I try to keep my characters as even as possible, but some of them surprised me and wound up having a place closer to my heart than they should have.
Captain Rachek, Ashen Roast, Blizzard Front and even Roland Grey.
I'd originally intended to make Roland into another Tanker-type, but after seeing a TA/A Defender at work, I decided to make Roland into that. As far as his storyline, however, I was lying awake one night when I was struck by the absurdity of how our characters always seem to run into the main in-game ones.
So, I came up with an absurd situation for him. Roland inside my head hasn't been too happy about it, but he's not the one "on paper."
My Stories
Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.
Hrm, I think of all my chars, the one who turned out bigger than I ever really intended has to be Project Heat Seeker. His original role was to be a simple arch-nemesis for Burning Brawler ingame that I came up with around the time people first began seriously discussing making an arch-foe of your creation to fight in missions.
He started out simply as a Crey robot with fire powers sent in an attempt to show the people that Crey was a company with the world's best interests at heart and moving to eliminate a hero whose shady past has given him the fear of the public. Their real motives were, of course, elimanating a hero who was peeking too closely on their private business (BB was in the 30's around this time.)
As I got more into writing, Heat Seeker made an appearance in my second story. In this I moved his time back a bit to right after Burning became a hero. I had him seemingly killed, burnt to nothing but ashes. I also told of how Burning had, before the Rikti war, an army of fire-wielding lowlifes whose push for glory was overshadowed and crushed by the invasion.
In the story, the android has returned and is seeking vengeance. It manages to not only gather up the remnants of Burning's army, but even recruit new members from the Hellions, Outcasts, and some minor-league villains.
I then ended up fleshing backwards even more by revealing Burning's second in command, a man named Heat Stroke, had volunteered for Crey's project to eliminate Burning. Seeker wasn't an android at all, but Stroke in a power enhancing suit seeking revenge for the shattering of his chance at power and total abandonment by his leader.
Stroke was defeated and banished into the Abyss after successfully controlling Burning's mind and making him attack his own son and wife.
He didn't reappear til a few stories later when an attack from the Masters of Mayhem brought back all the major villains Burning and crew had faced, some dead, some not. This Seeker sought his original self, using the kidnapped Obsidian Arrow as a human sacrifice to call him forth.
He was hoping to enslave this demonically tainted version of himself, but found that this creature called The Consumed was too powerful and instead became the servant himself. Burning managed to not only banish The Consumed back to the abyss where he belonged and also apprehend Heat Seeker in the process.
Seeker, Nictus, and Ruby were all tracked down and sent to the Zig by the heroes thanks to an arrangement orchestrated by Blightlord with the note "There can be only one." He was clear that if anyone's plans were to succeed at destroying Brawler, it would be his.
In jail, Harlequin manages to successfully break out two of the villains, but not Heat Stroke. To call the attention of the guards, Ruby Blade and Nictus Brawler found it necessary to snap Heat Stroke's neck.
Little did they know that he was handed over to the prison medics in time to bring him back to life to finish his sentance. Later on, he managed to escape the Zig itself and moved to strike back at the heroes and his former cellmates. He once again regathered the army, putting it to a more efficient use as he pulled together a plan to simulataneously destroy the Masters of Mayhem as well as Burning and his family and friends. This was partially accomplished by the use of more powerful lieutenants to carry out his wishes, among them Torcher and Pyra who later made their way into Anti-Hero 101.
However, when one of his lieutenants betrayed him and Stroke killed him in return, Torcher and Pyra found it in their best interests to switch sides before they met the same end.
The Masters decimated what Stroke had brought to deal with them while the heroes fought Heat Stroke with the aid of Torcher and Pyra. He was handed over to Longbow to be returned to the Zig.
Contrary to all his appearances in stories, that's the only place Seeker has found any real location to thrive. Any incarnation I've made in game has never quite made it to travel power level before getting deleted. Also, his one attempt to make an appearance on the RP forums was unfortunately stunted just before fruition.
One day he may scorch the RP boards with his presence, but when I'm not sure.
Arc ID: 475246, "Bringing a Lord to Power"
"I'm only a simple man trying to cling to my tomorrow. Every day. By any means necessary."
-Caldwell B. Cladwell
Currently with only one thread of fiction here under my belt, my characters have not had much chance to "breakout". However, during the course of writing Operation: Mayhem! two of them became more prominent than originally planned.
Toy Boy and Moon Wisp.
