Going back over my Champions 5th edition Supplements, I've been Re-reading the Book of Destroyer, the one made on Conjunction with Cryptic after they purchased the Champions IP.

This is probably one of the most important events ever, that anyone 30+ would of expirenced in their life.

A Quick summary is this. From March 30th to June 24th, in 1984 Destroyer Ruled the World. Using Mind Control Sattelites cleverly hidden in Earths Orbit, Destroyer managed to mind control almost the entire populace.

A Few Heroes, espically of the Psionic variety managed to resist him, but were unable to rouse the world away from his Sway. Destroyer only lost when in a fit of pique, he ordered Vanguard, the Earth's strongest Hero, to Destroy the Statue of Liberty.

Gazing on the Statue, Vanguard was able to break free from the Mind Control and meet Destroyer in Combat. Though the battle was Savage beyond words, and Vanguard had the hardest fight of his life, Destroyer knew he would eventually lose. Rather then allow himself to be captured, he teleported away.

No one could say he "Failed" as for 3 Glorious Months, he ruled the world. He turned the UN Headquarters into an Art Gallery, he had a Giant Statue of himself put on the Mall of Washington D.C.

Anyway, I figure it's good to get this out there, one thing I feel RP wise to stress is just How Dangerous and Competent Destroyer is.

And many of us Lore Enthusiasts are predicting the Real Destroyer is going to return to the game come early 2010 with the Major Content update, and the fall of Shadow Destroyer.

Brilliant!

Thanks for putting this up!

You know, I read an article on CO once where the author was making fun of Destroyer and saying how cheesy and non-threatening he was. If only they knew!

Wow. I thought he was just some baddie that was the main evil just for the sake of being the main evil, but it turns out that, not only does he take over the world for at least an amount of time, but he does it through MIND CONTROL.

Whereas Kefka Palazzo is one of my favorite RPG villains, Destroyer is now one of my favorite MMO villains.

Destroyer is actully suprisingly a Deep Villain.

The Book about him expounds upon him, his organization and everything, including his Hobbies.

I think for Fun I'll transcribe the section on one of his Hobbies

Art and Furnishing
An appreciation for fine art is one of the
hallmarks of an aesthete and a gentleman,
and who could possibly have better taste than
Destroyer? His art collection is vast, covering all
places and periods of Earth history and featuring
numerous masterpieces, unique works, and
archaeological treasures. He often sends Rakshasa
to bid on new pieces that catch his attention,
but he’s not always that patient: one of the
few “petty” crimes he has his people commit is
art theft. More than one museum and private
collector has found the display rooms stripped
of all noteworthy pieces by Destroyer’s men. He
particularly enjoys robbing unscrupulous art collectors
who buy on the black market, since they
can’t report the theft to the police. In recent years
he’s benefitted extensively from the chaos in the
Middle East, assembling one of the world’s best
collection of artifacts from the Iraq region.
Besides fine art, Dr. Destroyer also likes the
best in furniture and furnishings. He mostly favors
traditional pieces and styles — heavy on the wood,
leather, and glass rather than more modern materials
— and counts many antique pieces of furniture
among his possessions.
Destroyer stores most of his art treasures in
specially-sealed, temperature controlled, heavily
protected vaults in Tartarus. The vaults could
survive direct strikes by anything up to a nuclear
bomb. In the event that’s not enough, his most
valued pieces are kept on single-use teleportation
platforms that can send them to Zerstorenstern
or other locations in the event of an emergency.
Rather than risk displaying originals in bases that
could suffer destruction (like Destruga II), he uses
his technology to make flawless display copies.
(Copied pieces of furniture are specially reinforced
to tolerate the weight of his armor.) But he despises
forgers, regarding them as parasites and wasters of
talent, and usually kills any he meets out of hand.
Discussing art, and his theories of the Creative,
is one of Destroyer’s favorite pasttimes. He
maintains a correspondence with art experts all
over the world using Rakshasa as an intermediary.
His “colleagues” have no idea who he is, only
that his unsigned letters are hand-delivered from
time to time, filled with astonishing insights and
sometimes-bizarre hypotheses and speculation.


