When the Mortaccio character sparked my concept of Saint Malleus, I hadn't fallen fully into City of Heroes yet, but I had been playing Homecoming sporadically. I didn't know what else to do with the character, so I made him into a CoH hero.
At first he was named Saint Clavicle, and his initial costume was pretty awkward looking. I made the costume shown above after I had become far more fluent with the costume creator.
Instead of taking the obvious path of making him a healer (which is not as crucial a role in CoH as it is in many MMOs), I chose Energy Blast and Darkness Manipulation as his power sets. I colored the Energy attacks white with gold to give them a "holy radiance" feel.
For the Shadow Manipulation powers, I gave them a pretty typical black/purple "void energy" color scheme.
However, all this refinement of the CoH character happened after I had developed the character in much more detail during a tabletop game.
My D&D group had just wrapped up the Phandelver campaign, and we decided to switch to the Fate rules to play a game in an urban fantasy setting.
Fate encourages you to hash out a pretty thorough background for your character. To set the tone for Malleus, I decided he had been born the year of the Cadaver Synod, and had a contentious relationship with the church authorities during his natural life, which was of course amplified when he rose from the dead a thousand years later.
Malleus' HeroForge incarnation
He awoke with a blue gemstone pendant around his neck (his phylactery equivalent), no memory of how he died, and no idea why he had risen again.
In our setting, all player characters had been contacted by a spirit guide as part of their backstory. The contact would last a few days and would alter the trajectory of their lives in some way. Shortly after his resurrection, Malleus was contacted by Judas, who revealed that he had not informed on Jesus to the Romans, and had likely been assassinated and framed for the betrayal.
I leaned hard into the Dan Brown-style secret history angle. Here's the background summary I used for the tabletop game:
Saint Malleus
High Concept Aspect: The Resurrected Saint of Exiles (i.e. a holy lich)
Trouble Aspect: Hunted by the Vatican
Phase aspects:
Searching for lore
Why/how was he resurrected
What is the blue gemstone pendant he awakened with
Why was Judas (his spirit guide) framed
Sympathy for the lost
as the Saint of Exiles he has an affinity for refugees, outcasts, and so-called heretics
Accountability for the Church
In life, he often clashed with church authorities for aiding and harboring ‘undesirables’
Seeks to uncover the dark secrets that drive the church’s historical and current misdeeds
Current-day friendly contacts:
Father Alfred Molina: a priest in Malleus’ seaside hometown of Porta di Rossi who befriended him shortly after he was awakened. Father Molina recommended a priest in the OKC diocese, an expert on resurrections, who might help Malleus elucidate his condition. However, the sudden arrival of a malevolent Vatican black-ops agent meant Malleus had to flee before Molina could put him in touch with Balthus.
Father Norman Balthus: A scholar of the esoteric who ministers in Oklahoma City. Malleus is looking to contact him in a way that won’t tip off the Vatican.
Adversaries:
Paragons of Anathiel: Vatican black-ops. Based on rumors from the townsfolk of Porta di Rossi, these assassins initially thought Malleus was a demonic entity, contributing to the failure of their first attempt at slaying him.
At the table, I voiced Malleus in a Comedy Italian accent, probably mostly inspired by Father Guido Sarducci of SNL fame. We played two major story arcs, and Malleus was able to banish his phylactery's evil counterpart by sacrificing his own, which resulted in him being re-fleshed and restored to natural life, or at least the appearance of it.
