AlgaeNymph

Narcissistic personality disorder. Such "people" idealize and idolize those in power, if not seeking to be one themselves then living vicariously through them. They have the charm to build a cult of personality around themselves and their delusions, but become nasty the moment someone pokes holes in their illogic. And foremost; they are the most sanctimonious hypocrites you've ever met! In short, they're either bullies or the bully's little pals. And I do as well. In fact, it sort of reminds me of how the Nephandi are described in Book of the Fallen for Mage: the Ascension. And while I'm talking about other RPGs, Ars Magica has Realms Of Power - The Infernal. While through an Abrahamic lens, it gives a usefully thorough breakdown of a demon's psychology, though less about how they're evil so much as lacking virtue. This results in them all being petty megalomaniacs with grandiose plans that fall apart due to poor impulse control. They fight as a first resort, backstab at the first opportunity, flee at the slightest sign of trouble, and never learn from their mistakes. Kinda reminds me of your stereotypical supervillain. ; ) If I may go on a bit of a tangent, related to my previous thread, what would you give the Seven Planetary Demons?

One of the complications demons have is Utterly Evil. (This puts a damper on my fantasies of being captured, but I quite digress.) But what does that mean? How does that manifest in an NPC's actions? The best I have are the sorts you'd see on 8chan and LinkedIn. Does anyone with more relevant specialized knowledge have any better ideas?

Specifically, I'm speaking of the patrons of Astralle (Champions Villains 2; p.182-185). Are they greater demons (Bestiary; p.72, 77) or demon princes (Bestiary, p.90-97)? Or something else? And yes, I want something more substantial than "whatever you need for your game." : p

Honestly, I just picked Universal Rejection because I like stories involving V'han. They're all good ideas, though. : )

I know, right? They were a relic of 4e brought into 5e because Champions needed a dangerously practical villain team, and Eurostar was selected to fill that niche. In that case Istvatha V'han would be a better fit for that niche, especially since she has a good track record. Though I still don't know why she's aiding Eurostar, or how. Oo! Very well-developed, or at least more so than the villains they were made to fight. As for my views on Eurostar, they'd be best fo a campaign set in the 00's where they're on their way down. I really can't see how evil EU terrorists can be narratively relevant in this day and age.

Hm? What stereotypes? If they mean violent extremism then how is that particularly European? Fiacho seemed to be vaguely utopian before he went evil. Scorpia was with the IRA, but only seemed to care about hurting people. Ultrasonique sees "Them" as out to get him but nothing more specific than that. None of the others seem especially political, or else they would've been acting for a cause on their own already. Fiacho's main goal is a united, and ideally preeminent, Europe, so he'll likely be against nationalist movements. And if I may go on a tangent, this raises an interesting question as to why Istvatha V'han, who's all about preserving cultural identities, would be secretly backing him (Book of the Empress, p.184). Or how, given that Eurostar seems to be just a small group of jerks.

O...kay? While Eurostar can quite easily do things the boring-but-practical way, wouldn't an alleged choice get more horror out of their terrorism? By giving the targeted politician a lose-lose option they probably won cede to anyway, Eurostar does what it was going to do anyway and makes the politician look bad, delegitimizing them. Or maybe I put too much thought into sadism? Also...are you okay? You've seemed peculiarly insistent throughout this thread, and I think it hit a nerve. Sorry if I upset you. Perhaps we could get one of the devs to clear up any confusion?

You asking me? By all means, get political! Kinda the whole point of Eurostar. I suppose they are more about that than a united Europe. I recall Confucius saying to judge a person's character by their associates. Istvatha V'han's closest are principled patriots and rehabilitated rebels. Dr. Destroyer has brainwashed mercenaries who aren't sadistic so much as selfish. With Eurostar they're all just plain jerks. Which gets me thinking about an idea I had: a sadistic choice that's also a forced show of character. Some examples: Eurostar threatens to destroy a famous bridge in London during rush hour if they don't get a billion of whatever currency. When a politician boldly proclaims, from safety, that "we don't negotiate with terrorists," possibly cribbing from Churchill or Henry V for good measure, Eurostar tells them they can either choose which bridge gets destroyed or else they'll wreck both. Sure, the powers that be can redirect traffic and post guards, but for how long? Eurostar didn't give a date. And when people forget about it they strike. If their demands are not met, Eurostar will attack a prominent Muslim community center in Europe on a Friday. They leave this to linger so as to wear down resources, build up resentment among bigots for Muslims getting "special treatment," and get into position to attack. Eurostar then strikes a place the could have been defended by a wealthy enough country but wasn't. "It's Eurostar's fault" will ring hollow to a community that knows they were left to die. The possibility of gaining right-wing sympathizers is just frosting. An outspoken critic of Eurostar is ordered to give a thorough and humiliating public apology -- or else somebody is thoroughly tortured, and their ordeal publicly broadcast. It could be a loved one, it could be a random street person; whatever Eurostar thinks will force their critic into the most life-destroying decision. Failure to comply means Eurostar makes good on their word, with attempts to track down the broadcast only leading to a gruesomely mutilated body and a message to the effect of "you didn't care about me!" The real victim will be sold off to traffickers. If Eurostar gets their demands met then that's just fine. But if not then they force an enemy to be an active participant in their evil.

