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Super Scion:Hero – The Gadgeteer
Name: Ajit Kulkarni, Scion of Sarasvati
Skills/Abilities: Expert Engineering and Mechanical Skills, Electrical Generation, Technopathy, Enhanced Reflexes, Enhanced Senses, Enhanced Intelligence
Nature: Architect
Virtues: Intellect, Endurance, Harmony, Order
Birthrights: Circuit Mandala Tattoo-Delicate circuitry embedded directly into his flesh that enhances his technical skills and allows him to produce and conduct electricity with his body. Gadget Pouch-This dimensionally transcendental container can hold anything that will fit through its opening. Kanta Bachchan-Personal Assistant who is mostly concerned with reminding her boss to eat and that he needs to make occasional appearances to convince the board of his father’s company that he’s still alive.
Gear: Laser Gauntlet, Plasma Rifle, Souped Up Moped, Plans For Power Armor
Genre: Modern Fantasy/RPG
Affiliation: Artisans’ Guild
Ajit’s father had always said his mother was a goddess. He had always thought that was a mere exaggeration. I mean, sure she had been pretty, but a goddess, that was just too far. He was working late, as usual, when he heard a soft, musical voice calling to him. He followed the sound until he was struck with a blinding light. Within the light, the goddess Sarasvati appeared to him. She told him that he had his mother’s eyes, that the creativity he showed in his designs made him worthy of the gifts she was about to bestow, that these gifts came with danger as well. Then, she opened his mind and everything rushed in. Everything. The precise orbits of the planets, the dance of molecules in a drop of water, the harmonic overtones in a singer’s voice. At the same time, he could feel himself changing. His senses sharpening, his reflexes quickening, the subtle crackle of electricity surging through him. He had no idea how long he spent lost in the sheer sensory overload. It finally ended in sweet, cool darkness with the voice saying, “Child, make the world a better place. And prepare for what is coming.”
“Boss, Boss, wake up.”
Ajit opened his eyes and saw the panic in the eyes of his Personal Assistant, Ms. Bachchan.
“Oh, thank goodness, you’re awake. I was this close to calling the paramedics,” she said.
“What? Why?”
“I don’t know, maybe because you’ve been missing for a week and I just found you passed out on the floor! Wait. What’s that?” she said, touching the delicate, silver wiring on his chest.
“It’s…” He looked down at his chest, then felt his face with his hand. “I…I don’t think I’m human anymore.”
“Maybe I should call them anyway. They might be able to help with that.”
“No need. I need to get to my lab,” he said, struggling to get to his feet.
“Of course you do,” she said, helping him up. “You know, Boss, we still need to contact the police, have them call off the search. And they called a board meeting to figure out what to do if you were found dead in a ditch somewhere. Since you’re not dead, you should probably show up for that.” They go past the desk and into Ajit’s lab.
“Have to prepare for what’s coming. Have to prepare for what’s coming. Have to prepare for what’s coming,” he said over and over again, rushing over and furiously scribbling notes at his desk.
“What’s coming, Boss?”
“The end of the world as we know it.”
“Look, right now, you sound like a crazy person. I’m going to leave you to…whatever it is you’re doing. I’ll handle the phone calls and the paperwork. Hopefully, you’ll calm down. Just be ready to deal with people in a couple days. And don’t forget to eat. I don’t want to have to pick you up off the floor again.”
“Ms. Bachchan,” he said, turning to look at her.
“Yes, Boss?”
“Thank you,” he said and turned back to furiously scribbling.Two Days Later
Ms. Bachchan entered the lab carrying a fresh set of clothes. On the table next to the door sat a bowl of uneaten, now cold, noodles.
“Your meeting is in three hours, Boss. You should get cleaned up.”
“Sorry, I lost track of time. I’ll be in the shower,” he said, taking the clothes and walking to the bathroom door. After she heard the sounds of the shower coming from behind the door, Ms. Bachchan looked around the room. There were stacks of papers covered in measurements and designs, as usual, but also other notes, lists of the names of gods and demons, and symbols of indecipherable meaning.
“You wrote all this in two days?” she asked as he came out of the shower.
“I had to get as much down as I could, before it all left me.”
“Before what all left you? What actually happened?”
“You wouldn’t believe me.”
“I’ve been listening to you ramble for two days. Try me.”
“I had my brain hacked by a goddess. Briefly felt what it was like to possess all human knowledge. It was beautiful and terrifying.”
“Why terrifying?”
“Climate change, terrorist groups, the sheer number of nuclear warheads in existence…”
“Is that what you meant by the end of the world as we know it?”
“If only. There’s much worse….Wait, did you hear that?” he said, looking around.
“Hear what?”
“In the air vents. Get to the workbench!” he said, touching the circuitry on his chest, causing it to briefly glow blue with electricity.
“Why?”
“Just go!” he said, starting to sprint across the room. At that moment, they burst into the room. Dozens of tiny flying creatures. They headed straight for Ajit, teeth and talons bared. One landed on him, knocked him to the ground, and tore away at his flesh. There came a crackle of electricity and the creature attacking him briefly went limp. Then, he ran to join Ms. Bachchan by the workbench in the corner.
