The Crinoverse 2 (End of Part 2)

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Given they are your creations, Silvercat, is it allright for me to post my thoughts along the backgrounds of The Gamblin' Man and Fat Catgirl? In my mind, they are both humans from the "real" world (Crinoverse) who had adventuring careers before being unwillingly transported to the Imageria/Discardia; Fat Catgirl was once known as The Black-Velvet Catgirl and then the Leopard Catgirl during her earlier days on Earth as an adventurer/high-end thief/antihero; The Gamblin' Man was a legacy hero but also inspired by the original Blackwing and the first Raven.

Go right ahead.

[Yeoman]

Turles: A Saiyan warrior and Pirate, he and his band are currently seeking a world to plant the tree of might upon, a deadly super plant which will kill any world it is planted upon.

The Christmas Tree of Might.

huh, no vegeta or nappa? granted, Vegeta's either killed napa by now or blown his own fool head off to escape his chatter (given how much dbzabridged creeps into the game sessions)

[Thunder and Lightning]

MUAHAHAHAHAHAAHA!

[Kreuzritter]

oh, and regarding Xeron, we now have an Official Map of the Equestrian region

[Crinos]

oh, and regarding Xeron, we now have an Official Map of the Equestrian region

So I noticed.

Not sure whether to alter my own writeup of Xeron to better match the map, or just throw out the canonical map and use my own.

[Yeoman]

I'd go with the official.

Equestria being on Xeron was a fairly last minute swap meant to throw the party and introduce the show. It was never really meant to have the place in the continuity it did when introduced.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Considering I can't find a write-up of Xeron's geography you might as well.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Hey over on RPG.net they have a thread for making bad movie trailers of your favorite setting. I made one for the Crinoverse, but I'm sharing it here because I'm not sure how alive the original thread is.

SCENE: Interior of a dingy bar like the kind your get in city outskirts with all kinds of tough guys. Dwain Johnson (The Rock) in a trench-coat, Samuel L. Jackson with a shaved head in orange and yellow monk robes, and Ben Affleck in normal stuff but with curiously long sleeves are sitting at a booth in the back.

Voice Over: In a world where anything can happen....

There is the sound of old-timey saloon doors swinging and everyone in the bar looks up as we are treated to a shot over a conical straw hat. There are the cliched sounds of boots-and-spurs walking across the floor as the tough guys all watch who's ever walking with various expressions ranging from incredulity to wariness to like they're about to laugh. The shot shows the three drinking unconcernedly at the booth as whoever it is approaches and stops in front of them. We are treated to another shot of the conical straw hat, this time from the three's booth as they finally look over, and we find that whoever is wearing it is short enough that only the hat is visible over the table.

Voice Over: ......and frequently does.

The three look at each other. Then they lean over the table so we can see it is a My Little Pony G1 Applejack in a white kimono with a katana strapped to her side under the hat.

G1 Applejack: I hear you are looking for heroes.

Ben Affleck character: And what are you supposed to be?

G1 Applejack: They call me.......Jack.

There are sounds of screaming from outside.

Samuel L. Jackson character: Where you followed?

A rhino-like xenomorph busts in through a wall with some kind of device stuck in its head.

CUT: Exterior of bar, front. The xenomorph comes flying out the door, followed by Dwain. He changes form as his coat rips, revealing he is a werewolf.

Dwain Johnson character: You want to take on a warrior of Gaia? Come on!

Samuel L. Jackson's character comes out of the bar. He looks toward the horizon behind the camera.

Samuel L. Jackson character: We have bigger problems. (a blue arrow blazes to life across his bald head as the wind picks up)

Ben Affleck's character comes out next. He takes one look off to the horizon, then there's a shot of his hand popping out of its sleeve, focusing on a green ring.

Ben Affleck's character (as his clothes are replaced by a familiar green-and-black uniform): He's never gone for good, is he?

The camera circles around them to show a distance shot of a city being menaced by a giant, bearded monkey head and two floating hands as many tiny figures fly around and shoot back.

Ben Affleck's character (as the Applejack joins them in the shot): Andross.....

MUSIC: *BA-DOOM*

CUT to LOGO:

The Crinoverse

ADDITIONAL LETTERS FLY ONSCREEN:

It makes awesome sense in context.

[greycrusader]

Do you already have background drawn up for the two characters?

