Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Heroes of other worlds?

From Aleph:

Thanot, Kinetix's brother, was empowered by another artifact their mother found. Instead of bringing objects to life, he can bring living things to a temporary death... His touch transforms them into inert materials. Diamond, coal, wood, what have you. He can restore them, but must do so after six hours or else they permanently turn into said material.

He has wisely avoided trying to turn things into liquid or gaseous forms.

He's been working as a paramedic. By transmuting accident victims into inanimate objects, he can "freeze" their injuries until they are transported to a hospital. He was also awarded a medal for ssving several people by turning them into iron during a flash flood. Seeing the changes his sister Kinetix has undergone has made him adamantly opposed to superheroing himself, though.

Ooh, I like Dreamcatcher! That's a neat power.

Thanot's power is cool, and I like how he has found a way to use a life-stealing power to save lives. (I was thinking of giving him a death-related power as well, only to fine-tune his ability to kill stuff to target disease organisms, parasites or tumors or the like, without harming the rest of a person.)

Thanks, Set! I had to go back and edit Dreamcatcher's origin, when i realized that the stampede could simply be her sister's precognition at work (however unlikely a stampede was).

Re Thanot, I thought death vs. life too, but I also wanted to relate his powers to inanimate objects.

I'm glad this thread got bumped!

Trinary, Dreamcatcher and Starback are all pretty awesome (though admittedly Starback does make my inner 12 year old snigger with the idea of flying by virtue of lit methane)...I like the idea though that Starback would be considered pretty intimidating to a Hykraian for reasons that would most likely not register for an offworlder all that much...

Here are some more contributions:

The White Sage is an enigmatic figure from Bgtzl. Cloaked in white robes which obscure his identity and give him a supernatural appearance, he has the same intangibility abilities as any native Bgtzlr with a little something extra...he has the psychometric ability to experience the recent history of anything or anyone he passes through.

The White Sage will often appear at homicide scenes and be able to identify a victim's murderer by walking through their corpse. Obviously this only works if the victim themselves was aware of their murderer, but even if they died unaware of who killed them he can usually gain enough clues to investigate further. Because he psychically experiences what happened as if it were happening to himself, he has had to learn to distance himself emotionally from other people and he therefore comes across as quite aloof and even creepy to anyone around him...he is unmistakably one of the good guys though, as he always uses his abilities to avenge crimes and help the innocent.

Tranquility is the resident superheroine of Earth's own moon. Amoris Riccioli was the first child born to the Lunar colony, and very soon after her birth her family realised she was something special. She was always a placid child, and those around her found her presence to be calming. As she grew older, she learned that she had a form of empathic influence over others. She could calm people down if they were angry, soothe their pain or grief, and even inspire feelings of loyalty and love where those feelings never existed. She never used these abilities selfishly though, only ever to help those around her.

As time went on, something else became apparent about Amoris. She never got sick, she healed quickly from any injury, and she aged extremely slowly. Even now, hundreds of years after the moon was settled, she physically appers to be in her late teens.

She always acted in the best interests of those around her anyway, but inspired by the Legion of Superheroes Amoris has recently designed a costume for herself and adopted the codename Tranquility, after the feeling she inspires in others (and also for the Sea of Tranquility, her birthplace). She has always felt a strong sense of connectedness to her lunar home, and never felt the slightest urge to leave. This is for the best, as what nobody (including Amoris) realises is that her powers are the Greek goddess Selene's final gift to humanity before her pantheon left Earth's plane completely. They will only function while she is on the lunar surface, and if Tranquility were ever to leave the moon her centuries of life would catch up with her and she would die of old age in moments.

I wonder if we should attempt to write a fic using all these characters we're creating.

From Starhaven -

Spirit Guide is a a much sought-after "guide" because she can see the paths people may take in their lives. A session with her will involve her walking you through the potential consequences of major life choices you may make. She can even suggest several paths you may consider in the distant future. She's a precog, in a way, but focuses on the "maybes" instead of the "definitelies".

