Marvel Comics Tangent: A Fifth Week RP

[Kadigan]

Only the names are the same..

Welcome to Shang-Chi America, a city built on the tattered remains of the west coast, combining technology from all around the world. It’s home to a great many unique and interesting beings, as it’s the hub of trade with nearly the entire civilized world, and even parts of it that aren’t quite so civilized. Home to Greymalkin University, one of the four academies  situated around the globe and nicknamed the Fantastic Four by their students. There, they help to hone and train the emerging Heralds, beings and people with unique and marvelous abilities that set them apart from the rest of humanity.

Recently, an attack on the city banded together a group, some of them Heralds, some from other paths, who barely repelled the threat, gathering together with minutes to spare. The hastily assembled team took several casualties in their first outing, and so they resolved to stay together, to combat various threats, for the good of the city, for the good of each other, for the good of their wallets. Dubbed The Sentinels by the media, this is their story…it might sound like one you know…at first glance.

So..that probably doesn’t explain as much as I thought it would, so here’s the skinny. In the mid 90s DC Comics introduced Tangent Comics, a fifth week event where they took existing names and created whole new back stories around them. For example, the Flash was a girl made of solid light who could fly and create holograms. The Riddler carried twin mini guns to..riddle you..with bullets. Aquaman was a scientist who turned himself into sentient water. So I had the thought, wouldn’t that be fun for Marvel too? Take a name and make it something new!

There’s nothing saying that Iron Man and Captain America are going to be the premiere heroes anymore, in fact Iron Man could be a chain of dry cleaners in this reality.  Take the names, let them inspire you. A person can be a thing! Heroes could be villains and vice versa! A place can be a persons name! Names can be clubs! I am putting down, at least initially, a limit of 4 (Plus the name you pick so 5 total) Tangents per each bio, to make sure no one takes 50 of them or something.

As for images, use other comics (Maybe more lesser known characters)! Use deviant art! Use google! There's TONS of different images out there that can be adapted and used and modified and something that can be come up with. Sometimes I find an image and work backwards from there. Real life photos, anime, digital, etc..let your eyes be your guide.



So… a few world building things:

In this reality, WW2 never happened, leading to a much freer exchange of ideas between the US, Europe, Axis, etc. Technology is therefore at least 30-40 years more advanced then normal, Wakandan (MCU) level, if a comparison is needed (Though in this reality, maybe they’re not Wakanda!) With no WWII there was less racial animosity towards Japanese-Americans in the 1940s. As a result there was a much larger amount of Japanese immigration to America and they were able to excel more economically. In addition, instead of creating Taiwan, Chinese nationalists came to the States and helped establish the city of Shang-Chi after much of California was devastated. Now Asian culture has come to permeate the West Coast. In particular Shinobi/Shaw is a giant in the tech industry.

Australia has returned to its criminal roots, and is an entire continent dedicated to every immoral and disreputable activity. Drugs, slaves, money laundering, all overseen by the Warbird, the name given to the ruler, whoever was ruthless enough to seize power. (Think Madripoor but larger.)

The USSR still exists, and while there is a state of animosity between them and the US, it has not quite reached the same levels as the Cold War, and open trade still exists (though they try to backstab each other when they can.)

The Sentinels – The newest and currently only super team active in the US. Brought together by the recent crisis. (Currently the game will focus on the members of this team)

Heralds – The name given to people with natural born abilities (Think Metahuman or Mutant)

The Fantasic Four – the nickname given to four academies situated around the world, helping to train Heralds in the use of their powers. Greymalkin (West Cost US), Nova (European), Taa (African), and Volstaag (Asian)

A special thanks goes out to Foxy Oni, the foxiest of all oni's (or the oniest of all foxes), in her help developing this. So...if you're interested here's the profile code..and a sample, and mine!, profile to get the ball going. I would politely ask to send the profiles to myself and Foxy for a quick review before posting them up.

Code Select Expand

[img height=200] [/img]


[b]Player ID:[/b]
[b]Name:[/b] Character name
[b]Alter Ego:[/b]Does your character have a secret identity
[b]Gender:[/b]
[b]Species[/b]
[b]Age:[/b]
[b]Faceclaim (optional)[/b]
[b]Personality[/b]
[b]Number of Tangents Used (Max 4)[/b]
[b]History[/b]
[b]Powers:[/b]
[b]Skills:[/b]
[b]Weapons:[/b] Does character use any weapons
[b] More images[/b]


The Sentry

Player ID: BarbaraGordon

Name: The Sentry

Alter Ego:Secuta

Species Maggian

Gender: Female

Age: 29

Faceclaim (optional)

Personality She can be a bit sarcastic, brash, annoying, and talkative when on a job. She knows when someone needs something from her, and enjoys pushing their buttons, no matter what level of society they might be on. After all, someone in her position has to have fun where they can. She knows when to zip up though, and work through it.

