A Mild-Mannered Reporter: Spotlight on the Vahzilok

A lot of the villains in City of Heroes started out as pretty nasty characters and only got worse from there. You can certainly justify why the Skulls feel the need to be a bunch of vandalizing thugs, sure, but it doesn't change the fact that the gang formed because a couple of thugs got to be top dog in the area. The Sky Raiders have always pretty much been out for piracy, the Circle of Thorns are one side of a battle of evil against evil, and the good acts that come out of Crey are more a testament to the size of the organization than anything.

And then you have the organizations that started out with good intentions. Often times these groups still have good intentions, in fact — it's just that they don't have good ways of executing them. So it goes with Dr. Vahzilok and his loose coalition of involuntary surgeons. Oh, sure, they're modern boogeymen on the streets of Paragon City, but their goals are noble — a fact that's easy to forget when you're faced with zombie bombs.

Group background

The Vahzilok take their name from Dr. Vahzilok himself, and you can't really discuss one without the other. But since there's a whole segment devoted to noteworthy members of a group, we'll start with the tail end of the doctor's story — specifically, the part where he started documenting his experiments with reanimating live flesh and avoiding necrosis online. His procedures were thoroughly detailed, painfully researched, and about as pleasant as you would expect from context. Despite this fact, this was enough for the doctor to begin assembling a legion of like-minded individuals seeking to transcend life and death through medical science.

It didn't happen overnight, but gradually Vahzilok has assembled an entire organization full of former doctors and surgeons happy to dissect living subjects, including heroes, in the hopes of creating a truly deathless creature. The organization seems to be fairly traditional, with Vahzilok having taken on the role of dictator for the group and appointing his minions to places of prominence as they prove themselves. Of course, minions distinguish themselves mostly by dedication to the cause. Converting oneself into an undead Eidolon is the fast track to promotion.

Group activities and powers

Most of the time, the Vahzilok just want to get new test subjects for their medical experiments. That might not sound so bad until you realize that the subjects don't volunteer, and the tests are less a matter of "take this drug for a couple weeks" and more "let's see how long you can survive without a heart if we graft new limbs on you." This extends all across Paragon City, although they're mostly found in Atlas Park, Skyway City, Kings Row, and Steel Canyon. When not being supremely creepy, the Vahzilok focus on getting the necessary money for their experiments and supplies, usually with the same concern for ethics found in the rest of their operation.

Most of the members of the Vahzilok are at least competent doctors, but the net result of this is usually just that they've got darts coated with anesthetic and paralytic agents. The Eidolons, on the other hand, seem to be able to tap into the powers of death itself with remarkable efficiency. And of course, the intelligent minions of Dr. Vahzilok are more often than not accompanied by animated corpses, hulking brutes that belch poisonous fluid and move without regard for their own well-being. They're not just fiercely strong and determined — they're nearly innumerable.

Notable members

The most notable member of the group is, naturally, the doctor himself. And Demetrios Vasilikos certainly started off not in his current incarnation but as a physician working with his father to treat super-powered patients. Unfortunately, that practice ended when his father caught an alien disease that Vasilikos couldn't quite cure in time, even though he dove into some pretty shady territory to try to get close.

Of course, once he was elbow-deep in uncomfortable territory, Vasilikos became convinced that if he'd just had a little more time to work on saving his father, he could have managed it. That was what started him down the road of animating dead tissue, and it was a short step from there to using live research subjects to further his experiments. His goals, however, haven't changed: He wants to create methods to cure all the ailments that plague human beings, up to and including death. It's just that he's perfectly willing to kill several thousand unwilling subjects now to cure several million later.

And lest there be any doubt, Vahzilok is committed to his cause. There's a plague that gets released in a Vahzilok-centered mission arc early on, which seems to be an intentional move on the part of Dr. Vahzilok... until it becomes clear after you defeat him and neutralize the disease that he was attempting to clean up the mess himself. He doesn't really want to kill anyone, and despite everything, he still considers himself a doctor.

Just so that you sleep comfortably at night, you can keep in mind that the Facemaker — the equivalent of the tailor in the Rogue Isles — is a former agent for Dr. Vahzilok and studied under him. Have fun getting your new costume!

Could I be one?

Yes, and quite easily. Vahzilok doesn't have the strictest organization, and even if your character never worked directly for the doctor, it's quite possible to be someone who learned from his techniques. Focus on a morbid costume with plenty of death-related doodads and you're well on your way to a plausible mad doctor.

You also have a bit of leeway in powers. Obviously, a Necromancy Mastermind makes a lot of sense, but the Eidolons have a variety of darkness-based powers that you could also imitate. Even a Stalker would make sense — after all, the doctor does need to get the occasional test subject surreptitiously...

Parting thoughts

You haven't really leveled a hero until you've been covered in zombie puke. The Vahzilok were always one of my favorite villain groups simply because they felt like a group of comic book villains, with just the right mixture of tragedy and ridiculousness. Even if those Embalmed Cadavers occasionally get really annoying, they're always interesting to face off against. And they're also a group that you can conceivably create a character around, which is another bonus.

Comments are welcome in the comment field below, or you can mail me at eliot@massively.com. Next week, I'd like to talk a bit about respecs, their limitations in City of Heroes, and why those limitations don't matter as much as they seem at first glance.

By day a mild-mannered reporter, Eliot Lefebvre unveils his secret identity in Paragon City and the Rogue Isles every Wednesday. Filled with all the news that's fit to analyze and all the muck that's fit to rake, this look at City of Heroes analyzes everything from the game's connection to its four-color roots to the latest changes in the game's mechanics.