Looney Toons
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
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| Douglas "Looney Toons" Sangnoir in Atlas Park. | |
| Looney Toons | |
| Player: @LooneyToons | |
| Origin: | Mutant |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Defender |
| Security Level: | 42 |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | Douglas Quincy Sangnoir |
| Known Aliases: | Looney, The Loon, Colonel Sangnoir, the Avatar of Chaos, Godwhacker |
| Species: | Human |
| Age: | Uncertain, appears to be in his late 30s |
| Height: | 5'8" |
| Weight: | 160 lbs. |
| Eye Color: | Grey |
| Hair Color: | Blonde |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | American (Parallel timeline) |
| Occupation: | Mercenary/hero, Dimensional wanderer, Software engineer, Cyberneticist |
| Place of Birth: | Hollywood, CA (Parallel timeline) |
| Base of Operations: | Paragon City, RI (originally London, England in a parallel timeline) |
| Marital Status: | Married |
| Known Relatives: | Maggie Viel Sangnoir (wife), Peter Sangnoir (father, estranged), Jessamyn Sangnoir (mother, estranged) |
| Known Powers | |
| Storm Summoning, Electrical Blast | |
| Known Abilities | |
| Flight, Fitness | |
| Equipment | |
| Body armor, Computerized helmet, Jump pack, Pocket D VIP Pass, base teleporter, Police band radio | |
| ' | |
Lost in time,
And lost in space,
And in reason.
-- "Superheroes", The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Douglas Q. Sangnoir. A man barely alive. We can rebuild... <WHAP!>
Sorry.
Douglas Q. Sangnoir. A hero thrown out of his home universe by enemy action, he travels from world to world seeking the timeline of his birth. Trapped in Paragon City by its own strange convergence of dimensional energies, he must now recapitulate his growth as a hero before he can regain the power that will allow him to break through the walls between universes and return to his random search for home.
Contents |
Affiliations
Supergroup: The Legendary (Rank: Epic)
Former Supergroups: United Nations Metahuman Peacekeeping Force Warriors Alpha (homeworld) (Rank: Colonel; position: Security Chief)
Personality
I'm a nut, I'm a nut
My life don't ever get in a rut
The head on my shoulders is sorta loose
And I ain't got sense God gave a goose
Lord, I ain't crazy, but... I'm a nut.
-- "I'm a Nut", Leroy Pullins
Like many heroes, Doug has a public persona and a private one.
The public one appears at first glance (and second, and third...) to be a powered lunatic. Given to rapidfire pop culture references and song quotes, this public persona seems to be a hyperactive and attention-deficient jerk, and gives the impression that "dignity" is just a tragic disease that affects other people.
In private, though, the "real" Doug emerges, one who's slightly less manic and a little more thoughtful, and who is both a highly-trained engineer and an experienced paramilitary super.
Regardless of the face one sees, Doug does have some constants to his personality. He is flamboyant and tends to have low impulse control, jumps to conclusions quickly, and at times displays a hair-trigger temper. He is proud to the point of hubris but is not too proud to admit errors he has made; he has been described as someone who "screws up big and apologizes big".
He's also a bit of a bigot -- Doug frequently dismisses non-super people as mere "crunchies" unworthy of notice in the aggregate. He'll willingly discard such attitudes on a case-by-case basis though, and has done so so often in the past that one sometimes wonders how his bigotry manages to keep a hold on him.
He also bears a violent antipathy toward gods and demons, considering the former little better than parasites and the latter vicious predators that need to be exterminated. As with his prejudice against normal humans, he has abandoned this antipathy in regards to a small group of deities, including his commanding officer from his homeworld and several gods whom he met on his travels.
Powers
I'm young, I'm wild, and I'm free
Got the magic power of the music in me.
-- "Magic Power", Triumph
Doug's primary power is a negative mutation of the mage gift which grants wizards and other spellcasters their abilities. In his case, the mutation has rendered this magical talent unresponsive to traditional training and use -- but has opened it up to instinctive control by his subconscious mind. Specifically, whenever he listens to a song (music plus lyrics) in a language he understands, his subconscious mind feeds the lyrics to his mage gift as if it were instructions for a spell. This normally gives him an extraordinary range of effects.