Number of Tangents Used (Max 4) Starbrand, Thor, Maggia, Space Phantom

History Secuta was born onto a minor farming world, to a farmer and his wife, whose names she barely remembers. It seemed like the only reason for them to have kids was to provide cheap, plentiful labor for their plot of land. The youngest of 13 children and probably the most precocious her life was changed when she was 3. A Sentry chasing an alien fugitive crash landed onto their land, and during the apprehension she toddled onto his ship, and by the time she was discovered he simply couldn’t be bothered to make the 4 day trip back to drop her off. So she was dumped up at a government facility for orphaned children, where she was eventually when of the right age, shipped to Sentry training academy.

Only one being in a million eventually completes and qualifies to join the Sentries. Their history tells of a woman who qualified, not only completing the training course in record time, but graduating first in her class, becoming one of the youngest to be promoted into the Sentry’s. Working hard, headstrong, and one of the toughest they ever produced, she was eventually awarded the rank of Sentry, Star Brand. Assigned a Space Phantom class cruiser and a T.H.O.R. she was sent to explore and tame the most backwater planets in the universe, to guard them against threats they couldn’t possibly comprehend.

After she arrived on the hillbilly world called “Earth” she was almost immediately drawn into a battle with a local. It was as good an introduction for her to the world as any, and soon she found herself battling as many internal threats as she did external. In an attempt to identify herself, she was dubbed The Sentry, and the name stuck.

Powers: Thanks to differences in the gravity from which she’s used too, along with the nitrogen composition of the Earth’s atmosphere, Secuta is roughly 4 times as strong and fast as the most physically fit human. With those changes comes an increase in stamina and recovery time.

Skills: Secuta is highly trained in fire arms and unarmed combat.

Weapons: Secuta has access to a T.H.O.R., a telemetric heavy ordinance receiver. This device, built into her wrist gauntlets allow her to receive and return any weapon in her ships vast arsenal. Her “costume” is actually a tactical suit, which can allow her to survive in space if needed, along with thrusters (which only work in zero g.) The suit also has a U-Tran built in, allowing communication with enough contact with any language.

More images

I hope there's more interested in building this new world with me (Us?)!

[Foxy DeVille]

Hmmm... I guess I'll give this a try...  >:)




Player ID: Foxy Oni
Name: Shanna the She-Devil
Alter Ego: Shanna Harper (doesn't keep her identity secret but most people think she is just putting on an act)
Gender: Female
Species: Succubus (formerly human)
Age: 36
Faceclaim (optional): Susan "Sway" Wayland
Personality: Before she was turned into a demoness Shanna was an oversexed attention whore. Now... she's an even bigger oversexed attention whore. She enjoys pushing people's buttons by making them either afraid of her or in lust with her. Sometimes both. Shanna enjoys exposing hypocrisy almost as much as she enjoys exposing her pierced tits. She isn't thrilled about being in the service of a demon lord but the gig is actually pretty fun and he's crazy in the sack.
Number of Tangents Used (Max 4): Dark Phoenix, Daughters of the Dragon, Red Room, Ronan the Accuser
History: Shannon Harper first came into semi-celebrity as the frontwoman of Dark Phoenix, a shock rock band. Her sexually-charged performances were notorious for their occult imagery. For fun and further fame she joined a cult of well-known women who "worshipped" demons called the Daughters of the Dragon. Really it was an excuse to drink wine and molest each other. During one ceremony Shanna was the designated "sacrifice" and an actual demon lord appeared... Ronan the Accuser. After several hours of unholy violation that she calls the best night of her life, Ronan tainted Shanna's soul with his demonic essence and turned her into a succubus. He gave her a mission... track down evil-doers and expose them so that they are haunted by shame and guilt in the afterlife. Shanna was totally cool with this. Since then she has done just that as well as perform with Dark Phoenix, mess around with the Daughters of the Dragon and open a nightclub/sex dungeon called the Red Room. With super-powered heroes becoming more public, a friend joked that Shanna should become one and dubbed her "She-Devil." Shanna melded this into her stage persona, allowing her to pass of any public acts using her diabolical gifts as a publicity stunt.   
Powers: Shanna the She-Devil has the abilities of a succubus, since that's what she is now. She is capable of changing her shape to look like any humanoid and even grow things like claws or wings. Her eyes can see through darkness and into a person's soul. She can read minds and implant hypnotic suggestions. Her vitality is increased, making her stonger, faster and tougher than a normal woman her size, not quite superhuman but still impressive. She is immune to disease and highly resistant to the elements and poisons, which is a good thing considering her wardrobe and lifestyle. Her mouth can drain life energy, usually through a kiss but sometime she gets a bit more creative, which can be used to heal herself, fight off aging, and sustain her without food or sleep. She can also teleport in a cloud of smoke up to a hundred miles away, although the less she knows about her destination the more hazardous this can be. The abilities do have a price however. Her soul is in the service of Ronan the Accuser and he can summon her to his realm at will to prove his mastery over her. She is also vulnerable to magic that effects demons, such as protective circles or binding spells.
Skills: As a shock rocker, Shanna is a pretty good singer and dancer but her eal talent was in self-promotion. Becoming a succubus has enhanced her dilettante's knowledge of the occult and sexual deviance. Her telepathy allows her to know any language and her demonic nature make her a natural if untrained fighter.
Weapons: Shanna will sometimes bring along useful items of an occult or sexual nature, such as a scary-looking dagger, a cat o' nine tails, or a pair of handcuffs. Whatever she has lying around.
More images:

