Solar's Build Thread - The In-Between-Updates Update!

Where in all of your character write ups will go.
SolarOracle
Posts: 549
Joined: Thu Feb 14, 2019 11:01 am

The Other One For All Users

Post by SolarOracle »

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Our final non-builds for the main series for now, after so long, so I wanted this one to be extra special. So, for the final time, let's talk a bit about these guys, shall we?

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Shigaraki Yoichi

About: All For One's younger brother who was originally thought to be quirkless, Yoichi seems to be a very friendly, kind and calm guy who is also incredibly principled and passionate about heroism, willing to stand against his nearly all mighty brother despite having no power of his own. Unbeknownst to everyone, including himself, Yoichi actually had a quirk all along, a seemingly useless quirk that allowed him to pass down quirks to others, which, when mixed with a power accumulation quirk, created One For All, a powerful quirk that keeps accumulating strength through each generation of users it has had, a power that eventually allowed All Might to become as strong as he was, and that also empowered the quirks of all its others users, eventually reaching Midoriya Izuku, who unlocked its full potential by combining all the quirks contained in this power.

As a child, Yoichi seemingly had a good relationship with his brother, as both were friends and would often read comics together. However, as time went on and society's prejudice toward those born with meta abilities began developing and society started to collapse into chaos, All For One took advantage of this, using his quirk to gain the favor of others and start laying the foundation for his "shadow empire", using his connections and immense power to control Japan and its crime world from the shadows. Yoichi was horrified by his brother's actions and eventually confronted him.

The two had a different opinion on how these great powers should be used, as All For One saw them as a means of exploiting the weak and gathering power for himself, while Yoichi thought of them as a means to protect the weak and restore order to society. This conflict eventually lead to All For One imprisoning his brother, as he was his only family and he didn't want to kill him, and often visited him to talk, trying to show him that what he was doing was a good thing, but Yoichi still re3fused to see things his way, defying him and calling him a tyrant. Desperate, all For One said the only reason he though of him that way was because he was lacking in power, giving him the Power Accumulation quirk that lead to the creation of One For All.

As time went by, the few vigilantes who were standing against All For One's rule eventually managed to raid his base, encountering Yoichi. Two of those vigilantes originally planned to kill him, as they saw him as dangerous due to his connection to the Symbol of Evil, but changed their minds after meeting him, freeing him instead as he joined them. Yoichi planned to use his new power to fight against his brother, but was to weak to do so, instead giving the power to his new allies, making sure that he could somehow defeat his brother, even if from beyond the grave, as Yoichi would go to continue to live on in some way, within One For All's vestige world.

In the series proper, Yoichi appears a few times within his quirk, communicating with Midoriya whenever he is able to access the quirk inner world of One For All, where he is shown to be supportive of his inheritor and his cause. During the Paranormal Liberation Front arc, he and Shimura Nana appear within One For All as Midoriya encounters Shigaraki, who is beginning to be possessed by All For One after he was given his quirk, as the two One For All vestiges fight off against All For One's presence and manage to free Shigaraki of him to some degree, as he escapes off to Tartarus.

Later in the series, Yoichi appears talking to Midoriya, leading the conversation of the other past One For All users with the boy, as he explains the nature of the quirk and how Midoriya is the final generation of it, as only those born quirkless can safely wield it and future users would lead to the power stockpiling to be too chaotic to be wielded safely, so the battle against All For One must be finished by Midoriya, asking him what he will do. Midoriya then says that he wants to find a way to save Shigaraki above all else, which is a response that pleases Yoichi, as the vestiges start communicating more frequently with Midoriya and directly instructing him on how to use One For All's many quirks.

Yoichi's sinal appearance as of yet was in the Final War arc, as the battle between Midoriya and Shigaraki continued, as the first user of One For All stated that the quirks of the two bothers started to resonate with each other, as he and the other vestiges became visible to Shigaraki while Midoriya unleashed the awesome power of his quirk, something that has never happened before.

Yoichi seems like an awesome guy, from his truly heroic principles and general good nature despite being born powerless in a world of chaos and destruction, and being too physically weak to be able to properly implement those morals, only able to do so when he was given power, using his power to train the future generations to ensure powerful and righteous heroes would appear to combat the evil his brother had become. All this kind of reminds me of Captain America if he was a mentor figure instead of a hero.

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Fanart by @Kuroneko_138

The Second User

About: The unnamed second user of One For All was one of the two vigilantes who freed Yoichi from All For One's prison, and eventually the one to inherit the quirk to continue to develop it and pass it down to future generations. He also possessed a quirk aside from One For All that was later passed down to Midoriya alongside Power Accumulation, called Gearshift, which allowed him to control the speed of small objects he touched, allowing him to slow down bullets in midair for surprise attacks and other tactics, but failed to do anything significant due to its limitations of use. It evolved alongside the rest of the quirk, and by the time it reached Midoriya, allowed him to accelerate every cell of his body, as he can perform some amazing feats that bend the very laws of physics and deliver insanely powerful strikes in rapid sequence.

The second user was the leader of the vigilante group resisting All For One's rule and seems to have been very close to the third user, as the two were working together at the time they saved Yoichi. After passing One For All down, the second user died fighting against the mighty villain, who called his quirk a cheap parlor trick that couldn't manage to even harm him.

The second user went on to live as a vestige within One For All, and initially opposed Midoriya as the inheritor of the power, seeing him as too naive and optimistic, especially in his desire to save Shigaraki instead of killing him, refusing to allow him to use his Gearshift, but would eventually change his mind, as Yoichi talked to him. However, he restricted Midoriya to use it as a last resort power while training it, since it puts unimaginable strain in his body due to how much it evolved overtime as a quirk, slowly destroying the cells in his body as they are accelerated individually, and that Midoriya would be unable to maintain it for more than five minutes without dying.

Not much is known about him, he wasn't even given a name, but is somehow still one of the most popular among the vestiges, probably due to his design and personality. A LOOOOOOOOOT of INSANE theories about this guy exist out there from before his identity was revealed. Seriously, everyone was convinced this guy was a time-travelling version of Bakugo who went back in time with Kirishima through an evolved version of Eri's quirk to inherit the One For All quirk so it could be properly developed before reaching Deku and also grant him Explosion and Hardening so he could beat All For One, since otherwise "How did Yoichi know he could pass quirks down unless someone else told him??". I am not kidding, that was the prevailing theory for years about this guy and the third user's identities based solely on him being kind of similar to Bakugo, and it's hilarious in hindsight.

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The Third User

About: The third user was a friend of the second and seems to be levelheaded and somewhat cynical, like his predecessor. His quirk aside from One For All itself is called Fa Jin, and allowed him to accumulate the kinetic energy of movements by staying still, which then allowed him to unleash them with enormous force, a power that developed into one of Midoriya's most powerful assets, as he is able to use it in conjunction with Blackwhip to move as speeds faster than a sniper bullet and deliver attacks as powerful as All Might's in his prime, with none of the negative side effects to his body, tho requiring him to stay still for a while accumulating his energy before being able to do so.

Similarly to his predecessor, the third user initially refused to accept Midoriya as the inheritor of the power, probably for the same reasons, but came around to it after being talked to by Yoichi.

This guy is probably the most enigmatic of the One For All users, maybe aside from En (tho we at least know his name, unlike the third), since we don't know the majority of his life story or what he did after the death of the second user. Like with the second tho, a lot of crazy speculation about this guy is out there, where a huge portion of people back in the day thought he was Kirishima (I genuinely see no resemblance) and some people to this day propose he is an ancestor of Endeavor and Todoroki due to the way his eyes look. I honestly don't see the resemblance in either case.

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Shinomori Hikage

About: Shinomori was the fourth user of One For All, and was a cautious, reclusive and introspective person. His quirk, Danger Sense, matched this personality, as it allowed him to be warned of anyone with ill intent toward him, a power that is very useful in Midoriya's arsenal, as it allows him to react quicker to threats and incoming attacks, and be able to know about them ahead of time, which comboes well with his Smokescreen, since that also obfuscates his vision.

Unlike his predecessors, all of whom had died in battle, Shinomori decided to dedicate his life and time with One For All to training the quirk and the power it contained, living away from society in isolation to do so properly, arduously and dedicatedly training the power every day. However, the signs of the strain One For All puts on the body of those who already possessed a quirk started showing themselves, as Shinomori started showing signs of weakness and of his body deterioration quickly, forcing him to go seeking a sucessor. He ended up dying at age 40 of old age, as his body deteriorated quickly through One For All's heavy strain.

Later, as a vestige in One For All, Shinomori would tell all this to Midoriya, explaining to him that the final inheritor of One For All had to be someone like him, who was born quirkless, and that All Might being the same was the only reason he was able to be so effective as a hero, since those born quirkless have a body better able to adapt to multiple quirks, lessening their strain and avoiding the rapid aging, and how he had to be the one to defeat All For One.

I like Shinomori a lot, probably my favorite guy among the vestiges due his interesting personality and character traits, and how friendly and composed his demeanor seems to be toward Midoriya despite all that paranoia and anti-sociality.

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Lariat

About: The fifth user, Banjo Daigoro, who operated under the hero name of Lariat, is an extremely energetic, aggressive and punk looking guy who is also surprisingly friendly and warm towards others. His original quirk, Blackwhip, allowed him to create rope-like tendrils of black energy he could use to swing around and attack or restrain others, an ability that paired well with One For All, as it granted him great mobility and also allowed him to further increase the power of his energy whips. His quirk served Midoriya really well, as it was the first power the hero student inherited aside from Power Accumulation, and allowed Midoriya to become even more swift and acrobatic, as well as granting him some form of ranged attack.

We only meet Banjo as a vestige within One For All, as he first fully revealed himself to Midoriya during the Joint Training arc, when the kid first tapped into Blackwhip and the power went haywire, exploding in all directions with enormous strength beyond Midoriya's control, as, within the quirk inner world of One For All, he told the hero student to tell him to find a way to control this power without letting it explode the way it just has, revealing for the first time to Midoriya that quirks of the previous users also exist within One For All.

Later, after the Paranormal Liberation Front arc, Banjo is one of the first people to talk to Midoriya when he reenters the quirk inner world, as the two have already been acquainted, and introduces the others as they start their meeting, including telling Midoriya about Shinomori so he can tell him his history and why Midoriya must be the final wielder of One For All and defeat the Symbol of Evil at all costs.

Banjo is awesome, love his design and personality a lot. I'm very partial to the muscular, bald headed guy with goggles look, plus his power is really unique and cool, allowing Midoriya to do some Spider-Man type stuff without losing the essence of his power.