Basically the story of an eight man mayhem mission, the stars were supposed to be Corsage, Arctic Amazon and Diver 8 with five lovable yet ultimately expendable villains. For some reason the two of them just filled a need and became much more detailed and vibrant. In game they are both woefully low level, though after capturing my heart in the story, I've found myself playing them a lot more.
I may change my mind on this as I (or if I) continue to write fan fic in the CoX universe.
Evinwould propably be mine.
When CoV first came out, I wanted to create a "Prototype" charactor to test the waters, so to speak. His story was that Arachnos created him out of the remains of fallen soldiers, and maybe a hero or two, before Warburg splintered off.
Basically, he was the perfect minion. Which tied in to CoV's storyline better than I could have imagined.
Now I Play him on like 3 other forums, and he's my villainside Main. dinged 50 in '06.
You can't spell Slaughter without laughter
All your gonna do is just farm behemoths anyways.
My thoughts on November 30.
For me, it's actually my current main, Commander Cynic. My plan was just to have him working as some non-descript badass working for the S.A.D.A.S.S.E.S. *PUN! HATE! KILL!* I remember designing what at the time I had deemed as an 'officer' uniform for the whole organization, took a break, and I picked up a diskworld book.
4 minutes later, I realized that the Ankh-Morpork City Watch uniform sounded a lot like the one I had designed. Dull, dreary, lots of grey. Then, of course, there was Commander Vimes, being his old cynical [censored] self, and it just clicked.
So the non-descript 'officers' transformed into Commander Cynic, and aside from his duties of hunting down certain individuals when hired for it, most of the S.A.D.A.S.S.E.S. has been left behind in the dust. Hyperbole was supposed to be my main character, I remember, but I've mentioned him...let's see...6 times *lollers*, not including the Contact thread we had up earlier.
I started with Mystic Inferno, who's now just recently made 39. He flies, lights things on fire and has the most temp powers I have on any character. He's loads of fun to play.
That said, my breakout character was MSG Riley. I made him without travel powers, which has been a HUGE challenge. He's humble, says "yes sir" a lot, and does nothing more than try to do his part and make sure the heroes get out alive. He's lvl 50 and I play him more after lvl 50 than I do Mystic. I thought he was going to be such a chore to play, but he was an absolute blast. Maybe I know too many ex military people IRL.
He just grew. Now he's even in charge of a moderately succussful SG. Just a normal origin, AR/Dev blaster with no travel powers. Who knew? Bam-> right to 50. Couldn't stop playing him. Now there's flashbacks and... I swear I'm an altaholic, can't play one character for more than 4 missions without going "Oooh, I haven't played X on Y server for a while". Still, there he is with his new costumes and new rifles and, oh, just two more missions!
I just can't wait to run across Talos Island again with my fitness running power.
I don't have a true 'break out character' as of yet, but if there can be a 'reverse breakout character', El fits the bill. I've intended him to be my main character for a long time, but I always make new characters that RPing with just seems more fun. Hopefully El's new back story (if I ever finally decide how it's going to go down) will bring me back to wanting to use him in RPs.
Global - @El D
Servers - Protector
I had developed Norman Salazar (in-game Rogue Isle Protector) for Not the Hero. During the writing process I really got into the character and he took a life of his own. His popularity on, Tropic's COH Writers Guild site grew.
I had no choice, but to write Not the Villain staring him. He also spawned cameos in other short stories of mine as well as other guild members.
I got into his character so well he became my first level 50, even after he was created two years after many previous alts, my "main" resting at Level 41.
I blame my watching the movie Serenity, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I tried watching the Firefly series, but at the time I thought Farscape just did "it" better. Whatever "it" was. Norman and The Operative from the movie, I thought were cut from similar molds.
*Edited for Serenity reference.
I have a feeling it's going to be Grumpy the Janitor. I've got my main, whom I love but only mostly because I like tanks. If/When my new tank catches up I have a feeling he'll exceed ol' Techblaze in everything but sentimental value for being my first char. I have my Mary Sue character, which is nice. I have my controller that I am absolutely in love with. But, when it comes down to saying which character is the one I crave to roleplay, it's my surly old [censored] with his yellow rubber gloves that I turn to every time.
I need to progress my fic to the point where he gets introduced.
Tress is mine. (Gravity/Empathy controller on Triumph.)
When I started the game, I had played a couple controllers and really disliked the archetype. Too squishy, too little defense, too much aggro... the list went on. After hearing that a friend of mine gush on about her controller, I decided to give the controllers one more try. I intend to be an alternate that I played upon occasion.