Beyond Art, Destroyer also enjoys Chess, kidnapping GrandMasters to play against and sending them home with lavish prizes if they stimulate him. He Enjoys Gormet Food, kidnapping Chefs sometimes, and killing the ones who dissapoint him, rewarding the one's who suprise him.

He also Enjoys, History, Music and Mythology as well, though he's been unhappy with his own music he's created.

Wow.

He really IS as fantastic as Dr. Doom. Where can I find some of these books, they still in print?

I believe it's still avaliable in PDF and Print.

Here's a Link.

https://www.herogames.com/viewItem.htm?itemID=232631

Huh, and here i thought Dr. D was a big, Evil, German sack of resources and HP, still kind of is but this adds flavor.

And many of us Lore Enthusiasts are predicting the Real Destroyer is going to return to the game come early 2010 with the Major Content update, and the fall of Shadow Destroyer.

I wouldn't count on that too much, considering they're setting him up to be the big bad of the game. Though perhaps you're right and the nemesis instance next month will also lead to the defeat of Shadow Destroyer.

I -highly- doubt it, but yeah.

Quite a neat read, that.

{deleted post} Theik wrote:

And many of us Lore Enthusiasts are predicting the Real Destroyer is going to return to the game come early 2010 with the Major Content update, and the fall of Shadow Destroyer.

I wouldn't count on that too much, considering they're setting him up to be the big bad of the game. Though perhaps you're right and the nemesis instance next month will also lead to the defeat of Shadow Destroyer.

I -highly- doubt it, but yeah.

Shadow Destroyer is going to be the dude in the Repeatable Nemesis Lair.

Real Destroyer is currently chilling on his secret Asteroid Base nobody knows about.

Shadow Destroyer is a Ruse.. Mark my words, Real Destroyer will come back and be the Games Real Big Bad.

It's kind of a shame he's an MMO villain, though. He's a criminal mastermind, and the closest any decent GM should let us to him is a stimulating, if not seductive or enticing conversation. Matching him wit for wit, tracking him down and undoing his latest scheme.

I would doubt if he were installed into the game any more complicated than Onyxia.

Overall I think Shadow Destroyer is interesting but he is not Destroyer, I seriously doubt Real Destroyer has quietly passed in his sleep, So I would say the odds that he will come back is as close to certain as they can be without it being officially announced. For the simple reason that there is no reason for him not to come back.

{deleted post} RunRiot wrote:

Destroyer is actully suprisingly a Deep Villain.

Sorry for the snippage, but I read the same book, and got precisely the opposite impression. To me, Destroyer's not a villain, he's a checklist of villain cliches. The section you quoted is a particular example of this: it could describe pretty much any would-be world conqueror, from Ra's al-Ghul to half the Bond villains. His personality section (wherein he comes off less a supergenius than petulant idiot savant) is given approximately equal time to page after page after page showing his armor stats. In the hook scenarios later in the book, they describe a world under his control as being like the plot of 1984, but without the pretense of anyone else being a threat to him -- in other words, without most of the nuance needed to make the scenario work.

And, frankly, even as a DC fan who never cared a bit about Doom, Doom has more depth than Destroyer on at least one level even I know about: Doom gave a damn about someone other than himself in his life. Destroyer's never been able to pull off that stunt, his "infinite capacity... FOR EVIL" or not.

ICly, I have to take this guy seriously, but OOCly, I don't buy his hype for a second. He's the precursor for the Harbinger of Justice, just a twinked out villain with more effort put forward to making him gratuitously bad than toward making him someone that the players should love to hate.

And there's two of him now. I'd be twice as impressed, if I were impressed in the first place.

