Help me build a jarhead that's not cliche

OK, this is officially a big problem. When I saw the Think Tank, I knew it was an AMAZING piece of kit and I wanted to have it, but I simply didn't have a good enough idea of what to do with it. Insane Rick was a nice initial concept, but he's just a jarhead gimmick. Give him a regular head and he's a pretty basic, uninspired concept. I've come up with a few ideas of my own, only to open up the Best Costume Designs thread and see that other people came up with pretty much the same idea, only they got to it first. And this leaves me actually quite depressed.

So, please, help me cure my depression. Help me come up with a use for the jarhead that ISN'T something lots of people have thought up before me. A few examples of what people have thought of include:

1. The headless character
2. The Victorian brain in a jar
3. The jarhead robot

I'm not saying any of the above are bad, it's just that... Really, everyone's doing them and frankly, doing them better than I could. I've never been good at character design or concept writing, I've just been good at finding designs and characters others haven't thought of, so even when they're ugly, they sell on their novelty. I just can't come up with anything here.

So, what concepts can you come up that include a jarhead but aren't one of the above three? I'm putting no limits on anything. In fact, the weirder the better. Insane? Sure. Goo alien? Go for it. Lovecraftian horror? Well, if you can sell it well enough. Basically, I just want to find a new use for the jarhead because the obvious uses for it were snatched up by our community pretty much instantly

Quote:

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.

Sentient ecoplasm/wisp/spirit within the jar (which you could achieve by using a head/eyes only aura) that requires the jar to contain it and connect it to an early body to be able to use it's powers

HEHEH You said Jarhead and my mind instantly went to Marine. I was wondering why you would need help making a soldier.

Hmm clone tank grown brains on cyber bodies, these blank brains are used as the vessel for the .... insert ....mad prof / alien on a distant palnet /Mr Anon , secret ID guy / mind of long dead person / a physical weak , injured, former hero or vill , getting a second chance..

now do i have enough slots to make them all...

You see. If I was going to actually do a Jarhead...what I would do would be the empy jar. I sort of have this interesting love of the paranormal and also this facination with a certain character that showed up in Hellboy.

I like the concept of a suit that contains the "Smoke Like" spirit or ecto plasm, that keeps the entity locked inside as to not dicipate completely since it has no substance. Like a ghost in a suit really.

The powers could be darkness colored gray or murky green color to similate the release of the etherial essense, and for a blast set it could easily use dark, but also fire or Psi, and I would lead it towards perhaps the Corrupter side of things. It would be effective. I would use the steam jets colored a gray or green tone to show leaking.

Alnother alternative could be a being made up of pure psionic energy that has no form and perhaps make it a Dom Mind/Psi. the brain could be used if wanted but Id still use the empty jar effect to simulate a "force" as opposed to something more physical. It would gain phsyical form through the use of it's suit. For an Aura I would use perhaps a slight but faint glow in the head area or something to that effect.

Alternatively and my favorite...one could also combine the fish fin horror pack costume parts to make an underwater themed character, that is just pure, living water, with again a suit that contains the water. I would make this also a corr, and use things like energy colored in water themes and maybe pair it with poison rad or storm to simulate wet looking powers. (Add the slime Aura if you have the incarnate points and have him drip water, out of his semi rusted clunker of a suit to simulate leaking.

The above could also be done with cold powers, as the person was mutated, cursed or scientificaly altered to be just arctic air, but sentient. Storm, ice, and frost powers would work well and you could easily use steam jets colored blue or chryogenic aura to simulate that.

The biography could be similar for each case really.

Mutation: Body was mutated into a substance with no form, and as a result required a suit to keep tangeable

Magic: Cursed or paranormal phenominon that tricked, paid, aquired a suit to contain their form

Science: Altered Genes or genetic experiment gone wrong who through science manufactured some form of containment device

Natural: Just a entity or being who used scient to contain their intangeable form

Tech: Same as the above but more focused on the suit and less on the being.

The only difference with this option is that you could technically be 3 or 4 different origins but require one main one to explain either the physcical makeup of the being, and how they aquired their special containment suit.

How about a character who is a living liquid, and needs a containment suit to prevent them from dispersing? This could fit with Poison, or Energy Blast (colored like a high pressure jet).

How much can the head be scaled? What can you do with a large jar-head on a small body or vice versa?

Are there any chest emblems that look like a face or eyes to give the effect of Jack Kirby's Arnim Zola design? I dont think so.

Brain or brain-and-eyes: A mad scientist who tested a less-than-perfect invisibility serum on himself. Instead of just making him fully invisible for a short time, it made everything but his brain and eyes permanently invisible. He is not happy about this.