Not really: Gamblin' Man was Luck Bunny's father back in her original setting concept and I liked the name so I used him. Fat Catgirl was just my way of making Luck Bunny the daughter of the Lost Vegas's equivalents of Batman and Catwoman (if Catwoman eventually became a morbidly obese "legitimate businesswoman").

I admit to not being terribly familiar with the Imageria concept, except for bits and pieces I've read here on the forum.

It's everything ever imagined all fitting in one unimaginably large changeable dimension.

The Discardia is a concept I came up with where ideas that no one thinks about anymore go to the very bottom of the Imageria until it gets them a new job (and it uses it's 10% cut to keep the bottom solid or the Lovecraftian horrors break through).

Lost Vegas sounds intriguing though.

It isn't really: it's a place made up of bad puns and gonzo cool stuff.

So essentially Los Vegas if it didn't have to contend with physics.

The Gamblin' Man is Brendan Colt Banks, son of Brenda Banks, who was the Golden Age masked heroine Lady Luck; he was also the heir to the considerable Banks family fortune, made in silver mining and real estate. Though raised to believe he was adopted, Brendan was in fact Lady Luck's biological son; she conceived the child out of wedlock in an era when this was not socially acceptable and such children were stigmatized. The elder Banks retired her costumed identity, embarked on a European tour, and returned to the States with her "war orphan baby boy". The circumstances of Brendan's birth did not make him any less loved-or privileged, for that matter. He grew up in luxurious Las Vegas surroundings, enjoyed the finest education, and was showered with affection.

Though the secret of his birth was kept from him, Brendan's mother shared the details of her crimefighting career as soon as the boy was old enough to understand. Though she encouraged him to explore other interests and prepare for a real career, the ex-Lady Luck made sure her offspring would be prepared if he ever took up cape and cowl. In addition to his mother's training, Brendan learned skills from various "old friends" of Brenda Banks-detective skills from a slim, dapper (if aging) private dick, hand to hand combat from a pale, towering ex-cop, and mysticism from an actual Tibetan monk, who said a special blessing over his mother's "lucky" pack of playing cards.

Still, Brendan largely forgot about his costumed adventurer dreams by the time he finished college, instead planning on taking over the family enterprises, which by that point included casinos and nightclubs. However, soon after taking over the head manager role at the family's flagship gambling joint (the Silver Dollar 7), Las Vegas experienced a rash of daring robberies, committed by an extraordinarily wiley and nimble thief, The Velvet Catgirl; when the local police proved unable to catch the agile burglar, Brendan's childhood passions were stirred to don mask and cape adopting the identity of the Gamblin' Man. Ironically, the same night he put on the costume and gear, the family's gambling den was robbed by the slinky criminal.

As the Gamblin' Man, Brendan was able to thwart the Velvet Catgirl's further attempts against the Banks family holdings, and even recovered a portion of the loot she stole from the Silver Dollar 7. But despite coming close on several occasions, he wasn't able to apprehend the feline felon, nor to prevent the Catgirl from becoming one of the few to successfully steal from a major Las Vegas casino (the first since a band of eleven ex-military men had done so a decade earlier). Still, the pursuit by the Gamblin' Man, the police, AND the Vegas mob (who owned the casion she had robbed) forced Catgirl to flee the state of Nevada, and then leave the Soutwest behind entirely in search of easier pickings elsewhere.

Brendan continued as the Gamblin' Man, mostly battling street level criminals such as drug pushers, protection racket gangsters, and bank robbers. However, it was inevitable at that time in Sin City that eventually he would come up against the mafia, who then still controlled Las Vegas. He teamed up with other Southwestern-based heroes of the early 1970s such as the Dismantler and Iron Rider (better known as Commanche) against the syndicates, and facing off against foes like Dead Man's Hand, The Hog-Man, and Rattleback. Brendan always carred his mother's "special" playing cards, and in tight situations the Gamblin' Man seemed able to turn fortune to his side by dealing out "the winning hand".

Sadly, the Gamblin' Man's career was brief. Brendan discovered his mother was being blackmailed by a corrupt police detective; he assumed the man had discovered Brenda Bank's former career as Lady Luck and was threatening to reveal her identity to one or more old enemies from the Golden Age. When the truth came out-Brenda was being instead with the truth that the "adopted" heir to the Banks name was in fact her natural born son-Brendan was disgusted with the revelation so much of his life had proven a lie. By this time the Gamblin' Man was wanted by the mob, had antagonized the police department, and seen numerous allies retire or die in action. Disgusted, he quit the superhero business, left Las Vegas, and moved to the Northeast to seek a fresh start in life.