Unsafe for Innocent Eyes

[persephone325]

This seems interesting. Just planting my interest flag. ^^

[Kadigan]

This seems interesting. Just planting my interest flag. ^^

Interest is good, so are flags. Here's hoping for more!

[Waldham]

Hello, is it a freeform or do you use a system ?

Where do you play ? Light, Bondage, Non Consensual human, exotic, extreme ?

[Waldham]

I have a question about the tangents (max 4)
Is it to create a background (history) only ? Or also to determine the powers ?

Did I invent the powers or based the powers from the tangents ?

Same questions about the skills, weapons.

[Kadigan]

Sorry busy couple of days.

Free form...haven't decided yet.

You use the tangents however you want. If you want your power to be named Alpha Flight that's fine, or you can use a name, and build the powers from the character idea and not use a tangent there. Orrr you can use them in your backstory. The choice is yours.

[Cold Heritage]

Giving a second kick at the can. Maybe it works better.




Player ID: Cold Heritage
Name: N/A
Alter Ego: Samuel Conspiracy
Gender: Male
Species Human
Age: 25
Faceclaim (optional) Vinny Gough
Personality: Samuel tries to be cool. It's debatable how much he succeeds. Before he was super he was into nerd shit and had terabytes of pornography on an external drive he hopes someone slapped a magnet on after he was presumed dead, but he's never touched a titty for real. Samuel's not scared of death and he's becoming indifferent to pain and suffering. He's got a vague sense that he has to use his powers for good, but he's not really sure what that means and tries to be moral. Samuel's willing to put up with a lot of shit from perceived peers and let those perceived peers walk all over him.
Number of Tangents Used (Max 4): Gaia, Bloodstone
History: "Samuel Conspiracy is an alias. It sounds cool, right? Like the name of someone with a million followers on twitter and all of the friends on facebook. Don't argue. You know it's true. Bump that fist, bro. Bump it."

Samuel Conspiracy was created when an unwitting university student was egged on to perform a stupid, ill-conceived stunt by that perennial spur to idiocy known as peer pressure, aided by its indelible wingman underage drinking. The young student rode a dirt bike off a cliff, fueled by vodka and energy drinks, convinced that he could perform the sickest jump and that it would totally make [head cheerleader's name redacted] drop her panties. She did. Just not for Samuel. Samuel did not make that jump, and he plummeted to what everyone present assumed was his death. They did not stop drinking, smoking marijuana cigarettes, having unprotected sex, or in any way allow Samuel's passing harsh their buzz.

