A player who runs SHIELD: a powerful espionage and law enforcement organization
A player who runs a nefarious spy network (me)
Some roughly street level non-villains: Spider-man, X-23, maybe Daredevil
It seems appropriate for SHIELD to gather the heroes and close-enough-to-heroes against a common enemy. The team can be called Marvel Knights, sure. Alternatively, the heroes unite organically and SHIELD makes them official afterward.
This is pretty much Razilin's suggestion, but less specific. That makes HYDRA the first suggested starting antagonist.
@sora: Or Stark is run as an NPC, or he isn't even in danger (just powerless because he has no armor), or you can replace Stark armors with SHIELD's Quinjets/robot drones/any electronic mook.
EDIT: @ State of Bedlam: Precisely. We just need something direct, straightforward, and slightly above street level as a starter arc and ramp up from there. Also, I ship MARVEL KNIGHTS because it sounds cooler. Also, I forgot HYDRA is all-caps.
Mhmm.. I was thinking of a similar thing for the team. They'll also be in that same team for the rest of the RP (except some arcs) so things don't get complicated with multiple heroes/villains running around
Actually, it occurs to me that HYDRA infiltrators kind of make me redundant. I don't want to hold New York for ransom myself though because it's much too impractical. Maybe a more completely overt common threat?
EDIT: How about Hydroman, Sandman, or Electro? They're all Spider-Man rogues who live in New York City and don't have the backing of a larger organization. They're all difficult to take down because of their unusual physical composition. They can be taken down as a team effort and be defeated without having to endlessly deal with the repercussions of their initial defeat the way you might with an organization like HYDRA.
How about you be the threat? And become ally in a later arc?
Other suggestions:
-Traitor within SHIELD (since its a reboot, I say we make this part of a Reboot Villain's origin story; say...Batroc the Leaper is actually a SHIELD agent who goes rogue, and now we have Reboot Batroc).
-Electro uses his powers to override Stark/SHIELD tech and take it over, keeping it a very local threat.
I would advise against using mid- and upper- tier villains like Doom or anything, since they would be better serving as arc-ending big bads.
EDIT:
-Reboot Venom has the ability to splice his symbiote to take over people remotely against their will! SHIELD agents must now fight each other without killing their possessed comrades!
-One of the Fantastic Four's experiments goes renegade and terrorizes the city on accident!
I agree with this wholly. This is why I set the Symbiotes as the main focus in their own story-arc.I know they're more of Spider-Man's foes, but you can't deny that they are easily some of the most dangerous characters in any Marvel universe.
But yeah, guys like Doom will be featured as Arc-characters (similar to the idea of the Sinister Six. That would primarily be full of NPC villains with representatives from our various comics. For example, Spider-Man would have Green Goblin, X-23 would be part of the X-Men group, so she would have Juggernaut, Captain America would have Red Skull (only villain of his I know ^^;), and so on.)
How about Hydroman, Sandman, or Electro? They're all Spider-Man rogues who live in New York City and don't have the backing of a larger organization. They're all difficult to take down because of their unusual physical composition. They can be taken down as a team effort and be defeated without having to endlessly deal with the repercussions of their initial defeat the way you might with an organization like HYDRA.
I'd like to be the main villain in a future arc but I don't want to have my hands tied as far as when that happens.
How about Hydroman, Sandman, or Electro? They're all Spider-Man rogues who live in New York City and don't have the backing of a larger organization. They're all difficult to take down because of their unusual physical composition. They can be taken down as a team effort and be defeated without having to endlessly deal with the repercussions of their initial defeat the way you might with an organization like HYDRA.
I'd like to be the main villain in a future arc but I don't want to have my hands tied as far as when that happens.
But yeah, I agree. I'll defiantly work with you on your own arc, but maybe we could do something like the recent Amazing Spider-Man video games, where OSCORP tries to create more Cross-Species Mutations (ex. Scorpion, Electro, Rhino, Vermin, Vulture, ect) which all run amok in NY until the heroes take them down.
I also think that your idea of the guys with specialized powers would be good to start. To add to them, we could have Swarm (a man made entirely from mutant bees), Black Spot (or whatever the guy with the holes in his body is called), and a few others.
Right. I only remember him because of the times he appeared with Spidey cracking jokes about what happens if he uses the toilet (basically, he asked Spot if his bum had one of those teleporting holes as well)
Name: Laura Sarah Kinney Alias: X-23 Hero, Walking-the-line, or Villain: Walking-the-Line Age: 16 years old Appearance: Laura is 5'3 and probably still growing. She has shoulder-blade length dark hair and usually cold hazel eyes. They can look greenish in sunlight. She has a healthy, athletic build and is usually seen wearing combat boots and lots of black.
