Market Research: Creatures of the Night, Revised?

[DShomshak]

Several of the 4e characters I created in Creatures of the Night: Horror Enemies were revised for later editions of Champions, ultimately making it to the Champions Villains trilogy. Most of them, however, did not. Tiger has expressed interest in updating selected characters for his Forgotten Enemies series (and used Lady Twilight with my blessing), but -- since I am still here -- I might like to do this myself. I've noodled around with Creatures of the Night Resurrected for the last several months, writing up 5e/CC versions of several characters. Before I go further, though, I have some important questions:

 

Does anybody want this? Did you ever use them, back in the day? Would you use them if they were revised?

 

Subsequent posts will discuss ways I plan to revise characters, but if they were never that useful in the first place I probably won't bother.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Steve]

I would buy it, and I would find a way to use them.

[Dr. MID-Nite]

Definitely used the earlier versions. I mostly used the Devil's Advocates, but the other characters got used on occasion either directly or as background setting. I won't lie though. I never used Lady Twilight. To me, she was the least interesting character in the book. The Mind Master Complex, Dr. Black, and Hell Rider all got major stories in our campaign. I also plan to use The Totems, but haven't introduced them yet.

[Lord Liaden]

Hmm... I'm actually unsure how to respond. On the one hand, I really like Creatures of the Night. I used a number of characters and concepts from the book, either as written or adapted to fit with other things. Some of the things you updated for later publication, I preferred and stuck with the earlier versions. Overall I found it interesting, enjoyable, useful, and sometimes even informative.

 

On the other hand, if it's essentially the same characters with game stats for later editions, I really wouldn't be interested in buying it. I do quite well with what I have. This new book would have to have substantial changes to the capabilities and/or backgrounds/personalities of the characters, or a significant number of new characters, for me to want to invest in it. I might still buy it to support you and Hero Games if I had the disposable income, but my budget is likely to be tight for a while.

Edited September 28, 2023 by Lord Liaden

[Beast]

Yes please

[steriaca]

Me? I don't have a campaign per say. But I'll say yes. I would love to see an expanded The Great Beast, especially what his actual beast form looks like (a humanoid variation of the biblical Great Beast maybe, complete with multiple heads?). And remember my tribute to Crongberg in the Create a Villain thread ("The New Flesh"). I'm sure the Think Tank needs to be out there under It's new name. I would love to see Brother Bone again, this time as a semi-indpendant necromancer "healer".

[Duke Bushido]

Hard to answer.

 

On the one hand, I did like the original, but in general I don't use published characters: it's enough work to tweak them so they dit my game that I find it easier just to make new characters.

 

However, I _did_ like the original, and used a _lot_ of ideas and background from it.

 

So if the question is rephrased as "would I buy it?,"  then yes; no question, if it is the same sort of book as the original.

 

 

[DShomshak]

8 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

On the one hand, I did like the original, but in general I don't use published characters: it's enough work to tweak them so they dit my game that I find it easier just to make new characters.

 

That's fair. I never used published characters either, and regarded the Enemies books just as sources of ideas to field-strip and recombine.

 

Dean Shomshak

[DShomshak]

I'm not settled on the form this will take: whether a complete book, or broken into smaller units about the same size as my old "Shared Origins" pdfs. For now, I'm grouping characters in tentative chapters:

 

Body Horror: Caiman, Doctor Black, the Great Beast (and his pets), Ooze, Reverent Gil Purdue

 

All In Your Head: Fearmonger (with Killer Appliances ported over from Supermage Enemies -- they were originally supposed to go with him), Four-Eyes, the Think Tank (renamed Mind-Master Complex, with its possessed proxies), Whisper

 

Undead: Brother Bone (with Skeleton Monks), Dead Heat (from SMB), Decay, Haunt, Lady Twilight or vampire to be chosen later

 

Diabolical: Apollyon (massively rewritten per an earlier discussion, to be a Satanist cult leader/con man), Brujo (from Ultimate Supermage), Gamygin, Razor Girl. The other demons from the Appendix don't get revised because In odd moments I'm also working on a Descending Hierarchy guidebook. It's doable because I don't need to buy illos or make them myself: The 19th century Dictionnaire Infernal supplies public-domain illos of dozens of demons, which the author of that book solemnly claimed were drawn "from life." But that's a discussion for another time and place.

 

Which leaves Granny Hex, Shadowfire, and some miscellaneous solo characters.