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En

About: The sixth user of One For All, En is a reserved and enigmatic man. His quirk, Smokescreen, allowed him to create a smoke cloud around himself, a power he was pretty proficient with, as he was able to properly instruct Midoriya on how to use it, and that ended up becoming one of the most powerful quirks in Midoriyta's arsenal, allowing him to surprise enemies by making them vulnerable while still being able to navigate through the cloud of smoke through his Danger Sense. It was thanks to Smokescreen that he was able to defeat Lady Nagant, as it allowed him to trick her and evade her expert marksmanship.

Nothing is really known about En's life, and we really only see him while he is talking to Midoriya during the Tartarus Escapees arc, where he tells Midoriya to envision his quirks as tools he has in his arsenal and helps him properly manage them, so as to not lose control over them.

En is very mysterious, since we don't know anything about him as a person or what kind of life he lived. He has a pretty cool design tho, and him teaching Midoriya were some really cool scenes.

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Fanart by shamserg

Shimura Nana

About: Shimura Nana was a kind and friendly person to whom All Might looks back fondly as a mentor, and who spent her whole life fighting against All For One during a chaotic time of villainy, when All For One was still ruling the criminal underworld from the shadows and villains were at an all time high. She fought against that evil using not only One For All but also her quirk, Float, which allowed her to suspend herself in midair, which would later become a very useful power for Midoriya, as it allowed him to maneuver at even higher speeds with his Blackwhip and jump even higher.

After inheriting One For All, to protect them from the danger of All For One, Nana distanced herself from her son and the rest of her family, even tho it pained her greatly to do so, leaving a young Shimura Kotaro in a foster home. She became a very capable pro hero, becoming a close friend of the hero Gran Torino, with whom she shared the secret of One For All.

At some point, she met a young and quirkless Yagi Toshinori, who envisioned a world free of the influence of All For One by creating a powerful "Symbol of Peace" to combat his existence as a Symbol of Evil, to create an ideal of hope, heroism and goodness throughout society by becoming a powerful hero who would face his fights with a smile in his face that would never fade, and inspire hope in others even against the strongest and scariest of foes. Inspired by his ideals despite being quirkless, Nana chose him as her sucessor, granting him One For All and beginning to train him alongside Gran Torino, so he could enroll at U.A. High and become this Symbol of Peace.

Eventually, Nana would come to fight directly against All For One in her final fight, being killed in battle by him while entrusting the future in the hands of All Might, who went over to finish his studies in heroism in the U.S. so he'd be protected from All For One, giving a start to his hero career that would later see him vanquish the age of darkness All For One had established for so long and give rise to the Age of Heroism, as more and more young people aspired to become heroes like All Might and face the remaining villains.

As a vestige in One For All's inner world, Nana would talk to Midoriya a few times during the latter half of the series, first appearing during the Paranormal Liberation Front arc, where she and Yoichi appeared to Shigaraki when All For One was attempting to fully take over his body, confronting the vestige of All For One and dispelling him, slowing down his takeover, tho Shigaraki states that he also hates Nana.

After the end of that arc, as Midoriya enters the inner world of One For All, seeing herself as somewhat responsible for the evil that Shigaraki Tomura had become, who was her grandson who would perhaps have lived a different life had she not left her son Kotaro in foster care, Nana asked Midoriya what he planned to do when they inevitably fought, and if he had the will to kill him if it became necessary, to which Midoriya responded that he wants to save Shigaraki above all else, as he sees him as a victim of All For One and the failings of hero society, a reply that put her in tears, as she agrees to help him train his quirks, inspired by his resolve and heroism.

During the Final War arc, when Midoriya starts to fight Shigaraki, Nana tells Deku that there is still some humanity in her grandson, as she sees the faces of her family in the strange and twisted sprouted hands from Shigaraki's body, showing that he's still attached to his family and is still trying to cope with the guilt and self loathing killing them accidentally has brought him.

Nana is incredibly popular for such a small character, mostly because of her legacy throughout the series and her design. Kind of curious as to what else we will see of her as the story concludes, since I'm kind of expecting some resolution between her and Shigaraki.
SolarOracle
Posts: 549
Joined: Thu Feb 14, 2019 11:01 am

The Boku no Hero Academia Update... IS OVER!

Post by SolarOracle »

Yup, that's right. With that last post done, we're officially through the entirety of the main series! It's pretty hard to believe it's over, considering how constant a thing these posts have been the last to years or whatever. Really, thanks a lot to the entire Echoes community, both on this thread, out of it and on the Discord. Reading through random threads here is something that has gotten me through difficult days before and the conversations and community over on the Discord have consistently been great. Again, thanks a lot to everyone who engaged in discussion about this amazing series and characters and its themes, and thanks for all the kind posts you've all made here over the years. Love you all, for real.

So... what's the future for the thread?
For now? I guess I'll take a short break first and foremost, LOL. There is still plenty of Hero Academia stuff to go through, as I want to tackle Vigilantes and the other spinoffs, since there are a lot of characters I love a lot I would love to have builds for, like The Crawler, Knuckleduster, Odd-Eye and a bunch of others. I also really feel like I should do some more One Punch Man builds at some point, since it feels kind of sad to have only Saitama and King there, and since there is also a lot of other characters there I really wanna build and I feel will lead to some interesting discussions on the thread.

Also, after the main series manga for Hero Academia concludes, there are some characters I should update, like a bunch of the main cast. Hell, my Midoriya build only has TWO quirks, while he's been using all seven for a while now! I also want to update some of the builds I did early on, since I didn't have a proper scale for some stuff figured out. As a result, I have attack bonuses and Defense scores wonky all over. Will values especially tend to be ridiculously high in most cases (Todoroki has it at 8!!!! Why would I do that???) since I feel back then I was probably trying to match all aspects of the build to their Power Level, which feels kind of weird considering how my build philosophy changed over time.

For the immediately future tho, I have a couple of one-off random builds I want to post and work on before committing to a bigger project. I have a few in the bank I accumulated overtime from whenever I felt like statting a character out, so I will get to posting those after a break. There are also some original characters and settings I kind of want to post about, but if I get to that, I'll do so on a separate thread.

I would also like to open the thread up for requests, for whatever stuff that is generally nerdy and adjacent to media that interests me, so feel free to make those if anyone wants to.

All that said, I hope you guys enjoyed these posts and going through this journey with me. See you guys soon!
MarvelLion
Posts: 128
Joined: Fri Nov 04, 2016 11:42 pm

Re: Solar's Build Thread - Boku no Hero Academia Update GRAND FINALE!

Post by MarvelLion »

Nice job with the Wielders, and fantastic with everything overall! I’m looking forward to the updates to the cast once the series ends, as well as your new stuff!

Positivity done with: Sweet merciful Christ! I had never heard that theory about the Second User, and now that I know it, I hate it and everyone who came up with it. It’s like the people who convinced themselves that Gigantomachia was Red Riot sent into the past! Why do they keep going with time travel?! That’s one thing that (To my knowledge.) Horikoshi hasn’t touched, probably because he knows how frustrating and complicated it can be. I hope he never does anything with time travel in the series.
Okay, I’m done now. I’m calm now.
Jabroniville
Posts: 24695
Joined: Fri Nov 04, 2016 8:05 pm

Re: Some Quick Non-Builds For Minor Characters... Again

Post by Jabroniville »

squirrelly-sama wrote: Mon Dec 26, 2022 6:44 pm
SolarOracle wrote: Sun Dec 25, 2022 2:13 pm The President of the United States of America
It's pretty interesting that the president is handled in this way in MHA. In pretty much every other japanese media, when the nation is facing some massive threat that can threaten the rest of the world if it succeeds, you have America forcing it's way in and trying to solve the problem with force (if not be the source of the problem or trying to take advantage of it) and pissing off japan because they will just make the problem worse or are just ignoring the Japanese wanting to solve this on their own. Ghost in the Shell, Godzilla, etc etc.

This comes down to America and Japan's unique and intertwined history. There is a lot of resentment for America's military in Japan, but it's also something the country has come to see as a normal part of their culture since it's been there for over 50 years now. There's resentment for the bombings of course, but that's old hat, what's more topical is that America occupies Japan and regularly exerts control over it. Japan can't have a standing military for war after WW2, though it skirts around this with the JSDF which is for self defense purposes and is still limited. America has many military bases all through out Japan and most popularly known about in Okinawa. There's a rather popular nationalistic view in japan that America has far too much power over japan and influence in it's government and that Japan needs to get out of it and become more independent to flourish like they did before the economic collapse of 91 when they were an economic superpower.

Essentially, in pretty much any other manga, America would have sent Stars and Stripe without consulting Japan to take out Shigaraki, she'd have died and made him stronger, and it'd be a lesson on how short sighted the American's are who think pure force can win and imposing their will on japan for their own interests making the crisis worse.
Yeah, this is a super interesting thing and full of the nuance of the various countries and their histories. Japan in particular has a bit of a victim complex, especially as their own atrocities during World War II are suppressed in school (a few Japanese scholars have said they only learned about things ELSEWHERE). And yet there's this feeling of pseudo-appreciation towards America at points, as Japan has a very big "if they beat you; join them" thing (you see this in Shonen Manga a lot), where they adopted a lot of American things as a result, as if the might of America proved that they were to be emulated.

The whole "Might makes right" thing is very endemic to Japanese culture as well, which is I think why shonen heroes often seem so invincible and nearly always win (ie. GOKU; Yugi from Yu-Gi-Oh; Bleach guy), often with last-minute super-powers (Sailor Moon does this as well). Their goodness is this thing where they have to win, because if they didn't, then they weren't that good at all, were they? Obviously you see exceptions here and there (Ippo in Hajime no Ippo has three huge losses to his name- one after a year-long battle; Ash Ketchum always lost in the grand tournaments until the very end).

The whole Germany/Japan thing is also interesting, as Germany had a big moment where the Chancellor wept at Auschwitz- it was seen as a big cultural acceptance of guilt- a book I read once upon a time elaborated that Japan has never had this moment, to the point where they act like Nanking was an exaggeration or didn't happen at all (which is why other Asian countries are so resentful of Japan). And yeah, they disallow Nazi stuff in general... while Japan has this disturbing obsession with Nazi Germany and German warfare in general (Attack on Titan seems to have been dumped by Western fans largely because of this aspect and because MHA's rise in popularity totally crushed it).
Jabroniville
Posts: 24695
Joined: Fri Nov 04, 2016 8:05 pm

Re: The Other One For All Users

Post by Jabroniville »

SolarOracle wrote: Fri Dec 30, 2022 11:01 pm

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Shimura Nana

About
And you all cruelly kept this goddess from me ALL THIS TIME? Shame on you all! This is a proper MHA Mega-Waifu! The backstory is interesting, as you can see the nuance to it- protecting her family from All For One... but at the cost of her son's personal well-being. Was there no place else he could have stayed but foster care? Clearly that messed him up, and that helped lead to Shigaraki's downfall (as I read the Kotaro history to re-figure out what happened in his origin story). Cuz yeah, all of that led to the mess that brought him down a dark path. Interestingly, Shigaraki has a lot in common with Wither of the Hellions.
Last edited by Jabroniville on Sun Jan 01, 2023 2:47 am, edited 1 time in total.
Jabroniville
Posts: 24695
Joined: Fri Nov 04, 2016 8:05 pm

Re: The Boku no Hero Academia Update... IS OVER!

