Sell me on Atlanteen Age

[JmOz]

I will pick it up eventualy, don't get me wrong

And I have read Ghost Angel's review (top knotch), and the whole thread in the Hero products section

But I am not sure if It is where I should put my limited hero budget to next for what I am planning

I am working on a world, set in atlantis (But not HERO Atlantis neccesarily, willing to steal waht I like however), and heavily inspired by MOTU/SRPOP and some comics like Warlord and Arion. In a way I am looking at Superheroes with swords (For that matter most of my help threads will be in champions not fantacy)

So the question is how useful would Atlanteen Age be to me? Also what books do you recomend?

[Lord Liaden]

Hmm... I think how helpful The Atlantean Age would be to you would depend on a few factors. First, how do you define "superheroes with swords?" Are you going for characters with the fast, easy, reliable and always-available powers of comic-book characters, e.g. acrobatic swordsmen who can cut down four foes at once, or wizards with in-your-face combat spells like Dr. Strange? Or do you want the power level of supers, but with more of the feel and trappings of fantasy, like spells that require some chanting or gestures, and straight-up HTH fighters? The character and spell examples in AA fall very much within the second category. Some of them are extraordinarily powerful, literally capable of destroying cities or devastating armies; but stylistically they're still within the conventions of the fantasy genre.

Second, would you be interested in suggestions/ guidelines/ examples for characters, magic styles, and artifacts for very high-powered fantasy games using 5E HERO? AA has some clever ideas and rules options, and a decent selection of pregenerated spells and items; although it's a little thin on characters and creatures. Moreover, the book often refers to other volumes of such items, such as the Fantasy HERO Grimoire(s) and the creature collections, rather than including everything in the one tome.

Third, how much world info are you looking to crib? AA covers the whole primordial Earth, with many interesting locations and peoples mentioned; however, the descriptions (and included maps) are broad but superficial, so while they might provide inspiration you'd still have to fill in a lot of the details yourself. On top of that, much of that info is tied to the default setting, i.e. Atlantis the most powerful nation in the world, controlling a globe-spanning empire, with only a few rivals. If you're looking for something with a narrower focus or more diversity you'll have to tinker with the background to the setting a fair amount.

[JmOz]

Thank you for the information

I do want gesturing and incants, but it will be the quick and dirty version you see in most super hero comics staring mystics.

The idea of it being a golden city with a lot of extremly inferior barbarians trying to tear it down is center to my ideas.

As for the PC's, I might write up a few sample characters to give an idea of what I am looking for (A picture is worth a thousand words)

[gojira]

The idea of it being a golden city with a lot of extremly inferior barbarians trying to tear it down is center to my ideas.

As for the PC's, I might write up a few sample characters to give an idea of what I am looking for (A picture is worth a thousand words)

The Atlantean Age features an Atlantis which has conquered, subjugated and civilized (mostly) all the barbarian races. The barbarians are subjects of Atlantis, the barbarians are not trying to tear it down (openly, anyway).

The enemy of Atlantis is the Lemurians, a similar but more sinister empire on the other side of the globe.


A PC write up or two (one Atlantean and one barbarian?) from your campaign would probably help bunches.

My gut feel here is that AA is kinda on the edge for you. You might be able to use the spell system, or a couple of the races, but overall you'll have a lot of conversion work to do. You'll probably need to remove the children of Posiden who still live in Atlantis, and are its ultra-powerful guardians. And make the gods more remote in general, so they don't help Atlantis directly. Still, the map might be useful as a player aid, and if you have access to other sources you could blend those in.

If you're planning on getting it anyway, you might pick it up now and see for yourself what you want to use.