Rolling Stone’. However, her classmates were often put off by what they saw as Amy’s bull-in-a-china-shop demeanor...and these social patterns continued on into her time at the University of Ottowa. When Amy was 12, her parents divorced, and her father, petroleum engineer Philip Best, moved to Alaska. Amy remained in Ottowa with her mother, well-known Canadian writer Jillian Carterhaugh-Best, whose apocalyptic Living Stone novels have been widely acclaimed for their depiction of life following a global ecological collapse. Home life with her creative, moody and distractable mother was, for Amy, a study in isolation. She became very independent and self-sufficient – traits which only serve to reinforce people’s perception of Amy as a single-minded, socially-awkward tomboy – learning to rely on herself since her mother was so frequently unavailable, either physically or emotionally. But Amy found there was a lot of comfort in the purr of a cat...even when said cat is a lop-eared tangle of muscle and sinew sewn together with scars, with an absurdly long tail and eyes the colour of rotten tangerines, the whole covered in cloudy-gray fur with white patches. He (an un-neutred tomcat) appeared at the house on Alta Vista and Smyth the year Amy’s parents divorced – which would make him currently at least 18 years old -- and quickly became a faithful friend, if an occasionally loud and demanding one. Her mother, in a rare fit of humour, described him as ‘Amy’s familiar’, and Amy promptly named the cat Grimaulkin, one of the traditional “witchy” names.

Re: Create a Hero Theme Team! Dr. Valence ("No middle name, dammit!") Arras aka Warbeast John Maynard Keynes: Newton was not the first of the age of reason, he was the last of the magicians. That quote always makes Val grin. “Hardly the last.” Dr. Valence Arras is beyond brilliant, a genius of the same order as Newton. She’s a physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher (an expert in the objective study of nature and the physical universe now referred to as “natural science”), engineer, expert in electrical and mechanical theory, mineralogist and metallurgist. She has an eidetic memory and a drive for mastery of subjects that catch her interest that’s so strong it verges on the ridiculous. Valence is strong-willed, stubborn, driven; driven to know what is knowable, and with that knowledge save mankind from itself. Like Newton, Val is also an alchemist, the creator of Living Metal, an unusually flexible and responsive form of memory metal, created by metallurgical and alchemical processes and capable of regenerating itself at the molecular level, or “healing”. The Warbeast, a combat vehicle Val built in the classic "Mad Science" tradition -- it's shaped like an immense robotic sabre-tooth cat -- makes extensive use of Living Metal. At 5'8", Valence is tall for a woman, with something of her father’s build, though she is wiry and sinewy where he was slender. Her brown eyes have gleams of green and gold in them, and her chestnut-brown hair is wavy and usually kept just above shoulder-length; though clean, it’s also usually untidy and disheveled, rather like an unmade bed. She’s fit and flexible and quite physically strong, and she’s always done a great deal of walking, though she wouldn’t call herself athletic. [“I can walk indefinitely, but not at any speed.” -- Valence Arras] Valence has quick, deft hands, and won’t drop or fumble anything she means to hold onto. At the age of 31, Valence was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a neurological disorder where the immune system attacks and destroys the myelin sheaths of nerves in the brain. It is incurable and progressive, though regular use of injectable medications can decrease the frequency and severity of “flare-ups” or “seizures.” Severe seizures that do occur can be treated effectively with intravenous steroids, on an outpatient basis. [“And nobody knows exactly what it is, what causes it or how to stop it. Many thanks, medical community, you idle drones.” -- Valence Arras] MS seizures have left Valence with permanent weakness in her left knee that causes her to limp. At times, the knee will collapse backwards when she walks, making her trip or stumble. Heat, humidity and fatigue can all exacerbate both the limp and the MS itself, leading to more frequent and severe seizures. Valence meets regularly with a neurologist, and has a once-a-day regimen of subcutaneous injections of prescription MS medication. [“It costs around a thousand dollars a month. Hell, with a thousand-dollar a month drug habit, I should at least be getting high.” -- Valence Arras] With the exception of the MS and related effects, Valence’s health is generally excellent...[“Excellent aside from the fact that my immune system is eating my brain, that is.” -- Valence Arras] Val's sarcastic, sardonic and a thorough-going cynic, particularly about humans and human nature, but still believes that her abilities make her responsible for helping others with the difficulties that are greater than they are [“When they need it, whether they want it or not -- since most people aren’t competent to say what they want, much less what they need. Perhaps I should have called the Beast 'Nobless Oblige' instead.” -- Valence Arras]. She likes a very few individuals, but doesn’t much like people in general; it would be accurate to call Valence a misanthrope -- she certainly does -- even though she risks her life without hesitation to help others. Like Isaac Newton, Dr.Valence Arras is a genius, part scholar, part mystic and all mad scientist. Unfortunately, she shares her idol's antisocial temperament. Alexander Pope: Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night/God said “Let Newton be” and all was light.