We know that Eurostar are the dangerously competent villains who brag about wrecking economies, but how do they work towards their goals? What do they ultimately need for endgame success? How do they support their projects? What do they prefer to target? How do they fight that's so different from everybody else? Questions like that and more. Might even help me figure out how other practical villains (or heroes) might work as well.

I've been giving this some thought, and if I may answer my own question I'd like to list some common elements I've observed. Foremost, fairy tale magic has to advance the story. For example, teleporting oneself to a christening to bestow a curse, but not to reposition oneself during combat. Spells are flashy one-off sort of things. Fairy tale magic is less of a toolkit and more a set of narrative devices; thus, a generalist spellcaster isn't going to be utilitarian with their repertoire. Anything permanent has a high price, fatal flaw, or escape clause. There could be sociocultural reasons, but I suspect it's more an expedient to give Random Peasant Hero a fighting chance. It can't fight God or Fate, because fairy tales are very much a product of their times. Though that raises the question of how the magic changes when the times do... Any exceptions to the rules is almost entirely to enhance the aesthetic of the setting, but not to the point of mundane utility. A remote ice palace is quite doable, but ubiquitous refrigeration no so much. Fairy tale magic, as I understand it, is Romanticism made physically manifest.

One of foremost powers of Brangomar, the Shadow Queen is "fairy tale-style" magic. All well and good but what does that even mean? Yes, I know it denotes a particular flavor and set of limitations but I'm afraid I'm not literate enough to know what those are presently. Might somebody be informed enough to know?

Because I'm really good at seeing connections based on my broad knowledge. Bomb-thrower + activist = stereotypes of anarchists. Admittedly, my talent can result in false positives... Only if I knew they were irredeemable, and a good dark champion would do their twenty minutes of prep time first. For the redeemable ones I'd focus on either therapy -- e.g., changing their means while validating their ends -- or harm reduction -- i.e., getting them to work for me. Good talent is hard to come by. Good thing we're not confined to the comic industry sausage factory. ; ) Oo! Now that's a different take, and makes so much sense...

Sure have a lot to respond to... Let's get to it. I was pretty much just musing, though I wouldn't mind having those questions answered. Both, but people here have very much taken the initiative on the latter. As someone dating a Penelope it's always good to see her mentioned. : ) And the rest of your points I can't really argue against -- except the crafter. Sort of. We see stories about gadgeteers being superheroes but not building great works. We see Tony Stark fighting terrorists with a super-suit, but not fighting OPEC with clean energy. Mm-hm, no denying that. That's what the article I linked to was getting at when referring to soldiers. To be fair, he was responding to a hack who felt we should embrace a "warrior culture," while ignoring historical examples of such. Still, I suspect a lot of young comics fans would be all for a warrior culture... Oh? Besides the obvious example of Green Arrow, from before "kids these days" were born, I've got a long list. While Batman told his aforementioned friend that giant monsters tend to step on the little guy, he also dealt with corporate malfeasance quite often, and not just in Heart of Ice. Riddler's debut in Batman TAS dealt with corruption in the games industry back when we thought crunch time was only something the Japanese did back when we felt they'd buy out the US (or at least the manufacturing sector). The whole point of the X-Men was social justice. Superman tackled social injustice back when he was starting out. Not to mention that his main foes are a corrupt corporate executive and a literal god of tyranny. He even broke the fourth wall to fight for truth and social justice. And of course, superheroes came of age in WWII back when we were fighting scarier monsters than the kaiju kind. A shame that punching Nazis is "politics in my entertainment!" Say...Cap didn't really take Watergate well, did he? And now "bleeding heart liberal judges"? Think about the logical conclusion of the words you used; that BLM is the sort of group a bomb-throwing lunatic would want to sponsor. Now that I think about it, that's another unfortunate implication... sigh... So much for this thread being civil. Though that one's on me; I just had to speak out.

