Superhero Game

Started by Tsume, November 21, 2008, 05:17:32 PM

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PhantomPistoleer

I just don't get it.

He could have chosen almost any dinosaur.

And he chooses this guy. :/



Denver the Last Dinosaur.
Always seeking 5E games.
O/O

VandalSavage

The thing's a colossal phallic symbol with underdeveloped forelegs. 

All makes sense to me.

Muse

*grins* 

I do love my pache.  :) 
A link for all of us who ever had a shouting match with our muse: http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html

How to set this Muse ablaze (O/Os)

When the little angel won't appear no matter how many plum blossoms you swirl:  https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=135346.msg16474321#msg16474321 (Major update 5/10/2023)

VandalSavage

Some "Team-Up" ideas for Red Quark and Shelly Baker:

The Prolific Shelly Baker Issue #14 - "The Brood of Doctor Tranicos!"

In this incident, Shelly tries to foil a robbery involving African natives of a hyena spirit mask.  She is bested, but manages to track down the natives by their garb to a tribe in southern Africa. 

Meanwhile, Red Quark is lured by the disappearances of some of her old cohorts from Angola to return there.  She is ambushed by an enemy from back in those days, the wicked Doctor Tranicos, a half-hyena Boer who intends to use Quark as a vessel for a new generation of hyena demons that he will summon the spirits of through the mask - she provides the bodies, the mask infuses them with the spirits.

Shelly in the form of Eve breaks into Tranicos' hideout in time to save Quark from this vile fate, and together they defeat the monstrous doctor.


The Prolific Shelly Baker Issue #32 - "To Live and Die and Live Again in San Francisco"

Shelly meets a hot, avant garde graphic artist - Hecate Rush - who is turning the art world on its ear, thanks to new opportunities and investment. 

Then Rush turns up dead, and Red Quark was seen fleeing from the scene of the crime!  With no marks on Rush's body, this is a mystery.  When Shelly goes to the coroner's, she finds the kindly coroner, Estes Carmichael, dead, and Quark is stealing Rush's body!

Cinder emerges, taking on Quark.  The two tangle through the streets of Frisco, ending their clash atop the Golden Gate.  Cinder is defeated and Quark gets away.

She starts trying to track Quark down, and finds her apartment.  And who does she run into there but Hecate Rush and some rat-like, well-dressed women.  Rush reveals to Cinder that she's part of a coven of vampires now - her benefactors, who collect the most controversial artists to keep their immortal lives interesting.

Quark arrives in time to keep Rush from making Cinder into her vampire-blood-addicted slave, and the two resolve to bring down the Vampire Art Collectors. 

They infiltrate a kinky club that Rush's benefactors were thought to frequent, but aren't invited into the back room until Quark comes up with the "brilliant scheme" of openly making out with and fondling Cinder. 

Once invited in for some "fun," they reveal their identities, eliminate the Collector coven - with the exception of Rush, who flees - and save the day.


Muse

*Wipes away tears of mirth* 

Truly inspirational, Vandal.  :) 

I'm going to have to get going on my other forms quick.  :) 
A link for all of us who ever had a shouting match with our muse: http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html

How to set this Muse ablaze (O/Os)

When the little angel won't appear no matter how many plum blossoms you swirl:  https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=135346.msg16474321#msg16474321 (Major update 5/10/2023)

VandalSavage

Quote from: Muse on November 27, 2008, 03:37:08 PM
Truly inspirational, Vandal.  :)  

Glad to hear you liked them, Muse.  I figured stories with a Silver Age attitude and a slightly political, artistic edge would be appropriate for Shelly's book.

Here's a third one, though of course, I'm open to more, and should you be inspired to create some yourself, I'd love to had them added to our Crossover Canon.

The Prolific Shelly Baker Issue #40 - "Disco Will Never Die"

A development in the Castro District has locals protecting a historic building scheduled for demolition - a famous disco - and among them is Red Quark.  There, Quark and a crowd of protesters stand and will not be moved.  But it's next door, where the buildings have already been brought down, that draws Shelly's interest, as she goes to examine possible Native American artifacts found under the demolished site.