Post by Jabroniville »

SolarOracle wrote: Fri Dec 30, 2022 11:23 pm Yup, that's right. With that last post done, we're officially through the entirety of the main series! It's pretty hard to believe it's over, considering how constant a thing these posts have been the last to years or whatever. Really, thanks a lot to the entire Echoes community, both on this thread, out of it and on the Discord. Reading through random threads here is something that has gotten me through difficult days before and the conversations and community over on the Discord have consistently been great. Again, thanks a lot to everyone who engaged in discussion about this amazing series and characters and its themes, and thanks for all the kind posts you've all made here over the years. Love you all, for real.

So... what's the future for the thread?
For now? I guess I'll take a short break first and foremost, LOL. There is still plenty of Hero Academia stuff to go through, as I want to tackle Vigilantes and the other spinoffs, since there are a lot of characters I love a lot I would love to have builds for, like The Crawler, Knuckleduster, Odd-Eye and a bunch of others. I also really feel like I should do some more One Punch Man builds at some point, since it feels kind of sad to have only Saitama and King there, and since there is also a lot of other characters there I really wanna build and I feel will lead to some interesting discussions on the thread.

Also, after the main series manga for Hero Academia concludes, there are some characters I should update, like a bunch of the main cast. Hell, my Midoriya build only has TWO quirks, while he's been using all seven for a while now! I also want to update some of the builds I did early on, since I didn't have a proper scale for some stuff figured out. As a result, I have attack bonuses and Defense scores wonky all over. Will values especially tend to be ridiculously high in most cases (Todoroki has it at 8!!!! Why would I do that???) since I feel back then I was probably trying to match all aspects of the build to their Power Level, which feels kind of weird considering how my build philosophy changed over time.

For the immediately future tho, I have a couple of one-off random builds I want to post and work on before committing to a bigger project. I have a few in the bank I accumulated overtime from whenever I felt like statting a character out, so I will get to posting those after a break. There are also some original characters and settings I kind of want to post about, but if I get to that, I'll do so on a separate thread.

I would also like to open the thread up for requests, for whatever stuff that is generally nerdy and adjacent to media that interests me, so feel free to make those if anyone wants to.

All that said, I hope you guys enjoyed these posts and going through this journey with me. See you guys soon!
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Congratulations!! The excitement and mixed feelings of completing such a monumental body of work is with you now. This appears to have been the most popular thread on "M&M Reddit" according to some, as MHA games became the biggest cliche in the "Game Recruitment" threads, lol.

It was a lot of fun following along, and informative since people were asking me about the series but I'd never read it. I led some people requesting MHA builds to this one, since you did a much better job than I would have, given your understanding of the subject matter. Also it'll be interesting to see the main cast again- maybe just re-post the builds but with a "New Info" section.

Midoriya using seven quirks is pretty funny- I remember way back when you first dropped the knowledge of what "One For All" was about, I suggested that was the way they did the "Shonen Manga Power-Up" over the "Secret Legendary Forms" cliches that usually pop up in the genre. In this way, they were able to power up Midoriya in a different way- through versatility. Did his actual power upgrade at the same time? Because adding powers seems to make it a little more clever than the "Oh he was actually secretly more powerful ALL THIS TIME; you just had to threaten his love interest/mom/best friend" standards.

I hear you on changes in build philosophy. You start to notice it when you look back at the original stuff and go "why did I do that?". Will Saves are a tricky one- in Marvel & DC, heroes tend to lose to telepaths and whatever- is that an MHA standard, too? Most of the heroes seem pretty brave.

Has the writer said what his next project is going to be? I forget.

Looking forward to the Vigilantes stuff.
SolarOracle
Posts: 549
Joined: Thu Feb 14, 2019 11:01 am

Re: Solar's Build Thread - Boku no Hero Academia Update GRAND FINALE!

Post by SolarOracle »

MarvelLion wrote: Sat Dec 31, 2022 1:34 am Nice job with the Wielders, and fantastic with everything overall! I’m looking forward to the updates to the cast once the series ends, as well as your new stuff!
Thanks, man! Both terrified and looking forward to doing a seven quirk Deku build, LOL, especially with how annoying determining his PL will be.
MarvelLion wrote: Sat Dec 31, 2022 1:34 am Positivity done with: Sweet merciful Christ! I had never heard that theory about the Second User, and now that I know it, I hate it and everyone who came up with it. It’s like the people who convinced themselves that Gigantomachia was Red Riot sent into the past! Why do they keep going with time travel?! That’s one thing that (To my knowledge.) Horikoshi hasn’t touched, probably because he knows how frustrating and complicated it can be. I hope he never does anything with time travel in the series.
Okay, I’m done now. I’m calm now.
LOL, yeah, looking back, a lot of theories from back in the day were pretty insane in hindsight (or even back in the day in some cases, LOL. The time travel stuff honestly never held up and it was annoying how common they were and how a looooot of YouTubers and stuff kept making videos on it and making more and more people buy into it).

I also feel like the few popular fanbase theories that did come true, like Aoyama being the traitor, or Dabi being Toya, ended up kind of emboldening the crazy theories a bit, as I feel people started thinking that all the popular fan theories would become true.
Jabroniville wrote: Sun Jan 01, 2023 2:47 am WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Congratulations!! The excitement and mixed feelings of completing such a monumental body of work is with you now. This appears to have been the most popular thread on "M&M Reddit" according to some, as MHA games became the biggest cliche in the "Game Recruitment" threads, lol.
Thanks Jab! : D

LOL, I had no idea this thread had gotten so popular outside the regular Echoes community, LOL. Feels kind of surreal, but I'm really glad people found uses for these builds in one way or another.
Jabroniville wrote: Sun Jan 01, 2023 2:47 am Midoriya using seven quirks is pretty funny- I remember way back when you first dropped the knowledge of what "One For All" was about, I suggested that was the way they did the "Shonen Manga Power-Up" over the "Secret Legendary Forms" cliches that usually pop up in the genre. In this way, they were able to power up Midoriya in a different way- through versatility. Did his actual power upgrade at the same time? Because adding powers seems to make it a little more clever than the "Oh he was actually secretly more powerful ALL THIS TIME; you just had to threaten his love interest/mom/best friend" standards.
Yeah, LOL, I really like the way this was written overall, since most of it doesn't really end up as a direct upgrade. He only really manages to use them as a direct "power up" instead of as a horizontal progression due to him learning overtime to coordinate them, as he pretty much breaks the power system by comboing them together, and having them evolved way beyond the point they should be at due to them being empowered by One For All throughout all the generations of users. It feels much more interesting than your typical shonnen manga "super form".
Jabroniville wrote: Sun Jan 01, 2023 2:47 am I hear you on changes in build philosophy. You start to notice it when you look back at the original stuff and go "why did I do that?". Will Saves are a tricky one- in Marvel & DC, heroes tend to lose to telepaths and whatever- is that an MHA standard, too? Most of the heroes seem pretty brave.
There aren't really a lot of psychic attacks in the series, due to how the power system works and stuff, but quirks that I would consider Will effects do typically tend to work most of the time. The heroes generally are pretty brave, but I still feel like I might have highballed it too much on my early builds, and it probably warrants some revision.
Jabroniville wrote: Sun Jan 01, 2023 2:47 am Has the writer said what his next project is going to be? I forget.
Not really directly, but he has mentioned that he'd be interesting in trying to write horror after the series ends, which sounds pretty exciting. Horikoshi has shown some really cool and morbid stuff with some aspects of Hero Academia, and I feel he might have a knack for the genre, so I'd love to see horror manga done by him, especially if the artwork is as high quality as his current work (so hopefully at least some of his assistants carry over when he starts his new project, LOL).
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Davies
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Re: La Brava

Post by Davies »

SolarOracle wrote: Mon Nov 08, 2021 12:14 am
As the pair is taken in for questioning, Gentle still tries to avoid having La Brava take any of the blame, insisting he had kidnapped her, brainwashed her and forced the woman to help him against her will, but the police easily see through his lie. When they are reviewing the evidence and questioning La Brava, they are impressed by the programs she had coded and her hacking ability, asking her why she didn't instead apply her skill into helping to make the world a better place to which she replies by saying she doesn't care about any of that and only wanted to use her abilities to help her beloved, and takes full responsibility for all she had done, this being the last we see of her in the series, making it unclear if she is currently arrested or not.
Apparently not.
"I'm sorry. I love you. I'm not sorry I love you."
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Re: Solar's Build Thread - Boku no Hero Academia Update GRAND FINALE!

Post by Ares »

Just want to chime in with the rest for the impressive work you've done here, and on completing a milestone like this. Given my love for this manga it was a treat each time you posted up a new build, even if I didn't always comment on them. Very much looking forward to seeing what comes next.
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Re: Solar's Build Thread - Boku no Hero Academia Update GRAND FINALE!

Post by SolarOracle »

Ares wrote: Fri Jan 06, 2023 7:39 pm Just want to chime in with the rest for the impressive work you've done here, and on completing a milestone like this. Given my love for this manga it was a treat each time you posted up a new build, even if I didn't always comment on them. Very much looking forward to seeing what comes next.
Thanks, Ares! I appreciate it. : )
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Solar Oracle's Guide to Running a Hero Academia Game

Post by SolarOracle »

You know, I think we should do something more special to properly finish this long chapter of the thread.

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Introduction

After reading Jab's reply to my last post, and how apparently this thread ended up being a pretty useful resource for people running Hero Academia games (which I was thrilled to hear about! : D), I kept thinking about it and ruminating on the idea of how to DM one of those. Like, what are the things specific to the setting that one would need to keep in mind to run it as a game properly? With how focused on the characters evolving the series is, how should that be handled in-game, since Mutants and Masterminds doesn't handle that too well? How should the school-life/hero-life dynamic be balanced, and how can it be made interesting?

After giving all that some thought, I decided it would be cool to close this part of the thread with a post on all that. I don't know how "in vogue" Hero Academia games (and other superhero school-style games in general) still are, but hopefully this post can be a final useful resource for people in that regard.


