now I am less than I was

[Help] Electro Valkyrie: I don't think this game has much confidence in me
[Help] Electro Valkyrie: I'm helping Mender Lazarus in the future, but I'm only level 15 :(
[Help] Sir Headless: You're the next Statesman EV!
[Help] Electro Valkyrie: Thanks for the confidence boost.
[Help] Major Fulcrum: you mean dead before his prime?
[Help] Tomb Princess: before his prime? the guy was like 130 years old
[Help] Major Fulcrum: nope
[Help] Major Fulcrum: and yeah, he really hadn't primed
[Help] Electro Valkyrie: Thanks for bringing me back down to earth :(
[Help] Major Fulcrum: maybe you are the next Synapse
[Help] Major Fulcrum: don't want to be really heroic but saves the day at the end
[Help] Tomb Princess: better than being the next Sister Psyche, embarassing outfit, married to a douche, and unceremoniously killed off

It does make you wonder. For the uninitiated: a lot of the City of Heroes overarching storyline involves time travel--and to that end, there's an entire cadre of time traveling folk called "Menders" whose job it is to send heroes (and villains) back in time to "mend" the places in the fabric of time where things have started to change. Translation: if we miss any missions as we go through the arc, we can go to Ouroboros and talk to one of the Menders, and be sent back to do it for the first time.

Why is this a good thing? First, because it gives a fun storyline to hang characters from (both in terms of the game developers, and players), and second, because there's a lot of badges given out on mission completion. The Ouroboros "flashback" conceit helps with that.

((Also--though it involves spoilers, considering that Sister Psyche is pretty much a Jean Grey clone, having her slain by her husband when her powers flared out of control...yeah. Pretty ignominous end.))

Some characters in City of Heroes just stick with you. I have no pictures, but Krahen has definitely stuck with me:

Description: [MRP Oriented]

"Can Krahen please play with the big man?
Krahen wants to see what pattern his blood makes on the floor~."

Forever caught in in a balanced display of life and death, bodily flesh decaying and growing at an exponential rate, Krahen is quite literally a walking corpse. But such a curse has not deterred her to see enjoyment out of curiosities most macabre. Perhaps she would play with you, instead?...

• She always bears the stench of methane when you are near
• Her body is frail yet shrugs off pain like a rag doll
• The artificial limbs are often used along with her hands and for travel
• She always displays child-like glee with every act

What's meant by the artificial limbs she uses for defense and for travel is--well, she's a Natural (means she was born to her power set in game terms) Arachnos Soldier. This gives you somewhat of an idea what a Crab Arachnos Soldier looks like (on a male heavy character, at least).

Arachnos soldiers--at least, the Crab Spider variants--wear this four-armed mechanical backpack, that stores weapons and energy cells. There's a power called Suppression that lays down intense cover fire from the four arms, which claw at the air as they fire into the crowd. If I had to put a name to it, I'd say plasma lasers on high, but Suppression also causes damage over time in a wide cone, so there has to be some sticky web component in there too.

Krahen, though? Krahen is tiny, small, frail. Her face is not in the traditional eight-eyed full-coverage Arachnos helmet, but instead she wears a bone-white skull mask. Or...maybe it's not a mask...

In my mind, her history spun out thusly: some time ago, Lord Recluse bartered a deal with Dr. Vahzilok, who had crafted his own, terrifying and disgusting, brand of immortality. Recluse would "donate" to the doctor Arachnos operatives just out of training, and he would...alter them. Krahen was one of those who came back...changed.

Likely Dr. Vahzilok broke her mind in her reconstruction. Now, her body is continually rotting apart and regenerating, and she finds joy in destruction, mutilation, torture, and similar amusements. And in this case, I'm really hoping "MRP Oriented" doesn't mean "ERP", because then we're talking necrophilia with claws and fangs, and....yeah.

But she stuck with me. Just the thought of being aware that one is decaying, and regenerating enough to still survive that process, and still wanting to "play"...Oh, yes, that's a horror movie trope for the ages.