Superhero/villain Origins:
To start with Laura's story, it is best to start with her mother, Sarah Kinney. A scientist working for the latest incarnation of Weapon X, she was tasked with creating a clone of their arguably most powerful invention - Wolverine. This time, however, they wanted him controllable. Seeking to take the project in a new direction, the project's director, Doctor Martin Sutter, recruited renowned mutant geneticist Doctor Sarah Kinney and tasked her with creating a clone. The cloning process failed, over and over again, until Sarah noticed one thing happening when the clone was attempted - the Y chromosomes were interacting poorly with the process. When that chromosome was removed entirely from the process, it succeeded. That marked her 23rd try. But they needed a human to carry the cloned fetus. Sarah Kinney volunteered, and carried X-23 to term.Without the Y chromosome, however, the new clone was born a female, named with the designation of 'X-23'. Her early life was far, far different than most. She was treated as an animal. By the time she could talk, she was bombarded with languages and schooling, and from the time she could walk, taught how to fight. Most of her martial arts training was under a man known only as 'Sensei'. When she wasn't being trained, exercised, or fed, she was kept in a featureless metal room, and those around her were ordered not to interact with her.That wasn't to say people didn't bend the rules somewhat. Sarah, having a bit of conflicting motherly feelings for the girl, would often sneak in and read bedtime stories to the girl, and X-23's Sensei taught, and spoke to her only in Japanese, and would generally, through language alone, treat her like a human being instead of the cold, impersonal language he was ordered to use.The Company did not approve. But their disapproval would wait for later. Once X-23 was around eight years of age, in fact, they grew impatient of waiting for their 'new weapon'. After seven years, Doctor Zander Rice had X-23 subjected to radiation poisoning in order to accelerate the activation of her mutant gene to see if she did follow in her 'father's' footsteps. Sarah viciously disapproved, but it was done anyway.
Luckily for X-23 and Sarah, Laura survived the process, following along with her genetic donor's powerset to gain regeneration, and claws. The feminine aspect to her genetic manipulation made for an odd setting of claws, however - one in each foot, and only two in each hand. All the while, Weapon X was developing a 'trigger scent' to infuriate the girl, using associative psychological techniques to let the scent spark a rage in her.The first trial of it was on her Sensei. Having known that he was disobeying their orders to treat her like a thing, they had her kill him, then brought in a new trainer/handler. Kimura. An invincible woman, she could not be cut by Laura's claws. Her training continued.When she was far too young for such things, about 12 years old, they started sending her upon missions. Her first was the assassination of a high-profile politician. Greg Johnson. That was just the start. Sending her on increasingly higher and higher risk missions, members of the project started seeing the ability to use X-23 for their own monetary gain. Rice manipulated her the most. Subjecting her to the adamantium process at the age of eleven. He wanted to torment and torture the young girl, and when Sarah realized that Rice was starting to use the trigger scent to send X-23 to kill his higher-ups so that he could take charge of the project, she panicked.
Rice even abandoned X-23 on a particularly dangerous mission, but she survived against overwhelming odds and managed to return to the facility. Ultimately, Rice persuaded Sutter to hand over control of the program to him, then secretly ordered X-23 to kill Sutter and his family. Later, Rice revealed to Sarah Kinney a chamber with dozens of incubation pods containing female clones before he fired her. Before fleeing the facility with X-23, Kinney gave her one last mission - destroy the pods and kill Rice. She succeeded, but Rice was able to exact revenge on Kinney from beyond the grave. X-23 discovered, too late, that the trigger scent had been used on Sarah - she was the next target. Flying into a rage, she murdered her mother figure. Another little piece of her died. Searching Sarah's body, she discovered a letter to her that gave her a name. Laura.
X-23 surfaced in New York City two years later and was found living on the streets by a pimp named Zebra Daddy, who took her in and employed her as a prostitute. During her time as a prostitute, X-23 seemed to suffer from a self-mutilating disorder. She superficially cut herself with her own claws whenever she was alone and in emotional distress. She also seemed to suffer some personality issues which left her mostly mute and unable to free herself from the grip of Zebra Daddy. X-23 started to come to her senses after she met Kiden Nixon, a young mutant with the ability to freeze time when in danger, and together with Kiden's teacher, they rescued another young mutant, the feral Catiana, from an angry mob. Zebra Daddy tracked X-23 down, but with the aid of her new friends and the mutant named Felon, Zebra Daddy's thugs were defeated. X-23 then killed him to save the lives of her friends. After her mutant friends left together to find a safer place away from New York, X-23 later took a job at the mutant-themed Wannabee's nightclub in the Mutant Town district of New York.
