Na-Palm

The Forest Force is a militant team of humanoid tree-people, led by CommandOak, who protect the magic forest of Arborika. Na-Palm is the team’s incendiary weapons expert. It’s true that she can be a bit hotheaded, but since her weapon of choice is literal fire and her task is to protect a magical forest, she reigns in her temper as best she can. She generally serves as the second-in-command to CommandOak.

Obviously this is just a continuation of the Forest Force concept that I started when I make CommandOak. As with him, I’ve tried to keep true to the general appearance of He-Man figures. If I was keeping entirely true to that kind of show, I expect that Na-Palm here would be the only woman on the team. If I ever bothered to flesh out the group more than this, though, I expect I’d try to do better than that. I’ve also tried not to sexualize her much, but I’m sure the Internet has people who wanna bone trees anyway.

Maple Leaf-tenant

The Maple Leaf-tenant (they call him Maple for short) is the Forest Force’s big guy. He’s not all that bright, but he’s good at taking orders and he’s strong. His weapon choice is a big rocket launcher, but he can also do a lot of damage even unarmed. Most frequently, he is stationed as the guard at the Great Treecastle, the sacred base of the Forest Force.

I picture the Great Treecastle as a big castle growing out of a great big tree, obviously, that is essentially the Forest Force’s playset, like Castle Greyskull to the Masters of the Universe. I’ll grant that a castle might look sort of out of place for a military group, but throw some machine guns and it’ll look cool enough that it doesn’t matter.

Maybe someday I’ll draw more of these guys? Doesn’t seem urgent though. I suppose maybe I could give a shot at doing some of their enemies.

Got a couple of ghosts here this week because it is… international ghost day? Yeah, that sounds plausible enough.

The Ghost Warden

People who knew him disagreed about whether or not Warden Gagnon was a good man. He was a successful man, a good citizen, but he was cruel. His cruelty, however, was directed at the prisoners of the prison he ran, so many people accepted it. He had no interest in rehabilitation, but loved punishment. He was never willing to kill a prisoner, because dead men don’t learn lessons, but any torture he could devise short of that was fair game. Still, like a large number of people in history, Gagnon died. Perhaps the debate over Gagnon’s goodness carried over into the afterlife, because it seems that neither heaven nor hell accepted the man’s soul.

For more than a century, the Ghost Warden has continued to watch his prison. Escapees are tracked by the righteous spectre and those who dare to attempt to commit murder within its walls are attacked and beaten. It could seem that he is simply carrying on the severe imprisoning techniques of his life, if it weren’t for the fact that any corruption among the guards is met with the same punishment. Could Gagnon be trying to make up for his life choices? And if so, does that mean his soul is now a prisoner in the very prison he once ruled with an iron fist?

The Bleeding Child

The ghost of the Bleeding Child had been seen for years by guests in the hotel. Late at night, when alone in a hallway, hotel guests would feel uneasy, like they were being watched. Looking around, they might catch a glimpse of a young boy. If they investigated any further, it was a regular jump scare situation, with the child lunging at them, his bloody wounds now visible, and suddenly vanishing. This went on for some time, word got out into the types of circles that talk about that sort of thing, and a documentary crew began investigating. They could not find any stories in the hotel’s history that might explain the events. No missing children or tragic cult rituals or anything were on record, or even rumored to be off record. Eventually the investigators just decided to take their cameras into the hotel for a few nights and see what happens. What happened next was a mystery, but maybe someday their footage will be found.

Obviously I’m trying to make a found footage plot here. If I ever told the story for real, I’d go places unexpected and weird, but for now this’ll do.

Two characters this week defined by their parents.

Byron G. Rothschild

A strange, powerful, amorphous being from higher dimensions materialized on Earth to satisfy its own curiosity. During that visitation, it met Derek Rothschild and, as the being took a human form, a relationship began and was consummated. The entity left. Imagine Derek’s surprise when, seven years later, the entity returned and informed him of their child. Leaving the child with Derek, the entity left again, never to be seen on Earth again.

The child, now called Byron, doesn’t look entirely human, but luckily his family is rich enough that they can get away with it. When private tutors were brought in to teach the boy, it was discovered that his otherworldly mind could handle data and facts at a level unheard of by even the best computers. It seemed, however, that he did not have emotions, at least not in a way humans can understand. Though the family tried to force Byron into interactions with other kids, hoping he might make friends, Byron only became more aware of his outsider status and withdrew. He rarely left his family estate until, now a teenager, he developed a curiosity like that of his mother. He began sneaking out on his own and, in the process, made some friends more organically. With these other kids, Byron now solves mysteries.

Elsa Geheimnis

Though Elsa lives in the desert city of Kashgar, her father is a German. And he doesn’t even live in Germany, he’s in Thrakodacia serving as the right hand man of the Hateful King. Though her father has no pretensions of being a good person, he wants good things for his daughter. Not least, he wants her to be safe. He knows that his employer would use the presence of a daughter as leverage (though they work together, there is little trust between them), so he sent Elsa off to live with her aunt and uncle in secret. For now, as far as anyone knows, that secret is safe.

Elsa is living as normal a life as she can under those circumstances. Still, her family history being what it is, she has picked up some hints about the occult world. Finding some books that her guardians had hidden, among them her mother’s diary and some manner of spellbook, Elsa has found her mind awakened to strange things. Currently this manifests as an ability to project her mind to an astral plane where she can eavesdrop on meetings of stronger mystics. Perhaps she will learn much from this, but perhaps also she will accidentally draw attention to herself.

