"Are you a god?"

I put dibs on Simon, the god of Hairdos!

Anyone got a rez?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMyUiajtYlQ



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Well I have Time and Chance a Priestess of the goddess of Luck who will get a promotion to Avatar of the Goddess with issue 19

I also have Thief of Life a succubus bucking for promotion to full on Arch Demon.

Consecrated Barrier not actually supernatural herself but the magic amulet that grants her super strength and toughness does contain the soul of an archangel which is going to give her a major power boost

Handmaiden of Death a reborn acolyte of a goddess of death hoping to be promoted to Chooser of the Slain (High priestess in other words)

so no actual gods but a lot of real religious power on my roster. The rest will likely get increased power due to tech upgrades better training etc rather than actual godly power.

Let's see...

I have one (repeatedly made/evolved) character who is descended from priestesses/protectors of a goddess. When needed - as she was - they can become empowered by that deity. Her daughter has that going on, as well.

The Ciricle of Thorns tried to make a - not exactly "clone" of her, but were blocked from copying her powers (the original, pre-daughter,) so she got *her* powers from rather less benevolent sources.

I've actually got a few characters like that, come to think of it. But deities in and of themselves? Nope.

See my Guides and Tutorials

A LOT of my characters are some way godlike in nature, but my KM/SR scrapper Kronaros especially comes to mind, especially since he was made with the Incarnates system in mind. Just check out his bio:

Dunno...


My boobs were worshipped by my guild in everquest. So I spose i'm sort of divine

So your hinting that it's EPP/PPP V.2.0?...

Can my Blaster have Knockout Blow now?

Purportedly, a curious idiot once asked the Buddha: "Are you a God?"
Buddha replied "No."
"Are you a Prophet?"
"No."
"Are you a great religious teacher?"
"No."
"Are you a Guru? A Mahatma? A Magician?"
Buddha replied in the negative to these and many more idle questions.
Exasperated, the man finally asked, "Then what the %$#^ ARE you???"
Buddha smiled. "Awake."

In CoX terms, Buddha, having already fought off the Goddess of Illusion, Maya, would be utterly invulnerable to Psionic coercion of any kind, and I'm forced to think his "powers" would run along the line of helping other people wake up and/or avoid/escape mental snares. A natural Controller or Defender, he would have a simple costume of robe and staff, but no, he wouldn't be a jolly fat guy. That would be Ho-Ti, the Chinese God of Luck, who is often mistaken for the more ascetic & slender Siddhartha Buddha by gwai-los & gaijin (that would be us western barbarians). As far as Offensive powers, if I translated Buddha as a CoX toon, he would probably use a Power we don't have access to in the game--that of talking greedy thugs & murderous mystics into realising their Karmic Actions will ultimately take them to the Zig, the morgue, or at least not contribute to their real happiness in the long run. Hmmm. Maybe "Reform Other" should be available to high-level Controllers & Defenders.

So, even Buddha, who founded a fairly large & impressive School of Philosophy (not really a "religion"), and IS worshipped as a God by some more literal-minded folks, is not really what we mean here by a "God". I was just amused by the "Ghost Busters definition of Godhood, so I wanted to throw in a funny story. As a Zen-loving sort, I find it funny, anyway...

Anyway, to the meat--after 30 months of playing CoX, my highest-level toon, Pyrogasm Girl, is only Lvl 43. Though a frequent player, I enjoy variety, have 30 or so toons whom I all love for different reasons, & with twin infants lkely to start howling at any instant, I rarely feel comfortable enough these days to join a team, because my personal code of honour tells me that dropping out of a mish in mid-BIFF! BAM! KRAKADOOM! is impolite to the other players, despite urgent r/l reasons. Putting a team together ranges from moderately irksome to outright tiresome, in any case, & is something I only do if I have plenty of thumb-twiddling time on my hands. So, as opposed to many players, I have no toons who are anywhere near "God" level; at higher levels, it takes forever to go up doing solo missions, especially as I rotate my play-time for each toon.

Pyro-Girl, a mutant, is a Fire/Fire Blaster whom someone once told me sounded square in the X-Person tradition, given her very mildly lascivious origin, scanty attire, & thrill-seekig attitude. She is not the first toon I ever created, though--that would be Alberta Winter, a Cold/Cold Blaster of Magic origin. I created Alberta as a nod to my adopted Province, and before the idea of "Avatars" became an official expansion to the game, I considered Alberta, whose powers came directly from the First Nation Goddess, Nelvana of the Northern Lights, an "Avatar of Winter". (btw, Nelvana once had her own book during WWII, along with Johnny Canuck. There were lots of "home ice players" in Canada before Logan, after whom I have named my younger twin. Yep, you're dealing with a true fan-boy here, lol.)