Powers:
Regeneration: Sharing in her "father's" ability, Laura has enhanced regeneration. It works fairly fast, with minor cuts clotting and closing up in seconds. More major cuts and flesh wounds heal in minutes, and things like broken bones mend themselves in about 10 minutes depending on the injuries.
Foreign Chemical Immunity: X-23's natural healing also gives her the virtual immunity to poisons and most drugs.
Disease Immunity: Due to her highly efficient immune system, X-23 is immune to all Earthly diseases and infections.
Superhuman Acute Senses: X-23 possesses incredibly enhanced senses that are comparable to those of certain animals. She is able to see at much farther distances, and with near perfect clarity, than an ordinary human. She retains this same level of clarity in almost complete darkness. Her sense of hearing is enhanced in a similar manner, allowing her to both hear sounds that ordinary human's can't and to hear sounds that ordinary humans can, but at much greater distances. X-23 is able to use her highly developed sense of smell to track targets by scent with an impressive degree of success, even of the scent has been eroded by natural factors, such as the weather.
Superhuman Stamina: X-23's muscles produce a considerably less amount of fatigue toxins during physical activity than the muscles of an average human. She can exert herself at peak capacity for about 24 hours before fatigue begins to set in.
Superhuman Agility and Reflexes: X-23's agility, reflexes, balance, and bodily coordination are enhanced to levels that are beyond the natural physical limits of even the most accomplished human athlete.
Enhanced Strength: Laura enjoys the blessing of enhanced strength. While not nearly as powerful as Wolverine, she is getting stronger and stronger as she grows older. This helps her to jump higher, run a fair bit faster, and lift far more weight than her build and gender would suggest. If she wanted to push the limits of her ability, she could bench press about 500 pounds - but would feel far more comfortable carrying and pushing about 350.
Claws: A pair claws in each hand, and a one in each foot. The claws are about eight inches in length in her hands, and about six to seven inches in her feet, curved at one end, and retractable, going back into or out of her arms or feet as she needs them. They've been coated in Adamantium, something the rest of her skeleton hasn't been subjected to. Let's hope they never get a chance to finish the job.
Weaknesses:
Broken bones can set in the wrong place. For example, if she has broken ribs that have been moved or jarred around, they will heal themselves too quickly and may end up crooked or in the wrong place. In that case, she would have to re-break them and set them appropriately so they can heal again. Her regenerative power can be overloaded, perhaps by being shot many, many times in a short period of time. When that happens, she loses consciousness, and drops into a fugue until her body stabilizes itself, and heals any major organ damage that occurs. The drawbacks to this power aren't too many, but she does tend to eat a heck of a lot more than your average person, particularly if this system was given a workout.
She can be affected by some drugs, such as tranquilizers, if she is exposed to an extremely large dose.
5. If her stamina is used to the max for more than 24 hours and she does not collapse out of exhaustion, her muscles will most likely be very sore byt he time she sleeps and wakes again.
8. Because of these razor-sharp claws, getting through metal detectors at airports and the like is a real pain, and each time they cut through her skin when she 'draws' them, it stings.
Induced Berserker Rage: She has also been subjected to conditioning in which a specific "trigger scent" has been used to send her into a berserker rage, killing anything in sight. This can be seen as a strength or a weakness, depending on what side of things you're on. Very few things short of knocking her out can snap her out of this state while the scent is around, so she can hardly control herself and is not conscious of her actions. As a result, she is usually bombarded by intense feelings of guilt after this rage wears off.
Abilities:
Can speak English French and Japanese, fluently. May be able to speak others, but with much less mastery.
X-23 is an expert tracker. Because of her enhanced sense of smell she can track almost anything and anyone, and has memorized many different scents.
Raised in captivity, due to her extensive training as a top-secret operative, X-23 has been trained to become a living weapon. She is highly trained in the use of long range weapons and explosives, and is an expert in assassination techniques.
She is excellent at hand to hand combatant, with intensive training in numerous armed and unarmed martial arts techniques.
Hero/Villain Relationships: will be updated as the story goes on.
Occupation: Bartender and Waitress at Wannabee's.
Sample Post:
X-23 sat kneeling beside her mother's dead body. She had given up now on any sort of treatment to save her. It was impossible. The teenager had seen red and simply attacked without even thinking. Without a second thought, she had ferociously ripped her heart up with her own bloody claws. And it wasn't just her claws that were bloody. Having just murdered an entire facility full of people who had wronged her, she was splattered with blood from head to toe. None of it was hers. But suddenly, two tracks clear of blood began to form on her cheeks. Tears were cutting through the bloody path. Oh how long has it been since she cried? It was building...this well of misery and hatred and fear and confusion! A myriad of feelings she never under stood. Not until now. Until she reluctantly searched her mother's bloody carcass or something, anything that would tell her what to do now. Even now that she was free (and alone) she wanted orders to follow. Because it was all she knew.
