Looking for help on a backstory for a new toon.

hello all

I recently started a new Sonic/Kinetic Corrupter and named him Tonedeaf. While having a backstory isn't required by any means, I want to flesh this one's out just for the fun of it. However I've run into a few snags that I really could use some help on. The basic story for him is that he was born Blind/Deaf as a mutant who came into his powers around six years old or so, and discovered them while playing with his sister. he fell, wounding himself and the howl of pain was so powerful that it sent his sister to the ICU. His parents fearing for their safety sent him away to a special orphanage for meta-human children, where he was mistreated and later "discovered". The problems I'm running into are these:

(1) Meshing the primary and secondary. As a Sonic/Kinetic corrupter his primary power set is fairly easy to explain. But how to add in the Kinetic? I understand the concept of kinetics being the power of motion in the most basic sense. However how can I explain how this could go with a Sonic power set?

(2)Who recruits him. The primary backbone of his adult life would be being found in the orphanage by a member of a current villain group. Right now I'm thinking of a story that involves a agent of Dr. Aeon finding him on a routine scouting mission. However my CoV/CoH lore is extremely weak. Is there a better villian to use? One thing I would like to avoid is the "god like falling to earth" bit. I want to make this a very human, very flawed toon.

(3) Also another aspect along this storyline would be the introduction of a "headpiece" or other technology that would give him pseudo sight and hearing in order to interact with the world that would be gifted to him by his benefactor(s). One arc I was thinking of was that the villain boss would have created it in such a way that Tonedeaf wouldn't be aware that he was doing any evil acts. Can anyone help me flesh this idea out?

(4) Lastly, as you can tell I've tried to add several details into the storyline, perhaps to many. When I've tried to type this into the character bio/I.D. I get very little of the concepts that I want in before I run out of room. Is there a place I can go (forums, websites, groups, etc) That offers to help write a story that would fit into the word count the in game I.D. restricts you to? I doubt it, but I just thought I would ask

Thanks in advance for any help/suggestions

---

1) Being blind/deaf makes him hypersensitive to the ebb and flow of energy around him. Kinetics may be a related ability to that.

2) Any number of villains might want to 'mold' him into something they could use. The Freakshow because of his sonic talents, Crey on their 'we help you and you help us' concept (ie, "we'll give you replacement eyes, and in return, you... do us a few favors..."), even Arachnos acting through Westin Phipps (he of Haven House - look him up in the Paragonwiki.com site) might be a viable option.

3) As for a 'headpiece' that gives him sight (such as the Techno goggles that some of my tech characters wear), it might be that they register things and translate it into another sense that his brain can utilize (sonar? radar?)... and as for making it tweaked, you could always do a subtle bit of RPing that whichever group you target, you do your best not to attack that group - it might play out as being on a team doing newspaper missions, and someone says, "Hey, let's go fight Freakshow" and your character immediately starts stammering and goes, "L-l-l-let me see if my broker has anything else..."

4) Not that I know of. But it becomes a good writing exercise to try and condense down what you say in your bio.

Good luck!

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

---

Ya know... I actually agree with everything the above poster just said. Go with all of that!

But I would suggest that it was NOT Dr. Aeon that found him. He's a mad scientist. He stays holed up in his labs for the most part. Maybe Silver Mantis, though. She is a lower level villain, and thus has many more "hands on" type missions. She could have easily found him, and with the help of her connections, gotten him his eye piece.

---

Crey seems like a good suggestion to me.
They are interested in super-powers to the point of cloning dead heroes, they certainly would be interested in recruiting your character.

Also, Nemesis. It's always a Nemesis plot, after all.

---

I like most of D_R's thoughts (as usual), but I'd offer another option for the meshing of the powers. Sonic and Kinetics can both be explained by molecular manipulation. Sound waves are vibrations of air molecules. Speed boost is just accelerating the natural motion of the allies' own molecular structure. Call it vibration, call it resonance, whatever you like.

And as to writing shorter bios: practice practice practice Limited bio space teaches you to distill your thoughts into one short entry, which usually gets the point across much better because it forces you to say only the most fundamental things about your character. Use a thesaurus to find shorter words, or words that can replace phrases.

---

1) Sound energy is kinetic energy, in the form of compression waves moving the particles of a medium. I would suggest that the Sonic powers are the result of instinctively using his power to manipulate kinetic energy to amplify and warp his voice.

2) All of Dark_Respite's suggestions for recruiters would work, of course. I would specifically suggest Phipps, however--this seems to fit him perfectly, and he would be in the best position to discover your character.

3) There are a number of real-world experimental devices along these lines, most of which seem to use pressure or electrical stimulation to create "images" for the blind. One notable device is an electrode pad that's held on the tongue and uses tiny pinpoint shocks to "draw" an image on the tongue. That wouldn't work so well for your character, for obvious reasons, but he could have something similar on an electrode plate across his forehead, using an image constructed from radar or sonar data.

For sound, I would suggest vibrating plates along the cheek near the ears. That would convey the direction and intensity of sounds, at least.

