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Thanks! Just two more members to go. I really should start thinking of a name for this team…
ALMANAC
Bio: Tyler Abrams was not the product of a loving family. His parents were rogue geneticists, trying to unlock the potential of the human genome. His mother’s specialty was in neuroscience. Thus Tyler was born out of necessity, rather than love. They needed a stock of genetic material to take their experiments to the next level. His genes were altered from the moment of conception to early childhood, the hormone therapy and DNA experiments continuing well into adolescence. Eventually his parents made a mistep and were caught by the U.S. government. They were imprisoned for illegal gene tampering and child abuse. Tyler was remanded to a government facility and spent the rest of his childhood, raised by a rotating cast of doctors, counselors, guardians, and therapists. They knew he was not a normal child.
Tyler was indeed gifted, as his parents had intended. On top of an eidetic memory, Tyler could absorb and retain information at an unprecedented rate. He has some kind of imperceptible and immeasurable sensory capacity that allows him to absorb data streams in any form directly into his longterm memory. He quickly became the world’s leading mind in physics, biology, engineering, linguistics; any field he thought to become an expert in. He was a one-man government think-tank for much of his young life, until his skills became practical in the field, during the invasion. Pinnacle, Epoque, and a government military unit took him to the heart of the incursion site. There he was able to discern that the invasion and dimensional apertures were being coordinated by a captive sentient energy life-form, coerced into doing so. He devised a way to free this energy being and gave Epoque the information necessary to collapse the main breach, creating a feedback loop that destroyed the other incursion sites.
After this mission, Tyler was given the choice of returning to his isolation within the government facility that had been his home for much of his life, or to take Pinnacle’s offer to use his abilities to help the world. Having had a taste of freedom and adventure, Tyler took on the codename: ALMANAC and became the team’s science officer and technician.
Abilities: Almanac has the ability to instantaneously absorb vast amounts of information to be retained in his eidetic memory, which seems to have limitless capacity. He does not have to read or study in a traditional human sense, rather his brain projects an imperceptible ‘learning field’ that scans and absorbs all viable data streams in his vicinity. He has amassed a vast knowledge in all various fields. He is the team’s chief medical officer and physician, chief engineer and tech officer, informational specialist, among other things.
Almanac does not generally participate in combat missions, preferring to remain behind and maintain headquarters or provide informational support through comms. However he has developed a personal arsenal that he wears to make himself less vulnerable should physical confrontation be unavoidable. He wears a suit that absorbs kinetic energy and minimizes impact and a gauntlet capable of storing this energy and releasing it in pulses of kinetic force.
Bonus- I made him in a gold variant too thinking to make more colorful, but I thought “Woah this looks WAY too much like DC crisis megastar, Alexander Luthor.” So I opted for the grey tone you see instead.
One last member, of course we need a synthezoid/energy manipulator.
RESONANT (Initial Form)
Bio: His real name is in actuality a specific wavelength that emits a high-frequency sound and a multi-colored glow of soft light, but he would later give himself the name ‘Resonant’, Reso for short. He was of a race of sentient energy life-forms from a dimension long ago conquered by Pinnacle’s nemesis. Reso’s people fought hard, but were conquered. He remembers the screech of their dying wave-forms, how their consciousnesses were rent apart and their ‘corpses’ were collected. Their energies were pooled and added to his own, amplifying his wave-form. His energies powered the dimensional apparatus that the warlord used to breach into new dimensions, and his consciousness directed the ebb and flow of the breach-web, keeping all other incursion sites tethered to the main point. Every breach was agonizing, but Reso had no way to free himself.
That was until this warlord invaded our dimension, and Tyler Abrams discovered his existence. While his teammates put an end to the warlord, Tyler was able to free Reso. Finally free, Reso collapsed the multiversal nexus, closing the breach and creating a chain reaction that would seal all incursion sites and devastate the warlord’s armada across all dimensions. He meant to die with this act, but Tyler found a way to contain his form. He joined the team unofficially at first, accompanying Tyler to their new base and becoming somewhat of an assistant for him. Working with Tyler gave him the will to live after all he had been through. Eventually Tyler constructed a robotic shell that could use Reso’s energy as a power source. This physical form had super-strength, flight, and energy cannons, giving Reso the capacity to go on missions with the team as a support member.