“I have superpowers now, but they’re really lame ones. It will be awhile before I can do that again.”
“Is this why you wanted to come over here?” Ms. Bachchan said, gesturing to the gigantic gun laying on the table.
“Yeah,” he said reaching into the pouch on his belt and taking out a gauntlet.
“Boss, aren’t you going to use the…”
“Plasma rifle? I can’t even lift the thing, much less handle the recoil. It’s for you, Ms. Bachchan,” he said, aiming his wrist laser at the oncoming little beasts.
“Nice. What even are these things?” she said, picking up the massive gun and using it to knock one of the critters off her leg.
“They’re nasty little demons trying to kill us, is further explanation necessary at this time?”
“Nope, where’s the on button on this thing?”
“Press the button on the top to power it up. You have five shots with a wide dispersal that really pack a wallop. Make them count.”
“Got it, Boss,” she said over the whine of the power up sequence.Later
“Don’t forget your shirt or your speech,” Ms. Bachchan said to the hastily bandaged Ajit.
“Speech?” he asked as he gingerly pulled his shirt on over his head.
“You had some good ideas among all your ramblings of doom and gloom. I took the liberty of translating them from crazy person,” she said, handing him a stack of note cards.
“What would I do without you?”
“Probably starve. Now look those over while I attempt to break the ice.”
She walked into the boardroom and up to the podium. “I apologize for the commotion. There was a slight vermin problem, but it has been taken care of with fire. I now present our wayward engineer, Ajit Kulkarni.”
He entered the room on unsteady feet and leaned heavily on the podium. “Thank you,” he said. “I am sincerely sorry for any distress my absence may have caused this company. I was not kidnapped and I am not, in fact, dead in a ditch. I was off on my own, doing some much needed soul searching. And I have changed, hopefully for the better. I realized is that the end of the world as we know it is part of the natural cycle of things. If humanity does not prepare for the drastic changes that are coming, they will go extinct with all the other obsolete ideas on this planet. With that in mind, I think that…” He put his hand to his head, “I think that.”
“Is he okay?” asked one of the board members.
“I feel dizzy,” he said, then he crumpled to the floor.
“What happened?” said Ajit’s father, rushing forward.
“He hasn’t slept since I found him,” Ms. Bachchan said, helping Ajit sit up.
“Is that blood?” his father asked, pointing at the stain on his shirt. “What really happened?”
“I’m not helping you with this explanation. Hold this,” she said, handing Ajit a gauze pad.
“Well,” said Ajit, pressing the gauze to his side “to begin with, you were right. Mother was a goddess.”
“Everyone out,” his father said.
“What?” asked a board member.
“I said out!”
“Fine,” said the board member as they filed out of the room. When they had all left, Ajit’s father said, “So, son, what’s it like being infused with divine power?”
“It hurts. A lot.”
Small Time Superhero
Again an old pic, this is one I’m still really proud of. It was the first time I started playing around with shading and faded stuff.
Old text here:
I was playing around with the real life edition and I came up with a design I actually liked. It seems like the sort of thing I might throw together if I was suddenly called upon to save the world. The only thing that was missing was a sword, and a real face. You can look at the original design and how I developed upon it.
So, here you have a young dancer who has been called upon to fight a horrible monster. Not having a suitable costume to wear, she just puts some armor on over her dance outfit. She then picks up a battered sword and trash can lid for a shield. When she comes outside, she looks up and suddenly feels very small. This is going to be a lot harder than she thought.
The Argonauts-Castor and Pollux blow me to Bermuda!
This was my first Argonauts post.
Again, old text is old.
“Moreover, Aetolian Leda sent mighty Polydeuces and Castor, skilled with swift-footed horses, from Sparta. These much-beloved sons she bore in one birth in Tyndareus’ palace, and she did not oppose their pleas to go, for she had aspirations worthy of Zeus’ bed.” ~Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica. Trans. William H. Race.
So Zeus, being the cheating bastard that he was, came to Tyndareus’ wife Leda in the form of a swan. She then laid an egg, from which hatched Castor and Polydeuces. How a supposedly mammalian woman managed to lay an egg is beyond me.
These twins were anything but identical. Castor, the son of Tyndareus, was a skilled horse trainer and Polydeuces, the son of Zeus, was a skilled boxer. Though different, the brothers were inseparable.
They served well in their time on the Argo, the highlight of which was the boxing match Polydeuces had with King Amycus, which is rendered in loving and brutal detail by Apollonius. It was a long drawn out fight, with neither combatant landing a solid blow, when, finally, Polydeuces lands a brutal blow to Amycus’ ear, breaking bone. As Amycus falls dead, his men attack Polydeuces in revenge, but the rest of the Argonauts spring to his defense. Castor splits a man’s head open with a single blow and . . . You know what, you can read it for yourself. It’s right at the beginning of Book 2.
After the journey, they get into a dispute with fellow twins, Idas and Lynceus, more on them later, over, what else; twin brides. In the ensuing fight, Castor is mortally wounded. Polydeuces, who was immortal, begs the gods to allow him to die so that he could remain with his brother. Zeus then made Polydeuces an offer. He could either go take his place on Mount Olympus alone or he could share his immortality with his brother. I think you can guess which option he chose. They are never apart, spending alternate days as gods on Mount Olympus and dead humans in Hades.
