AFK Bio

[Asymptotic]

I follow a personal rule with my characters.  Once they get IO sets, they get bios as well.

 

I've got 19 chars with bios so far.  Some are written in first-person, some in third.   Some are serious, others humorous.  Here are some of my favorite ones.

 

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Serious Bios

 

Nighttide (Storm/Dark Defender)

Spoiler

 

In 1892, occultist Caleb A Smith chartered a boat to the lost city of Sel'aloth, which he uncovered in his studies.  A sudden storm erupted during his voyage and he was never heard from again.

 

Two years ago, the man now known as Nighttide was washed ashore, his only possession a pocketwatch monogrammed C. A. S.  He has no memories of his past.  All he remembers is the fury of the storm and a deeper darkness within.

 

The fury and darkness is in him now.  He believes he can master it.  He believes it can be used as a force of good.  But the nightmares are getting worse.

 

 

Kelanu (Fire/Shield Scrapper)

Spoiler

 

Deep in the Sahara lies the Temple of the Shifting Sands, home of the Order of the Red Asp.  Their astrologers have read ominous signs in the stars.  Great evil is arising in the west.  So, they dispatched Kelanu, mystic warrior trained in sand and fire, to investigate.

 

Upon arrival at Paragon City, Kelanu has confirmed their worst fears.  The Circle of Thorns have emerged and the Mu have returned to fight them.  Adamaster has arisen.  And the fairy gates are open in Croatoa.  It will be many a day before he can return to the quiet of the Temple.

 

 

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Humorous Bios

 

Scree (Ice/Earth Dominator)

Spoiler

 

I am Lady Scree from Scranton and I am here to save you!

 

Did you just snicker?  Scree is a noble name.  I come from a long line of Screes, and am proud that Papa Scree passed it on to me.

 

And Scranton is a remote mountain kingdom in the Alps.  I do not know of this "Pennsylvania" you talk of.  Our kingdom is populated with a kind and gentle folk.  I call them my screeple.

 

I heard that chortle!  It is not funny!  You are not funny!  Why do you torment me so?  Just the other day, a vandal inscribed on my scooter, "I scry Scree scratching Scrapyard's scrotum."  I would never do such a thing!  And I do not know this Scrapyard person!

 

Stop laughing!  It is unseemly!  Screeple must show scruples!

 

 

Niminue (Fortunata)

Spoiler

 

To strengthen his Arachnos army, Lord Arachnos "borrows" assets from other organizations.  Sadly, his acquisitions from the Council have been disappointing.

 

Crab warwolfs were a complete disaster; all the howling, and running around, and random maulings.  Its enough to drive any tyrant crazy.  Also, they chewed up his favorite couch.

 

Vampire widows weren't much better; so standoffish and aloof.  Most of them went feral and disappeared into the rafters.  The only one remained was Niminue.  She's loyal enough as long as she's kept well fed.

 

 

Electric Spoon (Elec/Elec Dominator)

Spoiler

 

The Spoon!  It speaks to me!

 

"Go out!", it proclaims.  "Go out, and strike down all the villainy and scum.  Let them tremble in my silvery might!"

 

"Then hold me up, for all to see!  For am I not filled with Majesty and Wonder?"

 

Oh, and oatmeal.  Mmm, I sure do love oatmeal.

 

 

[Hexquisite]

Oh, silly bios? Well...

 

 

[DoctorDitko]

2 hours ago, KauaiJim said:

 a crusty, ill-tempered, and usually old man

Your point?

 

[KauaiJim]

1 hour ago, DoctorDitko said:

Your point?

 

I don’t think I had one. 

[Arnabas]

Virtually all of my characters have bios. Some of my characters from live have numerous stories written about them, including two novellas. I might have about 4-5 characters without a bio written yet, but that just means I am hammering out the details before writing them up, or sometimes trying to condense it enough to fit in the allotted space.

[The_Warpact]

To possibly garner interest in this, have you considered having a "Bio Contest" instead of a costume contest?

Inf, recipe, etc prizes for this, promote it on your server forum, maybe get a dev or two to help push it.

We do contests for costumes, base building, AE mishes, etc why not Bio contests?

 

[huang3721]

8 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

 

Beauregard Reginald Buford

 

The smell. . . 

[Col. Kernel]

I'm far more likely to enjoy playing a character if I have a bio written.

 

Some I've enjoyed playing so I've written a bio for them.

 

Since you seem to enjoy the bios, I'll try to remember to grab some screenies for ya.

