Open Source Arch Type Project 2: Armored Hero

So I’ve been thinking about this armored hero and the criticism leveled by at least one of you that the name Damascus reminds you more of the conversion of Paul on the road to Damascus than it does of Damascus steel. Musing on this, I suddenly realized that was perfect. So hear me out on this origin story brainstorm I’ve done. It’s probably a bit rough, but here goes:

Paul Erë Apish is an arms smuggler in the battle-scarred region of Eastern Europe, where satellite states of the fragmented USSR still fight it out with profitable regularity. Paul is a man gifted with great intelligence and he has become a blackmarket arms manufacturer, modifying existing weapon designs and working on black op projects for more than one government that would prefer plausible deniability. To him, war is profit, and peace is a state of abject poverty. He’s operating a ring out of an abandoned area of Russia known as Vorkuta where he has an assembly plant, but it appears all is not well for Paul. Recently he’s been having terrible dreams, nightmarish visions of what his weapons are being used for. It appears his conscience is starting to creep up on him, and Paul isn’t impressed by it at all. He’s got a BIG arms trade coming up soon, and due to being distracted and tired from his recent conswcience dreams he misses a telltale sign that the trade is actually a trap. When he and his men go to the trade area, they find that the Russian mafia has decided simply to eliminate them and take over the arms smuggling business. Paul and his guys are pinned down by the superior forces of the Russian mafia when a miracle occurs, as a meteorite crashes down nearby. This distracts both parties and Paul is able to make a break for it. His men are gunned down but he escapes into the forest and gets completely lost, stumbling upon the meteorite site. What he finds there is something incredible, an alien ship that has crashed. On breaching its hull, Paul encounters one of the aliens, and is able to communicate with the alien through some fancy translator box.

He learns that the ship is an outdated mining ship, and that the alien crew were nothing more than miners searching for some valuable element when things went awry. The alien is fatally wounded and passes away, but on further exploration Paul discovers a mining exosuit in the hold. Unfortunately, the mafia follow him and come across the ship just around this time, deciding to take it and sell it off for exorbitant prices on the black market. Paul has a sudden realization as his conscience falls into place, and he decides to ensure this can’t happen, as this technology on the black market would tip the scales and plunge the world into some form of war or dictatorship. He hops in the exosuit and finds that it is at its core thought-driven, using it clumsily to take out the mafia. Though he’s a terrible driver initially and it’s only a mining suit equipped with saws, plasma torches and some sort of piston rods, the technology is great enough for him to overcome the mafia and drive them off. Suddenly converted by the whole course of strange events of the night, Paul destroys the ship with the suit and decides to dismantle his illegal operation. He uses his money to instead finance a new mining operation, and begins investing in legal technology development, whilst also deciding to use the suit to try to correct some of the wrongs he’s caused, opting to use it for heroic purposes. Stunned by his own change of heart, as well as with slight irony at the nature of his previous job and the suit’s unintended use as a weapon, he names his heroic alter-ego Damascus.

Neat expansion, Vagrant I can see the scene now...

Quote :

Paul slumped down his bed. He was stunned by how his life had turned around so quickly, almost like...
He jumped up and started rummaging through a bag of his personal effects. He pulled out a beat-up twenty-year-old bible.
His mother had given it to him on her deathbed. Now that he thought about it, he had never read this one. He delicately opened it to The New Testament and flipped towards The Book of Acts.
He stopped when he saw Chapter 9. He read it again for the first time in almost twenty years. He wondered if his discovery of the ship had been some of Sign from God.
The road to Damascus...
Damascus...
Yes...
I'll call myself Damascus.

~~Yzz

argosail wrote:

So, who wants to ressurect this thread and get us back on track toward an Astro-Man-like open source armored hero? I do think we need one! We've got some good starts here...

The mech-like armor is very unique and cool, but I'm not sure if it would make a good substitute for Iron Man or XO or Steel, which is what I think creators would be looking for....

I didn't contribute to this because everyone seemed to be going off on the mech suit idea, which I was having a hard time getting behind. But I wouldn't mind working on a more traditional armored hero. That's not to say we have to totally throw out the mech idea; that character could be "War Machine" to the main hero's "Iron Man."

I couldn't think of any variations on "Stealth Bomber" that would work. The only thing that I could come up with was "Recon," and that doesn't have the right feel.

Other names that came to me might be Tech or several from Greek mythology: Aegis, Myrmidon, or Talos. Or, obviously, something based around "Knight."

Honestly, with my whole Damascus miner exosuit, I was thinking something much closer to Iron Man than a mecha myself. I think that's the armored hero archetype that needs to be filled first up.

To tell the truth, Vagrant, I can see the problems some people have with the name "Damascus," but I kind of like it. Granted, it's not the sort of name that immediately comes to mind when I think "armored hero," but sometimes I like a name that's not the obvious choice.

For instance, the armored hero in the Freedom City setting for the Mutants & Masterminds RPG is Daedalus. He actually is the ancient Greek inventor, who was granted immortality by the gods. Having centuries to study and perfect his technological know-how, in modern days he invented a suit of power armor to fight evil. I thought that was a neat concept, despite the fact that Daedalus is such an odd name for an armored hero.

I think Damascus is a much more rational name such a character!

Vagrant, I like it.

You did a pretty good job of combining some of the ideas that were discussed and really addressing the major connotations of the word Damascus. Your story could definitely work. It sounds a lot like Iron Man at first, but with the alien ship/Green Lantern elements, you give it enough of a twist to distinguish it. One thing though...I know in Amalgam comics, there was a character called Iron Lantern. Anyone ever read that? I haven't, so I don't know what the story was behind that character. Doesn't matter though...the Paul/Damascus thing makes this character quite unique. I think we could run with this.