Re: Make a Green Lantern Oath There was a "What Colour Ring would You Get?" game circulating around the HERO Board a few years back, where you answered the questions and were matched with the appropriate colour of Lantern Corps. I can't find the game now -- if you know where it can be found, please let me know! -- but back when I took the test, I ended up being a...Blue Lantern! After taking the test several times, I finally bowed to the inevitable, and wrote the following Oath for the Blue Lantern Corps. In durance vile, on darkling plain, Blue Lantern shines where despair reigns. Let those who suffer despair's pain behold my light -- for hope remains! Ooh, my first act of Thread Necromancy! I must be a Black Lantern.

Re: The Perils Of Helpless Holly Sorry, Holly, you're going to die. A lot.

Re: Create a Hero Theme Team! Little Bear -Even a man who is pure of heart and says his prayers by night May become a beast when the wolfsbane blooms and the hunter's moon is bright- Brokke Kiljoy was the "Little Bear", a lycanthropic member of the hero team Storm Force, from the Twin Cities. As a were-badger, she was the team's brickette -- capable of changing at will into her animal form or into a disturbing quasi-human hybrid. This might not seem like the most impressive of were-forms, but the thick-pelted, long-clawed, ferocious and short-tempered badger is essentially a low-slung, muscular torpedo with teeth and claws, able to get under or through many obstacles...especially since this Little Bear's claws could dig through concrete. In her human form, Brokke was an attractive woman in her 40s, short and muscular, with brindled gray hair and brown eyes. But on the nights immediately before and after the full moon, Brokke was compelled to assume her badger form for the entire night -- and on the night of the full moon, she was primal and no longer rational; a rabid "little bear" in truth. The one ameliorating factor was that Little Bear's version of lycanthropy was transmitted genetically, through inheritance; Brokke was not contagious, even if she drew blood in her badger form. Brokke was old enough and experienced enough with her lycanthropy that the moon's imperative wasn't much more than an inconvenience for her and her team -- until Storm Force encountered a villainous blaster calling herself "Selene", who proved to in fact have a mystical connection with the moon. Her bolts of moonlight drove Little Bear first into her hybrid form and then into her beast-form -- and then into her rabid, primal "full moon" form. Hammer and Anvil (Storm Force's big brick and his telekinetic, force wall-creating partner), two of Little Bear's teammates, had to drag the raging badger off Selene. They finally succeeded, but not before she -- and they -- had sustained extensive damage from the were-badger's teeth and claws. Little Bear, now apparently beyond reason in her berserk beast-form, was contained in the Storm Force lab, and Hammer, Anvil and Selene were hospitalised in critical condition. And on the first night of the full moon all three changed...changed into berserk, blood-thirsty badgers,just as if it were the night of the full moon. And Brokke Kiljoy changed back into her human form. With the setting of the moon, all three recovered their human forms...but those they injured (those who survived, that is) the previous night showed no sign of developing the contagion. According to ancient Scandinavian tradition, it seemed that Hammer, Anvil and Selene were all now "moon brok", were-badgers that would rage all three nights of the full moon, but could not contaminate others with their version of lycanthropy. But the sudden appearance of three new were-badgers was not the reason Little Bear demanded containment in cold sleep. All too soon, she realised that Selene's powers had done more than just release her raging beast-side; they had reversed the rhythm of her lycanthropy so that she would now be human only on the three nights of the full moon -- and a berserk, raging blood-beast on every other night. She would be completely out-of-control -- and now she was contagious. "I ought to change my name to 'Vector'", Little Bear commented bitterly. "Just swear you'll keep a muzzle on the other three while I'm...away."