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How Do I Make It Interesting? Managing Risks and Stakes

The first thing I should address is that I've never actually run a Hero Academia game, nor have any real desire to or anything. I've run games where where the player characters were high-schoolers and studied together and stuff, and games where the PCs were training under more experienced heroes, but never any kind of game that has all the elements of a "Hero Academia Game", like a society where superheroes are a widely accepted government-sponsored profession, a world that is majoritarily superhuman and, most importantly, it being set in a superhero school.

Still, considering how closely I've been following the series for, reading it weekly since late 2014 and spending way too much time theorizing about and analyzing what of it makes it work so well as a series, and considering how deeply familiar I am with the universe, its nuances and its timeline, I feel like I have enough insight into it to offer my two scents on what you should keep in mind and try to do when running a Hero Academia game while keeping it interesting.

With how popular the series is, there has been no shortage of fanfiction and RPGs set in that universe, and, in all honesty, a lot of it sucks. Like, really sucks. Hardcore. And the main reason for that I think is a lack of understanding on what elements of the series make it so great exactly, and how to properly use them. A lot of it, I feel, comes to the simple issue of stakes and how to handle them.

A LOT of the fanfics set in this universe falls into the trap of focusing way too much on the school life aspect of the story, which makes sense, considering that is the main setting of the story, but it can get very boring really quick, especially if there are no real narrative stakes.

Think about the source material. Most of the story is not about the school life of the main cast, and even when it is, most of the time there is some element that does not go according to plan and puts real stakes to the story:
The cast is meeting their new teacher and he wants to evaluate their powers? If they fail his test, he will have them expelled!
The class is doing a training exercise? It gets invaded by real villains and they have to put their very little fight experience to the test!
Class 1-A is trying to get their provisional hero licenses? They are the main target for other schools due to school rivalry, and if they fail, they won't be able to retake the exam until next year, severely delaying their career by not being able to join hero agencies as interns!

All those story arcs not only put the cast in some kind of risk, but also showcase aspects of the setting and its societal structure, like how tough U.A. is as a school, the prominence of villains in hero society and how it connects to the main cast, and the nuances and difficulties of the professional hero world, all of which manages to keep the narrative of them from being boring.

Additionally, take note on how in not all of those the danger is a direct threat: If it was always "Villains infiltrate the training exercise and the students need to defeat them!", the suspension of disbelief would be stretched out way too much and it would become old hat by the second or third time it happens. What keeps the story going is how varied the scenarios the cast have to face are, how they have to handle them in different ways using different methods and solutions each time (which is a great way to explore the applications of the cast's powers), and how not all of it is associated with their school life. When you think about Hero Academia and look past the school setting, you are still left with a deeply compelling story about the meaning of heroism, how striving to achieve one's dream is a worthwhile pursuit no matter how difficult the road to get there is, and about the multi-generational struggle to defeat evil that is represented by the One For All quirk.

With all that in mind, you should be able to create a general guideline on how your game should be structured and how not every arc should be about the school and the characters' school life. It can be good to have one of those on occasion, think about how the Gentle Criminal arc is in comparison to the Shie Hassaikai arc, for example, but your story should ultimately be about something else than the school.

It's also of note that not every hero in Hero Academia is capable in combat. In fact, most of them seem not to be combat-focused, and are instead mostly rescue specialists and support focused heroes. This can be difficult to manage in a TTRPG scenario, since it would be kind of lame to not have all the players be on more or less the same level of ability in a fight, and is also something the source material takes notice quickly. Early in the story, the "main trio" of characters was Midoriya, Uraraka and Iida, who are very unequal when it comes to combat skill. As the series goes on, this slowly morphs into the "main trio" we have now, of Midoriya, Bakugo and Todoroki, all of whom are very capable fighters on par with top-tier pros, and other previous story arcs are also mainly focusing on combat situations, using characters who excel at that.

Because of all this, it would probably be best to have all the players make combat-oriented heroes as characters, and have powers that are useful for that. It would also be pretty interesting to have the characters be rescue-focused or something, and have a game about them dealing with big disasters and the like, but regardless, it would be better to have all the players be on the same Power Level.


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When is the Game Set? And How Faithful To Canon Should It Be? Outlining the Eras of Japanese Quirk Society

OK, so now that you are starting to plan out your game, the first thing to decide is how close to canon you are sticking. If your goal is to run a make-believe game with for your friends, this shouldn't really be that big of a concern, and there is zero issue whatsoever with ignoring the canon and just running it in an version of the setting altered in whatever way you think will make the game the most fun for you and your table, altering the cast however you want and setting it whenever.

However, if you think the most fun way would be to keep it canon accurate, then the issue of when it takes place is an issue you should work out, as the people who are active on the pro hero scene are probably a big factor on your game, as the player characters slowly start to interact with the pro scene more and more. There is also the issue of the Quirk Singularity Theory.

Quirk Singularity, the theory proposed by Doctor Garaki in the main series that proposes that quirks will become more destructive and dangerous to society the more generations that go by and the more quirks combine as metahumans have children, has been basically confirmed as canon by now in the main series, despite being contested in-universe. It's kind of frustrating how the main cast fails to reflect the truthfulness of Quirk Singularity (again, I don't see how having a tail is a more destructive or complex power than any of the powers demonstrated by earlier generations, including the first meta ability ever shown, the power to glow), but as a textual part of the universe, it is something that you should concern yourself with.

Practically, this would mean that the later in the timeline your game is set, the more powerful the quirks of the cast will be, your players' characters included, and would also mean that the earlier it is set, the simpler and less powerful they should be. This is all incredibly relative tho, so it shouldn't be too major a concern.

With those things in mind, here's a short breakdown of each defined "era" of the setting, and how a game might operate in those.

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The very, very early days of meta humans
Meta abilities mysteriously start to develop, appearing in very few people, with the world still in shock after the birth of the Glowing Baby in Qing Qing, China. Theorized to have been mutated from diseases that come from rodents, society as a whole is both amazed and terrified by meta abilities, as people start forming prejudices against meta humans. Otherwise, this is pretty much just modern day Earth.

I don't really know how a game set in this era would be, especially with how sparse meta abilities are by this point. The player characters would either have to be non-meta humans, which would mostly take the fun away, I'd assume, or really young. Assuming the latter, you could have them all meet by being in some kind of government sponsored research program together or some other kind of circumstance, which could maybe sort of parallel the "hero school" angle. There wouldn't be much margin for superheroics tho, as there isn't a lot of super criminals and villains out there yet, so you would end up mostly having a game of dealing with non-powered crime, natural disasters and other stuff like that, which absolutely sounds like it could be fun, but you don't really need this setting for stuff like that. Hell, tying it to the Hero Academia universe might even get in the way for this, so I'd advise against it.

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The Meta Liberation Army Era
As meta humans become more common, so does the prejudice against them, as they are harassed, discriminated against and have violence acted upon them outright in many cases, especially for those with meta abilities that significantly alter their physical appearance. In a response to this, Yotsubashi Chikara, also known by the alias of Destro, "The Man Who Will Destroy the Status Quo", forms a political movement known as the Meta Liberation Army, which quickly radicalizes into a combat front against those prejudiced against meta humans, with members often being arrested for their violence, which in turn causes more outrage toward the prejudiced society that is oppressing them. The term "quirk" is first coined in this era by the mother of Yotsubarashi Chikara, who would later be known as "The Mother of Quirks", who used it trying to normalize meta abilities as a simple trait, and who was violently killed due to the role she played in assisting the acceptance of meta humans, which surely made Destro even more passionate about his cause.

Taking advantage of the chaotic state of society, a young man by the surname of Shigaraki starts using his meta ability to form connections and start building his criminal empire, taking the meta abilities of those that don't want them away and giving them to others so they have the means to fight back against those oppressing them. After his seemingly powerless brother tried to stop him, he imprisoned him and gave him a weak power accumulation ability, accidentally creating One For All, a power that would haunt him for the generations to come.

In this era, the players could be affiliated with any of the many factions at play, maybe trainees under commanders of those groups if you want to keep the "hero school" angle going. They could be members of some branch of the Meta Liberation Army (presumably one less radicalized than the main group, that doesn't actively want to burn society down to the ground and institute a super power-based feudalism, LOL) or even people connected to All For One who end up revolting against him at some point or something similar. There is a lot of possibility, tho, admittedly, none of it is very traditional superhero stuff. Still, seems like something that would be a very fun game if you are able to properly address the complex themes present here, tho super-criminals are probably already a thing by this point, and vigilantes started popping up here and there amidst the political turmoil in the world as a whole, tho it is still seen as illegal and those that practice it are criminals in the eyes of the law.

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The All For One Shadow Empire Era - The Age of Darkness
After the downfall of Destro and the more radicalized members of the Meta Liberation Army going into hiding, meta abilities slowly start to become more widely accepted in society as time goes by, with even the term "quirk" also slowly becoming more commonplace, especially in more diverse communities and in bigger cities. All For One manages to secure his tight grip on society, as he secretly commands and orchestrates it from the shadows, leading all crime and Japanese society itself as a "shadow emperor", unknown to most people except as a rumor and a menacing shadowy figure, as he continues gathering allies and becomes even more powerful as time goes by. The development of science starts to slow down as well, as quirk science becomes an accepted field of study, attracting the ire of those who oppose the so called "quirk society", who protest by saying that "if meta abillites weren't around, humanity would already have started conquering space".

Government sponsored super-heroes start becoming a thing, with vigilantes becoming less common as having a hero license to be legally allowed to use your quirk in public for crimefighting is seen as a much better alternative for those interested in combating crime. This is overseen the newly established Hero Public Safety Commission.

The line of One For All users continue their fight against All For One, as they keep improving their quirk's power more and more so their successors can have the upper hand, and most ended up dying in a direct battle against the Symbol of Evil throughout the decades, tho they have all been successful in passing down the quirk to a successor before dying, assuring that the battle will continue to rage on throughout the ages to come.

Games set in this era will be in the infancy of hero society, with superhero schools being either inexistent or extremely sparse, especially in the early days of this era (tho we know U.A. establishes itself at some point during this age), as pro hero is still not a commonplace career and heroes are still not that well seen by Japanese society in general, especially with All For One pulling the strings. With how society has been corrupted by him, games in this era would probably be very Batman-esche, fighting against a corrupt and dark society where crime is common and criminal groups unified under a dark lord control the government.

You should also keep in mind that this "Age of Darkness" lasted for several decades, giving you a large margin of time to work with if you choose to set your game here. With the hero scene in its infancy and it being completely unknown to us, you could populate it with interesting characters, all of whom probably would have their own views about the state of society and would probably work closely together considering the overwhelming power and absoluteness of the evil they are facing (if not even being corrupted by that force themselves). In the latter days of this age, Gran Torino and Shimura Nana, the seventh wielder of One For All, are established pro heroes, tho the hero scene seems to still be relatively small and not widely accepted by society by this point, tho hero schools like U.A. have started to establish themselves, with how popular they are being unclear, but presumably not a lot.

