heroes mastermind?

Sorry, they're really going to be undead, and I've been hoping to make the character pretty much since the launch of CoV. The concept is for a character in service to the restless dead, ordinary people who have fallen to war and crime, bereft of justice or vengeance. He doesn't coerce the dead, he merely provides the means for them to strike back. So, just remember that those "icky" creatures are decent, honest people being given one last chance to find peace.

And yeah...they're still icky. Corpses don't smell so good. I don't suppose you've got a couple of barrels of air freshener handy?

To be fair, not every hero needs to be heroic in the classical sense, and certainly not through an inherently heroic power. Some heroes, for instance, have the power to kill, which isn't something you go around displaying at pep rallies, but which can still be used by a genuine, if rather conflicted hero.

It's a question of storytelling. A hero whose power is inherently evil and harmful, but whose morals are good is a very interesting concept for a deeper story. It can go along the lines of Power at a Price, only in this case it's less a price to YOU, as much as it is a price to other people, which is what turns this from a simple choice of self-sacrifice into a choice of sacrificing others, which can really complicate things and thus make for a more interesting story.

At the end of the day, not all people have to like all stories, but the potential is there nonetheless.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

In one of my fantasy campaigns, undead are not necessarily evil. They're split into "Ghouls" and "Ancestors".

"Ghouls" being the traditional hateful, lethal evil creatures we all see on our TV screens.

"Ancestors" being generally volunteers that have prolonged their stay on the mortal realm to accomplish some task, usually protection of a site like a graveyard.

zombies and skeletons would be simple automatons, animated bodies sans spirit. It is considered...rude, at the very least...to animate someone's corpse without properly asking the spirit for permission. As such, sanctioned rituals to do so tend to take much longer than unsanctioned ones.

However, I must admit, the vomiting, rotting undead of the necromancy set are more attend to ghouls (ancestors tend to be better preserved and less prone to carrying lethal diseases...and also less often have a physical body), but oh well.

Also, I have a heroic banshee I'm considering rerolling from blaster to mastermind

My favorite "heroic villain" bio i saw was for a Tanker i teamed with a couple years ago in Skyway City. i don't recall his name or powersets anymore, but he had a bio about being a former pro football player who went into a blind rage when his powers manifested during a game and proceeded to slaughter everyone nearby. Presumably that would be at least several hundred people. After he returned to his senses he decided he might as well be come a superhero. No remorse or even any consequences for having murdered hundreds of people. His bio even stated that he felt he might snap and do it again at any time.

His name was something along the lines of BLOODEATER, but i recall it wasn't all caps.

i still hold with the idea that it's more what you do with the powers that makes them heroic or villainous. Heroic Necromancy Mastermind... Wasn't there a hero named Kid Eternity who had the power to call on long dead warriors and the like to aid him in fighting evil?

See, this... You can do this with the most innocuous type of power, like Martial Arts or Super Strength. Luckily, City of Villains syphoned off most of these bizarre characters, so I haven't had the misfortune of running into yet more dead baby demons who crawled out of hell through bile and blood so they could eat the hearts of the innocents and... Apparently help old ladies across the street.

I tend to take offence at the term "anti-hero" for this precise reason. While its connotation is obvious, its history and practical use tends to basically take an unambiguous villain, make him only SLIGHTLY ambiguous and then try to pass him off as a hero for no other reason that because all the OTHER villains are needlessly dickish about being jerkasses for no real reason. Yay less-evil-by-comparison "anti-hero!" Preposterous!

That said, this still comes down to what you do with your powers and much less to what your powers actually are.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Hmm. Okay, how about this... in other places, you can donate your body to science - in Paragon, you can donate it to public service.

Batman is not an anti-hero. He even technically works with in the law, stretching the citizen's arrest allowances.

calling Sub-Mariner an anti-hero is something of a stretch as well, in fact, he fits the mold of a classic Greek hero (who could be both good or bad).

Rorschach and the Punisher, however, definitely are anti-heroes


Oh, just a note, thugs mastermind would be perfect for a character based on the Shadow....after all, most of his network were common people

Guardian Angels...it was a gang int eh 80s...man I am getting old.

have you seem the first batman BEFOR the censorship law?

he was a brutal anti hero.


batman is coming back to its old roots with the dark knight.

the batman you saw during the 70 was not the real one.
it was the reconnected censored version for kiddo.

