Praetorian Epic Archetype: The Olympian - Kryptonian-style AT

[Shazbotacus]

Speak for yourself, I wouldn’t mind a, uh... “Soldier of Freedom” or something that might have powers from Longbow and PPD, especially those that players can’t normally have like SWAT’s grenade launcher.

[Steampunkette]

6 minutes ago, Shazbotacus said:

Speak for yourself, I wouldn’t mind a, uh... “Soldier of Freedom” or something that might have powers from Longbow and PPD, especially those that players can’t normally have like SWAT’s grenade launcher.

... god I hate Longbow...

 

They're a privately owned Paramilitary Organization created by Miss Liberty expressly to overthrow Lord Recluse. They run around Mercy Island armed with Flamethrowers (Banned by the Geneva Convention) firing willy nilly in the world's largest Fire Hazard slash Civilian Area.

 

They're a terrorist organization that gets lauded for being heroes. It's so sickening.

 

No thank you. I'd rather have something superheroic than another way to fire a gun. We've got, what, 5 ways as it stands? Assault Rifle, Beam Rifle, Thugs MM, Dual Pistols, Arachnos Soldier, and Robot MM. 6 different ways.

 

That's more than enough. We don't need yet another Run and Gun AT. We need something superheroic... though the Olympian is probably not the best way to go about that, either.

[Shazbotacus]

I won’t hide my bias towards firearms, and I readily admit my envy of several factions having powers assigned to flamethrower, grenade launcher, and even rocket launcher weapon models.

 

That being said, back on topic, I would love an archetype with friggin’ powers from Greek gods. How could that not be awesome?

Edited October 28, 2019 by Shazbotacus

[biostem]

If we're going with this notion of an "Olympian EAT", then what I'd like to see is basically a variation of superstrength, only instead of any sort of rage mechanic, your melee attacks become charged with different elements, and you gain associated ranged attacks.  Figure something like this:

 

The "base" form is that of a demigod.  You *only* have superstrength-like attacks any maybe a boulder throw.  Then you pick which god you're going to follow;  Zeus grants lightning, Prometheus grants fire, Poseidon grants water/ice, and Hades grants darkness.  Your base form simply has s/l-type resistances, and you gain additional ones befitting your chosen deity.  The inherent could be something like "inspirational", which grants a buff to allies near you, (sort of like a MM's supremacy).  If that's too generic, maybe something like "god's wrath", where you either build up a meter to unleash a devastating attack of your deity or can otherwise channel their power for a short duration.  Maybe just grant each attack a chance to cause a lightning strike/fire burst/etc.

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

10 hours ago, Steampunkette said:

I can largely agree with your points but here's a couple things that we have to remember:

 

We keep reinventing the same stories. The Outsider who becomes powerful, like Tarzan or John Carter, is the same story as the Demigods of Greco Roman Myths. And shit like The Last Samurai or Iron Fist where the white guy winds up in a foreign culture and masters it (In the case of Iron Fist style stories, becoming better at it than the people for whom it is their native culture in perhaps the clearest example of racist cultural appropriation) is Tarzan and Perseus, too. And for a young nerd in the early 1900s, libraries had tons of options for reading the Greek and Roman myths, particularly ones often referenced in Literature and History classes, like Hercules and Sisyphus. These kinds of stories are so ingrained in Western culture that we use their names as words. Herculean, Sisyphean, Narcissist. We look at an Atlas fore directions 'cause he's holding up the world. We Hypnotize each other for fun or emotional wellness. And we turn to our Muses for inspiration. When a Cop Car needs people on the side of the road they hit their Siren. You don't have to study Greek Mythology in college to have an understanding of the big stories, or see how those stories interact with each other and plant seeds for new ones.

 

The other thing is: Lovecraft's characters never stomp out evil. They barely survive it, if they do. And rarely with their sanity intact! His whole thing was that there were concepts and beings that were too big to understand, too world-shattering to grasp. If modern sci-fi owes anything to Lovecraft it's the idea of what is alien and unusual... which for him largely boiled down to "Too many eyes and 1 or more tentacles which is too many tentacles!"

 

Fantasy honestly owes more to Lovecraft, all things considered, with his ancient monsters rising from slumber, casting humanity back to the stone age, and falling back asleep countless times throughout history (And he kind of owes that to Robert Howard and his ages of the world that make Africa the home of everything from Rome to Afghanistan, England to the US).

