Well, it took me nearly all of last night, but I finished reading over all of the submissions for the Champions Beta contest. It wasn’t easy, but I’ve chosen five of my favorites.
Let me start by saying that I wish I had a thousand beta keys to give away. It’s clear that a lot of you put a lot of thought and effort into your super heroes and their backgrounds, and it’s that kind of devotion and creativity that makes super hero MMOs like Champions really work.
If you didn’t win a beta invitation, at least know that I thoroughly enjoyed reading through all of the entries. It was a lot of fun, and I thank you for taking the time to submit your hero for considerations.
And now, I present to you the five winners of the Champions Online Beta Invite contest. All credit copyrights for these submissions belong to their authors.
This entry caught my attention because of its cool concept and attention to detail.
Submitted by Steven Vaughn.
Name: Svetlana Volkov
Alias: Russian Roulette
Classification: Villain
Abilities: Heightened aim and ambidexterity. Her weapon of choice is to dual wield two
gas-seal revolvers.
Background:
Svetlana Volkov was barely able to make rent working as a
cocktail waitress at Conti, one of St. Petersburg’s largest
casinos. It was a night like any other:
a massive headache induced from the loud slot machines and more lousy
tips. That was until the Bravta na
peeski (the Russian Mafia) opened fire on some undercover police officers. Svetlana tried to take cover behind a
Roulette table; unfortunately, she was struck in the back of the head from a
stray .22 bullet. By sheer luck the shot
was not fatal, but the bullet severed her corpus callosum (the tissue which connects
the right and left lobes of the brain).
Svetlana spent over a year trying to recover from her
wound. In that time her doctors noticed
a disturbing trend: her personality had split into two distinct egos named Red
and Black. Since her brain had effectively
been cut into two parts, these new personalities operated independently of each
other. Each ego controlled one of
Svetlana’s hands, allowing them both to manipulate different objects with great
manual dexterity. Despite this schism in
Svetlana’s personality, both Red and Black were dead set on one thing: revenge.
With help from their Uncle Dmitri (a former member of the
Spetsnaz and KGB), Red and Black trained in hand-to-hand combat and honed their
shooting skills. Their weapon of choice:
the Nagant M1895 Revolver. With their
ruthless nature and boundless charisma, Red and Black gathered a small army of
thugs and hoodlums which wrested control of the Conti Casino from the mob. It
was not long until Red and Black’s influence spread across Russia and over the ocean to America. There they made a name for themselves
operating the underground casinos of Millennium
City with guile and
merciless efficiency. Both heroes and
criminals came to know Red and Black by their favorite game and means of execution:
Russian Roulette.
Wesley’s take on a 50’s radio/tv show really helped his entry stand out. Plus, you don’t see a lot of shamanistic super heroes running around.
Submitted by Wesley Ward.
Submitted by John Rodriguez
Ronnie “Funk” Wilson was the king of the disco. No matter where he
went, people loved his style and his dancing. Anyone that saw him would
automatically think “Boy that cat’s fly. I bet his life is kickin’!”
The reality of it all couldn’t be further from the truth. By night,
Ronnie was the toast of the town. During the day, however, he was
nothing more than a mail room clerk with a small apartment in a bad
part of town. Ronnie struggled to keep himself cheerful in his position
but he always felt like there was something more he could. He felt as
if he was destined for some greatness he couldn’t see.
Ronnie Wilson’s life changed when the sad news of his father passing
away came to him in a phone call. As the registered next of kin, Ronnie
would have to fly out to his hometown in the American midwest and bury
his father. Along with that, he carried the responsibility of cleaning
out the house as well.
During the cleanup, Ronnie
discovered a large chest that apparently belonged to his great
grandfather. Inside, he found a slew of weird trinkets and jewelry as
well as a white, leather coat. When he looked it all over Ronnie was at
least happy that he now had some great stuff to wear out to the
nightclubs.
Little did he know, the strange objects
held magnificent powers. When Ronnie went back home, he took the chest
with him and decided to wear his new stuff out to his favorite place.
Sure enough, everyone he knew loved his crazy jewelry and again Ronnie
was on top of the world. Disaster struck, however, when a group of
armed thugs entered the nightclub and held everyone up for a daring
robbery.
The thugs took particular notice of Ronnie’s
lavish wares. When they tried to take them off of him, flashes of fire
and electricity materialized out of the jewelry and struck the
delinquents. The remaining thugs all turned their guns on Ronnie who
closed his eyes to await the storm of bullets but found the leather
jacket had resisted all of the rounds.
