The Thane and Magic in Star Hero

[Scarlet Drake]

I've launched a Star Hero Terran Empire game and I'm planning on using the idea of the Thane as it's briefly covered in the sourcebook for the big bad threat for the game. I was wondering if anyone has a version that they have fould works well in Star Hero?

 

I know that they are related to the old Arcane villian in the Champions Universe book; but they are too "super" in there.

 

I want to make them creepy, from another dimension "under" hyperspace. I figured if I violate some of their asumptions about the universe I will make them feel off balance.

 

That opens another related discussion.

 

How would you do magic in a sci-fi universe? While I want to give the characters a feeling of discomfort. If the magic works in a way that other things are not supposed to work; that is more scary than a blast of power no more frightening than the laser being carried by your avearage bad guy.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: The Thane and Magic in Star Hero

 

Firstly, the Thane are fully written up in the recent Star HERO supplement, Worlds Of Empire, along with their creepy homeworld. That book is set during the Terran Empire period, when magic is nearly nonexistant; but the Thane of that era still possess formidable psionic powers.

 

I would say that psionics is the least problematic route to giving sci-fi-based characters abilities with the subtlety and mysteriousness of magic, without straining the underlying scientific assumptions of the setting too far.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: The Thane and Magic in Star Hero

 

I don't think that's what the OP question is - I think the question is in fact closer to "How does magick work?" and tragically, the answer to that question is, "How do you want it to work?" A lot of what makes magick 'scary' isn't EBs or RKAs modeled as Lightning Bolts - it's the depths to which people will delve and the price they're willing to pay (Dr. Faustus).

 

Beyond that, summoning Cthulu is guaranteed to get rid of 1d6 Investigators per turn, but that may not be what you're looking for. I think, before I sit here and pontificate on how magick should work, I'm going to ask you the same questions I ask everyone else.

 

What's the tone? Is this Hercules Pulp in Space? Is it ALIENS? Is it Farscape? I've read Alien Wars and was unimpressed, but I got the gist of what the material was getting at.

 

Next. You want your Aliens to exist 'between space' (Babylon 5 Shadow War, and many other sources, it's a concept I'm using myself) and you want them to be scary. I've found trying to think about 'what scares people' is worthless - horror doesn't come from what might scare me - it comes from what WILL scare YOU, the writer. I hate spiders, and I hate the undead, so I tend to make use of variations on those themes (insects & zombies are both common horror tropes).

 

If you can come back to it in 24 hours and go "Dear G-d, what was I thinking, this would give me crawling nightmares" then you did it right, and odds are you'll give THEM nightmares, and that's sort of the point if you want scary. If summoning Cthulu scares you, Summoners are a valid option. If people pulling Lightning out of thin air scares you, bulk that up and go in that direction.

 

The theme here is do what frightens YOU. It's almost guaranteed to set the tone and run the risk of frightening others.

[GreyGuardian]

Re: The Thane and Magic in Star Hero

 

In the setting books etc. magic during terran empires has completely faded... but the Thane have had a LONG time to find a way to rediscover their former abilities using technology... or... magic has started coming back but it is very very weak... but enough to rouse the Thane and Elder Worm from hibernation... or the Thane discover a way to tap into a current of magic in a nearby dimension, much like hyperspace and begin preparing for a reign of terror, or the Thane never had magic, it was all psionics and advanced technology that appeared to be magic... lot's of options on how you want to spin things and want to stay close to the setting as written.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: The Thane and Magic in Star Hero

 

The video game Advent Rising using a similar concept, and it's theorized that the series of videogames I draw my avatar from, HALO, does as well. In Advent Rising (penned by Orson Scott Card) you play a Terran. The Terrans are a mythical race of untold power, capable of bending the forces of physics to their will. A myth. One race of Aliens believes that they exist, and when they find us, they do the only thing possible.

 

They attempt to annihilate us. Your avatar in that game is a Terran who must come into his own, and as he does so, becomes so absurdly powerful that you, if you had any common sense, would want you dead too.

 

If you haven't played HALO, it follows a similar concept:

 

 

The whole game is about the discovery of the Rings, the "Halo Installations" and their use as a containment device for the Biblical Flood. If you are unfamiliar with the game, please play it. If you're playing it, and you want to be surprised still, stop reading here.

 

You were warned.

 

The concept, then, is that WE, the TERRANS, are the race who built the Rings. We are the Precursors, *we* are the ones who pulled the trigger the first time, as 343 Guilty Spark asks, "Why do you hesitate to do what you have already done?"

 

We had the technology to construct installations which, when all activated, were capable of wiping out all life in the Galaxy, save the Flood Itself, and starving them out. The beginning of the Halo 3 trailer, then is in fact Master Chief at New Mombasa, at the reveal of the Ark, which, simply, is the trigger that will activate the six remaining rings.

 

[OddHat]

Re: The Thane and Magic in Star Hero

 

I would say that psionics is the least problematic route to giving sci-fi-based characters abilities with the subtlety and mysteriousness of magic, without straining the underlying scientific assumptions of the setting too far.

 

Psionics is magic, with different terminology and a polish on the rationalizations. It doesn't violate the laws of physics any less, but it is more in tune with the source material for Sci Fi settings.