Oh gosh, there's just too many! Still, it could be fun to use some of them!

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From Braal;

Doctor Polaris, M.D., this ambitious and supremely confident young woman was born with weaker than racial average magnetic abilities, which she has made the best of by learning to use them on a micro-scale (which normal Braalians can rarely do, lacking the fine control), allowing her to read and manipulate signals in machinery, re-program computers, or even affect the human(oid) nervous system, causing paralysis or even jerky physical manipulation. Barely able to lift a couple of kilos off the ground, magnokinetically, but able to interfere with brain functions and knock people out with a touch, or a few moments concentration, at relatively close range. Keen magnetic perception and training allow her to function as a living MRI, or 'EMP' living organisms. She is a trained physician, and has some medical applications for magnetism as well, to prevent shock or accelerate healing (to a very limited degree!). Is well-aware that there used to be a villain with magnetic powers named Dr. Polaris, and ironically says that she's just following in the footsteps of Brainiac 5, reclaiming the name of a villain from the dustbin of history.

I like the White Sage's concept. It's kind of like a more passive version of what Quislet does, but instead of passing into an object and seizing control of it (and eventually destroying it), White Sage passes through a character and sort of let it all sift through him on a molecular level, learning all about it.

Tranquility's ties to Selene are very cool! I made up a 'Moon Maiden' ages ago in some other thread, but I think I like the link between Tranquility's powers and the Sea of Tranquility and Selene better. That's some nicely tied-together backstory! (The aging-to-death if she leaves the moon thing could suck for her, though!)

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From the Sorcerer's World (not a hero, by any stretch of the imagination!);

Mauvais Mal Sang is a blood mage. By preparing an item with a few drops of his own blood, he can manipulate it via spells that simulate telekinesis, pyrokinesis or weather control effects. He can make 'flame powder' or 'alchemist's fire' for instance, or a sealed clay pot that when opened releases a great cloud of fog, or a sack that produces a gust of wind, or a 'winged knife' or enchant his staff to allow him to fly (as long as he holds on tight!), or do the same to his clothing (much safer!). He's also a whiz at both magical and mundane arts of blood analysis and can manipulate another person's mind or body (or spy on them, read their emotions, etc.) by getting his blood on or in them. Getting his hands on someone elses blood allows him to do all sorts of divinations upon them. Through direct blood manipulation he can cause someone he's touching to experience excruciating pain (or pleasure!), and can heal or harm, to a limited extent (pain is caused by manipulating flow of blood telekinetically, or by heating it up pyrokinetically, or by *turning blood to water*. He didn't start out intending to be a 'super-villain,' but definitely a charismatic problem character, as he's got a blood cult and uncertain ambitions... If the Legion foils his plans, he's likely to become the Legion of Super-Villains go-to person for magical solutions. (Would be Brother Blood, for the new century, works off of Sorcerer's World, for the most part, attempting to build his cult.) Carries an assortment of notched knives for ritual bloodletting.

I like that Spirit Guide is less of a costumed adventurer, and more of a 'person with powers' who serves as more of a plot element, offering counsel and guidance to a character, rather than running around solving crimes and getting into fistfights. It's a neat practical power, and the sort of thing that might be good at averting crimes before they happen (by steering lost or confused or misguided people towards better paths in life).

It's kind of where I was going with Link, but he's uber-specialized in dealing with Winathian singletons, whereas Spirit Guide's counsel can help all sorts of folk.

