The Legendary
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
The Legendary is a roleplay-neutral group that exists to provide both mission support and a social environment for its members.
What this means in practice is that the group is friendly to roleplay, (and in some cases very friendly) but that the main focus of the group is support. This is reflected in the way our base is laid out (see below) with things that a member needs most in terms of utility placed close together near the center and the elements that are meant to provide environment or backdrop for roleplay placed further away, but still given lots of attention.
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History
The origins and early history of The Legendary are a mystery to all of the current members. All that is known for certain is that shortly after she began her superhero career, Evangelia was invited to join the group. For the first few weeks of her membership, the young teen heroine was treated more or less like a permanent sidekick/kid sister. Then a combination of a long and difficult series of missions coupled with personal issues dragged her away from active participation in the group for several weeks.
When she attempted to get in contact with the other members again, she was stunned to discover that not only had they all vanished completely, but the Paragon City Supergroup registry had defaulted ownership and command of the group and its assets upon her.
Evangelia immediately began rebuilding the group, with the initial intention of using the new members to investigate -- and if necessary avenge -- the fate of the first generation of Legendary. Among the first wave of new members were Aegis Sanctuary, Lora'Lai and Obsidian Heart, and more would follow -- eventually filling the group out to its maximum size.
After Evangelia took the first steps toward creating a base, Lora'Lai took over as chief architect for the group and nominal second-in-command. This was later expanded to a true co-leader position, and a third co-leader -- Shizuru -- was added as the number of members ballooned.
Later, due to a freak non-reversible error made by Lora'Lai while doing a regular promotion of Terrance Knight, he was accidentally made the 4th Co-Leader. This was much to Lora'Lai's chagrin (Lora'Lai: "I swear, it was a sticky mouse key! I only clicked the promote button once!") as well as that of Terrance himself (Terrance: "But I can't be in charge, I still get lost in the base!"). But after consideration of his unparalleled contributions helping to provide materials and support for base construction as well as being one of the most active and dependable members, it was determined to leave the situation as it was and consider Terrence as a "back-up" leader, in case the others became unavailable or incapacitated. In practice this means that although he technically has the authority to make group decisions, he almost never uses it, instead deferring to one of "the original three". (One common bit of humor going around is to refer to Terry as "the 4th Ghostbuster".)
Since then, the group membership has remained relatively steady at 130 to 150 members at all times. The group has undertaken uncounted missions and a large number of task forces together, and has demonstrated a remarkable success rate -- at times it seems like the disparate membership was born to work together.
Of late, as the group has matured, the leadership has been content to let the Legendary more or less manage itself. A couple of years ago, there was some talk about joining a super-coalition, but that apparently 'died in committee'.
The Legendary instead over the last few years has expanded to effectively become its OWN super-coalition, with several subgroups such as The Dojo of the Immortal White Tigers, Crossroads, the Legendary Academy, and Riot 6.1 as well as others allied and tied into the network. Several of the newer groups are depending on the Legendary Base's full Teleporter Network until they can build their own. The Legendary Base is the most common "Hub" and all Coalition members are welcome to use the Transport facilities as needed.
Organization
The five ranks of the Legendary are, from highest to lowest:
- Legend
- Myth
- Epic
- Fable
- Rumor
Distribution
There is a preferred distribution of members across the five ranks. In an ideal case of 150 members, the membership should fall approximately along these lines:
- 3(4) Legends (Group leaders)
- 14 Myths
- 24 Epics
- 36 Fables
- 73 Rumors
Of course, the group population is always in a state of some flux, so this "ideal" distribution has never actually been achieved.
RHIP
The Legendary are a bit more generous about rank-restriction functions than average.
- All members may pay base rent/upkeep.
- Fables and above may invite new members.
- Base design functions are, however, limited to Legends. Personal items can be placed as one wishes, but actual editing cannot be done except by the Legends. If a member wants to design a new room it needs to be approved by the Legends. The base editing privileges can then be extended temporarily down to their rank until the room is complete. (In at least one notable case, a 'contractor' from one of the other coalition groups has been brought in and breveted up to higher rank in order to help design specific rooms. Zilem Kain is considered by Lora'Lai to be even better at base design than herself, and was asked to design the 'apartment block' area.)
Promotions
Rank promotions are arbitrary and whimsical not based on any hard-and-fast criteria. Instead they are decided on a case-by-case basis by the Legends, who weigh length of membership, prestige earned, and participation in group actions, among other factors, before authorizing a promotion for a given member. It is permissible to petition for a promotion for oneself or for another.
Policies
- The Legendary does not do raids. The base is not PVP oriented or accessible for raiding. (and at this point would require a ridiculous amount of work to make it so).