[Lucius]

Re: The Thane and Magic in Star Hero

 

Psionics is magic' date=' with different terminology and a polish on the rationalizations. It doesn't violate the laws of physics any less, but it is more in tune with the source material for Sci Fi settings.[/quote']

 

Can I quote you on that?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary thinks it has a bearing on something in Fantasy

[Curufea]

Re: The Thane and Magic in Star Hero

 

Magic/psionics in scifi turns it basically into fantasy. Just future fantasy on spaceships or whatever.

But Star Hero can do fantasy just as easily as science fiction. If you're players don't mind it - go for it! Just don't try giving magic to players who like hard-SF

[Robyn]

Re: The Thane and Magic in Star Hero

 

I would say that psionics is the least problematic route to giving sci-fi-based characters abilities with the subtlety and mysteriousness of magic' date=' without straining the underlying scientific assumptions of the setting too far.[/quote']

 

I think Scarlet Drake's intent is to go against those assumptions, so as to unsettle the PC's.

 

That said, if the players see something that seems "magical" in a sci-fi campaign, odds are they will just go "Oh, it's psionics." and RP their characters. But if the goal were to affect "PC's" in the player sense (not just their characters), it would be more effective to introduce psionics first and then "something else entirely" later on. Give them the plausible explanation, some firm and rational ground to stand on in the sea of unknown universe, and then pull the rug out from under them.

[OddHat]

Re: The Thane and Magic in Star Hero

 

Can I quote you on that?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary thinks it has a bearing on something in Fantasy

 

Sure.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: The Thane and Magic in Star Hero

 

Okay, okay, I got it wrong. Let me turn my back to you to facilitate your flagellation.

 

 

Psionics is magic' date=' with different terminology and a polish on the rationalizations. It doesn't violate the laws of physics any less, but it is more in tune with the source material for Sci Fi settings.[/quote']

 

The point I was trying to make, but you said it far more eloquently.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: The Thane and Magic in Star Hero

 

See, I disagree with this.

 

I concede the concept, the point of the thing. I concede that on the surface, what we're saying is, "I have physics bending powers that are driven by specific SFX that cannot be done in the Real World ." It doesn't matter, for purposes of that discussion, the source of the physics-bending powers - they may as well all be the same thing.

 

However, I don't concede the argument in terms of operations, in terms of look & feel, in terms of perception. There is a difference between the two, the same way there's a specific difference among jet engines. Yes, they all make the plane go, but how they go, how fast they go, where they can go, and the limits of what they can do, we can't say "all engines are the same."

 

The whole point of the system is that we can draw specific lines between these things if we choose to do so. The SFX that define Psionics, and what psionics can do, are very different from the SFX from magic, and that's what's so important.

[Curufea]

Re: The Thane and Magic in Star Hero

 

Not in all cases.

I point you at Rolemaster with its three realms of magic - Channelling, Elementallism and Mentalism. Rolemaster's Mentalism magic is very similar to Psionics and a valid ream of magic.

 

It is D&D that separates these three realms into two realms and psionics.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: The Thane and Magic in Star Hero

 

I don't follow. How is this not a choice? My point, simply, was that I never held with the idea that all of these things are structurally the same; that there are differences among magic, psionics, etc. I further said that HERO lets us make those choices.

 

So, what does Rolemaster have to do with that?

[BobGreenwade]

Re: The Thane and Magic in Star Hero

 

Heading back to the original question, of making the Thane and their resources unsettling to the PCs....

 

One of the ideas used in Worlds of Empire is that their weapons shouldn't work they way they do. For example, their daggers are spherical, but cut as well as the sharpest blade.

 

You can also provide them with devices that do unexpected things, or do things in an unexpected way. One Thane device I've recently built is a "Tesseract Sphere," which creates a Teleportation Gate of galaxy-spanning range. Now, such a device could only go to a specific location on a planet if that location was memorized (either Fixed or Floating), but there's a way around that: have a Thane memorize a location on his homeworld, smuggle him to the target spot, and have him open the Gate from there. A Teleport Gate is two-way, after all, and if the desired force is particularly large then the first people through can be more Thane with more Tesseract Spheres. That makes the appearance of just a single Thane a possible harbinger for a whole horde of them.

 

They could also have devices allowing them to disguise themselves as people the PCs know. It's not just a matter of disguise, either; they could kidnap and replace those individuals.

 

The Thane's devices are still based on technology during the Terran Empire period, but they still have an "other-worldly" (in the Lovecraftian sense) feel to them.

 

They could also use their mental powers in unsettling ways, such as finding out about PCs' phobias, DNPCs, and other weaknesses.

[Curufea]

Re: The Thane and Magic in Star Hero

 

So' date=' what does Rolemaster have to do with that?[/quote']

 

Rolemaster defines psionics (or Mentalism) as magic. The SFX are different from Elementalism (or magic users). And the SFX of Elementalism are different from Channelling (or clerics).

 

It isn't just "magic vs psionics" it is "wizards vs clerics vs psionicists" all of whom are classed as users of magic in Rolemaster.

 

Not only is spell SFX quite different from psionic SFX - but also calling on gods/demons/whatever for help has different SFX to spells and psionics.

The point being that they are all "magic" just different styles (in Rolemaster).

 

And while the original meaning of my previous post may seem ambigious- the point is that not every system defines "non-science" the same way. In some systems they are grouped together.