Favorite Toons of Yours & What They Meant to You

Guys and gals,
As we prepare to protect Paragon city for the last time in November, what is the name of 1-3 of your favorite toons and what do they mean to you?

Master Don King: Thugs/Dark mastermind. He looked so much like Don, with a big grin, the hair. I picked two of the personal attacks because I loved seeing that smiling, Don King, shooting duel pistols. I had a macro "Stick with me, I'm going to make you a star!"

Enraged Ratwoman: My favorite creative design, she was a bluish-gray skinned rat. I made 6 versions of her and always thought she looked very comic book for a rat woman. I found there were 2 hairstyles that covered her human ears, so the rat ears on top of her head looked like her actual ears. Even experimental hybrid lab rat/humans can escape the lab and be a hero in Paragon.

Fire Kindergartener I loved the pun and made my toon as tiny as they get, with kid appearance. It was soon before rogue, and a well IO'ed toon. I partly thought of this toon after seeing a kid toon once that was a surprisingly tough invincibility tanker who did a great job tanking for our team. We waited 10 minutes for the tank on a tough mish and the tank ran immediately into the first two mobs after entering the mish, surviving and calling us to help kill. In Paragon, even the tiny can be tough defenders of good.

I deleted all my toons, as it gave me a sense of closure. People who don't understand COH won't understand our postings.

Allatrope: He was the closest thing in game to my Author Avatar. He marks the transition I had from dark times in highschool to not as dark times later. Somewhat based off of an older idea I had for a dark/spines scrapper (before city of villains) that was a serial killer who infiltrate schools and kill all of the "problems" that he encountered. Allatrope, like many of my toons, is a reflection in myself in the sense that we both have Aspergers syndrome and that we mostly hated society and just wanted to be left alone.

Doctor Leo. He started, like all my characters, with no backstory, but he quickly got a backstory of his own through other players. I was level 20 or so and I get an invite to help people in The Hollows. Low level, but I shrug and go help anyway. Later, I was told that one of the people in that team had told the others when they were struggling, "oh, I know just the guy... he's high level, but he'll help ANYONE". One of the players in that Hollows team went on to play with me for years, and she'd always wear the badge "The Doctor's Ally" while doing so. I didn't officially give my character a backstory, ever, but through other players, he became this guy who's always up for helping people and saving the world; the ultimate good guy. It was such an idealistic situation to be, which it made me, in real life, always try to be like Doctor Leo. I want to be the guy who'll help anyone.

Riley Grimm: She started as a monster hunter with a bad costume, who eventually became a shy but efficient empath defender with poorly controlled laser eyes. And from her sprung nearly a dozen other characters. Her siblings, her parents (former hero and villain), her and her siblings praetorian doubles, her twin brother the bots mastermind's robots as player characters. Her girlfriend (a heroine time travelled from the 60s). Her brother's love interest (a longbow). I don't know how much more would have spawned. She was just... she made stories come easily.

She helped me create my first *my* supergroup, which was a low-income housing for superheroes that she was one of the landlords after a fellow hero (one of mine) suggested they buy an old base and fix it up. She taught me how to keep an eye on my team, and also a certain amount of Darwinism about scrappers that didn't understand stay with the team. She was my favourite.

I had plans to remake her with i24, as a rad/martial combat blaster with sorcery and medicine pool, which was closer to how I'd always pictured her, but... I guess it wasn't to be.


Thea Anastasis: My first character. Despite being around since the early 2000s, she's had the same default costume the whole time. Robotic arms, jeans, leather strapvest thing, face cover and goggles. And the giant [bleep]-off sword. Somehow she was just how I'd want her out of the box. It just took me a while to realize it. She languished for years until my friends started a thing called the gravy train and I had an interest in playing her again.

And suddenly she was the easiest, funnest character to play. There was no challenge I couldn't face with her. I could explore the game at my leisure, finally. I didn't have to rely on others.

She was my most played character. And I intend to finish my goal with her: Doing every single hero arc I can access via ouro.

Oh, who she was: A government experiment, escaped, lived on the streets, became a skull's girlfriend, took up with a Hellion, and both of them defected to the hero side during the Rikti War. It's also where she lost her arms, but her robotic ones are just as good.

Benedict Jones: He was my partner toon. I played him with with my sister for most of his career, it was incredibly painful as we were NOT well-suited to each other's styles at our current skill level, he was a sonic/fire blaster, she was a dark/dark scrapper, and after that he went on to become partners with a friend's character and rocketed his way to fifty, they were such a good team. He's and Thea above were the other two landlords of the four landlords of my supergroup.

Thea was his girlfriend (he was the Hellion she ran off with) and my practice writing a love story. It was fun. I even had sims2 versions of them, with their adopted kid and at least I'll always have the sims. Right? Right.

The first two characters I rolled were a Katana/SR scrapper and an Empathy/Radiation defender. The scrapper dressed in black with red/gold accents the empath in light with light blue stars.

I always saw them as two sides of the same persona. The scrapper was not darkity dark nor a vigilante. He was just the kind of person willing to be efficient at the expense of leaving feelings (his and everyone's) outside of it. The empath was more concerned with coming to solutions that benefited everyone and hurt no one.

I've always have conflicting issues with emotions. On one side I hate them and try my best to suppress them or control them. I don't like what they do to me and am very afraid of what they could do if allowed free reign. On the other, I am too concerned about how other people are feeling and go out of my way to make sure they are ok or cheer them up.

Though I never roleplayed or developed them as fictional characters, each of these characters in a way took in each of these facets of myself in.

At the risk of sounding pretentious - all of them. Well, at least the ones I kept till the end. Let me explain.

I've made my fair share of "Oh, cool costume!" characters that I never played much and never gave much of a story (poor Insane Rick). The fact of the matter is that all of them have since been deleted, and those that aren't would have been as soon as I ran out of slots. However, all the ones I cared about and kept - the REAL ones - have come from a story I've either written or planned out, and all of them mean something important to me.

I have no "main," nor even a small selection of favourites over and above the others. Every character I've made is equal in my eyes, and if you ask Nuclear Toast, he'll tell you how long I've spent trying to balance some 50-odd characters such that they're all cool. I might have to drop a few of my newest I never got around to fleshing out much, but all of the others have something in them that's important and that harkens back to a story I've felt greatly for at one time or another.

Sorry to be so unspecific.

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.

