Everyman/Hidden Lands/Vibora Bay & more.

[Funksaw]

Damn you!

Now that I have the 5th Edition in hand, I've been looking over to see what supplements I want to get.

How come all the REALLY cool stuff that I really want are stuck in mid 2005?

Anyway, I wanted to ask if I've got the right impression from the following titles:

Everyman: This sourcebook about playing average joes in a superpowered universe - can this be used to emulate the Astro City format

Hidden Lands: Is this just going to be about alien worlds and undersea stuff, or is this going to get REALLY freaky - Tunguska/Area 51/Hollow Earth freaky?

Vibora Bay: Will Vibora Bay be to DC's London what Hudson is to Gotham/Millenium is to Metropolis?


Other books I'm very interested in: Pulp Hero, The Asian Beastiary, Ninja Hero (for rules on Wuxia,)

Also, is there any plan in the works (2006/7?) to release a high-tech fantasy setting?

[Steve Long]

Everyman is what we call a "normals book." It presents a whole slew of interesting normals for use as NPCs in a Champions game. It's not about playing normals; it's more like CKC, but with normals instead of villains.

Hidden Lands covers mainly Atlantis, the Empyreans, and Lemuria, plus a few more minor places. I don't think it's as freaky as you're envisioning it being, but I may be misreading you.

As for Vibora Bay, I'm not sufficiently familiar with DC's London to answer the question. It's our sort of weird/outre/mystic city for Champions, as opposed to the more high-tech, mainstream Millennium City. The influences cited by Darren are James Robinson and Tony Harris, Alan Moore, Jamie Delano, Steve Gerber, Len Wein, and Bernie Wrightson.

What do you mean by "high-tech fantasy setting"? Do you mean an urban fantasy sort of thing -- magic in the modern day? Or do you mean a High Fantasy world where magic has taken the place of tech and you have magic flying cars and such? Or something else?

[Funksaw]

Either one of those "high tech fantasy settings" sounds cool, but essentially, I'm thinking a high-fantasy world coexisting with high-technology. Shadowrun without the dystopian attitude as the default.

[Steve Long]

OK, that'd fall into what I'd generally consider "Urban Fantasy," though it's on the High Fantasy end of the Urban Fantasy spectrum (the stories of, say, Charles deLint being the Low Fantasy end). We don't have any specific plans for such a setting, but we do someday want to do an Urban Fantasy subgenre book. If that does well enough, a setting would definitely be worth considering.

[Koshka]

Hidden Lands: Is this just going to be about alien worlds and undersea stuff, or is this going to get REALLY freaky - Tunguska/Area 51/Hollow Earth freaky?

Have you looked at the Suppressed Transmission books by Ken Hite?

[quick check in second browser window]

Looks like Amazon is out of the second book, but Warehouse 23 has both of them. No game stats, but loads of fun freakiness .