Mystery Origin?

tl;dr at bottom

I came across something when creating a new toon due to my n00bness which has one known symptom as severe altisis which gave me a question to give you guys.

If you are RPing as a character who has an origin which origin do you pick?
In my context a toon (Thugs/Poision MM) has always had an amazing ability to perceive - he can tell if someone is excited, nervous or lying from a single twitch. But he keeps how he can a secret. Even I don't know if he uses spells, if he was born with the ability to do it or he's so used to people that he can figure it out.

However I do know how the ability started. The base of this ability is that he used to be able to notice things better than the average person. And by practicing that he could apply that to people. Sure you could say "That's natural origin - he trained to be able to do that!" However you look at telekenetics and most of them start out really weak and have to train on lifting up the spoon with their minds before they can move onto the toaster and that's definately not natural origin.

Anyway I won't tell you which I picked in the end. (I might later if you ask nicely.) I want to know what you guys would/have use(d).

tl;dr: If a toon you rp keeps how they got their powers a secret which origin did you pick?

Well Honestly, I try to avoid the whole Origin RP. My retired main was Magic and that mattered since she was a DnD based Elvin Warmage (2nd ed. Elf Handbook) which caused me to go Kat/Regen Magic based. However, as time went on I realized that only one quest-line at the start was different, and your D.O/S.Os where based on your origin and there was no further point to it. However then COV came out and I Made a tech based Mastermind (Merc/Traps) he hates Magic, Mutants, and anyone not of the Human race. I really want to be able to RP more with him, but sadly, for a while RP vanished from the open.

Now with COP Open RP is starting to come back, and well basically, I have made a New elf who shuns Magic and uses Technology...I love making an Opposite can really be fun.

Honestly Why have not I seen more Praetorian Opposites?


Well Back to the ‘mystery Origin’ thing, basically when making my new elf I took Natural, because in the end of the day, Natural means nothing and you can be any of the Above in your Background being a Natural.

You are from a Magical race; however, being of that race makes you Naturally Gifted to do magic.
You have a Mutant Gene but it is within Your Nature to do what you do.
You have an Especially High IQ and you are just naturally gifted with Technology,
You have an Especially High IQ and your Science Project made naturally more capable.
Get the Idea… Natural can be used for anything….

Also: Vampires, Werewolves, Assembled Beings, Angels, Demons, Succubus, Sparkle Fairies (aka Twilight Vamps), can all be placed as Natural.

I wish there were some way to change our origin. I've had characters start as one origin and then as I develope them and choose new powers, decide that their powers grow in different way (or even completely alter the character which isn't uncommon in comic books). But once you choose an origin at character creation, you're locked into it unless you want to delete and start over.

You would think that after doing the Respec Trial in Terra Volta ("Radiation Exposure has altered your powers such that...") that everyone who did one would be Science Origin afterwards.

When in doubt, I go with Natural. I'm more likely to use its attack power anyway, and then I can pick which wand power I want the bonus on. I figure it can stand for what they filled out when they applied for a license, if you want to play it that way, or it can work for most powers like pointed out above. I've used it when the other origins that could technically work for my character had other implications or associations that didn't feel right, too. So if I had a character who didn't know or wasn't telling anyone the origin of their powers, I'd probably pick Natural.

Truth be told, I only ever pick Mutant or Magic. Occasionally I'll pick the others, but those two are my "mains" per-say.

The reason I pick them? Because I've gotten used to them and the names of the SOs, so I can find them easier, whereas with anything else, it takes longer to find what I'm looking for.

But besides that...My MA/SR fox is natural origin because she didn't get any powers from a mutation/science etc. My KM/Elec scrapper is tech, because her powers are from...Technology, who would have thought.

But to be completely honest and on topic: I don't care much for the origin you pick outside of what SOs/beginning arc you get. When it comes to RP a mutant origin character is no better off than a science origin character unless the RP in general deals with sciency stuff, etc.

If I absolutely have to, I look at the character's origins and then mold the story around it.

Truthfully, I don't really pay any attention to the origin people have listed for their characters. Why bother? Anyone who wants to RP will be able to convey the relevant information through RP and their character's look. Outside of RP I don't see how origin is relevant. It's a useless tag at best and a misleading oversimplification at worst, so it's best ignored IMO.

When in doubt, I pick natural.

So far the vote for Generic Mystery Origin would be Natural

Well, I cast my vote for magic... because if its unexplained, it might as well be magical.

Even if your backstory is honing your awareness (thus training yourself to notice), it could still be explained away as an inherent magical ability that was developed through practice. Or maybe the ability is natural but his ability to keep how he does it a secret is what's magical.

I dunno, but when mystery is involved, "its magic" is always a good answer even if it really isn't magic after all.

I'm all for "forget what the emblem says... my character's real origin is..." instead of just having to stick to the in-game origin.