My first 50 (of 70-80). Mr Minotaur, a big bearded guy with horns, an artificial arm and an axe plus granite armor (my avatar). I joined July 04, played a few lowbies, and he was my first serious toon, back before aggro caps and on SOs he could do things we considered ridiculous at the time (although still not climb a kerb before I respeced TP in).

TheoPWildebeest, an energy/energy blaster slotted out with a load of dam/rng HOs in every power meaning that combined with boost range, he could snipe somebody in Paragon from the UK without using a computer. The toon was a homage to Theophilus P Wildebeest the horniest man in the world, creation of comic Lenny Henry.

Toxic Texan DM/regen scrapper, red white and blue cowboy outfit with a large dubya on his chest. Retired when IH became a clicky, still has 6 slot health and stamina and 1acc 5dam slotted attacks. Bio "Brain the size of a peanut, no should that be planet ? heck I don't know".

These 3 were 3 of my early 50s, and were the ones I did the missions and TFs with for the first time, made my mistakes "what you mean there are shops where you can buy enhancements, you don't have to drop them" for example.

Ying the Dragon - Claw/SR Scrapper (Blue)
He is very special to me as I had him from TTRPGs I played when I was in my Preteens. I have a long storyline behind him, but I don't think it is best I share it, as it might be published one day.

Bloodclaw the Brute - Sword/Board Brute (Blue)
She has a tied storyline with Ying the Dragon.

Ninja Kill Bot - Katana/ElecA (RED)
Now this one I can share. He, or rather it, is an assassin robot commissioned by lord Recluse himself. They used an advanced AI system studying some of the worlds greatest assassins. They filtered this to develop an emotion chip to make the robot even more effective. Emotions such as pride and disappointment were kept as incentives for doing a job well. However the Ninja Kill Bot gained full self-awareness and has since gone into business for himself as a professional assassin. He hates the idea that he was created by lesser beings, flashy water bags, and tries to kill members of the Arachnos army whenever possible.

Zortel, my level 50 Blaster and forum namesake.

On CoH EU's beta, the first character I made was an Energy/Energy Blaster called Zortel-EVE, with the glowing eyes and robotic arms. I got lost in Kings Row with her, hovering slowly about and firing snipes at criminals on roof tops, keeping my distance and thinking I was getting epic XP for them. I soon learned better!

On CoH live, she was my first character on Union, losing the suffix, and over time her backstory began to develop and emerge in RP. That's one term for it, another term is 'planning, what planning?!'

She was my first 50 at Christmas 2006, dinging from a Winter Lord's minion spawn on top of Portal Corp's roof. I'd have gotten to 50 quicker if I hadn't spent time roleplaying from 9pm till 12ish every evening under the skirt of Galaxy Girl's statue.

She was Tony Stark and Bubblegum Crisis' Sylia Stingray, wiith influences drawn from everywhere in the beginning before becoming her own character. Zorielle Rolando's a family woman, with her partner Tessa, twins conceived through the power of science, Michael and Kelly, and an adopted daughter, Hannah, who she first met when arresting after catching her in the Outcasts breaking into an electronics store.

She was a true polymath, using her knowledge to try and make the world a safer place through the Unity Vigil, an organization helping heroes, their family, and the city. She had an extended family of close friends, a tropical island retreat where she raised her kids and relaxed away from Paragon City. She had even built AIs and given them bodies, resulting in Clarisa, Alicia, Xander, Brennan, Lisa and Mona, and the powerful AI BODICIA.

She'll live on in a new project I'm working on, as will many of my heroes.


But she was my first hero. And she'll be my last, standing under Galaxy Girl in the Echo of Galaxy City when the servers go dark.

Dr. Infinite/Dr. Hollywood, Empathy/Psychic Blast Defender: My first real hero, first 50, first badger. My first actual character was a really bad Invulnerability Tanker; I took Teleport, Flight, and Presence on it. It got deleted around level 15 once I realized how stupid I was; Dr. Infinite was born thereafter. For the next 6 years, she was my CoH personality. I've been through every scrap of content in the game on her up until I retired her to focus on the other 50 or so characters I have. When I log into her these days it's like slipping into a warm bed. I spent somewhere in the neighborhood of 13 billion influence on her IO sets (buying 4 sets of Panacea a few years before Converters was stupidly expensive) because she meant that much to me.

Infinite Agony, Mind Control/Thorny Assault Dominator: My first villain, second 50, second badger. This character and I have a convoluted history. If I had to guess, I was maybe one of two or three Dominators on Infinity prior to ED, IOs, and eventually perma-Domination. My VG really didn't like it, the Brute-players especially; they always chided me for locking everything down and reducing their Fury-gain. Every time I popped Domination, someone would shout "Disco Infi!". Eventually I left Infinity (after my SG/VG left for LotRO) for Freedom and decided to leave IA behind as well; until perma-Dom became possible. A server transfer and around 4 billion infamy later (perma-Dom @L30 is lol), she became a go-to character for Freedom Horde MoLRSF runs and is probably the only character I have that could possibly solo a LGTF. It's quite silly how much Dominators have changed since CoV's launch...

Whitestar Scrapper, Energy Melee/Invulnerability Brute: My second real villain, third 50, first solo character. I completed every single storyline red-side solo on this character. It was the first of many "souvenir" toons I've made over the years. I even tried my luck fighting pillboxes in pre-i13 RV a few times; first time I'd even entered a PVP zone for anything other than exploration badges. The character hasn't gotten much play time since IOs, but it paved the way for my other souvenir-seekers and represented the first time I'd seen a lot of CoV's content.

Paragon's Greed, Archery/Mental Mastery Blaster: My farmer. Battle Maiden, Council Empire, and Infernal's Demons...hundreds, if not thousands, of times. During a 15-month period of unemployment, I spent a lot of my free time on this character farming purples for all those people exploiting AE oversights. I earned enough to fully IO-out around a dozen characters or so, including those mentioned above. However, with the addition of so many other "better" forms of currency (Alignment Merits, Reward Merits, iMerits, etc), she hasn't seen much play in a while. She's still my fastest Tip farmer, though...

There are so many, and as Sam said, they all have meaning, even down to my depressed emp defener, Random Sidekick. Some of my top...

Aipaloovik, my name sake, also my very first character. Aipaloovik is an Eskimo god, known for death and destruction. In game he is simply misunderstood. He has powers he doesn't know how to control, he's never meant harm to any humans. He came to Paragon because he heard there were others here with powers and that they had complete control over them. He hoped he too could learn to control his powers and use them to aid the human race and perhaps in some way make up for his past.

