RPG Characters: StarShield

And now for something completely different. I used to be an enthusiastic player of the game “City of Heroes” back in the day, and had a stable of characters I dreamed up for that setting. One of them had a fully written origin story, and another had their own short-lived web-comic. Here is my most developed – meet Sarah Sullivan – the woman who became StarShield!

Note: StarShield has quite a long origin story, written 20 years ago when I had more time on my hands. Its broken up into sections to make it more digestible, and separated from the main page because I don’t seriously expect anyone to make it through that much rambling from an amateur writer. Though it does give me an excuse to try illustrating a story using AI Art… <Song of Star>

Sarah Sullivan: “StarShield”

Archetype	Defender
Origin	Science
Primary Powerset	Force Fields
Secondary Powerset	Energy Blast

When City of Heroes came out I made a variety of characters with its novel selection of power-sets and origins and fantastic character customization. Starshield was my favorite and longest-lived. She was a science-themed energy manipulator – specializing in tapping into a “harmonic energy field” that she used to project forcefields, generate energy blasts, and eventually to reach into minds with low-level psychic projections. She also developed some minor proficiency as a medic.

Starshield was a university physics PhD doing doctoral work studying Rikti artifacts – remnants off a cross-dimensional invasion that had been battled back in the backstory for the setting. An inadvertent explosion caused when she tried to fight off hired thugs ransacking her lab at night led to both Sarah and the chief thug developing mirroring energy-based powers. Thus creating Starshield and her arch-enemy in one event. She was purely a lab geek before this, so she took longer than he did to develop into a costumed identity. But she was absolutely a blast to both imagine and play.

For the full, unabridged version of StarShield’s background story, start here:

<The Song of Star>

Although Star was perfectly capable of blasting away when necessary, her primary combat focus was protecting teammates and bystanders with shield bubbles and causing disarray among the opposition through a combination of isolating them with force-fields and/or tossing them about with concussive powers.

The general web consensus in the game forums was that “optimal play” consisted in having a near-invulnerable tank ultra-specialized in defence dive in and gather a big mass of enemies, while healing heroes kept him upright, and offensive minded types melted the whole gang with AOE. Efficient. Powerful. And (to me) boring as all get-out. Star’s style (which admittedly worked best with a team built to take advantage) involved shielding up, diving in to absorb the initial attention, and then tossing enemies about will-nilly like a hurricane while the group’s offensive members played skeet shooter. Took some timing not to go out in a hail of glory as she couldn’t have her stronger shields up while doing anything else. But a few tougher members of the team diving in with her took care of that.

She wasn’t built with PvP in mind – it wasn’t at all an interest of mine. But she proved surprisingly capable there. She had only mediocre offense, but her defensive capabilities – honed for keeping entire mobs of PvE opponents occupied – were massively overtuned for small group engagements. One time her team decided to have a free-for-all just to try it out, and she ended up completely dominating. Offensive types couldn’t get in any good shots while being flung around the room. Defensive types ended up just having staring contests with her as we couldn’t hurt each other enough for there to be an actual winner. She even survived taking on her entire team at once. She couldn’t actually seriously hurt them teamed up like that. But her combination of flight, trapping folks in detention bubbles, and tossing concussive waves all about was brutal on team cohesion. And being able to retreat into a practically invulnerable force-field, hover up in the air, and heal up when needed meant she was an absolute pain-in-the-butt match-up. Thus her PvP career ended quickly with the determination of “just not fun for anyone involved”.

She hasn’t seen the light of day since CoH dwindled off and my life took other turns that made MMORPG’s difficult. And I’ve often wished someone would tap into the market with a good super-hero flavored CRPG. Man it would be fun to bring her out again.

“age 26 woman,icelandic,classic comic,wry grin,black motorcycle suit with simple white stripe along the sides,white utility belt,white gloves,white boots,mirrored ski goggles,short brown hair,hovering;comic superhero,in city,soft focus,blurred,oil paint,drawing,dark shading”