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The All Might Era - The Age of Heroism
As Yagi Toshinori, the eighth user of One For All, known by his hero name of All Might, returns to Japan after spending his college years training in America. Wielding the awesome and absurd power of his quirk, he is able to slowly vanquish most of organized crime in his fight against All For One, establishing the new era as the Age of Heroism, as public perception of pro heroes starts to shift for the better comforted by their newfound Symbol of Peace, as more pro heroes start popping up and hero schools start seeing more students enrolling, and more money starts being invested into hero-associated departments, making heroics a very profitable career, giving rise to what became known as the Superhero Society.

By now, quirks are widely accepted as a common part of society, with the majority of the global population being quirk users, tho those with quirks that give them inhuman appearances still being heavily discriminated against, especially in rural communities. As his empire slowly crumbles by the efforts of All Might and the rest of the new superheroes that were inspired by him, All For One and his allies go into hiding, frustrated by how powerful the newest One For All user is. The two fight directly a couple times, but All for One is unable to defeat the Symbol of Peace, tho late in this era, after decades of the two battling, he would finally be able to inflict a deadly wound on his arch-nemesis, forcing All Might to finally start looking for a successor. All for One also starts looking for a successor to continue his plans, and starts developing the nomu with the help of Doctor Garaki, as experiments like Number Six are created in that pursuit, and the Villain Factory is established. He finds that successor in the young Shigaraki Tomura in the end of this era, whom he begins to raise and train.

There is a general air of optimism in society, as people become more and more invested in the pro hero scene, as the world is slowly becoming more and more, in the words of Midoriya, "like that of western comicbooks". In an attempt to maintain that public perception of tranquility and optimism, the Hero Public Safety Commission starts pulling strings behind the scenes by having heroes employed directly under them, more notably Lady Nagant, to pull hit jobs and intimidations against heroes who have become corrupt or otherwise abuse their status, which eventually leads to she breaking down under the stress and becoming extremely depressed and demotivated by how paper-thin she sees the illusion of peace of hero society as being, eventually leading to she murdering her boss and being arrested.

Games set in this era have many possibilities of what to explore, as the hero scene has become huge. Pretty much everybody in this generation idolizes All Might, who could easily be the most famous man in the country. Hero schools have had a huge boom in popularity and the pro hero scene is bigger than ever, with there finally being sufficient manpower to combat organized crime, as the yakuza and other criminal organizations start going into hiding as their numbers simply aren't enough to match their opposition.

With this hopeful tone in mind, your player characters would probably be young people inspired by the likes of All Might. Games set here finally start to resemble to actual series, since now hero schools and the prominence of superheroics and the Hero Public Safety Commission on Japanese society are bigger than ever. Games set in the latter days of this era would have a pro-scene similar to the one from the flashbacks in Vigilantes, with people like His Purple Highness and the Buster Union being active. In the even latter days, in the cusp of the era, you would have a pro scene pretty much equal to that of the main series, but with some other notable people around, as we see in the Vigilantes spinoff.

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The Later Days of the All Might Era - The Modern Age
This is where the series proper begins, with the pro scene being the one we see in the main series. All Might finds his successor in Midoriya Izuku, who starts attending U.A. High.

I'm sure I don't need to elaborate a lot on this era if you are a manga reader, but a few notable events that shift the status quo happen here, like All Might finally retiring to the shock of the world, as Endeavor becomes the new number one hero in Japan and struggles to get the public to trust him. One For All is finally arrested in Tartarus after being defeated by All Might in their final battle, but Shigaraki Tomura, his successor, forms his League of Villains with the help of Kurogiri and Doctor Garaki, who continue to make strides in their goal of ultimately collapsing hero society and slowly accumulate more infamy and power.

Eventually, hero society fully collapses, as The Paranormal Liberation Front is formed by the remnants of the Meta Liberation Army and the League of Villains, leading to the Meta Liberation War, which ended with Shigaraki inheriting All For One's quirk and having his mind melded with him. With Gigantomachia and Shigaraki's assistance, a huge breakout happens in Tartarus, as All For One's real body is also liberated, and the jailbreakers spread chaos throughout Japan, as other prisons are liberated and after the several casualties they had against the Meta Liberation Front, the pro heroes struggle to keep up. Deku takes the fight into his own hands, training with the vestiges of One For All and being the greatest force against the villains.

His efforts are not enough, however, as the public is horrified and scared, almost completely losing faith in hero society, as more pro heroes retire, and the remaining ones have extreme difficulty with the sheer number of battles they have to undertake, most lead by dangerous criminals, as they all become exhausted.

By the end, they formulate a plan to fight against All For One's forces by leading a final battle at the grounds of a heavily fortified U.A. High, trapping the villains when they attempt an invasion, with a finally fully powered Deku being their only hope hope against Shigaraki. As I'm writing this, this final fight battle has been raging on for the last few months, so it isn't clear what will go down after this, but it is clear that hero society will no longer be as it was.

Games set in this era would be difficult to manage, especially if you are concerned with canon accuracy, since there isn't a lot of space for the players to make a big splash among the paradigm shifting events taking place, since the centerpiece of it is Deku at the end of the day, so I'd advise against doing this unless you manage to come up with a good narrative way to have your players match the main cast in power somehow (which, like, considering how bullshit Deku is, seems like a VERY difficult task without some damn good narrative explanations).

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Going Beyond - The Unknown Age
Like I said, it isn't clear how the events of the series will go down, so if you wanna set it one or more generations past this point, you should talk to your table about how the final fight in the series went down as far as your game is concerned. I wouldn't leave it ambiguous, considering that the zeitgeist and the public perception of heroes in the future heavily depends on how this will happen. There is a lot of analysis and theorizing online about what can happen from now on, so I'd advise you to do some research on that first and foremost.

Again, this is really tricky and by far the most complicated point in time to set your game if your table cares about respecting the canon of the series, but it isn't an impossible task or anything. Most fanfic out there (the ones about original characters, at least) are set here, but a lot just kind of brushes the complexities I pointed out aside, and if you just want to make an uncomplicated game where you can play vaguely in the future of the setting, doing the same for your game might be a good idea, as long as the table has properly discussed this beforehand to avoid contradictions.


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Where is The Game Set? Hero Society Outside of U.A. and Outside of Japan

Now that you know when your game takes place more or less, you should also consider where you want it to be set. Hell, even if you are sticking with Japan, we've seen that other hero schools have very different cultures than U.A., especially the ones that aren't elite schools, so if you want to have yours set in another school, or even invent your own, you should consider the implications of this. And if you are setting it in U.A., you should be conscious of the culture, events and curriculum it has, like how in the public eye it is, how difficult its classes are shown as being and the kind of school events it has, like the culture festivals and how its heroics tests are run.

Outside of Japan, you end up having a lot of liberties you can take, since we aren't shown a lot of the international pro scene outside of a couple of heroes. In the U.S., for example, which has said to be the country that has the oldest and the biggest superhero community, has only had a few of its important pros revealed, like Captain Celebrity, Star and Stripe and Godzillo, and the events that have taken place there (outside of the President being against assisting Japan after the death of Star and Stripe, and how chaotic the state of the country became as that happened) is mostly unknown, so there is a lot you could explore in a game taking place there, or any other country for that matter.

For international games, I'd recommend looking to see what canonical pro heroes are from there first, and then structuring a pro scene around that (or, if you don't care for following the canon too much, just brush that aside and start from scratch too, absolutely nothing wrong with that). Talk to your players about it, and see what they think of it and if they have any ideas or opinions so they can better cement their characters too and become more organically invested in the setting you are creating.


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Characters and artwork by Immortal-Wenz
What Kind of Characters Should My Players Have? Hero Students and Quirks

In terms of personality? Whatever they want is probably fine as long as the table is OK with it. Hero Academia has a lot of diverse personalities, so as long as the characters are generally good people who want to be heroes it should be fine (assuming that's what your game is about, that is), so don't stress out too much. Outside of that, characters in the setting generally have personalities that are connected with their quirks in some way, since quirks seem to impact the personality of their user. Hell, even the characters' names and designs seem to mirror that (it's a VERY pun-y setting), so just let your players have some fun with that! They want to make Ruby Diamonds, the gemstone hero with precious stones for hair? Or Hunter Wild, the scarred, disheveled man with spiky hair and the power to track others? Or Bill Cash, the money hero who can use coins and paper money as weaponry? Let them! Hero Academia is the perfect universe for dumb-fun kind of stuff like that!

As for your NPCs, Hero Academia characters, personality-wise, tend to be, for a lack of a better word that doesn't sound as derogatory as this, very simple. Defined by one common personality trait and having other aspects of their character kind of cascade from there as they are explored throughout the narrative. This should probably make it pretty simple for you to come up with NPCs. Just don't worry too much about it and sketchpad a couple of ideas, then work them out a bit.

For their quirks, if your players are in doubt about the character they want to play, it's a good idea to start out with their quirk, since in Hero Academia a lot of the character's personality and general concept come from their power, like I mentioned earlier. This also obviously applies to your NPCs, so lowkey, if you are in need of more background students and can't come up with anything, doing Random Page on the Super Powers Wiki and going from there is something that can surprisingly help you out a lot for this universe!

As for coming up with the quirks themselves and their mechanics and logistics, there are a few things to keep in mind. Most of the time, quirks have some kind of limitation and weakness, even when that weakness is really broad, and the characters often have to overcome that through training and smart applications of their powers. This is especially notable with pro heroes, as a lot of times their quirks are things that don't necessarily seem that useful or are very dangerous and difficult to use, but due to how much they've honed their power and trained themselves, they can make good use of it (like Vlad Kind's Blood Control or Thirteen's Black Holes). Help your players out with this, since it's a difficult balance to achieve, as going overboard with this requirement can lead them to having guys that end up unconscious after a single power use due to how bad their quirk's side effects are.

You should always keep in mind that you are the DM, and that it is your role to play on the strengths and weaknesses of your players' characters. If their quirk has a specific fault, think about how you can play with that in a way that's fun for the table. Same with their strengths and unique skills, if they can't make good use of those, you are doing something wrong as a DM. Hell, this isn't even Hero Academia specific, just good DM advice you should keep in mind for every game, LOL.