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From Titan;

Obyria Sajh, 'the Titanian Supergirl.' Obyria has developed the ability to use her natural telepathy to communicate at ranges of several thousand kilometers (most Titanians are limited to a couple hundred yards, or, at most, a kilometer or two), although she does not have the ability to deeply probe minds, telepathically 'shout' to mental blast others, edit memories, create illusions, etc. (Like most Titanian telepaths not named Imra, her telepathy is purely for communication, and she can no more use telepathy to seize control of another persons' mind or body than the average Earth-human could shatter a glass by singing at it.) She also has a greatly developed gift for mind over body / biofeedback techniques, which most Titanians can use only to meditate and block mild pain and the like, but she can use to place her body in a state of near-stasis, while yet remaining active, allowing her to ignore extremes of temperature and pressure, hunger, pain, thirst, fatigue, etc. and even to survive in the vacuum of space unprotected (her limited telekinetic gifts even help her to retain body heat and shield off the effects of ambient radiation). Finally, she has the rarest of Titanian psychic gifts, that of telekinesis, although she can only affect her own body, and use her power to levitate herself from the ground. Most Titanians with this gift can only levitate while meditating, a meter off of the ground, but she can propel herself from the ground into orbit with her power, and fly at speeds comparable to hovercraft. While something of a legend on Titan, she smiles at the thought of joining the Legion, since her amazing powers are matched by the 'abilities' that every Legionnaire is handed upon acceptance, in the form of their Legion Flight Ring, transsuit and telepathic earplugs...

More from Titan! Why should Earth, Xanthu and Lallor be the only worlds to have their own hero teams?

Introducing, Team Titan, a group of (mostly) Titanian telepaths who specialize in different forms of highly specific telepathic perception and manipulation, each an expert without peer in their specific area of focus.

Adjudicator Wei Krim specializes in perceiving and manipulating sensory information. He is able to interact with / manipulate / perceive sensory information *before* it reaches the brain, bypassing most telepathic / psychic defenses or perceptions. A near photographic memory and special interface implant (built by his teammate, Jianni) that allows him to store sensory information (his own or that received from others) into special holo-crystals. Illusions, blinding foes, spying on people by tapping into their senses without them knowing it are his specialties when action is called for. He's an older curmudgeonly sort, fanatically law-abiding, of Tibetan ancestry.

Operative Dren MacLaren, focuses his telepathic talent to perceive & manipulate emotions. He plays the role a promiscuous playboy, with a reputation for using his powers to 'get lucky,' but does not abuse his powers in this manner (although he does manipulate his *own* emotions, to fill himself with self-confidence!). Generally mistrusted by anyone who hasn't met him, due to his openly working for the Titanian government intelligence and security apparatus, and doesn't use his powers to change this perception. Prevents fights when possible by reducing fear and aggression, but once it's *on,* he cuts loose with fear and uncertainty attacks (while bolstering allies confidence). Young redhead of uncertain ancestry.

Dr. Oro Milosynos, highly skilled at perceiving and manipulating memories, is a middle-aged slightly out of shape professional psychiatrist of African ancestry. He's very friendly and acts more like Operative MacLaren is expected to act, becoming everybody's confident, even against their better judgement. The Operative is a red herring, to draw attention away from the good Doctor's own ties to Titanian intelligence and the military. In combat, the good Doctor makes foes forget why they are foes, how their weapons work, or even how to walk and talk, in extremis!

Jianna Mirali wears a special helmet of her own design that allows her to telepathically interface with & control machines. She's the youngest member of the team, a mixed heritage Asian with tattoos and piercings and multi-colored hair, drawing attention away from her keen technical mind. She carries storage media allowing her to download information telepathically to her own data-stores, and has an assortment of nonlethal weapons, some of her own design (such as psi-grenades that generate 'psychic static' and disorient unshielded telepaths). She could also call herself 'doctor,' as she has two doctorates (and would have a third if she didn't get bored and tell off her advisor, telling him that she knew more about his field of study than he did, which was true, if not the most diplomatic approach...), but finds the notion pretentious (and gently chides her teammates by only addressing them by their titles, in a sarcastic tone of 'voice').

