MYTHIC HERO: What Do *You* Want To See?

[Mister E]

http://english.bouletcorp.com/2015/02/02/24-hours-comic-the-gaeneviad/

 

Gaeneviad by Boulet.

[megaplayboy]

Oh yeah! The other thing I'd like to see is a fair number of "divine monsters" like Typhon, Fenris Wolf, Jormungandr, Apep, Leviathan, Behemoth, etc.

[Lord Liaden]

Typhon, Jormungandr, and Vritra made it into Steve's Book Of Dragons, so I'm betting on your wish being granted.

[L. Marcus]

And then there's the giant Japanese eel from Surbrook's Asian Bestiary.

[Steve Long]

 

 

Oh yeah! The other thing I'd like to see is a fair number of "divine monsters" like Typhon, Fenris Wolf, Jormungandr, Apep, Leviathan, Behemoth, etc. 

 

Leaving aside the latter two (since I'm not covering Christian Mythology in this book), the others you mention have already all been written up -- along with lots of others you didn't mention. 

[Revturkey]

Hmm. Well you certainly seem to know your subject matter and based on the other books I have by you I really like the way you present useable information rather than just waffle. The page count is high but the quality of content matches. I like.

 

I don't know if you already had this in mind but how about a chapter on legendary artifacts of the gods and such? Excalibur, the Ark of the Covenant, Thor's hammer...that type of thing. Might be useful to build games around or use in high powered games?

 

Also if this is going to Kickstarter...on a purely selfish level...how about the add on or stretch goal of a print run of the 6th Edition Core rulebooks? They are next to impossible to get and priced stupidly where available. The 'Complete' versions...I understand the publishing logic of...having to keep entry costs to players low etc but with a Kickstarter print run you'd be financially covered...get enough money to do it...it happens...don't...it doesn't and you don't get left with a loss making pile of stock. Just a thought.

 

Anyway, I wouldn't normally buy a book on gods etc because I can google most of the information I want but I trust you would save me a whole mountain of trouble and be better informed than most of the 'net. Good luck.

[Magus]

I want to see some stats and write ups for characters and and artifacts from the various myths and legends.  I would also like to see some 'crunch' - rules and mechanics for truly mythic characters.  The Hero core rules can create some very powerful and super heroic characters, but I would like to see information on how to create characters with mythic characteristic and powers (epic destinies, immortality, blessed by the gods, etc.).

[Steve Long]

 

 

I don't know if you already had this in mind but how about a chapter on legendary artifacts of the gods and such? Excalibur, the Ark of the Covenant, Thor's hammer...that type of thing. Might be useful to build games around or use in high powered games?

 

Any items appropriate to specific deities (such as Thor's hammer Mjolnir)  are covered in those deities' write-ups. Any items appropriate to specific pantheons (like the was staffs used by several Egyptian deities) are covered in the introductory material that's a part of that pantheon's chapter.

 

 

 

Also if this is going to Kickstarter...on a purely selfish level...how about the add on or stretch goal of a print run of the 6th Edition Core rulebooks?

 

Unfortunately I can't do that for several reasons. The first is that this would be a Kickstarter I'd run personally, using the HERO System as a licensee. It wouldn't be a company project, and therefore I would have no capacity or authority to reprint (or give away) existing Hero Games books. Second, it would simply be too expensive. Assuming I use Kickstarter for this project, I suspect it will be difficult to raise even the minimum amount I need to produce MH. Raising the additional tens of thousands needed to reprint two hardcover, full color, books at a new printer would require a miracle of Biblical proportions (no pun intended ). If I do happen to succeed to the extent that printing an extra book would be possible, I'd want it to be a new book, and I already know what I'd want to do. But the honest truth is I think I'll be lucky just to raise the money to print MH the way I want to; thinking about extras is a pure pipe dream at this point.

 

 

 

Anyway, I wouldn't normally buy a book on gods etc because I can google most of the information I want but I trust you would save me a whole mountain of trouble and be better informed than most of the 'net.

 

At the risk of sounding pretentious (which is not my intent, I promise!), please trust me when I say you can't just Google this sort of information. I'm using a lot of sources for my research that simply aren't available on the web. Furthermore, the way I'm organizing and presenting the material will make the price of admission more than worth it in terms of the time it will save you and the cool stuff you'll learn.  

[Steve Long]

 

 

I want to see some stats and write ups for characters and and artifacts from the various myths and legends.  I would also like to see some 'crunch' - rules and mechanics for truly mythic characters.  The Hero core rules can create some very powerful and super heroic characters, but I would like to see information on how to create characters with mythic characteristic and powers (epic destinies, immortality, blessed by the gods, etc.).