Atshen, my very first 50. His original lore was fairly simplistic, another Eskimo god (noticing a theme here? Why yes, I am Eskimo, why do you ask?) He wasn't special so much for his lore, but because he was my first 50... until...

Vindictive Wife, my second 50 and Atshen's wife. She came to Paragon to get her husband back and to exact vengeance upon the one she believed destroyed her home and her family. She came to Paragon to kill Statesman. This was before CoV came out, so it was never really supposed to be. I recreated her on a new account when Going Rogue came out because she could now swap sides at will and actually fight Statesman. Her ultimate let down came when Statesman actually died in game. Her purpose was gone, and she was still without her husband.

Alpha Stryke, born on a farm in Iowa. He never fit in much with the other farm kids because he constantly read comic books in his parents basement. He left for Paragon City where he though he could meet real Heroes. Eventually he was inspired to try and join their ranks, though he possessed no special powers or skills on his own. He picked up a shield at Wentworths and through perseverance and constant training was able to become an Incarnate.

Get off my Lawn, created on my 40th birthday. Back in his day Broadband was a bunch of women with instruments, online is where a fish was unless it was the one that got away, massively multiplayer was a game of tag with the whole block and roll playing was something you did on skates. An apple was an afternoon snack, a cell phone was found in a jail, clouds were in the sky and webs were made by spiders. I enjoyed him not so much for his backstory, though it was fun to write, but for just how much fun it was to play a grumpy old man.

I could go on and on. What made this game fun for me was the ability to create "real" characters, with back story and lore. The ability to make every character so very unique and special. I will miss them all.

My namesake, a Mind/Bubbler created at the end of Issue 3. I had no freaking idea how the play the game, enhancements were haphazard until a real life friend told me how to slot and so on. I quickly learned how disgusting Confuse powers were and I endeavoured to get all badges on here that I could (sadly at 1081 that isn't likely to happen) including Masters (have all but MoM due to the GMs not falling into place). The first costume had a face veil, pink hair, yellow mask, blue tights...it was ALL over the place. Then it was purple hair and blue tights until finally she got a reboot around Issue 9 and became a Golden Age blonde bombshell in silver and gold tights.

I don't play her much these days except to get new badges but she has all Hybrids at T4, all Destiny at T4 and a judgement, Interface, Alpha and Lore or two at T4 as well. That's not even mentioning the purples and other gear.

The screnshots have been taken and saved on my hard disk already, it's going to suck not being able to play her.

My second "main" would be Spirit of Kings Row, a Kat/Regen Scrapper on Pinnacle whose backstore includes her house being waylaid by a rampant Clockwork Paladin and then taking to the streets to defend her hometown. She always logs out in Kings Row, next to Blue Steel, and always offers to help low-level heroes in that zone. She really wanted the new Kings Row badges .

I guess my last "main" would be Relentless Pursuit, a Mind/Fire Dominator on Infinity. Well over 110% global recharge plus Hasten. She and Relentless Desire (Mind/Psi Dom) recently duoed Lord Recluse Strike Force, Lady Grey Task Force, Imperious Task Force, Master of Tin Mage Task Force and so much other stuff. The Relentless Girls (Lust, Pursuit, Desire) had their own supergroup and would wreak havoc on all sorts of stuff until Lust left the game forever.

Only 3, huh? Hm.

Brawling Humiliator. One of my current two mains. Thing of Bigness is the other, and he's fun... but not my all time favorite. Just the logical Main for me.

But this is about BH. I read about these 'MAN builds'... and I got the idea wrong on what that means. But.. I had my twisted up version... and I did it.

BH is a character who eschews the forced-upon-him choice of a 'super' power for offense (the Mace set is what he chooses, for looks only) and goes about with sheer Willpower, determined to beat the faces in of all the bad people... Solo. In the streets. With just Brawl. And I got him to 50 like that, dinged him in DA. Soloed the Alpha slot missions... That's right, he brawled Honoree and that other dude in that chamber at the end...and Soloed the Chimera EB +3. That was a Crowning Achievement, took a LONG time to get him defeated. Can stand toe to toe with a Pylon. He now teams and is one heck of a "tank", I think. Yes, I'm nuts. But I did it anyway. Brawl/WP Brute, 50+, Pinnacle.

What he means to me? Anything is possible in this game. Even the *dumbest* of ideas... can be come completely, utterly awesome.

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Total Dependent, Virtue... 37, I think? Been a while, not loggin' in to check at the moment... Rad/Ice defender.
This one was another concept... the weakest offensive character, but built to buff and help the team as much as possible. I had thoughts of rerolling her with perhaps a better buff/team defense set, as I'd learned a lot with BH up there, but still be completely helpless without a team.

What she means to me and why she's a favorite: That there were teams willing to let her take a slot on the team, that she got up to 37 that way? You people are awesome, that's all. That's what she means.

I told people up front the idea, and they seemed to embrace it in the game. And I did my level best to help the team be a better team... backwards as it sounds having a non-offensive slot, when the mobs are going to add a member or two... I really wanted to get back on this one. Ah well.

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The third isn't one character, and never could be. They are the Dawn sisters:
Ruby Dawn, Heroine, Mind/Emp Controller, 50, Pinnacle.
Cerise Dawn, Villainess, Mind/Psi Dominator, 50, Pinnacle.
Rose Dawn, Vigilante, Mind/Kin Controller, 50, Pinnacle.

These three are all similar... the all share the same looks, about the same body type, red hair, red/black costume colors... and they couldn't be any more different.

They all shared a pet iguana, named Rodney, who was also a rare shared Familiar. The three loved Rodney. But they were young... and while naturally gifted towards magic, Ruby and Cerise moreso than Rose, they were still experimenting with it.

Ruby found a spell to teleport things that she tried, to unfortunate results, on Rodney, and long story short, Rodney was lost to the girls. They were all devastated, of course.

Ruby vowed to take this lesson to heart, and vowed to use her Magic for the betterment of people... and wound up becoming the Hero she was. Healing people, or stopping people from hurting others. Her story is a little simpler in that respect.