Next Up! More on the Velvet Catgirl and the story behind the Gamblin' Man and Catgirl becoming the heroes of Lost Vegas in the Imageria!

[Crinos]

Hey over on RPG.net they have a thread for making bad movie trailers of your favorite setting. I made one for the Crinoverse, but I'm sharing it here because I'm not sure how alive the original thread is.

SCENE: Interior of a dingy bar like the kind your get in city outskirts with all kinds of tough guys. Dwain Johnson (The Rock) in a trench-coat, Samuel L. Jackson with a shaved head in orange and yellow monk robes, and Ben Affleck in normal stuff but with curiously long sleeves are sitting at a booth in the back.

Voice Over: In a world where anything can happen....

There is the sound of old-timey saloon doors swinging and everyone in the bar looks up as we are treated to a shot over a conical straw hat. There are the cliched sounds of boots-and-spurs walking across the floor as the tough guys all watch who's ever walking with various expressions ranging from incredulity to wariness to like they're about to laugh. The shot shows the three drinking unconcernedly at the booth as whoever it is approaches and stops in front of them. We are treated to another shot of the conical straw hat, this time from the three's booth as they finally look over, and we find that whoever is wearing it is short enough that only the hat is visible over the table.

Voice Over: ......and frequently does.

The three look at each other. Then they lean over the table so we can see it is a My Little Pony G1 Applejack in a white kimono with a katana strapped to her side under the hat.

G1 Applejack: I hear you are looking for heroes.

Ben Affleck character: And what are you supposed to be?

G1 Applejack: They call me.......Jack.

There are sounds of screaming from outside.

Samuel L. Jackson character: Where you followed?

A rhino-like xenomorph busts in through a wall with some kind of device stuck in its head.

CUT: Exterior of bar, front. The xenomorph comes flying out the door, followed by Dwain. He changes form as his coat rips, revealing he is a werewolf.

Dwain Johnson character: You want to take on a warrior of Gaia? Come on!

Samuel L. Jackson's character comes out of the bar. He looks toward the horizon behind the camera.

Samuel L. Jackson character: We have bigger problems. (a blue arrow blazes to life across his bald head as the wind picks up)

Ben Affleck's character comes out next. He takes one look off to the horizon, then there's a shot of his hand popping out of its sleeve, focusing on a green ring.

Ben Affleck's character (as his clothes are replaced by a familiar green-and-black uniform): He's never gone for good, is he?

The camera circles around them to show a distance shot of a city being menaced by a giant, bearded monkey head and two floating hands as many tiny figures fly around and shoot back.

Ben Affleck's character (as the Applejack joins them in the shot): Andross.....

MUSIC: *BA-DOOM*

CUT to LOGO:

The Crinoverse

ADDITIONAL LETTERS FLY ONSCREEN:

It makes awesome sense in context.

Could I have a link to that thread?

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Could I have a link to that thread?

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?153703-Describe-your-favorite-game-setting-as-a-bad-movie-trailer

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

The Gamblin' Man

I love it!

[greycrusader]

Glad you liked the Gamblin' Man back-story, Silvercat-and obviously I hope Crinos and others enjoyed it as well.

(BTW: Lady Luck was an actual GA heroine, penned by the incomparable Will Eisner; the "friends of his mother" were Mr. Mystery, The Green Lama, and The Spirit. All except Denny Colt/The Spirit are public domain characters). Hope you enjoy the following:

The Velvet Catgirl, also known as the Leopard Catgirl, is Katie "Kit" Weston, the scion of a well-known family of acrobats and circus performers (though not nearly so accomplished as the Flying Graysons). She is the cousin of Kip Weston, who was the junior partner of one Linda Turner, the Golden Age crimefighter known as the original Black Cat. When little more than a child, Katie went to live with Kip and "Aunt" Linda, after her own parents died in an auto accident. Katie quickly deduced the real identities of the Black Cat and "Cub", recognizing her older cousin's aerial moves as those practiced by her own parents and grandparents. Basically blackmailing her way onto the team, Katie became "Kitten", and spent the next four years fighting and training alongside Linda and Kip (who adopted the codename "Tiger" as an adult hero, leaving behind the childish Cub nickname); but the Black Cat retired from crime-busting before Katie even reached sixteen years of age (Ms. Turner was over fifty by that point) and Kip gave up the costume and returned to circus performing, touring in Europe and Asia. "Kitten" had other plans/