They also draw the malevolent interests of The Past Master, Dr. Temperance Withernaut, the disgruntled history professor who has the ability to manifest historical figures and objects so long as he holds an artifact with a connection to them.  Past Master, acting to protect the site, summons a horde of Indians and an Allosaurus, and Eve leaps into action to prevent them from wrecking the construction crews or crowds of protesters.  Despite Eve's desperate situation, Quark refuses to move from the building, even when all others flee.

In a last-ditch effort, Eve hurls the Allosaurus into the disco, directly into Quark.  Enraged by the beast and protecting her disco, Quark joins the fray and trounces the giant carnivore and its Indian cohorts, allowing Eve to overcome the Past Master and save the day.

Muse

Sorry to be such a pain, but we are still doing this, right? 
A link for all of us who ever had a shouting match with our muse: http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html

How to set this Muse ablaze (O/Os)

When the little angel won't appear no matter how many plum blossoms you swirl:  https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=135346.msg16474321#msg16474321 (Major update 5/10/2023)

Ixy

PhantomPistoleer just helped me finalize my character.  Looking forward to it, guys :)
______________________
The big print giveth, the small print taketh away.

VandalSavage

Quote from: Ixy on December 02, 2008, 08:24:31 AM
PhantomPistoleer just helped me finalize my character.  Looking forward to it, guys :)

Most definitely. 

Ixy - care to come up with some ideas on how your character and Quark might've associated in the past?

Ixy

She's not a front-page-news superheroine, but there's a strong possibility that she'd have background ties.  I'll send you a message with ideas in a bit.
______________________
The big print giveth, the small print taketh away.

Ixy

OK-- here's a little intro-something for my character.  Hope you like it, and hope we can start soon!

At this point, my character's public identity is 'Blackbird'-- she's not one for calling cards, press conferences, or interviews.  Every time the authorities have attempted to contact her 'at work,' she's disappeared.  Her tactics are hit-and-run, and frequently her targets' guilt is ambiguous-- though their being targeted by Blackbird is usually accompanied by the anonymous delivery of surveillance material, physical evidence, or a newly discovered eye-witness.

By playing so close to the vest, she's failed to establish a reputation among law enforcement agencies, and her lack of panache and big-name targets makes her of very little interest to the media.   The only real reputation she's gotten has resulted from alternate-medias and electronic blogs: scraps of video, witness accounts, and-- embarrassingly-- fanfic and creative art... underneath the armor and helmet she wears seems to be a very attractive female body.  Surrounded by mystique, dressed in matte-black like a gothic-fandom character, and beating criminals to a pulp with leather-gloved fists-- she doesn't fit the mold, but she's earned something of a 'cult following', to be sure.  My main focus is on the irony of this situation, as I described earlier.

___________________________________________

The website is titled HotHeroines.com.  The banner and border are in a metal-stylized, hard-edged photoshop compilation of the faces and busts of a half-dozen superheroines-- a couple, at least, are fictional (despite rumors to the contrary, you know this for a fact) but a couple are rock-stars of the world of supers... possessing at least mediocre talent for their enforcement of justice, but in most cases their real talent is in PR-- their uniforms, where possible, are designed to reveal more than they protect.  They have blinding interview skills, agents, legal teams, and contracts... this particular site.  Their faces are captured, airbrushed or photoshopped into the most sensual expressions possible-- lips pout sensitively, eyes smoulder in faces that portray a mixture of lust and boredom. 

The topic of this page: "Top 5 Super-Hotties TO BE-- hotheroines.com predicts the future of super-booty!"

Each of the heroines below includes a write-up, including embedded video, pics, and known bio information.

"#1: Emily Benedict, 16-year-old daughter of famous matron-heroine Denise "Shooting Star" Benedict.  Considered for the list for her obvious potential once she reaches legal age in the US.  If she lives... rumor is that her brother was crippled for life last year in a battle with arch-villain "Silverwolf", though the family insists his injuries were not life-threatening.  On a sidenote: it's rumored that she has more than one thing in common with her mom-- there's a chance she's already got a sex tape out there!  Of course, if that's valid, we couldn't link to it on our US server.  Please don't arrest us, FCC!"
(Chaste photo-gallery follows, including mom 'in-uniform' hugging the girl to her chest-- though clearly being careful to occupy most of the photo's frame, nearly pushing her daughter aside, it seems...)

