Natural Legends (all other origins need not apply)

OMG! Why are you guys discussing origins?

Here are a few suggestions for the other legndary categories:

Legendary Mutant: Joeseph Merrick

Legendary Technology: Ned Kelly

Legendary Magic: Harry Houdini, Alester Crowley, Rasputin, Nostradamus (Ok, not real magic, but the stories and legends surrounding them have grown to the point where they are synonomous with having magical powers)

I've always had trouble pigeonholing some concepts into these origins.

Take Manadroid -- a robotic robot / Dark mastermind. He IS a robot animated my magic, with some magic abilities. But he is a robot AI as well. He could fit EQUALLY well in either origin.

To me tech has always been stuff that is BEYOND "off-the-shelf" tech. If all you have is guns and grenades -- thats Natural. But when you start adding healing beacons -- That seems to be more Tech.

To me natural seemed more to apply to stuff in the realm of possibility for a human ... or at least normal for the race of the character. A martial artist is an easy fit for natural especially when paired with super reflexes. But paired with Dark armor or regeneration? No... I don't automatically think that way.

Face it -- Some origins really can't be truly explained in 1024 characters.

One Natural Legend is probably Jackie Chan.

The guy has broken a LOT of bones (some speculate all but the bones in his inner ear) and yet he still kept on trucking. The guy is considered a Legend among most stuntmen and he's founded his own stunt team.

And all the while that terrified "oh crap oh crap oh crap people are trying to KILL ME" expression even while he maneuvers one bane spider into blocking another's mace with his helmet, then trips him on top of two others who were just about to open fire, ducks between someone's legs, scrambles onto his back and sprints a few steps using their heads as stepping stones before tripping just in time to avoid getting speared by Recluse's spider arms...

... Man, I really need to rewatch some of my old JC collection now.

watched Armor of God and Operation Condor yesterday, hence why I mentioned Jackie Chan.

And he's the type of tank that has all of his attacks slotted for taunt and control.

I was going via the CoX definitions of Origin, which I think might be confusing the issue slightly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Leo_G Well, I doubt any aspiring mutant looks up to Merrick...or got the same mutation...or honestly cares about his sideshow (since that is particularly what makes him 'legend', which, frankly, is stretching the designated definition WAAAAY too much).

I chose him because he has a place in pop culture as the closest to what would be considered a mutant in terms of CoX. The facts of the matter have little bearing, you say The Elephant Man and everyone pretty much has this picture in their heads.

Quote:

I doubt you could consider what Kelly used as 'tech' since bullet proof armor was invented far before his time. He just took it a step farther with *thicker* plated armor. Not like he steam powered it or something. If he's a tech legend, his technology would be legendary. It's not. It's what he *did* with the armor that would make him any kind of legend.

I disagree here, in the context of that place and time period, it was his armour that made made him stand out from others doing the same thing. It was the technological advantage that the legend is fixed on. You think of Ned Kelly, you think of the armour. In kind of the same way, in the marvel universe, there was nothing particularly revolutionary about the Iron man armour. In that universe, various forms of robot and hyper technology already exist and Dr Doom certainly beat him too it.

Quote:

But another reason I say 'Natural Legend' is because the focus of the legend is on the *person*, not just what the person did. The person has the legend around them, not their inventions or their mutation or their scientific discoveries (although I'd probably say things akin to Einstein's theories had legendary effects on the world of math and science all their own). Even *if* whatever the person does is scientific or magical, the *person* is still natural. And the legend is around them.

I think this is the key difference of opinion, because this is pretty much always true of all characters. Dr Strange is awesome at magic because of who he is. Spiderman is interesting because of how he uses his powers, not just because he has powers. So, origin in terms of CoX has very little to do with the subject at hand.

Quote:

To rephrase/clarify the OP; if you're writing a piece of fiction (could involve going to the past, bringing something to the present, cloning the person, a reincarnate or what have you) what I'm wanting to hear is how those legends hold up. Would Houdini still be awesome (the most awesome)? Would Nostradamus see what has yet to be seen clearer than anyone? Would Merrick...I dunno...be more mutanty than...mutantish...mutants? That's why I asked if anyone based characters on Legends like them. It'd kind of put perspective on these people from the past vs what is here now in the present.

In terms of this, then I can certainly see some of those mentioned fitting in well in the CoXverse. I can see a low level villain group using basic scrounged together power armour called the Kelly Gang. Or maybe Ned would throw in his lot with the Freakshow and we'd get a boss called N3d K311y.

Houdini would be interesting, since what would he do in a word where magic and ghosts are commonplace? Would he become the magician he pretended to be? Perhaps, he'd become our version of Mysterio, using high-tech trickery to perform feats that would leave real mages scratching their heads in wonder?

Robin Hood, I can see working perfectly well. The Rogue Isles would be a perfect place for him to rob from the rich and give to the poor. I'm not so sure he'd use bow and arrows though. At the time those were the weapons of war, so there's no reason why he wouldn't update to use the current height of technology, with he and his merry men staging ambushes on Arachnos with laser rifles.

Crowley's soul would probably be in a Oranbegan crystal somewhere.

Merrick would probably be much better off, since Mutations tend to come with some useful benefits. Maybe a Superstrength and Invulnerability Tanker called Elephant Man!

Look just because you can create a "Mutated alien in a high-tech, magic -powered battle armor", doesn't mean that origins don't matter, it's jut that the game lets you create across those boundaries.

I can see someone like Simo Hayha being like some kind of super sniper who makes bad guys quake in fear. He already was in WWII.

As far as tech versus natural skills, there is a definite line between the two for me. For Billy the Kid, anybody can pick up a gun and shoot it, Billy had skill to kill as many people with them as he did.

Likewise, is someone a tech origin because they use a can opener to fight evil? They probably use their skill to clear out a warehouse of people with just that(unless its some kind of super can opener than shoots lasers then its probably tech...)

One of my main characters is TeddyRoosevelt, a war mace/invuln tanker. I like to think of him as being historically accurate, right down to the laser beam eyes.

A good rephrase of the OP might be "what characters from history would work as super heroes in Paragon?"

Musashi
Sun Tzu
Xerxes (perhaps the version from 300, anyway)

...you get the idea.

Heck, Hitler probably IS running the 5th Column.