The brown eyes of the woman who had conceived her were no longer warm and sweet, the way she remembered them when the woman would sneak into her cell and read her stories. hey were cold and lifeless. And it was her who had done that. X-23 was shaking when she found a piece of paper in her pocket. She opened it immediately, hoping for something to help her. Hope. That was also foreign. She had never hoped like this before. Before she realized that her entire life was nothing but an experiment. A lie. A means to gain money.
She began to read. Please forgive me. Even as I write the words, they ring so hollow. My mistakes... no, my choices... they cannot be undone, much less forgiven. How all this came to pass... and the truth about Weapon X. Had it ended there, would I be less of a monster? Or more? Would I even know the difference? Of course I don't have to tell you about monsters. Your life is defined by monsters. Replicating the mutant genome proved difficult... but rebuilding Weapon X seemed all but impossible. For every enzyme, for ever codon, for every sequence we repaired, or even built back from near nothingness, we seemed to be missing a million more. But I felt alive. The work, the failure, the challenge. It was like a brilliant light, shining inside me. I felt... like my life had a purpose. What a fool I was. I was defiant in the face of my failures. I was determined to succeed out of spite. Weeks passed. I was working on two projects, living two lives. I was used to that. I had kept secrets before. It seems so incredible to me now, that in all that time, given everything that I knew... what I was doing and what the end result would bear... I didn't give it a second thought. I told myself that you weren't real. I told myself that this was science... not life. I was creating a weapon... not a child. I was wrong. When I was little, I always believed that everything that happened to me-- I deserved. That we all get what we deserve. Maybe I was right. No longer the experimenter, I was now part of the experiment. A vessel to be poked and prodded. To be violated. They certainly didn't care about me... not with a weapon to train. A team of physicians, psychologists, nutritionists, and military strategists now ran my life. They watched my every move... but they didn't see everything. I asked you for forgiveness before. Now I'm telling you... don't forgive me. Don't ever forgive any of us for what we did. Ever.I remember everything... everything we did to you... and you deserve to know why we did these things. Your training was designed to strip you of your humanity. After all, in the eyes of the Program, you weren't human... you were a weapon. A weapon I willingly conceived for them. Our orders were to keep you from gaining any sense of self... something they said would compromise our ability to control you. We were never to treat you as a child, only as a weapon... but not everyone followed those orders... I'm grateful for that... Sutter wanted to complete your construction... but that wasn't possible while your healing factor was dormant. You would never survive the surgery... so, Rice was given permission to take whatever steps necessary to activate your X-gene. He chose radiation poisoning. You nearly died that day. Unfortunately, Rice was right. The radiation worked. Now, nothing stood in their way... especially me. I only found out later what happened... that your claws were extracted one by one... that he sharpened, then coated them with the indestructible metal, adamantium, outside of your body. It was never supposed to be like that. So much wasn't. I should have known what was coming... not that I could have prevented it... but I would have tried. I'm sorry... so sorry...When it was time for your first field test... the target was chosen with the flip of a coin. Who it was didn't matter. As long as the target was "high profile"... and couldn't be gotten to. Sutter needed to make a statement. And you delivered it to the world. I wanted to understand why we were doing this. I told Martin I needed to understand... why you had to publicly kill an innocent man, his family and so many others. So, he told me... he said, it's simple. You can't sell anything... without advertising. That's what this was all about. The buying and selling of lives for profit. Not saving the world, or raking it over. No, this was about money. A lot of it. Martin sold you for a million dollars a pound... and as you know by now, there was no shortage of buyers. Rice was right. I didn't matter. Not to them. Not to you. Not to anyone. All I could do is watch. While you were forced to kill... and kill... and kill... and kill... you killed royalty. Godfathers. Drug lords. Dictators. Assassins. Anyone... everyone... for a price. For three long years, you murdered without fail. Every target they marked, you killed. Every time limit they set, you beat. Every rendezvous point they plotted, you reached... except one... the one where Rice was waiting for you.When Rice came back from the mission, he told us what happened. He said... that you didn't make the rendezvous in time. That he had to abort the mission when the team started taking fire. And that he saw you die. But I didn't want to believe him. You never told me what happened. How you survived, or how you made your way back. Why didn't you tell me? For so long, I held myself above Sutter and Rice. They made you a killer. They were the ones using you. But all it took was one phone call to open my eyes and see... I was just like