When I asked how superheroes could be proactive a lot of the replies I got were outright fearful of such a thing. Logical given genre conventions, where anyone who isn't an aimless vigilante becomes a brutal authoritarian, but why is such a trope part of the narrative paradigm? I suspect the answer is historical precedent. Like the title says, superheroes are technically a warrior elite, which means more than easily defeating mere mortals. Being a warrior is a lifestyle, one that separates warriors from everyone else to the point we start using terms like "mere mortals." As a result warrior elites tend to get, well, elitist. Not something you want from a government leader, especially when there's precedent for a warrior culture to become ur-fascist. Indeed, superheroes in fiction are for the most part essentially cops and soldiers, maybe firefighters on a good day. Since supers are universally considered to be little more than face-punchers at even the best of times it's only logical we'd consider their proactivity to thus follow. So what's the solution? In contrast to warriors are soldiers, or people who see fighting as a job rather than an identity, who think of themselves as public servants rather than moral superiors. Still, the media will most likely focus on celebrity demigods more than talented entrepreneurs without a fundamental change in culture; superheroes have been universally revered through history, but how often do epics pay heed to crafters, healers, and hearth-tenders? Then again, the storytellers did compose at the behest of the aforementioned warrior aristocracy...

I'm probably the only person here that hasn't watched Civil War so I don't have a horse in this race. ^_^; What an excellent idea...

Well...I don't have any players. 😅 Now if I had players then doing what they'd want would be the easy, common sense solution. However, this is pretty much a thought exercise for me. Sorry about the misunderstanding.

I know, I know... Though you could've at least had one involving Morph becoming her old, non-evil self. And I know you wrote her up because "décolletage" is not a common word. 😜 That's...not what I'm going for. Institutional change needs popular support, or at least a counter-institution making said change. The reason Punisher's fighting a losing war is because he's not dealing with demand. Remember, evil is more often than not elected. That's what I'm going for, and am honestly shocked at people thinking otherwise. (I have a hypothesis, but that's for another thread.) I know the modern incarnation of the genre is pretty much based on a late 90's milieu, where people still believed in The End of History -- and consequently that further progressiveness would only make things worse. We all stopped believing in that fantasy after the 2016 election. Superpowers, and super-costumes, are more believable. Here's my take: Superheroes are genuinely good people, with nothing more sordid about them than harmless vice (what do you think the private rooms in Club Caprice are for? 😉 ). However, most of them don't think beyond what they're punching. They did (in the comics) start off going after white-collar crooks before being distracted by supervillains. How convenient for the business criminals (like the comics industry in the real world). And "Father Government Knows Best" is pure wartime propaganda that got grandfathered in. Sure, the liaisons and agents the heroes deal with are fundamentally just and benevolent, but what about higher up? They no doubt benefit from supervillains always escaping prison, and I imagine they collectively laughed in relief when the only check on their abuse of power faded on 2020. Or after every time V'han was expelled. Now there's a government where reform from within could be possible. Now if only most supers could be more thoughtful than "THIS! IS! SPARTA!" Persia was actually the good guy in the conflict.

From what I've seen there's a lot of overlap regarding what modern myths would go in Faerie or Babylon. So the fundamental question to ask is: how do we tell what goes where? Mind, there's always the possibility of a cosmological overlap anyway.

Reading through many adventure seeds I've noticed that almost all are not just reactive but almost identical: "The villain must be stopped!" Besides accursed genre conventions, superheroes are essentially law enforcement relief workers, which is by its nature mostly reactive. Still, a campaign where the heroes have goals would be very welcome. I don't mean "defeat VIPER" so much as do something world-changing. But how to do that? Also, how to rework plot seeds into a proactive story?

That's pretty much the idea in the first place, and since it's not for a game the aforementioned utility won't be an issue. That's...pretty convenient. And pretty in-genre now that I think about it. Let's suppose it does start at the 90pt VPP level. What sort of story can we get from that?

How would I handle the backstory of a character who has a Cosmic Gem? Specifically: How did they get the gem? What were they able to do right at the start? How long did it take to become proficient? Given that a true Cosmic Gem is essentially a do-anything VPP it’s important to know how much one can do how fast. And why it became available.

Like the Shikima Realm in La Blue Girl. : p Look, somebody had to allude to that anime influence. But seriously, anime does take a lighter and softer view of demons than D&D Pathfinder does. No doubt the influence from Buddhism (even if it's still considered a gaijin religion) and the belief in reincarnation.

So she needs a friend and a love interest. Got it. Just don't have it be specifically a male PC, like every time romance is brought up in the supplements. Well not for everything in the CU, but it might work for something. Or it might not; that's what applying science to magic is for. : )

Oo, sorry for the confusion. ^_^; Well I did ask in the Champions forum so I felt that was implicit, but...being explicit is necessary for scientific discussion. Also, apologies for being a bit antisocial back there. Like I said, the Traditions are kinda triggering, and there are people who think like the Devil's Advocates in real life. (Seriously, Gyre needs a friend, not a face-puncher.)

Wasn't Nazism brought up every time the Get of Fenris were mentioned anyway? Or is this about the Native American blood purity? I remember reading that, and mostly wondering "what game system is he referring to?" Didn't map to GURPS, which you think it would have given the publisher (Steve Jackson Games) and how said system is analytical about everything. Had to wait until GURPS Thaumatology for 4E, though.