She was green with a hot biker chick vibe going. I soloed till about level thirteen and join a pick up group in fault that needed someone that could heal and was willing to sidekick me up. I ended spending every night for about a week with that group leveling her to twenty or so. It was with her that I discovered the joys (and frustrations) with teaming.
It was with her that I wasted all of my influence creating new costumes in each slot over and over trying to discover her identity.
Before I knew it she was my primary and I hadn't played my original primary in weeks -->months.
At level thirty I finally created her backstory (grew up in the Hollows, because her father thought it was great real estate). She has a real joy in bludgeoning the bad guys into unconsciousness and talking to her Singularity as if it can speak back. I have just reached level forty-two with her. I hope to have her at level fifty soon.
My seconded Breakout character is Kaminaga a Ninja/Dark mastermind on Liberty.
I created her for two reasons, to try out the mastermind archetype and to pad out my friend's supergroup. I created her image: Older woman with the eyewrap, monstrous/zombified hand and the formal robe plus tucked in pants.
She was the first character I got to level 20 and she has become the equivalent of second in command in that supergroup that I joined only as a place filler. 
No question here....
My Invuln/Energy Tanker, named 'MakoType-824'; in retrospect, making her from the Science origin wasn't the best choice, but her story didn't truly develop until her early teen-levels.
She shares her 'home world' with my Scrapper, CapeMike, namely a place called 'OtakuWorld' in another dimension...; imagine nearly every anime cliche ever developed, and given physical form! 
Originally created by CapeMike's 2nd in command, Mallard(a small talking black duck), Mako's original purpose was meant to be a holosuite training partner, someone who could take it and give it right back; unfortunately, the holosuite programming mistook the duck's request as one for a -real- opponent(I blatantly swiped the idea from an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation)....
The result was MakoType-824, a 'technorganic'(Transformers: Beast Machines term) lifeform, neither human nor machine...and yet, -both-. Fully sentient, and quite aware of her purpose(but not seeming to care), what could pass for her 'machine' component utilizes the latest in OtakuWorld-born 'trinary programming(0s, 1s, and %s...not 5, but the symbol %)' code; while literally generations ahead of anything Paragon-Earth could ever hope to produce, the programming is still coming unto it's own; so while she has the physical appearance of a very attractive woman in her early 20s(she's 'girl next door' sexy without meaning to be), she still sometimes acts like a borderline-hyperactive teenager who's a sucker for 'cute', and still sometimes painfully naive' about life's little nuances.
This 1st manifested itself during the 1st Christmas holiday events in Paragon City; upon learning of what the Holiday season was about and what Arachnos troops had done in the process of stealing the presents meant for the average Paragon citizen, she......over-reacted, single-handedly ransacking an Arachnos base, taking back all the presents, and giving quite a few troops a VERY good reason to give her a wide berth from now on!
She calls CapeMike 'dad', much to the Scrapper's chagrin, even though he technically *is*, and regularly enjoys teasing him about this at any opportunity she can. CapeMike will never openly admit it, but he cares deeply for 'Mako''s well-being, and was quite pleased when she joined the 'Warriors of Honor' SuperGroup, led by one of CapeMike's closest friends, Spark-1.
Recent events imply that Mako's -true- function, indeed, her true Destiny is far more significant than a mere training partner...whatever it is, CapeMike is very much a part of it, and the time for a prophecy given to him by Azuria may come to pass quite soon....
"The lights...an invasion...perhaps a 'storm'...; the two must become one if any are to survive."
What's it mean? Who knows...and with Azuria, can -anything- be taken at it's word?
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...kotype_ref.jpg
A "breakout character" is a minor character, often meant to only be used once, who ends up growing into a major role. It can be an Alt that turned into your Main, or a RP character you made for one story who ended up being used everywhere.
I didn't expect to use Cobalt Stinger as much as I have. Anna had been my main and the only character really used in RP back in the CoV beta as well as my first villain to hit 50 in the live game. But Cobalt ended up surpassing everyone to become my second 50 and has more RP appearances than all of my other characters. Every story so far has involved her, she's been in every RP I've had anything to do with even if it was just a cameo, and the "If your character was a contact" arc I wrote largely revolves around her antics.
She's just too fun to play and makes everyone else seem one-dimensional in comparison. She is adaptable to just about any setting. She's ended up outshining everyone.
So who's your breakout character?