"#2: Coming in second is "Palisade", a young woman who disappeared after one press conference, just after she claimed public responsibility for breaking up a local ring of the Yakuza.  Check out that cute grin, you can TELL she's proud of herself!  Maybe she should have worked a little harder on that secret identity... sayonara, baby!  Anyway, here's hoping we have a sequel from this hottie!"
(attached is a flash video link to a news website with highlights from her brief press conference.  She seems hopeful, arrogant, self-absorbed... the media loves her immediately.   Too bad the embedded video is tagged as 'last known interview'.)

"#3: Further down the list is the mysterious "Blackbird"-- sure, maybe she wears the helmet to hide one dog of a face, but she can take ME for a walk anytime!  And who knows?  Maybe she's like the hot cheerleader who's insecure, so she volunteers to wear the mascot outfit?  Guess only time will tell!"

(the attached amateur video link picks up with a shakey, obscured camera angle, then the flare of a streetlight-- vibration causes the image to tremble, and there's the audible sound of rapid breathing.  The cameraman, evidently, has climbed at some effort onto a chain-link fence, and it jangles audibly in the audio track. 

He whispers, the sound hard to distinguish-- someone's added subtitles, though, in English and Spanish.  "There's five guys down there, in the street--" the zoom tightens, and shapes can be made out, men in dark clothes-- one wears a 'Niners jacket, another black bomber jacket, one in just a muscle-shirt is huge-- at least 6 1/2 feet and built like a freight train.  Some smoke, but they're standing around some heap on the sidewalk.  The cameraman continues to whisper.  "They've got some guy on the ground..."  He tries to tighten to get more detail, but the digital zoom kicks in and the picture becomes a little blurry.  "I called the cops," he hisses trying to get a focus on the men's faces one-by-one, "but they're not here yet, and I think that guy might be dead... oh shit, I think he's dead--"  the crumpled form on the ground can now be made out as a young man, Asian perhaps, his face a mask of blood.

The camera widens its frame back-- "I'm going to keep filming until the cops get here, just in case they can't catch--"  there's a flicker of shadow, the men turn around, looking around them-- "what was that?"

A scream-- someone wasn't there, but now just is-- a black-clad form, helmeted, armor-jacketed, appears in their midst.  It's not at all apparent where she came from, but she appears so suddenly that the camera man falls off the fence.  "Oh shit, oh shit--" he breathes in a soft whine, forcing himself to his feet as the camera comes back to action in his hand-- he climbs the fence again, and there are shaky angles of the ground, the fence, a dumpster-- then he finds his frame again and zooms in-- four of the men are down and completely still on the ground.  "How-- What the fa--?" and then, clearly, he sees 'how the fa--' when the black-clad form-- half the size, perhaps less than that, in comparison to the muscle-bound, bald-shaved thug-- turns an aerial cartwheel-kick that lifts him cleanly into the air.  His arms dangle limply, and it seems he's in an unconscious state before he's reached the ground. 

"Holy SH--" the cameraman exclaims, louder than he should, perhaps-- the black-armored girl turns her face toward him in a shap-- "--IT?" he says and then she takes two running strides toward him, disappearing instantly from view.  "Wha?  Where'd she--" then the sound of the chainlink crashing and the camera angle goes wild, matched by the cameraman's scream of surprise.  "Oh, GOD, I'm sorry-- I was just filming for the cops--" in the camera angle, one long, slender leg is bent, as if she's crouched over the prone cameraman.  "I called the cops, I-- I did!  Look, look at my cell!"  There are the soft tones of a Motorola clicking open, buttons responding to touch.  She's checking his call history.  "I-- I just, wha-- who are you, anyway?"  No verbal response, but the soft click of the phone closing.  She walks right past the camera, and in the distance one can hear the low wail of sirens... evidently, she didn't know the camera is still filming, because she's walking away with a purposeful stride, almost lazily, a little sway in what look to be lovely hips, before she disappears from the frame.  Then, she's gone, the cameraman's fumbling, filming empty alleyways, "Damn, where'd she go..?"