I am missing some obvious ideas here. Obvious to me at least but since they are not mentioned yet let me include them.

The Positronic Brained Robot (courtesy of Mr Asimov). To have a truly 'sentient''robot you need a special brain to power it. A synthetic brain build with a 'positronic matrix' and shaped like a human brain.

Of course there is the Robocop version of this one.

The body was to damaged to survive but we have the technology to keep him alive and mobile.

The victim of a crazed Mad Scientist to build the perfect human/servant/soldier. Just don't call yourself Cyberman or BoB, even if the jar looks a bit like a fishbowl

A more grotesque variety of the Go'auld (you know who I mean), this parasitical alien just replaces the whole head of its host.

He's a marine who died in vietnam and now he's back as a zombie and wants revenge on the US government.

Soul in a jar! The best mix of technology and magic. In fact maybe there are like a dozen souls jammed in there. Maybe you use them as fuel. Would make a good villain. Although I'm imagining someone running around with a butterfly net and a jar catching souls now.

Ooh, maybe one of the TW models will be a net.

Quote:

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

Going for completely random here:

- Robot built to advertise tupperware, turned on its makers (rad/fire )

- An unruly vampire who angered the wrong people and had its head removed to prevent it from biting people, still alive because of blood transfusions

- The case houses a miniature city, whose inhabitants are mostly unaware of the organism in which their tiny world resides

- The jar is a light tube and the character's face exists only as a television broadcast last seen over a decade ago; she now searches for an archive of it

- Alien astronaut thought to have once had a body inside the suit, but now lives apparantly as only a walking spacesuit, following a conversion to human religion

- "The Fish Tanker" (...yeah, maybe not)

- A traveling base and attack tank for a group of shrinking Mastermind Mercenaries, who enter and exit the base freely and "drive" it around for travel purposes

Depends on "how" you twist it sometimes. Jarhead robot could be fun if he was -more-. A sentient computer that's recently become self-aware but most importantly - mobile. Our technology keeps getting smaller and smaller. Imagine Skynet not sending Terminators after you. He is the Terminator. Or some goody monitering station not sending Heroes after you. It is the Hero. Maybe a grey-area Cleverbot run amok in search of life experience.

Sleek tech suit and the jar filled with coolant. If he was Rogue or Vigilante, three nearly identical costumes could be crafted. Each jar would have a brightly lit red, blue or gold aura and detailing depending on the factionside it was adventuring in. Same fashion as Alienware lights changing for City of Heroes based on location.

Well you'd have to use a female body for this one. An empty jar with the shoulder-cat to explain the lack of fish in the tank.

I'd play around with head auras and empty jars and see how they look. Leaves, flies, tarot cards and victorian decor all lend themselves to some interesting bios depending on how well they show up and how contained by the jar they are.

Of course you could always stick a green binary head aura on an empty jar and give it dual pistols and a trenchcoat, for an all new take on "City of Neos". Shame the aura isn't usable until 50, even if you've unlocked it.

Here's a couple of ideas that possibly need some refinement but I present the bones here:

The classic "Headless Horseman" legend. Give it a superhero twist with a couple fo six guns and a thirst for revenge/justice

Sentient ectoplasm... perhaps the spirit of a scientist with an intellect greater than Reed Richards, but incorporeal and needs an encounter suit to function in a physical world

A supercomputer interfaced with a human brain. The computer is a high level AI unit, but cannot make emotional decisions. The brain is from its creator who, on discovering he was suffering from a terminal illness networked his brain to the computer and created a robotic suit for it.


A teleportation experiment gone wrong: The experiment transported the body leaving the intellect and "soul" behind. Maybe make that a Crey vengeance thing.

Slightly off the wall but for a magic origin character: There's a magical portrait of your character (a la Dorian Gray) but the protagonist's arch enemy threw paint stripper over it, thus dissolving the face leaving the brain of the real person exposed.

I guess with many of those kind of stories you first need to have somebody who doesn't have a head as we know it... but how do you get to that stage is the puzzle. Hope those help

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

My think tank toon is called Violetta Italia. She was a cauliflower farmer who fell headfirst into a de-leafing machine and when they pulled her out all that was left was her brsin and eyes.

Originally I wanted to recolour the brain white and have actually be a cauliflower (Violetta Italia is a breed of cailiflower) but then I discovered we can't recolour the brain, only the tank.

How about a Lovecraftian Mi-Go captive? They're fond of brains in jars.

Eco

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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow [The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."