What's in your head canon?

[Coyotedancer]

There's so, so much tied up with my Oranbegans and their friends... Way too much to go into in a single forum post, honestly. It's a personal head-canon built up over too many years and too many characters to list easily.

 

A few points, though? That's more reasonable....

 

Those oddly above-ground Oranbegan ruins in Primeva? ... My gang call it the Temple and it's the only significant outpost of the original Oranbegan civilization that was never pulled underground to protect it from the Mu and their airships. Why? The Tree made it so difficult to attack that there was no need to sink it.  (That tree is one fierce plant. And she's grouchy. And yes, in my head-canon world, she's a she. As an Entity who was important to the Oranbegans long before the Mu came after them, she reflects the state of "her" people. Which is why she's mostly dead, fed-up with everything and not at all fond of uninvited visitors in the current era. In the post-Battalion future of Nova Primeva, things are very different-) 

 

Mot did a real number on the Circle in Paragon City... Parts of the Old City are still in shambles (More than usual-) after the Furies' incursions, and they lost a lot of Old Souls who won't be coming back no matter how many bodies the survivors snatch. That's making social and political waves, shaking up a culture that's been basically stagnant for fifteen thousand years. (That disruption plus the Battalion's invasion are the driving points of the backstory of Nova Primeva, the home of my Ordus Chronos time-travelers.) 

 

Dark Magic comes from more than one source. There's the Dark Dimension mentioned in City lore, of course, but there's also The Void, which is something else altogether. Some of my Dark types draw their power from one, some from the other... and a few, like Kai and Tavaris, manage to do both.

[WumpusRat]

7 hours ago, Saeletra said:

My other head cannon is that "Incarnate" also doubles as a power or threat designation. "The Well" doesn't fit into most people's origin stories or background or even where they want to take their character.

 

Yeah, all my D&D/Pathfinder characters that wound up in Paragon don't have powers granted to them by "the well of furies" or anything like that.

They're just gaining epic levels. 🙂

[lemming]

5 hours ago, Vic Raiden said:

Chris Jenkins the lawyer and Jenkins the Arachnos operative are brothers.

Maria is so disappointed in them

[Saeletra]

4 hours ago, lemming said:

9 hours ago, Vic Raiden said:

Chris Jenkins the lawyer and Jenkins the Arachnos operative are brothers.

Maria is so disappointed in them

 

Congratulations, you two! This is now in my head cannon! It's like perfect family dynamic for "City of _" Got a little bit of everything with those three!

[JasperStone]

Manny runs a spy group via all his gas stations.

 

How many gas stations does he have?

Consider WHERE they are.....

[Coyotedancer]

On 10/12/2023 at 5:17 PM, Sakura Tenshi said:

 

1. The military arm of Oranbega was the Circle of Bronze (as for all their advancements in magic, they didn't do much with metallurgy) and had proposed simply deploying mass War Golems to literally crush the Mu uprising though the Circle of Thorns had little respect for the Bronze (seeing them as dull and unintellectual) and thus opted for demon pacts.

 

 

Aaaand.... now I know the origin of Ordus Technica, the sometimes too-curious-for-their-own-good gaggle of Oranbegan technomancers (like Olympia, aka "Code Merlin") who are running around Nova Primeva, asking the Ordus Chronos time-travelers to bring back samples of any odd-ball technology or uncatalogued Mad Science they might encounter while visiting the Age of Troubles. They're a fun bunch... if regarded as a little dangerous when they want someone to test out a new invention. 😄

 

My own version of the general "stabby magi"-idea are the Order of Furies (a name that pre-dates First Ward, Night Ward and Dark Astoria's revamp by several years, for the record-)... Back during the war with the Mu, they were a group of lady mages and their thorn wielders who specialized in battle magic. Oreviel is the Prima Maga of their surviving members in Paragon's current era. Semnai, my favorite broadsword Brute, is one of their thorn wielders. In the Nova Primeva time period, Tessamun is a Fury. Somewhere along the line, they'll evolve into the Temple Guard. 

 

 

 

Edited October 15, 2023 by Coyotedancer

[Ankylosaur]

I don't think I have anything nearly as witty as the OG. Love it!

