I don't mean Paridon as developed in later fanon, or even later canon, not necessarily so. Take the Black Box as the basis and selectively incorporate whatever later stuff one likes, ignoring or altering what does not fit.
I would add in Nosos and maybe Immerabt (from Undead Sea Scrolls 2002) as it allows a lot of the greedy corporate type elements like Roland Daggett, Max Shrek, Gothcorp etc. I'd also throw in the occasional Lamordian-style mad scientist/dread crafter as you get a lot of sci-fi elements too (Clayface, the Werewolf [likely something akin of Vjorn Horstman's sreations], Mr. Freeze, etc.).
Sure, those work, too.
Indeed, one could add Immerbat and Nosos as pocket domains within Zherisia.
I'm sure I'm not the first person here to suggest something along those lines.
Immerabt could be a huge civic hospital and the surrounding neighborhood within Paridon.
Nosos could be the slums and factory zone.
Both areas have serious downsides for the poor or sick residents, but at least the scalpel-murderer/Red Jack never kills anybody in either part of the city.
(Sodo cannot leave his domain, so people in these pocket domains are safe from him.)
Delight is to him- a far, far upward, and inward delight- who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self.
ewancummins wrote:
Both areas have serious downsides for the poor or sick residents, but at least the scalpel-murderer/Red Jack never kills anybody in either part of the city.
(Sodo cannot leave his domain, so people in these pocket domains are safe from him.)
Sodo doesn't do the Bloody Jack murders himself, he has somebody else do them, then give him the mystic dagger that grants immortality.
That's why people don't notice a constantly shape shifting monster running around every 13 years or so.
ewancummins wrote:
Both areas have serious downsides for the poor or sick residents, but at least the scalpel-murderer/Red Jack never kills anybody in either part of the city.
(Sodo cannot leave his domain, so people in these pocket domains are safe from him.)
Sodo doesn't do the Bloody Jack murders himself, he has somebody else do them, then give him the mystic dagger that grants immortality.
That's why people don't notice a constantly shape shifting monster running around every 13 years or so.
According to later canon, yes, that is correct.
Not according to the (scant) details of the Black Box. There's really not a lot of detail in the entry. He's a doppelganger, people don't know his identity, and he kills people with a surgical blade.
So for my purposes in this thread, the Sodo stuff in the module and later sources is only a possibility.
Delight is to him- a far, far upward, and inward delight- who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self.
jamesfirecat wrote:
Clayface might be one of Paridon's native dopplegangers (or the only one in there besides Sodo if you don't want there to be a bunch of them.)
Clayface could be a doppelganger who is the victim of one of those crazy Divinity of Mankind splinter groups who try to give the "unfortunate" doppelganger its own unique and stable "human" form. Or simply the result of some crazy experiment to create the perfect human form (mirroring the Renew-U origin from BTAS).
Also technically if you have Tygrus you probably have some of Markov's work showing up as well.
Planting Markovia as an island a short distance off of Paridon would take care of this.
The Lesser Evil wrote:
Clayface could be a doppelganger who is the victim of one of those crazy Divinity of Mankind splinter groups who try to give the "unfortunate" doppelganger its own unique and stable "human" form. Or simply the result of some crazy experiment to create the perfect human form (mirroring the Renew-U origin from BTAS).
Renew-U had nothing to do with creating the perfect human form, it was more about "perfect flexibility", since Matt Hagen needed to keep using the stuff because it allowed him to keep getting acting roles after he'd been in an accident that had done major damage to his face, making him look... well
VIEW CONTENT:
like this
but the Renew-U cream let him reshape his face to look normal/look however was needed for whatever role he was preforming in.
Trying to "create the Perfect human form" would be a better background for the Ravenloft equivalent of Project Gilgamesh/Bane.
Like I said my knowledge of BTAS trivia never all that low is pretty much at an all time high these days.
Renew-U was a beauty cosmetic though, that's what I meant by "perfect human form", not necessarily human augmentation other than looks. Hagen only used it to look like himself prior to the accident; he only used it as a disguise for when he was doing all those jobs for Dagget.
The Lesser Evil wrote:Renew-U was a beauty cosmetic though, that's what I meant by "perfect human form", not necessarily human augmentation other than looks. Hagen only used it to look like himself prior to the accident; he only used it as a disguise for when he was doing all those jobs for Dagget.
Sorry, watched the Captain America movie with the folks recently stuff so when I hear "perfect human form" my mind went in the direction of physical capabilities (STR, DEX, CON) rather than physical beauty (CHA).
Start as a sorcerer with an appropriate selection of ice based spells.
Stage One: Immunity to aging penalties still gains bonuses to mental stats. Extra D6 of damage from fire based attacks.
Stage Two: At Will Ray of Frost or similar 1rst level cold spell. Starts taking fire /heat damage at anything above freezing temperature. Assume he either uses his own ice magic to keep himself cold or has a magical item that protects him against fire damage. That or some mix (IE the magical equivalent of his suit)
Stage Three: "Frozen heart", immunity to all mind effecting spells/spell like effects and similar. Heals damage at 1/2 human normal.