Cerise, though... the loss of Rodney messed her up. Bad. She went... well, a little insane, and became a heartless, cold blooded villain, ready to scramble-egg your brain as quickly as she'd just chat with you. She thinks the world needs to die, to suffer as much as she is over the loss of Rodney, and is still striving to this day to achieve that goal, where she is literally the last standing person on this Earth. Which is why she's not terribly thrilled with this whole Mot business, and Recluse needs to go down... how dare they steal what's righfully hers, the suffering of all of mankind?

She's messed up, I tell ya.

Then there's Rose... the little sorceress that could... She wasn't as talented as the other two, but she tried really hard. She hated that Cerise got so messed up as she did. She begged Ruby to try to fix Cerise, or at least, get her back from those nasty Rogue Isles... but Ruby had tried... and Cerise wanted nothing to do with Ruby, except to end her.

Rose then decided she'd use a new spell to transport herself to Cerise's whereabouts, where they might talk... maybe she would have better luck... But... whatever went wrong, she wound up in Praetoria... and had to fight to get back to Paragon City.

The experience changed her... her single minded desire to do one thing... get back home... meant she had to make decisions that were... shady, if not downright appalling. Decisions that before, she would never have made...

She did the things the loyalists wanted, just to get to the portal to come home. She came back a Vigilante. She helps others, but... well, some people just don't need to be saved, for the greater good, and some villains don't need to be... defeated, if you will.

And that's the not quite completely detailed Saga of the Sisters Dawn. It's for their background story they are my favorites, and what they mean to me is this: The creativity that this game allowed... the fantasy play out.. the fact that the Devs figured out how to let these characters almost come alive with their interactions... with their bios... MY creativity got to be expressed through these three (and the others)... and I'm not sure I would have had the experience with this sort of thing without City of Heroes to fuel it.

Which means... Thanks Devs. You guys are full of Awesome and Win.

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So. There we go. My fav three of all time. Hope y'all enjoyed the tales.

Mike

Kinda went through stages for me.

First up was (Thugs/Dark) Bad Kitty Kitty (now Mala Gatita); that was my arms dealer and a lot of my gameplay centered on her character: the Girls with Guns and The Host(ile) Tech VGs; her little sis; Gun Shai (Merc/Traps); the partnership with The Host (Grigori sect attempting to 'mainstream' their influence through 'mortal' subsidiaries: Skornne (Ice/Ice Dom) and Gruj (Dark/Dark Brute); who then awakened Organism Eden (Plant/Storm) and began to manufacture (Artemis Death (Elec/Kin Corr)) and subvert (Artemis Kali (Crab)) the Artemis support units.

I introduced splinter groups based on the GWG/Hostile Tech Coalition in my Four Winds AE arc (which has fallen into disrepair while waiting for more of the gun-based powersets to be ported over).

If the option to invite ones own toons into a VG had come to fruition; I would've expanded the lore and ranks a bit more but being that I couldn't (asking others to do it was beginning to wear a bit thin; amongst other reasons)... I lost interest in base maintenance and started creating loosely connected toons across the different servers.

So the main three I use are Artemis Kali, Artemis Death and Organism Eden.

Skornne gets Lore chores.

I like Tanker Bhel as well... just not as much as the others (was hoping to change that with some of the new pools and IOs come i24)

Here is my main: Gwon D'ar.(the bald dude stealing Maurders thunder) I'll add a little bit of his back story later.

Favourite? But ... there are so many...

Starting off with my forum-namesake and first character, Memphis Bill.

... I'll add images when Photobucket starts behaving.

I've mentioned his story recently, too. From continuing a character made in Silver Age Sentinels, to just getting me into COH - and being changed, in some version, on every server to try to be what he originally was.

Fire/SS tank.
Spine/Dark scrapper
SS/Dark Brute - right powers, wrong side.
Dark/SS tank - 50, and awaiting artwork.

It still, honestly, amazes me when I'm recognized (and positively!) During the Mako week event, apparently Pinnbadges got very talkative when I showed up, according to OU. And the occasional "Are you the one from the forums?" ... yeah, I am. Never had anyone cuss me out after saying yes.

Therra Arcson - Elec/Elec blaster

Character that blossomed into a bunch of other characters. Therra Paladina, Peacebringer. Therra Malevola, clone created by the COT. Therra Vindicta, a "what if" elec/elec Brute. Therra Mortea, elec/elec stalker. Therra Halsturm, Merc/Storm... kind of the oddball of the group. Therra Cena, elec/elec Dom, Praetorian. (Seeing a pattern?) And, a step farther down the line, her daughter, Erin Snow/Caitlyn Haruspica/Caitlyn Snow (and subject of a well received bit of writing, Evolution, in the Rp forum.. thank you, always, Michelle/Samuraiko/Dark_Respite for encouraging me to post it.)

Character that got me very into RP, very into considering backgrounds, and made some of my first friends in COH with.

Also, as Paladina, first ongoing rivalry with someone villainside (in good fun) *waves at Peek-a-boo, the cute stalker.*

Feliney Assault, En/En brute

.... just for getting cussed out as "That damn stalker," for laughing as people tried to TP Foe her, and for the grin I got as people warned others in zone about my stuns.

Deadly Diana, Thugs/Poi MM

.... for being the first character I accidentally soloed an AV with. (Yes, I said accidentally. Wasn't watching my settings, said "what the heck," beat it.)

Irresistable Force, Earth/FF

.... for being the character I joined the HBSS with, leading to much fun, great RP, and making some damn good RL friends.

See my Guides and Tutorials

Every one of the characters in my sig.

I developed the story of each in great detail over the eight years, five months I've played and each is like a kid to me. I've managed to incarnate out the majority of them, and all of them have and Alpha slot power and a Judgement power at least.

Except my last one, Kings Row Hornet.

Pedro Hart was born with dwarfism and, although it set him apart from the majority of humanity, he never let it be a handicap. His childhood in Kings Row was tough, his angry and abusive father who worked the night shift in the garment district, thought little of him or his mother.

When Pedro developed his mutant ability to convert sunlight into electromagnetic energy, his father changed for the worse. One evening he fell into madness. He fumed and ranted to his wife, it wasn't enough that she made his only son a dwarf, but now he was a soulless, less than human mutant. When his father's irate ramblings devolved into physical violence, young Pedro stepped up to protect his mother - but it wasn't with super powers, it was with his fists.

That evening his father left, never to be seen again.

Pedro kept his secret hidden but, as he grew up on the streets, he discovered he had inherited his fathers anger. He sat by as crime rose and gangs began to prowl the streets in broad daylight. It wasn't long before he found himself taking the law into his own hands to protect the people of Kings Row. But to protect his mother, he chose to wear a mask. The Kings Row Hornet was born.