 

My head canon is based on my AE stories, so sharing them reveals spoilers, but if you have not tried them by now, I am not sure these spoilers will hurt you. 🙂

• Spoiler

  • The Snakes are descendants of the Gorgons, obvs. 🙂(Serpent Beyond the Horizon)
  • The people in the shard are descendants of rescuees from the Ritki homeworld. (Rularularian)
  • In a move everyone should have seen coming, Lord Recluse broke disgruntled Praetorians out of Refugee Island and dumped them in Mercy for Destined Ones part deus (All That Glitters)
    • Alan Desslock joined Wyvern
    • Dr. Creed now works for Langston Labs, which is run by Zoe
    • Mongoose became a Gold Bricker, as did some resistance praetorians like Wardog, Jack Hammer, Hatchet, etc 
    • Langston Corp expands to Paragon City, mostly through a plan to reclaim and revitalize hazard zones while using the Gold Brickers as the high end security needed.
    • King Midas was awarded governance of Cap, ousting Aeon
    • Guido Verandi and the Mooks were awarded governorship of Port Oakes. They have a presence in Paragon too.
    • Professor Echo is from Praetoria
    • "The Doctor" is out of her digital space, now in a Revenant shell stolen from Crey and is attached to Wyvern
    • Langston is the one supplying most groups with Praetorian tech, using their AU tech to break through the Wards that make most people traveling to Praetoria go to the past.
  • The First Warders were given Astoria to reclaim, known as Light Astoria now because of the Carnival of Light, though bad guys are still everywhere like most CoH zones (All That Glimmers)
    • In a complex plot involving luring others to do most of the work, Magus Mu' Drakan thwarted his Mu rivals, pushed back the CoT, and ousting Scirocco and Ice Mistral, bringing in Ksenia Stray as second, takes their place
    • Neo Tokyo controls Praetoria, defeating Hamidon using the only thing not at Cole's disposal, magic, and put up the above mentioned wards.
    • Scirocco and Ice Mistral are in Neo Tokyo. Originally kidnapped for their Mantles of the Wind whose equivalent had been destroyed by Cole, they joined the Neo Tokyo Order of the Wind to redeem themselves.
    • Desdemona and Vanessa manage to split though Vanessa can only manifest in highly magical locations where the veil is thin, like Astoria
  • After the Council schism on Striga, a group of Nictus dissenters, who had lost faith in Arkan and Requiem fled Primal Earth for Praetoria in search of a new world to try to conquer. (All That Glows)
    • Much of this is brought on by you, time traveller - Catch 22 sort of thing.
    • Dr. Helix is one of these Nictus, one of the first to Scout the potential of Praetoria.
    • Requiem does some experimentation with Shard fragments and the fifth column, and eventually lures those Nictus to his side
  • Penelope Mayhem is happily trapped in paradise-like mental construct of her own making, regressed to her younger self (All That Glints)
    • The Council, keen to rebuild, invited her and the Awakened to join their number, but it did not go super well.
    • Mr. G and gang make it back to Praetoria and integrate into Neo Tokyo.
    • Beholder is out there exploring this too.
  • A few groups steal Rikti Monkeys to make them their new weapons. (Monkey Business)
    • The Syndicate work with Joe Young to capture Monkeys which pyrokineticists can immolate to spice up the fights!
    • Special Freakshow are trapping them, and not just selling them to the Syndicate, but also to the Council, and Nosferatu is experimenting with putting Nictus shards in them.

 

The closest I have is a running gag with Duke Mordrogar who is convinced he could control demons. Really, it was his Hellion "Girlfriend from Hell," "Duchess Mordrogar" who tried to unleash Bat'zul with him, but has since left him. You encounter him all over the place trying to summon demons unsuccessfully. Usually he's been trapped by them, and will willingly ally with you to get out of there alive.

Edited October 18, 2023 by Ankylosaur

[Dona Eis Requiem]

So my spooky SG 'Horror House' is full of heroes from a very dark predecessor to Crey's Revenant Hero Project.

 

During this time, Crey weren't just stealing hero DNA and making clones, they were making actual revenants.

They are the resurrected corpses of fallen heroes but they retained too much of their humanity to be of any use to Crey.

 

 

 

[Vic Raiden]

Spooky...