Stage Four: From the neck down is now an ice golem. If he suffers a critical hit, roll a D6, on anything but a six, treat it like a normal hit (assuming the critical hit struck some place other than his still human head/skull). Can no longer naturally heal damage. Instead needs to "rebuild" his body with snow/ice/other frozen materials, though he can use his magical powers to freeze things to use as materials.
Stage Five: Complete transformation into ice golem, looses personality 90% of personality, becomes bent on simply making others suffer/freezing things.
Unlike the Two Face track I'm writing this as if Victor never actually hit stage five, because if you ignore "Cold Comfort" it's pretty clear that he didn't, in the sense that Mr. Freeze never became as "evil" as most of Batman's other villains did.
Last edited by jamesfirecat on Sat Sep 05, 2015 6:08 am, edited 1 time in total.
Clock King/Temple Fugate (as seen in Batman: the Animated Series)
My take on Temple Fugate is that he he suffers from a lack of empathy verging on the level associated with more severe cases of personality disorders, even before his fall- judging by how he treated his workers. He's an efficiency effort and "tightly wound" about time, routines, order, punctuality. He likely has Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (as opposed to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder- which is an anxiety based disorder- causing the sufferer to experience emotional distress and acknowledge their disorder). Fugate doesn't seem to suffer any anxiety or acknowledge he has some problems. It's built into his personality and whom he is as a person.
Of course, as with many Batman (and Ravenloft) villains, it isn't the conditions/mental characteristics that damn him, but the actions he takes (those sort of actions are really abnormal). We just see the precursor of the villain he became prior to his "fall".
Temple Fugate is the archetypical example of an “evil master plan” villain. If you can somehow manage to throw him off balance, he’s really a wimp. Not that that’s easy, as he has uncanny powers of observation and an all but supernatural ability to predict things.
Path of the Timekeeper
Caress (Betrayal and Violence, Abuse and extortion of employees to maximize productivity, 4%): Perfect time sense. Preoccupation/obsession with time/punctuality becomes stronger.
Enticement (Betrayal; attempted ruination of mayor; 2%): Expert levels become some kind of PC levels- perhaps in PF terms, some combination of rogue, swashbuckler, and/or investigator levels. Hatred for mayor becomes an obsession.
Invitation (Violence, Crashing trains together, 100%): Anticipate enemy actions/limited future precognition. Unanticipated events/surprises now require Fear and/or Horror checks.
Embrace (Violence, attempted murder of vigilante with time-set bomb, 16%): Enhanced reflexes, save for unexpected need for retreats when reflexes take a nose dive (as in the case of “Time Out of Joint”)
Creature (Violence, attempted murder of mayor, 8%): Improved timing/future prediction, but his efficacy almost completely depends upon scenarios where he can anticipate what is coming.
Edit: I used that "Arkham Sessions" link Jamesfirecat posted above and the DCAU Wiki as source fodder for this writeup.
Last edited by The Lesser Evil on Fri Sep 04, 2015 3:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Right, so Mr Freeze is a creature of Ravenloft, but not a darklord.
That makes sense to me.
RE the OP's question about Batman, I'd make Batman a player character.
He is Gotham's main hero. Why consign such a role to an NPC?
At least include an option in which he is playable.
You are the Batman!
Delight is to him- a far, far upward, and inward delight- who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self.
In Ryan Naylor's Pathfinder writeup of Ravenloft, a character can go through all 5 stages without becoming a darklord. In that case, they are just fundamentally cursed/damned/transformed. With the writeups I'm doing, I'm assuming none of them become darklords.
The Lesser Evil wrote:In Ryan Naylor's Pathfinder writeup of Ravenloft, a character can go through all 5 stages and may not become a darklord; they are just fundamentally cursed/damned. With the writeups I'm doing, I'm assuming none of them become darklords.
Yeah, What I was going for was to argue that Mr. Freeze is not "fundamentally cursed/damned/beyond redemption". If you've seen Meltdown (Batman Beyond) episode... given a normal human body he promises to stop doing evil stuff, dedicates his life to using what he's learned about cryogenics to try and help people/establish a foundation in his wife's name to try and help even more people, commiserates with and won't press charges against a man who tries to kill him because of what he did as Mr. Freeze..... and then it all starts sliding down hill again when his normal human body starts to break down and he decides to go find where he stashed one extra Mr. Freeze suit....
Granted Freeze is responsible for his own actions, but it feels inappropriate to say that he's at stage five.
Possibly the same thing could be argued for Two Face and Riddler.
jamesfirecat wrote:
Granted Freeze is responsible for his own actions, but it feels inappropriate to say that he's at stage five.
Possibly the same thing could be argued for Two Face and Riddler.
Good points. Also for Temple Fugate, as he only seems to want to kill Mayor Hill (with Batman as needed to fulfill that goat.) We only see his Fugate's chicanery in two episodes of the series, the only later appearance he's working on the side of the government (albeit against the Justice League) in Justice League: Unlimited, where he shows no sign of his hatred for Mayor Hill. (Though he still seems to have his perfect timing/precognition abilities). If one were to take this approach, one could collapse 4 and 5 as I have above and then put in an even further down the rabbit hole stage 5 for him.
Is he going to be the psychopathic killer version or the Clown Prince of Crime version?
Somewhere in-between,/something else?
Delight is to him- a far, far upward, and inward delight- who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self.