There's a rough-cut, and the scene is redbrick and asphalt staccatoed by police and ambulance lights.  "These," says the same cameraman as before, sounding much more confident now, "are the guys I videotaped earlier tonight, beating that kid on the street."  They're being strapped to individual gurneys, backboards, and one is being zipped into a black body-bag.  "I mean, I wasn't really expecting it to be like this-- I thought that they'd be okay, just taken to jail-- but, ah, from the looks of these guys?  I think jail would be overkill--"  there's a few voices off camera, one sounds delirious-- over the shoulder of a young EMT, the cameraman's able to film the speaker.  "It was, it was..." the one blubbering is the big bald guy... it takes four EMTs to lift his backboard onto a stretcher.  "It was beautiful, it was a bird-- it was like a black bird, flying... it was like a bird..." then he starts convulsing.

"Get the paddles, we're losing him--" someone screams.  The camera blacks out as a hand covers it, a blue shirt and silver shield visible between the fingers-- "YOU CAN'T FILM HERE, THIS IS A CRIME SCENE--" and the feed ends.


The video prompts... "Watch again?" the control buttons popping up to pause, rewind, or repeat. "Watch again?" the control buttons popping up to pause, rewind, or repeat.
______________________
The big print giveth, the small print taketh away.

VandalSavage

#36
Quote from: Ixy on December 03, 2008, 08:15:06 AM
The video prompts... "Watch again?" the control buttons popping up to pause, rewind, or repeat. "Watch again?" the control buttons popping up to pause, rewind, or repeat.

Quark fixates on the screen: Red pixelated eyes fused to pixelated monitor. Incandescence reflecting incandescence. Stillness seizing the popping buttons.  Concentration bright as a plasma torch, bright as the monitor.  A perfect circuit.

She clicks watch again.  Watches.  Unmoving.

She clicks watch again.  Watches.

The ivory coin of her face does not change.  Her stare does not shift.  A recommended video pops up.  She clicks.

She watches Slow Motion Laughing Baby.

The video prompts... "Watch again?" the control buttons popping up to pause, rewind, or repeat. "Watch again?" the control buttons popping up to pause, rewind, or repeat.

Quark fixates on the screen.  Incandescence reflecting incandescence.  A perfect circuit.

She clicks watch again.  Watches.  Unmoving.

She clicks watch again.

After a time of concentration that, for a human brain, would stretch the minutes spent watching over centuries, a thought comes to Quark.  She is lonely.  She is without family.  Without progeny.  Without Empire. 

A cool satisfaction fills her.

Quark fixates on the screen and clicks "Watch Again."




Ixy - lovely introduction piece.

As per PhantomPistoleer's earlier request, might we come up with the times Quark and Blackbird banded together to defeat evil (or a reasonable facsimile thereof)?  They would likely be odd, accidental encounters, as Quark does not spend time fighting crime, so much as stumbles over it and crushes it while treading through San Francisco in an alien daze.

Rayve13

Our fearless director is also helping me get finalized as well, so should be before long. A Hindu martial artist, enjoying enlightenment and violence in San Fransisco, the world beyond the mountains.

VandalSavage

Quote from: Rayve13 on December 03, 2008, 06:49:24 PM
Our fearless director is also helping me get finalized as well, so should be before long. A Hindu martial artist, enjoying enlightenment and violence in San Fransisco, the world beyond the mountains.

Any idea how we would know each other?  PhantomPistoleer requested we come up with three crossovers, per character pair. 

Quark likes Boba drinks.  You might have bonded with her that way.  Perhaps we repulsed an attack by "The Otaku" on the gathering of Asian schoolgirls at our local Boba place.

Rayve13

If Quark has any interest in yoga or health, that's an easy meeting idea. My plan is to have him working as a yoga instructor at a gym. He's also pretty quick to respond to things, so simple happenstance meetings, at least the first time, also work.

And beating up on Otaku of any sort can be entertaining.

"I've got your chakra right here fanboy!"  ;D

VandalSavage

Quote from: Rayve13 on December 03, 2008, 08:21:07 PM
If Quark has any interest in yoga or health, that's an easy meeting idea.