[Marine X]

Well I've got some with a set story

and some I'm always tweaking, 

Edited May 31, 2021 by Marine X

[On-Fire Dude]

I try to put SOMETHING in my bio, even if it's just a sentence or two, to give others an idea of who the character is. Of course MOST of my characters are concepts first, builds second. And I may not start with one, but add (or add to) after a few play sessions and I know I'm not going to abandon the concept.

[UltraAlt]

On 5/29/2021 at 9:38 PM, DoctorDitko said:

The first chance to make a bio happens during creation

 

I confess. I often have a character conception before I log into make a character. That includes at least the basic framework of the bio.

 

But I guess that's a "Which came first the Creation or the Character Creator?" thing.

 

 

[RebornRose]

I'm pretty picky about my character bios and the 1023 character limit is a pain, so to avoid needless revision, I try to workshop out ideas before I put it in the I.D. field.  

 

As for content, sometimes I do a (relatively) straight forward origin story:

Sometimes I do a character narrative:

I did a few that were meant to simulate press releases:

My current favorite bio belongs to my time displaced teenage super-nuisance posting to her social media account:

[UltraAlt]

On 5/29/2021 at 9:09 PM, DoctorDitko said:

Now, too many years later, it seems no one is. I wish folks would take a literal minute or two to make a biography! It seems, from my informal poll, that about 90% of toons -- even ones with amazing concepts and great costumes -- have <crickets> instead of a bio!

 

 

[UltraAlt]

whoops meant for some text in that, but can't seem to add it.

 

Sometimes an origin/bio mutates over time, but even if the character origin is "I wanted to check out an ice/ice tank" ... well... that is the character's bio ... to begin with ...

[Ukase]

To me, the best thing HC could do to promote the writing of back stories would be to increase the amount of space in which to write them. 1023 characters is only very rarely enough. Marvel & DC take a number of pages, with pictures (that are worth 1000 words) to tell an origin story, and we just get 1023. And spaces count, too! 

I do write back stories for certain characters. It's never enough space. Never. So, I stopped writing them for the most part. 

[MrAxe]

[Apparition]

I have never written a bio for any character, even prior to sunset.  I'm just not creative enough.  I reuse the same four or five costumes, and all of my characters have either "App" or "Apparition" somewhere in the name.

[Arnabas]

Well, since people are including their bios, I'll toss up a few.

[Col. Kernel]

On 6/1/2021 at 10:24 AM, Arnabas said:

 

NM, I figured it out.

 

I was in the costume creator yesterday and this bio came to me while I was making the character.

 

Edit:  1033 total characters out of 1024 available.  So how big is this field really?  And yes, I see the duplicate "ThisThis" and have corrected it.  The count is after the correction.

 

Edited June 9, 2021 by Col. Kernel
Answered my own question

[Marshal_General]

• How many people saw the thread title and thought it was going to be clever ways to say you need to pee?

[mistagoat]

Dis man am not wordsmith...

 

Seriously, I've made a few bios but it takes me hours to come up with a small paragraph that I'm pleased with. I'd rather put that time/effort toward playing in game or in mids, it's just more bang for my game time buck. I certainly haven't made my last bio but I'm afraid they are few and far between.

[huang3721]

26 minutes ago, Marshal_General said:

clever ways to say you need to pee

 

I didn't, but suddenly I remember this:

 

 

In all seriousness, try to write a bio, even if it's only one sentence long. If you think that your bio sucks after reading it a few weeks later, you can always revise it or make a new one. 

 

Write something. 

[Col. Kernel]

7 hours ago, mistagoat said:

Dis man am not wordsmith...

 

Seriously, I've made a few bios but it takes me hours to come up with a small paragraph that I'm pleased with. I'd rather put that time/effort toward playing in game or in mids, it's just more bang for my game time buck. I certainly haven't made my last bio but I'm afraid they are few and far between.

 

My probability of repeatedly playing and enjoying a character are directly related to whether or not I've written a bio.  I don't do RP, but generally speaking I need more of a concept than just powers and costume to continue coming back to the same character.

 

Conversely, if I keep playing a character without a bio, or with a very minimal bio, I'll probably end up writing or adding to the current bio.

[Ghost]

Maybe if the system for writing BIO's could somehow fix itself, more people wouldn't get so frustrated with it and actually write some

Anyways, here's the few I've done

 

 

 

 

 

 

[AxerJ]

I'd love to enter a bio contest under Atlas! Everlasting?

 

And @Ghost, badass, your writing really draws me in! Very well done.

Edited June 11, 2021 by AxerJ