The Midnight Order
(appears in arc #197183 - Threefold Rule)
[u]Summary:[u] When writing Threefold Rule, I found that I needed a medieval version of the Midnight Squad, since the standard version looks too 20th century. I quickly encountered a difficulty here, though, as the Midnight Squad did not exist as a group until the 1920s. My solution? The Midnight Order are the predecessors to the Midnight Squad, with origins reaching into the Dark Ages. The order eventually dissolved, but its traditions and descendants survived through several generations and provided the eventual foundations of the modern-day Midnight Squad. They aren't very fleshed-out, yet, but I'm sorely tempted to do more with themor to see what others might to with them.
[u]Description (shared by all members):[u]
The mages of the Midnight Order are the forgotten predecessors of the modern-day Midnight Squad. Though scholarly and urbane in focus, they are adept at turning their magical knowledge toward martial purposes.
[u]Minions:[u]
Force Mage - Energy Blast (Standard)/Energy Manipulation (Standard)
Spirit Mage - Dark Blast (Standard)/Dark Miasma (Standard)
[u]Lieutenants:[u]
Hermetic Master Stone Melee (Standard)/Force Field (Standard)
[u]Bosses:[u]
Living Armor (standard character, from the Midnight Squad group)
I'm actually working on a (admittedly long) fanfic that focuses on the custom group that appears in my MA Arcs.
Between writing the fanfic, working on the custom group, creating the Arcs themselves, and promoting the Arcs, I hardly have enough free time to play the actual game 
Supplemental Galactic Protectorate Fanfic
For my Family arc "Two Households Alike" (#126582 on Live; #22641 on Test, parts of these notes apply to the Test version), I wanted each of the two families to have a few custom units to add a little variety. I went a little farther with the Bianchis, giving them their own sub-faction to show they were more progressive than the norm for cosa nostra. The Bianchis have not only made men, but made women as well, the Streghe (Witches)....
(Critter files are the i15 versions, usable on Test only currently.)
Bianchi Strega ("witch") -- Picture Critter file
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Vittorio Bianchi is fairly progressive, especially for a Family Don. Progressive enough to recognize the value of allowing for the possiblity of made women, especially after his chemists tweaked 'dyne to produce a version that had slightly different effects on women. Inspired by the Arachnos Fortunata, the Bianchis have their own cadre of psychic women bolstering the ranks. Their powers don't have quite the finesse or subtlety required to be good psychic interrogators but they get the job done.
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Bianchi Maga ("sorceress") -- Picture Critter file
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The most talented of the Streghe are promoted to the ranks of the Maghe, the distaff equivalent of a Capo or "captain" in the Bianchi family. Perfect gender equality has yet to be achieved, but the Bianchi men have long ago gotten over any issues they may have in taking orders from women.
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Katrina Bianchi (unique Boss) -- Picture Critter file
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Katrina (do NOT call her "Kat") is the Bianchi's one and only magaregina -- "witch queen", equivalent to an Underboss -- thus far. As might be imagined, for a woman to earn her own territory in the Family she would need power, ambition and ruthlessness, not necessarily in that order. Katrina has all three to spare. She relies on her highly-developed psychic powers rather than fisticuffs in battle.
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Knives Mercenary (non-unique Boss) -- Picture Critter file
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When the Streghe need a little extra firepower but want to keep things "girls only", to whom else would they turn but the Knives of Artemis....
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The Knives Mercenary has turned out to be pretty nasty, as you might expect. Ninjitsu no longer gives the obscene stacking damage buff, but her opening shot does get double damage. Usually she tosses a Throwing Knife for about 350 plus DoT, which is good for about half your HP at level 29 (the arc's maximum). There's one placed in Act V so expect to blow a Respite or two straight off....
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
I would post the Freedom Militia, but due to the changes on test I'm going to be adding more minions and another LT, and haven't gotten around to it yet. When I do, I'll share it.
As for what the Freedom Militia are, they're essentially heroic outcasts. Mutants who are mostly teenagers and young adults who are banding together as a revolutionary group against Arachnos and the other criminal organizations of the Rogue Isles. I made them because I feel that the villain game is far too lacking in actual heroic enemies, and the heroic enemies that do exist usually don't even have powers. I also find it very hard to believe that nobody in the Rogue Isles has started an underground resistance movement to try and overthrow Arachnos yet.
I'm not sure if anyone would want them, but I enjoy the designs of my Matchstick Women if you're looking for some fiery enemies. I don't have pics of the actual custom mobs yet, but I have the characters they're based on.
They are a group of women arsonists led by a crazed woman named Emily Metzer who now goes by the name Burnt Matchstick. Emily actively recruits young women who have a natural talent with fire and lures them in with the promise of family. But she then scars and tortures them so they will never want to leave, and all of the minions now keep their scarred faces covered.
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I think most creators who grant permission for their characters to be used could reasonably expect credit for their work (noted in the character's description), as well as the right to withdraw their permission at any time.
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While I agree with the first part of this sentence, I strongly disagree with the second part. Once you agree to let someone use your characters and they invest a lot of energy in creating their arc, it seems too cruel to me to simply withdraw permission.
On the other hand, I think it would be foolish to give someone permission to use your characters if you had no control at all in how they were used. (Imagine Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock as lovers ... fan-fiction writers imagine it all the time.) 
I would suggest anyone willing to "share" their custom critters have a clear understanding of the story idea and they way they would be used before agreeing to anything.
That said, I still thinik your basic premise is valid.
As for my own custom critters, players may enjoy the two groups of playing cards in my arc "Wicked, Wicked Wonderland" (#1224).