She could have tried yoga at some point.  Let's go with that as a good starting point.

Ixy

Quote from: VandalSavage on December 03, 2008, 11:40:26 AM
Ixy - lovely introduction piece.

As per PhantomPistoleer's earlier request, might we come up with the times Quark and Blackbird banded together to defeat evil (or a reasonable facsimile thereof)?  They would likely be odd, accidental encounters, as Quark does not spend time fighting crime, so much as stumbles over it and crushes it while treading through San Francisco in an alien daze.

I'm really glad you liked it!

As far as system goes, I'm still nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs, but I think I have a good grasp of concept and style right now, and I'm looking forward to playing with you guys.

How's this sound for a background connection with Quark? ---

10/30-- Devil's Night, 200?, Alvord Lake District (aka Junkietown)
This district near Haight street's derelict population of nocturnal ghouls is not known for its candor.  Haunted by junkies, hookers, muggers and thugs by day, what is usually a contained instance of city corruption became an explosive clusterfuck thanks to the hand-tooling of a methodical beast known as Vast Nightmare, a disturbed, brain-damaged bio-chemist from Los Angeles rumored to have gone mad on the fumes of his botched experiments at manipulating the finer points of mind-control, hallucinogenic, and personality-altering drugs. 

By carefully manipulating and distributing a massive amount of morphine through Junkietown, he coordinated a mass-attack on society-- while his intent was unclear, it's possible that this was intended as a distraction or, perhaps, merely a test-run for a later coordinated attack on the city.  Hundreds were wounded and killed in the ensuing mayhem that lasted for six largely uninterrupted hours, and Blackbird would have been right there in the midst, subduing everyone she could reach, throwing junkies out the windows of homes they'd broken into, dragging injured cops out of the front lines, and coordinating evacuation routes where police vehicles couldn't reach.

Perhaps she'd have been overwhelmed by the crowd at some point, or managed to get herself hemmed in...
______________________
The big print giveth, the small print taketh away.

Rayve13

That could even work as a multi-connection. A riot is bound to draw several crime fighters.  :)

VandalSavage

Quote from: Ixy on December 03, 2008, 09:17:40 PM
Perhaps she'd have been overwhelmed by the crowd at some point, or managed to get herself hemmed in...

That sounds grim, grotesque and just about right for a link with Quark.

She's reluctant to get involved with most trouble, but a disturbance of that size would definitely beckon irresistibly to her.

Likely she could come to Blackbird in her moment of need and help her subdue the crowd.  A generous rinsing with gravity could keep them in check, cutting a swath to where Vast Nightmare himself was.  Then while Quark kept the unwashed masses off of Blackbird, she or Diamond Tiger could leap in for the Sunday punch against the bad guy.

As a later connection's idea, Quark could have been an asset to Blackbird in fending off some former-Soviet villain looking to take revenge on Coyote's progeny.  She could catch wind of the villain's plot as he foolishly tries to contact her to help, play along only long enough to get the evil genius thinking he's won the day, and then help Blackbird pummel him into goulash.


Ixy

Quote from: VandalSavage on December 03, 2008, 09:58:07 PM

As a later connection's idea, Quark could have been an asset to Blackbird in fending off some former-Soviet villain looking to take revenge on Coyote's progeny.  She could catch wind of the villain's plot as he foolishly tries to contact her to help, play along only long enough to get the evil genius thinking he's won the day, and then help Blackbird pummel him into goulash.


If so, Blackbird probably would have very little information-- Quark probably knows more about Coyote than she does... I imagine that she might be a source of information when Blackbird's ready to 'accept the mantle' of superheroine, but right now I like her being in the dark (no pun intended).  Maybe Quark could have showed up and given the classic, "guess what?  I can find you, so can he."  We could even write that out, if you'd like, but I can give you a quick summary of what to expect-- denial, confusion, and resentment of her father's lack of guidance.

Of course, the question is whether or not Quark could have found Blackbird 'on the streets' or if she'd managed to locate her via her secret identity.

Quote from: VandalSavage on December 03, 2008, 09:58:07 PM
That sounds grim, grotesque and just about right for a link with Quark.