A recap: A Devil has created a contest in which those who are suffering in his hell can fight for their freedom with magic helicopters. Last week we saw the good guys, this week: the jerks.

Senator Warmonger

This man’s political career was based around his status as a war hero. But he had not been a good solder, he had been one who gloried in battle and killing. Going into politics hadn’t been his idea, he was not a smart man, and he quickly found himself in over his head. As he became a public figure, the truth about his service was at risk of coming to light, so he did a deal with the Devil to keep the story from breaking. Now, in the Hell of Copters contest, he is provided with a powerful helicopter armed with missiles, guns, rockets, napalm and whatever else the Warmonger can imagine (and he can only imagine war).

Bloodquake

During his life, Bloodquake was a serial killer. As such, he was no great prize for the Devil, his soul is worth little, but nonetheless the Devil enjoyed his work. Bloodquake’s sleek helicopter is outfitted with various blood-related powers (high-pressure blood cannons that knock targets off course and blind them, for example). What’s more, when he causes harm to others he regenerates damage that he has taken.

The Little Cold Lady

The Little Cold Lady was once a young woman full of life, warmth, and energy. But when she noticed she was aging, she got scared. Selling her soul for youth and beauty, she looked good for the rest of her life. But now she’s dead and she’s old and cold. This is a cruel punishment for the woman, of course, but it does come with ice powers that let her freeze opponents and cause snowstorms and so on.

Haxanna

In the days of the witch hunts, many innocent women were persecuted and killed because accusing them of being witches sure allowed some jerks a chance to kill people. Haxanna though was an Actual Witch in service of the Devil. She had nothing to fear from the witch hunts, because she had Actual Witch Powers. Still though, she did die eventually and her service to the Devil meant she wound up in his hell. But now she gets to fight for her freedom with a helicopter and spooky witch powers, including her ghost cat familiar and homing flying broom.

Vtolzebub

Unlike the rest of the Hell of Copters combatants, Vtolzebub is not a human soul fighting for freedom. He’s the Devil’s own son, desperately trying to win his father’s attention by crashing to contest. Rather than having a magic helicopter, Vtolzebub can actually transform into a fleshy demon helicopter. His shapeshifting powers allow for all kinds of fun attacks, but he can also spit acid and fireballs. General demon stuff.

In case it isn’t clear, I think Hell of Copters should be a video game. Somebody give me a ton of money to make this.

There is a certain Devil who has been making contracts with humans for a few centuries now and has acquired enough souls that he’s pretty well off by devil standards. He’s rich, in fact. But now he’s kinda bored. Tricking humans into selling their souls has lost its lustre for him. In his quest to find something different in life, he hit upon an idea: He would take some of those suffering in his hell and give them a chance for freedom. The Devil provided them with new physical bodies, with magic powers and helicopters, and with codenames. The selected souls would have to fight one another, the winner getting to go free for all eternity!

Voiceless

Voiceless sold his soul for musical talent. He had a good career as a blue musician while he lived, but in the end his soul went to the Devil’s realm. There, he was rendered unable to make music at all as a punishment. But now that he’s part of the Hell of Copters contest, Voiceless can make music again. He still can’t sing (hence the name), but his special helicopter attacks include sonic shockwave strums and scrambling sonars with harmonica riffs. He fights for his freedom so that someday he might be able to make music again, without it being a weapon.

Darkgirl

Darkgirl was just a silly teenager when she decided that selling her soul to the Devil would be rebellious and cool. She’d always liked horror films and dark imagery, so she wasn’t scared by the Devil in the least. But of course, he was just using her affection for darkness for his own ends, and Darkgirl fell for it. It was a damn shame, but now, in her reconstructed body, she has the ability to control darkness. From her shadowcopter, she can cast solid darkness attacks at her foes, blend into shadows, and stuff like that. With her freedom, she’ll be able to make up for the mistake she made falling for the Devil’s lies.

Gibberer

The Gibberer was a promising physicist when he was young, but he was hungry for knowledge. Greedy for it, even. He sold his soul to the Devil to learn things that humanity was not yet ready to know, and as a result went mad. He spent his remaining years in an asylum, his potential wasted, and his experience in the afterlife has been much the same. But now, in the Hell of Copters contest, he pilots a high-tech chopper with lasers and teleportation devices and tractor beams, finally using his scientific knowledge instead of simply muttering ideas to himself over and over.

Princess Greenelf

Another one that the Devil got young. This young lady got involved with the world of Role Playing Games, which as we all know, meant that she would wind up losing her soul (Jack Chick tried to warn us). But for the contest, she has been given the bodily form of her game character, the Druid Princess Greenelf, and she has all the magical nature powers that the character possesses. Greenelf pilots a fancy wooden helicopter and has control over the weather and plantlife, as well as fancy magic arrows.

Hot Mama

The Devil gave Hot Mama the codename “Hot Mama” as a cruel reminder of her circumstances. In life, she was in a bad car accident with her two children in the back seat. The car became quickly engulfed in flames and it was then that the Devil pounced, making a deal with her. Her soul for the safety of her children. The kids lived, but she did not. And now the Devil taunts her, reminding her that this Hell of Copters contest is the only way she’ll ever see them again. Her powers are all based on fire. Heat rays and fireballs and such. Will it be enough to reunite her with her family?

These characters are essentially the “Good Guys” of the Hell of Copters contest. While everyone is fighting for their own freedom only, these are the sympathetic ones. Next week, let’s have a look at the ones who we would call the bad guys.