A tidbit from "Hidden Lands"

[Chuckg]

I know, 'Hidden Lands' has been out a long while already, but I only recently got it.

 

Way back when, on another thread, the question was asked 'If Takofanes was even more powerful back when he was Kal-Turak, then how the heck did the Turakian Age heroes stop him?'

 

Well, part of the answer we already knew -- it was a huge Last Alliance of Elves & Men type thing, with the armies of all the free nations of the world coming together, along with every hero, every high mage, etc. Since the war lasted years, presumably, we can also posit truly fugly amounts of ritual spell casting (and while Kal-Turak could easily overmatch any one of these, dude can't be everywhere at once, plus the Hordes of Evil have a historical habit of not organizing well unless the Evil Overlord himself is being a full-time hands-on-manager, etc.) It also took them years, and we can most likely guess hundreds of thousands of casualties.

 

But, a piece of the puzzle was still missing. Until I spotted something in the Arcadia writeup in 'Hidden Lands'.

 

... the reason Kal-Turak was weak enough to be taken down by mortals (even legendary mortals) is because, unknown to mortal history, shortly before the final battle of the Turakian Age Kal-Turak expended a big chunk of energy repelling a massed assault by the Empyreans.

 

All of them.

 

I'm entirely willing to believe that a First Generation Empyrean Gang-Stomp is something that could take most of the reserves out of Kal-Turak the Ravager. Indeed, I'm all that Kal-Turak survived *at all*.

[Superskrull]

Re: A tidbit from "Hidden Lands"

 

I'm entirely willing to believe that a First Generation Empyrean Gang-Stomp is something that could take most of the reserves out of Kal-Turak the Ravager. Indeed, I'm all that Kal-Turak survived *at all*.

 

Yeah, something like that could leave you a little the worse for wear even if you can smack gods around. It's one thing to be tougher than anyone, it's much harder to be tougher than everyone.

[FenrisUlf]

Re: A tidbit from "Hidden Lands"

 

On the other hand, I seem to remember that a lot of the Empyreans involved didn't come back from that fight. They may have hurt Takofanes, but he laid some nasty smackdown on them too.

[Chuckg]

Re: A tidbit from "Hidden Lands"

 

Oh yeah -- Kal-Turak won that fight, no question. The writeup makes it plain that the Empyreans nursed the shock of that defeat for years, and buried a lot of dead. (Of course, they were assaulting Kal-Turak in his fastness, so it was him plus his Base plus most of his Followers, not just him alone... you'd have to be the Examiner to *solo* the massed forces of the Empyreans, and even then, it would hurt.)

 

The Empyreans were so busy coming to the realization that they weren't immortal, in fact, that they never realized that their defeat actually cleared the way for mankind's victory -- not until well after the fact.

 

So, a sort of Pyrrhic victory for Kal-Turak -- he done mopped up the Empyreans, but it depleted him enough that he fell to the next contestants, whom normally he could have stepped on like ants.

[The Main Man]

Re: A tidbit from "Hidden Lands"

 

Why isn't there a character sheet for Kal-Turak the Ravager anywhere?

[Lord Liaden]

Re: A tidbit from "Hidden Lands"

 

IMHO, this is an example of the cool positive possibilities in the unified Hero Universe timeline.

[Chuckg]

Re: A tidbit from "Hidden Lands"

 

Why isn't there a character sheet for Kal-Turak the Ravager anywhere?

 

Most likely because the Turakian Era is the setting for nonsuperhero-level Fantasy HERO campaigns, and in that power level, Kal-Turak (or Takofanes, for that matter) could serve only in the role of "statless, off-stage Plot Device".

 

It's sort of the same reason most versions of the LotR game don't have stats for Morgoth. (Well, Iron Crown's did, but these are the same people who made the Rolemaster critical hit tables after all...)

[Lord Liaden]

Re: A tidbit from "Hidden Lands"

 

Why isn't there a character sheet for Kal-Turak the Ravager anywhere?

 

If we're talking his pre-Takofanes incarnation from the age that bears his name, Steve Long has mentioned that as an element of that fantasy setting he's essentially a plot device, not meant for player-characters to take on directly. If you really wanted to use him that way you could modify his current-day writeup as Takofanes for Conquerors, Killers and Crooks, but that version would effortlessly crush any opposition below that of very powerful superhero-class characters. And in the Turakian Age he was supposed to be even stronger!

[FenrisUlf]

Re: A tidbit from "Hidden Lands"

 

If we're talking his pre-Takofanes incarnation from the age that bears his name' date=' Steve Long has mentioned that as an element of that fantasy setting he's essentially a plot device, not meant for player-characters to take on directly. If you really wanted to use him that way you could modify his current-day writeup as Takofanes for [i']Conquerors, Killers and Crooks[/i], but that version would effortlessly crush any opposition below that of very powerful superhero-class characters. And in the Turakian Age he was supposed to be even stronger!

 

Not to mention far more "with it" mentally. Just one AoE: One Hex, Megascaled, NND Does Body RKA and humanity would go bye-bye.

[Metaphysician]

Re: A tidbit from "Hidden Lands"

 

OTOH, given the genre he's operating in, he can't automatically haul out any given spell just because its mechanically possible.

[Chuckg]

Re: A tidbit from "Hidden Lands"

 

Yes, the unwritten rules mandate that the bigger the spell, the more limits such as 'Requires particular conjunction of the stars', 'Requires really long list of exotic spell components that any hero's counselor with KS: Mystic Lore can tell as being the components for the Spell Of Legendary Doom', etc, etc, etc. he has to pile onto it.

[Kristopher]

Re: A tidbit from "Hidden Lands"

 

Not to mention far more "with it" mentally. Just one AoE: One Hex' date=' Megascaled, NND Does Body RKA and humanity would go bye-bye.[/quote']

 

 

Meh.

 

This ties into the problem I mentioned a few days ago on another thread.

 

I don't like how discussions of things HERO come down to power builds almost instantly.

 

What effect, what spell, what idea did you start with to get to that power build?

 

Or did you just look at his VPP and go for the nastiest, most efficiently lethal mechanical construction you could think of?

 

This isn't really targetted at you, even, I'm just using your post as an example of what bothers me the most about HERO, even though I love it. Just because a build is mechanically possible doesn't mean that it should be used as a point of arguement, and I think, going back to yet another thread that was recently brought back from the grave, that this is what irked me about the whole pathetic "Doc D vs Tacoface" argument. As soon as people start refering to Megascaled Does Body NNDs as reasonable support for their arguments, I get irked.

[FenrisUlf]

Re: A tidbit from "Hidden Lands"

 

I was using it as an idea; maybe something that could be used if the PCs ever go to "Zombie World" to explain how everyone got nailed all at once (save for the band of desperate survivors).

 

And no, I don't think it would be a good idea to use that in the game. As you said, just because something can be done doesn't mean it should be.