Prince Anaxander, the only non-Titanian (and non-telepath) on the team, is a Muus, an anthropomorphic rat-man, descended from the hyper-intelligent rats of Dakota created during the 'Big Bang' on Earth, 1000 years ago (how they got off-world, nobody knows). He's a Psi-Null, immune to all psychic forces, and able to disrupt all psionic energy in an area, or specifically focus to negate the psychic abilities of a single individual at range. He is not really a prince. (All Muus lie about that sort of thing, making up fanciful titles or honorifics for themselves when off-world, which few are, as they are still developing the combustion engine on their 'home-world,' a ruined world that was abandoned after a World War involving biological, chemical and nuclear weapons devastated it. The hardy Muus live in the ruins of that civilization, and number in the hundreds of thousands, mutated in various ways, from rat-sized to horse-sized, rat-shaped to fully-anthropomorphic to tauroid!)

I find your Team Titan idea VERY interesting! Not just how you split the telepathic abilities amongst them, but also how you came up with personalities to match. I'd definitely read a mini about them.

Yes, I see the link with Link. But whereas Link "suggests" via synch, I see Spirit Guide as more of a counselor. People go to her and ask, "I have choice A and choice B. What could happen if I choose A?" And Spirit Guide shows them the possible outcomes. And Spirit Guide will "show" them how. She's very hands off and doesn't have any powers of influence at all.

In the Wheel of Time series, there are devices which can show certain people the possible outcomes of their actions. That's what I was aiming for with Spirit Guide

I like Link's concept, though. Very shades of grey, so to speak.

Thanks!

Telepathy is an interesting power, because it can go so many ways. Mentalla, for instance, was said to specialize in direct mind control (as does Saturn Queen, apparently). Saturn Girl is just generally good at everything. But even an above-average Titanian might have a specialty, whether it be memory or sensory perception or linking up with animals / affecting sentience itself or manifesting people's hopes & fears or dream manipulation or linguistic functions, etc. There's tons of possibilities!

Yeah, Titan has proved to be a goldmine!

From Colu:

I remember the Postboot Colu was said to prize theory over applied research. My concepts revolve around Coluans who subscribe to various theories of intelligence.

Brainiac 8 of the Brainiac line hit upon a novel idea her ancestors never did. She believed in Howard Garnder's Theory of Multiple Intelligences, and was able to devise a way to allocate her twelve thought-tracks among these 8 at will.

She can have up to a 10th level functioning in each of these 8:

•Visual-spatial Intelligence
•Verbal-linguistic Intelligence
•A•Logical-mathematical Intelligence
•Interpersonal Intelligence
•Musical Intelligence
•Intra personal Intelligence
•Naturalistic Intelligence

The only reason she doesn't reach up to a 12th in each is so she has some "juice" remaining for the other 7.

The applications are boundless. With a 10th level interpersonal intelligence, she has been known to break even the most hardened criminals in interrogation, and to negotiate agreements between planets who have been warring for generations. A 10th level in musical intelligence allows her to hypnotize or heal the mind with her compositions. When she focuses on visual-spatial and bodily-kinesthetic intelligence she can mimic the movements of animals and has superb athletic ability.

Ooh, that's intriguing! Even if she wasn't a 'Brainiac' with a 12th level intelligence, a bog-standard Coluan willing to devote their brain-power to something other than Brainy's exclusive (and limiting) focus on Logical-Mathematical intelligence could be very interesting.

A Coluan focusing on Interpersonal intelligence would be terrifying good at 'schmoozing' and social manipulations (and yet also empathic enough to be likely to use their insights for good!).

A Linguistic genius could be like Cypher, from the New Mutants.

I had considered Coluans who focused on Tactical/Strategic/Military studies (imagine a Coluan Sun Tzu!), or Social manipulation, or even Finance (Ferengi, eat your hearts out!), or Governance (the ultimate societal engineer, the consumate politician!), but breaking it down using the Theory of Intelligence is inspired!

Since you guys have brought up Coluans, can anyone point me to a source that explains just what the heck a "level of intelligence" is in the DCU? Or some sort of benchmarks for what the different levels may do? I've never understood the term, and don't recall where humans are on the scale, if it's ever been mentioned.