 

You're definitely going to see more write-ups for gods, heroes, artifacts, and monsters from mythology than you can shake a stick at (purely legendary stuff I'm saving for Legendary Hero, he said optimistically). To the extent I cover information on "mythic campaigning" and "mythic character creation," that will be a relatively small section of the first, introductory, chapter. Though you never know when inspiration may grab me and cause me to write more than I intend.

[Revturkey]

Hey Steve, thanks for replying to my post.

 

Artifacts are covered...that's great. That'll be useful toward building games around the deities etc. Cool.

 

The books would cost too much to reprint eh?..I hear you. Shame. I guess people should have bought it more frequently when it was in print and it might still be. Oh well, not to worry. With pdfs and the high quality of tablets these days it ain't so bad.

 

I watched a youtube video earlier...an interview with yourself in which you talk about the Mythic Hero project. You sound like this is something you are passionate about and that you have researched extensively. Sounds like you are the right man for the job

 

Well...if and when you next Kickstart this...I will do my best to throw some money in the pot. All depends how my finances are going but for sure this sounds like a useful book that I would enjoy reading and using.

 

Good luck.

[Steve Long]

Thanks, Revturkey! This is definitely a labor of love for me -- one I hope to get back to work on any day now after a year's absence due to other work assignments and some health issues. If I do Kickstarter it, don't worry, I'll give you plenty of warning so you can save up your drachmas.

[thewomble]

I suggest a stretch goal to get the excellent Fred Hicks to do the layout! To me the layout of 5e and 6e really adds a lot to the game (makes it manageable in fact).

[megaplayboy]

Steve, just curious: in your research, how many discrete pantheons of deities did you run across? I'm assuming a few dozen, but a larger number wouldn't surprise me too much.

[Steve Long]

 

 

Steve, just curious: in your research, how many discrete pantheons of deities did you run across?

 

That's a bit of a tricky question, since sometimes it's difficult to determine where one pantheon ends and another begins!  But that's part of the job, so here's what I've got currently:

 

--34 pantheons significant enough that I think they'll merit their own full chapter in the book. (Though some of these, like African, American Indian, and Oceanic, cover multiple pantheons that are culturally similar, since most of them on their own aren't big enough or well documented enough to merit a full chapter. Where they are, as with Yoruban Mythology, they get said chapter.) And in one case, Celtic, I only count that as one pantheon even though I'm going to split it into four separate chapters due to the breadth of the topic (so that'd make 37, if you count them separately).

 

--references to at least another 50 pantheons or gods worshipped by distinct peoples.

 

Of course, as my research progresses, some supposedly major pantheons may get demoted to the Miscellaneous chapter due to lack of sufficient information, either in general or just in English (I'm lookin' at you, Hungarian Mythology). Similarly, if I find enough info on a supposedly minor pantheon in the Miscellaneous category, I will upgrade it to its own full chapter.

[Nemblamenchisus]

 

Of course, as my research progresses, some supposedly major pantheons may get demoted to the Miscellaneous chapter due to lack of sufficient information, either in general or just in English (I'm lookin' at you, Hungarian Mythology). 

 

I just looked up the Wikipedia article on Hungarian mythology. Very interesting stuff. So there's just not enough English information available? Or is it scanty and speculative even in Hungarian?

[Steve Long]

 

 

I just looked up the Wikipedia article on Hungarian mythology. Very interesting stuff. So there's just not enough English information available? Or is it scanty and speculative even in Hungarian?

 

There's just not enough in English. I'm not sure what the Hungarian sources are like. Some years ago a Hungarian fan offered to help me deal with the subject, and assuming I can still reach him at the same contact info when I'm ready to start on that chapter, I'll probably take him up on it. I've seen enough to know there's got to be something worth writing about out there.

 

And I'm always eager to find more European mythologies that gamers are generally unaware of. They resonate with us culturally on some level, and I want readers to know there's more out there than Greek and Norse.

[Lord Liaden]

Amen to that. That more fantasy gamers aren't up on the Kalevala, for example, is just a crying shame.

[Steve Long]

 

 

 That more fantasy gamers aren't up on the Kalevala, for example, is just a crying shame.

 

100% agreed.   After all, Finnish Mythology is the only one where ( a ) characters use crossbows, and ( b ) we are often informed of the color of the gods' socks.

 

Fortunately I've dug up a good many so far -- Finnish, Slavic, Baltic, and Etruscan, to name four I've already written up. And there are several others I haven't gotten to yet that will hopefully pan out for full chapter treatment (or decent coverage in the Miscellaneous chapter; or if not in MH, then in Legendary Hero). Going a bit further afield, there's also Armenian and various mythoi from the Caucasus (which are fairly European-esque), and important but often overlooked faiths/deities from the Classical era, such as Mithras and Cybele.

