It's been a while since I touched base here since I've been posting more regularly on my personal blog.
I guess that means I have to throw my readers a bone.
As I've said before, Superhuman has three initial factions at launch: Heroes, Villains, and Mercenaries. Each team is chosen from a series of Archetypes listed for each faction. Each faction's archetypes are different than the others, and in the core book, there are 5 archetypes for each faction. For the sake of consistency, I hired a single artist to illustrate each archetype for each faction, starting with the Villains.
I first met Avery Liell-Kok as she was showing off her portfolio to Cliff at Slugfest Games (the booth I usually work at Gencon and Origins) at Gencon 2008. While her art wasn't what Cliff was looking for, there was a certain darkness that I instantly knew would fit for the Villains Faction Archetypes for Superhuman. So, rather than let her go, I hired her on the spot and put her to work. And she worked wonderfully!
Avery's first piece was the Berserker- meant to be an archetype that would fit both the bladed martial artist and the mutant with metal claws, I told her I wanted a deranged female melee combatant.. something in the vain of Typhoid Mary or Harley Quinn. She gave me her first pencil drawings within a week and it was spot on, I had found my Thrillkill in her pencils.
For the Destroyer, a ranged combatant capable of sniping from a great range or massive damage if designed to be a closer ranged combatant, I wanted someone who's costume was fairly plain, but oozed power and awe. I wanted a radioactive powerhouse, and she gave me that in Chernobyl.
Next up was the Magnetic archetype. Magnetics could control one of the most formidable of Earth's elements allowing powerful villains of this archetype to do something as fine as slow the blood in a human body or as impressive as lift a skyscraper from the steel girders inside. Metalla was born from this need and Avery got her with only a sketch or two.
The Psychic archetype came fully formed in my head before I hired Avery, but when she started her initial sketches, one of them was exactly what I had pictured. Not only can Dr. Mindcrime read your thoughts, but he can control your mind as well making you do the most vile things he can imagine.
Finally, for the muscle archetype, called the Brute, I wanted Avery to draw the creepiest circus strongman she could imagine. Comic book hero costumes were designed to resemble circus performers initially, so I wanted something that was a nod to that heritage and history. Bruiser honors all that, but is still the creepiest villain of the bunch. Of all of them, this Brute is the one I would find least likely to be allowed to watch my children, yet would be the one most likely to try.
So there you go, The five Villain Archetypes, and the art that will represent them by a fantastic artist. Avery is now illustrating the upcoming role-playing game Critical! Go Westerly as well as doing some stuff for Akira's hilarious BESM Larp Advanced Dimensional Green Ninja Educational Prepatory Super Elementary Fortress 555.
~The Doc