Another aspect of the broken mage gift is that it's always on, consuming mana from the environment and leaking unfocused magic out of his body. This has the effect of making Doug a walking improbability generator -- odd and unlikely things tend to happen around him. In most universes (though not in Paragon City) it also makes him very difficult to hit in combat.
In addition to his magical "gifts", Doug has several physical mutations, including a greatly improved neural structure (granting genius-plus intelligence and massively heightened reflexes), more efficient disposal of fatigue toxins from his system, and a collection of small sensory and extrasensory improvements which he collectively refers to as a "danger sense".
Storm Summoning
The Storm Summoning primary powerset is used to simulate the wide variety of powers normally available to Doug.
Electrical Blast
The Electrical Blast secondary powerset represents Doug's favorite offensive-use song, "Lightning's Hand" by Kansas, from their album Point of Know Return.
Additional Powers
The Sands of Mu (along with Air Superiority) replicates his hand-to-hand combat skills.
Flight
The Flight pool represents any of several songs that give him flight.
Air Superiority (along with the Sands of Mu) replicates his hand-to-hand combat skills.
Fitness
The Fitness pool expresses much of the improved efficiency of his mutant metabolism.
Abilities
No his mind is not for rent,
To any god or government.
There's always hope for his discontent --
He knows changes aren't permanent,
But change is.
-- "Tom Sawyer", Rush
Looney Toons is a double-threat engineer capable of handling hardware and software with equal ease: on the one side, he is a cyberneticist specializing in robotics and AI, and on the other he is a highly-skilled programmer in a plethora of languages.
In the pursuit of understanding his metatalents, he's also become one of the foremost experts on magic in his homeworld (not number one, but definitely in the top 25). His knowledge encompasses not only folklore and legend, but also active magical traditions the world over, the theoretical basis of magic, the ethics of magic, practical implementations and its interactions with conventional (and unconventional) physics.
He is also, mostly by chance and necessity, something of an enchanter, capable of creating magical and technomagical devices with sufficient effort and focus.
Additionally, he's more than competent at small-group tactics, general strategy, general security functions and systems, and has some native talent (though no formal training) in teaching.
He is a skilled hand-to-hand fighter, having synthesized his own martial arts style from moves and maneuvers he's copied from hundreds of foes and allies over the years.
He speaks English, French, Japanese and the language of a pseudo-medieval country in which he found himself for several years.
Weaknesses and Limitations
Doug has no conscious control other than song selection over his mage gift, and must keep himself away from music to avoid accidentally triggering his power.
Unless he makes a special effort to suppress the effect, his proximity and/or touch can either destroy or unexpectedly enchant items of technology.
Equipment
I set the wheels in motion
Turn up all the machines
Activate the program
And run behind the scenes...
-- "Prime Mover", Rush
Doug wears light but strong magitech body armor under his leathers.
His helmet is similarly armored, and houses a powerful computer which includes in its function what amounts to a super-IPod containing a monstrous library of high-fidelity music and lyrics, indexed and cross-referenced and accessible by voice command. The computer has wireless networking capability and the processing power of a mainframe, and is completely voice-controlled. The goggles built into his helmet provide a head-up display and starlight scope night vision.
Doug owns a motorcycle of his own design that was redesigned and rebuilt by Skuld, Norn of the Future and Norse goddess of Technology, but it was heavily damaged upon his arrival in Paragon City and is still being reassembled.
Since his arrival in the city, Doug has aquired a jump pack, a base teleporter, a police band radio and a Pocket D VIP pass.
Character History
Finally someone let me out of my cage
Now, time for me is nothing cos I'm counting no age
Now I couldn't be there
Now you shouldn't be scared
I'm good at repairs
And I'm under each snare
Intangible
Bet you didn't think so I command you to
Panoramic view
Look I'll make it all manageable
Pick and choose
Sit and lose
All you different crews
Chicks and dudes
Who you think is really kickin' tunes?
-- "Clint Eastwood", Gorillaz
Douglas Quincy Sangnoir was born in 1962 on an alternate Earth in a far distant timeline. Like that of Paragon City, his native Earth was home to a large number of humans with superpowers -- the term used there was "metahuman" -- and during his high school years, Doug discovered he was one of them. It took several months of bizarrre and disturbing events, but he finally figured out that along with several other less unnerving abilities, something about him would turn the lyrics of songs to which he listened into other super powers.