 

Lots of fun stuff to read, lots of research to do, lots of writing yet to come.  Once I'm past chemo and have a bit more stamina on a daily basis, I'm getting back to MH with a vengeance.

[Armitage]

Amen to that. That more fantasy gamers aren't up on the Kalevala, for example, is just a crying shame.

 

I admit, all I know is what was in the 1e AD&D Deities & Demigods rulebook.

[Steve Long]

 

 

I admit, all I know is what was in the 1e AD&D Deities & Demigods rulebook.

 

In many ways that chapter's not a bad introduction to the subject, though it omits a lot of interesting gods and other cool stuff. And it gets some things wrong. Loviatar, for example, is not a beautiful, white-skinned, semi-topless-dress-wearing goddess of pain -- she's a hideous, dark-skinned, hag-like goddess of disease.

 

And as usual, trying to shoehorn everything into the D&D magic system warps things. I ended up having to create a whole Finnish Magic system for the MH chapter on Finnish Mythology so the character sheets would suit me in terms of accuracy.

[Lucius]

In many ways that chapter's not a bad introduction to the subject, though it omits a lot of interesting gods and other cool stuff. And it gets some things wrong. Loviatar, for example, is not a beautiful, white-skinned, semi-topless-dress-wearing goddess of pain -- she's a hideous, dark-skinned, hag-like goddess of disease.

 

And as usual, trying to shoehorn everything into the D&D magic system warps things. I ended up having to create a whole Finnish Magic system for the MH chapter on Finnish Mythology so the character sheets would suit me in terms of accuracy.

 

That sounds intriguing!

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary is glad Mr. Long did what had to be done to Finnish that chapter.

[Steve Long]

 

 

The palindromedary is glad Mr. Long did what had to be done to Finnish that chapter.

 

Arrrggh....  

 

I've had to whip up enough custom magic systems (Finnish and Australian Aborigine, to name a couple that spring to mind) or written such extensive notes about magic in various cultures (Ainu, American Indian, Egyptian...) that I've vaguely considered extracting them into a separate mini-book. I don't really want to do that, though, since it would mean consulting some other book to make full use of MH. But after MH is done I may do it as a separate book, just to provide a resource for gamers who might want that information but not want to buy MH.

 

Fortunately we've already got Chinese Magic and Voodoo in print, thus saving me considerable MH work.

[Major Tom 2009]

Re: MYTHIC HERO: What Do *You* Want To See?

 

 

 

That's already been done: "The Dragon" of the Champions Mystic Universe (I can't quite recall which supplement it's in) is the personification (but NOT anthropomorphication) of all the evil of the human race (essentially, The Devil) and is done as an AI.

 

I can't think of a more appropriate way to do Gods in Hero System than as an unfocused AI, and I think using that approach would highlight the strengths of Hero System and very clearly differentiate this product from something like Deities and Demigods in which Gods are just bigger monsters with higher hit points who may be attacked and killed. It IS possible in Hero to mechanically represent such "transcendent" beings without reducing them to "It has hit points, it can be killed."

 

As far as organization is concerned, I would suggest that one can combine Sumerian and Assyro-Babylonian in the same manner as Greek and Roman and for similar reasons.

 

I like the idea of a seperate Legendary Hero. Given the emphasis in such of Finnish myth as survives on heroes as opposed to Gods, perhaps that whole section could go there. And the Greek and Roman legends provide a lot of material for it, quite apart from the deific materiel that would clearly go in Mythic Hero. And then there are folk heroes.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary knows a lot of Hero folks, but they're not folk heroes

 

The Dragon's original appearance was in the 4th Ed. book The Ultimate Super Mage (a download from the Hero Games online

store, and written by Dean Shomshak, IIRC -- I got my copy not long after it became available in the store; I don't know if it's

even still available or not).

 

As for the one question that I would've asked about MH, you've already answered it (the part about made-up mythoi -- the

pantheon that was touched upon in the Elric of Melnibone [is that how it's spelled??], and which was in the original 1st Ed.

of the Deities and Demigods book).

 

 

Major Tom 2009

[Steve Long]

For those of you keeping score at home, I finally seem to have cleared enough stuff out of the way that I can get back to working on MH on a more regular basis. I'm still working on the Hindu Mythology chapter (already 56,000 words long!), but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

 

Next I think I'll tackle Hawaiian Mythology. And after that -- who knows? So many fun possibilities!

[Scott Baker]

Don't walk into the light Steve! Some of us want you to finish the book. Besides, I've watched enough Wile E. Coyote to know it's really a speeding train.

 

Seriously, it's good to hear that you're able to get back to this.