She's reluctant to get involved with most trouble, but a disturbance of that size would definitely beckon irresistibly to her.

Likely she could come to Blackbird in her moment of need and help her subdue the crowd.  A generous rinsing with gravity could keep them in check, cutting a swath to where Vast Nightmare himself was.  Then while Quark kept the unwashed masses off of Blackbird, she or Diamond Tiger could leap in for the Sunday punch against the bad guy.

It would make a good juncture point for the three of them, certainly.  Of course, I'm just kind of 'hail-mary'ing the whole Vast Nightmare idea-- That would be two instances that Blackbird would be really, really pissed/embarrassed about: requesting help when needed isn't a talent she's mastered.

She would probably have gotten swarmed because she was reluctant to take someone out-- say one of the lunatics going homicidal on the populace turned out to be a street-kid she recognized from her secret identity-life, somebody she tried to help out.  Let's call that kid EZ, a 14-year-old runaway whose uncle shot him up with smack as a gag when he was 11, and he'd been hooked for years, but was trying to kick the habit. Let's add an element of darkness and have him not survive the incident.

The lesson, at least, is: don't hesitate.  Question is, did she learn that lesson yet?
______________________
The big print giveth, the small print taketh away.

VandalSavage

Quote from: Ixy on December 06, 2008, 05:34:04 PM
...Maybe Quark could have showed up and given the classic, "guess what?  I can find you, so can he."  We could even write that out, if you'd like, but I can give you a quick summary of what to expect-- denial, confusion, and resentment of her father's lack of guidance.

Of course, the question is whether or not Quark could have found Blackbird 'on the streets' or if she'd managed to locate her via her secret identity.

Given two factors: Blackbird's non-existent relationship with her father and Quark's almost-total lack of concern for most matters, in particular superhero activities, I think it best that the post-Soviet villain - let's call him Red Vengeance - would have located Blackbird first.

Red Vengeance was a "cleaner"; part of Quark's unit of awesomely powered superhumans dispatched by the Soviets to seal any lower-powered leaks and threats to the Socialist Republics.  Vengeance was far more gung-ho than his fellow former Red; he truly believed in closing cases, whereas Quark was just intrigued by the opportunity to annihilate interesting and distinctive targets.  So, having found an old case file on Coyote that contained Kremlin recommendations of eliminating him, Vengeance took it upon himself to close his file.

Unable to find Coyote, Red Vengeance did discover Blackbird's public identity through his file.  He tracked her down to San Francisco, where he knew Quark to be, and enlisted her help.  Together, they located and grabbed Blackbird.  Once Quark realized who Blackbird was - the woman who had been at her side during the Hell Night debacle - she lulled Red Vengeance into a false sense of security and then freed Blackbird.  Together, they defeated Red Vengeance. 

So far as Quark is concerned, they could kill him.  She could always hide the body in the sun, after all.

Thoughts?

Ixy

I'm not too sure that I want Quark to be solely responsible for saving Blackbird's life twice AND to know her secret identity.
______________________
The big print giveth, the small print taketh away.

VandalSavage

Quote from: Ixy on December 09, 2008, 06:30:06 AM
I'm not too sure that I want Quark to be solely responsible for saving Blackbird's life twice AND to know her secret identity.

No problem.  I am tossing out ideas at this point.

Muse

So, as of December Ninth ideas are still tossing? 

Let's do this!  :) 
A link for all of us who ever had a shouting match with our muse: http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html

How to set this Muse ablaze (O/Os)

When the little angel won't appear no matter how many plum blossoms you swirl:  https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=135346.msg16474321#msg16474321 (Major update 5/10/2023)

Muse

Now I have Cave Girl Eve and Outlaw Gwen Taylor going. 

Any ladies or anyone at all care to help me give these splinter pesonalities personality?  Ever since I realized that the cave girl was 'Eve', I've been wondering wether 'lady pendragon' was Jean of Arc or Lilith. 
A link for all of us who ever had a shouting match with our muse: http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html

How to set this Muse ablaze (O/Os)

When the little angel won't appear no matter how many plum blossoms you swirl:  https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=135346.msg16474321#msg16474321 (Major update 5/10/2023)