This next part is where it gets tricky. I’ll lay all my convoluted plot in these nifty spoiler tags.
So as with all my teams/storylines/universes, I like to put an LGBT element/character in everything so here it is. Tyler and Reso had been growing increasingly close. At this time Reso was little more than a disembodied consciousness speaking through a robotic shell or whatever piece of technology he was inhabiting at the moment.There was a night that Tyler and Reso were alone at HQ. Reso was helping Tyler with routine maintenance of the facilities while the team was off-world. It was supposed to be a quiet evening, but Tyler’s past had caught up with him. His parents, had escaped their detention center earlier that year and were desperate to find Tyler, hoping to harvest his brain and unlock the results of their genetic testing. On the run they subjected themselves to haphazard and rushed treatments, unlocking their posthuman potential but deforming themselves and becoming grotesque monstrosities. They very nearly finished Tyler then and there, but Reso bought him enough time to seal himself into the laboratory. Tyler’s parents were more powerful than he had accounted for. They destroyed Reso’s robotic shell and nearly killed Tyler. However Reso managed to draw them into the archives, reactivating the dimensional apparatus he once served and exiling them to another dimension. The experience damaged his energy form and very nearly killed him. Tyler was able to collect enough of his essence and place him into the equivalent of a coma for recovery.
Tyler subsequently sealed himself into his lab. He was constantly absorbing data, streaming in from all sources on the planet, looking for the latest in cloning, biotechnology, nanotechnology, and any combination thereof. His teammates saw very little of him. Save for Ishmerai when Tyler wanted him access to some magical texts, hoping to fill in a few of the gaps in his research. When Reso’s consciousness fluttered back into activity, Tyler was already designing the specifications for his new body.
Therein was the complication. Up until now, Reso had been simply an energy construct. A voice projected digitally through any available appliance. He didn’t have a visible or concrete gender, none of his people did. Tyler had been developing feelings for Reso as they grew close as teammates, and his experience with those kinds of feelings being more or less typical, Tyler had begun designing an anatomically female body. However, in Reso’s dealings with humanity, as the prospect of possessing an actual physical body, he realized that he identified more as a masculine entity than anything else. He voiced this concern to Tyler, and Tyler of course immediately turned ‘creative’ control of the design to Reso. After all, it would be his body, not Tyler’s. Suffice to say this put a wrinkle in Tyler’s romantic designs, but he only wanted Reso to be happy.
A few months and Reso’s body was ready. With a soul-binding spell learned from Ishmerai’s library to aid in the transfer, Tyler was able to successfully integrate Reso’s energy form with this physical technorganic shell. He was ecstatic. Reso was alive. He was corporeal. When Reso opened his eyes and said Tyler’s name, all doubts faded. Tyler had fallen in love with a being, a soul, and no matter the physical form he occupied, Reso was still that same being. That same soul. They tried to maintain a level of professionalism that fooled noone (except for maybe Guan Yu, he just though they were especially close as brothers in arms. You know? Camaraderie and such). This lasted for about a week before they declared their undying affections for each other, to the surprise of nobody (except for again, Guan Yu. They had to explain it to him a few times.)
TL;DR = Reso’s robotic body was destroyed and Tyler constructed an advanced technorganic body that he could permanently inhabit, at which point the two realized their romantic feelings towards one another. Whoo!
Abilities: In his current form Resonant possesses enhanced durability and super-strength, and self-sustained flight, powered. His technorganic body has a self-repairing capacity, able to regenerate tissue and fluids at an accelerated rate. He no longer is able to project his energy form outside of his body but he still wields the energy that once composed him. He can project it from his hands in explosive blasts or alter it’s frequency to absorb or redirect other forms of energy.
Thanks, Legatus! I’m glad somebody likes my ramblings
Anyway here’s the obligatory group shot:
http://i1126.photobucket.com/albums/l607/DiCicatriz/Other/Saviors/GROUP.png
I decided to call them THE SAVIORS. They don’t just want to protect mankind, they want to lift them up, make them better, save them from their baser instincts.