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How Do The Players Become Stronger? Training, New Techniques, Super Moves and Raising Power Levels

Mutants and Masterminds, as it is made with reflect stories where characters are mostly static with their powers and abilities, doesn't really have a "level up" system (it kind of does with the whole "you gain 1 Character Point every session" thing, but that is very slow growth and something that I don't even use, LOL). Due to that, handling this, something that is arguably a VERY important aspect of the series and something that should be exciting for players that want to play in this setting, can be kind of tricky.

There isn't really a clear Power Level progression you should follow, nor any kind of Character Point award system that would be straight forward, so instead, I think the best way of handling this is deciding collectively as a group when it is time for your characters to "level up", and have sporadically throughout your stories clear points where they would have the opportunity to develop new techniques, tho that should become an exponentially harder and slower process the more it goes on as the characters are approaching the limits of what they can do with their powerset (like what All Might said regarding Midoriya becoming stronger much quicker than Bakugo due to having had his quirk for less time, "It is quicker to level up from Level 1 than it is at a higher level"). Give your players some training arcs as their downtime, like in preparation for a school event or their provisional license exam, and give them the opportunity to develop new moves with the help of pros they take internships under, mainly ones that mirror the abilities of that pro.

These usually come in the form of new Alternate Effects for their quirk, or new aspects to their powersets in general. Super Moves, however, are a different story, as they very often are in the limit of the character's power level, or even often break the PL limit, as they are meant to be powerful finisher moves that take their opponent down for good. Because of that, I suggest that you workshop with your players what their character's Super Moves can be, and what their side effects are (if there is any). You could probably impose a limit to the number of Super Moves each character is allowed, and letting them get new ones after especially important milestones and training sessions.

Another aspect of development is Support Items, as members of the main cast are often shown receiving new tech developed to help them control and better use their powers in some way or another. This should probably also be an aspect of your game, so give your players the opportunity to request (or even develop) new support items that they can use. This is a similar thing to them developing new techniques, and mechanically, should be handled the same way, assuming they have access to inventors and support item workshops. These tend to work the exact same way as creating a new technique, but are usually better at compensating for an inherent flaw of a quirk, but have the Removable or Easily Removable flaw as a drawback (at least in my build philosophy since I don't mind Character Points. If you do, then for a lot of stuff you can just have your players acquire them as Gear with Equipment ranks).

As for Power Levels, you should probably raise them after major milestones and growth. This is even more subjective and vague than the rest, so it's best to just work it out with the table. You should probably avoid them having a level disparity, despite that being common in the main series, unless your table is onboard with the idea, but I can only imagine it would be frustrating for others.


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Fanart by @ruyow
The Big Leagues: Games in the Hero Academia Universe That Aren't About Hero School

A small sidenote I wanted to make, since this is something that is sadly very overlooked, but you can EASILY make very interesting games in this universe that aren't about hero school, and it's frustrating how people don't care for this! The details on the working of hero society and the issues with the pro hero system are often discussed and pointed out in the series itself, and having a game that is about pros or vigilantes or whatever else is a much better venue to explore those aspects of the series than having the players be hero students.

Maybe you could have a game about them being new sidekicks working under a pro hero, or maybe you could have them be a new group of vigilantes that opposes the pro hero system, or you could just have a game where they are pro heroes leading their own agency and having to deal with difficult cases and slowly rise their ways through the rankings. There is a lot of cool stuff you can do in this setting, and a lot of awesome stories you could tell about it that aren't about hero school.

Even if you want to keep the angle of the characters being in high school, a game about them being in the Support Item Development Department could also be pretty fun, depending on where you go with it!


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Some U.A. School Events and How To Handle Them

Anyways, back to the topic of hero school stuff, I decided it could be useful to have a comprehensive list of the scheduled school events we see taking place and what you can do about them in your game. These are specific to U.A., so other schools would probably approach these differently, but would probably have some vaguely equivalent stuff happening, so this will probably still be very useful for those settings.

Also of note, these are not all the school activities the characters will be doing, as a lot of other stuff can happen throughout the year. Joint trainings with other classes and schools, trainings in specific aspects of pro hero life, like interviews, the development of new techniques, and, of course, other mundane school stuff. All of this (and probably other stuff we haven't seen) happens sporadically throughout the school year, and as the DM, it's up to you how and when to employ these. Keep that in mind when outlining your game.

Again tho, keep in mind that most of your games should be stuff OTHER than what goes down in the characters' school life! So mostly use these as a general timeline of events taking place and as a way to mark the passage of time, while still having stakes and expectations regarding these events as well, instead of having them be the big arcs in your game. A character beating up their hero rival in a school tournament is generally a less interesting and impactful thing than them defeating a powerful villain and training under proffessionals.

The Entrance Exam
This is probably the biggest one, and can be a really fun introductory session for the table, and a great opportunity for the characters to start working together.

As the series points out, most of the time the entrance exam favors certain types of quirks over others, which Aizawa pointed out was an unfair system. This can be a cool concept to play around on your table: maybe the entrance exam is based on something the players aren't good at, and they have to overcome it. Or maybe it's something they are good at, and other students at the school grow resentful of them, since they see their position of status in the school as something they only got out of dumb luck.

Also keep in mind that there are characters in the series that enter the class through recommendations and the tests they had to undertake was different than the one done by the others. Todoroki had to win a race through an obstacle course, for example, compared to the rest of his class having to amount points over by destroying robots and rescuing other participants of the exam.

These exams test not only aptitude and ability, but also aspects of heroism, like the test with the robots was mostly about the examinees having the heroic spirit to rescue others, as that was the easiest way to score points.

The sky is the limit when it comes to what you want to do for your game, but you should probably make it something that allows your players to work as a team, be it by circumstance or by the structure of the test. The point of this is to be a collaborative storytelling game, and if you make it an exam that they have to complete separately, you are undermining that and robbing them of an opportunity to have their characters interact and develop.

Quirk Apprehension Test
After joining the school, the first hurdle class 1-A had to overcome was Aizawa's quirk apprehension test, which was designed to measure their abilities with their power and their character. Tho Aizawa's was pretty cruel, with him telling the class he would expel whoever scored the lowest, it can be assumed that most hero schools would have a similar test going on so their teachers can know what they are working with and how they can help, tho one that probably doesn't have the students risk being expelled on their first day of school, LOL.

It should also be noted that narratively the point of this was having Midoriya overcome the weakness of his quirk to pass the test, by being forced to think outside the box and figure out a way to use his quirk that wouldn't put him out of commission immediately, leading to him developing his first technique in the form of flicking his fingers and breaking those instead of his whole arm. Ideally, you would want to plan yours around a similar thing, and allow your players to have a cool moment of overcoming a weakness.

This one is probably tough to work out how to do as a group thing, but not impossible. Maybe the teachers split the class into groups for this exercise and the players group up or whatever, like a superpowered capture the flag game or something, or a series of group competitions, each designed to measure the potential of their quirks in different ways.

Sports Festival
The U.A. sports festival is famous throughout Japan, comparable to the Olympic Games with the number of viewers it draws within the country, as everyone wants to see what the next generation of pro heroes will be. This can be pretty exciting for your game, and a chance for your player characters to make their first big splash in the eyes of the public.

The first half of this even seems to be just common Japanese school festival games, but with a super power twist. Cavalry battle games and obstacle courses are the ones we are shown, but you can come up with a lot of other stuff. Just think back to high school events you hated and think about how they could be made fun with super powers. Relay races, scavenger hunts, sports games, stuff like that.

The issue comes up with the part that is the BIGGEST draw of this as a narrative arc, and something that would be troublesome in an RPG: The one-on-one tournament. This would be INSANELY boring in a tabletop scenario compared to the rest of the event, as only one player gets to do stuff while the rest of the groups sits down in silence and has to watch, completely breaking their engagement with the game. There would be opportunity for some fun friendly PvP stuff, if your group can handle stuff like that well, but there would still be players left out.

There isn't any easy workaround here without breaking away from the canon. Doing it as a group fight, or as a battle royale would be a fun way to go about it, but contradict the main series and the point of the event as a way to draw individual attention from pro heroes who would want to have these students as interns. Honestly having some unpredicted thing happen here that cancels this part of the event and forces the characters to do higher stakes stuff could be a good idea. Massive bummer this can't be well replicated on a group game, but not much you can do, tho if your setting isn't U.A., you could just have the big event on that school be something else.

Pro Hero Internships
After the sports festival, U.A. students are drafted by pro heroes as interns, as they are selected based on their performance, and those who weren't scouted by any specific pro hero can apply to some hero agencies that are always open for interns. To do so, first year students must also pick a hero name to apply as, since this is OFFICIAL HERO BUSINESS! or whatever.

The hero name pick can be a chance to give your players a cool moment. The internships themselves are a good chance to give the players some downtime to develop new techniques under the hero that drafted them. If you want to make an actual story arc for your game out of this opportunity, there are some things you could do. Maybe have all the player characters intern under the same hero or hero team, or maybe the agencies they are interning under are teaming up for a case or something similar.

This is the probably the first opportunity your player will have to make professional hero connections outside of their school's staff, and that is a pretty big deal. For their work studies and future internships, they will probably be able to go to the same agency, unless something goes horribly wrong, and will maybe even be able to be part-timers as sidekicks at that agency as they advance through their school years, and that is a great stepping stone into the professional hero world.

Final Exams
Taking place in the end of the semester, the characters have to undergo their final exams, which is always a stressful time at school. Not only will they have to go through difficult written exams, they will also have to showcase their growth as heroes by passing through practical exams set up to test aspects of hero work they were previously lacking in.

In game terms, the written exam is something you can probably mostly overlook. Maybe have them all do a study session together, allowing them to roleplay a bit and showcase how close their characters are, or allow it as an opportunity for them to get closer to other students ("Oh no! Your characters will flunk the test and the only one that can help them is their rival! Oh the drama potential!!!"). If you wanna be all fancy about it, have them go through an Expertise (Student) check or two, and give them bonuses or penalties depending on circumstance and whatever.

The practical part of the exam is where the fun is at tho! PERFECT opportunity to have them teamed up and have to overcome a difficult challenge posed by the teachers running the exam! See what aspect of hero work they are lacking in and have the test be centered around that, requiring them to work together to overcome it.

The team compositions on the original series were a big part of this, as, for example, Bakugo and Midoriya were forced to work together to beat their test despite HATING each other, but since this is a group game and all, just have your characters group together, even if that means ignoring this. If you really wanna play into this aspect of the test, maybe have a fellow student NPC or tow they dislike as part of their team and have them be forced to overcome their differences. Could be fun.

Training Camp
This one only really happened in the main series because of the circumstances surrounding U.A. and them suspecting a spy among the staff, so keep it in mind that if your game has different circumstances surrounding the setting, this wouldn't be exactly the same.

