Jab’s Builds! (Miss Piggy! The Swedish Chef! Sweetums! Gonzo!)

Where in all of your character write ups will go.
GreyDestiny
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Re: Jab's Builds! (The Legion of Substitute Heroes! Thunder! Brainiac 5!)

Post by GreyDestiny »

Ken wrote: Sun Apr 22, 2018 7:33 pm
Batgirl III wrote: Sun Apr 22, 2018 7:15 pm Just once, I want to see a man with prehensile hair. He can beat people up with his hipster beard.
No hipster beard, but may I introduce you to my buddy Neil's character Samson?

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Had to burst forth from perpetual lurkdom to say that I have an NPC (ALSO named Samson) who has prehensile hair and super strength.
Jabroniville
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White Witch

Post by Jabroniville »

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THE WHITE WITCH (Mysa Nal, aka Hag, Jewel, The Black Witch)
Created By:
E. Nelson Bridwell & Curt Swan
First Appearance: Adventure Comics #350 (Nov. 1966)
Home Planet: Naltor
Origin of Powers: Trained on Zerox- The Sorceror's World
Eras: All Three
Relationships: Blok, Mordru (ewwwwwww), Dragonmage (Reboot)
Role: Magic Hero, Deus Ex Machina
PL 10 (142)
STRENGTH
0 STAMINA 2 AGILITY 3
FIGHTING 6 DEXTERITY 3
INTELLIGENCE 2 AWARENESS 3 PRESENCE 2

Skills:
Acrobatics 2 (+5)
Deception 6 (+8)
Intimidation 2 (+4)
Expertise (Arcane Lore) 11 (+13)
Insight 3 (+6)
Perception 5 (+8)
Persuasion 4 (+6)
Ranged Combat (Magic) 2 (+9)
Sleight of Hand 2 (+5)
Stealth 3 (+6)

Advantages:
Equipment 10 (Legion Gear), Ranged Attack 3, Ritualist, Set-Up

Powers:
"Pre-Set Magic Powers"
Variable (All Magical Descriptor) 8 (Flaws: Limited- Requires Full Day to Wait & Change Small Array of Powers) [48]
(Sample Magical Powers)
Transform (Anything to Anything) 5 (25)
Force Field 9 (Extras: Affects Others, Impervious 13) (31)
Energy Blast 11 (Feats: Split, Penetrating 8, Variable 2- Any Energy) (33)
Teleport 10 (Extras: Portal +2) (30)
Move Object 10 (20)
Movement 3 (Dimensional Travel 3) (Extras: Portal +2) (12)

"Magic Detection" Senses 3 (Detect Magic- Ranged, Acute) [3]

Equipment:
"Legion Gear"
"Telepathic Ear Plug" Comprehend 3 (Languages) (6)

"Legion Flight Ring"
Flight 7 (250 mph) (14)
Immunity 7 (Hot, Cold, Vacuum, Pressure, Radiation, Suffocation 2) (7)
Movement 1 (Space Travel 1) (2)
Communication 5 (Flaws: Fifth Rank is only towards Legionnaires) (18)

Offense:
Unarmed +6 (+0 Damage, DC 15)
Magic Blast +9 (+11 Ranged Damage, DC 26)
Initiative +3

Defenses:
Dodge +9 (DC 19), Parry +7 (DC 17), Toughness +2 (+11 Force Field), Fortitude +4, Will +8

Complications:
Relationship (Nura Nal- Dream Girl)- Mysa's sister is the Legionnaire known as Dream Girl.
Enemy (Mordru)- Even more than other Legionnaires, Mysa is threatened by the immortal wizard. Envious of her magical gifts, Mordru wants her demise. At one points, he seemingly reformed and they married, and in the Reboot continuity, she is his daughter.
Relationship (Blok)- Initially unaware of Blok's crush on her, Mysa and he are in a relationship by the time of "Legion of Three Worlds".

Total: Abilities: 42 / Skills: 40--20 / Advantages: 15 / Powers: 51 / Defenses: 14 (142)

The Silver Age White Witch:
-White Witch is one of the more short-lived and less-popular members of the Legion, introduced early, but coming into her own during the '70s, with a new white-skinned design that featured eyelash antennae and a big white dress. With the problematic super-power of magic, she was off-and-on, but perfect for stopping major threats with that "Just One Big Spell!" type of deal magic-types always end up getting, and the target of a cute crush by ugly guy Blok for a long time. 