Any artists want to take a stab at concept art? How should this armor physically look. I think it's established that we want more of an Iron Man armor than a mech suit (though I think Yzz's mech character could be a villain/sidekick or something).

Throwing out a possibility to any artist who wants to play with character designs. Rather than the more robotic look of say, Iron Man, how about going for a more knight-in-shining-armor feel? Given that Damascus steel was used to create arms and armor in the Middle Ages, I think that kind of fits with the theme, and is a bit more original (I've seen knight-based characters and powered-armor characters, but I don't recall ever seeing the two done on the same character).

Actually, there is an existing PD character with knight-like powered armor named Scoot-Suit Sammy. He will be getting a profile on Free Universe eventually. I've also been thinking of turning Iron Ace into a powered armor character (one of the first to actually carry a sword, instead of having blasters). However, we could incorporate some middle age elements. Other elements I have been thinking of include maybe some kind of beige/brown feet as if it has been walking a dirt road and maybe a subtle cross design on its back (though Paul probably wasn't crucified, but beheaded). You could make the head low profile/embeded in the chest, as if the machine doesn't have one....

What do you gus think about color scheme...I'm thinking maybe silver for the steel connotation and beige for the dirt road connotation...maybe some red as well, symbolic of sacrafice...I might be overthinking it...

It could incorporate some middle age/knight-like designs, but should also probably look a little alien...lots to consider....

Having a sword doesn't make huge amounts of sense to me if the suit is a mining suit. Why would that have a sword of any form?

Sorry, I was talking about the PD character Iron Ace, who is a knight character I think would make a good powered armor character...I wasn't talking about Demascus. I guess Deascus would have drills, saws and high powered lasers...

This character sounds interesting, anyone know if there's been anymore work on it?

Hi all,

I didn't really know where to put this, and I didn't want to make a new thread since I figured my post was in the ballpark of an armored hero.

I'm getting notes together for a 'writers' bible' for myself and a friend, and we're trying to write an armored hero type of story, but my problem is, I can't really visualize characters like these too well. One of the things I do see is that I'd like the armored hero and/or mech to look like something someone from the late 1930s-1940s would build IF they had access to alien tech. It would still visually look like things that belonged in that era. I was thinking if I had a visual to work from I could write something from it. Another idea I had was after the alien menace or whatever was done the suit would be mothballed until its needed again, BUT since no one knew of it (all records were lost, fell through bureaucratic cracks, whatever.) of course it would need to be updated. ( I was thinking its was 'lost' from war's end to possibly 2010 or so.)

Would anyone be interested in sketching up something like this?

As I had written in my last post, I was trying to come up with some sort of armored hero/team based on late 30s - 50s tech (pre WW2 - Korean war era). Any ideas?

Anyone here?

Hi all,

I come every now and again to see if anyone's been on, and it's like tumbleweeds are blowing through here...

I'm still not entirely sure if I want to make my project for OS, or PD as I could probably incorporate a few ideas from PD into the project. Problem is, I have ideas..TOO MANY IDEAS. Do I just tape notes to a wall and throw a few darts, see what gets stuck?

Another problem, one of the ideas is a team from WWII era operating in the era, disappearing, coming back at times, the Korean War, Vietnam, the different 'Operations' in and around the Middle East...I can't think of a way to have it make sense yet not using an idea or piece of a idea from something else.

I also had a idea concerning the different ways 'War of the Worlds' has been done and connecting it with a comic.

My hope is to create something that could be published, even just a few hundred, you know to see one's creations read, and enjoyed by someone, or a bunch of people.

If anyone wants to talk, collaborate (all co-credit given) let me know.

I like the concept of Damascus a lot. If you don't want him to be associated with the road to Damascus, you could always call him Damascus Steel. When it comes to appearance, I imagined a yellow/black colour, with a design similar to a crane or other mining vehicles, perhaps an armour that could 'fit over' the  host? And maybe his enemies could be after the material the suit is made from? Just some ideas.

Hi all,

I'm having a few problems getting something started and I was hoping that someone may be able to help me get a few ideas squeezed into something that could make sense. (I have too many ideas, or bits of ideas, snips of dialogue...I think my brain is going 120mph as my hand, writing them down goes 65.

Another problem, one of the ideas is a team from WWII era operating in the era, disappearing, coming back at times, the Korean War, Vietnam, the different 'Operations' in and around the Middle East...I can't think of a way to have it make sense yet not using an idea or piece of a idea from something else.

I also had a idea concerning the different ways 'War of the Worlds' has been done and connecting it with a comic.

My hope is to create something that could be published, even just a few hundred, you know to see one's creations read, and enjoyed by someone, or a bunch of people.

If anyone wants to talk, collaborate (all co-credit given) let me know. I also apologize for basically re-posting my earlier comment, but there doesn't seem to be any traffic through here any more.

Do any of you guys play Warmachine?
Some of their Steampunk Magitek warjacks could be a good source of inspiration for things like WWI/WWII power armour heroes?

Cpt. Whizz,

I do like the look of those mechs! In my head I was thinking they'd be pieces of equipment, similar in concept to Stark using Stark missile tech to make the piecemeal MK1 armor. I was thinking along the lines of planes, tanks, jeeps, odds and ends. Similar to the OS character Air Force 1.0.

http://pdsh.wikia.com/wiki/Air_Force_1.0

(Not quite as shiny and new).

Anyone have any news on this character? Damascus was shaping up to be a pretty good read.