Actually lovecrafts characters fearing the unknown was just mirroring his own fears, including those highly motivated by bigotry and racial prejudice.  His Story "The facts concerning the late Arthur German" highlights how in his mind finding yourself to be of less then a pure racial ancestry is worthy of self immolation. Ironically we now know today that all of us carry a measure of neanderthal DNA and that ancient humans bred with and ate our early rival cousin species. I wonder how ol Howard would take that discovery.

 

I tend to rather then focus on the they barely survived or kept their sanity aspect as an atypical early writer exploring PTSD in a time when such trauma was barely discussed because it was seen as being cowardly and unmanly to be affected in such a manner. The fact is no matter who we are, the only people not deeply traumatized by such are sociopaths and psychopaths whose minds are basically the only ones predisposed towards such horror.

 

Oh and the Last samurai is not a pure work of fiction. Its based granted rather dramatically on the events surrounding Jules Brunet a french soldier that was sent to train japanese soldiers in modern warfare, and chose to ignore orders and stay to side with those he trained to resist further imperialistic invasion by western powers. Now I doubt he went all samurai sword master, but he was considered a very skilled french soldier so likely was damn handy with a sword, and it wouldnt be unheard of for him to of been adept in french foot fighting aka Savat as many french soldiers then and now do train in it.

 

Lovecraft stated many times his stories largely came from his own imagination, heavily inspired by horror stories his grandfather would tell him as a child. He suffered from night terrors and sleep paralysis, the spiders, rats, roaches, and other creatures that would crawl on him while he was unable to move fueled a mind with terror he learned to vent by putting pen to paper. Considering his very strict christian upbringing early on, its doubtful he was allowed anywhere near books on pagan gods and the myths surrounding them.

 

Nor do all of his protagonists break mentally, His german officer in The Temple chooses to meet his end stoically. The main character in the Shunned House while suffering a personal loss in the death of their uncle in no way is described as having been broken mentally but instead seems to stay calm and collected after the tragedy when dealing with the aftermath. And the old Doctor in the case of charles dexter ward while he does get badly shaken at one point in the story gets himself under control and in the end bravely faces and defeats the ancient enemy that he has uncovered the truth of. Not every one in his stories becomes a  gibbering madman nor dies tragically. Likely thats why the Case of Charles Dexter Ward is my favorite of his stories, this is perhaps because the old Doctor is based more on his beloved grandfather then himself, its typically those characters that seem to resemble the author that  break mentally the most often in stories.

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

2 hours ago, biostem said:

If we're going with this notion of an "Olympian EAT", then what I'd like to see is basically a variation of superstrength, only instead of any sort of rage mechanic, your melee attacks become charged with different elements, and you gain associated ranged attacks.  Figure something like this:

 

The "base" form is that of a demigod.  You *only* have superstrength-like attacks any maybe a boulder throw.  Then you pick which god you're going to follow;  Zeus grants lightning, Prometheus grants fire, Poseidon grants water/ice, and Hades grants darkness.  Your base form simply has s/l-type resistances, and you gain additional ones befitting your chosen deity.  The inherent could be something like "inspirational", which grants a buff to allies near you, (sort of like a MM's supremacy).  If that's too generic, maybe something like "god's wrath", where you either build up a meter to unleash a devastating attack of your deity or can otherwise channel their power for a short duration.  Maybe just grant each attack a chance to cause a lightning strike/fire burst/etc.

Prometheus isnt a god, he is a titan. a big difference. And that is only in our myths. In CoH lore they are all just natural spirits that feed off humanities latent psychic energy. Its the lets call it The Will of Existence aka well of furies that bestows power as such. The olympian project is just a cloning thing in CoH. The power is in the body not the spirit.

 

One thing you say taht I do find an interesting idea. instead of a build up/rage ability something more akin to the dual pistols elemental toggles on a otherwise phsyical melee set could be a nifty concept. Perhaps have the chosen energy change 2ndary effects the base attack could be SS with KB as typical, going fire would remove the KB and add a dot, Lightning could add a a strong stun effect, etc.

[biostem]

3 minutes ago, Bentley Berkeley said:

Prometheus isnt a god, he is a titan. a big difference.

Point taken.

 

3 minutes ago, Bentley Berkeley said:

One thing you say taht I do find an interesting idea. instead of a build up/rage ability something more akin to the dual pistols elemental toggles on a otherwise phsyical melee set could be a nifty concept.

Well, if it were just a toggle, I feel it wouldn't have the kind of gravitas that I'm looking for;  Perhaps that could be the AT's inherent - a divine blessing of sorts, which adds the chosen deity's element as extra damage, plus a chance for an elemental strike/eruption with each attack...