Traditionally, Earth-humans are 6th level, normal Coluans are 10th-level, and Brainiacs are 12th-level.

I'm pretty sure the Coluans themselves invented the measure of levels, so I've long suspected that, much like IQ tests in the real world, there's a certain amount of bias in the measurement.

Solar powered Kryptonians are 8s?

I remember they are exponential measurements.


Except I think IIRC they redid the measurements when ... Threeboot Brainiac 5 saying he was a 12 ... and all of Earth was a 6. which sounds weird ... or something like that.

I would refer to the previous system.

I thought humans were 3rd level, and Kryptonians 5th, on the Coluan scale? (Making Superman 100x smarter than Batman, which is hilarious, considering how Batgod is portrayed...)

If humans are 6th, and normal Coluans 10th, that means that the average Coluan is only 10,000x smarter than the average human! (Although Brainy is a cool million times smarter than an average human!)

As I understand it, each 'level of intelligence' is supposed to be an order of magnitude above the one before it. So someone with a '5th level effector intelligence' was 10x smarter than someone with a '4th level' intelligence, and only 1/10th as smart as someone with a '6th level' intelligence.

Now how the hell are normal earth humans supposed to write characters millions of times smarter than they are? And how are we to know when they're writing them well?

How do characters that smart ever make mistakes? (But boy, DO they!)

These are poor fictional decisions for ongoing storytelling in my opinion. Like saying the Green Lanterns have been around for millions of years. Same with the old Jedi Order. Unnecessary and it hampers future stories without any more benefit than saying they've been around for say, 2000 years. Or even 5000.

Harrumph.

At least they've finally caught on a bit and admit the Guardians' 3600 sectors do not actually comprise the infinite universe.

Comics (and sci-fi) are kind of infamous for being clueless about scale. Never mind that being strong enough to lift a truck over your head would make you pretty much unstoppable in a fist-fight, Superboy has to be able to drop-kick the moon into a new orbit. Every thing has to be ridonkulously bigger and tougher and crazier than the last ridonkulously big and tough and crazy thing, until it's blown past ludicrous speed and well past caricature and possibly even past plaid.

And so, in that sort of comic book world, a guy who is the intellectual equal of *ten* men seems kind of lame. Brainy instead has to be as much smarter than a normal person as Superboy is as much *stronger* than a normal person. Ten times isn't enough. A hundred times isn't enough. To be 'super,' he's got to be a *million* times smarter than a normal person (and even then, Superboy's probably several trillion times stronger than a normal person, at least...).

And all the mega-disasters have to threaten the entire universe!, and yet be fixed by something that's terribly specific to Earth, which is one of 10,000,000 inhabitable planets in one spiral arm of one of 10,000,000 galaxies... Gosh, good thing that the disaster didn't happen on one of the 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets that Superman's never heard of! We'd be screwed!

It's all terribly escalatory, to the point where the numbers just become meaningless, and you get stories from the old days where the Specter and one of his villains were *throwing planets at each other.* (Much, much later also done by the Celestials attacking Infinity-Gauntlet-wearing Thanos, with better art.)

For a time, the Legion was getting inflationary as well. Shadow Lass was able to block out the light of an entire star, while Sun Boy was, at the same time, able to generate sun-intensity light, to fool some spacegoing critters who navigated through an area. Element Lad was able to change the atmospheric content of the entire planet Earth (to the great discomfort of tens of thousands of Daxamites). In the Threeboot, Star Boy and Light Lass, with the help of some machinery, re-balance the gravitational forces of the solar system! Pretty cosmic stuff!

Sometimes I like that sort of thing, other times I can see it becoming problematic. (Element Lad has recently been toned way back, requiring Earth-Man's help and a Green Lantern ring boosting their power, to perform that same stunt, which is still vastly more impressive than his Threeboot incarnation, who could only change stuff he touched, and only for sixty seconds!)