 

Meanwhile I bring some more headcanons, possibly more joke than anything else:

• Nemesis used to mentor Lord Recluse back in the latter's early days, and was in fact responsible for staging his takeover of Arachnos... which backfired horribly as Recluse decided he's not going to remain loyal to some old prick now that he's the leader of one of the most powerful crime syndicates in the world.
• Nemesis also used to work closely with the Nazi regime back during WW2, and co-operated with Nocturne on building up the Fifth Column. The schism that led to the Council's formation wasn't part of his plan, though.
• Hellions and Skulls are either actively fanboying the Circle of Thorns and the Banished Pantheon respectively, or are outright their auxiliary groups meant to sway young, bored people with nothing to lose to their cause.
• There exist several more cities like Praetoria, some of which are loyal to Emperor Cole's global regime while others aren't, not that Cole and his Praetors care. Either way, they're few and far between in the world overrun with Devouring Earth, in various states of habitability.

[Vic Raiden]

Here come a couple more:

• Analogously to the Mot/Tartarus situation I described before, Tielekku and Zeus are just two of many manifestations of the CoH-verse's celestial embodiment of Good.
• The female Merit Vendor who stands next to Arbiter Unger in Port Oakes is his wife.
• 5th Column utilize a lot of tanks, trucks, planes and other military vehicles which take after WW2-era German machines refitted with contemporary technology. Their roster even includes at least one large airship fitted with an aircraft carrier landing stripe and a large battleship's worth of weapons.
• Unlike her Primal counterpart, Praetorian Vanessa DeVore never succumbed to possession by the porcelain mask she wears.
• Praetorian police and military forces make extensive use of cloning to bloat their ranks, and a number of Resistance members are runaway defective clones.
• Praetoria's civilian population was largely evacuated by the time of the Magisterium Trial, meaning there were hardly any casualties after Tyrant's nuclear strike. The souls he later absorbs instead belong to everyone who ever died directly because of his regime.
• Mercy City is only populated by Arachnos members, Destined Ones and the wealthiest denizens of the island, who live in conditions far better than the people of Darwin's Landing, which is most of everyone else. There's been several attempts by desperate souls to sneak into Mercy without joining Arachnos, to varying degrees of success.

Edited November 9, 2023 by Vic Raiden

[LegionAlpha]

On 10/12/2023 at 3:01 AM, cranebump said:

Battalion invaded. We were going to lose. We “snipped out” the strip of time where we lost and placed it in its own universe, where the cycle repeats itself, and the (now trapped) entity that actually sent Battalion our way isn’t aware they can never win. This strip of time is the “missing” 7-year time gap.

 

(which is the basis of my Ordinary People-Leviathan-Mobius megastory, below).

 

 

It was a "blink" like in Infinity War

 

[cranebump]

34 minutes ago, LegionAlpha said:

 

 

It was a "blink" like in Infinity War

 

A bit of that and first Dr Strange film I’d say.:-)

[PoptartsNinja]

The OG Paragon City Freakshow were Rikti War veterans who were either given Excelsior and hastily cyborged to fight the Rikti, or who survived debilitating injuries and turned to cybernetics after. That's why, whenever the Freakshow build something, it's a fortification. And it's also why their greatest fortification is in Crey's Folly, just below the entrance to the RWZ, so that the Freaks would be the first on the scene for the inevitable breakout. These OG Freakshow are mostly gone now, and under Drek's leadership (and unwillingness to get vaporized by Rikti plasma) the urban disaffected the Freakshow have recruited have almost entirely lost the original plan.

 

 

Rikti are afraid of the dark have almost no night vision, which is why their armor always has built-in night lights.

[jkwak]

my hadcanon ... CoH is set in the same multiverse as two major Super Hero Comic Publishers universes
an invasion of certain Super Heroes turned Zombies or a timetraveling Speedster changing the history of the Multiverse because he wants to rescue his mom is very possible

Edited November 9, 2023 by jkwak

[Herotu]

What's in your head canon?

 

Mind bullets. It's the best I could do, I'm sorry, I'll get me coat.

[Healix]

Mind bullets will make your hair grow out in bangs...