Still tho, a school trip arc could always be fun, and have it be a training exercise is a good way to play into the hero school aspect of the game. There isn't much instruction I can give to this, as long as you are mindful of the stakes. You could have the arc center around some mystery in the place they went to or whatever other thing you think would be fun to do. This is a classic for slice-of-life anime, so I'm sure you can come up with fun ideas.

Work Studies
This is basically the internships again, but with higher expectations. The internships were more about them getting their foot wet into the pro world and be able to observe real pros in action and take notes. The work studies are instead about them temporarily working as sidekicks at their chosen agency, and will demand a lot more proactivity of the characters.

This is a good roleplay opportunity, but overall, handle it the same way you did the internships. Allow them to develop a couple of techniques with the help of whatever pro is helping them and give them some downtime. This is an easy part of school life to turn into a story arc, as you are able to have them involved with battles against villains and other superhero cases, so consider that.

Work studies happen twice every year, after the end of each semester, so have that in mind when planning the timeline for your game.

Provisional Hero License Exam
An exciting one for sure, this is when the characters attempt to get their provisional hero licenses, which allow them to act as pro heroes and publicly use their quirks unsupervised in certain situations, like performing arrest or stopping villains, by undergoing a difficult competitive exam against schools from all over the country, allowing the characters to face off against rival schools and test their skill by comparing themselves to others.

Like with other exams throughout the series, the exact exercise they have to do is a secret every time, so think this one through and have it revealed as a surprise to your players. Regardless of what it is, it should reflect aspects of hero work, like combat and rescue exercises, and be a competition against other schools.

The second half of the exam, at least the one we were shown, wasn't a competition, but instead was a test of how they can cooperate with other heroes, so you could go for a similar thing. Don't fall for the trap of having every issue in your game be something that needs to be solved through fights, and this is a great opportunity to have the players go through that.

In the case of U.A. students, it is pointed out that the school has them undergo these exams at their first year, but that expectation isn't there for other schools, as most try to get their license only on their second year. Check whatever is more appropriate for your setting and go for that.

The Remedial Course
The remedial course only happened in the main series due to the rise in villain activity requiring more people able to combat them, and thus the Hero Public Safety Commission needing more students with provisional licenses, and had hero students who failed the second half of the exam train with Gang Orca. This is important context, as that may not be the case for your game.

That said, this is a good failsafe for if your players fail the second half of the exam in your game. Maybe hold a shorter session for the players that failed the exam and allow them to showcase character growth or whatever.

School Festival
The last event of note, U.A.'s school festival happens in the end-half of the second semester and is akin to a Japanese school culture festival. Unlike the sports festival, this one isn't a competition or anything, and is only about each class putting on a performance of some kind, decided by the class beforehand, like a café, a haunted mansion tour or a play. Additionally, other general school festival stuff is going on in the school, like food stands, games and beauty pageants and stuff.

Again, more general slice-of-life anime stuff, you can do something fun with this if you want a more chill break after a high stakes arc or whatever, or you could have something unpredicted happen that makes the situation high-stakes for the characters. Or not. Sometimes just having a chill session where they hang out with their school friends and do stuff that doesn't have a lot of risk involved is OK to, as long as you don't overdo it. This as a game session would give your players a lot of opportunity for some chill character interactions and develop their bonds with your cast and stuff, so go for it if your table is into that.


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Closing Remarks

I hope this is useful if anyone is running a game in this setting, or any other kind of game in a setting similar to Hero Academia. These past two years on this thread have been WILD, and I love how supportive and insightful on the topic of Hero Academia the Echoes community was. I hope my builds can be of use to you, and if you are reading this post because you want to run a game, that this is a helpful guideline for you.

Good luck with your builds, and most importantly, good luck with your games! Sometimes I feel like I get so caught up with doing builds, I forget the point of them is to play with, LOL, so I hope you have some use for mine and yours and other people's. Thanks a lot for reading through this and following my posts, and I'm looking forward to working on Vigilantes builds in the future! Hope to see you then as well! : )
Kurlan Aank
Posts: 8
Joined: Fri Sep 30, 2022 9:25 pm

Re: Solar's Build Thread - Boku no Hero Academia Update GRAND FINALE!

Post by Kurlan Aank »

This is the perfect write-up of the current arcs present in MHA and I definitely will be going back to this to get some insight into school dynamics. Thanks!
SolarOracle
Posts: 549
Joined: Thu Feb 14, 2019 11:01 am

Angel Summoner & BMX Bandit

Post by SolarOracle »

Like I mentioned previously, I kind of want to take things slow for a bit before starting out the Vigilantes builds, as I want to re-read the whole series and take notes as I go along before starting to build and post. This will also give me the opportunity to post a couple of builds I did at random intervals in the past, mostly out of a whim and stuff. I'll call this the "in-between-updates update".

So, let's start this out with the famous crime-fighting duo...

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That Mitchell and Webb Look was a fairly successful and award-winning British sketch comedy series, starring famous comedy duo David Mitchell and Robert Webb, which ran from 2006 to 2010. I have never watched a single full episode of it.

I mean, I have seen a couple of clips from it, the famous "are we the baddies" meme, for example, and I vaguely remember something about some sketch called "Numberwang" or something. I am also somewhat familiar with other stuff Mitchell and Webb have done, like Peep Show (tho the comedy of that didn't land very well with me), but for whatever reason, just never had any desire to sit down and watch a full episode of That Mitchell and Webb Look. I am pretty big on sketch comedy shows, like Mr. Show, Monty Python's Flying Circus, Key and Peele or Aunty Donna's Big Ol' House of Fun, so you'd think it would be right up my alley, but for whatever reason, Mitchell and Webb's show just never seemed that appealing to me. That is, aside from one specific sketch...

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Fanart by Teh-Dave

Angel Summoner & BMX Bandit is a series of three sketches from the first episode of the show, and it's a take on the famous joke of "Hey, if Superman is so strong, why does he even need to team up with Batman anyways?", which is a joke that ends up being kind of eyeroll-worthy and annoying if you've been reading comics for long enough, since having a diversity of skills is important for different missions, and there are things Batman can do that Superman can't. Nonetheless, for whatever reason, I just never really got frustrated with this sketch, and always saw it as really charming.

The sketches detail the adventures of BMX Bandit and Angel Summoner as they fight crime, with one being able to summon a horde of powerful angels to do his bidding, while the other is really skilled with his BMX.

The running joke of the sketches is that BMX Bandit puts a lot of planning and thought on how to solve each situation by using his BMXing skills, only for Angel Summoner to tell him it would be simpler to just summon the angels. Eventually, BMX Bandit becomes jealous and resentful of how Angel Summoner can solve everything by just calling his angels over, since he is unable to be part of the crime-fighting, as, in his own words, "Well, I think the thing is that your ability to summon a horde of celestial super-beings at will is making my BMX skills look a bit redundant!"

Angel Summoner sympathizes with BMX Bandit as, on the next and final sketch, he tries to cheer him up by having him be the central point of their endeavors to fight against a group of terrorists, by having him do an impossible jump through the window and take them down with his BMX-based fighting skills. BMX Bandit is taken aback by this, since it is much above his skill, and tells Angel Summoner that this is the kind of situation where maybe it would be best to just have the angels deal with it, but Angel Summoner tells him that he needs to have more confidence in himself and that he can do this, still trying to include him in their crimefighting, which cheers the biker up.

He starts the impossible jump, noticing that he managed to get a ridiculously long airtime that should not be doable in a BMX, and realizes that Angel Summoner must have had a group of invisible angels carrying him and his ride, telling him off and demanding he unsummon them, so that he can do this alone and prove how capable he is once and for all. His partner objects, but after being told off by the BMX Bandit again, he abides, only for the biker to plummet to his death on the asphalt below, putting an end to the adventures of the duo.

The sketch concludes with the announcement of the all-new adventures of Angel Summoner and his new crimefighting partner: Gymkhana Girl!

I first got exposed to it back when I was first getting into RPGs, back in 2015 or so, where there were for whatever reason, there was a huge running joke of people comparing high-level spellcasters to Angel Summoner and high-level martial characters to BMX Bandit, as there is a notable power gap between those in 3.p stuff in general, and that ahs always been a pretty big meme in the community.

From there, I'd often revisit the sketch from time to time, to show it to my friends or just because I randomly remembered it, as it is fairly short and always manages to get a small chuckle out of me. Since it is super-hero adjacent media, at some point in 2020 or whenever, I decided it would be fun to build the two characters in Mutants and Masterminds.
SolarOracle
Posts: 549
Joined: Thu Feb 14, 2019 11:01 am

Angel Summoner

Post by SolarOracle »

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One can summon angels!

Role: Summoner Hero, Huge Fish at a Small Pond

Angel Summoner

Identity: Unknown.
Gender: Male.
Age: Unknown.
Height: Unknown.
Weight: Unknown.
Eyes: Brown.
Hair: Graying golden-blonde.
Skin: Fair.
Group: Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit, Angel Summoner and Gymkhana Girl.
Base of Operations: Unknown, presumably the UK.

Power Level 3 (PL 4 Will and Fortitude) - 178 Character Points

Abilities
Strength 0, Agility 0, Fighting 2, Awareness 2
Stamina 2, Dexterity 0, Intellect 1, Presence 1

Powers
Angelic Hordes, Come Forth!!
: Summon 10 (Angels) (Extras: Active, Horde, Multiple Minions 5 - 32 Minions, Variable Type - Angels). [140]

Gear
Staff: Strength-based Damage 1. (1)

Advantages
Close Attack, Equipment

Skills
Deception 2
(+3 total).
Expertise (Angelology) 6 (+7 total).
Insight 4 (+6 total).
Perception 2 (+4 total).
Persuasion 4 (+5 total).

Offense
Initiative +0
Unarmed
+3, close damage 0.
Staff +3, close damage 1.

Defense
Dodge 4, Fortitude 3, Parry 4, Toughness 2, Will 6

Complications

Overpowered: Angel Summoner’s ability to summon hordes of celestial super beings at will often makes his crime fighting partner, BMX Bandit, feel redundant. Feeling responsible for this, Angel Summoner often tries to cheer him up.

16 Abilities, 140 Powers, 2 Advantages, 9 Skills, 11 Defenses = 178 Character Points


About: The competent half of the duo, Angel Summoner is a seemingly old man with the power to summon a horde of angels to do whatever he commands them to. He's shown to be pretty down to earth and nice, despite his amazing powers, trying to cheer up BMX Bandit and not having much of an ego.

Throughout the sketches, Angel Summoner can deal with the enemies he and his teammate have faced pretty easily by summoning his angels, which gets him all the credit for their heroism. This eventually gets to BMX Bandit, which causes Angel Summoner to promise him to deal with whatever they face next with primarily BMX-based tactics, which his partner agrees to.

