Incarnates and you!

[Hollowpoint Heroism]

With the implimentation of the Incarnate system into City of Heroes/Villains/Morally ambiguous Praetorians, a lot of people are trying to figure out how the situation of gaining supposedly nigh-godly power is going to be handled RP-wise.

So, that in mind, consider this little thread a place to bounce ideas back and forth and figure out just what this new game mechanic means to your characters and their development.

On the subject of Shadowstormm: I'll be working pretty-much straight from the in-game canon. Shady's been hit with his first taste of superhuman-ness...and safe to say? It's scaring the bujeezus out of him. His ascent from humble human to super-powered being is going to be a bit of an...interesting growing experience as he comes into the power offered to him by the Well of the Furies.

Should make for some entertaining RP situations.

[shadewing]

Nice idea!

So far, I have two characters who are going to be actual incarnates: Pinny and Shadewing.

Pinny I don't really have much for besides "lol she's a furry incarnate. Haters gon' hate!"

Shadewing however, after doing a bit of wikipedia searching (lulz), is going to become an Incarnate of Nyx, the Queen of the Night. Statesman is the Incarnate of Zeus, so it would make sense to continue with the theme of incarnations of roman/greek themed gods/goddesses, right? Besides...Little batgirl becoming the incarnation of the queen of the night. Awesome.

As of now I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to roleplay it out. The obvious thing would be Shade finding it easier and easier to get in touch with her darkness powers, letting her use them more often and to greater effect. I've been talking about this for awhile, but this might also be the perfect excuse for me to finally turn Shade into a "vampire" bat; as she gains more and more abilities as the night queen, the more in tune with the darkness she becomes. queue sterotypical red eyes, life draining, etc.

But enough about my long winded rant. How would she react to the changes? I'm thinking as her powers grow and she begins to change, she'll grow more and more concerned, trying to hide her new features as to not draw too much extra attention to herself. Eventually she'd come to terms with the changes, of course. Though she wouldn't get so far as to become arrogant with her new abilities and incarnation.

Holy crap, I write too much, don't I? >_>

Looking forward to seeing everyone else's ideas!

But now, the more important question...Musculature incarnate boost for the extra damage, or spiritual boost for the extra recharge and healing?

[ghostveil]

The good thing about choosing your alpha slot powers, Shade, is that you don't have to choose! Make them all! You can switch out your alpha slot power once every 5 minutes.

As for my characters, I have two characters I'm looking at as being my main incarnates. Angelica De Luca is probably the easier to work with here. Very old vampire, was already very powerful (Defeated Future Recluse in single combat, so was already on the level of an incarnate in terms of power), and this is simply the next level of power for her. If I can borrow White Wolf V:tM terms for a moment, this is something like the transition from Elder to Methuselah for her. Elders are simply very powerful and old vampires, while Methuselahs are ancient, and have near godlike power, which seems to describe Incarnate pretty well.

I have yet to decide how this will work for Ghostveil. I'm considering taking Ghostveil's view of it as simply how it is presented: She is tapping into the power of the Well with her magic. This keeps it simple and it makes sense for the character.

[The Cheshire Cat]

I'm probably going with Specimen 8 as my only Incarnate, mainly because I only have one other 50 and I play her warshade version (who is not 50) more than her blaster version. The in-game lore works fine for 8; I still haven't exactly decided what 8's power source actually IS, other than it was recovered from a derelict alien space ship (but was not created by the aliens). I think I've narrowed it down to either a fragment of some extra-universal divine artifact (like a Zohar) or the carcass of a dead outer god from somewhere beyond the time-space continuum.

Either way, it's pretty easy to imagine why the Well would be very interested in 8.

[Warp Factor]

So is there a wiki entry or something somewhere with more detailed info on the actual canon story behind incarnates? I didn't read the novel or anything, so I only have sort of a vague idea of the general story. More details would be cool.

[The Cheshire Cat]

There's this page: paragonwiki.com/wiki/Incarnate

That's got some links to other pages as well.

I think the gist of it is basically "The Well of the Furies makes you into a god". The powers seem to be tied to mythology in the sense that Statesman is the avatar of Zeus, Recluse is the avatar of Tartarus, Hero 1 and then Ms. Liberty had/have excalibur, etc.

I don't think it's tied to any specific mythology, though Greek stuff comes up a lot.

[shadewing]

Well, with the story released on the CoH site, it pretty much says "The well of the furies is awakened and now every really powerful person is going to get the powers of an incarnate"

AKA The devs have no idea what they want storywise so they just made something up that allows everyone to become one.

The gist of it now is as long as you are powerful and have a strong will, you'll be able to unlock incarnate abilities.

[ghostveil]

SPOILERZ HERE if you haven't run the Alpha Slot storyline yet!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's actually more interesting than that. The Well of the Furies is just one source of Incarnate power. Whatever this power soucre is that makes Incarnates such as Statesman and Recluse, it is intelligent and sentient, and has an extremely powerful will. It seems to be almost a malevolent force at times, although it does not do anything expressly evil.

This Incarnate power source seems to try to take over the minds of anyone who attempts to tap into its power, and basically makes them its slave. The more you tap into the Incarnate power, the more power it has over you. Apparently, though, this can only happen if you take a "fast route" to Incarnate power, ala Statesman and Recluse. Under this fast route, if you tap too much into the Incarnate power, it takes you over forever. If you take a slower, more gradual route, you'll be resistant to the Incarnate power's mind control, and you'll eventually be able to tap into it however much you want.

This ties in pretty nicely with some of the story behind Statesman and Recluse. Recluse is always looking for ways to increase his own power without using Incarnate power, while Statesman is afraid of others becoming Incarnates and being subjected to the will of the Incarnate power source.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

END SPOILERZ

[caios]

Well Caios will definitely be going through the Incarnate system, obviously, but not becoming an actual Incarnate IC. Pretty much going a similar route to what ghostveil said. Caios is a very powerful vampire who will begin tapping into the power of her ancient bloodline. Like Angelica she has personally smacked down both Recluse and Statesman one on one and is already on the same level.

Unlike Angelica however, she's not an old vampire, which flies in the face of the normal convention that the older a vampire gets the more powerful they are. Instead Caios comes from a very rare and unique bloodline of vampires which will allow her to become vastly more powerful. I don't want to give too much away just yet, but it goes back to the very origin of her bloodline.
( I would love to get some RP interactions going between Caios and Angelica as they grow in power however. )

p.s. this does also mean that Karnage, being of the same bloodline as Caios, would also become more powerful in much the same way. So he'd definitely get his Incarnate slot assuming I ever get him up to 50.

Story wise I thought it was kinda funny how the incarnate system seems to be all about how you're better then statesman. Even the Well of furies itself mentions that it expects you to surpass Statesman and Recluse, as they were simply normal men when they were granted their power, while you are already a very powerful person before you even start down that path.

It's a bit like the whole thing is a big F* You to Emmert. ;P

[drjackwolfe]

Jack's incarnation is a simple result of him becoming more comfortable with his powers and the physics behind them. I like how, because of his origin, his focus item to tap the slot was paper full of equations , perfect.