| “ | To battle! | „ |
| ~ The Warriors' battle-cry. |
The Warriors are a faction from the M.M.O. City of Heroes. A plague on Paragon City, the Warriors are far more than their presence would imply at first glance. The Warriors style themselves as the contemporary version of ancient Greece's hoplite soldiers, whose training regiment they actively promote. Their main function is as black-marketeers specializing in ancient artifacts, but also are no strangers to fire-arms. Despite access to traditional fire-arms, The Warriors carry around swords as their armaments of choice, a combination of pragmatism, to prevent foes from automatically being proficient with their weapons if disarmed, and theatrics to intimidate lesser criminals - a tactic that has worked out remarkably well for them as even super-powered rivals give them wide birth.
Origin[]
Little was initially known about the Warriors, they appeared to be one of many random street gangs plaguing Paragon City. Arrests of criminals like Aeneas, Alexander and Patrochus soon revealed though that the gang was producing high-threat thugs, ones which had joined together. Further background research would expose The Warriors as founded by a man named Odysseus, who has evaded capture or even sighting for most of the gang's existence. David Odysseus Hill was a moderately wealthy heir, who sought to use his sizable but limited wealth to create a solid income. Hill had bought a small golden Greek goblet by paying off the right archeologists. Hill soon found the goblet was an enchanted artifact. The goblet would perpetually refill with water or wine at the holder's will. Seeing that there were indeed magical artifacts in the world and noting the process needed to acquire them, Hill decided black-marketing was the way to go for building his own fortune. Hill used his seed money in combinations with investments and connections from a Mysterious Benefactor to start an organized crew of smugglers specializing in ancient artifacts. Hill was a fan of classical Greek culture and as of his befitting middle name, called his new gang "The Warriors" and started only going by "Odysseus".
Presence[]
The Warriors acquired many artifacts, relics and weapons of old. Warriors make replicas frequently, but not to pass off as forgeries but rather to keep for themselves. The Warriors actually forge their own swords, maces and classic spears. While this is a time consuming process, the level of prestige the gang received for pulling swords on their targets instead of switch-blades quickly established their presence, leading more traditional criminals to stay far-away from Warrior territory. Warriors do engage in more traditional criminal activities such as kidnapping, bank-robberies and drug-deals, but largely exotic imports are the back-bone of their business. Warriors embody the mind-set of ancient Greek warriors, living a figurative as well as literal Spartan life-style that encourages battle for battle's sake.
Whenever warriors do happen upon a magical artifact Odysseus either claims it for himself, on the rare occasion it is a piece of genuine world-changing power, or, more commonly, sells it at an exorbitant price to other high-end super-villains with an interest in the occult, such as The Circle of Thorns, The Tsoo or The Banished Pantheon. When no-one else is buying, the Warriors pass hot artifacts down to their supplicants, The Hellions.
The Hellion connection[]
The Hellions are a group of Devil worshiping malcontents with a taste for arson. Though a few of their leaders made devil's bargains and have pyrokinetic powers, The Warriors soundly beat them when they tried to encroach on their territory through sheer fighting prowess. But rather than finish the Hellions off, the Warriors' Mysterious Benefactor arranged mediation between the two gangs, with the Hellions out-matched despite the Warriors' lack of super-powers, the normally unreasonable Hellions were willing to listen, while the Warriors were presented an opportunity through them. An accord was struck - The Warriors would pass along any magical knickknacks they could not sell to the Hellions to use in their dark rites, as well as ear-mark anything with hellish or pyrokinetic properties to give the Hellions a chance to buy first before they were put on the market; In exchange the Hellions would help with smuggling The Warriors' cargo. With no official connection, the Hellions and Warriors could feed into each-other without the police raising law-enforcement efforts. Never-the-less, the two groups have no love for each-other, their accord purely one of convenience.
One of the favored tactic of the Warriors, when one of their cashes is discovered, is to simply call the Hellions and tell them the location of their hidden treasure-trove. Many an Interpol agent has been foiled from busting open a solid Warriors operation due to a sudden attack by the militant Satanists. Even when the Hellion raids are stopped, the attack gives the Warrior "legitimate business men" the chance to distance themselves from the stolen goods due to Hellion interference. The Warriors occasionally are called in by the Hellions as reinforcements for their gang-war against the Skulls, and their sponsors, The Family. Though something of peers and sponsors to the rivals of their supplicants, The Family largely have no bad-blood with the Warriors. Both the Warriors and The Family see the Hellion/Skulls gang-war as an unfortunate business responsibility they need to occasionally tolerate in order to maintain influence in the more policed inner-city.