As time went on, he took his energy powers to fight crime throughout Paragon City, though his heart was always in Kings Row.

Pedro Hart/Kings Row Hornet is an Energy/Energy/Energy Blaster. He was one of the first characters I made for this game. I had a bittersweet moment last night when I finally dinged level 50 with him. It was like my entire gaming experience with City of Heroes had come full circle.

After achieving Security level 50, Hornet had a dream - the Menders of Ouroboros were calling him to something greater, offering him a way to achieve great power to protect the world ... maybe even the universe. His powers could be used to help stave off something called the Coming Storm. All he had to do was travel to Ouroboros and learn about the Well.

Pedro knew then what he must do.

Putting on his best suit, he returned to Kings Row. He walked the streets and alleys of his beloved town, arresting every criminal along the way. Then he cleared the block around his old apartment and went to be with his mother.

In this day when heroes would be gods and fight off the evils of the universe, there still needs to be someone that stays behind, protecting the forlorn and forgotten.

May Kings Row Hornet's future be a good one, I'll miss him a lot.

I'll have to make a series of these, there are so many.

I'll begin with the obvious.



Heraclea began as a fairly transparent homage to Wonder Woman. The character became the head of my family of characters. She is an Inv/SS tanker, and the first character I made. On Victory for her whole career. Rolled on Dec. 24, 2004, the day I got the game.

I remember getting the "Retrieve the Jewel of Hera from the Circle of Thorns" mission for the character on the first or second day I played the game and thinking, 'Wow, this game is just for me'.

The lore of New Colchis took off from Heraclea and eventually went a direction away from the Wonder Woman lore that is at its basis, though she still is a hero who was raised on an island of Amazon women. Heraclea existed prior to the game; she was created as part of a planned but never finished Daughters of Hercules adventure for a game even older than this that I sometimes still play, called Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures.

Born to a family senatorial rank, Heraclea expected to play a conventional role through the cursus honorum, a cycle of civic, military, and religious duties to which New Colchians of her rank and stature were accustomed. Her world was changed when, as a result of natural rambunctiousness, she accidentally broke a sacred urn in the temple of Minerva.

As punishment, she was removed from her temple duties and made a gladiator. It was here that she found her true mission and purpose in life. She proved far more proficient at gladiating than at being a priestess, and rose quickly to the top ranks of the gladiators of New Colchis. She proved proficient at fighting wild beasts and mythological monsters; in the course of these combats, she lost an eye. Still, she liked being a gladiator, and chose to continue to compete in the games, craving excitement.

When the Jewel of Hera was stolen by the Circle of Thorns, games were decreed to choose a champion to track down the thieves and retrieve the sacred gem. Heraclea won this contest, and as such became the first of the amazons of New Colchis to publicly enter the ranks of Paragon City's heroes. Once there, she saw a society with problems, that in her view could use instruction from a superior culture. She chose to remain there to teach the women of Paragon City their natural precedence.

<《 New Colchis / Guides / Mission Architect 》>
"At what point do we say, 'You're mucking with our myths'?" - Harlan Ellison

Santo Blanco, the intergalactic luchador. The concept was so ridiculous and fun I couldn't -not- like it.

Sorry about taking a few days to post (and for the crazy long message!), but I needed to find a night free to type it all out, and to grab some screenshots. With that in mind, I don't have much in the way of altitis, but I poured a lot of myself into my characters and they all felt a little like children; they had lives of their own, personalities, and I loved watching them grow, develop and surprise me at times with the directions they might take as the game's own arcs helped bring their stories to life. But to pick the favorites, I'll go with the four characters who inspired me to write fanfics of some kind about, whether AE arcs or Roleplaying stories, and tell the stories behind their stories. I'll include links to those threads as well since, if I don't share them now, then when?
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Yukiko Yoshida, aka Sparkly Soldier Yuki
Energy/Energy Blaster

"An angel of justice and heroic resolve, preserving the past and fighting for the future! Legendary radiant... Sparkly Soldier Yuki! Protector of Innocents!"

"Face sparkly justice, evildoers!"

Quote:

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some get knocked flat on their backs by talking plushy cats from the future. Yukiko Yoshida was an ordinary schoolgirl until Mira, a psychic time traveler from a devastated future, found her projected mind accidentally stuck in the body of Yuki's toy cat. When the bewildered pair came under attack by Mira's alien pursuers, Mira hastily transferred all her remaining psychic energy to Yukiko, where it manifested as the magical girl powers Yuki's always wanted. Remembering that her mentor Seraphea, the future champion of the human resistance, used to joke about receiving her powers from a talking cat, Mira realized that Yukiko is destined to become that heroine. Now Yuki splits her days between fighting evil, learning how to master her newfound powers and worrying about boys.

Yuki was the second character I made and the first to capture my imagination, and yet she ironically started off as just an offhand example character I made for a friend. We're both fans of Sailor Moon (though she much moreso) and I had trouble convincing her to try City of Heroes since, and I quote, "I don't read comic books." In an attempt to convince her that the character options were far more versatile than just spandex heroes, I quickly put together an homage to Sailor Moon reimagined as a young psychic girl in Paragon City, complete with her own talking cat mentor.

But something happened: her story started blooming with hardly any effort. Mira leaped out at me as the perfect name for her mentor, and as I read about the Kheldians, the Nictus quickly emerged as the aliens who rule the future Earth, and the nature of the future apocalypse became clearer: a disaster called the Shadow Storm (no relation to the Coming Storm) struck the world, casting it into endless night and reshaping the environment to allow them to possess most of the population. The name Seraphea emerged as Yuki's future self and from there the story just kept building on itself. I wound up publishing my first AE arc as Yuki telling the player about her origin story, with flashbacks to the post-apocaypse, the day she received her powers and her first attempt at fighting crime.

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=283166

And Yuki kept growing as a character in my imagination. She embodied everything cheerful, wholesome and idealistic about both the magical-girl genre and Paragon City's own optimistic atmosphere, and more and more details came to mind, from the introductory battle speech she'd have spent all night coming up with (complete with badge and title references) to the attack names she'd shout. I wrote a story about her nearly taking a life and becoming a vigilante after her harrowing journey through First Ward, and began work on two more AE arcs, a trilogy culminating in the final battle of the future war. Three more stories about Yuki as a post-Batallion adult, a hardened but still idealistic Vanguard officer leading a Nictus-hunting team of heroes in an effort to change history, emerged and other details about her life came to mind that I would love to have immortalized in story form, given the chance.