Next, when they are going to face a large group of heavily armed terrorists who have hostages, Angel Summoner creates a plan to have BMX Bandit think he did all the work by having his angels turn invisible and carry BMX Bandit through an impossible jump into the building the terrorists were hiding in, and presumably have those same invisible angels help him out in the fight. When this is inevitably found out by BMX Bandit, he becomes very annoyed at Angel Summoner, telling him to call off the angels, since he needs to prove he can do this alone, something Angel Summoner is reluctant to do, but eventually does so anyways, causing the BMX hero to fall to his death, as he was midflight when the angels were unsummoned. He then partnered with Gymkhana Girl, presumably having a similar outcome.

Honestly, Angel Summoner and his dynamic with BMX Bandit is probably my favorite part of the sketches and what actually make them funny. With this kind of gag, you'd usually expect the more powerful of the pair to be an asshole and have a massive ego, but instead having him actually care about BMX Bandit and try to help him regain his confidence resulted in the joke of the sketch landing much better, and made him a much more likeable character.

Buildwise, Angel Summoner is only a PL 3, relying on his summons to be able to do anything. Another victim of the "curse of the summoner character", Angel Summoner has 178 Character Points, MUCH more than the expected for his power level due to how high the Character Points of his angels are, and how many he summons (I went with 32, as they are said to be "angelic hordes").

We aren't given much background on him or the nature and origin of his powers, so he ended up lacking in skills and advantages in general. I did give him 6 ranks of "Expertise (Angelology)" tho, since I assume he probably has some knowledge of that in general, even if his powers don't necessarily come from that knowledge.

I included a build for the angels themselves later in this post, and I did so assuming they are your typical high-fantasy armored warrior angel types. I did give him Variable Type on his summon tho, so there is some room for altering the template I included. For that build, I gave them their unexplained invisibility (which is a pretty funny way of circumventing the low budget of the show, heh), as well as some other generic angelic powers, like weaponry, armor, immunity to aging and life support, enhanced senses and the ability to understand and speak all languages, all of which are typical of angels in fantasy in general, as well as powerful wings that grant them flight, of course.

Outfits: Angel Summoner wears a white and gold costume, with a long open white cape with a high collar, highlighted with gold, a pair of golden gloves, a long-sleeved white shirt with a golden belt, white pants and a pair of white boots. His shirt has a golden logo of an "A" with angel wings and a five-point star bellow it. He also carries a staff with white feathers.


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Artwork by www-PaulPederson-com

Role: Celestial Warrior Badass

Angel Template

Power Level 8 - 146 Character Points

Abilities
Strength 6, Agility 3, Fighting 6, Awareness 5
Stamina 6, Dexterity 0, Intellect 4, Presence 5

Powers
Angel Physiology: Immunity 11 (Aging, Life-Support). [11]
Senses 5 (Darkvision, Ranged Acute Mental Detect Evil). [5]
Comprehend 3 (Languages 3). [6]
Angelic Wings: Flight 6 (250 Km/H or 120 MpH) (Flaws: Winged). [6]

Invisible Agents of the Divine: Concealment 6 (Visuals, Hearing). [12]

Holy Weaponry: 4 point array (Flaws: Easily Removable). (4) -- [5]
  • Divine Sword: Strength-based Damage 2 (Extras: Improved Critical 2). (4)
  • Divine Mace: Strength-based damage 2 (Extras: Improved Critical 2). (4)
Divine Armor: (Flaws: Removable). [3]
Protection 3. (2)

Advantages
Diehard, Interpose, Great Endurance, Power Attack, Uncanny Dodge

Skills
Close Combat (Maces) 2
(+8 total).
Close Combat (Swords) 2 (+8 total).
Insight 6 (+11 total).
Intimidation 4 (+9 total).
Perception 8 (+13 total).
Persuasion 4 (+9 total).
Stealth 4 (+7 total).

Offense
Initiative +3
Unarmed
+6, close damage 6.
Divine Sword +8, close damage 8, critical 18-20.
Divine Mace +8, close damage 8, critical 18-20.

Defense
Dodge 7, Fortitude 7, Parry 7, Toughness 6/9*, Will 9
*9 with armor.

Complications

Motivation: Loyalty: The angels obey Angel Summoner’s commands.

70 Abilities, 48 Powers, 5 Advantages, 15 Skills, 8 Defenses = 146 Character Points
Last edited by SolarOracle on Tue Mar 14, 2023 12:52 am, edited 2 times in total.
SolarOracle
Posts: 549
Joined: Thu Feb 14, 2019 11:01 am

BMX Bandit

Post by SolarOracle »

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The other rides a BMX!

Role: Super-Cyclist, Tiny Fish in a Huge Pond

BMX Bandit

Identity: Unknown.
Gender: Male.
Age: Unknown.
Height: Unknown.
Weight: Unknown.
Eyes: Blue.
Hair: Red.
Skin: Fair.
Group: Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit.
Base of Operations: Unknown, presumably the UK.

Power Level 5 - 59 Character Points

Abilities
Strength 1, Agility 1, Fighting 3, Awareness 0
Stamina 3, Dexterity 0, Intellect 2, Presence 1

Powers
Pop a Wheelie!: Damage 3 (Flaws: Check Required - Athletics, Source - BMX). [1]

Gear
BMX
Size Medium Strength 0 Speed 4 Defense 7 Toughness 3
Cost 9

Advantages
Close Attack 2, Equipment 2, Move-by Action

Skills
Acrobatics 2
(+3 total).
Athletics 6 (+7 total).
Athletics 8 (+15 total) (Flaws: Limited to BMXing).
Close Combat (BMX) 2 (+7 total).
Deception 2 (+3 total).
Investigation 4 (+6 total).
Perception 5 (+5 total).
Persuasion 2 (+3 total).
Stealth 3 (+4 total).

Offense
Initiative +1
Unarmed
+5, close damage 1.
Pop a Wheelie +7, close damage 3, Athletics DC 10.

Defense
Dodge 7, Fortitude 5, Parry 7, Toughness 3, Will 4

Complications

Redundant: The BMX Bandit realizes how redundant and useless he is compared to Angel Summoner’s angelic horde summoning powers. Angel Summoner will often try to cheer him up due to this.

22 Abilities, 1 Powers, 5 Advantages, 15 Skills, 16 Defenses = 59 Character Points


About: The less impressive half of the pair, BMX Bandit is, in his own words, "quite good with his BMX", and fights crime through his BMX-based fighting-style. He's shown to be pretty confident of his skills and a pretty upbeat and friendly guy, but got bummed out pretty easily after repeatedly being upstage by Angel Summoner.

Throughout the sketches, we see BMX Bandit and Angel Summoner preparing to face various criminals, as BMX Bandit elaborates complex and risky plans that involve him beating up the enemies with his BMX skills, but Angel Summoner always ends up reminding him that it would be quicker and better to just let him summon his angels to deal with the threat.

This eventually gets to BMX Bandit, as he starts resenting how he is unable to be a part of the fights in any way, since the angels are simply much better than him at everything. Noticing this, however, Angel Summoner apologizes and offers a compromise, where they would face the next crisis with primarily BMX-based tactics, which the biker hero agrees to.

Their next mission, however, ends up being significantly difficult to complete through BMXing alone, as it would require BMX Bandit to do a seemingly impossible jump and fight off alone against a large group of heavily armed terrorists. BMX Bandit suggests just letting the angels resolve it again, since he feels the task is much above his skill level, but Angel Summoner insists, as he gave his word that he would let BMX Bandit do most of the work, and tells him that he is much more capable than he is giving himself credit for. He is the freaking BMX Bandit, damn it!

The renews BMX Bandit's resolve, as he psyches himself up and goes to attempt the jump, which, much to his surprise, he seems to actually be able to pull off. However, noticing how slowly he is advancing toward the building, and that he is somehow able to have the longest conversation himself or anyone else mounting a BMX has ever done mid-jump, he realizes the ugly truth: that Angel Summoner didn't believe in him all along, and had summoned a squadron of invisible angels to carry him to the building.

This enrages the hero, as he was finally decided to prove himself, and he demands Angel Summoner call the angels off so he can do it by himself. Angel Summoner is reluctant, telling him to think of the angels only as backup, but BMX Bandit won't budge, forcing the celestial summoner to dismiss the angels mid-flight.

BMX Bandit snarkly tells his partner "Thanks for believing in me, mate!", only to fall to his death, as the angels went away, plummeting into the hard pavement and dying, marking the end of his crime-fighting days... and days in general.

You can't help but feel bad for BMX Bandit while watching the sketches (hell, I remember a friend telling me he didn't like them purely because of how needlessly mean toward the biker they felt. Guess that's British comedy for ya), since all he wants is to prove how capable he is. And, honestly, if he is actually able to pull off the maneuvers he said he was going to do when he was telling his plans to Angel Summoner, he isn't half bad at all. I could easily see him being a low-rank B-tier hero if he was a One Punch Man character, honestly (and making that comparison just makes me want to see him and License-less Rider from that series interact, LOL). He is just unfortunately paired off with someone who completely outshines him in every possible way.

Assuming he is as capable as his plans suggest he is, BMX Bandit is a PL 5, failing to match most heroes in powers, but still capable enough to take down groups of goons, especially if he is able to make use of his BMX skills to pull off strategic stunts. I ended up doing his BMX as a simple vehicle, matching his defenses, and he has the Move-by Action advantage to represent his agile and bike-based fighting style. He also has a Damage power, representing his using the momentum and speed of his BMX to attack others, and it has relatively low Athletics Check DC associated with it, as it wouldn't be too difficult to pull that off. You could easily represent the other stunts he suggested using to defeat the criminals (like using the back wheels of his bike to throw mud at their faces) as power stunts, with the power point difference being offset with Check Required ranks, representing the complexity of each maneuver.

I did BMXing as an Athletics thing, since that makes more sense to me than it being a vehicles thing. With that in mind, he has pretty high general athleticism, being an athlete in peak form, and also having a shitton of ranks limited to BMXing, matching his power level, representing how good at what he does he is.

Outfits: BMX Bandit uniform is colorful cyclist gear, wearing primarily purple and orange. He wears an orange helmet with green stylized arrows, a pair of green shoulder and knee pads, a pair of black, green and orange sneakers, black fingerless gloves with orange and purple detailing, black shorts with orange outlines, and a purple shirt with his logo on the chest: a green inverted triangle with the letters "BMX" and a star in orange. He also wears a black undershirt beneath that. Always found it kind of funny that he has a pretty villainous color scheme for his outfit.
Last edited by SolarOracle on Tue Mar 14, 2023 12:49 am, edited 2 times in total.
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