Need Costume/Concept help...

Okay I have had a spines/dark toon for a while and since I19 he has become my main. My problem is concept wise I just don't like him. What I thought was a cool name when I made him has become a limiting factor in my head. So I am contemplating buying a rename token and changing him.

What I'm looking for from you amazing character creators is some ideas/concepts that make Spines and Dark fit together. I don't really know where to go with him. I just can't make the two powers make sense together with anything I come up with.

I could even switch genders. I think I want to stay away from monster looks as he is supposed to be a hero but I don't want to be limiting, I just want his look to fit with his powers. One idea I came up with was based on Henri's spines robot. This would allow the darkness to be played off as nanites or something, but then what color should they be? Should he be large or small? Femalebot or male bot? Then of course what do I name him/her?

I'm not sure why I'm so stuck with this toon but I am.I don't want to post what I have yet because I dont want anyone to get stuck on his current look.

I'm not sure why I'm so stuck with this toon but I am but he is such an awesome and fun toon to play that I don't want to shelf him at all. Any and all help is much appreciated. Heck, even if you just show me what you have for spines.dark would be awesome! Thanks everyone!

What's the current name? Do you want serious or silly? Are you set on tech or just riffing off of Henri's bot?

You can always turn off the dark powers. I find some of them really annoying, like the one that makes you pulse light and dark. I haven't tried coloring them, can we do that?

Oh, is it Nathaniel Raven?

Here's a spines/dark concept fresh out of my head. Didn't really come up with much of a story for him, but he's some sort of voodoo warrior:

Dark Armor is colored dark red and black, looks like blood magic.

Something just sparked... (Hey, SPines + dARK = SPARK... nah. Anyway...) This is basically writing out loud, so bear with me....

How about this: Magic character -- deus ex machina tbd later -- is an adventurer, perhaps a ne'er-do-well who is pilfering something from a Pacific island nation. He gets caught and is thrown into the volcano as punishment. However, he has on his person -- actually, let's say *in* his person, because he swallowed it in desperation -- a magic jewel which preserves his life. However, the jewel causes him to take on aspects of the thing nearest him...

Better yet: the thief/adventurer Jonathon Ashe gets thrown into the volcano and dies. The jewel resurrects him and he takes on aspects of the most powerful thing nearby. In this particular instance, there are two equally powerful things nearby: the volcano itself and the deity who resides within. (Sort of like Pele, but you can make up your own as Pele doesn't quite fit.) The deity is a force for good, which essentially does a partial rehabilitation on him. He's not a hero, exactly, but now instead of a taker he's a giver. He just doesn't get it right all the time because of his basic nature. (Ergo, he's a Vigilante in CoH terms.)

How this manifests itself is that he now has abilities like those of the volcanic deity, namely the ability to control the fine black volcanic ash his body was turned into, forming it into sharp spines and sometimes leaving a dark cloud around him. (Maybe take Blaze Mastery as his Epic.) That can even be his name: Volcanic Ashe.

Damn it, Ironik, couldn't you have at least waited a day or so before making my generic voodoo warrior conecpt seem even more generic and uninspired?

If PowerStream doesn't use that concept you wrote, I may have to make a new alt.

edit: Actually, I still like the idea of a voodoo warrior spines/dark, it just really needs to be fleshed out a bit.

Color the dark aura brown to make it look like sand, then use the crystal spikes for spines and make em white-ish to mimic glass. He could be some kinda silicon dioxide thing!

I could tell you a bit about my own very first Spines guy, a Spines/Regen I made way back when we could only have 15 leters in our names. Here's the hyper-text plot notes I made for myself, though I never got around to writing the whole tale of 'Lord Blackthorne' down.

Ancient line of knights – cursed bloodline – magical blackthorn bramble bush/tree (maze?) – ‘black’ paladins, serving the King in obscurity, doing what can’t be admitted to.

Aidan Blackthorne knew the family legend, but never thought it might apply to him! He was from a collateral branch of the family, emigrated to America, well off, but not rich.

And one day, that all changed.
Family stewards – manor house in Paragon – Title defaults to him – The Blackthorn appears in the gardens – curse/power claims him – now he must serve, but there is no King – still, he serves as he can.

So, for your guy, we could choose that sort of route and 'gift' him with the power. Or we could follow another course - it could be 'natural' for him to explode with spikes all over his body, regardless of 'Origin'. He could be a 'magical beast' or similar creature.

