Angels & Demons

[Haijinx]

2 minutes ago, Sunsette said:

Right guys, let's keep it complementary.

Or trigonometry

[Sunsette]

2 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

Or trigonometry

 

let's not, cos that'd be a sin

[sbloyd]

2 hours ago, Sunsette said:

 

let's not, cos that'd be a sin

Why?

 

cos.

[Grymbeard]

I see more bunny characters. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Many bunny's... ugh.

[Scarlet Shocker]

 

[Haijinx]

6 hours ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

 

She looks like an Angel... but ...

[Black Zot]

20 hours ago, sbloyd said:

Why?

 

cos.

 

Seems we're on a tangent here.

[Timeshadow]

Honest opinion/theory? Because a lot of people aren't great at creativity. 

 

When making anything, most people start with an idea of some sort and then just shoehorn in a bunch of derivatives from things they've seen, heard, or read someplace else. For example, the recent popularity of the Amazon Series, Hazbin Hotel (Which is all about the conflict between Heaven and Hell) has probably influenced a good number of newer players in some way. Thus, they pick the powersets they want to play and wrap the combo around an angelic/demonic character without any real consideration of the fact it's FoTM material. They don't really care about how creative or derivative it might be, they just want to have fun with something. 

 

As always, that's just my POV. YMMV. 

[WumpusRat]

On 3/10/2024 at 7:05 AM, Haijinx said:

Interesting thing is that I have seen Demon themed Thugs/

One of the characters I played most back on live was a thug/dark MM named "Tiny Whispers".

She was a little "shoulder devil" that gotten a bunch of otherwise normal guys to "go bad" by constantly urging them to sin. The pyro was a former diner cook, the two tier-1 thugs were accountants, the enforcers were police officers, and the bruiser was a rugby player. 

I had a whole slew of RP macros set up for them, where the thugs would be talking with one another, with one of the former-accountants giving tax advice, the rugby player reminiscing about a big game he made the winning touchdown in, all of them sitting around aimlessly chatting and ogling spandex-clad girls, etc.

[Marshal_General]

I don't have an angel character, but my Peacebringer Nun works for them.

[Sunsette]

10 hours ago, Timeshadow said:

For example, the recent popularity of the Amazon Series, Hazbin Hotel (Which is all about the conflict between Heaven and Hell) has probably influenced a good number of newer players in some way.

 

I might agree if I'd seen any angel characters that comport with what I've heard about that show's depiction of angels.

 

Seen a good number of devil characters that match that, but also the devils in Hazbin Hotel sound like bogstandard nerd "normal person with vague demon flavor" that I've seen for 2 decades.

[Placta]

On 3/8/2024 at 7:36 PM, Major_Decoy said:

The show Lucifer is very very loosely based on... I want to say a Neil Gaiman comic for DC.

 

Gaiman (and Mike Dringenberg and Sam Kieth) created the character for Sandman (which also had the backstory of leaving Hell to run a piano bar in LA) but the comic the show's based on was written by Mike Carey.

[Vic Raiden]

I confess to having a demon girl character as well. However, she predates my involvement in CoX by several years, and I've been experimenting with her backstory to make her stand out. Thus far, what I have is that she was born a human, but ended up taken to Hell and turned into a succubus on her 18th birthday due to a curse on her family. Eventually, she managed to make it out of there, and is now seeking ways to either undo her transformation or ascend to angeldom... also, despite having been a succubus for 150+ years, she's still a virgin. Either way, one of my favorite OCs that I felt compelled to port into the game.

[OldManMercy]

Given the huge amount of material to draw from (i.e. movies, books, comics) I'm surprised there aren't more characters than I currently see. I confess, I'm just audacious enough to have made a tribute to the Devil himself, given all the source material to draw from.  Mr. Frost, Constantine, Exorcist, The Prophecy, End of Days, Devil(M. Night movie) Devil and Daniel Webster, Mephisto from Marvel comics, Malebolgia from Image, Lucifer Morningstar from DC comics, not to mention all the cornucopia of demons and devils that aren't "main characters" or by lore, rulers of various and sundry Hells.

[Major_Decoy]

Well, you know what they say: "There's no hell crueler than the one that you make yourself for Snarky."

[twozerofoxtrot]

On 3/12/2024 at 2:26 AM, Timeshadow said:

Honest opinion/theory? Because a lot of people aren't great at creativity. 

 

This is accurate.

 

Particularly in my case.

[Tiresias]

Some of us like the theme. I have a D&D campaign setting where an individual's race means nothing in terms of personality; there are lawful good demons and chaotic evil angels to be found everywhere. In keeping with that, I have a lot of characters that take after fantasy tropes, including nephilim (angel/demon hybrids), orcs, werewolves, liches, etc. I also have characters that look like government agents (my Controllers and Dominators), some in environmental suit-type mechs (including one that looks like the Doomslayer), and a few characters with "plainclothes" costumes, like my Peacebringer, who wears a sweater vest and a plaid skirt.

 

In other words, the people playing angels or demons may just have that one character among many with that theme.

[Scarlet Shocker]

On 3/10/2024 at 6:13 PM, Sunsette said:

 

let's not, cos that'd be a sin

 

Are you going off on a tangent?

 

Or maybe angling for attention

 

I feel it acutely. Stop being obtuse!

Edited March 13 by Scarlet Shocker

[starro]

There are several in-game references to angels and demons in characters.... my favorite being the one in hot pants.

[Ringo]

I blame the animes

 

Attack and dethrone God!