-Mysa Nal is the sister of Nura, the Legion's Dream Girl, but was born without the ability to see the future. She compensated for this by being trained on Zerox, the "Sorcerer's World", and slowly grew more chalk-white as time went on. She initially appeared as the "Hag", a minion of Prince Evillo (EVILLO?!??), but Dream Girl & Star Boy removed her disguise (while disguised, naturally, as Sir Prize and Miss Terious). She was a big part of The Great Darkness Saga, being instrumental in defeating Darkseid, since she was both a wild card he'd not accounted for, and capable of the Ass-Pull stuff that "ah shit, how do I write myself out of this one?" writers always come up with.

-She turned up MARRIED to Mordru of all people, when he'd supposedly reformed, but she later took up arms against him and rejoined the group. She went undercover as "Jewel" after being de-aged by the sorceress Glorith, just as continuity ended.

Later White Witches:
-In the Reboot Era, Mysa was the daughter of Mordru, not the sister of Dream Girl. She's spend a century plotting against Mordru when he returned (she was the sole survivor of a group that had attempted to stop him), and helped do so again. She settled on Sorcerer's World and fell in love with Dragonmage. In "Threeboot", she only appears as a member of Mekt Ranzz's "Wanderers" group. In the Post-Infinite Crisis era, she turns up on Sorcerer's World, being imprisoned by Mordru. The Legion frees her, and it turns out that she's now in a relationship with Blok. And in Legion of Three Worlds, she again uses the "Magic Character Ass-Pull" power to become The Black Witch, sealing away Mordru and defeating most of the assembled villains single-handedly. Though dark and frightening, she & Blok attempt to protect the world from dark sorcery.

-Mysa is thus a semi-important character to Legion history, but one that's prone to being written out until the writer needs to half-ass his way out of an ending by having her wave her hands around and do what Magic Heroes do best. She's at least got a much more interesting design than the usual "Caped Guy" character- the weird "Antennae Eyelashes" and chalk-white look really stands out. She's not bad overall, but throwing magic-types into the science & future-tech world of the Legion is just ASKING for trouble, as the deus ex machina nature of their powers always comes dangerously close to ending a threat before it even gets started.

Mysa's Stats:
-White Witch is pretty unique character, in that she showcases the Dungeons & Dragons style of spellcasting rather than the more usual Comic Book-style of "throws out any power at any time"- she actually has to memorize her Spells each day and select them- if she didn't plan to use a spell, she can't use it- period. Thus, she features Variable Power since she can theoretically do anything, but I would imagine the player has to actually select an Array of possible powers to utilize, giving her a unique Flaw. Basically, she could cast nearly any kind of spell, but needed to lay them out that day (or just keep the same "set" going continuously), lest she be too powerful. I chose a simple -1 Flaw as a result, since she could STILL have a ridiculously useful array, but would be hampered if she made the wrong choices.
Last edited by Jabroniville on Mon May 30, 2022 1:31 am, edited 3 times in total.
Shock
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Re: White Witch

Post by Shock »

Jabroniville wrote: Mon Apr 23, 2018 1:48 am Image
I'm going to need some time alone
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Ares
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Re: Jab's Builds! (The Legion of Substitute Heroes! Thunder! Brainiac 5!)

Post by Ares »

I think if anything, I think comic book writers who set their stories in the future seem to forget that they're writing in a superhero setting. Sure, the tech is more advanced, and there's likely folks with superpowers, but it's the future of a comic book world. And comic book worlds have had magic as a major component to the settings for a long time. I mean, there's been a Sorcerer Supreme on Marvel Earth and the Wizard Shazam on DC Earth since before recorded history, it wouldn't really make much sense for the next 1000 years to be the one where they vanish. The futures of Superhero settings should probably look more like a hybrid of ShadowRun, Star Wars and Spelljammer than anything else.

Rather than have Mysa linked to Dream Girl, I probably would have linked her to Princess Projectra, and made her world out to be some Eberon-style D&D world where magic has replaced the need for modern technology, and they only use technology to interact with the rest of the galaxy.
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Davies
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Re: White Witch

Post by Davies »

Jabroniville wrote: Mon Apr 23, 2018 1:48 amImage
The issue of the Legion's title that this image is from was the first issue of the Legion I ever read, and its portrayal of Mysa's magic later on in it is pretty much how I treat all comic book magic -- able to do pretty much anything but needing time in which to do so.
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Ken
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Re: White Witch

Post by Ken »

Jabroniville wrote: Mon Apr 23, 2018 1:48 am ImageImage
One, when did Mysa look like this?