When Megatron comes off with more subtlety and originality than your villain, you're doing it wrong.

{deleted post} Wilhelm Scream wrote:

And, frankly, even as a DC fan who never cared a bit about Doom, Doom has more depth than Destroyer on at least one level even I know about: Doom gave a damn about someone other than himself in his life. Destroyer's never been able to pull off that stunt, his "infinite capacity... FOR EVIL" or not.

I don't really think that's true. He cared for his right hand men. Rakhasha, Black Talon, they all lived luxury lives and got a lot of freedom in what they did. It's Shadow Destroyer that couldn't give half a rat's ass and who just sends them in on suicide missions. (Also the reason why Black Talon defects.)

{deleted post} Theik wrote:

{deleted post} Wilhelm Scream wrote:

And, frankly, even as a DC fan who never cared a bit about Doom, Doom has more depth than Destroyer on at least one level even I know about: Doom gave a damn about someone other than himself in his life. Destroyer's never been able to pull off that stunt, his "infinite capacity... FOR EVIL" or not.

I don't really think that's true. He cared for his right hand men. Rakhasha, Black Talon, they all lived luxury lives and got a lot of freedom in what they did. It's Shadow Destroyer that couldn't give half a rat's ass and who just sends them in on suicide missions. (Also the reason why Black Talon defects.)

He doesn't care for them -- he can and would kill them without a second thought -- he just rewards them for their service.

{deleted post} Wilhelm Scream wrote:

When Megatron comes off with more subtlety and originality than your villain, you're doing it wrong.

Beast Wars Megatron > A lot of villains, so I don't see your point.

{deleted post} Hatman wrote:

{deleted post} Wilhelm Scream wrote:

When Megatron comes off with more subtlety and originality than your villain, you're doing it wrong.

Beast Wars Megatron > A lot of villains, so I don't see your point.

Regular Megatron. Beast Wars Megatron is in a class all his own.

I don't think Dr. Destroyer is an extremely deep villain.

Nonetheless, I enjoy him immensely. Mostly? Because I like the robots and Black Talon and blah-blah-blah.

I have a remarkably high tolerance for non-annoying cliches. The fact that he is like a lot of other villainous masterminds doesn't bother me. The way he's presented is enjoyable to me, and so I like him.

Maybe I don't read enough comics, but there's one way I see him as being different from other masterminds. In other comics, them astermind is regarded as a problem only ot the Heroes. You mgiht report that Dr. Doom did blah blah bad thing, but it seems like Champions culture is focused around him. I haven't heard of Doomologists, or "books written on the man."

He's more a part of the world than other villains I've seen atleast.

{deleted post} Leetsepeak wrote:

I have a remarkably high tolerance for non-annoying cliches. The fact that he is like a lot of other villainous masterminds doesn't bother me. The way he's presented is enjoyable to me, and so I like him.

To be clear, I don't have a problem with pastiches per se -- Grond in particular works as a satire on the guys who got phenomenally powerful through wacky accidents. The problem with Destroyer is that utterly no effort was made to differentiate him, and unlike Grond, Destroyer's meant to be taken seriously.

Maybe I don't read enough comics, but there's one way I see him as being different from other masterminds. In other comics, them astermind is regarded as a problem only ot the Heroes. You mgiht report that Dr. Doom did blah blah bad thing, but it seems like Champions culture is focused around him. I haven't heard of Doomologists, or "books written on the man."

Happened in the series, "Books of Doom". Doom is also a public head of state.

Lex Luthor had an unauthorized biography written, formed several super-teams (hero and villain alike), and was elected president of the US.

Destroyer only has the focus he does, because he is intended to be the big bad. On occasion, he does things worthy of being a big bad, but his characterization is so shallow that the only way we know he's the smartest man on earth is because the source material has to tell it to us outright, rather than give us examples to prove his "genius" isn't merely technical.

The guy wants badly to be Doctor Doom, but comes off as Kobra.