There are some interesting roleplaying considerations for this sort of imaging. Your character would not be able to see color, for example, or read text; he might have a fingertip gadget that scans text and converts it to Braille if he has to read something. Computer screens would be blank pieces of glass or plastic to him. If he doesn't have someone helping him pick clothing, he may wind up dressing in mismatched or otherwise odd colors. If you use sonar for the imaging, then every time he uses one of his Sonic powers, he would likely be "blinded" for an instant.

(I've had occasion to think some of this through, because one of my defenders is a blind archer. He has a direct perception sense linked to his teleportation powers that enables him to "see" things as relative densities, so he doesn't teleport into a solid object, but a lot of the other limitations apply. I roleplay his vet-reward Power Drone as an autonomous text-to-speech device; he has to summon it to use a computer, for example. Oh, and his girlfriend picks out his clothes.)

---

The Way of the Corruptor (Arc ID 49834): Hey villains! Do something for yourself for a change--like twisting the elements to your will. All that's standing in your way are a few secret societies...and Champions of the four elements.

Vibration was the first thing to occur to me as well. Sonic is just kinetic energy imparted to air molecules. A hyper scream would be a natural thing for him to do as a blind/deaf person. When he gained some sensory input and and training in the true nature of his powers, he'd advance to more typical telekinesis and inertia-dampening abilites.

I'm not sure that I'd tie him into any particular Arachnos character, unless you know for certain right now which patron he'd eventually like to have. Otherwise, I'd probably have him be "discovered" by some one like Burke, who cultivates useful connections, and gets him introduced to the culture of Mercy Island.

The business of a sensory helmet that prevents him from knowing that he's doing evil is a bit weird. It suggests that he's being manipulated by a sinister force, though I can see in that case why you picked Dr. Aeon. I agree with the poster above, though, who said that Aeon is the prototypical mad scientist who is way too involved in his fringe science to be someone who is using another unsuspecting dupe as a tool to achieve an agenda.

If that's really the back story you want, then I'd just invent the villain(s) using your character in that fashion. I'm not sure how you'd deceive them like that, but if your character spent his whole life marginalized as a burden on society, then maybe he's simply never had an moral training and doesn't have the emotional basis for asking the moral questions that would indicate "good" and "evil" intent.

Maybe he even thinks of the world as a kind of movie or video game or virtual reality and his controller encourages him to believe that. The Ender's Game gambit, basically. "Joe, thank you for volunteering to be a test subject. During the course of our testing of this new sensory technology over the next few years, we'll be inserting you into a simulated world to judge how well the equipment responds to your nervous system." If you kill someone in a simulation, what's the harm?

---

<QR>

[ QUOTE ]
Maybe he even thinks of the world as a kind of movie or video game or virtual reality and his controller encourages him to believe that. The Ender's Game gambit, basically. "Joe, thank you for volunteering to be a test subject. During the course of our testing of this new sensory technology over the next few years, we'll be inserting you into a simulated world to judge how well the equipment responds to your nervous system." If you kill someone in a simulation, what's the harm?

[/ QUOTE ]

This.

Especially with the advent of Architect Entertainment, it's quite reasonable to assume someone could use that tech (or similar tech) to trick your character. Your character could think he's been doing heroic things all his life, fighting bad guys... when in actuality he's been attacking the good guys.

They couldn't TELL him or SHOW him they were good guys, since his helmet thingie controls what he sees and hears. His "handler" might be a non-powered, or low-powered individual who can devote time to monitoring the input closely: a hand-on puppet-master, in other words.

Pity the poor guy when your character finds out what he's been doing.

---

*grins*

Glad to know folks like my initial suggestions... hoping that the OP posts his/her feedback as well.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

---

First of all, thank you all so much for all the helpful information and ideas! I'm sorry it's taken me so long to reply. Real life and all. It seems that every time I go to the forums one of my three kids screams for me

I took several ideas and meshed them together into a bio I think I like. Still a bit to long to use. the in game I.D bio cuts it off around the word "False" in the second to last sentence, but with a little whittling I think I can figure something out. Again thank you all so much for the help on this

*************** Tondeaf Bio ***************************

Nathaniel Rusco was born deaf and blind to the world. At first his parents thought him a normal disabled child. It wasn’t until age six, when while playing with his older sister, he fell and let loose a scream that severely injured his sister and sent her to the ICU. His parents, concerned for their own well being, sent their son to a special meta-human orphanage to live. As he neared adulthood, his powers to generate resonance as sound or air waves, caught the attention of a recruiter from Crey industries who was interested in him as possible emissary to the Freakshow gang, who by now had been costing Crey Corporation millions in stolen Biogenetic and cybernetic devices. His new employer gifted him with a special piece of hardware devolved by Architect Studio which attached to his ears and sent information directly to his brain that allowed him to see and hear the world as a virtual reality simulation. However, Cray Industries remained quiet on the fact that this virtual reality was in fact, false, and gave him only the information they wished him to have. Sent out to the field, Tonedeaf now lives in a world in which he sees the evil he does only as the benevolent actions of a hero, thanks to Crey industries, and the Virtual lie he now lives in.

---