them.They say in life that we are judged by the choices we make... they are what define us... I chose to bring you into this world. I chose to stay in the program even after they stripped you of your humanity... and molded you into a weapon. I'm responsible for everything that has happened... for all the pain... all the death... for everything you have suffered... because I had a choice... when you had none. And I chose to do nothing. I always assumed it was Rice that cut you. He hurt you so many times in the past... he almost killed you twice... I never wanted to believe... that it was you. The damage I've done... I can never forgive myself. You couldn't stop what Rice made you do... but somehow you managed to save Henry and tell me the truth... which means there is hope... you showed me we failed... you are not a weapon... you are a child. Always remember you are not to blame. You did not pick this life. We... I forced it upon you. The blood you have spilled is on my hands, not yours... and please understand why I must ask you to kill one last time. Because tonight, what you do is right. Tonight, what you serve is justice. Tonight, you take back the life we stole from you.I never wanted a family. My father stripped me of that desire. He took my childhood... my innocence... my life... and then I took yours. I became what I hated and feared most... and you became my victim. But then you showed me hope. Not when you saved Megan, but when you saved Henry. You showed me that we can choose to be something other than what we have been forced to be... that we can be something better than what we believe we are. And, in that moment, you saved my life. All that matters to me now is that I save yours. I wish we could just run away without anymore bloodshed... but if I don't stop them, they will never stop. They will do it again. They've already started. After tonight, we'll just keep moving and never look back. We'll start a new life... have a future... be a family. I'm sorry I waited so long to tell you these things. There is so much more I want to tell you, and I will... but one thing that you must always remember... no matter what has happened... and no matter what may come... you are a child, not a weapon. You are my child. You are my daughter... and I love you. I will always love you, Laura.
X-23 folded up the letter swiftly, for by now she was full out sobbing, a rare occurrence for her. She wouldn't allow the precious letter to be soiled by her tears There in the snowy field stained crimson here and there, X-23 wept like the child Sarah had realized she was. She shook and held onto the stiff body she had removed the life from. Wails of misery coupled with what could have been thousands of other terrible emotions that ripped through her echoed from her throat until it was raw. Her mind was reeling at what she had read nonstop over and over again until she couldn't take it anymore. Sarah Kinney, the lady who had brought her into this world of white walls and crystal tears had wanted to be so kind to her for so long. She even named her! And now...she's dead. Because of what they did to her! She's a monster! How could her mother think she was anything but?! X-23 screamed into the night, breath white in the cool air. They were agonized screeches that were the only way to express the tearing feeling inside of her. And she never allowed herself to feel so much?! Though the only way for her to be murdered was decapitation, this emotional torture felt like more than enough to make her drop dead beside the mother she could have had. She craved revenge, but the one who had killed her was herself. She gasped for breath, heaving and holding her mother so tight it might have cracked a bone or two. She had been so close to a chance at happiness. So close to warmth and smiles and a place far far away from anyone who wanted to take advantage of her skill set. But she literally beat that chance to the ground and tore up its heart. Though she had saved the lives of her Aunt and Uncle, Megan and Henry, she had too much blood on her hands, metaphorically and literally, to feel any of the joy that came with that. Despite what her mother had written for her, Laura did the only thing she felt she could at the moment. "I'm s-sorry. I-I forgive y-you..."
Okay, so we need to agree on our first story arc. Right now, we have the following ideas:
• OSCORP Cross-Species Rampage
• Defeating the Enhanced Body Villains (Electro, Hydro-Man, Swarm, ect)
• Fantastic Four experiment gone wrong (leading to the creation of the Symbiotes, possibly?)
• SHIELD taken over by HYDRA (or other major power/villain)
• Electro/A villain hijacking Tony Stark's "Iron Men" and using them to take over the world (possible introduction of Norman Osborn as "Iron Patriot", leaving Green Goblin for Harry?)
• Rise of the Sinister Six story arc proposed at the beginning of this thread
Because the others are offline, I'd say I'll vote for the Enhanced Body one as well.
Since that's 3 of 3 (although maybe 3 of 2, seeing as how xox hasn't posted for a while since they posted last), we'll need one more person to decide. In the meantime, I'll set up the OoC and add in the information when we decide here.
Because the others are offline, I'd say I'll vote for the Enhanced Body one as well.
Since that's 3 of 3 (although maybe 3 of 2, seeing as how xox hasn't posted for a while since they posted last), we'll need one more person to decide. In the meantime, I'll set up the OoC and add in the information when we decide here.