Halftime
More old stuff. A bit of trivia: I tried to make a trombonist to go with this set, but I could never get him to look right.
Old text here:
Here at State University, we really support our team. And who better to show support than our mascot, Larry the Liger. He’s revving up his bike, now off he goes, around and around the track. He’s stopped now, and boy is he dizzy.
Now, moving on to the field, our very own State University Marching Band. You really are in for a treat folks. Just look at how those flags sparkle in the sunlight and . . . Is that a monkey on the field. Does somebody think this is funny? Though he does look sharp all dressed up in a band uniform. And look, he’s playing cymbals, how cute. Now where are the pranksters that did this?
I’m sorry, I have been informed that the monkey is a regular member of the band. He was transformed into a monkey because he said that playing cymbals was for monkeys within earshot of one our resident mad scientists. The band directer refused to take being a monkey as an excuse not to perform. Well that’ll teach him to never say stuff like that again. Hahaha.
And now, halftime is over and back to the game.
Random Old Pics
So, here are some more old pics, complete with old text descriptions.
These are just some pictures I’ve had sitting around for awhile.
The first, I call Crystal Fairy. She’s a fairy made out of crystal, there’s not much else to say.Next is goth girl. This is an image that I put together as a design for a supporting character in one of my stories, but I went a bit too far with it. That character would never actually wear anything like this, but it’s still a cool design and I want to show it off.
The next one is fashiondisaster. She was made with the rockstar creator. I actually had a full background typed up for her, but I lost it. I’ll do my best to recreate it here.
Cindy Nichols was an ordinary girl who liked 80’s music until she found an old keytar at a pawn shop. When she put her hands on the dusty old keys, she knew that’s were they were meant to stay and play. Unfortunately, no these days wants a keytar player in their band. She got rejection after rejection until she got an offer from a trio that did really bad covers of Norwegian metal. Though she was skeptical of their musical ability, she really didn’t have any other options.
You might think that any possible musical output of such a group would be horrendous, but somehow, driving beats combined with smooth synths to create something that, strangely, worked. Their rise from obscurity just may happen.The last picture is hunter. My friends keep asking me what I’m going to do when the zombie apocalypse happens. I keep telling them that there isn’t going to be a zombie apocalypse, but they are very insistent. So, here’s what I would do. If the zombie apocalypse happens, I’m going to find me some swords and cut off some zombie heads. I somehow doubt that I’d look this badass while doing it, but you get the idea.
So, yeah, I just wanted to show off these pictures.
Rhythm & Blues
Since I’m back, I’m going to post some old pics.
This one actually won the Duos Contest back in the day.
Rhythm is a drummer. She doesn’t have any special powers, but she does think of everything as a potential percussion instrument and is more than willing to demonstrate what she means with her extensive collection of mallets.
When Blues plays on his soprano sax, the sound is so sublime that it reduces grown men to tears. The only person it doesn’t seem to work on is Rhythm. He doesn’t no why, but right now grateful that he’s found someone who can back him up without bawling.
These two make a strange pair, but together they make beautiful music.
Snake Goddess
Name: Mercy, Daughter of Andrea the High Priestess
Titles: Elera Serpentis, Goddess of Earth
Skills/Abilities: Scaly skin, infra-red vision, anti-venom blood, dislocatable jaw, training in agriculture, first aid, and seduction
Genre: Fantasy
Affiliation: Tanosian Pantheon
Being the current incarnation of the goddess, Elera Serpentis, seems like it would be a pretty sweet deal: a luxurious life in the temple, constant adoration, power, and influence. But the living goddess is also Mercy, a teenage girl who just survived a terrifying transformation into a humanoid snake. Her life is controlled by a powerful priesthood who expect her to impress the people, continue the family line, and not rock the boat. Add on top of this the sudden disappearance of her predecessor and a cousin plotting to usurp her position and one can only ask; will she find allies in this hostile environment and will she be able to retain what is left of her humanity?
The most dangerous vampires are those who don’t know they’re vampires
This is an old one. But one I still enjoy. I remember having way too much fun with the bloodstains in the second pic. I think I made them for a Halloween contest, but I can’t remember.
Old text begins here:
Nora Jones is a communication major at State University. She goes to class every day and is well liked by her classmates. She is an ordinary college student. At least she was until she received a blood transfusion. She can’t stand bright light and she started getting strange cravings for some kind of metal? She doesn’t really know what for. But lately, she’s been blacking out and waking up covered in blood. She knows that something weird is going on but doesn’t know what to do about because she doesn’t want to incriminate herself by asking suspicious questions.
The police are investigating a series of five assaults that have occurred near the campus of State University. What makes these attacks interesting is that the assailant, which the police have dubbed “The Vamp,” viciously bites her victims, usually going for the wrist or the neck. All of the victims survived, but with severe blood loss. She is described as having blue eyes, brown hair, and very sharp teeth. The picture accompanying this article is an artistic rendering by one of the victims. If you have any information, please contact the State University Campus Police.
