100th Post Spectacular!! Collector's Item!! Non-nerds look elsewhere!

Well it only took us 15 months to do it, but here we are at our 100th post.

The odd thing, I thought, was naming the blog Battle Plan, after our supergroup on City of Heroes, but never actually having talked about the supergroup!

I started somewhat early in life with Role-Playing Games (RPGs). From pen-and-paper RPGs to the old "Gold Box" Dungeons & Dragons computer games (please consult your local nerd for the term Gold Box computer games).

Most of the games were played with my brother, but as my sister will shudder to see put into print, there was some playing of Top Secret, S.I. between the three of us. Otherwise it was games like Dungeons & Dragons, Ghostbusters, and most often, the Marvel Super Heroes RPG.
Probably most of my and my brother's time on Marvel was spent creating new heroes. I don't think we had maybe but half a dozen original characters we would play on a daily basis. We did have two regular supergroups, X-Force was one - before Marvel infringed on our copyright and named one of their teams X-Force. :) The other was our own copyright infringement, the Rocky Mountain Avengers, complete with clones of various Marvel characters.

Our library of characters got so large that we pulled a Crisis on Infinite Earths on our characters, and drew them all into one titanic superbattle in which many heroes and villains lost their lives. The place: our local shopping mall. The name of the battle: The Mall Massacre. Clever, eh? One of the most memorable demises had to be one of our robot characters getting turned into a toaster and then crushed. Now that's a comic book death!

This love of creating new characters has followed to City of Heroes. The "level cap" of City of Heroes is 50, and the highest level character I have is 39. Why? Because so much time is spent on so many other characters. Only 1 of hero from my pen-and-paper RPG days has made it into the game, Metal Menace.

And so, I've decided, what the heck, I'd like to share the names and origins of the various heroes I've created and who have joined the ranks of Battle Plan. One note before I begin - Babelfish has got to be one of my best allies. When the name you want for a character is taken, just go to Babelfish and voila, you've got that character's name in another language.

So here they are, the origins of my Battle Plan members. Warning, what you are about to read is in rough form. In order to put them all in one place and not get too wordy, they are abbreviated and not too descriptive. The full, glorious origins will probably remain in my brain until one day I decide to sit down and write a book about them. Oh, and it's rather nerdy.

************* WARNING: NERD ALERT************* WARNING: NERD ALERT

Vulcanian
One of my oldest heroes. Vulcanian was once a cab driver who acquired tickets to a tour cruise of paragon city. The cruise steered too close to an island infested with the villain group the Circle of Thorns, and the Circle took advantage. Vulcanian was abducted and made the subject of a ceremony to bring forth an ancient demon. A battle took place in the astral plane, and the surprisingly strong willed Vulcanian defeated the demon. He was shocked to find out that half of the ceremony was successful - his once human body was now replaced with a rocky, horned demon body. He escaped, and now fights crime with a mystical axe and his fire abilities. Despite his demonic appearance, he is well liked in his hometown. His creation was heavily influenced by the movie Hellboy, but his personality is more like that of the Thing. Named after a type of volcanic eruption. He is partnered with Blue Wire.

Dionaea

Dionaea grew up with two focuses - playing pranks, and protecting her siblings in a dysfucntional family. A mutant, Dionaea's powers emerged in her teens. She had the potential to be a very powerful telepath and telekinetic, but she focused on what she grew up with, so now she is a powerful illusionist, using telekinetic force fields to aid her allies. Named after a venus fly trap (get it? cause they use trickery). Partnered with Hot Strike.

Metal Menace

Ahh, the only holdover from the pen-and-paper days. He was an air force pilot testing an experimental plane powered by a new energy source. The plane experienced a freak storm and crashed. He gained the new ability to control weather, but was forced to receive cybernetic implants to stay alive. The implants use the same energy source as the plane, which allows him to fire blasts of the energy. (unfortunately his ability to grow in size did not make it into City of Heroes - that power is not in the game) :)

Tainted Earth

Was an archaeologist who thought he unearthed a great discovery - but to his horror he found a corporation was using the underground ruins to store its industrial waste. The corporation stumbled upon him and sealed him inside. In classic comic book fashion, the radioactive energy in the waste empowered him with control over the earth around him, as well as the ability to generate radioactive energy for various uses. He used his abilities to escape and bring down the corporation. He is now partnered with Verderoche, another hero with earth abilities.

Undershadow

Was a woman from the 1960s who discovered on her 21st birthday she was to be a sacrifice in her father's spell to prolong his life and give him more power. She enlisted the help of a local supergroup, who determined that the best way to stop him was at the spell itself. They were successful in stopping the sacrifice, but the desperate sorcerer did succeed in banishing Undershadow to a dimension of pure darkness, in exchange for some power. Undershadow did not stay trapped for long, however, as she used her occult knowledge learned from her father to escape the dimension. She soon discovered while she had spent only days in the dimension, she emerged several decades later in the real world. She also carried with her some of the dark energies from her prison dimension, and now uses these powers to battle evil. Is partners with Toxoplasma.

Epineux

Was born into a wealthy family, owner of several businesses. He was also born with the ability to heal quickly. Grew up around heroes - his father was benefactor to a large superteam that had been around for decades. In fact, he was around heroes so much that he wanted to be a hero - often placing himself in dangerous situations. Goons from a rival corporation saw him use his abilities and kidnapped the boy. They planned to harness his healing powers and create fast healing soldiers. The plan backfired when Epineux's abilities caused his bone tissue to grow exponentially, causing a explosion of spears of bone, killing all present. Epineux escaped, racked with guilt over the incident. He focused more on being a hero, and atoning for the deaths he caused (albeit accidentally). Since then he has trained intensely, and graduated college, giving himself the knowledge not only to help his father run the various businesses, but to be a great detective. Epineux fights alone. his name is French for "spiny." (more puns!)

Nonpareil

What was once an excuse to have a hero that looked good in a cape has now turned into one of my favorite heroes. He is definitely a product of the silver age of comic books, both in his demeanor and his costumes. But he wasn't always Nonpareil. He was actually born in the 19th century, son to a Greek museum curator. He moved with his father to the United States so his father could oversee a larger museum there. The museum received an odd artifact, claiming to be the mythological arrow that pierced Achilles in his vulnerable heel and killing him. An intruder came for the arrow one day, and when the young Nonpareil tried to stop him, he was struck in the heel with the arrow. Achilles' DNA mixed with his own, and soon he became largely invulnerable - and seemingly immortal. His exploits over the next few decades would be a novel. To make a long story short (too late), he held off becoming a costumed hero over fear that the world was not ready for metahumans. He joined the influx of heroes at the outbreak of World War II. It was here he discovered his only ability of invulnerability had its limits - he would need allies if he were to battle evil. He joined with a team of heroes and spent the next decades at various heroes sides, soon growing weary of seeing friends lose their lives to the fight against evil, and simply old age. He planned to retire after one last mission. He investigated a warehouse along with a fellow hero - a warehouse stockpiled with Rikti weapons, to be used in their invasion of Earth. A battle ensued when the heroes were discovered, and the weapons were ignited The warehouse blew up, and Nonpareil was rocketed to Canada, where he recovered with the help of some locals. He had lost his memory from before the explosion, and now had the ability to harness energy and use it for attack. He returned to Paragon City as Nonpareil - French for 'without equal.'