Two, I'll be in my bunk.
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Batgirl III
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Re: Jab's Builds! (The Legion of Substitute Heroes! Thunder! Brainiac 5!)

Post by Batgirl III »

I like the idea of magic in a superhero setting, I hate the application of magic in more superhero stories.

Far too often, the writers use the presence of a magic-user in the book to allow for insanely complex no-win scenarios to take a half-dozen issues to set up and then get resolved in the last two pages with the magician pulling out an never-before-seen, reality-warping, plot device wrecking deus ex rectum.

The Latin deus ex machina literally means "god from the machine," as during the final scene of a lot of really bad Greek plays a mechanical device would lower a god, like Zeus, onto the stage and he'd fix everything with a wave of his hand. I call it deus ex rectum when modern writers pull a similar resolution straight outta their @?§€!
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Ken
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Re: Jab's Builds! (The Legion of Substitute Heroes! Thunder! Brainiac 5!)

Post by Ken »

Spectrum wrote: Sun Apr 22, 2018 11:27 pm When my mother was going through cancer- years ago, thankfully she pulled through aok. :) That was one of the things her oncologist talked about, there are many many types of cancer. There isn't a single magic bullet answer. This might have changed over the years, but there was also a big problem of certain organizations getting all the funding. Of course, she had to be different and go for one of the less 'sexy' kinds that wasn't getting as much funding. Able to fully recover for years now *knock on wood*.
My mum wasn't so lucky. She had "regular" breast cancer in 2002. She recovered from that, but the spot where the lump was developed angiosarcoma. Angiosarcoma is one of the lesser common cancers. 1 out of every 10,000 cancer patients. Mom's most experienced oncologist had dealt with five cases (including Mom) in 40 years. A lot of her oncologists were "I've never seen this before". (An oncologist is a doctor born between June 21 and July 22: a Cancer doctor.) The angiosarcoma won seventy-two days and three hours ago.
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Jabroniville
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Re: Jab's Builds! (The Legion of Substitute Heroes! Thunder! Brainiac 5!)

Post by Jabroniville »

Ares wrote: Mon Apr 23, 2018 2:13 am I think if anything, I think comic book writers who set their stories in the future seem to forget that they're writing in a superhero setting. Sure, the tech is more advanced, and there's likely folks with superpowers, but it's the future of a comic book world. And comic book worlds have had magic as a major component to the settings for a long time. I mean, there's been a Sorcerer Supreme on Marvel Earth and the Wizard Shazam on DC Earth since before recorded history, it wouldn't really make much sense for the next 1000 years to be the one where they vanish. The futures of Superhero settings should probably look more like a hybrid of ShadowRun, Star Wars and Spelljammer than anything else.

Rather than have Mysa linked to Dream Girl, I probably would have linked her to Princess Projectra, and made her world out to be some Eberon-style D&D world where magic has replaced the need for modern technology, and they only use technology to interact with the rest of the galaxy.
I will say I liked the particular "Magic Solves Everything" situation from The Great Darkness Saga. Mysa manages to pull forth the means to defeat Darkseid... but not directly. And it has a COST- two of the five supreme beings on Zerox die protecting her while she casts her spell (and, moreover, are treated as in the wrong for smugly assuming the Sorcerer's World is impenetrable to Darskeid's forces). And nobody knows just HOW this little baby they've brought forth will save the day. So the Legion has to defend this Macguffin, then watch as he ages into the means to not DEFEAT Darkseid, but take just enough of his attention to allow victory to be won. It's a LOT better than the countless scenes where a Magic Hero just waves his hands around and the villains just drop.
Jabroniville
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Re: White Witch

Post by Jabroniville »

Ken wrote: Mon Apr 23, 2018 3:27 am One, when did Mysa look like this?

Two, I'll be in my bunk.
I really got nothin'. She just shows up that way on ComicVine, and I was like "Hey, these are different looks! They might be canon! Also, HHHHHNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGHHHHHHHH". There's some Archie Legion stuff where she has red hair, so that might be the second one.

Michael Dooney is one hell of a pin-up artist. Apparently most of his comics work is TMNT stuff. Which is a shame, because look at this: https://comicvine.gamespot.com/michael- ... 08/images/
Last edited by Jabroniville on Mon Apr 23, 2018 4:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
Jabroniville
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Re: Jab's Builds! (The Legion of Substitute Heroes! Thunder! Brainiac 5!)