Always rebellious and willful, Katie had been a handful for her adopted aunt to raise, and even during their adventures together, the girl usually found herself thinking that criminals had more fun. She wasn't malicious, cruel, or even terribly selfish, but Katie was greedy and contemptuous of authority; she didn't like following anyone else's rules but her own. She dropped out of high school and run away while still a teenager, hitting the streets and fashioning a cat-costume and identity of her own making. Soon enough, the Velvet Catgirl made her debut, in a series of flashy robberies targeting both the righteous and the wretched, using her acrobatic, stunt-driving, and jiu-jitsu skills to embarass her targets, which included high-society denizens, mobsters, and even the FBI. Since Katie still felt she owed a lot to her aunt, many of the people she robbed were former enemies of the Black Cat or in some cases other female heroes who had been rivals of her Aunt Linda.

The latter was the case with Brenda Banks, the ex-Lady Luck, which is how the Velvet Catgirl ended up robbing the Silver Dollar 7 in Las Vegas, and coming into conflict with the fledgling hero Gamblin' Man. While there was always the element of sexual tension in their subsequent encounters, it never reached the level of a similar situation between two far better known costumed figures.

After being driven out of Las Vegas, the Velvet Catgirl pulled a museum job which netted her the costume of Miss Fury, another GA superhero; the black leopard skin was purportedly enchanted by an African tribal conjurer (and had in fact also been used by another feline-themed hero in England, before being returned to the US); whether through actual magic or belief, the catsuit did seem to enhance Katie's abilities, and she was soon renamed the Leopard Catgirl.

Still, despite her thrillseeking ways, Katie soon grew anxious and then downright fearful of being caught or having her identity discovered. Many of the people pursuing her wouldn't have stopped at sending Katie to prison-she'd ripped off too many mafiosa, crimelords, corrupt corporate titans, and outright super-villains. Still not given to an honest life, she retired her costumed persona and became a more conventional, lower profile thief and cat burglar. Later, as she moved into her late twenties and early thirties Katie became a fence for stolen goods and even a criminal trainer, teaching skills to recruits of various villainous agencies.

The Velvet Catgirl never killed anyone nor even inflicted serious physical harm during her short but exciting costumed career, and she did not steal from anyone who could not afford to lose the money she took. While scarcely a female robin hood, she did give away ten percent of everything she stole to worthwhile charities. She regularly contributed to hospitals which specialized in treating spinal injuries and also orphanages, both for personal reasons.

Next Up: how The Gamblin' Man and Velvet Catgirl ended up in the Imageria dimension (and Catgirl became Fat-Catgirl).

[greycrusader]

By 1980, both the Gamblin' Man and the Velvet Catgirl/Leopard Catgirl had been retired from the costumed adventurer game for close to seven years (though Catgirl's criminal career had continued in civilian garb); Brendan Banks had reinvented himself as a successful promotions and marketing executive in Boston, MA, while Katie Weston posed as an "antiques" dealer, the job merely a cover for her work as fence and still-occasional jewel theif, coincidentally also based out of "Beantown".

At about the same time the two old acquaintances managed to work their way to the same city after several footloose years, an upstart indie comics publisher called Apex Entertainment started publishing their line, with one of the flagship titles being The Gamblin' Man, a series about a hardbitten Las Vegas vigilante who wages war against the Vegas crime syndicate that firebombed that murdered his fiancee and threw him out of a plate glass third story window when he wouldn't knuckle under to their protection racket. Now, most of the major comics publishers in the Crinoverse cut licensing deals with active superheroes, and publish fictionalized accounts of actual adventures, or else publish non-genre fare such as pirate tales, fantasy, or alternate history fiction. But Apex, like many fledgling comics companies, turned to creating stories about heroes and villains who had been MIA long enough to be effectively dead to the world, simply spinnin tales of "further adventures" out of whole cloth.