[LegionAlpha]

Dude! That is over a lot of a lot of years of head canon, from 1870 to present and occasionally mixed with time travel, alternate realities, aliens(not the Kheldians or Ritki but the Greys), first appearance of Ralaruu, Moth Man, Jersey Devil, Jim Crowe era/Klan, involvement with Television and many other things. Including Statesman's Grandma who by chance was exposed to "something" that extended her life and was very critical Statesman's detachment from humanity to the point of being a "disappointment". in her eyes. Please note a lot of this did not include super beings till after the box was opened in the 1920's or 30's 

Edited November 10, 2023 by LegionAlpha

[Placta]

My take on the "snap" idea: In late 2012, as a last-ditch effort to stave off the Coming Storm, an Ouroboros splinter group changed Primal Earth to a mundane world free of superheroes/magic/mad science/madder gods. A few (sliding) months ago, when they felt sure the Batallion no longer felt we were worthy of their attention, they restored it... with some unintentional changes.

 

This explains:

• Differences in the Homecoming world and the world as we remember it from the Paragon days
• Differences in my characters – some changed origin/archetype/powersets, some had details of their backstories rewritten, modified appearances, etc.
• Why my characters (aside from Rachel, who's immortal) have a static age without me having to worry about birthdays/Stef escaped Astoria as a teenager/Cheryl's grandmother was a hero during WWII/etc.

Edited November 10, 2023 by Placta

[Yomo Kimyata]

I’ve got a handful of self-generated items/characters that provide internal consistency in terms of back stories/costumes.  Some of it is one off, like a themed supergroup.  But I have a few more that get used a lot more.  Example:  I reference the Fouress formula for many of my science characters, which is my variant of a Super Soldier formula.  Example:  Doc Zarathustra is a non-evil criminal mastermind who is behind a lot of my backstories.  Example:  Balachko was a (fictional) city in Siberia that was used for generating Russian supers on the sly until something happened and the entire city mysteriously went away.

 

Honestly, most of this is in my head and doesn’t always get into my “official “ canon.  One of my favorite characters, Stone Hands McGee, was a former American football player who shifted to MMA when everyone realized he couldn’t catch worth a damn.  During a fight, his opponent Iron-55 Mike bit him on the ear and gave him super powers.  Iron-55 Mike, in turn, was previously bitten by a radioactive dog on December 26, which gave him boxing powers.

[Corlagon]

On 11/10/2023 at 2:25 AM, Placta said:

My take on the "snap" idea: In late 2012, as a last-ditch effort to stave off the Coming Storm, an Ouroboros splinter group changed Primal Earth to a mundane world free of superheroes/magic/mad science/madder gods. A few (sliding) months ago, when they felt sure the Batallion no longer felt we were worthy of their attention, they restored it... with some unintentional changes.

 

This explains:

• Differences in the Homecoming world and the world as we remember it from the Paragon days
• Differences in my characters – some changed origin/archetype/powersets, some had details of their backstories rewritten, modified appearances, etc.
• Why my characters (aside from Rachel, who's immortal) have a static age without me having to worry about birthdays/Stef escaped Astoria as a teenager/Cheryl's grandmother was a hero during WWII/etc.

 

I have something like that on my mind, too, except that the multiverse was destroyed by the Coming Storm – Ouroboros Portal interpreted it that way –, and has now been recreated somehow.

 

This idea has actually made it into the backstories of a few of my new characters. One of them managed to link herself to a higher reality and acquired omnipotence but not omniscience, and had no idea the Storm was coming. In the imperfect recreation of reality, said link is damaged, and this has rendered her insane.

[huang3721]

I am probably the weird guy here because I use a comic book time scale. IMO, Issue 23 opened so many problems. (Incarnates, Praetoria destruction, its tech transfer, the incoming Battalion, etc.) Therefore, something had to happen in the next few months. My suspension of disbelief can't accept Paragon City (and Rogue Isles) went into stasis post-Issue 23 for a decade.

IMO, the First Rikti War happened only a few years ago. (The lore said 2002, but it wouldn't make any difference if it happened in 2012 or 2022.) The small timeframe explains why most of Paragon City areas look like slums with homeless people everywhere. There were too many disasters in such a short time. Also, xenophobia is rampant cause the Second Rikti War is still ongoing.

 

Speaking about multiverse, I consider CoH and CoH: HC as different but identical universes. In the COH universe, most of my old toons have retired and moved on at the end of Issue 23. Yes, I lost contact as soon as NCSoft pulled the plug. Although I can no longer interact with them, they are still there, minding their business as ordinary citizens. As their story had concluded when the sunset came, I don't see any merit to recreate my old toons from CoH.

 

[Azari]

Nemesis is actually real and they created City of Heroes as a distraction for all of us.