But here's a cold hard fact: the earth is hollow. If you find the right place, there's holes in the world that lead you to its hollow core. And if . . . well, who really knows why . . . sometimes when you go down one of those holes you go deep and far enough to find Gaia. And, again, there's no really saying why, but sometimes Gaia picks you to drink of her sweet, honeyed wisdom. That's only partially an allegory. Gaia is like a gigantic queen bee or something. Really,  Gaia's something more than any human mind can grasp and that's the motif that Samuel's mind settled on as he was nourished with Gaia's honey and royal jelly, and almost everything that that university student was was melted away, leaving an avatar of Gaia with flesh made from anima - the very stuff of life itself - and whose lips tasted of honey. Instead of a heart, Samuel has a single crystalline drop of Gaia's blood, and it is his connection to her and her power.

Samuel awoke and he found that six months had passed and he looked and sounded nothing like himself. He was also somewhere in the Nevada dessert with no clothing and strange powers he could only begin to grasp and fathom. Samuel learned that he was in a certain sense immortal, because he died of deprivation a lot out in that dessert. But after his body expired and faded back into the life-stuff of the world, his spirit and consciousness remained, insubstantial, and able to roam free. And Samuel found concentrated points of anima where he could reconstitute his body into solid matter - always with the bloodstone of Gaia in place of a beating heart. Later Samuel learned he could travel between such concentration points, dissolving his body into the ambient veins of anima that worked their way across the globe.

Samuel Conspiracy became, perhaps, a force for good. He volunteered in soup kitchens, anyway, and thumbed his way across America, trying to do good where he could. In the main, Samuel used his anima powers to heal the sick and injured, and for a time traveled with the likes of a Christian revival group, a gypsy caravan, and a group of illegal migrant workers.
Powers: Samuel can die, but he can also be reborn. If you kill Samuel, his body and possessions will disperse into golden liquid that will rapidly evaporate, and his spirit and living will are free to go off and do whatever. In spirit form, Samuel is essentially free to move in three dimensions and through solid matter, although he is incapable of escaping Earth's atmosphere in this way. Appropriate magical wards in theory could keep Samuel out or block his spirit-sight, if they were fashioned to do so. At concentrated points of anima, Samuel can reconstitute himself into a new body with clothing and any attuned possessions. This body is by no means superhuman but it approaches the peak capabilities of human physical fitness. It is immune to natural illnesses and parasites. Samuel's lips will always taste like honey and his breath will always smell of it, no matter what. His body odor will also always contain a trace of honey and beeswax and no amount of colognes, antiperspirants, or other method short of wearing a fully sealed suit (like a HAZMAT suit) can disguise it.

Samuel can speak to and understand the speech of comparable organisms. For example, he can understand any other human being capable of communicating with another human being, no matter their language. If an extraterrestrial creature came to Earth and tried to speak to Samuel and that extraterrestrial was of a species of similar sentience and sapience, Samuel could understand that being also. But he could not speak to or understand something like a single worker ant or a mundane willow tree (if it was like, a magic tree with a mind like a human mind, then Samuel could understand). When Samuel speaks, he can chose to be understood universally or speak English. If he chooses to speak universally - and he mostly does - then those who hear Samuel hear him speak in the language they are most familiar with. Because this is magic and explanations are few and far between, even deaf people can understand Samuel speaking.

Samuel can expel anima from himself as well. He can use it to heal others, and he can use it to harm others (when Samuel does the latter he makes finger pistols and may, or may not, make 'pew pew' noises). Samuel doesn't heal himself in this manner; he would have to 'die' and reconstitute or allow whatever harm has befallen him to heal at a natural rate. His body does regenerate, and Samuel would regrow an amputated limb, but it would be a slow and impractical process. It's not like he can't; he simply never thought to try to heal himself.

Samuel can make clothes for himself when he reconstitutes, or any time he is near a concentrated anima point. There's nothing special about this clothing beyond that Samuel often chooses to make garish three piece suits with silken vests and ties. He could create things like bulletproof vests if he put his mind to it and practiced, but so far he hasn't. Samuel can also invest a portion of anima into an object to create a tie between it and himself so that when he dies, that item dissolves and he can reconstitute it at a concentrated point of anima. Typically Samuel does this with a cellphone and similar mundane but useful items.
Skills: Samuel knows how to drive a standard. He more or less knows how to drive a motorcycle but he never got a license. Samuel's pretty good at mixing drinks - his signature drink is a Bloody Mary.
Weapons:
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Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

[Kadigan]

Due a lack of much interest shutting this down..thank you for all who expressed any, and a special again thanks to Foxy for help with the idea.