Hatut Zeraze

I had basically the same idea, and like you, I also never got around to writing him up. I imagined him as a character who could build walls, tools, structures, and even minions out of Legos. I confess, though, I only conceived of the powers and name. I never considered any kind of origin like you did. You guys reminded me of a few others: 1. Asylum An old friend wanted to run a high-level campaign set in space, with higher points and I was struggling to come up with an idea. One of them was Asylum. Basically, he was a psionically-empowered counselor on an orbital space station that functioned as a mental asylum. Some kind of disaster or attack occurred, which destroyed the space station, killing everyone in the asylum except the psionic counselor. In the instant before their deaths, the psychic death-cries of 6 of the inmates deeply imprinted themselves on the counselor's psyche. Now, the ghosts of those inmates live on, within the counselor's mind. He is able to transform his body into each of them, calling forth whichever form would be needed. I don't recall all of them, but generally they were 200-300 point forms, so none were spectacularly powerful, but each had their own specialty. I remember one was a female with an prodigious mechanical aptitude. The chief one, though, was a demonic being who could permanently drain 1 point of body from victims. Calling him forth would always be a desperate prospect because his interests didn't match the benevolent interests of the rest. I do not recall the other forms. I did an initial write-up, but I am pretty sure it was never completed and certainly never played. 2. The City in My Eye For the same high-leveled space campaign as above, I ended up landing on this concept which I did write-up, but never got around to actually playing. A highly sophisticated and advanced colonial space empire was facing an inevitable disaster on their sacred homeworld. Their planet was going to die and there was nothing within their powers they could do to stop it. Their only hope was an exodus, but they loathed the idea of leaving behind the priceless and perfect art and architecture of their sacred cities. They could not bear to see them destroyed. A very weird idea offered some hope. They had mastered astonishing shrinking technology and considered that they could shrink entire cities, but there were two practical hurdles involved: the process was one-way, with no way to grow the cities back to their original size, AND the weird energies required to maintain the cities would quickly destroy them. A solution to this problem came from an unexpected corner of their colonial empire. The primitive people of a planet under the control of their empire happened to have an unusual biology that could absorb the precise energies needed to maintain the cities in their shrunken states. Select members of the primitive race were captured and each had one eye removed. In its place was an orb containing one of the shrunken miraculous cities of the doomed homeworld. The natural biology of the primitives could then safely absorb the weird energies and maintain the cities indefinitely. A by-product of this process granted energy powers to the host, who could use them to make force-fields, to fly, and to emit energy blasts. So, functionally, the Champions character would be a member of the "primitive" race who was an energy projector character. He could communicate and receive advice from the City Council, who resided within his eye. I imagined the dynamic would be interesting. The host character was a good and simple man whose life is devoted to keeping this city alive, despite the obvious prejudices they had against his people. The citizens of the city were smarmy and full of themselves but ultimately understood that they couldn't truly call the shots anymore and their survival now counted on the survival of a person whose race was once viewed with disdain. 3. The Pelican In my current campaign, a buddy of mine wanted to make a guy who could stretch his jaw out into something akin to a pelican's bill. I bought the bill as an extra limb, since he envisioned it granting a grab ability that a normal mouth couldn't normally perform. Then we bought the pelican scoop as an entangle from which the Pelican character would take full damage from attacks against. It's kinda weird. 4. Old Bean The same guy who is playing The Pelican wants to run a few scenarios, so he has instructed me to make a character. I told him a few of my ideas and he told me the one that fits best for what he wants to run is my Old Bean concept. In most functions, the character isn't particularly a weird concept - he is like a John Steed-style secret agent, very sophisticated and over-the-top. He has one weird power, though: he can detect coffee. At first I imagined this as a pretty trivial power, but when I bought it with telescopic, penetrative, discriminatory, and analyze, I think it could be handy on occasion. Approaching a building my team is investigating, Old Bean could use his Detect Coffee ability to see if there is any coffee within, but also where it is in the building, whether or not it has been brewed, how old it is, and what quality of coffee it is. This could give some valuable tactical information. He would have an idea where kitchens and break rooms are likely located before he could see them. He would have an idea if someone was currently drinking coffee or if they had some time ago, which could provide information about location and activity for stake-outs and guard-posts. Finally, recognizing the quality of coffee has the potential to share information about the sophistication and/or wealth of people within a building. Cheap, pencil-shaving coffee is consumed by some folks and fancy, exotic beans are more often purchased by discriminating customers. I realize I spent too much on a power that will only be useful in particular circumstances, but I love the flavor of it (pun intended).