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! Hand-to-hand combat is an obvious specialization when you're...a hand. This bizarre member of Brute Force is a disembodied human hand that calls "himself" The Beast with Five Fingers, after a 1946 horror movie. 'Beast' is a large and powerful but well-shaped (almost elegant) left hand, skin colour Caucasian, that appears to have been cleanly disarticulated from the arm, leaving about two inches of the wrist. Beast has a large midnight blue tattoo of a pentacle (5-pointed star-in-circle) on his back, below the knuckles. He communicates by writing, either freehand with pen/pencil or by typing on a keyboard...and insists on being referred to as male. He enjoys arm-wrestling anyone of either gender, and is very hard to beat. He flatly refuses to discuss his situation -- an animated disembodied hand -- but occasionally little clues about his past do crop up. And he does have a sense of humour...witness his name. Strange as it sounds, Beast is a skilled old-fashioned pugilist, springing up spider-like to deliver devastating closed-fist blows. He can also crawl rapidly over an opponent's head and torso and punch while bracing himself on his wrist. How does he get the force and leverage to do damage with his punches? No-one is quite sure, but the results are undeniably effective. Beast is also an appallingly effective dirty fighter, an eye-gouging, choking-holding, hitting-below-the-belt dirty fighter -- all tactics which were once perfectly acceptable in boxing -- and once he climbs onto an opponent it's only a matter of moments before that opponent is down for the count. Down -- but usually not dead. Beast has commented that these fellows today seem a lot softer than he's used to; Queensbury Rules were after his time, and he never held with them for just that reason...rules make a fighter soft. So he wouldn't be too upset if one of the softies did go squish -- except that it's not very sporting, squishing a softie.

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! ThaaaaanQ!