As for that friend who thought she wouldn't like City of Heroes because she loves anime and "doesn't read comic books?" As a Premium player, she's spent far more money and earned more points than I have as a year-long subscriber... and her main character is a very Silver Age-style mutant with fire powers and a spandex outfit to match.
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Astorian Shade, birth name unknown
Necro/Dark Mastermind

"The fog whispers your name..."

Quote:

Atlas Park - December 13th "I know we're all stretched thin with the Galaxy City disaster, but the Hellions are a menace. If you know of any heroes who can help with them, anyone at all..." "Well, there is one hero... sort of. Dial this number. When you hear a click like someone picking up on the other end, say that you want to see Astorian Shade. You won't hear any answer, but she'll appear by nightfall." "But this area code's in Astoria. Won't it be disconnected?" "According to the city, it has been for years. Now, you should be safe so long as you're a law-abiding citizen. But she's not very friendly and, well, she's not always a pleasant sight. Nonetheless, I think she can help you." "I 'should be' safe? What is she, exactly?" "She comes from Dark Astoria. I'm afraid that's all we at MAGI know for sure. Good luck, Detective Habashy."

Long before I'd actually tried City of Heroes I'd heard about a place in it called "Dark Astoria," mostly from MMO-savvy friends who knew I liked atmospheric horror games like Silent Hill and Fatal Frame. The screenshots had always made me curious, and one of the first things I did upon reaching a survivable level with Yuki was go to Talos Island and find out what exactly lay behind that misty gate to the east. What I found, of course, was a place where superheroes fought Silent Hill... and Silent Hill won. The exploration badges told a fascinating story and I only regretted that there weren't more arcs involving that abandoned, haunted corner of Paragon City.

And then the news came that Dark Astoria was being revamped for incarnates.

Even if the revamp turned out to be amazing (and it did), the hauntingly atmospheric Astoria I loved seemed to be going away, and at that point there wasn't any guarantee we'd have an Echo. So, before Issue 22 came out, I vowed to create a character as an homage to the old, foggy Astoria. An idea for a Croatoa-based fairy queen summoner hadn't panned out (the powersets that would have made her feel right at home, Beast Mastery and Nature Affinity, simply didn't exist yet) and the idea crossed my mind of a ghost summoner, a vengeful spirit that summons the undead to her aid. From there her spectral form emerged, and then a human guise to justify her talking to contacts, and then a story.

The first attempt was just a vaguely poetic explanation of her background and it lasted hardly a week before the much livelier idea of presenting it as a dialogue came to mind. The question then arose of how did MAGI know about her and what's her connection to them, and as the answer grew in my imagination, it became less and less about her and more about Dark Astoria's own background. Eventually it turned into its own AE arc, a murder mystery and sort of introduction to Dark Astoria before the changes that were already being unveiled in beta...

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=283167

Her character soon began to grow into something more, and surprised me with how it developed through the story arcs. The most memorable moment was at the end of the Atlas Park arc, when she had to choose what to do with Aaron. I'd anticipated that choice thanks to playing it twice already, and imagined her being spooky and malevolent even as she spared him.

But when the time came, everything he said about heroes abandoning their duties struck a very deep nerve for her, and as she heard her own vengeful philosophy repeated back to her, she realized how wrong she'd been. And so rather than the threatening taunt I'd anticipated, what came to mind instead was her dispelling her minions, changing back into her human form and then softly and sadly saying "you're wrong" before turning her back on him and walking away to let the police handle things, and then smiling for the first time as a ghost while talking to Matt and his wife.

She was the one character to really have a narrative climax within the game, that of awakening her dormant incarnate nature, returning to Dark Astoria and challenging Mot itself for the fate of the world. I just hope I can race her through the game fast enough to get there.

During the first week or so of floating around Atlas Park as a ghost, another player ran up to her, stared for a moment at Shade with her bandaged eyes and oversized axe, and responded with a local "O.O". That may be the best compliment I've received on a character design.
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Virginia Dare, aka New World Daughter
Electric/Storm Corrupter

"Stay thy hand, or else lose it."

Quote:

"An eternity seemed to pass within that purgatory before the rift appeared. The elders sent me to learn its secrets, but instead the wind snatched me from the hilltop and flung me into a sky crackling with sulfurous light. I awoke in a place called Salamanca. "The ones who found me, the ones who call themselves Midnighters, say that since I was the first born, the magic pulled me back first. They say it has been four hundred years since our settlement was taken by the Red Caps. "My mother remains trapped in Croatoa. My father's blood calls out for vengeance. More of the Cabal have begun to appear in Salamanca; perhaps they will be of aid. But whether my sisters choose to fight alongside me or to bar my way, I will free my mother and avenge our family. "My name is Virginia Dare. I am Roanoke's last daughter, the last Cabal born under a blue sky. And I will destroy the Red Caps, so that none others share our fate."

Croatoa was another zone I'd heard all about long before playing the game, and my very first character was a detective from Salamanca. But once I learned of the Cabal, the Roanoke colony's connection to Paragon City, the idea of the real-life Virginia Dare as one of the Cabal seemed too perfect to pass up. To my amazement, the developers hadn't explored that idea at all; I have a theory that Katie Hannon was written as Virginia at one point, but got changed for some reason, perhaps because Marvel's 1602 also used her and the studio just didn't think it'd be worth the headache. At any rate, it did leave "Virginia Dare: Cabal Sorceress" wide open for the players, and as a North Carolina native, the Roanoke story and the story of Virginia Dare held a special significance for me.

Alas, I spent the next month just trying to think of a fitting name for her. Weird Al certainly didn't do me any favors: it took most of that time just to chase "Dare to Be Stupid" out of my head! Then one day the phrase "new world daughter" popped out of nowhere, and a few hours later Virginia the rogue Cabal sorceress and fledgeling Paragon hero was taking her first step into Atlas Park.

The background I'd written for her character in the game gradually evolved into a much more detailed story involving her arriving in modern Salamanca and quickly being recruited by Midnight representative Ashley McKnight and MAGI representative Gregor Richardson, and it became the first story I posted in Roleplaying, and the first fanfic I've written in, oh lord, let's just say a few years...