Post by Jabroniville »

M4C8 wrote: Sun Apr 22, 2018 8:36 pm
Batgirl III wrote: Sun Apr 22, 2018 7:15 pm Just once, I want to see a man with prehensile hair. He can beat people up with his hipster beard.
Oh God, now I'm picturing some 'Guido' mobster with prehensile chest hair.
Better than the would-be Legionnaire "Pube Lad" I was thinking of.
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Davies
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Re: White Witch

Post by Davies »

Jabroniville wrote: Mon Apr 23, 2018 3:59 am
Ken wrote: Mon Apr 23, 2018 3:27 am One, when did Mysa look like this?

Two, I'll be in my bunk.
I really got nothin'. She just shows up that way on ComicVine, and I was like "Hey, these are different looks! They might be canon! Also, HHHHHNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGHHHHHHHH". There's some Archie Legion stuff where she has red hair, so that might be the second one.
I think it's a pretty'd up version of her "five years later", post-White Witch look, or possibly her reboot appearance ... but I wouldn't swear to the latter since I've pretty much forgotten most of that run.
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Jabroniville
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Re: Jab's Builds! (The Legion of Substitute Heroes! Thunder! Brainiac 5!)

Post by Jabroniville »

Batgirl III wrote: Mon Apr 23, 2018 3:32 am I like the idea of magic in a superhero setting, I hate the application of magic in more superhero stories.

Far too often, the writers use the presence of a magic-user in the book to allow for insanely complex no-win scenarios to take a half-dozen issues to set up and then get resolved in the last two pages with the magician pulling out an never-before-seen, reality-warping, plot device wrecking deus ex rectum.

The Latin deus ex machina literally means "god from the machine," as during the final scene of a lot of really bad Greek plays a mechanical device would lower a god, like Zeus, onto the stage and he'd fix everything with a wave of his hand. I call it deus ex rectum when modern writers pull a similar resolution straight outta their @?§€!
This is why both my Fantasy & Superhero 'verses use WILDLY different, specific Magic Rules, different from what regular comics does: viewtopic.php?p=17829#p17829

The problem is, comic book writers are often lazy (or on a deadline)- any kind of ruleset around how magic works requires a VERY strong central, editorial command.
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Ken
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Re: White Witch

Post by Ken »

Davies wrote: Mon Apr 23, 2018 4:20 am
Jabroniville wrote: Mon Apr 23, 2018 3:59 am
Ken wrote: Mon Apr 23, 2018 3:27 am One, when did Mysa look like this?

Two, I'll be in my bunk.
I really got nothin'. She just shows up that way on ComicVine, and I was like "Hey, these are different looks! They might be canon! Also, HHHHHNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGHHHHHHHH". There's some Archie Legion stuff where she has red hair, so that might be the second one.
I think it's a pretty'd up version of her "five years later", post-White Witch look, or possibly her reboot appearance ... but I wouldn't swear to the latter since I've pretty much forgotten most of that run.
Apparently, that's what she looked like after she dropped the "Hag" disguise, and before she grew antennae.
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Jabroniville
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Re: Jab's Builds! (The Legion of Substitute Heroes! Thunder! Brainiac 5!)

Post by Jabroniville »

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND what I've been guessing for a year or so has finally happened: Monster High is done

http://blogs.wvgazettemail.com/popcult/ ... osed-down/

With Ever After High dying last year, I kind of saw some of this coming. But Mattel is REALLY hurting now, losing Disney Princesses, EAH, and MH, all within a couple of years. As the article said, 8 years is pretty good for a toyline, especially a girls' one, which tend to be more prone to fads and don't receive reboots with quite the regularity or intensity of boys' stuff (compare the run of TMNT or TransFormers to say, My Little Pony, which has had 3-5 reboots over the past three decades, but only one that was really given any kind of "push").

I kinda saw this happening with the kiddified versions of the characters released over the past year- the bad-ass designs gave way to simplistic, cheaper-looking characters.

The march of time is pretty nasty to some of these toylines. Disney Fairies had a pretty good run... then died about a year after I got into it :). Probably doesn't help that girls grow out of "dolls" quicker than boys grow out of toys with death weapons and stuff (and nerds have a tendency to STILL buy that stuff anyhow :)).
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