Well I have a MacBook from work, so I use the Preview app that came with it. It’s not as effective as Photoshop (which is nice for being able to adjust the order of layers and having more refined controls), but it’ll do since I don’t have PS anymore. Here’s a slight tutorial. This is how I do these things, I don’t know if it’ll be exactly the same with other programs but it should at least be somewhat similar.
PREPARING
If you export your characters with transparent backgrounds (the 400×600 PNG size) all you have to do is copy/paste them onto a background of your choice.
However, I like to export my guys in the larger format, which means they all have a solid white background. This is how I use the app to clip the backgrounds out and get them ready for groupshots:
ERASING BACKGROUNDS
Step 1- Open up an image in Preview (for example’s sake let’s say I want to create a family portrait of the Danford-Daley clan from my Kid Chaos Universe). I’ll start with Howl.
Step 2- I hit EDIT in the toolbar and use the WAND item to smart-select the background by dragging and holding it over the white. (seen in red, the WAND is great because it will automatically spread and highlight similar colors)
Step 3- I let go of my mouse and the WAND highlighting reverts to a normal select, contoured around my character.
Step 4- Tap that little DELETE key on your keyboard to erase the selected area and BAM! Instant transparent background.
Now comes the actual group shot. So I repeat the above process for all of the characters I want in this group shot and get them nice and ready for pasting together. I’ll need a background. Since I don’t mind white, what I usually do is export a blank heromachine portrait (no items whatsoever) in the largest possible widescreen format. I can then use Preview to alter it’s dimensions as necessary. So I have my background, now here goes:
CREATING THE GROUP SHOT
Step 1 – I have my background. Start copying/pasting characters! Preview is tricky because once an image is pasted in and positioned there’s no shifting the order of layers or repositioning/re-scaling. I just have to plan these out somewhat or Command+Z a bunch of times. No big deal
Step 2- Add more characters! Here I pasted Eidolon in to the shot, you’ll notice the box around him. This is a nifty feature that lets you scale the image to larger proportions…
Or smaller proportions…. Choose a scale and position that guy, and then onwards!
Step 4- Building the image. This is simply pasting the rest of the characters onto the background, and scaling/positioning relative to the characters already there.
Step 5- Once you have all of your characters there, use the SQUARE selector tool (pops up when you hit EDIT) and crop to your liking.
Step 6- Now we have our group image. A lovely portrait of Howl + Eidolon with their twins. Hooray for Preview!
Haven’t been on in a little while. Hi!
So wouldn’t you know it I had an entire family based on mystic tattoos and MadJack has to go and add about a thousand new awesome looking tattoo items! I figured it’d be nice to give my Walker a visual update, and hey why not a slight story revamp, too?
Some background info for context:
The Walkers are a family of mystics descended from the legendary Virginia Dare. Every member of this bloodline eventually develops the ability to physically transform and embody an animal of spiritual significance. Sarah, Nathan and Samuel are the last surviving members of their bloodline.Their father, a Walker, married a woman from another powerful mystic family, Moira Ensin. The Ensins had the mastery of the Signs, a powerful form of sigil magic with the potential to reshape reality. Each member was given a specific combination of seals that granted them a specific ability. The force that powered their seals would assign one female from every generation as the Caster of Signs, taught the mastery of all seals by the previous Caster. The Caster would assign seals to the other members of the family as they came of age. Their mother was the previous Caster.
The aged patriarch of the Walker family, coveted such power. As he grew older and enfeebled he became fearful of death. Being a powerful and well-learned shapeshifter, he found that he could absorb the physical vitality of his bloodline, draining the life force of his relatives and adding it to his own. He absorbed his entire family, killed those he could not, save for the siblings and Moira. He needed her alive, and her children as bargaining chips.
He coerced her into anointing him with the Shape Casts, the most powerful of all the seals, those that allowed control for the fundamental forces of the universe. His power was incalculable, and he wanted it all to himself. He bent space and appeared at the Ensin Compound, with siblings and their mother in tow. There began a long pitched battle between the Walker patriarch and the Ensin family. He killed them all, as he had his own family. One by one, his sheer power overwhelming even the strongest of them.
