Strangest media influence?

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

I'm a little confused as to the intent of this thread: Is it "strangest character which had a media influence" or "strangest media influence and the character it inspired"? I'll just go with what I've got. (Note: All of these have never actually seen the light of play.)

The Roach: Inspired by a saying on a T-shirt: "You cannot hurt me, you cannot stop me, for I am the penguin of love!" It formed in my mind into "You cannot stomp me, you cannot stop me, for I am……………THE ROACH!" The Roach pretty much only exists as that line.

Concrete Dragon: Combo of Freedom City's (Muntats&Masterminds) Dr. Metropolis and the country song "Concrete Angel", this statue of a dragon being killed by St. George came to life to protect a young girl from being killed by monsters.

Brick House: Superhero. A fat woman who transforms into stone. Inspired by the song of the same name.

American Demon: US agent. Generally portrayed as a demon, though it's not a requirement. Contrary to how it looks, this was inspired by taking the song "American Woman" and overlaying on a scene of some guy beating up terrorists and replacing "woman" with "demon". NOT by Hellboy.

The Jird: A race of 3ft-tall gerbils. Inspired by gerbil pictures in a book on mammals, what their original name was (jird), and a wikipedia description of a character from an animé.

Coyote: Wile E. Coyote……………except competent and a superhero.

Dust: Superhero (made for a higher-powered superhero game, but is fluff-wise more street-level). Can take on a particulate form. Inspired by 3 Doors Down's song "Kryptonite" and the line "my body lying somewhere in the sands of time".

É Mò: A character for a freeform superhero game. Inspired by this webcomic character after reading a HERO bestiary on mythological monsters from Asia—particularly the (not evil) horse-headed demons from China—with maybe a bit of Yu Yu Hakusho thrown in. The result is an investigator of spiritual phenomena based out of Chinese Buddhist hell who brings with her a bureaucratic view of human mythology (which has actually been used by other players). Yes, her name can be parodied as "emo", but I found it while originally looking for Chinese translations of English in an attempt to find something authentic.

 

[Lord Xtheth]

Slaghter (yes, spelled wrong on purpose): A Mega-juicer in Rifts

Slayer: His little brother, made when Slaghter 'Sploded

The Dark Lady, Based on Lilith, the biblical Lilith

Bloodbath, Total rip off of "Saberwolf" from killer instinct

Cinder, yep same game, same character, total rip-off

Bruce, Complete Bruce Campbell hero! Right down to corny over-used one-liners

 

[Shroomy]

I guess its not very strange, but my current 4e character, an eladrin artificer multi-classed with rogue (something of a mystical safecracker) was inspired by an undercover alias of Michael Westin on Burn Notice (great, great show btw).

 

[Dykstrav]

I don't know as it's a "strange" media influence but it's definitely silly...

Around 2001, I concluded a Star Trek game based on the Last Unicorn Games the Next Generation and Deep Space Nine rules. The characters served onboard the U.S.S. Donalbain, a Nebula-class ship assigned to deep space tactical assignments during the Dominion War. It was a very moody piece about loyalty versus betrayal, duty versus individual initiative, and other "serious" themes. Casualites, personal costs, and collateral damage were high. It was a very satisfying game, but also very intense and depressing at times. We needed something more light-hearted.

So we decided that for our next game, we were going to do the A-Team in the Star Trek universe. Yes, that A-Team.

"In 2375, a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a Starfleet tribunal for a crime they didn't commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security penal colony to the Bajoran sector underground. Today, still wanted by the Federation, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire... The A-Team."

The group was based out of their custom 2282 Klingon bird of prey with a red stripe down the side, owned by a Klingon from the House of Baracus. Our group included Lieutenant Barclay, who was still serving on the Enterprise and had to be kidnapped off whenever we needed him for a mission.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

Dykstrav wins.

 

[Wormwood]

"In 2375, a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a Starfleet tribunal for a crime they didn't commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security penal colony to the Bajoran sector underground. Today, still wanted by the Federation, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire... The A-Team."

My hat is off to you, sir. I just want you to know that I am totally stealing this idea.

But I simply can't resist calling it "The Away Team".

 

[Merkuri]

Not sure how strange this is overall, but it's the strangest I've had that I can recall.

In the campaign we've just started (Savage Tide, played just one session so far) I decided I wanted to play a grippil (think halfling-sized humanoid tree frog) and a druid, but that's all I had. There was a number of weeks from the time I made the decision about my race and class and the actual first game day, so I had some time to mull it over, but the character's personality just wasn't coming to me.

I was reading Small Gods by Terry Pratchett at the time, and one night as I read before bed I got to a part where a god with 51 followers is introduced and is in the book for about a half page. It's a newt named P'Tang-P'Tang that is the god of a tiny fishing village. He can't count, speaks in broken English, was probably the most pathetic god Pratchett could come up with* and is blissfully unaware of his pathetic-ness.

And as I read his tiny half-page of dialog I knew this was my character.

When I told my BF (who's playing in the same game and who had read the book) that P'Tang-P'Tang had inspired my character he thought I was nuts, but I came up with a jungle-dwelling little amphibian who speaks as a combination of Yoda and an orc ("Kaylankuli thinks this bad. Careful, we must be."), and who doesn't really care about much besides where her next meal is coming from and what sounds like it would be fun/profitable. I tried to give her a native central American feel. I found an English-Inca dictionary online (which doesn't have a huge vocabulary, but it's better than nothing) and used it to name her (Kaylankuli means "frog") and her climbdog animal companion (named Allqu, which means "dog").

Not exactly like the pathetic newt god from Discworld, but her personality went from nothing to rock solid in my brain when I read P'Tang-P'Tang's little piece in that book.

* Actually, that's a lie. Anything could happen with Pratchett. I'm sure he could've come up with a god of bird spittle or something.

 

[That One Guy]

Thank you for smoking. Best Ventrue EVAR.

 

[Serendipity]

Three media-influenced characters I remember fondly;
1) My own oddball bit of media influence was a vampire character based off of 'Nicky' from Operation: Mindcrime (a Queensryche album), whom I interpreted as a strung-out Brujah hitman working unwillingly for a mind-manipulating Ventrue 'Doctor X.'

wow, that's bizarre - I did the same thing in my Detroit Vamp game many many years ago - Doctor X was a Setite with a little blood cult, stir to taste. Interesting that.

 

[FalcWP]

I don't get to play this character until next week, but...

We're going to be starting a Monte Cook's World of Darkness game next week. For those unfamiliar, there's been a cataclysmic event and among the side effects is that magic has now reentered the world. A lot of rituals people have been doing for years - religion, stage magic, anything - suddenly *work*.

My character discovered this... while attempting, more in jest than anything else, to Force Choke someone. And it worked.

Now? He's convinced that he's using the Force and is, in fact, a Jedi.

Jedi robes. Lightsaber handle to channel damaging spells through. Quotes the movies to explain, and even justify, things. Focusing on using the Force for things like telekinesis and mind tricks. Probably royally peeve folks who think that magic is tied to their gods.

I think it's going to be quite a bit of fun.