[GM Crumpet]

So far this thread has been fun, and respectful. As long as it stays that way I'm happy. From my own personal point of view (I'm an utterly non religious person with zero faith who believes once we die that's it and we're gone) I am happy others have a faith even if I don't share it. As long as those who have a faith accept others don't, or have a different faith to them which is equally valid; and those with no faith are respectful and kind to those who do have a faith even if they don't share it, the world would be a lovely place and we'd all get on 🙂 

 

As for playing characters with a religious theme, that's been a thing since games started. Kids in playgrounds have always role played. Cowboys and Indians* was a thing when I was a kid, as was Angels and Demons. And aliens and spacemen. Which eventually bled into tabletop games then computer games. Humans are fascinated with the divine and the profane. TV shows, books YouTube shorts, movies. Everywhere you look you are not far away from some religious skit/spoof/drama.

 

*I know, I'm almost 60 and things have changed since I was 10  😛

 

[Player2]

On 3/11/2024 at 1:26 PM, Timeshadow said:

Honest opinion/theory? Because a lot of people aren't great at creativity. 

 

 

On 3/13/2024 at 7:10 AM, twozerofoxtrot said:

 

This is accurate.

 

Particularly in my case.

It may be accurate of you and others, but I think as a generalization it's wrong.  The game gives us angel and demon parts to work with... and then people make angel and demon characters and that's considered not creative?  I think it depends entirely on what you do with them, and even if someone goes entirely generic with the stereotype portrayal of either angels or demons (or both), it's still not necessarily uncreative because there could absolutely be a creative backstory for how that character came to be in Paragon City or the Rogue Isles, and/or how that stereotype of a character interacts with the environment and why and so on and so forth.

 

I myself have a number of demons and angels and demigods and greater entities, including a Mother Goddess of a scrapper and Omnipotence as a tanker to represent the forces of nature and higher spirituality.

 

As angels go, I have one called Soul Sword would likely fit more like the divine punisher Olympian gods' Nemesis in the big picture... another called Sacred Strike that is more of a fallen angel trying to earn some atonement by doing heroic deeds among mortals.  And there's a few others that probably fit better into other mythologies, like my electric/ninja blaster that was inspired by the The Storms in the movie Big Trouble in Little China.

 

I have a lot more demons, including a recreation of my Water/Kinetics Corruptor from the old days:  Java Devil.  She's a low-ranking fiend that was summoned to this plane of existence to commit some evil deed but along the way got a taste for coffee and became addicted to it.  There's my Hellfire Paladin, a Katana/Fire Scrapper which looks very much like a demonic knight in black and gold armor, but she was summoned by a well-meaning reformed practitioner of evil and tasked with a mission of protecting innocents... so she's an unwilling hero (vigilante).  There's Damned Soul, a rogue villain very much inspired by the cenobites of the movie Hellraiser.  I've got a Dark/Fire Dominator called Demonic Accountant, a villain through and through, that has the look of a good demon with the appropriate monstrous legs and tail and horned head, but he's got the Mad Science hairstyle and Classic Steampunk Vest jacket... he's just evil through and through, but he's more about the meticulous accounting of good and bad deeds weighing on the souls of others.  Oh, and there's my antichrist style scrapper, Hell-Child (Psionic/Bio Armor) that's just for spreading chaos.

 

Lots of fun ways to express the classic good and evil of angels and demons, both in appearance and story.

 

 

 

9 hours ago, GM Crumpet said:

So far this thread has been fun, and respectful. As long as it stays that way I'm happy. From my own personal point of view (I'm an utterly non religious person with zero faith who believes once we die that's it and we're gone) I am happy others have a faith even if I don't share it. As long as those who have a faith accept others don't, or have a different faith to them which is equally valid; and those with no faith are respectful and kind to those who do have a faith even if they don't share it, the world would be a lovely place and we'd all get on 🙂 

 

As for playing characters with a religious theme, that's been a thing since games started. Kids in playgrounds have always role played. Cowboys and Indians* was a thing when I was a kid, as was Angels and Demons. And aliens and spacemen. Which eventually bled into tabletop games then computer games. Humans are fascinated with the divine and the profane. TV shows, books YouTube shorts, movies. Everywhere you look you are not far away from some religious skit/spoof/drama.

 

*I know, I'm almost 60 and things have changed since I was 10  😛

 

Exactly.  Also non-religious here, but that doesn't mean I can't respect other people's faith (or lack thereof).  But this game is a work of collective, cooperative fiction, and even the stereotypes can be hella-fun to play around with.

 

Also... humans are fascinated with all manner of things, some of it mundane and ordinary (that justifies collectors and other hobbyists) and lots of it all manner of fantastical things from as you put it the old fashioned cowboys & indians fixation to aliens & spacemen to comic book tights-wearing superheroes.  Angels and demons, fantasy fairies & gods, God and the Devil, magic & super science, monsters & mayhem of all kinds grip our imaginations.

Edited March 14 by Player2

[Coyotedancer]

I have a whole flock of white-winged and black-winged characters... But they're neither angels nor demons. 

My "bird-things" are a non-canon species of Rularuu. They're Faathim's creatures. 🌞

[Latex]

I don't know much about the Angelic side of lore, but Demons have some and it's pretty cool, Hell/Netherworld itself being a dimension etc. It's probably popularised by Tiefling inspired characters too.

[Jeneki]

On 3/9/2024 at 3:27 PM, Supertanker said:

I remember when they first added wings there were so many "Angle" characters.

Yeah I remember that being a running joke in the official forums. Something like "Angle of Satin" with a backstory about getting superpowers from cutting their costume pieces in specific ways.