Many more years than I care to count ago I ran a supers one shot for a number of distinguished (ha!) members of the Gamer Nation using Greg Stolze’s Wild Talents. Those of you who have been long time readers of mine may remember me posting that version of this character shortly after that one-shot was finished. Well, Gamer Nation Con 007 is just around the corner, and I will be bringing down a module for a different superhero RPG – Greater than Games’s Sentinel Comics The Roleplaying Game. But I’ve had the idea of Paradigm City and A.E.G.I.S. Laboratories in my head for so long that it has become my default setting for these kinds of games, even if I haven’t actually written anything down for it yet. And so I thought, what better way to celebrate the return of the Convention than to dust off one or two of those characters from that one-shot and recreate them in this new system? And so, without further ado… I give you the new and improved Myrmidon. (And if you managed to snag a seat at one of my Sentinel Comics sessions, here’s a quick preview of one of your pregen options. Don’t say I never gave you anything.)
Rand Oikos was by all accounts a normal child. He grew up in the suburbs of Paradigm City to a third generation Greek American family. He didn’t cause many waves in his younger years, and took an early liking to all things sports. He worked hard and put in the hours to become quite good at a few different ones – namely football, wrestling, and track and field. And while he went on to set a few records of his own while going through school he was never good enough to consider taking it professional.
That all changed when he was doing genealogical research for a school project. He traced his family line back all the way back to Ancient Greece. And then he kept digging – deeper and deeper. In some particularly dark and obscure section of the internet he found a text that didn’t have an author attached to it that had his ancestor’s name and continued to trace his family line further back – all the way to the Gods of Mount Olympus. That’s right. According to the text, he was the direct descendent (albeit many generations removed) of Ares, the Greek God of War. Of course, he didn’t think much of it, chalking it up to some family tree in some recitation of a famous poem that had gotten transcribed and somehow managed to survive through to the digital age, but he did include it as an interesting footnote in his paper. What he didn’t expect was that his teacher would believe it, nor that she was married to the right people. He was quickly sought out by a group of researchers who told him they were looking for someone to help them test a new drug that would aid in an athlete’s recovery and even increase their strength and endurance. What they didn’t tell him was that they were actually working for A.E.G.I.S. Laboratories on a serum to unlock higher potential in a person. The researchers found the same text that Rand had and determined the truth of it (or as close as one can get to the truth with mythologies at any rate). Rand was likely a distant relation to a superhero from Ancient Greece and his unique DNA might hold the key to making their serum work.
And against all odds, it did work. The mutagens and chemicals within the serum bonded with his biology, increasing his natural abilities far beyond the researcher’s wildest dreams. And not only did Rand’s physical abilities increase, but with it grew his composure and his confidence. Rand was more than a little bit angry that he had been lied to about the nature of the experiment, but he found he was quite enjoying the results. And so A.E.G.I.S. Laboratories offered him a position – not as a researcher or scientist, but as the founding member of a new superhero team. And so he agreed – I mean, who wouldn’t?
And so Myrmidon was born. Equipped with a suit of armor to keep him safe in the field and a spear said to have been found in the tomb of an ancient Greek warrior, he began the training process to join the Agents of A.E.G.I.S.
Personality: Myrmidon may seem a no-nonsense type at first, but that’s because he’s actually quite scared of failing in the field and getting one of his team mates hurt or killed. That said, he’s a born leader and when he’s able to channel that fear into something productive, he’s a force to be reckoned with.
When he’s not in costume he allows himself to relax a little bit more, joking with his team mates and friends, but he’s never more than a few seconds away from his persona as Myrmidon. The cost to let his guard completely down would be too great.
Design Notes: If you are familiar with the original character I posted all those years ago, you’ll note that I ended up getting rid of his ability to summon Spartoi through the use of his “dragon’s teeth” devices. And that was for a number of reasons – While Sentinel Comics does have the “Minion-Maker” archetype that would allow for him to do just this, it’s one of the more complex character types that you can find within the book. And given that this is meant to be an introductory experience into the system, I didn’t want to overwhelm a new player. This decision also let me tighten up his focus into more of an athlete or soldier.
I had a lot of fun naming the abilities, looking for inspiration in actual combat sports of the time and ideas such as “aristeia.” (And I thought our Editor-in-Chief would appreciate the callback to a certain book series as well.)
Ben Erickson