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team! Presenting: Pinecone "Pangolin: An African mammal that has a body covered with horny overlapping scales, a small head with elongated snout, a long sticky tongue for catching ants and termites, and a thick, tapering tail. Also called scaly anteater." "That's what a pangolin is," thought Desperate Divas star Jackie Ambruster, outraged. "It looks like a walking pinecone!" Up until five minutes ago, she'd known nothing at all about spiny African anteaters, and couldn't have cared less...as with so much else in her life. Ignore it, forget it, shrug it off; that had been her M.O. in dealing with, well, everything. All her life. But now she had to care.... All because of that little idiot Debbie and that son-of-a-b*tch Dr. Phillip Wilde. Face it, Jacqueline "Jackie" Ambruster was a smart enough and pretty enough to have it made in T.V.-town; pretty enough to end up a core cast member on popular reality show Desperate Divas, and smart enough to keep the audience interested. Smart enough to backstab, cheat and lie with a smiling face, and let what the others did in return just roll off her back. Smart enough not to get close to anyone on the show, not -- despite the name of the genre -- for real. Smart enough not to care. But then last season the show's powers-that-be wanted to stage a big blowup/betrayal in the main cast...well yeah, okay, Debbie Wills wasn't that old, but she was supposed to be an actress, for crying out loud! These were characters in a show! And so when Jackie revealed to Angela -- right on cue for the season finale -- that pretty golden-haired little Debbie was in love with her, no-one was more surprised than Jackie by the kid's reaction to her betrayal. The kid's very final reaction. The note read simply: Jackie, you were my best friend. I miss you. And abruptly the viewing public decided that Jackie Ambruster was the devil. Jackie was ostracised by the professional world, criticised by the public and eventually sued by Debbie's family. The producers of Desperate Divas insisted in court that the so-called "Judas kiss betrayal" was conceived of and staged entirely by Jackie...and then in-court revelation that "Debbie Wills" was the assumed name of 17-year-old "Debbie Ann Vickers" just slapped the final rotting cherry on the whole rancid sundae. Oh, Jackie was eventually exonerated of any wrongdoing in the death of Debbie Wills/Debbie Ann Vickers, but by then most of her savings and investments were gone and her prospects for further work in television or film, at least in the US, were non-existent. She couldn't afford to leave the U.S., but Jackie had to find some way, any way to start over. For the first time, she began to consider doing something criminal -- theft, robbery, blackmail, fraud -- for the money. And as if her life was a script he'd been supervising, Dr. Phillip Wilde -- zoo-ologist, virologist and organic chemist -- chose that moment to step forward and offer the 45-year-old Jackie the sort of new start she'd never even contemplated. Jackie's genetic material, as she was dismayed to learn, has been blended with that of a pangolin. Once the metabolic and physiological changes were complete, Jackie's body had settled into a stable and permanent, albeit bizarre hybrid form. She now calls herself Pinecone. Jackie is still 5'8", her pre-transformation height, but she has developed a deep stoop; her absurdly large and powerful hands and forearms hang low in front of her, her enormous bristling claws almost brushing the ground. Like the pangolin, she's an excellent climber and digger, but overall she moves very slowly; Jackie actually walks bipedally, but her style of locomotion is that of a quadruped walking with its front legs raised slightly off the ground. Pinecone is covered in interlocking, razor-edged plated of keratin. Like "natural" pangolins, she can roll herself into a tight armoured ball that's proof against all natural attacks...and a bit more. Blades, low-calibre bullets, spears and arrows will not penetrate the natural armour, which also acts as a Damage Shield, thanks to its bladed edges. Pinecone has very poor eyesight, but keen hearing and a discriminatory sense of smell; her nostrils, ears and eyelids have muscular "valves" that protect them from damage or attack, making her immune to most irritant gas attacks. And yes, she's an insectivore, though high-protein pastes will substitute for ants or mealworms when she hasn't had a chance to order from any of her on-line pet supply stores. Pinecone has no teeth or jaws, and her long, flexible and extremely sticky tongue is not adapted for speech, though she has begun using it as a substitute hand/arm; it's flexible, strong, well-anchored and very long, with its insertion point in Pinecone's pelvic girdle. Currently she can manipulate a crayon with it in order to write legible words. Pinecone's oversized claws hang down from her short, wide "fingers" like a bunch of gray/brown bananas. Her claws prevent her from using her front feet/hands for locomotion, but she can use her claws to dig and burrow rapidly and tear through reinforced concrete and steel. In combat, Pinecone is very slow but also very hard to hurt, even when not rolled up, and getting within arm's reach of those machete-like claws is likely to be a deadly mistake. Jackie is not pleased with her current situation. Oh, admittedly she got the change she was seeking, but rather more drastic than she'd intended or anticipated. On the plus side, no-one will ever recognise her now; on the minus side, she's a freak! A monstrous FREAK! She definitely feels she has a score to settle with Dr. Wilde, and suspects he has been manipulating her all along, perhaps even as far back as her days with Desperate Divas. But oddly enough, Jackie has found herself putting her quest for vengeance on the back-burner. For some reason, Jackie can't just brush off her fellow beast-people. It's not just that they're like her, or she's like them, but they seem to have something more than shape in common. Beast Blood isn't much of a criminal enterprise at this point, but they're -- somehow, they're good people to be around, and Jackie reluctantly admits she likes spending time with them. She's definitely having trouble keeping her distance these days, especially with people like Tristan, the Mad Cow, and the poor sweet little Tapir, Suleika.

Re: Create a Hero Theme Team!

Re: Create a Hero Theme Team! Warmblood is a renegade daughter of the Lovecraftian "Deep Ones".

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... "You do!"