 

Apollyon, Granny Hex and Shadowfire are decoupled from the Devil's Advocates (though you could fit them back in if you wanted). Maze is now redundant after Tesseract (of the Paradigm Pirates) and Gyre. Plus he's a bit dated.

 

I'm not revising the Totems. They were a late addition because I thought CotN needed another team, and they're a rather horribly superficial treatment of Native American themes. While I like the idea of some Native American force attempting ghastly genocidal revenge on the theory that turnabout is fair play, this isn't it. Possibly Tezcatlipoca (CV1) covers this well enough already.

 

I am not sure about revising the Monad. Thus far I haven't felt the need to buy and read Book of the Machine, but it's possible that this explanded treatment of Mechanon makes the Monad redundant.

 

Archimago has been made redundant by Takofanes. While there are aspects of Takky I dislike, I actually *do* rather like the idea of Archimago as the master villain whose plots keep running decades after his death. A supplement about Archimago's plot and catspaws could be interesting, but this is not it. Though Homonculus should be updated because Killer Dolls are such a classic trope.

 

Kobold is probably the most straightforward supervillain of the old characters, but by that token I'm not sure he has much to interest GMs.

 

It's possible other characters from USM and SMB could be ported in, if they fit the horror thime. Since writing CotN I've also written several villains for my games that turned out rather horrific. They're available if they're needed. We'll see.

 

Dean Shomshak

[DShomshak]

22 hours ago, steriaca said:

And remember my tribute to Crongberg in the Create a Villain thread ("The New Flesh").

I do indeed. Most of these characters were beyond the capabilities of basic pseudoplasm, but if the Great Beast was trying to patter it from mutants in attempts to port mutant powers into his "research sjubjects," why, anything becomes possible. I won't crib anyone else's characters, but a new character of such ilk is possible, And I will view the New Flesh as the bar I must meet.

 

Dean Shomshak

[steriaca]

15 hours ago, DShomshak said:

I do indeed. Most of these characters were beyond the capabilities of basic pseudoplasm, but if the Great Beast was trying to patter it from mutants in attempts to port mutant powers into his "research sjubjects," why, anything becomes possible. I won't crib anyone else's characters, but a new character of such ilk is possible, And I will view the New Flesh as the bar I must meet.

 

Dean Shomshak

Quite understandable. It is quite possible for the Great Beast to accidentally try his pseudoplasm experiments on a mutant subject, or maybe something more supernatural influences the shape the psuedoplasm takes without the Great Beast noticing (which might explain why he can't repeat the success of certain human experiments he has done). Like you said, anything is possible. 

[DShomshak]

Incidentally, here are the characters I already finished, including the <Character> Facts and Story Seeds sections:

 

* Caiman

* Great Beast, including his pets (and one new extra-oogy creature) -- and each pet gets a story seed of its own

* Ooze

* Haunt

* Four Eyes

 

I've done the edition conversion for a few more -- that's the easy part.

 

As a sample, here's the Story Seed for Flying Dogs, that I hope will take players straight from "Aww" to "Aw, S***":

 

Quote

• Can I Keep Him? The Great Beast uses actual dog brains in building his flying dogs, as well as pseudoplasm patterned from his own neurons: Authentic doggy instincts make them better at tracking and pack tactics. But this has other consequences, too…

 

A super-battle leaves one flying dog gravely wounded and unconscious, and (for whatever reason) the Great Best cannot recover the body. The dog, however, isn’t quite dead. It regenerates. It tries to go home, but — perhaps because of brain damage — no longer remembers where home is. So it doggishly adopts a human family.

 

The children are delighted by their big new flying pet. The parents are more dubious. They call Animal Control (“Not touching it, nope!”), which calls the PCs as better qualified. The Great Beast also sees news reports about his errant pet and wants it back. Wackiness ensues… but leaving the dog with the family is dangerous. However loving and loyal the flying dog may be to its new owners, these dogs are trained to kill.

Dean Shomshak

Edited September 29, 2023 by DShomshak

[Christopher R Taylor]

I am always for more Champions and Hero content, whatever it may be.

[Sketchpad]

On 9/27/2023 at 6:17 PM, DShomshak said:

Does anybody want this? Did you ever use them, back in the day? Would you use them if they were revised?

 

I think any new material for Hero would be nice to see.