That being said... I usually match them up (Although, sometimes it can be difficult).

For a "mystery origin", it is an interesting decision. I've actually had a few cases of this myself.
The character's origin of power is different than what is claimed and thought by the FBSA.
So, since the origin is really just a listing/categorization by the FBSA, I'd usually be tempted to go with what they think it is. UNLESS... I fully intended to unveil the truth within a reasonable amount of time. Then I might go with the actual origin.

However... I have chosen an origin entirely based on the power it gets.

I've taken natural just because the character needed to throw knives (When, really, I thought of the character as a mutant).

Amazing Ape is a mutant, but uses tech to amplify his powers... And I wanted the taser, so I went with Tech origin.


I don't mind if other players want to go by an origin type other than they chose and I could see going either way when it comes to a mystery/secret/unknown origin.

One of my heroes lied on her application and said that her powers were magical, rather than mutation-based.
She'd rather people thought of her as a magician rather than a mutant.

Regarding your character with the perception, I'd say I was tech-based so that I could make a big show with some special glasses/goggles and take them off when I wanted to pretend I was talking 'honestly' with someone.

That might be a nice option to have...on my recent new alt, a DP/Sonic Corruptor, she's a mutant similar to Forge (mutant ability that basically makes her great with tech).

She uses a battle armor she created 99% of the time (science pack, allows me to change her to a max height huge build ). The DP/Sonic is all based on tech gizmos, but she created them using her mutant ability.

Went with mutant ability, but sometimes I wish I went tech, since some of the Praetorian missions have a tech option, which I think she would have known.

If I had thought about those missions when I made her, she would of went tech for sure.

I consider the Origin just a simple basis concept. And from there, who knows?

My newest character a KM/WP stalker took the natural origin with the idea that she is a highly trained physical specimen with some psychokinetic abilities. Those abilities are enhanced and focused by devices(technology) to allow their use in combat. She also wears basic body armor(tech) to explain her damage resistance, as well as always having temporary powers like the revolver and plasmatic taser(more tech). Her self heal is an injection of nanites(science) while her hasten is a chemical stimulant(also science). Along the way she has also picked up some very basic magic in the form of the powers from the Ghost Widow patron pool.

So, she is basically a mish mash of origins, based on the original concept.

I go the Stan Lee route for solving this problem "They are all mutants... what more do you want?"

Great...now I want a Mystery origin set with a costume change emote of pulling a rubber mask off.

Also a Jinkies emote of some sort.

Yeah yeah, I know... but what does it matter what Stan Lee says? He only created them. As a reader, its my interpretation of who they are now which is most important. And I say they're all mutants.





Except Dr. Strange.

I think you guys are mixing up stuff Stan Lee said with things Alex Ross and his collaborators put forth in Earth X and it's sequels. Earth X was where the "everyone is a latent mutant" thing came from, and as far as I know it's not considered to be in continuity with the rest of Marvel's stuff. Stan's known for "they're all mutants" because when he originally created the X-Men he didn't want to have to figure out a plausible origin for all these characters. "They're all mutants" both created an interesting platform for social commentary and saved Stan a lot of work figuring out where everyone got their powers from. It wasn't a universe-wide thing, it was just a shortcut to make launching another team book less of a pain in the neck.

Just to contribute to the slight hijack (Of potential epic hysteria):

The Marvel Universe had a bit of a different classification/definition of mutants than Cit Of.

Marvel has had the "Induced Mutant" for a long while which would most often be called "Science" origin by the more strict interpretation of CoH's definitions.

Still, the predisposed mutant genes thing is legitimate and I don't think it was just a cop-out to tie in the civil war stuff.

I just remember the old Marvel Table Top RPG rules and Hulk and Spidey were absolutely listed as mutants back then. Induced mutants, yes, but mutants nonetheless, hehe.
I always thought that the predisposition was just a further rationalization/inspection of the general idea (Kind of making it a little more special and possibly understandable/believable (So to speak)...
"Hey, not everyone who is bitten by a radioactive spider would get super powers from it, etc."



And yeah... I sometimes think that very few people use their inherent powers. In some conversations about enemies running away, I started to wonder how often people use their ranged inherent powers to try and snag the flee-ers.
A few will immob and even the bleed from knives will sometimes help.

*shrugs*
Some of my characters never touch the inherents. Some do... some a bit frequently.

Most my characters fall into hybrid origins. Jae is a tech almost-idiot savant, she's also a mutant, most of her abilities are mutation but some are tech based. Black Symphony is two people sharing space, only one exists physically at any time. Zeke is learning magic, Azkythe is teaching him, but she's demonic, technically for her its natural. Roxy Acetylene is stated as magic because she was using alchemical constructs, but it was fueled by her blood which is mutant in nature. In most cases I pick 'if someone else were to classify based on evidence visual or otherwise, into what bin would they sort them?'