Seeing only one way of ending this, Moira marked Nathan’s forehead with the sign of the Caster, passing her knowledge into him to be awakened when he came of age, and delivered them into the care of her younger sister Allison, an elemental sign wielder. Moira’s mother bent space and delivered them far from the battlfield before joining her daughter in one last assault. Moira and her mother, a previous Caster, used their mastery of the signs to overload the Walker’s seals to the point where his power could not be contained within one dimensional plane. As he fluttered between continua they trapped him in a single frozen moment of space-time and cut him off from his power. The ensuing energy cascade vaporized everything within three miles, killing the rest of the Ensins.
The siblings were then raised by their aunt Allison, forever in hiding, moving from place to place in fear that one day their Walker patriarch would claw his way out of his dimensional prison and come for them.
SARAH WALKER (seals active, and inactive)
Oldest of the three siblings, incredibly protective of her family. Sarah’s alter is a powerful lupine form. She has incredible control of her abilities, and thus rarely ever fully shifts. Choosing instead to enhance her human physiology with partial shifts, enhancing her musculature and agility, her senses, growing fangs and claws.
Of the signs she is categorized as a Phys, like Samuel. Her seals give her superhuman speed, allowing her to move at several times the speed of sound. The seals project a silvery aura around her as she moves, protecting her from the physical stresses of high speed travel.
SAMUEL WALKER
Middle child of the siblings, Samuel is more thoughtful, introspective, having never really recovered from the traumas of their childhood. He relishes the most in his alter form, enjoying the little time he get to spend outside of his humanity. His alter is a massive stag, wild and reckless with power, wholly different from Samuel the human.
He is a Phys-caster, the seals he was assigned enhance his physiology. Samuel’s seals give him super-strength and durability by altering his mass. He can draw in ambient matter and convert it into body-mass, becoming a towering giant figure.
Alter form:
NATE WALKER
Nate was born the youngest child of Moira and Nathaniel Walker, assigned female at birth and given a different name that he doesn’t care to hear repeated. He was so young when Moira transferred the mark of the Caster and its lore to him. She could feel that Nate was the next in line. The Caster was always an eligible female member of the Ensin family after all. However Nate didn’t feel like a female, and as he grew older he came to the realization that he wasn’t. Nate is transgender.
The realization came hard to his aunt. Her knowledge of the lore wasn’t extensive and she thought if Nate transitioned it might interfere with his power as Caster, in the continuation of the line. She was less than supportive to begin with, trying to change his mind, but Nate’s emotional and physical decline led her changer her approach. Allison became his strongest defender, funding and helping Nate through his physical transition.
The first moment Nate felt comfortable in his body, as a person, as a man, something inside his mind clicked. The Signs became clear to him all at once, the history and knowledge of his ancestors poured into him and the seals of the Caster appeared all over his body. He was able to perform the ritual on his siblings, empowering them with the seals of their family.
Nate never developed a strong alter, the occasional flash of a feral nature here and there, but nothing specific. It is unknown if he will later develop one or if his role as Caster has interfered permanently with his genetic talents.
As Caster, Nate has complete mastery of the signs, he has the ability to both assign and revoke seals to individuals of his bloodline. The energy of the signs permeates his body and he can manipulate it to various effects. Forceful bursts, soft glowing auras, etc.
Thanks guys! Glad you liked them
Also I didn’t mean to break JR… Did you try taking out the batteries and putting them back in again?
Sort of a new character for the Walkers storyline:
ALLISON ENSIN (seals active and inactive)
Moira’s young sister and aunt to the siblings. She was barely a teenager herself when the catastrophe happened, finding herself with three traumatized children to care for. Allison is incredibly protective of the siblings, having raised them into adulthood, and of preserving the legacy of both families.
Allison is classified as an elemental. Her seals allow her to project and manipulate heat and fire. Her seals diffuse excess heat energy from other sources, making her ostensibly immune to fire and extreme heat. She can manipulate her flames with incredibly precise control. Another aspect of this ability allows her to see thermal energy, shifting her vision to perceive heat sources.
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