Ronnie began
shaking the trinkets around for another show of fire and lightning but
got an even bigger surprise in the form of zombies raising up out of
the marble floor of the nightclub and attacking the thugs before
returning to the darkness whence they came. Instead of being horrified,
the crowd cheered. Ronnie had inadvertently saved the lives of everyone
that night.
From that day forward, Ronnie began
realizing he had power. He examined the old chest once more and found
hidden pockets with tons of documents in his great grandfather’s
handwriting. The aged letters and notes described the forgotten arts of
necromancy and the arcane and explained that all of the pieces inside
of the chest possessed magical abilities that would imbue their wearer
with great power if he was deemed worthy. Ronnie’s great grandfather
had once donned the strange regalia and now it was Ronnie’s turn.
With all of that power he could clean up the injustice that
plagued the city and possibly the entire world. Of course, Ronnie
Wilson wasn’t going to cut it as a name. Considering he was now some
form of necromancer wizard thing, Ronnie decided he would try to blend
it all together with his love of funk and thus The Retromantic Dr.Funk
was born. Clad in his white leather jacket, swanky disco clothes and
laden with gold and silver magic jewelry, villains would fear bell
bottoms like they never had before. One matter still remained,
however…
Considering he could summon the undead to his aide, he didn’t
like the fact they looked so terribly creepy. Finding a solution, he
used his powers to make them always rise wearing the funkiest clothes
ever seen and thus renamed the horrifying zombies to be known as “The
Boogey Men”.
I was impressed at how many people wrote and recorded songs in such a short time. Liam’s Johnny Cash inspired character/tune paints a pretty vivid picture of an anti-hero… literally.
Submitted by Liam Kapel
“Hero” is what the mutants would like you to call them, however like all men,
power has gone to their head. They are attempting to make a superior race, and
silently stealing people in the night to erase. No man woman or child, or even
entire bloodline, is safe.
belief he is doing God’s work. Kane understands that even God makes mistakes,
and doesn’t mind helping clean up the mess. He dresses in black, with a long
black cloak, and a black fedora/cowboy hat to keep the rain out of his eyes, and
his cigar smoke in.
lyrics. (Click to hear the song)
have you created lord, forsaken once
again,
These
mutant empowered heroes, Still have the minds of
men.
You
know well as I what lays beneath a good mans
soul
With
great power comes corruption, no police force can
control
You
spawned a race of tyrants, mystical and
cruel
Hell
bent on their new mission, cleansing our genetic
pool.
Mothers weeping for their infants, snatched away if
deemed unfit
On
behalf of every nation, we won’t put up with this
shit.
So I
cloak myself in black, with my rifle by my
side
And
I’ll introduce my partner Jane, a loaded 45
Some
call me vigilante, some say hero some insane
My
victims call me lots of things but men say Shepherd
Kane.
In
the dead air of night, I stalk my
tainted prey
I see
that bastard Captain TinTooth, hauling kids
away
I
hunker down and line my shot, the night as my
disguise
And I
plug that mutant fucker Tin, right between the
eyes.
I’ve
sacrificed my old life, to bring justice to the
land
There’s no rainbows gum and lollipops, no, no ones
joining hands
We
don’t want these super “heroesâ€, with their muscle in
control
The
only super thing I’ve got’s an uncorrupted
soul.”
This entry had me laugh out loud at the visual in the third paragraph. It’s a pretty great character concept, and came with some nice artwork.
Submitted by Rachel Furman
The woman Lillian Atomicus is now known as the Heroine; Radiet, and
she is made of many, or… she is now.
As a girl, Lillian showed great affiliation with the magical ebb and
flow through the universe, able to whimsically conjure little
sparkles, change the colors of things on a whim, and generally be a
cute, happy, innocent little girl.
Of course some years later she tried to do something better, stronger,
more meaningful with her powers and inadvertently blew herself to
itty-bitty little pieces~ The burst of arcane prowess rightly
attracted a small collection of rogue magi gathered to the crater made
by the girl and collected as much of her as they could to start
weaving life back into her, stitching her together, supplementing
missing parts with magically crafted organs.
The Magi that found the once-girl essentially created a sentient
zombie and was bound to the corporeal earth via magical means. She was
allowed to search for what she did wrong in her incantation, and a way
to pay those back for her restored life.
Eventually this lead Lillian to Millennium City, where seeing the
others, she decided to don a mask to hide her scarred face, and set
out to seek new knowledge into the magical forces in our universe.
If you won, you’ll be receiving an email from me. I’ve also submitted your information to Cryptic so they can get you your beta invitations. Once in the beta, if it is at all possible to recreate your heroes in the game, take a screenshot and send them to me, I’d love to see them.
And thanks again to everyone who participated!