[Chance Jackson]

EATs really ought to have power combos not really available to players. As for PEATS the Loyalist side should have paths & one of those paths should include the heavy commander path.

[Haijinx]

Wow this has really gotten out there. 

 

 

[The 1 Endless Waltz]

28 minutes ago, Bentley Berkeley said:

Prometheus isnt a god, he is a titan. a big difference. And that is only in our myths. In CoH lore they are all just natural spirits that feed off humanities latent psychic energy. Its the lets call it The Will of Existence aka well of furies that bestows power as such. The olympian project is just a cloning thing in CoH. The power is in the body not the spirit.

 

One thing you say taht I do find an interesting idea. instead of a build up/rage ability something more akin to the dual pistols elemental toggles on a otherwise phsyical melee set could be a nifty concept. Perhaps have the chosen energy change 2ndary effects the base attack could be SS with KB as typical, going fire would remove the KB and add a dot, Lightning could add a a strong stun effect, etc.

 

 As I recall, ... the Olympians, Egyptian, and other ancient old world diefic entities were basically all a result  of humanities first discovery of the Well, but since they found a much more potent Well  because it was, assumingly, filling up for untold eons, compared to what Cole found in Greece around five thousand years later. Plus world human population was, for simplicity, say five million when the ancients found it. Compared to around two billion in 1928. [] According to one graph I found. [] https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth

 

Because it not only  cured Cole, and mutated Richter (Recluse) but the reopening of Pandora's Box also gave rise to Nemesis, the Dark Watcher, gave Team Vambrace that final spark of ingenuity for their power armor to work right. The Well was not only power, but also like the Mind Infinity Stone fueling ingenuity and progress. Granted Statesman and Recluse got the Lion's Shares for this new heroic age. But when they opened the box almost everyone also got a piece. It's just not everyone can access their share through whatever means.

[Marine X]

The only thing I ever thought that Champions Online did right ( I loathed the entire open instance that you had to be in almost all the time ) was allow a player to become a giant Monster. What if you could actually be Jurassik, Jack in Irons or another existing Monster, I know you'd end up getting your butt kicked but it would still be a blast. That would be a short but truly epic archetype to play.

[FDR's Think Tank]

This blows my mind how dangerously close this comes to IP infringement (largely established by Nuclear-Option Lawfare against companies too small to protect their Fair-Use and Parody applications of the law) AND crossing over into Politics. In a way, it's part of the deep crisis comic books are facing right now. The virtual corporate enslavement we have on shared touchstone stories and culture. The constant shifting sands of what is or is not offensive. The nostalgia for when the stories were better, even though in the past they were treated as a throwaway product and now they are treated as a CRITICAL signal boosting medium.

 

City of Heroes made it's own thing. Marvel and D.C. aren't losing money because someone makes a vague tribute character any more than they lose money because someone directly makes fan art of their characters in Adobe Photoshop and distributes it for free online. These corporations need to chill out, they want to monetize everything. Videogames are getting to the point where they want to get paid by influencers who even name drop them. Look at Bethesda and Fallout 76, which has gone far past any defensible efforts to make money off the free mods the Bethesda community has fanatically created to fix the often broken and buggy software.

 

Honestly, Marvel might as well sue Tumblr or the like for fan fiction stories. It's absurd, it's a waste of all our time. Honestly, I can't even see why, 20 years after the conception of a character, these companies need to maintain sole IP rights. Even if that isn't the case, they certainly shouldn't be allowed to sue someone because customers are able to use their imagination and model/name characters after a STORY that has been part of our culture since before most of us were born. It's perverse.

 

 

I like the idea of Praetorian AT. The Olympian could even be a later branch build for a Loyalist based AT. It's pretty easy to see why Goldside groups would sent Agents to infiltrate a rival and comparatively Hamidon-Free Parallel Earth. From a comic book standpoint, none of this seems remotely illegal from any standpoint... but we increasingly live in an informational corporate police state that wishes to control our fiction. So maybe instead of Eye-Lasers, go with eye-lightning. It's darn cool and not really contested. We also have options for Resistance, Hamidon, and other PEATs that would be a blast and give players new combos of power sets with possible alternative downsides. Maybe they could have a Cascade Resonance Failure weakness, sorta like Stargate SG-1 encountered when they tampered with parallel universes. Of course, then you might need to explain why non PEAT Goldsiders don't all have it, but you could easily give Goldsiders special Ancillary Powerpools and throw the weakness on once they unlock them.