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=293110

Veteran powers like the Blackwand and the Blue Wisp Pet really helped bring the image of her as a Cabal witch to life, and, once she returned to Salamanca at level 25 to find the rest of the Cabal running wild and the eternal war threatening innocent people, her story gained a symmetry with the game that just left me amazed at times.

From her disastrous first fight with a group of Cabal girls as they shouted "how dare you stand in my way" and "you won't take this one from me," to her changing into modern clothes and going by "Ginny, from MAGI" to avoid admitting to Mayor Bower and Skip that she's one of them, to a ferociously epic battle above the rooftops with a Sorceress of the Winds wielding precisely her powersets, the game really seemed to unfold as her story. A seek and destroy mission against the Fir Bolg quickly turned into a stealth mission when she overheard "why is she tormenting us?" and "maybe she's in league with the Red Caps," and was painfully reminded that she used to be their allies and they don't understand why she's turned on them, and the level gap between Skipper and Kelly, from 26 to 30, became a one-woman, forest-sweeping war against the Red Caps.

I'd looked forward to seeing just how a level 50 character with the Cabal's electric blast and storm summoning powers would play, but for now, I'll be content to just finish Croatoa, run the Katie Hannon Task Force (the battle between Virginia and Mary MacComber would just be so perfect from a story perspective... if agonizing from a gameplay one) and maybe, if time allows, earn the Geas of the Kind Ones accolade so her adventure can come to a proper conclusion.
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Eric Grayson, aka Shadow Ecliptic
Warshade

"Nobody ever picks the easy way..."

Quote:

Eric Grayson was just a lowly DATA mechanic until the day the Peacebringers came to Earth. The Nictus sent their own emissary to welcome them: the Kheldian assassin Hibernal Dusk, who possessed Eric and tried to use him to destroy City Hall and the arriving Peacebringer envoys. The attempt failed when Eric regained control and shut down the overloading Longbow portal, but his success came with a high price; by using too much of the Nictus's energy absorbing powers to stave off the explosion, he'd initiated the bonding process. Faced with an inevitable bonding that could drive them both insane, and with Hibernal Dusk's own growing doubts about the Kheldian war, the two willingly merged together into the Warshade Shadow Ecliptic, the incarnation of Eric's promise to show Hibernal Dusk what it means to be human.

I'd already learned a lot about the Kheldian lore thanks to Yuki's backstory, but it took one friend asking me to make a low-level toon to run through the game at her pace and another friend singing the praises of his newly rolled Peacebringer character to convince me to give the Kheldians a try. Originally I'd intended to simply roll a Peacebringer character I'd written for Yuki's stories, but when every permutation of his name turned out to be taken, I went with a brand new Warshade instead. His look actually came before anything else, and that helped inspire a story that went through several twists and turns before settling into its final form.

At first I imagined an unwilling bond leading to antagonists sharing the same body, sort of Ash and his evil hand from "Evil Dead 2" starring in a buddy cop movie. That gradually turned into a more dialogue-driven concept of a human and unwilling Nictus as partners, somewhat resembling Light and Ryuk from "Death Note," and then the thought of GLaDOS and Chell crossed my mind. And the moment I imagined the Nictus having a female mental voice, his entire character snapped instantly into place and I spent the rest of the night on a caffeine-fueled typing bender to get the story that had suddenly flashed through my thoughts down on paper. Early the next afternoon, the finished story was posted. In his case, the full fanfic story actually came first, and his character background is a very, very truncated version of it...

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=294857

I haven't played him very much, since I was just arriving at Croatoa with NWD at the same time, but playing a Warshade had turned out to be immensely fun, even solo, and Dark Nova's won over even the most jaded WoW fan on the basis of "okay, I've gotta admit that looks really cool." Since his story ends with an appearance by Keith Nance, I guess I'll aim for "Twisted Reflections" as his chance to prove himself once and for all a hero, along with wherever Shadowstar's missions have led him by that point.

Anyway, those are my four biggie characters and the rambling stories of how they came to be! Here's to hoping the game can be saved somehow - I really want to find out how all their stories end.

My 3 favorites? I might come up with different set if I think for a long time, but...

Okibi Kitsune - Fire/Kin Controller.
It's one of my older heroes (that wasn't deleted), and one of my oldest 50s. I soloed through the Faultline content when it was new, and kicked ***. It was a fun character, even before it got the powers that the combo is legendary for. It was also my first Incarnate.

I spent more time on this character with my SG than any other. We'd do all sorts of things (back before inventions, primarily). The most fun was when we had an all /Rad super team (plus me as a /kin ) and we went through the Preatorian AV arc... we slaughtered them so quickly that multiple times I didn't even realize there was an AV in the group! We'd always be joking around, and breaking things in fun and creative ways. Definitely a blast.

Kitsune Operative - Assault Rifle / Devices Blaster (with teleport!)
By far my favorite Blaster, ever made. The combo was actually really bad at the time, since neither had a +damage power and other things (mostly they were both weak sets), but it had its tricks. I could say a lot about the character, but, I'll focus on one thing. The Katie Hannon Task Force. It was my favorite task force in the game, and I'd run it like crazy (I, honestly, didn't even care about the reward... it was just a nice bonus!). I'd often be with at least one friend on a /kin, so I'd generally have a Speed Boost on me... so for the 10 Times the Victor mission, my whole plan was, basically, to lay an absurdly large amount of trip mines where the ambushes would come from. Every time a new wave would come, every trip mine would explode, the cabal would all be blast into the air, and when they were about 5 feet into the air, everyone's game would freeze for about 3 seconds before resuming again, due to the massive knockback that was created, leaving basically just the AV. I'd then alternate between laying mines for the next wave, and using Ignite on her, doing absurd levels of damage (most tanks couldn't keep her aggro! ). The real fun was the large variety of tricks the combo had.

And coming in i24, which, thanks to the closing of NCSoft will never reach live... the sets were going to get a nice buff that would have made it actually fairly competitive. The main thing the set severely lacked was a good ST damage attack (ignite largely only worked on AVs, since everything else freaks out when it's engulfed in flames!). Maybe if there's a resurgence I'll get to see it on live...