Warriors Of Note[]
Alexander[]
The Warrior Alexander Pavlidis - formerly "Alexander The Great" was paroled for good-behavior after being arrested. He began helping local law-enforcement, including heroes. He tries to keep his help quiet, and only shared information on Warrior adjacent projects - still having loyalties to his brethren. What Warriors can't talk about, he can, and as he had done his time, he was considered honorably retired. So Alexander would drop leads about rivals to The Warriors like the Tsoo, Freakshow or The Council - anyone of which being foiled would only make life easier for The Warriors to fill in the power vacuum - thus both helping is brethren and law-enforcement at the same time. Naturally any of the Warriors could offer similar help to Alexander as they stand to benefit, but of-course if any active Warriors disclosed information to police it would be considered dishonorable. Alexander being labeled as 'honorably retired' for doing his time and keeping his mouth-shut on direct Warrior affairs has placed him in a unique position where he may speak with law-enforcement now without consequence, especially since he only informs on rivals. Alexander would eventually run for office - raising the suspicion of many heroes. Suspicion turned out to be only partially correct - Odysseus had organized vote interference with the help of The Council to get Alexander elected, however Alexander had no knowledge of the fraud, and upon discovering he was being set up as a puppet politician he severed his ties with Odysseus.
Heracles[]
Heracles was the vaunted muscle of The Warriors. He was Odysseus's right hand for a while, but became too notorious so was dismissed to a lesser Warriors cell leader. Heracles is still friends with Odysseus though and is considered the gangs "problem solver" - he finds most problems can be solved by breaking legs and teeth. Heracles is said to be dumb-muscle and proud of it. He has little to no understanding of the more magical wares the Warriors find - though he has become savvy enough to distinguish magical artifacts from normal ones with a glance. Aside from randomly popping up on certain Warrior missions, he is one of the main people behind the theft of artifacts from the Midnight Club - a secret society of modern-day magi. The mission for Midnight Club member Mercedes Sheldon, has him as back-up to the theft organizer - Hector. Hector will be foiled and go into lock-up, but Odysseus goes out of is way to organize Heracles's escape due to his years of service and with the failure being deemed Hector's, not Heracles's.
Hector[]
Hector is a Warrior with an eye for magical artifacts. He was deemed something of a magic snob according to Alexander. Hector refuses to deal in any mundane artifacts and will not move his crew for any score that does not have magical artifacts among them. He is only mentioned a few times, but is encountered in Mercedes Sheldon's arc to recover her Midnight Club artifacts as the one who organized the theft in the first place. He says he has connections to a former Midnighter - implying he was smuggled the artifacts by suspended Midnighter - Darrin Wade. When encountered in the raid to re-take the artifacts he is talking about rising in The Warriors even higher than Odysseus - implying he was going to use the artifacts to form a coup d'etat against Odysseus. Once Hector's arrested, Odysseus leaves him in jail despite getting out other Warriors like Heracles.
Odysseus[]
David Odysseus Hill, wearing the Fists of Vulcan.
Odysseus's goblet is shown to be magical in more ways than to simply refill with water or wine, it also grants Odysseus mystically renewed vigor, enhanced strength, endurance and allows him the ability to see far-off events in his drink. It is rumored that Odysseus's goblet is not merely a magic goblet that refills itself but is in-fact a small conduit for The Well of The Furies, source of divine-power across the multiverse. The Well of the Furies made signature hero, Statesman, signature Villain Lord Recluse, and the alternate-reality Statesman, Tyrant, into the literal demigods they are. If this is true it also accounts for Odysseus's and The Warriors behavior as The Well induces a power-lust to the point of obsession and madness in those who keep drinking from it - Statesman and Lord Recluse refusing to indulge further after their first sips.
Odysseus has been encountered twice. Once in the Top Cow comics for City of Heroes and once in combat in one of the games' Strike Forces for the black-mailed mystic, Mortimer Kal, to recover the fabled Fists of Vulcan.
