Heh, thanks!
The Dark Artisan was one of those concepts that just kind of came to life on its own. I developed the end "look" before anything else (Tinkering in the Costume Creator was my hobby) and the tragic backstory (Initially it was the destruction of Galaxy City, but it can be any <Insert Tragic Event Here> kind of thing) and the group around him kind of sprung up afterwards.
If you like Villains, here's a few (but by no means all) more:
First off we've got the two leaders of the Chetti Crime Family - Vincent "Vinny" Chetti, also known as
The Monochrome Mobster and his second in command and top drug supplier
Pandora. Both were Masterminds in the game - The Mobster was a Thug/Dark Mastermind and Pandora (Known as Pandoric - a merger of Pandora and Pandemic - in game) was Zombie/Poison.
Chetti was born with a severe case of Albanism, and he decided to run with the look. He also has a "trademark" of dousing his adversaries and anyone who gets in his way in black paint. Pandora is a drug queen and always has a loyal retinue of long time users at her beck and call, eager for that next fix. She wears a porcelain half-mask to disguise a disfigurement she received during her early days as a drug chemist (An event she claims was "opening the box").
The Professor of Panic, Professor Charles Bannister, is an
Old concept for me. He predates City of Villains even (Well, the costume does anyway, for the most part. He had a Fedora initially), as a RP character that would hang out at the sewer entrance and warn away those seeking to enter. He's been a lot of different concepts, but the one at the end was a Illusion/Darkness Controller, which I feel was his best "fit" Powerwise.
A latent psychic, Professor Bannister was big into the S&M Scene and inflicting pain for pleasure. It never marred his work, nor affected his personality until he began taking the drug compound known as "Key" (Designed and developed by Pandora). Key acts as a powerful pain manager (Hence why he was taking it) and general relaxant, but has the side effect that granted it its street name - occasionally, the compound "unlocks" your super potential if you happen to have the potential for it.
Unfortunately for the dear Doctor, when his psychic abilities "unlocked" he was at work - as head psychologist at a asylum for the Criminally Insane. The Voices in his head quite literally drove him mad. Now he has a new name - the Professor of Panic - and he lives to experience that thrill when a person experiences pain...and he'll expose them to the most horrific things he can imagine to get that experience.
Grinmace started out as a serious attempt of mine to do CoV Content, and he started as a Jester Themed Dual Blades/Willpower Brute. His backstory was he was the son of Carnies and was a mute. Nothing seemed wrong with the boy until people started turning up dead in gruesome spectacles. Turns out Grinmace was mentally disturbed - believing he was putting on a show at some circus in his head that always demanded more and more blood. Shuffled around from institution to institution he kept escaping the grounds (hence why he kept being shuffled around) until he eventually wound up escaping to the Rogue Isles.
That was his initial backstory. Before the game went down though, I'd accomplished the "Demonic" Accolade with access to the Demonic Aura power (Coincidentally, awesome on a Brute). So his story (and look from Jester themed) changed to reflect the fact he now housed a demon within him. And in the process got a more "Joker-fied" look.
Jackhammer is a villain from my childhood and another character that I kept rerolling over and over again. At the end he was a Invunerable/Titan Weapon Tanker. His "deal" is he was a dock worker, hauling freight from cargo containers to trucks, when one of the crates he was hauling tipped over, revealing a prototype military combat skin (my own term for Power Armor Suits). Seeing his chance at fortune and glory, he stole the suit and proceeded to make a name for himself as Jackhammer.
I'd hasten to add, that name for himself? Not a good one. This is a man knocking over Gas Stations and Comic Shops wearing one of the most technologically advanced suits on the planet. Yes, it's sad to say but Jackhammer is little more then a petty criminal in a shiny suit.
His activities inevitably lead to conflict with the Super Hero Community. The biggest mystery for the Heroes is how he keeps getting the suit
back after he's defeated and sent to prison. It's actually the suit itself - it has a limited AI and is programmed to seek out its pilot in the event of capture. So the heroes beat Jackhammer, throw him in prison, ship the suit halfway around the world...the suit will activate, fly itself back around the world, and bust Jackhammer out of jail to start the cycle all over again.
