Kobold King

He's like "The Little Engine That Could," except with murder.

Most Epics responded to Koschei with "Haha! What are you going to do, heal me to death?" Then Koschei would [DATA EXPUNGED] and everyone fell into line. @Tulir: looks acceptable to Mine Eyes. I like Hydron.

I am skilled in the way of the ninja.

Granted. It will sing nothing but "Never Gonna Give You Up" twenty-four hours per day. I wish to rule THE ENTIRE TRI-STATE AREA!

That sounds good. So he's currently restricted to name and former occupation? I imagine him as having a bitter rivalry with Arsenal, who can create permanent busses out of thin air. And Backtrack suddenly felt his self-confidence soar, because no matter how much he gets picked on, at least he's more useful than Snakehands.

At precisely 4500 reputation points, I became the Lord Ruler. So I've got that going for me, which is nice.

That would be kind of OP, yes. I like him otherwise though. But we already had a Ron Wilson, Bus Driver. In all seriousness, that actually sounds like a neat Epic. Care to have him in charge of The Dalles transportation? EDIT: I'm really digging Edgerunner, too. Though I keep wanting to call her Lift, for some reason.

Does that mean we're skipping the hour-long car ride where Backtrack chatters incessantly about Star Trek and Firefly to the twins?

That should be an interesting fight. I'm inclined to think that Vondra's police force could manage to take him out, but it might be a closer fight than they're used to if he's able to shatter their bullets mid-flight. Ooh, I like that one. If his power works on Epics too, it would help him really tick off other Epics. Here's my idea for the starting post: We see Koschei's horrifying POV sequence, then the scene cuts to the modern day, where Backtrack is becoming physically ill from having to delve inside a mind that twisted. The post could end with one of Vondra's patrol units coming across him and the twins and dragging them into town.

He uses Epics for all sorts of odd jobs that his human forces can't handle. I envision some of them being soldiers he uses to keep the peace, others as mostly used for logistics. He could definitely use the climbing Epic as a spy or assassin. Vondra hates Epics. He uses them, but he gives them as little authority as he can get away with. So on that count I'll have to go with "no." There could be a relatively trusted Epic he gives higher profile missions to, however.

* looks at half-completed opening post * Thanks for the reminder.

Ah, Phil the Epic Shrink. Long time no see. I like him! Vondra tends to refer to Epics under his command by their real names though, so do you have his original name thought of yet?

That makes sense. I imagined much the same thing for Pixie's Lantern religious practices. (Again, another reason why Revolution and Autumn should be best friends forever.) Forgive my ignorance, but what ranger-specific skills does Autumn possess? General outdoors-y skills?

Me likey. And personally, I think the name "Autumn Glass" is awesome. She needs to meet Revolution Sunburst Jones pronto. Is she a minister for a particular denomination?

Vondra. Von-dra. Vondra. You're right. That is fun to say. Fun piece of trivia: I had a webpage of various surnames open on my computer screen, and I was set on closing my eyes and randomly pointing a finger at the monitor. The first random surname I found this way was "Gillespie." After about thirty seconds of dumbly staring at the screen from the coincidence, I decided against the confusion this would cause and started manually checking the list.

Oppa Epic style. Stephen Lang's involvement in Terra Nova may have been a contributing factor in my picturing him, given that there's a realistic chance of Vondra fighting a dinosaur at some point. Sadly, I doubt The Dalles will last very long once the game moves into it. Oregon RPers are almost as destructive as puppies or over-sugared toddlers.

I would wear either of those t-shirts every minute of every day of every year. I would wear it until it physically rotted off my body, compelling me to buy yet another from the 17th Shard store. There is no force on Earth that could keep me from either of those shirts. (Except maybe money. )

My mental image is already affecting his characterization, I see. Thanks. I fear he's a bit of a cliché, but I hope he'll be an interesting counterpart to the other characters currently squabbling over Oregon.

Right, here's Stephen Vondra's official biography:

The way I've envisioned it so far, he was head of a National Guard installation trying to protect the city when Koschei rolled into town. He would have tried killing him, but when that proved impossible he could definitely have helped with mass evacuations. Once Koschei was dead and people returned to the city, he would have declared the city under martial law and instituted himself as mayor.

I like both ideas. The Dalles is shaping up to be a pretty awesome place. Currently I'm envisioning it looking something like a giant military encampment, filled with patrolling soldiers and large guns Arsenal positioned in strategic parts of town. Vondra probably put the town under martial law after Koschei's death. Does that sound about right, Twi?

That sounds awesome. Epic or vanilla?

Non-POV Epic for The Dalles: Arsenal Formerly known as Daniel Dewhickey, Arsenal was an army chaplain who settled in Oregon shortly after Calamity first appeared. He aided in the National Guard's futile efforts at resisting Epics, but gained powers himself before the fighting's end. He possesses the ability to create duplicates of any piece of technology he has personally seen before. Having been in the military, he is thus capable of reproducing a number of different weapons and combat vehicles. His ability has kept The Dalles' police force stocked with state-of-the-art technology for a little over a year now. His weakness is the sign of the cross as it is used in Christian iconography, and it is publicly known that Mayor Vondra keeps a cross hanging in his office just in case the Epic turns on him.

I was already planning on "What Happened in Calamityville," as it happens. Great minds think alike, I suppose. Vondra works with Epics, but despises them utterly. He'd never trust one as his right hand man, but you're more than welcome to create his trusted vanilla lieutenant. Or his trusted vanilla deputy who just received Epic powers, if we wanted to get really angsty.