I try to avoid Superman/Specter sorts of power levels when designing characters, just because, narratively, they are trickier to write for, and, as a role-playing gamer, 'party balance' is hard-coded into my DNA.

At least with super-strength it's fairly clear what it means to say that someone is a million times stronger than the average human. If the average human can lift 200 lbs, they can lift 200 million lbs. It's hard to even make sense of what "a million times smarter than the average human" would even mean. I have doubts that it even makes sense to quantify intelligence in that way.

Sometimes it seems like what they have mind is that he has more computational power than human beings (hence, his "computer mind" as it's sometimes called), but that's something very different than intelligence.

Yes, I had the same thought, that it was simply a larger amount of RAM and a faster processor, so to speak. But then nevertheless they do use the word intelligence.

Anyway, I'm certainly used to the physical hyperbole, but the mental ones just don't translate into anything that works for me. At least not something they've ever conveyed in action.

They do work well enough when you're 7 years old though!

With the Authority crew, characters for whom hyperbole was their thing, became more and more popular, until it seemed like more and more characters were being re-defined as abstract boasts, instead of 'super-powers.' (That, and characters being able to utterly wreck something that vastly outpowered them a mere 5 minutes ago, by dint of 'being badass' or 'being more ruthless' or something lame like that, like some Schwarzeneggar movie where striking a pose and quipping a quip makes bad-guys fall over dead.)

Everytime I hear that Aquaman 'controls 2/3rds of the life on the planet' as if that somehow is relevant to someone standing on dry land, I cringe. Sure, it sounds more impressive that way than saying, 'he talks to fish,' but having characters (like Midnighter, or Morrison's take on Batman) who are 95% hat and only 5% cat, just bug me. It wasn't cool when it was Psylocke bragging about 'the focused totality of her telepathic powers' or Dawnstar never-shutting-up about her 'infallible tracking powers that got me into the Legion,' and it isn't any cooler now that it's Midnighter or Aquaman or whomever living and dying by their trendy oh so very precious catch-phrases.

Brainiac 8 = awesome! I would love to see some more creative applications of Coluan intelligence than what we generally get

Triplicate Boy: Dru Lorgo is a Carggite who was born without the ability to triplicate which is native to his planet.

Some Carggites are occasionally born with this odd genetic quirk. It's seen on par with being a little visually/hearing-impaired; it can make life more challenging in certain respects, but it's not like it's completely debilitating.

Dru however can do something that no other Carggite has ever been capable of. He can triplicate anything else he touches (Editor's note: Carggite clothing is normally made of native organic fibres treated to respond to the wearer's power in kind...this is why their clothes triplicate when they do, but why for example Luornu has never created an extra couple of forcefield belts when they might have come in handy by just putting one on and triplicating...it took Brainy ages to figure out a way to attune even her flight ring/flight belt to her power).

Triplicate Boy seems to be limited to replicating anything up to his own body mass, and after approximately 12 hours the extra copies will simply vanish if he hasn't already dispelled them.

Anything he creates is an exact functioning duplicate of the original item. If he uses his triplication power on a sentient being, that being controls the second and third bodies as if they themselves had suddenly developed their own Carggite abilities.

Such an odd power does come in handy, but he's never really felt that it's quite Legion standard so he's happy just acting as a part-time hero on his own planet.

The Phage: A masked crimefighter on Somahtur. He has the ability to eradicate any virus or bacteria within his presence, a power which can have devastating effects on his fellow Somahturians who all possess a symbiotic relationship with these microscopic lifeforms.

Unlike his fellow Somahturian Infectious Lass, the man known only as the Phage has no desire to leave his homeworld. He also has a mild paranoia that if the UP got their hands on him, they would experiment on him to create a miracle cure for all diseases that would be abused by those in power.

The Phage is a Robin Hood type...he serves the common man, but generally distrusts any form of authority.