The first group is filled only with Clubs, Diamonds and Spades - and are therefore called "Not Playing with a Full Deck"
And the second group, a sad lot, consists of the remainder. They're called, "The Broken Hearts".
As I play various arcs, I notice that many custom groups have the identical description for each member of the custom group. Not the playing cards, though. Each card has a unique (and perhaps even clever) description that is his or hers alone.
They also have powers that may reflect their suit. So guess what you're up against when you run into the King of Clubs? The only odd toon out is "The Wild Card" because his powers are ... well ... diverse. 
Good luck with this idea and this thread. What I like best about it is that is another good way of helping authors like myself promote their arcs ... without being a review that gives away the story details and unexpected plot twists of each arc. I appreciate that. 
I've had some pretty good feedback about my published custom group, the Demon Spawn. I wish I knew how to make the character views that I've seen other people post on the forum so I could show them here. Each character has a unique description related to their 'specialty' and background. I also have a variety of minor characters/mini-bosses that I've added with separate 'personalities' to make them stand out from the rank and file (thanks to Pro Payne for that suggestion). I wouldn't mind having someone else use them in their arcs, but I agree that I would like to know how they will be used in that arc before giving my permission.
No AV/EBs Deal with The Devil's Pawn-207266 Slash DeMento and the Stolen Weapons-100045 Meet the Demon Spawn-151099 Feedback
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I wish I knew how to make the character views that I've seen other people post on the forum so I could show them here.
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I think Venture made them each by using a character slot on test and taking a screenshot of that, then trimming it down in another program.
Otherwise you could try doing it using the new "Invisible" feature in Test Mode in issue 15, which makes it so that enemies in your missions do not react to your presence.
The snapshots I linked to came right out of the custom critter editor, trimmed down in GIMP.
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
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I think most creators who grant permission for their characters to be used could reasonably expect credit for their work (noted in the character's description), as well as the right to withdraw their permission at any time.
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While I agree with the first part of this sentence, I strongly disagree with the second part. Once you agree to let someone use your characters and they invest a lot of energy in creating their arc, it seems too cruel to me to simply withdraw permission.
On the other hand, I think it would be foolish to give someone permission to use your characters if you had no control at all in how they were used. (Imagine Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock as lovers ... fan-fiction writers imagine it all the time.)
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I'm not sure it's reasonable to expect to retain control over content you submit to the MA. For one thing, I believe it's explicitly stated in the user agreement that NCSoft gets the rights to content created in the system (I vaguely recall this is a hedge against copyright issues, by forcing the user to assume the onus of copyright ownership to begin with). For another, there's nothing stopping anyone from copying everything about the characters from their visible info.
Back on topic, I'd like to note that I've created custom critters to represent the following canon characters, either because they have no combat entities already or to avoid level range limitations:
Dr. Aeon
Hopkins
Dark Watcher
... and one or two others I'll keep close to the chest for now since mentioning them would spoil some upcoming arcs.
I'll try to post those to a public location for people to access later today.
And for a while things were cold,
They were scared down in their holes
The forest that once was green
Was colored black by those killing machines
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I'm not sure it's reasonable to expect to retain control over content you submit to the MA. For one thing, I believe it's explicitly stated in the user agreement that NCSoft gets the rights to content created in the system (I vaguely recall this is a hedge against copyright issues, by forcing the user to assume the onus of copyright ownership to begin with). For another, there's nothing stopping anyone from copying everything about the characters from their visible info.
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I was referring to the OP's suggestion of literally sending another player your files so that they could insert them elsewhere without muss or fuss. Again, for me that would depend on how they were used.
On the other hand, you're right. One COULD take an in-game photo of every custom critter in the story ... AND click on them to get their descriptions (which make them all the more fun). BUT that would be a lot of work, imho. 
And anyone who has that kind of time, talent and attention to detail, would probably be spending their time creating new custom mobs. (Ones that I would want to steal from them.) 
I have a seldom used site for submitting and sharing MA content: www.customcoh.com
Feel free to take a look. My friends and I wanted to share our creations and we decided to make it open to anyone and everyone that wanted to use it. If you like the idea and want to submit to it, I'd be happy to host custom critters.
TW
My Arcs:
Unbearable Funk #3573
Tale of the Creatures From Another Forbidden Planet #97983
My Deviant Art Page
Too long; didn't read version: This thread is for posting quick summaries of your custom NPCs and groups so that other readers who find them interesting can (a) seek out their story arcs in order to see them in action and (b) use these same custom NPCs in their own arcs (with your permission, of course).
The fuller version:
While creating my most recent arc ([u]Threefold Rule[u] - #197183 - now playing in an AE facility near you!) I was trying to come up with a suitable custom group when I realized that a friend's story arc ([u]The Second Coming[u] - #40333 - still showing!) already had a custom group that was perfect for my needs. I got his permission, and now this group appears in my arc as well.
This act of "borrowing" has me, I think justifiably excited. If the same group can appear not only in different arcs, but in arcs by different authors, it creates a real sense of the group having a larger life and existence outside of that one mission arc.
To facilitate this sort of sharing (and also to help drum up interest in your own arcs) I thought it'd be cool to have a place where we can post information about our custom NPCs. If you see a group you'd be interested in using, send the owner a polite PM so you can ask permission and discuss terms. After coming to an agreement, the creator can email you the file for the custom critters.
I think most creators who grant permission for their characters to be used could reasonably expect credit for their work (noted in the character's description), as well as the right to withdraw their permission at any time.
Although there's nothing stopping you from "stealing" the ideas of others, please respect others' "ownership" of their characters by only using those characters with their permission.
I'll go first.