Kitsune Shifter - Tri-Form Peacebringer
This is my latest project that stood out (I've created one alt since then, and was about to create a second, but I came to the boards first and saw the news on Friday... ). It was my last character to hit 50. It was my first (and only, so far) character to solo through First Ward and then Night Ward. I did most of the Task Forces on my way up (just about got Task Force Commander!), including the new ones like Sutter (which I keep wanting to call Stutter!). I went through so much new content first the first time, and it was like when I went through Faultine the first time... it made me think about how absurdly enjoyable it was, and how awesome our Devs are.


Many other characters have had really awesome experiences, such as Kitsune Slayer (Energy/Nin Stalker) which was included in a video made by a popular gaming website about CoH's power customization feature (since I was among the first people to post videos about it, and I used that character in it, they took part of my video).

As for the 'what they meant to you', I'm not sure I could really answer that directly and fit my post within the size limit for these boards. In many cases, it was the stories I enjoyed most, along with getting to play with fun people. The characters were often vehicles for that- although that's not a good explanation either.

We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.

My first character, (Which it might surprise you that it is not my namesake), Sir Slasher represents my passion for history. His backstory had him as a history professor at Paragon University until he was kidnapped by Crey and injected with an experimental serum from which he gained superhuman pain tolerance. He chose to become a hero because he sees himself as a modern-day follower of the code of Chivalry. (After all, the values of superheroes in comics and the qualities stressed in the code of Chivalry are not too different, right?)

The Cursed Sorcerer actually came to me at first as a funny idea of "a villain who was forced to do good against his will." However, as I was playing him, he began to somehow develop a strange hidden meaning all his own. There were times in the early days that Dark Miasma Defenders were strangely not in demand and Empathy Defenders were preferred. This was a problem for CS since he was a Dark Miasma/Dark Blast Defender. Incidently, as I am handicapped with Spina Bifida Myelomeningocele IRL, I too feel like I have gone through many trials and tribulations in my life. Personality-wise, I roleplay CS as a person who teeters between depression and outright insanity. He is uncertain what the universe wants out of him, but he knows that whatever happens, he has little control of his fate.

Sir Slaughter has gone through a couple of iterations as I had no idea what I wanted him to become. Essentially, I wanted him to be an evil Sir Slasher counterpart. He went through iterations and retcons where he was Sir Slasher's brother or a former friend. (Think Statesman and Lord Recluse) Then GR came out and I decided "Duh! Sir Slaughter is Sir Slasher's Praetorian counterpart!" In Praetoria, he went through the Power storyline and left Praetoria as a villain. His personality is similar to Sir Slasher's in that he does have a code of honor and he respects the strong (Even having a grudging respect for Sir Slasher) but he is also capable of ruthlessness and great brutality.

My three favorites?

Hmm...


1) Kyll - My BS/Regen, my first character, first 50, first AV killer. I have two boys, if my wife and I had a girl we would have named her Margaret Laura. We didn't, but I did have Kyll, so I gave her that name. She's designed to look like my wife, but has my sons complexion (my wife is white; I'm black). Kyll is my connection to this game. Quite literally she does everything first. She's the first I take on new content, the richest character I have, and she forever will sit at the top of my character list.

2) Sassy Succubus - Claws/Will Stalker - She's flawless. I love her look, her powers, her feel and pace of play. I guess she would be slightly better with Spin, but she feels as natural as Kyll to play with 1/50 of the playtime. And everyone loves her backstory. I get more compliments on it than any other.

3) Dragon Gecko - SS/Regen Brute. Dragon Gecko surprises me. Everytime I log into this character, I'm like "When the hell did I do all that?" The character is well down the path of the Incarnate, and he's the second fastest character I've gotten to 50. He's a beast and a brute, but his expanded back story is one of the better I've written.

The Masked Shrike: lvl 50 Inv/EM tank. The Shrike has been around since a pen and paper game in the 90s. She has been through many iterations since then, but the CoH version brought me a lot of joy. She was my first MMO character ever, and I created her on Victory to play with RL friends. She led me to meet new friends--some strange fellow sent me a tell as I gawked at all the heroes in Atlas Park. He said he liked the character concept and her bio. Then he swept me off and took me under his wing--his name was Wingman, and he is still a friend to this day. He introduced me to some other great folks, such as Madame Pistacio. Shrikey brought me lots of great playing, RPing, and some fun art, too (including this one by Doug Shuler):



PinUp Girl: lvl 50 Dual Blades/WP scrapper. My friend Wingman suggested that I join him over on Virtue as there was this great SG there, the Gods of the Golden Age. I hadn't been playing for a while, but I had a concept I wanted to make, and as Dual Blades was new, PinUp Girl was born. Shortly after she came into being, I dropped by the Golden Age Festival, and met another new hero named Proud Citizen. We both joined the GGA, made a lot of friends, had a lot of good times, and after a while, PinUp and PC got married in-game. Then a while later, we got married in Real Life. Without CoH, the GGA, PinUp Girl, and my Paragon City friends, I would have never met the Aussie love of my life. I also got some great art featuring PinUp, including this lovely gift from EvilMark aka Foo:



The Scarlet Specter: lvl 50 Illusion/Emp controller. Back on Victory, Madame Pistacio kindly invited me into her SG, CHRYSALIS, and I decided to make a new character just for that purpose. I took an old pen and paper concept and created her as the Scarlet Specter, the spirit of a murdered woman returned to a city that had forgotten her. Madame Pistacio showed me the ropes of CoH and took Scarlet out for more teaming than I have ever done, TFs and trials and all sorts of things. She even talked me into joining the PA Drop Team for Hami raids, and boy, did I have fun on those. It was great hanging out and chatting with other illusionists while mayhem happened below. I loved those old Hami raids. Scarlet was my badge collector, and she had a lot of badges! But side-switching, Master Of stuff and Incarnates ended my interest in badges. Still, I had a lot of good fun collecting them, and meeting fellow badgers. I even helped run a PVP badge farm for a while. Yay badges! Here she is, along with art by Graver:



I ended up with two other level 50s, Ms. Afterburner (Fire/Rad controller) and Victory Gardener (Plant/Thermal controller). But these three are my favorites. Here is one last bit of art by Joseph Caesar, featuring the three of them along with Ms. Afterburner, fighting the Fifth Column.

Who else? Bill has been my alter-ego for almost as long as I've been with my wife. The game may have come and gone for me over the years but BZB has always been in my head scratching away at the back of my eyeballs.
Hell... even cigars have new meaning because of this character that's evolved and grown as I have. I've little doubt that somewhere he'll continue to exist, even if it's as a tattoo on my right thigh.