I am talking the Dark Knight

Dark does not equal anti-hero. Neither does brutal.

Achilles is far more brutal than any version of Batman, and he is not an Anti-Hero either.

LOL Sure, I keep a can in my cape pocket for when I fight the Banished.

But I would actually consider that a good, well thought out back story. Another one might be spirits called from the Netherworld taking physical shape but otherwise well controlled (a good story to go with Dark Miasma as a secondary) i.e. not someone's actual body rudely (loved that) disinterred. Demon summoning would fit that mold too - creatures from another plane summoned to fight evil but, again, well controlled.

And I'll readily admit that the fact others would find either or both repulsive makes for a deeper character. My own Shadowguardinal calls on the Netherworld for her powers and finds them repulsive/scary too but soldiers on for the greater good.

I've never seen any issue at all with thugs, mercs, or ninjas.

Carrying a gun and shooting people does not make you an antihero. Look at the Shadow and the Punisher. Are they antiheroes?

Or like the Warriors in the 1979 movie, The Warriors?

The Punisher - Yes.

The Shadow - No.

One was a villain. He was introduced as a villain and Marvel later gradually morphed him into an anti-hero and then a hero. The other was a radio play character and the brutality of his actions were largely left to the imagination of his audience at the time, but he was never characterized as a villain or anything other than a relatively grim hero.

I guess I will just never understand this... they are DEAD! What difference does it make?

I believe he is thinking of the 1994 movie adaptation of "The Shadow" where Lamont Cranston is depicted as a brutal warlord and opium smuggler who was reformed into a hero.

Actually, the extended storyline drawn out from radio plays and novels shows that "the Shadow" was not really Lamont Cranston, but a man who bore an uncanny resemblance to him and fought with him in WWI. He then became a master spy called "The Eagle" (which is where he acquired the self-replicating interconnected gems that he puts in his rings) and from there went to China to become said warlord and opium smuggler.

However, despite being a formerly very evil person, the Shadow is still depicted as a hero rather than an anti-hero.

He is partially motivated by self-interest (redemption) but is also definitely shown as being firmly interested in protecting people from evil.

Redeemed villains do not instantly mean anti-hero.

Anti-heroes are a poorly understood archetype and also misidentified more often than ADD.

In the post-Iron Age comics era, anybody with a trace of the grim or edgy gets labeled as an anti-hero.

Some of us would be angry if you dug up grandma (or dad or sister ) from the grave and abused the body for your own selfish reasons (and just so you can fight crime IS a selfish reason).

At the very least your lack of sensitivity for the dignity of those people and their surviving relatives would be appalling.

What if it's MY grandma?

And my character comes from a place/family where this sort of stuff is common and doesn't phase them in the same way it does your characters, and they don't mind being used in such a fashion.

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

The problem is that you're applying your own moral and ethical beliefs to other people's characters and trying to judge them by that as though that's the specific vision of "morality" that the game world subscribes to. I have no problem with people bringing their own morality and indeed judging others by it, but on the basis of what they like, not on the basis of what is and isn't objectively heroic.

To give you a good example, I don't find all the breaking into Crey private property we do without due warrant and often probable cause to be heroic. "Oh, hey! The Paragon Protectors are getting strong. Go break into this lab that seems to be doing perfectly legitimate business and see what you can find out. And if security try to stop you, set them on fire!" It's a private business protected by a whole mountain of laws that you can't just "break into" like it were a Skull hideout, but the game doesn't bat an eye at this.

Basically, we can only judge what we like or dislike. The only way to judge what is or isn't heroic is by examining past precedent set by the game itself. And being that Infernal is a hero of our world, and his power comes from binding the souls of demons to his armour, I'd say necromancy in all of its forms is well within the rough norms of heroism, if used responsibly.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Imagine the character is part of an (offworld or other dimensional) organisation sworn to uphold the law and defend the innocent to the death, and beyond it, and those who fall in the line of duty want to be raised up so that they can continue to do their duty.

Those my mastermind Eve summons have sworn themselves eternally to her. Of course, I've always seen my zombies less decayed/more taken care of.,