Alberta is teetering on the edge of Lvl 40, and I do plan to run her as a budding Goddess, especially now that the "Avatar Issue" is coming off the presses. An Avatar, after all, is the human incarnation of a God / Goddess. Being stuck in a human body slows down a God just a bit, but Godhood is a lot like Arthur C. Clarke's observation that an extremely advaned technology is indistinguishable from magic. Perhaps there are planets (like that of the "Asparagus People", all of whom were slain by the Avatar of the Phoenix before we got a chance to know much about them), where an average Earthling would appear as a God or Hero.

I try to play fair wirh myself when running a toon. There's no way I can talk myself into thinking that a Technology Blaster should have Magic Fortune, or that a Natural Pistolero should be able to blow himself up a la a Cyborg. There are exceptions, like Iron Paranoid, a Technology Tanker whose innate mutant genes were tweaked into life by the nanotech pill that turned him into organic steel, thus giving him Secondary Mutation. In some cases, I will even handicap a toon who otherwise deserves to possess an ability, such as Campus Crusader. She's a Magic Tanker with a great big flaming sword, who believes that her powers come from the Biblical Abrahamic God. CC could quite legally use Mystic Fortune, but the character herself believes that the Tarot is "evil occultism", so let's hope she's right about her true origin, and gets good rolls with a little help from On High...

Before I lose my grip on the actual topic completely, I will first say that by my own self-made rules, which I don't urge on any other player, only toons with "Magic" origins will strive to be Avatars in my version of the game. After all, "Magic", the non-Arthur Clarke kind, comes from supernatural entities of various types; Gods, if you will. Pyro-Girl might get to be pretty hot stuff (har har), but her flame is genetic. Alberta Winter, on the other hand, could eventually "channel" Nelvana. The same is true of "Hawk-Owl", a First Nation Shaman whose powers come from Inuit Gods; "Little Sister Death", whose Big Sister IS the Avatar of Death, and who considers herself an apprentice; "Blues Man", another Magic Christian; "Midnight Diamond", who got her powers from an odd gemstone while serving in Iraq, and is still unsure of which God is involved, and all of my other Magic Toons.

Like anything I say here, I speak only for myself, and I'm sure many players could find a reasonable explanation for turning a Tech Blaster into the Avatar of the God of Projectile Weaponry, etc. To them, I wish "no-prizes" for ingenious loopholes. CoX is such a flexible game that almost anything will fly, but in my case, I always imagine trying to sell the concept to an imaginary comics editor...

"You say that "Night Machine" is a Magic Tanker? Kid, he's a ROBOT!" "But, Chief, he's actually a GOLEM created by a descendent of the Rabbi who created the original Golem of Prague out of clay. This descendent's own astral body powers Night Machine! No reason he should be made of clay when his inventor is a roboticist as well as a Jewish Quabbalstic magician, eh? Of course he has Mystic Fortune--the Tarot is BASED on the Quabbalah--but he can Self-Destruct as well. A roboticist could easily slip in a 'take one for the team' program & a mini-bomb. Maybe he can even blow himself up by a magical act of will!" Editor crushes out his 20th cigar of the day, frowns, and says "We'll give it 4 issues, & if the sales don't warrant, he's history. And don't call me Chief!"

In any case, it's gonna be fun. CoX expansions usually are. Thanks for reading.


"God forgives. Pagans don't." --motto of the Pagans Motorcycle Club

Utopia, a half water nymph/half mutant who controls the weather and the sea would naturally use Poseidon's power.

I don't think I have any gods, per se. I have a number of moderately powerful supernatural creatures, including one who is destined to see the end of the universe, and another who is an advocate for the dead, but neither are what I'd call gods.

I do have one character who is an epiphenomenon of a Kardashev II entity (not civilization, entity) that has passed the self-improving computation threshold. That's enough of a differential in intelligence and power to be considered fairly godlike.

She is an atheist.

It's interesting that the game has finally come to this point, because I had fun making my first (and so far only level 50) character with being a mythological creature to begin with. He's here:

http://68.178.145.67/index.php/Burnum

...and was intended to be a mix of the Incredible Hulk and the Rainbow Serpent, a mythological figure from the Australian Aboriginal Dreamtime. I even went so far when he hit 50 to completely trick him out with IO sets for all of his powers and abilities.

Recently, I played him going through an 'evolution' where his look and outlook changed in response to the possible 'Coming Storm', but this was met with a high degree of derision by my (former) SG. The impression I got was that the notion of characters being more powerful than what's been established in private continuity is challenging and even confronting, and so the Praetorian 'threat' in this case was downplayed.

I actually like the notion of becoming the equal or better than some of the signature characters (if you saw the recent Dev diaries, both the Vindicators and the Phalanx have failed to stop the bigger invasion from Praetoria), and only those with the Incarnate power have the chance to do so.

That being said, I have a number of other characters (two or three at least in the high 40's) and none of them are candidates for Incarnate-ism.


S.