Oh man, I have a bunch for this. 1. The contrary player In my early days of playing Champs, back in the 80s, I was enthralled with the game's freedom and convinced I could work with any idea a player had. A friend of a friend basically trolled me and decided to make the most obnoxious character and I fell for it hook, line, and sinker. The character was some kind of lizard guy with no arms or legs, and was deaf, blind, and mute. 30 years later, I am still mortified I didn't see what a bad idea that was. We actually attempted to play, but this contrary guy continued to make it as difficult as possible. I don't recall how long that lasted, but needless to say, we never played with him again. 2. Leather Apron I made up a horror villain to mess with my players. I took the name "Leather Apron" from Alan Moore's From Hell. Earlier in the Jack the Ripper murders, he was being referred to as "Leather Apron" before the Jack the Ripper name took hold. The character had two weird powers. One of them was him having a face that resisted being remembered. I defined it as a constant, persistent Int drain on everyone who saw him, limited to only effecting the memory of Leather Apron's face. His other weird power was a Mental Illusions power that made the victim believe they were communing with a Lovecraftian monstrosity in orbit around the Earth. I refused to confirm or deny whether or not such a creature actually existed and if it did, what its connection was to Leather Apron. 3. Stickman I just made a guy whose power was being a skinny little stickman. The GM didn't get the character's potential until I pulled off a neat little stunt in the middle of a fight with a swarm of Viper agents. I was standing atop a stack of crates on a shipping dock and I slipped between the crates to hide within. The particular skinny power was a limited form of Desolidification which let him slip through the cracks of just about anything. 4. O-Lass An old friend who has since passed away, was enthralled by Phil Foglio's old humor/erotica comic XXXenophile. In one issue, there was a character named Orgasm Lass. He wanted to play her and I hesitated at first, not because of the content (my group was pretty open to all kinds of weirdness), but because I wasn't sure how to make her. Finally I realized a combination END/STUN drain, limited to a particular category of targets, could simulate what we were looking for. Lou played her for quite a long time. 5. Mr. 1920 One of my players had a very weird concept and I did my best to accommodate. Mr. 1920 was a man who lived in the 1920s but would dream an avatar of himself into modern times. That psychic avatar was the character he played. His weirdest ability was a constant aura that extended out about 2 feet or so from his body, that temporarily transformed everything within it to an equivalent technology or style from the 1920s. If someone tossed him a cell phone, it would appear as a telephone from that era. People standing right next to him would have their clothes temporarily transform into the style of the 1920s. The aura even provided additional defense against high-tech attacks, essentially neutralizing them as they made contact with the avatar. 6. Servo Sally The same player who played Mr. 1920 had another idea that was basically the reverse of that one. A young boy, the son of a great scientist in the far future dug around amongst his father's weird tech gadgets and picked out what he assumed was an exotic video game controller. It let him play the Servo Sally game, allowing him to control a female robot hero as she fought for justice in a 21st century American city. The Servo Sally robot was the character in the Champions game, being actively controlled by a boy in the future, who was unaware that his video gaming was effecting what an actual robot was doing in the past. 7. Little Sister Sadness I just recently made this NPC villain for my current group. I based her on one of my Champions Online characters. She has the power of Super-Sadness. In CO, she just used powers from the Darkness set and I called them the powers of Super-Sadness. In Champions proper, I was able to fine tune that even more. Her powers include a black mood form (multiform), tentacles of despair (entangle), depressed gaze (Mental blast w/eye contact required), Cry me a River (water blast, AoE Line), and finally Presence Defense called "Already disappointed". 8. The Signal Ghouls This is a villain group from my current campaign. These are creepy weird science techno-cultists who have discovered the ability to detect weird mystic/psionic signals from across time, dimension, and space. They latch onto transmissions between godlike alien entities and have mastered the ability to farm those signals for materials (psychic/psionic/mystic) that they can turn into components or weird weapon fuel that they sell to the supervillains, mad scientists, and evil wizards of the world. Functionally, I can use them in a variety of ways, as weird creepy punks for heroes to take down easily, or as part of a more serious story, they can be a stepping stone toward more serious threats, like the villains they sell to, or even the beings whose transmissions they are mining.

I thought I already replied to this. THANKS everyone (belated, I am sorry). I worked on Marshmallow Arrow some more today and I definitely included this power. I opted to go with the Swimming suggestions, since it is more intuitive than the Flight idea Steve and I had. Another thing I worked out with him was a variation on the firefighter's safety net, to protect my character and others from falling damage. I am pretty sure I have seen superhero archers do this before - shooting an arrow that bursts out an expanding foam or something of that nature to break a fall. Because of my particular character's theme, this one looks like a giant marshmallow, but it is the same idea. I bought the Cushion Arrow like so... 75% physical Damage Reduction. Ranged, Usable by Nearby, AoE (3m radius) for 110 active points Physical Manifestation, Only vs knockback or falling damage, Only usable by people landing on targeted area.

I have a character whose weird suit utilizes the cutting edge of marshmallow technology. I want him to float on water. By that I mean effortlessly floating, so buoyant that he could hold up several other characters, even unconscious. One idea I had was that I would buy a small amount of flight (equivalent in points to his STR maybe) 0 end, persistent with the limitation that it can't actually move him, only to hold him at the surface of any body of liquid. Is that the best way to do it? Am I missing something more obvious?

First one: ---The Solid Second one: ---Omegagogue

This is very sad news.

Hi. I am using Hero 6th ed. and I keep seeing certain Martial maneuvers with NNDs annotated with a specific number, like (1), (2), etc. I seem to recall those numbers referencing different defenses, depending on the definition of the specific martial maneuver, but I cannot seem to find where that is at. I assume it is in the Hero System Martial Arts, but I am brain-farting on where exactly to find it. Is there anyone who knows what page and in what book I can find this? In case my description above was awkwardly worded, here's a very specific example: On page 66 of Hero System Martial Arts, under Stickfighting, there is an Atemi Strike maneuver. The Damage/Effect column reads "2D6 NND(1)". Where do I find out what the "(1)" means? Apologies in advance for what I am sure is a basic question.

Re: Champions Villains, Volume 3: Solo Villains I'm looking forward to this volume. I have yet to purchase volumes 1 and 2 because in my campaign I prefer to use my own master villains and teams. Individual villains that are easily plugged into whatever else I am doing, though, are essential. I do plan on getting the other volumes, but they aren't my top priority yet since I am only just now starting to build up my 6th ed library. I have the Bestiary ordered and I'll be picking up the equipment guide after that.

Re: Shapeshifter : The Hawk-whale strategy Attack an opponent in the water as a whale. Swallow him whole. Then turn into a hawk and squeeze him to death! Of course, the intended victim would probably burst from within the poor hawk and send hawk guts all over the place, so that might not really be in the top 5 Hawk-Whale maneuvers of all time.