Canon-Themed Characters (The Lore and -you-)

I've never made a "canon" character but most of my first tier characters have some connection to Paragon City (typically through villain groups) to explain why they're in PC and not New York, Chicago or Seattle.

Polish Princess is hunting Nazi remnants in the form of the 5th Column, Pachamama was an Inca priestess consumed by the earth (it refused to let her die fighting Pizarro's armies) and released centuries later to help soothe the Devouring Earth and end the Hamidon's misguided influence, Rose Veldt is a big game hunter after the "giant monsters" which plague the city and the Lounge Crooner was promised a permanent stage gig at the Atlas Park Geneva Hotel.

Not deep canonical ties but they give me an answer for "Why are they here?"

Re: KnightErrant's post - *Applause*

Re: Jophiel's post - You reminded me of my troller, Unstar. I needed to figure an explanation for how a black hole gained sentience. My answer was Kheldians: as beings of energy rather than matter, when one of them fell into the black hole that would become the Unstar, its conscious was not simply destroyed since it wasn't bound to a fleshy brain - rather, it was scrambled to the point of no longer being a Kheldian and became bonded to the black hole's mass. The Kheldian is essentially dead: Unstar has no powers resembling those of a Peacebringer and is unaware that the consciousness he possesses is from residual Kheldian energy. As a comic-book-BS-science explanation, though, I figure it's as good as any.

I've been applauded!

But yeah, Lore doesn't have to be binding. I mostly use it as an insperation than a "Let's make a member of X group."

I remember liking the "Unstar" idea quite a bit, as well.

While I get the idea of having a character who's attached to the background lore in some way, I'm perfectly satisfied knowing that each and every villain I make is believed to be the Destined One by Lord Recluse. And that each and every hero I make puts an end to the Rikti War and defeats the game's biggest nemesis.

Our PCs *are* the lore of the game. Statesman and Recluse should feel excited to know *me*.

Okay thus far:

Hyperstrike: (Inv/SS-Tank) Former cop, got caught in a superbrawl in a nuclear power plant (retcon'ed to Terra Volta). Severely wounded, irradiated, and then ported out using another hero's reclaimator, so it wasn't really calibrated for his physiology.

Blastion: (Fire/Fire/Fire-Blaster) Crey experiment trying to use an artificially created metahuman body as a container for a mystically summoned being of elemental fire.

Eclipse Phase: (PB) who, after years of clandestine military superhuman work has retired home to Paragon City and is ROYALLY ticked at how fscked up it is. Essentially "get off my lawn" who explodes into a "crab" if you tick him off.

Inion Iomlain Gealai (I THINK I've got it spelled right...): (WS) Midnighter researcher merged with the nictus progeny of the unseen master from the Romulus ITF cut scene). The ITF is one big predestination paradox for her.

Bubbleshot: (FF/Arch-Defender) Offspring of another Incarnate. And she's just a bit *KABOOM!*...sensitive about it...

Tectonica: (Stone/Fire-Tank) An experimental precursor to the Devouring Earth's Terra.

Cosmic Rae: (Rad/Elec-Blaster) Midnighter Apprentice who went to the North Pole as part of an expedition to stop a Rikti mission to temporarily interfere with the Earth's magnetic field and irradiate the planet. The fight touched off a radiation cascade that killed everything in the area, including her. Mystically merged her consciousness into the radiation storm and resurrected.

Arachnosanguinatus (What can I say, if I don't want to team, I choose tough names...): (SOA/Bane) Assassin, saboteur, terrorist. Oh yeah, and a highly paid Arachnos freelancer.

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

Blue Battler wears armor forged by his mother to fight against the Rikti. (I wanted a male character whose powers stemmed from something his mother did because you don't see that in comics very often.)

Bedrock Blue is a former Outcast Lead Brick who was too smart to stay working for Frostfire, and left after getting the cash he needed to go to college to become an accountant ... and then his office was attacked by the Devouring Earth. His mutation prevented him from being taken over by the DE, but he gained the ability to transform into a Granite-like creature.

I have a few others, but those are the ones who leap to mind.

I have a couple.

I have a INV/SS tanker named is grandfather was imbued with the power of the Dagda, a Tuatha de dannan high king. he holds the spirit of the dagda inside him the same way statesman holds zues power and Recluse hold tartarus.

I also have a hero named Fusioneer who is one of the nuclear 90

I have one I made recently. Operative Term is an Arachnos soldier that reports directly to Arbiter Daos. He's the head of the Arachnos Literacy Initiative, Daos's secret pet project, which basically means I get to rant about the incorrect grammar of other players and call it role playing

Edit: Oh, and my stalker, Positron's Toaster. Which is the result of a man who is both a scientist and a living ball of atomic energy tinkering with his appliances in his spare time.

I wondered how long it would take D_R to find this thread (enthusiastic obligitory "more stories" comment goes here).

As for me, I tend to avoid making lore-based characters simply because I don't want to have to look up the correct lore to make one. I have a few characters who could easily be converted into lore-based characters, I've just been too lazy to do it lately.

Of those few characters, my favorite is Reverse, a fire/ice blaster on the Infinity server. She used to be a gang member with minor cold-type powers, but got roped into being a test subject for an experimental treatment that was basically supposed to change a person's personality into the opposite of whatever it was before the treatment. This didn't quite work as intended since, even though she's now a heroine, she still loves to beat people up. Her character description says something like, "it seems that I got some of both", which also explains how she has fire and ice powers (something I've struggled with explaining for quite a while, since I never liked the "oh I can make it hot, but I can make it cold, too" explanation). Her in-betweenness might be affected by Going Rogue, but for now she's just a fun character to play when I don't want to play either a super-mean villain or a goody-two-shoes hero (I can tell that I'm gonna have to play her now, since that's definitely something she would say).

In her backstory, I don't specifically say who used her as a test subject. It could've been Crey (even though I doubt they'd ever try to correct a criminal's twisted morals), but it's easier for me not to say, 'cause then I don't have to check the established lore. To quote a demotivational poster from Despair, Inc., "Laziness: Life is a journey, not a destination. So stop running."

My first character was a Scrapper by the name of Sir Slasher (Freedom) who was experimented on by a previously unnamed group (now retconned into Crey).

My main is a cyborg Claws/Regen scrapper.

He invented all of the technology that his body is now mostly made up of, but Crey decided they wanted it. So, they blew up his lab in an attempt to kill him and claim his work as their own.

His research was in both cybernetic limb replacement and nanotechnology for use in medicinal purposes.

Crey did not acquire the cybernetic limb research, as the only working prototypes are now grafted to my main character's body and he destroyed his notes. But they DID acquire the nanotechnology side of it, it is now part of regeneration-based Paragon Protectors.

Unfortunately, the nanomachines are flawed. They can only repair anything to the exact state it existed in before they were introduced. So, if you have a scar, any time they repair that area, they rebuild the scar exactly as it was before. That means they can't regrow my scrapper's missing limbs, but they CAN repair his cybernetic ones, because they don't differentiate between organic and non-organic material.