Some of my toons will fall under that catagory, most will not. My main will be a bit of a megalomaniac though. After doing the portal mission where she managed to kill the world in an attempt to take it over, she developed a bit of an ego.

I have a character that had a pre-story pretty compatible with the Incarnate concept back in Issue 2. She is ageless, imbued with the power of a god or "entity" in old-school game terms. (Anubis, if you're curious.)

The basic idea was the old AD&D concept of a deity's "proxy". For those not familiar with D&D, this was a non-deity imbued with a portion of the god's power. A proxy was something reasonable to have show up at places or times at which the god needed to make a (very) strong showing but not so extreme that the god would manifest personally (which usually takes something of multiversal apocalyptic nature to bring about). Think: herald of Galactus, but extended to gods of myth and lore (and thus probably without the world-eating overtones).

Most of my characters have magical origins, and I find it easy to imagine them tapping into the powers of the gods as an extreme means of extending that power. Even if they don't become agents of the gods, they might be willing to steal power from the gods or perhaps just tap into the same power sources the gods themselves do. It seems to me the canon for the Well of the Furies leaves some good wiggle room there.

I'll wait and see, though, what explanation meshes best with the canon for my characters who don't seem to me on a progression to become (demi)gods. I have a hero who's a guy in a suit of power armor, Iron Man style. I can think of a few decent possibilities for why/how he'd become god-like in a way that holds to that concept, but I don't yet know if they'll mesh well. I don't like for my character back stories to be at right angles to the game canon, so I'll wait till I learn more to flesh that out. I could just go for the whole "we used technology to tap magical/divine power sources", but I think I can do better than that.

I don't see any of my characters becoming gods proper, though. Just very, very powerful beings.

Hmm, neither of my chars would be God(s). The share idea of playing a living, personified God aka Creator of universe, balance of the universe etc... is just to mindblowing and frankly too much of a responsibility (for me or any of my chars ).
However being an incarnate of something/someone, an avatar, a human that crosses towards the divine, like a Heracles or any human in the myths... that would be different. (Even though Heracles became a God after alot of what he did...)
Playing a God in a game, would just be a big turn-off for me (now that is said). My main character Lady Arete though would be the one that is closest to incarnate status (already), due her her having tapped into a Phoenix power. So any I-19 stuff, I'll just have to add to that

My other char Cyrene... not going the God route. However I'll use it for her continues mutation or rather her becoming...
She is becoming something of a nymph near lake, or dryad, mostly due to her already talent for singing, healing through song and control over plants.

I do like the concept of characters becoming even stronger and I look forward to see what all the Incarnate choices later will be about. Even how different our characters will become through those choices.
One thing I want to try when I-19 hits us is to let LA be part of the TF where you "have" to be an incarnate and see how far I actually get (or if it is possible) with my current build.

Well, my first (and thus far only, curse you altitis) heroside level fifty is a fire/fire/fire tank that has been an avatar of an ancient and almost entirely forgotten god of fire since about six months after launch... (ie, that's when I made her, not when she made 50. that was only about a year ago)

I have a couple of other characters that might fit into a deific mold, but they are not among those that are even close to fifty.

The way I'm beginning to look at it is that our heroes/villains/various neutrals (damn those neutrals...) become "god-like" when they exceed level 50. It's seeming like CoH is taking the old adage of "the comic book superhero is the modern mythology" and putting it into practice. The Freedom Phalanx and Lord Recluse and Pals are somewhat Incarnate-like themselves (if not actual incarnations of actual cosmic beings).

So, using my own characters as examples, SuperFerret would be one of the Beast Incarnates, while Professor Quick may become a Speed or Logic Incarnate. Those characters (like Storm Krow) who already have ties to actual cosmic deific beings (in this case, Thor) simply become more connected to said being.

We'll be demigods in a sense, but probably not actual gods. Think along the lines of the mythological Hercules (aside from all the drunken murder [unless that's your thing {get help if it is}]).

Hmmm... Well, I'm working on an explanation for my tech hero...er villian at the moment. I'm toying with the idea of after much exposure to a great many magical opponents, some of that magic stuff has rubbed off and infused itself with War's armor enhancing its capability to incarnate levels of power. Or maybe I'll go with armor enhanced with previously undiscovered alien technology or maybe I'll even go with enhanced by previously undiscovered advanced alien quasi-mystical technology?????

I've never gone the diety route, but my Scrapper would be in tune with the Thor vibe.
Norse (Drinking Beer, chasing women and getting into fights) > Greek (Drinking wine, chasing anything and getting into drama)

My Elec Brute may be a Super-Scientist, but there are still possibilities. In his quest for power over all things electric, he would not hesitate to employ magic, so grabbing the power from a Lightning diety wouldn't be far-fetched. In his insanity (self-experimentation does that to you, particularly when you rewire your nervous system) and egotism, he will, of course, lie and claim that "SCIENCE!" is the source of any and all of his power.