I have one character (Spines/Invuln) who is an alien creature of unknown origin, possibly extra-planar or alternate-planar. He is a sort of strange silicon-based lizard-man-thing. He's attached himself to his 'owner' as a sort of semi-sentient attack-beast. Point being that he is composed entirely of 'stone' and the Spines are a natural response to danger.

[Edit: Scooped by Sapphic Neko! ]

Another is a half-Dryad, half Daemon (Spines/Fire). Pyracantha is her name - the Firethorn.

But enough about Mine. I like the idea of the /Dark as a cloud of Nanites. However, our hero doesn't have to be a Robot. They could be the victim of some horrific experiment, with a 'Venom'-like symbiotic life-form taking up residence in their body. Perhaps a swarm of tiny demons, some sort of T-1000 liquid metal, nanite-colony, or some artifact, like the Witchblade.

This sybiote helps keep body and soul together, protects them, but uses a LOT of energy in doing so, making the hero easily tired, at first. For the major healing, the symbiont reaches out and steals energy from enemies, to feed its hunger. And, to help protect the hero, it produces spikes, spines, spears, blades... whatever look you choose.

Other than that idea, I do like Johnstone's concept of a Voodoo-warrior, or perhaps 'Kimimaro' from Naruto, force-growing weapons from his own bones, or summoning them from some primordial god-being. Also, while Voodoo is a convenient mythology to call from, there are lots of other dark-blood-magical options. Perhaps the hero accidentally called Hastur too many times?

[Edit: Or even a god of stone and ash, like Ironik suggested. Dang! Great ideas here!]

Be Well!
Fireheart

Heh, really chuffed that 'ole Robot H3NRi has become a figure of inspiration If i explain the background to how he came about, it might give you some ideas maybe. When i first started playing, not so long ago, i was trying all sorts of different ATs but read more than once about how good spines/regen scrappers were. My biggest problem with this AT tho was that, although i'm not really a roleplayer, i do like my characters to be credible, and i just couldn't get my head around how to pull off a hero who's main superpower was sticking enormous spikes in people! The two just didn't gel for me, until i realised that it was 'me' it didn't gel with. I wouldn't feel very heroic sticking a 2ft spike in someone's head. So the idea came to me to make a character with no morality issues, no doubt of his power, no humanity and in the end, not human at all. He could still be a hero, because that's what he's programmed to be, it doesn't matter how it felt, Robot H3NRi has no feelings That's how i've tried to portray him in the comic so far, he's not even a he, it's just a machine performing it's function. Worked for me, and i love the AT now, spines ftw And i maybe do Robot H3NRi a disservice there, he's not completely devoid of personally, he told a joke once! It was in binary tho, you might not find it funny...

k, that was the humanity-less robot angle, i'm just having another idea now. More of a tragic case. Something based on my Armor Dillo guy, but with spines, Porcu-spine... hmm, maybe not
He's a mutant, but so mutatated he doesn't really fit in as a member of society anymore. It would be so easy to embrace the anger and rejection and become a villian, but his need to gain acceptance and a place in society fuels him to do good and prove himself. It's a very comic book look, and is also very closely based on Armor Dillo, so take what you like from it mate

Hope there's some ideas there, cheers H.

Johnstone, funny you mention voodoo warrior... My first spines regen, Justiqua, had this bio:
" Born a twin in the Louisiana bayous to a single mother, Shaniqua Walker was destined to be different. Her grandmother, who often practiced voodoo, always told Shaniqua she would one day help save the World. Never understanding what that meant, Shaniqua just tried to stay under the radar and let her twin sister, Danique, bask in all the glory of being a beautiful, popular young lady. Until her grandmother passed away when she was 17. Shaniqua's mother gave her a ring that her grandmother had wanted only Shaniqua to have. The ring had been passed down from generation to generation, dating back before her ancestors had the need to write down their history. Once placed on her finger, Shaniqua, was transformed into a stunning beauty, with the ability to exude pheromones through tiny spikes all over her body. As time passed Shaniqua realized this was what her grandmother had meant all those years. This was her way to save the World. She decided to follow in the footsteps of Statesman and became Justiqua."

As you can see I jumped the story quite a bit to relate her back to States(who was still col at the time) and justify her name and costume.

Ironik - Yep it's Nathanial... I went magic as at the time I thought it'd be easiest to explain his powers. The original plan was to slowly morph his costumes into more demon-like based on his spells taking over his body. Basically instead of him becoming better at spell casting, his spells began to take on a form of their own and take him over.

The problem I have is I almost always stay in one or two costumes, so constantly changing them is not something I think about while playing. Plus once he became the "demon" form why would he ever go back?