Now, none of this likely would have been of any consequence save that Rex Stephens Jr, writer behind The Gamblin Man title liked to pound out the rough drafts of his stories on his "lucky" word processor, a machine made with parts he salvaged from a dumpster while vacationing near a little seaport in Maine. The magic was mostly gone from the thing, but it still held a faint connection to the Imageria, and so the stories spun out on it held special resonance for readers, almost as if the tales had really happened. In the Apex comics, the Gamblin' Man was growly voiced and scarred (as a result of his fall), who relied less on gimmicks, gadgetry, and luck than on his deadly hand to hand and marksmanship skills. In this depiction, Stephens mixed the costume, locale, and signature card deck of the real Gamblin' Man with the far more violent exploits of The Deuce, an outlaw hero active in Atlantic City who had vanished just a couple year prior to the start of Apex. The Velvet Catgirl was portrayed as the mistress of high end casino and leader of a call-girl ring, grown pampered and quite fat from years of soft living. She was shown as the Gamblin' Man's informant, reluctant ally, and (hinted) occasional lover, though the hero mostly ended up with scantily clad girls drawn to resemble variations of Jessica Rabbit.

And that set the stage for a very powerful mage to come calling on the actual Gamblin Man and Catgirl when the Imageria started to bleed too much into the material world...

[greycrusader]

In 1985, the more dire, even nightmarish aspects of the Imageria began to take form and root in the material world, while people and even whole cities of the Crinoverse were transported to the Imageria in their place, due to the actions of malignant Entities Beyond Human Ken. That era's Master Mage of the prime Earth dimension was of course immediately alerted to this growing threat to the order of the cosmos, and joined forces with the Imageria's Chief Healer/Shaman to heal the bleeding hole in reality. Soon it was discovered the Entities were tapping earthly people and objects who had ties to the Imageria to execute their scheme of manifesting in the human world. Objects such as the mystical typewriter used by an Apex comics writer in Boston.

Despite their immense sorcerous might, the Mage and the Shaman (or "Doctor") still needed aid againt the Entities, and went about recruiting agents, many of them famous, some infamous, a few more or less obscure. The Gamblin' Man and Leorpard Catgirl fell in this last category, chosen for their skills at stealth, they faint mystic connections, and their ability to defy long odds. For arcane reasons, agents from the Earth dimension were dispatched to the Imagera while heroes and villains from the World of Ideas were sent to the material world. In return, the Entities summoned up various monsters, malevolent apparitions, and agents of chaos to oppose them.

Though both sides had triumphs and losses, in the end the forces serving goodness and order won out and the boundaries of reality were restored. But the victory was partial, not entirely complete. Certain people and places of both Earth and the Imageria were left trapped outside their home dimensions. The Gamblin' Man and Leopard Catgirl were two of these, and found themseleves trapped not in an alternate Boston (where their adventure had taken them) but in Lost Vegas in the Layer of Discardia, an odd version of Sin City where alien races mingled with mundane humans and the laws of physics were merely strongly-worded suggestions. This was alarming enough, but both Brendan Banks and Katie Weston also quickly found themselves changing to match their depictions in the Apex comics series; this only made sense by Imageria standards, as more people knew them in their four-color forms than as retired, minor actual costumed adventurers.

While both retained their memories and personalities, Leopard Catgirl grew quite obese and nearly a decade older, sprouting the mop of curly silver hair of her comics counterpart, while The Gamblin' Man became battle-scarred and gravelly-voiced, with a strong aversion to ever removing his mask. Both were a bit heartened by their introduction to Lost Vegas, as the residents welcomed Gamblin' Man and Fat Catgirl as the city's protector and champion and the wealthiest and best connected (if still rather disreputable) businesswoman in Discardia, respectively.

After a period of shock, both adapted to their situation and learned to accept their expected roles. Though only marginally acquainted in their pasts, they ended up falling in love, got married, and had a child, the previously detailed Luck Bunny. In the 27 years since their arrival in Lost Vegas, they have aged only a few years by Earth standards, as time proceeds in the Imageria. Both have come to appreciate their new home, but the longing to return to Earth has never left, though neither would do so if it meant abandoning contact with their daughter.

Hope some of you liked this!

All my best.

Though

[Crinos]

So, bit of wondering, from anyone who is a League of Legends fan, if I were to use Dr. Mundo in an adventure, which theme should I use:

Monster Man by Devo

Or

Monster By Skillet.

I kind of lean towards the former, since Mundo is kind of a goofy character.