After a disastrous first attempt at a controlled use of his dangerously random talent, Doug made the deliberate choice to suppress it as best he could, primarily by keeping himself away from non-instrumental music for the next seven or so years. He graduated from Princeton University with a double degree in software and hardware engineering, specializing in cybernetics; with it, he got a job at a world-famous research lab not far from the University.
After a year working for the lab, he quit over a dispute about the rights to and credit for several inventions he came up with, and on an impulse picked up and moved to London, England. He plunged himself into the punk/gang subculture there in a deliberate attempt to wipe the bad taste of the corporate world from his mouth.
During his time on the streets, he learned of Warriors Alpha, a supergroup which had recently been empowered to act as a metahuman police force for the United Nations, and which was based near London. Seriously considering his own metagifts for the first time in years, Doug jury-rigged a means of controlling his song-power with a microcasette player, improvised a costume out of a set of biker leathers, and in September of 1986 ambushed a member of the Warriors in a rather misguided attempt to "audition" for a place on the team.
He got a place, yes, but more so that the Warriors could keep an eye on someone they considered a dangerous loose cannon than because he impressed them in any way.
It took him three years to work his way out of probationary membership, but by the middle 1990s he was a respected member of the team, and had been promoted to Colonel and given the position of Security Chief. He had also met Maggie "Shadowwalker" Viel when she joined the team two years after him. After a poor first meeting, an acrimonious friendship and finally a tempestuous courtship, they were married in 1992.
Life had settled down into a predictable routine of megalomaniac villains, hostile aliens and vampire invasions when, in June 1998, the Warriors responded to a terrorist action taking place in Piccadilly Circus. Barely had they arrived when an enemy's teleport gate opened in front of Doug, too close and too suddenly for him to avoid plunging through it.
It left him stranded in another universe.
That was at least sixty but not more than eighty years ago, by his personal clock. Since then, he's been travelling randomly from universe to universe, looking for his homeworld. Along the way he's encountered gods, demons, killer robots, magical girls, wizards, duelists and a few really strange things. He's been a teacher, a coach, a crafstman, a warrior, a brother and a surrogate father in the various worlds he's visited. He's made friends and allies, and not a few enemies.
And now he's stranded in the City of Heroes.
Since arriving in Paragon City, he's found a lot to keep him busy; he's simply amazed at the level of metahuman-related crime here. He joined The Legendary as much for the company of its members as for its resources, and makes extensive use of both.
Trivia
I wish I was in Tijuana
Eating barbecued iguana.
-- "Mexican Radio", Wall of Voodoo
In the words of Rush, Doug is "immortal for a limited time" -- in recompense for a service he performed for them early in his travels, the goddesses known as The Three have halted his aging for as long as it takes him to get home.
At the time he arrived in Paragon City, Doug had been travelling from universe to universe for several decades. Because of the dozens of calendars he's lived under, and multiple crashes and reboots of his helmet's computer, he's no longer certain exactly how old he is, although he's confident that he hasn't hit a century -- yet.
Doug bears several "Marks of Favor" from deities he has encountered on his travels. These are invisible to anyone other than a god or the avatar of a god; Statesman and Lord Recluse can see them and will know what they mean, but almost no one else in Paragon City is likely to. (It's possible the Banished Pantheon Mask/Spirits will also recognize them, but Doug has not encountered any yet.) Briefly, they identify him as a favorite of the god in question, and promise retribution for any divine or infernal being who dares harm him.
Because of a bizarre and unexpected interaction between the dimensional energies surrounding and permeating Paragon City and his own extraplanar magical nature, Doug found himself stripped of most of his power and skill when arriving in this universe -- including the power to leave. He believes that when and if he can train himself back up to at least the level he had before entering this timeline, he will be able to depart and continue his search through the multiverse for his homeworld.
When compared to fellow Legendary member Superball, whose personality traits bear a strong resemblance to his own, Doug frequently describes himself as "Coke Classic" and Superball as "New Coke".
Doug tends to use the nomenclature of his homeworld when referring to super-types and their powers, generally calling them metahumans, metagifts and metatalents.