Hard Crash[]
In the comics Arachnos's Mu Mystics managed to orchestrate a ritual that removed all super-powers (including technological and scientific break-throughs) from Paragon City, plunging it into a state of chaos with a large portion of law-enforcement (super-heroes) compromised in stopping crime, even traditional non-powered crime. Statesman, disappeared and his team, The Freedom Phalanx unite to try to find him even without their super-powers. After weeks of searching the Freedom Phalanx find that Odysseus is said to still have his magic goblet and knows where Statesman is. As revealed Odysseus does-in-fact still have a working goblet, though it no longer grants him super-powers, it does however still function on it's own to reveal things to him in it's pool. Odysseus tells the Freedom Phalanx where Statesman is and what he is doing. Statesman, being an Incarnate (demi-god) even without powers is a vestment for super-human properties, was using himself as a base for his own ritual to prevent Arachnos from striking while everyone's super-powers were down. Odysseus wanted super-powers back on again, if not for himself for his business - as only mundane artifacts were popping up. Odysseus also states that though he had no love for Statesman, the pain he was in daily to maintain the ritual was not something he would wish on even his worst enemy.
Mortimer Kal Strike Force[]
In Mortimer Kal's Strike Force, the wizard, Mortimer Kal will be black-mailed by the Villain characters into helping them acquire the most powerful artifact he knows of in exchange for his daughter's safety. Mortimer was a member of a benevolent brotherhood of mystics, known as The Midnight Squad - the squad had recently recovered a set of artifacts called The Fists of Vulcan. The Fists of Vulcan were armlets that appeared to be the gloves of the actual ancient god of crafts. The Warriors help sponsor The Villain players in the operation to steal them out-from under the Midnight Squad. Naturally Odysseus aims to steal the gloves for himself and ambushes the Players with his newly acquired god-armaments once they have taken care of security. With the Gauntlets, Odysseus is extremely resistant to all damage and can use fiery melee attacks.
Limitations[]
As the Warriors have no greater schemes than to simply gain wealth through crime and maintain a-warrior-mind-set while doing it, they are only encountered at the half-way point of the game's leveling threat levels. The Warriors both know and accept their limits, content to let other villains vie for world domination and such while they simply maintain their business model. Though their fearsome weapons and martial prowess have them keep lesser gangs in the inner-city, many high-tech and magical foes such as Crey Industries, and the Circle of Thorns put them to shame. Their mindset and threat-level have made them ideal for their Benefactor, who is using them as something of a filter to prevent lesser gangs like the Hellions, Skulls, Outcasts and Trolls from spilling over into the outer-city, where criminals far more focused on Super-Villainy than petty crimes, set-up their schemes - many of which, the Benefactor actually controls without them knowing it. The Council for example have aims at completely taking over the world with alien parasite DNA yet share the Isle of Striga with the Warriors - who are fine letting the fascist military group wring their hands over their test-tubes in their volcano fortress as long as they can use the ports at the base of the volcano for simple exporting; The Warriors are not concerned with world-domination, so they view the Council as little more than quirky ill-tempered neighbors they know not to encroach on the territory of. If the Warriors branched out from Talos Island or Striga, they would easily be overwhelmed by the likes of Crey, or the eco-terrorist golems of the Devouring Earth, and put simply that would be more trouble than it is worth to them. They control the port zones of Paragon City, which allows them to keep up their business and the Warriors have no desire to endanger that strangle-hold by chasing the pipe-dream of world domination or even controlling the criminal-underworld of Paragon. They are the metaphorical 'big-fish-in-a-small-pond', and have no desire to endanger that status with blind Machiavellian ambition.
Trivia[]
- The now considered cannon relaunch of City Of Heroes - City Of Heroes: Homecoming, would redesign The Warriors - giving them a wider array of faces, skin-tones and clothing than their default.
- City Of Heroes Homecoming would give the Warriors more variety of weapons - including spears, shields and axes, all with traditional Greek military titles.
- Even in the pre-redesign, the Warrior Heracles always used the same graphic to illustrate him as a Warrior of note, despite all other named Warriors other than Odysseus using inter-changeable design models - Heracles is always African American, bald and favoring a sword. Post re-design he is still specifically African American and bald - though now with a traditional Roman helm and breastplate rather than his previous minimalist military pants and torn jacket.
Gallery[]
Images[]
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