 

22 hours ago, DShomshak said:

I'm not settled on the form this will take: whether a complete book, or broken into smaller units about the same size as my old "Shared Origins" pdfs.

 

Why not sell the chapters as separate PDFs, and then compile them into a larger POD book?

[DentArthurDent]

“Can I Keep Him?” is super creepy! Love it!

[steriaca]

Standard Brother Bone plot (with apologizes to the very late Hershel Gordon Lewis).

 

Brother Bone, using illusions to disguise himself, opens a health resort of the rich and important. The person goes there for a couple of months then comes back seemingly healthy and fit. Then they start doing odd things with their fortune.

 

They actually died at the resort but was made into a zombie who can't do anything except what Brother Bone orders. To make matters worse, the zombie is covered by illusions and anti-rot magic so his true nature can go unnoticed. Eventually when Brother Bone sees no use for him, the zombie dissapeared (presumably to instantly rot to dust).

 

What Brother Bone needs the victim for is up to the GM, but it should be noted that Bone might like the sheen of gold and gems, he doesn't actually need money. But if the zombie can convince more people to visit his resort of health...

 

Spoiler

In case your wondering about the HGL shootout, the movie The Wizard Of Gore involves a stage magician who kills people on stage, hides the deaths with illusions and reserects the victims so she can die later on.

 

Edited October 2, 2023 by steriaca

[Gauntlet]

I love it when they bring old villains to new Champions. Only thing I do not like is when they make complete changes to their background. Doesn't happen much but has happened a few times.

[Lord Liaden]

For me that depends. Sometimes a new version of a classic villain is an improvement IMHO. For example, the late great Scott Bennie's complete reworking of his Invictus from 3E to 5E resulted in a more interesting character.

[steriaca]

Humm...

 

I can see Brother Bone wanting full behind the scenes control over the world's medical system. It's more out of his delusions about his magic actually dealing with healing as opposed to creating undead.

 

Surrounded by illusions he probably has multiple other identities.

[Marcus]

CoTN is one of my most read to tatters books.  I would love to see a 6e update.

 

One minor quibble - I do not find that Tak makes Archimago obsolete.  From motivation to backstory to methods, they are radically different.  Archimago is the fall of man, subtle, plotting, arrogant and high handed - but you can have a conversation, at the least.  Tak?  Inhuman, relentless, unsubtle, -pure power- evil.  (Also more Undead vs Demon Flavored).  The fact that Archimago’s end goal is arguably *worse* than Taks is an irony.  The idea of running Archimago as a villain for a story arc or two before warming up Tak, and watching the PCs go ‘Wait, Archimago is usually more subtle than this OH GOD UNDEAD ARMIES WHY’ only to ally with Arch against Tak is something I just have to do some day.

[Lord Liaden]

A "War of the Liches" certainly has epic potential.

 

I've exchanged remarks with Dean on the subject of Archimago off the forums, but I'll just say this: Champions has liches, and vampires, but there's been no example of the last of the "big three" undead villains from pop culture, the incorporeal specter. Officially, good wizards destroyed Archimago's body to keep him from reanimating. Nothing said about destroying his spirit.

[Marcus]

Might be interesting!  We could use an Evil Ghost (tm).

 

Ill also note that while we have Vampires, we don’t have any on the scale of a super-menace.  A proto-sumerian blood-god type might be an interesting thing to have lying around.  Long running subtle-layered undead plots, but with something sufficient to challenge the whole party at the end.

[Gauntlet]

How about a superpowered zombie that still has his mind?

[Lord Liaden]

6 hours ago, Marcus said:

Ill also note that while we have Vampires, we don’t have any on the scale of a super-menace.  A proto-sumerian blood-god type might be an interesting thing to have lying around.  Long running subtle-layered undead plots, but with something sufficient to challenge the whole party at the end.

 

Closest we got to that was Baron Jean de Lear, from The Mutant File. Champions Online brought in "Vladic Dracul," father of Dracula (a little too obvious and derivative for my taste.) For my own games I used the legendary Gilgamesh, who had discovered this means to stave off the death he so feared. I'll leave it to Dean to address his own preferences on this topic, if he chooses.

[Lord Liaden]

5 hours ago, Gauntlet said:

How about a superpowered zombie that still has his mind?

 

That was Zuvembie, from the 3E Champions supplement, Enemies: The International File. Rather culturally simplistic and dated by today's standards, but the book has some cool ideas.