At the same time I really wanted him to be hero. But like Henri, I don't see too many heroes shoving 3 foot spikes into people's faces. Which is why I liked Henri's idea of a robot because it's easier to pass off the lack of humanity at times.

Sapphic - This may be my best option. I have a earth/fire dominator that is totally sand based and while I love his look and feel I don't play him much. Maybe I coud l incorporate some of his costume design into Nate... Then I could still keep the name and save myself $10.... Maybe even incorporate some of Ironik's volcanic theme in there...

Henri - Armor-dillo/Porcu-spine are genious. This will stay in my options as well.

Now to go redesign Nate's costumes with a few of these ideas and see which one sticks.

Thank you all so much! This is why I love this section of the forums!

Okay here is concept #1... Sapphic_Neko's sand theme... I like it so far...

like it, the dark powers look good as sand

I made a char one based on the Prince of Persia world that had sand powers. But didn't like the char in the end. I remade her into a spines/invuln scrapper. Called her Korundum Kitten, and used crystal spikes colored red, since she been poisoned with chromium!
(mineral lesson of the day: Korundum is a mineral, aluminaoxide, in its crystal form its also known as Sapphire, chromium will color it red and thus called Ruby, korundum is also one of the hardest minerals on earth, a 9 on mohrs scale i believe).

I liked the idea so much i later made her on defiant, same name but this time an earth/earth domme.

The creative jucies are flowing now!!!

Concept #2 - Robo-Nate aka N.A.T.E. Nanite Accelerated Techno Entity

OMG! A concept just hit me! Of course it means I have to switch costumes as I play but I'll get over myself...

Nathanial Raven was a dark magic dabbling geek. One day he stumbled upon a spell that allowed him to see alternate realities of himself. The only problem is Nate had no idea how to close the spell and now his alternate selves are randomly replacing him here in Paragon City. I think there was a similar story for Kitty Pride in the Exiles, which I loved...

This way I can have his original costume(magic) then a costume for each of the other origins. I have covered tech and mutant, now for science and natural... Though science and tech may have to claim the same spot...

robot ftw . Also, top tip, colour the cyborg face gold/blue instead of blue/gold, then combined with that alpha piece you'll have a really protruding robot jaw/face thingy...

or switch the alpha face piece colours... if you want

Yeah, a lot of costume artistry is in knowing when to 'correct' the Devs and 'flip' your colors. I actually wish that was a button we had in the Creator UI, so I could switch how the colors applied to the part or pattern, without actually Changing the colors. Of course, the Other 'problem' is when your costume piece has a Texture that changes the apparent color. Irks me, that.

Be Well!
Fireheart

Egads you're right Henri! I actually did have those pieces that way BUT I changed colors a couple times and the quickest easiest way was to hit that pesky "Copy Current Colors Acoss Entire body" button. I'll go in and correct it ASAP!

Thanks for the help everyone! I'm stll working on the "Natural" version. I'm thinking of bringing in a volcanic based life form for that one or maybe a totally plant based life form. I really love this concept of alternate deminsion Nates popping in and out. Wish I had thought of it sooner and really enjoyed this toon more.

Edit - Decided plant life form... I've done a similar toon (Appollination) which I liked, so I modified his costume to fit Nate...

The alternate universe idea is cool, and a handy way to explain the radical costume changes.

Oooh, I really like the sand idea and look. Hadn't thought of that before. I'm going to create an Egyptian character tonight using that, I think.

Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion is a great example of the same character spanning different personas over different worlds and dimensions, of which Elric of Melnibone is one such persona, and possibly my favourite sci/fan character of all time, and also possibly mentioning his name is the only reason i brought this up in the first place That is all, H.

I must check out these books Henri. I love novels/stories with recurring characters. I'm sure I'd like stories with alternate versions of said characters as well! Putting on my "read list"!

I don't know... Elric was cool, but possibly the Hardest person to actually Like. I mean, he can rescue you from some horrible monster, and the next day he might 'accidentally' sacrifice your soul to that damned sword!

I think Erekosë was easier to like, but he was Also cursed to remain loveless.

And possibly Moorcock just accidentally wrote a lot of really good stories while experimenting with drugs, after a particularly bad relationship - I don't know. The Eternal Champion is certainly a fiendishly Compelling meme!

I do like the multi-dimensional man concept that you're playing with, Ironik! Instead of being a single conceptual explication of the Spines/Dark set, you can explore several.

Be Well!
Fireheart