RP Retrospective (Part 2)

Okay, let's finish up the look back at the characters I assumed roles for this past summer.

THE NECRONOMITRON
Now THIS was interesting to do. While Widow Maker was in the hospital, Sine Cosine gave her an unidentified package as a gift. With no description, I was free to make up what the contents were. I thought of several potential items, mostly weapons and such, but settled on a mysterious book with an emblem on the front that looked suspiciously like a certain Martian's eye...

The Necronomitron was the Loser's League incarnation of Zoofights III's Martian, but it was dropped from the roster and never mentioned again. With the passing of not only two more tournaments but also a universe reboot thanks to Croctopus, it was clear that this potential plot thread would never be picked up, so I came up with my own design for the Necronomitron - a possessed book with the Martian's tentacles. Since he was Brother Chucked in the official tournament, his personality was jealous, revenge-seeking, and tortured at his unfair elimination (he actually won his Round 1 fight but was sent to the Loser's League anyway). The result was a tragic sort of villain who had some good points about his frustrations, but he was going to go a little too far in getting his revenge.

My plan was to keep him in the shadows for a long time, and he would return at the climax of the tournament for an exciting fight. However, two things interfered. The first was Air Man's challenge to fight Necro in a Fite Yer Mates match, which forced him out of hiding much earlier than intended. The second was the RP Explosion - even if the Martian had been left alone, the plots soon went far beyond his scope, making him hardly a blip on the radar compared to some other peoples' villains.

And then the Martian lost his fight, which led to Air Man's survival and the Martian's Heel Face Turn, making him a heroic guardian who wound up sacrificing his life to keep the bar safe, only to merge with his pet Biollante in one of my stranger ideas. It was the first of several reformed villains I would be using...

THE FIVE MANTIS BAND
I like to use the things I win in bets at the Betting Corner. Although I don't always find a use for everything, other things see considerable action, such as the Supermarine Walrus plane, Sarah's shutter shades, and some of my unclaimed bets like the Golden Game Brute and Commodore 64. Widow Maker won five normal-sized, instrument-playing mantids from Jumpropeman after Neuromantis beat Cash Cow, and they became fringe joke characters that make an appearance every so often, usually to play a song. They haven't done much in recent weeks, but they're in talks to play at a certain ninja wedding...

CELESTIA
The Warriors of Light plot, like so many other things in RP-land, has grown much larger than my original vision for it. The original plan was for Sarah to find the four Warriors of Light and give them their crystals, then hold off a fleet of WarMechs before going to the Flying Fortress to defeat Tiamat and take home a ton of treasure. Then I considered making the final fight more exciting by including the other Fiends. And THEN they started attacking the bar separately, and now Tiamat is assembling minions from other people's plots and now it's four plots in one and the Tiamat battle is going to be the Bar's final boss. I just need to find the right day to do it.

Wait, none of this is about Celestia.

Celestia (Sarah's mother) got her start as a minion of Tiamat's. Her first mention was in a photo album of Sarah's - a black mage appears in some of the pictures, but is absent in all the more recent ones. My original implication was that she had died, but I left it ambiguous. Later, while looking up WarMech pictures, I found one that appeared to have a cockpit. Intrigued by the idea of a giant manned WarMech leading the others, I brought it into the story and decided to have Sarah's mother drive it. It was my intention from the start that she would survive and Heel Face Turn, making her the second reformed villain of mine.

Celestia is a pretty fun and diverse character to write for. Her experience with the WarMechs makes her a mechanical genius, and I like having my characters be capable of helping others in unique ways. Her motherly demeanor opens up possibilities for all sorts of pleasant mommy things and allowed her to befriend Little Walter. And, just like her daughter, every so often she winds up drunk...

SKEIRON
Another "happy accident", Skeiron is one of Celestia's WarMechs. He arose from a simple gag wherein one of her generic robots, WarMech-3, was aware of the fact that it was a doomed mook and was therefore trying to get in some memorable one-liners before getting killed and forgotten about. RedSpy mentioned he thought it was funny, and then... "Can we keep him?"

I used WM3 a few more times leading up to the match, showing that he wasn't interested in fighting. His pacifism saved him in the fight, when he was the only WarMech to survive. But then Cornwind Evil decided to kill him off instead, having Devastator stomp him to smithereens during the six-hour Lord marathon. I considered keeping him dead, since I was already managing three characters at once, but I opted to revive him a few days later, and he now shows up occasionally. The robot became a comedy character with the principal gimmicks of robospeak, not understanding popular culture but quoting it anyway, and (the crowd favorite) making as many jokes as possible despite only knowing one punchline. Much later he acquired the name Skeiron to reflect his fondness for Zephyrus, the only bar character to have really befriended him.

Annnnd this post is even longer than the last. Derp.