- Officer autodemote is set to the maximum of 45 days.
- Inactivity timeout is 120 days -- the group is intended more as a focal point for friends than as a farm for prestige (although we do want prestige, we recognize that people have lives outside of COH).
- Multiple alts are welcome, although when room is needed for new active members, older/unused alts are encouraged to resign from the group. They can always ask to join again later, when new slots have opened up. They can also be placed with one of the sub-groups of the Legendary that has more room. This will allow them to still enter the Legendary base and use the Teleport network.
- Members are asked to run in Super Group mode as much as possible until they reach level 35 and the beginning of the influence-prestige tradeoff. Once they reach this point, members may choose to run in SG mode or not as they see fit.
- Members below level 35 who do not earn prestige for the group will be given one warning and at least two weeks' grace period, after which they may be ejected without notice.
- Members are asked but not required to wear the group colors and emblem. How they use the colors, if they do so, is up to them.
- Members who are level 30 or higher are requested to design one costume as the group's standard uniform (see below) as soon as it is feasible. Members below level 30 are welcome to wear the standard uniform, but are not required to do so.
- Policy discussion and determination, as well as formal announcements of such things as inactivity kicks and group actions, take place on Looney Toons' Yuku Forum for the group. Group members are encouraged to at least visit and read the board, if not participate.
Standard Uniform
Before costume designs were able to be saved in the costume editor, members who were security level 30 or higher were urged to dedicate one costume slot to the Legendary's standard uniform. Now that the costume save feature is a part of the game, it is no longer necessary to dedicate a specific slot for this purpose. It is simple encouraged for the member to create a version of the uniform for their character using either the 'standard design' or one modified to accommodate the specific needs of the character. In cases where the Legendary wants to appear as a group in uniform, the characters can make a side-trip to the tailor and load up the uniform before showing up.
Exceptions: heroes who have as part of their origin a battlesuit or major modifications to the bodytype, like wings or monstrous legs or large robotic gloves. These can simply use the standard SG color replacement and not have to worry about dedicating a costume slot.
Individual tweaks and modifications are encouraged. If you have a particular "schtick" to your costume -- like Evangelia's winged headdress and "Organic" shoulder pieces -- then keep that and change the rest. If you shoot eyebeams from a visor that you always wear on every costume, regardless of design, then leave that in.
As a general guideline, when designing variants, always try to keep in mind -- the center is blue, the outside is yellow. In other words, torso and upper legs/arms blue with hands and feet as yellow. Anything that follows that general rule is going to look approximately right.
More detailed information on exact colors and examples of individual "tweaks" to the uniform can be found at the Legendary Discussion Board.
Base
The Legendary has an extensive base with Medical Recovery facilities and teleport connections to all city zones. Extensive Workshops allow for tinkering and invention by both Tech/Science and Magic Heroes. It also has a private bar and club.
This was not part of the "First Generation"'s legacy, but rather initiated by Evangelia and Lora'Lai in early 2006.
(Note that by 2010, the Legendary's base has expanded dramatically in both size and available facilities. Updated images are forthcoming.)
If you look at the overall map view in the last picture above, you'll note a few things. Firstly, all the main Essential Elements that a Supergroup Base should provide are close together near the hub entrance. Although it may not be immediately apparent, the base follows a general "cross" pattern. There are really only two main corridors. One that goes East to West along the entire length of the base, and another, shorter one that runs north and south between the Command and Control Center and the Dance Club. (There have been jokes made about how easy the base is to get lost in. But it's really not all that complicated.)
Coalitions
The Legendary is at the center of a large coalition of groups that have spun off of or allied themselves with it, including Crossroads - The Legendary - Beta Team, The Dojo of the Immortal White Tigers, The Legendary Academy, Paragon Special Investigations and Riot 6.1, just to name a few.
External Sites
@LooneyToons maintains a discussion area for the group on his Yuku forums.
An archive site for Legendary fiction is under construction.
Memorials
The following members of the Legendary fell in battle, and are honored and remembered for their valiant sacrifice:
Trivia
The beginning of the history as recounted above is true on the meta-level -- Evangelia joined the group, didn't interact with them for some months, then checked the group roster to discover she was the only active member and had been handed the leader star.
A private chat channel called "The Legendary" has been established for the use of its members, and is used for a mix of roleplay and non-RP communications. The standard Supergroup channel is generally reserved for RP messages.
The Legendary also has sister groups on other servers, notably East Coast Legendary on Infinity, Great Lakes Legendary on Freedom, and the Little Legends SG on Justice. Additionally, it has a set of dedicated nemeses in the form of The Infamous.
